Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 24

Richard had stopped to turn back and look at her only once as he ran, just before he went into the trees. She was standing in the doorway in her white Confessor’s dress, her long thick hair tumbling down, her form the embodiment of feminine grace, looking as beautiful as the first time he saw her. They held each other’s gaze for a brief moment. He was too far away to see the green of her eyes, a color he’d never beheld on anyone else, a color of such heart-piercing perfection that it sometimes would stop his breathing, and at other times quicken it.

But it was the mind of the woman behind those eyes that in reality captivated him. Richard had never met her equal.

He knew he was cutting the time close. As much as he hated the idea of turning his gaze away from Kahlan, her life hung in the balance. His purpose was clear. Richard had plunged into the woods.

He had traveled the trail often enough; he knew where he could run, and where he had to be careful. Now, with little time left, he couldn’t afford to be too careful. He didn’t try for a glimpse of the house.

He was alone in the woods as he ran, his thoughts but salt in a raw wound. For once he felt out of place in the woods—powerless, insignificant, hopeless. Bare branches clattered together in the wind, while others creaked and moaned, as if in mock sorrow to see him leaving. He tried not to think as he ran.

Fir and spruce trees took over as the ground rose out of the valley.

His breath came in rapid pulls. In the cold shadows of the forest floor, the wind was a distant pursuer far overhead, chasing after him, shooing him along, hounding him away from the happiest place he had ever been. Spongy mounds of verdant moss lay dotting the forest floor in the low places where mostly cedars grew, looking like wedding cakes done up in an intense green, sprinkled over with tiny, chocolate brown, scale—like cedar needles.

Richard tiptoed on rocks sticking up above the water as he crossed a small stream. As the little brook tumbled down the slope, it went under rocks and boulders in places, making an echoing drumming sound, announcing him to the stalwart oaks along his march into imprisonment. In the flat gray light, he failed to see a reddish loop of cedar root. It caught his foot and sent him sprawling facedown in the trail, a final humiliation on his judgment and sentence of banishment.

As Richard lay in the cold, damp, discarded leaves, dead branches, and other refuse of the forest, he considered not getting up ever again. He could just lie there and let it all end, let the indifferent wind freeze his limbs stiff, let the sneaky spiders and snakes and wolves come to bite him and bleed him to death, and then finally the uncaring trees would cover him over, never to be missed except by a few, his vanishing a good riddance to most.

A messenger with a message no one wanted to heed.

A leader come too soon.

Why not just let it end, let silent death take them both to their peace and be done with it?

The scornful trees all watched to see what this unworthy man might do, to see if he had the courage to get to his feet and face what was ahead. He didn’t know himself if he did.

Death was easier, and in that bottomless moment, less painful to consider.

Even Kahlan, as much as he loved her, wanted something from him he could not give her: a lie. She wanted him to tell her that something he knew to be so, was not. He would do anything for her, but he couldn’t change what was. At least she had enough faith in him to let him lead her away from the shadows of tyranny darkening the world. Even if she didn’t believe him, she was probably the only one willing, of her own free will, to follow him.

In truth, he lay on the ground for only seconds, regaining his senses from the fall and catching his breath as the thoughts flooded through his mind—brief seconds in which he allowed himself to be weak, in exchange for how hard he knew everything to come would be.

Weakness, to balance the strength he would need. Doubt, to balance his certainty of purpose. Fear, to balance the courage he would have to call upon.

Even as he wondered if he could get up, he knew he would. His convulsion of self-pity ended abruptly. He would do anything for her. Even this. A thousand times over, even this.

With renewed resolve, Richard forced his mind away from the dominion of dark thoughts. It wasn’t so hopeless; he knew better. After all, he had faced trials much more difficult than this one Sister of the Dark. He had once gotten Kahlan out of the clutches of five Sisters of the Dark. This was but one. He would defeat her, too. Anger welled up at the thought of Nicci thinking she could make them dance at the end of her selfish strings.

Despair extinguished, rage flooded in.

And then he was running again, dodging trees as he cut corners off the trail. He hurdled fallen trees and leaped over gaps in the rock shelves, rather than taking the safe route down and up. Each shortcut or leap saved him a few precious seconds.

A broken tree limb snagged his pack, yanking it from his shoulder. He tried to hang on to it as he flew past, but it slipped from his grasp and spilled across the ground.

