Blood of the Fold (87 page)

The face stretched out of the well to look over the wall. “I do not remember seeing this.”

“
Well, he’s dead. He didn’t look like that before.” Richard decided he better not explain who Kolo was or she might remember and be upset. He didn’t need any emotion, he needed to get to Kahlan. “I’m in a hurry. I’d appreciate it if we could hurry.”

“
Step closer so I may determine if you can travel.”

Richard moved up to the wall and stood still while the quicksilver hand came out to touch his forehead. He flinched back. It was warm. He had expected cold. He returned to the hand and let the palm glide over his forehead.

“
You can travel,” the sliph said, “You have both sides required. But you will die if you are like this.”

“
What do you mean, ‘like this?’”

The quicksilver hand lowered beside him, pointing at the sword, but being careful not to get too close. “That object of magic is incompatible with life in the sliph. With that magic in me, any life also in me will be ended.”

“
You mean I must leave it here?”

“
If you wish to travel, you must, or you will die.”

Richard was decidedly uneasy about leaving the Sword of Truth unguarded, especially after learning of the men with families who had died to make it. He pulled the baldric off over his head and stared at the scabbard in his hands. He looked over his shoulder at the mriswith watching him. He could ask his mriswith friend to guard the sword.

No. He could ask no one to take the responsibility of guarding something so dangerous and coveted. The Sword of Truth was his responsibility, not anyone else’s.

Richard drew the sword from the scabbard, letting the clear ring of its steel reverberate around the room, die out slowly. The rage of the magic didn’t die out, though; it thundered through him.

He held up the blade, looking down its length. He could feel the raised gold wire of the word
TRUTH
biting into his palm. What was he to do? He needed to go to Kahlan. He needed to have the sword be safe in his absence.

It came to him through the call of need.

He turned the sword down, gripping the hilt in both hands. With a grunt of effort powered by the magic, by the storms of fury it engendered, he thrust the sword downward.

Sparks and stone chips flew as Richard drove the sword up to its hilt into a huge stone block of the floor. When he took his hands away, he could still feel the magic within him. He had to leave the sword, but he still had the magic; he was the true Seeker.

“
I’m still linked to the sword’s magic. I retain the magic within me. Will that kill me?”

“
No. Only that which engenders the magic is deadly, not that which receives it.”

Richard climbed up on the stone wall, suddenly beginning to worry about this. No, he had to do it. He needed to.

“
Skin brother.” Richard turned to the mriswith when it called to him. “You are without a weapon. Take this.” It tossed one of its three-bladed knives up to Richard. As it arced gently through the air, Richard caught it by the handle. The side guards lay against each side of his wrist as he grasped the weapon’s crossways handgrip in his fist. It felt surprisingly good in his hand, like an extension of his arm.

“
The
yabree
will sing to you, soon.”

Richard nodded. “Thank you.”

The mriswith returned a slow smile.

Richard turned to the sliph. “I don’t know if I can hold my breath long enough.”

“
I told you, I am long enough to reach where we travel.”

“
No, I mean I need air.” He made a display of inhaling and exhaling. “I need to breathe.”

“
You breathe me.”

He listened to her voice echo around the room. “What?”

“
To live when you travel, you must breathe me. The first time you travel, you will be afraid, but you must do this. Those who do not, die in me. Do not be afraid; I will keep you alive when you breathe me. When we reach the other place, you must then breathe me out, and breathe in the air. You will be just as afraid to do that as you will be to breathe me, but you must do it or you will die.”

Richard stared incredulously. Breathe this quicksilver? Could he bring himself to do such a thing?

He had to get to Kahlan. She was in danger. He had to do this. He needed to do this.

Richard swallowed, and then took a deep, sweet breath. “All right, I’m ready to go. What do I do?”

“
You do not do. I do.”

A liquid silver arm came up and slipped around him, its warm, undulating grip compressing to grasp him. The arm lifted him off the wall and plunged him down into the silver froth.

Richard had sudden a vision: he remembered Mrs. Rencliff being pulled under the raging floodwater.

Verna blinked in the bright light of a lamp when the door opened. It felt as if her heart rose into her throat. It seemed too soon for Leoma to return. Already, she was quivering with dread, tears welling up in her eyes, and Leoma hadn’t even begun the test of pain.

“
Get in here,” Leoma snapped to someone.

Verna sat up and saw a small, thin woman move into the doorway. “Why do I have to do this?” complained a familiar voice. “I don’t want to clean her room. This isn’t part of my job!”

“
I have to work in here with her, and the smell is near to making me go blind, now get yourself in here and clean up some of this stink, or I’ll lock you in here with her just to teach you proper respect for a Sister.”

Grumbling, the woman waddled into the room, lugging her heavy bucket of soapy water. “Stinks it does,” she announced. “Stinks with the likes of her.” The bucket thumped down on the floor. “Filthy Sister of the Dark.”

“
Just get some soap and water around this palace, and be quick about it. I have work to do.”

Verna looked up to see Millie staring at her. “Millie …”

Verna turned her face away but not in time as Millie spat at her. She wiped the spittle off her cheek with the back of her hand.

