"I am?" Verna asked.
Verna's mouth twisted with displeasure. "None of us could teach him the simple task of sensing his own Han. I sat with him hours at a time and tried to guide him through it." She folded her arms and looked away from his intent gaze. "It just didn't work the way it should have."
"It is." Zedd sat down once more on the hard wooden bench beside Adie. "I would love, not only as his grandfather, but as First Wizard, to teach Richard what he needs to know about using his ability, but I'm coming to doubt that such a thing is possible. Richard is different from any other wizard in more ways than just his having the gift for Subtractive Magic in addition to the usual Additive."
Zedd pulled a fold of his heavy robes from between his bony bottom and the hard bench as he considered how to explain it.
"I'm afraid my knowledge could be more of an interference than an aid. Part of Richard's ability, and advantage, is the way he views the world-through not just fresh eyes, but the eyes of a Seeker of Truth. He doesn't know something is impossible, so he tries to accomplish it. I fear to tell him how to do things, how to use his magic, because such teaching also might suggest to him limits of his powers, thus
creating them in reality. What could I teach a war wizard? I know nothing about the Subtractive side of magic, much less the gift of such power."
"Well," Zedd mused, "that might be a thought." He let out a tired sigh as he turned more serious. "I have come to realize that it would not only be useless to try to teach Richard to use his ability, but it may even be dangerous-to the world.
No one offered any objection. Verna, for one, had firsthand experience that very likely confirmed the truth of his words. The rest of them probably knew Richard well enough to understand much the same.
Warren, who had just been about to ask another question before Verna spoke first, looked disappointed, but nodded in agreement.
"Summer be slipping away from us. The nights be turning chilly," Adie said as she pressed against Zedd's side. She looked up at him with her white eyes that in the lamplight had a soft amber cast. "Stay with me and warm my bones, old man?"
"Zedd," Verna said, seeming to notice in his eyes the weight of his thoughts, "Richard is a war wizard who, as you say, has in the past proven his remarkable ability. He's a very resourceful young man. Besides that, he is none other than the Seeker himself and has the Sword of Truth with him for protection-a sword that I can testify he knows how to use. Kahlan is a Confessor-the Mother Confessorand is experienced in the use of her power. They have a Mord-Sith with them. MordSith take no chances."
"What is it that worries you so?" Warren asked.
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As he relentlessly pressed his attack, forcing her back over a low rise of ledge and through the swale beyond, mounds of fallen leaves kicked aloft by his boots boiled up into the late-afternoon air like colorful thunderheads. The bright yellow, lustrous orange, and vivid red leaves rained down over rocky outcrops swaddled in prickly whorls of juniper. It was like doing battle amid a fallen rainbow.
She glanced left. There loomed a tall prominence of sheer rock draped with long trailers of woolly moss. To the other side, the brink of the ridge ran back to eventually meet that rock wall. Once the level ground tapered down to that dead end, the only option was going to be to climb straight up or straight down.
On a low, dead branch of a balsam fir not ten feet away, a small red squirrel, with his winter ear tufts already grown in, plucked a leathery brown rosette of lichen growing on the bark. With his white belly gloriously displayed, he sat on his haunches at the end of the broken-off deadwood, his bushy tail raised up, holding the crinkled piece of lichen in his tiny paws, eating round and round the edges, like some spectator at a tournament eating a fried bread cake while he watched the combatants clash.
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It was her opening-her only chance.
Richard covered the wound with both hands. He teetered a moment, and then crumpled into the bed of ferns, sprawling flat on his back. Leaves lying lightly atop taller ferns were lifted by the disturbance. They somersaulted up into the air, finally drifting down to brightly decorate his body. The fierce red of the maple leaves was so vibrant it would have made blood look brown by comparison.
"Cara!" Putting her left hand to Richard's chest, Kahlan pushed herself up on one arm to call out. "Cara! I killed Richard!"
"I killed him! Did you hear? Cara-did you see?"
"No you didn't," Richard said, still catching his breath.
"You only grazed me." He pressed the point of his willow switch to her side. "You've fallen into my trap. I have you at the point of my sword, now. Surrender, or die, woman."
She stabbed him repeatedly in his ribs with her willow practice sword as he giggled and rolled from side to side.
"Yes, all fight," Cara grouched as she intently watched out beyond the ridge. "You killed Lord Rahl. Good for you." She glanced back over her shoulder. "This one is mine, right, Lord Rahl? You promised this one was mine."
"Good." Cara smiled in satisfaction. "It's a big one."
"No you didn't! I won. I got you this time." She whacked him again with her willow sword. She paused and frowned. "I thought you said you weren't dead. You said it was only a scratch. Ha! You admitted I got you this time."
Kahlan kissed him to shut him up. Cara saw and rolled her eyes.
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"Come on! You promised this one was mine. I don't want to have gone through all this for nothing. Come on."
He held his hand out for Kahlan to help him up. She stabbed him in the ribs instead. "Got you again, Lord Rahl. You're getting sloppy."
