Chainfire (Sword of Truth – 9)

«The blood beast has no preferred method of killing or hunting, so from the standpoint of defending yourself from it, it's profoundly difficult to protect against. One day it may attack and easily kill a thousand soldiers who are protecting you. The next time it may timidly withdraw after mauling a single child who toddles in front of you. What it does one time can tell you nothing about what it will do the next time. That, too, is part of the terror engendered by such a beast-the terror of not knowing how the attack will come.

«Its strength, its lethality, is that it isn't anything in particular. It isn't strong, or weak, or fast, or slow. It's constantly changing yet it sometimes stays the same or reverts to a previous state, even an unsuccessful one.

«The only thing that mattered after it was created was the first time you used your gift. That's when it locked on to you. After that, you can never know what it will do next or when it will do it. You know only that it's coming for you and no matter how many times you escape its clutches, it will continue to come-maybe several times in the same day, maybe not again for a month, or a year, but you can be sure it will eventually come after you again. It will never quit.»

Richard wondered how much of what Shota was telling him she knew to be fact and how much she was filling in with what she thought, or maybe even imagined.

«But you're a witch woman,» Cara said. «Surely, you can tell him something that will help counter it.»

«Part of my ability is the capacity to see how events flow in the river of time, to see where they're going, you might say. Since the blood beast cannot be predicted, it, by that practical definition of its character, exists outside my ability to predict. My ability is linked in a way to prophecy.

Richard is a man who in a way also exists outside prophecy, a man others often find frustratingly unpredictable-as the Mord-Sith have no doubt discovered. With this beast I can offer him no advice about what might happen or what he must avoid.»

«So then, books of prophecy would be of no use?» Richard asked.

«Just as I am blind to it, so is all prophecy. Prophecy cannot see a blood beast any more than it can see any chaotic, chance event. Prophecy may be able to say that a person will be shot with an arrow in the morning of a day that it will rain, but prophecy cannot name every day it will rain, or which of those days that it does rain the arrow will precede it. You might say that the most prophecy can predict is that sooner or later it will rain and you will get wet.»

With his left hand resting on his sword, Richard nodded reluctantly. «I have to admit, that's close to my own views on prophecy-that it might be able to tell you that the sun will rise tomorrow but not what you will choose to do with your day.»

He frowned at her. «So, you can tell me nothing about what this blood beast will do, because your ability is with the flow of time.» When she nodded, he asked, «So then how do you seem to know so much about it?»

«The flow of events through the river of time is not my only ability,» she said, rather cryptically.

Richard sighed, not wanting to argue with her. «So that's all you can tell me, then.»

Shota nodded. «That's all I am able to tell you about the blood beast and what such a thing holds for you. If it continues to exist, sooner or later it will likely get you. But, because it's not predictable, even that outcome is not able to be predicted. When, where, or how soon it will get you is impossible to know. It may be today, or, for all I know, it may be that before it is able to find you and kill you, you will first die of old age.»

«Well, there is that possibility, then,» Richard muttered.

«Not much to lay your hopes on,» she said in a sympathetic tone. «As long as you live, Richard, as long as blood pumps in your veins, the blood beast will hunt you.»

«Are you suggesting that it finds me by my blood? The way a heart hound is said to be able to find a person by the sound of their beating heart?»

Shota lifted a hand as if to forestall the notion. «Only in a manner of speaking. It has tasted your blood, in a sense. But your blood, as you are thinking of it, is not what it is meaningful to this beast. What is material is what it sensed from that taste: your ancestry.

«It already knew that you live. It was already hunting you. Your use of your gift the first time was enough to bind it to you for all eternity. It is the gift carried in your blood that it sensed and that caused it to change.»

Richard had so many questions he didn't know what to ask first. He started with what he thought might be the easiest to understand. «Why is it linked to the underworld? Is there a purpose for that?»

