Richard was still confused by the reaction of the magic when Kahlan had taken his hand. Was it something the magic felt in her, or was the magic reacting to something in his own mind? Was it because he was afraid of her secret? Or was it something more, something the magic itself felt in her? He wished Zedd was around, so he could ask him what he thought. But then, Zedd had been there the last time, and he hadn’t asked him about it then. Was he afraid of what Zedd might tell him?
After they had eaten a little and the afternoon had worn on, they heard growls off in the woods. Kahlan said it was the beasts. They decided to run again, to get clear of the pass as soon as possible. Richard was beyond being tired. He was simply numb as they ran through the thick wood. Light rain on the leaves washed out the sound of their footfalls.
Before dark they came to the edge of a long ridge. Below, the trail descended in a series of switchbacks. They stood at the top of the ridge, in the woods, as if at the mouth of a cave, looking out over an open grassland swept with rain.
Kahlan held herself erect, rigid. “I know this place,” she whispered.
“So what is it?”
“It is called the Wilds. We are in the Midlands.” She turned to him. “I am returned home.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “The place doesn’t look that wild to me.”
“It is not named after the land. It is named after those who live in it.”
After descending the steep ridge, Richard found a small protected spot under a slab of rock, but it wasn’t deep enough to keep out all the rain, so he cut pine boughs and leaned them against the jut of rock, making a small, reasonably dry shelter where they could spend the night. Kahlan crawled inside, and Richard followed, pulling boughs over the entrance, sealing out most of the rain. Both slumped down, wet and exhausted.
Kahlan took her cloak off and shook out the water. “I’ve never seen it be overcast so long, or rain so much. I can’t even remember what the sun looks like. I’m becoming weary of it.”
“Not me,” he said quietly. She frowned, so he explained. “Remember the snakelike cloud that followed me, the one sent by Rahl to track me?” She nodded. “Zedd cast a wizard’s web to bring other clouds to hide it. As long as it’s cloudy, and we can’t see the snake cloud, neither can Rahl. I prefer the rain to Darken Rahl.”
Kahlan thought this over. “From now on, I will be happier about the clouds. But next time, could you ask him to bring clouds that are not so wet?” Richard smiled and nodded. “Do you want anything to eat?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m too tired. I just want to sleep. Is it safe here?”
“Yes. No one lives near the boundary in the Wilds. Adie said we are protected from the beasts, so the heart hounds should not bother us.”
The sound of steady rain was making him all the more sleepy. They wrapped themselves in their blankets, the night being cold already. In the dim light Richard could just make out the features of Kahlan’s face as she leaned up against the rock wall. The shelter was too small for a fire, and everything too wet anyway. He reached into his pocket, fingering the pouch with the night stone, considering if he should take it out, to see better, but at last decided against it.
Kahlan smiled over at him. “Welcome to the Midlands. You have done as you said you would: you got us here. Now the hard work begins. What would you have us do?”
Richard’s head was throbbing; he leaned back next to her. “We need someone with magic who can tell us where the last box is, where to find it. Or at least where to look for it. We can’t just go running around blindly. We need someone who can point us in the right direction. Who do you know like that?”
Kahlan gave him a sideways glance. “We are a long way from anyone who would want to help us.”
She was avoiding telling him something. His anger jumped. “I didn’t say they had to want to help us, I said they had to be able to. You just take me to them and I’ll worry about the rest!” Richard immediately regretted his tone of voice. He leaned his head back against the rock wall and put the anger down. “Kahlan, I’m sorry.” He rolled his head away from her. “I’ve had a hard day. Besides killing that man, I had to run my sword through my father again. But the worst of it was I thought you were lost to the underworld. I just want to stop Rahl, to end this nightmare.”
He turned his face to hers, and she gave him one of her special, tight-lipped smiles. Kahlan watched his eyes in the near darkness for a few minutes.
“Not easy, being Seeker,” she said softly.
