Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [193]
She stared wide-eyed into his hard face, then reached into the basket. The frog wriggled and kicked in her hand as she passed the basket to Richard, telling him what to do. Swallowing hard, she pushed the cold slimy back of the frog against her chest, between her breasts, to the one place on her where there were no symbols painted, pushed it around in circles as the others had done. Where the slime touched her skin, it felt tingly, tight. The feeling spread through her. The sounds of the drums and the boldas grew in her ears until it seemed as if the sound was the only thing in the world. Her body vibrated with the beat. In her mind, she took hold of her power, held it tightly, concentrated on her control of it; then, hoping it was enough, she felt herself drift away.
Everyone took the hand of the person to each side. The walls of the room swam away from her vision. Her consciousness undulated, like ripples on a pond, floating, bobbing, pitching. She felt herself beginning to spin in a circle with the others, around and around the skulls in the center. The skulls brightened, lighting the faces of everyone in the circle. They were all swallowed into a soft void of nothingness. Shafts of light, from the center, spun with them.
All around, shapes closed in. In terror, she recognized what they were.
Shadow things.
Unable to get a scream out, her breath caught in her throat, she squeezed Richard’s hand. She had to protect him. She tried to get up, to throw herself over him so they couldn’t touch him. But her body wouldn’t move. She realized with horror that it was because hands, hands of the shadow things, were on her. She struggled, struggled to get up, to protect Richard. Her mind raced with panic. Had they already killed her? Was she dead? Was she no more than a spirit now? Unable to move?
The shadow things stared down at her. Shadow things didn’t have faces. These did. Mud People faces.
They weren’t shadow things, she realized with a wave of relief, they were the ancestors’ spirits. She caught her breath, eased the panic back down. Relaxed herself.
“Who calls this gathering?”
It was the spirits speaking. All of them. Together. The sound, hollow, flat, dead, almost took her breath away. But it was the Bird Man’s mouth that moved.
“Who calls this gathering?” they repeated.
“This man does,” she said, “this man beside me. Richard With The Temper.”
They floated between the elders, gathering into the center of the circle.
“Release his hands.”
Kahlan and Savidlin let go of Richard’s hands. The spirits spun in the center of the circle; then, in a rush, they came out in a line, passing through Richard’s body.
He inhaled sharply, threw his head back, and screamed in agony as they swept through him.
Kahlan jumped. The spirits all hovered behind him. The elders all closed their eyes.
“Richard!”
His head came back down. “It’s all right. I’m all right,” he managed in a hoarse voice, but he was clearly still in pain.
The spirits moved around the circle, behind the elders, then settled into their bodies, both spirit and man, in the same place at the same time. It gave the elders a soft, indefinite appearance around the edges. Their eyes come open.
“Why have you called us?” the Bird Man asked, in their hollow, harmonic voices.
She leaned a little toward Richard, keeping her eyes on the Bird Man. “They want you to say why you called this gathering.”
Richard took a few deep breaths, recovering from what they had done to him.
“I called this gathering because I must find an object of magic before Darken Rahl finds it. Before he can use it.”
Kahlan translated as the spirits talked to Richard through the elders.