Warheart

CHAPTER 57

In the light of a few fat candles, Richard leaned against the omen machine. He could hardly stand, but he knew that he had to. At least for a little longer. It would be over soon and then, one way or another, he would not have to stand.

Regula was silent. The machine knew that now was not the time for prophecy.

Now was the time when free will would hold sway.

As he waited in the silence, in the dark hole where so very long ago Regula, a power that belonged in the world of the dead, had been buried, Richard thought instead about Kahlan. He made a conscious decision to use his time, if this was to be his last night of life, to think about what had been the best part of his life: Kahlan. He missed her so much it hurt almost as much as the poison of death gripping him.

He pushed his awareness of the pain of the poison away and instead did his best to picture in his mind the first time he had looked into Kahlan’s green eyes that day in the Hartland woods and the instant connection he had felt.

That seemed like a lifetime ago.

He had known the moment he saw her that his life would never be the same again. Thinking back on that first moment when he had looked into the eyes of his soul mate, it made him smile with the sheer vastness of it. She had been more than he could have ever dreamt his life would be.

She had been seeking help to find the wizard who could name the Seeker so that he could find the last box of Orden. Now, all three of those boxes sat on the cold metal top of Regula not far from his right elbow. The power of Orden and the power of Regula, together, in the world of life. Regula had been sent to the world of life for protection, to keep it away from Sulachan, and now here it was in the very heart of danger.

Richard put it from his mind. If these were to be his last moments of life, he wanted them to be worthwhile. He wanted every possible second of them to be spent in happy memories of Kahlan. He didn’t want his last moments to be filled with bitterness and regrets. He wanted his last thoughts to be of love, not hate.

He smiled as he thought about some of the funny faces she sometimes made at him, the way she sometimes teased him, the way she always made him live up to the best he could be. He thought about the way she believed in him when no one else did. He thought about the way he could be weak with her, and she would give him her strength.

He thought about all that he wanted to do for her, to be for her. The way he felt when he kissed her, when he made love to her.

Many people lived their entire lives together without being together, without actually sharing their lives the way he and Kahlan had. He smiled in the dark as he thought about it.

It was while immersed in those thoughts that he heard a sound from above. Instantly, he switched to listening in the silence until he heard steady, measured footsteps. The ladder creaked when weight was put to it. It could only be Sulachan. Sulachan would recognize the death Richard carried. He would be focused on it the way a mountain lion would be focused on a fawn. The time had come for the spirit king to collect what he claimed as his.

Sulachan would be coming for Richard, there was no doubt of that.

Richard waited in silence for the inevitable.

He saw the shadow flow down and over the stone wedges of the circular stairs as the spirit king descended into Regula’s room. He would at last have what he wanted–Richard and Regula.

When he reached the small alcove at the bottom, Sulachan stopped, smiling with menace, as he looked in at Richard trapped in the small room with no other way out. In the semidarkness, the spirit was a glowing, bluish, otherworldly shell over the desiccated corpse that was the long-dead emperor. Having returned from the world of the dead, the spirit, brought back to life by the blood of fuer grissa ost drauka, seemed to be content with the form it had taken. Life really was precious, even for a dead emperor.

The glowing eyes were focused intently on Richard. “How thoughtful of you to be here, waiting for me, rather than me having to chase you down and pull you out of some dark little hidey-hole.”

“I’m not the kind to run,” Richard said.

“That is why I knew you would be here,” the spirit king said. “I’ve known about you for a very long time, Warheart.”

“What is it you want with me?”

The emperor stepped out of the alcove and into the room toward Richard. “Why, to kill you, of course, so that there will no longer be any chance of you interfering as only you could. You see, unlike my friend”–he gestured back up the stairwell–“Hannis Arc, I don’t make the grave mistake of underestimating you. He plots revenge for years. He seeks to make you suffer. I simply eliminate threats.”

“So you, a man who has returned from the dead, are worried about me?”

Sulachan smiled as he glared with hatred. “You are a man who has also returned from the dead, are you not?”

“Well,” Richard said with a shrug, “it was not nearly the magnitude of the accomplishment you managed.”

