Into Darkness

16

When Kahlan looked up between buildings, she finally got a good glimpse of the soaring palace. It wasn’t dark and sinister-looking. Instead it looked light and elegant. While the base was obviously quite large, it didn’t have a lot of grounds around it the way a typical palace would have had. It did, though, seem impossibly tall and graceful. Small, round spires, each with a conical tile roof and an arched window, stuck up here and there in various places along the towering height of the palace. Colorful pennants flew from each of those pointed roofs.

When they got closer, Kahlan spotted a flock of black-and-white wood storks, slowly flapping their broad wings and then soaring together in the clear morning air. She realized from how small the birds looked against the white walls of the palace that the place was both bigger and taller than she had thought at first. The scale of it didn’t seem real.

She also realized, now that she was seeing the town for the first time in daylight, that most of the buildings were actually washed with faint color. There were a light mint green, pale pink, light blue, and soft yellows. All of the colors had faded over time so that the stone showed through.

Bindamoon was in many ways cramped and unappealing, even with the long-faded colorful paint, but the palace, glowing in the early morning sunlight as it overlooked the town, was actually rather magnificent. She realized that it was a mistake to ascribe a sinister aspect to a building inhabited by what could only be sinister people.

Considering all the twists and turns they had to make, there clearly wasn’t a direct route through the town to the palace. That left them to try to find their way through the maze of structures as they worked their way ever closer to the palace rising up above them.

The buildings of the town seemed to have sprouted around the soaring palace like mushrooms around a tree trunk in damp weather.

As they got close, they didn’t need the view between buildings; it loomed over them. Here and there Kahlan saw people in the windows of the surrounding buildings, looking out, greeting the early morning. In a few places, women leaned out to pull in laundry that had dried overnight. Occasionally, in the distance, she saw people hurrying among the buildings, but she didn’t see anyone nearby.

As they were going up a cobblestone street that rose gently toward the palace, Iron Jack suddenly stepped out from a side alleyway to once again block their path.

“This is as close to the palace as you will be getting until the queen says otherwise,” he announced.

Richard grew calm in a way that she knew all too well. Trouble was about to begin. She saw, then, several more men waiting in the shadows behind Iron Jack. Without being obvious about it, she pulled her knife from its sheath at her side. She saw Shale do the same.

She was surprised to see Richard reach over and grip the hilt of his sword. He couldn’t possibly have forgotten that it was bound into the scabbard by magic, so she couldn’t imagine what he was doing.

He stood for a moment, head bowed, eyes closed, the muscles in his jaw flexing, his right hand on the hilt of the sword at his left hip, the muscles in his arm relaxed. She realized he was letting the power of the sword flow into him, letting its rage join with his. She suspected he was also summoning his own gift.

And then he began to draw the sword.

The blade came out silky smooth. Its distinctive ring echoed through the canyons of buildings as the blade, stained black by the world of the dead, emerged from the scabbard. The gleaming black steel greeted the dawn, ready to do battle.

Iron Jack looked stunned. “You can’t do that! I myself sealed the sword and scabbard into one with powerful magic!”

Richard glared at the man. “I am the Lord Rahl.”

“Not my lord. I answer to no one but the queen.”

“You, and the queen, answer to me and to the Mother Confessor,” Richard said in a deadly voice.

Vika stepped up beside Richard. She made a show of spinning her Agiel up into her fist.

The rest of the Mord-Sith moved protectively around Kahlan. Each of them had her Agiel in her fist at the ready. They looked fed up with Iron Jack’s nonsense and seemed more than pleased that Richard was as well. So was Kahlan.

Growing up, she had never had any interest in flaunting her authority. Her mother instilled a sense of responsibility as a Confessor, not self-importance. It was simply something she had been born with, not something she had that she would hold over others. As Mother Confessor, she knew how to wield that authority when it was necessary. And when it was necessary, she found that she didn’t especially like that authority dismissed or disrespected, because respect for the Mother Confessor was not about her, it was about everything she represented.

Richard was much the same. He had never lusted after power. He never sought to be the Lord Rahl. But he had come to accept the responsibility and he, too, was fed up with his authority being ignored in something so important. He was, after all, the leader of the D’Haran Empire, and as such he ruled over these people. Including Iron Jack and the queen.

They were about to find out why.

As Iron Jack watched, Richard drew the sword across the inside of his forearm, giving the blade a taste of blood, something that made the sword’s anger lust for more. Kahlan could see the sword’s magic dancing in the Seeker’s eyes.

Richard brought the blade up to touch his forehead. He closed his eyes.

“Blade, be true this day,” he whispered.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” Iron Jack asked.

“This blade can’t harm an innocent,” Richard said. “It can only harm an enemy. I suggest you decide for yourself if you should be afraid.”

Iron Jack ran a hand down his red beard as he took a step back. Rather than accepting Richard’s command to stand down, he suddenly lifted his hands with an attack of his own.

When he did, every one of the Mord-Sith around Kahlan toppled to the ground as if a rug had been pulled out from under them. Iron Jack had attacked, not with a blade, but with his gift. As they struggled unsuccessfully to get back to their feet, they were visibly in pain from the magic Iron Jack had used. He smiled in satisfaction at seeing them on the ground.

They all knew that Iron Jack had magic, but any of the Mord-Sith, when he used that magic against them, should have been able to capture his magic and use it against him. That none of them could clearly spoke to the unique power of his gift.

Shale moved closer to Kahlan, her knife at the ready, obviously not willing to put her faith in her gift against such a man.

Iron Jack defiantly spread his feet to show that he intended to block their passage. “As I said, no one sees the queen until she wishes it. You may have somehow overpowered the magic fusing your sword tight in its scabbard, but you will not overpower me.”

The man again lifted his hands in anger.

Suddenly, in the distance, Glee flooded out from around the corners of buildings. In a heartbeat they took out the men in the background, before they knew what had hit them. Tall, dark creatures, all teeth and claws, raced down the cobblestone passageway.

The Glee weren’t materializing out of thin air the way they usually did. Steam didn’t rise from them as always before. They didn’t come streaming into Richard and Kahlan’s world all together for an attack.

This time, they were using a new tactic: they had been hiding in ambush and Richard and Kahlan had walked right into their surprise attack.

The Glee had just learned an important strategy. Ambush gives the attacker a tactical advantage. That kind of attacker gets to pick the place and the moment of attack, while the defender is caught unaware and forced to respond, which puts them at a disadvantage because action usually beats reaction.