Wizard's First Rule

Chapter 5

Richard held back the boughs of the tree. “This is a wayward pine,” he announced. “Friend to any traveler.”

It was dark inside. Kahlan held the boughs aside so he could see by the moonlight to strike steel to flint and start a fire. Clouds scudded across the moon, and they could see their breath in the cold air. Richard had stayed here before on trips to and from Zedd’s, and had made a small fire pit of stones. There was dry wood and to the far side a stack of dry grass he had used for bedding. Since he didn’t have his knife he was thankful he had left a supply of tinder. The fire was quickly started, filling the interior of the tree’s skirt with flickering light.

Richard was not quite able to stand under the branches where they began growing out from the trunk. The branches were bare near the trunk, with needles on the ends, leaving a hollow interior. The lower branches dipped all the way to the ground. The tree was fire-resistant, as long as one was careful. The smoke from the small fire curled up the center, near the trunk. The needles grew so thick that even in a good rain it remained dry inside. Richard had waited out many a rain in a wayward pine. He always enjoyed staying in the small but cozy shelters as he traveled the Hartland.

Now he was especially glad for its concealing shelter. Before their encounter with the long-tailed gar, there had been plants and animals in the forest he had strong respect for, but there had been nothing in the woods he feared.

Kahlan sat herself down cross-legged in front of the fire. She was still shivering and kept the blanket over her head formed into a hood, and held tightly up around her chin.

“I never heard of wayward pines before. I am not used to staying in the woods when I travel, but they look like a wonderful place to sleep.” She looked even more tired than he.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Two days ago, I think. It has all become a blur.”

Richard was surprised she could keep her eyes open. When they were running from the quad, he had barely been able to keep up with her. It was her fear that pushed her on, he knew.

“Why so long?”

“It would be very unwise,” she said, “to go to sleep in the boundary.” Kahlan watched the fire, spellbound in its warm embrace, the light from it fluttering on her face. She loosened the blanket from around her chin and let it hang so she could put her hands out to warm them closer to the fire.

A chill ran through him when he wondered what was in the boundary, and what would happen if you went to sleep there.

“Hungry?”

She nodded her head.

Richard dug around in his pack, retrieving a pot, and went outside to fill it in a pool of water at a small brook they had passed a short distance back. Sounds of the night filled air so cold it felt as if it might break if he wasn’t careful. Once again he cursed himself for leaving home without his forest cloak, among other things. The memory of what had been waiting for him at his house made him shiver all the more.

Every bug that looped past made him recoil in fear it was a blood fly, and several times he froze in midstep, only to exhale in relief when he saw it was only a snowy tree cricket, or a moth, or a lacewing. Shadows melted and materialized as clouds passed in front of the moon. He didn’t want to, but he looked up anyway. Stars winked off and back on as soft, gauzelike clouds moved silently across the sky. All except one, which did not move.

Cold to the bone, he came back in and put the pot of water on the fire, balancing it on three stones. Richard started to sit across from her, but then changed his mind and sat next to her, telling himself it was because he was so cold. When she heard his teeth chattering, she put half the blanket around his shoulders, letting her half slip from her head down to her shoulders as well. The blanket, heated by her body, felt good around him, and he sat quietly letting the warmth soak in.

“I’ve never seen anything like a gar. The Midlands must be a dreadful place.”

“There are many dangers in the Midlands.” A wistful smile came over her face. “There are also many fantastic and magical things. It is a beautiful, wondrous place. But the gar are not from the Midlands. They are from D’Hara.”

He stared in astonishment. “D’Hara! From across the second boundary?”

D’Hara. Until his brother’s speech today he had never heard the name spoken in anything other than the cautious whispers of older people. Or in a curse. Kahlan continued to watch the fire.

“Richard—” She paused as if afraid to tell him the rest. “—there is no longer a second boundary. The boundary between the Midlands and D’Hara is down. Since the spring.”

That shock made him feel as if the shadowy D’Hara had just taken a frightening, giant leap closer. He struggled to make sense of the things he was learning.

“Maybe my brother is more of a prophet than he knows.”

“Maybe,” she said noncommittally.

“Although it would be hard to make a living as a prophet by predicting events that had already taken place.” He gave her a sidelong glance.

Kahlan smiled as she idly twisted a strand of hair. “When I first saw you, my thought was that you were no fool.” Firelight sparkled in her green eyes. “Thank you for not proving me wrong.”

“Michael is in a position to have knowledge others don’t. Maybe he’s trying to prepare the people, get them used to the idea, so when they find out, they won’t panic.”

Michael often said that information was the coin of power, and that it was not a coin to be spent frivolously. After he had be come a councilor, he encouraged people to bring their information to him first. Even a farmer with a tale received an ear, and if the tale proved true, a favor.

The water was starting to boil. Richard leaned over, hooked his finger through a strap and pulled his pack to him, then rearranged the blanket. Rummaging around, he located the pouch of dried vegetables and poured some into the pot. From his pocket he pulled a napkin that held four fat sausages, which he broke up and tossed into the soup pot.

