Exhaustion

With Richard's help, Cara improvised a stretcher made from sturdy branches and Kahlan's Confessor dress. They hung it between Kahlan's and Cara's horses, the animals being of the most similar height. Hali rode behind Cara in order to continue healing Darken.

They tethered Darken's black stallion to the back of Richard's saddle. Richard felt that if he rode the horse, it would be tantamount to admitting that Darken wouldn't be reclaiming it anytime soon. No one questioned him, and he didn't feel the need to share his irrational fear.

Their pace was slowed considerably, but they were still moving forward.

"Cara," Kahlan eyed the strained Mord'Sith, "you should get some sleep. You've been awake since before Nicci attacked him. Hali can keep you in the saddle."

Cara didn't even turn to look at her, "Mord'Sith are trained to withstand exhaustion when necessary."

Kahlan sighed. It didn't seem very necessary to her. She and Richard could keep everyone safe while Cara rested.

Looking down at Darken Rahl, she reevaluated her opinion. What if it were Richard laying there in the stretcher, rubbed with soothing goo and lightly covered by Hali's abandoned Sisterhood robes? Kahlan could not imagine taking her eyes from him for even a moment.

Darken ran through a maze of skeletal trees and trenches filled with green fire. He was dreaming, he knew he was. It was not possible that he was awake. But that knowledge did nothing to help him through the labyrinth he found himself in.

You have betrayed me, Darken Rahl.

The words and voice were so familiar, the same thing he had been hearing every time he closed his eyes since his return to life.

The Keeper lacked imagination.

With that thought, a chill shot down his dream self's spine and he knew the Keeper had heard and was preparing a reply.

Kahlan pulled hard on her reins to keep her horse from prancing as Rahl went into a violent seizure. Hali half hung out of the saddle, hands reaching to cup his face, unconcerned with any possible danger to herself. Cara held the back of Hali's dress in one hand, and kept a firm grip on her reins in the other. Her eyes never left Darken's face as he quieted and his lips formed a word.

Mother.

Darken refused to so much as cringe away from the death pale walking corpse of his mother. The D'Haran red of her dress could not hide the red black path of the lifeblood that leaked from her body. She left a trail of it.

In life, his mother had been a rosy, soft princess of Rothenberg, all dark wavy hair and brown doe eyes. She had been given to his father as part of a treaty; a beautiful docile wife that would bend to Panis Rahl's every impulse.

Darken had never known what pierced her heart the day he found her. Many scenarios had run through his mind: Perhaps she had stood up to his father at last, and paid the price. Maybe a harder, fiercer courtesan with an eye to becoming queen had done the deed.

The most hurtful explanation was the most likely, and that was that she had plunged the knife into her own breast, leaving her son to find her in an ever spreading pool of blood.

The deepest betrayal he had ever known.

The farce of a woman opened her arms to him, smiling so he could see the black blood seeping between her teeth.

"You are not my mother," he said, voice even.

The corpse smiled wider, inhumanly wide, not so much a smile as a crack splitting her face. She pressed his face to her breast and he choked on the blood, unable to move.

Unable to wake up.

"The Keeper invades his dreams," Hali said as she straightened in the saddle once more. She removed one of her slippers and her stocking, pressing her naked foot against Darken.

"Because he's close to death?" Kahlan asked, voice small.

Hali shook her head, white eyes dim, "The Keeper tortures him every night. But now, he is not strong enough to resist as he usually does."

"Will he tell –" began Richard, who had ridden up to see what the commotion was about.

"No," Cara answered, lips pursed, eyes straight ahead, "Darken Rahl's ability to withstand is legendary among the Mord'Sith. He will reveal nothing he does not wish to, especially as he knows that the Keeper cannot actually kill him."

"There are some things worse than death," said Kahlan.

"Not for Darken Rahl."

Some time passed, and then Cara spoke quietly to Hali, who called a halt, saying she needed to reapply the salve on Darken's wounds. Zedd moved to help her, feeling more than useless, the Rada Han a heavy weight pulling him down.

Cara pulled Kahlan to the side, an intensity surrounding her that set Kahlan on edge.

"Once, I told you that I consider you a friend."

"Yes," Kahlan replied, for one panicky moment thinking that Cara knew her innermost thoughts, the dark desires that disgusted her even as she thought them.

"As a friend, I ask you this," Cara gripped Kahlan's arms, not hard enough to hurt, but with a strength and fierceness that was uncomfortable, "protect Lord Rahl," her eyes cut to Richard, "Both of them."

Cara had never asked for help with anything before. Kahlan could do nothing but agree.

"I swear."

Cara held her eyes for a long time, and then leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together and for a dizzying moment Kahlan thought the Mord'Sith was going to kiss her.

Abruptly, Cara turned away and, undoing the ties that held the black warhorse to Richard's gelding, vaunted into the saddle.

"Where are you going?" Kahlan called after her as the others looked up in surprise.

"To get help," Cara said shortly before turning the horse to the east.

"Where?" asked Richard.

"A temple."

Cara whipped the large stallion into a gallop, and then was gone.

This will be the last update for several days. I am moving, so I have to pack, unpack, get my internet and power connected, etc. I hope to be posting again by next Wednesday, but unless something crazy happens, I should be back by next Friday, June 4, 2010.

Do please let me know how you're enjoying the story, and don't be afraid to offer criticisms, be they grammatical, spelling corrections or otherwise. I can't fix something I don't know is wrong. ^_^