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Kahlan could hear the sound of the pop as the point man’s neck broke. They both crashed to the ground, Ruben on top, his arm still around the other man’s neck.
When men from both teams scrambled to their feet, two men from the attacking team were down, one on each side of the field. Both men rolled in pain with broken limbs.
Ruben rose up over the point man lying dead in the center of the field. The man’s head lay twisted back at a gruesome angle.
Ruben scooped the loose broc up off the ground, trotted through the stunned, confused players, and threw a point that didn’t count.
The meaning of what he’d just done was clear: if another team played specifically to harm anyone on his team, then he would retaliate with a withering response. He was giving notice that by their own actions they were choosing for themselves what would happen to them.
Kahlan now knew without doubt that Ruben’s red paint was no hollow display. The men on the other team lived only by his grace.
Surrounded by nearly uncountable captors, with dozens of arrows pointed at him, this one man had just laid down his own laws, laws that could not be avoided or dismissed. He had just told his opponents how they would play against him and his team. It was a clear message that, by their own actions, Ruben’s opponents chose their own fate.
Kahlan had to school her features and keep herself from smiling, from shouting with joy at what he had just accomplished—from being the only one in the crowd to cheer this one man.
She wished he would look at her, but he never did.
With their point man dead and two other players now out of play—the ones primarily responsible for what could only be described as the murder of the red team’s left wing man—it looked like the favored team was on the verge of an unprecedented loss.
Kahlan wondered just how many points the red team was going to win by. She expected it was going to be a rout.
Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the messenger rushing up, waving an arm to get the emperor’s attention as he shoved his way through the big guards.
“Excellency,” the excited man said in a breathless voice, “the men have gotten in. The Sisters there at the site asked for you to come at once.”
Jagang asked no questions and wasted no time. As the play on the field resumed he started away. Kahlan glanced back just in time to see Ruben tackle the new opposing point man hard enough to rattle his teeth. All of the big guards swarmed around the emperor, opening a clear pathway before him. Kahlan knew better than to draw his attention by not following close behind.
“We’re leaving,” she said to Jillian, still huddling for warmth under Kahlan’s cloak.
Holding hands so that they wouldn’t become separated, they turned to follow Jagang. Kahlan looked back over her shoulder.
For a brief moment, their eyes met. In that fleeting instant, Kahlan realized that even though he hadn’t looked her way once throughout the game, he had known exactly where she had been the entire time.
CHAPTER 12
Nicci’s eyes popped open. She gasped in panic.
Dim shapes swam in her vision. She could make no sense of the indistinct forms she saw. In an effort to get her bearings her mind snatched at memories of every sort, frantically searching through their ever-changing essence, trying to find ones that seemed relevant, ones that fit. The great store of all of her thoughts seemed in as much disarray as a library full of books scattered by the twisting winds of a thunderstorm. Nothing seemed to make sense to her. She couldn’t understand where she was.
“Nicci, it’s me, Cara. You’re safe. Calm down.”
A different voice in the murky, blurry distance said, “I’ll go get Zedd.” Nicci saw the dark shape move and then vanish into yet more darkness.
She realized that it had to be the person who had spoken going through a doorway. That was the only thing that made sense. She thought she might cry with relief at finally being able, out of all the shapes and shadows, to grasp the simple concept of a doorway, and the vastly more complex concept of a person.
“Nicci, calm down,” Cara repeated.
Nicci only then realized that she was struggling mightily, trying to move her arms, and that she was being held down. It was as if her mind and body were both jumbled, trying to function through turmoil and confusion, trying to get a grip on something solid.
But she was beginning to make sense of things.
“Six,” she said with great effort. “Six.”
The black memory loomed up in her mind as if she had summoned it and it had returned to finish her.
She fixated on the meaning of that word, that name, that dark form floating there in her mind. She pulled random bits inward, building them together around it. When one memory fit—the memory of the hallway with Rikka, Zedd, and Cara up ahead frozen in place on the stairs—she went on to the next and worked to add another piece.
By the sheer force of her will, order began tumbling into place. Her thoughts fused into coherence. Her memories began to coalesce.
“You’re safe,” Cara said, still holding Nicci’s arms. “Be still, now.”
Nicci wasn’t safe. None of them were safe. She had to do something.
“Six is here,” she managed through gritted teeth as she struggled to push Cara out of the way. “I have to stop her. She has the box.”
“She’s gone, Nicci. Just calm down.”
Nicci blinked, still trying to clear her vision, still trying to catch her breath. “Gone?”
“Yes. We’re safe for the time being.”
“Gone?” Nicci clutched a fistful of red leather, pulling the Mord-Sith closer. “Gone? She’s gone? How long has she been gone?”
“Since yesterday.”
The memory of the dark figure seemed to stretch away into the distance, out of reach.
“Yesterday,” Nicci breathed as she sank back against the pillow. “Dear spirits.”
Cara finally straightened. Nicci no longer cared if she got up.
Everything had been for nothing.
She thought she might not ever want to get up again.
She stared off at nothing. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“No. Just you.”
“Just me,” Nicci repeated in a flat tone. “She should have killed me.”
Cara frowned. “What?”
“Six should have killed me.”
“Well, I’m sure she probably would have liked to, but she didn’t manage to accomplish it. You’re safe.”
Cara hadn’t understood what Nicci had meant.
“All for nothing,” Nicci mumbled to herself.
Everything was lost. All the work had been for nothing. All that Nicci had accomplished had unraveled, melting away in a dark shadow’s echoing laughter. All the studying, the piecing together, the monumental effort to finally understand how it all actually functioned, the work to invoke such power, to control it, to direct it—all of it had been in vain.
It had been one of the most difficult things she had ever done…and now it was all in ashes.
Cara dunked a cloth in a basin of water on a side table. Water ran back as she wrung the cloth. The sound of each drop falling back into the basin was pronounced, penetrating, painful.
Rather than a blur of shapes and shadows, as it had been when she’d first awakened, now everything had focused into raw sharpness. Colors seemed blindingly bright, sounds strident. The dozen candles in the nearby stand shone like twelve little suns.
Cara pressed the damp cloth to Nicci’s forehead. The red color of the Mord-Sith’s leather outfit hurt Nicci’s eyes, so she closed them. The cloth felt like a thorned hedge being pressed against her tender flesh.
“There is other trouble,” Cara said in a quiet, confidential voice.
Nicci opened her eyes. “Other trouble?”
Cara nodded as she blotted the cloth on the sides of Nicci’s neck.
“Trouble with the Keep.”
Nicci glanced past the foot of her bed t
o the heavy dark blue and gold drapes over the narrow window. The drapes were drawn closed, but there was no light at all leaking in, so she realized that it had to be nighttime.
