Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 18

“Stop it,” Nicci growled.

Richard blinked. His mind reeled in confusion. Nicci had Shota’s wrist in an iron grip, holding her hand away from him. But Shota still had an arm around his waist.

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Nicci said in a tone so dangerous he thought that surely Shota would shrink back in fear, “but you will stop it.”

Shota did not shrink back, nor did she look the least bit fearful. “I am doing what needs to be done.”

Nicci was having none of it. “Back away from him, or I will kill you where you stand.”

Cara, Agiel in hand and looking even more displeased than Nicci, stood close on the other side of the witch woman, blocking her in. Before Shota could return the threat in kind, Richard collapsed heavily to the marble bench surrounding the fountain.

He was panting, gasping, and in a state of ragged terror. In his mind’s eye he could still see Kahlan in the hands of those thugs, still feel the sharp blade slicing deep into him. His fingers lightly brushed across his throat, but there was no gaping wound, no blood. He desperately didn’t want to let go of the sight of Kahlan, but at the same time it was so horrifying a glimpse of her hopeless dread that he wanted nothing so much as to forever wipe it from his mind.

He wasn’t completely sure where he was. He wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. It wasn’t at all clear to him what was real and what wasn’t.

He wondered if he was on the cusp of death and this was some confusing death-dream before all his lifeblood drained out of him, some final delusion to torture his mind as he passed from existence. He groped, trying to feel for other bodies there with him in the pit.

While Cara stood protectively before him, shielding him from the witch woman, Nicci immediately abandoned her altercation with Shota to sit beside him. She circled an arm around his shoulders.

“Richard, are you all right?” she leaned down, looking into his eyes. “You look like you’ve seen the walking dead.”

Ignoring Cara, Shota folded her arms as she stood over them, watching Richard.

In his mind, the sound of Kahlan’s screams still echoed, the sight of her as she cried out his name still tore at his heart. It had been so long since he had seen her. To see her again so suddenly, and like that, was devastating.

“Richard, it’s all right,” Nicci said. “You’re right here, with me, with all of us.”

Richard pressed a hand to his forehead. “How long was I gone?”

Nicci’s brow twitched. “Gone?”

“I think Shota did something. How long was she . . . doing whatever she did?”

“I didn’t let her do anything—I stopped her before she could begin. The instant she touched you under your chin I stopped her. She didn’t have enough time to do anything.”

Richard could still see Kahlan in his mind’s eye, still see her screaming for him as the grimy hands of Imperial Order soldiers held her back.

He ran his trembling fingers back through his hair. “She had enough time.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nicci whispered. “I thought I stopped her soon enough.”

He didn’t think he could go on. He didn’t think he could summon the strength to draw another breath. He didn’t think that he would ever again be able to do anything but abandon himself to despair.

He could not hold back his anguish, his pain, his tears.

Nicci drew his face against her shoulder, wordlessly sheltering him in the refuge of her embrace.

It all seemed so futile. It was all ending. It was all over. He’d always said that they didn’t have a chance to defeat Jagang’s army. The Order was too powerful. They were going to win the war. There was nothing Richard could do about it, nothing left to live for but waiting for the horror of death to catch them all.

Shota stepped up on the side of him, beside where he sat on the short marble wall, opposite Nicci, and started to lay a hand on his shoulder. Cara snatched the witch woman’s wrist, stopping her.

“I’m sorry to have to do that, Richard,” Shota said, ignoring the Mord-Sith, “but you need to see, to understand, to—”

“Shut up,” Nicci said, “and keep your hands off him. Don’t you think you’ve brought him enough pain? Does everything you do have to be injurious? Can’t you ever help him without trying to hurt him or cause him trouble at the same time?”

As Shota withdrew her hand, Nicci cupped hers to his face and with a thumb wiped a tear from his cheek. “Richard . . .”

He nodded at her tender concern, unable to summon his voice. He could still see Kahlan crying out for him as she tried to fight off the hands of those men. As long as he lived he would be haunted by that sight. At that moment he wanted more than anything to spare her the pain of seeing him executed and of her being in the cruel clutches of the Order. He wanted to go back, to do something, to save her from such inhuman abuse. He couldn’t bear her world ending as she saw him murdered like that.

But it wasn’t real. He couldn’t have been there like that. Such a thing was impossible. He could only have imagined it.

