Richard smiled to himself at the thought of them. “Vika, you and I can take first watch. Then however the rest of you want to divide up is fine.”
They all grunted their agreement as they ate chicken.
“Can you pass me some of that hard cheese?” Kahlan asked.
Richard looked up from his piece of fried chicken. He finished chewing a mouthful and then swallowed.
“I like cheese,” he said, “but you hate cheese.”
“I know,” she said, seemingly unable to explain it, “but for some reason I’m really hungry for cheese.”
“Cravings,” Shale said with a smile.
Richard looked over at the sorceress. “What?”
Shale gestured with the bones of a chicken wing toward Kahlan. “She’s pregnant. She is having cravings.”
Richard blinked at the sorceress. “But she hates cheese.”
Shale’s smile widened. “Well, apparently, at least one of her babies likes it.”
28
As dawn broke in the east, they all ate a quick breakfast to finish off the chicken. The low clouds let rays of light through a band of sky at the horizon. The bottoms of the clouds turned pink at first, then gradually a deep purple.
Kahlan was eager to have another piece of cheese. She knew she hated cheese, but for some reason it tasted wonderful. She couldn’t explain it. She supposed that Shale was right that at least one of her babies had a taste for it. As she ate it, she rubbed her belly.
“This is for you,” she told them.
After they had packed up their bedrolls and gear, they saddled their horses while Vale and Cassia were off on a short scouting patrol to make sure there were no surprises lurking about. One of them went off in each direction to check the gully, since that was the only place where they couldn’t see for miles, unlike the rest of the desolate Azrith Plain. It was a quick reconnaissance and they both returned to report seeing nothing and finding no footprints. While many people came to the People’s Palace from all over much of D’Hara, in the direction they were headed across the Azrith Plain the land was deserted and there was no civilization before reaching the Midlands.
As Kahlan struggled to lift her saddle up over her mare’s back, Richard rushed over to help. Kahlan was strong. It seemed odd to her that she was having trouble lifting her saddle. She decided that with all they had been through down in the complication, the encounter with Michec, and having only a short sleep, she was simply tired.
Richard stepped in beside her, taking the saddle out of her hands. “Here, let me help lift that.”
He hoisted the saddle up onto her mare, and she got to put a hand on his back as he pulled the strap underneath and tightened it. She was glad for the chance to touch him, to feel a connection to him. After all that they had nearly lost, it was reassuring to touch him and see him smile. Though it was going to be a long journey, it would be a joyous one to not only be away from the constant threat of attack but to be with Richard.
She grinned as she looked up into his gray eyes. “We’re going to have babies.”
He bent and kissed her. “I will always protect them, and you. We’ll teach them to be good people. I promised you a golden age and I still intend to keep that promise.”
Darkness unexpectedly crept into her thoughts. “What about the Golden Goddess? Maybe you are mistaken and that is the golden age that is coming. She is in another world. How can we possibly defeat her? How can we stop her from coming for our children?”
Richard sighed, his smile fading with the change of subject. He didn’t have an answer, so he didn’t try to lie to her.
“I promised you I will protect them, and I will.”
“I know. You will think of something,” she said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice, trying to sound optimistic and bring back his smile. “I know you will.”
His smile made a brief reappearance.
She gazed out toward the still-dark horizon to the west after she saw that the others looked like they were about ready to leave. “Which direction?”
Richard took a quick look off into the distance to the dark horizon. “Aydindril is northwest from here as the crow flies. That would be the obvious choice, but with a formidable mountain range lying across the straightest route from here to Aydindril, mountains where the boundary once stood when we were growing up, that’s a problem. The boundary may be gone, but these mountains still present a formidable barrier.”
Kahlan shuddered at the mention of the boundary. When it had come down, it had unleashed Darken Rahl and the might of D’Hara on the Midlands. It had been the end of a long peace, the end of all the other Confessors, and the beginning of a horrific war. But the boundary coming down had also brought her to be with Richard. The world was so different now, but those mountains reminded her of the way things used to be.
“It’s possible we could find a way across those mountains,” Richard said, “but if we found a pass, it would be a dangerous crossing. Any high pass across that range would likely mean we would need to abandon the horses at some point. And that’s if we can find a such a pass.
“It’s also possible we could wander around in those mountains and never find a way across. Much of that range rises thousands of feet in nearly sheer rock walls. While it would theoretically be the shortest distance to Aydindril, I think trying to go that way would mean we would have to go on foot, spend a lot of time only to come to impassable cliffs, and even if we eventually found a way over it would end up taking longer. Not only that, but like I said, if we can find a pass up in those mountains, it’s likely to be dangerous.”
Kahlan stared off to the west. She knew those mountains, and she knew he was right. “It’s the heat of summer down here, but high up in those mountains weather could be a big problem.”
He nodded as he checked a saddle strap under the stirrups and then tipped his head more toward the left. “Southwest will get us to the Kern River. There will be a road along the river. It would provide an easier way over into the Midlands. It’s longer, but easier traveling and a lot less of a risk.”
