5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

  He was alone in a private inferno.

  He didn't know how long he could maintain his hold on life.

  Everything seemed to have gone crazy at once. Beata tore across the grassy ground, running for all she was worth.' Terror rampaged through her.

  Turner's scream had stopped. It had been horrifying while it lasted, but it had only lasted seconds.

  "Stop!" Beata shrieked with all the power in her lungs. "Stop! Are you crazy? Stop!"

  The air still reverberated with the sound of the Dominie Dirtch. The low-pitched knell lifted dust from the grass, so that it looked like the ground all around was smoking. It trembled and rolled dirt into little balls. It toppled a little lone tree the last squad had planted.

  It made the whole world vibrate with a ghastly drone.

  Tears streamed down Beata's cheeks as she raced across the field, shrieking for them to stop ringing the bell.

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  Turner had been out front, scouting on regular patrol to make sure the area before the Dominie Dirtch was clear.

  His scream had ended mere seconds after the Dominie Dirtch had been rung, but its pain and horror still echoed inside her head. It was a cry she knew she would never be able to forget as long as she lived.

  "Stop!" she yelled as she snatched the railing to spin herself around onto the stairs. "Stop!" she cried again as she raced up the steps.

  Beata burst onto the platform, fists raised, ready to pummel the fool who'd rung the Dominie Dirtch.

  Beata halted, panting madly, looking about. Emmeline stood frozen in wide-eyed shock. Bryce, too, seemed out of his senses. He just stared at her in frozen panic.

  The long striker, used to ring the Dominie Dirtch, still stood in its holder. Neither of the two up on the platform was even near it. Neither had used the wooden striker to unleash the deadly weapon.

  "What did you do!" she screamed at them. "What did you do to ring it! Have you gone mad!" She glanced over her shoulder to the bony pile of gore that had moments before been Turner.

  Beata thrust out her arm, pointing. "You killed him! Why would you do it? What's wrong with you?"

  Emmeline slowly shook her head. "I've not moved a step from this spot."

  Bryce was beginning to tremble. "Me neither. Sergeant, we never rang the thing. I swear. We weren't even near it. Neither of us was near it. We didn't do it."

  In the silence as she stared at them, Beata realized she heard distant screams. She looked off across the plains, to the next Dominie Dutch. She could just make out people over there running around as if the world had gone insane.

  She spun and peered hi the opposite direction. It was the same: people screaming, running around. Beata shielded her eyes from the sun and squinted into the distance. There were the remains of two soldiers out in front of their weapon.

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  Estelle Ruffin and Corporal Marie Fauvel reached what was left of Turner. Estelle, holding fistfuls of her hair, started screaming. Marie turned and started retching.

  It was the way she was trained. It was the way things were done. They said it had been done that way for millennia.

  Each squad, from each Dominie Dirtch, sent a patrol out at the same time to scout the area. That way, if there was anything or anyone sneaking around out there, it couldn't simply evade one soldier and hide elsewhere.

  It wasn't just hers. Every Dominie Dirtch down the line had rung, seemingly of its own accord.

  Kahlan clutched at Richard's shut. He was still out of his senses with pain. She couldn't get him out of the ball he had rolled into. She didn't know what exactly was going on, but she feared she knew.

  He was obviously in mortal danger of some sort.

  She'd heard him cry out. She saw him tumble off his horse and hit the ground. She just didn't know why.

  Her first thought was that it was an arrow. She had been terrified it was an arrow from an assassin and it had killed him. But she could see no blood. Her emotions walled off, she had searched for blood, but on her rapid initial inspection had found none.

  Kahlan glanced up as a thousand D'Haran soldiers spread out around them. The first instant, when Richard screamed and fell from his horse, without orders from her, they had gone into action. Swords cleared scabbards in a blink. Axes came off belt hangers into ready fists. Lances were leveled.

  In the perimeter around them, men had flipped a leg over their horses' necks and leaped to the ground, ready to fight, weapons already to hand. Other men, closing ranks, forming the next circle of protection, turned their horses outward,

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  ready to charge. Still more, the outer fringe of crack troops, had rushed off to find the assailants and clear the area of any enemy.

  Kahlan had been around armies her entire life, and knew about fighting troops. She knew by the way they reacted that these men were as good as they came. She hadn't needed to issue any orders; they executed every defensive maneuver she would have expected, and did them faster than she could have shouted the commands.

  Above her and Richard, the Baka Tau Mana blade masters formed a tight circle, swords out and at the ready. Whatever the attack was, arrow or dart or something else, Kahlan couldn't imagine the people protecting them allowing another chance at their Lord Rahl. If nothing else, there were now too many men suddenly layered around them for an arrow to make it through.

  Kahlan, somewhat stunned by the sudden confusion, felt a flutter of worry that Cara would be angry they let harm come to Richard. Kahlan, after all, had promised to let no harm come to him-as if a promise to Cara were required.

