Blood of the Fold

Chapter 52

The Hagen Woods were as dark and uninviting as ever, but Richard was sure that the mriswith were gone. In their journey through the gloomy wood he hadn’t sensed even one of them. The place, though forbidding, was deserted; the mriswith had all left for Aydindril. He shuddered to think what that meant.

Kahlan sighed nervously, twining her fingers together, as she stared at the sliph’s pleasant, smiling, quicksilver face. “Richard, before we do this, just in case something goes wrong, I want to tell you that I know about what happened when you were a captive here, and I don’t hold it against you. You thought I didn’t love you, and you were alone. I understand.”

Richard leaned closer as he frowned. “What are you talking about? What things I did?”

She cleared her throat. “Merissa. She told me all about it.”

“Merissa!”

“Yes. I understand, and I don’t blame you. You thought you would never see me again.”

Richard blinked in astonishment. “Merissa is a Sister of the Dark. She wants to kill me.”

“But she told me how when you were here before, she was your teacher. She said that . . . Well, I met her, and she’s beautiful. You were lonely, and I don’t blame you.”

Richard took her by the shoulders and forced her to turn away from staring at the sliph. “Kahlan, I don’t know what Merissa told you, but I’m telling you the truth: since the day I met you, I’ve loved no one but you. No one. Yes, when you made me put on the collar and I thought I would never see you again, I was lonely, but I never betrayed your love, even when I thought I had lost it. Even though I thought you didn’t want me, I never . . . with Merissa, or anyone else.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She smiled her special smile, the one she gave no one but him. “Adie tried to tell me the same thing. I was afraid I would die before I could see you again, and wanted you to know that I love you, no matter what. Part of me is afraid of doing this. I’m afraid I’ll drown in there.”

“The sliph felt you, and she says you can travel. You have an element of Subtractive Magic, too. Only those with both magics can travel. It’ll work. You’ll see.” He smiled encouragement. “It’s nothing to be afraid of, I promise. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. It’s wondrous. All right, now?”

She nodded. “All right.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him so hard she pressed the wind out of him. “But if I drown, I just want you to know how much I love you.”

Richard helped her up onto the stone wall around the sliph and then glanced around at the dark woods beyond the ruins. He didn’t know if there really were eyes watching or it was simply his apprehension. He didn’t sense a mriswith, though, and if one were watching him, he would. He decided that it must just be his past experiences in Hagen Woods that made him apprehensive.

“We’re ready, sliph. Do you know how long it will take?”

“I am long enough,” came the echoing reply.

Richard sighed and tightened his grip on Kahlan’s hand. “Do as we’ve told you.” She nodded, gasping her last breaths. “I’ll be with you. Don’t be afraid.”

The liquid silver arm lifted them, and the night went truly black. Richard gripped Kahlan’s hand tightly as they plunged downward, knowing how hard it had been for him to breathe in the sliph the first time. When she returned the squeeze, they were already in the weightless void.

The familiar sensation of rushing and drifting at the same time returned, and Richard knew they were on their way to Aydindril. As before, there was no heat, no cold, no sense of being soaked in the quicksilver wet of the sliph. His eyes beheld light and dark together in a single, spectral vision, while his lungs swelled with the sweet presence of the sliph as he inhaled her silken essence.

Richard was joyous, knowing that Kahlan could feel the same rapture he felt; he could sense it through the slow pressure on his hand. They let go, to take strokes through the still rush.

Richard swam on through the darkness and light. He felt Kahlan grip his ankle to be towed along after him.

Time meant nothing. It could have been a glimmer of a moment or the slow passing of a year as he soared ahead with Kahlan holding on to his ankle. As before, abruptly, it ended.

Sights of the room in the Keep exploded about him, but he knew what to expect, and this time there was no terror.

Breathe, the sliph said.

He let out the sweet breath, emptying his lungs of the rapture, and pulled in a breath of the alien air.

He felt Kahlan come up behind him, and in the silence of Kolo’s room, he heard her expel the sliph and inhale the air. Richard bobbed up, the sliph sloughing off him as he boosted himself up onto the wall and over. Once his feet hit the floor, he turned and bent to help Kahlan out.

