She turned to Kahlan. 'I think these things will help him. Tell him to keep chewing the leaves. Come get me if he needs me.'
'Nissel, is he going to get better soon? Shouldn't he be getting better?'
The stooped old woman glanced down at Richard. 'Spirit has a mind of its own. It doesn't always listen. I think his does not want to listen.' She suddenly brightened at seeing the stricken look on Kahlan's face. 'Don't worry, child. I can make even the spirit listen.'
Kahlan nodded. Nissel gave her a warm smile and a pat on the arm before she went on her way.
Richard looked up at Kahlan and Savidlin. 'Did you tell him? Did you tell him I'm sorry about ruining all his arrows?'
Kahlan smiled a little to Savidlin. 'He is worried about ruining so many arrows.'
Savidlin grunted. 'It is my own fault. I made your bow too good.' Richard managed a laugh. 'Weselan is off making bread. I must go see to some things. Rest well. We will be back when it is time to eat. We will eat together. It smells like my wife has made some good stew.'
----------
After Savidlin left, Kahlan sat on the floor, tight against him.
'Richard, what happened today? Savidlin told me how you shot arrows today. You haven't always been that good, have you?'
He wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. 'No. I've split arrows before, but not more than a half dozen in one day.'
'You've shot that many in one day before?'
He nodded. 'On a good day, when I can feel the target. But today was different.'
'How?'
'Well, we went out on the plain, and my head was really starting to hurt. The men set up targets of bundled grass. I didn't think I would even be able to hit a target, because my head hurt so much. But I didn't want to disappoint Savidlin, so I tried anyway. When I shoot, I call the target to me.'
'What do you mean, you call the target to you?'
Richard shrugged. 'I don't know. I used to think everyone did it when they shot. But Zedd told me they don't. I look at the target, and just sort of pull it to me. When I'm doing it right, it blocks out everything else. It's only me and the target, as if it comes closer. Somehow, I know exactly how the arrow must be held to hit the target. When I'm doing it right, I can feel that the arrow is in the right place before I release the bowstring.
'When I learned that I always hit the target when I had that certain feeling, I quit shooting arrows. I would just aim, trying to bring on the correct feel. I knew when I had it I wouldn't miss, so I didn't bother shooting. I would nock another arrow and try for the feel again. Over time, I learned to do it more often.'
'How was it different today?'
'Well, like I said, my head really hurt. I watched some of the other men shoot. They were very good. Savidlin started slapping me on the back, so I knew it was my turn. I figured I might as well get it over. My head felt as if it was going to split open. I drew the bow, and called the target to me.'
Richard ran his fingers through his hair. 'I don't know how to explain it. I called the target, and instantly, my headache was gone. No pain at all. The target came to me as it never had before. It felt like there was a notch in the air where I needed only to lay the arrow. I have never felt it so strongly before. It was as if the target was huge. I knew it would be impossible to miss.
'After a while, just for variation, instead of splitting the arrows already there, I would just shave off the red outside feather. When I did that, the men thought I had missed splitting the arrow already there. They had no idea I was doing something more difficult.'
'And your headache was completely gone?' He nodded. 'Do you have any idea why all this was happening?'
Richard pulled his knees up and rested his forearms on them. He looked away from her face. 'I'm afraid I do. It was magic.'
'Magic?' Kahlan whispered. 'What do you mean?'
His eyes came back to her. 'Kahlan, I don't know what your magic feels like inside you, but I have felt magic. Every time I draw the Sword of Truth, magic flows into me, becomes part of me. I know what that magic feels like. I've felt it often enough, and in different ways, depending on how I use it. But because I have joined with the sword, I can sense the magic from it, even as it sits in its scabbard on my hip. Now I can call forth its magic without even having to draw the sword. I can sense it, like a dog at my heel, ready to jump for me.
'Today, when I drew the bow and called the target, I also called something else: magic.
'When Zedd touched me before, to heal me, and when you touched me when you were in the Con Dar, I felt the magic. This was something like that. I knew it was magic. It felt different from yours and Zedd's, but I recognized the texture of magic. I could feel the life of it, like a second breath. Alive.' Richard put a fist in the center of his chest. 'I could feel it coming from inside me, building until I released it to call the target.'
Kahlan recognized in herself the feelings he was describing. 'Maybe it has something to do with the sword.'
He shook his head. 'I don't know. I suppose it could be. But I couldn't control it. After a while, it simply went away, like a candle blown out in the wind. It felt like suddenly being in darkness, as if I was suddenly blind. And the headache came back.
'I couldn't hit the target, and I couldn't call it to me, so I just let the others shoot. The magic would come and go. I could never tell when it was going to happen. Then when the men started eating meat, I felt sick, and had to go away from them. I shot while they ate, and sometimes I could summon the magic and the headache would go away.'
