Jebra pressed the fist with the Stone to her cheek. 'Thank you,' she whispered, 'for not accepting it. For understanding.'
Zedd felt a renewed pang of guilt. 'And so this duke had you taken in and used you for his own purposes?'
'Yes. Maybe a dozen years ago. Because I was Lady Ordith's body servant, I was almost always present at any meeting or function. The duke would come to me later and I would tell him what I saw of his adversaries. With my help, he made more of his power and wealth.
'Virtually no one anymore knows of the Stone of a Seer. He disdained people who ignored the old knowledge. He mocked his opponents' ignorance by having me wear the Stone openly.
'He also had me keep an eye to the Lady Ordith. It prevented her from succeeding at making herself a widow. So she now contents herself with being absent from the duke's house whenever she can. She will not be displeased to be rid of me; the duke used his strings of power to keep me employed when the Lady Ordith would have wished it otherwise.'
'Why would she be displeased with your service?' He grinned. 'Are you lazy and rude, as she claims?'
Jebra smiled back, the fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening. 'No. It's the visions. Sometimes when I have them, well, you felt some of the hurt when you healed me, though it is not as bad as that for me, I think. But sometimes the hurt keeps me from her service for a time.'
Zedd rubbed his chin. 'Well, since you are out of employment, you will be a guest here at the People's Palace until you are recovered. I have some little influence around here.' He marveled at the sudden truth of that, and pulled a purse from a pocket in his robes. He gave it a jingle. 'For your expenses, and wage, if I could convince you to take up a new employer.'
She hefted the purse in her palm, testing its weight. 'If this be copper, it is insufficient for any but you.' She smiled and leaned a little closer, her eyes merry and scolding at the same time. 'And if it be silver, it is too much.'
Zedd gave her a grave expression. 'It's gold.' Startled, she blinked. 'But it is not me, mainly, you will be working for.'
She stared at the purse of gold in her hand, then looked back at him. 'Who then?'
'Richard. The new Lord Rahl.'
Jebra paled and shook her head vigorously, her shoulders hunching up. She shoved the purse back in Zedd's hands. 'No.' Even paler, she shook her head again. 'No. I'm sorry. I don't want to work for him. No.'
Zedd frowned. 'He is not an evil person. He's quite kind-hearted, in fact.'
'I know that.'
'You know who he is?'
She looked down at her lap and nodded. 'I know. I saw him yesterday. The first day of winter.'
'And you had a vision when you saw him?'
Her voice was weak and filled with fear. 'Yes.'
'Jebra, tell me what you saw. Every bit of it. Please? It's important.'
She looked up at him from under her eyebrows for a long moment, then back down at her lap as she chewed her lower lip.
'It was at the morning devotion, yesterday. When the bell rang, I went to a square, and he was standing there, looking into the pool. I noticed him because he was wearing the sword of the Seeker. And because he was tall and handsome. And he wasn't kneeling as the others were. He stood there, watching the people gathering, and as I approached, his eyes passed across my sight. Just for an instant. The power coming from him took my breath away.
'A Seer can sense certain kinds of power, like the gift, emanating from a person.' She looked up at Zedd. 'I have seen those with the gift before. I have seen their auras. They have all been like yours; there is a warmth to them, a gentleness. Your aura is beautiful. His was different. It had that, but more, too.'
'Violence,' Zedd said in a soft voice. 'He is the Seeker.'
She nodded. 'It could be. I don't know; I've never seen the like of it before. But I can tell you what it felt like. It felt like having my face pushed into a basin of icy water before I had a chance to get a breath.
'Sometimes I never get a vision from a person. Sometimes I do. I can never tell when it's going to come. Sometimes when a person is in distress, they throw off auras and visions more strongly. He was throwing off auras like lightning in a thunderstorm. He was in great emotional pain. Like an animal in a trap trying to chew its own leg off. He felt the horror of having to betray his friends to save them. I didn't understand that. It didn't make any sense.
