Blood of the Fold

Chapter 16

With Gratch looming over his shoulder, watching, Richard dribbled the red wax in a long puddle across the folded letter. He hastily set the candle and wax aside and picked up his sword, rolling the handle into the wax, making an impression of the hilt with its braided gold wire that spelled out the word TRUTH. He was satisfied with the results; Kahlan and Zedd would know the letter really was his.

Egan and Ulic were sitting at the ends of the long, curved desk, watching the empty room as if an army were about to storm the dais. His two, huge guards preferred to stand. He was sure they must be tired and had insisted they sit. They said standing left them more prepared to react in the event of trouble. Richard had told them that he thought the thousand men outside, guarding, would probably raise a sufficient racket if there were an attack that the two would notice, even from a seated position, and still have time to get up out of their chairs and draw their swords. It was then that they had reluctantly sat down.

Cara and Raina stood beside the doors. When he had told them that they were welcome to sit, too, they had dismissed the suggestion with haughty sniffs, and had said that they were stronger that Egan and Ulic, and would stand. Richard had been in the middle of writing his letter and hadn’t wanted to argue with them, so he had said that since they looked tired and slow, he was ordering them to stand so they would have sufficient time to come to his defense in case there was an attack. They were standing now, scowling at him, but he had caught glimpses of them smiling to each other, apparently pleased with the way they had been able to draw him into their game.

Darken Rahl had given the Mord-Sith clearly delineated bounds: master and slave. Richard wondered if they were testing their limits with him, trying to find where the slack ended. Maybe they were simply gleeful to be able, for the first time, to act as they wished, on whim if they wanted.

Richard also considered the possibility that their game was a test to try to ascertain if he was mad. Mord-Sith were nothing if not accomplished at testing. It troubled him that they might think him mad. This was the only way; they had to see that.

Richard hoped Gratch wasn’t as tired as the rest of them. The gar had only just joined him that morning, so Richard didn’t know how much sleep he had gotten, but his glowing green eyes looked bright and alert. Gars hunted mostly at night, so perhaps that explained his wakefulness. Whatever it was, Richard hoped it was true that Gratch wasn’t tired, and not simply his hope.

Richard patted the furry arm. “Gratch, come with me.”

The gar came to his feet, stretched his wings along with one leg, and followed Richard across the expanse of floor to one of the covered stairways up to the balcony.

His four guards instantly came alert when Richard started off. He gestured for them to stay where they were. Egan and Ulic did; the two women did not, but instead followed him at a distance.

Only the two lamps at the bottom of the covered stairway were lit, leaving the rest a gloomy tunnel. At the top, it opened onto a broad balcony, one side edged with a sinuous mahogany railing overlooking the main floor, and the other bordered by the bottom rim of the dome. Above a low, white marble ledger, round windows half again as tall as he were spaced evenly around the enormous room, Richard looked out one of the windows to a snowy night. Snow. That could be trouble.

At the bottom the window was latched with a brass lever, and to the center of each side it was hinged on massive pins. He tested the lever and found it pivoted smoothly.

Richard turned back to his friend. “Gratch, I want you to listen to me very carefully. This is important.”

Gratch nodded in earnest concentration. The two Mord-Sith watched from the shadows near the top of the stairway.

Richard reached out and stroked the long lock of hair hanging on a leather thong around Gratch’s neck along with the dragon’s tooth. “This is a lock of Kahlan’s hair,” Gratch nodded that he understood. “Gratch, she’s in danger.” Gratch frowned. “You and I are the only ones who can see the mriswith coming.” Gratch growled and covered his eyes with his claws, peeking out between—his sign for the mriswith.

Richard nodded. “That’s right, Gratch, she has no way to see them coming, like you and I do. If they go after her, she won’t see them coming. They’ll kill her.”

An uneasy, purling whine rose from Gratch’s throat. His face brightened. He held out the lock of Kahlan’s hair, and then thumped his massive chest.

Richard couldn’t help laughing in wonder at the gar’s ability to grasp what he wanted. “You guessed what I was thinking, Gratch. I would go to her myself, to protect her, but that would take too much time, and she might be in danger right now. You’re big, but you’re not big enough to carry me. The only thing we can do is to have you go to her, and protect her.”

