Warheart

CHAPTER 48

Richard saw Sisters he knew among the small crowd accompanying them, along with a number of people he didn’t know. They were probably people from down in the city of Aydindril brought up to the Keep to help with bringing the place back to life. There used to be a lot of people from down in Aydindril working at the Keep.

Richard wasn’t keen on the idea of people he didn’t know hearing anything about what was going on. They might be trustworthy, but he didn’t know them. Even if they were, they could overhear something and start rumors or even a panic down in the city. Verna and Chase had no idea of the trouble they were all in, so they would have no reason to be careful of who was around. For all they knew, the world was at peace.

In the distance yet more people made their way through the room as they went about their errands and work. The enormous room was so long and poorly lit that he couldn’t make out the faces of those people at the far end.

Richard cast a sidelong glance at Chase, then deliberately looked at the people following along. Chase got the message.

He turned back to everyone. “Why don’t you all let everyone know that there is no problem and then check that all the alarms are reset. Verna and I can see to this.”

The Sisters and some of the others offered their services if needed and then started turning off to the corridors to the side. Soon only Verna, Chase, and Rachel remained with them.

“Thanks,” Richard said in a quiet voice to his old friend.

He remembered that the long, tall room was a central hub leading to a number of important areas of the lower Keep. Besides providing daylight, the slits along the top of one of the walls helped the chamber serve as a ventilation chimney, drawing air through the lower Keep and providing fresh air. He could see small birds sitting on those high sills. Now the slits were letting a little daylight flood into the chamber along with fresh mountain air.

To the right, stone stairs built against the wall led to a narrow balcony high up on the wall. Widely spaced openings dotted the wall at irregular intervals along the balcony. Some of them had doors, while most were simply open into passageways to different areas and levels of the Keep.

It felt rather disorienting, after the places they had been and especially after being in the Dark Lands for so long, to find himself back in the Keep. It was all a bit bewildering to be so suddenly back in civilization. He had thought that perhaps he would never see it again. The Wizard’s Keep reminded him of Zedd, and brought back the pain of missing his grandfather.

He would have liked to allow himself to feel safe and relaxed to finally be back at the Keep, with Kahlan very near to Aydindril and the Confessors’ Palace, where she had grown up, but there could be no safety anywhere in the world of life as long as Sulachan was still a fugitive from the world of the dead.

It was additionally frustrating not knowing how many days they had been traveling from Stroyza. Even if he saw the moon he wouldn’t know for sure how much time had passed in the journey to the Keep. The Dark Lands were heavily overcast all the time, so he couldn’t ever see the moon phase.

So much had happened, to say nothing of having been in the timeless, changeless underworld, that he wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Hannis Arc and Sulachan had taken their army of half people through the barrier to the third kingdom and headed to the southwest toward the People’s Palace. Richard had simply lost track of the days.

The one thing he knew for sure was that the People’s Palace was in great danger. He knew why Hannis Arc wanted to get to the People’s Palace–he wanted to rule the D’Haran Empire as Lord Arc. While the plan had been profoundly complex, his goal was actually pretty simple. He wanted to usurp the House of Rahl and rule in its place.

But Sulachan was generously obliging him even though he had larger plans of his own. The men were using one another for their own ends, and each needed the other, but it seemed to Richard that Sulachan was not one to be led so easily, like a bull with a ring through his nose. From what Richard could tell, Sulachan was just as eager as Hannis Arc to capture the People’s Palace.

He wondered if it could have something to do with Regula. Regula was an underworld power that was alien to the world of life. It was powering prophecy in the world of life. It was choking off life with prophecy.

In a way, it was like the touch of death Richard had in him. That touch was leaching the life out of him. Regula for millennia had been leaching life out of the world of life.

Regula, in a way, was a bridge through the veil, an open conduit between worlds. Sulachan needed that conduit. More than anything else, that was why he was intent on taking the palace. He was simply using Hannis Arc for his goals, much the same as Hannis Arc was using the spirit king.

Kahlan took the prelate’s arm. “Verna, it would be very much appreciated if you could see to it that we were brought something simple to eat. Could you do that? We have two Mord-Sith with us who are about to boil me alive and eat me if we don’t feed them.”

That made Verna’s frown melt a bit. She glanced at the two steely-eyed Mord-Sith watching her as they marched along behind Kahlan. Richard needed to eat something to help keep up his strength, and he knew that Kahlan and Nicci had to be starving. They all needed food.

“Yes, of course.” She immediately broke away to rush over to some men loading firewood out of a room not far away.

They straightened beside their carts and nodded at her instructions before hurrying off into one of the corridors to the side.

Chase, taking long strides, stepped up closer beside them. “Richard, what can I do to help? What do you need?”

Richard thought about it a moment.

“I wish I knew.”

