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“I have to!” he cried out, knowing that there was nothing else to try.
Shimmering tears traced their way down Denna’s beautiful, glowing face. “If you do this, I can’t protect you.”
“If I don’t, what do you suppose will happen to me?”
She smiled sadly. “You will die here.”
“Then what choice do I have?”
She began floating away, only her hand holding his.
“None,” her silken voice said in his mind. “But I can’t be with you if you do this.”
Twisting in pain as the beast tightened around him, Richard managed to nod. “I know, Denna. Thank you for all you have done. It was a true gift.”
Her sad smile widened as she drifted farther away. “For me, too, Richard. I love you.”
Richard felt her fingers still touching his. He nodded as best he could. “One way or another, you will always be in my heart.”
He felt her kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Richard, for that above all else.”
And then she was gone.
When she vanished, and Richard was suddenly alone, enveloped in incomparable solitude and darkness, in the absence of everything, he released Additive Magic into the beast in a world where it could not exist.
In that instant, as the concussion of the Additive came into being in the heart of nowhere, the beast, unable to endure such an irreconcilable clash between what was and what was not, between the world of life and the world of the dead, between suddenly containing without any protective buffers an element of Additive in a world of Subtractive, disintegrated out of existence in both worlds.
At the same time, Richard felt a stunning blow from every direction at once.
There was suddenly ground under his feet.
Unable to stand, he collapsed among skulls.
Naked men, painted in wild designs, sat in a circle all around him.
Shaking with pain and shock, he felt comforting, calming hands on him. From all around he heard words he didn’t understand.
But then he began to see faces he recognized. He saw his friend Savidlin. At the head of the circle he saw the Bird Man.
“Welcome back to the world of life, Richard with the Temper,” a familiar voice said. It was Chandalen.
Still catching his breath, Richard blinked at the grim faces watching him. They were all painted in wild designs with black and white mud. He realized that he understood the symbols. When he had first come to these people and asked for a gathering, he had thought the black and white mud was simply random patterns. He knew now that it wasn’t. It had meaning.
“Where am I?”
“You are in the spirit house,” Chandalen said in his deep, grim-sounding voice.
The men all around him speaking in the strange language were the Mud People elders. It was a gathering.
Richard looked around at the spirit house. This was the village where he and Kahlan had been married. This was the place where they had spent their first night as husband and wife.
The men helped Richard stand.
“But what am I doing here?” he asked Chandalen, still not sure if he was dreaming…or dead.
The man turned to the Bird Man. They exchanged brief words. Chandalen turned back to Richard.
“We thought you would know, and that you could tell us. We were asked to have a gathering for you. We were told that it was a matter of life or death.”
Richard frowned as he carefully stepped out of the collection of skulls of ancestors. “Who asked you to have a gathering?”
Chandalen cleared his throat. “Well, at first we thought it might be a spirit.”
“A spirit,” Richard said as he stared.
Chandalen nodded. “But then we realized it was a stranger.”
Richard tilted his head toward the man. “A stranger?”
“She flew here on a beast, and then—” He stopped when he saw the look on Richard’s face. “Come, they will explain it.”
“They?”
“Yes, the strangers. Come.”
“I’m naked.”
Chandalen nodded. “We knew you were coming, so we brought clothes for you. Come, they are just outside, and you can talk to the strangers. They are eager to see you. They feared you would never come. We have been in here for two nights, waiting.”
Richard wondered if it was Nicci and maybe Nathan. Who but Nicci could have known to do such a thing?
“Two nights…” Richard mumbled as he was funneled out the door among all the elders as they touched him, patted his shoulder, and jabbered greetings. Despite the unexpected circumstances, they were pleased to see him. He was, after all, one of them, one of the Mud People.
It was dark outside. Richard noticed the slender crescent of the moon. Attendants waited with clothes for all the elders. One of the men handed Richard buckskin trousers, and then a buckskin pullover shirt.
Once Richard was dressed, the group of men swept him through the narrow passageways. Richard felt as if he had awakened in some past life. He remembered all these passageways through the buildings.
Richard was eager to see Nicci. He couldn’t wait to find out what had happened, how she knew to help him escape. It was probably the prophet who had known of the problem he would face, and she must have figured a way to help him by providing a way for him to step back into the world of life. He couldn’t wait to tell her what he had managed to do in the underworld.
The Bird Man laid an arm around Richard’s shoulder and spoke in the words Richard didn’t understand.
Chandalen answered him, and then spoke to Richard. “The Bird Man wants you to know that he has spoken with many ancestors in a gathering, but in all his life he has never seen one of our people return from the spirit world.”
Richard glanced over at the smiling Bird Man.
“It’s a first for m
e as well,” he assured Chandalen.
In the open center of the village large fires were burning, lighting the crowds attending the feast. Children ran through the legs of adults, enjoying the festivities. People were gathered on and around the platforms.
“Richard!” a girl shouted.
Richard turned to the sound and saw Rachel jump off a platform and run toward him. She threw her arms around his waist. She seemed a head taller than the last time he’d seen her. As he embraced her, he couldn’t help laughing with the joy of seeing her again.
When he looked up, Chase was standing there as well. Chase made the largest among the Mud People look the size of children.
“Chase, what are you doing here?”
He folded his arms, looking unhappy. “It’s too incredible. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Richard gave him a look. “I just came back from the underworld. I think I have you beat for incredible.”
Chase thought it over. “Maybe. I was at camp. I’d been searching for Rachel. My mother visited me.”
“Your mother? Your mother passed away years ago.”
Chase made a face as if to say he knew that better than Richard. “That kind of thing gets your attention.”
“Well,” Richard said, trying to grasp what was going on, “it obviously wasn’t your mother. Didn’t you think to ask who she really was?”
Chase, his arms still folded, shrugged. “No.” He glanced off into the darkness. “It was a rather emotional experience. You would have had to have been there.”
“I imagine you’re right,” Richard said. “Did she tell you why she had come to visit you?”
“She told me that I had to come here as fast as I could. She said that Rachel would be here, and that you needed help.”
Richard was dumbfounded. “Did she tell you what sort of help I needed?”
Chase nodded. “Horses. Fast horses.”
“My mother came to me, too,” Rachel said.
Richard looked from the girl back up at Chase. Chase shrugged as if to say he had no answer.
“Your mother?” Richard asked Rachel. “You mean Emma?”
