Warheart

CHAPTER 15

Uncountable arms reached out of the darkness, clawing the air, trying to catch something, anything. Hands all around tried to touch her, to make contact. Despite how desperately they stretched and raked the air, they could not reach her.

Even with her eyes closed, Nicci could see all the arms and fingers wriggling like a thousand snakes. The hiss of the dead only added to the sense of death closing in around her. Out beyond the walls of arms she could hear the screams of others.

She knew who these souls were. She recognized them.

They were the souls of those she had killed.

Nicci lifted a hand before her, pushing back the ones in front, reaching for her, the ones who had deserved to die but in their hatred for life didn’t fully realize they were dead. Nicci had no fear of them catching hold of her. These were not demons, and not able to do such things as snatch the living to drag them down.

They were the guilty upon whom she had visited justice.

They could no longer touch her.

Before her, in her mind’s eye, she kept the soft light of Kahlan’s spirit safe from those things that wanted to drag her back in among them.

Nicci knew that the dark ones wanted Kahlan back.

Fortunately, Richard had drawn Sulachan’s minions to himself, drawing them away from Kahlan’s spirit.

Unfortunately, those dark demons wrapped him tightly in their dark wings so that Nicci had no hope of finding him on her own. She had searched beyond the veil before and had found spirits, but she would not be able to find Richard.

Sulachan intended for him never to be found. Though Nicci had considerable power, she was not the match for such evil, especially in his realm.

The task before her seemed impossible. The darkness was thick with souls, like grains of black sand on a beach at midnight, all flowing and shifting constantly as inky waves rolled in and tumbled the sand around. Those souls crowded in from every direction, eddies of them swirling around her and making it impossible to see beyond them. Whenever she parted those in her way, there were only more.

As she approached and they saw her, they twisted and turned, shying away from her. She knew what they were doing. She had seen them before. They recognized that she didn’t belong, that she had invaded their peace, that she was a dark force in a world of darkness.

She was out of place, and they were trying to push her back out of eternity to the terror of that momentary spark that was life. They didn’t like to be reminded of what they could not have again. They wanted to be left in peace to slowly forget.

In the unfamiliar light of Kahlan’s soul, those swirling masses flowed through the darkness like dense schools of fish. Endless masses of dark forms made up of millions of individuals billowed and spiraled in to keep Nicci from that light. They were trying to protect that light from Nicci’s darkness.

While she felt like weeping at the beauty of that light, she needed to find her way, and she was being swamped by souls that occupied the darkness. She feared that it was an impossible task to search for a particular grain of sand on that endless, black beach.

Nicci felt gentle hands rest on her shoulders.

It was the witch woman, standing behind her, putting her hands on Nicci’s shoulders.

When she did, the nature of the darkness shifted, the souls swirling and whirling in a mad surge as they parted and spiraled back. Nicci smiled inwardly at again seeing the guiding light of Kahlan’s soul in the center of that Grace constructed of her blood. From that single drop of Richard’s blood in the center, the eternal darkness formed into twisting flows moving gracefully through nothingness.

Nicci realized that the witch woman was using the flow of time to reveal the way through the void. The layers of darkness teeming with spirits folded and turned, rolling over and through itself in undercurrents formed out of nothing, reminding her of strands of smoke curling and billowing through still air. Or blood dripping into still, clear water.

It was as terrifying as it was bewitching and beautiful.

And then, following that flow the witch woman was feeding into her, the light of a soul seemed to appear along those lines out of the black forever. It was a soul Nicci recognized all too well.

It was the soul of the wizard she had killed. It was his power she had taken into her own.

It had been done when she became a Sister of the Dark.

It was something that was beyond forgiving.

The light of the spirit diffused and then consolidated into a glowing form as it confronted her, stopping her progress. She knew that spirits used their light to take a recognizable form.

Nicci didn’t know what to do. What could she do? There was no way she could ask forgiveness. She had no right.

The light of the spirit reached out and touched her, then. Touched her soul. In that instant, in that timeless connection, she felt everything he would say to her.