Gratch nodded his willingness with a grin that bared his fangs. He seemed to suddenly realize what that meant, and threw his arms around Richard.

“Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”

Richard patted the gar’s back. “I love you too, Gratch.” He had sent Gratch away once before in order to save the gar’s life, but Gratch hadn’t understood. He had told Gratch he would never do that again.

He hugged the gar tight before pushing back. “Gratch, listen to me.” The glowing green eyes were watering up. “Gratch, Kahlan loves you as I do. She wants you to be with us the same as I do, the same way you want me to be with you. I want all of us to be together. I’m going to wait here and I want you to go protect her and bring her back.” He smiled and stroked Gratch’s shoulder. “Then we’ll all be together.”

Gratch’s prominent eyebrows drew into a dubious frown.

“Then when we’re all together, you won’t have just one friend, but you’ll have both of us. And my grandfather, Zedd, too. He’ll love having you around. You’ll like him, too.” Gratch was looking a bit more enthusiastic. “You’ll have lots of friends to wrestle with you.”

Before the gar could pounce on him, Richard held him at arm’s length. There was little in life that Gratch loved as much as wrestling. “Gratch, I can’t have fun wrestling with you, now, when I’m worried about the people I love. You understand, don’t you? Would you want to have fun wrestling with someone else if I were in danger and needed you?”

Gratch considered it a moment, and then shook his head. Richard hugged him again. When they parted, Gratch spread his wings with a spirited flap.

“Gratch, can you fly in the snow?” Gratch nodded. “At night?” The gar nodded again, showing fangs behind his smile.

“All right, now, you listen to me, so you’ll be able to find her. I taught you directions: north and south and like that. You know directions. Good. Kahlan is to the southeast.” Richard pointed southeast, but Gratch beat him to it. Richard laughed. “Good. She’s to the southwest. She’s going away from us, on her way to a city. She thought I was going to catch up with her and go to the city with her, but I can’t. I must wait here. She has to come back here.

“She’s with other people. There’s an old man with white hair with her; he’s my friend, my grandfather, Zedd. There are other people with her, too, many of them soldiers. A lot of people. Do you understand?”

Gratch gave a sad frown.

Richard rubbed his forehead, trying to think through his weariness for a way to explain it.

“Like tonight,” Cara said from across the balcony. “Like when you were talking to all the people tonight.”

“Yes! Like that, Gratch.” He pointed at the main floor, circling his finger around. “All the people in here tonight, when I was talking to them? About that many people will be with her.”

Gratch at last grunted that he understood. Richard patted his friend’s chest in relief. He held out the letter.

“You have to take her this letter so that she’ll understand why she has to come back here. It explains everything to her. It’s very important that she gets this letter. Do you understand?” Gratch snatched up the letter in a claw.

Richard raked back his hair. “No, that won’t do. You can’t carry it like that. You may need your claws, or you may drop it and lose it. Besides, it’ll get all wet in the snow and she won’t be able to read it.” His voice trailed off as he tried to think of a way for Gratch to carry the letter.

“Lord Rahl.”

He turned and Raina tossed him something through the dim light. When he caught it, he realized it was the leather pouch that had carried General Trimack’s letter all the way from the People’s Palace in D’Hara.

Richard grinned. “Thanks, Raina.”

Smirking, she shook her head. Richard put his letter, his hopes, everyone’s hopes, in the leather pouch and hung its thong around Gratch’s neck. Gratch gurgled with pleasure at the new addition to his collection before again studying the lock of Kahlan’s hair.

“Gratch, it’s possible that for some reason she may not be with all those people. I have no way of telling what may happen between now and when you reach her. It may be hard to find her.”

He watched Gratch stroking the lock of hair. Richard had seen Gratch catch a flutter mouse in midair on a moonless night. He would be able to find people on the ground, but he still had to have a way to know which people were the right ones.

“Gratch, you haven’t ever seen her before, but she has long hair like this, not many women do, and I told her all about you. She won’t be afraid when she sees you, and she’ll call you by name. That’s how you can know it’s really her: she’ll know your name.”

