Soul of the Fire

Chapter 8

“Have you found the evil spirit, yet?”

Kahlan looked back over her shoulder to see that it was Chandalen, carefully shuffling his way through the squawking throng of chickens. The muted light helped calm the flock in their confinement, if they did still raise quite the clamor. There were a few Reds and a sprinkling of other types, but most of the Mud People’s chickens were the striated Barred Rocks, a breed more docile than most. It was a good thing, too, or the simple pandemonium would be feathered chaos.

Kahlan nearly rolled her eyes to hear Chandalen muttering ludicrous apologies to the birds he urged out of his way with a foot. She might have quipped about his risible behavior were it not for the disquieting way he was dressed, with a long knife at his left hip, a short knife at the right, a full quiver over one shoulder, and a strung bow over the other.

More troubling, a coiled troga hung from a hook at his belt. A troga was a simple wire long enough to loop and drop over a man’s head. It was applied from behind, and then the wooden handles yanked apart. A man of Chandalen’s skill could easily and accurately place his troga at the joints in a man’s neck and silence him before he could make a sound.

When they had fought together against the Imperial Order army that had attacked the city of Ebinissia and butchered the innocent women and children there, Kahlan had more than once seen Chandalen decapitate enemy sentries and soldiers with his troga. He wouldn’t be carrying his troga to battle evil-spirit-chicken-monsters.

His fist held five spears. She guessed the razor-sharp spear points, with then—gummy, dark varnished look, were freshly coated with poison. Once so charged, they had to be handled with care.

In the buckskin pouch at his waist, he carried a carved bone box filled with dark paste made by chewing and then cooking bandu leaves to render it into ten-step poison. He also carried a few leaves of quassin doe, the antidote for ten-step poison, but as the poison’s name implied, haste with the quassin doe was essential.

“No,” Kahlan said, “the Bird Man has not yet found the chicken that is not a chicken. Why are you painted with mud, and so heavily armed? What’s going on?”

Chandalen lifted a foot over a chicken that didn’t seem to want to move. “My men, the ones on far patrol, have some trouble. I must go see to it.”

“Trouble?” Kahlan’s arms unfolded. “What sort of trouble?”

Chandalen shrugged. “I am not sure. The man who came for me said there are men with swords—”

“The Order? From the battle fought to the north? It could be some stragglers who got away, or combat scouts. Maybe we can get word to General Reibisch. His army might still be within striking distance, if we can get them to turn back in time.”

Chandalen lifted a hand to allay the alarm in her voice.

“No. You and I together fought the men of the Imperial Order. These are not Order troops, or scouts.

“My man does not think they are hostile, but they are reported to be heavily armed and they had a calm about them when approached, which says much. Since I can speak your language, as they do, my men would like my direction with such dangerous-looking people.”

Kahlan began to lift her arm to get Richard’s attention. “Richard and I had better go with you.”

“No. Many people wish to travel our land. We often meet strangers out on the plains. This is my duty. I will take care of it and keep them away from the village. Besides, you two should stay and enjoy your first day as a newly wedded couple.”

Without comment, Kahlan glowered at Richard, who was still sorting through the chickens.

Chandalen leaned past her and spoke to the Bird Man, standing a few steps away. “Honored elder, I must go see to my men. Outsiders approach.”

The Bird Man looked over at the man who was, in effect, his general charged with the defense of the Mud People. “Be careful. There are wicked spirits about.”

Chandalen nodded. Before he turned away, Kahlan caught his arm. “I don’t know about evil spirits, but there are other dangers about. Be careful? Richard is concerned about trouble. If I don’t understand his reasons, I trust his instincts.”

“You and I have fought together, Mother Confessor.” Chandalen winked. “You know I am too strong and too smart for trouble to catch me.”

As she watched Chandalen work his way through the milling mass of the chickens, Kahlan asked the Bird Man, “Have you seen anything . . . suspicious?”

“I do not yet see the chicken that is not a chicken,” the Bird Man said, “but I will keep looking until I find it.”

