“I’m afraid she’s right, Richard. We intend to try, of course, to use our ability to give you both strength for as long as we can, but we know that the reality is you won’t live long enough to make it to the People’s Palace.”
“But…” Richard searched for words. “There must be something…”
Nicci looked away from him as she answered. “Richard, we worked on you ever since the moment we got across the chasm. You were … you were close to death that whole time. Kahlan’s infection was worse, before, but the poison in you has caught up with hers and you are both slipping away.
“This morning, we lost you to that poison.”
Richard frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
“You stopped breathing. Death was taking you. You were at the cusp of death and crossing over. We were losing you. Zedd did something that pulled you back. Another few heartbeats would have been your last had he not done what he did.”
Richard looked over at Zedd. His grandfather’s hazel eyes finally turned up to meet his gaze. “I know what I’m doing.” A sly smile creased his weathered face. “I still have a few tricks left in me.”
It made Richard smile. Despite the gravity of the situation, it made him smile. “Yes, you do.”
“All we can do,” Nicci said, “is try to keep you alive as long as possible. But the truth is, you don’t have long enough to live to make it back to the containment field at the palace.”
Irena looked around at everyone else. “Well, all right, if it really needs to be done in a containment field, and the People’s Palace is too far, then we simply need to use another one, somewhere closer, that’s all.”
“Containment fields are quite rare,” Zedd said with a heavy sigh. “I hardly think we’ll find one in the Dark Lands, of all places.”
“Yes, you will,” she said.
Zedd’s brow drew down, hooding his eyes as he looked intently at her. “Where?”
“Ah, so now you want to listen to me?”
“This is a matter of life and death, Irena. There is no time for games. If you know of any closer containment fields, then tell us where they are.”
“I only know of one, actually,” she said. “It’s at the citadel.”
Everyone stared at her.
“A real, functioning containment field?” Zedd asked. “From a time when our ancestors still possessed such powers that could create such wonders?”
Irena nodded, looking a bit confused at their skepticism.
“A real containment field?” he pressed, again. “A real, working containment field. At the citadel. In Saavedra. In the heart of the Dark Lands.”
Again, Irena nodded.
“I have been to important palaces, built back in those ancient times,” Nicci said, “that weren’t important enough to possess a containment field. I find it more than a little difficult to believe that there would be one out here in the Dark Lands, at a petty citadel in Saavedra. How can you be so sure that you’re right?”
“I’ve been there,” she said. “I’ve seen it.”
Nicci still looked more than a little skeptical. “What would a containment field be doing out here in the Dark Lands?”
“Well,” she said, “I imagine that it was placed there because of the barrier being so close. My suspicion is that the people who built the barrier thought it would be a good idea to have one handy, if need be, when the barrier finally failed, or maybe for when the occult forces started seeping out before it failed.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Richard said. “Naja said that they knew the barrier would fail. They knew what we would face when it did. They might have left it there as a precaution to help us, for just such a problem as Jit created.”
Zedd rubbed his chin. “That’s true.…”
Richard had an even more disturbing thought. “Those people back then knew a lot more about prophecy than we do. They knew a great deal about the events happening now. They may even have known that the Mother Confessor and I would need it.”
Zedd arched a bushy eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.”
“They might have known it would be needed,” Samantha said, silent up until then, “because you are the one.”
Zedd’s frown was back. “The one? What one?”
“The one to stop what is happening now.”
Zedd could only let out a deep sigh before looking back at Irena with the more important matter at hand. “Do you know how to get to Saavedra?”
She pointed to the southeast. “It’s off in that direction. It’s certainly a lot closer than the palace.”