Chainfire (Sword of Truth – 9)

«There was no wind. I remember hearing the rooster crow and looking up and seeing motionless tree limbs above me. There was no wind at all. I remember how dead still it was.»

«You're right, Lord Rahl,» Cara said. «I remember when I ran into Victor's camp seeing the smoke from the fire going straight up because the air was dead calm. I think that was why we could hear the clash of steel and the cries from so far away-because there wasn't even a breath of breeze to cut the sound from carrying.»

«If it helps,» the blacksmith said, «there were a few chickens roaming around when we brought you to the farm. And you're right, there was a rooster and it did crow. Matter of fact, we were trying not to be found so that Nicci could have the time to heal you, and I was afraid that the rooster might attract unwanted attention, so I told the men to cut its throat.»

After hearing Victor's account, Richard drifted back into thought. He tapped a finger against his lower lip as he considered yet another piece of his puzzle. Nicci thought he might have forgotten they were standing there.

She leaned a little closer to him. «So?»

He blinked and finally looked at her. «It had to be that when I woke today I was really remembering that morning-remembering for a reason. Sometimes you do that-remember because there was some part of it that doesn't make sense, remember for some reason.»

«What reason?» Nicci asked.

«The wind. There was no wind that morning. But I remember that when I woke that morning, in the faint light of false dawn, I saw tree limbs moving, like in a breeze.»

Nicci was not just confused by his concern for wind, but worried for his state of mind. «Richard, you were asleep and just waking up. It was dark. You probably just thought you saw the tree branches moving.»

«Maybe» was all he said.

«Maybe it was the soldiers coming,» Cara offered.

«No,» he said, dismissing her suggestion with an irritable wave of his hand, «that was a little later, after I'd discovered that Kahlan was missing.»

Seeing that neither Victor nor Cara was going to argue the point, Nicci decided to hold her tongue as well. Richard seemed to put the puzzle from his mind. He turned a deadly serious expression on the three of them.

«Look, I have to show you all something. But you need to realize, despite how little you may be able to make out, that I know what I'm talking about. I don't expect you to take my word, but you need to understand that I have a lifetime of experience in this and routinely used such ability. I trust each of you in your area of expertise. This is mine. Don't close your minds to what I have to show you.»

Nicci, Cara, and Victor shared a look.

With a nod to Richard, Victor set his reservations aside and turned to the men. «You boys keep your eyes open, now.» He circled a finger in the air. «There could be soldiers about, so let's keep it quiet and stay alert. Ferran, double-check the area.»

The men nodded. Some came to their feet, apparently glad to have something to do other than just sit there wet and cold. Four men set out through the trees to set up guard.

Ferran handed his pack and bedroll to one of the other men for safekeeping before nocking an arrow and slipping quietly into the brush. The young man was learning the trade of blacksmithing from Victor. Raised on a farm, he also had a natural talent for scouting unseen in the woods. He idolized Victor. Nicci knew that Victor was fond of the young man as well, but because he was fond of him he was probably harder on him than on the other men. Victor had told her once, referring to his tough demands of his apprentice, that you had to pound the imperfections out of iron and work it hard if you wanted to shape it into something truly worthwhile.

Since the battle, Victor had had sentries and lookouts on constant watch while Ferran and several of the others scouted the surrounding forest. None of them had wanted to take any chance that enemy soldiers would unexpectedly come upon them while Nicci was trying to save Richard's life. After she had done all she could for Richard, Nicci had healed a nasty gash to one man's leg and taken care of a few other less serious wounds suffered by a half-dozen other men.

Since the morning of the battle and Richard being hurt, she had gotten little sleep. She was exhausted.

After watching the men set about the tasks assigned them, Victor clapped Richard on the shoulder. «Show us, then.»

Richard lead Cara, Victor, and Nicci past the clearing with the dead men and then off through the woods. He took a route between trees where the ground was more open. At the crest of a gentle rise, he stopped and crouched down.

