CHAPTER THREE
Kahlan wandered through the woods, fear and trepidation forming a knot in her stomach. She should have found the road by now, but the forest seemed to have swallowed it up. The sun hung low over the horizon, and in the forest it was dark and growing cold. Shapes moved in the shadows, human shapes. She could hear their voices. They crowded closer and closer, always staying out of direct sight. She would catch flashes of red cloaks, of faces peering out at her.
Something brushed against her. She refused to look, knowing it was an illusion. A voice whispered in her ear. It was hauntingly familiar.
"Go with them peacefully."
"What? Who's there?" she cried.
"Accept your fate with dignity."
She knew the voice. It had only been a few months since she had said those words herself. To a young, confused man with false memories of murder.
"Niles?" She turned despite herself and he was there. A tall young man with dark curls of hair and a short beard. He had soft and gentle eyes, full of remorse. Those eyes now wept black tears and turned death white. His skin turned an ashen grey as he reached out for her and howled with fury.
"You murdered me!"
Kahlan screamed and ran into the forest. The undergrowth seemed to come alive as grasses and roots snapped at her legs and branches whipped across her arms. She tore frantically at them but something grabbed her arms.
She looked up in terror and saw Damark's angry face glaring down at her he. He had seized her wrists and held her in an iron grip as he shook her. "You stole my soul!"
Damark threw her to the ground and reached for his sword. Before he could draw the blade Kahlan scrambled away on hands and knees, regaining her feet despite her muddy and torn dress tangling her up. She bolted into the darkness, swearing she could feel the chill of Damark's blade flashing behind her.
A steep hill rose up beneath her, and she found herself half running and half climbing as she scrambled up it's side. Behind she could hear Damark howling in rage. She turned to look and from the darkness she saw a dozen, two dozen, perhaps a hundred D'Haran soldiers chasing after her. She recognized every one of them. Every soldier she'd confessed, every will she had snuffed out in her quest. They were all screaming, repeating the same awful truth: "You stole my soul!"
A hand reached out for her from above. It was Richard, reaching down from the peak of the hill, calling her name. She took his hand.
The impossible happened. The power rose up in her, flowed out of her, into Richard. His eyes filled with black storms as she felt all the energy drain out of her. He looked at her with terrible confusion and said: "You stole my soul?"
Richard let go of her hand and Kahlan felt backwards, tumbling down the muddy slope and into the waiting arms of the frenzied D'Harans.
***
Richard ducked low and dashed across the small clearing with Sebastian following shortly behind him. They were close now, only another forty yards to the gaping hole that Richard prayed would lead them into the dungeon. Sebastian hadn't mastered the art of crouching and running, he could do one or the other. So either he kept low enough to hide behind the sparse cover, or he moved quick enough to avoid being caught in the open.
Thus it seemed inevitable that has the pair crossed the final clearing a sharp-eyed D'Haran caught a glimpse of Sebastian ungainly duck walk and sounded the alarm.
"Run!" Richard cried as he bolted for the hole. Sebastian screamed incoherently and ran after him. Crossbow bolts hit the soft earth with dull thwacks, but both escaped harm.
Diving into the pit, which was deeper than he suspected, proved more dangerous than Richard had hoped. A paved hallway littered with rubble lie beyond the hole, and Richard narrowly avoided smashing himself against the ground. Sebastian followed after him, catching himself on the rim of the hole before dropping down.
Richard drew the Sword of Truth and it glowed with white light, illuminating the passageway they found themselves in. It continued in either direction for thirty feet at least, beyond that was shrouded in darkness. Richard picked a direction that he hoped would lead deeper into the ruin and ran, shouting at Sebastian to follow after him.
As they tore down the hallway they could hear the shouts of D'Haran soldiers behind them.
***
"What do you mean he's behind us?" screamed Bullant as his men rose up from their hiding places and cast around in confusion. One of the men position closest to the ruin's entrance shouted and waved his arms. "All of you, assemble at that soldier's position!"
Bullant ran towards the shouting soldier. Several of his men were already firing the bows, though Bullant couldn't make out their target. As he reached the dark hole that marked the entrance he pulled up short, just as his men had. They looked at him with trepidation.
"Do we follow them in sir?"
Bullant consider the dark hole. It was the very definition of ominous and disturbing.
"No. Send some men to begin scouting the rubble. Make sure there are no other exits. The rest of you set up camp here, keep five men posted on that hole at all time. The Seeker has to come out sometime, and he won't get behind us this time."
***
Using the light from the Sword of Truth, Richard and Sebastian pressed deeper into the labyrinth of tunnels under the ruins. They had passed several intersections, but in each case the adjoining tunnel had collapsed. Richard was hoping that their wandering wasn't just leading them down a dead end.
"Does it always glow like that?"
Richard considered the sword. He seemed to recall it glowing once or twice before, but never like this.
"No, actually, this is new."
"I hope that's good."
"Me too."
A second hallway crossed paths with their hallway, forming a four way intersection. Richard peered down each branch, and the way was clear in every direction.
"Looks like we have a choice to make."
Sebastian was staring at the sword.
"Did you see that?"
"What?"
"Your sword glowed."
"The sword has been glowing for the last hour Sebastian. What's your point?"
"No, point it down that hall." Sebastian pointed to indicate the hall in question. Richard followed his finger with the point of the sword. Richard noticed it now: the glow of the blade dimmed.
"Now point it the other way."
Richard turned around and aimed the tip down the opposite hall. The glow of the blade intensified.
"What do you think it means?"
"I think it means the sword has made the choice for us."
***
Kahlan awoke with a start, thrashing about and expecting the worst. She was still coming to her senses when she felt strong hands take her flailing arms and hold them still. Her vision cleared and she saw a pair of sternly set blue eyes looking down at her. The eyes were full of power and mystery, threatening to swallow Kahlan up; she could feel herself falling into them.
