Wizard's First Rule (104 page)

As Richard and Denna approached him, Denna dropped to her knees, putting her forehead to the ground. Richard had been instructed and did the same as he pushed his sword out of the way.

Together, they chanted. “Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

They chanted only once, then waited, Richard trembling slightly. He remembered that he was never to get near Master Rahl, to stay away from him, but couldn’t remember who told him so, only that it was important. He had to concentrate on Denna’s braid, to control the anger at what Master Rahl had done to her.

“Rise, my children.”

Richard stood with his shoulder close against Mistress Denna while intense blue eyes studied him. That the Master’s face looked kind, intelligent, pleasant, did not calm Richard’s churning fears, and the thoughts that boiled just below the surface of his mind. The blue eyes glided to Denna.

“You look surprisingly well this morning, my pet.”

“Mistress Denna is as good at taking pain as giving it, Master Rahl,” Richard heard himself say.

The blue eyes returned to his. The calmness, the peace, in Rahl’s face made Richard quiver. “My pet has told me you are nothing but trouble. I am pleased to see she has not lied to me. But not pleased to find it true.” He clasped his hands in a relaxed manner. “Well, no matter. How good to meet you at last, Richard Cypher.”

Denna drove the Agiel into his back with a sharp jab to remind him of what it was he was supposed to say. “It is my honor to be here, Master Rahl. I live only to serve. I am humbled in your presence.”

A small smile came to Rahl’s lips. “Yes, I am sure you are.” He studied Richard’s face for an uncomfortable moment. “I have some questions. You are going to give me the answers.”

Richard felt himself shaking slightly. “Yes, Master Rahl.”

“Kneel,” he said softly.

Richard went to his knees with the aid of the Agiel on his shoulder. Denna stepped behind and put a boot to each side of him. She pressed her thighs against his shoulders, bracing against them for leverage as she held his hair in her fist. She pulled his head back a little, making him look up into the Master’s blue eyes. Richard swallowed in terror.

Darken Rahl looked down without emotion. “You have seen the Book of Counted Shadows before?”

Something powerful in the back of his mind told Richard he shouldn’t answer. When he said nothing, Denna tightened her grip on his hair, and pushed the Agiel against the base of his skull.

There was a stunning explosion of pain in his head. Denna’s grip on his hair was all that kept him upright. It was as if she had compressed the pain of an entire training session into that one touch. He couldn’t move, breathe, or even cry out. He was beyond being in pain; the shock took everything from him, and in its place left an all-consuming agony of fire and ice. She took away the Agiel. He didn’t know where he was, who he was, who was holding him, only that this was more pain than he had ever known before, and that there was a man in front of him, dressed in a white robe.

Blue eyes looked down at him. “You have seen the Book of Counted Shadows before?”

“Yes,” he heard himself say.

“Where is it now?”

Richard hesitated. He didn’t know how to answer; he didn’t know what the voice wanted. The pain exploded in his head again. When it stopped, he felt tears running down his cheeks.

“Where is it now?” the voice repeated.

“Please, don’t hurt me anymore,” he cried. “I don’t understand the question.”

“What is there not to understand? Simply tell me where the book is now.”

“The book, or the knowledge of the book?” Richard asked fearfully.

The blue eyes frowned. “The book.”

“I burned it in a fire. Years ago.”

Richard thought the eyes were going to tear him apart. “And where is the knowledge?”

Richard hesitated too long. When he was aware again, Denna yanked his head up to look into the blue eyes again. Richard had never felt so alone, so helpless, so afraid.

“Where is the knowledge that was in the book?”

“In my head. Before I burned the book, I learned the words, the knowledge.”

The man stood staring, unmoving. Richard cried softly.

“Recite the words of the book.”

Richard desperately didn’t want the Agiel in the back of his head again. He shook with the fear of it. “
Verification of the truth of the words of the Book of Counted Shadows, if spoken by another, rather than read by the one who commands the boxes, can only be insured by the use of a Confessor
….”

Confessor.

Kahlan.

