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«Fine,» she said, unable to restrain her grin at the very idea that he had been worried for her and not the least bit interested in telling him about injuries that were now healed. None of that mattered anymore. She was with Richard again.
He looked weary, as if he and Cara had not gotten much sleep on their journey north. By the distance they had covered in such a short time, they could not have rested much.
Nicci then realized what it was that was wrong with him.
He didn't have his sword.
«Richard, where's.»
Cara, behind him, flashed Nicci a forbidding look and at the same time quickly drew a finger across her throat, warning Nicci to cut off what she had been about to ask.
«Where are the other horses?» Nicci quickly asked, altering the course of her question to cover over the ominous silence that had oozed up in the brief pause.
Richard sighed, apparently not realizing the truth of what she had been about to ask. «I'm afraid I've been pushing them pretty hard. A few of them came up lame and the rest died. We've had to get new horses along the way. These we stole from an Imperial Order encampment near Galea. They have troops billeted all over the Midlands. We helped ourselves to their horses and supplies along the way.»
Cara smiled with sly satisfaction, but remained silent.
Nicci wondered how he had managed such things without his sword. She then realized how foolish such a thought was; the sword didn't make Richard the man he was.
«And the beast?» Nicci asked.
Richard glanced over his shoulder at Cara. «We've had a few encounters.»
For some reason, Nicci sensed something disquieting in his voice, if not his words.
«A few encounters?» she asked. «What sort of encounters? What's the matter? What's wrong?»
«We managed, that's all. We'll talk about it later when we have time.» She could see by the irritable look in his eyes that he was understating it and was in no mood to have to relive it right then. He pulled the reins over, taking his horse's attention away from the grass. «Right now I need to get up to the Keep.»
«And what of the witch woman?» Nicci asked as she walked her horse alongside his. «What did you find out? What did she say?»
«That what I seek is long buried,» he muttered dejectedly to himself. Richard wiped a weary hand across his face and then came out of his private thoughts to fix her in his penetrating gaze. «Does the word Chainfire mean anything to you?» When Nicci shook her head, he asked, «What about the Deep Nothing?»
«Deep Nothing?» Nicci thought it over briefly. «No, what is it?» «I have no idea, but I need to find out. I'm hoping Zedd will be able to shed some light on it. Come on, let's get moving.»
With that, he galloped away. Nicci immediately urged Sa'din into a gallop to keep up.
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
He looked weary, as if he and Cara had not gotten much sleep on their journey north. By the distance they had covered in such a short time, they could not have rested much.
Nicci then realized what it was that was wrong with him.
He didn't have his sword.
«Richard, where's.»
Cara, behind him, flashed Nicci a forbidding look and at the same time quickly drew a finger across her throat, warning Nicci to cut off what she had been about to ask.
«Where are the other horses?» Nicci quickly asked, altering the course of her question to cover over the ominous silence that had oozed up in the brief pause.
Richard sighed, apparently not realizing the truth of what she had been about to ask. «I'm afraid I've been pushing them pretty hard. A few of them came up lame and the rest died. We've had to get new horses along the way. These we stole from an Imperial Order encampment near Galea. They have troops billeted all over the Midlands. We helped ourselves to their horses and supplies along the way.»
Cara smiled with sly satisfaction, but remained silent.
Nicci wondered how he had managed such things without his sword. She then realized how foolish such a thought was; the sword didn't make Richard the man he was.
«And the beast?» Nicci asked.
Richard glanced over his shoulder at Cara. «We've had a few encounters.»
For some reason, Nicci sensed something disquieting in his voice, if not his words.
«A few encounters?» she asked. «What sort of encounters? What's the matter? What's wrong?»
«We managed, that's all. We'll talk about it later when we have time.» She could see by the irritable look in his eyes that he was understating it and was in no mood to have to relive it right then. He pulled the reins over, taking his horse's attention away from the grass. «Right now I need to get up to the Keep.»
«And what of the witch woman?» Nicci asked as she walked her horse alongside his. «What did you find out? What did she say?»
«That what I seek is long buried,» he muttered dejectedly to himself. Richard wiped a weary hand across his face and then came out of his private thoughts to fix her in his penetrating gaze. «Does the word Chainfire mean anything to you?» When Nicci shook her head, he asked, «What about the Deep Nothing?»
«Deep Nothing?» Nicci thought it over briefly. «No, what is it?» «I have no idea, but I need to find out. I'm hoping Zedd will be able to shed some light on it. Come on, let's get moving.»
With that, he galloped away. Nicci immediately urged Sa'din into a gallop to keep up.
CHAPTER 46
The road up to the Keep offered magnificent views of the city of Aydindril spread out below, even though clouds had slipped in over the mountains to mute the late-afternoon light and leave the still air muggy. Were it' not for her concerns, Nicci might have found the views from the road up to the Keep to be one of the most beautiful vistas she had ever seen-and an appreciation of such beauty was something relatively new to her, some thing that Richard had awakened in her.
As it was, though, she brooded over his continuing fixation on finding the woman Kahlan that he was so sure he remembered. He hadn't said anything about her, yet, probably because from their previous disagreements he had become frustrated by the futility of trying to convince her that he had to find a woman Nicci knew did not exist. Despite not mentioning her, it was clear to Nicci that he was no less determined to find Kahlan now than he had been the last time Nicci had been with him. Her hopes that he would be better by the time she finally caught up with him had faded. Her pleasure over the view dimmed.
There was something, though-a look in his eyes-that seemed to Nicci somehow different. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, or what it could mean. He'd always had a penetrating gaze, a cutting, raptor-like appraisal, but now, the way he met her gaze, it was even more acute, as if he were laying her open and searching her soul. Nicci had nothing to hide, though, especially from Richard. She had nothing but his best interest at heart. She wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. She would do anything to help him to be happy.
She supposed that was why her mood had sunk; even though he was still determined, she knew that he was growing ever more dispirited. The light of life in his eyes was something Nicci treasured. She would not want to see it go out.
Trying to keep up with him left Nicci no opportunity to ask him about what had gone on with the witch woman. From Cara's silence, Nicci knew that, whatever had happened, it had not gone as well as Richard had expected. That was no surprise to Nicci. How could a witch woman, even if she wanted to help, be of any use in finding a woman who existed only in Richard's mind?
Whatever Chainfire could be, Nicci had no idea, but she could sense in his voice, as well as his tense expression, how eager Richard was to discover its meaning. After having lived with him for so long, Nicci knew his feelings without him having to say a word. It was obvious he'd placed a lot of significance on the meaning behind Chainfire.
More than that, though, Nicci was worried as to what could have happened to his sword. She couldn't imagine why he didn't have it with him. Her concern had been heightened all the more by the way Cara had immediately cut off the question, to say nothing of the way Richard had not mentioned it. The Sword of Truth was not something Richard would have lightly forgotten all about.
Higher up on the mountain, as they rode up the switchbacks, the road emerged from a thick growth of towering spruce trees before a stone bridge spanning a chasm of immense depth. It looked to Nicci as if the mountain were split open to its core, with the closer side pulled away from the rest of the mountain. As they rode single-file across the bridge spanning the yawning abyss, she glanced over the edge and could see sheer rock walls to each side dropping down through cottony clouds drifting by below them. It was a dizzying sight that made her stomach feel queazy.
Nicci could tell by Sa'din's gait how tired he was. His ears lazily swiveled toward the drop to each side as they crossed the bridge. Richard and Cara's horses, though, were lathered and blowing hard. Nicci knew how well Richard treated animals, and yet he was showing these no mercy. He obviously thought there were higher values involved than the lives of animals. She knew what that value was: human life. One in particular.
The walls of the Keep, composed of intricately joined blocks of dark granite, rose up like a cliff before them. Coming off the bridge, riding between Richard in front and Cara at the rear, Nicci stared up at the Keep's complex maze of ramparts, bastions, towers, connecting passageways, and bridges. The place looked somehow alive, as if it were watching them approach the gaping entrance of arched stone where the road tunneled under the base of the outer wall.
Without hesitation, Richard trotted his horse in under the raised, massive portcullis. Given a choice, Nicci would have been a bit more cautious in her approach to such a place. Her skin crawled with the power emanating from within. She had never before felt such a strong sense of the force of magic from within a place. It was like standing alone on a plain as a vast, massive thunderstorm was about to envelope her.
The sensation gave her some measure of the shields that guarded the Keep. From what she had to conclude by what she could sense, the shields at the Palace of the Prophets had been child's play by comparison. Too, those were predominantly Additive and the palace had been built for an entirely different purpose. Here, Subtractive shields were employed in equal service. The lethality of their dominion was not concealed, but manifest to those whose business it was to know of such things.
Almost unnoticed, hazy clouds had closed in overhead, leaving the late-afternoon sky a flat, steel gray. The gloom that replaced the sunlight made the stone of the Keep look all the darker, all the more forbidding, almost as if the Keep itself had drawn a shroud of clouds tightly around itself as it watched the approach of a sorceress and a wizard able to command powers that yet haunted this place.
