Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

Nicci insistently gripped a fis

tful of his shirt as he cinched the second thong tight. “You don’t yet realize how weak you really are, Richard. You’re jeopardizing your life. You need to rest in order for your body to be able to recover. You haven’t had nearly enough time to build your strength.”

“And how much time does Kahlan have?” He seized Nicci’s upper arm and in heated frustration pulled her close. “She’s out there, somewhere, in trouble. You don’t realize it, Cara doesn’t realize it, but I do. Do you think I can just lie around here when the person I love more than anything in the world is in peril?

“If it were you in trouble, Nicci, would you wish me to so easily give up on you? Wouldn’t you want me to try? I don’t know what’s gone wrong, but something has. If I’m right—and I am—then I can’t even begin to guess at the implications or imagine the consequences.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you’re right then I’m just imagining things out of my dreams. But if I’m right—and since it’s pretty obvious that you and Cara can’t both be sharing the same mental disorder—that would have to mean that whatever is happening has a cause that isn’t benevolent. I can’t afford to delay and risk everything while I try to convince you of the seriousness of the situation. Too much time has already been lost. Too much is at stake.”

Nicci looked too startled by the notion to speak. Richard released her and turned back to fasten down the flap on his pack. He didn’t have the time to try to solve the puzzle of whatever was going on with Nicci and Cara.

Nicci finally found her voice. “Richard, don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re beginning to invent absurd notions in order to justify what you want to believe. You said it yourself—Cara and I can’t both be sharing the same disorder of the mind. Stay and rest. We can try to discover the nature of this dream that has taken such strong root in your mind and hopefully set it right. I probably caused it with something I did when I was trying to heal you. If so, I’m sorry. Please, Richard, stay for now.”

She was focused only on what she saw as the problem. Zedd, his grandfather, the man who had helped raise him, had often said as Richard was growing up, Don’t think of the problem, think of the solution. The solution he needed to concentrate on, now, was how to find Kahlan before it was too late. He wished he had Zedd’s help to find the solution to where she was.

“You aren’t out of serious danger yet,” Nicci insisted as she dodged drips of rainwater trickling through holes in the roof. “Pushing yourself too hard could be fatal.”

“I understand—I really do.” Richard checked the knife he wore at his belt and then slipped it back into its sheath. “I don’t intend to ignore your advice. I’ll take it as easy as I can.”

“Richard, listen to me,” Nicci said, rubbing her fingers against her temple as if her head was aching, “it’s more than that alone.”

She paused to run her hand back over her hair as she searched for the words. “You aren’t invincible. You may carry that sword, but it can’t always protect you. Your ancestors, every Lord Rahl before you, despite their mastery of the gift, still kept bodyguards close at hand. You may have been born with the gift but even if you were competent in its use such power is no assurance of protection—especially not now.

“That arrow only served to show how vulnerable you really are. You may be an important man, Richard, but you are just a man. We all need you. We all so desperately need you.”

Richard looked away from the anguish in Nicci’s blue eyes. He knew very well how vulnerable he was. Life was his highest value; he didn’t take it for granted. He almost never objected to Cara being close at hand. She and the rest of the Mord-Sith as well as other bodyguards he seemed to have inherited had proven their worth more than once. But that didn’t mean that he was helpless or that he could allow caution to prevent him from doing what was necessary.

More than that, though, he grasped Nicci’s larger meaning. He had learned while at the Palace of the Prophets that the Sisters of the Light believed that he was deeply enmeshed in ancient prophecy—that he was a central figure around whom events revolved.

According to the Sisters, if their side was to prevail over the dark forces arrayed against them, it would only be if Richard led them to victory. Prophecy said that without him all would be lost. Their prelate, Annalina, had spent a great deal of her life manipulating events to make sure that he survived to grow up and lead them in this war. Ann’s hopes for everything they held dear, to hear her tell it, rested on his shoulders. At least Kahlan had thankfully taken the fire out of Ann in that regard. He knew, though, that many others still held the same view. He knew, too, that his leadership had galvanized a great many people who longed to simply live free.

Richard had been down in the vaults at the Palace of the Prophets and had seen some of the most important and well-guarded books of prophecy in existence. He had to admit that some of it was pretty uncanny. Nevertheless, his experience had been that prophecy seemed to say whatever it was people wanted it to say.

He had personal experience with prophecy involving Kahlan and himself, especially those prophecies of Shota, the witch woman. As far as he was concerned, prophecy had proven itself to be of little value and great trouble.

