Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Tom was a member of an elite corps of protectors to the Lord Rahl. Despite his amiable appearance, Tom was more than formidable in his duty. Men like him were not advanced to such trusted positions of protection to the Lord Rahl because they had nice smiles. Like other D'Haran protectors to the Lord Rahl, Tom had come to feel passionately about his duty to protect Richard.

"He can't come with us," Richard said. "We're going in the sliph. Only Cara, you, and me are able to travel in the sliph."

Nicci swallowed at the thought of such a journey. "And where are we going, Richard?"

At long last, his gray eyes turned to her. He gazed into her eyes with that way he had about him, as if he was looking into her soul.

"I've figured it out," he said.

"You've figured what out?"

"What I must do."

Nicci could feel her fingers tingling with a shapeless dread. The look of terrible resolve in his gray eyes made her knees weak.

"And what is that you must do, Richard?"

He puzzled a moment. "Did I ever tell you thanks for stopping Shota when you did, when she was touching me?"

Nicci was not disconcerted by Richard's abrupt change of topic. She had learned that it was Richard's way. It was especially characteristic when he was greatly troubled. The more agitated he was, it seemed that there were all the more things going on in his head at the same time, as if his thoughts were in a whirlwind of inner activity that pulled everything up into that tumultuous rush of deliberation.

"You told me, Richard."

About a hundred times.

He nodded slightly. "Well, thanks."

His voice had turned absent, distant, as he descended back into the dark depths of some inner equation upon which the future hinged. "She was doing something painful to you, wasn't she."

It was not a question, but a statement that Nicci had come to believe more and more in the days following Shota's visit. Nicci didn't know what Shota had done, but she wished she had not allowed even that brief touch. There was no telling how much the witch woman could have conveyed in that touch, even as abbreviated as it had been. Lightning, after all, was brief as well. Richard had never said what Shota had shown him, but it was ground that Nicci, for some reason, feared to tread upon.

Richard heaved a sigh. "Yes, she was. She was showing me the truth. That truth is in part how I've come to understand at last what it is I must do. As much as I dread it…"

When he drifted into silence, Nicci patiently prodded him. "So, what have you figured out you must do?"

Richard's fingers tightened on the stone as he looked out again over the darkening countryside far below, and then to the somber jumble of mountains rising up beyond.

"I was right in the beginning." His gaze turned to Cara. "Right when I took you and Kahlan away to the mountains far back in Westland."

Cara frowned. "I remember you saying that we were going back into those deserted mountains because you had come to understand that we could not win the war by fighting the army of the Imperial Order. You said that you could not lead them in such a battle that they were sure to lose."

Richard nodded. "And I was right. I know that now. We can't win against their army. Shota helped me to see that. She may have been trying to convince me that I must fight that battle, but in part because of all that she and Jebra showed me, I know now that we can't win it.

"Now, I know what I must do."

"And what would that be?" Nicci pressed.

Richard finally pushed away from the stone merlon. "We have to go. I don't have time to lay it all out right now."

Nicci started after him. "I threw some things together. They're ready. Richard, why can't you tell me what you've decided?"

"I will," he said, "later."

"You're wasting your time," Cara said under her breath to Nicci as she fell in with her behind Richard. "I've already paddled up that creek until I got too tired to paddle anymore."

Richard, hearing Cara's remark, took Nicci by the arm and pulled her forward. "I'm not finished thinking it all through. I need to finish putting it all together. I'll explain it when we get there, explain it to everyone — but right now we don't have the time. All right?"

"Get where?" Nicci asked.

"To the D'Haran army. Jagang's main force will soon be heading up into D'Hara. I have to tell our army that we have no chance to win the battle that is coming for them."

"That ought to cheer their day," Cara said. "Nothing makes a soldier feel better on the eve of battle than their leader telling them that they are about to lose the battle and die."

"You want me to tell them a lie, instead?" he asked.

Cara's only answer was a scowl.

At the end of the rampart Richard pulled open the heavy oak door at the base of the tower. Inside was a room where some of the lamps were already lit. Nicci could hear people rushing up the stone steps to the side.

"Richard!" It was Zedd following behind the big, blond-headed D'Haran, Tom.