Kahlan tried to think of a polite way to ask if he was sober. She decided to ask another question, instead. “How can you tell the chicken is not a chicken?”

His sun-browned face creased with thought. “It is something I can sense.”

She decided there was no avoiding it. “Perhaps, since you were celebrating with drink, you only thought you sensed something?”

The creases in his face bent with a smile. “Perhaps the drink relaxed me so that I could see more clearly.”

“And are you still . . . relaxed?”

He folded his arms as he watched the teeming flock.

“I know what I saw.”

“How could you tell it was not a chicken?”

He stroked a finger down his nose as he considered her question. Kahlan waited, watching Richard urgently searching through the chickens as if looking for a lost pet.

“At celebrations, such as your wedding,” the Bird Man said after a time, “our men act out stories of our people. Women do not dance the stories, only men. But many stories have women in them. You have seen these stories?”

“Yes. I watched yesterday as the dancers told the story of the first Mud People: our ancestor mother and father.”

He smiled, as if the mention of that particular story touched his heart. It was a smile of private pride in his people.

“If you had arrived during that dance, and did not know anything of our people, would you have known the dancer dressed as the mother of our people was not a woman?”

Kahlan thought it over. The Mud People made elaborate costumes expressly for the dances; they were brought out for no other reason. For Mud People, seeing dancers in the special costumes was awe-inspiring. The men who dressed as women in the stories went to great lengths to make themselves look the part.

“I am not certain, but I think I would recognize they were not women.”

“How? What would give them away to you? Are you sure?”

“I don’t think I can explain it. Just something not quite right. I think, looking at them, I would know it was not a woman.”

His intent brown-eyed gaze turned to her for the first time. “And I know it is not a chicken.”

Kahlan entwined her fingers. “Maybe in the morning, after you have had a good sleep, you will see only a chicken when you look at a chicken?”

He merely smiled at her suspicion of his unpaired judgment. “You should go eat. Take your new husband. I will send someone for you when I find the chicken that is not a chicken.”

It did sound like a good idea, and she saw Richard heading in their direction. Kahlan clasped the Bird Man’s arm in mute appreciation.

It had taken the whole afternoon to gather the chickens. Both structures reserved for evil spirits and a third empty building were needed to house all the birds. Nearly the entire village had joined in the grave cause. It had been a lot of work.

The children had proven invaluable. Fired by responsibility in such an important village-wide effort, they had revealed all the places the chickens hid and roosted. The hunters gently gathered all the chickens, even though it was a Barred Rock the Bird Man had at first pointed out, the same striated breed Richard chased out when they went to see Zedd, the same breed Richard said had waited above the door while they’d been in to see Juni.

An extensive search had been conducted. They were confident every chicken was housed in one of the three buildings.

As he cut a straight line through the chickens, Richard smiled briefly in greeting to the Bird Man, but his eyes never joined in. As Richard’s gaze met hers, Kahlan slipped her fingers up his arm to snug around the bulge of muscle, glad to touch him, despite her exasperation.

“The Bird Man says he hasn’t yet found the chicken you want, but he will keep searching. And there are still the two other buildings full of them. He suggested we go get something to eat, and he will send someone when he sees your chicken.”

Richard started for the door. “He won’t find it here.”

“What do you mean? How do you know?”

“I have to go check the other two places.”

If she was only annoyed, Richard looked frantic at not finding what he wanted. Kahlan imagined that he must feel his word was at stake. Back near the door, Ann and Zedd waited, silently observing the search, letting Richard have the leeway to look all he wanted, to do as he thought necessary.

Richard paused, combing his fingers back through his thick hair. “Do either of you know of a book called Mountain’s Twin?”

Zedd held his chin as he peered up at the underside of the grass roof in earnest recollection. “Can’t say as I do, my boy.”

Ann, too, seemed to consider her mental inventory for a time. “No. I’ve not heard of it.”

Richard took a last look at the dusty room packed with chickens and muttered a curse under his breath.

Zedd scratched his ear, “What’s in this book, my boy?”

