The Third Kingdom. Terry Goodkind

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СКАЧАТЬ that it couldn’t wait any longer. She said that she had to do what she could for you and the Mother Confessor right away or you both would slip beyond what help she would be able to give.”

      Richard glanced over at Kahlan. He had known that she was in grave trouble. He also knew that Sammie couldn’t heal everything that was wrong with her. That healing would take someone with more ability and experience than Sammie, and it would take a containment field. He was thankful, though, for what Sammie had been able to do to help Kahlan.

      He knew that he needed to find Zedd and Nicci, and then they had to get back to the People’s Palace before it was too late if death’s touch was to be removed from both him and Kahlan.

      What he didn’t know was how much longer they could survive with that poison inside them. Kahlan, especially, was in urgent need of such help. She wouldn’t be able to survive in this unconscious state for long. Without food and water her condition would only worsen.

      Richard was about to ask Ester about the people who had been hurt, and if there had been any more trouble, when the door to the rear of the room swung open. Sammie stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes, before peering out into the candlelit room.

      “Lord Rahl—you’re awake.” Her initial surprise quickly turned to relief.

      Richard nodded. “I am, but Kahlan still isn’t.”

      Sammie briefly glanced Kahlan’s way. “I know.”

      Before he could say anything else, Sammie bowed her head to Ester. “Thanks for watching over them for me, Ester. I’m awake now. You can go get some rest. You look like you need it.”

      Ester yawned. “You sure? You’ve only been asleep for a few hours. After all the long and difficult work you’ve done, don’t you think you need to get some more rest?”

      Sammie smoothed back her disheveled black hair. “You’ve been working hard to help people, too, and you, too, have been up for two nights, now. At least I got a little sleep. Lord Rahl is still going to need to rest so his body can finish healing. I can watch over them as they rest. Why don’t you go get some sleep?”

      Ester let out a heavy sigh. “All right. I admit that I could use it, but I want to go check on some of the others, first.” Ester flashed a quick smile at Richard. “I’ll be off, then.” She lifted a cloth bag from beside the bench. “Come get me, Sammie, if you need my help for anything.”

      Sammie nodded as she saw the woman to the door.

      Richard held his knot of questions for the time being as Ester bid him a quick farewell and left. Once the door closed, Sammie promptly returned to put two fingers on his forehead, testing with her gift.

      “Well?” he asked after a moment of silence in which she showed no sign of what she might be detecting.

      Sammie took her hand back, rubbing her fingers as if she had touched something wholly unpleasant. “Hard to tell for sure, Lord Rahl, but the healing that I was able to do, such as it was, seems to be holding.”

      Richard knew that she meant that it was hard to tell much of anything with death’s touch still in him. “You were afraid to heal us before,” he said. He thought it a little strange that she had gotten past her fear of healing them both without him having to do any more convincing.

      “Henrik’s story about how the wizard you know—”

      “My grandfather, Zedd.”

      Sammie nodded. “Yes, him and the sorceress. Once I knew that they were healing you even though they saw the same thing in you both that I saw, I knew that I could at least try to do the same.”

      Richard was still suspicious. “You weren’t afraid?”

      Sammie’s little nose scrunched up. “Yes, but I knew that it had to be done, so I tried not to think about how afraid I was and just concentrate on what I needed to do.”

      “What about Kahlan. Why isn’t she awake like I am, if her injuries are healed?”

      Sammie cast a brief, worried glance at Kahlan. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but I did everything I could. The presence of death seems to be stronger in her. That’s something I can’t heal and it was harder to get around it in her in order to work on what I could heal. Death is casting a darker shadow over her than you.”

      Richard nodded as he heaved a worried sigh. Even Zedd and Nicci had said that they couldn’t remove that dark force within her without being back at the palace. Considering the difficulty, Sammie had done well to be able to do as much as she had done.

      “Thank you for doing what you did for her.” He hoped it would be enough to keep Kahlan alive until he could find Zedd and Nicci, and then get them all back to the palace.

      “Keep in mind that I’m not an expert in such things, Lord Rahl, but I think that with her injuries healed as best as I could do, and her not losing any more blood, it may just take some more rest for the healing to complete enough for her to wake. You’ve been asleep a long time. I’m hoping that she, too, will wake up once she has had some more rest. She was hurt worse than you, so she may just need some more sleep before she wakes.”

      Richard wanted to believe that was true, but he didn’t know if it was just wishful thinking. “What about the others? All the people who were hurt. Did you heal them first?”

      Sammie was a long moment in answering. “Some of them.”

      Richard looked up. “Why didn’t you heal them all, all the ones who could be healed, anyway?”

      “Because had I not stopped so that I could heal you, you would have died. The Mother Confessor is in more serious trouble because that awful shadow of death is a lot stronger in her, but you were in more immediate danger from your injuries and loss of blood. You were in danger of dying from the things that I could heal. I had to make a choice.”

      Richard’s heart sank. “You mean, you had to let some of your people die to instead save me?”

      Sammie swallowed. “Yes.”

      Richard’s brow drew tight with concern. “Those were your people, Sammie. Why would you abandon them to heal us? To heal strangers?”

      Sammie sat on the chair close beside him. She put some of her weight on her hands beside her small hips and rocked a little at the thought of how to answer his question.

      “I’m only one person,” she said in a quiet tone. “I worked on those I could save, worked as fast as I could, did what I could. Some people were going to die no matter what. I knew that if I spent the night trying to save some of those, they would still die in the end and then others that I might have saved would also die.

      “There were many people needing healing. There wasn’t enough time to heal all of them, even if I would not have healed you. I was never going to be able to save them all.

      “This is the second night since the attack. You slept that night of the attack, all day yesterday, and most of last night. It will be dawn soon. That first night, after you had ended the threat and the battle was over, you passed out.

      “I had you brought here while I stayed out there and healed a number of people. More needed healing. Some people died as they waited, СКАЧАТЬ