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“I guess the Keeper’s minion would say anything to try to get away with what he had done, and to get away from you. I can understand you not being in the mood to forgive him.”
Light seemed to vanish into the ageless depths of Shota’s eyes. “He forgot to place the word ‘sincere’ before ‘forgiveness.’”
42
Kahlan watched the witch woman disappear back into the gloomy forest. Vines hanging down from craggy branches reached out to touch their mistress as she passed, while tendrils and roots stretched up to brush her leg. She vanished into a shroud of mist. Unseen creatures called in low whistles and clicks from the direction she had gone.
Kahlan turned back to the moss-covered boulder Shota had shown her and, just beyond, found the sliph’s well. The silver face of the sliph rose from beyond the round, stone wall, to watch as Kahlan approached. Kahlan almost wished the sliph hadn’t come, as if somehow, if Kahlan couldn’t get back, none of the things she had learned would come to pass.
How was she going to look into Richard’s eyes and not scream in anguish? How was she ever going to be able to go on? How would she find the will to live?
“Do you wish to travel?” the sliph asked.
“No, but I must.”
The sliph frowned, as if well puzzled. “If you wish to travel, I will be ready.”
Kahlan sank to the ground, put her back to the sliph’s well, and folded her legs under herself. Was she to give up this easily? Was she to submit meekly to the fates? She didn’t have a choice.
Think of the solution, not the problem.
Somehow, things didn’t seem as desperate as they had back in the reach. There had to be a way to solve this. Richard would not so easily give in. He would fight for her. She would fight for him. They loved each other, and that was more important than anything else.
Kahlan’s mind felt as if it were in a fog. She tried to focus with more resolve. She couldn’t just give up. She had to face this with her old determination.
She knew that witch women bewitched people. They didn’t necessarily do it out of malice; it was just the way they were. It was like a person not being able to help the fact that they were tall, or short, or the color of their hair. Witch women bewitched people because that was the way their magic worked.
Shota had bewitched Richard, to an extent. Only the magic of the Sword of Truth saved him the first time.
The Sword of Truth.
Richard was the Seeker. This was the kind of thing a Seeker did: solved problems. She was in love with the Seeker. He would not so easily give up.
Kahlan plucked a leaf and tore little strips from it as she began to reconsider everything she had been told by Shota. How much of it dare she believe? It was all beginning to seem like a dream from which she was just coming awake. Matters could not possibly be as desperate as she had thought.
Her father had told her never to give up, to fight with every breath, with the last breath if need be. Nor would Richard give in easily. This wasn’t ended yet. The future was still the future, and despite what Shota said, the matter was not yet decided.
Something at her shoulder was bothering her. As she thought, she flicked her hand at it, and then went back to tearing strips off the big leaf. There had to be a way to solve this.
When she swatted at her shoulder again, her fingers hit the bone knife. It felt warm.
Kahlan drew the knife and held it in her lap. The knife was warm. It seemed to pulse and vibrate. It grew so hot that it became uncomfortable to hold.
Kahlan watched, wide-eyed, as the black feathers stood up. They danced and waved and twisted in a breeze. Her hair hung limp. The air was dead still. There was no breeze.
Kahlan shot to her feet.
“Sliph!”
The sliph’s silver face was right there, close. Kahlan backed away a bit.
“Sliph, I need to travel.”
“Come, we will travel. Where do you wish to go?”
“The Mud People. I need to go to the Mud People.”
The liquid features contorted in thought. “I do not know this place.”
“It’s not a place. They’re people. People—” Kahlan tapped her chest—“they’re people, like me.”
“I know different peoples, but not these Mud People.”
Kahlan pushed back her hair, trying to think. “They live in the wilds.”
“I know places in the wilds. Which one do you wish to travel to? Name it, and we will travel. You will be pleased.”
“Well, it’s a place that’s flat. It’s a grassland. Flat grassland. No mountains, like here.” Kahlan gestured around, but realized that the sliph could see only trees.
“I know several places like that.”
“Which places? Maybe I’ll recognize them.”
“I can travel to a place overlooking the Callisidrin River—”
“To the west of the Callisidrin. The Mud People are farther west.”
“I can travel to Tondelen Vale, the Harja Rift, Kea Plains, Sealan, Herkon Split, Anderith, Pickton, the Jocopo Treasure—”
“The what? What was the last one?” She knew most of the rest of the places the sliph named, but they weren’t close to the Mud People.
“The Jocopo Treasure. Do you wish to travel there?”
Kahlan held out the warm bone knife—grandfather’s knife. Chandalen had told her how the Jocopo had made war on the Mud People, and the ancestor spirits had guided Chandalen’s grandfather in how to defend his people against the Jocopo. Chandalen had said they used to trade with the Jocopo, before their war. The Jocopo had to be close to the Mud People.
“Say the last place again,” Kahlan said.
“The Jocopo Treasure.”
At the echoing words, the black feathers danced and twisted. Kahlan shoved the bone knife back in the band around her upper arm. She sprang up onto the stone wall.
“That’s where I wish to go: the Jocopo Treasure. I wish to travel to the Jocopo Treasure. Can you take me there, sliph?”
A silver arm swept her off the stone wall. “Come. We will travel to the Jocopo Treasure. You will be pleased.”
Kahlan gasped one quick breath before she was plunged into the quicksilver froth. She let the breath go, and inhaled the sliph, but this time, numbed by troubling thoughts of losing Richard, of his marrying Nadine, she felt no rapture.
Zedd cackled like a madman. Ann was upside down in his vision. He stuck out his tongue at her and blew, making a long, crude sound.
“You needn’t attempt to pretend,” she growled. “It seems to be your natural state.”
Zedd moved his legs as if trying to walk upside down through the air. The blood was rushing to his head.
“Do you wish to die with your dignity?” he asked her. “Or would you rather live.”
“I’ll not play a fool.”
“That’s the word—play! Don’t just sit there in the mud. Play in it!”
She leaned over, putting her head close to his. He was standing on it in the mud. “Zedd, you can’t possibly think such a thing would work.”
“You said it yourself. You are mucking about with a crazy man. It was your suggestion.”
“I suggested no such thing!”
“Perhaps you didn’t suggest it, but you were the one who gave me the inspiration. I’ll be happy to give you full credit, when we tell people the story.”
“Tell people! In the first place, it won’t work. In the second place, I realize full well that you would be only too delighted to tell people. That’s just one more reason why I won’t do it.”
Zedd howled like a coyote. He stiffened his legs and his spine, letting himself topple like a tree felled by an axe. Mud splashed on Ann. Fuming, she wiped a small splat from her nose.
At the tall stick fence, grim-faced Nangtong guards watched the two prisoners, the two sacrifices. Zedd and Ann had sat in the mud with their backs to one another and untied the ropes binding their wrists. The guards, armed with spears and bows, didn’t seem to
care; the prisoners couldn’t get away. Zedd knew they were right.
Happy people had begun to stop by the pigpen at dawn. As the morning wore on, the crowd grew as more people stopped by to chatter with the guards and take a look at the fine offerings. Apparently, everyone was in a good mood because they now had a sacrifice for the spirits. Their lives would be safe after the unhappy spirits were appeased.
The guards and the people of the Nangtong village, watching from the other side of the fence, were now looking less pleased. They fidgeted with the cloth covering their faces, making sure it hid enough, and that it was secure. The guards began wiping more ash on their faces and bodies. Apparently, one couldn’t be too careful, lest the spirits recognize them.
