Richard shook his head. “It’s not your time, Vika. Don’t even think that. You must live. I need you.”
She rolled her head from side to side. “It is too late for me now. I know that. Please don’t try to soothe me with the false kindness of a lie. I know better.”
“I am the Seeker of Truth. It is no lie. I wouldn’t do that to you. If I thought it was too late for you, I would tell you so.”
She smiled the littlest bit. “Not even you can heal me or hold back the world of the dead. But I would be eternally grateful if you would spare me any more suffering in this life and send me swiftly on to the next.”
“Vika—”
“Please, Lord Rahl. End it. I am ashamed to admit that I am not strong enough to endure this any longer and I don’t have the strength to end it myself. I hate for you to see me so weak. Please. Grant me the mercy of a quick death.”
Richard swallowed back his anguish. It was hard for him to see her beg for death.
“I asked you to trust me. You must do that now. I am the Lord Rahl. We are bonded in an oath—you to me and me to you. Your life while in this world is in my hands and just as it is your duty to serve and protect me, my duty is to protect you. More than that, I need you. You have given me your oath of loyalty. Remember that oath now and put your trust in me. You must hold on for me.”
Before she could object, Richard laid a hand gently on her brow. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, letting his power flow into her. Vika gasped as she felt the hot rush of it. He didn’t try to heal her, or even relieve her pain. He knew that would be futile right then. For the moment, he could only give her strength to help her endure her injuries and hold on until he could do more to try to save her.
When he opened his eyes and lifted his head, he was looking into her intense blue eyes. He smiled at the look in those eyes.
“There is the Mord-Sith I know.” He touched a finger to her lips before she could speak. “My strength is your strength. Now, hold on for me.”
A tear ran from the corner of her eye as she nodded.
Richard rushed to his feet. He might have given her some added strength, but he knew he didn’t have much time. Strength alone would not keep her alive.
A short distance away, Shale, keeping a watchful eye on him, was just finishing helping Kahlan get her clothes back on. Kahlan’s eye was still bluish black and swollen shut. Her wrists oozed blood, as did Shale’s wrists, as did his own.
“Watch for Michec,” he told them both. “He is still down here, somewhere. We are going to need some time without being interrupted.”
Shale eyed him suspiciously. “Time for what?”
Kahlan was just finishing buttoning her shirt. When Richard didn’t answer, she offered her own answer. “Time for a crazy idea, I suspect.”
Shale looked to Richard and then back at Kahlan. “What crazy idea?”
“I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Kahlan, I need you to do something.” With an arm around her shoulders, Richard pulled her closer. He didn’t have time for questions. “I know you are hurting and you need to be healed. So do Shale’s wrists. We will take care of that, I promise. But right now, stay here with Vika. I don’t want her to be alone. Hold her hand. Just be with her until I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get the others.”
Shale gestured off toward where the rest of the Mord-Sith knelt at the opening to the kill room. “Michec blocked them. Do you believe it is the same kind of trick of magic that he did with us?”
Richard sighed as he looked off among the hanging corpses toward the opening to the room. In the distance, between some of the skinned bodies, he could just see the red leather outfits of a few of the kneeling Mord-Sith.
“No. He was a trainer of Mord-Sith. I don’t know exactly how such things worked, but as a trainer he would possess very real power over them. I’m sure Michec really was able to block them off from everything.”
“Then what are you going to do?” the sorceress asked.
“I’m going to pull them out from beyond that block. Now wait here with Kahlan, please, and stay on guard. Michec is out there, somewhere, and sooner or later he is going to come after us. I’m worried he might slip back in here and surprise us.”
“When you see him are you going to scythe him down with light from your sword like you did to the Glee?” the sorceress asked expectantly. “That would certainly be effective.”
Richard’s mouth twisted with frustration. “I would if I could, but I don’t actually know how I did it. I simply reacted. In that instant of desperation I can only assume my war-wizard heritage took over, assessed the nature of the threat, what tools I had at hand, and what powers could be brought to bear, then it did what that instinctual part of my ability concluded would be the most effective response. I don’t know that for certain, but it seems the most logical guess. I do know it wasn’t a conscious act.”
Shale briefly considered his words. She finally gave him a serious look. “Then what are you going to do if you encounter the witch man? He has powerful magic.”
Richard gazed back with an equally serious look. “I guess I’ll have to take care of him the old-fashioned way.”
“The old-fashioned way? What’s that?”
Richard arched an eyebrow. “I’ll just have to go all emotional on him.”
Shale’s mouth twisted with displeasure as she looked over at Kahlan. “You were right. A crazy idea.”
6
Just before he reached the broad opening back out to the corridor, Richard paused, sword in hand, to carefully lean out and look in both directions. He could feel the word “TRUTH” formed by the gold and silver wire-wound hilt pressing into his palms. Blood ran down from the painful, throbbing wounds on his wrists, onto the hilt of the sword, and then down the blade to drip from the tip. His blood always made the sword’s magic lust to meet the enemy. He had often used his blood to give the sword even more motivation.
