Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

Kahlan took a deep breath. She knew the woman wasn’t going to let them pass until Kahlan at least heard her out. “Fine, let’s hear it, then, but be quick about it. I don’t have long to live unless I get this sickness out of me.”

“Yes,” Red drawled again. “The call of death from that vile creature, Jit.”

Kahlan cast a suspicious look at the woman. “You know of Jit, and the poison in us?”

Red rolled her eyes. “I am a witch woman. Of course I know of important matters that involve central figures such as you and Lord Rahl. It is all part of the larger issue. It’s part of why you must perform the task I have for you.”

“You mean killing someone for you.”

“That’s right.” She took a deep breath of her own as she considered how to begin. “Well, since you are rapidly running out of time, I will try to make this as short as I can.”

“I would appreciate that,” Kahlan said, not really wanting to hear it. She thought about the field of skulls and realized that at least listening to what Red had to say was probably wise. They needed to be on their way. Fighting their way through was not a risk they needed. Listening would take less time.

“You see, Mother Confessor, I have seen the demon. He is here, in the world of life.”

“The demon?”

“The one called Sulachan. He has long been dead. He belongs in the world of the dead and—”

“You expect me to kill Sulachan?” Kahlan was incredulous.

“No, not exactly. Not directly, anyway. What I expect is for you to make it possible for him to be sent back to the underworld, where he belongs.”

Kahlan certainly wanted Sulachan and his scheme stopped. Since Red seemed to have the same objective, Kahlan suddenly became more interested. “Make it possible.… How am I supposed to do that?”

“I am trying to explain the larger picture, if you would allow me. You said you were in a hurry.”

Kahlan nodded. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Sulachan is an ancient evil that blighted the world. He died long ago and belongs in the world of the dead. By all that is right, he should not be a problem for us today, but he is.

“In life, he was a sickly man. He was also a man of vision. Evil vision, deranged vision, but vision nonetheless. Knowing he was slowly dying, he began making preparations long before he ever passed over into the world of the dead. Despite being sickly, he was a powerful wizard, possessing both the gift and occult powers.”

“I don’t understand this business with occult powers,” Kahlan said. “I’ve never encountered them before. Why do they suddenly seem to be springing up all over?”

Red swept an arm around. “Everything requires balance. That balance runs the gamut from the minuscule to the most central elements. Conflict seeks balance, balance is often achieved by conflict. Heat and cold; darkness and light; bad balanced by good; hate by love—that sort of thing. Smaller parts, such as the good spirits versus demons, are part of a larger balance of life versus death. All elements are built from smaller, balanced elements.

“The gift itself is balanced between Additive Magic and Subtractive Magic. Yet on a larger scale, the totality of that internal balance within the gift—the gift itself—is balanced by occult powers.

“Back in the great war, those like Sulachan were defeating the gifted. That threatened to throw the worlds of life and death out of balance. The gifted prevailed, though, sealing those with occult powers behind the barrier. The gift thus gained dominance. But because everything always seeks balance, they knew the seals on the barrier could not last forever, and indeed they haven’t. Occult powers have been leaking out for some time, and now they are once again fully free and among us.”

“I see,” Kahlan said, considering the repercussions. “So, you were saying about Sulachan dying?”

“With his own abilities and the help of many others whom he commanded, he manipulated powers in the underworld before he died—occult powers—to prepare his place there.

“His spirit has been working for the three thousand years since his death to reconnect with the forces he had put into place here in this world when he had been alive.”

“Forces—you mean like the half people?”

“Yes. He knew that they could not be contained forever. He knew that one day they would be freed from their exile, and then be able to work to call his spirit back from the world of the dead into his body in the world of life.

“He also used the spirits of the dead he reanimated, drawing their spirits out of their eternal rest in the underworld to do his bidding. Once he pulled them away from their link to the gift that had taken them beyond the veil, they lost that connection and no longer knew where they belonged. He used them as his ethereal messengers between worlds.

“Lastly, Sulachan managed to enlist the essential help of the man who used to live a couple of days in that direction,” she said, flicking a hand in the direction of Saavedra off through the pass.

“Hannis Arc,” Kahlan said. “He ruled Fajin Province from the citadel in Saavedra.”

