CHAPTER 48

Richard walked in a daze, watching the ground before him lit by moonlight. Through that dark, hazy state, only one spark of anything seemed able to burn through.

Kahlan.

He missed her so much. He was so tired of the struggle. He was so tired of trying. He was so tired of failing.

He ached to have her back. To have his life with her back. To hold her… just to hold her.

He remembered the time, years before, in the spirit house, when he had not known that she was the Mother Confessor and she had been feeling desperately lonely and overwhelmed by the crushing secrets she had to keep. She had asked him to hold her, just to hold her. He remembered the pain in her voice, the pain of needing to be held, comforted.

He would give anything to do that now.

"Stop," a voice hissed at him. "Wait."

Richard halted. He had trouble trying to care what was going on, even though he knew he should. He could read the tension in her posture; she was like a bird of prey cocking its head, lifting its wings the slightest bit.

He couldn't seem to escape the thick lethargy that weighed him down so that he could think it through. Her deportment appeared to be the coiled potential for aggression, but underlying that he saw a hint of fear.

He finally managed to summon the concern to try to understand. Then, in the moonlight, he saw what Six was watching: what looked like a vast encampment spread across a valley. Because it was the middle of the night, things were relatively quiet down below. Even through the numb miasma of her presence, Richard felt his level of concern rising.

He saw something else, too. Past the valley encampment, he saw, up on the high ground beyond, a castle that he thought he recognized.

"Come on," Six hissed as she glided past him.

Richard trudged after her, once more sinking back into the indifferent haze where all he could think about was Kahlan.

They walked for what seemed like hours through the countryside in the dead of night. Six was as quiet as a snake, moving, pausing, then moving again as she made her way along minor trails through thick woods. Richard felt comforted by the smell of balsam and fir trees. The moss and ferns delighted him with childhood memories.

The delight of the woods evaporated when they walked along cobbled streets, among closed shops, past dark buildings. There were men in the shadows, pairs of them, carrying pikes. Richard felt as if he were in a dream watching it all pass before his mind's eye. He half expected that all he would have to do was imagine the woods again and they would appear.

He imagined Kahlan. She did not appear.

Two men in polished metal armor rushed out of a side street. They fell to their knees before Six, kissing the hem of her black dress. She slowed only slightly for their groveling supplication. They followed along as she continued up the streets, becoming escorts for the night's shadow trailing darkness behind her.

It all felt so dreamy. Richard knew that he should fight it, but he couldn't make himself care. He cared only about doing as Six told him. He couldn't help himself. Seeing the flowing form of her charmed him, looking into her eyes captivated him, hearing her voice bewitched him. Without his gift, she filled that empty void within his soul.

Her presence somehow completed him, filled him with purpose.

The two guards with them gently rapped on an iron door in a great stone wall. A small door on the inside over a small slit in the iron door opened. Eyes peered out. They widened a little at seeing the pale shadow before them. Richard could hear men on the other side rushing to draw, back a heavy bar.

The door opened and Six slipped through with Richard in tow. He saw great stone walls in the moonlight, but paid them little heed. He was more fascinated by the snaking shape leading him through the silky night.

Once they passed through great doors, men rushed about, opening yet more doors, shouting orders, and bringing torches.

"This way," one man said as he led them into a stone stairwell.

Down they went, spiraling and turning, ever deeper. Richard felt as if they were being swallowed down the gullet of some great stone beast. As long as Six was taking him, though, he was content to be swallowed. At lower levels, in a dank corridor, the men led her into a gloomy place. Hay was scattered over the slimy floor. Water echoed as it dripped in the distance.

"Here is the place you requested," a guard told her.

The heavy door squealed in rusty protest as he pulled it open. Inside, on a small table, he lit a candle with the torch.

"Your room for the night," Six told Richard. "It will be light soon. I will be back, then."

"Yes, Mistress," he said.

She leaned toward him a little, a thin smile slitting her bloodless face. "If I know the queen, she will want to begin immediately. She's quite impatient, to say nothing of being impulsive. She will no doubt bring the big men with whips. I expect that before the morning is over she will have the flesh torn from your back."

Richard stared. He couldn't make his mind grasp it all. "Mistress?"

"The queen is not only vicious, but vindictive. You are going to be the object of her venom. But not to worry; I still need you alive. You may suffer excruciating agony, but you will live."

She turned with a billowing flourish and swept out the door, a shadow swallowed into the darkness. Men funneled out the door after her. The door banged closed. Richard heard the lock click home. Before he knew it, he was suddenly standing alone in a stone room, deserted, forsaken, forgotten.

In the silence, terror began to seep into his bones. Why would a queen want to hurt him? What did Six need him alive for?

Richard blinked. As the moments passed, he felt his mind working to understand. It felt as if the farther away Six went, the better he could think.

After the torches were gone, it was a while before his eyes adjusted to the light of a single candle. He looked around at the stone room. There was only a chair and a table. The floor was stone. The walls were stone. The ceiling had heavy beams.

It hit him like a thunderclap.

Denna.

This was the room where he had been taken when he had first been captured by Denna. He recognized the table. He remembered Denna sitting in that very chair. He looked up and there, right where he remembered it being, he saw the iron peg.

His wrists had been in iron manacles. Denna had hung the chain holding them together over that iron peg. He had hung from it as Denna tortured him with her Agiel. Horrifying images of the night Denna had broken him flashed through his mind. The night she had thought she had broken him, anyway. He had partitioned his mind. But he remembered the things she had done to him that night.

And he remembered what had prompted her to such violence.

He had been hanging there when Princess Violet had come in to watch. The princess had decided that she wanted to participate, to join in his torture. Denna gave the little monster her Agiel and showed her how to use it on him.

Richard remembered Violet bragging about how she was going to have Kahlan raped, tortured, and finally killed.

Richard had kicked Violet hard enough to shatter her jaw and sever her tongue.

This was that room.

Richard leaned back against the stone wall and slid down to sit and rest. He needed to think, to figure it out, to understand what was going on.

He was leaning against his pack, so he pulled it off and set it in his lap. A thought struck him and he looked through the pack, pushing his war-wizard outfit and gold cape aside until he found the book Baraccus had left for him. He thumbed through the pages. They were still blank. If only he hadn't lost his gift, he would have been able to read the book. If he knew how to use his ability he would have been able to save himself. If only.