5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

Richard made for the other two women. "The position of wife is filled, thank you." . .

  Kahlan and Du Chaillu walked side by side through the grass, their faces showing no emotion. At least he didn't see any blood.

  "Your other wife has convinced me to talk to you," Du Chaillu said when Richard met them.

  "You are fortunate to have us both," she added.

  Richard thought better of opening his mouth, lest he allow to leap off his tongue the flip remark dancing impatiently there.

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  CHAPTER 31

  Du CHAILLU WALKED OFF to her blade masters, apparently telling the men to sit and rest themselves while she spoke with the Caharin. While she was seeing to that, Kahlan, with the end of her finger in his ribs, prodded Richard in the direction of their gear.

  "Get Du Chaillu a blanket to sit on," Kahlan murmured.

  "Why does she need ours? They have their own blankets with them. Besides, she doesn't need a blanket to sit on to tell me why she's here."

  Kahlan poked his ribs again. "Just get it," she said under her breath so the others wouldn't hear. "In case you hadn't noticed, the woman is pregnant and could use a rest off her feet."

  "Well that doesn't-"

  "Richard," Kahlan snapped, hushing him. "When you insist someone submit to your will, it is accomplished most easily if you give them a small victory so they can retain their dignity while they do as you insist. If you wish, I will carry it over to her."

  "Well," Richard said, "all right, then. I guess-"

  "See? You just proved it. And you will carry the blanket."

  "So Du Chaillu gets a small victory, but I don't?"

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  "You're a big boy. Du Chaillu's price is a blanket to sit on while she tells you why she's here. The price is minuscule. Don't continue a war we have already won just to make the opponent's humiliation crushing and complete."

  "But she-"

  "I know. Du Chaillu was out of line in what she said to you. You know it, I know it, she knows it. But her feelings were hurt and not entirely without cause. We all make mistakes.

  "She didn't understand the dimensions of the danger we have only just discovered we face. She has agreed to peace for the price of our blanket to sit upon. She only wants you to pay her a courtesy. It won't hurt you to indulge her sensibilities."

  Richard glanced over his shoulder when they reached their things. Du Chaillu was speaking to the blade masters.

  "You threaten her?" Richard whispered as he pulled his blanket from his pack.

  "Oh yes," Kahlan whispered back. She put a hand on his arm. "Be gentle. Her ears are liable to be a bit tender after our little talk."

  Richard marched over and made a show of flattening the grass and spreading his blanket on the ground before Du Chaillu. With the flat of his hand, he smoothed out the bigger wrinkles. He set a waterskin in the middle. When finished, he held out a hand in invitation.

  "Please, Du Chaillu"-he couldn't make himself address her as his wife, but he didn't think that mattered-"sit and speak with me? Your words are important, and time is precious."

  She inspected the way he had matted down the grass, all in one direction, and scrutinized the blanket. Satisfied with the arrangement, she sat at one end and crossed her legs under herself. With her back straight, her chin held high, and her hands clasped in her lap, she looked somehow noble. He guessed she was.

  Richard flipped his golden cape back over his shoulders

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  and sat cross-legged at the other end of the blanket. It wasn't very big, so their knees almost touched. He smiled politely and offered her the waterskin.

  As she graciously accepted the waterskin, he recalled the first time he had seen her. She had been in a collar and chained to a wall. She had been naked and filthy, and smelled as if she had been there for months, which she had, yet her bearing was such that she had somehow seemed to him just as noble as she did now, clean and dressed in her spirit-woman prayer dress.

  He remembered, too, how when he had been trying to free her, she feared he was going to' kill her and she had bitten him. Just recalling it, he could almost feel her teeth marks.

  The troubling thought occurred to him that this woman had the gift. He wasn't sure the extent of her powers, but he could see it in her eyes. Somehow, his ability allowed him to see that timeless look in the eyes of others who were at least brushed with a dusting of the gift of magic.

  Sister Verna had told Richard that she had tried little things on Du Chaillu, to test her. Verna said the spells she sent at Du Chaillu disappeared like pebbles dropped down a well, and they did not go unnoticed. Du Chaillu, Verna had said, knew what was being tried, and was somehow able to annul it.

  From other things, Richard had long ago come to the realization that Du Chaillu's gift involved some primitive form of prophecy. Since she had been held in chains for months, he doubted she was able to affect the world around her with her magical ability. People whose magic could affect others in an overt manner didn't need to bite, he imagined, nor would they allow themselves to be held captive to await being sacrificed. But she was able to prevent others from using magic against her, not an uncommon form of mystical protection against the weapon of magic, Richard had learned.

