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The third kingdom was an ever-changing landscape of rocky ground with the green walls of the underworld wandering and mixing with the world of life. It was not a place where he could ever feel safe.
Richard was exhausted from lack of sleep, the difficult journey, and the constant tension that kept them on high alert. Once through the gates, they had pressed on almost the entire night before, not wanting to stop, fearing to stop, fearing to fall asleep for long in such a place.
Besides that, they knew they were getting closer to the land of the Shun-tuk, where they expected that their friends and loved ones were being held, and both he and Samantha were eager to press on. They suspected that they were close to the strange half people’s homeland, because they had spotted a number of them making their way south along the broad valley floor.
It confirmed that progress down lower would be quicker, but Richard also realized that down lower they were more likely to encounter half people.
The people Richard saw making their way along the valley floor all looked like the bodies he remembered seeing near the wagon, after he had woken up. Traveling in clusters of at least a few dozen, these people he was seeing now had the same ashen coloring wiped all over their bodies, with shaved heads and black around their eyes. Many had what looked to be dangling strings of teeth and bones. There was no doubt in Richard’s mind that these were the Shun-tuk. The farther north they went, the more of them they saw, so he figured that he and Samantha had to be getting near their domain. At least he knew they were going in the right direction.
Getting closer to their objective, and in such dangerous country, neither Richard nor Samantha had wanted to stop for long the night before. They had found a small opening in the confusing jumble of the rock formations and wedged their way in, out of sight of anyone passing nearby. It reminded him of the place they had weathered the storm of wood fragments when Samantha had unleashed such devastation that wiped out the half people who wanted to eat them.
They had gotten precious few hours of fitful sleep, but it couldn’t be helped, not when they were this close. Not when Richard could imagine the captives nearby, hoping for help, hoping for rescue. He didn’t want to waste a moment for anything, even sleep. Samantha was of the same mind.
He knew that sooner or later they would need to rest, him even more so, but he knew he couldn’t allow it to slow him down. He could feel the inner poison working on him. He knew that it was only going to get worse. Samantha had said as much, so to his way of thinking, the faster he could pull Zedd and Nicci out of captivity, the faster they could heal him. He knew the options and had made the choice he thought made most sense: press on.
Speed was life—his, and everyone else’s.
He kept thinking that if they slowed, and if he then reached the captives and they had been killed only a few hours earlier, he would never forgive himself for not making the best speed he possibly could.
He supposed that he wouldn’t live long enough to feel the pangs of regret if he didn’t succeed, but the fear still kept him moving.
Crossing the open area, Richard didn’t see any of the Shun-tuk, only flocks of black birds off in the distance against the slate gray sky. It was so heavily overcast that it nearly felt like dusk. He wondered if some of that dimness to the day was from his inner darkness.
The floor of the valley was strewn with broken shale, and in a swath along the valley floor stretched a broad expanse of standing water. It looked like it might be runoff from farther north that had settled in the low area in the center between the rising land to either side. The water was slightly chalky-looking, but clear enough to see that it was never more than ankle-deep. Because the shelves of rock jutting at an angle from the ground to the side had grown so tightly packed, they needed to cross the expanse of water to get to an area where they could make easier progress. Unfortunately, it was also the area that anyone else would have to use.
“Do you think it’s awfully dark here?” Richard asked as they trudged into the shallow lake. “Or is it just me?”
“No,” Samantha said in a quiet voice, trying to walk through the water without splashing too much of it up onto herself, “it’s not you. It is darker here.” She pointed. “Look over there. Looks like storm clouds gathering.”
“It’s a good thing we’re crossing now, then. If there is a storm it could bring a flash flood down through here and wash us away.”
Richard was relieved when they finally made it across the open, shallow water and were back on dry ground. Random fingers of rock jutting up from the uneven ground provided some cover. They wove their way through that rocky landscape, staying down closer to the valley floor and away from the taller spires that congregated in great enough numbers to hinder progress.
Spikes of rock thrust up all around, as if a porcupine were trying to emerge from beneath the ground. It made for an endless, confusing maze. Often the rock hid any point of reference. Richard tried to keep the taller mountains on their left in sight so he could know that he was going north, but in among the rocky spires it wasn’t always possible.
At least the darkness was making it easier to see the flickering veils of green luminescence that came into the world of life from time to time. At times they watched as the curtains of eerie light dragged across the landscape and among the columns of rock like ghosts looking for a place to haunt. It occurred to Richard that that might not be too far from the truth. In a place where the world of life and the world of the dead existed in the same place, death probably looked to harvest any life it could catch.
After crossing another section of open ground, as they reached the concealing safety of columns and jumbles of rocks, Richard had to come to a stop. Blocking his intended course was an undulating green wall that abruptly rippled up into view before them between two towering fists of rock.
This time, through the greenish veil they could see dark figures on the other side—arms and legs writhing in continual turmoil. The shadowy shapes looked like the dead, lost beyond the veil, seeking a way out, or maybe seeking company in their misery.
It was a sight that brought both Richard and Samantha to an uneasy halt. At once frightened and at the same time beguiled, they had a hard time looking away. It was a sight seen by few people on the living side of death.
Richard put a hand on Samantha’s shoulder and nudged her off ahead of him, to his right, on a different route through the rocks. Even as she turned, her gaze stayed fixed on the moaning shapes beyond the billowing greenish veil.
“This way,” Richard said. “Try not to look at them.”
“It’s hard not to,” she said back over her shoulder.
“I know,” Richard said in soft reassurance.
Almost before he had finished saying it, another wavering greenish veil abruptly loomed up before them, as if it had just risen from the underworld itself.
It came into view so swiftly that Richard almost stepped into it, almost touched it. It was so close that he could see forms moving beyond the opaque wall, pushing against it in places to make it stretch and bulge outward.
Richard took a quick step back.
“Lord Rahl?” Samantha called from the other side of the green veil.
He had pushed Samantha out ahead, directing her to a different route, and the veil had come up between the two of them as she had been out in front of him.
“It’s all right, Samantha. I’m all right.”
“Lord Rahl, I can hear you, but I can’t see you.”
There was no mistaking the alarm in her voice. “It’s all right, Samantha. I’m right here. Stay back from it. Don’t go near it. I’ll come to you.”
He turned a different way, going around it to get to Samantha. He made his way around a few of the imposing spires of rock to find a passage around the green veil.
Another curtain of the undulating green luminescence materialized, sliding in among the stone crags, as if carried in on an ill breeze. It stopped him in his tracks, preventing him from going
the way he had intended in order to get around the first veil separating them.
“Lord Rahl, you’re scaring me. Where are you?”
“Right here. I’m okay. I just have to go around another way, that’s all. Hold on. I’ll be right there.”
The soaring rock spires all around created a maze that was made all the more difficult to navigate by routes being blocked by the flickering greenish veils of light.
As he turned to the left to go around a different way, another green veil appeared. This time, it felt deliberate, as if it somehow intended to block him from advancing and getting around. When he turned back, there was another already blocking his way.
“Lord Rahl?” came her voice in among the rock walls as another greenish curtain drifted in behind him, blocking any retreat.
There was only one way left open, and when he raced for it he had to skid to a stop as it, too, became blocked with the menacing green veil. He realized that he was surrounded. He would have to wait until the boundary walls to the underworld moved on.
“Samantha, listen to me. Do you have green walls blocking your way?”
“No. But I can’t find you. I can’t see you anymore. I can hear you, but not very well. I can’t see you.”
Richard was now completely surrounded by flickering, wavering, greenish light spanning every gap and escape route in the rock. He was trapped.
He knew that something was going on. This was not random.