«A couple that I'm aware of. The underworld is eternal. Time has no meaning in eternity. Therefore, time means nothing to the beast. It will feel no urgency to kill you. Urgency would make it act with a kind of conscious intent that would give it a nature. It feels no pressure with every setting sun to finish the job. One day is the same as the next. The days are never-ending.

«Because it has no sense of time, it needs no nature. Time helps give dimension to every living thing. It allows you to put off chores that you know can be done later. It makes you rush to set up camp before it gets dark. It makes a general act to get his defenses in place before the enemy arrives. It makes a woman want to have children while she still has time. Time is one element that helps shape the nature of everything. Even a moth that emerges from its cocoon to live a life with wings for only a single day must mate in that day and lay eggs or there will be no more of its kind.

«The beast is untouched by time. A constituent element of its makeup is the eternity of the underworld, which is antithetical to the very notion of Creation, since the underworld is the undoing of Creation. That mix, that internal conflict, is part of the driving mechanism which churns its actions and makes it chaotic. When Nicci used Subtractive Magic to eliminate your spent blood, the beast, from its roots in the underworld, got its taste of you, or, more accurately, a measure of your magic.

«Your blood carries both Additive and Subtractive Magic. The beast was created to be able to know you by your essence, magic, thereby allowing it to transcend typical worldly limits. The beast needed you to use magic the first time so that it could link to you. Through that link, it could hunt you. But when it received that taste of your blood, it became able to know you in a whole different way.

«The unique element of magic carried in your blood, inherited from Zedd's side and from Darken Rahl's side, is what the beast tasted. That taste is what mutated it from the beast that Jagang's minions created.

«It's not your blood itself that it senses, but rather it detects those elements of magic inherent in it. That's why any use of magic will draw the beast-that's how it became more dangerous. It now recognizes any use of your magic anywhere in the world. Each person's magic is unique. The beast now knows yours. That's why you must not use your gift.

«For this very reason, the Sisters who brought the beast into existence for Jagang would have loved to have been able to use your blood in the beginning, but they had no way of getting any. They could link the beast to your gift, but without your blood, it was a weak link that didn't really know the full measure of your magic.

«Nicci gave the beast what it really needed, right after it had been awakened by your first use of the gift. She may have done it to save your life, and she may have had no choice, but she did it. Now, any use of magic can much more easily bring the blood beast to you. It would seem that Nicci has, in a way, fulfilled her oath as a Sister of the Dark.»

The hair at the back of Richard's neck had lifted. He wanted to think of a way to prove Shota wrong, to find a chink in the armor of the monster she had given shape to in his mind.

«But the beast has attacked when I wasn't using magic. Just this morning it attacked at our camp. I wasn't using magic.»

Shota gave him one of those looks that had the power to make him feel hopelessly ignorant. «You were using magic this morning.»

«I wasn't,» he insisted. «I was asleep at the time. How could I be using.»

Richard's words trailed off. His gaze wandered to the distant hills of the valley and the mountains beyond. He remembered waking up and having that terrible memory of the morning Kahlan had disappeared and then realizing that he was holding the hilt of his sword, its blade drawn halfway from its scabbard. He remembered feeling the sword's stealthy magic coursing through him.

«But that was the sword's magic,» he said. «I was holding the sword. It wasn't my magic.»

«It was your magic,» Shota insisted. «Using the Sword of Truth calls its power, which joins with your gift-your magic-which is recognized by the blood beast. The sword's magic is part of you, now. Using it will chance calling the beast.»

Richard felt like everything was pressing in on him, closing off every option, shutting off his ability to do anything to stop what was coming for him. He felt the way he had earlier, when he woke up to find himself in a ever-tightening trap.

«But the sword will help me fight it. I don't know how to use my gift. The sword is the one thing I can count on.»

«It's possible that in some instances it may save you. But because the blood beast has no nature, and because it is now a part of the underworld, there will be times when you think your sword will protect you and it will not. Thinking you can predict the ability of your sword to work against the beast will beguile you into having false confidence. As I told you, the beast can't be predicted, so there will be times when your sword can't protect you. You must guard not only against false reliance on your sword, but on it unwittingly calling the beast.

