Wizard's First Rule tsot-1

by Terry Goodkind

  “Make her pay,” he hissed to the two men holding her. “Do her good.”

  Kahlan struggled and twisted against them. “What’s the matter, Demmin?” she screamed. “Not man enough to do it yourself? Have to have real men do it for you?”

  Please, Kahlan, Zedd begged silently in his mind, please, keep your mouth shut. Please, don’t say anything else.

  Nass’s face heated to red. His chest heaved. He glared at her.

  “At least these are real men! At least they have what it takes to handle a woman! You probably don’t! You only have enough for little boys! What’s the matter, little boy? Afraid to show a real woman what you have? I’ll be laughing at you while real men do what you can’t!”

  Nass took a step closer, his teeth gritted. “Shut up, bitch.”

  She spat in his face. “That’s what your father would do if he knew you couldn’t handle a woman. You’re a disgrace to your father’s name!”

  Zedd wondered if Kahlan had lost her mind. He had absolutely no idea why she was doing this. If she wanted to provoke Nass to do worse, this would do it.

  Nass looked as if he might explode, but then his face relaxed, his smiled returned. He looked around and saw what he wanted.

  “Over there,” he pointed. “Hold her face down over that log.” He put his face close to hers. “You want it from me? All right, bitch, you’ll get it from me. But you’ll get it my way. Now we’ll see how good you can squirm.”

  Kahlan’s face was crimson with fury. “I think your talk is all that’s big! I think you’re going to embarrass yourself. Your men and I will have a good laugh. Once again, they will have to do the job for you.” Her mouth spread into a defiant smile. “I’m waiting, little boy. Do it to me like your father did it to you, so we can all have a good laugh, thinking about you on your knees under him. Show me how he did it to you.”

  The veins on his forehead threatened to burst—his eyeballs bulged. Nass’s hand sprang to her throat, tightening, lifting her. He shook with rage. His grip tightened, choking her.

  “Commander Nass,” one of the men cautioned in a low voice, “you’re going to kill her.”

  Demmin looked up, glaring at the man, but then relaxed his grip. He looked back to Kahlan: “What does a bitch like you know of anything?”

  “I know you’re a liar. I know your master wouldn’t let a little boy like you know what had been done with the Seeker. You know nothing. You couldn’t tell me because you don’t know, and you’re so worthless you couldn’t even admit it.”

  So that was it. Zedd understood. Kahlan knew she was going to die, and was willing to trade whatever worse Nass could do to her for knowing if Richard was all right. She didn’t want to die without knowing if he was safe. The enormity of what was happening made tears roll down Zedd’s face. He heard Chase stir at his feet.

  Nass released her throat and motioned to the two men to let go of her. In a sudden burst he struck her with his fist. She landed flat on her back. He leaned over, lifting her by her hair as if she weighed nothing.

  “You know nothing! Your fist says it all. Your master might tell your father,” she sneered, “but he wouldn’t tell your father’s little girl anything.”

  “All right. All right, I’ll tell you. It will make it more fun when I’m on you, to have you know what we do to little pests like the Seeker. Then maybe you’ll understand you waste your time fighting us.”

  Kahlan stood naked in front of him, her face red with anger. She was not a small woman, but she looked small in front of Demmin Nass. She breathed hard as she waited, one fist at her side, the other arm hanging limp, blood down the front of her.

  “Almost a month ago, an artist drew a spell, so the Seeker could be captured. He killed the artist, but he was captured anyway. Captured by a Mord-Sith.”

  The color drained from Kahlan’s face. She turned white as a lily.

  Zedd felt as if he had been stabbed through the heart. If it had been possible, he would have collapsed to the ground in agony.

  “No,” she whispered, her eyes wide.

  “Yes,” he mocked. “And a particularly nasty Mord-Sith at that. One by the name of Denna. Even I give this one a wide berth. She is the favorite of Master Rahl, because of her . . .” He grinned. “. . . talents. From what I have heard, she outdid herself on the Seeker. I even saw her myself one day, at dinner, covered from head to foot with his blood.”

