"Do it!" Kahlan shrieked. "Do it now, while you still have the chance!"
She clasped her hands in the way the Sisters of the Light were wont to do. Only she was not a Sister of the Light. There looked to be something deeply felt behind that blue-eyed gaze, but what those feelings could be, he didn't know and feared to imagine. It was one of those intense gazes that held a world of emotion, everything from longing to hatred. One thing he was sure he saw was a dead serious determination that was more important to her than life itself.
"What else?" he demanded.
"What if I decide to kill you?"
"That's not what I mean. I mean, you must have some purpose. What else will it mean if I decide to kill you."
"And what do you intend to do with him?" Kahlan asked as she edged her way over to Richard's side. "Torture a sham confession out of him, so that Jagang can put him on some kind of show trial followed by a very public execution?"
171
Richard glared. "Of course."
"Just hold on for now," he whispered to her.
Nicci smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about that for now. If it comes to that, it will not likely be for a long time. Perhaps even a lifetime."
"Insignificant . . . ?" Nicci opened her hands in an innocent gesture. "I have no plans. I expect only to take him away."
Her brow twitched. "If you wish to think of it in those terms, I admit it is true that your time as the leader of the D'Haran Empire is over. But that is not the point. The point is that everything about your life up until now"-Nicci glanced pointedly at Kahlan-"is over."
"What's the rest of it?" He knew there had to be more, something that would make sense of it all. "What other terms are there if I want to keep Kahlan alive?"
"And if we do?" Kahlan snapped. "I might follow you and kill you myself, even if it means the end of my own life." Kahlan's green eyes shone with icy resolve as she cast a threatening glare on the woman.
"What is it you intend me to do?" Richard said, pulling Nicci,' s unsettlingly calm gaze from Kahlan. "What if I get where you're taking me, and I don't do as you wish?"
"As I wish?"
"You would have no further use? You mean Jagang would have no further use."
"No." Once again, Nicci looked surprised. "I do not act on behalf of His Excellency." She tapped her lower lip. "You see? I removed the ring he put through my lip marking me as his slave. I do this on behalf of myself."
"You don't need me to answer that question, Richard Rahl."
"Look," Richard said, feeling like they weren't even speaking the same language, "I don't know what you think-"
Her blue eyes watched him without anger. It almost seemed to Richard that for Nicci, Kahlan anal Cara were not there.
"I believe I've made it as clear as possible and quite simple, besides. If you wish to be free, you may kill me at any opportunity. If you do, Kahlan will also die. Those are your only two choices. Although I believe I know what you will do, I am in no way certain. Two paths now lie before you. You must take one."
"Oh, and one additional matter, should you think to resort to some plot or treachery, or, for that matter, refuse to do the simple things I ask of you: through the spell that joins us, I can at any time end Kahlan's life. I have but to will it. It is not necessary for me to die. She lives every day from now on only by my grace, and thus yours.
Nicci cast a deliberate glare over Richard's shoulder, to Cara. She then reached out and with her fingers gently wiped blood from his mouth. She finished cleaning his chin with her thumb. "Your MordSith has hurt you. I can help you if you wish."
"Very well." She wiped her bloody fingers clean on the skirt of her black dress. "Unless you want to risk other people causing Kahlan's death without your intending it, I suggest you insure that others don't act without your consent. Mord-Sith are resourceful and determined women. I respect their devotion to duty. However, if your Mord-Sith follows us-and my magic will tell me if she does-Kahlan will die."
Nicci's brow creased together. She looked genuinely puzzled.
173
She regarded him in silent curiosity for a moment. "I have my reasons. I'm sorry, Richard, that you must suffer in this. Making you suffer is not my purpose. I give you my word that I will not harm Kahlan without informing you."
"I've told you the truth. I have no reason to lie to you. In time, you will come to understand everything better. Kahlan will come to no harm from me as long as I am safe, and you come with me."
He didn't believe that Nicci was telling him everything. She was making it simple so that he could grasp the important elements and have an easier time deciding what to do. Whatever the rest of it was, it couldn't be as devastating as this much of it. The thought of being taken from Kahlan was agony, but he would do almost anything to save her life. Nicci knew that.
"The spell that protects a person's mind from the dream walker works only for those loyal to me. You can't expect to be safe from Jagang if you do this. It's an act of treachery."
"You're deceiving yourself, Nicci."
"I may die at your hands, but I will die hating everything you and the Order stand for." Richard's fists tightened. "You'll not get what you want, Nicci. Whatever it is, you'll not get it."
Nothing he said seemed to hold any sway with her, and he could make no sense of the things she said. The fury inside boiled up. The magic of the sword fought him for control. He could barely contain it. "Do you really expect me to ever come to believe that?"
"Possibly not."
"I have another horse for you, waiting up on the other side of the pass."
He wanted more than anything to fight, but he couldn't figure how. He wished it were as simple as striking down his adversary. He reminded himself that reason, not
wishing, was his only chance. He seized the calm center within, and used it to quell the rising storm of panic.
"I have given you your choice, Richard. You have no other options. Choose."