«It's always hunting you, and could attack at any time, but when you use your gift it vastly increases the ability, and therefore the likelihood, of the beast initiating an attack. Magic baits it.»

Richard realized that he was gripping the hilt of the sword so hard in his fist that he could feel the raised letters of the word truth pressing into his palm. He could also feel the sword's anger urgently trying to steal into him to protect him against the threat. He took his hand off the hilt as if it were burning him. He wondered if that magic had ignited his own, if he had just called the blood beast without even realizing what he was doing.

Shota clasped her hands. «There is something else.»

Richard's attention returned to the witch woman. «Great, what next?»

«Richard, I'm not the one who created this beast. I'm not responsible for its danger to you.» She looked away. «If you wish to hate me for telling you the truth, and want me to stop, then say so and I will stop.»

Richard waved an apology. «No, I'm sorry. I know it's not your fault. I guess I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed. Go on. What were you going to say?»

«If you use magic-any magic-the blood beast will know it. Because it acts in a random manner, it very well may not use that magic link to come after you right then. It may inexplicably not respond. But the next time, it may pounce. So you dare not gain confidence in that manner.»

«You already told me that.»

«Yes, but as of yet you have not realized the full implications of what I'm telling you. You must understand that any use of magic will give the beast the scent of your blood, so to speak.»

«Like I said, you told me that.»

«That means any use of your gift.» When he stared at her with a blank look, she impatiently tapped a finger to his forehead. «Think.»

When he still didn't understand, she said «That includes prophecy.»

«Prophecy? What do you mean?»

«Prophecy is given by wizards who have the gift for prophecy. An ordinary person who reads prophecy will see only words. Even the Sisters of the Light, guardians of prophecy though they thought they were, do not see prophecy in its true state. You are a war wizard. Being a war wizard merely means that your gift carries a variety of latent abilities. Part of that is that you are able to use prophecy-to understand it as it was intended.

«Do you see? Do you see how easy it is to inadvertently use your gift?

«It doesn't matter how you use your gift-if you use your sword, or heal with your gift, or call down lightning-it doesn't matter; it will call the beast. To the blood beast, any use of your gift is the same-a means of recognition. It will not distinguish between a small use, or a spectacular use. To the beast, the gift is the gift.»

Richard was incredulous. «Do you mean to say that if I simply heal someone, or draw my sword, it will alert the beast to me?»

«Yes. And likely in short order while it knows precisely where you are. Being that it's elementally Subtractive, it exists only partially in this world, so, while the beast is not hampered by things such as distance or obstacles, it also doesn't function in this world with ease. It can't fully conceive of the laws of this world, such as time. Still, it doesn't get tired, it doesn't get lazy, or angry, or eager.

«By all this I do not mean to suggest that because you use your gift the beast will therefore act. As I've said, its actions can't be predicted, so, like everything else, the use of magic cannot be used as a predictive factor. It only means that it increases its ease in being able to find you. Whether or not it will do so is not knowable.»

«Great,» Richard muttered as he went back to pacing.

«How can he kill it?» Cara asked.

«It isn't alive,» Shota said. «You can no more kill the blood beast than you can kill a boulder that is about to fall on you, or kill the rain before it has a chance to get you wet.»

Cara looked as frustrated as Richard felt. «Well, there has to be something that it's afraid of.»

«Fear is a function of living things.»

«Maybe, then, something it doesn't like.»

Shota frowned. «Doesn't like?»

«You know, fire, or water, or light. Something it doesn't like and so avoids.»

«Today it might choose to avoid water. Tomorrow it might slither up from a bog, snatch his leg, and drag him under the water to drown him. It moves through this world as it would through an alien landscape that has little effect on it.»

«Where in the world could someone learn how to create such a beast?» Richard asked.

