He stared at the fire. 'Denna shackled my wrists, and later locked my arms behind me, and held me up with a rope from the ceiling. She used the Agiel on me for hours at a time. I would beg until I was hoarse, for her to stop. She never did. Not once.
There was no way for me to fight back, nothing I could do to stop her. She trained me, she taught me, until I sometimes thought I had no blood or breath left. I begged her to kill me, to end the pain. I would have done it myself, but she used magic to prevent it. She had me kneel in front of her and beg her to use the Agiel. I would have done anything she said. She had a friend who came along sometimes, so they could share the... fun.'
Kahlan sat frozen, hardly able to breathe. 'Richard, I...'
'Every day, she led me by the collar to a place where she could hang me up by a rope, a room where she could use the Agiel on me without distraction, where it didn't matter so much if my blood got everywhere. Sometimes she did it from the first thing in the morning until night. And then at night...
That is what wearing a collar means to me. You can tell me about how much sense it makes, about how it will help me, and about how I have no choice, but that is what wearing a collar means to me.
'I know exactly what your shoulder feels like right now. It feels like the skin has been burned, and the muscle has been torn, and bone is splintered. That is what it feels like to wear a Mord-Sith's collar. Only everywhere on your body all at once, and all day long. Add to that the thought that you are helpless to stop it, that you can never escape, that you'll never again see the only person you will ever love.
'I would rather die than put a collar around my neck again.'
Kahlan rubbed her shoulder. It felt just as he had described it. She couldn't think of anything to say. She hurt too much, inside, to say anything. So she sat and watched him look at the fire as tears ran down her face. She ached for him.
And then she heard herself ask something she had promised herself she wasn't ever going to ask. 'Denna took you for her mate, didn't she.' She wished she could call the words back, and at the same time, she didn't.
Richard didn't flinch. 'Yes,' he whispered as he stared at the fire. Another tear ran down his cheek. 'How did you know?'
'Demmin Nass brought two quads to take me. He had a spell-web from Darken Rahl to protect him from Zedd's magic. From mine too. Zedd couldn't do anything; he was frozen by a web. Demmin Nass told me what had happened to you. He said you were dead. That was when I called forth the Con Dar and killed him.'
Richard's eyes closed as another tear ran down. There was no way for me to stop her. I swear, Kahlan... I tried. You can't imagine what Denna did to me for trying to stop her. There was no way for me to fight back. She could do anything she wanted. It wasn't enough for her to hurt me just in the day. She wanted to hurt me at night, too.'
'How can anyone be that evil?'
Richard stared at the Agiel as he slowly grasped it in his fist again. 'She was captured when she was twelve. They trained her with this Agiel. This very one. Everything she did to me, they had done to her. Over and over. For years. They tortured her parents to death in front of her. There was no one to help her.
'She grew into a woman at the end of this Agiel, surrounded only by people who wanted her to hurt. There was no one to give her even a single word of hope, of comfort, of love.
'Can you imagine her terror? They gave her a life of endless pain. They raped her body and her spirit. They broke her. They made her one of them. Darken Rahl, personally, made her one of them.
The whole time she used this Agiel on me, it hurt her. The same as it hurts me to hold it now. There's some magic for you.
'One day, Darken Rahl beat her, for hours, because he thought she wasn't hurting me enough. He flailed the skin right off her back.'
Richard's head hung as he cried. And then at the end of all that, at the end of a life of pain and madness, I come along, turn the Sword of Truth white, and run it through her. The only thing she asked before I killed her was for me to wear her Agiel and remember her. I was the only one who understood her pain. It was the only thing she wanted: for someone who understood to remember her.
'I promised, and she hung it around my neck. And then she just sat there as I pushed my sword through her heart. She had been hoping I would be the one with the power to kill her.
'That is how someone can be that evil. If I had the power, I would bring Darken Rahl back to life so I could kill him again.'
Kahlan sat stunned, motionless, caught in a vortex of conflicting emotions. She hated this Denna for hurting Richard, she was unaccountably jealous of her, and at the same time, she felt unexpected, wrenching sorrow for her. Finally, she turned away and wiped the tears from her face.
'Richard, why didn't they win? Why wasn't Denna able to break you? How did you keep your sanity?'
'Because, as the Sisters said, I partitioned my mind. I don't know how to explain it. I didn't even know exactly what it was I was doing, but that's how I saved myself. I put the core of myself away and sacrificed the rest. I let her do what she would. Darken Rahl said that I have the gift because I did that. That was when I first heard the word - partitioned.'