Kahlan looked surprised. “Where did those come from? Did you snatch those from your brother’s party?” Her voice carried a tone of disapproval.

“A good woodsman,” he said, licking his fingers and looking up at her, “always plans ahead and tries to know where his next meal will come from.”

“He will not think much of your manners.”

“I do not think much of his.” He knew he would get no argument from her on that point. “Kahlan, I won’t justify the way he acted. Ever since our mother died he’s been a hard person to be close to. But I know he cares about people. You have to, if you want to be a good councilor. It must be a lot of pressure. I certainly wouldn’t want the responsibility. But that’s all he ever wanted: to be someone important. And now that he’s First Councilor, he has what he’s always wanted. He should be satisfied, but he seems even less tolerant. He’s always busy, and always snapping orders. He is always in a bad mood lately. Maybe when he got what he wanted, it wasn’t what he thought it would be. I wish he could be more like he used to be.”

She grinned. “At least you had the good sense to pick the best of the sausages.”

That eased the tension. They both laughed.

“Kahlan, I don’t understand, about the boundary, I mean. I don’t even know what the boundary is, except it’s meant to keep the lands separated so there will be peace. And of course everyone knows that whoever goes into the boundary will not come out alive. Chase and the boundary wardens patrol to make sure people stay away for their own good.”

“Young people here are not taught the histories of the three lands?”

“No. I always thought it odd myself, because I wanted to know, but no one would ever tell me much. People think I’m strange because I want to know, and I ask questions. Older people seem suspicious when I ask, and tell me it was too long ago to remember, or give some other excuse.

“Both my father and Zedd told me they used to live in the Midlands before the boundary. Before it went up, they came to Westland. They met here before I was born. They said that back before the boundaries was a terrible time, and that there was a lot of fighting. They both told me there was nothing I needed to know except it was a dreadful time best forgotten. Zedd always seemed the most bitter about it.”

Kahlan snapped a piece off a dry stick and tossed it into the fire, where it flamed into a bright ember.

“Well, it is a long story. If you want I will tell you some of it.” When she turned to him, he nodded for her to go on.

“Long ago, back in the time before our parents were born, D’Hara was just a confederation of kingdoms, as was the Midlands. The most ruthless of the D’Haran rulers was Panis Rahl. He was avaricious. From the first day of his reign, he started swallowing up all of D’Hara for himself, one kingdom after another, many times before the ink was dry on a peace treaty. In the end, he held sway over all of D’Hara, but instead of satisfying him, it only whetted his appetite, and he soon turned his attention to the lands that are now the Midlands. The Midlands is a loose confederation of free lands—free, at least, to rule as they see fit, and only so long as they live in peace with one another.

“By the time Rahl had conquered all of D’Hara, the people of the Midlands had seen what he was about, and were not to be taken so easily. They knew that signing a peace treaty with him was as good as signing an invitation to invasion. Instead, they chose to remain free, and joined together, through the council of the Midlands, in a common defense. Many of the free lands held no favor with each other, but they knew that if they did not fight together, they would die separately, one at a time.

“Panis Rahl threw the might of D’Hara against them. War raged for many years.”

Kahlan broke off another piece of the stick and fed it to the fire. “As his legions were finally slowed and then halted, Rahl turned to magic. There is magic in D’Hara, too, not just in the Midlands. Back then there was magic everywhere. There were no separate lands, no boundaries. Anyway, Panis Rahl was ruthless in his use of magic against the free people. He was terribly brutal.”

“What kind of magic? What did he do?”

“Some was trickery, sickness, fevers, but the worst of it was the shadow people.”

Richard frowned. “Shadow people? What were they?”

“Shadows in the air. Shadow people had no solid form, no precise shape, they were not even alive as we know it, but beings created out of magic.” She held out her hand, gliding it across in front of them. “They would come floating across a field or through a wood. Weapons had no effect on them. Swords and arrows went through them as if they were nothing more than smoke. You couldn’t hide—shadow people could see you anywhere. One would drift right up to a person and touch him. The touch caused the person’s whole body to blister and swell and finally split open. No one touched by a shadow person ever survived. Whole battalions were found killed to a man.”

She pulled her hand back inside the blanket. “When Panis Rahl started using the magic in that way, a great and honorable wizard joined the side of the Midlands cause.”

“What was his name, this great and honorable wizard?”

“That is part of the story. Have patience until I get to it.”

Richard stirred some spices into the soup, listening intently while she resumed her story.

“Many thousands had already died in battle, but the magic killed many more. It was a dark time, after all those years of struggle, to have so many taken by the magic Rahl called forth. But with the help of the great wizard holding Panis Rahl’s magic in check, his legions were driven back into D’Hara.”

Richard added a stick of birch to the fire. “How did this great and honorable wizard stop the shadow people?”

“He conjured up battle horns for the armies. When the shadow people came, our men blew the horns and magic swept the shadow people away like smoke in the wind. It turned the course of battle to our side.

