Warheart

CHAPTER 10

“Yes, he is dead, but so was I,” Kahlan said. “I came back and so must he. There has to be a way. It’s the only chance we have.”

Red slowly shook her head. “I saw you coming, but because your purpose involves Richard, and I can’t see events surrounding him very well, I thought you must be coming to seek my help to get his spirit free of the dark ones who have him. That’s what I thought you would want. My intention was to help you free his spirit so he could work to help us from the other side of the veil and then go on to find peace with the good spirits.”

“That’s not good enough,” Kahlan said. “You need to help us bring his spirit back to this world, help us bring him back to life so he can stop Sulachan.”

Red looked exasperated. “But it’s not like it was with you. You were dead very briefly. He is well beyond that point. Sometimes, if it is done quickly enough a person can be pulled back through the veil. But in this case too much time has passed. Richard is beyond that point.”

“You know that I had the Hedge Maid’s poisonous touch of death in me,” Kahlan said. “That touch was tainted with death and brought to this world. But the balance was that in the world of the dead that touch also carried the spark of life. Like me, Richard had the same taint of death in life. That means that his spirit would still have to carry that spark of life. At least for a time.”

Red shook her head without looking up. “As remarkable as it was, I understand how it was possible for such a thing to work for you. The difference is he has been dead too long. Your body was healed and you came back to it almost immediately. His soul may indeed still carry that spark, but the connection between worlds weakens in a very short time as his body breaks down and decomposes. Even with that spark, there is nothing viable for his spirit to return to.”

“Yes there is,” Kahlan insisted. “You don’t know all that happened to change that.”

Red frowned as she turned back. “What are you talking about?”

“Abbot Dreier was gifted and he also possessed powerful occult abilities. Those are the same powers that were used to create the half people. I was able to get Dreier to use those abilities to suspend the death process in Richard’s body.”

“Suspend the death process?” The witch woman looked incredulous. “What are you talking about?”

Kahlan stood. “The half people–like the ones who came into your home–live for an extremely long time because they carry a link to the underworld. Emperor Sulachan was once a powerful wizard. He stripped their souls from them and sent those lost souls to wander between worlds, forever lost. He then linked their soulless bodies to the underworld with the use of occult powers in order to suspend time from touching them in the same way it ordinarily touches anything living.

“Emperor Sulachan planned to transcend death. Since everyone he knew, everyone he ruled, would be long dead by the time he returned, he would not have a nation to command, no army to reestablish his rule. In order to accomplish that he wanted the half people waiting and ready to serve him once his spirit returned to this world.”

“That’s true.…” Red frowned as she recollected. “When they came through the pass where I live, I remember feeling within them that terrible connection to elements of the underworld.”

Kahlan stepped closer. “That timeless link keeps them from aging like normal people. It keeps time from working on their living body the way it ordinarily would.”

“It was the same with those of us who lived at the Palace of the Prophets,” Nicci said as she came to a halt beside Kahlan. “Nathan Rahl lived there for nearly a thousand years. The prelate was nearly as old. I lived there for several lifetimes of those outside the spell of power around the place. The link to the timeless element of the underworld works. I’m living proof of it. So is Nathan Rahl. So are the half people.”

“By using his occult powers in the same way,” Kahlan explained, “Abbot Dreier was able to link that timeless element of the underworld to Richard’s body to keep it the same as it was the moment he died. He isn’t living, but time isn’t ravaging his body, either, as it ordinarily would. Dreier said Richard will remain in that state for quite a long time. He isn’t alive, but his body is not exactly dead, either.

“You might say that his life is suspended.”

“I don’t know.…” Red was still skeptical, but she was frowning in thought.

“I do,” Kahlan said. “You have only to touch Richard’s flesh as I have done to know it’s true. He seems so alive, like he is only asleep, except he takes no breath and his heart is still. Yet he never went stiff the way the dead do in short order, nor did his blood pool on the underside of his body. His tongue isn’t swelling the way it does in the dead.

