Stone of Tears

by Terry Goodkind

  She arched an eyebrow. "But isn't this what you fear most?"

  "Change it, or be gone."

  The red leather shimmered and became the white Confessor's dress he knew so well. The braid came undone.

  "Better, my love? I'm afraid it still won't save you. I have come to kill you. Die with honor. Defend yourself."

  Richard drew the Sword of Truth. The unique ring of its steel echoed throughout the tower. Wrath surged through him as the magic was loosed. He endured with detached misery the sensation of murderous need while looking upon the face of the only person who made his life worth living.

  His knuckles tightened on the braided, wire hilt, on the bumps of the word Truth. His jaw muscles flexed as he gritted his teeth. He felt a rush of understanding at how the wizards could have made life fire, and have given themselves into it, rather than endure what was to be done to them. Some things were worse than death.

  Richard tossed the sword to the ground at Kahlan's feet.

  "Not even in an illusion, Kahlan. I would rather die."

  Her green eyes shone with a sad, timeless, knowing look. "Better you would have died, my love, that you wouldn't see what I have come to show you. It will bring you more pain than death."

  Her eyes closed as she sank to her knees, leaning forward, bending into a deep bow. The whole of the time she was slumping forward, her hair shortened. By the time her head touched the sparkling, white sand, her hair looked as if it had been chopped short, close to the nape of her neck.

  "This must be, or the Keeper will escape. Stopping it will aid him, and he will have us all. Speak if you must these words, but not of this vision." Without looking up, she spoke in a detached rote.

  "Of all there were, but a single one born of the magic to bring forth truth will remain alive when the shadow's threat is lifted. Therefore comes the greater darkness of the dead. For there to be a chance at Life's bond, this one in white must be offered to her people, to bring their joy and good cheer."

  As Richard stood staring at the illusion, at the back of her head, a ring of blood blossomed around her neck. Richard's breath halted. As if it had been cleaved off, Kahlan's head tumbled away. Her body fell to its side, blood gushing, spreading in a pool beneath it, turning the white sand and white dress to red.

  Richard drew a gasp of a breath.

  "Noooo!"

  His chest heaved. He felt his fingernails cutting into his palms. His toes curled in his boots.

  It's an illusion, he told himself as he shook. An illusion. Nothing more. An illusion meant to terrorize him.

  Kahlan stared up at him with flat, dead, green eyes. Though he knew it had to be an illusion, it nonetheless was working. Panic paralyzed his legs; fright raced recklessly through his mind.

  The image of Kahlan wavered and then vanished suddenly as Sister Verna stormed through an archway to the side.

  "Richard!" she shrieked in fury. "What are you doing in here! I told you to stay with me! Can't you follow the simplest instructions? Must you always act like a child!"

  She took two strides forward, her face red with rage.

  His heart thumped violently with the pain of what he had just seen. He blinked at Sister Verna. He was in an ill humor to tolerate the surly side of her disposition. "You were gone. I couldn't find you. I looked but..."

  "Don't talk back to me!" Her curls sprang up and down as she yelled. "I've had all the talk from you I can stomach. I told you I was in no mood for it. My patience is at an end, Richard."

  He opened his mouth to speak, but the collar yanked him backward, his feet leaving the ground. It felt as if he had been jerked by a rope around his neck. With a grunt he slammed into the wall. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs and the sense from his head. He hung, his feet clear of the ground, pinned to the wall by the Rada'Han. The collar was choking him. He tried to focus his eyes, but his vision only blurred uselessly.

  "It is time you had a lesson I should have given long ago," the Sister said in a growl as she stalked toward him. "I have suffered enough of your disobedience. I will suffer it no longer."

  Richard struggled for breath. Each breath burned as he drew it through the constriction at his neck. His vision cleared and finally focused on Sister Verna's face. His anger heated.

  "Sister... don't..."

  Pain took his words. It ignited in his chest with such intense burning force it made his fingers tingle. He couldn't draw a breath to scream.