  Du Chaillu pushed her way between her blade masters to squat down on the other side of Richard. She had a water-skin and cloth to dress a wound.

  "Have you found the injury?"

  "No," Kahlan said as she picked around on him.

  She pressed a hand to the side of Richard's face. It reminded her of when he'd had the plague, out of his mind with fever and not knowing where he was. He couldn't have been stricken with sickness, not the way he cried out and fell from his horse, but he did feel as if he was burning up with fever.

  Du Chaillu dabbed a wet cloth against Richard's face. Kahlan saw that Du Chaillu's own face was creased in worry.

  Kahlan continued her examination of Richard, trying to see if he had been hit by some sort of dart, or perhaps a bolt from a crossbow. He was trembling, almost in convul-

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  sions. She searched frantically, pulling him onto his side to check his-back, trying to find what was hurting him. She concentrated on her job, and tried not to think of how worried she was, lest shock take her.

  Du Chaillu stroked Richard's face when Kahlan eased him onto his back, seeming to discount the need to look for a wound. The spirit woman bent forward, cooing softly in a chant with words Kahlan didn't understand.

  "I can't find anything," Kahlan said at last in exasperation.

  "You won't," Du Chaillu answered, distantly.

  "Why's that?"

  The Baka Tau Mana spirit woman murmured fond words to Richard. Even if Kahlan couldn't understand their literal meaning, she understood the emotion behind them.

  "It is not a wound of this world," Du Chaillu said.

  Kahlan glanced about at the soldiers ringing them. She put her hands protectively on Richard's chest.

  "What does that mean?"

  Du Chaillu pushed Kahlan's hands gently away.

  "It is a wound of the spirit. The soul. Let me tend to him."

  Kahlan pressed her own hand tenderly to Richard's face. "How do you know that? You don't know that. How could you know?"

  "I am a spirit woman. I recognize such things."

  "Just because-"

  "Did you find a wound?"

  Kahlan remained silent for a moment, reconsidering her own feelings. "Do you know what we can do to help him?"

  "This is something beyond your ability to help." Du Chaillu bowed her head of dark hair as she pressed her hands to Richard's chest.

  "
Leave me to it," Du Chaillu murmured, "or our husband will die."

  Kahlan sat back on her heels and watched as the Baka Tau Mana spirit woman, head bowed and hands on Richard,

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  closed her eyes as if going into a trance of some sort. Words whispered forth, meant for herself perhaps, but not for others. She trembled. Her arms shook.

  Du Chaillu's face contorted in pain.

  Suddenly, she fell back, breaking the connection. Kahlan caught her arm, lest she topple. - "Are you all right?"

  Du Chaillu nodded. "My power. It worked. It was back."

  Kahlan looked from the woman to Richard. He seemed calmer.

  "What did you do? What happened?"

  "Something was trying to take his spirit. I used my ability to annul such power and kept the hands of death from him."

  "Your power is back?" Kahlan was dubious. "But how could that be?"

  Du Chaillu shook her head. "I don't know. It returned when the Caharin cried out and fell from his horse. I knew because I could again feel my bond to him."

  "Maybe the chimes have fled back to the underworld."

  Again Du Chaillu shook her head. "Whatever it was, it is passing. My power fades again." She stared off a moment. "It is again gone. It was only there long enough to help him."

  Du Chaillu issued quiet orders for her men to stand down, that it was over.

  Kahlan wasn't convinced. She glanced again to Richard. It did look like he was calming. His breathing was evening out.

  His eyes abruptly opened. He squinted at the light.

  Du Chaillu leaned over him and pressed the wet cloth to his forehead, dabbing off the sweat.

  "You are all right, now, my husband," she said.

  "Du Chaillu," he muttered, "how many times do I have to tell you, I'm not your husband. You are misinterpreting old laws."

  Du Chaillu smiled up at Kahlan. "See? He is better."

  "Thank the good spirits you were here, Du Chaillu," Kahlan whispered.

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  'Tell him that when he again complains I should leave him."

  Kahlan couldn't help smiling at Richard's frustration with Du Chaillu and with her blessed relief that he was indeed better. Tears now suddenly tried to burst forth, but she banished them.

  "Richard, are you all right? What happened? What made you fall from your horse?"

  Richard tried to sit up but Kahlan and Du Chaillu both pushed him back down.

  "Both your wives say to rest for a time," Du Chaillu said.

  Richard stopped trying to get up. His gray eyes turned to Kahlan. She clutched his arm, again silently thanking the good spirits.

  "I'm not sure what happened," he finally said. "It was like this sound-like a deafening bell-exploded in my head. The pain was like..." His face lost some of its color. "I don't know how to explain it. I've never felt anything like it before."