Satisfied at last with all his instructions, Gratch flapped his wings and bounced on the balls of his feet, eager to be off so he could bring Kahlan back to Richard. Richard swung the window open. The snow howled in. One last time, the two friends hugged.

“She’s been running away from here for two weeks, and will continue on until you reach her. It may take you a while to catch her, many days, so don’t get discouraged. And be careful, Gratch; I don’t want you to get hurt. I want you back here with me so I can wrestle with you, you big furry beast.”

Gratch giggled, a fearsome yet happy noise, then climbed up on the ledge. “Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”

Richard waved. “I love you, Gratch. Be careful. Safe journey.”

Gratch waved back, and then bounded out into the night. Richard stood watching the cold blackness, even though the gar had disappeared almost instantly. Richard felt a sudden, hollow emptiness. Though he was surrounded by people, it wasn’t the same. They were there only because they were bonded to him, and not because they really believed in him or in what he was doing.

Kahlan had been fleeing for two weeks, and it would probably take the gar at least another week, maybe two, to finally catch her. Richard couldn’t imagine it taking less than a month or more for Gratch to find Kahlan and Zedd, and for all of them to return to Aydindril. It could be closer to two months.

He already had a knot in his gut, anxious for his friends to be back with him. They had been parted too long. He wanted this lonesome feeling to end, and only their presence could banish it.

After closing the window, he turned back to the room. The two Mord-Sith were standing right behind him.

“Gratch really is your friend,” Cara said.

Richard only nodded, not wanting to test the lump in his throat.

Cara glanced at Raina before speaking to him. “Lord Rahl, we have been discussing this matter, and have decided that it would be best if you were in D’Hara, where you will be safe. We can leave an army here to guard your queen when she arrives and escort her back to D’Hara to be with you.”

“I’ve already told you, I must remain here. The Imperial Order wants to conquer the world. I’m a wizard, and must stand against that.”

“You said you didn’t know how to use your gift. You said you knew nothing about how to wield magic.”

“I don’t, but my grandfather, Zedd, does. I have to stay here until he arrives, then he can teach me what I need to know so I can fight the Order and keep them from taking over the world.”

Cara dismissed the matter witfi a wave of her hand. “Someone always wants to rule those they don’t already rule. From the safety of D’Hara you can direct your war against the Order. When the representatives from the palaces return from their homelands to offer their surrender, then the Midlands will be yours. You will rule the world, and without having to be in harm’s view. Once the lands surrender, then the Imperial Order will be finished.”

Richard started for the stairway. “You don’t understand. There’s more to it than that. Somehow, the Imperial Order has infiltrated the New World, and has gained allies.”

“New World?” Cara asked as she and Raina started after him. “What is the New World?”

“Westland, where I’m from, the Midlands, and D’Hara make up the New World.

“They make up all the world,” Cara said with finality.

“Spoken like a fish in a pond,” Richard said, sliding his hand lightly down the silken smooth railing as he descended the stairs. “You think that’s all there is to the world? Just the pond you see? That it all just ends at an ocean, or mountain range, or desert, or something?”

“Only the spirits know.” Cara stopped at the bottom of the steps and cocked her head. “What do you think? That there are other lands beyond these? Other ponds?” She swept her Agiel around in a circle. “Out there, somewhere?”

Richard threw his hands up. “I don’t know. But I do know that to the south is the Old World.”

Raina folded her arms. “To the south is a barren waste.”

Richard started across the expanse of floor. “Embedded in the wasteland was a place called the Valley of the Lost, and running through it, from ocean to ocean, a barrier called the Towers of Perdition. The towers were set in place three thousand years ago by wizards with unimaginable power. The spells of those towers have prevented almost anyone from crossing for the last three thousand years, and so the Old World beyond was forgotten in time.”

Cara flashed a skeptical frown as their boot-strikes echoed around the dome. “How do you know this?”

“I was there, in the Old World, at the Palace of the Prophets, in a great city called Tanimura.”

“Truly?” Raina asked. Richard nodded. She added a frown to Cara’s. “And if no one can get through, then how did you?”

“It’s a long story, but basically these women, the Sisters of the Light, took me there. We could cross because we have the gift, but not strong enough to draw the destructive power of the spells. No one else could get through, and so the Old and New Worlds remained separated by the towers and their spells.

