Blood of the Fold

Chapter 50

When she saw the flash of steel in the moonlight, Verna ducked behind a stone bench. The sounds of battle rolled up the lawns toward her from lower down on the palace grounds. Some of the others had told her that the crimson-caped soldiers had arrived not long ago to join with the Imperial Order, but they now seemed bent on killing everyone in sight.

Two men in the crimson capes raced up out of the darkness. From the other direction, where she had seen the flash of steel, someone sprang out and in an instant had cut them down.

“It’s two of the Blood,” a woman’s voice whispered. The voice sounded familiar. “Come on, Adie.”

Another thin form emerged from the shadows. The woman had used a sword, and Verna had her Han to defend herself. She took a chance, and stood.

“Who is it? Show yourself.”

Moonlight glinted off the sword as it rose. “Who wants to know?”

She hoped she wasn’t taking a foolish chance, but there were friends among the women here. Still, she kept a firm grip on her dacra.

“It’s Verna.”

The shadowed figure paused. “Verna? Sister Verna?”

“Yes. Who is it,” she whispered back.

“Kahlan Amnell.”

“Kahlan! It can’t be.” Verna rushed out into the moonlight and lurched to a halt before the woman. “Dear Creator, it is.” Verna threw her arms around her. “Oh, Kahlan. I was so worried you were killed.”

“Verna, you can’t know how glad I am to see a friendly face.”

“Who is it with you?”

An old woman stepped closer. “A long time, it has been, but I still remember you well, Sister Verna.”

Verna stared, trying to place the face of the old woman, “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognise you.”

“I be Adie. I was here for a time, fifty years ago, in my youth.”

Verna’s eyebrows went up. “Adie! I remember Adie.”

Verna left unsaid that she remembered Adie as a rather young woman. She had learned long ago not to say such things aloud; those from the outside world lived by a different pace of time.

“I think you may remember my name, but not my face. It be a long time ago.” Adie embraced Verna in a warm hug. “You be one I remember. You be kind to me when I be here.”

Kahlan interrupted the brief reminiscing. “Verna, what’s going on here? We were brought here by the Blood of the Fold, and have just managed to escape. We have to get out of here, but it seems the place is erupting in battle.”

“It’s a long story, and I have no time right now to tell it all. I’m not sure I even know it all. But you’re right, we must escape at once. The Sisters of the Dark have taken the palace, and Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order is due to arrive at any time. I have to get the Sisters of the Light away from here at once. Come with us?”

Kahlan scanned the lawns for trouble. “All right, but I have to go get Ahern. He’s been steadfast; I can’t leave him behind. He’ll be wanting to get his team and coach, if I know Ahern.”

“I still have Sisters out collecting all those loyal.” Verna said. “We’re to meet just over there, on the other side of that wall. The guard hiding on the other side, beside the gate, is loyal to Richard, as are all the rest guarding the gates in that wall. His name is Kevin. He can be trusted. When you get back, just tell him you’re a friend of Richard. It’s a code he knows. He’ll let you into the compound.”

“Loyal to Richard?”

“Yes. Hurry. I have to go inside to get a friend out. You can’t let your man bring his team through this way, though; the palace grounds are becoming a battlefield. He’ll never make it.

“The stables are at the north end. That’s the way we’re leaving. I have Sisters guarding the small bridge there. Have him head north to the first farm on the right with a stone wall around the garden. That’s our secondary meeting place, and it’s secure. For the moment, anyway.”

“I’ll hurry,” Kahlan said.

Verna caught her arm. “We can’t wait for you if you don’t get back here in time. I must get a friend and then we must escape.”

“I don’t expect you to wait. Don’t worry, I have to get away, too. I think I’m the bait to draw Richard here.”

“Richard!”

“Another long story, but I have to get away before they can use me to lure him here.”

The night suddenly lit, as if by silent lightning, except it didn’t go out like lightning. They all turned to the southeast and saw massive balls of flame boiling up into the night sky. Thick black smoke billowed into the air. It seemed the entire harbor was aflame. Huge ships were thrown into the air atop colossal columns of water.

