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Kahlan stared off out the window. “As much as it hurts to admit it, Richard may have done the only thing that has a chance to save the people of the Midlands.”
“How can we be used to get to Richard?” Adie patted Kahlan’s knee. “I know he loves you, Kahlan, but he not be stupid.”
“Neither is the Imperial Order.”
“What else could it possibly be, then?”
Kahlan looked into Adie’s white eyes. “Have you ever seen the Sanderians hunt a mountain lion? They tie one of their lambs to a tree, letting it bleat for its mother. Then they sit and wait.”
“You think we be lambs tied to a tree?”
Kahlan shook her head. “The Imperial Order may be vicious and cruel, but they are not stupid. By now they will not believe Richard is, either. Richard would not trade one life in exchange for the freedom of all, but he has also shown them that he is not afraid to act. They could be tempting him to think he could effect a rescue without having to surrender anything.”
“Do you think they be right?”
Kahlan sighed. “What do you think?”
Adie’s cheeks pushed back in a humorless smirk. “As long as you be alive, he would draw his sword on a lightning storm.”
Kahlan watched Lunetta climb down from her horse. The mriswith were walking away, toward the rear of the columns of crimson-caped men.
“Adie, we have to escape, or Richard will come after us. The Order must be counting on his coming, or we would be dead.”
“Kahlan, I cannot even light a lamp with this cursed collar around my neck.”
Kahlan sighed in frustration as she looked back out the window and saw the mriswith moving off into the dark woods. As they walked, they drew their capes around themselves and vanished.
“I know. I can’t touch my power either.”
“Then how can we escape?”
Kahlan watched the sorceress dressed in scraps of different-colored cloth as she approached the coach. “If we could turn Lunetta to our side, she could help us.”
Adie let out a disagreeable grunt. “She will not turn against her brother.” Adie’s brow wrinkled in puzzled thought. “She be an odd one. There be something strange about her.”
“Strange? Like what?”
Adie shook her head. “She touches her power all the time.”
“All the time?”
“Yes. A sorceress, or a wizard for that matter, only calls upon their power when they need it. She be different. For some reason, she be touching her power all the time. I have never seen her not clutching it around herself, like her colored cloth patches. It be very odd.”
Both of them fell to silence as Lunetta huffed with the effort of climbing into the coach. She dropped into the seat opposite and gave them a pleasant smile; she looked to be in a good mood. Kahlan and Adie returned the smile. As the coach lurched ahead, Kahlan rearranged herself in the seat, taking the opportunity to check out the window. She didn’t see any mriswith, but that didn’t always mean anything.
“They be gone,” Lunetta said.
“What?” Kahlan cautiously asked.
“The mriswith be gone.” The all grabbed the handles in the coach as it bounced over ruts. “They told us to go on alone.”
“To where?” Kahlan asked, hoping to engage the woman in conversation.
Lunetta’s eyes brightened beneath her fleshy brow. “The Palace of the Prophets.” She leaned forward excitedly. “It be a place full of streganicha.”
Adie scowled. “We not be witches.”
Lunetta blinked. “Tobias says we be streganicha. Tobias be the lord general. Tobias be a great man.”
“We not be witches,” Adie repeated. “We be women with the gift, given us by the Creator of all things. The Creator would not give us something vile, would he?”
Lunetta didn’t hesitate for an instant. “Tobias says the Keeper gave us our vile magic. Tobias never be wrong.”
Adie smiled at the growing scowl on Lunetta’s face. “Of course not, Lunetta. Your brother seems a great and powerful man, just as you say.” Adie rearranged her robes as she crossed a leg. “Do you feel as if you be evil, Lunetta?”
Lunetta frowned in thought a moment. “Tobias says I be evil. He tries to help me do good, to make up for the Keeper’s taint. I help him root out evil so he can do the Creator’s work.”
Kahlan could tell that Adie was getting nowhere, except perhaps to anger Lunetta, and so changed the subject before things went too far. Lunetta, after all, had control of their collars.
“Have you been to the Palace of the Prophets often?”
“Oh, no,” Lunetta said. “This be the first time. Tobias says it be a house of evil.”
“Why would he take us there, then?” Kahlan asked in an offhanded manner.
Lunetta shrugged. “The messengers said we are to go there.”
“Messengers?”
Lunetta nodded. “The mriswith. They be the Creator’s messengers. They tell us what to do.”
Kahlan and Adie sat in stunned silence. At last Kahlan found her voice. “If it’s a house of evil, it seems odd that the Creator would want us go there. Your brother doesn’t seem to trust the Creator’s messengers.” Kahlan had seen Brogan casting scowls in their direction as they walked off into the woods.
Lunetta’s beady eyes moved between them. “Tobias said I should not talk about them.”
Kahlan twined her fingers together over a knee. “You don’t think the messengers would hurt your brother, do you? I mean, if the palace is a place of evil, as your brother says…”
The squat woman leaned forward. “I would not let them. Mamma said I was always to protect Tobias, because he be more important than me. Tobias be the one.”
“Why did your mamma—”
“I think we should be quiet now,” Lunetta said in a dangerous tone.
Kahlan relaxed back in the seat and looked out the window. It didn’t seem to take much to raise Lunetta’s ire. Kahlan decided that it would be best if Lunetta were not pressed for now. Lunetta, at Brogan’s urging, had already experimented with the control the collar afforded her.
Kahlan watched as the buildings of Tanimura went past the window and tried to imagine Richard being here, seeing the
same sights. It made her feel closer to him, seeing things his eyes had seen, and eased the terrible longing in her heart.
Dear Richard, please don’t come into this trap to save me. Let me die. Save the Midlands, instead.
Kahlan had seen a great many cities, every one in the Midlands, and this was the equal to most. On the outskirts, there were ramshackle huts, many no more than lean-tos erected against some of the older, shabby buildings and warehouses. As they moved on into the city, the buildings became more grand, and there were shops of every sort. They passed several large markets with jumbles of people in every bright color of dress.
Everywhere in the city was the constant beat of drums. It was a slow rhythm, and grating on the nerves. As Lunetta glanced around, her eyes searching out the men at drums when they became louder as they rode along, Kahlan could see that she didn’t like them either. Out the window, Kahlan could see Brogan riding close to the coach, and the drums were making him jumpy, too.
The three of them grabbed at the handles again as the coach bounced up onto a stone bridge. The iron wheels let out a grating racket as they crossed the stone. Through the window, Kahlan could see the palace looming overhead as they crossed the river.
In an expansive courtyard of green lawns fringed with trees near soaring sections of the palace, the coach rocked to a halt. The crimson-caped men all about sat tall in their saddles, making no move to dismount.
Brogan’s sour face suddenly appeared in the window. “Get out,” he growled. Kahlan started to rise. “Not you. I’m talking to Lunetta. You stay where you are until you’re told to move.” He knuckled his mustache. “Sooner or later, you’re mine. Then you pay for your filthy crimes.”
“The mriswith aren’t going to let their little lapdog have me,” Kahlan said. “The Creator won’t allow one such as you to put your filthy hands on me. You are nothing more than dirt under the Keeper’s fingernails, and the Creator knows it. He hates you.”
Kahlan felt the collar send a searing pain into her legs, preventing her from moving, and another shard into her throat, squelching her voice. Lunetta’s eyes were ablaze. But Kahlan had said what she had wanted to say.
