Warheart

CHAPTER 17

It was the darkness that hurt. It was not the kind of pain he had felt in life. It was different, and vastly worse. This was pain not merely down to his bones, but down to his soul.

This was the darkness of demons, of the Keeper himself, of being hopelessly lost for eternity.

Richard struggled, as he had for what seemed an eternity, trying to rip away the claws feeling like they were dug into his shoulders and legs, trying to pull off the wings wrapped around him, smothering him. It was a suffocating feeling, but it was a different kind of suffocating than any had been in life.

This was a suffocation in darkness. His soul longed for the light. It was a suffocation of being able to get no light. It was the darkness of doomed souls being forever banished from the light, a soul being condemned to an eternity of abject misery with no appeal, no escape, no way to free himself.

Despite all that, it was worth it. He had saved Kahlan from the same fate, a terrifying journey into forever. He would have done it for her all over again, and then done it again. It was more than worth it. It was worth the price, no matter what that price might be, to have her safe, to have the brightness of her spirit once more in the world of life. The world needed that kind of light to counter the darkness.

It was hard, though, to make sense of any of it. It had been so long since he had been alive. It was an eternity ago. At times, it felt like perhaps this was life–a life of misery, fear, dread, and desolation. That was what life without Kahlan had been like. That was why he had gone after her. Life without her was not worth living.

Something shifted. He paused in his struggle. He felt the claws tear through his shoulder, as if they were being pulled away and the demon was sinking them in deeper to hold on, hooking bones even though there were no bones in this place. He felt the fangs sinking deeper into his middle, even though his middle was only the glow of light. The misery was beyond worldly agony. This was an agony of the spirit.

And then he thought he saw a spot of light in the surrounding blackness. It had been brief, and then it was gone, as if the wings had momentarily lost their grip around him, momentarily parted to let through a sliver of light but then closed in again. Richard took that chance to fight even harder against the darkness suffocating him.

Again, light came in between the dark layers of wings, this time for longer before the wings were able to close over him and lock it away. He struggled and again saw an opening in the darkness, and through that opening a warm glow. He frantically fought toward that light, forcing the powerful wings back, pulling the gap open wider. He dragged the inky wings away from his body, only to have them once more crush in to cocoon him.

But then a blinding flash made the dark ones shriek in rage and pain. Again a blinding flash in the eternal night tore at them. Fangs snapped in the darkness as the demons tried to sink those fangs into him again. Claws snatched for him even as they were being pulled back away.

Yet more flashes came in quick succession. He recognized the flashes–not so much for the way they looked, as the way they felt. They were discharges of magic. It was that magic that Richard recognized.

The dark ones howled with the frightful kind of shriek that could only come from the depths of the underworld. It was a sound that could sear the flesh from the living and break bones. It was the sound of doomed souls realizing their fate.

The flashes came with overwhelming speed, one upon another, hammering the demons. Ropes of light ignited in the darkness. Wings caught in bolts of that luminescence ripped asunder. Screams escaped wide mouths lined with fangs. Gleaming spears of magic lanced through their ulcerous bodies.

A form slipped between him and the dark ones, protecting him, sheltering him.

“I’m sorry, Richard,” an intimate voice said. “I’m afraid that you are in the world of the dead, again.”

Richard looked over his shoulder at the figure close behind him. Arms draped with glowing white robes opened from their protective embrace. The radiant figure regarded him with a sad smile. He recognized the face.

It was a woman he had once killed.

In the distance beyond her outstretched, protective arms, he saw dark, winged figures with glowing red eyes swoop in closer. The protective arms again circled tighter, shutting him away from the demons.

Behind her, a furious battle raged. Light and darkness intertwined, opposites of power clashing with ferocious violence that was both out of place and at home in this strange place.

“You are safe,” the intimate voice assured him.

“Denna?”

She smiled at hearing her name from him, especially from him. It had been so long since he had seen that smile. It had been a long time because Denna had long ago died. He had seen her spirit before. She had helped him before.

Then, beyond the protective embrace of the good spirit, Richard saw another spirit, one he didn’t recognize. He also saw a presence with form and yet it was not a spirit. He recognized that form.

“Nicci?”

“I’m here, Richard.”

“Is Kahlan all right?”

Nicci shook her head with profound sadness. “No. She mourns for you. Life is as unbearable for her with you gone as it was for you with her gone. You condemned her to live the misery you yourself could not endure without her.”

Richard felt such guilt as he had never felt. He hadn’t thought of it that way. He had wanted so much for her to live that he had not considered if life would be worth living for her. It wasn’t worth living without her, and hers wouldn’t be worth living without him.

“Soul mates should not be separated,” said a voice Richard recognized.

“Zedd?”

The spirit came closer. Although it did not look like Zedd in exactly the way Richard remembered, it was unmistakable. It was all glowing light, very much like his own glowing soul, and the form of that singular light, like the light of other good spirits, mimicked the vessel it had filled in life. It was the radiant spirit of his grandfather.

Richard’s soul was filled with jubilation at seeing Zedd looking glorious.

