Chainfire (Sword of Truth – 9)

It wasn't a bath, but at least he would be able to clean up before bed. He threw closed the bolt on the door, locking himself in, even though he felt perfectly safe in the small inn. Cara was in the room beside his. Nicci was in a room downstairs on the first floor close to the entrance and right beside the only stairs up to the second floor. Men stood guard both inside and outside the inn while yet more men patrolled the streets in the area around the building. Richard hadn't thought so many men were necessary, but Victor and the men were insistent about providing the protection since enemy troops were in the area. In the end, appreciating the opportunity for a safe and peaceful night's sleep, Richard hadn't objected.

He was so weary that he could hardly stand any longer. His hip sockets ached from the long day of walking over rough terrain. On top of the journey, the emotional talk with the people at Liberty Square had taken what energy he had left.

Richard sloughed off his pack, letting it clunk down on the floor at the foot of the small bed, before stepping to the washstand and splashing water on his face. He didn't know that water could feel so good.

Nicci, Cara, and Richard had had a quick meal of lamb stew down in the small dining room. Jamila, the woman who ran the place for Ishaq —another partner-had been instructed by Ishaq to treat them as royalty. The round-faced woman had offered to cook them anything they desired. Richard hadn't wanted to make a fuss, and besides, the leftover lamb stew had meant there would be no waiting and they could get to sleep all that much sooner. Jamila had seemed a little disappointed not to have the chance to cook them up something special. With the kind of meals they'd had over recent days, though, the bowl of lamb stew and fresh, crusty bread with loads of butter had been about the best food Richard could recall having. Had it not been for so many troubling things on his mind he would have savored it more.

He knew that Cara and Nicci needed the rest as much as he did so he'd insisted that each lake a room of their own. Both women had wanted to stay in the same room as Richard so that they could be close at hand and watch over him. He'd had visions of them both standing with their arms folded at the foot of his bed as he slept. He'd maintained that nothing was going to get to him on the second floor, and besides, there were plenty of men to stand guard. They had relented, but reluctantly and only after he reminded them that the two of them would be more help to him if they were well rested and alert. It was a luxury for all of them not to have to stand watch, for once, and be able to get the rest they needed.

Victor had promised to come see Richard and Cara off in the morning. Ishaq had promised to have the horses in the stable and waiting long before then. Both Victor and Ishaq were sorry that he was leaving, but they understood that he had his reasons. None of them had asked where he was going, probably because they felt ill-at-ease talking about the woman none of them believed existed. He had begun to sense the distance it created in people when he mentioned Kahlan.

From the tall window in his top floor room, Richard had a breathtaking view of Spirit off across the grounds below the rise where the inn stood. With the wick on the lamp in his room turned down low, he had no trouble seeing the statue in white marble lit by a ring of torches in tall iron stanchions. He idly recalled the many times he had been up on this same hillside looking down at Emperor Jagang's palace under construction. It hardly seemed like the same world. He felt as if he'd been dropped into some other life he didn't know and all the rules were different. Sometimes he wondered if he really was losing his mind.

Nicci, in a room on the bottom floor close to the front door, probably couldn't see the statue, but Cara had the room next to his so she undoubtedly had the same view. He wondered if she was taking advantage of it, and, if she was, what she thought of the statue she saw. Richard couldn't imagine how she could not clearly remember everything it meant to him-to Kahlan. He wondered if she, too, felt as if she were living someone else's life — or if she thought he was losing his mind.

Richard couldn't imagine what could possibly have happened to make everyone forget that Kahlan existed. He had held out some slim hope that the people in Altur'Rang would remember her, that it had only been those immediately nearby when she had disappeared who were affected. That hope was now dashed. Whatever the cause, the problem was widespread

Richard leaned against the cabinet with the washbasin and tilted his head back as he closed his eyes for a moment. His neck and shoulders were sore from days of carrying his heavy pack as they had trudged through dense and seemingly endless woods. Throughout the swift and difficult journey even conversation had, for the most part, required Ion much effort. It felt good not to have to walk for a while, even if when lie closed his eyes it seemed that all he could see was a parade of endless forests. With his eyes closed, it felt as if his legs were still moving.