The name Kahlan went through Richard’s mind like a bolt of lightning. The power roared to life, blasting away the fog with the burning, white-hot glare of his memories. The door to the locked room in his mind was flung open. It all came back to him, brought back by the power as it rose in him. Richard was one with the power, at the thought of Darken Rahl having Kahlan; hurting her.

Darken Rahl turned to the other men. The one with the black stripe came forward.

“You see, my friend? The fates work for me. She is already on her way here with the Old One. Find her. See to it she is brought to me. Take two quads, but I want her alive, do you understand?” The man gave a nod. “You and your men will have the protection of my spell. The Old One is with her, but he will have no weapon against an underworld spell, if he is even alive by then.” Rahl’s voice became harder. “And Demmin, I don’t care what your men do to her, but she had better be alive when she gets here, and able to use her power.”

A little of the color left the man’s face. “I understand. It will be done as you wish, Lord Rahl.” He bowed deep.

He turned and left after meeting Richard’s eyes and giving a knowing smile.

Darken Rahl returned his blue eyes to Richard. “Continue.”

Richard had gone as far as he was going to go. He remembered everything.

It was time to die.

“I will not. There is nothing you can do to make me tell you. I welcome the pain. I welcome death.”

Before the Agiel could come, Rahl’s eyes snapped up to Denna. Richard felt her fist loosen on his hair. One of the guards marched forward, grabbed her by the throat with his big hand, squeezing, until Richard could hear her struggling to breathe.

Rahl glared at her. “You told me he was broken.”

“He was, Master Rahl.” She struggled to speak as she was being choked. “I swear.”

“I am very disappointed in you, Denna.”

As the man lifted her feet off the ground, Richard could hear her sounds of pain. Again, the power turned white-hot in him. Denna was being hurt. Before anyone knew what was happening, he was on his feet, the power of the magic raging through him.

Richard threw one arm around the man’s thick neck, grasping his opposite shoulder. He grabbed the man’s head with his other arm and in a blink gave a powerful twist. The man’s neck snapped. He went down in a heap.

Richard spun. The other guard was almost on him, his hand reaching out. Richard seized the man’s wrist and used his advancing weight to pull his adversary into the knife. He drove it in up to his fist and gave a mighty pull, cutting all the way up to the man’s heart as his blue eyes went wide in surprise. His insides spilled across the ground when he hit.

Richard stood panting with the power. Everything in his peripheral vision was white. White from the heat of the magic. Denna had her hands to her throat, clutching at the pain.

Darken Rahl stood calmly, licking the tips of his fingers as he watched Richard.

Denna brought on the pain of the magic enough to take Richard to his knees. He folded his arms across his gut.

“Master Rahl,” Denna gasped, “let me take him back for the night. I swear that in the morning, he will answer anything you ask him. If he’s still alive. Allow me to redeem myself.”

“No,” Rahl said, deep in thought, waving his hand a little, “I apologize, my pet. This is not your failing. I had no idea what we were dealing with. Turn off the pain in him.”

Richard recovered and returned to his feet. The fog had cleared from his head. He felt as if he were waking from a dream only to find himself in a nightmare. The rest of him was out of the little locked room in his mind, and he wasn’t putting it away again. He would die with all of his mind, his dignity, intact. He kept the anger choked off, but there was fire in his eyes. Fire in his heart.

“Did the Old One teach you that?” Rahl asked, a curious frown on his face.

“Teach me what?”

“To partition your mind. That was how you kept from being broken.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You put up a partition, to protect the core, sacrificed the rest to what would be done. A Mord-Sith cannot break a partitioned mind. Punish, yes. Break, no.” He turned to Denna. “Once again, I am sorry, my pet. I thought you had failed me. You have not. None but the most talented could have taken him this far. You have done well, but this makes matters altogether different.”

He smiled, licked his fingertips, smoothed them over his eyebrows. “Richard and I are going to have a private conversation now. While he is in this room with me, I wish you to let him speak without the pain of the magic. It interferes with what I may need to do. While he is here, he is to be free of your control. You may return to your quarters. When I am done with him, and if he is still alive, I will send him back to you, as promised.”

