“Down there,” Irena said, “near the end. I believe it is rarely used anymore so the place is in a mostly forgotten corner.”
Leading them onward, she hurried off down the hall, the crunch and pop of crumbled granite littering the floor under their boots echoing back from the distance as they passed rooms off to the sides. Some of the rooms had no doors, but most did. From what Richard could see when he thrust his hissing torch through a few open doorways, the pitch-black rooms beyond looked to be storage rooms for rarely needed supplies and building materials for making repairs—roof slates, beams, and planks in a variety of sizes. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
The commander used hand signals to send men off in various directions to check the rooms and branching passageways. Richard knew that it would take time to conduct a thorough search of what was turning out to be an extensive maze under the citadel, but at least they could clear the immediate area.
The stone hallway, built of granite blocks, looked eerie in the greenish luminescence of the light spheres. It reminded him, in a way, of the veil to the underworld that had infected them. He was relieved that the open passageway to the underworld infecting them would soon be withdrawn and kept by the containment field from escaping out into the world of life.
“Here,” Irena said, gesturing to an iron door to the right side of the hallway. “It’s through here.” She tugged on the door. “Through this place in here.”
One of the soldiers stepped up and pulled the heavy iron door open for her. Irena, not waiting for a soldier to check what was beyond, rushed inside with her light sphere.
“This is an entryway of some kind leading to the containment field,” she said, her voice echoing in the darkness.
Her sphere dimmed considerably once inside. Their torches gave off somewhat better light, but even they dimmed.
In weak glimmers of light, Richard saw that it was a dusty, dirty room. It was a lot longer than it was wide. The faint rays of light cut through the pitch blackness to reveal abandoned items—a broken loom, some scaffolding, and other worn-out implements—stacked in a careless jumble in one of the far corners. Planks and old tools in the other corner were blanketed with old sheets in an effort to keep the dirt off them. A thick layer of brownish-gray dust covered everything in the room, including the sheets.
Holding out his torch as he passed through the doorway into the dark room, Richard could feel the power of a shield tingle across his flesh. He held Kahlan’s hand as she followed him in. Commander Fister and the men took up positions outside in the hall, guarding the doorway.
Irena’s light sphere had dimmed to nearly being dark.
“Oh, I forgot,” Irena said, sounding disgusted with herself. “We have to go in through here, and these light spheres don’t work at all as we get closer to the containment field itself. They have special light spheres made for this area that they keep in a nearby room. I’ll run and get them—I’ll only be a minute.” She rushed back out the doorway before Nicci had a chance to enter. “Samantha, come help me carry them.”
Samantha instead ducked under her mother’s arm and into the room ahead of Nicci, eager to see the place. “I want to stay with Lord Rahl,” she said, her voice echoing as she peered around in the dim light. She held her light sphere up, trying to see, but it was fading fast.
“Oh, all right,” Irena said, “I’ll do it myself. I can get some of the men to help me carry them. I’ll just be a minute—I know right where they are.”
“I’ll help you,” one of the men offered, following after her as she rushed back down the hall.
Richard noticed that for some reason, there were sheets hung on the opposite, long wall, covering something.
“This feels too easy,” Kahlan said as she peered around in the dim, flickering light of the torches.
Zedd’s frequent admonishment came to mind.
“Nothing is ever easy,” Richard said.
He lifted his sword a few inches to check that it was clear before letting it drop back into its scabbard.
“Where’s the entrance to the containment field?” Samantha asked as she looked around. “I don’t see it.”
When Nicci stepped into the room, her light sphere went nearly dark. Richard saw a trace of a frown just beginning to grow on the sorceress’s face.
As soon as she was inside, her frown became more troubled. “This isn’t a containment field,” she said, sounding, now, more than a little suspicious.
“This wouldn’t be it,” Samantha told her. “My mother said that it was through this room.”
“I felt the shields,” Kahlan said.
“Me too,” Samantha added, “so it has to be through here. There must be a doorway, but it’s so dark in here with just one torch, I can’t see much.”
“They were shields,” Nicci agreed, “but I don’t recognize them.”
“Being close to the barrier to the third kingdom, maybe they used occult powers in building this place,” Richard suggested.
Nicci shook her head as she looked around. “There is something about this room…”
“Maybe the opening into the containment field is behind one of these sheets,” Samantha said.
Too eager to wait for her mother to bring more light, and dying of curiosity, she yanked down on one of the filthy, dusty sheets hanging along the far wall. As the sheet fell away in a choking cloud of dust, Richard saw that the sheets had been hung over four sets of shackles spaced evenly along the wall. Each of the four sets of three metal bands on short chains were pinned into the stone wall.
“This isn’t a containment field,” Nicci said in sudden alarm. “This is a dungeon. Those are shields to keep the gifted from using their ability. That’s why the light spheres don’t work in here.”
She spun Kahlan and shoved her toward the door. “Get out! Everyone out!”
That was the last thing Richard heard.
