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A novel of the nobility of the human spirit.
New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind returns with an extraordinary new novel of the majestic Sword of Truth. Richard, the Lord Rahl and the Seeker of Truth, has returned to his boyhood home, Hartland.
Kahlan, left behind and unwilling to abandon the cause of the Midlands, violates prophecy and breaks her last pledge to Richard. Finally she will come face to face with the architect of the terror sweeping her land-the mad dreamwalker, Emperor Jagang.
There was absolutely nothing she could do about it if she was.
That first night, when she had perceived the distant, disembodied voices as little more than a vague notion, she had grasped that there were people around her who didn't believe, even though she was again living, that she would remain alive through the rest of the night. But now she knew she had; she had remained alive many more nights, perhaps in answer to desperate prayers and earnest oaths whispered over her that first night.
Sometime after-whether hours or days, she didn't know-when she was lying under clean sheets in an unfamiliar bed and had looked up into his gray eyes, she knew that, for some, the world reserved pain worse than she had suffered.
Thereafter, whenever her own eyes were closed, she saw his, saw not only the helpless suffering in them but also the light of such fierce hope as could only be kindled by righteous love. Somewhere, even in the worst of the darkness blanketing her mind, she refused to let the light in his eyes be extinguished by her failure to will herself to live.
13
Now, as Kahlan heard men growling his name, she knew it, she knew him. With tenacious resolution she clung to that name-Richard-and to her memory of hint, of who he was, of everything he meant to her.
The sounds of angry men calling Richard by name at last tugged Kahlan's eyes open. She squinted against the agony that had been tempered, if not banished, while in the cocoon of sleep. She was greeted by a blush of amber light filling the small room around her. Since the light wasn't bright, she reasoned that there must be a covering over a window muting the sunlight, or maybe it was dusk. Whenever she woke, as now, she not only had no sense of time, but no sense of how long she had been asleep.
She caught herself, forced her thoughts to the surface, and willed her eyes open again. She remembered: they gave her herbs to dull the pain and to help her sleep. Richard knew a good deal about herbs. At least the herbs helped her, drift into stuporous sleep. The pain, if not as sharp, still found her there.
The room was tiny; in the Confessors' Palace, where she had grown up, a room this small would not have qualified as a closet for linens. Moreover, it would have been stone, if not marble. She liked the tiny wooden room; she expected that Richard had built it to protect her. It felt almost like his sheltering arms around her. Marble, with its aloof dignity, never comforted her in that way.
Turning her eyes to the right, she saw a brown wool blanket hanging over the doorway. From beyond the doorway came fragments of angry, threatening voices.
"It's not by our choice, Richard... We have our own families to think about... Wives and Children
Gasping against the racking agony of attempted movement, she dropped back before she had managed to lift her shoulder an inch off the bed. Her panting twisted the daggers piercing her sides. She had to will herself to slow her breathing in order to get the stabbing pain under control. As the worst of the torment in her arm and the stitches in her ribs eased, she finally let out a soft moan.
She cautiously reached up with her right hand and wiped her fingers across the bloom of sweat on her brow, sweat sown by the flash of pain. Her right shoulder socket hurt, but it worked well enough. She was pleased by that triumph, at least. She touched her puffy eyes, understanding then why it had hurt to look toward the door. Gingerly, her fingers explored a foreign landscape of swollen flesh. Her imagination colored it a ghastly black-and-blue. When her fingers brushed cuts on her cheek, hot embers seemed to sear raw, exposed nerves.
With a bittersweet longing, Kahlan recalled lying with Richard, their limbs tangled in delicious exhaustion, his skin hot against hers, his big hand resting on her belly as they caught their breath. It was agony wanting to hold him in her arms again and being unable to do so. She reminded herself that it was only a matter of some time and some healing. They were together and that was what mattered. His mere presence was a restorative.
The men's voices were heated and insistent as they all began talking at once. "It's not because we want to-you should know that, Richard, you know us .... What if it brings trouble here? . . . We've heard about the fighting. You said yourself she's from the Midlands. We can't allow . . . we won't . . ."
Instead of drawing his sword, Richard said, "I'm not asking anyone to give Me anything I want only to be left alone in a peaceful place where I can care for her. I wanted to be close to Hartland in case she needed something." He paused. "Please . . . just until she has a chance to get better."
Kahlan wanted to scream at him: No! Don't you dare beg them, Richard! They have no right to make you beg. They've no right! They could never understand the sacrifices you've made.
"Don't test us .... We'll burn you out if we have to! You can't fight us all-we have right on our side."
"It's not because we like doing this, Richard," someone finally said in a sheepish voice. "We've no choice. We've got to consider our own families and everyone else."
"That's right," said another. "Just because you went off and saw some of the world, that don't mean you can come back here thinking you're better than us."
"You turned your back on your community, on your roots, as I see it; you think our women aren't good enough for the great Richard Cypher. No, he had to marry some woman from away. Then you come back here and think to flaunt yourselves over us."
These men knew him as Richard Cypher, a simple woods guide, not as the person he had discovered he was in truth, and who he had become. He was the same man as before, but in so many ways, they had never known him.