Merissa smiled at him.

Richard went rigid. At last his mind worked. “Where’s Kahlan! You’re bonded to me! You gave an oath!”

“Kahlan?” came the melodious voice. “She’s right here.” Merissa reached down into the quicksilver. “But you won’t be needing her anymore. And I’m keeping my oath—an oath to myself.”

She lifted Kahlan’s limp form by the back of her collar. With the aid of her power, Merissa heaved Kahlan out of the sliph’s well. Kahlan hit the wall and slumped, unbreathing, to the floor.

Before Richard could rush to her, Merissa rapped the blades of a yabree against the stone. The sweet song gripped him, making his legs go weak and impotent as he stared, spellbound, at Merissa’s smiling face.

“The yabree sings for you, Richard. Its song calls you.”

She drifted closer, bringing the humming yabree closer. She held it up, turning the resplendent object of his hunger, displaying it, tantalizing him with it. Richard wet his lips as his bones resonated with the purring hum of the yabree. The vibrant sound transfixed him.

She floated closer, finally offering it to him. His fingers at last touched it, and the song coursed through every fiber of his body, charmed every corner of his soul. Merissa smiled as his fingers curled around the crossbar. He shuddered with the enchantment of having it in his grasp. His fingers tightened in painful pleasure.

She brought another yabree out from under the silvery pool. “That’s only the half of it, Richard. You need both.”

She laughed, a pleasant, lilting sound, as she tapped the second yabree against the stone. The song nearly blinded him with its longing for his touch. He struggled to keep his knees from buckling. He had to get to the second yabree. He leaned over the wall, stretching for it.

Merissa’s grin mocked him, but he didn’t care, he only wanted, needed, to have the twin to his yabree in his other hand.

“Breathe,” the sliph said.

Distracted, Richard glanced over. The sliph was looking at the woman slumped on the floor against the wall. He was about to speak, when Merissa tapped the second yabree against the stone again.

His legs went boneless. He heald his left arm, with die yabree in his fist, over the wall to hold himself up.

“Breathe,” the sliph said again.

Through the enchanting, purring song singing through his bones, Richard struggled to make sense of who it was against the wall that the sliph was speaking to. It seemed important, but he couldn’t reason why. Who was it?

Merissa’s laugh echoed around the room as she tapped the yabree again.

Richard let out a helpless cry both of ecstasy and longing.

“Breathe,” the sliph said again, more insistent.

Through the numbing song of the yabree, it came to him. His inner need surged up, sluicing through the benumbing melody that encased him.

Kahlan.

He looked at her. She wasn’t breathing. An inner voice cried out for help.

When the yabree sang again, his neck muscles went flaccid. His swirling gaze focused on something in the stone under him.

Exigency stirred his muscles. His hand extended. His fingers touched it. His grip enveloped it, and a new need coursed through his bones. A need he knew well.

With an explosion of fury, Richard yanked the Sword of Truth from the stone floor, and the room rang with a new song.

Merissa fixed him with a murderous glare as she again rapped the yabree against the stone. “You will die, Richard Rahl. I have sworn to bathe in your blood, and I will.”

With the last of his strength, powered by the sword’s wrath, Richard heaved himself against the top of the stone wall and stretched down, plunging the blade into the quicksilver of the sliph.

Merissa shrieked.

Silver veins fluxed through her flesh. Her screams echoed around the stone room as her arms reached up in a frantic effort to escape the sliph, but it was too late. The metamorphosis coursed through her, and she waxed as glossy as the sliph, like a silver statue in a silver reflecting pool. The hard edges of her face softened, and what had been Merissa dissolved into the lapping waves of quicksilver.

“Breathe,” the sliph said to Kahlan.

Richard threw the yabree aside as he dashed across the room. He scooped Kahlan up in his arms and carried her to the well. He draped her over the wall, wrapped his arms around her abdomen, and squeezed.

