Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

He hooked his hands over the peg and used all his weight to spring up and down. At last the peg began to loosen. Working swiftly and using all his muscle, he finally managed to get the peg to wiggle. He wiggled it back and forth until he was able to pull it free.

Richard dragged the table over to the side of the room near the dark corner, and got up on top. He inspected the crack in the beam, finding a place where it wandered toward the top, near the cross-planks overhead. He wedged the iron peg into the split in the beam, working it in until it was stuck fast.

He retrieved the pack and crammed it up in the tight space between the beam and the wall. Once he had it as high and as flat as he could get it, he shoved it along the beam until it wedged above the iron peg. He tested the pack by tugging on it but it was stuck tightly in place. It wasn't going anywhere.

He hopped down and put the table and chair back where they had been. The pack was a color similar to the aged oak of the beam, and it was in the shadows. Unless a person was looking for it, he didn't think anyone would notice the pack lodged up where he had put it. Besides, it was the best he could do.

Satisfied that he had done everything he could to keep the book, and the war-wizard outfit, from falling into the wrong hands, he lay down on the cold stone floor against the opposite wall and tried to get some sleep.

He found it impossible to sleep thinking about what Six had promised him for the next day. Fear gnawed at him, making his mind race. He knew he needed to get some rest, but he just couldn't calm himself.

He did feel a sense of relief to be away from Six. He'd lost all track of time since he had been with the wisps and Six had been there as he left the ancient trees. He couldn't think when he was with her, couldn't do anything. She consumed his entire mind.

His entire mind.

He remembered being in this room before, with Denna. She had told him that he was to be her pet, and that he would be broken to her will. He remembered telling himself that he would let her do what she would, but that he would save a piece of himself, put it away, and not allow anyone into that part, not even himself, until he needed to unlock that safe place and be himself again.

He had to do that again. He couldn't allow Six to have all of his mind, the way she had since she had captured him. He could still feel the weight of her influence, the pull of her will, but now that he wasn't in her immediate presence it seemed so much less by comparison that he felt free of her and able to think. Able to decide, to a degree, what he wanted.

What he wanted was to be free of the witch woman.

He created a place in his mind, as he had done so long ago in this very room, and he locked a part of himself away, a part of his strength, the core of his will, in much the same way he had hidden his pack away in a hidden corner where no one would find it.

With his new ability to think, and a plan, he felt a sense of relief. Even though he could still feel the witch woman's fangs in him, he felt that she no longer had the control she thought she did. He at last was able to relax a little.

He thought then of Kahlan. Her memory brought a sad smile. He made himself think of happy times with her. He thought about what it felt like to hold her, to kiss her, to be alone in the night with her whispering to him how much he meant to her.

Thinking about Kahlan, he drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER 49

Richard woke with a start when he heard the door being unlocked. It was a rude awakening, because Kahlan had visited him in his dreams. He didn't remember his dreams, but he did know that those dreams involved her. He felt suffused with her presence, as if he had really been with her, only to be pulled away by being awake. Once he was awake, her essence immediately began draining away. The loss of even her dream presence to cold, empty consciousness was disheartening. The world seemed to have been much richer in his dreams. Even though he didn't remember them, those dreams seemed sweet, like music in the distance. Just the feel of them was enough for him to know that he would rather not be in the waking world.

Richard started to sit up only to realize how much he ached from sleeping on the stone floor. Given how foggy his head felt, he doubted that he had more than a few hours' sleep. When he saw guards spilling into the stone room, Richard staggered to his feet, trying to stretch his cramped muscles as he did so.

Six swept into the room like an ill wind. Against her wiry black hair and flowing black robes, her skin looked ghostlike. Her blanched blue eyes fixed on him as if there was nothing else in her world but him. Richard felt that look come down on him as if it were the weight of a mountain. That look, her presence, crushed his will.