"Of course not." Nicci's posture eased almost imperceptibly. A small smile of reassurance warmed her eyes. "She will be fine."
"But . . . but," Richard stammered as Nicci stepped up into the stirrup. "But, what am 1 allowed to take?"
"You may bring anything you like, as long as it isn't a person." She clicked her tongue, urging her horse around to face him. "I suggest you take clothes and such. Whatever you wish to have with you. Take all you can carry, if you want."
Cara stepped out beside him, a thunderhead of dark fury. "I am Mord-Sith. If you think I'm going to allow you to take Lord Rahl, you're crazy. The Mother Confessor has already stated her wishes. My duty, above all else, is to kill you."
Richard held out a restraining arm to prevent Cara from going up after Nicci and dragging her off the horse. "Take it easy," he whispered. "Time is on our side. As long as we're all still alive, we have the chance to think of something."
"I have to get some things," Richard said to Nicci, trying to buy that time. "Wait, at least, until I can get my pack together."
"I'm leaving." With a long graceful finger of her other hand, she pointed. "You see that pass up there? You be with me by the time I'm at the top, and Kahlan will live. If I cross over and you aren't with me, Kahlan will die. You have my word."
"It will have told me what means more to you." She sat back up in her saddle. "When you think about it, that is quite a profound question. It is yet to be answered. By the time I get to the top of the pass, 1 will have the answer."
175
Kahlan struggled to run toward the horse, but Richard clutched her around her waist.
Nicci stopped her horse momentarily and gazed down at Kahlan with a look of frightening finality.
176 CHAPTER 22
Kahlan refused to allow herself to give in to the disorientation. But for Richard's iron arms around her waist, she would have thrown herself at the Sister of the Dark. Kahlan had desperately wanted to unleash her Confessor's power. No one had ever deserved it more.
It was frustrating, infuriating, and humiliating, but Nicci had surprised her and with magic as swift as Kahlan's Confessor's power had taken her before she could react. Once Nicci's talons clutched her, Kahlan had been powerless.
She could still feel Nicci's vital magic sizzling through her, as if her soul itself had been scorched in the heat of the ordeal. Her insides roiled as waves of the onslaught had yet to settle down. The cold air rushing across the meadow, bending the brown grass, swept up to chill her burning face. The wind carried an unfamiliar scent into the valley, something that her jumbled senses perceived as vaguely portentous. The big pines behind the house bowed and twisted but stood tall as the wind broke against them with a sound not unlike waves rushing against stone cliffs.
Regardless of Kahlan's far-fetched feelings, her perception and reasoning told
her the truth of the matter: such impressions were illusion. If she got the opportunity, she would not again hesitate for an instant to kill Nicci.
"I'm not going to allow-"
Cara growled a curse under her breath. Richard turned to Kahlan as the Mord Sith marched off into the house. Kahlan only then really noticed that Cara was naked. She must have been interrupted in her bath. The magic Nicci used had fogged Kahlan's mind, blurring her memory of recent events.
Kahlan gently touched Richard's jaw in sympathy, then took hold of his upper arms instead when he gave her a look that suggested no need for sympathy. His big hands closed on her waist. She stepped into his embrace and rested her forehead against his cheek.
"But it is."
"Sorry?"
Richard ran a hand gently down the back of her head, holding her to his shoulder.
Kahlan had never considered that. Caught off guard or not, though, it made her furious with herself. If only she had not been paying attention to the stupid chipmunk. If only she had looked up sooner. If only she had acted without waiting a split second to analyze the true nature of the threat to decide if it warranted the unleashing of her devastating magic.
Kahlan looked up into Richard's gray eyes. They looked all the more gray with the gray sky behind him.
"It's not come to that yet. I'll figure something out. But for now, I have to go with her."
"We'll follow, but stay well back." He was already shaking his head. "But, she won't even be aware-"
"You mean you think she could . . . hurt you to make you tell her I planned to follow."
"But I should be close, for when you make a move-for when you figure a way to stop her."
"Listen to me. I don't know what's going on, but you mustn't die just to free me."
"Don't go, Richard. I don't care what it means for me, as long as you can be free. I would die happy if doing so would keep you from the enemy's cruel hands. I can't allow the Order to have you. I can't allow you to endure the slow grinding death of a slave in exchange for my life. I can't allow them to-"
But Nicci said they wouldn't. Kahlan told herself that, for her own sanity, she had to believe Nicci's word.
"There's no choice," he whispered. "I must do this."
Richard looked up briefly, gazing out at the trees and mountains behind their house, taking it all in, like a condemned man savoring his last meal. His gaze, more earnest, settled once more on hers.
"I make no sacrifice," he repeated, stressing each word. "To be a slave, even if that is what happens to me, and yet know you're alive, is my choice over being free in a world in which you don't exist. I can live with the first. I can't, with the second. The first is painful, the second unbearable."
"Kahlan, listen to me. I will always have freedom in my heart because I understand what it is. Because I do, I can work toward it. I will find a way to be free.
"The spirits know that in the past I've been willing to forfeit my life for a just
cause and if my life would truly make a difference. In the past, I have knowingly imperiled both our lives, been willing to sacrifice both our lives-but not in return for nothing. Don't you see? This would be a fool's bargain. I'll not do it."