“Breathe! Kahlan, breathe!” He compressed again. “Do it for me! Breathe! Please, Kahlan, breathe.”

Her lungs expelled the quicksilver, and she gasped a sudden, desperate breath, and then another.

At last, she turned in his arms and fell against him. “Oh, Richard, you were right. It was so wonderful I forgot to breathe. You saved me.”

“But he killed the other,” the sliph observed. “I warned him about the object of magic he carries. It is not my fault.”

Kahlan blinked at the silver face. “What are you talking about?”

“The one that is part of me, now.”

“Merissa,” Richard explained. “It’s not your fault, sliph. I had to do it, or she would have killed both of us.”

“Then I am discharged of responsibility. Thank you, Master.”

Kahlan spun back to him, glancing down at the sword. “What happened? What do you mean, Merissa?”

Richard untied the thong at his throat, reached over his shoulder, and pulled the mriswith cape off his back.

“She followed us through the sliph. She tried to kill you, and to . . . well, she wanted to take a bath with me.”

“What!”

“No,” the sliph corrected, “she said she wanted to bathe in your blood.”

Kahlan’s mouth dropped open. “But . . . what happened?”

“She is with me, now,” the sliph said. “For all time.”

“That means she’s dead,” Richard said. “I’ll explain when we have more time.” He turned to the sliph. “Thank you for your help, sliph, but I need you to sleep, now.”

“Of course, Master. I will sleep until I am needed again.”

The shiny silver face softened and melted back into the pool of quicksilver. Richard, without conscious direction, crossed his wrists. The lustrous pool took on a glow. The sliph stilled, and began sinking into the well, slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, until she was gone.

Kahlan stared up at him when he straightened. “I think there are a lot of things you are going to need to explain to me.”

“When we have time, I promise.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“In the lower parts of the Keep, ai the base of one of the towers.”

“Lower parts of the Keep?”

Richard nodded. “Down under the library.”

“Under the library! No one can go below the library level. There are shields that have kept every wizard from the lower Keep for as long as anyone knows.”

“Well, that’s where we are and that, too, we’ll have to talk about later. We have to get down to the city.”

They stepped out of Kolo’s room, and immediately they both flattened themselves against the wall. The red mriswith queen was in the pool beyond the railing. She spread her wings protectively over a clutch of hundreds of eggs the size of large melons as she trumpeted a warning that echoed around the inside of the huge tower.

From what little light that came in from the openings overheard, Richard could see that it was late afternoon. It had taken less than a day, at least he hoped just one day, to reach Aydindril. In the light, he could also see the vast extent of the clutch of splotchy gray and green eggs alop the rock.

“It’s the mriswith queen,” Richard hastily explained as he climbed the railing. “I have to destroy those eggs.”

Kahlan shouted his name, trying to call him back, as he vaulted the railing, into the dark, slimy water. Richard held out his sword as he waded through the waist-deep water toward the slick rocks in the center. The queen rose up on her claws, venting a clacking bellow.

Her head snaked close to him, her jaws snapping. In that moment, Richard swung the sword. The grotesque head recoiled. She huffed a cloud of acrid aroma at him that carried a clear message of warning. Relentlessly, Richard slogged ahead. Her jaws gaped, revealing long, sharp teeth.

Richard couldn’t let the mriswith have Aydindril. And if he didn’t destroy these eggs, then there would be even more mriswith to deal with.

“Richard! I tried to use the blue lightning, but it won’t work down here! Come back!”

The hissing queen snapped at him. Richard stabbed at the head when it came close, but she kept just out of reach and roared in anger. Richard was able to keep the head at bay while he groped for a handhold.

He found a crag to grasp, and scrambled up onto the dark, slimy rocks. He swung the sword, and when the menacing jaws pulled back, he hacked at the eggs. Stinking yolk oozed across the dark stone as he broke the thick, leathery shells.

The queen went wild. Her wings flapped, lifting her clear of the rock and out of the reach of Richard’s sword. Her tail lashed around, snapping like a huge whip. When the tail came close, Richard swung the sword to keep her at bay. He was more interested in destroying the eggs at the moment.

