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Zedd looked up at the figure standing in the doorway, scowling at him with her completely white eyes, her breast still heaving. She wore robes the same light burlap color as his, but unlike his, hers were decorated at the neck with yellow and red beads sewn in the ancient symbols of her profession. She put her fists on her hips. The scowl held a firm grip on her features, not that it diminished in the least how handsome they were.
She still held the ax in one hand, though, a worrisome sign. Best not to trouble her too quickly with what he wanted.
Zedd smiled. "Your really shouldn't play with grippers, Adie. That's how you lost your foot the last time, you know." He plucked the yellow rose from its place at his chest. His thin lips pushed his wrinkled cheeks back farther as his smile widened. "Got anything to eat? I'm starving."
She watched him silently for a moment without moving, then slipped the ax head to the floor and leaned the handle against the wall just inside the door. "What do you be doing here wizard?"
Zedd stepped onto the tiny porch and gave a dramatic bow. When he came up, he offered her the flower as if it were a priceless jewel. "I just couldn't stay away from your tender embrace, dear lady." He flashed his most irresistible smile.
Adie studied him a moment with those white eyes. "That be a lie."
Zedd cleared his throat and pressed the flower closer. He thought maybe he need to practice his smile. "Is that stew I smell?"
Without taking her gaze from him, she accepted the flower, sticking it in her straight, jaw length black and gray hair. She truly was handsome. "It be stew."
Her soft, thin hands took his. A small smile stole onto her finely wrinkled face and she gave a slight nod. "It be good to see you again, Zedd. For a time, I feared I never would. I spent many a night in a sweat, knowing what would happen had you failed. When winter came and the magic of Orden didn't sweep the land, I knew you had succeeded."
Zedd was encouraged that his best smile hadn't been wasted after all, but he was careful with his answer. "Darken Rahl has been defeated."
"What of Richard and Kahlan? Do they be safe?"
Zedd puffed up with pride. "Yes. In fact, Richard was the one who defeated Darken Rahl."
She gave another nod. "I think there be more to the story."
He shrugged, trying to make it seem less important than it was. "A bit of a tale."
Though the small smile still rested easily on her face, her white eyes seemed to be weighing his soul. "And there be a reason you be here. A reason I fear I won't like."
He pulled his hands out of hers and pushed some of his unruly, wavy, white hair back while giving a frown. "Bags, woman, are your going to feed me any of that stew or not?"
Adie finally withdrew her white eyes from him and turned back into her home. "I think there be enough stew, even for you. Come in and shut the door. I do not wish to see another gripper tonight."
Invited in. Well, things were going smoothly. He wondered how much he was going to have to tell her. Not all, he hoped. Wizard's work: using people. The worst of it was using people he liked. Especially people he liked deeply.
As Zedd helped her right the chairs and table, and pick up the pots and tin plates strewn about the floor, he began telling her of the things that had happened since he had been with her last. He started with the harrowing tale of going through the pass, protected, somewhat, by the bone she had given him to hide him from the beasts. He still had the bone on a thin leather thong around his neck, seeing no need to be rid of it after he had gotten safely through.
She listened without comment as he wove the tale, and when he told of Richard's capture by the Mord-Sith, she didn't turn to show her face, but he saw the muscles in her shoulders tense for the briefest of moments. With no small amount of emphasis to make his point, he related how Darken Rahl had taken the night stone from Richard, the night stone she had given him to see him safely through the pass.
He scowled at her back as she picked a plate off the floor. "I was nearly killed by that stone. Darken Rahl used it to trap me in the underworld. I escaped by the thinnest of hairs. You almost got me killed, giving that thing to Richard."
"Do not be a thick-headed fool," she scoffed. "You be smart enough to save yourself. Had I not given the night stone to Richard, he would have died in the pass, and then Darken Rahl would have won, and right now would no doubt be torturing you. You would soon be dead. By giving the stone to Richard, I saved your life."
He shook a leg bone of some sort at the glance she cast over her shoulder. "That thing was dangerous. You shouldn't go handing out dangerous things as if it was a stick of candy. Not without warning people, anyway." He had a right to be indignant. He was the one sucked into the underworld by that wretched stone. The woman could at least pretend to be contrite.
Zedd went on with the story of how Richard had escaped, although he had a web around him hiding his identity, and how the quads had attacked Chase, Kahlan and himself. He had to make an effort to control his voice at the telling of what had almost happened to Kahlan, and how she had called forth the Con Dar and killed their attackers. He finished with how Richard had tricked Darken Rahl into opening the wrong box. He told her how the magic of Orden had taken Darken Rahl for his mistake. Zedd smiled to himself as he reached the end of his story, telling her that Richard had somehow gotten past Kahlan's power, that they were free to love each other—he wasn't about to tell her how, that was not for anyone to know—and they were happily together now.
He was pleased that he had managed to tell the story without having to delve too deeply into some of the more painful events. He didn't want to have to revisit some of those hurts. She didn't ask any questions, but came and put a hand on his shoulder, saying that she was relieved all of them had survived, and won.
Zedd was silent after the telling, at least as much as he wanted to tell, of the tale. He set to stacking the pile of loose bones into the corner where she said they belonged. By the way they were scattered about, the gripper must have sought refuge in them. A sorry mistake.
That people called Adie "the Bone Woman" was small wonder; the house had little else in it. He
r life seemed devoted to bones. A sorceress dedicated to bones was a troubling concept. He saw little evidence of potions, powders or the usual type of charms, any of the typical things he knew to expect from a woman of her talents. He knew what she was probing into, just not why.
Sorceresses usually confined their concerns to things living. She was a searcher into things dark and dangerous. Things dead. Unfortunately, that was what he was was doing too. If you wanted to know about fire, you had to study it, he guessed. Of course it was a good way to get burned. He knew he didn't like the analogy the moment it popped into his head.
He looked up from the bone pile as he placed the last of them. "If you don't want grippers in your house, Adie, you should keep your door closed."
His perfectly apt, scolding frown was wasted, as she didn't turn from her task of stacking the firewood back in its bin to the side of the hearth. "The door be closed. And bolted," she said in her dry rasp, in a tone seemingly meant to wither his unseen scowl. "This be the third time."
Picking up a bone that had been hiding behind a stick of firewood, she straightened and carried it to him. "Before, the grippers never came near my house." Her voice lowered as if in a threat to unseen ears. "I saw to that." She handed over the thick, white rib bone, peering down at him as he squatted on the floor next to the bone pile. "Now, since winter, they come near. The bones no longer seem to keep them away. The reason be a mystery to me."
Adie had lived in this pass a long time. No one knew as well as she its dangers, its quirks, its vagaries. None knew better than she what it took to be safe here, to live on the cusp between the world of the living and the world of the dead, at the edge of the underworld. Of course, the boundary was gone now. It should be safe here now.
He wondered what else was going on she wasn't telling him; Sorceresses never told all they knew. What was she doing still living here with strange, and dangerous, things happening? Stubborn women, sorceresses, the lot of them.
Adie limped slightly as she walked across the room lit only by the fire. "Light the lamp?"