The shadows of Richard's features seemed dark and severe, cast as they were in a mask of resignation.
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean, nothing else?"
"I think it's different this time."
"There's something very different about the feel of this. It doesn't make sense in the way things in the past have made sense. There's something deadly serious about Nicci. Something singular. She's planned this out and she's prepared to die for it. I can't lie to you to deceive you. Something tells me that, this time, I may never be able to find a way to come back."
"Don't ever think I won't be doing my best." His voice was impassioned, almost to the point of sounding angry. "I swear to you, Kahlan, that as long as there is a breath in my lungs, I'll never give up; I'll always try to find a way. But we can't ignore the possibility just because it's painful to contemplate: I may never be back.
"Richard . . ." She choked back her wail, but she couldn't keep the tears from coursing down her face. "I can't stand the thought of you being a slave because of me. Don't you see that? Don't you see what that would do to me? I'll kill myself if I must so that she can't do this to you. I must."
"You won't need to escape, that's just it she won't be able to hold you."
"But-"
"Don't you see?" He seized her by her shoulders. "Kahlan, you must live to give me a reason to try to escape her."
"The people be cursed." He released her and gestured angrily. "Even people where I grew up turned against us. They tried to murder us. Remember? The lands that have surrendered into the union with D'Hara will likely not remain loyal, either, when they see the reality of the Imperial Order's army moving up into the Midlands. Eventually, D'Hara will stand alone.
He looked away from her, as if regretting his flash of anger in their last moments together. His tall form, so stalwart against the sweep of mountains and sky, sagged a little, seeming to huddle closer to her as if seeking comfort.
In the distance she could see the fox trotting across the meadow. Its thick, whitetipped tail followed out straight behind as the fox made its inspection for any rodents that might be about. As Kahlan's gaze tracked its movement, from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Spirit standing proud and free in the window. How could she lose the man who had carved that for her when she needed it most?
"All right, Richard. I won't do anything rash to free you. I'll wait for you. I'll endure it.
Richard closed his eyes with relief. He tenderly kissed her brow. He lifted her hand from his chest and pressed soft kisses to her knuckles. She saw then how much her pledge meant to him.
"What's this about?"
"No, that's not what . . ." He shook his head. He said, "I'm not taking this," as if turning it away would somehow deny the possibility.
Kahlan put her hand to the side of his face. His face wavered before her in a watery blur.
He looked away from her eyes. "Kahlan . . ." Words failed him.
something that was part of you? Please, Richard, don't let it come to that."
Richard held the necklace out to her, as if it were a thing that might bite him. The dark stone swung under his fingers, gleaming in the gloom.
Kahlan pulled the gold chain from his fingers and laid it all in a small neat mound in his palm. The dark stone glimmered from its imprisonment behind the veil of tiny gold links. She closed his fingers around the necklace and held his fist shut with both of her hands.
"But if she refuses . . ."
His big hand felt so warm and familiar and comforting to her. Her words came choked with desperate tears. She could do no more than beg. "Please, Richard."
Kahlan sagged against him with a sob.
182
Kahlan was aware of Cara, wearing her bloodred leather, standing in the doorway to their bedroom watching Richard cram his things into his pack. Kahlan nodded as she and Richard exchanged brief, stilted instructions. They had already come to terms with the life-and-death issues. It seemed they both feared to say anything of consequence for fear of disturbing the delicate, desperate, difficult agreements they had reached.
Cara looked forlorn one moment and the next like lightning seeking ground. Kahlan knew that the Mord-Sith's emotions had to be as torn as her own, balancing on a knife's edge with despair and grief on one side and rage on the other. MordSith were not used to being in such a position, but then, Cara was now more than simply Mord-Sith.
For reasons that weren't always entirely clear, Richard had become the linchpin of their struggle. Kahlan knew his feelings about that-that people must be willing to fight for themselves and not only for him-were valid. If an idea was sound, it had to have a life beyond a leader, or the leader had failed.
Kahlan didn't know what to do with her hands. She stood twining her fingers together as tears dripped off her chin. There must be something to say, something important, some last words while she had the chance, but she couldn't think of them.
She supposed he knew what she felt, what was in her heart, and words couldn't add anything to that. She pressed her fist against the aching knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.
As Cara vanished from the doorway, Richard pulled a fistful of gold and silver from an inside pocket in his leather pack. He hastily dropped roughly half back in the pack and then held out the rest.
"I'm the Mother Confessor. I don't need gold."
"Do you want any of the carvings?" she asked. It was a stupid question and she knew it, but she had to fill the awful silence and it was the only thing to come into her head, other than a hopeless plea.
Kahlan handed him a cake of soap.
Richard glanced up with a grim smile. "I plan on seeing to it that she knows I won't ever give in to her and the Order. Carvings won't be necessary. She thinks she has this all planned out, but she's going to find out I'm bad company." Richard jammed a fist in his pack, making more room. "Very bad company."
