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The elder, the one with the rabbit skin on his head, leaned toward Zedd and spoke. When Zedd frowned and shrugged that he didn’t understand, the man added sign language seemingly invented on the spot. He indicated chores to be done, and time, by showing the seasons: digging at the ground and pretending to plant, the heat of summer, and the freezing of winter. Zedd couldn’t understand a great deal of it, but he understood enough.
He turned to Ann. “I believe that these fellows here have purchased us out of our death sentence. We are to be in servitude to them for a period of about two years, to repay them for our cost, plus a profit for their trouble.”
“We’ve been sold into slavery?”
“It would appear so. But only for a couple of years. Quite generous of them, actually, considering that the Nangtong were going to kill us.”
“Maybe we could buy our way out.”
“To the Si Doak, this is a personal debt we owe them, and can only be repaid with personal servitude. To their way of looking at it, they have returned our lives to us, and so we must use part of those lives to show our gratitude. And to clean up after them.”
“Clean up? We’re to scrub floors to repay our debt?”
“I imagine they’ll want us to cook, carry things, sew, care for their animals, those sorts of things.”
As if to confirm what Zedd had told her, the Si Doak began pulling the thongs holding their waterskins off over their heads and passing them to Zedd and Ann.
“What do they want?” Ann asked him.
Zedd lifted an eyebrow. “They want us to carry their water.”
Three more of the Si Doak appeared with the remaining blankets, divided them, and handed them to their new bearers.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Ann growled, “that the First Wizard of the Midlands and the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light have been sold into slavery for the price of some blankets and two goats!”
With a shove from behind, Zedd staggered after the departing Si Doak.
“I know what you mean,” he said over his shoulder. “For the first time I know of, the Si Doak have overpaid.”
Zedd stumbled and dropped half his load of waterskins. As he regained his balance, he stepped on one that had snagged a thorny berry bush. Bending to retrieve the waterskins, his stack of blankets toppled into the mud puddle created by the burst waterskin. He put a knee to the ground to regain his balance as he gathered up the scattered waterskins. His knee squashed the berries under the blanket.
“Oops.” He waved an apology to the Si Doak. “Sorry.”
The Si Doak leaped about in agitation, demanding he pick everything up at once. The man whose waterskin Zedd had ripped open over a thorn bush pointed angrily at his damaged property while jabbering demands of recompense.
“I said I was sorry,” Zedd protested, even though they couldn’t understand him. He bent to gather up the wet blankets. He lifted one up high and held it out between his widespread arms, inspecting it.
“Oh dear. Look at that. We’ll never get that stain out.”
46
“Lord Rahl, you have had a hard ride,” Berdine said. “I think you should be resting. We should go back. So you can rest, I mean.”
The massive rampart, lit by the mellow light of the low sun, spread out before the three of them like a broad road. He wanted to be out of the Keep before dark. Not that the light of day would save him from dangerous magic, but somehow being in the Wizard’s Keep after dark seemed worse.
Raina leaned past him to speak. “It was your idea, Berdine.”
“My idea? I never suggested any such thing!”
“Quiet, both of you.” Richard murmured.
He was considering the feel of magic against his skin. They had advanced halfway across the long rampart toward the First Wizard’s private enclave before the distinct caress of magic began tingling against his flesh. Both Mord-Sith had balked at its feel.
Kahlan had told him about this place, about the First Wizard’s private enclave. She said that she used to come up to this rampart because it provided a beautiful view of Aydindril, and indeed there was that, but there was also the magic of powerful shields. Those shields kept everyone out of this small corner of the Wizard’s Keep.
Kahlan had told him that in her life there had never been a wizard with enough power to pass these shields. Wizards had tried, but failed. The wizards living and working in the Keep as Kahlan was growing up simply didn’t have the magic required to enter this part of it. Zedd was the First Wizard; no one had been in the First Wizard’s enclave since before Kahlan and Richard were born, when Zedd had left the Midlands.
Kahlan had said that these shields exerted more magic as you got closer, that they made your hair stand on end and made it difficult to breathe. She had also said that if a person didn’t have enough magic of their own, just getting too close to the shields could be deadly. Richard didn’t discount in the slightest what she had said, but he had need to go in there.
Kahlan had also said that to enter required placing your hand on the cold metal plate beside the door, something no wizard she knew had ever been able to do. Richard had encountered shields like this one at the Palace of the Prophets, ones passed by touching a metal plate, but as far as he knew none of those were potentially deadly. He had been able to pass those shields, and he had been able to pass others in the Keep that required magic only he possessed, so he reasoned that he might be able to pass this one. He needed to get in there.
Berdine rubbed her arms, distressed by the tingle of the magic. “Are you sure you aren’t tired? You rode all that way.”
“It wasn’t that hard a ride,” Richard said. “I’m not tired.”
He was too worried to rest. He had thought Kahlan would be back by now. He had been sure he would find her back home when he returned from Mount Kymermosst. She should have been back by now.
But she wasn’t.
He would wait only until morning.
“I still don’t think we should be doing this,” Berdine muttered. “How is your foot? I don’t think you should be on it.”
Richard finally looked down at her. She was pressed up against his left side. Raina was pressed to his right. Each held her Agiel in her fist.
“My foot is just fine, thank you.” He shifted his body to force them away a bit to give himself breathing room. “I only need one of you. No loss of face if you wish to remain here. Raina can go, if you don’t want to.”
Berdine scowled up at him. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going. I said you shouldn’t be doing it.”
“I have to. It wasn’t anywhere else. It has to be here. I was told that important things, things not meant to be seen by just anyone, were kept in the First Wizard’s enclave.”
Berdine rolled her shoulders, easing the tension in her muscles. “If you insist on going, then I’m going, too. I’ll not let you walk in there without me.”
“Raina?” he asked. “I don’t need both of you. Do you want to wait here?”
Raina gave him a dark, Mord-Sith glare in answer.
“All right, then. Now, listen to me. I know that the shields here are dangerous, but that’s all I know about them. They may not be like the others I’ve taken you through.
“I have to touch that metal plate down there on the wall. I want you two to wait here while I go see if I have the proper magic to open the door. If it opens, then you both can come the rest of the way.”
“This isn’t a trick, is it?” Raina asked. “You tricked us one other time to keep us out, to keep us from going where there was danger. Mord-Sith are not afraid of danger.”
The wind lifted his gold cloak. “No, Raina, it’s not a trick. This is important, but I don’t want either of you risking your lives needlessly. If I can open the door, then I promise to take you both with me. Satisfied?”
Both women nodded. Richard gave them each an appreciative squeeze on the shoulder. He absently adjusted the metal bands on his wrists as he gazed at the towering bastion waiting
at the end of the rampart.
A cold wind buffeted him as he started across. He could feel the pressure of the shield, like the weight of water when you swam toward the bottom of a pond. The fine hairs at the back of his neck stiffened as he progressed. The pressure made it difficult but not impossible to draw a breath, as Kahlan had said she had experienced.
Six immense columns of variegated red stone stood to each side of the gold-clad door, holding up a protruding entablature of dark stone. The architrave was decorated with brass plaques. As Richard approached it, he recognized some of their symbols as the same ones on his wristbands, belt, and boot pins. The frieze held round metal disks with other of the more circular symbols. The more linear of symbols he wore were also carved into the stone of the cornice.