Richard yawned as he lifted the baldric over his head and stood the Sword of Truth against a chair beside the washstand. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the bed. It occurred to him that this would be a good time to wash some of his clothes, but he was too worn-out. He just wanted to clean up and then fall into bed and sleep.

He stepped over to the window again as he went about washing with a soapy cloth. The night was dead quiet but for the ceaseless drone of the cicadas. He couldn't resist staring at the statue. There was so much of Kahlan in it that it made him heartsick. He had to force himself not to think about what horrors she might be facing, what pain she might be enduring. Anxiety constricted his breathing. In an effort to set his worry aside for a while, he did his best to recall Kahlan's smile, her green eyes, her arms around him, the soft moan she sometimes made as she kissed him.

He had to find her.

He dipped the cloth in the water and wrung it out, watching dirty water run back into the basin, and saw that his hands were trembling.

He had to find her.

In another attempt to force his mind onto other things, he rested his gaze on the washbasin, deliberately taking in the vines painted all around the edge. The vines were blue, not green, probably so as to match the blue flowers stenciled on the walls and the blue flowers on the simple curtains and the decorative cover on the bed. Ishaq had done an admirable job of building a warm and inviting inn.

The water in the basin, still as a woodland pool, suddenly trembled for no apparent reason.

Richard stood stock-still, staring at it.

The slack surface abruptly bunched into perfectly symmetrical harmonic waves, almost like the hair on a cat's back standing on end.

And then the whole building shuddered with a hard thump, as if struck with something huge. One of the panes of glass in the window cracked with a bridle pop. Almost instantly, from the far end of the building, came the [??n

Richard crouched, frozen, eyes wide, unable to tell what had caused the incomprehensible sound.

His first thought was that a big tree had fallen on the place, but then he remembered that there were no large trees anywhere nearby.

A heartbeat after the first jolt, came a second thump-louder this time. Closer. The building swayed under the crash of splintering wood. He glanced up, fearing that the ceiling might collapse.

Half a heartbeat later came another thump that shook the building. Shattering, splintering wood let out a high-pitched screech as if crying out in agony as it was being ripped apart.

THUMP. Crash. Louder, closer.

Richard touched the fingers of one hand to the floor to keep his balance as the building quaked under the jolt of the heavy impact. What had Marled at the far end of the building was rapidly coming closer.

THUMP, CRASH. Closer yet.

Splintering shrieks howled through the night air as wood was rent violently apart. The building swayed. Water sloshed in the basin, slopping over the rolled metal edge with the painted blue vines. The sounds of ripping walls and splintering boards melted together into one continuous roar.

Suddenly, the wall to his left, the wall between his and Cara's room, exploded toward him. Clouds of dust billowed up. The noise was deafening.

Something huge and black, nearly the size of the room itself, drove through the wall, splintering lath, sending plaster and debris showering through the air.

The force of the concussion blew the door off its hinges and violently blasted the glass and the mullions out of the window.

Long ragged fragments of boards spun through the room. One smashed the chair that held his sword, another piercing the far wall. His sword tumbled out of reach. One piece whacked Richard's leg hard enough to drop him to one knee.

Animate darkness drove debris before it, sending everything flying, enveloping the light and plunging the flying wreckage into a surreal, swirling gloom.

Icy fright shimmered through Richard's veins.

He saw a cold cloud of his breath as he grunted with the effort of scrambling to his feet.

Darkness, like death itself, plunged toward him. Richard gasped a breath. Frigid air stabbed like icy needles into his lungs. Shock at the pain of the cutting cold clenched his throat shut.

Richard knew that life and death balanced on a razor's edge only an instant wide.

With every ounce of his strength driving him, he dove through the window as if he were diving into a swimming hole. The side of his body brushed past the descending inky darkness. His flesh sizzled with a sharp sensation so cold that it burned.

In midair, plummeting through the window out into the night, fearing the long drop, Richard snatched for the window's frame and only just managed to seize it with his left hand. He held on for dear life. His falling weight whipped him around so hard that his body slammed into the side of the building with enough force to knock the wind from him. He hung by his one hand, dazed by the wallop against the outside wall, trying to gasp in a breath.

