The Third Kingdom

The one, he thought bitterly. What good was it doing him to be “the one”?

Richard straightened. He was of both worlds. He was alive, but he had death in him as well. He was already dead, but had life still attached to his spirit.

It seemed so simple. Could it be true?

Magda Searus and Merritt had left him a message. They had said Know that you have within you what you need to survive. Use it.

Use it.

He wondered …

CHAPTER

74

“Samantha?”

“I’m here.”

He looked down at the Grace on the ring Magda and Merritt had left for him. It was meant to remind him of what mattered. The Grace was a depiction of both worlds, really, and how life blended and balanced with both—the world of life, and the world of the dead. It was also a depiction of their interconnection.

Richard looked up. “Samantha, I need you to get back. Get back away from the green wall.”

“Lord Rahl, I don’t have anywhere to go.…”

“I mean that I need you to stand back—off to the side. In case the boundary of the underworld moves I want you back out of the way. Go back down the hall a ways.”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

“Hurry, we don’t how long before more of the Shun-tuk show up. Hurry, now. Stand back out of the way.”

“All right,” she said from farther down the cave outside. “I’m back out of the way.”

“Listen, Samantha … if anything goes wrong, I want you to get away. Do you understand? Don’t hesitate. If anything goes wrong, run and get out of here. Your mother would want you to live.”

“Lord Rahl, you’re scaring me. And I’m already scared enough. There are human bones in some of the caves down here.”

That was discouraging news. “I understand, but if I can’t escape from in here, then you have to get away.”

“It took me a long time to get down here, sneaking past all those ghostly-looking Shun-tuk. I don’t know if I can get back out.”

“I know it’s frightening. But if this doesn’t work, you have to try. Understand?”

“I understand,” she finally said.

“Now, stand back.”

“I am standing back. Hurry. Lord Rahl, you’ve got to hurry. I can hear voices echoing. I think they’re coming. Hurry.”

Richard took a deep breath. It had to work. It made sense.

As Samantha had told him once, he was of that world.

He remembered the message left for him, carved in the language of Creation.

Know that you have within you what you need to survive. Use it.

That was what Magda Searus and the Wizard Merritt had told him. They knew he would come to that place and read their message. They had left their ring for him.

Still, he was loath to try such a thing. But he was dead anyway if he didn’t at least try. Everyone would die. This was his only chance.

He knew that more than anything, despite how he tried to convince himself of the logic of it, it was an act of desperation.

Zedd always said that sometimes an act of desperation was magic—real magic.

He tried to slow his breathing. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He had thought it through as best he could. There was no time to think it over any longer. He was out of options and out of time. They all were. He had to try.

He looked down at the Grace on the ring one last time. He looked at the lines coming out from the center, the lines representing the spark of the gift as it crossed the world of life and then went on into the infinite world of the dead. Each was a continuous, unbroken line crossing worlds.

Richard steeled himself, gritting his teeth. And then, he raced ahead into the glowing green luminescence that was the outer boundary of the underworld itself.

The shock of it was like walking off a cliff at midnight.

He was instantly lost in an eternity of darkness.

There were no spirits as he stepped through into their world, as there had been before when he was on life’s side of the boundary. There was no more howling, no wailing, no more wavering limbs.

There was nothing.

There was no heat, no cold, no light, only a kind of darkness that was beyond darkness. In a way it reminded him of what it was like looking into a night stone, only this was more like walking into a night stone, or more accurately, being swallowed into that perfect blackness.

He felt totally and utterly lost.

Everything was dead to him.

CHAPTER

75

Richard couldn’t sense if he had been in that empty world for mere seconds, or for a hundred years. The void was without sight, sound, dimension, or time.

But then the darkness began to dissolve around him. The world came back in ragged patches like being able to begin to see objects when first coming awake. The sensation accelerated and as light and sound crashed in around him, he found himself standing in the cave outside his prison cell.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the sparkling, wavering greenish luminescence blocking the opening to where he had been held for so long was no longer there.

Samantha’s big dark eyes blinked as she stared in disbelief.