Samantha stopped and stared, her eyes growing wider. She had driven a knife through Kahlan’s heart, and certainly didn’t expect to see her alive.
“I killed you. I know I did.”
“You certainly did,” Kahlan said. “Fortunately, Richard kept you from being a murderer. Now, he is trying to keep you from forever losing your way.”
Samantha’s expression turned icy calm. It was a look Richard knew all too well. The girl was beyond seeing reason.
Her arms came up once more. “Now I’m going to have to kill you again to make him pay, but this time I’m going to make sure he won’t be able to bring you back.”
Richard stepped in front of Kahlan and held the sword out to deflect a spreading font of blindingly bright orange flame that roared toward them. He and Kahlan both turned their faces away from the dazzling light and intense heat as they crouched behind the protection of the sword.
When they looked back, Samantha was no longer standing there. Richard spotted her just as she disappeared into the shadows back in the woods.
“I have to go after her,” he said.
As he took the first step, a hand snatched his sleeve and jerked him back.
“No, you are not going after her,” Nicci said through gritted teeth, meaning for him to know that she meant it.
“I have to stop her,” he said, pulling his arm from her grip. “She will come back after us.”
Nicci gave him an admonishing look. “Richard, have you forgotten that that girl can make all those trees explode? If you go into those woods, she will blow the forest apart, and you with it. We won’t be able to find anything left of you to put on a funeral pyre. You would be shredded into nothing.”
“You know she’s right, Richard,” Kahlan said. “Don’t do what she just did and avoid the truth because it’s ugly. We have to use our heads. We have more important things to worry about. We need to stop Sulachan, not Samantha.”
Richard knew that they were both right. He couldn’t let himself be distracted by Samantha. He had given her a chance to accept the truth. Those who refused to see the truth were not immune from it.
Richard finally nodded. “I wish I could talk to Red. She saved our lives because she knew what was about to happen with that tower.”
Kahlan shook her head. “She’s gone.”
“Vanished like a ghost,” Nicci confirmed.
Richard’s expression soured. “Isn’t that just like a witch woman.”
“She helped you all she could,” Kahlan said. “It’s not her place to help us any more than she already has.”
Richard let out a heavy sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s go find Mohler, the scribe. We’re in the dark about too many things and that leaves us behind events. We need to get ahead of Sulachan and Hannis Arc if we are going to stop them.
“There are prophecies here that Hannis Arc somehow used to bring Sulachan back from the dead. I want to know everything he knew. For the most part we all know what Hannis Arc has done, but key elements of how he did them are missing. If I’m going to stop him, I need to find those key elements.”
Kahlan gave him a crooked smile and then put her arm through his as they started back toward the citadel. “That’s the Seeker I know so well.”
CHAPTER 25
Up on the top floor of the citadel, Mohler, the old scribe, looked back over his shoulder as he lifted the lantern out toward the oak door. With its heavy iron straps it looked like it could be a door to a treasure vault, or a dungeon.
“This is the place, Lord Rahl,” Mohler said. “This is–was–Bishop Arc’s study. It’s the recording room where all the prophecies have always been kept and where he worked most of the time.”
Richard wasn’t especially happy about getting tangled up in the uncertainties and misdirection of prophecy, but he needed to know what information Hannis Arc had been using as he hatched his plot to bring Emperor Sulachan back from the underworld. It was clear that something he had been using was effective or Sulachan would still be in the world of the dead.
Mohler lifted a finger out from his fist holding the metal ring of the lantern and placed it against the door as he smiled back at Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, and the three Mord-Sith. Richard thought it was more an apologetic smile than one of pleasure.
“Like the scribes before me, I’ve spent nearly my entire life working in here, devoted to the prophecies kept here, tending the old ones and recording new ones that came in for Bishop Arc.”
Richard glanced from the old scribe to the door. “Let’s hope there is something in them that will help us stop the man.”
The hunched scribe conceded the point with a nod before leaning down even more to pick the proper key from the ring of keys he always had with him. Long wisps of gray hair did little to cover the top of his bald head and the blotches of dark spots scattered across his scalp. Richard lifted the lantern from the man’s hand to make it easier for him to select the right key and unlock the door.
Mohler finally stuck the correct key in the lock, and holding the handle, jiggled it in a way the old lock needed to be finessed in order to make the bolt clang back. He pushed the heavy door inward and retrieved his lantern from Richard before leading them into the room. Once inside, cocooned in the lantern light against the darkness, he plucked a long sliver from a small iron cup mounted on the wall near the door and lit it in the flame of his lantern, then let the glass cover back down before rushing around the room using the flaming sliver of fat wood to light candles and lamps along the way. Each flame added its own little bit of light until the room was fully revealed.
There were no windows to allow the night to look in. High beams on the ceiling were all decorated with ornamental carving. The plastered walls had darkened over the ages from the soot of candles and lanterns, leaving them a dark, mottled tan.
Laurin closed the door and then stood before it. The other two Mord-Sith took up posts to either side of the door, guarding it so that no one could disturb them.
Considering the size of the citadel, the recording room was far more expansive than Richard had expected, even though it wasn’t nearly as large as many prophecy rooms he had seen before. Since the citadel was primarily a prison to hold those who had been born with occult power leaking out from beyond the barrier until they could be executed, it seemed strange that so much space would be devoted to prophecy.
He supposed that it might not have been intended for such a use when it had been first built, and along the way those who ran the citadel, like many people, became increasingly obsessed with prophecy. Prophecy, too, even false prophecy, gave those controlling it power over people.
Mohler pointed to ledgers lining shelves of tall bookcases to the left side, as if to answer the question in Richard’s expression. “I believe that originally, many ages ago, this was the place where information from the condemned was recorded. All those books there hold names and family links. I think that those in charge back then used those ledgers as a way to try to contain the spread of any infection leaking from the third kingdom. But at some point, prophecy became more important to the people who ran this place and the ledgers were forgotten, along with the original purpose of the citadel.”
Richard nodded. “I think that the inmates took over the prison, so to speak. Once they were in charge, they came to believe that prophecy was their means of changing their place in the world to one of domination.”
“Prophecy certainly was an obsession of Hannis Arc,” Mohler confirmed, “and he was obsessed with domination. Especially of the House of Rahl.”
“Why would he be so concerned with the House of Rahl?” Kahlan asked.