'What about when you caught the arrow out of the air?'
He cast her a sidelong glance. 'Savidlin told you about that, did he?' She nodded. Richard let out a deep breath. 'That was the strangest of all. I don't know how to explain it. Somehow, I made the air thicker.'
She leaned closer, studying his face. 'Made the air thicker?'
He nodded again. 'I knew I had to slow the arrow down, and the only thing I could think of was that if the air was thick, like it was those times with the sword, when the air got thick and stopped the sword, then maybe I had a chance. Otherwise, I was going to die. It just all came into my head at once, the idea, and the doing. Instantly.
'I have no clue as to what I did. I just had the thought and I saw my hand snatch the arrow out of the air.'
He fell silent. Kahlan rubbed her thumb on the side of her boot heel. She didn't know what to say. Fear was nibbling at the fringes of her mind. She flicked her eyes up for a glance at him. He was staring off into space.
'Richard,' she whispered, 'I love you.'
His answer was a long moment in coming. 'I love you too.' He turned to her. 'Kahlan, I'm afraid.'
'Of what?'
'Something is going on. A screeling shows up, I have these headaches, you call down lightning, I do what I did today. The only thing I can think to do is to go to Aydindril and find Zedd. All these things have something to do with magic.'
She didn't think he was necessarily wrong, but put some other answers to them anyway. 'Me calling down the lightning has to do with my magic. Not you. Though I don't know how I did it, I did it to protect you. The screeling, I think, is from the underworld. That has nothing to do with us. It is just something evil. The magic with you today ... well, that could have something to do with the magic from the sword. I just don't know.'
And the headaches?'
'I don't know,' she admitted at last.
'Kahlan, the headaches might kill me. I don't know how I know that, but I know it's true. It's not just a simple headache. It's something else. I don't know what.'
'Richard, please don't say that. You're scaring me.'
'Scares me, too. One reason I was angry at Chandalen was because I fear he may be right about me. About me bringing trouble.'
'Maybe we should start thinking about getting out of here. Getting to Zedd.'
And what about the headaches? Much of the time, I can't even stand. I can't stop every ten paces to shoot an arr
ow.'
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. 'Maybe Nissel can find an answer.'
He shook his head. 'She can help only a little, and only for a time. Soon, I don't think she is going to be able to do anything. I'm afraid I might die.'
Kahlan started crying. Richard leaned back against the wall, put his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her against him. He started to say something else, but she put her fingers over his lips. She pressed her face against him as she cried, clutching at his shirt. It seemed as if everything was slowly starting to unravel. He held her and let her cry.
Kahlan began to realize she was being selfish. It was him these things were happening to. He was the one in pain, in danger. She should be comforting him, not the other way around.
'Richard Cypher, if you think this is going to get you out of marrying me, you had better think again.'
'Kahlan, I'm not ... I swear ...'
She smiled and gently touched his cheek as she kissed him. 'I know. Richard, we've solved problems a lot bigger than this one. We will figure it out. I promise. We have to; Weselan has already started my dress.'
Richard put some of Nissel's leaves in his mouth. 'Really? I bet you are going to look beautiful in it.'
'Well, if you want to find out, you are just going to have to marry me.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Savidlin, Weselan, and Siddin returned a short time later. Richard had closed his eyes and rested as he chewed the leaves, and he said his head felt a little better. Siddin was excited. He was a local celebrity, having ridden on a dragon. He had spent the better part of the day telling other children what it had been like. Now he wanted to sit in Kahlan's lap and tell her about how he had been the center of attention.
She listened with a smile while they all ate stew and tava bread. Like her, Richard didn't want any cheese. Savidlin offered him a piece of smoked meat. Richard politely declined.
As they were finishing their meal, a grim-faced Bird Man, ringed by men with spears, showed up at the door. Everyone set their bowls down and stood. Kahlan didn't like the look on his face.
Richard stepped forward. 'What is it? What's happened?'
The Bird Man took in everyone with a sweep of his eyes. 'Three women, strangers, have come on horses.'
Kahlan wondered why three women would bring men with spears around the Bird Man. 'What do they want?'
'They are difficult to understand. They speak only a little of our language. I believe they want Richard. They seemed to say they want Richard and they want to see his parents.'
'My parents! Are you sure?'
'I think that is what they were trying to say. They said for you not to try to run any more. That they have come for you, and you must not run. They told me I must not interfere.'
Richard unconsciously loosened his sword in its scabbard, his brow taking on a hawklike set. 'Where are they?'
'I had them wait in the spirit house.'
Kahlan hooked some hair behind her ear. 'Did they say who they are?'
