Severed Souls(148)

He held the torch out and let Samantha light it for him. She ignited a flame over her palm and sent fire into the torches of several men, who hurried off down the hall, in turn lighting torches for others. The flames sent yellow-orange light flickering ahead into the darkness. Acrid smoke from the hissing, popping torches rolled along the sooty ceiling.

Irena’s face looked greenish in the strange light of the sphere she was holding. “Down this way,” she said before turning and heading for another, smaller stairway.

The stairs were roughly cut stone, as were the walls, and not as wide as the previous steps. In pairs, they all followed the stairs down around several landings as they descended to the foundation level of the building. Richard supposed that it made sense for the containment field to be in as secluded and secure a place as possible.

At the bottom of the stairs, they held out the light spheres and the torches Richard and several other men carried to peer off into the darkness of the stone corridor. The air was musty and damp, but at least there was no standing water.

“Down there,” Irena said, “near the end. I believe it is rarely used anymore so the place is in a mostly forgotten corner.”

Leading them onward, she hurried off down the hall, the crunch and pop of crumbled granite littering the floor under their boots echoing back from the distance as they passed rooms off to the sides. Some of the rooms had no doors, but most did. From what Richard could see when he thrust his hissing torch through a few open doorways, the pitch-black rooms beyond looked to be storage rooms for rarely needed supplies and building materials for making repairs—roof slates, beams, and planks in a variety of sizes. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.

The commander used hand signals to send men off in various directions to check the rooms and branching passageways. Richard knew that it would take time to conduct a thorough search of what was turning out to be an extensive maze under the citadel, but at least they could clear the immediate area.

The stone hallway, built of granite blocks, looked eerie in the greenish luminescence of the light spheres. It reminded him, in a way, of the veil to the underworld that had infected them. He was relieved that the open passageway to the underworld infecting them would soon be withdrawn and kept by the containment field from escaping out into the world of life.

“Here,” Irena said, gesturing to an iron door to the right side of the hallway. “It’s through here.” She tugged on the door. “Through this place in here.”

One of the soldiers stepped up and pulled the heavy iron door open for her. Irena, not waiting for a soldier to check what was beyond, rushed inside with her light sphere.

“This is an entryway of some kind leading to the containment field,” she said, her voice echoing in the darkness.

Her sphere dimmed considerably once inside. Their torches gave off somewhat better light, but even they dimmed.

In weak glimmers of light, Richard saw that it was a dusty, dirty room. It was a lot longer than it was wide. The faint rays of light cut through the pitch blackness to reveal abandoned items—a broken loom, some scaffolding, and other worn-out implements—stacked in a careless jumble in one of the far corners. Planks and old tools in the other corner were blanketed with old sheets in an effort to keep the dirt off them. A thick layer of brownish-gray dust covered everything in the room, including the sheets.

Holding out his torch as he passed through the doorway into the dark room, Richard could feel the power of a shield tingle across his flesh. He held Kahlan’s hand as she followed him in. Commander Fister and the men took up positions outside in the hall, guarding the doorway.

Irena’s light sphere had dimmed to nearly being dark.

“Oh, I forgot,” Irena said, sounding disgusted with herself. “We have to go in through here, and these light spheres don’t work at all as we get closer to the containment field itself. They have special light spheres made for this area that they keep in a nearby room. I’ll run and get them—I’ll only be a minute.” She rushed back out the doorway before Nicci had a chance to enter. “Samantha, come help me carry them.”

Samantha instead ducked under her mother’s arm and into the room ahead of Nicci, eager to see the place. “I want to stay with Lord Rahl,” she said, her voice echoing as she peered around in the dim light. She held her light sphere up, trying to see, but it was fading fast.

“Oh, all right,” Irena said, “I’ll do it myself. I can get some of the men to help me carry them. I’ll just be a minute—I know right where they are.”

“I’ll help you,” one of the men offered, following after her as she rushed back down the hall.