“Three?”
“Yes.” Richard tapped the hilt of his sword with a thumb as his mind raced down all the various dark paths, trying to think of where they could be leading. “Besides the blind woman, a fortune-teller told me the same thing. That makes three people who said it. Plus the book.”
With a finger on the side of his chin, Nicci turned his face back toward her. “Book?”
“Nathan found a book, End Notes, that says those very words— that the roof is going to fall in— and a number of the other strange things I’ve heard today.”
“I know the book, End Notes.” Nicci folded her arms as she appraised Kahlan’s eyes and then looked back at Richard. “Strange things. Like what?”
“Nathan took me to see another woman a while ago about her predictions. She said that the sky is going to fall in. ‘Sky’ is not the same as ‘roof,’ but it does have a certain similar ring to it. Then she told me another prediction, and that one, word for word, is in the same book. But it makes no sense.”
“What did this woman say that’s also in the book?”
“Actually, she wrote it down a day or two back. She writes down all her predictions. She fancies herself a prophet. It said ‘Queen takes pawn.’ Like I said, it makes no sense.”
Nicci didn’t look at all mystified. “It’s a move in chess.”
Richard couldn’t help frowning again. “Chess? What’s that?”
“It’s an obscure, little-known game.”
“Never heard of it.” He looked around at the others. None of them had ever heard the word, either. “What is it? Something played with a ball, like Ja’La?”
Nicci waved off the notion. “No, nothing like that. Chess is a board game. It has a variety of pieces, like a queen, king, bishop, pawn— things like that. Queen takes pawn is a move in the game. It means what it sounds like. The queen captures a pawn, removing it from play, killing it, I guess you could say.”
Zedd let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never heard of such a game.”
“Like I said, it’s pretty obscure. As far as I know it’s only played in a few remote places.”
“What places?” Richard asked.
“Well, for one, Fajin Province.” Nicci gestured back down the hall yet again. “In the Dark Lands, where the abbot is from.”
Richard looked off down the hall, almost as if he thought he might see the abbot.
“By the way,” Nicci said, “what were you doing with the little weasel?”
“I was asking him about a Hedge Maid.”
Nicci rammed the heel of her hand into his chest, driving Richard up against the wall. Fury flashed in her blue eyes.
She gritted her teeth. “What did you say?”
Richard took hold of her wrist and removed her hand from his chest. The angry glare remained firmly in place.
“I wanted to know about a Hedge Maid named Jit. She lives in a place called Kharga Trace in Fajin Province. Why?”
Nicci held a finger up right in front of his face. “You listen to me, Richard Rahl. You stay away from Hedge Maids. Do you understand me? Stay away. You have no defense against a Hedge Maid. None of us do. You stay away from her. Their magic is different than any of ours. Not even your sword would protect you from them.”
“You mean she might try to do us harm?”
“Hedge Maids are vipers. If you leave them lie under their rock they’re not likely to bother you, but if you go poking at them in their hidey-hole they’ll come out and kill you in a heartbeat. Hedge Maids deal in occult powers. Stay away from her. Do you hear me?”
“Well I don’t know that—”
“It would be best if you never breathed her name again.” Nicci shoved him against the wall again to make her point. “Do you understand me!”
Richard rubbed the back of his head where it had smacked the wall. “No, not really. What’s a Hedge Maid?”
Nicci let her hand drop. Her eyes went out of focus as she stared off.
“A Hedge Maid is an evil, nasty, dirty, wicked, foul, vile being, an oracle who trades in the darkest kinds of suffering and depravity. Everything they do revolves around death.”
“How do you know this Jit?”
“I don’t. But I know all too well what a Hedge Maid is.”
“And how do you know what they are?”
Her blue eyes cooled as they turned up to focus on his face. Her deadly words came in little more than a whisper. “Do you forget so easily that I was once a Sister of the Dark? Do you forget that I was once committed to the Keeper of the underworld? Do you forget that I was once Death’s Mistress?”
CHAPTER 16
How’s your hand?” Richard asked.
Kahlan turned from peeking out around the edge of the drapes where she had been watching the storm rage. It was so black outside that she could see only small patches near the light coming from some of the windows that looked out on the vast palace complex. The windows higher up on walls and in towers looked like dots of lights floating in midair, assailed by sideways slashes of snow.
She could see that the blizzard had piled up huge drifts of the wet, heavy snow. At times the snow turned to sleet, only to once more shift the world back to white chaos.
She lifted her hand out to Richard, holding it under the light of the lamp on the bedside table. The scratches left by the boy had turned to an angry red. It hurt a little but she didn’t want to say so. Where she was concerned, Richard was a dedicated worrier; she didn’t need to stoke those fires.
He took her hand and inspected it in the lamplight. He let out a grumbling noise. “It looks swollen.”
“It’s a little red,” she said, taking the hand back, “but I don’t think it’s doing too badly. It’s normal for scratches to get this way as they heal. How about yours?”
He lifted his hand to show her. “Mine looks about the same. I don’t think they look any worse than can be expected.”
