He supposed that until they were healed, neither of them was going to be back to themselves.
“Have a good rest,” Richard said to the commander and Nicci. “And Commander, keep the men away from us. I think Kahlan needs some privacy tonight.”
The big D’Haran officer tapped a fist to his heart. “No problem, Lord Rahl. I will see to it.”
As he turned to go, he saw Irena and Samantha sitting side by side on a blanket, eating some sausage.
Irena waved. “Please tell her that I hope she feels better soon. If she needs any gifted help, I would be only too glad to offer my services.”
Richard nodded his thanks before starting out across the camp. He walked a crooked course in order to pass by a number of the campfires on his way to check on the men, offer smiles, and wish them a good sleep. Many offered food. Richard thanked them but declined.
When he reached the spot Kahlan had pointed out, he saw that it was indeed some distance away from the rest of the camp, screened by part of the rock outcropping. Larger sections of granite ledge rose up from the forest floor behind, with trees on the far side. It was a cozy, private sanctuary.
Kahlan flipped the blanket back and looked up at him. Her eyes were wet.
Richard got the message and lay down on his back beside her, sitting up just a little with his head propped against the rock so that he could look down at Kahlan.
“Kahlan, please, tell me what’s wrong.”
That made the tears flow. She fell on him, putting one shoulder under his and her other arm over his chest. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“Please, Richard, just hold me?”
He pulled the blanket up over her partway and closed his arms around her, holding her without a word.
He listened to a mockingbird in the distance repeating a monotonous call, the buzz and chirping of bugs, and the soft, distant murmur of the men. He also listened to her cry quietly for a while, until he could stand it no more.
“Kahlan, you are going to be the death of me if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
She didn’t answer. She sniffled for a time, trying to get herself under control.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said. “My whole life I’ve been taught to be strong. I’ve been taught to wear a Confessor face to hide how I feel. But I can’t right now.”
“Why?”
She shrugged against him as she wiped her nose on a handkerchief.
“What did the oracle say that got you so upset?” he asked.
She shrugged again. “She just made me think about my life. Your life. Our lives together.”
“Well, that’s a pleasant enough thing to think about.”
She didn’t answer, so he asked, “Isn’t it?”
“Richard, after Nicci heals us tomorrow of this horrid call of death—if we are healed—can we … I don’t know, go away?”
He frowned in the near darkness as he watched the small campfires in the distance flickering and popping sparks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, ever since I first met you, what have we done?”
“Done? I don’t know, we’ve done a lot of things.”
“For others. We are always fighting to give everyone else a life. When do we get to have our life?”
“I know what you mean, I really do, but it isn’t exactly like we had a lot of choice. There have been people trying to cause great harm to the people we care about—and to us.”
“There is aways a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there will always be someone trying to cause harm. There will always be those who hate those who prevent them from stealing rule, treasure, and lives. There will always be a threat. There will always be something. The world has never been without threats from those kind of savages.
“This time the threat is bigger than us. This is bigger than everything. This is beyond our reach or control. This reaches beyond the world of life and into the underworld. We can’t fight that. We can’t fight this anymore.
“And why should we have to? When is it our time? When do we get to live our lives together?”
“Our time will come, Kahlan,” he said softly.
She shook her head against his shoulder. “No it won’t, unless we make it our time. Richard, it’s time to let go and live what we can of what’s left for us, of what’s left for everyone.”
“Someday,” Richard said. “But I can’t now. I can’t live with myself, live for you, if I don’t do this.”
“I understand how you feel and I know what’s in your heart—I feel no different.
“But this time it’s too much. You can’t stop this, Richard. True wisdom is accepting your limits, accepting that it’s time to admit those limits, and let go of what you can’t change.
“It’s time for you to quit that fight and live. Live your life with me. Live for me.”
Richard swallowed at the lump in his throat. Zedd had told him the same thing. It hurt his heart to hear Kahlan pleading for him to give them a life of their own. Zedd was right that Richard was not just committing himself to the struggle, he was committing Kahlan to it as well. He couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound cruel.
“It’s time for us to spend what time we have, while we can, being together. Please, Richard, don’t deny me what there is to what life I have left. Don’t abandon me to a mission.
“Our entire time together has been devoted to serving the cause we have never had the chance to enjoy. We have served the cause of life and haven’t had any time for us to live it. Let us live it while we can.
“Please, Richard. It’s the only thing I want, the only thing I’m asking of you.”
Although he didn’t know what the oracle had said that had started it, Richard was beginning to comprehend what she was so upset about.
As he felt a tear run down his cheek, he thought that maybe he felt the same way.
“A very wise woman I know, who I happen to love,” he said in a broken voice, “once told me that we all can only be who we are, no more, and no less.”
Kahlan reached up and wiped the tear from his jaw.
“I’m sorry, Richard. I’m sorry to show such weakness. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“You’re not weak,” he whispered. “You are the one I love, and you are anything but weak. You are the strongest person I know.”
