Soul of the Fire

Chapter 48

Zedd grunted with the weight as he slid the saddle off Spider. He was getting too old for this sort of thing, he decided. He smiled at the irony. He flopped the saddle down over a log to keep it off the ground. Spider happily surrendered the rest of the tack, which Zedd laid over the top of the saddle. He covered it all with the saddle blanket.

The log with the gear lay against the trunk of an old spruce, so it was out of the weather, to an extent, anyway. He stacked pine boughs over the tack, leaning them, up against the spruce’s trunk, interlocking them, to keep the gear dry as best he could. The drizzle would soon turn to rain, he had no doubt.

Spider, free of duty, cropped grass nearby, but kept an eye and an ear to him. It had been a hard four-day ride across the Drun River and up into the mountains. Harder on him than on the horse; the horse wasn’t old. Zedd, seeing that Spider was happily engaged, turned to his own business.

A small stand of a half-dozen spruce screened the view of his destination. He walked quickly along the quiet shore to skirt the trees. Once beyond them, he stepped onto a thumb of rock jutting out, almost as if it were set there as a podium.

Hands on hips, Zedd looked out over the lake.

It was a beguiling spot. Behind him, the thick forest stopped well short of the lake, as if afraid to approach too close, leaving the lone level and gentle access, but for the few brave spruce, empty of trees. The peninsula was covered here and there with brush but mostly it held thick tufts of grasses. Small blue and pink wildflowers cavorted among the grass.

Sheer rock walls rose up around the rest of the deep mountain lake. If the isolated and remote stretch of water had a name, he didn’t know it. There was no practical way to reach it but this one shore.

Across and to the left, the jagged mountains, with a sloping field in their lap, rose up ever higher into the distance, providing little opportunity for much more than scraggly trees, here and there, to set down tenacious roots. To the right, dark stone cliffs obscured the view beyond, but he knew that past them were more mountains yet.

On the other side of the lake, a waterfall cascaded over the edge of a prominent jutting wall of rock. Before him, the calm lake reflected the tranquil scene.

The icy waters tumbling into the lake came from the highlands, from the vast lake higher up in the bleak wasteland, where the warier birds alone watched. These were part of the headwaters of the Dammar River, which in turn flowed into the Drun. This cold water, coming from a place of death, would meander down into the Nareef Valley below, and give life.

Behind the waterfall were the Ovens.

In the rock wall behind that tumbling water, three thousand years before, through a gateway to the underworld, the chimes had once been entombed.

And now they were free.

There they awaited their soul.

At the very thought, Zedd could feel gooseflesh, like a thousand spiders, on his legs.

He tried again, as he had countless times, to call his gift of magic. He tried his best to convince himself that this time it would come. He spread his arms, lifting them, palms up, toward the sky, as he labored to cajole forth magic.

The placid lake saw no magic from him. The mountains waited, and were silent in his failure.

Zedd, feeling very alone, very old, let out a chesty sigh. He had imagined it a thousand different ways.

But he had never imagined this would be how he died.

This was why he couldn’t let Richard know it was the chimes themselves that were loose. Richard would not have accepted what Zedd intended, what Zedd knew he must do.

Turning his mind away from the smothering melancholy, he surveyed the lake. He had to keep his mind on what he was doing, or he could easily fail and his sacrifice would be for naught. If he was going to do this, he intended to do it right. There was satisfaction to be derived in a job well done, even a job such as this one.

As he studied the scene with an experienced eye, what at first looked to be peaceful waters now revealed more. The water was alive with things unseen, moving in lurking currents, seething with dark intent.

The water was alive with the chimes of death.

Zedd looked back to the waterfall. He could make out, just beyond it, the dark maw of the cave. He had to get there, across the water, across the water churning with chimes.

“Sentrosi!” Zedd opened his arms. “I have come to freely offer the soul you seek! My soul! What is mine, I surrender to you!”

Flames boiled out around the column of water, swallowing it in great gouts of fire that roared forth, rolling and tumbling out of the place called the Ovens. The fire turned the surface of the lake orange with reflections of its heat. For a moment, the waterfall was rendered steam. Inky black smoke billowed up with the white steam tangling together in a sinister pillar that marked the maw of death.