Her teeth snapped as she lunged at him. Richard thrust the sword, piercing her neck with a glancing strike, enough that the queen reeled back in pain and fury. Her frantically flapping wings knocked him sprawling across the rock. Richard rolled to the side to avoid the slashing claws. Her tail thrashed at him again, and her jaws snapped. Richard was forced to forget the eggs for the moment and defend himself. If he could kill her, it would simplify the task.

The queen squealed in anger. A moment later, Richard heard a crunching sound. He turned toward the noise and saw Kahlan smashing eggs with a board that had been part of the door to Kolo’s room. He scrambled across the slippery rock to put himself between Kahlan and the enraged queen. He slashed at the head when it tried to bite them, at the tail when it tried to sweep him from the rock, and at the claws when they tried to rip him apart.

“You just keep it way,” Kahlan said as she swung the board, smashing eggs and wading into the gooey, yellow muck, “and I’ll take care of these.”

Richard didn’t want Kahlan in danger, but he knew she was defending her city, too, and he couldn’t ask her to go hide. Besides, he needed her help. He had to get down to the city.

“Just hurry,” he said between dodging and attacking.

The huge red bulk flung itself at him, trying to crush him against the rock. Richard dove to the side, but the queen still came down on his leg. He cried out in pain and slashed with the sword as the beast gnashed at him.

The board suddenly whacked down on top of the fleshy slits atop the queen’s head. She staggered back in howling pain, her wings flapping wildly, and her claws raking the air. Kahlan hooked an arm through his and helped pull him away as the red body lifted. They both tumbled back into the stagnant water.

“I got them all,” Kahlan said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I have to get her,” Richard said, “or she’ll just lay more.”

But the mriswith queen, seeing all her eggs destroyed, switched from attack, to escape. Her wings beat madly, lifting her into the air. She lunged at the wall, fastened her claws to the stone, and began to climb toward a large opening high up on the tower.

Richard and Kahlan pulled themselves out of the reeking pool and onto the walkway, Richard started for the stairs that wound their way up around the inside of the tower, but when he put weight on his leg, he crashed to the floor.

Kahlan helped him stand. “You can’t get to her now. We broke all the eggs, we’ll just have to worry about her later. Is your leg broken?”

Richard leaned against the railing, rubbing the painful bruise as he watched the queen climb out the opening high up in the tower. “No, she just mashed it against the rock. We have to get down to the city.”

“But you can’t walk.”

“I’ll be all right. The pain is easing up. Let’s go.”

Richard took one of the glowing spheres to light the way and, with Kahtan giving him support, they started out of the belly of the Keep. She had never been in the rooms and halls he took her through. He had to hold her in his arms to help her get through the shields, and constantly caution her what she mustn’t touch, and where she must not step. She repeatedly questioned his warnings, but followed his insistent orders, muttering to herself that she had never known these peculiar places existed in the Keep.

By the time they had wound their way up through the rooms and halls to the top, his leg, though it still hurt, was working better. He could walk, if with a limp.

“At last, I know where we are,” Kahlan said when they came up to the long hall before the libraries. “I was worried we would never get out from down there.”

Richard headed toward the corridors he knew to be the way out. Kahlan protested that he couldn’t go that way, but he insisted that that was the way he always went, and she reluctantly followed. He held her to get her through the shield into the great hall at the entrance, and they were both glad for the excuse.

“How much farther?” she asked as she looked around the near barren room.

“Right here. This is the door out.”

When they went through the door to the oulside, Kahlan turned around twice in astonishment. She snatched his shirt and gestured to the door. “There? You went in there! That’s the way you went into the Keep?”

Richard nodded. “That’s where the stone path led.”

She pointed angrily above the door. “Look what it says! And you went in there?”

Richard glanced up at the words carved in the stone lintel above the huge door, “I don’t know what those words mean.”

“Tavol de ator Mortado,” she said, reading the words aloud. “It means ‘Path of the Dead.’ ”

Richard glanced briefly at the other doors beyond the expanse of stone chips and gravel. He remembered the thing that had come for them under the gravel.

