CHAPTER 60

With an arrow's speed, Richard flew through the silken silence of the sliph, yet at the same time he glided with the slow grace of a raven riding the stilled currents above towering trees on a moonlit night. There was no heat, no cold. In the silence, sweet sounds filled his mind. His eyes beheld light and dark together in a single, spectral vision, while his lungs swelled with the sweet presence of the sliph as he breathed her into his soul.

It was rapture.

Abruptly, it ended.

Grainy darkness exploded in his sudden vision. There seemed to be blocky shapes all around as he broke the surface. Nicci's hand gripped his in terror.

Breathe, the sliph told him.

Richard let out the sweet breath, emptying his lungs of the rapture. With a needful gasp, he sucked in the alien air. Cara, too, gasped in the hot, dusty air.

Nicci floated face down, rocking gently in the silver fluid.

Richard threw an arm over the stone wall at the side of the sliph, pulling Nicci with him. He took his bow off his back to get it out of his way and quickly set it against the outside of the wall. With the sliph's help, he hopped up on the wall, and then with the sliph lifting her, pulled the dead weight of Nicci up enough to get her shoulders and head up into the warm, dark air.

Richard slapped her on the back. «Breathe, Nicci. Breathe. Come on, you have to let go of the sliph and breathe. Do it for me.»

At last she did. She gasped in the air, her arms flailing in terror at being confused and lost in such strange surroundings. Richard pulled her close as he helped her get her arms over the side and, panting, climb up on the wall.

Brackets on the walls nearby held glass spheres, like back at the Keep, that glowed brighter as he climbed out of the well.

«What do you think this place is?» Cara asked as she peered around in the dim light.

«That was — rapture,» Nicci said, still under the sway of the experience.

«I told you,» Richard said as he helped her climb out.

«It looks like we're in a stone room of some kind,» Cara said as she walked around the perimeter of the room.

Richard made his way toward the darkness at one end and two larger spheres in tall iron brackets brightened with an eerie green glow. He saw that they flanked steps. The steps, though, marched up to the ceiling.

«That's pretty strange,» Cara said as she stood on the second step, inspecting the dark ceiling.

«Here,» Nicci said. She was leaning over to the side of the steps. «There's a metal plate.»

It was the kind of metal plate Richard had seen in other places. They were trigger plates for shields. Nicci tapped her palm against it but nothing happened.

Richard pressed his hand to the icy cold plate and stone started grating as it moved. Dust came down in streamers.

The three of them ducked back as they all peered around in the gloomy light, trying to figure out what, exactly, was moving. The ground trembled. It felt like the whole room might be shifting and somehow changing shape. Richard then realized that it was actually the ceiling that was pulling aside.

A growing patch of moonlight fell across the steps.

Richard had no idea where they were, other than down in a stone room that appeared to be buried. He didn't know where Caska was, other than the sliph said that it was in the Deep Nothing, and he didn't know where that was, so he didn't really know what to expect. He felt decidedly uneasy.

He reached for his sword.

The sword wasn't there. For what felt like the thousandth time, he felt the sinking regret of realizing why and where it now was.

He drew his long knife instead as he started up the steps in a crouch, ducking low not only so as not to hit his head on the ceiling before it had moved out of the way, but out of caution for who might be outside and have heard stone sliding aside. Cara, seeing him draw his knife, spun her Agiel up into her fist. She tried to get out ahead of him, but he held his arm out, keeping her behind to the left. Nicci was close behind to his right.

As he came up out of the ground, he saw the shadowed shapes of three people standing not far ahead. He knew that from being in the sliph, until he fully recovered, his vision was more acute than ordinary. He could probably see them better than they could see him.

With that sharp vision, Richard saw that the big man in the middle was holding a slender girl back against him. He had one hand over her mouth. He could see the girl squirming. Moonlight gleamed off the blade he held to her throat.

«Drop your weapons,» the man holding the girl growled, «and surrender to the Imperial Order, or you will die.»

Richard flipped the knife into the air, let it make a half turn, and caught it by the tip. An inky shape suddenly swooped atop the man's head. The bird let out a piercing caw. The man flinched. Richard didn't take the time to wonder at such an unexpected assault. He heaved the knife.

On broad wings, the bird lifted into the air. The blade hit the man in the center of his face with a solid thunk. Richard knew that the blade was long enough to have penetrated all the way through the man's brain and that the tip would have pierced the back of the skull. The man dropped straight down behind the trembling girl-dead before he could think to do her harm.

