Something, some inner sense, told him not to move.
He thought then that maybe it wasn’t some inner sense, but rather simply the feeling of alarm at something dark crouched not far away, watching them.
Either way, he was afraid to move.
The thing, if it was a thing and not simply some trick of the dim light, or even his imagination, remained stone-still.
He told himself that if it turned out to be nothing more than a shadow he was going to feel pretty foolish.
But shadows didn’t watch.
This thing was watching.
Unable to endure the silent tension any longer, Richard slowly, ever so slowly, started to shift himself off Kahlan in order to reach toward his sword.
When he began to move, the thing started to uncurl, to slowly rise as if in response to his movement. A soft sound accompanied the movement, a brittle sound like sticks, muffled in cloth, snapping. Or maybe it sounded more like bones cracking.
Richard froze.
The thing didn’t.
As it rose, the head began to turn up. Richard could hear soft riffling pops as if the thing was dead and stiff, and every bone in the spine cracked under the effort of the forced movement.
The head continued to lift until Richard finally saw the eyes glaring out at him from under a lowered brow.
“Dear spirits,” Kahlan whispered, “what is that?”
Richard couldn’t even venture a guess.
From across the room, lightning quick, the thing suddenly bounded toward the bed.
Richard dove for his sword.
CHAPTER 25
Out of the corner of her eye Kahlan saw the dark thing charge toward them as Richard dove off her and across the bed.
As he slid toward the edge of the bed, his hand snatched the hilt of the sword. He rolled off the bed, yanking the sword free of the scabbard in one fluid movement as he landed on his feet. The ringing sound of the Sword of Truth’s steel cut the silence like a scream of rage that sent a shiver rippling across her flesh.
As the dark shape vaulted toward them Richard spun to face the threat. Kahlan ducked back out of the way.
With lightning speed, the weapon swung around in an arc. The blade whistled as it swept through the air to meet the streak of a shadow.
Razor-sharp steel cut through the center of the inky form.
But even as the blade was cleaving it, the dark form evaporated like dust losing its shape, a shadow decomposing into eddies and swirls as it vanished.
Richard stood beside the bed, sword in hand, panting with rage. As far as Kahlan could tell, the source of his awakened anger was no longer there. She heard the soft, distant rumble of thunder, and the faint hiss of the lantern on the table between the chairs and the couch.
Kahlan scooted across the bed toward him. She peered around at the dark room, trying to see if the form had reappeared somewhere else. She wondered if she would be able to see it if it did.
“I don’t feel anything watching us,” she said, still scanning the darkness for the silent threat.
“I don’t either. It’s gone.”
Kahlan wondered for how long. She wondered if it would suddenly appear again somewhere else in the room.
“What in the world do you think that could have been?” She stood up beside him, her fingers trailing along his muscular arm momentarily on her way to the lamp to turn up the wick.
Richard, still in the heat of rage from having the sword in his hand, scanned every corner of the room as the lamp finally helped illuminate what had been only dark shapes before.
“I wish I knew,” he said as he finally slid the sword back into its scabbard. “It’s starting to have me watching every shadow, listening to every sound, worrying if something is really there or wondering if it’s just my imagination.”
“Reminds me of when I was little and thought there were monsters under my bed.”
“There’s only one problem with that.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“This wasn’t our imagination. We both felt it. We both saw it. It was here.”
“Do you think this thing tonight was what we felt watching us before?”
Richard glanced over at her. “Do you mean, do I think that this imaginary monster in our room is the same imaginary monster that was in our room last night?”
Despite her level of concern, that made Kahlan smile. “I guess it sounds silly when you put it that way.”
“What ever it is, I think it has to be the same thing that’s been watching us.”
“But we could never see it before. Why did it show itself tonight?”
He had no answer. All he could do was sigh in frustration.
Kahlan hugged herself with bare arms as she nestled in close to him. “Richard, if we don’t know what’s going on, or who, or what is looking into our room watching us, how can we hope to stop it? How are we ever going to get any sleep?”
Richard put an arm protectively around her. “I don’t know,” he said in a tone of regret. “I wish I did.”
Kahlan had an idea. She looked up at him.
“Zedd’s power is weakened in the palace, but Nathan is a Rahl. His power is amplified in here. Maybe we can have him hide nearby, or stay in a room beside ours and see if he can sense where it’s coming from, where that person is hiding a
s they watch us. If he could sense where they are, then while they’re busy watching us he could send men to grab them.”
“I don’t think that will work.”
“Why not?”
“Because I suspect that it’s not originating here in the palace. As you said, the palace reduces the power of anyone but a Rahl. I think that for them to do something like this they would have to be someplace else. I think they have to be projecting this, this power, or observation, or what ever it is, into our room from outside the palace.”
“So there is no way to stop them? You mean that we’re going to have to endure someone watching us in our bedroom every night?”
Kahlan watched the muscles in his jaw flex as he clenched his teeth in frustration.
“The Garden of Life was constructed as a containment field,” he finally said, half to himself. “I wonder if that would shield us from prying eyes.”
Kahlan was taken with the idea. “Containment fields were created to prevent errant magic, no matter how powerful, from getting out, or getting in.”
“Then maybe…” he said as he considered.
Kahlan folded her arms. “I’d rather sleep in a bedroll on the grass in there if we could be all by ourselves than on a big soft bed in here with someone watching me.”
“I know what you mean,” Richard said. “If fact, maybe we should.”
“I’m game,” Kahlan said, stepping into her underclothes.
He sat on a bench at the foot of the bed and stuffed a leg into his pants. “Me too. But what I can’t figure out is why someone, or something— or prophecy— is playing this game of riddles with us.”
Kahlan opened a drawer and pulled out some of her old traveling clothes. “Maybe prophecy is trying to help you.”
Richard frowned as he buttoned his pants.
“The thing that bothers me,” he finally said as he leaned over and snatched up his shirt, “is that the prophecies that seem like they may be saying the same thing use different words. Some say that the roof is going to fall in, but another said that the sky is going to fall in. The roof and the sky aren’t the same thing. Yet those two warnings have something in common: they say that both are going to fall in. And, there’s also a certain commonality to roof and sky.”