“Now the barrier between the Old and New World has fallen. No one is safe. The Imperial Order is from the Old World. It’s a long way, but they will come, and we must be prepared.”

Cara eyed him suspiciously. “And if this barrier has been in place for three thousand years, how did this come to happen, now?”

Richard cleared his throat as they followed him up onto the dais. “Well, I guess it’s my fault. I destroyed the towers’ spells. They no longer stand as a barrier. The wasteland has been restored to the green meadowland it once was.”

The two women appraised him silently. Cara leaned past him to speak to Raina. “And he says he doesn’t know how to use magic.”

Raina shifted her gaze to Richard. “So, what you are saying is that you have caused this war. You made it possible.”

“No. Look, it’s a long story.” Richard raked back his hair. “Even before the barrier was down they were gaining allies here and had started their war. Ebinissia was destroyed before the barrier came down. But now there’s nothing to hold them back, or slow them down. Don’t underestimate them. They use wizards and sorceresses. They wish to destroy all magic.”

“They wish to destroy all magic, yet they use magic themselves? Lord Rahl, that makes no sense,” Cara scoffed.

“You want me to be the magic against magic. Why?” He pointed to the men on either end of the dais. “Because they can only be the steel against steel. It often takes magic to destroy magic.”

Richard gestured, his finger including the two women. “You have magic. And to what purpose? To counter magic. As Mord-Sith, you are able to appropriate the magic of another and turn it against them. It’s the same with them. They use magic to help them destroy magic, just as Darken Rahl used you to torture and kill those with magic who opposed him.

“You have magic; the Order will want to destroy you. I have magic; they’ll want to destroy me. All D’Haran’s have magic, through the bond; eventually the Order will see that and decide to exterminate the taint. Sooner or later, they’ll come to crush D’Hara, just as they would crush the Midlands.”

“The D’Haran troops will crush them, instead,” Ulic said over his shoulder, as if stating with confidence that the sun would set this day as it always did.

Richard shot a glare at the man’s back. “Until I came along, D’Harans joined with them, and in their name annihilated Ebinissia. The D’Harans here, in Aydindril, followed the commands of the Imperial Order.”

His four guards fell silent. Cara stared at the ground before her feet as Raina let out a disheartened sigh.

“In the confusion of the war,” Cara said at last, as if thinking aloud, “some of our troops out in the field would have felt the bond break, just as some of those at the palace did when you killed Darken Rahl. They would be like lost souls without a new Master Rahl to take up their bond. They may have simply joined with someone who would give them direction, take up the place of the bond. Now they have their bond back. We have a Master Rahl.”

Richard slumped down in the Mother Confessor’s chair. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

“All the more reason to return to D’Hara,” Raina said. “We must protect you so you can continue to be the Master Rahl and our people will not join with the Imperial Order. If you are killed, and the bond is broken, then the army will once again turn to the Order for direction. Better to leave the Midlands to their own battles. It is not your job to save them from themselves.”

“Everyone in the Midlands, then, will fall under the sword of the Imperial Order,” Richard said in a soft voice. “They will be be treated as you were treated by Darken Rahl. No one will ever again be free. We can’t let that happen as long as there’s any chance we can stop them. It must be done now, before they gain any more of a foothold here in the Midlands.”

Cara rolled her eyes. “The spirits save us from a man with a just cause. It is not up to you to lead them.”

“If I don’t, then in the end everyone will live under one rule: the Order’s,” Richard said. “All people will be their chattel, for all time; tyrants don’t tire of tyranny.”

The room rang with silence. Richard thumped his head against the chair back. He was so tired he didn’t think he could keep his eyes open much longer. He didn’t know why he was bothering to try to convince them; they didn’t seem to understand, or care about, what it was he was trying to do.

Cara leaned against the desk and wiped a hand across her face. “We don’t want to lose you, Lord Rahl. We don’t want to go back to the way things were.” She sounded on the verge of tears. “We like being able to do simple things, like make a joke, and laugh. We could never do such things before. We always lived in fear that if we said the wrong thing we would be beaten, or worse. Now that we have seen another way, we don’t want to go back to that. If you throw your life away for the Midlands, then we will.”

