Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth 1)

“I don’t know, Mistress. I don’t keep count. I’ve done it for many years, since I was young. I don’t always kill them. Most live.”

“Make a good guess.”

He thought a moment. “More than eighty. Less than one hundred twenty.”

Zedd could see a glint off the knife as she put it under him. Chase unfolded his arms, stood up straighter, his jaw muscles tightening at hearing what Demmin Nass had done.

“I’m going to cut these off. When I do, I don’t want you to make a sound,” she whispered. “Not one sound. Don’t even flinch.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Look into my eyes. I wish to see it in your eyes.”

Her arm with the knife strained, and jerked up. The blade came up red.

Demmin’s knuckles around the mace were white.

The Mother Confessor rose to her feet in front of him. “Hold out your hand.”

Demmin held a shaking hand before her. She put the bloody sack in his palm.

“Eat them.”

Chase smiled as he watched. “Good for her,” he whispered to no one in particular. “A woman who knows the meaning of justice.”

She stood before him, watching, until he finished. She tossed the knife aside. “Give me the mace.”

He handed it up. “Mistress, I am losing a lot of blood. I don’t know if I can remain upright.”

“It will displease me greatly if you don’t. Just hold on. It won’t be long.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Was what you told me about Richard, the Seeker, true?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Kahlan’s voice was deadly calm. “All of it?”

Demmin though a moment, to be sure. “All that I told you, Mistress.”

“There is some you did not tell me?”

“Yes, Mistress. I did not tell you that Mord-Sith Denna also took him as her mate. I presume so that she might hurt him more.”

There was an eternity of silence. Kahlan stood motionless over Demmin. Zedd could hardly breathe with the pain, could hardly breathe past the lump in his throat. His knees shook.

Kahlan’s voice came so soft, Zedd could hardly hear it. “And you are sure he is dead?”

“I did not see him killed. Mistress. But I am sure.”

“Why is that?”

“It looked to me as if Master Rahl was in the mood to kill him, and even if he didn’t, Denna would have. That is what Mord-Sith do. Mates of Mord-Sith do not live this long. I was surprised he was still alive when I left him. He looked to be in bad shape. I have not seen a man have the Agiel put to the base of his skull that many times and still be alive.

“He cried your name. The only reason Denna hadn’t allowed him to die before that day was because Master Rahl wanted to talk to him first. While I did not see it with my own eyes. Mistress, I am sure. Denna held him with the magic of his sword, there could be no escape for him. She had him for a lot longer than is usual, she hurt him more than is usual, she held him on the cusp between life and death longer than is usual. I have never seen a man last as long as he had. For some reason. Master Rahl wanted the Seeker to suffer a long time, which is why he chose Denna; none enjoy it more than her, none have her talent for prolonging the pain, the others don’t know how to keep their pets alive that long. If nothing else, he would be dead now from being the mate of a Mord-Sith. He could not have survived until now.”

Zedd sank to his knees, his heart breaking with agony. He cried with the pain. He felt as if his world had ended. He didn’t want to go on. He wanted to die. What had he done? How could he have allowed Richard to be pulled into this? Richard, of all people. Now he knew why Rahl hadn’t killed him when he had had the chance; he wanted Zedd to suffer first. That was the way of a Rahl.

Chase squatted down next to him and put his arm around him. “I’m sorry, Zedd,” he whispered. “Richard was my friend, too. I’m so sorry.”

“Look at me,” Kahlan said, the mace held high in both her hands.

Nass’s eyes came up to hers. She brought the mace down with all her strength. With a sickening sound, it buried in his forehead, stuck solid, tearing from her hands as he went down, limp and fluid, as if he had no bones.

Zedd forced himself to stop crying and come to his feet as she walked toward them, picking up a tin bowl from a pack along the way.

She handed the bowl to Chase. “Fill this half full with poison berries from a bloodthroat bush.”

Chase looked at the bowl, a little confused. “Now?”

“Yes.”

He noticed the warning in Zedd’s eyes, and stiffened. “All right.” He turned, starting to leave, but turned back, taking his heavy black cloak off, putting it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness. “Kahlan…” He stared at her, finally unable to bring forth the words, and went off to his task.

Kahlan gazed fixedly, vacantly, at nothing. Zedd put his arm around her and sat her down on a bedroll. He retrieved what was left of her shirt, ripping it into strips, which he wet with water from a skin. As she sat without protest, he cleaned the blood off her, applied salve to some of her wounds and magic to others. She endured it without comment. When he finished, he put his fingers under her chin, lifting her gaze to his.

Zedd spoke softly. “He did not die for nothing, dear one. He found the box, he has saved everyone. Remember him for doing what no other could have.”

Light mist from the thick clouds that hugged the ground began to dampen their faces.

“I will remember only that I love him, and that I could never tell him.”

Zedd closed his eyes against the pain, the burden, of being a wizard.

Chase returned, offering her the bowl of poison berries. She asked for something to crush them with. With a few quick strokes, Chase whittled a stout stick into a shape that satisfied her and she went to work.

She stopped as if she thought of something and looked up at the wizard, her green eyes ablaze. “Darken Rahl is mine.” It was a warning. A threat.

He nodded to her. “I know, dear one.”

She went back to crushing, a few tears running down her face.

“I’m going to bury Brophy,” Chase said softly to Zedd. “The others can rot.”

Kahlan crushed the red berries into a paste, adding a little ash from the fire. When she was finished, she had Zedd hold a little mirror for her while she applied it in the pattern of the Con Dar, twin lightning bolts, the magic guiding her hand. Starting from the temple on each side, in a mirror image of each other, the top part of each bolt zigzagged over the eyebrow, the center lobe of each passed over an eyelid, with the bottom zigzag over the cheekbones, finally terminating in a point at the hollow of each cheek.

The effect was frightening—and meant to be. It was a warning to the innocent. A vow to the guilty.