The ground suddenly shook, and at the same time the air boomed with the rumbling sound of distant explosions.

“Dear spirits,” Kahlan said. “What’s going on?” She glanced about. “We’re running out of time. Adie, stay with the Sisters. I hope to be back soon.”

“I can get the Rada’Han off,” Verna called out, but too late. Kahlan had already dashed away into the shadows.

Verna took Adie’s arm. “Come on. I’ll take you to some of the other Sisters behind the wall. One of them will get that thing off you while I go inside.”

Verna’s heart pounded as she slipped through the halls inside the prophet’s compound after leaving Adie with the others. As she moved deeper into the dark halls, she braced herself for the possibility that Warren was dead. She didn’t know what they had done to him, or if they had decided to simply eliminate him. She didn’t think she could endure it if she were to find his body.

No. Jagang wanted a prophet to help him with the books. Ann had warned her, what seemed ages ago, to get him away at once.

The thought entered her mind that maybe Ann wanted her to get Warren away to keep the Sisters of the Dark from killing him because he knew too much. She put the troubling thoughts from her mind as she scanned the halls for any sign that a Sister of the Dark might have slipped into the building to hide from the battle.

Before the door to the prophet’s apartments, Verna took a deep breath, and then moved into the inner hall, through the layers of shields that had kept Nathan a prisoner in the place for near to a thousand years, and now kept Warren.

She breached the inner door into the gloom. The far double doors to the prophet’s small garden stood open, letting in the warm night air and a shaft of moonlight. A candle on a side table was lit, but provided little illumination.

Verna’s heart pounded as she saw someone rise from a chair.

“Warren?”

“Verna!” He rushed forward. “Thank the Creator you escaped!”

Verna felt a clutch of dismay as her hopes and longings sparked her old fears. She retreated from the brink. She shook a finger at him. “What kind of foolishness was that, sending me your dacra! Why didn’t you use it and save yourself—to escape! That was reckless sending it to me. What if something had happened? You already had it, and you let it out of your hands! What were you thinking?”

He smiled. “I’m glad to see you, too, Verna.”

Verna dammed up her feelings behind a gruff reply. “Answer my question.”

“Well, first of all, I’ve never used a dacra, and worried I might do something wrong, and then we would lose our only chance. Secondly, I have this collar around my neck, and unless I get it off, I can’t get through the shields. I feared that if I couldn’t get Leoma to take it off, if she would rather die than do it, then it would all be for naught.

“Third,” he said, taking a tentative step toward her, “if only one of us was to have a chance to get away, I wanted it to be you.”

Verna stared at him a long moment, a lump rising in her throat. She could help herself no longer and threw her arms around his neck.

“Warren, I love you. I mean I really truly love you.”

He embraced her tenderly. “You have no idea how long I dreamed of hearing you say those words, Verna. I love you, too.”

“What about my wrinkles?”

He smiled a sweet, warm, glowing Warren smile. “Someday, when you get wrinkles, I’ll love them, too.”

For that, and everything else, she let herself go and kissed him.

A small knot of crimson-caped men burst around the corner, intent on killing him. He spun into them, kicking one in the knee as he brought his knife up into the gut of a second. Before their swords could block him, he had cut another’s throat and broken a nose with an elbow.

Richard was livid—lost in the thundering rage of the magic storming through him.

Even though the sword wasn’t with him, the magic was still his; he was the true Seeker of Truth, and was bonded irrevocably to its magic. It coursed through him with lethal vengeance. The prophecies had named him fuer grissa ost drauka, High D’Haran for the bringer of death, and he moved now like its shadow. He understood the words, now, as they had been written.

He whirled through the men of the Blood of the Fold as if they were mere statues, toppling before a ruinous wind.

In a moment, all was silent again.

Richard panted in rage as he stood over the bodies, wishing they were Sisters of the Dark instead of their minions. He wanted those five.

They had told him where Kahlan had been held, but when he arrived, she was gone. Smoke still hung in the air from the battle. The room had been raked by what looked to be the furor of magic unleashed. He had found the bodies of Brogan, Galtero, and a woman he didn’t recognize.