After coming out from under the arched opening in the thick outer wall, they emerged on a road that continued through the deep interior canyon of the Keep. Beyond, the road tunneled through another dark wall that provided a second barrier, should one ever be necessary. Without pause, Richard rode on into that long, dark passageway. The sounds of the horses' hooves echoed off the damp stone under the murky, arched passage.
Beyond the tunnel, they emerged beside an expansive paddock growing thick with lush grass. The gravel road ran along the side of a wall to the right with several doors. The first doors they'd encountered just inside the portcullis would have been where visitors entered. Nicci surmised that this, beyond the second wall, was probably the working entrance to the Keep. A fence along the other side of the road enclosed the paddock. Beyond, to the left, the back side of the paddock was walled off by the Keep itself. At the far end stood the stables.
Without a word, Richard dismounted and opened the gate to the paddock, letting his horse go in but leaving it saddled. Perplexed, Cara and Nicci nonetheless followed his example before following him across the grounds toward an entrance with a dozen wide granite steps worn smooth and swaybacked over time. They led up into a recessed entryway where simple but heavy double doors into the Keep proper began to creak open.
An old man, wavy white hair in disarray, peered out like a homeowner surprised by visitors. He gulped air, apparently winded from having run through the Keep when he'd realized that someone was coming. He had no doubt been alerted by webs of magic that announced anyone taking the road up to the Keep. In ancient times there would have been people closer at hand to see to anyone newly arrived. Now there was only the old man. By the way he was breathing he must have been clear across the Keep when the alarms had warned him.
Even through the look of astonishment on his thin, wrinkled face, Nicci recognized elements of the features. She knew that he could be none other than Richard's grandfather Zedd. He was tall, but as thin as a sapling. His hazel eyes were wide with wonder and a kind of childlike excitement, if not innocence. His plain, unadorned robes marked him as a great wizard. He wore his age well. It was a pleasing preview of how, in part, time might treat Richard.
The old man threw his arms up over his head. «Richard!» A joyous grin swept across his face. «Bags, is that really you, my boy?»
Zedd emerged from the doorway and started down the worn steps into the dreary light.
Richard ran to his grandfather and lifted him off the steps, hugging him fiercely enough to drive the wind from the already winded old man. They both laughed, a pleasing sound with obvious kinship.
«Zedd! You can't imagine how glad I am to see you!»
«And you, my boy,» Zedd said in a voice turning teary. «It's been too long. Far too long.»
He reached a sticklike hand past Richard and gripped Cara's shoulder. «How are you, my dear? You appear to be near to spent. Are you all right?»
«I am Mord-Sith,» she said, looking a bit indignant. «Of course I'm all right. Why would you think I look anything but perfectly fine?»
Zedd chuckled as he pushed back from Richard. «No reason, I suppose. You both look like you could use some rest and a meal or two is all. But you do look fine and I'm mighty happy to see you again.»
Cara smiled at that. «I've missed you, Zedd.»
Zedd waggled a finger. «Not very Mord-Sith of you to miss an old man. Rikka will be astonished to hear such a thing.»
«Rikka?» Cara asked in surprise. «Rikka is here?»
Zedd waggled a hand back in the direction of the partly opened door. «She's back in there, somewhere — patrolling, I imagine. She seems to have two preoccupations in life, patrolling and harassing me. I'm telling you, I have no peace of mind with the woman. Worse, she's too clever for her own good. At least she's a talented cook.»
Cara's brows lifted. «Rikka can cook?»
Zedd winced, pulling a breath through his teeth. «Don't tell her I said that or I'll never hear the end of it. The woman.»
«Zedd,» Richard interrupted, «I have trouble and I need help.»
«Are you well? You aren't ill, are you? You don't look entirely yourself, my boy.» Zedd pressed a hand to Richard's forehead. «Summer fevers are the worst, you know. Heat on top of heat. Bad combination.»
«Yes-no-I mean, it's not that. I need to talk to you.»
«So talk. It has been a long time. Far too long of a time. What's it been? Two years this past spring, if I'm not mistaken.» Zedd drew back a bit and squeezed Richard's arms as he looked him up and down. «Richard, where's your sword?»
«Look, we'll talk about that later,» Richard said, irritably disengaging himself from Zedd's grip in order to wave away the question.
«You said you wanted to talk. So talk and tell me where your sword is.» Zedd redirected his broad grin at Nicci. «And who is this lovely sorceress you've brought along?»
Richard blinked at Zedd's smile and then glanced at Nicci. «Oh, sorry. Zedd, this is Nicci. Nicci, this.»
«Nicci!» Zedd roared as he danced back up two of the steps as if he'd spotted a viper. «The Sister of the Dark who took you away to the Old World? That Nicci? What are you doing with this vile creature? Why would you dare to bring such a woman.»
«Zedd,» Richard said, forcefully cutting his grandfather off. «Nicci is a friend.»
«A friend! Are you out of your mind, Richard? How in the world do you expect.»
«Zedd, she's on our side now.» He gestured heatedly. «Much the same as Cara, or Rikka. Things change. Before, either of them would have.»
His voice trailed off as his grandfather stared at him. «You know what I mean. I trust Cara with my life, now, and she has proven worthy of my trust. I trust Nicci the same. I trust them both with my life.»
Zedd finally gripped Richard's shoulder and gave it an affectionate joggle. «I guess I do know what you mean. Since I gave you the Sword of Truth you've changed a great many things for the better. Why, I would never in my life have imagined that one day I'd happily be eating meals cooked by a Mord-Sith. And delicious meals they are, too.» He caught himself and pointed at Cara. «If you tell her I said that I'll skin you alive. The woman is already incorrigible.»
Cara only smiled.
Zedd redirected his gaze to Nicci. He didn't have that raptorlike Rahl quality, but in its own way it was just as disarming and looked to have the potential to be just as disturbing.
«Welcome, sorceress. If Richard says you are a friend, then you are. Sorry to get so huffy.»
Nicci smiled. «Perfectly understandable. I didn't like myself back then either. I was under the influence of dark delusions. I was called Death's Mistress for good reason.» Nicci gazed into Richard's gray eyes. «Your grandson brought me to see the beauty of life.»
Zedd smiled proudly. «Yes, that's it exactly. The beauty of life.»
Richard pounced on the opening. «And life is what this is about. Zedd, listen, I need.»
«Yes, yes,» Zedd said, waving off Richard's impatience. «You always need something. Haven't been back long enough to get in the door and already you want to know something. If I recall correctly, the first word you ever spoke was 'why.'
«Come on, then, come inside. I want to know why you don't have the Sword of Truth with you. I know you wouldn't let anything happen to it, but I want to hear the whole story. Don't leave out a thing. Come along, then.»
Motioning them all to follow, Richard's grandfather climbed the stairs toward the doorway.
«Zedd! I need.»
«Yes, yes, my boy. You need something. I heard you the first time. I think it looks like rain. No use getting started when we're about to get wet. Come inside and I will hear what you have to say.» Zedd's voice began echoing as he disappeared into the darkness. «You look like you could use a meal. Is anyone else hungry? Reunions always give me an appetite.»
Richard's arms dropped, his hands flopping against his thighs in frustration. He sighed and then hurried up the steps after his grandfather. Nicci knew that had it been anyone else, Richard would have handled it quite differently. People who loved you, and had raised you since you were little, and had comforted you when you cried at a thunderstorm or the howl of a wolf tended to be disarming to deal with. She could see that it was no different with Richard. His love of his grandfather tied his hands with unbreakable ropes of respect.
It was a view of Richard Nicci had never seen before, and one she found quite endearing. Here was the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D'Haran Empire, the Seeker of Truth, a man who could make just about anyone tremble with a look, brought to flustered silence by a kindly if bewildering lecture. Had the matters involved not been so serious, Nicci would have been unable to keep herself from grinning at Richard's utter helplessness before such a frail-looking old man.
The sound of water reverberated inside the dark anteroom. Zedd cast a hand casually to the side and a lamp on the wall lit. At the ignition of the flame Nicci recognized the reiteration of a spark of power that marked it as a key lamp. With a succession of whooshing sounds, starting on both sides of the entrance, hundreds of lamps around the vast room lit in pairs. Each whoosh as a pair of lamps caught flame was followed almost simultaneously by another as the lamps around the huge room each took to flame from the engendering magic initiated by the key lamp, the effect being a ring of fire seeming to dance its way around the room. Nicci knew that it would have worked the same had someone lit that particular lamp with a flame rather than magic. The light in the room swelled, and in a span of seconds the anteroom was nearly as bright as day.
A clover-leaf-shaped fountain stood centered in the tiled floor. Water spouted high into the air above the top bowl, from where it cascaded down each successive tier of ever wider, scalloped bowls, finally running from points around the bottom bowl in perfectly matched arcs into the surrounding pool contained by an outer wall of variegated white marble made wide enough to act as a bench.
All the way around the oval-shaped room, highly polished, deep red marble columns stood below arches supporting a continuous balcony. A hundred feet overhead a section of glassed roof let in some of the somber, late-day light to balance the glow of the lamps down in the heart of the room. At night, the glassed roof would probably also let in the soft cold light of the moon to give the darkened room a spectral feel, but with it being the new moon, to say nothing of the gathering clouds, there would be no moonlight this night. By the look of the sky through the glassed roof section, Nicci thought that Zedd was right; it did look like it might rain.