The humid night air on top of the blow against the wall, coming right after the frigid gasp in the room just before he'd jumped out the window, seemed to conspire to do its best to suffocate him. From the corner of his eye he saw the statue in the fluttering torchlight. With her head thrown back, fists at her sides, and her back arched, the figure stood proud against the invisible power trying to subdue her. The sight of it, the strength of it, made Richard at last draw in an urgent breath. He coughed and drew another, gasping for air as his feet searched for any purchase. They found none. He glanced down and saw that the ground was awfully far below him.

It felt as if he might have ripped his shoulder from its socket. Hanging by one hand, he dared not let go. He feared that such a fall would at the least break his legs.

Above, from the window, came a wail so shrill that it made every hair on his body stand on end and every nerve scream in sharp pain. It was a sound so black, so poisonous, so horrific that Richard thought that, surely, the veil to underworld had ripped apart and the Keeper of the Dead had been loosed among the living.

The savage wail in the room above him drew out into a twisting, seething shriek. It was a sound of pure hate brought to life.

Richard glanced up and almost let go. The fall, he thought, might be preferable to the thing in the room now suddenly streaming out through the window.

A dark, incorporeal stain poured out of the shattered window like the exhalation of utter evil.

Although it had no shape, no form, it was somehow crystal clear to Richard that this was something beyond mere wickedness. This was a scourge, like death itself, on the hunt.

As the inky shadow slipped through the window and out into the night, it suddenly began to disintegrate into a thousand fluttering shapes that darted off in every direction, the cold darkness decomposing, melting into the night, dissolving into the heart of the blackest shadows.

Richard hung by one arm, panting, unable to move, watching, waiting for the thing to coalesce suddenly before his face and rip him apart.

The hillside fell under the spell of a still hush. Death's shadow had seemingly become part of the night. The cicadas, until then silent, started in again. As they began their shrill songs, the rising sound moved in a wave across the vast expanse of grounds off toward the distant statue.

«Lord Rahl!» a man below shouted. «Hold on!»

The man, wearing a small-brimmed hat similar to Ishaq's, scrambled around the building, heading for the door. Richard didn't think that he could hang on by his one arm until someone came to help him. He groaned in pain but managed to twist himself around enough to lunge and with his other hand grasp the windowsill, his legs swinging to and fro over a frightening drop. He was relieved to find that just taking some of the weight off his one arm helped ease the pain.

He had just pulled his upper body in through the shattered window when he heard people spilling into his room. The lantern was gone, probably buried, so it was hard to see. Men scrambled over the rubble littering the floor, their boots crunching shattered bits of the wall, snapping fragments of broken wooden furniture. Powerful hands seized him under his arms while others grabbed his bell to help lilt him back inside. In the nearly pitch black room it was difficult to get his bearings.

«Did you see it?» Richard asked the men as he still struggled to get his breath. «Did you see the thing that came out of the window?»

Some of the men coughed on the dust while others spoke up that they hadn't seen anything.

«We heard the noise, the crashing, and the window breaking,» one of them said. «I thought the whole building was coming down.»

Someone appeared with a candle and lit a lantern. The orange glow illuminated a startling sight. A second man, and then a third, held a lantern out to be set alight. Amid the swirling dust, the room was a confusing jumble, what with the bed overturned, the washstand embedded halfway through the far wall, and a hill of rubble across the floor.

In the flickering light, Richard was able to better see the roughly round hole that had been blown through the wall. Broken lumber around the edges all jutted into his room, indicating the direction of intrusion. That was hardly a surprise. The size of the hole, though, was surprising: It spanned nearly the entire distance from floor to ceiling. Most of what had once been the wall now lay shattered all over the floor. Long splintered boards knitted together sections of lath and chunks of plaster. He couldn't imagine how something that had made such a large rupture could have then made it out a window.

Richard spotted his sword and worked it out from under broken boards. He propped it up against the windowsill where it would be handy if he needed it, although he wasn't sure what his sword could have done against whatever it was that had come through the wall only to dissolve into the night.

