Richard reached up to push back the hood of his cloak, and realized it wasn't even up, so he ran his fingers through his wet hair instead. He looked over at Sister Verna.
"There are some things we have to talk about. Important things you don't know about."
She glanced over without emotion. The edge of her hood partially blocked her face. "And what would those things be?"
"I am the Seeker."
She looked away, returning her eyes to where they had been. "That is hardly something I don't know."
Her calm, unconcerned attitude annoyed him. "I have responsibilities. I told you before: there are important things going on you know nothing about. Dangerous things." She didn't respond. It was as if he hadn't spoken. He decided to cut right to the heart of it. "The Keeper is trying to escape the underworld."
"We do not speak his name. You are not to speak it as you have just done. It brings his attention. When we must speak of him, he is addressed as the Nameless One."
She was talking to him as if he were a child. Kahlan's life was in danger and this woman was treating him like a child. "I don't care what you call him, he's trying to get out. And I assure you, I already have his attention."
At last she looked over, unconcerned. "The Nameless One is always trying to get out."
Richard took a deep breath and tried again. "The veil to the underworld is torn. He is going to get out."
Sister Verna turned to him once more, this time pulling the edge of the hood back to get a better look. Curly, brown hair peeked out the edge of the dark, heavy hood. She had an odd frown. A frown of amusement. There was a wisp of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
"The Creator himself put the Nameless One where he is. The Creator himself placed the veil with His own hand to keep him there." Her smile swelled a little as her eyebrows came closer together, creasing her weathered brow. "The Nameless One cannot escape the prison the Creator has placed him in. Do not be afraid, child."
Exploding in rage, Richard wheeled his bay mare around toward the Sister. The two horses jostled, whinnying and tossing their heads. Richard firmly snatched the reins to the Sister's surprised horse to keep it from rearing, or bolting.
He leaned toward her, his chest heaving in fury. "I will not be called names! I will not have names put to me because I wear a collar! I am Richard! Richard Rahl!"
Sister Verna didn't flinch. Her voice remained calm and smooth. "I'm sorry, Richard. It was only force of habit. I am used to dealing with ones much younger than you. I meant nothing demeaning by it."
The way she stared at him made him feel suddenly foolish, embarrassed. Made him feel like a child. He released the reins. "I apologize for yelling. I'm not in a very good mood."
She frowned again. "I thought your name was Cypher."
He tugged his cloak over his chest where the bandage covered his burn. "It's a long story. George Cypher raised me as his son. I only found out a short time ago that I am in truth the son of Darken Rahl."
Her frown deepened. "Darken Rahl. The one with the gift you killed? You killed your father?"
"Don't look at me like that. You didn't know him. You have no idea what kind of man he was. He imprisoned and tortured and killed more people than you or I could imagine. The idea of him being with my mother makes me sick. But that is the truth of it. I am his son. If you expect me to be sorry I killed him, you will have longer than eternity to wait."
Sister Verna shook her head with what seemed genuine concern. "I'm sorry, Richard. Sometimes the Creator weaves a tangled cloth for our lives, and we are left to wonder why. But I am sure of one thing: He has reasons for what He does."
Babble. He was getting babble from this woman. He urged his horse around and started out again. "I'm telling you, the veil is torn, and the Keeper is going to get out."
Her voice lowered dangerously. "The Nameless One."
He glanced over, annoyed. "Fine. The Nameless One. I could care less what you want to call him, but he is going to get out. We are all in great danger."
Kahlan was in great danger.
He didn't care if this sorceress of a Sister burned him to a cinder; his life meant nothing to him anymore. His only concern was Kahlan's safety.
Sister Verna's quizzical frown and smile returned. "Who told you such a thing?"
"Shota, a witch woman, she told me the veil was torn." He left out that Shota had also told him he was the one who had torn it. "She said it was torn and if it wasn't fixed, the Kee—the Nameless One would escape."
Sister Verna smiled. Her eyes sparkled. "A witch woman." She laughed a little. "And you believed her? You believed a witch woman? You think witch women speak the truth in such simple fashion?"
Fuming, Richard glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "She seemed pretty sure of it to me. She wouldn't lie about something this important. I believe her."
Sister Verna seemed to think the whole thing amusing. "If you would ever have had occasion to deal with a witch woman before, Richard, you would know that they have an odd view of the truth. They can be well intentioned at times, but witch women speak in words that rarely come to pass the way they sound."
The truth of that took some of the steam out of him. Sister Verna certainly seemed to know about witch women. In fact, she seemed to share his own view of them. "She seemed pretty sure of what she was saying. She was afraid."
"I am sure she was. A wise person is always afraid of the Nameless One. But I wouldn't put much stock in what she says."
"It's not just what she says. Other things have happened, too."
She looked over curiously. "Such as?"
"A screeling."
She set her calm, brown eyes back ahead. "A screeling. You have seen a screeling, yes?"
"Seen it! It attacked me! Screelings are from the underworld. They are sent by the Nameless One. It was sent through a tear in the veil, to kill me!"
