Her eyes narrowed. "Named Seeker? You did not find the sword? Or purchase it? It was given by a wizard? You were named Seeker? A real Seeker? By a wizard?"
"I was."
"Who was this wizard?"
"The one I told you of before: Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander."
"You met him just this once, when he gave you the sword?"
"No. I have spent my whole life with him. He practically raised me. He is my grandfather."
There was a long moment of dead silence. "And he named you Seeker, because he refused to teach you to control the gift? To be a wizard?"
"Refused! When he realized I have the gift, he practically begged to teach me to be a wizard."
"He offered?" she whispered.
"That's right. I told him I didn't want to be a wizard." Something was wrong. She seemed disturbed by this news. "He said the offer still stands. Why?"
She rubbed her hands absently. "It is just... unusual, that is all. Many things about you are unusual."
Richard didn't know if he believed her. He wondered if maybe he didn't need the collar, if Zedd could have helped him without it.
But Kahlan had wanted it on him. She had wanted him taken away. His insides twisted with that pain.
The sword was the only thing he had of Zedd. It was given to him when he was still back in Westland, when he was home. He missed his home, his woods. The sword was the only thing left of Zedd, and home.
"Sister, I was named Seeker, and given this sword, for as long as I wish to keep it and be Seeker. I will be the one to decide when the time has come to give it up. If you wish to take it away from me, then try to do it now.
"If you try, one of us is going to die in the attempt. At the moment, I don't much care which one of us it is. But I intend to fight to the death. It is mine by right, and you are not taking it as long as there is a breath of life in me."
He listened to the distant howl of an animal dying a sudden, violent death, and then to the long, empty silence that followed.
"Since you were given the sword, and did not simply find it, or purchase it, you may keep it. I will not take it from you. I cannot speak for the others, but I will try to see to your wishes. It is the gift we must tend to. It is that magic we must teach you to control."
She drew herself up and regarded him with an expression of such cold danger it made him have to fight the urge to shrink back. "But if you ever again draw it against me, I will make you rue the day the Creator let you take your first breath." Her jaw muscles tightened. "Do we understand each other?"
"What is so important about me that you would kill to capture me?"
Her cold composure was more frightening than if she had yelled at him. "Our job is to help those with the gift, because the gift is given by the Creator. It is the Creator we serve. It is for him we die. I have lost two of my oldest friends because of you. I have wept myself to sleep with grief for them. I have had to kill this woman tonight. I will have to kill others before we reach the Palace."
Richard had the feeling it would be best keep quiet, but he couldn't. She had a way of stirring the coals of his anger to flame. "Don't try to assuage your guilt over what you have done at my expense, Sister."
Her face heated with color that he could see, even in the moonlight. "I have tried to be patient with you, Richard. I have given you leeway because you have been pulled from the only life you have known, and been thrust into a situation you fear and don't understand, but my patience is near its end.
"I have tried my best not to see the lifeless bodies of my friends when I look into your eyes. Or when you tell me I am heartless. I have tried not to think about you being the one standing at their burial, not me, and about the things I would have said over their fresh graves. There are things going on that are beyond my understanding, beyond my expectations, beyond what I was led to believe. Were it up to me, I am of a mind to grant you your wish and remove your Rada'Han, and let you die in madness and pain.
"But it is not up to me. It is the Creator's work I do."
Although the hot coals of his temper hadn't been doused, they had cooled. "Sister Verna, I'm sorry." He wished she would scream at him. That would be better than her calm anger, her quiet displeasure.
"You are angered because you think I treat you as a child, and not as a man, and yet you have given me no reason to do otherwise. I know where you stand, in your abilities, and where you have yet to travel. In that journey you are no more than a babe who bawls to be turned loose in the world, yet cannot even walk.
"The collar you wear is capable of controlling you. It is also capable of giving you pain. Great pain. Up until now, I have avoided using it, and have tried instead to encourage you in other ways to accept what must be done. But if I have to, I will use it. The Creator knows I have tried everything else.
"We will soon be in a land much more dangerous than this. We will have to deal with the people there to get through. The Sisters have arrangements with them, to be allowed to pass. You will do as I tell you, as they tell you. You will do the things you are told, or there will be a great deal of trouble."
Richard's suspicion flared anew. "What things?"
She glared at him. "Do not test me further tonight, Richard."
"As long as you understand you are not getting my sword without a fight."
"We are only trying to help you, Richard, but if you draw a weapon on me again, I will see to it you greatly regret it." She glanced to the Agiel hanging at his neck. "Mord-Sith hold no monopoly in giving pain."
Cold confirmation of his suspicions spread through his gut. They intended to train him the way a Mord-Sith trained him. That was the real reason for the collar. That was how they intended to teach him: with pain. For the first time, he felt as if she had inadvertently let him see the bones of her intentions.
She pulled the little book from her belt. "I have some work to do before we leave. Go bury her. And hide her body well; if it is found, it will tell them what happened, and they will be after us, and then I will have killed for nothing."