  With the chimes in the world of life, Du Chaillu's magic, whatever its extent, would fail, if it hadn't already. He

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  waited until she had her drink and had handed back the waterskin before he began.

  "Du Chaillu, I need-"

  "Ask how are our people."

  Richard glanced up at Kahlan. Kahlan rolled her eyes and gave him a nod.

  Richard set down the waterskin and cleared his throat.

  "Du Chaillu, I rejoice to see you are well. Thank you for considering my words of advice to keep your child. I know it is a great responsibility to raise a child. I am sure you will be rewarded with a lifetime of joy at your decision, and the child will be rewarded by your teachings. I also know my words were not as important in your decision as was your own heart."

  Richard didn't have to try to sound sincere, because he truly was. "I'm sorry you had to leave your other babies to make this long and difficult journey to bring me your words of wisdom. I know you would not have undertaken such a long and arduous journey were it not important."

  She waited, clearly not yet content. Richard, patiently trying to play her game, let out a breath and went on.

  "Please, Du Chaillu, tell me how the Baka Tau Mana fare, now that they are returned at last to their ancestral homeland?"

  Du Chaillu smiled at last with satisfaction. "Our people are well and happy in their homeland, thanks to you, Caharin, but we will talk of them later. I must now tell you of why I have come."

  Richard made an effort to school his scowl. "I am eager to hear your words."

  She opened her mouth, but then scowled herself. "Where is your sword?"

  "I don't have it with me."

  "Why not?"

  "I had to leave it back in Aydindril. It's a long story and it isn't-"

  "But how can you be the Seeker if you do not have your sword?"

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  Richard drew a breath. "The Seeker of Truth is a person. The Sword of Truth is a tool the Seeker uses, much like you used the whistle to bring peace. I can still be the Seeker without the sword, just as you can be the spirit woman without the gift of the whistle."

  "It doesn't seem right." She looked dismayed. "I liked your sword. It cut the iron collar off my neck and left my head where it was. It announced you to us as the Caharin. You should have your sword."

  Deciding that he had played her game long enough, and considering the vital matters on his mind, he leaned forward and let his scowl have its way.

  "I will recover my sword as soon as I return to Aydindril. We were on our way there when we met you here. The less time I spend sitting around on a good traveling day, the sooner I will arrive in Aydindril and be able to recover my sword.

  "I'm sorry, Du
Chaillu, if I seemed in a rush. I mean no disrespect, but I fear for innocent lives and the lives of ones I love. It is for the safety of the Baka Tau Mana, too, that I am in a hurry.

  "I would be thankful if you would tell me what you're doing here. People are dying. Some of your own people have lost their lives. I must see if there is anything I can do to stop the chimes. The Sword of Truth may help me. I need to get to Aydindril to get it. May we please get on with this?"

  Du Chaillu smiled to herself, now that he had given her the proper respect. Slowly, she seemed to 1956 her ability to hold the smile, losing with it her bluster. For the first time, she seemed unsure, looking suddenly small and frightened.

  "My husband, I had a troubling vision of you. As the spirit woman, I sometimes have such visions."

  "Good for you, but I don't want to hear it."

  She looked up at him. "What?"

  "You said it was a vision."

  "Yes."

  "I don't want to hear about any visions."

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  "But-but-you must. It was a vision."

  "Visions are a form of prophecy. Prophecy has yet to help me, and almost always causes me grief. I don't want to hear it-"

  "But visions help."

  "No, they do not help."

  "They reveal the truth."

  "They are no more true than dreams."

  "Dreams can be true, also."

  "No, dreams are not true. They are simply dreams. Visions are not true, either. They are simply visions."

  "But I saw you in a vision."

  "I don't care. I don't want to hear it."

  "You were on fire."

  Richard heaved a breath. "I've had dreams where I can fly, too. That doesn't make it true."

  Du Chaillu leaned toward him. "You dream you can fly? Really? You mean like a bird?" She straightened. "I have never heard of such a thing."

  "It's just a dream, Du Chaillu. Like your vision."

  "But I had a vision of this. That means it is true."

  "Just because I can fly in my dreams, that doesn't make it true. I don't go jumping off high places and flapping my arms. It's just a dream, like your vision.

  "I can't fly, Du Chaillu."

  "But you can burn."

  Richard put his hands on his knees and leaned back a little as he took a deep and patient breath.

  "All right, fine. What else was there to this vision?"

  "Nothing. That was all."

  "Nothing? That was it? Me on fire? Just a little dream of me on fire?"

  "Not a dream." She held up a finger to make her point. "A vision."

  "And you journeyed all this way to tell me that? Well, thank you very much for coming such a distance to tell me, but we really must be on our way, now. Tell your people the Caharin wishes them well. Good journey home."

