“So, in the fall, when the water level was at its lowest, Martha and her gifted husband went into Kharga Trace to look into the rumors about the Hedge Maid. Martha was experienced and powerfully gifted, so she thought it best if she were the one to go investigate.
“We never heard from them again. Half the village searched for them for weeks. We didn’t know where in Kharga Trace to look for this Hedge Maid, and besides how vast it is, that foul swamp is dangerous. We feared more of our people might be hurt or killed, so we had to give up the search.
“Eventually, the spring rains came and the swamp overflowed, washing out remains in the overflow. The remains belonged to my sister and her husband.”
Nicci looked up from her bowl of stew. “What kind of remains?” she asked, obviously incredulous that much of anything could be left after all that time in a swamp.
“Bones.” Irena tapped her thigh with her spoon. “Just some of the larger, heavier bones, like these.”
Nicci frowned. “If Kharga Trace is so dangerous, and people went into the place to see the Hedge Maid for her healing powers, then a lot of people may have died in that swamp. The bones could have belonged to anyone. How did the people in your village know that they were your sister’s bones?”
Irena rested her hand with the spoon on her knee, looking off into the distant memories for a moment.
“I’m the one who identified my sister’s bones. They carried the telltale trace of the gift. I recognized those traces of the gift as belonging to my sister Martha.”
“I see,” Nicci said as she put her head down over her bowl and went back to eating her stew.
“Then, not long after that, soldiers came and took my other sister, Millicent, and her husband, Gyles, away to the abbey. I suspect that it was probably because Gyles was always boasting to people that he had the gift for prophecy. The abbey was where Abbot Dreier collected prophecy for Hannis Arc. The soldiers said that prophecy belonged to all the people.”
Irena stirred her stew as she stared down into it. “They never returned.”
“I know all about Ludwig Dreier,” Kahlan said, her expression darkening. “I have sworn that I will kill him.”
By the condition Kahlan had been in when Richard had shown up, just before Dreier and his Mord-Sith, Erika, had started torturing her in earnest, he knew that Kahlan was bound and determined to keep that vow. If Richard didn’t get to Dreier first.
“Anyway,” Irena said, “when I saw that the gates in the north wall were open, that the barrier had been breached, my husband and I left at once to inform the wizards’ council at the Keep.”
Zedd looked up from his bowl to share a look with Richard.
“There is no longer a wizards’ council at the Keep,” Zedd told Irena.
Her expression had turned grim. “I know that now. But at the time I didn’t. We didn’t make it far before the half people captured us.” She swallowed back the anguish. “Well, they captured me. They…”
“I’m terribly sorry about your husband,” Richard said. “And your father, Samantha.”
Samantha, looking dispirited, nodded her thanks.
“Lord Rahl says that in High D’Haran, ‘stroyza’ means ‘sentinel,’” Samantha told her mother.
“I guess that makes perfect sense. We were there to warn people if the north wall was ever breached.”
“And you never knew the meaning of all that writing in the passageway?” Richard asked. “That writing was left there to tell your people the whole story, to explain everything.”
Irena looked up into his eyes. “Richard, what difference does it make, now? All of that past history? The barrier is breached. We can’t afford to bother with history, supposition, and speculation right now.
“What matters now is healing you. We have to get that taint of death out of you or you will die.”
“And Kahlan,” Richard said.
Irena glanced over at Kahlan. “Yes, of course, and Kahlan.”
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“Believe me,” Richard said, “I know how badly we need to be rid of this deadly poison, but in the meantime there are still—”
“I don’t think you do.” Irena was finished with being patient. Her expression turned serious in the way sorceresses had of turning serious. “That poison is deadly. We need to get it out of you. That is what matters above all else. Everything else can wait.”
“We know that,” Richard said, “and we will be able to take care of it just as soon as we get back to the People’s Palace. I assure you, I want this out of us more than you do, and I’m going to push to get us back to the People’s Palace as fast as we can. Besides needing to get there simply to heal us, we need to get there ahead of Hannis Arc.
“I’m pretty sure that’s where he’s headed. We have to push hard and get there first. I need to help them prepare for what is coming and set up defenses. The army needs to protect cities in the way of Hannis Arc and his half people.”
Irena seemed confused as she looked from one face to another. Her frown turned back to him. “Richard, it can’t wait until then. It needs to be done now. Right now.”
Zedd paused from scraping the rest of his stew over to the edge of his tin bowl where he could scoop it all up. “We are all concerned about healing them. Although you may not believe it, as his grandfather, I am even more concerned than you, Irena. That is above all else in all our minds at all times.”
“Good. So then we should—” she began again.
“But we have to get to the palace in order to do that healing,” Zedd continued with the solemn weight of authority as First Wizard.
Irena threw her arms up. “Dear Creator! Aren’t any of you people listening? It can’t wait that long!”
“It has to,” Zedd told her. “We need a containment field in order to do it.”
