CHAPTER 18

The feeble glow of two lanterns failed to do much to brighten the murky room. The smaller one sat on a table in the corner, as if cowering in The presence of death itself. The other stood on a bedside table beside a glass of water and a damp cloth, struggling to hold the gathered shadows ill bay. A brocade bedcover with luxuriant gold fringe was draped over Cara, her arms limp atop it, one of its corners hanging down over the side of the bed to puddle on the floor.

Cara didn't look like Cara. She looked cadaverous. Even in the golden light of the lamp, her face looked ashen. Richard didn't see her breathing.

He could hardly draw a breath himself. He could feel his knees trembling. The lump in his throat seemed as if it might choke him. He wanted to fall on her and beg her to wake.

Nicci leaned close, gently touching Cara's face. Her fingers slid down to the side of her neck. Richard noticed that Cara's terrible shuddering had finally ceased. He didn't think that was the good news it might appear to be.

«Is she — is she.»

Nicci looked back over her shoulder. «She's still breathing, but I'm afraid it's coming slower.»

Richard worked his tongue, wetting the roof of his mouth so that he could form words. «You know, Cara has a man she cares about.»

«She does? Really?»

Richard nodded. «Most people don't think that Mord-Sith can ever really care about anyone, but they can. Cara cares about a soldier. General Meiffert. Benjamin cares for her, too.»

«You know him?»

«Yes. He's a good man.» Richard stared at the blond braid lying over Cara's shoulder and out over the brocade bedcover. «I haven't seen him in ages. He's with the D'Haran army.»

Nicci looked skeptical. «Ami Cara admitted to you that she cares about this man?»

Richard shook his head as he stared at Cara's familiar face. Her beautiful face was now sunken and pale and only looked like a ghost of her former self.

«No. Kahlan told me. The two of them became pretty close over the course of the year they were with the D'Haran army while you had me down here in Altur'Rang.»

Nicci looked away and fussed with the covers over Cara. As Richard stepped closer, Nicci moved over to a chair beside the table to be out of his way. He felt as if he were outside of his own body, watching from somewhere above, watching himself go to one knee, watching himself take up Cara's cold hand, watching himself hold it to his cheek.

«Dear spirits, don't do this to her,» he whispered. «Please,» he added with a choking sob, «don't take her.»

He looked over at Nicci. «She wanted to die as a Mord-Sith, fighting for our cause, not in bed.»

Nicci offered the smallest of smiles. «She had her wish.»

The words, making it sound as if Cara was already dead, hit him like a blow. He couldn't allow this to happen. He just couldn't. Kahlan was gone, and now this. He just couldn't let it happen.

He cupped a hand to Cara's icy face. It felt like touching the dead. Richard swallowed back the tears.

«Nicci, you're a sorceress. You saved me when I was near death. No one else but you would have ever been able to come up with a solution. No one but you could have saved me. Isn't there anything at all that you can think of to do for Cara?»

Nicci slipped forward off the chair to kneel beside him. She took up his hand and held it to her lips. He felt a tear fall onto the back of the hand she so tenderly held, as if she were a humble subject beseeching her king's forgiveness.

«I'm so sorry, Richard, but there isn't. I hope you know that I would do anything it took if I could save her, but I can't. This is beyond my ability. A time comes when we all have to die. Her time has come and I can't change it.»

Richard blinked at the watery sight of the death scene, the room barely lit by the weak light of two small flames. The bed holding Cara seemed lo float by itself in that light, with darkness waiting all around her.

He nodded. «Nicci, please, could you leave me alone with her? I want to be alone with her when the times comes that — It's nothing against you. It's just that I think I should be alone with her.»

«I understand, Richard.» Nicci's fingers touched his back as she stood and then, as if reluctant to break that contact with the living, trailed along his shoulder as she moved past. «I'll be close by if you need me,» she said as her living touch ended.

The door softly shut behind her, leaving the room in silence. Even though the heavy drapes were closed over the window, Richard could hear the ceaseless chorus of the cicadas outside.

He could no longer hold back the tears. He laid his head on Cara's middle as he sobbed, clutching her limp hand.

«Cara, I'm so sorry. It's my fault. It was after me, not you. I'm so sorry. Please, Cara, don't leave me. I need you so much.»

Cara was the only one who followed him because she believed in him. She might have agreed with Nicci that he was dreaming up Kahlan, but she still believed in him. With Cara, that wasn't a contradiction. More and more lately, it seemed that her faith in him was all that was holding him together and keeping him focused on what he had to do. There were frightening moments when he no longer knew if he believed in himself. It was so hard to face an entire world that thought he was delusional. It was so hard to do what he believed in when almost no one believed in him. But Cara believed in him even if she didn't believe in Kahlan's existence. There was something unique about that sentiment, something unlike even Nicci or Victor's respect for him.

