Stone of Tears (122 page)

Even her pride in them failed to rally her spirits, though she refused to betray that to those men.

After she wrung out a cloth in the basin, Kahlan sat on the edge of her half sister’s bed. Cyrilla was aware, as she was from time to time, though she always slipped back into the dazed stupor before long. When she was in that state, she saw nothing, heard nothing, and said nothing. She simply stared.

Kahlan was heartened to see her tears now, as it meant she was awake. When she was alert, only Kahlan could talk to her. The sight of men either sent her into a screaming fit, or back into a stupor.

Cyrilla clutched Kahlan’s arm as she wiped the cool cloth over her brow. “Kahlan, have you thought about what I said?”

Kahlan pulled the cloth back. “I don’t want to be the Queen of Galea. You are the Queen, my sister.”

“Please, Kahlan, our people need a leader. I am not fit to do it now.” She clutched her hand tighter to Kahlan’s arm. Tears poured forth. “Kahlan, you must do this for me, for them.”

Kahlan wiped the tears with the cloth. “Cyrilla, things will turn out well, you will see.”

She clutched a fist over her belly. “I cannot lead, now.”

“Cyrilla, I understand. I do. Though they did not do to me what they did to you, I was in that pit. I understand. But you will recover yourself. You will, I promise.”

“And you will be the Queen? For our people?”

“If I agree, it would only be temporary. Only until you have regained your strength.”

“No …” see moaned. She sobbed, hiding her face against the pillow. “Don’t … Please. Dear spirits, help me. No … “

And then she was gone again. Gone into the visions. She went limp, still as death, staring up at the ceiling. Kahlan kissed her cheek.

Prince Harold waited in the darkness outside the door. “How is my sister?”

“The same, I’m afraid. But have faith. She will recover.”

“Kahlan, you must do as she asks. She is the Queen.”

“Why can’t you be King? That would make more sense.”

“I must fight on for our people, for all the Midlands. I cannot devote myself to the struggle if I’m burdened with with concern over being King, too. I’m a soldier, and I wish to serve in the way I know. It is what I was meant to do. You are an Amnell, daughter to King Wyborn, you must be the Queen of Galea.”

Kahlan started to flip her long hair back over her shoulder, but it wasn’t there. It was hard to forget the habits of a lifetime, to remember that her hair was chopped short.

“I will think on it,” she said, as she started off.

She stood once more before the fireplace, the only source of light in the dining hall, staring into the flames, watching the once living things turn to ash. Everyone avoided her, and left her to herself.

After a time, she realized Zedd was standing beside her. She was only now beginning to get used to him in those fancy robes.

He held his cup out. “Why don’t you have a sip of spiced tea.”

She didn’t look up from the flames. “No, thank you.”

He rolled the cup in his palms. “Kahlan, you can’t go on blaming yourself. It is not your fault.”

“You wear lies poorly, wizard. I saw the look in your eyes when I told you what I had done. Remember?”

“I’ve explained that to you. You know I was under the spell cast by the three sorceresses, and only great emotional shock could break it. Anger could do the task, but once anger is brought on, it must be allowed to rage uncontrolled if it is to break the spell. I have told you how sorry I am for what I did to you.”

“I saw the look in your eyes. You wanted to kill me.”

He watched from under his eyebrows. “I had to do that, Mother Confessor …”

“Kahlan. I told you, I am no longer the Mother Confessor.”

“Call yourself what you will, but you are who you are. Denying the name does not make it so. And as I told you, I had to do that, too. To bring on a death spell, the person to be spelled has to be convinced they are to die, or it will not work.

“Once the anger brought back my memory, I knew I had to use a death spell, so I simply used what was happening to do what had to be done. It was an act of desperation. Had I not done it in that way, people would not have believed they saw you beheaded.”

Kahlan shuddered at the memory of that magic. As long as she lived, she would never forget the chill touch of the death spell.

“You should have used magic to destroy that Council of evil, instead. You should have saved me by killing those men.”

“And then everyone would have known you were still alive. Everyone there was under the madness of hate. Had I done that, then we would have had the entire army, and tens of thousands of people, chasing after us. This way, no one chases us. We can now proceed with what must be done.”

“You can proceed. I have quit the cause of the good spirits.”

“Kahlan, you know what would happen if we were to give up. It was you yourself, last autumn, who came to Westland to find me and tell me that very thing. You helped convince me that if we abandon the side of magic, of right, of helping those who are powerless, then the enemy is handed an uncontested victory.”

