Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth 1)

If there be need enough.

He dumped the stone into his hand. Light filled the cave. Richard wasted no time looking at individual drawings, but instead quickly went deeper, looking for where they ended. From the corner of his eye, he saw the first shadow materialize. It was still a ways off. He kept going.

At last, he came to the end of the drawings. The shadows were almost upon him. He thrust the stone back in the leather pouch. In the darkness, he held his breath, eyes wide, expecting the painful touch of death. It didn’t come. The only light was a dim glow with a bright spot in the center, the entrance, but it didn’t provide enough light to see the drawings. He knew he would have to take out the stone again.

First, with his fingers, he searched through his pocket, and found the soft, tacky piece of stick Zedd had given him. With it firmly in hand, he pulled the stone out again. The light blinded him for a second. His head swiveled around, looking.

Then he saw it. The man in the drawing was as tall as he, but the rest of the drawing was larger still. It was crude, but he knew it was him. The sword held in the right hand had the word Truth written on it. There was a map around the figure, similar to the one Kahlan had drawn on the ground. On one side, the line around the outside edges went down the Callisidrin and across the center of the bridge. That was where he had run into it.

The shadows called his name. He looked up to see hands reaching for him. He thrust the stone into the pouch and pressed his back against the wall, over his drawing, listening to his heart pounding in his ears. In dismay, he realized that the drawing was too large for him to erase the entire circle around him. If he only erased part of it, he had no way of knowing where the gap would be, or how to make the gap where he was in the cave.

He backed away, to prepare himself to get a better look the next time he pulled the stone out. He bumped into the invisible wall. His heart felt as if it skipped a beat. The wall was almost around him. He had no time.

He pulled the stone out and immediately started erasing the sword, hoping that would take away his identity, take the spell off him. The lines erased only with great difficulty. He backed away a step, to look, and hit the wall. The shadows reached for him, calling his name seductively.

He dumped the stone back into the pouch and stood in the blackness, breathing hard, near panic at the feeling of being trapped. He knew he couldn’t use the sword to fight the shadow things while he worked on the drawing; he had fought the shadows before and it took everything he had. His mind raced. He couldn’t think of what to do. He had erased the sword, and that didn’t work. The spell must still recognize him. He knew there wasn’t enough time to erase the line all the way around him. His breath came in a desperate pant.

There was flickering light. He spun around. A man holding one of the reed torches came closer, an oily smile on his face. It was James, the artist.

“I thought I might find you here. I came to watch. Anything I can do to help?”

By his laugh, Richard knew James wasn’t about to help him. James also knew that with the wall between them Richard couldn’t use the sword on him. He laughed at Richard’s helplessness.

Richard cast a quick glance sideways. The torch gave enough light for him to see the drawing. The invisible wall pushed at his shoulder, pushed him toward the wall. A wave of nausea and dizziness went through him at the touch. He was only a step away from the cave wall as it was. In moments, he would be encased, crushed, or poisoned.

Richard spun to the drawing. While he worked with one hand, he searched his pocket with the other. He pulled out the stick Zedd had told him he could use to alter the drawing.

James leaned forward with a chuckle, watching him work.

The chuckle stopped. “What are you doing there?”

Richard didn’t answer as he erased the right hand on the figure.

“Stop that!” James yelled.

Richard ignored him and kept erasing. James threw the torch on the ground and pulled out a drawing stick of his own. The artist started drawing in fast slashing strokes, strands of his greasy hair whipping around as he worked. He was drawing a figure. He was drawing another spell. Richard knew that if James finished first, there would be no second chance.

“Stop that, you fool!” James yelled as he raced to complete his drawing.

The unseen wall pressed up against Richard’s back, forcing him against the wall of the cave. He barely had room to move his arms. James was drawing a sword, starting to write the word Truth.

Richard took his drawing stick and, with a line, connected the sides of the wrist on the figure, making a stump. Just like the one James had.

