NAKED EMPIRE - Terry Goodkind 

CHAPTER1 

You knew they were there, didn't you?" Kahlanasked in a hushed tone as she leaned closer. 

Against the darkening sky, she could just makeout the shapes of three black-tipped races takingto wing, beginning their nightly hunt. That was whyhe'd stopped. That was what he'd been watching asthe rest of them waited in uneasy silence.

"Yes," Richard said. He gestured over hisshoulder without turning to look. "There are twomore, back there."

Kahlan briefly scanned the dark jumble of rock,
but she didn't see any others.

Lightly grasping the silver pommel with twofingers, Richard lifted his sword a few inches,
checking that it was clear in its scabbard. A lastfleeting glimmer of amber light played across hisgolden cape as he let the sword drop back in place.
In the gathering gloom of dusk, his familiar tall,
powerful contour seemed as if it were no more thanan apparition made of shadows.

Just then, two more of the huge birds shot byright overhead. One, wings stretched wide, let outa piercing scream as it banked into a tight glidingturn, circling once in assessment of the fivepeople below before stroking its powerful wings tocatch its departing comrades in their swift journeywest. 
This night they would find ample food.

Kahlan expected that as Richard watched them hewas thinking of the half brother that until justrecently he hadn't known existed. That brother nowlay a hard day's travel to the west in a place sonaked to the burning sun that few people everventured there. Fewer still ever returned. The 


searing heat, though, had not been the worst of it.

Beyond those desolate lowlands, the dying lightsilhouetted a remote rim of mountains, making themlook as if they had been charred black by thefurnace of the underworld itself. As dark as those 
mountains, as implacable, as perilous, the flightof five pursued the departing light.

Jennsen, standing to the far side of Richard,
watched in astonishment. "What in the world ... ?" 
"Black-tipped races," Richard said.

Jennsen mulled over the unfamiliar name. "I've 
often watched hawks and falcons and such," she saidat last, "but I've never seen any birds of preythat hunt at night, other than owls---and thesearen't owls." 

As Richard watched the races, he idly gatheredsmall pebbles from the crumbling jut of rock besidehim, rattling them in a loose fist. "I'd never seenthem before, either, until I came down here. Peoplewe've spoken with say they began appearing only inthe last year or two, depending on who's tellingthe story. Everyone agrees, though, that they neversaw the races before then." 
"Last couple of years ..." Jennsen wondered aloud.

Almost against her will, Kahlan found herselfrecalling the stories they'd heard, the rumors, thewhispered assertions.

Richard cast the pebbles back down the hardpantrail. "I believe they're related to falcons."

Jennsen finally crouched to comfort her browngoat, Betty, pressing up against her skirts. "Theycan't be falcons." Betty's little white twins,
usually either capering, suckling, or sleeping, nowhuddled mute beneath their mother's round belly.
"They're too big to be falcons— they're bigger thanhawks, bigger than golden eagles. No falcon is thatbig."

Richard finally withdrew his glare from thebirds and bent to help console the trembling twins.
One, eager for reassurance, anxiously peered up at 


him, licking out its little pink tongue before
deciding to rest a tiny black hoof in his palm.
With a thumb, Richard stroked the kids spindly
white-haired leg.
A smile softened his features as well as his voice. 
"Are you saying you choose not to see what you've
just seen, then?"


Jennsen smoothed Betty's drooping ears. "Iguess the hair standing on end at the back of myneck must believe what I saw." 

Richard rested his forearm across his knee as 
he glanced toward the grim horizon. "The raceshave sleek bodies with round heads and long pointedwings similar to all the falcons I've seen. Theirtails often fan out when they soar but otherwiseare narrow in flight."

Jennsen nodded, seeming to recognize hisdescription of relevant attributes. To Kahlan, abird was a bird. These, though, with red streaks ontheir chests and crimson at the base of their 
flight feathers, she had come to recognize.

They're fast, powerful, and aggressive," Richardadded. "I saw one easily chase down a prairiefalcon and snatch it out of midair in its taons." 

Jennsen looked to be struck speechless by suchan account. Richard had grown up in the vastforests of Westland and had gone on to be a woodsguide. He knew a great deal about the outdoors andabout animals. Such an upbringing seemed exotic toKahlan, who had grown up in a palace in theMidlands. She loved learning about nature fromRichard, loved sharing his excitement over thewonders of the world, of life. Of course, he hadlong since come to be more than a woods guide. Itseemed a lifetime ago when she'd first met him inthose woods of his, but in fact it had only beenlittle more than two and a half years.

Now they were a long way from Richard's simpleboyhood home or Kahlan's grand childhood haunts.
Had they a choice, they would choose to be in 


either place, or just about anywhere else, otherthan where they were. But at least they weretogether.

After all she and Richard had been through—thedangers, the anguish,the heartache of losingfriends and loved ones—Kahlan jealously savoredevery moment with him, even if it was in the heartof enemy territory.
In addition to only just finding out that he had ahalf brother, they had also learned that Richardhad a half sister: Jennsen. From what they hadgathered since they'd met her the day before, she,
too, had grown up in the woods. It was heartwarmingto see her simple and sincere joy at havingdiscovered a close relation with whom she had much 
in common. Only her fascination with her new bigbrother exceeded Jennsen's wide-eyed curiosityabout Kahlan and her mysterious upbringing in theConfessors' Palace in the far-off city ofAydindril.

Jennsen had had a different mother than Richard,
but the same brutal tyrant, Darken Rahl, hadfathered them both. Jennsen was younger, just pasttwenty, with sky blue eyes and ringlets of red hairdown onto her shoulders. She had inherited some of 
Darken Rahl's cruelly perfect features, but hermaternal heritage and guileless nature altered theminto bewitching femininity. While Richard's raptorgaze attested to his Rahl paternity, hiscountenance, and his bearing, so manifest in hisgray eyes, were uniquely his own.

"I've seen falcons rip apart small animals,"
Jennsen said. "I don't believe I much like thinkingabout a falcon that big, much less five of themtogether."
Her goat, Betty, looked to share the sentiment.

"We take turns standing watch at night," Kahlansaid, answering Jennsen's unspoken fear. While thatwas hardly the only reason, it was enough.

In the eerie silence, withering waves of heat 


rose from the lifeless rock all around. It had been 
an arduous day's journey out from the center of thevalley wasteland and across the surrounding flatplain, but none of them complained about the brutalpace. The torturous heat, though, had left Kahlanwith a pounding headache. While she was dead tired,
she knew that in recent days Richard had gotten farless sleep than any of the rest of them. She couldread that exhaustion in his eyes, if not in hisstride. 

Kahlan realized, then, what it was that had hernerves so on edge: it was the silence. There wereno yips of coyotes, no howls of distant wolves, noflutter of bats, no rustle of a raccoon, no softscramble of a vole—not even the buzz and chirp ofinsects. In the past, when all those things wentsilent it had meant potential danger. Here, it wasdead silent because nothing lived in this place, nocoyotes or wolves or bats or mice or even bugs. Fewliving things ever trespassed this barren land.
Here, the night was as soundless as the stars.

Despite the heat, the oppressive silence ran achill shiver up through Kahlan's shoulders.

She peered off once more at the races barelystill visible against the violet blush of thewestern sky. They, too, would not stay long in thiswasteland where they did not belong.

"Kind of unnerving to encounter such a menacingcreature when you never even knew such a thingexisted," Jennsen said. She used her sleeve to wipesweat from her brow as she changed the subject.
"I've heard it said that a bird of prey wheelingover you at the beginning of a journey is awarning."

Cara, until then content to remain silent,
leaned in past Kahlan. "Just let me get closeenough and I'll pluck their wretched feathers."
Long blond hair, pulled back into the traditionalsingle braid of her profession, framed Cara'sheated expression. "We'll see how much of an omen 


they are, then."

Cara's glare turned as dark as the raceswhenever she saw the huge birds. Being swathed fromhead to foot in a protective layer of gauzy blackcloth, as were all of them except Richard, onlyadded to her intimidating presence. When Richardhad unexpectedly inherited rule, he had beenfurther surprised to discover that Cara and hersister Mord-Sith were part of the legacy.

Richard returned the little white kid to its 
watchful mother and stood, hooking his thumbsbehind his multilayered leather belt. At eachwrist, wide, leather-padded silver bands bearinglinked rings and strange symbols seemed to gatherand reflect what little light remained. "I once hada hawk circle over me at the beginning of ajourney."

"And what happened?" Jennsen asked, earnestly,
as if his pronouncement might settle once and forall the old superstition.
Richard's smile widened into a grin. "I ended upmarrying Kahlan."

Cara folded her arms. "That only proves it was awarning for the Mother Confessor, not you, LordRahl." 

Richard's arm gently encircled Kahlan's waist.
She smiled with him as she leaned against hisembrace in answer to the wordless gesture. Thatthat journey had eventually brought them to behusband and wife seemed more astonishing thananything she would ever have dared dream. Womenlike her—Confessors—dared not dream of love. 
Because of Richard, she had dared and had gainedit. 

Kahlan shuddered to think of the terrible times 
she had feared he was dead, or worse. There hadbeen so many times she had ached to be with him, tosimply feel his warm touch, or to even be grantedthe mercy of knowing he was safe.

Jennsen glanced at Richard and Kahlan to see 


that neither took Cara's admonition as anything butfond heckling. Kahlan supposed that to a stranger,
especially one from the land of D'Hara, as wasJennsen, Cara's gibes at Richard would defy reason;
guards did not bait their masters, especially whentheir master was the Lord Rahl, the master ofD'Hara. 

Protecting the Lord Rahl with their lives hadalways been the blind duty of the Mord-Sith. In aperverse way, Cara's irreverence toward Richard wasa celebration of her freedom, paid in homage to theone who had granted it.

By free choice, the Mord-Sith had decided to beRichard's closest protectors. They had givenRichard no say in the matter. They often paidlittle heed to his orders unless they deemed themimportant enough; they were, after all, now free topursue what was important to them, and what theMord-Sith considered important above all else waskeeping Richard safe.

Over time, Cara, their ever-present bodyguard,
had gradually become like family. Now that familyhad unexpectedly grown.

Jennsen, for her part, was awestruck to findherself welcomed. From what they had so farlearned, Jennsen had grown up in hiding, alwaysfearful that the former Lord Rahl, her father,
would finally find her and murder her as hemurdered any other ungifted offspring he found.

Richard signaled to Tom and Friedrich, back withthe wagon and horses, that they would stop for thenight. Tom lifted an arm in acknowledgment and thenset to unhitching his team.

No longer able to see the races in the dark voidof the western sky, Jennsen turned back to Richard.
"I take it their feathers are tipped in black."
Before Richard had a chance to answer, Cara spokein a silken voice that was pure menace. "They looklike death itself drips from the tips of theirfeathers—like the Keeper of the underworld has been 


using their wicked quills to write death warrants."

Cara loathed seeing those birds anywhere nearRichard or Kahlan. Kahlan shared the sentiment. 

Jennsen's gaze fled Cara's heated expression.
She redirected her suspicion to Richard.
"Are they causing you ... some kind of trouble?"

Kahlan pressed a fist to her abdomen, againstthe ache of dread stirred by the question.

Richard appraised Jennsen's troubled eyes. "Theraces are tracking us." 

CHAPTER 2 

Jennsen frowned. "What?" 

Richard gestured between Kahlan and himself.
"The races, they're tracking us."

"You mean they followed you out into thiswasteland and they're watching you, waiting to seeif you'll die of thirst or something so they canpick your bones clean."

Richard slowly shook his head. "No, I meanthey're following us, keeping track of where weare." 
"I don't understand how you can possibly know—"

"We know," Cara snapped. Her shapely form was asspare, as sleek, as aggressive-looking as the racesthemselves and, swathed in the black garb of thenomadic people who sometimes traveled the outerfringes of the vast desert, just as sinister-
looking.

With the back of his hand against her shoulder,
Richard gently eased Cara back as he went on. "Wewere looking into it when Friedrich found us andtold us about you."

Jennsen glanced over at the two men back with 


the wagon. The sharp sliver of moon floating abovethe black drape of distant mountains provided justenough light for Kahlan to see that Tom was workingat removing the trace chains from his big drafthorses while Friedrich unsaddled the others. 

Jennsen's gaze returned to search Richard'seyes. "What have you been able to find out, sofar?" 

"We never had a chance to really find out muchof anything. Oba, our surprise half brother lyingdead back there, kind of diverted our attentionwhen he tried to kill us." Richard unhooked a 
waterskin from his belt. "But the races are still 
watching us."

He handed Kahlan his waterskin, since she hadleft hers hanging on her saddle. It had been hourssince they had last stopped. She was tired fromriding and weary from walking when they had neededto rest the horses. 

Kahlan lifted the waterskin to her lips only tobe reacquainted with how bad hot water tasted. Atleast they had water. Without water, death camequickly in the unrelenting heat of the seeminglyendless, barren expanse around the forsaken placecalled the Pillars of Creation. 

Jennsen slipped the strap of her waterskin offher shoulder before hesitantly starting again. "Iknow it's easy to misconstrue things. Look at how Iwas tricked into thinking you wanted to kill mejust like Darken Rahl had. I really believed it,
and there were so many things that seemed to me toprove it, but I had it all wrong. I guess I wasjust so afraid it was true, I believed it."

Richard and Kahlan both knew it hadn't been 
Jennsen's doing—she had merely been a means forothers to get at Richard—but it had squanderedprecious time.

Jennsen took a long drink. Still grimacing atthe taste of the water, she lifted the waterskintoward the empty desert behind them. "I mean, there 


isn't much alive out here—it might actually be thatthe races are hungry and are simply waiting to seeif you die out here and, because they do keepwatching and waiting, you've begun to think it'smore." she gave Richard a demure glance, bolsteredby a smile, as if hoping to-cloak the admonishmentas a suggestion. "Maybe that's all it really is."

"They aren't waiting to see if we die out here,"
Kahlan said, wanting to end the discussion so theycould eat and Richard could get some sleep. "Theywere watching us before we had to come here.
They've been watching us since we were back in theforests to the northeast. Vow, let's have somesupper and—"

"But why? That's not the way birds behave. Whywould they do that?"

"I think they're keeping track of us forsomeone," Richard said. "More precisely, I thinksomeone is using them to hunt us."

Kahlan had known various people in the Midlands,
from simple people living in the wilds to noblesliving in great cities, who hunted with falcons.
This, though, was different. Even if she didn'tfully understand Richard's meaning, much less thereasons for his conviction, she knew he hadn'tmeant it in the traditional sense. 

With abrupt realization, Jennsen paused in themiddle of another drink. "That's why you've startedscattering pebbles along the windblown places inthe trail." 

Richard smiled in confirmation. He took his 
waterskin when Kahlan handed it back. Cara frowned 
up at him as he took a long drink.
"You've been throwing pebbles along the trail?
Why?"

Jennsen eagerly answered in his place. "The openrock gets blown clean by the wind. He's been makingsure that if anyone tries to sneak up on us in thedark, the pebbles strewn across those open patcheswill crunch underfoot and alert us." 


Cara wrinkled a questioning brow at Richard.
"Really?"

He shrugged as he passed her his waterskin sothat she wouldn't have to dig hers out from beneathher desert garb. "Just a little extra precaution incase anyone is close, and careless. Sometimespeople don't expect the simple things and thatcatches them up."

"But not you," Jennsen said, hooking the strapof her waterskin back over her shoulder. "You think 
of even the simple things."

Richard chuckled softly. "If you think I don'tmake mistakes, Jennsen, you're wrong. While it'sdangerous to assume that those who wish you harmare stupid, it can't hurt to spread out a littlegravel just in case someone thinks they can sneakacross windswept rock in the dark without beingheard." . 

Any trace of amusement faded as Richard staredoff toward the western horizon where stars had yetto appear. "But I fear that pebbles strewn alongthe ground won't do any good for eyes watching froma dark sky." He turned back to Jennsen,
brightening, as if remembering he had been speakingto her. "Still, everyone makes mistakes."

Cara wiped droplets of water from her sly smileas she handed Rich-ard back his waterskin. "Lord 
Rahl is always making mistakes, espe-cially simpleones. That's why he needs me around."

"Is that right, little miss perfect?" Richardchided as he snatched the waterskin from her hand. 
"Maybe if you weren't 'helping' keep me out oftrouble, we wouldn't have black-tipped racesshadowing us."

"What else could I do?" Cara blurted out. "I was 
trying to help—to protect you both." Her smile hadwithered. "I'm sorry, Lord Rahl."

Richard sighed. "I know," he admitted as hereassuringly squeezed her shoulder. "We'll figureit out." 


 Richard turned back to Jennsen. "Everyone makesmistakes. How a person deals with their mistakes isa mark of their character." 

Jennsen nodded as she thought it over. "Mymother was always afraid of making a mistake thatwould get us killed. She used to dothings like you did, in case my father's men weretrying to sneak up on us. We always lived inforests, though, so it was dry twigs, ratherthan pebbles, that she often scattered around us."

Jennsen pulled on a ringlet of her hair as shestared off into dark memories. "It was raining thenight they came. If those men stepped on twigs, shewouldn't have been able to hear it." She ran 
trembling fingers over the silver hilt of the knifeat her belt. "They were big, and they surprisedher, but still, she got one of them before they..." 

Darken Rahl had wanted Jennsen dead because she 
had been born ungifted. Any ruler of that bloodlinekilled offspring such as she. Rich-ard and Kahlanbelieved that a person's life was their own tolive, and that birth did not qualify that right.

Jennsen's haunted eyes turned up to Richard.
"She got one of them before they killed her."

With one arm, Richard pulled Jennsen into atender embrace. They all understood such terribleloss. The man who had lovingly raisedRichard had been killed by Darken Rahl himself.
Darken Rahl had orderd the murders of all of 
Kahlan's sister Confessors The men who killed 
Jennsen's mother, though, were men from theImperial Order sent to trick her, to murder inorder to make her believe it was Richard who was 
after her. 
Kahlan felt a forlorn wave of helplessness at allthey faced. She knew what it was to be alone,
afraid, and overwhelmed by powerful men filled withblind faith and the lust for blood, men devoutlybelieving that mankind's salvation required 


slaughter.

"I'd give anything for her to know that itwasn't you who sent those men." Jennsen's softvoice held the dejected sum of what it was to havesuffered such a loss, to have no solution to thecrushing solitude it left in its wake. "I wish mymother could have known the truth, known what youtwo are really like."

"She's with the good spirits and finally atpeace," Kahlan whispered in sympathy, even if shenow had reason to question the enduring validity ofsuch things.

Jennsen nodded as she swiped her fingers acrossher cheek. "What mistake did you make, Cara?" shefinally asked.

Rather than be angered by the question, andperhaps because it had been asked in innocentempathy, Cara answered with quiet candor. "It hasto do with that little problem we mentionedbefore." 
"You mean it's about the thing you want me totouch?" 

By the light of the moon's narrow crescent,
Kahlan could see Cara's scowl return. "And the 
sooner the better." 

Richard rubbed his fingertips across his brow.
"I'm not sure about that." 
Kahlan, too, thought that Cara's notion was toosimplistic.
Cara threw her arms up. "But Lord Rahl, we can'tjust leave it—"

"Let's get camp set up before it's pitch dark,"
Richard said in quiet command. "What we need rightnow is food and sleep."

For once, Cara saw the sense in his orders anddidn't object. When he had earlier been outscouting alone, she had confided in Kahlan that shewas worried at how weary Richard looked and hadsuggested that, since there were enough otherpeople, they shouldn't wake him for a turn at watch 


that night.

"I'll check the area," Cara said, "and make surethere aren't any more of those birds sitting on arock watching us with those black eyes of theirs."

Jennsen peered around as if fearing that ablack-tipped race might swoop in out of thedarkness. 

Richard countermanded Cara's plans with adismissive shake of his head. "They're gone fornow." 

"You said they were tracking you." Jennsenstroked Betty's neck when the goat nudged her,
seeking comfort. The twins were still hiding undertheir mother's round belly. "I never saw thembefore now. They weren't around yesterday, ortoday. They didn't show up until just this evening.
If they really were tracking you, then theywouldn't be gone for such a stretch. They'd have tostick close to you all the time."

"They can leave us for a time in order to hunt—
or to make us doubt our suspicion of their trueintent—and, even if we keep going, they can easilyfind us when they return. That's the advantage theblack-tipped races have: they don't need to watchus every moment."

Jennsen planted her fists on her hips. "Then howin the world could you possibly be sure they'retracking you?" She flicked a hand out toward thedarkness beyond. "You often see the same kind ofbirds. You see ravens, sparrows, geese, finches,
hummingbirds, doves—how do you know that any one ofthem aren't following you and that the black-tippedraces are?" 

"I know," Richard said as he turned and startedback toward the wagon. "Now, let's get our thingsout and set up camp."

Kahlan caught Jennsen's arm as she headed afterhim, about to renew her objections. "Let him be fortonight, Jennsen?" Kahlan lifted an eyebrow.
"Please? About this, anyway." 


 Kahlan was pretty sure that the black-tippedraces really were fol-lowing them, but it wasn't somuch an issue of her being sure of it herself.
Rather, she had confidence in Richard's word inmatters such is this. Kahlan was versed in affairs 
of state, protocol, ceremony, and royalty; she wasfamiliar with various cultures, the origins ofancient deputes between lands, and the history oftreaties; and she was con-versant in any number oflanguages, including the duplicitous dialect ofdiplomacy. In such areas, Richard trusted her wordwhen she ex-pressed her conviction.

In matters about something so odd as strangebirds following them, she knew better than toquestion Richard's word.
Kahlan knew, too, that he didn't yet have all theanswers. She had seen him like this before, distantand withdrawn, as he struggled to understand theimportant connections and patterns in relevantdetails only he perceived. She knew that he neededto be left alone about it. Pestering him foranswers before he had them only served to distracthim from what he needed to do. 

Watching Richard's back as he walked away,
Jennsen finally forced a smile of agreement. Then,
as if struck with another thought, her eyeswidened. She leaned close to Kahlan and whispered,
"Is this about magic?"
"We don't know what it's about." 
Jennsen nodded. "I'll help. Whatever I can do, Iwant to help."

For the time being, Kahlan kept her worries toherself as she circled an arm around the youngwoman's shoulders in an appreciative embrace andwalked her back toward the wagon. 

C H A P T E 


R 3 

In the immense, silent void of night, Kahlan couldclearly hear Fried-rich, off to the side, speakinggently to the horses. He patted their shoulders orran a hand along their flanks each time on his wayby as he went about grooming and picketing them forthe night. With dark-ness shrouding the emptyexpanse beyond, the familiartask of caring for the animals made the unfamiliarsurroundings seem a little less forbidding.

Friedrich was an older, unassuming man ofaverage height. Despite his age, he had undertakena long and difficult journey to the Old World tofind Richard. Friedrich had undertaken that 
journey, carrying with him important information,
soon after his wife had died. The terrible sadness 
of that loss still haunted his gentle features.
Kahlan supposed that it always would.

In the dim light, she saw Jennsen smile as Tomlooked her way. A boyish grin momentarily overcamethe big, blond-headed D'Haran when he spotted her,
but he quickly bent back to work, pulling bedrollsfrom a corner beneath the seat. He stepped oversupplies in his wagon and handed a load down toRichard. 

"There's no wood for a fire, Lord Rahl." Tomrested a foot on the chafing rail, laying a forearmover his bent knee. "But, if you like, I have alittle charcoal to use for cooking."

"What I'd really like is for you to stop callingme 'Lord Rahl.' If we're anywhere near the wrongpeople and you slip up and call me that, we'll allbe in a great deal of trouble."

Tom grinned and patted the ornate letter "R" onthe silver handle of the knife at his belt. "Not to 
worry, Lord Rahl. Steel against steel." 


 Richard sighed at the oft-repeated maximinvolving the bond of the D'Haran people to theirLord Rahl, and he to them. Tom and Friedrich hadpromised they wouldn't use Richard's and Kahlan'stitles around other people. A lifetime's habitswere difficult to change, though, and Kahlan knewthat they felt uncomfortable not using titles whenthey were so obviously alone.

"So," Tom said as he handed down the lastbedroll, "would you like a small fire for cooking?"

"Hot as it is, it seems to me we could dowithout any more heat." Richard set the bedrollsatop a sack of oats already unloaded. "Besides, I'dprefer not to take the time. I'd like to be on ourway at first light and we need to get a good rest."

"Can't argue with you there," Tom said,
straightening his big frame. "I don't like us beingso out in the open where we could easily bespotted."

Richard swept his hand in a suggestive arcacross the dark vault above. 

Tom cast a wary eye skyward. He noddedreluctantly before turning back to the task ofdigging out tools to mend the breeching and woodenbuckets to water the horses. Richard put a boot ona spoke of the cargo wagon's stout rear wheel andclimbed up to help.

Tom, a shy but cheerful man who had appearedonly the day before, right after they'd encounteredJennsen, looked to be a merchant who hauled tradegoods. Hauling goods in his wagon, Kahlan andRichard had learned, gave him an excuse to travelwhere and when he needed as a member of a covert 
group whose true profession was to protect the LordRahl from unseen plots and threats.

Speaking in a low voice, Jennsen leaned closerto Kahlan. "Vultures can tell you, from a greatdistance, where a kill lies—by the way they circleand gather, I mean. I guess I can see how the racescould be like that—birds that someone could spot 


from afar in order to know there was somethingbelow." 

Kahlan didn't say anything. Her head ached, shewas hungry, and she just wanted to go to sleep, notto discuss things she couldn't answer. She wonderedhow many times Richard had viewed her own insistentquestions in the same way she now viewed Jennsen's.
Kahlan silently vowed to try to be at least half aspatient as Richard always was.

"The thing is," Jennsen went on, matter-offactly, 
"how would someone get birds to ... well,
you know, circle around you like vultures over acarcass in order to know where you were?" Jennsenleaned in again and whispered so as to be sure thatRichard wouldn't hear. "Maybe they're sent withmagic to follow specific people."

Cara fixed Jennsen with a murderous glare.
Kahlan idly wondered if the Mord-Sith would clobberRichard's sister, or extend her leniency becauseshe was family. Discussions about magic, especiallyin the context of its danger to Richard or Kahlan,
made Cara testy. Mord-Sith were fearless in theface of death, but they did not like magic andweren't shy about making their distaste clear.

In a way, such hostility toward magiccharacterized the nature and purpose of Mord-Sith;
they were singularly able to appropriate thegifted's power and use it to destroy them. Mord-
Sith had been mercilessly trained to be ruthless attheir task. It was from the madness of this dutythat Richard had freed them. 

It seemed obvious enough to Kahlan, though, thatif the races really were tracking them it wouldhave to involve conjuring of some sort. It was thequestions raised by that assumption that so worriedher. 

When Kahlan didn't debate the theory, Jennsenasked, "Why do you think someone would be using theraces to track you?"

Kahlan lifted an eyebrow at the young woman. 


"Jennsen, we're in the middle of the Old World.
Being hunted in enemy territory is hardlysurprising."

"I guess you're right," Jennsen admitted. "Itjust seems that there would have to be more to it."
Despite the heat, she rubbed her arms as if a chillhad just run through her. "You have no idea howmuch Emperor Jagang wants to catch you."

Kahlan smiled to herself. "Oh, I think I do."

Jennsen watched Richard a moment as he filled 
the buckets with water from barrels carried in the 
wagon. Richard leaned down and handed one toFriedrich. Ears turned attentively ahead, thehorses all watched, eager for a drink. Betty, alsowatching as her twins suckled, bleated her longingfor a drink. After filling the buckets, Richardsubmerged his waterskin to fill it, too.

Jennsen shook her head and looked again intoKahlan's eyes. "Emperor Jagang tricked me intothinking Richard wanted me dead." She glancedbriefly over at the men engaged in their workbefore she went on. "I was there with Jagang whenhe attacked Aydindril."

Kahlan felt as if her heart came up in herthroat at hearing firsthand confirmation of thatbrute invading the place where she'd grown up. Shedidn't think she could bear to hear the answer, butshe had to ask. "Did he destroy the city?"

After Richard had been captured and taken fromher, Kahlan, with Cara at her side, had led theD'Haran army against Jagang's vast invading hordefrom the Old World. Month after month, Kahlan andthe army fought against impossible odds, retreatingall the way up through the Midlands.

By the time they lost the battle for theMidlands, it had been over a year since Kahlan hadseen Richard; he had seemingly been cast intooblivion. When at last she learned where he was 
being held, Kahlan and Cara had raced south, to theOld World, only to arrive just as Richard ignited a 


firestorm of revolution in the heart of Jagang'shomeland. 

Before she'd left, Kahlan had evacuatedAydindril and left the Confessors' Palace empty ofall those who called it home. Life, not a place,
was what mattered. 

"He never got a chance to destroy the city,"
Jennsen said. "When we arrived at the Confessors' 
Palace, Emperor Jagang thought he had you andRichard cornered. But out in front waited a spearholding the head of the emperor's revered spiritualleader: Brother Narev." Her voice lowered 
meaningfully. "Jagang found the message left withthe head." 
Kahlan remembered well the day Richard had sent thehead of that evil man, along with a message forJagang, on the long journey north. " 'Complimentsof Richard Rahl.'" 

"That's right," Jennsen said. "You can't imagineJagang's rage." She paused to be certain Kahlanheeded her warning. "He'll do anything to get hishands on you and Richard."

Kahlan hardly needed Jennsen to tell her howmuch Jagang wanted them.
"All the more reason to get away—hide somewhere,"
Cara said. 
"And the races?" Kahlan reminded her. 

Cara cast a suggestive look at Jennsen beforespeaking in a quiet voice to Kahlan. "If we dosomething about the rest of it, maybe that problemwould go away, too." Cara's goal was to protectRichard. She would be perfectly happy to put him ina hole somewhere and board him over if she thoughtdoing so would keep harm from reaching him.

Jennsen waited, watching the two of them. Kahlanwasn't at all sure there was anything Jennsen coulddo. Richard had thought it over and had come tohave serious doubts. Kahlan had been amplyskeptical without Richard's doubts. Still...
"Maybe" was all she said. 


 "If there's anything I can do, I want to tryit." Jennsen fussed with a button on the front of 
her dress. "Richard doesn't think I can help. If itinvolves magic, wouldn't he know? Richard is awizard, he would know about magic."

Kahlan sighed. There was so much more to it.
"Richard was raised in Westland—far from the 
Midlands, even farther from D'Hara. He grew up inisolation from the rest of the New World, neverknowing anything at all about the gift. Despite allhe's so far learned and some of the remarkable 
things he's accomplished, he still knows verylittle of his birthright."

They had already told Jennsen this, but sheseemed skeptical, as if she suspected there was acertain amount of exaggeration in what they weretelling her about Richard's unfamiliarity with hisown gift. Her big brother had, after all, in oneday rescued her from a lifetime of terror. Such aprofound awakening probably seemed tangled in magicto one so devoid of it. Perhaps it was.
"Well, if Richard is as ignorant of magic as yousay," Jennsen pressed in a meaningful voice,
finally having arrived at the heart of her purpose,
"then maybe we shouldn't worry so much about whathe thinks. Maybe we should just not tell him and goahead and do whatever it is Cara wants me to do to 
fix your problem and get the races off your backs."

Nearby, Betty contentedly licked clean herlittle white twins. The sweltering darkness andvast weight of the surrounding silence seemed aseternal as death itself. 

Kahlan gently took ahold of Jennsen's collar. "Igrew up walking the corridors of the Wizard's Keepand the Confessors' Palace. I know a lot about 
magic."

She pulled the young woman closer. "I can tellyou that such naive notions, when applied toominous matters like this, can easily get peoplekilled. There is always the possibility that it's 


as simple as you fancy, but most likely it'scomplex beyond your imagination and any rashattempt at a remedy could ignite a conflagrationthat would consume us all. Added to all that is the 
grave peril of not knowing how someone, such asyourself, someone so pristinely ungifted as to beforewarned of in that ancient book Richard has,
might affect the equation.

"There are times when there is no choice but to 
act immediately; even then it must be with yourbest judgment, using all your experience andeverything you do know. As long as there's achoice, though, you don't act in matters of magicuntil you can be sure of the consequence. You don'tever just take a stab in the dark."

Kahlan knew all too well the terrible truth of 
such an admonition. Jennsen seemed unconvinced. 
"But if he doesn't really know much about magic,
his fears might only be—"

"I've walked through dead cities, walked amongthe mutilated bodies of men, women, and childrenthe Imperial Order has left in their wake. I'veseen young women not as old as you makethoughtless, innocent mistakes and end up chainedto a stake to be used by gangs of soldiers for daysbefore being tortured to death just for theamusement of men who get sick pleasure out ofraping a woman as she's in the throes of death."
Kahlan gritted her teeth as memories flashedmercilessly before her mind's eye. She tightenedher grip on Jennsen's collar.

"All of my sister Confessors died in such afashion, and they knew about their power and how touse it. The men who caught them knew, too, and usedthat knowledge against them. My closest girlhoodfriend died in my arms after such men were finishedwith her. 
"Life means nothing to people like that; theyworship death.

"Those are the kind of people who butchered your 


mother. Those are the kind of people who will haveus, too, if we make a mistake. Those are the kindof people laying traps for us—including trapsconstructed of magic.

"As for Richard not knowing about magic, thereare times when he is so ignorant of the simplestthings that I can scarcely believe it and mustremind myself that he grew up not being taughtanything at all about his gift. In those things, Itry to be patient and to guide him as best I can.
He takes very seriously what I tell him.

"There are other times when I suspect that heactually grasps complexities of magic that neitherI nor anyone alive has ever before fathomed or evenso much as imagined. In those things he must be hisown guide.

"The lives of a great many good people depend onus not making careless mistakes, especiallycareless mistakes with magic. As the MotherConfessor I'll not allow reckless whim to 
jeopardize all those lives. Now, do you understandme?" 

Kahlan had nightmares about the things she hadseen, about those who had been caught, about thosewho had made a simple mistake and paid the pricewith their life. She was not many years beyondJennsen's age, but right then that gulf was vastlymore than a mere handful of years.
Kahlan gave Jennsen's collar a sharp yank. "Do youunderstand me?" 

Wide-eyed, Jennsen swallowed. "Yes, MotherConfessor." Finally, her gaze broke toward theground.
Only then did Kahlan release her. 

C H A P T E 
R 4 


Anyone hungry?" Tom called to the three women.

Richard pulled a lantern from the wagon and,
after finally getting it lit with a steel andflint, set it on a shelf of rock. He passed asuspicious look among the three women as theyapproached, but apparently thought better of sayinganything.

As Kahlan sat close at Richard's side, Tomoffered him the first chunk he sliced from a longlength of sausage. When Richard declined, Kahlanaccepted it. Tom sliced off another piece andpassed it to Cara and then another to Friedrich.

Jennsen had gone to the wagon to search throughher pack. Kahlan thought that maybe she just wantedto be alone a moment to collect herself. Kahlan 
knew how harsh her words had sounded, but shecouldn't allow herself to do Jennsen the disservice 
of coddling her with pleasing lies.

With Jennsen reassuringly close by, Betty laydown beside Rusty, Jennsen's red roan mare. Thehorse and the goat were fast friends. The otherhorses seemed pleased by the visitor and took keeninterest in her two kids, giving them a good sniffwhen they came close enough.

When Jennsen walked over displaying a smallpiece of carrot, Betty rose up in a rush. Her tailwent into a blur of expectant wagging. The horseswhinnied and tossed their heads, hoping not to beleft out. Each in turn received a small treat and a 
scratch behind the ears. 

Had they a fire, they could have cooked a stew,
rice, or beans; grid-died some bannock; or maybehave made a nice soup. Despite how hungry she was,
Kahlan didn't think she would have had the energyto cook, so she was content to settle for what wasat hand. Jennsen retrieved strips of dried meatfrom her pack, offering them around. Richarddeclined this, too, instead eating hard travel 


biscuits, nuts, and dried fruit.

"But don't you want any meat?" Jennsen asked asshe sat down on her bedroll opposite him. "You needmore than that to eat. You need somethingsubstantial." 
"I can't eat meat. Not since the gift came to lifein me." 

Jennsen's wrinkled her nose with a puzzled look.
"Why would your gift not allow you to eat meat?"

Richard leaned to the side, resting his weighton an elbow as he momentarily surveyed the sweep ofstars, searching for the words to explain.
"Balance, in nature," he said at last, "is acondition resulting from the interaction of allthings in existence. On a simple level, look at howpredators and prey are in balance. If there weretoo many predators, and the prey were all eaten,
then the thriving predators, too, would end upstarving and dying out.

"The lack of balance would be deadly to bothprey and predator; the world, for them both, wouldend. They exist in balance because acting inaccordance with their nature results in balance. 
Balance is not their conscious intent. 

"People are different. Without our consciousintent, we don't necessarily achieve the balancethat our survival often requires.

"We must learn to use our minds, to think, ifwe're to survive. We plant crops, we hunt for furto keep us warm, or raise sheep and gather theirwool and learn how to weave it into cloth. We have 
to learn how to build shelter. We balance the value 
of one thing against another and trade goods toexchange what we've made for what we need thatothers have made or grown or built or woven orhunted. 

"We balance what we need with what we know of 
the realities of the world. We balance what we want 
against our rational self-interest, not againstfulfilling a momentary impulse, because we know 


that our long-term survival requires it. We usewood to build a fire in the hearth in order to keepfrom freezing on a winter night, but, despite howcold we might be when we're building the fire, wedon't build the fire too big, knowing that to do sowould risk burning our shelter down after we'rewarm and asleep."

"But people also act out of shortsightedselfishness, greed, and lust for power. Theydestroy lives." Jennsen lifted her arm out towardthe darkness. "Look at what the Imperial Order isdoing—and succeeding at. They don't care aboutweaving wool or building houses or trading goods.
They slaughter people just for conquest. They takewhat they want."

"And we resist them. We've learned to understand 
the value of life, so we fight to reestablishreason. We are the balance." 

Jennsen hooked some of her hair back behind an 
ear. "What does all this have to do with not eatingmeat?" 

"I was told that wizards, too, must balancethemselves, their gift— their power—in the thingsthey do. I fight against those, like the ImperialOrder, who would destroy life because it has novalue to them, but that requires that I do the sameterrible thing by destroying what is my highestvalue—life. Since my gift has to do with being awarrior, abstinence from eating meat is believed tobe the balance for the killing I'm forced to do."
"What happens if you eat meat?"

Kahlan knew that Richard had cause, from onlythe day before, to need the balance of not eatingmeat. 

"Even the idea of eating meat nauseates me. I'vedone it when I've had to, but it's something Iavoid if at all possible. Magic deprived of balancehas grave consequences, just like building a firein the hearth." 

The thought occurred to Kahlan that Richard 


carried the Sword of Truth, and perhaps that weaponalso imposed its own need for balance. Richard hadbeen rightly named the Seeker of Truth by the FirstWizard himself, Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander—Zedd,
Richard's grandfather, the man who had helped raisehim, and from whom Richard had additionallyinherited the gift. Richard's gift had been passeddown not only from the Rahl bloodline, but theZorander as well. Balance indeed. 

Rightly named Seekers had been carrying thatvery same sword for nearly three thousand years.
Perhaps Richard's understanding of the need forbalance had helped him to survive the things he'dfaced. 

With her teeth, Jennsen tugged off a strip ofdried meat as she thought it over. "So, because youhave to fight and sometimes kill people, you can'teat meat as the balance for that terrible act?" 
Richard nodded as he chewed dried apricots.

"It must be dreadful to have the gift," Jennsensaid in a quiet voice. "To have something sodestructive that it requires you balance it in someway."

She looked away from Richard's gray eyes. Kahlanknew what a difficult experience it sometimes wasto meet his direct and incisive gaze.

"I used to feel that way," he said, "when Ifirst was named the Seeker and given the sword, andeven more so later, when I learned that I had thegift. I didn't want to have the gift, didn't wantthe things the gift could do, just as I hadn'twanted the sword because of the things in me that Ithought shouldn't ever be brought out."
"But now you don't mind as much, having the sword,
or the gift?"

"You have a knife and have used it." Richard 
leaned toward her, holding out his hands. "You havehands. Do you hate your knife, or hands?"
"Of course not. But what does that have to do with 
having the gift?" 


 "Having the gift is simply how I was born, likebeing born male, or female, or with blue, or brown,
or green eyes—or with two hands. I don't hate myhands because I could potentially strangle someonewith them. It's my mind that directs my hands. Myhands don't act of their own accord; to think so isto ignore the truth of what each thing is, its truenature. You have to recognize the truth of thingsif you're to achieve balance—or come to trulyunderstand anything, for that matter."

Kahlan wondered why she didn't require balancethe way Richard did. Why was it so vital for him,
but not for her? Despite how much she wanted to goto sleep, she couldn't keep silent. "I often use myConfessor's power for that same end—to kill—and Idon't have to keep in balance by not eating meat."

"The Sisters of the Light claim that the veilthat separates the world of the living from theworld of the dead is maintained through magic. Moreprecisely, they claim that the veil is here,"
Richard said, tapping the side of his temple, "inthose of us who have the gift—wizards and to alesser extent sorceresses. They claim that balancefor those of us with the gift is essential becausein us, within our gift, resides the veil, makingus, in essence, the guardians of the veil, thebalance between worlds. 

"Maybe they're right. I have both sides of thegift: Additive and Subtractive. Maybe that makes itdifferent for me. Maybe having both sides makes itmore important than usual for me to keep my gift inbalance." 

Kahlan wondered just how much of that might betrue. She feared to think how extensively thebalance of magic itself had been altered by herdoing.

The world was unraveling, in more ways than one.
But there had been no choice. 

Cara dismissively waggled a piece of dried meatbefore them. "All this balance business is just a 


message from the good spirits—in that other world—
telling Lord Rahl to leave such fighting to us. Ifhe did, then he wouldn't have to worry aboutbalance, or what he can and can't eat. If he wouldstop putting himself in mortal danger then hisbalance would be just fine and he could eat a wholegoat."
Jennsen's eyebrows went up.
"You know what I mean," Cara grumbled.

Tom leaned in. "Maybe Mistress Cara is right,
Lord Rahl. You have people to protect you. Youshould let them do it and you could better put yourabilities to the task of being the Lord Rahl."

Richard closed his eyes and rubbed his templeswith his fingertips. "If I had to wait for Cara tosave me all the time, I'm afraid I'd have to dowithout a head." 

Cara rolled her eyes at his wisp of a smile andwent back to her sausage.

Studying his face in the dim light as he suckedon a small bite of dried biscuit, Kahlan thoughtthat Richard didn't look well, and that it was morethan simply being exhausted. The soft glow of lightfrom the lantern lit one side of his face, leavingthe rest in darkness, as if he were only halfthere, half in this world and half in the world ofdarkness, as if he were the veil between.

She leaned close and brushed back the hair that 
had fallen across his forehead, using the excuse tofeel his brow. He felt hot, but they were all hotand sweating, so she couldn't really tell if he hada fever, but she didn't think so.

Her hand slipped down to cup his face, kindlinghis smile. She thought she could lose herself inthe pleasure of just looking into his eyes. It madeher heart ache with joy to see his smile. Shesmiled back, a smile she gave no one but him.

Kahlan had an urge to kiss him, too, but therealways seemed to be people around and the kind ofkiss she really wanted to give him wasn't the kind 


of kiss you gave in front of others.

"It seems so hard to imagine," Friedrich said toRichard. "I mean, the Lord Rahl himself, notknowing about the gift as he grew up." Friedrichshook his head. "It seems so hard to believe." 

"My grandfather, Zedd, has the gift," Richardsaid as he leaned back. "He wanted to help raise meaway from magic, much like Jennsen— hidden awaywhere Darken Rahl couldn't get at me. That's why hewanted me raised in Westland, on the other side ofthe boundary from magic."

"And even your grandfather—a wizard—never let onthat he was gifted?" Tom asked.

"No, not until Kahlan came to Westland. Lookingback on it, I realize that there were a lot oflittle things that told me he was more than heseemed, but growing up I never knew. He just alwaysseemed wizardly to me in the sense that he seemedto know about everything in the world around us. Heopened up that world for me, making me want to allthe time know more, but the gift wasn't ever themagic he showed me—life was what he showed me."

"It's really true, then," Friedrich said, "thatWestland was set aside to be a place withoutmagic."

Richard smiled at the mention of his home of 
Westland. "It is. I grew up in the Hartland woods,
right near the boundary, and I never saw magic.
Except maybe for Chase."

"Chase?" Tom asked. 

"A friend of mine—a boundary warden. Fellowabout your size, Tom. Whereas you serve to protectthe Lord Rahl, Chase's charge was the boundary, orrather, keeping people away from it. He told methat his job was keeping away the prey—people—sothat the things that come out of the boundarywouldn't get any stronger. He worked to maintainbalance." Richard smiled to himself. "He didn't 
have the gift, but I often thought that the thingsthat man could pull off had to be magic." 


 Friedrich, too, was smiling at Richard's story.
"I lived in D'Hara all my life. When I was youngthose men who guarded the boundary were my heroesand I wanted to join them."
"Why didn't you?" Richard asked.

"When the boundary went up I was too young."
Friedrich stared off into memories, then sought tochange the subject. "How much longer until we getout of this wasteland, Lord Rahl?"

Richard looked east, as if he could see off intothe black of night beyond the dim circle of lanternlight. "If we keep up our pace, a few more days andwe'll be out of the worst of it, I'd say. It getsrockier now as the ground continues to rise uptoward the distant mountains. The traveling will bemore difficult but at least as we get higher itshouldn't be quite so hot."

"How far to this thing that... that Cara thinksI should touch?" Jennsen asked. 

Richard studied her face a moment. "I'm not so 
sure that's a good idea."
"But we are going there?"
"Yes." 

Jennsen picked at the strip of dried meat. "Whatis this thing that Cara touched, anyway? Cara andKahlan don't seem to want to tell me." 
"I asked them not to tell you," Richard said.

"But why? If we're going to see it, then whywouldn't you want to tell me what it is?"

"Because you don't have the gift," Richard said.
"I don't want to influence what you see."

Jennsen blinked. "What difference could that 
make?" 

"I haven't had time to translate much of it yet,
but from what I gather from the book Friedrichbrought me, even those who don't have the gift, inthe common sense, have at least some tiny spark ofit. In that way they are able to interact with themagic in the world—much like you must be born witheyes to see color. Being born with eyes, you can 


see and understand a grand painting, even thoughyou may not have the ability to create such apainting yourself.

"The gifted Lord Rahl gives birth to only onegifted heir. He may have other children, but rarelyare any of them ever also gifted. Still, they dohave this infinitesimal spark, as does everyoneelse. Even they, so to speak, can see color.

"The book says, though, that there are rareoffspring of a gifted Lord Rahl, like you, who areborn devoid of any trace whatsoever of the gift.
The book calls them pillars of Creation. Much likethose born without eyes can't perceive color, thoseborn like you can't perceive magic.

"But even that is imprecise, because with youit's more than simply not perceiving magic. Forsomeone born blind, color exists, they just aren'table to see it. For you, though, it isn't that yousimply can't perceive magic; for you magic does notexist—it isn't a reality."
"How is such a thing possible?" Jennsen asked.

"I don't know," Richard said. "When ourancestors created the bond of the Lord Rahl to the 
D'Haran people, it carried the unique ability toconsistently bear a gifted heir. Magic needsbalance. Maybe they had to make it work like this,
have this counter of those born like you, in orderfor the magic they created to work; maybe theydidn't realize what would happen and inadvertentlycreated the balance." 

Jennsen cleared her throat. "What would happenif... you know, if I were to have children?"

Richard surveyed Jennsen's eyes for what seemeda painfully long time. "You would bear offspringlike you."

Jennsen sat forward, her hands reflecting heremotional entreaty. "Even if I marry someone withthat spark of the gift? Someone able to perceivecolor, as you called it? Even then my child wouldbe like me?" 


 "Even then and every time," Richard said withquiet certitude. "You are a broken link in thechain of the gift. According to the book, once theline of all those born with the spark of the gift,
including those with the gift as it is in me, goingback thousands of years, going back forever, isbroken, it is broken for all time. It cannot berestored. Once forfeited in such a marriage, nodescendant of that line can ever restore the link 
to the gift. When these children marry, they toowould be as you, breaking the chain in the line ofthose they marry. Their children would be the same,
and so on. 

"That's why the Lord Rahl always hunted downungifted offspring and eliminated them. You wouldbe the genesis of something the world has never hadbefore: those untouched by the gift. Everyoffspring of every descendant would end the line ofthe spark of the gift in everyone they married. Theworld, mankind, would be changed forever.

"This is the reason the book calls those like 
you 'pillars of Creation.' "
The silence seemed brittle. 

"And that's what this place is called, too," Tomsaid as he pointed a thumb back over his shoulder,
seeming to feel the need to say something into thequiet, "the Pillars of Creation." He looked at thefaces surrounding the weak light coming from thesputtering lantern. "Seems a strange coincidencethat both those like Jennsen and this place wouldbe called the same thing."

Richard stared off into the darkness toward that 
terrible place where Kahlan would have died had hemade a mistake with the magic involved. "I don'tthink it's a coincidence. They are connected,
somehow." 

The book—The Pillars of Creation—describingthose born like Jennsen was written in the ancient 
language of High D'Haran. Few people still livingunderstood High D'Haran. Richard had begun to learn 


it in order to unravel important information inother books they'd found that were from the time ofthe great war.

That war, extinguished three thousand yearsbefore, had somehow ignited once again, and wasburning uncontrolled through the world. Kahlanfeared to think of the central—if inadvertent—partshe and Richard had played in making it possible.

Jennsen leaned in, as if looking for some threadof hope. "How do you think the two might beconnected?" 
Richard let out a tired sigh. "I don't know, yet."

With a finger, Jennsen rolled a pebble around ina small circle, leaving a tiny rut in the dust.
"All of those things about me being a pillar ofCreation, being the break in the link of the gift,
makes me feel somehow... dirty."

"Dirty?" Tom asked, looking hurt to hear hereven suggest such a thing. "Jennsen, why would youfeel that way?"

"Those like me are also called 'holes in the 
world.' I guess I can see why, now."

Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows onhis knees. "I know what it's like to feel regretfor how you were born, for what you have, or don'thave. I hated being born the way I was—with thegift. But I came to realize how senseless suchfeelings are, how completely wrong it was to thinkthat way."

"But it's different with me," she said as shepushed at the sand with a finger, erasing thelittle ruts she'd made with the pebble. "There areothers like you—wizards or sorceresses with thegift. Everyone else can at least see colors, as youput it. I'm the only one like this."

Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful,
bright, ungifted half sister that any previous LordRahl would have murdered on the spot, and wasovercome with a radiant smile. "Jennsen, I think ofyou as born pure. You're like a new snowflake, 


different than any other, and startlinglybeautiful." 

Looking up at him, Jennsen was overcome with asmile of her own. "I never thought of it that way."
Her smile withered as she thought about his words.
"But still, I'd be destroying—"

"You would be creating, not destroying," Richardsaid. "Magic exists. It cannot possess the 'right'to exist. To think so would be to ignore the truenature—the reality—of things. People, if they don'ttake the lives of others, have the right to livetheir life. You can't say that because you wereborn with red hair you supplanted the 'right' ofbrown hair to be born on your head."

Jennsen giggled at such a concept. It was goodto see the smile taking firmer hold. By the look onTom's face, he agreed.

"So," Jennsen finally asked, "what about thisthing we're going to see?"

"If the thing Cara touched has been altered bysomeone with the gift, then since you can't see themagic, you might see something we can't see: whatlies beneath that magic."

Jennsen rubbed the edge of her boot heel. "Andyou think that will tell you something important?"

"I don't know. It may be useful, or it may not,
but I want to know what you see—with your specialvision—without any suggestion from us."

"If you're so worried about it, why did youleave it? Aren't you afraid someone might comeacross it and take it?" 
"I worry about a lot of things," Richard said.

"Even if it really is something altered by magicand she sees it for what it truly is," Cara said,
"that doesn't mean that it still isn't what it 
seems to us, or that it isn't just as dangerous."

Richard nodded. "At least we'll know that much 
more about it. Anything we learn might help us insome way."
Cara scowled. "I just want her to turn it back 


over." 

Richard gave her a look designed to keep herfrom saying anything else about it. Cara huffed,
leaned in, and took one of Richard's driedapricots. She scowled at him as she popped theapricot into her mouth.
As soon as supper was finished, Jennsen suggestedthat they pack all the food safely back in thewagon so that Betty wouldn't help herself to it inthe night. Betty was always hungry. At least, withher two kids, she now had a taste of what it waslike to be badgered for food.

Kahlan thought that Friedrich should be givenconsideration, because of his age, so she asked himif he'd like to take first watch. First watch was 
easier than being awakened in the middle of thenight to stand watch between stretches of sleep. Hesmiled his appreciation as he nodded his agreement.

After opening his and Kahlan's bedroll, Richarddoused the lantern. The night was sweltering butcrystal clear so that, after Kahlan's eyesadjusted, the sweep of stars was enough to see by,
if not very well. One of the white twins thoughtthe newly unfurled bedrolls would be a perfectplace to romp. Kahlan scooped up the leggy bundleand returned it to its tail-wagging mother.

As she lay down beside Richard, Kahlan saw thedark shape of Jennsen curl up by Betty and collectthe twins in the tender bed of her arms, where theyquickly settled down.

Richard leaned over and gently kissed Kahlan'slips. "I love you, you know."

"If we're ever alone, Lord Rahl," Kahlanwhispered back, "I'd like to have more than a quickkiss." 

He laughed softly and kissed her forehead beforelying on his side, away from her. She had beenexpecting an intimate promise, or at least alighthearted remark.

Kahlan curled up behind him and rested a hand on 


his shoulder. "Richard," she whispered, "are youall right?"

It took him longer to answer than she would haveliked. "I have a splitting headache."

She wanted to ask what kind of headache, but shedidn't want the tiny spark of fear she harbored togain the glow of credence by voicing it aloud.

"It's different from the headaches I had 
before," Richard said, as if in answer to herthoughts. "I suppose it's this wicked heat on topof not having had any sleep for so long."

"I suppose." Kahlan bunched up the blanket shewas using for a pillow to make a lump that wouldpress against the sore spot at the base of herskull. "The heat is making my head pound, too." Shegently rubbed the back of his shoulder. "Have agood sleep, then."

She was exhausted and aching all over, and itfelt delicious to lie down. Her head felt better,
too, with the soft lump of blanket pressed againstthe back of her neck. With her hand resting againstRichard's shoulder, feeling his slow breathing,
Kahlan fell into a dead sleep. 

C H A P T E 
R 5 

As tired as she was, it was a marvelous sensationbeing beside Richard and letting herself go,
letting her concerns and worries go for the timebeing, and so effortlessly sinking into sleep.

But the sleep seemed only just started when shewoke to find Cara gently shaking her shoulder.

Kahlan blinked up at the familiar silhouettestanding over her. She ached to go back to sleep,
to be left alone to be so wonderfully asleep again. 


"My watch?" Kahlan asked.
Cara nodded. "I'll stand it if you'd like."


Kahlan glanced over her shoulder as she sat up,
seeing that Richard was still fast asleep. "No,"
she whispered. "You get some sleep. You need rest,
too." 

Kahlan yawned and stretched her back. She tookCara's elbow and pulled her a short distance away,
out of earshot, and leaned close. "I think you'reright. There's more than enough of us to standwatch and all still get enough rest. Let's letRichard sleep till morning."

Cara smiled her agreement before heading for herbedroll. Conspiracy designed to protect Richardsuited the Mord-Sith. 

Kahlan yawned and stretched again, at the sametime forcing herself to shake the lingering haze ofsleep from her mind, to be alert. Pulling her hairback from her face and flipping it over hershoulder, she scanned the wasteland all around,
looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Everything beyond their camp was as still as death.
Mountains blacked out the glittering sweep of starsin a jagged line all the way around the horizon.

Kahlan took careful assessment of everyone,
making sure they were all accounted for. Caraalready looked comfortable. Tom slept not far fromthe horses. Friedrich was asleep on the other sideof the horses. Jennsen was curled up beside Betty,
but by her movements, the way she turned from herside to her back, didn't look asleep. The babieshad moved and now lay sprawled with their headsbutted up tight against their mother.

Kahlan was always especially vigilant right atchange of watch. Change of watch was a prime timefor attack; she knew, for she had often initiatedraids around change of watch. Those just going offwatch were often tired and already thinking ofother things, considering watch the duty of thenext guard. Those just coming on watch were often 


not mentally prepared for a sudden attack. Peopletended to think that the enemy would not come untilthey were properly settled in and on the lookout.
Victory favored those who were ready. Defeatstalked those who were unwary.

Kahlan made her way to a formation of rock notfar from Richard. She scooted back, sitting atop ahigh spot in order to get a better view of thelifeless surroundings. Even in the middle of thenight, the rough rock still radiated the fierceheat of the previous day.

Kahlan pulled a skein of damp hair away from herneck, wishing there were a breeze. There had beentimes, in winter, when she had nearly frozen todeath. Try as she might, she couldn't seem torecall what it felt like to be truly cold.

It wasn't long after Kahlan had gotten herselfsituated before she saw Jennsen get up and stepquietly through their camp, trying not to wake theothers. 

"All right if I sit with you?" she asked whenshe finally reached Kahlan.
"Of course." 
Jennsen pushed her bottom back up onto the rockbeside Kahlan, pulled her knees up, and wrapped herarms around them, hugging them close to her body.
For a time she just gazed out at the night.

"Kahlan, I'm sorry—about before." Despite thedark, Kahlan thought she could see that the youngwoman looked miserable. "I didn't mean to sound 
like a fool who would do something withoutthinking. I'd never do anything to hurt any ofyou."

"I know you wouldn't deliberately do any suchthing. It's the things you might do unwittinglythat concern me." 

Jennsen nodded. "I think I understand a little 
better, now, about how complicated everything isand how much I really don't know. I'll not doanything unless you or Richard tells me to, I 


promise."

Kahlan smiled and ran a hand down the back of 
Jennsen's head, letting it come to rest on hershoulder. "I only told you those things because Icare about you, Jennsen." She gave the shoulder acompassionate squeeze. "I guess I'm worried for youthe same way Betty worries for her innocent twins,
knowing the dangers all around when they rarely do.

"You need to understand that if you go out onthin ice, it doesn't matter if the lake was frozenover by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If youdon't know where you're stepping, so to speak, youcould fall into the cold dark arms of death. It 
matters not what made the ice—dead is dead. Mypoint is that you don't go out on that thin iceunless you have a very powerful need, because itvery well could cost you your life."

"But I'm not touched by magic. Like Richardsaid, I'm like someone born without eyes who can'tsee color. I'm a broken link in the chain of magic.
Wouldn't that mean that I can't accidentally getinto trouble with it?" 

"And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff andit crushes you, does it matter if that boulder wassent crashing over the edge by a man with a lever,
or by a sorceress wielding the gift?"

Jennsen's voice took on a troubled tone. "I see 
what you mean. I guess that I never looked at itthat way."

"I'm only trying to help you because I know howeasy it is to make a mistake."

She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. 
"You know about magic. What kind of mistake couldyou make?"
"All kinds." 
"Like what?" 

Kahlan stared off into the memories. "I once 
delayed for half a second in killing someone."
"But I thought you said that it was wrong to be toorash." 


 "Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can dois to delay. She Was a sorceress. By the time Iacted it was already too late. Because of mymistake she captured Richard and took him away. Fora year, I didn't know what had happened to him. Ithought I would never see him again, that I woulddie of heartache." 
Jennsen stared in astonishment. "When did you findhim again?"

"Not long ago. That's why we're down here in theOld World—she brought him here. At least I foundhim. I've made other mistakes, and they, too, haveresulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like 
he said, we all make mistakes. If I can, I want tospare you from making a needless mistake, atleast." 

Jennsen looked away. "Like believing in that manI was with yesterday—Sebastian. Because of him, mymother was murdered and I almost got you killed. Ifeel like such a fool." 

"You didn't make that mistake out of 
carelessness, Jennsen. They deceived you, used you.
More importantly, in the end you used your head andwere willing to face the truth."
Jennsen nodded. 
"What should we name the twins?" she finally asked.

Kahlan didn't think that naming the twins was agood idea, not yet anyway, but she was reluctant tosay it.
"I don't know. What names were you thinking?"

Jennsen let out a heavy breath. "It was a shockto suddenly have Betty back with me, and even moreof a surprise to see that she had babies of herown. I never considered that before. I haven't even 
had time to think about names." 
"You will." 

Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew,
as if at the thought of something more.

"You know," she said, "I think I understand whatRichard meant about thinking of his grandfather as 


wizardly, even though he never saw him do magic."
"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't see magic, so to speak, andRichard didn't do any tonight—at least none I knowof." She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh asKahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It hada quality to it much like Richard's, the femininebalance to Richard's masculine laugh, two facets ofthe same delight.

"And yet," Jennsen went on, "the things he saidmade me think of him in that way—wizardly—like hesaid about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knewjust what he meant, just how he'd felt, becauseRichard has opened up the world for me, but thegift wasn't the magic he showed me. It was himshowing me life, that my life is mine, and worthliving."

Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much thatdescribed her own feeling of what Richard had donefor her, how he had brought her to cherish life andbelieve in it not just for others, but, mostimportantly, for herself.

For a time they sat together, silently watchingthe empty wasteland. Kahlan kept an eye on Richardas he tossed in his sleep.

With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watchedRichard. "It looks like there's something wrongwith him," she whispered as she leaned close.
"He's having a nightmare."

Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before,
as Richard made fists in his sleep, as he struggledsilently against some private terror.

"It's scary to see him like that," Jennsen said.
"He seems so different. When he's awake he alwaysseems so ... reasoned." 
"You can't reason with a nightmare," Kahlan said inquiet sorrow. 


C H A P T E 
R 6 

Richard woke with a start." 
They were back.

He had been having a bad dream. Like all of hisdreams, he didn't remember it. He only knew it wasa bad dream because it left behind the shapelessfeeling of breathless, heart-pounding, undefined,
frantic terror. He threw off the lingering pall ofthe nightmare as he would throw off a tangledblanket. Even though it felt as if the dark thingsin lingering remnants of the dream were stillclawing at him, trying to drag him back into theirworld, he knew that dreams were immaterial, and sohe dismissed it. Now that he was awake, the feelingof dread rapidly began to dissolve, like fogburning off under hot sunlight.
Still, he had to make an effort to slow hisbreathing.

What was important was that they were back. Hedidn't always know when they returned, but thistime, for some reason, he was sure of it.

Sometime in the night, too, the wind had comeup. It buffeted him, pulling at his clothes,
tearing at his hair. Out on the sweltering waste,
the scorching gusts offered no relief from theheat. Rather than being refreshing, the wind was sohot that it felt as though the door to a blastfurnace had opened and the heat were broiling hisflesh. 

Groping for his waterskin, he didn't find itimmediately at hand. He tried to recall exactlywhere he'd laid it, but, with other thoughts 


screaming for his attention, he couldn't remember.
He would have to worry about a drink later.

Kahlan lay close, turned toward him. She hadgathered her long hair in a loose fist beneath herchin. The wind whipped stray strands across hercheek. Richard loved just to sit and look at herface; this time, though, he delayed but a moment,
looking at her only long enough in the faintstarlight to note her even breathing. She was soundasleep.

As he scanned their camp, he could just make outa weak blush in the eastern sky. Dawn was stillsome time off. 

He realized that he'd slept through his watch.
Cara and Kahlan had no doubt decided that he needed 
the sleep more than he was needed for standing awatch and had conspired to not wake him. They wereprobably right. He had been so exhausted that he'dslept right through the night. Now, though, he waswide awake. 
His headache, too, was gone.

Silently, carefully, Richard slipped away fromKahlan so as not to wake her. He instinctivelyreached for his sword lying at his other side. Themetal was warm beneath his touch as his fingerscurled around the familiar silver-and-gold-wroughtscabbard. It was always reassuring to find thesword at the ready, but even more so at thatmoment. As he silently rolled to his feet, heslipped the baldric over his head, placing thefamiliar supple leather across his right shoulder.
As he rose up, his sword was already at his hip,
ready to do his bidding.

Despite how reassuring it was to have the weaponat his side, after the carnage back at the placecalled the Pillars of Creation the thought ofdrawing it sickened him. He recoiled from themental image of the things he had done. Had he not,
though, Kahlan wouldn't be sleeping peacefully; shewould be dead, or worse. 


 Other good had come of it, too. Jennsen had beenpulled back from the brink. He saw her curled upbeside her beloved goat, her arm corralling Betty'stwo sleeping kids. He smiled at seeing her, at whata wonder it was to have a sister, smiled at howsmart she was and all the wonders of life she had 
ahead of her. It made him happy that she was eagerto be around him, but being around him made himworry for her safety, too. There really wasn't anyplace safe, though, unless the forces of the Orderthat had been unleashed could be defeated, or atleast bottled back up.

A heavy gust tore through their camp, raisingeven thicker clouds of dirt. Richard blinked,
trying to keep the blowing sand out of his eyes.
The sound of the wind in his ears was aggravatingbecause it masked other sounds. Though he listenedcarefully, he could hear only the wind.

Squinting against the blowing grit, he saw thatTom was sitting atop his wagon, looking this wayand that, keeping watch. Friedrich was asleep onthe other side of the horses, Cara not far away onthe desert side of Kahlan, putting herself betweenthem and anything that might be out beyond. In thedim starlight Tom hadn't spotted Richard. When Tomscanned the night in the opposite direction,
Richard moved away from camp, leaving Tom to watchover the others. 

Richard was comfortable in the cloak of 
darkness. Years of practice had taught him to slipunseen through shadows, to move silently in thedarkness. He did that now, moving away from camp ashe focused on what had awakened him, on what othersstanding watch would not sense.

Unlike Tom, the races did not miss Richard'smovements. They wheeled high overhead as theywatched him, following him as he made his way outalong the broken ground. They were almost invisibleagainst the dark sky, but Richard could make themout as they blacked out stars, like telltale 


shadows against the sparkling black curtain ofnight—shadows that he thought he could feel as wellas he could see. 

That the crushing headache was gone was a greatrelief, but that it had vanished in the manner thatit had was also a cause for concern. The torment 
often vanished when he was distracted by somethingimportant. Something dangerous. At the same time,
even though the pain was gone, it felt as if itwere simply hiding in the shadows of his mind,
waiting for him to relax so that it could pounce.

When the headaches surged through him, thenauseating pain was so intense that it made himfeel sick in every fiber of his being. Even thoughthe crushing pain at times made it difficult forhim to stand, to put one foot in front of theother, he had known that to remain behind, wherethey were, would have meant certain death. Whilethe headaches were bad in and of themselves,
Richard wasn't so much concerned about the pain ashe was about the nature of the headaches—their 
cause. 

They weren't the same as the headaches he'd hadbefore that he so feared—the headaches brought onby the gift—but they weren't like those heconsidered to be normal headaches, either.
Throughout his life he'd occasionally had terribleheadaches, the same as his mother used to have on amore regular basis. She'd called them "my grimheadaches." Richard thoroughly understood hermeaning.

These, however grim, were not like those. Heworried that they might be caused by the gift.

He'd had the headaches brought on by the giftbefore. He had been told that as he grew older, ashis ability grew, as he came to understand more, hewould, at times later in his life, be confrontedwith headaches brought on by the gift. The remedywas supposedly simple. He had only to seek the helpof another wizard and have him assist with the 


necessary next level of awareness and comprehensionof the nature of the gift within himself. Thatmental awareness and understanding would enable himto control and thereby eliminate the pain—to dousethe flare-up. At least, that's what he had beentold. 

Of course, in the absence of another wizard tohelp, the Sisters of the Light would gladly put acollar around his neck to help control the runawaypower of the gift.

He had been told that such headaches, if notproperly tended to, were lethal. This much of it,
at least, he knew was true. He couldn't afford tohave that problem now, on top of all his others.
Right now there was nothing he could do about it;
there was no one anywhere near who could help himwith that kind of headache—no wizard, and eventhough he would never allow it, no Sister of theLight to put him in a collar again.

Richard once more reminded himself that it 
wasn't the same kind of pain as the last time, whenit had been brought on by the gift. He remindedhimself not to invent trouble he didn't have. 
He had enough real trouble.

He heard the whoosh as one of the huge birdsshot past low overhead. The race twisted in flight,
lifting on a gust of wind, to peer back at him.

Another followed in its wake, and then a third,
a fourth, and a fifth. They slipped silently away,
out across the open ground, following one anotherroughly in a line. Their wings rocked as theyworked to stabilize themselves in the gusty air.
Some distance away, they soared into a gliding,
climbing turn back toward him.

Before they returned, the races tightened theirflight into a circle. When they stroked their hugewings, Richard could usually hear their featherswhisper through the air, although now, with thesound of the wind, he couldn't. Their black eyeswatched him watching them. He wanted them to know 


he was aware of them, that he hadn't slept throughtheir nocturnal return. 

Were he not so concerned about the meaning ofthe races, he might think they were beautiful,
their sleek black shapes silhouetted majesticallyagainst the crimson flush coming to the sky.

As he watched, though, Richard couldn't imaginewhat they were doing. He'd seen this behavior fromthem before and hadn't understood it then, either.
He realized, suddenly, that those other times whenthey'd returned to circle in this curious fashion,
he had also been aware of them. He wasn't alwaysaware of them or aware of when they returned. If hehad a headache, though, it had vanished when theyreturned. 

The hot wind ruffled Richard's hair as he gazedout across wasteland obscured by the dusty predawngloom. He didn't like this dead place. Dawn herewould offer no promise of a world coming to life.
He wished Kahlan and he were back in his woods. He 
couldn't help smiling as he recalled the place inthe mountains where the year before they had spentthe summer. The place was so wondrous that it hadeven managed to mellow Cara.

In the faint but gathering light, the black-
tipped races circled, as they always did when theyperformed this curious maneuver, not over him, buta short distance away, this time out over the opendesert where the buffeting wind unfurled diaphanouscurtains of sandy grit. The other times it had beenover forested hills, or open grassland. This time,
as he watched the races, he had to squint to keepthe blowing sand from getting in his eyes.

Abruptly tipping their broad wings, the racestightened their circle as they descended closer tothe desert floor. He knew that they would do thisfor a short while before breaking up theirformation to resume their normal flight. Theysometimes flew in pairs and performed spectacularaerial stunts, each gracefully matching the other's 


every move, as ravens sometimes did, but otherwisethey never flew in anything like the compact groupof their sporadic circling.

And then, as the inky shapes wheeled around in atight vortex, Richard realized that the trailers ofblowing sand below them weren't simply snaking andcurling aimlessly in the wind, but were flowingover something that wasn't there.
The hair along his arms stood stiffly up.

Richard blinked, squinting into the wind, tryingto see better in the howling storm of blowing sand.
Yet more dust and dirt lifted in the blast of a 
heavy gust. As the twisting eddies raced across theflat ground and passed beneath the races, theyswirled around and over something below, making theshape more distinct.
It appeared to be the form of a person.

The dirt swirled around the empty void,
silhouetting it, defining it, revealing what wasthere, but not. Whenever the wind lifted andcarried with it a heavy load, the outline of theshape, bounded by the swirling sand, looked likethe outline of a man shrouded in hooded robes. 
Richard's right hand found the hilt of his sword.

There was nothing to the shape save the sandthat flowed over the contours of what wasn't there,
the way muddy water streaming around a clear glassbottle revealed its covert contour. The form seemed 
to be standing still, watching him.

There were, of course, no eyes in the emptysockets of blowing sand, but Richard could feelthem on him. 

"What is it?" Jennsen asked in a worried whisperas she rushed up beside him. "What's the matter? Doyou see something?"

With his left hand, Richard pushed her back, outof his way. So urgent was his headlong rush of needthat it took concentrated effort to be gentle aboutit. He was gripping the hilt of his sword sotightly that he could feel the raised letters of 


the word TRUTH woven in gold wire through the
silver. 
Richard was invoking from within the sword its
purpose for being, the very core of its creation.
In answer, the might of the sword's power ignited.


Beyond the veil of rage, though, in the shadowsof his mind, even as the anger of the swordthundered through him, Richard dimly perceived anunexpected opposition on the part of the flux ofmagic to rise to the summons.

It was like heading out a door and leaning hisweight into the howl of a gale, and stumblingforward a step at unexpectedly finding lessresistance than anticipated.

Before Richard could question the sensation, thewave of wrath flooded through him, saturating himin the cold fury of the storm that was the sword'spower.

As the races wheeled, their circle began comingcloser. This, too, they had done before, but thistime the shape that moved with them was betrayed bythe swirl of sand and grit. It appeared that theintangible hooded man was being pulled closer bythe black-tipped races.

The distinctive ring of steel announced thearrival of the Sword of Truth in the hot dawn air. 
Jennsen squeaked at his sudden movement and jumpedback. 

The races answered with piercing, mocking criesthat carried on the howling wind.

The unmistakable sound of Richard's sword beingdrawn brought Kahlan and Cara at a dead run. Carawould have leapt protectively ahead, but she knewbetter than to get in front of him when he had thesword out. Agiel clenched in her fist, she skiddedto a halt off to the side, crouched and at theready, a powerful cat ready to spring.

"What is it?" Kahlan asked as she ran up behindhim, gaping out at the pattern in the wind.

"It's the races," came Jennsen's worried voice. 


"They've come back."

Kahlan stared incredulously at her. "The racesdon't look like the worst of it." 

Sword in hand, Richard watched the thing belowthe wheeling races. Feeling the sword in his grip,
its power sizzling through the very marrow of hisbones, he felt a flash of hesitation, of doubt.
With no time to waste, he turned back to Tom, juststarting away from securing the lead lines to hisbig draft horses. Richard mimed shooting an arrow.
Grasping Richard's meaning, Tom skidded to a haltand spun back to the wagon. Friedrich urgentlyseized the tethers to the other horses, working tokeep them calm, keeping them from spooking. Leaningin the wagon, Tom threw gear aside as he searchedfor Richard's bow and quiver.

Jennsen peered from one grim face to another.
"What do you mean the races aren't the worst ofit?" 
Cara pointed with her Agiel. "That... that figure.
That man." 

Frowning in confusion, Jennsen looked back andforth between Cara and the blowing sand.
"What do you see?" Richard asked.

Jennsen threw her hands up in a gesture offrustration. "Black-tipped races. Five of them.
That, and the blinding blowing sand is all. Isthere someone out there? Do you see people coming?"
She didn't see it. 

Tom pulled the bow and quiver from the wagon andran for the rest of them. Two of the races, as ifnoting Tom running in with the bow, lifted a wingand circled wider. They swept around him oncebefore disappearing into the darkness. The otherthree, though, continued to circle, as if bearingthe floating form in the blowing sand beneath them.

Closer still the races came, and the form withthem. Richard couldn't imagine what it was, but thesense of dread it engendered rivaled any nightmare.
The power from the sword surging through him had no 


such fear or doubt. Then why did he? Storms ofmagic within, beyond anything storming across thewasteland, spiraled up through him, fighting forrelease. With grim effort, Richard contained theneed, focused it on the task of doing his biddingshould he choose to release it. He was the master 
of the sword and had at all times to consciouslyexert that mastery. By the sword's reaction to whatthe currents of sand revealed, there could be nodoubt as to Richard's conviction of the nature of 
what stood before him. Then what was it he sensed 
from the sword? 

From back by the wagon, a horse screamed. Aquick glance over his shoulder revealed Friedrichtrying to calm them. All three horses rearedagainst the rope he held fast. They came downstamping their hooves and snorting. From the cornerof his eye, Richard saw twin streaks of black shootin out of the darkness, skimming in just above theground. Betty let out a terrible wail.

And then, as quickly as they'd appeared, theywere gone, vanished back into the thick gloom.
"No!" Jennsen cried out as she ran for the animals. 

Before them, the unmoving shape watched. Tomreached out, trying to stop Jennsen on the waypast. She tore away from him. For a moment, Richardworried that Tom might go after her, but then hewas again running for Richard.

Out of the dark swirling murk, the two racessuddenly appeared, so close Richard could see thequills running down through their flight feathersspread wide in the wind. Swooping in out of theswirling storm of dust to rejoin the circle, eachcarried a small, limp, white form in its powerfultalons. 

Tom ran up holding the bow out in one hand andthe quiver in the other. Making his choice, Richardslammed his sword into its scabbard and snatched upthe bow. 

With one smooth motion he bent the bow and 


attached the string. He yanked an arrow from theleather quiver Tom held out in his big fist.

As Richard turned to the target, he already hadthe arrow nocked and was drawing back the string.
Distantly, it felt good to feel his musclesstraining against the weight, straining against thespring of the bow, loading its force for release.
It felt good to rely on his strength, his skill,
his endless hours of practice, and not have todepend on magic.

The still form of the man who wasn't there 
seemed to watch. Eddies of sand sluiced over the 
shape, marking the outline. Richard glared at thehead of the form beyond the razor-sharp steel tipof the arrow. Like all blades, it fell comfortinglyfamiliar to Richard. With a blade in his hands, hewas in his element and it mattered not if it was 
stone dust his blade drew, or blood. The steel-
tipped arrow was squarely centered on the emptyspot in the curve of blowing sand that formed thehead. 
The piercing cry of races carried above the howl ofthe wind. 
String to his cheek, Richard savored the tension inhis muscles, the weight of the bow, the featherstouching his flesh, the distance between blade andobjective filled with swirling sand, the pull ofthe wind against his arm, the bow, and the arrow.
Each of those factors and a hundred more went into 
an inner calculation that after a lifetime of 
practice required no conscious computation yetdecided where the point of the arrow belonged oncehe called the target.
The form before him stood watching.
Richard abruptly raised the bow and called thetarget.

The world became not only still but silent forhim as the distance seemed to contract. His bodywas drawn as taut as the bow, the arrow becoming aprojection of his fluid focused intent, the mark 


before the arrow his purpose for being. Hisconscious intent invoked the instant sum of the 
calculation needed to connect arrow and target.

The swirling sand seemed to slow as the races,
wings spread wide, dragged through the thick air.
There was no doubt in Richard's mind what the arrow 
would find at the end of a journey only just begun.
He felt the string hit his wrist. He saw thefeathers clear the bow above his fist. The arrow's 
shaft flexed slightly as it sprang away and tookflight.

Richard was already drawing the second arrowfrom the quiver in Tom's fist as the first foundits target. Black feathers exploded in the crimsondawn. The bird tumbled gracelessly through the airand with a hard thud hit the ground not far fromthe shape floating just above the ground. Thebloody white form was free of the talons, but itwas too late. 

The four remaining races screamed in fury. Asthe birds pumped their wings, clawing for height,
one railed at Richard with a shrill scream. Richard 
called the target.
The second arrow was off. 

The arrow ripped right into the race's openthroat and out the back of the head, cutting offthe angry cry. The flightless weight plummeted tothe ground.

The form below the remaining three races beganto dissolve in the swirling sand.