Kahlan sighed as she looked toward the northwest, toward her home, toward the Confessors’ Palace, where she had been born, and where the Wizard’s Keep waited. She hadn’t realized how much she missed home. Now that they were going to Aydindril, she felt a sense of excitement to get there. The idea of having her children born where she had been born sounded wonderful to her.
“If we go too far south to cross the Kern we will end up in the Wilds.” She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You know what that’s like.”
Richard grimaced as he nodded. “Well, maybe if we spot any possible gaps in the mountain range, we can find a way across long before we have to go that far south.”
Kahlan nodded. “And if we can find a way across the mountains before we have to go too far south, we will end up in populated parts of the Midlands, where we can get any supplies we need. That will make our travel easier. Even if we do have to abandon the horses to get across, we can get horses in those lands.”
“There is that,” he said. “But don’t forget, we need to stay out of sight of people as much as possible.”
“You’re right.” Kahlan sighed. “It sounds like for now we need to head southwest through the desolate parts of D’Hara to get beyond at least the largest of the mountains. To the south they aren’t as formidable as they are up here to the north.”
“We will stay as close to the mountains as practical but still in areas that allow us to make good time. That way, I may be able to find a way over the mountains and into the Midlands sooner rather than later. Once we cross over, we can head north to Aydindril.” He smiled at her. “If there is a pass, I’ll find it. I am a woods guide, after all.”
Kahlan returned the smile. “I guess we have a plan for now.”
As eager as she was to get to the Keep, she knew they had to be smart about it. There was a lot of wild and dangerous country between them and where they needed to go.
�
��Everyone ready?” Richard called out.
Shale climbed up in her saddle after confirming that she was ready. The Mord-Sith mounted up, also letting him know that they were ready. When Kahlan saw Nyda yawn, it made her yawn, too.
In short order they were on their way. They rode up out of the gully and then headed southwest across the featureless plain for the rest of the day. As the sun started to sink off to their right, Kahlan was just able to make out a ragged, pale blue line of mountains in the distance, outlined by the sun as it sank behind them. She guessed those mountains would still be a number of days’ ride if they went directly northwest, toward Aydindril, but with the way they were heading to the southwest to skirt the highest of those mountains, it would likely be many days before they were close to the long spine of the mountain range where Richard could start looking for a way over it. The sooner he could find a way, the shorter their journey would be and the sooner they would reach the safety of the Keep.
The frustrating thing was that they were going farther away from Aydindril all the time because the imposing mountain range prevented a more direct route. She told herself it couldn’t be helped.
As tired as she was, it made Kahlan feel good to at least be headed home, even if indirectly, and, hopefully, the worry of the Glee would be left behind them.
It excited her to heading home with her two unborn children of D’Hara. She hoped to raise them for a good part of their childhood where she’d grown up, where she had first discovered the excitement of the natural world around her.
As they rode, she couldn’t keep her mind from drifting back to thoughts of Michec, when she had been hanging from the manacles as he was about to skin her, and the threat that the Glee were going to rip her babies from her womb.
Unexpectedly, the memory of the glint she had seen in the dead witch man’s eyes just before Richard burned him to ash began to haunt her as she rode.
Witches had a way of never letting you feel entirely free of their reach.
29
Kahlan laid the reins down on her horse’s neck and then rested her wrists on the saddle horn. She sat quietly, waiting, as Richard stared off at something. They had been riding since first light, and she was getting saddle-sore. As she waited, she put her hands on her sides and stretched in both directions as best she could.
Whatever it was he was staring at had Richard looking troubled, so much so that his behavior was beginning to spook her. She didn’t like it when he turned quiet like this. It usually meant trouble.
A light mist tingled against her face, feeling like icy little sparkles. The weather had been gloomy for the past three weeks. Or was it four? The monotony of it was getting to be mind-numbing. Somehow, she felt as if she was losing count of the days as they made their way endlessly through a quiet wood of tall pine and fir on their way southwest.
Soft streamers of hazy light angled down in long shafts among the towering tree trunks, illuminating the veils of mist floating in the occasional breath of gentle breeze. Here and there small stretches of granite ledges broke up through the forest floor. A light fog moved silently among some of the fern beds between the rock outcroppings. The towering canopies of the trees left it somber and deathly quiet down on the forest floor. Because of the perpetual shade, little brush grew, leaving the ground open among the trees.
Down where they were, with the thick canopy so far above them, not even the wind reached them. While it was quiet now, she had on some days heard the distant sound of the wind gusting far above them. Sometimes, in the drizzle, the only sound was water that collected on the pine needles letting go and dripping down to splatter on the large leaves of moose maples. She was tired of huddling under rain gear. It never kept them completely dry, making for miserable travel. She ached for the warmth of sunlight.
Everyone else waited behind Richard and Kahlan as he silently studied something. She was getting impatient.
“You know, for some reason, I feel like I’ve seen that rock before,” Kahlan said to break the silence. She swiped accumulated mist off her brow. As she flicked the water off her finger, she gestured ahead. “That one there, the one that looks like a big nose on the side. It looks familiar.”
