XIX. SNOWBOUND

Kahlan sat by the window, sunlight in her lap, trying to pretend she wasn't listening to their argument. It was the same one they'd been having every day for over a fortnight now. She tilted her head to stare out the glass at the swiftly falling snow. It never seemed to stop for more than a few hours at a time. Whenever Richard went to explore the passes out of Ashkari he found them treacherous at best, certain death at worst. And so they waited in the dead city, warm and safe and fed, and starting to lose their minds from so long in one space with nothing to do.

He frequently sent Cara off on pointless patrols down the empty, snow covered streets just to stop her from climbing the walls. She could see her now from the window as she waded through drifts, her Agiels clenched in ready fists. Zedd amused himself in countless little ways; he was the only one who seemed unbothered by the wait. And she – Kahlan glanced down at the mess of fabric spilling across her lap – she was attempting to sew.

But Richard spent every waking hour, and most of the ones he was meant to devote to sleeping, with his nose buried in the nameless black book he'd found in the library. And having this same argument with Zedd. It made her heart clench up in fear to hear him talk.

"It could work," he was saying, jabbing at a passage in the book. "The spell is right here. I know it's not too hard for you – you're a Wizard of the First Order!"

Zedd reached over and snapped the book shut. "I'm perfectly capable of performing the spell, long and convoluted as it is, but I choose not to.

"Why not?" Richard started pacing again. It seemed that the floor ought to be wearing thin with how much he paced these days. "We need information on what's happening in the Underworld. Think of what those banelings said outside of Kinsley, about the Creator forsaking them. If I went to the Underworld, I would have a better idea of what we're up against."

"Or you would end up as a permanent resident of the Keeper," said Zedd, scowling as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What of all the creatures you told me are waiting down there? Not only screelings, but this hound? All the scholars you claim it's killed? And those who escaped came back shaken – a shell of who they once were. Is that what you want to have happen to you?"

Richard stopped pacing and drew in a deep breath. He wore an exasperated look on his face. "Just because they didn't succeed doesn't mean it can't be done. They didn't have the First Wizard to help them."

Zedd slurped at his tea a long time, and Kahlan could tell he was struggling to remain calm. "The scholars of Ashkari devoted their entire lives to the study of the afterlife, and they did not succeed in traveling safely through the Veil and back. It cannot be done. The Keeper's hound will kill you."

Kahlan wound a thread round and round her finger, staring blindly at the fabric in her lap. She was no seamstress, but the Sisters of the Light had taught her and all their charges the basics of a needle and thread. And with the buckles on her traveling dress no longer able to fasten over her stomach, she would soon be forced to go about naked beneath her cloak if she did not attempt to do something about it. But every time she picked up her needle, Richard would begin arguing for the equivalent of his own death sentence, and all hopes of concentrating on sewing would be lost.

He resumed pacing back and forth in front of the fire, and she looked up, watching the way the light and shadow played across his profile. He looked strong and noble, but she could see the desperation in his eyes. "It's in the prophecy," he said at last, and she knew this part of the argument too. "But, if by the Creator's grace, the one bound to the blade is given to the world of the dead."

"That's an expression," snapped Zedd as he always did. "It's not telling you to use a Grace to get yourself killed in the Underworld! Richard, I know how much you want to find the Stone of Tears, but this is not the way. Be patient. In another week or two, we'll be able to get back down the mountain and resume the search."

Richard shook his head. "We need to do more. More than just follow the compass."

Kahlan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She could feel the tension mounting in the room. Zedd set his mug down with a heavy thud and said, "So your plan is to travel to the Underworld, and simply ask the Keeper if he might know where the Stone of Tears is hiding? Or if he would please consider no longer waging war on the world of the living? Tell him we're getting tired of it?"

"No, I just…" Richard heaved a frustrated sigh, tearing a hand back through his hair. "This book is important!"

"I'm not saying it isn't," said Zedd sharply. "Keep reading. We may learn something useful from it. All I'm saying is do not expect me to send your soul off to meet the Keeper after lunch today."

Though she could see how angry Richard was getting, Kahlan couldn't help but feel a surge of gratitude towards Zedd. Even if Richard was furious, at least he was alive. He picked up the book and started flipping through it again. "What about some of the other spells?" he asked. "We could use the Grace to summon a spirit from the Underworld and speak to it." She straightened up in her seat; this was an idea he hadn't put forward before.