"Did he tell you this, Albert?" Richard asked. "Does this Creator of yours come to talk with you about his intentions and confide in you his wishes?"
"Besides," another man spoke up, "this Imperial Order you warn about has some good things to be said for it. If you weren't so bullheaded, Richard, you'd see that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see everyone treated decent. It's only being fair minded. It's only right. Those are the Creator's wishes, you've got to admit, and that's what the Imperial Order teaches, too. If you can't see that much good in the Order-well then, you'd best be gone, and soon."
In an ominous tone of voice, Richard said, "So be it."
These were men Richard knew; he had addressed them by name and reminded them of years and deeds shared. He had been patient with them. Patience finally exhausted, he had reached intolerance.
She smiled a small smile for Richard, even if he couldn't see it. She wished only that he had not begged on her behalf; he would never, she knew, have begged for anything for himself.
He wore a black, sleeveless undershirt, without his shirt or magnificent gold and black tunic, leaving his muscular arms bare. At his left hip, the side toward her, a flash of light glinted off the pommel of his singular sword. His broad shoulders made the room seem even smaller than it had been only a moment before. His cleanshaven face, his strong jaw, and the crisp line of his mouth perfectly complemented his powerful form. His hair, a color somewhere between blond and brown, brushed the nape of his neck. But it was the intelligence so clearly evident in those penetrating gray eyes of his that from the first had riveted her attention.
The corners of his mouth tightened with the hint of a smile. "If I want to beg, I shall do so." He pulled her blanket up a little, making sure she was snugly covered, even though she was sweating. "I didn't know you were awake."
"A while."
Kahlan felt more like a person in her eighties than one in her twenties. She had never been hurt before, not grievously hurt, anyway, not to the point of being on the cusp of death and utterly helpless for so long. She hated it, and she hated that she couldn't do the simplest things for herself. Most of the time she detested that more than the pain.
Something inside seemed to have broken that night-some idea of herself, some confidence. She could so easily have died. Their baby could have died before it even had a chance to live.
She gazed into his eyes, summoning the courage to finally ask, "How do they know about the Order way up here?"
17
"But they intend us to leave. They sound like men who keep the oaths they've sworn."
"How could I ever forget the day I met you?"
Cara swept in through the doorway and came to a halt beside Richard, adding her shadow to his across the blue cotton blanket that covered Kahlan to her armpits. Sheathed in skintight red leather, Cara's body had the sleek grace of a falcon: commanding, swift, and deadly. Mord-Sith always wore their red leather when they believed there was going to be trouble. Cara's long blond hair, swept back into a single thick braid, was another mark of her profession of Mord-Sith, member of an elite corps of guards to the Lord Rahl himself.
"How do you feel?" Cara asked with sincere concern.
"Well, if you feel better," Cara growled, "then tell Lord Rahl that he should allow me to do my job and put the proper respect into men like that." Her menacing blue eyes turned for a moment toward the spot where the men had been while delivering their threats. "The ones I leave alive, anyway."
"But Richard," Kahlan said, lifting her right hand in a weak gesture toward the wall before her, "you've built this-"
If Richard seemed calm, Cara looked ready to chew steel and spit nails. "Would you tell this obstinate husband of yours to let me kill someone before I go crazy? I can't just stand around and allow people to get away with threatening the two of you! I am Mord-Sith!"
18
"Mother Confessor, you can't allow Lord Rahl to bow to the will of foolish men like those. Tell him."
Kahlan had been named Mother Confessor while still in her early twenties-the youngest Confessor ever named to that powerful position. But that was several years past. Now, she was the only living Confessor left.
Cara always addressed Kahlan as "Mother Confessor." But from Cara's lips the words were subtly different than from any others. It was almost a challenge, a defiance by scrupulous compliance, but with a hint of an affectionate smirk. Coming from Cara, Kahlan didn't hear "Mother Confessor" so much as she heard "Sister." Cara was from the distant land of D'Hara. No one, anywhere, outranked Cara, as far as Cara was concerned, except the Lord Rahl. The most she would allow was that Kahlan could be her equal in duty to Richard. Being considered an equal by Cara, though, was high praise indeed.
To the men with the angry voices, the Lord Rahl was as foreign a concept as was the distant land of D'Hara. Kahlan was from the Midlands that separated D'Hara from Westland. The people here in Westland knew nothing of the Midlands or the Mother Confessor. For decades, the three parts of the New World had been separated by impassable boundaries, leaving what was beyond those boundaries shrouded in mystery. The autumn before, those boundaries had fallen.
"I'm not going to allow you to hurt people just because they refuse to help us," Richard said to Cara. "It would solve nothing and only end up causing us more trouble. What we started here only took a short time to build. I thought this place would be safe, but it's not. We'll simply move on."
"I was hoping to bring you home, to some peace and quiet, but it looks like home doesn't want me, either. I'm sorry."
19
Kahlan reached for his hand, which hung at his side. His fingers were too far away. "But, Richard-"
"Yes, Richard."
"Yes, Richard."