There was an image of a woman, a beautiful woman with long hair. Maybe a Confessor, although I don't know how that could be. The aura flamed so strongly with anguish for her that I felt my face, fearing I would find the skin burned. If I hadn't been at devotion, I would have fallen to my knees anyway from the agony of the auras.
'I almost rushed to him, to comfort him, when two Mord-Sith approached, and noticed him standing, and not kneeling. He felt no fear, but he went to his knees anyway, out of resignation to the terrible betrayal he had been forced into. I was relieved when he knelt; I thought that would be the end of it. I was thankful I had seen only auras, for the most part, and not true visions. I didn't want to see any visions from that man.' She stared off, seemingly lost in the memory of it.
'But that wasn't the end of it?'
Her eyes came back to where she was. 'No. I thought the worst of it was over, but what I had seen didn't touch what was to come.'
Jebra dry-washed her hands for a moment. 'We were saying the chant to Father Rahl, and all of a sudden he sprang up He had a smile on his face. He had solved the puzzle that trapped him. The last piece had snapped into place. The woman's face and his love for her filled the aura.'
She shook her head. 'I pity the person who ever puts a finger between those two. They will lose the finger, maybe the hand, and maybe the whole arm before they have the time to think to pull it back.'
'Her name is Kahlan,' Zedd said with a little smile. 'And then what happened?'
Jebra crossed her arms across her abdomen. Then the visions started. I saw him killing a man, but I couldn't tell how. Not with blood, but killing him just the same. And then I saw the man he was going to kill: Darken Rahl. And then I saw that it was his father, but he didn't know it. That was when I knew who he was: the son of Darken Rahl, the soon to be new Master Rahl. The aura was flashing in terrible conflicts. Commoner to king.'
Zedd put a comforting hand to her shoulder. 'Darken Rahl wanted to rule the world with a frightful magic. By stopping him, Richard saved a great many from torture or death. Even though killing is terrible, by doing so he has saved the lives of many more. Surely you would not be frightened of Richard because of that.'
She shook her head. 'No. It was by what came next. The two Mord-Sith stood, because he was going to leave a devotion. One raised her Agiel, threatening him. I was surprised to see he wore one at his neck, red, just like theirs. He held it out in his fist. He told them that if they didn't let him pass, he would kill them. The aura of violence around him took my breath away. He wanted them to try. They sensed it and let him pass.'
'As he turned to leave... that was when I saw the other visions.' She put a hand to her heart as tears ran down her cheeks. 'Zedd... my visions are not always clear. Sometimes. I don't know what they mean. Once I saw a farmer's vision. Birds were pecking at the stomachs of him and his family. I didn't know what it meant. It turned out that a flock of blackbirds came and ate the seed he had just planted. He was able to replant, and guard the field. But he and his family could have starved if he hadn't.'
She wiped her fingers at the tears on her cheeks. 'Sometimes I can't tell what the visions mean, or if they will turn out to be true; not all of that kind do.' She fussed with her hair. 'But sometimes they come to pass exactly as I see them. I can tell when they are true, and will happen without a doubt.'
Zedd patted her shoulder. 'I understand, Jebra. Visions are a form of prophecy, and I know how confusing prophecy can be. What kind of vision did you see from Richard? The confusing kind, or the ones that are clear?'
She shared a deep gaze with his eyes. 'I saw every kind. I saw every kind of vision I have ever had, from the confusing to clear; from the possible to the certain. They came in a rush. They have never done that before. Mostly I only have a single vision, and I either know what it means and that it is true, or I don't understand it and can't tell if it will come to pass. The visions from this man came in a torrent. They rushed past like wind-driven rain. But every one was pain and hurt and danger.
The ones that stood out the hardest, and I knew to be true, were the worst. One was of something around his neck. I couldn't tell what, but it was something that will cause him great pain, and take him from the woman... Kahlan, you said her name was... take him from everyone he loves. Lock him away.'
