The curtains were pulled back, letting in the sunlight, so she could see right away that the room was empty. None of the servants were cleaning or anything. The fire was burned out, and the servants hadn’t yet come and made another for tonight. The Princess’s big canopy bed was already made up. Rachel liked the bedcover with all the pretty flowers. It matched the gathered canopy and curtains. She always wondered why the Princess needed such a big bed. It was big enough for ten people. Where she came from, six girls slept together in a bed half the size of this one, and the bedcover was plain. She wondered what the Princess’s bed felt like. She had never once even sat on it.
She knew Giller wanted her to hurry, so she crossed the room, walking over the fur rug, to the polished desk with the pretty swirled wood. She put her fingers through the gold handle and slid the drawer open. It made her nervous to do it, even though she had done it before when the Princess had sent her to get the key, but she had never done it before without being told to by the Princess. The big key to the jewel room was lying in the red velvet pocket, right next to the little key to her sleeping box. She put the key in her pocket and slid the drawer closed again, making sure it was shut all the way.
As she started for the door, she looked at the corner where her sleeping box was. She knew Giller wanted her to hurry, but she ran over to the box anyway—she had to check. She crawled inside, into the dark, and went to the back corner where the blanket was pushed up in a pile. Carefully, she pulled the blanket back.
Sara looked back at her. The doll was right where she had left her.
“I have to go quick,” she whispered. “I’ll be back later.”
Rachel kissed the doll’s head and covered her back up with the blanket, hiding her in the corner so no one would find her. She knew it was trouble to bring Sara to the castle, but she couldn’t bear to leave her in the wayward pine, all alone. She knew how lonely and scary it got in the wayward pine.
Finished, she ran to the door, pulled it open a crack, and looked up at Giller’s face. He nodded to her and motioned with his hand that it was all right to come out.
“The key?”
She pulled it out of the pocket where she kept her magic fire stick, to show him. He smiled and called her a good girl. No one had ever called her a good girl before, at least not for a long time. He picked her up again and walked fast down the hall and then down the dark, narrow servants’ stairs. She could hardly even hear his footsteps on the stone. His whiskers tickled her face. At the bottom he set her down again.
“Rachel,” he said, squatting down close to her, “listen carefully, this is very important, this is no game. We must get out of the castle, or we will both get our heads chopped off, just like Sara told you. But we must be smart about it, or we will get caught. If we run away too quickly, without doing the right things first, we will be found out. And if we are too slow, well, we just better not be too slow.”
She started to get tears in her eyes. “Giller, I’m afraid to get my head chopped off, people say it hurts terrible bad.”
Giller hugged her tight. “I know, child. I’m afraid too.” He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her up straight while he looked in her eyes. “But if you trust me, and do exactly as I say, and are brave enough, we will get away from here, and go to where no one ever chops off people’s heads, or locks them in boxes, and where you can have your doll and people will let you, and they will never take Sara away from you or throw her in the fire. All right?”
Her tears started to go away. “That would be wonderful, Giller.”
But you must be brave, and do just as I tell you. Some of it will be hard.”
“I will, I promise.”
“And I promise, Rachel, that I will do whatever I must to protect you. We are in this together, you and me, but a lot of other people are depending on us too. If we do a good job, we will be able to fix it so a lot of other people, innocent people, won’t get their heads chopped off anymore.”
Her eyes got wide. “Oh, I would like that, Giller. I hate it when people get their heads chopped off. It scares me fierce.”
“All right then, the first thing I need you to do is to go scold the cooks, just like you are supposed to, and while you are down in the kitchen, get a big loaf of bread, the biggest you can find. I don’t care how you get it, steal it if you have to. Just get it. Then bring it up to the jewel room. Use the key and wait inside for me. I must tend to some other things. I’ll tell you more then. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” she nodded. “Easy.”
“Off with you then.”
She went through the door into the big hall on the first floor while Giller disappeared up the steps without making a sound. The stairs to the kitchen were at the other end, on the other side of the grand stairs in the middle that the Queen used. Rachel liked going up the grand stairs with the Princess because they had carpets, and weren’t cold like the stone steps she was supposed to use when she was on errands. The hall was open in the middle, where the grand stairs came down to a big room with black and white marble squares on the floor. They were very cold under her feet.
She was trying to think of a way she could get a big loaf of bread without stealing it, when she saw Princess Violet coming across the room to the grand stairs. The royal seamstress and two of her helpers were following behind, carrying bolts of pretty, pink cloth. Rachel looked quick for a place to hide, but the Princess had already seen her.
“Oh good, Rachel,” the Princess said. “Come here.”
Rachel went and curtsied. “Yes, Princess Violet?”
“What are you doing?”
“I was doing my errands. I was just going to the kitchen now.”
“Well… don’t bother.”
“But Princess Violet, I have to!”
The Princess frowned. “Why? I just said you didn’t.”
Rachel bit her lip; the Princess’s frown scared her. She tried to think of how Giller would answer. “Well, if you don’t want me to, I won’t,” she said. “But your lunch was simply dreadful, and I would hate to see you eating another dreadful meal. You must be starving for something good. But if you don’t want me to go tell them, I won’t.”
