Kahlan grabbed the reins of her horse and Richard’s, pulling them forward. “Zedd and Chase can protect the box, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not! I’m going alone. I have the sword to protect me. The box is all that matters, it is our first responsibility. We must protect it above all else. Just tell me where the caves are, and how to fix the spell. When I’m finished, I’ll catch up with you.”
“Richard, I think…”
“No! This is about stopping Darken Rahl, not about any one of us. This is not a request, it’s an order!”
They straightened, Zedd turning to Kahlan. “Tell him where the caves are.”
Kahlan angrily handed the reins of her horse to Zedd and snatched up a stick. She drew a map in the dirt of the road, pulling the stick along one of the lines she had drawn. “This is the Callisidrin, and here, the bridge. This is the road, and here, Tamarang and the castle.” She drew the line of a road to the north of the city. “Here, in these hills northeast of the city, there is a stream that runs between twin hills. They’re about a mile south of a small bridge that crosses the stream. The twin hills have cliffs on the sides toward the stream. The sacred caves are in the cliff on the northeast side of the stream. That is where the artist draws his spells.”
Zedd took the stick from her and broke off two finger-length pieces. He rolled one between his palms. “Here. This will erase the curse. Without seeing it, I can’t tell you what part you must erase, but you should be able to figure it out. It’s a drawing and you will be able to make some sense of it. That is the whole purpose of a drawn spell; you must be able to make sense of it, or it won’t work.”
The stick Zedd had rolled in his palms no longer felt like wood. It felt soft and tacky. Richard put it in his pocket. Zedd rolled the other piece in his palms. He handed it to Richard, it too no longer a stick. This time it was black, almost like charcoal, but hard.
“With this,” the wizard said, “you can draw on the spell, and change it if you have to.”
“Change it how?”
“I can’t tell you without seeing it. You’ll have to use your own judgment. Now, hurry. But I still think we should…”
“No, Zedd. We all know what Darken Rahl is capable of. The box is all that is important, not any one of us.” He shared a deep look with his old friend. “Take care of yourself. And Kahlan.” He looked up to Chase. “Get them to Michael. Michael will be able to protect the box better than we can alone. And don’t hold back, waiting for me. I’ll catch up.” Richard gave him a hard stare. “If I don’t, I don’t want any of you coming back for me. You just get the box away from here. Understand?”
Chase gave him a serious look. “On my life.” He gave Richard brief instructions to find the Westland army, up in the Rang’Shada.
Richard looked to Kahlan. “Take care of Siddin. Don’t worry, I’ll be back with you soon enough. Now get going.”
Zedd mounted his horse. Kahlan handed Siddin over to the wizard. She gave Chase and Zedd a nod. “Go on, get started. I will catch up in a few minutes.”
Zedd started to protest, but she cut him off and told him again to start ahead. She watched the two horses and the wolf gallop across the bridge and down the road before she turned back to Richard.
Concern cut deeply into her features. “Richard, please, let me…”
“No.”
She nodded and handed him the reins to his horse. Tears were filling her green eyes. “There are dangers in the Midlands you know nothing about. Be careful.” A tear ran down her cheek.
“I’ll be back with you before you have time to miss me.”
“I’m afraid for you.”
“I know. But I’ll be all right.”
She looked up at him with eyes he could lose himself in. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.
Kahlan threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard, fast, desperate.
For a moment as he reached his arms around her and pulled her tight against him, the touch of her lips on his, the little moan that came from her, and the feeling of her fingers through the back of his hair made him forget his own name.
He was in a daze as he watched her put a boot in the stirrup and throw her other leg over the saddle. She pulled the reins, bringing her horse around close to him.
“Don’t you dare do anything stupid, Richard Cypher. Promise me.”
“I promise.” He didn’t tell her that he thought letting harm reach her was what he considered stupid above all else. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back with you just as soon as I get rid of this spell. Protect the box. Rahl must not get it. That’s what matters. Now, get going.”
He stood holding the reins of his horse, watching her gallop across the bridge and disappear into the distance.