“A containment field? Why?” She gestured toward Zedd, then at Nicci. “We have a wizard and—well three—sorceresses, actually, right here, right now. We can all link our gift to multiply our power. Our linked ability will be strong enough to draw that deadly poison out of them.
“We need to get it out, now. That’s all there is to it. We need to get it done at once!”
“We agree with you that it needs to be removed and believe me, we share that urgency.” Zedd set down his bowl without taking the last bite. “But I’m telling you, it must be done in a containment field.”
As well as Richard knew his grandfather, he knew that something was wrong, and Zedd was trying to avoid saying that something aloud.
“Are you crazy, old man?” Irena said as she scowled at Zedd. “It can’t wait for the luxury of being at a palace to take care of it.”
“It will have to,” Zedd told her with a kind of quiet insistence that covered some deeper worry. “It’s not a matter of the luxury of being at a palace, but of having the proper tools to do the job. The taint they have in them is the call of death itself. If we try to extract it outside of a containment field, it would do the same thing to them as it did to Jit—it would call death to them. The only way to get it out without killing them and us along with them is to do it in a containment field. If we were to try to do it now, here, even if we link our gift, it won’t matter. The attempt would kill them.”
Everyone fell silent. When he listened carefully enough, Richard was able to hear the faint sound of screams deep inside his mind. It was the open void within him between the world of life and the world of the dead. That gateway to the world of the dead was always there inside him—and inside Kahlan—waiting to pull them through.
Right then, he and Kahlan existed in both worlds.
“But with all the gifted talent we have here, we must try to do it now,” Irena insisted.
“I’m telling you this for the last time, Irena, and you need to listen to me. It can only be removed in a containment field in order to safely trap and drain that poison,” Zedd said with quiet authority that was on the verge of outright anger, “otherwise, that
poison will not only kill them, it will also kill any of us trying to draw it out of them.”
Richard and Kahlan shared a look. They both knew that it was getting worse. They could both feel that darkness trying to pull them in. They both knew that Zedd was right.
“But, but,” Irena stammered, “they won’t live that long.”
The surprise of her words sent an icy chill through Richard. “What?”
“I admit,” she said, “I am not as experienced at healing as a wizard, but even I can tell from sensing with my gift what was in you that you don’t have that long to live. Richard, you will never make it that far. You won’t live long enough to make it even halfway back to the People’s Palace. You have no chance of making it the whole way. None.”
Richard and Kahlan both looked at Zedd. He didn’t look back at them.
Richard turned to Nicci, expecting an answer. Nicci stared back into his eyes for a long time before she finally gave him that answer.
“I’m afraid she’s right, Richard. We intend to try, of course, to use our ability to give you both strength for as long as we can, but we know that the reality is you won’t live long enough to make it to the People’s Palace.”
“But…” Richard searched for words. “There must be something…”
Nicci looked away from him as she answered. “Richard, we worked on you ever since the moment we got across the chasm. You were … you were close to death that whole time. Kahlan’s infection was worse, before, but the poison in you has caught up with hers and you are both slipping away.
“This morning, we lost you to that poison.”
Richard frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
“You stopped breathing. Death was taking you. You were at the cusp of death and crossing over. We were losing you. Zedd did something that pulled you back. Another few heartbeats would have been your last had he not done what he did.”
Richard looked over at Zedd. His grandfather’s hazel eyes finally turned up to meet his gaze. “I know what I’m doing.” A sly smile creased his weathered face. “I still have a few tricks left in me.”
It made Richard smile. Despite the gravity of the situation, it made him smile. “Yes, you do.”
“All we can do,” Nicci said, “is try to keep you alive as long as possible. But the truth is, you don’t have long enough to live to make it back to the containment field at the palace.”
Irena looked around at everyone else. “Well, all right, if it really needs to be done in a containment field, and the People’s Palace is too far, then we simply need to use another one, somewhere closer, that’s all.”
“Containment fields are quite rare,” Zedd said with a heavy sigh. “I hardly think we’ll find one in the Dark Lands, of all places.”
“Yes, you will,” she said.
Zedd’s brow drew down, hooding his eyes as he looked intently at her. “Where?”
“Ah, so now you want to listen to me?”
“This is a matter of life and death, Irena. There is no time for games. If you know of any closer containment fields, then tell us where they are.”
“I only know of one, actually,” she said. “It’s at the citadel.”
Everyone stared at her.
“A real, functioning containment field?” Zedd asked. “From a time when our ancestors still possessed such powers that could create such wonders?”
Irena nodded, looking a bit confused at their skepticism.
“A real containment field?” he pressed, again. “A real, working containment field. At the citadel. In Saavedra. In the heart of the Dark Lands.”
Again, Irena nodded.
“I have been to important palaces, built back in those ancient times,” Nicci said, “that weren’t important enough to possess a containment field. I find it more than a little difficult to believe that there would be one out here in the Dark Lands, at a petty citadel in Saavedra. How can you be so sure that you’re right?”
