“So if this isn’t a room, then why is there a doorway here?” Kahlan asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I imagine it’s a way to physically complete the circle of the node to match the way the spell-form is drawn.”
Kahlan eyed the dark passageway to the right. “Well, I get a bad feeling about this hallway, here, to the right.”
Shale looked from Kahlan to Richard. “Pregnant women have good instincts. I suggest you pay attention to them.”
“I always trust Kahlan’s instincts.”
Richard opened the tall, heavy, flat metal door in front of them. As he did so, light spheres to either side beyond began to glow. They all stepped in and stood in a tight cluster on a small landing inside the doorway and stared out at the colossal octagonal room that came into view as the light spheres brightened.
The vast space stretched high up into darkness. There were no windows Richard could see. As soon as he realized that he was reflexively looking for windows even though windows would be pointless down here, he became newly aware of how deep underground they were, below even the tombs of his ancestors. That awareness brought back his old dread of being trapped in confined spaces underground.
A broad stone walkway built in the form of an arched bridge spanned across to another door on the opposite side of the octagonal room. The walkway was six or eight feet wide. Richard leaned out and looked down at the drop-off under the bridge. He couldn’t see a bottom in the darkness below.
There was no walkway around the perimeter of the room to the other side. If they wanted to proceed, they would have to cross the bridge over the ominous pit.
Kahlan pressed a hand over her nose. “The smell of death is awful in here.”
Richard took a light sphere from a bracket on the wall, held his breath, and leaned out, looking over the edge again. Even with the light sphere it was still too dark to see anything.
“The stench is too powerful to merely be some dead rats or small animals. It has to be the rotting corpses of people.”
“How do you lose your balance on a walkway that wide and fall off?” Shale asked. “There is no railing, but still …”
Richard gave her a worried look. “Well, if they were moving through here in darkness, they could have simply stepped off the edge without realizing it.”
Because of the smell of rotting flesh, and their need to get on with finding Michec, Richard didn’t want to spend any more time in the octagonal room than it would take to get across.
Even though the bridge was plenty wide enough, everyone stood pressed up against the door at their backs. The gagging stench of death was so oppressive it made them all hesitant to proceed.
“Maybe we should go around after all,” Kahlan said.
The landing they were on had a twin across on the other side of the bridge. There was a closed door at the other end of the bridge that looked the same as the one at their backs. On the walls all the way around the octagonal room were stacked stone moldings, as if at the base of the wall, as well as crown moldings, but there was no floor or ceiling. They were merely decorative. The unpleasant thought occurred to him that tombs were also decorated.
Carved medallions stood out on each facet of the octagon-shaped room. Richard leaned over the edge to peer down the walls. He could see that there were similar carved medallions far below, and also up high on the walls, both almost in darkness, both denoting other levels of the complication. The stone of the room, like the rest of the place they had seen so far, was covered in dark, dirty, gritty, mottled splotches, almost like lichen that grew on rocks. In some places it was draped with filthy cobwebs.
“I think we should trust your first instinct,” Richard said. “After all, the other way around could have even worse things than this.”
“Well, this is just ridiculous,” Shale huffed, obviously nervous about the stone bridge. “Do you mean to tell me that this is part of a spell-form? Like you would draw in the dirt with a stick?”
“Actually, yes,” Richard said. “Like I explained before. It’s a kind of decorative element in the complication.”
Shale’s hands fisted at her sides. “Why in the world would the builders decorate this spell-form?”
It was clear that she didn’t like the place one bit. Richard couldn’t say that he blamed her. But it wasn’t like they had a choice.
“Well, the People’s Palace is similarly built in the shape of a spell-form laid out on the ground. It has a lot of beautiful, grand decorations—columns, arches, statues—that aren’t needed for that spell-form. Things like that aren’t really a part of the spell-form, so I can only assume the builders wanted to make it beautiful or interesting.”
Shale scowled. “You call this beautiful?”
“No,” Richard admitted. “I’d say this place looks—”
“Dangerous,” Kahlan said as she stared out across the bridge.
Richard squeezed her hand. “The whole complication is dangerous, so that would make sense.”
“Do you have any idea where Michec would be?” Shale asked.
When Richard gave a questioning look to the Mord-Sith, they all shook their heads.
“I don’t either,” Richard told her. “From the plans, this place is enormous. I can tell you that this is only the very tip of one edge of the spell-form, and it comprises several levels. Michec wasn’t in any of those rooms behind us, so obviously he has to be deeper in.” Richard pointed down. “By the footprints in the dust, he comes and goes this way, across the bridge. That would make sense, since the most straightforward way deeper into the heart of the spell-form is straight ahead across the bridge.”
Nyda stepped out past Richard. “We’d better go across first and check, then.”
Richard was about to object, but all five of the Mord-Sith pushed between him, Kahlan, and Shale and started across the bridge before he had a chance to argue.
Vale was the last one in line. She looked back over her shoulder. “Just wait there a minute until we check out what’s beyond the door.”
