Hateful Things

21

“Are you sure they can’t enter the mind of a person with magic?” Shale asked.

“I can’t say I know that with absolute certainty,” Richard told her, “but after talking to the goddess through Dori, I’m convinced that she isn’t able to use the gifted—or she would already have done that. I believe she isn’t able to enter our minds for the simple reason that her ability isn’t compatible with our gift. Simply put, our gift won’t allow her in.”

Shale squinted with uncertainty. “Won’t allow it?”

“While the goddess and the Glee can do what seems unfathomable to us—traveling to other worlds—I think that magic must block their ability to get past it and into our minds. That’s why they were leery of the gift.

“They are predators. They hunt, which proves they have the ability to think and plan. And from the evidence of the dead we found down below, they work together. There are plenty of animals that are very dangerous, that stalk their prey and work together, but can’t fathom magic. It stymies them.”

“But you can’t say with absolute certainty that they can’t use the mind of the gifted,” Shale pressed.

“Their primary goal is to eliminate me and Kahlan, right? So why not use you? If they could do it,” Richard insisted, “then the goddess would have chosen to enter your mind, don’t you suppose? You are close to me.” He swept an arm around. “Or the mind of one of the Mord-Sith. They are even closer. If she was able to do that, then why choose a little girl? Because the minds of children are weaker, that’s why,” he said, answering his own question.

“But Nolo was an adult,” Shale argued.

Richard smiled. “He was a diplomat, through and through. All of Nolo’s people are bred to be diplomats, raised as diplomats.”

Shale frowned. “So?”

“What adult mind is more simplistic and childlike than a diplomat’s?”

Shale considered a moment. “I suppose you could be right.”

“Killing me and Kahlan is her goal. When we’re asleep, the Mord-Sith watch over us. If the goddess could use the mind of a gifted person, she would have already killed Kahlan and me by simply having a Mord-Sith do it while we were asleep. If she could have, she would have.”

“I see your point,” the sorceress conceded. She met his gaze. “Now that you mention it, as I said before, I had a murky vision of some kind of being when I was in meditation. It was just beyond awareness and I didn’t know what it could be. That the vague, shadowy image had to be the goddess trying to make a connection with me, but ultimately failing. You have to be right that they can’t enter the mind of the gifted or she would have entered my mind right then and there.”

“So, then we have learned something useful,” Kahlan said.

Richard flashed her a smile. “Yes, we have. It means we can use the gifted to help us without worrying that the goddess could be watching what we do through their eyes. But now we also know that anyone ungifted here at the palace could be an unwitting spy. That means that the goddess could even enter the mind of any of the First File.” He arched an eyebrow. “Not exactly safe having them watch over us while we sleep.”

Kahlan looked around at the decidedly unsettled looks on the faces of the Mord-Sith. “That’s an alarming bit of news.”

“Do you know where there are more gifted who could be helpful?” Shale asked. “All those here at the People’s Palace may have enough of the gift to keep the goddess out of their minds, but they don’t have enough power to be of any use in defeating these things.”

“The Wizard’s Keep,” Vika answered in Richard’s place.

“That’s right,” he said, nodding at her. “If we can get there, then—”

Everyone turned when they heard twin screams echo up a stairwell not far down the corridor. They were the kind of screams that could mean only one thing.

Every one of the Mord-Sith immediately swung the Agiel hanging on a fine gold chain from her wrist up into her fist as Richard broke into a dead run. All the Mord-Sith were right behind. Richard and the Mord-Sith beat the soldiers to the stairs, but not Kahlan and Shale.

Kahlan was not pleased to be stuck behind so many hulking men as Richard charged down the stairs. As they reached the next level down, a service area, Kahlan saw past the men and the railing that the torches were out, as were the lamps. The only light was that coming down the stairwell.

In the shadows, she could see a dark shape flailing away at someone already on the ground.

Still four steps from the bottom, Richard leaped off the stairs toward the shadowy shape of the threat. His sword came out in midair, sending its unique ring of steel down the dark hallway. The blade, steel blackened from touching the world of the dead, flashed as it came up into the air.

Richard, screaming with lethal intent, swung the sword with all his might while still in mid-leap. The blade whistled as it arced through the air. A black arm lifted in defense, only to be severed.

As Richard was landing on his feet, the dark arm, with three massive claws at the end, spiraled through the air. At the same time, the rest of the creature turned back into scribbles as it vanished into thin air.

The Mord-Sith dove off the stairs after Richard, all of them striving to reach the threat. But it was gone before they could get to it. The Mord-Sith, along with the soldiers, charged off into the darkness, looking for any more of the Glee.

Two women were sprawled on their backs on the floor, clearly dead. The rib cage of one and the abdomen of the other had been ripped open almost to their spines by powerful strikes from those claws, leaving their insides spread across the floor.

Almost without pause, Richard stormed off down the hall right behind the soldiers, then sped past them, his sword in hand, hoping to catch more of the attackers.