The three remaining birds, as if abandoningtheir charge, wheeled around, racing toward Richardwith angry intent. He calmly considered them frombehind feathers of his own. The third arrow was 
away. The race in the center lifted its right wing,
trying to change direction, but took the arrowthrough its heart. Rolling wing over wing, itspiraled down through the blowing sand, crashing tothe hardpan out ahead of Richard.

The remaining two birds, screeching defiant 


cries, plunged toward him.

Richard pulled string to cheek, placing thefourth arrow on target. The range was swiftlyclosing. The arrow was away in an instant. It torethrough the body of the black-tipped race stillclutching in its talons the bloody corpse of thetiny kid.

Wings raked back, the last angry race dovetoward Richard. As soon as Richard snatched an 
arrow from the quiver an impatient Tom held out,
the big D'Haran heaved his knife. Before Richardcould nock the arrow, the whirling knife rippedinto the raptor. Richard stepped aside as the hugebird shot past in a lifeless drop and slammed intothe ground right behind him. As it tumbled, bloodsprayed across the windswept rock and black-tippedfeathers flew everywhere.
The dawn, only moments ago filled with the thebloodcurdling screams of the black-tipped races,
was suddenly quiet but for the low moan of thewind. Black feathers lifted in that wind, floatingout across the open expanse beneath a yellow-orangesky.
At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, throwinglong shadows out over the wasteland.

Jennsen clutched one of the limp white twinsto her breast. Betty, bleating plaintively, bloodrunning from a gash on her side, stood on her hindlegs trying to arouse her still kid in Jennsen'sarms. Jennsen bent to the other twin sprawled onthe ground and laid her lifeless charge beside it.
Betty urgently licked at the bloody carcasses.
Jennsen hugged Betty's neck a moment before tryingto pull the goat away. Betty dug in her hooves, notwanting to leave her stricken kids. Jennsen coulddo no more than to offer her friend consoling wordschoked with tears. 
When she stood, unable to turn Betty from her deadoffspring, Richard sheltered Jennsen under his arm.
"Why would the races suddenly do that?" 


"I don't know," Richard said. "You didn't seeanything other than the races, then?"

Jennsen leaned against Richard, holding her facein her hands, giving in briefly to the tears. "Ijust saw the birds," she said as she used the backof her sleeve to wipe her cheeks.

"What about the shape defined by the blowingsand?" Kahlan asked as she placed a comforting handon Jennsen's shoulder. 
"Shape?" She looked from Kahlan to Richard. "Whatshape?"

"It looked like a man's shape." Kahlan drew thecurves of an outline in the air before her with 
both hands. "Like the outline of a man wearing ahooded cape."

"I didn't see anything but black-tipped racesand the clouds of blowing sand."

"And you didn't see the sand blowing aroundanything?" Richard asked. "You didn't see any shapedefined by the sand?"
Jennsen shook her head insistently before returningto Betty's side.

"If the shape involved magic," Kahlan said in aconfidential tone to Richard, "she wouldn't seethat, but why wouldn't she see the sand?"
"To her, the magic wasn't there."
"But the sand was." 

"The color is there on a painting but a blindperson can't see it, nor can they see the shapesthat the brush strokes, laden with color, helpdefine." He shook his head in wonder as he watched 
Jennsen. "We don't really know to what degreesomeone is affected by other things when they can'tperceive the magic that interacts with those otherthings. For all we know, it could be that her mindsimply fails to recognize the pattern caused bymagic and just reads it as blowing sand. It couldeven be that because there is a pattern to themagic, only we can see those particles of sanddirectly involved with defining the pattern, while 


she sees them all and therefore the subordinate 
pattern is lost to her eyes.

"It could even be that it's something like theboundaries were; two worlds existing in the sameplace at the same time. Jennsen and we could belooking at the same thing, and see it throughdifferent eyes— through different worlds." Kahlannodded as Richard bent to one knee beside Jennsen 
to inspectthe gash through the goat's wiry brown hair.

"We'd better stitch this," he told Jennsen.
"It's not life-threatening, but it needsattention." 

Jennsen snuffled back her tears as Richard 
stood. "It was magic, then—the thing you saw?"

Richard stared off toward where the form had 
appeared in the blowing sand. "Something evil."

Off behind them, Rusty tossed her head andwhinnied in sympathy with inconsolable Betty. WhenTom laid a sorrowful hand on Jennsen's shoulder,
she seized it as if for strength and held it to hercheek. 

Jennsen finally stood, shielding her eyesagainst the blowing dust as she looked to thehorizon. "At least we're rid of the filthy races."
"Not for long," Richard said.

His headache came slamming back with such forcethat it nearly took him from his feet. He hadlearned a great deal about controlling pain, abouthow to disregard it. He did that now.
There were bigger worries. 

CHAPTER 7 

Around midafternoon, as they were walking across 


the scorching desert, Kahlan noticed Richard
carefully watching his shadow stretched out before
him. 
"What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter?" 


He gestured at the shadow before him. "Races.
Ten or twelve. They just glided up behind us.
They're hiding in the sun."
"Hiding in the sun?"

"They're flying high and in the spot where theirshadow falls on us. If we were to look up in thesky we wouldn't be able to see them because we'dhave to look right into the sun."

Kahlan turned and, with her hand shielding hereyes, tried to see for herself, but it was toopainful to try to look up anywhere near themerciless sun. When she looked back, Richard, whohadn't turned to look with her, again flicked hishand toward the shadows. 

"If you look carefully at the ground around yourshadow, you can just make out the distortion in thelight. It's them."

Kahlan might have thought that Richard washaving a little fun with her were it not about amatter as serious as the races. She searched the 
ground around their shadows until she finally sawwhat he was talking about. At such a distance, theraces' shadows were little more than shiftingirregularities in the light.

Kahlan glanced back at the wagon. Tom wasdriving, with Friedrich sitting up on the seatbeside him. Richard and Kahlan were giving thehorses a rest from being ridden, so they weretethered to the wagon.

Jennsen sat on blankets in the back of the 
wagon, comforting Betty as she bleated in misery.
Kahlan didn't think the goat had been silent formore than a minute or two all day. The gash wasn'tbad; Betty's suffering was from other pain. Atleast the poor goat had Jennsen for solace.

From what Kahlan had learned, Jennsen had had 


Betty for half her life. Moving around as she andher mother had, running from Darken Rahl, hiding,
staying away from people so as not to revealthemselves and risk word drifting back to DarkenRahl's ears, Jennsen had never had a chance to havechildhood friends. Her mother had gotten her thegoat as a companion. In her constant effort to keepJennsen out of the hands of a monster, it was thebest she could offer. 

Kahlan wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes.
She took in the four black feathers Richard had 
bundled together and strung on his upper right arm.
He had taken the feathers when he'd retrieved the 
arrows that were still good. Richard had given thelast feather to Tom for killing the fifth race withhis knife. Tom wore his single feather likeRichard, on his arm. Tom thought of it as a trophy,
of sorts, awarded by the Lord Rahl.

Kahlan knew that Richard wore his four feathers 
for a different reason: it was a warning for all tosee. 

Kahlan pulled her hair back over her shoulder.
"Do you think that was a man below the races? A manwatching us?"

Richard shrugged. "You know more about magicthan me. You tell me." 

"I've never seen anything like it." She frownedover at him. "If it was a man... or something likethat, why do you think he finally decided to revealhimself?" 

"I don't think he did decide to reveal himself." 
Richard's intent gray eyes turned toward her. "Ithink it was an accident." 
"How could it be an accident?" 

"If it's someone using the races to track us,
and he can somehow see us—" 

"See us how?" 
"I don't know. See us through the eyes of theraces." 
"You can't do that with magic." 


Richard fixed her with a trenchant look. "Fine. 
Then what was it?" 

Kahlan looked back at the shadows stretching outbefore them on the buckskin-colored rock, back atthe small bleary shapes moving around the shadow ofher head, like flies around a corpse. "I don'tknow. You were saying? .. . About someone using theraces to track us, to see us?"

"I think," Richard said, "that someone iswatching us, through the races or with their aid—orsomething like that—and they can't really seeeverything. They can't see clearly."
"So?" 

"So, since he can't see with clarity, I thinkmaybe he didn't realize that there was a sandstorm.
He didn't anticipate what the blowing sand wouldreveal. I don't think he intended to give himselfaway." Richard looked over at her again. "I thinkhe made a mistake. I think he showed himself 
accidentally."

Kahlan let out a measured, exasperated breath.
She had no argument for such a preposterous notion.
It was no wonder he hadn't told her the full extent 
of his theory. She had been thinking, when he saidthe races were tracking them, that probably a webhad been cast and then some event had triggered it—
most likely Cara's innocent touch—and that spellhad then attached to them, causing the races tofollow that marker of magic. Then, as Jennsen hadsuggested, someone was simply watching where theraces were in order to get a pretty good idea ofwhere Richard and Kahlan were. Kahlan had thoughtof it in terms of the way Darken Rahl had oncehooked a tracer cloud to Richard in order to know 
where they were. Richard wasn't thinking in termsof what had happened before; he was looking at itthrough the prism of a Seeker.

There were still a number of things aboutRichard's notion that didn't make sense to her, butshe knew better than to discount what he thought 


simply because she had never heard of such a thingbefore. 

"Maybe it's not a 'he,' " she finally said.
"Maybe it's a she. Maybe a Sister of the Dark."
Richard gave her another look, but this one wasmore worry than anything else. "Whoever it is—
whatever it is—I don't think it can be anythinggood."

Kahlan couldn't argue that much of it, butstill, she couldn't reconcile such a notion. "Well,
let's say it's like you think it is—that we spottedhim spying on us, by accident. Why did the racesthen attack us?" 

Dust rose from Richard's boot as he casuallykicked a small stone. "I don't know. Maybe he wasjust angry that he'd given himself away."

"He was angry, so he had the races kill Betty'skids? And attack you?"

Richard shrugged. "I'm just guessing because youasked; I'm not saying I think it's so." The longfeathers, bloodred at their base, turning to a darkgray and then to inky black at the tip, ruffled inthe gusts of wind.

As he thought it over, his tone turned morespeculative. "It could even be that whoever it wasusing the races to watch us had nothing at all todo with the attack. Maybe the races decided toattack on their own." 

"They simply took the reins from whoever it wasthat was taking them for the ride?"

"Maybe. Maybe he can send them to us so he canhave a peek at where we are, where we're going, butcan't control them much more than that." 

In frustration, Kahlan let out a sigh.
"Richard," she said, unable to hold back herdoubts, "I know a good deal about all sorts ofmagic and I've never heard of anything like thisbeing possible."

Richard leaned close, again taking her in withthose arresting gray eyes of his. "You know about 


all sorts of things magic from the Midlands. Maybedown here they have something you never encounteredbefore. After all, had you ever heard of a dreamwalker before we encountered Jagang? Or eventhought such a thing was possible?"

Kahlan pulled her lower lip through her teeth asshe studied his grim expression for a long moment.
Richard hadn't grown up around magic—it was all newto him. In some ways, though, that was a strength,
because he didn't have preconceived notions aboutwhat was possible and what wasn't. Sometimes, thethings they'd encountered were unprecedented.

To Richard, just about all magic wasunprecedented.

"So, what do you think we should do?" shefinally asked in a confidential tone.

"What we planned." He glanced over his shoulderto see Cara scouting a goodly distance off to theirleft side. "It has to be connected to the rest of 
it." 
"Cara only meant to protect us."

"I know. And who knows, maybe it would have beenworse if she hadn't touched it. It could even be 
that by doing what she did, she actually bought ustime." 

Kahlan swallowed at the feeling of dreadchurning in her. "Do you think we still have enoughtime?" 

"We'll think of something. We don't even knowyet for sure what it could mean."

"When the sand finally runs out of an hourglass,
it usually means the goose is cooked."
"We'll find an answer." 
"Promise?" 

Richard reached over and gently caressed theback of her neck. "Promise." 

Kahlan loved his smile, the way it sparkled inhis eyes. Somewhere in the back of her mind sheknew that he always kept his promises. His eyesheld something else, though, and that distracted 


her from asking if he believed the answer he
promised would come in time, or even if it would be
an answer that could help them.
"You have a headache, don't you," she said.


"Yes." His smile had vanished. "It's different 
than before, but I'm pretty sure it's caused by thesame thing."
The gift. That's what he meant.

"What do you mean it's different? And if it'sdifferent, then what makes you think the cause isthe same?" 

He thought about it a moment. "Remember when Iwas explaining to Jennsen about how the gift needsto be balanced, how I have to balance the fightingI do by not eating meat?" When she nodded he wenton. "It got worse right then."
"Headaches, even those kind, vary."
"No ..." he said, frowning as he tried to find thewords. "No, it was almost as if talking about—
thinking about—the need not to eat meat in order tobalance the gift somehow brought it more to thefore and made the headaches worse." 

Kahlan didn't at all like that concept. "Youmean like maybe the gift within you that is thecause of the headaches is trying to impress uponyou the importance of balance in what you do withthe gift."

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair.
"I don't know. There's more to it. I just can'tseem to get it all worked out. Sometimes when Itry, when I go down that line of reasoning, abouthow I need to balance the fighting I do, the painstarts to get so bad I can't dwell on it.

"And something else," he added. "There might bea problem with my connection to the magic of thesword." 
"What? How can that be?" 
"I don't know." 
Kahlan tried to keep the alarm out of her voice.
"Are you sure?" 


 He shook his head in frustration. "No, I'm notsure. It just seemed different when I felt the needof it and drew the sword this morning. It was as ifthe sword's magic was reluctant to rise to theneed." 

Kahlan thought it over a moment. "Maybe thatmeans that the headaches are something different,
this time. Maybe they aren't really caused by thegift."

"Even if some of it is different, I still thinkits cause is the gift," he said. "One thing they dohave in common with the last time is that they'regradually getting worse."
"What do you want to do?"

He lifted his arms out to the sides and let them 
fall back. "For now, we don't have much of achoice—we have to do what we planned."

"We could go to Zedd. If it is the gift, as youthink, then Zedd would know what to do. He couldhelp you."

"Kahlan, do you honestly believe that we haveany chance in Creation of making it all the way toAydindril in time? Even if it weren't for the restof it, if the headaches are from the gift, I'd bedead weeks before we could travel all the way toAydindril. And that's not even taking into accounthow difficult it's bound to be getting pastJagang's army all throughout the Midlands andespecially the troops around Ay-dindril."
"Maybe he's not there now."

Richard kicked at another stone in the path.
"You think Jagang is just going to leave theWizard's Keep and all it contains—leave it all forus to use against him?"

Zedd was First Wizard. For someone of his 
ability, defending the Wizard's Keep wouldn't betoo difficult. He also had Adie there with him to 
help. The old sorceress, alone, could probablydefend a place such as the Keep. Zedd knew what theKeep would mean to Jagang, could he gain it. Zedd 


would protect the Keep no matter what.

"There's no way for Jagang to get past thebarriers in that place," Kahlan said. That much ofit was one worry they could set aside. "Jagangknows that and might not waste time holding an armythere for nothing."

"You may be right, but that still doesn't do usany good—it's too far."

Too far. Kahlan seized Richard's arm and draggedhim to a halt. "The sliph. If we can find one ofher wells, we could travel in the sliph. If nothingelse, we know there's the well down here in the OldWorld— in Tanimura. Even that's a lot closer than a 
journey overland all the way to Aydindril."

Richard looked north. "That might work. Wewouldn't have to make it past Jagang's army. Wecould come right up inside the Keep." He put hisarm around her shoulders. "First, though, we haveto see to this other business." 

Kahlan grinned. "All right. We take care of mefirst, then we see to taking care of you."

She felt a heady sense of relief that there wasa solution at hand. The rest of them couldn't 
travel in the sliph—they didn't have the requiredmagic—but Richard, Kahlan, and Cara certainlycould. They could come up right in the Keep itself.

The Keep was immense, and thousands of yearsold. Kahlan had spent much of her life there, butshe had seen only a fraction of the place. EvenZedd hadn't seen it all, because of some of theshields that had been placed there ages ago bythose with both sides of the gift, and Zedd hadonly the Additive side. Rare and dangerous items ofmagic had been stored there for eons, along withrecords and countless books. By now it was possiblethat Zedd and Adie had found something in the Keepthat would help drive the Imperial Order back tothe Old World. 

Not only would going to the Keep be a way tosolve Richard's problem with the gift, but it might 


provide them with something they needed to swingthe tide of the war back to their side. 

Suddenly, seeing Zedd, Aydindril, and the Keepseemed only a short time away.

With a renewed sense of optimism, Kahlansqueezed Richard's hand. She knew that he wanted tokeep scouting ahead. "I'm going to go back and seehow Jennsen is doing."
As Richard moved on and Kahlan slowed, letting thewagon catch up with her, another dozen black-tippedraces drifted in on the air currents high above theburning plain. They stayed close to the sun, andwell out of range of Richard's arrows, but theystayed within sight.

Tom handed a waterskin down to Kahlan when the 
bouncing wagon rattled up beside her. She was sodry that she gulped the hot water without caringhow bad it tasted. As she let the wagon roll past,
she put a boot in the iron rung and boosted herselfup and over the side.

Jennsen looked to be happy for the company asKahlan climbed in. Kahlan returned the smile before 
sitting beside Richard's sister and the pulingBetty.
"How is she?" Kahlan asked, gently stroking Betty'sfloppy ears.

Jennsen shook her head. "I've never seen her 
like this. It's breaking my heart. It reminds me ofhow hard it was for me when I lost my mother. It'sbreaking my heart."

As she sat back on her heels, Kahlan squeezedJennsen's hand sympathetically. "I know it's hard,
but it's easier for an animal to get over somethinglike this than for people to do the same. Don'tcompare it to you and your mother. Sad as this is,
it's different. Betty can have more kids and she'llforget all about this. You or I never could."

Before the words were out, Kahlan felt a suddenstab of pain for the unborn child she had lost. Howcould she ever get over losing her and Richard's 


child? Even if she ever had others, she would neverbe able to forget what was lost at the hands ofbrutes. 

She idly turned the small dark stone on thenecklace she wore, wondering if she ever would havea child, wondering if there would ever be a worldsafe for a child of theirs. 
"Are you all right?"
Kahlan realized that Jennsen was watching her face.
Kahlan forced herself to put on a smile. "I'm justsad for Betty."
Jennsen ran a tender hand over the top of Betty'shead. "Me too." 
"But I know that she'll be all right."

Kahlan watched the endless expanse of groundslowly slide by to either side of the wagon. Wavesof heat made the horizon liquid, with detachedpools of ground floating up into the sky. Still,
they saw nothing growing. The land was slowlyrising, though, as they came ever closer to distantmountains. She knew that it was only a matter oftime until they reached life again, but right thenit felt like they never would.

"I don't understand about something," Jennsensaid. "You told me how I shouldn't do anythingrash, when it came to magic, unless I was sure ofwhat would happen. You said it was dangerous. Yousaid not to act in matters of magic until you canbe sure of the consequence."
Kahlan knew what Jennsen was driving at. "That'sright."

"Well, that back there pretty much seemed likeone of those stabs in the dark you warned meabout." 

"I also told you that sometimes you had nochoice but to act immediately. That's what Richarddid. I know him. He used his best judgment."

Jennsen looked to be satisfied. "I'm not 
suggesting that he was wrong. I'm just saying thatI don't understand. It seemed pretty reckless to 


me. How am I supposed to know what you mean whenyou tell me not to do anything reckless if itinvolves magic?"

Kahlan smiled. "Welcome to life with Richard. 
Half the time I don't know what's in his head. I've 
often thought he was acting recklessly and itturned out to be the right thing, the only thing,
he could have done. That's part of the reason hewas named Seeker. I'm sure he took into account 
things he sensed that even I couldn't."

"But how does he know those things? How can heknow what to do?" 

"Oftentimes he's just as confused as you, oreven me. But he's different, too, and he's surewhen we wouldn't be." 
"Different?" 

Kahlan looked over at the young woman, at herred hair shining in the afternoon sunlight. "He wasborn with both sides of the gift. All those bornwith the gift in the last three thousand years havebeen born with Additive Magic only. Some, likeDarken Rahl and the Sisters of the Dark, have beenable to use Subtractive Magic, but only through theKeeper's help—not on their own. Richard alone hasbeen born with Subtractive Magic."

"That's what you mentioned last night, but Idon't know anything about magic, so I don't knowwhat that means." 

"We're not exactly sure of everything it meansourselves. Additive Magic uses what is there, andadds to it, or changes it somehow. The magic of theSword of Truth, for example, uses anger, and addsto it, takes power from it, adds to it until it'ssomething else. With Additive, for example, thegifted can heal.

"Subtractive Magic is the undoing of things. Itcan take things and make them nothing. According toZedd, Subtractive Magic is the counter to Additive,
as night is to day. Yet it is all part of the samething. 


 "Commanding Subtractive, as Darken Rahl did, isone thing, but to be born with it is quite another.

"Long ago, unlike now, being born with the gift—
both sides of the gift—was common. The great warthen resulted in a barrier sealing the New Worldoff from the Old. That's kept the peace all thistime, but things have changed since then. Afterthat time, not only have those born with the giftgradually become exceedingly rare, but those whohave been born with the gift haven't been born withthe Subtractive side of it. 

"Richard was born of two lines of wizards,
Darken Rahl and his grandfather Zedd. He's also thefirst in thousands of years to be born with bothsides of the gift.

"All of our abilities contribute to how we're 
able to react to situations. We don't know how 
having both sides contributes to Richard's abilityto read a situation and do what's necessary. Isuspect he may be guided by his gift, perhaps morethan he believes." 

Jennsen let out a troubled sigh. "After all thistime, how did this barrier come to be down,
anyway?"
"Richard destroyed it."

Jennsen looked up in astonishment. "Then it'strue. Sebastian told me that the Lord Rahl—Richard— 
had brought the barrier down. Sebastian said it wasso that Richard could invade and conquer the OldWorld." 

Kahlan smiled at such a grandiose lie. "Youdon't believe that part of it, do you?"
"No, not now."

"Now that the barrier is down, the ImperialOrder is flooding up into the New World, destroyingor enslaving everything before them."
"Where can people live that's safe? Where can we?"
"Until they're stopped or driven back, there is nosafe place to live."

Jennsen thought it over a moment. "If the 


barrier coming down let the Imperial Order flood into conquer the New World, why would Richard havedestroyed it?"

With one hand, Kahlan held on to the side of thewagon as it rocked over a rough patch of ground.
She stared ahead, watching Richard walking throughthe glaring light of the wasteland.

"Because of me," Kahlan said in a quiet voice.
"One of those mistakes I told you about." She letout a tired sigh. "One of those stabs in the dark." 

C H A P T E 
R 8 

Richard squatted down, resting his forearmsacross his thighs as he studied the curious patchof rock. His head was pounding with pain; he wasdoing his best to ignore it. The headache had comeand gone seemingly without reason. At times he hadbegun to think that it just might be the heat afterall, and not the gift.

As he considered the signs on the ground, heforgot about his headache.

Something about the rock seemed familiar. Notsimply familiar, but unsettlingly familiar.

Hooves partially covered by long wisps of wirybrown hair came to an expectant halt beside him.
With the top of her head, Betty gently butted hisshoulder, hoping for a snack, or at least ascratch. 

Richard looked up at the goat's intent, floppy-
eared expression. As Betty watched him watchingher, her tail went into a blur of wagging. Richardsmiled and scratched behind her ears. Betty bleatedher pleasure at the scratch, but it sounded to himlike she would have preferred a snack.

After not eating for two days as she lay in 


misery in the wagon, the goat seemed to come backto life and begin to recover from the loss of hertwo kids. Along with her appetite, Betty'scuriosity had returned. She especially enjoyedscouting with Richard, when he would let hercomealong. It made Jennsen laugh to watch the goattrotting after him like a puppy. Maybe what reallymade her laugh was that Betty was getting back toher old self. 

In recent days the land had changed, too. Theyhad begun to see the return of life. At first, ithad simply been the rusty discoloration of lichengrowing on the fragmented rock. Soon after, theyspotted a small thorny bush growing in a low place.
Now the rugged plants grew at widely spacedintervals, dotting the landscape. Betty appreciatedthe tough bushes, dining on them as if they werethe finest salad greens. On occasion the horsessampled the brush, then turned away, never findingit to their liking.

Lichen that had begun to grow on the rockappeared as crusty splotches streaked with color.
In some places it was dark, thick, and leathery,
while in other spots it was no more than whatalmost appeared to be a coat of thin green paint.
The greenish discoloration filled cracks andcrevasses and coated the underside of stones where 
the sun didn't bleach it out. Rocks stickingpartway out of the crumbly ground could be pulledup to reveal thin tendrils of dark brownsubterranean fungal growth.

Tiny insects with long feelers skittered fromrock to rock or hid in holes in the scattering ofrocks lying about on the ground that looked as ifthey had once been boiling and bubbling, and hadsuddenly turned to stone, leaving the bubblesforever set in place. An occasional glossy greenbeetle, bearing wide pincer jaws, waddled throughthe sand. Small red ants stacked steep ruddy moundsof dirt around their holes. There were cottony webs 


of spiders in the crotches of the isolated, small,
spindly brush growing sporadically across the everrising plain. Slender light green lizards sat onrocks basking in the sun, watching the people pass.
If they came too close, the little creatures,
lightning quick, darted for cover.

The signs of life Richard had so far seen werestill a long way from being anything substantialenough to support people, but it was at least arelief to once again feel like he was rejoining theworld of the living. He knew, too, that up beyondthe first wall of mountains they would at lastencounter life in abundance. He also knew that 
there they would again begin to encounter people.

Birds, as well, were just beginning to become acommon sight. Most were small—strawberry-coloredfinches, ash-colored gnatcatchers, rock wrens andblack-throated sparrows. In the distance Richardsaw single birds winging through the blue sky,
while sparrows congregated in small skittishflocks. Here and there, birds lit on the scragglybrush, flitting about looking for seeds and bugs.
The birds disappeared instantly whenever the racesglided into sight.

Staring at the expanse of rock and open groundbefore him, Richard rose up, startled, as thereason it looked unsettlingly familiar came to him.
At the same time as the realization came to him,
his headache vanished. 

Off to his right, Richard saw Kahlan, with Caraat her side, making their way out to where Richardstood staring down at the astonishing stretch ofrock. The wagon, with Tom, Friedrich, and Jennsen,
rumbled on in the distance to the south. The dust 
raised by the wagon and horses hung in the dead airand could be seen for miles. Richard supposed thatwith the races periodically paying them a visit,
the telltale of the dust didn't much matter. Still,
he would be glad when they reached ground wherethey could at least have a chance to try to remain 


a little more inconspicuous.

"Find anything interesting?" Kahlan asked as shewiped her sleeve across her forehead.

Richard cast a few small pebbles down at thestretch of rock he'd been studying. "Tell me whatyou think of that."
"I think you look like you feel better," Kahlansaid. 

Her eyes on his, she gave him her special smile,
the smile she gave no one but him. He couldn't helpgrinning.

Cara, ignoring the smiles that passed betweenRichard and Kahlan, leaned in for a gander. "Ithink Lord Rahl has been looking at too many rocks.
This is more rock, just like all the rest."

"Is it?" Richard asked. He gestured at the areahe'd been scrutinizing and then pointed at anotherplace by where Kahlan and Cara stood. "Is it thesame as that?" 

Cara peered at both areas briefly before shefolded her arms. "The rock over there that you'vebeen looking at is just a paler brown, that's all."

Kahlan shrugged. "I think she's right, Richard.
It looks like the same kind of rock, maybe just alittle more of a tan color." She thought it over amoment as she scanned the ground, then added to herassessment. "I guess it looks more like the rockwe've been walking across for days until we startedencountering a little bit of grass and brush."

Richard put his hands on his hips as he staredback at the remarkable stretch of rock he'd found. 
"Tell me, then, what characterized the rock in theplace where we were before—a few days ago, backcloser to the Pillars of Creation?" 

Kahlan looked over at an expressionless Cara andthen frowned at Richard. "Characterized it? 
Nothing. It was a dead place. Nothing grew there."

Richard waved his hand around, indicating theland through which they were now traveling. "Andthis?" 


 "Now things are growing," Cara said, becomingincreasingly disinterested in his study of floraand fauna. 
Richard held a hand out. "And there?" 

"Nothing is growing there, yet," Cara said in anexasperated sigh. "There are a lot of spots aroundwhere nothing is growing yet. It's still awasteland. Just have patience, Lord Rahl, and wewill soon enough be back among the fields andforests." 

Kahlan wasn't paying attention to what Cara wassaying; she was frowning as she leaned closer.

"The place where things begin to grow seems tostart all at once," Kahlan said, almost to herself.
"Isn't that curious." 
"I certainly think so," Richard said.
"I think Lord Rahl needs to drink more water," Carasniped.

Richard smiled. "Here. Stand over here," he toldher. "Stand over by me and look again."

Cara, her curiosity aroused, did as he asked.
She looked down at the ground, and then frowned atthe places where things grew.

"The Mother Confessor is right." Cara's voicehad taken on a decidedly businesslike tone. "Do youthink it's important? Or somehow a danger?"
"Yes—to the first, anyway," Richard said.
He squatted down beside Kahlan. "Now, look atthis." 
As Kahlan and Cara knelt down beside him, leaningforward, looking closely at the rock, Richard hadto push a curious Betty back out of the way. Hethen pointed out a patch of yellow-streaked lichen.

"Look here," he said. "See this medallion oflichen? It's lopsided. This side is round, but thisside, near where nothing grows, is flatter."

Kahlan looked up at him. "Lichen grows on rocksin all kinds of shapes."

"Yes, but look at how the rock over where thereis lichen and brush growing is spotted all over 


with little bits of growth. Here, beyond thestunted side of the lichen, there is nearlynothing. The rock almost looks scoured clean.

"If you look closely there are a few tinythings, things that have started to grow only inthe last couple of years, but they have yet toreally begin to take hold."

"Yes," Kahlan said in a cautious drawl, "it isodd, but I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"Look at where things are growing, and where theyaren't." 

"Well, yes, on that side there's nothinggrowing, and over here there is."

"Don't just look down." Richard lifted her chin.
"Look out at the boundary between the two—look atthe whole pattern."

Kahlan frowned off into the distance. All of a 
sudden, the color drained from her face.
"Dear spirits ..." she whispered.
Richard smiled that she finally saw what he wastalking about.
"What are you two mooning over?" Cara complained.

Richard put his hand behind Cara's neck andpulled her head in to look at what he and Kahlanwere seeing.

"That's odd," she said, squinting off into thedistance. "The place where things are growing seemto stop in a comparatively clean line— like someonehad made an invisible fence running east."
"Right," Richard said as he got up, brushing hishands clean. 

"Now, come on." He started walking north. Kahlanand Cara scrambled to their feet and followed 
behind as he marched across the lifeless rock. 
Betty bleated and trotted after them.
"Where are we going?" Cara asked as she caught upwith him 
"Just come on," Richard told her.

For half an hour they followed his brisk pace ashe headed in a straight line to the north, across 


rocky ground and gravelly patches where nothing atall grew. The day was sweltering, but Richardalmost didn't notice the heat, so focused was he onthe lifeless expanse they were crossing. He hadn'tyet gone to see what lay at the other side, but hewas convinced of what they would find once theyreached it. 

The other two were sweating profusely as theychased behind him. Betty bleated occasionally asshe brought up the rear.

When they finally reached the place he waslooking for, the place where lichen and scragglybrush once again began to appear, he brought themto a halt. Betty poked her head between Kahlan andCara for a look. 
"Now, look at this," Richard said. "See what Imean?" 

Kahlan was breathing hard from the brisk walk inthe heat. She pulled her waterskin off her shoulderand gulped water. She passed the waterskin toRichard. He watched Cara study the patch of groundas he drank. 

"The growing things start again over here," Carasaid. She absently scratched behind Betty's earswhen the goat rubbed the top of her headimpatiently against Cara's thigh. "They start toappear in the same kind of line as the other side,
back there, where we were."

"Right," Richard said, handing Cara thewaterskin. "Now, follow me."
Cara threw up her arms. "We just came from thatway!"
"Come on," Richard called back over his shoulder.

He headed south again, back toward the center ofthe lifeless patch of rock, the small group in tow.
Betty bleated her displeasure at the pace of thehot dusty excursion. If Kahlan or Cara sharedBetty's opinion, they didn't voice the complaint.

When Richard judged they were back somewhere inthe middle, he stood with his feet spread, his 


fists on his hips, and looked east again. Fromwhere they stood, they couldn't make out the sidesof the lifeless stretch, the places where growthbegan.

Looking to the east, though, the pattern wasevident. A clearly defined strip—miles wide—ran offinto the distance. 

Nothing grew within the bounds of the straightstrip of lifeless desert, whether going over rockor sandy ground. To either side the ground withwidely spaced brush and lichen growing on the rockwas darker. The place where nothing grew was alighter tan. In the distance the discrepancy in thecolor was even more apparent.

The lifeless strip ran straight for mile aftermile toward the far mountains, gradually becomingbut a faint line following the rise of the grounduntil, finally, in the hazy distance, it could nolonger be seen.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kahlanasked in a low, troubled voice.
"What?" Cara asked. "What are you thinking?"

Richard studied the confused concern on the 
Mord-Sith's face. "What kept Darken Rahl's armiesin D'Hara? What prevented him, for so many years,
from invading the Midlands and taking it, eventhough he wanted it?"

"He couldn't cross the boundary," Cara said asif he must be having heat stroke.
"And what made up the boundary?"

At last, Cara's face, framed by the black desertgarb, went white, too. "The boundary was theunderworld?" 

Richard nodded. "It was like a rip in the veil,
where the underworld existed in this world. Zedd 
told us about it. He put the boundary up with aspell he found in the Keep—a spell from thoseancient times of the great war. Once up, theboundary was a place in this world where the worldof the dead also existed. In that place, where both 


worlds touched, nothing could grow."

"But are you so sure things wouldn't still growthere?" Cara asked. "It was still our world, afterall—the world of life." 

"It would be impossible for anything to growthere. The world of life was there, in that spot—
the ground was there—but life couldn't exist thereon that ground because it shared that same spacewith the world of the dead. Anything there would betouched by death."

Cara looked out at the straight, lifeless striprunning off into the wavering distance. "So youthink what? . . . This is a boundary?"
"Was." 
Cara looked from his face, to Kahlan, and again outto the distance. "Dividing what?"

Overhead a flight of black-tipped races cameinto sight, riding the high currents, turning lazycircles as they watched.
"I don't know," Richard admitted.

He looked west again, back down the gradualslope running away from the mountains, back towhere they had been.

"But look," Richard said, gesturing out into theburning wasteland from where they had come. "Itruns back toward the Pillars of Creation." 

As the things growing thinned and eventuallyceased to be back that way, so too did the lifelessstrip. It became indistinguishable from thesurrounding wasteland because there was no life tomark where the line had been. 

"There's no telling how far it runs. For all Iknow," Richard said, "it's possible that it runsall the way back to the valley itself."

"That part makes no sense to me," Kahlan said.
"I can see what you mean about it maybe being likethe boundaries up in the New World, the boundariesbetween Westland, the Midlands, and D'Hara. Thatmuch I follow. But the spirits take me, I don't getwhy it would run to the Pillars of Creation. That 


part just strikes me as more than odd."

Richard turned and gazed back to the east, wherethey were headed, to the rumpled gray wall ofmountains rising steeply up from the broad desertfloor, studying the distant notch that sat a littlenorth of where the boundary line ran toward thosemountains. 

He looked south, to the wagon making its waytoward those mountains. 

"We better catch up with the others," Richardfinally said. "I need to get back to translatingthe book." 

CHAPTER 9 

The spectral spires around Richard glowed under thelingering caress of the low sun. In the amberlight, as he scouted the forsaken brink of thetowering mountains beyond, long pools of shadowwere darkening to the blue-black color of bruises.
The pinnacles of reddish rock stood like stonyguardians along the lower reaches of the desolatefoothills, as if listening for the echoing crunchof his footsteps along the meandering gravel beds.

Richard had felt like being alone to think, sohe had set out to scout by himself. It was hard tothink when people were constantly asking questions.

He was frustrated that the book hadn't yet toldhim anything that would in any way help explain thepresence of the strange boundary line, much lessthe connection of the book's title, the placecalled the Pillars of Creation, and those ungiftedpeople like Jennsen. The book, in the beginningthat he'd so far translated, anyway, appearedmostly to be an historical record dealing with 


unanticipated matters involving occurrences of"pillars of Creation," as those like Jennsen werecalled, and the unsuccessful attempts at "curing"
those "unfortunates." 

Richard was beginning to get the clear sensethat the book was laying a careful foundation ofearly details in preparation for somethingcalamitous. The nearly quaking care of therecounting of every possible course of action thathad been investigated gave him the feeling thatwhoever wrote the book was being painstaking forreasons of consequence.

Not daring to slow their pace, Richard had beentranslating while riding in the wagon. The dialectwas slightly different from the High D'Haran he wasused to reading, so working out the translation wasslow going, especially sitting in the back of thebouncing wagon. He had no way of knowing if thebook would eventually offer any answers, but hefelt a gnawing worry over what the unfoldingaccount was working up to. He would have jumpedahead, but he'd learned in the past that doing sooften wasted more time than it saved, since itinterfered with accurately grasping the wholepicture, which sometimes led to dangerouslyerroneous conclusions. He would just have to keepat it. 

After working all day, focused intently on thebook, he'd ended up with a fierce headache. He'dhad days without them, but now when they came itseemed they were worse each time. He didn't tellKahlan how concerned he was that he wouldn't make 
it to the sliph's well in Tanimura. Besides workingat translating, he racked his brain trying to finda solution. 

While he had no idea what the key to theheadaches brought on by the gift was, he had thenagging feeling that it was within himself. Hefeared it was a matter of balance he was failing tosee. He had even resorted when out alone, once, to 


sitting and meditating as the Sisters had oncetaught him in order to try to focus on the giftwithin. It had been to no avail. 

It would be dark soon and they would need tostop for the night. Since the terrain had changed,
it was no longer a simple task to see if the areaall around them was clear. Now there were placeswhere an army could lie in wait. With the racesshadowing them, there was no telling who might knowwhere to find them. Besides simply wanting a breakto think about what he'd read and what he mightfind within himself to answer the problem of hisheadaches, Richard wanted to check the surroundingarea himself. 

Richard paused for a moment to watch a family ofquail, the juveniles fully grown, hurry across anopen patch of ground. They trotted across theexposed gravel in a line while the father, perchedatop a rock, stood lookout. As soon as they meltedinto the brush, they were again invisible.

Small scraggly pine trees dotted the sweep ofirregular hills, gullies, and rocky outcroppings atthe fringe of the mountains. Up higher, on thenearby slopes, larger conifers grew in greaterabundance. In low, sheltered places clumps of brushlay in thick clusters. Thin grasses covered some ofthe open ground.

Richard wiped sweat from his eyes. He hoped thatwith the sun going down the air might cool alittle. As he made his way along the concealment ofthe base of a runoff channel in a fold of two 
hills, he reached for the strap of his waterskin,
about to take a long drink, when movement on a farhillside caught his attention.

He slipped behind the screen of a long shelf ofrock to stay out of sight. Taking a careful peek,
he saw a man making his way down the loose scree onthe side of the hill. The sound of the rock 
crunching underfoot and sliding down the slope senta distant echo through the rocky canyons. 


 Richard had expected that as they left theforbidding wasteland they might at any time beginencountering people, so he had had everyone changeout of the black outfits of the nomadic desert 
people and back into their unassuming travelingclothes. While he was in black trousers and simpleshirt, his sword was hardly inconspicuous. Kahlan,
as well, had put on simple clothes that were morein keeping with the impoverished people of the OldWorld, but on Kahlan they didn't seem to make muchdifference; it was hard to hide her figure and herhair, but most of all her presence. Once thosegreen eyes of hers fixed on people, they usuallyhad an urge to drop to a knee and bow their head.
Her clothes made little difference. 

No doubt Emperor Jagang had spread theirdescription far and wide and had offered a rewardlarge enough that even his enemies would find ithard to resist. For many in the Old World, though,
the price of continued life under the brutal ruleof the Imperial Order was too high. Despite thereward, there were many who hungered to live freeand were willing to act to gain that goal.

There was also the problem of the bond the LordRahl had with the D'Haran people; through thatancient bond forged by Richard's ancestors,
D'Harans could sense where the Lord Rahl was. The 
Imperial Order could discover where Richard was bythat bond, too. All they had to do was torture theinformation out of a D'Haran. If one person failedto talk under torture, they would not be shy abouttrying others until they learned what they wanted.

As Richard watched, the lone man, once hereached the bottom of the hill, made his way alongthe gravel beds lining the bottom of the rockygullies. Off to Richard's right the wagon andhorses were lifting a long trail of dust. That waswhere the man seemed to be headed. 

At such a distance it was hard to tell for sure,
but Richard doubted that the man was a soldier. He 


wouldn't likely be a scout, not in his ownhomeland, and they weren't near the hotbeds of therevolt against the rule of the Imperial Order.
Richard didn't think there would be any reason forsoldiers to be going this way, through suchuninhabited areas. That was, after all, why he hadpicked this route, heading east to the shadow ofthe mountains before turning to a more northerlyroute back to where they had been.

There was also the possibility that the bond hadinadvertently revealed Richard's whereabouts and anarmy was out looking for him. If the man was asoldier, there could shortly be many more, likeants, swarming down out of the hills.

Richard climbed the back side of a short rockyprominence and lay on his stomach, watching overthe top. As the man got closer, Richard could seethat he looked young, under thirty years, a bitscrawny, and was dressed nothing at all like asoldier. By the way he stumbled, he was not used tothe terrain, or maybe just not used to traveling.
It was tiring walking over ground of loose, sharp,
broken rock, especially if it was on a slope, sinceit never provided any solid place for a steadystride. 

The man stopped, stretching his neck to peer atthe wagon. Panting from the effort of making itdown the slope, he combed his fine blond hair backrepeatedly with his fingers, then bent at the waistand rested a hand on a knee while he caught hisbreath. 

When the man straightened and started out oncemore, crunching through the gravel at the bottom ofthe wash, Richard slid back down the rock. He usedthe intervening lay of the land and patches ofscraggly pine to screen himself from sight. Hepaused from time to time, as he moved closer, tolisten for the heavy footsteps and laboredbreathing, checking his dead-reckoning estimationof where the man would be. 


 From behind a freestanding wall of rock a goodsixty feet tall, Richard carefully peered out for alook. He had managed to close most of the distancewithout the man being aware of his presence.
Richard moved silently from tree to rock to theback side of slopes, until he was out ahead of theman and in his line of travel. 

Still as stone behind a twisted reddish spire ofrock jutting from the broken ground, Richardlistened to the crunch of footfalls approaching,
listened to the man gulping for breath as heclimbed over fingers of rock that lay in his way.

When the man was not six feet away, Richardstepped out right in front of him.

The man gasped, clutching his light travel coatbeneath his chin as he cringed back a step.

Richard regarded the man without outwardemotion, but inside the sword's power churned withthe menace of rage restrained. For an instant,
Richard felt the power falter. The magic of thesword keyed off its master's perception of danger,
so such hesitation could be because the smaller man 
didn't appear to be an immediate threat.

The man's clothes, brown trousers, flaxen shirt,
and a light, frayed fustian coat, had seen betterdays. He looked to have had a rough time of hisjourney—but then, Richard, too, had put onunassuming clothes in order not to raise suspicion.
The man's backpack looked to hold precious little.
Two waterskins, their straps crisscrossed acrosshis chest, bunching the light coat, were flat andempty. He carried no weapons that Richard saw, noteven a knife. 
The man waited expectantly, as if he feared to bethe first to speak.

"You appear to be headed for my friends,"
Richard said, tipping his head toward the thingolden plume of dust hanging like a beacon in thesunlight above the darkening plain, giving the mana chance to explain himself. 


The man, wide-eyed, shoulders hunched, raked backhis hair several times. Richard stood before him 
like a stone pillar, blocking his way. The man'sblue eyes turned to each side, apparently checkingto see if he had an escape route should he decideto bolt. 

"I mean you no harm," Richard said. "I just wantto know what you're up to."
"Up to?"
"Why you're headed for the wagon."

The man glanced toward the wagon, not visiblebeyond the craggy folds of rock, then down atRichard's sword, and finally up into his eyes.
"I'm ... looking for help," he finally said.
"Help?"

The man nodded. "Yes. I'm searching for the onewhose craft is fighting."

Richard cocked his head. "You're looking for asoldier of some kind?" 
He swallowed at the frown on Richard's face. "Yes,
that's right."

Richard shrugged. "The Imperial Order has lotsof soldiers. I'm sure that if you keep looking youwill come across some." 

The man shook his head. "No. I seek the man from 
far away—from far to the north. The man who came tobring freedom to many of the oppressed people ofthe Old World. The man who gives us all hope thatthe Imperial Order—may the Creator forgive theirmisguided ways—will be cast out of our lives sothat we can be at peace once again."
"Sorry," Richard said, "I don't know anyone likethat." 

The man didn't look disappointed by Richard'swords. He looked more like he simply didn't believethem. His fine features were pleasant-looking, eventhough he appeared unconvinced.

"Do you think you could"—the man hesitantlylifted an arm out, pointing—"at least... let mehave a drink?" 


Richard relaxed a bit. "Sure." 

He pulled the strap off his shoulder and tossedhis waterskin to the man. He caught it as if itwere precious glass he feared to drop. He pried atthe stopper, finally getting it free, and startedgulping the water.

He stopped abruptly, lowering the waterskin.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to start drinking allyour water right down."

"It's all right." Richard gestured for him todrink up. "I have more back at the wagon. You lookto need it." 

As Richard hooked a thumb behind his wide 
leather belt, the man bowed his head in thanksbefore tipping the waterskin up for a long drink.

"Where did you hear about this man who fightsfor freedom?" Richard asked. 

The man brought the waterskin down again, hiseyes never leaving Richard as he paused to catchhis breath. "From many a tongue. The freedom he hasspread down here in the Old World has brought hopeto us all." 

Richard smiled inwardly at how the bright hopeof freedom burned even in a dark place like theheart of the Old World. There were peopleeverywhere who hungered for the same things inlife, for a chance to live their life free and bytheir own labor to better themselves. 

Overhead a black-tipped race, wings spread wide,
popped into sight as it glided across the openswath of sky above the rise of rock to each side.
Richard didn't have his bow, but the race stayedout of range, anyway.

The man shrank at seeing the race the way arabbit would shrink when it saw a hawk. 

"Sorry I can't help you," Richard said when therace had disappeared. He checked behind, in thedirection of the wagon, out beyond the nearby hill.
"I'm traveling with my wife and family, looking forwork, for a place to mind our own business." 


 Richard's business was the revolution, if he wasto have a chance for his plan to work, and therewere a number of people waiting on him in thatregard. He had more urgent problems, first, though.
"But, Lord Rahl, my people need—"
Richard spun back around. "Why would you call methat?" 
"I'm, I'm sorry." The man swallowed. "I didn't meanto anger you."
"What makes you think I'm this Lord Rahl?"
The man painted his hand up and down in front ofRichard as he sputtered, trying to find words.
"You, you, you just... are. I can't imagine ...
what else you want me to say. I'm sorry if I haveoffended you by being so forward, Lord Rahl."
Cara stalked out from behind a rocky spire. "Whathave we here?" 

The man gasped in surprise at seeing her as heflinched back yet another step, clutching thewaterskin to his chest as if it were a shield of 
steel. 

Tom, his silver knife to hand, stepped up out ofa gully behind the man, blocking the way should theman decide to run back the way he'd come.

The man turned in a circle to see Tom toweringbehind. As he finally came back around and sawKahlan standing beside Richard, he let out anothergasp. They all were wearing dusty travelingclothes, but somehow Richard didn't suppose that atthat moment they looked at all like simpletravelers in search of work. 
"Please," the man said, "I don't mean any harm."

"Take it easy," Richard said as he stole asidelong glance at Cara— his words meant not onlyfor the man but the Mord-Sith as well. "Are youalone?" Richard asked him. 

"Yes, Lord Rahl. I'm on a mission for my people,
just as I told you. You are of course to beforgiven your aggressive nature—I would expectnothing less. I want you to know I hold no feelings 


of resentment toward you."

"Why does he think you're the Lord Rahl?" Carasaid to Richard in a tone that sounded more 
accusation than question.

"I've heard the descriptions," the man put in.
Still clutching the waterskin to his chest, hepointed with the other hand. "And that sword. I'veheard about Lord Rahl's sword." His gaze movedcautiously to Kahlan. "And the Mother Confessor, ofcourse," he added, dipping his head.
"Of course," Richard sighed.

He'd expected that he would have to hide thesword around strangers, but now he knew just howimportant that was going to be whenever they wentinto any populated areas. The sword would berelatively easy to hide. Not so with Kahlan. Hethought that maybe they could cover her in rags andsay she was a leper.

The man leaned cautiously out, arm extended, andhanded Richard his waterskin. "Thank you, LordRahl." 

Richard took a long drink of the terrible-
tasting water before offering it to Kahlan. Shelifted hers out for him to see as she declined with 
a single shake of her head. Richard took anotherlong swig before replacing the stopper and slingingthe strap back over his shoulder.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Owen." 

"Well, Owen, why don't you come back to campwith us for the night. We can fill up yourwaterskins for you, at least, before you're on yourway in the morning."

Cara was near to bursting as she gritted herteeth at Richard. "Why don't you just let me seeto—" 

"I think Owen has problems we can allunderstand. He's concerned for his friends and 
family. In the morning, he can be on his way, andwe can be on ours." 


 Richard didn't want the man out there somewhere,
in the dark, where they couldn't as easily keep aneye on him as they could if he were in camp. In themorning it would be easy enough to make sure thathe wasn't following them. Cara finally understoodRichard's intent and relaxed. He knew she would 
want any stranger in her sight while Richard andKahlan were sleeping.

Kahlan at his side, Richard started back to thewagon. The man followed, his head swiveling side toside, from Tom to Cara, and back again.

Since they were headed back to the wagon,
Richard finished what water remained in his 
waterskin while, behind, Owen thanked him for theinvitation and promised not to be any trouble.
Richard intended to see to it that Owen kept hispromise. 

CHAPTER 10 

Up in the wagon, Richard dunked Owen's twowaterskins in the barrel that still had water. 
Owen, sitting with his back pressed against awheel, glanced up at Richard from time to time,
watching expectantly, as Cara glared at him. Caraclearly didn't like the fellow, but as protectiveas Mord-Sith were, that didn't necessarily meanthat it was warranted. 

For some reason, though, Richard didn't care forthe man, either. It wasn't so much that he dislikedhim, just that he couldn't warm to the fellow. Hewas polite and certainly didn't look threatening,
but there was something about the man's attitude 


that made Richard feel... edgy.

Tom and Friedrich broke up dried wood they'dcollected, feeding it into the small fire. Thewonderful aroma of pine pitch covered the smell ofthe nearby horses.

From time to time Owen cast a fearful eye atCara, Kahlan, Tom, and Friedrich. By far, though,
he seemed most uneasy about Jennsen. He tried toavert his eyes from her, tried not to look herdirectly in the eye, but his gaze kept being drawnto her red hair shining in the firelight. WhenBetty approached to investigate the stranger, Owenstopped breathing. Richard told Owen that the goatjust wanted attention. Owen gingerly patted the topof Betty's head as if the goat were a gar thatmight take off his arm if he weren't careful.

Jennsen, with a smile and ignoring the way hestared at her hair, offered Owen some of her driedmeat. 
Owen just stared wide-eyed up at her leaning downover him. 

"I'm not a witch," she said to Owen. "Peoplethink my red hair is a sign that I'm a witch. I'mnot. I can assure you, I have no magic."

The edge in her voice surprised Richard,
reminding him that there was iron under thefeminine grace.

Still wide-eyed, Owen said, "Of course not. I,
I... just never saw such ... beautiful hair before,
that's all." 

"Why, thank you," Jennsen said, her smilereturning. She again offered him a piece of driedmeat. 

"I'm sorry," Owen said in polite apology, "but Iprefer not to eat meat, if it's all right withyou."

He quickly reached in his pocket, bringing out acloth pouch holding dried biscuit. He forced asmile at Jennsen as he held out the biscuits. 
"Would you like one of mine?" 


Tom started, glaring at Owen.

"Thanks, no," Jennsen said as she withdrew herextended hand and sat down on a low, flat rock. Shesnagged Betty by an ear and made her lie down ather feet. "You'd best eat the biscuits yourself ifyou don't want meat," she said to Owen. "I'm afraidwe don't have a lot that isn't." 
"Why don't you eat meat?" Richard asked.

Owen looked up over his shoulder at Richard inthe wagon above him. "I don't like the thought ofharming animals just to satisfy my want of food."
Jennsen smiled politely. "That's a kindheartedsentiment." 

Owen twitched a smile before his gaze was drawnonce again to her hair. "It's just the way I feel,"
he said, finally looking away from her.

"Darken Rahl felt the same way," Cara said,
turning the glare on Jennsen. "I saw him horsewhipa woman to death because he caught her eating asausage in the halls of the People's Palace. Itstruck him as disrespectful of his feelings."

Jennsen stared in astonishment. 

"Another time," Cara went on as she chewed abite of sausage, "I was with him when he camearound a corner outside, near the gardens. Hespotted a cavalry man atop his horse eating a meatpie. Darken Rahl lashed out with a flash ofconjured lightning, beheading the man's horse in aninstant—thump, it dropped into the hedge. The manmanaged to land on his feet as the rest of hishorse crashed to the ground. Darken Rahl reachedout, drew the man's sword, and in a fit of angerslashed the belly of the horse open. Then he seizedthe soldier by the scruff of his neck and shovedhis face into the horse's innards, screaming at himto eat. The man tried his best, but ended upsuffocated in the horse's warm viscera." 
Owen covered his mouth as he closed his eyes.

Cara waved her sausage as if indicating DarkenRahl standing before her. "He turned to me, the 


fire gone out of him, and asked me how people could
be so cruel as to eat meat." 
Jennsen, her mouth hanging open, asked, "What did
you say?"
Cara shrugged. "What could I say? I told him I
didn't know." 


"But why would people eat meat, then, if he waslike that?" Jennsen asked. 

"Most of the time, he wasn't. Vendors sold meatat the palace and he usually paid it no mind.
Sometimes he would shake his head in disgust, orcall them cruel, but usually he didn't even takenotice of it." 

Friedrich was nodding. "That was the thing aboutthe man—you never knew what he was going to do. Hemight smile at a person, or have them tortured todeath. You never knew." 

Cara stared into the low flames of the fire 
before her. "There was no way to reason out how hewould react to anything." Her voice took on aquiet, haunted quality. "A lot of people simplydecided that it was only a matter of time until hekilled them, too, and so they lived their lives asthe condemned would, waiting for the axe to fall,
taking no pleasure in life or the thought of theirfuture." 

Tom nodded his grim agreement with Cara'sassessment of life in D'Hara as he fed a crook of 
driftwood into the fire. 
"Is that what you did, Cara?" Jennsen asked.
Cara looked up and scowled. "I am Mord-Sith. Mord-
Sith are always ready to embrace death. We do notwish to die old and toothless." 

Owen, nibbling his dried biscuit as if out ofobligation to eat since the rest of them were, wasclearly shaken by the story. "I can't imagine lifewith such savagery as all of you must live. Wasthis Darken Rahl related to you, Lord Rahl?" Owensuddenly seemed to think he might have made amistake, and rushed to amend his question. "He has 


the same name ... so I thought, well, I justthought—but I didn't mean to imply that I thoughtyou were like him...."

Stepping down from the wagon, Richard handedOwen his full wa-terskins. "He was my father."

"I didn't mean anything by the question. I wouldnever intentionally cast aspersions on a man'sfather, especially a man who—"
"I killed him," Richard said.

Richard didn't feel like elaborating. Herecoiled from the very thought of going into thewhole dreadful tale. 
Owen gaped around as if he were a fawn surroundedby wolves.

"He was a monster," Cara said, appearing to feelthe need to rise to Richard's defense. "Now the 
people of D'Hara have a chance to look forward to afuture of living their lives as they wish."

Richard sat down beside Kahlan. "At least theywill if they can be free of the Imperial Order."
Head down, Owen nibbled on his biscuit as hewatched the others. 

When no one else spoke, Kahlan did. "Why don'tyou tell us your reasons for coming here, Owen."

Richard recognized her tone as that of theMother Confessor asking a polite question meant toput a frightened petitioner at ease.
He dipped his head respectfully. "Yes, MotherConfessor." 
"You know her, too?" Richard asked.
Owen nodded. "Yes, Lord Rahl."
"How?" 
The man's gaze shifted from Richard to Kahlan andback again.

"Word of you and the Mother Confessor has spreadeverywhere. Word of the way you freed the people ofAltur'Rang from the oppression of the ImperialOrder is known far and wide. Those who want freedom 
know that you are the one who gives it."

Richard frowned. "What do you mean, I'm the one 


who gives it?"

"Well, before, the Imperial Order ruled. Theyare brutal—forgive me, they are misguided and don'tknow any better. That is why their rule is sobrutal. Perhaps it isn't their fault. It is not forme to say." Owen looked away as he tried to come upwith words while apparently seeing his own visionsof what the Imperial Order had done to convince himof their brutality. "Then you came and gave peoplefreedom—just as you did in Altur'Rang."

Richard wiped a hand across his face. He neededto translate the book, he needed to find out whatwas behind the thing Cara had touched and theblack-tipped races following them, he needed to getback to Victor and those who were engaged in therevolt against the Order, he was past due to meetNicci, and he needed to deal with his headaches. Atleast, maybe Nicci could help with that much of it.
"Owen, I don't 'give' people freedom."
"Yes, Lord Rahl."

Owen evidently took Richard's words as somethinghe dared not argue with, but his eyes clearly saidthat he didn't believe it. 

"Owen, what do you mean when you say that youthink I give people freedom?"

Owen took a tiny bite of his biscuit as heglanced around at the others. He squirmed hisshoulders in a self-conscious shrug. Finally, hecleared his throat. 

"Well, you, you do what the Imperial Order does—
you kill people." He waved his biscuit awkwardly,
as if it were a sword, stabbing the air. "You killthose who enslave people, and then you give thepeople who were enslaved their freedom so thatpeace can return."

Richard took a deep breath. He wasn't sure ifOwen meant it the way it came out, or if it wasjust that he was having difficulty explaininghimself in front of people who made him nervous.
"That's not exactly the way it is," Richard said. 


 "But that's why you came down here. Everyoneknows it. You came down here to the Old World to 
give people freedom."

Elbows on his knees, Richard leaned forwardrubbing his palms together as he thought about howmuch he wanted to explain. He felt a wave ofcalmness when Kahlan draped a gentle, comfortinghand over the back of his shoulder. He didn't want 
to go into the horror of how he had been takenprisoner and taken from Kahlan, thinking he wouldnever see her again.

Richard put the whole weight of emotion overthat long ordeal aside and took another approach.
"Owen, I'm from up in the New World—"

"Yes, I know," Owen said as he nodded. "And youcame here to free people from—"

"No. That's not the truth of it. We lived in the 
New World. We were once at peace, apparently muchlike your people were. Emperor Ja-gang—"
"The dream walker." 

"Yes, Emperor Jagang, the dream walker, sent hisarmies to conquer the New World, to enslave ourpeople—"
"My people, too."

Richard nodded. "I understand. I know what a 
horror that is. His soldiers are rampaging upthrough the New World, murdering, enslaving ourpeople."

Owen turned his watery gaze off into thedarkness as he nodded. "My people, too."

"We tried to fight back," Kahlan told him. "Butthere are too many. Their army is far too vast forus to drive them out of our land." 

Owen nibbled his biscuit again, not meeting hergaze. "My people are terrified of the men of theOrder—may the Creator forgive their misguidedways."

"May they scream in agony for all eternity inthe darkest shadow of the Keeper of theunderworld," Cara said in merciless correction. 


Owen stared slack-jawed at such a curse spokenaloud. 

"We couldn't fight them like that—simply drivethem back to the Old World," Richard said, bringingOwen's gaze back to him as he went on with thestory. "So I'm down here, in Jagang's homeland,
helping people who hunger to be free to cast offthe shackles of the Order. While he's awayconquering our land, he has left his own homelandopen to those who hunger for freedom. With Jagangand his armies away, that gives us a chance tostrike at Jagang's soft underbelly, to do himmeaningful harm.

"I'm doing this because it's the only way we canfight back against the Imperial Order—our onlymeans to succeed. If I weaken his foundation, hissource of men and support, then he will have towithdraw his army from our land and return south todefend his own. 

"Tyranny cannot endure forever. By its verynature it rots everything it rules, includingitself. But that can take lifetimes. I'm trying toaccelerate that process so that I and those I lovecan be free in our lifetimes—free to live our own 
lives. If enough people rise up against theImperial Order's rule, it may even loosen Jagang'sgrip on power and bring him and the Order down.

"That's how I'm fighting him, how I'm trying todefeat him, how I'm trying to get him out of myland." 

Owen nodded. 'This is what we need, too. We arevictims of fate. We need for you to come and gethis men out of our land, and then to withdraw yoursword, your ways, from our people so we may live intranquillity again. We need you to give usfreedom." 

The driftwood popped, sending a glowing swirl ofsparks skyward. Richard, hanging his head, tappedhis fingertips together. He didn't think the manhad heard a word he'd said. They needed rest. He 


needed to translate the book. They needed to get towhere they were going. At least he didn't have aheadache. 

"Owen, I'm sorry," he finally said in a quietvoice. "I can't help you in so direct a manner. ButI would like you to understand that my cause is toyour advantage, too, and that what I'm doing willalso cause Jagang to eventually pull his troops outof your homeland as well, or at least weaken theirpresence so that you can throw them outyourselves."

"No," Owen said. "His men will not leave my landuntil you come and .. ." Owen winced. "And destroythem." 
The very word, the implication, looked sickening tothe man. 

"Tomorrow," Richard said, no longer bothering totry to sound polite, "we have to be on our way. Youwill have to be on your way as well. I wish yousuccess in ridding your people of the ImperialOrder." 

"We cannot do such a thing," Owen protested. Hesat up straighten "We are not savages. You andthose like you—the unenlightened ones—it is up toyou to do it and give us freedom, I am the only onewho can bring you. You must come and do as yourkind does. You must give our empire freedom."

Richard rubbed his fingertips across the furrowsof his brow. Cara started to rise. A look from 
Richard sat her back down. 

"I gave you water," Richard said as he stood. "Ican't give you freedom."
"But you must—"

"Double watch tonight," Richard said as heturned to Cara, cutting Owen off.

Cara nodded once as her mouth twisted with a 
satisfied smile of iron determination. 
"In the morning," Richard added, "Owen will be onhis way."

"Yes," she said, her blue-eyed glare sliding to 


Owen, "he certainly will be." 

CHAPTER 11 

What is it?" Kahlan asked as she rode up beside thewagon.

Richard looked to be furious about something.
She saw then that he had the book in one hand; hisother was a fist. He opened his mouth, about tospeak, but when Jennsen, up on the seat beside Tom,
turned back to see what was going on, Richard saidto her instead, "Kahlan and I are going to checkthe road up ahead. Keep your eye on Betty so shedoesn't jump out, will you, Jenn?"
Jennsen smiled at him and nodded. 

"If Betty gives you any trouble," Tom said,
"just let me know and I'll take her to a lady Iknow and have some goat sausages made up."

Jennsen grinned at their private joke and gaveTom a good-natured elbow in his ribs. As Richardclimbed over the side of the wagon and dropped tothe ground, she snapped her fingers at the tail-
wagging goat.

"Betty! You just stay there. Richard doesn'tneed you tagging along every single time."

Betty, front hooves on the chafing rail, bleatedas she looked up at Jennsen, as if asking for herto reconsider. 
"Down," Jennsen said in admonishment. "Lie down."

Betty bleated and reluctantly hopped back downinto the wagon bed, but she would settle for noless than a scratch behind the ears as consolation 
before she would lie down. 

Kahlan leaned over from her seat in the saddle 


and untied the reins to Richard's horse from the 
back of the wagon. He stepped into the stirrup andgracefully swung up in one fluid motion. She couldsee that he was agitated about something, but itmade her heart sing just to look at him.

He shifted his weight forward slightly, urginghis horse ahead. Kahlan squeezed her legs to theside of her own horse to spur her into a canter tokeep up with Richard. He rode out ahead, roundingseveral turns in the flatter land among the roughhillsides, until he caught up with Cara andFriedrich, patrolling out in the lead.

"We're going to check out front for a while," hetold them. "Why don't you fall back and checkbehind." 

Kahlan knew that Richard was sending them to theback because if he took Kahlan to the back under 
the pretense of watching anything that might comeup on them from behind, Cara would keep fallingback to check on them. If they were out front, Carawouldn't worry about them dropping back and gettinglost. 

Cara laid her reins over and turned back. Sweat 
stuck Kahlan's shirt to her back as she leaned over 
her horse's withers, urging her ahead as Richard'shorse sprang away. Despite the clumps of tall grassdotting the foothills and occasional sparse patchesof woods, the heat was still with them. It cooledsome at night, now, but the days were hot, with thehumidity increasing as the clouds built up againstthe wall of mountains to their right.

Up close, the barrier of rugged mountains to theeast was an intimidating sight. Sheer rock wallsrose up below projecting plateaus heaped to theirvery edge with loose rock crumbled from yet higherplateaus and walls, as if the entire range was allgradually crumbling. With drops of thousands offeet at the fringe of overhanging shelves of rock,
climbing such unstable scree would be impossible.
If there were passes through the arid slopes, they 


were no doubt few and would prove difficult.

But making it past those gray mountains ofscorching rock, they could now see, was hardly thebiggest problem.

Those closer mountains spreading north and southin the burning heat at the edge of the desertpartially hid what lay to the other side—a far moredaunting range of snowcapped peaks rising up tocompletely block any passage east. Those imposingmountains were beyond the scale of any Kahlan hadever seen. Not even the most rugged of theRang'Shada Mountains in the Midlands were theirmatch. These mountains were like a race of giants.
Precipitous walls of rock soared thousands of feetstraight up. Harrowing slopes rose unbroken by anypass or rift and were so arduous that few treescould find a foothold. Lofty snow-packed peaks thatascended majestically above windswept clouds werejammed so close together that it reminded her moreof a knife's long jagged edge than separatesummits. 

The day before, when Kahlan had seen Richardstudying those imposing mountains, she had askedhim if he thought there was any way across them. Hehad said no, that the only way he could see to getbeyond was possibly the notch he'd spotted before,
when he had found the place where the strangeboundary had once been, and that notch still laysome distance north. 

For now, they skirted the dry side of the closermountains as that range made its way north alongthe more easily traversed lowlands.

Along the base of a gentle hill covered inclumps of brown grasses, Richard finally slowed hishorse. He turned in his saddle, checking that theothers were still coming, if a goodly distancebehind. 
He pulled his horse close beside her. "I skippedahead in the book." 

Kahlan didn't like the sound of that. "When I 


asked you before why you didn't skip ahead, yousaid that it wasn't a wise thing to do.'\

"I know, but I wasn't really getting anywhereand we need answers^ As their horses settled into a 
comfortable walk, Richard rubbed his shoulders.
"After all that heat I can't believe how cold it's 
getting."
"Cold? What are you—"

"You know those rare people like Jennsen?" Theleather of his saddle squeaked as he leaned towardher. "Ones born pristinely ungifted— without eventhat tiny spark of the gift? The pillars ofCreation? Well, back when this book was written,
they weren't so rare."
"You mean it was more common for them to be born?" 

"No, the ones who had been born began to growup, get married, and have children—ungiftedchildren." 

Kahlan looked over in surprise. "The brokenlinks in the chain of the gift that you weretalking about, before?"

Richard nodded. "They were children of the LordRahl. Back then, it wasn't like it has been inrecent times with Darken Rahl, or his father. Fromwhat I can tell, all the children of the Lord Rahland his wife were part of his family, and treatedas such, even though they were born with thisproblem. It seems that the wizards tried to helpthem— both the direct offspring, and then theirchildren, and their children. They tried to curethem." 
"Cure them? Cure them of what?" 

Richard lifted his arms in a heated gesture offrustration. "Of being born ungifted—of being bornwithout even that tiny spark of the gift likeeveryone else has. The wizards back then tried torestore the breaks in the link." 

"How did they think they would be able to curesomeone of not having even the spark of the gift?"

Richard pressed his lips together as he thought 


of a way to explain it_"Well, you know the wizardswho sent you across the boundary to find Zedd?"
"Yes," Kahlan said in a suspicious drawl.

"They weren't born with the gift—born wizards,
that is. What were they—second or third wizards?
Something like that? You told me about them, once."
He snapped his fingers as it came to him. "Wizardsof the third Order. Right?"

"Yes. Just one, Giller, was the Second Order.
None were able to pass the tests to be a wizard ofthe First Order, like Zedd, because they didn'thave the gift. Being wizards was their calling, butthey weren't gifted in the conventional sense—butthey still had that spark of the gift that everyonehas." 

"That's what I'm talking about," Richard said.
"They weren't born with the gift to be wizards—justthe spark of it like everyone else. Yet Zeddsomehow trained them to be able to use magic—to bewizards— even though they weren't born that way,
born with the gift to be wizards."
"Richard, that was a lifetime of work."
"I know, but the point is that Zedd was able tohelp them to be wizards—at least wizards enough topass his tests and conjure magic."

"Yes, I suppose. When I was young they taught meabout the workings of magic and the Wizard's Keep,
about those people and creatures in the Midlandswith magic. They may not have been born with thegift, but they had worked a lifetime to becomewizards. They were wizards," she insisted.

Richard's mouth turned up with the kind of smilethat told her that she had just framed the essenceof his argument for him. "But they had not beenborn with that aspect, that attribute, of thegift." He leaned toward her. "Zedd, besidestraining them, must have used magic to help thembecome wizards, right?"

Kahlan frowned at the thought. "I don't know.
They never told me about their training to become 


wizards. That was never germane to theirrelationship with me or my training."

"But Zedd has Additive Magic," Richard pressed.
"Additive can change things, add to them, make themmore than they are."
"All right," Kahlan cautiously agreed. "What's thepoint?"

"The point is that Zedd took people who weren'tborn with the gift to be wizards and he trainedthem but—more importantly—he must have also usedhis power to help them along that path by alteringhow they were born. He had to have added to theirgift to make them more than they were born to be."
Richard glanced over at her as his horse steppedaround a small, scraggly pine. "He altered peoplewith magic."

Kahlan let out a deep breath as she looked awayfrom Richard and ahead at the gentle spread ofgrassy hills to either side of them, as she triedto fully grasp the concept of what he was saying.

"I never considered that before, but all right,"
she finally said. "So, what of it?"

"We thought that only the wizards of old coulddo such a thing, but, apparently, it's not a lostart nor would it be entirely so far-fetched as Ihad imagined for the wizards back then to believethey could change what was, into what they thoughtit ought to be. What I'm saying is that, like whatZedd did to give people that with which they werenot born, so too did the wizards of old try to givepeople born as pillars of Creation a spark of thegift."

Kahlan felt a chill of realization. The 
implication was staggering. Not just the wizards ofold, but Zedd, too, had used magic to alter thevery nature of people, the very nature of what theywere, how they were born.

She supposed that he had only helped them toachieve what was their greatest ambition in life—
their calling—by enhancing what they already had 


been born with. He helped them to reach their fullpotential. But that was for men who had the innatepotential. While the wizards of long ago probablyhad done similar things to help people, they hadalso sometimes used their power for less benevolentreasons. 

"So," he said, "the wizards back then, who wereexperienced in altering people's abilities, thoughtthat these people called the pillars of Creationcould be cured." 

"Cured of not having been born gifted," she saidin a flat tone of incredulity.

"Not exactly. They weren't trying to make theminto wizards, but they thought they could at leastbe cured of not having that infinitesimal spark ofthe gift that simply enabled them to interact withmagic."
Kahlan took a purging breath. "So then whathappened?"

"This book was written after the great war hadended—after the barrier had been created and the 
Old World had been sealed away. It was writtenafter the New World was at peace, or, at least,
after the barrier kept the Old World contained.

"But remember what we found out before? That we 
think that during the war Wizard Ricker and histeam had done something to halt Sub-tractiveMagic's ability to be passed on to the offspring ofwizards? Well, after the war, those born with thegift started becoming increasingly uncommon, andthose who were being born were being born withoutthe Subtractive side." 

"So, after the war," she said, "those who wereborn with the gift of both Additive and Subtractivewere rapidly becoming nonexistent. We already knewthat." 

"Right." Richard leaned toward her and liftedthe book. "But then, when there are fewer wizardsbeing born, all of a sudden the wizardsadditionally realize that they have all these 


pristinely ungifted—breaks altogether in the linkto magic—on their hands. Suddenly, on top of theproblem of the birth rate of those with the gift tobe wizards dropping, they were faced with what theycalled pillars of Creation."

Kahlan swayed in the saddle as she thought aboutit, trying to imagine the situation at the Keep atthe time. "I can see that they would have beenpretty concerned."
His voice lowered meaningfully. "They weredesperate."

Kahlan laid her reins over, moving in behindRichard as his horse stepped around an ancient,
fallen tree that had been bleached silver from the 
sweltering sun.

"So, I suppose," Kahlan asked as she walked herhorse back up beside him, "that the wizards startedto do the same thing Zedd did? Trained those whohad the calling—those who wished to be wizards buthad not been born with the gift?"

"Yes, but back then," Richard said, "theytrained those with only Additive to be able to usethe Subtractive, too, like full wizards of thetime. As time went on, though, even that was beinglost to them, and they were only able to do whatZedd did—train men to be wizards but they couldonly wield Additive Magic.

"But that isn't really what the book is about,"
Richard said as he gestured dismissively. "That wasjust a side point to record what they hadattempted. They started out with confidence. Theythought that these pillars of Creation could becured of being pristinely ungifted, much likewizards with only Additive could be trained to useboth sides of the magic, and those without the giftfor wizardry could be made wizards able to use atleast the Additive side of it." 

The way he used his hands when he talkedreminded her of the way Zedd did when he becameworked up. "They tried to modify the very nature of 


how these people had been born. They tried to takepeople without any spark of the gift, and alterthem in a desperate attempt to give them theability to interact with magic. They weren't justadding or enhancing, they were trying to createsomething out of nothing."

Kahlan didn't like the sound of that. They knewthat in those ancient times the wizards had greatpower, and they altered people with the gift,
manipulated their gift, to suit a specific purpose.
They created weapons out of people.
In the great war, Jagang's ancestors were one suchweapon: dream walkers. Dream walkers were createdto be able to take over the minds of people in theNew World and control them. Out of desperation, thebond of the Lord Rahl was created to counter that 
weapon, to protect a people from the dream walkers.

Any number of human weapons were conjured fromthe gifted. Such changes were often profound, andthey were irrevocable. At times, the creations weremonsters of boundless cruelty. From this heritage,
Ja-gang had been born.

During that great war, one of the wizards whohad been put on trial for treason refused to revealwhat damage he had done. When even torture failedto gain the man's confession, the wizardsconducting the trial turned to the talents of awizard named Merritt and ordered the creation of a 
Confessor. Magda Searus, the first Confessor,
extracted the man's confession. The tribunal was so 
pleased with the results of Wizard Merritt'sconjuring that they commanded that an order ofConfessors be created. 

Kahlan felt no different than other people felt,
she was no less human, no less a woman, loved lifeno less, but her Confessor's power was the resultof that conjuring. She, too, was a descendant ofwomen altered to be weapons—in this case weaponsdesigned to find the truth.
"What's the matter?" Richard asked. 


 She glanced over and saw the look of concern onhis face. Kahlan forced a smile and shook her head 
that it was nothing.
"So what is it that you discovered by jumping aheadin the book?" 

Richard took a deep breath as he folded hishands over the pommel of the saddle. "Essentially,
they were attempting to use color in order to helppeople born without eyes ... to see."

From Kahlan's understanding of magic and ofhistory, this was fundamentally different from eventhe most malevolent experiments to alter peopleinto weapons. Even in the most vile of theseinstances, they were attempting to take away someattribute of their humanity and at the same timeadd to or enhance an elemental ability. In none ofit were they trying to create that which was notthere at all. 
"In other words," Kahlan summed up, "they failed."

Richard nodded. "So, here they were, the greatwar was long over and the Old World—those who hadwanted to end magic, much like the Imperial Order—
was safely sealed away beyond the barrier that hadbeen created. Now they find out that the birth rateof those carrying the gift of wizardry isplummeting, and that the magic engendered by theHouse of Rahl, the bond with his people designed tostop the dream walkers from taking them, has anunexpected consequence—it also gives birth to thepristinely ungifted, who are an irreversible breakin the lineage of magic."

"They have two problems, then," Kahlan said.
"They have fewer wizards being born to deal withproblems of magic, and they have people being bornwith no link at all to the magic."

"That's right. And the second problem wasgrowing faster than the first. In the beginning,
they thought they would find a solution, a cure.
They didn't. Worse, as I explained before, thoseborn of the pristinely ungifted, like Jennsen, 


always bear children the same as they. In a few
generations, the number of the people without the
link to the gift was growing faster than anyone
ever expected."
Kahlan let out a deep breath. "Desperate indeed."
"It was becoming chaos."
She hooked a loose strand of hair back. "What did 
they decide?"


Richard regarded her with one of those looksthat told her he was pretty disturbed by what he'dfound. 

"They chose magic over people. They deemed thatthis attribute— magic, or those who possessed it—
was more important than human life." His voicerose. "Here they took the very thing they foughtthe war over, the right of those who were born theway they were—in that case people born with magic—
to their own lives, to exist, and they turned itall around to be that this attribute was more 
important than the life which held it!"

He let out a breath and lowered his voice. 
"There were too many to execute, so they did thenext best thing—they banished them."
Kahlan's eyebrows went up. "Banished them? Towhere?" 
Richard leaned toward her with fire in his eyes.
"The Old World." 
"What!" 

Richard shrugged, as if speaking on behalf ofthe wizards back then, mocking their reasoning.
"What else could they do? They could hardly executethem; they were friends and family. Many of thosenormal people with the spark of the gift—but whowere not gifted as wizards or sorceresses and sodidn't think of themselves as gifted—had sons,
daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins, neighbors who had married these pristinelyungifted, these pillars of Creation. They were partof society—a society which was less and lesspopulated by the truly gifted. 


 "In a society where they were increasinglyoutnumbered and mistrusted, the ruling giftedcouldn't bring themselves to put all these taintedpeople to death."
"You mean they even considered it?"

Richard's eyes told her that they had and whathe thought of the notion. "But in the end, theycouldn't. At the same time, after tryingeverything, they now realized that they couldn'tever restore the link to magic once it was brokenby these people, and such people were marrying andhaving children, and the children were marrying andhaving children—who in every case passed along thistaint. And, those so tainted were increasing innumbers faster than anyone had imagined.

