Maybe they weren't the same thing. He told himself they couldn't be, but an uneasy feeling inside said otherwise.
As much as he missed Chase and Rachel, it was the stone around Rachel's neck that had captured his attention. It was as if Rachel were bringing it to him for Zedd, and Zedd had been there with him, urging him to take the stone.
Pasha's knock at the door brought him out of his brooding. She was wearing a plain, brownish gray dress with small, pink cloth buttons up the front, all the way up to her neck. Though it didn't show the expanse of flesh the green dress had, it was tailored so that it revealed nearly every detail of her shape. The fact that it covered everything only made what it covered all that much more intriguing. The color somehow brought out the softness of her brown hair.
Pasha sat cross-legged on the floor, on the blue and yellow carpet in front of the fireplace. She draped her dress carefully over her knees and then looked up. 'Here. Sit like me, in front of me.'
Richard sat on the floor and folded his legs. She motioned him to come closer until their knees touched. She took his hands and held them lightly as they rested across both their knees.
'Sister Verna didn't do this when I practiced.'
'That was because the Rada'Han had to be within the circle of influence of the magic of the palace before we could practice in this way. Until now, when you have practiced touching your Han, it has been alone. Most of the time from now on, I, or a Sister, will use our Han to assist you.' She smiled. 'It will help you progress faster, Richard.'
'All right. What do you want me to do?'
'She told you how to try to reach your Han? How to concentrate on finding that place within yourself?' Richard nodded. That is what I want you to do. While you search for that place, I will use my Han, through the Rada'Han, to try to guide you.'
Richard squirmed a little, getting more comfortable. Pasha took back a hand and fanned her face. This dress seems so warm, after wearing the other.' She unbuttoned the top five buttons of her dress and then took his hand up again. Richard glanced at the fire, to check the logs, so he would know how long it had been when he opened his eyes again. He could never seem to judge the time while he searched for his Han. It always seemed like mere minutes, but it was usually at least an hour.
Richard closed his eyes. He brought forth the image of the Sword of Truth on a plain background. As the quiet settled over him, as he sought the peace within, his breathing slowed. He took a long breath, and then let himself sink into the calm center.
He was aware of Pasha's hands holding his, of her knees touching his, and of her even breathing coming into harmony with his. It felt good to have her holding his hands. He didn't feel isolated the way he had always felt before. He didn't know if she really was using the magic of his collar to go with him, but he felt himself spiraling deeper than he had before.
He drifted in the timeless place without thinking, without effort or worry. Whatever his Han was, he didn't see or feel anything he hadn't seen or felt before. Other than feeling more relaxed than before, and the comforting feeling of having Pasha with him, it was no different. He was dimly aware of his body starting to feel cramped, and of the warmth from the fire. The cold steel of the sword seemed to be a core of ice in the heat.
At last, he opened his eyes. Pasha opened her eyes with him. Richard glanced to the fire. The logs had been reduced to glowing coals. Two hours, he judged.
A trickle of sweat ran down Pasha's neck. 'My, but it's warm tonight.'
She unbuttoned buttons. A lot of buttons. More of her was showing than had shown in the green dress. Richard made himself look back up into her soft eyes. Pasha gave him a small, self-assured smile.
'I didn't feel anything,' Richard said. 'I didn't sense my Han. Although, I don't know what it is I'm supposed to sense.'
'I didn't, either, and I should have. Strange.' She sighed to herself with a puzzled expression. Her face brightened. 'But it takes practice. Did you feel my Han? Was it any help?'
'No,' he admitted. 'I didn't feel anything.'
She made a little quirk with her mouth as she frowned. 'You didn't feel anything of me?' He shook his head. 'Well, close your eyes and try again.'
It was late, and Richard didn't want to practice anymore; it was tiring. But he decided to do as she wished. He closed his eyes. He concentrated on trying to bring back the sword.
Suddenly he felt Pasha's full lips against his. His eyes opened as she pressed against him. Her eyes were closed, her brow wrinkled. She grasped his face with her hands.
Richard gripped her shoulders and pushed her away. She opened her eyes and licked her lips.
She smiled coyly. 'Did you feel that?'
'I felt it.'
She hooked an arm around his neck. 'Apparently, not enough.'
Richard gently put a hand against her as she tried to lean in. He didn't want to embarrass her, so he tried to keep his voice pleasant. 'Pasha, don't.'
She rubbed her free hand around on his stomach. 'It's late. No one will be around. If it will make you feel more comfortable, I'll shield the door. You shouldn't worry.'
'I'm not worried. I just ... don't want to.'
She looked a bit hurt. 'You do not think I am pretty enough?'
Richard didn't want to offend her, and he didn't want to make her angry. But he didn't want to encourage her, either.
'It's not that, Pasha. You're very attractive. It's just that ...'
She unbuttoned another little button. Richard reached out and took ahold of her hand to stop her. He realized the situation was becoming hazardous. She was his teacher. If he angered or humiliated her, things could become dangerously complicated. He had things to do, and couldn't afford to turn her antagonistic.
