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“You said you’ve dealt with her before. Confessors go to the lands to take confessions, and to inspect the prisons, to find out what they will. She wouldn’t want to close Tamarang to a Confessor, would she?”
“Not if she has half a brain,” Zedd chuckled.
“Well, that’s what we do then. You put your dress back on, and do your duty. Simply a Confessor doing what Confessors are expected to do. She may not like it, but she will treat you well; she will want you to be happy. She will want you to see what you will, and then be on your way. The last thing she will want is to raise a fuss. So, you inspect her dungeon, smile, or frown, or whatever it is you do, and then before we’re on our way, you say you want to speak to your former wizard.”
“You think she should go alone?” Zedd protested.
“No. Kahlan doesn’t have a wizard with her; the Queen would see that as a tempting vulnerability. We don’t want her mouth to water.”
Zedd folded his arms. “I will be her wizard.”
“No, you will not be her wizard! Darken Rahl is killing people as we speak, looking for you. If you remove the wizard’s web, let them know who you are, we’ll have trouble down around our ears before we can get away with the box. Who knows what reward there is on your wrinkled hide. You will be her protection, but you will be anonymous protection. You will be…” Richard tapped the sword hilt, thinking. His eyes came back down. “You will be a cloud reader. A trusted advisor to the Mother Confessor in the absence of a wizard.” Richard frowned slightly at Zedd’s grumble. “I’m sure you know how to play the part.”
“Then you will hide your sword, your identity, from her as well?” Kahlan asked.
“No. The presence of the Seeker will give her pause, something else to worry about, something to keep her fangs in her mouth until we’re away. The whole point is to give her something she’s familiar with, a Confessor, so as not to raise an alarm. At the same time, give her something to keep her worried, a cloud reader and the Seeker, so she would rather be rid of us than find out what sort of trouble we might be able to cause. The way you two want to do it gets us in a fight, a fight where one or all of us could be hurt. My way puts us at minimum risk of a fight, and if it comes, at least it will be when we’re on our way out with the box.” He gave each of them a stern look. “You do remember the box, don’t you? In case you’ve forgotten, that is what we’re after, not Giller’s head in a basket. Whose side he’s on is not an issue. We must only get the box, no more.”
Kahlan folded her arms with a frown; Zedd rubbed his chin while he looked into the fire. Richard let them mull it over for a while. He knew that the way they wanted to do it was sure to cause trouble, and that soon enough they would both realize it.
Zedd turned back to him. “Of course you are right. I agree.” His thin face turned to Kahlan. “Mother Confessor?”
She studied Zedd’s face a moment before looking up at Richard. “Agreed. But Richard, the two of you will have to play the part of courtiers to the Mother Confessor. Zedd knows the protocol, but you don’t.”
“I hope not to be there long. Just tell me what I need to know to get by for a short time.”
Kahlan drew a deep breath. “Well, I guess the most important thing is to look like you are part of my escort, be… respectful.” She cleared her throat, diverting her eyes. “Just pretend like I am the most important person you have ever been around, and treat me in that manner, and no one will question. Every Confessor allows her attendants different liberties, and as long as you are deferential, no one will think anything of it if you should happen to do something not quite proper. Even if you think my behavior… odd, just play along. All right?”
Richard watched her a moment while she studied the ground. He rose to his feet. “It would be my honor, Mother Confessor.” He gave a bow.
Zedd cleared his throat. “A little deeper, my boy. You are not traveling with a mere Confessor. You are an escort to the Mother Confessor herself.”
“All right,” Richard sighed. “I’ll do my best. Now, get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.” He started walking toward the trees.
“Richard,” Zedd called after him. He stopped, turning back. “There are many in the Midlands who have magic. Many different, and dangerous, types of magic. There is no telling what manner of sycophants Queen Milena has surrounded herself with. You pay attention to what Kahlan and I tell you, and do your best not to cross anyone. You may not know who, or what, her attendants are.”
Richard drew his cloak around himself. “In and out with minimum fuss. That’s what I want too. If all goes well, tomorrow at this time we will have the box and our only worry will be to find a hole to hide in until winter.”
“Good. You have it right, my boy. Good night.”
