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"Know that I believe you are the one who can do it."
Outside, before starting down the granite steps, she turned back, a black shape against the fading light.
"If Kahlan was ever real or not no longer matters. The entire world of life, everyone's life, is now at stake. You must forget this one life, Richard, and think of all the rest."
"Prophecy, Shota?" Richard felt too heavyhearted to raise his voice. "Something from the flow of time?"
Shota shook her head. "Simply the advice of a witch woman." She started for the paddock to collect her horse. "Too much is at stake, Richard. You must stop chasing this phantom."
When Richard went back inside everyone was crowded around Jebra, engaged in hushed conversation filled with sympathy for her ordeal.
Zedd paused in the middle of what he was saying as Richard joined them. "Rather odd, don't you think, my boy?"
Richard glanced around at the perplexed expressions. "What's odd?"
Zedd spread his hands. "That somewhere in the middle of Jebra telling her story Shota simply up and vanished."
"Vanished," Richard repeated, cautiously.
Nicci nodded. "We thought she would stick around and have something to say after Jebra finished."
"Maybe she had to go find someone to intimidate," Cara said.
Ann sighed. "Maybe she wanted to be on her way after that other witch woman."
"Maybe, being a witch woman, she isn't much for good-byes," Nathan suggested.
Richard didn't say anything. He had seen Shota do this before, like when she had shown up at his and Kahlan's wedding and given Kahlan the necklace. No one had heard her then, either, when she had spoken to Richard and Kahlan. No one had seen her leave.
Everyone went back to their conversation, except for his grandfather. Zedd looked distant and distracted.
"What is it?" Richard asked.
Zedd shook his head as he laid his arm around Richard's shoulders, leaning closer as he spoke intimately. "For some reason, I find my mind wandering to thoughts of your mother."
"My mother."
Zedd nodded. "I really miss her."
"Me too," Richard said. "Now that you mention it, I guess I've had her on my mind as well."
Zedd stared off into the distance. "Part of me died with her that day."
It took Richard a moment to find his voice. "Do you have any idea why she went back into the burning house? Do you think there was anything important in there? Maybe someone we didn't know about?"
Zedd shook his head insistently. "I felt sure that there had to have been some good reason, but I went through the ashes myself." His eyes welled up with tears. "There was nothing in there but her bones."
Richard glanced out the door and saw the spectral shadow of Shota atop her horse start down the road without looking back.
* * *
CHAPTER 21
Rachel hesitated deep within the dark entrance. It was becoming difficult to see. She wished she couldn't make out what was drawn on the walls, but the fact was she could. All the way into the cave she had tried not to look too closely at the strange scenes covering the stone walls all around her. Some of the images made goose bumps rise on her arms. She could not imagine why anyone would want to draw such horrible, cruel things, but she certainly could understand why they would put them down in the cave, why they would want to hide such dark thoughts from the light of day.
The man unexpectedly shoved her. Rachel stumbled forward and fell flat on her face. She gasped a breath to regain the wind that had been so abruptly knocked out of her. She spit out dirt as she pushed herself up on her arms. She was too angry to cry.
When she peeked back over her shoulder she saw that, instead of watching her, he was gazing ahead into the darkness with those unsettling golden eyes of his, as if his mind had wandered and he'd forgotten all about her. Rachel glanced back toward the light, wondering if she could make it past his long legs. She reasoned that she could feign going one way and then dodge the other. That might work. But he was a lot bigger than she was and could no doubt run faster even if her legs hadn't been all wobbly from having been tied for so long. If only he hadn't taken her knives away from her. Still, if she was quick, she thought she might possibly be able to get enough of a start to make it.
Before she had a chance to try, the man noticed her again. He seized her by the collar and hoisted her to her feet, then shoved her on ahead, deeper into the black maw of the cave. Rachel struggled to find her footing over rock outcroppings and to jump fissures. Seeing some kind of movement ahead, she paused.
"Well, well…" came a razor-thin voice from back in the darkness. "Visitors."
The last word had been drawn out so that it almost sounded like the hiss of a snake.
Rachel's skin went icy cold as she stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness, fearing who could be the owner of such a voice.
Out of that darkness, as if from out of the underworld itself, a shadow materialized, gliding forward into the dim light.
Shadows didn't smile, though, Rachel realized. This was a woman, a tall woman in long black robes. Her long, wiry hair, too, was black. In contrast, her skin was so pale that it made her face almost appear to be floating all by itself in the darkness. It reminded Rachel of the skin of an albino salamander that hid under leaves on the forest floor during
the day, never touched by the sunlight. All of her, from the coarse black cloth of her dress to her parched flesh stretched tightly over her knuckles to her stiff hair, seemed as dry as a sunbaked carcass.
She wore the kind of smile that Rachel imagined a wolf wore when dinner dropped in unexpectedly.
Although her eyes were blue, it was a blue that was as blanched as her skin, so that it almost seemed that she might be blind. But the way those eyes deliberately took Rachel in left no doubt that this was a woman who could not only see just fine in the light, but probably in pitch darkness as well.
"This had better be worth it," the man behind Rachel said. "The little brat stabbed me in my leg."
Rachel glared back over her shoulder. She didn't know the man's name. He had never bothered to tell her. Ever since capturing her he'd spoken very little, in fact, as if she were not someone but something—an inanimate object—that he had merely collected. The way he'd treated her made her feel like she was nothing more than a sack of grain thrown over the back of his saddle. But, at that moment, the grief, fear, thirst, and hunger during the long journey were only dim annoyances in the back of her mind.
"You killed Chase," she said. "You deserve more than I did."
The woman frowned. "Who?"
"The man with her."
"Ah, him," the woman in black said. "And you killed him?" She sounded only mildly curious. "Are you certain? Did you bury him?"
He shrugged. "I guess he's dead—men don't recover from such wounds. The spell concealed me well enough, just as you promised it would, so he never even noticed I was there. I didn't take the time to stop and bury him, though, since I knew you wanted me back as soon as possible."
Her thin smile widened. Coming ever closer, she finally reached out and ran her long, bony fingers back through his thick hair. Her ghostly blue eyes studied him intently.
