fic: storm born - chapter forty-one
Title: Storm Born
Author: Morgen
Summary: It was supposed to be their one chance to be together. Instead it plunged them straight into a nightmare.
Disclaimer: I don't own LOTS or profit from it in any way. Just worship it from afar.
Rating: PG-14
XLI. LIVE
The ground shook violently as Richard ran, his feet finding little purchase. The Underworld was nearly as vibrant as the world above, with jets of green flame shooting up all around him, erupting out of the cracks in the rocks. Richard pushed himself as fast as he could go, remembering Cara’s warning about the Underworld. He didn’t enter with the aid of the Fatal Grace this time, and he wondered how soon it would start to age him, how much longer his feet would be able to carry him swift and sure over the trembling ground. The fires burned dangerously hot now, the smoke stinging his eyes and making him cough.
He stumbled then, tumbling forward as his knee weakened and gave out on him abruptly. As he thrust his hands out to catch himself, he saw they were turning wrinkled and weathered, more like Zedd’s than his own.
Richard staggered to his feet, wheezing heavily. He forced himself to keep moving though he was fast growing dizzy, his head spinning. His only chance to stop the banelings lay with the stone.
The way to the pit was not as clear to him as before, but he pressed onward, dodging the fire with wearying feet. Whenever he passed a larger stone, he took hold of it a moment to regain his balance. Each time he did, he noticed more age spots on his hands.
When at last he made it past the bloodstained ground where Kahlan had lain, he felt a sense of relief mingled with sorrow at the sight. He was at least headed in the right direction. A few staggered steps later, and he heard it. The faint, drifting cry of misery of the thousands lost in the Keeper’s pits.
His limbs were beginning to shake, his bones and body filled with a sense of frailty he’d never experienced before. It seemed he was brittle as dry leaves and about to break. When he touched his face, it felt like a web of wrinkles. What hair he had was thinning fast, and he was sure it was no longer brown but gray. The Underworld was growing blurry before his fading eyes even as he reached the edge of the cavernous pit. Far below, the bodies writhed like ants.
He could feel the stone warm in his weathered palm, as if responding to the cry of those trapped in torment by the Keeper. While he was pondering the best way down into the pit, a figure appeared before him robed in white, hovering over the abyss. Richard blinked, and as his eyes focused, he saw it was Kahlan floating there, back in her white Confessor’s dress just as he’d first met her.
A shudder passed through him. “Kahlan?”
She smiled sadly. “Hello, Richard.”
He shook his head. She couldn’t be… “What are you doing here?”
“I died, Richard. Surely you knew I would.”
“No…” He sunk to his knees at the edge of the cliff, his tears turning her into a blur.
“Yes,” she said quietly, drifting towards him. “I belong to the Keeper now, and soon you will too.” He stared up at her as she floated closer still like a vision on a cloud, a dream. Her gown was all of glimmering, pearly white, her sleeve fluttering as she stretched out her hand, palm up. “Give me the stone, and all of your suffering will end.”
He heaved himself to his feet, drawing near to her. “It will?” His love was dead, and it hurt even to breathe. His heart seized up in his chest, and he thought of their newborn daughter now all alone, without mother or father.
“Yes,” said Kahlan softly, drifting closer. “Just give me the stone, and the Keeper has promised we will not suffer. We will be together forever.”
“What of our daughter?”
Kahlan shook her head. “She’s no longer our concern. We can do nothing for her here.”
He hesitated, the Stone of Tears still resting heavy in his hand. He remembered the desperate, wailing mother he’d held in his arms not an hour before. Surely she would do everything she could to send him back up into the world of life, back to their child, even if all he wanted was to curl up among the dust of the dead and forever sleep.
“The stone, Richard,” she said again. Her voice was low and hypnotic, and it pulled him closer. “Give it to me, and then we can be happy.” He did so want to be happy. To be with her. He edged his way forward on unsteady feet; his toes now even with the edge of the cliff.
“I love you, Richard,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
“I love you too.”
