Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

Nicci looked away from him as she answered. “Richard, we worked on you ever since the moment we got across the chasm. You were … you were close to death that whole time. Kahlan’s infection was worse, before, but the poison in you has caught up with hers and you are both slipping away.

“This morning, we lost you to that poison.”

Richard frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You stopped breathing. Death was taking you. You were at the cusp of death and crossing over. We were losing you. Zedd did something that pulled you back. Another few heartbeats would have been your last had he not done what he did.”

Richard looked over at Zedd. His grandfather’s hazel eyes finally turned up to meet his gaze. “I know what I’m doing.” A sly smile creased his weathered face. “I still have a few tricks left in me.”

It made Richard smile. Despite the gravity of the situation, it made him smile. “Yes, you do.”

“All we can do,” Nicci said, “is try to keep you alive as long as possible. But the truth is, you don’t have long enough to live to make it back to the containment field at the palace.”

Irena looked around at everyone else. “Well, all right, if it really needs to be done in a containment field, and the People’s Palace is too far, then we simply need to use another one, somewhere closer, that’s all.”

“Containment fields are quite rare,” Zedd said with a heavy sigh. “I hardly think we’ll find one in the Dark Lands, of all places.”

“Yes, you will,” she said.

Zedd’s brow drew down, hooding his eyes as he looked intently at her. “Where?”

“Ah, so now you want to listen to me?”

“This is a matter of life and death, Irena. There is no time for games. If you know of any closer containment fields, then tell us where they are.”

“I only know of one, actually,” she said. “It’s at the citadel.”

Everyone stared at her.

“A real, functioning containment field?” Zedd asked. “From a time when our ancestors still possessed such powers that could create such wonders?”

Irena nodded, looking a bit confused at their skepticism.

“A real containment field?” he pressed, again. “A real, working containment field. At the citadel. In Saavedra. In the heart of the Dark Lands.”

Again, Irena nodded.

“I have been to important palaces, built back in those ancient times,” Nicci said, “that weren’t important enough to possess a containment field. I find it more than a little difficult to believe that there would be one out here in the Dark Lands, at a petty citadel in Saavedra. How can you be so sure that you’re right?”

“I’ve been there,” she said. “I’ve seen it.”

Nicci still looked more than a little skeptical. “What would a containment field be doing out here in the Dark Lands?”

“Well,” she said, “I imagine that it was placed there because of the barrier being so close. My suspicion is that the people who built the barrier thought it would be a good idea to have one handy, if need be, when the barrier finally failed, or maybe for when the occult forces started seeping out before it failed.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Richard said. “Naja said that they knew the barrier would fail. They knew what we would face when it did. They might have left it there as a precaution to help us, for just such a problem as Jit created.”

Zedd rubbed his chin. “That’s true.…”

Richard had an even more disturbing thought. “Those people back then knew a lot more about prophecy than we do. They knew a great deal about the events happening now. They may even have known that the Mother Confessor and I would need it.”

Zedd arched a bushy eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.”

“They might have known it would be needed,” Samantha said, silent up until then, “because you are the one.”

Zedd’s frown was back. “The one? What one?”

“The one to stop what is happening now.”

Zedd could only let out a deep sigh before looking back at Irena with the more important matter at hand. “Do you know how to get to Saavedra?”

She pointed to the southeast. “It’s off in that direction. It’s certainly a lot closer than the palace.”

Richard frowned. “You live in the remote village of Stroyza. What were you doing at the citadel in Saavedra?”

The woman looked flustered to be questioned about her reasons. “Well, after my sister Millicent and her husband had been at the abbey for a time, I feared for them. I had heard that people taken to the abbey were usually never seen again. We don’t get much news in Stroyza, so I don’t know what goes on there. But I had heard of relatives going to the abbey to plead for their loved ones to be released from service to the abbot.

“Knowing that such pleas never worked, and since I am a sorceress, I went instead to the citadel in Saavedra to plead directly to the bishop to try to get my gifted sister and her husband released because they were needed for our important duty at Stroyza. I thought that perhaps I could appeal to him as one of the gifted in his service and get him to order their release.”

“What did Hannis Arc have to say?” Richard asked.

Irena rubbed the palms of her hands on her knees. “I met with the bishop’s scribe every morning, asking for an audience. One was never granted. The scribe told me the bishop was a busy man. I asked him to relay the request, but I never got an audience so I never was able to petition directly to the bishop for the release of my sister.

“But while I was there, waiting every day in hopes of an audience being granted, pacing or sitting around the citadel’s grand entrance, the guards got used to me being around. They had heard me speak with the scribe every morning and so they knew what I wanted, but they could do nothing to help me.

“One day the captain of the guards who felt sorry for me asked, since I was a sorceress in service, if I would like to have a tour of the citadel to help pass the time while I awaited word on my petition. Being from a very tiny village, it was a rare opportunity. Even though I was distraught, I accepted the offer. During that tour, he showed me the containment field. It was deep down underground.”

“Why would he show you a containment field?” Nicci asked. “They are usually heavily guarded and often shielded.”

Irena’s gaze roamed as she tried to recall the event. “Well, the guard told me that the area around it gave people gooseflesh, so they stayed well away from the place. He said that being a sorceress, he thought I would appreciate seeing it.

“Since I’m from Stroyza, I don’t know what is commonly done elsewhere to protect such places. While he

stood outside I briefly went into the stone room. It was pretty plain, old, and covered with dust. There were shackles on one wall. I was more concerned about speaking with the bishop than inspecting the room. There really wasn’t anything to see, anyway, so I left.

“But the point is, it was a containment field—I could feel the power of the shields as I walked through the doorway—and it’s a lot closer than the People’s Palace. We can make it there in time. We can heal Richard and Kahlan there. It’s their only chance.”

Zedd and Nicci stared at each other. They both smiled.

“We’re fortunate that Hannis Arc is no longer at the citadel to interfere,” Richard said. “Unfortunately, he is headed to the People’s Palace. I had planned to push and get around them so we could reach the palace first. We need to alert the people there. But at least Hannis Arc will not be at the citadel.”

CHAPTER

45

Irena leaned in. “If as you say, Hannis Arc has deserted the citadel, then that makes it all that much easier to borrow the containment field so that we can heal the two of you.”

In the back of his mind, Richard remembered Zedd’s frequent admonition, Nothing is ever easy.

He looked over at his grandfather. “What do you think?”

Zedd’s hazel eyes turned to look from under his brow at Irena, and then back at Richard. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Richard wasn’t surprised that Zedd was thinking the same thing he was: the palace was a known quantity; the citadel wasn’t. He looked over at Nicci. He noticed that she had not eaten much of her stew.

“Well?”

“Well,” she said, “if there really is a functioning containment field there, it’s your only chance to live. I just hope Zedd and I can keep you and Kahlan alive until we can get there.”

Richard nodded before looking to Kahlan’s green eyes. “What do you think?”