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“As it should be,” Raina said with finality. “You have the gift; you are a wizard. You are the magic against magic, and the D’Harans, your people, are the steel against steel.”
Richard looked up into her dark eyes. “I know less about this bond, this steel against steel and magic against magic business, than I know about being a wizard, and I know next to nothing about being a wizard. I don’t know how to use magic.”
The women stared for a moment, and then laughed as if he had made a joke and they wanted him to think they were amused.
“I’m not joking. I don’t know how to use my gift.”
Hally clapped him on the back of his shoulder and pointed at Gratch. “You command the beasts, just as Darken Rahl did. We cannot command beasts. You even talk to him. A gar!”
“You don’t understand. I saved him when he was a pup. I raised him, that’s all. We became friends. It’s not magic.”
Hally clapped his shoulder again. “It may not seem magic to you, Lord Rahl, but none of us could do it.”
“But—”
“We saw you become invisible today.” Cara said. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “Are you going to tell us that was not magic?”
“Well yes, I guess it was magic, but not in the way you think. You just don’t understand—”
Cara’s eyebrow lifted. “Lord Rahl, to you it is understandable, because you have the gift. To us, it is magic. Surely, you would not suggest that any of us could do it?”
Richard wiped a hand across his face. “No, you couldn’t do it. But still, it’s not what you think.”
Raina’s dark eyes fixed on his with that look that Mord-Sith flashed when they expected compliance, and no argument; a steely gaze that seemed to paralyze his tongue. Though he was no longer the captive of a Mord-Sith, and these women were trying to help him, the look still gave him pause.
“Lord Rahl,” she said in a soft voice that filled the quiet room, “at the People’s Palace, you fought the spirit of Darken Rahl. You, a mere man, fought the spirit of a powerful wizard come back from the underworld, from the world of the dead, to destroy us all. He had no corporeal existence; he was a spirit, animate only through magic. You could only battle such a demon with magic of your own.
“During the battle, you sent lightning, driven by magic, racing through the palace to destroy the rebel leaders who opposed you and wished Darken Rahl to triumph. Everyone at the palace not bonded to you already became so that day. None of us, in our whole lives, has ever seen the like of the magic crackling through the palace that day.”
She leaned toward him, still gripping him in her dark gaze, the passion in her voice cutting through the stillness. “That was magic, Lord Rahl. We were all about to be destroyed, to be swallowed into the world of the dead. You saved us. You kept your part of the covenant; you were the magic against magic. You are the Master Rahl. We would lay down our lives for you.”
Richard realized that his left hand was tightly gripping the hilt of his sword. He could feel the raised gold letters of the word TRUTH biting into his flesh.
He managed to disengage himself from Raina’s gaze to take in the rest of them. “All you say is true, but it’s not so simple as you believe. There’s more to it. I don’t want you to think I was able to do the things I did because I knew how. It just happened. Darken Rahl studied his whole life to be a wizard, to use magic. I know almost nothing about it. You place too much faith in me.”
Cara shrugged. “We understand; you have more to learn about magic. This is good. It is always good to learn more. You will serve us better as you learn more.”
“No, you don’t understand.…”
She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “No matter how much you know, there will always be more; no one knows everything. This does not change anything. You are the Master Rahl. We are bonded to you.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Even if any of us wanted to change it, we could not.”
Suddenly, Richard felt calm. He didn’t really want to talk them out of this; he could use their help, their loyalty. “You’ve helped me before, maybe even saved my neck out there in the street, but I just don’t want you to have more faith in me than is justified. I don’t want to deceive you. I want you to follow me because what we do is right, not because of a bond forged with magic. That’s slavery.”
“Lord Rahl,” Raina said, her voice unsteady for the first time, “we were bonded to Darken Rahl. We had no more choice in that than we do now. He took us from our homes when we were young, trained us, and used us to—”
Richard stood, putting his fingertips to her lips. “I know. It’s all right. You’re free now.”
Cara gripped his shirt and drew his face close to hers. “Don’t you see? Even though many of us hated Darken Rahl, we were compelled to serve; we were bonded. That was slavery.
“If you don’t know everything, that’s not important to us. We are bonded to you as the Master Rahl, regardless. For the first time in any of our lives, it is not a burden. If the bond were not there, we would chose to do the same; that is not slavery.”
“We don’t know anything about your magic,” Hally said, “but we can help you learn what it means to be Lord Rahl.” The irony of her spreading smile softened her blue eyes, letting the women behind the appellation of Mord-Sith show through. “It is, after all, the purpose of Mord-Sith to train, to teach.” The smile faded as her expression turned serious. “It doesn’t matter to us if you have more steps in the journey; we won’t abandon you for it.”
Richard raked his fingers though his hair. He was touched by the things they said, but their blind devotion somehow troubled him. “As long as you understand that I’m not the wizard you thought. I know a little about some magic, like my sword, but I don’t know much about using my gift. I used what came forth from within me without understanding it or being able to control it, and the good spirits helped me.” He paused a moment as he looked into the depths of their waiting eyes. “Denna is with them.”
The four women smiled, each in her own private way. They had known Denna, known that she had trained him, and that he had killed her in order to escape. In so doing, he freed her of her bond to Darken Rahl, and what she had become, but at a cost that would always haunt him, even if her spirit was now at peace; he had had to turn the Sword of Truth white, and end her life with that side of the magic—through its love and forgiveness.
“What could be better than having the good spirits on our side,” Cara said in a quiet tone that seemed to speak for them all. “It’s good to know that Denna is with them.”
Richard turned away from their eyes in an effort to also turn away from his haunting memories. He brushed the dust off his pants and changed the subject.
“Well, as the Seeker of Truth, I was on my way to see whoever is in charge of the D’Harans here in Aydindril. I have something important to do, and I need to hurry. I didn’t know anything about this bond, but I do know about being Seeker. I guess it can’t hurt to have all of you along.”
Berdine shook her head of wavy brown hair. “It’s fortunate we found him in time.” The other three muttered their agreement.
Richard looked from one face to another. “Why is it fortunate?”
“Because,” Cara said, “they don’t yet know you as the Master Rahl.”
“I told you, I’m the Seeker. That’s more important than being the Master Rahl. Don’t forget, as the Seeker, I killed the last Master Rahl. But now that you’ve told me about this bond, I intend to tell the D’Haran command that I’m also the new Lord Rahl, and demand their allegiance. It will certainly make what I have planned easier.”
Berdine barked a laugh. “We had no idea how lucky we were to catch you in time.”
Raina brushed her dark bangs back as she glanced to her sister of the Agiel. “I shudder to think how close we came to losing him.”
“What are you talking about? They’re D’Harans. I thought they would be able to sense me, with this bond thing.”
&nbs
p; “We told you,” Ulic said, “first we must recognize and accept the Master Rahl’s rule in a formal manner. You have not done that with these men. Also, the bond isn’t the same in all of us.”
Richard threw his hands up. “First you tell me that they will follow me, and now you tell me they won’t?”
“You have to bond them to you, Lord Rahl,” Cara said. She sighed. “If you can. General Reibisch’s blood isn’t pure.”
Richard frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Lord Rahl,” Egan said as he came forward, “in the beginning times, when the first Master Rahl cast the web, bonding us, D’Hara was not as it is today. D’Hara was a land, within a larger land, much the same as the Midlands are made up of different lands.”
Richard suddenly remembered the story Kahlan told him the night he met her. As they had sat shivering by a fire in the shelter of a wayward pine, after they had had the wits frightened out of them by an encounter with a gar, she had told him some of the history of the world beyond his home of Westland.