“The wars had been devastating, but it was concluded that going into D’Hara to destroy Rahl and his forces would be too costly. Yet something had to be done to keep Panis Rahl from trying again, as they knew he would, and many were more frightened of the magic than of the hordes from D’Hara, and they wanted to have nothing to do with it ever again. They wanted a place to live where there would be no magic. Westland was set aside for those people. So it was that there came to be three lands. The boundaries were created with the help of magic . . . but they themselves are not magic.”

Richard watched as she looked away. “So what are they?”

Even though her head was turned, he could see her eyes close for a moment. She took the spoon from him and tasted the soup, which he knew wasn’t ready yet, then turned to him, as if asking if he really wanted to know. Richard waited.

Kahlan stared into the fire. “The boundaries are part of the underworld: the dominion of the dead. They were conjured into our world by magic, to separate the three lands. They are like a curtain drawn across our world. A rift in the world of the living.”

“You mean that going into the boundary is, what, like falling through a crack into another world? Into the underworld?”

She shook her head. “No. Our world is still here. The underworld is there in the same place at the same time. It is about a two-day walk across the land where the boundary, the underworld, lies. But while you are walking the land where the boundary is, you are also walking through the underworld. It is a wasteland. Any life that touches the underworld, or is touched by it, is touching death. That is why no one can cross the boundary. If you enter it, you enter the land of the dead. No one can return from the dead.”

“Then how did you?”

She swallowed as she watched the fire. “With magic. The boundary was brought here with magic, so the wizards reasoned they could get me safely through with the aid and protection of magic. It was frightfully difficult for them to cast the spells. They were dealing in things they didn’t fully understand, dangerous things, and they weren’t the ones who conjured the boundary into this world, so they weren’t sure it would work. None of us knew what to expect.” Her voice was weak, distant. “Even though I came through, I fear I will never be able to entirely leave it.”

Richard sat spellbound. He was horrified to think that she had faced that, that she had gone through a part of the underworld, the world of the dead, even with the aid of magic. It was unimaginable. Her frightened eyes came to his, eyes that had seen things no one else had ever seen.

“Tell me what you saw there,” he whispered.

Her skin was ashen as she looked back into the fire. A birch twig popped, making her flinch. Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes filled with tears that reflected the flickering flames, but she was not seeing the fire.

“At first,” she said in a distant tone, “it was like walking into the sheets of cold fire you see at night in the northern sky.” Her chest began heaving. “Inside, it is beyond darkness.” Her eyes were wide, wet. A small moan escaped with her breath. “There is . . . someone . . . with me.”

She turned to him, confused, seeming not to know where she was. It panicked him to see the pain in her eyes—pain he brought there with his question. She put her hand over her mouth as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes closed as she gave a low, mournful cry. Bumps ran up Richard’s arms.

“My . . . mother,” she sobbed, “I haven’t seen her in so many years . . . and . . . my dead sister . . . Dennee . . . I’m so alone . . . and afraid . . .” As she cried, she started gasping for air.

Somehow, he was losing her to the powerful specters of what she had seen in the underworld, as if they were pulling her back to drown her. Frantic, Richard put his hands on her shoulders and twisted her to face him.

“Kahlan, look at me! Look at me!”

“Dennee . . .” she gasped, her chest heaving as she tried to break free of him.

“Kahlan!”

“I’m so alone . . . and afraid . . .”

“Kahlan! I’m here with you! Look at me!”

She continued to cry convulsively, choking for air. Her eyes opened, but they didn’t focus on him—they were looking into another place.

“You’re not alone, I’m here with you! I won’t leave you!”

“I’m so alone,” she wailed.

He shook her, trying to make her listen. Her skin was white and dead cold. She struggled to breathe. “I’m right here. You’re not alone!” Desperate, he shook her again, but it wasn’t helping. He was losing her.

Struggling to control his rising panic, Richard did the only thing he could think of. When he had been confronted with fear in the past, he had learned to control it. There was strength in control. He did that now. Maybe he could give her some of his strength. Closing his eyes, he shut his fear away, blocked off the panic, and sought the calm within himself. He let his mind focus on the strength within himself. In the quiet of his mind, he blocked off his fears and confusion, and centered his thoughts on the strength of that peace. He would not let the underworld have her.

He spoke her name in a calm voice. “Let me help you. You are not alone. I am here with you. Let me help you. Take my strength.”

His hands gripped her shoulders. He could feel her shaking as she cried in choking sobs and struggled to breathe. He visualized sending her his strength, through his hands, through his contact with her. He visualized that contact extending to her mind, lending her all of his strength and drawing her back, away from the blackness. He would be the spark of light and life in that blackness that would lead her back to this world, to him.

“Kahlan, I am here. I won’t leave you. You are not alone. I am your friend. Trust in me.” He gently squeezed her shoulders. “Come back to me. Please.”

He pictured the white-hot light in his mind, hoping it would help her. Please, dear spirits, he prayed, let her see it. Let it help her. Let her use my strength.

“Richard?” She called out the name as if searching for him.