“The spirits saw fit to leave me without help. They stood by as I delivered Richard into the hands of the Sisters of the Light; they let me hurt him, let him be taken from me forever. The good spirits have chosen their side, and it is not with me.”

“It is not the good spirits’ job to govern the world of the living. It is our job, the job of the living, to tend our own world.”

“Tell it to someone who cares.”

“You care. You just don’t realize it at the moment. I’ve lost Richard, too, but I know that I cannot allow that to deter me from right. Do you think Richard would love you if you were really the kind of person who could abandon those who needed your help?”

She said nothing, so he pressed the attack.

“Richard loves you partly because of your passion for life. He loves you because you fight for it with everything you have, with the same ardor as his. You have already proven that.”

“He was the only thing I ever wanted out of life, the only thing I asked the good spirits for. And look what have I done to him. He thinks I betrayed him. I made him put a collar around his neck, the thing he feared more that death. I am not fit to help anyone. I only bring harm.”

“Kahlan, you have magic. I have told you, magic must not be allowed to die. The world of life needs magic. If magic is extinguished, all life will be impoverished, and could even be destroyed.

“No one knows about the forces we have. We will go to Ebinissia, no one will expect that, and pull the Midland forces together from there to strike back against them. No one will know we have brought Ebinissia back from the ashes of death.”

“All right! If it will still your tongue, I will be the Queen. But only until Cyrilla is better.”

The fire crackled and popped. Zedd spoke in quiet admonition. “You know that is not what I mean, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan said nothing. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She would not let him see her cry.

“The wizards of old created the Confessors. You have unique magic. It has elements to it that no other magic has, not even mine. Kahlan, you are the last Confessor. Your magic must not be allowed to die with you. Richard is lost to us. That is the way it is. We must go on. Life, and magic must go on.

“You must take a mate and give the world that magic into the future.”

Still, she stared into the flames.

“Kahlan,” he whispered, “you must do it to prove Richard’s love and faith in you.”

Slowly, she turned to the room behind. Orsk sat cross-legged on the floor, beside Chandalen. Only he looked at her, with his one eye, the scar across the other looking white and angry in the firelight. He watched every move she made. Everyone else in the room tried to appear furiously engaged in their own business.

“Orsk,” she called.

The huge man sprang to his feet and crossed the room. He stood hunched before her, waiting word whether he was to fetch her a cup of tea, or kill someone.

“Orsk, go up to my room and wait for me.”

“Yes Mistress.”

After he had bounded up the stairs, she slowly crossed the room. She could hear the bed creak when he sat on it, waiting.

As she put her hand to the newel post, Zedd put his over it, stopping her. “Mother Confessor, it does not have to be him. You can surly find one more suited to your likes.”

“It makes no difference. I have already touched him with my power. Why harm another, for no more that this?”

“Kahlan, I am not saying it has to be now. Not this soon. I am saying only that you must come to accept it, and at some point it must be.”

“Today, tomorrow, next year. What does it matter? It will be the same in ten years as it is today. Wizards have been using the Confessors for thousands of years. Why should I be any different. I may as well get it over so you will be content.”

His watery gaze stayed on hers. “Kahlan, it is not like that. This is the hope of life.”

She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She could see the pain in his eyes, but she showed him no mercy for it.

“Call it what you will. That does not change what it is. It is rape. My enemies could not accomplish it; it took my friends to rape me.”

“I know, dear one. How well I know.”

She started up the stairs again, but his hand on her arm stopped her.

“Kahlan, please, do just one thing for me first? Go for a little walk to think things over, and ask the spirits for guidance. Pray to the good spirits, seek their direction.”

“I have nothing to say to the good spirits. It is they who wish this; they have sent you, to give me ‘guidance.’”

His thin hand stroked her short cropped hair. “Then do it for Richard.”

She stood staring at him. Finally, she glanced out the back door, to the small, frozen garden at the back of the inn. It was just dusk outside.

Kahlan stepped down. “For Richard.”

Richard sat in Kahlan’s tall chair, stroking the long locks of her hair. He had pulled them out of his shirt, not wanting to stab himself through her hair. He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, touching her hair, lost in memories of her, but he noticed it was just turning dark out the windows.

Richard laid the hair carefully over the arm of the chair, and picked up the knife once more. In a daze of anguish, he put the point to his heart. His knuckles were white around the handle.

It was time.

At last it was going to be over. The pain would end.

His brow creased. What was it Mistress Sanderholt had said? Kahlan had told her of him? He wondered if Kahlan had told Mistress Sanderholt anything else. Maybe a last message for him, before she died. What could it hurt to ask? He could die, then.

