She grinned. “At least you had the good sense to pick the best of the sausages.”
That eased the tension. They both laughed.
“Kahlan, I don’t understand, about the boundary, I mean. I don’t even know what the boundary is, except it’s meant to keep the lands separated so there will be peace. And of course everyone knows that whoever goes into the boundary will not come out alive. Chase and the boundary wardens patrol to make sure people stay away for their own good.”
“Young people here are not taught the histories of the three lands?”
“No. I always thought it odd myself, because I wanted to know, but no one would ever tell me much. People think I’m strange because I want to know, and I ask questions. Older people seem suspicious when I ask, and tell me it was too long ago to remember, or give some other excuse.
“Both my father and Zedd told me they used to live in the Midlands before the boundary. Before it went up, they came to Westland. They met here before I was born. They said that back before the boundaries was a terrible time, and that there was a lot of fighting. They both told me there was nothing I needed to know except it was a dreadful time best forgotten. Zedd always seemed the most bitter about it.”
Kahlan snapped a piece off a dry stick and tossed it into the fire, where it flamed into a bright ember.
“Well, it is a long story. If you want I will tell you some of it.” When she turned to him, he nodded for her to go on.
“Long ago, back in the time before our parents were born, D’Hara was just a confederation of kingdoms, as was the Midlands. The most ruthless of the D’Haran rulers was Panis Rahl. He was avaricious. From the first day of his reign, he started swallowing up all of D’Hara for himself, one kingdom after another, many times before the ink was dry on a peace treaty. In the end, he held sway over all of D’Hara, but instead of satisfying him, it only whetted his appetite, and he soon turned his attention to the lands that are now the Midlands. The Midlands is a loose confederation of free lands; free, at least, to rule as they see fit, and only so long as they live in peace with each other.
“By the time Rahl had conquered all of D’Hara, the peoples of the Midlands had seen what he was about, and were not to be taken so easily. They knew that signing a peace treaty with him was as good as signing an invitation to invasion. Instead, they chose to remain free, and joined together, through the council of the Midlands, in a common defense. Many of the free lands held no favor with each other, but they knew that if they did not fight together, they would die separately, one at a time.
“Panis Rahl threw the might of D’Hara against them. War raged for many years.”
Kahlan broke off another piece of the stick and fed it to the fire. “As his legions were finally slowed and then halted, Rahl turned to magic. There is magic in D’Hara, too, not just in the Midlands. Back then there was magic everywhere. There were no separate lands, no boundaries. Anyway, Panis Rahl was ruthless in his use of magic against the free people. He was terribly brutal.”
“What kind of magic? What did he do?”
“Some was trickery, sickness, fevers, but the worst of it was the shadow people.”
Richard frowned. “Shadow people? What were they?”
“Shadows in the air. Shadow people had no solid form, no precise shape, they were not even alive as we know it, but beings created out of magic.” She held out her hand, gliding it across in front of them. “They would come floating across a field or through a wood. Weapons had no effect on them. Swords and arrows went through them as if they were nothing more than smoke. You couldn’t hide; shadow people could see you anywhere. One would drift right up to a person and touch him. The touch caused the person’s whole body to blister and swell and finally split open. No one touched by a shadow person ever survived. Whole battalions were found killed to a man.”
She pulled her hand back inside the blanket. “When Panis Rahl started using the magic in that way, a great and honorable wizard joined the side of the Midlands cause.”
“What was his name, this great and honorable wizard?”
“That is part of the story. Have patience until I get to it.”
Richard stirred some spices into the soup, listening intently while she resumed her story.
“Many thousands had already died in battle, but the magic killed many more. It was a dark time, after all those years of struggle, to have so many taken by the magic Rahl called forth. But with the help of the great wizard holding Panis Rahl’s magic in check, his legions were driven back into D’Hara.”
Richard added a stick of birch to the fire. “How did this great and honorable wizard stop the shadow people?”
“He conjured up battle horns for the armies. When the shadow people came, our men blew the horns and magic swept the shadow people away like smoke in the wind. It turned the course of battle to our side.
“The wars had been devastating, but it was concluded that going into D’Hara to destroy Rahl and his forces would be too costly. Yet something had to be done to keep Panis Rahl from trying again, as they knew he would, and many were more frightened of the magic than of the hordes from D’Hara, and they wanted to have nothing to do with it ever again. They wanted a place to live where there would be no magic. Westland was set aside for those people. So it was that there came to be three lands. The boundaries were created with the help of magic… but they themselves are not magic.”
Richard watched as she looked away. “So what are they?”
Even though her head was turned, he could see her eyes close for a moment. She took the spoon from him and tasted the soup, which he knew wasn’t ready yet, then looked to him, as if asking if he really wanted to know. Richard waited.
Kahlan stared into the fire. “The boundaries are part of the underworld: the dominion of the dead. They were conjured into our world by magic, to separate the three lands. They are like a curtain drawn across our world. A rift in the world of the living.”
“You mean that going into the boundary is, what, like falling through a crack into another world? Into the underworld?”
