A little of the color left the man’s face. “I understand. It will be done as you wish, Lord Rahl.” He bowed deep.
He turned and left after meeting Richard’s eyes and giving a knowing smile.
Darken Rahl returned his blue eyes to Richard. “Continue.”
Richard had gone as far as he was going to go. He remembered everything.
It was time to die.
“I will not. There is nothing you can do to make me tell you. I welcome the pain. I welcome death.”
Before the Agiel could come, Rahl’s eyes snapped up to Denna. Richard felt her fist loosen on his hair. One of the guards marched forward, grabbed her by the throat with his big hand, squeezing, until Richard could hear her struggling to breathe.
Rahl glared at her. “You told me he was broken.”
“He was, Master Rahl.” She struggled to speak as she was being choked. “I swear.”
“I am very disappointed in you, Denna.”
As the man lifted her feet off the ground, Richard could hear her sounds of pain. Again, the power turned white-hot in him. Denna was being hurt. Before anyone knew what was happening, he was on his feet, the power of the magic raging through him.
Richard threw one arm around the man’s thick neck, grasping his opposite shoulder. He grabbed the man’s head with his other arm and in a blink gave a powerful twist. The man’s neck snapped. He went down in a heap.
Richard spun. The other guard was almost on him, his hand reaching out. Richard seized the man’s wrist and used his advancing weight to pull his adversary into the knife. He drove it in up to his fist and gave a mighty pull, cutting all the way up to the man’s heart as his blue eyes went wide in surprise. His insides spilled across the ground when he hit.
Richard stood panting with the power. Everything in his peripheral vision was white. White from the heat of the magic. Denna had her hands to her throat, clutching at the pain.
Darken Rahl stood calmly, licking the tips of his fingers as he watched Richard.
Denna brought on the pain of the magic enough to take Richard to his knees. He folded his arms across his gut.
“Master Rahl,” Denna gasped, “let me take him back for the night. I swear that in the morning, he will answer anything you ask him. If he’s still alive. Allow me to redeem myself.”
“No,” Rahl said, deep in thought, waving his hand a little, “I apologize, my pet. This is not your failing. I had no idea what we were dealing with. Turn off the pain in him.”
Richard recovered and returned to his feet. The fog had cleared from his head. He felt as if he were waking from a dream only to find himself in a nightmare. The rest of him was out of the little locked room in his mind, and he wasn’t putting it away again. He would die with all of his mind, his dignity, intact. He kept the anger choked off, but there was fire in his eyes. Fire in his heart.
“Did the Old One teach you that?” Rahl asked, a curious frown on his face.
“Teach me what?”
“To partition your mind. That was how you kept from being broken.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You put up a partition, to protect the core, sacrificed the rest to what would be done. A Mord-Sith cannot break a partitioned mind. Punish, yes. Break, no.” He turned to Denna. “Once again, I am sorry, my pet. I thought you had failed me. You have not. None but the most talented could have taken him this far. You have done well, but this makes matters altogether different.”
He smiled, licked his fingertips, smoothed them over his eyebrows. “Richard and I are going to have a private conversation now. While he is in this room with me, I wish you to let him speak without the pain of the magic. It interferes with what I may need to do. While he is here, he is to be free of your control. You may return to your quarters. When I am done with him, and if he is still alive, I will send him back to you, as promised.”
Denna bowed deeply. “I live to serve, Master Rahl.”
She turned to Richard, her face crimson, and put a finger under his chin, lifting it a little. “Don’t disappoint me, my love.”
The Seeker smiled. “Never, Mistress Denna.”
He let the anger rage, just to feel it again, as he watched her walk away. Rage at her, and at what had been done to her. Don’t think of the problem, he told himself, think of the solution. Richard turned to face Darken Rahl. The other’s face was calm, showed nothing. Richard made his do the same.
“You know I want to know what the rest of the book says.”
“Kill me.”
Rahl smiled. “So eager to die, are we?”
“Yes. Kill me. Just like you killed my father.”
Darken Rahl frowned, the smile still on his lips. “Your father? I have not killed your father, Richard.”
“George Cypher! You killed him! Don’t try to deny it! You killed him with that knife at your belt!”
Rahl spread his hands in mock innocence. “Oh, I don’t deny killing George Cypher. But I have not killed your father.”
Richard stood caught off guard. “What are you talking about?”
Darken Rahl strolled around him, watching his eyes as Richard tried to follow him by turning his head. “It’s quite good. It really is. The best I have ever seen. Done by the great one himself.”
“What?”
Darken Rahl licked his fingers and stopped in front of him. “The wizard’s web around you. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s wound around you tight as a cocoon. Been there a good long time. It’s quite intricate; I don’t think even I could untangle it.”
“If you are trying to convince me George Cypher is not my father, you have failed. If you are trying to convince me you are mad, you needn’t bother. That much I already know.”
“My dear boy,” Rahl laughed, “I couldn’t care less who you believe your father to be. Nonetheless, there is a wizard’s web hiding the truth from you.”
“Really? I’ll play along. Who’s my father, if it’s not George Cypher?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Rahl shrugged. “The web hides it. But from what I’ve seen, I have my suspicions.” The smile left. “What does the Book of Counted Shadows say?”
Richard shrugged. “That’s your question? You disappoint me.”
“How so?”
“Well, after what was done to your bastard father, I thought sure you’d want to know the old wizard’s name.”
Darken Rahl glared as he slowly licked his fingertips. “What is the old wizard’s name?”
It was Richard’s turn to smile. He spread his arms wide. “Cut me open. It’s written on my guts. You will have to find it there.”
Richard kept the smirk on his face; he knew he was defenseless and was hoping Rahl would be driven to kill him. If he was dead, the book died with him. No box, no book. Rahl was going to die; Kahlan would be safe then. That was all that mattered.
“In one week, it will be the first day of winter, and I will know the name of the wizard, and have the power to snatch him from wherever he is, and bring his hide to me.”
“In one week, you will be dead. You have only two boxes.”
Darken Rahl licked his fingers again and smoothed them over his lips. “I have two right now, and the third is on its way here, as we speak.”