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  He went into the training room to check. It seemed smaller than he remembered. A pulley in the ceiling had a rope that was attached at the wall. The floor had a drain for the blood. He stood frozen for a brief moment before turning away and leaving.

  All five of the Mord-Sith silently watched him as he came out. They all knew it had been Denna’s room. None of them said a word. They didn’t have to. But he was glad they remained silent, because the last thing he would have wanted was for Kahlan to know whose room that had been.

  “Nothing,” he said. “It’s empty. We need to hurry and check the others. If Michec is hurting her, the sooner we can get to her the better.”

  By the time they had finished checking all the rooms, they had found no sign that either Michec or Vika had been there.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” he finally said in frustration. “Do any of you have any idea where Michec could have taken her?”

  All the Mord-Sith looked equally disappointed as they shook their heads.

  “Do any of you have any idea where Michec’s quarters used to be?”

  Again, they all shook their heads.

  Richard paced down the hall a short distance and then back, pinching his lower lip as he tried to think how they could find her in the enormous People’s Palace. Everyone watched in silence as he paced.

  His head suddenly came up.

  “I know someone who should know where Michec would be.”

  7

  Once on the upper level, they hurried along the balcony looking out over one of the main corridors. Rather than a railing, it had a short wall at the edge. They went past side halls and room after room until they finally reached the room Richard was looking for. He opened the door and then stood in the doorway, staring into the darkness within, his anger on a slow boil.

  Coming back out, he looked farther down the balcony and saw light coming from one of the other rooms. Three soldiers of the First File on patrol coming along the balcony from the other way eyed the room on their way past it. Each big man had on dark leather armor over chain mail. Each carried a sword sheathed at a hip along with knives. One also had an axe held in a leather holder that covered the sharp blade edges. The wooden handle hung down, swinging freely as he walked. Each had a beard and strands of long dark hair that flowed down over broad shoulders. Their arms looked like they could have been carved from blocks of granite. They were the kind of soldiers that no one would want to cross, the kind of men of the First File who were widely feared.

  Richard signaled and the three soldiers sped up a little, then came to a stop when they reached him and his group.

  “I’d like you three men to come with me,” Richard told them as he gestured back the way they had come.

  They clapped meaty fists to their hearts and then fell in behind Kahlan and Shale, but ahead of the Mord-Sith. The five Mord-Sith were not happy about that, but let it go for the time being because Richard had already started out and they had to catch up as it was.

  Shale leaned in close from behind so only Richard would hear her. “I thought the plan was not to let any soldiers see us?”

  He knew what she meant. “When we leave, yes. But right now, we can’t avoid it. There have already been hundreds of pairs of eyes on us all along the way coming up here. Don’t forget, it’s not only soldiers the goddess could use. She can use anyone who isn’t gifted. For now, though, it can’t be avoided. Worse, the goddess doesn’t need to possess the person, she merely needs to take a look through any of those eyes to keep track of us. The people she used wouldn’t even know she was doing it. Unless, that is, she exerted control over them to make them do her bidding, like she did with Dori—remember?”

  Shale nodded with a grim expression on her beguiling features.

  With everyone following behind, Richard hurried to the open doorway with light coming from inside. He paused with his hands on the sides of the doorframe.

  A clean-shaven, middle-aged man was sitting behind a desk, bent over his work. A lamp sat on either end of the desk. The man blindly dipped a quill pen in an ink bottle as he focused on jotting notes on a collection of papers arrayed before him.

  Richard stepped through the doorway and into the room. The Mord-Sith pushed past the soldiers, like going around giant oak trees, and came into the room behind Richard. The man working behind the desk finally noticed all the people and stood.

  “Lord Rahl, you’re out late. How may I help you?”

  Richard thought the man might be rattled to have the Lord Rahl and a party that included soldiers and Mord-Sith show up at his door. Instead, he seemed calm and interested in what Richard needed. His blue-edged white robes of office with the gold bands on the sleeves were lying over a chair. The man apparently didn’t care to wear them when he was working and instead was in his shirtsleeves.