Kahlan endeavored to show him a sedate smile, but she feared it came out as a giddy grin. Richard scooped up his pack and hefted it onto his back. Without delay, he started the descent down the steep, broken face of the mountain. Kahlan threw her long wolf's-fur mantle around her shoulders and followed him through the deep shade of sheltering spruce at the edge of the ridge, stepping on the exposed ledge rather than the low places.
"I know, 1 know," she grumbled. "How many times do you think I need to hear it'?"
Richard had patiently explained to her, "Pick where to put your feet in order to make your steps comparatively level. Don't step down to a lower spot if you don't need to, only to have to step up again as you continue your climb up the trail. Don't step up needlessly, only to have to step down again. If you must step up on something, you don't always need to lift your whole body just flex your legs."
Kahlan saw that as Cara descended the steep trail, she did as Richard had taught her and used a stick as an improvised staff to probe any suspicious low area where leaves collected before stepping there. This was no place to break an ankle. Richard said nothing, but sometimes he smiled when she found a hole with her stick rather than her foot, as she used to.
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Richard said that it was hard work that demanded you put reason before your wish to get down, get home, or get to a place to camp. "Wishing gets people killed," he often said. "Using your head gets you home."
"Why, thank you, Cara," Richard said in mock gratitude, as if he would have stepped there had she not warned him.
The raucous coats of autumn leaves had been resplendent while they lasted, but now they were but confetti on the ground, and there they faded fast. Usually, the oaks held on to their leaves until at least early winter, and some of them until spring, but up in the mountains icy winds and early storms had already stripped even the oaks bare of their tenacious brown leaves.
Richard shielded his eyes against the warm sunlight as he squinted higher up on the opposite slope. He made a sound deep in his throat to confirm that he saw it. "Nasty place to die."
Richard let his hand drop from his brow. "I guess not."
Richard gestured off to their right. "Let's not waste any time, though. I don't want to be caught up here come dark."
Both Richard and Cara awaited Kahlan's word. She didn't like the thought of being exposed in the crooked wood when the icy cold fog and drizzle arrived. "I'm fine, let's go and get it done. Then we can get down lower where we'll be able to find a wayward pine to stay dry tonight. I wouldn't mind sitting beside a hearty little fire sipping hot tea."
Cara blew warm breath into her cupped hands. "That sounds good to me."
A big wayward pine's boughs hung down to the ground all around. The needles grew mostly at the outer fringe, leaving the inner branches bare. Inside, under their dense green skirts, wayward pines provided excellent shelter from harsh weather, Something about the tree's sap made them resistant to fire, so if you were careful, you could have a cozy campfire inside while outside it rained and stormed.
After Kahlan's assurance that she was up to it, Richard and Cara nodded and started down the cliff. She had recovered from her terrible wounds, but they still left it up to her to decide if she was prepared for the effort of such a descent and climb and then descent again before they found a sheltered campsite-hopefully in a wayward pine.
Kahlan had not comprehended completely the punishing effort that would be required if she was to he herself again. Richard and Cara tried to cheer her up, but their efforts seemed distant; they just didn't understand what it was like. Her legs wasted away until they were bony sticks with knobby knees. She felt not just helpless, but ugly. Richard carved animals for her: hawks, foxes, otters, ducks, and even chipmunks. They seemed only a curiosity to her. At the lowest point, Kahlan almost wished she had died along with their child.
Richard hadn't made the window in the bedroom very big; in the summer heat the room was often sweltering. Kahlan could see only a bit of the sky outside her window, the tops of some trees, and the jagged blue.-gray shape of a mountain in the distance.
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One day, she was parched, and Richard had forgotten to fill the cup and place it where she could reach it on the simple table beside the bed. When she asked for water, Richard came back with the cup and a full waterskin and set them both on the windowsill as he called to Cara, outside. He rushed out, telling Kahlan as he went that he and Cara had to go check the fishing lines and they would be back as soon as they could. Before Kahlan could ask him to put the water closer, he was gone.
On the verge of tears, she let out a moan of self-pity and smacked her fist against the bed. She rolled her head to the right, away from the window, and closed her eyes. She decided to take a nap in order not to think about her thirst. Richard and Cara would be back by the time she awoke, and they would get the water for her. And Richard would get a scolding.
She couldn't make herself fall asleep. The annoying bird kept asking its question over and over again. More than once, she found herself whispering "yes, you," in answer. She growled a curse at Richard. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget her thirst, the heat, and the bird and go to sleep. Her eyes kept popping open.
With an ill-tempered huff, she threw the light cover off her bony legs. She hated seeing them. Why was Richard being so inconsiderate? What was the matter with him? She intended to give him a piece of her mind when he got back. She eased her legs over the side of the bed.
It was the first time she had sat up all by herself.
Accompanied by a lot of groaning and grunting, she worked herself to the bottom
of the bed. Sitting there, one hand holding the footboard to steady herself, she was still too far from the window to reach the water. She was going to have to stand.