“Cara . . . all of you . . . listen to me. If I don’t do this, then in the end that’s what will happen. Can’t you see that? If I don’t unite the lands under a strong rule, under a just law and leadership, then the Order will take everything, one chunk at a time. If the Midlands fall under their shadow, then that shadow will steal across D’Hara, too, and in the end all the world will fall into darkness. I don’t do this because I want to, but because I can see that I have a chance to accomplish the task. If I don’t try, there will be no place for me to hide; they will find me, and kill me.

“I don’t want to conquer and rule people; I just want to live a quiet life. I want to have a family and live in peace.

“That’s why I must show the lands of the Midlands that we’re strong and will sanction no favoritism or bickering, that we’re not going to be lands in an alliance, standing as one only when it’s expedient, but that we truly are one. They must be confident we will stand for what’s right so that they’ll feel secure joining us, so they will know that there’s a place for them with us, and so that they’ll be heartened by knowing that they will not have to fight alone if they wish to fight for freedom. We must be a powerful force they will trust in. Trust in enough to join.”

The room fell into an icy silence. Richard closed his eyes as he laid his head back against the chair. They thought him mad. It was no use. He was simply going to have to order them to do the things he needed, and stop worrying about if they liked it or not, much less cared.

Cara finally spoke. “Lord Rahl.” He opened his eyes to see her standing with her arms folded and a grim expression on her face. “I will not change your child’s swaddling clothes, nor bathe it, nor burp it, nor make foolish sounds to it.”

Richard closed his eyes and laid his head back against the chair again as he chuckled to himself. He remembered the time when he was back home, before all this started, and the midwife had come in a lather for Zedd. Elayne Seaton, a young woman not a whole lot older than Richard, was having her first child, and it was not going well. The midwife had spoken in hushed tones as she turned her broad back to Richard and leaned toward Zedd.

Before Richard knew Zedd was his grandfather, he only knew him as his best friend. At the time Richard hadn’t known Zedd was a wizard, nor did anyone else; everyone simply knew him as old Zedd, the cloud reader, a man of considerable knowledge about the most ordinary and the most peculiar of things—about rare herbs and human ailments, about healing and where rain clouds had traveled from, about where to dig a well and when to start digging a grave—and he knew about childbirth.

Richard knew Elayne. She taught him to dance so that he might ask a girl at the midsummer festival for a turn. Richard had wanted to learn, until faced with the prospect of actually holding a woman in his arms; he was afraid he might break her or something, he wasn’t sure what, but everyone always told him he was strong and had to take care not to hurt people. When he changed his mind and tried to beg off, Elayne laughed and swept him up in her arms and started twirling him about while humming a merry tune.

Richard didn’t know much about the business of birthing babies, but from what he had heard he had no desire to go anywhere near Elayne’s house while it was going on. He headed for the door, intending on a walk in the opposite direction from trouble.

Zedd snatched up his bag of herbs and potions, grabbed Richard’s sleeve, and said, “Come with me, my boy. I may need you.” Richard insisted he could be of no help, but when Zedd had his mind set on something he could make stone seem malleable by comparison. As Zedd shoved him out the door, he said, “You never know, Richard, you might even learn something.”

Elayne’s husband, Henry, was off with a crew cutting ice for the inns and, because of the weather, hadn’t returned yet from his deliveries to nearby towns. There were several women in the house, but they were all in with Elayne. Zedd told Richard to make himself busy tending the fire and heating some water, and that he was likely to be a while.

Richard sat in the cold kitchen, sweat running down his scalp, while he listened to the most horrifying screams he had ever heard. There were muffled words of comfort from the midwife and the other women, but mostly there were the screams. He stoked the fire, melting snow in a big kettle to give himself an excuse to go outside. He told himself that Elayne and Henry might need more wood, what with a new baby and all, so he cut and chopped a good-sized pile. It did no good; he could still hear Elayne’s screams. It wasn’t the way they put voice to pain, but the way they were seared with panic that made Richard’s heart hammer.

Richard knew Elayne was going to die. A midwife wouldn’t have come for Zedd unless there was serious trouble. Richard had never seen a dead person; he didn’t want the first to be Elayne. He remembered her laughter when she had taught him to dance. His face had been red the whole time, but she pretended not to notice.