  “What is your name?”

  The man bowed his head of thick, dark hair. “Edward Harris, at your service, Lord Rahl. I am second-in-command to Mr. Burkett.”

  “And where is Mr. Burkett? I need to speak with him at once.”

  “I believe Mr. Burkett has gone home for the day. But it sounds like it’s urgent.” Edward Harris gestured to the side. “His quarters aren’t far away. I can take you there, if you wish.”

  Richard held an arm out behind him. “Lead the way.”

  Harris hurried around the desk, not bothering with his robes, and went out to the balcony area, where he turned to his left. At an intersection he led Richard and his party down a simple-looking side hall that turned away from the balcony. A short distance down the hall, he came to a door with Burkett’s name on a small plaque to the side.

  Harris lifted a hand toward the door. “These are his quarters, Lord Rahl. Do you wish me to wait?”

  Richard nodded to the man and then knocked. “For now, yes.”

  When there was no answer, Richard knocked again, more insistently, and then a third time. Finally, he tried the door and found it locked.

  Richard, what little patience he had now gone, threw his shoulder hard against the door. The door offered little resistance to his weight or mood. It stayed on its hinges as it banged back against the inside wall. Everyone stepped out of the way as splinters of the wooden doorjamb skittered across the floor of the hall. Knowing how upset Richard was, no one said a word.

  Richard charged into the room without waiting for a greeting or an invitation. Burkett, in his stocking feet and still in his official robes, looked up with bloodshot eyes, but didn’t get up from a chair at a table against the far wall. He had a bottle in one hand. The room was orderly and well-appointed with simple but comfortable-looking furniture. A dark doorway probably led to a bedroom. Richard didn’t see a wife or anyone else in the apartment.

  “I knocked,” Richard said. “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Because my workday is done,” he said in a slur. “I don’t like people bothering me after work.” Burkett tried to set the bottle down on the table, but it took him three tries to find it. “What’s the meaning of this, anyway? What is it you want?”

  Richard seized the man by his tunic, lifted him out of the chair, and slammed him up against the wall. No one, including a surprised Edward Harris, said anything.

  Richard clenched his jaw with barely contained anger. “I told you that I wanted to see all the gifted. You told me that you had all the gifted in the palace collected and sent to the library.”

  “That’s what I did.” Burkett licked his tongue out from under his overbite. “That was all the gifted living in the palace or staying here as guests, just as you asked.”

  Richard pulled the man away from the wall and slammed him into it again, banging his head hard enough to crack the plaster. His thin hair slipped off the top of his head where it had been covering his daisylike birthmark and fell down across his red face.

  “You lied then and you’re lying right now,” Richard said through gritted teeth. “You didn’t tell me about all the gifted.”

  Burk
ett tried, as best he could what with being held up in the air and hard against the wall by an angry Lord Rahl, to gesture his innocence.

  “I didn’t lie! I told you about all of them. I had all of them collected. All the gifted in the palace were sent to meet you up at the library, just as you asked. I saw to it. I have them all listed.”

  Richard lifted him away and threw him against the wall again. By now the shock was sobering him up a bit.

  “You lied and you’re lying now!”

  Burkett’s tongue licked out from under his overbite. “No, I’m telling you the truth. Those were the only gifted living or staying at the palace. Why would you doubt my word?”

  “You keep track of everything going on in the palace for the Lord Rahl. That has always been your job. Your office keeps records of the visitors, the dignitaries, and the gifted living here. Especially the gifted. That was the most important duty you had for Darken Rahl, and you have a network of people everywhere who report everything to you, especially about the gifted, because Darken Rahl, like those before him, would not have tolerated you not reporting all of the gifted to him.