After a day many weeks before, when she had called for a long time and Richard hadn't heard her weak voice, he had left a light pole beside her so she would be able to use it to reach out and knock on the wall or door if she was in urgent need of their help. Now, Kahlan worked her fingers around the pole lying alongside her bed and lifted it upright. She planted the thicker end on the ground and leaned on the pole for support as she carefully slid off the bed. Her feet touched the cool dirt floor. Putting weight on her legs made her gasp in pain.
She put more weight on her feet and pulled herself up with the aid of the pole. Finally, she stood in wobbling triumph. She was actually on her feet, and she had done it by herself.
With the aid of the stout pole for support and her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth for balance, she slowly shuffled to the window. Kahlan told herself that if she fell, she was going to lie there in a heap on the floor, without any water, until Richard came back and found her moaning through cracked lips, dying of thirst. He would be sorry he had ever tried such a pitiless trick. He would feel guilty for the rest of his life for what he had done to her-she would see to it.
Kahlan plunked the empty cup down on the sill and peered out as she caught her breath again.
"Hi there," he said with a smile.
Kahlan wanted to yell at him, but instead she found herself trying with all her might not to laugh. She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly foolish for not trying sooner to get up on her own.
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"What do you mean?" Kahlan asked.
While she silently thanked him, she was unwilling, just yet, to tell him out loud how right he had been. But inside, she loved him all the more for braving her anger to help her.
Richard shrugged. "If she gets hungry, she'll come out of the bedroom and find it."
"Well, glad to see your arm works," he said. "You can cut your own bread." When she started to protest, he said, "It's only fair. Cara baked it. The least you can do is to cut it."
"Lord Rahl taught me," Cara said. "I wanted bread with my stew, real bread, and he told me that if I wanted bread, I would have to learn to make it. It was easy, really. A little like walking to the window. But I was much more good-natured about it, and didn't throw anything at him."
"Give me back my cup. And then go catch some fish for dinner. I'm hungry. I want a trout. A big trout. Along with bread."
Kahlan did find the table. She never ate in bed again.
Kahlan was joyous to be out of the bed and that helped her to ignore the pain. The world was again a wondrous place. She was more than joyous to be able at last to go out to the privy. While she never said so, Kahlan was sure Cara was happy about that, too.
She discovered that the view outside her window was the least impressive of the surrounding sights. Snowcapped peaks towered around the small house Richard and Cara had built in the lap of breathtaking mountains. The simple house, with a bed 149
Richard had continued his carving, to pass the time as he sat by Kahlan's bed, talking and telling stories, but after she had at last gotten out of bed, his carvings changed. Instead of animals, Richard began sculpting people.
Astonished by the utter realism and power of the small statue, she whispered that it could only be the gift that had guided his hand in carving it. Richard regarded such talk as nonsense.
She knew, though, that some artists were gifted, and able to invoke magic through their art.
It was true that art could exist independent of magic, but Richard had been taken captive in the first place only with the aid of a spell brought to life through art. Art was a universal language, and thus an invaluable tool for implementing magic.
But the figure of the woman that he carved for her as a gift stirred profound emotion within her. He called it, an image nearly two feet tall carved from buttery smooth, rich, aromatic walnut, Spirit. The feminity of her body, its exquisite shape and curves, bones and muscle, were clearly evident beneath her flowing robes. She looked alive.
The statue was obviously not intended to look like Kahlan, yet it evoked in her some visceral response, a tension that was startlingly familiar. Something about the woman in the carving, some quality it conveyed, made Kahlan hunger to be well, to be fully alive, to be strong and independent again.
Kahlan had been around grand palaces her whole life, exposed to any number of
pieces of great art by renowned artists, but none had ever taken her breath with its thrust of inner vision, its sense of individual nobility, as did this proud, vibrant woman in flowing robes. The strength and vitality of it brought a lump to Kahlan's throat, and she could only throw her arms around Richard's neck in speechless emotion.
One of the first places Richard took her when she insisted she could walk for a short distance was through that tunnel in the thick, dark wood to the patch of light at the other end, where a brook descended a rocky gorge. The brook was sheltered on the hillside above them by a dense stand of trees. An enormous weight of water continuously plunged over that stepped tumble of rocks, surging around boulders and pouring in glassy sheets over ledges. Many of the bear-sized rocks sitting in the shady pools were flocked in a dark green velvet of moss and sprinkled with long tawny needles from the white pines that favored the rock slope. Flecks of sunlight winking through the dense canopy shimmered in the clear pools.
She loved watching the fish, frogs, crayfish, and even the salamanders. Oftentimes, she would lie on her stomach on the low grassy bank, with her chin resting on the backs of her hands, and watch for hours as the fish came out from under sunken logs, from beneath rocks, or from the dark depths of the larger pools to snatch a bug from the surface of the water. Kahlan caught crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs and periodically tossed them in for the fish. Richard laughed when she talked to the fish, encouraging them to come up out of their dark holes for a tasty bug. Sometimes, a graceful gray heron would stand on its thin legs in the shallow marshes not far away and occasionally spear a fish or a frog with its daggerlike bill.