“Not the worst problem of the day.”
“Not by a long shot,” Richard agreed.
He went to one of the cabinets to look for something. He finally pulled out his pack.
Kahlan smiled. “I haven’t seen that for a while.”
“It has been a while since we traveled anywhere. Maybe we should. Zedd wants us to visit him when he returns to the Keep.”
“I would like to see Aydindril and spend some time at the Confessors’ Palace again. It would be good to see the city doing well after all it’s been through.”
But she knew that they would not be going to Aydindril to see the Wizard’s Keep or the Confessors’ Palace anytime soon. Innocent people were dying. What ever the cause, Kahlan could feel in the pit of her stomach that it was going to overshadow everything else. She wanted to scream against the unseen darkness that was descending on them, but that would do no good.
Richard closed the cabinet door. “With all that’s going on I don’t know that Zedd is going to want to be returning to the Keep before we figure out what’s happening and get it resolved. I’m glad we have him here to help us.”
Kahlan watched as Richard lifted the baldric over his head and then propped his sword against the bedside table. He set his pack on the bed and started rooting around inside. She couldn’t imagine what he was looking for. With a smile he at last brought up a small tin. It made her smile, too, seeing it again.
He gestured to the edge of the bed. “Come and sit.”
As she did, Richard dabbed his finger in the tin and then lifted her hand. He gently smoothed some of the herb salve along the scratches. It felt cool and immediately started to quell the ache.
“Better?”
“Better,” she said with a smile.
It had been years since she had seen that tin of healing cream that Richard had made from aum, among other things. Having grown up in the woods, he knew about plants and how to make cures from them. After he spread some of the ointment on his own red scratches, he replaced the tin in his pack.
So much had happened
since she had first met him in his woodland home. Both their lives had completely changed. The world had been turned upside down as it went through a nightmare war. She couldn’t count the times she had thought that she would never see him again, or feared he was going to die, or worse, thought that he had been killed. The terror had seemed as if it would never end.
It finally had. They had not just survived but after years of struggle they had won the war and brought peace to the world.
But now the world felt like it was again slipping into darkness.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Kahlan took up his good hand and held it to the side of her face. She hid her silent tears against his hand.
Richard gently ran his hand through her hair as he pulled her head against him.
“I know,” he said softly. “I know.”
Kahlan put her arms around his waist. “Promise me that you won’t let what ever is coming take you from me?”
Richard bent and kissed the top of her head. “I promise.”
“A wizard always keeps his promises,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he said with a smile.
Everything was going so well. They had fought for so long, suffered so much. It wasn’t fair that something was coming for them again, but she knew it was. And she knew that Richard knew the same thing. He held her to him as she gave in to weakness and wept. She never let anyone but Richard see that weakness.
“What are we doing in this room?” he finally asked.
“Just trying to keep us away from prying eyes.”
“So you sensed someone watching you, earlier?”
She shrugged, still holding him. “I don’t know, Richard. It seemed like I did, but I couldn’t be sure. It sounded so creepy when Cara told us about it. Maybe I was just imagining it.”
She looked up at him and laughed through her tears. “But if you think I’m taking off my clothes tonight, Lord Rahl, you have another think coming.”
Richard lay back on the bed. Kahlan crawled up and snuggled up to him, putting her head on his shoulder.
“Just hold me,” she whispered. “Please?”
He circled his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
She wiped at her tears. “I can’t remember the last time I cried.”
After a long moment, he said, “I can.”
She pressed herself into him. She couldn’t believe that she really had him, that he was really hers, that he really and truly loved her.
She couldn’t believe that she was going to lose him to darkness seeking darkness.
CHAPTER 17
Kahlan woke to the distinctive sound of Richard’s sword coming out of the scabbard. The clear ring of the Sword of Truth’s steel brought her wide awake and brought her heart rate up.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What is it?”
Richard had the sword gripped in a fist above her. He shushed her as he gently, carefully slipped out from under her loose embrace. It was a bewitchingly fluid movement that ended with him standing silent and still beside the bed looking into the darkness.
Kahlan expected that at any moment something might fly at him out of that darkness. Nothing did.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Do you feel like someone is watching us?” he asked back over his shoulder.
“I don’t know. I was sound asleep.”
“You’re awake now.”
Kahlan sat up. “I don’t know, Richard. I could convince myself that I do, but I don’t know if it’s real or just my imagination.”
Richard stared off at the darkness at the end of the room. “It’s real.”
That made Kahlan’s heart beat even faster. She inched closer to him, making sure to stay out of the way of his sword in case he needed to use it.
“Can you tell what it is?”
His muscles relaxed. “It’s gone.”
Kahlan squinted, trying to see better in the dimly lit bedroom. “You mean it’s gone like maybe you were imagining it and now you realized as much?”
Richard turned to her. “No, I mean that when I deliberately looked back at it, it left. It was there. I have no doubt of it.”