She pulled her dress up her legs and put his hand against her thigh. 'You like this better?' she asked in a breathy voice.
Richard froze at the firm, sensual feel of her flesh. He remembered what Sister Verna had said, that he would soon find another pair of pretty legs. These were certainly that, and Pasha was leaving precious little to the imagination. He pulled his hand away. 'Pasha, you don't understand. I think you're a beautiful young woman. ...'
Her eyes fixed on his face as she ran her fingers down his beard. 'I think you're the most handsome man I've ever seen.'
'No, you don't. ...'
'I love your beard. Don't ever cut it off. I think a wizard should have a beard.'
Richard remembered the time Zedd had used Additive Magic to grow a beard and teach him a lesson, and then had shaved it off, explaining he couldn't make it vanish with magic because that would take Subtractive Magic, and wizards didn't have Subtractive Magic. Subtractive Magic was of the underworld.
He caught her wrist and pulled her hand away from his face. To Richard, his beard was a symbol of his captivity. It meant he was a prisoner. Prisoners don't shave, that was what he had told Sister Verna. But he didn't think now was the time to explain that to Pasha.
She kissed his neck. Somehow, he was unable to stop her. Her lips were so soft, and he could hear her insistent breath close to his ear. It felt as if the kiss went all the way through him, down to his toes, something like the feeling he had had when she had put her hands to his Rada'Han. The tingling numbed his brain. Inside, he groaned. His resistance was being dissolved by her kisses....
When he had been held in a collar by Denna, he had had no choice - not even death could rescue him from whatever Denna wanted - but he still felt shame for what he had done.
He was in a collar again, and Pasha was using some sort of magic on him, but he knew that this time he had a choice in the matter. He forced himself to hunch his head and get her lips from him. He gently pushed her back.
'Pasha, please ...'
She straightened a little. 'What's her name, this girl you love?'
Richard didn't want to tell her Kahlan's name. It was his life. It was private. These people were his captors, not his friends. 'That's not important. That's not the issue.'
You are a girl, Richard thought, and she is a woman. But he couldn't say that. You are a pretty candle, he thought, and Kahlan is the sunrise. But he couldn't say that either.
If he spurned Pasha, he would have war on his hands. He had to get out of this without making her feel resentful or rejected.
'Pasha, I am honored, I'm flattered, I really am, but you have only known me a day. We've really just met.'
'Richard, the Creator gives us urges, and pleasure from acting on them, so we will come to know His beauty through His creation. There is nothing wrong with this. It is a beautiful thing.'
'He also gave us a mind to decide what is right and what is wrong.'
Her chin lifted just a little. 'Right, and wrong? If she loved you, she would be with you; she wouldn't have let you go. That's what is wrong. She thinks you aren't good enough for her. She must wish to be free of you; if she cared she would have kept you with her. She's gone. I'm here and I care. I would fight to keep you. Did she fight?'
Richard's mouth opened, but no words came through the hurt. He felt as if his will to go on had drained right out of him, leaving nothing but a hollow, dead shell.
Pasha reached out and touched his cheek. 'You'll see that I care, Richard. I care more than she does. You'll see. It's right if a person cares as I do.' Her brow creased in worry. 'Unless you think I'm unattractive. Is that it? You've seen many women, and you think that in comparison, I'm ugly?'
Richard cupped a hand to the side of her face. 'Pasha ... you are ravishing. It's not that.' He swallowed the dryness, trying to make his words sound sincere. 'Pasha, could you just give me some time? It's simply too soon. Can you understand? Could you really care for a man who would forget his feelings so easily? Could you just give me some time?'
She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. 'I knew yesterday, when you held me so tenderly, that it was another sign that the Creator had sent you to me. I knew then that I would never want another. Since I'll be yours forever, I can wait. We have almost nothing but time. We have all the time you could possibly want. You'll see that I'm the one for you. You just tell me when you are ready, and I'll be yours.'
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Richard sighed as he closed the door behind her. He leaned his back against the door, thinking. He didn't like deceiving Pasha, letting her think that with time he could come to feel differently about her, but he had had to do something. How shallow could Pasha's understanding of people be, for her to think that one could win love by invoking lust?
He took out the lock of Kahlan's hair, spinning it in his fingers as he watched it. The things Pasha had said about Kahlan not fighting for him made him angry. Pasha could never know the struggles he and Kahlan had been through; the hardships they had had to overcome, the anguish they had suffered together, the battles they had fought together. Pasha probably couldn't conceive of a woman of Kahlan's intelligence, strength, and courage.
Kahlan had indeed fought for him. She had more than once selflessly risked her life for him. What could Pasha know of the terrors Kahlan had bravely faced, and conquered? Pasha wasn't woman enough to serve Kahlan tea.
He stuffed the lock of hair back into his pocket. He forced his thoughts of Kahlan from his mind. He couldn't endure the pain. He had other things to do.
