Richard knew they were too late when he saw the charred doors to the Prelate's office broken from their hinges. He slid to a stop on the slick marble floor of the hall. Papers and ledgers were scattered out into the hall.
Sister Verna was still running down the hall as he went into the office with his sword drawn. It looked as if a thunderstorm had been turned loose inside. What was left of Sister Finella lay on the floor behind her desk. The rest of her was splattered across the wall. He heard Sister Verna gasp as he kicked in the door to the Prelate's office.
When the door swung back Richard dove through and rolled to his feet with his sword in both hands. The Prelate's room was more of a mess than the outer room. Papers were nearly a foot deep over most of the floor. It looked as if all the books from the shelves had exploded, throwing the pages everywhere. The heavy walnut table was in splinters against the far wall. The room was in near darkness. Only the doorway behind and the open doors to the moonlit garden let in any light.
Sister Verna lit a bright flame in her palm. In the sudden illumination, he saw a form at the far end of the room near the overturned table. The head came slowly up. The eyes locked on his. It was Sister Ulicia.
Richard dove to the side as a bolt of blue lightning blasted through the room, ripping open the wall behind. Sister Verna returned the attack with a searing gout of yellow flame. Sister Ulicia dove through the doorway into the courtyard to avoid the fire. Richard went after her. Sister Verna ran to the overturned, splintered table, pawing scraps away.
'Duck!' Richard screamed back to her.
A twisting rope of the black lightning sliced through the walls right over his head as he flattened to the floor. Severed bookshelves crashed down. He could see through the void sliced by the black lightning into the next room, and the rooms beyond. Plaster and lath and stone collapsed down, raising boiling clouds of dust.
In a fury, without thinking, Richard came to his feet when the black lighting ceased, and ran outside. He saw a dark form running down the path.
Again, black lightning arced from the shadows. The snaking void raked the courtyard. Trees toppled over, limbs snapping and popping as the trees fell. A stone wall collapsed when it was sliced in two. The noise was deafening.
When it stopped, Richard sprang to his feet again. He was just about to start running down the path to find her, when an invisible hand snatched him, yanking him back.
'Richard!' Sister Verna's growl was as strong as he had ever heard it. 'Get in here!'
He returned to the Prelate's room, panting when he stopped over Sister Verna. 'I have to go ...'
She shot to her feet and grabbed his shirt in her real hand. 'Go what! Go get killed? What good will that do? Will that help Kahlan? Sister Ulicia is a master of powers you cannot even imagine!'
'But she might get away.'
'At least you will be alive when she does. Now come help me with this table. I think the Prelate is still alive.'
Hope leapt to life in him. 'Are you sure?'
Richard started pulling the broken pieces away, throwing them behind. He found the body at the bottom of the debris. Sister Verna was right. The Prelate was alive, but looked seriously hurt.
Sister Verna used her power to lift heavy pieces of the table and bookcases clear while Richard carefully pulled lesser chunks off the small woman. She was wedged into the bottom bookshelf against the wall, and covered with blood.
She groaned when Richard gently put his hands around her and drew her out. He didn't think she was long for this life.
'We have to get help,' he said.
Sister Verna's hands played over the Prelate's body. 'Richard, this is very bad. I can feel some of her injuries. It's more than I can help with. I don't know if anyone will be able to help with this.'
Richard lifted Ann in his arms. 'I can't let her die. If anyone can help her, it's Nathan. Come on.'
Guards and Sisters came rushing, having heard the deafening roar of the power Sister Ulicia had unleashed. Richard didn't stop to explain as he made for Nathan's compound. He tried to hold Ann gently as he ran, but he knew by her groans that he was hurting her.
Nathan came in from his courtyard when he heard them call. 'What was all that noise? What is it? What's happened?'
'It's Ann. She's been hurt.'
Nathan led him into the bedroom. 'I knew that stubborn woman was asking for trouble.'
Richard laid Ann gently on the bed and stood near as Nathan experimentally glided his spread fingers over the length of her. Sister Verna waited and watched from the doorway.
Nathan pushed up his sleeves. This is serious. I don't know if I can help her.'
'Nathan, you have to try!'
'Of course I do, boy.' He made a shooing motion with his hands. 'You two go wait out there. This will take a while. At least an hour or two before I know if what I can do will help enough. Leave me to it. You can be of no help.'
Sister Verna sat with her back stiff while Richard paced.
'Richard, why do you care so much what happens to the Prelate? She had you taken when she shouldn't have.'
Richard combed his hair back with his fingers. 'I guess because she had the chance to take me when I was little, and she didn't. She let me grow up with my parents. She let me have their love. What else is there to life, but the chance to be nurtured by love. She could have taken that, too, but she didn't.'
'I'm glad, then, that you are not bitter.'
Richard paced and thought. He didn't pace for long.
