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No man had ever touched her with such tender purpose, and the sureness of that touch further heated her passion.
His kisses trailed down the front of her, each making her gasp to catch her breath in sweet, startled desire.
When he at last took his place atop her, she totally and unashamedly succumbed to her need. She felt cradled not only in the canopy bed but in his ardent embrace. At long last, as her whole body stiffened with her cry of release, she could hear the spirits sing.
40
Like a hawk in a dive, Kahlan silently shot ahead, and at the same time, like an eagle in an updraft, she serenely hovered in place. Light and dark, heat and cold, time and distance, had no meaning, yet they meant everything. It was a marvelous confusion of sensations, heightened by the sweet presence of the sliph each time Kahlan drew the living quicksilver into her lungs, into her soul.
It was rapture.
With an abrupt explosion of perception, it ended.
Light erupted in Kahlan’s vision. Sounds of birds, breezes, and bugs hurt her ears. Trees draped with streamers of moss, rocks incrusted with lichen and snarled in roots and vines, and patches of damp, dark mist crowded in all around. The overpowering presence of it all terrified her.
Breathe, the sliph told her.
The thought horrified her. No.
The sliph’s voice seemed to sear through Kahlan’s mind. Breathe.
Kahlan didn’t want to be thrust from the serene womb of the sliph into this garish, loud world.
She remembered Richard, and with Richard, the threat to him: Shota.
Kahlan expelled the sliph from her lungs. The liquid silver sloughed from her, yet she was not wet. She gasped a deep breath of the strange, sharp air. She covered her ears and shut her eyes as the sliph set her on the edge of the well.
“We are where you wished to travel,” the sliph said.
Kahlan reluctantly opened her eyes and lowered her hands. The living world seemed to slow and settle into harmony with what she expected it to be. The comforting hand of the sliph slipped from Kahlan’s waist.
“Thank you, sliph. It was… a pleasure.”
The sliph’s fluid face smiled. “I am pleased that you found it pleasurable.”
“I hope not to be long, and then we must travel back.”
“I will be ready when you wish to travel again,” the sliph said, her voice echoing out into the gloom. “I am always ready to travel, if I am awake.”
Kahlan swung her legs down off the stone wall of the sliph’s well. Parts of an ancient structure were visible, but it seemed mostly to have crumbled into the damp, tangled forest. She could see a bit of a wall here, half of a column there, some paving stones on the ground, all covered with vines and roots and leaves.
Kahlan didn’t know exactly where she was, but she knew she was in the somber woods around the witch woman’s home. Kahlan remembered going through this dangerous, mysterious forest when Shota had captured her and taken her to Agaden Reach in order to draw Richard there.
Jagged peaks, like a wreath of thorns, sheltered the murky forest high up in the vast spine of the Rang’Shada mountains. The dark and dangerous woods, in turn, surrounded and protected Shota’s remote home. These woods kept people away from Agaden Reach, away from the witch woman.
Whoops, clicks, and calls echoed through the stagnant stink. Kahlan rubbed her arms, even though the air was damp and warm. Her chill came from within.
Through small, rare gaps in the forest canopy, Kahlan could detect the pink glow of the sky. It must be just dawn. She knew that the brightening day would bring no relief to the gloom of these woods. On the sunniest day, this morose place was never anything more than dismally dark.
Kahlan stepped carefully, watching the forest floor, the hanging vines, and the drifting fog that seemed to conceal creatures issuing strings of hissing clicks and hooting calls. In the expanses of stagnant water lurking under the thick vegetation, she could see eyes just breaking the surface.
Kahlan took another careful step and then paused. She realized that in the directionless forest, she didn’t know where she was going. There was no telling north from south, east from west. This surrounding wood looked the same in all directions.
She realized, too, that she didn’t even know if Shota was home. The last time Richard and Kahlan had seen Shota was at the Mud People’s village. Shota had been driven from her home by a wizard aligned with the Keeper. Shota might not be here.
No, Nadine had visited her. Shota was here. Kahlan took another step.
Something snatched her ankle and yanked her feet from under her. She landed on her back with a hard thud.
A heavy, dark shape sprang onto her chest, driving the wind from her lungs.
A hiss, carried on fetid breath, came from between sharp teeth packed with gray, spongy filth.
“Pretty lady.”
Kahlan gasped to catch her breath.
“Samuel! Get off me!”
