Warheart: Sword of Truth: The Conclusion (Sword of Truth 15)

Red clasped her fingers together around one knee. “I don’t think you understand.”

Kahlan did. “You killed them. You slaughtered them all.”

Nicci looked up, her gaze moving suspiciously from Kahlan to Red. “Witch women can’t personally take direct action to alter events of consequence.”

“True.” A smile widened on Red’s lips. “We don’t interfere with events in the flow of time–events of consequence, as you put it. While we see such events and try to use what we see to help those involved, those events must be allowed to run their course.

“For example, I told the Mother Confessor that you would kill Richard, and that she must kill you if she was to prevent that from happening. She chose a different path. As much as I advocated against such a choice, it was her choice to make. I could not kill you myself, I could only let her know what was going to happen if she did not act. The flow of time played out as I feared it would. It played out as I had warned.”

Cassia frowned and looked up before taking another bite of rabbit from the forked stick. “If you knew something bad was going to happen, like Lord Rahl dying, and you did not act to prevent it, then the death is your responsibility.”

“It might seem that way to someone who does not understand such things, but we can’t impose ourselves overtly, directly. That is just the way it is for witch women. While it might seem to others, like you, that such action would be the right thing to do, what others don’t see is that our altering events directly endangers the Grace itself.”

Cassia clearly wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “How does it do that?” she pressed.

“The Grace may seem simple,” the witch woman said, “but it is complexity beyond what most people could begin to understand. The demon understands such things. By using forces within the Grace, he seeks to destroy it. For example, he used Richard’s lifeblood to breach the veil. Things such as that endanger the stability, the balance, of the Grace and therefore of the world of life.

“It is the same way with a witch woman. It would be difficult to explain the tenets of our existence to one who is not specifically gifted as a witch woman, but take my word for it that restrictions exist for me just as they exist for you.”

Cassia looked first to one side and then to her sister Mord-Sith on the other side. “We have no restrictions. Except to follow orders.”

“Does your Agiel work?”

“Well, no.”

“That’s because it needs the bond to the Lord Rahl in order to function. That’s a restriction. That’s why your Agiel doesn’t work. Even if it does, there are restrictions to how it works. For example, you can’t use it on a Confessor–unless of course you want to die a horrific death.”

Cassia stared down at the meat on her stick without answering.

Red gestured around herself. “My restrictions have to do with the nature of all things, and they exist for sound reasons. One of those restrictions is that we can, if we choose, use what we find of events in the flow of time to help those involved understand the choices they have in the events that are to unfold, but we are not free to directly take part in those events we see. You might say that our place is to be advisors.

“If we directly, personally, take part in that flow, take actions ourselves, then the balance is destroyed because we would be acting on what we see. That is an unbalanced use of power, and all power must be balanced or it can be destructive. We could lose much more than we could ever gain.”

“You acted with Emperor Sulachan’s forces,” Cassia pointed out. “The Mother Confessor said that you killed them.”

“That was different. That army of half people took a route that brought them into the sanctuary of my home. That is sacred ground. That changes everything.

“Once they came, they intended to rip my flesh from my bones and devour it, thinking it possessed my soul and they could take it for themselves. They would have killed me to steal something that is not able to be stolen.

“The balance within our nature allows for us to respond to a direct threat to our lives.” The witch woman’s expression turned icy. “My valley pass ran red with their blood,” she said in a chilling, quiet tone. “Their corpses lay in heaps and mounds, food for my worms.”

Cassia finally swallowed her bite of rabbit. “Your worms?”

“Don’t ask,” Kahlan told the Mord-Sith under her breath. “So you killed them all?” she asked Red, wanting to get back to business.

“All but one.” Red looked up from the memory. “I’m afraid that it left the pass a bloody mess. Their blood ran in rivers and covers everything. And that is to say nothing of all the viscera and rotting corpses. The stench is quite unpleasant, I can assure you. Hardly the place to receive guests until they are all turned to nothing but bleached bones beneath the grasses. Besides, by coming here I met you somewhat in the middle and that saves you precious time.”

Red looked deliberately at Nicci. “You expressed a concern about time. I saw the flow of time, of course, and I knew the urgency of why you would come to me, so I thought to help you by meeting you partway.”

“That isn’t a violation of directly participating?” Cassia asked.

Red smiled indulgently. “No. That isn’t how it works. I came to advise. That is something I am born to do.”

“What do you mean you killed all but one?” Kahlan asked. “You said you killed all but one.”

“It’s rather complex, but basically since I interfered with events directly, even though I had every right to defend myself, I had to leave one of the enemy alive.”

Kahlan thought that was rather odd. “Why would you need to leave one of them alive?”

“To balance what happened. Even one is enough to fulfill the need for balance.”

Kahlan wasn’t satisfied. “How does leaving one alive balance killing a horde of them?”

She gestured among the five women before her. “I had to leave one for you to kill, since you are the ones this horde was after. You are the ones central to events. I had to leave one for you to kill to bring you into direct contact with the event in the flow. That makes you part of it. That is the balance, not the numbers involved.”

Red’s gaze finally moved deliberately to Nicci. “Speaking of killing, and the events in the flow of time, you realize that the Mother Confessor drastically altered the flow by sparing your life. She made the conscious decision to save your life.”

Nicci didn’t show any reaction. “It’s only fitting.”

Red looked genuinely puzzled. “In what way?”

“Her husband saved my soul.”

A small smile finally returned to Red’s lips. “You may have the chance to return the favor and save his.”

CHAPTER

9

“That’s what we’re here about,” Kahlan said, eager to get to the heart of the matter. “I was murdered–just as you predicted–but I came back from the world of the dead. We need you to help us do the same for Richard.”

Red watched her, but her expression showed nothing. “You failed to do as I told you you must. As a result, Richard Rahl’s life was lost, as I told you it would be.”

An edge crept into her voice. “He was the only chance we had of stopping Sulachan and preserving the world of life. I told you how to save him, and yet you chose not to heed my warning. Now he is in the grip of the dark ones, being dragged ever downward on a long descent into eternity.”

“I know that. We need you to help us get him back. We need you to tell us what we can do.”

Red blinked. “You can’t do anything. He’s dead.”

“So was I,” Kahlan said. “If I came back, maybe there is a way he can as well.”

Red shook her head. “I told you how to save his life. You chose not to take that chance offered in the flow of time. All that can be done now is for us to try to free his soul from the clutches of evil in the underworld so that he might have a chance to stop Sulachan from the other side. That is the only chance I se

e in the flow of time.”

Kahlan did her best to keep her temper under control. “I have fought my entire life for others. I have fought that they might live and so they could live the lives they want to live. Now, I fight for myself, for my own chance to live the life I want to live … with Richard.”

Red’s expression darkened. “I gave you the chance to save him, Mother Confessor. You chose not to take it. You made the choice. Because of that, he is lost to us.”

Kahlan’s fists tightened. “You are not the only one who has restrictions, who must balance things. I, too, have to live by my own sense of what life means. I can’t take an innocent life. I couldn’t kill Nicci or I would be violating who I am and what I stand for.”