Cypher's Seven

Yes, it's a shameless ripoff of a shameless ripoff of a pretty good 50's movie. I'm a fan of caper movies (How To Steal A Million, Ocean's Eleven, Kelly's Heroes), so it was a natural to try that with LotS. Here's hoping I pull it off with even a tiny fraction of the style of those great movies… Like I said a while back, I'm trying to avoid the angst for a while, and just have some fun.

On a different note, could the writers of the show please get out of my head? I had the idea for "fake out the D'Harans with a non-existent curse" before Cursed aired. Luckily, this story is wayyyyy different in plot, content, and tone. Thank the spirits.

Set post-Mirror (and after my story A Winter's Tale—don't worry, Kahlan's going to have a much better time in this story. The few references to Middleton are from that story—you can read this without it, but it'll be a little more understandable if you have.) It's also set before Cursed.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters (well, Richard, Kahlan and Zedd—Javan and Co. are mineminemine!!!) or the show, nor do I get any money out of writing this stuff, more's the pity.

Summary: Richard is put in an uncomfortable position when he, Kahlan and Zedd step in to help a town with a D'Haran infestation.

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The door to the inn crashed open, and an emaciated, wild-eyed man staggered in. He leaned heavily against the doorjam, and called out, "The Seeker! Has anyone seen the Seeker?"

The chatter in the inn died as the tension rose. The innkeeper looked nervously at a dark corner of the inn, where three people in hooded cloaks sat.

A burly man with a bushy red beard who'd been sitting at a table near the door stood up, his hand resting significantly on the handle of the axe at his belt. "That's a dangerous person to be asking for, these days. Who asks for the Seeker, and why?" he said.

One of the hooded figures rose, moving gracefully toward the door, but keeping to the more shadowed edges of the room. The other two rose a moment later, the taller one moving closer to the bar, the other following the first, a few steps behind.

"Please," the newcomer said, "please, you have to help me find the Seeker. My village…" He swayed, and the man with the axe moved forward and caught him by the arm to steady him. The newcomer smiled at him gratefully, and continued. "My village is dying. The D'Harans, they've taken everything—every bit of food we had. We're starving, and all because a spy told the D'Harans we'd given the Seeker shelter three months ago."

There was a rumble of disapproval in the room. The man with the axe glanced over at the hooded figure near him. A woman's alto voice came from the depths of the hood. "It's all right." She lifted the hood back to reveal dark hair and blue eyes. She nodded gratefully at the man with the sword. "He's telling the truth, Javan."

"I wish he weren't," said the young man behind her, also pulling back his hood. "It seems like for every thing we do to make life better in the Midlands, the D'Harans follow and make it twice as bad."

"Seeker! Confessor!" the man breathed, and threw himself at their feet. "Please, please, my people need your help."

"Get up," Richard said, clearly embarrassed. "Zedd," he called to the third hooded figure, who'd pulled back his hood to reveal a long, craggy face, "could you bring this man some food?" Richard helped the man to Javan's seat. "What's your name?" he asked the man.

"Henrik," he said, looking back and forth from Richard to Kahlan pleadingly.

"Tell me, Henrik," said Zedd, coming over from the bar with a plate of bread and cheese, "what village is it, and how did this all come about?" He took a bite out of a chunk of bread.

Henrik seized the bread from Zedd and tore into it desperately. He swallowed, suddenly looking guilty. He shook his head sadly. "That's the first food I've had in three days," he said. "And it's worse than that for the people I left behind in Hamilton."

Kahlan frowned. "But…we've never even been to Hamilton," she said, looking up at Richard in confusion.

"No," Henrik said. "The spy lied. Though we certainly would have given the Seeker assistance had you needed it," he added, nodding ingratiatingly at Richard. "But it doesn't matter. The D'Harans are looking to make examples of anyone, now that the Midlands are starting to gain hope."

Richard looked over at Zedd, shaking his head in frustration. "Great! Now they're going after people we've never even met!"

Javan reached over and grabbed Richard's shoulder. "It won't make any difference, Richard. The Midlands are behind you, more every day."

Kahlan shot Javan a grateful look. He reminded her a bit of Chase, at least in his manner, and she knew he'd struck Richard the same way. She was glad they'd met him with the Resistance in Middleton, especially given how that meeting happened. Javan and his wife, Fiona, had been very kind to her while she was recovering from her injuries.

"But--" Richard began, clearly not ready to let go of his frustration.