"But what of the war? Everyone is depending on us-on you. I can't be much help until I get better, but they need you right now. The D'Haran Empire needs you. You are the Lord Rahl. You lead them. What are we doing here? Richard. . ." She waited until his eyes turned to look at her. "Why are we running away when everyone is counting on us?"
"As you must? What does that mean?"
"I've . . . had a vision."
Prophecy was always ambiguous and usually cryptic, no matter how clear it seemed on the surface. The untrained were easily misled by its superficially simplistic construction. Unthinking adherence to a literal interpretation of prophecy had in the past caused great turmoil, everything from murder to war. As a result, those involved with prophecy went to great lengths to keep it secret.
Shota, the witch woman, had prophesied that Richard and Kahlan would conceive an infamous son. Richard had more than once proven Shota's view of the future to be, if not fatally flawed, at least vastly more complex than Shota would have it seem. Like Richard, Kahlan didn't accept Shota's prediction.
Richard's grandfather, Zedd, who had helped raise him not far from where they were, had not only kept his own identity as a wizard secret. In order to protect Richard, he also hid the fact that Richard had been fathered by Darken Rahl and not George Cypher, the man who had loved and raised him. Darken Rahl, a wizard of great power, had been the dangerous, violent ruler of far-off D'Hara. Richard had inherited the gift of magic from two different bloodlines. After killing Darken Rahl, he had also inherited the rule of D'Hara, a land that was in many ways as much a mystery to him as was his power.
With the gift dying out in mankind, wizards were uncommon; Kahlan had known fewer than a dozen. Among wizards, prophets were the most rare; she knew of the existence of only two. One of those was Richard's ancestor, which made visions all
the more within the province of Richard's gift. Yet Richard had always treated prophecy as a viper in his bed.
"D'Harans are bonded to you, Lord Rahl," Cara reminded him, "and will be able to find you through that bond."
Cara seemed to find that thought agreeable. "If people don't go to this place, then there won't be any roads. How are we going to get the carriage there? The Mother Confessor can't walk."
Cara nodded thoughtfully. "We could do that. If there were no other people, then the two of you would be safe, at least."
"The cowards have gone back to their women's skirts. They won't be back until morning. We can let the Mother Confessor rest and then leave before dawn."
"Now that the Imperial Order has filled their heads with talk of a noble war on behalf of good, those men will be fancying what it would be like to be war heroes. They aren't ordinarily violent, but today they were more unreasonable than I've ever seen them.
Cara seemed unconcerned. "I say we wait for them, and when they come back, we end the threat."
Richard pulled the ancient, tooled-leather baldric, holding the gold-and-silverwrought scabbard and sword, off over his head and hung it on the stump of a branch sticking out of a log. Looking unhappy, Cara folded her arms. She would rather not leave a threat alive. Richard picked his folded black shirt off the floor to the side, where Kahlan hadn't seen it. He poked an arm through a sleeve and drew it on.
"The sudden clarity of it felt like a vision, but it was really more of a revelation."
"Revelation." She wished she could manage more than a hoarse whisper. "And what form did this vision revelation thing take?"
Kahlan stared up at him. "Understanding of what?"
"Yes," Cara muttered, "and wait until you hear it. Go ahead, tell her."
"If I lead us into this war, we will lose. A great many people will die for nothing. The result will be a world enslaved by the Imperial Order. If I don't lead our side in battle, the world will still fall under the shadow of the Order but far fewer people will die. Only in that way will we ever stand a chance."
"Anderith helped teach me a lesson," he said. His voice was restrained, as if he regretted what he was saying. "I can't press this war. Freedom requires effort if it is to be won and vigilance if it is to be maintained. People just don't value freedom until it's taken away."
"There are always some, but most don't even understand it, nor do they care to-the same as with magic. People mindlessly shrink from it, too, without seeing the truth. The Order offers them a world without magic and ready-made answers to everything. Servitude is simple. I thought that I could convince people of the value of their own lives, and of liberty. In Anderith they showed me just how foolish I had been."
"Anderith was not remarkable. Look at all the trouble we've had elsewhere. We're having trouble even here, where I grew up." Richard began tucking in his shirt. "Forcing people to fight for freedom is the worst kind of contradiction.
"But Richard, how can you even think of-"
"But we can prevail in this war. We must."
He turned to pulling his black, open-sided tunic on over his head. Kahlan struggled to give force to her voice, to the magnitude of her concern.
"But what about all those who are prepared to fight-all the armies already in the field? There are good men, able men, ready to go against Jagang and stop his Imperial Order and drive them back to the Old World. Who will lead our men?"
Kahlan was horrified. She reached up and snatched his shirtsleeve before he could lean down to retrieve his broad over-belt. "Richard, you're only saying this, walking away from the struggle, because of what happened to me."
"But if the Mother Confessor had not been hurt, you would have felt better by morning and changed your mind."
"I don't know."
Kahlan's father, King Wyborn, had taught her about fighting against such odds, and she had practical experience at it. "Their army may outnumber ours, but that doesn't make it impossible. We just have to outthink them. I will be there to help you, Richard. We have seasoned officers. We can do it. We must."