  “You are the spider in the center of that web, and you know when anyone plucks one of those strands. I am the Lord Rahl now, and I asked for that same information you have always kept for the Lord Rahl. I asked you for all the gifted, and you deliberately didn’t tell me about all of them.”

  “But I did, I swear! I swear I told you about every one of them. Every one!”

  Richard cocked his head, gritting his teeth again as he put his face closer to the man. “You swear?” Richard asked. “Is that right? You swear?”

  Burkett nodded furiously. “Yes. I swear.”

  “What about Moravaska Michec?”

  The blood drained from Burkett’s red face.

  8

  “Wait—what?” Edward Harris suddenly leaned in with alarm. “Do you mean to say that Moravaska Michec is in the People’s Palace? Michec is here?”

  “Yes. And your superior here knew it.” Richard turned back to the suddenly silent man he was holding up against the wall. “Didn’t you, Mr. Burkett? You knew. Didn’t you!”

  The man was clearly caught in the lie, his tongue nervously flicking in and out.

  “I asked you a question! You knew Moravaska Michec was here at the palace when I asked for all the gifted to be sent up to the library, didn’t you? Even though your duty is to report all the gifted to the Lord Rahl, you deliberately hid the fact that he is here, at the palace, isn’t that right?”

  “Well, I, I, I couldn’t. You have to understand, I just couldn’t.”

  Richard slammed him against the wall again, extending the crack in the plaster out on either side of his head.

  “Why couldn’t you tell me?”

  “Michec was always loyal to Darken Rahl because they shared certain exotic … indulgences. As long as he left me and my staff alone, it was none of my business.”

  “What does that have to do with you not letting me know about him or sending him up to the library with the other gifted?”

  “He thought you only defeated Darken Rahl because of luck. He was certain that your luck would run out in the war and that you would never be seen again. He would then step in and assume a place of power here at the palace. He said that he would use a spell to do something horrifying to me if I told you he was living here.”

  The muscles in Richard’s jaw flexed at the thought of Vika being back in that man’s hands. “I am the Lord Rahl. It is treasonous to deceive the Lord Rahl about someone scheming against him in his own house!”

  Burkett winced as he nodded. “I know, I know, and I would have told you, but he threatened me if I ever did.”

  “How many times have you been to the devotions, Mr. Burkett?”

  “The devotions? Why, three times a day, of course. Every day. I never miss a devotion.”

  “And you lied each of those times you swore loyalty to me, isn’t that right, Mr. Burkett?”

  “Not because I wanted to. Don’t you see? It was because I had to. Michec said that if I told anyone, especially you, that he was living here and planning on taking away your power, he would kill me in the most painful way imaginable.”

  “I can understand people being afraid of magic, but as the Lord Rahl I am the magic against magic. You should have told me that he was here, and that he threatened you, to say nothing of his threats against my rule. I would have handled it and I would have protected you. That’s my duty in the oath of the devotion. Now, because of your disloyalty, his schemes are threatening the lives of those loyal to me as well as the Mother Confessor, as well as everything we have fought for.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Mr. Harris asked of Mr. Burkett. “If you were afraid to tell Lord Rahl, I would have done it for you. Why didn’t you simply tell me?”

  Burkett stammered and flicked his tongue out, ignoring Harris, trying to downplay his breach of trust. “I, I didn’t know he would hurt anyone, Lord Rahl. I swear. I didn’t know Michec would hurt anyone.”

  Richard was not about to argue so obvious a lie. “What kind of gift does Michec have?” Richard demanded. “What kind of things can he do?”

  Burkett looked past Richard to all the people watching him—the Mother Confessor, the soldiers, and the Mord-Sith. “Well, I, I, I’m not sure.”

  “I know all too well who Moravaska Michec is,” Harris said when Burkett wouldn’t admit what he knew. “I thought he fled long ago when you defeated Darken Rahl. I never expected to see that wicked man again. I had no idea he had returned.”

  Richard turned to him. “Do you know what kind of gift he has? Is he a wizard?”