  "I have had enough of your words. I will hear no more. No more of your excuses, your arguments, your harsh judgments. From now on, you will do as you are told, when you are told, and you will offer me no more of your insolence."

  She took another step toward him, her expression twisted with menace. "Do we understand each other!"

  She somehow made the pain worse. He shook with the crushing hurt in his chest. Stinging tears flooded from his wide eyes.

  "I asked you a question! Do we understand each other!"

  Air rushed into his lungs. "Sister Verna... I'm warning you... don't do this or..."

  "You are warning me! You are warning me!"

  White-hot pain knifed through his chest, twisting tighter with each breath. A scream ripped from his lungs. His worst fears were coming to life. This was what wearing a collar had brought him to, again. This was what the Sisters had in mind for him. This was his fate, if he allowed it.

  Richard called the sword's magic.

  Called by its master, the power swept into him, hot with promise, hot with wrath, hot with need. Richard welcomed it, embraced it, letting his own rage join with the rage of the sword and spiral through him. His fury consumed the pain, using it to draw power.

  "Don't you dare fight me, or I will make you rue the day you were born!"

  Fiery flames of agony bloomed anew. Richard drew them into the wrath. Though he wasn't touching the sword, he didn't need to. He was one with the magic, and he called forth all its force now.

  "Stop this," he managed through gritted teeth. "Or I will."

  Sister Verna, with her fists at her side, stepped closer.

  "Now you threaten me? I warned you before about threatening me. You have made your last mistake, Richard."

  Though he was nearly blinded by the pain she suddenly unleashed into him, he was able to see one thing. The Sword of Truth. It lay in the sand, near the Sister.

  The Seeker focused the sword's magic into the power that bound him to the wall. With a loud crack, the bond broke and he tumbled away from the wall, rolling through the sand.

  His hands found the sword.

  Sister Verna charged toward him. He came up swinging the sword in an arc. The need for her blood seared through his soul, beyond retrieval. Nothing else mattered.

  Bringer of death.

  He didn't try to direct the track of the blade, but simply focused his need to kill into the power of its swing.

  The sword's tip whistled through the air.

  Bringer of death.

  The blade exploded through the Sister at shoulder level. The cool air erupted with a spray of hot blood, the smell of it filling his nostrils as the sight of it filled his vision. Her head and part of her shoulders tumbled up into the air as the blade severed her in two. Blood and bone hit the walls. The lower half of her body collapsed fluidly to the ground. Blood soaked into the white sand, spreading beneath her. What was left of her shoulders and head hit the ground on a good ten feet away, sending up a spray of white sand. The gore of her insides glistened in a line away from the body.

  Richard collapsed to his knees, panting, the pain finally gone. He had told himself he would not allow this to be done to him again. He had meant it.

  Like a distant memory, his insides ached with the pain of what he had done. It had all happened so fast, before he had had time to think. He had used the sword's magic to take a life, and the magic would want its due.

  He didn't care. It was nothing to compare to the pain of what she had been doing to him, what she would have done to
him. As he focused on the rage, the pain evaporated and was gone.

  But what was he going to do now? He needed the Sisters to teach him how to keep the gift from killing him. He would die without Sister Verna's help. How could he go to the other Sisters and ask for their help, now? Had he just sentenced himself to death, too?

  But he would not allow them to hurt him anymore. He would not.

  He knelt, recovering, resting on his heels, trying to think. In front of him, near the side of Sister Verna's body, lay the little book she had kept tucked behind her belt. It was the little book in which she was always writing.

  Richard picked it up and thumbed through the pages. It was blank. No, not entirely. Near the back, there were two pages with writing.

  I am the Sister in charge of this boy. These directives are beyond reason if not absurd. I demand to know the meaning of these instructions. I demand to know upon who's authority they are given. — Yours in the service of the Light, Sister Verna Sauventreen.

  Richard reflected on the fact that Sister Verna had been temperamental even in her writing. He looked to the next page. It was in a different hand.