As she turned back to catch up with the others, the stone in the middle of the bridge abruptly shattered and began to fall away. Loud cracking noises came from the rest of the stone. Vale had to leap off one of the big blocks as it tipped and began to tumble into the darkness. Nyda and Cassia grabbed her arms and pulled her onto the far landing with them just as the rest of the stone bridge gave way underfoot and all dropped into the pit.
Clouds of dust rose up as the stone fell with a roar. Large blocks of stone, parts of blocks, chunks, lumps, and flakes all cascaded down into the black abyss.
The Mord-Sith all pressed their backs against the door as even the edge of the landing they were on began to crumble. To keep from falling, they opened the door and stepped back into the dark doorway.
Shale, Kahlan, and Richard backed up against their own door in disbelief as they watched the dust billowing up. They could hear the large blocks hitting the bottom somewhere far below in the darkness.
The five Mord-Sith stood in surprise across the room, in the dark doorway, staring back through the clouds of dust at Richard, Kahlan, and Shale. He was at least relieved that they all made it safely to the other side.
Shale was beside herself. “I thought this was a spell-form! How could that happen? It’s obviously not drawn in the dirt collapsing into a big hole in the middle of it, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then what just happened?” the sorceress demanded.
“Chaos.” Richard drew his lower lip through his teeth. “The complication just did something chaotic.”
Shale stared back at him. “Or it was a trap laid by Michec.”
“Either way,” Kahlan said, “we can’t leave them over there and us over here. We need to all stay close together.”
“You’re right,” Richard said. “All of you … wait there,” he called across to the five Mord-Sith. “We’ll go around and come meet you over there.”
18
> Kahlan followed closely behind Richard as he moved quickly down the side hallway. Shale brought up the rear, watching over her shoulder so that they wouldn’t be surprised from behind. None of them said anything about it, but they were all worried about what could have caused the stone bridge to collapse. After all, it had been there since the palace had been built, and it certainly hadn’t looked like it was weak.
They were even more worried, though, about the Mord-Sith being separated from them. After all, Michec had separated Vika from them. The bridge giving way felt too much by design.
Despite being in a hurry, Richard stopped briefly at each room they encountered. Each time he took a glass light sphere from a nearby bracket and used it so he could quickly check inside the dark rooms. Most were empty. Several were not.
The first one they found that wasn’t empty had a mummified corpse of a man. Even though his clothes were covered with a thick layer of gray dust, they could still see that the dead man was wearing a fancy outfit. Under his embroidered coat there was a shirt with ruffles at the neck and cuffs, that Kahlan recognized as likely a sign of nobility. Expensive-looking rings were still on three of his fingers.
“Do you think,” she wondered aloud, “that some of your wicked ancestors might have put people they didn’t like behind the locked doors of this complication to let them wander around, looking for a way out, only to eventually die a slow and terrifying death in the darkness?”
Richard, on a knee taking a quick look at the dead noble, looked back over his shoulder. “I never thought of that, but you certainly could be right. What better way to rid yourself of a pesky detractor vying for power than to put them down here where they would never be found? I think that Darken Rahl, though, favored more public demonstrations of his displeasure.”
Kahlan nodded. “He liked to make examples of people, so these bodies are likely from long before his time. The ones we’ve see so far look to have been down here for hundreds of years.”
In several places on their way down the hall, they came across yet more desiccated remains with leathery skin, and a few that were mostly bare bones. All the bodies, though, were still dressed in clothes. They found both men and women where they had finally collapsed and died. It was surprising to Kahlan to see how many people had managed to get into the remote place. Or were locked in. Despite the numbers they had found, she supposed that given the timespan it was rare for anyone to find their way in.
When they reached an odd-shaped room, Richard stopped to look in with the aid of the light sphere. Kahlan saw skeletal remains in a far, acutely pointed corner. Before Richard saw the remains, Kahlan was sure she saw the bones move.
“Look,” she said, pointing.
Richard took the light sphere closer. He bent over at the waist to look, then straightened.
“Just bones. Did you see something?”
“I saw them move,” she said.
“Did you see what Kahlan saw?”
Shale shook her head. “I didn’t see them until she said to look.”
“Might have been a trick of the light. The light the spheres give off can be strange at times.”
Richard turned back and with the toe of a boot pushed at the bones. They collapsed inward with a hollow clacking sound. The skull toppled off the spine and rolled a short distance. Richard used his boot to push it back toward the rest of the remains. After it stopped, facedown, it slowly rolled back over, as if to look up at him.
“Whatever did that, we don’t have time to worry about it,” he said as he left the room. “We need to get to the Mord-Sith.”
Kahlan knew she had been right about the bones moving, and the way the skull had rolled back over was creepy, but she was more worried about getting to the Mord-Sith before Michec did. He had already captured Vika, so he obviously had the gifted ability to deal with Mord-Sith.
As they took a turn at an intersection and rushed onward down yet another gloomy, filthy stone corridor, Richard abruptly stopped. Kahlan noticed a room to the right. The door was closed, but Richard hadn’t stopped to look in the room.