And then, while he sat at the table, staring off, thinking the world was a very terrible place indeed, there was a last scream, more agonizing than the rest, that sent a shiver down his spine. It died out in forlorn misery. He squeezed his eyes shut, in the dragging silence, damming in the tears.

Digging a grave in the frozen ground was going to be near to impossible, but he promised himself that he would do it for Elayne. He didn’t want them to keep her frozen body in the undertakers’ shed until spring. He was strong. He would do it if it took him a month. She had taught him to dance.

The door to the bedroom squeaked opened, and Zedd shuffled out carrying something. “Richard, come here.” He handed over a gory mess with tiny arms and legs. “Wash him gently.”

“What? How do I do that?” Richard stammered.

“In warm water!” Zedd bellowed. “Bags, my boy, you did heat water, didn’t you?” Richard pointed with his chin. “Not too hot, now. Just lukewarm. Then swaddle him in those blankets and bring him back into the bedroom.”

“But Zedd . . . the women. They should do it. Not me! Dear spirits, can’t the women do it?”

Zedd, his white hair in disarray, peered at him with one eye. “If I wanted the women to do it, my boy, I wouldn’t have asked you, now would I?”

In a flurry of robes, he was off. The door to the bedroom banged closed. Richard was afraid to move for fear he would crush the little thing. It was so tiny he could hardly believe it was real. And then something happened—Richard began to grin. This was a person, a spirit, new to the world. He was beholding magic.

When he took the bathed and blanketed marvel into the bedroom, he was moved to tears to see that Elayne was very much alive. His trembling legs were hardly able to hold him.

“Elayne, you sure can dance,” was the only thing he could think to say. “How did you manage to do such a wondrous thing?” The women around the bed stared at him as if he were daft.

Elayne smiled through her exhaustion. “Someday you can teach Bradley to dance, bright eyes.” She held her hands out. Her grin grew as Richard gently put her child into her arms.

“Well, my boy, seems you figured it out after all.” Zedd lifted an eyebrow. “Learn anything?”

Bradley must be ten by now, and called him Uncle Richard.

As he listened to the quiet, returning from the memories, Richard thought about what Cara had said.

“Yes, you will,” He told her at last in a gentle tone. “Even if I have to command it, you will. I want you to feel the wonder of a new life, a new spirit, in your arms, so that you can feel magic other than that Agiel at your wrist. You will bathe him, and swaddle him, and burp him, so that you will know your tender care is needed in this world, and that I would trust my own child in that care. You will make foolish sounds to him, so that you can laugh with joy at the hope for the future, and perhaps forget that you have killed people in the past.

“If you can understand none of the rest, I hope you can understand at least this much of my reasons for what I must do.”

He relaxed back in the chair, letting his muscles slacken for the first time in hours. The hush seemed to hum around him. He thought about Kahlan, and let his mind drift.

Cara whispered through tight lips and tears: a soft sound almost lost in the huge room and its tomblike silence, “If you get yourself killed trying to rule the world, I will personally break every bone in your body.”

Richard felt his cheeks tighten with a smile. The darkness behind his eyelids swirled with dark plumes of color.

He was acutely aware of the chair around him: the Mother Confessor’s chair, Kahlan’s chair. From it she had ruled the Midlands alliance. He could feel the eyes of the first Mother Confessor and her wizard glaring down at him as he sat in the hallowed place after having demanded the surrender of the Midlands and the end of an alliance that they had forged to be the foundation for an everlasting peace.

He had came into this war fighting for the cause of the Midlands. He now commanded his former enemy, and had placed his sword at the throats of his allies.

In one day, he had turned the world upside down.

Richard knew he was breaking the alliance for the right reasons, but he agonized about what Kahlan was going to think. She loved him, and would understand, he told himself. She had to.

Dear spirits, what was Zedd going to think?

His arms rested heavily where Kahlan’s had. He imagined her arms around him, now, as they had been the night before in that place between worlds. He didn’t think he had ever been that happy in his whole life, or felt so loved.

He thought he could hear someone telling him he should find a bed, but he was already asleep.