"I put together some food for you, Lord Rahl. Things that will keep for traveling--dried meat and fish and such. Some rice and beans. I . . . I put a loaf of bread that I made on top, so eat it first, while it's still good."
Richard straightened. His smile evaporated in a way that for some reason made Kahlan's blood go cold. Looking like he was in the throes of committing himself to some last, grim deed, Richard pulled the baldric off over his head. He held the goldand-silver wrought scabbard in his left hand and drew the Sword of Truth in his white-knuckled right fist.
Richard drew his sleeve up his arm and wiped the sword across his forearm. Kahlan winced as she watched. She didn't know if he cut deeply accidentally, or on purpose. With an icy sensation she recalled that Richard cut very precisely with any sharp steel edge.
184
Richard picked up the scabbard and slammed the Sword of Truth home. Blood running over his hand left greasy red smears across the scabbard as he slid his hand down the length of it, to the tip, and then seized the sheathed weapon at its center point in his fist. His head bowed, his eyes on the dull silver and gold reflections lustrous even through his own blood, he loomed closer to her.
He lifted the sword in its scabbard to her. The tendons in the back of his fist stood out in the strain. The white of his knuckles showed through the blood.
Spellbound, Kahlan lifted the scabbard in her palms. For that instant, until he pulled away his bloody hand, she felt a jolting shock as if she were suddenly welded to the weapon by hot fury unlike anything she had ever experienced. She half expected to see a burst of sparks. She could feel such rage emanating from the cold steel that it nearly dropped her to her knees. She might have dropped the weapon itself in that first instant, had she been able to let go of it. She could not.
Richard lifted a finger in caution. The dangerous magic still glazed his eyes. The muscles of his jaw tightened until she could see it standing out all the way up through his temples.
Kahlan, arrested by the intensity of his gaze, could only nod. She clearly recalled the first time Richard had used the sword to kill a man. The first time he came to learn the horror of killing had been to protect her.
Without the rage of the sword's magic, Richard's eyes were capable of conveying menace. Kahlan could recall several times when his raptor's glare, by itself, had brought a roomful of people to silence. There were few things worse than the need to escape the look in those eyes. Now, those eyes hungered to deliver death.
Kahlan swallowed. "1 understand." She nodded. "I remember."
"Life or death. No other reason. I don't know what will happen, and I'd just as soon you not find out. But I'd prefer that, to you being without this terrible defense if you need it. I've given it a taste of blood, it will come out voracious. When it comes out, it will be in a blood rage."
185
With a hand on his arm to gently reassure him, Kahlan said, "I won't have to use it."
She ignored his words. "Give me your arm, first."
Richard thanked her as she was finishing. Cara split the end, put the tails around his wrists, and tied a quick knot. "We will come part of the way with you."
"But-"
Cara's big beautiful blue eyes, glistening with tears, reflected the kind of pain Kahlan was sure Cara never allowed anyone to see.
Richard flashed her a brief smile, trying to ease her misery. "I'm Lord Rahl-I don't need to remind you that I've wiggled out of tighter spots than this." He kissed her cheek. "Cara, I swear I'll never give up trying to get away-you have my word."
Bending to the bed, he pulled his pack close. "I have to go." He held the strap in a stranglehold. "I can't be late."
"Listen to me, now. I wish you would stay here, in this house in these mountains where it's safe for you, but I don't think anything short of my dying request could convince you to do that. At least stay for four or five days, in case I'm able to figure out what's going on and can escape Nicci. She may be a Sister of the Dark, but I'm no longer exactly a stranger to magic. I've escaped powerful people before. I've sent Darken Rahl back to the underworld. I've gone to the Temple of the Winds in another world in order to stop the plague. I've escaped worse than this. Who knows-this might be simpler than it seems. If I do escape her, I'll come back here, so wait for a while, at least.
"Richard, don't worry about me. Just take care of yourself. I'll be waiting for you when you get away, so just be at ease about that much of it and put all your effort into escaping from her. We'll wait here for a while-I promise."
Richard nodded. He turned back to Kahlan. His fingers on her arms tightened. His brow drew down.
"I know you and I know the way you feel, but you have to listen to me. The time has not yet come. It may never come. You may think I'm wrong in this, but if you close your eyes to the reality of what is, in favor of what you would wish just because you're the Mother Confessor and feel responsible for the people of the Midlands, then there is no reason for us to bother hoping we'll be together again because we won't. We will be dead, and the cause of freedom will be dead."
"It's the same way we must use our heads with Nicci, and not fight her in a direct attack, or we will both die. You promised you would not kill yourself to free me. Don't throw that promise away by going against what I'm telling you now."
"All right, Richard."
A thousand thoughts swirled in chaotic turmoil through her mind. Kahlan stared up into his eyes. She heard herself say, "I promise, Richard. Until you say so, we'll make no direct attack."
All too soon the kiss, the embrace, was over. His warm presence swirled away from her, allowing the awful weight of doom to settle firmly down atop her. Richard briefly hugged Cara before he hefted his pack onto a shoulder. He turned back at the bedroom doorway.
"You're everything to me, Richard. You know that."
"I will, Lord Rahl. You have my word as Mord-Sith."
And then he was gone.
