"And what is this beast you mentioned? The one Jagang created?"
"A weapon created with the use of Sisters of the Dark," Nicci said. "Something from the time of the great war."
Zedd cursed under his breath at the news. Cara looked like she had something to say about the beast, but she thought better of it and instead started for the door. "Come on. I don't want Lord Rahl to get too far ahead of us."
Zedd grumbled his agreement. "Looks like we're going to get wet."
"At least if it rains," the Mord-Sith said, "it will wash some of the horse off of me."
CHAPTER 48
The drizzle started before they were out of the paddock. Richard was already gone. There was no telling how far ahead of them he had gotten. Cara wanted to hurry and catch up with him, but Zedd told her that they knew where he was going and there was no point in risking breaking the leg of one of the tired horses because, if that happened, then they would only end up having to walk down the mountain after Richard and then, after visiting the graveyard of the Confessors, walk all the way back up.
"Besides," Zedd told her, "you'll never be able to catch him."
"Well, you might be right about that," Cara said as she spurred her horse into a canter, "but I don't want him alone any longer than necessary. I'm his protection."
"Especially since he's without his sword," Zedd muttered sourly.
They had little choice but to hurry after Cara.
By the time they'd raced down the mountain and reached the city, the daylight was fading and the drizzle strengthening. Nicci knew they were going to be soaked before it was over, but there was no helping it. Fortunately, it was warm enough that at least they wouldn't be freezing in the wet weather.
Knowing where Richard would be, they made their way to the grounds of the Confessors' Palace where they quickly found his horse, tied to one of the rings holding chains strung between decorative granite stanchions. Since there was no opening in the chains, they were apparently meant to indicate a private area of the grounds. After the three of them tied their horses alongside Richard's, Cara and Nicci followed Zedd as he stepped over the chain.
This was clearly not a place where outsiders were welcome. The secluded courtyard was screened from public view by a row of tall elms and a dense wall of evergreen junipers. Through the thick branches of the grand trees Nicci saw glimpses of the white walls of the Confessors' Palace looming close by, enfolding and sheltering the wooded graveyard.
Because of the way it was hidden away, Nicci had expected it to be small, but the place where Confessors were buried was actually quite extensive. Trees were placed so as to cut the openness and give each section of the graveyard an intimate feel. By the manner in which it was laid out, with a path and a small vine-covered colonnade ushering people approaching from the palace, it was apparently intended to be accessed solely from the palace through elegant, double glassed doors. In the muted gray light the quiet place beneath the canopy of trees had a hallowed feel to it.
They found Richard up a slight rise in what would be the shady courtyard were it sunny, standing in the drizzle before a polished stone monument, running his fingers through the letters carved in the granite, through the letters of the name KAHLAN.
Somewhere on the grounds to the Confessors' Palace Richard had managed to find shovels and picks. They lay at the ready nearby. Scanning the area, Nicci saw that there were storage buildings for grounds keepers set back among hedges partly hidden around a corner of the palace and reasoned that Richard had found them there.
As she quietly approached him, Nicci knew that Richard was on the brink of something potentially very dangerous — to him. She stood behind him, hands folded, waiting, as he tenderly touched Kahlan's name in stone.
"Richard," Nicci finally said in a soft voice, feeling the need for a reverent tone in such a place, "I hope that you will think about everything I've told you, and if things don't turn out the way at this moment you believe they will, know that we will all help you in any way we can."
He turned away from her name in stone. "Don't be worried about me, Nicci. There is nothing under this ground. She isn't here. I'm going to show that to all of you and then you will have to believe me. I'm going to get my life back. When I do, then you're all going to understand that something is very wrong. Then we're going to have to work to find out what's going on and we're going to find Kahlan."
After holding her gaze for a moment, waiting to see if she would dare to challenge him, Richard, without another word, snatched up a shovel and with a forceful push of his foot, sank the blade into the slightly mounded grassy ground in front of the stone marker to the dead Mother Confessor.