She sat in front of the cold jumble of firewood. With a smooth sweep of her hand over the dark coals, it burst into flame. "After you have buried her, I want you to go for a walk and let your temper cool. Do not return until it has done so. If you try to wander away, or if you don't bring some reason into that thick head of yours by the time I am ready to leave, I will bring you back by the collar." She gave him a menacing look from under her eyebrows. "You will not like it if I have to do that. I promise you, you will not like it one bit."
*****
The dead woman was slight, and little burden to carry. He hardly noticed the weight as he walked away from the camp into the low, rocky hills. The moon was up and the way easy to see. His mind swirled with his brooding thoughts as he trudged along, kicking an occasional stone.
Richard was surprised at his pang of pain for Sister Verna. She had never before revealed how heartsick she was over the deaths of Sisters Grace and Elizabeth. He had thought that because she hadn't, she was callous. He felt sorry for her now, sorry for her anguish. He wished she hadn't let him know. It was easier to rail against his situation when he thought she was heartless.
He found himself a long way from their camp, at the crest of a hump of ground, with rocky walls and spires rising around him. His mind came out of his twisting thoughts and returned to the body he carried on his back. Though the stab wound from the Dacra may not have been what had killed her, blood had nonetheless seeped down her back, matting her hair and soaking his shoulder. He felt sudden revulsion at carrying a dead woman around on his back.
He laid her gently on the rocky ground and looked about, searching for a place to lay her to rest. He had a small shovel hooked to his belt, but there didn't look to be easy digging anywhere. Maybe he could wall her up in one of the rocky crags.
While he peered into the shadowed gullies, he absently rubbed the still sore burn on his chest. Nissel, the healer, had given him a poultice, and every day he s
pread it on before covering the wound once more with a bandage. He didn't like looking at it. He didn't like seeing the scar of a handprint burned into his flesh.
Sister Verna had said it could have been that he had burned himself in the fireplace in the spirit house, or that they might have indeed called forth the dark minions of the Nameless One. It obviously wasn't a burn from the fire; it was the mark of the underworld. Of Darken Rahl.
He was somehow ashamed of it, and never let Sister Verna see it. The scar was a constant reminder of his father's true identity. It seemed an affront to George Cypher, the man he thought of as his father, the man who had raised him, trusted and taught him, given him his love, and whom he had loved in return.
The mark was also a constant reminder of the monster he really was—the monster Kahlan had wanted collared and sent away.
Richard swished a hand at a bug buzzing around his face. He looked down. They were buzzing around the dead woman, too. He went cold with a jolt of fright even before he felt the sting of a bite on his neck.
Blood flies.
He drew his sword in a rush as the huge, dark shape lunged from behind the rock. The ringing sound of steel was drowned out by a roar. Wings spread wide, the gar dove for him. For an instant, he thought he saw a second, hunched in the shadows behind the first, but his attention was immediately seized by the immense thing descending on him, by the fierce, glowing, green eyes locked on him.
It was too big to be a long-tailed gar, and by the way it anticipated and avoided his first stab, too smart. It would have to be a short-tailed gar, he cursed silently. It was thinner than short-tailed gars he had seen before, probably the result of poor hunting in this desolate land, but thin or not, it was still huge, towering half again as tall as he.
Richard stumbled and fell over the dead woman as he lurched back to escape the swipe of a massive claw. He came up swinging the sword in fury, letting the anger of the sword's magic surge through him. The tip of the sword sliced a gash across the smooth, taut, pink stomach. The gar howled in rage as it rushed him again, unexpectedly batting him to the ground with a leathery wing.
Richard rolled to his feet, whirling the sword as he came up. The blade flashed in the moonlight, taking off a wingtip in a spray of blood. That only enraged the gar into lunging toward him. Long, wet fangs ripped at the night air. Its eyes were ablaze with a furious green glow. The howling roar hurt his ears. Claws swept in to each side of him.
Heedless of the danger, the magic pounded through him, demanding blood. Instead of dodging the advance, Richard ducked. He sprang up, driving the sword through the chest of the great, fur covered beast. He yanked the blade back with a twisting cut to the sound of a scream of mortal pain.
Richard pulled the sword behind, prepared to take the hideous head off with a powerful stroke, but the gar didn't come at him. Claws clutched to the gushing wound at its chest, it teetered a moment, and then toppled heavily onto its back, bones in its wings snapping as it fell on them.
A keening wail came from the shadows. Richard retreated a few paces. A small, dark form darted across the ground, to the vanquished monster, falling on top of it. Little wings wrapped around the heaving chest.
Richard stared in disbelief. It was a baby gar.
The wounded beast lifted a shaking claw to clutch weakly at the whimpering form. It drew a gurgling breath that lifted the little gar sprawled atop its chest. The arm dropped to the side. Faintly glowing green eyes drank in its little one, and then looked up at Richard with pleading pain. A froth of blood bubbled as it expelled its last, rattling breath. The glow in its eyes waned, and then it was still. With plaintive cries, the little creature seized small fistfuls of fur.
Little or not, Richard thought, it is still a gar. He stepped close. He had to kill it. The rage pounded through him. He lifted the sword over his head.
The little gar drew a trembling wing over its head as it shrank back. As frightened as it was, it would not leave its mother. It whimpered in anguish and fear.