Her smile returned. "You have quite an imagination, Richard. You have listened to too many children's songs."
He restrained his renewed anger. "What do you mean?"
"Screelings are indeed from the underworld, as are other beasts. The heart hounds, for example. But they are not 'sent'. They simply escape. We live in a world that lies between good and evil; between the light and the dark. The Creator did not intend this to be a perfect world, safe from all harm. We cannot understand His reasons, always, but He has them, and He is perfect. Perhaps the screelings are meant to show us the dark side. I don't know. But I do know they are simply an evil that sometimes comes. I have seen this happen before to ones with the gift. It is possible that the gift draws them. A test perhaps. A warning, perhaps, of the rancid evil that awaits those who stray from the light."
"But... there are prophecies that say they are sent when the veil is torn, sent by the Nameless One."
"How could that be, Richard? Has the veil ever been torn before?"
"How should I know?" He thought a minute. "But I don't see how it could have been. If it were, how could it have been mended? And it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. What are you getting at?"
"Well, if the veil has never been torn, how could the screelings have been sent before? How would we know what they were? How could they have a name already put to them?"
It was Richard's turn to frown. "Maybe we only know them as screelings because they have been named in the prophecy."
"You have read this prophecy?"
"Well, no. Kahlan told it to me."
"And she read it herself, with her own eyes, yes?"
"No. She learned it when she was young." Richard's irritated frown deepened. "In a song. She learned it from wizards."
"In a song." Sister Verna didn't look over, but her smile widened. "Richard, I do not mean to belittle your fears, but things repeated, over and over, especially in a song, have a way of changing.
"As for prophecies, well, they are harder to understand than a witch woman. We have vaults full of them at the Palace. As part of your studies, perhaps you wil
l be allowed to work with them. I have read all of them we have, and I can tell you that they are beyond the minds of most. If you aren't cautious, you can find a prophecy that will say whatever you want to hear. Or at least you will think it is what you want to hear. Some wizards devote their lives to the study of them, and yet even they understand only a tiny fraction of their truth."
"This is a danger not to be taken so lightly."
"Do you think the veil is torn that simply? Have faith, Richard. The Creator placed the veil. Have faith in Him."
Richard rode in silence for a time. Sister Verna did seem to make sense. He felt as if his understanding of the world was tilting.
But it was difficult for him to think too hard on the subject; Kahlan kept creeping back into his mind. His anguish at her wanting him to put on a collar to prove his love, knowing it would take him from her, tore at his heart. The betrayal burned painfully in his chest.
He picked at the reins with his thumbnail. At last he turned once more to the Sister. "That's not all. I haven't told you the worst of it."
She smiled a motherly smile. "There is more? Tell me then. Perhaps I can put your fears to rest."
Richard let out a deep breath, trying to release at least a little of the pain with it. "The man I killed, Darken Rahl, my father, well, when he died, he was sent to the underworld. To the Kee... the Nameless One. Last night, he escaped. Escaped through the tear in the veil. He is back in this world, back to tear the veil the rest of the way."
"And you know he was sent to the Nameless One. You were in the underworld to see him arrive there, at the side of the Nameless One, yes?"
The woman had a way of poking his temper awake. He tried to ignore the sting of the jab. "I talked to him when he came back to this world. He told me. He told me he was here to tear the veil the rest of the way. He said the Keeper would have us all. A dead man, come back to this world. Do you see? The only way his spirit could be here is if he came through the veil."
"You were just sitting there, and this dead man walked up and spoke to you, yes?"
Richard frowned deeply at her, but she didn't look over to see it. "It was at a gathering, with the Mud People. I was trying to talk to their ancestors' spirits, to try to find out how to close the veil, and he appeared."
"Ahhh." She nodded in satisfaction. "I see."
"What does that mean!"
Sister Verna's face set into an expression of tolerance, born of explaining things to children. "Did the Mud People have you drink or eat some sacred potion before you saw this spirit?"
"No!"
"You simply sat down with them and saw spirits, yes?"
"Well, not exactly. There is a banquet first. For a couple of days. The elders eat and drink special things. But I never did. Then we were painted with mud, and then I went into the spirit house with the seven elders. We sat in a circle, and they chanted a while. Then they passed around a basket and we took out a spirit frog, and rubbed the slime from its back onto our skin..."
"Frogs." Sister Verna looked over. "Red Frogs, yes?"
"Yes. Red spirit frogs."
With a smile she looked back ahead. "I know of them. And it made your skin tingle, yes? And it is then you saw spirits?"
"That's a pretty simplistic version, but I guess you could distill it down like that. What are you trying to say?"
"You have traveled the Midlands often? You have seen many of her peoples?"
"No. I'm from Westland. I don't know much about the people of the Midlands."
She nodded to herself again. "There are many peoples in the Midlands, unbelievers, who do not know of the light of the Creator. They worship all sorts of things. Idols and Spirits and such. They are savages who hold to customs of worship centered around these false beliefs. They mostly have one thing in common. They use sacred food or drink to help them 'see' their 'Spirit protectors'."