"Richard," Kahlan whispered, trying not to lose what was left of her voice, "I led those young Galean recruits against an army of experienced Order soldiers who greatly outnumbered us, and we prevailed."
Kahlan was incredulous. "So you are going to let the Order do the same elsewhere so as to give people a reason to fight? You are going to stand aside and let the Order slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
Richard snapped on his leather-padded silver wristbands. "I'm not doing this because of what happened to you. I'm helping save those lives in the only way that has a chance. I'm doing the only thing I can do."
"You are doing the easy thing," Cara said.
Kahlan was sure now that their rejection by the Anderith people had hit him harder than she had realized. She caught two of his fingers and squeezed sympathetically. He had put his heart into sparing those people from enslavement by the Order. He had tried to show them the value of freedom by allowing them the freedom to choose their own destiny. He had put his faith in their hands.
Kahlan thought that perhaps with some time to heal, the same as with her, the pain would fade for him, too. "You can't hold yourself to blame for the fall of Anderith, Richard. You did your best. It wasn't your fault."
"When you're the leader, everything is your fault."
"What form did this vision assume?"
"Vision, revelation, realization, postulation, prophecy . . . understanding--call it what you will, for in this they are all in one the same, and unequivocal. I can't describe it but to say it seems as if I must have always known it. Maybe I have. It wasn't so much words as it was a complete concept, a conclusion, a truth that became absolutely clear to me."
Richard slipped the baldric over his head, laying it over his right shoulder. As he adjusted the sword against his left hip, light sparkled off the raised gold wire woven through the silver wire of the hilt to spell out the word TRUTH.
"I have been a leader too soon. It is not I who must prove myself to the people, but the people who must now prove themselves to me. Until then, I must not lead them, or all hope is lost."
While he lived, a Seeker was a law unto himself. Backed by the awesome power of his sword, a Seeker could bring down kingdoms. That was one reason it was so important to name the right person-a moral person-to the post. Zedd claimed that the Seeker, in a way, named himself by the nature of his own mind and by his actions, and that the First Wizard's function was simply to act on his observations by officially naming him and giving him the weapon that was to be his lifelong companion.
So many different qualities and responsibilities had converged in this man she loved that she sometimes wondered how he could reconcile them all.
Because of the importance of the post, Kahlan and then Zedd had sworn their lives in defense of Richard as the newly named Seeker of Truth. That had been shortly after Kahlan had met him. It was as Seeker that Richard had first come to accept all that had been thrust upon him, and to live up to the extraordinary trust put in him.
"The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced.
"If I fail to use reason in this struggle, if I close my eyes to the reality of what is, in favor of what I would wish, then we will both die in this, and for nothing. We will be but two more among uncounted millions of nameless corpses beneath the gray, gloomy decay of mankind. In the darkness that will follow, our bones will be meaningless dust.
Kahlan found herself unable to summon the courage to speak, much less argue; to do so right then would be to ask him to disregard his judgment at a cost he believed would be a sea of blood. But doing as he saw they must would cast her people helpless into the jaws of death.
"Cara," Richard said, "get the horses hitched to the carnage. I'm going to scout a circle to make sure we don't have any surprises."
"You're my friend, too. I know this land better than you. Hitch the horses and don't give me any trouble about it."
The room rang with silence. Richard's shadow slipped off the blanket. When Kahlan whispered her love to him, he paused and looked back. His shoulders seemed to betray the weight he carried.
From somewhere inside, Kahlan found a smile for him. "Maybe it isn't so hard." She gestured toward the bird he had carved in the wall. "Just show them that, and they will understand what freedom really means: to soar on your own wings."
26
It was more difficult to shake her thoughts about the men who had been outside, men Richard had grown up with. The haunting memory of their angry threats echoed in her mind. She knew that ordinary men who had never before acted violently, could, in the right circumstances, be incited to great brutality. With the way they viewed mankind as sinful, wretched, and evil, it was only a small step more to actually doing evil. After all, any evil they might do, they had already rationalized as being predestined by what they viewed as man's inescapable nature.
If she had to, she could always resort to her Confessor's power, but in her condition that was a dubious proposition. She had never had to call upon her power when in anything like the condition in which she now found herself. She reminded herself that the three of them would be long gone before the men returned, and besides, Richard and Cara would never let them get near her.
She tried not to think of it, and instead put her hand gently over her belly, over their child, as she listened to the nearby splashing and burbling of a stream. The sound of the water reminded her of how much she wished she could take a bath. The bandages over the oozing wound in her side stank and needed to be changed often. The sheets were soaked with sweat. Her scalp itched. The mat of grass that was the bedding under the sheet was hard and chafed her back. Richard had probably made the pallet quickly, planning to improve it later.
Cara finally returned, grumbling about the horses being stubborn today. She
looked up to see the room was empty. "I had better go look for him and make sure: he's safe."
Cara sighed and reluctantly agreed. Retrieving a cool, wet cloth, she set to mopping Kahlan's forehead and temples. Kahlan didn't like to complain when people; were doing their best to care for her, so she didn't say anything about how much it hurt her torn neck muscles when her head was shifted in that way. Cara never complained about any of it. Cara only complained when she believed her charges were in needless danger-and when Richard wouldn't let her eliminate those she viewed as a danger.
