“Sulachan, in his arrogant delusions, believes he can control such forces and bend them to his will. Hannis Arc, in his lust for power, sees a thousand years of reign as an eternity. They make the perfect lethal pair: delusion and lust, both possessing great power individually, multiplied by their alliance and driven by their objectives, both cheered on by those who hate, gleeful at the obscenity of lost hope.
“Once such forces of chaos are loosed, there would be no one capable of putting them back. Once everything has spun out of control, it is only a matter of time before it is all over. Life—existence—would be extinguished.
“Therefore, Sulachan and Hannis Arc must be stopped before they can ever bring such insanity to pass.”
Kahlan let out an impatient sigh. “Red, I know all of this. You aren’t really telling me anything new. I already know how vital it is that they are stopped.
“That is precisely what we are trying to do, and you are wasting my time in that effort. We need to get through the pass and, after we are healed, we are going to try to stop the threat. Get to the point or send us on our way.”
Red folded her arms and leaned one shoulder in toward Kahlan. “I am trying to put the nature of what you must do into context so that you will understand how vital it is.”
Kahlan pressed a hand to her forehead. She could feel the evil inside her clawing to be freed. It was going to be that way for everyone. She took a breath, trying to be patient.
“Red, I’m dying. Believe me, I get the context. I don’t have a lot of time left to do anything to help you. We need to be on our way. I get it that they must be stopped or they will do something irreversible. Would you please just tell me what it is that you think you need me to do?”
Red leveled a sharp look at her. “It is not what I think, it is what I know. I see events in the flow of time. And what I see is that there is only one person who has the potential to stop all of these horrors I have described from coming to pass.”
“And who would that be?” Kahlan asked as patiently as possible.
“You know very well, Mother Confessor, who that would be,” Red said with a scowl. “It is the pebble in the pond, the bringer of death, the Lord Rahl, the one, your husband.”
Kahlan let out a deep sigh. “Again, we know that. Does the flow of time you witch women like to swim around in tell you if he will succeed?”
“It doesn’t work that way. I do not choose what I wish to see in the flow of time.”
“Great, so all you can do is tell me what I already know, and that you don’t know if we will succeed. That’s great. Thank you. Now may we pass?”
Red’s scowl was back. “I don’t get to pick out the answers I need or would like. I don’t get to ask questions and have them answered. The flow of time reveals to me what it will reveal. Nothing more, nothing less. I have no say in it. I am but a messenger.”
“That’s because it’s prophecy,” Kahlan said.
“In a way. In this case, it reveals to me only that your husband has the potential to succeed. It does not reveal if he will.”
Kahlan threw her arms up. “What good, then, is all this flow-of-time prophecy business if it only tells you potential? I could easily have told you that Richard has the potential to stop all this from happening without you needing to bother to peer into the flow of time!”
Rather than getting angry at Kahlan’s tone, Red became more calm, even sorrowful. “That much of it is muddy, but many other events in the flow of time are crystal clear. I can see those things with absolute certainty.”
“But not in this case,” Kahlan said, contemplating leaving the witch woman and going back to get Richard and the rest of them. Since Red knew that Richard was important, Kahlan figured that she wasn’t likely to put up a fight if they simply barged right through the middle of her little lair.
“No, not in this case.” It was Red, this time, who let out a patient sigh. “You see, Mother Confessor, in the unique case of that husband of yours, his free will mucks up events in the flow of time.”
Kahlan frowned. “Why is that?”
“Because he is a pebble in the pond. He causes ripples in events. Because he acts on free will, and he is gifted, it can’t be foreseen how those ripples will interact with other people and other events. Prophecy does not work so well with that man of yours.”
“If it’s any consolation, we’ve always had that problem with prophecy,” Kahlan said. “That’s why we don’t pay it much heed.”
Red leaned closer. “Well, in this case, you had better.”