CHAPTER
65
The woman on the bench finally turned, gazing up at Kahlan for a moment before standing. Her gray dress looked far too elegant for the woods. Kahlan saw no home, or building of any sort.
The woman’s piercing sky-blue eyes made her tight thatch of ropy red locks by contrast look all the more red. They were the sort of eyes that could easily be cruel. They were the kind of eyes that had witnessed many terrible things.
Kahlan thought that the oracle might have been rather attractive, had she not painted her lips black.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Kahlan said.
The woman gracefully bowed her head. “Of course. I am honored to have the Mother Confessor herself come to see me. My name is Red.”
“Red,” Kahlan repeated, glancing to the woman’s strange hair, thinking that the name was pretty obvious.
The woman’s black lips widened in a slightly amused smile. “You think I am called Red because of my hair.”
“It had crossed my mind,” Kahlan said.
“Of course it did. But you would be wrong.” The tolerant smile stayed on her face, not touching any other of her smooth features. “I am called Red because there have been times when this pass through the mountains”—she swept an arm out first in the direction Kahlan needed to go and then in the direction from which they had come—“has run red with blood. There have been times when I have turned this pass to a river of blood.” She shrugged. “So, that was how I came to be called Red. The hair came after.” The smile widened. “Because I liked the name.”
“I see,” Kahlan said.
“You needn’t sound so reproachful, Mother Confessor. After all, there have been times when you, too, have turned the countryside red with blood.”
“That’s true,” Kahlan admitted. She sought to clarify the idea with a bit of context. “Sometimes people need killing.”
Red laughed. “Yes, indeed they do.” The laughter died out as she leaned a bit closer, looking hard into Kahlan’s eyes. “I’m glad that you feel that way.”
Kahlan glanced over at Hunter sitting quietly, watching.
She gestured at him. “Do you know that small creature?”
Red didn’t bother looking. “So cute, isn’t he? His mother is a … protector of mine. I would not describe her as cute, though. You would never guess from looking at the little fellow just how big she is, or how ferocious. He is quite the good little boy. I sent him to you.”
Kahlan frowned. “Why?”
“To make sure that you made it here. I put the thorn in his paw so that you two would become friends. Though he is still small, like his mother, he is quite the fierce protector.”
Kahlan was still frowning. “How did you know that he would find me, or that I would find the thorn and take it out? For that matter, how did you know that we would come this way?”
“Oh come now, Mother Confessor, what kind of oracle would I be if I did not see such important events in the flow of time.”
The flow of time … It suddenly came to Kahlan why the clear spring coming up from the boulder and the cathedral of trees looked familiar.
“You’re a witch woman.”
Red smiled indulgently. “Yes. The simple people here have never imagined such a thing. I don’t think they would understand. I give them little bits from the flow of time, such as I did when I told them that all of you would come through their home place. So, they think I am an oracle.”
Kahlan cocked her head. “I’ve had dealings with a witch woman in the past. Do you know Shota?”
Red flicked her hand dismissively. “Never heard of the witch.”
Kahlan glanced around. “So, where are all your snakes?”
Red made a show of visibly shuddering. “Snakes. Horrid creatures. I hate them.”
“Me too,” Kahlan said, feeling just the slightest bit better. Maybe Red was not the trouble Shota had proven herself to be. “Shota is rather fond of snakes.”
“Disgusting,” Red said, shuddering again. “I much prefer worms.”
Kahlan blinked. “Worms?”
Red nodded earnestly. “Much more agreeable creatures than snakes. More obedient and much more useful as well.”
“What good are worms?”
Amused, Red leaned closer. “You’re joking.”
“No, really.”
Red gestured vaguely behind Kahlan, back toward the mounds of skulls. “Well, for one thing, the little ones are good at cleaning up messes.”
Kahlan cocked her head. “The little ones?”
Red straightened. She looked back over her shoulder.
“Worm! Come to me!”
Kahlan had never heard of worms that would come when called. She wondered briefly if Red had all her senses. In a moment, though, she began to feel the ground beneath her feet trembling. And then it shook as if from an earthquake.
Abruptly, not far behind Red, the ground broke open. Dirt flew up and away as something big erupted from under the sod.
Kahlan stared in disbelief. A worm as big around as the trunk of a midsize oak lifted part of itself up and out of the dirt. It stretched its wet head up over Red’s shoulder. There was no face, no eyes, only an enormous round mouth ringed with teeth. The opening of the mouth undulated along with the rest of the distended, banded sections of the never-still, rippling body. The teeth clacked together when the mouth snapped closed and open again.
“Worm eats snakes for the fun of it,” Red said, amused by the startled look on Kahlan’s face.
With that, sh
e bent and snatched a snake up from under the bench. Smiling at Kahlan, she flipped the writhing snake back over her shoulder. The enormous worm snapped it out of midair like a dog snapping up a table scrap tossed its way.
Red waved a hand without looking back, dismissing the thing. The worm’s massive body ripped in muscular waves as it pulled itself back down into the ground. The dirt and sod collapsed in around the hole as it vanished beneath the ground.
“Your little furry friend’s mother is even more formidable,” the witch woman said.
“I can only imagine,” Kahlan said as she glanced over at Hunter. “Red, you obviously went to a lot of trouble getting me to come here.”
“Not a lot of trouble,” Red said with a shrug. “I saw in the flow of time that you would come this way. I didn’t want you to be ripped apart and eaten back there in the chasms, so I sent your little friend to show you the way and keep you alive.”
“Thank you” was all Kahlan could think to say. “But what am I doing here? We need permission to go through here. We need to be on our way. What is it you want from me?”
“Ah,” Red said, “direct and to the point. Well, with the condition you and Lord Rahl are in, I suppose that you have no time to waste, so we had best get right to our business.”
“My business is getting to Saavedra,” Kahlan told the woman. “We’re in a hurry. We don’t want any trouble. We simply need you to give us your permission to go through this pass.”
“Yes,” Red drawled, “but first we have important business.”
Kahlan frowned again. “What business?”
Red’s piercing blue eyes fixed on her. “I need you to kill someone for me.”
CHAPTER
66
“You need me to kill someone?” Kahlan asked. She didn’t see why a witch woman with this much ability and reach couldn’t do her own killing if it was so important. “I’m not an assassin. Not for anyone, including you.”
“Yes, that’s all well and good, but you need to do this killing, so I need to make you understand how important it is so that you will not fail.”