This was Richard's idea of restful.
"You should be happy-lying about without anything to do."
"I am Mord-Sith. For a Mord-Sith, nothing could be worse than to die in bed." Her blue eyes turned to Kahlan's. "Old and toothless," she added. "I didn't mean; that you-"
Cara looked relieved. "Anyway, you couldn't die-that would be too easy. You never do anything easy."
"See what I mean?"
Cara dunked the cloth in a pail on the floor and wrung it out as she stood. "It` isn't too bad, is it? Just lying there?"
Cara carefully blotted the damp cloth along Kahlan's neck. "I don't mind doing it for a sister of the Agiel."
Kahlan had once felt the partial touch of an Agiel. In a blinding instant, it could inflict the kind of pain that the entire gang of men had dealt Kahlan. The touch of a, Mord-Sith's Agiel was easily capable of delivering bone-breaking torture, and just as easily, if she desired, death.
who had captured him by order of Darken Rahl. Only Richard had ever come to understand and empathize with the pain an Agiel also gave the Mord-Sith who '°' wielded it. Before he was forced to kill Denna in order to escape, she had given . him her Agiel, asking to be remembered as simply Derma, the woman beyond the appellation of Mord-Sith, the woman no one but Richard had ever before seen a understood. 28
"Messengers have come to see Lord Rahl," Cara said. "You were sleeping, and Lord Rahl saw no reason to wake you," she added in answer to Kahlan's questioning look. The messengers were D'Haran, and able to find Richard by their bond to him as their Lord Rahl. Kahlan, not able to duplicate the feat, had always found it unsettling.
Cara shrugged. "Not a lot. Jagang's army of the Imperial Order remains in Anderith for the time being, with Reibisch's force staying safely to the north to watch and be ready should the Order decide to threaten the rest of the Midlands. We know little of the situation inside Anderith, under the Order's occupation. The rivers flow away from our men, toward the sea, so they have not seen bodies to indicate if there has been mass death, but there have been a few people who managed to escape. They report that there was some death due to the poison which was released, but they don't know how widespread it was. General Reibisch has sent scouts and spies in to learn what they will."
"None."
Cara shook her head and then leaned over to dunk the cloth again. "He wrote letters to the general, though."
When Kahlan was able to get her breath, she asked, "Did you see the letters?"
"Did General Reibisch answer?"
Richard had probably told them it was a vision, rather than say it was simply a realization, for that very reason. Kahlan considered that a moment, weighing the possibilities.
Cara tossed the cloth into the pail. As she leaned closer, her brow creased with frustration and concern.
"I'm getting better. I hope to help him get over what happened-help him to see that he must fight."
"We need to be a little understanding of what he's been through-the loss we've all suffered to the Order-and remember, too, that Richard didn't grow up around magic, much less ruling armies."
Kahlan couldn't dispute that much of it, but he still didn't have much experience, and experience was valuable. Cara not only feared magic but was easily impressed by any act of wizardry. Like most people, she couldn't distinguish between a simple conjuring and the kind of magic that could alter the very nature of the world. Kahlan realized now that this wasn't a vision, as such, but a conclusion Richard had arrived at.
Cara looked up from her work. Her voice bore an undertone of uncertainty, if not despairing bewilderment. "Mother Confessor, how will the people ever be able to prove themselves to Lord Rahl?"
Cara set down the cloth and looked Kahlan in the eye. It was a long, uncomfortable moment before she finally decided to speak.
Kahlan's immediate thought was to wonder if General Reibisch might believe the same thing.
"Lord Rahl also says he wants me to think for myself."
"This is not some monster chasing us. This is something much bigger."
"Of course not. He must be protected and I can't allow his foolishness to interfere with my duty. I only follow his orders if they do not endanger him, or if they tell me to do what I would have done anyway, or if it involves his male pride."
Cara stiffened at the unexpected encounter with the name, as if speaking it might summon him back from the world of the dead. "You followed Darken Rahl's orders, no matter how foolish they were, or you were tortured to death."
"I would lay down my life for any Lord Rahl." Cara hesitated, and then touched her fingertips to the red leather over her heart. "But I could never feel this way for any other. I . . . love Lord Rahl. Not like you love him, not like a woman loves a man, but it is still love. Sometimes I have dreams of how proud I am to serve and defend him, and sometimes I have nightmares that I will fail him."
30
Cara let out a sigh of relief. "Good."
"Many things .... He wishes us to think for ourselves. He allows us to serve him by choice. No Lord Rahl has ever done that before. I know that if I said I wished to quit him, he would let me go. He would not have me tortured to death for it. He would wish me a good life."
"That, Cara, is what Richard wants for everyone."
"You wouldn't need to ask for your freedom, Cara, and you know it. You already have your freedom, and because of him you know that, too. That's what makes him a leader you are honored to follow. That's why you feel the way you do about him. He has earned your loyalty."
"I still think he has lost his mind."
Kahlan swallowed back her emotion. "Not his mind, Cara, but maybe his heart."
Cara dabbed away the remnant of a tear as it rolled down Kahlan's cheek.
