Stone of Tears (57 page)

Chandalen looked at her skeptically. “Why do they not trade? It would be easier to trade.”

“Well, it a way, it is trading. Often, the person who wants what you have has nothing you want, so they give you money–silver or gold made into flat, round discs called coins—instead, then you can use the money to buy things you need.”

“Buy.” Chandalen seemed to test the strange word with his tongue as he looked off down a street to their right while shaking his head in disbelief. “Why would people work, then? Why would they not just go and get this silver or gold money?”

“Some do. They hunt silver and gold. But that is hard work, too. Gold is hard to find, and dig out of the ground. That is why it is used for money: because it is rare. If it were easy to find, like grains of sand, then no one would take it in trade. If money were easy to get, or to make, it would become worthless, and then in the end this system of trade, with worthless money, would fail, and everyone would starve.”

He came to a halt with a frown. “What is this money made from? What is this silver or gold you speak of?”

She didn’t stop with him, and he had to take a few bounding steps to catch back up with her. “Gold is … The medallion, the necklace, that the Bantak gave as a gift to the Mud People, to show they did not wish to make war, that is made of gold.” Chandalen nodded with a knowing grunt. Kahlan halted this time. “Do you know where the Bantak got that much gold?”

Chandalen swept his gaze across the slate rooftops. “Of course. They got it from us.”

Kahlan gripped his arm covered with his mantle pulled him around. “What do you mean, they got it from you?”

He tensed at her touch. He didn’t like her hand—a Confessor’s hand—on him. That the fur mantle separated actual contact of flesh was of no consequence; their flesh was close enough. If she relaxed her restraint of the power, that thin piece of hide would be no impediment; Kahlan had loosed her power through armor before. She released her grip and he visibly relaxed. “Chandalen, where did the Mud People get that much gold?”

He looked at her like she were a child asking where you might find dirt. “From the holes in the ground. In our land, to the north where it is rocky and nothing much will grow or live, there are holes in the ground. They have this gold in them. It is a bad place. The air is hot and bad. It is said that men die if they stay too long in the ground. The yellow metal is in these deep holes. It is too soft to make good weapons, so it is of no use.”

He dismissed its importance with a flick of his hand. “But the Bantak say their ancestors’ spirits like the look of the yellow metal, and so we let them come onto our land and go in the holes so they may get it to make things their ancestors’ spirits may like to look upon when they come to this world.”

“Chandalen, do others know of these holes in the ground, of the gold that is in them?”

He shrugged. “We do not let outsiders come to our land. But I told you, it is too soft to make weapons with, so it is of no use. It pleases the Bantak, and they are good traders with us, so we let them take what they want. They do not take much, though, because it is a bad place to go into. No one would want to go there, except the Bantak, to please their ancestors’ spirits.”

How could she explain it to him? He didn’t understand the ways of the outside world. “Chandalen, you must never use this gold.” He made a face that said he had already explained how useless it was, and no one would want it. “You may think it is useless, but others would kill to get it. If people knew you had gold on your land, they would swarm over you to get it. The craving for gold makes men crazy, and they would do anything to get it. They would kill Mud People.”

Chandalen straightened with a smug expression. He took his hand from the bowstring and tapped his chest. “I, and my men, protect our people. We would keep the outsiders away.”

Kahlan swept her arm around, taking in the hundreds upon hundreds of dead around her. “Against this many? Against thousands?” Chandalen had never seen this many people. He understood little of the numbers that lived outside his lands. “Thousands who would never stop coming until they swept you aside?”

His eyes followed the arc her arm had taken. His brow wrinkled with the frown of a worry unfamiliar to him, his arrogance evaporating as he took in the dead. “Our ancestors’ spirits have warned us not to speak of the holes in the ground with the bad air. We only let the Bantak go there, no one else.”

“See that it stays that way,” she said. “Or they will come and steal it.”

“That would be wrong, to steal from a people.” He put renewed tension to the bowstring as she let out a noisy breath of frustration. “If I make a bow to trade, everyone knows it is the work of Chandalen, because it is such a fine bow. If anyone steals it, everyone knows what it is and where it came from, and the thief would be caught, and be made to give it back. Maybe he would be sent away from his people. How do these people tell who the money belongs to, if it is taken by a thief?”

Kahlan’s mind reeled from the effort of trying to explain such things to Chandalen. At least it was keeping her from having to think about the dead all about her. She started walking again through the snow, having to step over a man’s back because there was no way around, they were fallen so close.