Richard lay back, resting his arm over his eyes. Kahlan pulled out a blanket and bunched it under his head. 'I'm so sorry, Richard,' she whispered.
'It's over. That is what matters.' He took his arm from his eyes and at last smiled up at her. 'It's over and we are together. In some ways, it was good. If she hadn't taught me, I wouldn't be able to deal with this headache. Maybe Denna has helped me. Maybe I can use what I know to get out of this.'
She winced in sympathy. 'Is it really bad right now?'
He nodded a little. 'But I'll die before I ever put a collar around my neck again.'
She understood now, though she wished she didn't. She lay down snug against him. The fire was a watery blur.
CHAPTER 11
The next day the sky was a cold gray and the wind icy as the two of them went out alone on the plain. Richard wanted to be away from people, away from buildings. He wanted to see the sky and the earth, he said. The brown grass bowed in the stiff gusts that flapped and tugged their cloaks as they walked along in silence. Richard wanted to shoot his bow to make the headache go away for a while. Kahlan just wanted to be with him.
It seemed that the eternity, which a few days ago she had felt belonged to them, was slipping through her fingers. She wanted to fight back, but didn't know how. Everything that was so right was suddenly going wrong.
She didn't think that Richard would put on the Rada'Han, the collar, no matter what the Sisters said. He might accept learning to use the gift, but she didn't think he would wear a collar. And if he didn't, he would die. After what he had told her - and worse, the things she knew he hadn't - how could she expect him to wear it? Or ask him to?
It did feel good, though, to be away from the village, away from people and away from Chandalen's eyes following them everywhere. How could she blame him? It did seem as if the two of them kept bringing trouble, but it irritated her that he acted as if they did it on purpose. She was tired of trouble. It seemed as if it would never end. Well, she decided, for today, at least, they would be away from trouble, and just enjoy being together.
Kahlan had told him she used to shoot a bow. She couldn't draw his because it was too heavy, so Richard encouraged her to borrow one and bring it along so he could teach her how to shoot better. They found the bundled grass targets the men had set up before, standing head high like a group of scarecrows on guard over the vast, flat grassland. A few even had balled grass for heads. Each had an X made of grass for a target. The targets with heads had an X there as well. Richard thought the Xs were too fat, so he took them off and made ones of single grass stalks.
They stood a long way off; so far, in fact, that she could hardly see the bundled grass, much less the Xs. Richard strapped on a simple leather bracer Savidlin had made for him along with the bow, and shot arrows until his headache was gone.
Richard was a picture of stillness, of smoothness; he was one with the bow. She smiled at how good he looked, and that he was hers. It made her heart ache with joy to see his gray eyes sparkle without the pain of the headache in them. They moved closer so she could shoot.
'Don't you want to go check where your arrows hit?'
He smiled. 'I know where they hit. You shoot now.'
She shot a few arrows, getting the feel again. He set one end of his bow on the ground, rested both hands over the other end, and watched her. She had been a girl the last time she used a bow. Richard watched her shoot a few more times, and then came and stood behind her. His arms came around her, and he adjusted her hand on the bow and put his fingers on the string.
'Here. Do this. You can't get any power or be steady enough holding the arrow with your thumb and the knuckle of your first finger that way. Hold the bowstring back with your first three fingers, like this, nesting the arrow between the first two. And pull with your shoulder too. You don't need to pull on the arrow, just concentrate on holding back the string. The arrow will take care of itself. See? Isn't that better?'
She grinned. 'It is with your arms around me.'
'Pay attention to what you're doing,' he scolded.
Kahlan took aim and shot. He said it was better and told her to try again. She shot a few more arrows, and thought she might have even hit the bundled grass once. She drew the bowstring again, trying to hold the bow steady. Suddenly, he tickled her stomach. She doubled over squealing and laughing, trying to get his fingers off her.
'Stop it!' She laughed breathlessly, trying to twist away from him. 'Stop it! Richard! I can't shoot when you're doing that!'
He put his fists on his hips. 'You have to be able to.'
She frowned up at him as she panted. 'What do you mean?'
'Besides being able to hit what you want, you have to be able to shoot no matter what is happening. If you can't shoot when you're laughing, how can you shoot when you're afraid? Just you and the target, that's all there is. Nothing else matters. You have to be able to block everything else out.
'If a wild boar is charging you, you can't think about how afraid you are, or what will happen if you miss. You have to be able to make the shot under pressure. Or else have a tree close by you can climb.'