«I believe that the core of the knowledge was discovered by Jagang in ancient books on weapons that originated during the great war. He is a student of ancient subjects having to do with warfare; he collects such knowledge from all over. I have a suspicion, though, that he took what he found and added specifications he wanted in order to defeat you. We do know that he then used the gifted Sisters to spawn the beast.

«Since they used Subtractive Magic along with their stolen wizardry, they were able to make use of other gifted people as constituent parts of the beast, ripping their souls from them, ripping away all but what was needed in order to conjure, combine and create the beast. It is a weapon beyond anything we have ever encountered before. Jagang is the one who caused the beast to be created. He has to be stopped before he creates anything else.»

«I couldn't agree more,» Richard muttered.

«You can't stop him if you are off chasing phantoms,» Shota said.

Richard halted his pacing and stared at her. «Shota, you can't just tell me all this without at least telling me something that will help.»

«You are the one who came to me asking questions. I did not go looking for you. Besides, I have helped you. I told you what I know. Maybe by using the information you now have, you can live another day.»

Richard had heard enough. The blood beast had no nature, but not to have a nature, in a way, was its nature, so it had one as far as he was concerned. It may be true, as Shota had said, that there was no accurate way to predict what it would do next, but lack of understanding or knowledge did not constitute a lack of a nature. It was, however, a point that was not worth arguing. He thought that it might be an important distinction sooner or later, but right then it didn't matter much. Everything Shota had said largely confirmed what Nicci had already reported. While she had added facets and details that Nicci hadn't known about, Shota hadn't provided any solutions.

In fact, it seemed to him that she had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure she had painted a hopeless picture.

Richard almost rested his hand on his sword. He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair, instead. He was at his wits' end. He turned and stared off at the trees spread across the valley, their leaves shimmering in the late-day sun.

«So, there is nothing I can do to protect myself from the blood beast.»

«I didn't say that.»

Richard spun back around. «What? You mean there is a way?»

Without emotion, Shota studied his eyes. «I believe that there is one way to keep you alive.»

«What way?»

She clasped her hands, twining her fingers together. She looked down at the ground a moment, as if considering, and then met his gaze with steady resolution.

«You could stay here.»

He saw Samuel come to his feet. Richard returned his attention to Shota's waiting gaze. «What do you mean, I could stay here?»

She shrugged, as if it were a trivial offer. «Stay here and I will protect you.»

Cara straightened, her arms coming unfolded. «You can do that?»

«I believe I can.»

«Then come with us,» Cara suggested. «That would solve the problem.»

Richard already didn't like Cara's idea.

«I can't,» Shota said. «I can only protect him if he stays here, in this valley, in my home.»

«I can't stay,» Richard said, trying to make it sound casual.

Shota reached out and gently grasped his arm, not allowing him to so easily dismiss the issue. «You can, Richard. Would it be so bad, staying with me?»

«I didn't mean it that way.»

«Then stay here with me.»

«For how long?»

Her fingers tightened ever so slightly, as if she feared to say it, feared his reaction, but at the same time was steadfast in her course.

«Forever.»

Richard swallowed. He felt like he'd walked out onto thin ice without' realizing it, and now he found that it was a long, long way back to safety. He knew that if he said the wrong thing he would be in over his head. His flesh tingled as he realized how dangerous the late day air had suddenly become.

At that moment, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't rather face the beast than Shota's scrutiny.

Richard spread his arms, as if to ask her understanding. «Shota, how can I stay here? You know that there are people counting on me-people who need me. You said so yourself.»

«You are not the slave to others, chained to them by their need. It's your life, Richard. Stay, and have a life.»

Cara, looking more than suspicious, tapped a thumb to her own chest «And what about me?»

Without looking over at Cara, without taking her gaze from Richard's, Shota said, «One woman in this place is enough.»

Cara glanced between Richard and Shota as they stared into each other's eyes, but she then did what Richard had earlier advised: she turned: cautious and said nothing.

«Stay,» Shota whispered intimately.