Kahlan and Cara ran into the main room and stood in the doorway watching him running across the meadow.
Richard turned as he ran and acknowledged her words with a wave.
187
Kahlan collapsed to her knees, sitting back on her heels as she lost control of her emotions. She wept helplessly, her head in her hands, at what seemed the end of the world.
Kahlan didn't know how long she sat on the dirt floor in her white Confessor's dress, sobbing, but after a time, she was able to make herself stop. Her heart continued to spiral down into hopeless gloom. Each passing moment seemed unendurable. The bleak future stretched out before her, a wasteland of agony.
"What do you wish to do, Mother Confessor?"
"Let's begin to get our things together. We'll stay here a few days, like Richard asked. After that, anything the horses can't carry that will spoil, we'd better bury. We should board up the windows. We'll close up the house good and tight."
Kahlan nodded as she looked about, trying desperately to focus her mind on a task and not on that which would crush her. The worst part, she knew, was going to be night. When she was alone in bed. When he wasn't with her.
"Yes, for when we return. Then it will be paradise again. I guess when Richard returns, wherever we are will be paradise."
"Cara, what is it?"
Kahlan rested a comforting hand on Cara's shoulder. "I know it hurts, but we must put our minds to-"
Kahlan's first flash of fear was that he fell and was killed, or that Nicci had executed him. She used reason to force the fear aside.
"Cloaked it, somehow." Cara rolled her Agiel in her fingers. "That's what it has to be. I can still feel my Agiel, so I know that Lord Rahl has to be alive. The bond is still there . . . but I cannot feel it to sense where he is."
Kahlan sighed with relief. "That has to be it, then. Nicci doesn't want to be followed, so she cloaked his bond with magic."
Could they do that? Could they believe in that way?
Bouts of dizzying grief threatened to drown her in a flood of tears. Needing to do something, she went to her room to take off her Confessor's dress. She would set to work with the task of closing up the house and preparing to leave.
"Where are we going to go, Mother Confessor? You said we were going to leave, but you never said where we were going to go."
Seeing the statue, touching it, feeling the power of it, made Kahlan want to reach deep inside for resolve. Once before, she had been hopeless, and Richard carved this for her. Her other hand fell to her side, and her fingers found Richard's sword lying across their bed. Kahlan focused her mind, ordering the turbulent swirl of despair thickening into wrath.
"Destroy the Order?"
"You swore an oath to Lord Rahl."
"Mother Confessor, you must not do that."
Cara's blue eyes gleamed with menace. "You must leave half for me."
Richard had stopped to turn back and look at her only once as he ran, just before he went into the trees. She was standing in the doorway in her white Confessor's dress, her long thick hair tumbling down, her form the embodiment of feminine grace, looking as beautiful as the first time he saw her. They held each other's gaze for a brief moment. He was too far away to see the green of her eyes, a color he'd never beheld on anyone else, a color of such heart-piercing perfection that it sometimes would stop his breathing, and at other times quicken it.
He knew he was cutting the time close. As much as he hated the idea of turning his gaze away from Kahlan, her life hung in the balance. His purpose was clear. Richard had plunged into the woods.
He was alone in the woods as he ran, his thoughts but salt in a raw wound. For once he felt out of place in the woods-powerless, insignificant, hopeless. Bare branches clattered together in the wind, while others creaked and moaned, as if in mock sorrow to see him leaving. He tried not to think as he ran.
Richard tiptoed on rocks sticking up above the water as he crossed a small stream. As the little brook tumbled down the slope, it went under rocks and boulders in places, making an echoing drumming sound, announcing him to the stalwart oaks along his march into imprisonment. In the flat gray light, he failed to see a reddish loop of cedar root. It caught his foot and sent him sprawling facedown in the trail, a final humiliation on his judgment and sentence of banishment.
190
A leader come too soon.
The scornful trees all watched to see what this unworthy man might do, to see if he had the courage to get to his feet and face what was ahead. He didn't know himself if he did.
Even Kahlan, as much as he loved her, wanted something from him he could not give her: a lie. She wanted him to tell her that something he knew to be so, was not. He would do anything for her, but he couldn't change what was. At least she had enough faith in him to let him lead her away from the shadows of tyranny darkening the world. Even if she didn't believe him, she was probably the only one willing, of her own free will, to follow him.
Weakness, to balance the strength he would need. Doubt, to balance his certainty of purpose. Fear, to balance the courage he would have to call upon.
With renewed resolve, Richard forced his mind away from the dominion of dark thoughts. It wasn't so hopeless; he knew better. After all, he had faced trials much more difficult than this one Sister of the Dark. He had once gotten Kahlan out of the clutches of five Sisters of the Dark. This was but one. He would defeat her, too. Anger welled up at the thought of Nicci thinking she could make them dance at the end of her selfish strings.
And then he was running again, dodging trees as he cut corners off the trail. He hurdled fallen trees and leaped over gaps in the rock shelves, rather than taking the safe route down and up. Each shortcut or leap saved him a few precious seconds.
