“It’s what you will need.” Red bent over her cooking fire and used the blackened femur to stir the coals and reawaken the flames. “You must find Kol Adair in the Old World, Nathan Rahl.” She flashed a glance at Nicci. “Both of you.”
“We have our own mission,” Nicci said. “Here in the Dark Lands.”
“Oh? And what mission is that? To wander aimlessly because you are too much in love with Richard Rahl to stay at his side? That is a pointless quest. A coward’s quest.”
Nicci felt the heat in her cheeks. “That’s not it at all.”
Nathan came to her defense. “After our last great battles, I wanted to come back here, to see if I could help the people.”
Red sniffed. “Another pointless quest. There are always people who need help, no matter where you go. In the Dark Lands? In the Old World? What is the purpose? Would you rather not save the world and save yourselves?”
Nicci turned her anger into annoyance. “You babble nonsense, witch woman.”
“Nonsense, is it? Turn the page, Nathan Rahl. Read your new life book.”
Curious, the wizard did as she suggested. Nicci leaned close, seeing other words written there on the second page.
Future and Fate depend on both the journey and the destination.
Kol Adair lies far to the south in the Old World. From there, the Wizard will behold what he needs to make himself whole again. And the Sorceress must save the world.
Nicci said, “I have helped save the world enough times already.”
But Nathan was more perplexed. “This is a game for you, witch woman. You planted this joke for us. Why would I need to be made whole again? Am I missing something?” He touched his arm, which seemed remarkably intact.
“That is not for me to say,” Red said. “You see what’s written, a path established long ago.”
“And prophecy is gone,” Nicci said. “Ancient predictions mean nothing.”
“Truly?” asked the witch woman. “Even pronouncements made when prophecy was as strong as the wind and the sun?” While Nathan flexed his fingers, as if searching for missing digits, Red brushed back her tangled locks of hair. “You of all people should know that it is unwise for others to interpret a prophecy.”
Nicci tightened the laces on her traveling boots and adjusted her black dress. She could not keep the skepticism out of her voice. “As I said, there is no more prophecy, witch woman. How can you know where we need to go?”
Red’s black lips formed a mysterious smile. “Sometimes I still know things. Or maybe it is a revelation I foresaw long before the stars changed overhead. But I do know that if you care about Lord Rahl and his D’Haran Empire, you will heed this warning and this summons. Kol Adair. You both need to make your way there, whether for the journey or the destination. If you don’t, then all that Richard Rahl has worked for may well be forfeit.” She shrugged, suddenly seeming aloof. “Do as you wish.”
Nathan slipped the new life book into a leather pouch at his side and closed the flap. “As Lord Rahl’s roving ambassador, my assignment is to travel to places that might not know about the changes in the world.” He looked up at the darkening sky through the canopy of the ancient oak. “But the exact route is at our discretion. We could go to the Old World just as well as to the Dark Lands.”
Nicci was not so convinced. “And you are going to take her babblings seriously, Wizard?”
Nathan stroked back his long white hair. “Frankly, I’ve had enough of the Dark Lands and all this gloom. The Old World has more sunshine.”
Nicci considered, realizing she had followed him, but with no real goal otherwise. She just wanted to serve Richard and strengthen his new, solid empire, to help bring about his longed-for golden age. “I have my own orders from Lord Rahl to explore his new empire and send reports back of the things we find. At Kol Adair, or elsewhere.”
“And save the world,” Red added.
She did not believe Red’s prediction—how was she supposed to save the world by traveling to, or seeing, a place she’d never heard of?—but the wizard had a valid point.
The Old World, once part of the Imperial Order, was now under the rule of D’Hara. Even those distant people would want to hear of their freedom, to know that Lord Rahl would insist on self-determination and standards of respect. She had to see what was out there, and take care of problems she saw, so that Richard need not be bothered. “Yes, I will go with you.”
Nathan adjusted his cape and shouldered his pack, just as eager to depart as he had been to find the witch woman in the first place, but Nicci hesitated. “Before we go south to the Old World, we need to tell Lord Rahl where we’re going. We have no way to communicate with him.” She didn’t want Richard or Kahlan to worry about the two of them if they disappeared for a time.
“We could find a way to send a message when we reach Tanimura,” Nathan said. “Or some other town along the way.”
Red surprised them. “I will take care of it.”
She picked up the crow’s limp carcass and cradled the bird in her hands, extending its flopping wings. She adjusted its lolling head, straightened its broken neck, then closed her eyes in concentration.
After a moment, the crow squirmed and fluffed its feathers. Red set the reanimated bird back on the stone bench, where it tottered drunkenly. The neck remained angled in the wrong direction, and its eyes held no glint of life at all, but it moved, like a marionette. The crow stretched its wings, as if fighting the remnants of death, then folded them back against its sides.
“Tear a strip of paper from a page of your life book, Nathan Rahl,” she said, handing him the black quill. “There should be enough ink left for you to write a note for Lord Rahl.”
Nathan did so, scratching out a quick summary on a thin curl of paper. When he was finished, Red rolled it tightly and bound the strip to the crow’s stiff leg. “My bird has sufficient animation to reach the People’s Palace. Lord Rahl will know where you are going.”
She tossed the awkward crow up into the air. Nicci watched the dead bird plummet back to the ground, but at the last moment it extended its wings, stiffly flapped them, rose up beyond the enormous oak, and flew into the dusk.
Hunter’s ears perked up, and the catlike creature sniffed the air before bounding off into the forest to dart among the shadows of the tall trees. Out beyond Red’s sheltered hollow, Nicci saw a flash of fur, something as large as a horse prowling through the thickets. Hunter happily bounded after it, frolicking through the underbrush, and disappeared along with the large predatory shape in the deeper gloom.
Red looked up. “Hunter’s mother often joins us for dinner.” Her mouth formed an odd smile. “Would you like to stay?”
Nicci took note of the strewn bones and skulls and decided not to take further risks. “We should go.”
“Thank you, witch woman,” Nathan said as they headed into the thickening night. Even alone in the wild, dark forest, Nicci guessed they would be safer than if they chose to stay at Red’s cottage.
Nathan strode along, paying no attention to the skulls. “It will be a grand adventure. Once we leave the Dark Lands, we can head south to Tanimura. At Grafan Harbor, we’re sure to find a ship sailing south. We will find Kol Adair, and that’s just a start.”
Richard had told her to go to the boundaries of the D’Haran Empire, and she decided that the far south was a perfectly viable option. “I suppose the rest of the world will be sufficient for our purposes.”
* * *
After Red watched the two disappear into the forest, Hunter trotted in and squatted by the cook fire. Moments later, his shaggy mother padded in, as big as a bear and bristling with cinnamon fur. The much smaller son nuzzled her, wanting to play, but Hunter’s mother thrust a huge head forward to Red, who dutifully scratched the silky fur behind the creature’s ears, scrubbing with the nails on both of her hands. Hunter’s mother made a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a purr; then she slumped heavily among the fallen leaves in the clearing.