If Richard heard the question over the background of bird babel, he didn’t let on, and he didn’t answer. “I have to go look at the rest of the chickens.”

“I could ask Verna and Warren for you, if it’s important.” Ann drew a small black book from a pocket, drawing, too, Richard’s gaze. “Warren might know of it.”

Richard had told Kahlan that the book Ann carried and was now flashing at him, called a journey book, retained ancient magic. Journey books were paired; any message written in it appeared simultaneously in its twin. The Sisters of the Light used the little books to communicate when they went on long journeys, such as when they had come to the New World to take Richard back to the Palace of the Prophets.

Richard brightened at her suggestion. “Please, yes. It’s important.” He started for the door again. “I’ve got to go.”

“I’m going to check on the woman who lost the baby,” Zedd told Ann. “Help her get some rest.”

“Richard,” Kahlan called, “don’t you want to eat?”

As she was speaking, Richard gestured for her to come along, but was through the door and gone before she finished the question. Zedd followed his grandson out, shrugging his perplexity back at the two women. Kahlan growled and started after Richard.

“It must be like a fanciful children’s story come to life for you, for a Confessor, to marry for love,” Ann commented while remaining rooted to the spot where she had been for the last hour.

Kahlan turned back to the woman. “Well, yes, it is.”

Ann smiled up with sincere warmth. “I’m so happy for you, child, being able to have such a wonderful thing as a husband you dearly love come into your life.”

Kahlan’s fingers lingered on the lever of the closed door.

“It still leaves me utterly astonished, at times.”

“It must be disappointing when your new husband seems to have more important things to attend to than his new wife, when he seems to be ignoring you.” Ann pursed her lips. “Especially on your very first day being his wife.”

“Ah.” Kahlan released the lever and clasped both hands loosely behind her back. “So that’s why Zedd left. We are to have a woman-to-woman talk, are we?”

Ann chuckled. “Oh, but how I do love it when men I respect marry smart women. Nothing marks a man’s character better than his attraction to intelligence.”

Kahlan sighed as she leaned a shoulder against the wall. “I know Richard, and I know he’s not trying my patience deliberately . . . but, this is our first day married. I somehow thought it would be different than this . . . this chasing imaginary chicken monsters. I think he’s so worried about protecting me he’s inventing trouble.”

Ann’s tone turned sympathetic. “Richard loves you dearly. I know he is worried, though I don’t understand his reasoning. Richard bears great responsibility.”

The sympathy evaporated from her voice. “We all are called upon to make sacrifices where Richard is concerned.”

The woman pretended to watch the chickens.

“In this very village, before the snow came,” Kahlan said in a careful, level tone, “I gave Richard over to your Sisters of the Light in the hope you could save his life, even though I knew doing so could very well end my future with him. I had to make him think I had betrayed him in order to get him to go with the Sisters. Do you even have any idea . . .”

Kahlan made herself stop, lest she needlessly dredge up painful memories. Everything had turned out well. She and Richard were together at last. That was what mattered.

“I know,” Ann whispered. “You do not have to prove yourself to me, but since it was I who ordered him brought to us, perhaps I must prove myself to you.”

The woman had surely picked the peg Kahlan wanted pounded, but she kept her response civil, anyway. “What do you mean?”

“Those wizards of so very long ago created the Palace of the Prophets. I lived at the palace, under its unique spell, for over nine hundred years. There, five hundred years before it was to happen, Nathan the prophet foretold the birth of a war wizard.

“There, together, we worked on the books of prophecy down in the palace vaults, trying to understand this pebble yet to be dropped into the pond, trying to foresee the ripples this event might cause.”

Kahlan folded her arms. “From my experience, I would say prophecy may be far more occluding than revealing.”

Ann chortled. “I am acquainted with Sisters hundreds of years your senior who have yet to understand that much about prophecy.”