She nodded, her face splitting into a beautiful, warm smile meant just for him. “Give me the stone now,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s time to die.” Richard nodded. Slowly he lifted the stone, holding it out to her, a heavy red weight above her palm. The skin on his hand was paper thin now. He wondered if it would soon crumple to ash. “That’s it,” urged Kahlan. “Give me the stone, and you won’t have to suffer anymore.” He glanced down through the space between their hands, his bleary eyes focusing on the thousands below. Even now, with two there to act as witness, their weeping still went unheard. A pang of guilt shot through his chest as he listened to their ceaseless lament.
“And what of them?” he asked. “Will the Keeper spare them their suffering too? Will balance be restored, or is the peace only for us?”
She faltered then, her smile fading. “What does it matter, Richard? Do I mean nothing to you? You don’t know what the Keeper will do to me if you don’t give me the stone! Please, Richard, if you love me…”
Kill me. And the baby. You have to kill us both.
Her voice was fresh in his mind, her blood still on his hands. “The woman I love would tell me to spare the masses and let her suffer,” he croaked. “You’re not my Kahlan.”
He looked down at the bodies below him. His fingers had grown so feeble it was a struggle to keep hold of the stone. The glistening white Kahlan came lunging for him, hands outstretched, and he did the only thing he could think of. Clasping the stone to his chest, he pitched himself over the cliff and out of her reach. He hurtled toward the ground far below as she shrieked, the cavern echoing with her cry of “No!” It sounded to his ears as he fell to be somehow twisted and wrong, deeper than the voice he knew so well, and full of something cold and cruel.
Richard could see the writhing souls in the Keeper’s pit growing larger. He clutched the stone, feeling it warm in his hands until it was so hot it should have burned him, yet he did not let go. He became aware of a rich, reddish glow spreading outward from between his fingers until it filled the whole cavern with a warm, wondrous glow. It filled him with a sense of peace like he had never known before, and he realized his fall had slowed, leaving him drifting softly toward the ground, buffeted by the rare and radiant light.
Looking down, he saw that the thousands of twisted, tormented figures were lifting their heads and gazing up, grimaces replaced by open-mouthed astonishment as they cried out in awe to their neighbors. The light spread, shining on the face of every last soul cast into the Keeper’s pit. The stone burned hotter still, and there in his hands it flared a brilliant, blinding white. His fingers slipped away as the light went rushing out in all directions, and he saw no more.
---
Richard awoke with a violent shiver. All was blackness, and he could not see. He felt small and alone, as naked as a newborn child. Without warning, a voice spoke in his ear. It was a woman’s voice, at once both very young and very old.
“Live or die, Seeker. You choose.”
He tried to turn towards it, to open his eyes, but he could not move. He formed the only word he could think of. “Kahlan…” Was she here too? Did she live?
“That is not for you to know, Seeker,” answered the voice, so close it seemed inside his head. “I shall ask you again: live or die?” The voice breathed, and he was not so cold. She sounded fierce, yet not unkind.
For a long time, he could not answer. He thought of his beautiful daughter. He didn’t know how to raise her if Kahlan had died. He wasn’t sure he could bear to do it, but she would tell him to live. He knew that deep like a secret in his weary heart, and he huddled around the answer in silence, unable to speak. The voice made no further demands. It just waited all around him, and inside his head, until he could no longer resist. It came out as a sob. Just the one word, “Live.”
The voice was at once soft and beautiful. “You have chosen well, Seeker.”
He tried again to twist towards it as warmth spread rapidly through him, but he could not move. “Who are you?” he cried. “Can I see your face?”
She did not answer. He felt the warmth still spreading through him from limb to limb, and he thought for a moment he saw there inside his mind the face of a woman unlike any other. Young and old; a mother, a girl and an old, wrinkled woman in the same space, the same face. Newborn and ancient, and so beautiful it hurt to look upon her face. And yet he could not look away. He stared at it in rapture until nothing remained.
---
Richard blinked, his eyes fluttering open. The sky shone brilliant blue overhead. He put a hand to his brow, frowning up at the bright light of day. Slowly he sat up. Cara was seated nearby on the black ground, rocking his daughter in her arms.
“You’re rocking my child,” he stated, still rubbing his head. His thoughts felt fuzzy and out of place.
Cara froze. “It started squalling. I was afraid it would alert others to our location. This was a strategic decision. The motion appears to have quieted it.”
Richard smiled. “You mean her. My child is a girl.”
