Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth 3 - Blood of the Fold

TERRY GOODKIND

THE SWORD OF TRUTH BOOK 3

BLOOD OF THE FOLD

To Ann Hansen, the light in the darkness

Many thanks, as ever, to my editor, James Frenkel, for the adept way he keeps

raising the bar; to my British editor, Caroline Oakiey, and the good people at

Orion for their devotion to excellence; to James Minz for the great line; to

Linda Quinlon and the sales and marketing staff for their passion and triumphs;

to Kevin Murphy for the award-winning cover art; to Jeri for her forbearance;

and to Richard and Kahlan, who never fail to keep me inspired.

BLOOD OF THE FOLD

CHAPTER 1

At the exact same instant, the six women suddenly awoke, the lingering sound of

their screams echoing around the cramped officer's cabin. In the darkness,

Sister Ulicia could hear the others gasping to catch their breath. She

swallowed, trying to slow her own panting, and immediately winced at the raw

pain in her throat. She could feel wetness on her eyelids, but her lips were so

dry she had to lick them, for fear they would crack and bleed.

Someone was banging on the door. She was aware of his shouts only as a dull

drone in her head. She didn't bother trying to focus on the words or their

meaning; the man was inconsequential.

Lifting a trembling hand toward the center of the coal black quarters, she

released a flow of her Han, the essence of life and spirit, directing a point of

heat into the oil lamp she knew to be hanging on the low beam. Its wick

obediently sprang to flame, releasing a sinuous line of soot that traced the

lamp's slow, to-and-fro sway as the ship rolled in the sea.

The other women, all of them naked as she was, were sitting up as well, their

eyes fixed on the feeble, yellow glow, as if seeking from it salvation, or

perhaps reassurance that they were still alive and there was light to be seen. A

tear rolled down Ulicia's cheek, too, at the sight of the flame. The blackness

had been suffocating, like a great weight of damp, black earth shoveled over

her.

Her bedding was sodden and cold with sweat, but even without the sweat,

everything was always wet in the salt air, to say nothing of the spray that

sporadically drenched the deck and trickled into everything below. She couldn't

remember what H was like to feel dry clothes or bedding against her. She hated

this ship, its interminable damp, its foul smells, and the constant rolling and

pitching that turned »er stomach. At least she was alive to hate the ship.

Gingerly, she swallowed back the taste of bile.

Ulicia wiped her fingers at the warm wetness over her eyes and held out her

hand; her fingertips glistened with blood. As if emboldened by her example, some

of the others cautiously did the same. Each of them had bloody scratches on

their eyelids, eyebrows, and cheeks from trying desperately, but futilely, to

claw their eyes open, to wake themselves from the snare of sleep, in a vain

attempt to escape the dream that was not a dream.

Ulicia struggled to clear the fog from her mind. It must have been a simple

nightmare.

She forced herself to look away from the flame, at the other women. Sister Tovi

hunched in a lower bunk opposite, the thick rolls of flesh at her sides seeming

to sag in sympathy with the morose expression on her wrinkled face as she

watched

the lamp. Sister Cecilia's habitually tidy, curly gray hair stood out in

disarray, her incessant smile replaced by an ashen mask of fear as she stared up

from the lower bunk next to Tovi. Leaning forward a bit, Ulicia glanced at the

bunk above. Sister Armina, not nearly as old as Tovi or Cecilia, but closer to

Ulicia's age and still attractive, appeared haggard. With shaking fingers, the

usually staid Armina wiped the blood from her eyelids.

Across the confining walkway, in the bunks above Tovi and Cecilia, sat the two

youngest and most self-possessed Sisters. Ragged scratches marred the flawless

skin of Sister Nicci's cheeks. Strands of her blond hair stuck to the tears,

sweat, and blood on her face. Sister Merissa, equally beautiful, clutched a

blanket to her naked breast, not in modesty, but in shuddering dread. Her long,

dark hair was a tangled mat.