A clear chime rang out, reverberating through the mountains.

Sentrosi had answered.

The answer was yes.

“Reechani!” he called to the water before him. “Vasi!” he called to the air about him. “Let me pass, for I have come to surrender my soul to you all.”

The water swirled and turned, as if schooling fish gathered at the shore before him. More, though, the water itself seemed alive, eager, hungry. Zedd guessed it was.

The air felt thick around him, pressing in, urging him forward.

The water rose up and curled in a gesturing motion toward the Ovens. The air buzzed with chimes, countless separate bells that together created one crystalline sound. The air smelled as if it were burnt.

Since it had already started to rain, Zedd didn’t see that it really mattered if he got any wetter. He stepped out into the water.

Rather than having the swim he expected, he found the surface solid enough to hold him, almost like ice, except it moved. Ripples radiated out from his footstep, touching and retreating, as if it were no more than a mere puddle he splashed through. Each step he took found support.

It was the support of the chimes, of Reechani, bearing him to his doom, to their queen. Vasi, the chimes of the air, escorted him, a robe of death all around.

Zedd could feel the touch of the underworld in the air. He could feel the damp death at his feet. He knew each step might be his last.

He remembered Juni, the Mud People hunter, who had drowned. Zedd wondered if Juni had felt the peace he sought, the peace he had been offered, before he died.

Knowing the purpose of the chimes, Zedd strongly suspected that, after tempting with tantalizing tranquility and before they extracted the life, they delivered their terror.

Before he reached the waterfall, something unseen pierced the watery column. Intangible hands split the waterfall in two, leaving an opening in the middle where he might pass into the cave beyond. Sentrosi, the fire, preferred him reasonably dry, he supposed.

Stepping onto the opening in the rock, before going through into the cave, he heard Spider let out a snort of censure. Zedd turned.

The horse stood at the bank, feet spread, muscles tense. Her ears were pinned back, her eyes aglare. Her tail whipped from side to side, slapping her flanks.

“It’s all right, Spider,” Zedd called back to the agitated animal. “I give you your freedom.” Zedd smiled. “If I don’t come back . . . enjoy your life, my friend. Enjoy your life.”

Spider released a drawn-out angry squeal. Zedd gave her a last wave, and the squeal became a deep bellow.

Zedd turned and stepped beyond the tumbling water, into the darkness. The curtain of the waterfall closed behind him.

He didn’t hesitate. He intended to give the chimes what they wanted: a soul. If he could do it in a way that would preserve his life in the process, he would, but without his magic he had little hope of accomplishing such a thing as he intended and at the same time remaining whole.

Being First Wizard, he had some knowledge of the problem at hand. The chimes needed a soul to stay in the world of life—that was the manner in which they had been conjured forth. More than that, they needed a specific soul: the one promised.

Beings from the underworld, and soulless beings at that, would have limitations to their understanding of the concept of what it would be to have a soul, or the nature of the soul they were promised. Naturally, there were certain intrinsic precepts that applied, but beyond that, the chimes were in what was to them an alien world. His only hope was that ignorance.

Since Zedd was so closely related to Richard, and Richard’s life had been passed down through Zedd, their souls shared ethereal bonds and connections; just as in body, their souls were related. In much the way they shared some things, the shape of their mouth, for instance, their souls shared characteristics.

Even so, each of them was a unique individual, and therein lay the danger.

His hope was that the chimes would mistake his as the soul they needed, take his as the soul they needed, and, it ultimately being the wrong one, choke on it. So to speak.

It was Zedd’s only hope. He knew no other way to stop the chimes. With each passing day the threat to the world of life grew more grave. Every day people died. Every day magic grew weaker.

As much as he wished to live, he could think of no other way but to forfeit his life to stop the chimes, now, before it was too late.

When they opened themselves to the soul they were pledged, and they were thus vulnerable, he hoped his soul would ruin the flow of the spell through which they entered this world.

Given that he was a wizard, it was no wild hope; it was, in fact, a reasoned approach. Dubious, but reasoned.

