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

And then, following that flow the witch woman was feeding into her, the light of a soul seemed to appear along those lines out of the black forever. It was a soul Nicci recognized all too well.

It was the soul of the wizard she had killed. It was his power she had taken into her own.

It had been done when she became a Sister of the Dark.

It was something that was beyond forgiving.

The light of the spirit diffused and then consolidated into a glowing form as it confronted her, stopping her progress. She knew that spirits used their light to take a recognizable form.

Nicci didn’t know what to do. What could she do? There was no way she could ask forgiveness. She had no right.

The light of the spirit reached out and touched her, then. Touched her soul. In that instant, in that timeless connection, she felt everything he would say to her.

She wept with the beauty of it all. He was at peace. He told her that although she had taken it in the cause of evil, in the end she had done more good with his gift than he ever would have. Although what she had done was an injustice, she had gone on to do the one thing that gave him peace. She had chosen to change, to fight evil, and to make up for all the harm she had done to others.

Nicci did not deserve forgiveness, and he understood that, too. He told her that he could not give her any such forgiveness, that it came from within herself, and that was all that mattered. She saw the beautiful light of his soul, and wept at what she had done to him.

He told her that she carried his gift, now, and he was with her in spirit, helping her new calling, in spirit. Her purpose was his, now. His gift was hers, now.

He ran a glowing, spirit hand down her hair as a father might while smiling down on a beloved daughter. It was a moment of such pure love, such pure acceptance, that it left her shaken and weeping with the beauty of it.

At that, he moved aside, holding out that glowing arm, and welcomed her onward, wishing her well in her mission to fight for the world of life, a cause he said was a noble use of the gift she was born with, and the gift she had taken up.

She felt drained, her emotions exhausted by the confrontation and the agony of sorrow that had only lasted a spark of time, but at the same time, in that eternal world, had lasted forever. She felt as if she knew him better than she ever had, knew herself better than she ever had.

In the distance, Nicci could hear Kahlan asking if she was all right, but she was too far away to answer. The witch woman answered in her place, telling Kahlan that Nicci was moving on to search.

With her mission firmly in mind, Nicci summoned her strength to push on into the darkness, riding the flow that continued to swirl onward through the endless night.

She saw the light of countless souls along the way. All looked the same, like a night sky scattered with a blanket of stars. They all floated at eternal peace in the firmament. She didn’t know how she would find one star among the countless numbers scattered ahead forever.

But then one of those glowing stars swept in closer.

“I am Isidore,” the spirit said in a voice that was like sunlight. “I felt you calling for me.”

Nicci saw the glowing form sweep in with effortless grace, taking a shape that mimicked her once-living form, but made of light. Nicci couldn’t get out the rush of everything that suddenly came to mind. There seemed too much to convey.

“I must help Richard,” she finally said to the spirit. “I need to find Naja.”

“I know,” Isidore said. “I am here to guide you.”

With that, the spirit form moved off into the flow. Nicci thought that Isidore was just about the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. The spirit glowed with an innocent, childlike kindness. Her smile was a warm summer day.

Together, Isidore leading, Nicci being swept along in her wake, they went into a landscape that was darker yet, with tunnels of blackness through the inky gloom. It was a disorienting journey that was up and down all at the same time, twisting, turning, spiraling their way through places where it seemed impossible to pass.

In a recess of darkness, a deep cavern of eternity, they came to another spirit that took on human form. Isidore gently touched the shoulder of the other.

“This is the one you seek.”

Nicci drifted forward. “Naja?”

The spirit regarded Nicci with cool detachment, rather than Isidore’s warmth.

“What is one of your kind doing here? Why have you come to disturb me?”

“It’s not what it seems,” Nicci said. “I come in the guise of a Sister of the Dark because there was no other way. I had to use what only I know, what only I can do, to do what must be done.”

“And what would that be?”

“What you wanted in life, what you worked for … to stop the emperor, Sulachan.”

The shadowy spirit hissed as she backed away at the name.

“Suuuulachan,” Naja said with venom. “His vile spirit haunts the underworld with an intent darker than death.”

“I know that you tried to stop him when you were alive. You and Magda Searus and the wizard Merritt.”

At speaking their names, their glowing spirits came into view out of the darkness.

“Why have you come here?” the spirit of Magda Searus asked. Much like that of Isidore, her spirit was a wonderful, warm glow that instilled a sense of wonder and peace in Nicci.

Nicci turned and held an arm out. “I come to help her,” she said as she moved aside so they would see the glow of Kahlan’s spirit from where she sat in the center of the Grace beside that single, luminous drop of Richard’s blood.

“The Mother Confessor,” Magda whispered with a benevolent reverence that only a good spirit could summon. “You brought her spirit here?”

“Only a bit of the light within her,” Nicci said. “She powers the Grace that I used to come to you.”

“Why have you come?” Magda asked.

Ni

cci lifted a hand out toward the loving spirit close at Magda’s side. “For the same reason.”

“For her love,” Merritt said with understanding. “The one in life we knew would come one day.”

“That’s right,” Nicci said. “Sulachan has escaped the underworld and again walks the world of life. Richard Rahl is the one who must stop him. In your time, you all worked to stop the emperor and his forces, and worked to lay out the path for the one who would come after you who can stop the demon.”

“That is no longer our world,” Naja said, the others nodding their agreement.

“Richard Rahl is not in the other world. He is in this world. He is here.”

Distress and anguish haunted their features.

In alarm, Merritt glided closer. “That is not supposed to happen. He is supposed to be the one to stop Sulachan. He needs to be in your world to do that. He can’t succeed from here. He can’t help that world from here. None of us can.”

“I know,” Nicci said. “That is why I had to come here, why I had to use the same dark talents I once used for evil, but turned around and now used to fight for the world of life.”

The light of the spirit of Naja coalesced into a shape that mimicked the exotic form she’d had had in life, but now in light rather than flesh and blood. She moved closer.

“How did such a thing happen? We all took precautions, we guided prophecy, we left all the help we could. How did he die?”

Nicci looked at the spirits all gazing at her. “I killed him,” she said, holding her hand out toward the raven current curling away before her, “just as was foretold in the flow of time.”

Merritt glided closer still in a manner that Nicci could only interpret as anger.

Nicci swallowed at the look he gave her. “I had to.”

“Why?” he demanded.

Nicci again held her arm out toward the glow of Kahlan’s spirit. “For her. She had been murdered. Sulachan’s dark minions had her soul and they were taking it into the depths of darkness. Richard asked me to stop his heart so he could go after her, trade places with her, and send her back to the world of life. It mattered to him more than his own life.”