Into Darkness

15

With the boundary now blocking any hope for escape, they had no choice but to turn around and trudge back toward the tunneled opening in the wall. Satisfied to see that they were returning, Iron Jack turned and vanished from the top of the wall. Kahlan wondered where he was going.

Richard fumed in a quiet rage. His silence was telling. She knew that when he got like this it was best not to ask him anything unless it was important. The focus of his anger rightly belonged on whoever was doing this to them.

As was his way, he had first tried to avoid a conflict. Now that those who had created this trap had made avoiding conflict impossible, he was prepared to meet it head-on.

Kahlan struggled to put one foot in front of the other. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally. It seemed like everything was grinding her down. Her worry, though, was for the twins, not for herself.

It seemed like forever ago that they had started out from the People’s Palace, and yet the distant Wizard’s Keep seemed no closer. In her mind, the Keep had come to seem more an impossible dream than a place they would ever reach.

They had been traveling for so long her belly had grown quite large. She was relieved to feel the babies kick from time to time, because it meant they were still alive. Everyone sacrificed their own food to give to her, knowing she needed it for the growing babies.

Because they had lost an unknown stretch of time in the strange wood, she was no longer sure of when the babies would come, other than knowing that it was still a ways off. But with as big as she was getting, that time was clearly getting closer, while the Keep wasn’t.

She reminded herself that she was still the Mother Confessor, and no matter her concerns and doubts, this was no time to show weakness.

She gestured to the sides. “There is still some forest here, outside the wall. I don’t like that place inside the walls. We know they already tried to spell us—or poison us—with the food, and we know that the man up there bound your sword into its scabbard. Obviously, it’s dangerous in there. Why don’t we just go into the woods and set up a camp while we come up with a plan?”

Richard kept his gaze resolutely ahead as he continued to march toward the opening in the wall. “How is camping out here going to get us to the Keep?”

“I don’t know,” Kahlan said in a weary voice, “but how is going back in there without a plan going to get us to the Keep?”

“I have a plan.”

Kahlan gave him a sidelong glance. “And what would that be?”

Richard didn’t look over at her. “The people who are preventing us from getting to Aydindril by doing all these things to stop us, like the way they used my gift to bring up the boundary, are after those babies you are carrying. They are willing to let people who wander into that wall die. They are after the hope of our world and willing to kill innocent people to get what they want. I can’t let this threat stand. I’m going in there and putting a stop to it.”

Kahlan again stole a sidelong glance at him. “That’s your plan?”

“That’s all the plan I need.”

Kahlan didn’t think that was the case, but she didn’t want to argue with him. He was not the one wanting to get her babies.

The witch woman looked distraught with concern. “But if they are powerful enough to do all the things they have done to draw us into this trap, and as you say they are willing to let innocent people die, do you think it wise to walk right back into their trap?”

Richard shot her a quick glare before looking ahead as he continued on. “They think they are smart and powerful because they have contrived to use my gift to put up the boundary to lure us to this place. What they have actually done is to attract lightning, and that lightning is about to strike them down.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kahlan saw Vika and some of the others smile. They were eager to face the threat and put an end to it. Kahlan was as well, but it wasn’t likely going to be as easy as it sounded.

Although it was a rather foggy memory, she knew that she had already started to miscarry once. She feared losing the twins. She had lost a baby before and didn’t want it to happen again. In the past she never would have hesitated to back Richard, but now that she was about to be a mother, it added a complication to everything. She had always been willing to put her own life on the line, but now she had to consider putting the lives of the twins at risk, to say nothing of all the people of their world.

On the other hand, if they were to protect their children from the Glee, they needed to get to the Keep, where it would be safe to give birth. Of course, while they might be safe there, the rest of the world would not be. That meant that to protect her children, and everyone else, the situation actually demanded that she fight more ferociously than ever before.

How they would eliminate the overriding threat posed by the Glee she couldn’t begin to imagine, but she knew that the worst thing they could do would be to hide forever in the Keep while everyone else faced the onslaught of the Glee. They had to stop the immediate danger, and once it was eliminated, they needed to find a way to stop the Golden Goddess.

That thought added resolve to her determination. It was time to show whoever was stopping them exactly why she was the Mother Confessor. Richard was right: whoever had trapped them in this place had to be stopped, one way or another. As for the threat of the Glee, she couldn’t imagine how they could overcome predators who could simply come into their world at will, but in the back of her mind she knew that such a threat could be faced only by a war wizard.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Richard was right. They had to go back into the town and end the threat, or they would never make it to safety and then be able to find a way to stop the goddess. Their world would never be safe until they did. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure who was at the center of all their current problems, and that was the one thing she truly feared to face, but this time there could be no backing down.

They all marched resolutely through the dark tunnel and emerged again inside the town. None of the narrow streets and alleys were straight, so it was hard to know the best route. There was often a warren of sharp corners and wedge-shaped intersections confronting them. In some places they had to pass under arches with parts of the buildings crossing overhead and in other places go under lines with laundry. Richard didn’t seem deterred by the maze. He took them on a route that headed ever closer to his destination: the tall, white palace.

As they came around a corner of a wider passageway, they were confronted by Iron Jack, fists on his hips, standing to block their way. To the sides behind him it looked like there was a converging intersection of several narrow alleyways. Kahlan had been wondering how long it would take him to make an appearance. He obviously had guessed where they were headed.

“I will escort you back to your guest quarters,” Iron Jack said in a threatening tone.

“We’re not going to any guest quarters,” Richard said. “We are going to see the queen. Either you can take us there, or we will go on our own.”

The burly man gripped his kinky red beard as he cocked his head to the side and peered at them with one eye. “That would require an audience.”

“That’s not a problem,” Richard said. “I am the Lord Rahl, leader of the D’Haran Empire, and I intend to grant your queen an immediate audience.”

“That’s not what I mean,” the man growled.

“No, but it’s what I mean.”

“I’m the gifted man who rendered your sword useless,” he reminded Richard. “You would make a very big mistake if you think to defy me.”

Richard didn’t look to be moved by the threat. “You can take us to this queen, or you can stand aside and we will go see her ourselves.”

Iron Jack’s sly smile grew wider as his eyes narrowed. “I’m afraid that I can’t allow that. If you try, I will put you down.”

Richard marched ahead. As he did, he rammed the heel of a hand against the man’s big chest, slamming him back up against the wall of a building with enough force to make his teeth bang together.

“Good luck with that,” Richard said on his way past.

Kahlan hurried to catch up and then followed close on Richard’s heels. Vika and the rest of the Mord-Sith, each with an Agiel in a fist, also rushed to keep up, adding their glares at Iron Jack on their way past.

Kahlan was glad to see that Iron Jack didn’t follow them. She hoped he had gotten the point and wouldn’t challenge them again.

Shale leaned closer to Kahlan and spoke in a low voice. “That man worries me.”

“Why?”

“Because while I can’t determine how gifted he is, I don’t think I have the power to stop him if he comes for us.”

Kahlan didn’t look at the sorceress as she hurried along. “Richard does.”