Seeing Richard on bended knee, his cloak draped over his back, his sword in a gleaming scabbard at his hip, his hood pushed back to expose strands of wet hair lying against his muscular neck, his bow and quiver strapped over his left shoulder, he looked at once regal-a warrior king —and at the same time like nothing so much as the wilderness guide from a distant land that he had once been. With intimate familiarity, his fingers brushed the pine needles, twigs, crumbles of leaves, bark, and loam. Nicci could sense, just by that touch, his breadth of understanding of the seemingly simple things spread out before them, yet to him those things revealed another world.

Richard remembered, then, his purpose and gestured, urging them to squat down close beside him.

«Here,» he said, pointing. «See this?» His ringers carefully traced a vague depression in the dense tangle of forest litter. «This is Cara's footprint.»

«Well, that's no surprise,» Cara said. «This is the way we came in from the road on our way to where we set up camp back there.»

«That's right.» Richard leaned out a little, pointing as he went on. «See here, and then off there? Those are more of your tracks, Cara. See how they come in here in a line showing where you were walking?»

Cara shrugged suspiciously. «Sure.»

Richard moved to his right. They all followed. He again carefully traced a depression so they could make it out. Nicci couldn't see anything at all in the forest floor until he carefully drew the outline with a finger just above the ground. In doing so, he seemed to make the footprint magically appear for them. After he pointed it out, Nicci could tell what it was.

«This is my track,» he said, watching it as if fearing that were he to look away it might vanish. «The rain works to wear them down-some places more than others-but it hasn't made all of them disappear.» With a finger and thumb, he carefully lifted a wet, brown oak leaf from the center of the print. «Look, you can see under here how the pressure of my weight under the ball of my foot broke these small twigs. See? Rain can't obliterate things like that.»

He looked up at them to make sure they were all paying attention and then pointed off into the shadowy mist. «You can see my tracks coming in this direction, toward us, just like Cara's.» He stretched out and quickly traced two more vague depressions in the matted forest floor to show them what he meant. «See? You can still make them out.»

«What's the point?» Victor asked.

Richard glanced back over his shoulder again before gesturing between the sets of tracks. «See the distance between Cara's tracks and mine? When we walked in here I was on the left and Cara was to my right. See how far apart our tracks are?»

«What of it?» Nicci asked as she pulled the hood of her cloak forward, trying to shield her face from the frigid drizzle. She pulled her hands back under the cloak and snuggled them in her armpits for warmth.

«They're that far apart,» Richard said, «because when we walked through here Kahlan was in the middle, between us.»

Nicci stared again at the ground. She was no expert, so she wasn't especially surprised that she couldn't see any other tracks. But this time, she didn't think that Richard could, either.

«And can you show us Kahlan's tracks?» she asked.

Richard turned a look on her of such intensity that it momentarily halted the breath she was about to take.

«That's the point.» He held up a finger with the same deliberate care with which he lifted his blade. «Her tracks are gone. Not washed away by the rain, but gone — gone as if they were never there.»

Victor let out a very quiet and very troubled-sounding sigh. If she was shocked, Cara hid it well. Nicci knew that he hadn't told them all of what he had to say, so she remained guarded in her question.

«You're showing us that there are no tracks from this woman?»

«That's right. I've searched. I found my tracks and Cara's tracks in various places, but where Kahlan's tracks should be there are none.»

In the uncomfortable silence no one wanted to say anything. Nicci finally took it upon herself to do so.

«Richard, you have to know why that is. Don't you see, now? It's just your dream. There are no tracks because this woman doesn't exist.»

With him there on his knees before her, looking up at her, it seemed she could see his soul laid bare in his gray eyes. She would have given nearly anything at that moment to be able to simply comfort him. But she couldn't do that. Nicci had to force herself to go on.

«You said yourself that you know about tracking and yet even you can't find any tracks left by this woman. This should put the matter to rest. This should finally convince you that she just doesn't exist-that she never did exist.» She took a hand from under her cloak, from its warm resting place, and gently laid it on his shoulder in an effort to soften her words. «You need to let it go, Richard.»

