The Third Kingdom

Almost before he had finished saying it, another wavering greenish veil abruptly loomed up before them, as if it had just risen from the underworld itself.

It came into view so swiftly that Richard almost stepped into it, almost touched it. It was so close that he could see forms moving beyond the opaque wall, pushing against it in places to make it stretch and bulge outward.

Richard took a quick step back.

“Lord Rahl?” Samantha called from the other side of the green veil.

He had pushed Samantha out ahead, directing her to a different route, and the veil had come up between the two of them as she had been out in front of him.

“It’s all right, Samantha. I’m all right.”

“Lord Rahl, I can hear you, but I can’t see you.”

There was no mistaking the alarm in her voice. “It’s all right, Samantha. I’m right here. Stay back from it. Don’t go near it. I’ll come to you.”

He turned a different way, going around it to get to Samantha. He made his way around a few of the imposing spires of rock to find a passage around the green veil.

Another curtain of the undulating green luminescence materialized, sliding in among the stone crags, as if carried in on an ill breeze. It stopped him in his tracks, preventing him from going the way he had intended in order to get around the first veil separating them.

“Lord Rahl, you’re scaring me. Where are you?”

“Right here. I’m okay. I just have to go around another way, that’s all. Hold on. I’ll be right there.”

The soaring rock spires all around created a maze that was made all the more difficult to navigate by routes being blocked by the flickering greenish veils of light.

As he turned to the left to go around a different way, another green veil appeared. This time, it felt deliberate, as if it somehow intended to block him from advancing and getting around. When he turned back, there was another already blocking his way.

“Lord Rahl?” came her voice in among the rock walls as another greenish curtain drifted in behind him, blocking any retreat.

There was only one way left open, and when he raced for it he had to skid to a stop as it, too, became blocked with the menacing green veil. He realized that he was surrounded. He would have to wait until the boundary walls to the underworld moved on.

“Samantha, listen to me. Do you have green walls blocking your way?”

“No. But I can’t find you. I can’t see you anymore. I can hear you, but not very well. I can’t see you.”

Richard was now completely surrounded by flickering, wavering, greenish light spanning every gap and escape route in the rock. He was trapped.

He knew that something was going on. This was not random.

This was deliberate.

Richard knew that he had only moments before the walls closed in and enveloped him.

“Samantha, can you hear me?”

“Barely.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Listen to me. Don’t ask questions. Don’t talk back and don’t hesitate. Just do what I say. Understand?”

“Yes, Lord Rahl?”

“Run. Get away. Do it now.”

Richard heard the crunch of small rocks from her footsteps. She was running. He sighed in relief at that much as the sound of her footsteps disappeared into the distance.

And then Richard was alone, surrounded by the world of the dead. He could see them—spirits of the dead—writhing beyond that eerie, opaque, greenish veil, hungry to get at him, to pull him in.

CHAPTER

59

Richard began to see another shadowed form through the slowly swelling, flowing, rippling curtain of glimmering greenish luminescence.

This form, though, was different from all the others.

This one was not moving.

The green veil on that one side in front of him began to fade, then to dissolve. It dissipated into the air before him until Richard was once again able to see the rocky world beyond. The green walls of the underworld to the sides and behind remained in place, blocking any retreat, but the way ahead was once more open.

Richard glanced to the sides, as much as he could, anyway, to look beyond the stone spires and the remaining prison of green, looking for any sign of Samantha. He didn’t see her anywhere. He was relieved that she had done as he said.

Something was going on and he was thankful that she hadn’t been trapped along with him. As long as she was still free, she might still be able to do something to help the others escape. Although she was still very young, Richard didn’t discount her ability or her determination. As long as one of them was still free and could act, there was still a chance to save the others.

In the deep shadows between the spires of stone not far in the distance a man in dark robes stood silently watching. It was the same form Richard had seen, unmoving, beyond the veil of the underworld. Now that the green shroud was gone, the shadowed form remained, confirming that this was not one of the dead from beyond the veil of life. Behind the man, off to his left side just a bit, was another form in the deeper shadows that he couldn’t quite make out.