Men coughed from the thick dust still swirling through the air. Richard saw in the lanternlight that they were all covered with the white dust, making them look like a gathering of ghosts. He saw that he, too, was covered in the white plaster. The only difference was that he was also bleeding from dozens of small cuts. The blood looked all the more stark against the white powder. He briefly brushed some of the plaster dust from his hair, face, and arms.

Worried about others who might have been buried or hurt, Richard took one of the lanterns from a man standing nearby and then scrambled to the top of the rubble. He held up the light, peering into the darkness beyond the hole. The sight was astounding, although not unexpected because he had heard and felt, each one of those walls being violently breached.

Each wall, in a straight line all the way back through the building, had a hole smashed through it. All the holes were similar to the one in the wall lo his room. At the end, Richard could see stars through the round opening in the far, outside wall.

He stepped carefully over long, jagged fragments of wood. Some of the pile caved in under his weight and it was a struggle to get his foot back out. Other than sporadic coughing, the men were mostly silent as they looked around in awe at the damage wrought by something unknown, something powerful that had vanished into the night.

Through the swirling dust, Richard saw, then, Cara standing in the middle of her room looking off in the same direction as he, off toward the hole to the outside. Her back was to him, her feet spread in a defensive stance. Her Agiel was gripped tightly in her right fist.

Nicci, a flame dancing above her upturned palm, rushed into Richard's loom through the broken doorway.

«Richard! Are you all right?»

From atop the wreckage, Richard rubbed his left shoulder as he moved his arm. «I guess so.»

Nicci murmured angrily under her breath as she stepped carefully over debris.

«Any idea what's going on?» one of the men asked.

«I'm not sure,» Richard said. «Was anyone hurt?»

The men all peered around at each other. A few offered that they didn't think so, that everyone they knew was accounted for and safe. Another man said that the other rooms on the top floor had been unoccupied.

«Cara?» Richard called as he leaned into the dark hole. «Cara, are you all right?»

Cara didn't answer, nor did she move. She stood fixed in the same stance.

His anxiety growing, Richard scrambled the rest of the way over the angled boards and crumbled plaster. Using one hand against the ceiling to help him balance atop the unstable debris, he stepped through the hole into Cara's room. The destruction was much the same as it had been in his room. Two walls, rather than just one, were holed, but the impact had thrown the material from the second wall into Richard's room. The glass in her window, too, was blown out, but the door still hung, if crookedly, in place.

Cara stood directly in the centerline between the two holes, but she was backed closer to the void in the wall into Richard's room. Wreckage lay all around her. Her leather outfit appeared to have kept her from being shredded by the flying debris.

«Cara?» Richard called again as he made his way down the shifting pile of rubble.

Cara stood unmoving in the dark room, still staring off into the distance. Nicci scrambled over the broken boards and plaster and through the hole in the wall. She seized Richard's arm briefly for support as she caught up with him.

«Cara?» Nicci said as she brought her hand holding the flame around in front of Cara's face.

Richard held up the lantern. Cara's eyes were opened wide, staring, yet unseeing. Tears had left damp trails through the dust on her face. She still hadn't moved from her defensive stance, but now that he was close, Richard could see that her entire body trembled.

He gripped her arm but, startled, drew back.

She was as cold as ice.

«Cara? Can you hear us?» Nicci touched Cara's shoulder and with the same surprise as Richard drew back.

Cara didn't react. It was as if she really were frozen in place. Nicci held the flame up close to the Mord-Sith's face. Her skin looked almost pale blue, but with the way she was covered in a layer of white dust, he wasn't sure if that was really true or not.

Richard slipped an arm around Cara's waist. It was like putting his arm around a block of ice. His instinct was to draw back, but he refused to allow himself to do so. He realized by how his shoulder hurt that he wasn't going to easily be able to lift her by himself.

He looked back at the faces framed in the ragged round hole in the wall, «Could some of you help me with her?»

Men scrambled over the wreckage, spilling into Cara's room, causing yet more dust to billow up. With others bringing light close, Nicci let the small flame extinguish as she stepped close to the Mord-Sith. The men gathered into a knot as they silently watched the sorceress.