He looked away from her eyes as he drew his lower lip through his teeth. «It's not as simple a picture as you're painting it,» he said in a calm voice. «I'm asking you all to look-just look-and try to understand the significance of what it is I'm showing you. Look at how far apart Cara and my tracks are. Can't you see that there was a third person there, between us, as we walked?»

Nicci wearily rubbed her eyes. «Richard, people don't always walk close together. Maybe you and Cara were both looking around for any sign of threat as you walked through here, or maybe you were both just tired and not paying attention. There could be any number of simple explanations as to why you two weren't walking closer together.»

«When only two people walk together they don't habitually walk this far apart.» He pointed behind them. «Look at the tracks we made coming over her. Cara again walked to my right. Look at how much closer together the tracks are. That's typical of two people walking side by side. You and Victor were behind us. Look at how close together your tracks are.

«These tracks are different. Can't you see by their nature that they're this far apart because there was another person walking between us?»

«Richard.»

Nicci paused. She didn't want to argue. She was tempted to keep quiet and let him have his way, let him believe what he wanted to believe. And yet, silence would be feeding a lie, lending life to an illusion. While she ached for his difficulty and wanted to be on his side, she couldn't let him delude himself or she would be causing him greater harm. He could never get better, never fully recover, until he faced the truth of the real world. Helping him see reality was the only way she could really help him.

«Richard,» she said softly, trying to get that truth through to him without sounding harsh or condescending, «your tracks are there, and Cara's tracks are there. We can see that-you showed us. There are no others. You showed us that, too. If she was there, between you and Cara, then why are her tracks not?»

They all hunched their shoulders in the wet and cold as they waited. Richard finally gathered his composure and spoke in a clear, firm voice.

«I think Kahlan's tracks were erased with magic.»

«Magic?» Cara asked, suddenly alert and ill-tempered.

«Yes. I think that whoever took Kahlan erased her tracks with magic.»

Nicci was dumbfounded and made no attempt to conceal it.

Victor's gaze shifted back and forth between Nicci and Richard. «Can that be done?»

«Yes,» Richard insisted. «When I first met Kahlan, Darken Rahl was after us. He was close on our trail. Zedd, Kahlan, and I had to run. If Darken Rahl had caught us we would have been finished. Zedd's a wizard but he isn't as powerful as Darken Rahl was, so Zedd cast some magic dust back down the trail to hide our tracks. That has to be what happened here. Whoever took Kahlan covered their tracks with the use of magic.»

Victor and Cara glanced at Nicci for confirmation. As a blacksmith, Victor was not familiar with magic. Mord-Sith didn't like magic and pointedly avoided the details of its workings; their well-honed instinct was simply to violently eliminate anyone with magic if they posed even a potential threat to the Lord Rahl. Both Victor and Cara waited to hear what Nicci had to say about the possibility of using magic to cover tracks.

Nicci hesitated. Her being a sorceress didn't mean that she knew everything there was to know about magic. But still-

«I suppose that such a use of magic is in theory possible, but I've never heard of it being done.» Nicci made herself look into Richard's expectant gaze. «I think the explanation of why there are no tracks is quite a bit simpler and I think you know it, Richard.»

Richard couldn't mask his disappointment. «Looking at this by itself, and not being familiar with the nature of tracks and what they reveal, I'll grant that maybe it's hard to see what I'm saying. But this isn't all. I have something else to show you that may help you see the whole picture. Come on.»

«Lord Rahl,» Cara said as she tucked a wet wisp of hair back under the hood of her dark cloak and avoided looking at him, «shouldn't we be getting on to other important matters?»

«I have something important to show the three of you. Are you saying that you wish to wait here while I show Victor and Nicci?»

Her blue eyes turned up to him. «Of course not.»

«Fine. Let's go.»

Without further protest, they followed him at a quick pace as he headed in a northerly direction, deeper into the woods. They tiptoed from rock to rock to cross a broad ravine with dark eddies of murky water flowing through it. When Nicci nearly slipped and fell, Richard took her hand and helped her across. His big hand was warm, but not feverish, at least. She wished he would slow down and not stress his fragile health.

The gentle slope on the far side revealed itself only by degree as they climbed higher through the drizzle and trailers of low clouds. To the left loomed the dark shadow of a rocky rise. Nicci could hear the burbling rush of water tumbling down that rise.