Before the men to either side of the girl could take a half a step, Nicci unleashed a scything whisper of power that took the heads off the other two men. The only noise it made was the sound of the heads hitting the ground with twin, dull thuds. The bodies toppled to either side of the girl.

The night was still but for the drone of cicadas.

The girl hesitantly stepped closer and dropped to her knees. She bent forward before the steps until her forehead touched the stone at his feet.

«Lord Rahl, I am your humble servant. Thank you for coming and protecting me. I live only to serve. My life is yours. Command me as you will.»

Even as the girl was still speaking in a quavering voice, Cara and Nicci were spreading out to the sides, searching for other threats. Richard crossed his lips with a finger to let them know to be quiet about it so as not to alert any other troops that might be near. Both saw his signal and nodded.

Richard waited, listening for any threat. Since the girl was on the ground, he let her stay there, out of harm's way. He heard the whisper of feathers against air as the raven landed on a nearby limb and then the soft rustle as it folded in its wings.

«It's clear,» Nicci announced in a quiet voice as she returned from the shadows. «My Han tells me there are no others in the immediate vicinity.»

Relieved, Richard let the tension go out of his muscles. When he heard the girl weeping in quiet terror, he sat down on the top step right near her. He suspected her terror was fear that she might be killed just as the three men had been. Richard wanted to assure her that she was not going to die.

«It's all right,» he told her as he gently grasped her shoulders and urged her up. «I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe, now.»

As she came up he gathered the frightened girl into his arms, embracing her protectively, holding her head to his shoulder when she glanced to the three dead men as if they still might jump up and snatch her away. She was a slender lithesome creature, the kind of girl on the brink of being a woman, yet looking as frail as a bird about to leave the nest. Her slender arms came gratefully around Richard as she wept with relief.

«The bird a friend of yours?» he asked.

«Lokey,» she confirmed with a nod. «He watches over me.»

«Well, he did a good job tonight.»

«I thought you weren't going to come, Master Rahl. I thought it was my fault, that I wasn't a good enough priestess for you.»

Richard ran a hand down the back of her head. «How did you know I was coming here?»

«The tellings say it is so. But I already waited so long that I thought they might be wrong. I was near to despairing that you would find us not worthy, and then I feared it was my failing»

He surmised that the «tellings» must mean prophecy of some sort. «You are a priestess, you say?»

She nodded as she pulled back to look up at his smile. Richard saw then that her big copper-colored eyes peered out from a dark mask painted in a band around her face. It was a disturbing visage.

«I am the priestess of the bones. You have returned to help me. I am your servant. I am the one meant to cast the dreams.»

«Returned?»

«To life. You have come back from the dead.»

Richard could only stare.

Nicci squatted down beside the girl. «What do you mean, he returned from the dead?»

The girl pointed behind them, at the structure from where they had emerged. «From the world of the dead — back to we the living. It says his name there, on his tomb.»

Richard turned and indeed did see his name carved in the monument. The thing that came immediately to mind was seeing Kahlan's name carved in stone, too. Both of them were alive, despite their graves.

The girl glanced at Cara and then at Nicci. «The tellings say that you will come back to life, Lord Rahl, but they did not say that you would bring your spirit familiars.»

«I haven't come back from the dead,» Richard told her. «I came through the sliph-down there, in that well.»

She nodded. «The well of the dead. The tellings mention such mysterious things, but I never knew their meaning.»

«Do I call you 'priestess,' or by your name?»

«You are Master Rahl; you can call me as it pleases you. My name is Jillian, though. I have had that name my whole life. I'm afraid I have not been a priestess a long time, and so I'm not very good at it, I don't think. My grandfather said that when it is time, it matters not how old I am, but that it is time.»

«How about if I call you Jillian, then?» he asked with a smile.

She appeared still too frightened to return the smile. «I would like that, Master Rahl.»

«My name is Richard. I'd like it if you called me Richard.»

She nodded, still with that look of awe filling her round eyes. Richard didn't know if her awe was at the Master Rahl, or a dead man returned to life and walking up out of his grave.

«Now look, Jillian, I don't know anything about your tellings, yet, but you need to understand that I haven't returned from the dead. I traveled here because I have trouble and I'm looking for answers.»

«You have found the trouble, then. You killed three of them. The answer is for you to help me cast the dreams so that we might drive these evil men away. They have driven most of my people into hiding. The older ones are down there.» She pointed down the dark slope. «They tremble in fear that these men will kill them if they do not find what they seek.»