Cara nodded and bent to retrieve it. Kahlan was already fretting, knowing how much it was going to hurt, but there was no avoiding it.
Kahlan half closed her eyes with the dreamy thought of being at least somewhat clean and fresh. She thought she needed a bath even more than she needed the wooden bowl to relieve herself.
"I am Mord-Sith." Cara looked nonplussed. She finally drew the blanket down. "That is the most important post there is-except perhaps wife to the Lord Rahl. Since he already has a wife, and I am already Mord-Sith, I will have to be content with having my feet kissed."
--}--- 31
"Did you see any of the men?" Cara asked when he appeared in the doorway.
"I still say we should lie in wait and end the threat," Cara muttered. Richard ignored her.
Kahlan tried to face the thought with composure. "We're ready then?"
"Good," Kahlan said, cheerfully. "I'm in the mood for a nice ride. I'd like to see some of the countryside."
Kahlan tried to keep her breathing even. She said his name over and over in her head, telling herself that she would not forget it this time, that she would not forget her own name. She hated forgetting things; it made her feel a fool to learn things she should have remembered but had forgotten. She was going to remember this time.
He bent and kissed her forehead-the one part on her face that the soft touch of his lips would not hurt. He glanced at Cara and tilted his head to signal her to get Kahlan's legs.
"It's still midday. Don't worry, we'll be long gone before they ever get back', here."
"They're people, just like everyone else."
"I won't be doing any fighting just traveling my forests."
Despite the pain in his gray eyes, he smiled. "I love you, too. Just try to relax. Cara and I will be as gentle as we can. We'll go easy. There's no rush. Don't try to help us. Just relax. You're getting better, so it won't be so hard."
32
As he leaned over, she slipped her right arm around his neck while he carefully slid his left arm under her shoulders. Being lifted even that much ignited a shock of pain. Kahlan tried to ignore the burning stitch and attempted to relax as she said his name over and over in her mind.
"Richard," she whispered urgently just before he pushed his right arm under her bottom to lift her. "Please . . . remember to be careful not to hurt the baby."
"Kahlan . . . you remember, don't you?"
His eyes glistened. "That you lost the baby. When you were attacked."
"...Oh...
"Yes. I forgot for a moment. I just wasn't thinking. I remember, now. I remember you told me about it."
The world seemed to turn gray and lifeless.
She caressed his hair. "No, Richard. I should have remembered. I'm sorry I forgot. I didn't mean to . . ."
She felt a warm tear drop onto the hollow of her throat, close to her necklace. The necklace, with its small dark stone, had been a wedding gift from Shota, the witch woman. The gift was a proposal of truce. Shota said it would allow them to be together and share their love, as they had always wanted, without Kahlan getting pregnant. Richard and Kahlan had decided that, for the time being, they would reluctantly accept Shota's gift, her truce. They already had worries enough on their hands.
Now that life was gone.
He nodded again.
She clutched his neck. She now longed for what was coming-she wanted to forget.
The blackness hit her like a dungeon door slamming shut.
C H A P T E R 4
Her whole body throbbed with pain, but she was more awake than she had been in what seemed like weeks. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, or perhaps unconscious. She was awake enough to remember that it would be a grave mistake to try to sit up, because just about the only part of her not injured was her right arm. One of the big chestnut geldings snorted nervously and stamped a hoof, jostling the carnage enough to remind Kahlan of her broken ribs.
As the gusts beat strands of her filthy hair across her face, Kahlan listened as hard as she could for the sound that didn't belong, still hoping to fit it into a picture of something innocent. Since she'd heard it only from the deepness of sleep, its conscious identity remained frustratingly out of her reach.
A metallic clang came from the distance, then a cry. Maybe it was an animal, she told herself. Ravens sometimes let out the most awful cries. Their shrill wails could sound so human it was eerie. But as far as she knew, ravens didn't make metallic sounds.
Stubby fingers grasped the top of the corded chafing strip on the carriage's side rail. The blunt fingertips were rounded back over grubby, gnawed-down little halfbutton fingernails. Kahlan held her breath, hoping he didn't realize she was in the carriage.
"Well, well. If it ain't the wife of the late Richard Cypher."
His shirt bore a dark patina of dirt, as if it was never removed for anything. Sparse, wiry hairs on his fleshy cheeks and chin were like early weeds in the plowed field of his pockmarked face. His upper lip was wet from his runny nose. He had no lower teeth in front. The tip of his tongue rested partway out between the yawning gap of his smirk.
She made herself look into his dark, sunken eyes, which peered out from puffy slits. "Where's Richard?" she demanded in a level voice.
Kahlan glared at him so he would know she had no intention of answering. As the crude knife advanced toward her, his stench hit her.
The knife paused. "How'd you know that?"
The eyes glittered with menace. His grin widened. "Yeah? What did he tell you?"
The smirking grin turned to a scowl. He raised up on the step and leaned in with the knife. That was what Kahlan wanted him to do-to get close enough so she could touch him.
She had but to touch him.