Richard could see a terrible kind of vulnerability laid bare in Shota's eyes, in her hungering expression-an open look he had never seen on her before. From the corner of his eye, he could also see Samuel glaring at him.

Richard tipped his head, indicating her companion. «And what about him?»

She did not shy from the question-in fact she seemed to have expected it.

«One Seeker in this place is enough.»

«Shota.»

«Stay, Richard?» she pressed, cutting him off before he could turn her down, before he crossed a line he hadn't known was there until right then.

It was both an offer and an ultimatum.

«But what about the blood beast? You said yourself that you can't know its nature. How can you know that we would be safe here if I stayed? A lot of men near me were killed when the beast attacked the first time.»

Shota lifted her chin. «I know myself, know my abilities, my limits. I believe that I can keep you safe, here, in this valley. I can't be completely certain, but I sincerely believe it to be true. I do know that if you leave here you will have no protection. This is your only chance.»

He knew that the last part had more than one meaning.

«Stay, Richard — Please? Stay here with me?»

«Forever.»

Her eyes brimmed with tears.

«Yes, forever. Please? Stay? I will take care of you, forever. I will make sure you never regret it, or ever miss the rest of the world. Please?»

This was not Shota, the witch woman. This was simply the woman, Shota, desperately laying herself open to him in a way she never had, offering her unprotected heart, taking a chance. The naked loneliness he saw there was terrifying. He knew, because he felt the same anguish of being so alone that it hurt.

Richard swallowed and took the step out onto the ice.

«Shota, that's probably the kindest thing you've ever said to me. To know that you respect me enough to ask such a thing means more to me than you will ever understand. I have more respect for you than you know-that's why when I needed answers I thought of no one but you.

«I sincerely appreciate all you are offering — but I'm afraid I can't accept. I have to go.»

The look that came to her face made Richard go as cold as if he'd been plunged into icy water.

Without another word, Shota turned and started away.

CHAPTER 42

Richard caught Shota's arm, stopping her before she could leave. He couldn't allow it to end in this way-for more than one reason.

«Shota, I'm sorry — But you said it yourself; it's my life to live. If you consider me-even a little-to be a friend, someone you really do care about, then you would want me to live my life as I think I must, not as you might wish I could.»

Her chest heaved. «Fine. You have made your choice, Richard. Leave. Go and live what is left of your life.»

«I came to you because I need your help.»

She turned around fully toward him and cast him as forbidding a look as he had ever seen on anyone. It was the unmistakable mask of a witch woman. He could almost see the air around her sizzling.

«I have given you help-gained through an effort on my part that I seriously doubt you can begin to imagine. Use that help as you wish. Now, leave my home.»

As much as he wanted right then to do as she asked, as much as he wanted not to press her, he had come for a reason and she had not yet addressed it. He wasn't leaving until she did.

«I need your help to find Kahlan.»

Her look turned even colder. «If you are wise, you will use the knowledge I have given you to stay alive as long as you can to help to defeat Jagang, or to go chasing after phantoms-I don't care which anymore. Just go, before you find out why wizards fear to come into my home.»

«You said that your ability helps you see events in the flow of time. What does your ability see about me in the future?»

Shota was silent for a moment before she finally glanced away from his steady gaze. «For some reason, the river of time has become obscured to me. It happens.» Her gaze returned, more determined than ever. «You see? I can be of no further help. Now, go.»

He was determined not to allow her to dodge the issue. «You know that I came here for information, for something that could help me find out the truth about what's going on. This is important. It's important to more people than just you or me. Don't close yourself off from me like this Shota, please. I need your help.»

She arched an eyebrow. «Since when have you ever followed anything I've ever told you?»

«Look, I admit that in the past I haven't always agreed with everything you've had to say, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't think you were an astute woman. While some of the things you've told me in the past were true, if I would have done things strictly your way without using my own judgment as the situation developed I would have failed and we would all be either under the rule of Darken Rahl or in the merciless embrace of the Keeper of the underworld.»

«So you say.»