Zedd knew that at the least, such a thing as he planned would disrupt the spell to some extent—rather like shooting an arrow at an animal, meant to kill, but if off target, wounding at least.

What he didn’t know was what it would do to him. Zedd had no delusions, though. He reasonably expected that what he did, if it didn’t strip his soul from him and in so doing kill him, would anger the chimes and they would extract their vengeance.

Zedd smiled. The balance to it was that he would at last again see his beloved Erilyn, in the spirit world, where he knew her soul waited for him.

Inside, the heat was oppressive.

The walls were slowly rolling, tumbling, turning, twisting, liquid fire.

He was in the beast.

In the center of the pulsing cave, Sentrosi, the queen of fire, turned her lethal gaze on him. Tongues of flame tasted the air around him. She smiled—a whorl of yellow flame.

One last lime, Zedd made a futile attempt to call his magic.

Sentrosi rushed toward him with frightening speed, frightening need.

Zedd felt searing pain through every nerve as unimaginable agony seized his very soul.

The world ignited. His scream exploded as a deafening chime.

Richard cried out. The pain of the ripping, ringing chime felt as if it splintered his skull.

He was only dimly aware of things around him as he tumbled back over the flanks of his horse. The pain of crashing to the ground was a pleasant diversion from the overpowering toll overwhelming his control and driving his scream.

He held his head as he curled into a ball in the road, crying uncontrollably with the hurt.

The world was fiery agony.

All around, people leaped from horses, shrieking orders. Richard could only perceive them as blurry shapes darting about. He couldn’t comprehend the words. He couldn’t recognize anyone.

He couldn’t understand anything but the pain. He could do nothing more than maintain his thread of connection to consciousness, to life, as he struggled against the merciless torrent of agony.

That he had passed the test of pain, lived through it, as must all who would be wizards, was the only thing that kept him alive. Without the lessons learned, he would already be dead.

He was alone in a private inferno.

He didn’t know how long he could maintain his hold on life.

Everything seemed to have gone crazy at once. Beata tore across the grassy ground, running for all she was worth. Terror rampaged through her.

Turner’s scream had stopped. It had been horrifying while it lasted, but it had only lasted seconds.

“Stop!” Beata shrieked with all the power in her lungs. “Stop! Are you crazy? Stop!”

The air still reverberated with the sound of the Dominie Dirtch. The low-pitched knell lifted dust from the grass, so that it looked like the ground all around was smoking. It trembled and rolled dirt into little balls. It toppled a little lone tree the last squad had planted.

It made the whole world vibrate with a ghastly drone.

Tears streamed down Beata’s cheeks as she raced across the field, shrieking for them to stop ringing the bell.

Turner had been out front, scouting on regular patrol to make sure the area before the Dominie Dirtch was clear.

His scream had ended mere seconds after the Dominie Dirtch had been rung, but its pain and horror still echoed inside her head. It was a cry she knew she would never be able to forget as long as she lived.

“Stop!” she yelled as she snatched the railing to spin herself around onto the stairs. “Stop!” she cried again as she raced up the steps.

Beata burst onto the platform, fists raised, ready to pummel the fool who’d rung the Dominie Dirtch.

Beata halted, panting madly, looking about. Emmeline stood frozen in wide-eyed shock. Bryce, too, seemed out of his senses. He just stared at her in frozen panic.

The long striker, used to ring the Dominie Dirtch, still stood in its holder. Neither of the two up on the platform was even near it. Neither had used the wooden striker to unleash the deadly weapon.

“What did you do!” she screamed at them. “What did you do to ring it! Have you gone mad!” She glanced over her shoulder to the bony pile of gore that had moments before been Turner.

Beata thrust out her arm, pointing. “You killed him! Why would you do it? What’s wrong with you?”

Emmeline slowly shook her head. “I’ve not moved a step from this spot.”

Bryce was beginning to tremble. “Me neither. Sergeant, we never rang the thing. I swear. We weren’t even near it. Neither of us was near it. We didn’t do it.”

