Wizard's First Rule (108 page)

An idea began forming in Richard’s mind. He put the sword back in its scabbard. “Scarlet, I know a creature as proud as you would not be at the beck of anyone, much less one as demanding as Darken Rahl, unless there was terrible need. You are too beautiful and noble a creature for that.”

Scarlet’s head floated closer. “Why would you say such things to me?”

“Because I believe in the truth. I think you do too.”

“What is your name?”

“Richard Cypher. I am the Seeker.”

Scarlet put a black-tipped talon to her teeth. “Seeker.” She frowned. “I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten a Seeker before.” A strange, dragon’s smile crossed her lips. “It will be a treat. Our talk is over, Richard Cypher. Thank you for the compliment.” The head floated closer, the lips pulling back in a snarl.

“Darken Rahl stole your egg, didn’t he?”

Scarlet pulled back. She blinked at him, then threw her head back, jaws wide. An earsplitting roar made the scales on her throat vibrate. Fire shot skyward in a booming blast. The sound echoed off the cliff walls, causing little rock slides.

Scarlet’s head whipped back to him, smoke rising from the nostrils. “What do you know about that!”

“I know that a proud creature such as you would not subject herself to such demeaning duties, except for one reason. To protect something important. Like her young.”

“So you know. That will not save you,” she snarled.

“I also know where Darken Rahl is keeping your egg.”

“Where!” Richard had to dive to the side to avoid the flames. “Tell me where it is!”

“I thought you wanted to eat me now.”

One eye came close. “Someone should teach you not to be flippant,” she rumbled.

“Sorry, Scarlet. It’s a bad habit that has brought me to grief in the past. Look, if I help you get your egg back, then Rahl would have no hold on you. If I could do that, would it be worth helping me?”

“Helping you how?”

“Well, you fly Rahl around. That’s what I need. I need you to fly me around for a few days, help me look for some friends of mine, so I can protect them from Rahl. I need to be able to cover a lot of ground, search a lot of area. I think if I could do it from the sky, like a bird, I could find them, and have enough time to stop Rahl.”

“I don’t like flying men about. It’s humiliating.”

“Six days from now, it will all be over, one way or another. If you help me, that’s all I would need. After that, it won’t matter, one way or the other. How long will you have to serve Rahl if you don’t help me?”

“All right. Tell me where my egg is, and I will let you go. Let you live.”

“How would you know I was telling the truth? I could just invent a place, to save myself.”

“Like dragons, real Seekers have honor. That much I know. So, if you really know, tell me and I will free you.”

“No.”

“No!” Scarlet roared. “What do you mean ‘No’?”

“I don’t care about my life. Just as you, I care about things more important. If you want me to help you get your egg back, then you will have to agree to help me save the ones I care about. We will get the egg first, then you help me. I think it
more than a fair trade. The life of your offspring, in exchange for flying me about for a few days.”

Scarlet’s piercing yellow eye came close to his face; her ears swiveled forward. “And how do you know that once I have my egg, I will keep my end of the bargain?”

“Because,” Richard whispered, “you know what it is like to fear for the safety of another, and you have honor. I have no choice. I don’t know any other way to save my friends from living the rest of their lives as you are living now—under the heel of Darken Rahl. I will be putting my life at great risk to save your egg. I believe you to be a creature of honor. I will trust your word, with my life.”

Scarlet gave a snort, backing away a little, peering at him. She folded her huge wings against herself. Her tail swished about, knocking stones and a few small boulders skidding across the ground. Richard waited. One arm came forward; a single black-tipped talon, thick as his leg, sharp as his sword point, hooked through the sword’s baldric, gave a snug pull. Her head came close.

“Bargain struck. On your honor, on mine,” Scarlet hissed. “But I have not given my word I will not eat you at the end of the six days.”

“If you help me save my friends, and stop Rahl, I don’t care what you do to me after that.” Scarlet snorted. “Are short-tailed gars a threat to dragons?”

The dragon unhooked her talon from him. “Gars.” She spat the name. “I have eaten enough of them. They are no match for me, not unless there were eight or ten together, but gars don’t like to gather together in numbers, so that’s not a problem.”

“It’s a problem now. When I saw your egg, there were dozens of gars around it.”

Scarlet gave a grunt, and tongues of flame licked out between her teeth. “Dozens. That many could pull me from the sky. Especially if I were carrying my egg.”

Richard smiled. “That’s why you need me. I will think of a plan.”

Zedd screamed. Kahlan and Chase both jerked back. Kahlan’s brow wrinkled. He had never done this before when he had sought out the night stone. The sun was already down, but in the fading light she could see his skin was nearly as white as his hair.

She grasped him by the shoulders. “Zedd! What is it?”

He didn’t answer. His head fell to the side as his eyes rolled back. He still wasn’t breathing, but that much was normal; he hadn’t breathed in the past when he sought the night stone. She exchanged a worried glance with Chase. Kahlan could feel Zedd shivering under her hands. She shook him again.

“Zedd! Stop it! Come back!”

He gave a gasp, whispered something. Kahlan put her ear by his mouth. He whispered again.

Kahlan was horrified. “Zedd, I can’t do that to you.”

“What did he say?” Chase demanded.

She looked up at the boundary warden, her eyes wide in fear. “He said to touch him with my power.”

“Underworld!” Zedd gasped. “Only way.”

“Zedd, what’s happening?”

“I’m trapped,” he whispered. “Touch me or I’m lost. Hurry.”

“You better do as he says,” Chase warned.

Kahlan didn’t like that idea one bit. “Zedd, I can’t do that to you!”