Belying first impressions of the Keep, the room was a beautiful, warm entrance to what seemed such a cold and austere exterior. It hinted at the life the place once held. Like the forsaken city down in the valley, Nicci was rather saddened by the emptiness.
«Welcome to the Wizard's Keep. Perhaps we all should.»
«Zedd,» Richard growled, cutting his grandfather short, «I need to talk to you. Right now. It's important.»
Beloved grandfather or not, Nicci could see that Richard was at the end of his patience. Tight, white knuckles stood out in stark contrast against his tanned skin and the prominent veins on the backs of his fists. Judging by the way he looked, he hadn't gotten much sleep in recent days or had much to eat. She didn't think that she had ever seen him looking this exhausted or this near his wits' end. Cara, as well, looked well past the limits of her endurance, although she did a good job of covering it; Mord-Sith were trained to ignore physical discomfort. Despite being overjoyed at seeing his grandfather, Richard's preoccupation with finding the woman from his imagination had cut the pleasantries of the reunion short.
The mad rush that had become life, since that day he had been shot with the arrow and had nearly died, seemed to have come down to this moment.
Zedd blinked in innocent surprise. «Well of course, Richard, of course.» He spread his arms as he spoke in a gentle voice. «You know that you can always talk to me. Whatever is on your mind, you know that.»
«What's Chainfire?»
That was nearly the first thing he had asked of Nicci, too.
Zedd stood unmoving, a blank look on his face. «Chainfire,» he repeated in a flat tone.
«Yes, Chainfire.»
A serious expression weighing on his face, Zedd considered the question with care, turning toward the fountain as he thought it over. The waiting was almost painful. The fountain burbled and splashed and echoed in the otherwise silent room.
«Chainfire,» Zedd drawled to himself as he ran a sticklike finger along his smooth jawbone while staring into the tumbling, dancing water cascading down each successive tier of the fountain. Nicci stole a glance at Cara, but the Mord-Sith was unreadable. Her drawn face looked as tired and ill-fed as Richard's, but, being Cara, she stood tall and straight, not allowing her exhaustion to get the better of her.
«That's right. Chainfire,» Richard said impatiently through gritted teeth. «Do you know what it means?»
Zedd turned back to his grandson, lifting open his hands. He looked not only puzzled but apologetic.
«I'm sorry, Richard, but I've never heard the word Chainfire before.»
The fury leaving him, Richard looked like he might fall down. The disappointment was only too evident in his eyes. His shoulders slumped as he let out a breath. Cara carefully, but quietly, slipped a step closer, ready to help him if he collapsed. To Nicci, that looked like a real possibility.
«Richard,» Zedd said, his voice taking on an edge, «where is your sword?»
Richard erupted. «It's just a piece of steel!»
«Just a piece.»
Richard's face went crimson. «It's just a stupid chunk of metal! Don't you think that there might be more important things to worry about?»
Zedd cocked his head. «More important things? What are you talking about?»
«I want my life back!»
Zedd stared at him, but remained silent, and in doing so thereby almost commanded his grandson to say something more to fill in some of the blanks.
Richard paced from the fountain to a broad band of triple steps that led up between two of the red marble pillars. A long red and gold carpet bordered with simple, black geometric designs ran between the pillars off under a balcony and into the darkness.
Richard raked the fingers of both hands back through his hair. «What difference does it make? No one believes me. No one will help me find her.»
Nicci felt a deep sense of sorrow for him. At that moment she regretted every harsh thing she had ever said trying to convince him that he had only dreamed up Kahlan. He needed to be helped over his delusions, but, at that moment, she would have been happy to let him hold on to them if it would have brought the light of life back into his eyes.
She longed to hold him and tell him that it would be all right, but she couldn't, for more reasons than one.
Cara, arms hanging straight at her sides, looked just as saddened to see Richard agonizing so. There seemed no end in sight. Nicci suspected that the Mord-Sith would have agreed with Nicci to let Richard have his beautiful dream of the woman he loved. But a lie would not soothe such real pain.
«Richard, I don't know what you're talking about, but what does it have to do with the Sword of Truth?» Zedd asked, the edge returning to his voice.
Richard closed his eyes a moment against the torment of saying aloud what he had said so many times, so many times when no one ever believed him.
«I have to find Kahlan.»
Nicci could see him draw tighter, bracing for the usual disconcerting questions as to who he was talking about and where he could ever have gotten such a notion. Nicci could see that it was almost too much for him to bear another person telling him he was imagining things, questioning his sanity. She could see him dreading it even more coming from his grandfather.
Zedd tilted his head a little. «Kahlan?»
«Yes,» Richard said with a sigh and without looking up, «Kahlan. But you wouldn't know who I'm talking about.»
Ordinarily, Richard would have launched into a ready explanation, but now he looked too dejected to want to bother to explain yet again, to be greeted with incredulity and disbelieving questions.
«Kahlan.» Zedd's brow drew down in cautious query. «Kahlan Amnell? Is that the Kahlan you're talking about?»
Nicci froze.
Richard looked up, his eyes wide. «What did you say?» he whispered.
«Kahlan Amnell? That Kahlan?»
Nicci's heart skipped a beat. Cara's jaw had dropped.
In a blink, Richard had the front of Zedd's robes in his fists and had lifted the old man clear of the floor. Richard's sweat-slicked muscles glistened in the lamplight.
«You said her whole name, Kahlan Amnell. I didn't tell you her whole name. You said it on your own.»
Zedd was looking more confused by the moment. «But, that's because the only Kahlan I know of is Kahlan Amnell.»
«You know Kahlan-you know who I'm talking about?»
«The Mother Confessor?»
«Yes, the Mother Confessor!»
«Well, of course. Most people know her, I expect. Richard, what's gotten into you? Let me down.»
Nicci felt dizzy. She couldn't believe her own ears. How was such a thing possible? It wasn't. It was so overwhelmingly, inconceivably impossible that she thought she might faint.
His hands trembling, Richard set his grandfather down. «What do you mean, everyone knows her?»
Zedd pulled on each sleeve in turn, pulling them back down his skinny arms. He rearranged his disheveled robes at his hips, all the time watching his grandson. He looked truly bewildered by Richard's behavior.
«Richard, what's the matter with you? How could they not know her? She's the Mother Confessor, for crying out loud.»
Richard swallowed. «Where is she?»
Zedd shot a brief, confused glance at Cara and then Nicci before looking back at Richard.
«Why, down at the Confessors' Palace.»
Richard let out a cry of joy and threw his arms around his grandfather.
As it was, though, she brooded over his continuing fixation on finding the woman Kahlan that he was so sure he remembered. He hadn't said anything about her, yet, probably because from their previous disagreements he had become frustrated by the futility of trying to convince her that he had to find a woman Nicci knew did not exist. Despite not mentioning her, it was clear to Nicci that he was no less determined to find Kahlan now than he had been the last time Nicci had been with him. Her hopes that he would be better by the time she finally caught up with him had faded. Her pleasure over the view dimmed.
There was something, though-a look in his eyes-that seemed to Nicci somehow different. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, or what it could mean. He'd always had a penetrating gaze, a cutting, raptor-like appraisal, but now, the way he met her gaze, it was even more acute, as if he were laying her open and searching her soul. Nicci had nothing to hide, though, especially from Richard. She had nothing but his best interest at heart. She wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. She would do anything to help him to be happy.
She supposed that was why her mood had sunk; even though he was still determined, she knew that he was growing ever more dispirited. The light of life in his eyes was something Nicci treasured. She would not want to see it go out.
Trying to keep up with him left Nicci no opportunity to ask him about what had gone on with the witch woman. From Cara's silence, Nicci knew that, whatever had happened, it had not gone as well as Richard had expected. That was no surprise to Nicci. How could a witch woman, even if she wanted to help, be of any use in finding a woman who existed only in Richard's mind?
Whatever Chainfire could be, Nicci had no idea, but she could sense in his voice, as well as his tense expression, how eager Richard was to discover its meaning. After having lived with him for so long, Nicci knew his feelings without him having to say a word. It was obvious he'd placed a lot of significance on the meaning behind Chainfire.
More than that, though, Nicci was worried as to what could have happened to his sword. She couldn't imagine why he didn't have it with him. Her concern had been heightened all the more by the way Cara had immediately cut off the question, to say nothing of the way Richard had not mentioned it. The Sword of Truth was not something Richard would have lightly forgotten all about.
Higher up on the mountain, as they rode up the switchbacks, the road emerged from a thick growth of towering spruce trees before a stone bridge spanning a chasm of immense depth. It looked to Nicci as if the mountain were split open to its core, with the closer side pulled away from the rest of the mountain. As they rode single-file across the bridge spanning the yawning abyss, she glanced over the edge and could see sheer rock walls to each side dropping down through cottony clouds drifting by below them. It was a dizzying sight that made her stomach feel queazy.
Nicci could tell by Sa'din's gait how tired he was. His ears lazily swiveled toward the drop to each side as they crossed the bridge. Richard and Cara's horses, though, were lathered and blowing hard. Nicci knew how well Richard treated animals, and yet he was showing these no mercy. He obviously thought there were higher values involved than the lives of animals. She knew what that value was: human life. One in particular.