His whole body went numb. He didn’t feel pain, but rather a heavy, thick, tingling sensation spreading through his body to the tips of his fingers and toes.
He realized that he was on his knees but didn’t remember falling. He couldn’t hear anything.
His vision dimmed as he felt intense pressure, as if thumbs were being pressed against his eyeballs. It was the only pain he felt. Everything else was numb.
In his fading vision, Richard thought that the room had tilted sideways. He realized, then, that he was lying on his side, curled up in a ball. Kahlan, Nicci, and Samantha were all on the ground, curled into fetal positions, shaking violently from head to toe.
Richard was barely able to discern through shadowy, blurred vision that the dust on the sheet at the end of the room billowed up as it was thrown back.
He tried to pull his sword, but he couldn’t feel his fingers. Worse, his arms didn’t work. Despite his best effort, he couldn’t move them. His whole body was going completely numb and unresponsive. He couldn’t even tell if he still had a body, or if he was being pulled into the world of the dead.
He heard the faintest sound, and realized that he was hearing himself screaming.
He thought he could just see someone at the end of the room.
Then, even the screaming sound ceased to exist as a heavy blackness settled through him. All awareness went dark as he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER
74
When Richard opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. He was in total blackness. His eyes hurt from what felt like intense pressure that had been pushing against them. He felt a rising sense of panic, fearing that he had been blinded.
He tried to move, but found that he could only move a little. He was restrained. He looked to the right, but what seemed to be a tall, rough iron collar cut into his flesh under his jaw if he turned his head too far.
His vision gradually began to return. Looking to the side as best he could, he was just able to see Kahlan out of the corner of his eye. Like Richard, she, too, hung by an iron band around her neck and
manacles on her wrists. She appeared unconscious. The chains attached to the collars and the manacles were pinned into the stone wall and so short that they only allowed the captive to slump a little, but not sit.
Richard was beside himself with worry at the way Kahlan hung by the collar and manacles. She looked lifeless.
He turned his head the other way, to the left, blinking, trying to clear his vision, and saw that Nicci was similarly restrained. Beyond her, Richard could just make out some black hair and knew that Samantha also hung in the iron restraints.
Nicci’s wrists were bleeding. Despite her powers, she looked entirely helpless. She started to stir, then. As she groaned she put some weight on her legs to take the pressure off the collar and manacles. She coughed and blinked, trying to clear her vision.
Richard scanned the room, as best he could in the restrictive iron collar. Two torches in brackets on the opposite side of the room hissed as they burned. He didn’t see anyone other than the four of them chained to the wall.
He checked Kahlan again and saw that she was still hanging lifeless. He turned back to Nicci.
“Nicci,” he called out. His voice sounded gravelly and his throat felt raw. “Nicci, can you hear me?”
She nodded, swallowing against the pain in her throat. She blinked and squinted as she turned her head as far as the collar would allow.
“Richard, are you all right?”
A flip answer popped to mind but he was too worried to be flip. “I think so. I ache all over.”
“Me too,” she said. She looked the other way, toward Samantha, then turned back to him. “Where is Kahlan?”
“On the other side of me. She isn’t awake yet.”
“Do you have any idea how long we’ve been out?” she asked.
Richard shook his head just a little. “No. But it would have to be at least a while for someone to get us all chained up in these things. They must have the men, and Irena, too, or we wouldn’t be stuck here like this.”
He had a sudden flash of worry that the others had been killed because they weren’t as valuable.
Another part of him wished that he had been killed as well. He didn’t want to have to face whatever was in store for them. He remembered Zedd saying that he was tired of living.
At that moment, with the enormity of everything weighing down on him, Richard felt the same way. It was only Kahlan that kept him from giving into the tempting call of death inside him. It would be so easy to give in and slip into that dark forever.
Except that Kahlan needed him.
He tested his wrists, cuffed with iron manacles and connected to a heavy chain, and saw that they hardly had any slack. As he tried to move forward, he was only able to move inches before the iron collar around his neck brought him up short. He could barely move away from the damp stone wall. He could stand, but had no chance to sit or lie down.
He recognized the method of restraining prisoners. It was a simple but very effective form of torture. Once the prisoners could no longer stay awake and fell asleep or lapsed into unconsciousness, they slumped, basically hanging in the collar and manacles. The pain of the rough iron bands cutting in flesh kept a person awake, but they couldn’t remain awake forever, so there were brief periods of sleep or blacking out, when they would hang in the iron. The longer it went on, the worse the wounds would get, eventually festering and becoming infected. Gangrene would set in and turn arms black. As the flesh decomposed it would begin sloughing off and falling away. Death would inevitably follow, but it was a very long and agonizing way to die, all alone and helpless.
“We need to get out of here,” Nicci said in an angry voice.
“I’m with you. How do you suggest we go about it?”
Nicci was silent a moment before she spoke. “My gift doesn’t work in this room. It’s shielded to keep gifted prisoners from using their ability to escape.”