He smiled back at her. “Not easy,” he agreed.
“The Mud People,” she said at last. “They may be able to tell us where to search, but there is no guarantee they will agree to help us. The Wilds are a remote part of the Midlands, and the Mud People are not used to dealing with outsiders. They have strange customs. They do not care about the problems of others. They wish only to be left alone.”
“If he succeeds, Darken Rahl will not respect their wishes,” he reminded her.
Kahlan took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Richard, they can be dangerous.”
“Have you dealt with them before?”
She nodded. “A few times. They do not speak our language, but I speak theirs.”
“Do they trust you?”
Kahlan looked away as she wrapped her blanket tighter. “I guess so.” She looked up at him from under her eyebrows. “But they are afraid of me, and with the Mud People, that may be more important than trust.”
Richard had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from asking why they were afraid of her. “How far?”
“I’m not sure exactly where we are in the Wilds. I didn’t see enough to tell for certain, but I’m sure they are no more than a week to the northeast.”
“Good enough. In the morning we head northeast.”
“When we get there, you must follow my lead, and if I tell you something, you must pay heed. You must convince them to help you, or they will not, sword or no sword.” He gave her a nod. She took her hand out from under the blanket and put it on his arm. “Richard,” she whispered, “thank you for coming back for me. I’m sorry for what it cost you.”
“I had to—what good would it do to go to the Midlands without my guide?”
Kahlan grinned. “I will try to live up to your expectations.”
He gave her hand a squeeze before they both lay down. Sleep took him as he thanked the good spirits for protecting her.
22
Zedd’s eyes popped open. The aroma of spice soup was thick in the air. Without moving, he looked cautiously about. Chase lay next to him, there were bones hung on the walls, and it was dark outside the window. He looked down at his body. Bones were piled upon him. Without moving, he carefully caused them to rise slowly into the air, then he silently made them float aside, and finally to set down. Making no sound, he rose. He was in a house full of bones, bones of beasts. He turned around.
He was surprised to come face-to-face with a woman just as she also turned around.
In a fright, they both screamed and threw their skinny arms into the air.
“Who are you?” he asked, leaning forward, peering into her white eyes.
She snatched her crutch just before it toppled over and put it back under her arm. “I be Adie,” she answered in a raspy voice. “You gave me a scare! You awoke sooner than I expected.”
Zedd straightened his robes. “How many meals have I missed?” he demanded.
Scowling, Adie looked him up and down. “Too many, by the looks of it.”
A grin creased Zedd’s cheeks. He in turn eyed Adie from top to bottom. “You are a fine-looking woman,” he announced. With a bow he took her hand and kissed it lightly, then stood up proud and straight, holding one bony finger skyward. “Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander, humbly at your whim, my dear lady.” He leaned forward. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
“Nothing. It be perfectly fine.”
“No, no,” he said with a frown, pointing. “Not that one, the othe
r.”
Adie looked down at the missing foot, then back up to Zedd. “It does not go all the way to the ground. What be the matter with your eyes?”
“Well, I hope you learned your lesson; you only have one foot left, you know.” Zedd’s frown melted back to a grin. “And the problem with my eyes,” he said in his thin voice, “is that they have been famished, but now they are feasting.”
Adie smiled a little smile. “Would you like a bowl of soup, wizard?”
“I thought you would never ask, sorceress.”
He followed her as she worked her way across the room to the kettle hanging in the fireplace and, after she had dished out two bowls of soup, carried them to the table. Leaning her crutch against the wall, she sat opposite him, and cut a thick slice each of bread and cheese, pushing them across the table to him. Zedd bent over and dug right in, but stopped after one swallow of soup and looked up at her white eyes.
“Richard made this soup,” he said in an even voice, the second spoonful hanging midway between the bowl and his mouth.
Adie tore off a piece of bread and dunked it in the soup as she watched him. “That be true. You be fortunate; mine would not be this good.”
Zedd looked around as he put the spoon down in the bowl. “And where is he?”
