Wasteland

24

It felt to Richard like they must have been walking for days. The Azrith Plain seemed endless. Richard’s mouth was so dry from thirst that he could hardly swallow anymore. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The air felt hot, but there was no sun. He judged that it must be sometime after twilight by the odd, purplish light laced with streaks of green. He was glad to finally be gone from the People’s Palace and on the way, but he was so thirsty he could hardly think of anything else.

“Is there any water left?” he asked Kahlan.

“No.”

He seemed to remember, then, that he had told her to have the last few swallows. But why didn’t they bring more?

For what seemed hours, they trudged on across the parched ground. Despite how long they walked, it never seemed to get any darker. The sky was black above them, with the color of a purple bruise farther down where it met the horizon.

“Why didn’t we bring horses?” he asked. “This would be easier if we had horses.”

“You said we didn’t need them,” Kahlan said in a flat tone from behind him somewhere.

Richard squinted, trying to remember why he didn’t think they should bring horses. That seemed strange. It was going to be a long journey. Horses would have made it easier, and they could have carried more water.

They had already been traveling for what seemed days and days. As they marched ever onward, the night seemed endless. The Azrith Plain, so barren and empty, seemed endless. He wished they had brought horses. And more water.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked.

Kahlan didn’t answer. She was probably so thirsty she didn’t want to talk. He felt too thirsty to bother asking again, so he slogged on.

It was hard to walk, because his legs hurt. His back hurt, too, but more than anything, his shoulders ached something fierce.

After endless walking, he at last began to see trees out ahead. He did his best to pick up his pace. He started to run for them, because trees meant water. Despite how hard he tried, his legs moved like they were mired in molasses.

When he finally reached the trees, he found a brook, as he had known he would. The water looked clean and cool. He fell to his knees and started scooping up water, drinking and drinking and drinking from his hands.

But the water, no matter how much he drank, didn’t do anything to quench his thirst.

Kahlan and Shale stood watching him, as if he had lost his mind.

“Aren’t you thirsty?” he asked as he looked back over his shoulder at them. “Don’t you want to get a drink?”

Kahlan shrugged and knelt then. She cupped her hands, bringing water to her lips. She drank and then scooped more water, to drink that as well. It ran between her fingers. He watched as she drank, wishing that he could satisfy his thirst the way she seemed to be able to do.

He tried it again. Nothing. No taste, no wetness. Nothing. He put his face under the water, guzzling. It simply wouldn’t quench his terrible thirst. It angered him, because it looked so good and felt so good in his hands, so good against his lips. But he might as well have been drinking sand for all the good it did him.

He rushed to his feet when he saw Kahlan walking on ahead. He had to protect her and the twins. Even if he couldn’t get a drink to satisfy his thirst, he had to protect her.

That was all that mattered: protect Kahlan.

Richard saw that his wrists were bleeding. He stood and stared at them. He couldn’t make sense of it.

When he looked up, he saw his skinny grandfather standing on a rock in among the trees.

“Zedd?” Richard blinked. “Zedd, is that you?”

“Indeed it is, my boy.”

His familiar, wrinkled face, his skin and bones under his simple robes, looked so good that it made Richard ache.

“Zedd … what are you doing here?”

He peered at Richard in that way that Richard knew well. “To help you, of course, my boy. I have come to help you.”

Richard suddenly broke into tears of joy at seeing his grandfather. He had thought he was dead, but here he was, alive.

“Listen to me,” Zedd said.

Richard nodded, still choked with tears. “I’m listening.”

“You have to get out of here, Richard.”

Richard looked around. In the dim, greenish-purple light, he couldn’t see much.

“Get out of here?” Richard frowned at the warm and familiar face of his beloved grandfather. He loved the old man so much. “What do you mean, I have to get out of here? We’re on our way to the Wizard’s Keep. We have to get to the Keep where it’s safe while I figure out a way to stop the Glee.”

“You’re not going to get there this way. You have to get away from here, first.”

