Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [357]
Kahlan nodded as she felt tears run down her cheeks. “Zedd, he has to be all right. He has to. If Rahl has kept him there this long, he wouldn’t kill him now.”
“We don’t even know that Rahl has him.”
She knew he just didn’t want to admit it out loud. Why else would he be at the People’s Palace, if Darken Rahl didn’t have him?
“Zedd, when you sought the night stone before, you said you could feel him, that he was alive.” She almost couldn’t bring herself to ask, could hardly get the words out, afraid of what he might say. “Did you sense him in the underworld?”
He looked into her eyes a long time. “I didn’t sense him. But I don’t know if I would, if he were in the underworld. If he were dead.” When she started crying, he pulled her against him, hugging her head to his shoulder. “But I think it was only the night stone there. I think Rahl was trying to trap me there. He must have gotten the night stone from Richard, must have sent it to the underworld to snare me.”
“We’re still going after him,” she cried. “I’m not turning back.”
“Well, of course we are.”
Kahlan felt a warm tongue on the back of her hand. She stroked the wolf’s fur, smiled over at him.
“We’ll find him, Mistress Kahlan. Don’t you worry, we’ll find him.”
“Brophy’s right,” Chase called over his shoulder. “I’m even looking forward to the lecture we’ll be getting about coming after him.”
“The box is safe,” the wizard said, “that’s what matters. Five days from tomorrow is the first day of winter, and then Darken Rahl will be dead. We will have Richard back after that, if not before.”
“I’ll get us there before then, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Chase grumbled.
CHAPTER 45
Richard held the thick spines on Scarlet’s shoulders in a death grip as she made a banking turn to the left. He had learned, much to his amazement, that when she leaned into a turn, it didn’t make him slide off the side, but pressed him harder against her. Richard found the experience of flying at once exhilarating and frightening, like standing on the edge of an impossibly high cliff—that moved. The feel of her body lifting him into the air made him grin. Muscles flexed beneath him as she stroked the air with her powerful wings, each beat giving a lift. When she folded her wings back and dove toward the ground, the wind made his eyes water, and the feeling of falling took his breath away and made him feel as though his stomach would rise inside him. He marveled at the very idea of riding a dragon.
“Do you see them?” he called out over the sound of the wind.
Scarlet gave a grunt to indicate that she did. In the fading light, the gars looked like black dots moving about on the rocky ground below. Steam trailed up from Fire Spring, and even this high up Richard could smell the acrid fumes. Scarlet rose steeply into the air, making his legs press against her as she lifted them higher; then she rolled into a sharp bank to the right.
“There are far too many,” she called back.
Her head tilted behind, one yellow eye peering at him. Richard pointed.
“Go down there, behind those hills, and don’t let them see us.”
Scarlet climbed with strong strokes. When they were higher than they had been so far, she glided away from Fire Spring. She swooped down, between the rocky slopes, threading her way back toward where Richard had told her to land. With a silent flutter of wings, she gently settled on the ground near the mouth of a cave, and lowered her neck so he could climb down. Richard knew she didn’t want him on her back any longer than necessary.
Her head swung around toward him, her eyes angry, impatient. “There are too many gars. Darken Rahl knows I can’t fight that many; that’s why there are so many there—in case I ever found my egg. You said you would think of a plan. What is it?”
Richard glanced over at the mouth of the cave. The Shadrin’s cave, Kahlan had told him. “We need a diversion, something to distract them while we get the egg.”
“While you get the egg,” Scarlet corrected, with a little flame to make her point.
He looked over