Frowning in concentration, she pressed the flats of her hands lo Cara's temples.

With a cry Nicci staggered back. Richard reached out with his free hand and caught her elbow to prevent her from tumbling backwards over the tangled rubble.

«Dear spirits,» Nicci whispered, panting to catch her breath as if from unexpected pain.

«What?» Richard asked. «What is it?»

The sorceress placed her hands over her heart, still gulping air as she recovered from the unexpected. «She's barely alive.»

With his chin, Richard pointed to the door. «Let's get her out of here.»

Nicci nodded. «Downstairs-my room.»

Richard, without thinking, swept Cara up in his arms. Fortunately, the men were right there to help when they saw him wince in pain.

«Dear Creator,» one of the men exclaimed as he lifted her leg, «she's as cold as the Keeper's heart.»

«Come on,» Richard said, «help me get her downstairs.»

Once they lifted her, Cara's limbs were easily moved, although they wouldn't go limp. The men helping Richard carry Cara shuffled through the rubble. One of the men kicked the broken door out of the way. They earned her down the narrow stairs feet first. Richard held her shoulders.

At the bottom of the stairs, Nicci directed them into her room and to the bed. They gently laid Cara down as Nicci first yanked the covers out from under the stricken woman. Once Cara was settled into the bed, Nicci immediately covered her with the blankets.

Cara's blue eyes were still opened wide, staring, it seemed, into some distant nothingness. Occasionally, a tear set out from the corner of her eye on a slow journey across her cheek. Her chin, her shoulders, her arms trembled.

Richard pried Cara's fingers open, making her release the Agiel she still had in a death grip. Her eyes showed no reaction. He endured the excruciating pain of touching her Agiel until he got it out of her grip and was able to release it to hang by the chain around her wrist.

«Why don't you all wait outside?» Nicci said in a quiet voice. «Give me some lime to see what I can do?»

The men made their way out, saying that they were going back on patrol, or to stand guard, in case they were needed.

«If that thing comes back,» Richard told them, «don't try to stop it. Come get me.»

One of the men cocked his head in puzzlement. «What thing, Lord Rahl? What is it we're supposed to be looking for?» —

«I'm not sure. All I was able to see was a huge shadow as it came through the wall and then went out the window.»

The man looked upward. «If it broke that hole through the wall to get through, then how did it get out a small window?»

«I don't know,» Richard admitted. «I guess I didn't really get a good look at it.»

The man glanced up again, as if he could see the wreckage above, «We'll keep our eyes wide open. You can be sure of that.»

It was then that Richard remembered that he'd left his sword up in his room. It made him uneasy to be without it. He wanted to go get it, but he didn't want to leave Cara's side.

After the last man had left, Nicci sat on the side of the bed as she held a hand over Cara's forehead. Richard knelt close.

«What do you think is wrong?» he asked.

Nicci let the hand settle on Cara's forehead. «I have no idea.»

«But you can do something to make her better?»

Nicci's answer was a long moment in coming. «I'm not sure. Whatever I can do, though, I will.»

Richard took hold of Cara's still trembling, frigid hand. «Do you think we should shut her eyes? She hasn't even blinked.»

Nicci nodded. «Probably not a bad idea. I think it's the dust making her tears run.»

One at a time, Nicci carefully shut Cara's eyes. It somehow made Richard feel better that Cara wasn't staring at nothing.

Nicci returned her hand to Cara's forehead as she placed her other hand high on her chest. While Nicci held a wrist, an ankle, and slipped a hand under the back of Cara's neck, Richard went to the washbasin and returned with a wet cloth. He carefully washed Cara's face and brushed some of the dust and bits of plaster out of her hair. Through the wet cloth, he could feel the icy cold of her flesh.

With as warm and humid as it was, Richard couldn't understand how she could be this cold. He remembered, then, how when the black thing had come crashing into his room the air had suddenly gone icy cold, he remembered the painfully cold touch as he brushed past it as he leaped out the window.

«Don't you have any idea what's wrong with her?» Richard asked.