The Bird Man's long silver hair gleamed in the light of the setting sun coming from behind him. 'They called themselves the Sisters of the Light.'
Kahlan's breath caught in her throat; goose bumps rippled up her arms. Her insides felt as if they had been twisted into an icy knot.
She couldn't make her eyes blink.
CHAPTER 9
Richard frowned. 'Well? Who are they? What did he say?'
Still, she couldn't make her eyes blink. She could only manage a whisper. 'He said they are the Sisters of the Light.'
He stared at her a long moment. 'Who are the Sisters of the Light?'
Finally, she blinked and looked over at him. 'I don't know a whole lot about them. No one does. Richard, I think we should leave.' Kahlan clamped both hands on his arm. 'Please? Let's go. Right now.'
Richard's gaze glided over the men with spears, stopping on the Bird Man. 'Thank him for coming to us. Tell him we will take care of it.'
After the Bird Man nodded and he and his men left, and they had told Savidlin they would go alone, Richard led her outside by the arm. They went around a few corners and he pushed her gently up against a wall, holding her by her upper arms.
'All right, you may not know a lot about them, but you know something. Tell me what it is. I don't need to be a mind reader to tell you know something, and you're afraid.'
'They have something to do with wizards. With those with the gift.'
'What do you mean?'
Kahlan put her hands on his arms the way he had his on hers. 'One time when I was traveling with Wizard Giller, we were sitting around talking. You know, about life, dreams, things like that. Giller was a wizard by calling. He didn't have the gift, just the calling. Being a wizard had been his lifelong ambition, his calling. Zedd had taught him to be a wizard. Only, because of the wizard's web Zedd put over everyone when he left the Midlands, Giller didn't remember Zedd. No one did. No one even remembered his name.
Anyway, I asked him if he ever wished he had more than the calling. If he wished he had the gift. He smiled and daydreamed about it a minute. Then his smile went away. His face turned white, and he said no, he didn't wish he had the gift.
'I was puzzled by the look of fear on his face. Wizards don't often get a look like that over a simple question. I asked him why he wouldn't want to have the gift. He said because if he had the gift, he would have to face the Sisters of the Light.
'I asked him who they were, but he wouldn't tell me anything about them. He said it was best not to even mention their name aloud. He begged me not to ask him any more on the subject. I still remember how much the look on his face scared me.'
'Do you know where they're from?'
'I've been almost everywhere in the Midlands. I've never heard of them being seen anywhere. And I've asked.'
Richard let go of her and put a fist on his hip. With his other hand, he squeezed his lower lip to a point as he thought. Finally he folded his arms and turned around. The gift. So we're back to the gift. I thought we were done with this nonsense. I don't have the gift!'
She knitted her fingers together. 'Richard please, let's just get away. If a wizard was afraid of the Sisters of the Light ... Let's just get away from here.'
'And what if they follow? What if they catch up with us when the headache has me flat on my back, when I'm defenseless?'
'Richard, I don't know anything about them. But if a wizard is that afraid of them ... What if we are defenseless right now?'
'I am the Seeker. I am not defenseless. But I might be later. Better to meet them on my terms than theirs. And I'm tired of hearing about the gift! I don't have it and I'm going to put an end to this nonsense right now.'
She took a deep breath and nodded. 'All right. I guess the Seeker and the Mother Confessor are not without defenses.'
He gave her a stern look. 'You're not coming.'
'Do you have a rope?'
Richard frowned. 'No. Why?'
She lifted an eyebrow. 'You will have a hard time stopping me if you don't have a rope to tie me up.'
'Kahlan, I'm not letting you ...'
'And I'm not giving you a chance to have a look at a woman you might fancy more than me, without being there to give her a whack.'
He watched her with an exasperated expression, and then leaned forward and kissed her. 'All right. But let's not have an "adventure"?'
She smiled. 'We will just tell these three you don't have the gift, send them on their way, and then I'm going to give you a serious kiss.'
The sky was darkening into a deep blue when they reached the spirit house. Three strong horses were tethered a short distance away. Their saddles were different from any she had seen before, with high pommels and cantles. As they paused in front of the door, the air was cold enough to show their breath. Richard and Kahlan gave each other a smile and a squeeze of the hand. Richard checked that the sword was clear in its scabbard. He took a deep breath and pulled open the door. Kahlan wore her Confessor
's face, as her mother had taught her.
The inside of the spirit house was lit by a small fire and two torches in brackets, one to each side of the fireplace. Their packs still sat to the side. The air smelled of pitch and the balsam-scented sticks that were always burned in the spirit house to make the ancestors' spirits welcome. Torchlight flickered on the skulls of ancestors sitting on a single shelf. The dirt floor was dry, since Richard had used the spirit house to teach the Mud People to make roofs that didn't leak.
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