Severed Souls(144)

He was the Seeker, but she was the Mother Confessor. She was born to it, and for better or worse she couldn’t escape it any more than he could escape who he was. In the end, she wore the white dress of office because it belonged on her the same way the Sword of Truth belonged on his hip. Neither was ceremonial. Both were made for battle. Both were weapons meant to be used to fight for truth.

He told himself not to be too discouraged by her weakness the night before. There were times when he had been weak, too. He always picked himself up and so would Kahlan. In fact, when they had started out that morning, he had already begun to see her strength coming back. She had looked determined once again.

He still wished he knew what the oracle had told her.

“Look sharp, boys,” Commander Fister said in a low voice as they passed some of the citadel guard in brown tunics standing to either side of the cobblestone road leading up the hill. The dozen men on each side of the road stood at attention, chins up, fists to hearts. They certainly didn’t look like they entertained any thoughts of a fight.

But that had been by design. The commander had sent men ahead to announce the arrival of the Lord Rahl and tell the guards to prepare to receive him and his escort. The scouts reported that the men defending the citadel had been surprised, but friendly and eager to welcome the Lord Rahl and his party. Even though he was from far away, Richard wouldn’t be entirely a mystery to the people here. There had been a number of men from distant parts of D’Hara who had fought in the long war, and they would have returned with stories about the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor leading them to victory.

Richard tried not to see these men, these people of Saavedra, as a threat, but as people much like any others with the same hopes and dreams. Maybe now that he had come to their part of the world, and Hannis Arc was gone, they would feel more a part of a free D’Hara.

At the top of the road, up the hill beyond the city proper, they finally reached massive iron gates in a high stone wall. In another good sign, the gates stood open. More men lined the road at the top, standing in neat ranks to either side.

Despite every indication, he couldn’t help feeling like a bug approaching a spiderweb.

Richard leaned closer to Commander Fister. “Don’t forget what I told you.”

“Every man’s life before any threat gets to Nicci.” He cast Richard a look. “And of course you and the Mother Confessor.”

It would do them no good to get to the containment field at the citadel if a foolish, jumpy soldier put an arrow through Nicci’s heart. Even the most gifted could be felled with a simple blade or arrow. Without Nicci, the containment field wouldn’t do them any good.

From what he had learned, to stop the threat Emperor Sulachan and Hannis Arc had unleashed on the world, Richard had to end prophecy. He wished he could have ended prophecy before Kahlan had spoken with the oracle.

“Looks peaceful,” Commander Fister said as he scanned the citadel guard, “but every man is ready if that changes.”

The men all knew the importance of being the steel against steel so that Richard could be the magic against magic.

Richard just wished that he had some clue as to how he was supposed to end prophecy.





CHAPTER

72

The main force of the Fajin garrison stood at attention in a cobblestone square beyond the main gates. Beyond rows of soldiers in chain mail, their swords sheathed, stood a row of archers in brown tunics, all their bows shouldered beside their quivers. Lancers stood in a neat line to the other side of the square, their lances pointing straight up toward the leaden sky with the butts resting on the cobbles left wet and slick by the steady, light drizzle.

All of the men were arranged in such a way as to funnel Richard and those with him down to a man waiting in the center of the road that led up to the citadel.

Richard didn’t like being funneled. By his scowl, neither did Commander Fister.

Beyond all the guards, terraces with shaggy olive trees lined the road the rest of the way up to the stone citadel at the top of the hill. Although it would be nothing too special in most cities of any size, in a place like Saavedra the citadel was a magnificent structure that sat like a jewel overlooking the dingy city below. Richard imagined that with Hannis Arc living there, it stood as a symbol of repression, much the way the People’s Palace had when Darken Rahl had ruled.

To Richard, a building was just a building, and didn’t carry the passions and personality of its occupants. All he cared about with this particular building was the containment field it held down under ground. That was Kahlan’s salvation. He could see in her green eyes the weight of the poison within. He felt the same dead weight dragging him down.