The eyes were set in a familiar face. Once beautiful but now etched with a lifetime of frowns and scowls, framed by fading red curls twisted up in intricate braids. The face of the Shota.
"I'm impressed."
Kahlan sat up, shaking her head as if to toss the dust from her mind.
"Impressed?"
"Few make it this far into Agaden without my permission. Most find their fears overwhelm them long before this point. It has been...a long time since anyone with a will such as yours as sought me out."
Kahlan looked around her. The sky was midnight blue and sparkled with stars. She was lying on pillows and blankets in a clearing in the forest. Rocks littered the clearing, and on every stone rested a thick white votive burning away merrily. Beside her were large copper bowls overflowing with bread, fruit and cheese. She realized that her forehead was damp and cool, and when she touched it she felt a cloth.
"How does anyone find you?"
"No one does, not unless I want them to."
"So you wanted me to find you?"
"I did."
Kahlan felt back against the pillows. She realized her entire body ached, as if she'd been fighting all night. For all she knew she had. She tried to recall what had happened after the phantom Richard had dropped her down that hill. It was a blur, a violent and painful blur.
"You have a strange way of throwing out the welcome mat."
The Shota laughed, a low chuckle in the back of her throat.
"It was necessary to see how far you would come on your own."
"So it was a test? What gives you the right to test me?"
The Shota's eyes narrowed and she rose to her feet, turning her back to Kahlan.
"You carry the weight of the world's fate on your shoulders girl, don't begrudge me my right to see how strong those shoulders are."
"What do you care about the world?"
The Shota spun and stooped down to meet Kahlan's gaze. Her eyes burned with anger and Kahlan felt her stomach sink.
"Don't you think that just because I protect my realm from the greedy and grubby desires and wants of the people that I am entirely disconnected from this land. The Midlands have been my home far longer than they have been yours. I have no more desire to see Rahl's rule than you."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."
"Yes, you did. But it's neither here nor there. You have a question for me."
"Then you know why I am here?"
"I am the Shota, I know everything."
"Then tell me what I need to know?"
"What you need to know? The Seeker will fail and disappear from this land, Darken Rahl shall cement his rule and be made lord of the Midlands. You will bear him a son, a son more monstrous than Rahl at his most perverse. The world will die a thousand deaths because of you. You with your fears and desires, the lies you tell yourself, the lies you tell others."
Kahlan couldn't begin to comprehend what the Shota was telling her. She would bear Rahl a son? It was impossible! Her head was spinning and blood pounded in her ears.
"That's...that's impossible!"
"Worry not, this is only one future, one that will exist and then be destroyed. But you are not here about the future, you are here about the present."
The Shota had walked away from where Kahlan rested, as she turned she lifted up a broad, shallow bowl of blue stone. She returned to Kahlan's side and placed the bowl down. It was full of clear water.
"You have a question for me, ask your question."
Kahlan looked at her incredulously, desperate to ask her to explain her cryptic prophecy, but knowing that she had a more pressing question, the question that had brought her here.
"My power. Something is wrong with my power. I need to know what's happening to your power."
The Shota's lips twisted into a cruel little smile as she waved a hand over the bowl's waters. They clouded and glowed with a pale blue light.
"There is nothing wrong with your powers. They have only grown more powerful as your control over them expands. You are already the most powerful Confessor the world has seen in a hundred years, at the rate your powers progress you are destined to stand amongst the greatest of your kind. The legends will sing of Kahlan the Confessor for millennium to come."
"Then why did Damark turn on me? How did his love for me become hate? Who could do such a thing?"
"Only a wizard of the first order has the power necessary to twist and pervert the powers of a confessor?"
"No, that can't be. Gils id dead, I killed him myself. I saw him die. There is only one wizard of the first order left. Zedd would never do that, Zedd couldn't do something like that."
The Shota scowled at the mention of Zedd's name.
"Do not be so certain about that one. Few known the depths that Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander is capable of sinking to. Pray to the Creator that you never seen the true depths of the darkness in that one's soul."
Kahlan could feel the rage the Shota was suppressing radiating off her in waves. It didn't take the empathic skills of a Confessor to see what she was hiding, the air practically crackled with angry energy.
"But no, it's not Zorander. His loyalty to you is absolute, for now at least."
"But there are no other wizards of the first order. They're all dead!"
"Yes." The Shota nodded her agreement and gestured towards the pool. Staring into it Kahlan found that it seemed deeper now, impossibly deep. Her eyes were drawn into its depths. "Do you see him? Do you see the wizard who has died and defied death?"
A face began to resolve itself in the pool. Long and gaunt, with dark grey skin pulled taut over sharp bones. Thin lips split in a rictus grin, gnarled and stained teeth protruding like rotting pickets from shrunken gums, and yellow rheumy eyes clouded with cataracts. It was the face of a corpse left out in the sun to shrivel and dry.
"What is it?"
"Something that should have died a long time ago. Something I thought had been put down for good. That is the face of the Necromancer."
The word sent a shiver down Kahlan's spine. Beyond the dark arts mastered by Rahl, the evil spells he wove to create his Mord'Sith and to pervert the Midlands, there was an even darker magic. A magic so foul and wrong that it was universally hatred. The power of false life, the power to make a mockery of death. The power of necromancy.
"But necromancy has been a crime for hundreds of years. Those arts are lost to the ages, and all of the necromancers have been destroyed."
"All but one. He was born when necromancy was still practiced, and he was its greatest student. When they came for him he laughed, swearing the world had not seen the last of him, that he had his escape from the Underworld already planned. It appears he was right."
"Who is he?"
"He is Melchior, and he is the why and the how that answers your question."