Into Darkness

25

In the oppressive silence, Richard realized that he heard distant, muffled voices. He couldn’t make out who was talking, or what they were saying. It didn’t seem to be important to him just then, so he didn’t dwell on it. His head hurt.

When he realized that he was beginning to wake up, he rather wished that he wasn’t, because, besides his head throbbing, he was just beginning to realize that he hurt all over. In order to try to alleviate the discomfort, he attempted to reposition himself. But when he tried to move, he found that for some reason he couldn’t.

In his mind, he did his best to determine if it was that he was being physically prevented from moving, or he was somehow paralyzed.

That sensation of not being able to move brought on a wave of alarm that woke him the rest of the way. He looked around but couldn’t see anything at all. He felt with his hands, trying to figure out where he was.

In the pitch blackness, he felt something smooth, cold, and dusty mere inches above him. As he felt around, it seemed to be entirely over the top of him, but angled downward as it got closer toward his feet. There was more space under the thing above him up where his head was, so he was able to move his arms a little, but not his legs.

As he groped around, he felt ragged chunks of stone packed tight all around him. Everything was covered with what felt like a thick layer of dust. He regretted moving, because it lifted the dust into the air and he couldn’t avoid breathing it in. He coughed, trying to get it out of his lungs. By the taste, he knew that it was stone dust.

As he was regaining consciousness, or waking up—he wasn’t sure which—he began to remember seeing Shota unleash Subtractive Magic. He had known that if he didn’t act quickly, he would be killed. But he remembered that it seemed at the time as if his legs wouldn’t move the way he needed. Maybe it had simply been sheer terror that kept him in place and prevented him from running.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he had done at that point, other than simply reacting out of instinct. His gift as a war wizard, from somewhere deep inside him, came forth and did what was necessary to save him.

But he did remember being alarmed at how the explosive collision of Subtractive Magic had cut through the walls and ceiling. He didn’t know how far those voids went off into the side of the mountain, but he realized that they instantly cut all the way up through the entire palace. It had to have cut support structures and beams in addition to floors, ceilings, and arches all the way up through the towering structure.

He remembered the terrible shrieking blast of Subtractive and Additive Magic mixing and then the roar of the entire place coming apart as it started falling in, and not being able to make his legs work. Even as he started remembering it, though, the whole thing felt like something that happened long ago, or maybe in a dream, or even to someone else.

He was so thirsty he couldn’t think clearly. He worked his tongue against the top of his mouth, trying to moisten it, but the dust in his mouth was turning to a chalky paste and only making matters worse.

Putting all the pieces together in his mind, he realized that the entire place and probably some of the mountain had come down on top of him and he was obviously trapped, probably under one of the slabs of a floor from above. A lot of the rubble was packed around his legs so tightly he couldn’t move them.

He realized that while he was jammed into a small space, at least the thick slab above him had saved him from being crushed under what had to be the weight of the entire palace. As lucky as that was to have survived in the small pocket under the slab, he felt a rising sense of panic at realizing that he was buried alive. There was no hope of digging his way out from under a mountain of rubble.

He reached up and felt his throbbing head. It was wet. He put a finger to his mouth to taste the wetness. He could tell by the coppery taste that it was blood. That explained his head hurting. It felt like it hurt both on the outside and inside.

Again he heard the distant voices. He had thought in the beginning that it must have been something he heard in a dream, but now that he was fully awake, he knew it was a person calling out to him.

“I’m down here!” he yelled as loud as he could.

He didn’t get a response, so he called out again, forcing himself to yell louder. He was feeling desperate as he fought back his growing panic. He called out again, louder yet.

“Lord Rahl?” came a distant voice.

“Berdine? Is that you?”

“Yes!” The voice came closer. “Yes! It’s me! I’m here!”

He heard people frantically talking. The sound came closer until he could make out individuals. Apparently, whoever was up above with Berdine was excited that they had gotten a response. Now that he knew there were people out there somewhere, he started squirming, thinking he might be able to work his way out.