  Kahlan shook slightly, her eyes wet, and Zedd was sure she turned even whiter.

  “But he is still alive,” she whispered in a broken voice.

  Demmin gave a self-satisfied smile, happy with the telling, at seeing her reaction. “As a matter of fact, Mother Confessor, the last I saw of the Seeker, he was on his knees in front of Master Rahl, with Denna’s Agiel at the back of his head. I don’t think he even knew his own name. Master Rahl wasn’t happy at the time. When Master Rahl is unhappy people always die. From what Master Rahl said to me when I left, I’m sure the Seeker never rose from his knees. His corpse is rotten by now.”

  Zedd wept that he couldn’t comfort her, that she couldn’t comfort him.

  Kahlan went dead calm.

  Her arms rose slowly into the air, her fists to the sky. Her head rolled back.

  She let out an unearthly scream. It went through Zedd like a thousand needles of ice, it echoed against the hills, through the valleys, against the trees all around, making them vibrate. Zedd’s breath was taken away. Nass and the other two men stumbled back a few paces.

  If he had not already been frozen to stone, he would be now, at the fear of what she was doing. Kahlan should not be able to do this.

  She took a deep breath, her fists getting tighter, tears streaming from her face.

  Kahlan screamed again. Long, piercing, otherworldly. The sound avalanched through the air. Pebbles danced on the ground. Water danced in the lakes around. The very air danced, and began to move. The men covered their ears. Zedd would have, too, had he been able to move.

  She took another deep breath. Her back arched as she stretched to the sky.

  The third scream was worse. The magic of it tore through the fabric of the air. Zedd felt as if it would pull his body apart. The air began to turn about her, dust rising at its passing.

  Darkness began to gather, the magic of the scream taking the very light away, pulling the darkness as it was pulling the wind. Light and dark moved around the Mother Confessor as she released ancient magic into the scream.

  Zedd nearly choked with the fear of what she was doing. He had seen this being done only once before, and it came to no good end. She was joining the Confessor’s magic, the additive, the love, with its counterpart from the underworld, the subtractive, the hate.

  Kahlan stood screaming in the center of a maelstrom. The light was sucked to her. Darkness fell all about. Where Zedd stood, it was black as night. The only light was around Kahlan. Night around day.

  Lightning tore violently across the blackness of the sky, flashing rapidly in every direction, forking, doubling, over and over until the sky burned. Thunder rolled through the countryside, coalescing into a continuous fury, mixing with the scream, becoming part of it.

  The ground shook. The scream went beyond sound, to something else entirely. All about, the ground cracked open in jagged, ferocious tears. Shafts of violet light shot upward from the cracks. The bluish purple curtains of light vibrated, danced, and with gathering speed were pulled into the vortex, sucked to Kahlan. She was a glowing form of light in a sea of darkness. She was the only thing in existence—all else was nothingness, devoid even of light. Zedd could see nothing but Kahlan.

  There was a horrific impact to the air all about. In a brief, tremendous flash of light, Zedd saw the trees around them suddenly stripped of pine needles, as every one of them was blown back in a cloud of green. A wall of dust and sand hit his face, feeling as if it would take the skin from his bones in its explosive passing.

  The ferocity of the concussion tore the darkness away. The
light was returned.

  The joining was complete.

  Zedd saw Chase standing next to him, watching, his arms still tied behind his back. Boundary wardens, Zedd thought, were tougher than they had a right to be.

  Pale blue light coalesced into a jagged egg shape around her, gathered in intensity, purpose, and somehow, violence. Kahlan turned. One arm, the broken one, came down to her side. The other arm stopped halfway down, her fist reaching toward the wizard. The blue light bled from the ring that surrounded her into one spot, where her fist was. It seemed to fuse and in a sudden release, blasted in a line of light through the space between them.

  With a solid strike, it hit him, lighting him at contact, as if he were connected to Kahlan by a thread of living light. It bathed him in the pale blue glow. The wizard felt the familiar touch of additive magic and the unfamiliar tingle of the subtractive, underworld magic. He was thrown back a step—the web that held him shattered. He was free. The line of light extinguished itself.