“I’ve been there,” she said. “I’ve seen it.”
Nicci still looked more than a little skeptical. “What would a containment field be doing out here in the Dark Lands?”
“Well,” she said, “I imagine that it was placed there because of the barrier being so close. My suspicion is that the people who built the barrier thought it would be a good idea to have one handy, if need be, when the barrier finally failed, or maybe for when the occult forces started seeping out before it failed.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Richard said. “Naja said that they knew the barrier would fail. They knew what we would face when it did. They might have left it there as a precaution to help us, for just such a problem as Jit created.”
Zedd rubbed his chin. “That’s true.…”
Richard had an even more disturbing thought. “Those people back then knew a lot more about prophecy than we do. They knew a great deal about the events happening now. They may even have known that the Mother Confessor and I would need it.”
Zedd arched a bushy eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.”
“They might have known it would be needed,” Samantha said, silent up until then, “because you are the one.”
Zedd’s frown was back. “The one? What one?”
“The one to stop what is happening now.”
Zedd could only let out a deep sigh before looking back at Irena with the more important matter at hand. “Do you know how to get to Saavedra?”
She pointed to the southeast. “It’s off in that direction. It’s certainly a lot closer than the palace.”
Richard frowned. “You live in the remote village of Stroyza. What were you doing at the citadel in Saavedra?”
The woman looked flustered to be questioned about her reasons. “Well, after my sister Millicent and her husband had been at the abbey for a time, I feared for them. I had heard that people taken to the abbey were usually never seen again. We don’t get much news in Stroyza, so I don’t know what goes on there. But I had heard of relatives going to the abbey to plead for their loved ones to be released from service to the abbot.
“Knowing that such pleas never worked, and since I am a sorceress, I went instead to the citadel in Saavedra to plead directly to the bishop to try to get my gifted sister and her husband released because they were needed for our important duty at Stroyza. I thought that perhaps I could appeal to him as one of the gifted in his service and get him to order their release.”
“What did Hannis Arc have to say?” Richard asked.
Irena rubbed the palms of her hands on her knees. “I met with the bishop’s scribe every morning, asking for an audience. One was never granted. The scribe told me the bishop was a busy man. I asked him to relay the request, but I never got an audience so I never was able to petition directly to the bishop for the release of my sister.
“But while I was there, waiting every day in hopes of an audience being granted, pacing or sitting around the citadel’s grand entrance, the guards got used to me being around. They had heard me speak with the scribe every morning and so they knew what I wanted, but they could do nothing to help me.
“One day the captain of the guards who felt sorry for me asked, since I was a sorceress in service, if I would like to have a tour of the citadel to help pass the time while I awaited word on my petition. Being from a very tiny village, it was a rare opportunity. Even though I was distraught, I accepted the offer. During that tour, he showed me the containment field. It was deep down underground.”
“Why would he show you a containment field?” Nicci asked. “They are usually heavily guarded and often shielded.”
Irena’s gaze roamed as she tried to recall the event. “Well, the guard told me that the area around it gave people gooseflesh, so they stayed well away from the place. He said that being a sorceress, he thought I would appreciate seeing it.
“Since I’m from Stroyza, I don’t know what is commonly done elsewhere to protect such places. While he
stood outside I briefly went into the stone room. It was pretty plain, old, and covered with dust. There were shackles on one wall. I was more concerned about speaking with the bishop than inspecting the room. There really wasn’t anything to see, anyway, so I left.
“But the point is, it was a containment field—I could feel the power of the shields as I walked through the doorway—and it’s a lot closer than the People’s Palace. We can make it there in time. We can heal Richard and Kahlan there. It’s their only chance.”
Zedd and Nicci stared at each other. They both smiled.
“We’re fortunate that Hannis Arc is no longer at the citadel to interfere,” Richard said. “Unfortunately, he is headed to the People’s Palace. I had planned to push and get around them so we could reach the palace first. We need to alert the people there. But at least Hannis Arc will not be at the citadel.”
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Irena leaned in. “If as you say, Hannis Arc has deserted the citadel, then that makes it all that much easier to borrow the containment field so that we can heal the two of you.”
In the back of his mind, Richard remembered Zedd’s frequent admonition, Nothing is ever easy.
He looked over at his grandfather. “What do you think?”
Zedd’s hazel eyes turned to look from under his brow at Irena, and then back at Richard. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Richard wasn’t surprised that Zedd was thinking the same thing he was: the palace was a known quantity; the citadel wasn’t. He looked over at Nicci. He noticed that she had not eaten much of her stew.
“Well?”
“Well,” she said, “if there really is a functioning containment field there, it’s your only chance to live. I just hope Zedd and I can keep you and Kahlan alive until we can get there.”
Richard nodded before looking to Kahlan’s green eyes. “What do you think?”
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