Powerful fingers squeezed her left breast. Bloodless lips drew back with a wicked grin. “Maybe Samuel eat pretty lady.”
Kahlan pressed the point of the bone knife up into the folds of skin at Samuel’s neck. She seized one of his long fingers and bent it back until he squealed and released her breast.
She jabbed the knife against his throat. “Maybe I’ll feed you to the things in the water over there. What do you think? Shall I slit your throat? Or do you want to get off me?”
The hairless, splotchy gray head drew back. Yellow eyes, like twin lanterns in the dim light, glared hatefully down at her. He carefully rolled to the side to let her up. Kahlan kept the bone knife trained on him.
Dead leaves and forest debris stuck to his waxy skin. A long arm lifted to point off into the dark mist.
“Mistress wants you.”
“How does she know I’m here?”
The grotesque face split with a hissing grin. “Mistress knows everything. Follow Samuel.” He skittered a few steps and then stopped to look back over his shoulder. “When mistress is finished with you, Samuel will eat you.”
“I may just have something for Shota she isn’t expecting. She’s made a mistake this time. When I’m finished with her, you may not have a mistress.”
The squat figure stared, appraising her. His bloodless lips pulled back and he hissed.
“Your mistress is waiting. Get going.”
The stocky, hairless, long-armed figure finally moved on through the undergrowth. He skirted dangers Kahlan didn’t see, and grudgingly pointed at things for her to avoid. Vines he circumvented reached for her as she passed, but she was too far away for them to catch her. Roots Samuel bypassed snarled up, trying to snare her.
The short figure, dressed only in pants held up with straps, glanced over his shoulder occasionally to make sure she followed. A couple of times, he gurgled his odd laugh as he bounded along.
After a time, they picked up a trail of sorts, and not long after that the light coming through the tangled mass of branches overhead became brighter. As Kahlan followed the repulsive little creature, they came at last to the edge of the dark wood, and the edge of a cliff.
Far below lay the verdant valley where lived the witch woman. That it was as beautiful a place as any in the Midlands didn’t ease the anxious knot in Kahlan’s stomach. All around the valley the massive rocky peaks of the surrounding mountains soared nearly straight up. The budding trees in the placid valley below swayed gently in the early morning breeze.
Descending the sheer walls of rock looked to be impossible, but Kahlan knew from being here before that there were steps carved in the rock. Samuel led her through a morass of brush, tight trees, and fern-covered boulders, to a place that would be nearly impossible to find without him to guide her. A trail hidden behind rocks, trees, ferns, and vines ran to the edge of the precipice and the steps leading down the cliff walls.
Samuel pointed off, down into the valley. “Mistress.”
“I know. Get moving.”
Kahlan followed Samuel down the cliff’s edge. Part of it was a narrow trail, but most of the way down was comprised of thousands of steps cut into the rugged rock wall. They twisted and turned downward, sometimes spiraling back under ones above.
Below, far off in the center of the valley, among the streams, grand trees, and rolling fields, sat Shota’s graceful palace. Colorful flags flew atop towers and turrets as if to announce a festival. Kahlan could hear the distant flags snapping in the wind. She had trouble seeing it for the splendid place it was. She saw it as the center of the spiderweb. A place where threat lurked. Threat for Richard.
Samuel sprang down the steps ahead, happy to be going back to the protection of his mistress, no doubt thinking about cooking Kahlan in a stew when his mistress was finished with her.
Kahlan hardly noticed the hateful glances from the big yellow eyes. She, too, was lost in a world of loathing.
Shota wanted to harm Richard. Kahlan kept that thought foremost in her mind; it was key. Shota wanted to deny Richard happiness. Shota wanted Richard to suffer.
Kahlan could feel angry power welling up inside her, ready to do her bidding and eliminate the threat against Richard. Kahlan had at last found the way to defeat Shota. Shota had no shield against Subtractive power. It would slice through any magic she threw out.
Kahlan had found the path, the gateway, through the labyrinth of protection layered over her magic, to the core of its power. This side of her magic was protected by precepts that governed its use. Like the Wizards’ Keep, protected by shields of all kinds, there was a way to get through. She had found a way to get through the Keep, and she had used her reason to find the justification that traced its way through the maze of rationale forbidding this magic’s use.
She had tapped its ancient strength, its destructive power.
Kahlan felt the power coursing up through her and down her arms. Blue light snarled and snapped around her fists.
She was nearly lost in a trance of purpose.