'But, Richard, you can do it because you have the gift. I can't do that.'
'Nonsense. The gift has nothing to do with it. It's simple concentration. Here, I'll talk you through it. Nock an arrow.'
He stood behind her again, pulling her hair off her neck, leaning close, looking over her shoulder, and whispering in her ear as she drew the bowstring back. He whispered what she should feel, how she should breathe, where she should look, what she should see. He talked in a way that made the words melt into nothingness, and instead made images form in her head. Only three things existed: the arrow, the target, and his words. She was in a world of silence.
When everything else winked out, the target seemed to grow larger in her vision, drawing the arrow to it. His words made her feel it, made her do things without understanding them. She relaxed and exhaled, holding herself still without taking another breath. She could feel it, feel the target. She knew when it was time, when it was right.
Lightly, like a breath of air, the arrow left of its own accord, as if it had decided to go on its own. In the quiet, she could see the feathers clear the bow, feel the string hit the bracer; she could see the target pulling the arrow, she could hear the arrow hit the X. She felt air rush back into her lungs.
It was almost like when she released her Confessor's power. It was magic, Richard's magic. His words were magic. It was like having a new vision.
She felt as if she were coming awake from a dream. The world came back. She almost fell against him.
Kahlan turned and threw her arms around his neck, still gripping the bow in one hand. 'Richard, that was wonderful. The target came to me!'
'See? I told you you could do it.'
She kissed his nose. 'I didn't do it, you did it. I was just holding the bow instead of you.'
He smiled. 'No. You did it. I just showed your mind how. That's what teaching is. I was simply teaching you. Do it again.'
Kahlan had lived around wizards all her life. She knew the way wizards did things. That was the way Richard had done it. He spoke to her the way wizards spoke. It was the gift speaking, she knew, even if he wouldn't admit it.
As she shot more arrows, he talked less. Without his words guiding her, it was harder to get the feel, but now and again she did. She could tell when she was doing it herself, without him. It seemed to be as he said, like intense concentration.
As she started to learn to block the world out as she aimed, he began to do things to try to distract her. At first he just rubbed her stomach. It made her smile until he told her to stop thinking about what he was doing and think only about what she must do. After a few hours, she could shoot while he tickled her. Sometimes. It was an exhilarating feeling to be able to feel where the arrow needed to be. She couldn't do it very often, but when it happened it felt wonderful. Addictive.
'It's magic,' she told him. 'That's what you're doing. Magic.'
'No, it's not. Everyone can do it. Chandalen's men are doing it when they shoot. Everyone who gets good enough does it. It's your own mind doing it. I just helped by showing you. If you had practiced long enough, you would have learned it by yourself before now. Just because you don't know how something is done doesn't make it magic.'
She gave him a sidelong glance. 'I'm not so sure. You shoot. Let me tickle you while you try to shoot.'
'After we have something to eat. And you practice some more.'
They flattened a circle of grass, like a nest, and lay on their backs, watching the birds wheel in the sky as they ate tava bread wrapped around greens, handfuls of kuru, and drank water from a skin. The surrounding grass protected them a little, so the wind didn't feel quite so cold. She laid her head on his shoulder as they watched the sky in silence. She knew they were both wondering what they were going to do.
'Maybe,' Richard said at last, 'I could partition my mind again, to control the headaches. Darken Rahl said that was what I had done.'
'You talked to him? You talked to Darken Rahl?'
'Yes. Actually, he did most of the talking. I mostly listened. He told me a lot of things. I don't believe all of them. He told me George Cypher wasn't my father. He told me I had partitioned my mind, and that I have the gift. He told me I had been betrayed. Because of what Shota said - that you and Zedd would both use your magic against me - I thought one of you had betrayed us. I never thought of my brother.
'Maybe if I could figure out how to partition my mind again, I could control the headaches so they wouldn't kill me. Maybe that's what the Sisters teach. I've already done it once, so if I could do it again, I might be able to save myself without...'
He rested an arm over his eyes, not wanting to finish the thought out loud. 'Kahlan, maybe I don't have the gift. It could just be the Wizard's First Rule.'
'What do you mean?'
'Zedd told us that much of what people believe is wrong. The First Rule can make you believe something is true either because you want it to be true, or because you're afraid it might be. I'm afraid of having the gift, and that fear makes me accept the possibility that what the Sisters say is true. It could be there are other reasons the Sisters want me to think I have the gift, and that it isn't true. Maybe I don't have it.'
