Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 34

Nicci heard a soft knock at the door. Zedd looked up but he didn’t stand. Cara, hands clasped behind her back, gazing out the window, looked back over her shoulder. Nicci, standing closest to the door, pulled it open. The small flame in the lamp on the table was not up to the task of chasing the gloom from the room, but it cast what warm light it could across the face of the tall prophet.

“What’s going on?” Nathan asked in his deep voice. He cast a suspicious look around at those in the room. “Rikka wouldn’t say much other than that you and Cara were back and Zedd wanted to see me immediately.”

“That’s right,” Zedd said. “Come in, please.”

Nathan glanced around the somber room as he strode in. “Where’s Richard?”

Nicci swallowed. “He didn’t make it back with us.”

“Didn’t make it back?” He paused to take in the bleak look on Nicci’s face. “Dear spirits . . .”

Zedd, sitting at Jebra’s side at the bed, didn’t look up. Jebra was unconscious. When they tried to close her eyes her lids would pop open again. They finally quit trying and let her stare up at the ceiling.

Zedd had already tended to her broken leg as best he could. She was very fortunate that Cara was not only quick but strong, and that she had been able to catch Jebra’s ankle just in time as her dead weight had toppled outward from the balcony. Still, her momentum had whipped the seer down around and under the balcony, where her leg smacked a support strut that broke her leg. Nicci suspected that the woman had been unconscious the moment she started falling.

It had been a bad break. Zedd had set to work immediately on her injury, but because of the unusual state Jebra was in he had not been able to heal the break. All he had been able to do was set it, splint it, and add enough of his gift to help it begin to mend. When she finally awoke he would be able to finish the healing. If she awoke. Nicci had her doubts.

Nicci knew that Jebra’s broken leg was the least of the woman’s problems. Despite everything they had tried, they had been unable to arouse her from her catatonic state. Zedd had tried. Nicci had tried. She had even tried dangerous conjuring involving Subtractive Magic. Zedd had been against it at first, but when Nicci confronted him with the stark nature of their choices he grudgingly agreed.

Unfortunately, even that hadn’t helped. Jebra’s mind was locked away from them. Whatever magic the witch woman had used on her was something they were unable to break. Whatever had been done didn’t appear to Nicci to be intended to be reversible. If they knew its nature perhaps they might stand a chance of breaking the spell, but they didn’t know its makeup.

Nathan bent and touched two fingers to the unconscious woman’s temple. He straightened and helplessly shook his head at Zedd’s questioning expression.

Nicci had never seen anything like it. Zedd, on the other hand, had in the beginning rubbed his chin as he brooded. He’d muttered that there was something oddly familiar about its nature. What, he couldn’t say. Despite how insistent Nicci had been, and despite his own desperate desire to do something, Zedd was at his wits’ end that he could not pinpoint why he felt that he had seen some aspect of such conjuring before.

He was, after all, he had reminded them, the First Wizard, and he had spent a good portion of his life studying such things. He believed that he should be able to identify what kind of web had been spun around the woman. Nicci knew that if Jebra had been conscious it would have made the job a great deal easier, but Zedd wasn’t willing to use an excuse for his own failure to identify what the conjuring involved.

Nicci heard a commotion out in the hallway. Nathan stuck his head out the doorway for a look.

“What is it?” a voice in the distance called out. It was Ann, rushing up the hall, escorted by Rikka. She finally reached the door. “What’s going on?”

As she came into the room, laboring to catch her breath, Nathan laid a big hand on her shoulder. “Something has happened to Richard.”

Strands of gray hair stuck out from the loose bun at the back of her head like a plume of ruffled feathers. Her calculating gaze swept over those in the room, assessing the degree of seriousness she saw in each of them. It was the kind of swift, lean evaluation Nicci associated with Ann.

As the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light, she had always had a commanding presence that could strike fear into just about anyone, from high-ranking Sister to stableboys. Even though Nicci was no longer a Sister of the Light, her guard always went up whenever the former prelate came into the room. The woman’s short stature in no way diminished the air of looming menace that seemed to surround her.

Ann turned an intent look up at Nathan. “What happened? Is the boy hurt—”

“I don’t know, yet,” Nathan said, holding up a hand to forestall a flood of questions before they could landslide in on him. “Let the woman explain.”