Denna bowed deeply. “I live to serve, Master Rahl.”

She turned to Richard, her face crimson, and put a finger under his chin, lifting it a little. “Don’t disappoint me, my love.”

The Seeker smiled. “Never, Mistress Denna.”

He let the anger rage, just to feel it again, as he watched her walk away. Rage at her, and at what had been done to her. Don’t think of the problem, he told himself, think of the solution. Richard turned to face Darken Rahl. The other’s face was calm, showed nothing. Richard made his do the same.

“You know I want to know what the rest of the book says.”

“Kill me.”

Rahl smiled. “So eager to die, are we?”

“Yes. Kill me. Just like you killed my father.”

Darken Rahl frowned, the smile still on his lips. “Your father? I have not killed your father, Richard.”

“George Cypher! You killed him! Don’t try to deny it! You killed him with that knife at your belt!”

Rahl spread his hands in mock innocence. “Oh, I don’t deny killing George Cypher. But I have not killed your father.”

Richard stood caught off guard. “What are you talking about?”

Darken Rahl strolled around him, watching his eyes as Richard tried to follow him by turning his head. “It’s quite good. It really is. The best I have ever seen. Done by the great one himself.”

“What?”

Darken Rahl licked his fingers and stopped in front of him. “The wizard’s web around you. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s wound around you tight as a cocoon. Been there a good long time. It’s quite intricate; I don’t think even I could untangle it.”

“If you are trying to convince me George Cypher is not my father, you have failed. If you are trying to convince me you are mad, you needn’t bother. That much I already know.”

“My dear boy,” Rahl laughed, “I couldn’t care less who you believe your father to be. Nonetheless, there is a wizard’s web hiding the truth from you.”

“Really? I’ll play along. Who’s my father, if it’s not George Cypher?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Rahl shrugged. “The web hides it. But from what I’ve seen, I have my suspicions.” The smile left. “What does the Book of Counted Shadows say?”

Richard shrugged. “That’s your question? You disappoint me.”

“How so?”

“Well, after what was done to your bastard father, I thought sure you’d want to know the old wizard’s name.”

Darken Rahl glared as he slowly licked his fingertips. “What is the old wizard’s name?”

It was Richard’s turn to smile. He spread his arms wide. “Cut me open. It’s written on my guts. You will have to find it there.”

Richard kept the smirk on his face; he knew he was defenseless and was hoping Rahl would be driven to kill him. If he was dead, the book died with him. No box,
no book. Rahl was going to die; Kahlan would be safe then. That was all that mattered.

“In one week, it will be the first day of winter, and I will know the name of the wizard, and have the power to snatch him from wherever he is, and bring his hide to me.”

“In one week, you will be dead. You have only two boxes.”

Darken Rahl licked his fingers again and smoothed them over his lips. “I have two right now, and the third is on its way here, as we speak.”

Richard tried not to believe him, let his face show nothing. “A brave boast. But a lie, nonetheless. In one week, you are going to die.”

Rahl raised his eyebrows. “I speak the truth. You have been betrayed. The same one who has betrayed you to me has also betrayed the box to me. It will be here in a few days.”

“I don’t believe you,” Richard said flatly.

Darken Rahl licked his fingertips and turned, walking around the circle of white sand. “No? Let me show you something.”

Richard followed him to a wedge of white stone upon which sat a flat slab of granite held up by two short fluted pedestals. In the center of the slab sat two of the boxes of Orden. One was ornately jeweled like the one Richard had seen before. The other was as black as the night stone, its surface a void in the light of the room: the box itself, its protective covering removed.

“Two of the boxes of Orden,” Rahl announced, holding his hand out to them. “Why would I want the book? The book would be useless to me without the third box. You had the third box. The one who betrayed you told me so. If the box were not on its way, why would I need the book? I would instead cut you open to get the location of the box.”

Richard shook with anger. “Who betrayed me and the box? Tell me the name.”

“Or what? Or you will cut me open and read the name on my guts? I will not betray the name of one who has helped me. You are not the only one with honor.”