“Well,” the big man asked, “where are you headed?”

“We need to get to the People’s Palace in a hurry. The sliph is the fastest way.”

“What’s the hurry?”

Richard glanced over at his lifelong friend. “In the great war, Emperor Sulachan used occult power–”

“Occult power?” Verna interrupted as she returned to their side, the scowl back in her expression. “What’s that? What are you talking about?”

Richard let out a long sigh. The sliph wasn’t far, and there would be no time to explain everything that had happened, much less everything that was going to happen and why.

“There is far too much to be able to fill you in about it all right now,” he said, “but I do need to fill in a little and give you some information that you need to know. Sulachan uses occult power. Occult power is in many ways like magic yet it’s different.”

“Different?” she interrupted. “Different how?”

“It’s a balance to magic. You might say that occult power is the other side of magic. Think of it as the dark side.”

“Subtractive Magic is the dark side of Additive Magic,” she insisted.

Richard made a face at how complicated it all was, trying to think of how to explain it.

“There are layers upon layers of balance,” Nicci said when she saw that Richard was having difficulty trying to figure out how best to explain it. “Subtractive is the underworld side of magic. Additive the living side. They balance each other. But it is still all magic, all part of the same thing. They work together, much the way our fingers and thumbs work together. You might think of Additive Magic as the thumb, working in conjunction with the fingers, or Subtractive Magic.”

“So then what is occult power?” Rachel asked, fascinated by such exotic matters.

“Occult power is like a different phase of magic. Magic and occult power are different things. Each can exert force, much like either hand can do.” Nicci locked the fingers of opposite hands together. “Each hand is different, and each is powerful, but both hands together are far more powerful than either alone.”

Richard wasn’t sure that Verna understood, so he went on with what mattered. “Sulachan was gifted with both areas, as were some of the wizards back in his time. They used both those abilities together–because they are stronger together, like Nicci explained–to create weapons out of people. Using this occult power, Sulachan could do things that were thought impossible.”

“Like what?” Chase asked, now fully caught up in the explanation.

“He created the dream walkers, for one thing. Emperor Jagang was a descendant of the dream walkers originally created by Sulachan and his wizards. Sulachan then used his ability to create an army of half people–”

Chase put the back of a hand to Richard’s arm. “Half people?”

Richard nodded. “People without souls.”

Chase frowned as he scratched his scalp. “Why?”

“Because they live an incredibly long time–in much the same way as the Sisters did at the Palace of the Prophets. He wanted this army waiting here for him when he finally found a way to return from the dead.”

Verna frowned. “I don’t see how it’s possible to take a person’s soul from them. The Creator–”

Richard waved a hand, not wanting to get caught up in theological arguments. “That isn’t the point. Like we said, it’s a really long and complicated story.

“What matters for now, what’s important, and what you need to know, is that the half people that were created went crazy without their souls–”

“Well I should think so,” Verna huffed.

“–and came to lust for them so intently that they began attacking people, tearing them apart with their teeth and eating them alive, believing they could get a person’s soul that way and have it for themselves. They hunt people with souls, intent on stealing those souls for themselves.”

“Well that’s just crazy,” Verna scoffed as she folded her arms.

“Tell that to them as you watch them ripping your flesh from your bones with their teeth and eating it,” Kahlan said.

“An account I read from back in that time says that the half people are death itself, with teeth, coming for the living. They are often called the unholy half-dead,” Richard added.

That sobered the prelate. “If these unholy half-dead people want so badly to eat us for our souls, why haven’t we ever seen them, or even heard of them?”

“Now you’re getting to what matters,” Richard said. “Back in the great war, Sulachan turned these crazed half people on the New World. The people up here managed to lock them all away behind a barrier in a distant, deserted place in the Dark Lands. That’s what ended the war. The people back then couldn’t eliminate the problem, because they didn’t have the power, but they could at least lock the evil away and end the war for the time being.”

“But now that evil has escaped,” Chase guessed.

“Yes. They’ve been banished there all this time, waiting for the chance to escape. That barrier finally failed. Once it did, Sulachan was brought back from the world of the dead and now he and his half people are flooding across the land.”

“What’s more,” Kahlan told them, “he and some in his army of half people who also possess occult powers can reanimate the dead. Those dead also do their bidding and fight for them.”

“Are you serious?” Chase asked in a low voice.

Richard gestured back to the alcove. “That’s most likely why the people back in that time sealed the catacombs. Sulachan could raise most of those dead, or at least the ones still mostly intact. They probably had to seal the catacombs to protect themselves.”

“The reanimated dead are extremely difficult to stop,” Nicci put in. “You need to be aware that magic is of little use against them.”

“Because of the occult powers used to bring them back to life?” Rachel guessed.

Nicci smiled at her quick mind grasping the problem. “That’s right.”

