Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

Unlike the others, though, it continued to smolder. No flames erupted, but the whole thing, including the uniform that Richard could now see was not actually a uniform of cloth, leather, and armor, but actually a part of the beast itself, melted and bubbled. The dissolving mass began to coagulate into a blackened mass. As everyone stood stunned, watching, it burned without flame, drying and cracking and curling until only ashes were left.

“You used your gift,” Nicci said, her head hanging. “It found you.”

Richard nodded to no one in particular. “Berdine, please get Nicci to somewhere where she can get some rest.”

Richard hoped that she could recover, that she would be all right. He didn’t just care about her, he needed her. Adie had said that Nicci was his only hope.

CHAPTER 45

“My, my, my. Aren’t you the clever one.”

Rachel jumped, letting out a squeak as she spun to the wire-thin voice.

The unblinking gaze of blanched blue eyes was fixed on her.

It was Six.

Rachel’s instinct was to run, but she knew that it would do no good to run farther back into the rear of the cave, and Six was blocking the way out, so there was nowhere to run. Rachel had a knife, but even a knife suddenly felt ridiculously inadequate.

All alone with her like this, the witch woman was even more frightening than Rachel remembered. Her black hair looked as if it had been woven by a thousand black widow spiders. Her tight skin looked ready to split open over her knobby cheekbones. Her black dress was almost invisible in the shadows, leaving the pallid face and hands looking as if they were floating all by themselves in the dead-still cave.

She almost would rather have the ghostie gobblies after her than Six.

Rachel wondered how long the witch woman had been standing in the darkness watching. She knew that Six could move as silently as a snake, and that she had no difficulty getting around in complete darkness. It wouldn’t surprise Rachel in the least if she found out that the woman had a forked tongue as well.

Rachel had been so deep in concentration as she’d worked on the drawing of Richard that she had not just lost track of time, but she had, to a degree, forgotten where she was. She had been so absorbed in what she’d been doing that she had forgotten her sense of caution. She didn’t know that she could be so absorbed in anything.

She felt stupid for being careless and getting herself caught, for making such a foolish mistake. Chase would have shaken his head in shame and asked if she hadn’t paid any attention at all to the things he’d taught her.

But she had desperately wanted to undo what had been done to Richard. She knew what it was like to be at the center of one of these spells. She knew how terrifying it was. She knew how helpless it made you feel. She didn’t want that to happen to Richard, and he’d had that spell around him a lot longer than she’d had a spell around her. She had wanted to help him escape the hold of these evil drawings.

She had known that she was taking a risk, but Richard was her friend. Richard had helped her so many times that she wanted to help him for once.

Six glanced to the darkness farther back in the cave, the darkness beyond the oil lamp, the darkness where Violet’s bones lay.

“Yes, quite clever.”

Rachel swallowed. “What?”

“The way you dispatched the old queen,” Six said in a silky hiss.

Rachel couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder in confusion. “Old queen?” She looked back at the witch woman. “Violet wasn’t old.”

Six smiled that smile she had that made Rachel nearly wet herself. “The moment she died she was as old as she would ever be, don’t you suppose?”

Rachel didn’t try to untangle the riddle. She was too scared to think.

Six abruptly stepped into the light. “How old do you suppose you are at this moment, little one?”

“I don’t know, for sure,” Rachel said as honestly as she could. She swallowed in terror. “I’m an orphan. I don’t know how old I am.”

Rachel thought of the visit from her mother—if it really had been her mother. As she thought back on it now, it didn’t seem to make sense the way it had at the time. She wondered why her mother would leave her in an orphanage. If it was really her mother, why would she leave Rachel to be all alone? Why would she find her in the middle of nowhere and then just leave her? At the time she walked into Rachel’s camp it had seemed perfectly natural, but now Rachel didn’t know what to think.

Six only smiled at the answer. It was not a happy smile, though. Rachel didn’t think that Six had a happy smile, just that clever one, the one that let people know she was thinking dark, witchy things.

The witch woman aimed a long bony finger at the drawing of Richard. “That was a great deal of work, you know.”

Rachel nodded. “I know. I was here when you and Violet did it.”

“Yes,” Six drawled as she watched Rachel the way a spider watched a fly buzzing in its web. “You certainly were, weren’t you?”

The woman stepped closer to the drawing. “This here”—she waggled the finger at one of the places Rachel had altered—“how did you do this?”

“Well, I remembered what you told Violet about terminal elements.” Rachel didn’t say that she knew what a “terminal element” was, but she did. “I remember you saying how that junction locked it, by means of the azimuth angle, to the person to enable the spell to locate them and then attach the proper parcels. I figured that would make it essential to the function of the whole thing. I altered the ratio so that it would change the position linking it to the subject.”

Six was nodding slightly as she listened. “Thus interrupting a fundamental support for the positional structure,” Six said to herself. “My, my, my.” She shook her head thoughtfully as she peered closer at the drawing. She turned a frown on Rachel. “You are not only quite talented, little one, but quite inventive.”

Rachel didn’t think she had better say thank you. Six, despite the smile on her thin lips, was probably not at all happy to discover all the damage Rachel had done to the drawing—and Rachel understood pretty well how much damage she really had done.

Six pointed the bony finger. “This here. Why did you add that line? Why didn’t you simply erase the junction?”

“Because I reasoned that it would only weaken the hold of the spell if I did that.” Rachel pointed at several other elements. “These here support the main elements as well, so if I erased that junction it would have still held. Near as I could figure, if I added that variance to it, instead, then it would redirect the link it had established and in that way break it, rather than merely loosen it.”

Six shook her head to herself. “What good ears you have. I never knew a child could pick such things up so quickly.”

“It wasn’t quick,” Rachel said. “You had to keep telling Violet those same things over and over. It would be pretty hard not to catch on after a while.”

Six chuckled to herself. “Yes, she was quite stupid, wasn’t she?”

Rachel didn’t answer. She wasn’t feeling very smart herself at the moment, what with being so easily caught and all.

Six folded her arms as she paced before the huge drawing, inspecting Rachel’s handiwork. She made little noises to herself as she carefully looked over the whole thing. Rachel was disheartened to see that she looked right at every alteration Rachel had made. The witch woman didn’t miss a single one.

“Quite impressive,” she said without looking back. She flicked a hand in the air. “You’ve completely undone the whole thing.” Six turned to Rachel. “You ruined the entire spell.”

“I’m not sorry I did it.”

“No, I don’t expect you are.” She heaved a sigh. “Well, no harm done, really. It served its purpose. I suppose there is no further need for it.”

Rachel was disappointed to hear that.

“This hasn’t been a total loss, however.” Six, her arms still folded, directed a sly look at Rachel. “I?

?ve gained myself a new artist. One who is quicker to learn than the last one. You might very well prove to be quite useful. I think I’ll keep you alive for the time being. What do you say to that?”

Rachel stiffened her courage. “I won’t draw things that hurt people.”

The smile returned, wider yet. “Oh, we will see about that.”

CHAPTER 46

Exhausted, Kahlan was about ready to fall off the back of the big horse. She could tell by its uneven stride that the lathered horse, too, was ready to drop. Her rescuer, though, appeared determined to ride the horse to death.

“The horse is not going to last at this pace. Don’t you think we should stop?”

“No,” he said back over his shoulder.

In the faint light of false dawn, Kahlan could at last see the black shapes of a few trees beginning to appear. It was a relief to know that they would soon be free of the open Azrith Plain. Out on the plain, once the sun was up, they could be spotted for miles from any direction. She didn’t know if they were being followed, but even if they weren’t there were liable to be patrols that could easily catch sight of them.