Going into the bedroom, he positioned the ash-framed standing mirror, and then retrieved his pack from the corner. Richard pulled out the black mriswith cape. He threw it around his shoulders, and stood inspecting his image in the mirror.
It looked like a normal cape. He thought it quite handsome, actually. The cut and length was right; the mriswith had been about his size. The heavy fabric was inky black, almost as black as a night stone that Adie had given him to help him across the pass, almost as black as the boxes of Orden. Almost as black as eternal death.
But the pleasing cut of the cape was not what intrigued him.
Richard moved back against the light-brownish wall. He pulled the hood up, cowling it around his face, and drew the cape closed. As he watched his image in the mirror, he concentrated on the wall he was standing against. In the span of a breath, his image vanished. The cape had become the color of the wall he stood against, to such a degree that only if he stared, focusing on the edges of the cape, could he distinguish himself standing against the wall. If he moved, it was only slightly easier to pick out his shape against the wall. Though his face was exposed, somehow the magic of the cape, or possibly the cape's magic along with his own, served to mask it, too, to enfold it somehow into the concealing color.
This explained why the mriswith appeared to be different colors.
Richard moved objects behind himself, to discover what effect they had. He stood in front of the wall and partly in front of a chair with his red coat draped over it. The cape produced a blotch of red that did a good job of mimicking the color and shape behind. Though it wasn't as flawless as when he stood before a plain wall, it would still be easy to miss him if he stood still.
Movement would distort the complicated images, as the cape changed to accommodate new conditions, though it still fooled the eye into missing him, but if he stood still, he virtually vanished in front of anything. The effect, at times, could be dizzying to watch. When he stopped concentrating,' the cape would return to black.
This, he thought as he looked at himself in the mirror standing in a simple black cape, was going to be useful.
CHAPTER 56
As the weeks passed, Richard was constantly busy.
He remembered that Kahlan and Zedd had told him that there were no wizards with the gift left in the Midlands. Small wonder; they seemed to all be at the Palace of the Prophets. There were well over a hundred boys and young men at the palace. From what Richard could discover, a goodly number of the older ones, at least, were from the Midlands, with some even from D'Hara.
Killing a mriswith had earned Richard celebrity status among the younger boys. Two of them, Kipp and Hersh, were the most persistent. They followed him around, begging to hear stories of his adventures. At times they exhibited the maturity, almost wisdom, of old men. At other times they, like all boys, seemed interested in nothing more than mischief.
The object of this mischief was usually a Sister. The boys never seemed to tire of thinking up new tricks to pull on them. Most of the pranks appeared to involve either water, mud, or reptiles. The Sisters only occasionally erupted in anger when caught up in the boys' antics, and even then, they quickly forgave them. As far as Richard could tell, the boys never earned more than a stern lecture.
In the beginning, the young boys thought to number Richard among their targets. Richard had things to do, and had no time or patience for it. When the boys learned that Richard was neither shy nor slow with discipline, they quickly moved on to other targets with their buckets of water.
The fact that Richard set limits made Kipp and Hersh like him all the more. They seemed starved for older male companionship. Richard rewarded them with adventure stories, or sometimes, when he was going from one place to another, and their presence wouldn't impede his progress, he taught them about the woods, tracking, and animals.
They coveted staying in Richard's gbod graces, so when he wanted or needed to be alone, and signaled with a finger or a nod, they vanished. Richard let them be around often when he was with Pasha, since he couldn't do more important tasks then anyway. Frustrated, because she couldn't seem to find time alone with him, Pasha was somewhat mollified when Richard got her excluded from the boys' list of targets. She appreciated not having her fine dresses drenched or having to worry about discovering a snake in her shawl.
Richard occasionally asked Kipp and Hersh to preform little errands, just to test them. He had plans for their talents.
The other young men in collars wanted to show Richard the city. Two, Perry and Isaac, who lived in Gillaume Hall with him, took him into the city and showed him the tavern where ma
ny of the guards drank, and he soon after bought Swordsman Kevin Andellmere the ale he had promised him.
Richard discovered that most of the young men spent their nights away from the palace, staying in various fine inns around the city. It didn't take Richard long to figure out why. They were provided money, the same as he, and they were practiced at spending it. They bought themselves fancy clothes, dressing like princes, and on their overnight stays they picked the finest accommodations.
There was no shortage of women wanting to share those accommodations. Astonishingly beautiful women.
When Perry and Isaac took him to the city, they were always quickly surrounded by attractive women. Richard had never seen women this brazen. Every evening, the two men would each select a woman, sometimes several, and buy them presents, maybe a dress or a bauble, and then depart for their rooms.
The two told him that if he didn't want to bother with spending time buying gifts, he could simply go to any of the houses of prostitution, but they assured him that those women were not as young, or nearly as pretty, as the ones who approached them on the streets. They admitted, though, that they went to prostitutes sometimes when they didn't feel like wasting time being sociable for no more than a simple coupling.
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