Her voice turned wistful as she went on. “I traveled to see Richard when he was newborn life, newborn soul, glimmering into the world. His mother was so astonished, so grateful, for the balance of such a magnificent gift come of such brutality as had been inflicted upon her by Darken Rahl. She was a remarkable woman, not to pass bitterness and resentment on to her child. She was so proud of Richard, so filled with dreams and hope for him.

“When Richard was that newborn life, suckling at his mother’s breast, Nathan and I took Richard’s stepfather to recover the Book of Counted Shadows so when Richard was grown he might have the knowledge to save himself from the beast who had raped his mother and given him life.”

Ann glanced up with a wry smile. “Prophecy, you see.”

“Richard told me.” Kahlan looked back at the Bird Man concentrating on the chickens pecking at the ground.

“Richard is the one come at last: a war wizard. The prophecies do not say if he will succeed, but he is the one born to the battle—the battle to keep the Grace intact, as it were. Such faith, though, sometimes requires great spiritual effort.”

“Why? If he is the one for whom you waited—the one you wanted?”

Ann cleared her throat and seemed to gather her thoughts. Kahlan thought she saw tears in the woman’s eyes.

“He destroyed the Palace of the Prophets. Because of Richard, Nathan escaped. Nathan is dangerous. He is the one, after all, who told you the names of the chimes. That perilously rash act could have brought us all to ruin.”

“It saved Richard’s life,” Kahlan pointed out. “If Nathan hadn’t told me the names of the chimes, Richard would be dead. Then your pebble would be at the bottom of the pond—out of your reach and no help to anyone.”

“True enough,” Ann admitted—reluctantly, thought Kahlan.

Kahlan fussed with a button as she began to imagine Ann’s side of it. “It must have been hard to bear, seeing Richard destroying the palace. Destroying your home.”

“Along with the palace, he also destroyed its spell; the Sisters of the Light will now age as does everyone else. At the palace I would have lived perhaps another hundred years. The Sisters there would have lived many hundreds of years more. Now, I am but an old woman near the end of my time. Richard took those hundreds of years from me. From all the Sisters.”

Kahlan remained silent, not knowing what to say.

“The future of everyone may one day depend on him,” Ann finally said. “We must put that ahead of ourselves. That is why I helped him destroy the palace. That is why I follow the man who has seemingly destroyed my life’s work: because my life’s true work is that man’s fight, not my own narrow interests.”

Kahlan hooked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “You talk about Richard as if he’s a tool newly forged for your use. He is a man who wants to do what’s right, but he has his own wants and needs, too. His life is his to live, not yours or anyone else’s to plan for him according to what you found in dusty old books.”

“You misunderstand. That is precisely his value: his instincts, his curiosity, his heart.” Ann tapped her temple. “His mind. Our aim is not to direct, but to follow, even if it is painful to tread the path down which he takes us.”

Kahlan knew the truth of that. Richard had destroyed the alliance that had joined the lands of the Midlands for thousands of years. As Mother Confessor, Kahlan presided over the council, and thus the Midlands. Under her watch as Mother Confessor, the Midlands had fallen to Richard, as Lord Rahl of D’Hara. At least the lands which had so far surrendered to him. She knew the benevolence of his actions, and the need for them, but it certainly had been a painful path to follow.

Richard’s bold action, though, was the only way of truly uniting all the lands into one force that had any hope of standing against the tyranny of the Imperial Order. Now, they trod that new path together, hand in hand, united in purpose and resolve.

Kahlan folded her arms again and leaned back against the wall, watching the stupid chickens. “If it is your intent, then, to make me feel guilty for my selfish wishes about my first day with my new husband, you have succeeded. But I can’t help it.”

Ann gently gripped Kahlan’s arm. “No, child, that is not my intent. I understand how Richard’s actions can sometimes be exasperating. I ask only that you be patient and allow him to do as he thinks he must. He is not ignoring you to be contrary, but doing as his nature demands.

“However, his love for you has the power to distract him from what he must do. You must not interfere by asking that he abandon his task when he otherwise would not.”

“I know,” Kahlan sighed. “But chickens—”

“There is something wrong with the magic.”

