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“I know where the sacred caves are,” Kahlan offered as she grabbed hold of her saddle and put a foot in the stirrup.
The wizard turned to retrieve his horse. “We don’t have any time to waste. Let’s go.”
“No,” Richard said.
They all turned back to stare at him.
“Richard, we have to,” Kahlan said.
“She’s right, my boy. There’s no other way.”
“No.” He looked at their startled faces. “That’s what they want us to do. You said the artist couldn’t spell you or Kahlan, so he did it to me, thinking that would get us all back. The box is too important. We can’t take the risk.” He looked to Kahlan. “You just tell me where these caves are, and Zedd, you tell me how to erase the spell.”
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.