In the silence as she stared at them, Beata realized she heard distant screams. She looked off across the plains, to the next Dominie Dutch. She could just make out people over there running around as if the world had gone insane.

She spun and peered in the opposite direction. It was the same: people screaming, running around. Beata shielded her eyes from the sun and squinted into the distance. There were the remains of two soldiers out in front of their weapon.

Estelle Ruffin and Corporal Marie Fauvel reached what was left of Turner. Estelle, holding fistfuls of her hair, started screaming. Marie turned and started retching.

It was the way she was trained. It was the way things were done. They said it had been done that way for millennia.

Each squad, from each Dominie Dirtch, sent a patrol out at the same time to scout the area. That way, if there was anything or anyone sneaking around out there, it couldn’t simply evade one soldier and hide elsewhere.

It wasn’t just hers. Every Dominie Dirtch down the line had rung, seemingly of its own accord.

Kahlan clutched at Richard’s shut. He was still out of his senses with pain. She couldn’t get him out of the ball he had rolled into. She didn’t know what exactly was going on, but she feared she knew.

He was obviously in mortal danger of some sort.

She’d heard him cry out. She saw him tumble off his horse and hit the ground. She just didn’t know why.

Her first thought was that it was an arrow. She had been terrified it was an arrow from an assassin and it had killed him. But she could see no blood. Her emotions walled off, she had searched for blood, but on her rapid initial inspection had found none.

Kahlan glanced up as a thousand D’Haran soldiers spread out around them. The first instant, when Richard screamed and fell from his horse, without orders from her, they had gone into action. Swords cleared scabbards in a blink. Axes came off belt hangers into ready fists. Lances were leveled.

In the perimeter around them, men had flipped a leg over their horses’ necks and leaped to the ground, ready to fight, weapons already to hand. Other men, closing ranks, forming the next circle of protection, turned their horses outward, ready to charge. Still more, the outer fringe of crack troops, had rushed off to find the assailants and clear the area of any enemy.

Kahlan had been around armies her entire life, and knew about fighting troops. She knew by the way they reacted that these men were as good as they came. She hadn’t needed to issue any orders; they executed every defensive maneuver she would have expected, and did them faster than she could have shouted the commands.

Above her and Richard, the Baka Tau Mana blade masters formed a tight circle, swords out and at the ready. Whatever the attack was, arrow or dart or something else, Kahlan couldn’t imagine the people protecting them allowing another chance at their Lord Rahl. If nothing else, there were now too many men suddenly layered around them for an arrow to make it through.

Kahlan, somewhat stunned by the sudden confusion, felt a flutter of worry that Cara would be angry they let harm come to Richard. Kahlan, after all, had promised to let no harm come to him—as if a promise to Cara were required.

Du Chaillu pushed her way between her blade masters to squat down on the other side of Richard. She had a water-skin and cloth to dress a wound.

“Have you found the injury?”

“No,” Kahlan said as she picked around on him.

She pressed a hand to the side of Richard’s face. It reminded her of when he’d had the plague, out of his mind with fever and not knowing where he was. He couldn’t have been stricken with sickness, not the way he cried out and fell from his horse, but he did feel as if he was burning up with fever.

Du Chaillu dabbed a wet cloth against Richard’s face. Kahlan saw that Du Chaillu’s own face was creased in worry.

Kahlan continued her examination of Richard, trying to see if he had been hit by some sort of dart, or perhaps a bolt from a crossbow. He was trembling, almost in convulsions. She searched frantically, pulling him onto his side to check his back, trying to find what was hurting him. She concentrated on her job, and tried not to think of how worried she was, lest shock take her.

Du Chaillu stroked Richard’s face when Kahlan eased him onto his back, seeming to discount the need to look for a wound. The spirit woman bent forward, cooing softly in a chant with words Kahlan didn’t understand.

“I can’t find anything,” Kahlan said at last in exasperation.

“You won’t,” Du Chaillu answered, distantly.

“Why’s that?”

The Baka Tau Mana spirit woman murmured fond words to Richard. Even if Kahlan couldn’t understand their literal meaning, she understood the emotion behind them.