“Seems you have gotten yourself into some trouble, again, my boy. I came to help.”

“I don’t understand,” Richard said, looking around at spirits he knew and others he didn’t recognize.

“The flow of time had need of me here,” the old wizard said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a purpose in that flow and a purpose in my death. This was the purpose. I had lived my life and done all I could there, and now I needed to be here for you, because life has desperate need of you. I am the only one who could pull those demons off of you.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

Zedd’s gloriously beautiful spirit smiled. “It takes the gift carried into the underworld, and that gift needs to be connected by blood if it is to be able to help you here.”

“To be helped, in a situation such as you find yourself, it takes many friends,” the spirit of a woman said. “I am Naja,” the spirit said when she realized his confusion.

“Naja. Naja, as in the one who wrote the account on the walls of the caves at Stroyza?”

The spirit smiled. “The same.”

“That was an awfully long time ago,” Richard said.

The spirit gave him an unreadable look. “Not so long. From here it seems only a moment ago.”

“Or an eternity,” another spirit said.

Richard didn’t recognize her, either, but because she was with Naja, and another spirit was with her, he suspected that he knew who it was.

“Magda Searus?”

The smiling spirit nodded and held out a glowing hand. “And this is Merritt, my soul mate.” She lifted her hand back toward the constellation of lights behind. “Baraccus is here with us as well. He was pulled to the amulet he once made. We have all come to do whatever we could to help free you.”

Richard saw the spirit of Baraccus, as well as countless others there with him. He saw his friend Warren. He saw Ben, Cara’s husband, and legions of soldiers, now good spirits, who had fought with him in the world of life.

“Dark forces have conspired to keep you here,” Naja said. “It took many good spirits to fight this battle. Once your grandfather ripped the demons away from you, some of those here were then able to see to it that they sank into the forever of darkness. They cannot return for now.”

“But there are other dangers for you, here,” Magda said.

“You must return to the world of life,” Nicci told him.

“And so must you,” Naja’s soft voice said, “for the ones who never sleep and walk like men are coming.”

Nicci turned in alarm. “What do–”

Naja’s glowing finger touched Nicci’s forehead.

In an instant Nicci was gone.

“How do I return? Is there a way?” Richard asked as he looked around at all the good spirits. “There are things in the world of life I must do. The lives of a great many people depend on me. I need to get back. I need to help them. I can’t let Sulachan have his way with them.”

The spirit of Merritt smiled knowingly. “That is the anger of the sword. I recognize it. It is here with you. Even in death, because it is bonded to you, your soul carries the righteous anger of the sword. Only the right person could do such a thing. Only the bringer of death could bring the power of the sword and life itself to the underworld.”

“Well, if I’m the one, then I need to get back there. Sulachan and Hannis Arc are going to destroy the world of life.”

“Indeed they are,” Naja said.

“I can’t stop them from here,” Richard said, his soul filled with urgency. “I need to get back there.”

“The righteous rage of the sword as well as the spark of life you carry still anchor you to the world of life,” she said, “but the world of the dead still holds you here. The skrin guard the veil so that none from this world may cross back.”

Richard remembered the bone woman telling him about how the skrin, the guardians of the veil, held the dead back in the underworld and kept them from coming through the veil.

“Sulachan crossed back,” Richard said.

“With your blood,” Naja reminded him.

“Kahlan crossed back.”

“With a lot more than merely your blood,” Naja said.

“So how do I get back?” Richard asked the constellation of glowing spirits around him. The spirits all stared back but none seemed to want to answer.

When Zedd laid a sympathetic, glowing hand on her shoulder, Naja finally spoke in a somber tone. “You must have a living bridge.”

“How do I find this living bridge?”

“You don’t,” Naja said, “it must find you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Zedd shook his head in great sadness as he drifted closer. “I’m afraid, my boy, that someone would have to give you their life as that bridge. Their soul would have to join us here.”

“It’s the only way,” Naja confirmed.

Denna’s glowing arm embraced him protectively. “You need the help of others, Richard. You need the life of another.”

“No,” Richard said, drifting back, shaking his head. “I can’t allow someone to give their life for me. There has to be another way.”

“They would not simply be giving up their life for you,” Zedd told him in a comforting voice. “They will be giving up their life for everyone, and out of love.”

“Until and unless that happens, you have no way back,” Naja said. “If it does not happen, you can never return.”

“If you can’t return,” Magda said, “then the fate of your soul mate, the fate of the world, will be in the cruel hands of Emperor Sulachan.”

“And I can’t help from here?” he asked, anger at his banishment rising in his soul. “There is nothing I can do?”

With great sorrow, Magda shook her head.

Denna’s arm embraced him, trying to give him comfort. Richard felt no comfort.

But he did feel rage at Sulachan for bringing this on him and everyone living.

“Good,” Merritt whispered. “Let the rage fill you. If you ever get the chance to use it, it will be ready and there with you.”

Richard reached for the hilt of his sword, and even though he could almost touch it, it wasn’t there. It was on the other side of the veil, in the world of life. Kahlan was there, on the other side of the veil, in the world of life.

So was Sulachan.