  He sat up, this time brushing their restraining hands aside. "I'm all right, now. Whatever it was, it's gone. It has passed."

  "I'm not so sure," Kahlan said.

  "I am," he said. He looked haunted. "It was like something tearing at my very soul."

  "It didn't get it," Du Chaillu said. "It tried, but it didn't get it."

  She was dead serious. Kahlan believed her.

  Hide twitching, the horse stood motionless, her hooves rooted to the grassy ground. Her instinct demanded she run. Ripples of panic quivered through her flesh, but she remained unmoving.

  The man was beyond the falling water, in the dark hole.

  She didn't like holes. No horse did.

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  He had screamed. The ground had shaken. That had been a long time ago. She hadn't moved since then. Now it was silent.

  The horse knew, though, that her friend still lived.

  She let out a long, low bellow.

  He still lived, but he didn't come out.

  The horse was alone.

  There was no worse thing for a horse than being alone.

  CHAPTER 49

  ANN OPENED HER EYES. She was surprised, in the dun light, to see a face she had not seen for months, not since she was still the Prelate, back at the Palace of the Prophets in Tanimura, in the Old World.

  The middle-aged Sister was watching her. Middle-aged, Ann amended, if you considered five hundred and a few years old to be middle-aged.

  "Sister Alessandra."

  Forming the words aloud hurt. Her lip was not healed. Her jaw still didn't work too well. Ann didn't know if it was broken. If it was, there was nothing for it. It would have to heal as it would; there was no magic to do it for her.

  "Prelate," the woman greeted, in an aloof tone.

  She used to have a long braid, Ann recalled. A long braid

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  she always looped around and pinned to the back of her head. Now her graying brown hair was chopped off and hung loose, not quite touching her shoulders. Ann thought it better balanced her somewhat prominent nose.

  "I brought you something to eat, Prelate, if you feel up to it."

  "Why? Why did you bring me something to eat?"

  "His Excellency wanted you fed."

  "Why you?"

  The woman smiled just a little. "You dislike me, Prelate."

  Ann did her best to glare. The way her face was swollen, she wasn't sure she was doing a good job of it.

  "As a matter of fact, Sister Alessandra, I love you as I love all the Creator's children. I simply abhor your actions- that you have sworn your soul to the Nameless One."

  "Keeper of the underworld." Sister Alessandra's smile grew a little wider. "So, you can still care about a woman who is a Sister of the Dark?"

  Ann turned her face away, even though the steaming bowl did smell savory. She didn't want to talk to the fallen Sister.

  In her chains, Ann couldn't feed herself She unconditionally refused to accept food from the Sisters who had lied to her and betrayed her rather than have their freedom. Up until now, soldiers fed her. They disliked the duty. Their distaste for feeding an old woman had apparently resulted in Sister Alessandra's appearance.

  Sister Alessandra lifted a spoonful of soup to Ann's mouth.

  "Here, have some of this. I made it myself."

  "Why?"

  "Because I thought you might like it."

  "Getting bored, Sister, pulling the legs off ants?"

  "My, my, Prelate, but don't you have the memory. I haven't done that since I was a child, first come to the Palace of the Prophets. As I recall, you were the one who convinced me to stop doing that, recognizing I was unhappy to leave my home.

  "Here, now, have a taste. Please?"

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  Ann was sincerely surprised to hear the woman say "please." She opened her mouth for the spoon. Eating hurt, but not eating was making her weak. She could have refused to eat, or done something else to get herself killed, she supposed, but she did have a mission, and therefore a reason to live.

  "Not bad, Sister Alessandra. Not bad at all." Sister Alessandra smiled with what looked to be pride. "I told you so. Here, have some more."

  Ann ate slowly, trying to gently chew the soft vegetables so as not to further hurt her jaw. She simply swallowed the tough chunks of meat, not even bothering to mash them flat, lest she undo whatever healing her jaw was managing to do. "Your lip looks like it's going to be scarred." "My lovers will be disappointed my beauty is marred." Sister Alessandra laughed. Not a harsh or cynical laugh, but a lilting laugh of true amusement. "You always could make me laugh, Prelate." "Yes," Ann said with venom, "that was why I for so long failed to realize you had joined the side of evil. I thought my little Alessandra, my happy little Alessandra, would not be drawn to the heart of wickedness. I so believed you loved the Light."

  Sister Alessandra's smile withered. "I did, Prelate." "Bah," Ann scoffed. "You only loved yourself."-The woman stirred the soup for a time and finally brought up another spoonful. "Perhaps you are right, Prelate. You usually were."

  Ann carefully chewed th
e lumps in the soup as she surveyed the grimy little tent. She had caused such a ruckus being with the Sisters of the Light that Jagang apparently had ordered her to be housed in her own small tent. Each night a long steel pin was driven into the ground and she was chained to it. The tent was erected around her.