Kahlan, if she had been there, might have escaped, but he was frantic with apprehension that she had been spirited away by the Sisters, that she was still a captive, and that they would hurt her, or worse yet, that they would give her to Jagang. He had to find her.

He needed to get his hands on a Sister of the Dark so he could make her talk.

Around the palace grounds, a confusing battle raged. It appeared to Richard that the Blood of the Fold had turned on everyone in the palace. He had seen dead guards, dead cleaning staff, and dead Sisters.

He had also seen a great many dead of the Blood. The Sisters of the Dark scythed them down mercilessly. Richard had seen one charge of near to a hundred men cut down in an instant by one Sister. He had also seen a relentless charge of men from all directions overrun another Sister. They tore her apart like a pack of dogs at a fox.

When he reached the Sister who had cut down the attack, she had vanished, and so he was looking for another. One of them was going to tell him where Kahlan was. If he had to kill every Sister of the Dark at the palace, one of them was going to talk.

Two Blood of the Fold caught sight of him and came up the path at a dead run. Richard waited. Their swords caught only air. He took them down with his knife almost without thinking about it, and was moving again before the second man had finished pitching face-first to the ground.

He had lost track of the number of the Blood of the Fold he had killed since the battle had begun. He ripped through them only if they attacked him; he wasn’t able to avoid all the soldiers he saw. If they came at him, it was by their choice, not his. It wasn’t them he wanted—it was a Sister.

Near a wall, Richard hugged the moon shadows beneath a clump of aromatic, spreading witch hazels as he moved toward one of the covered walkways. He flattened against a pilaster in the wall as he saw a shape dart from the walkway. As it approached he could tell by the flow of hair and the shape that it was a woman.

At last, he had a Sister.

When he stepped out in front of her, he saw a the flash of a blade slashing toward him. He knew that every Sister carried a dacra; it was probably that, rather than a knife. He also knew how deadly a dacra was, and how skilled they were with the weapon. He dared not take the hazard lightly.

Richard whipped his leg around, kicking the dacra from her hand. He would have broken her jaw so she couldn’t cry out for help, but he needed her to be able to talk. If he was fast enough, she would raise no alarm.

He caught her wrist, sprang up behind her back, snatched her other fist as she brought it up to hit him, and clamped her wrists together with one hand. He swept his knife arm around her throat and with a yank, toppled back. As he landed on his back, with her atop his chest, he hooked his legs over hers to keep her from kicking him. She was pinned and helpless in a heartbeat.

He pressed the blade to her throat. “I’m in a very bad mood,” he said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t tell me where the Mother Confessor is, you are going to die.”

She panted, catching her breath. “You are about to slit her throat, Richard.”

For what seemed an eternity his mind, filtering her words through his fury, tried lo make sense of what she had said. It seemed a riddle to him.

“Are you going to kiss me, or are you going to cut my throat?” she asked, still panting.

It was Kahlan’s voice. He released her wrists. She turned around, her face inches from his. It was her. It was really her.

“Dear spirits, thank you,” he whispered before he kissed her.

Richard remembered very well what her soft lips felt like. His memory was no match for reality. His fury stilled like a lake becalmed on a moonlit summer night. With aching bliss, he held her to him.

His fingers gently touched her face, touching his dream come to life. Her fingers trailed along his cheek as she gazed at him, needing words no more than he. For a moment, the world stopped, “Kahlan,” he said at last, “I know you’re angry with me, but . . .”

“Well, if I hadn’t broken my sword, and had to pick up a knife, you wouldn’t have had such an easy time. But I’m not angry.”

“That’s not what I meant. I can explain—”

“I know what you meant, Richard. I’m not angry. I trust you. You have some explaining to do, but I’m not angry. The only thing you could do to make me angry would be if you ever get more than ten feet from me for the rest of your life.”

Richard smiled. “You aren’t going to ever be angry with me, then.” His smile withered as his head thumped back to the ground. “Oh, yes you are. You don’t know the trouble I’ve caused. Dear spirits, I’ve . . .”