«What are they looking for?» Richard asked.

«I'm not sure. I have been hiding among the spirits of our ancestors. The men must have made someone down there tell them of me because they knew my name when they finally chased me down, today. I have been staying out of their grasp for a long time. Today they were hiding where I had cached some food. The men grabbed me and wanted me to show them where the books are.»

«These aren't the regular Imperial Order troops,» Nicci explained to the frowning look on his face. «They're advance scouts.»

Richard glanced at the bodies. «How do you know?»

«Because regular Imperial Order troops would never ask you to put down your weapons and surrender. Only the scouts, searching routes through strange lands and hunting for any information they can uncover would take prisoners. They question people. Those who won't talk are sent back to be tortured. These scouts are the men who first find stashes of books that are then collected for the emperor to see. Scouts like this find not only the best routes for the troops, but they are meant to find something even more important for the emperor: knowledge, especially that in books.»

Richard knew the truth of that. Jagang seemed to be an expert on history and what had been done in ancient times. He used that information to great advantage. It seemed like Richard was always trying to catch up with what Jagang already knew.

«Have these men found any of the books, yet?» Richard asked Jillian.

Her copper-colored eyes blinked. «My grandfather has told me about books, but I know of none that are here. The city has been abandoned since ancient times. If there were books, they have long ago been looted along with anything else of value.»

That was not what Richard had hoped to hear. He had been hoping that maybe there would be something here that would help answer the questions he had. After all, Shota had told him that he must find the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing. The graveyard all around him certainly was a place of bones.

«This place is called the Deep Nothing?» he asked her.

Jillian nodded. «It is a vast land where little lives. None but my people can scrape a life from this forbidding place. People have always feared to come here. The bleached bones of those who do venture here are out there, in this place and to the south, before the great barrier. The land is called the Deep Nothing.»

Richard realized that it must be a place much like the wilds in the Midlands.

«The great barrier?» Cara asked, suspiciously.

Jillian looked up at the Mord-Sith. «The great barrier that protects us from the Old World.»

«This has to be southern D'Hara,» Cara told him. «That's why I heard stories about Caska when I was a child-because it's in D'Hara.»

Jillian pointed. «This is the place of my ancestors. They were destroyed by those from the Old World back in ancient times. They, too, were ones who cast dreams.» She looked off into the darkness to the south. «But they failed and were destroyed.»

Richard didn't have time to try to figure it all out. He had enough problems.

«Have you ever heard of Chainfire?»

Jillian frowned. «No. What is Chainfire?»

«I don't know.» He tapped a finger against his bottom lip as he thought about what to do next.

«Richard,» Jillian said, «you must help me cast the dreams that will drive these men away so that my people will be safe again.»

Richard glanced up at Nicci. «Any ideas how I can do such a thing?»

«No,» she said. «But I can tell you that the rest of the men will sooner or later come looking for these three dead men. These aren't your average Imperial Order soldiers. They may be brutes, but they are the smartest of them. I imagine that casting dreams is something that involves your gift — not an advisable thing to be doing,» she added.

Richard stood up and put one hand on a hip as he stared off at the dark city on the headland.

«Seek what is long buried.» he whispered to himself. He turned back to Jillian. «You said that you were a priestess of the bones. I need you to show me everything you know about the bones.»

Jillian shook her head. «First you must help me cast the dreams so that I can chase the strangers away and my grandfather and the rest of our people will be safe.»

Richard sighed in frustration. «Look, Jillian, I don't know how to help you cast dreams and I don't have time to figure it out. But I would imagine, as Nicci said, that it involves magic, and I can't use magic or it very well could call a beast that could kill all of your people. This beast has already killed a lot of my friends who were with me. I need you to show me what you know about what is long buried.»

Jillian wiped at her tears. «Those men have my grandfather and others down there. They will kill him. You must save my grandfather first. Besides, he is a teller. He knows more than me.»

Richard put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He could not imagine how he would feel if someone whom he thought was powerful refused to help save his grandfather.

«I have an idea,» Nicci said. «I'm a sorceress, Jillian. I know all about these men and how they work. I know how to handle them. You help Richard, and while you do that I'll go down there and see to getting rid of these men. When I'm done they will no longer be a danger to you or your people.»

«If I help Richard, you will help my grandfather?»

Nicci smiled. «I promise.»

Jillian looked up at Richard.