He instead stood frozen, staring ahead at something.
“What is it?” Shale asked from behind his left shoulder.
“I thought I heard something …”
All of a sudden, Kahlan heard a roar from somewhere off down the corridor. Blinding light ignited in the distance and rushed out from around a corner.
Richard drew his sword. The sound of the steel being freed from the scabbard was drowned out by the wail of the fearsome fireball as it grew in size and speed.
Richard dropped to his left knee. Holding the sword’s hilt in his right fist, he grabbed the tip of the blade with his left hand.
“Get behind me!” he screamed at them. “Get behind me!”
As he was saying it a second time, the corridor out ahead filled with a bigger explosion of expanding, whirling fire. The yellow-orange flames boiled up as the blaze spilled over the top of itself in its reckless, onward rush. The fire completely filled the corridor as it raced toward them.
Kahlan could feel the heat given off by the inferno. Black smoke swirled in great swaths with the flames breaking through as the fire erupted and rolled toward them down the hallway.
Richard held the sword up like a shield. “Get behind!”
Kahlan crouched down behind him. She had seen Richard use the sword very effectively as a shield against conjured fire.
Shale obviously had not.
As Richard again yelled for them to get behind him, Shale charged at Kahlan, ramming a shoulder into her middle, colliding with such force that it lifted Kahlan from her feet and drove them both into the closed door to the side. Their combined weight smashed the door off his hinges. It fell out ahead of them as together they both flew through the doorway.
Rather than hitting the floor, Kahlan felt herself falling through space.
She realized as she saw the yellow-orange light through the doorway far above her that there was no floor in the room.
Kahlan had just started to scream when she hit the water.
19
Hitting the water was an icy shock that helped drive out what little air Kahlan still had in her lungs from Shale crashing into her.
Shale still had her shoulder in Kahlan’s middle with an arm around her waist as they plummeted down underwater. Shale had thought she was saving Kahlan from the blast of conjured fire. Instead she had driven them both into the unknown.
As they hit the water, Kahlan heard Shale’s head hit something hard. It made a terrible clonk of skull bone on something just as hard.
As Shale went unconscious, she lost her grip on Kahlan. Kahlan tumbled under the water, unable to get a breath, and lost track of up and down. She panicked with complete disorientation, not knowing which way was up toward the air. She thrashed at the water but, being underwater, her arms couldn’t move very fast.
She felt something slimy slide past her arm.
She was desperate to pull in a breath, but she knew that if she tried to breathe, her lungs would only fill with water and she would drown. Her throat had clamped closed with the terror of being underwater. She didn’t know which way to swim to get to the surface.
Thrashing wildly, blind, desperate for air, Kahlan thought suddenly of her two babies. Were they to die in this forsaken place? Was she to be yet another corpse left for good in this awful place? Were her two babies to die before they had a chance at life?
As her mind started going black, her arms and legs lost their power and slowly stopped their frantic thrashing. As her body went still, she finally bobbed to the surface. When the air hit her face, she gasped it in. She was horrified by what else she gasped in. Coughing, she had to spit out a mouthful of bugs. The surface was covered with floating mats of beetles. They crawled up onto her face as she struggled to keep her head above water.
As she swiped the fat bugs off her face, she saw that light came from the doorway, but it was up above her. It was too high up fo
r her to reach for the threshold. She could feel the legs of the beetles getting tangled in her hair as it floated out on top of the water. They clung to her floating hair as if it were a raft.
Kahlan gasped and gulped air as she struggled to tread water enough to keep her head above the surface. Big, glossy, hard-backed bugs swam into her mouth. She spat them out and tilted her head back to get a breath. The surface of the water was covered with the beetles. More scrambled up on her face as soon as she swiped them off.
Overhead, she saw fire roaring past the doorway, sending flickering red, orange, and yellow light down into the dark place where she struggled to keep her head above the choppy surface of the water. She couldn’t seem to stop the beetles from crawling over her eyes. They tried to burrow into her nose.
As she got more air and was able to think more clearly, she jerked around, left, then right, looking for Shale. The raft of black bugs floated over her face on waves she stirred up. She didn’t see the sorceress anywhere. She knew that as soon as the fire above stopped, it would be pitch black.
Fearing to lose a second of the light, Kahlan upended herself and dove under the water to try to find Shale. The water was murky, so she couldn’t see far, but at least it got most of the bugs off her. With her eyes open under the water, even though the visibility was poor, she could see that the water was full of all kinds of debris. She had to push things aside as she searched.
Kahlan had to surface, gasping in air for a moment, more beetles trying to cling to her face when she came up; then she upended and returned to searching underwater. She swam down and down, thinking the sorceress might have sunk to the bottom, but she didn’t have enough air to reach the bottom and she didn’t have any idea how deep the water really was. She desperately raced up to the surface again and gasped in some more air, swiping the clinging bugs from her face before getting a big breath and then going back down.
As she pushed the underwater debris aside, she saw that some of it was the handle and hinges of the door they had broken through, slowly sinking with wood still attached.
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