“You think not? My dark ones were there, waiting for you. They had you. And yet you escaped their talons and managed to get back to the world of life.” The emperor waved a bony finger. “No, I do not underestimate you, Richard Rahl. Hannis Arc hates you, but I have great respect for you, much the way one respects a poisonous snake. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of the poison that is eating away at you and has almost sucked all the remaining juices of life from you.”

“If you know the poison is going to take me soon, then why bother with me? Seems like a lot of unnecessary effort.”

The sinister smile returned. “Because, like I said, I don’t underestimate you. You are dangerous, and the time has come to put you down so the Twilight Count can finish and everything that has been set into motion can finally reach its inevitable conclusion. I have worked far too long to leave anything to chance by letting you live a single extra moment. I don’t need you to witness the fruition of my plans, as Hannis Arc would want. I simply need to eliminate you.”

As Sulachan made his way toward Regula, Richard casually moved away, staying out of his reach. On his way by the candles, he pulled off a small blob of soft, warm candle wax, playing with it in his fingers as he kept an eye on the spirit king.

As Sulachan went to the omen machine, Richard casually circled around toward the opening at the alcove to the stairwell.

“Thinking of running away after all?” Sulachan asked, his back to Richard as he gazed at the boxes of Orden.

Richard reached up and gave a tug on the small string dangling down. As he pulled it taut, untying the knot, the cloth with the wards on it was released, unfurling to drop down and cover the doorway.

“No, I’m not going anywhere,” Richard said. “And neither are you.”

Intrigued by Richard’s casual tone of voice, Sulachan turned with a frown. But when he saw the cloth behind Richard, his expression turned from startled to venomous.

“What do you think you are doing?”

As he played with the soft wax between his finger and thumb, rolling it back and forth, Richard used the same hand to gesture at the cloth panel. “I’m sure you recognize the wards. Wards left by those people you were trying to defeat so long ago. Wards specifically created to keep spirits from crossing.”

Sulachan swept an arm out, at the same time letting out a chuckle. “Why would I need to worry about such things?”

As Sulachan circled around to the cloth panel, Richard did the dance with him, circling around with him, matching him step for step, keeping his distance, as he moved back around to the omen machine.

Sulachan, glaring at the wards, at first moved toward the cloth hanging like a bull charging a flag, lifting a hand out as if he intended to swipe the cloth aside or rip it down, but as his hand reached out it paused before he could touch the cloth. He snatched back the hand and instead backed up a step.

He spun around to Richard. “You may be smart and you may be dangerous, but this time, you have done something useless.” He lashed a hand out toward the cloth. “I am confused as to why you would bother with such trivialities as this.” He straightened, gathering his composure. “But it doesn’t matter because I am here to end it.”

“Me too. You see, the wards on that cloth are meant to make sure you can’t leave. I want to make sure that you don’t run.” Richard showed the emperor an insincere smile. “I wouldn’t want to have to chase you down and pull you out of some dark little hidey-hole.”

Sulachan glared but made no argument that he could leave if he wanted to. They both knew that he couldn’t, at least, not as long as that cloth with the ancient wards barred the door.

Richard turned and laid his hands on Regula. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Emperor Sulachan lift his own hands to conjure his occult powers.

“Time to go home,” Richard said with a smile to Regula.

At that he stuffed the plugs of soft wax into his ears, jammed them both in hard with his thumbs, then swiftly pulled the baldric of his sword off over his head and laid the sword, still in its gleaming scabbard engraved with ancient symbols keyed to the power, across the top of the three black-as-death boxes of Orden.

Sulachan’s occult power was making the room shudder. Dust came down in little streams from the ceiling. Richard felt that power clawing at him, trying to pull him apart.

Before it was too late, Richard drew a deep breath as he tilted his head back.

His turn.

With all his might, all his strength, Richard let out a powerful scream, releasing the call of death from deep down inside. With the mighty force of his gift lurking below the poison he had layered over the top of it all the way down in the core of his being, he pushed that poisonous call of death out with all his might.

In his own head, because of the wax plugs, he heard only dead silence. But he knew that the scream of death was filling the room. He unleashed the fury of his gift, along with the anger of the sword, from deep in the core of his being, at last giving it the liberty it needed to drive the call of death upward and out.

