CHAPTER 6

Richard turned from Kahlan when he heard people approaching out in the corridors. The first woman who ducked in under the sheepskin covering the doorway was carrying a bucket of water. A few of the other women brought in another bucket of water along with bandages and other supplies.

He was surprised to see some older women enter next, ushering in a wisp of a girl only beginning to blossom into womanhood. A long mass of black hair framed her small face. Her dark eyes were wide with wonder as she stood stiffly among the sheltering cluster of women. The smooth skin of her narrow face set back in among the dark mass of curly locks looked pale in the candlelight.

Ester rose up and held a hand back down toward Richard. “Sammie, this is Lord Rahl. The woman lying there is his wife, the Mother Confessor. They’ve both been badly hurt and need your help.”

The girl’s dark eyes briefly turned down to take a look at Kahlan before they turned back up at Ester. At Ester’s urging, the girl hesitantly stepped forward. She lifted out the sides of her long skirt and performed an awkward curtsy before Richard.

Richard could easily see that she was not simply shy; she was terrified of him. Being from such a small, isolated place, she probably rarely saw strangers, much less strangers such as this. Despite the pain he was in and his worry for Kahlan, he made himself smile warmly to reassure her.

“Thank you for coming, Sammie.”

She nodded as she hugged her slender arms to herself. Without answering, she moved back against the shelter of the older women.

“Sammie, would you excuse us for just a moment, please?” He looked up at Ester. “May I speak with you privately?”

Ester apparently knew why he wanted to talk to her alone. She forced a quick smile in answer before shepherding the small group to the doorway. They paused, looking confused, but finally obliged as Ester gently shooed them out. Once they were gone, Ester pulled the sheepskin down across the doorway.

“Lord Rahl, I know that—”

“She’s a child.”

The woman straightened her back and clasped her hands as she took a deep breath. She stepped closer and chose her words carefully.

“Yes, Lord Rahl, and though she is only just fifteen years, she’s a gifted child. Right now that’s what you both need. I can tend to cuts and scrapes, treat fevers with herbs, sometimes I can even set a broken bone”—she gestured to Kahlan—“but I don’t know how to help her. I don’t even have any idea what’s wrong with her. Yes, Sammie is young, but she is not without knowledge and abilities.”

Richard remembered when he had been as young as Sammie. He had thought that he was all grown up and had the world mostly figured out. While he had known more than most adults gave him credit for, as he had grown older he had come to realize that despite how much he did know, he knew less than he thought he did, mostly because he never appreciated how much more there was to learn. Now, as an adult looking back on someone that age, despite how much they might know, he understood how limited a young person’s scope of the world really was.

That age of early confidence was something like a false dawn. The real thing was coming, yet despite being close at hand it was still not quite there. And even when it did begin to arrive, there was always more to learn. He remembered Zedd telling him that old age meant that the only thing he really knew was that he would never know it all, much less know enough.

Putting Kahlan’s life into the hands of someone with such limited experience was more than a little disconcerting to him.

“But she’s a child,” Richard said softly so that those outside wouldn’t hear. “This is a difficult and complex task even for someone experienced in such things.”

Ester bowed her head respectfully. “Lord Rahl, if you don’t want Sammie to try, that is of course your decision and I will abide by it. I will do my best to sew up the worst of your wounds and tend to other injuries as I know how. I can try to guess at what the Mother Confessor might need and prepare some herbs and such that might help her.”

The woman lifted her head to look him in the eye. “But I think you know as well as I do that it isn’t going to be enough. You both need gifted healing.

“If you don’t want Sammie to try to do that bigger task of what is needed, then all I can suggest is that you will have to travel elsewhere in the hope of finding someone more to your liking. It would be a difficult journey. In the Dark Lands there is no telling how far you will have to go to find such a person. I can tell you that there are not many with such abilities as you need. Not many I would trust, anyway.

“Because of that, Jit was able to prey on those desperate to find help. Occasionally she would help someone in need so as to create hope among other desperate people and in that way draw in more victims.

