Free The Third Kingdom by Terry Goodkind Page A

alive.’
    “Zedd didn’t understand. Nicci told him that it was said that the scream of a Hedge Maid, if she were ever to open her mouth all the way and let it out, was the sound of the Keeper of the underworld himself. Nicci said that the sound of such a scream would pull the Hedge Maid and anyone who hears it into the underworld. She said that the unleashed scream of a Hedge Maid is death, even to herself, so at a young age, beforethey can fully develop a voice capable of calling death into the world of life, a Hedge Maid’s mother sews her lips shut with leather strips imbued with occult powers that hold death back.
    “Nicci said that she suspected that you both were alive because you stuffed those wads of cloth in your ears and that shielded you from the full power of that scream.
    “Zedd wanted to know how she knew so much about such things. Nicci said that she knew because she had once been a Sister of the Dark serving the Keeper of the underworld. She said that Hedge Maids were vile creatures who use a kind of occult conjuring that is directly linked to the world of the dead.
    “She said that such powers were a perversion of the Grace and as such not able to be touched by regular gifted ability. She said that was what made a Hedge Maid so dangerous, that Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor would have no power against her.
    “Nicci explained to them, then, how you both were touched not just by the Hedge Maid’s occult conjuring and the things she was doing to you, but more importantly you were both touched by her scream. She said that through that scream you both were touched by death itself and therefore infected with it.”
    Sammie gave Richard a look, as if to say “I told you so.”
    Richard rolled his hand for Henrik to go on.
    “Well, Zedd didn’t exactly believe everything Nicci was telling him about the power of such a scream born in the underworld and death infecting you both.”
    “Sound familiar?” Sammie asked under her breath.
    Richard gave her a sideways look but didn’t say anything.
    Henrik was involved in his story and didn’t hear her. “So Nicci put two fingers on Kahlan’s head. She told Zedd, ‘Here, see for yourself.’ He leaned in and put two fingers on Kahlan’s head next to Nicci’s fingers. She asked if he felt it.
    “Zedd said that he felt some kind of frightening, deathly darkness. Nicci told him that what he was feeling was the touch of death from the Hedge Maid that you both carried in you.”
    “Just like I said,” Sammie noted.
    Richard nodded. “You were right.”
    She smiled at the triumph as Henrik continued his story.
    “Zedd was really afraid because of what he’d felt in Kahlan. Cara got scared, too. She asked if you both were going to die because you had death hiding in you. Nicci said not if she had anything to do with it.
    “Nicci said that you both were only alive because the wads of cloth you had stuffed in your ears blunted the full sounds of death’s call, but it still had infected you both.”
    “Did they say how to heal them?” Sammie asked, suddenly excited about the possibility of having an answer to the riddle.
    “Nicci said that she thought she could do it, but that it had to be done in something called a containment field.”
    Richard felt as if the floor fell out from under him. It was no longer a simple matter of being healed by a gifted person. This was no simple injury. It was going to take more than a simple healing if the real threat within them was to be addressed.
    “A containment field?” Sammie’s nose wrinkled up. “What’s a containment field?”
    Henrik shrugged with the discomfort of not having the answer for her.
    “It’s a place that keeps any foreign spells out while you work on or open up dangerous forms of magic,” Richard told her. “More importantly, though, it also keeps contained those things you unleash—either intentionally or accidentally. Things you wouldn’t want escaping.”
    Sammie looked stunned