Wizard's First Rule (81 page)

Kahlan took her hands away and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Rachel’s legs were too wobbly to run.

“Are you cold?” Kahlan whispered. Her voice sounded like there were still tears in it.

Rachel was afraid that no matter what she said she would get a slap. She gave a nod, ready for what might happen. Instead, Kahlan took a blanket out of her pack and wrapped it around the both of them, she guessed so it would be harder to get away.

“Come, lie close and I will tell you a story. We will keep each other warm. All right?”

Rachel lay on her side, her back against Kahlan, who curled all around her and put her arm over her. It felt nice, but she knew it was a trick. Kahlan’s face was
close to her ear, and as she lay there, Kahlan told her a story about a fisherman who turned into a fish. The words made pictures in her head, and for a while she forgot about her troubles. Once, she and Kahlan even laughed together. When she was finished with the story, Kahlan kissed the top of her head and then stroked the side of her forehead.

She pretended Kahlan wasn’t really mean. It couldn’t hurt to pretend. Nothing had ever felt as good as those fingers on her, and the little song Kahlan sang in her ear. Rachel thought this must be what it felt like to have a mother.

Against her will, she fell asleep, and had wonderful dreams.

She came awake in the middle of the night when Richard woke Kahlan, but she pretended she was still asleep.

“You want to keep sleeping with her?” he whispered real soft.

Rachel held her breath.

“No,” Kahlan whispered back, “I’ll take my watch.”

Rachel could hear her putting on her cloak and going outside. She listened to which way Kahlan’s feet went. After he put some more wood in the fire, Richard lay down, close. She could see the inside of the wayward pine brighten. She knew Richard was watching her; she could feel his eyes on her back. She wanted so much to tell him how mean Kahlan really was, and ask him to run away with her. He was such a nice man, and his hugs were the bestest things in the whole world. He reached over and pulled the blanket up around her tighter, tucking it under her chin. Tears ran down her cheeks.

She could hear him lie on his back and pull his blanket up. Rachel waited until she heard his even breathing and she knew he was asleep before she slipped out from under the blanket.

Kahlan turned expectantly when he batted a limb out of the way as he pushed into the wayward pine and flopped down in front of the fire. He pulled his pack across the ground and started jamming things in it.

“Well?”

Richard shot her an angry glare. “I found her tracks, going west, back the way we came. They join the trail a few hundred yards out. They’re hours old.” He pointed to the ground at the back of the wayward pine. “That’s where she went out. She circled around you through the woods, well clear of us. I’ve tracked men who didn’t want to be found, and their trails were easier to follow. She walks on top of things, roots, rocks, and she’s too little to make a print where another would. Did you see her arms?”

“I saw long bruises. They are from a switch.”

“No, I mean scratches.”

“I saw no scratches.”

“Exactly. Her dress had burrs on it; she’s been through the bramble, yet she had no scratches on her arms. She’s tender, so she avoids brushing up against anything. An adult would just push past, leave a trail of disturbed or broken branches. She almost never touches anything. You should see the trail I left, going through the bushes trying to track her; a blind man could follow it. She moves through the underbrush like air. Even when she was back on the trail, I couldn’t tell for a while. Her feet are bare; she doesn’t like stepping in water or mud—it makes her feet colder—so she steps where it’s dry, where you can’t see her passing.”

“I should have seen her leaving.”

He realized Kahlan thought he was blaming her. He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s not your fault, Kahlan. If I had been standing watch, I wouldn’t have seen her go either. She didn’t want to be seen. She’s one smart little girl.”

It didn’t seem to make her feel any better. “But you can track her, right?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “I can.” He reached to his breast. “I found this in my shirt pocket.” He lifted an eyebrow. “By my heart.” He pulled out the lock of Rachel’s hair, tied with the vine. He twisted it in his fingers. “To remember her by.”

Kahlan’s face was ashen as she rose. “This is my fault.” She pushed out of the wayward pine. He tried to grab her arm, but she tore away from him.

Richard set his pack aside and followed. Kahlan stood off a ways, her arms folded below her breasts, her back to him. She stared off into the woods.

“Kahlan, it isn’t your fault.”

She nodded. “It was my hair. Didn’t you see the fear in her eyes when she looked at my hair? I have seen that look a thousand times. Do you have any idea what it’s like to frighten people, even children, all the time?” He didn’t answer. “Richard? Cut my hair for me?”

“What?”

She turned to him, pleading in her eyes. “Cut it off for me?”

He watched the hurt in her eyes. “Why haven’t you just cut it yourself?”

She turned away. “I cannot. The magic will not allow a Confessor to cut her own hair. If we try, it brings pain so great, it prevents us from doing so.”

“How could that be?”

“Remember the pain you suffered, from the magic of the sword, when you killed a man the first time? It is the same pain. It will render a Confessor unconscious before the task can be accomplished. I tried only once. Every Confessor tries once. But only once. Our hair must be cut by another when it needs trimming. But none would dare to cut it all off.” She turned to him once more. “Will you do it for me? Will you cut my hair?”

He looked away from her eyes, to the brightening slate blue sky, trying to understand what it was he was feeling, what it was she must be feeling. There was so much he didn’t know about her, still. Her life, her world, was a mystery to him. There had been a time when he wanted to know it all. Now he knew he never could; the gulf between them was filled with magic. Magic, designed, it seemed, explicitly to keep them apart.

His gaze returned at last to her. “No.”

“May I know why?”

“Because I respect you for who you are. The Kahlan I know wouldn’t want to fool people by trying to make them think she is less than she is. Even if you did fool some, it would change nothing. You are who you are: the Mother Confessor. We all can be no more, or less, than who we are.” He smiled. “A wise woman, a friend of mine, told me that once.”

