Blood of the Fold

Brogan screamed in fury and threw his hands out toward Kahlan. With a loud crack, lightning lit the room. It missed her only because he was raging out of control and striking wildly. Plaster and other debris blasted through the air.

Kahlan was stunned near to paralysis. Tobias Brogan, the lord general of the Blood of the Fold, the man committed to exterminating magic, had the gift.

Screaming again, Brogan threw a fist of air that caught Kahlan square in the chest and slammed her against the wall. She crumpled to the floor, dazed and senseless.

Lunetta shrieked louder when she saw what Brogan had done. "No, Tobias! You must not use the taint!"

He felt on his sister, strangling her, pounding her head against the floor. "You be the one who did it! You be using the taint! You be using a glamour! You made the lightning!"

"No, Tobias, you be the one doing it. You must not use the gift. Mamma told me you must not use it."

He lifted her by a fistful of her white shift. "What are you talking about? What did Mamma tell you, you vile streganicha?"

The comely woman panted and gulped. "That you be the one, my brother. The one for greatness. She said I must not make people to notice me — so they would look only to you. She said you be the one who be important. But she said I mus not let you use your gift."

"Liar! Mamma never said any such thing! Mamma didn't know anything!"

"Yes, Tobias, she knew. She be touched with a little of the gift. The Sisters came to take you away. We loved you, and didn't want them to take our little Tobias."

"I don't have the taint!"

"It be true, my brother. They said you had the gift, and they wanted to take you to the Palace of the Prophets. Mamma told me that if they went back without you they would bring others. We killed them. Mamma and me. That be how you got the scar by your mouth — in our fight with them. She said we had to kill them so they wouldn't send others. She said I must never let you use the gift or they would come to take you."

Brogan's chest heaved with rage. "All lies! You did the lightning, and you be using a glamour for others!

"No," she wept. "They burned my pretties. Mamma said you be destined to be great, but it could all be ruined. She taught me how to use the pretties to hide my looks and to keep you from using the gift. We wanted you to be great.

"My pretties be gone. You made the lightning."

Brogan stared off with wild eyes, as if seeing things none of the rest of them saw. "It not be the taint," he whispered. "It just be me. The taint be evil. This noi be evil. It just be me."

Brogan's eyes focused again as he saw Kahlan struggle to rise. The room flashed with blinding light as he threw another lightning boll across the room. It raked the wall over her head as she dove for the floor. Brogan sprang to his feet to come for her.

"Tobias! Stop! You must not use your gift!"

Tobias Brogan gazed back at his sister with an eerie calm. "This be a sign. The time has come. I always knew it would." Blue flashes flickered between his fingertip;, as he held a hand up before his face. "This not be the taint, Lunetta, but divine power. The taint would be ugly. This be beautiful.

"The Creator has relinquished his right to dictate to me. The Creator be a baneling. I have the power, now. The time his come to use it. I must sit in judgment of man, now." He turned to Kahlan. "I be the Creator, now."

Lunetta lifted an imploring arm. "Tobias, please — "

He wheeled back toward her, deadly snakes of light writhing at his hands. "What I have be glorious. I will hear no more of your filth and lies. You and Mamma be banelings." He drew his sword, the light coiling up the blade, and waved it in the air.

She frowned with mental effort. "You must not use your power, Tobias. You must not." The flickering light at his hands cut off.

"I will use what be mine!" The light at is fingers ignited once more and dancing up the blade. "I be the Creator, now. I have the power, and I say you must die!"

His eyes gleamed with madness as he stared, transfixed, at the light crackling at his fingertips.

"Then you," Lunetta whispered, "be the true baneling, and I must stop you, as you have taught me."

A glowing line of rose-colored light flared from Lunetta's hand and pierced Tobias Brogan through the heart.

In the smoky stillness, he drew a last gasp, and collapsed.

Not knowing what Lunetta would do, Kahlan didn't move, remaining as still as a fawn in the grass. Adie reached out with a tender hand, offering comforting words in their native tongue.

Lunetta didn't seem to hear. She crawled woodenly to her brother's body and cradled his head in her lap. Kahlan thought she might be sick.

Suddenly, Galtero stepped into the room.

He snatched Lunetta by the hair and pulled her head back. He didn't see Kahlan in the rubble against the wall behind him.

"Streganicha," he whispered viciously.