“He ruled much of Fajin Province, but not all,” she said, looking abruptly venomous. “I hold sway here.

“But that is the man,” she said, retracting her fangs a bit. “Hannis Arc benefited profoundly from the occult powers leaking out from behind the barrier. As a result, he has been able to tamper with the very nature of the Grace—the very way the world of life exists—bending those laws in order to bring Sulachan’s spirit back into this world.”

“And your abilities are powered by what the Grace represents,” Kahlan said, “so your very existence is at stake.”

“That’s right. As are your abilities, and Lord Rahl’s, were you not sick with Jit’s touch.

“Sulachan wants to bend those forces until they break. Hannis Arc wants to rule the world of life. He helped Sulachan fulfill his ambitions in return for Sulachan’s help.

“Both men also know that there are always those who are all too eager to help them. Those minions serve to provide an audience of sycophants for evil such as Sulachan and Hannis Arc bring into the world. In return, they earn the table scraps of praise from the depraved.

“While powerfully gifted and possessing occult powers able to mine prophecy and bring Sulachan’s spirit back through the veil, Hannis Arc didn’t have the army necessary to accomplish his more ambitious goals of rule. For that, he needed help. So, he brought Sulachan back to provide that help.”

“One hand washes the other,” Kahlan said.

“Yes. They formed an alliance. Hannis Arc would do what was needed in this world to bring Sulachan back from the dead. Among other things, that meant using the invaluable blood of the bringer of death—your husband—to call Sulachan back from the dead. One of those matters of balance I spoke of.

“In return, Sulachan provided the army of half people and all the revived corpses Hannis Arc could ever need for conquest. Hannis Arc in turn continues to provide the worldly occult powers necessary to sustain Sulachan here in this world. And so on, round and round it goes, both locked together helping each other, but each with motives of his own, each using the other because he has to.

“Each man also thinks he controls the other. For now they both work together toward the same ends. For now, they share the same goals and need each other.

“But they are like two vipers, each with the tail of the other in his mouth. Unfortunately, we will all be long dead and in the merciless hands of the Keeper before that alliance ever comes to be inconvenient for either.

“By then, if they are not stopped first, it will be too late for this world because Sulachan ultimately wishes to destroy the boundary between the world of life and the world of the dead. The balance of Creation itself would be broken.

“That would be a bad thing. A very bad thing.

“Thus, we must act or we all die.”

CHAPTER

67

“Look, Red,” Kahlan said, “you don’t need to explain the consequences to m

e. I am quite aware of what it would mean.”

“Are you, really?” Red asked. “It would mean not only the end of the natural order of life as we know it, but the Keeper would have me. Do you have any idea of how much the Keeper of the underworld lusts to get witch women into his clutches—outside the natural order of the Grace?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Shota told me all about it. But you are hardly the only one. All of us would be in an eternity of agony should Sulachan and Hannis Arc succeed. It’s not only about you, Red, it’s about everyone.” Kahlan leaned closer. “Everyone.”

Red showed a cunning smile, as if that had been her point all along. “And don’t you ever forget it, Mother Confessor. I may have my own self-interest, but that self-interest just happens to be the same as everyone else’s. My fate would be everyone’s fate. The Keeper would be loosed on the world, on all of us. The dead would feed on the living.”

Red straightened a bit and smoothed her gray dress at her hips. “I’m not sure that you truly comprehend the horror of what that would mean, or that you actually grasp the true enormity of it. Once Sulachan and Hannis Arc destroy the boundary between life and death, there is no putting it back together. All of Creation would be forever out of balance. In such a chaotic, unbalanced state, it would mean the end of all of existence. Creation itself would eventually wink out of existence, like an ember dying.

“But in the grand scale of time, that could still mean a thousand years, or ten thousand years, of ceaseless agony for all of us on the wrong side of that doomed struggle.

“Sulachan, in his arrogant delusions, believes he can control such forces and bend them to his will. Hannis Arc, in his lust for power, sees a thousand years of reign as an eternity. They make the perfect lethal pair: delusion and lust, both possessing great power individually, multiplied by their alliance and driven by their objectives, both cheered on by those who hate, gleeful at the obscenity of lost hope.