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Richard took a few steps toward his father. “Safe?”
“Yes, she is safe. Come, I will take you to her.”
Richard took a few more steps, dragging the tip of the sword on the ground behind. Tears ran down his cheeks. His chest heaved. “You could really take me to her?”
“Yes, son,” his father said softly. “Come. She waits for you. I will take you to her.”
Richard walked numbly toward his father. “And I can be with her? Forever?”
“Forever,” came the answer in the reassuring, familiar voice.
Richard trudged back into the green light, to his father, who smiled warmly at him.
When he reached him, Richard brought the Sword of Truth up, and ran it through his father’s heart. Wide-eyed, his father looked up at him as he was impaled.
“How many times, dear father,” Richard asked through tears and gritted teeth, “must I slay your shade?”
His father only shimmered and then dissolved into the dim morning air.
Bitter satisfaction replaced the anger; then it, too, was gone as he turned once again to the path. Tears ran in streaks through the dirt and sweat on his face. He wiped them on his shirtsleeve as he swallowed back the lump in his throat. Woods enveloped him indifferently as he rejoined the trail.
Laboriously, Richard slid his sword home, into its scabbard. When he did so, he noticed the light from the night stone shining through his pocket, it still being just dark enough to cause it to glow weakly. He stopped and took the smooth stone out once more and replaced it in its leather pouch, quenching the dim yellow light.
His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling.
He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death.
And he knew quite clearly who he was going to bring it to.
The Master sat straight-backed and cross-legged on the grass in front of the sleeping boy, his hands resting palm up on his knees, a smile on his lips, as he thought about what had happened with Confessor Kahlan at the boundary. Morning sunlight streamed crossways through the windows overhead, making the colors of the garden flowers vibrant. Slowly, he brought the fingers of his right hand to his lips, licking the tips and then smoothing his eyebrows before carefully returning the hand to its resting place. Thoughts of what he would do to the Mother Confessor had caused his breathing to quicken. He slowed it now, returning his mind to the matter at hand. His fingers wiggled, and Carl’s eyes popped open.
“Good morning, my son. Good to see you again,” he said in his most friendly voice. The smile, though for another reason, was still on his lips.
Carl blinked and squinted at the brightness of the light. “Good morning,” he said in a groan. Then, his eyes looking about, thought to add, “Father Rahl.”
“You slept well,” Rahl assured the boy.
“You were here? Here all night?”
“All night. As I promised you I would be. I would not lie to you, Carl.”
Carl smiled. “Thanks.” He lowered his eyes shyly. “I guess I was kind of silly to be scared.”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all. I am glad I could be here to reassure you.”
“My father says I’m being foolish when I get afraid of the dark.”
“There are things in the dark that can get you,” Rahl said solemnly. “You are wise to know it, and to be on guard for them. Your father would do himself a favor to listen, and learn from you.”
Carl brightened. “Really?” Rahl nodded. “Well, that’s what I always thought too.”
“If you truly love someone, you will listen to them.”
“My father always says for me to keep my tongue still.”
Rahl shook his head disapprovingly. “It surprises me to hear this. I had thought they loved you very much.”
“Well, they do. Most of the time anyway.”
“I’m sure you are right. You would know better than I.”
The Master’s long blond hair glistened in the morning light; his white robe shone brightly. He waited. There was a long moment of awkward silence.
“But I do get pretty tired of them always telling me what to do.”
Rahl’s eyebrows went up. “You seem to me to be of the age where you can think and decide things for yourself. A fine boy like you, almost a man, and they tell you what to do,” he added, half to himself, shaking his head again. As if he couldn’t believe what Carl was telling him, he asked, “You mean they treat you like a baby?”
Carl nodded his earnest confirmation, then thought to correct the impression. “Most of the time, though, they’re good to me.”
Rahl nodded, somewhat suspiciously. “That is good to hear. It is a relief to me.”
Carl looked up at the sunlight. “But I can tell you one thing, my parents are going to be madder than hornets that I’ve been gone so long.”
“They get mad because of when you come home?”
“Sure. One time, I was playing with a friend, and I got home late, and my mother was real mad. My father took his belt to me. He said it was for worrying them so.”
“A belt? Your father hit you with his belt?” Darken Rahl hung his head, then came to his feet, turning his back to the boy. “I’m sorry, Carl, I had no idea it was like this with them.”
“Well, it’s only because they love me,” Carl hastened to add. “That’s what they said, they love me and I caused them to worry.” Rahl still kept his back to the boy. Carl frowned. “Don’t you think that shows they care about me?”
Rahl licked his fingers and smoothed them over his eyebrows and lips before he turned back to the boy and sat once more in front of his anxious face.
“Carl”—his voice was so soft that the boy had to strain to hear—“do you have a dog?”
“Sure,” he nodded, “Tinker. She’s a fine dog. I had her since she was a pup.”
“Tinker,” Rahl rolled the name out pleasantly. “And has Tinker ever been lost, or run away?”
Carl scrunched up his eyebrows, thinking. “Well, sure, a couple times before she was grown. But she came back the next day.”
“Were you worried, when your dog was gone? When she was missing?”
“Well, sure.”
“Why?”
“Because I love her.”
“I see. And so then when Tinker came back the next day, what did you do?”
“I picked her up in my arms and I hugged her and hugged her.”
“You didn’t beat Tinker with your belt?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I love her!”
“But you were worried?”
“Yes.”
“So you hugged Tinker when she came back because you loved her and you were worried about her.”
“Yes.”
Rahl leaned back a little, his blue eyes intense. “I see. And if you had beaten Tinker with your belt when she came back to you, what do you think she would have done?”
“I bet she might not have come back the next time. She wouldn’t want to come back so I could beat her. She’d have gone somewhere else where people loved her.”
“I see,” Rahl said meaningfully.
