Stone of Tears (121 page)

A big, yellow eye peered at him. “I just gave birth. That is most of my weakness. Just as well I’m to be aground.”

She played fire over the egg. Tenderly, she stroked her talons over it. As Richard watched, he thought about the beauty of life, and how happy he was that others could continue to have it.

But the vision of the falling axe kept playing over and over in his head. He couldn’t stop the horror of it. His hands shook. It could be happening at that very moment. His breathing came in ragged pulls.

At last a man came running with a map. He held it out and pointed. “Here, Lord Rahl, is Aydindril. This is the fastest route. But it will still take you several weeks.”

Richard stuffed the map in his shirt as another soldier galloped up on the horse. Richard retrieved his pack and bow from the snow where they had fallen when Scarlet had come to ground.

General Trimack held the reins to the muscular horse while Richard quickly lashed his things to the saddle. “There is food in the saddle bags. When will you return, Lord Rahl?”

Richard’s mind was in a fog, racing in a thousand directions at once. All he could see was the axe falling.

He leapt up into the saddle. “I don’t know. When I can. Carry on until then. And continue to guard the Garden of life. Don’t let anyone go in there.”

“Safe return, Lord Rahl. Our hearts are with you.”

Fists went to chests as he urged the powerful horse into a gallop and charged at full speed through the huge gates that stood open for him.

Richard cursed under his breath when the horse dropped dead under him. He picked himself up, when he had stopped rolling through the snow, and started pulling his things off the lifeless, lathered beast. He felt a ache of sorrow for the horse, it had given him everything it had.

He had lost count of how many horses had died under him. Some simply stumbled to a stop and refused to move anymore. Some dropped to a walk and would run no more. Some gave everything until their hearts quit.

Richard had known he was being too hard on them, and had tried to pace them, but he simply could not bring himself to go slow enough. When a horse died, or quit running, he managed to find another. Some owners were reluctant to sell, thinking they would haggle with him. Richard threw a fistful of gold at them, and took the horse.

He was near dead with exhaustion himself. He had slept and eaten little. Sometimes he had walked while his mount recovered. When he had had to find a new horse, he had run.

Richard hoisted the pack onto his back and started trotting off. It had been two weeks since he had left D’Hara. He knew he had to be close to Aydindril.

The fact that it was two weeks past winter solstice somehow didn’t seem as important as his rush to reach Kahlan. It somehow seemed to him that if he could hurry fast enough, it would save her, that if he put in his best effort, it would somehow make time wait for him. He could not accept that he was too late.

He came to a panting halt at the top of a rise in the road. Ahead, in the sparkling sunlight, lay Aydindril. On the wall of mountains to the far side of the city he could see the gray walls of the Wizard’s Keep. Richard ran on through the snow.

The streets were crowded with people, people hurrying through the cold afternoon air, and people standing about, stomping their feet to keep warm as they hawked their wares. Richard rushed past them all. When he realized people were staring at him because of the Sword of Truth, he pulled the mriswith cape over it.

A hawker ahead stood by the side of the road with a short pole resting on the ground. It had a crossbar with wispy strips hanging from it. When Richard realized what the man was calling out, he came out of his mental fog with a jolt.

“Confessor’s hair!” the man bellowed. “Get a lock of the Mother Confessor’s hair! Right off her vile head! Don’t have many left! Show your children the hair of the last Confessor!”

Richard’s eyes locked on the long hair. It was Kahlan’s. He swept the lot of it off the pole and stuffed it in his shirt. When the man thought to fight for it, Richard slammed him up against the wall. He gripped the man’s shirt in his fists, and lifted him clear of the ground.

“Where did you get this!”

“The … the Council. Bought it from them to sell. Bought it fair after they cut it from her. It belongs to me.” He shouted for help. “Thief! Thief!”

When an angry crowd pressed in to defend the man, the sword came out. People scattered. The hawker ran for his life.