The others were older, and adeptly wielded power tempered in the forge of

experience, but both Nicci and Merissa were possessed of rare, innate, dark

talents— a deft touch that no amount of experience could invoke. Astute beyond

their years, neither was beguiled by Cecilia or Tovi's kindly smiles or gentle

affectations. Though young and self-assured, they both knew that Cecilia, Tovi,

Armina, and especially Ulicia herself were capable of taking them both apart,

piece by piece, if they so chose. Still, that did not diminish their mastery; in

their own right, they were two of the most formidable women ever to have drawn

breath. But it was for their singular resolve to prevail that the Keeper had

selected them.

Seeing these women she knew so well in such a state was unnerving, but it was

the sight of Merissa's unbridled terror that really shook Ulicia. She had never

known a Sister as composed, as unemotional, as implacable, as merciless, as

Merissa. Sister Merissa had a heart of black ice.

Ulicia had known Merissa for close to 170 years, and in all that time she could

not recall having ever seen her cry. She was sobbing now.

Sister Ulicia drew strength from seeing the others in a condition of such abject

weakness, and in fact it pleased her; she was their leader, and stronger than

they.

The man was still banging at the door, wanting to know what the trouble was,

what the screaming was all about. She unleashed her anger toward the door.

“Leave us! If you are needed you will be summoned!"

The sailor's muffled curses faded away as he retreated down the passageway. The

only sound, other than the creak of timbers as the ship yawed when struck abeam

by a heavy sea, was the sobbing.

"Stop your sniveling, Merissa," Ulicia snapped.

Merissa's dark eyes, stilt glazed with fear, focused on her. "It's never been

like that before." Tovi and Cecilia nodded their agreement. "I've done his

bidding. Why has he done ihis? I have not failed him."

"Had we failed him," Ulicia said, "we would be there, with Sister Liliana."

Armina started. "You saw her, too? She was—"

"I saw her," Ulicia said, masking her own horror with an even tone.

Sister Nicci drew a twisted skein of sodden blond hair back off her face.

Gathering composure smoothed her voice. "Sister Liliana failed the Master."

Sister Merissa, the glaze in her eyes ebbing, flashed a look of cool disdain.

"She is paying the price of failure." The crisp edge in her own tone thickened

like winter's frost on a window. "Forever." Merissa almost never let emotion

touch

her smooth features, but it touched her face now as her brows drew together in a

murderous scowl, “She countermanded your orders, Sister Ulicia, and the

Keeper's. She ruined our plans. This is her fault."

Liliana had indeed failed the Keeper. They wouldn't all be on this cursed ship

if it weren't for Sister Liliana. Ulicia's face heated at the thought of that

woman's arrogance. Liliana had thought to have the glory to herself. She had

gotten what she deserved. Even so, Ulicia swallowed at the memory of having seen

Liliana's torment, and didn't even notice the pain of her raw throat this time.

"But what of us?" Cecilia asked. Her smile returned, apologetic, rather than

merry. "Must we do as this . . . man says?"

Ulicia wiped a hand across her face. They had no time to hesitate, if this was

real, if what she had seen had really happened. It must be nothing more than a

simple nightmare; no one but the Keeper had ever before come to her in the dream

that was not a dream. Yes, it had to be just a nightmare. Ulicia watched a roach

crawl into the chamber pot. Her gaze suddenly rose.

"This man? You did not see the Keeper? You saw a man?"

Cecilia quailed. "Jagang."

Tovi raised her hand toward her lips to kiss her ring finger—an ancient gesture

beseeching the Creator's protection. It was an old habit, begun the first

morning of a novice's training. Each of them had learned to do it every morning,

without fail, upon arising, and in times of tribulation. Tovi had probably done

it by rote countless thousands of times, as had they all. A Sister of the Light

was symbolically betrothed to the Creator, and His will. Kissing the ring finger

was a ritual renewal of that betrothal.

There was no telling what the act of kissing that finger would do, now, in view

of their betrayal. Superstition had it that it was death for one who had pledged

her soul to the Keeper—a Sister of the Dark—to kiss that finger. While it was

unclear whether it truly would invoke the Creator's wrath, there was no doubt it

would invoke the Keeper's. When her hand was halfway to her lips, Tovi realized

what she was about to do and snatched it away.

"You all saw Jagang?" Ulicia regarded each in turn, and each nodded. A small

name of hope still flickered in her. "So you saw the emperor. That means

nothing." She leaned toward Tovi. "Did you hear him say anything?"