Richard exploded in fury, as if the tree had done it on purpose just to taunt him in his rush. He kicked the offending branch, snapping it out of its dry socket. He fell to his knees and scooped his things back into the pack, clawing up moss along with gold and silver coins, and a pine seedling along with the soap Kahlan had given him. He didn’t have time to care as he shoved it all back in. This time, he put the pack onto his back, rather than letting it hang from one shoulder. He had been trying to save time before, and it had cost him instead.

The path, which in places was no more than sections of animal trails, began to rise sharply, occasionally requiring that he use both hands to hold on to rocks or roots as he climbed. He’d been up it enough times to know the sound handholds. As cold as the day was, Richard had to wipe sweat from his eyes. He skinned his knuckles on rough granite as he jammed his fingers into cracks for handholds.

In his mind’s eye, Nicci was riding too swiftly, covering too much ground, getting too far ahead. He knew it had been foolhardy to take so much time before leaving, thinking he could make up for it on the trail. He wished he could have taken more time, though, to hold Kahlan.

His insides were in agony at the thought of how heartbroken Kahlan was.

He felt, somehow, that it was worse for her. Even if she was free, and he was not, that made it worse for her because, in her freedom, she had to restrain herself when she wanted nothing more than to come after him. In bondage to a master, Richard had it easy; he had only to follow orders.

He burst out of the trees onto the wider trail at the top of the pass.

Nicci was nowhere to be seen. He held his breath as he looked to the east, fearing to spot her going down the back side of the pass. Beyond the high place where he stood, he could see forests spread out before him with mountains to each side lifting the carpet of trees. In the distance, greater mountains yet soared to dizzying heights, their peaks and much of their slopes stark white against the gloom of heavy gray sky.

Richard didn’t see any horse and rider, but since the trail twisted down into the trees not far beyond where he stood, that didn’t really prove anything. The top of the pass was a bald bit of open ledge, with most of the rest of the horse trail winding through deep woods. He quickly inspected the ground, casting about for tracks, hoping she wouldn’t be too far ahead of him and he could catch her before she did something terrible. His sense of doom eased when he found no tracks.

He peered out at the valley far below, across the straw-brown meadow, to their house. It was too far away to see anyone. He hoped Kahlan would stay there for a few days, as he had asked. He didn’t want her going to the army, going to fight a losing war, endangering her life for nothing.

Richard understood Kahlan’s desire to be with her people and to defend her homeland. She believed she could make a difference. She could not. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Richard’s vision was really nothing more than the acceptance of that reality. Shaking your sword at the sky didn’t keep the sun from setting.

Richard cast an appraising squint at the clouds. For the last two days, he had thought that the signs pointed to the first snow of the season soon rolling down onto their valley home. By the look of the sky and the scent in the wind, he judged he was right.

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to escape Nicci so easily as to be able to get back to Kahlan within a few days. He had invented that story for another reason. Once the weather shitted and the snow arrived up in these mountain highlands, it tended to come in an onslaught. If the storm was as big as he estimated by the signs it could be, Kahlan and Cara would end up being stuck in their house until spring. With all the food they’d put up, as well as the supplies he’d brought in, they had plenty to last the two of them. The firewood he’d cut would keep them warm.

There, she would be safe. With the army, she would be in constant danger.

The dappled mare walked out of the trees, coming around a bend not far away. Nicci’s blue eyes were on Richard from the first instant she appeared.

At the time the Sisters of the Light had taken him to the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World, Richard had mistakenly believed Kahlan wanted him taken away. He didn’t know or understand she had sent him away to save his life. Richard thought she didn’t ever want to see him again.

While in captivity at the palace, Richard thought Nicci was the personification of lust. He was hardly able to find his voice when around her. He had hardly been able to believe a creature of such physical perfection existed, other than in daydreams.

Now, as he watched her swaying gently in her saddle as she walked her horse up the trail, her intense blue eyes locked on his, it seemed to him she wore her beauty with a kind of grim acceptance. She had so completely lost her stunning presence that he couldn’t even envision any reason for his onetime sentiment about her.

Richard had since learned the true depths of what a real woman was, what real love was, and what real fulfillment was. In that light, Nicci paled into insignificance.

As he watched her coming closer, he was surprised to realize she looked sad. She seemed almost to be sorry to find him there, but more than that, there seemed to be a shadow of relief passing across her countenance.

“Richard, you lived up to my faith.” Her voice suggested that it had been tenuous as best. “You’re in a sweat; would you like to rest?”