“It is difficult. Because of this, people guard their money. If anyone is caught stealing, the punishment is severe, to discourage thieving.”

“How are thieves punished?”

“They are locked in a small room for a long time. Years.”

“Locked? What is this?”

“A lock is way of barring a door. The stone rooms that thieves are placed in have a door they are not able to open from the inside. It has a lock on it, and you must have a key, the right key, to open it, so they cannot get out. That is their punishment—to be made to stay in the locked room for a long time, so they will not steal again for fear of being placed in the room for longer the next time.”

Chandalen checked the side street beyond a silversmith’s shop as they continued up the main road. “I would rather be put to death that be locked in a room.”

“If a thief keeps stealing, even after he has been punished, then that is what happens to him.”

Chandalen gave a grunt. She didn’t think she was doing a very good job of explaining things to him. He seemed to think the whole scheme unworkable.

“Our way is better. We make what we want. Everyone makes what they need. This specializing way is not our way. We trade only for a few things. Our way is better.”

“You do the same as these people, Chandalen. You may not realize it, but you do.”

“No. Each person knows many things. We teach all our children to know how to do everything they need.”

“You specialize. You are a hunter, and more than that, you are a protector to your people.” She nodded once again to the dead around her. Some stared back with flat eyes. “These men were soldiers. They specialized at protecting their people. They gave their lives trying to protect their people. You are the same as they: a soldier. You are strong, you are good with a bow and a spear, and you are good at discovering and preparing to thwart the various ways others would try to harm your people.”

Chandalen thought this over a moment as he stopped briefly to knock a heavy clump of snow from the binding of his snowshoe. “But that is only me. Because I am so strong, and wise. Others of my people do not specialize.”

“Everyone specializes, Chandalen. Nissel, the healer, she specializes at helping sick or injured people. She spends most of her time helping others. How does she feed herself?”

“Those she helps give her what she needs, and if there is no one to help so she can be offered food by them, then others who have enough offer some of theirs so Nissel will be well fed and ready to help us.”

“You see? Those she helps pay her with tava bread, but it is the same thing almost as they do here with money. Because she specializes in a service to the village, everyone helps a little so she will be there for the village when there is need of her. Here, that is called a tax, when everyone pays a little toward the good of the group, to help support those who work for the people.”

“Is this how you get your food? The people all give for you, like we do when you come to make trouble for us?”

She was relieved that for the first time he didn’t say it with enmity. “Yes.”

Chandalen eyed empty second floor windows as they walked on among buildings that were becoming larger and more ornate. The double, iron strap hinged doors to an inn on their left were broken in, and tables, chairs, pots, dishes and linen embroidered with red roses—apparently to echo the inn’s name, the Red Rose—had been thrown into the street where they were half covered over with the snow. Through the empty doorway she could see the body of an apron clad kitchen boy sprawled on the floor, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, frozen with the terror of his last vision. He couldn’t have been over twelve.

“But that is just the hunters, and Nissel,” Chandalen added, after some thought. “Others of us do not do this specializing.”

“Everyone does, to some degree. The women bake the tava bread, the men make the weapons. Nature is that way, too. Some plants grow where it is wet, some where it is dry. Some animals eat grass, some leaves, some bugs, and some other animals. Every thing plays its part. Women have the babies, and men … “

She halted, fists at her sides, staring at the countless bodies fallen all around her. She swept her arm out.

“And men, it would seem, are here to kill everything. You see Chandalen? Women’s specialty is to bring forth life, and men’s specialty is to take it away.”

Kahlan clenched her fist against her stomach. She was dangerously close to losing her composure. Nausea swept through her. Her head spun.

Chandalen stole a glimpse at her from the corner of his eye. “The Bird Man would say not to judge all by what some do. And women do not make life alone. Men are part of that, too.”

Kahlan gulped cold air. With a struggle, she started off again, shuffling her snowshoes ahead. Chandalen let her set a quicker pace as he walked beside her. She turned them up a street lined with fine shops. As she moved up and then down a snowdrift, he pointed with his bow, seeming to look for an excuse to change the subject.

“Why do they have wooden people here?”

A headless mannequin rested at an angle against a windowsill, tipped halfway out of a shop. The elaborate blue dress the mannequin wore was trimmed with white beads draped in layers about the waist. Glad to have a diversion from the thoughts swirling in her head, Kahlan changed direction a little, toward the mannequin in the blue dress.

