“You’re a witch woman.”
Red smiled indulgently. “Yes. The simple people here have never imagined such a thing. I don’t think they would understand. I give them little bits from the flow of time, such as I did when I told them that all of you would come through their home place. So, they think I am an oracle.”
Kahlan cocked her head. “I’ve had dealings with a witch woman in the past. Do you know Shota?”
Red flicked her hand dismissively. “Never heard of the witch.”
Kahlan glanced around. “So, where are all your snakes?”
Red made a show of visibly shuddering. “Snakes. Horrid creatures. I hate them.”
“Me too,” Kahlan said, feeling just the slightest bit better. Maybe Red was not the trouble Shota had proven herself to be. “Shota is rather fond of snakes.”
“Disgusting,” Red said, shuddering again. “I much prefer worms.”
Kahlan blinked. “Worms?”
Red nodded earnestly. “Much more agreeable creatures than snakes. More obedient and much more useful as well.”
“What good are worms?”
Amused, Red leaned closer. “You’re joking.”
“No, really.”
Red gestured vaguely behind Kahlan, back toward the mounds of skulls. “Well, for one thing, the little ones are good at cleaning up messes.”
Kahlan cocked her head. “The little ones?”
Red straightened. She looked back over her shoulder.
“Worm! Come to me!”
Kahlan had never heard of worms that would come when called. She wondered briefly if Red had all her senses. In a moment, though, she began to feel the ground beneath her feet trembling. And then it shook as if from an earthquake.
Abruptly, not far behind Red, the ground broke open. Dirt flew up and away as something big erupted from under the sod.
Kahlan stared in disbelief. A worm as big around as the trunk of a midsize oak lifted part of itself up and out of the dirt. It stretched its wet head up over Red’s shoulder. There was no face, no eyes, only an enormous round mouth ringed with teeth. The opening of the mouth undulated along with the rest of the distended, banded sections of the never-still, rippling body. The teeth clacked together when the mouth snapped closed and open again.
“Worm eats snakes for the fun of it,” Red said, amused by the startled look on Kahlan’s face.
With that, she bent and snatched a snake up from under the bench. Smiling at Kahlan, she flipped the writhing snake back over her shoulder. The enormous worm snapped it out of midair like a dog snapping up a table scrap tossed its way.
Red waved a hand without looking back, dismissing the thing. The worm’s massive body ripped in muscular waves as it pulled itself back down into the ground. The dirt and sod collapsed in around the hole as it vanished beneath the ground.
“Your little furry friend’s mother is even more formidable,” the witch woman said.
“I can only imagine,” Kahlan said as she glanced over at Hunter. “Red, you obviously went to a lot of trouble getting me to come here.”
“Not a lot of trouble,” Red said with a shrug. “I saw in the flow of time that you would come this way. I didn’t want you to be ripped apart and eaten back there in the chasms, so I sent your little friend to show you the way and keep you alive.”
“Thank you” was all Kahlan could think to say. “But what am I doing here? We need permission to go through here. We need to be on our way. What is it you want from me?”
“Ah,” Red said, “direct and to the point. Well, with the condition you and Lord Rahl are in, I suppose that you have no time to waste, so we had best get right to our business.”
“My business is getting to Saavedra,” Kahlan told the woman. “We’re in a hurry. We don’t want any trouble. We simply need you to give us your permission to go through this pass.”
“Yes,” Red drawled, “but first we have important business.”
Kahlan frowned again. “What business?”
Red’s piercing blue eyes fixed on her. “I need you to kill someone for me.”
CHAPTER
66
“You need me to kill someone?” Kahlan asked. She didn’t see why a witch woman with this much ability and reach couldn’t do her own killing if it was so important. “I’m not an assassin. Not for anyone, including you.”
“Yes, that’s all well and good, but you need to do this killing, so I need to make you understand how important it is so that you will not fail.”
Kahlan took a deep breath. She knew the woman wasn’t going to let them pass until Kahlan at least heard her out. “Fine, let’s hear it, then, but be quick about it. I don’t have long to live unless I get this sickness out of me.”