The Third Kingdom. Terry Goodkind

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Richard was taken by surprise. “Why do you say that?”

      “Because of what I overheard Zedd and Nicci talking about. They said that they could only hope to help both of you temporarily, until they could get you back to the People’s Palace.”

      Puzzled, Sammie scooted a little closer. “The People’s Palace? Really? A palace? Did you hear why?”

      Henrik nodded.

      Seeing that they would be busy in conversation, Ester took the opportunity to pull the bucket of water and the bandages closer so that she could go back to her work on Kahlan’s wounds.

      Richard lifted a hand, stopping Henrik from answering Sammie’s question. “I need you to start at the beginning. Tell me everything that happened. It’s important that we know all the details. Don’t leave anything out. Sometimes the little details have meaning that you may not realize are important, but I would.”

      Richard couldn’t help thinking of all the times Zedd had told him the same thing. Zedd always wanted every little detail. Richard felt a little uncomfortable finding himself repeating those same things that he used to find so frustrating when Zedd had insisted on them.

      Henrik pushed his disorderly fall of hair back from his eyes. “Well, the Mother Confessor came in and cut me out of the walls made of thorny vines that the Hedge Maid had used to imprison me, but then Jit showed up and captured her right as I was able to escape—but you already know that much of it because I ran into you as I was running out of Jit’s lair.

      “You told me that your friends were on their way from the People’s Palace to help you, and you asked me to go and tell them where you and the Mother Confessor were. So I kept running and not too long after that I found the whole column of cavalry accompanying Zedd, Nicci, and Cara. They were pretty impatient to find you both. I told them where you were, and that Jit had the Mother Confessor. I told them that you were going to go in to save her.

      “I went with them so I could show them the way. When we finally got to the Hedge Maid’s place we found you and the Mother Confessor inside. Jit was dead. She looked like her whole body had been torn apart from the inside. There was blood everywhere. It was a frightful sight.

      “You and the Mother Confessor were both unconscious and bleeding badly. After Cara and the soldiers cut you out of the thorny vines where the Hedge Maid had you both trapped, Zedd burned that awful place to the ground. It was strange seeing such a fire burning in the middle of a watery swamp. It was a fierce fire. It lit the bottoms of the clouds. There’s not a scrap of Jit’s place left.”

      “I’m glad to hear that much of it,” Richard said half to himself. “Then what?”

      Henrik’s mouth twisted a little as he frowned in recollection. “The soldiers laid you both in the back of a wagon. Cara was so angry that you and the Mother Confessor were hurt that she looked ready to spit fire herself.”

      Richard couldn’t help smiling. “I can only imagine.” His smile faded when he thought about the danger Cara and the rest of them were in. He needed to find them, and soon.

      “Go on.”

      “With the cavalry leading, we started back, headed for the People’s Palace,” Henrik said. “Zedd and Nicci were tending to the both of you. At first, Zedd was really upset about how badly you were both hurt.

      “As they were walking along beside the wagon, Zedd found a little wad of rolled-up cloth in your ear. Nicci found the same thing in Kahlan’s ears. She said ‘No wonder they’re alive.’

      “Zedd didn’t understand. Nicci told him that it was said that the scream of a Hedge Maid, if she were ever to open her mouth all the way and let it out, was the sound of the Keeper of the underworld himself. Nicci said that the sound of such a scream would pull the Hedge Maid and anyone who hears it into the underworld. She said that the unleashed scream of a Hedge Maid is death, even to herself, so at a young age, before they can fully develop a voice capable of calling death into the world of life, a Hedge Maid’s mother sews her lips shut with leather strips imbued with occult powers that hold death back.

      “Nicci said that she suspected that you both were alive because you stuffed those wads of cloth in your ears and that shielded you from the full power of that scream.

      “Zedd wanted to know how she knew so much about such things. Nicci said that she knew because she had once been a Sister of the Dark serving the Keeper of the underworld. She said that Hedge Maids were vile creatures who use a kind of occult conjuring that is directly linked to the world of the dead.

      “She said that such powers were a perversion of the Grace and as such not able to be touched by regular gifted ability. She said that was what made a Hedge Maid so dangerous, that Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor would have no power against her.

      “Nicci explained to them, then, how you both were touched not just by the Hedge Maid’s occult conjuring and the things she was doing to you, but more importantly you were both touched by her scream. She said that through that scream you both were touched by death itself and therefore infected with it.”

      Sammie gave Richard a look, as if to say “I told you so.”

      Richard rolled his hand for Henrik to go on.

      “Well, Zedd didn’t exactly believe everything Nicci was telling him about the power of such a scream born in the underworld and death infecting you both.”

      “Sound familiar?” Sammie asked under her breath.

      Richard gave her a sideways look but didn’t say anything.

      Henrik was involved in his story and didn’t hear her. “So Nicci put two fingers on Kahlan’s head. She told Zedd, ‘Here, see for yourself.’ He leaned in and put two fingers on Kahlan’s head next to Nicci’s fingers. She asked if he felt it.

      “Zedd said that he felt some kind of frightening, deathly darkness. Nicci told him that what he was feeling was the touch of death from the Hedge Maid that you both carried in you.”

      “Just like I said,” Sammie noted.

      Richard nodded. “You were right.”

      She smiled at the triumph as Henrik continued his story.

      “Zedd was really afraid because of what he’d felt in Kahlan. Cara got scared, too. She asked if you both were going to die because you had death hiding in you. Nicci said not if she had anything to do with it.

      “Nicci said that you both were only alive because the wads of cloth you had stuffed in your ears blunted the full sounds of death’s call, but it still had infected you both.”

      “Did they say how to heal them?” Sammie asked, suddenly excited about the possibility of having an answer to the riddle.

      “Nicci said that she thought she could do it, but that it had to be done in something called a containment field.”

      Richard felt as if the floor fell out from under him. It was no longer a simple matter of being healed by a gifted person. This was no simple injury. It was going to take more than a simple healing if the real threat within them was to be addressed.

      “A containment field?” Sammie’s nose wrinkled up. “What’s СКАЧАТЬ