Tovi drew the coverlet up to her chin. "We were all there, as we always are when

the Keeper seeks us. We sat in the semicircle, naked, as we always do. But it

was Jagang who came, not the Master."

A soft sob came from Armina in the bunk above. "Silence!" Ulicia returned her

attention to the shivering Tovi. "But what did he say? What were his words?"

Tovi's gaze sought the floor. "He said our souls were his now. He said we were

his now, and we lived only at his whim. He said we must come to him at once, or

we would envy Sister Liliana's fate." She looked up, into Ulicia's eyes. "He

said we would regret it if we made him wait." Tears flooded her eyes. "And then

he gave me a taste of what it would mean to displease him."

Ulicia's flesh had gone cold, and she realized that she, too, had drawn her

sheet up. She pushed it back into her lap with an effort. "Armina?" Soft

confirmation came from above. "Cecilia?" Cecilia nodded. Ulicia looked to the

two in the upper

bunk opposite. The composure they had worked so hard to bring back seemed to

have settled in. "Well? Did you two hear the same words?"

"Yes," Nicci said.

"The exact same," Merissa said without emotion. "Liliana has brought this upon

us."

"Perhaps the Keeper is displeased with us," Cecilia offered, "and has given us

to the emperor so we may serve him as a way of earning back our place of favor."

Merissa's back stiffened. Her eyes were a window into her frozen heart. "I have

given my soul oath to the Keeper. If we must serve this vulgar beast in order to

return to our Master's graces, then I will serve. I will lick this man's feet,

if I must."

Ulicia remembered Jagang, just before he had departed the semicircle in the

dream that was not a dream, commanding Merissa to stand. He had then casually

reached out, grabbed her right breast in his powerful fingers, and squeezed

until her knees buckled. Ulicia glanced at Merissa's breast, now, and saw lurid

bruises there.

Merissa made no effort to cover herself as her serene expression settled on

Ulicia's eyes. "The emperor said we would regret it, if we made him wait,"

Ulicia, too, had heard the same instructions. Jagang had displayed what bordered

on contempt for the Keeper. How was he able to supplant the Keeper in the dream

that was not a dream? He had—that was all that mattered. It had happened to al!

of them, It had not been a mere dream.

Tingling dread thickened in the pit of her stomach as the small flame of hope

extinguished. She, too, had been given a taste of what disobedience would mean.

The blood that was crusting over her eyes reminded her of how much she had

wanted to escape that lesson. It had been real, and they all knew it, They had

no choice. There wasn't a moment to lose. A cold bead of sweat trickled down

between her breasts. If they were late . . .

Ulicia bounded out of bed.

"Turn his ship around!" she shrieked as she flung open the door. "Turn it around

at once!"

No one was in the passageway. She sprang up the companionway, screaming as she

went. The others raced after her, pounding on cabin doors as they followed.

Ulicia didn't bother with the doors; it was the helmsman who pointed the ship

where it was going and commanded the deckhands to the sails.

Ulicia heaved open the hatch door to be greeted by murky light; dawn was not yet

upon them. Leaden clouds seethed above the dark cauldron of the sea. Luminous

foam frothed just beyond the rail as the ship slid down a towering wave, making

it seem they were plunging into an inky chasm. The other Sisters poured from the

hatchway behind her out onto the spray-swept deck.

"Turn this ship around!" she screamed to the barefoot sailors who turned in mule

surprise.

Ulicia growled a curse and raced aft, toward the tiller. The five Sisters

followed on her heels as she dashed across the pitching deck. Hands gripping the

lapels of his coat, the helmsman stretched his neck to see what the trouble was.

Lantern light came through the opening at his feet, showing the faces of the

four men manning

rhe tiller. Sailors gathered near the bearded helmsman, and stood gawking at the

six women.

Ulicia gulped air trying to catch her breath. "What's the matter with you slack-

jawed idiots? Didn't you hear me? I said to turn this ship around!"

Suddenly, she fathomed the reason for the stares: the six of them were naked.

Merissa stepped up beside her, standing tall and aloof, as if she were dressed

in a gown that covered her from neck to deck.

