Stone of Tears

With a scream, Richard tore across the sand, the rage ignited anew. Sword first, he launched himself at Darken Rahl.

The glowing form evaporated as Richard flew through the archway. Laughter echoed and then faded.

Outside the tower, the lightning went wild. Three hot bolts traced through the darkness toward him. Instinctively, he lifted the sword as a shield. The lightning struck the sword, flashing and twisting like a snake in a snare. Thunder jarred the ground beneath his feet.

Richard squinted against the blinding light. He gritted his teeth with the strain of forcing the sword downward, taking the flaring, liquid lines of fire with it. They dulled and diminished as they were dragged to the ground, where they writhed, hissing as if in death, until at last they faded and were gone.

“Enough of these visions.”

Richard angrily sheathed his sword and collected the horses from their grazing. He didn’t know where he was going to go, but he was getting away from this tower, away from the dead Sister. Away from what he had done.

Chapter 32

The lightning didn’t come anymore. The clouds still roiled around him, but the lightning didn’t come. He walked without giving thought to where he was going. When he felt inexplicable danger, he skirted it. To the sides, visions tempted him to look, but he stoically ignored them.

Almost not seeing it at first, because of the dark clouds, he came upon another tower. It looked like the first, except it was a glossy black. At first thinking he would avoid it, he found himself walking to one of the arches and peering in. The ground inside was covered with sand that was drifted into the corners, the same as the last tower, but it was black instead of white. It glimmered with the same prismatic light as the white sand.

Curiosity overcame caution and he reached inside, running a finger through the black grit covering the walls. It tasted sweet.

The wizard who had given his life into this fire had done so to save another, not to save himself torture. This wizard had been altruistic, the other ignoble.

If having the gift meant he was a wizard, Richard wondered which kind he was. He would like to think of himself as high-minded, but he had just killed another to save himself from torture. But was he not within his rights to kill to protect his life? Must he wrongly die to be honorable?

Who was he to judge which of these wizards had been wiser, or which had done what was within his rights?

The sparkling black sand fascinated him. It seemed to draw light from nowhere and reflect it about the inside of the tower in winking colors. Richard retrieved an empty spice tin and scooped it full of the black sand. He tucked the tin back in his pack hanging from Geraldine’s saddle while he whistled for Bonnie—she was off browsing again.

Her ears swiveled toward him as her head came up. Dutifully, she trotted over and joined him and the other two horses, pushing her head against his shoulder in hopes of a neck scratch. As they left the tower behind, he gave her the scratch she wanted.

His shirt was soaked with sweat as he hiked quickly across the barren ground. He wanted to be out of this valley and away from the magic, the spells, and the visions. Sweat rolled from his brow as he walked, trying to ignore familiar voices that called to him. He ached with desire to see the faces of loved ones who called his name, but he didn’t look. Other voices hissed with menace and threat, but he kept moving. At times, the spells tingled against his flesh, burning with pricks of heat or cold or pain, and he rushed away from them even faster.

As he wiped sweat from his eyes, they focused on the baked earth before him and he saw tracks. His own. He realized that in trying to avoid the feelings of danger, the visions, and the voices, he must have been walking in circles, if in fact the footprints were real.

He began to have the queasy feeling that the magic was trapping him. Maybe all this time he had been walking, he had not been making any headway out of the Valley of the Lost. Maybe he, too, was lost. How was he going to find a way out? He tugged the horses on and kept moving, but with a rising sense of panic.

Unexpectedly, out of the dark fog before him came a vision that startled him into a dead stop. It was Sister Verna. She was wandering aimlessly, her hands clasped prayerfully, her eyes skyward, and a blissful smile upon her lips.

Richard stalked toward her. “Be gone! I’ve had enough of these specters! Leave me alone!” She didn’t seem to hear him. That was impossible; she was easily close enough to hear him. He stepped closer, the air feeling abruptly thick and sparkling around him as he did so, until he seemed to step beyond it. “do you hear? Listen to me! I said be gone!”

Distant brown eyes focused on him. She held her arm out, her hand held up in forbidding. “Leave me. I have found what I seek. Leave me to my peace, my bliss.”