“It’s the only way to break the hold. Hurry.”

“Do it!” Chase bellowed. “There’s no time to argue!”

“May the good spirits forgive me,” she whispered as she closed her eyes.

She felt trapped by panic; she had no choice. Dreading what she was going to do, her mind fell silent, calm. In the calm, she relaxed her restraint. She felt her power build, taking her breath away. Released, the power slammed into the wizard.

There was a hard impact to the air all about. Thunder with no sound. Pine needles rained down all about. Leaning over them, Chase gave a little grunt of pain; he was closer than he should have been. Silence fell over the woods. Still the wizard did not breathe.

Zedd stopped shaking, his eyes came down, he blinked a few times, his hands came up and he gripped Kahlan’s arms. With a gasp, he took a breath.

“Thank you, dear one,” he managed through the deep breaths.

Kahlan was surprised that the power, the magic, didn’t seem to have taken him. It should have. She was relieved it hadn’t, but astonished.

“Zedd, are you all right?”

The wizard gave a nod. “Thanks to you. But if you hadn’t been here, or had waited any longer, I would have been trapped in the underworld. Your power has brought me back.”

“Why didn’t it change you?”

Zedd straightened his robes, seeming a little embarrassed at his helpless predicament. “Because of where I was.” He held his chin up. “And because I’m a wizard of the First Order. I used your Confessor’s power as a lifeline, to find my way back. It was like a beacon of light in the darkness. I followed it back without letting it touch me.”

“What were you doing in the underworld?” Chase asked before she had a chance.

Zedd gave a cross look to the boundary warden, and didn’t answer.

Kahlan’s worry surged. “Zedd, answer the question. This never happened before. Why were you pulled into the underworld?”

“When I seek the night stone, part of me goes to it. That’s how I find it, and can tell where it is.”

Kahlan tried not to think of what he was saying. “But the night stone is still in D’Hara. Richard is still in D’Hara.” She grabbed fists full of his robes. “Zedd…”

Zedd’s eyes went to the ground. “The night stone is no longer in D’Hara. It’s in the underworld.” His angry eyes came up to her. “But that doesn’t mean Richard is not still in D’Hara! It doesn’t mean anything has happened to him! Only the night stone.”

With a strained expression. Chase turned to setting up the camp before darkness fell. Kahlan still held Zedd’s robes, frozen in terror.

“Zedd… please. Could you be wrong?”

He shook his head slowly. “The night stone is in the underworld. But dear one, that doesn’t mean Richard is. Don’t let your fear run away with you.”

Kahlan nodded as she felt tears run down her cheeks. “Zedd, he has to be all right. He has to. If Rahl has kept him there this long, he wouldn’t kill him now.”

“We don’t even know that Rahl has him.”

She knew he just didn’t want to admit it out loud. Why else would he be at the People’s Palace, if Darken Rahl didn’t have him?

“Zedd, when you sought the night stone before, you said you could feel him, that he was alive.” She almost couldn’t bring herself to ask, could hardly get the words out, afraid of what he might say. “Did you sense him in the underworld?”

He looked into her eyes a long time. “I didn’t sense him. But I don’t know if I would, if he were in the underworld. If he were dead.” When she started crying, he pulled her against him, hugging her head to his shoulder. “But I think it was only the night stone there. I think Rahl was trying to trap me there. He must have gotten the night stone from Richard, must have sent it to the underworld to snare me.”

“We’re still going after him,” she cried. “I’m not turning back.”

“Well, of course we are.”

Kahlan felt a warm tongue on the back of her hand. She stroked the wolf’s fur, smiled over at him.

“We’ll find him. Mistress Kahlan. Don’t you worry, we’ll find him.”

“Brophy’s right,” Chase called over his shoulder. “I’m even looking forward to the lecture we’ll be getting about coming after him.”

“The box is safe,” the wizard said, “that’s what matters. Five days from tomorrow is the first day of winter, and then Darken Rahl will be dead. We will have Richard back after that, if not before.”

“I’ll get us there before then, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Chase grumbled.

Richard held the thick spines on Scarlet’s shoulders in a death grip as she made a banking turn to the left. He had learned, much to his amazement, that when she leaned into a turn, it didn’t make him slide off the side, but pressed him harder against her. Richard found the experience of flying at once exhilarating and frightening, like standing on the edge of an impossibly high cliff—that moved. The feel of her body lifting him into the air made him grin. Muscles flexed beneath him as she stroked the air with her powerful wings, each beat giving a lift. When she folded her wings back and dove toward the ground, the wind made his eyes water, and the feeling of falling took his breath away and made him feel as though his stomach would rise inside him. He marveled at the very idea of riding a dragon.

“Do you see them?” he called out over the sound of the wind.

Scarlet gave a grunt to indicate that she did. In the fading light, the gars looked like black dots moving about on the rocky ground below. Steam trailed up from Fire Spring, and even this high up Richard could smell the acrid fumes. Scarlet rose steeply into the air, making his legs press against her as she lifted them higher; then she rolled into a sharp bank to the right.

“There are far too many,” she called back.

Her head tilted behind, one yellow eye peering at him. Richard pointed.

“Go down there, behind those hills, and don’t let them see us.”

Scarlet climbed with strong strokes. When they were higher than they had been so far, she glided away from Fire Spring. She swooped down, between the rocky slopes, threading her way back toward where Richard had told her to land. With a silent flutter of wings, she gently settled on the ground near the mouth of a cave, and lowered her neck so he could climb down. Richard knew she didn’t want him on her back any longer than necessary.