One of the leering deckhands spoke as his gaze played over the younger woman.

"Well, well. Looks like the ladies have come out to play."

Cool and unattainable, Merissa regarded his lecherous grin with unruffled

authority. "What's mine is mine, and not anyone else's, even to look upon,

unless I decide it is so. Remove your eyes from my flesh at once, or have them

removed."

Had the man the gift, and Ulicia's mastery of it, he would have been able to

sense the air about Merissa cracking ominously with power. These men knew them

only as wealthy nobility wanting passage to strange and distant places; they

didn't know who, or what, the six women really were. Captain Blake knew them as

Sisters of the Light, but Ulicia had ordered him to keep that knowledge from his

men.

The man mocked Merissa with a lecherous expression and obscene thrusts of his

hips. "Don't be standoffish, lass. You wouldn't of come out here like that

unless you had in mind the same as us."

The air sizzled around Merissa. Blood blossomed at the crotch of the man's

trousers. He squealed as he looked up with eyes gone wild. Lightning glinted off

the long knife at his belt as he yanked it free. Yelling an oath of retribution,

he staggered ahead with lethal intent.

A distant smile touched Merissa's full lips. "You filthy scum," she murmured to

herself. "I deliver you into the cold embrace of my Master."

His flesh burst apart as if he were a rotten melon whacked with a stick. A

concussion of air driven by the power of the gift slammed him over the rail. A

bloody trail traced his course across the planks. With scarcely a splash, the

black water swallowed the body. The other men, near to a dozen, stood wide-eyed

and still as statues.

"You will all keep your eyes on our faces," Merissa hissed, “and off everything

else."

The men nodded, too appalled to voice their consent. One man's gaze

involuntarily nicked down at her body, as if her speaking aloud what was

forbidden to look upon had made the impulse to view it impossible to control. In

ragged terror, he began to apologize, but a focused line of power as sharp as a

battle axe sliced across his eyes. He tumbled out over the rail as had the

first.

'Merissa," Ulicia said softly, "that will be quite enough. I think they've

learned their lesson."

Eyes of ice, distant behind the haze of Han, turned to her. “I will not have

their eyes taking what does not belong to them."

Ulicia lifted an eyebrow. "We need them to get back. You do remember our

urgency, don't you?"

Merissa glanced at the men, as if surveying bugs beneath her boots. “Of course,

Sister. We must return at once."

Ulicia turned to see that Captain Blake had just arrived and was standing behind

them, his mouth agape.

"Turn this ship around, Captain," Ulicia said. "At once."

His tongue darted out to wet his lips as his gaze skipped among the women's

eyes. "Now you're wanting to go back? Why?"

Ulicia lifted a finger in his direction. "You were paid well, Captain, to take

us where we want to go, when we want to go. I told you before that questions

were not part of the bargain, and I also promised you that I would separate you

from your hide if you violated any part of that bargain. If you test me you will

find that I am not nearly as indulgent as Merissa here; I don't grant a quick

death. Now, turn this ship around!"

Captain Blake leaped into action. He straightened his coat and glared at his

men. "Back to it, you sluggards!" He gestured to the helmsman. "Mister Dempsey,

bring 'er about." The man seemed to be still frozen in shock. "Right bloody now,

Mister Dempsey!"

Snatching his scruffy hat from his head, Captain Blake bowed to Ulicia, careful

not to let his gaze stray from her eyes. "As you wish, Sister. Back around the

great barrier, to the Old World."

"Set a direct course, Captain. Time is of the essence."

He squashed his hat in a fist. "Direct course! We can't be sailing through the

great barrier!" He immediately softened his tone. "It's not possible. We'll all

be killed."

Ulicia pressed a hand over the burning pang in her stomach. "The great barrier

is down, Captain. It is no longer a hindrance to us. Set a direct course."

He rung his hat. "The great barrier is down? That's impossible. What makes you

think ..."

She leaned toward him. "Again, you would question me?"

"No, Sister. No, course not. If you say the barrier is down, then it is. Though

I don't understand how what cannot happen has happened, I know it's not my place

to question. A direct course it is." He wiped his hat across his mouth.

