Warheart

CHAPTER 26

Richard turned to the scribe. “Where did Hannis Arc work most of the time? You said that he spent a great deal of his time working in here. What did he do?”

Mohler shrugged uncomfortably. “I was not privy to exactly what it was he did. He did not discuss such matters with me–I was only his scribe. I do know, though, that he liked to study old documents. At least, that was what I most often saw him doing. I started early in the morning recording prophecy in the books, here, and he usually came in later. He did a lot of his work in here at night after I was gone.”

The old man lifted an arm out toward a large desk off to the side of the pedestals that held the books of prophecy. The disorderly desk was piled with everything from decorated bone objects and simple candlesticks to rulers and dividers to papers and stacks of old scrolls. A fat candle in a silver stand rested on top of a stack of worn ledgers. By the way layers of candle wax dribbled down all over one side of the ledgers, their importance appeared to have been nothing more than as a stand to elevate candles.

“Sometimes he would go over to the books and read prophecy I had recorded. I assumed that he did that when I was gone as well, but I can’t actually say for sure. I can’t say that I ever saw him paying close attention, though. I think he merely scanned them, looking for anything that might warrant more of his attention later.

“When I was here he occasionally liked to play chess”–the scribe gestured to a small stand with a board set with black and white game pieces–“over there.” He turned back. “Mostly, though, he worked there, at his desk.”

Standing behind the broad desk, Richard noticed that the closest pedestal, the one not far away on the other side of the desk, was the one holding the book that Mohler said contained prophecies about the House of Rahl. Just beyond that book of prophecy, rising up behind it, Hannis Arc would have had a good view of the stuffed bear standing up on its hind legs to tower over the book. The man probably liked the symbolism. In that light, the placement of objects in the room was beginning to make a little more sense.

Hannis Arc seemed to be a man fixated on symbology.

The books of prophecy around the room were immense, not only physically, but also in that there were collectively thousands upon thousands of pages contained in them. The thought of studying all of those books to try to find out what Hannis Arc had been up to, or to find a hint that might be helpful in stopping him, was daunting. Small numbers of prophecies were difficult enough to consider. The numbers here were overwhelming. But he didn’t think that prophecies collected in such a suspect manner were really what had occupied Hannis Arc.

Richard turned his attention back to the desk and unrolled a brittle, ancient-looking scroll lying to the side of the desk. The vellum was stained with what looked to be centuries of dirt and dark, ringed stains from mugs and candles used as weights to hold it open.

Richard was stunned by what he saw written in faded ink.

Nicci did a double take when she saw the look on his face. “What is it? What do you see?”

Richard could only stare at the scroll covered with a complex tapestry of lines connecting constellations of elements that made up the language of Creation. He moved to the side a little as Nicci and Kahlan rushed around the desk to have a look for themselves at what had captured his attention.

“That’s the language of Creation used by Regula,” Kahlan said. “The omen machine gives prophecies in that language.”

Richard nodded as he scanned the symbols, already trying to work out the translations. “It’s also the same language used by Naja Moon to leave messages in the caves in Stroyza.”

“I wonder if that means they date back to the time of the great war, the time when Naja and Emperor Sulachan were alive,” Kahlan said as she leaned in, frowning at the scroll Richard held spread open on the desk. “What does this say?”

Rather than answering her, he straightened and looked over at Mohler. “Are there any more of these scrolls? Ones written in this same language?”

Mohler stretched his neck to glance across the desk and look down at the scroll. He appeared to recognize it.

“Yes, there are some more of them.” He pointed. “There is another one of them, there, in that pile. It’s that darker one. Bishop Arc called them Cerulean scrolls.”

“Cerulean scrolls?” Richard asked. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, that’s right. He could read them, but I can’t. He spent a great deal of his time working with them. Whenever a new one came in he spent all his waking time with it for weeks, but that was a rare event. He was very protective of them.

“Years ago he used to study every detail of the new prophecies that I recorded for him. Although he would still come over from time to time and scan the newest entries I had made, over the years his interest in the books of prophecy dwindled until he became almost entirely focused on the scrolls.

“Sometimes he used those instruments on the Cerulean scrolls, doing some kind of measuring and such. If he worked late into the night and left them out, then in the morning when I came in I would put them away for him, but other than that I never had anything to do with them.”