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Still, the thoughts in the back of her mind hounded her; she knew that she and Richard were needed elsewhere. They had responsibilities. Richard casually deflected the subject whenever she broached it; he had already explained his reasoning, and believed he was doing what was right.
For the time being, Kahlan knew she needed to get better, and her isolated mountain life was making her stronger by the day, probably as nothing else could. Once they returned to the war-once she convinced him that they must return-this peaceful life would be but a cherished memory. She resolved to enjoy what she couldn't change, while it lasted.
After he'd cleaned an empty lamp-oil jug and several widemouthed glass jars that had held preserves, herbs, and unguents for her injuries, along with other supplies he had purchased on their journey away from Anderith, he put some gravel in the bottom and filled them with water from the stream. He then caught some blacknose dace minnows and put them in the glass containers. They were yellowish olive on top speckled with black, with white bottoms, and a thick black line down each side. He even provided them with a bit of weed from the brook so they could have a place to hide and feel safe.
"Just don't name them," Richard said, "because eventually they're going to die."
After the fish became accustomed to people, they went about their little lives as if living in ajar were perfectly natural. From time to time, Richard would pour out part of their water, and add fresh water from the brook. Kahlan and Cara fed the little fish crumbs of bread or tiny scraps from dinner, along with small bugs. The fish ate eagerly, and spent most of their time pecking at the gravel on the bottom, or swimming about, looking out at the world. After a while, the fish learned when it
was lunchtime. They would wiggle eagerly on the other side of the glass whenever anyone approached, like puppies happy to see their masters.
In the corner of the room was a wooden door over a deep root cellar. Against the back wall were simple shelves and a big cupboard full of supplies. They'd bought a lot of supplies along the way and carried them either in the carriage with Kahlan or strapped on the back and sides. For the last part of the journey Richard and Cara had lugged everything in, since the carriage couldn't make it over narrow mountain passes where there were no roads. Richard had blazed the trail in.
While Kahlan had been bedridden, Richard had slept on a pallet in the main room, or sometimes outside under the stars. A number of times, at first, when she was in so much pain, Kahlan had awakened to see him sitting on the floor beside her bed, dozing as he leaned against the wall, always ready to jump up if she needed anything, or to offer her medicines and herb teas. He hadn't wanted to sleep in bed with her for fear of it hurting her. She almost would have been willing to endure it for the comfort of his presence beside her. Finally, though, after she was up and about, he was at last able to lie beside her. That first night with him in bed, she had held his big warm hand to her belly as she gazed at Spirit silhouetted in the moonlight, listening to the night calls of birds, bugs, and the songs of the wolves until her eyes closed and she drifted into a peaceful slumber.
They were at the stream, checking the fishing lines, when he cut two straight willow switches. He tossed one on the ground beside where she sat, and told her it was her sword.
Thereafter, it became a game Kahlan wanted to win. Richard never let her win, not even just to be nice when she was feeling low because of her slow progress at getting stronger. He repeatedly humbled her in front of Cara. Kahlan knew he was doing it to make her push herself to use her muscles, to forget her aches, to stretch and strengthen her body. Kahlan just wanted to win.
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Kahlan had been taught to use a sword by her father, King Wyborn. At least, he had been king before Kahlan's mother took him for her mate. King was an insignificant title to a Confessor. King Wyborn of Galea had had two children with his queen and first wife, so Kahlan had both an older half sister and a half brother.
Something about it, though, was still unsettling: Richard fought in a way Kahlan had never encountered in her training, or in the real combat she had seen. She couldn't define or analyze the difference, but she could feel it, and she didn't know what to do to counter it.
A couple of times Kahlan had been so upset by Richard's relentless attitude toward their sword fights that she didn't speak to him for hours afterward, lest she let slip words she didn't really mean and which she knew she would regret.
Kahlan well knew that an enemy was never kind. If Richard gave in to kindnessawarded her false pride-it could only serve her ill. As aggravating as such lessons sometimes were, it was impossible to remain angry with Richard for very long, especially because she knew she was really only angry with herself.
Richard had told her once, before she had been hurt, that he had come to believe that magic itself could be an art form. She had told him she thought that was crazy. Now, she didn't know. From the bits of the story she'd heard, she suspected that Richard had used magic in something of that way to defeat the chimes: he had created a solution where it had never before existed, or even been imagined.
It was in that instant that the whole concept came clear for her. She had been looking at it all wrong.
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Fighting was but one use of a blade. His balance for using his sword to destroymagic always sought balance-was using a blade to carve things of beauty. She had been looking at the individual parts of what he did, trying to understand them separately; Richard saw only one unified whole.