In a spot thin of brush, Richard found a moss-covered log to sit on while he kept an eye toward the camp and the surrounding woods. He checked to make sure the moss was dry. He didn’t want to sit in damp moss and then have wet pants to make him colder. The moss was dry, so he rearranged his sword, sat down, and wrapped his cloak tight. Clouds hid the moon. If it wasn’t for the fire lending the little illumination it did to the surrounding woods, it would be the kind of dark that made you think you were blind.
Richard sat and brooded. He didn’t like the idea of Kahlan having to put on the dress and put herself at risk. He liked it less that it was his own idea. He wondered, and worried, at what she meant about her acting “odd,” and his playing along. He wondered, and worried even more at what she had said about pretending she was the most important person he had ever been around. He liked that not at all. He always pictured Kahlan in his mind as his friend, at the least. He didn’t like to picture her as the Mother Confessor. It was Confessor’s magic that made it impossible for them to be more than friends. He was afraid to see her as others saw her, as the Mother Confessor. Any reminder of what she was, her magic, only brought the hurt deeper into his heart.
It was the smallest of sounds that made him sit bolt upright.
The eyes were on him. They were close, and though he couldn’t see them, he could feel them. The knowledge that something was close, watching him, sent a chill across his skin. It made him feel naked. Vulnerable.
His eyes were wide, his heart pounding, as he looked straight ahead to where he knew the thing was. The silence, except for his heart beating in his ears, was oppressive. Richard held his breath, trying to hear.
Again came the soft sound of a foot being lowered stealthily to the forest floor. It was coming toward him. Richard’s wide eyes stared frantically into the blackness, trying to see a movement.
It was no more than ten paces away when the yellow eyes inched into view, hunkered low to the ground. The eyes were glowering right at him. The thing stopped. He held his breath.
With a howl, it sprang. Richard jumped to his feet, his hand going for the sword. When it bounded into the air, Richard saw that it was a wolf. The biggest wolf he had ever seen. It was to him before his hand even reached the hilt. The wolf’s front paws hit his chest square. The powerful impact drove him backward over the log he had been sitting on.
As he fell backward, his breath knocked from him, he saw behind him something more frightening than the wolf.
A heart hound.
The huge jaws snapped at his chest just as the wolf reached the heart hound and went for its throat.
Richard’s head hit something hard. He heard a yelp and the sound of teeth ripping tendon. Everything went black.
His eyes opened. Zedd was looking down at him, and had a middle finger to each side of Richard’s forehead. Kahlan was holding a torch. He felt dizzy, bu
t stood anyway on wobbly legs, until Kahlan made him sit on the log.
With a frown of concern, she stroked her fingers on his face. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” he managed. “My head… it hurts.” He thought he might throw up.
Zedd took the torch from Kahlan and held it behind the log, casting light on the body of a heart hound, its throat ripped out. Zedd looked down at Richard’s sword, still in its sheath.
“How is it the hound didn’t have you?”
Richard felt the back of his head; it hurt like daggers twisting. “I… don’t know. It all happened so fast.” Then he remembered, like a dream when waking. He stood up again. “A wolf! It was a wolf that has been following us.”
Kahlan stepped closer, put an arm around his waist to steady him. “A wolf?” The odd tone of suspicion in her voice made him look to her narrowed eyes. “Are you sure?”
Richard nodded. “I was sitting here, and then all of a sudden I knew it was watching me. It came closer, and I saw its yellow eyes. Then it leapt at me. I thought it was attacking. It knocked me flat, right over the log. I never even had time to draw the sword, it was so fast. But it wasn’t attacking me. It was going for the heart hound behind me, protecting me. I never even saw the heart hound until I was falling backward. It must have killed the hound. That wolf saved my life.”
Kahlan straightened herself and put her fists on her hips. “Brophy!” she called into the darkness. “Brophy! I know you’re out there. Come here this instant!”
The wolf trotted into the torchlight with its head down and its tail between its legs. Its thick fur was a charcoal color from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail. Fierce yellow eyes glowed from its dark head. The wolf dropped to its belly and crawled to Kahlan’s feet. Once there, it rolled onto its back with paws in the air, and whined.