“You think too much of me, Richard. I’m weaker than you think.”
He had to ask. “What did the oracle say to you?”
Kahlan laid a finger across his lips. “Hush. We need to get some rest. The poison is giving me a terrible headache.”
“My head is killing me, too,” he admitted.
“Tomorrow we will get that fixed. Rest now. Tomorrow Nicci will heal us. Tonight I am weak, so please, my love, just hold me and let me be weak for tonight.
“But tomorrow, after I am healed, I need to be strong.”
CHAPTER
71
As Richard and the main force made their way through the gloomy city of Saavedra, a contingent of soldiers fanned out through the streets and alleyways to make sure that there were no threats lurking around a corner somewhere. Richard didn’t really think that Hannis Arc cared about the small, remote city of Saavedra any longer, and couldn’t see him bothering to have the place locked down. What would be the point? The man had bigger ambitions. He wanted to rule the world, not Fajin Province.
Jake Fister, in the lead, looked grim and formidable as he strode up the main cobblestone road, presenting the strong, intimidating face of the First File. He understood that strength did not invite trouble, but rather was a deterrent.
The chain mail that some of the men wore sparkled in the drizzle. Soldiers flanked Richard and the women, ready to protect them if need be. Although the soldiers kept their weapons sheathed, Richard knew just how fast they could have them out if needed. Those weapons were not meant for show. They were se
rious tools of their profession and the men were experts with each of them.
Some people stood to the sides and stared, while many others seemed to be rushing everywhere, both along the main cobblestone road through the city and splashing through the mud of the streets and lanes to the sides. The tightly spaced buildings created a warren of passageways, alleys, lanes, and narrow streets. The closeness of everything and everyone made Richard uneasy after being out in the sprawl of the endless, trackless Dark Lands. It felt like the whole city was pulled inward, hiding from that wilderness out beyond.
Richard and those with him slowed from time to time to let frightened women in drab dresses get out of the way. The people off to the sides tried not to be obvious as they watched the strangers in their midst, but everyone, from Richard to the soldiers, all noticed every eye following them as they moved up the street.
Vendors lined up along the sides of the street had laid tarps over their wares, trying to protect them from the weather. Shoppers lifted the tarps, selecting vegetables or meat, trying to look like they didn’t notice the troops passing by. People back in shadows watched the passing visitors from doorways and windows of the dingy, tightly packed, small buildings.
Kahlan walked at Richard’s left, looking like herself again. She had been so exhausted the night before that she had fallen asleep in his arms. Richard had lain awake half the night, unable to close his eyes. She had never before voiced such a wish for him to quit the struggle and leave it to others. In the past, if anything, she had argued against such a notion.
Now she wanted him to quit it all. It had been the same thing Zedd had advised. He hadn’t known how much her heart ached to go off somewhere and live their own lives.
He remembered feeling much the same after she had lost their unborn child when she had been so seriously hurt. He had quit everything and taken Kahlan far back in the uncharted wilderness to the west of Hartland. After she recovered it came to be one of the happiest times of his life, being away from everyone and everything.
He wondered if he was crazy for not jumping at Zedd’s advice and Kahlan’s longings for sanctuary. He wondered if they weren’t right, if he shouldn’t let the world fend for itself.
Maybe if Cara and her husband had cared more for themselves and done that, Ben would be alive and they would be living happily somewhere. Instead, Cara had lost her chance at such happiness. Richard missed her, and his heart ached for her and for all she had lost. He grieved for Zedd as well.
Who did he think he was, anyway? Where did he ever get the idea that the world couldn’t get along without him? He was a woods guide who had taken up the challenge to stop a tyrant and because of that everyone thought he was their savior. He never wanted to be the leader. He had only been doing what was right in protecting himself and people he cared about.
In the end, he thought that was the central issue. He didn’t want to be a leader.
But there were others driven by a desire to dominate and dictate. They lusted to tell everyone else how they must live and what they must think. They were willing to torture and slaughter untold numbers to enforce their arrogant visions.
He understood Zedd’s advice, and Kahlan’s feelings. He just didn’t see how he could do anything but what he was doing. If he didn’t act, he would end up being slaughtered as well. While he hadn’t sought leadership, leadership had fallen to him.
Up ahead, between the dingy two-story buildings crowded in close to the street, he got his first glimpse of the stone citadel high up above the city.
Samantha, walking not far behind him with her mother, leaned closer. “Lord Rahl, I’m so excited that you and the Mother Confessor are finally going to be well. And I can’t wait to see the containment chamber and how such a thing is done.”
Richard looked back and showed her a smile. She had done a lot to help get them this far. Without her help, they could have lost their lives any number of times.
Besides the people who watched from a corner of their eye, Richard saw others along the roads staring with vacant expressions. None of them looked happy, or expectant, or excited, or even curious about the people accompanied by so many soldiers.