“Yes.” Cara smirked. “Women are always stronger than men. Take her back. It’s about time you woke up.”
“Woke up?” He staggered to his feet. He was standing on the great rift, though the land no longer gaped open. Here and there, the cliffs were dotted with little piles of ash. “I don’t remember…what happened?” He spun around, his heart pounding wildly. “Where’s Kahlan?”
“Nox’s men have moved them onto lifts, her and Zedd. They’re alive,” she added when she caught sight of his face. “Zedd was trying to heal her right up until the point when he collapsed beside her. When I reached them, they were both unconscious, but breathing steadily. Kahlan’s stopped bleeding. We don’t know what to do for them other than try to make them comfortable and get them to shelter.”
Nox and his men were here; he didn’t remember that at all. And Kahlan was still not well. Thoughts jumbled frantically inside his head, and Richard started running, Cara doing her best to keep up with an infant in her arms. “We were going to move all three of you to Isham if you didn’t wake up in the next hour,” she said as she jogged after him. “But now that you’re up, it’s your call, Lord Rahl.”
He stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. “How long have I been out?”
“Nearly two hours.”
“Two hours…” He shook his head. “What happened? I can’t remember.”
Cara frowned. “We were hoping you could tell us. You just reappeared, right after all the banelings turned to ash.”
“To ash?” He pressed his hand to his brow, the piles of ash he’d been carelessly running through taking on new meaning. His mind was a blank, and then there was Kahlan. He had to get to her. He caught sight of a cluster of D’Harans in the distance, and held out his hands for his daughter. She was still naked, and he pulled off his shirt. He folded the dried blood away from her before wrapping her up in the cleanest part, and nestling her against his chest.
Cara was staring at him, eyes wide and incredulous. “What is it?” he asked in a gruff voice. If she wanted to tease him about taking care of his child, it would have to wait. He didn’t have the patience.
But Cara just shook her head. “The mark…it’s gone.”
He looked down at his chest, finding nothing but smooth skin where the old scar had been. “I don’t…I don’t know how.” His daughter was nuzzling his chest, her mouth gaping open as she mewled softly. His heart twisted; the poor thing had to be starving. He gave her the tip of his little finger to suckle and started walking again. “I don’t remember anything, Cara. Talk while we walk.”
“Anything?” she repeated.
No, that wasn’t true. He remembered the nightmare he and Kahlan had shared in the Underworld. He remembered the birth of his daughter. Kahlan’s slip into unconsciousness and all the blood. He remembered the stone shining every bit as red as her blood.
“The banelings were coming. You went to meet them, and Zedd was trying to save Kahlan. I, I took the stone into the Underworld. There was an inscription…” He tried to remember what it had said, but he couldn’t. He remembered nothing beyond racing down into the dark depths of the rift. “I thought we were all going to die.”
Cara trotted along beside him. “Just before I reached the banelings, they were attacked from behind. General Nox had led his men this way as soon as they defeated the Sisters of the Dark. What was left of them, anyway. We were outnumbered.” She swallowed hard. “I thought we were going to lose.”
Richard nodded. He knew Cara, and he knew it must have been very grim indeed for her to make such an admission.
“We were surrounded when suddenly there was a flash of light, so bright you couldn’t see. When it faded, all the cracks in the rift had closed up, and the banelings had turned to ash. We thought it was something you’d done.”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t remember…”
“And then you were just lying there,” Cara went on. “No one knew how you got there, but you were breathing, and you had no injuries we could see. Nothing we did roused you, so I had the men start constructing a way to move the three of you, and I waited for you to wake up.”
He nodded, feeling dazed by all she had said. “You did everything right, Cara.” He sighed, “I just wish I could remember.” But his mind remained resolutely blank.
“Maybe the stone took your memories away? Whatever you did, you saved us all.” She spoke with such pride in her voice and admiration in her eyes that he felt his face heat.
When he reached the cluster of bloodied, ragged soldiers, they all fell into rank, pounding fists to their chests. But Richard pushed past them, interrupting their resounding chorus of “Master Rahl guide us…” with a desperate, “Where is she? Where’s Kahlan?”
