CHAPTER 8

Richard didn’t know what she meant about him being the one. He was having enough trouble remaining upright and besides, he had far greater concerns at the moment.

“Will you help Kahlan, then? I need you to help us both, but I want you to help Kahlan first. I need to know that she’s out of danger.”

Anxiety tightened the gentle features of Sammie’s face. “She’s the Mother Confessor.”

Richard wasn’t sure exactly what she was getting at. “That’s right.”

Sammie winced a little with a sideways look, apparently fearful of posing the question. “Won’t I, well, you know, won’t I be harmed by her power? When I go down into the essence of who she is, won’t I be taken by her Confessor power?”

Richard was shaking his head even before she had finished the question.

“No, it doesn’t work that way.”

“How can you be sure? You said that you don’t know a lot about magic.”

“Because besides me, both a wizard and a sorceress have healed her before. None of us were harmed. In fact, a sorceress was in the process of healing her earlier today, but we were attacked before she was able to finish.

“Kahlan’s power won’t harm you. It’s not a danger for you to heal her. So, will you do it?”

Sammie pressed her lips tight. Her mouth contorted as she weighed her inner doubts. She finally nodded.

“I’ll try, Lord Rahl. I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

Sammie squatted down beside Ester and leaned in over Kahlan. She turned her head to get a better view as she looked down at Kahlan’s still face.

“She’s very beautiful,” Sammie said back over her shoulder.

Richard nodded, trying to be understanding of Sammie’s young age and not show his tense impatience. He was afraid that if he wasn’t careful he might frighten her and then she wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly on the job ahead of her. With his stomach in knots and Kahlan’s life hanging in the balance, it wasn’t easy to show the girl a calm expression.

“She is beautiful on the inside, too,” he said. “Right now she needs help. It’s up to us to give her that help.

“Maybe you should start out with the small things, first. Maybe concentrate on healing some of the cuts on her arms. That way you will be doing what you know. After you get comfortable with what it feels like to be healing her, then you can move on and deal with her bigger problem.”

Sammie nodded, liking the suggestion. “That sounds like the guidance my mother would give.”

She gently took hold of the older woman’s elbow and urged her back. Ester moved out of the way, pulling the bucket of bloody water with her.

“Take your time and think it through, child,” Ester told her. “Your mother taught you well. I know that you can do it.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Sammie said as she rested a hand on Kahlan’s abdomen, feeling her slow breathing. “I hope it’s enough,” she whispered to herself.

Ester stood off to the side, watching nervously. “Your mother would be proud of you, Sammie. She would say that you can do it, and that it’s in your hands now.”

Sammie, already concentrating on what she needed to do, answered with an absent nod. She momentarily touched various wounds along Kahlan’s arms, evaluating them with her gift. Her fingers tested the place on Kahlan’s stomach that had already been mostly healed by Zedd. Her hand lingered there, as if inspecting the work, perhaps hoping to learn from it.

Finally, Sammie scooted around so that she was kneeling above Kahlan’s head. Leaning in, Sammie pulled wet strands of Kahlan’s hair aside and then pressed her hands to Kahlan’s temples. Her splayed fingers lying along Kahlan’s cheeks were so small and frail-looking that Richard feared she didn’t have the strength needed for such a difficult task, to say nothing of the experience to accomplish it.

He reminded himself that he had healed people without any experience or training. He supposed that in that respect Sammie was more knowledgeable than he was. Still, it was Kahlan, and he couldn’t seem to quiet his worry, or his racing heart.

The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head as her eyelids slid closed. Still holding Kahlan between her hands, Sammie stretched her arms out straight as her head tilted back in the effort of calling for the needed strength.

Richard had learned some time back that he had the unique ability to see the gift radiating power around sorceresses. He could see that aura of power around Sammie as she opened herself up to her gift. The aura looked like shimmering, colored distortions to the air around her, something like the heat waves above a campfire.

Richard had seen the auras of gifted people before. It was reassuring to see such a marker of gifted power glimmering in the air around Sammie. While Sammie’s aura wasn’t nearly as strong as many he had seen, and especially not as powerful as that of a sorceress such as Nicci, it was definitely the gift he was seeing warming the glow around the girl.

He hoped that power would be enough.

Richard listened to the soft hiss of the candles as Sammie leaned forward again and bowed her head in concentration. He knew what she was experiencing, what it felt like to let yourself dissolve down into the person you were trying to help, to immerse yourself in their being, to be intimately close to their innermost self. He watched as the flames of the candles slowly wavered and the wax dripped down from time to time as they burned. He wondered all the while what Sammie was experiencing, what she was feeling within Kahlan.

Several of the candles in the room abruptly extinguished at the exact same instant. Richard’s gaze darted around the small room, searching shadows.

Sammie shrieked and leaped to her feet.

Richard sprang up in surprise. Ester shrank back.

Before he could ask her what was wrong, Sammie began screaming in a high-pitched shriek born of what looked to be unbridled panic. Arms flailing, she retreated blindly until her back smacked into the stone wall. In the grip of terror, still screaming, unable to back away any farther, she clawed at the air while shrieking in fright. Her head twisted from side to side as if she did not want to look at what she was seeing.

The shrill screech was painful. Ester fearfully backed away as far as she could. As Sammie turned to run for the doorway, Richard caught her, closing his arms tightly around her slender body to keep her from getting away. Her spindly arms thrashed frantically, as if she was trying to escape something only she could see. She screamed in unbridled terror the whole time, twisting madly in Richard’s arms as she fought to escape.

Richard cocooned the squirming girl until he finally gathered her wildly flailing arms and pinned them to her sides.

“Sammie, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I saw it in her…”

“It’s all right. You’re safe, now. What did you see?”

When she turned in his arms and pushed at him, crying hysterically as she again tried to get away, Richard grabbed her firmly by the sides of her shoulders to keep her right where she was. Despite his injuries, she was no match for his muscle.

“Sammie, tell me what you saw!”

“I saw…” was all she could get out between sobs.

Richard shook her. “Sammie, stop it. You’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you.” He shook her again. “Stop it now. Lives are at stake—your mother’s life could very well be at stake. You need to get control of yourself and tell me what’s going on. I can’t help fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong. Now tell me what you saw in Kahlan.”

Sammie, tears coursing down her face, shook from head to toe.

“I saw what is in her,” she sobbed.

“What do you mean? What did you see in her?”

Sammie’s face contorted in horror. “I saw death.”