She kissed him again—tender, soft, warm. He ran his hand down the back of her long, thick hair.

He held her away by her shoulders. “Kahlan, we have to get out of here. Right now. We’re in a lot of trouble. I’m in a lot of trouble.”

Kahlan rolled off him and sat up. “I know. The Order is coming. We need to hurry.”

“Where’s Zedd, and Gratch? Let’s get them and be gone.”

Her head tilted toward him. “Zedd and Gratch? They aren’t with you?”

“Me? No. I thought they were with you. I sent Gratch with a letter. Dear spirits, don’t tell me you didn’t get the letter. No wonder you aren’t angry with me. I sent—”

“I got the letter. Zedd used a spell to make himself light enough for Gratch to carry him. Gratch took Zedd back to Aydindril weeks ago.”

Richard felt a hot wave of nausea. He remembered the dead mriswith all over the rampart at the Keep.

“I never saw them,” he said in a whisper.

“Maybe you left before they arrived. It must have taken you weeks to get here.”

“I only left Aydindril yesterday.”

“What?” she whispered, wide-eyed. “How could . . .”

“The sliph brought me. She got me here in less than a day. At least, I think it was less than a day. It may have been two. I had no way of telling, but the moon looked the same . . .”

Richard realized he was rambling, and made himself stop.

Kahlan’s face was becoming watery in his vision. His voice sounded hollow to him, as if it were someone else speaking. “I found a place on the Keep where there had been a fight. There were dead mriswith all over. I remember thinking it looked like Gratch had killed them. It was at the edge of a high wall.

“There was blood at a notch in the wall, and all down the side of the Keep. I ran my finger through the blood. Mriswith blood stinks. Some of the blood wasn’t from a mriswith.”

Kahlan took him in her comforting arms.

“Zedd, and Gratch,” he whispered. “That must have been them.”

Her arms tightened. “I’m sorry, Richard.”

He lifted her arms away and stood, giving her a hand up. “We have to get out of here. I’ve done something terrible, and Aydindril is in trouble. I’ve got to get back there.”

Richard’s gaze caught on the Rada’Han. “What’s this doing around your neck?”

“I was captured by Tobias Brogan. It’s a long story.”

Even before she had finished speaking, he curled his fingers around the collar. Without cognitive reasoning, but through the need and fury, he felt the power swell from the calm center and surge through his arm.

The collar shattered in his hand like sunbaked dirt.

Kahlan’s fingers groped at her neck. She let out a sigh of relief verging on a wail.

“It’s back,” she whispered as she leaned against him, putting a hand to her breastbone. “I can feel my Confessor’s power. I can touch it again.”

He squeezed her with one arm. “We’d better get out of here.”

“I’ve just gone and freed Ahern. That’s where I broke my sword—on one of the Blood. He took a bad fall,” she explained to his frown. “I told Ahern to head north with the Sisters.”

“Sisters? What Sisters?”

“I found Sister Verna. She’s gathering the Sisters of the Light, the young men, novices, and guards, and escaping with them. I’m on my way to meet her. I left Adie with them. Hurry, and we may be able to catch them before they leave. They’re not far.”

Kevin’s mouth dropped when he stepped out from behind the wall to challenge the two of them. “Richard!” he whispered. “Is it really you?”

Richard smiled. “Sorry, I don’t have any chocolates, Kevin.”

Kevin pumped Richard’s hand. “I’m loyal, Richard. Nearly all the guards are loyal.”

Richard frowned in the dark. “I’m . . . honored, Kevin.”

He turned and called out in a loud whisper. “It’s Richard!”

A crowd gathered around after he and Kahlan had slipped through the gate and behind the wall. In the flickering light of distant fires down at the docks, Richard saw Verna and threw his arms around her.

“Verna, I’m so glad to see you!” He held her out at arm’s length. “But I have to tell you, you need a bath.”

Verna laughed. It was a rare, good sound to hear. Warren squeezed past her and with a gleeful laugh embraced Richard.

