She stopped when she saw a stout branch lying on the ground. She picked it up and tested its strength. It seemed sound. She whacked it against a fir tree and it made a solid sound. It was a little heavier than she would have wanted to carry, but at least she had something.
She slowed to a trot and kept moving, trying to put as much distance between her and the castle as she could. She didn’t know when they would discover her missing, and she didn’t know if Six could track as well as she could do everything else. Rachel wondered if Six might be able to gaze into a bowl of water and see where Rachel was. That made her run faster again.
By early afternoon she came across a trail. It looked like it headed roughly north. She knew that Aydindril was somewhere to the north. She didn’t know if she could find something that far away, but she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. If she could get back to the Keep, back to Zedd, he would help her.
She was so deep in thought that she didn’t even see the man until she almost ran into him. She looked up and realized that it was an Imperial Order soldier.
“Well, well, what have we here?”
As he started to reach down for her, Rachel swung the club with all her strength, whacking him across the knee. The man cried out and fell to the ground, clutching his knee, shouting curses at her.
Rachel tore off running. She took to the deer paths again because she was smaller and it was easier for her to negotiate them than it would be for big men. It sounded like there were suddenly a dozen men after her, crashing through the brush. She could hear the man she had clubbed far back, still cursing up a storm, yelling at his fellows to get her.
As she burst into a clearing, winded and nearly out of strength, she saw that there were men blocking the path ahead. They all started for her.
Rachel ducked to the side and ran. It seemed like there were soldiers all around. She was in a panic, not knowing how to get away from them.
She heard one man fall. She didn’t look back, but kept running. She heard another fall, crying out briefly, then going silent. She wondered if, when running at breakneck speed, they were catching their feet in holes, or twisting ankles on low vines.
Another man let out a grunt. This time Rachel stopped and turned just long enough for a quick look. It had not been a fall, or a twisted ankle. It had been a sound released in death. Rachel’s eyes were wide as she stared. Another man shrieked like he was being skinned alive.
Rachel wondered what kind of woods she was in, and what monsters were loose in them.
She turned and ran. She had no chance if the men got her. She didn’t know what else was about, but she first had to keep from getting caught or they were liable to slit her throat for giving them a difficult time.
Suddenly, three men charged out of the brush, roaring in rage. A little cry squeaked out as Rachel ran with all her strength and fear. The men, though, had longer legs and were catching her.
One of them stopped suddenly. Rachel glanced back over a shoulder and saw the man arching his back, as if in pain. She saw, then, a foot of steel jutting from his chest. The other two turned to the unexpected attack from behind.
As the man who had been run through with a sword started to fall, Rachel’s jaw fell open at what she saw behind him.
It was Chase, big as life.
She couldn’t make sense of it.
The two men charged him. Chase fought them with swift, powerful strikes, taking them both down as if doing no more than brushing aside pests, but at the same time more men poured out of the woods around them. She saw at least a half dozen of the big Imperial Order soldiers to one side alone charging the even bigger boundary warden.
Rachel ran back as Chase fought all the men at once. When he killed a man to his side, a man to the other side used the opening to go for him. Rachel whacked the backs of his knees. His legs folded under him. Chase swung around and ran the man though, then met the fierce charge of yet more men, all of them grunting with the effort of trying to take down this one big man. They gritted their teeth as they growled and tried to grapple Chase’s arms so other men could stab him. Rachel waled away at them with all her strength, but to no avail.
When one of the men fell dead, Rachel snatched the knife in a sheath at his belt and immediately stabbed the legs of a man going for Chase’s back. He cried out and turned. Chase took him in an instant.
All of a sudden it was quiet, except for Rachel and Chase’s labored breathing. All the men lay dead.
Rachel stood staring up at Chase. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, couldn’t believe her eyes. She feared that he might vanish, like a phantom.
He looked down at her, and that wonderful grin of his came over his face.
“Chase, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see if you were all right.”
“All right? I was held captive in the castle. I thought you were dead. I had to rescue myself. What took you so long?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil your accomplishment. Isn’t it better that you did it on your own?”
“Well,” she said, a bit perplexed, “I could have used some help.”
“Is that so?” He appeared unmoved by her complaint. “You look to have managed.”
“But you don’t know. It was terrible. They locked me up in the box again, and they locked my tongue so that I couldn’t talk.”
Chase eyed her askance. “I don’t suppose you brought that tongue lock with you, did you? It sounds like a useful device.”
Rachel grinned and hugged him around his waist. When she had first met him she had to hug his leg because that was all she could reach. She basked in the comfort of his big hand on her back. It felt like everything in the world was right again.
“I thought you were dead,” she said as she started to cry.
He ruffled her chopped-off hair. “I wouldn’t do that to you, little one. I promised to take care of you, and I meant it.”
“I guess that I’m stuck with being your daughter.”
“Guess so. Your hair is ugly, though. You’ll have to grow it back if you want to stay with me. You can’t keep chopping it off like that if you want to be my daughter. I told you that before.”
Rachel grinned through her tears.
Chase was alive.
