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Zedd’s eyes went wide. “You did what!”
“I had to,” Richard said without looking up at his grandfather.
“You had to? You had to!”
“Yes,” Richard answered in a meek voice.
“In exchange for what information?”
Richard put his elbows on the edge of the coffin as his face sank into his hands. “In exchange for what might help me find the truth of what’s going on. I need answers. I need to know how to find Kahlan.”
In fury Zedd thrust his finger toward the coffin. “There is Kahlan Amnell! Right where the gravestone has always said she is buried. And what oh-so-valuable bit of information did Shota give you after she tricked you out of the sword?”
Richard made no effort to contend the characterization of being tricked out of the sword.
“Chainfire,” he said. “She told me the word Chainfire, but she didn’t know what it meant. She told me that I must find the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing.”
“The Deep Nothing,” Zedd mocked. He gazed up at the black sky as he took a breath. “I don’t suppose Shota was able to tell you what this Deep Nothing is.”
Richard shook his head but didn’t look up. “She also said to beware the viper with four heads.”
Zedd let out another angry breath. “Don’t tell me, neither she nor you have any idea what that means, either.”
Again, Richard shook his head without looking up at his grandfather.
“Is that it? That’s the great prize of valuable information you got in exchange for the Sword of Truth?”
Richard hesitated. “There was one other thing.” He spoke so softly that he could hardly be heard over the gentle whisper of rain. “Shota said that what I seek…is long buried.”
Zedd’s smoldering rage threatened to explode. “There,” he said, thrusting out a finger to point, “there is what you seek: Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor, long buried.”
Richard, head down, said nothing.
“For this you traded the Sword of Truth. A weapon of incalculable value. A weapon that can bring down not only the wicked but the good as well. A weapon handed down from the wizards of the ancient times, meant to be entrusted to only a select few. A weapon I entrusted to you.
“And you gave it to a witch woman.
“Do you have any idea at all what I had to go through to recover the Sword of Truth from Shota the last time she got her hands on it?”
Richard shook his head as he stared at the ground beside the coffin, looking like he dared not test his voice.
Nicci knew that Richard had a number of things to say in his own defense, had a number of things having to do with his reasoning behind his beliefs and actions, but he said none of them even when offered the chance. As his grandfather raged at him, he knelt in silence, hanging his head, beside the open coffin holding the end of his fantasy.
“I trusted you with something of great value. I thought such a dangerous object was safe in your hands. Richard, you’ve let me down—you have let everyone down—so that you could chase a dream. Well, here it is, bones long buried. I hope you think the trade fair, but I certainly don’t.”
Cara stood nearby, holding the lantern, her hair plastered to her head by the slow but steady rain. She looked like she wanted to defend Richard, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Nicci, likewise, feared to say anything. She knew that at that moment anything they said would only make matters worse. Only the soft hiss of the rain against the leaves filled the otherwise silent, foggy night.
“Zedd,” Richard said haltingly, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry won’t get it back from Shota’s clutches. Sorry won’t save those people who Samuel will have beneath that sword. I love you like a son, Richard, and I always will, but I’ve never before been this disappointed in you. I would never have believed that you would do anything this unthinking and reckless.”
Richard nodded, unwilling to justify his actions.
Nicci’s heart was breaking for him.
“I will leave you to bury the Mother Confessor while I go try to think of a way to get the sword away from a witch woman who was a lot smarter than my grandson. You should realize that you may very well be responsible for what comes of this.”
Richard nodded.
“Good. I’m glad you can at least understand that much of it.” He turned to Cara and Nicci, the look in his eyes every bit as intimidating as the look of a Rahl. “I want you two to come back to the Keep with me. I want to know all about this beast business. Everything about it.”
“I must stay and watch over Lord Rahl,” Cara said.
“No,” Zedd told her, “you will come with me and tell me in detail everything that happened with the witch woman. I want to know every word out of Shota’s mouth.”
Cara looked torn. “Zedd, I can’t—”
“Go with him, Cara,” Richard told her in quiet command. “Do as he asks. Please.”
Nicci recognized how helpless Richard felt at defending his actions in the presence of his grandfather, regardless of how certain he might have been that he did what he thought was necessary. She understood because she had always been just as helpless in the presence of her mother when her mother told her, as she often did, that she had acted wrongly. Nicci had never been able to defend herself against what her mother thought she should have done. Her mother was always able to effortlessly make Nicci’s choices seem petty and selfish. No matter how old she was, she was still a child before those who raised her. Even when she had been at the Palace of the Prophets for years, her mother could still make her feel ten years old and foolish.
Because Richard loved and respected his grandfather, that actually made it all that much more d
ifficult for him than it had been for Nicci. Despite everything Richard had accomplished, his strength, his knowledge, his ability, his mastery, he could not argue or reason his way out of the reality of having disappointed his grandfather, and, because he loved and respected him, it hurt all the more.
“Go on,” Nicci told Cara as she gently put her hand on the small of the woman’s back. “Do as he says for now. I think Richard could use some time alone to think this through and get his bearings.”
Cara, her gaze going back and forth between Nicci and Richard, looked like she thought this was something Nicci might be better able to handle and so nodded her agreement.
“You, too,” Zedd told Nicci. “The Mother Confessor needs to be laid to rest; let Richard see to it. I need to know your part in this, every bit of it, so that I can try to figure out how to reverse all the trouble born not just of this, but of what Jagang has done.”
“All right,” Nicci said. “Get the horses and I’ll be right there.”
Zedd cast a brief last look at Richard still huddled on his knees beside the coffin before agreeing with a nod to Nicci.
After he’d vanished with Cara through the junipers and into the fog, Nicci crouched down beside Richard and laid a hand on his back between his slumped shoulders.
“It will be all right, Richard.”
“I wonder if anything will ever be all right again.”
“It may not seem that way right now, but it will. Zedd will get over his anger of the moment and come to understand that you were doing your best to act responsibly. I know that he loves you and that he didn’t intend what he said to hurt you so.”
Richard nodded without looking up as he knelt in the mud beside the open coffin holding the corpse of the long dead Kahlan Amnell, the woman he had imagined had been his love.
“Nicci,” he finally asked so softly she could hardly hear him over the soft sound of the gentle rain, “will you do something for me?”
“Anything, Richard.”
“One last time…be Death’s Mistress for me.”
She rubbed his back and then stood, tears mixing with the rain on her face. By sheer force of will, past the sob struggling to escape, she made her voice steady.