"As far as the gifted were concerned, their veryworld was threatened, in much the same way it hadbeen threatened by the war. That was, after all,
what those in the Old World had been trying to do—
destroy magic—and here it was, the very thing theyfeared, happening.

"They couldn't repair the damage, they couldn'tstop it from spreading, and they couldn't put todeath all those among them. At the same time, withthe taint multiplying, they knew that they wererunning out of time. So, they settled on what tothem was the only way out— banishment."
"And they could cross the barrier?" she asked.

"Those with the gift, for all practicalpurposes, were prevented from crossing the barrier,
but for those who were pillars of Creation, magicdid not exist; they were unaffected by it, so, tothem, the barrier was not an obstacle."

"How could those in charge be sure they had allthe pillars of Creation? If any escaped, thebanishment would fail to solve their problem."

"Those with the gift—wizards and sorceresses—cansomehow recognize those pristinely ungifted forwhat they are: holes in the world, as Jennsen saidthose like her were called. The gifted can see 


them, but not sense them with their gift.
Apparently, it wasn't a problem to know who thepillars of Creation were."

"Can you tell any difference?" Kahlan asked.
"Can you sense Jennsen as being different? Being ahole in the world?" 
"No. But I've not been taught to use my ability.
How about you?"

Kahlan shook her head. "I'm not a sorceress, soI guess that I don't have the ability to detectthose like her." She shifted her weight in hersaddle. "So, what happened with those people backthen?" 

"The people of the New World collected all thoseungifted offspring of the House of Rahl and theirevery single last descendant, and sent the wholelot of them across the great barrier, to the OldWorld, where the people had professed that theywanted mankind to be free of magic."

Richard smiled with the irony, even of such agrim event as this. "The wizards of the New World,
in essence, gave their enemy in the Old Worldexactly what they professed to want, what they hadbeen fighting for: mankind without magic."

His smile withered. "Can you imagine decidingthat we had to banish Jennsen and send her into 
some fearful unknown, simply because of the factthat she can't see magic?"

Kahlan shook her head as she tried to envision 
such a time. "What a horror, to be uprooted andsent away, especially to the enemy of your ownpeople."

Richard rode in silence for a time. Finally, hewent on with the story. "It was a terrifying eventfor those banished, but it was also traumaticalmost beyond endurance to those who were left. Canyou even imagine what it must have been like. Allthose friends and relatives suddenly ripped out ofyour life, your family? The disruption to trade andlivelihood?" Richard's words came with bitter 


finality. "All because they decided some attributewas more important than human life."

Just listening to the story, Kahlan felt as ifshe had been through an ordeal. She watched Richardriding beside her, staring off, lost in his ownthoughts.

"Then what?" she finally asked. "Did they everhear from those who were banished?" 

He shook his head. "No, nothing. They were nowbeyond the great barrier. They were gone."

Kahlan stroked her horse's neck, just to feelthe comfort of something alive. "What did they doabout those who were born after that?" 
Still he stared off. "Killed them." 

Kahlan swallowed in revulsion. "I can't imaginehow they could do that."

"They could tell, once the child was born, if itwas ungifted. It was said to be easier then, beforeit was named." 

Kahlan couldn't find her voice for a moment. 
"Still," she said in a weak voice, "I can't imagineit." 

"It's no different from what Confessors did 
about the birth of male Confessors." 

His words cut through her. She hated the memoryof those times. Hated the memory of a male childbeing born to a Confessor. Hated the memory of thembeing put to death by command of the mother.

There was said to be no choice. Male Confessors 
in the past had had no self-control over theirpower. They became monsters, started wars, causedunimaginable suffering.

It was argued that there was no choice but toput a male child of a Confessor to death, beforethey were named.

Kahlan couldn't force herself to look up intoRichard's eyes. The witch woman, Shota, hadforetold that she and Richard would conceive a male 
child. Neither Kahlan nor Richard would ever for an 
instant consider harming any child of theirs, a 


child resulting from their love for one another,
from their love of life. She couldn't imagineputting a child of theirs to death for being born amale child of her as a Confessor, or an ungiftedmale or female child of Richard for being a Rahl.
How could anyone say that such a life had no rightto exist because of who they were, what they werelike, or what they might possibly become.

"Somewhere along the line after this book waswritten," Richard said in a quiet voice, "thingschanged. When this book was written, the Lord Rahlof D'Hara always married, and they knew when heproduced an offspring. When the child waspristinely ungifted, they ended its life asmercifully as they could.

"At some point, ruling wizards of the House ofRahl became like Darken Rahl. They took any womanthey wanted, whenever they wanted. The details,
such as if an ungifted child born of thosecouplings was actually a pillar of Creation, becameunimportant to them. They simply killed anyoffspring, except the gifted heir."

"But they were wizards—they could have toldwhich ones were like that and at least not killed 
the rest." 

"If they wanted, I suppose they could have, but,
like Darken Rahl, their only interest was in thesingle gifted heir. They simply killed the rest."

"So, such offspring hid for fear of their lifeand one managed to escape the grasp of Darken Rahluntil you killed him first. And so you have asister, Jennsen."
Richard's smile returned. "And so I do." 

Kahlan followed his gaze and saw distant specks,
black-tipped races, watching, as they soared on theupdrafts of the high cliffs of the mountains to theeast. 

She took a purging breath of the hot, humid air.
"Richard, those ungifted offspring that werebanished to the Old World, do you think they 


survived?" 
"If the wizards in the Old World didn't slaughter
them." 


"But everyone down here in the Old World is thesame as in the New World. I've fought against thesoldiers from here—with Zedd and the Sisters of the 
Light. We used magic of every sort to try to haltthe Order's advance. I can tell you firsthand thatall those from the Old World are affected by magic,
so that means they all are born with that spark ofthe gift. There are no broken links in the chain ofmagic in the Old World."
"From everything I've seen down here, I'd have toagree."

Kahlan wiped sweat from her brow. It was runninginto her eyes. "So what happened to those banishedpeople?"

Richard gazed off toward the mountains beneaththe races. "I can't imagine. But it must have beenhorrifying for them."

"So you think that maybe that was the end ofthem? That maybe they perished, or were put todeath?" 

He regarded her with a sidelong glance. "I don'tknow. But what I'd like to know is why that placeback there is named the same as they were called inthis book: the Pillars of Creation." His eyes tookon a menacing gleam. "And far worse yet, I'd liketo know why, as Jennsen told us, a copy of thisbook is among Jagang's most prized possessions."

That troublesome thought had been runningthrough Kahlan's mind as well.

She looked up at him from beneath a frown.
"Maybe you shouldn't have skipped ahead in yourreading of the book, Lord Rahl."

Richard's fleeting smile wasn't all she'd hopedfor. "I'll be relieved if that's the biggestmistake I've made, lately."
"What do you mean?"

He raked his hair back. "Is anything different 


about your Confessor's power?"

"Different?" Almost involuntarily, his questioncaused her to draw back, to focus inwardly, to takestock of the force she always felt within herself.
"No. It feels the same as always."

The power coiled in the core of her being didnot need to be summoned when there was need of it. 
As always, it was there at the ready; it onlyrequired that she release her restraint of it forit to be unleashed. 

"There's something wrong with the sword," hesaid, catching her by surprise. "Wrong with itspower."

Kahlan couldn't imagine what to make of such anotion. "How can you tell? What's different?"

Richard idly stroked his thumbs along the reinsturned back over his fingers. "It's hard to defineexactly what's different. I'm just used to thefeeling of it being at my beck and call. Itresponds when I need it, but for some reason itseems to be hesitant about doing so."

Kahlan felt that now, more than ever, theyneeded to get back to Aydindril and see Zedd. Zeddwas the keeper of the sword. Even though theycouldn't take the sword through the sliph, Zeddwould be able to give them insight about any nuanceof its power. He would know what to do. He would beable to help Richard with the headaches, too.
And Kahlan knew that Richard needed help. She couldsee that he wasn't himself. His gray eyes held aglaze of pain, but there was something more etchedin his expression, in the way he moved, the way hecarried himself. 

The whole explanation of the book and what hehad discovered seemed to have sapped his strength.
She was beginning to think that it wasn't she,
after all, who was the one running out of time, butthat it was Richard. That thought, despite the warmafternoon sun, sent cold terror racing through her.
Richard checked the others over his shoulder. 


"Let's go back to the wagon. I need to getsomething warmer to put on. It's freezing today." 

114 

CHAPTER 12 

Zedd peered up the deserted street. He could havesworn that he saw someone. Using his gift to searchfor any sign of life told him that there was no oneanywhere around. Still, he remained motionless ashe stared. 
The warm breeze pressed his simple robes againsthis bony frame and gently ruffled his disheveledwhite hair. A tattered, sun-faded blue dress thatsomeone had pinned to a second-floor balconyrailing to dry flapped like a flag in the wind. Thedress, along with a city full of personalpossessions, had long ago been left behind.
The buildings, their walls painted various colorsfrom a rusty red to yellow with shutters in bright,
contrasting hues, stuck out to slightly varyingdegrees on either side of the narrow cobbledstreet, making a canyon of colorful walls. Most ofthe second stories overhung the bottom floors by afew feet, and, with their eaves hanging out evenmore, the buildings closed off the better part ofthe sky except for a snaking slit of afternoonsunlight that followed the sinuous course of thestreet up and over the gentle hill. The doors wereall tightly shut, most of the windows shuttered. Apale green gate to an alleyway hung open, squeakingas it swung to and fro in the breeze. 


Zedd decided that it must have been a trick of the 
light that he'd seen, maybe a windowpane that hadmoved in the wind sending a flicker of light acrossa wall. 

When he was at last sure that he had been 
mistaken about seeing anyone, Zedd started backdown the street, yet remained close to one side,
walking as quietly as possible. The Imperial Orderarmy had not returned to the city since Zedd hadunleashed the light web that had killed an enormousnumber of their force, but that didn't mean thatthere couldn't be dangers about.
No doubt Emperor Jagang still wanted the city, andespecially the Keep, but he was no fool and he knewthat a few more light webs ignited among his army,
no matter how vast it was, would in that instantreduce his force by such staggering numbers that itcould alter the course of the war. Jagang hadfought against the Midland and D'Haran forces for ayear and in all those battles he had not lost asmany men as he'd lost in that one blinding moment.
He would not casually risk another such event.
After such a blow Jagang would want to capture theKeep more than he had ever wanted it before. Hewould want Zedd more than ever before. 
Had Zedd more of the light webs like the one hisfrantic search through the Keep had turned up, hewould have already unleashed them all on the Order.
He sighed. If only he had more.
Still, Jagang didn't know that he had no more suchconstructed spells. As long as Jagang feared thatthere were more, it served Zedd's purpose inkeeping the Imperial Order out of Aydindril andaway from the Wizard's Keep.
Some harm had been done to the Confessors' Palace 
when Jagang had been gulled into attacking, butZedd judged that trying that trick had been worththe regrettable damage; it had almost netted himand Adie the emperor's hide. Damage could always berepaired. He vowed that it would be repaired. 


Zedd clenched a fist at how close he had come to 
finishing Jagang that day. At least he had dealt amighty blow to his army.
And Zedd might have had Jagang had it not been forthat strange young woman. He shook his head at thememory of actually seeing one who could not betouched by magic. He'd known, in theory, of their 
existence, but had never before known it forcertain to be true. Vague references in old booksmade for interesting abstract speculation, butseeing it with his own eyes was quite somethingelse. 
It had been an unsettling sight. Adie had beenshaken by the encounter even more than he; she wasblind, yet with the aid of the gift could seebetter than he could. That day, she had not beenable to see the young woman who was there, but, insome ways, not there. To Zedd's eyes, if not hisgift, she was a beautiful sight, with some ofDarken Rahl's looks, but different and altogethercaptivating. That she was half sister to Richardwas clear; she shared some of his features,
especially the eyes. If only Zedd could havestopped her, kept her out of the way, convinced herthat she was making a terrible mistake by beingwith the Order, or even if he could have killedher, Jagang would not have escaped justice.
Still, Zedd held no illusions about ending thethreat of the Imperial Order simply by killingJagang. Jagang was merely the brute who led otherbrutes in enforcing blind faith in the Order, ablind faith that embraced death as salvation from 
what it preached was the corrupt misery of life, ablind faith in which life itself had no value but 
as a bloody sacrifice upon the altar of altruism, ablind faith that blamed the failure of its own 
ideas on mankind for being wicked and for failingto offer sufficient sacrifice in an endless questfor some illusive greater good that grew ever moredistant, a blind faith in an Order that clung to 


power by feeding off the carcasses of theproductive lives it ruined.
A faith that by its very beliefs rejected reasonand embraced the irrational could not long endurewithout intimidation and force— without brutes like 
Jagang to enforce such faith.
While Emperor Jagang was brutally effective, it wasa mistake to think that if Jagang were to die thatvery day it would end the threat of the Order. Itwas the Order's ideas that were so dangerous; thepriests of the Order would find other brutes.
The only real way to end the Order's reign ofterror was to expose the naked evil of itsteachings to the light of truth, and for thosesuffering under its doctrines to throw off theOrder's yoke. Until then, they would have to fightthe Imperial Order back as best they could, hopingat least to eventually contain them.
Zedd poked his head around a corner, watching,
listening, sniffing the wind for any trace ofanyone who might be lurking about. The city wasdeserted, but on a number of occasions strayImperial Order soldiers had wandered in out of themountains. 
After the destruction caused by the light web,
panic had swept through the Order's encampment.
Many soldiers had scattered to the hills. Once thearmy had regrouped, a large number of men haddecided to desert instead of returning to theirunits. Tens of thousands of such deserters were 
rounded up and executed, their bodies left to rotas a warning of what happened to those whoabandoned the cause of the greater glory of theImperial Order, or as the Order liked to put it,
the cause of the greater good. Most of the rest ofthe men who had run to the hills had then had a 
change of heart and straggled back into camp. 

There were still some, though, who had not wantedto go back and had not been caught. For a time, 


after Jagang's army had moved on, they had wanderedinto the city, sometimes alone, sometimes in smallgroups, half starved, to search for food and toloot. Zedd had lost count of how many such men hehad killed. 

He was reasonably sure that all of those stragglerswere dead, now. The Order was made up of men mostlyfrom cities and towns. Such men weren't used to 
living in the wild. Their job was to overwhelm theenemy, to kill, rape, terrorize, and plunder. Awhole corps of logistics personnel provided themwith support, delivering and dispensing a constantstream of supplies that rolled in to feed and carefor the soldiers. They were violent men, but theywere men who needed to be tended, who depended onthe group for their survival. They didn't last longon their own in the trackless forested mountains 
surrounding Ay-dindril. 

But Zedd hadn't seen any of them for quite sometime. He was reasonably sure that the stragglershad starved, been killed, or had long ago headedback south, to the Old World. 

There was always the possibility, though, thatJagang had sent assassins to Aydindril; some ofthose assassins could be Sisters of the Light, orworse, Sisters of the Dark. For that reason, Zeddrarely left the safety of the Keep, and when hedid, he was cautious. Too, he hated poking aroundthe city, seeing it so devoid of life. This hadbeen his home for much of his life. He remembered 
the days when the Keep was a hub of activity—not asit once had been, he knew, but alive with people ofall sorts. He found himself smiling at the memory. 

His smile faded. Now the city was a joyless sight,
forlorn without people filling the streets, peopletalking from one balcony to a neighbor across the 


street in another window, people gathering to tradegoods in the market. Not so long ago men would havestopped to have conversations in doorways whilevendors pulled carts of their wares along thenarrow streets and children at play skipped throughthe throngs. Zedd sighed at the sad sight of suchlifeless streets. 

At least those lives were safe, if a long way fromhome. Although he had many fundamental differenceswith the Sisters of the Light, he knew that theirPrelate, Verna, and the rest of the free Sisterswould watch over them. 
The only problem was that now that Jagang hadnothing in Aydindril of any real value to conquerexcept the Keep, and much to lose, he had wheeledhis army east toward the remnants of the Midlandforces. To be sure, the D'Haran army waited acrossthose mountains to the east and Zedd knew how 
formidable they were, but he couldn't fool himselfthat they stood a chance against a force as immenseas the Imperial Order.
Jagang had left the city in order to go after thoseD'Haran forces. The Imperial Order could not winthe war by occupying an empty city; they needed tocrush any resistance once and for all so that therewould be no people left who could, by livingprosperous, happy, peaceful lives, put the lie tothe Order's teachings.
Now that Jagang had come all the way up through theMidlands, he had cleaved the New World. Forces hadbeen left all along the route to occupy cities andtowns. Now the main force of the Order would turn 
its blood lust east, on a lone D'Hara. By dividingthe New World in such a way, Jagang would be ableto more efficiently crush opposition.
Zedd knew that it wasn't for lack of trying thatthe New World had given ground. He and Kahlan,
among a great many others, had worked themselvessick, month after month, trying to find a way to 


stop Ja-gang's forces. 

Zedd clutched his robes at his throat, at thepainful memory of such ferocious fighting, at hownothing had worked against Jagang's numbers, at thedeath and dying, at the friends he had lost. It wasonly a matter of time until all was lost to thehordes from the Old World. 
Richard and Kahlan would not survive such a 
conquest by the Imperial Order. Zedd's thin fingerscovered his trembling lips at the ghastly thoughtof them being lost, too. They were the only familyhe had left. They were everything to him.
Zedd felt a crushing wave of hopelessness, and hadto sit on the stump of a log section set outside ashoe shop that had been boarded closed. Once theImperial Order finally annihilated all opposition,
Ja-gang would return to take the city and lay siegeto the Keep. Sooner or later, he would have it all.
The future, as Zedd imagined it, seemed to be aworld shrouded in the gray pall of life under theImperial Order. If the world fell under that pall,
it would probably be a very long time beforemankind ever emerged to live free again. Onceliberty was surrendered to tyranny, it could besmothered for centuries before its flames againsprang to life and brightened the world.
Zedd hadn't sat for long when he forced himself tohis feet. He was First Wizard. He had been in 
hopeless straits before and had seen the foe turnedback. There was still the possibility that he andAdie could find something in the Keep that wouldaid them, or that they might yet discoverinformation in the libraries that would give them avaluable advantage.
As long as there was life, they could fight ontoward their goal. They still had the ability totriumph.
He harrumphed to himself. He would triumph.
Zedd was glad that Adie wasn't with him to see him 


in such a sorry state that he would have—if evenmomentarily—considered defeat. Adie would havenever let him hear the end of it, and deservedlyso. 
He harrumphed again. He was hardly inexperienced,
hardly without the wherewithal to handle challengesthat arose. And if there were as-sassins about,
gifted or not, they would find themselves caught upby one of the many little surprises he had leftaround. Very nasty surprises.
Chin up, Zedd smiled to himself as he turned down anarrow alley, making his way past a patchwork ofyards with empty pens that had once held chickens,
geese, ducks, and pigeons. His gaze passed oversmall back courtyards, their herbs and flowersgrowing untended, their wash lines empty, theirwood and other materials stacked to the sides,
waiting for people to return and work them intosomething useful. 

Along the way he stopped in various vegetablegardens, harvesting the volunteer crops that hadsprung up. There was lettuce aplenty, spinach, somesmall squash, green tomatoes, and still a few peas.
He collected his bounty in a canvas sack and slungit over a shoulder as he walked the garden plots,
checking on the progress of irregular patches ofonions, beets, beans, and turnips. Still somegrowing to do, he concluded.
While the vegetables weren't thick from a carefulplanting, the random growth in yards all over thecity meant that he and Adie would have freshvegetables for some time to come. Maybe she mighteven take to putting some things up for nextwinter. They could store root crops in the colderplaces in the Keep, and preserve more perishablevegetables. They would have more food than theycould eat. 

On his way up the alley, Zedd spied a bush off 


toward the corner, sprawled green and lush over ashort back fence between two homes. The blackberrybush was loaded with ripe berries. He pausedoccasionally to check up and down the streetsbeyond while he made a nice-sized pile of the dark,
plump berries in a square of cloth, then tied it upand placed it atop the heavier goods in his sack. 

There were still plenty of ripe berries, and hehated to let them go to waste, or to the birds, sohe worked at filling his pockets. He didn't worrythat it would spoil his dinner; it was a long walkback up the mountain to the Wizard's Keep, so hecould use a snack. Adie was making a thick stewfrom cured ham. There was no danger that he wouldspoil his appetite on mere berries. She would bepleased by the vegetables he brought and would nodoubt want to add them to the stew straightaway.
Adie was a wonderful cook, although he dared notadmit it to her lest she get a big head. Before thestone bridge, Zedd paused, gazing back down thewide road leading up the mountainside. Only thewind in the trees and their shimmering leavescreated any sound or movement. For a long moment,
though, he stared down at the empty road.
Finally, he turned back to the bridge that in lessthan three hundred paces spanned a chasm with nearvertical sides dropping away for thousands of feet.
Clouds far below hung hard against the sheer rockwalls. Despite the countless times he had walkedover the stone bridge, it still made him feel justa little queasy. Without wings, though, there wasbut this single way into the Keep—except for thelittle trick passage he had used as a boy.
Because of their strategic role, Zedd had placedenough snares and traps along the bridge and therest of the road up to the Keep that no one wasgoing to live for more than a few paces once theycame close. Not even a Sister of the Dark could 
trespass here. A few Sisters had attempted the 


impossible, and had paid with their lives.
They would have suspected such webs laid by theFirst Wizard himself, and felt some of the warningshields, but no doubt Jagang had given them nochoice in the matter and had sent them to attemptentry, sacrificing their lives for the greater goodof the Order. 
Verna had once briefly been taken captive by thedream walker and she had told Zedd all about the 
experience in the hope that they might find acounter, other than swearing loyalty in one's heartto the Lord Rahl and thereby invoking theprotection of the bond. Zedd had tried, but therewas no countermagic he could provide. In the greatwar, wizards far more talented than he, and withboth sides of the gift, had tried to devisedefenses against dream walkers. Once the dreamwalker had taken over a person's mind, there was nodefense; you had to do his bidding, regardless ofthe cost, even if the cost was your life. 

Zedd suspected that for a few, death was a covetedrelease from the agony of possession by the dreamwalker. Suicide was a course blocked by Jagang; heneeded the talents of the Sisters and other gifted.
He couldn't have them all kill themselves for 
release from the misery of life as his chattel. Butif he sent them to their certain death, such asattempting to enter the Keep, then they could atlast be free of the agony that had become theirlife. 
Ahead, the Keep towered on the mountainside. Thesoaring walls of dark stone, intimidating to mostpeople, offered Zedd the warm sense of home. Hiseyes roamed the ramparts, and he rememberedstrolling there with his wife so many years ago—alifetime ago, it seemed. From the towers he hadoften looked down at the beautiful sight ofAydindril below. He had once marched across thebridges and passageways to deliver orders defending 


the Midlands from an invasion from D'Hara, led byDarken Rahl's father. 
That, too, seemed a lifetime ago. Now Richard, hisgrandson, was the Lord Rahl, and had succeeded inuniting most of the Midlands under the rule of theD'Haran Empire. Zedd shook his head at the wonderof it, at the thought of how Richard had changedeverything. By Richard's hand, Zedd was now asubject of the D'Haran Empire. What a wonderindeed. 
Before he reached the far side of the bridge, Zeddglanced down into the chasm. Movement caught hisattention. Putting his bony fingers on the roughstone, he leaned out a little for a look. Below,
but above the clouds, he saw two huge birds, blackas moonless midnight, gliding along through thesplit in the mountain. Zedd had never seen the likeof them. He couldn't imagine what to make of thesight.
When he turned back to the Keep, he thought he sawthree more of the same kind of large black birdsflying together, high above the Keep. He decidedthat they had to be ravens. Ravens were big. Hemust simply be misjudging the distance—probablyfrom lack of food. Concluding that they had to beravens, he tried to adjust his estimation of theirdistance, but they were already gone. He glanceddown, but didn't see the other two, either.
As he passed under the iron portcullis, feeling thewarm embrace of the Keep's spell, Zedd felt a waveof loneliness. He so missed Erilyn, his long-deadwife, as well as his long-passed daughter,
Richard's mother, and, dear spirits, he missedRichard. He smiled then, thinking of Richard beingwith his own wife, now. It was still sometimes hardfor him to think of Richard as grown into a man. Hehad had a wondrous time helping to raise Richard.
What a time that had been in his life, off inWestland, away from the Midlands, away from magicand responsibility, with just that ever curious boy 


and a whole world of wonders to explore and showhim. 
What a time indeed. Inside the Keep, lamps alongthe wall obediently sprang to flame as First WizardZeddicus Zu'l Zorander made his way alongpassageways and through grand rooms, deeper intothe immense mountain fortress. As he passed thewebs he'd placed, he checked the texture of theirmagic to find that they were undisturbed. He sighedin relief. He didn't expect that anyone would befoolish enough to try to enter the Keep, but theworld had fools to spare. He didn't really likeleaving such dangerous webs cast all about theplace, in addition to the often dangerous shieldsalready guarding the Keep, but he dared not relaxhis guard.
As he passed a long side table in a toweringgathering hall, Zedd, as he had done since he was aboy, ran his finger along the smooth groove in theedge ofàthe variegated chocolate-brown marble top.
He stopped, frowning down at the table, andrealized that it contained something he suddenlyfelt the want of: aàball of fine black cord left 
there years ago to tie ribbons and otherdecorations on theàlamp brackets in the gatheringhall to mark the harvest festival. 
Sure enough, in the center drawer, heàfound theball of fine cord. He snatched it up and slipped itinto a pocket long emptied ofàits load of berries.
From the wall bracket beside the table, he lifted awand with six small bells. The wand, one ofhundreds if not thousands throughout the Keep, wasonce used to summon servants. He sighed inwardly.
It had been decades since servants and their 
families last lived in the Wizard's Keep. Heremembered their children running and playing inthe halls. He remembered the joy of laughterechoing throughout the Keep, bringing life to theplace. 


Zedd told himself that one day children would againrun and laugh in the halls. Richard and Kahlan'schildren. Zedd's broad smile stretched his cheeks. 
There were windows and openings in the stone thatlet light spill into many halls and rooms, butthere were other places less well lit. Zedd foundone of those darker places that was dim enough tosatisfy him. He stretched a piece of the blackcord, strung with one of the bells, across thedoorway, winding it around coarse stone molding toeach side. Moving deeper through the labyrinth ofhalls and passage-ways, he stopped and strung morestrings with a bell at places where it would behard to see. He had to collect several more of the 
servant wands for a supply of bells.

Although there were shields of magic lacedeverywhere, there was no telling what powers someof the Sisters of the Dark possessed. They would belooking for magic, not bells. It couldn't hurt totake the extra precaution. 

Zedd made mental notes of where he strung the fineblack cord— he would have to let Adie know. He 
doubted, though, that with her gifted sight shewould need the warning. He was sure that with herblind eyes she could see better than anyone.
Following the wonderful aroma of ham stew, Zeddmade his way to the comfortable room lined withbookshelves they used most of the time. Adie hadhung spices to dry from the low beams carved withancient designs. A leather couch sat before a broadfireplace and comfortable chairs beside a silver-
inlaid table placed in front of a diamond-patternedleaded window with a breathtaking view overlookingAydindril.
The sun was setting, leaving the city below bathedin a warm light. It almost looked like it alwaysdid, except there was no telltale smoke curling upfrom cooking fires.
Zedd set his burlap sack loaded with his harvest on 


piles of books atop a round mahogany table behindthe couch. He shuffled closer to the fire, all thewhile taking deep breaths to inhale theintoxicating aroma of the stew.
"Adie," he called, "this smells delightful! Haveyou looked outside today? I saw the oddest birds."
He smiled as he inhaled another whiff. 
"Adie—I think it must be done by now," he calledtoward the doorway to the side pantry room. "Ithink we ought to taste it, at least. Can't hurt tocheck, you know."
Zedd glanced back over his shoulder. "Adie? Are youlistening to me?"
He went to the doorway and peered into the pantry,
but it was empty.
"Adie?" he called down the stairs at the back of 
the pantry. "Are you down there?"
Zedd's mouth twisted with discontentment when she 
didn't answer. 
"Adie?" he called again. "Bags, woman, where areyou?"
He turned back, peering at the stew bubbling in thekettle hung on the crane over the fire. Zeddscooped up a long wooden spoon from a pantrycupboard.
Spoon in hand, he stopped and leaned back towardthe stairs. "Take your time, Adie. I'll just be uphere . .. reading."
Zedd grinned and hurried for the stew. 

CHAPTER 13 

Richard rose up in a rush when he saw Cara marchingup a ravine toward camp, pushing ahead of her a manRichard vaguely recognized. In the failing light,
he couldn't make out the man's face. Richard 
scanned the surrounding flat washes, rocky hills,
and steep tree-covered slopes beyond, but didn't 


see anyone else.
Friedrich was off to the south and Tom to the west,
checking the surrounding country, as Cara had been,
to be sure there was no one about and that it was a 
safe place to spend the night; they were exhaustedfrom picking a sinuous route through theincreasingly rugged country. Cara had been checkingnorth—the direction they were headed and thedirection Richard considered potentially the mostdangerous. Jennsen turned from the animals, waitingto see who the Mord-Sith had with her. 
Once on his feet, Richard wished he hadn't gottenup quite so quickly—doing so made him light-headed.
He couldn't seem to shake the odd, disconnectedsensation he felt, as if he were watching someoneelse react, talk, move. When he concentrated,
forcing himself to focus his attention, the feelingwould sometimes drift at least partly away and hewould begin to wonder if it was only hisimagination.
Kahlan's hand slipped up on his arm, gripping himas if she thought he might fall.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
He nodded as he watched Cara and the man as he also 
kept an eye on the surrounding countryside. By theend of their ride earlier that afternoon to discuss 
the book, Kahlan had become even more worried abouthim. They were both troubled about what he'd read,
but Kahlan was far more concerned, at the moment,
anyway, about him. 

Richard suspected that he might be coming down witha slight fever. That would explain why he wasfeeling so cold when everyone else was hot. Fromtime to time, Kahlan would feel his forehead orplace the back of her hand against his cheek. Hertouch warmed his heart; she ignored his smiles asshe fretted over him. She thought that he might beslightly feverish. Once she had Jennsen feel hisforehead to see if she thought he might be warmer 


than he should be. Jennsen, too, thought that, ifhe did have a fever, it was minor. Cara, so far,
had been satisfied by Kahlan's report that hedidn't feel feverish, and hadn't deemed itnecessary to see for herself. 

A fever was just about the last thing Richardneeded. There were important... important,
something. He couldn't seem to recall at themoment. He concentrated on trying to remember theyoung man's name, or at least where he'd seen himbefore. 

The last rays of the setting sun cast a pink glowacross the mountains to the east. The closer hills 
were dimming to a soft gray in the gathering dusk.
As darkness approached, the low fire was beginningto tint everything close around it a warm yellow-
orange. Richard had kept the cook fire small, notwanting it to signal their location any more thannecessary. 

"Lord Rahl," the man said in a reverent tone as hestepped into camp. He dipped his head forward in ahesitant bow, apparently not sure if it was properto bow or not. "It's an honor to see you again."
He was perhaps a couple of years younger thanRichard, with curly black hair that brushed thebroad shoulders of his buckskin tunic. He wore a 
long knife at his belt but no sword. His ears stuckout to the sides of his head as if he were 
straining to listen to every little sound. Richardimagined that as a boy he'd probably endured a lotof taunts about his ears, but now that he was a manhis ears made him look rather intent and serious. 
As muscular as the man was, Richard doubted that hestill had to contend with taunts. 
"I'm . .. I'm sorry, but I can't quite seem torecall..." 
"Oh, no, you wouldn't remember me, Lord Rahl. I was 


only—"
"Sabar," Richard said as it came to him. "Sabar.
You loaded the furnaces in Priska's foundry, backin Altur'Rang."
Sabar beamed. "That's right. I can't believe youremember me." 
Sabar had been one of the men at the foundry ableto have work because of the supplies Richard hauledto Priska when no one else could. Sabar had 
understood how hard Priska worked just to keep hisfoundry alive under the oppressive, endless, andcontradictory mandates of the Order. Sabar had beenthere the day the statue Richard carved had beenunveiled; he had seen it before it was destroyed.
He had been there at the beginning of therevolution in Altur'Rang, fighting close alongsideVictor, Priska, and all the others who had seizedthe moment when it was upon them. Sabar had foughtto help gain freedom for himself, his friends, andfor his city. 

That had been a day everything had changed.
Even though this man, like many others, had been asubject of the Imperial Order—one of the enemy—hewanted to live his own life under just laws, ratherthan under the dictates of despots who extinguishedany hope of bettering oneself under the crushingburden of the cruel illusion of a greater good. 

Richard noticed, then, that everyone was standingin tense anticipation, as if they had expected thisto be trouble. 
Richard smiled at Cara. "It's all right. I knowhim." 
"So he told me," Cara said. She put a hand onSabar's shoulder and pushed him down. "Have aseat." 
"Yes," Richard said, glad to see that Cara had beenfairly amiable about it. "Sit down and tell us whyyou're here." 


"Nicci sent me." 

Richard rose again in a rush, Kahlan coming upright beside him. "Nicci? We're on our way to meether." 
Sabar nodded, rising into a half crouch, seemingnot to be sure if he was supposed to stand, sinceRichard and Kahlan had, or stay seatedCara hadn't sat down; she stood behind Sabar likean executioner. Cara had been there when the 
revolution in Altur'Rang had started and mightremember Sabar, but that would make no difference.
Cara trusted no one where the safety of Richard andKahlan was concerned. 

Richard gestured for Sabar to remain seated. "Whereis she," Richard asked as he and Kahlan sat downagain, sharing a seat on a bedroll. "Is she comingsoon?" 
"Nicci said to tell you that she waited as long asshe could, but there have been some urgentdevelopments and she could wait no longer."
Richard let out a disappointed sigh. "Some thingscame up for us, too." Kahlan had been captured andtaken to the Pillars of Creation as bait to lure 
Richard into a trap. Rather than go into all that,
he kept the story short and to the point. "We weretrying to get to Nicci, but needed to go elsewhere.
It was unavoidable." 
Sabar nodded. "I was worried when she returned to 
us and said that you had not shown up at yourmeeting place, but she told us that she was sureyou were busy taking care of something importantand that was the reason you had not come.
"Victor Cascella, the blacksmith, was very worried,
too, when Nicci told us this. He was thinking youwould be returning with Nicci. He said that otherplaces he knows, places he and Priska have dealingswith for supplies and such, are on the verge ofrevolt. These people have heard about Altur'Rang, 


how the Order has been overthrown there, and howpeople are beginning to prosper. He said that heknows free men in these places who struggle tosurvive under the oppression of the Order as weonce did, and they hunger to be free. They wantVictor's help. 

"Some of the Brothers in the Fellowship of Orderwho escaped from Altur'Rang have gone to theseother places to insure that such revolt does notspread there. Their cruelty in punishing any theysuspect of insurrection is costing the lives ofmany people, both the innocent and those valuableto the cause of overthrowing the Imperial Order. 

"In order to insure their control of the gears ofgovernance and to ready the Order's defense againstthe spread of the revolt, Brothers of the Orderhave gone to all the important cities, Surely, someof these priests have also gone to report to Jagangthe fall of Altur'Rang, of the loss of so manyofficials in the fighting there, and of the deathsof Brothers Narev and many of his close circle ofdisciples." 

"Jagang already knows of the death of BrotherNarev," Jennsen said, offering him a cup of water.
Sabar smiled his satisfaction at her news. He 
thanked her for the water, then leaned forwardtoward Richard and Kahlan as he went on with his 
story. 

"Priska thinks the Order will want to sweep awaythe success of the revolt in Altur'Rang—that theycan't afford to let it stand. He said that instead 
of worrying about spreading the revolt, we mustprepare, make defenses, and have every man standready because the Order will return with the intentof slaughtering every last person in Altur'Rang."
Sabar hesitated, clearly worried about Priska's 


warning. "Victor, though, said we should hammer theiron while it is hot and create a just and securefuture for ourselves, rather than wait for theOrder to gather their strength to deny us thatfuture. He says that if the revolt is spreadingeverywhere, the Order will not so easily stamp itout." 
Richard ran a weary hand across his face. "Victoris right. If those in Altur'Rang try to sit aloneas a singular place of freedom in the heart ofhostile enemy territory, the Order will sweep inand cut out that heart. The Order can't survive on 
its perverted ideals and they know it; that's whythey must use force to sustain their beliefs.
Without that bully of force, the Order willcrumble. 
"Jagang spent twenty years creating a system ofroads to knit a diverse and fractured Old World 
together into the Imperial Order. That was but partof the means of how he succeeded. Many resisted therantings of his priests. With roads to swiftlyrespond to any dissent, though, Jagang was able toreact quickly, to sweep in and kill those whoopenly opposed his new Order.
"More importantly, after eliminating those whoresisted the Order's teachings, he filled the mindsof children, who didn't know any better, with blindfaith in those teachings, turning them into zealotseager to die for what they were taught was a noblecause—sacrifice to some all-consuming greater good.
"Those young men, their minds twisted with theteachings of the Order, are now off to the northconquering the New World, butchering any who willnot take up their altruistic tenets.
"But while Jagang and that vast army are to thenorth, that strength there leaves the Order weakhere. That weakness is our opportunity and we mustcapitalize on it. Now, while Jagang and his men areabsent, those same roads he built down here will beour means of rapidly spreading the struggle for 


freedom far and wide. 

"The torch of freedom has been lit by the will ofthose like you, those in Altur'Rang who seizedliberty for themselves. The flames of that torchmust be held high, giving others the chance to seeits light. If hidden and insulated, such flameswill be extinguished by the Order. There may neverbe another chance in our lifetimes, or ourchildren's lifetimes, to seize control of our ownlives. That torch must be carried to other places." 

Sabar smiled, filled with quiet pride that he hadbeen a part of it all coming to be. "I know thatVictor would like for others, like Priska, to bereminded of such things, of what the Lord Rahlwould say about what we must do. Victor wants totalk to you before he goes to these places to 'pumpthe bellows,' as he put it. Victor said that heawaits your word on how you would move next, on howbest to 'put the white-hot iron to them'—again, hiswords." 
"So Nicci sent you to find me."
"Yes. I was happy to go to you when she asked me.
Victor will be happy, too, not only that you arewell but to hear what the Lord Rahl would say tohim." 
While Victor was awaiting word, Richard also knewthat absent such word, Victor would act. Therevolution did not revolve around Richard—it 
couldn't to be successful—but around the hunger ofpeople to have their lives back. Still, Richardneeded to help coordinate the spreading revolt inorder to be sure it was as effective as possible,
not just at bringing freedom to those who soughtit, but at crumbling the foundation of the Order inthe Old World. Only if they were successful intoppling the rule of the Order in the Old Worldwould Jagang's attention—and many of his men—bepulled away from conquering the New World. 


Jagang intended to conquer the New World by firstdividing it. Richard had to do the same if he wasto succeed. Only dividing the Order's forces coulddefeat it. 
Richard knew that with everyone evacuated fromAydindril, the Imperial Order would now turn itsswords on D'Hara. Despite the competence of theD'Haran troops, they would be overwhelmed by thenumbers that Jagang would throw at them. If theOrder was not diverted from its cause, or at leastdivided into smaller forces, D'Hara would fallunder the shadow of the Order. The D'Haran Empire,
forged to unite the New World against tyranny,
would end before it had really gotten started.
Richard had to get back to Victor and Nicci so thatthey could all continue what they had begun—
devising the most effective strategy to overthrowthe Imperial Order.
But they were running out of time to resolveanother problem, a problem they didn't yetunderstand. 
"I'm glad you found us, Sabar. You can tell Victorand Nicci that we need to see to something first,
but as soon as we do, we'll be able to help themwith their plans."
Sabar looked relieved. "Everyone will be happy tohear this." 
Sabar hesitated, then tilted his head, gesturingnorth. "Lord Rahl, when I came to find you,
following the directions Nicci gave me, I went pastthe area where she was to meet with you, and then Icontinued coming south." Worry stole into hisexpression. "Not many days ago, I came to a place,
miles wide, that was dead."
Richard looked up. He realized that his headacheseemed to be suddenly gone. "What do you mean,
dead?" 
Sabar waved his hand out toward the evening gloom.
"The area where I was traveling was much like thisplace; there were some trees, clumps of grass, 


thickets of brush." His voice lowered. "But then I 
came to a place where everything that grew ended.
All at the same place. There was nothing but rockbeyond. Nicci had not told me that I would come tosuch a place. I admit, I was afraid."
Richard glanced to his right—to the east—to themountains that lay beyond. "How long did this deadplace last?"
"I walked, leaving life behind, and I thought Imight be walking into the underworld itself." Sabarlooked away from Richard's eyes. "Or into the jawsof some new weapon the Order had created to destroyus all. 

"I came to be very afraid and I was going to turnback. But then I thought about how the Order mademe afraid my whole life, and I didn't like thatfeeling. Worse, I thought about how I would standbefore Nicci and tell her I turned around rather 
than go to Lord Rahl as she asked of me, and thatthought made me ashamed, so I went on. In severalmiles I came again to growing things." He let out abreath. "I was greatly relieved, and then I felt alittle foolish that I had been afraid." 
Two. That now made two of the strange boundaries.
"I've been to places like that, Sabar, and I cantell you that I, too, have been afraid."
Sabar broke into a grin. "Then I was not so foolishto be afraid." 
"Not foolish at all. Could you tell if this deadarea was extensive? Could you tell if it was morethan just a patch of open rock in that one place?
Could you see if it ran in a line, ran in anydirection in particular?"
"It was like you say, like a line." Sabar flickedhis hand toward the east. "It came down out of the 
far mountains, north of that depression." He heldhis hand flat like a cleaver, and sliced itdownward in the other direction. "It ran off to the 
southwest, into that wasteland." 


Toward the Pillars of Creation. 
Kahlan leaned close and spoke under her breath.
"That would be almost parallel to the boundary wecrossed not far back to the south. Why would therebe two boundaries so close together? That makes nosense." 
"I don't know," Richard whispered to her. "Maybewhatever the boundary was protecting was sodangerous that whoever placed it feared that onemight not be enough."
Kahlan rubbed her upper arms but didn't comment. Bythe look on her face, Richard knew how she feltabout such a notion—especially considering thatthose boundaries were now down. 
"Anyway," Sabar said with a self-conscious shrug,
"I was happy I did not turn back, or I would havehad to face Nicci after she had asked me to helpLord Rahl—my friend Richard." 

Richard smiled. "I'm glad, too, Sabar. I don'tthink that place you went through is a danger anylonger, at least not a danger the way it was once."
Jennsen could contain her curiosity no longer. "Whois this Nicci?" 
"Nicci is a sorceress," Richard said. "She used tobe a Sister of the Dark." 
Jennsen's eyebrows went up. "Used to?"
Richard nodded. "She worked to further Jagang'scause, but she finally came to see how wrong shehad been and joined our side." It was a story hedidn't really feel like going into. "She now fightsfor us. Her help has been invaluable."
Jennsen leaned in, even more astonished. "But canyou trust someone like that, someone who hadlabored on behalf of Jagang? Worse, a Sister of theDark? Richard, I've been with some of those women,
I know how ruthless they are. They may have to doas Jagang makes them, but they're devoted to theKeeper of the underworld. Do you really think youcan trust with your life that she will not betray 


you?"
Richard looked Jennsen in the eye. "I trust youwith a knife while I sleep."
Jennsen sat back up. She smiled, more out ofembarrassment than anything else, Richard thought.
"I guess I see your point."
"What else did Nicci say," Kahlan asked, keen toget back to the matter at hand.
"Only that I must go in her place and meet you,"
Sabar said. 
Richard knew that Nicci was being cautious. Shedidn't want to tell the young man too much in casehe was caught.
"How did she know where I was?" 
"She said that she was able to tell where you wereby magic. Nicci is as powerful with magic as she isbeautiful." 
Sabar said this in a tone of awe. He didn't know 
the half of it. Nicci was one of the most powerfulsorceresses ever to have lived. Sabar didn't know 
that when Nicci was laboring toward the ends soughtby the Order, she was known as Death's Mistress.
Richard surmised that Nicci had somehow used the 
bond to the Lord Rahl to find him. That bond was 
loyalty sworn in the heart, not by rote, and itspower protected those so sworn from the dreamwalker entering their minds. Full-blooded D'Harans,
like Cara, could tell through the bond where theLord Rahl was. Kahlan had confided to him that she 
found it unnerving the way Cara always knew whereRichard was. Nicci wasn't D'Haran, but she was asorceress and she was bonded to Richard, so shemight have been able to manipulate that bond totell where he was. 

"Sabar, Nicci must have sent you to us for areason," Richard said, "other than to say that shecouldn't wait for us at our meeting place."
"Yes, of course," Sabar said as he nodded hastily,
as if chagrined to have to be reminded. "When I 


asked her what I was to say to you, she told methat she had put it all in a letter." Sabar openedthe leather flap of the pouch at his belt. "Shesaid that when she realized how far away you reallywere, she was distraught and couldn't take the timeto journey to you. She told me that it wasimportant for me to be sure I found you and gaveyou her letter. She said the letter would explainwhy she could not wait."
With one finger and a thumb, Sabar lifted out theletter, looking as if he were handling a deadlyviper instead of a small roll sealed with red wax.
"Nicci told me that this is dangerous," heexplained, looking up into Richard's eyes. "Shesaid that if anyone but you opened it, I should notbe standing too close or I would die with them."
Sabar carefully laid the rolled letter on Richard'spalm. It warmed appreciably in his hand. The redwax brightened, as if lit by a ray of sunlight eventhough it was getting dark. The glow spread fromthe wax to envelop the whole length of the rolledletter. Fine cracks raced all across the red wax,
like autumn ice on a pond breaking up under theweight of a foot placed on it. The wax suddenlyshattered and crumbled away.
Sabar swallowed. "I hate to think of what would 
have happened had anyone but you tried to open it."
Jennsen leaned in again. "Was that magic?"
"Must have been," Richard told her as he started tounroll the letter. 
"But I saw it fall apart," she said in aconfidential tone. 
"Did you see anything else?"
"No, it just all of a sudden crumbled."
With a thumb and finger, Richard lifted some of thedisintegrated wax from his palm. "She probably puta web of magic around the letter and keyed thatspell to my touch. If anyone else had tried tobreak that web to open the letter it would haveignited the spell. I guess that my touch unlocked 


the seal. You saw the result of the magic—the
broken seal—not the magic itself." 


"Oh, wait!" Sabar smacked his forehead with the
flat of his palm. "What am I thinking? I'm supposed
to give you this, too."
Shrugging the straps off his shoulders and down his
arms, he pulled his pack around onto his lap. He
quickly undid the leather thongs and reached
inside, then carefully lifted out something wrapped
in black quilted material. It was only about a foot
tall but not very big around. By the way Sabar
handled it, it appeared to be somewhat heavy. 


Sabar set the wrapped object on the ground,
upright, in front of the fire. "Nicci told me that
I should give this to you, that the letter would
explain it." 


Jennsen leaned in a little, fascinated by the
mystery of the tightly wrapped object. "What is
it?" 
Sabar shrugged. "Nicci didn't tell me." He made a
face that suggested he was somewhat uncomfortable
with the way he was in the dark about much of the
mission he'd been sent on. "When Nicci looks at you
and tells you to do something, it goes out of your
head to ask questions." 


Richard smiled to himself as he began to unroll the
letter. He knew all too well what Sabar meant. 
"Did Nicci say anything about who could unwrap that
thing?"
"No, Lord Rahl. She just said to give it to you,
that the letter would explain it."
"If it had a web around it, like the letter, she
would have warned you." Richard looked up. "Cara,"
he said, gesturing at the bundled package sitting
before the fire, "why don't you unwrap it while
Kahlan and I read the letter." 



As Cara sat cross-legged on the ground and startedworking on the knots in the leather thongs aroundthe black quilted wrap, Richard held the lettersideways a bit so that Kahlan could read itsilently along with him.
Dear Richard and Kahlan,
I am sorry that I cannot tell you everything rightnow that I would have you know, but there areurgent matters I must see to and I dare not delay.
Jagang has initiated something I consideredimpossible. Through his ability as a dream walker,
he has forced Sisters of the Dark he controls to 
attempt to create weapons out of people, as wasdone during the great war. This is dangerous enoughin itself, but because Jagang does not have thegift, his understanding of such things is verycrude. He is a blundering bull trying to use hishorns to knit lace. They are using the lives ofwizards as the fodder for his experiments. I don'tyet know the exact extent of their success, but Ifear to discover the results. More of this in a 
moment. 
First, the object I sent. When 1 picked up yourtrail and began tracking it to where we were tomeet, I discovered this. I believe you have alreadycome across it because it has been touched by aprincipal involved in the matter or involved withyou.
The object is a warning beacon. It has beenactivated—not by this touch, but by events. Icannot overstate the danger it represents.
Such objects could only be made by the wizards ofancient times; the creation of such an objectrequired both Additive and Subtractive Magic, andrequired the gift of both to be innate. Even then,
they are so rare that I have never actually seenone. 
I have, however, read about them down in the vaultsat the Palace of the Prophets. Such warning beaconsare kept viable by a link to the dead wizard who 


created them. 
Richard sat back and let out a troubled breath. 
"How can such a link be possible?" Kahlan asked.
He hardly had to read between the lines to be ableto tell that Nicci was warning him in the gravestpossible terms.
"It has to be linked somehow to the underworld,"
Richard whispered back.
Little points of firelight danced in her green eyesas she stared at him. 
Kahlan glanced again at Cara as she worked at theknots, pulling off one of the leather thongs aroundan object linked to a dead wizard in theunderworld. Kahlan held up the edge of the letteras she urgently read along with him.
From what I know of such warning beacons, theymonitor powerful and vital protective shieldscreated to seal away something profoundlydangerous. They are paired. The first beacon isalways amber. It is meant to be a warning to theone who caused the breach of the seal. The touch of 
a principal or one involved with a principalkindles it so it may be recognized for what it isand serve as it was intended—as a warning to thoseinvolved. Only after alerting the one it is meantto warn can it be destroyed. I send it to beabsolutely certain you have seen it.
The precise nature of the second beacon is unknownto me, but that beacon is meant for the one able toreplace the seal.
I don't know the nature of the seal or what it was 
protecting. Without doubt, though, the seal hasbeen breached. 
The source of the breach, while not the specificcause activating this beacon, is self-evident.
"Oh, now wait a minute," Cara said,àstanding,
backing away as if she had released a deadly plaguefrom the black quilting, "it isn't my fault thistime." She pointed down at it. "You told me to,
this time." 


The translucent statue Cara hadàtouched beforeànow 
stood inàthe center of its unfolded black quiltedwrapping.
It was the same statue: a statue of Kahlan. 
The statue's left arm was pressed to its side, theright arm was raised, pointing. The statue, in anhourglass shape, looked as if it were made oftransparent amber, allowing them to see inside.
Sand trickled out of the top half of the hourglass,
through the narrowed waist, into the bottom of thefull dress of the Mother Confessor. 
The sand was still trickling down, just as it hadbeen the last time Richard had seen the thing. Atthat time, the top half had been more full than thebottom half. Now, the top held less sand than thebottom. 
Kahlan's face had gone ashen.
When he'd first seen it, Richard wouldn't haveneeded Nicci to tell him how dangerous such a thingwas. He hadn't wanted any of them to touch it. Whenthey had first come across it, in a recess of rockbeside the trail, looking almost like part of therock itself, the thing was opaque, with a dull,
dark surface, yet it was clearly recognizable asKahlan. It was lying on its side.
Cara wasn't pleased to find such a thing and didn'twant to leave a representation of Kahlan lyingabout for anyone to find and to pick up for who-
knew-what. Cara snatched it up, then, even thoughRichard started to yell at her to leave such athing be.
When she picked it up, it started turningtranslucent. 
In a panic, Cara set it back down.
That was when the right arm had lifted and pointedeast. 
That was when they could begin to see through thething, to see the sand inside trickling down.
The implied danger of the sand running out had themall upset. Cara wanted to pick it up again and turn 


it over, to stop the sand from falling. Richard,
not knowing anything about such an object anddoubting that so simple a solution would have anybeneficial effect, hadn't allowed Cara to touch itagain. He had piled rocks and brush around it so noone else would know it was there. Obviously, thathadn't worked. 
He knew now that Cara's touch had nothing to dowith what was happening, except to initiate thewarning, so he thought to confirm his originalbelief. "Cara, put it down."
"Down?" 
"On its side—like you wanted to do the last time—tosee if that will stop the sand."
Cara stared at him for a moment and then used the 
toe of her boot to tip the figure over on its side.
The sand continued to run as if it still stood 
upright.
"How can the sand do that?" Jennsen asked, soundingquite shaken. "How can the sand still fall—how canit fall sideways?"
"You can see it?" Kahlan asked. "You can see the 
sand falling?"
Jennsen nodded. "I sure can, and I have to tellyou, it's giving my goose bumps goose bumps."
Richard could only stare at her staring at thestatue of Kahlan lying on its side. If nothingelse, the sand running sideways through the statuehad to be magic. Jennsen was a pillar of Creation,
a hole in the world, a pristinely ungiftedoffspring of Darken Rahl. She should not be able tosee magic.
And yet, she was seeing it.
"I have to agree with the young lady," Sabar said.
"That's even more frightening than those big blackbirds that I've seen circling for the last week."
Kahlan straightened. "You been seeing—"
When he heard Tom's urgent warning yell, Richardrose up in a rush, drawing his sword in one swiftmovement. The unique sound of ringing steel filled 


the night air.
The magic did not come out with the sword. 


CHAPTER 14 


KahIan ducked to the side, out of harm’s way, as
Richard pulled his sword free. The distinctive ring
of steel being drawn in anger fused with Tom’s
warning yell still echoing through the surrounding
hills to send a flash of fright tingling across her
flesh. As she stared out into the empty blackness
of the surrounding night, her instinct was to reach
for her own sword, but she had packed it in the
wagon rather than wear it, so as not to raise
suspicions about who they might be—women in the Old
World did not carry weapons.
By the light of the fire, Kahlan could clearly see
Richard’s face. She had seen him draw the Sword of 
Truth countless times and in a variety of
situations, from that very first time when Zedd,
after giving him the sword, commanded him to draw
it and Richard tentatively pulled it from its
scabbard, to times he pulled it free in the heat of
battle, to times like this when he drew it suddenly
in defense. 
When Richard drew the sword, he was also drawing
its attendant magic. That was the function of the
weapon; the magic had not been created simply to
defend the sword’s true owner, but, more
importantly, to be a projection of his intent. The
Sword of Truth was not even really a talisman, but
rather a tool, of the Seeker of Truth.
The true weapon was the rightly named Seeker who
wielded the sword. The sword’s magic answered to
him. 
Each and every one of the times Richard had drawn
the sword, Kahlan had seen that magic dancing 



dangerously in his gray eyes.
This was the first time he had drawn the sword that 
she didn't see the magic in his eyes; the raptor'sglare was pure Richard.
While seeing him draw the sword without seeing itsconcomitant magic evident in his eyes shocked her,
it seemed to surprise Richard even more. For aninstant he hesitated, as if mentally stumbling.
Before they had time to even wonder what hadprompted Tom's warning yell, shadowy shapesslipping through the cover of the nearby treessuddenly stormed out of the darkness and into theirmidst. The sudden sound and fury of bloodcurdlingcries filled the night air as men rampaged into thecamp, lit at last by firelight.
They didn't appear to be soldiers—they weren'twearing uniforms— and they weren't attacking assoldiers would, with weapons drawn. Kahlan didn'tsee any of the men brandishing swords or axes oreven knives. 
Weapons or not, there were a lot of men and theyyelled fierce battle cries as if they intendednothing short of bloody murder. She knew, though,
that the sudden shock of deafening noise was atactic designed to render the intended targetpowerless with fright, making them easier to cutdown. She knew because she used such tactics 
herself. 
Blade in hand, Richard was fully in his element;
focused, resolute, ruthlessly committed—evenwithout his sword's attendant magic.
As assailants charged in, the sword, driven byRichard's own wrath, flashed through the air, aflash of crimson light from the fire's flamesreflected along the blade's length, lending it afleeting stain of red. In that charged moment ofattack met, there was a split second when Kahlanfeared that without the sword's magic, it all mightgo terribly wrong.
In an instant, the camp that had been so quietly 


tense became pandemonium. Although the attackersweren't dressed like soldiers, they were all bigand as they swept in there was no doubt whatsoeveras to their hostile intent. 
A man rushing onward threw his arms up to seizeRichard before his sword could be brought to bear.
The sword's tip whistled as it came around, drivenby deadly commitment. The blade severed one of theman's raised arms before exploding through hisskull. The air above the fire filled with a sprayof blood, bone, and brain. Another man lunged.
Richard's sword ripped through his chest. In thespace of two blinks, two men were dead.
The magic at last seemed to slam into Richard'seyes, as if finally catching up with his intent.
Kahlan couldn't make sense of what the men were 
doing. They attacked without weapons drawn, butthey seemed no less fierce for it. Their speed,
numbers, and size, and the angry look of them, wereenough to make most anyone tremble in fright.
From the darkness, more men rushed in on them. Carastepped into the path of the attack, lashing outwith her Agiel. Men cried out in horrifying painwhen her weapon made contact, causing hesitationamong the attackers. Sabar, knife to hand, tumbledto the ground with one of the men who had seizedhim from behind. Jennsen ducked away from anotherman snatching for her hair. As she spun away fromhim, she slashed his face with her knife. His criesjoined a strident chorus of others.
Kahlan realized that it wasn't just men yelling,
but the horses were also screaming in fright.
Cara's Agiel against a bull neck brought aterrifying shriek. Men yelled with effort andshouted orders that were cut off abruptly asRichard's sword tore through them. All the yellingseemed directed at the task of overwhelming thefour of them. 
Kahlan understood, then, what was going on. Thiswas not an attempt to kill, but to capture. For 


these men, killing would be a great mercy comparedto what they intended.
Two of the burly men dove across the fire, armsspread wide as if to tackle Richard and Kahlan.
Cara reached out and seized a fistful of shirt,
abruptly spinning one of the two around. She droveher Agiel into his gut, dropping him to his knees.
The other man unexpectedly encountered Richard'ssword thrust straight in with formidable muscledriving it. The scream of mortal pain was briefbefore the sword slashed his throat. Cara, standingabove the man on his knees, pressed her Agiel tohis chest and gave it a twist that dropped himinstantly.
Already, Richard was leaping over the fire topenetrate into the brunt of the attack. As hisboots landed with a thud, his sword cut the manatop Sabar nearly in two, spilling his visceraacross the ground.
The man Jennsen had slashed rose up only to be metby her knife driven by desperate fright. She jumpedback as he tumbled forward, clutching the base ofhis throat where she had severed his windpipe. Carasnagged the man Jennsen didn't see going for herback. The Mord-Sith, her face a picture of savageresolve, held her Agiel to his throat, followinghim to the ground as he choked on his own blood.
Then, among the men Richard ripped into, Kahlan sawthe knives coming out. The men abandoned theirfailed attempt to bring him down by grabbing andoverpowering him, and decided, instead, to knifehim. If anything, the threat of the knives servedonly to further unleash Richard's fury. By the lookin his eyes, the sword's magic seemed to be fullyengaged in the battle.
For an instant, Kahlan stood transfixed by thesight of Richard so ruthlessly committed to self-
defense that the act of killing became a gracefulmanifestation of art—a dance with death. Comparedwith Richard's fluid movements, the men blundered 


like bulls. Without wasted motion, Richard slippedamong them as if they were statues, his sworddelivering unrestrained violence. Each thrust met avital area of the enemy. Each swing sliced throughflesh and bone. Each turn met an attack and crushed 
it. There was no lost opportunity, no slash thatmissed, no thrust gone wide, no bobble that onlyslightly wounded. Each time he spun past the thrustof a blade, met a rush, or turned to a new attack,
he cut without mercy.
Kahlan was furious that she didn't have her sword. 
There was no telling how many more men there were.
She knew all too well what it was like to be 
helpless and overwhelmed by a gang of men. Shestarted edging toward the wagon.
Jennsen and Sabar were both tackled by a burly mandiving in out of the darkness. As they hit theground, the man landed atop them, knocking the windfrom them. His big hands pinned their wrists to theground, keeping their knives at bay.
Richard's blade swept past with lightning speed,
slicing across the man's back, severing his spine.
Richard went to a knee as he turned, whipping thesword around to impale another attacker rushing inat a dead run, trying to get to Richard before hecould recover. The look on the man's face was a 
picture of horrified surprise as he ran insteadonto Richard's sword, running it into his own chestup to the hilt. The heavy man atop Jennsen andSabar convulsed, unable to draw a breath, as theythrew him off. Richard, still on one knee, yankedthe sword free as the mortally wounded man fellpast him.
As another man rushed into camp, looking around,
trying to get his bearings, Cara slammed her Agielagainst his neck. As he crumbled, she drove herelbow up to smash the face of a man following thefirst in, trying to grab her from behind while shewas occupied. Crying out, his hands covered crushedbone and gushing blood. She spun and kicked him 


between the legs. As he fell forward, his handsgoing to his groin, she broke his jaw with herknee, turned, and dropped a third man by slammingher Agiel to his chest.
Another attacker threw himself at Sabar, knockinghim back. Sabar lashed out with his knife, makingsolid contact. Another man saw the opening andsnatched up Nicci's letter lying on the ground.
Kahlan dove for the letter in his fist, but missedas he yanked his hand back before dashing away.
Jennsen blocked his escape. He straight-armed heras he charged past. Jennsen was knocked reeling,
but came around to bury her knife between hisshoulder blades. 
Jennsen managed to keep hold of her knife, twistingit forcefully, as the man arched his back with agasp of pain and then a bellow of anger thatwithered to a wet burble before it was fully out ofhis lungs. Jenn-sen's knife had found his heart. Hestaggered, stumbled, and fell onto the fire. Theflames whooshed to life as his clothing ignited.
Kahlan tried to snatch the letter from his fist as 
he writhed in horrifying pain, but, with theintensity of the heat, she couldn't get closeenough.
It was already too late, though; the letter she andRichard had only had a chance to partially readflared briefly before transforming to black ashthat disintegrated and lifted skyward in the roarof flames. 
Kahlan covered her mouth and nose, gagging on thestench of burning hair and flesh as she was drivenback by the heat. Though it seemed like hours offighting, the assault had only just begun andalready men lay dead everywhere as yet more of thebig men joined the attack.
As she recoiled from the flames and her futile 
attempt to recover the lost letter, Kahlan turnedagain toward the wagon, toward her sword.
She looked up and saw a man who seemed as big as a 


mountain charging right at her, blocking her way.
He grinned at seeing that he had run down a womanwithout a weapon.
Beyond the man, Kahlan saw Richard. Their eyes met.
He had taken his sword to the bulk of the attack,
trying to cut it down before it could get to therest of them, trying to end it before harm couldget to any of the rest of them.
He couldn't be everywhere at once.
He wasn't close enough to get to her in time. Thatdidn't stop him from trying. Even as he did, Kahlandiscounted the attempt. He was too far away. Theeffort was futile. 
Looking into the eyes of the man she loved morethan life itself, she saw his pure rage; she knewthat Richard was seeing a face that showed nothing:
a Confessor's face, as her mother had taught her.
And then the racing enemy came between them,
blocking their sight of one another.
Kahlan's vision focused on the man bearing down onher. His arms lifted like a bear lost in a mad 
charge. His teeth were gritted with determination.
A grimace twisted his face in his wild effort toreach her before she could dodge to the side,
before she had a chance to escape.
She knew he was too close for her to have that 
chance and so she didn't waste any effort in auseless attempt.
This one had made it past the killing. He hadavoided Jennsen and Sabar. He had figured hisattack to skirt Richard's blade while making itpast Cara's Agiel as she turned to another man. Hehadn't charged in madly like the rest; he haddelayed just enough to time his onslaughtperfectly.
This one knew he was on the verge of having what hesought.
He was far less than a heartbeat away, plungingtoward her at full speed.
Kahlan could hear Richard's scream even as her gaze 


met the gleam of the man's dark eyes.
The man let out a cry of rage as he lunged. Hisfeet left the ground as he sailed through the airtoward her. His wicked grin betrayed hisconfidence. 
Kahlan could see his eyeteeth hooked over hiscracked lower lip, saw the dark tooth in the frontof the top row between his other yellow teeth, sawthe little white hook of a scar, as if he had oncebeen eating with a knife and had accidentallysliced the corner of his mouth. His stubble looked 
like wire. His left eye didn't open as wide as hisright. His right ear had a big V-shaped notch takenout of the upper portion. It reminded her of theway some farmers marked their swine.
She could see her own reflection in his dark eyesas her right arm came up.
Kahlan wondered if he had a wife, a woman who caredfor him, missed him, pined for him. She wondered ifhe might have children, and, if he did, what a manlike this would teach his children. She had a 
momentary flash of the ugliness it would be to havethis beast atop her, his wire stubble scraping hercheek raw, his cracked lips on hers, his yellowteeth raking her neck as he lost himself in what hewanted. 
Time twisted. 
She held out her arm. The man crashed in toward 
her. She felt the coarse weave of his dark brown 
shirt as the flat of her hand met the center of his 
chest. 
That heartbeat of time she had before he was atopher had not yet begun. Richard had not yet managedto take a single frantic step.
The weight of the bear of a man against her handfelt as if it were but a baby's breath. To Kahlan,
it seemed as if he were frozen in space before her.
Time was hers. 
He was hers. 
The rush of combat, the cries, the yells, the 


screams; the stink of sweat and blood; the flash of
steel, the clash of bodies; the curses and growls;
the fear, the terror, the heart-pounding dread...
the rage ... was no longer there for her. She was
in a silent world all her own. 
Even though she had been born with it and had
always felt it there in the core of her being, the
awesome power within, in many ways, seemed
incomprehensible, inconceivable, unimaginable,
remote. She knew it would seem that way until she
let her restraint slip, and then she would once
again be joined with a force of such breathtaking
magnitude that it could only be fully comprehended
as it was being experienced. Although she had
unleashed it more times than she could remember, no
matter how prepared she was the extraordinary
violence of it always still astonished her.
She regarded the man before her with cold
calculation, ready for that violence.
As he had charged in on her, time had belonged to
this man. 
Now time belonged to her.
She could feel the thread count of the fabric of 
his shirt, feel his woolly chest hairs beneath it.
The heart-pounding shock of the sudden attack, the
violence of it, was gone now. Now there was only
this man and her, forever linked by what was to
happen. This man had consciously chosen his own
fate when he chose to attack them. Her certainty of
what was called for carried her beyond the need for
the assessment of emotion, and she felt none—no
joy, not even relief; no hate, not even aversion;
no compassion, not even sorrow. 


Kahlan shed those emotions to make way for the rush
of power, to give it free run.
Now he had no chance. 
He was hers. 
The man's face was contorted with the intoxicated,
gloating glee of his certitude that he was the 



glorious victor who would have her, that he was now
the one to decide what was to become of her life,
that she was but his to plunder.
Kahlan unleashed her power.
By her deliberate intent, the subordinate state of
her birthright instantly altered into overpowering
force able to alter the very nature of
consciousness. 


In the man's dark eyes had come the spark of
suspicion that something which he could not
comprehend had irrevocably begun. And then there
came the lightning recognition that his life, as he
had known it, was over. Everything he wanted,
thought about, worked toward, hoped for, prayed
for, possessed, loved, hated ... was ended.
In her eyes he saw no mercy, and that, more than
anything, brought him stark terror.
Thunder without sound jolted the air.
In that instant, the violence of it was as
pristine, as beautiful, as exquisite, as it was
horrific. 
That heartbeat of time Kahlan had before he was on 
her had still not yet begun.
She could see in the man's eyes that even thought
itself was too late for him, now. Perception itself
was being outpaced by the race of brutal magic
tearing through his mind, destroying forever who
this man had been. 
The force of the concussion jolted the air.
The stars shuddered. 
Sparks from the fire lashed along the ground as the
shock spread outward in a ring, driving dust before
its passing. Trees shook when hit by the blow,
shedding needles and leaves as the raging wave
swept past.
He was hers. 
His full weight flying forward knocked Kahlan back
a step as she twisted out of the way. The man flew
past her and crashed to the ground, sprawling on 



his face. 
Without an instant of hesitation, he scrambled uponto his knees. His hands came up in prayerfulsupplication. Tears flooded his eyes. His mouth,
which only an instant before was so warped withperverted expectation, now distorted with the agonyof pure anguish. 

"Please, Mistress," he wailed, "command me!"
Kahlan regarded him, for the first time in his newlife, with an emotion: contempt. 

CHAPTER 15 

O'nly the sound of Betty's soft,
frightened bleating drifted out over the otherwisesilent campsite. Bodies lay sprawled haphazardlyacross the ground. The attack appeared to be over.
Richard, sword in hand, rushed through the carnageto get to Kahlan. Jennsen stood near the edge ofthe fire's light, while Cara checked the bodies forany sign of life.
Kahlan left the man she had just touched with herpower kneeling in the dirt, stalking past himtoward Jennsen. Richard met her halfway there, hisfree arm sweeping around her with relief.
"Are you all right?"
Kahlan nodded, quickly appraising their camp, onthe lookout for any more attackers, but saw onlythe men who were dead. 
"What about you?" she asked.
Richard didn't seem to hear her question. His armslipped from her waist. "Dear spirits," he said, ashe rushed to one of the bodies lying on its side.
It was Sabar. 
Jennsen stood not far away, trembling with terror, 


her knife held up defensively in a fist, her eyeswide. Kahlan gathered Jennsen in her arms,
whispering assurance that it was over, that it wasended, that she was all right.
Jennsen clutched at Kahlan. "Sabar—he was— 
protecting me—"
"I know, I know," Kahlan comforted.
She could see that there was no urgency inRichard's movements as he laid Sabar on his back. 
The young man's arm flopped lifelessly to the side.
Kahlan's heart sank. 
Tom ran into camp, gasping for air. He was streakedwith blood and sweat. Jennsen wailed and flew into 
his arms. He embraced her protectively, holding herhead to his shoulder as he tried to regain hisbreath. 
Betty bleated in dismay from beneath the wagon,
hesitantly emerging only after Jennsen calledrepeated encouragement to her. The puling goatfinally rushed to Jennsen and huddled tremblingagainst her skirts. Tom kept a wary watch of thesurrounding darkness.
Cara calmly walked among the bodies, surveying themfor any sign of life. With most, there could be noquestion. Here and there she nudged one with thetoe of her boot, or with the tip of her Agiel. Byher lack of urgency, there was no question thatthey were all dead.
Kahlan put a tender hand to Richard's back as hecrouched beside Sabar's body.
"How many people must die," he asked in a low,
bitter voice, "for the crime of wanting to be free,
for the sin of wanting to live their own life?"
She saw that he still held the Sword of Truth in a 
white-knuckled fist. The sword's magic, which hadcome out so reluctantly, still danced dangerouslyin his eyes.
"How many!" he repeated.
"I don't know, Richard," Kahlan whispered.
Richard turned a glare toward the man across the 


camp, still on his knees, his hands pressedtogether in a beseeching gesture begging to becommanded, fearing to speak.
Once touched by a Confessor, the person was nolonger who they had once been. That part of theirmind was forever gone. Who they were, what theywere, no longer existed.
In its place the magic of a Confessor's powerplaced unqualified devotion to the wants and wishesof the Confessor who had touched them. Nothing elsemattered. Their only purpose in life, now, was tofulfill her commands, to do her bidding, to answerher every question.
For one thus touched, there was no crime theywouldn't confess, if she asked it of them. It wasfor this alone that Confessors had been created. 
Their purpose, in a way, was the same as theSeeker's—the truth. In war, as in all other aspectsof life, there was no more important commodity forsurvival than the truth. 
This man, kneeling not far away, cried in abjectmisery because Kahlan had asked nothing of him.
There could be no agony more ghastly, no void moreterrifying, than to be empty of knowing her wish.
Existence without her wish was pointless. In theabsence of her command, men touched by a Confessorhad been known to die. 
Anything she now asked of him, whether it be totell her his name, confess his true love's name, orto murder his beloved mother, would bring himboundless joy because he would finally have a taskto carry out for her.
"Let's find out what this is all about," Richardsaid in a low growl.
In exhaustion, Kahlan stared at the man on hisknees. She was so weary she could hardly stand.
Sweat trickled down between her breasts. She needed 
rest, but this problem was more immediate andneeded to be attended to first. 
On their way to the man waiting on his knees, his 


eyes turned expectantly up toward Kahlan, Richardhalted. There, in the dirt before his boots, wasthe remains of the statue Sabar had brought tothem. It was broken into a hundred pieces, none ofthem any longer recognizable except that thosepieces were still a translucent amber color.
Nicci's letter had said that they didn't need thestatue, now that it had given its warning—a warningthat Kahlan had somehow broken a protective shieldsealing away something profoundly dangerous.
Kahlan didn't know what the seal protected, but shefeared that she knew all too well what she had done 
to break it. 
She feared even more that, because of her, themagic of Richard's sword had begun to falter.
As Kahlan stood staring down at the amber fragmentsground into the dirt, despair flooded into her.
Richard's arm circled her waist. "Don't let yourimagination get carried away. We don't know whatthis is about, yet. We can't even be certain thatit's true—it could even be some kind of mistake." 
Kahlan wished that she could believe that. 

Richard finally slid his sword back into itsscabbard. "Do you want to rest first, sit a bit?"

His concern for her took precedence overeverything. From the first day she met him, italways had. Right then, it was his well-being thatconcerned her. 

Using her power sapped a Confessor of strength.
It had left Kahlan feeling not only weak, but, thistime, nauseated. She had been named to the post ofMother Confessor, in part, because her power was sostrong that she was able to recover it in hours;
for others it had taken a day or sometimes two. Atthe thought of all those other Confessors, some ofwhom she'd dearly loved, being long dead, Kahlanfelt the weight of hopelessness pulling her evenlower. 

To fully recover her strength, she would need anight's rest. At the moment, though, there were 


more important considerations, not the least ofwhich was Richard. 

"No," she said. "I'm all right. I can restlater. Let's ask him what you will."

Richard's gaze moved over the campsite litteredwith limbs, entrails, bodies. The ground was soakedwith blood. The stench of it all, along with thestill smoldering body beside the fire, was makingKahlan sicker by the second. She turned away fromthe man on his knees, toward Richard, into theprotection of his arms. She was exhausted.

"And then let's get away from this place," shesaid. "We need to get away from here. There mightbe more men coming." Kahlan worried that if he hadto draw the sword again, he might not have the helpof its magic. "We need to find a more secure camp."

Richard nodded his agreement. He looked over herhead as he held her to his chest. Despiteeverything, or perhaps because of everything, itfelt wonderful simply to be held. She could hearFriedrich just rushing back into camp, panting ashe ran. He stumbled to a halt as he let out a moan 
of astonishment mixed with revulsion at what he 
saw. 

"Tom, Friedrich," Richard asked, "do you haveany idea if there are any more men coming?"
"I don't think so," Tom said. "I think they weretogether. I caught them coming up a gully. I wasgoing to try to make it back here to warn you, butfour of them came over a rise and jumped me whilethe rest ran for our camp."

"I didn't see anyone, Lord Rahl," Friedrichsaid, catching his breath. "I came running when Iheard the yelling."

Richard acknowledged Friedrich's words with areassuring hand on the man's shoulder. "Help Tomget the horses hitched. I don't want to spend thenight here."
As the two men sprang into action, Richard turnedto Jennsen. 


 "Please lay out some bedrolls in the back of thewagon, will you? I'd like Kahlan to be able to liedown and rest when we move out." 

Jennsen patted Betty's shoulder, urging the goatto follow her. "Of course, Richard." She hurriedoff to the wagon, Betty trotting along close at herside. 

As everyone rushed as quickly as possible to gettheir things together, Richard went by himself toan open patch of ground nearby to dig a shallowgrave. There was no time for a funeral pyre. Alonely grave was the best they could do, butSabar's spirit was gone, and wouldn't fault thenecessity of their hurried care for his body.

Kahlan reconsidered her thought. After theletter from Nicci and learning the meaning of thewarning beacon, she now had even more reason todoubt that many things, including spirits, werestill true. The world of the dead was connected to 
the world of the living by links of magic. The veilitself was magic and said to be within those likeRichard. They had learned that without magic thoselinks themselves could fail, and that, since thoseother worlds couldn't exist independent of theworld of life, but only existed in a relationalsense to the world of life, should the links failcompletely, those other worlds might very wellcease to exist—much as, without the sun, theconcept of daytime would not exist.

It was now clear to Kahlan that the world's hold 
on magic was slipping, and had been slipping forseveral years.
She knew the reason. 

Spirits, the good and the bad, and the existenceof everything else that depended on magic, mightsoon be lost. That meant that death would become 
final, in every sense of the word. It could even bethat there was no longer the possibility of beingwith a loved one after death, or of being with thegood spirits. The good spirits, even the underworld 


itself, might be passing into nothingness.

When Richard was finished, Tom helped him gentlyplace Sabar's body in the ground. After Tom spokequiet words asking the good spirits to watch overone of their own, he and Richard covered the bodyover. 

"Lord Rahl," Tom said in a low voice when theywere finished, "while some of the men began theattack on you, here, others slit the horses'throats before joining their fellows to come afteryou four."
"All the horses?" 

"Except mine. My draft horses are pretty big.
The men were probably worried about gettingtrampled. They left some men to take care of me, sothese here thought they had me out of the way. Theyprobably figured they could worry about the drafthorses later, after they had the rest of you." Tomshrugged his broad shoulders. "Maybe they evenplanned to capture you, tie you up, and take you inthe wagon."

Richard acknowledged Tom's words with a singlenod. He wiped his fingers across his forehead.
Kahlan thought he looked worse than she felt. Shecould see that the headache had returned and was 
crushing him under the weight of its pain.

Tom looked around their camp, his gaze playingover the fallen men. "What should we do with the 
rest of the bodies?" 

"The races can have the rest of them," Richardsaid without hesitation. 

Tom didn't look to have any disagreement withthat. "I'd better go help Friedrich finish gettingthe horses hitched to the wagon. They'll be ahandful with the scent of blood in their nostrils 
and the sight of the others dead."

As Tom went to see to his horses, Richard calledto Cara. "Count the bodies," he told her. "We needto know the total." 

"Richard," Kahlan asked in a confidential tone 


after Tom was out of earshot and Cara had started 
stepping over some of the bodies and betweenothers, going about the task of taking a count,
"what happened when you drew the sword?"
He didn't ask what she meant or try to spare herfrom worry.
"There's something wrong with its magic. When Idrew the sword, it failed to heed my call. The menwere rushing in and I couldn't delay in what I hadto do. Once I met the attack, the magic finallyreacted. 

"It's probably due to the headaches from thegift—they must be interfering with my ability tojoin with the sword's magic."

"The last time you had the headaches they didn'tinterfere with the sword's power."

"I told you, don't let your imagination getcarried away. This has only happened since I'vestarted getting the headaches again. That has to bethe reason." 