Chapter 52
With Cara right on her heels, Nicci strode through the immense brass-clad doors covered in elaborate, engraved symbols. A flickering flash of lightning came in through the dozen round-topped windows between the towering mahogany columns to illuminate row upon row of shelves all around the cavernous room. They had managed to patch only the worst of the damage to the two-story-tall windows—enough, they hoped, that the room could be used for its intended purpose as a containment field. Some of the heavy dark green velvet draperies with gold fringe were getting wet as rain blew in the remaining holes on some of the stronger gusts.
Seeing what was in the center of the room, floating above the large table Nicci had once floated above herself, she hoped that a bit of errant rain would be all that came in through those missing parts of the windows.
Rushing to meet her, Zedd gripped her shoulders. Desperation was clearly evident in his eyes.
“Did you find him? He’s alive, isn’t he? Is he all right?”
Nicci took a breath. “Zedd, he survived the events in the sliph—I at least found out that much.”
The sliph had also already told them that much. Rikka had been there, guarding the well, when the sliph had unexpectedly returned. They were all surprised that the sliph had returned at all, much less returned to tell them what had happened.
The silver creature had abruptly been eager to talk—up to a point—to tell them what had happened to Richard. It wasn’t because the sliph wanted to tell where she had been with one of her travelers, but rather that Richard, her master, had told the sliph to tell them that he was safe and where he had gone. She was eager to do his bidding.
Unfortunately, the sliph’s nature w
as to be secretive, and they weren’t able to get straight answers from her on much more of it. Zedd had said that the sliph wasn’t being perverse; she simply couldn’t help the way others had created her. She was being true to her nature. He said that they would just have to go along with the sliph’s way of revealing information and do their best to learn what they could from her.
Zedd had also detected on the sliph the trace residue power left by a witch woman. They were pretty sure that it had to be Six. They weren’t sure what Six was up to, but at least they knew from the sliph that Richard had somehow escaped her clutches.
“But where is he? Did the sliph take you there? Take you where she said she left him?”
“She did.” Nicci glanced at the Mord-Sith and then laid a hand on Zedd’s shoulder. “After we got to the place where the sliph had taken him, she then told us where he had gone: to the land of the night wisps. We still had to travel some distance to get there.”
Zedd stared in astonishment. “The night wisps?”
“Yes. But Richard wasn’t there.”
“At least he’s alive. It sounds like he was acting on his own volition, and not that of a witch woman,” Zedd said, sounding a little relieved. “What did they say? What were the wisps able to tell you?”
Nicci heaved a sigh. “I wish you could travel so that you could have gone there, Zedd. Maybe they would have told you more than they would tell us. They wouldn’t even allow us to enter beyond this strange, dead forest.”
“Dead forest? What dead forest?”
Nicci lifted her hands. “I don’t know, Zedd. I’m no expert in the outdoors. There was this vast area of oaks but they were all dead—”
“The oak wood is dead?” Zedd leaned closer to her. “Are you serious? The oaks are dead?”
Nicci shrugged. “I guess. They were oak trees. Richard taught me what an oak was. These were all dead, though.”
Zedd glanced away as he scratched an eyebrow. “Were there bones among these oaks?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Cara said, nodding. “There were bones scattered everywhere among those dead trees.”
“Bags,” Zedd cursed under his breath.
“Why?” Nicci asked. “What is it?”
Zedd looked up. “Bui you talked to the wisps?”
Nicci nodded. “Tam, he said his name was.”
Zedd rubbed his chin as he stared off in thought. “Tam . . . don’t know him.”
“There was another, named Jass,” Nicci added.
Zedd’s mouth twisted as he considered the name. “I’m afraid I don’t know that one, either.”
“Jass said that Richard was looking for a woman that the wisps should know.”
“That would have to be Kahlan,” Zedd said with a knowing nod.
“That’s what we figured, too,” Cara said.
“But why would he go to the wisps to look for her?” His question sounded more for himself than for Nicci, but she answered it anyway.
“The sliph wouldn’t tell us about any of that part, only where she took him. Apparently, Richard wasn’t specific enough about what he instructed the sliph to tell us. She won’t go beyond her explicit instructions. Like you said, it’s her nature.
“The wisps wouldn’t tell us why he had been there, either. They said that his reasons for being there were his own and were not necessarily for others to know. They said that they couldn’t reveal such things on his behalf.”
“Not for others—but, but . . .” His voice ended in sputtering agitation. Zedd looked back at both of them. “But didn’t they tell you anything about what Richard was doing there? Anything at all? We have to know why he would go to the wisps. He was on his way here, and then something happened to cost him his gift while traveling—probably something involving Six—so he went to the wisps? Why? What did they tell him? What happened when he was there?”
“I’m sorry, Zedd,” Nicci said. “We really weren’t able to find out much. The sliph did tell us some of it—what happened to Richard, where she took him, and that he went to the wisps—but she either doesn’t know anything more, or she simply doesn’t want to tell us the rest of it for some reason. Richard never returned to the sliph, but because he can no longer travel that only makes sense. It could be that the sliph really doesn’t know any more.
