He decided to be a little less hostile in his answers.
“What is it you came to ask, Cassia?”
He deliberately did not address her as “Mistress.”
Cassia, looking down in thought, finally lifted her head. “I have heard a rumor that you presided over the marriage of a Mord-Sith.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard shared a look with Kahlan. The two behind Cassia were intently focused on him.
“Yes, that’s right, Cara.”
“Cara? Cara married?” Cassia looked astonished and incredulous all at once. “Cara is as resolute and formidable as they come.”
“Cara was our protector, but she came to be more than simply a protector to the Lord Rahl. She had become a close friend to the Mother Confessor and me.”
Cassia looked over at Kahlan. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Kahlan said without hesitation. “Cara was as hard as nails, but she also had a good heart. We loved her.”
The three seemed mystified by that, as if they didn’t know what to think.
“Then where is she now?” the one named Vale asked from behind. “If she is your protector, and your friend, then why isn’t she here protecting you? Did she die in her service to you?”
“No,” Richard said with a deep sigh. “It’s a long story.”
“Make it short,” Cassia said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Richard looked at the intent expressions of the two behind before looking back at Cassia. He wondered what she meant about not having a lot of time, but went ahead and answered anyway.
“Kahlan and I were captured by Jit, a Hedge Maid. Jit infected us with a kind of deadly poison. Cara and others came to help us. In the meantime, the barrier to the third kingdom failed. Hannis Arc called the long-dead Emperor Sulachan back from the world of the dead in part by using my blood. The half people—people without souls—captured Cara, her husband, and all of our other friends. Kahlan and I were unconscious, so Cara hid us before the attack. Because of that, the half people didn’t take us with the others. We later went in there and got them out. As we were escaping, Cara’s husband was killed.”
“I see,” Cassia said. “So what happened to Cara? Why isn’t she still with you?”
As the painful memory came flooding back, Richard had to pause. It was a long moment before he answered.
“Cara asked to be released from her service to me.”
The room was silent but for the hissing torches as the Mord-Sith tried to take in an act that he knew must be incomprehensible to them.
“What is it you really want to know?” Richard finally asked.
“You are called Lord Rahl. Darken Rahl was the Lord Rahl. Darken Rahl was our master.” Cassia lifted her chin while looking him in the eye. “Did you kill him?”
That was the question he had been afraid they were going to ask. Nonetheless he answered it with straightforward, plain honesty.
“Yes.”
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Cassia, Laurin, and Vale stared at him for a long, silent, uncomfortable moment.
Richard decided that maybe he should elaborate on his reasons, so that they would not mistakenly think it was by chance, or accident. He wanted them to know the truth.
“Darken Rahl was an evil man who caused untold suffering and death. I sent him to the underworld so that he couldn’t harm anyone else and I would do it all over again.”
“So then, how is it that you became the Lord Rahl?”
“He raped my mother. That makes me his offspring. I inherited the gift from him.
“At the time I wasn’t interested in being the Lord Rahl, or even willing to accept the fact that I had the gift, but I came to see that I could use my ability, and the bond between the Lord Rahl and the people of D’Hara, to fight for something worthwhile—freedom. Freedom to live our lives without the boot of tyranny on all of our necks. Freedom to live in a just world. Many wanted a chance for that and helped in the struggle. Cara was but one of them.
“She and the other Mord-Sith who have joined in that struggle are not weak for wanting freedom. They are stronger for it. I have held Mord-Sith in my arms as they died for our shared cause. I have worn the Agiel of Mord-Sith who have given their lives fighting for our beliefs.
“Those people, like those Mord-Sith, who want the same things in life that I want, are the reason I fight. I fight on behalf of all of them. There have been times when I have been weary and wanted to give up that struggle and leave the fighting to others.”
He glanced briefly at Kahlan. “But the Mother Confessor, who is the one who came to ask for my help in the first place, is my strength, and it is for her, and all those like her, that I fight. I will fight for what is right to the very end. I will fight with my dying breath if need be.
“That, Cassia, Laurin, Vale, is why I killed Darken Rahl. He needed killing and I was the only one who could do it. That is why I am and must be the Lord Rahl.”
Kahlan gave Richard her special smile. He was heartened to see it, even if it ended up being for the last time.
Cassia abruptly turned to Nicci. “I have heard that you were once a Sister of the Dark, but no longer. Why not?”
Nicci was straightforward and simple in her answer. “Richard showed me a better way. He is a good man. Kahlan is a good woman. I wanted to live life the way they showed me I could, if I chose to.”
Cassia nodded in thought. She looked down as she rolled her Agiel in her fingers for a time, carefully considering her next words. Richard knew the agonizing pain caused by holding that weapon. Mord-Sith were taught to endure and ignore pain. In the madness these women had been cast into, pain was a refuge.
“The pain of the Agiel helps you to think,” he said. “It’s familiar, ever-present, comforting.”
She looked up in wonder. “I guess Denna really did teach you many things.”
“She taught me that people who had been ripped from everything good they knew in life, and were made to suffer for no reason but to turn them into monsters who could be used to serve the cause of evil, could still find their way back.”
