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Gratch nodded his willingness with a grin that bared his fangs. He seemed to suddenly realize what that meant, and threw his arms around Richard.
“Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”
Richard patted the gar’s back. “I love you too, Gratch.” He had sent Gratch away once before in order to save the gar’s life, but Gratch hadn’t understood. He had told Gratch he would never do that again.
He hugged the gar tight before pushing back. “Gratch, listen to me.” The glowing green eyes were watering up. “Gratch, Kahlan loves you as I do. She wants you to be with us the same as I do, the same way you want me to be with you. I want all of us to be together. I’m going to wait here and I want you to go protect her and bring her back.” He smiled and stroked Gratch’s shoulder. “Then we’ll all be together.”
Gratch’s prominent eyebrows drew into a dubious frown.
“Then when we’re all together, you won’t have just one friend, but you’ll have both of us. And my grandfather, Zedd, too. He’ll love having you around. You’ll like him, too.” Gratch was looking a bit more enthusiastic. “You’ll have lots of friends to wrestle with you.”
Before the gar could pounce on him, Richard held him at arm’s length. There was little in life that Gratch loved as much as wrestling. “Gratch, I can’t have fun wrestling with you, now, when I’m worried about the people I love. You understand, don’t you? Would you want to have fun wrestling with someone else if I were in danger and needed you?”
Gratch considered it a moment, and then shook his head. Richard hugged him again. When they parted, Gratch spread his wings with a spirited flap.
“Gratch, can you fly in the snow?” Gratch nodded. “At night?” The gar nodded again, showing fangs behind his smile.
“All right, now, you listen to me, so you’ll be able to find her. I taught you directions: north and south and like that. You know directions. Good. Kahlan is to the southwest.” Richard pointed southwest, but Gratch beat him to it. Richard laughed. “Good. She’s to the southwest. She’s going away from us, on her way to a city. She thought I was going to catch up with her and go to the city with her, but I can’t. I must wait here. She has to come back here.
“She’s with other people. There’s an old man with white hair with her; he’s my friend, my grandfather, Zedd. There are other people with her, too, many of them soldiers. A lot of people. Do you understand?”
Gratch gave a sad frown.
Richard rubbed his forehead, trying to think through his weariness for a way to explain it.
“Like tonight,” Cara said from across the balcony. “Like when you were talking to all the people tonight.”
“Yes! Like that, Gratch.” He pointed at the main floor, circling his finger around. “All the people in here tonight, when I was talking to them? About that many people will be with her.”
Gratch at last grunted that he understood. Richard patted his friend’s chest in relief. He held out the letter.
“You have to take her this letter so that she’ll understand why she has to come back here. It explains everything to her. It’s very important that she gets this letter. Do you understand?” Gratch snatched up the letter in a claw.
Richard raked back his hair. “No, that won’t do. You can’t carry it like that. You may need your claws, or you may drop it and lose it. Besides, it’ll get all wet in the snow and she won’t be able to read it.” His voice trailed off as he tried to think of a way for Gratch to carry the letter.
“Lord Rahl.”
He turned and Raina tossed him something through the dim light. When he caught it, he realized it was the leather pouch that had carried General Trimack’s letter all the way from the People’s Palace in D’Hara.
Richard grinned. “Thanks, Raina.”
Smirking, she shook her head. Richard put his letter, his hopes, everyone’s hopes, in the leather pouch and hung its thong around Gratch’s neck. Gratch gurgled with pleasure at the new addition to his collection before again studying the lock of Kahlan’s hair.
“Gratch, it’s possible that for some reason she may not be with all those people. I have no way of telling what may happen between now and when you reach her. It may be hard to find her.”
He watched Gratch stroking the lock of hair. Richard had seen Gratch catch a flutter mouse in midair on a moonless night. He would be able to find people on the ground, but he still had to have a way to know which people were the right ones.
“Gratch, you haven’t ever seen her before, but she has long hair like this, not many women do, and I told her all about you. She won’t be afraid when she sees you, and she’ll call you by name. That’s how you can know it’s really her: she’ll know your name.”
Satisfied at last with all his instructions, Gratch flapped his wings and bounced on the balls of his feet, eager to be off so he could bring Kahlan back to Richard. Richard swung the window open. The snow howled in. One last time, the two friends hugged.
“She’s been running away from here for two weeks, and will continue on until you reach her. It may take you a while to catch her, many days, so don’t get discouraged. And be careful, Gratch; I don’t want you to get hurt. I want you back here with me so I can wrestle with you, you big furry beast.”
Gratch giggled, a fearsome yet happy noise, then climbed up on the ledge. “Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”
Richard waved. “I love you, Gratch. Be careful. Safe journey.”
Gratch waved back, and then bounded out into the night. Richard stood watching the cold blackness, even though the gar had disappeared almost instantly. Richard felt a sudden, hollow emptiness. Though he was surrounded by people, it wasn’t the same. They were there only because they were bonded to him, and not because they really believed in him or in what he was doing.
Kahlan had been fleeing for two weeks, and it would probably take the gar at least another week, maybe two, to finally catch her. Richard couldn’t imagine it taking less than a month or more for Gratch to find Kahlan and Zedd, and for all of them to return to Aydindril. It could be closer to two months.
He already had a knot in his gut, anxious for his friends to be back with him. They had been parted too long. He wanted this lonesome feeling to end, and only their presence could banish it.
Af
ter closing the window, he turned back to the room. The two Mord-Sith were standing right behind him.
“Gratch really is your friend,” Cara said.
Richard only nodded, not wanting to test the lump in his throat.
Cara glanced at Raina before speaking to him. “Lord Rahl, we have been discussing this matter, and have decided that it would be best if you were in D’Hara, where you will be safe. We can leave an army here to guard your queen when she arrives and escort her back to D’Hara to be with you.”
“I’ve already told you, I must remain here. The Imperial Order wants to conquer the world. I’m a wizard, and must stand against that.”
“You said you didn’t know how to use your gift. You said you knew nothing about how to wield magic.”
“I don’t, but my grandfather, Zedd, does. I have to stay here until he arrives, then he can teach me what I need to know so I can fight the Order and keep them from taking over the world.”
Cara dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand. “Someone always wants to rule those they don’t already rule. From the safety of D’Hara you can direct your war against the Order. When the representatives from the palaces return from their homelands to offer their surrender, then the Midlands will be yours. You will rule the world, and without having to be in harm’s view. Once the lands surrender, then the Imperial Order will be finished.”
Richard started for the stairway. “You don’t understand. There’s more to it than that. Somehow, the Imperial Order has infiltrated the New World, and has gained allies.”
“New World?” Cara asked as she and Raina started after him. “What is the New World?”
“Westland, where I’m from, the Midlands, and D’Hara make up the New World.”
“They make up all the world,” Cara said with finality.
“Spoken like a fish in a pond,” Richard said, sliding his hand lightly down the silken smooth railing as he descended the stairs. “You think that’s all there is to the world? Just the pond you see? That it all just ends at an ocean, or mountain range, or desert, or something?”