He squeezed her shoulders again. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. Come back to me.”

She started breathing again. Her eyes focused on his face. Relief flooded her features when she recognized him, and she began to cry in what seemed a more normal way. She collapsed against him and held him as she would a rock in a river. He held her to him and let her cry on his shoulder while he told her it was all right. He was so afraid he had lost her to the underworld that he didn’t want to let go of her either.

Reaching down, he got a hold of the blanket and pulled it back up around her, wrapping her with it as best he could. Warmth was returning to her body again, another sign that she was safe now, but he was disturbed by how quickly the underworld had pulled her back. He didn’t think that was supposed to happen. She hadn’t been there long, and exactly how he had gotten her back, he didn’t know, but he knew it had been none too soon.

The fire lent a soft red cast to the inside of the wayward pine, and in the silence it seemed a secure haven again. An illusion, he knew. He held her and stroked her hair and rocked her gently for a long time. Something in the way she clung to him made him realize that no one had held her and comforted her for a very long time.

He didn’t know anything about wizards, or magic, but no one would send Kahlan through the boundary, through the underworld, without a powerful reason. He wondered what could be that important.

Pushing herself off his shoulder, she sat up, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should not have touched you in that manner. I was . . .”

“It’s all right, Kahlan. It is the first responsibility of a friend to provide a shoulder to cry on.”

She nodded but didn’t raise her head. Richard felt her eyes on him as he took the soup off the fire to let it cool a little. He put another piece of wood into the flames, sending sparks swirling up with the smoke.

“How do you do that?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Do what?”

“How do you ask questions that fill my mind with pictures and make me answer, even when I have no intention to?”

He shrugged, a little self-conscious. “Zedd asks me that too. I guess it’s just something I was born with. Sometimes I think it’s a curse.” He turned from the fire to face her again. “I’m sorry, Kahlan, for asking you what you saw there. It was a thoughtless thing to do. Sometimes my common sense doesn’t keep up with my curiosity. I’m sorry I brought you pain. You being pulled back into the underworld, though, that shouldn’t have happened, should it?”

“No, it shouldn’t. It was almost as if when I thought back to what I had seen, someone was waiting to pull me back. I fear if you hadn’t been here, I might have been lost there. In the darkness, I saw a light. Something you did brought me back.”

Richard picked up the spoon while he thought. “Maybe just that you weren’t alone.”

Kahlan gave a weak shrug. “Maybe.”

“I only have one spoon. We can share it.” He took a spoonful of soup and blew on it before tasting it. “Not my best work, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” That had the desired effect: she smiled. He gave her the spoon.

“If I’m to help you to stay ahead of the next quad, to stay alive, I need answers. And I don’t think we have much time.”

She nodded. “I understand. It’s all right.”

He let her eat some soup before he went on. “So what happened after the boundaries went up? What about the great wizard?”

Before handing him the spoon she took a piece of sausage. “One more thing happened before they went up. While the great wizard was holding the magic at bay, Panis Rahl took a final revenge. He sent a quad out of D’Hara . . . They killed the wizard’s wife, and his daughter.”

Richard stared at her. “What did the wizard do to Rahl?”

“He held Rahl’s magic back and held him in D’Hara until just as the boundary was going up. At that very moment he sent a ball of wizard’s fire through it, letting it touch death, to give it the power of both worlds. Then the boundaries were there.”

Richard had never heard of wizard’s fire, but he didn’t think it required an explanation. “So what happened to Panis Rahl?”

“Well, the boundaries were there, so no one can say for sure, but I don’t think anyone would have traded their lot for that of Panis Rahl.”

Richard gave her the spoon, and she ate some more while he tried to imagine the righteous wrath of a wizard. After a few bites she gave back the spoon and continued.

“At first everything was fine, but then the council of the Midlands started taking actions the great wizard said were corrupt. Something to do with the magic. He found out the council had reneged on agreements about how the power of magic was to be controlled. He told them that their greed and the things they were doing would lead to worse horrors than those put down in the wars. They thought they knew better than he how the magic should be managed. They made a political appointment of a very important position that was a wizard’s and a wizard’s alone to fill. He was furious, he told them the position was one for which only a wizard could find the right person, and the appointment only a wizard’s to make. The great wizard had trained other wizards, but in their greed, these others sided with the council. He was enraged. He said his wife and daughter had died for nothing. As punishment, the great wizard told them he would do the worst thing possible to them—he would leave them to suffer the consequences of their actions.”

Richard smiled. That sounded like something Zedd would say.

“He said that if they knew so well how things were to be done, they did not need him. He refused to help them further, and vanished. But as he left, he cast a wizard’s web . . .”

“What’s that, a wizard’s web?”

“It is a spell a wizard casts. As he left, he cast a wizard’s web over everyone, making them forget his name, even what he looked like. So that is why no one knows what his name is or who he is.”

Kahlan tossed a stick in the fire, staring off into her thoughts. He went back to eating soup while he waited for her go on with the story. After a few minutes, she did.