“Not all of them,” she said with quiet remorse.
“No, not all of them. Some have been severed from their souls, and can never come back to humanity. But some still can.”
Cassia let her Agiel drop to dangle on the fine gold chain on her right wrist, as if suddenly not wanting to be reminded of the pain.
“We served under Darken Rahl.” She gestured back at the other two. “The three of us. He was everything you say. I would venture to say that we know that better than you ever could.”
Richard nodded. “I understand. I know some of what was done to you by that man, but I’m sure I could never know it all.”
The truth of his words ghosted across her face.
“We finally found a way to leave him,” Cassia said. “Bishop Arc offered us refuge by using his powers to take up our bond. We thought it would be better.
“We found life with Hannis Arc to be little different, except that his schemes for evil were even more grandiose than Darken Rahl’s had been. Once bonded to him, we only then learned that one of our own, Alice, had tricked us—betrayed her sisters of the Agiel.” A dark look settled into her features. “She had delivered us to him in exchange for favors for herself.
“Then, just days ago, Lord Dreier arrived and enslaved us in service to him by using his occult powers to link our bond to him instead, as if we were property he could walk in and seize. In many ways, personal ways, he has proven to be more than a match for the savagery of Darken Rahl or Bishop Arc.
“Those two used torture as a means to an end. Lord Dreier, though, gets pleasure from the things he does to people. Sick pleasure.
“There were four of us he put into bondage to him when he arrived here. Like Darken Rahl, he took us to his bed as a form of domination, to show us our place as his property, to let us know that he can use us as he wishes, however he wishes.
<
br /> “One night, he took Janel to his bed. He was fascinated—captivated—by her beauty. In the morning, he decided that because she was Mord-Sith and he found her so achingly beautiful, she would be the perfect one to use in his effort to obtain prophecy from the other side of the veil.”
“He tortured her?” Richard asked. “One of his own Mord-Sith?”
Cassia nodded. “He and Erika commanded the three of us to watch it being done, to show us, he said, the tremendous value and importance of the work he does.
“There was no value in what he did to Janel. There was no point to it other than his desire to watch her naked body break. He got no prophecy in exchange for her life. He shrugged it off as a ‘worthy attempt.’”
When she fell silent, Richard said, “Believe me, Cassia, I share your revulsion at all three of the men who enslaved you. That’s why I fight against them and those who help them.”
She nodded, looking down, rolling the red leather weapon in her fingers again as she considered. She spoke as she watched her Agiel turn first one way and then the other.
“Our lives have been in service to brutes, each worse than the last. We have never had any say in it. It was always framed as a choice but it was never really any choice at all. We have been the chattel of evil men, property, weapons they used for their ends, weapons they used to intimidate and harm others. Some Mord-Sith came to embrace that role. Some did not.”
The other two silently watched Cassia speaking for them. Richard didn’t say anything, giving her the space to find her own words.
“What we have come to ask,” she finally said in a quiet voice, “is if you will take us back, if we can serve as your Mord-Sith. If you will be our Lord Rahl.”
Richard shared a look with Kahlan.
Cassia still hadn’t looked up into his eyes.
Richard spoke softly. “I can’t do that to you, Cassia.”
Finally she looked up, a tear rolling down her cheek. “May I know why not?”
Richard nodded—as best he could in the iron collar. “Cassia, I’m dying. We came here because we thought there was a containment field here where Nicci could heal us. But there isn’t. With this sickness inside me and Kahlan, our abilities are cut off from us. If I were to take you up on your offer, I would only put your lives in mortal danger because I can’t power the bond, and without that bond, your Agiel wouldn’t work.
“Worse, it’s now only a matter of days at most until this poison kills me and Kahlan. Then, you would be defenseless against a man who would want to extract revenge.
“The ancient bond the people of D’Hara have with the Lord Rahl is meant to be balanced. It does not mean you are merely in service to the Lord Rahl; it means he is also in service to you. You are his protector, but he in turn is yours. The people are the steel against steel so that he can be the magic against magic.
“I’m dying. I can’t do my part to protect you.
“I admire your choice, I sincerely do, but I can’t fulfill my duty not only as your leader, but to be the magic against magic for you. So you see, I can’t accept your offer of service because it would be a fatal disservice to you.”
Cassia smiled, then. It was a beautiful, warm, wonderful, sad smile. Another tear ran down her cheek.
“That, Lord Rahl, was the right answer.”
With that, all three Mord-Sith went to their knees and bowed forward, putting their foreheads to the ground.
Together, with one voice, they recited the devotion, the bond, they had learned as young women, as did all D’Harans.
“Master Rahl guide us,” they said with reverence. “Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”
When they finished, Our lives are yours echoed around the dungeon, dying out slowly.
When that echo had whispered away, they remained where they were, foreheads to the floor, and then together recited it a second time, and when the echo had again died out, they recited it a third time, as was the tradition.
Finally, when they had finished, they returned to their feet, sharing a last look among themselves. Laurin and Vale gave Cassia a nod for her to speak for them.
