Page 84 of The Third Kingdom (Sword of Truth 13)

“Well,” he said in a cooler voice, “I guess I can hardly blame you for not bringing him if he had already escaped.”

“And all of the other chambers where his companions were being held were empty as well?” Sulachan’s spirit asked.

She was obviously uncomfortable looking at the spirit, so she looked instead at Hannis Arc. “Yes. I don’t know how they were able to break the veils confining them, but all of the ones over the openings into where they were being kept had vanished. I suppose that it’s possible the half people you left to feast on them took the prisoners out, and at that point they somehow managed to overpower the half people and get away.”

“So it would appear,” Hannis Arc said, glaring at Sulachan, “that it is actually your half people, the ones you left behind to handle the situation, who are the ones who failed.”

“No matter,” the spirit king said, sounding unconcerned. “We will have him tracked down and brought back.”

Hannis Arc leaned toward the glowing spirit. “How?” he demanded. “We don’t even know where they went.”

The spirit smiled in that way that Hannis Arc didn’t like. One cadaverous arm lifted, and the spirit king signaled to those behind them. Several Shun-tuk rushed forward and crowded in close to hear his orders.

“Bring me some of my spirit trackers.”

With a whisking gesture they were sent running off into the ranks to do his bidding.

“Spirit trackers?” Hannis Arc asked.

“I created more than simply one kind of soulless weapon to serve me,” Sulachan said in a patronizing tone. “Some feed. Some wield powers. Some track spirits. I will send some of the latter back to the scene of the escape to pick up the essence of their spirits. They will track down and kill those with Richard Rahl. Then they will bring him back to you so that you can do what you should have done in the first place.”

“I guess it is only a temporary setback.” Hannis Arc met Vika’s gaze. “It looks like you will soon enough get your chance to make Richard Rahl suffer. And then I will cut his throat and bleed him out at my feet.”

Vika bowed her head. “Yes, Lord Arc. I look forward to the day I might redeem myself in your eyes.”

He watched her for a moment, considering, weighing her words, then turned to Sulachan.

“The sooner we get there, the sooner I take the seat of power from the House of Rahl, and the sooner I rule the D’Haran Empire.”

“I agree. The trackers will go after Richard Rahl for you while we will tend to more important business.” Sulachan held a long-dead arm out before them in invitation. “Shall we be on our way to the People’s Palace, Lord Arc? It is a long journey.”

CHAPTER

80

Ludwig Dreier tilted his head to get a better look as he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. She had lost control of her bladder, but that wasn’t the worst of the stink. The smell of blood he was used to. It was the gagging stench of feces from her ruptured bowels that made his nose wrinkle and his breath come in short, reluctant pulls. It was one of the more onerous parts of his work.

He stepped over the little river of urine running across the stone floor to get a closer look. The blood ran in every direction, so he couldn’t avoid stepping in that, but he wasn’t bothered by blood. He had been up to his wrists in it often enough.

It was all a necessary part of his important work.

He twisted his head to the side a little more to get a better look at her face. She stared unblinking at him with the one eye that wasn’t ruined.

“Has she spoken any prophecy?” he asked the Mord-Sith standing behind one of the tightly stretched chains.

“No, not yet,” Erika said. “I have been keeping her near the cusp until you had time to come and see her.”

Ludwig frowned, trying to make sense of the tangled form. The chain was drawn tight, stretched from where it was pinned into the stone blocks of the wall to her bleeding wrist. He finally realized how the arm was broken and twisted back around at an unusual angle, taking all the slack out of the chain, that made her look so peculiar. He was pleased to at last unravel the puzzle and understand what at first made little sense to him.

Erika had been busy, he could see. There was no doubt about it. She was gifted at what she did. But then, so was Ludwig.

He heard small sounds.

“What was that, my dear?” he asked as he bent down.

She was making small sounds he couldn’t understand.

He leaned closer. “I’m afraid that I can’t hear you. If you want to be released from the suffering, then you are going to have to speak up so that I can understand you.”

“Please,” she wheezed.

“Well now, you know what we want,” Ludwig said as he straightened. “We’ve made it clear.” He gestured at the Mord-Sith. “Erika has made it clear, I’m sure. Speak up, then.”

The one eye stared at him, unable to look away. “Please … let me die.”

“Why, of course. That is why I’m here—to give you release from your agony.”

It had taken time to prepare her, to bring her to this state. It was not something that could be hurried or done with haste. Ludwig had learned over his years of study that patience yielded far better results than trying to force the issue.

Slowly building the tension, terror, and pain in the end brought far better, far more insightful prophecy. The proper, careful building of their journey toward the climax of their existence brought the exceptional visions when they looked beyond into that other, timeless world. Those were the sort he sought. Rushing the preparations simply didn’t produce quality results. Torture was a game of patience.

He knew from experience, and the work that had obviously been done on her, that what information she did give before he released her into death would be some of the better-quality prophetic perception. He was culling details from the darkest depths of the netherworld. He expected great things, this time. He could feel it. He had done this enough to know when the information was going to be special, to be important, to be meaningful.

Such especially significant tellings never went to the bishop. Ludwig kept those kind to himself. This one, he knew, would never leave the confines of the abbey.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said down to the agonized face watching him. “I could give you a bit of assistance. I could help you bring it forth. Would you like that?”

“Yes … please, help me. Please help me.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said with a smile. “I’m here to help. Afterwards, I will grant you what you want most.”

She was close, he knew she was.

When she said nothing, he gestured to the Mord-Sith. Without delay Erika pressed her Agiel into the back of the woman’s skull.

She shuddered in agony. The chains rattled. Her mouth twisted as it opened. No scream could come out, no sound.

Ludwig knew from experience that she was there, that she now hung between the world of life and the world of the dead. He knew that she was at last ready.

She was now in that realm of the third kingdom.

“You see it, don’t you?” he asked intimately as he ran a hand tenderly over her hair. “You see that place beyond the veil.”

The woman nodded as she trembled under his steady hand.

“You will first give me prophecy from the dark place you see. As soon as you do that, I will grant your wish and release you to cross over to eternal peace. You would like to cross over, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes…”

He could almost taste the prophecy right there, hanging within her like fresh fruit for the picking. He would have it.

The Mother Confessor had been correct when she had once told Ludwig that if he was the one who provided the prophecy that Hannis Arc needed to rule, then Hannis Arc wasn’t really the one ruling. Ludwig Dreier was.

At the time he hadn’t given it much thought.

But as he had thought about it, he

had come to realize that she was more correct than he had at first given her credit for. He had always known that Hannis Arc was absorbed in his own work and distracted by his own goals, so he relied on the guidance of prophecy that Ludwig provided. Since that prophecy was carefully culled, it was, in reality, Ludwig’s surreptitious, carefully groomed guidance. Ludwig told Hannis Arc only what Ludwig wanted him to know from beyond the veil.

What the Mother Confessor had said that day had really cast it with crystal clarity. Ludwig was the hidden hand that moved the puppet.

Hannis Arc, as powerful as he was, as talented, as clever as he was, was too insulated, too consumed with his own narrow obsessions to know how things in the wider world worked. He could not accomplish what he did without Ludwig’s guidance.

Ludwig had always planned on one day seizing that rule for himself. He was, after all, the architect behind much of the power Hannis Arc wielded, so who better to rule than he. Ludwig rightly should be the one to rule.

It would require great care, though. In spite of everything else, Hannis Arc was a profoundly dangerous man. His occult abilities were not to be taken lightly.

With a gesture from Ludwig, Erika removed her Agiel from the back of the woman’s head.

She was ready. It was time.

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