Her feigned kindness drove hot blood all the way up to his scalp. He pulled his glare from her gentle smile and turned to the trail, walking ahead of her horse. He thought it best if he not say anything until he could get a grip on his rage.

Not far down the trail they came to a black stallion with a white blaze on its face. The big horse was picketed in a small grassy patch of open ground among towering pines.

“Your horse, as I promised,” she said. “I hope you find him to your liking. I judged him to be big and strong enough to carry you comfortably.”

Richard checked and found the smooth snaffle bit to his approval; she wasn’t abusing the animals with cruel bits used to dominate, as he knew some of the Sisters did. The rest of the tack appeared sound. The horse looked healthy.

Richard took a few moments to introduce himself to the stallion. He reminded himself that the horse was not the cause of his problems, and he shouldn’t let his attitude toward Nicci affect how he treated this handsome animal. He didn’t ask the horse’s name. He let it sniff his hand beneath its curled muzzle, then stroked the stallion’s sleek black neck. He patted its shoulder, conveying a gentle introduction without words. The powerful black stallion stamped his front hooves. He was not yet all that pleased to meet Richard.

For the time being, there was no choice of routes; there was only the one trail and it ran from the direction of the house where Kahlan was back to the east. Richard took the lead so that he wouldn’t have to look at Nicci.

He didn’t want to jump right on the stallion at first sight and make a bad impression that would take a lot of work to overcome. Better to let the horse get to know him, first, if just for a mile or so. He held the reins slack under the stallion’s jaw and walked in front of him, letting him get comfortable with following this strange new man. Putting his mind to the task of working with the horse helped divert him from thoughts that threatened to drag him under a sea of sorrow. After a time, the stallion seemed at ease with his new master and Richard mounted without any ado.

The narrow trail precluded Nicci walking her horse beside his. Her dappled mare snorted its displeasure at having to follow the stallion.

Richard was pleased to know that he had already upset the order of things.

Nicci offered no conversation, sensing, he supposed, his mood. He was going with her, but there was no way she could hope to make him happy about it.

When it started getting dark, Richard simply dismounted beside a small brook where the horses could have a drink, and tossed his things on the ground. Nicci wordlessly accepted his choice of campsite, and unstrapped her bedroll from her saddle after she’d taken it down off her horse. She sat on her bedroll, looking a little downcast, more than anything else, and ate some sausage along with a hard biscuit washed down with water. After her first bite, she lifted the sausage to him, meeting his gaze in a questioning manner. He didn’t acknowledge the offer. Nicci assumed he declined, and went back to eating.

When she was finished and had washed in the brook, she went behind the thick undergrowth for a time. When she came back, she crawled into her bedroll without a word, turned away from him, and went to sleep.

Richard sat on the mossy ground, arms folded, leaning the small of his back against his saddle. He didn’t sleep the entire night. He sat watching Nicci sleep in the light of the overcast sky lit from the other side by a nearly full moon, watching her slow even breathing, her slightly parted lips, the slow pulse in the vein at the side of her throat, thinking the whole time how he might overcome what she had done to them. He thought about strangling her, but he knew better.

He had used magic before. He had in the past not only felt but unleashed incredible power through his gift. He had faced situations of enormous danger involving a wide variety of magic. Richard had called upon his gift to conjure such power as no one living had ever seen, and he had watched as it was brought to life at his conscious direction.

His gift was invoked mostly through anger and need. He had an abundant supply of both. He just didn’t know how it could help him. He didn’t understand well enough what Nicci had done to begin to think of what he might do to counter it. With Kahlan’s life at the other end of Nicci’s invisible cord of magic, he dared not do anything until he was sure of it.

He would be, though; he just had to figure it out. Experience told him that it was a reasonable supposition. He told himself it was only a matter of time. If he wanted to keep his sanity, he knew he had to believe that.

The next morning, without speaking a word to Nicci, he saddled the horses. She sat watching him tighten the cinch straps, making sure they weren’t pinching the horses, as she sipped from a waterskin. She took bread from her saddlebag lying beside her and asked if he would like a piece.

Richard ignored her.

He would have been tired from not sleeping the whole cold night, but his anger kept him wide awake. Under a leaden sky, they rode at an easy but steady pace all that day through forests that seemed endless. It felt good to have a warm horse under him. Throughout the day, they continued their gradual descent from the higher country, where the house was, down into the lowlands.