He held Cara's face in both hands as he kissed her forehead.

He hoped she wasn't suffering. He hoped it was a peaceful end to a life I hat had been anything but peaceful.

She was so pale, her breathing so shallow.

Her flesh felt as cold as death.

Hating that she was so cold, Richard pulled the bedcover aside as he leaned over and slipped his arms around her, hoping that his warmth would help her.

«Take my warmth,» he whispered in her ear. «Take all you need. Please, Cara, take warmth from me.»

Lying there holding her, Richard descended into a fog of agony. He knew how much this woman had suffered. He knew what her life had been like, he knew how much she had been hurt, he had endured some of the things she had endured under the mad rule of his father, Darken Rahl. He had suffered some of the same pain and hopelessness. Perhaps more than anyone else, he could truly empathize with her. He knew how strangers had taken her into a world of pain and madness. Richard knew because he had been there, too. He had so wanted to bring her back from that dark and terrible place.

«Take my warmth, Cara. I'm here for you.»

He opened himself to her, opened his need to her, opened himself to her need.

He clutched her tightly in his arms as he wept against her shoulder. He almost felt that if he were to hold her tight enough, she couldn't slip away into death.

Richard could feel as he held her in his arms that she was still alive and I he couldn't bear for that to end. He wished so much that Nicci could have' done something. If anyone deserved to be healed, it was Cara. At that moment, more than anything, he wanted her to be healed.

Richard opened himself, his very soul, to that purpose.

He released himself into his empathy for this woman who had given him so much. More than once she had risked her life to follow his orders. She had often risked her life for him in open defiance of his orders. She had followed him across the world. Countless times she had placed herself between danger and his and Kahlan's lives. Cara deserved life, deserved all the goodness in life. He wanted nothing but to make her whole again. He gave all of himself over to that desire. He held back nothing in his focused need to have Cara stay among the living.

To that end, to that desperate desire, he consciously sought the life within her as he descended into the swirling current of her agony. As fast as that thought, he found his mind with hers, with her agonizing pain. He held her tight in his arms as he wept with her desolate suffering.

He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and pulled her pain into himself. He wanted nothing more than to draw that pain away from her. He spared nothing to protect himself from the onslaught that suddenly inundated him. He felt everything she felt. He suffered everything she suffered. He pressed his open mouth against her shoulder, muffling his scream as the pain lanced through him.

They were in an empty, dark, and hopeless place — a lifeless place.

He shook with her suffering as he lifted some of her burden. She held tight to the pain, loath to release it, especially to him. But as weak as she was, he was able lo draw it anyway, and then he drew yet more.

Lifting and uncovering the layers of suffering, he felt the icy touch of death within her.

The raw fear at such an encounter was as arresting as anything he had ever confronted. Cara was saturated in that dark and icy sensation. He shook with the suffering he shared with her, with the dread they together fell. His mind twisted with the wrenching pain until it was a terrible and seemingly insurmountable struggle just to maintain his own will to go on.

Richard was swept into a coursing, cold current of hopeless misery that consumed him. It seemed more than he could bear, and yet he endured it and took on more. He wanted her to take on his strength, his living warmth. But to do that, he would first have to survive pulling that dark poison into himself while at the same time giving over to her his strength.

Time lost all meaning. The pain itself was the embodiment of forever.

«Death will come often, offering to take you — wanting to take you,» he whispered against her ear. «Don't accept the offer, Cara. Stay. Don't accept death.»

I want to die.

That single thought came spiraling up through the agonizing desolation. It shocked and terrified him. What if trying to hold on to life was more than she could endure? What if it was more than he could endure? What if he was asking more of her than she could abide? — more than he had had a right to ask?

«Cara,» he whispered into her ear, «I need you to live. Please, I need you to live.»

I can't.

«Cara, you are not alone. I'm here with you. Hold on. For me, hold on and let me help you.»

Please, let me go. Let me die. I'm begging you, if you care for me, then leave me — let me die.

She began to slip away. He clutched her tighter. He pulled more of her suffering into himself. Her inner self wailed in agony as she fought him.

«Cara, please»-he gasped against the torrent of pain flooding through him «let me help you. Please don't leave me.»

I don't want lo live. I have failed you. I should have saved you when Nicci came lo capture you. I know that now —you made me see it. I would die for you, but I failed in my duty, in my promises to myself. There is no reason for me to live. I am not worthy to be your protector. Please, let me go.

Richard was stunned to grasp the despair in her longing, but more than that, he was horrified by it.