Nicci absently shook her head as she concentrated on pressing the palms of both hands against Cara's temples.

«Any idea what that thing was that came through the walls?»

Nicci turned to look up at him. «What?»

«I asked if you had any idea what could have done this? What crashed through the walls?»

Nicci looked exasperated by the question. «Richard, go wait outside. Please.»

«But I want to be in here, with her.»

Nicci gently took his wrist and lifted his hand off of Cara's. «You are interfering. Please, Richard, let me do this alone? It's easier without you watching over my shoulder.»

Richard felt awkward being in the way. «If it will help Cara.»

«It will,» she said as she turned back to the woman in her bed.

He stood and watched briefly. Nicci was already absorbed in slipping a hand under Cara's back.

«Go,» the sorceress murmured.

«The thing that came through our rooms was cold.»

Nicci looked back over her shoulder. «Cold?»

Richard nodded. «It was so cold that I could see my breath. If felt painfully cold to be near it.»

Nicci considered his words briefly before turning back to Cara. «Thank you for the information. When I can, I will come out and let you know how she is doing. I promise.»

Richard felt helpless. He stood in the doorway for a moment watching the almost imperceptible movement of Cara's shallow breathing. The lamplight lit Nicci's fall of blond hair as she leaned over the Mord-Sith, working to find out what was wrong.

Richard had the awful feeling that he knew what was wrong with Cara. He feared that she had been touched by death itself.

CHAPTER 17

After pulling his pack from the rubble, Richard briefly cleaned him self up and put on a shirt. He also put on his sword.

He didn't know what had crashed into the building, but it seemed pretty likely that it had been coming for him. He had no idea if his sword would help him fight such a thing, but it did make him feel a little better having it at hand.

Outside the night air was still and warm. One of the men saw him emerge from the door and stepped closer.

«How is Mistress Cara?»

«We don't know, yet. She's alive-that's encouraging, at least.»

The man nodded.

Richard recognized the man's hat. «You were the one who saw me hanging from the window?»

«That's right.»

«Did you get a look at the thing that attacked us?»

«I'm afraid not. I heard all the commotion, looked up, and there you were hanging by one arm. I thought you might fall. That's all I saw.»

«No dark thing coming out of the window?»

The man clasped his hands behind his back as he thought about it a moment. «No — except maybe I might have just caught the shadow of something. At the most, that's all I might have seen, a glimpse of a shadow. I was more concerned with getting up there before you fell.»

After thanking the man, Richard walked for a time without really thinking about where he was going. He felt as if he were in a daze, his thoughts as heavy and dark as the muggy night. Everything he knew and cared about seemed to be disintegrating. He felt helpless.

The murky humidity obscured the stars and the moon hadn't come up yet, but the lights burning in the city all around reflecting off the haze provided enough light for him to make his way to the edge of the hill. He fell useless, not being able to help Cara. She had so many times been there to help him. This time she had faced something that was more than she could handle.

At the brink of the drop, Richard stood for a time gazing off at the statue of Spirit in the distance. Victor had made the ring of iron stanchions that held the torches. Kahlan, fascinated by the process, had stood for must of a day in the blacksmith's sweltering shop watching him shape the white hot iron. Victor had not frowned once that day, but had smiled at her genuine interest as he showed her how he worked the metal to achieve what he wanted.

Richard also remembered Kahlan's awe at seeing that carving of hers being reproduced in towering white marble. He remembered when that small statue in buttery smooth, rich, aromatic walnut was finally returned to her and she had clutched it to her breast. He had watched the way her lingers had glided lovingly over the flowing robes. Richard remembered, too, the way her green eyes had then looked up into his eyes.

Having no one believe him about Kahlan made him feel completely alone and isolated. He'd never been in a situation like this before, where people-people who sincerely cared about him-thought that he was only imagining the things he told them. It was a frightening, helpless feeling to have people think he was out of touch with reality.

But even that was not nearly as frightening as his worry about what might have become of Kahlan.

He didn't know what to do to find her. All he knew for sure was that he had to get help. He didn't know if that help would be forthcoming, but he fully intended to do whatever was necessary to make sure he got it.