Kahlan didn't know if she dared believe him, orif he really even believed it himself. He wasright, though. The problem with the sword's magichad only recently developed—after he startedgetting the headaches.
"They're getting worse, aren't they?"
He nodded. "Come on, let's get what answers wecan." 

Kahlan let out a tired sigh, resigned to thatpart of it. They had to use this chance to find outwhat information was now available to them. 
Kahlan turned to the man still on his knees. 

CHAPTER 16 


 The man's tearful eyes gazed pleadingly up atKahlan as she stepped in front of him. He had beenwaiting, alone and without her wishes, for quite awhile and as a result was in a state of dire 
misery.

"You are to come with us," Kahlan told him in acold tone. "You are to walk in front of the wagonfor now, where we can keep an eye on you. You willobey the orders of any of the others with me as youwould obey my orders. You will answer all questionstruthfully."

The man fell to his belly on the ground, intears, kissing her feet, thanking her profusely forat last commanding him. Groveling on the ground,
with that V-shaped notch in his ear, he remindedher of nothing so much as a swine.

Fists at her side, Kahlan screamed "Stop that!"
She didn't want this murdering pig touching her.

He sprang back instantly, aghast at the rage inher voice, horror-struck that she was displeasedwith him. He cringed motionless at her feet, hiseyes wide, fearful that he would do something elseto displease her.

"You aren't in a uniform," Richard said to theman. "You and the other men aren't soldiers?" 

"We're soldiers, just not regular soldiers," theman said with eager excitement to be able to answerthe question and thus do Kahlan's bidding. "We'respecial men serving with the Imperial Order."
"Special? How are you special?"

With a hint of uncertainty in his wet eyes, theman looked nervously up at Kahlan. She gave him nosign. She had already told him that he was tofollow all their orders. The man, at last certainof her intention, rushed to go on.

"We're a special unit of men—with the army—ourtask is to capture enemies of the Order—we have topass tests to be sure we're able men—loyal men—andthat we can accomplish the missions we're sent on—" 


"Slow down," Richard said. "You're talking toofast." 

The man glanced quickly at Kahlan, his eyesfilling with tears that he might have displeasedher, too.
"Go on," she said.

"We don't wear uniforms or let our purpose beknown," the man said with obvious relief that if hecontinued it would satisfy her. "Usually we work incities, searching out insurrectionists. We minglewith people, get them to think of us as one ofthem. When they plot against the Order, we go alonguntil we find out the names of all those involved 
and then we capture them and turn them over forquestioning."

Richard stared down at the man for a long time,
his face showing no reaction. Richard had been inthe hands of the Order and "questioned." Kahlancould only imagine what he must have been thinking.

"And do you hand over only those who you know tobe plotting against the Order?" Richard asked. "Ordo you simply turn in those you suspect and anyonewho they know?"

"If we suspect they might be plotting—like ifthey keep to themselves and their own group, andwon't open their lives to other citizens—then weturn them in to be questioned so that it can bedetermined what they might be hiding." The manlicked his lips, keen to tell them the full extentof his methods. "We talk to those they work with,
or neighbors, and get the names of anyone theyassociate with, any of their friends—sometimes eventheir closest family members. We usually take atleast some of them, too, and turn them over forquestioning. When they're questioned, they allconfess their crimes against the Order so thatproves our suspicions about them were right."

Kahlan thought that Richard might draw his swordand behead the man on the spot. Richard knew alltoo well what they did to those who were brought 


in, knew how hopeless was their plight.

Confessions obtained under torture often 
provided names of anyone who might be suspiciousfor any reason, making the job of torturing a verybusy profession. The people of the Old World livedin constant fear that they would be taken to one ofthe many places where people were questioned.

Those pulled in were rarely guilty of plottingagainst the Order; most people were too busy justtrying to survive, trying to feed their families,
to have time to plot to overthrow the rule of theImperial Order. Many people did, however, talkabout a better life, about what they would like todo, to grow, to create, to own, about their hopesthat their children would have a better life than 
theirs. Since mankind's duty was sacrifice to thebetterment of their fellow man, not to their ownbetterment, that, to the Imperial Order, was notjust insurrection, but blasphemy. In the Old World,
misery was a widespread virtue, a duty to a highercalling.

There were others who didn't dream of a better 
life, but dreamed of helping the Order by turningin the names of those who spoke ill of the Order,
or hid food or even a bit of money, or talked of abetter life. Turning in such "disloyal citizens"
kept yet other fingers from pointing at theinformer. Informing became an indicator ofsanctity.

Instead of drawing his sword, Richard changedthe subject. "How many of you were there, tonight?"
"Including me, twenty-eight," the man said withoutdelay.
"Were you all together in one group when youattacked?" 

The man nodded, keen to admit their whole planand thus gain Kah-lan's approval. "We wanted tomake sure you and, and..." His eyes turned toKahlan as he realized the incompatibility of histwo goals— confessing and pleasing the Mother 


Confessor. 

He burst into tears, clasping his handsprayerfully. "Forgive me, Mistress! Please, forgiveme!" 

If his voice was the quintessence of emotion,
hers was the opposite. "Answer the question."
He brought his sobbing to a halt in order to speakas he had been commanded. Tears, though, continuedto stream down his filthy cheeks. "We stayedtogether for a focused attack, so we could be surethat we captured Lord Rahl and, and... you, MotherConfessor. When trying to capture a good-size groupwe split up, with half holding back to look foranyone who might try to slip away, but I told themen that I wanted the both of you, and you weresaid to be together, so this was our chance. Ididn't want to run the risk that you would have anyhope of fighting us off, so I ordered all the mento the attack, having some cut the throats of thesaddle horses, first, to prevent any possibility ofescape."
His face brightened. "I never suspected that wemight fail."
"Who sent you?" Kahlan asked.

The man shuffled forward on his knees, his handtentatively coming up to touch her leg. Kahlanremained motionless, but by her icy glare let himknow that touching her would displease her greatly.
The hand backed away.
"Nicholas," he said.

Kahlan's brow twitched. She had been expectinghim to say Jagang had sent him.

She was wary of the possibility that the dreamwalker might be watching through this man's eyes.
Jagang had in the past sent assassins after he hadslipped into their thoughts. With Jagang in aperson's mind, he dominated and directed them, andeven Cara could not control them. Nor, for thatmatter, could Kahlan.
"You're lying to me. Jagang sent you." 


 The man fell to pitiful weeping. "No, Mistress!
I've never had any dealings with His Excellency.
The army is vast and far-flung. I take my ordersfrom those in my section. I don't think that theones they take orders from, or their commanders, oreven theirs, are worthy of His Excellency'sattention. His Excellency is far to the north,
bringing the word of the Order's salvation to alawless and savage people; he would not even beaware of us. 

"We are but a lowly squad of men with the muscleto snatch people the Order wants, either forquestioning or to silence them. We are all fromthis part of the empire and so we were called uponbecause we were here. I am not worthy of theattention of His Excellency."

"But Jagang has visited you—in your dreams. Hehas visited your mind."

"Mistress?" The man looked terrified to have to 
question her rather than answer her question. "Idon't understand." 

Kahlan stared. "Jagang has come into your mind.
He has spoken to you."

He looked sincerely puzzled as he shook hishead. "No, Mistress. I have never met HisExcellency. I have never dreamed about him—I don'tknow anything about him, except that Altur'Rang hasthe honor of being the place where he was born.

"Would you like me to kill him for you,
Mistress? Please, if it is your wish, allow me tokill him for you?"

The man didn't know how preposterous such anotion was; in his desire to please her, though, ifshe commanded it he would be only too happy to makethe attempt. Kahlan turned her back on the man asRichard watched him. 

She leaned toward Richard a bit as she spokequietly, so the man wouldn't hear. "I don't know ifthose visited by the dream walker must always beaware of it, but I think they would be. The ones 


I've seen before were mindful of Jagang's presencein their mind." 

"Couldn't the dream walker slip into a person'smind without their being aware of it just so hecould watch us?" 

"I suppose it's possible," she said. "But thinkof all the millions of people in the Old World—hecan't know whose mind to enter so he can watch. 
Dream walker or not, he is only one man."
"Are you gifted?" Richard asked the man.
"No." 

"Well," Richard whispered, "Nicci told me thatJagang rarely bothers with the ungifted. She saidthat it was difficult for him to take the mind of 
the ungifted, so he simply uses the gifted hecontrols and has them control the ungifted for him.
He has all the Sisters he's captured that he has toworry about. He has to maintain his control overthem and direct their actions—including what westarted to read in Nicci's letter—about how he's 
guiding the Sisters in altering people intoweapons. Besides that he heads the army and plansstrategy. He has a lot of things to manage, so heusually confines himself to the minds of thegifted."

"But not always. If he has to, if he needs to,
if he wants to, he can enter the minds of theungifted. If we were smart," Kahlan whispered, "wewould kill this man now." 

As they spoke, Richard's glare never left theman. She knew he would not hesitate to agree unlesshe thought the man might still be of use.

"I have but to command it," Kahlan reminded him,
"and he will drop dead."

Richard took in her eyes for a moment, thenturned back to the man and frowned. "You said 
someone named Nicholas sent you. Who is thisNicholas?" 
"Nicholas is a fearsome wizard in the service of 
the Order." 


"You saw him. He gave you these orders?"

"No. We are too lowly for one such as he tobother with us. He sent orders that were passeddown." 
"How did you know where we were?" Richard asked.

"The orders included the general area. They saidthat we should look for you coming north at theeastern edge of the desert wasteland and if wefound you we were to capture you."
"How did Nicholas know where we were?" 

The man blinked, as if searching his mind to seeif he had the answer. "I don't know. We weren't 
told how he knew. We were told only that we were tosearch this area and if we found you we were tobring you both in, alive. The commander who passedon the orders told me not to fail or the Slide 
would be very displeased with us."
"Who would be displeased? ... The Slide?"

"Nicholas the Slide. That is what he's called. 
Some people just call him 'the Slide.' "
Frowning, Kahlan turned back to the man. "Thewhat?" 
The man began trembling at her frown. "The Slide,
Mistress." 
"What does that mean? The Slide?" 

The man fell to wailing, his hands claspedtogether again as he begged her forgiveness. "Idon't know, Mistress. I don't know. You asked whosent me, that is his name. Nicholas. People callhim the Slide." 
"Where is he?" Richard asked. 

"I don't know," the man blurted out as he wept.
"I received my orders from my commander. He saidthat a Brother of the Order brought the orders tohis commander." 

Richard took a deep breath as he rubbed the backof his neck. "What else do you know about thisNicholas, other than that he's a wizard and he'scalled 'the Slide'?" 
"I only know to fear him, as do my commanders." 


"Why? What happens if you displease him?" Kahlan
asked. 
"He impales those who displease him."


With the stench of blood and burning flesh,
along with the things she was hearing, it was allKahlan could do to keep from being sick. She didn'tknow how much longer her stomach could take it ifthey stayed in this place, if this man told heranything else.

Kahlan gently grasped Richard's forearm.
"Please, Richard," she whispered, "this isn'treally getting us anything very useful. Please,
let's get out of here? If we think of anything, wecan question him more later."

"Get out in front of the wagon," Richard saidwithout hesitation. "I don't want her having tolook at you."
The man bobbed his head and scrambled away.

"I don't think Jagang is in his mind," Kahlansaid, "but what if I'm wrong?"

"For now, I think we should keep him alive. Outin front of the wagon, Tom will have a clear viewof him. If we're wrong, well, Tom is very quickwith his knife." Richard let out a shallow breath. 
"I've already learned something important."
"What?" 

His hand in the small of her back started her 
moving. "Let's get going and I'll tell you aboutit." 

Kahlan could see the wagon waiting in thedistant darkness. Tom's eyes followed the man as heran out in front of the big draft horses and stoodwaiting. Jennsen and Cara were in the back of thewagon. Friedrich sat up on the seat beside Tom.

"How many?" Richard called to Cara as theyapproached the wagon.

"With the four out in the hills that Tom took 
care of, and this one, here, twenty-eight."
"That's all of them, then," Richard said withrelief. 


 Kahlan felt his hand on the small of her back 

slip away. He staggered to a halt. Kahlan pausedbeside him, not knowing why he'd stopped. Richardsank to one knee. Kahlan dropped down beside him,
throwing an arm around him for support. He squeezedhis eyes shut in pain. With his arm pressed acrosshis abdomen, he doubled over.
Cara leaped over the side of the wagon and raced totheir side. 

Despite how exhausted Kahlan was, panic joltedher instantly to full alert. "We need to get to thesliph," she said to Cara as well as Richard. "Weneed to get to Zedd and get some answers—and somehelp. Zedd can help."

Richard drew labored breaths, unable to speak ashe held his breath against a wave of agony. Kahlanfelt helpless not knowing what to do to help him.

"Lord Rahl," Cara said, kneeling before him,
"you have been taught to control pain. You must dothat, now." She seized a fistful of his hair andlifted his head to be able to look into his eyes.
"Think," she commanded. "Remember. Put the pain inits place. Do it!"

Richard clutched her forearm as if to thank her 
for her words. "Can't," he finally managed to sayto Kahlan through his obvious suffering. "We can'tgo in the sliph."
"We must," she insisted. "The sliph is the fastestway."

"And if I step down into the sliph, breathe inthat quicksilver creature—and my magic fails?"

Kahlan was frantic. "But we must go in the sliphto get there in a hurry." She feared to say "intime." 

"And if anything is wrong, I'll die." He panted,
trying to catch his breath against the pain.
"Without magic, breathing the sliph is death. Thesword is failing me." He swallowed, coughed, gaspedfor breath. "If my gift is causing the headaches,
and that's making magic falter in me, and I enter 


the sliph, I will be dead after I take the first
breath. There's no way to test it."
An icy wave of terror shot through her veins.
Getting to Zedd was Richard's only hope. That had
been her plan. Without help, the headaches of the
gift would kill him.


She feared, though, that she knew why the magicof his sword was failing, and it wasn't theheadaches. She feared that it was in fact the same 
thing that had caused the seal to be broken. Thewarning beacon testified that she was the cause ofthat. If it was true, then she was the cause ofthat and much more. 

If she was right, she realized, if it was true,
then Richard was right about the sliph—going intothe sliph would indeed be death. If she was right,
then he wouldn't even be able to call the sliph,
much less travel by it.

"Richard Rahl, if you're going to throw mud onmy best ideas then you had better have an idea ofyour own to offer in its place."

He was gasping, now, in the clutch of violentpain. And then Kahlan saw blood when he coughed.
"Richard!" 

Tom, looking alarmed, raced up beside them. Whenhe saw the blood running down Richard's chin, heturned ashen. 

"Help him to the wagon," Kahlan said, trying tokeep her voice steady.

Cara put her shoulder under his arm. Tom circledan arm around Richard and helped Kahlan and Caralift him to his feet. 
"Nicci," Richard said.
"What?" Kahlan asked. 

"You wanted to know if I had an idea. Nicci." He 
gasped in pain and struggled to get his breath. Yetmore blood came when he coughed. It was drippingoff his chin. 

Nicci was a sorceress, not a wizard. Richardneeded a wizard. Even if they had to travel 


overland, they could race there. "But Zedd would bebetter able—" 

"Zedd is too far," he said. "We need to get toNicci. She can use both sides of the gift."
Kahlan hadn't thought of that. Maybe she reallycould help.

Halfway to the wagon, Richard collapsed. It wasall they could do to hold up his dead weight. WithTom gripping him under the backs of his shouldersand Cara and Kahlan each holding a leg, they ranthe rest of the way to the wagon.

Tom, without the need of help from Cara andKahlan, hoisted Richard into the back of the wagon.
Jennsen hurriedly unfurled another bedroll. Theylaid Richard out as carefully as they could. Kahlanfelt as if she were watching herself react, move,
talk. She refused to allow herself to give in topanic.

Kahlan and Jennsen tried to lean in, to see howhe was, but Cara shoved them back out of the way.
She bent over Richard, putting her ear to hismouth, listening. Her fingers felt for a pulse atthe side of his throat. Her other hand cupped theback of his neck, no doubt preparing to hold him togive him the breath of life if she had to. Mord-
Sith were knowledgeable about such things; theyknew how to keep people alive in order to extendtheir torture. Cara knew how to use that knowledgeto help save lives, too.

"He's breathing," Cara said as she straightened.
She laid a comforting hand on Kahlan's arm. "He'sbreathing easier now."

Kahlan nodded her thanks, unwilling to test hervoice. She moved in closer to Richard, on the otherside, while Cara wiped the blood from his chin andmouth. Kahlan felt helpless. She didn't know whatto do. 

"We'll ride all night," Tom said over hisshoulder as he climbed up into the driver's seat.
Kahlan forced herself to think. They had to get to 


Nicci. 

"No," she said. "It's a long way to Altur'Rang.
We're not near any roads; picking our way crosscountry in the dark is foolhardy. If we're recklessand push too hard we'll just end up killing thehorses—or they could break a leg, which would bejust as bad. If we lose the horses, we can't verywell carry Richard all the way and expect to makeit in time. 

"The wisest thing to do is to go just as fast aswe possibly can, but we also have to get rest alongthe way to be ready should we be attacked again. Wehave to use our heads or we'll never make it." 

Jennsen held Richard's hand in both of hers. "He 
has that headache, and he fought all those men—
maybe if he can just get some sleep, he'll bebetter, then."

Kahlan was buoyed by that thought, even thoughshe didn't think it was that simple. She stood inthe wagon bed, looking out at the man waiting forher to command him. 

"Are there any more of you? Any more sent toattack us or capture us? Did this Nicholas sendanyone else?"
"Not that I'm aware of, Mistress."

Kahlan spoke softly to Tom. "If he even lookslike he's going to cause any trouble, don'thesitate. Kill him." 

With a nod, Tom readily agreed. Kahlan droppedback down and felt Richard's brow. His skin was 
cold and wet. 

"We'd best go on until we find a place that willbe easier to defend. I think Jennsen is right thathe needs rest; I don't think bouncing around in theback of this wagon is going to help him. We'll allneed to get some rest and then start out at firstlight."

"We need to find a horse," Cara said. "The wagonis too slow. If we can find a horse, I'll ride likethe wind, find Nicci, and start back with her. That 


way we don't have to wait all the way until we getthere in the wagon."

"Good idea." Kahlan looked up at Tom. "Let's getgoing—find a place to stop for the night."

Tom nodded as he threw off the brake. At his 
urging, the horses heaved their weight against thenames and the wagon lurched ahead.

Betty, puling softly, lay beside an unconsciousRichard and put her head down on his shoulder.
Jennsen stroked Betty's head.

Kahlan saw tears running down Jennsen's cheeks.
"I'm sorry about Rusty."
Betty's head came up. She let out a pitiful bleat.

Jennsen nodded. "Richard will be all right," shesaid, her voice choked with tears as she tookKahlan's hand. "I know he will." 

CHAPTER 17 

Zedd thought he heard something.

The spoonful of stew he was about to put intohis waiting mouth paused. He remained motionless,
listening.

The Keep often had sounded alive to him, as ifit were breathing. Once in a while it even soundedas if it were letting out a small sigh. Ever sincehe was a boy, Zedd had, on occasion, heard loudsnaps that he never could trace. He suspected suchsounds were most likely the massive stone blocksmoving just a tad, popping as they yielded groundagainst a neighbor. There were stone blocks down inthe foundations of the Keep that were the size ofsmall palaces.

Once, when Zedd was no more than ten or twelve,
a loud crack had rung through the entire Keep as if 


the place had been struck with a giant hammer. Heran out of the library, where he'd been studying,
to see other people coming out of rooms all up anddown the hall, looking about, whispering theirworries to one another. Zedd's father had later 
told him that it was found to be nothing more thanone of the huge foundation blocks crackingsuddenly, and while it posed no structural problem,
the abrupt snap of such an enormous piece ofgranite had been heard throughout the Keep.
Although such occurrences were rare, it was not thelast time he heard such a harmless, butfrightening, sound in the Keep.

And then there were the animals. Bats flew 
unrestricted through parts of the Keep. There weretowers that soared to dizzying heights, some emptyinside but for stone stairs curving up around theinside of the outer wall on their way up to a smallroom at the top, or an observation deck. In thedusty streamers of sunlight penetrating the darkinteriors of those towers there could be seen 
myriad bugs flitting about. The bats loved thetowers. 

Rats, too, lived in parts of the Keep. Theyscurried and squeaked, sometimes causing a fright.
Mice were common in places, making noise scratchingand gnawing at things. And then there were thecats, offspring of former mousers and pets, but nowall wild, that lived off the rats and the mice. Thecats also hunted the birds that flew in and out of 
uncovered openings to feed on bugs, or to buildnests up in high recesses.

There were sometimes awful sounds when a bat, amouse, a bird, or even a cat went somewhere theyweren't permitted. The shields were meant to keeppeople away from dangerous or restricted areas, butthey were also placed to prevent unauthorizedaccess to many of the items stored and preserved inthe Keep. The shields guarded against life; theymade no distinction between human and nonhuman 


life. 

Otherwise, after all, a pet dog that innocentlywandered into a restricted area could theoreticallyretrieve a dangerous talisman and proudly take itto a child master who could be put in peril by it.
Those who placed the shields were aware that it wasalso possible for unscrupulous people to trainanimals to go to restricted areas, snatch whateverthey might be able to carry, and bring it to them.
Not knowing what animal might potentially betrained for such a task, the shields were made toward all life. If a bat flew into the wrong shield,
it was incinerated. 

There were shields in the Keep that even Zeddcould not get through because they required bothsides of the gift and he had only the Additive.

Some of the shields took the form of a barrier 
of magic that physically prevented passage in someway, either by restricting movement or by inducinga sensation so unpleasant that one wouldn't forceoneself beyond. Those shields were meant to preventungifted people or children from entering certainareas, not to prevent entrance to the gifted, so itwas not necessary for those shields to kill.
But such shields only worked for those who wereungifted.

In other places, entrance was strictly forbiddento anyone but those with not only the appropriateability, but proper authority. Without both theappropriate ability and authority granted by spellskeyed to the particular defenses in that area, suchas metal plates that had to be touched by anauthorized wizard, the shields killed whateverentered them. The shields killed animals as 
infallibly, as effectively, as they would kill anyintruder. 

Such dangerous shields gave warnings of heat,
light, or tingling as a warning so as to preventpeople from unintentionally going near them—afterall, with the size of the place, it was easy enough 


to become lost. Such warnings worked for theanimals, too, but occasionally a cat chased apanicked mouse into a lethal shield, and sometimesthe cat, racing after, would run right into it aswell. 

As Zedd waited, listening, the silence stretchedon, unbroken. If he really had heard something, itcould have been the Keep moving, or an animalsqueaking when it approached a shield, or even agust of wind coming through one of the hundreds ofopenings. Whatever it was, it was silent, now. Thewooden spoonful of stew finally completed itsjourney.
"Umm ..." Zedd declared to no one in particular.
"Good!" 

To his great disappointment when he'd firsttasted it, he had found that the stew wasn't done.
Rather than hurry the process with a bit of magic,
and possibly incur Adie's wrath for meddling withher cooking, Zedd had sat down on the couch andresigned himself to doing a bit of reading.

There was no end to the reading. Books offeredthe potential of valuable information that couldaid them in ways they couldn't foretell. From timeto time, as he read, he checked the progress of thestew, rather patiently, he thought.

Now, as he tasted it, it finally seemed to bedone. The chunks of ham were so tender they wouldfall apart when his tongue pressed them to the roofof his mouth. The whole delightfully bubbling pothad taken on the heady melding of onions and oils,
carrots and turnips, a hint of garlic and adizzying swirl of complementary spices, all crowdedwith nuggets of ham, some still with crisp fatalong one edge.

To his great annoyance, Zedd had long agonoticed that Adie hadn't made any biscuits. Stewwent well with biscuits. There should be biscuits. 
He decided that a bowl of stew would hold him until 
she returned and made some. There should be 


biscuits. It was only right.

He didn't know where Adie had gone. Since he hadbeen down in Aydindril most of the day, he reasonedthat she had probably gone off to one of thelibraries to search through books for anything thatmight be of help. She was a great help ferretingpotentially relevant books out of the libraries.
Being from Nicobarese, Adie sought out books inthat language. There were books all over the Keep,
so there was no telling where she was.

There were also storerooms filled with racks and 
racks of bones. Other rooms contained rows of tall 
cabinets, each with hundreds of drawers. Zedd hadseen bones of creatures there that he had never 
seen in life. Adie was an expert of sorts on bones.
She had lived for a good portion of her life inseclusion in the shadow of the boundary. Peopleliving in the area had been afraid of her; theycalled her the bone woman because she collected 
bones. They had been everywhere in her house. Someof those bones protected her from the beasts thatcame out of the boundary.

Zedd sighed. Books or bones, there was notelling where she was. Besides that, there were anynumber of other things in the Wizard's Keep thatwould be of great interest to a sorceress. Shemight even have simply wanted to go for a walk, orup on a rampart to gaze at the stars and think.

It was much easier to wait for her to come back 
to her stew than for him to go looking for her.
Maybe he should have put one of the bells aroundher neck. 

Zedd hummed a merry tune to himself as hespooned stew into a wooden bowl. No use waiting onan empty stomach, he always said; that only made aperson grouchy. It was really better to have asnack and be in good humor than to wait and bemiserable. He would only be bad company if he wasmiserable. 
On the eighth spoon of stew into the bowl, he heard 


a sound. 
His hand froze above the bubbling pot.
Zedd thought he'd heard a bell tinkle.


Zedd wasn't given to flights of imagination orto being unreasonably jumpy, but a cold shivertingled across his flesh as if he'd been touched bythe icy fingers of a spirit reaching out fromanother world. He stood motionless, partly benttoward the pot in the fire, partly turned towardthe hall, listening.

It could be a cat. Maybe he hadn't tied the thincord high enough and as a cat went under the lineits tail had swished up and rung the bell. Maybe acat was being mischievous and as it sat on itshaunches, tail swishing back and forth, it hadbatted a bell. It could be a cat. 

Or maybe a bird had landed on the line to roostfor the night. A person couldn't get past theshields in order to trip a belled cord. Zedd hadplaced extra shields. It had to be an animal—a cat,
or a bird. 

If so, if no one could get past the regularshields and the extras he had placed, then why hadhe strung bells?

Despite the likely explanations, his hair wastrying to stand on end. He didn't like the way thebell had rung; there was something about thecharacter of the sound that told him it wasn't an 
animal. The sound had been too firm, too abrupt,
too quick to stop.

He realized fully, now, that a bell had in factrung. He wasn't imagining it. He tried to re-createthe sound in his mind so that he might be able toput shape to the form that had tripped the cord.

Zedd silently set the bowl down on the side ofthe granite hearth. He rose up, listening with anear turned toward the passage from where he hadheard the bell. His mind raced through a map of allthe bells he'd placed.
He needed to be sure. 


 He slipped through the door and into thepassageway, the back of his shoulder brushing theplastered wall as he moved down to the firstintersection on his right, watching not just aheadbut behind as well. Nothing moved in the hallwayahead. He paused, leaning ahead to take a quickglance down the hall to the right. When he found itclear, he took the turn.

Zedd moved quickly past closed doors, past atapestry of vineyards that he had always thoughtwas rather poorly executed, past an empty doorwayto a room with a window that looked out over a deepshaft between towers on a high rampart, and pastthree more intersections until he reached the first 
stairway. He swept around the corner to the right,
up the stairs that curved around to the left asthey climbed up and crossed over the hall he'd justbeen in. In this way he could head back toward anetwork of halls where he'd placed a web of bellswithout using those same halls.

Zedd followed a mental map of a complex tangleof passages, halls, rooms, and dead ends that, overa lifetime, he had come to know intimately. BeingFirst Wizard, he had access to every place in theKeep except those places that required SubtractiveMagic. There were a few places where he could getconfused, but this was not one of them.

He knew that unless someone was following in hisfootsteps, they would have to either go back orpass a place where he had set traps of elaboratemagic as well as simple string. Then, if theydidn't see the cord, they would ring another bell.
Then he would be sure. 

Maybe it was Adie. Maybe she simply hadn't seenthe inky cord stretched across a doorway. Maybe shehad been annoyed that he'd strung bells and maybeshe'd rung one just to vex him.

No, Adie wasn't like that. She might shake herfinger at him and deliver a scathing lecture on whyshe didn't agree with him that stringing bells was 


an effective thing to do, but she wouldn't pull atrick about something she would recognize asintended to warn of danger. No, Adie might possiblyhave accidentally rung the bell, but she wouldn'thave rung it deliberately.
Another bell rang. Zedd spun to the sound and thenfroze. 

The bell had come from the wrong direction—fromwhere he'd set a bell on the other side of a 
conservatory. It was too far from the first foranyone to have made it this soon. They would havehad to go up a tower stairway, across a bridge to arampart, along a narrow walkway in the dark, pastseveral intersections to the correct turn that 
would descend a spiral ramp and make it downthrough a snarl of passageways in order to breakthe cord. 
Unless there was more than one person.
The bell had chimed with a quick jerk and thenclattered as it skittered across stone. It had to 
be a person tripping over the cord and sending thebell skipping across the stone floor.

Zedd changed his plan. He turned and raced downa narrow passageway to the left, climbing the firststairwell, running up the oak treads three at atime. He took the right fork at the landing, racedto the second circular stairwell of cut stone and 
climbed as fast as his legs would carry him. Hisfoot slipped on the narrow wedges of spiralingsteps and he banged his shin. He paused to winceonly for a second. He used the time to consult hismental map of the Keep, and then he was movingagain.

At the top, he dashed down a short paneled hall,
sliding to a stop on the polished maple floor. Heshouldered open a small, round-topped oak door. Astarry sky greeted him. He sucked deep draughts ofcool night air as he raced along the narrowrampart. He paused twice along the way to peer downthrough the slots in the crenellated battlements. 


He didn't see anyone. That was a good sign—he knewwhere they had to be if they weren't moving by anouter route. 

He ran on across the swaying span betweentowers, robes flying behind, crossing over theentire section of the Keep where both bells hadrung far below, going over the top of the area inorder to get behind whoever had tripped the cords.
While they had tripped bells on opposite sides ofthe conservatory, they had to have come in throughthe same wing—he knew that much. He wanted to getbehind them, bottle them in before they could getto an unprotected section where they wouldencounter a bewildering variety of passageways. Ifthey were to make it there and hide in that area,
he could have a time of rooting them out.

His mind raced as fast as his feet as he tried 
to think, tried to recall all the shields, tried tofigure how someone could have gotten past thedefenses to get to that specific wing where thebells that had rung were placed. There were shieldsthat should have made it impossible. He had toconsider thousands of corridors and passageways inthe Keep, trying to come up with all the potentialroutes. It was like a complex multilevel puzzle,
and despite how thorough he'd been, it was possiblehe'd missed something. He had to have missedsomething.
There were rooms or even entire sections that were 
shielded and could not be entered, but often theycould be circumvented. Even if a hall was shielded 
at both ends, so as to prevent anyone from gettingto the rooms in that hall, you could still usuallyget around to the other end of the hall and makeyour way to whatever lay beyond. That wasdeliberate; while the rooms might have helddangerous items of magic that had to be keptcontained, there needed to be ways to get to them,
and get beyond to other rooms that might, from timeto time, also have to be restricted. Most of the 


Keep was like that—a three-dimensional maze withalmost endless possible routes.

For the unwary, it could also be a killing fieldof traps. There were places layered with warningbarriers and other devices that would keep anyinnocent person away. Beyond those protectivelayers, the shields gave no warning before theykilled. Trespassers would not know there wereshields embedded beyond, and that they werestepping into a trap. Such shields were designedthat way in order to kill invaders who penetratedthat deep; the lack of warning was deliberate.

Zedd supposed it was possible for someone tobypass all the shields and work their way into thedepths of the place in order to ring thoseparticular bells, but for the life of him, hecouldn't trace all the steps necessary. But whoeverit was, no matter how lucky they were, they wouldsoon get themselves stuck in the labyrinth andthen, if they weren't killed by a shield, he coulddeal with them. 

Zedd gazed out past towers, ramparts, bridges,
and open stairs to rooms projecting from soaringwalls, out on the city of Aydindril far below, nowall dark and dead-looking. How had someone gottenpast the stone bridge up to the Keep?

A Sister of the Dark, maybe. Maybe one of themhad figured out how to use Subtract!ve Magic totake his shield down. But even if one had, theshields in the Keep were different. Most of themhad been placed by the wizards in ancient times,
wizards with both sides of the gift. A Sister ofthe Dark would not be able to breach such shields— 
they had been designed to withstand enemy wizardsof that time. They were far more powerful than anymere Sister of the Dark. 

And where was Adie? She should have been back. 
He wished now that he had gone and found her. Sheneeded to know that there was someone in the Keep.
Unless she already knew. Unless they had her. 


 Zedd turned and raced down the rampart. At theprojecting bastion, he seized the railing to theside to halt his forward rush and spin himselfaround the corner. He raced down the dark steps asif he were running down a hill.

With his gift, he could sense that there was noone in the vicinity. Since there was no one near,
that meant that he had managed to get behind them.
He had them trapped.

At the bottom of the steps he threw open thedoor and flew into the hallway beyond.
He crashed into a man standing there, waiting.

Zedd's momentum knocked the big man from hisfeet. They fell in a tangle, sliding together alongthe polished green and yellow marble floor, bothgrappling for control.

Zedd could not have been more surprised. Hisgifted sense told him the man was not there. Hisgifted sense was obviously wrong. Thedisorientation of encountering a man when he hadsensed that the hall was empty was more jarringthan the headlong tumble.

Even as he was rolling, Zedd was casting webs totangle the man in a snare of magic. The man, inturn, lunged to tangle Zedd in meaty arms.

In desperation, despite the close range, Zeddpulled enough heat from the surrounding air tounleash a thunderous blast of lightning and cast itdirectly into the man. The blinding flash burned alacing line through the stone block wall beyondhim. 

Only too late did Zedd realize that thedischarge of deadly power had lanced through theman without effect. The hall filled with shards of 
stone whistling about, ricocheting from walls andceiling, skipping along the floor.

The man landed on Zedd, driving the wind fromhim. Desperately yelling for help, the man wrestledZedd on the slippery floor. Zedd concocted a weakand fumbling defense, to give the man a false sense 


of confidence, until he was able to suddenly land aknee sharply at the point of his attacker'ssternum. The man cried out in surprise as much asin pain as he flipped backward off Zedd, gasping toget his wind back.
Having sucked so much heat from the air had left itas frigid as a winter night. Clouds of their breathfilled the cold air as both men panted with theeffort of the struggle. The man again cried out forhelp, hoping to bring comrades to his aid.

Zedd would assume that anyone would fear toattack a wizard by muscle alone. This man, though,
had no need to fear magic. Even if he hadn't knownthat before, certainly the evidence was now all tooclear. Yet, despite the man being at least twicethe size of his opponent, less than a third hisage, and having immunity from the conjuring beingthrown at him, Zedd thought that he foughtrather... squeamishly.

However timid the man was, he was determined. Hescrambled to attack again. If he broke Zedd's neck,
it wouldn't matter that he did so timidly.

As the man regained his feet and lunged, Zedddrew back his arms, elbows cocked, fingers spread,
and cast more of the lightning, but this time heknew better than to waste his effort trying to cutdown a man not touched by magic. Instead, Zeddsought to rake the floor with the conjured bolts ofpower. It slammed into the stone with unrestrainedviolence, ripping and splintering whole sections,
throwing sharp jagged shards streaking through theair. 

A fist-sized block of stone hurtling attremendous speed crashed into the man's shoulder.
Above the boom of thunderous power, Zedd heardbones snap. The impact spun the man around andknocked him back against the wall. Since Zedd nowknew that this intruder could not directly beharmed by magic, he instead filled the hall with adeafening storm of magic designed not to assail the 


man directly but to tear the place apart into acloud of deadly flying fragments.

The man, as he recoiled from striking the wall,
again threw himself at Zedd. He was met by a showerof deadly shards whistling through the air towardhim. Blood splattered across the wall beyond as theman was ripped to shreds. In a blink, he was killedand dropped heavily to the floor.

From beyond the smoke and dust filling the hall,
two more men suddenly flew at Zedd. His giftedsense told him that, like the first man, these menwere not there, either.

Zedd threw yet more lightning to rip up thefloor and unleash flying stone at the men, but theywere already through the flares of power, divingonto him. He crashed to his back, the men atop him.
They seized his arms.

Zedd struggled frantically to let loose a blastto bring down the ceiling. He began to whirl theair above the men to tear the hall to pieces, andthem with it. 

A beefy hand with a filthy white rag clampeddown over Zedd's face. He gasped, only to inhale apowerful smell that made his throat want to clenchshut, but too late.

With the cloth and the big hand covering hiswhole face, Zedd couldn't see. The world spunsickeningly.

Soft, silent blackness pressed in around him ashe fought to resist it, until he lostconsciousness. 

C H A P TER 18 


Zedd woke, his head spinning, his stomach heavingwith rippling waves of nausea. He didn't think thatin his entire life he had ever felt so sick. He 
hadn't known it was possible to feel so intense anurge to vomit, without actually throwing up. Hecouldn't lift his head. If he could just die rightthen, it would be a welcome release from suchdizzying agony.

He started to put his hands over the lighthurting his eyes, but found his wrists were tiedbehind his back. 
"I think he's waking," a man said in a subservientvoice. 

Despite his nausea, Zedd instinctively tried touse his gift to sense how many people were aroundhim. For some reason, his gift that ordinarilyflowed as easily as thought, as simply as using hiseyes to see, his ears to hear, felt thick and slow,
as if mired in molasses. He reasoned that it was 
probably the result of whatever vile substance itwas they had soaked the rag in to cause him to passout when held over his face. Still, he managed tosense that there was only one person around him.

Powerful hands seized his robes and yanked himto his feet. Zedd gave himself permission to vomit.
Against all expectation, it didn't happen. The darknight swam before his blurred vision. He could makeout trees against the sky, stars, and the loomingblack shape of the Keep.

Suddenly, a tongue of flame ignited in midair.
Zedd blinked at the unexpected brightness. Thesmall flame, wavering with a lazy motion, floatedabove the upturned palm of a woman with wiry grayhair. Zedd saw other people in the shadows; hisgifted sense was wrong. Like the man who hadattacked him, these, too, had to be people notaffected by magic.

The woman standing before him peered at him 


intently. Her expression twisted with satisfiedloathing.

"Well, well, well," she said with patronizingdelight. "The great wizard himself awakes."

Zedd said nothing. It seemed to amuse her. Herfearsome scowl and humped nose, lit from the sideby the flame she held above her palm, floatedcloser. 
"You are ours, now," she hissed.

Zedd, having waited patiently to gather hisresolve, abruptly initiated the required mentaltwist to the gift all the way down to his soul inorder to simultaneously call down lightning, focusair to slice this woman in two, and gather everystone and pebble from all around to crush her underan avalanche of rock. He expected the night tolight with such power as he unlocked and sentforth. 
Nothing happened.

Not waiting to waste the time to analyze whatcould be the difficulty, he was forced to abandonattempts at satisfying his emotional preferences,
and to ignite wizard's fire itself to consume her.
Nothing happened.

Not only did nothing happen, but it felt as ifthe attempt itself were but a pebble fallingendlessly into a vast, dark well. The expectationwithered in the face of what he found within 
himself: a kind of dreadful emptiness.

Zedd felt as if he couldn't light a tongue offlame to match hers if his life depended on it. Hewas somehow cut off from forming his ability intomuch of anything useful other than to use it for abit of dim awareness. Probably a lingering resultof the foul-smelling substance they had pressedover his face to make him lose consciousness. 

Since Zedd couldn't muster any power, he did theonly thing he could: he spit in her face.

With lightning speed, she backhanded him,
knocking him from the arms of the men holding him. 


Unable to use his hands to break his fall, he hitthe ground unexpectedly hard. He lay in the dirtfor a time, his ears ringing in the aftereffect ofthe hit he'd taken, waiting for someone to leanover and kill him. 

Instead, they hauled him to his feet again. Oneof the men seized his hair and pulled his head up,
forcing him to look into the woman's face. Thescowl he saw there looked like it spent a greatdeal of time on her face. 
She spit in his face.

Zedd smiled. "So, here we have a spoiled childplaying the game of tit for tat."

Zedd grunted with the sudden shock of a wallopof pain that twisted inside of his abdomen. Had themen not been holding him under his arms he wouldhave doubled over and fallen to the ground. Hewasn't quite sure how she had done it—probably witha fist of air delivered with all the power of hergift behind it. She had left the gathered airloosely formed, rather than focusing it to a sharpedge, or it would have torn him in two. As it was,
he knew it would leave his middle black and blue. 

It was a long and desperate wait before he wasable to at last draw a breath. 
The men who his gift said weren't there pulled himstraight.

"I'm disappointed to discover I'm in the handsof a sorceress who can be no more inventive than 
that," Zedd mocked.

That brought a smile to her scowl. "Don't youworry, Wizard Zo-rander, His Excellency very muchwants your scrawny hide. He will be playing a gameof tit for tat that I believe you will find quiteinventive. I have learned that when it comes to 
inventive cruelty, His Excellency is peerless. I'msure he will not disappoint you."

"Then what are we standing around for? I can'twait to have a word with His Excellency."
As the men held his head back for her, she ran a 


fingernail down the side of his face and across histhroat, not hard enough to draw blood, but enoughto hint at her own restrained cruelty. She leanedin again. One eyebrow lifted in a way that ran achill up Zedd's spine.

"I imagine you have grand ideas about such avisit, about what you think you will do or say."
She reached out and hooked a finger aroundsomething at his neck. When she gave it a firm tug,
he realized that he was wearing a collar of somesort. By the way it dug into the flesh at the backof his neck, it had to be metal.
"Guess what this is," she said. "Just guess."

Zedd sighed. "You really are a tedious woman.
But I imagine you've heard that ofttimes before."

She ignored his gibe, eager to be the messengerof bad news. Her scowling smile widened. "It's aRada'Han." 
Zedd's sense of alarm rose, but he kept any traceof it from his face. 

"Really." He paused for an extended, bored yawn.
"Well, I'd not expect a woman of your limitedintellect to think up something clever."

She slammed a knee into his groin. Zedd doubledover in pain, unable to contain his groan. Hehadn't been expecting something so crude.

The men pulled him up straight, not allowing himpause to recover. Being pulled up straight broughta gasp of agony. His teeth were clenched, his eyeswere watering, and his knees wanted to buckle, butthe men held him upright.

Her smile was getting annoying. "You see, WizardZorander? Being clever isn't necessary at all."
Zedd saw her point but didn't say so.

He was already preparing to unlock the cursedcollar from his neck. He'd been "captured" before—
by the Prelate herself—and had had a Rada'Han putaround his neck, like some boy born with the giftwho needed training. The Sisters of the Light putsuch a collar around those boys so that the gift 


wouldn't harm them before they could learn tocontrol their gift. Richard had been captured andput in such a Rada'Han right after his gift came tolife in him. 

The collar was also used to control the youngwizard wearing it, to give pain, when the Sistersthought it necessary. Zedd understood the Prelate'sreasons for wanting Richard's help, since they knewhe had been born with both sides of the gift, and,
too, they worried about the dark forces thatpursued him, but he could never forgive her forputting Richard in a collar. A wizard needed to betrained by a wizard, not some misguided gaggle likethe Sisters of the Light.

The Prelate, though, had harbored no delusion ofactually training Richard to be a wizard. She hadcollared him in order to smoke out the traitors 
among her flock: the Sisters of the Dark.

Unlike Richard, though, Zedd knew how to getsuch a disgusting contrivance off his neck. Infact, he had done it before, when the Prelate hadthought to collar him and thus force hiscooperation.

Zedd used a thread of power to probe at thelock, not overtly, so as this woman might noticeit, but just enough to find the twist in the spellwhere he would be able to focus his ability to snapthe conjured lock.

When the time was right, when he had his feetsolidly under him, when his head stopped spinninglong enough, he would break the collar's hold. Inthat same instant, before she knew what hadhappened, he would release wizard's fire andincinerate this woman. 
She hooked a finger under the collar again and gaveit another tug.

"The thing is, my dear wizard, I would expectthat a man of your renowned talent might know howto get such a device off."

"Really? I'm renowned?" Zedd flashed her a grin. 


"That's very gratifying."

Her utter contempt brought her a smile of puredisdain. With her finger through the collar shepulled him close to her twisted expression. Sheignored his words and went on.

"Since His Excellency would be extremelydispleased should you get the collar off, I'vetaken measures to insure that such a thing wouldnot happen. I used Subtractive Magic to weld iton." 
Now, that was a problem.

She nodded to the men. Zedd glanced to them ateach side and noticed for the first time that their 
eyes were wet. It shocked him to realize they wereweeping.

Weeping or not, they followed her orders,
unceremoniously lifting him and heaving him in theback of a wagon as if he were firewood.
Zedd landed beside someone else. 
"Glad to see you be alive, old man," a soft voicerasped.It was Adie. The side of her face wasswollen and bleeding. It looked like they'd clubbedher nearly to death. Her wrists were tied behindher back as well. He saw, too, tears on her cheeks.
It broke his heart to see her hurt. "Adie, what didthey do to you?"
She smiled. "Not as much as they intend to, Ifear." 

In the dim light of a lantern, Zedd could seethat she, too, wore one of the awful collars.
"Your stew was excellent," he said.
Adie groaned. "Please, old man, do not mention foodto me right now."

Zedd cautiously turned his head and saw more menwaiting in the darkness off to the side. They hadbeen behind him, so he hadn't noticed them before.
His gift had not told him they were there.

"I think we're in a great deal of trouble," hewhispered to no one in particular.
"Really?" Adie rasped. "What be your first clue?" 


 Zedd knew she was only trying to make him smile,
but he could not even manage a small one.
"I be sorry, Zedd."

He nodded, as best he could lying on his sidewith his wrists bound behind his back. "I thought Iwas so clever, laying every kind of trap I couldthink of. Unfortunately, such traps didn't work forthose who are not affected by magic."

"You could not know of such a thing," Adie saidin a comforting tone.

His mood sank into bitter regret. "I should havetaken it into account after we encountered that one 
down at the Confessors' Palace, in the spring. Ishould have realized the danger." He stared offinto the darkness. "I served our cause no better 
than a fool." 

"But where did all of them come from?" She 
looked on the verge of losing herself to panic. "Ihave never encountered a single such person in myentire life, and now there be a whole gang of themstanding there."

Zedd hated to see Adie so distraught. Adie onlyknew there were a number of them by the telltalesounds they made. At least he could see the menwith his eyes, if not his gift.
The men stood around, heads hanging, waiting to becommanded. 
They didn't look pleased by what was happening.
They all looked young, in their twenties. Some werecrying. It seemed strange to see such big menweeping. Zedd almost regretted killing one of them.
Almost. 

"You three," the woman growled to more of themen waiting in the shadows as she lifted anotherlantern from one of them and sent the flame she 
held into it, "get in there and start the search."

Adie's completely white eyes turned to Zedd, herexpression grave. "Sister of the Dark," shewhispered.
And now they had the Keep. 


CHAPTER 19 

And just how can you be sure that it was a Sisterof the Dark you saw?" Verna asked, absently, as shedipped her pen again.

She scrawled her initials at the bottom of the 
request for a Sister to travel to a town down southto see to a local sorceress's plans for a defenseof their area. Even in the field, the paperwork ofthe office of the Prelate seemed to have chased 
after and found her. Their palace had beendestroyed, the prophet himself was at large and thereal Prelate was off alone chasing after him, someof the Sisters of the Light had pledged their soulsto the Keeper of the underworld and in so doing hadbrought the Keeper a step closer to having them allin the dark forever of eternity, a good number ofthe Sisters—both Sisters of the Light and Sistersof the Dark—were in the cruel hands of the enemyand doing his bidding, the barrier separating theOld and New World was down, the whole world hadbeen turned upside down, the only man—Richard Rahl—
whom prophecy named as having a chance of defeatingthe threat of the Imperial Order was off who-knewwhere 
doing who-knew-what, and yet, the paperworkmanaged to survive it all and persist to vex her.

Some of Verna's assistants handled the paperworkand the requests, but, as much as she dislikeddealing with such tedious matters, Verna felt asense of duty to keep an eye on it all. Besides, asmuch as paperwork vexed her, it also occupied hermind, preventing her from dwelling on the might-
have-been. 


 "After all," Verna added, "it could just aseasily have been a Sister of the Light. Jagang usesboth for their ability with magic. You can't reallybe sure it was a Sister of the Dark. He's been 
sending Sisters to accompany his scouts all winterand spring."

The Mord-Sith placed her knuckles on the smalldesk and leaned in. "I'm telling you, Prelate, itwas a Sister of the Dark." 

Verna saw no point in arguing, since it matteredlittle, so she didn't. "If you say so, Rikka."

Verna turned over the paper to the next in thestack, a request for a Sister to come and speak tochildren on the calling of the Sisters of theLight, with a lecture on why the Creator would beagainst the ways of the Imperial Order and on theirside. Verna smiled to herself, imagining how Zeddwould fume at the very idea of a Sister, in the NewWorld, lecturing her views on such a subject.

Rikka withdrew her knuckles from the desk. "I 
thought you might say as much."

"Well, there you go, then," Verna mumbled as sheread the next message from the Sisters of the Lightto the south reporting on the passes through themountains and the methods that had been used to 
seal them off. 
"Wait right here," Rikka growled before flying outof the tent. 

"I'm not going anywhere," Verna said with a sighas she scanned the written account, but the fiery,
blond-headed woman was already gone.

Verna heard a commotion outside the tent. Rikka 
was delivering a scathing lecture to someone. TheMord-Sith was incorrigible. That was probably why,
despite everything, Verna liked her.

Since Warren had died, Verna's heart was nolonger in much of anything, though. She did as shehad to, did her duty, but she couldn't make herselffeel anything but despair. The man she loved, theman she had married, the most wonderful man in the 


world... was gone.
Nothing much mattered after that.


Verna tried to do her part, to do as was needed,
because so many people depended on her, but, iftruth be told, the reason she worked herself nearlyto death was to try to keep her mind occupied, tothink of something else, anything else, exceptWarren. It didn't really work, but she kept at it.
She knew that people counted on her, but she justcouldn't make herself truly care.

Warren was gone. Life was empty of what matteredmost to her. That was the end of it, the end of hercaring about much of anything.

Verna idly pulled her journey book from herbelt. She didn't know what made her do so, exceptperhaps that it had been some time since she hadlast looked for a message from the real Prelate.
Ann was having her own crisis of caring ever sinceKahlan had laid the blame for so much of what had 
gone wrong, including being the cause of the waritself, right at the Prelate's feet. Verna thoughtthat Kahlan had been wrong about much of it, butshe understood all too well why she thought thatAnn had been responsible for tangling up theirlives; Verna had felt the same way for a time.

Holding the journey book off to the side withone hand, flipping the pages with a thumb, Vernasaw a message flash by.

Rikka swept back into the tent. She plunked aheavy sack down on Verna's desk, right on top ofthe reports.
"Here!" Rikka said, fury powering her voice.

It was then, when Verna looked up, that she sawfor the first time the strange way Rikka wasdressed. Verna's mouth fell open. Rikka was notwearing the skintight red leather that the Mord-
Sith typically wore, except for occasionally whenthey were relaxing and then they sometimes worebrown leather, instead. Verna had never seen thewoman in anything other than those leather outfits. 


Now Rikka had on a dress. 

Verna could not remember being so astonished.

Not just a dress, but a pink dress that nodecent woman of Rikka's age, probably her latetwenties or early thirties, would be caught deadin. The neckline plunged down to reveal amplecleavage. The twin mounds of exposed flesh wereshoved up and nearly spilling out the top. Vernawas amazed that Rikka's nipples had managed toremain covered, what with the way her breastsheaved with her heated breathing.
"You, too?" Rikka snapped.
Verna finally looked up into Rikka's blazing blueeyes. "Me, too, what?"
"You, too, can't get enough of looking at mychest?" 

Verna felt her face go scarlet. She gave her redface an excuse by shaking a finger at the woman.

"What are you doing dressed like that in an armycamp! Around all these soldiers! You look like awhore!" 

Despite how their leather outfits went all theway up to their necks, the tight leather leftlittle to the imagination. Seeing the woman'sflesh, though, was altogether different, and quiteshocking.

Verna realized, only then, because she hadfinally looked up at the woman's face, that Rikka'ssingle braid was undone. Her long blond hair was asfree as a horse's mane. Verna had never seen one of 
the Mord-Sith out in public without her hair doneup in the single braid that in large partidentified their profession of Mord-Sith.

Even seeing the woman's cleavage exposed was notas shocking as seeing her hair undone. It was that,
more than anything, Verna realized, that lent alewd look to the woman. Something about her braidbeing undone seemed sacrilegious, even though Vernacould not condone a profession dedicated totorture. 


 Verna remembered, then, that she had asked oneof the Mord-Sith, Cara, to do her worst to theyoung man—a boy, really—who had murdered Warren.
Verna had sat up the entire night listening to thatyoung man scream his life away. His suffering hadbeen monstrous, and yet it had not been nearlyenough to suit her.

At times, Verna wondered if in the next life theKeeper of the underworld would have somethingwholly unpleasant in store for her for all eternityin recompense for what Verna had done. She didn'treally care; it had been worth whatever the pricemight be.

Besides, she decided, if she was to be punishedfor condemning that man to just retribution, thenthe very concept of justice would have to beinvalid, rendering living a life of good or evil tohave no meaning. In fact, for the justice she hadmeted out to that vile amoral animal walking theworld of life in the form of a man who had murdered 
Warren, she should be rewarded in the afterlife bybeing eternally in the warmth of the Creator'slight, along with the good spirit of Warren, orelse there was no justice.

General Meiffert swept into the tent, fists athis sides, coming to a halt beside Rikka. He rakedhis blond hair back when he saw Verna sittingbehind her little desk, and cooled visibly.

He'd had the carpenters nail together the tinydesk for her out of scrap furniture left in anabandoned farm. It was nothing like the desks atthe Palace of the Prophets, of course, but it hadbeen given with more concern and meaning behind itthan the grandest gold-leafed desk she had everseen. General Meiffert had been proud at seeing howuseful Verna found it. 

With a quick glance, he took in Rikka's dressand her hair. "What's this about?" 

"Well," Verna said, "I'm not sure. Somethingabout one of Jagang's Sisters scouting a pass." 


 Rikka folded her bare arms atop her nearly barebosom. "Not just a Sister, but a Sister of theDark." 

"Jagang has been sending Sisters scouting thepasses all winter," the young general said. "ThePrelate has laid traps and shields." His level ofconcern rose. "Are you telling us that one of themgot through?"
"No, I'm telling you that I went hunting for them."

Verna frowned. "What are you talking about? Welost half a dozen Mord-Sith trying that. After youfound the heads of two of your sister Mord-Sithmounted on pikes, the Mother Confessor herselfordered you to stop throwing their lives away onsuch useless missions." 

Rikka at last smiled. It was the kind of 
satisfied smile, especially coming from a Mord-
Sith, that tended to give people nightmares.
"Does this look useless?" 

Rikka reached into her sack and pulled out ahuman head. Holding it by the hair, she brandishedit in front of Verna's face. She turned, shook itat General Meiffert as well, and then plunked itdown on the desk. Gore oozed out over the reports.
"Like I said, a Sister of the Dark."

Verna recognized the face, even as twisted indeath as it was. Rikka was right, it was a Sisterof the Dark. The question was, how did she know itwas a Sister of the Dark, and not one of the Light?

Outside Verna could hear horses clopping pasther tent. Some of the soldiers called out greetingsto men returning from patrols. In the distancecould be heard conversations and men issuingorders. Hammers on steel rang like bells as menworked hot metal into useful shapes for repairs toequipment. Nearby, horses frisked in a corral. Asmen made their way past Verna's tent, their gearjingled. Fires crackled as wood was added for thecooks or roared as bellows pumped to turn it white-
hot for the blacksmiths. 


 "You touched her with your Agiel?" Verna askedin a quiet voice. "Your Agiel doesn't workeffectively on those the dream walker controls."

Rikka's smile turned sly. She spread her arms.
"Agiel? Do you see an Agiel."

Verna knew that no Mord-Sith would ever let her 
Agiel out of her control. With a glance to thewoman's cleavage, she could only imagine where shehad it hidden. 

"All right," General Meiffert said, his tone nolonger indulgent. "I want to know what's going on,
and I want to know right now."

"I was down near Dobbin Pass, checking around,
and what do I find but an Imperial Order patrol."

The general nodded as he let out a frustratedsigh. "They've been coming in that way from time totime. But how did you manage to come across such anenemy patrol? Why hadn't one of our Sisters alreadysnared them?" 

Rikka shrugged. "Well, this patrol was still onthe other side of the pass. Back at that desertedfarm." She tapped Verna's desk with her toe. "Whereyou got the wood for this."

Verna twisted her mouth with displeasure. Rikkawasn't supposed to be beyond the pass. The Mord-
Sith, though, recognized no orders but those fromLord Rahl himself. Rikka had only followed Kahlan'sorders because, during his absence, Kahlan wasacting on Richard's behalf. Verna suspected that itwas simpler than that, though; she suspected thatthey had only followed the Mother Confessor'sorders because she was wife to Lord Rahl, and ifthey didn't it would bring Lord Rahl's wrath downon them. As long as such orders weren't viewed bythe Mord-Sith as troublesome, they went along. Whenthey decided otherwise, they did as they wished.

"The Sister was by herself," Rikka went on,
"having one powerful-looking headache."

"Jagang," Verna said. "Jagang was issuing hisorder, or punishing her for something, or giving 


her a lecture in her mind. He does that from time 
to time. It isn't pleasant."

Rikka stroked the hair on the woman's head 
sitting on Verna's desk, making a mess of thereports. "The poor thing," she mocked. "While shewas off among the pines staring at nothing whileshe pressed her fingers to her temples, her menwere back at the farmhouse, having their way with acouple of young women. The two were squealing andcrying and carrying on, but the men weren't put offby it any."

Verna lowered her eyes as she let out a heavybreath. Some people had refused to believe thenecessity of fleeing before the arrival of theImperial Order.

Sometimes, when people refused to recognize theexistence of evil, they found themselves having toface precisely that which they had never beenwilling to admit existed.

Rikka's satisfied smile returned. "I went in and 
took care of the brave soldiers of the ImperialOrder. They were so distracted, they paid noattention as I snuck up behind them. The women wereso terrorized that they screamed even though I wassaving them. The Sister hadn't been paying anyattention to the screaming before, and didn't then,
either. 

"One of the young women was blond and about mysize, so an idea struck me. I put on her dress andtook out my braid, so I might be mistaken for her.
I gave the one girl some of the men's clothes towear and told them both to run for the hills, inthe opposite direction of the Sister, and not tolook back. I didn't have to tell them twice. Then I 
sat down on a stool outside the barn. 

"Sure enough, in a while the Sister came back.
She saw me sitting there, hanging my head,
pretending to be crying. She thought the otherwoman was still inside, with the men. She said,
'It's time those foolish bastards in there were 


done with you and your friend. His Excellency wants
a report, and he wants it now—he's ready to move.'
" 
Verna came up out of her chair. "You heard her say
that?" 
"Yes." 
"Then what?" General Meiffert asked. 


"Then the Sister made for the side door into the 
barn. When she stormed past me, I rose up behindher and cut her throat with one of the men's 
knives." 

General Meiffert leaned toward Rikka. "You cut 
her throat? You didn't use your Agiel?"

Rikka gave him a look that suggested she thoughthe hadn't been paying attention. "Like the Prelatesaid, an Agiel doesn't work very well on those thedream walker controls. So I used a knife. Dream 
walker or not, cutting her throat worked justfine." 

Rikka lifted the head before Verna again. One ofthe reports stuck to the bottom of it as it swungby the hair. "I sliced the knife through her throatand around her neck. She was thrashing about quitea bit, so I had a good hold on her as she died. Allof a sudden, there was an instant when the wholeworld went black—and I mean black, black as theKeeper's heart. It was as if the underworld hadsuddenly taken us all."

Verna looked away from the head of a Sister shehad known for a very long time and had alwaysbelieved was devoted to the Creator, to the lightof life. She had been devoted, instead, to death.

"The Keeper came to claim one of his own," Vernaexplained in a quiet voice.

"Well," Rikka said, rather sarcastically, Vernathought, "I didn't think that when a Sister of theLight died such a thing happened. I told you it wasa Sister of the Dark." 
Verna nodded. "So you did."

General Meiffert gave the Mord-Sith a hurried 


clap on the back of the shoulder. "Thanks, Rikka.
I'd better spread the word. If Jagang is startingto move, it won't be many days before he's here. Weneed to be sure the passes are ready when his forcefinally gets here."

"The passes will hold," Verna said. She let outa silent sigh. "At least for a while."

The Order had to come across the mountains if 
they were to conquer D'Hara. There were few waysacross those formidable mountains. 
Verna and the Sisters had shielded and sealed those 
passes as well as it was possible to seal them.
They had used magic to bring down walls of rock inplaces, making the narrow roads impassable. Inother places, they had used their power to cleaveaway roads cut into the steep sides of mountains,
leaving no way through, except to clamber overrubble. To prevent that, and in other places, themen had worked all winter constructing stone wallsacross the passes. Atop those walls werefortifications from which they could rain downdeath on the narrow passes below. Additionally, inevery one of those places, the Sisters had setsnares of magic so deadly that coming through wouldbe a bloody ordeal that would only get worse, andthat was before they encountered the walls linedwith defenders. 

Jagang had Sisters of the Dark to try to undothe barriers of both magic and stone, but Verna wasmore powerful, in the Additive anyway, than any ofthem. Besides that, she had joined her power withother Sisters in order to invest in those barriers 
magic that she knew would prove formidable.

Still, Jagang would come. Nothing Verna, herSisters, and the D'Haran army could do wouldultimately be able to withstand the numbers Jagangwould throw at them. If he had to command his men 
to march through passes filled a hundred feet deepwith their fallen comrades, he would not flinchfrom doing so. Nor would it matter to him if the 


corpses were a thousand feet deep.

"I'll be back a little later, Verna," thegeneral said. "We'll need to get the officers andsome of the Sisters together and make sureeverything is ready."
"Yes, of course," Verna said.
Both General Meiffert and Rikka started to leave. 

"Rikka," Verna called. She gestured down at thedesk. "Take the dear departed Sister with you,
would you please?"

Rikka sighed, which nearly spilled her bosom outof the dress. She made a long-suffering face beforesnatching up the head and vanishing out of the tentbehind the general.

Verna sat down and put her head in her hands. Itwas going to start all over again. It had been along and peaceful, if bitterly cold, winter. Jaganghad made his winter encampment on the other side ofthe mountains, far enough away that, with the snowand cold, it was difficult to launch effectiveraids against his troops. Just as it had the summerbefore, the summer Warren had died, now that theweather was favorable, the Order would begin tomove. It was starting all over again. The killing,
the terror, the fighting, running, hunger,
exhaustion. 

But what choice was there, other than to bekilled. In many ways, life had come to seem worsethan death. 

Verna abruptly remembered, then, about thejourney book. She worked it out of the pocket inher belt and pulled the lamp closer, needing thecomfort as well as the light. She wondered whereRichard and Kahlan were, if they were safe, and shethought, too, about Zedd and Adie all aloneguarding the Wizard's Keep. Unlike everyone else,
at least Zedd and Adie were safe and at peace wherethey were—for the time being, anyway. Sooner orlater, D'Hara would fall and then Jagang wouldreturn to Aydindril. 


 Verna tossed the small black book on the desk,
smoothed her dress beneath her legs, and scootedher chair closer. She ran her fingers over thefamiliar leather cover on an object of magic thatwas over three thousand years old. The journeybooks had been invested with magic by thosemysterious wizards who so long ago had built thePalace of the Prophets. A journey book was twinned,
and as such, they were priceless; what was writtenin one appeared at the same time in its twin. Inthat way, the Sisters could communicate over vastdistances and know important information as ithappened, rather than weeks or even months later.
Ann, the real Prelate, had the twin to Verna's.

Verna, herself, had been sent by Ann on ajourney of nearly twenty years to find Richard. Annhad known all along where Richard had been. It wasfor that reason that Verna could understand 
Kahlan's rage at how Ann had seemed to twist herand Richard's life. But Verna had come to 
understand that the Prelate had sent her on what 
was actually a mission of vital importance, onethat had brought change to the world, but alsobrought hope for the future.

Verna opened the journey book, holding it alittle sideways to see the words in the light.

Verna, Ann wrote, / believe I have discoveredwhere the prophet is hiding.

Verna sat back in surprise. After the palace hadbeen destroyed, Nathan, the prophet, had escapedtheir control and had since been roaming free, aprofound danger.

For the last couple of years, the rest of theSisters of the Light had believed that the Prelateand the prophet were dead. Ann, when she'd left thePalace of the Prophets with Nathan on an importantmission, had feigned their deaths and named VernaPrelate to succeed her. Very few people other thanVerna, Zedd, Richard, and Kahlan knew the truth.
During that mission, however, Nathan had managed to 


get his collar off and escape Ann's control. There
was no telling what catastrophe that man could
cause. 
Verna leaned over the journey book again.


/ should have Nathan within days, now. I canhardly believe that after all this time, I nearlyhave my hands on that man. I will let you knowsoon. 

How are you, Verna? How are you feeling? How arethe Sisters and how go matters with the army? Writewhen you can. I will be checking my journey booknightly. I miss you terribly.

Verna sat back again. That was all there was.
But it was enough. The very notion of Ann finallycapturing Nathan made Verna's head swim withrelief. 

Even that momentous news, though, failed to domuch to lift her mood. Jagang was about to launchhis attack on D'Hara and Ann was about to finallyhave Nathan under control, but Richard wassomewhere off to the south, beyond their control.
Ann had worked for five hundred years to shapeevents so that Richard could lead them in the 
battle for the future of mankind, and now, on theeve of what could very well prove to be that finalbattle, he was not there with them.

Verna drew the stylus out of the journey book'sspine and leaned over to write Ann a report.

My dearest Ann, I'm afraid that things here areabout to become very unpleasant.
The siege of the passes into D'Hara is about tobegin. 

CHAPTER 20 

The sprawling corridors of the People's Palace,
seat of power in D'Hara, were filled with the 


whisper of footsteps on stone. Ann pushed herselfback a little on the white marble bench where she 
sat stuffed between three women on one side and an 
older couple on the other, all gossiping about whatpeople were wearing as they strolled the grandhalls, or what other people did while they werehere, or what they most wanted to see. Ann supposedthat such gossip was harmless enough and probablymeant to take people's minds off the worries of thewar. Still, it was hard to believe that at such alate hour people would rather be out gossiping thanin a warm bed asleep.

Ann kept her head down and pretended to bepawing through her travel bag while at the sametime keeping a wary eye on the soldiers passing nottoo far away as they patrolled. She didn't know ifher caution was necessary, but she would rather notfind out too late that it was. 
"Come from far?" the closest woman beside her 
asked. 

Ann looked up, realizing that the woman hadspoken to her. "Well, yes, I guess it has been abit of a journey."

Ann put her nose back in her bag and rummaged inearnest, hoping to be left alone.
The woman, middle-aged with her curls of brown hairjust starting to carry a bit of gray, smiled. "I'mnot all that far from home, myself, but I do solike to spend a night at the palace, now and then,
just to lift my spirits."

Ann glanced around at the polished marblefloors, the glossy red stone columns below arches,
decorated with carved vines, that supported theupper balconies. She gazed up at the skylights thatallowed the light to flood in the place during theday, and peered off at the grand statues that stoodon pedestals around a fountain with life-sizedstone horses galloping forever through a shimmeringspray of water.
"Yes, I see what you mean," Ann murmured. 


 The place didn't lift her spirits. In fact, theplace made her as nervous as a cat in a doghousewith the door closed. She could feel that her powerwas frighteningly diminished in this place.

The People's Palace was more than any merepalace. It was a city all joined together and undercountless roofs atop a huge plateau. Tens ofthousands of people lived in the magnificentstructure, and thousands more visited it daily.
There were different levels to the palace itself,
some where people had shops and sold goods, otherswhere officials worked, some that were livingquarters. Many sections were off limits to thosewho visited. 

Sprawled around the base of the plateau wereinformal markets where people gathered to buy,
sell, and trade goods. On the climb all the way upthrough the interior of the plateau to reach thepalace itself, Ann had passed many permanent shops.
The palace was a center of trade, drawing peoplefrom all over D'Hara. 

More than that, though, it was the ancestralhome of the House of Rahl. As such, it was grandfor arcane reasons beyond the awareness or evenunderstanding of most of the people who called ithome or visited it. The People's Palace was aspell—not a place spelled, as had been the Palaceof the Prophets where Ann had spent most of herlife. The place itself was the spell.

The entire palace had been built to a carefuland precise design: that of a spell drawn on theface of the ground. The outer fortified wallscontained the actual spell form and the majorcongregations of rooms formed significant hubs,
while the halls and corridors themselves were the 
drawn lines—the essence of the spell itself, thepower.

Like a spell being drawn in the dirt with thepoint of a stick, the halls would have had to havebeen built in the sequence required by the specific 


magic the spell was intended to invoke. It wouldhave been enormously expensive to build it in thatmanner, ignoring the typical requirements ofconstruction and accepted methods of the trade ofbuilding, but only by doing so would the spellwork, and work it did.

The spell was specific. It was a place of safetyfor any Rahl. It was meant to give a Rahl morepower in the place, and to leach power away fromanyone else who entered. Ann had never been in aplace where she felt such a waning of her Han, theessence of life and the gift within. She doubtedthat in this place her Han would for long be vitalenough to light a candle.

Ann's jaw dropped in astonishment as anotherelement of the spell abruptly occurred to her. Shelooked out at the halls—part of the lines of thespell—filled with people.

Spells drawn with blood were always moreeffective and powerful. But when the blood soakedinto the ground, decomposed, and dissipated, thepower of the spell would often fade as well. Butthis spell, the drawn lines of the spell itself—thecorridors—were filled with the vital living bloodof all the people moving through them. Ann wasstruck dumb with awe at such a brilliant concept.
"So, you're renting a room, then."

Ann had forgotten the woman beside her, stillstaring at her, still holding the smile on herpainted lips. Ann forced herself to close hermouth. 

"Well. . ." Ann finally admitted, "I haven'tactually made arrangements yet as to where I willsleep."

The woman's smile persisted, but it looked as ifit was taking more and more effort all the time.
"You can't curl up on a bench, you know. The guardswon't allow it. You have to rent a room, or be putout at night."

Ann understood, then, what the woman was driving 


at. To these people, most dressed in their finestclothes for their visit to the palace, Ann mustlook like a beggar in their midst. After all thegossip about what people were wearing, this womanmust have been disconcerted to find herself beside 
Ann. 

"I have the price of a room," Ann assured her.
"I just haven't found where they are, yet, that'sall. After such a long journey, I meant to go thereright away and get myself cleaned up, but I justneeded to rest my weary feet for a bit, first.
Could you tell me where to find the rooms to rent?"

The smile looked a little easier. "I'm off to myown room and I could take you. It isn't far."

"That would be kind of you," Ann said as sherose now that she saw the guards moving off downthe corridor. 
The woman stood, bidding her two benchmates a goodnight.

If Ann was tired, it was only from being caughtup in the afternoon devotion to the Lord Rahl. Abell in an open square had tolled, and everyone hadmoved to gather there and bow down. Ann had noticedthen that no one missed the devotion. Guards moved 
among the crowd watching people gather. She feltlike a mouse being watched by hawks so she joinedwith the other people moving toward the square.

She had spent nearly two hours on her knees, ona hard clay tile floor, bowed down with herforehead touching the ground like everyone else,
repeating the devotion in concert with all theother somber voices. 

Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us.
Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. Inyour mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we arehumbled. We live only to serve. Our lives areyours.

Twice a day, those in the palace were expectedto go to the devotion. Ann didn't know how peopleendured such torture. 


 Then she remembered the bond between the Lord 

Rahl and his people that prevented the dream walkerfrom entering their minds, and she knew how theycould endure it. She, herself, had briefly been aprisoner of Emperor Jagang. He murdered a Sisterright before her eyes, just to make a point.

In the face of brutality and torture, sheguessed that she knew how people endured a meredevotion. 

For her, though, such a spoken devotion to theLord Rahl, to Richard, was hardly necessary. Shehad been devoted to him for nearly five hundredyears before he had even been born.
Prophecy said that Richard was their only chance toavoid catastrophe. Ann peered carefully around thehalls. Now she just needed the prophet himself.
"This way," the woman said, tugging at Ann'ssleeve. 

The woman gestured for Ann to follow her down ahallway to the right. Ann pulled her shawl forward,
covering the pack she carried, and hugged hertravel bag closer as she followed along the widecorridor. She wondered how many people sitting onbenches and low marble walls around fountains were 
gossiping about her.

The floor had a dizzying pattern of dark brown,
rust, and pale tan-colored stone running across thehall in zigzag lines meant to look three-
dimensional. Ann had seen such traditional patternsbefore, down in the Old World, but none of thisgrand scale. It was a work of art, and it was butthe floor. Everything about the palace wasexquisite.

Shops were set back under a mezzanine to eachside. Some of them looked to sell items travelers 
might want. There was a variety of small food anddrink stands, everything from hot meat pies, tosweets, to ale, to warm milk. Some places soldnightclothes. Others sold hair ribbons. Even atthis late hour, some of the shops were still open 


and doing brisk business. In a place such as this,
there would be people who worked at night and wouldhave need of such shops. The places that offered todo up a woman's hair, or paint her face, orpromised to do wonders with her fingernails, wereall closed until morning. Ann doubted they couldpull off wonders with her.

The woman cleared her throat as they strolleddown the broad corridor, gazing at the shops toeach side. "And where have you traveled from?"

"Oh, far to the south. Very far." Ann took noteof the woman's focused attention as she leaned in a 
bit. "My sister lives here," Ann said, giving thewoman something more to chew on. "I'm here to visitmy sister. She advises Lord Rahl on importantmatters." 

The woman's eyebrows lifted. "Really! An advisorto Lord Rahl himself. What an honor for yourfamily."
"Yes," Ann drawled. "We're all proud of her."
"What does she advise him on?" 
"Advise him on? Oh, well, matters of war."
The woman's mouth fell open. "A woman? AdvisingLord Rahl on warfare?" 

"Oh yes," Ann insisted. She leaned over andwhispered, "She's a sorceress. Sees into thefuture, you know. Why, she wrote me a letter andtold me she saw me coming to the palace for avisit. Isn't that amazing?"

The woman frowned a bit. "Well, that does seemrather remarkable, since here you are and all."
"Yes, and she told me that I'd meet a helpfulwoman." 

The woman's smile returned, it again lookedforced. "She sounds to be quite talented."

"Oh, you have no idea," Ann insisted. "She is sospecific in her forecasts about the future."

"Really? Had she anything else to say about yourvisit, then? Anything specific?"

"Oh yes indeed. Why, do you know that she told 


me I would meet a man when I came here?" 

The woman's gaze flicked around the halls.
"There are a lot of men here. That hardly seemsvery specific. Surely, she must have said more thanthat... I mean, if she is so talented, and anadvisor to Lord Rahl and all." 

Ann put a finger to her lip, frowning in feignedeffort at recollection. "Why, yes, she did, nowthat you mention it. Let's see if I can remember..." Ann laid a hand on the woman's arm in a 
familiar manner. "She tells me about my future allthe time. My sister is always telling me so manythings about my future in her letters that Isometimes feel as if I'm having trouble catching upwith my own life! I sometimes have troubleremembering it all."

"Oh do try," the woman said, eager for thegossip. "This is so fascinating."

Ann returned the finger to her lower lip as shegazed at the ceiling, pretending to be engaged indeep thought, and noticed for the first time thatthe ceiling was painted like the sky, with cloudsand all. The effect was quite clever.
"Well," Ann finally said when she was sure she hadthe woman's full attention, "my sister said thatthe man I would meet was old." She returned the 
hand to the woman's arm. "But very distinguished.
Not old and decrepit, but tall—very tall—with afull head of white hair that comes all the way downto his broad shoulders. She said that he would be 
clean-shaven, and that he would be ruggedlyhandsome, with penetrating dark azure eyes."

"Dark azure eyes ... my, my," the womantittered, "but he does sound handsome."

"And she said that when he looks at a woman with 
those hawklike eyes of his, their knees want tobuckle." 

"That is precise," the woman said, her facegetting flushed. "Too bad she didn't know thishandsome fellow's name." 


 "Oh, but she did. What kind of advisor to theLord Rahl would she be if she wasn't talented 
enough to know such things."

"She told his name, too? She can really do suchtellings of the future?"
"Oh my yes," Ann assured her.

She strolled along for a time, watching peoplemaking their way up and down the hall, stopping atsome of the shops that were still open, or sittingon benches, gossiping.

"And?" the woman asked. "What is the name yoursister foretold? The name of this tall 
distinguished gentleman."

Ann frowned up at the ceiling again. "It was Nsomething. Nigel or Norris, or something. No, wait—
that wasn't it." Ann snapped her finger and thumb.
"The name she said was Nathan." 

"Nathan," the woman repeated, looking almost asif she had been ready to pluck the name off Ann'stongue if she didn't spit it out. "Nathan."

"Yes, that's it. Nathan. Do you know anyone hereat the palace by that name? Nathan? A tall fellow,
older, with long white hair, broad shoulders, azureeyes?"

The woman peered up at the ceiling in thought.
This time it was Ann leaning in, waiting for word,
watching intently for any reaction.

A hand seized Ann's dress at her shoulder and 
brought her to an abrupt halt. Ann and the womanturned. 
Behind them stood a very tall woman, with a verylong blond braid, with very blue eyes, wearing avery dark scowl and an outfit of very red leather.

The woman beside Ann went as pale as vanillapudding. Her mouth fell open. Ann forced her ownmouth to stay shut.
"We've been expecting you," the woman in redleather said. 

Behind her, back up the hallway a shortdistance, spread out to block the hall, stood a 


dozen perfectly huge men in perfect leather armor
carrying perfectly polished swords, knives, and
lances. 
"Why, I think you must have me mistaken for—"
"I don't make mistakes." 


Ann wasn't nearly as tall as the blond woman inred leather. She hardly came up past the yellowcrescent and star across her stomach. 

"No, I don't suppose you do. What's this about?"
Ann asked, losing the timid innocent tone.
"Wizard Rahl wanted us to bring you in."
"Wizard Rahl?" 
"Yes. Wizard Nathan Rahl." 

Ann heard a gasp from the woman beside her. Shethought the woman was going to faint, and so tookhold of her arm. 
"Are you all right, my dear?"

She stared, wide-eyed, at the woman in redleather glowering down at her. "Yes. I have to go.
I'm late. I must go. Can I go?"
"Yes, you had better go," the tall blonde said.

The woman dipped a quick bow and muttered "Goodnight" before scurrying off down the hall, lookingover her shoulder only once.

