Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

Kahlan needed no introduction to know that this was Nicholas the Slide. She had taken confessions from men who appeared to be no more than polite young men, working fathers, or kindly grandfathers but in truth were men who had carried out acts of ruthless cruelty. To look at them behind their bench where they made shoes, or behind a counter where they sold bread, or in a field tending their animals it would be difficult to believe them capable of their vile crimes. But looking at Nicholas, Kahlan saw such utter corruption that it tainted everything about the man, right down to the indecent squint of his eyes.

“The prize of prizes,” Nicholas hissed. He reached out, making a fist. “And I have her.”

Kahlan hardly heard him. She was already lost to the commitment of wielding her power. This was the man who held the lives of innocent people hostage. This was the man who brought suffering and death in his shadow. This was the man who would kill her and Richard, if given the chance.

She snatched his outstretched wrist capped with his fist.

He appeared no more than a statue before her.

The night, sprinkled with a vault of stars, seemed cold and distant. Beneath her grip of him, Kahlan could feel Nicholas tense, as if to draw back his arm. But it was too late.

He had no chance. He was hers.

Time was hers.

The men all around, who had begun rushing in, were far too distant to matter. They could never reach her in time to save Nicholas. Not even the man who had brought her from the bridge, who now stood not more than a few paces away, was close enough to matter.

Time was hers.

Nicholas was hers.

She gave no thought to what those men would do to her. Right then, it didn’t matter. Right then, nothing but her ability to do what needed doing mattered. This man had to be eliminated.

This was the enemy.

This was the man who had invaded a land to torture, rape, and murder innocent people in the name of the Imperial Order. This was a man who had been mutated by magic into a monster designed to destroy them. This man was a tool of conquest, a being of evil.

This was the man who held Richard’s life in the balance.

The power within raged to be released.

All her emotions evaporated before the heat of that power. She no longer felt fear, hate, anger, horror. The emotions behind her reasons were now gone. In the all-consuming race of time suspended before the violent rush of her power, she felt only a resolute determination. Her power had become an instrument of pure reason.

All her barriers fell before it.

In an infinitesimal spark of time as she watched the beady eyes staring at her, her power became all.

As she had done countless times before, Kahlan released her restraint on it, and released herself into the flux of violence focused to a singular purpose.

Where she should have felt the exquisite release of merciless force, she felt instead a terrifying emptiness. Where there should have been the fierce twisting of her power through this man’s mind, there was…nothing.

Kahlan’s eyes went wide as she gasped.

As she felt hot pain knife through her.

As she felt the thrust of something foreign and terrible beyond anything she could have imagined.

Hot agony lanced through her consciousness all the way into her very soul.

It felt as if her insides were being ripped apart.

She tried to scream but couldn’t.

The night went blacker still.

Kahlan heard laughter echoing through her soul.

Chapter 58

Richard’s eyes popped open. He felt suddenly, completely, horrifyingly wide awake.

The hair at the back of his neck lifted. It felt as if all his hair wanted to stand on end. His heart raced nearly out of control.

He shot to his feet. Cara, right beside him, caught his arm, surprised to see him suddenly stand up. Looking as if she feared he might fall, she frowned in concern.

“Lord Rahl, what’s the matter? Are you all right?”

The room was silent. Startled faces all around stared up at him.

“Get out!” he yelled. “Get your things! Everyone out! Now!”

Richard snatched up his pack. He didn’t see Kahlan, but saw her pack and grabbed it as well. He wondered if he might still be dreaming. But he never remembered his dreams. He wondered if the feeling might be some lingering dread from a dream. No. It was real.

At first made confused and indecisive by Richard’s sudden commands, when the men saw him urgently picking up his gear, everyone scooped up their things and scrambled to their feet. Men everywhere were snatching anything they saw lying about, no matter whose it was.

“Move!” Richard yelled as he pushed hesitant men toward the door. “Go. Move, move, move.”

It felt as if something brushed against him, a sliding caress of his flesh, something warm and wicked. Goose bumps tingled up his arms.

“Hurry!”

Men scrambled wildly up the dark stairs ahead of him. Betty, caught up in the mood of panicked escape, shot between his legs and ran up the steps. Cara was close behind him.

The hair at the nape of his neck prickled as if lightning was about to strike. Richard scanned the dark, empty room.

“Where’s Kahlan and Jennsen?”

“They went outside before,” Cara said.

“Good. Let’s go!”

Just as Richard reached the top of the stairs, a fiery blast from back in the room knocked him sprawling. Cara fell on his legs. The stairwell lit in a flash of yellow and orange light as the entire basement filled with flames. Gouts of fire rolled up the stairwell.

Richard seized Cara’s arm and dove with her through the open doorway. As they burst out into the night, the building behind them erupted in a thunderous roar of flames. Parts of the building broke apart, lifting in the billowing blaze. Richard and Cara ducked as flaming boards fell all around them, bouncing and flipping across the ground lit by the glow.

Finally away from the burning building, Richard made a quick appraisal of the alley, looking to see if there were any soldiers about to set upon them. Not seeing anyone he didn’t recognize, he started the men moving down the alley to put some distance between them and the burning building.

“We have to get away from here,” Richard told Anson. “Nicholas knew we were here. The fire will draw attention and troops. We haven’t much time.”

Looking around, he still didn’t see Kahlan anywhere. His concern rising, he spotted Jennsen, Tom, and Owen running up the alley toward him. By the looks on their faces, he immediately knew that something was wrong.

Richard seized Jennsen’s arm as she ran up close. “Where’s Kahlan?”

Jennsen gulped air. “Richard—she, she—”

Jennsen burst into tears. Owen waved a square-sided bottle and a piece of paper, as he, too, wept uncontrollably.

Richard looked at Tom, expecting an answer, and fast. “What’s going on?”

“Nicholas found the antidote. He offered it in trade…for the Mother Confessor. We tried to stop her, Lord Rahl—I swear we did. She wouldn’t listen to any of us. She insisted that she was going to get the antidote and then stop Nicholas. After you have the antidote, if she fails to stop Nicholas and return, she wants you to come for her.”

The leaping flames lit the grim faces around him.

“Once her mind is made up,” Tom added, “there’s no talking her out of it. She has a way of making you do as she says.”

Richard knew the truth of that. Amid the roar and crackle of the fire, the building groaned and popped. The roof began to fall in, sending showers of sparks skyward.

Owen urgently handed the square-sided bottle to Richard. “Lord Rahl, she did it to get the antidote. She wanted you to have it so you could be well. She said that comes first—before it is too late.”

Richard pulled the cork on the bottle. It had the slight aroma of cinnamon. He took the first swallow, expecting a thick, sweet, spicy taste. I