  Zedd turned to Chase and parted the ropes with a quick spell. Chase gave a grunt of pain at having his arms free.

  “Zedd,” he whispered, “what in the name of the prophets is going on? What has she done?”

  Kahlan ran her fingers through the pale blue light that vibrated around her, stroking it, caressing it, bathing in it. Demmin Nass and one of his men watched her, but held their ground, waiting. Her eyes gazed at things they couldn’t see. Her eyes were in another world. Her eyes, Zedd knew, were seeing the memory of Richard.

  “It’s called the Con Dar. The Blood Rage.” Zedd looked slowly from Kahlan to the boundary warden. “It’s something only a few of the strongest Confessors can do. And she should not be able to do it at all.”

  Chase frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because it must be taught by her real mother—only the mother can teach how to bring it on, if there be call enough. It’s an ancient magic, ancient as the Confessor’s magic, part of it, but rarely used. It can only be taught after the daughter reaches a certain age. Kahlan’s mother died before she could teach her. Adie told me. Kahlan should not be able to do this. Yet she has. That she could do it without having been taught, by instinct and desire alone, speaks to very dangerous things in the prophecies.”

  “Well, why didn’t she do it before? Why didn’t she put a stop to what was happening before now?”

  “A Confessor can’t invoke it for herself, only on behalf of another. She has invoked it on behalf of Richard. On the rage at his murder. We are in a great deal of trouble.”

  “Why?”

  “The Con Dar is invoked for vengeance. Confessors who invoke it rarely survive—they give their lives over to the goal, give their lives to carry out the vengeance. Kahlan is going to use her power on Darken Rahl.”

  Chase stared in shock. “You told me her power can’t touch him, can’t take him.”

  “It couldn’t before. I don’t know if it can now, but I doubt it. Nonetheless, she is going to try. She is in the grip of the Con Dar, the Blood Rage. She doesn’t care if she dies. She is going to try, she is going to touch Darken Rahl even if it’s futile, even if it kills her. If anyone gets in her way, she will kill them. Without a second thought.” He put his face closer to Chase to make his point. “That includes us.”

  Kahlan was curled almost into a ball against the ground, her head bowed, her hands on opposite shoulders, the pale blue light tight around her. She stretched slowly to her feet, pushing through the light, as if she were emerging from an egg. She stood naked, blood still throbbing from her wounds. Blood, still wet and fresh, dripped from her chin.

  But her face showed the pain of wounds other than the ones on her body. And then even that expression was gone, and she showed nothing but a Confessor’s face.

  Kahlan turned a little, to one of the two men who had held her. The other one was nowhere to be seen. She calmly lifted a hand toward him. He was a dozen feet away.

  There was an impact to the air, thunder with no sound. Zedd felt the pain in his bones.

  “Mistress!” the man called out as he fell to his knees. “What do you command of me? What do you wish of me?”

  She regarded him coolly. “I wish for you to die for me. Right now.”

  He convulsed and fell over, face first, into the dirt, dead. Kahlan turned and stepped to Demmin Nass. He had a smile on his face—his arms were folded. Kahlan’s broken arm hung at her side. She put her other hand against his chest with a sharp slap. The hand stayed there as their eyes locked together. He towered over her.

  “Very impressive, bitch. But not only have you used your power, I am also protected by Master Rahl’s spell. You cannot touch me with your power. You still have a lesson to learn, and I’m going to teach you as I have never taught anyone before.” His hand came up and grabbed her tangled, matted hair. “Bend over.”

  Kahlan’s face showed no emotion. She said nothing.

  There was an impact to the air, thunder with no sound. Again, Zedd felt the ache of it in his bones. Demmin Nass’s eyes went wide. His mouth fell open.

  “Mistress!” he whispered.

  Chase leaned over. “How did she do that! She wasn’t even touching the first one, and Confessors can only use their power once, and then must rest and recover it!”

  “Not anymore. She is in the Con Dar.”

  “Stand there and wait,” she said to Nass.