He leaned his elbow on the side rail. His fist with the knife went for her exposed throat. Rather than watching the knife, Kahlan watched the little scars, like dusty white cobwebs caught on his knuckles. When the fist was close enough, she made her move to snatch his wrist.
hadn't realized Richard had placed her on the litter he'd made. The blanket was wrapped around her and tightly tucked under the stretcher poles in order to hold her as still as possible and prevent her from being hurt when the carriage was moving. Her arm was trapped inside what was about to become her death shroud.
Kahlan had merely to touch him, but she couldn't. His blade was going to be the only contact between them. Her only hope was that maybe his knuckles would brush her flesh, or maybe he just might be close enough as he started to slice her throat that she could press her chin against his hand. Then, she could release her power, if she was still alive-if he didn't cut too deep, first.
It didn't happen at all as she expected.
Bent into the Agiel pressed against his back, Tommy Lancaster had less hope of pulling away from Cara than if she had impaled him on a meat hook. His torment would not have been more brutal to witness, his shrieks more painful to hear.
Cara stood over him, an austere executioner, watching him beg for mercy. Instead of granting it, she pressed her Agiel against his throat and followed him to the ground. His eyes were wide and white all around as he choked.
"Cara!" Kahlan was surprised that she could get so much power into the shout Cara glanced back over her shoulder. Tommy Lancaster's hands went to his throat and he gasped for air when she rose up to stand over him. "Cara, stop it. Where's Richard? Richard may need your help."
36 Before either Cara or Kahlan could say anything, Richard, his face set in cold ferocity, sprinted up toward the carriage. He had his sword to hand. The blade was dark and wet.
On his way to Kahlan's side, Richard only glanced at the lifeless body at Cara's feet.
Kahlan nodded. "Fine." Belatedly, yet feeling triumphant at the accomplishment, she pulled her arm free of the blanket.
"No. Just this one." She gestured with her Agiel toward the knife on the ground. "He intended to cut the Mother Confessor's throat."
"No, Lord Rahl. He regretted his last vile act-I made certain of it."
"No one will get near the Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl."
He pointed with his sword. "Drag his body past the brush over there and roll him off the edge, down into the ravine. I'd just as soon the bodies weren't found until after we're long gone and far away. Probably only the animals will ever find them way out here, but I don't want to take any chances."
Richard trotted soundlessly off into the gathering darkness. Kahlan listened to the sound of the body scraping across the ground. She heard small branches snapping as Cara pulled the dead weight through the brush, and then the muffled thuds and tumbling scree as Tommy Lancaster's body rolled and bounced down a steep slope. It was a long time before Kahlan heard the final thump at the bottom of the ravine.
Kahlan blinked at the woman. "Cara, he nearly had me."
"No, I didn't."
37
"He did not nearly kill you." Cara smiled without humor. "But I wanted to let him believe it. It's more of a shock, more of a horror, if you let them think they've won. It crushes a man's spirit to take him then, when you've caught him dead to rights."
"We have been traveling for two days. You have been in and out of sleep, but you didn't know anything the times you were awake. Lord Rahl was fretful about hurting you to get you into the carnage, and about having told you . . . what you forgot."
"They came after us. This time, though, Lord Rahl didn't discuss it with them." She seemed especially pleased about that. "He knew in enough time that they were coming, so we weren't taken by surprise. When they came charging in, some with arrows noched and some with their swords or axes out, he shouted at them-once-giving them a chance to change their minds."
"Well, not exactly. He told them to go home in peace, or they would all die."
"And then they all laughed. It only seemed to embolden them. They charged, arrows flying, swords and axes raised. So Lord Rahl ran off into the woods."
"Before they came, he had told me that he was going to make them all chase after him. As Lord Rahl ran, the one who thought he would cut your throat yelled at the others to `get Richard, and finish him this time.' Lord Rahl had hoped he would draw them all away from you, but when that one went after you instead, Lord Rahl gave me a look and I knew what he wanted me to do."
"How many men?"
"And you left Richard alone with two dozen men chasing after him? Two dozen men intent on killing him?"
Tall and lean, shoulders squared and chin raised, Cara looked as pleased as a cat licking mouse off its whiskers. Kahlan suddenly understood: Richard had entrusted Cara with Kahlan's life; the MordSith had proven that faith justified.
Cara didn't laugh. "Mother Confessor, you should know that I would never let R anything happen to either of you."
38 "Anything?" he asked Cara.
He leaned in the carnage and smiled. "Well, as long as you're awake, how about I take you for a romantic moonlight ride?"
"I'm fine. Not a scratch."
His smile vanished. "They tried to kill us. Westland has just suffered its first casualties because of the influence of the Imperial Order."
"That doesn't entitle them to misplaced sympathy. How many thousands have I seen killed since I left here? I couldn't even convince men I grew up with of the truth. I couldn't even get them to listen fairly. All the death and suffering I've seen is ultimately because of men like this-men who refuse to see.
He didn't sound to her like a man who was quitting the fight. He still held the sword, was still in the grip of its rage. Kahlan caressed his arm, letting him know that she understood. It was clear to her that even though he'd been justly defending himself, and though he was still filled with the sword's rage, he keenly regretted what he'd had to do. The men, had they been able to kill Richard instead, would have regretted nothing. They would have celebrated his death as a great victory.