The men parted for him, leaving a path through to where General Nox himself was keeping careful watch over Kahlan and Zedd. They were lying prone on stretchers that appeared to have been hastily fashioned out of rope and saddle blankets. They both lay very still. His grandfather seemed older, far older, than Richard remembered. Wrinkles ran like wheel ruts across his face, and his skin was waxen. But Kahlan was still as white as her dress, and when he bent down to press a kiss to her cheek, her skin was cold as ice. He had to study the rise and fall of her chest just to convince himself she was still alive. She was still with him. For now.
“I told you he’d wake up.” Richard turned around at the sound of Nox speaking in a low voice. To his surprise, he saw the general’s massive hand was resting on Cara’s shoulder. Even more astonishing than that, Cara made no move to shrug off the unwanted contact and deal him a blow to the face. She merely nodded. Then Nox noticed him looking, and the hand slipped away so quickly it was almost as if he’d imagined it.
“Thank you,” Richard began quietly. “You and your men, they saved us all.”
“Your men, Lord Rahl,” said Nox, bowing and moving towards him. His wild blond hair was flecked with blood. “And it is you who saved the day yet again. We all would have soon perished if you hadn’t ventured into the Underworld to do battle with the Keeper himself.”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t remember any such thing.”
“A bad memory on your part makes the deed no less great. Hundreds of banelings turned to ash in a single moment. There could not be a clearer sign of the Keeper’s defeat. You have restored the balance of our world, Lord Rahl.”
Richard acquiesced with a shrug. He didn’t have the energy to argue against what was no more than a gaping hole in his mind. “I need to get Kahlan and Zedd somewhere where they can recover,” he said quietly. “And my daughter needs to eat.”
“Leave it to me, Lord Rahl,” said Nox. “We’ll have you to Isham by the fastest roads.” He gave a swift bow. “I’ll ready the men for immediate departure.”
Richard could only nod. He stumbled forward, still clutching his now slumbering daughter to his chest. He sunk to the ground between Kahlan and Zedd’s makeshift beds, and laced Kahlan’s cold, limp fingers with his own. All he wanted in this world was for her eyes to open, and the longer he wished it, the more resolutely they seemed to stay closed. He held tight to his family, and let the task of planning pass to shoulders other than his. He could do no more this day.
Author: Morgen
Summary: It was supposed to be their one chance to be together. Instead it plunged them straight into a nightmare.
Disclaimer: I don't own LOTS or profit from it in any way. Just worship it from afar.
Rating: PG-14
XLI. LIVE
The ground shook violently as Richard ran, his feet finding little purchase. The Underworld was nearly as vibrant as the world above, with jets of green flame shooting up all around him, erupting out of the cracks in the rocks. Richard pushed himself as fast as he could go, remembering Cara’s warning about the Underworld. He didn’t enter with the aid of the Fatal Grace this time, and he wondered how soon it would start to age him, how much longer his feet would be able to carry him swift and sure over the trembling ground. The fires burned dangerously hot now, the smoke stinging his eyes and making him cough.
He stumbled then, tumbling forward as his knee weakened and gave out on him abruptly. As he thrust his hands out to catch himself, he saw they were turning wrinkled and weathered, more like Zedd’s than his own.
Richard staggered to his feet, wheezing heavily. He forced himself to keep moving though he was fast growing dizzy, his head spinning. His only chance to stop the banelings lay with the stone.
The way to the pit was not as clear to him as before, but he pressed onward, dodging the fire with wearying feet. Whenever he passed a larger stone, he took hold of it a moment to regain his balance. Each time he did, he noticed more age spots on his hands.
When at last he made it past the bloodstained ground where Kahlan had lain, he felt a sense of relief mingled with sorrow at the sight. He was at least headed in the right direction. A few staggered steps later, and he heard it. The faint, drifting cry of misery of the thousands lost in the Keeper’s pits.
His limbs were beginning to shake, his bones and body filled with a sense of frailty he’d never experienced before. It seemed he was brittle as dry leaves and about to break. When he touched his face, it felt like a web of wrinkles. What hair he had was thinning fast, and he was sure it was no longer brown but gray. The Underworld was growing blurry before his fading eyes even as he reached the edge of the cavernous pit. Far below, the bodies writhed like ants.