As he finished it, the pressure on his back lifted, and the sick feeling left.

James screamed.

Richard turned to see him writhing on the floor of the cave, folding himself into a ball as he vomited. Richard shuddered and picked up the torch.

The artist’s pleading eyes came up to him. “I… wasn’t going to let it kill you… only trap you….”

“Who had you do this spell on me?”

James gave a wicked little smile. “The Mord-Sith,” he whispered. “You are going to die….”

“What’s a Mord-Sith?”

Richard heard the breath being squeezed from him, bones snapping. James was dead. Richard couldn’t say he was sorry.

Richard didn’t know what a Mord-Sith was, but he didn’t want to wait around to find out. Suddenly he felt alone and vulnerable. Zedd and Kahlan both had warned him that there were many things in the Midlands, many creatures of magic, that were dangerous, that he knew nothing about. He hated the Midlands, the magic. He just wanted to get back to Kahlan.

Richard ran toward the cave entrance, dropping the torch along the way. Running out into the bright sunlight, shielding his eyes, he came to a halt. Squinting, he saw a ring of people around him. Soldiers. They wore uniforms of dark leather and mail, swords over their shoulders, battle axes at their wide belts.

At their lead, facing the cave, facing him, was someone different, a woman, with long auburn hair pulled back into a loose braid. She was sheathed in leather from neck to ground, cut to fit like a glove. Blood-red leather. The only deviation from the blood red of it was a yellow crescent and star across her stomach. Richard saw that the men wore the same crescent and star on their chests, only theirs was red. She watched him with no emotion except the slightest wisp of a smile.

Richard stood with his feet spread defensively, his hand on the hilt of the sword, not knowing what to do, without a clue to their intent. Her eyes gave a little flick, looking above and behind him. Richard heard two men drop from the cliff wall to the ground behind him. He could feel the anger of the sword racing urgently

into him through his hand on the hilt. He held it at full rage as he gritted his teeth.

The woman snapped her fingers at the men behind him, then pointed at him. “Take him.” He heard the sound of steel being drawn.

That was everything Richard needed to know. The commitment had been made.

Bringer of death.

His sword came out in an arc as he spun. He let the anger loose with a vengeance. It exploded through him. His eyes met those of the two men. Their jaws were set in a rage of their own as their swords cleared the scabbards over their shoulders.

Richard kept the Sword of Truth low. Waist height, with all his weight and strength behind it. Their swords came down defensively. He screamed with lethal rage. Lethal hate. Lethal need. He gave himself completely over to the lust to kill, knowing anything less would be the end of him. His sword tip whistled.

Bringer of death.

Shards of hot, shattered steel spiraled through the clear morning air.

Twin grunts. At impact, twin, wet thwacks, like ripe melons hitting the ground. Insides turned out in long red ropes. The top halves of their bodies tumbled as the legs collapsed.

The sword continued around, tracing its route with strings of blood. He refocused the rage, the hate, the need. She commanded them. Richard wanted her lifeblood. The magic surged through him unhindered. He was still screaming. She stood with a hand on her hip.

Richard met her eyes, made a slight alteration to the course of the sword so it too would meet them. Her widening smile only fed the violent fire of his wrath. Their eyes locked together. The sword tip whistled around toward her head. His need to kill was beyond retrieval.

Bringer of death.

The pain of the sword’s magic hit him like a waterfall of icy water on naked flesh. The blade never reached her. The sword clattered to the ground as the pain took him to his knees, ripping through him, doubling him over.

Hand still on her hip, smile still on her face, she stood over him, watching as he clutched his arms across his abdomen, vomiting blood, choking on it. Fire burned through every inch of him. The pain of the magic consumed him, took his breath from his lungs. Desperately, he tried to get a grip on the magic, tried to put away the pain as he had learned to do before. It did not respond to his will. With rising panic, he realized he no longer had control of it.