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Zedd emerged from the doorway and started down the worn steps into the dreary light.
Richard ran to his grandfather and lifted him off the steps, hugging him fiercely enough to drive the wind from the already winded old man. They both laughed, a pleasing sound with obvious kinship.
“Zedd! You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you!”
“And you, my boy,” Zedd said in a voice turning teary. “It’s been too long. Far too long.”
He reached a sticklike hand past Richard and gripped Cara’s shoulder. “How are you, my dear? You appear to be near to spent. Are you all right?”
“I am Mord-Sith,” she said, looking a bit indignant. “Of course I’m all right. Why would you think I look anything but perfectly fine?”
Zedd chuckled as he pushed back from Richard. “No reason, I suppose. You both look like you could use some rest and a meal or two is all. But you do look fine and I’m mighty happy to see you again.”
Cara smiled at that. “I’ve missed you, Zedd.”
Zedd waggled a finger. “Not very Mord-Sith of you to miss an old man. Rikka will be astonished to hear such a thing.”
“Rikka?” Cara asked in surprise. “Rikka is here?”
Zedd waggled a hand back in the direction of the partly opened door. “She’s back in there, somewhere…patrolling, I imagine. She seems to have two preoccupations in life, patrolling and harassing me. I’m telling you, I have no peace of mind with the woman. Worse, she’s too clever for her own good. At least she’s a talented cook.”
Cara’s brows lifted. “Rikka can cook?”
Zedd winced, pulling a breath through his teeth. “Don’t tell her I said that or I’ll never hear the end of it. The woman—”
“Zedd,” Richard interrupted, “I have trouble and I need help.”
“Are you well? You aren’t ill, are you? You don’t look entirely yourself, my boy.” Zedd pressed a hand to Richard’s forehead. “Summer fevers are the worst, you know. Heat on top of heat. Bad combination.”
“Yes—no—I mean, it’s not that. I need to talk to you.”
“So talk. It has been a long time. Far too long of a time. What’s it been? Two years this past spring, if I’m not mistaken.” Zedd drew back a bit and squeezed Richard’s arms as he looked him up and down. “Richard, where’s your sword?”
“Look, we’ll talk about that later,” Richard said, irritably disengaging himself from Zedd’s grip in order to wave away the question.
“You said you wanted to talk. So talk and tell me where your sword is.” Zedd redirected his broad grin at Nicci. “And who is this lovely sorceress you’ve brought along?”
Richard blinked at Zedd’s smile and then glanced at Nicci. “Oh, sorry. Zedd, this is Nicci. Nicci, this—”
“Nicci!” Zedd roared as he danced back up two of the steps as if he’d spotted a viper. “The Sister of the Dark who took you away to the Old World? That Nicci? What are you doing with this vile creature? Why would you dare to bring such a woman—”
“Zedd,” Richard said, forcefully cutting his grandfather off. “Nicci is a friend.”
“A friend! Are you out of your mind, Richard? How in the world do you expect—”
“Zedd, she’s on our side now.” He gestured heatedly. “Much the same as Cara, or Rikka. Things change. Before, either of them would have…” His voice trailed off as his grandfather stared at him. “You know what I mean. I trust Cara with my life, now, and she has proven worthy of my trust. I trust Nicci the same. I trust them both with my life.”
Zedd finally gripped Richard’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate joggle. “I guess I do know what you mean. Since I gave you the Sword of Truth you’ve changed a great many things for the better. Why, I would never in my life have imagined that one day I’d happily be eating meals cooked by a Mord-Sith. And delicious meals they are, too.” He caught himself and pointed at Cara. “If you tell her I said that I’ll skin you alive. The woman is already incorrigible.”
Cara only smiled.
Zedd redirected his gaze to Nicci. He didn’t have that raptorlike Rahl quality, but in its own way it was just as disarming and looked to have the potential to be just as disturbing.
“Welcome, sorceress. If Richard says you are a friend, then you are. Sorry to get so huffy.”
Nicci smiled. “Perfectly understandable. I didn’t like myself back then either. I was under the influence of dark delusions. I was called Death’s Mistress for good reason.” Nicci gazed into Richard’s gray eyes. “Your grandson brought me to see the beauty of life.”
Zedd smiled proudly. “Yes, that’s it exactly. The beauty of life.”
Richard pounced on the opening. “And life is what this is about. Zedd, listen, I need—”
“Yes, yes,” Zedd said, waving off Richard’s impatience. “You always need something. Haven’t been back long enough to get in the door and already you want to know something. If I recall correctly, the first word you ever spoke was ‘why.’
“Come on, then, come inside. I want to know why you don’t have the Sword of Truth with you. I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to it, but I want to hear the whole story. Don’t leave out a thing. Come along, then.”
Motioning them all to follow, Richard’s grandfather climbed the stairs toward the doorway.
“Zedd! I need—”
“Yes, yes, my boy. You need some
thing. I heard you the first time. I think it looks like rain. No use getting started when we’re about to get wet. Come inside and I will hear what you have to say.” Zedd’s voice began echoing as he disappeared into the darkness. “You look like you could use a meal. Is anyone else hungry? Reunions always give me an appetite.”
Richard’s arms dropped, his hands flopping against his thighs in frustration. He sighed and then hurried up the steps after his grandfather. Nicci knew that had it been anyone else, Richard would have handled it quite differently. People who loved you, and had raised you since you were little, and had comforted you when you cried at a thunderstorm or the howl of a wolf tended to be disarming to deal with. She could see that it was no different with Richard. His love of his grandfather tied his hands with unbreakable ropes of respect.
It was a view of Richard Nicci had never seen before, and one she found quite endearing. Here was the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Empire, the Seeker of Truth, a man who could make just about anyone tremble with a look, brought to flustered silence by a kindly if bewildering lecture. Had the matters involved not been so serious, Nicci would have been unable to keep herself from grinning at Richard’s utter helplessness before such a frail-looking old man.
The sound of water reverberated inside the dark anteroom. Zedd cast a hand casually to the side and a lamp on the wall lit. At the ignition of the flame Nicci recognized the reiteration of a spark of power that marked it as a key lamp. With a succession of whooshing sounds, starting on both sides of the entrance, hundreds of lamps around the vast room lit in pairs. Each whoosh as a pair of lamps caught flame was followed almost simultaneously by another as the lamps around the huge room each took to flame from the engendering magic initiated by the key lamp, the effect being a ring of fire seeming to dance its way around the room. Nicci knew that it would have worked the same had someone lit that particular lamp with a flame rather than magic. The light in the room swelled, and in a span of seconds the anteroom was nearly as bright as day.
