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“Well then,” he asked her, “what do you think Jagang might conjure up that’s worse than Nicholas the Slide?”
The drone of the cicadas seemed oppressive, invasive, at that moment, as if they were the enemy surrounding him.
“I believe he has forged ahead and already created such a masterwork,” Nicci said with quiet finality. She pulled her blanket up around her shoulders and held it closed at her throat. “I think that’s what those men back there in the woods faced.”
Richard watched her expression in the near darkness. “What do you know about what Jagang has done?”
“Not a great deal,” Nicci admitted. “Only a few words whispered as one of my former fellow Sisters was leaving on a journey.”
“A journey?”
“To the world of the dead.”
By her tone of voice and the way she stared off, Richard didn’t want to ask what had brought about the woman’s travel plans. “So, what did she tell you?”
Nicci let out a weary sigh. “That Jagang had been making things from the lives of captives and volunteers both. Some of those young wizards actually think they are sacrificing themselves for a greater good.” Nicci shook her head at such a sad delusion. “The Sister was the one who told me that Nicholas was but a stepping-stone to His Excellency’s true and noble ends.” Nicci looked up again to make sure that Richard was paying attention. “She said that Jagang was on the brink of creating a creature similar to one he had found in ancient writings, but far better, far more deadly, and invincible.”
The hair at the back of Richard’s neck lifted. “A creature? What kind of creature?”
“A beast. An invincible beast.”
Richard swallowed at the baleful sound of the word. “What’s this creature do? Were you able to find out? What’s its nature?”
For some reason, he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to use the same word aloud right then, as if speaking it might summon it from out of the surrounding night.
Nicci’s troubled eyes turned away. “As the Sister slipped into the arms of death, she smiled like the Keeper himself with a booty of souls, and said, ‘Once he uses his power, the beast will at last know Richard Rahl. Then it will find him, and kill him. His life, like mine, is finally at its end.’”
Richard made himself blink. “Did she say anything else?”
Nicci shook her head. “At that point, she convulsed in the agony of death. The room went black as the Keeper snatched her soul in payment for bargains she had once struck.
“The one thing that’s been troubling me is how this creature found us. Still, I don’t think the situation is as desperate as it may seem. There is really no conclusive evidence to make us believe that it really was this beast that attacked the men back there. After all, you haven’t used your power, so there wouldn’t have been any way for Jagang’s beast to find you.”
Richard looked down at his boots. “When the soldiers attacked,” he said in a low voice as he rubbed a finger along the edge of the leather sole, “I used my gift to deflect the arrows. I didn’t do so well with the last one.”
“Lord Rahl,” Cara said, “I don’t think that’s true. I think you used your sword to deflect the arrows.”
“You weren’t there right then so you didn’t see what was happening,” Richard said as he grimly shook his head. “I was using my sword on the soldiers; I couldn’t use it to deflect the dozens of arrows as well. I deflected the arrows with my gift.”
Nicci was now sitting up straight. “You used your gift? How did you summon it?”
Richard shrugged self-consciously. He wished he knew more about what he’d done. “Through need, I guess. I didn’t know I would end up being responsible…”
She gently touched his arm. “Don’t foolishly blame yourself. You had no way to know. Had you not done as you did you would have been killed. You were acting to save your life. You didn’t know anything about the beast. More than that, though, you may not be entirely responsible.”
Richard frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
Nicci sank back against the rock wall. “I fear that I may have contributed to its finding us.”
“You? But how?”
“I used Subtractive Magic to get rid of your blood so I could heal you. While the Sister didn’t say anything specific that I could point to, I still got the uneasy feeling that this creature may somehow be tied to the underworld. If that’s true, then when I got rid of your blood with the use of Subtractive Magic I may have inadvertently given it a taste of your blood, so to speak.”
“You did the right thing,” Cara said. “You did the only thing you could do. To let Lord Rahl die instead would have been handing Jagang what he sought.”
Nicci nodded her appreciation of Cara’s words.
Richard let out the breath he had been holding. “What else can you tell me about this thing?”