Richard exploded in fury, as if the tree had done it on purpose just to taunt him in his rush. He kicked the offending branch, snapping it out of its dry socket. He fell to his knees and scooped his things back into the pack, clawing up moss along with gold and silver coins, and a pine seedling along with the soap Kahlan had given him. He didn't have time to care as he shoved it all back in. This time, he put the pack onto his back, rather than letting it hang from one shoulder. He had been trying to save time before, and it had cost him instead.
1n his mind's eye, Nicci was riding too swiftly, covering too much ground, get 191
His insides were in agony at the thought of how heartbroken Kahlan was. He felt, somehow, that it was worse for her. Even if she was free, and he was not, that made it worse for her because, in her freedom, she had to restrain herself when she wanted nothing more than to come after him. In bondage to a master, Richard had it easy; he had only to follow orders.
Richard didn't see any horse and rider, but since the trail twisted down into the trees not tar beyond where he stood, that didn't really prove anything. The top of the pass was a bald bit of open ledge, with most of the rest of the horse trail winding through deep woods. He quickly inspected the ground, casting about for tracks, hoping she wouldn't be too far ahead of him and he could catch her before she did something terrible. His sense of doom eased when he found no tracks.
Richard understood Kahlan's desire to be with her people and to defend her homeland. She believed she could make a difference. She could not. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Richard's vision was really nothing more than the acceptance of that reality. Shaking your sword at the sky didn't keep the sun from setting.
He knew he wasn't going to be able to escape Nicci so easily as to be able to get back to Kahlan within a few days. He had invented that story for another reason. Once the weather shitted and the snow arrived up in these mountain highlands, it tended to come in an onslaught. If the storm was as big as he estimated by the signs it could be, Kahlan and Cara would end up being stuck in their house until spring. With all the food they'd put up, as well as the supplies he'd brought in, they had plenty to last the two of them. The firewood he'd cut would keep them warm.
The dappled mare walked out of the trees, coming around a bend not far away. Nicci's blue eyes were on Richard from the first instant she appeared.
While in captivity at the palace, Richard thought Nicci was the personification of lust. He was hardly able to find his voice when around her. He had hardly been
able to believe a creature of such physical perfection existed, other than in daydreams.
Richard had since learned the true depths of what a real woman was, what real love was, and what real fulfillment was. In that light, Nicci paled into insignificance.
"Richard, you lived up to my faith." Her voice suggested that it had been tenuous as best. "You're in a sweat; would you like to rest?"
Not far down the trail they came to a black stallion with a white blaze on its face. The big horse was picketed in a small grassy patch of open ground among towering pines.
Richard checked and found the smooth snaffle bit to his approval; she wasn't abusing the animals with cruel bits used to dominate, as he knew some of the Sisters did. The rest of the tack appeared sound. The horse looked healthy.
For the time being, there was no choice of routes; there was only the one trail and it ran from the direction of the house where Kahlan was back to the east. Richard took the lead so that he wouldn't have to look at Nicci.
The narrow trail precluded Nicci walking her horse beside his. Her dappled mare snorted its displeasure at having to follow the stallion. Richard was pleased to know that he had already upset the order of things.
When it started getting dark, Richard simply dismounted beside a small brook where the horses could have a drink, and tossed his things on the ground. Nicci
wordlessly accepted his choice of campsite, and unstrapped her bedroll from her saddle after she'd taken it down off her horse. She sat on her bedroll, looking a little downcast, more than anything else, and ate some sausage along with a hard biscuit washed down with water. After her first bite, she lifted the sausage to him, meeting his gaze in a questioning manner. He didn't acknowledge the offer. Nicci assumed he declined, and went back to eating.
Richard sat on the mossy ground, arms folded, leaning the small of his back against his saddle. He didn't sleep the entire night. He sat watching Nicci sleep in the light of the overcast sky lit from the other side by a nearly full moon, watching her slow even breathing, her slightly parted lips, the slow pulse in the vein at the side of her throat, thinking the whole time how he might overcome what she had done to them. He thought about strangling her, but he knew better.
His gift was invoked mostly through anger and need. He had an abundant supply of both. He just didn't know how it could help him. He didn't understand well enough what Nicci had done to begin to think of what he might do to counter it. With Kahlan's life at the other end of Nicci's invisible cord of magic, he dared not do anything until he was sure of it. He would be, though; he just had to figure it out. Experience told him that it was a reasonable supposition. He told himself it was only a matter of time. If he wanted to keep his sanity, he knew he had to believe that.
He would have been tired from not sleeping the whole cold night, but his anger kept him wide awake. Under a leaden sky, they rode at an easy but steady pace all that day through forests that seemed endless. It felt good to have a warm horse under him. Throughout the day, they continued their gradual descent from the higher country, where the house was, down into the lowlands.
At first, it was just a few furtive flakes swirling through the air. As it steadily increased, it seemed to leach the color from trees and ground alike, until the world turned white. Visibility steadily diminished as the snow thickened into a disorienting, drifting, solid wall. He had to keep blinking the fat flakes from his eyes.