She shook her head. “No. Our world is still here. The underworld is there in the same place at the same time. It is about a two-day walk across the land where the boundary, the underworld, lies. But while you are walking the land where the boundary is, you are also walking through the underworld. It is a wasteland. Any life that touches the underworld, or is touched by it, is touching death. That is why no one can cross the boundary. If you enter it, you enter the land of the dead. No one can return from the dead.”
“Then how did you?”
She swallowed as she watched the fire. “With magic. The boundary was brought here with magic, so the wizards reasoned they could get me safely through with the aid and protection of magic. It was frightfully difficult for them to cast the spells. They were dealing in things they didn’t fully understand, dangerous things, and they weren’t the ones who conjured the boundary into this world, so they weren’t sure it would work. None of us knew what to expect.” Her voice was weak, distant. “Even though I came through, I fear I will never be able to entirely leave it.”
Richard sat spellbound. He was horrified to think that she had faced that, that she had gone through a part of the underworld, the world of the dead, even with the aid of magic. It was unimaginable. Her frightened eyes came to his, eyes that had seen things no one else had ever seen.
“Tell me what you saw there,” he whispered.
Her skin was ashen as she looked back into the fire. A birch twig popped, making her flinch. Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes filled with tears that reflected the flickering flames, but she was not seeing the fire.
“At first,” she said in a distant tone, “it was like walking into the sheets of cold fire you see at night in the northern sky.” Her chest began heaving. “Inside, it is beyond darkness.” Her eyes were wide, wet. A small moan escaped with her breath. “There is… someone… with me.”
She turn
ed to him, confused, seeming not to know where she was. It panicked him to see the pain in her eyes—pain he brought there with his question. She put her hand over her mouth as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes closed as she gave a low, mournful cry. Bumps ran up Richard’s arms.
“My… mother,” she sobbed, “I haven’t seen her in so many years… and… my dead sister… Dennee…. I’m so alone… and afraid….” As she cried, she started gasping for air.
Somehow, he was losing her to the powerful specters of what she had seen in the underworld, as if they were pulling her back to drown her. Frantic, Richard put his hands on her shoulders and twisted her to face him.
“Kahlan, look at me! Look at me!”
“Dennee…” she gasped, her chest heaving as she tried to break free of him.
“Kahlan!”
“I’m so alone… and afraid….”
“Kahlan! I’m here with you! Look at me!”
She continued to cry convulsively, choking for air. Her eyes opened, but they didn’t focus on him; they were looking into another place.
“You’re not alone, I’m here with you! I won’t leave you!”
“I’m so alone,” she wailed.
He shook her, trying to make her listen. Her skin was white and dead cold. She struggled to breathe. “I’m right here. You’re not alone!” Desperate, he shook her again, but it wasn’t helping. He was losing her.
Struggling to control his rising panic, Richard did the only thing he could think of. When he had been confronted with fear in the past, he had learned to control it. There was strength in control. He did that now. Maybe he could give her some of his strength. Closing his eyes, he shut his fear away, blocked off the panic, and sought the calm within himself. He let his mind focus on the strength within himself. In the quiet of his mind, he blocked off his fears and confusion, and centered his thoughts on the strength of that peace. He would not let the underworld have her.
He spoke her name in a calm voice. “Let me help you. You are not alone. I am here with you. Let me help you. Take my strength.”
His hands gripped her shoulders. He could feel her shaking as she cried in choking sobs and struggled to breathe. He visualized sending her his strength, through his hands, through his contact with her. He visualized that contact extending to her mind, lending her all of his strength and drawing her back, away from the blackness. He would be the spark of light and life in that blackness that would lead her back to this world, to him.
“Kahlan, I am here. I won’t leave you. You are not alone. Trust in me.” He gently squeezed her shoulders. “Come back to me. Please.”
He pictured the white-hot light in his mind, hoping it would help her. Please, dear spirits, he prayed, let her see in. Let it help her. Let her use my strength.
“Richard?” She called out the name as if searching for him.
He squeezed her shoulders again. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. Come back to me.”
She started breathing again. Her eyes focused on his face. Relief flooded her features when she recognized him, and she began to cry in what seemed a more normal way. She collapsed against him and held him as she would a rock in a river. He held her to him and let her cry on his shoulder while he told her it was all right. He was so afraid he had lost her to the underworld that he didn’t want to let go of her either.
Reaching down, he got a hold of the blanket and pulled it back up around her, wrapping her with it as best he could. Warmth was returning to her body again, another sign that she was safe now, but he was disturbed by how quickly the underworld had pulled her back. He didn’t think that was supposed to happen. She hadn’t been there long, and exactly how he had gotten her back, he didn’t know, but he knew it had been none too soon.
The fire gave its soft red cast to the inside of the wayward pine, and in the silence it seemed a secure haven again. An illusion, he knew. He held her and stroked her hair and rocked her gently for a long time. Something in the way she clung to him made him realize that no one had held her and comforted her for a very long time.