Ann turned back to the scowl. "Well I'm glad youfound me. Let's be off to see Nathan. Excuse me ... 
Wizard Rahl." 
"You won't be having an audience with Wizard Rahl."

"You mean, not tonight, I won't be having an ...
audience with him tonight."

Ann was being as polite as she could be, but shewanted to clobber that troublesome man, or wringhis neck, and the sooner the better.
"My name is Nyda," the woman said.
"Pleased to meet—" 

"Do you know what I am?" She didn't wait for Annto answer. "I am Mord-Sith. I give you this onewarning as a courtesy. It is the only warning, orcourtesy, you will receive, so listen closely. Youcame here with hostile intent against Wizard Rahl. 


You are now my prisoner. Use of your magic againsta Mord-Sith will result in the capture of thatmagic by me or one of my sister Mord-Sith and itsuse as a weapon against you. A very, veryunpleasant weapon."

"Well," Ann said, "in this place my magic is notvery useful, I'm afraid. Hardly worth a hoot, as amatter of fact. So, you see, I'm quite harmless."

"I don't care how useful you find your magic. Ifyou try to so much as light a candle with it, yourpower will be mine."
"I see," Ann said.

"Don't believe me?" Nyda leaned down. "Iencourage you to try to attack me. I haven'tcaptured a sorceress's magic for quite a while.
Might be ... fun."

"Thank you, but I'm a bit too tired out—from mytravels and all—to be attacking anyone just now.
Maybe later?"

Nyda smiled. In that smile Ann could see whyMord-Sith were so feared. "Fine. Later, then."

"So, what is it you intend to do with me in themeantime, Nyda? Put me up in one of the palace'sfine rooms?" 

Nyda ignored the question and gestured with atilt of her head. Two of the men a short way backup the hall rushed forward. They towered over Annlike two oak trees. Each grasped her under an arm.

"Let's go," Nyda said as she marched off downthe hall ahead of them. 

The men started out after her, pulling Ann alongwith them. Her feet seemed to touch the floor onlyevery third or fourth step. People in the hallparted for the Mord-Sith. Passersby pressedthemselves up against the walls to the side, agoodly distance away. Some people disappeared intothe open shops, from where they peered out windows.
Everyone stared at the squat woman in the darkdress being hauled along by the two palace guardsin burnished leather and gleaming mail. Behind she 


could hear the jangle of metal gear as the rest ofthe men followed along.

They turned into a small hall to the side goingback between columns holding a projecting balcony.
One of the men rushed forward to unlock the door. 
Before she knew it, they'd all swept through thelittle door like wine through a funnel.

The corridor beyond was dark and cramped—nothinglike the marble-lined hallways most people saw. Notfar down the hall, they turned down a stairway. Theoak treads creaked underfoot. Some of the men 
handed lanterns forward so Nyda could light herway. The sound of all the footsteps echoed backfrom the darkness below. 

At the bottom of the steps, Nyda led themthrough a maze of dirty stone passageways. Theseldom-used halls smelled musty, and in placesdamp. When they reached another stairwell, theycontinued down a square shaft with landings at eachturn, descending into the dark recesses of thePeople's Palace. Ann wondered how many people inthe past were taken by routes such as this, neverto be seen again. Richard's father, Darken Rahl,
and his father before him, Panis, were rather fondof torture. Life meant nothing to men such asthose. 
Richard had changed all that.
But Richard wasn't at the palace, now. Nathan was.

Ann had known Nathan for a very long time—fornearly a thousand years. For most of that time, asPrelate, she had kept him locked in his apartments.
Prophets could not be allowed to roam free. Now,
though, this one was free. And, worse, he hadmanaged to establish his authority in the palace—
the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He was an 
ancestor to Richard. He was a Rahl. He was a 
wizard. 

Ann's plan suddenly started to seem veryfoolish. Just catch the prophet off guard, she'dthought. Catch him off guard and snap a collar back 


around his neck. Surely, there would be an opening
and he would be hers again.
It had seemed to make sense at the time. 


At the bottom of the long descent, Nyda swept tothe right, following a narrow walk with a stonewall soaring up on the right and an iron railing onthe left. Ann gazed off over the railing, but thelantern light showed nothing but inky darknessbelow. She feared to think how far it might drop—
not that she had any ideas of a battle with hercaptors, but she was beginning to worry that theyjust might heave her over the edge and be done withher. 
Nathan had sent them, though. Nathan, as irascibleas he could sometimes be, wouldn't order such athing. Ann considered, then, the centuries she hadkept him locked away, considered the extrememeasures it had sometimes taken to keep thatincorrigible man under control. Ann glanced overthe iron rail again, down into the darkness.

"Will Nathan be waiting for us?" she asked,
trying to sound cheerful. "I'd really like to talkto him. We have business we must discuss." 

Nyda shot a dark look back over her shoulder.
"Nathan has nothing to talk to you about."

At an uncomfortably narrow passageway tunnelinginto the stone on the right, Nyda led them into thedarkness. The way the woman rushed lent afrightening aspect to an already frighteningjourney.

Ann at last saw light up ahead. The narrowpassageway emptied into a small area where severalhalls converged. Ahead and to the right they allfunneled down steep stairs that twisted as theydescended. As she was prodded down the stairs, Anngripped the iron rail, fearful of losing herfooting, although the big hand holding a fistful ofher dress at her right shoulder would probablypreclude any chance of falling, to say nothing ofrunning off. 


 In the passageway at the bottom of the stairs,
Nyda, Ann, and the guards came to a halt under thelow-beamed ceiling. Wavering light from torches infloor stands gave the low area a surreal look. Theplace stank of burning pitch, smoke, stale sweat,
and urine. Ann doubted that any fresh air everpenetrated this deep into the People's Palace.

She heard a hacking cough echoing from a dimcorridor to the right. She peered into that darkhall and saw doors to either side. In some of the 
doors fingers gripped iron bars in small openings.
Other than the coughing, no sound came from thecells holding hopeless men.

A big man in uniform waited before an iron-bounddoor to the left. He looked as if he might havebeen hewn from the same stone as the walls. Under 
different circumstances, Ann might have thoughtthat he was a pleasant enough looking fellow.

"Nyda," the man said by way of greeting. Whenhis eyes turned back up after a polite bow of hishead, he asked in his deep voice, "What have wehere?" 
"A prisoner for you, Captain Lerner." Nyda seizedthe empty shoulder of Ann's dress and hauled herforward as if showing off a pheasant after asuccessful hunt. "A dangerous prisoner."

The captain's appraising gaze glided brieflyover Ann before he returned his attention to Nyda.
"One of the secure chambers, then."

Nyda nodded her approval. "Wizard Rahl doesn'twant her getting out. He said she's no end oftrouble." 

At least half a dozen curt responses sprang tomind, but Ann held her tongue.

"You had better come with us, then," CaptainLerner said, "and see to her being locked in behindthe shields." 

Nyda tilted her head. Two of her men dashedforward and pulled torches from stands. The captainfinally found the right key from a dozen or so he 


had on a ring. The lock sprang open with a stridentclang that filled the surrounding low corridors. Itsounded to Ann like a bell being tolled for thecondemned. 

With a grunt of effort, the captain tugged theheavy door, urging it to slowly swing open. In thelong hallway beyond, Ann saw but a couple ofcandles bringing meager light to the small openingsin doors to each side. Men began hooting andhowling, like animals, calling vile curses at whomight be entering their world. Arms reached out,
clawing the air, hoping to net a touch of a passingperson.

The two men with torches swept into the hallright behind Nyda, the firelight illuminating herin her red leather so all those faces pressed upagainst the openings in their doors could see her.
Her Agiel, hanging on a fine chain at her wrist,
spun up into her fist. She glared at the openingsin the doors to each side. Filthy arms drew backin. Voices fell silent. Ann could hear men scurryto the far recesses of their cells. 

Nyda, once certain there would be nomisbehavior, started out again. Big hands shovedAnn ahead. Behind, Captain Lerner followed with hiskeys. Ann pulled the corner of her shawl over hermouth and nose, trying to block the sickeningstench. 

The captain took a small lamp from a recess, litit from a candle to the side, and then steppedforward to unlock another door. In the low 
passageway beyond, the doors were spaced closertogether. A hand covered with infected lesions hunglimp out of one of the tiny openings to the side.

The hall beyond the next door was lower, and nowider than Ann's shoulders. She tried to slow her 
racing heart as she followed the rough, twistingpassageway. Nyda and the men had to stoop, armsfolded in, as they made their way.
"Here," Captain Lerner said as he came to a halt. 


 He held up his lantern and peered into the smallopening in the door. On the second try, he foundthe right key and unlocked the door. He handed hissmall lamp to Nyda and then used both hands to pullthe lever. He grunted and tugged with all hisweight until the door grated partway open. Hesqueezed around the door and disappeared inside.

Nyda handed in the lamp as she followed thecaptain in. Her arm, sheathed in red leather, cameback out to seize a fistful of Ann's dress and dragher in after. 

The captain was opening a second door on theother side of the tiny room. Ann could sense thatthis was the room containing the shield. The seconddoor grated open. Beyond was a room carved fromsolid bedrock. The only way out was through thedoor, and the outer room that contained the shield,
and then the second door. 
The House of Rahl knew how to build a secure 
dungeon.

Nyda's hand gripped Ann's elbow, commanding herinto the room beyond. Even Ann, as short as shewas, had to duck as she stepped over the high sillto get through the doorway. The only furnitureinside was a bench carved from the stone of the far 
wall itself, providing both a seat and a bed offthe floor. A tin ewer full of water sat on one end 
of the bench. At the opposite end was a single,
folded, brown blanket. There was a chamber pot inthe corner. At least it was empty, if not clean.
Nyda set the lamp on the bench. "Nathan said toleave you this."
Obviously it was a luxury the other guests weren'tafforded. 

Nyda stepped one leg over the sill, but pausedwhen Ann called her name. 

"Please give Nathan a message for me? Please?
Tell him that I would like to see him. Tell him 
that it's important."

Nyda smiled to herself. "He said you would say 


those words. Nathan is a prophet, I guess he wouldknow what you would say."
"And will you give him that message?"
Nyda's cold blue eyes looked to be weighing Ann'ssoul. "Nathan said to tell you that he has a wholepalace to run, and can't come running down to seeyou every time you clamor for him."

Those were almost the exact words she had sent 
down to Nathan's apartments countless times when aSister had come to her with Nathan's demands to see 
the Prelate. Tell Nathan that I have a whole palaceto run and I can't go running down there every timehe bellows for me. If he has had a prophecy, thenwrite it down and I will look it over when I have 
the time. 

Until that moment, Ann had never truly realizedhow cruel her words had been. 

Nyda pulled the door shut behind her. Ann wasalone in a prison she knew she could not escape.

At least she was near the end of her life, andcould not be held as a prisoner for nearly herentire life, as she had held Nathan prisoner forhis. 
Ann rushed to the little window. "Nyda!"

The Mord-Sith turned back from the second door,
from beyond the shield Ann could not cross. "Yes?"
"Tell Nathan ... tell Nathan that I'm sorry."
Nyda let out a brief laugh. "Oh, I think Nathanknows you're sorry."

Ann thrust her arm through the door, reachingtoward the woman. "Nyda, please. Tell him . .. tellNathan that I love him." 

Nyda stared at her a long moment before shepushed the outer door closed. 

CHAPTER 21 


Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand onRichard's chest as she turned her ear toward the 
sound she'd heard off in the darkness. Beneath her 
hand, Richard's chest rose and fell with hislabored breathing, but, even at that, she feltrelief—he was still alive. As long as he was aliveshe could fight to find a solution. She wouldn'tgive him up. They would get to Nicci. Somehow, theywould get to her.

A quick glance to the position of the quartermoon told her that she'd been asleep less than anhour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, hadsilently begun streaming in from the north. In thedistant sky she saw, too, the moonlit wings of theblack-tipped races that always trailed them.

She hated those birds. The races had been 
following them ever since Cara had touched thestatue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warningbeacon. Those dark wings were never far, like theshadow of death, always following, always waiting.

Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that 
hourglass statue trickling out. Her time wasrunning out. She had no actual indication of whatwould happen when the time that sand hadrepresented finally ran out— but she could imaginewell enough.

The place where they had set up camp, before asharp rise of rock with a stand of bristlecone pineand thorny brush to one side, wasn't as protectedor tenable a camp as any of them would have liked,
but Cara had confided that she was afraid that if 
they didn't stop, Richard wouldn't live the night.

That whispered warning had set Kahlan's heart topounding, brought cold sweat to her brow, and swepther to the verge of panic.

She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow asit had been while they made their way across opencountry in the dark, seemed to have made it moredifficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two 
hours after they had started out, after Cara's 


warning, they'd been forced to stop. After they hadstopped, they were all relieved that Richard'sbreathing became more even, and sounded a littleless labored. 

They needed to make it to roads so thattraveling would be easier on Richard, and so theycould make better time. Maybe after he rested thenight, they could make swifter progress.

She had to fight constantly to tell herself thatthey would get him there, that they had a chance,
and that the journey's purpose wasn't merely emptyhope meant to forestall the truth.

The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless,
felt this sense of Richard's life slipping away,
she'd at least had one solid chance available to 
her to save him. She'd had no idea, at the time,
that that one chance taken would be the catalystthat would initiate a cascade of events that would 
begin the disintegration of magic itself.

She was the one who had made the decision to 
take that chance, and she was the one responsiblefor all that was now coming to pass. Had she knownwhat she now knew, she would have made the samedecision—to save Richard's life—but that made her 
no less liable for the consequences.

She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, wasresponsible for protecting the lives of those withmagic, of creatures of magic. And, instead, shemight very well be the cause of their end.

Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, whenshe heard Cara's whistled birdcall to alert them to 
her return. It was a birdcall Richard had taughther. 

Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open allthe way to provide more light. She saw Tom, handresting on the silver-handled knife at his belt,
rise from the nearby rock where he'd been sittingas he watched over both the camp and the man Kahlanhad touched with her power. The man still lay onthe ground at Tom's feet where Kahlan had ordered 


him to stay.

"What is it?" Jennsen whispered as she appearedat Kahlan's side, hastily rubbing the sleep fromher eyes.

"I'm not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she musthave someone with her." 

Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, asKahlan had suspected, she was pushing a man aheadof her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall whereshe'd seen him before. She blinked, then, realizingit was the young man they had come across a week orso back—Owen. 

"I tried to get to you sooner!" Owen cried outwhen he saw Kahlan. "I swear, I tried."

Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat,
Cara marched the man closer, then yanked him to ahalt in front of Kahlan. 
"What are you talking about?" Kahlan asked.

When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standingbehind Kahlan's shoulder, he paused with his mouthhanging open for an instant before he answered.

"I meant to get to you earlier, I swear," hesaid to Kahlan, sounding on the verge of tears. "Iwent to your camp." He clutched his light coatclosed at his chest as he began to tremble. "I, Isaw ... I saw all the ... remains. Dear Creator,
how could you be so brutal?"

Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throwup. He covered his mouth and closed his eyes as heshook. 

"If you mean all those men," Kahlan said, "theytried to capture us, to kill us. We didn't collectthem from their rocking chairs beside their hearthsand bring them out into this wasteland where weslaughtered them. They attacked us; we defendedourselves." 

"But, dear Creator, how could you ..." Owenstood before her, unable to control his shivering.
He closed his eyes. "Nothing is real. Nothing isreal. Nothing is real." He repeated it over and 


over, as if it were an incantation meant to protecthim from evil. 

Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sathim down on a shelf of rock. Eyes closedmeditatively, he mumbled "Nothing is real" tohimself continually while Cara took up a positionto the left side of Kahlan. 

"Tell us what you're doing here," Cara commandedin a low growl. Although she didn't say it, the "orelse" was clear enough.

"And be quick about it," Kahlan said. "We haveenough trouble and we don't need you added on topof it." 

Owen opened his eyes. "I went to your camp totell you about it, but... all those bodies ..."

"We know about what happened back there. Now,
tell us why you're here." Kahlan was at the end ofher patience. "I'm not going to ask you again."
"Lord Rahl," Owen wailed, tears bursting forth atlast. 
"Lord Rahl what," Kahlan demanded through grittedteeth. 
"Lord Rahl has been poisoned," he blurted out as hewept.

Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan's legs. "How canyou possibly know such a thing is true?"

Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coatat his chest. "I know," he cried, "because I'm theone who poisoned him."

Could it be? Could it be that it wasn't reallythe runaway power of the gift killing Richard, butpoison? Could it be that they had it all wrong?
Could it be that it was all caused by this manpoisoning Richard?

Kahlan felt her sword's hilt slip from herfingers as she started for the man.

He stood watching her come, like a fawn watchinga mountain lion about to leap.

Kahlan knew there was something strange aboutthis man. Richard, too, had thought there was 


something unsettling about him, something not quite
right.
Somehow, this quaking stranger had poisoned
Richard. 


Richard barely hung to life. He was sufferingand in pain. This man had been the cause of it all.
Kahlan would know why, and she would know the truthof it. 

Kahlan closed the distance quickly. She wouldnot risk his escape. She would not risk his lies.
She would have his confession. 

Her hand started coming up toward him. Her powerwas recovered— she could feel it there, in the coreof her being, at the ready.

This man had tried to kill Richard. She intended 
to find out if there was a way to save him. Thisman could tell her. 
She committed herself to taking him.

It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke herbirthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint ofit. Her feelings about what this man had done fadedaway; they no longer mattered in this. Only thetruth would serve her now. She was a being of rawcommitment. 
He had no chance. He was hers. 

She saw him standing frozen, watching her come,
saw his blue eyes widen, saw the tears running downhis cheeks. Kahlan felt the cold coil of powerstraining for release, demanding to be freed. Asher hand rose toward this man who had harmed 
Richard, she wanted nothing so much as what shewould have. 
He was hers. 
Cara abruptly jumped in between them.

Kahlan's sight of the man was blocked by theMord-Sith. Kahlan tried to brush Cara aside, butshe was ready and firmly held her ground. Caraseized Kahlan by the shoulders and forced her backthree paces.
"No. Mother Confessor, no." 


 Kahlan was still focused on Owen, even if shecouldn't see him. "Get out of my way."
"No. Stop."

"Move!" Kahlan tried to shove Cara aside, butthe woman had her feet spread and couldn't bebudged. "Cara!"
"No. Listen to me." 
"Cara, get out of—"

She shook Kahlan so hard that Kahlan thought herneck would snap. "Listen to me!"
Kahlan panted in rage. "What."

"Wait until you hear what he says. He came herefor a reason. When he finishes, you can use yourpower if you want, or you can let me make himscream until the moon covers its ears, but first weneed to hear what he says."

"I'll find out soon enough what he says, andI'll know the truth. When I touch him he will 
confess every detail."

"And if Lord Rahl dies as a result? Lord Rahl's 
life hanging in the balance. We must think of thatfirst." 
"I am. Why do you think I'm going to do this?"

Cara pulled Kahlan close to hear her whisper.
"And what if using your power on this man kills himfor some reason we don't yet even know about.
Remember when we didn't know everything in thepast? Remember Marlin Pickard announcing he hadcome to assassinate Richard? It was too easy then,
and it's too easy this time.

"What if your touching this man is someone'sdesign—a trick, with this man sent as bait of somesort? What if they want you to do it for somereason? What if you do what they intend you to do—
then what? It won't be a simple mistake that we canwork to fix. If Lord Rahl dies we can't bring himback." 

Cara's fierce blue eyes were wet. Her powerfulfingers dug into Kah-lan's shoulders. "What can ithurt to hear him first, before you touch him? You 


can then touch him, if you still think it'snecessary—but hear him first. Mother Confessor, asa sister of the Agiel, I'm asking you, please, forthe sake of Lord Rahl's life, wait."

More than anything, it was Cara's reluctance touse force that gave Kahlan pause. If there wasanyone who would be more than willing to usephysical force to protect Richard, it was Cara.

In the dim light of the lantern, Kahlan studiedthe emotion in Cara's expression. Despiteeverything Cara said, Kahlan didn't know if shecould afford to take the chance, to hesitate.
"What if it's a stab in the dark?" Jennsen asked 
from behind. 

Kahlan glanced back over her shoulder atRichard's sister, at the worry on her face.

Kahlan had made a mistake before in not actingquickly enough, and it resulted in Richard beingcaptured and taken from her. Then it was hisfreedom; this time it was his life at stake.

She knew that while hesitation had been a 
mistake in that instance, that didn't mean thatimmediate action was always right.

She looked back into Cara's eyes. "All right.
We'll hear what he has to say." With a thumb, shebrushed a tear from Cara's cheek, a tear of terrorfor Richard, a tear of terror at the thought oflosing him. "Thanks," Kahlan whispered.

Cara nodded and released her. She turned and 
folded her arms, fixing Owen in her glare.
"You had better not make me sorry for stoppingher." 

Owen peered about at all the faces watching him—
Friedrich, Tom, Jennsen, Cara, Kahlan, and even theman Kahlan had touched, lying on the ground not faraway.

"In the first place, how could you possibly havepoisoned Richard?" Kahlan asked.

Owen licked his lips, fearful of telling her,
even though that was apparently why he had 


returned. His gaze finally broke toward the ground.

"When I saw the dust rising from the wagon, andI knew that I was near, I dumped out what water Ihad left, so it would appear I had none. Then, whenLord Rahl found me, I asked for a drink. When hegave me his waterskin so I could have a drink, Iput poison in it, just before I handed it back. Iwas relieved that you had showed up, too. It was myintention that I poison both Lord Rahl and you,
Mother Confessor, but you had your own water anddidn't take a drink when he offered it to you. ButI guess it doesn't matter. This will work just aswell." 

Kahlan couldn't make sense of such a confession. 
"So you intended to kill us both, but you were onlyable to poison Richard."

"Kill... ?" Owen looked up in shock at the veryidea. He shook his head emphatically. "No, no,
nothing like that. Mother Confessor, I tried to getto you earlier, but those men went to your campbefore I got there. I needed to get the antidote toLord Rahl." 

"I see. You wanted to save him—after you'dpoisoned him—but when you got to our camp, we'dgone."

His eyes filled with tears again. "It was soawful. All the bodies— the blood. I've never seen 
such brutal murder." He covered his mouth. 

"It would have been murder—our murder," Kahlansaid, "had we not defended ourselves."

Owen seemed not to hear her. "And you were gone—
you'd left. I didn't know where you'd gone. It washard to follow your wagon's trail in the dark, butI had to. I had to run, to catch up with you. I wasafraid the races would get me, but I knew I had toreach you tonight. I couldn't wait. I was afraid,
but I had to come." 
The whole story was nonsense to Kahlan.

"So you're like one of those people who starts afire, calls out an alarm, and then helps put it 


out—all so you can be a hero."

Startled, Owen shook his head. "No, no, nothinglike that. Nothing like that at all—I swear. Ihated doing it. I did. I hated it."
"Then why did you poison him!"

Owen twisted his light coat in his fists astears trickled down his cheeks. "Mother Confessor,
we have to give him the antidote, now, or he willdie. It's already so very late." He clasped hishands prayerfully and gazed skyward. "Dear Creator,
let it not be too late, please." He reached out forKahlan, as if to urgently beg her as well, toassure her of his sincerity, but at the look on herface, drew back. "There's no more time, MotherConfessor. I tried to get to you earlier—I swear.
If you don't let him have the remedy now, it willbe the end of him. It will all be for naught—
everything, all if it, all for nothing!"

Kahlan didn't know if she dared trust in such an 
offer. It made no sense to poison a man and thensave him. 
"What's the antidote?" she asked. 

"Here." Owen hurriedly pulled a small vial froma pocket inside his coat. "Here it is. Please,
Mother Confessor." He held the square-sided vialout toward her. "He must have this now. Please,
hurry, or he will die."
"Or this will finish him," Kahlan said.

"If I wanted to finish him, I could have done sowhen I slipped the poison into his waterskin. Icould have used more of it, or I could simply nothave come with the antidote. I'm not a killer, Iswear— that's why I had to come in the firstplace."

Owen wasn't making a whole lot of sense. Kahlanwasn't confident in such an offer. It was Richard's 
life that would be forfeit if she chose wrong.
"I say we give Richard Owen's antidote," Jennsenwhispered.
"A stab in the dark?" Kahlan asked. 


"You said that there were times when there is no 
choice but to act immediately, but even then itmust be with your best judgment, using all yourexperience and everything you do know. Earlier, inthe wagon, I heard Cara tell you that she didn'tknow if Richard would live the night. Owen says hehas an antidote. I think this is one of those times 
we must act." 

"If it means anything," Tom offered in aconfidential tone, "I'd have to agree. I don't seeas there really is any choice. But if you have analternative that might save Lord Rahl, I think nowwould be the time to add it to the stew." 

Kahlan didn't have any alternative, exceptgetting to Nicci, and that was looking more andmore like no more than empty hope.

"Mother Confessor," Friedrich offered in ahushed tone, "I agree as well. I think you shouldknow that if you let him have the remedy, we allwere in agreement that it was the best choice to bemade." 

If the antidote killed Richard, they wouldn'tblame her. That was what he was saying.

Jennsen stepped toward Owen, pulling Betty alongwith her. "If you're lying about this being anantidote, you will have to answer to me, and toCara, and then to the Mother Confessor—if there'seven anything left of you by then. You dounderstand that, don't you?"

Owen shrank from her, his head turned away, ashe nodded vigorously, apparently fearing to look upat her, or at Betty. Kahlan thought that he lookedmore afraid of Jennsen than of any of the rest ofthem. 

Cara leaned toward Kahlan and whispered. "He hasto have an antidote. What purpose would it be toplace himself in danger of all we'll do to him ifhe's lying? Why even come back here, if he onlywanted to poison Lord Rahl? He had already poisonedhim and gotten away. Mother Confessor, I say that 


we give Lord Rahl the antidote, and we do itquickly."

"Then why poison him in the first place?" Kahlanwhispered back. "If you intend to give a man theantidote, then why poison him?"

Cara let out a frustrated sigh. "I don't know.
But right now, if Lord Rahl dies ..."
Cara's words trailed off at the unthinkable. 
Kahlan looked over at Richard lying unconscious.
She went weak at the thought of him never waking.
How could she live in a world without Richard? 
"How much do we give him?" she asked Owen.

Owen rushed forward, past Jennsen. "All of it.
Make him drink it all down." He pressed the small,
square-sided bottle into Kahlan's hands. "Hurry.
Please hurry."

"You've hurt him," Kahlan said with unrestrainedmenace. "Your poison hurt him. He's been coughingup blood, and he passed out from the pain. If youthink I'll ever forget that and be pleased with youfor now returning to save his life, you're wrong."

Owen nervously licked his lips. "But I tried toget to you. I was bringing you the antidote so thatwouldn't happen. I never intended him such pain. Itried to get to you—but you slaughtered all thosemen." 
"So, it's our fault, then?"

Owen smiled just a bit as he nodded, a smallsmile of satisfaction that she'd finally seen thelight and at last understood that it wasn't hisfault at all, but their fault.

While Jennsen watched Owen, keeping him back outof the way, Tom watched the man Kahlan had touched,
and Friedrich watched Betty, Kahlan and Cara kneltand lifted Richard so they could try to get him todrink the antidote. Cara propped his back againsther thigh while Kahlan cradled his head in her arm.

She pulled the stopper with her teeth and spitout the cork. Careful not to spill and waste any ofthe antidote, she put the bottle to his lips and 


tipped it up. She watched it wet his lips. Shetilted his head back more, so that his mouth wouldfall open a bit, and tipped the bottle some more.
Carefully, she let some of the clear liquid dribbleinto his mouth. 

Kahlan didn't know if what was in the bottle 
really was an antidote. It was colorless and lookedto her just like water. As Richard smacked his lipsa little, swallowing what she had poured in hismouth, Kahlan smelled the bottle. The liquid hadthe slight aroma of cinnamon.

She dribbled more of it into Richard's mouth. He 
coughed, but then swallowed. Cara used a finger toswipe up a drop that ran down his chin and returnit to his mouth. 

Kahlan, her heart pounding with worry, pouredthe rest of the liquid past his lips. Holding theempty bottle between her thumb and first finger,
she used the palm of her hand to push Richard's jawup, forcing his head back, forcing him to swallow.

She sighed with relief when he swallowed severaltimes, taking all the cure. At least she'd beenable to get him to swallow it.

Carefully, Kahlan and Cara laid Richard backdown. As Cara stood, Owen rushed forward.
"Did you give him all of it? Did he drink it all?"

Cara's Agiel spun into her fist. As Owen, in hisexuberance to get to Richard, charged forward, Cararammed her Agiel into Owen's shoulder.

Owen tottered back a step. "I'm sorry." Herubbed his shoulder where Cara had jabbed her Agielinto him. "I only wanted to see how he is. I don'tmean any harm. I want him to be well, I swear."

Kahlan stared in astonishment. Cara glanced downat her Agiel, then at Owen.
Her Agiel hadn't worked on him. He wasn't affectedby magic.

Even Jennsen was staring at Owen. He was justlike her—a pillar of Creation, born pristinelyungifted and unaffected by magic. While Jennsen 


understood what that meant, it didn't seem thatOwen did. He had no idea that Cara had done 
anything more than poke him good and hard to gethim to stand back. 
Her Agiel should have dropped him to his knees.

"Richard drank all the antidote. Now it must do 
its work. In the meantime, I think we had betterget some sleep." Kahlan gestured with a tilt of herhead. "See to the watches, would you Cara? I'llstay with Richard."
Cara nodded. She gave Tom a look, which heunderstood. 

"Owen," Tom said, "why don't you come over by meand spend the night over here, with this fellow."

Owen blanched at the look on the face of the bigD'Haran, and understood that he wasn't beingoffered a choice. "Yes, all right." He turned backto Kahlan. "I'll pray that he got the antidote intime. I'll pray for him."
"Pray for yourself," she said.
When everyone had gone, Kahlan lay down besideRichard. Now that she was alone with him, tears ofworry finally began to seep out. Richard wasshivering with cold, even though it was a warmnight. She drew the blanket back up around him andthen put her hand on his shoulder as she cuddledclose, not knowing if when the new day came hewould still be with her. 

 CHAPTER 22 

Richard opened his eyes, only to squint at the 


light, even though it was far from sunny. By thelayered streaks of violet tinting the iron graysky, it appeared to be just dawn. A heavy overcasthung low overhead. Or it could be sunset—he wasn'treally sure. He felt strangely disoriented.

The dull throbbing in his head ached back downthrough his neck. His chest burned with everybreath he drew. His throat was raw. It hurt to 
swallow. 

The heavy pain, though, the pain that hadsqueezed so hard it had taken his breath and hadmade the world go black, seemed to have ebbed. Thebone-chilling grip of cold had lifted, too.

Richard felt as if he had lost contact with the 
world for a time— how long a time he didn't know.
It seemed like it had been an eternity, as if theworld of life was a distant memory from his past.
He also felt as if he had come close to never 
waking again. It brought a flash of sweat to hisbrow to feel that he had been close to losing hislife, to realize that he might never have awakened.

The surroundings were different from those heremembered. Close by, a wall of straw-colored rockwith sharp fractured edges rose nearly straight up.
To the side he saw a stand of twisted bristlecone 
pine. Pale, bare wood stood out in naked reliefwhere sections of dark bark had peeled open. Theimposing mountains loomed closer than heremembered, and there were more trees on the slopesof the nearby hills.

Jennsen lay curled up in a blanket beside Betty,
her back against the rear wheel of the wagon. Tomwas asleep not too far away right beside his drafthorses. Friedrich sat on a rock standing watch.
Richard couldn't make sense of the two men who layat Friedrich's feet. Richard thought one of themmust be the man Kahlan had touched with her power.
The other one, though, he wasn't sure of, althoughRichard thought there was something familiar abouthim. 


 Kahlan was sound asleep up against him. Hissword lay on his other side, close by his hand. Onthe other side of Kahlan lay her sword, sheathed,
but at the ready.

All the Seekers who had used the Sword of Truth 
before Richard, the good and the evil, had leftwithin the sword's magic the essence of theirskill. By mastering the sword as the true Seekerfor whom the makers of the sword intended its 
power, Richard had learned to tap that ability andmake it his own, to draw on all the skill andknowledge of those before him. He had become amaster of the blade, in more ways than one, andpart of that had come from the blade itself.

Kahlan had been taught to use a sword by herfather, King Wyborn Amnell, once king of Galeabefore Kahlan's mother had taken him for her mate. 
Richard had completed Kahlan's training, teachingher how to use a sword in ways she had never beenshown, ways that used her size and speed to herbest advantage, rather than fighting like the enemyand depending on strength.

Despite his pounding head, and the pain when hedrew a breath, the warm feel of Kahlan against hisside brought him a smile. She looked so beautiful,
even with her hair all in a tangle. She made hisheart ache with longing. He had always loved herlong beautiful hair. He loved to watch her sleepalmost as much as he loved to gaze into herarresting green eyes. He loved to make her hair atangled mess.

He remembered, back when he had first met her,
watching her sleep on the floor of Adie's home,
watching her slow heartbeat in the vein in herneck. He remembered, as he'd watched, being struckby the life in her. She was just so alive, sopassionately filled with life. He couldn't stopsmiling as he looked at her.

Gently, he bent and kissed the top of her head.
She stirred, nuzzling up tighter to him. 


 Suddenly, she jerked upright, sitting on a hipas she stared wide-eyed at him.
"Richard!" 

She threw herself down beside him, her head onhis shoulder, her arm across his chest. Sheclutched him for dear life. A single gasp of a sobthat terrified him with its forlorn misery escapedher throat. 
"I'm all right," he soothed as he smoothed herhair. 

She pushed herself up again, slower, gazing athim as if she hadn't seen him in an eternity. Herspecial smile, the one she gave only him, spreadincandescent across her face. 
"Richard..." She seemed only able to stare at himand smile. 

Richard, still lying back trying to let his headclear, lifted an arm just enough to point. "Who isthat?" 

Kahlan looked back over her shoulder. She turned 
back and took up Richard's hand.
"Remember that fellow a week or so back? Owen? 
That's him." 
"I thought I recognized him."

"Lord Rahl!" Cara dropped to the ground on theside of him opposite Kahlan. "Lord Rahl..."

She, too, seemed to have trouble finding words.
Instead, she took up his free hand. That, initself, said a world to him.

Richard took the hand back, kissed his first twofingers and touched the fingers to her cheek.
"Thanks for watching out for everyone."

Jennsen hobbled over, the blanket still tangledaround her legs. "Richard! The antidote worked! Itworked, dear spirits, it worked!"

Richard rose up onto an elbow. "Antidote?" Hefrowned at the three women around him. "Antidote to 
what?" 

"You were poisoned," Kahlan told him. She aimeda thumb back over her shoulder. "Owen. When he came 


to us the first time, you gave him a drink. Inthanks, he put poison in your waterskin. Heintended to poison me with it, too, but only youdrank it." 
Richard's glare settled on the men at Friedrich'sfeet, watching them.He nodded his confirmation thatit was true, as if he should be commended for it.
"One of those little mistakes," Jennsen said.
Richard puzzled at her. "What?"

"You said that even you made mistakes, and evena little one could cause big trouble. Don't youremember? Cara said you were always makingmistakes, especially simple ones, and that's whyyou need her around." Jennsen flashed him a teasingsmile. "I guess she was right."

Richard didn't correct the story, but said, ashe stood, "It just goes to show how you can betaken by surprise by something as simple as thatfellow over there." 
Kahlan was watching Owen. "I have a suspicion heisn't so simple."

Cara put her arm out for Richard to grab hold ofin order to steady himself.

"Cara," he said as he had to sit down on anearby crate from the wagon, "bring him over here,
would you?"

"Gladly," she said as she started across theircamp. "Don't forget to tell him about Owen," Carasaid to Kahlan. 
"Tell me what?" 

Kahlan leaned close as she watched Cara haul 
Owen to his feet. "Owen is pristinely ungifted—likeJennsen." 

Richard raked his hair back, trying to makesense of it. "Are you saying that he's also my halfbrother?" 

Kahlan shrugged. "We don't know that; we knowonly that he's pristinely ungifted." A wrinkle ofpuzzlement tightened on her brow. "By the way, backat the camp where those men attacked us, you were 


about to tell me something important you figuredout when we were questioning the man that Itouched, but you never got the chance."

"Yes"—Richard squinted, trying to recall whatthe man had told them—"it was about the one he said 
gave the orders sending him to capture us: Nicholas... Nicholas something."
"The Slide," Kahlan reminded him. "Nicholas theSlide." 

"Right. Nicholas told him where to find us—atthe eastern edge of the wasteland, heading north.
How could he know?" 
Kahlan mulled over the question. "Come to think ofit, how could he know? We've seen no one, at leastno one we were aware of, who could have reportedwhere we were. Even if someone had seen us, by thetime they reported our position and Nicholas sentthe men, we would have been far from here. UnlessNicholas is close." 

"The races," Richard said. "It has to be thathe's the one watching us through the races. We'veseen no one else. That's the only way anyone couldhave known where we were. This Nicholas the Slide 
had to have seen us, to have seen where we were,
through those birds that have been shadowing us.
That's how he was able to give our location alongwith the orders." 
Richard rose as the man approached.

"Lord Rahl," Owen said, arms spread in a gestureof relief as he scurried forward, Cara holding afistful of his coat at his shoulder to keep himreined in. "I'm so relieved you're better. I nevermeant for the poison to hurt you as it did—and itnever would have, had you had the antidote sooner.
I tried to get to you sooner—I meant to—I swear Idid, but all those men you slaughtered... it wasn'tmy fault." He added a small smile to the pleadingexpression he gave Kahlan. "The Mother Confessorknows, she understands."

Kahlan folded her arms as she looked up at 


Richard from under her frown. "It's our fault, yousee, that Owen didn't make it to us sooner with theantidote to the poison. Owen got to our last camp,
intending to hand over the antidote to cure you,
only to find that we had murdered all those men andthen up and left. So, it's not his fault—hisintentions were good and he tried; we spoiled hiseffort. Very inconsiderate of us."

Richard stared, not sure if Kahlan was givinghim a sarcastic summation of what Owen had told 
her, or an accurate portrayal of Owen's excuse, orif his head still wasn't clear. 
Richard's mood turned as dark as the thick 
overcast. 

"You poisoned me," he said to Owen, wanting tobe sure he had the man's story straight, "and thenyou brought an antidote to where we were camped,
but when you got to that camp, you came across themen who had attacked us and you found we had gone."

"Yes." His cheer that Richard had it rightabruptly faded. "Such savagery from theunenlightened is to be expected, of course." Owen'sblue eyes filled with tears. "But still, it was so..." He hugged himself and closed his eyes as herocked his weight from side to side, from one footto the other. "Nothing is real. Nothing is real.
Nothing is real."

Richard seized the man's shirt at his throat and 
yanked him closer. "What do you mean, nothing isreal?" 

Owen paled before Richard's glare. "Nothing isreal. We can't know if what we see, if anything, isreal or not. How could we?" 
"If you see it, then how can you possibly think itisn't real?" 

"Because our senses all the time distort the 
truth of reality and deceive us. Our senses onlydelude us into the illusion of certainty. We can'tsee at night—our sight tells us that the night isempty—but an owl can snatch up a mouse that with 


our eyes we couldn't sense was there. Our realitysays the mouse didn't exist—yet we know it must, inspite of what our vision tells us—that anotherreality exists outside our experience. Our sight,
rather than revealing truth, hides the truth fromus—worse, it gives us a false idea of reality.

"Our senses deceived us. Dogs can smell a worldof things we can't, because our senses are solimited. How can a dog track something we can'tsmell, if our senses tell us what is real and whatisn't. Our understanding of reality, rather thanbeing enhanced by, is instead limited by, ourflawed senses. 

"Our bias causes us to mistakenly think we knowwhat is unknowable—don't you see? We aren'tequipped with adequate senses to know the truenature of reality, what is real and what isn't. Weonly know a tiny sampling of the world around us.
There is a whole world hidden from us, a wholeworld of mysteries we don't see—but it's there justthe same, whether we see it or not, whether we havethe wisdom to admit our inadequacies to the task ofknowing reality, or not. What we think we know isactually unknowable. Nothing is real."

Richard leaned down. "You saw those bodies 
because they were real."

"What we see is only an apparent reality, mereappearances, a self-imposed illusion, all based onour flawed perception. Nothing is real."

"You didn't like what you saw, so you choose,
instead, to say it isn't real?"
"I can't say what's real. Neither can you. To sayotherwise is unenlightened arrogance. A trulyenlightened man admits his woeful ineffectivenesswhen confronting his existence."

Richard pulled Owen closer. "Such whimsy canonly bring you to a life of misery and quakingfear, a life wasted and never really lived. You hadbetter start using your mind for its true purposeof knowing the world around you, instead of 


abandoning it to faith in irrational notions. Withme, you will confine yourself to the facts of theworld we live in, not fanciful daydreams asconcocted by others."

Jennsen tugged on Richard's sleeve, pulling himback to hear her as she whispered. "Richard, whatif Owen is right—not necessarily about the bodies,
but about the general idea?"

"You mean you think his conclusions are allwrong, and yet, somehow, the convoluted idea behindthem must be right."

"Well, no—but what if what he says really istrue? After all, look at you and me. Remember theconversation we had a while back, the one where youwere explaining how I was born without eyes tosee"— she glanced briefly at Owen and apparentlyabbreviated what she had intended to say—"certainthings. Remember that you said that, for me, suchthings don't exist? That reality is different forme? That my reality is different than yours?"

"You're getting what I said wrong, Jennsen. Whenmost people get into a patch of poison ivy, theyblister and itch. Some rare people don't. Thatdoesn't mean the poison ivy doesn't exist, or, moreto the point, that its existence depends on whetheror not we think it's there." 

Jennsen pulled him even closer. "Are you sosure? Richard, you don't know what it's like to bedifferent from everyone else, to not see and feelwhat they do. You say there's magic, but I can'tsee it, or feel it. It doesn't touch me. Am I tobelieve you on faith, when my senses say it doesn'texist? Maybe because of that I can understand alittle better what Owen means. Maybe he doesn'thave it all wrong. It makes a person wonder what'sreal and what's not, and if, like he says, it'sonly your own point of view."

"The information our senses give us must betaken in context. If I close my eyes the sundoesn't stop shining. When I go to sleep I'm 


consciously unaware of anything; that doesn't meanthat the world ceases to exist. You have to use the 
information from your senses in context along withwhat you've learned to be true about the nature ofthings. Things don't change because of the way wethink about them. What is, is."

"But, like he says, if we don't experiencesomething with our own senses, then how can we knowit's real?" 

Richard folded his arms. "I can't get pregnant.
So would you argue that for me women don't exist."
Jennsen backed away, looking a little sheepish. "Iguess not."

"Now," Richard said, turning back to Owen, "youpoisoned me— you admit that much." He tapped hisfist against his own chest. "It hurts in here;
that's real. You caused it. 

"I want to know why, and I want to know why youbrought the antidote. I'm not interested in whatyou think of the camp where the men who attacked uslay dead. Confine yourself to the matter at hand.
You brought the antidote for the poison you gaveme. That can't be the end of it. What's the rest?" 

"Well," Owen stammered, "I didn't want you todie, that's why I saved you."

"Stop telling me your feelings about what youdid and tell me instead what you did and why. Whypoison me, and why then save me? I want the answerto that, and I want the truth."

Owen glanced around at the grim faces watchinghim. He took a breath as if to gather hiscomposure.

"I needed your help. I had to convince you tohelp me. I asked, before, for your help and yourefused, even though my people have great need. Ibegged. I told you how important it was for them tohave your help, but you still said no."

"I have my own problems I must deal with,"
Richard said. "I'm sorry the Order invaded yourhomeland—I know how terrible that is— but I told 


you, I'm trying to bring them down and our doing sowill only help you and your people in your effortto rid yourselves of them. You aren't the only onewho has had their home invaded by those brutes. Wehave men of the Order murdering our loved ones aswell." 

"You must help us, first," Owen insisted. "Youand those like you, the unenlightened ones, mustfree my people. We can't do it ourselves—we are notsavages. I heard what you all had to say abouteating meat. Such talk made me ill. Our people arenot like that—we can't be, because we areenlightened. I saw how you murdered all those menback there. I need you to do that to the Order."
"I thought that wasn't real?"
Owen ignored the question. "You must give my peoplefreedom." 
"I already told you, I can't!"

"Now, you must." He looked at Cara, Jennsen,
Tom, and Friedrich. His gaze settled on Kahlan.
"You must see to it that Lord Rahl does this—or he 
will die. I have poisoned him."

Kahlan seized Owen's shirt. "You brought him theantidote to the poison."

Owen nodded. "That first night, when I told youall of my great need, I had just given him thepoison." His gaze returned to Richard. "You hadjust drunk it, within hours. Had you agreed to givemy people the freedom they need, I would have givenyou the antidote then, and you would be free of thepoison. It would have cured you.

"But you refused to come with me, to help thosewho cannot help themselves, as is your duty tothose in need. You sent me away. So, I did notoffer you the antidote. In the time since, thepoison has worked its way through your body. Hadyou not been selfish, you would have been curedback then. 

"Instead, the poison is now established in you,
doing its work. Since it was so long since you 


drank the poison, the antidote I had with me was no
longer enough to cure you, only to make you better
for a while." 
"And what will cure me?" Richard asked. 


"You will have to have more of the antidote to 
rid you of the rest of the poison."
"And I don't suppose you have any more."

Owen shook his head. "You must give my peoplefreedom. Only then, will you be able to get more ofthe antidote." 

Richard wanted to shake the answers out of the 
man. Instead, he took a breath, trying to stay calmso that he could understand the truth of what Owen 
had done and then think of the solution. 
"Why only then?" he asked.
"Because," Owen said, "the antidote is in the placetaken by the Imperial Order. You must rid us of theinvaders if you are to be able to get to theantidote. If you want to live, you must give us ourfreedom. If you don't, you will die." 

CHAPTER 23 

Kahlan reached in to seize Owen by the throat.
She wanted to strangle him, to choke him, to makehim feel the desperate, panicked need of breaththat Richard had endured, to make him suffer, toshow him what it was like. Cara went for Owen as 


well, apparently having the same thought as Kahlan.
Richard thrust his arm out, holding them both back.

Holding Owen's shirt in his other fist, Richardshook the man. "And how long do I have until I getsick again? How long do I have to live before yourpoison kills me?"

Owen's confused gaze flitted from one angry faceto another. "But if you do as I ask, as is yourduty, you will be fine. I promise. You saw that Ibrought you the antidote. I don't wish to harm you.
That is not my intent—I swear."

Kahlan could only think of Richard in crushingpain, unable to breathe. It had been terrifying.
She couldn't think of anything else but him goingthrough it again, only this time never to wake.
"How long?" Richard repeated.
"But if you only—"
"How long!"

Owen licked his lips. "Not a month. Close to it,
but not a month, I believe."

Kahlan tried to push Richard away. "Let me havehim. I'll find out—" 

"No." Cara pulled Kahlan back. "MotherConfessor," she whispered, "let Lord Rahl do as hemust. You don't know what your touch would do toone such as he." 

"It might do nothing," Kahlan insisted, "but itmight still work, and then we can find outeverything."

Cara restrained her with an arm around her waist 
that Kahlan could not pry off. "And if only theSubtractive side works and it kills him?" 

Kahlan stopped struggling as she frowned atCara. "And since when have you taken up the studyof magic?"

"Since it might harm Lord Rahl." Cara pulledKahlan back farther away from Richard. "I have amind, too, you know. I can think things through.
Are you using your head? Where is this city? Whereis the antidote within the city? What will you do 


if using your power kills this man and you are theone who condemns Lord Rahl to death when you couldhave had the information we need had you nottouched him. 

"If you want, I will break his arms. I will makehim bleed. I will make him scream in agony. But Iwill not kill him; I will keep him alive so that hecan give us the information we need to rid LordRahl of this death sentence. 

"Ask yourself, do you really want to do thisbecause you believe it will gain you the answers weneed, or because you want to lash out, to strikeout at him? Lord Rahl's life may hang on you beingtruthful with yourself."

Kahlan panted from the effort of the struggle,
but more from her rage. She wanted to lash out, tostrike back, just as Cara said—to do whatever shecould to save Richard and to punish his attacker.

"I've had it with this game," Kahlan said. "Iwant to hear the story— the whole story."

"So do I," Richard said. He lifted the man byhis shirt and slammed him down atop the crate. "Allright, Owen, no more excuses for why you did thisor that. Start at the beginning and tell us whathappened, and what you and your people did aboutit." 
Owen sat trembling like a leaf. Jennsen urgedRichard back. 
"You're frightening him," she whispered to Richard.
"Give him some room or he will never be able to getit out." 

Richard took a purging breath as he acknowledgedJennsen's words with a hand on her shoulder. He 
walked off a few paces, standing with his handsclasped behind his back as he stared off in thedirection of the sunrise, toward the mountainsKahlan had so often seen him studying. It had beenon the other side of the range of the smaller,
closer mountains, tight in the shadows of thosemassive peaks thrusting up through the iron gray 


clouds, where they had found the warning beacon andfirst encountered the black-tipped races.

The clouds that capped the sky all the way tothe wall of those distant peaks hung heavy anddark. For the first time since Kahlan could 
remember, it looked like a storm might be uponthem. The expectant smell of rain quickened theair. 
"Where are you from?" Richard asked in a calmvoice. 

Owen cleared his throat as he straightened hisshirt and light coat, as if rearranging hisdignity. He remained seated atop the crate.

"I lived in a place of enlightenment, in acivilization of advanced culture ... a greatempire."

"Where is this noble empire?" Richard asked,
still staring off into the distance.

Owen stretched his neck up, looking east. Hepointed at the far wall of towering peaks whereRichard was looking.

"There. Do you see that notch in the highmountains? I lived past there, in the empire beyondthose mountains." 

Kahlan remembered asking Richard if he thoughtthey could make it over those mountains. Richardhad been doubtful about it. 
He looked back over his shoulder. "What's the name 
of this empire?"

"Bandakar," Owen said in a reverent murmur. Hesmoothed his blond hair to the side, as if to makehimself a respectable representative of hishomeland. "I was a citizen of Bandakar, of theBandakaran Empire."

Richard had turned and was staring at Owen in amost peculiar manner. "Bandakar. Do you know whatthat name, Bandakar, means?"

Owen nodded. "Yes. Bandakar is an ancient word 
from a time long forgotten. It means 'the chosen'—
as in, the chosen empire." 


Richard seemed to have lost a little of his color. 
When his eyes met Kahlan's, she could see that heknew very well what the word meant, and Owen had itwrong.

Richard seemed to suddenly remember himself. Herubbed his brow in thought. "Do you—do any of yourpeople—know the language that this ancient word,
bandakar, is from?"

Owen gestured dismissively. "We don't know ofthe language; it's long forgotten. Only the meaningof this word has been passed down, because it is soimportant to our people to hold on to the heritageof its meaning: chosen empire. We are the chosenpeople."

Richard's demeanor had changed. His anger seemedto have faded away. He stepped closer to Owen andspoke softly.

"The Bandakaran Empire—why isn't it known? Whydoes no one know of your people?"

Owen looked away, toward the east, seeing hisdistant homeland through wet eyes. "It is said thatthe ancient ones, the ones who gave us this name,
wanted to protect us—because we are a specialpeople. They took us to a place where no one couldgo, because of the mountains all around. Suchmountains as only the Creator could impose to closeoff the land beyond, so that we are protected."

"Except that one place"—Richard gestured east—
"that notch in the mountain range, that pass."

"Yes," Owen admitted, still staring off towardhis homeland. "That was how we entered the land 
beyond, our land, but others could enter there aswell; it was the one place where we werevulnerable. You see, we are an enlightened peoplewho have risen above violence, but the world isstill full of savage races. So, those ancientpeople, who wanted our advanced culture to survive,
to thrive without the brutality of the rest of theworld .. . they sealed the pass."

"And your people have been isolated for all this 


time—for thousands of years."

"Yes. We have a perfect land, a place of anadvanced culture that is undisturbed by theviolence of the people out here."
"How was the pass, the notch in the mountains, howwas it sealed?" 

Owen looked at Richard, somewhat startled by thequestion. He thought it over a moment. "Well. . .
the pass was sealed. It was a place that no onecould enter." 

"Because they would die if they entered thisboundary."

With an icy wave of understanding, Kahlansuddenly understood what composed the seal to thisempire.

"Well, yes," Owen stammered. "But it had to bethat way to keep outsiders from invading ourempire. We reject violence unconditionally. It'sunenlightened behavior. Violence only invites evermore violence, spiraling into a cycle of violencewith no end." He fidgeted with the worry of such atrap catching them up in the allure of its wickedspell. "We are an advanced race, above the violenceof our ancestors. We have grown beyond. But withoutthe boundary that seals that pass and until therest of the world rejects violence as we have, ourpeople could be the prey of unenlightened savages."
"And now, that seal is broken."
Owen stared at the ground, swallowing before hespoke. "Yes."
"How long ago did the boundary fail?"

"We aren't sure. It is a dangerous place. No onelives near it, so we can't be positive, but webelieve it was close to two years ago."
Kahlan felt the dizzying burden of confirmation ofher fears. 

When Owen looked up, he was a picture of misery.
"Our empire is now naked to unenlightened savages."

"Sometime after the boundary came down, theImperial Order came in through the pass." 


"Yes." 

"The land beyond those snowcapped mountains, theEmpire of Ban-dakar, is where the black-tippedraces are from, isn't it?" Richard said.

Owen looked up, surprised that Richard knewthis. "Yes. Those awful creatures, innocent thoughthey are of malice, prey on the people of myhomeland. We must stay indoors at night, when theyhunt. Even so, people, especially children, aresometimes surprised and caught by those fearsomecreatures—" 

"Why don't you kill them?" Cara asked,
indignantly. "Fight them off? Shoot them witharrows? Dear spirits, why don't you bash theirheads in with a rock if you have to?"

Owen looked shocked by the very suggestion. "Itold you, we are above violence. It would be evenmore wrong to commit violence on such innocentcreatures. It is our duty to preserve them, sinceit is we who entered into their domain. We are the 
ones who bear the guilt because we entice them intosuch behavior which is only natural to them. Wepreserve virtue only by embracing every aspect ofthe world without the prejudice of our flawed humanviews." 

Richard gave Cara a stealthy gesture to bequiet. "Was everyone in the empire peaceful?" heasked, pulling Owen's attention away from Cara.
"Yes." 

"Weren't there occasionally those who... I don'tknow, misbehaved? Children, for example. Where Icome from, children can sometimes become rowdy.
Children where you come from must sometimes becomerowdy, too."

Owen shrugged a bit with one shoulder. "Well,
yes, I guess so. There were times when childrenmisbehave and become unruly."
"And what do you do with such children?"

Owen cleared his throat, plainly uncomfortable.
"Well, they are... put out of their home for a 


time." 

"Put out of their home for a time," Richardrepeated. He lifted his arms in a questioningshrug. "The children I know will usually be happyto be put outside. They simply go play."

Owen shook his head emphatically at the seriousnature of the matter. "We are different. From the 
time we are born, we are together with others. Weare all very close. We depend on one another. Wecherish one another. We spend all our waking hourswith others. We cook and wash and work together. Wesleep in a sleeping house, together. Ours is anenlightened life of human contact, human closeness.
There is no higher value than being together."

"So," Richard asked, feigning a puzzled look,
"when one of you— a child—is put out, that is acause of unhappiness?"

Owen swallowed as a tear ran down his cheek. 
"There could be nothing worse. To be put out, to beclosed off from others, is the worst horror we canendure. To be forced out into the cold cruelty ofthe world is a nightmare."

Just talking about such a punishment, thinkingabout it, was making Owen start to tremble.
"And that's when, sometimes, the races get suchchildren," Richard said in a compassionate tone.
"When they're alone and vulnerable."

With the back of his hand Owen wiped the tearfrom his cheek. "When a child must be put out to bepunished, we take all possible precautions. Wenever put them out at night because that is whenthe races usually hunt. Children are put out forpunishment only in the day. But when we are awayfrom others, we are vulnerable to all the terrorsand cruelties of the world. To be alone is a 
nightmare.

"We would do anything to avoid such punishment.
Any child who misbehaves and is put out for a whilewill not likely misbehave again anytime soon. Thereis no greater joy than to finally be welcomed back 


in with our friends and family."
"So, for your people, banishment is the greatest
punishment."
Owen stared into the distance. "Of course." 


"Where I come from, we all got along prettywell, too. We enjoyed each other's company and hadgreat fun when many people would gather. We valuedour times together. When we're away for a time, weinquire about all the people we know and haven'tseen in a while." 
Owen smiled expectantly. "Then you understand."

Richard nodded, returning the smile. "Butoccasionally there will be someone who won'tbehave, even when they're an adult. We tryeverything we can, but, sometimes, someone doessomething wrong—something they know is wrong. Theymight lie or steal. Even worse, at times someonewill deliberately hurt another person—beat someonewhen robbing them, or rape a woman, or even murdersomeone." 
Owen wouldn't look up at Richard. He stared at theground.

As he spoke, Richard paced slowly before theman. "When someone does something like that whereyou come from, Owen, what do your people do? How doan enlightened people handle such horrible crimessome of your people commit against others?"

"We attack the root cause of such behavior from 
the beginning," Owen was quick to answer. "We shareall we have to make sure that everyone has whatthey need so that they don't have to steal. Peoplesteal because they feel the hurt of others actingsuperior. We show these people that we are nobetter than they and so they need not harbor suchfears of others. We teach them to be enlightenedand reject all such behavior."

Richard shrugged nonchalantly. Kahlan would havethought that he would be ready to strangle theanswers out of Owen, but, instead, he was behavingin a calm, understanding manner. She had seen him 


act this way before. He was the Seeker of Truth,
rightfully named by the First Wizard himself.
Richard was doing what Seekers did: find the truth.
Sometimes he used his sword, sometimes words.

Even though this was the way Richard oftendisarmed people when he questioned them, in thiscase it struck Kahlan that such a manner was 
precisely what Owen would be most accustomed to,
most comfortable with. This gentle manner waspulling answers from the man and filling in a lotof information Kahlan had never thought of tryingto get.

She had already learned that she was the causeof what had befallen these people.

"We both know, Owen, that, try as we might, suchefforts to change people's ways don't always work.
Some people won't change. There are times whenpeople do evil things. Even among civilized people,
there are some who will not behave in a civil 
manner despite all your best efforts. What's worseis that, if allowed to continue, these fewjeopardize the whole community.

"After all, if you have a rapist among you, youcan't allow him to continue to prey on women. If aman committed murder, you couldn't allow such a manto threaten the empire with his ways, now couldyou? An advanced culture, especially, can't befaulted for wanting to stop such dangers toenlightened people.

"But you've shunned all forms of violence, soyou can hardly punish such a man physically—youcouldn't put a murderer to death—not if you'vetruly rejected violence unconditionally. What doyou do with such men? How does an enlightenedpeople handle grave problems, such as murder?"

Owen was sweating. It seemed not to haveoccurred to him to deny the existence of murderers—
Richard had already led him past that, had alreadyestablished the existence of such men. Before Owen 
could think to object, Richard was already beyond, 


to the next step.
"Well," Owen said, swallowing, "as you say, we are
an enlightened people. If someone does something to
harm another, they are given ... a denunciation."


"A denunciation. You mean, you condemn theiractions, but not the man. You give him a secondchance." 

"Yes, that's right." Owen wiped sweat from hisbrow as he glanced up at Richard. "We work veryhard to reform people who make such mistakes andare given a denunciation. We recognize that theiractions are a cry for help, so we counsel them inthe ways of enlightenment in order to help them tosee that they are hurting all our people when theyhurt one, and that since they are one of ourbeloved people, they are only hurting themselveswhen they hurt another. We show such peoplecompassion and understanding."

Kahlan caught Cara's arm, and with a stern lookconvinced her to remain silent. 

Richard paced slowly before Owen, nodding as ifhe thought that sounded reasonable. "I understand.
You put a great deal of effort into making them seethat they can never do such a thing again."
Owen nodded, relieved that Richard understood.

"But then there are times when one of those who 
has received a denunciation, and has been counseledto the very best of your ability, goes out and doesthe same crime again—or one even worse.

"It's clear, then, that he refuses to bereformed and that he's a threat to public order,
safety, and confidence. Left to his own devises,
such a person, by himself, will bring the verything you unconditionally reject—violence—to stalkamong your people and win others to his ways."

A light mist had begun to fall. Owen sat on thecrate, trembling, frightened, alone. Only a shorttime ago he had been reluctant to answer even themost basic question in a meaningful way; nowRichard had him speaking openly. 


 Friedrich stroked the jaw of one of the horsesas he quietly watched. Jennsen sat on a rock, Bettylying at her feet. Tom stood behind Jenn-sen, ahand resting gently on her shoulder, but keeping aneye on the man Kahlan had touched with her power.
That man sat off to the side, listeningdispassionately as he waited to be commanded. Carastood beside Kahlan, ever watchful for trouble, butobviously caught up in the unfolding story ofOwen's homeland, even if she was having a hard timeholding her tongue.

For her part, Kahlan, while she could sympathizewith Cara's difficulty in holding her tongue, wastransfixed by the tale of a mysterious empire thatRichard casually, effortlessly, drew from this manwho had poisoned him. She couldn't imagine whereRichard was going with his matter-of-factquestions. What did this empire's forms ofpunishment have to do with Richard being poisoned?
It was clear to her, though, that Richard knewwhere he was headed, and that the path he wasfollowing was wide and sunlit.

Richard paused before Owen. "What do you do inthose instances?— when you can't reform someone whohas become a danger to everyone. What do anenlightened people do with that kind of person?"

Owen spoke in a soft voice that carried clearlyin the misty early-morning hush. "We banish them."
"Banish them. You mean, you send them into theboundary?"
Owen nodded. 

"But you said that going into the boundary isdeath. You couldn't simply send them into theboundary or you would be executing them. You musthave a place to send them through. A special place.
A place where you can banish them, without killingthem, but a place where you know they can neverreturn to harm your people."

Owen nodded again. "Yes. There is such a place.
The pass that is blocked by the boundary is steep 


and treacherous. But there is a path that leadsdown into the boundary. Those ancient ones whoprotected us by placing that boundary placed thepath as well. The path is said to allow passageout. Because of the way the mountain descends, itis a difficult path, but it can be followed."

"And just because of how difficult it is, it'snot possible to climb back up? To enter theBandakaran Empire?"

Owen chewed his lower lip. "It goes down througha terrible place, a narrow passageway through theboundary, a lifeless land, where it is said thatdeath itself lies to each side. The person banishedis given no water or food. He must find his own, onthe other side, or perish. We place watchers at theentrance of the path, where they wait to be surethat the one banished has gone through and is notlingering in the boundary only to return. Thewatchers wait and watch for several weeks to be 
sure that the one banished has gone beyond insearch of water and food, in search of his new lifeaway from his people.

"Once beyond, the forest is a terrible place, afrightening place, with roots that descend over theedge like a land of snakes. The path takes you downunder that cascade of roots and running water.
Then, even lower, you find yourself in a strangeland where the trees are far above, reaching forthe distant light, but you see only their rootstwisting and stretching down into the darknesstoward the ground. It is said that once you seethat forest of roots towering all around you, youhave made it through the boundary and the passthrough the mountains.

"There is said to be no way to enter our landfrom that other side—to use the pass to return toour empire.
"Once banished, there is no redemption."

Richard moved up close beside Owen and placed ahand on his shoulder. 


"What did you do to be banished, Owen?"

Owen sank forward, putting his face in his handsas he finally broke down sobbing. 

CHAPTER 24 

Richard left his hand on Owen's shoulder as he 
spoke in a compassionate tone. "Tell me whathappened, Owen. Tell me in your own way."

Kahlan was startled to hear, after all Owen hadsaid, that he had become one of the banished. Shesaw Jennsen's jaw fall open. Cara lifted aneyebrow.

Kahlan could see that Richard's hand on Owen's 
shoulder was an emotional lifeline for the man. He 
finally sat up, sniffling back the tears. He wipedhis nose on his sleeve. 

He looked up at Richard. "Should I tell you thewhole story? All of it?"
"Yes. I'd like to hear it all, from the beginning."

Kahlan was struck at how much Richard reminded 
her, at that moment, of his grandfather, Zedd, andthe way Zedd always wanted to hear the whole story.

"Well, I was happy among my people, with themall around me. They held me to their breast when Iwas young. I was always safe in their welcomingarms. While I knew of other children who became 
unruly and were put out as punishment, I never didanything to be put out. I hungered to learn to belike my people. They taught me the ways ofenlightenment. For a time I served my people as theWise One. 

"Later, my people were pleased with howenlightened I was, how I embraced them all, and so 


they made me the speaker of our town. I traveled tonearby towns to speak the words of what the peopleof my town all believed as one. I went to our greatcities for the same reason. I was always happiest,
though, when I was home with my closest people.
"I fell in love with a woman from my town. Her nameis Marilee." 

Owen stared off into his memories. Richard 
didn't rush him, but waited patiently until hebegan again at his own pace.

"It was spring, a little more than two yearsago, when we fell joyfully in love. Marilee and Ispent time talking, holding hands, and, when wecould, sitting together while among all the others.
Among all the others, though, I only had eyes forMarilee. She only had eyes for me.

"When we were with others, it felt like we werealone in the world, Marilee and I, and the worldbelonged to us alone, that only we had the eyes tosee all its hidden beauty. It is wrong to feel thisway, to be so alone in our hearts is to be selfishand to think our eyes can see so clearly is sinfulpride, but we could not help ourselves. The treesblossomed just for us. The water in the streamsburbled their music just for us. The moon rose forus alone." Owen slowly shook his head. "You couldnot understand how it was ... how we felt." 

"I understand quite well how it was," Richardassured him in a quiet voice.

Owen glanced up at Richard; then his gaze movedto Kahlan. She nodded to him that it was so. His 
brow twitched with wonder. He looked away then,
perhaps, Kahlan thought, in guilt.

"Well," Owen said, going back to his story, "Iwas the speaker of our town—the one who speaks whatall decide that must be decided as being true. Ialso sometimes helped other people resolvequestions of what is right according to the tenetsof an advanced culture." Owen flicked his hand in a 
self-conscious manner. "As I said, I once served my 


people as the Wise One, so the people trusted me."

Richard just nodded, not interrupting, eventhough Kahlan knew that he didn't quite understandthe meaning of many of the details of what Owen wassaying any more than she did. The gist of thestory, though, was becoming all too clear.

"I asked Marilee if she would be my wife, if shewould marry me and no other. She said that it wasthe happiest day of her life, to be asked by me,
for I said I wanted no other but her. It was the 
happiest day of my life when she said she wouldhave me as her husband. 

"Everyone was very pleased. Everyone loved usboth, and kept us sheltered in their arms for along time to show their joy. As we sat togetherwith everyone, we all talked about the plans forthe wedding and how much we would all be pleasedthat Marilee and I would be husband and wife and 
bring children among our people."

Owen stared off in his thoughts. It seemed thathe might have forgotten that he'd stopped speaking.
"So, was it a grand wedding?" Richard finallyprompted.

Owen still stared off. "The men of the Order 
came. That was when we first realized that the 
seal, that had protected our people since thebeginning times, had failed. There was no longer abarrier protecting us.
"Our empire was now naked to savages."

Kahlan knew that what she had done had caused 
the boundary to fail, resulting in these peoplebeing defenseless. She had had no choice, but thatdidn't make it any easier to hear.

"They came to our town, where I was speaker. Ourtown, like others, has walls all around; those whogave us our name, Bandakar, proclaimed that townsshould be built such as this. It was wise of them 
to tell us this. The walls protect us from thebeasts of the forests, make us safe, without havingto harm any creatures. 


 "The men of the Order set up a camp outside ourwalls. There was really no place for them to stayin the town—we have no accommodations to house so 
many people because we never have great numbers ofvisitors from other towns. Worse, I was fearful ofhaving such men as they looked sleeping under ourroof with us. It was wrong to have such fear; it ismy failing, not theirs, I know, but I had the fear.

"Since I was the speaker for my town, I went outto their camp with food and offerings. I was filledwith my sinful failing of being afraid of them.
They were big, some with long, dark, greasy,
tangled hair, some with shaved heads, many withfilthy beards of coarse hair—none of them with fairsun-golden hair like our people. It was shocking tosee them wearing hides of animals, leather plates,
chains and metal, and straps with sharp studs.
Hanging on their belts, they all carried vicious-
looking implements the likes of which I had neverin my life imagined, but which I later learned wereweapons.

"I told these strange men that they were welcometo share what we had, that we would honor them. Itold them that they were invited to sit with us, toshare their words with us." 

Everyone waited in silence, not wanting to say aword as tears ran down Owen's face and dripped offhis jaw.

"The men of the Order did not sit with us. Theydid not share their words with us. Though I spoketo them, they acted as if I were not worthy oftheir recognition, other than to grin at me as ifthey intended to eat me.

"I sought to allay their fears, since it is thefear of others that causes hostility. I assured themen that we were peaceful and intended them no illwill. I told them that we would do our best to 
accommodate them among us.

"The man who was their speaker, a commander hecalled himself, spoke to me then. He told me that 


his name was Luchan. His shoulders were twice as 
wide as mine, even though he was no taller than me.
This man, Luchan, said that he did not believe me.
I was horrified to hear this. He said that he 
thought my people meant him harm. He accused us ofwishing to kill his men. I was shaken that he wouldthink such a thing of us, especially after I hadtold him of our open welcome to his men. I wasshaken to know that I had done something to causehim to feel we were threatening to him and his men.
I assured him of our desire to be peaceful withthem. 

"Luchan smiled at me then, not a smile ofhappiness, not a smile like I had ever seen before.
He said that they were going to burn down our townand kill all the people in it to prevent us fromattacking his men as they slept. I begged him tobelieve our peaceful ways, to sit with us and sharehis worries and we would do what we needed to do to 
dispel such doubts and show him our love of him forbeing our fellow man.

"Luchan said, then, that he would not burn downour town and kill us all upon a condition, as hecalled it. He said that if I would surrender mywoman to him as a token of my sincerity andgoodwill he would then believe our words. He saidthat if, on the other hand, I failed to send herout to him, what happened would be my fault, wouldbe on my head, for not cooperating with them, fornot showing my sincerity and goodwill toward them.

"I went back to hear the words of my people.
Everyone agreed and said that I must do this—that Imust send Marilee out to the men of the Order so 
that they would not burn down our town and murdereveryone. I asked them not to decide so quickly,
and offered the idea that we could close the gatesin the wall to keep the men from coming in andharming us. My people said that men such as thesewould find a way to break the wall, and then theywould murder everyone for shutting our gates and 


shaming them with our bigotry toward them. Thepeople all spoke up loudly that I must show the manLuchan goodwill and our peaceful intent, that Imust allay his fears of us.

"I never felt so alone among my people. I couldnot go against the word of everyone, for it istaught that only the voices of people joinedtogether in one voice can be wise enough to knowthe true way. No one person can know what is right.
Only consensus can make a thing right.

"My knees trembled as I stood before Marilee. Iheard myself ask if she wished me to do as the menwanted—as our people wanted. I told her that Iwould run away with her if she would wish it. Shewept as she said that she would not hear suchsinful talk from me, for it would mean the death ofeveryone else.

"She said that she must go to the men of theOrder to appease them or there would be violence.
She told me that she would tell them of our 
peaceful ways and thus gentle them toward us.

"I was proud of Marilee for upholding thehighest values of our people. I wanted to die forbeing proud of such a thing as would take her fromme. 

"I kissed Marilee a last time, but I could notstop my tears. I held her in my arms and we wepttogether.

"Then, I took her out to the man who was theircommander, Luchan. He had a thick black beard, ashaved head, and a ring through one ear and onenostril. He said that I had made a wise choice. His 
sundarkened arms were nearly as big around asMarilee's waist. His big filthy hand took Marileeby her arm and bore her away with him as he turnedback and told me to 'scurry back' to my town, to mypeople. His men laughed at me as they watched me goback up the road.

"The men of the Order left my town and my peoplealone. We had peace I had purchased with Marilee. 


"I had no peace in my heart.

"For a time, the men of the Order were gone fromour town. They returned, then, one afternoon, andcalled for me to come out. I asked Luchan about 
Marilee, if she was well, if she was happy. Luchanturned his head and spat, then said he didn't know,
that he never asked her. I was worried, and askedif she spoke with him of our peaceful ways, assuredhim of our innocent intent toward him. He said that 
when he was with women he wasn't much interested in 
them for their talking.

"He winked at me. Though I had never seen anyonewink in such a fashion, I knew his meaning.

"I was very frightened for Marilee, but Ireminded myself that nothing is real, that I couldnot really know anything from what I was hearing. Iwas only hearing what this one man said of things,
as he saw them, and I knew that I was only sensingpart of the world. I could not know reality from myeyes and ears alone.

"Luchan said, then, that I should open the towngates lest they think we were acting in a hostileway toward them. Luchan said that if we failed todo as he asked, it would begin a cycle of violence.

"I went back and spoke his words to all thepeople gathered around me. My people all spoke inone voice, and said that we must open the gates andinvite them in to prove that we held no hostility,
no prejudice, toward the men.

"The men of the Order came in through thosegates we let stand wide for them and seized nearlyall the women, from those still the age of girls tograndmothers. I stood with the other men, beggingthem to leave our women be, to leave us be. I toldthem that we had agreed to their demands to proveto them that we meant them no harm, but it did nogood. They would not listen.
"I told Luchan, then, that I had sent Marilee tohim as his condition for peace. I told him thatthey must honor their agreement. Luchan and his men 


laughed.

"I cannot say if what I saw then was real.
Reality is in the realm of fate, and we, in thisplace we think we know as the world, cannot know itin full truth. That day, fate swept down on mypeople; we had no say in it. We know that we mustnot fight against fate, for it has already beenforeordained by the true reality we cannot see.

"I watched as our women were dragged away. Iwatched, unable to do anything, as they screamedour names, as they reached out for us, as the handsof those big men held our women and bore them awayfrom us. I had never heard such screams as I heard 
that day."

The overcast seemed as if it would soon brush 
the tops of the trees. In the thick silence, Kahlanheard a bird in the bristlecone pines singing. Owenwas alone, off in his solitary world of terriblememories. Richard stood, arms folded, watching theman, but saying nothing.

"I went to other towns," Owen finally said. "Ina couple of places, the Order had been there beforeme. The men of the Order did much the same to those 
towns as they had done to my town; they took thewomen. In some places they also took a few men.

"In other places I went, the Order had not comeyet. As the speaker of my town, I told them of whathad befallen my town and I urged others to dosomething. They were angry with me and said it waswrong to resist, that to resist was to give in toviolence, to become no better than the savages.
They urged me to renounce my outspoken ways and toheed the wisdom of the joined voices of our peoplethat had brought enlightenment and thousands ofyears of peace. They told me that I was onlylooking at events through my limited eyes, and notthe better judgment of the group.

"I went then to one of our important cities andtold them again that the seal on the pass wasbroken and that the Imperial Order was upon us, and 


that something must be done. I urged them to listento me and to consider what we could do to protectour people.

"Because I was so inconsiderately assertive, theassembly of speakers took me to the Wise One sothat I might have his counsel. It is a great honorto have the words of the Wise One. The Wise One 
told me that I must forgive those who had donethese things against my people, if we were to endthe violence. 

"The Wise One said that the anger and hostilityshown by the men of the Order was a mark of theirinner pain, a cry for help, and they must be showncompassion and understanding. I should have beenhumbled by such clear wisdom as could only comefrom the Wise One, but instead I spoke out of mywish for Marilee and all the other people to bereturned from such men, and for the speakers tohelp me in this.

"The Wise One said that Marilee would find her 
own happiness without me and that I was guilty ofselfishness for wanting to keep her for myself. Hesaid that fate had come for the other people and itwas not my place to make demands of fate.

"I asserted to the speakers and the Wise Onethat the men of the Order had not upheld theagreement made by Luchan for Marilee to be sent tothem. The Wise One said that Marilee had acted 
properly by going in peace to the men so that thecycle of violence would end. He said that it wasselfish and sinful for me to put my wants abovepeace she selflessly worked toward and that myattitude toward them was probably what had provokedthe men to anger.

"I asked what I was to do, when I had actedhonestly but they had not. The Wise One said that Iwas wrong to condemn men I did not know, men I hadnot first forgiven, or tried to embrace, or even tounderstand. He said that I must encourage them inthe ways of peace by throwing myself before them 


and begging them to forgive me for acting in a waythat kindled their inner pain by reminding them ofpast wrongs done to them.

"I told the Wise One, then, in front of all theother speakers, that I did not want to forgivethese men or to embrace these men, but that Iwanted to cast them out of our lives. 
"I was given a denunciation."

Richard handed Owen a cup of water but saidnothing. Owen sipped at the water without seeingit. 

"The gathering of speakers commanded me to goback to my town and seek the advice of those amongwhom I lived, commanding that I ask my people tocounsel me back to our ways. I went back intendingto redeem myself, only to discover that it hadbecome worse than before. 

"Now, the Order had returned to take whateverthey wanted from the town—food and goods. We wouldhave given them whatever they wanted, but theynever asked, they just took. More of our men hadbeen taken away, too—some of the boys and some ofthose who were young and strong. Other men, who hadin some way offended the dignity of the men of theOrder, had been murdered.

"People I knew stood staring with empty eyes atblood where our friends had died. In other such 
places, people gathered to mound remembrances overthe blood. These places had become sacred shrinesand people knelt there to pray. The children wouldnot stop crying. No one would counsel me.

"Everyone in my town trembled behind doors, butthey cast their eyes down and opened those doorswhen the men of the Order knocked, lest we offendthem. 

"I could not stand to be in our town any longer.
I ran to the country, even though I was terrifiedthat I would be alone. There, in the hills, I foundother men, selfish as I, hiding in fear for theirlives. Together, we decided to try to do something, 


to try to bring an end to the misery. We resolvedto restore peace.

"At first, we sent representatives to speak withthe men of the Order, to let them know that wemeant them no harm, and that we only sought peacewith them, and to ask what we could do to satisfythem. The men of the Order hung these men by theirankles from poles at the edge of our town andskinned them alive. 

"I knew these men all my life, these men who hadcounseled me, advised me, broken fasts with me,
sheltered me in their arms with joy when I had toldthem Marilee and I wanted to be wed. The men of the 
Order left these poor men to hang by their anklesas they screamed in agony in the hot summer sun,
where the black-tipped races came and found them.

"I reminded myself that what I saw that day wasnot real, and that I should not believe suchsights, that possibly my eyes were deceiving me aspunishment for having improper thoughts, and thatmy mind could not possibly know if this sight wasreal or an illusion. 

"Not every man that had gone to speak with themen of the Order was killed. A few of our men were 
sent back to us with word from the Order. They saidthat if we did not come down out of the hills and 
return to their rule in our town, to show that wedid not intend to attack them, then they wouldbegin skinning a dozen people a day, and hangingthem on poles for the races, until either wereturned to demonstrate our peaceful intent, oruntil every last person left in the town wasskinned alive. 

