The Third Kingdom

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Authors: Terry Goodkind
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against her. The Omen machine, though, had given him a prophecy:
Your only chance is to let the truth escape
.
    With that clue, he had realized that the way to stop that vile creature was to cut the leather strips sewing her mouth closed. Doing so had caused her to release an inner scream held back for most of her life by those leather strips. It had brought about the release of the corruption and death that had been contained and festering within her.
    First, though, knowing what he had been about to do, Richard had wadded up small pieces of cloth and stuffed them inKahlan’s and his own ears to keep both of them from hearing that malevolent cry born in the world of the dead—to prevent them from hearing the call of death itself.
    At least, he thought it had kept them from hearing it.
    He turned back to Sammie. “I need you to use your gift on me, the way you did when you tried to heal Kahlan. I need to know if you can sense that same thing in me that you sensed in her.”
    Sammie shook her head as she shrank back.
    “Listen to me!” he yelled, freezing her in her tracks. “Lives are at stake. I’m not asking you to go beyond that green veil and cross over into what you sensed as death, but I need to know if the same thing you sensed in Kahlan is within me as well.”
    When she again started backing away he grabbed her slender wrist. “Listen to me, Sammie. You were able to back out of Kahlan, weren’t you?”
    Her eyes turned fearfully toward Kahlan. “Yes.”
    “So then it can’t pull you in. Whatever you sensed in her doesn’t have the power to do that. You are in control. Even though you went down deep into her you pulled yourself back out, didn’t you?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Didn’t you?” he repeated.
    He knew that he was frightening her, but it couldn’t be helped.
    “I suppose so,” she finally said.
    “Then you are the one in control, not what you saw in her. That evil may try to pull you toward it, but you have free will and are able to resist that dark call. You make the choice not to be pulled in by evil.”
    Sammie let her arm drop when he released her wrist. “I guess you’re right.”
    “I know I am,” Richard said. “I know because you cameback of your own free will. But I also know because others were healing Kahlan and me when we were attacked. They both have vast experience and know a great deal more about healing than either you or I will likely ever know. They would have sensed what was in her and they wouldn’t have been trying to heal her if it was a lethal trap.”
    “But how can you be sure that they were healing her?”
    “They healed the wound on her stomach.”
    Sammie thought it over for a moment. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I felt that healing. I could tell that it was fresh, that not long before me someone else had been there healing her.”
    “And they came back. You were able to come back, too. That means you are in control. You aren’t helpless to that call of death.”
    She looked considerably more calm, even if she didn’t look at ease. “That makes sense.”
    Richard took a step closer to her. “I need you to check me. I need to know if that same sickness is in me.”
    She appraised his eyes for a moment with a look that was well beyond her years.
    “You suspect that you have the same thing in you that she has in her, and you think that may be what’s keeping your gift from working,” she said.
    It wasn’t a question.
    Richard arched an eyebrow, then sat on the floor and crossed his legs. “Come on. Do it now. I need to know.”
    Sammie let out a frustrated sigh, then gave in and sat before him. She followed Richard’s gaze to see a cat that had just sauntered into the room, peeking in the dark places behind the pillows against the far wall the way cats liked to do.
    “I think that the cat sensed what I saw in the Mother Confessor,” Sammie said.
    “The cat?”
    She nodded as she crossed her legs, the way he had done. “My

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