'Richard was captured by a Mord-Sith, and tortured by her. Perhaps that is what you saw,' Zedd offered.
Jebra shook her head vehemently. 'It wasn't what was: it was what will be. And not the pain of a Mord-Sith. Different. I am sure of it.'
Zedd nodded in thought. 'What else?'
'I saw him in an hourglass. He was on his knees in the bottom half, crying in anguish, the sand falling all around him, but not a grain touching him. The gravestones of all those he loved were in the top half, where he couldn't reach them against the fall of the sand.
'I saw a knife at his heart, a killing knife, held in his own shaking hands. Before I could see what would happen, another vision came - they are not always in order of events. He was in his fine red coat, the one with gold buttons and brocade trim. He was facedown... a knife in his back. He was dead, but at the same time, he wasn't. His own hands reached down to roll him over, but before I saw his dead face, another vision came.
'It was the worst. The strongest.' The tears welled up again, and she began to sob softly. Zedd squeezed her shoulder to encourage her to go on. 'I saw his flesh burning.' She wiped at the tears and rocked back and forth a little as she cried. 'He was screaming. I could even smell the burning skin. Then, whatever was burning him - I couldn't tell what it was - when it pulled back, he was unconscious, and there was a mark upon him. A mark burned into him.'
Zedd worked his tongue in his mouth, trying to wet it. 'Could you see what the mark was?'
'No, not what it looked like. But I knew what it was as surely as I know the sun when I see it. It was the mark of the dead, a mark of the Keeper of the underworld. The Keeper had marked him to be his own.'
Zedd worked to steady his breathing, his trembling hands. 'Were there more visions?'
'Yes, but not as strong and I didn't understand them. They rushed by so fast I couldn't grasp their form, only their pain. Then he was gone.
'While the Mord-Sith were turned, watching him go, I ran back to my room and locked myself in. I lay on the bed for hours, crying uncontrollably with the hurt of what I had seen. The Lady Ordith banged at my door, wanting me, but I called to her that I was sick and she finally went away in a huff. I cried until my insides were jelly. I saw virtue in that man, and I wept in fear of the evil I saw snatching for him.
'Though the visions were all different, they were the same. They all had the same feel: danger. Danger presses in around that man as tightly as water presses around a fish.' She regained some of her composure as Zedd sat silently watching her. That is why I will not work for him. The good spirits protect me, I don't want anything to do with the danger around that man. With the underworld.'
'Maybe you could help him, with your talent, help him to avoid the danger. That is what I was hoping anyway,' Zedd said in a quiet voice.
Jebra dabbed her cheeks dry with the back of her sleeve. 'Not for all the duke's gold and power would I want to be in Lord Rahl's wake. I am no coward, but I am no heroine in a song, and no fool either. I did not wish my guts put back to have them ripped out again, and this time my soul with them.'
Zedd quietly watched her sniffling herself back under control, putting the frightening visions away. She took a deep breath and sighed. Her blue eyes finally looked to his.
'Richard is my grandson,' he said simply.
Her eyes winced shut. 'Oh, good spirits forgive me.' Her hand covered her mouth for a long moment; then her eyes came open, her eyebrows wrinkled together in horror. 'Zedd... I'm so sorry for telling you what I saw. Forgive me. Had I known, I never would have told you.' Her hands trembled. 'Forgive me. Oh please, forgive me.'
The truth is the truth. I am not one who would shut a door in your face for seeing it. Jebra, I am a wizard; I already know of the danger he is in. That is why I asked you to help. The veil to the underworld is torn. That thing that ripped you open escaped into the world of the living through the tear. If the veil tears enough, the Keeper will escape. Richard has done things that the prophecies say mark him as maybe the only one able to close the tear.'
He lifted the purse of gold and slowly settled it in her lap, her eyes following it down. He withdrew his empty hand. Her gaze stayed on the purse as if it were a beast that might bite.
'Would it be very dangerous?' she asked at last in a weak voice.
