The Third Kingdom

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.

Besides, she realized that she needed to know what the man was up to, what his “life’s work” was all about, and what he was doing at the abbey. She could tell that it wouldn’t take a lot to encourage him to reveal such things about himself.

“I’m sorry, Abbot, but falling from a cliff and being caught at the last possible instant before smacking the ground is all new to me. I’m afraid that if you have some purpose in doing it, that purpose is lost on me.”

He dispensed with the smile as he leaned in toward her. “Right there, at the end, right at that last instant before you knew with absolute certainty that you were about to die, did you have any revelations? Any last thoughts? Any memories of the meaning of your life? In rare near-death encounters, many people say that they experience in a single instant the entirety of their life—see it all.

“So, I was wondering what your last thoughts were in that final instant before you knew that you were about to die.”

Kahlan had to look away from his eyes. She stared out the window instead, watching the endless expanse of trees and limbs flash past the coach.

“Well?” he asked. “What last thought did you have?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said in a quiet voice without looking at him.

They rode in silence for a moment.

“In that case,” he finally said, “why don’t you explain it to me.”

She knew it was not simple curiosity. It was a request she dared not ignore.

“I experienced the total and complete feelings I have for my husband.”

He held up a finger. “Ah, love.”

She was about to say that he wouldn’t know what love really was, but decided not to waste the effort.

“Well, you see, the thing is,” he went on as he picked at one of his fingernails, “we have learned, through our abilities with occult powers, how to alter that experience.”

Kahlan’s eyes turned to him. “Alter the ‘experience’? The ‘experience’ of death? What do you mean?”