"No, it wasn't. It drew them out of the open and into the trees. They had to dismount. It's rocky and the footing is poor, so they couldn't rush me together or with speed, like they could out here on the road.
"Once I took down Albert, they stopped thinking and fought with pure anger until they started seeing blood and death. Those men are used to brawls, not battles. They had expected an easy time murdering us-they weren't mentally prepared to fight for their own lives. Once they saw the true nature of what was happening, they ran for their lives. The ones left, anyway. These are my woods. In their panic, they became confused and lost their way in the trees. I cut them off and ended it."
"Yes. I knew most of them, and besides, I had their number in my head. I counted the bodies to make sure I got them all."
Richard turned to take up the reins. "Not enough for their purpose." He clicked his tongue and started the horses moving.
"Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us," Captain Meiffert beseeched in sincere reverence. "In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours."
When he'd been a captive of Darken Rahl, Richard, often in much the same condition as Tommy Lancaster just before he died, had himself been forced to his knees by Mord-Sith and made to perform the devotion for hours at a time. Now, the Mord-Sith, like all D'Harans, paid that same homage to Richard. If the Mord-Sith saw such a turn of events as improbable, or even ironic, they never said as much. What many of them had found improbable was that Richard hadn't had them all executed when he became their Lord Rahl.
Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a purpose. Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In Jagang, Kahlan
saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to grow tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes-and the ability of a Confessor. She loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as those born with blond hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor's special ability.
Richard, too, had been born with latent power. The ancient, adjunct defense of the bond was passed down to any gifted Rahl. Without the protection of the bond to Richard-the Lord Rahl-whether formally spoken or a silent heartfelt affinity, anyone was vulnerable to Jagang's power as a dream walker.
Confessors usually bore girls, but not always. A Confessor's power had originally been created for, and had been intended to be used by, women. Like all other conjuring that introduced unnatural abilities in people, this, too, had had unforeseen consequences: a Confessor's male children, it turned out, also bore the power. After it had been learned how treacherous the power could be in men, all male children were scrupulously culled.
But Shota didn't simply fear Kahlan giving birth to a male Confessor; she feared something of potentially far greater magnitude-a male Confessor who possessed Richard's gift. Shota had foretold that Kahlan and Richard would conceive a male child. Shota viewed such a child as an evil monster, dangerous beyond comprehension, and so had vowed to kill their offspring. To prevent such a thing from being required, she had given them the necklace to keep Kahlan from becoming pregnant. They had taken it reluctantly. The alternative was war with the witch woman.
Kahlan watched as Captain Meiffert spoke the devotion a third time, Cara's lips moving with his. The soft chant was making Kahlan sleepy.
They were far off the narrow, forsaken road, in a tiny clearing concealed in a cleft in a steep rock wall behind a dense expanse of pine and spruce. A small meadow close by provided a snug paddock for the horses. Richard and Cara had
pulled the carriage off the road, behind a mass of deadfall, and hidden it with spruce and balsam boughs. No one but a D'Haran bonded to their Lord Rahl had much of a chance of ever finding them in the vast and trackless forest.
It had taken more like six hours than four to reach the campsite. Richard had proceeded slowly for Kahlan's sake. It was late and they were all tired from a long day of traveling, to say nothing of the attack. Richard had told her that it looked like it might rain for a day or two, and they would stay in the camp and rest up until the weather cleared. There was no urgency to get where they were going.
"How are you doing, Captain?" Richard grasped the man's elbow. "What's the matter? Did you fall off your horse, or something?"
"You look hurt."
"I didn't do it hard enough to break them," Cara scoffed.
Cara made a sour face. "It was dark. I'm not about to take any foolish chances with the life of our Lord Rahl just so-"
Cara's face brightened. The captain's simple concession disarmed a potentially nettlesome situation.
"As I said, a price I willingly pay. Thank you for your vigilance."
Although it was impossible to tell in the firelight, Kahlan was sure that the man's face turned scarlet. "No, of course not, Lord Rahl. It's just that the general wanted you to have a full report."
"Well, ah, I've been riding hard, Lord Rahl. I guess yesterday I must have eaten something. I'm fine, though. I can have something after-" 42 "Sit down, then." Richard gestured. "Let me get you something hot to eat. It will do you good."
Richard had to lift the food toward him a second time before he took it. "It's only some rice and beans, Captain. It's not like I'm giving you Cara's hand in marriage."
Richard glanced up at her. Kahlan knew by Richard's tone that he hadn't meant anything by the comment but he didn't laugh with Cara. He knew all too well the truth of her words. Such an act was not an act of love, but altogether the opposite. In the uncomfortable silence, Cara realized what she'd said, and decided to break some branches down and feed them to the fire.
Richard retrieved a long stick that had been propped against one of the rocks ringing the fire. With his finger, he slid several sizzling pieces of bacon off the stick and into the captain's bowl, and then set the big piece of bannock on top. They had with them a variety of food. Kahlan shared the carnage with all the supplies Richard had picked up along their journey north to Hartland. They had enough staples to last for a good long time.