She wept with the beauty of it all. He was at peace. He told her that although she had taken it in the cause of evil, in the end she had done more good with his gift than he ever would have. Although what she had done was an injustice, she had gone on to do the one thing that gave him peace. She had chosen to change, to fight evil, and to make up for all the harm she had done to others.

Nicci did not deserve forgiveness, and he understood that, too. He told her that he could not give her any such forgiveness, that it came from within herself, and that was all that mattered. She saw the beautiful light of his soul, and wept at what she had done to him.

He told her that she carried his gift, now, and he was with her in spirit, helping her new calling, in spirit. Her purpose was his, now. His gift was hers, now.

He ran a glowing, spirit hand down her hair as a father might while smiling down on a beloved daughter. It was a moment of such pure love, such pure acceptance, that it left her shaken and weeping with the beauty of it.

At that, he moved aside, holding out that glowing arm, and welcomed her onward, wishing her well in her mission to fight for the world of life, a cause he said was a noble use of the gift she was born with, and the gift she had taken up.

She felt drained, her emotions exhausted by the confrontation and the agony of sorrow that had only lasted a spark of time, but at the same time, in that eternal world, had lasted forever. She felt as if she knew him better than she ever had, knew herself better than she ever had.

In the distance, Nicci could hear Kahlan asking if she was all right, but she was too far away to answer. The witch woman answered in her place, telling Kahlan that Nicci was moving on to search.

With her mission firmly in mind, Nicci summoned her strength to push on into the darkness, riding the flow that continued to swirl onward through the endless night.

She saw the light of countless souls along the way. All looked the same, like a night sky scattered with a blanket of stars. They all floated at eternal peace in the firmament. She didn’t know how she would find one star among the countless numbers scattered ahead forever.

But then one of those glowing stars swept in closer.

“I am Isidore,” the spirit said in a voice that was like sunlight. “I felt you calling for me.”

Nicci saw the glowing form sweep in with effortless grace, taking a shape that mimicked her once-living form, but made of light. Nicci couldn’t get out the rush of everything that suddenly came to mind. There seemed too much to convey.

“I must help Richard,” she finally said to the spirit. “I need to find Naja.”

“I know,” Isidore said. “I am here to guide you.”

With that, the spirit form moved off into the flow. Nicci thought that Isidore was just about the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. The spirit glowed with an innocent, childlike kindness. Her smile was a warm summer day.

Together, Isidore leading, Nicci being swept along in her wake, they went into a landscape that was darker yet, with tunnels of blackness through the inky gloom. It was a disorienting journey that was up and down all at the same time, twisting, turning, spiraling their way through places where it seemed impossible to pass.

In a recess of darkness, a deep cavern of eternity, they came to another spirit that took on human form. Isidore gently touched the shoulder of the other.

“This is the one you seek.”

Nicci drifted forward. “Naja?”

The spirit regarded Nicci with cool detachment, rather than Isidore’s warmth.

“What is one of your kind doing here? Why have you come to disturb me?”

“It’s not what it seems,” Nicci said. “I come in the guise of a Sister of the Dark because there was no other way. I had to use what only I know, what only I can do, to do what must be done.”

“And what would that be?”

“What you wanted in life, what you worked for … to stop the emperor, Sulachan.”

The shadowy spirit hissed as she backed away at the name.

“Suuuulachan,” Naja said with venom. “His vile spirit haunts the underworld with an intent darker than death.”

“I know that you tried to stop him when you were alive. You and Magda Searus and the wizard Merritt.”

At speaking their names, their glowing spirits came into view out of the darkness.

“Why have you come here?” the spirit of Magda Searus asked. Much like that of Isidore, her spirit was a wonderful, warm glow that instilled a sense of wonder and peace in Nicci.

Nicci turned and held an arm out. “I come to help her,” she said as she moved aside so they would see the glow of Kahlan’s spirit from where she sat in the center of the Grace beside that single, luminous drop of Richard’s blood.

“The Mother Confessor,” Magda whispered with a benevolent reverence that only a good spirit could summon. “You brought her spirit here?”

“Only a bit of the light within her,” Nicci said. “She powers the Grace that I used to come to you.”

“Why have you come?” Magda asked.