"Merciful Creator protect us," he muttered, turning to the helmsman, anxious to

retreat from her glare. "Hard a-starboard, Mister Dempsey!"

The man glanced down at the men on the tiller. "We're already hard a-starboard,

Captain."

"Don't argue with me or I'll let you swim back!"

"Aye, Captain. Get to the lines!" he shouted at men already slipping some lines

and hauling in on others, "Prepare to come about!"

Ulicia surveyed the men glancing nervously over their shoulders. "Sisters of the

Light have eyes in the backs of their heads, gentlemen. See that yours look

nowhere else, or it will be the last thing you see in this life." Men nodded

before bending to their tasks.

Back in their crowded cabin, Tovi wrapped her shivering bulk in her coverlet.

"It's been quite a while since I had strapping young men leering at me." She

glanced to Nicci and Merissa. "Enjoy the admiration while you're still worthy of

it."

Merissa pulled her shift from the chest at the end of the cabin. "It wasn't you

they were leering at."

A motherly smile wrinkled Cecilia's face. "We know that, Sister. I think what

Sister Tovi means is that now that we're away from the spell of the Palace of

the prophets, we will age like everyone else. You won't have the years to enjoy

your looks that we've had."

Merissa straightened. "When we earn back our place of honor with the Master, I

will be able to keep what I have."

Tovi stared off with a rare, dangerous look. "And I want back what I once had."

Armina slumped down on a bunk. "This is Liliana's fault. If not for her, we

wouldn't have had to leave the palace and its spell. If not for her, the Keeper

wouldn't have given Jagang dominion over us. We wouldn't have lost the Master's

favor."

They were all silent for a moment. Squeezing around and past one another, they

all went about pulling on their undergarments, while trying to avoid elbows.

Merissa drew her shift over her head. "I intend to do whatever is necessary to

serve, and regain the Master's favor. I intend to have my reward for my oath."

She glanced to Tovi. "I intend to remain young."

"We all want the same thing, Sister," Cecilia said as she stuffed her arms

through the sleeves of her simple, brown kittle. "But the Keeper wishes us to

serve this man, Jagang, for now." "Does he?" Ulicia asked.

Merissa squatted as she sorted through the clothes in the chest, and pulled out

her crimson dress. "Why else would we have been given to this man?"

Ulicia lifted an eyebrow. "Given? You think so? I think it's more than that; I

think Emperor Jagang is acting of his own volition."

The others halted at their dressing and looked up. "You think he could defy the

Keeper?" Nicci asked. "For his own ambitions?"

With a finger, Ulicia tapped the side of Nicci's head. "Think. The Keeper failed

to come to us in the dream that is not a dream; that has never happened before.

Ever. Instead comes Jagang. Even if the Keeper were displeased with us, and

wanted us to serve penance under Jagang, don't you suppose he would have come to

us himself and ordered it, to show us his displeasure? I don't think this is the

Keeper's

doing. I think it is Jagang's."

Armina snatched up her blue dress. It was a shade lighter that Ulicia's, but no

l*ss elaborate. "It is still Liliana who has brought this upon us!"

A small smile touched Ulicia's lips. "Has she? Liliana was greedy, I think the

Keeper thought to use that greed, but she failed him." The smile vanished. "It

is not Sister Liliana who brought this upon us."

Nicci's hand paused as she drew the cord tight at the bodice of her black dress.

"Of course. The boy."

" Boy?" Ulicia slowly shook her head. "No 'boy' could have brought down the

barrier. No mere boy could have brought to ruin the plans we have worked so hard

for all these years. We all know what he is, about the prophecies." Ulicia

looked at each Sister in turn. "We are in a very dangerous position. We must

work to gain back the Keeper's power in this world, or else when Jagang is

finished with us he will kill us, and we will find ourselves in the underworld,

and no longer of use to the Master. If that happens, then the Keeper surely will

be displeased, and he will make what Jagang showed us seem a lover's embrace."

The ship creaked and groaned as they all considered her words. They were racing

back to serve a man who would use them, and then discard them without a thought,

much less a reward, yet none of them were prepared to even consider defying him.

"Boy or not, he has caused all this." The muscles in Merissa's jaw tightened.

"And to think, I had him in my grasp, we all did. We should have taken him when

we had the chance."