“Do you think you have the ability to undertake a journey to find someone trustworthy who could help you? Do you think the Mother Confessor can make such a journey? Are you willing to risk her life on waiting until you can find someone else? If you become desperate will you risk her life on someone with veiled motives and perhaps end up in the hands of someone like Jit?

“You have already seen that we are willing to help you, even at the risk of danger to ourselves.”

“And why would you do that?” Richard asked.

Ester shrugged. “We help because we would want someone to help us if we were in danger. It is our way. It has always been our way, handed down from generations long forgotten. We teach our children to help those in need because one day we might be the ones in need, and we can only hope to earn such help if we are worthy, if we are the kind who would give it and not just receive it. We believe in treating others as we would want to be treated.”

“I guess that’s the way I’ve always tried to live my life as well,” Richard said.

“Lord Rahl, I am telling you that Sammie may be only fifteen, but she is gifted and has a good heart. That is all we are able to offer. That is the best we can offer. Are you so sure that you want to turn down our help, such as it is?”

Richard knew that he was in no condition to heal Kahlan himself. Worse, though, he didn’t think that he could. Back at the wagon he had tried to summon his gift to save her life, and his gift had not responded. It was evident that there was something seriously wrong with his gift. If it wouldn’t save her from being murdered, it would not respond to heal her, either.

He didn’t know what could be wrong with his gifted ability. He knew only that it wasn’t working. They both needed help.

He also knew that in his present condition he couldn’t make it far. He remembered that Zedd and Nicci had started healing them even as they lay in the back of the moving wagon. They wouldn’t have been doing that if it wasn’t urgent.

Still, he didn’t entirely trust the motives of these people.

If he wasn’t willing to accept the girl’s gifted help, then having Ester tend to their wounds with needle and thread, herbs, and poultices was the only other choice. He knew that Ester was right that such help wasn’t enough, especially for Kahlan.

Richard had been wounded in the past. This time, though, he felt something different, something more than simple injuries. He wanted to ignore the way he felt, but he knew he couldn’t, at least not for long. He knew, too, that whatever the grim shadow of affliction he felt within himself was, Kahlan was suffering from it far worse than he was.

Zedd and Nicci had been trying to heal him and Kahlan, but they hadn’t been able to finish that work. Now they were missing. Richard knew that the lives of not only Kahlan but also his friends depended on him making the right decision. He didn’t think that there was any time to waste.

But gift or no gift, he didn’t know if he dared to trust Kahlan’s life to such a young and inexperienced girl. Where the gift was concerned, a mistake could be fatal.

“Do you trust her abilities?”

Ester hiked up her gray dress and again knelt beside him. “Sammie is an earnest girl. Her mother was a sorceress. That may account for Sammie seeming to be grown beyond what her years would otherwise suggest. Being ungifted myself, I don’t know much about such abilities, but I do know that her mother passed the gift on to Sammie. There is no doubt about that much of it.”

“Where is her mother?”

Ester’s gaze fell away. “Not long ago we found the remains of Sammie’s father, but not her mother. We think that her mother was captured and taken. Though Sammie holds out hope, I don’t think she is still alive.”

“Taken?”

Ester’s gaze rose to meet his. “As your people were. As nearly happened to the Mother Confessor.

“The Dark Lands have always been a dangerous place. We have long lived with those dangers and know how to remain fairly safe. But now, terrible things are happening that we don’t understand and can’t fight. We need help.”

Richard wiped a hand across his mouth. As he had thought, this was what the men who had helped save him back at the wagon had meant. Although they might have always lived their lives by the code of helping others as they would want to be helped, in this case they needed help that they thought only one such as the Lord Rahl could provide. Considering the frightful things he had seen, it wasn’t hard to see why they were desperate for help. He couldn’t blame them for their motives.

His gaze turned to Kahlan. He briefly watched her shallow breathing. Did he dare to risk her life on such an inexperienced girl?

What choice did he have?

“All right,” he finally said with a sigh of resignation.