The walls of the Keep, composed of intricately joined blocks of dark granite, rose up like a cliff before them. Coming off the bridge, riding between Richard in front and Cara at the rear, Nicci stared up at the Keep's complex maze of ramparts, bastions, towers, connecting passageways, and bridges. The place looked somehow alive, as if it were watching them approach the gaping entrance of arched stone where the road tunneled under the base of the outer wall.
Without hesitation, Richard trotted his horse in under the raised, massive portcullis. Given a choice, Nicci would have been a bit more cautious in her approach to such a place. Her skin crawled with the power emanating from within. She had never before felt such a strong sense of the force of magic from within a place. It was like standing alone on a plain as a vast, massive thunderstorm was about to envelope her.
The sensation gave her some measure of the shields that guarded the Keep. From what she had to conclude by what she could sense, the shields at the Palace of the Prophets had been child's play by comparison. Too, those were predominantly Additive and the palace had been built for an entirely different purpose. Here, Subtractive shields were employed in equal service. The lethality of their dominion was not concealed, but manifest to those whose business it was to know of such things.
Almost unnoticed, hazy clouds had closed in overhead, leaving the late-afternoon sky a flat, steel gray. The gloom that replaced the sunlight made the stone of the Keep look all the darker, all the more forbidding, almost as if the Keep itself had drawn a shroud of clouds tightly around itself as it watched the approach of a sorceress and a wizard able to command powers that yet haunted this place.
After coming out from under the arched opening in the thick outer wall, they emerged on a road that continued through the deep interior canyon of the Keep. Beyond, the road tunneled through another dark wall that provided a second barrier, should one ever be necessary. Without pause, Richard rode on into that long, dark passageway. The sounds of the horses' hooves echoed off the damp stone under the murky, arched passage.
Beyond the tunnel, they emerged beside an expansive paddock growing thick with lush grass. The gravel road ran along the side of a wall to the right with several doors. The first doors they'd encountered just inside the portcullis would have been where visitors entered. Nicci surmised that this, beyond the second wall, was probably the working entrance to the Keep. A fence along the other side of the road enclosed the paddock. Beyond, to the left, the back side of the paddock was walled off by the Keep itself. At the far end stood the stables.
Without a word, Richard dismounted and opened the gate to the paddock, letting his horse go in but leaving it saddled. Perplexed, Cara and Nicci nonetheless followed his example before following him across the grounds toward an entrance with a dozen wide granite steps worn smooth and swaybacked over time. They led up into a recessed entryway where simple but heavy double doors into the Keep proper began to creak open.
An old man, wavy white hair in disarray, peered out like a homeowner surprised by visitors. He gulped air, apparently winded from having run through the Keep when he'd realized that someone was coming. He had no doubt been alerted by webs of magic that announced anyone taking the road up to the Keep. In ancient times there would have been people closer at hand to see to anyone newly arrived. Now there was only the old man. By the way he was breathing he must have been clear across the Keep when the alarms had warned him.
Even through the look of astonishment on his thin, wrinkled face, Nicci recognized elements of the features. She knew that he could be none other than Richard's grandfather Zedd. He was tall, but as thin as a sapling. His hazel eyes were wide with wonder and a kind of childlike excitement, if not innocence. His plain, unadorned robes marked him as a great wizard. He wore his age well. It was a pleasing preview of how, in part, time might treat Richard.
The old man threw his arms up over his head. «Richard!» A joyous grin swept across his face. «Bags, is that really you, my boy?»
Zedd emerged from the doorway and started down the worn steps into the dreary light.
Richard ran to his grandfather and lifted him off the steps, hugging him fiercely enough to drive the wind from the already winded old man. They both laughed, a pleasing sound with obvious kinship.
«Zedd! You can't imagine how glad I am to see you!»
«And you, my boy,» Zedd said in a voice turning teary. «It's been too long. Far too long.»
He reached a sticklike hand past Richard and gripped Cara's shoulder. «How are you, my dear? You appear to be near to spent. Are you all right?»
«I am Mord-Sith,» she said, looking a bit indignant. «Of course I'm all right. Why would you think I look anything but perfectly fine?»
Zedd chuckled as he pushed back from Richard. «No reason, I suppose. You both look like you could use some rest and a meal or two is all. But you do look fine and I'm mighty happy to see you again.»
Cara smiled at that. «I've missed you, Zedd.»
Zedd waggled a finger. «Not very Mord-Sith of you to miss an old man. Rikka will be astonished to hear such a thing.»
«Rikka?» Cara asked in surprise. «Rikka is here?»
Zedd waggled a hand back in the direction of the partly opened door. «She's back in there, somewhere — patrolling, I imagine. She seems to have two preoccupations in life, patrolling and harassing me. I'm telling you, I have no peace of mind with the woman. Worse, she's too clever for her own good. At least she's a talented cook.»
Cara's brows lifted. «Rikka can cook?»
Zedd winced, pulling a breath through his teeth. «Don't tell her I said that or I'll never hear the end of it. The woman.»
«Zedd,» Richard interrupted, «I have trouble and I need help.»
«Are you well? You aren't ill, are you? You don't look entirely yourself, my boy.» Zedd pressed a hand to Richard's forehead. «Summer fevers are the worst, you know. Heat on top of heat. Bad combination.»
«Yes-no-I mean, it's not that. I need to talk to you.»
«So talk. It has been a long time. Far too long of a time. What's it been? Two years this past spring, if I'm not mistaken.» Zedd drew back a bit and squeezed Richard's arms as he looked him up and down. «Richard, where's your sword?»
«Look, we'll talk about that later,» Richard said, irritably disengaging himself from Zedd's grip in order to wave away the question.
«You said you wanted to talk. So talk and tell me where your sword is.» Zedd redirected his broad grin at Nicci. «And who is this lovely sorceress you've brought along?»
Richard blinked at Zedd's smile and then glanced at Nicci. «Oh, sorry. Zedd, this is Nicci. Nicci, this.»
«Nicci!» Zedd roared as he danced back up two of the steps as if he'd spotted a viper. «The Sister of the Dark who took you away to the Old World? That Nicci? What are you doing with this vile creature? Why would you dare to bring such a woman.»
«Zedd,» Richard said, forcefully cutting his grandfather off. «Nicci is a friend.»
«A friend! Are you out of your mind, Richard? How in the world do you expect.»
«Zedd, she's on our side now.» He gestured heatedly. «Much the same as Cara, or Rikka. Things change. Before, either of them would have.»
His voice trailed off as his grandfather stared at him. «You know what I mean. I trust Cara with my life, now, and she has proven worthy of my trust. I trust Nicci the same. I trust them both with my life.»
Zedd finally gripped Richard's shoulder and gave it an affectionate joggle. «I guess I do know what you mean. Since I gave you the Sword of Truth you've changed a great many things for the better. Why, I would never in my life have imagined that one day I'd happily be eating meals cooked by a Mord-Sith. And delicious meals they are, too.» He caught himself and pointed at Cara. «If you tell her I said that I'll skin you alive. The woman is already incorrigible.»
Cara only smiled.
Zedd redirected his gaze to Nicci. He didn't have that raptorlike Rahl quality, but in its own way it was just as disarming and looked to have the potential to be just as disturbing.
«Welcome, sorceress. If Richard says you are a friend, then you are. Sorry to get so huffy.»
Nicci smiled. «Perfectly understandable. I didn't like myself back then either. I was under the influence of dark delusions. I was called Death's Mistress for good reason.» Nicci gazed into Richard's gray eyes. «Your grandson brought me to see the beauty of life.»
Zedd smiled proudly. «Yes, that's it exactly. The beauty of life.»
Richard pounced on the opening. «And life is what this is about. Zedd, listen, I need.»
«Yes, yes,» Zedd said, waving off Richard's impatience. «You always need something. Haven't been back long enough to get in the door and already you want to know something. If I recall correctly, the first word you ever spoke was 'why.'
«Come on, then, come inside. I want to know why you don't have the Sword of Truth with you. I know you wouldn't let anything happen to it, but I want to hear the whole story. Don't leave out a thing. Come along, then.»
Motioning them all to follow, Richard's grandfather climbed the stairs toward the doorway.
«Zedd! I need.»
«Yes, yes, my boy. You need something. I heard you the first time. I think it looks like rain. No use getting started when we're about to get wet. Come inside and I will hear what you have to say.» Zedd's voice began echoing as he disappeared into the darkness. «You look like you could use a meal. Is anyone else hungry? Reunions always give me an appetite.»
Richard's arms dropped, his hands flopping against his thighs in frustration. He sighed and then hurried up the steps after his grandfather. Nicci knew that had it been anyone else, Richard would have handled it quite differently. People who loved you, and had raised you since you were little, and had comforted you when you cried at a thunderstorm or the howl of a wolf tended to be disarming to deal with. She could see that it was no different with Richard. His love of his grandfather tied his hands with unbreakable ropes of respect.
It was a view of Richard Nicci had never seen before, and one she found quite endearing. Here was the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D'Haran Empire, the Seeker of Truth, a man who could make just about anyone tremble with a look, brought to flustered silence by a kindly if bewildering lecture. Had the matters involved not been so serious, Nicci would have been unable to keep herself from grinning at Richard's utter helplessness before such a frail-looking old man.