"Liliana, too, thought to take him, to have his power for herself," Ulicia said,

"but she was reckless and ended up with that cursed sword of his through her

heart. We must be smarter than she; then we will have his power, and the Keeper

his soul."

Armina wiped a tear from her lower eyelid. "But in the meantime, there must be

some way we can avoid having to return—"

"And how long do you think we could remain awake?" Ulicia snapped. "Sooner or

later we would fall asleep. Then what? Jagang has already shown us he has the

power to reach out to us, wherever we are."

Merissa returned to fastening the buttons at the bodice of her crimson dress.

"We,will do what we must, for now, but that does not mean we can't use our

heads."

Ulicia's brows drew together in thought. She looked up with a wry smile.

''Emperor Jagang may believe he has us where he wants us, but we've lived a long

time. Perhaps, if we use our heads, and our experience, we will not be quite as

cowed as he thinks?"

Malevolence gleamed in Tovi's eyes. "Yes," she hissed, "we have indeed lived a

long time, and we've learned to bring a few wild boars to ground, and gut them

while they squeal."

Nicci smoothed the gathers in the skirt of her black dress. "Gutting pigs is all

well and good, but Emperor Jagang is our plight, and not its cause. Nor is it

advantageous to waste our anger on Liliana; she was simply a greedy fool. It is

the one who truly brought this trouble upon us who must be made to suffer."

"Wisely put, Sister," Ulicia said.

Merissa absently touched her breast where it was bruised. "I will bathe in that

young man's blood." Her eyes went out of focus, opening again the window to her

black heart. "While he watches."

Ulicia's fists tightened as she nodded in agreement. "It is he, the Seeker, who

has brought this upon us. I vow he will pay with his gift, his life, and his

soul."

CHAPTER 2

Richard had just taken a spoonful of hot spice soup when he heard the deep,

menacing growl. He frowned over at Gratch. The gar's hooded eyes glowed, lit

from within by cold green fire as he glared toward the gloom among the columns

at the base of the expansive steps. His leathery lips drew back in a snarl,

exposing prodigious fangs. Richard realized he still had a mouthful of soup, and

swallowed.

Gratch's guttural growl grew, deep in his throat, sounding like a moldy old

castle's massive dungeon door being opened for the first time in a hundred

years.

Richard glanced to Mistress Sanderholt's wide, brown eyes. Mistress Sanderholt,

the head cook at the Confessors' Palace, was still uneasy about Gratch, and not

entirely confident in Richard's assurances that the gar was harmless. The

ominous growl wasn't helping.

She had brought Richard out a loaf of freshly baked bread and a bowl of savory

spice soup, intending to sit on the steps with him and talk about Kahlan, only

to discover that the gar had arrived a short time before. Despite her

trepidation over the gar, Richard had managed to convince her to join him on the

steps.

Grateh had been keenly interested at the mention of Kahlan's name; he had a lock

of her hair that Richard had given him hanging on a thong around his neck, along

with the dragon's tooth. Richard had told Grateh that he and Kahlan were in

love, and she wanted to be Gratch's friend, just as Richard was, and so the

inquisitive gar had sat down to listen, but just as Richard had tasted the soup,

and before Mistress Sanderholt had been able to begin, Gratch's mood had

suddenly changed. He looked savagely intent, now, on something that Richard

couldn't see. "Why is he doing that?" Mistress Sanderholt whispered.

"I'm not sure," Richard admitted. He brightened his smile and shrugged offhand-

edly when the creases in her brow deepened. “He must just see a rabbit or

something. Gars have exceptional eyesight, even in the dark, and they're

excellent hunters."

Her concerned expression didn't ease, so he went on. "He doesn't eat people. He

Would never hurt anyone," he reassured her. "It's all right, Mistress

Sanderholt, really, it is."

Richard glanced up at the sinister-looking, snarling face. "Grateh," he

whispered out of the side of his mouth, "stop growling. You're scaring her."

'Richard," she said as she leaned closer, "gars are dangerous beasts. They are

notpets. Gars can't be trusted."

"Gratch isn't a pet, he's my friend. I've know him since he was a pup, since he

was half my size. He's as gentle as a kitten."