Richard lost his indulgent tone as he leaned toward her. «You do remember the time you came to see me at the Mud People's village, don't you? The time you begged me to close the veil so that the Keeper wouldn't have us all? You do remember telling me how much the Keeper wanted those with the gift, wanted you, a witch woman, to suffer unimaginably for all eternity?»

He jabbed her with a finger, punctuating his points. «You did not suffer all the frightful things necessary to stop what was happening-I did. You did not have to fight the Keeper's terrors to close the veil-I did. You did not save your own hide from the Keeper-I did.»

She was watching him from under her lowered brow. «I remember.»

«I succeeded. I saved you from that fate.»

«You saved yourself from that fate. That it saved me as well was not your purpose, merely a side consequence.»

He let out a breath, trying to be patient. «Shota, I know that you must know something about this-something about what's happened to Kahlan.»

«I told you, I don't remember any woman named Kahlan.»

«Yes, and the reason is that something is terribly wrong and I realize that because of that you don't recall her, but you must know something that will help me in my search for the truth-some bit of information that will help me find out the truth about what's really going on.»

«And you expect that you can just walk uninvited into my home, put my life at risk, do your little dance, and get whatever part of my life, my ability, that you want for yourself.»

Richard stared at her. She had not denied that she knew something that might help him. He realized that he had indeed been right about her.

«Shota, stop posturing and stop acting like I'm unfairly making demands of you. I've never lied to you and you know it. I'm telling you that this is important to you, too, whether or not you yet realize it. For all I know, it could yet be something the Keeper has initiated in order to get us all. I need whatever information you can give me to prevent the success of whatever it is that's going wrong. I'm not playing games. I will have what you know!»

«And you think that such a demand entitles you to it?» Her eyes narrowed. «You think that just because I have something, your perceived need means that I must surrender whatever I have? That you are entitled to any part of my life you feel you need? You think that my life is not mine, but I am merely meant to serve you? You think my life means nothing but to be at your disposal when you deign to have use of me? You think you can come in here and make demands, but when I dare ask for something, you get indignant?»

«I wasn't indignant,» he said, trying to restrain his tone. «I appreciated the sincerity of your offer. I understand very well the empty feeling of being alone. But if you're the woman I believe you are, you wouldn't want me even though my heart wasn't in it. You deserve to have someone who can love you. I'm sorry, Shota, but I can't lie and tell you that I can be that one for you or I would only in the end be hurting you worse. I can't lie to you; I'm already in love with someone.

«And even if you already realized that, would you really want someone who was so casually unfaithful as to just take up such an offer on the spot? I think what you really want is your equal, a true partner in your life, someone with whom to share the wonders of life. I don't think you really want the empty reward of a lapdog. I think you already know that a lapdog can bring you no real joy.

«If you care about me, if you made such an offer because you really care, if you were sincere, then help me.»

She didn't look like she intended to answer, so he pressed on. «Shota, I need to know any information you can give me. It's important. As important as it was to you when you came to ask me to seal the breach in the veil. I don't know enough to solve this problem. If I fail, I fear we all will lose. I don't have time for games. I need the information you have.»

«How dare you make such an arrogant demand of me. I've already told you, already given you my answer. It's my ability, my life. You have no right to it.»

Richard pressed his thumb and middle finger to opposite temples as he took a calming breath. He grudgingly realized that maybe she had a point.

He turned his back to her and walked off a few paces as he considered what he might do. One thing he knew for certain, he wasn't leaving without every bit of help available.

«You're saying, then, that you know something that would help me in my search for the truth.»

«I know a lot of things about a lot of different areas of the truth.»

«But you know something that I need in order to find the truth about what brought me here to see you.»

«Yes.»

He knew it. With his back still to her, he said, «Name your price.»

«You would not be willing to pay the price.»

He considered the price he expected her to revisit.

Richard turned to her. She was watching him in that way that made him feel transparent. He was not leaving without the information and that was all there was to it. This was Kahlan's life.