“All we know for sure,” Nicci said when Ann turned a hot glare on her, “is that while we were traveling in the sliph back here from the People’s Palace, the beast attacked us. Cara and I tried to help Richard fight it off, then we were separated from him. As soon as that happened I felt some kind of extrinsic magic. Next thing we knew, Cara and I were back at the Keep. Richard wasn’t with us. We have no idea what happened to him after he was touched by the strange power I sensed. We never saw the beast again, either.

“After we got back here, Jebra was attacked by a web that I could discern had been cast by the same person who cast the power that touched Richard in the sliph. Because Zedd recognized its unique composition, we know now that it was power conjured by a witch woman.”

“And my Agiel doesn’t work,” Cara said, holding the weapon up. “Our bond to Lord Rahl is broken. We can no longer sense him.”

“Dear Creator,” Ann whispered as her gaze dropped away.

Zedd gestured to the woman lying in the bed before him. “Whatever power it is that this witch woman cast, it left Jebra unconscious. We can’t rouse her. Although I know that it was a witch woman’s spell that somehow took her, I can’t figure out how a witch woman could do such a thing—cast such webs from afar. From my experience they not only keep to themselves but can’t accomplish things of this nature. It’s beyond their ability.”

“Are you are certain that it was a witch woman?” Ann asked.

Zedd took a deep breath as he considered the question seriously. “I’ve had dealings with a witch woman before. Once a cat has had its claws in you, you don’t soon forget what it feels like. I don’t know the specific person who did this, but I know the feel of this. It was a witch woman.”

Nicci folded her arms. “I think we have a pretty good idea who the witch woman was: Six. And don’t forget, just because you recognize the signature of a witch woman’s power, that doesn’t mean that the same limits necessarily apply to the individual who did this. After all, for someone to recognize your power as that of a wizard doesn’t mean that they know your limits or would know your real potential.”

“True enough,” Zedd admitted with a sigh.

Nathan waved off the topic of witch women. “Did Jebra say anything else about the vision she had? Anything at all?”

Zedd shared a look with Nicci. “Well, not until this spell took her. Just before she went into this state, we heard her say, ‘Stars. Stars fallen to ground. Stars among the grass.’ ”

“Stars . . .” Nathan repeated as he paced in the small room, holding an elbow with one hand and tapping the tips of the fingers of the other to his chin. He finally turned toward Zedd. “I’m afraid that such a prophecy means nothing to me. It’s probable that she only spoke a fragment aloud. In that case, it could easily be that there isn’t enough for me to go on.”

Nicci’s heart sank. She had been hoping that the prophet would be able to decipher the seer’s prophecy.

Ann scratched the side of her nose, searching for words. “So it is possible, then, that we . . .” She cleared her throat. “. . . that we have lost Richard. That this witch woman killed him.”

Cara took an aggressive step forward. “Lord Rahl is not dead!”

In the echoing silence, Zedd rose from the chair. He cast Cara a cautionary glance before addressing Ann. “I don’t think so, either.”

Ann looked from Cara’s heated expression to Zedd. “I know why she doesn’t believe it is so. Why don’t you?”

He gestured down at Jebra. “Because of this woman lying here in this bed.”

Ann frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the first vision Jebra has had in several years is about Richard.”

“That’s right,” Nicci put in. “Her vision was about what was going to happen to him. She told me—specifically—not to let him be alone, not for an instant.”

Ann arched an eyebrow. “And yet you did.”

Nicci ignored the affront. “Yes. Not deliberately, but because of the beast. The beast was an unforeseeable factor, a random event.”

When Ann only looked more perplexed, Zedd explained. “We believe that it was this witch woman’s plan to touch Richard with her power. But the beast dropped in at just the wrong moment, spoiling up her carefully constructed plan.”

Ann’s frown deepened. “In what way?”

“The beast caused her to miss getting Richard, as she had planned,” Nicci said. “Because of the beast, she lost Richard in the sliph, just as we did. Now she has a problem. She has to find him.”

“So she did the same thing we did,” Zedd said. “She came here, or at least she sent her power here, to find out from the seer where he will be.”

“She was seeking prophecy?” Ann asked. “Witch women see things in the flow of time. Why would she need the seer?”

Zedd spread his hands. “Yes, they see things but, as I’m sure Nathan can explain better than I could, they can’t see exactly what they want to see, when they want to see it.”