“It is not a wound of this world,” Du Chaillu said.

Kahlan glanced about at the soldiers ringing them. She put her hands protectively on Richard’s chest.

“What does that mean?”

Du Chaillu pushed Kahlan’s hands gently away.

“It is a wound of the spirit. The soul. Let me tend to him.”

Kahlan pressed her own hand tenderly to Richard’s face. “How do you know that? You don’t know that. How could you know?”

“I am a spirit woman. I recognize such things.”

“Just because—”

“Did you find a wound?”

Kahlan remained silent for a moment, reconsidering her own feelings. “Do you know what we can do to help him?”

“This is something beyond your ability to help.” Du Chaillu bowed her head of dark hair as she pressed her hands to Richard’s chest.

“Leave me to it,” Du Chaillu murmured, “or our husband will die.”

Kahlan sat back on her heels and watched as the Baka Tau Mana spirit woman, head bowed and hands on Richard, closed her eyes as if going into a trance of some sort. Words whispered forth, meant for herself perhaps, but not for others. She trembled. Her arms shook.

Du Chaillu’s face contorted in pain.

Suddenly, she fell back, breaking the connection. Kahlan caught her arm, lest she topple. “Are you all right?”

Du Chaillu nodded. “My power. It worked. It was back.”

Kahlan looked from the woman to Richard. He seemed calmer.

“What did you do? What happened?”

“Something was trying to take his spirit. I used my ability to annul such power and kept the hands of death from him.”

“Your power is back?” Kahlan was dubious. “But how could that be?”

Du Chaillu shook her head. “I don’t know. It returned when the Caharin cried out and fell from his horse. I knew because I could again feel my bond to him.”

“Maybe the chimes have fled back to the underworld.”

Again Du Chaillu shook her head. “Whatever it was, it is passing. My power fades again.” She stared off a moment. “It is again gone. It was only there long enough to help him.”

Du Chaillu issued quiet orders for her men to stand down, that it was over.

Kahlan wasn’t convinced. She glanced again to Richard. It did look like he was calming. His breathing was evening out.

His eyes abruptly opened. He squinted at the light.

Du Chaillu leaned over him and pressed the wet cloth to his forehead, dabbing off the sweat.

“You are all right, now, my husband,” she said.

“Du Chaillu,” he muttered, “how many times do I have to tell you, I’m not your husband. You are misinterpreting old laws.”

Du Chaillu smiled up at Kahlan. “See? He is better.”

“Thank the good spirits you were here, Du Chaillu,” Kahlan whispered.

“Tell him that when he again complains I should leave him.”

Kahlan couldn’t help smiling at Richard’s frustration with Du Chaillu and with her blessed relief that he was indeed better. Tears now suddenly tried to burst forth, but she banished them.

“Richard, are you all right? What happened? What made you fall from your horse?”

Richard tried to sit up but Kahlan and Du Chaillu both pushed him back down.

“Both your wives say to rest for a time,” Du Chaillu said.

Richard stopped trying to get up. His gray eyes turned to Kahlan. She clutched his arm, again silently thanking the good spirits.

“I’m not sure what happened,” he finally said. “It was like this sound—like a deafening bell—exploded in my head. The pain was like . . .” His face lost some of its color. “I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

He sat up, this time brushing their restraining hands aside. “I’m all right, now. Whatever it was, it’s gone. It has passed.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kahlan said.

“I am,” he said. He looked haunted. “It was like something tearing at my very soul.”

“It didn’t get it,” Du Chaillu said. “It tried, but it didn’t get it.”

She was dead serious. Kahlan believed her.

Hide twitching, the horse stood motionless, her hooves rooted to the grassy ground. Her instinct demanded she run. Ripples of panic quivered through her flesh, but she remained unmoving.

The man was beyond the falling water, in the dark hole.

She didn’t like holes. No horse did.

He had screamed. The ground had shaken. That had been a long time ago. She hadn’t moved since then. Now it was silent.

The horse knew, though, that her friend still lived.

She let out a long, low bellow.

He still lived, but he didn’t come out.

The horse was alone.

There was no worse thing for a horse than being alone.