Zedd smiled when her eyes came up. 'No more dangerous than going for an afternoon stroll in a fortress palace.'
With a reflex jerk, her hand clutched her abdomen where the wound had been. Her eyes rose to look off down the wide, resplendent halls, as if seeking escape, or maybe fearing an attack. Without looking to him she spoke.
'My grandmother was a Seer, and my only guide. She told me once that the visions would bring me a lifetime of hurt, and there was nothing I would ever be able to do to stop them. She said that if ever I was presented with the opportunity to use the visions for good, to take the chance, and it would make up for some of the burden. That was the day she put her Stone in my hand.'
Jebra lifted the purse and set it back in Zedd's lap. 'I will not do it for all the gold in D'Hara. But I will do it for you.'
Zedd smiled and patted her cheek. 'Thank you, child.' He put the gold back in her lap, the coins making a muffled clink. 'You will be needing this. You will have expenses. What is left is yours. That is the way I wish it.'
She nodded resignedly. 'What must I do?'
'Well, first we must both get a good night's sleep. You will need to rest for a few days to regain your strength. And then you have some traveling to do, Lady Bevinvier.' He smiled at the way one of her eyebrows lifted. 'We are both very tired right now. Tomorrow after I have rested, I must be off on important business. Before I leave, I will come to you and we will talk more of this. But starting right now, I would ask you not to wear the Stone where it can be seen. No good can come of declaring your talent to eyes in the shadows.'
'So my new employer shall use me covertly too? Not the most honorable of things.'
'The ones who would recognize you now are not vying for gold. They serve the Keeper. They want much more than gold. If they discover you, you will wish I had not saved you today.'
She winced before finally nodding.
CHAPTER 4
Zedd stood with the aid of a hand to his knee. He helped Jebra up. As he expected, she was unable to stand without leaning heavily on him. She apologized for the burden. He made her smile by telling her he would use any excuse to have his arm around the waist of a pretty maiden.
People were starting to go back to their business, engaged in hushed conversation as their eyes darted about the suddenly not so safe palace. Those hurt had been helped away, and the dead carried off. Maidservants in heavy skirts worked tearfully at the task of cleaning up the blood, sloshing mops in buckets of reddening water. Soldiers of the First File were spread out everywhere. Zedd motioned to Commander Trimack across the hall.
'Anyway, I shall be glad to be away from this place,' Jebra said. 'I have seen auras here that make me sweat in my sleep.'
As the officer started toward them, Zedd asked, 'Do you see anything of this man coming toward us?'
She studied him a moment as he strode toward them, checking the placement of his men. 'A faint aura. Duty.' She frowned as she stared. 'It has always been a burden for him. He is daring to hope that maybe he will now find pride in it. Does that help you any?'
Zedd smiled a little. 'Yes it does. Any visions?'
'No. Just the faint aura.'
The wizard nodded in thought, then brightened. 'By the way, why has a woman as lovely as you not found herself a husband?'
She gave him a sidelong glance. 'Three have asked. As each was on bended knee before me, I saw a vision of them lying with another woman.'
Zedd grinned. 'Did they ask why you said no?'
'I didn't say no. I only slapped them so hard it made their heads ring like a bell.'
Zedd laughed until she was caught up in it. Trimack came at last to a halt before them. Commander General Trimack, may I introduce the Lady Bevinvier.' Trimack gave a smart bow. As are you, as am I, this lady is one who is at the task of keeping harm from getting a glance at Lord Rahl. I would like her to have a heavy guard at all times while she is in the palace. Lord Rahl needs her help, and I don't want her life risked again as it was today.'
'While she is in the palace she will be as safe as a babe in her mother's arms. By my honor.' He turned and gave a coded tap to his shoulder. A good two dozen men of the First File came at a dead run, freezing to a halt at attention, not even breathing hard. 'This is the Lady Bevinvier. Every one of your lives before hers.'