The Princess thought this over a minute. “On second thought, go ahead, it was dreadful. Just be sure to tell them how angry I am, too!”
“Yes, Princess Violet.” She curtsied. She turned and started to leave.
“I’m going for a fitting.” Rachel turned back to her. “Then I want to go to the jewel room, and try on some things, to go with my new dress. When you’re finished with the cooks, go get the key and wait for me in the jewel room.”
Rachel’s mouth felt as if it were stuck together. “But Princess, wouldn’t you rather wait until tomorrow, when the dress is finished, to see how pretty the jewelry will look with the dress?”
Princess Violet looked surprised. “Well, yes, that would be good, to see the jewels with the dress.” She thought another minute, then started up the steps. “I’m glad I thought of that.”
Rachel let out a breath, then headed off to the servants’ stairs. The Princess called down to her.
“On second thought, Rachel, I need to pick out something for tonight’s dinner, so I need to go to the jewel room anyway. Meet me there in a little while.”
“But, Princess…”
“But nothing. After you deliver my message to the cooks, go get the key and wait for me in the jewel room. I’ll be there as soon as I’m done with the fitting.”
The Princess went up the grand stairs and disappeared.
What was she going to do now? Giller was going to meet her in the jewel room, too. She was breathing hard, as if she was going to cry. What was she going to do?
She was going to do as Giller said, that’s what. She was going to be brave. So those people didn’t get their heads chopped off. She stopped herself from crying and went down the steps to the kitchen. She wondered what Giller wanted a big loaf of bread for.
“Well, w
hat do you think?” he whispered. “Any ideas?”
Kahlan was lying close, next to him on the ground, frowning while she looked over the edge to the scene below.
“I can’t even imagine,” she whispered back. “I have never seen so many short-tailed gars together in one place.”
“What could they be burning?”
“They’re not burning anything. The smoke is coming from the ground. This place is called Fire Spring. Those are vents where steam comes up from the ground, and from other openings water boils up from below, and more over there where other things boil, foul-smelling yellow liquid and thick mud. The fumes keep people away from this place. I have no idea what gars would be doing here.”
“Well, look there, near the back where the hill rises up, where the biggest vent is. There’s something on top of it, something egg-shaped, with steam coming out around it. They keep going up to look at it, to touch it.”
She shook her head. “Your eyes are better than mine. I can’t tell what it is, or even that it’s round.”
Richard could hear and feel rumbles from the ground, some followed by great belches of steam roaring from the vents. The awful suffocating smell of sulfur wafted up to where they hid in the stunted trees of the high ridge.
“Maybe we should go have a closer look,” he whispered, half to himself, as he watched the gars moving about below.
“That would be beyond foolhardy,” she whispered harshly. “It would be just plain stupid. One gar would be trouble enough, or have you forgotten so quickly. There must be dozens down there.”
“I guess,” he complained. “What’s that behind them, just above, on the side of the hill? A cave?”
Her eyes went to the dark maw. “Yes. It’s called the Shadrin’s Cave. Some say it goes all the way through the mountain, to the valley on the other side. But I don’t know of anyone who knows for sure, or who would want to find out.”
He watched the gars tearing an animal apart, fighting over it. “What’s a Shadrin?”
“The Shadrin is a beast that is supposed to live in the caves. Some say it’s just a myth, others swear it is real, but nobody wants to go find out for sure.”
He looked over at her as she watched the gars. “And what do you think?”
Kahlan shrugged. “I don’t know. There are many places in the Midlands where there are supposed to be beasts. I have been to many, and found no beasts. Most of these stories are just that, stories. But not all.”
Richard was glad she was talking. It was the most she had said in days. The odd behavior of the gars seemed to have overwhelmed her with curiosity, and brought her, for the moment, out of her withdrawal. But they couldn’t lie there talking; they were wasting time. Besides, if they stayed too long, the gars’ flies would find them. They both crawled backward, clear of the edge, then crept farther away, keeping their heads down and their movements quiet. Kahlan withdrew once again into silence.
Once away from the gars, they started down the road again, to Tamarang, the border land of the Wilds, the land ruled by Queen Milena. Before they had gone far, they came to a divide in the road. Richard assumed they would go to the right, as Kahlan had said that Tamarang lay to the east. The gars and Fire Spring had been off to their left. Kahlan went down the left road.
“What’re you doing?” He had had to watch her like a hawk since leaving Agaden Reach. He couldn’t trust her anymore. All she wanted to do was die, and he knew she would manage it if he didn’t watch her every move.
She looked back at him with the same blank expression she had worn for days. “This is called an inverted fork. Up ahead, where it’s hard to see because of the lay of the land and the heavy woods, the roads cross over each other and switch directions. Because of the thick trees, it’s hard to tell where the sun is, which direction you are going. If we take the right fork here, we will end up with the gars. This one, to the left, goes to Tamarang.”
He frowned. “Why would anyone go to the trouble to build a road like that?”