Nicci lifted a hand out toward the loving spirit close at Magda’s side. “For the same reason.”

“For her love,” Merritt said with understanding. “The one in life we knew would come one day.”

“That’s right,” Nicci said. “Sulachan has escaped the underworld and again walks the world of life. Richard Rahl is the one who must stop him. In your time, you all worked to stop the emperor and his forces, and worked to lay out the path for the one who would come after you who can stop the demon.”

“That is no longer our world,” Naja said, the others nodding their agreement.

“Richard Rahl is not in the other world. He is in this world. He is here.”

Distress and anguish haunted their features.

In alarm, Merritt glided closer. “That is not supposed to happen. He is supposed to be the one to stop Sulachan. He needs to be in your world to do that. He can’t succeed from here. He can’t help that world from here. None of us can.”

“I know,” Nicci said. “That is why I had to come here, why I had to use the same dark talents I once used for evil, but turned around and now used to fight for the world of life.”

The light of the spirit of Naja coalesced into a shape that mimicked the exotic form she’d had had in life, but now in light rather than flesh and blood. She moved closer.

“How did such a thing happen? We all took precautions, we guided prophecy, we left all the help we could. How did he die?”

Nicci looked at the spirits all gazing at her. “I killed him,” she said, holding her hand out toward the raven current curling away before her, “just as was foretold in the flow of time.”

Merritt glided closer still in a manner that Nicci could only interpret as anger.

Nicci swallowed at the look he gave her. “I had to.”

“Why?” he demanded.

Nicci again held her arm out toward the glow of Kahlan’s spirit. “For her. She had been murdered. Sulachan’s dark minions had her soul and they were taking it into the depths of darkness. Richard asked me to stop his heart so he could go after her, trade places with her, and send her back to the world of life. It mattered to him more than his own life.”

The four spirits stared at her with the kind of great sadness that can come only from understanding and empathy.

“I came to find a way to bring his spirit back to his worldly form. The world needs him. His body waits for him in the world of life, touched with a link to this world to keep it ready.”

“But if he died,” Naja said, “then his spirit is where it belongs.”

“Ordinarily, yes. But not in this case. Just as with the Mother Confessor, Richard was touched by a Hedge Maid with a poison containing the call of death. It was killing them. But in this world, the opposite–life–taints him with what does not belong here. Carrying that taint of life, he does not belong here. He belongs in the world of life.”

“All men die,” Naja said.

“Yes, but it is not his time just as it was not the Mother Confessor’s time. It was only by the meddling of Sulachan using and distorting forks of prophecy as well as dark elements. Richard belongs in the world of life for now. He must return to stop Emperor Sulachan and fight for life or the veil will be torn apart and the worlds will implode together.”

The world of the dead was silent for a moment. It could have been an eternity.

“We must see if we can help him,” Magda finally said in a quiet voice filled with compassion. She lifted out a glowing spirit hand toward the light of Kahlan’s spirit. “For her.”

“For everyone,” Nicci corrected.

The spirit of Naja smiled. “Spoken like a true sorceress.”

The spirit of Merritt moved to Naja. “You must help her find him. You know Sulachan’s demons better than anyone. You helped him create them. Now you must help stop them.”

“Much the same way as I worked for evil once, much as she worked as a Sister of the Dark?” Naja asked in a tone of irony. “You think I still need absolution?”

With a glowing visage of compassion, Magda shook her head. “You came to us to fight the evil of Sulachan,” she said. “You know that absolution comes from within. Now she comes to you in much the same way. She understands because she has traveled your path.”

Naja nodded. “We both have worked for evil, and we both have struggled to change. We both did change.” She turned to Nicci. “What you are doing now is for good. I will help you.”

As a spirit arm surrounded Nicci and began to carry her away, Nicci looked back to the smiles of Magda and Merritt, following behind. It was about the most beautiful sight she could imagine. It was love and understanding, peace and joy, confidence and competence, hope and well wishes.

It reminded her of something. At first she couldn’t understand what. And then it came to her. It reminded her of the aura of light she saw in Richard and Kahlan.

“You have a very interesting spirit,” Naja said to Nicci as they raced through eternity. “It will serve you well in this place.”