Nathan was nodding his agreement. “There is a random element to prophecy. It comes when it comes, not when you wish it to come. Perhaps the wizards of ancient times knew the keys to using prophecy at will, but if they did, they did not pass such knowledge on. It is seldom that you can pick and choose with prophecy what events you want to see.”

Zedd lifted a finger, stressing his point. “Six probably saw, either through her ability or her conjuring having to do with the events, that Jebra had already had a vision revealing what would happen to Richard and where he would be next, so she simply stole into Jebra’s mind to steal the answer.”

“I think that’s why we can’t wake Jebra,” Nicci said. “I don’t think that Six wants anyone else to be able to get the information that she already got. While Jebra spoke only a few words aloud, I would bet that Six extracted all of it—the entire vision—from Jebra’s mind. I believe that Six then compelled Jebra to jump from that balcony to kill herself so that she couldn’t reveal her vision to anyone else. Failing that, the spell rendered Jebra unconscious—like suicide, it’s a whole lot easier than killing from afar, and just as good for her purpose.”

Nathan’s brow had drawn down as he listened. He rolled a hand as if turning over the event in his mind. “So you think that in her prophecy, Jebra was revealing that Richard is going to find stars that have fallen to the ground? That he will be at a place with stars among the grass? Like a place where meteorites are found?”

Zedd clasped his hands behind his back and nodded. “It rather seems that way.”

Nathan stared off as he considered, nodding to himself from time to time. Ann didn’t look so convinced.

“So you think that Richard is alive,” she asked, “and that this witch woman, Six, somehow spelled him?”

Nicci gave the former prelate a single, firm nod. “That’s the conclusion Zedd and I have reached.”

Ann leaned closer to her former charge. “For what purpose? I can fathom reasons for Six murdering Richard, but why would she want to get her hands on him?”

Nicci didn’t shy from the woman’s steady gaze. “Six usurped the witch woman who lived up here—Shota. Why? Well, what did Six take? Shota’s companion, Samuel,” she said in answer to her own question. “And Samuel has the Sword of Truth, the sword he once carried.”

Ann looked like she had just lost the thread of the story. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“What did Samuel use the sword for? What did he steal?” Nicci asked.

Ann’s eyes went wide. “One of the boxes of Orden.”

“From a Sister of the Dark,” Nicci said, “with the help of the Sword of Truth.”

Ann turned a flustered look on Zedd. “But why would this woman, Six, want Richard?”

Zedd’s gaze sank to the floor as he rubbed the tips of his fingers across the furrows of his brow. “To open the correct box of Orden, one has to have a very important book. I think you two, of all people, should be quite familiar with that particular volume.”

Nathan’s jaw fell open with realization.

“The Book of Counted Shadows,” Ann breathed.

Zedd nodded. “The only copy of that book now resides in Richard’s head. He burned the original after he had memorized it.”

“We have to find him first,” Ann said.

Zedd grunted derisively at the very suggestion, lifting his eyebrows in mock wonder, as if he could never have divined such an idea without her help.

“We have a more immediate problem,” Nicci said.

Cara, across the small room, waggled her Agiel. “Until we find Lord Rahl, there is no bond.”

“Without the bond,” Nicci said, “we are all at the mercy of the dream walker.”

The realization seemed to hit Ann like a clap of thunder.

“Something must be done immediately,” Zedd added. “The threat is dire and there is little time. If we don’t act, we could lose this war at any moment.”

“What are you getting at?” Nathan asked, suspiciously.

Zedd looked up at the scowling prophet. “We need you to become the Lord Rahl. We dare not risk our people being without the bond for another moment. You must then leave at once for the People’s Palace.”

Nathan stood silently, looking grim. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders. With his white hair brushing those shoulders he cut an imposing figure. It made Nicci sick at heart to think of anyone else taking Richard’s place as Lord Rahl.

The alternative, though, was to allow the dream walker to ravage their minds. She knew all too well what that was like. She knew how her bond to Richard had not merely saved her life, but shown her the joy of living. Her bond to Richard hadn’t been the formal acquiescence to the rule of the Lord Rahl, as it was with the people of D’Hara; rather, it had been a deeper commitment to Richard, the man. The man she had loved from almost the first moment she had seen the spark of life in his gray eyes. Richard had shown her not just how to live again, but how to love.