«Nicci keeps her word,» he told her.

«All right. I will show Richard everything I know about this place while you make those men leave us be.»

«Cara,» Richard said, «go with Nicci and watch her back.»

«And who will watch yours?»

Richard put a boot on the head of the man he had killed and yanked his knife free. He pointed with the weapon. «Lokey will watch our backs.»

Cara did not look amused. «A raven is going to watch your back.»

He wiped the blade clean on the man's shirt, then returned the knife to its sheath at his belt. «The priestess of the bones will watch over me. After all, she's been here waiting all this time for me to come here. Nicci is the one who will be in danger. I'd appreciate it if you protected her.»

Cara glanced at Nicci as if grasping some greater meaning. «I will protect her for you, Lord Rahl.»

CHAPTER 61

As Nicci and Cara started down toward where Jillian said the rest of the Imperial Order soldiers were, Richard went back into his tomb and recovered the smallest of the glass spheres. He slipped it into his pack so that it wouldn't interfere with his night vision, but would be handy if they had to go into any of the buildings of the city. Searching ancient decaying buildings in the dark was not a prospect he relished.

Jillian was like a cat that knew every nook and cranny of the ancient city on the headland. They went through streets that had nearly disappeared under rubble and wreckage of walls long since fallen. Some of the debris had collected weather-borne dust and dirt that had eventually filled it in, making small hills where trees now grew among the buildings. There were a number of buildings Richard didn't want to enter because he could see that they were ready to collapse if the wind blew the wrong way. Others were still in relatively good condition.

One of the larger buildings Jillian took him to had arches all along the front that at one time had probably held windows, or maybe had even been open to what seemed an inner courtyard. As Richard walked across the floor, small bits of crumbled mortar crunched underfoot. A mosaic made of tiny square colored tiles covered the entire floor. The colors were long since faded, but Richard could still make them out well enough to see that the swirling lines of tiles made up a sprawling picture of trees dotting a landscape surrounded by a wall, with paths through places where there were graves.

«This building is the entrance to a section of the graveyard,» Jillian told him.

Richard frowned as he leaned down a little, studying the picture. There was something odd about it. Moonlight fell across figures in the mosaic that were carrying platters with breads and what looked like meats into the graveyard, while other figures were coming back with empty platters.

Richard straightened when he heard a horrifying cry drift up to them from the far distance, both he and Jillian stood up stock still, listening. More of the distant, faint wails and laments drifted in on the cool night air.

«What was that?» Jillian asked in a whisper, her copper-colored eyes wide.

«I think Nicci is getting rid of the invaders. Your people will be safe once she is finished.»

«You mean she is hurting them?»

Richard could see that such concepts were alien to the girl. «These are men who would do terrible things to your people-including your grandfather. If they are left to come back another day, they will kill your people.»

She turned and looked back out through the arches. «That wouldn't be good. But the dreams would have driven them away.»

«Did casting dreams save your ancestors? Save the people of this city?»

She looked back to his eyes. «I guess not.»

«What matters most is that people who value life, like you, your grandfather, and your people are safe to live their lives. Sometimes that means it's necessary to eliminate those who would do you harm.»

She swallowed. «Yes, Lord Rahl.»

He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. «Richard. I am a Lord Rahl who wants people to be safe to live as they wish.»

At last she smiled.

Richard looked back to the mosaic, studying the picture. «Do you know what this means? This picture?»

Finally pulling herself away from the distant, ghastly screams of pain that drifted in from the darkness, she looked down at the picture. «See this wall here?» she asked as she pointed. «The tellings say that these walls held the graves of the people of the city. This place, here, is where we are, now. This place is the passage to the dead.

«The tellings say that there were always dead, but only this place to put them within the city walls. The people didn't want their loved ones to be far from them, far from what they considered the sacred place for their ancestors, so they made passages where they could find resting places for them.»

Shota's words echoed around in his memory.

You must find the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing.

What you seek is long buried.

«Show me this place,» he told Jillian. «Take me back there.»

It was more difficult to reach than he had expected it would be. There was a labyrinth of passages and rooms back through the building. Some of it went between walls that were open to the stars, only to reenter the dark depths of the building.

«This is the way of the dead,» Jillian explained. «The deceased were brought in through here. It is said that it was made this way in the hopes that the souls of the dead would be confused by the passages and these new spirits would not be able to wander back out. Instead, confined in this place and unable to come back among the living, they would then go on to be where they belonged in the spirit world.»