“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, and then 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 as she 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.

Chapter 45

Richard held the thick spines of 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.

Her head swung around toward him, her eyes angry, impatient. “There are too many gars. Darken Rahl knows I can’t fight that many—that’s why there are so many there—in case I ever found my egg. You said you would think of a plan. What is it?”

Richard glanced over at the mouth of the cave. The Shadrin’s cave, Kahlan had told him. “We need a diversion, something to distract them while we get the egg.”

“While you get the egg,” Scarlet corrected, with a little flame to make her point.

He looked over at the cave again. “One of my friends told me the cave goes all the way through, to where the egg is. Maybe I could go through, snatch the egg, and bring it back.”

“Get going.”

“Shouldn’t we discuss if it’s a good idea? Maybe we could think of something better. I’ve also heard there might be something in the cave.”

Scarlet brought her angry eye closer to him. “Something in the cave?” She snaked her head around to the opening and sent a horrific blast of fire into the darkness. Her head came back. “Now there’s nothing in the cave. Go get my egg.”

The cave was miles long. Richard knew the fire wouldn’t have harmed anything farther back. He also knew he had given his word. Collecting cane reeds growing nearby, he bound them together with a sinewy vine into several bundles. He held one bundle up to Scarlet as she watched him.