An unconvincing smile twitched onto Mistress Sanderholt's face. "If you say

so, Richard." Dismay suddenly widened her eyes, "He doesn't understand anything

I'm saying, does he?"

"It's hard to tell," Richard confided. "Sometimes he understands more than I

think possible."

Gratch appeared oblivious of them as they talked. He was frozen in

concentration, seeming to have either the scent or the sight of something he

didn't like. Richard thought he had seen Gratch growling like that one time

before, but he couldn't place where or when. He tried to recall the occasion,

but the mental image kept slipping away, just out of grasp. The harder he tried,

the more elusive the shadowy memory became,

"Gratch?" He clutched the gar's powerful arm. "Gratch, what is it?"

Stone still, Gratch didn't react to the touch. As he had grown, the glow in his

green eyes had intensified, but never before to this ferocity. They were glowing

brightly.

Richard scanned the shadows below, where those green eyes were fixed, but saw

nothing out of the ordinary. There were no people among the columns, or along

the wall of the palace grounds. It must be a rabbit, he decided at last; Gratch

loved rabbit.

Dawn was just beginning to reveal wisps of purple and pink clouds above the

brightening horizon, leaving but a few of the brightest stars to glimmer in the

western sky. With the faint first light came a gentle breeze, unusually warm for

winter, that ruffled the fur of the huge beast and billowed open Richard's black

mriswith cape.

When he had been in the Old World with the Sisters of the Light, Richard had

gone into the Hagen Woods, where lurked the mriswith—vile creatures looking like

men half melted into a reptilian nightmare. After he had fought and killed one

of the mriswith, he had discovered the astonishing thing its cape could do; it

had the ability to blend with its background so perfectly, so flawlessly, that

it made the mriswith, or Richard when he concentrated while wearing the cape,

seem invisible. It also prevented anyone with the gift from sensing them, or

him. For some reason, though, Richard's own gift allowed him to sense the

presence of the mriswith. That ability—to sense the danger despite its cloak of

magic—had saved his life.

Richard found it difficult to focus on Gratch's growling at rabbits in the

shadows. The anguish, the numb misery, of believing that his beloved, Kahlan,

had been executed, had evaporated in a heart-pound ing instant the day before

when he had discovered she was alive. He felt blind joy that she was safe, and

exultant at having spent the night alone with her in a strange place between

worlds. His mind was in song this beautiful morning, and he found himself

smiling without even realizing it. Not even Gratch's annoying fixation with a

rabbit could dampen his mood.

Richard did find the guttural sound distracting, though, and obviously Mistress

Sanderholt found it alarming; she sat woodenly on the edge of a step beside him,

clutching her wool shawl tight. "Quiet, Gratch. You just had a whole leg of

mutton and half a loaf of bread. You couldn't be that hungry already."

Although Gratch's attention remained riveted, his growling lessened to a

rumbling deep in his throat, as if he was absently trying to comply.

Richard directed a brief glance once more toward the city. His plan had been to

find a horse and hurry on his way to catch up with Kahlan and his grandfather

and old friend, Zedd, Besides being impatient to see Kahlan, he dearly missed

Zedd; it had been three months since he had seen him, but it seemed years. Zedd

was a wizard of the First Order, and there was much that Richard, in light of

his discoveries about himself, needed to talk to him about, but then Mistress

Sanderholt had brought out the soup and freshly baked bread. Good mood or not,

he had been famished,

Richard glanced back, past the white elegance of the Confessors' Palace, up at

the immense, imposing Wizard's Keep embedded in the steep mountainside, its

soaring walls of dark stone, its ramparts, bastions, towers, connecting

passageways, and bridges, all looking like a sinister encrustation growing from

the stone, somehow looking alive, as if it were peering down at him from above.

A wide ribbon of road wound its way up from the city toward the dark walls,

crossing a bridge that looked thin and delicate, but only because of the

distance, before passing under a spiked dropgate and being swallowed into the

dark maw of the Keep. There had to be thousands of rooms in the Keep, if there

was one. Richard snugged his cape closer under the cold, stony gaze of that

place, and looked away. . This was the palace, the city, where Kahlan had grown

up, where she had lived most of her life until the previous summer when she had

crossed the boundary to Westland in search of Zedd, and had come across Richard,

too.