“At the beginning of last winter, the movement started.”

He backed the spoonful of soup away from his mouth as he looked up. “What movement?”

“The Darken Rahl movement. It seemed to spring up out of nowhere. All of a sudden crowds of people in the bigger cities were chanting his name, calling him ‘Father Rahl,’ calling him the greatest man of peace that ever lived. The strange thing is, he is the son of Panis Rahl, from D’Hara, on the other side of the boundary, so how did anyone even know anything about him?” She paused, allowing him to ponder the significance of this.

“Anyway, then the gars started coming over the boundary. They killed a lot of people before everyone learned to stay inside at night.”

“But how did they get across the boundary?”

“It was weakening, only no one knew it. As it weakened, it faded from the top first, so the gars could fly over. In the spring it faded completely away. Then the People’s Peace Army, Darken Rahl’s army, marched right into the bigger cities. Instead of fighting him, crowds of Midlanders threw flowers at them wherever they went. People who didn’t throw flowers were hung.”

Richard stared wide-eyed. “The army killed them?”

She looked at him hard. “No. The flower throwers did. Said they were a threat to peace, so they killed them. The People’s Peace Army never had to lift a finger. The movement said that proved Darken Rahl only wanted peace, since his army didn’t kill the dissenters. After a time, the army stepped in and stopped the killing. Instead, the dissenters were sent to the schools of enlightenment to learn about the greatness of Father Rahl, about what a man of peace he is.”

“And did they learn at these schools of enlightenment how great Darken Rahl is?”

“No one is as fanatical as a convert. Most just sit around all day, chanting his name.”

“So the Midlands didn’t fight back?”

“Darken Rahl went before the council and asked them to join him in an alliance of peace. Those who did were held up as champions of harmony. Those who did not were held up as traitors, and publicly executed on the spot by Darken Rahl himself.”

“How did . . .”

She held up her hand and closed her eyes. “Darken Rahl has a curved knife he keeps at his belt. He takes great pleasure in using it. Please, Richard, do not ask me to tell you what he did to those men. My stomach cannot bear its recounting.”

“I was going to ask how the wizards reacted to all this.”

“Oh. Well, it started to open their eyes.

“Rahl then outlawed the use of all magic and declared anyone using it an insurrectionist. You must understand that in the Midlands magic is a part of many people, many creatures. It would be like saying you are a criminal for having two arms and two legs, and must have them cut them off. Then he outlawed fire.”

His eyes came up from the soup. “Fire? Why?”

“Darken Rahl does not explain his orders. But wizards use fire. Even so he does not fear wizards. He has more power than his father ever did, more than any wizard. His followers give all kinds of reasons, the main one being that it was used against Darken Rahl’s father, so fire is a sign of disrespect to the house of Rahl.”

“That’s why you wanted to sit in front of a fire.”

She nodded. “To have a fire in the wrong place in the Midlands, without the approval of Darken Rahl or his followers, is to invite death.” She pushed at the dirt with a stick. “Maybe in Westland, too. Your brother seems close to outlawing fire. Maybe . . .”

He cut her off. “Our mother was burned to death in a fire.” His tone was a hot warning. “That’s why Michael is concerned about fire. That’s the only reason. And he never said anything about outlawing it, only that he wanted to do something so others wouldn’t be hurt like she was. There’s nothing wrong with wanting people not to be hurt.”

She looked up at him from under her eyebrows. “He didn’t seem to care about hurting you.”

Richard let his anger die as he took a deep breath. “I know it seemed that way, but you don’t understand him. That’s just his way. I know it isn’t his intention to hurt me.” Richard pulled his knees up and folded his arms across them . . . “After our mother died, Michael spent more and more time with his friends. He would make friends with anyone he thought was important. Some of them were pompous and arrogant. Father didn’t like some of Michael’s friends, and told him so. They would argue about it.

“One time Father came home with a vase that had these little figures sculpted around the top, like they were dancing on the rim. He was proud of it. He said it was old, and he thought he could get a gold piece for it. Michael said he could get more. They argued, and finally Father let Michael take the vase to sell. Michael came back and threw four gold pieces on the table. My father just stared at them for the longest time. Then he said, in a real quiet voice, that the vase wasn’t worth four gold pieces, and wanted to know what Michael had told the people. Michael said he told them what they wanted to hear. Father reached out to pick up the four coins, and Michael slapped his hand over them. He picked up three and said only one was for my father, because one was all he expected to get. Then he said, ‘That is the value of my friends, George.’

“That was the first time Michael called him ‘George.’ My father never let him sell anything for him again.

“But do you know what Michael did with the money? The next time my father left on a trip, he paid off most of the family debts. He didn’t even buy anything for himself.

“Sometimes Michael is crude in the way he does things, like today when he told everyone about our mother, and pointed at me, but I know . . . I know that he has everyone’s best interests at heart. He doesn’t want anyone hurt by fire. That’s all, he just doesn’t want anyone to go through what we did. He is only trying to do what is best for everyone.”