Looking out, he didn’t see any sign of the witch man. He worried how Michec might be able to hide himself in plain sight. After all, the first time Richard had seen him he had seemed to materialize out of smoke. Fortunately Richard didn’t see any smoke, either. But he had no way of knowing what other powers Michec might be able to use to hide himself.
Richard had kicked the man in the head pretty hard, but he didn’t know exactly where his boot had connected or how much damage it had done. All he knew was that he had used all his strength to do it. With the way it had knocked the man out cold, it had to have done some damage, but Richard didn’t know if it was enough.
Michec was most likely hiding somewhere nursing his injuries. Richard knew nothing about witch men and wondered if it was possible for him to heal himself. Unless the kick had done serious damage, it wouldn’t keep him down.
Someone that filled with hate and a lust for power wasn’t about to let his prey slip away, so Richard knew it wouldn’t be long before the witch man came out of nowhere to attack them. When he did, Richard knew, the man would be out for blood. But until then, he had at least a small window of opportunity to try to save Vika.
The other five Mord-Sith were still kneeling in a line in the broad opening, hands held out, their Agiel, still attached by the fine gold chains around their wrists, resting across their upturned palms. They all stared blankly ahead. Richard knew that despite their lifeless appearance, they would all feel the pain of those Agiel.
Richard didn’t believe it had been a trick that put the Mord-Sith into such a state of oblivion. This was a result of Michec’s abilities both as a witch man and as a trainer of Mord-Sith. Richard didn’t know what those abilities entailed or how he had come by them, but he knew they were very real. It was just one more cause for concern. While young women were chosen for their innocence and compassion, he suspected that trainers of future Mord-Sith were chosen for their obsession with cruelty.
All he knew for sure was that he had to get the
five Mord-Sith back from that lost place before he tried to heal Vika, and he needed to hurry; Vika couldn’t last much longer.
He put his hand on the red leather on Berdine’s shoulder. She didn’t respond. She had belonged to Michec once, so his control over her would be the strongest. Through his hand on her shoulder Richard could feel the painful hum of power coursing through her from her Agiel. That power was fueled by their bond to the Lord Rahl, not Michec, and therein lay the source of his hope.
He could also sense, through that connection, that she was in pain. That pain was likely worsened by the block. It saddened him, too, to feel her hopelessness.
Richard squatted down, keeping his hand in contact with her shoulder. He knew how to heal with his gift. He had, a number of times, connected to people who were injured or sick and let his ability flow into them. He began to open that same mental gateway deep within himself.
“I am here with you, Berdine,” he said into her ear. “As Mord-Sith, your loyalty and bond are to me as the Lord Rahl for as long as you wish to serve me. No other may claim dominion or authority over you. No one. Not now, not ever. Moravaska Michec is an enemy of the D’Haran Empire and I am the leader of that empire. I now dissolve any block he placed in you and place instead the protection of my gift to block him from ever again using his power over you.”
Richard removed the rest of his own internal restraints to let the full healing force of his power rush into her so she would not only hear him, but feel him, feel his gift, feel his bond to her and hers to him, and be able to feel the raw pain of the block the witch man had left in her mind melt away into nothingness.
He stood, then, and held the point of the sword over her upturned hands to let some of his blood drip from the tip of the blade onto her palms.
“With my bond and blood oath I reclaim you from that witch.”
Berdine gasped. Her head jerked up. Her eyes came open. She blinked a moment and then shook her head as if gathering her senses, trying to understand where she was. Finally, she stared at the blood on her palms and then looked up at Richard.
“Lord Rahl …”
When Richard smiled, she suddenly shot to her feet and threw her arms around him in relief.
“You saved me! You came for me and you saved me! I knew you would.”
Richard patted her back and then pushed away. “We don’t have much time. I need to get the others back as well.”
He went to each Mord-Sith in turn and repeated the procedure until all five of them were jolted out from behind that block Michec had put in their minds. None of the others hugged him the way Berdine had, but they were all clearly thankful that he had come for them and succeeded in breaking the witch man’s hold over them.
“Where is Michec?” Rikka asked as she stood and looked both ways down the corridor.
“I don’t know,” Richard said. “We are going to need to hunt him down, but first I have to help Vika.”
“You found her, then?” Nyda asked, expectantly.
Richard nodded. “I’m afraid that the news is not good, though. He hurt her bad.”
Richard hurriedly led them back through the forest of nearly skinless corpses. The Mord-Sith all looked about dispassionately, taking in the exposed red muscles, white ligaments, and faces frozen in horror and agony. They were all familiar with Michec’s work. When they spotted Vika, though, they were clearly angry.
“Michec did this to her?” Cassia asked in a whisper as she leaned in close.
Richard nodded. “We need to help her.”
Nyda turned an incredulous look back over her shoulder at him. “Help her?” A look of sudden understanding came over her. She lowered her voice. “Oh, I see now what you mean. Lord Rahl … would you rather one of us do it, then? She is a sister of the Agiel, after all.”
Richard cocked his head. “Do what?”
Nyda looked clearly uncomfortable. “You know. End it. A quick twist of my Agiel and her suffering will be forever over.”