Zedd stirred his tea, the spoon clinking against the mug. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet, "Richard, listen to me. You are dealing with forces of which you have only the simplest, most incomplete understanding. I have been studying to be a wizard since well before your mother was even a twinkle in your grandmother's eye. Trust me when I say that there is a great deal more to it than simply opening up a door to the Underworld and having a chat through the Veil. Forces have to remain in balance at all times or catastrophe results. The Veil is torn. The world is already unbalanced." He set down his tea, his pale eyes growing hard and grim. "Do you want to know what I think will happen if I draw a Grace and use it to pull spirits up from the world of the dead to speak with you?"

Richard stopped pacing and looked at him. "What?"

"I think you will get Kahlan killed."

The needle slipped from her fingers as she watched all the color drain from Richard's face. "What?" he croaked.

Zedd's voice filled every corner of the room, "We would be opening up a gateway into our world for the Keeper. He is no fool; he will understand that where the Seeker is, so is the Mother Confessor. If he decides to use the opening we have created with the Grace to force any number of his minions through to take her, there is no certainty that I will be able to seal the gateway in time. His power is different from a wizard's, but it is vast beyond imagining compared to my own, and he will know exactly where she is. If you insist on going ahead with this, you will get her killed."

Richard turned in silence to look at her, his dark eyes a storm of tormented things. She wanted to go to him and take him in her arms, and tell him it was okay – they could defeat the Keeper another way. Instead, she swallowed around the lump in her throat and said, "I'll risk it, Richard, if you think it will help."

"No." He looked at her like she'd slapped him, his voice low and gravelly when he spoke, "I will not risk you for anything." Without so much as a glance at Zedd, he pulled his cloak from where it hung over the back of a chair. He slung it around his shoulders and headed for the door. "I'm going to take Cara and check the passes again," he said to no one in particular, and then he was gone.

The door slammed shut behind him, plunging them into silence. Her fingers trembled as she looked over at the old wizard sitting before the fire. "You should not use me against him like that," she said, struggling to keep her anger out of her voice. "It's cruel!"

Zedd fixed her with a level stare. "Was any word I said a lie, Mother Confessor?"

Her heart pounded in her chest. Kahlan could only shake her head to that. "No," she whispered at last. "It was all true."

He nodded and went back to watching the fire as he stirred his tea, the spoon clinking in an endless, jarring rhythm against the glass. And she stared at the heaping pile of fabric in her lap and tried to sew. She had found the dress in one of the abandoned houses, and had liked it because it was a creamy shade of white not too different from the Confessor's dress she no longer fit. It had belonged to a woman of a larger size than she, but with the basic shape already there, it should be a simple matter to take in the sleeves and the bust and leave plenty of fabric behind for her stomach. At least, that was what she'd told herself before settling to the task. At the moment she felt like casting the gown into the fire.

"Spirits!" she cursed as she jabbed herself with the needle. She dropped it to suck on her wounded thumb.

Zedd let out a weary sigh. "Give it here, dear one."

"What?"

"The dress. You're going to make a mess of it. I can already tell."

She raised an eyebrow, but stayed in her seat. "You sew?"

"Don't look so surprised." He set down his tea and cracked his knuckles one by one. "I'm a man of many talents."

Kahlan gathered up the dress, needle and thread, and pushed herself to her feet. It was starting to take a bit more effort to get from sitting to standing, and it often left her dizzy for a moment. As soon as she could, she carried the folds of fabric across the room, depositing it all on the table in front of him. "Thank you, Zedd," she said quietly.

He nodded as he plucked the needle from where she'd pinned it to the dress, and rolled it back and forth between his fingertips. He frowned at her dress a moment and then set to work, the needle flashing silver in the firelight. His long, bony fingers moved with nimble skill hers had lacked. Zedd cleared his throat, "In Aydindril you would have at least a dozen ladies to do this for you."

"I know," she said and turned away to fidget with the odds and ends on the table, rearranging the candles and fabric scraps in thoughtless patterns. She'd been wondering when this would conversation would come again. It was suddenly very hard to make her voice work, and she whispered, "I don't mind doing it myself if it's too much trouble."

"It's no trouble at all, and you know very well that's not what I was saying."