  You will do as you are instructed, or suffer the consequences. Do not presume to question the orders of the Palace again. — In my own hand, The Prelate.

  Well, it looked as if Sister Verna had managed to raise the ire of someone besides himself. He tossed the book back on the ground next to her. He sat staring at her body, at what he had done. What was he going to do now?

  He heard a sigh, and lifted his head to see Kahlan, in her white Confessor's dress, standing again in an archway. With a sad expression, she slowly shook her head.

  "And you wonder why I would send you away."

  "Kahlan, you don't understand. You don't know what she was going to..."

  A quiet laugh drew his attention to the other side of the room. Darken Rahl stood in another archway, his white robes aglow.

  Richard felt the scar of his father's handprint on his chest tingle and burn with heat.

  "The Keeper welcomes you, Richard." Darken Rahl's grim smile widened. "You make me proud, my son."

  With a scream, Richard tore across the sand, the rage ignited anew. Sword first, he launched himself at Darken Rahl.

  The glowing form evaporated as Richard flew through the archway. Laughter echoed and then faded.

  Outside the Tower, the lightning went wild. Three hot bolts traced through the darkness toward him. Instinctively, he lifted the sword as a shield. The lightning struck the sword, flashing and twisting like a snake in a snare. Thunder jarred the ground beneath his feet.

  Richard squinted against the blinding light. He gritted his teeth with the strain of forcing the sword downward, taking the flaring, liquid lines of fire with it. They dulled and diminished as they were dragged to the ground, where they writhed, hissing as if in death, until at last they faded and were gone.

  "Enough of these visions."

  Richard angrily sheathed his sword and collected the horses from their grazing. He didn't know where he was going to go, but he was getting away from this tower, away from the dead Sister. Away from what he had done.

  32

  The lightning didn't come anymore. The clouds still roiled around him, but the lightning didn't come. He walked without giving thought to where he was going. When he felt inexplicable danger, he skirted it. To the sides, visions tempted him to look, but he stoically ignored them.

  Almost not seeing it at first, because of the dark clouds, he came upon another tower. It looked like the first, except it was a glossy black. At first thinking he would avoid it, he found himself walking to one of the arches and peering in. The ground inside was covered with sand that was drifted into the corners, the same as the last tower, but it was black instead of white. It glimmered with the same prismatic light as the white sand.

  Curiosity overcame caution and he reached inside, running a finger through the black grit covering the walls. It tasted sweet.

  The wizard who had given his life into this fire had done so to save another, not to save himself torture. This wizard had been altruistic, the other ignoble.

  If having the gift meant he was a wizard, Richard wondered which kind he was. He would like to think of himself as high-minded, but he had just killed another to save himself from torture. But was he not within his rights to kill to protect his life? Must he wrongly die to be honorable?

  Who was he to judge which of these wizards had been wiser, or which had done what was within his rights?

  The sparkling black sand fascinated him. It seemed to draw light from nowhere and reflect it about the inside of the tower in winking colors. Richard retrieved an empty spice tin and scooped it full of the black sand. He tucked the tin back in his pack hanging from Geraldine's saddle while he whistled for Bonnie—she was off browsing again.

  Her ears swiveled toward him as her head came up. Dutifully, she trotted over and joined him and the other two horses, pushing her head against his shoulder in hopes of a neck scratch. As they left the tower behind, he gave her the scratch she wanted.

  His shirt was soaked with sweat as he hiked quickly across the barren ground. He wanted to be out of this valley and away from the magic, the spells, and the visions. Sweat rolled from his brow as he walked, trying to ignore familiar voices that called to him. He ached with desire to see the faces of loved ones who called his name, but he didn't look. Other voices hissed with menace and threat, but he kept moving. At times, the spells tingled against his flesh, burning with pricks of heat or cold or pain, and he rushed away from them even faster.