Kahlan didn’t look up. She pushed at the dirt a moment more and then tossed the stick in the fire. “I’m sorry, Richard. I shouldn’t be so suspicious. I know how much it hurts to lose your mother. I’m sure you’re right.” Finally, she looked up. “Forgive me?”

Richard smiled and gave her a nod. “Of course. I guess if I had been through all you have, I would be quick to think the worst, too. I’m sorry I jumped on you. If you will forgive my tone, I’ll let you finish the soup.”

She nodded her agreement with a smile as he handed her the last of the soup.

He wanted to hear the rest of her story, but he waited and watched her eat for a while before he asked, “So have the D’Haran forces conquered all of the Midlands?”

“The Midlands is a big place—the People’s Peace Army occupies only a few of the larger cities. People in many areas ignore the alliance. Rahl does not really care. He considers it a petty problem. His attention has been diverted to something else. The wizards found out his real goal was the magic the great wizard had warned the council about, the magic they had mishandled for their own avarice. With the magic Darken Rahl seeks, he will be master of all, without having to fight anyone.

“Five of the wizards realized they had been wrong, that the great wizard was right after all. The sought to gain redemption in his eyes, and save the Midlands, and Westland, from what will happen if Darken Rahl gains the magic he seeks. So they searched for the great wizard, but Rahl hunts him also.”

“You said five wizards. How many are there?”

“There were seven: the great wizard and his six students. The old one has vanished—one of the others sold his services to a queen, a very dishonorable thing for a wizard to do.” She paused, considering that a moment. “And as I told you before, the five others are dead. Before they died they had the whole of the Midlands searched, but the great one was not to be found. He is not in the Midlands.”

“So they believed him to be in Westland?”

Kahlan dropped the spoon in the empty pot. “Yes. He is here.”

“And they thought this great wizard could stop Darken Rahl, even though they could not?” Something was wrong with this story, and Richard wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was coming next.

“No,” she said after a pause, “he does not have the power to go against Darkeh Rahl either. What they wanted, what we need to save and keep us all from what will be, is for the great wizard to make the appointment only he can make.”

By the care with which she was choosing her words, he knew she was dancing around secrets he was not to ask about, so he didn’t, and instead asked, “Why didn’t they come after him themselves, and ask him to do it?”

“Because they feared he would say no, and they did not have the power to force him.”

“Five wizards did not have the power of this one?”

She shook her head with a sad smile. “They were his students, ones who wanted to be wizards. They were not born wizards, born with the gift. The great one was born to a father who was a wizard and a mother who was a sorceress. It is in his blood, not just his head. They could never be the wizard he is. They simply did not have the power to make him do what they wanted.” She fell silent.

“And . . .” He didn’t say anything else. With his silence he let her know his next question, and that he would have the answer to it.

At last, she gave him the answer in a soft whisper.

“And so they sent me, because I do.”

The fire crackled and hissed. He could feel the tension in her, and he knew she had gone as far with that answer as she would on the subject, so he remained still to let her feel safe. Without looking over, he put his hand on her forearm, and she put her other hand over his.

“How are you to know this wizard?”

“I only know I must find him, and soon, or we are all lost.”

Richard thought in silence. “Zedd will help us,” he said at last. “He’s a cloud reader. Finding lost people is what a cloud reader does.”

Kahlan gave him a suspicious look. “That sounds like magic. There is not supposed to be any magic in Westland.”

“He says it’s not—that anyone can learn. He’s always trying to teach me. He mocks me whenever I say it looks like it will rain. His eyes get real big and he says, ‘Magic! You must have magic, my boy, to read the clouds and know the future so.’ ”

Kahlan laughed. It was a good sound to hear. He didn’t want to press her further even though the weave of her story had many loose threads—there was much she wasn’t telling him. At least he knew more than he did before. The important thing was to find the wizard and then get away—another quad would be coming for her. They would have to go west while the wizard did whatever it was he had to do.

She opened her waist pouch and pulled something out. Untying a string, she laid back the folds of a waxed cloth that held a tan substance. Dipping her finger in it, she turned to him. “This will help the fly bites heal. Turn your head.”

The ointment soothed the sting. He recognized the fragrances of some of the plants and herbs it was made from. Zedd had taught him to make a similar ointment, but with aum, that would take pain from flesh wounds. When finished with him, she put some on herself. He held out his sore red hand.

“Here, put some on this, too.”

“Richard! What have you done?”

“I was stuck by a thorn, this morning.”

She dabbed the ointment carefully on his wound. “I have never seen a thorn do this.”

“It was a big thorn. I’m sure I’ll be better by morning.”

The ointment didn’t help the pain as much as he had hoped, but he told her that it did, not wanting to worry her. His hand was nothing compared to the things she had to worry about. He watched as she retied the string around the little package and replaced it in her waist pouch. Her forehead was creased in thought.

“Richard, are you afraid of magic?”

He thought carefully before answering. “I was always fascinated by it—it sounded exciting. But now I know there is magic to fear. But I would guess it’s like people: some you stay clear of and some you are fortunate to know.”