Adie took a bite of the bread and chewed, watching Zedd. When she had swallowed, she answered. “He and the Mother Confessor have gone through the pass, to the Midlands. Although he knows her only as Kahlan; she still hides her identity from him.” She went on to tell the wizard the story of how Richard and Kahlan had come to her, seeking her help for their stricken friends.
Zedd picked up the cheese in one hand, the bread in the other, taking alternating bites as he listened to Adie’s tale, wincing at hearing that he had been sustained on gruel.
“He told me to tell you he could not wait for you,” she said, “but that he knew you would understand. The Seeker gave me instructions to pass on to Chase, for him to return and make preparations for when the boundary fails, for the coming of Rahl’s forces. He was sorry he did not know what your plan be, but feared he could not wait.”
“Just as well,” the wizard said under his breath. “My plan does not include him.”
Zedd went back to eating in earnest. When he had finished the soup, he went to the kettle and helped himself to another bowlful. He offered to get Adie more, but she was not yet finished with her first, since she had spent most of the time with her eyes on the wizard. As he sat back down, she pushed more bread and cheese at him.
“Richard keeps a secret from you,” she said in a low voice. “If it were not for this business with Rahl, I would not speak of it, but I thought you should know.”
The light from the lamp lit his thin face and white hair, making him look stark and all the more thin in the sharp shadows. He picked up his spoon, looked down at the soup a moment, then back up at her face.
“As you well know, we all have secrets, wizards more than most. If we all knew each other’s secrets, it would prove a very strange world. Besides, it would take all the fun out of the telling of them.” His thin lips widened in a smile, his eyes sparkled. “But I fear no secret of a person I trust, and he has no need to fear mine. It is part of being friends.”
Adie leaned back in her chair, her blank white eyes stared at him, her small smile came back. “For his sake, I hope you be right in your trust. I would not want to give a wizard cause to be angry.”
Zedd shrugged. “As wizards go, I’m pretty harmless.”
She studied his eyes in the lamplight.
“That be a lie,” the sorceress whispered in a low rasp.
Zedd cleared his throat, and thought to change the subject. “It would seem I owe you thanks for tending to me, dear lady.”
“That be true.”
“And for helping Richard and Kahlan”—he looked over to Chase, pointing with his spoon—“and the boundary warden too. I am in your debt.”
Adie’s smile widened. “Perhaps, someday you can return the favor.”
Zedd pushed up the sleeves of his robes and went back to eating the soup, but not quite as voraciously as before. He and the sorceress watched each other. The fire in the hearth crackled, and outside night bugs chirped. Chase slept on.
“How long have they been gone?” Zedd asked at last.
“This be the seventh day he has left you and the boundary warden to my care.”
Zedd finished his meal, pushing the bowl carefully away. He folded his thin hands on the table, looking down as he tapped his thumbs together. The light from the lamp flickered and danced on his mass of white hair.
“Did Richard say how I was to find him?”
For a moment Adie didn’t answer. The wizard continued to wait, tapping his thumbs, until at last she spoke. “I gave him a night stone.”
Zedd jumped to his feet. “You did what!”
Adie calmly looked up at him. “Would you have me send him through the pass, at night, without a way to see? To be blind in the pass is a sure death. I wanted him to make it through. It be the only way for me to help him.”
The wizard put his knuckles on the table and leaned forward, his wavy white hair falling around his face. “And did you warn him?”
“Of course I did.”
His eyes narrowed. “How? With a sorceress’s riddle?”
Adie picked up two apples and tossed one to Zedd. He caught it in the air with a silent spell. It floated, spinning slowly while he continued to glare at the old woman.
“Sit down, wizard, and stop showing off.” She took a bite of her apple, chewing slowly. Zedd sat down in a huff. “I did not want to frighten him. He already be fearful enough. Had I told him what a night stone could do, he might have been afraid to use it, and the result would have been that the underworld would have had him sure. Yes, I warned him, but with a riddle, so he would figure it out later, after he be through the pass.”