The sound of water reverberated inside the dark anteroom. Zedd cast a hand casually to the side and a lamp on the wall lit. At the ignition of the flame Nicci recognized the reiteration of a spark of power that marked it as a key lamp. With a succession of whooshing sounds, starting on both sides of the entrance, hundreds of lamps around the vast room lit in pairs. Each whoosh as a pair of lamps caught flame was followed almost simultaneously by another as the lamps around the huge room each took to flame from the engendering magic initiated by the key lamp, the effect being a ring of fire seeming to dance its way around the room. Nicci knew that it would have worked the same had someone lit that particular lamp with a flame rather than magic. The light in the room swelled, and in a span of seconds the anteroom was nearly as bright as day.
A clover-leaf-shaped fountain stood centered in the tiled floor. Water spouted high into the air above the top bowl, from where it cascaded down each successive tier of ever wider, scalloped bowls, finally running from points around the bottom bowl in perfectly matched arcs into the surrounding pool contained by an outer wall of variegated white marble made wide enough to act as a bench.
All the way around the oval-shaped room, highly polished, deep red marble columns stood below arches supporting a continuous balcony. A hundred feet overhead a section of glassed roof let in some of the somber, late-day light to balance the glow of the lamps down in the heart of the room. At night, the glassed roof would probably also let in the soft cold light of the moon to give the darkened room a spectral feel, but with it being the new moon, to say nothing of the gathering clouds, there would be no moonlight this night. By the look of the sky through the glassed roof section, Nicci thought that Zedd was right; it did look like it might rain.
Belying first impressions of the Keep, the room was a beautiful, warm entrance to what seemed such a cold and austere exterior. It hinted at the life the place once held. Like the forsaken city down in the valley, Nicci was rather saddened by the emptiness.
«Welcome to the Wizard's Keep. Perhaps we all should.»
«Zedd,» Richard growled, cutting his grandfather short, «I need to talk to you. Right now. It's important.»
Beloved grandfather or not, Nicci could see that Richard was at the end of his patience. Tight, white knuckles stood out in stark contrast against his tanned skin and the prominent veins on the backs of his fists. Judging by the way he looked, he hadn't gotten much sleep in recent days or had much to eat. She didn't think that she had ever seen him looking this exhausted or this near his wits' end. Cara, as well, looked well past the limits of her endurance, although she did a good job of covering it; Mord-Sith were trained to ignore physical discomfort. Despite being overjoyed at seeing his grandfather, Richard's preoccupation with finding the woman from his imagination had cut the pleasantries of the reunion short.
The mad rush that had become life, since that day he had been shot with the arrow and had nearly died, seemed to have come down to this moment.
Zedd blinked in innocent surprise. «Well of course, Richard, of course.» He spread his arms as he spoke in a gentle voice. «You know that you can always talk to me. Whatever is on your mind, you know that.»
«What's Chainfire?»
That was nearly the first thing he had asked of Nicci, too.
Zedd stood unmoving, a blank look on his face. «Chainfire,» he repeated in a flat tone.
«Yes, Chainfire.»
A serious expression weighing on his face, Zedd considered the question with care, turning toward the fountain as he thought it over. The waiting was almost painful. The fountain burbled and splashed and echoed in the otherwise silent room.
«Chainfire,» Zedd drawled to himself as he ran a sticklike finger along his smooth jawbone while staring into the tumbling, dancing water cascading down each successive tier of the fountain. Nicci stole a glance at Cara, but the Mord-Sith was unreadable. Her drawn face looked as tired and ill-fed as Richard's, but, being Cara, she stood tall and straight, not allowing her exhaustion to get the better of her.
«That's right. Chainfire,» Richard said impatiently through gritted teeth. «Do you know what it means?»
Zedd turned back to his grandson, lifting open his hands. He looked not only puzzled but apologetic.
«I'm sorry, Richard, but I've never heard the word Chainfire before.»
The fury leaving him, Richard looked like he might fall down. The disappointment was only too evident in his eyes. His shoulders slumped as he let out a breath. Cara carefully, but quietly, slipped a step closer, ready to help him if he collapsed. To Nicci, that looked like a real possibility.
«Richard,» Zedd said, his voice taking on an edge, «where is your sword?»
Richard erupted. «It's just a piece of steel!»
«Just a piece.»
Richard's face went crimson. «It's just a stupid chunk of metal! Don't you think that there might be more important things to worry about?»
Zedd cocked his head. «More important things? What are you talking about?»
«I want my life back!»
Zedd stared at him, but remained silent, and in doing so thereby almost commanded his grandson to say something more to fill in some of the blanks.
Richard paced from the fountain to a broad band of triple steps that led up between two of the red marble pillars. A long red and gold carpet bordered with simple, black geometric designs ran between the pillars off under a balcony and into the darkness.
Richard raked the fingers of both hands back through his hair. «What difference does it make? No one believes me. No one will help me find her.»
Nicci felt a deep sense of sorrow for him. At that moment she regretted every harsh thing she had ever said trying to convince him that he had only dreamed up Kahlan. He needed to be helped over his delusions, but, at that moment, she would have been happy to let him hold on to them if it would have brought the light of life back into his eyes.
She longed to hold him and tell him that it would be all right, but she couldn't, for more reasons than one.
Cara, arms hanging straight at her sides, looked just as saddened to see Richard agonizing so. There seemed no end in sight. Nicci suspected that the Mord-Sith would have agreed with Nicci to let Richard have his beautiful dream of the woman he loved. But a lie would not soothe such real pain.
«Richard, I don't know what you're talking about, but what does it have to do with the Sword of Truth?» Zedd asked, the edge returning to his voice.
Richard closed his eyes a moment against the torment of saying aloud what he had said so many times, so many times when no one ever believed him.
«I have to find Kahlan.»
Nicci could see him draw tighter, bracing for the usual disconcerting questions as to who he was talking about and where he could ever have gotten such a notion. Nicci could see that it was almost too much for him to bear another person telling him he was imagining things, questioning his sanity. She could see him dreading it even more coming from his grandfather.
Zedd tilted his head a little. «Kahlan?»
«Yes,» Richard said with a sigh and without looking up, «Kahlan. But you wouldn't know who I'm talking about.»
Ordinarily, Richard would have launched into a ready explanation, but now he looked too dejected to want to bother to explain yet again, to be greeted with incredulity and disbelieving questions.
«Kahlan.» Zedd's brow drew down in cautious query. «Kahlan Amnell? Is that the Kahlan you're talking about?»
Nicci froze.
Richard looked up, his eyes wide. «What did you say?» he whispered.
«Kahlan Amnell? That Kahlan?»
Nicci's heart skipped a beat. Cara's jaw had dropped.
In a blink, Richard had the front of Zedd's robes in his fists and had lifted the old man clear of the floor. Richard's sweat-slicked muscles glistened in the lamplight.
«You said her whole name, Kahlan Amnell. I didn't tell you her whole name. You said it on your own.»
Zedd was looking more confused by the moment. «But, that's because the only Kahlan I know of is Kahlan Amnell.»
«You know Kahlan-you know who I'm talking about?»
«The Mother Confessor?»
«Yes, the Mother Confessor!»
«Well, of course. Most people know her, I expect. Richard, what's gotten into you? Let me down.»
Nicci felt dizzy. She couldn't believe her own ears. How was such a thing possible? It wasn't. It was so overwhelmingly, inconceivably impossible that she thought she might faint.
His hands trembling, Richard set his grandfather down. «What do you mean, everyone knows her?»
Zedd pulled on each sleeve in turn, pulling them back down his skinny arms. He rearranged his disheveled robes at his hips, all the time watching his grandson. He looked truly bewildered by Richard's behavior.
«Richard, what's the matter with you? How could they not know her? She's the Mother Confessor, for crying out loud.»
Richard swallowed. «Where is she?»
Zedd shot a brief, confused glance at Cara and then Nicci before looking back at Richard.
«Why, down at the Confessors' Palace.»
Richard let out a cry of joy and threw his arms around his grandfather.
CHAPTER 47
Gripping his grandfather's skinny shoulders, Richard shook the old man. «She's here? Kahlan is at the Confessors' Palace?»
Worry spreading across Zedd's wrinkled face, he cautiously nodded.
With the back of his hand, Richard wiped away the tears running down his cheek. «She's here,» he said, turning to Cara. He gripped her shoulders and gave her a firm shake. «She's in Aydindril. Did you hear? I wasn't imagining it. Zedd remembers her. He knows the truth.»
Cara looked as if she were doing her best to come to grips with her astonishment without letting it be mistaken for unhappiness at the startling news.
«Lord Rahl — I'm — happy for you-really I am-but I don't see how.»
Richard, not seeming to notice the Mord-Sith's halting uncertainty, turned back to the wizard. «What's she doing down there?» he asked, his voice bubbling over with excitement.
Zedd, looking gravely troubled, again glanced to both Cara and Nicci before tenderly laying a hand on Richard's shoulder.
«Richard, that's where she's buried.»
The world seemed to stop.
In a flash of understanding, Nicci realized the truth.