He gathered that pain, too, and lifted it from her. He took it even as she tried to hold on to it, to slip away from him.

«Cara, I love you. Please don't leave me. I need you.»

He fought to draw more of her agony into himself. He overpowered her resistance and took more yet. She was unable to stop him. He lifted the ashen robes of death dragging her down. Richard held her tight in his arms as he opened his heart, his need, his soul.

She wailed in heartbreak. He understood the crushing loneliness.

«I'm with you, Cara. You aren't alone.»

Richard soothed her even as he struggled to endure the stunning agony of the evil that had touched her. It was not simply the pain of it, but the bleak horror of it that was killing her, and now that same cold desolation was slowly crushing him-and at the same time her blinding suffering blocked his healing power from flowing into her.

He suddenly felt as if he had swum out to save a drowning person and now they were both caught up in the same savage torrent and they were both drowning together in the black waters of death.

If he was to have a chance-if she was-he first had to lift enough of her suffering. He had to hold the weight of it for her. He pulled the pain onward, heedless of it, welcoming it, drawing it with all his might.

When he felt that full weight of misery and anguish gathered into the core of himself, he had to struggle mightily to hold on to his own life at the same time as he let flow his power, his healing strength, his healing heart. Richard had never been taught how to heal, how to direct his power, he could only let the warmth of it flow into her.

I don't want to live. I have failed you. Please, let me die.

«Why do you want to leave me? Why?

Because only in that way can I serve you, because then you can have another who will not fail you.

«Cara, that isn't true. Something is wrong. Something neither of us understands.» Through the pain, Richard fought to get the words out. «Yon didn't fail me. You have to believe me. You must believe in me. That is what I need more then anything-for you to be with me and believe in me. It is you I need, not your service. Please, I need you. I need you to live. That is the service-your life makes mine better.»

He fought with all his might to hold on-to hold Cara with him-but the weight of the darkness within seemed bottomless. As the barriers of his restraint collapsed, he felt as if he were plunging into a molten void, spiraling ever downward into that dark shadow that had come through the wall for him. He saw flashes of it as she had seen it, saw the heart-Mopping terror of it crashing in on her.

That was the core of her dread, that vile thing, that death incarnate, coming for him, right through her. This was not the gentle dissolution of consciousness into the void of nonexistence. This was every nightmare come to life, come to rip the life out of the living. This was dark death descending upon her, all alone and defenseless, that merciless reaper of souls come to rip hers out while she screamed her life away.

As she'd stood before it, blocking its way, she had taken its deadly touch.

He understood, then, that Cara felt she had failed him before, with Nicci, and this time she had been determined to die to prove her oath. Madness still dwelt within her.

She believed that death falling in upon her would be her redemption in his eyes and so she refused to shrink before it.

She wanted to die for him to prove herself to him.

As it had come through the wall and through her room, Cara had tried to steal the power from death itself.

Richard felt that torturous touch envelope him in its all-consuming agony. It was a touch so cold it began to freeze his heart.

The world began slipping away from him, as it had begun to slip away from her.

He was lost in the crushing pain of that deadly touch.

CHAPTER 19

It felt to Richard as if he were trapped beneath the ice in the swill, raven waters of a frozen river. The shadow of panic swirled ever closer around him.

He was exhausted and didn't have any reserve of strength left.

As the specter of failure loomed, and the full realization of what such a failure would mean came to him, he rallied his will and exerted greater effort to fight his way toward the remote light of consciousness. Even though he was aware that he had managed to come partially awake, he was still in some distant, deep place and having difficulty completing the journey. He struggled to rise up, struggled for the life above, but couldn't break through.

Even as Richard tried to press himself harder, it seemed too difficult, too far. For the first time, he considered the peace of surrender — truly considered it, as had she before it had dragged her under.

The deadly fangs of failure hovered closer.

Driven by the fright of the full realization of everything that such a defeat would mean, he drew together his strength, focused his will, and with desperate passion reached toward the world of life.

With a gasp, his eyes opened.

The pain had been crushing. He felt dizzy and sick from the encounter with such malevolence. He still trembled with the power of it. After such raw inner violence, he feared that every hammer beat of his heart might be the last. The slick touch of depravity had bequeathed him a repugnant memory of the gagging stench of rotting corpses, making it nearly impossible to draw the full breath he needed.

He had reached into Cara's soul and he had felt an alien evil lurking there, within her, sucking the life from her, pulling her into the dark eternity of death. It had been a debilitating dread beyond anything he had ever felt before, beyond the mere fear of the black abyss of eternity.

It had been the grinning, linked vow of unimaginable terrors that were coming for him.