“I love you, Kahlan Amnell,” he whispered.
With an encouraging pat to the splotch of gray on the roan’s neck, Richard headed the big horse off the road after crossing the small bridge, and spurred it along the bank of the stream. The horse ran with ease, splashing its hooves in the shallow water when the brush blocked the way along the bank. Sunlit hills, mostly barren of trees, rose up around the stream. As the banks became steeper, he led the horse up along the higher ground, where it could make easier progress. Richard kept a watch for anyone following, or observing, but saw no one. The hills seemed deserted.
Chalk white cliffs rose up to either side of the stream, cleft faces on identical hills straddling the water. Richard was off the horse before it stopped. Looking about, he tethered it to a sumac whose red fruit were already dried and shriveled.
His boots slid on the loose ground as he descended the steep bank. There was a narrow foot trail through the slide of rock and dirt. Following it brought him to the tall mouth of a cave.
With a hand on the hilt of the sword, he peeked around the opening, checking for the artist, or anyone else. There was no one. Immediately inside the cave were drawings on the walls. They covered every surface, and continued back into the darkness.
Richard was overwhelmed. There were hundreds of drawings, maybe thousands. Some were little, no bigger than his hand; some were larger, tall as he. Each depicted a different scene. Most had only one person in them, but a few had many people. It was obvious that they had been drawn by different hands. Some were delicately rendered, rich in detail, with shading and highlights, depicting people with broken limbs, or drinking from cups with skulls and crossed bones on them, or standing next to fields of withered crops. Others were done by someone with little talent for the task: their figures were drawings of people made of simple lines. But the scenes in these were similarly gruesome. Richard guessed that the talent of the artist was of little importance; it was the message that counted.
Richard found drawings done by different hands but of the same subject. These people might have a map of some sort around them, but around each was a line drawn in a circle, the circle having a skull and crossed bones on it somewhere.
Keeper spells.
But how was he to find his? There were drawings everywhere. He didn’t know what the drawing of his spell looked like. He searched the walls with growing panic, moving deeper into the darkness. He ran his hands over the pictures as he moved, trying to look at each, so as not to miss his. His eyes darted everywhere, overwhelmed by the number of spells, searching for something familiar, not knowing exactly what to look for, or where.
Richard worked his way back into the darkness, reasoning that maybe there was an end to the drawings, and maybe the latest were at the end. It was too dark to see. He went toward the mouth of the cave to retrieve reed cane torches he had seen there.
Before he had gone far, he ran smack into the invisible wall. With rising panic, he realized that he was trapped in the cave. He was running out of time. The torches were out of reach.
He ran back into the darkness, searching. He had trouble seeing the spells, and still there was no end to them. A thought he definitely didn’t like came to him.
If there be need enough. The night stone.
With no time to lose, he pulled the leather pouch from his pack. He looked at it in his hand, trying to decide if this would be a help, or simply more trouble. Trouble he couldn’t handle. He thought about the times he had seen the stone out of the pouch. Each time, it had taken a while for the shadow things to come. Maybe if he just pulled it out for a short time, had a look into the darkness, and then put the stone back, he would have the time he needed before the shadows found him. He didn’t know if it was a good idea.
If there be need enough.
He dumped the stone into his hand. Light filled the cave. Richard wasted no
time looking at individual drawings, but instead quickly went deeper, looking for where they ended. From the corner of his eye, he saw the first shadow materialize. It was still a ways off. He kept going.
At last, he came to the end of the drawings. The shadows were almost upon him. He thrust the stone back in the leather pouch. In the darkness, he held his breath, eyes wide, expecting the painful touch of death. It didn’t come. The only light was a dim glow with a bright spot in the center, the entrance, but it didn’t provide enough light to see the drawings. He knew he would have to take out the stone again.
First, with his fingers, he searched through his pocket, and found the soft, tacky piece of stick Zedd had given him. With it firmly in hand, he pulled the stone out again. The light blinded him for a second. His head swiveled around, looking.
