The Third Kingdom

There was only so much a person could take. She expected that at some point, she, too, would end up pleading for death.

The footsteps were coming closer. The place echoed, so it was easier than it might have otherwise been to hear people coming. Otto was busy with his crust of bread, and wasn’t paying attention to the footsteps. They meant little for him, anyway. Kahlan’s heart sank, knowing that it was probably the Mord-Sith Dora.

The abbey was mostly stone. The rooms were cramped and filthy. It didn’t look like it had ever been swept. Dirt clung to cobwebs in all the corners.

A light scattering of straw covered the floor in her room. The straw looked to have been an attempt to soak up some of the blood. It had done a poor job, but at least most of it was long dried. She expected that there would eventually be a lot more of hers all over the floor.

Kahlan was exhausted to the point of delirium from the effort of staying up on her tiptoes and so getting almost no sleep. Otto saw to it that she was kept awake on the rare occasions they lowered her to the ground for food and water. They allowed her only brief naps.

The sickness she carried deep inside wasn’t helping, either. It was always there, gnawing away at her soul, it seemed.

The footsteps grew closer. By the sound of the boots, Kahlan decided that it was a Mord-Sith. She didn’t know how many Mord-Sith were at the abbey, but there were more than just Erika. The only other one she knew by name was Dora, a particularly unpleasant woman of average height and above-average bad temper.

Dora was the one who came around for routine chores, like bringing Kahlan food and water. She made Otto empty the chamber pot. She wasn’t pleased to be doing any of it. She apparently thought that she deserved a higher rank in life than supervising the mute Otto and feeding prisoners. She looked impatient with the whole process of the drawn-out torture.

Kahlan knew by the looks the woman gave her sometimes what she really wanted to be doing.

Kahlan felt so sick from the poisonous touch of death inside her that most of the time she felt too ill to care. That only seemed to irritate Dora all the more. She seemed to want Kahlan to tremble at the sight of her. The Mord-Sith would sometimes spin her Agiel up into her fist as she left, pointing it, telling Kahlan that she would be back. The Agiel was an implied threat of what the woman intended to do once she returned.

On a few rare occasions, when Otto had gone off for a time, she seemed to become impatiently angry with her lot in life and took out that frustration by ramming the weapon into Kahlan’s middle. It left Kahlan nearly unconscious, hanging helpless, and gasping for breath.

Too weak and exhausted after Dora finished and left to get back up on her tiptoes, Kahlan would hang by her wrists for a time, unable even to cry. She could only think of how much she missed Richard, how much she wanted to be in his arms, how much she wanted to look into his gray eyes and see his smile.

When the heavy oak door squeaked in protest, Kahlan looked over from where she hung by the manacles. As the door was pulled open, she saw that, as expected, it was Dora in black leather.

This time, Dora looked unusually distracted and rushed. Kahlan noticed that she had a key hung on her belt by a short piece of leather thong. The key looked to be the key they had used to put the manacles on her when they had brought her in.

Kahlan wondered if she was to be taken somewhere else for the serious torture. She started trembling at the thought. She was at her wits’ end and she knew that it had not even really begun in earnest.

She also knew that if the woman unlocked her from the manacles, it would be her only chance to fight and try to get away.

The way Kahlan was feeling, though, and as weak as she was, she thought that she was going to have little chance of overpowering the muscular-looking Mord-Sith. Not only that, but the woman would be expecting it and likely have her Agiel pressed against Kahlan’s throat in a heartbeat once Kahlan tried anything.

Still, Kahlan’s heart was already pounding because she knew that this was going to be her only chance, and she was going to have to take it. If she wanted to live, to ever see Richard again, then she was going to have to fight for her life.

Dora gestured angrily at Otto. “Let her down.”

Otto jumped to do as she wished. He unhooked the chain and then used his weight to hold the chain as he lowered Kahlan to the floor. He was not gentle about it, and she landed in a heap. The chain ran to an iron bolt set into the stone of the wall, so being let down from the ceiling was not enough for her to be free. The manacles had to be unlocked.

Once Otto had let Kahlan down, Dora dismissed him with a grunt and a gesture. He bowed and left, closing the heavy door behind himself.

“Get up,” Dora growled. “I’m to take you somewhere else.”

“Where?” Kahlan asked without moving. She was so weak she didn’t know if her trembling legs would hold her.