"Richard," Zedd said placatingly. "You knew this wasn't going to be easy. Rahl has never had any qualms about hurting innocents."

"The question is," Kahlan said, looking down at Henrik, who was shoveling in bread and cheese as fast as he could, "what are we going to do about it?"

"First," Zedd said, "we need to know as much about the situation as possible." He patted Henrik on the shoulder.

An hour later, after Henrik had told them of the local garrison with over fifty soldiers, the constant patrols around the town to ensure no food got in, and the regular sweeps they made through the town to gather up any food that might have slipped through, and a half a dozen other bits of information that made the situation sound impossible, Richard sighed in frustration, cradling his forehead in his hand.

"So," Zedd said, "to summarize our problem: we need to get the food they've already collected back from the D'Harans so the people of Hamilton don't starve."

"Without the D'Harans knowing we took it," added Richard, looking up with a gloomy expression.

"And in such a way that they leave Hamilton alone after we're gone," Kahlan finished.

The three of them looked at each other for a long moment. "Gosh," Richard said at last, "why couldn't they give us a hard problem?"

"Oh, Richard," Zedd said airily, "the Seeker does six things like this before breakfast every day. Hadn't you heard?"

Javan laughed heartily, but Richard didn't seem to find it very amusing.

"Stop it, all of you," Kahlan said. "This is serious. What we have to do is break this down into smaller pieces, and deal with each of them separately."

Richard frowned at her. "Like how?"

Kahlan thought for a moment. "Well, I have a pretty good idea about how to get inside the garrison." There was something about the look on her face that made Richard worry about what the specifics of that idea were. "And once there, I'm betting Zedd can provide me with a little something to give the soldiers to keep them out of our hair while we get the food out." She fell silent, thinking, and then smiled. "And with enough time and help, we can move it all out…and replace it with sacks of spoiled grain and rotten fruit," she finished, and looked proudly at them, pleased with her ingenuity.

Zedd looked at her appraisingly, and then nodded slowly. "But that's the easy part," he said warily. "And it assumes that you can deal with the entire garrison, something I'm not quite so sanguine about. The more difficult question is, how do we keep them from coming after the village again?"

"I'm working on that," Kahlan said, with a hint of defensiveness.

"Wait," Richard said. "I might have an idea. Zedd, back when we were trying to rescue Renn, you remember how you used that gold ball thing with all the shadows in it to fool the Dragon Corps into letting you join them?" Richard looked over at Kahlan, who was rolling her eyes. "What?" he said.

"'Gold ball thing?'" Kahlan said witheringly.

"Yes," Zedd said, choosing to ignore both the simplistic description of a very complicated bit of sorcery and Kahlan's sarcasm, and wondering where Richard was going with this. "I remember."

"Well," Richard said, looking annoyed with Kahlan, "what if we could get the D'Harans to believe that the village is haunted, or cursed, or infested with shadows, or something?"

"Haunted, or cursed, or…something," Zedd said, trying to decide which feeling was stronger in him at the moment, the irritation at Richard's blithe assumption that such a thing would be easy, or the annoyance that Richard had actually come up with a good idea. Does it really matter? He sighed, and gave the matter some thought, aware that both Kahlan and Richard were watching him impatiently. "I suppose I could come up with some fairly convincing illusions to that effect," he said finally.

"In order for that to work, though, we'd have to have the soldiers come to the village to witness those illusions," Kahlan said, one side of her mouth rising in a devious smile. "And while they're there…"

"…you can be clearing out the food at the garrison," Richard finished for her, picking up her grin, "without nearly as many soldiers to worry about."

"And with a little preparation, we can call down the curse…" Zedd paused dramatically, a smile curling up the corner of his mouth in an echo of Kahlan's, "…in retribution for the village's help to the Seeker. If the D'Harans believe that the punishment they wanted has been replaced by something worse, they won't bother coming back to finish the job. By the spirits," he said, sounding more confident, "this might just work."

"But we have a lot to do," Kahlan said. "And not a lot of time."

"Right," Richard said, jumping to his feet. "We need to get to Hamilton. But before we go, Zedd, make sure you have what you need for our little curse scenario. Kahlan, you do the same for whatever you need to get into the garrison. I'll see if we can recruit some help to put together the replacements for the food we'll be stealing back, and to manage the logistics of that maneuver."

"Count me in," Javan said, clapping Richard on the shoulder. "And I'm sure I can round up some men to help out."

Kahlan looked at him, and smiled what seemed to Richard like a dangerous smile. "How about some women, Javan?"

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