Kahlan and Cara, up higher in the mountains, would wake in the morning to several feet of snow. They would decide that it was foolish to try to leave when, they would believe, it was only an early snow that would melt down enough in a few days for them to have an easier time of traveling. Up in those mountains, that would be a mistake. It would stay cold. A storm would follow on the heels of this
one, and they would soon have snow up to the shutters. They would be nervous about waiting, but would probably decide that it was now more important for them to delay until a break in the weather-after all, there was no urgency.
He decided that it would be foolish to let his anger dictate that they sleep on the open ground. They could freeze to death. He recalled all too well that if Nicci died, Kahlan died. When he spotted a big wayward pine, he walked his horse off the trail. Brushing against branches dumped wet snow on him. Richard flicked it off his shoulders and shook it from his hair.
Inside, under the thick boughs caked with snow, was a still, frigid world. With the snow crusting the tree, it was dark inside. In the dim light, Richard dug a small fire pit and soon caught fire to the deadwood he'd carefully stacked over shavings.
Nicci quietly warmed her hands by the fire, looking contented-not like she was gloating that he'd given in and found shelter and built a fire, but contented. She looked as if she had been through a great ordeal, and now she could be at peace. She looked like a woman expecting nothing, but grateful for what she had.
She offered him a sun-dried slice of meat. Richard stared at her thin, delicate fingers holding out the piece of meat. It reminded him of someone feeding a chipmunk. He snatched the meat from her hand and tore off a chunk with his teeth. To avoid her gaze, he watched the fire as he ate his rice and beans out of the heel of bread. Other than the crackle of the fire, the only sound was the thump of snow falling in clumps from limbs not stout enough to hold the load. Snowfalls often turned a forest to a place of eerie stillness.
The next day they were up early. Nicci said nothing, but, once they were mounted, decisively cut her dappled mare in front of the black stallion and took the lead. The snow had changed to a cold drizzling mist. What snow was left on the
ground had melted down to gray slush. The lowlands were not quite ready to relinquish themselves to winter's grip. Up higher, where Kahlan was, it was colder and would be snowing in earnest.
Nicci's dappled mare was dark gray, almost black, with lighter gray rings over its body. Its mane was dark gray, as were the lightly feathered legs, and the tail was a milky white. It was one of the most handsome horses Richard had ever seen. He hated it. It was hers.
As he felt the stallion's muscles moving beneath him, Richard looked out at land he knew and loved. He didn't know how long it would be until he was home again-if ever. He hadn't asked where they were going, figuring Nicci wouldn't likely tell him this soon. That they were headed east didn't mean much just yet because their choice of routes was limited.
At his belt he wore a fine knife, but he felt naked without his sword. He hated the ancient weapon, the way it pulled dark things from within him, and at the same time he missed it. He often reminded himself of Zedd's words, that it was merely a tool.
Richard was the true Seeker and heir to the power of the sword created by the wizards in the great war. It should be with him. He should be protecting the sword.
Late in the afternoon they left the eastern path they were on and took one tending east and south. Richard knew the trail; it would pass through a village in another day, and then become a narrow road. Since Nicci had deliberately taken the new route, she must have known that, too.
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The two men, sitting on a broad flat rock jutting out into the lake, waved in greeting. It wasn't often one encountered riders out here. Richard and Nicci were too far away for the men to make them out. The men probably assumed they were trappers.
They rounded a bend and finally disappeared from the men. Richard wiped his wet hair off his forehead as they rode along beside the lake, listening to the small waves lapping at the muddy shore. Leaving the lake behind, they cut into the forest as the trail rose on its way across a gentle slope. Nicci had put her hood up against the intermittent rain and drizzle purring through the trees. A darkening gloom descended on the woods.
"When we come upon someone, what am I to say? I don't suppose you want me telling people you're a Sister of the Dark out snatching victims. Or do you wish me to play the part of a mute?"
"You will be my husband, as far as everyone is concerned," she said without hesitation. "I expect you to adhere to that story under all circumstances. For all practical purposes, from now on, you are my husband. I am your wife."
Swaying gently in her saddle, Nicci seemed indifferent to his words or the emotion behind them. She gazed skyward, taking in the darkening sky.
"Do you think you could find us another of those shelter trees?" Nicci asked. "Where it would be dry, like last night? I'd dearly love to get dry and warm."
"Yes."
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She watched him, not openly, but casually, covertly, from the corner of her eye as he went about his chore. He was everything she remembered, and more. It was not so much that he was just big, physically, but he had a commanding presence that had matured since she had last seen him. Before, she had been tempted at times to think of him as little more than a boy. No more.
Nicci could understand his smoldering anger. It was to be expected. She could plainly see his feelings for the Mother Confessor, and hers for him. The integrity of the walls of his pen consisted of nothing more than the gossamer fence rails of his feelings for her. While Nicci sympathized with his pain, she knew that she, of all people, could do nothing to alleviate it. It would take time for his hurt to heal. Over time, the rails of his fence would be replaced by others.
At the edge of the clearing, Nicci settled herself on a gray slab of granite that, by the unique angles of its broken face, had once belonged to the ledge poking out from under the deep green of balsam and spruce behind her, but over time had been moved away from it by the inexorable effort of nature, leaving a gap the shape of a jagged lightning bolt between their once-mated edges.