With a sharp snap, every fist came to an armored heart as one. Two of them took Jebra's weight from Zedd. She kept one hand tightly closed around the Stone. The purse of gold bulged in a pocket of her long, green skirt. It was covered most of the way down with dried blood.
Zedd addressed the men holding her up. 'She will need suitable quarters, and meals brought in. Please see to it she is not disturbed by anyone but me.' He looked at her tired blue eyes and gently touched her arm. 'Rest well, child. I will visit you in the morning.'
She smiled weakly. 'Thank you, Zedd.' As the soldiers helped her away, the wizard turned his attention to Trimack. 'There is a woman staying in the palace, a Lady Ordith Condatith de Dackidvich. Lord Rahl is going to have enough trouble without her kind around. I want her out of here before the day is finished. If she refuses to leave, offer her the choice of a carriage or a noose.'
Trimack grinned wickedly. 'I will see to it personally.'
'If there are any others you know of about the palace, who are of her temperament, feel free to make them the same offer. New rule brings change.' Zedd couldn't see auras, but he was sure that if Jebra had been standing there, she would have seen Trimack's brighten.
'Some are uncomfortable with change, Wizard Zorander.' The man had spoken more than his simple words. Are there any above you in command in the palace? Other than Lord Rahl?'
Trimack clasped his hands behind his back as his eyes swept the hall. There is one named Demmin Nass, commander of the quads, who gave orders to all but Darken Rahl.'
Zedd let out a heavy breath at that memory. 'He is dead.'
Trimack nodded with what might have been relief. 'Below the palace, quartered in the chambers of the plateau, there are perhaps thirty thousand men of the army. Their generals outrank me in the field, but in the palace the word of the commander general of the First File is law. Some of them I know will welcome the change. Some will not.'
'Richard is going to have a difficult enough time being the magic against magic - underworld magic - without troubles from steel. You have a free hand, Commander, to do as you see fit to protect him. Err on the side of duty.'
Trimack grunted acknowledgment, then went on. 'The People's Palace, one roof though it may be, is a city. Thousands live here. Merchants and supplies, trains of wagons to lone peddlers, come and go in an endless stream in all directions except to the east, across the Azrith Plains. The roads in are the arteries that feed the heart of D'Hara - the People's Palace.
The inside of the plateau is chambered with twice the number of rooms of the palace above ground. As with any city of this size, the motives of the multitudes coming here are beyond our ability to judge with absolute certainty.
'I will have the great inner doors closed and seal off the palace above ground. It is something that has not been done in a few hundred years, and it will cause worry among the people of D'Hara, but I would risk the worried talk. The only way to the palace itself, if not through the inside entrances, is up the cliff road on the east side. I will keep the bridge up.
That still leaves us with thousands in the palace proper. Any of them could have designs not to our liking. Worse, there are thousands of battle-tested soldiers in the belly of the palace, many led by men I would not want getting a glance at Lord Rahl. I have a feeling the new Lord Rahl is not the kind of Rahl they are used to dealing with, and they are not going to like the change.
'D'Hara is a vast empire, the supply routes long. Perhaps it is time some of these divisions were sent out to see to the safety of these routes, especially the ones to the far south, near the wilds, where I have heard rumor there is unrest and trouble. And perhaps from the ranks of the ones I trust, the size of the First File could be increased threefold.'
Zedd studied Trimack's face as the man continued to scan the hall. 'I am no soldier, but your ideas make sense. The palace must be made as secure as possible. How you do it is up to you.'
'I will give you a list then, in the morning, of the generals to be trusted and those to worry about.'
'Why would I need such a list?'
Trimack's intense gaze was steady. 'Because orders such as these must come from one with the gift.'
Zedd shook his head, muttering, 'Wizards should not be ruling people. It's not right.'
'It is the way in D'Hara. Magic and steel. I want to protect Lord Rahl. This is what I think needs to be done.'