Richard held out his hands, forestalling any such idea. “No, no. You don’t understand. We have to heal her.”
7
The five Mord-Sith shared a look but didn’t say anything. They all knew that these kinds of injuries were well beyond healing. Richard hoped to prove that belief wrong.
Kahlan was kneeling beside Vika, with Shale on the other side. Each was holding a hand of the gravely wounded Mord-Sith.
“We need to get on with the healing,” Richard told them. He looked around to make sure all of them were paying attention. “We have to hurry. Here is what we are going to do.”
Shale looked up at him. “We?”
Richard nodded as he gestured for all of the Mord-Sith to gather round closer to Vika so he would only have to explain it once.
“Michec is down here somewhere,” he said, looking to each of their faces in turn. “He could show up at any moment, so we can only do this if we’re quick.”
Shale clearly looked confused. “Healing grievous wounds, if it was still within the realm of possibility and if it could be done at all, would take a day at least, likely many days for all I know.”
“You’re right,” Richard said. “We don’t have that kind of time. Neither does Vika. So trying the conventional way of healing that you know so well is simply not an option. Not only that, but like you, I seriously doubt that it would even work. Whatever we do must be done quickly.”
Kahlan looked puzzled as to what he could be talking about. Shale was looking at him as if he had lost his mind.
“Quickly,” the sorceress repeated. “You intend to heal her quickly. Of course.” She looked up at the ceiling as if speaking to an audience in a gallery. “That makes sense.”
Ignoring Shale’s remark, Richard wiped a hand across his mouth as he turned around, staring off in the other direction for a moment, trying to think how he could explain it to them without causing them to panic. He turned back.
“I think I have a way that we can heal her if we all do it together. All nine of us together.”
“Lord Rahl,” Berdine said as she gestured at her sisters of the Agiel to each side of her, “we don’t know anything about healing. I think most of us have been healed at one time or another, but we can’t heal anyone. We can’t use magic—other than that which the Lord Rahl gives us through our bond in order to use the power of our Agiel and all that involves.”
Richard knew quite well how much Mord-Sith hated anything to do with magic. “Yes you can,” he insisted. “But in a unique way. I’m afraid that it will be dangerous, though. Dangerous to all of us. Still, I think it has a chance to be successful.”
“You ‘think’?” Shale held up a hand to stop him right there. “First of all, I can’t imagine what you are talking about, but more importantly, you and the Mother Confessor have a responsibility to the two children of D’Hara she is carrying. Our job is to protect her from danger, not put her in it.”
“This is to protect her,” Richard insisted. “You need to listen to me. You all need to listen to me. You need to see the bigger picture, not just this one moment, this one risk. It’s important that Vika live because she is vital to our survival. There are nine of us. If we lose Vika, then there are only eight.”
Kahlan squinted. “Does this have something to do with the Law of Nines?”
Richard gave her a firm nod. “Yes.”
“The law of what?” Shale asked. “I think you said something about that before.”
“I did.” Richard pointed a finger up at the palace above them. “In one of the highly restricted libraries up in the People’s Palace, there is a book that deals with the power of numbers as it relates to the use of the gift. It says that there are various cardinal numbers, some of them very powerful in how they affect magic.
“Nine in many ways is the most important number. In the right circumstances it can alter and increase the power of magic. In some cases it can even invoke some powers of magic. In rare cases there are even powers of magic that can
be brought about in no other way.
“The number three is associated as an element of the number nine, and so also important. It’s part of how we use magic. For example, the devotion is repeated three times. There’s a reason for that. Those three repetitions reinforce the magic in the bond itself because they invoke the Law of Nines.”
Berdine looked puzzled. “But three isn’t nine.”
“But there are three devotions spoken, three times a day. Three threes are nine. See what I mean? Three is a constituent component of nine. It adds power to an already powerful number.”
“So you think that because there are nine of us, our power is greater than any one of us alone?” Kahlan asked.
“Among other things,” Richard said, relieved that she, at least, grasped what he was talking about.
“What other things?” she asked.
Richard gestured overhead. “We are in the People’s Palace, drawn in the shape of a spell-form to give the Lord Rahl more power. On top of that, we are also inside a complication, designed to make the Lord Rahl’s power, aided by that spell-form, more effective. The Law of Nines makes a third element. All three of these things—the Law of Nines, the palace spell, and the complication—give me the best chance to save Vika.
“I have to take this opportunity while I have all those elements on my side.”
Kahlan leveled a look at him. “We also have things that work against us. Besides Vika’s wounds being grave, Michec is down here somewhere. He could show up and attack us at any moment. And then there are the Glee.”
Richard nodded. “I didn’t say it would be easy, or that there aren’t risks.” He leaned closer to her. “But if we lose Vika, we lose a powerful element of protection for you and the babies in getting us to the protection of the Wizard’s Keep. To preserve that power of nine, we need Vika with us. We can’t begin to imagine right now how and when we might desperately need that added bit of help afforded by the Law of Nines. As small as that bit of magic may be, it could be enough to make the difference when it matters most.
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