Suddenly, it all became clear. Zedd's behavior now made sense. The woman Zedd was talking about was not the Kahlan, the Mother Confessor, from Richard's imagination, the woman he imagined loved him and had married him.
It was the real Mother Confessor.
Nicci had warned Richard that in his dream he had done a dangerous thing by imagining a woman as his bride who was not simply some anonymous imaginary woman, but, instead, was a woman he had heard of before-a woman who, it so happened, was well known in the Midlands. This was the real Kahlan Amnell, the real Mother Confessor, who was buried down at the Confessors' Palace, not the one Richard had dreamed up to be his love. It had been this very reality that Nicci had feared would eventually come to shatter Richard's world.
She had warned him that this was bound to happen. She had warned him that he would one day come face-to-face with the truth. This was the moment, this was the very thing she had been trying to prevent.
Still, Nicci felt no joy at all in being right. She felt only crushing sadness at what Richard must be feeling. She couldn't even begin to imagine how confusing, how disorienting, it had to be for him. For someone as firmly grounded in reality as Richard always had been, this entire ordeal had to be devastating.
Richard could only stare.
«Richard,» Zedd finally said, giving him a gentle squeeze on his arms, «are you all right? What's going on?»
Richard slowly blinked. He looked in a state of shock.
«What do you mean she's buried down at the Confessors' Palace?» he asked in a shaky voice. «When did it happen?»
Zedd guardedly licked his lips. «I don't know when she died. When I was down there-when Jagang's army was marching on Aydindril-I saw the grave marker. I didn't know her. I just saw her grave, that's all. It's a pretty big marker. It would be hard to miss. The Confessors were all killed by the quads that Darken Rahl sent. She must have died back then.
«Richard, you couldn't possibly have known the woman; she had to have been dead and buried before we ever left our home in Westland —back before the boundary came down. Back when you were still a woods guide in the Hartland forest.»
Richard pressed his palms to his forehead. «No, no, you don't understand. You're having the same problem as everyone else. It's not her. You know Kahlan.»
Zedd lifted a sympathetic hand toward his grandson. «Richard, that's not possible. The quads killed the Confessors.»
«Yes, the other Confessors were killed by those assassins, but not her, not Kahlan.» Richard waved a hand as he dismissed the argument. «Zedd, she's the one who came to ask you to appoint the Seeker-that's why we left Westland. You know Kahlan.»
Zedd frowned. «What in the world are you talking about? We had to leave when Darken Rahl came hunting us. We had to run for our lives.»
«In part, but Kahlan came looking for you first. She's the one who told us that Darken Rahl had put the boxes of Orden in play. He was on the other side of the boundary; if not for Kahlan coming, how would we have even known?»
Zedd peered at Richard as if he suspected he might be quite ill. «Richard, when the boxes of Orden are put into play, the snake vine grows. It even says so in The Book of Counted Shadows. You, of all people, know that. You were in the Upper Ven and were bitten by a snake vine. It caused a fever and you came to me for help. That's how we knew the boxes of Orden were in play. Darken Rahl then came to Westland and attacked us.»
«Well, yes, that's all true, in a way, but Kahlan told us what was happening in the Midlands-she confirmed it.» Richard growled in frustration. «It's more than that, more than her coming to ask you to appoint a Seeker. You know her.»
«I'm afraid that I don't, Richard.»
«Dear spirits, Zedd, you spent last winter with her and the D'Haran army. When Nicci took me down to the Old World, Kahlan was there with Cara and you.» He pointed insistently at Cara, as if it would somehow prove the point and end the nightmare. «She and Cara fought with you all winter.»
Zedd glanced up at Cara. Cara, behind Richard's back, turned her palms up and shrugged at Zedd to let him know that she didn't know any more about it than Zedd did.
«As long as you brought up the business about you being the Seeker, where is your.»
Richard snapped his fingers, his face suddenly lighting up.
«That's not Kahlan's grave.»
«Of course it is. There's no mistaking this grave. It's prominent and I clearly recall that it has her name carved right in the stone.»
«Yes, it's her name, but not her grave. I realize what you're talking about, now.» Richard chuckled with relief. «I'm telling you, it's not her grave.»
Zedd didn't think it was funny. «Richard, I've seen her name on the stone. It's her, the Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell.»
Richard shook his head insistently. «No, that's not her. That was a trick.»
«A trick?» Zedd cocked his head, frowning. «What are you talking about? What sort of trick?»
«They were hunting her-the Order was after Kahlan when they occupied Aydindril. They had taken over the council, condemned her to death, and they were hunting her. To keep them from chasing her, you put a death spell on her.»
«What! A death spell! Richard, do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you're suggesting?»
«Of course I do. But it's true. You needed to feign her death so that the Order would think they had succeeded and wouldn't come after her-so that she could get away. Don't you remember? You made that headstone, or at least you had it made. I came here to find her-it was a few years back. Your spell even fooled me. I thought she was dead. But she wasn't.»
His confusion had receded and now Zedd was looking seriously worried. «Richard, I can't imagine what is wrong with you, but this is simply.»
«You two escaped to safety but you left me a message on her headstone,» Richard said, jabbing a finger at Zedd's chest, «so that I would know that she was really still alive. So that I wouldn't despair. So that I wouldn't give up. I almost did, but then I figured it out.»
Zedd was nearly boiling over with frustration, impatience, and concern. Nicci knew the feeling.
«Bags, my boy, what message are you talking about?»
«The words on the headstone. The inscription. It was a message to me.»
Zedd planted his fists on his hips. «What are you talking about? What message? What was this message?»
Richard started pacing, pressing his fingertips to his temples as he mumbled to himself, apparently trying to recall the exact wording.
Or, Nicci thought, trying to dream it up the way he always dreamed up answers to talk his way out of facing the truth. She knew that this time he was making a mistake that would catch him up. Reality was closing in around him, even if he didn't yet recognize it. He soon would.
Nicci dreaded that unequivocal juncture of delusion and truth. Despite wanting Richard to get better, to get over the false memories he had been suffering, she dreaded the pain she knew it would bring him when he eventually came face-to-face with the unambiguous truth. Even more, she dreaded what would happen to him if he couldn't see the truth, or refused to see it, if he sank forever deeper into a world of illusion.
«Not here,» he muttered. «Something about not being here. And something about my heart.»
Zedd pushed his cheek out with his tongue, apparently in an effort to keep still while he watched his grandson pacing back and forth and at the same time probably tried to imagine what could be happening to him.
«No,» Richard said abruptly as he halted. «No, not my heart. That's not what it said. It's a big monument. I remember now. It said, 'Kahlan Amnell. Mother Confessor. She is not here, but in the hearts of those who love her.'
«It was a message for me not to give up hope because she wasn't really dead-she wasn't really there, in that grave.»
«Richard,» Zedd said in soft consolation, «it's a common enough thing to say on a grave marker, that someone isn't dead but rather lives on in the hearts of those who love her. Gravediggers probably have stacks of grave markers made up with that sentiment, carved with those very words.»
«But she wasn't buried there! She wasn't! It says that-'she is not here'-for a reason.»
«Then who is buried in her grave?» Zedd asked.
Richard went still for a moment.
«No one,» he finally said, his gaze wandering off as he thought. «Mistress Sanderholt-the cook at the palace-she was fooled by your death spell like everyone else. When I finally got here she told me that you stood there on the platform while Kahlan was beheaded-she was in mourning over it and terribly upset-but I realized that you wouldn't do such a thing and so it had to be one of your tricks. You told me that-remember? Sometimes the best magic is just a trick.»
Zedd nodded. «That part is true enough.»
«Mistress Sanderholt told me that Kahlan's body had been burned in a funeral pyre, the whole thing supervised by the First Wizard himself. She said that Kahlan's ashes were then buried before that immense stone marker. Mistress Sanderholt even took me out to the secluded courtyard beside the palace where Confessors are buried. She showed me the grave. I was horrified. I thought it was her, that she was dead, until I figured out the message carved in the stone-the message the two of you left for me to find.»
Richard gripped his grandfather's shoulders again. «Do you see? It was just a trick to throw our enemies off her trail. She wasn't really dead. She wasn't really buried there. Nothing is buried there, except maybe some ashes.»
Nicci thought that it was rather convenient that Richard imagined her being cremated in his story of the death-spell bluff so that all that remained were ashes that couldn't be identified. He always came up with something that to his mind logically explained the lack of evidence. Nicci didn't know if Confessors really were cremated, but if they were, that would only provide him with another useful pretext to prop up his story so that he could continue to deny that it was her. They would again have no way to prove otherwise.
Unless, of course, he was dreaming up the funeral pyre part of his story and Confessors weren't ordinarily cremated.
«And so you say that you went there?» Zedd asked. «Down to where the gravestone stands?»
«Yes, and then Denna came.»
«Denna was dead,» Cara said, interrupting for the first time. «You killed her in order to escape from her at the People's Palace. She couldn't have been there — unless of course she appeared as a spirit.»
«Yes, that's right,» Richard said, turning to Cara. «She did. She came as a spirit and took me to a place between worlds so that I could be with Kahlan there.»