“This is a tailor’s shop. The people who owned this shop specialized in making clothes. This wooden person is simply a form to display what they make, so others may know the fine work they do. It is a demonstration of pride in their work.”

She stopped before the large window. All the panes of glass were all broken out. A few of the yellow painted mullions hung crookedly from the top of the frame. The shade of blue of the gorgeous gown reminded Kahlan of her wedding dress. She could feel the blood pounding in the veins of her neck as she swallowed back a cry. Chandalen watched both directions up and down the street as her hand slowly reached out to touch the frozen, blue fabric.

Her vision focused past the mannequin, into the shop, where a square of sunlight fell across the snow-dusted floor and up and over a low work counter. Her hand faltered. A dead man with a balding head was pinned to the wall by a spear through his chest. A woman lay sprawled face down over the counter, her dress and underskirts bunched up around her waist, exposing blue flesh. A pair of tailor’s scissors jutted from her back.

In the gloom at the far end of the room stood another mannequin, in a fine man’s coat. The front of the dark coat was shredded with hundreds of small cuts. The soldiers had evidently used the mannequin as a target for knife throwing while they waited their turn on the woman. Apparently, when they were finished with her, they stabbed her to death with her scissors.

Kahlan twisted away from the shop to find herself face to face with Chandalen. His was red. There was menace in his eyes.

“Not all men are the same. I would cut the throat of any man of mine if he did such a thing.”

Kahlan had no answer for him, and suddenly wasn’t in the mood to talk. As she started off again, she loosened the mantle at her neck, suddenly needing the feel of cold air.

In silence, but for the low, baleful moan of the breeze between the buildings, they slogged past stables of horses, their throats all cut, and past inns and grand houses, their cornices high overhead shading them from the bright, slanting sunlight. Fluted, wooden columns to each side of one door had been hacked at with a sword, seemingly for no purpose but to deface the elegance of the home.

It was colder in the shade, but she didn’t care. They stepped over corpses that lay face down in the snow, with wounds in their backs, and around overturned wagons and coaches and dead horses and dead dogs. It all melted into a meaningless madness of destruction.

Eyes cast to the ground before her, she trudged on through the snow. The cold air bit into her flesh, and she pulled her mantle closed once more. The cold was sapping her of not only warmth, but strength. With grim determination she put one foot in front of the other, continuing on toward her destination, hoping, somehow, that she would never reach it.

With the frozen dead of Ebinissia all about, she filled her crushing loneliness with a silent prayer.

Please, dear spirits, keep Richard warm.

Naked under the sun’s fury, the parched, dead flat ground stretched endlessly before them, in the distance offering up shimmering images to waver and dance in the sun’s furnace glare, like phantom hostages surrendered to an omnipotent foe. Behind, the fractured hills ended in a bank of rocky rubble. The silence was as oppressive as the heat.

Richard wiped sweat from his brow on the back of his sleeve. The leather of his saddle creaked as he shifted his weight while he waited. Bonnie and the other two horses waited, too, their ears pricked ahead, as they occasionally pawed the cracked, dry earth and voiced apprehensive snorts.

Sister Verna sat motionless atop Jessup, scrutinizing the nothingness of the distance as if viewing an event of great import. Except for the way her brown curls hung limp, she didn’t appear to be affected by the heat.

“I don’t understand this weather. It’s winter; I’ve never heard of it being hot like this in winter.”

“The weather is different in different places,” she murmured.

“No it’s not. When it’s winter, it’s cold. It’s only hot like this in high summer.”

“Have you ever seen snow on mountain tops in the summer?”

Richard reversed the positions of his hands resting on the pommel. “Yes. But that is just on mountain tops. The air is colder up there. We are not on a mountain top.”

Still she did not move. “Not just mountain tops have different weather. In the south the weather is not so cold as it is in the north. But this place is different still. It is like an inexhaustible well of heat.”

“And just what is this place?”

“The Valley of the Lost,” she whispered.

“Who was lost in it?”

“Those who created it, and whoever enters.” At last she turned a bit to peer at him. “It is the end of the world. Your world, anyway.”

He shifted his weight to the other side when Bonnie did the same. “If it’s the end of the world, why are we here?”

Sister Verna held her hand up to the land behind. “Just as there is Westland, where you were born, separated from the Midlands, and the Midlands from D’Hara, so, too, are those lands separated from what lies on the far side of this place.”

Richard frowned. “And what lies on the other side of here?”

She turned back to the expanse before them. “You lived in the New World. Across this valley lies the Old World.”

“The Old World? I never heard of the Old World.”