Kahlan smiled, apparently satisfied with his answer. “Richard, before I can sleep, there is something, l must tend to. It is a creature of magic. If you would not be afraid, I will let you see it. The opportunity is a rare one. Few have ever seen it, and few ever will. But you must promise me you will leave and take a walk when I ask, and not ask me any more questions when you return. I am very tired and must sleep.”

Richard smiled at the honor. “Promise.”

Opening her waist pouch once more, Kahlan withdrew a small round bottle with a stopper. Blue and silver lines spiraled around the fat part. There was light inside.

Her green eyes came to his. “The creature is a night wisp. Her name is Shar. A night wisp cannot be seen in the day, only at night. Shar is part of the magic that helped me cross the boundary—she was my guide. Without her, I would have been lost.”

Kahlan’s eyes filled with tears, but her voice remained steady and calm. “Tonight, she dies. She can live no longer away from her home place and the others of her kind, and she does not have the strength to cross the boundary again. Shar has sacrificed her life to help me because if Darken Rahl succeeds, all her kind, among others, will perish.”

Pulling the stopper free, Kahlan placed the little bottle in the flat of her palm and held it out between them.

A tiny flare of light lifted clear of the bottle, floating up into the cool, dim air of the wayward pine, giving everything a silvery cast. The light softened as the wisp came to a stop in the air between them, hovering. Richard was astonished. His mouth hung open as he watched, transfixed.

“Good evening, Richard Cypher,” it said in a tiny little voice.

“Good evening to you, Shar.” His own voice was not much more than a whisper.

“Thank you for helping Kahlan today. In so doing you are also helping my kind. If you ever need the help of the night wisps, say my name and they will help you, for no enemy may know it.”

“Thank you, Shar, but the Midlands are the last place I would want to go. I’ll help Kahlan find the wizard, but then I must take us west and get us safely away from those who would kill us.”

The night wisp seemed to turn in the air for a time, considering. The silvery light felt warm and safe on his face.

“If that is what you wish, then you must do so,” Shar said. Richard felt relieved. The tiny point of light spun in the air before them again.

Shar spun to a stop. “But know this: Darken Rahl hunts you both. He will not rest. He will not stop. If you run, he will find you. There is no doubt of that. You have no defense against him. He will kill you both. Soon.”

Richard’s mouth was so dry he could hardly swallow. At least the gar would have been quick, he thought, and then it would be over. “Shar, isn’t there a way for us to escape?”

The light spun again, making flashes on his face and the branches of the wayward pine.

Shar stopped again. “If your back is to him, your eyes will not be. He will get you. He enjoys it.”

Richard stared. “But . . . is there nothing we can do?”

The tiny point of light spun again, coming closer to him this time before stopping. “Better question, Richard Cypher. The answer you want is within yourself. You must seek it. You must seek it or he will kill you both. Soon.”

“How soon?” His voice turned harder, he couldn’t help himself. The light backed away a little as it spun. He would not let this opportunity pass without finding out at least something he could hold on to.

The night wisp stopped. “The first day of winter, Richard Cypher. When the sun is in the sky. If Darken Rahl does not kill you before then, and if he is not stopped, then on the first day of winter when the sun is in the sky, my kind will all die. You both will die. He will enjoy it.”

Richard tried to decide the best way to question a spinning point of light. “Shar, Kahlan is trying to save the others of your kind. I am trying to help her. You are giving your life to help her. If we fail, everyone dies, you just said so. Please, is there anything you can tell me to help us against Darken Rahl?”

The light spun and went in a little circle around the inside of the wayward pine, bringing light to the areas it went near. It stopped again in front of him.

“Already told you the answer. It is in you. Seek it or die. Sorry, Richard Cypher. Want to help. Don’t know the answer. Just that it is in you. Sorry sorry.”

Richard nodded, running his fingers through his hair. He didn’t know who was more frustrated, Shar or himself. Glancing over, he saw Kahlan sitting calmly, watching the night wisp. Shar spun and waited.

“All right, can you tell me why he’s trying to kill me? Is it because I help Kahlan, or is there another reason?”

Shar came close. “Other reasons? Secrets?”

“What!” Richard jumped to his feet. The night wisp followed him up.

“Don’t know why. Sorry. Just that he will.”

“What’s the wizard’s name?”

“Good question, Richard Cypher. Sorry. Don’t know.”

Richard sat back down and put his face in his hands. Shar spun, throwing off shafts of light, and flew in slow circles around his head. Somehow he knew she was trying to comfort him, and that she was near her end. She was dying, and she was trying to comfort him. He tried to swallow back the lump in his throat, so he could talk.

“Shar, thank you for helping Kahlan. My life, as short as it seems it will be, has already been made longer because she saved me from doing something foolish today. My life is also better for knowing her. Thank you for helping bring my friend safely through the boundary.” His vision turned watery.

The night wisp floated to him and touched against his forehead. Her voice seemed to be as much in his head as in his ears.

