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"I don't have the gift! I don't want anything to do with magic! Magic has caused me nothing but trouble, nothing but pain. I don't have the gift and I don't want it." He reached for the latch again."And I suppose you are going to tell us that your eating habits haven't changed, all of a sudden," Sister Grace said. "I would say in just the last few days."
Richard froze again. "Everyone has changes in mood about what they want to eat."
"Has anyone watched you sleep?"
"What?"
"If anyone has watched you sleep, they will have noticed that you now sleep with your eyes open."
Kahlan felt a cold wave of goose bumps. Everything was starting to connect. Wizards all had odd, specific eating habits, and they all slept with their eyes open, sometimes; even those without the gift. In those with the gift, like Zedd, it was more often.
"I don't sleep with my eyes open. You are wrong."
"Richard," Kahlan whispered, "maybe we should listen to them. Hear what they have to say."
His eyes came to her, as if pleading for her to help him escape this. Pleading for her help. "I don't sleep with my eyes open."
"Yes, you do." She put a hand on his arm. "I have seen you sleeping for months as we were trying to stop Rahl. When I stood watch, I often saw you sleep. Only since we left D'Hara have I seen you sleep with your eyes open, just like Zedd does."
Richard still had his back to the three women. "What do you want? How can you help me with the headaches?" he called to them.
"If we are to discuss this, we are not going to talk to the back of your head." Sister Verna's tone was like one used when talking to an obstinate child. "You will address us properly."
It was the wrong tone to use on Richard at that moment. He yanked the door open and slammed it as he went out. Kahlan thought the door might come off its hinges, but it didn't. She felt heartsick about what she had said to him. He had wanted her to take his side; he was in no mood to hear the truth.
She was puzzled by his attitude. Richard was not one to avoid the truth. But he was deathly afraid of something. She turned and looked at the three women.
Sister Grace separated her hands and let them hang at her sides. "This is no game, Mother Confessor. If he isn't helped by us, he is going to die. He doesn't have much time."
Kahlan nodded, her anger gone, replaced by an empty sadness. "I will go talk to him," she said in a small voice that was almost lost in the large room. "Please wait here. I will bring him back."
Richard was sitting on the ground, leaning against the short wall, right under where his sword had cut a swath the night before when the screeling had come. His elbows were on his knees, his hands over his head, fingers locked together. He didn't look up. Kahlan sat tight against him.
"Your head hurts pretty bad right now, doesn't it?"
He nodded. She pulled the dry shaft of a weed and held it between her hands as she rested her forearms on her knees. As if what she had said reminded him, he took some leaves out of his shirt pocket and put them in his mouth.
Kahlan stripped a little leaf off the stem. "Richard, tell me, what are you afraid of?"
He chewed the leaves a moment, and then lifted his head, leaning back. "Do you remember when the screeling came, and I said I sensed it, and you said maybe it was just that I heard it?" She nodded. "When I killed that man today, I sensed him too, just like the screeling. It was just the same. Danger. I didn't know what either was, but I sensed the danger. I knew there was trouble, but I didn't know what kind."
"What does that have to do with the three in there?"
"Before we went in the spirit house, to see those women, I had the same sensation: danger. I don't know what it means, but it's the same feeling. Somehow, I know those women are going to come between us."
"Richard, you don't know that. They said only that they want to help you."
"I do know. Just as I knew the screeling was there, and the man with the spear was there. These women are somehow a danger to me."
Kahlan felt a lump growing in her throat. "You also said you know the headaches might kill you. Richard, I'm afraid for you."
"And I'm afraid of magic. I hate magic. I hate the magic of the sword. I wish I could be rid of it. You can't imagine the things I've had to do with it. You don't know what it took to turn the blade white. Darken Rahl's magic killed my father. It took my brother. It killed your sister. It hurt a great many people." He let out a deep breath. "I hate magic."
"I have magic," she said softly.
"And it almost kept us apart forever."
"But it didn't. You figured out how to make it work. Without my magic, I would never have met you." She rubbed his arm. "Magic also gave Adie back her foot, and has helped a lot of others. Zedd is a wizard; he has the gift. Would you say that is bad? Zedd has always used his gift to help people.
"Richard, you have magic too. You have the gift. You as much as admitted it. You used it to sense the screeling. You saved me. You used it to sense the man that was going to kill Chandalen. You saved him."
"I don't want to have magic."
"It seems to me you are thinking of the problem, and not the solution. Isn't that what you always say: think of the solution, not the problem?"
Richard thumped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He let out an exasperated breath. "Is this what being married to you is going to be like? For the rest of my life, you always telling me when I'm being stupid?"
She smiled. "Would you have me let you delude yourself?"
He scrubbed his hands on his face. "I guess not. My head hurts so much, I guess it's keeping me from thinking straight."
"Then let's do something about it? Let's go in and at least talk to the Sisters, and hear what they have to say? They said they want to help."
He gave her a dark look. "So did Darken Rahl."
"Running away is not the solution. You didn't run from Darken Rahl."
He looked at her a long moment and then nodded. "I'll listen."
The three were standing where Kahlan had left them. They gave her small smiles of appreciation, apparently pleased she had brought him back. Richard and Kahlan stood close together in front of the three women.
"We will listen—listen—to what you have to say about my headaches."
Sister Grace looked to Kahlan. "Than
k you for your help, Mother Confessor, but we will speak with Richard alone now."
Richard's anger flared again, but he kept his tone in check. "Kahlan and I are to be married." The three gave each other the look again. It was a little more serious this time. "What you have to say to me affects her, too. If you want to talk to me, she will stay and hear it too. Both of us, or neither. Choose."
The looks were still passing between the three. At last Sister Grace spoke.
"Very well."
"And the first thing you should know is that I don't like magic, and I'm not convinced I have the gift. If I do, I am not pleased about it, and only want to be rid of it."
"We are not here to please you; we are here to save your life. To do that we must teach you to use the gift. If you don't learn to control it, it will kill you."
"I understand. I had a similar problem with the Sword of Truth."
"The first thing you must learn," Sister Verna said, "is that just as the Mother Confessor is to be treated with deference, so are we. We have worked long and hard to become Sisters of the Light, and expect to be treated with due respect. I am Sister Verna, this is Sister Grace, and this is Sister Elizabeth."
Richard glared at them. At last, he gave a bow of his head. "As you wish. Sister Verna." He regarded each in turn. "And who are the Sisters of the Light?"
"We are the ones who train wizards, those with the gift."
"Where are the Sisters of the Light from?"
"We all live and work at the Palace of the Prophets."
Kahlan frowned. "Sister Verna, I have never heard of the Palace of the Prophets. Where is it?"
"In the city of Tanimura."
Kahlan's frown deepened. "I know every city in the Midlands. I have never heard of Tanimura."
Sister Verna held Kahlan's gaze for a moment. "Nonetheless, that is where we are from."
"Why were you surprised when you found out how old I am?"
"Because," Sister Grace said, "it is almost unheard of for one with the gift not to come to our attention when he is still young."