Richard leaned toward Nicci. “What does this place remind you of?”
Nicci glanced over. “The cities of the Old World—cities without hope—where people lived their whole lives under the thumb of the Imperial Order.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I had no idea that this part of D’Hara was like this. I had no idea that we had a petty tyrant right under our noses all this time. Makes me wonder what other parts of D’Hara are like, parts I’ve never even heard of.”
“Hannis Arc is no longer so petty,” Kahlan said without looking over. “He wants to kill everything good, and he has a good chance to accomplish it.”
Even here, in the wilds of the Dark Lands, a nest of evil had taken root until eventually it had begun to spread.
Richard was tempted to ask her how, while such a threat existed, he could quit, but he thought better of it.
Kahlan, as the Mother Confessor, had originally come to his home in Hartland in Westland to find the old wizard so that he could name a Seeker. Unbeknownst to Richard, the old wizard had turned out to be Zedd.
It didn’t matter, though. Richard knew who Zedd really was. He was his grandfather, his teacher, his friend.
He was also the one who had named Richard the Seeker of Truth and given him the long-hidden sword that went with that duty. Zedd had told them that it was his responsibility as First Wizard to pick the right person, and Richard was the right person to carry that sword. While at first it hadn’t seemed so, Richard now understood that Zedd had picked the right man.
As he looked into the eyes of the frightened people silently watching, he wondered how he could now turn his back on the responsibility with which Zedd had entrusted him. How could he turn his back on those who had made this sword? Or any of those who had left him clues to help him along the way in his struggle to see justice prevail? How could he fool himself into thinking that he could go off somewhere safe and be left alone to live his life while turning his back on a firestorm and pretend it didn’t exist? How could he live a lie?
The happiest time of his life had been living with Kahlan back in the wilderness. He had tried turning his back on the world. He had tried to give it up to live his life with Kahlan.
When she had recovered, Kahlan had become ever more restless and uneasy, continually trying to convince him that they needed to return to the world and their place in it.
Nicci had shown up and captured him. She had taken him away to a long ordeal of captivity. Richard knew that he had only been fooling himself to think that they could quit the world and find a place to hide, to think they could live in peace without someone coming for him. Someone would always come.
Whether or not he wanted to admit it, the reality was that too many things were connected to him. His only chance at life was to face reality, not hide from it. You either had to fight evil as you encountered it, or evil would come to control your life. Even these people here, way out in the wilds of the Dark Lands, could not escape it.
Nests of depravity always grew stronger and spread if not fought.
What really bothered him, though, was that Kahlan was his rock. He was stronger, physically, than she was, but she was his emotional stability, always steadfast in what was right. There had been times when he had felt too weak to go on. In those times Kahlan had always been his strength. He had always gotten to his feet for her.
It rattled him to see her strength falter.
He knew, though, that she was too strong, too committed, to feel this way for long. He supposed it was unreasonable to expect her to be strong every moment. She was only human.
As much as he wished he could do what Zedd had advised, what she had begged him to do in a moment of human weakness, he knew that in the end she couldn’t really live that way. Sooner or later, and likely sooner, she would start to get uneasy and need t
o return to life’s struggle.
He was the Seeker, but she was the Mother Confessor. She was born to it, and for better or worse she couldn’t escape it any more than he could escape who he was. In the end, she wore the white dress of office because it belonged on her the same way the Sword of Truth belonged on his hip. Neither was ceremonial. Both were made for battle. Both were weapons meant to be used to fight for truth.
He told himself not to be too discouraged by her weakness the night before. There were times when he had been weak, too. He always picked himself up and so would Kahlan. In fact, when they had started out that morning, he had already begun to see her strength coming back. She had looked determined once again.
He still wished he knew what the oracle had told her.
“Look sharp, boys,” Commander Fister said in a low voice as they passed some of the citadel guard in brown tunics standing to either side of the cobblestone road leading up the hill. The dozen men on each side of the road stood at attention, chins up, fists to hearts. They certainly didn’t look like they entertained any thoughts of a fight.
But that had been by design. The commander had sent men ahead to announce the arrival of the Lord Rahl and tell the guards to prepare to receive him and his escort. The scouts reported that the men defending the citadel had been surprised, but friendly and eager to welcome the Lord Rahl and his party. Even though he was from far away, Richard wouldn’t be entirely a mystery to the people here. There had been a number of men from distant parts of D’Hara who had fought in the long war, and they would have returned with stories about the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor leading them to victory.
Richard tried not to see these men, these people of Saavedra, as a threat, but as people much like any others with the same hopes and dreams. Maybe now that he had come to their part of the world, and Hannis Arc was gone, they would feel more a part of a free D’Hara.
At the top of the road, up the hill beyond the city proper, they finally reached massive iron gates in a high stone wall. In another good sign, the gates stood open. More men lined the road at the top, standing in neat ranks to either side.
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