“Nothing of any consequence, I’m afraid. The Sister told me that the Sisters who were experimenting with creating weapons out of people had only created Nicholas to work out some of the preliminary details before moving on to their important work. Even so, some of them died in the task of conjuring the Slide—and, with as many as have already died, Jagang is getting to the point where he has few to spare. He has used those he still has, while he still has enough, to accomplish his goal. Apparently, creating the beast was vastly more complex and difficult than creating a Slide, but the results were said to have been worth it. I suspect that along the way he may have directed that shortcuts be taken, shortcuts that involve the underworld.
“If we’re going to fight this thing, we need to find out everything we can about this beast. And we need to find out before it catches us. With what happened to the men, I don’t think we have much time.”
Richard knew that what she meant, but hadn’t said, was that she wanted him to forget what she thought were his meaningless dreams about Kahlan and to put his full concentration and effort toward this dangerous creation of Jagang’s.
“I have to find Kahlan,” he said in a quiet tone meant to convey his conviction and his resolve.
“You can’t do anything if you’re dead,” Nicci said.
Richard lifted the baldric over his head. He leaned the polished scabbard holding the Sword of Truth against the rock.
“Look, we’re not even sure that whatever killed those men back there really is this beast you’re talking about.”
“What do you mean?” Nicci asked.
“Well, if it can find me when I use my gift, then why did it attack the men? Sure, it was the place where I’d used my ability, but the attack was three days after the fact. If it was supposed to know me after I used my power then why attack the men?”
“Maybe it just thought you were among them,” Cara offered.
Nicci nodded. “Cara might be right.”
“Maybe,” Richard said. “But if it recognized me by me using my gift and in addition you gave it a taste of my blood, then wouldn’t it know that I wasn’t among the men?”
Nicci shrugged. “I don’t know. It very well could be that by using your gift you only summoned it to the general area, but when you stopped using your ability then the beast was blind to you, so to speak. Maybe it was so angry that it just missed you it went into a frenzy of killing whoever was there. If that’s true, then I would suspect that it needs you to again use your gift, now that it’s close, to finally be able to catch you.”
“But she said that once I used my gift it would know me. That doesn’t sound to me like I need to use it again for it to find me.”
“Maybe it does now know you,” Nicci said. “But maybe it still needs to find you. Since it knows you, now, maybe all the beast needs is for you to again use your gift so that it can pounce.”
That had a frightening kind of logic to it. “I guess it’s good that I don’t depend on my gift.”
“You’d better make sure you let us protect you,” Cara said. “I don’t think you had better do anything that migh
t even inadvertently cause you to use your magic.”
“I’m afraid that I agree with Cara,” Nicci said. “I’m not sure about it having a taste of your blood, but the one thing we do know for sure is what the Sister told me—that if you use your gift it will find you. As long as the beast is hunting you, and until we can learn more about it and nullify the threat, you must not use your gift for any reason.”
Richard conceded with a nod. He didn’t know if that was possible. While he didn’t know how to call upon his gift, he wasn’t sure that he knew how to prevent it coming forth, either. It was awakened by anger and answered a certain kind of need. He wasn’t aware of the specific conditions that invoked his ability; it just happened. While their theory of not using his gift made sense, he wasn’t sure he could actually control it enough to prevent it if conditions caused it to spring to life.
Another frightening thought occurred to him. It was possible that the beast had found him, and knew precisely where he was, and it had only killed the men out of blood lust. For all he knew, the beast could be out in the woods watching, using the noise of the cicadas to cover its footsteps as it approached their shelter.
In the dim light Nicci watched him. As he pondered the grim possibilities, she reached out again and felt his forehead.
Drawing back, she said, “We’d better get some rest. You’re shivering with the cold. I’m afraid that in your condition you may lapse into a fever. Lie down. We’ll all have to keep each other warm. But first, you need to be dry or you’ll never get warm.”
Cara leaned past Richard, toward Nicci. “How do you think you can get him dry without a fire?”
