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He remembered shadowy tree limbs that appeared to move about, as if carried to and fro in the wind.
But there had been no wind that morning. Everyone had been sure about that point. Richard himself remembered how dead still it had been. But the dark shapes of the tree limbs had been moving.
It seemed a contradiction.
But, as Zedd had pointed out with the Wizard's Ninth Rule, contradictions can't exist. Reality is what it is. If something contradicted itself then it wouldn't be what it is. It was a fundamental law of existence. Contradictions can't exist in reality.
Tree limbs could not wave around by themselves and there had been no wind to move them.
That meant he was looking at the problem all wrong. He was always stumped by how the tree limbs could move about in the wind when there was no wind. The simple fact was that they couldn't. Maybe someone had been moving them.
Pacing across the little room, Richard halted.
Or maybe it wasn't the tree limbs that had been moving.
He'd seen the shadowy movement and had assumed it was the tree limbs. Maybe it wasn't.
With that single insight, Richard gasped with sudden realization.
He understood.
He stood frozen, eyes wide, unable to move, as the sequence of events and scraps of information from that morning tumbled together in his mind, forming a framework of comprehension of what had happened. They had been taking Kahlan, probably using a spell of some sort on her, as they did to keep Richard asleep, then collected her things and tidied up the camp to erase evidence of her having been there. That was the movement he remembered. It hadn't been tree limbs moving back and forth in the near darkness, it had been people. Gifted people.
Richard saw a red glow. When he looked up, Nicci was coming into the small room.
"Richard, I need to talk to you."
He stared at her. "I understand. I know what the viper with four heads means."
Nicci's gaze turned away, as if she couldn't bear to look into his eyes. He knew that she thought he was merely adding another layer to his delusion.
"Richard, listen to me. This is important."
He frowned at her. "Have you been crying?"
Her eyes were red and puffy. Nicci was not the sort of woman given to tears. He had seen her cry, but only for very good reason.
"Never mind that," she said. "You have to listen to me."
"Nicci, I'm telling you, I've figured out.»
"Listen to me!" Fists at her sides, she looked as if she might again burst into tears. He realized that he had never seen her looking quite this distraught.
He didn't want to waste any more time, but he decided that it might hurry things along if he let her have her say.
"All right, I'm listening."
Nicci stepped close and gripped him by both shoulders. With an intent expression, she peered into his eyes. Her brow wrinkled with conviction.
"Richard, you have to get out of here."
"What?"
"I've already told Cara to collect your things. She's bringing them now.
She said she knows her way down here, down into the tower, anyway, without having to go through shields."
"I know, I taught her before." Richard's sense of alarm began to rise. "What's going on? Is the Keep under attack? Is Zedd all right?"
Nicci cupped one hand to the side of his face. "Richard, they are determined to heal you of your delusion."
"Kahlan is no delusion. I just now figured out what happened."
She seemed not to notice what he said, or maybe she was ignoring what she thought was no more than yet another in a long series of attempts to prove the impossible. This time, though, he wasn't really interested in proving it to her.
"Richard, I'm telling you, you have to get out of here. They wanted me to use Subtractive Magic to eliminate your memory of Kahlan."
Richard blinked in surprise. "You mean A
"Zedd too. They convinced him that you're sick and the only way to heal you is to excise what they consider to be the diseased portion of your thoughts responsible for your false memories. They convinced Zedd that time is ru
"And you agreed to this?"
She indignantly smacked the side of his shoulder. "Are you crazy? Do you really think I would do that to you? Even if I thought they were right, do you seriously think I would ever consider taking away part of who you are? After what you've shown me about life? After what you have done to bring me back to embracing life? Do you really think that I would do that to you, Richard?"
"No, I guess you wouldn't do such a thing. But why would Zedd? He loves me."
"He is also terrified for you, terrified that you are being taken over by this delusion, or bewitchment, or whatever is causing this sickness that is leaving you alive but not really yourself, turning you into a stranger they don't know.
"Zedd feels that this might be their only chance to ever have you whole again, to ever have you be Richard, the real Richard, again.
"I don't think that any of them-A
"Zedd was reluctant, but then they showed him a message in the journey book and talked him into it."
"What message?"
"Verna is with the D'Haran troops. She sent word that our soldiers are becoming disheartened that you haven't joined them. Verna fears that unless you are there to lead them they may choose not to go on. She sent a desperate message wanting to know if A
Richard was stu
"I know. I think it's a solution born of desperation, not clear thinking. But worse, I fear that once they discover that I don't intend to do as they wanted, they will then decide that they can't let this opportunity slip away from them and so their only alternative will be to try to somehow use their gift to cure you themselves. That kind of blind tampering with consciousness would be unpredictable, to say the least.
"They're desperate because they fear we all are ru
"You have to get out of here, now, Richard. I only agreed to their plan so that I could warn you first and give you time to get away. You must leave immediately if you are to escape."
Richard's head was spi
She lifted her arms in frustration. "I don't know, Richard. But I do know their state of resolve. Nothing you say is going to talk them out of this because they think you are suffering under a condition where you aren't rational, so they feel that for your own good they must take control.
They may be doing it for loving reasons, but they're wrong to do it this way. Dear spirits, I, too, think you're suffering from some problem, but I just couldn't allow them to do this."
Richard squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of appreciation before he turned away as he tried to take it all in. It was near to impossible for him to imagine that Zedd would agree to such a thing. It just wasn't like him.