The tension might have gone out of his muscles, but she recognized all too well the rage that still lit his eyes. It was the magic of the Sword of Truth he was gripping tightly in his fist. It was the righteousrage of the Seeker.
Kahlan could hear distant thunder. She rubbed her arms against the chill. “Who, or what, could do such a thing? I mean, who could look in at us that way?”
“I haven’t any idea. Zedd didn’t know either.”
Richard slid the sword back into the gold and silver scabbard he was holding in his other hand. As the sword slipped back into its lair, the anger faded from his gray eyes.
Richard lifted the sword’s baldric over his head and let it rest on his right shoulder while Kahlan went to the window and drew the drapes aside enough to peek outside. “It’s light out.”
“What about the storm?”
“Looks like it’s worse. You’re quite the prophet.”
“Great,” Richard muttered. “Now all the representatives get to stay around and badger us about prophecy some more.”
“They’re just worried, Richard. You have to admit, something is going on. They’re not stupid. They know it too. You are the Lord Rahl. They look to you to protect them from things they don’t understand and fear.”
“I suppose,” he said as he turned to a knock on the door.
After pulling on his boots he went to the door and looked out. Kahlan could seen Nathan down the hall talking to Benjamin. Cara had been the one who knocked. She was wearing her red leather and a grim expression. When Nathan and Benjamin saw Richard and Kahlan they hurried over.
“You look like you slept in that dress,” Cara said as Kahlan joined Richard at the door.
“I’m afraid that I did.”
“Ah,” Cara said with knowing nod. “So it was in your room, watching you again.”
“I don’t like the idea of taking off my clothes in front of prying eyes.”
“Did you and Benjamin sense anyone watching you in your room again last night?” Richard asked Cara.
“No, and I was waiting for them. They never showed up so I guess it was looking for you, as you suspected, and not us. It was quiet all night— until this morning, anyway.”
“Why, what happened this morning?” Kahlan asked.
Nathan leaned forward, impatient to get down to business. “Do you remember the stocky regent in the red tunic, the one at the reception yesterday who wanted to know if there is some prophetic event lying ahead for us?”
Richard yawned. “The regent who said that our future is rooted in the past and part of that past is prophecy? All that roundabout nonsense?”
“That’s the one.”
Richard wiped a weary hand across his face. “He was pretty insistent about how everyone is eager to hear my insight on prophecy and what the future holds for us. I suppose he can’t wait for me to meet with him and the others so that I can reveal the future to them.”
“Not exactly,” Nathan said. “He had a vision of his own early this morning.”
Richard straightened with a suspicious look. “I didn’t know that any of the representatives were gifted with even a little talent for such things.”
Nathan leaned closer. “He’s not. That’s the strange thing. His aides said that the regent had never before given any kind of prophecy. They said that he was always fascinated by it, and sought out people who claimed to be able to foretell the future, but he had never shown any ability for it himself.”
“So what was this important prophecy of his?”
“He said only that he’d had a vision.”
“But he didn’t reveal this vision, didn’t say what he saw?” Kahlan asked.
“No. He only told his aides that he’d seen what the future holds. They say that he was a talkative man, but after saying he’d had a visi
on he was unusually quiet and seemed distracted.”
“If he didn’t reveal the nature of his prophecy, then what’s so meaningful about it?” Richard wiped a hand across his face. “For that matter, how do we even know that he’s telling the truth?”
“We don’t, I suppose, but after he told his aides that he’d had this vision, he walked outside into the teeth of the storm, still dressed in his bedclothes, and jumped off the side of the plateau.”
“He killed himself?” Richard gaped at the prophet. “With no word on the nature of his vision?”
“No word at all,” Nathan confirmed.
Richard drew a deep breath as he considered the regent’s sad end. “Well, I guess Cara was right, it was an eventful morning.”
“I’m afraid that’s not all, Lord Rahl,” Benjamin said. “After the regent’s inexplicable behavior, and considering the two women yesterday who killed their children after having a vision, I suggested to Nathan that we ought to go check on anyone else he knew of who showed any history of visions, even if it was only a minor ability.”
Richard looked back at Nathan. “There are others?”
Nathan shrugged. “I hardly know everyone living at the palace. There’s no telling how many people might have had small premonitions. I do know of a man, though, who from time to time claims to foresee future events. I’ve never tested him so I have no idea if he really can, if he’s telling the truth. But considering recent events I thought we’d best pay him a visit.”
Richard nodded as he considered. “That makes sense.”
“When we got to his quarters,” Benjamin said, taking up the story, “we heard screams coming from inside. We broke in the door and saw that the man had his wife down on the floor. He was straddling her. She was struggling mightily trying to fight him off. The man had a knife in his fist, trying to kill her. Three young children were huddled in the corner, crying in terror, waiting their turn to be murdered, I believe.”
Nathan gestured to head off making more drama of the story than he apparently thought it warranted. “Nothing had happened, yet. As the man held his knife up in the air to strike, I used a quick bit of magic, that’s all, throwing him off the woman so that he would be unable to carry out his intentions. The general and some of his men rushed in and disarmed him.”