Richard pulled Mistress Sanderholt from her kitchen, into a small pantry lined with stores. He closed the door.

“What have you done, Richard?”

“I killed her murderers.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry about that. Those men did not belong on the Council. Let me get you something to eat?”

“No. I don’t want anything. Mistress Sanderholt, you said Kahlan told you of me. Is that right?”

She didn’t look like she wished to dredge up the memories, but at last she took a deep breath and nodded. “She came home, but things had changed here. Kelton had …”

“I don’t care what happened here, just tell me about Kahlan.”

“Prince Fyren was murdered. She was convicted, wrongly, of that crime and a whole list of others, including treason. The wizard in charge sentenced her to be … executed.”

“Beheaded,” Richard said.

She gave a reluctant nod. “She escaped, with the help of some of her friends, killing the wizard in so doing, then went into hiding. But she got word to me, and I visited her. At those visits, she told me of all the things she had been through. She told me all about you. She like to talk of nothing more.”

“Why didn’t she escape? Why didn’t she run?”

“She said she had to wait for a wizard named Zedd. To help you.”

Richard’s eyes closed as pain tightened in his chest. “And so they caught her while she waited.”

“No. That’s not how it happened.” Richard stared at the grain patterns on the wood floor while she went on. “The wizard she waited for returned. He is the one who turned her in.”

Richard’s head came up. “What? Zedd came here? Zedd wouldn’t turn Kahlan over to be executed.”

Her back stiffened. “Turn her in he did. He stood on the platform before the cheering crowd and ordered it done. I watched as that vile man gave the nod to the axman.”

Richard’s mind spun in confusion. “Zedd? A skinny, old man, with long, wavy, white hair sticking out in every direction?”

“That is he. First Wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander.”

For the first time, a spark of hope ignited in him. He didn’t know everything about Zedd, but he did know him capable of similar things. Could it be?

He grabbed her by her shoulders. “Where is she buried?”

Mistress Sanderholt took him out into the dusk, to the secluded courtyard where Confessors were buried. She told him that Kahlan’s body had been burned in a funeral pyre, supervised by the First Wizard. Then she left him to be alone with the immense marker stone over her ashes.

Richard ran his fingers over the letters carved in the gray granite.
KAHLAN AMNELL. MOTHER CONFESSOR. SHE IS NOT HERE, BUT IN THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO LOVE HER.

“She is not here,” he said aloud, quoting from the marker.

Could it be a message? Could she be alive? Had it been a trick by Zedd to save her life? Why would he do it?

Maybe, maybe, to keep them from chasing after her.

Richard fell to his knees in the snow before the monument. Dare he hope, just to have his hopes crushed?

He put his trembling hands together and bowed his head.

“Dear spirits, I know I have done wicked things, but I have always tried to do right. I have fought to help people and to uphold your principles of honesty and right.

“Please, dear spirits, help me.

“I’ve never prayed to you in ernest for anything before. Not like this. I’ve never meant anything like this before. Please, if you never again help me, help me this one time.

“Please, dear spirits, I can’t go on if I don’t know. I’ve given up everything to see right done. Please grant me this. Let me know if she is alive.”

His head hanging, tears dripping from his face, he saw flickers of light on the ground before him.

Richard looked up. A glowing spirit towered over him.

When he recognized who it was, he went rigid.

Kahlan had walked around the garden countless times. Part of her hesitation was dread that she might be granted confirmation of her fear. Finally, she she knelt down and folded her hands together on a rock before her. She bowed her head.

“Dear spirits, I know I am not worthy, but please grant this. I must know if Richard is all right. If he still loves me.”

She swallowed back the burning sensation in her throat. “I must know if I will ever see him again.

“I have been disrespectful, I know, and I have no excuse but my own failing as a good person. If you grant me this, I will do whatever the good spirits require of me.

“But please, dear spirits, I must know if I will ever see my Richard again.”

Her head hung as he cried. Tears dripped from her face. Before her, on the ground, flickers of light danced.

Kahlan looked up, into the face of the glowing spirit towering over her. She felt the warmth of the calm smile from the face she knew.

Slowly, involuntarily, Kahlan rose to her feet.

“Is it really … you?”

“Yes, Kahlan, it is I, Denna.”

“But … you went to the Keeper. You took the mark Darken Rahl put on Richard. You went to the Keeper in Richard’s place.”

The glowing smile of peace swelled Kahlan’s heart with joy.