As they went deeper into the swirling gray mist and dense green vegetation, huge birds lifted from their perches. Wings spread wide, the wary creatures silently glided away beyond sight. Harsh screeches of unseen animals echoed through the somber woods. With the mass of overlapping spruce and balsam boughs and the tangled dead limbs of ancient oaks draped with gossamer moss curtains, to say nothing of the gloomy drizzle, vines, and dense tangle of saplings struggling to reach up for the elusive light, it was not easy to see very far. Only lower to the forest floor, where the sunlight rarely reached, was it more open.

Farther into the sodden forest, dark trunks of trees stood clear of the brush and thick foliage like sentinels watching the three people move among their gathered army. The ground where Richard took them was easier traveling since it was more open and covered with soft, sprawling mats of pine needles. Nicci imagined that even on the sunniest of days, only thin streamers of sunlight ever penetrated all the way down to the forest floor. Off to the sides here and there she saw nearly impenetrable tangles of brush and tightly knitted walls of young conifers. The expanse under the towering pines made a natural but unmarked pathway.

At last Richard halted, lifting his arms out to his sides so that they wouldn't step out past him. Spread out before them was more of the same-sparse growth sprouting among the thick bed of brown needles. Following his direction, they squatted down beside him.

Richard gestured over his right shoulder. «Back that way is where Cara, Kahlan, and I came in on the night we camped-by where the battle took place. In various places around our camp are my tracks from when I stood second watch, and Cara's tracks from third watch. Kahlan had first watch that night. There are no tracks from her watch.»

His glance to each of them in turn was a silent request to hear him out before they started arguing.

«Back that way,» he said, pointing as he went on, «was where the soldiers were coming up through the woods. From over in that direction, Victor, you and your men came to join the battle. In nearly the same place are your tracks from when you carried me back to the farmhouse. Off that way, where I already showed you, are the tracks of other soldiers who came in and found their fellow soldiers dead.

«None of us or any of the soldiers has been up this way.

«Here, where we are now, there are no tracks. Look around. You'll see only my fresh tracks from this morning when I was searching. Other than that, there are no footprints from anyone else coming through here-in fact, there's no sign that anyone has ever been here. At least, it would appear that no one has ever been here before.»

Victor idly rubbed his thumb on the steel shaft of the mace hanging from his belt. «But you think otherwise?»

«Yes. Even though there are no tracks, someone did come this way. And, they left evidence.» Richard leaned out and with one finger touched a smooth rock about the size of a loaf of bread. «As they hurried past, they stumbled on this rock.»

Victor seemed caught up in the story. «How can you tell?»

«Look carefully at the markings on the rock.» As Victor leaned in a bit, Richard pointed. «See here, the way the top of the rock, where it was exposed to the air and weather, has the pale tannish yellow discoloration of lichen and such? And here-like the hull of a boat below the waterline —you can see the dark brown rime that shows where the belly of the rock had been lying beneath the ground.

«But it's not lying that way now. It's not settled into its socket in the ground, its recent resting place. It's now lifted a little out of that socket and turned partway over. See how a section of the dark bottom is now exposed? Were it out of the ground for longer, the dark color would be worn away and the lichen would begin to grow there, too. But it hasn't had that much time yet. This is recent.»

Richard waggled his finger back and forth. «Look at the ground, here, on this side of the rock. You can see the socket where the rock originally rested, but now the rock has been shoved back a little, leaving a void between this side of the rock and the wall of the cavity. On the back side, away from us, because the rock was recently disturbed, you can still see a ridge of dirt and debris that has been pushed up.

«The open socket on this side and the ridge on the far side shows that whoever stumbled on this rock and disturbed it was moving away from our camp, going north.»

«But then where's their trail?» Victor asked. «Their footprints?»

Richard raked back his wet hair. «The trail has been erased with magic. I searched; there is no trail.

«Look at the rock. It's been disturbed, kicked partway out of its resting place in the ground. But there is no scuff mark on it. While the rock wasn't moved much, it was moved. A boot grazing this rock enough to move it like this would have to leave a mark. Yet there is no mark, just as there are no other footprints.»

