Blood of the Fold (96 page)

Verna smiled, running a tender hand down Phoebe’s cheek. “Anyone else?” she asked, looking among the others gathered. “Does anyone else have any objection? If you do, it must be heard now. Don’t come to me later and say you didn’t have the chance. I give it now.”

All the Sisters shook their heads. Soon they were all voicing their wish to go.

Verna twisted the ring on her finger as she looked up at Richard. “Do you think you can destroy the palace? The spell?”

“
I don’t know. Do you remember when you first came for me, and Kahlan used that blue lightning? Confessors’ have an element of Subtractive Magic from the wizards who created their power. Maybe that will do some harm to the vaults, if I can’t.”

Kahlan’s fingers touched his back as she whispered. “Richard, I don’t think I can do that. That magic was invoked for you—to defend you. I can’t call it for anything else.”

“
We have to try. If nothing else, we can set the prophecies afire. If we start a fire among all those books, they’ll all be consumed, and then at least Jagang can’t use them against us.”

A small group of women and half a dozen young men came rushing up to the gate. “Friends of Richard,” came the urgent whisper. Kevin opened the gate, letting the breathless group in.

Verna clutched a woman’s arm. “Philippa, did you find them all?”

“
Yes.” The tall woman paused to catch her breath. “We have to get out of here. The emperor’s advance guard are in the city. Some are already coming across the south bridges. The Blood of the Fold are engaging them in pitched battle.”

“
Did you see what’s going on at the docks?” Verna asked.

“
Ulicia and some of her Sisters are down there. Those women are ripping the entire harbor apart. It looks like the underworld unleashed.” Philippa put trembling fingers to her lips as she closed her eyes for a moment. “They have the men from the
Lady Sefa
.” Her voice faltered. “You can’t imagine what they’re doing to those poor men.”

Philippa turned, dropped to her knees, and vomited. Two of the other sisters who had returned with her did the same. “Dear Creator,” Philippa managed between retches, “you cannot conceive of it. I will have nightmares the rest of my life.”

Richard turned to the shouts and cries of battle. “Verna, you have to get out of here right now. There’s no time to waste.”

She nodded. “You and Kahlan can catch up with us.”

“
No. Kahlan and I have to get to Aydindril at once. I don’t have time to explain right now, but she and I have the magic required that will allow it. I wish I could take the rest of you, but I can’t. Hurry. Head north. There’s an army of a hundred thousand D’Haran soldiers heading south looking for Kahlan. You’ll have more protection with them, and they with you. Tell General Reibisch that she is safe with me.”

Adie stepped through the others and took Richard’s hands. “How be Zedd?”

Richard’s voice caught in his throat. He closed his eyes against the pain. “Adie, I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen my grandfather. I fear he may have been killed at the Keep.”

Adie wiped her cheek as she cleared her throat. “I be sorry, Richard,” she whispered in her raspy voice. “Your grandfather be a good man. But he takes too many desperate chances. I have warned him.”

Richard hugged the old sorceress as she wept softly against his chest.

Kevin came in a rush from the gate, sword in hand. “We either have to go now, or we have to fight.”

“
Go,” Richard said. “We won’t win this war if you die in this battle. We must fight by our rules, not Jagang’s. He’ll have those with the gift with him, not just soldiers.”

Verna turned to the gathered Sisters, novices, and young wizards. She took the hands of two young girls who looked to be in need of reassurance. “All of you, listen. Jagang is a dream walker. The only protection is our bond to Richard. Richard has been born with the gift, and with a magic passed down from his ancestors that protects against dream walkers. Leoma tried to break that bond to allow Jagang to enter my mind and take me. Before we go, all of you, bow down and swear fidelity to Richard to be certain we will be protected from our enemy.”

“
If it is your wish to do this,” Richard said, “then do it as was set down by Alric Rahl, the one who created the bond and its protection. If you wish to do this, then I ask you to give the devotion as it was passed down, as it was meant to be.”

Richard told them the words, as he had said them himself, and then stood silent, feeling the weight of responsibility, not only to those gathered, but to the thousands in Aydindril who were depending on him, as the Sisters of the Light and their charges went to their knees and with one voice rising into the night above the sound of battle, proclaimed their bond.

“
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

Richard pressed Kahlan up against the wall in the dank, dark stone corridor as he waited for the knot of crimson-caped soldiers to pass the intersection. As the echo of their boots faded in the distance, Kahlan stretched up on her toes and whispered, “I don’t like it down here. Are we going to be able to get out of this place alive?”

He pressed a quick kiss to the worry lines on her brow. “Of course we’re going to get out of here alive. I promise.” He took her hand and ducked under a low beam. “Come on, the vaults are just ahead.”

The stone of the bleak passageway was streaked with pale yellow stains where water leaked between joints and over the blocks. In places on the ceiling, drops of water hung from stone icicles the color of egg yolk, to drip occasionally onto ripply stone mounds on the floor. Beyond two torches, the passageway widened and the ceiling rose up to accommodate the huge round door to the vaults.

As they came in sight of the six-foot-thick stone door, Richard knew something was wrong. Not only could he see an eerie light beyond, but the hairs at the back of his neck were standing on end, and he could feel the whisper of magic against his arms, like spiderwebs brushing the hairs.