Cara's eyes briefly turned to the wizard. Her incredulity was impossible for her to mask so she looked away from Richard and occupied herself with scratching the back of her neck.
Nicci wanted to scream. His story grew more insanely convoluted by the moment. She remembered the Prelate once teaching Nicci as a novice how the seed of lies, once planted, only grew more tangled and out of control over time.
Zedd came up from behind and gently grasped Richard's shoulders.
«Come on, my boy. I think you need to get some rest and then afterwards we can.»
«No!» Richard cried out as he twisted away. «I'm not imagining it! I'm not making it up!»
Nicci knew he was doing just that. In a certain sense, it was remarkable the way he was able, on the spot, to weave new events, based on his original delusion, to continually manage to escape the trap of the truth.
But he could not escape it forever. There was the matter of the true Mother Confessor buried in the grave and that was all too real-unless it turned out that the Midlands actually did cremate their Confessors, in which case Richard would be able to continue to hobble along, clinging to his dream for a little while longer, until the next problem cropped up. Sooner or later, though, something was going to shatter those dreams.
Zedd tried again. «Richard, you're tired. You look like you've been living on a horse for.»
«I can prove it,» Richard said in calm defiance.
Everyone went quiet.
«You don't believe me, I know. None of you do-but I can prove it.»
«What do you mean?» Zedd asked.
«Come on. Come with me down to the gravestone.»
«Richard, I told you, the gravestone very well could say what you said you remember, but that proves nothing. It's a common enough sentiment to express on a gravestone.»
«Do they typically burn the bodies of the Mother Confessor on a funeral pyre? Or was that just part of your trick so that you wouldn't have to produce her body at the funeral when she was supposedly buried.»
Zedd was beginning to look more than just a little indignant. «When I used to live here the bodies of Confessors were never desecrated. The Mother Confessor was placed in a silver-clad coffin in her white dress and the people were allowed to view her one last time, to say their farewells, before she was buried.»
Richard glared at his grandfather, at Cara, and finally at Nicci. «Good. If I have to dig up the grave and prove to all of you that there is nothing buried under the gravestone, then that's what I will do. We need to get this settled so that we can move on to the solution to what's happening. In order to do that, I need you all to believe me.»
Zedd spread his hands. «Richard, that isn't necessary.»
«Yes it is! It is necessary! I want my life back!»
No one offered an argument.
«Zedd, have I ever told you a malicious lie?»
«No, my boy, you never have.»
«I'm not lying now.»
«Richard,» Nicci said, «no one is saying that you're lying, only that you're suffering the unfortunate effects of delirium induced by an injury. It's not your fault. We all know you aren't doing this deliberately.»
He turned to his grandfather. «Zedd, don't you see? Think about it. Something is going wrong in the world. Something is terribly wrong. For some reason that I haven't been able to figure out, I'm the only one who is aware of it. I'm the only one who remembers Kahlan. There has to be something behind this. Something wicked. Maybe Jagang is responsible.»
«Jagang had the beast created to come after you,» Nicci said. «He put everything into that effort. He wouldn't need to do anything else. Besides, with the beast already stalking you, what purpose would it serve?»
«I don't know. I don't have all the answers, but I know the truth of part of it.»
«And how can it be that you alone know the truth and everyone else is wrong, that everyone's memory but yours has failed them?» Zedd asked.
«I don't know the answer to that, either, but I can prove what I'm telling you. I can show you the grave. Come on.»
«I told you, Richard, the marker says common words.»
Richard's expression turned dangerous. «Then we will dig up the grave so that you can all see that it's empty and that I'm not crazy.»
Zedd lifted a hand toward the still open door. «But it will be dark soon. What's more, it's going to rain.»
Richard turned back from the doorway. «We have an extra horse. We can still make it down there while we have daylight. If we need to, we can use lanterns. If I must, I will dig in the dark. This is more important than worrying about a little rain or the lack of light. I need to get this over —now-so that we can get on to solving the very real problem and so that I can find Kahlan before it's too late. Let's go.»
Zedd gestured heatedly. «Richard, this is.»
«Let him do as he asks,» Nicci said, interrupting, drawing all eyes. «We've all heard enough. This is important to him. We must allow him to do as he thinks he must. It's the only chance we have to finally settle the matter.»
Worry spreading across Zedd's wrinkled face, he cautiously nodded.
With the back of his hand, Richard wiped away the tears running down his cheek. «She's here,» he said, turning to Cara. He gripped her shoulders and gave her a firm shake. «She's in Aydindril. Did you hear? I wasn't imagining it. Zedd remembers her. He knows the truth.»
Cara looked as if she were doing her best to come to grips with her astonishment without letting it be mistaken for unhappiness at the startling news.
«Lord Rahl — I'm — happy for you-really I am-but I don't see how.»
Richard, not seeming to notice the Mord-Sith's halting uncertainty, turned back to the wizard. «What's she doing down there?» he asked, his voice bubbling over with excitement.
Zedd, looking gravely troubled, again glanced to both Cara and Nicci before tenderly laying a hand on Richard's shoulder.
«Richard, that's where she's buried.»
The world seemed to stop.
In a flash of understanding, Nicci realized the truth.
Suddenly, it all became clear. Zedd's behavior now made sense. The woman Zedd was talking about was not the Kahlan, the Mother Confessor, from Richard's imagination, the woman he imagined loved him and had married him.
It was the real Mother Confessor.
Nicci had warned Richard that in his dream he had done a dangerous thing by imagining a woman as his bride who was not simply some anonymous imaginary woman, but, instead, was a woman he had heard of before-a woman who, it so happened, was well known in the Midlands. This was the real Kahlan Amnell, the real Mother Confessor, who was buried down at the Confessors' Palace, not the one Richard had dreamed up to be his love. It had been this very reality that Nicci had feared would eventually come to shatter Richard's world.
She had warned him that this was bound to happen. She had warned him that he would one day come face-to-face with the truth. This was the moment, this was the very thing she had been trying to prevent.
Still, Nicci felt no joy at all in being right. She felt only crushing sadness at what Richard must be feeling. She couldn't even begin to imagine how confusing, how disorienting, it had to be for him. For someone as firmly grounded in reality as Richard always had been, this entire ordeal had to be devastating.
Richard could only stare.
«Richard,» Zedd finally said, giving him a gentle squeeze on his arms, «are you all right? What's going on?»
Richard slowly blinked. He looked in a state of shock.
«What do you mean she's buried down at the Confessors' Palace?» he asked in a shaky voice. «When did it happen?»
Zedd guardedly licked his lips. «I don't know when she died. When I was down there-when Jagang's army was marching on Aydindril-I saw the grave marker. I didn't know her. I just saw her grave, that's all. It's a pretty big marker. It would be hard to miss. The Confessors were all killed by the quads that Darken Rahl sent. She must have died back then.
«Richard, you couldn't possibly have known the woman; she had to have been dead and buried before we ever left our home in Westland —back before the boundary came down. Back when you were still a woods guide in the Hartland forest.»
Richard pressed his palms to his forehead. «No, no, you don't understand. You're having the same problem as everyone else. It's not her. You know Kahlan.»
Zedd lifted a sympathetic hand toward his grandson. «Richard, that's not possible. The quads killed the Confessors.»
«Yes, the other Confessors were killed by those assassins, but not her, not Kahlan.» Richard waved a hand as he dismissed the argument. «Zedd, she's the one who came to ask you to appoint the Seeker-that's why we left Westland. You know Kahlan.»
Zedd frowned. «What in the world are you talking about? We had to leave when Darken Rahl came hunting us. We had to run for our lives.»
«In part, but Kahlan came looking for you first. She's the one who told us that Darken Rahl had put the boxes of Orden in play. He was on the other side of the boundary; if not for Kahlan coming, how would we have even known?»
Zedd peered at Richard as if he suspected he might be quite ill. «Richard, when the boxes of Orden are put into play, the snake vine grows. It even says so in The Book of Counted Shadows. You, of all people, know that. You were in the Upper Ven and were bitten by a snake vine. It caused a fever and you came to me for help. That's how we knew the boxes of Orden were in play. Darken Rahl then came to Westland and attacked us.»
«Well, yes, that's all true, in a way, but Kahlan told us what was happening in the Midlands-she confirmed it.» Richard growled in frustration. «It's more than that, more than her coming to ask you to appoint a Seeker. You know her.»
«I'm afraid that I don't, Richard.»
«Dear spirits, Zedd, you spent last winter with her and the D'Haran army. When Nicci took me down to the Old World, Kahlan was there with Cara and you.» He pointed insistently at Cara, as if it would somehow prove the point and end the nightmare. «She and Cara fought with you all winter.»
Zedd glanced up at Cara. Cara, behind Richard's back, turned her palms up and shrugged at Zedd to let him know that she didn't know any more about it than Zedd did.
«As long as you brought up the business about you being the Seeker, where is your.»
Richard snapped his fingers, his face suddenly lighting up.
«That's not Kahlan's grave.»
«Of course it is. There's no mistaking this grave. It's prominent and I clearly recall that it has her name carved right in the stone.»
«Yes, it's her name, but not her grave. I realize what you're talking about, now.» Richard chuckled with relief. «I'm telling you, it's not her grave.»