Nicci pushed her hood back. «You're twisting everything you find around to fit what you want to believe, Richard. You can't have it both ways. If magic was used to erase their trail, then why is it that are you able to detect their trail by this rock?»

«Probably because the magic they used erases footprints. The person who used that magic must not know a great deal about tracks or tracking. I don't think they're very familiar with the outdoors. When they used magic to erase their footprints, they probably never gave any thought to putting disturbed stones back in place.»

«Richard, surely.»

«Look around,» he said as he swept his arm out. «Look at how perfect the forest floor is.»

«What do you mean?» Victor asked.

«It's too perfect. Twigs, leaves, bark are too evenly distributed. Nature is more erratic.»

Nicci, Victor, and Cara peered at the ground. Nicci saw only a normal-looking forest floor. Here and there small things-pine seedlings, spindly weeds, an oak sapling with only three big leaves-sprouted up through the litter of twigs, moss, bark, and fallen leaves sprinkled over the bed of pine needles. She didn't know all that much about tracks or tracking, or forests, for that matter-Richard always left blazes on trees when he wanted her to be able to find and follow his trail-but it didn't look like anyone had been through the place, nor did it look overly perfect, as Richard suggested. As she looked around, it appeared the same as other places she eyed for comparison. Victor and Cara seemed equally confounded.

«Richard,» Nicci said with strained patience, «I'm sure there could be any number of explanations as to why a rock looks disturbed to you. For all I know, it could be disturbed, as you suggest. But maybe an elk or a deer kicked it as they went by and over time their tracks have been worn away.»

Richard was shaking his head. «No. Look at the socket. It's still well formed. You can read by how much the edges have degraded that it happened only a few days ago. Time-especially in the rain-erodes such edges and works to fill in the gap. Any deer or elk kicking this rock would have left tracks that would be just as recent. Not only that, but a hoof would have scuffed it, the same as a boot. I'm telling you, three days ago someone stumbled on this rock.»

Nicci gestured. «Well, that dead branch over there could have fallen on it and disturbed it.»

«If it did, then the lichen growing on the rock would show the scar of the impact and the branch would show evidence that it had hit something hard. It doesn't-I already looked.»

Cara threw up her hands. «Maybe a squirrel jumped from a tree and landed on it.»

«Not nearly heavy enough to have moved this rock,» Richard said.

Nicci drew a weary breath. «So what you're saying is that the fact that there are no tracks from this woman, Kahlan, proves that she exists.»

«No, that's not what I'm saying, not the way you're putting it, anyway. But it does confirm it if you look at everything together-if you put it all into context.»

Nicci's hands fisted at her sides. There were important matters that had to be addressed. They were running out of time. Instead of dealing with urgent matters in need of their attention, they were out in the middle of the woods looking at a rock. She could feel the blood going to her face.

«That's ridiculous. All you've shown us, Richard, is proof that this woman you imagined is just that-imagined. She doesn't exist. She left no tracks-because you only dreamed her! There's nothing mysterious about it! It's not magic! It's simply a dream!»

Richard abruptly rose up before her. He changed in a heartbeat from a man of calm intensity to a figure of heart-stopping presence, power, and awakening anger.

But rather than confront her, he took a step past her, back toward the way they'd come from, and stopped. Still and tense, Richard stared back through the woods.

«Something's wrong,» he said in low warning.

Cara's Agiel spun up into her fist. Victor's brow tightened as his fingers found the mace hanging from his belt.

In the distance back through the dripping forest, Nicci heard the sudden, wild alarm cries of ravens.

The cries that came next reminded her of nothing so much as the sounds of bloody murder.

CHAPTER 6

Richard bounded back through the woods, back toward the waiting men, back toward the screams. He raced headlong through a blur of trees, branches, brush, ferns, and vines. He leaped over rotting logs and used a well-planted boot to bound over a boulder. He dodged his way through stands of young pines and a cluster of flowering dogwood. Without slowing, he batted aside tamarack limbs and ducked under balsam boughs. Nets of dead branches on the lower trunks of young spruce trees snatched at his clothes as he charged past. More than once, dead limbs jutting out, spearlike, from larger trees nearly impaled him before he sidestepped at the last instant.