Kahlan frowned down at the old sorceress. “What do you mean?”

Ann shrugged. “I am not sure. Zedd and I believe we have detected a change in our magic. It is a subtle thing to endeavor to discern. Have you noticed any change in your ability?”

In a cold flash of panic, Kahlan wheeled her thoughts inward. It was hard to imagine a subtle difference in her Confessor’s magic—it simply was. The core of the power within, and her restraint on it, seemed comfortingly familiar. Although . . .

Kahlan recoiled from that dark curtain of conjecture.

Magic was ethereal enough as it was. Through artifice, a wizard had once gulled her into thinking her power gone, when in fact it had never left her. Believing him had nearly cost Kahlan her life. She survived only because she realized in time that she still had her power and could use it to save herself.

“No. It’s the same,” Kahlan said. “I’ve learned it’s easy to mislead yourself into believing your magic is waning. It’s probably nothing—you’re just worried, that’s all.”

“True enough, but Zedd thinks it would be wise to let Richard do as Richard does. That Richard believes, on his own, without our knowledge of magic, that there is grave trouble of some sort, lends credence to our suspicions. If true, then he is already farther in this than are we. We can but follow.”

Ann returned the gnarled hand to Kahlan’s arm. “I would ask you not to badger him with your understandable desire to have him pay court to you. I ask that you allow him to do what he must do.”

Pay court indeed. Kahlan simply wanted to hold his hand, to hug him, to kiss him, to smile at him and have him smile back.

The next day they needed to return to Aydindril. Soon the thorn of mystery over Juni’s death would be shed for more important concerns. They had Emperor Jagang and the war to worry about. She simply wished she and Richard could have one day to themselves.

“I understand.” Kahlan stared out at the clucking, churning, throng of stupid chickens. “I’ll try not to meddle.”

Ann nodded without joy at having gotten what she wanted.

Outside, in the gloom of nightfall, Cara paced. By her chafed expression, Kahlan guessed Richard had ordered the Mord-Sith to remain behind and guard his new wife. That was the one order inviolate for Cara, the one order even Kahlan could not invalidate for the woman.

“Come on,” Kahlan said as she tramped past Cara. “Let’s go see how Richard is doing in his search.”

Kahlan was discontent to find the miserable rain still coming down. If it wasn’t falling as hard as before, it was just as cold, and it wouldn’t be long before she was just as wet.

“He didn’t go that way,” Cara called out.

Kahlan turned along with Ann to see Cara still standing where she had been pacing.

Kahlan lifted a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the other house for evil spirits. “I thought he wanted to go see the rest of the chickens.”

“He started toward the other two buildings, but changed his mind.” Cara pointed. “He went off in that direction.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. He told me to remain here and wait for you.” Cara started out through the rain. “Come. I will take you to him.”

“You know where to find him?” Kahlan realized it was a foolish question before she had finished it.

“Of course. I am bonded to Lord Rahl. I always know where he is.”

Kahlan found it disquieting the way the Mord-Sith could sense Richard’s proximity, like mother hens with a chick. Kahlan was envious, too. She pressed a hand to Ann’s back, urging her along, lest they be left behind in the dark.

“How long have you and Zedd had this suspicion about something being wrong,” Kahlan whispered to the squat sorceress, only implying that she meant what Ann had told her about there being something wrong with the magic.

Ann kept her head bowed, watching where she was walking in the near darkness. “We noticed it first last night. Though it is a difficult thing to quantify, or confirm, we did a few simple tests. They did not conclusively verify our impression. It’s a bit like trying to say if you can see as far as you could yesterday.”

“You telling her about our speculation that our magic might be weakening?”

Kahlan started at the familiar voice suddenly coming from behind.

“Yes,” Ann said over her shoulder as they followed Cara around a corner, sounding as if she wasn’t at all surprised that Zedd had come up behind them. “How was the woman?”

Zedd sighed. “Despondent. I tried to calm and comfort her, but I didn’t seem to have as much luck as I thought I might.”