Relief began to seep into him.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t. Kahlan wasn’t in the hands of the Order. She wasn’t seeing him being executed. It was just a cruel trick by the witch woman. Just another of her illusions.

Except it had been real for all those people in Galea as well as untold other places where the Order had been. Even if it hadn’t been real for Richard, it had been all too real for them. That was what it had been like.

Their worlds had ended in just that manner. He knew exactly what they had suffered. He knew exactly what it felt like.

How many countless, unknown, unnamed, good people had lost their chance at life in just that way, all for the otherworldly ambitions of those from the Old World?

A new dread suddenly overwhelmed him. He had the gift. He was a war wizard. For most of those with the gift, it manifested itself in one specific area. But being a war wizard meant that he had elements of all the various aspects of the gift, and one aspect of magic was prophecy. What if what he had seen was really a prophecy? What if that was what was to happen? What if what he had seen was really a vision of the future?

But he didn’t believe that the future was fixed. While some things, such as death, were inevitable, that didn’t mean that everything was fixed or that one couldn’t work toward worthy goals in life, couldn’t avert disasters, couldn’t alter the course of events. If it was a prophecy, it only meant that he had seen what was possible. It didn’t mean that he couldn’t try to stop it from happening.

After all, Shota’s prophecies never seemed to come out the way she presented them. And anyway, what he had seen, what he had just experienced, was most likely Shota’s doing.

Richard squeezed Nicci’s hand in silent appreciation. Her other hand on his shoulder returned the squeeze. Her concern melted a little under the warmth of a small smile of relief at seeing him recovering his wits.

Richard rose up before Shota in a way that by all rights should have made her take a step back. She stood her ground.

“How dare you do that to me? How dare you send me to that place?”

“I did not send you anywhere, Richard. Your own mind took you where it would. I did nothing but release the thoughts you had suppressed. I spared you what would have otherwise come out in nightmares.”

“I don’t remember my dreams.”

Shota nodded as she studied his eyes. “This one you would have remembered. It would have been far worse than what you have just suffered. It is better to face such visions when you can confront them for what they are, and grasp what truth they contain.”

Richard could feel the blood heating his face. “Is that what you meant, before, when you said that if I married Kahlan she would bear a monster? Is that the real meaning hidden in your convoluted prophecy?”

Shota showed no emotion. “It means what it means.”

Richard could still hear the words of the Imperial Order soldier telling him what he was going to do to Kahlan, telling him how she was going to be treated, telling him how she would give birth to children who would grow up to spit on the graves of those who had wanted to live their own lives for themselves, those who believed in everything he held dear.

Richard abruptly lunged for Shota and in an instant had her by the throat. The collision and his fierce determination to take her down carried them both over the short wall and into the fountain. With Richard on top, grappling her, their momentum drove them both under the water.

Richard hauled her up by her throat. “Is that what you meant!”

Water streamed from her face. She coughed it out.

He shook her. “Is that what you meant!”

Richard blinked. He was standing. He was dry. Shota stood before him. She was dry. His hands were still at his sides.

“Get a hold of yourself, Richard.” Shota arched an eyebrow. “You are still partly in your dreams.”

Richard looked around. It was true. He wasn’t wet and neither was Shota. Not one wavy auburn hair on her head was out of place. Nicci’s brow twitched when he glanced over at her. She looked puzzled by what could be the cause of his confusion. It must be true; he was still dreaming. It really was just a dream, just like his execution, just like seeing Kahlan. He’d only imagined that he had Shota by the throat.

But he wanted to.

“Was that what you meant when you said that Kahlan would bear a monster child?” Richard asked, a little more quietly, but with no less menace.

“I don’t know who this Kahlan is.”

Richard’s jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth, thinking of having her by the throat for real. “Answer the question! Is it?”

Shota lifted a cautionary finger. “Believe me, Richard, you really don’t want a witch angry with you.”

“And you don’t want me angry with you, so answer me. Is that what you meant?”

She smoothed the sleeves of her dress as she chose her words carefully. “In the first place, I have revealed to you at different times, in the various things that I’ve told you, what I see of the flow of events in time. I don’t remember this woman, Kahlan, nor do I remember anything having to do with her. So, I don’t know what event or prediction you are talking about, as I don’t remember it either.”