Richard finally turned a troubled look back toward her. “That’s because you have seen it before. This is the third time we’ve come this way.”
Kahlan blinked in disbelief. Richard grew up as a woods guide. The forest had been his home for much of his life. He didn’t lose his bearings in the woods.
“How is that possible?”
He turned away toward the rock again. “I don’t know.”
“What’s the problem?” Shale asked from behind them.
Richard stood in the stirrups and looked back at the others. “Do any of you recognize this place?”
Baffled, Berdine glanced around. “Recognize it? How could we? Trees all look the same. How could we possibly recognize one place from another?”
Nyda looked about. “The woods all look the same to me, too.”
The rest of the Mord-Sith all nodded their agreement. Mord-Sith weren’t exactly familiar with forests, so Kahlan wasn’t surprised they thought that trees all looked the same.
“So what’s going on?” Shale asked, clearly getting impatient.
Rather than answer her question, he asked her one instead. “What direction are we heading?”
Perplexed, Shale lifted an arm to point out ahead. “Southwest. We’ve been heading southwest for weeks.”
“I don’t know a whole lot about the woods,” Cassia said, “but I’m pretty good with direction. Shale is right. We’ve been heading southwest the whole time. Straight as an arrow,” she added.
Shale regarded him with a curious look, sensing that something was amiss. “Do you for some reason think differently?”
“No,” Richard said, “I agree, we’ve been heading southwest for a long time.”
“So what’s the problem?” the sorceress asked.
“The problem is, despite going in the same direction the whole time, straight as an arrow, as Cassia put it, this is at least the third time we’ve been in this exact same spot. Without a road or path, we are moving randomly among the trees, so even traveling in a big circle we wouldn’t necessarily come across the exact same ground. Yet this time we did. If fact, this is the third time we have been in this same place in the woods.”
The Mord-Sith, now alert, all looked around. Shale rode her horse forward, closer to Richard and Kahlan.
“What are you talking about? That’s impossible.”
Richard gestured ahead. “Do you recognize that rock?”
Shale wet her lips as she hesitated. “As a matter of fact, I might. I seem to remember it because it looks like a nose growing out of the left side.”
“You mean we’ve been traveling around in a big circle?” Vika asked as she rode her horse up on the other side of Richard.
He nodded. “I believe so.”
“We can’t afford to waste time riding around in circles.” Shale was beginning to sound more than a little aggravated, as if she thought he was doing it deliberately. “I thought you were a woodsman, or something.”
“Or something.” Richard sighed as he laid both wrists over the horn of his saddle. “All I can tell you is that as far as I know, we have been riding southwest for weeks, but this is at least the third time we’ve come across this rock. That can only mean that we are traveling in circles.”
Shale glanced around suspiciously. “Well, have you seen hoof prints from all our horses to confirm your suspicion? If we’ve been here before, there should be some signs to confirm it.”
Richard shook his head unhappily. “No, I haven’t. But I know we’ve been in this spot before. I can’t explain it, but I’m telling you, we are somehow going in a circles.”
“Maybe it just looks like another rock we saw before,” Berdine suggested. “The rocks all have different shapes, but a lot of them are kind of similar-looking—like the trees. Maybe this on
e only looks similar to ones that you’ve seen before.”
He gestured around at the woods. “Look at the type of forest we’re in. It never changes.”
Berdine wrinkled up her expression at what he could be talking about. “Of course not. Woods are woods. They all look the same.”
“No they don’t,” Richard said with quiet disagreement. “At least, they shouldn’t. As you travel you move into different areas. Vegetation changes. Trees grow different sizes with different soil conditions. Rocks and the terrain change from time to time. Sometimes windfalls will create openings for a meadow, or a tree nursery to spring to life. But the woods we’ve been in have not changed since about the time we entered them.”
“Now that you mention it,” Kahlan said, “the woods have been looking pretty much just like this for weeks, now. That is odd. We should be getting somewhere, but it doesn’t seem like we are.”
Richard nodded. “That’s because we are somehow riding in a big circle.”
“Well, except for the first day, it has been cloudy and drizzly for the entire time,” Vika said. “It has been too overcast to see for sure where the sun is in the sky, and down here, under the cover of trees, it is even harder to tell.”
“You’re right, but the sun isn’t the only way to tell direction,” Richard said. “More than that, though, something feels wrong.”
Shale squinted at him. “Like what? What are you suggesting?”
Richard sighed as he shook his head. “Maybe it’s been too long since I’ve been in the woods. Maybe my skills have gotten rusty and something is confusing my sense of direction.”
Kahlan thought that highly improbable, but she didn’t want to say it out loud.
30
After another week of long days of traveling, or maybe it was longer, Kahlan couldn’t remember for sure, they again arrived at the same rock that looked like it had a nose on the side of it. This time, though, they were positive it was the same rock, because the last time they had been there Richard had scraped a big X on the side of the nose. When they saw that X again, everyone’s heart sank. No one doubted any longer that they were indeed traveling in a big circle, and no one had an explanation, least of all Richard.
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