“It’s just one little way the old rulers of Tamarang used to help confuse invaders from the Wilds. Sometimes it slowed them down a little, gave the defenders time to retreat and regroup if they needed to, then to fall on the attackers again.”
He studied her face a moment, trying to judge if she was telling the truth. It infuriated him that he had to worry about whether Kahlan was telling him the truth.
“You’re the guide,” he said at last. “Lead on.”
At his word, she turned without comment and walked on. Richard didn’t know how much more of this he could take. She would only talk when it was required, wouldn’t listen when he tried to make conversation, and backed away whenever he got close. She acted as if his touch would be poison, but he knew it was really her touch she worried about. He had hoped that the way she was talking when they had spotted the gars signaled a change, but he was wrong. She had quickly reverted to her dark mood.
She had reduced herself to a prisoner on a forced march; had reduced him to a reluctant jailer. He kept her knife in his belt. He knew what would happen if he gave it back to her. With every step, she was drifting farther and farther from him. He knew he was losing her, but didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about it.
At night, when it was time for her watch, for him to sleep, he had to tie her hands and feet to prevent her from killing herself when he wasn’t watching. When he bound her, she endured it limply. He endured it with great pain. Even then, he had to sleep with one eye open. He slept by her feet so if she saw or heard something, she could wake him. He was dead tired from the strain.
He wished they had never gone to Shota. The idea that Zedd would turn on him was unthinkable; the idea that Kahlan would was unbearable.
Richard took out some food. He kept his voice cheerful, hoping to perk her up. “Here, have some of this dried fish?” He smiled. “It’s really awful.”
She didn’t laugh at his joke. “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”
Richard struggled to keep the smile on his face, struggled to keep his voice from betraying his anger. His head was pounding. “Kahlan, you’ve hardly eaten for days. You have to eat.”
“I said I don’t want any.”
“Come on, for me?” he coaxed.
“What are you going to do next? Hold me down and force it in my mouth?”
The calmness in her voice infuriated him, but he covered it as best he could with his tone, if not his words. “If I have to.”
She spun at him, her chest heaving. “Richard, please! Just let me go? I don’t want to be with you! Just let me go!” It was the first emotion she had shown since leaving Agaden Reach.
It was his turn to hide his emotions. “No.”
She glared at him with fire in her green eyes. “You can’t watch me every minute. Sooner or later…”
“Every minute… if I have to.”
They stood glaring angrily at each other; then the emotion on her face was gone, and she turned back to the road, walking on.
They had only stopped for a few minutes, but it had been enough for the thing that followed them to make another mistake, a rare one. It had let its guard down briefly, and let itself get too close—close enough for Richard to see its fierce yellow eyes again, if only for an instant.
He had been aware that they were being followed since the second day out of the Reach. Years spent alone in the woods made him aware when he was being followed, tracked. It was a game he and the other guides had played sometimes in the Hartland Woods, seeing how far they could follow each other without being detected. Whatever followed now was good at the game. But not as good as Richard. Three times now, he had seen the yellow eyes, when no one else would have.
He knew it wasn’t Samuel; the yellow was different, darker, and the eyes were closer together—and it was smarter. It couldn’t be a heart hound; they would have been attacked long before now. Whatever it was, it only watched.
Richard was sure Kahlan hadn’t seen it; she was too far
lost in her own dark thoughts. Sooner or later, the thing would make itself known, and Richard would be ready. But with Kahlan the way she was right now, he had his hands full, and he didn’t need more trouble.
So he didn’t turn and look, to show it that he suspected, didn’t backtrack, and didn’t snap a circle, as he and the other guides had called the maneuver, but rather, he let his eyes catch the glimpses when they did, without forcing a glance. He was reasonably sure the thing that followed didn’t know he was aware of it. For now, that’s the way he wanted to keep it. It left the advantage with him.
He watched Kahlan as she walked with her shoulders slumped, and wondered what he was going to do in a few days, when they reached Tamarang. Whether he liked it or not, she was winning this slow battle, simply because things couldn’t go on like this. She could fail time and again; she had only to succeed once. He had to win every time. To slip just once would let her end her life. In the end, he knew, he couldn’t win, knew he was going to lose, and could think of nothing to change that.
Rachel sat on the short footstool in front of the tall chair that was covered with red velvet and buttons and gold carving, waiting, knocking her knees together. Hurry, Giller, she kept saying to herself, hurry, before the Princess comes. She looked up at the Queen’s box. She hoped that when Princess Violet came to try on jewelry, she didn’t touch the box again. Rachel hated it when she did that; it scared her.
The door opened a little. Giller poked his head in.
“Hurry, Giller,” she whispered loudly.
The rest of him came in. He stuck his head back out, looking up and down the hall, then he shut the door. He looked down at her.
“Did you get the bread?”
She nodded. “I got it here.” She pulled the bundle out from under the chair and set it on the footstool. “I took a towel and wrapped it around the bread so no one would see.”
“Good girl.” He smiled as he turned around, away from her.
She smiled up at him, then frowned. “I had to steal it. I never stole anything before.”
“I assure you, Rachel, it’s for a good cause.” He was looking at the box.
Wizard's First Rule Page 52