“Any man would leap for the chance to cut a Confessor’s hair.”

“Not this one. This one is your friend.”

She gave a nod, her arms still folded against her stomach. “She must be cold. She didn’t even take a blanket.”

“She didn’t take any food either, other than that loaf of bread she’s saving for some reason, and she was starving.”

Kahlan smiled at last. “She ate more than you and me together. At least her belly is full. Richard, when she gets to Horners Mill…”

“She isn’t going to Horners Mill.”

Kahlan came closer. “But that’s where her grandmother is.”

Richard shook his head. “She doesn’t have a grandmother. When she said her grandmother was in Horners Mill, and I told her she couldn’t go there, she didn’t even falter. She simply said she would go somewhere else. She never gave it a thought, never asked about her grandmother, or even raised an objection. She’s running from something.”

“Running? Maybe from whoever put those bruises on her arms.”

“And on her back. Whenever my hand touched one, she flinched, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to be hugged that badly.” Kahlan’s brow wrinkled with sorrow. “I’d say she was running from whoever cut her hair like that.”

“Her hair?”

He nodded again. “It was meant to mark her, maybe as property. No one would cut someone’s hair like that, except to give a message. Especially in the Midlands, where everyone pays so much attention to hair. It was deliberate, a message of power over her. That’s why I cut it for her, to remove the mark.”

Kahlan stared at nothing in particular. “That was why she was so happy to have it cut even,” she whispered.

“There is more to it, though, than simply running away. She lies easier than a gambler. She lies with the ease of someone who has a powerful need.”

Her eyes came to his again. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “But it has something to do with that loaf of bread.”

“The bread? Do you really think so?”

“She had no shoes, no cloak, nothing but her doll. It’s her most precious possession, she’s devoted to it, yet she let us touch it. But she wouldn’t let us get within an arm’s length of that loaf of bread. I don’t know much about the magic in the Midlands, but where I come from, a little girl will not value a loaf of bread more than her doll, and I don’t think it’s any different here. Did you see the look in her eyes when you reached for the bread, and she snatched it away? If she had had a knife, and you hadn’t backed off, she would have used it on you.”

“Richard,” she admonished, “you can’t really believe that about a little girl. A loaf of bread couldn’t be that important to her.”

“No? You said yourself she ate as much as both of us put together. I was beginning to think she was related to Zedd. Explain why if she was half starved, she hadn’t even nibbled on that loaf of bread.” He shook his head. “There is something going on, and that loaf of bread is at the center of it.”

Kahlan took a step toward him. “So, we’re going after her?”

Richard felt the weight of the tooth against his chest. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “No. As Zedd is fond of saying, nothing is ever easy. How can we justify going after one little girl, to solve the riddle of her loaf of bread, while Rahl goes after the box?”

She took his hand in one of hers, looked down at it. “I hate what Darken Rahl does to us, the way he twists us.” She squeezed his hand. “She got into our hearts awfully quick.”

Richard gave her a one-armed hug. “That she did. She’s one special little girl. I hope she finds what she’s after, and that she is safe.” He let go of Kahlan and started for the wayward pine, to get their things. “Let’s get moving.”

Neither wanted to think about how they felt, that they were deserting Rachel, condemning her to the embrace of dangers she knew nothing about and was defenseless against, and so both set their minds to covering as much ground as fast as they could. The bright day wore on with an endless expanse of rugged forest, and with their exertion they didn’t notice the cold.

Richard was always glad when he saw a spiderweb stretched across the trail; he
had begun to think of spiders as his guardians. When he had been a guide, he had always been annoyed to have them tickle his face. Thank you, sister spider, he said to himself every time he passed one now.

Near midday, they stopped for a break on sunlit rocks in an icy stream. Richard splashed the frigid water on his face, trying to work up some energy. He was tired already. Lunch was cold, too, and lasted only as long as it took to bolt it down. They both stuffed the last bites in their mouths, brushed their hands off on their pants, and hopped down off the flat, pink rock.

As much as he tried not to think about Rachel, he found himself frowning with worry before he realized he was doing it again. He saw Kahlan’s brow wrinkle sometimes when she turned, checking to the sides. One time he asked if she thought he had made the right decision. She didn’t have to ask which decision he was talking about. She asked how long he thought it would have taken to catch her. He thought two days, if everything went right, at least one to catch her and another back. Two days, she had told him, was more than they could afford. It felt reassuring to hear her say it.

Late in the afternoon, the sun slipped behind a distant peak of one of the mountains of the Rang’Shada, muting and softening the colors of the woods, calming the wind, and settling a stillness over the countryside. Richard was able to set aside his thoughts of Rachel as he concentrated on what they would do when they reached Tamarang.

“Kahlan, Zedd told us we both had to stay away from Darken Rahl, that we have no power against him, no defense.”

She gave a short glance over her shoulder. “That’s what he said.”

Richard frowned. “Well, Shota said the Queen wouldn’t have the box for long.”

“Maybe when she said that, she meant we would get it soon.”

“No, it was a warning, that the Queen wouldn’t have it long, meaning we must hurry. So what if Darken Rahl is already there?”

She looked over her shoulder, then slowed, and walked next to him. “So what if he is? There is no other way. I’m going to Tamarang. Do you wish to wait behind for me?”

“Of course not! I’m only saying we should keep in mind what we are walking into; that Darken Rahl might be there.”

“I have had that thought in my mind for a long time now.”

He walked next to her for a minute without saying anything. At last he asked, “And what have you concluded? What will we do if he is there?”