Kahlan did as she had done countless times before—she released her restraint.
For an imperceptible twitch of time, something was different. There was resistance where there had been none before. A wall.
Like hot steel through glass, her power crashed through it.
The magic exploded through Marlin’s mind.
Thunder without sound.
Stone chips fell from the ceiling at the concussion. Water droplets danced. Despite the water’s rush, a ring of ripples raced outward around the two of them, driving a wall of mist and dust.
Nadine, clinging to the stepping stone, cried out in the pain of being so close to a Confessor’s power unleashed.
Marlin’s mouth went slack. Once a person’s mind had been destroyed by a Confessor, they became a vessel needing her command.
Marlin offered no such abdication.
Blood streamed from his ears and nose. His head lolled to the side in the rushing torrent. His dead eyes stared.
Kahlan released her grip of his throat when his hand went slack on the grate and the water tore him away. Marlin’s body tumbled out through the broken stone lattice and plummeted to the rocks below.
Kahlan knew: she had almost had Jagang, but she failed. His thoughts, his ability as a dream walker, had been too fast for her Confessor’s magic to catch.
Nadine was reaching toward her. “Grab my hand! I can’t hold on forever!”
Kahlan locked wrists with her. Using her power drained a Confessor of strength. After using her magic, it took even Kahlan, the Mother Confessor, and perhaps the strongest Confessor ever born, several hours before she could use her power again, but longer than that to fully recover her strength. She was exhausted, and couldn’t fight the torrent any longer. Without Nadine’s hold on her, she would have gone over the edge, too.
With Nadine’s help, Kahlan managed to regain the stepping stones. Shivering with the cold, they both dragged themselves up.
Nadine wept at the crest of terror that had passed and had almost taken them. Kahlan was too exhausted to weep, but she knew how Nadine felt.
“I wasn’t touching him, when you used magic, but I thought every one of my joints had popped apart. It didn’t… do anything to me, did it? Anything magic? Am I going to die, too?”
“No, you’re fine,” Kahlan assured her. “You simply felt the pain because you were too close, that’s all. If you had been touching him, though, it would have been inconceivably worse—you would have been destroyed.”
Nadine nodded in mute reply. Kahlan put an arm around her and whispered a thank you in her ear. Nadine smiled the tears away.
“We have to get back to Cara.” Kahlan said. “We have to hurry.”
“How? The torch is gone. There’s no way down the outside, and as soon as we try to go back, it will be pitch black. I don’t want to go back there in the dark. It’s impossible until the soldiers come with torches to light our way.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Kahlan said wearily. “We took every turn to the right, so we have only to put a hand on the left wall and follow it to find our way back.”
Nadine threw her hand out, pointing back into the blackness. “That may be all fine and good in the halls, but when we came into this drainage tunnel, we crossed over to the other side. There aren’t steps on that side. We’ll never find the opening.”
“The water rushing over the step stone in the center of the tunnel had a different sound. Didn’t you notice? I’ll remember it.” Kahlan took Nadine’s hand to give her encouragement. “We have to try. Cara needs help.”
Nadine stared in wordless worry for a moment, and then said, “All right, but wait a moment.”
She tore a strip from the shredded hem of Kahlan’s dress and wound it around Kahlan’s upper arm, closing the wound as best she could. Kahlan winced when Nadine drew the knot tight.
“Let’s go,” Nadine said. “But be careful until I can sew it closed and put a poultice on it.”
12
They made excruciatingly slow progress back up the drainage tunnel. The blind trek, groping along the cold, slimy stone, with the water coursing about their ankles, and the constant fear of falling into the raging water in the darkness, was at least devoid of the terror that Marlin might pop up, grab their legs, and pull them in. When Kahlan heard the sound of the water change, and its echo into the hall, she held Nadine’s hand and probed with a foot until she found the step stone across the channel.
Partway back through the dark labyrinth of tunnels and halls, the soldiers found them and led the way with torches. In a numb haze, Kahlan followed the wavering flames of the torches as they plunged ever onward into the black nothingness. It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. Kahlan wished for nothing more than to lie down, even if it were on the cold, wet stone.
Outside the pit, the halls were crowded with hundreds of grim soldiers. Archers all had arrows nocked. Spears were at the ready, as were swords and axes. Other weapons, from the fight with Marlin, were still embedded in the stone. She doubted that anything short of magic would remove them. The dead and wounded had been cleared away, but blood boasted where they had lain.
Screams were no longer coming from the pit.
Kahlan recognized Captain Harris, who had been up in Petitioners’ Hall earlier in the day. “Has anyone gone down there to help her, captain?”
“No, Mother Confessor.”
He didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish about it. D’Harans feared magic, and felt no loss of pride admitting it. Lord Rahl was the magic against magic; they were the steel against steel. It was as simple as that.
Kahlan couldn’t bring herself to reprimand the men in the hall for leaving Cara alone. They had shown their bravery in the fight with Marlin. Many of them had been killed or seriously injured. Going down into the pit was different from fighting something that came out; defending themselves was different, in their minds, from going out and looking for trouble with magic.
For their part of the bargain, the steel against steel, D’Haran soldiers fought to the death. They expected their Lord Rahl to do his part, and his part was dealing with magic.
Kahlan read the apprehension in all the waiting eyes. “The assassin, the man who escaped the pit, is dea
d. It’s over.”
Soft sighs of relief could be heard up and down the hall, but by the anxious expression still on the captain’s face, she knew she must look quite a mess.
“I think we should get you some help, Mother Confessor.”
“Later.” Kahlan started for the ladder. Nadine followed. “How long has she been silent, captain?”
“Maybe an hour.”
“That was about when Marlin died. Come with us, and bring a couple more men so we can get Cara out of there.”
Cara was on the far side of the room, near the wall where Kahlan had seen her last. Kahlan knelt on one side, Nadine on the other, as the soldiers held torches so they could see.
Cara was in convulsions of some sort. Her eyes were closed, and she was no longer screaming, but she shook violently, her arms and legs thrashing against the stone floor.
She was choking on her own vomit.
Kahlan gripped the shoulder of Cara’s red leather and yanked her onto her side.
“Open her mouth!”
Nadine leaned over from behind and pushed her thumb against the back of Cara’s jaw, forcing it forward. With her other hand, she pressed down on her chin, keeping her mouth open. Kahlan swept two fingers through Cara’s mouth several times until she had cleared her airway.
“Breathe!” Kahlan yelled. “Breathe, Cara, breathe!”
Nadine slapped the prone woman on the back, eliciting gurgling, wet, choking coughs that finally brought a semblance of clear, if gasping, breathing.
Although she was able to breathe, it didn’t halt the convulsions. Kahlan felt helpless.
“I better go get my things,” Nadine said.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t really know. A paroxysm of some sort. I’m no expert, but I think we need to stop it. I might be able to help. I might have something in my bag.”
“You two, go show her the way. Leave a torch.”
Nadine and the two soldiers raced up the ladder after one of them shoved a torch in a bracket on the wall.