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As she worked at knotting the loose cords of the heavy twine strap back onto its buckle, she heard little crackling sounds coming from under the tree. The sputtering and popping told her that Richard had gotten the fire going. She heard the clang of a pot on rock, so she reasoned that we was leaving water to boil when the fire got hot enough.
"You said we needed to talk," Richard finally said to her as he stroked the curry comb over the mare's rump, whisking away a last spatter of mud. "I presume a talk consists of you dictating the terms of my imprisonment. I imagine you have rules for your captives."
"Just because something has happened to you before, Richard, don't assume that means it will again. Fate does not give birth to the same child over and over. Each is different. This is not like the two times before."
"Two times before?" There was no way he could miss her meaning. His blank expression didn't betray what he might be thinking as he lifted the stallion's right forefoot to pick its hoof clean. "I don't know what you're talking about."
He was not yet ready to accept how fundamentally different this was.
She found herself, instead of shrinking back, staring into that penetrating gaze of his, marveling that she had him. She finally had him. It could have been no more wondrous to her had she somehow managed to bottle the moon and stars.
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"You were at the Palace of the Prophets, where I was taken." She felt him swallow. "But the other . . ."
She pulled her cloak forward over her shoulders as she smiled distantly. "Remember when you first came to the Palace of the Prophets? Remember the speech you gave?"
She was still staring off into the memories. "I do. It was the first time I saw you. I remember every word."
"You were in a rage-not unlike now. You held out a red leather rod hanging around your neck. Remember, Richard?"
"You said that you had been collared before. You said that the person who had once put that collar around your neck had brought you pain to punish you, to teach you."
She focused once more on his gray eyes, eyes that watched her every blink, her every breath, as he weighed her every word. It was all going into some inner calculation, she knew-some inner master analysis of how high was his fence, and if he could jump it. He could not.
"I'm not from D'Hara." His voice sounded confident, nevertheless, she sensed a subterranean torrent of dread. "A Mord-Sith would know next to nothing about me."
"Oh, but she did, Richard. She knew a great deal." She smiled a small smile, not pleasure, nor mockery, but in distant sadness at the memory of that brave woman. "She knew Derma. She had been at the People's Palace in D'Hara, where you were taken after Derma captured you. She knew all about it."
"A Mord-Sith would not tell you anything." He stood and boldly met her gaze. "A Mord-Sith is a product of torture. She would say only enough to make you believe she was cooperating. She would feed you a clever lie to deceive you. She would die before speaking any words to harm her Lord Rahl."
With one long finger, Nicci pulled a sodden strand of blond hair off her cheek. "You underestimate me, Richard. That woman was very brave. I felt great sorrow for her, but there were things I wanted to know. She told it all. She told me everything I wanted to know."
A moment passed, and that truth finally found its way into his eyes. The rage departed reluctantly, replaced by the weight of sadness that made him swallow at his grief for this woman. Nicci had expected no less from him.
"I neither need nor want your sympathy."
Nicci gestured to the red leather weapon in his fist. "This woman did not suffer that kind of pain. I want you to know that."
"You killed her, this Mord-Sith named Denna, but not before she did unspeakable things to you."
"You threatened the Sisters of the Light because they, too, collared you. You told them they were not good enough to lick the boots of that woman, Denna, and so they were not. You told the Sisters that they thought they held the leash to your collar, but you promised them that they would find that what they held was a bolt of lightning. Don't think for one moment that I don't understand your feelings in this, or your resolve."
"But this time, Richard, the collar is around your heart and it is Kahlan who will be forfeit, should you make a mistake."
Nicci felt a weary boredom at his threats. People so often resorted to threatening her.
She couldn't begin to recall how many times Jagang had made solemn threats on her life, or how many of those times his hands had tightened around her throat choking the life out of her after he had beaten her senseless. Kadar Kardeef had at times been no less brutal. She'd lost count of the times she fully expected to die, starting with the time when she was little and the man pulled her into the alley to rob her.
"I cannot tell you the promises the Keeper of the underworld has made to me in my dreams, promises of unending suffering. That is my fate.
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"What is it you want?" Richard demanded.
"How long do you think you can hold me, Nicci?" In frustration, Richard ran his fingers back through his wet hair. "It isn't going to work, whatever it is you want. How long until you tire of this absurd sham?"
"My dear boy, I was born into this wretched world one hundred and eighty-one years past. You know that. Do you suppose I have not learned a great deal of patience, in all that time`? Though our bodies may look about the same age, and in many ways I am no older than you, I have lived near to seven of your lifetimes. Do you honestly believe that you would have patience to exceed mine? Do you think me some young foolish girl for you to outwit or outwait?"
"And don't think to make friends with me, or win me over. I am not Denna, or Verna, or Warren, or even Pasha, for that matter. I'm not interested in friends."
"I want to know what vile thing you did to that poor woman to make her tell you about Denna."
Frowning his incredulity, he turned to her once more. "What favor could you possibly do for a MordSith?"
Richard closed his eyes as his head sank with grief for this unknown woman who had died because of him. He clenched her weapon in his fist to his heart.