'Sister, I can't sit here doing nothing. I'm going to talk to the guards. We need to know where those teachers of mine are, and what they're doing. The guards will find out for me.'
'I suppose it couldn't hurt. Go talk to the guards. It will make the time pass more quickly.'
Richard strode down the dark, stone corridors, deep in thought. He needed to find out where Sisters Tovi, Cecilia, Merissa, Nicci, and Armina were. Any - or all - could be Sisters of the Dark. Who knew what they were planning next. They could all be looking for him. They could all be ...
Stunning pain hurled him back. It felt as if he had been whacked across the face with a club. He staggered to his feet, the world spinning and tipping. He dumbly felt for blood, but there was none.
Another blow smashed into the back of his head. He pushed himself up on his hands, trying to decipher where he was. His thoughts came thick and slow. He struggled to understand what was happening.
A dark shadow stood over him. With an effort, and halting movements, he came to his feet again. He groped for his sword, but couldn't remember which hand to use. He couldn't make himself move fast enough.
'Out for a walk, country boy?'
Richard looked up at a smirking Jedidiah, standing tall with his hands in opposite sleeves. Richard found the hilt of his sword. He sluggishly worked at drawing it. He lurched back as he battled to bring the magic forth.
As the rage flooded into his foggy brain, Jedidiah pulled his hands out. He had a dacra. His arm lifted, the silver knife in his fist. Richard wondered what he should do, and if this was real. Maybe he would wake and find it only a dream.
At the apex of his swing, light seemed to come from within Jedidiah's eyes. Slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, Jedidiah toppled forward, slamming face-first to the stone floor.
A ripple of heart-stopping darkness swept though the corridor.
When the torchlight returned, Sister Verna was standing behind where Jedidiah had stood. She had a dacra in her hand. Richard collapsed to his knees, still trying to gather his wits.
Sister Verna rushed forward, putting her hands to the sides of his head. Alertness jolted into his mind. As he came to his feet, he glanced down at the body, seeing a small, round hole in the back.
'I thought I had better go talk to some of the Sisters,' she explained. 'I realized that the more people who know about the Sisters of the Dark, the better.'
'He was the one, wasn't he? He was the one you loved.'
S
he slipped the dacra back up her sleeve. 'He wasn't the Jedidiah I knew. The Jedidiah I knew was a good man.'
'I'm sorry, Sister Verna.'
She nodded absently. 'You go talk to the guards. I'll talk to the Sisters. Meet me back in Nathan's room when you're through. I think it best if we catch a few hours' sleep there, instead of our rooms.'
'I think you're right. We can get our things when it's light, and then be off.'
----------
When he heard Nathan come into the room, Richard sat up in the chair and rubbed his eyes. Sister Verna rose more quickly from the couch. Richard blinked, trying to banish the haze of sleep.
They both had been up late. The whole palace was in an uproar. What had happened in the Prelate's office was proof enough of the mythical Sisters of the Dark. Doubters had only to take one look at the smooth-edged voids that lined up through a dozen walls, or the cleanly sliced trees and stone, to know that nothing short of Subtractive Magic had been used.
Richard had sent the guards out to look discreetly for the six Sisters: Sister Ulicia and his five teachers. The Sisters were searching, too. He had also gone to talk to Warren, to tell him what had happened.
Richard stretched his legs as he stood. 'How is she? Is she going to recover?'
Nathan looked haggard. 'She's resting more comfortably, but it's too soon to tell. When she has rested, I will be able to do more.'
Thank you, Nathan. I know Ann could be in no better hands than yours.'
He added a grunt to his sour expression. 'You're asking me to heal my jailer.'
'Ann will appreciate it. Perhaps she will rethink your being held. If she doesn't, I'll come back and see what I can do.'
'Come back? Going somewhere, my boy?'
'Yes, Nathan, and I need your help.'
'If I help you, you might get it in your obstinate head to go off and destroy the world.'
And do the prophecies say you were sent to stop me?'
Nathan let out a tired sigh. 'What is it you want?'
'How can I get through the barrier? My collar stops me.'
'What makes you think I would know?'
Richard took an angry stride toward the towering old wizard. 'Nathan, don't play games with me. I'm in no mood and this is too important. You've been through. You went with Ann to get the book from the Wizard's Keep in Aydin-dril. Remember?'
He smoothed his sleeves down. 'It's a simple matter of shielding the Rada'Han. Ann helped me through; Sister Verna can do the same for you. I'll tell her how.'
And what of the Valley of the Lost? Can I get back through that?'
Nathan, his eyes suddenly intent with a dark look, shook his head. 'You have called too much power to yourself. The collar has helped it grow. You'll also call the spells. Sister Verna can't pass again; she has been through twice already. Additionally, she has too much power now. With passing twice, and taking the gift of the other two Sisters, she is locked here.'