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  Richard made to look like he was going to get up.

  "Unless you have something more to say?" he added.

  Du Chaillu melted a little at the rebuff. "It frightened me to see my husband on fire."

  "As well as it would frighten me to be on fire."

  "I would not like it if the Caharin was on fire."

  "Nor would the Caharin like to be on fire. So, did your vision tell you how I might avoid being on fire?"

  She looked down and picked at the blanket. "No."

  "You see? What good is it, then?"

  "It is good to know such things," she said as she rolled a little fuzz ball across the blanket. "It might help."

  Richard scratched his forehead. She was working up her courage to tell him something more important, more troubling. The vision was a pretext, he reasoned. He softened his tone, hoping to ease it out of her.

  "Du Chaillu, thank you for your warning. I will keep it in mind that it might somehow help me."

  She met his eyes and nodded.

  "How did you find me?" he asked.

  "You are the Caharin." She was looking noble again. "I am the Baka Tau Mana spirit woman, the keeper of the old laws. Your wife."

  Richard understood. She was bonded to him, much like the D'Harans-like Cara. And like Cara, Du Chaillu could sense where he was.

  "I was a day south of here. You nearly missed finding me. Have you begun to have difficulty telling where I am?"

  She looked away from his eyes as she nodded. "I could always go and stand looking out at the horizon, with the breeze in my hair and the sun or stars upon my face, and I could point, and say, 'The Caharin is that way.' "

  She took a moment to again find her voice. "It has become harder and harder to know where to point."

  "We were in Aydindril until just a few days ago," Richard said. "You would have had to start on your journey long before I came to this place."

  "Yes. You were not in this place when I first knew I must

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  come to you." She gestured over her shoulder. "You were much, much farther to the northeast."

  "Why would you come here to find me if you could sense me to the northeast, in Aydindril?"

  "When I began to feel you less and less, I knew that meant there was trouble. My visions told me I needed to come to you before you were lost to me. If I had traveled to where I knew you were when I started, you would not be there when I arrived. I consulted my visions, instead, while I still had them, and journeyed to where they told me you would be.

  "Toward the end of our journey, I could feel you were now in this place. Soon after, I could no longer feel you. W6 were still a goodly distance away, so all we could do was to continue on in this direction. The good spirits answered my prayers, and allowed our paths to cross."

  "I am pleased the good spirits helped you, Du Chaillu. You are a good person, and deserve their help."

  She picked at the blanket again. "But my husband does not believe in my visions."

  Richard wet his lips. "My father used to tell me not to eat mushrooms I found in the forest. He would say he could see me eating a poison mushroom and then getting sick and dying. He didn't really mean he could see it was going to happen, but that he feared for me. He was warning me what might happen if I ate mushrooms I didn't know."

  "I understand," she said with a small smile.

  "Was yours a true vision? Maybe it was a vision of something that's only possible-a vision of a danger-but not a certainty?"

  "It is true some visions are of things that are possible, but not yet settled in the fates. It could be that yours was that kind."

  Richard took up her hand in both of his. "Du Chaillu," he asked in a gentle voice, "please tell me now why you have come to me?"

  She reverently smoothed the little colored strips running down her arm, as if reminding herself of the prayers her

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  people sent with her. This was a woman who bore the mantle of responsibility with spirit, courage, and dignity.

  "The Baka Tau Mana are joyous to be in their homeland after all these generations separated from the place of our hearts. Our homeland is all the old words passed down said it was. The land is fertile. The weather favorable. It is a good place to raise our children. A place where we can be free. Our hearts sing to be there.

  "Every people should have what you have given to us, Caharin. Every people should be safe to live as they would."

  A terrible sorrow settled through her expressions "You are not. You and your people of this land of the New World you told me about are not safe. A great army comes."

  "Jagang," Richard breathed. "You had a vision of this?"

  "No, my husband. We have seen it with our own eyes. I was ashamed to tell you of this, ashamed because we were so frightened by them, and I did not want to admit our fear.

  "When I was chained to the wall, and I knew the Majendie would come any day to sacrifice me, I was not this frightened because it was only me, not all my people, who would die. My people were strong and they would get a new spirit woman to take my place. They would fight off the Majendie, if they came into the swamp. I could die know
ing the Baka Ban Mana would live on.

  "We practice every day with our weapons, so none may come and destroy us. We stand ready, as the old laws say, to do battle for our lives against any who come against us. There is no man but the Caharin who could face one of our blade masters.

  "But no matter how good our blade masters, they could not fight an army like this. When they at last put their eye toward us, we will not be able to fight off this foe."