"Many of our men wept, unable to stand to thinkthat they would be the cause of a cycle ofviolence, so they went back to the town to showthat they intended no harm.

"Not all of us went back. A few of us remained 
in the hills. Since most returned, and the Orderhad no count of us, they thought all had complied 


with their command. 

"Those few of us who were left in the hills hid,
living off the nuts, fruits, and berries we couldfind or the food we snuck back and stole. We slowlygathered together supplies to see us through. Itold the other men with me that we should find out 
what the Order was doing with our people they hadtaken away. Since the men of the Order didn't knowus, we could sometimes mingle in with peopleworking the fields or tending to animals and sneakback into our town without the Order knowing who wewere—without knowing that we were men from thehills. Over the next months, we followed andwatched the men of the Order. 

"The children had been sent away, but the men ofthe Order had taken all the women to a place theybuilt—an encampment, they called it—that theyfortified against attack."

Owen put his face in his hands again as he spokethrough sobs. "They were using our women asbreeding stock. They sought to have them bearchildren—as many children as they could birth—
children of their soldiers. Some women were alreadypregnant. Most of those who weren't alreadypregnant became pregnant. Over the next year and ahalf, many children were born. They were nursed fora time, and then they were all sent away as theirmothers were gotten pregnant again.
"I don't know where these children were taken— 
somewhere beyond our empire. The men who had beentaken from the towns were also taken away beyondour empire.

"The men of the Order did not watch their 
captives well, since our people shunned violence,
so a couple of men escaped and ran to the hills,
where they found us. They told us that the Orderhad taken them to see the women, and told them thatif they did not do as they were told, if they didnot follow all the orders they were given, then allthese women before them would die—that they would 


be skinned alive. These men who escaped did notknow where they were to be taken, or what it wasthey were to do, only that if they did not followthe instructions given them, then they would be thecause of the violence to our women. 

"After a year and a half of hiding, of meetingwith others, we learned that the Order had spreadto other places in our empire, taken other townsand cities. The Wise One and the speakers went intohiding. We discovered that some towns and citieshad invited the Order to come in, to be among them,
in an attempt to appease them and keep them fromdoing harm.

"No matter how hard our people tried, theirconcessions failed to placate the belligerence ofthe men of the Order. We could not understand whythis was true. 

"In some of the largest cities, though, it wasdifferent. The people there had listened to thespeakers of the Order and had come to believe thatthe cause of the Imperial Order was the same as ourcause—to bring an end to abuse and injustice. TheOrder convinced these people that they abhorredviolence, that they had been enlightened as wereour people, but they had to turn to violence todefeat those who would oppress us all. They saidthat they were champions of our people's cause ofenlightenment. The people there rejoiced that theywere at last in the hands of saviors who would 
spread our words of enlightenment to the savageswho did not yet live by peace."

Richard, a thunderstorm building, could hold histongue no longer. "And even after all thebrutality, these people believed the words of theImperial Order?"

Owen spread his hands. "The people in thoseplaces were swayed by the words of the Order—thatthey were fighting for the same ideals as we livedby. They told our people in those cities that theyhad only acted as they did because my town and some 


of the other places like it had sided with thesavages from the north—with the D'Haran Empire.

"I had heard this name before—the D'Haran 
Empire. During the year and a half that I lived inthe hills with the other men, I sometimes traveledout of our land, out into the surrounding places,
to see what I could discover that might help us tocast the Imperial Order out of Bandakar. While Iwas out of my land, I went to some of the cities inthe Old World, as I learned it was called. In oneplace, Altur'Rang, I heard whispers of a great manfrom the north, from the D'Haran Empire, whobrought freedom.

"Other of my men also went out to other places.
When we returned, we all told each other what wehad seen, what we had heard. All those who cameback told of the same thing, told of hearing of onecalled Lord Rahl, and his wife, the MotherConfessor, who fought the Imperial Order.

"Then, we learned where the Wise One was beingkept safe, as were most of our greatest speakers.
It was in our greatest city, a place where theOrder had not yet come. The Order was busy withother places and so they were in no hurry. Mypeople were going nowhere—they had nowhere to go.

"The men who were with me wanted me to be their 
speaker, to go to talk with these great speakers,
to convince them that we must do something to stopthe Imperial Order and cast them out of Bandakar.

"I journeyed to the great city, a place I hadnever been before, and I was inspired at seeing aplace that such a great culture as ours had built.
A culture about to be destroyed, if I could notconvince these great speakers and the Wise One tothink of something to do to stop the Order.

"I spoke before them with great urgency. I toldthem of all the Order had done. I told them of the 
men I had in hiding, waiting for word of what theywere to do. 

"The great speakers said that I cannot know the 


true nature of the Order from what I and a few men 
had seen—that the Imperial Order was a vast nationand we saw only a tiny speck of their people. Theysaid that men cannot do such cruel acts as I 
described because it would cause them to shrink 
back in horror before they could complete them. Toprove it, they suggested that I try to skin one ofthem. I admitted that I could not, but I told themthat I had seen the men of the Order do this. 

"The speakers scorned my insistence that it wasreal. They said I must always keep in mind thatreality is not for us to know. They said that themen of the Imperial Order were probably frightenedthat we might be a violent people, and simplywanted to test our resolve by tricking us intobelieving that the things I described were real sothat they could see how we reacted—if peace wasreally our way, or if we would attack them.

"The great speakers said, then, that I could notknow if I really saw all the things I said, andthat even if I did, I could not judge if they werefor the bad, or the good—that I was not the personto judge the reasons of men I did not know, that todo so would be to believe that I was above them,
and to put myself above them would be an act ofprejudiced hostility.

"I could only think of all the things I hadseen, of the men with me who all agreed that wemust convince the great speakers to act to preserveour empire. I could only see in my mind the face ofLuchan. And then, I thought of Marilee in the handsof this man. I thought of the sacrifice she hadmade, and how her life was cast away into thishorror for nothing.

"I stood up before the great speakers andscreamed that they were evil."

Cara snorted a laugh. "Seems you can tell what'sreal, when you put your mind to it."
Richard shot her a withering glare.

Owen glanced up and blinked. His thoughts had 


been so distant as he told his story that he hadn'treally heard her. He looked up at Richard.
"That was when they banished me," he said.

"But the boundary seal had failed," Richardsaid. "You had already come and gone through thepass. How could they enforce a banishment with theboundary down?"

Owen waved dismissively. "They do not need thewall of death. Banishment is in a way a sentence ofdeath—the death of the person as a citizen ofBandakar. My name would be known throughout theempire, at least what was left of it, and everyperson would shun me. I would be turned away fromevery door. I was one of the banished. No one wouldwant to have any contact with me. I was now anoutcast. It does not matter that they could not putme beyond the barrier; they put me beyond mypeople. That was worse.

"I went back to my men in the hills to collectmy things and confess to them that I had beenbanished. I was going to go out beyond ourhomeland, as I had been commanded by the will ofour people through our great speakers.

"But my men, those in the hills, they would notsee me go. They said that the banishment was wrong.
These men had seen the things I had seen. They hadwives, mothers, daughters, sisters who had beentaken away. They all had seen their friendsmurdered, seen the men skinned alive and left tosuffer in agony as they died, seen the races cometo circle over them as they hung on those poles.
They said that since all our eyes had seen thesethings, then these things must be true, must bereal. 

"They all said that we had gone into the hillsbecause we love our land and want to restore the 
peace we once had. They said that the greatspeakers were the ones whose eyes did not see andthey were condemning our people to murder at thehands of savage men and those of our people who 


lived to a cruel life under the rule of the 
Imperial Order, to be used as breeding stock or asslaves. 

"I was shocked that these men would not rejectme for being banished—that they wanted me to staywith them. 

"It was then that we decided that we would be 
the ones to do something, to come up with the planwe always wanted the speakers to decide. When Iasked what would be our plan, everyone said thesame thing.

"They all said that we must get Lord Rahl tocome and give us freedom. They all spoke with onevoice. 

"We decided, then, what we would do. Some mensaid that one such as the Lord Rahl would come to 
cast out the Order when we asked. 

Others thought you might not be willing, sinceyou are unenlightened and not of our ways, not ofour people. When we considered that possibility, wedecided that we must have a way to insure you wouldhave to come, should you refuse us.

"Since I was banished, I said that it was uponme to do this thing. Except to live in the hillswith my men, I could have no life among our peopleunless we cast out the Imperial Order and our wayswere restored to us. I told the men that I did not 
know where I could find the Lord Rahl, but that Iwould not give up until I did so.

"First, though, one of the men, an older man whohad spent his life working with herbs and cures,
made me the poison I put into your waterskin. Hemade me the antidote as well. He told me how the 
poison worked, and how it could be counteracted,
since none of us wished to consider that it would 
come to murder, even of an unenlightened man."

By the sidelong look Richard gave her, Kahlanknew that he wanted her to hold her tongue, andknew that she was having difficulty doing so. Sheredoubled her effort. 


 "I was worried about how I would find you," Owensaid to Richard, "but I knew I had to. Before Icould go in search of you, though, I had to hidethe rest of the antidote, as was our plan.

"While in a city where the Order had won thepeople to their side, I heard some people at amarket say that it was a great honor that the veryman who had come to their city was the mostimportant man among all those of the Imperial Orderin Bandakar. The thought struck me that this manmight know something of the man the Order hatedmost—Lord Rahl. 

"I stayed in the city for several days, watchingthe place where this man was said to be. I watchedthe soldiers come and go. I saw that they sometimestook people in with them, and then later the peoplecame back out. 

"One day I saw people come back out and they didnot appear to be harmed, so I made my way close tothem to hear what they might say. I heard them talkthat they had seen the great man himself. I couldnot hear much of what they said of their visitinside, but none said that they were hurt.
"And then I saw the soldiers come out, and Isuspected that they might be going to get morepeople to take them in to see this great man, so Iwent before them into a central gathering square. Iwaited, then, near the open isles between thepublic benches. The soldiers rushed in and gatheredup a small crowd of people and I was swept up withthe others. 

"I was terrified of what would happen to me, butI thought this might be my only chance to go in thebuilding with this important man, my only chance tosee what he looked like, to see the place where hewas so I could know where to sneak back and listen,
as I had learned to do when living in the hillswith my men. I had resolved to do this to see if Icould learn any information on Lord Rahl. Still, Iwas trembling with worry when they took us all into 


the building and down halls and up stairs to thetop floor.

"I feared that I was being led to the slaughterand wanted to run, but I thought, then, of my menback in the hills, depending on me to find the LordRahl and get him to come to Bandakar and give usfreedom. 

"We were taken through a heavy door into a dimroom that filled me with fear because it stank of 
blood. The windows on two walls of the stark room 
were closed off by shutters. I saw that across theroom there was a table with a broad bowl and,
nearby, a row of fat, sharpened wooden stakesstanding nearly as tall as my chest. They werestained dark with blood and gore.

"Two women and a man with us fainted. Out of 
anger, the soldiers kicked them in the heads. Whenthe people did not rise, the soldiers dragged themaway by their arms. I saw blood trails smear alongthe floor behind them. I didn't want to have myhead caved in by the boot of one of these gruesomemen, so I resolved not to faint.

"A man swept into the room, suddenly, like achill wind. I had not ever been afraid of any man,
even Luchan, like I was afraid of this man. He wasdressed in layer upon layer of cloth strips thatflowed out behind as he moved. His jet black hairwas swept back and smoothed with oils that made itglisten. His nose seemed to stick out even morethan it would have, had he not slicked back hishair. His small black eyes were rimmed in red. Whenthose beady eyes fixed on me, I had to remindmyself that I had vowed not to faint.
"He peered at each person in turn as he slowlywalked past us, as if he were picking out a turnipfor dinner. It was then, as his knobby fingers cameout from his odd clothes to point in a wavingmanner at one person and then another until he hadpointed out five people, that I saw that hisfingernails were all painted as black as his hair. 


 "His hand waved, dismissing the rest of us. Thesoldiers moved between the five people this man hadpointed out and the rest of us. They startedpushing us toward the door, but just then, beforewe could be ushered out, a commander with a nosethat had been flattened to the side, as if frombeing broken repeatedly, came in and said that themessenger had arrived. The man with the black hairran his black nails back through his black hair andtold the commander to tell the messenger to wait,
that by morning he would have the latestinformation. 

"I was then led out and down the stairs alongwith the rest of the people. We were taken outsideand told to go away, that our services wouldn't beneeded. The soldiers laughed when they said this. Ileft with the others, so as not to make the menangry. The people all whispered about having seenthe great man himself. I could think only of whatthe latest information might be.

"Later, after dark, I sneaked back, and in therear of the building I discovered, behind a gatethrough a high wooden fence, a narrow alleyway. Inthe dark, I entered the alley and hid myself insidea doorway entrance to the back hall of thebuilding. There were passageways beyond, and, inthe candlelight, I recognized one passage as theplace I had been earlier.

"It was late and there was no one in the halls. 
I moved deeper into the passageways. Rooms andrecesses lined each side of the hall, but with thelate hour no one came out. I sneaked up the stairsand crept to the big thick door to the room where Ihad been taken. 

"It was there, in that dark hall before the bigdoor, that I heard the most horrifying cries I haveever heard. People were begging and weeping fortheir lives, crying for mercy. One woman pleadedendlessly to be put to death to end her suffering.

"I thought I would vomit, or faint, but one 


thought kept me still and hidden, kept me fromrunning as fast as my legs would carry me. That wasthe thought that this was the fate of all my peopleif I did not help them by bringing Lord Rahl.

"I stayed there all night, in a dark recess in ahall across from the big door, listening to thosepoor people in unimaginable agony. I don't knowwhat the man was doing to them, but I thought Iwould die of sorrow for their slow suffering. Thewhole of the night, the moans of agony neverceased. 

"I shivered in my hiding place, weeping, andtold myself that it wasn't real, that I shouldn'tbe afraid of what was not real. I imagined thepeople's pain, but told myself that I was puttingmy imagination on top of my senses—the very thing Ihad been taught was wrong. I put my thoughts toMarilee, the times we had been together, andignored the sounds that were not real. I could notknow what was real, what these sounds really were.

"Early in the morning the commander I had seenbefore returned. I peeked carefully out from mydark hiding place. The man with the black hair cameto the door. I knew it was him because when his arm 
came out of the room to hand the man a scrolled 
paper, I saw his black fingernails.

"The man with the black hair said to the 
commander with the flattened, crooked nose, hecalled him 'Najari,' that he had found them. That'swhat he said—'them.' Then he said, 'They've made itto the east edge of the wasteland and are nowheading north.' He told the man to give themessenger the orders right away. Najari said,
'Shouldn't be long, then, Nicholas, and you willhave them and we'll have the power to name ourprice.' " 


CHAPTER 25 


Richard spun around. "Nicholas? You heardhim say that name?"
Owen blinked in surprise. "Yes. I'm sure of it. Hesaid Nicholas." 

Kahlan felt a weary hopelessness settle overher, like the cold, wet mist.
Richard gestured urgently. "Go on."

"Well, I wasn't sure that they were talkingabout you—about the Lord Rahl and the MotherConfessor—when the commander said 'them,' but bythe grim excitement in their voices I had theimpression that it was so. Their voices reminded meof the first time the Order came, at the way Luchansmiled at me in a way I had never seen before, likehe might eat me.

"I thought that this information was my bestchance to find you. So I started out at once."

Borne on a light gust, drizzle replaced themorning mist. Kahlan realized that she wasshivering with the cold.

Richard pointed at the man sitting on the groundnot far away, the man with the notch in his rightear, the man Kahlan had touched. Some of the stormwithin Richard boiled to the surface. 

"There is the man the orders from Nicholas were 
sent to. He brought with him those men you saw atour last camp. Had we not defended ourselves, hadwe put our own sincere hatred of violence above thenature of reality, we would be as lost as Marilee."
Owen stared at the man. "What is his name?" 

"I don't know and it doesn't matter to me in the 
least. He fought for the Imperial Order—fought touphold a view of all life, including his, asunimportant, interchangeable, expendable in the 


mindless pursuit of an ideal that holds individuallives as worthless in themselves—a tenet that 
demands sacrifice to others until you are nothing.
"He fights for the dream of everybody to be nobodyand nothing.

"The beliefs of the Order hold that you had noright to love Marilee, that everyone is the sameand so your duty should be to marry someone whocould best use your help. In that way, throughselfless sacrifice, you would properly serve yourfellow man. Despite how you struggle not to seewhat's before your eyes, Owen, I think somewherebeneath all your regurgitated teachings, you knowthat that is the greatest horror brought by theOrder—not their brutality, but their ideas. It istheir beliefs that sanction brutality, and yoursthat invite it. 

"He didn't value his own life, who he was; whyshould I care what his name was. I give him whatwas his greatest ambition: nothingness."

When Richard saw Kahlan shivering in the colddrizzle, he withdrew his hot glare from Owen andretrieved her cloak from her pack in the wagon.
With the utmost gentleness and care, he wrapped itaround her shoulders. By the look on his face, heseemed to have had all he could take of listeningto Owen. 

Kahlan seized his hand, holding it to her cheekfor a moment. There was some small good in thestory they had heard from Owen.

"This means that the gift isn't killing you,
Richard," she said in a confidential tone. "It wasthe poison."

She was relieved that they hadn't run out oftime to get him help, as she had so feared on thatbrief, eternal wagon ride when he'd beenunconscious. 

"I had the headaches before I ran into Owen. I 
still have the headaches. The sword's magic as wellfaltered before I was poisoned." 


 "But at least this now gives us more time tofind the solutions to those problems."

He ran his fingers back through his hair. "I'mafraid we have worse problems, now, and not thetime you think."
"Worse problems?"

Richard nodded. "You know the empire Owen comesfrom? Ban-dakar? Guess what 'Bandakar' means." 

Kahlan glanced at Owen sitting hunched on thecrate and all by himself. She shook her head as hergaze returned to Richard's gray eyes, troubled moreby the suppressed rage in his voice than anythingelse. 
"I don't know, what?"

"In High D'Haran it's a name. It means 'thebanished.' Remember from the book, The Pillars ofCreation, when I was telling you what it said abouthow they decided to send all the pristinelyungifted people away to the Old World—to banishthem? Remember that I said no one ever knew what 
became of them? 
"We just found out.

"The world is now naked before the people of theBandakaran Empire."

Kahlan frowned. "How can you know for certainthat he is a descendant of those people?"

"Look at him. He's blond and looks more like 
full-blooded D'Harans than he does the people downhere in the Old World. More importantly, though,
he's not affected by magic."
"But that could be just him."

Richard leaned in closer. "In a closed placelike he comes from, a place shut off from the restof the world for thousands of years, even onepillar of Creation would have spread that ungiftedtrait throughout the entire population by now.

"But there wasn't just one; they were allungifted. For that, they were banished to the OldWorld, and in the Old World, where they tried toestablish a new life, they were again all collected 


and banished to that place beyond those mountains—aplace they were told was for the bandakar, thebanished." 

"How did the people in the Old World find outabout them? How did they keep them all together,
without a single one surviving to spread theirungifted trait to the general population, and howdid they manage to then put them all in that place—
banish them?" 
"Good questions, all, but right now not theimportant ones.

"Owen," Richard called as he turned back to theothers, "I want you to stay right there, please,
while the rest of us decide what will be our singlevoice about what we must do." 

Owen brightened at a method of doing things withwhich he identified and felt comfortable. He didn't 
seem to detect, as did Kahlan, the undercurrent ofsarcasm in Richard's voice. 

"You," Richard said to the man Kahlan hadtouched, "go sit beside him and see that he waitsthere with you."

While the man scurried to do as he was told,
Richard tilted his head in gesture to the rest ofthem, calling them away with him. "We need totalk." 

Friedrich, Tom, Jennsen, Cara, and Kahlanfollowed Richard away from Owen and the man.
Richard leaned back against the chafing rail of thewagon and folded his arms as they all gatheredclose around him. He took time to appraise eachface looking at him.

"We have big problems," Richard began, "and notjust from the poison Owen gave me. Owen isn'tgifted. He's like you, Jennsen. Magic doesn't touchhim." His gaze remained locked on Jennsen's. "Therest of his people are the same as he, as you."

Jennsen's jaw fell open in astonishment. Shelooked confused, as if unable to reconcile it allin her mind. Friedrich and Tom looked nearly as 


startled. Cara's brow drew down in a dark frown. 

"Richard," Jennsen finally said, "that justcan't be. There's too many of them. There's no waythat they can all be half brothers and sisters ofours." 

"They aren't half brothers and sisters," Richardsaid. "They're a line of people descended from theHouse of Rahl—people like you. I don't have timeright now to explain all of it to you, but rememberhow I told you that you would bear children whowere like you, and they would pass that pristinelyungifted trait on to all future generations? Well,
back a long time ago, there were people like thatspreading in D'Hara. The people back then gatheredup all these ungifted people and sent them to theOld World. The people down here then sealed themaway beyond those mountains, there. The name oftheir empire, Bandakar, means 'the banished.' "

Jennsen's big blue eyes filled with tears. Shewas one of those people, people so hated that theyhad been banished from the rest of the people intheir own land and sent into exile. 

Kahlan put an arm around her shoulders.
"Remember how you said that you felt alone in theworld?" Kahlan smiled warmly. "You don't have tofeel alone anymore. There are people like you."

Kahlan didn't think her words seemed to helpmuch, but Jennsen welcomed the comfort of theembrace. 

Jennsen abruptly looked back up at Richard.
"That can't be true. They had a boundary that keptthem locked in that place. If they were like methey wouldn't be affected by a boundary of magic.
They could have come out of there any time theywished. Over all this time, at least some of themwould have come out into the rest of the world— the 
magic of the boundary couldn't have held themback." 

"I don't think that's true," Richard said.
"Remember when you saw the sand flowing sideways in 


that warning beacon that Sabar brought us? That wasmagic, and you saw it."

"That's right," Kahlan said. "If she's a pillarof Creation, then how is such a thing possible?"

"That's right," Jennsen agreed. "How could thatbe, if I'm truly ungifted?" Her eyebrows went up.
"Richard—maybe it's not true after all. Maybe Ihave a bit of the spark of the gift—maybe I'm notreally, truly ungifted."

Richard smiled. "Jennsen, you're as pure as asnowflake. You saw that magic for a reason. Nicciwrote us in her letter that the warning beacon waslinked to the wizard who created it—linked to him 
in the underworld. The underworld is the world of 
the dead. That means that the statue functioned 
partly through Subtractive Magic—magic having to dowith the underworld. You may be immune to magic,
but you are not immune to death. Gifted or not,
you're still linked to life, and thus death.

"That's why you saw some of the magic of thestatue—the part relating to the advancement ofdeath. 
"The boundary was a place in this world where deathitself existed. 
To go into that boundary was to enter the world ofthe dead. No one returns from the dead. If anypristinely ungifted person in Bandakar had goneinto the boundary, they would have died. That washow they were sealed in."

"But they could banish people through theboundary," Jennsen pressed. "That would have tomean that the boundary didn't really affect them."

Richard was shaking his head even as she wasprotesting. "No. They were touched by death, thesame as anyone. But there was a way left throughthe boundary—much like the one that once dividedthe three lands of the New World. I got throughthat boundary without being touched by it. Therewas a pass through it, a special, hidden place toget through the boundary. This one was the same." 


 Jennsen wrinkled her nose. "That makes no sense,
then. If that was true, and it wasn't hidden fromthem—since they all knew of this passage throughthe boundary—then why couldn't they all just leaveif they wanted to? How could it seal the rest ofthem in, if they could send banished peoplethrough?"

Richard sighed, wiping a hand across his face.
It looked to Kahlan like he wished she hadn't asked 
that question.

"You know the area we passed a while back?"
Richard asked her. "That place where nothing grew?"
Jennsen nodded. "I remember." 

"Well, Sabar said he came through another one, alittle to the north of here." 

"That's right," Kahlan said. "And it ran towardthe center of the wasteland, toward the Pillars ofCreation—just like the one we saw. They had to beroughly parallel."

Richard was nodding to what she was beginning tosuspect. "And they were to either side of the notchinto Bandakar. They weren't very far apart. We'rein that place right now, between those twoboundaries." 

Friedrich leaned in. "But Lord Rahl, that wouldmean that if someone was banished from the 
Bandakaran Empire, when they emerged from thatboundary they would find themselves trapped betweenthe walls of these two boundaries out here, andthere wasn't much room between them. A person wouldhave nowhere to go but..."

Friedrich covered his mouth as he turned west,
looking off into the gloom.
"The Pillars of Creation," Richard finished withquiet finality.

"But, but," Jennsen stammered, "are you sayingthat someone made it that way? Made these twoboundaries deliberately to force anyone who wassent out of the Bandakaran Empire to go into thatplace—the Pillars of Creation? Why?" 


Richard looked into her eyes for a long moment. "Tokill them." 

Jennsen swallowed. "You mean, whoever banishedthese people wanted anyone they in turn sent out,
anyone they exiled, to die?"
"Yes," Richard said.

Kahlan pulled her cloak tighter around herself.
It had been hot for so long she could hardlybelieve that the weather had so suddenly turnedcold. 

Richard swiped a lock of wet hair back off hisforehead as he went on. "From what Adie told me 
once, boundaries have to have a pass to createbalance on both sides, to equalize the life on bothsides. I suspect that those down here in the OldWorld who banished these people wanted to give thema way to get rid of criminals and so told thepeople about the existence of the pass. But theydidn't want such people to be loosed on the rest ofthe world. Criminals or not, they were ungifted.
They couldn't be allowed to run free."

Kahlan immediately saw the problem with histheory. "But all three boundaries would have had tohave a pass," she said. "Even if the other twopasses, in the remaining two boundaries, weresecret, that still left the possibility that anyoneexiled and sent through the notch might find one ofthem and so not try to escape through the Pillarsof Creation where they would die. That left thechance that they might still escape into the OldWorld." 

"If there really were three boundaries, suchmight be the case," Richard said. "But I don'tthink there were three. I think there really wasonly one."

"Now you're not making any sense," Caracomplained. "You said there was the one going northand south blocking the pass, and then there werethese two parallel ones out here, going east andwest, to funnel anyone who came out of the empire 


through that first boundary, toward the Pillars ofCreation where they would die."

Kahlan had to agree. It seemed that there mightbe a chance for someone to escape through one ofthe other two. 

"I don't think there were three boundaries,"
Richard repeated. "I think there was only one. Thatone boundary wasn't straight—it was bent in half."
He held two fingers up, side by side. "The bottomof the bend went across the pass." He pointed atthe web between the two fingers. "The two legsextended out here, parallel, going off to wherethey ended at the Pillars."
Jennsen could only ask "Why?"

"It seems to me, by how elaborate the wholedesign was, that the ones who sealed those peoplein wanted to give them a way to rid themselves ofdangerous people, possibly knowing from what theyhad learned of their beliefs that they would balkat executing anyone. When these people werebanished here to the Old World, they may havealready had at least the core of the same beliefsthey hold now. Those beliefs leave them completelyvulnerable to those who are evil. Protecting theirway of life, without executing criminals, meantthey had to cast such people out of their communityor be destroyed by them.

"The banishment away from D'Hara and the NewWorld, across the barrier into the Old World, musthave terrified them. They stuck together as a meansof survival, a common bond.

"Those down here in the Old World who put thembehind that boundary must have used those people'sfear of persecution to convince them that theboundary was meant to protect them, to keep othersfrom harming them. They must have convinced thosepeople that, since they were special, they neededsuch protection. That, along with their well-
established need to stick together, had to havereinforced in them a terrible fear of being put out 


of their protected place. Banishment had a specialterror to those people.

"They must have felt the anguish of beingrejected by the rest of the peoples of the worldbecause they were ungifted, but, together as theywere, they also felt safe behind the boundary.
"Now that the seal is off, we have big problems."

Jennsen folded her arms. "Now that there's more 
than one of us— more than one snowflake—you'rehaving worries about a snowstorm?"

Richard fixed her with a reproachful look. "Whydo you think the Order came in and took some oftheir people?"

"Apparently," Jennsen said, "to breed morechildren like them. To breed precious magic out ofthe race of man." 

Richard ignored the heat in her words. "No, Imean why would they take men?"

"Same reason," Jennsen said. "To mate withregular women and give them ungifted children."

Richard drew in a patient breath and let it outslowly. "What did Owen say? The men were taken tosee the women and told that if they didn't followorders those women would be skinned alive." 
Jennsen hesitated. "What orders?" 

Richard leaned toward her. "What orders, indeed.
Think about it," he said, looking around at therest of them. "What orders? What would they wantungifted men for? What is it they would wantungifted men to do?"
Kahlan gasped. "The Keep!"

"Exactly." Richard's unsettling gaze met each ofthem in turn. "Like I said, we have big problems.
Zedd is protecting the Keep. With his ability andthe magic of that place he can no doubt singlehandedly 
hold off Jagang's entire army.

"But how is that skinny old man going to resisteven one young ungifted man who is untouched bymagic and comes up and grabs him by the throat?"

Jennsen's hand came away from her mouth. "You're 


right, Richard. Jagang, too, has that book—ThePillars of Creation. He knows how those like me 
aren't touched by magic. He tried to use me in thatvery way. That's why he worked so hard to convinceme that you were trying to kill me—so that I wouldthink my only chance was to kill you first. He knewI was ungifted and couldn't be stopped by magic."

"And, Jagang is from the Old World," Richardadded. "In all likelihood he would have known 
something about the empire beyond that boundary.
For all we know, in the Old World Bandakar might belegendary, while those in the New World, beyond thegreat barrier for three thousand years, would neverhave known what happened to those people.

"Now, the Order has been taking men from thereand threatening them with the brutal murder oftheir defenseless women—women who are loved ones—if 
those men don't follow orders. I think those orders 
are to assault the Wizard's Keep and capture it forthe Imperial Order."

Kahlan's legs shook. If the Keep fell, theywould lose the one real advantage, however limited,
they had. With the Keep in the hands of the Order,
all those ancient and deadly things of magic wouldbe available to Jagang. There was no telling whathe might unleash. There were things in the Keepthat could kill them all, Jagang included. He hadalready proven with the plague he'd unleashed thathe was willing to kill any number to have his way,
that he was willing to use any weapon, even if suchweapons decimated his own people as well.

Even if Jagang did nothing with the Keep, justhim having control of it denied the D'Haran Empirethe possibility of finding something there thatcould help them. That was, in addition toprotecting the Keep, what Zedd was doing while hewas there—trying to find something that would helpthem win the war, or at least find a way to put theImperial Order back behind a barrier of some kindand confine them to the Old World. 


 Without the Keep, their cause would likely behopeless. Resistance would be nothing more thandelaying the inevitable. Without the Keep on theirside, all resistance to Jagang would eventually becrushed. His troops would pour into every part ofthe New World. There would be no stopping them.

With trembling fingers Kahlan clutched her cloakclosed. She knew what awaited her people, what itwas like when the Imperial Order invaded andoverpowered places. She had been with the army fornearly a year, fighting against them. They werelike a pack of wild dogs. There was no peace withsuch animals after you. They would be satisfiedonly when they could tear you apart.

Kahlan had been to cities, like Ebinissia, thathad been overrun by Imperial Order soldiers. In awild binge of savagery that went on for days, theyhad tortured, raped, and murdered every persontrapped in the city, finally leaving it a wastelandof human corpses. None, no matter their age, hadbeen spared.
That was what the people of the New World had tolook forward to. 
With enemy troops overrunning all of the New World,
any trade that was not already disrupted would bebrought to a standstill. Nearly all businesseswould fail. The livelihood of countless peoplewould be lost. Food would quickly become scarce,
and then simply unavailable at any cost. Peoplewould have no means of supporting themselves andtheir families. People would lose everything forwhich they had worked a lifetime.

Cities, even before the troops arrived, would bein a destructive panic. When the enemy troopsarrived, most people would be burned out of theirhomes, driven from their cities and their land.
Jagang would steal all supplies of food for histroops and give conquered land to his favoredelite. The true owners of that land would perish,
or become slaves working their own farms. Those who 


escaped before the invading horde would desperatelycling to life, living like animals in wild areas.

Most of the population would be in flight,
running for their lives. Hundreds of thousandswould be out in the elements without shelter. There 
would be little food, and no ability to prepare forwinter. When the weather turned harsh, they wouldperish in droves.

As civilization crumbled and starvation became 
the norm, disease would sweep across the land,
catching up those on the run. Families wouldcollapse as those they depended on sufferedagonizingly slow and painful deaths. Children andthe weak would be alone, to be preyed upon as asource of food for the starving.

Kahlan knew what such widespread disease waslike. She knew what it was to watch people dying bythe thousands. She had seen it happen in Aydindrilwhen the plague was there. She saw scores strickenwithout warning. She had watched the old, theyoung—such good people— contract something theycould not fight, watched them suffer in misery fordays before they died.

Richard had been stricken with that plague.
Unlike everyone else, though, he had gotten itknowingly. Taking the plague deliberately had beenthe price to get back to her. He had traded hislife just to be with her again before he died.
That had been a time beyond horror.
Kahlan knew, firsthand, savage desperation. It wasthen that she had taken the only chance availableto her to save his life. It was then that she had 
loosed the chimes. That act had saved Richard's 
life. She hadn't known at the time that it would 
also be a catalyst that would set unforeseen eventsinto motion. 

Because of her desperate act, the boundary tothis empire had lost its power and failed. Becauseof her, all magic might eventually fail.

Now, because of that boundary failing, the 


Wizard's Keep, their last bastion to work a
solution against the Order, was in terrible
jeopardy.
Kahlan felt as if it was all her fault. 


The world was on the brink of destruction. 
Civilization stood at the threshold of obliteration 
in the name of the Order's mindless idea of a 
greater good. The Order demanded sacrifice to thatgreater good; what they were determined tosacrifice was reason, and, therefore, civilizationitself. Madness had cast its shadow across the 
world and would have them all. 

They now stood in the edge of the shadow of adark age. They were all on the eve of the endtimes. 

Kahlan couldn't say that, though. She couldn'ttell them how she felt. She dared not reveal her 
despair.

"Richard, we simply can't allow the Order tocapture the Keep." Kahlan could hardly believe howcalm and determined her voice sounded. She wondered 
if anyone else would believe that she thought theystill stood a chance. "We have to stop them."
"I agree," Richard said.

He sounded determined, too. She wondered if hesaw in her eyes the true depths of her despair.

"First," he said, "the easy part: Nicci andVictor. We have to tell them that we can't come 
now. Victor needs to know what we would say to him.
He will need to know that we agree with his plans—
that he must proceed and that he can't wait for us.
We've talked with him; he knows what to do. Now, hemust do it, and Priska must know that he has tohelp.

"Nicci needs to know where we're going. Sheneeds to know that we believe we've discovered the 
cause of the warning beacon. She has to know wherewe are." 

He left unsaid that she had to come to help himif he couldn't get to her because his gift was 


killing him.

"She needs to know, too," Richard said, "that weonly had a chance to read part of her warning aboutwhat Jagang was doing with the Sisters of the Darkin creating weapons out of people."
Everyone's eyes widened. They hadn't read theletter. 

"Well," Kahlan said, "with all the otherproblems we have, at least that's one we won't haveto deal with for now." 

"We have that much on our side," Richard agreed.
He gestured to the man watching, the man waitingfor Kahlan to command him. "We'll send him to 
Victor and Nicci so they will know everything."
"And then what?" Cara asked. 

"I want Kahlan to command him that when he's 
finished with carrying out that part of his orders,
he's then to go north and find the Imperial Orderarmy. I want him to pretend to be one of them toget close enough to assassinate Emperor Jagang."

Kahlan knew how implausible such a scheme was.
By the way everyone stared in astonishment, theyhad a good idea, too.

"Jagang has layers of men to protect him fromassassination," Jenn-sen said. "He's alwayssurrounded by special guards. Regular soldierscan't even get close to him."

"Do you really think he has any chance at all toaccomplish such a thing?" Kahlan asked.

"No," Richard admitted. "The Order will mostlikely kill him before he can get to Jagang. But hewill be driven by the need to fulfill your orders.
He will be single-minded. I expect he will bekilled in the effort, but I also suspect he will atleast make a good attempt of it. I want Jagang toat least lose some sleep knowing that any of hismen might be assassins. I want him to worry that hewill never know who might be trying to kill him. Idon't want him ever to be able to sleep soundly. Iwant him to be haunted by nightmares of what might 


be coming next, of who among his men might bewaiting for an opening."

Kahlan nodded her agreement. Richard appraisedthe grim faces waiting for the rest of what he hadto say.
"Now, to the most important part of what must bedone. It's vital we get to the Keep and warn Zedd.
We can't delay. Jagang is ahead of us in all this—
he's been planning and acting and we never realizedwhat he was up to. We don't know how soon thoseungifted men might be sent north. We haven't amoment to lose." 

"Lord Rahl," Cara reminded him, "you have to getto the antidote before time runs out. You can't gorunning off to the Keep to ... Oh, no. Now you justwait a minute—you're not sending me to the Keepagain. I'm not leaving you at a time like this, ata time when you're next to defenseless. I won'thear of it and I won't go."

Richard laid a hand on her shoulder. "Cara, I'mnot sending you, but thanks for offering."
Cara folded her arms and shot him a fiery scowl.
"We can't take the wagon up into Bandakar—there'sno road—" 

"Lord Rahl," Tom interrupted, "without magicyou'll need all the steel you have." He soundedonly slightly less emphatic than Cara had.

Richard smiled. "I know, Tom, and I agree. It'sFriedrich who I think must go." Richard turned toFriedrich. "You can take the wagon. An older man,
by himself, will raise less suspicion than wouldany of the rest of us. They won't see you as athreat. You will be able to make better time with 
the wagon and without having to worry that theOrder might snatch you and put you in the army.
Will you do it, Friedrich?"

Friedrich scratched his stubble. A smile came to 
his weathered face. "I guess I'm at last beingcalled upon to be a boundary warden, of sorts."

Richard smiled with him. "Friedrich, the 


boundary has failed. As the Lord Rahl, I appointyou to the post of boundary warden and ask that youimmediately undertake to warn others of the dangercome from out of that boundary."

Friedrich's smile departed as he put a fist tohis heart in salute and solemn pledge. 

CHAPTER 26 

Somewhere back in a distant room, where his bodywaited, Nicholas heard an insistent noise. He wasabsorbed in theàtaskàat hand, so heàignored thesound. The light was fading, and although lighthelped to see, darkness would not hinder eyes suchas he used. 

Againì he heard the noise. Indignant that thesound kept calling him, kept annoying him, keptdemanding his attention, he returned to his body.
Someone was banging a fist on the door.

Nicholas rose from the floor,à?´2¹2´´9±7²<�¹0º1¹·¹¹¶²³³22º°µ4·3´´9±7²<�»4:4´´6�$:�»°¹0¶»°¼9�0:³4¹9:²´¹7¹´27º4·3º7´0»2º7±2�47´´9±7²<ð°³°47º7±2�¹7¶´¶4ºed, so confined. It feltawkward to have to move it about, to use his ownmuscles, to breathe, to see, to hear with his own 
senses. 

The knock came again. Irate at the interruption,
Nicholas went not to the door but to the windows,
and threw the shutters closed. He cast a hand out,
igniting the torch, and finally stalked to thedoor. Layered strips of cloth covering his robesflowed out behind, like a heavy mantle of blackfeathers. 


"What is it!" He threw open the heavy door andpeered out.

Najari stood just outside, in the hall, hisweight on one foot, his thumbs hooked behind hisbelt. His muscular shoulders nearly touched thewalls to each side. Nicholas saw, then, the huddledcrowd behind the man. Najari's crooked nose,
flattened to the left in some of the numerous 
brawls his temper got him into, cast an oddlyshaped shadow across his cheek. Anyone unfortunateenough to find themselves in a brawl with Najariusually suffered far worse than a mere broken nose.

Najari waggled a thumb over his shoulder. "Youasked for some guests, Nicholas."

Nicholas raked his nails back through his hair,
feeling the silken smooth pleasure of oils glidingagainst his palm. He rolled his shoulders, rufflingaway his pique.

Nicholas had been so absorbed in what he had 
been doing that he had forgotten that he hadrequested that Najari bring him some bodies.
"Very good, Najari. Bring them in, then. Let's havea look at them." 

Nicholas watched as the commander led the gaggleof people into the flickering torchlight. Soldiersin the rear herded the stragglers through the doorand into the large room. Heads swiveled around,
looking at the strange, stark surroundings, at thewooden walls, the torches in brackets, the plankflooring, the lack of furniture other than a stouttable. Noses twitched at the sharp smell of blood.

Nicholas watched carefully as people spotted thesharpened stakes standing in a line along the wallto their right, stakes as thick as Najari's wrists.

Nicholas studied the people, watching for thetelltales of fear as they spread out along the wallbeside the door. Eyes flitted about, worried, andat the same time eager to take it all in so theycould report to their friends what they had seeninside. Nicholas knew that he was an object of 


great curiosity.
A rare being.
A Slide. 
No one knew what his name meant. This day, some
would learn. 


Nicholas glided past the undulating mob. Theywere a curious people, these odd, ungiftedcreatures, curious like mockingbirds, but notnearly so bold. Because they were without any sparkwhatsoever of the gift, Nicholas had to handle themin special ways in order for them to be of any useto him. It was a bother, but it had its rewards.
Some necks craned in his wake, trying to better seethe rare man. 
He ran his nails through his hair again just tofeel the oils slide against his hand. As he leanedclose to some of the people he passed, observingindividuals in the gathering, one of the womenbefore him closed her eyes, turning her face away.
Nicholas lifted a hand toward her, flicking out afinger. He glanced to Najari to be sure he sawwhich one had been picked.

Najari's gaze flicked from the woman up toNicholas; he had noted the selection.

A man back against the wall stood stiff, hiseyes wide. Nicholas flicked a finger at him.
Another man twisted his lips in an odd manner.
Nicholas glanced down and saw that the man, in astate of wild fright, had wet himself. Nicholas'sfinger flitted out again. Three selected. Nicholaswalked on. 

A thin whine escaped the throat of a woman inthe front, right before him. He smiled at her. Shepeered up, trembling, unable to take her wide-eyedgaze from him, from his red-rimmed black eyes,
unable to halt the puling sound escaping herthroat. She had never seen one so human ... yetnot. Nicholas tapped her shoulder with a long-
nailed finger. He would reward her unspokenrevulsion with service to a greater good. His. 


 Jagang had sought to create something ...
unusual, for himself. A bauble of flesh and blood.
A magical trinket crafted from a wizard. A lapdog... with teeth. 

His Excellency had gotten what he wanted, andmore. Oh, so much more.

Nicholas would enjoy seeing how the emperorliked having a puppet without strings, a speciallycrafted creation with a mind of its own, andtalents to fulfill his wishes. 

A man at the rear, against the wall, appeared tobe somewhat uninterested, as if impatient for theexhibition to be over so he could go back to hisown affairs. While none of these people could besaid to think of themselves as importantindividuals with consequential sway over anymeaningful aspects of life in their empire, a fewoccasionally exhibited tendencies, even ifinconsistent, toward self-interest. Nicholasflicked his finger for the fifth time. The manwould soon have reason to be highly interested inthe proceedings, and he would find that he was nobetter than anyone else. He would be going nowhere—
at least not in body.

Everyone stared in silence as Nicholas chuckledalone at his own joke.

His amusement ended. Nicholas tipped his headtoward the door in a single nod. The soldiersjumped into action.

"All right," Najari growled, "move along. Move!
Get going. Out, out, out!"

The feet of the crowd shuffled urgently throughthe door as ordered. Some people cast worriedglances back over their shoulders at the fiveNajari had cut out of the flock. Those five wereshoved back when they sought to stay with the rest.
A stiff finger to the chest backed them up aseffectively as would a club or a sword.

"Don't cause any trouble," Najari warned, "oryou will be making trouble for the others." 


 The five remaining huddled close to one another,
rocking nervously side to side like a covey ofquail before a bird dog.

When the soldiers had driven the rest of the 
people out, Najari closed the door and stood beforeit, hands clasped behind his back.

Nicholas returned to the windows, opening theshutters on the west wall. The sun was down,
leaving a red slash across the sky.
Soon they would be on the wing, on the hunt.
Nicholas would be with them. 

Casting an arm back without needing to turn tolook, he doused the torch. The flickering light wasa distraction during this cusp of time, thetransient twilight that was so fragile, so brief.
He would need the light, but, at the moment, hewanted only to see the sky, to see the glorious,
unbounded sky.

"Are we going to be able to leave soon?" one ofthe people asked in a timid squeak.

Nicholas turned and peered at them. Najari'seyes revealed which one had spoken. Nicholasfollowed his commander's gaze. It was one of themen—the one who had been impatient to leave, ofcourse. 

"Go?" Nicholas asked as he swept in close to theman. "You wish to go?"
The man stood with his back bent, leaning away fromNicholas. 
"Well, sir, I was only wondering when we would begoing."

Nicholas stooped in even more, peering deeplyinto the man's eyes. "Wonder in silence," hehissed. 

Returning to the windows, Nicholas rested hishands on the sill, his weight on his arms, as hebreathed in deeply the gathering night while takingin the sweep of crimson sky.
Soon, he would be there, be free.
Soon, he would soar as no one else but he could. 


Impulsively, he sought them.

Eyes bulging with the effort, he cast his senseswhere none but his could go.

"There!" he screeched, throwing his arm out,
pointing a long black nail at what none but hecould see. "There! One has taken to wing."

Nicholas spun around, strips of cloth lifting,
floating up. Panting through a rush of flutteringexcitement, he gazed at the eyes staring at him.
They could not know. They could not understand onesuch as he, understand what he felt, what heneeded. He hungered to be on the hunt, to be withthem, ever since he had imagined such a use for hisability.

He had reveled in the experience, dedicatinghimself to it as he learned his new abilities. He 
had been off with those glorious creatures as oftenas he could afford the time, ever since he had comehere and discovered them. 

How ironic it now seemed that he had resisted. 
How odd that he once had feared what those gruesomewomen, those Sisters of the Dark, had conspired todo to him ... what they had done to him.
His duty, they had called it.

Their vile magic had cut like a red-hot bladethrough him. He had thought his eyes might burstfrom his head from the pain that had seared throughhim. Tied spread-eagled to stakes in the ground inthe center of their wicked circle, he had dreadedwhat they were going to do to him.
He had feared it. 
Nicholas smiled. 
Hated it, even.
He had been afraid because of the pain, the pain ofwhat they were doing to him, and the even greaterpain of not knowing what more they intended to doto him. His duty, they had called it, to a greatergood. His ability bore responsibilities, they hadinsisted. 

He watched through glazed eyes as Najari bound 


the hands of the five people behind each of their
backs. 
"Thank you, Najari," he said when the man had
finished. 


Najari approached. "The men will have them bynow, Nicholas. I told them to send enough men toinsure that they would not escape." Najari grinnedat the prospect. "There's no need to worry. Theyshould all be on their way back to us."
Nicholas narrowed his eyes. "We will see. We willsee." 

He wanted to see it himself. With his own 
vision—even if his own vision was through another'seyes.

Najari yawned on his way to the door. "See youtomorrow, then, Nicholas."

Nicholas opened his mouth wide, mimicking theyawn, even though he didn't yawn. It felt good tostretch his jaws wide. Sometimes he felt trappedinside himself and he wanted out. 

Nicholas closed the door behind Najari andbolted it. It was a perfunctory act, done more toadd to the aura of peril than out of necessity.
Even with their hands tied behind their backs,
these people could, together, probably overpowerhim—knock him down and kick in his head, if nothingelse. But for that, they would have to think, todecide what they ought to do and why, to commit toact. Easier not to think. Easier not to act. Easier 
to do as you are told.
Easier to die than to live. 
Living took effort. Struggle. Pain.
Nicholas hated it. 

"Hate to live, live to hate," he said to thesilent, ghostly white faces watching him.

Out the window the streaks of clouds had gonedark gray as the touch of the sun passed beyondthem and night crept in to embrace them. Soon, hewould be among them.

He turned back from the window, taking in the 


faces watching him. Soon, they would all be outthere, among them. 

CHAPTER 27 

Nicholas seized one of the nameless men. Powered 
by muscles crafted of the Sisters' dark art, hehoisted the man into the air. The man cried out in 
surprise at being lifted so easily. He struggledhesitantly against muscle he would not be able toresist were he even to put daring into it. Thesepeople were immune to magic, or Nicholas would haveused his power to easily lift them aloft. Absentthe necessary spark of the gift, they had to bemanhandled. 

It made little difference to Nicholas. How theygot to the stakes was unimportant. What happened tothem once there was all that mattered. 

As the man in his arms cried out in terror,
Nicholas carried him across the room. The other 
people withdrew into a far corner. They always wentto the far corner, like chickens about to bedinner. 

Nicholas, his arms around the man's chest,
lifted him high in the air, judging the distanceand angle as he raced ahead.

The man's eyes went wide, his mouth didlikewise. He gasped with the shock, then grunted asNicholas, hugging the man tight in his arms, drovehim down onto the stake. 

The man's breath came in short sharp gasps asthe sharpened stake penetrated up through hisinsides. He went still in Nicholas's powerful arms,
fearing to move, fearing to believe what was 


happening to him, fearing to know it was true ...
trying to deny to himself that it could be true.

Nicholas straightened to his full height beforethe man. The man's back was as straight and stiffas a board as he sat impaled on the sharpenedstake. His eyebrows pushed his sweat-beaded brow upin furrows as he writhed in slow agony, his legstrying to touch the ground that was too far away.

Into that confusion of sensation, Nicholasreached out with his mind, at the same time clawinghis hands before the man with the effort as he slid 
his own being, his own spirit, into the core ofthis living creature, slid into this man's openmind, into the cavernous cracks between his abruptand disconnected thoughts, there to feel his agonyand fright. There to take control. Once he hadslipped his own mind in there with this man, seepedthrough his consciousness, Nicholas drew hisessence out and into himself. 

With a staggering fusion of destructive andcreative power dealt by those women that day,
Nicholas had been born into a new being, part him,
and yet more. He had become what no man had everbeen before—what others wished to make of him, whatothers wished him to be. 

What had been unleashed in him by those Sistersall linked in their ability to harness powers theycould never have touched alone and should never 
have invoked together, they instilled in him. Theyengendered in him powers few could ever haveimagined: the power to slide into another livingperson's thoughts, and withdraw their spirit.

He drew his closed fists back toward his own 
abdomen with the effort of drawing with him thespirit of this man on the cusp of life and death,
drew onward the marrow of this man's soul. Nicholas 
felt the slick heat of this other spirit slide intohis, the hot rush of sensation at feeling himselffilled with another spirit.

Nicholas left the body there, impaled on the 


first stake, as he rushed to the windows, his headspinning with the first intoxicating wave ofexcitement at the journey only now just begun, atwhat was to come, at what power he would control.

He opened his mouth wide again in a yawn thatwas not a yawn, but a call carrying more than justhis silent voice. 

His eyes swam with wavering images. He gasped inthe first scent of the forests out beyond, wherehis intent had been cast. 

He rushed back and seized a woman. She begged asshe wept, begged to be spared as he bore her to herstake. 

"But this is nothing," he told her. "Nothingcompared to what I have endured. Oh, you cannotimagine what I have endured."

He had been staked naked to the ground, in thecenter of a circle of those smug women. He had beennothing to them. He had not been a man, a wizard.
He had been nothing but the raw material, the fleshand blood innervated by the gift, that they neededfor what they wanted, that they used in yet anotherof their trials, all to be twisted by theirtinkering at creation.
He had the ability, so duty required he sacrificeit. 

Nicholas had been the first to live throughtheir tests, not because they took care—not becausethey cared—but because they had learned what didn'twork, and so avoided their past errors.

"Scream, my dear. Scream all you want. It willhelp you no more than it helped me."
"Why!" she screamed. "Why!"

"Oh, but I must, if I am to have your spirit tosoar on the wings of my distant friends. You willgo on a glorious journey, you and I."
"Please!" she wailed. "Dear Creator, no!"

"Oh, yes, dear Creator," he mocked. "Come andsave her—like you came and saved me."

Her wailing did her no good. His hadn't either. 


She had no idea how immeasurably worse his agonyhad been than hers would be. Unlike her, he hadbeen condemned to live. 

"Hate to live, live to hate," he murmured in acomforting whisper. "You will have the glory andthe reward that is death." 

He drove her down onto the stake. He reckoned 
her not far enough onto the stake, and shoved herdown another six inches, until he judged it deepenough within her, deep enough to produce thenecessary pain and terror, but not deep enough tolance anything inside that would kill her rightoff. She thrashed, trying desperately, handshelpless behind her back, to somehow removeherself. 

He was only dimly aware of her cries, herworthless words. She thought they might somehowmake a difference. 

Pain was his goal. Their complaints of it onlyconfirmed that he was achieving his goal.

Nicholas stood before the woman, hands clawed,
as he slid his own spirit through her sunderedthoughts and into the core of her being. Withmental strength far superior to his physicalstrength, he pulled her back. He gasped as he felther spirit slide into his.

For now, he slipped those spirits out oftortured, dying bodies while those spirits existedin the netherworld between the worldly form theyknew was lost to them, but still alive, and theworld of the dead already calling them in frombeyond. Life could no longer hold them, but deathcould not yet have them. In that time of spiritualtransition, they were his, and he could use thosespirits for things only he could imagine.
And he had not yet really even begun to imagine.

Such ability as he possessed was not somethingthat could be taught by another—there was no otherbut he. He was still learning the extent of hispowers, the things he could do with the spirit of 


another. He had only scratched the surface.

Emperor Jagang had sought to create somethingakin to himself, a dream walker, a brother, ofsorts. One who could enter another's mind. He had 
gotten far more than he could have ever haveimagined. Nicholas didn't simply slide intoanother's thoughts, as Jagang did; he could slideinto their very soul, and draw their spirit backinto himself. 

The Sisters hadn't counted on that aberration of 
their tinkering with his ability.

Rushing to the window, his mouth pulled open aswide as it would go in a yawn that wasn't a yawn.
The room swam behind him. It was only partly there,
now. Now, he was beginning to see other places.
Glorious places. See them with new vision, withspirits no longer bound to their paltry bodies.

He rushed to the third person, no longer awareeven if they were man or woman. Their soul was allthat mattered—their spirit.

He drove them onto a stake with urgent effort,
slid into them and drew their spirit into his,
shuddering with the power of it entering him.

He rushed to the window again, opening wide hismouth again, twisting his head side to side againwith the thrill of it, the slick, silken, slidingecstasy of it... the loss of physical orientation,
the exaltation of being above his corporealexistence, the former bounds of his mere worldlyform—carried aloft not simply with his own efforts,
but by the spirits of others that he had freed fromtheir bodies. 
What a glorious thing it was.
It was almost like the joy he imagined death wouldbe. 

He seized the fourth weeping person and withdelirious expectation ran with them across theroom, to the stakes, to the fourth stake, and drovethem screaming onto it.

As he lurched back from them, he thrust himself 


into their wildly racing, confused, swirlingthoughts, and took what was there for the taking.
He took their spirit into himself.

When he controlled a person's spirit, hecontrolled their very existence. He became life anddeath for them. He was their savior, theirdestroyer.

He was in many ways like those spirits he took,
trapped in a worldly form, hating to live, toendure the pain and agony that was life, yetfearing to die even while longing for the promiseof its sweet embrace. 

With four spirits swirling through him, Nicholasstaggered to the fifth person, cowering in thecorner. 

"Please!" the man wailed, trying to ward what hewould not commit to warding. "Please, don't!"

The thought occurred to Nicholas that the stakeswere really a hindrance; using them required him tocarry people around like woolly sheep to have theirsouls sheared. Yes, he was still learning what hecould do and how to control what he did, but tohave to use the stakes was limiting. When hethought about it, it was actually insulting that awizard of his ability would have to use so crude adevice. 

What he really wanted to do was to slide intoanother's spirit and take it without any warning—
without needing to bring people to the stakes.

When he was fully able to do that—to simply walkup to another, say "Good day," and slide like thethrust of a dagger into the heart of their spirit,
there to draw it into his—then he would be 
invincible. When he was able to do that, then noone could challenge him. No one would be able todeny him anything.

As the man shrank down before him, Nicholas,
before he fully realized what it was he was doing,
driven by an angry need, by hatred, thrust out hishand as he thrust his own mind into this man, into 


the spaces between thought.

The man stiffened, just as those on the stakesstiffened, when Nicholas had impaled them with hisability.

He drew back his closed fist toward his middle 
as he drew in this man's spirit. He gasped with theheat of it, with the silky slick feel of it slidinginto him. 

They stared at each other, each in shock, eachconsidering what this meant for them.

The man slumped back against the wall, slidingdown, in soundless, silent, terrible empty agony.

Nicholas realized that he had just done what hehad never done before. He had just taken a soul byhis will alone. 

He had just freed himself to take what hewanted, when he wanted, where he wanted. 

CHAPTER 28 

Nicholas, his vision a blur, staggered to thewindow. 
All five were his, now.

This time, as his mouth opened wide, a cry atlast came forth, a cry of the five spirits joininghis as he drew them together into one force guidedby his will alone. Their worldly agony was adistant concern to them. Five spirits gazed out ofthe windows along with him, five spirits nowwaiting to soar out into the night, to where hechose to send them. 

Those Sisters had not known what they unleashedthat night. They could not have known the powerthey fused into him, the ability they burned intohim. 


 They had achieved what none had achieved forthousands of years— the altering of a wizard intosomething more, honing him into a weapon ofspecific intent. They had imbued him with powerbeyond that of anyone living. They had given himdominion over the spirits of others.
Most had escaped, but he had killed five of them.

The five were enough. After he had slid intotheir souls and pulled their spirits back into histhat night, he had appropriated their Han, theirforce of life, their power, for himself.

It was only fitting, as their Han was notnatural to them, but was male Han they had stolenfrom young wizards—a birthright they had suckedfrom those to whom it belonged in order to givethemselves abilities they had not been born with,
could not be born with. Yet more nameless peoplewith ability to be sacrificed to those who neededit, or simply wanted it.

Nicholas had taken it all back from their 
trembling bodies, pulled it out of them as he hadclawed their living insides open. They had beensorry that they had done Jagang's bidding, thatthey had twisted him into something Creation neverintended. 

Not only had they made him into a Slide, theyhad given up their Han to him, and made him thatmuch more powerful for it.

After each of those five women had died, theworld had gone darker than dark for an instant whenthe Keeper had come and taken them to his realm.
The Sisters had destroyed him that day, and theyhad created him. 

He had a lifetime to explore and discover whathe could do with his new abilities. 

And, to be sure, Jagang would grant him paymentfor that night. Jagang would pay, but he would paygladly, for Nicholas would give him something nonebut Nicholas the Slide could give him.

Nicholas would be rewarded with things enough to 


repay him for what had been done to him.... Hehadn't decided, yet, what that reward would be, butit would be worthy of him.

He would use his ability to hold sway overlives—important lives. He no longer needed to cartpeople to the stakes. He knew how to take what hewanted, now.

Now he knew how to slip into their minds at thetime of his choosing and take their souls.

He would trade those lives for what he would 
have in power, wealth, splendor. It would have tobe something appropriate....
He would be an emperor.

It would have to be more than this petty empireof sheep, though. He would frolic in rule. He wouldhave his every whim fulfilled, once he was givendominion over... over something important. Hehadn't decided just what, yet. It was an importantdecision, what he would have as his reward. No needto rush it. It would come to him. 

He turned from the window, the five spiritsswirling within his, soaring through him.

It was time to use what he had pulled together.
Time to get down to business, if he was to havewhat he wanted. 

He would get closer, this time. He wasfrustrated from not being closer, from not seeingbetter. It was dark, now. He would get closer, thistime, under cover of the darkness.

Nicholas took the broad bowl from the table and 
placed it on the floor before the five who stillowned the spirits within him. They writhed inotherworldly agony, even the man not on a stake, anagony of both body and soul.

Nicholas sat cross-legged on the floor beforethe bowl. Hands on his knees, he threw his headback, eyes closed, as he gathered the power within,
the power created by those wicked women, thosewonderful wicked women. 

They had considered him a pathetic wizard of 


little worth except as flesh and blood and gift totoy with—a sacrifice to a greater need.
When he had time, he would go after the rest ofthem. 

With a more immediate task at hand, Nicholasdismissed those Sisters from his mind. 

Tonight, he would not merely watch through othereyes. Tonight, he would again go with the spiritshe cast. 

Tonight, he would not merely watch through othereyes. Tonight, his spirit would travel to them.

Nicholas opened his mouth as wide as it wouldgo, his head rocking from side to side. The joinedspirits within released a part of themselves intothe bowl, whirling in a silken, silvery swirl litwith the soft glow of their link to the life behindhim, placekeepers for their journey, a stitch inthe world holding the knot in the thread of theirtravels. 

His spirit, too, let slip a small portion toremain with his body, to drift in the bowl with theothers. 

Fragments of the five spirits revolved with thefragment of his, their light of life glowing softlyin this safe place as he prepared to journey. Hecast his own spirit away, then, leaving behind thehusk of a body sitting on the floor behind him ashe fled out into the dark sky, borne on the wingsof his invested power.

No wizard before had ever been able to do as he,
to leave his body and have his spirit soar to wherehis mind would send him. He raced through thenight, fast as thought, to find what he hunted.

He felt the rush of air flowing over feathers.
As quick as that, he had raced away through thenight and was with them, pulling the five spiritsalong with him.

He summoned the dark forms into a circle with 
him, and, as they gathered around, cast the fivespirits into them. His mouth was still open in a 


yawn that was not a yawn that back in a roomsomewhere distant let forth a cry to match thefive. 

As they circled, he felt the rush of air beneaththeir wings, felt their feathers working the windto direct them as effortlessly as his own thoughtdirected not only his spirit but the other five aswell. 

He sent those five racing through the night, tothe place where he had sent the men. They racedover hills, turning to scan the open country, tolook out over the barren land. The cloak of 
darkness felt cool, encasing him in obscure blacknight, obscure black feathers.

He caught the scent of carrion, sharp, cloying,
tantalizing, as the five spiraled down toward theground. Through their eyes that saw in the darknessNicholas saw then the scene below, a place litteredwith the dead. Others of their kind had gathered tofeed in a frenzy of ripping and gorging.
No. This was wrong. He didn't see them.
He had to find them. 

He willed his charges up from the gory feast, tosearch. Nicholas felt a pang of urgency. This washis future that had slipped away from him—histreasure slipping through his grasp. He had to findthem. Had to. 
He spurred his charges onward.

This way, that way, over there. Look, look,
look. Find them, find them. Look. Must find them.
Look. 

This was not supposed to be. There had beenenough men. No one could escape that manyexperienced men. Not when they came by stealth andattacked with surprise. They had been selected fortheir talents. They knew their business.

Their bodies lay sprawled all about. Beak andclaw ripped at them. Screeches of excitement.
Hunger.
No. Must find them. 


Up, up, up. Find them. He had to find them.

He had suffered the agony of a new birth inthose dark woods, those terrible woods, with thoseterrible women. He would have his reward. He would 
not be denied. Not now. Not after all that. 
Find them. Look, look, look. Find them.

On powerful wings, he soared into the night.
With eyes that saw in the dark, he searched. Withcreatures that could catch the scent of prey atgreat distance, he tried for a whiff of them.
Through the night they went, hunting. Hunting.

There, there he saw their wagon. He recognizedtheir wagon. Their big horses. He had seen itbefore—seen them with it before. His minions 
circled in close on nearly silent wings, droppingin closer to see what Nicholas sought.

Not there. They weren't there. A trick. It hadto be a trick. A diversion. Not there. They hadsent the wagon away to trick him, to send him offtheir trail. 

With wings powered by anger, he soared up, up,
up to search the countryside. Hunt, hunt. Findthem. He flew with his five in an ever wider 
pattern to search the ground beneath the night.
They flew on, searching, searching. His hunger wastheir hunger. Hunt for them. Hunt.

The wings grew weary as he drove them onward. Hehad to find them. He would not allow rest. Not 
allow failure. He hunted in expanding swaths,
searching, hunting, hunting.
There, among the trees, he saw movement.

It was only just dark. They wouldn't see theirpursuers—not in the dark—but he could see them. Heforced the five down, circling, circling, forcedthem in close. He would not fail this time to see 
them, to get close enough. Circling, holding himthere, circling, watching, circling, watching,
seeing them there.

It was her! The Mother Confessor! He saw others. 
The one with red hair and her small four-legged 


friend. Others, too. He must be there, too. Had tobe there, too. He would be there, too, as the smallgroup moved west.

West. They moved west. They had traveled to thewest of where he had seen them last. 
Nicholas laughed. They were coming west. Thecaptors sent for them all lay dead, but here theycame anyway. They were coming west.
Toward where he waited. 
He would have them. 
He would have Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor. 
Jagang would have them.

It came to him, then—his reward. What he wouldhave in return for the prizes he would deliver.
D'Hara. 

He would have the rule of D'Hara in return for 
these two paltry people. Jagang would reward himwith the rule of D'Hara, if he wanted those two. Hewould not dare deny Nicholas the Slide what hewanted. Not when he had what Jagang wanted most,
more than any other prize. Jagang would pay anyprice for these two.

Pain. A scream. Shock, terror, confusion ragedthrough him. He felt the wind, the wind thatcarried him so effortlessly, now ripping at himlike fists snatching at feathers as he tumbled inhelpless pain.
One of the five falling at blinding speed smackedthe ground.

Nicholas screamed. One of the five spirits hadbeen lost with its host. Back somewhere distant, insome far-off room with wooden walls and shutters 
and bloody stakes, back, back, back in anotherplace he had almost forgotten existed, back, back,
back far away, a spirit was ripped from hiscontrol. 

One of the five back there had died at the same 
instant the race had crashed to the ground.

Scream of hot pain. Another tumbled out ofcontrol. Another spirit escaped his grasp into the 


waiting arms of death.

Nicholas struggled to see in the confusion,
forcing the remaining three to hold his vision inplace so he could see. Hunt, hunt, hunt. Where washe? Where was he? Where? He saw the others. Where 
was Lord Rahl? 
A third scream. 

Where was he? Nicholas fought to hold his visiondespite the hot agony, the bewildering plummet.
Pain ripped through a fourth.
Before he could gather his senses, hold themtogether, force them with the power of his will todo his bidding, two more spirits were yanked awayinto the void of the underworld. 
Where was he? 
Talons at the ready, Nicholas searched.
There! There! 

With violent effort, he forced the race overinto a dive. There he was! There he was! Up high.
Higher than the rest. Somehow up high. Up on aledge of rock above the rest. He wasn't down therewith them. He was up high.
Dive for him. Dive down for him. 
There he was, bow drawn.

Ripping pain tore through the last race. Theground rushed up at him. Nicholas cried out. Hetried frantically to stop the spinning. He felt therace slam into the rock at frightening speed. Butonly for an instant.

With a gasp, Nicholas drew a desperate breath.
His head spun with the burning torture of theabrupt return, an uncontrolled return not of hisdoing.

He blinked, his mouth open wide in an attempt tolet out a cry, but no sound came. His eyes bulgedwith the effort, but no cry came. He was back.
Whether or not he wanted to be, he was back.

He looked around at the room. He was back, thatwas the reason no cry came. No screech of a racejoined his own. They were dead. All five. 


 Nicholas turned to the four impaled on stakesbehind him. All four were slumped. The fifth manlay slouched in the far corner. All five limp andstill. All five dead. Their spirits gone.

The room was as silent as a crypt. The bowlbefore him glowed only with the fragment of his ownspirit. He drew it back in.

He sat in the stillness for a long time, waitingfor his head to stop spinning. It had been a shockto be in a creature as it was killed—to have a 
spirit of a person in him as they died. As five ofthem died. It had been a surprise.

Lord Rahl was a surprising man. Nicholas hadn'tthought, back that first time, that he would beable to get all five. He had thought it was luck. Asecond time was not luck. Lord Rahl was a 
surprising man.

Nicholas could cast his spirit out again if hewanted, seek out new eyes, but his head hurt and hedidn't feel up to it; besides, it didn't matter.
Lord Rahl was coming west. He was coming to thegreat empire of Bandakar.
Nicholas owned Bandakar. 
The people here revered him.

Nicholas smiled. Lord Rahl was coming. He wouldbe surprised at the kind of man he found when hearrived. Lord Rahl probably thought he knew allmanner of men. 
He did not know Nicholas the Slide. 

Nicholas the Slide, who would be emperor ofD'Hara when he gave Jagang the prizes he soughtmost: the dead body of Lord Rahl, and the livingbody of the Mother Confessor.
Jagang would have them both for himself.
And in return, Nicholas would have their empire. 

CHAPTER 29 


Ann heard the distant echo of footsteps coming downthe long, empty, dark corridor outside the far doorto her forgotten vault under the People's Palace,
the seat of power in D'Hara. She was no longer sureif it was day or night. She'd lost track of time asshe sat in the silent darkness. She saved the lampfor times when they brought food, or the times shewrote to Verna in the journey book. Or the timesshe felt so alone that she needed the company of asmall flame, if nothing else.

In this place, within this spell of a palace forthose born Rahl, her power was so diminished thatit was all she could do to light that lamp.

She feared to use the little lamp too often andrun out of oil; she didn't know if they would giveher more. She didn't want to run out and only thenfind they would give her no more. She didn't wantnot to have at least the possibility of that smallflame, that small gift of light.

In the dark she could do nothing but considerher life and all she had worked so hard to 
accomplish. For centuries she had led the Sistersof the Light in their effort to see the Creator'slight triumph in the world, and see the Keeper ofthe underworld kept where he belonged, in his ownrealm, the world of the dead. For centuries she hadwaited in dread of the time that prophecy said wasnow upon them.

For five hundred years she had waited for thebirth of the one who had the chance to succeed in 
leading them in the struggle to see the Creator'sgift, magic, survive against those who would castthat light out of the world. For five hundred yearsshe had worked to insure that he would have a 
chance to do what he must if he was to have a 
chance to stop the forces that would extinguishmagic. 


 Prophecy said that only Richard had the chanceto preserve their cause, to keep the enemy fromsucceeding in casting a gray pall over mankind, theonly one with a chance to prevent the gift fromdying out. Prophecy did not say that he wouldprevail; prophecy said only that Richard was theonly one to have a chance to bring them victory.
Without Richard, all hope was lost—that much wassure. For this reason, Ann had been devoted to himlong before he was born, before he rose up tobecome their leader. 

Kahlan saw all of Ann's efforts as meddling, astinkering with the lives of others. Kahlan believedthat Ann's efforts were in fact the cause of the 
very thing she feared most. Ann hated that shesometimes thought that maybe Kahlan was right.
Maybe it was meant to be that Richard would be bornand by his free will alone would choose to do thosethings that would lead them to victory in theirbattle to keep the gift among men. Zedd certainlybelieved that it was only by Richard's mind, by hisfree will, but his conscious intent, that he couldlead them. 

Maybe it was true, and Ann, in trying to directthose things that could not be and should not bedirected, had brought them all to the brink ofruin. 

The footsteps were coming closer. Maybe it wastime to eat and they were bringing dinner. Shewasn't hungry.

When they brought her food, they put it on theend of a long pole and then threaded that polethrough the little opening in the outer door, allthe way across the outer shielded room, through theopening in the second, inner door, and finally into Ann. Nathan would risk no chance for escape byhaving her guards have to open her cell door merelyto give her food.
They passed in a variety of breads, meats, andvegetables along with waterskins. Although the food 


was good, she found no satisfaction in it. Even thefinest fare could never be satisfying eaten in adungeon.

At times, as Prelate, she had felt as if shewere a prisoner of her post. She had rarely gone tothe dining hall where the Sisters of the Light hadeaten—especially in the later years. It puteveryone on edge having the Prelate among them atdinner. Besides, done too often it took the edgeoff their anxiety, their discomposure, aroundauthority.

Ann believed that a certain distance, a certainworried respect, was necessary in order to maintaindiscipline. In a place that had been spelled sothat time slowed for those living there, it wasimportant to maintain discipline. Ann appeared tobe in her seventies, but with her aging processslowed dramatically while living under the spellthat had covered the Palace of the Prophets, shehad lived close to a thousand years.

Of course, a lot of good her discipline had doneher. Under her watch as Prelate the Sisters of the 
Dark had infested her flock. There were hundreds of 
Sisters, and there was no telling just how many ofthem had taken dark oaths to the Keeper. The lureof his promises were obviously effective. Suchpromises were an illusion, but try to tell that toone so pledged. Immortality was seductive to womenwho watched everyone they knew outside the palacegrow old and die while they remained young.

Sisters who had children saw those children sent 
out of the palace to be raised where they couldhave a normal life, saw those children grow old anddie, saw their grandchildren grow old and die. To awoman who saw such things, saw the constantwithering and death of those she knew while sheherself all the time seemed to remain young,
attractive, and desirable, the offer of immortalitygrew increasingly tempting when her own petalsbegan to wilt. 


 Growing old was a final stage, the end of alife. Growing old in the Palace of the Prophets wasa very long ordeal. Ann had been old for centuries.
Being young for a very long time was a wonderfulexperience, but being old for a very long time wasnot—at least it was not for some. For Ann, it waslife itself that was wonderful, not so much herage, and all she had learned. But not everyone feltthat way.
Now that the palace had been destroyed, they wouldall age at the same rate as everyone else. What hadonly a short time ago been a future of maybeanother hundred years of life for Ann was suddenlyperhaps no more than a blink of a decade—certainlynot much more. 

But she doubted she would live all that long insuch a dank hole, away from light and life.

Somehow, it didn't seem as if she and Nathanwere close to a thousand years old. She didn't knowwhat it felt like to age at the normal rate outsidethe spell, but she believed she felt littledifferent than those outside the palace felt asthey aged. She believed that the spell that slowedtheir aging also altered their perception of time—
to a degree, anyway.

The footsteps were getting closer. Ann wasn'tlooking forward to another meal in this place. Shewas beginning to wish they would let her starve andget it over with. Let her die.

What good had her life been? When she reallythought about it, what good had she reallyaccomplished? The Creator knew how she tried toguide Richard in what needed to be done, but in theend it seemed that it was Richard's choice to act 
as he did, in most cases against what she thoughtneeded to be done, that turned out to be correct.
Had she not tried to guide events, bring him to thePalace of the Prophets in the Old World, maybenothing would have changed and that would have beenthe way he was to save them all—by not having to 


act and letting Jagang and the Imperial Ordereventually wither and die in the Old World, unableto spread their virulent beliefs beyond. Maybeshe'd brought it all to ruin with her effortsalone. 

She heard the door at the end of the passagewayto her cell scrape open. She decided that shewouldn't eat. She wouldn't eat again until Nathancame to speak with her, as she had requested.

Sometimes, with the food, they sent in wine.
Nathan sent it in to vex her, she was sure of that.
From his confinement in the Palace of the Prophets,
Nathan had sometimes requested wine. Ann always sawthe report when such a request was made; shedeclined every such request.

Wizards were dangerous enough, prophets—who werewizards with the talent of prophecy—werepotentially vastly more dangerous, and drunkenprophets were the most dangerous of all. Prophecygiven out willy-nilly was an invitation tocalamity. Even simple prophecy escaping theconfines of the stone walls of the Palace of the 
Prophets had started wars.

Nathan had sometimes requested the company ofwomen. Ann hated those requests the most, becauseshe sometimes granted them. She felt she had to.
Nathan had little of life, confined as he was tohis apartments, his only real crime being thenature of his birth, his abilities. The palacecould easily afford the price of a woman tosometimes visit him. 

He made a mockery of that, often enough—givingout prophecy that sent the woman fleeing beforethey could speak with her, before they couldsilence her. 

Those without the proper training were not meantto see prophecy. Prophecy was easily misinterpretedby those without an understanding of itsintricacies. To divulge prophecy to the uninitiatedwas like casting fire into dry grass. 


Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened.

At the thought of the prophet being loose, Ann'sstomach tightened into a knot. Even so, she hadsometimes secretly taken Nathan out herself, to goon important journeys with her—mostly journeyshaving to do with guiding some aspect of Richard'slife, or, more accurately, trying to insure thatRichard would be born and have a life. Besides 
being trouble on two feet, Nathan was also aremarkable prophet who did have a sincere interestin seeing their side triumph. After all, he saw inprophecy the alternative, and when Nathan sawprophecy, he saw it in all its terrible truth.

Nathan always wore a Rada'Han—a collar—thatenabled her, or any Sister, to control him, sotaking him on those journeys wasn't actuallyputting the world at risk of the man. He had to doas she said, go where she said. Whenever she hadtaken him out on a mission with her, he was notreally free, since he wore a Rada'Han and she couldthus control him. 
Now he was without a Rada'Han. He was truly free.

Ann didn't want any supper. She resolved to turnit away when they passed the pole in to her. LetNathan fret that she might refuse food altogetherand die while under his fickle control. Ann folded 
her arms. 

Let him have that on his conscience. That would 
bring the man down to see her.

Ann heard the footsteps come to a halt outsidethe far door. Muffled voices drifted in to her. Had 
she ready access to her Han, she would have beenable to concentrate her hearing toward those voicesand easily hear their words. She sighed. Even thatability was useless to her here, in this place,
under the power invoked by the spell form of thelayout of the palace. It would hardly make sense tocreate such elaborate plans to curtail another'smagic and allow them to hear secrets whisperedinside the walls. 


 The outer door squealed in protest as it waspulled open. This was new. No one had opened theouter door since the day they shut her in theplace.

Ann rushed to the door to her small room, to thefaint square of light that was the opening in theiron door. She grabbed hold of the bars and pulledher face up close, trying to see who was out there,
what they were doing.

Light blinded her. She staggered back a fewsteps, rubbing her eyes. She was so used to thedark that the harsh lantern light felt as if it hadburned her vision with blazing light.

Ann backed away from the door when she heard akey clattering in the lock. The bolt threw backwith a reverberating clang. The door grated open.
Cool air, fresher than the stale air she was usedto breathing, poured in. Yellow light floodedaround the room as the lantern was thrust into the 
room at the end of an arm encased in red leather. 
Mord-Sith. 

CHAPTER 30 

Ann squinted in the harsh glare as the Mord-Sithstepped over the sill and ducked in through thedoorway into the room. Unaccustomed to the lanternlight, Ann at first could only discern the redleather outfit and the blond braid. She didn't like 
to contemplate why one of the Lord Rahl's elitecorps of torturers would be coming down to thedungeon to see her. She knew Richard. She could notimagine that he would allow such a practice to 


continue. But Richard wasn't here. Nathan seemed to 
be in charge.

Squinting, Ann at last realized that it was thewoman she had seen before: Nyda.

Nyda, appraising Ann with a cool gaze, saidnothing as she stepped to the side. Another personwas following her in. A long leg wearing browntrousers stepped over the sill, followed by a benttorso folding through the opening. Rising up tofull height, Ann saw with sudden surprise who itwas. 

"Ann!" Nathan held his arms open wide, as ifexpecting a hug. "How are you? Nyda gave me yourmessage. They are treating you well, I trust?"