Zedd stared off into the distance, feeling the ache of exhaustion in his bones. 'Do you know, Trimack, that I have fought and killed wizards who wanted to take it upon themselves to rule?'
When an answer didn't come, Zedd turned back to the officer. Trimack was studying him. 'Given the choice, Wizard Zorander, I would choose to serve one who bears command as a burden, to one who wears the mantle as a right.'
Zedd sighed and nodded. 'In the morning then. There is one other matter, the most important of all: I want the Garden of Life guarded. That is where the screeling first attacked. I don't know if there will be more. There is a door up there that will have to be fixed. Put a ring of steel around the garden. Enough men that they have room only to swing an axe. No one, no one at all, is to be allowed to go in except myself or Richard, or by our order.
'Anyone attempting to go into that room is to be viewed as harm trying to get a look at Lord Rahl. Even one who tells you he is there only to pull weeds. And you can bet your mother's honor that anything trying to get out is harm trying to have more than a look.'
Trimack clapped his fist to his armored chest. To the last man, Wizard Zorander.'
'Good. Lord Rahl may need what's in that room. I don't dare to move those things for the time being. They are extremely dangerous. Take very seriously the guarding of that room, Commander. More screelings could come. Or worse.'
'How soon?'
'I would not have thought we would have seen the first for a year or more. At least months. That the Keeper could have loosed one of his assassins so soon is a great worry. I don't know who it was sent for. It's possible it was simply sent to kill whoever was around. The Keeper needs no reason to kill. I must leave the palace tomorrow to learn what I can before we are surprised again.'
Trimack pondered this with troubled eyes. 'Do you know when Lord Rahl will return?'
Zedd shook his head. 'No. I thought I was going to have time to teach him some of what he must know, but now I must send for him at once to meet me in Aydindril and see if we can discover what must be done. He is in great danger and knows nothing of it. Events have outpaced me. I have no idea what the Keeper is going to do next, but I now fear how deep his tendrils may be. That they were around Darken Rahl even before the veil was torn means I have already been an ignorant fool in this business.
'If Richard should happen to return unexpectedly, or if anything happens to me... help him. He sees himself as a woods guide, not the Lord Rahl. He will be distrustful. Tell him I said to trust you.'
'If he is distrustful, how shall I convince him to trust me?' Zedd smiled. 'Tell him I said it is the truth. The toasted toads' truth.'
Trimack's eyes widened with incredulity. 'You wish the Commander General of the First File to say such a childish thing to the Lord Rahl?'
Zedd straightened his face and cleared his throat. 'It's a code, Commander. He will understand it.'
Trimack nodded, but looked skeptical. 'I had better see to the Garden of Life, and the rest of it. No disrespect intended, but you look like you could use some rest.' He tilted his head toward where the army of maidservants were still cleaning blood off the marble floor. 'All the healing you did looks to have tired you.'
'It did. Thank you, Commander Trimack. I will take your advice.'
Trimack's fist snapped to his heart, the salute softened by the hint of a smile. He began to turn, but hesitated. His intense blue eyes looked back to the wizard.
'May I say, Wizard Zorander, that it's a pleasure to at last have one with the gift in the palace who is more concerned with putting people's guts back inside, than with spilling them out. I've never seen the like of it.'
Zedd didn't smile. His voice was quiet. 'I am sorry, Commander, that I could do nothing for that lad.'
Trimack gave a sorrowful nod. 'I know that to be the truth, Wizard Zorander. The toasted toads' truth.'
----------
Zedd watched the commander stride across the hall, drawing armored men to him like a huge magnet. The wizard brought his hand up, staring at the gold chain looped over his sticklike fingers. He gave a pained sigh. Wizard business -using people. And now for the worst of it. He brought the black, tear-shaped stone from a pocket deep in his robes. The spirits be cursed, he thought, for the things a wizard must do.
He held the mounting where the blue Stone had been, and pressed the point of the smooth, black stone to it. Elemental power flowed from the fingers of each hand, joining in the middle, welding the stone to the mount.
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