Then he saw it. The man in the drawing was as tall as he, but the rest of the drawing was larger still. It was crude, but he knew it was him. The sword held in the right hand had the word
Truth
written on it. There was a map around the figure, similar to the one Kahlan had drawn on the ground. On one side, the line around the outside edges went down the Callisidrin and across the center of the bridge. That was where he had run into it.
The shadows called his name. He looked up to see hands reaching for him. He thrust the stone into the pouch and pressed his back against the wall, over his drawing, listening to his heart pounding in his ears. In dismay, he realized that the drawing was too large for him to erase the entire circle around him. If he only erased part of it, he had no way of knowing where the gap would be, or how to make the gap where he was in the cave.
He backed away, to prepare himself to get a better look the next time he pulled the stone out. He bumped into the invisible wall. His heart felt as if it skipped a beat. The wall was almost around him. He had no time.
He pulled the stone out and immediately started erasing the sword, hoping that would take away his identity, take the spell off him. The lines erased only with great difficulty. He backed away a step, to look, and hit the wall. The shadows reached for him, calling his name seductively.
He dumped the stone back into the pouch and stood in the blackness, breathing hard, near panic at the feeling of being trapped. He knew he couldn’t use the sword to fight the shadow things while he worked on the drawing; he had fought the shadows before and it took everything he had. His mind raced. He couldn’t think of what to do. He had erased the sword, and that didn’t work. The spell must still recognize him. He knew there wasn’t enough time to erase the line all the way around him. His breath came in a desperate pant.
There was flickering light. He spun around. A man holding one of the reed torches came closer, an oily smile on his face. It was James, the artist.
“I thought I might find you here. I came to watch. Anything I can do to help?”
By his laugh, Richard knew James wasn’t about to help him. James also knew that with the wall between them Richard couldn’t use the sword on him. He laughed at Richard’s helplessness.
Richard cast a quick glance sideways. The torch gave enough light for him to see the drawing. The invisible wall pushed at his shoulder, pushed him toward the
wall. A wave of nausea and dizziness went through him at the touch. He was only a step away from the cave wall as it was. In moments, he would be encased, crushed, or poisoned.
Richard spun to the drawing. While he worked with one hand, he searched his pocket with the other. He pulled out the stick Zedd had told him he could use to alter the drawing.
James leaned forward with a chuckle, watching him work.
The chuckle stopped. “What are you doing there?”
Richard didn’t answer as he erased the right hand on the figure.
“Stop that!” James yelled.
Richard ignored him and kept erasing. James threw the torch on the ground and pulled out a drawing stick of his own. The artist started drawing in fast slashing strokes, strands of his greasy hair whipping around as he worked. He was drawing a figure. He was drawing another spell. Richard knew that if James finished first, there would be no second chance.
“Stop that, you fool!” James yelled as he raced to complete his drawing.
The unseen wall pressed up against Richard’s back, forcing him against the wall of the cave. He barely had room to move his arms. James was drawing a sword, starting to write the word
Truth
.
Richard took his drawing stick and, with a line, connected the sides of the wrist on the figure, making a stump. Just like the one James had.
As he finished it, the pressure on his back lifted, and the sick feeling left.
James screamed.
Richard turned to see him writhing on the floor of the cave, folding himself into a ball as he vomited. Richard shuddered and picked up the torch.
The artist’s pleading eyes came up to him. “I… wasn’t going to let it kill you… only trap you….”
“Who had you do this spell on me?”
James gave a wicked little smile. “The Mord-Sith,” he whispered. “You are going to die….”
“What’s a Mord-Sith?”
Richard heard the breath being squeezed from him, bones snapping. James was dead. Richard couldn’t say he was sorry.
Richard didn’t know what a Mord-Sith was, but he didn’t want to wait around to find out. Suddenly he felt alone and vulnerable. Zedd and Kahlan both had warned him that there were many things in the Midlands, many creatures of magic, that were dangerous, that he knew nothing about. He hated the Midlands, the magic. He just wanted to get back to Kahlan.