“Few in the New World have. It has been sealed away and forgotten. This valley, the Valley of the Lost, separates them, much the same way the boundary used to separate the three lands of the New World. The last of the country we have been crossing has been inhospitable, a desert wasteland. Anyone venturing through it and into this valley never returns. People think there is nothing beyond, that this is the southern end of the Midlands and D’Hara, with nothing beyond but what you see here: an endless waste, where one could die of thirst and hunger and you could have your bones baked by the heat of the sun.”

Richard eased Bonnie up next to the Sister. “So, what is beyond? And why can’t anyone cross? And if no one can cross, how can we?”

She looked over out of the corner of her eye. “Simple questions, but not simply answered.” She relaxed back in her saddle a little. “The land between the New and the Old world narrows somewhat, with the sea to each side.”

“The sea?”

“You have never seen the ocean?”

Richard shook his head. “In Westland, it lies far to the south, and people don’t live there. Or, so I’ve been told. I’ve heard others speak of the ocean, but I’ve never seen it. They say it’s more vast that any lake ever imagined.”

Sister Verna gave him a little smile. “They speak true.” She turned ahead, pointing off to the right. “Some distance that way lies the sea.” She pointed left, to the southeast. “Off even farther in that direction is also the sea. Though the land is vast between them, it is still the narrowest place between the New and the Old Worlds. Because of that, a war was fought here. A war between wizards.”

Richard’s straightened in his saddle. “Wizards? What war?”

“Yes, wizards. It was ages ago, when there were many wizards. What you see before you is the result of that war. It is all that remains, as a reminder, of what wizards who have more power than wisdom can conjure.”

He didn’t like the accusing look she gave him. “Who won?”

At last she folded her hands over the pommel of her saddle and let her shoulders relax a bit. “No one. The two sides were separated by this land between the seas. Though the fighting may have stopped, no one prevailed.”

Richard leaned around for a waterskin. “How about a drink?”

With a small smile, she took the skin as he handed it over and took a long draw. “This valley is an example of what can happen when your heart, rather than your head, rules your magic.” Her smile evaporated. “Because of what they did, the peoples of the two worlds are separated for all time. It is one reason the Sisters of the Light work to teach those with the gift—so they will not act out of foolishness.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“What do wizards ever fight about? They fought over which wizards should rule.”

“I was told something about a wizard’s war over whether or not wizards should rule at all.”

She handed back the waterskin and wiped her lips with one finger. “That was a different war, yet part of the same. After this place separated the two sides, some of each camp were trapped on the New World side. Both groups had gone to enforce their rule on those who had traveled to live in the New World, and on those who had always lived there.

“Once trapped, one side went into hiding for centuries and worked to build their strength before they attempted to seize power over all the New World. The war that had burned long ago flared again, until their force was defeated, except for a few who fled into their stronghold in D’Hara.” She lifted an eyebrow to him. “Kin of yours, I believe.”

Richard glared at her for a long moment before finally taking a swig of the hot water. He dribbled a little on a strip of cloth—something Kahlan had taught him—and tied it around his head, both to cool his brow and hold back his lengthening hair. Richard hooked the waterskin back on his saddle. “So what happened here?”

She swept her hand once from the southeast to the southwest. “Where the land was narrowest, here, not only armies, but wizards did battle, and sought to prevent one another from advancing. The wizards laid down spells, conjuring every sort of magic, in an attempt to snare their opponents. Both sides, equally, unleashed wickedness of unspeakable horror and danger. That is what lies ahead.”

Richard stared at her glazed expression. “You mean to say that their magic, their spells, are still out there?”

“Unabated.”

“How can that be? Wouldn’t they wear away? Fade?”

“Perhaps.” She sighed. “But they did more. To maintain the power of their spells they built structures to sustain the force.”

“What structures could do that?”

Sister Verna still stared out at nothing, or perhaps, to things he couldn’t see. “The Towers of Perdition,” she whispered.

Richard stroked Bonnie’s neck and waited. At last, Sister Verna seemed to dismiss her private thoughts with a deep breath and continued.

“From one sea to the other, both sides built opposing lines of these towers, invested with their power and wizardry.” She gave a nod to each side. “They were begun at the sea, and came together here, in this valley. But because of the force of the towers each side built, neither side could get close enough to complete the last tower in their own line. What they had wrought ended in a stalemate, with each side prevented from completing their last tower. It allowed a weakened place in the magic. A gap.”

Richard shifted uneasily in his saddle. “If there is a gap, then why can’t people cross.”