Kahlan looked up from the scroll. “Do you know what ‘Cerulean’ means?”

Mohler shook his head. “That was what he called them, but he never told me the meaning of the word.”

“It’s an ancient word,” Richard said. “It means ‘celestial.’”

Nicci’s brow twitched. “Celestial?”

Richard grunted confirmation as he idly pinched his lower lip, deep in thought about the things he had seen in the room where Hannis Arc spent most of his time. The place contained dusty artifacts from ages ago, most appearing to predate Hannis Arc’s time. While the place was chiefly dedicated to cataloging and recording prophecy, the man hadn’t bothered to open all the newly arrived divinations. Since he apparently didn’t read them closely, it would seem that Hannis Arc wasn’t all that interested in prophecy. Or possibly he understood that the kind of ungifted prediction that arrived daily at the citadel was not true prophecy and largely useless.

It appeared that the Cerulean scrolls were the center of his focus. Richard wondered if perhaps Hannis Arc was only seeking out prophecy as a pretext to send people in what was really a search for scrolls or books written in the language of Creation. The Dark Lands, after all, seemed to be rich with history from the time of the great war. The caves at Stroyza were covered with information from that time.

“Sometimes,” Mohler said, “when I arrived in the morning to record prophecies that had come in overnight, Bishop Arc would still be in here working on a new Cerulean scroll and I would notice, then, that he had acquired more of those strange tattoos. Bishop Arc didn’t like me to speak unless spoken to, so I never asked about them. When we played chess I didn’t like to look upon those frightening symbols tattooed all over him.”

Nicci hooked a long lock of blond hair behind her ear as she leaned over to get a better look at the scroll on the desk. “Was he good at chess?”

Mohler nodded. “Oh yes. He was a master at it.”

“So then there are more of these kind of scrolls, with symbols like this one here?” Richard asked as he impatiently waved a finger at the scroll. “These Cerulean scrolls–there are more of them?”

Mohler seemed a little bewildered by Richard’s interest in old scrolls. “That’s right. Some are written in languages that are slightly different but are similar enough. All of them are kept over there.” He gestured to a cabinet against the stone wall. “Let me show you, Lord Rahl.”

The man shuffled across the room, weaving his way between a display of a family of stuffed beavers to one side, and a marble statue of a woman in a filmy robe that left nothing to the imagination on his other side.

Richard noticed that from his desk, Hannis Arc would not have been able to see the statue very well, but he would have had a clear view of the scene with the beavers, all busily at work chewing tree trunks and reducing them to sticks and small logs to use in their dam building so they could control the flow of a stream.

When he reached the cabinet, Mohler opened the tall, carved door to reveal a grid of cubbyholes, almost every one of them holding at least one scroll, some stuffed with several. They looked as ancient as the one on the desk. Many had dark, crumbling edges. A quick appraisal suggested that there were probably close to a hundred Cerulean scrolls in the cabinet.

Richard pulled one of them out and carefully unrolled it to have a look. It began with azimuth angles that he didn’t recognize. Those celestial observations, he suspected, were meant to show star positions. Richard wasn’t entirely sure how, but he suspected that it might be a way of establishing chronology, a key element that prophecy lacked. In that light, the scrolls made prophecy look amateurish and incomplete. It seemed to have been an advanced technique, the mastery of which had been lost over time.

Right at the beginning, after the information about azimuth angles, Richard saw symbols that spoke about prophecy, except that they weren’t giving prophecy. Rather, they spoke of prophecy itself, almost as if it were a living thing.

In a strange way, they were revealing prophecy, but only in an oblique manner as they spoke of specific prophecies, using what they said to explain the central subject of the scroll. What, exactly, the subject of the scroll might be, Richard wasn’t entirely sure just yet.

Since in the language of Creation each of the symbols formed a complete concept, similar to an entire written sentence, rather than merely a word in a different language, it would take more time to work out the meanings of all the arcane symbols.

Richard rolled the scroll back up and handed it to Nicci. He pulled out another and opened it wide between his outstretched arms. This one, too, was written in symbols, and although the language was very similar it was not exactly the language of Creation. It was substantially the same, but more arcane, more primitive, written in a kind of less-formal slang. Richard felt a chill run through him at the realization that it seemed to be a language that predated the orthodox form of the language of Creation. A quick look was enough to tell him that he should at least be able catch the gist of it, if not translate it in its entirety.