“Lord Rahl,” Cassia said for them all, “we would rather our lives end today, in service to you as our Lord Rahl, than to live another hundred years in service to monsters, as slaves to tyrants, as instruments of evil. To live only one day as we wish, as we choose, for our own purpose, for something good, is better than to live an entire life as slaves to hate.
“Please, Lord Rahl, we beg of you, accept our service, our bond to you. Be our Lord Rahl, even if it is only for your last day of life. It would honor us to uphold our side of the bond, even though you are unable to fulfill your part of it. To have your bond to us in your heart alone, even if you can do nothing to uphold it, is enough for us. It is everything to us.”
The three women pressed their right fists to their hearts and bowed their heads, awaiting his decision.
Richard swallowed back the lump in his throat. This was why he couldn’t quit. This was what he was fighting for—for those who needed hope, who needed to live for something good, who hungered for ideals in life, instead of living in savagery and hate.
“I accept,” he said, fearing to test his voice more than that.
All three women broke into wide grins. The smiles sparkled in their wet eyes.
The one in back, Vale, immediately ran to the door and ushered the shadowed figure into the room.
As he shuffled in, Richard recognized that it was Mohler, the old scribe.
“Lord Rahl,” the man said, “I feel the same. I have worked here my entire life. I have known Hannis Arc since he was but a boy. I have watched as he grew into a man driven by bitterness and envy. Now, Ludwig Dreier has taken his place, and he is no different. Like these women, I no longer wish to stand by and watch their kind destroy everything good in order to impose their will on everyone.
“I have known these four—now three—Mord-Sith, since they have been in servitude here at the citadel. We have all been enslaved by tyrants. I told them what I knew of you, what I have learned. I told them that I decided to help you, and I asked them to join me. I, too, Lord Rahl, am in your service.”
Without further word, he shuffled forward with a big ring of keys, the right one already selected. He undid the lock on the collar first, then the manacles.
When he was free, Richard collapsed to his knees, unable to stand. As Cassia and Vale helped lift him to his feet, Mohler immediately went to Kahlan, to unlock her restraints.
Richard was there for Kahlan when she was finally free. She fell into his arms and hugged him with all her strength.
“Thank you for not giving up on any of us,” she whispered in his ear.
“Never,” he said.
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“Do any of you know where the others are?” Richard asked the three Mord-Sith and the scribe, Mohler. “All the soldiers of the First File? There were a lot of men.”
“And my mother,” Samantha added.
“They are all down in the dungeons,” Mohler said.
“The dungeons?” Richard asked.
“Dreier used his occult ability to render everyone unconscious—like he did to you,” Laurin said. “There are only shackles for four people in here, so the citadel guard brought you four in here and carried all the others down to the lower cells in the other dungeons.”
Richard looked around at the stone room. It was shielded and secure. “But I thought this was the dungeon.”
Cassia shook her head. “This is only the upper dungeon area of the citadel, and by far the smallest. The citadel has an extensive dungeon complex—three full floors below us, with dozens and dozens of individual rooms. Some cells are only large enough to hold one person, but most are a great deal larger than this one. They could easily house hundreds of prisoners at a time down there
.”
Richard frowned at the three Mord-Sith. “Why would they hold so many people?”
Cassia pulled a finger across her throat. “To await execution.”
Vale nodded. “There is an execution room on each floor below. Drains are cut into the stone for all the blood running from the blocks where the beheadings were done. Each execution room has a number of stations with well-worn blocks.”
Cassia gestured downward. “The way it looks, they probably only used the cells to house people temporarily until they could be executed. From what I’ve seen of those rooms down below, it doesn’t look like the dungeons and execution rooms have been in use for ages, but there is plenty of evidence that they were once in heavy use.
“The bodies were thrown in pits below the dungeons. One pit contains only skulls. The bones in others are a jumble—the bodies likely thrown in and left to rot. I have no idea how deep the layers of bones might be.”
“We have to get my mother out of there,” Samantha insisted, sounding on the verge of panic. “We have to get her out now.”
Richard put a hand on her shoulder as he thought it through. “We will, Samantha, we will.”
“She would get me out,” she insisted.
Richard looked back up at the Mord-Sith and the scribe. “I don’t understand. Why are there so many prison cells here? Do any of you know? I mean, this is a pretty small city for so many dungeon cells, to say nothing of all the executions.”
“From old accounts I’ve seen,” Mohler said, “the citadel has long been a prison for the Dark Lands, a place to confine the most dangerous people, such as those with occult powers, until they could be executed.”
It was suddenly making sense to Richard.
“The barrier to the third kingdom was in this general area of the Dark Lands,” he said. “The people back in the time of the first Confessor, the time of the great war, knew that the seals of the barrier would begin to fail one day and that occult powers confined there would begin to seep out. They left people in Stroyza to watch for the barrier to fail completely, but more than that, they built the citadel to collect and confine anyone with dangerous occult powers that from time to time had leaked out from beyond the barrier. People like Jit.”
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