Confessor by Terry Goodkind Read Free Book Online Page A

magic—said it in a way that made it clear she wanted to be alone. The next thing I know, I’d told her that I would wait out here in case she needed anything.”
    Zedd tilted his head toward the woman, giving her a look from under his bushy brow. “I believe this has something to do with Richard.”
    Her Mord-Sith glare returned in an instant. Zedd could see her muscles tighten beneath her red leather.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Like you said, she was acting pretty strange. She asked me if I trusted everyone’s life to Richard.”
    Cara stared at him a moment. “She asked me that very same thing.”
    “That’s been eating at me, making me wonder what she meant.” Zedd waggled a long finger back toward the door. “Cara, she’s in there with that thing—with that box of Orden. I can sense it.”
    Cara nodded. “Well, you’re right about that. I saw it in there just before she closed the door.”
    Zedd pushed a stray wave of white hair back from his face. “That’s part of the reason I think this has something to do with Richard. Cara, I don’t go through this kind of seal lightly, but I think this is important.”
    Cara sighed in resignation. “All right.” Her mouth twisted with the displeasure of agreeing to his plan. “If she bites your head off I suppose I can always sew it back on for you.”
    Zedd smiled as he pushed his sleeves up his arms. Taking a deep breath, he hunched back to the business of un-knotting the seal Nicci had woven with magic around the lever.
    The immense, brass-clad doors were covered with engraved symbols that were specific to the containment field in that part of the Keep. Such a place was already hardened against tampering and shielded against casual entry, but he had grown up in the Keep and knew how various elements of the place functioned. He also knew a great many of the tricks associated with those elements. This particular field was tricky because, being a containment field for what might be inside, it was double-sided.
    He gently glided the first three fingers of his left hand over the area of convergence. It made the nerve in his left arm tingle up to his elbow—not a good sign. Nicci had added something to the shield, making a personal shield out of something that had been generic. Zedd was beginning to think that Cara knew more than he had given her credit for.
    This was a shield that seemed to respond in a unique way to the application of force. He paused a moment to consider. He would have to achieve what he wanted without applying force that would invoke that reaction. He carefully slipped a thin thread of innocent nothing through the snarl. With his right hand he eased the tangled restriction of power so that the whole thing would begin to loosen.
    He knew all too well that it would do no good to simplytry to break through the seal, because the containment field was constructed in such a way that force only caused it to lock tighter. Nicci had apparently added multipliers to that quality. If he applied too much force the shield would simply tighten, like pulling the ends of a knotted rope tighter. If that happened, he would never get it undone.
    Besides that, Cara was right—Nicci had Subtractive Magic and there was no telling what elements of such sinister power she might have woven into the matrix to prevent the inner seal from being breached. He would not like to force his hand through the keyhole, so to speak, only to discover he had plunged it right into a cauldron of molten lead. Much less risky to untie the knot of magic than try to rip it apart.
    Such difficulties only made Zedd all the more determined that he was going to find a way to get through. It was a personal trait of his that had in the distant past made his father surly—especially if it had been a shield that Zedd’s father had constructed specifically to keep out his inquisitive son.
    Zedd’s tongue poked out the left corner of his mouth as he worked at threading his way through the fabric