Sulachan pressed the palms of his hands against his ears.

Arms stiff, Richard fisted his hands as he screamed. Darkness began swirling around the room, picking up dirt and dust with it. Everything shook. The floor shuddered. The neatly stacked metal strips against the walls toppled, spilling the strips out across the floor. As the speed of the spinning darkness increased, it began lifting up metal strips, sucking them into the vortex.

The omen machine itself began to shudder.

The three boxes of Orden atop the omen machine and beneath his sword slammed together into one and exploded with sudden, blinding light erupting from the pit of darkness that was the world of the dead within Regula. The light shot upward, blowing the ceiling open, carrying blocks of stone up and outward. The light from Orden, freed from the Regula room, exploded up through the Garden of Life, shattering the glass roof high overhead as it blasted upward into the night sky toward the stars. Glass and debris were thrown clear of the blast of light as night was turned to day.

In the rotating maelstrom of darkness swirling around the jet of blinding light from Orden, Regula began breaking apart under the power of the forces that had been unleashed. Metal plates ripped off and swirled around in the spinning storm as if they were bits of paper and debris snatched up in a gale. As Richard continued to scream with all his might, letting death escape from fuer grissa ost drauka, the machine was torn apart and drawn upward into the spiraling storm of light. The pieces disintegrated into dust as they were drawn upward in the blinding conflagration.

In Richard’s head, as he used all his strength to power the scream, it was all totally silent.

Across the room, Sulachan frantically tried to conjure power to save himself, but as soon as he took his hands off his ears to try to direct his occult powers, the call of death instantly ripped into him. The glow of his spirit crackled and flashed in bright colors for an instant before going as dark as a night stone. At the same time his worldly body imploded inward and then came apart in tattered bits that themselves came apart, crumbling to dust as it was all sucked into the whorl of blinding light at the center of the swirling darkness of the void between worlds.

When at last Richard had let his gift expel every last bit of the poison of death from inside him, and it had been sucked up into the light and carried away, Richard could finally stop screaming.

He collapsed to his knees, getting his breath, hardly believing that he had actually done it. As he recovered, he pulled the wax plugs from his ears. They had protected him from hearing death’s call while he expelled it.

For the first time in ages, he no longer felt the weight of the poison inside him. He was finally free of it.

He looked over at the collapsed hole where Regula had been. There was nothing left of it. Not so much as a scrap of metal remained. Everything that had been a part of it, all the gears, shafts, levers, and all the bits that made it work, were gone. It was as if it had never been there. Everything that had housed the power and given it the ability to communicate was no more.

Regula had gone home, and it had taken prophecy with it. He felt a twinge of happiness for Regula, going home to where it belonged among the expanse of souls spread out like a field of stars on the darkest night. It would be where it could no longer harm the world of life, or even influence it.

Richard had done it. He had ended prophecy.

The boxes of Orden, too, were gone, finally completing their cycle begun so long ago when the Sword of Truth had been forged as the key to using the power.

With Regula gone from the world of life, with prophecy ended, with the cycle of Orden finally ended, the spectral fold was closed. The breach between worlds was at last sealed.

Richard saw his sword on the ground beside him, the scabbard gleaming as brightly as ever. He put the baldric back over his head as he came to his feet, feeling strong again. He brushed himself off and tested his arms for residual pain from the poison, but there was no pain. He felt normal again. He could also again feel that inner sense of his gift. He had missed it.

The long ordeal with the poison from the Hedge Maid was finally ended.

Prophecy was ended.

But when he heard the distant howls, he remembered that his work was far from done.

He had to do something to stop what was happening if he could. He raced up the circular staircase to the level above the room where Regula had been banished for so long, but that level had been blown apart. He had to make his way carefully around the edge to get over to the side of the room with the short flight of stairs to the landing where the ladder should have been. He cast about and found the ladder under rubble and managed to pull it out. A few rungs were broken, but it was still usable. He stood it on the landing and leaned it up against floor of the Garden of Life.

Richard scrambled up and once on top quickly surveyed the destruction. Giant blocks of stone had been upended; dirt and rubble lay everywhere. The glass roof had an enormous hole blasted through the structure.