He soon realized, though, that it was simply impossible. The stone was packed in so tight that none of it would budge. He couldn’t make any of it move so much as an inch. He was stuck solid in the rubble.

He began to remember his alarm as the entire palace above them had started to come down. Shota had somehow managed to touch off Subtractive Magic. The only way to prevent her from killing him had been to use a mix of Additive and Subtractive Magic to counter it. It had been his only chance. When those powers had come together, it had created a knifelike blast of Subtractive Magic that had cut all the way up through the palace and at the same time to the sides through the mountain under the palace.

He hadn’t known that a witch woman could do such things. Apparently, from what Kahlan had been saying, a coven amplified her power and gave her additional abilities. For all of her assurances that she had no intention to harm them, she was quick to attack him with lethal power.

He remembered, too, that gifted people could join their abilities to amplify their power. The joining of the power of all those witch women had obviously managed to bring forth the boundary. That alone was a demonstration of the power that Shota now had at her disposal.

He could hardly believe that Shale had joined them. No, it wasn’t her doing, he reminded himself. She was being used. He remembered that Shota had said as much. He could tell by the empty stare that Shale was not acting on her own.

“Lord Rahl!” Berdine’s voice was closer, and more desperate. Even so, it still seemed like it was some distance away. “Lord Rahl, are you still there?”

“Mostly, I think. There is a big slab of floor, or ceiling, over the top of me. It created a pocket and kept me from being crushed. But my legs are encased in the rubble and I can’t move them. How long have I been stuck down here?”

“This is the end of the second day,” came the response.

Two days. Richard was stunned.

“Is Kahlan with you?”

This time the answer was slow in coming. “I’m afraid not. We haven’t been able to find anyone other than you.”

That answer sent a shiver of panic and pain through his heart. She had to have escaped. He told himself that she had gotten out in time.

“Who’s with you?” he called out.

“All of us. When everything started collapsing, the falling ceiling toppled those big stone birds. They sheltered us from all the stone falling in long enough for all of us to run into the tunnels and escape. We only just made it in time. We had hoped you were right behind us. The entire palace fell into that underground room and with all the dust and falling debris we couldn’t see if all the witch women escaped.”

Escaped with Kahlan, she meant. Richard didn’t know which would have been a worse fate—to have her die quickly, or have the witch women take her away to do what they intended. He knew that despite what Shota said, she was no longer willing to tolerate Richard and Kahlan being alive to disobey her wishes.

“Part of the mountain collapsed off to the side,” Berdine called out. “We have a lot of town people up here with us. They are all helping.”

He thought that was odd. “What do you mean, helping?”

“Helping dig you out. We’ve all been working for two days to dig through the rubble, hoping to find you alive. We were not going to stop, but we were beginning to give up hope.”

“I’m stuck down here.”

“I know. But a lot of the town people came right away to help us. We’ve been digging inward from the section of the mountain that fell away. Your power cutting through the walls caused a big section of the mountain to slide away, so we’re digging in from the side. We’ve been searching, calling out, and digging for two days, day and night, hoping to find you. But a lot of the stone from the palace is in big, heavy chunks and some of it needs to be broken apart in order to move it out of the way. Now that we know you are alive, and where you are, we can concentrate on getting to you.”

Richard let out a weary breath. He didn’t want to tell her that his head was bleeding, and he was dizzy. It felt like the dark world he was trapped in was spinning and tilting.

“Don’t worry, Lord Rahl. We’re coming for you. Hold on. But I fear it will take some time.”

Richard nodded, then realized they couldn’t see him nod. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Lord Rahl, just try to relax. It will take us some time to get to you, but we won’t give up. I can promise you that.”

Richard felt tears welling up for Kahlan and their children. He feared to think what had happened to her.

For a moment, he felt overwhelmed by all of the insurmountable problems. In that instant, he thought that it would be better to just give up.

And then, he could feel his mind slipping into darkness deeper than the darkness of where he lay.