“Zedd,” Kahlan interrupted, “are you saying you’re sure there is trouble? That’s a serious assertion.”

“Well, no, I’m not asserting anything—”

The three of them bumped into Cara when she halted unexpectedly in the dark. Cara stood stock-still, staring off into rainy nothingness. At last, she growled under her breath and pushed at their shoulders, turning them around.

“Wrong way,” she grumbled. “Back this way.”

Cara pushed and prodded them back to the corner and then led them the other way. It was nearly impossible to see where they were going. Kahlan wiped wet hair from her face. She didn’t see anyone else out in the foul weather. In the whispering rain, with Cara out in front and Zedd and Ann carrying on a hushed conversation several paces behind, Kahlan felt alone and forlorn.

The rain and darkness must have confused Cara perceiving Richard’s location by her bond to him; she had to backtrack several times.

“How much farther?” Kahlan asked.

“Not far” was all Cara had to offer.

As she slogged through the passageways turned quagmire, mud had found its way into Kahlan’s boots. She grimaced at the feel of the cold slime squeezing between her toes with each step. She dearly wished she could wash out her boots. She was cold, wet, tired, and muddy—all because Richard feared there was some stupid evil-spirit-chicken-monster on the loose.

She recalled with longing the warm bath of that morning, and wished she were there again.

Remembering Juni’s death, she reconsidered. There were worse problems than her selfish wish for warmth. If Zedd and Ann were right about the magic . . .

They reached the open area in the center of the village. The living shadow that was Cara halted. Rain drummed on roofs to run in rills from eaves, spattered mud, and splashed in puddles made of every footstep.

The Mord-Sith lifted an arm and pointed. “There.”

Kahlan squinted, trying to see through the drizzle of rain. She felt Zedd press close at her right and Ann at her left. Cara, off to the side just a bit, with the manifest vision of her bond, watched Richard, while the rest of them scanned the darkness trying to spot what she saw.

It was the diminutive fire that suddenly caught Kahlan’s attention. Petite languid flames licked up into the wet air.

That it burned at all was astonishing. It appeared to be a remnant of their wedding bonfire. Impossibly, in the daylong downpour, this tiny refuge of their sacred ceremony survived.

Richard stood before the fire, watching it. Kahlan could just make out his towering contour. The knife edge of his golden cloak lifted in the wind, reflecting sparkles of the miraculous firelight.

She could see raindrops splattering on the toe of his boot as he used it to nudge the fire. The flames grew as high as his knee as he stirred whatever was still burning in all the rain. The wind whipped the flames around in a fiery gambol, red and yellow arms swaying and waving, prancing and fluttering, undulating in a spellbinding dance of hot light amid the cold dark rain.

Richard snuffed the fire.

Kahlan almost cursed him.

“Sentrosi,” he murmured, grinding his boot to smother the embers.

The chill wind lifted a glowing spark upward. Richard tried to snatch it in his fist, but the kernel of radiance, on the wings of a gust, evaded him to disappear into the murky night.

“Bags,” Zedd muttered in a surly voice, “that boy finds a pocket of rock pitch still burning in an old log, and he’s ready to believe the impossible.”

Civility fled Ann’s voice. “We have more important things to do than to entertain the cockamamy conjecture of the uneducated.”

Aggravated and in agreement, Zedd wiped a hand across his face. “It could be a thousand and one things, and he’s settled on the one, because he’s never heard of the other thousand.”

Ann shook a finger up at Zedd. “That boy’s ignorance is—”

“That’s one of the three chimes,” Kahlan said, cutting Ann off. “What does it mean?”

Both Zedd and Ann turned and stared at her, as if they had forgotten she was still there with them.

“It’s not important,” Ann insisted. “The point is we have consequential matters which require attention, and the boy is wasting time worrying about the chimes.”

“What is the meaning of the word—”

Zedd cleared his throat, warning Kahlan not to speak aloud the name of the second chime.

Kahlan’s brow drew down as she leaned toward the old wizard.

“What does it mean?”

“Fire,” he said at last.