“I am sorry, Richard Cypher. I do not know the answers that would save you. If I did, please believe I would give them eagerly. But I know the good in you. I believe in you. I do know that you have within you what you must to succeed. There will be times when you doubt yourself. Do not give up. Remember then that I believe in you, that I know you can accomplish what you must. You are a rare person, Richard Cypher! Believe in yourself. And protect Kahlan.”

He realized his eyes were closed. Tears were running down freely, and the lump in his throat kept catching his breath.

“There are no gars about. Please let me be alone with Kahlan now. My time comes.”

Richard nodded. “Good-bye, Shar. It has been my deep honor to have known you.”

He left without looking at either of them.

After he was gone, the night wisp floated to Kahlan and addressed her properly.

“Mother Confessor, my time passes soon. Why have you not told him what you are?”

Kahlan’s shoulders were slumped, and her hands nested in her lap as she stared into the fire. “Shar, I cannot, not yet.”

“Confessor Kahlan, that is not fair. Richard Cypher is your friend.”

Tears began rolling down her face. “Don’t you see? That is why I cannot tell him. If I tell him, he will no longer be my friend, will no longer care for me. You cannot know what it is like to be a Confessor, to have everyone fear you. He looks into my eyes, Shar. Not many have ever dared that. No one could ever look into me the way he does. His eyes make me feel safe. He makes my heart smile.”

“Others might tell him before you do, Confessor Kahlan. That would be worse.”

She looked up at the night wisp, her eyes wet. “I will tell him before that happens.”

“You play a dangerous game, Confessor Kahlan,” Shar warned. “He could fall in love with you first. Then your telling would hurt him unforgivably.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“You will choose him?”

“No!”

The night wisp spun back at the sound of Kahlan’s shriek, then slowly came back by her face. “Confessor Kahlan, you are the last of your kind. Darken Rahl has killed all the others. Even your sister, Dennee. You are the Mother Confessor. You must choose a mate.”

“I could not do that to someone I cared for. No Confessor would,” she sobbed.

“Sorry, Mother Confessor. It is for you to choose.”

Kahlan pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her forehead against her knees. Her shoulders heaved as she cried, her thick hair cascading down to encircle her. Shar flew slowly around her head, throwing off shafts of silvery light, comforting her companion. She continued to circle until Kahlan’s weeping slowed and finally stopped. When it did, Shar returned to hover in front of her.

“Hard to be Mother Confessor. Sorry.”

“Hard,” Kahlan agreed.

“Much on your shoulders.”

“Much,” Kahlan agreed again.

The night wisp landed lightly on the woman’s shoulder and rested there quietly while Kahlan watched the fire glow with small slow flames. After a time the night wisp rose from her shoulder and floated to a spot in the air in front of her.

“Wish to stay with you more. Good times. Wish to stay with Richard Cypher. Asks good questions. But I cannot hold on longer. Sorry. I die.”

“You have my word, Shar, that I will give my own life, if necessary, to stop Darken Rahl. To save your kind and the others.”

“I believe in you, Confessor Kahlan. Help Richard.” Shar came closer. “Please. Before I die. Touch me?”

Kahlan pushed herself away from the wisp until her back was against the trunk of the tree. “No . . . please . . . no,” she implored, shaking her head. “Don’t ask me to do that.” Her eyes filled with tears again. She put her trembling fingers to her lips, trying to hold back the crying.

Shar came forward. “Please, Mother Confessor. I feel such pain of aloneness away from the others. I will never share their company again. It hurts so. I pass now. Please. Use your power. Touch me and let me drink in the sweet agony. Let me die with the taste of love. I have forfeited my life to help you. I have asked nothing else of you. Please?”

Shar’s light was growing dimmer, fainter. Kahlan, crying, held her left hand over her mouth. At last, she reached out with her right hand, until her trembling fingers touched the wisp.

All about there was thunder but no sound. The violent impact to the air jolted the wayward pine, causing a rain of dead needles, some flaring when they touched the fire. Shar’s dim silvery color changed to a pink glow, growing in intensity.

Shar’s voice was faint. “Thank you, Kahlan. Good-bye, my love.”

The spark of light and life faded and was gone.

After the thunder without sound, Richard waited for a time before he returned to her. Kahlan sat with her arms around her legs and her chin resting on her knees as she stared into the fire.

“Shar?” he asked.

“She is gone,” came the answer in a distant voice.

He nodded and, taking her arm, led her to the mat of dry grass and laid her down. She went without resistance or comment. He put the blanket over her and piled on some of the dry grass to help keep her warm through the night, then burrowed himself into it next to her. Kahlan turned on her side, away from him, and pushed her shoulders back against him the way a child would put its back to a parent when peril approached. He sensed it, too. Something was coming for them. Something deadly.

Already, she was asleep. He knew he should feel cold, but he didn’t. His hand throbbed. He felt warm. Richard lay there, thinking about the thunder without sound. He wondered what she would do to make the great wizard do what she wanted. The idea frightened him. Before he could worry more he, too, was asleep.