Ann stood her ground and scowled at the grinningface. "I'm still alive, no thanks to you, Nathan."
She of course remembered how tall Nathan was, howbroad were his shoulders. Now, standing before her,
the top of his full head of long gray hair nearlytouching the stone chisel marks in the ceiling, helooked even taller than she remembered. His 
shoulders, filling up so much of the small room,
looked even broader. He wore high boots over histrousers and a ruffled white shirt beneath an openvest. An elegant green velvet cape was attached athis right shoulder. At his left hip a sword in anelegant scabbard glimmered in the lamplight.

His face, his handsome face, so expressive, sounlike any other, made Ann's heart feel buoyant.

Nathan grinned as no one but a Rahl could grin,
a grin like joy and hunger and power all balledtogether. He looked like he needed to sweep adamsel into his powerful arms and kiss her withouther permission.

He waved a hand casually around at heraccommodations. "But you are safe in here, my dear.
No one can harm you while under our care. No onecan bother you. You have fine food—even wine nowand again. What more could you want?"

Fists at her side, Ann stormed forward at a pace 


that brought the Mord-Sith's Agiel up into herfist, even though she stayed where she was. Nathanheld his ground, held his smile, as he watched hercome. 

"What more could I want!" Ann screamed. "What 
more could I want? I want to be let out! That's 
what more I could want!" 

Nathan's small, knowing smile cut her to hercore. "Indeed," he said, a single word of quietindictment. 

Standing in the stony silence of the dungeon,
she could only stare up at him, unable to bringforth an argument that he would not throw back ather. 

Ann turned a glare on the Mord-Sith. "Whatmessage did you give him?"

"Nyda said that you wanted to see me," Nathananswered in her place. He spread his arms. "Here Iam, as requested. What is it you wanted to see meabout, my dear?"

"Don't patronize me, Nathan. You know very wellwhat I wanted to see you about. You know why I'mhere, in D'Hara—why I've come to the People'sPalace." 

Nathan clasped his hands behind his back. Hissmile had finally lost its usefulness.

"Nyda," he said, turning to the woman, "wouldyou leave us alone for now. There's a good girl."

Nyda appraised Ann with a brief glance. No morewas needed; Ann was no threat to Nathan. He was awizard—no doubt he had told her that he was the 
greatest wizard of all time—and was within theancestral home of the House of Rahl. He had no need 
to fear this one old sorceress—not anymore, anyway.

Nyda gave Nathan a if-you-need-me-I'll-be-rightoutside 
kind of look before contorting her perfectlimbs through the doorway with fluid grace, the waya cat went effortlessly through a hedge.

Nathan stood in the center of the cell, handsstill clasped behind his upright back, waiting for 


Ann to say something.

Ann went to her pack, sitting on the far end ofthe stone bench that had been her bed, her table,
her chair. She flipped back the flap and reachedinside, feeling around. Her fingers found the coldmetal of the object she sought. Ann drew it out andstood over it, her shadow hiding it.
Finally, she turned. "Nathan, I have something foryou."

She lifted out a Rada'Han she had intended to 
put around his neck. Right then, she didn't quiteknow how she had thought she could accomplish sucha feat. She would have, though, had she put hermind to it; she was Annalina Aldurren, Prelate ofthe Sisters of the Light. Or, at least, she oncehad been. She had given that job to Verna beforefeigning her and Nathan's death.

"You want me to put that collar around my neck?"
Nathan asked in a calm voice. "That's what youexpect?"

Ann shook her head. "No, Nathan. I want to givethis to you. I've been doing a lot of thinkingwhile I've been down here. Thinking about how I'dprobably never leave my place of confinement."

"What a coincidence," Nathan said. "I used tospend a great deal of time thinking that very samethought."

"Yes," Ann said, nodding. "I expect you did."
She handed him the Rada'Han. "Here. Take this. I 
never want to see one of these again.

While I did what I thought best, I hated everyminute of it, Nathan. I hated to do it to you,
especially. I've come to think that my life hasbeen a misguided mess. I'm sorry I ever put youbehind those shields and kept you a prisoner. If Icould live my life over again, I'd not do it thesame way.
"I expect no leniency; I showed you none."
"No," Nathan said. "You didn't."

His azure eyes seemed to be looking right into 


her. He had a way of doing that. Richard hadinherited that same penetrating Rahl gaze.

"So, you are sorry you kept me a prisoner all mylife. Do you know why it was wrong, Ann? Are youeven aware of the irony?"

Almost against her better judgment, she heardherself ask, "What irony?"
"Well," he said as he shrugged, "what is it we'refighting for?"
"Nathan, you know very well what we're fightingfor." 

"Yes, I do. But do you? Tell me, then, what itis we're struggling to protect, to preserve, toinsure remains alive?" 

"The Creator's gift of magic, of course. Wefight to see that it continues to exist in theworld. We struggle for those who are born with itto live, for them to learn to use their ability toits full extent. We fight for each to have and tocelebrate their unique ability."

"I think that's kind of ironic, don't you? Thevery thing you think is worth fighting for is whatyou feared. The Imperial Order proclaims that it'snot in the best interest of mankind for a giftedindividual to possess magic, so that unique abilitymust be stripped away from them. They claim that,
since all do not have this ability in identical andequal measure, it's dangerous for some to have it—
that man must cast aside the belief that a man's 
life is his own to live. That those who were born 
with magic must therefore be expunged from theworld in order to make the world a better place forthose who don't have such ability.

"And yet, you worked under that very premise,
acted on those same wicked beliefs. You locked me 
away because of my ability. You saw what I am ableto do, that others cannot do, as an evil birthrightthat could not be allowed to be among mankind.

"And yet, you work to preserve that very thingwhich you fear in me—my unique ability—in others. 


You work to allow everyone born with magic to havethe inalienable right to their own life, to be thebest of what they can be with their own ability ..
. and yet you locked me away to deny me that verysame right."

"Just because I want the Creator's wolves to run 
free to hunt, as they were intended, doesn't meanthat I want to be their dinner." 

Nathan leaned toward her. "I am not a wolf. I am 
a human being. You tried, convicted, and sentencedme to life in your prison for being who I was born,
for what you feared I might do, simply because Ihad the ability. You then soothed your own innerconflict by making that prison plush in an attemptto convince yourself that you were kind— all thewhile professing to believe that we must fight toallow future people to be who they are.

"You qualified your prison as right because itwas lavish, in order to mask from yourself thenature of what you were advocating. Look around,
Ann." He swept his arm out at the stone. "This iswhat you were advocating for those you decided didnot have the right to their own life. You decidedthe same as the Order, based on an ability you didnot like. You decided that some, because of theirgreater potential, must be sacrificed to the goodof those less than they. No matter how youdecorated your dungeon, this is what it looks likefrom the inside." 

Ann gathered her thoughts, as well as her voice,
before she spoke. "I thought I had come tounderstand something like that while I sat allalone down here, but I realize now that I hadn't,
really. All those years I felt bad for locking youaway, but I never really examined my rationale fordoing so.

"You're right, Nathan. I believed you held thepotential for great harm. I should have helped youto understand what was right so you could actrationally, rather than expect the worst from you 


and lock you away. I'm sorry, Nathan."
He put his hands on his hips. "Do you really meanit, Ann?"

She nodded, unable to look up at him, as hereyes filled with tears. She always expected honestyfrom everyone else, but she had not been honestwith herself. "Yes, Nathan, I really do."

Confession over, she went to her bench andslumped down. "Thank you for coming, Nathan. I'llnot trouble you to come down here again. I willtake my just punishment without complaint. If youdon't mind,

I think I'd like to be alone right now to prayand consider the weight on my heart."

"You can do that later. Now get up off yourbottom, on your feet, and pick up your things. Wehave matters to attend to and we have to getgoing."
Ann looked up with a frown. "What?"

"We have important things to do. Come on, woman.
We're wasting time. We need to get going. We're onthe same side in this struggle, Ann. We need to actlike it and work together toward preserving ourcauses." He leaned down toward her. "Unless you'vedecided to retire to sit around the rest of yourlife. If not, then let's be on our way. We havetrouble." 

Ann hopped down from the stone bench. "Trouble?
What sort of trouble." 
"Prophecy trouble."

"Prophecy? There is trouble with a prophecy?
What trouble? What prophecy?"

Fists on his nips, Nathan fixed her with ascowl. "I can't tell you about such things.
Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened."

Ann pursed her lips, about to launch intoscolding him up one side and down the other, whenshe caught the smile working at the edges of hismouth. It caught her up in a smile of her own.

"What's happened?" she asked in the tone of 


voice friends used when they had decided that pastwrongs were recognized and matters now set on acorrect path.

"Ann, you'll not believe it when I tell you,"
Nathan complained. "It's that boy, again."
"Richard?" 

"What other boy do you know who can get in thekind of trouble only Richard can get into."
"Well, I no longer think of Richard as a boy."

Nathan sighed. "I suppose not, but it's hardwhen you're my age to think of one so young as aman." 
"He's a man," Ann assured him.
"Yes, I guess he is." Nathan grinned. "And, he's aRahl." 
"What sort of trouble has Richard gotten himselfinto this time?" 
Nathan's good humor evaporated. "He's walked offthe edge of prophecy."

Ann screwed up her face. "What are you talkingabout? What's he done?" 

"I'm telling you, Ann, that boy has walked rightoff the edge of prophecy itself—walked right offinto a place in prophecy where prophecy itselfdoesn't exist." 

Ann recognized that Nathan was sincerelytroubled, but he was making no sense. In part, thatwas why some people were afraid of him. He oftengave people the impression he was talking gibberishwhen he was talking about things that no one but hecould even understand. Sometimes no one but a 
prophet could truly understand completely what hegrasped. With his eyes, the eyes of a prophet, hecould see things that no one else could.

She had spent a lifetime working with prophecy,
though, and so she could understand, perhaps betterthan most, at least some of his mind, some of whathe could grasp.

"How can you know of such a prophecy, Nathan, ifit doesn't exist? I don't understand. Explain it to 


me." 

"There are libraries here, at the People'sPalace, that contain some valuable books ofprophecy that I've never had a chance to seebefore. While I had reason to suspect that suchprophecies might exist, I was never certain theyactually did, or what they might say. I've beenstudying them since I've been here and I've comeacross links to other known prophecy we had down inthe vaults at the Palace of the Prophets. Theseprophecies, here, fill in some important gaps inthose we already know about.

"Most importantly, I found an altogether newbranch of prophecy I've never seen before thatexplains why and how I've been blind to some ofwhat's been going on. From studying the forks andinversions off of this branch, I've discovered thatRichard has taken a series of links that follow 
down a particular pathway of prophecy that leads tooblivion, to something that, as far as I can tell,
doesn't even exist." 

One hand on a hip, the other tracing invisiblelines in the air, Nathan paced the small room as hetalked. "This new link alludes to things I've neverseen before, branches that I've always known mustbe there, but were missing. These branches areexceedingly dangerous prophecies that have beenkept here, in secret. I can see why. Even I, had Iseen them years ago, might have misinterpretedthem. These new branches refer to voids of some 
sort. Since they are voids, their nature can't beknown; such a contradiction can't exist.

"Richard has gone into this area of void, whereprophecy can't see him, can't help him, and worse,
can't help us. But more than not seeing him withprophecy, it's as if where he is and what he isdoing do not exist.

"Richard is dealing in something that is capableof ending everything we know."

Ann knew that Nathan would not exaggerate about 


something of this nature. While she was in the dark
about precisely what he was talking about, the
essence of it gave her the cold sweats.
"What can we do about it?" 


Nathan threw up his arms. "We have to go inthere and get him. We have to bring him back intothe world that exists." 
"You mean, the world that prophecy says exists."

Nathan's scowl was back. "That's what I said,
isn't it? We have to somehow get him back on thethread of prophecy where he shows up."
Ann cleared her throat. "Or?" 

Nathan snatched up the lamp, then her pack. "Or,
he will cease to be part of viable lines ofprophecy, never to be involved with matters of thisworld again."

"You mean, if we don't get him back fromwherever his is, he will die?"

Nathan gave her a curious look. "Have I beentalking to the walls? Of course he will die! Ifthat boy isn't in prophecy, if he breaks all thelinks to prophecy where he plays a role, then hevoids all those lines of prophecy where he exists.
If he does that, then they become false prophecyand those branches with word of him will never come 
to pass. None of the other links contain anyreference to him—because in the origin of thoselinks, he dies, first."
"And what happens on those links that don't containhim?" 
Nathan took up her hand as he pulled her toward thedoor. "On those links, a shadow falls overeveryone. Everyone who lives, anyway. It will be avery long and very dark age."
"Wait," Ann said, pulling him to a halt.

She returned to the stone bench and placed theRada'Han in the center. "I don't have the power todestroy this. I think maybe it should be lockedaway."

Nathan nodded his approval. "We will lock the 


doors and instruct the guards that it is to remainin here, behind the shields, for all time."

Ann held a warning finger up before him. "Don'tget the idea that just because you're not wearing acollar I will tolerate misbehavior." 

Nathan's grin returned. He didn't come right outand agree. Before he went through the door, heturned back to her. 

"By the way, have you been talking to Vernathrough your journey book?"

"Yes, a little. She's with the army and prettybusy, right now. They're defending the passes intoD'Hara. Jagang has begun his siege."

"Well, from what I've been able to gather frommilitary commanders here, at the palace, the passesare formidable and will hold for a while, atleast." He leaned toward her. "You have to send a 
message to her, though. Tell her that when an emptywagon rolls into their line, to let it through."
Ann made a face. "What does that mean?" 
"Prophecy is not meant for the unenlightened. Justtell her." 

"All right," Ann said with breathless difficultyas Nathan pulled her through the tight doorway.
"But I'd best not tell her you're the one who saidit, or she will likely ignore the advice. Shethinks you're daft, you know."

"She just never got a chance to come to know mevery well, that's all." He glanced back. "What withme being unjustly locked away, and all."

Ann wanted to say that perhaps Verna knew Nathanall too well, but decided better of it right then.
As Nathan started to turn toward the outer door,
Ann snatched his sleeve. 

"Nathan, what else about this prophecy you foundaren't you telling me? This prophecy where Richarddisappears into oblivion."

She knew Nathan well enough to know by hisagitation that he hadn't told her everything, thathe thought he was being gallant by sparing her 


worry. With a sober expression, he gazed into hereyes for a time before he finally spoke.
"There is a Slide on that fork of prophecy."

Ann frowned as she turned her eyes up inthought. "A Slide. A Slide," she muttered toherself, trying to recall the name. It soundedfamiliar. "A Slide . . ." She snapped her fingers.
"A Slide." Her eyes went wide. "Dear Creator."
"I don't think the Creator had anything to do withthis." 

Ann impatiently waved in protest. "That can'tbe. There has to be something wrong with this newprophecy you found. It has to be defective. Slideswere created in the great war. There couldn't be aSlide on this link of prophecy—don't you see? Theprophecy must be out of phase and long agoexpired." Ann chewed her lower lip as her mindraced. 

"It isn't out of phase. Don't you think that wasmy first thought, too? You think me an amateur atthis? I worked through the chronology a hundredtimes. I ran every chart and calculation I everlearned—even some I invented for the task. They allcame out with the same root. Every link came out inorder. The prophecy is in phase, chronology, andall its aspects are aligned."

"Then it's a false link," Ann insisted. "Slideswere conjured creatures. They were sterile. Theycouldn't reproduce."

"I'm telling you," Nathan growled, "there is aSlide on this fork with Richard and it's a viable 
prophetic link."

"They couldn't have survived to be here." Annwas sure of what she was saying. Nathan knew moreabout prophecy than she, there was no doubt ofthat, but this was one area where she knew exactlywhat she was talking about—this was her area ofexpertise. "Slides weren't able to beget children."

He was giving her one of those looks she didn'tlike. "I'm telling you, a Slide walks the world 


again."
Ann tsked. "Nathan, soul stealers can't reproduce."
"The prophecy says he wasn't born, but born again aSlide." 
Ann's flesh began to tingle. She stared at him atime before finding her voice. "For three thousandyears there have been no wizards born with bothsides of the gift but Richard. There is no wayanyone ..."

Ann paused. He was watching her, watching herfinally realize what had to be. "Dear Creator," shewhispered.

"I told you, the Creator had nothing to do withthis. The Sisters of the Dark mothered him." 
Shaken to her core, Ann could think of nothing tosay.
There was no worse news she could have heard. 
There was no defense against a Slide.
Every soul was naked to a Slide's attack.

Outside the second door, Nyda waited in thehall, her face as grim as ever, but not as grim asAnn's. The hall was dark but for the dim lightcoming from the still flames of a few candles. Nobreath of wind ever made it this deep into thepalace. The only color among the dark rock soakingup that small bit of light was the blood red ofNyda's red leather.

Being pulled along by the hand, feeling a jumbleof emotions, Ann leaned toward the woman and venteda pent-up fiery scowl. "You told him what I said totell him, didn't you?"

"Of course," Nyda answered as she fell into stepbehind the two of them. 

Turning halfway around, Ann shook a finger atthe Mord-Sith. "I'll make you sorry you told him."
Nyda smiled. "Oh, I don't think so."

Ann rolled her eyes and turned back to Nathan.
"By the way, what are you doing wearing a sword?
You, of all people—a wizard. Why are you wearing asword?" 


 Nathan looked hurt. "Why, Nyda thinks I lookdashing with a sword."

Ann fixed her eyes on the dark passageway ahead.
"I just bet she does." 

 CHAPTER 31 

Standing at the edge of a narrow rim of rock,
Richard looked down on the ragged gray wisps ofclouds below. Out in the open, the cool damp airthat drifted over him carried the aromas of balsam 
trees, moss, wet leaves, and saturated soil. Heinhaled deeply the fragrant reminders of home. Therock, mostly granite, cracked and weather-worn intopillowed blocks, looked much the same as that inhis Hartland woods. The mountains, however, werefar larger. The slope rising up behind him wasdizzying.

To the west before him, far below, lay a vaststretch of fractured ground and ever-rising ruggedhills carpeted in forests. To his left and right,
because he knew what he was looking for, he couldjust make out the strip of ground, devoid of trees,
where the boundary had been. Farther off to thewest rose up the lesser mountains, mostly barren,
that bordered the wasteland. That wasteland, andthe place called the Pillars of Creation, was nolonger visible. Richard was happy to have left itfar behind. 

The sky was empty of black-tipped races—for themoment, anyway. The huge birds most likely knew 


that Richard, Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and Owenwere heading west.

Richard had shot the last five races as they hadbegun gathering in their circling behavior,
surprising them by being high up the side of themountain above the others in his group, closer towhere the races flew. After killing the races,
Richard had led the rest of his small company intodenser woods. He didn't think that the races they'dbeen seeing up until then had spotted them since.
Now that they were traveling through forests oftowering trees Richard thought that, if he wascareful, they might be able to lose their watchers.

If this man, Nicholas, had seen them through theeyes of those five races, then he knew they hadbeen headed west. But, now that they were hidden,
he couldn't assume that they would continue west.
If Richard could disappear from where the birdswould look for him, and failed to appear where theywould expect him, then Nicholas might have secondthoughts. He might realize they could have changeddirection and gone north, or south. Nicholas mightthen begin to realize that they had used thatperiod of confusion to run away somewhere else, toflee him. 

It was possible that Richard could keep themhidden under the cover of the trees and in so doingkeep Nicholas from discovering them. Richard didn'twant the man to know where they'd gone, or to haveany idea where they were at any given time. It washardly a certainty that he could deceive Nicholasin this way, but Richard intended to try.

Shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand,
Richard scanned the rise of dense forest before 
them in order to get the lay of the land fixed inhis mind before he headed back in under the thick 
vegetation where the others waited. The trailers ofclouds below were but the tattered castoffs of the 
churning blanket of gloom above them. Themountainside ascended sharply into that wet 


overcast. 

As Richard evaluated the rock, the slope, andthe trees, he finally found what he sought. Hestudied the ascent of the mountain one last time 
before scanning the sky again to make sure it wasclear. Seeing no races—or any other birds, for thatmatter—he headed in to where the others waited. He 
knew that just because he didn't see any birdsdidn't mean that they weren't there watching him.
There could be a few dozen races sitting in treeswhere he would likely never spot them. But, for themoment, he was still where they would expect him,
so he wasn't greatly concerned.
He was about to do what they would not expect.
Richard climbed back up the slick bank of moss,
leaves, and wet roots. If he fell, he would haveonly the one chance to grab the small ledge wherehe'd been standing before he would tumble out intothe clear air and a drop of several thousand feet.
The thought of that drop made him hold tighter tothe roots to help him climb, and made him testcarefully every score in the rock where he placedhis boot before committing his weight to it.

At the top of the bank he ducked underoverhanging branches of scrawny mountain maple thatgrew in the understory of hardwoods leaning outbeside the towering pines in an effort to capturethe light. Leaves of the ash and birch rising abovethe mountain maple collected the drixzle, untiltheir leaves had as much as they could hold andreleased it to patter down in fat drops thatslapped the lower leaves above Richard's head. Whena light breeze caught those upper leaves, theyreleased their load to rain down in sudden but 
brief torrents. 

Stooping under low-spreading branches of firtrees, Richard followed his track back throughthickets of huckleberry into the more open groundof the hushed woods beneath the thick canopy ofancient evergreens. Pine needles had been woven by 


the wind into sprawling mats that cushioned hissteps. Spiraling webs hung by spiders to catch thesmall bugs that zigzagged all about had insteadnetted the mist and were now dotted with shimmeringdrops of water, like jeweled necklaces on display.

Back in the sheltering cover of rock and thethick growth of young spruce, Kahlan stood when shesaw Richard coming. When she stood, everyone elsethen saw him, and came to their feet as well.
Richard ducked in under the wispy green branches.

"Did you see any races, Lord Rahl?" Owen asked,
clearly nervous about the predators.

"No," Richard told him as he picked up his packand slung it over a shoulder. He slipped his otherarm beneath the second strap as he pulled the packup onto his back. "That doesn't mean they didn'tsee me, though."

Richard hooked his bow over the back of his left 
shoulder, along with a waterskin.

"Well," Owen said, wringing his hands, "we canstill hope they won't know where we are."
Richard paused to look at the man. "Hope is not astrategy."

As the rest of them all started collecting theirthings from the brief break, hooking gear on beltsand shouldering packs, Richard drew Cara by the armout of the cover of small trees and pulled herclose. 

"See that rise through there?" he asked as heheld her near him so she could see where he was 
pointing. "With the strip of open ground thatpasses in front of the young oak with the brokendead limb hanging down?"

Cara nodded. "Just after where the ground risesand goes over that trickle of water running downthe face of the rock, staining it green?"

"That's the spot. I want you to follow up overthat area, then cut to the right, taking that cleftup—that one there beyond the split in the rock,
there—and see if you can scout a trail up to the 


next shelf up above these trees here."
Cara nodded. "Where will you be?"

"I'm going to take the rest of us up to thefirst break in the slope. We'll be there. Come backand tell us if you find a way over the projection."

Cara hoisted up her pack onto her back and thenpicked up the stout staff Richard had cut for her.
"I didn't know that Mord-Sith could cut trails,"
Tom said. 
"Mord-Sith can't," Cara said. "I, Cara, can. LordRahl taught me."

As she vanished into the trees, Richard watchedher walk. She moved gracefully, disturbing littleas she made her way into the trackless woods. Shemoved with an economy of effort that would conserveher energy. It had not always been so; she hadlearned well the lessons he had given her. Richardwas pleased to see that the lessons had stuck andhis efforts had not been wasted. 

Owen came forward, looking agitated. "But LordRahl, we can't go that way." He waggled a hand backover his shoulder. "The trail goes that way. Thatis the only way up and through the pass. There liesthe way down, and with it the way back up, now thatthe boundary is gone. It's not easy, but it's theonly way."

"It's the only way you know of. By how well thattrail looks to be traveled, I think it's the onlyway Nicholas knows of as well. It appears to be theway the Order troops move in and out of Bandakar.

"If we go that way the races will be watching.
If, on the other hand, we don't show up, then/hewon't know where we went. I want to keep it thatway from now on. I'm tired of playing mouse to hisowl." 

Richard let Kahlan lead them up through thewoods, following the natural route of the land whenthe way ahead was reasonably evident. When she wasin doubt she would glance back at him fordirection. Richard would look where she was to go, 


or nod in the direction he wanted her to take, or,
in a few cases, he needed to give her instruction.

By the lay of the land, Richard was pretty surethat there was an ancient trail up through themountain pass. That pass, that from afar lookedlike a notch in the wall of mountains, was inreality no mere notch but a broad area twisting asit rose back up between the mountains. Richarddidn't think that the path that the Bandakar peopleused to banish people through the boundary was theonly way through that pass. With the boundary inplace it may well have been, but the boundary wasno longer there.

From what he'd seen so far, Richard suspectedthat there once had been a route that in ancient 
times had been the main way in and out. Here andthere he was able to discern depressions that hebelieved were remnants of that ancient, abandonedroute. 

While it was always possible that the oldpassage had been abandoned for good reason, such asa landslide that made it impassable, he wanted toknow if that once traveled way was still usable. Itwould, at the least, since it was in a differentpart of the mountains than the known path, takethem away from where the races were likely to belooking for them.

Jennsen walked up close beside Richard when theway through towering pines was open enough. Shetugged Betty along by her rope, keeping her fromstopping to sample plants along the way.

"Sooner or later the races will find us, don'tyou think?" Jennsen asked. "I mean, if we don'tshow up where they expect to find us, then don'tyou think they will search until they do find us?
You were the one who said that from the sky theycould cover great distances and search us out."

"Maybe," Richard said. "But it will be hard tospot us in the woods if we use our heads and stayhidden. In forests they can't search nearly as much 


area as they could in the same amount of time outin the wasteland. In open ground they could spot usmiles away. Here, they will have a hard time of itunless they're really close and we are careless.

"By the time we don't show up where the knowntrail makes it up into Bandakar, they will have avast area they suddenly will need to search andthey won't have any idea which direction to look.
That compounds the problem for them in finding us.

"I don't think that the viewing Nicholas getsthrough their eyes can be very good, or he wouldn'tneed to gather the races now and again to circle.
If we can stay out of sight long enough, then we'llbe among the people up in Bandakar and thenNicholas, through the eyes of the races, will havea hard, if not impossible, time picking us out fromothers." 

Jennsen thought it over as they entered a standof birch. Betty went the wrong way around a treeand Jennsen had to stop to untangle her rope. Theyall hunched their shoulders against the wet when abreeze brought down a soaking shower.

"Richard," Jennsen asked in a voice barely abovea whisper as she caught back up with him, "what areyou going to do when we get there?"
"I'm going to get the antidote so I don't die."

"I know that." Jennsen pulled a sodden ringletof red hair back from her face. "What I mean is,
what are you going to do about Owen's people?"

Each breath he drew brought a slight stitch ofpain deep in his lungs. "I'm not sure, yet, justwhat I can do." 

Jennsen walked in silence for a moment. "But youwill try to help them, won't you?"

Richard glanced over at his sister. "Jennsen,
they're threatening to kill me. They've proven thatit isn't an empty threat."

She shrugged uncomfortably. "I know, but they'redesperate." She glanced ahead to make sure thatOwen wouldn't hear. "They didn't know what else to 


do to save themselves. They aren't like you. Theynever fought anyone before."

Richard took a deep breath, the pain pullingtight across his chest when he did so. "You'd neverfought anyone before, either. When you thought Iwas trying to kill you, as our father had, and youbelieved that I was responsible for your mother'sdeath, what did you do? I don't mean were youcorrect about me, but what did you do in responseto what you believed was happening?"

"I resolved that if I wanted to live I would 
have to kill you before you killed me."

"Exactly. You didn't poison someone and tellthem to do it or they would die. You decided thatyour life was worth living and that no one else hadthe right to take it from you.

"When you are willing to meekly sacrifice yourultimate value, your life, the only one you willever have, to any thug who on a whim decides totake it from you, then you can't be helped. You maybe able to be rescued for one day, but the next dayanother will come and you will again willinglyprostrate yourself before him. You have placed thevalue of the life of your killer above your own.

"When you grant to anyone who demands it theright of life or death over you, you have alreadybecome a willing slave in search of any butcher whowill have you."

She walked in silence for a time, thinking aboutwhat he'd said. Richard noticed that she moved 
through the woods as he had taught Cara to move.
She was nearly as at home in the woods as he was.

"Richard." Jennsen swallowed. "I don't want 
those people to be hurt any more. They've alreadysuffered enough."
"Tell that to Kahlan if I die from their poison."

When they reached the meeting place, Cara wasn'tthere yet. They all were ready for a brief rest.
The spot, a break in the slope back against granitethat rose up steeply to the next projection in the 


mountain, was protected high overhead by huge pinesand closer down by brush. After so long out in theheat of the desert, none of them were yetaccustomed to the wet chill. While they spread outto find rocks for seats so they wouldn't have tosit in the wet leaf litter, Betty happily sampledthe tasty weeds. Owen sat to the far side, awayfrom Betty.

Kahlan sat close to Richard on a small lump ofrock. "How are you doing? You look like you have aheadache." 
"Nothing to be done about it for now," he said.
Kahlan leaned closer. The warmth of her felt goodagainst his side.
"Richard," she whispered, "remember Nicci'sletter?" 
"What about it?" 

"Well, we assumed that this boundary intoBandakar being down was the reason for the firstwarning beacon. Maybe we're wrong."
"What makes you think so?"

"No second beacon." She pointed with her chinoff to the northwest. "We saw the first way backdown there. We're a lot closer to the place wherethe boundary was and we haven't spotted a secondbeacon." 

"Just as well," he said. "That was where theraces were waiting for us."

He remembered well when they found the littlestatue. The races were perched in trees all around.
Richard hadn't known what they were at the time,
other than they were large birds he'd never seenbefore. The instant Cara picked up the statue, theblack-tipped races had all suddenly taken to wing.
There had been hundreds. 

"Yes," Kahlan said, "but without the secondbeacon, maybe this isn't the problem that wethought caused the first."

"You're assuming that the second beacon will befor me—that I'm the one it will be meant for and so 


we would have seen it. Nicci said that the second 
beacon is for the one who has the power to fix thebreach in the seal. Maybe that's not me."

Looking at first startled by the idea, Kahlanthought it over. "I'm not sure if I'd be pleasedabout that or not." She leaned tighter against himand hooked an arm around his thigh. "But no matterwho is meant to be the one who can seal the breach 
again, the one who's supposed to restore theboundary, I don't think they will be able to doso." 

Richard ran his fingers back through his wethair. "Well, if I'm the one this dead wizard oncebelieved could restore the boundary, he's wrong. Idon't know how to do such a thing."

"But don't you see, Richard? Even if you didknow how, I don't think you could."

Richard looked at her out of the corner of his 
eye. "Jumping to conclusions and letting yourimagination get carried away, again?"

"Richard, face it, the boundary failed becauseof what I did. That's why the warning beacon wasfor me—because I caused the seal to fail. You 
aren't going to try to deny that, are you?"

"No, but we have a lot to learn before we knowwhat's really going on."

"I freed the chimes," she said. "It's not goingto do us any good to try to hide from that fact."

Kahlan had used ancient magic to save his life.
She had freed the chimes in order to heal him. 
She'd had no time to spare; he would have diedwithin moments if she had not acted. 

Moreover, she'd had no idea that the chimeswould unleash destruction upon the world. Shehadn't known they had been created three thousandyears before from underworld powers as a weapondesigned to consume magic. She had been told onlythat she must use them to save Richard's life. 

Richard knew what it felt like to be convinced 
of the facts behind events and to have no one 


believe him. He knew she was now feeling that samefrustration. 

"You're right that we can't hide from it—if itis a fact. But right now we don't know that it is.
For one thing, the chimes have been banished backto the underworld." 

"And what about what Zedd told us, about howonce the destructive cascade of magic begins—whichit did—then there is no telling if it can bestopped even if the chimes are banished. There isno experience in such an event upon which to basepredictions."

Richard didn't have an answer for her, and wasat a disadvantage because he didn't have hereducation in magic. He was saved from having tospeculate when Cara came in through a tight patchof young balsam trees. She pulled her pack off hershoulders and let it slip to the ground as she saton a rock facing Richard.

"You were right. We can get through there. Itlooks to me like I can see a way to continue on upfrom the ledge."

"Good," Richard said as he stood. "Let's getgoing. The clouds are getting darker. I think weneed to find a place to stop for the night."

"I spotted a place under the ledge, Lord Rahl. Ithink it might be a dry place to stay."

"Good." Richard hoisted her pack. "I'll carrythis for you for a while, let you have a break."

Cara nodded her appreciation, falling into lineas they moved through the tight trees andimmediately had to start to climb up the steeplyrising ground. There was enough exposed rock androots to provide good steps and handholds. Wheresome of those steps were tall, Richard stretcheddown to give Kahlan a hand.

Tom helped Jennsen and passed Betty up a fewtimes, even though the goat was better atscrambling up over rock than they were. Richardthought he was doing it more for Jennsen's peace of 


mind than Betty's. Jennsen finally told Tom thatBetty could climb on her own.

Betty proved her right, bleating down at Tomafter effortlessly clambering up a particularlytrying spot.
"Why don't you help me up, then," Tom said to thegoat.

Jennsen smiled along with Richard and Kahlan.
Owen just watched as he skirted the other wayaround the rock. He was afraid of Betty. Carafinally asked for her pack back, having entertainedlong enough the possibility of being consideredfrail. 

Shortly after the rain started, they found thelow slit of an opening under a prominent ledge,
just as Cara had said they would. It wasn't a cave,
but a spot where a slab from the face of themountain above had broken off and fallen over. 
Boulders on the ground held the slab up enough tocreate a pocket beneath. It wasn't large, butRichard thought they would all fit under it for thenight.

The ground was dirty, scattered with collectedleaf litter and forest debris of bark, moss, and alot of bugs. Tom and Richard used branches they'dcut to quickly sweep the place out. They then laiddown a clean bed of evergreen boughs to keep themup off the water that did run in.

The rain was starting to come down harder, sothey all squatted down and hurried to move in underthe rock. It wasn't a comfortable-looking spot,
being too low for them to stand in, but it wasfairly dry.
Richard dared not let them have a fire, now thatthey had left the regular trail, lest the smoke bespotted by the races. They had a cold supper ofmeats, leftover bannock, and dried goods. They wereall exhausted from climbing all day, and while theyate engaged in only a bit of small talk. Betty wasthe only one with enough room to stand. She pushed 


up against Richard until she got his attention anda rub. 

As darkness slowly enveloped the woods, theywatched the rain fall outside their cozy shelter,
listening to the soft sound, all no doubt wonderingwhat lay ahead in a strange empire that had beensealed away for three thousand years. Troops fromthe Imperial Order would be there, too.

As Richard sat watching out into the dark rain,
listening to the sounds of the occasional animal inthe distance, Kahlan cuddled up beside him, layingher head on his lap. Betty went deeper into theshelter and lay down with Jennsen.

Kahlan, under the comfort of his hand restingtenderly on her shoulder, was asleep in moments. Asweary as he was from the day's hard journey,
Richard wasn't sleepy.

His head hurt and the poison deep within himmade each breath catch. He wondered what would 
strike him down first, the power of his gift thatwas giving him the headaches, or Owen's poison.

He wondered, too, just how he was going tosatisfy the demands of Owen and his men to freetheir empire so that he could have the antidote.
The five of them, he, Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, andTom, hardly seemed the army needed to drive theOrder out of Bandakar. 

If he didn't, and if he couldn't get to theantidote, his life was coming to a close. This verywell could be his final journey.

It seemed like he had just gotten back togetherwith Kahlan after being separated from her for halfhis life. He wanted to be with her. He wanted the 
two of them to be able to be alone. 

If he didn't think of something, all they had ineach other, all they had ahead of them, was justabout over. And that was without even consideringthe headaches of the gift.
Or the Imperial Order capturing the Wizard's Keep. 


 CHAPTER 32 


Richard gripped the edge of the rock at the face ofthe opening to help pull himself up and out fromthe dark hole in the abrupt rise of granite beforethem. Once out, he brushed the sharp littlegranules of rock from his hands as he turned to theothers. 
"It goes through. It isn't easy, but it goesthrough."

He saw a dubious look on Tom's face, and a lookof consternation on Owen's. Betty, her floppy earsperked ahead in what Richard thought could only bea goat frown, peered down into the narrow chasm andbleated. 
"But I don't think we can," Owen complained. "Whatif..." 
"We get stuck?" Richard asked.
Owen nodded. 

"Well, you have an advantage over Tom and me,"
Richard said as he picked up his pack from nearbyto the side where he'd left it. "You're not quiteas big. If I made it through and back, then you canmake it, Owen."

Owen waved a hand up the steep ascent to hisright. "But what about that way? Couldn't we justgo around?"

"I don't like going into dark, narrow placeslike this, either," Richard said. "But if we goaround that way we have to go out on the ledges.

You heard what Cara said; it's narrow anddangerous. If it were the only way it would beanother matter, but it's not.

"The races could spot us out there. Worse, if 


they wanted, they could attack us and we couldeasily fall or be forced over the edge. I don'tlike going in places like this, but I don't thinkI'd like to be out there on a windblown ledge nowider than the sole of my boot, with a fall ofthousands of feet straight down if I make one slip,
and then have one of those races suddenly show upto rip into me with their talons or those sharpbeaks of theirs. Would you prefer that?"

Owen licked his lips as he bent at the waist andlooked into the narrow passageway. "Well, I guessyou're right."

"Richard," Kahlan asked in a whisper as the restof them started taking off their packs so theycould more easily fit through, "if this was atrail, as you suspect, why isn't there a better waythrough?"

"I think that sometime only in the last fewthousand years this huge section of the mountainbroke away and slid down, coming to rest at thisangle, leaving a narrow passageway beneath it." Hepointed up. "See up there? I think this entireportion down here used to be up there. I think it'snow sitting right where the trail used to be."
"And there's no other way but this cave or theledges?"

"I'm not saying that. I believe there's otherold routes, but we would have to backtrack for mostof a day to take the last fork I saw, and thenthere isn't any guarantee with that one, either. Ifyou really want, though, we can go back and try."

Kahlan shook her head. "We can't afford to lose 
any time. We need to get to the antidote."

Richard nodded. He didn't know how he was 
supposed to rid an entire empire of the ImperialOrder so they could get to the antidote, but he hada few ideas. He needed to get the antidote; he sawno reason he had to play by Owen's rules—or theOrder's. 

Kahlan gave the narrow, dark tunnel another 


look. "You're sure there aren't any snakes in
there?" 
"I didn't see any."


Tom handed Richard his sword. "I'll go last," hesaid. "If you make it through, I can."
Richard nodded as he laid the baldric over his 
shoulder. He turned the scabbard at his hip inorder to clear the rock and then started in. He 
hugged his pack to his abdomen as he crouched tomake it into the small space. The slab of rockabove him lay at an angle, so that he couldn'tremain upright, but had to twist sideways and backas he went into the darkness. The farther in he 
went, the darker it became. As the others followedhim into the narrow passage, it blocked much of thelight, making it even darker.

The rains of recent days had finally ended, butrunnels and runoff continued to flow from the 
mountain. Their wading through ankle-deep waterstanding in the bottom of the cavern sent echoesthrough the narrow confines. The waves in the waterplayed gloomy light along the wet walls, providingat least some illumination. 

The thought occurred to him that if he was asnake, this would make a good spot to call home.
The thought also occurred to him that if Kahlan,
right behind him, happened upon a snake in suchcramped quarters, she would not be pleased with himin the least for taking her in.

Things that were frightening outside weredifferent when you couldn't maneuver, couldn't run.
Panic always seemed to lurk in tight places.

As it became darker, Richard had to feel his wayalong the cold stone. In places where water seepeddown the rock, the walls were slimy. In some spotsthere was mud, in other places dry rock to walk on.
Most of it, though, was wet muck. Spongy leaves hadcollected in some of the irregular low places.

By the smell, it was obvious that some animalhad died and was decomposing somewhere in the 


sodden grotto. He heard moans and complaints frombehind when the rest of them encountered the 
stench. Betty bleated her unhappiness. Jennsen'sechoing whisper told the goat to be quiet.

Even the displeasure of the smell was forgottenas they worked their way under the immense curtainof rock draped over where the trail used to be.
This wasn't a true cave, like underground cavesRichard had encountered before. It was only anarrow crack under what was, in essence, a bigrock. There were no chambers and different routes 
to worry about; there was only one narrow voidunder the rock, so lighting their way wasn'tcritical. He knew, too, that it wasn't all thatlong. It only felt that way in the dark.

Richard reached the spot where the way aheadabruptly started up at a steep angle. Feeling thewalls all around to find places to grab, he startedthe difficult climb. In places he had to wedge hisback against one wall and use his feet against theopposite wall to brace himself while grappling forany ledge or crack in the rock he could find tohelp pull himself up. He had to balance his pack inhis lap as he went, and keep his sword from gettingwedged. It was slow going.

Richard finally reached the high table where therock from above had first come down. The hollow 
left under the mountain of rock was basicallyhorizontal, rather than vertical, as it had been.
Rock rested along the edge of most of the shelf,
but there was one place with ample room for them tomake it through, over the edge and then in underthe slab above them. Once up onto the flat, heleaned over as far as he could, extending a handdown to help Kahlan.

He heard the grunts of effort from below Kahlanas the rest of the small company worked their wayup the precipitous passage.

From his place atop the table of rock, Richardcould finally see light ahead and light above. He 


had scouted the route and knew that they were closeto being out the other side, but first they had tomake it across the shelf of rock where the slab 
left little room above them. It was uncomfortablyconfining.

Richard didn't like such places. He knew,
though, that there was no other way through. Thiswas the place he worried most about. Tight as itwas, it was fortunately close to the end.

"We have to crawl on our bellies from here," hetold Kahlan. "Hold my ankle. Have everyone behinddo the same." 

Kahlan peered ahead toward the light coming fromthe opening. The glare of that light made itdifficult to see to the sides. "Richard, it doesn'tlook big enough. It's just a crack."

Richard pushed his pack out onto the rock.
"There's a way. We'll be out soon."
Kahlan let out a deep breath. "All right. Thesooner the better." 
"Listen to me," he called back into the darkness.
"We're almost out." 
"If you make us walk through any more rottinganimals, I'll clobber you," Jennsen called up tohim. Everyone laughed.

"No more of that," Richard said. "But there is adifficult spot ahead. I've been through it, so Iknow we can all make it. But you have to listen tome and do as I say. Crawl on your stomach, pushingyour pack ahead of you. Hold the ankle of theperson in front of you. That way you'll all followin the right place.

"You'll see the light ahead of you. You can't gotoward the light. That isn't the way out. Theceiling drops down too low and the slope of therock starts pitching down to the left. If you slipdown in there it gets even tighter; you'll not beable to get out. We have to go around the low placein the ceiling. We have to go around on the rightside, where it's dark, but not as low. Does 


everyone understand?"
Agreement echoed up from the darkness.


"Richard," Jennsen called in a small voice, "Idon't like being in here. I want out."
Her voice carried a thread of panic.

"I don't either," he told her. "But I've beenthrough and out the other side. I made it throughand back. You'll be fine. Just follow me and youwon't have a problem."
Her voice drifted up to him from the darkness. "Iwant to go back."

Richard couldn't let her go back. The ledges,
where they were exposed to the races, were toodangerous.

"Here," Kahlan told her, "you come ahead of me.
Take hold of Richard's ankle and you'll be outbefore the rest of us." 

"I'll see that Betty watches you go through andfollows," Tom offered.

That seemed to break the impasse. Jennsen movedup to the ledge and handed her pack up. Richard,
lying on his stomach in the low slit of the shelf,
took her hand to help her up.

When she saw in the light how low and tight itwas, that Richard had to lie on his stomach, shestarted to tremble. When Richard helped pull herup, and her face came up close to him, he could seeher tears in the dim light.
Her wide blue eyes took in the way ahead, how lowit was. 
Please, Richard, I'm afraid. I don't want to go inunder there." 

He nodded. "I know, but it's not far. I won'tlet you stay in here. I'll see that you get out."
He cupped a hand to the side of her face. "Ipromise."
"How do I know you'll keep your promise?"
Richard smiled. "Wizards always keep theirpromises."
"You said you don't know much about being a 


wizard." 
"But I know how to keep promises."


She at last agreed and let him help her the restof the way up. When he pulled her all the way uponto the shelf of the mountainside, and sheactually felt how the roof of rock didn't allow herany room to get up and that she had to lie flatjust to fit, and worse, that the roof of rock wasonly scant inches above her back, she started toshiver with terror. 

"I know how you feel," he told her. "I do,
Jennsen. I hate this, too, but we have no choice.
It's not dangerous if you just follow me throughthe place where there's room. Just follow me andwe'll be out before you know it."

"What if it comes down and crushes us? Or what 
if it comes down just enough to pin us so we can'tmove or breathe?" 

"It won't," he insisted. "It's been here forages. It isn't going to come down. It's not."

She nodded but he didn't know if she reallyheard him. She began to whimper as he turnedhimself around so he could lead her out. 

"Take my ankle," he called back to her. "Here,
push your pack up to me and I'll take care of itfor you. Then you'll only have to worry aboutholding on to my ankle and following behind."

"What if it gets too tight and I can't breathe?
Richard, what if I can't breathe?"

Richard kept his voice calm and confident. "I'mbigger than you, so if I fit, you will."

She only nodded as she shivered. He extended hishand back and had to tell her again to pass herpack forward before she did as he instructed. Oncehe had her pack, he tied the straps to his andpushed them both on ahead. She seized his ankle asif it were the only thing keeping her from fallinginto the arms of the Keeper of the underworld.

He didn't complain, though, about how hard sheheld him; he knew her fear. 


 Richard pushed the packs out ahead and startedinching his way forward. He tried not to thinkabout the rough ceiling of rock only a hand-widthabove his back. He knew it would become ftarrower 
before they got out. The shelf of rock slopedupward to the right slightly, into the dark. Thelight was to the left, and down.

It looked like the easiest way out was to gostraight toward the opening. It wasn't far. Theyhad to go, instead, up into the darkness and aroundthe narrowing of the cleft in order to get aroundto a place where they could fit through. Forcinghimself to go up, into the dark where it felttighter and more closed in, rather than toward thelight of the opening, felt wrong, but he hadalready scouted the route and he knew that hisfeelings were wrong about this.

As he moved deeper into the darkness, goingaround the impassable area in the center of thechamber, he reached the spot where the rock abovelowered. Advancing in farther, it came down untilit pressed against his back. He knew it wasn't far,
not more than a dozen feet, but, without being ableto take a full breath, the cramped passage wasdaunting.

Richard pushed the packs ahead as he wriggledand wormed his way along. He had to push with thetoes of his boots and, with his fingers finding anypurchase available, pull his chest through, forcehimself to make headway into the dark, away fromthe light.

Jennsen's fingers had an iron grip on his ankle.
That was fine with Richard, because he could thenhelp pull her through with him. He wanted to beable to help pull her through when she reached thespot that would compress her chest.
And then she suddenly let go of his ankle. 


 CHAPTER 33 


Off behind him, Richard could hearJennsen scrambling away. "Jennsen? What's going on?
What are you doing?" She was crying out, whining interror, as she bolted toward the light at theopening.
"Jennsen!" Richard called to her. "Don't go thatway! Stay with me!" Wedged in as he was, hecouldn't easily turn to see. He forced himselfahead, crabbing sideways, trying to spot her.
Jennsen was clambering toward the light, ignoringhim as he called to her. Kahlan wormed her way upto him. "What's she doing?" "She's trying to getout. She sees the opening, the light, and won'tlisten." 

Richard shoved the packs and frantically workedhis way ahead, moving into the area beyond thetight spot, to where it was open enough that hecould at last get a full breath and almost get upon his hands and knees. 

Jennsen screamed. Richard could see her clawingfrantically at the rock, but she wasn't making anyheadway. In a frenzy of effort, she tried to pushherself forward, but, instead, she'd slippedsideways farther down the slope, wedging herself intighter.

Each exaggerated, panting breath as she strainedand stretched ratcheted her in deeper.

Richard called to her, trying to get her tolisten, to do as he said. In her desperation, shewasn't responding to any of his instructions. Shesaw the opening, wanted out, and would not listento him. 

Fast as he could, Richard scrambled through thedarkness and around toward the opening, guidingKahlan, Owen, Cara, and Tom through the only way he 


knew they could make it. Kahlan held tight to hisankle and he could hear by the panting of effortthat the rest of them were all following in a linebehind her. 

Jennsen screamed in terror. She struggled madly,
but couldn't move. Wedged in as she was, with rockcompressing her rib cage top and bottom, it wasbecoming difficult for her to breathe.

"Jennsen! Take a slow breath! Slow down!" 
Richard called to her as he scurried around toward 
the opening. "Breathe slow! Breathe!"

Richard finally reached the opening. He emergedfrom the dark crevasse, squinting in the suddenlight. On his knees, he leaned in and helped pullKahlan out. Betty scrambled out, somehow havingpassed the rest of the people. As Owen and thenCara clambered out of the opening, Richard pulledthe baldric over his head and handed his sword to 
Kahlan. 
Tom called out that he was going back in to try toreach Jennsen. 

As soon as the rest were safely out, Richarddove back into the fissure. Headfirst, on his handsand knees, he scuttled into the dark. He could seethat Tom, from his angle of approach, had no chanceto get to her.
"Tom, I'll get her."

"I can reach her," the man said even as he wasgetting himself wedged tight.

"No you can't," Richard said in a stern tone.
"Wishing won't make it so. You'll just get yourselfstuck. Listen to me. Back out, now, or your weightwill help push you downhill and get you stuck sohard that we won't be able to get you out. Back up,
now, while you're still able to. Go. Let me gether." 

Tom watched Richard moving around behind him,
and then, making a face that showed how unhappy hewas to be doing it, he started pushing himself backup into the darkness, where there was a few 


precious inches' more room that would let him makeit back out. 

Richard worked his way through the tight spotand then moved down the slope so that he wouldn'tbe facing downhill as he tried to help Jennsen andpossibly wedge himself in tighter than he wanted.
If he wasn't careful, he would do the same thingTom had been about to do. Down in the darkness,
Jennsen cried in panic.

Richard, flat on his belly, wiggled and snakedhis way deeper, all the while moving to his left,
down the pitch in the shelf of rock. "Jennsen,
breathe. I'm coming. It's all right."
"Richard! Please don't leave me here! Richard!" 

Richard spoke in a calm, quiet voice as he movedaround behind her down into the tighter part of thecave. "I'm not going to leave you. You'll be fine.
Just wait for me." 

"Richard! I can't move!" She grunted witheffort. "I can't breathe! The ceiling is comingdown! It's moving—I can feel it coming down. It'ssqueezing me! Please help me! Richard—please don'tleave me!" 

"You're fine, Jennsen. The ceiling isn't moving.
You're just stuck. I'll have you out in a minute."

Even as he worked his way into the low spot,
trying to get up close behind her, she was stillstruggling to move forward, making it worse— therewas no way she could go forward and make it out. Asshe kept struggling, though, she was slowlyslipping deeper down the slope and with everyfrantic breath wedging herself in tighter. He couldhear how desperately she was trying to breathe, todraw each shallow breath against the immovablecompression of rock.

Finally all the way back around behind her,
Richard started pushing himself in the way she'dgone. She had gone into a narrow channel thatclosed down on the uphill side of her, so therecould be no moving her sideways up the slope; he 


had to get her to back up the way she'd gone in. Hehad to get her to go away from the light and backinto what she feared. 

The roof of rock scraped against his back,
making it difficult to draw a full breath. He hadto take shallow breaths as he moved deeper. Thefarther he went, he could not even breathe thatdeeply.

The need for air, for a deep breath, made thepain of the poison feel like knives twisting in hisribs. Arms stretched forward, Richard used hisboots to force himself in deeper, trying to ignorehis own rising sense of panic. He reasoned withhimself that there were others who knew where he 
was, that he wasn't alone. With the powerfulfeeling that a mountain of rock was crushing him,
reasoning with himself was difficult, especiallywhen the shallow split of rock he was pressed intohardly let him get any air as it was and he wasdesperately working himself deeper trying to reachJennsen. He knew that he had to help pull her outof where she was stuck or she would die there. 

"Richard," she cried, "it hurts. I can'tbreathe. I'm stuck. Dear spirits, I can't breathe.
Please, Richard, I'm scared."

Richard stretched, trying to reach her ankle. Itwas too far away. He had to turn his head sidewaysto advance. Both ears scraped against rock. Hewiggled, inching in tighter even though his betterjudgment was telling him that he was already introuble. 

"Jennsen, please, I need you to help me. I needyou to push back. Push back with your hands. Pushback toward me." 
"No! I have to get out! I'm almost there!"

"No, you're not almost there. You can't make itthat way. You have to trust me. Jennsen, you've gotto push back so I can reach you."
"No! Please! I want out! I want out!" 
"I'll get you out, I promise. Just push back so I 


can reach you."

With her blocking the light he couldn't tell ifshe was doing as he instructed or not. He squirmedin another inch, then another. His head was almoststuck. He couldn't imagine how she had gotten in asfar as she had. 

"Jennsen, push back." His voice was strained. Hecouldn't get enough of a breath to talk and tobreathe, too.

His fingers stretched forward, reaching,
stretching, reaching. His lungs burned for air. Hejust wanted to take a deep breath. He desperatelyneeded a breath. Not being able to draw one was notonly painful, but frightening. His heartbeatpounded in his ears.

As high as they were in the mountains, the airwas already thin and it was difficult to get enoughair the way it was. Limited to taking shallowbreaths was making him light-headed. If he didn'tget back to where he could breathe soon, the two ofthem were going to be forever in this terribleplace.
The tips of Richard's fingers caught the edge ofthe sole of Jennsen's boot. He couldn't get a goodgrip on her foot, though.

"Push back," he whispered into the dark. It wasall he could do to keep his own panic in check.
"Jennsen, do as I say. Push back. Do it."

Jennsen's boot moved back into his hand. He 
snatched it in a tighter grip and immediatelyworked his way back a few inches. Pulling with allhis might, he strained to drag her back with him.
Try as he might, she wouldn't budge. She was eitherstuck tight, or was fighting to go forward.

"Push back," he whispered again. "Use yourhands, Jennsen. Push back toward me. Push."

She was sobbing and crying something he couldn'tmake out. Richard wedged his boots, top and bottom,
in the tight cleft and then pulled with all hismight. His arm shook with the effort. He managed to 


draw her back a few inches. 

He wiggled himself back an equal distance andpulled again. With agonizing effort, he slowly,
painstakingly, started drawing her out of the deadend she had fled into in a panicked attempt to getout. 

At times, she tried to squirm back toward thelight. Richard, the rock compressing him tight,
kept a firm hold of her boot and muscled her backyet more, not allowing her to take back any of thedistance he gained.

He couldn't straighten his head. That made itmore difficult to use his muscles to move the both 
of them. With his head lying on the right, hereached back with his left arm and gripped a smalllip of rock in the ceiling, using it to help haulthem back. With his right arm, stretched forwardand holding her by the boot, he drew her back inchby inch.

As he reached back again for another handhold,
Richard saw something not far to his left, down theslope, wedged where the rock narrowed. At first hethought it was a rock. As he struggled to drawJennsen back, he stared at the thing also stuck inthe rock. He reached to the side and touched it. It 
was smooth and didn't feel at all like the granite.

As he began to make good progress backward hestretched to the side and managed to get hisfingers around the thing. He pulled it to his sideand continued to wiggle back.

With great relief, he was finally back farenough to where he was able to get enough air. Helay still for a time, just catching his breath.
Almost as much as air, though, he wanted out.

While he talked to Jennsen, distracting her withinstructions she only intermittently followed, hebegan forcing her back and to the right, wherethere was more room. Finally, he managed to move upbeside her and seize her wrist. Once he had her, hestarted moving her back up the slope, into the 


darkness, into the tight place that he knew was theonly true way out.

With him up beside her, she was a little morecooperative. All the while, he kept reassuring her.
"This is the way, Jennsen. This is the way. I'llnot leave you. I'll get you out. This is the way.
Just come with me and we'll be out in a few 
minutes." 

When they worked their way up into the dark,
tight spot, she began struggling again, tryingagain to scramble for the light of the opening, buthe was blocking her way. He stayed close at herside as he kept them both moving forward. Sheseemed to find strength in his constant assurancesand his firm grip on her wrist. He was not about tolet her get away from him again.

When they pushed through to the place where theroof rose up a bit, she started weeping withexpectant joy. He knew the feeling. Once theceiling rose up a foot or two, he hurried as fastas he could to get her to the opening, to thelight.

The others were waiting right at the entrance tohelp pull them out. Richard held the thing he'dretrieved under his left arm as he helped pushJennsen out first. She rushed into Tom's waitingarms, but only until Richard crawled out and got tohis feet. Then, crying with relief, Jennsen fledinto his arms, clinging to him for dear life.

"I'm so sorry," she said over and over as shecried. "I'm so sorry, Richard. I was so afraid."
"I know," he comforted as he held her.

He'd been in a similar situation before where he 
thought he might never get himself out of such aterrifying place, so he did understand. In such astressful circumstance, where you feared you wereabout to die, it was easy to be overpowered by theblind need to escape—to live.

"I feel so confused." 
"I don't like such tight places, either," he said. 


"I understand." 

"But I don't understand. I've never been afraid 
of places like that. Ever since I was very youngI've hid in tight little places. Such places alwaysmade me feel safe because no one could find me or 
get to me. When you spend your life running andhiding from someone like Darken Rahl, you come toappreciate small, dark, concealed places.

"I don't know what came over me. It was the 
strangest thing. It was like these thoughts that Iwouldn't get out, that I couldn't breathe, that Iwould die, just started coming into my head.
Feelings I've never had before just started to seepinto me. They just seemed to overwhelm me. I'venever done anything like that before."
"Do you still feel these strange feelings?"

"Yes," she said as she wept, "but they'restarting to fade, now that I'm out, now that it'sover." 

Everyone else had moved off a ways to give herthe time she needed to set herself straight. Theysat not far off waiting on an old log turned silverin the weather. 

Richard didn't try to rush her. He just held herand let her know she was safe. 
"I'm so sorry, Richard. I feel like such a fool."
"No need. It's over, now."
"You kept your promise," she said through hertears. 
Richard smiled, happy that he had.

Owen, his face tense with worry, looked like hecouldn't help himself from asking a question. "ButJennsen?" he asked as he stepped forward. "Whydidn't you do magic to help yourself?"
"I can't do magic any more than you can."

He rubbed his palms on his hips. "You could ifyou let yourself. You are one who is able to touchmagic."

"Other people might be able to do magic, but Ican't. I don't have any ability for it." 


 "What others think is magic is only themselvestricking their senses and only blinds them to realmagic. Our eyes blind us, our senses deceive us—asI explained before. Only those who have never seenmagic, only those who have never used, sensed,
perceived it, only those who do not have anyability or faculty for it, can actually understandit and therefore only they can be truepractitioners of real magic. Magic must be basedentirely on faith, if it is to be real. You mustbelieve, and then you truly can see. You are onewho can do magic."
Richard and Jennsen stared at the man. 

"Richard," Kahlan said in an odd voice before hecould say anything to Owen. "What's that."
Richard blinked at her. "What?" 
She pointed. "That, there, under your arm. What isit?" 

"Oh," he said. "Something I found wedged in therock near Jennsen, back in where she was stuck. Inthe dark, I couldn't tell what it was other thanthat it wasn't rock." 
He pulled it out to have a look.
It was a statue. 

A statue in his likeness, wearing his warwizard's outfit. The cape was fixed in place as itswirled to the side of the legs, making the basewider than the waist. 

The lower portion of the figure was atranslucent amber color, and through it could beseen a falling trickle of sand that had nearlyfilled the bottom half. 

The statue was not all amber, though, asKahlan's had been. Near the middle, obscuring thenarrowing where the sand dribbled through, thetranslucent amber of the bottom began darkening.
The higher up the figure, the darker it became.
The top—the shoulders and head—were as black as anight stone.

A night stone was an underworld thing, and 


Richard remembered all too well what that wicked 
object had looked like. The top of the statuelooked to be made of the same sinister material,
all glossy and smooth and so black that it lookedas if it might suck the light right out of the day.

Richard's heart sank at seeing himselfrepresented in such a way, as a talisman touched bydeath. 

"She made it," Owen said, shaking anaccusatorial finger at Jennsen still shelteredunder Richard's right arm. "She made it with magic.
I told you she could. She spun it of evil magicback in that cave when she wasn't thinking. Themagic took over and came out of her, then, when shewasn't thinking about how she couldn't do magic."

Owen didn't have any idea what he was talkingabout. This was not a statue Jennsen made. 

This was the second warning beacon, meant towarn the one who could seal the breach. 
"Lord Rahl..." 
Richard looked up. It was Cara's voice.

She was standing off a ways, her back to them,
looking up at a small spot of sky off through thetrees. Jennsen turned in his arms to see what had 
put the odd tone in Cara's voice. Holding hissister close, he stepped up behind Cara and peeredup through the trees where she was looking.

Through a thin area in the canopy of pine, hecould see the rim of the mountain pass above them.
Silhouetted against iron gray clouds stealing pastwas something man-made.
It looked like a huge statue sitting atop the pass. 

CHAPTER 34 


Icy wind tore at Richard's and Kahlan's clothes asthey huddled close together at the edge of a thickstand of spruce trees. Low, ragged clouds raced byas if to escape the colossal, dark, swirling cloudsbuilding above them. Fat flakes of snow danced inthe cold gusts. Richard's ears burned in thenumbing cold.
"What do you think?" Kahlan asked.

Richard shook his head. "I don't know." He 
glanced behind them, back into the shelter of thetrees. "Owen, are you sure you don't know what itis? You don't have any idea at all?"

The roiling clouds made an ominous backdrop forthe imposing statue sitting up on the ridge.

"No, Lord Rahl. I've never been here before;
none of us ever traveled this route. I don't know 
what it could be. Unless .. ." His words trailed 
off into the moan of the wind. 
"Unless what?" 

Owen shrank back, twisting the button on hiscoat as he glanced to the Mord-Sith on one side ofhim and Tom and Jennsen on the other. "There is a 
foretelling—from the ones who gave us our name andprotected us by sealing the pass. It is taught thatwhen they gave our empire its name, they also toldus that one day a savior would come to us."

Richard wanted to ask the man just what exactlyit was he thought they needed saving from—if theyhad lived in such an enlightened culture where theywere safe from the unenlightened "savages" of therest of the world. Instead, he asked a simplerquestion he thought Owen might be able to answer.
"So you think that maybe that's a statue of him,
your savior?"

Owen fidgeted, his shoulders finally workinginto a shrug. "He is not just a savior. Theforetelling also says that he will destroy us." 


 Richard frowned at the man, hoping this was notgoing to be another of his convoluted beliefs.
"This savior of yours is going to destroy you. Thatmakes no sense." 
Owen was quick to agree. "I know. No oneunderstands it." 

"Maybe it's meant to say that someone will cometo save your people," Jennsen suggested, "but hewill fail and so only end up destroying them in theattempt."

"Maybe." Owen's face twisted with thedispleasure of having to contemplate such anoutcome. 

"Maybe," Cara suggested in a grim tone, "itmeans this man will come, and after seeing yourpeople, decide they aren't worth saving"— sheleaned toward Owen—"and decide to destroy theminstead." 

Owen, as he stared up at Cara, seemed to beconsidering her words as a real possibility, ratherthan the sarcasm Richard knew them to be. 

"I don't think that is the meaning," Owenfinally told her after earnest consideration. Heturned back to Richard. "The foretelling, as it hasbeen taught to us, you see, says, first, that a manwill come who will destroy us. It then goes on tosay that he is the one who will save us. 'Yourdestroyer will come and he will redeem you,' " Owenquoted. "That is how we have been taught the words,
how they were told to my people when we were puthere, beyond this pass."

" 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeemyou,' " Richard repeated. He took a patient breath.
"Whatever it originally said has probably beenconfused and all jumbled up as it's been passeddown. It probably no longer resembles the originalsaying."

Rather than disagree, as Richard expected, Owennodded. "Some believe, as you say, that over thetime since we were protected and given our name, 


maybe the true words have been lost, or confused.
Others believe that it has been passed down intactand must have important meaning. Some believe thatthe foretelling was meant to say only that a saviorwill come. Others think it means only that adestroyer will come."
"And what do you believe?" Richard asked.

Owen twiddled the button on his coat until 
Richard thought it might come off. "I believe thatthe foretelling is meant to say that a destroyerwill come—and I believe that he is this man 
Nicholas, of the Order— and then that a savior willcome and save us. I believe that man is you, LordRahl. Nicholas is our destroyer. You are oursavior." 

Richard knew from the book that prophecy didn'tfunction with these people, with pillars ofCreation. 

"What your people think is a foretelling,"
Richard said, "is probably nothing more than an oldadage that people have gotten mixed up."

Owen held his ground, if hesitantly. "We aretaught that this is a foretelling. We are taughtthat those who named us told us this foretellingand that they wanted it passed down so all mightknow of it." 

Richard sighed, the wind pulling out a longcloud of his breath. "So you think that up there isa statue of me, put there thousands of years ago bythe ones who protected you behind the boundary? Howwould they know, long before I was born, what Iwould look like in order to make a statue of me?" 

"The true reality knows everything that willbe," Owen said by rote. He forced a half smile ashe shrugged again. "After all, it made that littlestatue that you found look like you."

Unhappy to be reminded of that, Richard turnedaway from the man. The small figure had been madeto look like him by magic tied to the boundary,
and, possibly, to a dead wizard in the underworld. 


 Richard scanned the sky, the rocky slopes allaround, the tree line. He didn't see any sign oflife. The statue—they still couldn't quite make outwhat it was—sat distant up a treeless, rocky rise.
It was yet quite a climb up to that rim of thepass, to that statue.

Richard was not going to like it if it didindeed turn out to be a statue of him beneath the 
gathering gloom.

He already didn't like it one bit that thesecond warning beacon was meant for him. It boundhim to a responsibility, a duty, he neither wantednor could accomplish.

He had no idea how to restore the seal on 
Bandakar. Zedd had once created boundaries that 
were probably similar to the one that had been downhere in the Old World, but even Zedd had usedconstructed magic he had found in the Keep. Suchconstructed spells had been created by ancientwizards with vast power and knowledge of suchthings. Zedd had told him that there were no moresuch spells.

Richard certainly had no idea how to call fortha spell that could create such a boundary. More tothe point, he didn't see how it would do any goodeven if he knew how. What had really been freedfrom Bandakar when the boundary failed was thetrait of being born without any trace of the gift—
that was why they had all been banished here in thefirst place. The Imperial Order was alreadybreeding women from Bandakar in order to breed thegift out of mankind. There was no telling how farthat trait had already spread. Breeding the women,
as it sounded like they were doing, now, would gainthem more children who were pristinely ungifted,
children who would be indoctrinated in the 
teachings of the Order.

When they started using the men for breeding,
the number of such children would vastly increase.
A woman could have a child every year. In the same 


time, a man could sire a great number of childrenbearing his pristinely ungifted trait.

Despite the Order's creed of self-sacrifice,
they had not yet, it would seem, been willing tosacrifice their women to such an undertaking.
Raping the women in Bandakar and proclaiming it forthe good of mankind was fine with the men of theOrder. For the men ruling the Imperial Order togive over their own women to be bred, however, wasquite another matter.

Richard had no doubt that they eventually wouldstart using their own women to this purpose, butthat would come later. In the meantime, the Orderwould probably soon start using all the womencaptured and held as slaves for this purpose,
breeding them to men from Bandakar. The Order'sconquest of the New World would provide them withplenty more women for breeding stock.

Whereas in ancient times those in the New World 
tried to limit the trait from spreading in man, theImperial Order would do whatever they could toaccelerate it. 

"Richard," Kahlan asked in a low voice, so theothers farther back in the trees wouldn't hear,
"what do you think it means that the second warningbeacon, the one for you, is turning black like thenight stone? Do you think it means to show you thetime you have left to get the antidote?"

Since he had only just found it, he hadn't givenit much thought. Even so, he could interpret itonly as a dire warning. The night stone was tied tothe spirits of the dead—to the underworld.

It could be, as Kahlan suggested, that thedarkening was meant to show him how the poison wastaking him, and that he was running out of time.
For a number of reasons, though, he didn't believethat was the explanation.

"I don't know for sure," he finally told her,
"but I don't think it's a warning about the poison.
I think that the way the statue is turning black is 


meant to represent, materially, how the gift isfailing in me, how it's slowly beginning to killme, how the underworld, the world of the dead, isslowly enshrouding me."

Kahlan's hand slipped up on his arm, a gestureof comfort as well as worry. "That was my thought,
too. I was hoping you would argue against it. Thismeans that the gift might be more of a problem thanthe poison—if, after all, this dead wizard used thebeacon to warn you about it."

Richard wondered if the statue up on the ridgeof the pass would hold any answers. He certainlydidn't have any. To make it up there and see, theywould have to leave the shelter of the forest and 
travel out in the open.
Richard turned and signaled the others forward.

"I don't think the races would be expecting ushere," he said as they gathered around him. "If wereally did manage to lose them they won't knowwhere we went, what direction, so they won't knowto look for us, here. I think we can make it upthere without the races, and therefore Nicholas,
knowing."

"Besides," Tom said, "with those low cloudshugging most of the mountains, they may not be ableto search." 
"Maybe," Richard said.

It was getting late. In the distant mountains awolf howled. On another slope across a deep cleftin the mountains, a second wolf answered. Therewould be more than two. 

Betty's ears perked toward the howls as shecrowded against Jenn-sen's legs.
"What if Nicholas uses something else?" Jennsenasked. 

Cara gripped the blond braid lying over thefront of her shoulder as she scanned the woods to 
the sides. "Something else?"

Jennsen pulled her cloak tighter around herselfas the wind tried to lift it open. "Well, if he can 


look through a race's eyes, then maybe he can lookthrough the eyes of something else."

"You mean a wolf?" Cara asked. "You think that 
wolf you heard might be him."
"I don't know," Jennsen admitted.

"For that matter," Richard said, "if he can lookthrough the black eyes of the races, maybe he couldjust as easily look through the eyes of a mouse."

Tom swiped his windblown blond hair back fromhis forehead as he cast a wary glance at the sky.
"Why do you think he always seems to use the races,
then?" 

"Probably because they're better able to covergreat distances," Richard said. "After all, he'dhave a lot of trouble finding us with a mouse.

"More than that, though, I think he likes theimagery of being with such creatures, likesthinking of himself as being part of a powerfulpredator. He is, after all, hunting us."

"So you think we only have to worry about theraces, then?" Jennsen asked.

"I think he would prefer to watch through theraces, but that isn't his end, only the means,"
Richard said. "He's after Kahlan and me. Since 
getting us is his end, I think he will turn towhatever means he must, if necessary. He very wellmight look through even the eyes of a mouse if itwould help him get us."

"If his end is having you," Cara said, "thenOwen is helping his ends by bringing you right tohim." 

Richard couldn't argue with that. For themoment, though, he had to go along with Owen'swishes. Soon enough, Richard intended to startdoing things his own way.

"For now," Richard said, "he's still trying tofind us, so I expect that he will stick to theraces, since they can cover great distances. But,
since I've killed races with arrows, he mustrealize that we at least suspect someone is 


watching us through their eyes. As we get closer tohim, I see no reason that in the future he mightnot use something else so we won't know he'swatching us."

Kahlan looked to be alarmed by the idea. "Youmean, something like a wolf, or, or ... I don'tknow, maybe an owl?"

"Owl, pigeon, sparrow. If I had to guess, thenI'd guess that at least until he finds us he willuse a bird." 

Kahlan huddled close beside him, using his bodyto block the wind. They were up high enough in themountains that they were just beginning toencounter snow. From what Richard had seen of the 
Old World, it generally appeared too warm for snow.
For there to be snow this time of year it couldonly be in the most imposing of mountains.

Richard gestured to the icy flakes swirling inthe air. "Owen, does it get cold in winter inBandakar? Do you get snow?"

"Winds come down from the north, following downour side of the mountains, I believe. In winter itgets cold. Every couple of years, we get a bit ofsnow, but it does not last long. Usually in thewinter it rains more. I do not understand why itsnows here, now, when it is summer."

"Because of the elevation," Richard answeredidly as he studied the rising slopes to each side.

Higher yet, the snowpack was thick, and inplaces, where the wind blew drifts into overhangs,
it would be treacherous. Trying to cross suchprecipitous, snow-covered slopes would be perilous,
at best. Fortunately, they were nearing the highestpoint they would have to climb to make it over thepass, so they wouldn't have to traverse heavy snow.
The bitterly cold wind, though, was making them allmiserable. 

"I want to know what that thing is," Richardfinally said, gesturing up at the statue on therise. He looked around at the others to see if 


anyone objected. No one did. "And, I want to knowwhy it's there."

"Do you think we should wait for dark?" Caraasked. "Darkness will hide us better." 

Richard shook his head. "The races must be able 
to see pretty well in the dark—after all, that'swhen they hunt. If given a choice, I'd rather be inthe open during the daylight, when I can see themcoming."

Richard hooked his bow under his leg and bent itenough to attach the bowstring. He drew an arrowfrom the leather quiver over his shoulder andnocked it, holding it at rest against the bow withhis left hand. He scanned the sky, checking theclouds, and looking for any sign of the races. Hewasn't entirely sure about the shadows among thetrees, but the sky was clear of races.

"I think we'd better be on our way." Richard'sgaze swept across all their faces, first, makingsure they were paying attention. "Walk on the rocksif at all possible. I don't want to leave a trailbehind in the snow that Nicholas could spot throughthe eyes of the races."

Nodding their understanding, they all followedafter him, in single file, out onto the rocks.
Owen, in front of the ever-watchful Mord-Sith, kepta wary eye toward the sky. Jennsen and Bettywatched the woods to the sides. In the stronggusts, they all hunched against the wind and thestinging bite of icy crystals hitting their faces.
In the thin air it was tiring climbing up the steepincline. Richard's legs burned with the effort. Hislungs burned with the poison.

By the look of the sheer walls of rock rising upinto broken clouds to either side, Richard didn'tsee any way, other than the pass, for people tomake it over the imposing mountains, at least, notwithout a journey of tremendous difficulty,
hardship, and probably a great loss of life. Eventhen, he wasn't really certain that it was even 


possible.

In places, as they trudged up the edge of thesteep rise, he could see back through gaps in therock walls of the mountains, under the dark bottomof clouds, to sunlight beyond the pass.

None of them spoke as they climbed. From time totime they had to pause to catch their breath. Theyall kept an eye to the churning sky.

Richard spotted a few small birds in thedistance, but nothing of any size.

As they approached the top, following azigzagging course so they could more easily make itup without having to scale rock faces of juttingledges, Richard caught glimpses of the statuesitting on a massive base of granite.

From the high vantage point in the pass, hecould now see that the rock on either side of the 
rise fell away in precipitous drops. The gorge atthe bottom of either side dead-ended at vertical 
climbs of what would have to be thousands of feet. 
Whatever routes might have branched off lower down,
they would have to converge before going up thisrise; by the lay of the land, it became clear tohim that this was the only way to make it throughthis entire section of the pass.

He realized that anyone approaching Bandakar bythis route would have to climb this ridge in therise, and they would unavoidably come upon themonument. 

As he mounted the final cut between the snow-
dusted boulders standing twice his height, Richardwas able at last to take in the entire statue 
guarding the pass.
And guarding the pass it was. This was a sentinel.

The noble figure sitting atop a vast stone basewas seated as he watchfully guarded the pass. Inone hand the figure casually held a sword at theready, its point resting on the ground. He appearedto be wearing leather armor, with his cape restingover his lap. The vigilant pose of the sentinel 


gave it a resolute presence. The clear impressionwas that this figure was set to ward what wasbeyond.

The stone was worn by centuries of weather, butthat weathering failed to wear away the power ofthe carving. This figure was carved, and it wasplaced, with great purpose. That it was out in themiddle of nowhere, at the summit of a mountain passno longer traveled and a trail possibly abandonedafter this was set here, made it, to Richard, allthe more arresting.

He had carved stone, and he knew what had goneinto this. It was not what he would call fine work,
but it was powerfully executed. Just looking at itgave him goose bumps.

"At least it doesn't look like you," Kahlansaid. 
At least there was that. 

But this thing being there all alone for whatvery well might have been thousands of years wasworrisome. 

"What I'd like to know," Richard said to her,
"is why this second beacon was down there, down thehill, in that cave, and not up here."

Kahlan shared a telling look with him. "IfJennsen hadn't done what she did, you would neverhave found it." 

Richard walked around the base of the statue,
searching—for what he didn't know. Almost as soonas he started looking, he saw, on the front of thebase, on the top of one of the decorative moldings,
an odd void in the snow. It looked as if somethinghad been sitting there and had then been takenaway. It was a track, of sorts, a telltale.

Richard thought the barren spot looked familiar.
He pulled the warning beacon from his pack andchecked the shape of the bottom. His thoughtconfirmed, he placed the figure of himself in thevoid in the snow collected on the rim of the base. 
It was a perfect fit. 


The little figure had been here, with this statue.

"How do you think it came to be down in thecave?" Cara asked in a suspicious voice.

"Maybe it fell," Jennsen offered. "It's prettywindy up here. Maybe the wind blew it off and ittumbled down the hill." 

"And just managed to roll through the woodswithout being stopped by a tree, and then, neat ascan be," Richard said, "roll right into the smallopening of the cave, and then just happened to cometo be stuck in the rock right near where you, bycoincidence, ended up stuck. Stuck, I might add, ina terrifying place you aren't terrified of."
Jennsen blinked in wonder. "When you put it likethat. . ." 

Standing at the crown of the pass, in front ofthe statue right where the warning beacon wouldhave rested, and now again rested, Richard couldsee that the spot held a commanding view of theapproach to Bandakar. The mountains blocking offthe view to either side were as formidable as 
anything he'd ever seen. The rise where thesentinel sat overlooked the approach into the passback between those towering, snowcapped peaks. Ashigh as they were, they were still only at thefoothills of those mountains. 

The statue was not looking ahead, as might beexpected of a guardian, but rather, its unflinchinggaze was fixed a little to the right. Richardthought that was a bit odd. He wondered if maybe itwas meant to show this sentinel keeping a vigilanteye on everything, on every potential threat.

Standing as he was, directly in front of thestatue's base, in front of where the warning beaconsat, Richard looked to the right, in the directionthe man in the statue was looking.

He could see the approach of the pass up throughthe mountains. Farther out, in the distance, hecould see vast forests to the west, and beyondthat, the low, barren mountains they had crossed. 


And, he could see a gap in those mountains.

The eyes of the man in the statue wereresolutely fixed upon what Richard now saw.
"Dear spirits," he whispered.
"What is it?" Kahlan asked. "What do you see?"
"The Pillars of Creation." 