“He remains the same now as he was in life, the same as the moment he died, except that his life force, his soul, his connection to the Grace, is beyond the veil.”

Red gave Kahlan a disparaging look. “That’s a pretty vital element. It is an essential element.”

“I know, but he is preserved for now until we can figure out how to bring his life force, his spirit, back into his body. Until then, his body waits, ready to receive his spirit.”

“Do you grasp the full meaning of what the Mother Confessor is saying?” Nicci asked Red. “There is a link from this world–from Richard’s body–to the underworld where his spark of life is. The Grace still exists. The lines within the Grace are still intact through the boundary of the veil–at least until Sulachan destroys what the Grace represents.

“Until then, death is here, in this world, while life is there, in that one. It’s in balance for the moment.”

“But that balance can’t last–it won’t last,” Red told her.

“Of course not,” Nicci agreed. “That is why we must act, and act quickly, while we still can.”

“If it is actually possible. Understanding such complicated connections and balanced elements is one thing. Altering them is an altogether different matter. Hope will not accomplish such things.”

“It’s hope based in precedent.” Nicci gestured off to the southwest. “Sulachan came back from the world of the dead. His demon spirit did, anyway, but his body had not been preserved the way Richard’s is so he can never really join fully with it. His spirit returned to a desiccated corpse.”

“That’s true,” Red whispered as she brooded in thought.

Nicci leaned closer to the woman. “And how did Sulachan accomplish such a thing? How did he bring his spirit back? He used Richard’s lifeblood. Prophecy names Richard as the bringer of death. In this case, Sulachan used that to bring him, in death, back to the world of life. Richard’s body still contains that blood of the bringer of death.”

Red arched an eyebrow at the sorceress and then began to pace, hands clasped behind her back. Gravel crunched under her boots as she slowly walked to the stream and back.

“The pebble in the pond, the bringer of death, the Lord Rahl, Kahlan’s husband … the one named in prophecy so many times and in so many ways, the one meant to stop Sulachan, must be brought back from the world of the dead,” Nicci insisted. “If he is the one prophecy names, then there must be a way, otherwise there would be no purpose to all those thousands of years of prophecy.”

“Unless it is all false prophecy,” Red muttered. She finally paused in her pacing to stare at Nicci. “But this would explain a lot of things that I’ve seen in the flow of time that haven’t made any sense.”

“Then you do know of something,” Kahlan said as she moved closer to the witch woman.

“Perhaps I was thinking of it the wrong way,” she said under her breath to herself as she went back to pacing.

Kahlan listened to the crunch of gravel for a time before her patience ran out. “What do you mean?”

“I wish I could see him more clearly, see the flow of time around him. That husband of yours has been using and confusing prophecy for thousands of years. He likewise muddies the things I see in the flow of time.”

“Well, you must be able to see some of it. You have seen the events around him before. If you see a shadow, you know that something is casting that shadow. What part are you able to see?” Kahlan asked. “Maybe that’s a place for us to start.”

The witch woman cast a worried look at Kahlan. “I didn’t have the pieces I needed to understand.”

“Understand what?” Kahlan asked. “Have you thought of a way that you can help us?”

Red drew a long breath. “Maybe. I think I may be beginning to understand what you must do.” She walked off toward the stream, staring down into the swirling water for a time. “If I’m right, then you should fear the things I would tell you.”

“And what would those things be?” Kahlan asked.

The witch woman finally returned to them and studied both Kahlan and Nicci’s faces for a time before answering.

“You must make the dead talk to you.”

“And how would we do that?” Kahlan asked without pause, already knowing that she would be willing to do whatever it took to get Richard back.

Red put a hand on her shoulder as she turned her blue eyes away, looking off into things only a witch woman could see.

“I must leave you for a little while,” she said in a quiet voice. “Keep the fire going. It will be dark when I return. Eat, rest, and wait until I return.”

“Where are you going?” Kahlan called after her.

“I must look into the flow of time to seek the answers you need,” the witch woman said as she walked off toward the trees.

Hunter bounded down off his rock and followed her as she disappeared into the shadows.