Warheart

CHAPTER 38

“What do you mean we’re trapped in here?” Nicci asked with a mix of suspicion and concern. “There were passageways everywhere. There have to be interconnecting tunnels running all through this place. There has to be a way to get around this collapsed section of ceiling.”

As his gaze swept over the wall of rock, Richard slowly shook his head. “You’re right that the tunnels interconnect. A little farther back we could have gone down some of those side intersections and they would take us a different way around to the opening at the top of the cliff. But not this far back in this particular corridor.

“We’re now in a dedicated corridor that runs back deeper into the mountain. This passageway is unlike the rest. It has a primary purpose, so it doesn’t have the typical intersecting routes that crisscross in and out of the general network of tunnels. The builders apparently intended to limit access to it.

“It does have side branches with a number of rooms, some of them places where people lived, but those side passageways are all part of this limited-access area, so none of them lead back out. They all dead-end. From back here the only way back out, back into the general tunnel complex, is through this collapsed wall of rock.”

“Maybe it’s not as big a problem as it seems,” Cassia said, trying to sound positive. “Maybe the five of us can dig our way out. It probably wouldn’t be as hard as it looks.”

Richard frowned over at her. “Look at it.” He gestured to the wall of rock. “Cassia, it’s solid granite. It’s not a pile of rubble that maybe we could dig through. It’s a single, massive block of granite.

“Granite is often layered in thick lifts like this. Some of those slabs can be dozens of feet thick and they can run on horizontally for quite some distance. Weather will create and open up natural breaks, but protected inside a mountain like this, these lifts are massive. It must have fractured along a natural horizontal split higher up in the rock and because of what Samantha was doing, the unsupported weight all dropped down into this void.”

“Maybe it’s not very wide, though,” Kahlan offered. “People cut granite into blocks to use in buildings.”

“Sure,” Richard said, “but that takes specialized chisels and wedges to split the rock. We don’t have any of that.”

Kahlan turned hopefully to Nicci. “Maybe you can use your gift to open up a hole–maybe crack the rock or something–to get us through to the other side? Move some of it aside?”

Nicci frowned her incredulity. “There’s no way. The entire face of the mountain was weakened by what Samantha was doing. Remember what she did in that mountain gorge? This here all dropped down into the void of the caverns, like stepping on an anthill. The whole network of tunnels from this point back is crushed. It’s solid rock from here to what used to be the mouth of the cavern.”

“How far is that?” Vale asked, hopefully.

Richard made a bit of a face at her. “How long were we running to get away from her?”

Vale looked sheepish. “A pretty long way, I guess.”

“You guess right. It’s hundreds of feet. We might as well be inside the middle of the mountain.”

He pointed to the side. “Look at the way the softer stone is pushed out into this void back here. That’s a good indication of the massive size and weight of all the granite that came down from above. As extensive as the network of caves may be, to the mountain it’s like the anthills Nicci mentioned. From here to the outside there are no longer any caves. They are all crushed. There is nothing to dig through or cut through. The original people who made these caves surely had hundreds of workers and the tools necessary for such an undertaking. We don’t.”

Kahlan folded her arms. “What are we doing here, Richard?”

Richard looked over at her. “What do you mean?”

“Richard, we’re all afraid. We’re going to die in here if there isn’t another way out. You wanted to come here because you said it was too far to make it back to the People’s Palace. There isn’t a containment field here where Nicci could extract that poison from you.

“So why are we here? What’s really going on?”

Richard pressed his lips together a moment. “Well, I figured you all would think I was crazy, so I wanted to find it first.”

Kahlan kept her admonishing gaze fixed on him. “Find what?”

It was clear she expected the truth. It was also clear to him that she deserved it. So did the rest of them.

“A well for the sliph.”

The cavern rang with silence for a moment as everyone stared at him.

Kahlan’s expression shifted to a frown. “The sliph? You think the sliph has a well here? Why would you think that?”

Richard let out a deep breath as he gestured to the southwest. “Look how far it is back to the People’s Palace. It’s even farther to the Wizard’s Keep in Aydindril.” He turned back, sharing a look with both Kahlan and Nicci. “The sorceress in charge here, at Stroyza, was supposed to keep watch and then go to the Keep to warn them that after thousands of years the barrier to the third kingdom had been breached and the greatest threat to mankind that has ever existed was now on the loose. That is Stroyza’s purpose, that’s why it was built here by the same people who built the barrier, and that’s why a gifted person has always lived here.”

Puzzled, Kahlan shrugged. “What of it?”

“So you think the builders of the barrier containing that great evil expected this one person to run all the way back to the Keep and warn everyone that the barrier had been breached by that evil? They entrusted the fate of the New World, the fate of life itself, to this one sorceress to run all the way back to the Wizard’s Keep?

“The fate of the world depended on her evading half people, staying out of the clutches of a spirit king risen from the dead, his reanimated dead, occult powers, and all the natural threats and difficulties making the journey all the way across the trackless forests of the Dark Lands entailed? She had to make it across wilderness, mountain ranges, and then across more mountains in D’Hara, to finally get to the Wizard’s Keep to warn the wizards there? Really? You really believe that people gifted and intelligent enough to build a barrier that stood for three thousand years, build the citadel, and build this place to watch over the barrier would do that–put the fate of the world in the hands of a sorceress from this place successfully making such a long and perilous journey?”

Nicci folded her arms as she glanced over at Kahlan. “I hate to say it, but when he puts it that way it’s hard to disagree. The threat was deadly serious and profoundly difficult to handle. If it could have been ended they would have ended it back in the great war rather than lock it away behind the barrier.”

“Right,” Richard said, “so they wouldn’t have depended on one person to travel all that way and put their faith in her making it there safely, much less make it in time for them to do something about the expanding threat.

“She would have faced the same problem we have now: time. She wouldn’t be able to make it there in time, and worse, the half people that had escaped would likely already be out ahead of her, so she would not only have to evade being caught and eaten, she would have to find a way to get past them.”

Kahlan stared off in thought for a moment before speaking. “A well for the sliph would have given the lookout here a swift and easy way to get back to the Keep. It makes sense.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Richard said.

Kahlan folded her arms. “So, if there is a well here for the sliph, why didn’t we see it when we were here before? Samantha showed you the shielded caves where Naja Moon wrote instructions and where they have the viewing port. So where is this well if there really is one here?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Richard admitted. “I never saw it when I was here before. But I saw the shielded areas, so I figure there must be a shielded room with a well for the sliph–like there is at the Keep. All we have to do is find it.”

Nicci aimed a thumb back at the granite wall that used to be the ceiling. “What if it’s under there?”

“Like I said, this is a dedicated corridor with no other way in. I think that was by design to keep it safe. I think we’re in the right passageway.”

Kahlan was still staring off in thought. “We could get back to the palace in short order. Nicci could cure you, then. And then you would be able to stop Sulachan and end prophecy.”