Shota’s face took on the kind of darkly dangerous look that reminded him that he was talking to a witch woman whose very name inspired terrified trembling among most of the people of the Midlands. “But you are venturing into serious matters of grave peril in that flow of events forward in time.” Her brow drew down in displeasure. “What, precisely, do you mean about a . . . monster child?”

Richard turned to gaze into the still waters of the fountain as he thought about the terrible things he’d seen. He couldn’t bear to say it aloud. Couldn’t bear to say it in front of others, to even suggest aloud that Shota had once made a prediction that he feared might actually mean that Kahlan would conceive a child fathered by the monsters of the Imperial Order. It felt to him as if saying it out loud might somehow make it true. It was so painful an idea that he pushed the whole notion aside, and decided instead to ask another question.

He turned back to her. “What does it mean that I couldn’t call my gift through anger?”

Shota sighed heavily. “Richard, you must understand something. I did not give you a vision. I did nothing more than help you to release hidden thoughts that were your own. I did not give you a dream of my making, nor did I plant any ideas in your mind. I merely made you aware of your own intellection. I can’t tell you anything about what you saw because I don’t know what you saw.”

“Then why would you—”

“I only know that you are the one who must stop the Order. I helped you bring your own suppressed thoughts to the surface in order to help you to better understand.”

“Understand what?”

“What you must understand. I no more know what that is than I know what you saw within your own mind that so upset you. You might say that I am merely the messenger. I have not read the message.”

“But you made me see things that—”

“No, I did not. I opened the curtain for you, Richard. I did not make the rain you saw out of that window. You are trying to blame me for the rain, instead of appreciating the fact that I did nothing but open the curtain so that you could see it with your own eyes.”

Richard glanced over at Nicci. She said nothing. He looked up the steps at his grandfather standing with his hands loosely clasped, silently watching. Zedd had always taught him to deal with the reality of the way the world was, taught him not to rail at what some believed was the invisible hand of fate controlling and conjuring events. Was he doing that to Shota? Was he trying to blame her for revealing things that he hadn’t seen, or hadn’t been willing to see?

“I’m sorry, Shota,” he said in a quieter voice. “You’re right. You did indeed show me the rain. I don’t have a clue as to what to do about it, but I saw it. I shouldn’t blame you for what others are doing. I’m sorry.”

Shota smiled in a small way. “That is part of the reason why you are the one, Richard—the only one who can stop the madness. You are willing to see the truth. That is why I brought Jebra with such terrible accounts of what is happening at the hands of the Order. You need to know the truth of it.”

Richard nodded, only feeling worse, feeling even more despairing over not having any idea of how to do what she thought he could.

He met Shota’s unflinching gaze. “You’ve made a great effort to bring Jebra here. You’ve come a very long way. Your future, your very life, depends on this no less than does my life or the lives of all free people, all those with the gift. If the Order wins we all die, including you.

“Isn’t there anything you can tell me that will help me to do something to stop this madness? I could use any help you can give me. Isn’t there anything you can tell me?”

She stared at him a moment before speaking, stared as if her mind were in other places. “Whenever I bring you information,” she said at last, “it angers you—as if I were the one creating what is, rather than merely reporting it.”

“We’re all facing slavery, torture, and death, and you’re suddenly miffed about getting your feelings hurt?”

In spite of herself, Shota smiled at his characterization. “You think that I simply pluck revelations out of the air, as if I were picking a pear.”

The smile faded as her gaze focused off into the distance. “You could not begin to understand the personal cost of bringing forth such shrouded knowledge. I do not wish to undertake such a formidable task if that dearly gained knowledge is going to do nothing but feed a grudge.”

Richard shoved his hands in his back pockets. “All right, I get your point. If you’re going to make such an effort, you expect me to consider it earnestly. We all have everything at stake, Shota. I’d value whatever you can tell me.”

While Richard did honestly believe that Shota was telling him what she saw of the flow of events in time, he didn’t believe that the meaning of such tellings was necessarily straightforward or what Shota believed they meant. Still, she had always offered him information that in some way had been central to the issues at hand—Chainfire being only the latest. While her revelation of the word Chainfire had been without an explanation that would help him, that clue alone had sustained his effort to find the answer to what had happened to Kahlan. Without that single word he would never have recognized that particular book as the one holding the key to discovering the truth.

Shota took a deep breath, finally letting it out in resignation. She leaned toward him the slightest bit, as if to emphasize how serious she was.

“It is for your ears alone.”