Richard held Verna’s hand out and pressed the Prelate’s ring into it, closing her fingers around it. “I heard about Ann dying. I’m so sorry. This is her ring. I think you would know better than I what to do with it.”

Verna brought the hand closer to her face, staring at the ring. “Richard . . . were did you get this?”

“I made Sister Ulicia give it to me. She had no business wearing it.”

“You made . . .”

“Verna was named Prelate, Richard,” Warren said as he put a reassuring hand to her shoulder.

Richard grinned. “I’m proud of you, Verna. Put it back on, then.”

“Richard, Ann isn’t . . . The ring was taken from me . . . I was convicted by a tribunal . . . and removed as Prelate.”

Sister Dulcinia stepped forward. “Verna, you are the Prelate. At the trial, every Sister here with us voted with you.”

Verna searched all the faces watching her. “You did?”

“Yes,” Sister Dulcinia said. “We were overruled by the others, but we all believed in you. You were named by Prelate Annalina. We need a Prelate. Put the ring back on.”

Verna nodded her tearful gratitude to the Sisters as they voiced their agreement. She slipped the ring back on her finger and kissed it. “We have to get everyone away at once. The Imperial Order is coming to take the palace.”

Richard gripped her arm and pulled her back around. “What do you mean ‘the Imperial Order is coming to take the palace’? What do they want with the Palace of the Prophets?”

“The prophecies. Emperor Jagang intends to use them to know the forks in the books so he can alter events to his advantage.”

The other Sisters behind Verna gasped. Warren slapped a hand over his face as he groaned.

“And,” Verna added, “he plans to live here, under the palace’s spell, so he can rule the world after the prophecies help him crush all opposition.”

Richard released her arm, “We can’t let him do that. We would be frustrated at every fork. We wouldn’t have a chance. The world would suffer under his tyranny for centuries.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Verna said. “We have to get away or we’ll all be killed here, and then there’s no chance for us to help—to think of a way to fight back.”

Richard swept his gaze across the gathered Sisters, many of whom he knew, and then looked back to Verna. “Prelate, what if I were to destroy the palace?”

“What! How can you do that?”

“I don’t know. But I destroyed the towers, and they were made by the wizards of old, too. What if there were a way?”

Verna licked her lips as she stared off. The crowd of Sisters stood silent. Sister Phoebe pushed her way through the others.

“Verna, you can’t allow it!”

“It may be the only way to stop Jagang.”

“But you can’t,” Phoebe said, on the verge of tears. “It’s the Palace of the Prophets. It’s our home.”

“It’s going to be the dream walker’s home, now, if we leave it for him.”

“But Verna,” Phoebe said, gripping Verna’s arms, “without the spell, we will grow old. We’ll die, Verna. Our youth will be gone in a twinkling. We’ll get old and die before we have a chance to live.”

With a thumb Verna wiped a tear from the other’s face. “Everything dies, Phoebe, even the palace. It can’t live forever. It has served its purpose, and now, if we don’t do something, its purpose will turn to harm.”

“Verna, you can’t do this! I don’t want to get old.”

Verna hugged the young woman. “Phoebe, we’re Sisters of the Light. We serve the Creator in his work to make the lives of the people in this world better. The only chance we have to better their lives, now, is to become like the rest of the Creator’s children; to live among them.

“I understand your fear, Phoebe, but trust in me that it won’t be as you fear. Time feels different to us under the spell of the palace. We don’t feel the slow passing of centuries, the way those outside imagine, but the rapid pace of life. It really doesn’t feel much different when you live outside.

“Our oath is to serve, not simply to live long. If you wish to live a long and empty life, Phoebe, you can remain with the Sisters of the Dark. If you wish to live a meaningful, helpful, fulfilled life, then come with us, with the Sisters of the Light, to our new life beyond what has been.”

Phoebe stood silent, tears running down her cheeks. Off in the distance, fire roared, and occasional explosions punctuated the night. The cries of men at battle were coming closer.

At last, Phoebe spoke. “I am a Sister of the Light. I wish to go with my Sisters . . . wherever that takes us. The Creator will still watch over us.”

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.”