A terrified little face peered over the trembling wing. Wide, wet, green eyes blinked up at him. Tears ran down the deep creases in its cheeks as it sobbed in distress with a purling wail.
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered, as he stood paralyzed, "I can't do this."
The little gar quavered as it watched the sword's point sink to the ground. Richard turned his back and closed his eyes. He felt sick, both from the sword's magic which inflicted upon him the pain of his vanquished foe, and from the dreadful prospect of what he had been ready to do.
As he replaced the sword, he drew a deep breath to steady himself, then lifted the dead woman over his shoulder and started off. He could hear the choking sobs of the little gar as it clung to its still mother. He couldn't kill it. He just couldn't. Besides, he told himself, the sword wouldn't allow it. The magic only worked against threat. It wouldn't allow him to kill the little gar. He knew it wouldn't.
Of course, it would work if he turned the blade white, but he couldn't bear that pain. He would not subject himself to that agony, not for no more purpose than to kill a defenseless pup.
He carried the dead woman toward the next rise as he listened to the whimpers grow faint. Laying the body down again, he sat to catch his breath. He could just see the great beast in the moonlight, a dark blotch against the light colored rock, and the small form atop it. He could hear the slow sounds of anguish and confusion. Richard sat a long time, watching, listening.
"Dear spirits, what have I done?"
The spirits, as usual, had nothing to say.
From the corner of his eye, movement caught his attention. Two distant silhouettes passed in front of the big, bright moon. They banked into a slow turn, and began to descend. Two gars.
Richard came to his feet. Maybe they would see the baby and help it. He found himself cheering them on, and then realized how absurd it was to hope a gar would live. But he was beginning to feel an odd sympathy for monsters.
Richard ducked down. The two gars overhead came close to him as they swept in a wide circle around the scene on the next hill. Their spiral tightened.
The little gar fell silent.
The dark shapes dove down, landing a ways apart with a flutter of wings. They moved cautiously around the dead gar and its offspring. Wings held open, they suddenly leapt toward the silent baby gar. It broke its silence with a scream. There was a flurry of wings, vicious roars, and frightened shrieks.
Richard stood. Many animals ate the young of another of its own kind. Especially males, and especially if food was scarce. They weren't going to save it; they intended to eat it.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Richard was racing down the hill. He ran heedless of the foolishness he intended. He pulled the sword free as he charged up the hill to the little gar. Its terrified wails urged him on. The savage snarls of its attackers ignited the wrath of the sword's magic.
Steel first, he rushed into the fur and claws and wings. The two gars were bigger than the one he had killed, confirming his suspicion that they were males. His blade caught only air as they leapt back, but one of them dropped the little gar. It skittered across the ground and clutched to its mother's fur. The other two circled him, charging and darting and swiping claws. Richard swung and stabbed the sword. One of them snatched at the baby. Richard scooped it away with his free arm and quickly retreated a dozen paces.
They fell on the dead gar. With a cry, the baby stretched its arms toward its mother, its wings flapping against his face in an effort to free itself. In a frenzy, the two gars tore at the carcass.
Richard made a calculated decision. As long as the dead gar was there, the pup wouldn't leave it; the pup would have a better chance at survival if it had nothing to hold it to this place. It squirmed mightily in his arm. Though fully half his size, it was at least lighter than he would have thought.
He feigned a charge to hurry the two along. They snapped at him, too hungry to be frightened off without a meal. They fought each ot
her. Claws slashed and pulled. The body ripped asunder. Richard charged again as the little gar tore free, running ahead of him with a shriek. The two leapt into the air, each with half a prize. In a moment they were gone.
The little gar stood where its mother had been, keening as it watched the two disappear into the dark sky.
Panting and weary, Richard returned his sword to its scabbard and then slumped down on a short ledge, trying to catch his breath. His head sunk into his hands as tears welled up. He must be losing his mind. What in the world was he doing? He was risking his life for nothing. No, not for nothing.
He raised his head. The little gar was standing in the blood where its mother had been, its trembling wings held out limply, its shoulders slumped, and its tufted ears wilted. Big green eyes watched him. They stared at each other for a long moment.
"I'm sorry, little one," he whispered.
It took a tentative step toward him. Tears ran down the gars face. Tears ran down his. It took another small, shaky step.
Richard held his arms out. It watched, and then with a miserable wail, fell into them.
It clutched its long, skinny arms to him. Warm wings wrapped around his shoulders. Richard hugged it tightly to himself.
Gently stroking its coarse fur, he hushed it with comforting whispers. Richard had rarely seen a creature in such misery, a creature so in need of comfort that it would even accept it from the one who had caused its pain. Maybe, he thought, it was only recognizing him as the one who had saved it from being eaten by two huge monsters. Maybe, given the terrible choice, it chose to see him as a savior. Maybe the last impression, of saving it from being eaten, was simply the strongest.
The little gar felt like nothing more than a furry sack of bones. It was half starved. He could hear its stomach grumbling. Its faint musky odor, while not pleasant, was not repulsive either. He cooed succor as the thing's whimpering slowed.