Richard looked up with sudden comprehension. “They thought they had to travel overland to get back there. That means they didn’t know about the well with the sliph. They never gave any indication that they had any knowledge of a sliph.”
Nicci smiled as she flicked a finger toward the wall. “Because they couldn’t read this writing, so they wouldn’t have any reason to suspect there was another way other than an overland journey. Over generations, the people here had lost the ability to understand the language of Creation.”
Richard tapped a thumb against the hilt of his sword. “If they lost that knowledge, then they likely would have also lost knowledge of the room with the well, especially if it is hidden and shielded.”
Kahlan stepped toward them. “Unless the knowledge of such a hidden room was passed down, then they would no more know about it than how to read this writing. They likely lost the link to that room.”
Cassia scrunched up her nose. “How could they lose a room?”
Richard ran his hand lightly along the wall with the language of Creation carved into it. “That room would have been important, and also a dangerous way for an invader to come here, so it probably has a secret way in. There would be shields or some means of protecting the well that also kept any enemy from getting into the caves.” He looked over at the wall. “It’s probably written here, in all these instructions.”
“But none of the people here knew about any of this?” Cassia asked.
“No,” Richard said. “Over all that time since the great war there were probably missing links in the lineage of the gifted who would have been able to pass on all their knowledge–you know, important gifted people who died unexpectedly before they could teach younger people the language of Creation or other important information, like how they could quickly get a warning to the Keep by using the sliph.”
Richard gestured to the wall. “From what I learned when I was first brought here, the gifted people here had only sketchy information about their duty here, and they knew virtually nothing about this writing. That means the instructions were here all along, but useless to them.
“If they couldn’t read this writing, they wouldn’t know about the secret room.”
“You still really think the well is in a secret room?” Kahlan asked.
“Well it certainly isn’t in any room we’ve looked in, and I think we looked in them all. I’m convinced there is a well here. So it has to be hidden, or shielded, or both.”
Kahlan sighed as she gazed at all the writing. “I hope you’re right, Richard.”
He turned to the sorceress. “Nicci, start looking for anything that talks about the Keep, or anything that explains the procedure for when the barrier fails.”
“Already looking,” she murmured under her breath as she ran her hand along under the writing while she deciphered it in her head.
Richard swept his hand along a section of the wall. “You can disregard this part, here,” he told Nicci. “This is Naja Moon’s account, and I’ve already read all of this. There isn’t any mention of the well in it.”
When he looked back, Nicci was squatted down, leaning in, urgently inspecting a line of symbols. “What? Do you see something?”
Nicci tapped the symbols and looked up at him. “Maybe. It says here that when the barrier to the third kingdom fails, the people here must protect the flock.”
“Well,” Richard said, “when you get down to it, that was ultimately their purpose here.”
Nicci looked up at him as he came over to where she was reading. “Yes, but look at this symbol, here, at the end of that part. I’m not quite sure what it means.”
Richard squatted down beside her to have a look at where she was pointing.
“Do you understand it?” the sorceress asked.
“Odd combination,” Richard mumbled to himself as he studied the symbol.
Cassia, Vale, and Kahlan gathered behind him as he translated it to himself.
Richard suddenly stood.
Nicci rose up beside him. “Do you know what it says?”
Richard looked back the way they had come in. “Yes. It says ‘Let the shepherd guide you.’”
“Does that mean something significant?” Kahlan asked.
“Yes,” Richard said, still staring back up the passageway. “I think I know where the well is.”
CHAPTER 40
Everyone followed Richard as he rushed back the way they had come through the dark passageway. Cassia trotted to catch up and stay at his right side, holding the lantern out to light the dark hallway for them once the light from the viewing port had faded into the distance behind them. Kahlan, with Nicci on the other side of her, took long strides to stay close on Richard’s left side. The eerie green luminescence from the light sphere played across the smooth walls of the passageway, twisting with every hurried step Nicci took. Vale, still holding a torch, brought up the rear.
Since there was no one else in the caves and it wasn’t possible for anyone to get in to surprise them, they hadn’t closed the shielded stones. After he went past the second of the huge stone discs, Nicci reached past Kahlan and snatched his shirtsleeve to get his attention.
“Do you really think the room with the sliph’s well would be outside the shielded area?”
“Yes,” he said without explaining.
“That doesn’t seem likely,” she insisted.
“It is if that secret room is shielded as well, as I suspect it is.”
Satisfied that he must be right, or simply not wanting to argue the point for the moment, she didn’t answer.
When they had almost reached the end of the hallway back into the quarters for the gifted of Stroyza, Richard came to a stop in front of the small niche with the three shelves.
He gestured to the two small statues of shepherds with their flocks. “‘Let the shepherd guide you,’” he quoted from the writing on the wall.
Without questioning, Nicci reached out and took hold of one of the shepherds. Nothing happened.
“There isn’t any metal plate for a shield,” she said. “The statue doesn’t respond, so that can’t be the key to the shield.”
“Try the other one,” Kahlan suggested.
Nicci reached out and grasped the one shielding his eyes with a hand. They all waited, glancing around for any sign, as she kept hold of the statue. The hallways remained silent. There was no sound of a stone rolling out of the way or anything else to indicate there was a shield there.
Nicci let go of the statue. “Nothing.”
Richard couldn’t believe it. He had been sure that the shepherds were the answer to the words on the wall, instructing them to let the shepherd guide them. He didn’t know what else to do. This had been the answer he had been looking for and now that he found it, it didn’t work.
“What do we do now?” Kahlan asked.
Richard could only stare at the two small clay statues. “I’m not sure.”
“Are you still sure that there is a sliph in here, somewhere?” Cassia asked.
Richard looked to her blue eyes for a moment and then looked back at the statues. Looking into her eyes, he was struck with the realization of how much they all depended on him, in everything both large and small. She was looking to him to be the magic against magic.
He reached out and gripped one then the other of the statues.
“That’s kind of strange. They’re attached to the shelf.”
“Maybe so they wouldn’t accidentally be knocked off and broken,” Vale suggested.
Richard ran a thumb along his jaw as he stared at the statues, trying to figure out how the shepherd was supposed to guide them.