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Nadine’s determination faltered for only an instant before she huffed and started down the ladder after Cara.
Kahlan glanced around at the guards. “Sergeant Collins, if he comes up through this door before us, he had better not get out of this hall alive. He wants to kill Richard.”
“On my word as a D’Haran soldier, Mother Confessor, harm won’t get a glimpse of Lord Rahl.”
With a hand signal from Sergeant Collins, soldiers drew steel. Archers nocked arrows. Big hands unhooked crescent-bladed axes from weapons belts.
Kahlan gave the sergeant a nod of approval, took another torch, and started down the ladder.
9
Dank, heavy air wafted up from the pit as Kahlan followed Nadine down the ladder. Using the hand with the torch to also hold the side of the ladder made her have to endure the heat of the flame near the side of her face, but she was almost happy for the smell of pitch because it covered the stink of the air in the pit. Lower down, the wavering light from the torches lit more than the stone walls; they lit the dark figure in the center of the room.
Kahlan stepped off the ladder as Cara rammed her torch into a bracket on the slime-covered wall. Kahlan slipped hers into one on the opposite wall. Nadine stood transfixed, looking at the man covered in dried blood hunched before them. Kahlan stepped past her to stand beside Cara.
Cara’s brow drew down as she peered at Marlin.
His head hung forward, and his eyes were closed. His breathing was deep, slow, and even.
“He’s asleep,” Cara whispered.
“Asleep?” Kahlan whispered back. “How can he be asleep while he’s standing up like that?”
“I… don’t know. We always make new prisoners stand, sometimes for days. With no one to talk to and nothing to do but consider their doom, it drains their resolve—takes the fight right out of them. It’s an insidious form of torment. I have had men beg to be beaten, rather than have to stand, alone, hour after hour.”
Marlin was snoring softly. “How often does this happen—that they simply fall asleep?”
Cara put one hand on a hip as she wiped her mouth with the other. “I’ve had them fall asleep, but that wakes them for sure. If they move from the spot where we’ve told them to stand, the link brings on the pain. We don’t have to be there; the link works no matter where we are. I have never even heard of a man falling asleep and remaining on his feet.”
Kahlan looked over her shoulder, past Nadine, and up the long ladder to the light coming through the doorway. She could see the tops of soldiers’ heads, but none were so bold as to stare down into the pit, where there were apt to be deeds of magic.
Nadine stuck her head between them. “Maybe it’s a spell. Magic, of some sort.”
She straightened, pulling her head back, when she received only glares in answer.
More out of curiosity than an attempt to wake him, Cara lightly jabbed Marlin’s shoulder. She pushed her finger into his chest, and his stomach.
“Hard as a rock. His muscles are all locked rigid.”
“That must be how he’s able to stand there like that. Maybe it’s some sort of trick he learned as a wizard.”
Cara didn’t seem convinced. With a twitch of her hand so slight Kahlan almost missed it, Cara spun her Agiel up into her fist. The pain Kahlan knew it caused her to hold her Agiel didn’t show on her face. It never did.
Kahlan snatched Cara’s wrist. “You don’t need to do that. Just wake him. And don’t use your link with his mind, his magic, to give him pain, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Unless I tell you so.”
Displeasure registered on Cara’s face. “I think it’s necessary. I can’t have this. I can’t hesitate to exert my control.”
“Cara, there is a great gulf between prudence and hesitation. This whole thing with Marlin has been more than odd from the first. Let’s just take it one step at a time. You’ve said that you have control over him; let’s not be impetuous. You do have control, don’t you?”
A slow smile spread on Cara’s lips. “Oh, I have control, no doubt of that. But if you insist, I will wake him the way we sometimes wake our pets, then.”
Cara bent forward at the waist, slipped her left arm around his neck, tilted her head, and gently gave Marlin a long kiss on the mouth. Kahlan felt her face go red. She knew that Denna sometimes awakened Richard like that, before torturing him again.
With a satisfied smirk, Cara drew back.
Like a cat coming awake from a nap, Marlin’s lids slid open.
His eyes had that quality in them again—that quality that made Kahlan’s very soul want to shrink back.
This time, she saw more than she had before. These eyes were not merely those of great age. These were eyes unvisited by fear.
As he regarded the three of them with slow, unflinching, calculating deliberation, he bent his fisted hands back at the wrists and arched his back in a feline stretch.
A depraved grin spread onto his face, a ta
int of wickedness expanding like blood seeping through white linen.
“So. My two darlins have returned.” His disquieting eyes seemed to see more than they should, to know more than they should. “And they’ve brought a new bitch with ‘em.”
Marlin’s voice had been almost boyish, before. Now, it was deep and gravelly, as if coming from a muscled man weighing twice as much—a voice steeped with unquestioned power and authority. It exuded invincibility. Kahlan had never heard such a dangerous voice.
She retreated a step, clutching Cara’s arm and pulling her back with her.
Though Marlin didn’t move, she felt the coiling of menace.
“Cara”—Kahlan put a hand behind, forcing Nadine back as she withdrew another step—“Cara, tell me you’ve got him. Tell me you have control.”
Cara was staring, mouth agape, at Marlin. “What…?”
She abruptly unleashed a powerful strike. Her armored fist only snapped his head a few inches to the side. It should have taken him from his feet.
Marlin regarded her with a bloody smile. He spit out broken teeth.
“Nice try, darlin,” Marlin said in a rough voice. “But I’ve got control of your link with Marlin.”
Cara rammed her Agiel in his gut. His body flinched with the jolt, his arms flopping ineffectually. His eyes, though, never lost the deadly look. The smile didn’t falter as he watched her.
Cara took two steps back on her own.
“What’s going on?” Nadine whispered. “What’s wrong? I thought you said he was helpless.”
“Get out,” Cara whispered urgently to Kahlan. “Now.” She glanced up the ladder. “I’ll hold him off. Lock the door.”
“Wanting to leave?” Marlin asked in the grating voice as they moved toward the ladder. “So soon? And before we’ve had a little talk. I’ve enjoyed listening to the talks you two have had. I’ve learned so much. I never knew about Mord-Sith. But I do, now.”
Kahlan halted. “What are you talking about?”
His predatory gaze moved from Cara to Kahlan. “I learned of your touching love for Richard Rahl. It was so thoughtful of you to reveal the limits of his gift. I suspected much of it, but you confirmed the extent. You also confirmed my suspicion that he would be able to recognize another with the gift, and that it would raise his suspicions. Even you were able to see something wrong in Marlin’s eyes.”