Richard paused. "What's the matter? Your face is turning white."
Richard blinked at her as if she had just announced that rain was wet. "But, of course." Richard touched the amulet hanging at his chest. In the center, surrounded by a complex of gold and silver lines, was a teardrop-shaped ruby as big as her thumbnail. "I told you that a long time ago. Are you just now coming to believe me?"
Kahlan recalled all too clearly his chilling words to her when she had first seen the amulet around his neck, and she had asked him what it was:
"It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut.
"It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death.
The dance was art. It was no different, really, from carving. Art expressed through a blade. It was all one and the same to him. He saw no distinction, for within him, there was none.
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Chipmunks begged at their door, and regularly invited themselves into the house for a look around. Kahlan often caught herself talking to them and asking questions as if they could understand her every word. The way they paused and cocked their heads at her made her suspect they really could. In the early mornings, small herds of deer often visited the meadow, some leaving fresh, inverted heart-shaped tracks near the door as they passed. Lately, aggressive bucks in rut, bearing huge racks, had been showing up. One of the hides Kahlan wore was from a wolf injured by one of those bucks up in an oak grove not far away. Richard had spared the wounded animal a lingering, suffering death.
She distinctly remembered the rainy night after walking home in the wet and cold, when she lay on her back in bed, eyes shut, as Richard rubbed warm oil into her leg muscles. He whispered that her legs finally seemed to have gotten back all their tone and shape. Kahlan looked up and saw desire in his eyes. It was an almost forgotten thrill to know his hunger for her. She had been so startled that she felt tears trickle down her cheeks with the joy of suddenly feeling like a woman again-a desirable woman.
"Why, Lord Rahl," she said in a breathy whisper, "I do believe you are going to get carried away."
"I won't break, Richard," she said as she caught his hand and pulled it back. "I'm all right, now. I'd like it if you got carried away."
As the rain drummed on the roof, as lightning lit the lines and the clenched-fist strength of the statue in the window and thunder rumbled through the mountains, Kahlan, without fearing it, without worrying about it, without wondering if she would be able, held Richard tightly as they made quiet, gentle, fierce love. They had never needed each other as much as that night. All her fears and worries evaporated in the heat of overpowering need welling up through her. She wept with the strength of her pleasure and the release of her emotions.
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--]--- Their marches into the mountains ranged farther and farther. Sometimes they took packs and spent the night in the woods, often in a wayward pine, when they could find one. The rugged terrain offered a never-ending variety of vistas. In places, sheer rock cliffs towered over them. In other places, they stood at the brink of sheer drops and watched the sun turn the sky orange and purple as it went down while wispy clouds drifted through quiet green valleys below. They went to towering waterfalls with their own rainbows. There were clear, sunlit pools up in the mountains where they swam. They ate on rocks overlooking rugged sights no one but they ever saw. They followed animal trails through vast woods of gnarled trees, and others among the dark forest floor where grew trees with trunks like huge brown columns, so big twenty men couldn't have joined hands around them.
Kahlan helped clean fish and salt them down and smoke yet others for their winter stores. It was a job that she had never before undertaken. They collected berries, nuts, and wild apples and put a lot of those away in the root cellar along with root crops he had purchased before coming up into the mountains. Richard dug up small apple trees, when he found any, and planted them in the meadow by the house so that, he said, someday they would have apples close at hand.
Kahlan had always felt the weight of their responsibilities. Like the towering mountains all around, looming over them, always shadowing them, that responsibility could never be completely forgotten. As much as she loved the house Richard had built on the edge of the meadow, and as much as she loved exploring the rugged beautiful, imposing, and ever-changing mountains, with each passing day she mom and more felt that weight and the anxious need to be back where they were needed most. She fretted at what could be going on that they weren't aware of. The Imperial Order was not going to stay put; an army that size liked to move. Soldiers, especially soldiers of that ilk, became restless in long encampments, and sooner or later started causing trouble. She worried about all the people who needed the reassurance of Richard's presence, his guidance-and hers. There were people who their whole
lives had depended on the Mother Confessor always being there to stand up for them.
They had collected most of the wolf pelts from injured or old animals. Richard, Kahlan, and Cara often tracked wolf packs as a way of helping to build Kahlan's strength. Kahlan came to recognize their tracks, and even learned to know at a glance, if the prints were in mud or soft dirt, their front paws from the rear. Richard showed her how the toes of the front spread out more, with a more welldefined heel pad than the rear paw. He had located several packs in the mountains, and the three of them often followed one group or family to see if they could do so without the wolves knowing. Richard said it was a kind of game guides used to play to keep in practice-to keep their senses sharp.
This had been a journey to find pelts for Cara's mantle, and she had been eager. She had even cooked for them.
Almost every day for the last two months, Richard had her marching over the most difficult terrain, the kind of terrain that made her strain every muscle in her body. As Kahlan had gotten stronger, the marches had gotten longer. At first they were only across the house; now they were across mountains. On top of that, he frequently attacked her with his willow sword and poked fun at her if she didn't put in her absolute hardest fight.