Richard forced a smile. “Nicci, you’re sounding like a Sister of the Light.” She didn’t look to be amused. “Cara will be with me,” he said, trying to ease her mind.

He realized, after he’d said it, that having Cara with him hadn’t stopped the arrow that had taken him down. Come to think of it, where had she been during the battle? He didn’t remember her being there with him. Cara didn’t fear a fight; a team of horses couldn’t drag her away from protecting him. Surely, she must have been close beside him, but he just didn’t recall seeing her.

He picked up his big leather over-belt and fastened it around his waist. He had gotten the belt and other parts of the outfit, which had once belonged to a great wizard, from the Wizard’s Keep, where Zedd now stood guard, protecting the Keep from Emperor Jagang and his horde from the Old World.

Nicci heaved an impatient sigh—a glimpse of a stern and implacable side of her that Richard knew all too well. He knew, though, that this time it was powered by sincere concern for his well-being.

“Richard, we simply can’t afford this distraction. There are important things we need to talk about. That’s why I was coming to you in the first place. Didn’t you get the letter I sent?”

Richard paused. Letter…letter…“Yes,” he said, at last remembering. “I did get your letter. I sent word to you—with a soldier Kahlan had touched with her power.”

Richard caught Cara’s brief glance up at Nicci—a surprised look that said that she didn’t recall any such thing.

Nicci appraised him with an unreadable look. “The word you sent never found me.”

Somewhat surprised, Richard gestured toward the New World. “His primary mission was to go north and assassinate Emperor Jagang. He was touched by a Confessor’s power; he would die before ever abandoning her command. If he couldn’t find you, he would have gone after Jagang. I suppose it’s also possible that something happened to him first. There are perils enough in the Old World.”

The look on Nicci’s face made him feel like he had just offered her further evidence that he was losing his mind. “Do you honestly think, even in your wildest imaginings, that the dream walker can be so easily eliminated?”

“No, of course not.” He pushed the bulge of a cooking pot in his pack back into place. “We expected that the soldier would probably be killed in the attempt. We sent him after Jagang because he was a murdering thug and deserved to die. But I also thought that there was a possibility that he might succeed. Even if he didn’t, I wanted Jagang to at least lose some sleep knowing that any of his men could be assassins.”

He could see by Nicci’s too-calm expression that she thought that this, too, was no more than part of his elaborate delusion about a woman he had dreamed.

Richard recalled, then, what

else had happened. “Nicci, I’m afraid that shortly after Sabar delivered your letter we were attacked. He died in that fight.”

A furtive glance to Cara brought a nod in confirmation.

“Dear spirits,” Nicci said in sorrow at hearing the news about young Sabar. Richard shared her sentiment.

He remembered Nicci’s urgent warning in the letter about how Jagang had started to create weapons out of gifted people, as had been done three thousand years before in the great war. It was a frightening development that had been thought impossible, but Jagang had discovered a way to accomplish the task by using the Sisters of the Dark he held captive.

During the attack on their camp, Nicci’s letter had been knocked into the fire. Richard hadn’t had the chance to read the whole letter before it had been destroyed. He’d read enough, though, to understand the danger.

When he made for the table, where his sword lay, Nicci stepped in front of him. “Richard, I know it’s hard, but you have to put this dream business behind you. We don’t have time for it. We need to talk. If you got my letter, then at least you know that you can’t—”

“Nicci,” Richard said, silencing her, “I must do this.” He laid a hand on her shoulder and spoke as patiently as he could, considering his sense of urgency, but by his tone let her know that he was not going to discuss it further. “If you come with us then we can talk later, when there is time and it doesn’t interfere with what I need to do, but right now I don’t have the time and neither does Kahlan.”

Pressing the back of his hand against the side of her shoulder, Richard moved her aside and strode to the table.

As he lifted his sword by its polished scabbard, he briefly wondered why, when he had heard the wolf howl and he woke up, he’d thought the sword had been lying on the ground beside him. Maybe he had remembered a fragment of a dream. Impatient to get going, he dismissed it.

He slipped the ancient tooled-leather baldric over his head and quickly adjusted the scabbard at his left hip, making sure it was securely fastened. With two fingers he lifted the sword by the downswept crossguard, not only to be sure that it was clear in its sheath, but to check that the blade was sound. He couldn’t remember everything that had happened in the fight and he didn’t recall putting the sword away himself.