Kahlan stood with Shale as the others raced away to make sure the dark hall was clear. Other soldiers collected torches and headed into the darkness. Shale leaned down to check, but it was obvious to Kahlan that no amount of healing would bring life back to the poor women. They were two of the palace staff, and had simply been going about their work when they had been cut down. Kahlan couldn’t help thinking about their families. She wondered if they had children who would never see their mothers again.

As Shale looked up at Kahlan to say that nothing could be done, her eyes went wide. Kahlan realized that the sorceress was seeing something behind her. Without hesitation, Kahlan ducked and rolled to the side, just in time as claws swept past, flicking a lock of hair on the way by and barely missing catching her neck.

Shale thrust an arm out. From her hand a wavering glow to the air instantly left with a loud crack, like the crack of a whip. As Kahlan was rolling back to her feet, turning to face the enemy, the strike of Shale’s power went right through the dark shape just as it was dissolving back into its own world. That magic hit a far wall and blew a hole through it, sending bits of plaster and stone flying everywhere. Kahlan could see the main corridor beyond through that hole.

She didn’t know what sort of magic Shale had used. Kahlan had never seen anything quite like it. But then again, she had never seen a sorceress and a witch woman combined in one person.

Richard returned just as Shale rushed over to Kahlan to make sure she was all right.

“What happened?” he asked.

“One of them tried to get me,” Kahlan said. “Shale saved me just in time. She tried to strike it down with her power”—Kahlan gestured to the hole in the wall—“but it was already vanishing and got away.”

Kahlan and Richard were suddenly surrounded by Mord-Sith, but the threat had already passed. Soldiers closed in beyond the Mord-Sith, forming another ring of protection, swords all pointed outward.

“You’re right,” Shale told Richard. “They are thinking creatures. One of them attacked these two women to draw you away so that another could strike behind you at Kahlan.”

Richard gritted his teeth in anger. “And I took the bait, leaving Kahlan unprotected.” He thought better of what he said. “Except for you, of course. Thanks, Shale.”

She offered a smile. “I just wish I had been faster. I almost had it. Next time I’ll have to be quicker.”

Richard sheathed his sword, helping to quench the anger in his eyes as he looked down at the arm on the ground. It had been severed cleanly just above the elbow, bone and all. Its skin was as he had described it—almost black, smooth, and slimy. The blood was red. The bloody claw, with strings of tissue and clothes stuck in it from the two women it had killed, slowly closed and opened once in death before finally going still.

Kahlan was enraged that it had murdered the two women, and another one of them almost had its claws into her. “If I would have just been a second faster, I could have touched it with my power after it took that swing at me.”

“Well,” Shale said, “at least one of them went back without an arm. That’s a good message to send back to them.”

Richard didn’t look pleased. “A message that will likely anger them. From what you said about there being killings in the Northern Waste, and other reports we’ve had, the Glee are randomly attacking people everywhere.

“But it’s becoming clear that their main focus is to attack people around Kahlan and me in an effort to draw us into making a mistake. The goddess is becoming obsessed with killing you and me,” he said to Kahlan. “They almost got you for a second time. We can’t let that happen again. We have to deny them their plan while I try to figure out a way to end the threat.”

“How?” Kahlan asked.

Richard ran his fingers back through his hair. “Everyone in our world is now in danger from the Glee, but the people here at the palace are in much greater danger because we’re here. They are going to be targeted, just like these two women were, simply to try to draw us into making a mistake. As long as we’re here at the palace, this place is going to be a killing field.

“Besides that, the goddess could be looking at us through the eyes of anyone in the palace.” He passed a brief look over the soldiers with their backs to them, swords pointed out toward any threat. His meaning was obvious. The goddess could even be using one of the men of the First File. “It’s too dangerous for the people here at the palace for us to be here, and it’s too dangerous for us to be here. We need to leave.

“If we leave, the focus of the Glee will be to come after us. We need to draw them away from all these innocent people.”

Kahlan’s brow lifted with a sudden idea. She leaned in and spoke quietly so that the soldiers wouldn’t hear in case the goddess was listening through one of them.

“We can leave in the sliph. In a way, the sliph enables us to do something like the Glee. It allows us to travel to a different place in our world in a very short time. Traveling in the sliph will get us far away from here and draw the attention of the goddess away from all these people. That kind of departure might even confuse the goddess.”

Richard smiled at her. “Exactly. We need to leave at once.”

“But go where?” Kahlan asked.

Richard’s smile broadened. “To someplace with gifted who do have lots of power. We need to get to the Wizard’s Keep. There are gifted there—real gifted. The Sisters of the Light are there, as are other gifted they are training.”

“What are Sisters of the Light?” Shale asked, keeping an eye toward any soldier who might be listening.

“Sorceresses,” he said before turning back to Kahlan. “We need to leave at once, before there are more attacks here and before the goddess can get one of us. If we leave in the sliph, that will confuse the goddess as to where we went and hopefully buy us some time.”