Running at such a reckless speed through dense woods, let alone in the rain, was treacherous. It was hard to recognize hazards in time to avoid them. Any one of a number of protruding branches could easily gouge out an eye. One slip on wet leaves or moss or rocks could cause a skull-splitting tumble. Driving a foot down into a crevice or fissure at a dead run would likely shatter a leg. Richard had once known a young man who had done just that. His broken leg and ankle had never mended right, leaving him partially crippled for life.

Richard focused his concentration on his intended path, taking as much care as possible without slowing.

He dared not slow.

The whole way as he ran, he heard the terrible screams and cries, the shrieks, and the sickening snapping sounds. He could also hear Cara, Victor, and Nicci crashing through the brush behind him. He didn't wait for them to catch up. Every long stride, every leap, took him farther out ahead of them.

Running as fast as he could, gasping for air, Richard was surprised to find himself winded before he should have been. At first disconcerted, he then remembered the reason. Nicci had said that he wasn't yet recovered and because he had lost a lot of blood he would need rest to gain back his strength. He kept running. He would have to make do with what strength he had. It wasn't that much farther.

More than that, though, he kept running because the men needed help. These were men who had come to his aid when he had been in trouble. He didn't know what was happening, but it was clear to Richard that they were in some kind of peril.

On the morning of the attack, if he'd known more about how to call upon his gift, he might have been able to use that ability to stop the soldiers before Victor and his men had arrived. Had he been able to do that, three of those men would not have died in the fighting. Of course, had Richard not been where he was and taken action to stop the soldiers, then Victor and his men might well have all ended up murdered at their camp, most while they slept.

Richard couldn't help feeling that he might have done more. He didn't want to see any of these men hurt; he kept running with all his strength, holding back nothing. He would use whatever strength he had. He could gain back his strength. Lives could not be gotten back.

There were times like this when he wished that he knew more about how to call upon his gift, but his ability regrettably worked differently than in others. Instead of functioning through cognizant direction, as Nicci's power did, Richard's ability worked through anger and need. The morning that the Imperial Order soldiers had poured in all around him he had drawn his sword for the purpose of his survival and in so doing had given his anger over to the weapon. Unlike his own gift, he knew that he could count on the power of his sword.

Others with the gift learned to use their ability from a young age. Richard never had. It had been an upbringing of peace and security that had given him a chance at life, at growing up to profoundly value life. The drawback was that such an upbringing had also left him unaware of and ignorant of his own talent.

Now that Richard was grown, though, learning to use his latent ability was proving more than difficult, not only because of his upbringing, but because his particular form of the gift was so extraordinarily rare. Neither Zedd nor the Sisters of the Light had had any success at all in teaching him how to consciously direct his power.

He knew little more than what Nathan Rahl, the prophet, had told him, that his power was most often sparked through anger and a particular, specific kind of desperate need, which Richard had not been able to identify or isolate. As far as he had been able to determine, the character of the need required to ignite his power was unique to each circumstance.

Richard also knew that using magic did not involve whim. No amount of wishing or straining could ever produce results. The initiation and use of magic required specific conditions; he just didn't understand how to produce or provide those conditions.

Even wizards of great ability sometimes had to use books to insure that they got the details right if the specific magic they wanted was to work. At a young age, Richard had memorized one of those books, The Book of Counted Shadows. That was the book which Darken Rahl had been hunting for after he had put the boxes of Orden in play.

On the morning Kahlan had vanished, to meet the threat of the seemingly endless ranks of soldiers charging in upon him, Richard had had to depend on his sword and not his own innate powers. The frenzied fighting had taken him to the brink of exhaustion. At the same time, his worry for Kahlan left him distracted to the point where his mind wasn't fully on the fight. He knew that allowing such a diversion to beguile his attention was dangerous and foolish — but it was Kahlan. He had been helplessly worried for her.