“What about Subtractive Magic. Cut the iron with Subtractive Magic.”
“Don’t you think I tried that?” she asked in frustration. “Subtractive is still part of the gift. It was probably a lot more common when this dungeon was built. The shields are equally as effective against both sides.”
Richard sighed in disappointment. “I guess that makes sense.” He glanced down. “I still have my sword, but I can’t reach it.”
“Irena is an idiot,” Nicci growled. “She is an inexperienced idiot from an isolated little village in the middle of nowhere and she mistook a containment cell for a containment field.”
“Are they similar?” Richard asked.
“In some ways,” she admitted. “They both are designed to contain power.”
“What’s going on?” It was Samantha’s groggy voice as she was beginning to wake up. “Where are we? What’s going on?”
“We’re having an adventure,” Richard said.
“I don’t think I like it,” she said.
“I’ve never been very fond of adventure, myself,” Richard said.
“Is my mother all right? Where is she?”
“We don’t know about any of the others,” Nicci told her. “All we know is that the four of us are chained up in here. They must be holding everyone else in other cells.”
“What about the Mother Confessor?” Samantha asked. “I can’t see her.”
“On the other side of me,” Richard told her.
He bent his knees, sagging a little, but that was the limit of how much he could move. He was exhausted. He felt like he had been beaten with a club. He hurt everywhere.
“Lord Rahl, what are we going to do?” The young woman sounded desperate and on the verge of panic.
“I don’t know yet, Samantha.”
“Well, who did this to us? Everyone seemed like they were cooperating.”
“I don’t know, Samantha. Try to save your strength.”
He looked over at Kahlan again. She was still hanging unconscious by the iron bands at the ends of taut chains. Her head hung forward, her arms spread wide and stretched back a little toward the wall. Blood from where the iron collar cut her neck dripped off her chin.
The sight ignited Richard’s anger. He tried to talk his anger back down. It could do him no good at the moment, and only wasted what little strength he had left. He needed to save that strength in case he had a chance to use it.
He heard Samantha crying softly over on the other side of Nicci. He couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort her.
At that moment, his only hope was that they would be killed quickly, rather than endure a long, agonizing path toward the inevitable end.
CHAPTER
75
Richard’s head jerked up. He realized that he must have nodded off briefly. Blood had puddled on the floor in front of him from the iron collar cutting into his neck. The way the rough iron ring dug into the fresh wound stung.
He was exhausted from the grueling effort of trekking through trackless wilderness to reach the citadel, from whatever sort of power had been used to render them unconscious, and also from the relentless weight of darkness within trying to pull him into the forever of death.
Trying to think clearly, trying to come up with some solution, was also sapping his strength. He could barely form a thought, and what thoughts he could form weren’t helping.
He looked over and saw that Kahlan hadn’t moved. She still hung unconscious. He remembered Nicci telling him that if either of them lost consciousness again from the poison inside them, it would be the last time and they wouldn’t wake again. He didn’t know why she was unconscious, but if it was from the sickness she carried, then it was possible she had already slipped away and would never wake again. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, but he would rather she died that way, than from a long ordeal of torture.
The thought of her dying made him want to scream. He couldn’t endure to contemplate Kahlan being dead. He couldn’t stand the thought of life without her. He would do anything to save her life. Anything.
But it did
n’t seem likely that either of them had any life to look forward to.
He had been so confident that they had been close to the resolution to their sickness, that Nicci would be able to heal them, and that they would then be able to collect the horses they needed to make it back to the palace in time. Not only that, but he had been positive that once Kahlan was herself again, she would also recover her strength of spirit and the commitment to what they were fighting for. That dedication to truth and the well-being of good people was so much a part of her, a part of her that he loved. It was her.
Now, those hopes had been crushed.
It had seemed within their grasp. They had worked so hard to get there, only to discover that there was no containment field. He felt cheated. It seemed so unfair.
Richard’s head came up when he heard something out beyond the door. Nicci’s head rose as well. They shared a look.
“Be strong, Richard. Be strong.”
“You too,” he told her.
“Always. We’ve both faced worse than this and survived.”
She actually gave him a smile, then. He actually found himself returning it. She was a rare woman.
He felt a great sadness, then, at the thought of Nicci dying in this miserable dungeon out in the middle of the Dark Lands. Samantha, too, was going to have her life snuffed out before she could live it. It didn’t seem fair.
He knew, though, that there was no such thing as fair in life. Existence had no agenda. Life simply existed. It was up to them to fight for life to be worthwhile and good if that was what they wanted. If they didn’t, evil would flourish unopposed and have its way. And now, that evil was going to win.
The door squealed in protest when it was pulled open.
Richard stared in disbelief when Ludwig Dreier strolled in. The man wore a smirk that widened as his gaze met Richard’s. Rather than the black clothes Richard was used to seeing the man wear, he now had on rather royal-looking purple-and-gold robes that swished around his legs as he walked.
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