“Surely a sword would cut them down,” Chase said, his voice echoing as they all followed Richard into a passageway made of granite blocks.

“If only it were so,” Richard told him. “About the only way to bring them down is with my sword or fire.”

Chase gestured with a fist. “But surely enough men could–”

Richard was shaking his head. “Even what you would think would be overwhelming numbers of soldiers of the First File can’t stop them. They aren’t really alive, so regular weapons can’t kill them. They are already dead. It’s the occult power driving these corpses that gives them such great strength. I’ve seen these walking dead with a collection of swords broken off in their chests and it doesn’t even slow them down.”

Richard cast a meaningful look over at Chase as they turned down a hallway paneled with figured mahogany. “Even the heart hounds were easier to stop.”

Chase grunted his discontent.

“Anyway, Sulachan is determined to finish what he started so long ago. The time he spent in the underworld was meaningless to him, except that he used that time to manipulate events and gather underworld minions. He and his army of half people and walking dead are pouring across D’Hara right now on their way to take the People’s Palace. That will only be the beginning.

“He has with him a powerful wizard, Hannis Arc, who also possesses occult powers. There is no telling how many people they are killing along the way. I have to get to the palace and stop them before they can take it.”

“Oh,” Chase said in a sarcastic tone, “well, now I see. That doesn’t sound like it should be too awfully difficult.”

“There is a lot more to it,” Richard told them.

“Like what?” Verna asked.

“It involves the power of Orden.” Richard gestured ahead. “The sliph isn’t far. We need to be on our way.”

Verna spread her arms in frustration. “Even if everything you say is true, how can you hope to stop such powerful men that the wizards back in that time–with all their considerable knowledge and power–weren’t able to handle?”

Richard cast her a look and waited until her gaze turned to his. “By ending prophecy.”

Verna harrumphed. “Out of the rain and into the lake.”

“Ahh,” Chase said, “well then, that sounds simple enough. I’m glad then that you have it all under control.”

Despite everything, Richard couldn’t help smiling. He brought them all to a stop in a circular area where several hallways branched off. One of them, he remembered, would lead through shields and then directly to the tower room.

Richard cleared his throat. “Verna, before we go, I have to give you an important message–from Warren.”

Verna’s scowl melted. She blinked. “What do you mean … from Warren?”

Richard looked down at the floor as he stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “Warren wants you to know that he loves you, and will love you for all eternity, and that he is at peace.”

“How would you be able to know such a thing? How could you have such a message from him?” Verna swallowed, her eyes brimming with tears. “Warren is dead.”

Richard nodded. “I was dead, too…” He flicked a hand uncomfortably. “… for a while. That was when I saw him.”

Verna’s brow bunched together as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. “You were dead? What are you talking about?”

“I had been murdered,” Kahlan explained, trying to help him and hurry the explanation along, “and while I was dead–”

“While you were dead!” Verna asked incredulously.

“Yes. I was dead. Nicci healed my body here in this world, then she stopped Richard’s heart so that his spirit could cross the veil. He went to the underworld and sent me back to the world of life. We thought we had lost him forever.”

Verna, a look of horror on her face, rounded on Nicci. “You stopped Richard’s heart? You killed him? For five hundred years before he was born it had been known that he is our only hope, and you stopped his heart? What would possess you to do such a thing?”

Nicci shrugged. “He told me to do it.”

Verna blinked. “And so you killed him because he told you to? Knowing that prophecy names him as the pebble in the pond, knowing that he is our only hope?”

Nicci looked uncomfortable. “Well, yes. He wanted to die, and I knew he would do it by his own hand if I didn’t help him. So I stopped his heart.” Nicci scratched her temple as her gaze fell away under the scrutiny of the woman now looking very much the part of the prelate. “If you would have been there, you would have understood.”

Verna faltered, trying unsuccessfully several times to start another question. She finally turned back to Richard.

“How can you be alive, now, if you were dead?”

“Well, death isn’t what it used to be.” He realized how flippant that sounded, even though he hadn’t intended it to be. “That’s part of the problem we’re working on.”

“How could you come back to life?” she pressed. “How is such a thing possible?”

Richard cleared his throat as his gaze descended to the floor. “Cara gave her life as a bridge for me to cross back over and return to my body in the world of life.”

“But she has a life now with Ben and–”

“Ben was killed protecting us from the half people.”

Verna blinked at the tears brimming again in her eyes. “And when you were dead, you saw Warren?”

Richard nodded, offering her a small smile. “He wanted you to know that he loves you and that he is at peace so you shouldn’t worry for his spirit.”

Verna looked away as she laid a hand over her heart for a moment. “Dear Creator, I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything anymore. The world seems to be unraveling.”

Richard gently grasped her shoulder. “It is. That’s why I need to hurry. I have to stop it from unraveling.”