“It is only a lessening in the full strength of the line. To each side, all the way across the hills and mountains, to land’s end, and beyond, out into the sea where it somewhere diminishes, Perdition’s line is impenetrable. To enter is to be claimed by the storms of spells, the magic. Any who enter would be killed, or worse—they could wander the brume forever.

“Here, in this valley, the deadlock prevented the completion of the last tower on each side that would have sealed the line. But the spells wander and drift between the gap, like thunderclouds drifting on the wind, clashing and coming together in places. Because of the weakness in this place, there is a maze that can be passed through by those with the gift. The clear passages are always shifting, and the spells cannot always be seen. They must be felt, with the gift. Still, it is not easy.”

“So that is why the Sisters of the Light can make it through? Because they have the gift?”

“Yes. But only twice at most. The magic learns to find you. Long ago, Sisters who went through to the New World and returned were sent again, but none ever returned a second time.” Her gaze left his, seeking the distant emptiness. “They are in there, never to be found, or saved. The Towers of Perdition and its storms of magic claimed them.”

Richard waited until her eyes came back no him. “Perhaps, Sister, they became disaffected, and chose not to return. How would you know?”

Her face sobered. “We know. Some who have been through have seen them” —she inclined her head toward the shimmering distance— “in there. I myself, saw several.”

“I’m sorry, Sister Verna.” Richard thought about Zedd. Kahlan might find him, and tell him what had happened. He had to push away the painful memory of Kahlan. “So, a wizard could make it through.”

“Not a wizard of his full power. After we teach those with the gift to control it, they must be allowed to return before their power is fully developed. The whole propose of the line is to prevent wizards from getting through. The fully developed power of a wizard would draw the spells as a magnet draws iron filings. It is they that the magic seeks; it is for them that the towers were built. They would be lost, just as would anyone who didn’t have some use of the gift to feel the gaps in the spells. Too little, or too much, and you are lost. That is why those who created the line could not complete it; the domain of the spells from the other side prevented them from entering. Their creation ended in deadlock.”

Richard felt his hopes sag. If Kahlan carried out his request to seek out his old friend, Zedd could not do anything to help him. Swallowing back the numbing loss of hope, he reached up and felt the dragon’s tooth hanging on the leather thong at his chest. “What about going over? Could something fly over?”

She shook her head. “The spells extend up into the air, as they extend out into the sea. Anything that can fly cannot fly high enough.”

“What about by sea? Could you sail far enough out to go around?”

Sister verna shrugged. “I have heard tell that a few times throughout the ages it has been accomplished. In my life I have seen ships leave to attempt it, but I have never seen one return.”

Richard glanced back over his shoulder, but saw nothing. “Could … someone follow you through?”

“One or two, if they stayed close enough, as you must. Greater numbers would surely be lost. The pockets between spells are not large enough to allow many to follow.”

Richard thought in silence, at last asking, “Why hasn’t anyone destroyed the towers, so the spells could dissipate?”

“We have tried. It cannot be done.”

“Just because you have not found a way, Sister, that does not mean it cannot be done.”

She gave him a sharp look. “The towers, and the spells, were created with the aid of not only Additive, but also Subtractive Magic.”

Subtractive Magic! How could the wizards of old have learned to use Subtractive Magic? Wizards didn’t have command of Subtractive Magic. But then, Darken Rahl did. Richard gentled his tone. “How can the towers keep the spells from dissipating?”

Sister Verna worked her thumbs on the reins. “Each tower has a wizard’s Life Force in it.”

Despite the heat, Richard felt a chill. “You mean to say that a wizard gave his Life Force into the towers?”

“Worse. Each tower contains the life force of many wizards.”

Richard stared in numb shock at the thought of wizards giving up their lives to invest the towers with their Life Force. “How close are the towers?”

“It is said some are miles apart, some only yards. They are spaced according to the fabric of lines of power within the earth itself. We don’t understand the sense of this alignment. Since entering the line to find them would be death, we don’t even know how many tower there are. We know of only the few in this valley.”

Richard squirmed in his saddle. “Will we see any of the towers when we cross?”

“There is no way to tell. The gaps shift constantly. Occasionally, on the way through, the openings take you close to a tower. I saw one on my first journey through. Some Sisters never saw one. I hope never to see another.”

Richard realized he was gripping the hilt of his sword with his left hand. The raised letters of the word Truth bit into his flesh. He relaxed his hand, releasing the hilt.

“So, what can we expect to see?”