Richard glanced around and then took a step toward his grandfather, so close he knew he could reach out and touch his wild, wavy white hair if he wanted to.

“Get out of here? Why? Where are we?”

Zedd smiled in a sad way. “Don’t you know, my boy?”

“No,” Richard said, his mouth so dry he could hardly talk. “What is this place?”

Zedd looked at Richard in silence for a long, loving moment.

“Richard, you are in the Wasteland.”

The word “Wasteland” jolted Richard so hard that he gasped and opened his eyes. He saw blood running down his arms from the manacles clamped tightly around his wrists. His shoulders were in terrible pain. With a sense of dread and alarm, he realized he was hanging from the ceiling among the corpses.

He had been hung from the ceiling gridwork of iron pins, facing Vika. Barely conscious, she trembled in agony as she watched him through slitted eyelids. He could read the look on her face. It said he shouldn’t have come after her.

Richard twisted and looked over to see Shale on his left, hanging unconscious in manacles.

He looked to his right, then, and was horrified to see Kahlan also hanging in manacles chained to the ceiling. Unlike Richard and Shale, she was naked. Her face had lurid bruises on it. Her left eye was a painful-looking shade of purple and almost swollen shut. Blood from her mouth dripped in strings from her chin. She was trembling as tears ran down her cheeks. She didn’t look over at him.

At the sight of Kahlan hanging helpless in the forest of dead bodies, Richard went wild, thrashing around, trying to break free. He drew his knees up, bent himself in half, gripped the chain and lifted his legs up over his head to push his feet toward the ceiling to try to pull out the anchor bolt. The ceiling was too far to reach. His legs flopped back down and he swung helplessly. The attempt extended the wounds in his wrists. Fresh blood ran down in little rivulets. He had no idea how long they had been unconscious and hanging from the ceiling.

Michec stepped into his field of view. “My, my. The Lord Rahl himself, the man who defeated the great Darken Rahl. You hardly seem so big and important now, do you?”

Richard gritted his teeth in rage at himself, at how stupid he had been to underestimate Michec and let them be captured. He desperately wanted to kill the witch man. He struggled to pull his bloody hands through the manacles so that he could get them around the man’s throat. Despite how slippery the blood was, the iron bands were far too tight for that to work.

“I was more than angry that you ruined the empire that Darken Rahl was building. It was going to be grand. You only defeated him through trickery, not through strength. You are weak and undeserving to take such a great man’s place.” Michec smiled with hate. “But now, the Golden Goddess and her kind will build a better empire, a world that will serve as their hunting ground. I will run it for them.”

When the man lifted a hand back, Richard was horrified to see the tall, dark shapes of at least a dozen Glee step out of the shadows of the hanging, skinless corpses.

Michec twined one of the beard braids around a filthy finger as he stepped away from Richard to stand in front of Kahlan. He grabbed her face, gritting his teeth, squeezing so hard she cried out.

“For your husband to truly understand how worthless and undeserving he is as a leader, I am going to let him watch me skin you alive.” He pulled out a knife and as he looked into her eyes, he licked the blade. “Please do scream for him, would you? As soon as I finish, these Glee will claw those two babies from your womb as you hang helpless and watch them do it.”

Three of the glistening Glee came forward on their long, muscular legs, clacking their claws, eager to get at her. Kahlan’s eyes went wide in terror as one of them pressed its sharp claw against her belly and hissed in her face.

Michec used the back of his hand to urge the dark creatures back. “Not yet, my friends. You must wait until I finish.”

The Glee reluctantly stepped back.

“After I have skinned her, then you may rip out her babies. You have my oath, the oath of a witch man.”

That seemed to satisfy them and they retreated farther back into the shadows to wait until he was done.

Michec leaned in close to Kahlan, smiling at her, inches from her face, as he cut through the skin along the side of her throat.

“Shall we begin, Mother Confessor?”

Gazing into her green eyes, Michec worked two fat fingers in through the pocket he had cut and under her flesh to get a good grip on her skin. Panting in terror, Kahlan let out a shriek that felt like it ripped Richard’s soul.