Severed Souls(181)

“When I was in the underworld, Richard removed it. Because we were in the world of the dead, the touch of death could cause no harm when it was pulled out of me, the way it would have here in the world of life. The world of the dead is, in effect, a containment field for death. The veil keeps death on that side. Thanks to Richard, Jit’s touch of death was left in the world of the dead where it belonged.”

Nicci put a hand to her heart as she let out an audible sigh. “That’s wonderful. Dear spirits, that’s wonderful.”

Kahlan nodded. “A good spirit healed me. Richard’s spirit.”

Cassia brightened. “Then you aren’t going to die?”

Kahlan shook her head. “No, but I have nothing to live for, now. Ironic that when I was dying, I wanted to live, and now that I’m going to live, I only want to die.”

Nicci put her arms around Kahlan, giving her a silent hug in sympathy.

When they parted, Nicci’s expression turned suspicious. “If you could use your power, then why wouldn’t you have used it on Dreier? You could have simply taken him with your power and not have had to go through all that.”

“It’s not as simple as it sounds.”

“Maybe not,” Nicci said, “but still, had you taken him with your power you would have been certain that you had gotten the truth out of him.”

“I did get the truth out of him. I’ve spent my life getting the truth out of people like him. I don’t always need to unleash my power. He told us the truth. That was all he could do for us—for Richard.”

Nicci gestured back toward the bedroom. “He wouldn’t have been able to pose a threat had you touched him and he might have also been a valuable source of information.”

Kahlan shook her head. “I made a calculated decision.”

“What do you mean?”

“Other than animating corpses, they couldn’t really bring the dead back to life. I don’t think there was much of anything he could have told us that would have been worth the risk of trying to use my power on him.”

Nicci flicked a hand toward the blood on the floor. “What risk? You took Erika with your power.”

Kahlan gave Nicci a look. “Erika didn’t have occult powers.”

Nicci straightened. “Oh. I guess there is that.”

“Indeed there is. I’ve never used my Confessor ability on someone with occult powers. We know that regular Additive Magic doesn’t work on those with such power. My ability is partially Additive Magic. Even Zedd couldn’t stop those like Dreier with powerful occult abilities.”

“So it might not have worked?” Cassia guessed.

“Having it not work would have been the least of it. My power doesn’t work the same on everyone. Mord-Sith, for example, can capture a person’s magic when the person tries to use it on them, yet when they try to capture a Confessor’s power it turns deadly, as you saw with Erika.

“It is entirely possible that had I tried to use my Confessor power on Dreier, he could have turned it back on me in a similar way and used the opportunity to have us all. It could easily have been a fatal mistake for all of us. The risk was too great, and besides, I believe we got all we could from him, so there was no point. That was the calculated decision I made.”

Nicci nodded with a sigh. “I should have known you would have thought it through.”

Kahlan stared off into her thoughts. “Richard taught me to think of the solution, not the problem. That’s what I was trying to do.”





CHAPTER

92

“What are we going to do, now,” Commander Fister asked when Nicci and Kahlan parted and the hallway fell silent again.

Kahlan swallowed. “Richard isn’t coming back. We need to face that. I was only fooling myself. The awful truth is that Richard is dead.

“We know what he had wanted done with Zedd’s remains. He would want us to do the same for him. He is gone now, lost to those of us left behind in this world. We owe it to him to take care of his worldly remains. We are going to have to prepare a funeral pyre and say our good-byes.”

Tears slowly ran down the faces of all three Mord-Sith.

“Kahlan, are you sure?” Nicci asked. “What Ludwig Dreier did used occult power. We don’t know if there might still be hope.”

“Hope?” Kahlan asked. She shook her head as she swallowed at the painful agony of the memory she still couldn’t get out of her mind. “You didn’t see what I saw. Those dark, winged demons chased him, caught him, hooked their claws into him so he couldn’t get away, and then wrapped their black wings around him to smother his soul as they carried him down into oblivion.”