Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

From that first day when Zedd had handed Richard the sword across the table outside his house, Richard had in reality been preparing for this.

He could feel sweat dripping off his face as he worked. As he drew each form, worked each element to completion without allowing anything to distract him into making a mistake, he lost all sense of time. He was part of the drawings. He was, in a very real sense, in the drawings just as he was in a sword fight when he used the Sword of Truth. His brow wrinkled with the intensity of it. He added each element, laid down each stroke and curve with the precision of a cut with his sword—or with the precision of his chisel when he had sculpted. It was the same skill he applied when using a blade. He was destroying and creating all at the same time.

When he at last realized that he had drawn every symbol, completed every spell-form, connected every element, he sat up straighter. His gaze swept over the sorcerer’s sand and he at last realized the full horror of what lay ahead.

He looked around at the Garden of Life. He wanted to see beauty before he faced the world of the dead.

At last, he sat cross-legged and rested his hands palm-up on his knees. His eyes slid closed. He took deep breaths. This was his last chance to stop. In another moment it would be too late to change the course of events.

Richard raised his head and opened his eyes.

In High D’Haran, he whispered, “Come to me.”

There was a moment of dead silence in which he could hear only the soft burning of the torches all around the sorcerer’s sand, and then the air itself shook with a sudden wailing roar. The ground shook.

From the center of the sparkling white sand, from the center of the spell-forms, a white shape, like white smoke, began to rise. It spiraled around itself in tumbling swirls and eddies as it slowly ascended through the sand, as if drawing itself upward out of the spells themselves. As it came, as it lifted ever upward, the sorcerer’s sand beneath it was rent open, allowing the blackness of death to establish a void in the world of life.

Richard watched as the white form ascended out of that void, forming into the shape of a figure in flowing white robes. The figure opened its arms, the way a flower would open itself to the world of life and light, until the gossamer robes hung in flowing folds from those widespread arms. The figure floated, suspended above the black void in the white sand.

Richard rose up before the figure.

“Thank you for coming, Denna.”

She smiled a beautiful, radiant, and yet longingly sad smile.

As Richard gazed at the spirit, she reached out and touched his cheek. It was as loving a touch as Richard had ever felt. In that touch he knew that he would be safe with her…as safe as he could be in the world of the dead.

From the shadows of the trees where Richard had asked her to wait, Nicci watched in wonder as Richard stood before the soft glow of an ethereal figure.

She was an achingly beautiful creature, a spirit of quiet purity and dignity.

Nicci felt tears run down her cheeks at actually seeing a good spirit there before her. It filled her with joy, and at the same time terror for Richard, for where that spirit would be taking him.

As the glowing figure in white robes circled a sheltering arm around Richard, closing him off from the world of life, Nicci stepped forward into the light of the torches. Her forehead beaded with sweat as she watched the gossamer glow gently spiral down into the darkness with her charge.

“Safe journey, my friend,” she whispered, “safe journey.”

And then, before the opening had completely closed, before the sparkling white sorcerer’s sand had healed itself over again, a dark form came together in the air above. The thing whirled itself into a tight funnel as it followed them down into darkness.

The beast had been attracted to Richard through the use of his gift, and now it was pursuing him down into its own realm.

CHAPTER 54

Kahlan added another stick to the fire. Sparks swirled up into the late-evening air as if eager to follow after the departing vestiges of red-orange just visible through the bare branches in the western sky. She warmed her hands toward the building flames and then shivered as she rubbed her arms. It was going to be a cold night.

Short on gear, they each had only one blanket. At least she also had her cloak. Lying on the cold ground made for a miserable, sleepless night. Spruce trees were plentiful, though, so she had cut a number of boughs for bedding. Even as thick as the woods were they wouldn’t have offered good protection from any wind, but since the clear night was dead calm at least they wouldn’t need to build a shelter. Kahlan just wanted to have something to eat and then get some sleep.

Before they had built the fire she had taken the opportunity to set a couple of snares, hoping to catch a rabbit, if not to eat that night then maybe in the morning before they started out again. Samuel had collected a good supply of firewood to last the night, then built the fire. After finishing with that he had gone off to a nearby stream down a rocky bank to collect water.

Kahlan was bone-weary as well as hungry. They were nearly out of the food they’d brought from the Imperial Order’s camp—not that they’d stopped all that often to eat, or rest. Unless they caught a rabbit it would be dried biscuits and dried meat again. At least they had that. It wasn’t going to last much longer, though.

Samuel hadn’t wanted to stop to try to see if they could get more food. He seemed in a frantic urgency to get somewhere. They had a few coins they’d found in the bottom of the saddlebags, but rather than venturing into one of the several small towns they had passed near in order to try to get more supplies, Samuel had insisted that they stay well clear of any people.

He was convinced that Imperial Order soldiers would be hunting them. Considering how much Jagang apparently hated her and how keen he was to extract vengeance, Kahlan couldn’t really offer any argument against Samuel’s theory. For all she knew soldiers might be hot on her heels. The thought added an uneasy edge to her chill.

When Kahlan asked Samuel where they were going he was vague about it, simply pointing west-southwest. He assured her, though, that they were going someplace where they would be safe.

He was proving to be a strange traveling companion. He spoke very little when they rode and even less at camp. Whenever they stopped he rarely ventured far from her. She imagined that he simply wanted to protect her, to keep her safe, but she wondered if it was more that he was watching over his prize. While he had come into the Order’s camp to rescue her, he never wanted to talk about his reasons for doing so. One time when she had pressed him he said it had been because he wanted to help her. On the surface it seemed a nice sentiment, yet he never explained how he knew her, or how he knew that she had been held captive.

By the way that he was always glancing at her when he didn’t think she was watching she thought that maybe he was just bashful. If she pressed him about anything he would typically pull his head down between his shoulders and shrug. She sometimes came to feel that she was torturing the poor man with her questions, and so she would stop and let him be. It was only then that he would seem to rela

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Still, all of the unanswered questions gave her pause. Despite everything he had done, and how he helped her at every turn, she didn’t trust him. She didn’t like that he wouldn’t answer such simple questions—such important questions. Having so much of her own life a mystery to her left her rather sensitive to the relevance of unanswered questions.

She knew, too, that Samuel was fascinated by her. He often seemed eager to do things to please her. He would cut pieces of sausage, giving her one slice at a time until she had to stop him, telling him that she’d had enough, and that he should eat, too. At other times, though, like when he was distracted by his own hunger, he would forget to offer her anything until she asked.

Sometimes she would glance over and see him staring at her with those strange golden eyes. In those moments, she thought that she saw the cunning countenance of a thief. She tried to keep a hand on the handle of her knife when she went to sleep.

At other times, when she would try to ask questions, he seemed too shy even to look her in the eye, much less answer her, and would hunch back toward the fire as if hoping he could be invisible. Most of the time she had trouble getting more than a yes or no out of him. His reticence never seemed to be out of cruelty, arrogance, or indifference, though. In the end, since it was so difficult getting him to talk and the answers she did get were virtually useless, she had stopped trying.

He was either painfully shy, or he was hiding something.

In those long periods of silence, Kahlan’s mind would turn to thoughts about Richard. She wondered if he was alive or dead. She feared that she knew the answer but was reluctant to accept the finality of his death. She was still astonished recalling the sight of him using weapons, the way his blade moved, the way he moved. He had done so much to help her escape. She feared that he had paid the ultimate price for it.

In the still air, thinking about Richard, Kahlan felt a chill that was not from the cold. It was a strange night. Something about it felt out-of-sorts and empty. The world felt like an even more lonely place than usual.