Wizard 40

Chapter 40
The rider turns out to be Chase, leading three other horses. I guess he's taking his cue from Fezzik in The Princess Bride. He has Rachel with him, although there's no word on her Doomsday Bread. It turns out he killed the Fish that was menacing her in our last cliffhanger. There's a meet-and-greet. Chase's explanation for how he found Richard & Co. is “I'm a boundary warden.”
We learn from Chase that Michael has raised an army and set them in defensive positions along the boundary. When the boundary came down, he lead a thousand men into the Midlands. Now, oddly, this is not what Richard told him to do, but this time Richard is pleased as can be. Chase and Richard are both surprised that Michael wasn't more of a jerk about it, but apparently he wants to help his brother.
More meet-and-greet. Rachel learns that Kahlan isn't bad after all (yeah right) and everyone meets Brophy. Rachel finally produces her Doomsday Bread and gives it to Richard, who tears it open and gives the toy surprise inside to Kahlan. Yay.
Our Heroes decide to take the magic box back to Michael's army and hide it there. We learn that there's a month until the first day of winter. They set off, and Richard runs smack into an invisible wall. It turns out that no one else can feel it, but he can't get through it and touching it makes him feel ill. Also every time he touches it it forces him back a little further. Zedd says that this is a keeper spell “drawn by that filthy artist, James.” Apparently it will keep contracting on Richard until he can't move, and then it will crush him. Also, it's poisonous.
Why would it be poisonous?
It just is. \~/
Kahlan somehow deduces that the drawing that powers the spell is in “the sacred caves,” but Richard orders them not to help. Instead, he will go deal with the keeper spell while they take the magic box to safety. After the obligatory argument about leaving Richard behind, Zedd gives Richard two magic drawing sticks and they ride off.
Richard makes his way to the caves, which are covered with drawings of people with horrible things happening to them. Apparently James the magic artist, or people like him, have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Richard goes deeper into the caves, looking for fresh drawings, but he has no light. So he uses the night stone, which of course summons shadows which pursue him. He finds the correct drawing but it's too big to erase, so he erases the sword (which has the word “Truth” written on it) with one of the magic drawing sticks, hoping this will keep the spell from recognizing him. It doesn't, and then James the lecherous-eyed artist appears.
" 'I thought I might find you here. I came to watch. Anything I can do to help?'
By his laugh, Richard knew James wasn't about to help him."
Yes, because up until then he wasn't quite sure. \~/ Thanks for making that perfectly clear there.
Richard starts erasing the right hand of the figure in the spell. James, sensing an art jam, starts drawing a new spell. Richard finishes first and the invisible wall transfers from him to James. James says he wasn't going to kill Richard, only trap him. He was ordered to do so by “the Mord-Sith.” The death-fairy? That can't be right. Mord is an awful lot like mort, which is Latin for death, and sith reminds me of bean-sith, which is an alternate of banshee. So we have the Death-Fairy, until and unless we learn what these words actually mean.
Anyway, Richard watches the keeper spell crush James to death and feels neither regret nor sorrow. Because anyone who inconveniences him deserves death. Also, Richard is a sociopath, although I don't think that's what Mr Goodkind meant me to think. \~/
So Richard heads back out of the Graffiti Caves, and runs into a bunch of soldiers lead by a woman, “a woman with long auburn hair pulled back into a loose braid. She was sheathed in leather from neck to ground, cut to fit like a glove. Blood-red leather. The only deviation from the blood red of it was a yellow crescent and a star across her stomach.”
The soldiers attack, and Richard enters bullet-time with several uses of the phrase “bringer of death.” He hacks up several soldiers, then tries to kill the woman, but “The pain of the sword's magic hit him like a waterfall of icy water on naked flesh.” As opposed to a waterfall of warm croutons, I suppose. It turns out that the leather-wearing woman has somehow taken control of the sword's magic and is using it on Richard.
She comes to gloat over him, and we learn that her name is Denna and she is a Death-Fairy. Richard says she'll never find Kahlan, and she replies that she was sent for Richard specifically – someone he knows has betrayed him. Apparently she's to train him, and the Death-Fairies wear red leather when they're training someone so the blood won't show.
Denna shows him her Agiel, which is “a bloodred leather rod, about a foot long.” It's a riding crop. The evil, leather-clad woman who demands to be called “Mistress,” who calls Richard “pet,” and who talks about torturing him, is armed with a riding crop.
\~/\~/\~/
Hereafter, the Mord-Sith Death-Fairies will be known as Dominatrices, because that's clearly what they are.
So Denna jabs her riding crop into Richard's side and it's ever more horribly painful and it breaks a rib. But Richard is defiant, and cusses at her, and imagines killing her until the pain drives him unconscious.
Next up: the Magical Dominatrix Torture Chapter!
Wheeee!
Drinks: 5
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