Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

He couldn't go on without her. He didn't want to go on in a world with out her. She was everything to him. Until that moment, he had been pushing her personal, private, intimate loving memory aside and instead dealing with details in order to endure the pain of missing her for yet an other day even as he worked toward finding her. But that pain was now tightening around his heart, threatening to take him to his knees.

With the pain of missing her came a flood of guilt. He was Kahlan's only hope. He alone kept the flame of her alive above the torrent trying to drown out her existence. He alone worked to find her and bring her back. But he had not yet accomplished anything useful toward that end. The days marched past, but so far he hadn't gained anything that would get him any closer to her.

To make matters all the worse, Richard knew that Shota was also right in one very important way. While he worked toward helping Kahlan, he was failing everyone else. He had been the one who, to a large extent, had made people believe in the idea, the very real possibility, of a free D'Hara, of a place where it was possible for people to live and work toward their own goals in their own lives.

He was only too aware that he was also largely responsible for the great barrier coming down, allowing Emperor Jagang to lead the Imperial Order into the New World to threaten the newfound freedom in the New World.

How many people would be at risk, or lose their lives, while he pursued this one person that he loved? What would Kahlan want him to do? He knew how much she cared for the people of the Midlands, the people she had once ruled. She would want him to forget her and to try to save them. She would say that there was too much at stake to come after her.

But if it was he who was missing, she would not abandon him for anything or anyone.

Despite what Kahlan might say, it was her life that was important to him, her life that meant the world to him.

He wondered if perhaps Shota was right, that he was merely using the concept of the danger Kahlan's disappearance represented for the rest of the world, as an excuse.

He decided that the best thing to do for the moment, until he could think of a better way to get the help he needed, and to buy himself time to gather his courage, to harden his resolve, was to change the subject.

"What about this thing," Richard asked, gesturing vaguely, "this beast, that's chasing me." The passion was gone from his voice. He realized how tired he was from the long trek over the pass, to say nothing of the blur of days riding up from the Old World. "Is there anything you can tell me about it?"

He felt on safer ground with this question because the beast could interfere not only with his search for Kahlan, but with the mission Shota was urging him to return to.

She watched him for a moment, her voice finally coming much softer, as had his, as if without realizing it they had reached a wordless truce to lower the level of antagonism. "The beast that hunts you is no longer the beast it once was, the beast it was as it was created. Events have caused it to mutate."

"Mutate?" Cara asked, looking alarmed. "What do you mean? What has it become?"

Shota appraised them both, as if to make sure they were paying attention.

"It has become a blood beast."

CHAPTER 41

"A blood beast?" Richard asked.

Cara moved close to his side. "What's a blood beast?"

Shota took a breath before explaining. "It is no longer simply a beast linked to the underworld, as it was when it was created. It was inadvertently given a taste of your blood, Richard. What's worse, it was given that taste through Subtractive Magic-magic also linked to the underworld. That event changed it into a blood beast."

"So — what does that mean?" Cara asked.

Shota leaned closer, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. "That means that it is now oh so much more dangerous." She straightened after she was sure she had made the intended impression. "I'm not an expert on ancient weapons created in the great war, but I believe that once such a beast as this one has tasted the blood of its mark in such a way, there is no turning it back, ever."

"All right, so it won't give up." Richard rested his palm on the hilt of his sword. "What can you tell me to help me kill it, then? Or at least stop it, or send it back to the underworld. What does it do, precisely, how does it know that.»

"No, no." Shota waved a dismissive hand. "You are trying to think of this in terms of some ordinary threat hunting you. You're trying to put a nature to it, trying to give it a defining behavior. It has none. That is the peculiarity of this thing-the absence of a defining description, of a makeup. At least one that is of any use, since its nature is precisely that it has none. Because of that it therefore cannot be predicted."