  With graceful smoothness, Kahlan walked to the wizard. She stopped, and lifted her broken arm to him.

  Her eyes had a glaze to them. “Fix this for me, please. I need it.”

  Zedd took his eyes from hers and looked down at the arm. He reached out and took it gently, speaking softly to distract her mind from the pain while he gripped above and below the break, pulling, setting the bone. She didn’t cry out, or even flinch. He wondered if she even felt it. Tenderly, his fingers surrounded the damage, letting the warmth of the magic flow into her, taking the cold pain into himself, feeling it, suffering with it, tolerating it with resolve.

  His breathing stopped momentarily with the sharpness of the hurt. He felt all of her hurt—it mixed with his own pain, threatening to overwhelm him, until he was able to put it down at last. He felt the bone knit together, and added more magic to protect and strengthen it until it could heal the rest of the way on its own. He removed his hands from her at last, finished. Her green eyes came up to his, and the cold anger in them was frightening.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Wait here.”

  She returned to Demmin Nass, who stood where he had been told to wait.

  There were tears in his eyes. “Please, Mistress, command me.”

  Kahlan pulled a knife from his belt, ignoring his request. With her other hand she unfastened the flanged battle mace from its hook. “Take off your pants.” She waited until he had pulled them off and stood once more before her. “Kneel.”

  The coldness of her voice sent a shiver through Zedd as he watched the big man kneel before her.

  Chase grabbed a fistful of his robes. “Zedd, we have to stop her! She’s going to kill him! We need information. Once he tells us what we need to know, then she can do whatever she wants, but not until we question him first!”

  Zedd gave him a stern look. “As much as I agree with you, there is nothing we can do. If we interfere, she will kill us. If you take two steps toward her, she will kill you before you can take the third. A Confessor in the Blood Rage cannot be reasoned with. It’s like trying to reason with a thunderstorm it will only get you hit by lightning.”

  Chase released the wizard’s robes with a frustrated huff and folded his arms in resignation. Kahlan turned the mace around, holding the handle down to Nass.

  “Hold this for me.”

  He took it and held it at his side. Kahlan kneeled down in front of him, close.

  “Spread your legs,” she ordered in an icy voice. She reached down between his legs, gripping him in one hand. He flinched, grimaced. “Don’t move,” she warned. He became still.
“How many of the little boys you’ve molested have you killed?”

  “I don’t know, Mistress, I don’t keep count. I’ve done it for many years, since I was young. I don’t always kill them. Most live.”

  “Make a good guess.”

  He thought a moment. “More than eighty. Less than one hundred twenty.”

  Zedd could see a glint off the knife as she put it under him. Chase unfolded his arms and stood up straighter, his jaw muscles tightening when he heard what Demmin Nass had done.

  “I’m going to cut these off. When I do, I don’t want you to make a sound,” she whispered. “Not one sound. Don’t even flinch.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Look into my eyes. I wish to see it in your eyes.”

  Her arm with the knife strained, and jerked up. The blade came up red.

  Demmin’s knuckles around the mace were white.

  The Mother Confessor rose to her feet in front of him. “Hold out your hand.”

  Demmin held a shaking hand before her. She put the bloody sack in his palm.

  “Eat them.”

  Chase smiled as he watched. “Good for her,” he whispered to no one in particular. “A woman who knows the meaning of justice.” She stood before him, watching, until he finished. She tossed the knife aside. “Give me the mace.”

  He handed it up. “Mistress, I am losing a lot of blood. I don’t know if I can remain upright.”

  “It will displease me greatly if you don’t. Just hold on. It won’t be long.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Was what you told me about Richard, the Seeker, true?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Kahlan’s voice was deadly calm. “All of it?”

  Demmin thought a moment, to be sure. “All that I told you, Mistress.”

  “There is some you did not tell me?”

  “Yes, Mistress. I did not tell you that Mord-Sith Denna also took him as her mate. I presume so that she might hurt him more.”

  There was an eternity of silence. Kahlan stood motionless over Demmin. Zedd could hardly breathe with the pain, could hardly breath past the lump in his throat. His knees shook.