He could feel the stone warm in his weathered palm, as if responding to the cry of those trapped in torment by the Keeper. While he was pondering the best way down into the pit, a figure appeared before him robed in white, hovering over the abyss. Richard blinked, and as his eyes focused, he saw it was Kahlan floating there, back in her white Confessor’s dress just as he’d first met her.
A shudder passed through him. “Kahlan?”
She smiled sadly. “Hello, Richard.”
He shook his head. She couldn’t be… “What are you doing here?”
“I died, Richard. Surely you knew I would.”
“No…” He sunk to his knees at the edge of the cliff, his tears turning her into a blur.
“Yes,” she said quietly, drifting towards him. “I belong to the Keeper now, and soon you will too.” He stared up at her as she floated closer still like a vision on a cloud, a dream. Her gown was all of glimmering, pearly white, her sleeve fluttering as she stretched out her hand, palm up. “Give me the stone, and all of your suffering will end.”
He heaved himself to his feet, drawing near to her. “It will?” His love was dead, and it hurt even to breathe. His heart seized up in his chest, and he thought of their newborn daughter now all alone, without mother or father.
“Yes,” said Kahlan softly, drifting closer. “Just give me the stone, and the Keeper has promised we will not suffer. We will be together forever.”
“What of our daughter?”
Kahlan shook her head. “She’s no longer our concern. We can do nothing for her here.”
He hesitated, the Stone of Tears still resting heavy in his hand. He remembered the desperate, wailing mother he’d held in his arms not an hour before. Surely she would do everything she could to send him back up into the world of life, back to their child, even if all he wanted was to curl up among the dust of the dead and forever sleep.
“The stone, Richard,” she said again. Her voice was low and hypnotic, and it pulled him closer. “Give it to me, and then we can be happy.” He did so want to be happy. To be with her. He edged his way forward on unsteady feet; his toes now even with the edge of the cliff.
“I love you, Richard,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
“I love you too.”
She nodded, her face splitting into a beautiful, warm smile meant just for him. “Give me the stone now,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s time to die.” Richard nodded. Slowly he lifted the stone, holding it out to her, a heavy red weight above her palm. The skin on his hand was paper thin now. He wondered if it would soon crumple to ash. “That’s it,” urged Kahlan. “Give me the stone, and you won’t have to suffer anymore.” He glanced down through the space between their hands, his bleary eyes focusing on the thousands below. Even now, with two there to act as witness, their weeping still went unheard. A pang of guilt shot through his chest as he listened to their ceaseless lament.
“And what of them?” he asked. “Will the Keeper spare them their suffering too? Will balance be restored, or is the peace only for us?”
She faltered then, her smile fading. “What does it matter, Richard? Do I mean nothing to you? You don’t know what the Keeper will do to me if you don’t give me the stone! Please, Richard, if you love me…”
Kill me. And the baby. You have to kill us both.
Her voice was fresh in his mind, her blood still on his hands. “The woman I love would tell me to spare the masses and let her suffer,” he croaked. “You’re not my Kahlan.”
He looked down at the bodies below him. His fingers had grown so feeble it was a struggle to keep hold of the stone. The glistening white Kahlan came lunging for him, hands outstretched, and he did the only thing he could think of. Clasping the stone to his chest, he pitched himself over the cliff and out of her reach. He hurtled toward the ground far below as she shrieked, the cavern echoing with her cry of “No!” It sounded to his ears as he fell to be somehow twisted and wrong, deeper than the voice he knew so well, and full of something cold and cruel.
Richard could see the writhing souls in the Keeper’s pit growing larger. He clutched the stone, feeling it warm in his hands until it was so hot it should have burned him, yet he did not let go. He became aware of a rich, reddish glow spreading outward from between his fingers until it filled the whole cavern with a warm, wondrous glow. It filled him with a sense of peace like he had never known before, and he realized his fall had slowed, leaving him drifting softly toward the ground, buffeted by the rare and radiant light.
Looking down, he saw that the thousands of twisted, tormented figures were lifting their heads and gazing up, grimaces replaced by open-mouthed astonishment as they cried out in awe to their neighbors. The light spread, shining on the face of every last soul cast into the Keeper’s pit. The stone burned hotter still, and there in his hands it flared a brilliant, blinding white. His fingers slipped away as the light went rushing out in all directions, and he saw no more.