'Richard, do you really think you can dismiss all the other things that have happened? Zedd said you have the gift, Darken Rahl said you have the gift, the Sisters say you have the gift, even Scarlet says you have the gift.'
'Scarlet doesn't know what she is talking about, I don't trust the Sisters, and do you think I would believe anything Darken Rahl said?'
'And what about Zedd? Do you think Zedd is lying? Or that he doesn't know what he is talking about? You have told me you think he is the smartest man you know. Besides, he is a wizard of the First Order. Do you really think a wizard of the First Order wouldn't know the gift when he saw it?'
'Zedd could be wrong. Just because he's smart, that doesn't mean he knows everything.'
Kahlan thought a while about his reluctance to accept that he had the gift. She wished, for his sake, that it could be the way he wanted it, but she knew the truth.
'Richard, at the People's Palace, when I touched you with my power, and we all thought it had taken you, and didn't know you had figured out how not to be consumed by the magic, you recited the Book of Counted Shadows to Darken Rahl, didn't you?' He nodded. 'I couldn't believe you did that. How did you know it? Where did you ever learn the book?'
Richard sighed. 'When I was young, my father took me to a place where he had it hidden. He told me it was being guarded by a beast sent by covetous hands, to watch over it, until that person could come for the book. So he rescued it. I know now that they were the hands of Darken Rahl, but at the time we didn't know that; my father said he had to take it because otherwise it would be stolen by those hands.
'He feared that person might eventually find it, so he had me memorize it. All of it. He said I had to know every word, so that someday I could return the knowledge to the keeper of the book. He didn't know that Zedd was the book's keeper. It took me years to memorize every word of the book. He never looked in it, he said that was for only me to do. After I had learned it all perfectly, we burned the book. I'll never forget that day. Light and sound and strange forms came forth as the book burned.'
'Magic,' she whispered, knowingly.
He nodded as he rested his wrist over his eyes again. 'My father died keeping the book from Darken Rahl. He was a hero. He saved us all by his actions.'
Kahlan tried to think of how to put words to the things she was thinking, the things she knew. 'Zedd told us the Book of Counted Shadows was kept in his keep. How did your father get it?'
'He never told me that.'
'Richard, I was born and raised in Aydindril. I spent a good portion of my life in the Wizard's Keep. It's a huge fortress. In times long ago, hundreds of wizards lived there. When I grew up, there were only the six, and none were wizards of the First Order.
'It is not an easy place to enter. I was able to because I'm a Confessor, and needed to learn from books kept there. All the Confessors had access to the keep. But it was protected, by magic, from any others entering.'
'If you're asking, I don't know how my father did it. He was a pretty smart man; he must have figured it out.'
'If the book was in the Keep itself, maybe. There were wizards and Confessors coming and going, and at times others were permitted to enter. Perhaps someone could have found a way to sneak in. Even once inside, there are areas protected more strongly by magic. Areas even I could not enter.
'But Zedd said the Book of Counted Shadows was an important book of magic, very important. He said he kept it in his keep: the wizard of the First Order's keep. That is altogether different. It's separate from the rest, part of the larger Keep, but set off by itself.
'I've walked the long ramparts to the First Wizard's Keep. There is a beautiful view of Aydindril from there. Just walking the ramparts, I could feel the awesome power of the spells that protect that place. It made your skin crawl. If you went close enough, the power of the protection spells made the hair lift off your shoulders and stick out in all directions, popping and snapping with little sparks. If you went closer still, the spells filled you with a sensation of dread so strong you couldn't force your feet to take another step, or your lungs to draw another breath.
'Since Zedd left the Midlands, before we were born, none had entered the First Wizard's Keep. The other wizards tried. To enter, there is a plate you must touch. It is said touching the plate is like touching the frozen heart of the Keeper himself. If the magic doesn't recognize you as one permitted entry, you cannot gain entrance. Touching the plate without at least the protection of your own magic, or even just getting close enough to the spells themselves, can be death.
'Since I was young, and first went to the Keep to learn from the books, the wizards had been trying to get in. They wanted to know what was inside. The First Wizard was gone, and they thought they should take an inventory, thought they should at least know what was in there.
'They never succeeded. Not one of them was ever able to so much as place a hand to the plate. Richard, if five wizards of the Third Order, and one of the Second, could not get in, how did your father?'
He sighed. 'I wish I had an answer for you, Kahlan, but I don't.'
She didn't want to dash his hopes, give irrefutable life to his fears, but she had to. The truth was the truth. He had to know that truth about himself.
