Free Confessor by Terry Goodkind

lingering on his face. “I guess you’re right. It could just be that the combination of the Chainfire spell and the contamination of the chimes has already eroded my ability to think.”
    “I don’t believe that for a moment, Zedd. I think it’s that you love Richard and are worried for him. I wouldn’t have sought your counsel had it not been important. You told me what I needed to know.”
    “If you get confused again,” Cara said to him, “I’ll straighten you out.”
    Zedd scowled at the woman. “How reassuring.”
    “Well, Nicci made a long story of it,” Cara said, “but it’s not really all that complicated. Anyone should be able to see it—even you, Zedd.”
    Zedd frowned. “What do you mean?”
    Cara shrugged one shoulder. “We are the steel against steel. Lord Rahl is the magic against magic.”
    To Cara, it was no more complicated than that. Nicci wondered if the Mord-Sith didn’t really grasp that she was only scratching the surface, or if she understood the entire concept better than anyone. Perhaps she was right and it really wasn’t any more complicated than that.
    Zedd laid a hand gently on Nicci’s shoulder. It reminded her of Richard’s gentle touch.
    “Well, despite what Cara says, this may be the death of us all. If it is to have a chance to work, though, we have a lot of work to do. Richard is going to need our help. You and I know a great deal about magic. Richard knows next to nothing.”
    Nicci smiled to herself. “He knows more about it than you think he does. It was Richard who deciphered the taint in the Chainfire spell. None of us understood all that businessabout the language of symbols, but Richard picked it up on his own. By himself he learned to understand ancient drawings, designs, and emblems.
    “I could never teach him anything about his gift, but he often surprised me with how much he grasped that was beyond the conventional understanding of magic. He taught me things I could never have imagined.”
    Zedd was nodding. “He drives me crazy, too.”
    Rikka, the other Mord-Sith living at the Wizard’s Keep, stuck her head in the doorway. “Zedd, I just thought you ought to know about something.” She pointed a finger skyward. “I was a few levels up and there must be some kind of broken window or something. The wind is making a strange noise.”
    Zedd frowned. “What kind of noise?”
    Rikka put her hands on her hips and stared at the floor, thinking it over. “I don’t know.” She looked up again. “It’s hard to describe. It reminded me a little of wind blowing through a narrow passage.”
    “A howling noise?” Zedd asked.
    Rikka shook her head. “No. More like the way it sounds out on the ramparts when the wind blows through the crenellations.”
    Nicci glanced toward the windows. “It’s just dawn. I’ve been casting webs. The wind hasn’t come up yet.”
    Rikka shrugged. “I don’t know what it could have been, then.”
    “The Keep sometimes makes noises when it breathes.”
    Rikka wrinkled her nose. “Breathes?”
    “Yes,” the wizard said. “When the temperature changes, like now when the nights are getting colder, the air down in the thousands of rooms will move around. Forced into the constrictions of the passageways it sometimes moans through the halls of the Keep when there is no wind outside.”
    “Well, I haven’t been here long enough to have experienced such a thing, but that must be it, then. The Keep must be breathing.” Rikka started away.
    “Rikka,” Zedd called, waiting for her to halt. “What were you doing up there in that section anyway?”
    “Chase is looking for Rachel,” Rikka said back over her shoulder. “I was just helping out. You haven’t seen her, have you?”
    Zedd shook his head. “Not this morning. I saw her last night before she went off to bed.”
    “All right, I’ll tell Chase.” Rikka peered into the room a moment and then leaned a hand against the doorway. “What’s that thing on the