The Wizard's Keep was where Zedd had grown up and lived prior to leaving the

Midlands, before Richard was born. Kahlan had told him stories about how she had

spent much of her time in the Keep, studying, but she had never made the place

sound in the least bit sinister. Hard against the mountain, the Keep looked

baleful to him now.

Richard's smile returned at the thought of how Kahlan must have looked when she

was a little girl, a Confessor in training, strolling the halls of this palace,

walking the corridors of the Keep, among wizards, and out among the people of

this city.

But Aydindril had fallen under the blight of the Imperial Order, and was no

longer a free city, no longer the seat of power in the Midlands.

Zedd had produced one of his wizard's tricks—magic—to make everyone think they

had witnessed Kahlan's beheading, allowing them to flee Aydindril, while

everyone here thought she was dead. No one would chase after them now. Mistress

Sanderholt had known Kahlan since she was born, and was delirious with relief

when Richard told her that Kahlan was safe and well.

The smile touched his lips again. "What was Kahlan like when she was little?"

She stared off, a smile on her lips as well. "She was always serious, but as

precious a child as I've ever seen, who grew to be a stalwart and beautiful

woman. She was a child not only touched by magic, but also of a special

character.

"None of the Confessors were surprised by her accession to Mother Confessor, and

all were pleased because her way was to facilitate agreement, not to dominate,

though if someone wrongly opposed her they'd find her cast with as much iron as

any Mother Confessor ever born. I've never known a Confessor with her passion

for the people of the Midlands. I've always felt honored to know her." Drifting

into memories, she laughed faintly, a sound not nearly as frail as the rest of

her appeared. "Even one time when I swatted her bottom after I discovered she

had made off with a just roasted duck without asking."

Richard grinned at the prospect of hearing a story about Kahlan misbehaving.

"Punishing a Confessor, even a young one, didn't give you pause?"

"No," she scoffed. "Had I pampered her, her mother would have turned me out. We

were expected to treat her respectfully, but fairly."

"Did she cry?" he asked, before he took a big bite of bread. It was delicious,

coarse ground wheat with a hint of molasses.

"No. She looked surprised. She believed she had done no wrong, and started

explaining. Apparently a woman with two young ones almost Kahlan's age had been

waiting outside the palace for someone she thought would be gullible. As Kahlan

started for the Wizard's Keep, the woman approached her with a sad story,

telling her that she needed gold to feed her youngsters. Kahlan told her to

wait, and then took her my roasted duck, reasoning that it was food the woman

needed, not gold. Kahlan sat the children down—" With a bandaged hand, she

pointed off to her left. "—around that side over there, and fed them the duck.

The woman was furious, and started yelling, accusing Kahlan of being selfish

with all the palace's gold.

"As Kahlan was telling me this story, a patrol of the Home Guard came into the

kitchen dragging the woman and her two young ones along. Apparently, as the

woman had been railing at Kahlan the Guard had come upon the scene. About this

time Kahlan's mother showed up in the kitchen wanting to know what the trouble

was. Kahlan told her story, and the woman fell to pieces at being in the custody

of the Home Guard, and worse, at finding herself before the Mother Confessor

herself.

"Kahlan's mother listened to her story, and to the woman's, and then told Kahlan

that if you chose to help someone then they became your responsibility, and it

was your duty to see the help through until they were back on their own feet.

Kahlan spent the next day on Kings Row, with the Home Guard dragging the woman

behind, going from one palace to another, looking for one that was in need of

help. She wasn't having much luck; they all knew the woman was a sot.

"I felt guilty about giving Kahlan a swat before at least hearing her reasons

for taking my roasted duck. I had a friend, a stern woman in charge of the cooks

at one of the palaces, and so I rushed over and convinced her to accept the

woman into her employ when Kahlan brought her around. I never told Kahlan what

I'd done. The woman worked there a long time, but she never again came near the

Confessors' Palace. Her youngest grew up to join the Home Guard. Last summer he

was wounded when the D'Harans captured Aydindril, and died a week later."

Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth 3 - Blood of the Fold

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