Severed Souls (61 page)

“Like Richard wanted your heart healed so that when he went to get you, your soul could return to your body, because there was a home for it after I fixed it. So you think that maybe Richard's spirit will find a way back to his body?”

Kahlan shook her head in frustration. “I don't know, Nicci. I'm just trying to think of something—anything. I can't accept that Richard is really dead. The way he crossed over and came back before makes me think there has to be hope. Richard has gone to the Temple of the Winds in the underworld. He is of the third kingdom and so he went through the world of the dead to rescue you and the others.

“This is Richard we're talking about. He's done it before. He has gone to the underworld before and returned.”

Nicci gently grasped Kahlan's shoulders, then, and looked into her eyes. “Kahlan, Richard made sense, after a fashion. A crazy, wild, Richard kind of sense, but sense. This is different. This is … I don't know, this sounds to me like you are just trying to wish something into being true because you're desperate.”

Kahlan stared back. Hopelessness clawed its way back into her. “Maybe I am, but don't you think we should try? Do you want to let him go without trying? We have to try.”

“Kahlan, look at him.” Nicci turned Kahlan's chin to make her look past her toward the still body lying on the bed. “Look at him. Kahlan, Richard is dead.”

Kahlan looked back into Nicci's eyes. “So was I.”

Nicci wiped a trembling hand back over her forehead. “Yes, and you had Richard to go to the underworld itself to bring you back. Who is going to bring him back?”

Kahlan felt the terrible weight of despair crushing her. “I don't know, Nicci, but we can try, can't we? Please, Nicci? We can try every last crazy thing, can't we?”

Nicci took a deep breath, then. “Yes, of course we can. You're right. We have to try.”

 

CHAPTER

89

Kahlan and Nicci were standing beside the bed, waiting, when there was at last a knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Cassia opened the door and stuck her head in.

“Mother Confessor, we have him.”

Kahlan gestured impatiently. “Bring him in.”

She put on her Confessor face, the expression her mother had taught her, the countenance that showed nothing of what she felt. She was dying inside, terrified and in agony inside, but none of it showed on her face.

She was again the Mother Confessor.

The doors opened and the three Mord-Sith led Ludwig Dreier in. They gave him a last, rough shove so that he stumbled into the room. He wore filthy, old groundskeeper clothes they had found for him. He missed a step, balking when he saw what was waiting for him in the room.

Commander Fister stood near the foot of the bed, behind Kahlan and Nicci. The room was ringed with over a dozen archers, all with arrows nocked, holding them in place, the strings with tension on them but not yet drawn fully tight. There were also men with swords out, as well as men with axes in hand, and others with pikes. It was the archers, though, that Kahlan could tell worried Dreier the most.

When he had rendered them all unconscious with his occult ability, they had not had time to do much about it. A man with a sword, no matter how swift, still took a brief bit of time to reach his target.

But an arrow could be released in an instant.

“Well, well, Mother Confessor,” Dreier said as he straightened, “it seems you have me at a disadvantage.”

“I'm glad that you recognize the reality of the situation.”

He looked around at the room. “I know you said you intended to kill me, but this seems an odd place for an execution.”

Kahlan stepped aside so he could see Richard's body on the bed. He frowned when he realized who it was.

“Is he actually dead?” he asked, his astonishment overcoming his fear.

“I stopped his heart,” Nicci said.

His frown deepened. “Not that I object, but why would you do that?”

“Here's the thing,” Kahlan said. “We want you to do something to keep him alive for now.”

He scratched an eyebrow. “What?”

“Use your occult abilities to keep him alive,” she said.

He stared at her a long moment, looked over at Richard, and then back at Kahlan. “He's dead. You must realize that. I can see from here that he's dead.”

“We know his condition,” Nicci said. “It was necessary to stop his heart, but I don't have the ability to restart it. We need you to do that.”

His frown grew even more incredulous. “He is dead.”

“We didn't bring you up here to tell us what we already know,” Nicci said, heat increasingly coming into her tone. “If you want, we can take you back down to your cell, chain you back up, lock the door, and throw away the key. Or, maybe we can have these three fine young ladies convince you of the benefits of not being tortured by a Mord-Sith.”

Cassia briefly jammed her Agiel into the small of his back. He grunted with a cry of pain as he dropped to one knee. She motioned with her Agiel in front of his face for him to get up.

He stared at the weapon with open fear as he rose. “What is it, exactly, that you want me to do for the corpse of Richard Rahl?”

Kahlan hated the way he was referring to Richard, but she maintained the Confessor face. She had more important matters on her mind. She needed to stay focused, despite her inner anguish.

“We know that occult powers can do some remarkable things with creating the likes of half people and reanimating the dead, but beyond that, we don't know if you can do anything that would convince us not to have you tortured to death. So, you tell us. What can you do to keep him alive.”

He tilted his head to look past them. “May I get a closer look?”

Kahlan nodded and the Mord-Sith walked him closer to the bed. He reached out and touched Richard's face, then his neck.

“What's in it for me?” he asked as he looked back.

“Depends on what service you can provide,” Kahlan said.

“Well, I can't really be of any use to you at all with this collar around my neck. It prevents my ability from functioning.”

“If we take the collar off, what can you do? You don't need it off to tell us.”

He checked the resolve in her eyes before again studying Richard more closely from the side of the bed.

“Well, not a lot. I may be talented, and may have a great many skills, but I can't revive the dead.”

“Then I guess you will soon find yourself in the same condition,” Kahlan said. “Dead. I guess this conversation is over.”

He put a finger under the collar, trying to ease the discomfort of it. Kahlan could see his hands trembling slightly.

“Well, there are things I can do with occult abilities that suspend the death process.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Nicci asked.