At first it had seemed that he had touched the icy face of death itself, but he now knew that he hadn't. Despite his revulsion, he knew that it was something other than simply death.

Death was merely a part of its poisonous architecture.

Death was inanimate. This was not.

He hurt so much that he was unsure at that moment if he would have the strength to ever stand again, the strength required to live. His bones ached. The marrow of his bones ached. He couldn't seem to stop trembling. Yet the pain was more than mere physical agony; it was an abhorrent misery that had seeped through his soul and touched every aspect of his existence.

The quiet room at last began to float into focus around him. The lamps still held back the veil of darkness. Beyond the heavy drapes the cicadas still sang their song of life.

Lying on the bed, still embracing Cara protectively in his arms, Richard was at last able to draw the full breath he so desperately needed. As he did, he relished the fragrance of her hair, savored the scent of the warm, moist skin along the curve of her neck, and in so doing the agony began to recede.

He felt Cara's arms tightly embracing him. Downy soft hair behind her ear caressed the side of his face.

«Cara?» he whispered.

She reached up and ran a hand tenderly down the back of his head as she unashamedly held him against her. «Shh,» she soothed in his ear. «It's all right.»

He was having trouble making sense of things.

He was somewhat disoriented to find himself holding Cara in his arms, to find her holding him so tenderly in hers, to realize they were locked in such an intimate embrace. He could feel the entire length of her pressed against him. But then, nothing could be more intimate than what they had shared in that dark place as they together faced the evil that had taken her.

He ran his tongue across his cracked lips and tasted salty tears.

«Cara.»

She nodded against the side of his face. «Shh,» she soothed again. «It's all right. I'm with you. I won't leave you.»

He drew away just enough to look into her eyes. They were blue and clear, revealing a depth he had never seen before. She studied his face with a kind of caring, knowing sympathy.

At that moment, he clearly saw in her eyes that this was Cara and no more. In that moment, he saw that the appellation of Mord-Sith had been stripped away down to her soul. In that moment, it was Cara, the woman, the individual, and nothing else.

It was as revealing and profound a view of her as he had ever had. It was startlingly beautiful.

«You are a very rare person, Richard Rahl.»

The soft breath of her words against his face soothed some of the lingering pain as seductively as did her arms, as did her eyes, as did her words, as did the living, breathing warmth of her.

Even so, the agony he had lifted from her still coursed through him, seeking to pull him back toward darkness and death. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he fought it with his love of life, and with his joy that Cara was alive.

«I am a wizard,» he whispered back.

She stared up into his eyes as she slowly shook her head in wonder.

«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. I swear, there never has.»

With her arms around his neck, she pulled his head closer and kissed him on the cheek. «Thank you, Lord Rahl, for bringing me back. Thank you for saving me. You made me see again that I want to live. It is I who is supposed to be protecting your life, and you are the one to risk yours to save me.»

She again searched his eyes with leisurely satisfaction. It was completely unlike the way a Mord-Sith had of gazing through a person, of seeing all the way into their soul. This was an emotion of regard born of her appreciation for his value to her. In the purest sense, it was love. She showed absolutely no reticence in him seeing her feelings laid bare.

He supposed that, after what they had just shared, any such modesty would be pointless. He knew, though, that this was more, that this was Cara; sincere, unafraid, and unashamed.

«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you.»

«Cara, you don't know how glad I am to have you back with me.»

She held his head in both her hands and kissed his forehead. «Oh, but I do know. I know what you suffered for me this night. I know very well how much you wanted me back. I know very well what you did for me.» She slipped her arms around his neck again and hugged him tight. «I have never been afraid like that, not even when I was first.»

He touched his fingers to her lips to silence what she had been about to say for fear that it would break the spell, that it would too soon bring the armor of Mord-Sith back into her beautiful blue eyes. He knew what she had been about to say. He knew that madness.

«Thank you, Lord Rahl,» she whispered in wonder when he took his lingers away. «Thank you for everything, and for not letting me say what I had been about to say.» With a twitch of her brow, pain ghosted across her face. «That is why there has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. They all created Mord-Sith. They all brought the pain. You ended it.»

Richard couldn't force any words past the lump in his throat, so he simply brushed her blond hair from her forehead and smiled at her. He was so happy to have her back that he couldn't put it into words.

He gazed around the room, then, trying to judge how late it was.

«I don't know how long it took you to heal me,» she said as she watched him surveying the curtains for any sign of the approach of dawn. «But after you did, you were so exhausted that you seemed to collapse into sleep. I couldn't wake you — I didn't want to wake you.» Her arms still loosely around his neck, she gazed up at him with a blissful smile, looking as if she never wanted to move. «I was so weak that I fell asleep as well.»