Terry Goodkind - Stone of Tears

Richard dropped his pack, bow, and quiver to the floor.

“The Central Council sentenced her to death?”

She gave a weak nod. “She escaped, but was caught. The Central Council reiterated the sentence before the people at the behead . . . at the execution. And then the members of the council all stood smiling while the people cheered them.”

“Maybe she escaped again. She’s a resourceful woman . . .”

“I was there,” she said in a broken voice, tears running down her face. “Please don’t make me tell you what I saw. I’ve known Kahlan since she was born. I loved her.”

Maybe there was a way to go back somehow, and get here in time. There had to be a way. He felt hot and dizzy.

No. He was too late. Kahlan was dead. He had had to let her die to stop the Keeper. The prophecy had beaten him.

Richard gritted his teeth. “Where is the council.”

At last she managed to take her eyes from him. She pointed a bandaged hand down the hall and gave him directions.

She turned back. “Please, Richard, I loved her, too. Nothing can be done now. You can accomplish nothing.”

But he was already moving, the mriswith cape flying behind as he swept down the hall. He saw only enough of what was around him as he moved swiftly along to follow the directions she had given him. He moved toward the council chambers the way his arrows flew to the target when he called it.

Guards were everywhere, but he paid them no heed. He had no idea if they paid him any, nor did he care. He flew single-mindedly toward his target. He heard the movement of men-at-arms around him, in the side halls. He barely noted them on the balconies.

At the end of a column-lined hall stood the doors to the council room. As he marched down the hall, men moved in front of the doors. He only dimly noticed them. He saw only the doors.

His sword still hadn’t left its scabbard at his hip, but the magic was coursing through him at full fury. The soldiers closed rank before the doors. He didn’t slow, the black cape billowing open, his brow set in a glare, as he charged ahead.

They made their move to stop him. Richard marched on. He wanted them out of his way. The power came by instinct, without conscious effort. He felt the concussion. In his peripheral vision he saw blood hit the white marble.

Without missing a stride, he emerged from the ball of flame in a gaping hole twice the size the doorway had been. Huge chunks of stone hurtled through the air, trailing smoke. Debris rained down about him. One of the doors spiraled through the air in an arc; the other spun like a top as it skittered across the floor of the council chamber along with ragged pieces of armor and shattered weapons.

At the far end of the room, men behind a curved desk rose angrily to their feet. As he advanced relentlessly onward, Richard drew the sword. The unique sound of steel rang in the huge room.

“I am Supreme Councilor Thurstan!” the one in the center, at the tallest chair, said. “I demand to know the meaning of this intrusion!”

Richard was still coming. “Be there one of you who did not vote to sentence the Mother Confessor to death?”

“She was sentenced to death for treason! Legally, and unanimously, sentenced by this council! Guards! Remove this man!”

Men came running across the vast floor, but Richard had already closed on the dais. The councilors drew knives.

Richard leapt to the top of the desk with a scream of rage. The blade cleaved Thurstan in two, from ear to crotch. A swing to each side took off heads. Several of the men tried to stab him. They weren’t close to fast enough. The sword found every robed figure, including the ones who tried to run. It was over in seconds, before the guards had made half the distance.

Richard leapt back atop the desk. He stood in the grip of unbridled wrath, holding the sword in both hands. He waited for them to come. He wanted them to come.

“I am the Seeker! These men have murdered the Mother Confessor! They have paid the price of murder! Decide if you wish to be on the side of dead cutthroats, or on the side of right!”

The ring of men slowed their advance, looking tentatively to one another. Finally they stopped. Richard stood panting.

One man looked back at the hole in the wall where the doors had been, and then glanced over the debris scattered across the floor. “You are a wizard?”

Richard met the man’s eyes. “Yes. I guess I am.”

The man sheathed his sword. “This is wizard’s business. It’s not our place to challenge wizards. I’ll not die for something that’s not my place.”

Another sheathed his weapon. Soon, the room rang with the clatter of steel being returned to hangers and scabbards. They began leaving, the room echoing with the sound of their boots. In a matter of moments, the vast council chamber was empty but for Richard.

He sprang down from the desk and stared at the tall chair in the center. It was about the only thing not dripping with gore. That would have been the Mother Confessor’s chair, Kahlan’s chair. She would have sat in that chair.

Woodenly, Richard sheathed the sword. It was over. He had done everything there was to do.

The good spirits had deserted him. They had deserted Kahlan. He had sacrificed everything to see right done, and the good spirits had done nothing to help.

To the Keeper with the good spirits.

Richard dropped to his knees. He thought about the Sword of Truth. It had magic; he decided that he couldn’t count on it working for what he needed now.

Instead, he drew the knife at his belt.

He had done everything there was to do.

Richard put the point of the knife to his chest.

With cold precision, he looked down, to make sure it was pointed at his heart. Kahlan’s hair, the hair he had taken from the hawker, stuck from his shirt. Richard pulled the lock she had given him from his pocket.

She had given it to him to remind him she would always love him. He wanted only to end his uncontrollable agony.

“She is awake,” Prince Harold said. “She is asking for you.”

Kahlan finally pulled her gaze from the flames in the hearth. She darted a cool glance at the wizard sitting next to Adie on a wooden bench. Though Zedd had recovered his memory, Adie had not. She still thought of herself as Elda, and was still blind.

Kahlan crossed the dark dining hall. When they had arrived, the inn had been deserted, as had the rest of the town, for fear of the advance of the Keltish forces. The empty town was a good place to rest in their run from Aydindril. Two weeks on the run had left them all in need of a rest, and a little warmth.

A week out of Aydindril, their little company, Zedd, Adie, Ahern, Jebra, Chandalen, Orsk, and Kahlan, had been intercepted by a small force led by Prince Harold. Prince Harold and a handful of his men had escaped the slaughter of his forces in Aydindril, and had lain in wait. When Queen Cyrilla was taken out to be beheaded, he made a daring raid, and in the confusion of people come to see the execution, he snatched his sister from the axeman.

Four days after joining with Prince Harold, they encountered Captain Ryan and his remaining nine hundred men.

They had wiped out the Imperial Order to a man. It had cost them dearly, but they had carried out their mission.

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 sent her either into a screaming fit or back into a stupor.