Richard’s fury was building despite putting the sword away as he headed for the Confessor’s Palace. He saw it rising up on the vast grounds ahead. He remembered Kahlan telling him how magnificent it was. He knew it almost as if he had seen it before.

He remembered, too, Kahlan telling him about a woman there, a cook. No, the head cook. What was her name? Sand something. Sanderholt, that was it. Mistress Sanderholt.

The aroma of cooking lead him to the kitchen entrance. He charged through the door. A roomful of working people shrank back at the sight of him. It was obvious that no one wanted any part of whatever he was about.

“Sanderholt!” he called out. “Mistress Sanderholt! Where is she!”

People nervously pointed to a hallway. Before he had gone more than a dozen strides down the hall, a thin woman came rushing from the other direction.

“What’s the trouble! Who’s calling me?”

“I am,” Richard said.

Her frown withered to a look of consternation. “What is it I can do for you, young man,” she said in an uneasy voice.

Richard worked at keeping threat out of his tone. He didn’t think he was very successful. “Kahlan. Where can I find her.”

Her face turned nearly as white as her apron. “You would be Richard. She told me of you. You look like she said.”

“Yes! Where is she!”

Mistress Sanderholt swallowed. “I’m sorry, Richard,” she whispered. “The Council sentenced her to death. The sentence was carried out at the winter solstice festival.”

Richard stood staring down at the thin woman. He was having difficulty deciding if they were talking about the same person.

“I think you misunderstood,” he managed. “I mean the Mother Confessor. Mother Confessor Kahlan Amnell. You must be talking about someone else. My Kahlan can’t be dead. I came as fast as I could. I swear I did.”

Her eyes were filling with tears. She tried to blink them away as she stared up at him. Slowly, she shook her head.

She put a bandaged hand to his side. “Come, Richard. You look as if you could use a meal. Let me get you bowl of soup.”

Richard dropped his pack, bow, and quiver to the floor.

“The Central Council sentenced her to death?”

She gave a weak nod. “She escaped, but was caught. The Central Council reiterated the sentence before the people at the behead … at the execution. And then the members of the Council all stood smiling while the people cheered them.”

“Maybe she escaped again. She’s a resourceful woman …”

“I was there,” she said in a broken voice, tears running down her face. “Please don’t make me tell you what I saw. I’ve known Kahlan since she was born. I loved her.”

Maybe there was a way to go back somehow, and get here in time. There had to be a way. He felt hot and dizzy.

No. He was too late. Kahlan was dead. He had had to let her die to stop the Keeper. The prophecy had beaten him.

Richard gritted his teeth. “Where is the Council.”

At last she managed to take her eyes from him. She pointed a bandaged hand down the hall and gave him directions.

She turned back. “Please, Richard, I loved her, too. Nothing can be done now. You can accomplish nothing.”

But he was already moving, the mriswith cape flying behind as he swept down the hall. He saw only enough of what was around him as he moved swiftly along to follow the directions she had given him. He moved toward the Council chambers like his arrows flew to the target when he called it.

Guards were everywhere, but he paid them no heed. He had no idea if they did him, nor did he care. He flew single-mindedly toward his target. He heard the movement of men at arms around him, in the side halls. He barely noted them on the balconies.

At the end of a column lined hall stood the doors to the Council room. As he marched down the hall, men moved in front of the doors. He only dimly noticed them. He saw only the doors.

His sword still hadn’t left its scabbard at his hip, but the magic was coursing through him at full fury. The soldiers closed rank before the doors. He didn’t slow, the black cape billowing open, his brow set in a glare, as he charged ahead.

They made their move to stop him. Richard marched on. He wanted them out of his way. The power came by instinct, without conscious effort. He felt the concussion. In his peripheral vision he saw blood hit the white marble.

Without missing a stride, he emerged from the ball of flame in a gapping hole twice the size the doorway had been. Huge chunks of stone hurtled through the air, trailing smoke. Debris rained down about him. One of the doors spiraled through the air in an arc, the other spun like a top as it skittered across the floor of the Council chamber along with ragged pieces of armor and shattered weapons.