---
Richard awoke with a violent shiver. All was blackness, and he could not see. He felt small and alone, as naked as a newborn child. Without warning, a voice spoke in his ear. It was a woman’s voice, at once both very young and very old.
“Live or die, Seeker. You choose.”
He tried to turn towards it, to open his eyes, but he could not move. He formed the only word he could think of. “Kahlan…” Was she here too? Did she live?
“That is not for you to know, Seeker,” answered the voice, so close it seemed inside his head. “I shall ask you again: live or die?” The voice breathed, and he was not so cold. She sounded fierce, yet not unkind.
For a long time, he could not answer. He thought of his beautiful daughter. He didn’t know how to raise her if Kahlan had died. He wasn’t sure he could bear to do it, but she would tell him to live. He knew that deep like a secret in his weary heart, and he huddled around the answer in silence, unable to speak. The voice made no further demands. It just waited all around him, and inside his head, until he could no longer resist. It came out as a sob. Just the one word, “Live.”
The voice was at once soft and beautiful. “You have chosen well, Seeker.”
He tried again to twist towards it as warmth spread rapidly through him, but he could not move. “Who are you?” he cried. “Can I see your face?”
She did not answer. He felt the warmth still spreading through him from limb to limb, and he thought for a moment he saw there inside his mind the face of a woman unlike any other. Young and old; a mother, a girl and an old, wrinkled woman in the same space, the same face. Newborn and ancient, and so beautiful it hurt to look upon her face. And yet he could not look away. He stared at it in rapture until nothing remained.
---
Richard blinked, his eyes fluttering open. The sky shone brilliant blue overhead. He put a hand to his brow, frowning up at the bright light of day. Slowly he sat up. Cara was seated nearby on the black ground, rocking his daughter in her arms.
“You’re rocking my child,” he stated, still rubbing his head. His thoughts felt fuzzy and out of place.
Cara froze. “It started squalling. I was afraid it would alert others to our location. This was a strategic decision. The motion appears to have quieted it.”
Richard smiled. “You mean her. My child is a girl.”
“Yes.” Cara smirked. “Women are always stronger than men. Take her back. It’s about time you woke up.”
“Woke up?” He staggered to his feet. He was standing on the great rift, though the land no longer gaped open. Here and there, the cliffs were dotted with little piles of ash. “I don’t remember…what happened?” He spun around, his heart pounding wildly. “Where’s Kahlan?”
“Nox’s men have moved them onto lifts, her and Zedd. They’re alive,” she added when she caught sight of his face. “Zedd was trying to heal her right up until the point when he collapsed beside her. When I reached them, they were both unconscious, but breathing steadily. Kahlan’s stopped bleeding. We don’t know what to do for them other than try to make them comfortable and get them to shelter.”
Nox and his men were here; he didn’t remember that at all. And Kahlan was still not well. Thoughts jumbled frantically inside his head, and Richard started running, Cara doing her best to keep up with an infant in her arms. “We were going to move all three of you to Isham if you didn’t wake up in the next hour,” she said as she jogged after him. “But now that you’re up, it’s your call, Lord Rahl.”
He stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. “How long have I been out?”
“Nearly two hours.”
“Two hours…” He shook his head. “What happened? I can’t remember.”
Cara frowned. “We were hoping you could tell us. You just reappeared, right after all the banelings turned to ash.”
“To ash?” He pressed his hand to his brow, the piles of ash he’d been carelessly running through taking on new meaning. His mind was a blank, and then there was Kahlan. He had to get to her. He caught sight of a cluster of D’Harans in the distance, and held out his hands for his daughter. She was still naked, and he pulled off his shirt. He folded the dried blood away from her before wrapping her up in the cleanest part, and nestling her against his chest.
Cara was staring at him, eyes wide and incredulous. “What is it?” he asked in a gruff voice. If she wanted to tease him about taking care of his child, it would have to wait. He didn’t have the patience.
But Cara just shook her head. “The mark…it’s gone.”
He looked down at his chest, finding nothing but smooth skin where the old scar had been. “I don’t…I don’t know how.” His daughter was nuzzling his chest, her mouth gaping open as she mewled softly. His heart twisted; the poor thing had to be starving. He gave her the tip of his little finger to suckle and started walking again. “I don’t remember anything, Cara. Talk while we walk.”