  As he wiped sweat from his eyes, they focused on the baked earth before him and he saw tracks. His own. He realized that in trying to avoid the feelings of danger, the visions, and the voices, he must have been walking in circles, if in fact the footprints were real.

  He began to have the queasy feeling that the magic was trapping him. Maybe all this time he had been walking, he had not been making any headway out of the Valley of the Lost. Maybe he, too, was lost. How was he going to find a way out? He tugged the horses on and kept moving, but with a rising sense of panic.

  Unexpectedly, out of the dark fog before him, came a vision that startled him into a dead stop. It was Sister Verna. She was wandering aimlessly, her hands clasped prayerfully, her eyes skyward, and a blissful smile upon her lips.

  Richard staked toward her. "Be gone! I've had enough of these specters! Leave me alone!" She didn't seem to hear him. That was impossible; she was easily close enough to hear him. He stepped closer, the air feeling abruptly thick, and sparkling around him as he did so, until he seemed to step beyond it. "Do you hear? Listen to me! I said be gone!"

  Distant, brown eyes focused on him. She held her arm out, her hand held up in forbidding. "Leave me. I have found what I seek. Leave me to my peace, my bliss."

  As she turned away, Richard felt an apprehensive, tingling sensation all the way down to his toes. She wasn't trying to entice him, like the other visions had.

  His hair tried to stand on end.

  "Sister Verna?"

  Could it be true? Could she be alive? Maybe he hadn't really killed her. Maybe it had all been a vision. "Sister Verna, if it really is you, talk to me."

  She regarded him with a puzzled frown. "Richard?"

  "Of course Richard."

  "Go," She whispered as her eyes turned up once more. "I am with Him."

  "Him? Him who?"

  "Please, Richard, you are tainted. Go away."

  "If you are a vision, then you go away."

  She regarded him with pleading. "Please, Richard. You are disturbing Him. Don't ruin what I have found."

  "What have you found? Is it Jedidiah?"

  "The Creator," she said in a hallowed tone.

  Richard peered skyward. "I don't see anyone."

  She turned her back to him and strolled away. "Leave me to Him."

  Richard didn't know if this was the real Sister Verna, or an illusion. Or maybe the
dead Sister's spirit. Which was true? How could he tell?

  He had promised the real Sister that she would make it through, that he would help her. He followed after her before she could disappear into the dark fog.

  "What does the Creator look like, Sister Verna? Is he young? Old? Does he have long hair? Short? Does he have all his teeth?"

  She turned in a rage. "Leave me!"

  The menace in her expression froze him in his tracks.

  "No. Listen to me, Sister Verna. You're coming with me. I'm not leaving you trapped in this spell. That's all you see: an enchantment spell."

  He reasoned that if she were a specter, and he took her with him, she would vanish when they left the magic of the valley. If she were real, well then he would be saving her. She would be alive. Though he wished to be free of her, he wished more that she was alive, and that she wouldn't really do to him what she had done back in the tower. He didn't want that to be the true Sister Verna. He started toward her again.

  Her hand came up, as if to push him, even though he was a good ten paces away. The force of the impact threw him to the ground. He rolled over, clutching his chest, clutching at the receding agony. It felt like what had been done to him in the tower—hard, burning pain—but it faded faster.

  Wincing, he sat up, quickly gathering his wits as he gasped for breath. He looked up to check where the Sister was in case she was about to hurt him again. What he saw halted his breath only half out of his lungs.

  As the sister once again stared skyward, the dark fog around them swirled and coalesced into forms; the forms of wraiths: insubstantial figures, seething, simmering with death. Their faces churned with steaming, shifting shadows that conjoined into glowing red eyes set in inky faces—hot tongues of flame alive with hate, glowering out from eternal night.

  Bumps rippled and tingled across the backs of his shoulders. When he had been in the spirit house and felt the screeling on the other side of the door, when he had sensed the man about to kill Chandalen, and when he had first encountered the Sisters, he had felt an overwhelming, inexplicable sense of danger. He felt that danger now.