She swallowed back the pain of it, of knowing that she could never have him—worse, of knowing that his heart belonged to another, belonged to someone she didn’t even remember. It would be better if Nicci could remember this Kahlan, know that she was smart, loving, beautiful, because then she could be happy for Richard. It was hard to be happy for him when he loved a phantom.

“I understand,” Nathan said at last in a deep voice.

Ann looked like she had close to a thousand objections, one to match each year of the prophet’s age, but she managed to bottle them up under the cork of her realization of the consequences of not having a Lord Rahl.

“The D’Haran army is not far from the palace,” Nathan said. “They will soon have to face Jagang’s horde. I think you’re right that I would best help our cause if I were there.”

Nicci hadn’t told any of them yet. She cleared her throat to make sure that her voice would not fail her. “Richard spoke to the army. That’s why he went to D’Hara. He told them that they could not fight the Imperial Order and hope to win.”

Ann’s face went crimson. “So what does he expect them to do! If not fight the army of the Order, then . . . what?”

“Lay waste to the Old World,” Nicci said with grim resolve.

Zedd, Nathan, and Ann stared silently at her.

“He told them to do what?” Zedd asked incredulously.

“It’s the only way,” Nicci said. “We have no hope of destroying their army. Richard intends the D’Haran army to instead destroy their will to fight. It’s the only chance we have.”

“Dear spirits,” Zedd whispered as he turned away. He went to the window and stood staring out into the night. He finally turned back, his eyes brimming with tears.

“I have been in his position. I have had to direct our side to do things that had to be done.” He shook his head again. “The poor boy. I’m afraid he’s right. I should have seen it myself. I guess I didn’t want to. Sometimes, it takes lonely courage to do what must be done.”

Cara stepped forward and went to one knee before Nathan. She bowed her head.

“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.”

Zedd dropped to one knee, as did Rikka. Nicci did the same. Finally, reluctantly, Ann followed.

“Master Rahl guide us,” they all said in unison. “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.”

Nathan stood tall and silent, hands clasped, looking down at the bowed heads, looking very much like the Lord Rahl. When they had finished the devotion, they all stood, somewhat disquieted by the unspoken significance of what they had just done, of what it meant, that Richard was no longer the Lord Rahl.

“It is done,” Cara said. She tested the feel of her slender red weapon in her fingers, gazing at it with liquid blue eyes. “My Agiel is alive again.” She smiled in a distant, sad way. “The link of the bond is whole once more. All D’Harans will recognize it and know that we again have a Lord Rahl.”

Nathan let out a deep breath. “At least we have that on our side.”

“Nathan,” Zedd said to the prophet, “you must get to D’Hara at once. There are Imperial Order troops at the larger passes east of here into D’Hara, still trying to find a way in the back door. I will show you some ways around them.

“It would be best to have a Lord Rahl, the guardian of the bond, standing with those now standing alone at the palace.”

“What about Jagang’s army?” Ann asked, looking concerned after Nathan nodded his agreement. “What do you think Jagang will do once he discovers that the D’Haran army has evaporated right before he could close his fist around them?”

Zedd shrugged. “He will lay siege to the People’s Palace. Verna and some of her Sisters will be there to help defend the place, but the People’s Palace is built in the form of a spell that amplifies the power of a Rahl and suppresses it in others. Verna and the Sisters will not be able to wield the full force of their ability. Right now Nathan is the only Rahl we have to help defend the palace and its people.”

“That’s why we need Nathan to leave at once for the palace,” Nicci said.

“Tonight,” Zedd added.

Nathan’s gaze moved from Zedd’s eyes to Nicci’s. “I understand. I will do my best. Let us hope that Richard will one day be able to take his place back from me.”

At that moment, his words lifted at least a little of the weight from Nicci’s heart.

“We will be working on that,” Zedd assured him.

“You can count on it,” Nicci said.

Cara pointed her Agiel at the prophet. “And you had better not get any crazy notion in your head that you will be keeping the post. It belongs to Lord Rahl.”

Nathan arched an eyebrow. “I am the Lord Rahl, now.”

Cara made a sour face. “You know what I mean.”

Nathan smiled a slow smile.

Ann jabbed Nathan in the ribs with a finger. “And don’t you get any grand ideas, Lord Rahl. I’m going with you to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

Nathan shrugged. “I guess that the Lord Rahl could use an attendant. You’ll do.”