Kahlan thought that she must be stronger, now, after all Richard had put her through, than at any time in her life. It had not been easy, but it had been worth at last feeling like the carving in the window of her bedroom.
He saw in her eyes the seriousness of the question. "You killed me because I made a mistake."
"A mistake? You mean, perhaps you had gotten too confident? Perhaps you were just tired, or were thinking of something else."
Kahlan couldn't help but to be struck by the obvious question: was he making a mistake in staying out of the effort to keep the Midlands free from the tyranny of the Imperial Order? She couldn't help feeling the pull to help her people, even though Richard still felt that if the people didn't want his leadership, his efforts could do no good. As Mother Confessor, Kahlan knew that while people didn't always understand that what a leader did was done in their best interest, that was no reason to abandon them.
Cara led them down the craggy precipice, having to backtrack only twice. It was a difficult descent. Cara was pleased with herself, and that Richard had let her pick the route. It was her pelt they were going after, so he let her lead them across the tangle of undergrowth in the ravine at the bottom and then up the following lip of the notch where trees clung with roots like talons to the rocky rise.
The climb was steep, but not arduous. As they ascended, the big trees grew farther and farther apart. The boughs became scraggly, allowing more of the somber light to seep in. For the most part, the rocks higher up were bare of moss and leaves. In places they had to use handholds on the rock, or else roots, to help them climb. Kahlan pulled deep breaths of the cold air; it felt good to test her muscles.
The scree and rock were naked of the thick moss common lower down the mountain, but they bore yellow-green splotches of lichen outlined in black. Only a bit of scraggly brush clung to the low places here and there. But it was the trees that were the most odd, and gave the place at the top of the tree line its name. They were all stunted-few taller than Kahlan or Richard. Most of the branches grew to one side because of the prevailing winds, leaving the trees looking like grotesque, running skeletons frozen in torment.
"Here it is," Cara said.
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Richard and Cara started skinning the good-sized female animal as Kahlan went out to the edge of an overhang. She drew her own mantle up around her ears as she stood in the bitter wind surveying the approaching clouds. She was somewhat startled by what she saw.
He looked up from his bloody work. "Do you see any wayward pines down in the valley?"
"Yes, I see a couple. The snow is still a ways off. If you're not long at that, we can probably make it down there and collect some wood before it gets wet."
Richard stood to have a quick look for himself. With a bloody hand, he absently fifted his real sword a few inches and then let it drop back, a habit he had of checking to make sure the weapon was clear in its scabbard. It was an unsettling gesture. He had not drawn the weapon from its hilt since the day he had been forced to kill all those men who had attacked them back near Hartland.
"What?" Richard saw where her eyes were looking and glanced down at the sword on his hip. "Oh. No, nothing. Just habit, I guess."
Richard wiped the back of his wrist across his brow, swiping his hair away from his eyes. His fingers glistened with blood. "We'll be down there, sheltered by a wayward pine, sitting beside a cozy fire having tea before dark. I can stretch the hide on the branches inside and scrape it there. The snow will help insulate us inside the tree's boughs. We'll have a good rest before heading back in the morning. Down a little lower, it will only be rain."
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When they arrived home two days later, the little fish in the jars were all dead. They had used the same easier route over the pass that they had originally used to enter the valley when they had first come in with the horses, months before. Of course, Kahlan didn't recall that trip; she had been unconscious. It seemed a lifetime ago.
As Richard brought in firewood and Cara fetched water, Kahlan pulled out a little square of cloth with some small bugs she'd caught earlier that day, intending to give her fish a treat, since they were sure to be hungry. She let out a little groan when she saw that they were dead.
"Looks like they starved," Kahlan told her.
"But they did live a long time," Kahlan said, as if to prove him wrong and somehow talk him out of it.
"Cara named one."
After the flames took from his flint, Richard looked up and smiled. "Well, I'll get you some more."
Richard snorted a laugh. "You've got quite the imagination. They only depended on us because we artificially altered their lives. Just like the chipmunks would stop hunting seeds for their winter stores if we gave them handouts all the time. Of course, the fish had no choice, because we kept them in jars. Left to their own initiative, the fish wouldn't need any help from us. After all, it took a net to catch them. I'll catch you some more, and they'll come to need you just as much."
Two days later, on a thinly overcast day, after they'd had a big lunch of thick rabbit stew with turnips and onions along with bread Cara had made, Richard went off to check the fishing lines and to catch some more of the blacknose dace minnows.
"You know," she said, looking back over her shoulder, "I like it here, I really do, but it's starting to make me jumpy."
"Mother Confessor, this place is nice enough, but it's starting to make me go daft. I am Mord-Sith. Dear spirits, I'm starting to name fish in jars!" Cara turned back to the bucket and bent to cleaning the spoons with a washcloth. "Don't you think it's about time we convinced Lord Rahl that we need to get back?"