He gestured toward Richard. “If he stays like that, he will soon go all stiff, then begin to decompose and rot, just like any corpse. With my occult abilities, I can suspend that process before it starts so that the body stays viable, after a fashion.”

“How does that work,” the sorceress asked.

“It's complex to explain to someone not schooled in the use of occult abilities.”

“Make it simple for me while you still have the ability to talk.”

He swallowed at the look in her eyes before again glancing over at Richard. “Well, you were a Sister of the Dark. You must know some of the basics about the underworld.”

“I do.”

“Then you know that time means nothing there, in the eternity of the underworld. What I can do is create a bridge to link some of that timelessness of the underworld to his body.”

“And what would that do?” Kahlan asked.

He shrugged. “I'm not positive. I've never done it before, never had cause. But it's the basic concept behind using occult powers to enliven corpses or to create half people. The half people, for example, live for long periods of time because they carry a link to the underworld. That timeless link keeps them from aging like normal people. Keeps time from working on their living body the way it ordinarily would. By using a link like that, I can keep his body the same as it was the moment he died. With time moving slower for him, he will remain in that state for quite some time.”

Nicci rubbed her arms as she glanced over at Kahlan. “The Palace of the Prophets was like that,” she admitted. “Nathan Rahl lived there for close to a thousand years because the spell around the palace was linked to the underworld.”

“Exactly,” Dreier said, lifting a finger to make the point. “It can't bring back the dead, but it keeps the body in the state it was in when he was alive, doesn't let it age the way the dead ordinarily would, and thus not decompose.”

“Then how do we bring him back to life?” Kahlan asked.

“I never said you could. I only said that I could keep him viable. I can't make the dead come back to life. I can animate corpses, but they aren't actually alive.”

“So what good would this do him?” Nicci asked.

Dreier lifted his hands in frustration. “None, as far as I can see. He's dead. His life force is gone. His spirit is in the underworld. You asked what I could do. That's the closest I can come. I can link his remains to the underworld to halt the process his body would go through after dying.”

“So that would preserve him for now,” Kahlan said, “until we can figure out how to bring his life force, his spirit, back into his body.”

Dreier made a face. “Preserve him for a time, yes. Bring his spirit back into that preserved body? That can't be done. He is dead, ladies. Dead, dead, dead. I don't know how to bring the dead back to life. But if you do, then I suppose this would keep him from deteriorating until you bring him back from the dead.

“I can do a great many things with my abilities, but there are limits to how far one can bend the laws of nature. One of those limits is the Grace itself. It defines life and death. It can't reverse death.”

Kahlan wondered if the man was telling the truth—if she could trust him to tell her the truth. She looked from Dreier's eyes to the still form of the man she loved. The man she desperately wanted back.

Kahlan knew that Richard hadn't actually, technically, reversed her death. He had used the spark of life still in her soul. That spark was what had brought her back.

Richard had that same spark of life in his soul. At least, she hoped he still did. In the underworld it would fade rapidly.

It was the balance to the poison Jit had infected them with. She had put death into them when they were still alive. That death had been extinguishing their life force, but for a time life and death existed together. They were part dead, yet part alive.

“All right,” she said. “Do it. If that's the best we can do for now, do it.”

Dreier waggled a finger. “Not so fast. What's in it for me?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to let me and Erika go.”

Kahlan, still wearing her Confessor face, stared into Dreier's eyes. Her entire life had been devoted to uncovering truth. She weighed what to do, what she dared to do. Everything hung in the balance, and on the choice she made. The right choice did not mean success, but if she made the wrong choice, all would certainly be lost.

In that brief instant, she weighed his words, the risks, and made her decision.

Kahlan gave him a single nod. “Done. You do what you said to keep Richard's body viable, and we will let you go.”

Nicci took hold of Kahlan's arm. “Mother Confessor, I don't think that's such a good idea. What he is proposing to do, when it comes right down to it, is of virtually no value. And for that we would be giving him his freedom? So that he could plot his revenge? So that he could use those occult powers against us on another day? If he could start Richard's heart, maybe, but just to keep him the way he is…?”

Kahlan stared at Dreier for a long time. It was his occult powers she was considering. Finally, she turned and paced to the bed. The big men all around the room looked grim and despondent. They had lost their Lord Rahl. It was unthinkable. What was to become of them all without Richard?

“When I was young,” Kahlan said, “there was a boy I knew of who lived there in Aydindril. One day, in late winter, he fell through the ice on a lake. He was under the ice for hours before they were able to get his body out. He was dead, of course—drowned under the ice. They wrapped him up, preparing to bury him, when he revived.

“I don't know much about such things, but I saw it with my own eyes. Who are we to say when the soul has actually crossed over for good, when that veil has closed? If there is a way to keep Richard on ice, so to speak, to give him a chance to return back through that veil, then I want to take it.”

Nicci regarded her with an understanding look. “If you say so, then I agree.”

Kahlan gave the signal. All around the room, the archers drew back their bowstrings.

“Take off his collar,” she said to the scribe standing quietly back against the wall.

Mohler shuffled forward with his keys.

“You make one wrong twitch,” Kahlan told Dreier as Mohler unlocked the collar, “and you will have a dozen arrows through you from every which way.”

He nodded. “And do I have your word as the Mother Confessor that if I do this, you will let me go?”

Kahlan glanced at the sorceress a moment, then to Dreier.

“You have my word as the Mother Confessor. If you keep your end, we will let you go.”

In unison, the archers tracked Dreier's every step. He kept a wary eye on them as he went to the bed where Richard lay.

He gestured over the body. “Can you remove that sword, please? It interferes with what I have to do.”

Kahlan lifted the weapon and slid it back into the scabbard at Richard's hip. Being that close again, touching his cold flesh, seeing him that still, almost made her panic, almost made her lose control of her Confessor's face.