“Well, it seemed the biggest door, and the path led right to it, so I thought that was the way to go in. Kind of makes sense, when you think about it. I am named ‘the bringer of death.’ ”

Kahlan rubbed her arms in dismay. “We were frightened you would come up into the Keep. We were scared to death you would go in there and be killed. Dear spirits, I can’t believe you weren’t. Not even the wizards would go in this entrance. That shield just inside wouldn’t allow me to pass without your help; that alone means it’s perilous beyond. I can pass all the shields except those protecting the most dangerous places.”

Richard heard a crunching of rock, and saw movement in the gravel. He pulled Kahlan back onto the center of a stepping-stone as the thing took a snaking course toward them, “What’s the matter?” she asked.

Richard pointed. “Something’s coming.”

Kahlan cast him a frown over her shoulder and walked out onto the gravel. “You’re not afraid of this, are you?” She squatted and burrowed her hand into the gravel as the thing beneath came to her. She wiggled her hand around as if scratching a pet.

“What are you doing!”

Kahlan grappled playfully with the thing under the gravel. “It’s just a stone hound. Wizard Giller conjured him up to frighten away a woman who was pestering him all the time. She was afraid to cross the gravel, and of course no one in their right mind would dare to go into the Path of the Dead.” Kahlan stood. “You mean . . . don’t tell me you were afraid of the stone hound.”

“Well . . . no, not exactly . . . but . . .”

Kahlan put her fists on her hips. “You went into the Path of the Dead, and through those shields, because you were afraid of a stone hound? That’s why you didn’t go to the other doors?”

“Kahlan, I didn’t know what the thing under the gravel was. I’d never seen anything like it before.” He scratched his elbow. “All right, so, I was afraid of it. I was trying to be cautious. And I couldn’t read the words, so I didn’t know that this door was dangerous.”

She shot a stymied look skyward. “Richard, you could have—”

“I didn’t get killed in the Keep. I found the sliph, and I got to you. Now, come on. We need to get down to the city.”

She put her arm around his waist. “You’re right. I guess I’m just edgy from . . .” She lifted a hand toward the door. “From all that happened in there. That mriswith queen frightened me. I’m just thankful that you made it.”

Arm in arm, they hurried through the towering, arched opening through the outer wall.

As they rushed under the huge portcullis, a powerful red tail whipped around from beyond the corner, felling them both. Before Richard could get his wind back, wings were beating overhead. Claws ripped at him. He felt searing pain in his left shoulder as a claw hooked him. Kahlan was sent tumbling across the ground by the thrashing tail.

While he was being hauled closer to the gaping jaws by the claw embedded in his shoulder, he yanked his sword free. The rage inundated him instantly. He slashed through a wing. The queen recoiled, yanking the claw free from his shoulder. The wrath of the magic helped him ignore the pain as he sprang to his feet.

He stabbed with the sword as the beast lunged at him, snapping her jaws. She seemed all wings, teeth, claws, and tail, plunging at him as he scurried backward. Richard stabbed an arm, and the queen drew back in pain. Her tail lashed around, catching him across the middle, throwing him up against the wall. He hacked wildly at the tail, taking off the tip.

The red mriswith queen reared back on her hind feet, under the spiked portcullis. Richard dove for the catch lever and caught it with all his weight. With a squealing clatter, the gate plunged toward the raving beast. The queen twisted as the gate crashed down, just missing her back, but catching a wing, pinning it to the ground. She howled even louder.

Richard started in cold fright when he saw that Kahlan was on the ground—on the other side of the gate. The queen saw her, too, and with a mighty effort, ripped her wing out from under the gate, tearing it into long, ragged shreds.

“Kahlan! Run!”

Groggy, she tried to crawl away, but the beast pounced. It snatched her by a leg, holding her fast.

The queen turned and spewed a fetid odor at him. Richard had no trouble understanding the meaning: revenge.