She'd had a lifetime to become used to the way people didn't always want or understand her help, and forging ahead anyway because she knew it was in their best interest. Richard never had to learn to face that cold indifference and go about his duty despite it.
Cara's blue eyes flashed with determination. "You are the Mother Confessor. Break the spell of this place. Tell him that you are needed back there, and that you are going to return. What's he going to do? Tie you to a tree? If you leave, he will follow. He will have to return, then."
"But going back doesn't mean he would have to lead our side. You would only be making him follow you back, not making him return to leadership." Cara smirked. "But maybe when he sees how much he is needed, he will come to his senses."
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Cara gestured with the dripping washcloth. "Maybe he doesn't really believe it, not really, not deep down inside. Maybe he doesn't want to go back because he doubts himself-over the Anderith thing-and so he thinks it's just easier for him to stay away."
"But you can leave at any time, Cara, if you feel so strongly about going back. He has no claim on your life. You don't have to stay here if you don't wish to."
"Foolish? You follow him because you believe in him. So do I. That's why I could never walk away, forcing him to follow."
Kahlan smiled in understanding of Cara's frustration. While she wouldn't try to force Richard into something he was dead set against, that didn't preclude her from trying to change his mind. She drained her teacup and plunked it down on the counter. That would be different.
Cara peered over with a suspicious sidelong glance. "So, what do you think we can do to convince him?"
"A bath?"
"Your white Mother Confessor's dress . . ." Cara smiled conspiratorially. "Ah. Now that will be the kind of battle a woman is better equipped to fight."
"Well, not exactly a battle the way you're thinking, but I believe I can state the case better if I'm dressed properly. That wouldn't be unfair. I will be putting the issue to him as the Mother Confessor. I believe that in some ways his judgment has been clouded; it's hard to think about anything else when you're worried sick about someone you love."
Smirking, Cara swiped back a wisp of her blond hair. "He will see that, and more, if you were in that dress of yours, that's for sure."
"I want him to see the woman who was strong enough to win against him with a sword. I want him to see that Mother Confessor in the dress, too."
Kahlan set the plates into the bucket of water. "It's settled, then. We've enough time before he comes back."
Cara towed the tub from the corner, leaving drag marks across the dirt floor. "I'll put it in my room. You go first. That way, if he comes back sooner rather than later, you can keep your nosy husband busy and out of my hair while I wash it."
She smiled at recalling all the trouble Richard had had with women in bathwater. It was a good thing he wasn't there. Later, after they had their talk, she thought she would ask him to take a bath before bed. She liked the aroma of his sweat when it was clean sweat.
As she tossed the towel on the bed, her eye was caught by the statue in the window. Kahlan fisted her hands at her sides and, standing naked, arched her back and threw her head back, mimicking Spirit, letting the feeling of it overcome her, letting herself be that strong spirit, letting it flow through her.
This was a day of change. She could feel it.
As Mother Confessor, Kahlan felt sure of herself. On a fundamental level, the dress was a form of battle armor. Wearing the dress, Kahlan also felt a sense of importance, in that she carried the weight of history, of exceptional women who had gone before her. The Mother Confessor bore a terrible responsibility, but also had the satisfaction of being able to make a real difference for the better in people's lives.
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Once she was back out in the main room, Kahlan could hear Cara splashing in the tub. "Need anything, Cara?" she called out.
Kahlan laughed knowingly. She saw a chipmunk casting about outside the house. "I'm going to go feed Chippy some apple cores. If you need anything, call out."
"All right," Cara said from her tub. "If Lord Rahl gets back, though, just kiss him or something to keep him busy but wait until I'm done before you talk to him. I want to be with you to help you convince him. I want to be sure we make him see the light."
She plucked an apple core from the wooden bucket of little animal snacks they kept hanging on a piece of twine where the chipmunks couldn't get to them on their own. The squirrels loved apple cores, too. The horses preferred their apples whole.
Outside, Kahlan saw the chipmunk off to the side, foraging through the grass. The chill breeze caressed the long folds of her dress to her legs as she walked. It was almost cold enough to need the fur mantle. The bare branches of the oaks behind the house creaked and groaned as they rubbed together. The pines, reaching toward the sky where the wind was stronger, bowed deeply with some of the gusts. The sun had taken refuge behind a steel-gray overcast that made her white dress all the more striking in the gloom.
"Here you go, sweetheart," she cooed. "A nice apple for you."
He suddenly flinched with a squeak and froze.
The woman stood not ten feet away in a pose of cool scrutiny. Kahlan's throat locked the gasp in her lungs. The woman had seemed to appear in the middle of nowhere, out of nowhere. Icy gooseflesh prickled up the backs of Kahlan's arms.
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This woman made Kahlan feel as ugly as a clod of dirt, and instinctively as helpless as a child. She wanted nothing so much as to shrink away. Instead, she stared into the woman's blue eyes for what couldn't have been more than a second or two, but in that span of time an eternity seemed to pass. In those knowing blue eyes flowed some formidable, frightful current of contemplation.
