Page 67 of The Third Kingdom (Sword of Truth 13)

The suffering they’d brought to the world had been staggering, all in the absurd notion of a better life for all.

But Richard had led the New World to victory. Freedom had prevailed. The long ordeal, the suffering and sacrifice that sometimes seemed as if it would never end, was now over.

The world was at peace.

And now these people from some forsaken dark land wanted to throw the world into chains again, just as the Imperial Order had done? And for what? So that they could rule?

It was insane.

Kahlan clenched her jaw as she glared out the window.

“What was it like?”

Kahlan frowned back at the abbot sitting on the seat across from her.

“What?”

His self-satisfied smile seemed comfortably at home on his features as he watched her. He could see how angry she was, and he was enjoying it. He was enjoying that he had taken her prisoner, that the Mother Confessor, the Lord Rahl’s wife, the woman who had helped defeat the Imperial Order, was now nothing more than his chattel.

“I asked what it was like.”

Kahlan glared at him without answering. She turned her gaze out the window at the endless expanse of dark woods. The leaden overcast made all the trees look a greenish gray. The forest looked ancient, as if the world of man had not touched it. It was an uncharted wilderness, a primal, inhospitable wasteland where death and decay was the way of life.

The crooked limbs arching over the small road nearly closed them in, turning the poorly made road into a somber tunnel through hostile territory. They seemed to her to be like the great arms of monsters continually reaching for victims. It was as malicious-looking a woods as she had ever seen.

A sudden, violent blow to her face sent Kahlan sprawling across the seat.

She gasped from the pain and shock of the blow from the Mord-Sith’s fist. Her world seemed to tilt as it spun. For a moment, Kahlan had trouble understanding where she was or what was happening. Her arms lay limp, one across her legs, the other hanging down over the front of the black leather seat.

Kahlan groaned as the pain from the blow started to blossom. Her jaw throbbed. Her lips and nose tingled as if from a thousand needles.

Erika yanked Kahlan upright by her hair and then backhanded her across the other side of the face, finally shoving her back into her seat.

As Kahlan sat, arms dangling limp at her sides, she felt warm blood running down her chin, dripping onto her pants.

“The abbot asked you a question,” the Mord-Sith growled. “You had better learn to respect your superiors. If you don’t wish to do that, then I would be only too happy to ask the driver to stop the coach so that I can drag you out onto the road and teach you to show proper deference and obedience.”

She leaned forward, again grabbing Kahlan by the hair, pulled her forward, and put her face close. “Would you like that?”

“No,” Kahlan said before the Mord-Sith struck her again.

Erika smirked as she released Kahlan’s hair, leaned back in her seat, and folded her arms.

With the back of her wrist Kahlan wiped the blood from her mouth.

Abbot Dreier watched in quiet satisfaction for a moment before finally repeating the question.

“I asked, what was it like? I expect an answer. Erika expects an answer. We are both burning with curiosity.”

Kahlan shot him a black look. “What are you talking about? What was what like?”

With a fluttering hand, he indicated the long, falling descent from a high place. “You know, the drop, the fall from the cliff. You really must learn to be more careful. Being clumsy and falling like that could get you killed one day. So, what was it like?”

Kahlan could feel her lip swelling and the pain setting in in earnest. She wanted more than anything at that moment to strangle the life out of the man.

“I didn’t like it much.”

He arched an eyebrow in amusement. “Really. And why not?”

Kahlan glanced to the Mord-Sith and then back at him. “It was frightening.”

He let out a brief chuckle. “I imagine it was.” He folded his arms as he leaned back, watching her. “But that was the whole point.”

“It had a point?”

He shrugged. “Of course.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not very good at guessing. Why don’t you tell me what the point was.”

“Why, to scare the life out of you, of course. You were scared nearly to death, weren’t you? You know, right when you were almost at the bottom, when you were about to hit the ground going full speed from a fall from on high?”

“So the point was to scare me? All right. You succeeded. I was scared. Happy?”

He turned his smile on the Mord-Sith. “She still doesn’t understand.”

“She will,” the Mord-Sith said, rocking back and forth as the coach went over a series of bumps. “Eventually.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said with a sigh.

Kahlan sat silently, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her asking what he meant.

“Aren’t you curious?” he finally asked. “Don’t you wonder how I did it?”

Kahlan knew exactly what he was talking about. He was asking if she was curious as to how he had managed to use his gift to stop her fall right before she hit the ground.

Kahlan had grown up around wizards. She knew a lot about magic and what it could do. Those with the gift could lift things, even heavy things, and catch objects that were falling before they hit the ground.

But they couldn’t do that with living things, especially people.

Life somehow interfered with that sort of manipulation. Something about having a soul prevented people from being lifted, except in rare circumstances and for brief periods of time. Even then, it required monumental effort. Otherwise, they would all be able to fly. They had explained the principle to her once, but at the moment it seemed unimportant.

What was important, what was relevant, was how Ludwig Dreier had managed to do it, especially with such precision that he was able to catch her that close to the ground and halt her fall. When she had stopped, her face had been inches from the dirt. he had then smoothly, gently, lowered her to the ground.

It was an appalling, frightful, horrifying experience that had left her shaking like a leaf.

“Yes,” Kahlan said, “as a matter of fact, I am curious. How did

you do it? You obviously have the gift, a fact that you kept from us before, at the palace. I’ve never known a wizard who could do such a thing. From what I learned, the gift isn’t able to do something like that.”

He smiled with satisfaction. “Quite right. The gift can’t do such a thing. But you see, I have a different sort of power.”

“The gift is the gift.”

“Well, yes, that is true enough, but those of us like myself and Lord Arc have acquired the additional ability to use occult powers with our gift. The rest of the world simply doesn’t understand the powers we have, or what we can do with those powers.” He gestured out the window. “One of the advantages of living way out here, away from everyone else, is being able to learn such dark crafts from the cunning folk and then develop it into something altogether different, something more than they could ever imagine. But then, they don’t have the gift and so they could never imagine such things.”

“You should be very careful conjuring such dark arts.”

His smile widened again. She was getting tired of seeing it. His gloating seemed to be an end in itself.

“I am not afraid,” he said in a low, dangerous sort of voice.

Kahlan wanted to say that he should be afraid. She decided better of it.

He brightened, then. “But you were afraid. When you fell, I mean. You were afraid.”

“I already told you I was,” Kahlan said as they bounced over a rocky section of the road.

The jolt hurt her abdomen, taking her breath, and made her jaw throb. At least her lip had stopped bleeding.

“That was what I had intended.”

Kahlan renewed the black look. “I would think that you would have long ago outgrown scaring girls.”

The Mord-Sith laughed out loud. “She’s funny.” She looked over at Abbot Dreier. “She’s funny.”

He made a face but otherwise ignored the Mord-Sith. “There is a point to the fear,” he said patiently to Kahlan. “I’m trying to explain my purpose, and in that context the larger purpose of my life’s work.”

Kahlan took a deep breath. She didn’t really want to talk. Since Erika had clouted her across the jaw it hurt to try to talk. She supposed there was no avoiding it.

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