  Harris shook his head. “No, Lord Rahl, not a wizard. Moravaska Michec is a warlock. You know, a witch man.”

  “A witch!” Shale exclaimed as she stepped forward. With a finger, she poked Richard’s shoulder. “That was what I smelled!”

  Richard frowned back at her. “What?”

  “At the stables, remember? I told you I smelled something that I thought I recognized. I did. I smelled a witch.”

  Richard turned back to Edward Harris. “Do you know where he would be?”

  “Sorry, Lord Rahl, I don’t.” He lifted out his hands in frustration that he didn’t have an answer. “You know how big the People’s Palace is. There are probably a thousand places he could be living and we would never know about it.”

  Richard turned back to Burkett. “Where are his quarters? You knew he was here, so you would know where he is staying in the palace, or should I say where he is hiding. Now, where is he?”

  Burkett licked his lips. “He said that if I told anyone he was here, he would do something terrible to me, something that would make me suffer before I died.”

  “You don’t need to worry about a spell from Michec. He’s not here. You need to worry about me. Once I find him, he won’t be putting any spells on anyone anymore, because he will be dead.” Richard shook the man again. “Now where is he!”

  Burkett trembled as he panted. “He’s, he’s in a remote place where no one ever goes, down a level below where the tombs of your ancestors are located, in an area called M111-B.”

  “M111-B,” Richard repeated, keeping his focus on Burkett although he sensed the Mord-Sith shifting uneasily and sharing a look.

  Burkett nodded. “That’s right, M111-B. But a witch’s lair down there will be a very dangerous place. You won’t be able to get him out, not out of that place.”

  Richard dropped the man down in the chair. “Mr. Burkett, you are relieved of your position.” He turned to the dark-haired man. “Mr. Harris, you are second in charge, under Mr. Burkett?”

  “That’s right.”

  “As of this moment, you are promoted to Mr. Burkett’s former position.”

  “You can’t do that!” Burkett cried out from the chair. “I know more about the palace workings than anyone! I have years of experience!”

  “What good is any of it if you take
orders from someone working against my rule, working against the peace of the D’Haran Empire? I came to you before and asked you for all the gifted, expecting you to be truthful. You schemed to deceive me. You lied to me.”

  “But I had to! I told you, Michec threatened me if I told anyone, especially you.”

  “It’s done,” Richard said, incensed by the excuses. “You are relieved of your position.”

  The man’s fingers took refuge on the gold bands on the sleeves of his robes. “What position will you put me in, then?”

  “None.”

  “You can’t do this!”

  “We fought a long and terrible war. Many, many people sacrificed their lives so that other people could live in peace and freedom. Even though I have fought and bled for them, everyone is free to dislike me if they so choose. But no one can be here if they are disloyal to the empire and plot against me or the Mother Confessor. No one.”

  Richard turned to the grim-faced soldiers. “See to it that Mr. Burkett is escorted from the palace as soon as he can pack his belongings. Watch over him as he does so. Come sunrise, I want him gone. He is banished from the People’s Palace forever under penalty of death if he ever tries to sneak back in. Let your officers know my orders.”

  As one they all clapped fists to hearts.

  “But Lord Rahl, I made a mistake,” the man pleaded. “That’s all, just a mistake.”

  Richard turned back to Burkett. “We all make mistakes. I can understand and forgive mistakes. But this was not a mistake. You acted deliberately. This betrayal cannot be forgiven.” The man started to speak, but Richard held up a finger, warning him not to say anything. “Count your blessings that I don’t have you beheaded for treason.”

  Richard turned to the dark-haired palace official. “Mr. Harris, you are in charge now.”

  Edward Harris clapped a fist to his heart. “I will not betray your trust, Lord Rahl.”

  Richard briefly smiled his appreciation and then turned to the Mord-Sith. “Do you know this place called M111-B?”

  All five of them again shared glances.