“The Keeper was repulsed by what I had done. He rejected me. I went instead to be with what you think of as the good spirits.

“In much the same way what I did earned me peace I never expected, the sacrifices you and Richard have selflessly made for others, and each other, have merited the granting of this peace to the two of you. Because you each possess both sides of the magic, and are linked to me by deeds, before I pass beyond the veil, I am empowered to bring you together, for a brief time, in a place between the worlds.”

Denna, draped in long, flowing robes, spread her arms wide. The luminous folds hung from her arms all the way to the ground.

“Come, child. Come into my arms, and I will take you to Richard.”

Trembling, Kahlan stepped under Denna’s outstretched arm.

Richard stood under the illumination of Denna’s arm as it came tenderly around him. The world vanished into the radiance. He didn’t know what to expect, only that he wanted to see Kahlan more than life itself.

The overpowering, white blaze dimmed to a mellow glow.

Kahlan appeared before him. She gasped, and then threw herself into his arms. She wailed his name as she clutched him.

They embraced, without words, just feeling the presence of each other. He felt her warmth, her breathing, her quaking. He didn’t want to ever let her go.

They sank to the soft support under them. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t care; it was solid enough to hold them. He wanted her arms around him forever. She finally stopped weeping, and put her head against his shoulder as he held her tight.

At last, she looked up to his face, her beautiful green eyes gazing deeply into his. “Richard, I’m so sorry I made you put that collar around your …”

Richard put his finger to her lips. “It was all for a reason. It took me time to understand how foolish I was being, and how brave you are. That is all that matters. It makes me love you all the more, because you sacrificed your own needs to save me.”

She shook her head. “My Richard. How did you get here?”

“I prayed to the good spirits. Denna came.”

“Me too. Denna made a sacrifice for you, too. She took the power of the mark, so you would live. Denna gave your life back to me. She is at peace now.”

“I know.” He ran his hand down her head, down her short hair. “What happened to your hair?”

“A wizard cut it off.”

“A wizard. Well then, I guess a wizard will have to restore it to you.”

Richard ran his hand lovingly down her hair. He remembered the way Zedd had stroked his hand down his own jaw to make his beard grow. It seemed as if from having seen Zedd do it, he knew how to do it, too. With each stroke of his hand, her hair lengthened. Richard continued to pull from the calm center within him, and her hair continued to lengthen. When it was the same as before, he stopped.

Kahlan pulled her hair out, looking at it in wonder. “Richard, how did you do that?”

“I have the gift, remember?”

She beamed with her special smile, the smile of sharing she gave no other. Kahlan ran her hand down his cheek.

“I’m sorry, Richard, but I don’t like your beard. I like you the way you were before.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Well then, since we set you back to right, we will just have to do the same for me, too.”

Richard drew his hand down his jaw, again pulling the power from the calm center.

Kahlan gasped in astonishment. “Richard! It’s gone! Your beard is gone! You made it vanish! How did you do that!”

“I have the gift for both sides of the magic.”

She blinked in surprise. “Subtractive Magic? Richard, is any of this real, or am I just dreaming it?”

And then he kissed her, long and deep.

“Feels real to me,” he said breathlessly.

“Richard, I’m afraid. You’re with the Sisters. I will never again be able to be with you. I can’t go on if you are going to be taken from …”

“I’m not with the Sisters. I’m in Aydindril.”

“Aydindril!”

He nodded. “I left the Palace of the Prophets. Sister Verna helped me. Then I had to go to D’Hara.”

Richard told her everything that had happened since he had left her, and she told him all she had been through. Richard could hardly believe the things she had done.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said. “You truly are the Mother Confessor. You are the greatest Mother Confessor that ever lived.”

“Go back to the hall before the Council chambers, and you will see big paintings of Confessors who were greater that I will ever be.”

“That, my love, I doubt.”

He kissed her again. A hot, passionate kiss. She kissed him back, desperately, as if she needed nothing so much from life as to be in his arms kissing him. He kissed her cheek, her ears and her neck. She moaned against him.

“Richard, is the scar, Darken Rahl’s mark, really gone?”

He pulled his shirt open to show her.

Her hand stroked his chest. “It’s really true,” she whispered.

Tenderly, she kissed his chest. She ran her hand over him, kissing where it had been. She gave a sucking kiss to his nipple.

“Not fair,” he said breathlessly. “I get to kiss anything on you that you kiss on me.”

Kahlan looked him in the eye as she unbuttoned her shirt. “Bargain struck.”