Toward dark, the snow arrived.

At first, it was just a few furtive flakes swirling through the air. As it steadily increased, it seemed to leach the color from trees and ground alike, until the world turned white. Visibility steadily diminished as the snow thickened into a disorienting, drifting, solid wall. He had to keep blinking the fat flakes from his eyes.

For the first time since leaving with Nicci, Richard felt a sense of relief.

Kahlan and Cara, up higher in the mountains, would wake in the morning to several feet of snow. They would decide that it was foolish to try to leave when, they would believe, it was only an early snow that would melt down enough in a few days for them to have an easier time of traveling. Up in those mountains, that would be a mistake. It would stay cold. A storm would follow on the heels of this one, and they would soon have snow up to the shutters. They would be nervous about waiting, but would probably decide that it was now more important for them to delay until a break in the weather—after all, there was no urgency.

In all likelihood, they would end up safely stuck in the house for the winter. When he eventually escaped from Nicci’s talons, Richard would find Kahlan snug in their home.

He decided that it would be foolish to let his anger dictate that they sleep on the open ground. They could freeze to death. He recalled all too well that if Nicci died, Kahlan died. When he spotted a big wayward pine, he walked his horse off the trail. Brushing against branches dumped wet snow on him. Richard flicked it off his shoulders and shook it from his hair.

Nicci glanced around, confused, but didn’t object. She dismounted as she waited to see what he was doing. When he held a heavy bough to the side for her, she frowned at him before poking her head inside for a look. She straightened with an expression of childlike delight. Richard didn’t return her wide grin.

Inside, under the thick boughs caked with snow, was a still, frigid world. With the snow crusting the tree, it was dark inside. In the dim light, Richard dug a small fire pit and soon caught fire to the deadwood he’d carefully stacked over shavings.

When the crackling flames built into a warm glow, Nicci gazed around in wonder at the inside of the wayward pine. The spoke-like branches over their heads were cast in a soft orange blush by the flickering light. The lower trunk was bare of limbs, leaving the inside of the tree a hollow cone with ample open space at the bottom for them.

Nicci quietly warmed her hands by the fire, looking contented—not like she was gloating that he’d given in and found shelter and built a fire, but contented. She looked as if she had been through a great ordeal, and now she could be at peace. She looked like a woman expecting nothing, but grateful for what she had.

Richard hadn’t had breakfast with her, or anything the day before. His bitter resolve gave way to his hunger, so he boiled water from melted snow and cooked rice and beans. Starving wouldn’t do him or Kahlan any good.

Without words, he offered Nicci half the rice and beans poured into the crust of one end of his loaf of bread. She took the bread bowl and thanked him.

She offered him a sun-dried slice of meat. Richard stared at her thin, delicate fingers holding out the piece of meat. It reminded him of someone feeding a chipmunk. He snatched the meat from her hand and tore off a chunk with his teeth. To avoid her gaze, he watched the fire as he ate his rice and beans out of the heel of bread. Other than the crackle of the fire, the only sound was the thump of snow falling in clumps from limbs not stout enough to hold the load. Snowfalls often turned a forest to a place of eerie stillness.

Sitting by the low fire after he’d finished his meal, feeling the warmth of the flames on his face, the exhaustion from the long ride on top of his vigil the night before finally caught up with him. Richard stacked thicker wood on the dwindling fire and banked the coals around it. He unrolled his bedroll on the opposite side of the fire from Nicci as she silently watched him, climbed in, and, as he thought about Kahlan safe in their house, fell soundly asleep.

The next day they were up early. Nicci said nothing, but, once they were mounted, decisively cut her dappled mare in front of the black stallion and took the lead. The snow had changed to a cold drizzling mist. What snow was left on the ground had melted down to gray slush. The lowlands were not quite ready to relinquish themselves to winter’s grip. Up higher, where Kahlan was, it was colder and would be snowing in earnest.

As they rode carefully along a narrow road at the side of a mountain, Richard tried to watch the woods to keep his mind on other things, but he couldn’t help occasionally looking at Nicci riding right in front of him. It was cold and damp; she wore a heavy black cloak over her black dress. With her back straight, her head held high, and her blond hair fanned out over her cloak, she looked regal. He wore his dark forest clothes and hadn’t shaved.

Nicci’s dappled mare was dark gray, almost black, with lighter gray rings over its body. Its mane was dark gray, as were the lightly feathered legs, and the tail was a milky white. It was one of the most handsome horses Richard had ever seen. He hated it. It was hers.