“Richard would probably have started out on foot. I imagine he would head back here, to the Keep. After all, that’s where he was going when something went wrong in the sliph. For some reason he went to the wisps, but that may have had more to do with geography than anything else—he was much closer to them than coming all the way back here, so he may have decided to make a quick stop there before heading back to us. It may be nothing more than that.
“As far as the wisps, they wouldn’t tell us much either. They wouldn’t let us go beyond the dead trees, into those huge, ancient trees beyond. But there is some good news in it. We at least know for sure that Richard is alive, and that he went to the land of the wisps. That’s what matters—Richard is alive. Knowing Richard, he will try to find a horse as soon as possible and will probably show up here before we know it.”
Zedd squeezed her arm. “You’re right, my dear.” It was a gesture that Nicci found comforting, almost as if it were a connection to Richard himself. It was the kind of reassurance Richard himself would have offered at such a troubling moment.
Zedd suddenly frowned. “You said the wisps wouldn’t let you into the big pines?”
Nicci nodded. “That’s right. They wouldn’t let us proceed any farther than the dead oak woods, or allow us to see the other wisps.”
“In a way it makes sense.” Zedd ran a finger up along his temple as he considered. “The wisps are secretive creatures, and don’t generally allow anyone into their land, but it seems odd under the circumstances—and with word from me—that they wouldn’t welcome you in.”
“They’re dying.”
Zedd’s eyes turned up at her. “What?”
“Tam said that the wisps were dying out and that was why they didn’t want us to enter. He said that it’s a time of great strife among the wisps, great sadness and worry. They didn’t want strangers among them right now.”
“Dear spirits,” Zedd whispered. “Richard was right.”
Nicci’s insides tightened with anxiety. “What are you talking about? Richard is right about what?”
“The oaks dying. They protect the land of the wisps. The wisps are dying, too. It’s part of a cascade of events. Richard already told us why, in this very room. As if I needed yet more reason to believe him.”
“Yet more reason? What do you mean by that?”
He took Nicci’s elbow and turned her toward the spell-forms floating above the table. “Look here.”
“Zedd,” Nicci said in admonition, “that’s the Chainfire verification web—and it looks suspiciously like an interior perspective.”
“That’s right.”
“I know I’m right. The question is, what’s going on? What are you up to?”
“I found a way to ignite a kind of simulation of an interior perspective—one without you needing to be in it. It isn’t the same in every respect,” he said with a dismissive gesture, “but for the purpose I had in mind it was good enough.”
Nicci was astonished that he had been able to do such a thing. It was also somewhat disquieting to again see the very thing that had almost taken her life. But that wasn’t at all what she found most disturbing.
“Why are there two of them?” she asked. “There is only one Chainfire spell. Why are there two spell-forms here?”
Zedd flashed her a wry smile. “Ah, there is the trick of it. You see, Richard claimed that the chimes had been present in the world of life. If that were true, their presence would have contaminated the world of life, would have contaminated magic. And yet none of us has seen any evidence of it. That is the paradox of such contamination; it erodes your ability to detect its presence. I wanted to find a way to see if Richard was right—”
“Richard Rahl is right.”
Zedd shrugged one bony shoulder at her emphatic declaration. “But I needed to see if I could actually find any evidence. I didn’t understand all that emblem business Richard was going on about. I believe in him too, Nicci, but I don’t understand how he can see language in symbols the way he does, how he was able to come to the conclusions that he does. I need to see proof I understand.”
Nicci folded her arms as she stared at the twin spell-forms. “I guess I know how you feel. I believe in him, and he makes sense, but I sometimes feel lost, like I used to as a novice when there would be a test on things that were taught when I hadn’t been in class. When Richard . . .”
Nicci fell silent. Her arms came unfolded.
“Zedd, those two spell-forms aren’t the same.”
His smile grew sly. “I know that.”
Nicci stepped closer to the table, closer to the two forms made of glowing lines. She inspected them more carefully. She pointed at one.
“That one is the Chainfire spell. I recognize it. This other is identical, but it’s not the same. It’s a mirror image of the real spell.”
“I know.” He looked rather proud of himself.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too, but then I remembered a book named The Book of Inversion and Duplex—”
Nicci rounded on the old wizard. “You know where The Book of Inversion and Duplex is?”
Zedd gestured vaguely. “Well, yes, I managed to lay my hands on a copy.”
Nicci eyed him suspiciously. “Lay your hands on a copy?”
Zedd cleared his throat. “The point is,” he said, taking her arm and turning her back to the glowing lines and the subject at hand, “I remembered from reading that book many, many years ago that it talked about techniques to duplex spell-forms. It never made any sense to me at the time. Why would anyone want to duplex a spell-form?
“But there was more. The book went on to give instructions on how to invert the spell-form that had first been duplexed. Craziest thing I’d ever heard of. At the time I dismissed the book and its obscure procedures. What could be the purpose of such a thing? Who would ever need to do such a thing? No one, I thought.”
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