“Anything?” she repeated.
No, that wasn’t true. He remembered the nightmare he and Kahlan had shared in the Underworld. He remembered the birth of his daughter. Kahlan’s slip into unconsciousness and all the blood. He remembered the stone shining every bit as red as her blood.
“The banelings were coming. You went to meet them, and Zedd was trying to save Kahlan. I, I took the stone into the Underworld. There was an inscription…” He tried to remember what it had said, but he couldn’t. He remembered nothing beyond racing down into the dark depths of the rift. “I thought we were all going to die.”
Cara trotted along beside him. “Just before I reached the banelings, they were attacked from behind. General Nox had led his men this way as soon as they defeated the Sisters of the Dark. What was left of them, anyway. We were outnumbered.” She swallowed hard. “I thought we were going to lose.”
Richard nodded. He knew Cara, and he knew it must have been very grim indeed for her to make such an admission.
“We were surrounded when suddenly there was a flash of light, so bright you couldn’t see. When it faded, all the cracks in the rift had closed up, and the banelings had turned to ash. We thought it was something you’d done.”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t remember…”
“And then you were just lying there,” Cara went on. “No one knew how you got there, but you were breathing, and you had no injuries we could see. Nothing we did roused you, so I had the men start constructing a way to move the three of you, and I waited for you to wake up.”
He nodded, feeling dazed by all she had said. “You did everything right, Cara.” He sighed, “I just wish I could remember.” But his mind remained resolutely blank.
“Maybe the stone took your memories away? Whatever you did, you saved us all.” She spoke with such pride in her voice and admiration in her eyes that he felt his face heat.
When he reached the cluster of bloodied, ragged soldiers, they all fell into rank, pounding fists to their chests. But Richard pushed past them, interrupting their resounding chorus of “Master Rahl guide us…” with a desperate, “Where is she? Where’s Kahlan?”
The men parted for him, leaving a path through to where General Nox himself was keeping careful watch over Kahlan and Zedd. They were lying prone on stretchers that appeared to have been hastily fashioned out of rope and saddle blankets. They both lay very still. His grandfather seemed older, far older, than Richard remembered. Wrinkles ran like wheel ruts across his face, and his skin was waxen. But Kahlan was still as white as her dress, and when he bent down to press a kiss to her cheek, her skin was cold as ice. He had to study the rise and fall of her chest just to convince himself she was still alive. She was still with him. For now.
“I told you he’d wake up.” Richard turned around at the sound of Nox speaking in a low voice. To his surprise, he saw the general’s massive hand was resting on Cara’s shoulder. Even more astonishing than that, Cara made no move to shrug off the unwanted contact and deal him a blow to the face. She merely nodded. Then Nox noticed him looking, and the hand slipped away so quickly it was almost as if he’d imagined it.
“Thank you,” Richard began quietly. “You and your men, they saved us all.”
“Your men, Lord Rahl,” said Nox, bowing and moving towards him. His wild blond hair was flecked with blood. “And it is you who saved the day yet again. We all would have soon perished if you hadn’t ventured into the Underworld to do battle with the Keeper himself.”
Richard shook his head. “I don’t remember any such thing.”
“A bad memory on your part makes the deed no less great. Hundreds of banelings turned to ash in a single moment. There could not be a clearer sign of the Keeper’s defeat. You have restored the balance of our world, Lord Rahl.”
Richard acquiesced with a shrug. He didn’t have the energy to argue against what was no more than a gaping hole in his mind. “I need to get Kahlan and Zedd somewhere where they can recover,” he said quietly. “And my daughter needs to eat.”
“Leave it to me, Lord Rahl,” said Nox. “We’ll have you to Isham by the fastest roads.” He gave a swift bow. “I’ll ready the men for immediate departure.”
Richard could only nod. He stumbled forward, still clutching his now slumbering daughter to his chest. He sunk to the ground between Kahlan and Zedd’s makeshift beds, and laced Kahlan’s cold, limp fingers with his own. All he wanted in this world was for her eyes to open, and the longer he wished it, the more resolutely they seemed to stay closed. He held tight to his family, and let the task of planning pass to shoulders other than his. He could do no more this day.