By afternoon, they intersected a trail running to the south. Nicci, leading the way, continued to the east. Before the day was out they would encounter a few more paths, used mainly by an occasional hunter or trapper.

The mountains were inhospitable. Even if you cleared the ground of trees, the soil was thin and rocky. In a few places closer to Hartland or other population centers to the north or south, there were grassy slopes that were able to support thin flocks of sheep or goats.

As he felt the stallion’s muscles moving beneath him, Richard looked out at land he knew and loved. He didn’t know how long it would be until he was home again—if ever. He hadn’t asked where they were going, figuring Nicci wouldn’t likely tell him this soon. That they were headed east didn’t mean much just yet because their choice of routes was limited.

In the passive rhythm of the ride, Richard’s mind kept returning to his sword, and how he had given it to Kahlan. At the time it had seemed the only thing to do. He hated that he had given it to her the way he had, yet he could think of no other way to afford her any protection. He prayed she would never have to use the sword. If she did, he’d given it a measure of his rage, too.

At his belt he wore a fine knife, but he felt naked without his sword.

He hated the ancient weapon, the way it pulled dark things from within him, and at the same time he missed it. He often reminded himself of Zedd’s words, that it was merely a tool.

It was more, too. The sword was a mirror, albeit one bound in magic capable of raining terrible destruction. The Sword of Truth would annihilate anything before it—flesh or steel—as long as what stood before it was the enemy, yet it could not harm a friend. Therein lay the paradox of its magic: evil was defined solely by the perceptions of the person holding the sword, by what he believed to be true.

Richard was the true Seeker and heir to the power of the sword created by the wizards in the great war. It should be with him. He should be protecting the sword.

A lot of things “should be,” he told himself.

Late in the afternoon they left the eastern path they were on and took one tending east and south. Richard knew the trail; it would pass through a village in another day, and then become a narrow road. Since Nicci had deliberately taken the new route, she must have known that, too.

Near dark they skirted the north shore of a good-sized lake. A small raft of seagulls floated out near the middle of the rain-swept water.

Seagulls weren’t common in these parts, but they were not unheard of, either. He recalled all the seabirds he had seen when he had been in the Old World. The sea had fascinated him.

In a cove on the far shore Richard could just make out two men fishing.

On that side of the lake there was a trail worn to a deep rut over many generations by people coming up to fish from a hamlet to the south.

The two men, sitting on a broad flat rock jutting out into the lake, waved in greeting. It wasn’t often one encountered riders out here. Richard and Nicci were too far away for the men to make them out. The men probably assumed they were trappers.

Nicci returned the wave in a casual manner, as if to say, “Good luck with the fishing. Wish we could join you.”

They rounded a bend and finally disappeared from the men. Richard wiped his wet hair off his forehead as they rode along beside the lake, listening to the small waves lapping at the muddy shore. Leaving the lake behind, they cut into the forest as the trail rose on its way across a gentle slope.

Nicci had put her hood up against the intermittent rain and drizzle purring through the trees. A darkening gloom descended on the woods.

Richard didn’t want to do anything that would get Kahlan killed; the time had finally come when he had to speak.

“When we come upon someone, what am I to say? I don’t suppose you want me telling people you’re a Sister of the Dark out snatching victims. Or do you wish me to play the part of a mute?”

Nicci gave him a sidelong glance.

“You will be my husband, as far as everyone is concerned,” she said without hesitation. “I expect you to adhere to that story under all circumstances. For all practical purposes, from now on, you are my husband. I am your wife.”

Richard’s fists tightened on the reins. “I have a wife. You are not she. I’m not going to pretend you are.”

Swaying gently in her saddle, Nicci seemed indifferent to his words or the emotion behind them. She gazed skyward, taking in the darkening sky.

It was too warm down in the lowlands for snow. Through occasional breaks in the low clouds, though, Richard had caught glimpses of windswept mountain slopes behind them cloaked in thick white drifts. Kahlan was sure to be dry, warm, and stuck.

“Do you think you could find us another of those shelter trees?” Nicci asked. “Where it would be dry, like last night? I’d dearly love to get dry and warm.”

Between sporadic gaps in the pine trees, and through the scramble of bare branches of the alder and ash, Richard surveyed the hillside descending before them.

“Yes.”

“Good. We need to have a talk.”