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"You seem to have it all worked out," Nicci said.
Tovi gri
"Better? How could it possibly get more delicious than this?"
"There is a counter to Chainfire." Tovi giggled with the glee of it.
"A counter? You mean you risk Richard finding a counter to what you have done, a counter that could bring the entire plan crashing down?"
Tovi tried to stifle the giggle, but it bubbled up again. Despite the obvious pain, she was enjoying herself too much to stop. "This is the best pail of all. The ancient wizards who came up with the Chainfire theory realized the potential for the total destruction of life. So they created a counter, should a Chainfire event ever somehow come to pass."
Nicci gritted her teeth. "What counter?"
"The boxes of Orden."
Nicci's eyes widened. "The boxes of Orden were created to be the counter to the Chainfire event you've initiated'?"
"That's right. Isn't that delicious? What's more, we've put the boxes in play."
Nicci let out a deep breath. "Well, like I said, you seem to have it all figured out."
Tovi winced. "Well — almost. There is only one minor issue."
"Like what?"
"Well, you see, the stupid bitch only brought out one box the first time we sent her in. We couldn't allow the boxes to be seen, because, unlike Richard's love, people would remember seeing the boxes of Orden.
"Kahlan said she had no room in her pack. Sister Ulicia was furious. She beat the girl to a bloody mess-you would have loved it, Sister Nicci-and told her to leave something out to make room if she hail In, then sent her back in to get the other two boxes."
Tovi winced under a pang of pain. "We feared to wait, though. Sister Ulicia sent me on with the first box and said she would catch up with us later." Tovi groaned under the agony of another stitch of pain. "I had the first box with me. The Seeker, the one with Sword of Truth, anyway, surprised me and ran me though. He snatched the box. Once Kahlan finally retrieved them, Sister Ulicia then had those two and thought that I had the third, so before she left the palace, she put the magic of Orden in play."
Nicci staggered to her feet. She felt dizzy. She could hardly believe it. But she knew, now, that it was all true. Richard had been right all along. With almost nothing to go on, he had basically figured it all out. And all along no one in the world would listen to him — no one in a world that was unraveling around them in an uncontrolled Chainfire event.
CHAPTER 65
A scream that made the fine hairs on the back of Richard's neck stand on end split the quiet night. Richard, in a bedroll in a simple tent, shot to his feet as the scream ripped the air with its terror. The unending shriek ran a shiver up through his shoulders and instantly brought a sheen of sweat to his brow.
His heart racing, Richard rushed out of his tent even as the haunting cry echoed through the encampment as if trying to reach every corner of darkness to express its horror.
Outside the tent, which was set apart from the others because it was an extra, Richard saw men standing in the darkness, their eyes wide. Up the row a ways, General Meiffert watched out on the night with the rest of them.
Richard saw that it was false dawn, like the morning Kahlan had vanished. The woman he loved, the woman who everyone else had forgotten and didn't care to remember. If she had screamed, no one had heard her.
And then, as the scream died, the world went blacker than black. It was like being plunged into the inky nothingness of the world of the dead, forlorn and forever lost. Richard shivered as his flesh felt like something alien touched the world of living with intimate promise.
As quickly as the darkness had come, it was gone. Men looked around at one another, none speaking.
The thought occurred to Richard that the viper now had only three heads.
"The Keeper took one of his own," he explained to the questioning faces that had all turned to him. He saw the general watching, listening. "Be glad that one so evil is no longer among the living. May all such people find the death they champion."
Men smiled and whispered agreement with the curse as they began crawling back into their tents to try to snatch what was left of their sleep.
General Meiffert met Richard's gaze as he clapped a fist to his heart before vanishing back into his own tent.
In the dim light of the camp that suddenly seemed to be populated only by tents and wagons, Richard spotted Nicci very deliberately heading straight for him. There was something profoundly disturbing about the way she looked. Perhaps it was that she had just vented a rage that he doubted anyone but he could truly understand or value.
Flags of blond hair flying, she reminded him of a raptor descending in on him from out of the night, all tight muscle and talons. When he saw the tears streaming down her face, her gritted teeth, her fury and hurt, her powerful menace and frail helplessness, her eyes filled with more than he could grasp, he stepped back into his tent, drawing her in out of the view of the camp.
She swept into the tent, right for him, like a storm breaking on a headland. He backed as far as he could, having no idea what was wrong or what she intended.
With a sob of such naked desolation that it nearly made him cry out in kind, she fell to the ground at his feet, throwing her arms around his legs. She was clutching something in one hand. Richard realized that it was Kahlan's white Mother Confessor dress.
"Oh, Richard, I'm so sorry," she wailed between racking gasps. "I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," she kept mumbling over and over.
He reached down and touched her shoulder. "Nicci, what is it?"
"I'm so sorry," she cried as she clutched at his legs as if she were the condemned begging a king for her life. "Oh, dear spirits, I'm so sorry for what I've done to you."
He sank down, lifting her arms off his legs. "Nicci, what is it?"
Her shoulders heaved with her racking sobs. She looked up at him as he lifted her by her arms. She was as limp as the dead.
"Oh, Richard, I'm so sorry. I never believed you. I'm so sorry that I never believed you. I should have helped you and instead I fought you every step. I'm so sorry."
He had rarely seen anyone in such profound misery. "Nicci.»
"Please," she sobbed. "Please, Richard, end it now."
"What?"
"I don't want to live anymore. It hurts too much. Please, use your knife and end it. Please. I'm so sorry. I've done worse than simply not believe you. I've been the one who stopped you at every turn."
She hung like a rag doll from his hands under her arms. She wept in utter misery and defeat.
"I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. You were right about everything and so much more. I'm so sorry. It's all ended now and it's my fault. I'm so sorry. I should have believed you."
She started to almost melt through his grip. Sitting on the floor in front of her, he gathered her up into his arms, much like he had gathered up Jillian.
"Nicci, you were the only one who made me go on when I was ready to give up. You were the only one who made me fight."
Nicci's arms came up around his neck when he pulled her close. She felt hot from the fever of her anguish.
She sobbed and kept mumbling how sorry she was, how she should have believed in him about the rest of it, how it was all too late now, how she wanted to end the pain and die.
Richard held her head to his shoulder as he whispered to her that it would be all right, whispered his comfort, rocked her gently and quieted her without saying anything of consequence except in its empathy.
He remembered, then, when he had first met Kahlan and they had spent that first night in a wayward pine. She had nearly been pulled back into the underworld and he had drawn her back at the last moment. Kahlan had cried like this, in abject terror and misery, but more than that, with the release of having someone hold her.