Without speaking a word, the woman lifted her hands out a little and turned her palms up, as if humbly offering something. Her hands were empty.
As she began to move, to make that reckless leap, the world went white in a bloom of pain.
The house wasn't far off through the trees. He dropped the string of trout and the jar of minnows, and ran.
Richard saw the two women not far away, in front of the house, one dressed in white, and one in black. They were connected by a snaking, undulating, crackling line of milky white light. Nicci's arms were lifted slightly with her hands turned palms up and a little farther apart than the width of her hips.
Seeing Kahlan trembling with the fury of that lance of light pinning her to the wall, Richard was paralyzed by fear for her, fear he knew all too well, from when she had been on the cusp of death. That bolt pierced Nicci's heart, too, connecting the two women. Richard didn't understand the magic Nicci was using, but he instinctively recognized it as profoundly dangerous, not only to Kahlan, but to Nicci as well, for she, too, was in pain. That Nicci would put herself at such risk gripped him with dread.
In a desperate search for answers, everything Richard knew about magic cascaded in a torrent through his mind. None of it told him what to do, but it did tell him what he must not do. Kahlan's life hung in the balance.
Cara's fist clutched the red leather rod-her Agiel-as she crouched. The muscles of her legs, arms, and shoulders strained with tension demanding release.
"Cara! No!" Richard cried out.
Nicci shrieked in pain that dropped her to her knees. Kahlan cried out in equal pain and crumpled to her knees as well, her movement a close match to Nicci's.
Nicci was doing nothing to stop Cara as the Agiel hung only inches from her throat.
Cara was so enraged and in such a combative state that she lashed out with her Agiel at Richard, not really realizing it was him, knowing only that she was being prevented from protecting Kahlan.
Cara was riveted on the kill and furious at any interference. Richard regained his senses just in time to seize her wrists and pin her to the ground before she could pounce on Nicci. A Mord-Sith was formidable, to be sure, but such a woman was instilled with the ability to counter magic, not muscle. That was why she had been trying to goad Nicci into using her power; only in that way could she capture the enemy's magic and so overpower her.
At that moment, the Mord-Sith was more of a threat to Kahlan's life than Nicci was. If Nicci intended to kill Kahlan, he was sure she could have already done so. Richard might not have understood specifically what Nicci was doing, but by what he had already seen, he grasped the general nature of it.
"Cara, stop!" His jaw worked, if painfully, so he reasoned it wasn't broken. "It's me. Stop. You'll kill Kahlan." Cara stilled under him, staring up in angry confusion. "What you do to Nicci happens to Kahlan, too."
Cara reached up when Richard released her wrists and touched the side of his mouth. "I'm sorry," she whispered, realizing what she had done. Her tone told him she meant it. Richard nodded and then stood, pulling her up by her hand before rounding on Nicci.
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Nicci's hands lifted. She laid her palms to her heart, over the light. Her back was to Richard, but he could see the light through her, like fire eating through the center of a piece of paper, the incandescent hole expanding outward, appearing to consume her. The twisting flare of light was doing the same thing to Kahlan, seeming to burn through her, yet Richard could see that she was not being killed by it. She was still breathing, still moving, still alive-not reacting at all the way a person would if they were really having holes burned through them. With magic, he knew better than to believe his eyes.
The light cut off. Kahlan, her own hands pressed to the wall behind her, sagged in relief as it extinguished, her eyes closing as if it was too much to endure looking at the woman standing before her.
Nicci smiled pleasantly at Kahlan before turning to Richard. Her calm blue eyes momentarily took in his white-knuckled fist on the hilt of his sword.
"What have you done?" He growled through gritted teeth.
"I have spelled your wife, Richard."
"To what end?" he asked.
"What's going to happen to her? What harm have you done?"
Richard frowned, understanding her, but wishing he were wrong. "You mean, if I hurt you, Kahlan will suffer it, too?"
Richard could sense the magic crackling around this woman. He had come to know in most cases, through his own gift, when a person had the gift. What others couldn't see, he saw. He could see it in their eyes, and sometimes sense the aura of it around them. He had rarely met gifted women who made the very air about them sizzle with their power. Worse, though, Nicci was a Sister of the Dark.
"That light you saw was an umbilical cord of sorts: an umbilical cord of magic. By bending the nature of this world, it links our lives, no matter the distance between
us. Just as I am the daughter of my mother and nothing could ever change that, so neither can this magic be altered by anyone else."
She still moved with an unmatched, slow elegance. He had always thought her movements seductive. He now saw them as the sinuous movements of a snake.
This was a time, perhaps more than any other, that he knew had to be faced with truth, and not his raw wishes. Life and death hung in the balance.
Nicci calmly watched to see what he might do. What he would finally decide seemed no more than a matter of curiosity to her. Richard had no need to think or to decide.