She looked over to make sure he was paying attention. "The Mud People apparently use the substance on the red frogs to help them have these visions of what they wish to see."
"Visions?"
"The Creator has placed many plants and animals in our world for us to use. The power of these things work in invisible ways. A tea, for example, of the bark of willow can help reduce a fever. We can't see it work, but we know it does. There are many things that if eaten will make us sick, even kill us. The Creator gave us minds to learn the difference. There are some things that if eaten, or in the case of the red frogs, rubbed into our skin, will make us see things, just as we see things when we dream.
"Savages who don't know better think the things they see are real. That is what happened to you. You rubbed the slime of a red frog into your skin and it gave you visions. Your rightful fear of the Nameless One made it all the more real to you. If these 'spirits' were real, why would you need to use some special plant, or food, or drink, or in this case, red frogs, to see and talk to them?
"Please don't think I am mocking you, Richard. The visions can seem very real. When you are under their influence, they can seem as real as anything. But they are not."
Richard was reluctant to believe the Sister's explanation, but he understood what she was talking about. From a young age, Zedd had taken him into the woods to find special plants to help people: aum to take away pain and help minor wounds heal faster, and wattle root to ease the pain of deeper wounds. Zedd had showed him other plants that would help fevers, digestion, the pain of childbirth, dizzy spells, and he had also told him about plants to avoid, plants that were dangerous, and plants that would make people see things that weren't there: visions.
But he didn't think he had imagined Darken Rahl. "He burned me." Richard tapped his shirt where the bandage was. "I couldn't have been having visions. Darken Rahl was there, he reached out and touched me, and it burned my skin. I'm not imagining that."
The Sister gave a little shrug. "That could be one of two things. After you rubbed the frog on your skin, you couldn't see the room you were in, could you?"
"No. It just seemed to disappear into a dark void."
"Well, see it or not, it was still there. And I'm sure the savages would have had a fire burning when you had this gathering. And when you were burned, you were not sitting in the same place, but you were standing, moving about, yes?"
"Yes," he admitted reluctantly.
She pursed her lips. "In the deluded state you were in, you probably fell and burned yourself on a stick in the fire and imagined that it was this spirit doing the burning."
Richard was beginning to feel decidedly foolish. Could the Sister be right? Was it all this simple? Was he really this gullible?
"You said it could be two things. What is the other?"
The Sister rode in silence for a moment. When her voice came, it came lower, darker, than it had before. "The Nameless One always seeks to have us side with him. Though he is locked behind the veil, his tentacles can still reach into this world. He can still harm us. He is dangerous. The dark side is dangerous. When ignorant people dabble in things dark, they can call forth danger, call forth the attention of the Nameless One or his minions. It is possible you really were touched, burned, by one of the evil ones." She glanced over. "There are dangerous things people are too foolish to avoid. Sometimes, those things can kill."
Her voice brightened a bit. "That is one of our jobs; trying to teach those who have not yet seen the light of the Creator to go toward that light, and stay away from the things dark, and dangerous."
Richard couldn't think of anything to counter the Sister's explanations of events. The things she said made sense. If she were right, that would mean that Kahlan wasn't really in danger; that Kahlan was safe. He wanted to believe that. He desperately wanted to believe that. But still...
"I will admit that you could be right, but I'm not sure. There seems to be more to it that I can put into words."
"I understand, Richard. It is hard to admit we have been wrong. No one wants to admit they have been tricked, or made to look the fool. That v
iew of ourselves hurts. But part of growing, learning, is being able to hold the truth above all else, even when it means we must admit to having held foolish ideas.
"Please believe me, Richard, I do not see you as a fool for having believed as you did. Your fear was understandable. The mark of a wise person is being able to reach beyond for the truth, to admit they can learn more than they already know."
"But all of these things are connected..."
"Are they? A wise person doesn't string together the beads of unrelated events into a necklace simply to have something they wish to see. A wise person sees the truth even if it is something unexpected. That is the most beautiful necklace to wear—the truth."
"The truth," he muttered to himself. He was the Seeker. The truth was what the Seeker was all about. It was woven in gold wire into the hilt of his sword: the Sword of Truth. Something about the things that had happened were more than he could put into words for her. Could it be as she said? Could he simply be fooling himself?
He remembered the Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid, they will believe anything, either because they want it to be true, or are afraid it might be. He knew from experience that he was as susceptible to it as anyone else. He wasn't above believing a lie.
He had believed Kahlan loved him. He had believed she would never do anything to hurt him. And she had sent him away. Richard felt the lump rising in his throat again.
"I am telling you the truth, Richard. I am here to help you." He didn't answer. He didn't believe her. As if to answer his thoughts, she asked, "How are your headaches?"
The question stunned him. Not the question so much as the realization. "They're... gone. The headache is completely gone."
Sister Verna smiled and nodded in satisfaction. "As I promised you, the Rada'Han would take away the headache. We only want to help you, Richard."
His eyes turned to watch her. "You also said the collar is to control me."
"So we may teach you, Richard. You must have a person's attention to teach them. That is all it is for."
"And to hurt me. You said it is to give me pain."