Zedd didn't think it was funny. «Richard, I've seen her name on the stone. It's her, the Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell.»
Richard shook his head insistently. «No, that's not her. That was a trick.»
«A trick?» Zedd cocked his head, frowning. «What are you talking about? What sort of trick?»
«They were hunting her-the Order was after Kahlan when they occupied Aydindril. They had taken over the council, condemned her to death, and they were hunting her. To keep them from chasing her, you put a death spell on her.»
«What! A death spell! Richard, do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you're suggesting?»
«Of course I do. But it's true. You needed to feign her death so that the Order would think they had succeeded and wouldn't come after her-so that she could get away. Don't you remember? You made that headstone, or at least you had it made. I came here to find her-it was a few years back. Your spell even fooled me. I thought she was dead. But she wasn't.»
His confusion had receded and now Zedd was looking seriously worried. «Richard, I can't imagine what is wrong with you, but this is simply.»
«You two escaped to safety but you left me a message on her headstone,» Richard said, jabbing a finger at Zedd's chest, «so that I would know that she was really still alive. So that I wouldn't despair. So that I wouldn't give up. I almost did, but then I figured it out.»
Zedd was nearly boiling over with frustration, impatience, and concern. Nicci knew the feeling.
«Bags, my boy, what message are you talking about?»
«The words on the headstone. The inscription. It was a message to me.»
Zedd planted his fists on his hips. «What are you talking about? What message? What was this message?»
Richard started pacing, pressing his fingertips to his temples as he mumbled to himself, apparently trying to recall the exact wording.
Or, Nicci thought, trying to dream it up the way he always dreamed up answers to talk his way out of facing the truth. She knew that this time he was making a mistake that would catch him up. Reality was closing in around him, even if he didn't yet recognize it. He soon would.
Nicci dreaded that unequivocal juncture of delusion and truth. Despite wanting Richard to get better, to get over the false memories he had been suffering, she dreaded the pain she knew it would bring him when he eventually came face-to-face with the unambiguous truth. Even more, she dreaded what would happen to him if he couldn't see the truth, or refused to see it, if he sank forever deeper into a world of illusion.
«Not here,» he muttered. «Something about not being here. And something about my heart.»
Zedd pushed his cheek out with his tongue, apparently in an effort to keep still while he watched his grandson pacing back and forth and at the same time probably tried to imagine what could be happening to him.
«No,» Richard said abruptly as he halted. «No, not my heart. That's not what it said. It's a big monument. I remember now. It said, 'Kahlan Amnell. Mother Confessor. She is not here, but in the hearts of those who love her.'
«It was a message for me not to give up hope because she wasn't really dead-she wasn't really there, in that grave.»
«Richard,» Zedd said in soft consolation, «it's a common enough thing to say on a grave marker, that someone isn't dead but rather lives on in the hearts of those who love her. Gravediggers probably have stacks of grave markers made up with that sentiment, carved with those very words.»
«But she wasn't buried there! She wasn't! It says that-'she is not here'-for a reason.»
«Then who is buried in her grave?» Zedd asked.
Richard went still for a moment.
«No one,» he finally said, his gaze wandering off as he thought. «Mistress Sanderholt-the cook at the palace-she was fooled by your death spell like everyone else. When I finally got here she told me that you stood there on the platform while Kahlan was beheaded-she was in mourning over it and terribly upset-but I realized that you wouldn't do such a thing and so it had to be one of your tricks. You told me that-remember? Sometimes the best magic is just a trick.»
Zedd nodded. «That part is true enough.»
«Mistress Sanderholt told me that Kahlan's body had been burned in a funeral pyre, the whole thing supervised by the First Wizard himself. She said that Kahlan's ashes were then buried before that immense stone marker. Mistress Sanderholt even took me out to the secluded courtyard beside the palace where Confessors are buried. She showed me the grave. I was horrified. I thought it was her, that she was dead, until I figured out the message carved in the stone-the message the two of you left for me to find.»
Richard gripped his grandfather's shoulders again. «Do you see? It was just a trick to throw our enemies off her trail. She wasn't really dead. She wasn't really buried there. Nothing is buried there, except maybe some ashes.»
Nicci thought that it was rather convenient that Richard imagined her being cremated in his story of the death-spell bluff so that all that remained were ashes that couldn't be identified. He always came up with something that to his mind logically explained the lack of evidence. Nicci didn't know if Confessors really were cremated, but if they were, that would only provide him with another useful pretext to prop up his story so that he could continue to deny that it was her. They would again have no way to prove otherwise.
Unless, of course, he was dreaming up the funeral pyre part of his story and Confessors weren't ordinarily cremated.
«And so you say that you went there?» Zedd asked. «Down to where the gravestone stands?»
«Yes, and then Denna came.»
«Denna was dead,» Cara said, interrupting for the first time. «You killed her in order to escape from her at the People's Palace. She couldn't have been there — unless of course she appeared as a spirit.»
«Yes, that's right,» Richard said, turning to Cara. «She did. She came as a spirit and took me to a place between worlds so that I could be with Kahlan there.»
Cara's eyes briefly turned to the wizard. Her incredulity was impossible for her to mask so she looked away from Richard and occupied herself with scratching the back of her neck.
Nicci wanted to scream. His story grew more insanely convoluted by the moment. She remembered the Prelate once teaching Nicci as a novice how the seed of lies, once planted, only grew more tangled and out of control over time.
Zedd came up from behind and gently grasped Richard's shoulders.
«Come on, my boy. I think you need to get some rest and then afterwards we can.»
«No!» Richard cried out as he twisted away. «I'm not imagining it! I'm not making it up!»
Nicci knew he was doing just that. In a certain sense, it was remarkable the way he was able, on the spot, to weave new events, based on his original delusion, to continually manage to escape the trap of the truth.
But he could not escape it forever. There was the matter of the true Mother Confessor buried in the grave and that was all too real-unless it turned out that the Midlands actually did cremate their Confessors, in which case Richard would be able to continue to hobble along, clinging to his dream for a little while longer, until the next problem cropped up. Sooner or later, though, something was going to shatter those dreams.
Zedd tried again. «Richard, you're tired. You look like you've been living on a horse for.»
«I can prove it,» Richard said in calm defiance.
Everyone went quiet.
«You don't believe me, I know. None of you do-but I can prove it.»
«What do you mean?» Zedd asked.
«Come on. Come with me down to the gravestone.»
«Richard, I told you, the gravestone very well could say what you said you remember, but that proves nothing. It's a common enough sentiment to express on a gravestone.»
«Do they typically burn the bodies of the Mother Confessor on a funeral pyre? Or was that just part of your trick so that you wouldn't have to produce her body at the funeral when she was supposedly buried.»
Zedd was beginning to look more than just a little indignant. «When I used to live here the bodies of Confessors were never desecrated. The Mother Confessor was placed in a silver-clad coffin in her white dress and the people were allowed to view her one last time, to say their farewells, before she was buried.»
Richard glared at his grandfather, at Cara, and finally at Nicci. «Good. If I have to dig up the grave and prove to all of you that there is nothing buried under the gravestone, then that's what I will do. We need to get this settled so that we can move on to the solution to what's happening. In order to do that, I need you all to believe me.»
Zedd spread his hands. «Richard, that isn't necessary.»
«Yes it is! It is necessary! I want my life back!»
No one offered an argument.
«Zedd, have I ever told you a malicious lie?»
«No, my boy, you never have.»
«I'm not lying now.»
«Richard,» Nicci said, «no one is saying that you're lying, only that you're suffering the unfortunate effects of delirium induced by an injury. It's not your fault. We all know you aren't doing this deliberately.»
He turned to his grandfather. «Zedd, don't you see? Think about it. Something is going wrong in the world. Something is terribly wrong. For some reason that I haven't been able to figure out, I'm the only one who is aware of it. I'm the only one who remembers Kahlan. There has to be something behind this. Something wicked. Maybe Jagang is responsible.»
«Jagang had the beast created to come after you,» Nicci said. «He put everything into that effort. He wouldn't need to do anything else. Besides, with the beast already stalking you, what purpose would it serve?»
«I don't know. I don't have all the answers, but I know the truth of part of it.»
«And how can it be that you alone know the truth and everyone else is wrong, that everyone's memory but yours has failed them?» Zedd asked.
«I don't know the answer to that, either, but I can prove what I'm telling you. I can show you the grave. Come on.»
«I told you, Richard, the marker says common words.»
Richard's expression turned dangerous. «Then we will dig up the grave so that you can all see that it's empty and that I'm not crazy.»
Zedd lifted a hand toward the still open door. «But it will be dark soon. What's more, it's going to rain.»
Richard turned back from the doorway. «We have an extra horse. We can still make it down there while we have daylight. If we need to, we can use lanterns. If I must, I will dig in the dark. This is more important than worrying about a little rain or the lack of light. I need to get this over —now-so that we can get on to solving the very real problem and so that I can find Kahlan before it's too late. Let's go.»
Zedd gestured heatedly. «Richard, this is.»
«Let him do as he asks,» Nicci said, interrupting, drawing all eyes. «We've all heard enough. This is important to him. We must allow him to do as he thinks he must. It's the only chance we have to finally settle the matter.»