With mad effort, he pulled at the wheel that lifted the gate. It rose inches at a time. The queen was wriggling down the road, dragging Kahlan by her leg.

Richard released the wheel and, driven by the fury of the magic, swung the sword at the flat bars of the portcullis. Sparks and hot shards of steel smoked through the air. Screaming in rage, he swung the sword again at the iron, ripping another gash through the bars. A third swing and a piece was cut free. He kicked it over and plunged through the opening.

Richard charged down the road toward the retreating red beast. Kahlan clawed at the ground in a desperate attempt to get away. When it reached the bridge, the queen hopped up on the wall at the edge, snarling at him as he came at full speed.

The queen flapped its shredded wings, as if it didn’t realize it couldn’t fly. Still running, Richard screamed out as it turned, spreading its wings in readiness to leap off the bridge with its prize.

The tail swept across the road as Richard raced onto the bridge. He lopped off a six-foot section. The queen spun, holding Kahlan upside down by her leg like a stick doll. Richard, beyond reason, swung the sword in a blind rage as she snapped at him. Sprayed by the beast’s blood, he slashed off the front half of a wing, the bone splintering to white shards under his blade. She lashed her truncated tail at him as she flapped her other mangled wing.

Kahlan screamed as she stretched toward Richard, her fingers spread, just out of reach. He drove the sword into the red belly. A red claw pulled Kahian away as he tried to snatch her hand. Richard sheared the other wing off at the shoulder. Blood sprayed the air as the raging beast twisted this way and that, trying to get at him. It kept her from her hunger to rip Kahlan apart.

Richard took off another section of tail when it came close enough. As the reeking blood sprayed everywhere, the queen’s reactions became sluggish, allowing Richard to inflict still more wounds.

Richard lunged and seized Kahlan’s wrist, and she his, as he drove the sword hilt-deep up into the underside of the heaving red chest. It was a mistake.

The mortally wounded mriswith queen had a death grip on Kahlan’s leg. The red beast teetered, and with a nightmarishly slow twist, tumbled off the bridge over the yawning abyss. Kahlan shrieked. Richard tightened his hold on her with all his strength. The pull on his arm as the queen fell slammed his stomach against the wall above the dizzying drop.

Richard swung the sword over the edge and with one powerful stroke sheared the arm that held Kahlan’s leg. The red beast spiraled down between the sheer walls that dropped for thousands of feet, to disappear in the distance far below.

Kahlan hung by his hand over the same drop. Blood was running down his arm and over their hands. He could feel her wrist slipping through his grip. His thighs were the only thing keeping him from going over the wall.

With a mighty effort, he lifted her a couple of feet. “Grab the wall with your other hand. I can’t hold you. You’re slipping.”

Kahlan slapped her free hand onto the top of the stone wall, taking some of the weight. He tossed the sword to the road behind and got his other hand under her arm. Richard gritted his teeth and, with her help, pulled her up over the wall and onto the road.

“Get it off!” she cried. “Get it off!”

Richard pried the claws open and extracted her leg. He tossed the red arm over the edge. Kahlan fell into his arms, panting in exhaustion, too weary to speak.

Through the throb of pain, Richard felt the heady warmth of relief. “Why didn’t you use your power . . . the lightning?”

“It wouldn’t work down inside the Keep, and out here that thing knocked me senseless. Why didn’t you use yours—some of that fearful black lightning, like back at the Palace of the Prophets?”

Richard considered the question. “I don’t know. I don’t know how the gift works. It has something to do with instinct. I can’t make it work at will.” He stroked a hand down her hair as he closed his eyes. “I wish Zedd were here. He would be able to help me control it—learn to use it. I miss him so.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Over their labored breathing, he could hear the distant cries of men and the ring of steel. He realized he smelled smoke. The air was hazy with it.

He helped Kahlan up, ignoring the fierce ache in his shoulder, and they rushed down the road to a switchback where there was a view of the city below.

As they stumbled to an abrupt halt at the edge, Kahlan gasped.

In shock, Richard sank to his knees. “Dear spirits,” he whispered, “what have I caused.”