“
Filthy scum. To think I trusted you. To think I respected you as the Prelate. And all the time you served the Nameless One. You can rot in here for all I care. The place stinks with your filthy walking corpse. I hope they flail the hide off—”

“
Enough,” Leoma said. “Just clean up and then you can remove yourself from her loathsome presence.”

Millie grunted in disgust. “Won’t be soon enough for me.”

“
None of us enjoys being in the same room with an evil one such as her, but it’s my duty to question her, and at least you could make it smell a little better for me.”

“
Yes, Sister, I’ll do it for you, then, for a true Sister of the Light, so you won’t have to bear her stink at least.” Millie spat in Verna’s direction again.

Verna was near to tears, humiliated to know that Millie thought those terrible things of her. Everyone else did too. She was no longer positive that they were untrue. Her mind was so dizzied by the tests of pain that she could no longer trust that she was thinking straight to believe in her own innocence. Perhaps it was wrong to be loyal to Richard; he was, after all, a mere man.

When Millie finished, then Leoma would start again. She heard herself sob at the helplessness of her situation. When Leoma heard the sob, she smiled.

“
Empty that reeking chamber pot,” Leoma said.

Millie huffed in disgust. “All right, all right, just hold your skirts on and I’ll empty it.”

Millie pushed the bucket of soapy water closer to Verna’s pallet and collected the brimming chamber pot. Holding her nose, she carried it out of the room at arm’s length.

After she had shuffled off down the hall, Leoma spoke. “Notice anything different?”

Verna shook her head. “No, Sister.”

Leoma lifted her eyebrows. “The drums. They’ve stopped.”

Verna started with the realization. They must have stopped while she was asleep.

“
Do you know what that means?”

“
No, Sister.”

“
It means that the emperor is close, and will be arriving soon. Maybe tomorrow. He wants results from our little experiment. Tonight, you either forsake your fidelity to Richard, or you will answer to Jagang. Your time has run out. You think on that, while Millie finishes cleaning up a bit of your stink.”

Muttering curses, Millie returned with the empty chamber pot. After she put it in the far corner, she went back to scrubbing the floor. She dunked her rag in the water and slopped it on the floor, working her way toward Verna.

Verna licked her cracked lips as she stared at the water. Even if the water was soapy, she wouldn’t care. She wondered if she would be able to get a gulp of it down before Leoma stopped her. Probably not.

“
I shouldn’t have to do this,” Millie grouched to herself, but loud enough for the other two to hear. “It’s bad enough that I now have to clean the Prophet’s room, now that we have another. I thought I was done with going in there to clean the room of a madman. I think it’s about time a younger woman had to do the work. Strange man, he is. Prophets are all loony, they are. I don’t like that Warren any more than the last one.”

Verna nearly burst into tears at the mention of Warren’s name. She missed him so. She wondered if they were treating him well. Leoma answered her unspoken question.

“
Yes, he is a bit odd. But the tests with the collar are bringing him back into line. I’m seeing to that.”

Verna turned her eyes away from Leoma. She was doing it to him, too. Oh, dear Warren.

With a knee, Millie pushed her bucket closer as she scrubbed the floor. “Don’t you be watching me. I don’t like your filthy eyes on me. Gives me the shivers it does, like having the Nameless One himself watching me.”

Verna turned her eyes down. Millie tossed the rag into the bucket and dunked her hands in deep to wash it out. She looked back over her shoulder as she worked the rag in the water.

“
I’ll be finished soon. Not soon enough for me, but soon. Then you can have this vile traitor to yourself. I hope you won’t be kind to her.”

Leoma smiled. “She will get what she deserves.”

Millie brought her hands out of the soapy water. “Good.” She jammed one wet, callused hand against Verna’s thigh. “Move your feet! How can I wash the floor when you sit there like a lump?”

Verna felt something rigid against her thigh after Millie took her hand away.

“
That Warren is a pig, too. Keeps his room a mess. I was just there earlier today, and it stunk nearly as bad as this sty.”

Verna moved her hands to each side of her legs and put them under her thighs as if to balance herself while she lifted her feet for Millie. Her fingers found something hard, and thin. At first, her dull mind couldn’t decipher the feel. It came to her with a jolt of recognition.

It was a dacra.

Her chest constricted. Her muscles stiffened. She could hardly make herself breathe.

Millie suddenly spat in her face again, causing her to flinch and turn away. “Don’t you be looking at an honest woman like that! Keep your eyes off me.”

Verna realized Millie must have seen her eyes open wide.

“
I’m done,” she said as she straightened her sinewy frame, “unless you want me to give her a bath, and if you do, you’d better think again. I’m not touching that evil woman.”

“
Just get your bucket and go,” Leoma said, her impatience growing.

Verna had the dacra gripped so tightly in her fist that it was making her fingers tingle. Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might crack a rib.

Millie shuffled out of the room without looking back. Leoma pushed the door closed.

“
This is your last chance, Verna. If you still refuse, you will be turned over to the emperor. You will soon wish you had cooperated with me, I can promise you that much.”

Come closer, Verna thought. Come closer.

She felt the first wave of pain coursing up through her. She flopped back on the pallet, turning away from Leoma. Come closer.

“
Sit up and look at me when I speak to you.”

Verna could only let out a small cry, but she stayed where she was, hoping to lure Leoma closer. She would have no chance if she lunged from this far; the woman would hobble her before she made the distance. She had to be closer.