Kahlan stiffened and stayed with her back to him, fighting to keep from leaking tears into his mug of tea. "Then say what it is you mean to say," she said in a cold, stilted voice.

Zedd sighed, and she could hear the fabric of her dress rustling in his lap. "Dear one, do not be like this. Don't you know I care for you too? That is my great grandchild you carry, after all."

She blinked furiously to clear her tears and then turned, lost in a battle to keep her feelings from her face. She thought of the endless snow falling outside, and wished she was standing there in the blinding whiteness so she might cast her sorrow into the drifts. "I know what you are going to say."

He kept stitching her dress, but he glanced up at her, his pale eyes gentle and grave beneath his wiry brows. "We are stuck here for now," he said. "But in a week or two or three, we will be able to leave Ashkari. And then what? I only want to know how much longer you are going to continue doing this to yourself."

"The Seeker needs his Confessor," she said in a voice like rusted metal – brittle and ready to break.

"Nowhere near so much as Richard needs you to be well."

Kahlan let her hand settle over the swell to her belly where the fabric of her dress stretched and pulled near to tearing. She could feel the new life quickening in her womb. "I am well," she said.

"I know." Zedd's needle flashed and dipped as he spoke, "And so I am only asking. You are very tired, are you not?"

She shrugged and said, "It does not matter. There is too much at stake for me to sit in a room and wait for the world to end."

"For a child to come," he corrected with a slight furrowing of his brow.

"It does not matter. I'm not doing it."

Zedd measured out a length of thread and said, "He would come back for you. Don't be afraid, child. He would always come back for you."

"I know he would," she said fiercely. "If he lives."

"So that is what you fear."

Kahlan bristled. Her emotions had been busy stirring in her chest, and now they felt about to burst out. "You fear it too!" she snapped. Zedd kept sewing, his head bowed as he wielded the needle. She stalked over to him and snatched the dress from his lap, suddenly furious. She jerked her chin towards her belly. "What? We can talk of this, but not of the other? You fear him dying every bit as much as I do, or you never would have pushed that book away as coldly as you did. You fear he's desperate enough to march into the Underworld to battle the Keeper of the Dead himself, and that he will die just as the prophecy says. And he is that desperate! He blames himself for everything that has gone wrong. This could kill him in a thousand different ways."

She clutched the mess of fabric to her breast, only vaguely aware of how her voice was rising, "You treat me so carefully now, as if I'm damaged because of what happened when he was confessed. But I am fine." She sucked in a shaky breath, "It was horrible while it happened because he looked like Richard, yet he wasn't my Richard, and I don't have the words for how much that hurt my heart. But then it was over, and I had the man I love returned to me from a fate worse than death. And now I get to have his child. Do you have any idea what that means to a Confessor? To bear the child of the man you love?"

Kahlan kept going without waiting for an answer. "But for him…" She shook her head; the room was a messy, angry blur. "He's gone from brooding all day while we walk, to dreaming up ways to meet the Keeper, because that is how much he blames himself. I will not leave him to face this alone, and you do not understand how much I love him if you think I could!"

And then Zedd's arm was around her, guiding her down to sit on the bench, his voice soft and soothing, saying little more than "there, there child." She was vaguely aware that she was shaking, tears streaming down her face. "It's all right," he murmured. "I know very well how much you love him. It will be all right."

Kahlan buried her head against his shoulder and stained his robes with her tears. He said nothing of it, only held her closer as she cried. She felt very much like a child again – very young – in those few short years when she'd had a parent who loved her enough to hold her.

She did not know how long she wept, but when she stopped, Zedd stayed and rubbed her back. His gnarled fingers smoothed her hair. "You are right," he said at last in a quiet, tired voice. "I do fear his death. But I fear yours just as much. And you can no longer fight the way Richard can. I would rest easier if I knew you at least were some place safe, but perhaps it is better for the both of you to remain together." He gathered her hands up in his ancient ones and looked into her eyes as he said, "But child, there will come a day not too many months from now when you will have to stop. And he may have to go on."

Kahlan sniffled and looked down at her swollen belly. "I know," she whispered, but she did not want to think of that. And when he brushed a fat tear from her cheek and told her they could leave it at that, she shoved the thought to the back of her mind, staring out at the falling snow as he picked up her dress again and began to sew.