At the far end of the room, men behind a curved desk rose angrily to their feet. As he advanced relentlessly onward, Richard drew the sword. The unique sound of steel rang in the huge room.

“I am Supreme Councilor Thurstan!” the one in the center, at the tallest chair, said. “I demand to know the meaning of this intrusion!”

Richard was still coming. “Be there one of you who did not vote to sentence the Mother Confessor to death!”

“She was sentenced to death for treason! Legally, and unanimously, sentenced by this Council! Guards! Remove this man!”

Men came running across the vast floor, but Richard had already closed on the dais. The Councilors drew knives.

Richard leapt to the top of the desk with a scream of rage. The blade cleaved Thurstan in two, from ear to crotch. A swing to each side took off heads. Several of the men tried to stab him. They weren’t close to fast enough. The sword found every robed figure, including the ones who tried to run. It was over in seconds, before the guards had made half the distance.

Richard leapt back atop the desk. He stood in the grip of unbridled wrath, holding the sword in both hands. He waited for them to come. He wanted them to come.

“I am the Seeker! These men have murdered the Mother Confessor! They have paid the price of murder! Decide if you wish to be on the side of dead cutthroats, or on the side of right!”

The ring of men slowed their advance, looking tentatively to one another. Finally they stopped. Richard stood panting.

One man looked back at the hole in the wall where the doors had been, and then glanced over the debris scattered across the floor. “You are a wizard?”

Richard met the man’s eyes. “Yes. I guess I am.”

The man sheathed his sword. “This is wizard’s business. It’s not our place to challenge wizards. I’ll not die for something that’s not my place.”

Another sheathed his weapon. Soon, the room rang with the clatter of steel being returned to hangers and scabbards. They began leaving, the room echoing with the sound of their boots. In a matter of moments, the vast Council chamber was empty but for Richard.

He sprang down from the desk and stared at the tall chair in the center. It was about the only thing not dripping with gore. That would have been the Mother Confessor’s chair, Kahlan’s chair. She would have sat in that chair.

Woodenly, Richard sheathed the sword. It was over. He had done everything there was to do.

The good spirits had deserted him. They had deserted Kahlan. He had sacrificed everything to see right done, and the good spirits had done nothing to help.

To the Keeper with the good spirits.

Richard dropped to his knees. He thought about the Sword of Truth. It had magic; he decided that he couldn’t count on it working for what he needed now.

Instead, he drew the knife at his belt.

He had done everything there was to do.

Richard put the point of the knife to his chest.

With cold precision, he looked down, to make sure pointed at his heart. Kahlan’s hair, the hair he had taken from the hawker, stuck from his shirt. Richard pulled the lock she had given him from his pocket.

She had given it to him to remind him she would always love him. He wanted only to end his uncontrollable agony.

“She is awake,” Prince Harold said. “She is asking for you.”

Kahlan finally pulled her gaze from the flames in the hearth. She darted a cool glance at the wizard sitting next to Adie on a wooden bench. Though Zedd had recovered his memory, Adie had not. She still thought of herself as Elda, and was still blind.

Kahlan crossed the dark dining hall. When they had arrived, the inn had been deserted, as had the rest of the town, for fear of the advance of the Keltish forces. The empty town was a good place to rest in their run from Aydindril. Two weeks on the run had left them all in need of a rest, and a little warmth.

A week out of Aydindril, their little company, Zedd, Adie, Ahern, Jebra, Chandalen, Orsk, and Kahlan, had been intercepted by a small force led by Prince Harold. Prince Harold and a handful of his men had escaped the slaughter of his forces in Aydindril, and had lain in wait. When Queen Cyrilla was taken out to be beheaded, he made a daring raid, and in the confusion of people come to see the execution, he snatched his sister from the axman.

Four days after joining with Prince Harold, they encountered Captain Ryan, and his remaining nine hundred men. They had wiped out the Imperial Order to a man. It had cost them dearly, but they had carried out their mission.