Zedd’s sticklike fingers snatched the apple out of the air. “Bags, Adie, you don’t understand. Richard hates riddles, always has. He considers them an insult to honesty. He won’t brook them. He ignores them as a matter of principle.” The apple snapped as he took a big bite.
“He be Seeker; that be what Seekers do: they solve riddles.”
Zedd held up a bony finger. “Riddles of life, not words. There is a difference.”
Adie set her apple down and leaned forward, putting her hands on the table. A look of concern softened her face. “Zedd, I was trying to help the boy. I want him to succeed. I lost my foot in the pass; he would have lost his life. If the Seeker loses his life, we all lose ours too. I did not mean him harm.”
Zedd put his apple down and dismissed his anger with a wave of his hand. “I know you meant no harm, Adie. I did not mean to suggest you did.” He took Adie’s hands in his. “It will be all right.”
“I be a fool,” she said bitterly. “He told me he disliked riddles, but I never thought more of it. Zedd, seek him through the night stone? See if he has made it through?”
Zedd nodded. He closed his eyes and let his chin sink to his chest as he took three deep breaths. Then he stopped breathing for a long time. From the air about came the low, soft sound of distant wind, wind on an open plain: lonely, baleful, haunting. The sound of the wind left at last, and the wizard began breathing again. His head came up, and his eyes opened.
“He is in the Midlands. He has made it through the pass.”
Adie gave a nod of relief. “I will give you a bone to carry, so that you may go safely through the pass. Will you go after him now?”
The wizard looked down at the table, away from her white eyes. “No,” he said in a quiet voice. “He will have to handle this, among other things, on his own. As you said, he is the Seeker. I have an important task to attend to, if we are to stop Darken Rahl. I hope he can stay out of trouble in the meantime.”
“Secrets?” the sorceress asked, smiling her little smile.
“Secrets.” The wizard nodded.
“I must leave right away.”
She took one hand out from under his and stroked his leathery skin.
“It be dark outside.”
“Dark,” he agreed.
“Why not stay the night? Leave with the light.”
Zedd’s eyes snapped up, looking at her from under his eyebrows. “Stay the night?”
Adie shrugged as she stroked his hands. “It be lonely here sometimes.”
“Well,” Zedd’s impish grin lit his face, “as you say, it is dark outside. And I guess it would make more sense to start out in the morning.” A sudden frown broke out, wrinkling his brow. “This isn’t one of your riddles, is it?”
She shook her head, and his grin came back.
“I have my wizard’s rock along. Could I interest you?”
Adie’s face softened in a shy smile. “I would like that very much.” She watched him as she sat back, taking a bite of her apple.
Zedd arched an eyebrow. “Naked?”
Wind and rain bowed the long grass in broad slow waves as the two of them made their way across the open, flat plain. Trees were few and far between, mostly birch and alder in clusters along streams. Kahlan watched the grass carefully; they were near the Mud People’s territory. Richard followed silently behind, keeping her under his watchful eye, as always.
She didn’t like taking him to the Mud People, but he was right, they had to know where to look for the last box, and there was no one else anywhere near who could point them in the right direction. Autumn was wearing on, and their time was dwindling. Still, the Mud People might not help them, and then the time would be wasted.
Worse, although she knew they probably would not dare to kill a Confessor, even one traveling without the protection of a wizard, she had no idea if they would dare to kill the Seeker. She had never traveled the Midlands before without a wizard. No Confessor did; it was too dangerous. Richard was better protection than Giller, the last wizard assigned her, but Richard was not supposed to be her protection, she was supposed to be his. She couldn’t allow him to put his life at risk for her again. He was more important than she to stopping Rahl. That was what mattered, above all else. She had pledged her life in defense of the Seeker… in defense of Richard. She had never meant anything more ardently in her life. If a time came that called for a choice, it must be she who died.
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