As he scanned the symbols, they, too, appeared to be about prophecy, but in a different way. He frowned as he studied the scroll, trying to figure out what it was saying.

“Look there,” Nicci said, leaning in and pointing at a symbol. “Isn’t that the symbol for Regula?”

Richard blinked with the realization. “It certainly is.”

He rushed to try to read what the scroll was saying about Regula. Right off the top of his head it wasn’t making a lot of sense. His sense of alarm was making it difficult to think clearly.

Nicci leaned in, pointing again. “Look at this formula.”

Richard puzzled at it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Something about death, but I don’t know what it means.”

“I recognize that particular set of expressions,” Nicci said. “They were used by Sisters of the Dark. They have to do with the underworld.” She looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “It’s talking about the world of the dead.”

“I see it now,” Richard said, nodding as he unfurled more of the scroll. “It’s speaking of banishment.”

“Banishment?” Kahlan asked, peering around the side of him at the scroll. “Banishment to the world of the dead? You mean like the Temple of the Winds was sent to the underworld?”

Gooseflesh tingled along Richard’s arms.

“No. Not to the underworld. This has to do with a banishment from the world of the dead.”

“Banishment from the underworld?” Kahlan shook her head. “What could that be about?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said as he rolled the scroll back up and started pulling others out of the cubbyholes, holding them in the crook of his arm. “Help me take them over to the desk.”

“How many do you want?” Nicci asked.

“All of them.”

Kahlan looked over at him. “All of them?”

“Yes. Bring them all over to the desk. This is what we came to find. It’s not the prophecies that hold what we’re looking for, it’s these Cerulean scrolls. This is what Hannis Arc used to bring Sulachan back from the dead.”

“Are you sure?” Kahlan asked.

Richard waggled one of the scrolls. “Why do you think he has these symbols tattooed all over himself? It has something to do with the scrolls, not prophecy. The scroll has elements and symbols linked to occult magic. It mentioned Regula. It’s all tied together with what’s in these scrolls.

“I need to know what all of them say. I need to get to work to translate them to find out what Hannis Arc knows and what he is doing.”

“Richard,” Kahlan said in a confidential tone, “we don’t have time for this.”

He stopped pulling scrolls out of the cubbyholes to look at her. “What are you talking about?”

“The sickness you carry. We have to get it out of you or you are going to die before you can use any of this to stop Sulachan and Hannis Arc. You need to be cured first.”

Richard went back to pulling out scrolls and stuffing them under his other arm. “We can’t make it to the People’s Palace in time. I told you that before, it’s too far. But maybe there is another way. Maybe these will help us to solve that problem in a different way.”

As he rushed to pull scrolls out of the cabinet, he saw Kahlan and Nicci share a look. He understood their concern, but he knew he had a limited amount of time before the poison grew strong enough to stop him from thinking clearly. It wouldn’t be long after that until it killed him.

He knew, too, that even in the best of circumstances they couldn’t make it to the People’s Palace in time. Even if they made it there, Sulachan’s half people would already have the plateau surrounded, preventing them from being able to get in. They couldn’t fight their way through all of Sulachan’s forces.

He started back to the desk with his armload of scrolls. The others followed behind, carrying their own armloads of scrolls.

He needed to find out what was going on. He needed to know how Hannis Arc had brought Sulachan back through the veil. Such things weren’t supposed to be possible. The dead were supposed to stay dead. He knew that those answers were the key to everything.

For that matter, even though there were some unique circumstances involved, it shouldn’t have been possible for Kahlan and him to come back to life. And yet they had. It all made sense, and yet it didn’t. Not really. He suspected that those events were related to everything else taking place with Hannis Arc and Emperor Sulachan.

Richard remembered the bone woman, Adie, telling him about the skrin being a force that was a part of the veil between life and death. That force guarded in both directions. The force of the skrin repelled all from the cusp where the world of the living and the world of the dead touched.

The skrin kept the spirits in the underworld from crossing back into the world of life.

So how did Sulachan cross back?

Richard needed to find the answer to that question.