Richard started running up the path toward the double doors to get out to where the howls and screams were coming from.

As he raced up the path between the trees, a Mord-Sith in red leather stepped out from the side, blocking his way. Richard skidded to a halt. It was Vika, the Mord-Sith he had encountered once before when he had been a captive of Hannis Arc.

Vika’s steely blue eyes seemed to be examining his soul for every nuance of strength, weakness, and character–an idiosyncratic, piercing scrutiny unique to Mord-Sith.

Richard stared at her, trying to decide what to do. There were few people as lethal as a Mord-Sith. Richard knew how easy it was to make a mistake with such women and underestimate what they were capable of. He had learned that lesson the hard way.

He knew that using his sword against her would be a mistake. Using his gift against her would be just as big a mistake. She could capture magic used against her.

“Vika, you remember our talk,” he told her in a low, steady voice. “It’s your life. Have you thought about what choices you want to make for yourself?”

Behind her, Richard saw movement. From beyond the trees Hannis Arc, every inch of his flesh tattooed with symbols in the language of Creation, made his way down into the Garden of Life.

He was holding Kahlan by her hair, dragging her along behind. He wasn’t being gentle about it, either. Kahlan clawed at his hands, trying to keep from having her hair pulled out as she was dragged along, stumbling, falling, trying to keep up as he twisted her head one way and then the other.

Kahlan’s green eyes turned up and she spotted Richard. Those eyes brimmed with tears of pain and fury. He knew without a doubt that if she could have used her power against Hannis Arc, she would already have done so. He also saw that she was wearing the Grace ring Richard had sent with the soldier. Richard hoped that the blood all down the front of her was not that soldier’s blood, killed while delivering Richard’s message.

Richard started toward her.

Vika strode purposefully out right in front of him and with no warning rammed her Agiel into his gut. The shock of pain doubled him over. He couldn’t draw a breath. She held the Agiel in her fist pressed hard into him. The pain became beyond endurance. His vision sparkled with spots of light at the end of a dim tunnel. His ears rang. Every nerve in his body was on fire.

When she pulled her Agiel back, Richard dropped heavily to his knees, unable to do anything but try to gasp a breath. With her boot, Vika shoved him over. Richard collapsed onto his side, tears of pain streaming down his face. He tried to suck in air, but his throat had closed down so tightly that he couldn’t draw a good breath.

Vika went to a knee so that she could bend close, put her face close, so that he could see just how angry she was.

“If you know what’s good for you,” she growled intimately through gritted teeth, “you will stay down. Do–you–understand?”

She slammed her Agiel into his middle again and twisted it just to make her point, her teeth on edge the whole time. “I asked you a question. Do you understand?”

He nodded as best he could, unable to look at her.

Richard felt like his bulging eyes might burst out of his head. He struggled to draw a breath as she rose up and towered over him. All he could see were her boots right in front of him. He held his arms crossed over his middle.

“Leave him alone!” Kahlan screamed.

Hannis Arc twisted his hand, bending her head back, making her cry out in pain. Richard could see how much it was hurting her, but he was in no condition to do anything about it.

Hannis Arc finally tossed Kahlan to the ground, where she tumbled and rolled to a stop not far to the side of Richard.

Hannis Arc, glaring with his red eyes, lifted an arm toward Kahlan, his palm held up. Kahlan put her hands to her throat, gasping in agony at whatever kind of occult power he was using to hurt her. Her face went red, then started going blue.

Richard was beyond fury, but the pain from Vika’s Agiel still kept him from being able to use his muscles, much less draw a breath. He couldn’t properly focus his vision.

Hannis Arc gestured angrily at Vika for her to get out of his way. She bowed her head and withdrew to stand behind him.

He took several steps closer, glaring down at Richard the way one would inspect an animal in an iron trap. “You think you have won? You think you have spoiled my plans? Quite the contrary. You have unwittingly helped me by eliminating a very, very dangerous associate who had outlived his usefulness. The fool wanted to destroy the world of life. The world of life will find much more favor with me. I only want to rule it.

“Now that you have sent that lunatic spirit back to the world of the dead, the Shun-tuk will soon have subdued the palace, and I will finally–finally–be able to kill the Lord Rahl, and in his own fallen palace, no less.”