He rubbed at the tickling sensation on his arms as he leaned close, “Do you feel anything odd?”

She shook her head. “But there’s something funny about the light.”

Kahlan’s step faltered. Richard saw the body at the same time as they approached the round opening into the vaults. Ahead, a woman lay curled up on the floor, as if she were asleep, but Richard knew she wasn’t sleeping. She was as still as the stone.

As they stepped closer, they could see beyond the wall to the right that there near to a dozen dead Blood of the Fold scattered about the floor. Richard winced at the sight, and a queasy feeling settled in his stomach. Each man was sliced cleanly in half, armor, cape, and all, at midchest. The floor was a lake of blood.

His apprehension burgeoned with every slow step toward the round opening in the rock.

“
Look, I have to go get something first,” he said. “You wait here until I get back. It should only take a few minutes.”

Kahlan tugged him back by his shirtsleeve. “You know the rules.”

“
What rules?”

“
You’re not allowed to get more than ten feet from me for the rest of your life, or I get angry.”

Richard stared into her green eyes. “I’d rather have you angry than dead.”

Her brow drew down into a scowl. “You only think that now. I’ve been waiting too long to be with you to let you go off by yourself now. What’s so important that would make you want to go in there? We can try to do something from out here—throw in torches, set the place ablaze, or something. All that paper should burn like tinder grass. We don’t need to go in there.”

Richard smiled. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”

She cuffed his arm. “Talk. What are we risking our lives for?”

Richard yielded with a sigh. “There’s a book of prophecy in the back that’s over three thousand years old. It has prophecies in it about me. It helped me before. If we’re successful at destroying all these books, I’d like to at least take that one with us. It may be a help again.”

“
What’s it say about you?”

“
It calls me ‘
fuer grissa ost drauka
.’”

“
What does that mean?”

Richard turned back to the vault. “The bringer of death.”

She was silent a moment. “So how do we get back there?”

Richard surveyed the dead soldiers. “Well, for sure we don’t walk.” He held his hand up to his chest. “Something cut them down at about this high. Whatever we do, we don’t stand up.”

At about that height, a wafer-thin haze, like a stratified layer of smoke, hung in the air in the vault room. It seemed to be glowing, as if lit from something, but Richard couldn’t tell what.

On their hands and knees, they crawled into the vault and under the strange blush of light. They stayed near the wall until they reached the bookshelves so they wouldn’t have to crawl through the pools of blood. Once beneath the glowing haze, it seemed even more peculiar. It didn’t seem to be like any fog or smoke Richard had ever seen before; it seemed to be made of light.

A grating sound caused them to pause, motionless. Richard looked back over his shoulder and saw the six-foot-thick stone door swinging closed. He judged that no matter how fast they moved, they wouldn’t be able to make it back before the door closed shut.

Kahlan turned from the door. “Are we locked in here? How are we going to get out? Is there another way out?”

“
It’s the only way out, but I can open it,” Richard said. “The door works in conjunction with a shield. If I put my hand to the metal plate on the wall, it’ll open.”

Her green eyes studied his face. “Richard, are you sure?”

“
Pretty sure. It always worked in the past.”

“
Richard, after all we’ve been through, now that we’re together, I want both of us to get out of here alive.”

“
We will. We have to; there are people who need our help.”

“
In Aydindril?”

He nodded, trying to find the words for what he had been wanting to say to her, words to fill the space he feared was between them, the space he feared he had put there.

“
Kahlan, I didn’t do what I did there because I wanted something for myself—I swear. I want you to know that. I know how much I’ve hurt you, but it was the only thing I could think to do before it was too late. I only did it because I truly believe that it’s our only chance to keep the Midlands from falling to the Imperial Order.

“
I know that the goal of the Confessors is to protect people, not to simply hold dominion. I trusted that you would see that I was acting on those goals, if not your wishes. I wanted to protect people, not rule them, but I’ve been heartsick over what I’ve done to you.”

Dead silence stretched in the stone room for a long moment. “Richard, when I first read your letter, I was crushed. A sacred trust was placed in my hands, and I didn’t want to be known as the Mother Confessor who lost the Midlands. On the way here, with that collar around my neck, I’ve had a lot of time to think.

“
The Sisters did something noble tonight. They’ve sacrificed a three-thousand-year legacy for a higher purpose: to help people. I may not be happy about what you did, and you still have some explaining to do, but I’ll listen with love in my heart, not just for you, but for the people of the Midlands who need us.

“
Over the weeks as we traveled here, I thought about how we must live in the future and not the past. I want the future to be a place where we can live in peace and safety. That’s more important than anything else. I know you, and I know that you wouldn’t do as you did for selfish reasons.”

Richard brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I’m proud of you, Mother Confessor.”

She kissed his fingers. “Later, when people aren’t trying to kill us and we have the time, I’ll fold my arms and frown and tap my foot like the Mother Confessor is supposed to, while you stutter and stammer and try to explain the sense of what you did, but for now, could we just get out of this place?”

His worry eased, Richard smiled and started off again, crawling past the rows of bookcases. The thin layer of glowing haze over their heads seemed to stretch across the entire room. Richard wished he knew what it was.