Then how did you ever get through three times? You're from D'Hara, that's once. You went to the New World again with Ann, and came back. That makes three times. How did you do it, if it can't be done?'
A sly smile came to his lips. 'I did not go through the valley three times. Only once.' He held up a hand to silence Richard's arguments. 'Ann and I didn't go through the valley. We went around the obstacle. We sailed around the ambit of the spells, far out to sea, landing finally in the southernmost reaches of Westland. It's a long journey, and not easily done, but we made the crossing. Not many do.'
'By sea!' Richard glanced back to Sister Verna. 'I don't have that kind of time. Winter solstice is not even a week away. I have to go through the valley.'
'Richard,' Sister Verna said in a soft voice, 'I can understand how you feel, but it will take almost that much time just to reach the Valley of the Lost. Even if you find a way through, there is no time to get where you want to go.'
Richard controlled his rage. 'I am inexperienced at being a wizard. I cannot count on my gift. For that matter, I don't care if I ever learn to use it.
'But I am also the Seeker. In that, Sister Verna, I am not so inexperienced. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. I've made a promise to Kahlan that if I must go to the underworld and battle the Keeper himself, in order to protect her, I will do it.'
Nathan's expression darkened. 'I have warned you, Richard. If that prophecy is not allowed to take place, the Keeper will have us all. You must not try to stop it. You have the power to hand the world of the living to the Keeper.'
'It's just a meaningless riddle,' Richard growled in frustration, though he knew better.
Nathan's scowl was the scowl of a Rahl, the scowl Richard had inherited. 'Richard, death is intrinsic to life. The Creator brought it to be, too. If you make the wrong choice, all the living will pay the price of your pertinaciousness.
'And Richard, don't forget what I told you about the Stone of Tears. If you misuse it to banish a soul to the depths of the underworld, you will destroy the balance between everything.'
'Stone of Tears?' Sister Verna said in a suspicious tone. 'What would Richard have to do with the Stone of Tears?'
Richard turned back to Sister Verna. 'We're running out of time. I'm going to my room to get my things. We need to be on our way.'
'Richard,' Nathan said, 'Ann has put her faith in you. She let you have the love of your family, so that perhaps you will better understand the true meaning of life. Please consider that when the time for choice is upon you.'
Richard looked up at Nathan for a long moment. Thank you for your help, Nathan, but I won't let the one I love die for a riddle in an old book. I hope to see you again. There is much for us to talk about.'
----------
Richard dumped the bowl full of gold coins into the bottom of his pack before stuffing the rest of his things in. He reasoned that if it helped him save Kahlan, then it was the least the palace could do, after all they had done to him.
The gold had been a kindness that lulled the rest of the young men at the palace into laziness. It harmed their humanity, as Nathan had said. Maybe that was why Jedidiah turned to promises from the Keeper.
Richard doubted that any of the young wizards, except Warren, had done a day's work since they had come here and had ready access to unlimited gold, but no knowledge of its value. Just one more way the Palace of the Prophets destroyed lives. He wondered how many children of young wizards that gold had spawned.
Richard went out onto the balcony to take stock before he left. Guards were patrolling the grounds. Sisters, too, were diligently searching every building and covered corridor. The Sisters would have to somehow deal with those six. He certainly had no idea how to contain their power.
When he heard the door in the front room, he assumed it would be Sister Verna. They had to get going. When he turned and looked, he had no time to react.
Pasha was storming through the room toward him. She threw her hands up. The doors blew off their hinges and over the balcony railing, falling the thirty feet to the stone-paved courtyard below.
The impact of the solid wall of air threw him back. Only the railing prevented him from being thrown over with the splintered doors. The wind had been knocked from his lungs, and a sharp pain in his side prevented him from taking another breath.
As he staggered away from the edge of the balcony, another blow threw him back once again, this time hammering his head against the stone railing. He saw a shocking spray of blood hit the stone before the slate floor collected him.
Pasha was screaming in a rage. At first, her words were nothing but an incoherent buzz in his mind. He pushed himself up with his hands. Blood was running from his head. A pool of it spread beneath him. Reeling, he toppled to his side.
He managed to sit up and flop back against the railing. 'Pasha, what ...'
'Keep your filthy mouth shut! I won't hear any of it!'
She was standing in the doorway, fists at her sides. One fist held a dacra. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Richard put his hands to his head. They came away covered with blood. He was so dizzy he had to fight the urge to be sick.
'What are you talking about?' he managed to mumble.
'Sister Ulicia told me! She told me you serve the Keeper! She told me how you killed Sister Liliana!'
'Pasha, Sister Ulicia is a Sister of the Dark ...'
'She told me you would say that! She told me how you used your vile magic to kill Sister Finella and the Prelate! That's why you were always wanting to go to the Prelate's office! So you could kill our leader in the Light! You are filth!'
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