He didn’t know anything about wizards, or magic, but no one would send Kahlan through the boundary, through the underworld, without a powerful reason. He wondered what could be that important.
Pushing herself off his shoulder, she sat up, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should not have touched you in that manner. I was…”
“It’s all right, Kahlan. It is the first responsibility of a friend to provide a shoulder to cry on.”
She nodded but didn’t raise her head. Richard felt her eyes on him as he took the soup off the fire to let it cool a little. He put another piece of wood into the flames, sending sparks swirling up with the smoke.
“How do you do that?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Do what?”
“How do you ask questions that fill my mind with pictures and make me answer, even when I have no intention to?”
He shrugged, a little self-conscious. “Zedd asks me that too. I guess it’s just something I was born with. Sometimes I think it’s a curse.” He turned from the fire to face her again. “I’m sorry, Kahlan, for asking you what you saw there. It was a thoughtless thing to do. Sometimes my common sense doesn’t keep up with my curiosity. I’m sorry I brought you pain. You being pulled back into the underworld, though, that shouldn’t have happened, should it?”
“No, it shouldn’t. It was almost as if when I thought back to what I had seen, someone was waiting to pull me back. I fear if you hadn’t been here, I might have been lost there. In the darkness, I saw a light. Something you did brought me back.”
Richard picked up the spoon while he thought. “Maybe just that you weren’t alone.”
Kahlan gave a weak shrug. “Maybe.”
“I only have one spoon. We can share it.” He took a spoonful of soup and blew on it before tasting it. “Not my best work, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” That had the desired effect: she smiled. He gave her the spoon.
“If I’m to help you to stay ahead of the next quad, to stay alive, I need answers. And I don’t think we have much time.”
She nodded. “I understand. It’s all right.”
He let her eat some soup before he went on. “So what happened after the boundaries went up? What about the great wizard?”
Before handing him the spoon she took a piece of sausage. “One more thing happened before they went up. While the great wizard was holding the magic at bay, Panis Rahl took a final revenge. He sent a quad out of D’Hara…. They killed the wizard’s wife, and his daughter.”
Richard stared at her. “What did the wizard do to Rahl?”
“He held Rahl’s magic back and held him in D’Hara until just as the boundary was going up. At that very moment he sent a ball of wizard’s fire through it, letting it touch death, to give it the power of both worlds. Then the boundaries were there.”
Richard had never heard of wizard’s fire, but he didn’t think it required an explanation. “So what happened to Panis Rahl?”
“Well, the boundaries were there, so no one can say for sure, but I don’t think anyone would have traded their lot for that of Panis Rahl.”
Richard gave her the spoon, and she ate some more while he tried to imagine the righteous wrath of a wizard. After a few bites she gave back the spoon and continued.
“At first everything was fine, but then the council of the Midlands started taking actions the great wizard said were corrupt. Something to do with the magic. He found out the council had reneged on agreements about how the power of magic was to be controlled. He told them that their greed and the things they were doing would lead to worse horrors than those put down in the wars. They thought they knew better than he how the magic should be managed. They made a political appointment of a very important position that was a wizard’s and a wizard’s alone to fill. He was furious, he told them the position was one for which only a wizard could find the right person, and the appointment only a wi
zard’s to make. The great wizard had trained other wizards, but in their greed, these others sided with the council. He was enraged. He said his wife and daughter had died for nothing. As punishment, the great wizard told them he would do the worst thing possible to them; he would leave them to suffer the consequence of their actions.”
Richard smiled. That sounded like something Zedd would say.
“He said that if they knew so well how things were to be done, they did not need him. He refused to help them further, and vanished. But as he left, he cast a wizard’s web…”
“What’s that, a wizard’s web?”
“It is a spell a wizard casts. As he left, he cast a wizard’s web over everyone, making them forget his name, even what he looked like. So that is why no one knows what his name is or who he is.”
Kahlan tossed a stick in the fire, staring off into her thoughts. He went back to eating soup while he waited for her go on with the story. After a few minutes, she did.
“At the beginning of last winter, the movement started.”
He backed the spoonful of soup away from his mouth as he looked up. “What movement?”
“The Darken Rahl movement. It seemed to spring up out of nowhere. All of a sudden crowds of people in the bigger cities were chanting his name, calling him ‘Father Rahl,’ calling him the greatest man of peace that ever lived. The strange thing is, he is the son of Panis Rahl, from D’Hara, on the other side of the boundary, so how did anyone even know anything about him?” She paused, allowing him to ponder the significance of this.
“Anyway, then the gars started coming over the boundary. They killed a lot of people before everyone learned to stay inside at night.”
“But how did they get across the boundary?”
“It was weakening, only no one knew it. As it weakened, it faded from the top first, so the gars could fly over. In the spring it faded completely away. Then the People’s Peace Army, Darken Rahl’s army, marched right into the bigger cities. Instead of fighting him, crowds of Midlanders threw flowers at them wherever they went. People who didn’t throw flowers were hung.”
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