'Richard, the Book of Counted Shadows was a book of instruction for magic. It was magic.'
'I have no doubt of that. I know what I saw when we burned it.'
She stroked the back of his hand with her finger. There were other books of instruction for magic in the Keep: less important ones. The wizards let me look at them. When I would read them, I would get to a place in the books, and a strange thing would happen, sometimes after only a few words, sometimes after a few pages: I would forget what I had just read. I couldn't remember a word of it. Not a single word. I would go back and read it again, and the same thing would happen.
'The wizards would smile watching me, and then they would laugh. After a while of trying to read the books, and not knowing what I had just read, I finally got frustrated and asked what was happening. They told me that books of instruction for magic are protected by powerful spells invoked at certain words in the books. They said none but one with the gift could read a book of magic instruction and remember so much as a single word. Those six wizards were wizards by calling, not by the gift. Even they couldn't read all the books and know what they said, only the less important ones, and only then because of their training.
'Zedd told us that the Book of Counted Shadows was one of the most important books in the Keep, so important it was kept in the First Wizard's enclave.
'Richard, you would never have been able to memorize it if you didn't have the gift. There is no other way. Somehow, your father must have known, that is why he chose you to learn it.'
Her head was still resting on his shoulder, and she felt his breathing halt for a moment as he realized the significance of what she had told him. 'Richard, do you still remember the book?'
His voice came low and distant. 'Every word.'
Though I heard you recite it, and I know you spoke it all, I cannot remember a word of what you said. The magic of certain words erased it all from my mind. I don't know how you used it to defeat Darken Rahl.'
The first of the book said that if the words were being told to the one who controlled the boxes of Orden, and not read by that person, then the only way that person could know the words were true was with the use of a Confessor. Rahl thought you had taken me with your power, and so he thought I was speaking all the words true. I did speak the words true, but I left out an important part at the end so he would pick the box that would kill him.'
'You see? You still remember the words. You could not do that if you didn't have the gift; the magic would prevent it. Richard, if we are going to get out of this, we have to at least face the truth, and then think of what to do about it.
'My love, you have the gift. You have magic. I'm sorry, but that is the truth of it.'
He let out an exasperated breath. 'I guess I just so badly didn't want it to be that I have been trying to talk myself out of it. But things don't work that way. I hope you don't think me a fool. Thank you for loving me enough to make me see the truth.'
'You are no fool. You are my love. We will think of something.' She kissed the back of his hand and they watched the sky in silence. It was a dark, cold gray, a mirror to her mood.
'I wish you could have met my father. He was a special person. I guess even I never knew how special. I miss him.' He stared off into his own thoughts. 'What of your father?'
Kahlan twisted a strand of her hair around her finger. 'My father was mate to my mother; mate to a Confessor. He was not a father in the way a man is a father to other children. He had been taken by her power, and there was nothing to him but his devotion to her. He paid heed to me only to please my mother, only because I was born to her. He didn't see me as myself, but only as a part of the Confessor he was bonded to.'
Richard pulled a piece of long grass and flattened the end of it between his front teeth as he thought, at last asking, 'Who was he before she took him with the magic?'
'He was Wyborn Amnell. King of Galea.'
Richard pushed himself up on an elbow, looking down at her with surprise. 'King! Your father was a king?'
Without realizing she was doing it, her expression slipped into the calm exterior that showed nothing: a Confessor's face.
'My father was mate to a Confessor. That was all that was in him. When my mother was dying of a terrible wasting illness, he was in a constant state of panic. One day the wizard and the healer who had been tending her came to us and said there was nothing more they could do, that the spirits would soon take her to be with them, that she would soon pass from life.
'With a wail of anguish like none I have ever heard, my father clutched his chest and fell to the floor, dead.'
Richard gazed into her eyes. 'I'm sorry, Kahlan.' He bent and kissed her forehead. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered.
He lay back once more and put the stalk of grass back between his teeth.
'It was a long time ago.'
'So, what does that make you? Are you a princess, or a queen, or something?'
She laughed a little at the question, at how strange all this must seem to him. He still knew little of her life, her world. 'No. I am the Mother Confessor. The daughter of a Confessor is a Confessor, not the daughter of her father.' She felt uncomfortable about seeming to belittle her father. It was not his fault her mother had chosen and taken him. 'Do you wish to know about him?'
He shrugged. 'Sure. You are part of him, too. I like knowing all about you.'
She thought a moment about what his reaction would be. 'Well, he was the husband to Queen Bernadine when my mother chose him as her mate.'
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