Hannis Arc took a step forward as he lifted his hands out to Kahlan and Richard, one to each of them.

Vika walked up behind the man, and without a word pressed her Agiel to the base of his skull.

Hannis Arc’s arms lifted, shaking and trembling with the agony of what Vika was doing to him. She showed no expression or mercy as she held her Agiel against him. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shook violently.

And then, all the tattoos on him began to smoke. The lines of each tattoo covering his head turned red-hot, like coals in a fire. The flesh bubbled and sizzled, smoke rising from his skin, as the symbols all over him continued to burn down into his flesh. The skin on his cheekbones detached along the lines of one of the symbols and flopped down, exposing burned and bloody bone.

Still, Vika stood emotionless behind him, holding her Agiel to the base of his skull.

As the lines of the tattoos all over his skin burned, the smell of it was gagging. Blood frothed at Hannis Arc’s mouth. His eyes bled. Blood ran out of his ears.

The man’s legs suddenly twisted unnaturally and he went down in a heap. Smoke rolled up from his burning flesh. There was no need to check that he was dead. The man was dead and his spirit probably already in the underworld, being swarmed by Sulachan’s dark demons, taking his soul down into the darkness of eternity.

Vika ran forward and crouched down, helping Richard get back up onto his knees. His hands trembled as he tried to get control of his movements. Before he could even get to his feet, Kahlan flung her arms around his neck, crying with joy to see him alive, holding his head to her. His arms finally able to move as he wanted, he hugged her for what seemed ages, but not long enough.

Finally, as she separated and wiped the tears from her face, Richard stood.

Vika stepped closer to him. “I made my choice, Lord Rahl. I chose you.”

“Then why use your Agiel on me?”

“Because I knew that you wouldn’t have stood a chance against his occult powers if you tried to fight him like that. I knew he would kill you if I didn’t find a way to make sure he was distracted enough so that I could take him out. So I needed to put you down and to have you stay down.

“He never let me come up behind him like that. He knew what a Mord-Sith was capable of. He was a very careful man about potential threats like that.”

“So, you used your Agiel on me to throw some raw meat in front of him and distract him.”

Looking solemn, she nodded once and kept her head bowed. “Yes, Lord Rahl.”

Vika went to her knees before him and held out her Agiel in upturned palms. “We all learn during our training that should we ever use our power on the Lord Rahl like that, it is automatically punishable by death. I chose to do it anyway to save your life and the life of the Mother Confessor. That was my choice, for my life.”

She swallowed without looking up at him. “I ask only that you make it quick, so that I do not suffer. I don’t wish to suffer. I have suffered enough.”

Richard knelt down in front of her. Her head was bowed and she wouldn’t look up at him, fearing the worst.

Richard put his hand over both of hers holding out the Agiel, and lowered them. Then, with a finger, he lifted her chin. Looking into her wet blue eyes, he kissed a finger, and then pressed that finger on her forehead.

“That is your punishment.”

Vika frowned, tears starting to run down her cheeks. “Lord Rahl, I don’t understand. I used my Agiel on you. That is a mandatory death sentence.”

“I just did something to you worse than death.”

Her brow twitched. “What have you done?”

“If you don’t behave, I will tell all the other Mord-Sith that I kissed you. You will never hear the end of it as long as you live.”

He showed her a smile, then, a smile that showed her how proud he was of her for making a choice for herself, a choice for life.

Kahlan put an arm around Vika’s shoulders and helped her up. “I have to tell you, I’m proud of you too, but you certainly had me fooled there for a while. I thought we were going to die right then and there.”

Vika nodded with a genuine smile. “I decided long ago, after Lord Rahl talked to me in the cave prison. I knew, though, that I needed to do more than simply run away. No one runs away from Hannis Arc. He will find you and then take out his revenge for your betrayal. I knew that the only way to save myself, and the only way to save others, would be to kill him. I had to wait for my chance. He was a pig, but I had to wait for the right time. Today was that time.”

Kahlan gave the woman’s arm a squeeze of empathy. Then she looked back in the direction of the screaming in the distance. “Richard, the half people–”

“I know,” he said as he took her hand. “Come on.”