 CHAPTER 35 

Kahlan, standing beside Richard, squinted into thedistance. From the base of the statue they had acommanding view of the approaches from the west. Itseemed as if she could see half a world away. Butshe couldn't see what he saw. 
"I can't see the Pillars of Creation," she said.

Richard leaned close, having her sight down hisarm where he pointed. "There. That darkerdepression in the expanse of flat ground."

Richard's eyes were better at seeing distantthings than were hers. It was all rather hazy-
looking, being so far away.

"You can recognize where it lies by thelandmarks, there"—he pointed off to the right, andthen a little to the left—"and there. Those darker 
mountains in the distance that are a little higherthan the rest have a unique shape. They serve asgood reference points so you can find things."

"Now that you point them out, I can see the landwhere we traveled from. I recognize thosemountains." 

It seemed amazing, looking back on where they'dbeen, how high they were. She could see, spread outinto the distance, the vast wasteland beyond thebarren mountain range and, even if she couldn't 


make out the details of the dreadful place, shecould see the darker depression in the valley. Thatdepression she knew to be the Pillars of Creation.

"Owen," Richard asked, "how far is this passfrom your men—the men who were hiding with you inthe hills?" 

Owen looked baffled by the question. "But LordRahl, I have never been up this portion of the passbefore. I have never seen this statue. I have never 
been anywhere close to here before. It would beimpossible for me to tell such a thing."

"Not impossible," Richard said. "If you knowwhat your home is like, you should be able torecognize landmarks around it—just as I was able tolook out to the west and see the route we traveled 
to get here. Look around at those mountains backthrough the pass and see if you recognizeanything."

Owen, looking skeptical, walked the rest of theway up behind the statue and peered off to theeast. He stood in the wind for a time, staring. Hepointed at a mountain in the distance, through thepass.

"I think I know that place." He soundedastonished. "I know the shape of that mountain. Itlooks a little different from this spot, but Ithink it's the same place I know." He shielded hiseyes from the gusts of wind as he gazed to theeast. He pointed again. "And that place! I knowthat place, too!"

He rushed back to Richard. "You were right, LordRahl. I can see places I know." He stared off thenas he whispered to himself. "I can tell where myhome is, even though I've not been here. Just byseeing places I know."
Kahlan had never seen anyone so astounded bysomething so simple.

"So," Richard finally prompted, "how far do youthink your men are from here?"

Owen looked back over his shoulder. "Through 


that low place, then around that slope coming fromthe right..." He turned back to Richard. "We havebeen hiding in the land near where the seal on ourempire used to be, where no one ever goes becauseit is near the place where death stalks, near thepass. I would guess maybe a full day's steady walkfrom here." He suddenly turned hesitant. "But I amwrong to be confident of what my eyes tell me. Imay just be seeing what my mind wants me to see. Itmay not be real."

Richard folded his arms and leaned back againstthe granite base of the statue as he gazed outtoward the Pillars of Creation, ignoring

Owen's doubt. Knowing Richard as she did, Kahlanimagined that he must be considering his options.

Standing beside him, she was about to lean backagainst the stone of the statue's base, but insteadpaused to first brush the snow off from besidewhere the warning beacon rested. As she brushed thesnow away, she saw that there were words carved inthe top of the decorative molding.
"Richard . .. look at this." 

He turned to see what she saw, and then startedhurriedly brushing away more of the snow. Theothers crowded around, trying to see what waswritten in the stone of the statue's base. Cara, onthe other side of Richard, ran her hand all the wayto the end to clean off the entire ledge.

Kahlan couldn't read it. It was in another 
language she didn't know, but thought sherecognized.
"High D'Haran?" Cara asked.

Richard nodded his confirmation as he studied 
the words. "This must be a very old dialect," hesaid, half to himself as he scrutinized it, tryingto figure it out. "It's not just an old dialect,
but one with which I'm not familiar. Maybe becausethis is so distant a place."

"What does it say?" Jennsen wanted to know asshe peered around Richard, between him and Kahlan. 


"Can you translate it?"

"It's difficult to work it out," Richardmumbled. He swiped his hair back with one hand ashe ran the fingers of his other lightly over thewords. 

He finally straightened and glanced up at Owen,
standing to the side of the base, watching.

Everyone waited while Richard looked down at thewords again. "I'm not sure," he finally said. "Thephraseology is odd. . .." He looked up at Kahlan.
"I can't be sure. I've not seen High D'Haranwritten this way before. I feel like I should knowwhat it says, but I can't quite get it."

Kahlan didn't know if he really couldn't besure, or if he didn't want to speak the translationin front of the others. 
"Well, maybe if you think it over for a while, itmight come to you," she offered, trying to give hima way of putting it off for the time being if hewanted to. 

Richard didn't take her offer. Instead, hetapped a finger to the words on the left of thewarning beacon. "This part is a little more clearto me. I think it says something like Tear anybreach of this seal to the empire beyond ...' "

He wiped a hand across his mouth as heconsidered the rest of the words. "I'm not so sure 
about the rest of it," he finally said. "It seemsto say, 'for beyond is evil: those who cannot see.'
" 
"Of course," Jennsen muttered in angrycomprehension.

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair.
"I'm not at all sure I have it right. Somethingabout it still doesn't make sense. I'm not sure I 
have it right."

"You have it perfectly right," Jennsen said.
"Those who cannot see magic. This was placed by thegifted who sealed those people away from the restof the world because of how they were born." Her 


fiery eyes filled with tears. "Fear any breach ofthis seal to the empire beyond, for beyond is evil—
those who cannot see magic. That's what it means,
those who cannot see magic."

No one argued with her. The only sound was therush of the wind across the open ground.
Richard spoke softly to her. "I'm not sure that'sit, Jenn."

She folded her arms and turned away, glaring outtoward the Pillars of Creation. 

Kahlan could understand how she felt. Kahlan 
knew what it was like to be shunned by almosteveryone except those who were like you. Confessorswere thought of as monsters by many people. Giventhe chance, Kahlan was sure that much of the restof humanity would be happy to seal her away forbeing a Confessor.

But just because she could understand howJennsen felt, that didn't mean Kahlan thought theyoung woman was right. Jennsen's anger at those whobanished these people was justified, but her angerat Richard and the rest of them for having the samespark of the gift, which made them in that way thesame, was not.

Richard turned his attention to Owen. "How manymen do you have waiting in the hills for you toreturn?" 

"Not quite a hundred."

Richard sighed in disappointment. "Well, ifthat's all you have, then that's all you have.
We'll have to see to getting more later.

"For now, I want you to go get those men. Bringthem here, to me. We'll wait here for you toreturn. This will be our base from where we work a 
plan to get the Order out of Bandakar. We'll set upa camp down there, in those trees, where it's wellprotected."

Owen looked down the incline to where Richard 
pointed, and then off toward his homeland. Hisconfused frown returned to Richard. "But, Lord 


Rahl, it is you who must give us freedom. Why notjust come with me to the men, if you want to seethem?" 

"Because I think this will be a safer place thanwhere they are now, where the Order probably knowsthey're hiding."

"But the Order does not know that there are men 
hiding, or where they are."

"You're deluding yourselves. The men in theOrder are brutal, but they aren't stupid."

"If they really know where the men are, then whyhasn't the Order come to call them in?" 

"They will," Richard said. "When it suits them,
they will. Your men aren't a threat, so the men ofthe Order are in no hurry to expend any effort tocapture them. Sooner or later they will, though,
because they won't want anyone to think they canescape the Order's rule.

"I want your men away from there, to a placethey've not been: here. I want the Order to thinkthey're gone, to think they've run away, so theywon't go after them."
"Well," Owen said, thinking it over, "I guess thatwould be all right."

Tom stood watch near the far corner of the 
statue's base, giving Jennsen room to be alone. Shelooked angry and he looked like he thought it bestjust to leave her be. Tom looked as if he feltguilty for having been born with the spark of thegift that allowed him to see magic, that same sparkpossessed by those who had banished people likeJennsen. 
"Tom," Richard said, "I want you to go with Owen."

Jennsen's arms came unfolded as she turned 
toward Richard. "Why do you want him to go?" Shesuddenly sounded a lot less angry.

"That's right," Owen said. "Why should he go?"

"Because," Richard said, "I want to make surethat you and your men get back here. I need theantidote, remember? The more men I have back here 


with me who know where it is, the better. I wantthem safely away from the Order for now. With blondhair and blue eyes, Tom will fit in with yourpeople. If you run into any soldiers from the Orderthey will think he's one of you. Tom will make sureyou all get back here."
"But it could be dangerous," Jennsen objected.

Richard fixed her in his challenging stare. Hedidn't say anything. He simply waited to see if shewould dare to attempt to justify her objections.
Finally, she broke eye contact and looked away.
"I guess it makes sense, though," she finallyadmitted. 

Richard turned his attention back to Tom. "I 
want you to see if you can bring back somesupplies. And I'd like to use your hatchet whileyou're gone, if that's all right."

Tom nodded and pulled his hatchet from his pack.
As Richard stepped closer to take the axe, hestarted ticking off a list of things he wanted theman to look for—specific tools, yew wood, hideglue, packthread, leather, and a list of otherthings Kahlan couldn't hear.

Tom hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "All 
right. I doubt I'll find it all right off. Do youwant me to search out what I can't find before I 
return?" 

"No. I need it all, but I need those men backhere more. Get what's readily available and thenget back here with Owen and his men as soon aspossible."
"I'll get what I can. When do you want us toleave?" 
"Now. We don't have a moment to lose." 

"Now?" Owen sounded incredulous. "It will be 
dark in an hour or two." 

"Those couple of hours may be hours I need,"
Richard said. "Don't waste them." 

Kahlan thought that he meant because of thepoison, but he could have had the gift in mind. She 


could see how much pain he was in because of theheadache caused by the gift. She ached to hold him,
to comfort him, to make him better, but shecouldn't make it all just go away; they had to findthe solutions. She glanced at the small figure ofRichard standing on the base of the statue. Half ofthat figure was as dark as a night stone, as darkand dead as the deepest part of the underworlditself. 

Tom swung his pack up over his shoulder. "Takecare of them for me, will you, Cara?" he asked witha wink. She smiled her agreement. "I'll see you allin a few days, then." He waved his farewell, hisgaze lingering on Jennsen, before shepherding Owenaround the statue and toward the man's homeland. 

Cara folded her arms and leveled a look at 
Jennsen. "You're a fool if you don't go kiss him agood journey."
Jennsen hesitated, her eyes turning toward Richard.
"I've learned not to argue with Cara," Richardsaid. 

Jennsen smiled and ran over the ridge to catchTom before he was gone. Betty, at the end of a longrope, scampered to follow after.

Richard stuffed the small figure of himself intohis pack before picking up his bow from where itleaned against the statue. "We'd better get downinto the trees and set up a camp."

Richard, Kahlan, and Cara started down the risetoward the concealing safety of the huge pines.
They had been long enough out in the open, as faras Kahlan was concerned. It was only a matter oftime before the races came in search of them—before 
Nicholas came looking for them.

As cold as it was up in the pass, Kahlan knewthey didn't dare build a fire; the races could spotthe smoke and then find them. They needed insteadto build a snug shelter. Kahlan wished they couldfind a wayward pine to protect and hide them forthe night, but she had not seen any of those down 


in the Old World and wishing wasn't going to growone. 

As she stepped carefully on dry patches of rock,
avoiding the snow so as not to leave tracks, shechecked the dark clouds. It was always possiblethat it might warm just a little and that theprecipitation could turn to rain. Even if itdidn't, it still would be a miserably cold night.

Jennsen, Betty following behind, returned,
catching up with them as they zigzagged downthrough the steep notches of ledge. The wind wasgetting colder, the snow a little heavier.

When they reached a flatter spot, Jennsen caughtRichard's arm. "Richard, I'm sorry. I don't mean tobe angry with you. I know you didn't banish thosepeople. I know it's not your fault." She gatheredup the slack on Betty's rope, looping it intocoils. "It just makes me angry that those peoplewere treated like that. I'm like them, and so itmakes me angry."

"The way they were treated should make youangry," Richard said as he started away, "but notbecause you share an attribute with them."

Taken aback by his words, even looking a littlehurt, Jennsen didn't move. "What do you mean?"

Richard paused and turned back to her. "That'show the Imperial Order thinks. That's how Owen'speople think. It's a belief in granting disembodiedprestige, or the mantle of guilt, to all those whoshare some specific trait or attribute.

"The Imperial Order would like you to believethat your virtue, your ultimate value, or even yourwickedness, arises entirely from being born amember of a given group, that free will itself iseither impotent or nonexistent. They want you tobelieve that all people are merely interchangeablemembers of groups that share fixed, preordainedcharacteristics, and they are predestined to livethrough a collective identity, the group will,
unable to rise on individual merit because there 


can be no such thing as independent, individualmerit, only group merit.

"They believe that people can only rise abovetheir station in life when selected to be awarded 
recognition because their group is due anindulgence, and so a representative, a stand-in forthe group, must be selected to be awarded the badgeof self-worth. Only the reflected light off thisbadge, they believe, can bring the radiance ofself-worth to others of their group.

"But those granted this badge live with theuneasy knowledge that it's only an illusion ofcompetence. It never brings any sincere self-
respect because you can't fool yourself.
Ultimately, because it is counterfeit, the sham ofesteem granted because of a connection with a groupcan only be propped up by force.

"This belittling of mankind, the Order'scondemnation of everyone and everything human, istheir transcendent judgment of man's inadequacy.

"When you direct your anger at me for having atrait borne by someone else, you pronounce meguilty for their crimes. That's what happens whenpeople say I'm a monster because our father was amonster. If you admire someone simply because youbelieve their group is deserving, then you embracethe same corrupt ethics.

"The Imperial Order says that no individualshould have the right to achieve something on hisown, to accomplish what someone else cannot, and somagic must be stripped from mankind. They say thataccomplishment is corrupt because it is rooted inthe evil of self-interest, therefore the fruits ofthat accomplishment are tainted by its evil. Thisis why they preach that any gain must be sacrificedto those who have not earned it. They hold thatonly through such sacrifice can those fruits bepurified and made good.

"We believe, on the other hand, that your ownindividual life is the value and its own end, and 


what you achieve is yours.

"Only you can achieve self-worth for yourself.
Any group offering it to you, or demanding it ofyou, comes bearing chains of slavery."

Jennsen stared at him for a long moment. A smilefinally overcame her. "That's why, then, I alwayswanted to be accepted for who I was, for myself,
and always thought it unfair to be persecutedbecause of how I was born?" 

"That's why," Richard said. "If you want to beproud of yourself because of what you accomplish,
then don't allow yourself to be chained to somegroup, and don't in turn chain other individuals toone. Let your judgment of individuals be earned.

"This means I should not be hated because myfather was evil, nor should I be admired because mygrandfather is good. I have the right to live myown life, for my own benefit. You are Jennsen Rahl,
and your life is what you, alone, make of it."

They made the rest of the way down the hill insilence. Jennsen still had a faraway look as shethought about what Richard had said.

When they reached the trees, Kahlan was relievedto get in under the sheltering limbs of the ancientpines and even more so when they entered thesecluded protection of the lower, thicker balsamtrees. They made their way through dense thicketsinto the quiet solitude of the towering trees, andfarther down the slope, to a place where anoutcropping of rock offered protection from theelements. It would be easier to construct a shelter 
in such a place by leaning boughs against it inorder to make a relatively warm shelter.

Richard used Tom's hatchet to cut some stout 
poles from young pines in the understory which heplaced against the rock wall. While he lashed thepoles together with wiry lengths of pine roots hepulled up from the mossy ground, Kahlan, Jennsen,
and Cara started collecting boughs to make drybedding and to cover over the shelter. 


 "Richard," Jennsen asked as she dragged a bundleof balsam close to the shelter, "how do you thinkyou are going to rid Bandakar of the ImperialOrder?" 

Richard laid a heavy bough up high on the polesand tied it in place with a length of the wiry pineroot. "I don't know that I can. My primary concernis to get to the antidote."

Jennsen looked a bit surprised. "But aren't yougoing to help those people?"

He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "Theypoisoned me. No matter how you dress it up, they'rewilling to murder me if I don't do as they wish—ifI don't do their dirty work for them. They thinkwe're savages, and they're above us. They don'tthink our lives are worth as much—because we are 
not members of their group. My first responsibilityis to my own life, to getting that antidote."

"I see what you mean." Jennsen handed himanother balsam bough. "But I still think that if weeliminate the Order there, and this Nicholas, we'llbe helping ourselves."

Richard smiled. "I can agree with that, andwe're going to do what we can. But to truly helpthem, I need to convince Owen and his men that theymust help themselves."

Cara snorted a derisive laugh. "That will be agood trick, teaching the lambs to become thewolves." 

Kahlan agreed. She thought that convincing Owenand his men to defend themselves would be more 
difficult than the five of them ridding Bandakar ofthe Imperial Order by themselves. She wondered whatRichard had in mind. 
"Well," Jennsen said, "since we're all in this, allgoing to face the Order up in Bandakar, don't youthink that I have a right to know everything? Toknow what you two are always making eyes at eachother about and whispering about?"
Richard stared at Jennsen a moment before he looked 


back at Kahlan. 

Kahlan laid her bundle of branches down near the 
shelter. "I think she's right."

Richard looked unhappy about it, but finallynodded and set down the balsam bough he washolding. "Almost two years ago, Jagang managed tofind a way to use magic to start a plague. Theplague itself was not magic; it was just theplague. It swept through cities killing people bythe tens of thousands. Since the firestorm had been 
started with a spark of magic, I found a way tostop the plague, using magic."

Kahlan did not believe that such a nightmarecould be reduced to such a simple statement andeven begin to adequately convey the horror they hadgone through. But by the look on Jennsen's face,
she at least grasped a little bit of the terrorthat had gripped the land.

"In order for Richard to return from the placewhere he had to go to stop the plague," Kahlansaid, leaving out terrible portions of the story,
"he had to take the infection of plague. Had henot, he would have lived, but lived alone for therest of his life and died alone without ever seeingme or anyone else again. He took the plague intohimself so that he could come back and tell me he 
loved me." 
Jennsen stared, wide-eyed. "Didn't you know heloved you?"

Kahlan smiled a small bitter smile. "Don't youthink your mother would come back from the world ofthe dead to tell you she loves you, even though youknow she does?" 

"Yes, I suppose she would. But why would youhave to become infected just to return? And returnfrom where?" 

"It was a place, called the Temple of the Winds,
that was partially in the underworld." Richardgestured up the pass. "Something like that boundarywas part of the world of the dead but was still 


here, in this world. You might say that the Templeof the Winds was something like that. It was hiddenwithin the underworld. Because I had to cross a 
boundary of sorts, through the underworld, thespirits set a price for me to return to the worldof life." 

"Spirits? You saw spirits there?" Jennsen asked.
When Richard nodded, she asked, "Why would they setsuch a price?"
"The spirit who set the price of my return wasDarken Rahl." 
Jennsen's jaw dropped.

"When we found Lord Rahl," Cara said, "he wasalmost dead. The Mother Confessor went on a 
dangerous journey through the sliph, all alone, tofind what would cure him. She succeeded in bringingit back, but Lord Rahl was moments away fromdeath." 

"I used the magic I recovered," Kahlan said. "Itwas something that had the power to reverse theplague that the magic had given him. The magic Iinvoked to do this was the three chimes." 
"Three chimes?" Jennsen asked. "What are they?"

"The chimes are underworld magic. Summoningtheir assistance keeps a person from crossing overinto the world of the dead. 

"Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at thetime I didn't know anything else about the chimes.
It turns out that they were created during thegreat war to end magic. The chimes are beings ofsorts, but without souls. They come from theunderworld. They annul magic in this world."

Jennsen looked confused. "But how can theyaccomplish such a thing?"

"I don't know how they work, exactly. But theirpresence in this world, since they are part of theworld of the dead, begins the destruction ofmagic."

"Can't you get rid of the chimes? Can't you finda way to send them back?" 


 "I already did that," Richard said. "But whilethey were here, in this world, magic began tofail." 

"Apparently," Kahlan said, "what I began thatday when I called the chimes into the world of lifebegan a cascade of events that continues toprogress, even though the chimes have been sentback to the underworld." 
"We don't know that," Richard said, more to Kahlanthan to Jennsen. 

"Richard is right," Kahlan told Jennsen, "wedon't know it for sure, but we have good reason tobelieve it's true. This boundary locking awayBandakar failed. The timing would suggest that itfailed not long after I freed the chimes. One ofthose mistakes I told you about, before. Remember?"

Jennsen, staring at Kahlan, finally nodded. "Butyou didn't do it to hurt people. You didn't know itwould happen. You didn't know how this boundarywould fail, how the Order would go in there andabuse those people."

"Doesn't really make any difference, does it? Idid it. I caused it. Because of me, magic may befailing. I accomplished what the Order is workingso hard to bring about. As a result of what I did,
all those people in Bandakar died, and others arenow out in the world where they will once again doas they did in ancient times—they will beginbreeding the gift out of mankind.

"We stand at the brink of the end times of 
magic, all because of me, because of what I did."

Jennsen stood frozen. "And so you regret whatyou caused? That you may have done something thatwill end magic?"

Kahlan felt Richard's arm around her waist. "I 
only know a world with magic," she finally said. "Ibecame the Mother Confessor—in part—to help protectpeople with magic who are unable to protectthemselves. I, too, am a creature of magic—it'sinextricably bound into me. I know profoundly 


beautiful things of magic that I love; they are a
part of the world of life."
"So you fear you may have caused the end of what
you love most."


"Not love most." Kahlan smiled. "I became the 
Mother Confessor because I believe in laws that 
protect all people, give all individuals the rightto their own life. I would not want an artist's 
ability to sculpt to be stopped, or a singer'svoice to be silenced, or a person's mind to bestilled. Nor do I want people's ability to achievewhat they can with magic to be stripped from them.

"Magic itself is not the central issue, not whatthis is about. I want all the flowers, in all theirvariety, to have a chance to bloom. You arebeautiful, too, Jennsen. I would not choose to loseyou, either. Each person has a right to life. Theidea that there must be a choice of one over 
another is counter to what we believe." 

Jennsen smiled at Kahlan's hand on her cheek. 
"Well, I guess that in a world without magic, Icould be queen."

On her way by with balsam boughs, Cara said,
"Queens, too, must bow to the Mother Confessor.
Don't forget it." 

 CHAPTER 36 

Light flooded in as the lid of the box suddenlylifted. The rusty hinges groaned in protest ofevery inch the lid rose. Zedd squinted at the 


abrupt, blinding light of day. Beefy arms flippedthe hinged lid back. If there had been any slack inthe chain around his neck, Zedd would have jumpedat the booming bang when the heavy cover floppedback, showering him in dirt and rusty grit.

Between the bright light and the dust swirlingthrough the air, Zedd could hardly see. It didn'thelp, either, that the short chain around his neckwas bolted to the center of the floor of the box,
leaving only enough slack for him to be able tolift his head a few inches. With his arms bound in 
iron behind his back, he could do little more thanlie on the floor. 

While Zedd was forced to lie there on his side,
his neck near the iron bolt, he at least couldbreathe in the sudden rush of cooler air. The heat 
in the box had been sweltering. On a couple ofoccasions, when they had stopped at night, they hadgiven him a cup of water. It had not been nearlyenough. He and Adie had been fed precious little,
but it was water he needed more than food. Zedd 
felt like he might die of thirst. He could hardlythink of anything but water.

He had lost track of the number of days he hadbeen chained to the floor of the box, but he wassomewhat surprised to find himself still alive. Thebox had been bouncing around in the back of a wagonover the course of a long, rough, but swiftjourney. He could only assume that he was beingtaken to Emperor Jagang. He was also sure that hewould be sorry if he was still alive at the end ofthe journey.

There had been times, in the stifling heat ofthe box, when he had expected that he would soonfade into unconsciousness and die. There were times 
when he longed to die. He was sure that fallinginto such a fatal sleep would be far preferable towhat was in store for him. He had no choice,
though; the control the Sister exerted through theRada'Han prevented him from strangling himself to 


death with the chain, and it was pretty hard, hehad discovered, to will himself to die.

Zedd, his head still held to the floor of thebox by the stub of chain, tried to peer up, but hecould see only sky. He heard another lid bang open.
He coughed as another cloud of dust drifted overhim. When he heard Adie's cough, he didn't know ifhe was relieved to know that she, too, was stillalive, or sorry that she was, knowing what she,
like he, would have to endure.

Zedd was, in a way, ready for the torture heknew he would be subjected to. He was a wizard andhad passed tests of pain. He feared such torture,
but he would endure it until it finally ended hislife. In his weakened condition, he expected thatit wouldn't take all that long. In a way, such atime under torture was like an old acquaintancecome back to haunt him. 

But he feared the torture of Adie far more than 
his own. He hated above all else the torture of 
others. He hated to think of her coming under suchtreatment. 

The wagon shuddered as the front of the otherbox dropped open. A cry escaped Adie's throat whena man struck her. 
"Move, you stupid old woman, so I can get at thelock!" 

Zedd could hear Adie's shoes scraping the woodencrate as, hands bound behind her back, she tried tocomply. By the sounds of fists on flesh, the manwasn't happy with her efforts. Zedd closed hiseyes, wishing he could close his ears as well.

The front of Zedd's confining box crashed open,
letting in more light and dust. A shadow fellacross him as a man approached. Because his facewas pinned to the floor by the chain, Zedd couldn'tsee the man. 

A big hand reached in, fitting a key to thelock. Zedd kept his head stretched as far away aspossible to give the man all the room available to 


let him do his work. Such effort earned Zedd a 
heavy punch in the side of his head. The blow lefthis ears ringing.

The lock finally sprang open. The man's big fistseized Zedd by the hair and dragged him, like asack of grain, out of the box and toward the rearof the wagon. Zedd pressed his lips together, tokeep from crying out as his bones bumped overprotruding wooden runners in the wagon bed. At theback edge of the wagon he was summarily dumped offthe back to slam down onto the ground.

Ears ringing, head spinning, Zedd tried to situp when he was kicked, knowing it was a command. Hespat out dirt. With his hands tied behind his backhe was having difficulty complying. After threekicks, a big man grabbed him by the hair and liftedhim upright.

Zedd's heart sank to see that they sat among anarmy of astounding size. The dark mass of humanityblighted the land as far as he could see. So, itwould seem, they had arrived.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adiesitting in the dirt beside him, her head hanging.
She had a livid bruise on her cheek. She didn't 
look up when a shadow fell across her.

A woman in a long drab skirt moved in beforethem, distracting him from his appraisal of theenemy forces. Zedd recognized the brown wool dress.
It was the Sister of the Dark who had put thecollar around their necks. He didn't know her name;
she'd never offered it. In fact, she hadn't spokento them since they were chained in their boxes. Shestood over them, now, like the strict governess ofincorrigible children.

The ring through her lower lip, marking her as aslave, in Zedd's mind irrevocably tarnished her airof authority.

The ground was covered with horse manure, most,
but not all, old and dried. Out beyond the Sister,
horses stood picketed seemingly without any order 


among the soldiers. Horses that looked like theymight belong to the cavalry were well kept.
Workhorses were not so healthy. Among the horsesand men, wagons and stacks of supplies dotted thelate-day landscape.

The place had the foul stink of shallowlatrines, horses, manure, and the filthy smell ofcrowded human habitation failing to meet commonsanitary needs. Zedd blinked when acrid woodsmokefrom one of the thousands of cook fires drifted 
across him, burning his eyes.

The air was also thick with mosquitoes, gnats,
and flies. The flies were the worst. The mosquitobites would itch later, but the flies stung theinstant they bit, and with his arms bound behindhis back, there wasn't much he could do about itother than shake his head to try to keep them outof his eyes and nose.

The two soldiers who had freed Zedd and Adie 
from their boxes stood patiently to the sides.
Beyond the woman's skirts a vast encampment spreadout as far as the eye could see. There were meneverywhere, men engaged in work, at rest, and atrecreation. They were dressed in every variety ofclothing, from leather armor, chain mail, andstudded belts to hides, dirty tunics, and trousersin the process of rotting into rags. Most of themen were unshaven, and all were as filthy as feralrecluses living in mad seclusion. The massencampment generated a constant din of yells,
whistles, men hollering and laughing, the jangleand rattle of metal, the ring of hammers or rhythmof saws, and, piercing through it all, theoccasional cry of someone in agonizing pain.

Tents by the thousands, tents of all sorts, likeleaves after a big wind, lay littering the gentlyrolling landscape at the foothills of toweringmountains to the east. Many a tent was decoratedwith loot; gingham curtains hung at an entrance, asmall chair or table sat before a tent, here and 


there an item of women's personal clothing flew asa flag of conquest. Wagons and horses and gear wereall jammed together among the rabble in no seemingplan. The ground had been churned to a fine dust bythe masses in this mock city devoid of skeletalorder. 

The place was a nightmare of humanity reduced tothe savagery of a mob on the loose, the scope oftheir goals no more than the impulse of the moment.
Though their leaders had ends, these men did not.

"His Excellency has requested you both," theSister said down to them. 

Neither Zedd nor Adie said anything. The menhauled them both to their feet. A sharp shovestarted them moving behind the Sister after shemarched away. Zedd noticed, then, that there weremore soldiers, close to a dozen, escorting them.
The wagon had delivered them to the end of a road,
of sorts, that ran a winding course through thesprawling encampment. The end of the road, wherewagons sat in a row, appeared to be the entrance toan inner camp, probably a command area. The regularsoldiers outside a ring of heavily armed guardsate, played dice, gambled, bartered loot, joked,
talked, and drank as they watched the prisonersbeing escorted.

The thought occurred to Zedd that if he calledout, proclaiming that he was the one who wasresponsible for the light spell that had killed orwounded so many of their chums, maybe the men wouldriot, set upon them, and kill them before Jaganghad a chance to do his worst. 

Zedd opened his mouth to try out his plan, butsaw the Sister glance back over her shoulder. Hediscovered that his voice was muted through hercontrol of the collar around his neck. There would 
be no speaking unless she allowed it.

Following the Sister, they walked past thestanding row of wagons in front of the one that hadbrought them. There were well over a dozen freight 


wagons all lined up before the cordoned-off areawith the larger tents. None of the wagons wereempty, but all were loaded with crates.

With sinking realization, Zedd understood. Thesewere wagons with goods looted from the Wizard'sKeep. These were all wagons that had made thejourney with them. They were all full of the thingsthose ungifted men, at the Sister's orders, hadtaken out of the Keep. Zedd feared to think whatpriceless items of profound danger sat in thesecrates. There were things in the Keep that becamehazardous to anyone should they be removed from theshields that guarded them. There were rare itemsthat, if removed from their protective environment,
such as darkness, for even a brief time, wouldcease to be viable. 

Guards in layered hides, mail, leather, andarmed with pikes set with long steel points flankedby sharpened winged blades, huge crescent axes,
swords, and spiked maces prowled the restrictedarea. These grim soldiers were bigger and moremenacing-looking than the regular men out in thecamp—and those were fearsome enough. While thespecial guards patrolled, ever watchful, theunconcerned regular soldiers just outside theperimeter carried on with their business.

The guards led the Sister, Zedd, and Adiethrough an opening in a line of spiked barricades.
Beyond were the smaller of the special tents. Mostwere round and the same size. Zedd thought thatthese were probably the tents of the staff theemperor would keep close, his attendants andpersonal slaves. Zedd wondered if the Sisters wereall held within the emperor's compound.

Up ahead, the palatial vision of the grand tentsof an emperor and his entourage rose up in thelate-afternoon light. No doubt some of thesecomfortable tents set about the center compound,
within the ring of tents for servants andattendants, were accommodations for high-ranking 


officers, officials, and the emperor's most trustedadvisors. 

Zedd wished he had a light spell and the abilityto ignite it. He could probably decapitate theImperial Order right then and there.

But he knew that such confusion and turmoil 
would only be a temporary setback for the ImperialOrder. They would provide another brute to enforcetheir message. It would take more than killingJagang to end the threat of the Order. He wasn'teven sure anymore just what it would take to freethe world of the oppression and tyranny of theImperial Order.

Despite the seductively simplistic notions heldby most people, the Emperor Jagang was not thedriving force of this invasion. The driving forcewas a vicious ideology. To exist, it could notpermit successful lives to be lived in sight of thesuffering masses produced as a result of thebeliefs and dictates of the Imperial Order. Thefreedom and resulting success of the people livingin the New World put the lie to all the Orderpreached. It was blasphemy to succeed on your own;
since the Order taught that it could not be done,
it could only be sinful. Sin had to be eliminatedfor the greater good. Therefore, the freedom of theNew World had to be crushed. 

"These the ones?" a guard with short-croppedhair asked. The rings hanging from his nose andears reminded Zedd of a prized pig decorated forthe summer fair. Of course, prized pigs would havebeen washed and clean and would have smelled 
better. 
"Yes," the Sister said. "Both of them, asinstructed." 

With deliberate care the man's dark-eyed gazetook in Adie and then Zedd. By his scowl, heapparently thought himself a righteous man who wasdispleased with what he saw: evil. After noting thecollars they both wore, showing that they would be 


no danger to the emperor, he stepped aside andlifted a thumb, directing them through a secondbarricade beyond the tents of the attendants,
servants, and slaves. The guard's glare followedthe sinners on their way to meet their proper fate.

Other men, from inside the inner compound, sweptin to surround them. Zedd saw that these men wore 
more orderly outfits. They were layered in similarleather and mail, wearing heavy leather weaponbelts, their chests crisscrossed with studdedstraps. There was a uniformity to them, a sameness,
that showed these were special guards. The weaponshung on those wide belts were better made, and theycarried more of them. By the way they moved, Zeddknew that these were not typical men rounded up tobe soldiers, but trained men with highly developedtalents for warfare. 
These were the emperor's elite bodyguards.

Zedd looked longingly at the nearly full waterbucket set out for the men standing guard in theheat. It wouldn't do, if you were an emperor, tohave your elite guards falling over from lack ofwater. Knowing what the response was likely to be,
Zedd didn't ask for a drink. A sidelong glanceshowed Adie licking her cracked lips, but she, too,
remained silent. 

Up a slight rise sat by far the largest andgrandest of the tents, among the impressive butlesser quarters of the emperor's retinue. Theemperor's tent appeared more a traveling palace,
actually, than a tent. It boasted a tri-peaked roofpierced by high poles bearing colorful standardsand flags. Brightly embroidered panels adorned theexterior walls. Red and yellow banners flappedlazily in the hot, late-day air. Tassels andstreamers all around it made it look like a central 
gathering tent at a festival.

A guard flanking a doorway met Zedd's gazebefore he lifted aside the lambskin covered with 
shields of gold and hammered medallions of silver, 


allowing them entrance. One of the other guardsstiff-armed Zedd's shoulder, nearly knocking himsprawling. Zedd staggered through the doorway intothe dimly lit interior, Adie stumbling in afterhim. 

Inside, the raucous noise of the encampment wasmuted by layers of rich carpets placed haphazardly.
Hundreds of silk and brocade pillows lined the edgeof the floor. Colorfully decorated hangings dividedup the murky interior space and covered the outerwalls. Openings overhead, screened with gauzymaterial, let in little light but did allow someair to move through the quiet gloom of the grandtent. It was so dim, in fact, that lamps andcandles were needed. 

In the middle of the room, toward the back, satan ornate chair draped with rich, red silks. Ifthis was Emperor Jagang's throne, he was not in it.

While guards surrounded Zedd and Adie, keepingthem restricted in place, one of the men went offbehind the fabric walls from where a glow of lightcame. The guards standing close around Zedd stankof sweat. Their shoes were caked with manure. For 
all the sumptuous surroundings doing their best tosimulate a reverent aura, a sacred setting, anabiding barnyard stench permeated the place. Thehorse manure and human sweat of the men who had 
entered the tent with Zedd and Adie were onlymaking it worse.

The man who had gone behind the walls poked hishead back out, signaling the Sister forward. Hewhispered to her and then she, too, disappearedbehind the walls. 

Zedd stole a look at Adie. Her completely whiteeyes stared ahead. He shifted his weight as anexcuse to lean toward her and stealthily touchedher shoulder with his, a message of comfort wherethere could be none. She returned a slight push;
message received, and appreciated. He longed toembrace her, but knew he probably never would 


again.

Muffled words could be heard, but the heavy wallhangings muted them so that Zedd couldn'tunderstand any of it. Had he access to his gift, hewould have been able to hear it all, but the collarcut him off from his ability. Even so, the natureof the Sister's report, the words, were short andbusinesslike. 

Those slaves working in the tent at brushingcarpets, or polishing fine vases, or waxingcabinets paid no attention to the people the guardshad brought in, but the sudden, low tone of menacethat came from beyond the wall caused them all toput markedly more attention into their work. Whileno doubt prisoners were brought before the emperoroften enough, Zedd was sure that it would not bewise for those working in the grand tent to pay anynotice to the emperor's business.
From beyond the walls composed of woven scenes alsocame the warm smell of food. The variety of scentsZedd was able to detect was astonishing. The stinkof the place, though, tended to make the fragrantaromas of meats, olive oil, garlic, onions, andspices somewhat repugnant.

The Sister stepped out from behind the wall ofcolorful hangings. The ring through her lower lipstood out in stark relief against her ashen skin.
She gave a slight nod to the men to either side ofthe prisoners.

Powerful fingers gripping their arms, Zedd andAdie were ushered toward the opening and the glowof light beyond. 

 CHAPTER 37 


 Dragged to an abrupt halt, Zedd, at last,
stood shackled before the intent glower of thedream walker himself, Emperor Jagang.
Enthroned in an ornately carved high-backed chairbehind a grand dining table, Jagang leaned on bothelbows, a goose leg spanning his fingers as hechewed. Points of candlelight reflecting off thesides of his shaved head danced as the tendons all 
the way up through his temples rippled with hischewing. A thin mustache, growing down from thecorners of his mouth and at the center under his 
lower lip, moved rhythmically in time with his jaw,
as did the fine chain connected to gold loops inhis ear and nose. Greasy goose fat covering hismeaty, ringed fingers glistened in the candlelightand ran down his bare arms. 

From his place behind his table, Jagang casuallystudied his latest captives.

Despite the candles set about the table and onstands to either side, the inside of the tent hadthe murky feel of a dungeon.

To each side of him on the broad table sat 
plates of food, goblets, bottles, candles, bowls,
and, here and there, books and scrolls. There beingno room for all of the silver platters among themultitude, some of them had to be strategicallybalanced atop small decorated pillars. There lookedto be enough food for a small army.
For all the Order's talk of sacrifice for the 
betterment of mankind being their noble cause, Zeddknew that such abundance at the emperor's table wasmeant to send a contradictory message, even whenthere was no one but the emperor himself to see it.

Slaves stood lined up along the wall behindJagang, some holding additional platters, some instiff poses, all awaiting command. Some of those inback were young men—young wizards, from what Zeddhad heard—dressed in loose-fitting white trousers 


and nothing else. This was where wizards intraining at the Palace of the Prophets had endedup, along with the captured Sisters who had beentheir teachers. All were now captives of the dreamwalker. The most accomplished of men, men withenormous potential, were used as houseboys toperform menial tasks. This, too, was a message sentby the emperor of the Imperial Order to showeveryone that the best and the brightest were to beused to clean chamber pots, while brutes ruledthem. 

The younger women, Sisters of both the Dark andthe Light, Zedd assumed, wore outfits that ran fromneck to wrist to ankle, but were so transparentthat the women might as well have been naked. This,
too, was meant to show that Emperor Jagang thoughtlittle of these women's talents, and valued themonly for his pleasure. The older, less attractivewomen standing off to the sides wore drab clothes.
These were probably Sisters who served the emperorin other menial ways.

Jagang delighted in having under his control, asslaves, some of the most gifted people in theworld. It suited the nature of the Order to demean 
those with ability, rather than to celebrate them.

Jagang watched Zedd taking in the house slaves,
but showed no emotion. The dream walker's bull neck 
made him look almost other than human. The muscles 
of his chest, as well as his massive shoulders,
were displayed by an open, sleeveless lamb's-woolvest. He was as powerful and brawny a man as Zeddhad seen, an intimidating presence even at rest.

As Zedd and Adie stood mute, Jagang's teeth toreoff another chunk of meat from the goose leg. Inthe tense silence, he watched them as he chewed, asif deciding what he might do with his newestplunder.

More than anything, it was his inky black eyes,
devoid of any pupils, irises, or whites, thatthreatened to halt the blood in Zedd's veins. The 


last time he had seen those eyes, Zedd had not beenshackled, but that ungifted girl had prevented Zeddfrom finishing the man. That was going to turn outto be the missed opportunity that Zedd would mostregret. His chance to kill Jagang had slippedthrough his ringers that day, not because of thevast power of all the skilled Sisters and troopsarrayed against him, but all because of a singleungifted girl.

Those black eyes, the eyes of a mature dreamwalker, glistened in the candlelight. Across theirdark voids, dim shapes shifted, like clouds on amoonless night.

The directness of the dream walker's gaze was asobvious as was Adie's when she looked at Zedd with 
her pure white eyes. Under Ja-gang's direct glare,
Zedd had to remind himself to relax his muscles,
and remember to breathe. 

The thing about those eyes that most terrifiedhim, though, was what he saw in them: a keen,
calculating mind. Zedd had fought against Jaganglong enough to have come to understand that oneunderestimated this man at great peril.

"Jagang the Just," the Sister said, holding anintroductory hand out to the nightmare before them.
"Excellency, this is Zeddicus Zu'l Zo-rander, FirstWizard, and a sorceress by the name of Adie."

"I know who they are," Jagang said in a deepvoice as heavy with threat as with distaste.

He leaned back, hanging one arm over the back ofthe chair and one leg over a carved arm. Hegestured with the goose leg.
"Richard Rahl's grandfather, as I hear told."
Zedd said nothing.

Jagang tossed the partially eaten leg on aplatter and picked up a knife. With one hand hesawed a chunk of red meat off a roast and stabbed 
it. Elbow on the table, he waved the knife as hespoke. Red juice ran down the blade.
"Probably not the way you had hoped to meet me." 


 He laughed at his own joke, a deep, resonatingsound alive with menace. 

With his teeth, Jagang drew the chunk of meatoff the knife and chewed as he watched them, as ifunable to decide on a wealth of delightfullyterrible options parading through his thoughts.
He washed the meat down with a gulp from a jeweledsilver goblet, his gaze never leaving them. "Ican't tell you how pleased I am that you have cometo visit me." 
His grin was like death itself. "Alive."

He rolled his wrist, circling the knife. "Wehave a lot to talk about." His laugh died out, butthe grin remained. "Well, you do, anyway. I'll be agood host and listen."

Zedd and Adie remained silent as Jagang's black-
eyed gaze went from one to the other.

"Not so talkative, just yet? Well, no matter.
You will be babbling soon enough."

Zedd didn't waste the effort telling Jagang thattorture would gain him nothing. Jagang would notbelieve any such boast, and even if he did, itwould hardly stay his wish to see it done.

Jagang fingered a few grapes from a bowl. "Youare a resourceful man, Wizard Zorander." He poppedseveral grapes in his mouth and chewed as he spoke.
"All alone there in Aydindril, with an armysurrounding you, you managed to gull me intothinking I had trapped Richard Rahl and the MotherConfessor. Quite a trick. I must give you creditwhere credit is due. 

"And the light spell you ignited among my men,
that was remarkable." He put another grape in hismouth. "Do you have any idea how many hundreds ofthousands of them were caught up in your wizardry?"

Zedd could see the corded muscles in the man's 
hairy arm draped over the back of the chair standout as he flexed the fist. He relaxed the hand then 
and leaned forward, using his thumb to gouge out along chunk of ham. 


 He waved the meat as he went on. "It's that kind 
of magic I need you to do for me, good wizard. Iunderstand, from the stupid bitches I have who callthemselves the Sisters of the Light, or the Sistersof the Dark, depending on who they've decided canoffer better favors in the afterlife, that youprobably didn't conjure that little bit of magic onyour own, but, rather, you used a constructed spellfrom the Wizard's Keep and simply ignited it amongmy men with some kind of trick, or trigger—probablysome small curiosity that one of them picked up andin the act of having a look, they set it off."

Zedd was somewhat alarmed that Jagang had beenable to learn so much. The emperor took a big biteoff the end of the piece of ham as he watched them.
His indulgent look was beginning to wear thin.

"So, since you can't do such marvelous magicyourself, I've had a few items brought from theKeep so you can tell me how they work, what theydo. I'm sure there must be a great number ofintriguing items among the inventory. I'd like tohave some of those conjured spells so they can blowopen a few of the passes into D'Hara for us. Itwould save me some time and trouble. I'm sure youcan understand my eagerness to be into D'Hara andhave this petty resistance finally over with."

Zedd heaved a deep breath and finally spoke.
"For most of those items, you could torture me tothe end of time and I still wouldn't be able to 
tell you anything because I don't have anyknowledge of them. Unlike you, I know my ownlimits. I simply don't know what such a spell mightlook like. Even if I did, that doesn't mean I wouldknow how to work it. I was simply lucky with thatone I used." 

"Maybe, maybe, but you do know about some of theitems. You are, after all, as I hear told, FirstWizard; it is your Keep. To claim ignorance of thethings in it is hardly credible. Despite your claimof luck, you managed to know enough about that 


constructed light web to ignite it among my men, soyou obviously have knowledge about the mostpowerful of the items."

"You don't know the first thing about magic,"
Zedd snapped. "You have a head full of grand ideasand you think all you have to do is command they bedone. Well, they can't. You're a fool who doesn'tknow the first thing about real magic or itslimits." 

An eyebrow lifted over one of Jagang's inkyeyes. "Oh, I think I know more than you mightthink, wizard. You see, I love to read, and I,
well, I have the advantage of perusing some of themost remarkably gifted minds you can imagine. Iprobably know a great deal more about magic thanyou give me credit for."
"I give you credit for bold self-delusion."

"Self-delusion?" He spread his arms. "Can youcreate a Slide, Wizard Zorander?"

Zedd froze. Jagang had heard the name; that wasall. The man liked to read. He'd read that name 
somewhere. 
"Of course not, and neither can anyone else alivetoday."

"You can't create such a being, Wizard Zorander.
But you have no idea how much I know about magic.
You see, I've learned to bring lost talents back tolife—arts that have long been believed to be deadand vanished." 

"I give you the grandiosity of your dreaming,
Jagang, but dreaming is easy. Your dreams can't bemade real just because you dream them and decidethat you wish them to come alive."

"Sister Tahirah, here, knows the truth of it."
Jagang gestured with his knife. "Tell him, darlin.
Tell him what I can dream and what I can bring tolife." 

The woman hesitantly stepped forward severalpaces. "It is as His Excellency says." She lookedaway from Zedd's frown to fuss with her wiry gray 


hair. "With His Excellency's brilliant direction,
we were able to bring back some of the oldknowledge. With the expert guidance of our emperor,
we were able to invest in a wizard named Nicholas 
an ability not seen in the world for three thousandyears. It is one of His Excellency's greatestachievements. I can personally assure you that itis as His Excellency says; a Slide again walks theworld. It is no fancy, Wizard Zorander, but thetruth. 

"The spirits help me," she added under herbreath, "I was there to see the Slide born into theworld." 

"You created a Slide?" Fists still bound behind 
his back, Zedd took an angry stride toward theSister. "Are you out of your mind, woman!" Sheretreated to the back wall. Zedd turned his fury onJagang. "Slides were a catastrophe! They can't becontrolled! You would have to be crazy to createone!" 

Jagang smiled. "Jealous, wizard? Jealous thatyou are unable to accomplish such a thing, can'tcreate such a weapon against me, while I can createone to take Richard Rahl and his wife from you?"
"A Slide has powers you couldn't possibly control."

"A Slide is no danger to a dream walker. Myability is quicker than his. I am his better."
"It doesn't matter how quick you are—it isn't aboutbeing quick! A Slide can't be controlled and heisn't going to do what you want!"

"I seem to be controlling him just fine." Jagangleaned in on an elbow. "You think magic isnecessary to control those you would master, but Idon't need magic. Not with Nicholas nor withmankind. 

"You seem to be obsessed with control, I am not.
I managed to find a people those like you didn'twant to walk freely among their fellow man, apeople cast out by the gifted, a people reviled fornot having any spark of your precious gift of 


magic—a people hated and banished because your kindwasn't able to control them. That was their crime: 
being outside the control of your magic."

Jagang's fist slammed the table. The slaves alljumped with the platters.

"This is how your kind wants mankind's future tobe; your kind wants only those with a spark of thegift to be allowed to walk free. This, so you canuse your gift to control them! Like that collararound your neck, your lust is to collar all ofmankind with magic.

"I found those outcast ungifted people and havebrought them back into the fold of their fellowman. Much to your disapproval and the loathing ofyour kind, they can't be touched by your vilemagic."

Zedd couldn't imagine where Jagang had foundsuch people. "And so now you have a Slide tocontrol them for you."

"Your kind condemned and banished them; we havewelcomed them among us. In fact, we wish to modelman himself after them. Our cause is theirs bytheir very nature—purity of mankind without anytaint of magic. In this way the world will be oneand at last at peace.

"I have the advantage over you, wizard; I haveright on my side. I don't need magic to win; youdo. I have mankind's best future in mind and have 
set our irreversible course. 

"With the help of these people, I took yourKeep. With their help, I have recovered invaluabletreasures from within. You couldn't do a thing tostop them, now could you? Man will now set his owncourse, without the curse of magic darkening hisstruggle.

"I now have a Slide to help us to that nobleend. He is working with those people for thebenefit of our cause. In doing so, Nicholas hasalready proved invaluable.
"What's more, that Slide, which your kind could 


never control, has vowed to deliver to me the two Iwant most: your grandson and his wife. I have greatthings planned for them—well, for her, anyway." Hisred-faced rage melted into a grin. "For him, not sogreat things."

Zedd could hardly contain his own rage. Were itnot for the collar stifling his gift, he would havereduced the entire place to ash by now.

"Once this Nicholas becomes adept at what he cando, you will find that he will want revenge of hisown, and a price you may find far too high."

Jagang spread his arms. "There, you are wrong,
wizard. I can afford whatever Nicholas wants for 
Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor. There is no 
such thing as a price too high.

"You may think me greedy and selfish, but youwould be wrong. While I enjoy the spoils, I mostrelish the role I play in bringing heathens toheel. It is the end that truly concerns me, and inthe end I will have mankind bow as they should toour just cause and the Creator's ways."

Jagang seemed to have spent his flash ofintensity. He leaned back and scooped walnuts froma silver bowl. 

"Zedd be wrong," Adie finally spoke up. "Youhave shown us that you know what you be doing. Youwill be able to control your Slide just fine. May Isuggest you keep him close, to aid you in yourefforts." 

Jagang smiled at her. "You, too, my dried-up oldsorceress, will be telling me all you know aboutwhat is in those crates." 

"Bah," Adie scoffed. "You be a fool withworthless treasures. I hope you pull a musclecarrying them with you everywhere."

"Adie's right," Zedd put in. "You are anincompetent oaf who is only going to—"

"Oh, come, come, you two. Do you think you willthrow me into a fit of rage and I'll slaughter theboth of you on the spot?" His wicked grin returned. 


"Spare you the proper justice of what is to come?"
Zedd and Adie fell silent. 

"When I was a boy," Jagang said in a quietertone as he stared off into the distance, "I wasnothing. A street tough in Altur'Rang. A bully. Athief. My life was empty. My future was the nextmeal. 
"One day, I saw a man coming down the street. Helooked like he might have some money and I wantedit. It was getting dark. I came up silently behindhim, intending to bash in his head, but just thenhe turned and looked me in the eye.

"His smile stopped me in my tracks. It wasn't akindly smile, or a weak smile, but the kind ofsmile a man gives you when he knows he can kill youwhere you stand if it pleases him.

"He pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped itto me, and then, without a word, turned and went onhis way.

"A few weeks later, in the middle of the night,
I woke up in an alley, where I slept under oldblankets and crates, and I saw a shadowy form outby the street. I knew it was him before he flippedme the coin and moved off into the darkness. 

"The next time I saw him, he was sitting on astone bench at the edge of an old square that someof the less fortunate men of Altur'Rang frequented.
Like me, no one would give these men a chance inlife. People's greed had sucked the life out ofthese men. I used to go there to look at them, totell myself I didn't want to grow up to be likethem, but I knew I would, a nobody, human refusewaiting to pass into the shadow of oblivion in theafterlife. A soul without worth. 

"I sat down on the bench beside the man and 
asked him why he'd given me money. Instead ofgiving me some answer that most people would give aboy, he told me about mankind's grand purpose, themeaning of life, and how we are here only as abrief stop on the way to what the Creator has in 


store for us—if we are strong enough to rise to thechallenge.

"I'd never heard such a thing. I told him that Ididn't think that such things mattered in my lifebecause I was only a thief. He said that I was onlystriking back from the injustice of my lot in life.
He said that mankind was evil for making me the wayI was and only through sacrifice and helping thoselike me could man hope to be redeemed in theafterlife. He opened my mind to man's sinful ways.

"Before he left, he turned back and asked me ifI knew how long eternity was. I said no. He saidthat our miserable time in this world was but a 
blink before we entered the next world. That reallymade me think, for the first time, about ourgreater purpose.

"Over the next months, Brother Narev took thetime to talk to me, to tell me about Creation andeternity. He gave me a vision of a possible betterfuture where before I had none. He taught me aboutsacrifice and redemption. I thought I was doomed toan eternity of darkness until he showed me thelight.
"He took me in, in return for helping him withlife's chores. 

"For me, Brother Narev was a teacher, a priest,
an advisor, a means to salvation"—Jagang's gazerose to Zedd—"and a grandfather, all rolled intoone. 

"He gave me the fire of what mankind can andshould be. He showed me the true sin of selfish 
greed and the dark void of where it would leadmankind. Over time, he made me the fist of hisvision. He was the soul; I was the bone and muscle.

"Brother Narev allowed me the honor of ignitingthe revolution. He placed me at the fore of therise of mankind over the oppression of sinfulness.
We are the new hope for the future of man, andBrother Narev himself allowed me to be the one to 
carry his vision in the cleansing flames of 


mankind's redemption."

Jagang leaned back in his chair, fixing Zeddwith as grim a look as Zedd had ever seen.

"And then this spring, while carrying BrotherNarev's noble challenge to mankind, to those whohad never had a chance to see the vision of what 
man can be, of the future without the blight ofmagic and oppression and greed and groveling to bebetter than others, I came to Aydindril... and whatdo I find? 

"Brother Narev's head on a pike, with a note,
'Compliments of Richard Rahl.'

"The man I admired most in the world, the manwho brought to us all the hallowed dream ofmankind's true purpose in this life as charged bythe Creator himself, was dead, his head stuck on apike by your grandson.

"If ever there was a greater blasphemy, agreater crime against the whole of mankind, I don'tknow of it." 

Sullen shapes shifted across Jagang's blackeyes. "Richard Rahl will be dealt justice. He willsuffer such a blow, before I send him to theKeeper. I just wanted you to know your fate, oldman. Your grandson will know something of that kindof pain, and the additional torment of knowing thatI have his bride and will make her pay dearly forher own crimes." A ghost of the grin returned.
"After he has paid this price, then I will killhim." 

Zedd yawned. "Nice story. You left out all theparts where you slaughter innocent people by thetens of thousands because they don't want to liveunder your vile rule or Narev's sick, twistedvision. 

"On second thought, don't bother with the sorryexcuses. Just cut off my head, put it on a pike,
and be done with it." 

Jagang's smile returned in its full glory. "Notas easily as that, old man. First you have some 


talking to do." 

 CHAPTER 38 

Ah, yes," Zedd said. "The torture. I almost
forgot."
"Torture?" 


With two fingers Jagang signaled a woman to theside. The older Sister standing wringing her handsflinched at seeing his gaze on her and immediatelyrushed off behind a curtain of wall hangings. Zeddcould hear her whispering urgent instructions topeople beyond, and then the thump of feet rushingacross the carpets and out of the tent.

Jagang went back to his leisurely meal whileZedd and Adie stood before him, starving, dying ofthirst. The dream walker finally set his knifeacross a plate. Seeing this, the slaves sprang intoaction, clearing away the variety of dishes, mosthaving been tasted, but that hardly made a dent inthem. In a matter of moments the entire table was 
emptied of the food and drink, leaving only thebooks, the scrolls, the candles, and the silverbowl of walnuts. 

Sister Tahirah, the Sister who had captured Zeddand Adie at the Keep, stood to the side, her handsclasped before her as she watched them. Despite herobvious fear of Jagang, and her servile fawningover the man, the knowing smirk at Zedd and Adiebetrayed the pleasure she was deriving from what 


was to come. 

When half a dozen grisly men entered the roomand stood off to the side, Zedd began to understandwhat it was that pleased Sister Tahirah.

They were unkempt, brawny, and as merciless-
looking as any men Zedd had ever seen. Their hairwas wildly tangled and greasy. Their hands andforearms were spattered with sooty smears, theirfingernails ragged and foul. Their filthy clotheswere stained dark with dried blood from the labor 
of their profession.
These men worked at torture. 

Zedd looked away from the Sister's steady gaze.
She hoped to see fear, panic, or perhaps sobbing.

Then a group of men and women were ushered intothe dim room in the emperor's tent. They looked tobe farmers or humble working folk, probably pickedup by patrols. The men embraced their wives aschildren huddled around the women's skirts like 
chicks around hens. The people were herded over tothe side of the room, opposite the line oftorturers. 

Zedd's eyes suddenly turned to Jagang. The dreamwalker's black eyes were watching him as he cheweda walnut. 

"Emperor," said the Sister who had brought thefamilies in, "these are some of the local people,
people from the countryside, as you requested." Sheheld an introductory hand out. "Good people, thisis our revered emperor, Jagang the Just. He bringsthe light of the Imperial Order to the world,
guided by the Creator's wisdom, that we might alllead better lives and find salvation with the 
Creator in the afterlife." 

Jagang surveyed the cluster of Midlanders asthey awkwardly bowed and curtsied.

Zedd felt sick at seeing the timid terror ontheir faces. They would have had to walk throughthe encampment of Order soldiers. They would haveseen the size of the force that had overrun their 


homeland. 

Jagang lifted his arm toward Zedd. "Perhaps youknow this man? This is First Wizard Zorander. He is 
one who has ruled you with his command of magic. Asyou can see, he is now shackled before us. We havefreed you from the wicked rule of this man andthose like him." 

The people's eyes darted between Zedd andJagang, unsure of their role in the emperor's tent,
or what they were supposed to do. They finallybobbed their heads, mumbling their thanks for theirliberation. 

"The gifted, like these two, could have usedtheir ability to help mankind. Instead, they usedit for themselves. Where they should havesacrificed for those in need, they were selfish. Itis criminal to behave as they have, live as theyhave, with all they have. It makes me angry tothink of all they could do for those in need, thoselike you poor people, were it not for their selfishways. People suffer and die without the help theycould have had, without the help these people couldhave given, were they not so self-centered.

"This wizard and his sorceress are here because 
they have refused to help us free the rest of thepeople of the New World by telling us the functionof the vile things of magic we have captured alongwith them—things of magic they scheme to use toslaughter untold numbers of people. This selfishwizard and sorceress do this out of spite that theycould not have their way."
All the wide eyes turned to Zedd and Adie.

"I could tell you people of the vast numbers ofdeaths this man is responsible for, but I fear youwould be unable to fathom it. I can tell you that Isimply cannot allow this man to be responsible fortens of thousands more deaths." 

Jagang smiled at the children then and gesturedwith both hands, urging them to come to him. Thechildren, a dozen or so, from six or seven to maybe 


twelve, clung to their parents. Jagang's gaze roseto those parents as he again motioned the childrento come to him. The parents understood andreluctantly urged their children to do as theemperor bid of them.

The clump of innocence haltingly approachedJagang's outstretched arms and wide grin. Heembraced them woodenly as they shuffled in closearound him. He tousled the blond hair of a boy, andthen the straight sandy hair of a girl. Several ofthe younger ones peered pleadingly back at parentsbefore cringing at Jagang's meaty hand on theirbacks, his jovial pat on their cheek.
Silent terror hung thick in the air.
It was as frightening a sight as Zedd had everwitnessed. 

"Well, now," the smiling emperor said, "let meget to the reason I have called upon you people."

His powerful arms gathered the children beforehim. As a Sister blocked a boy wanting to return tohis parents, Jagang put his huge hands on a younggirl's waist and set her upon his knee. The girl'swide eyes stared up at the smiling face, the baldhead, but mostly at the nightmare void of the dreamwalker's inky eyes.

Jagang looked from the girl back to the parents.
"You see, the wizard and sorceress have refused tooffer their help. In order to save a great manylives, I must have their cooperation. They mustanswer honestly all my questions. They refuse. I'mhoping you good people can convince them to tell uswhat we need to know in order to save the lives of 
a great many people, and free a great many morefrom the oppression of their magic."

Jagang looked toward the row of men standingsilently against the opposite wall. With a singletilt of his head, he commanded them forward.

"What are you doing?" a woman asked, even as herhusband tried to restrain her. "What do youintend?" 


 "What I intend," Jagang told the crowd ofparents, "is for you good people to convince thewizard and the sorceress to talk. I'm going to putyou in a tent alone with them so that you canpersuade them to do their duty to mankind—persuadethem to cooperate with us."

As the men began seizing the children, theyfinally burst out in frightened crying. Theparents, seeing their red-faced children bawling interror, cried out themselves and rushed forward toretrieve them. The big men, each holding one or twolittle arms in a fist, shoved the parents back.
The parents fell to hysterical screaming for thechildren to be freed. 

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," Jagang saidover the wails of the children. He tilted his head 
again and the men started carting the twisting,
screaming children out of the tent. The parentswere wailing as well, trying to reach in past bigfilthy arms to touch what was to them most preciousin the world. 

The parents were bewildered and horrified,
fearing to cross a line that would bring wrath downon their children, yet not wanting them to becarted away. Against their urgent pleading, thechildren were swiftly whisked away.

As the children were taken out, the Sistersimmediately blocked the doorway behind them,
keeping the parents from following. The tent fellto pandemonium.

With the single word "silence" from Jagang, andhis fist on the table, everyone fell silent.

"Now," Jagang said, "these two prisoners aregoing to be confined to a tent. All of you aregoing to be in there, alone, with them. There willbe no guards, no watchers."

"But what about our children?" a woman in tears 
begged, caring nothing about Zedd and Adie.

Jagang pulled a squat candle toward him on thetable. "This will be the tent with these two, and 


you good people." He circled a finger around thecandle. "All around this tent with you and thecriminals, there will be other tents close."

Everyone stared at his ringed finger going roundand round the candle. "Your children will be close 
by, in these tents." Jagang scooped up a handful ofwalnuts from the silver bowl. He dribbled some onto 
the table around the candle and put the rest intohis mouth. 

The room was silent as they all stared at him,
watching him chew the walnuts, afraid to ask aquestion, afraid to hear what he might say next.

Finally a woman could no longer hold her tongue.
"Why will they be there, in those tents?"

Jagang's black eyes took them all in before hespoke, making sure none would miss what he had totell them. 

"Those men who took your children to those tentswill be torturing them."

The parents' eyes widened. Blood drained fromtheir faces. One woman fainted. Several others bent 
to her. Sister Tahirah squatted beside the womanand touched a hand to the woman's forehead. The 
woman's eyes popped open. The Sister told the womento get her to her feet.

When Jagang was satisfied that he had everyone'sattention, he circled a finger around the candleagain, over the walnuts around it. "The tents willbe close around so you can all clearly hear yourchildren being tortured, to be sure that youunderstand that they will not be spared the worstthose men can do." 

The parents stood frozen, staring, seeminglyunable to believe the reality of what they werehearing.

"Every few hours, I will come to see if you goodpeople have convinced the wizard and the sorceressto tell us what we need to know. If you have notsucceeded, then I will go off to other business andwhen I have the time I will return again to check 


if these two have decided to talk. 

"Just be sure that this wizard and sorceress do 
not die while you convince them to be reasonable.
If they die, then they can't answer our questions.
Only when and if they answer questions will thechildren be released." 

Jagang turned his nightmare eyes on Zedd. "Mymen have a great deal of experience at torturingpeople. When you hear the screams coming from thetents all around, you will have no doubt as totheir skill, or their determination. I think youshould know that they can keep their guests aliveunder torture for days, but they cannot workmiracles. People, especially such young, tendersouls, cannot survive indefinitely. But, shouldthese children die before you agree to cooperate,
there are plenty more families with children whocan take their place."

Zedd could not halt the tears that ran down his 
face to drip off his chin as Sister Tahirah tookhis arm and pulled him toward the doorway. Thecrowd of parents fell on him, clawing at hisclothes, screaming and crying for him to do as theemperor asked.

Zedd dug in his heels and struggled to a stopbefore the table. Desperate hands clutched at hisrobes. As he looked around at their tear-stained 
faces, meeting the eyes of each, they fell silent.

"I hope you people can now understand the natureof what it is we are fighting. I am so sorry, but Icannot dull the pain of this darkest hour of yourlives. If I were to do as this man wants, countlessmore children would be subjected to this tyrant'sbrutality. I know that you will not be able toweigh this against the precious lives of yourchildren, but I must. Pray the good spirits takethem quickly, and take them to a place of eternalpeace."

Zedd could not say more to them, to theirdesperate gazes. He turned his watery eyes to 


Jagang. "This will not work, Jagang. I know youwill do it anyway, but it will not work."
Behind the heavy table, Jagang slowly rose.
"Children in this land of yours are plentiful. Howmany are you prepared to sacrifice before you allowmankind to be free? How long are you willing topersist in your stubborn refusal to allow them tohave a future free from suffering, want, and youruninspired morals?"

The heavy gold and silver chains around hisneck, the looted medallions and ornaments restingagainst his muscled chest, and the rings of kingson his fingers all sparkled in the candlelight.

Zedd felt the numb weight of a hopeless futureunder the yoke of the monstrous ideals of this manand his ilk. 

"You cannot win in this, wizard. Like all thosewho fight on your side to oppress mankind, to allowthe common people to be left to cruel fate, you arenot even willing to sacrifice for the sake of thelives of children. You are brave with words, butyou have a cold soul and a weak heart. You don'thave the will to do what must be done to prevail. Ido." 

Jagang tilted his head and the Sister shovedZedd toward the door. The screaming, crying,
begging crowd of people closed in around Zedd andAdie, clawing and pawing at them in wilddesperation.

In the distance, Zedd could hear the horrifyingscreams of their terrified children 

 CHAPTER 39 

They aren't far," Richard said as he stepped 


back in among the trees. He stood silently watchingas Kahlan straightened the shoulders of her dress.
The dress showed no ill effects from its longconfinement in their packs. The almost white,
satiny smooth fabric glistened in the eerie lightof the churning overcast. The flowing lines of thedress, cut square at the neck, bore no lace orfrills, nothing to distract from its simpleelegance. The sight of Kahlan in that dress stilltook his breath away.

She looked out through the trees when they heardCara's whistle. The warning signal Richard hadtaught Cara was the plaintive, high, clear whistleof a common wood pewee, although Cara didn't knowthat's what it was. When he'd first told Cara that 
he wanted to teach her a pewee birdcall as awarning signal, she said she wasn't going to learnthe call of any bird named a pewee. Richard gave inand told her that he would instead teach her the 
call of the small, fierce, short-tailed pine hawk,
but only if she would be willing to work hard atgetting it right, since it was more difficult.
Satisfied to have her way, Cara had agreed andreadily learned the simple whistle. She was good atit and used it often as a signal. Richard nevertold her that there was no such thing as a short-
tailed pine hawk, or that hawks didn't makewhistles like that. 

Out through the screen of branches, the darkform of the statue stood guard over an area of thepass that for thousands of years had been deserted.
Richard wondered again why the people back thenwould have put such a statue in a pass no one waslikely to ever again visit. He thought about theancient society that had placed it, and at whatthey must have thought, sealing people away for thecrime of not having a spark of the gift.

Richard brushed pine needles off the back of thesleeve of Kahlan's dress. "Here, hold still; let melook at you." 


 Kahlan turned back, arms at her sides, as hesmoothed the fabric at her upper arms. Her unafraidgreen eyes, beneath eyebrows that had the gracefularch of a raptor's wings in flight, met his gaze.
Her features seemed to have only grown moreexquisite since he had first met her. Her look, herpose, the way she gazed at him as if she could seeinto his soul, struck a chord in him. Clearlyevident in her eyes was the intelligence that hadfrom the first so captivated him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Despite everything, he couldn't hold back hissmile. "Standing there like that, in that dress,
your long hair so beautiful, the green of the treesbehind you... it just suddenly reminded me of thefirst time I saw you."

Her special smile, the smile she gave no one buthim, spread radiantly through her bewitching eyes.
She put her wrists on his shoulders and locked herfingers behind his neck, pulling him into a kiss.

As it always did, her kiss so completelyconsumed him with his need of her that he 
momentarily lost track of the world. She meltedinto his embrace. For that moment there was no 
Imperial Order, no Bandakar, no D'Haran Empire, noSword of Truth, no chimes, no gift turning itspower against him, no poison, no warning beacons,
no black-tipped races, no Jagang, no Nicholas, noSisters of the Dark. Her kiss made him forgeteverything but her. In that moment there wasnothing but the two of them. Kahlan made his lifecomplete; her kiss reaffirmed that bond.

She pulled back, gazing up into his eyes again.
"Seems like you've had nothing but trouble eversince that day you found me."

Richard smiled. "My life is what I've had sincethat day I found you. When I found you, I found mylife." 
Holding her face in both hands, he kissed heragain. 


Betty nudged his leg and bleated.

"You two about ready?" Jennsen called down thehill. "They'll be here, soon. Didn't you hearCara's whistle?" 
"We heard," Kahlan called up to Jennsen. "We'll beright there."

Turning back, she smiled as she looked him upand down. "Well, Lord Rahl, you certainly don'tlook the way you did the first time I saw you." Shestraightened the tooled leather baldric lying overthe black tunic banded in gold. "But you lookexactly the same, too. Your eyes are the same as Isaw that day." She cocked her head as she smiled upat him. "I don't see the headache of the gift inyour eyes."

"It's been gone for a while, but after thatkiss, it would be impossible to have a headache."

"Well, if it comes back," she said with intimatepromise, "just tell me and I'll see what I can doto make it go away."

Richard ran his fingers through her hair andgazed one last time into her eyes before slippinghis arm around her waist. Together they walkedthrough the cathedral of trees that was their coveroff to the side near the crown of the ridge, andout toward the open slope. Between the trunks ofthe pines, he could see Jennsen running down thehill, leaping from rock to rock, avoiding thepatches of snow. She rushed in to meet them justwithin the small cluster of trees. 

"I spotted them," she said, breathlessly. "Icould see them down in the gorge on the far side.
They'll be up here soon." A grin brightened herface. "I saw Tom leading them."

Jennsen took in the sight of both of them, then—
Kahlan in the white dress of the Mother Confessor 
and Richard in the outfit he had in part found inthe Keep that had once been worn by war wizards. Bythe surprise on Jennsen's face, he thought shemight curtsy. 


 "Wow," she said. "That sure is some dress." Shelooked Richard up and down again. "You two looklike you should rule the world."
"Well," Richard said, "let's hope Owen's peoplethink so." 
Cara pushed a spruce bough aside as she ducked inunder the limbs of trees. Dressed again in herskintight red leather outfit, she looked asintimidating as she had the first time Richard hadseen her in the grand halls of the People's Palacein D'Hara. 

"Lord Rahl once confided in me that he intended 
to rule the world," Cara said, having heardJennsen's pronouncement.
"Really?" Jennsen asked.

Richard sighed at her awe. "Ruling the world hasproven more difficult than I thought it would be."

"If you would listen more to the MotherConfessor and to me," Cara advised, "you would havean easier time of it." 

Richard ignored Cara's cockiness. "Would you geteverything together? I want to be up there withKahlan before Tom arrives with Owen and his men." 

Cara nodded and started collecting the thingsthey'd been working so hard to make, stacking someand taking a count of others. Richard laid a handon Jennsen's shoulder. 

"Tie Betty up so that she'll stay here for now.
All right? We don't need her in the way."

"I'll see to it," Jennsen said as she fussedwith ringlets of her red hair. "I'll make sure shewon't be able to bother us or wander off." 

It was plainly evident how eager she was to seeTom again. "You look beautiful," Richard assuredher. Her grin returned to overpower the anxiousexpression.

Betty's tail was a blur as she peered up atthem, eager to go wherever the rest of them weregoing. "Come on," Jennsen said to her friend,
"you're staying here for a while." 


 Jennsen snatched Betty's rope, holding her back,
as Richard, with Kahlan close at his side, made hisway out past the last of the trees and onto theopen ledge. Somber clouds hung low against the faceof surrounding mountains. With the toweringsnowcapped peaks hidden by the low, ominous clouds,
Richard thought it felt like they were near theroof of the world. 

The wind down at the ground had died, leavingthe trees motionless and, by contrast, making theboiling movement of the cloud masses seem almostalive. The flurries of the day before had ended andthen the sun had made a brief appearance to shrinkthe patches of snow on the pass. He didn't thinkthere was much chance of seeing the sun this day.

The towering stone sentinel waited at the top ofthe trail, watching forever over the pass and outtoward the Pillars of Creation. As they approachedit, Richard scanned the surrounding sky but sawonly some small birds—flycatchers and white-
breasted nuthatches—flitting among the nearby standof spruce trees. He was relieved that the races hadremained absent ever since they had taken thisancient trail up through the pass.

The first night up in the pass, farther backdown the slope in the heavier forests, they hadworked hard to build a snug shelter, just managingto get it done as darkness had settled into thevast woods. Early the next day, Richard had clearedsnow off the statue and all around the ledges ofthe base. 
He had discovered more writing.

He now knew more about this man whose statue had 
been placed there in the pass. Another small flurryhad since dusted snow over the writing, buryingagain the long-dead words.

Kahlan placed a comforting hand on his back.
"They will listen, Richard. They will listen toyou."

With every breath, pain pulled at him from deep 


inside. It was getting worse. "They'd better, orI'll have no chance to get the antidote to thispoison."

He knew he couldn't do it alone. Even if he knew 
how to call upon his gift and command its magic, hestill would not be able to wave a hand or performsome grand feat of conjuring that would cast theImperial Order out of the Bandakaran Empire. Heknew that such things were beyond the scope of eventhe most powerful magic. Magic, properly used,
properly conceived, was a tool, much like hissword, employed to accomplish a goal.

Magic was not what would save him. Magic was nota panacea. If he was to succeed, he had to use hishead to come up with a way to prevail.
He no longer knew if he could even depend on themagic of the Sword of Truth. Nor did he know howlong he had before his own gift might kill him. Attimes, it felt as if his gift and the poison werein a race to see which could do him in first. 

Richard led Kahlan the rest of the way up andaround to the back of the statue, to a smallprominence of rock at the very top of the passwhere he wanted to wait for the men. From that spotthey could see through the gaps in the mountainsand back into Bandakar. Out at the edge of thelevel area, Richard spotted Tom down below leadingthe men through the trees and up the switchbacktrail. 

Tom peered up as he ascended the trail andspotted Richard and Kahlan. He saw how they weredressed, where they stood, and gave no familiarwave, realizing that doing so would beinappropriate. Through breaks in the trees, Richardcould see men following Tom's gaze up above them.

Richard lifted his sword a few inches, checkingthat it was clear in its scabbard. Overhead, thedark, towering clouds all around seemed to havegathered, as if they were all crowding into theconfines of the pass to watch. 


 Standing tall as he gazed off to the unknownland beyond, to an unknown empire, Richard tookKahlan's hand. 

Hand in hand, they silently awaited what wouldbe the beginning of a challenge that would changeforever the nature of the world, or would be theend of his chance at life. 

 CHAPTER 40 

As the men following Tom emerged from the treesbelow and into the open, Richard was dismayed tosee that their numbers were far less than Owen said 
had been hiding with him in the hills. Rubbing thefurrows on his brow with his fingertips, Richardstepped back up to the short plateau where Kahlanwaited. 
Her own brow drew down with concern. "What's 
wrong?"
"I doubt they brought fifty men."

Kahlan took up his hand again, her voice comingin gentle assurance. "That's fifty more than wehad." 

Cara came up behind them, dropping her load offto the side. She took up station behind Richard tohis left, on the opposite side from Kahlan. Richardmet her grim gaze. He wondered how the woman alwaysmanaged to look as if she fully expected everythingto happen just as she wished it to happen, and thatwas the end of it. 

Tom stepped up over the edge of the rock, themen following. He was sweating from the exertion ofthe climb, but a tight smile warmed his face when 


he saw Jennsen just coming up the other side of therise. She returned the brief smile and then stood 
in the shadows beside the base of the statue, backout of the way.

When the unkempt band of men caught sight ofRichard in his black pants and boots, black tunictrimmed in a band of gold around the edge, thebroad leather belt, the leather-padded silverwristbands with ancient symbols circling them, andthe gleaming silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard, theyseemed to lose their courage. When they saw Kahlanstanding beside him, they cowered back toward theedge, bowing hesitantly, not knowing what they weresupposed to do.

"Come on, then," Tom told them, prompting themall to come up onto the expanse of flat rock infront of Richard and Kahlan. 

Owen whispered to the men as he moved amongthem, urging them to come forward as Tom wasgesturing. They complied timidly, shuffling in alittle closer, but still leaving a wide safetymargin between themselves and Richard.

As the men all gazed about, unsure as to whatthey were supposed to do next, Cara stepped forwardand held an arm out toward Richard. 

"I present Lord Rahl," she said in a clear tonethat rang out over the men gathered at the top ofthe pass, "the Seeker of Truth and wielder of theSword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master ofthe D'Haran Empire, and husband to the MotherConfessor herself." 

If the men had looked timid and unsure before,
Cara's introduction made them all the more so. When 
they looked from Richard and Kahlan back to Cara'spenetrating blue eyes, seeing her waiting, they allwent to a knee in a bow before Richard. 

When Cara stepped deliberately to the fore, infront of the men, turned, and went to her knees,
Tom got the message and did the same. Both bentforward and touched their foreheads to the ground. 


 In the silent, late-morning air, the men waited,
still unsure what it was they were to do.
"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara said in a clearvoice so the men could all hear her. She waited. 

Tom looked back over his shoulder at all the 
blond-headed men watching. When Tom frowned withdispleasure, the men understood that they wereexpected to follow the lead. They all finally wentto both knees and bowed forward, imitating Tom andCara, until their foreheads touched the coldgranite.

"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara began again, neverlifting her forehead from the ground.
This time, led by Tom, the men all repeated thewords after her. 
"Master Rahl, guide us," they said with a decidedlack of unity.

"Master Rahl, teach us," Cara said when they allhad finished the beginning of the oath. Theyfollowed her lead again, but still hesitantly andwithout much coordination. 
"Master Rahl, protect us," Cara said.

The men repeated the words, their voices cominga little more in union. 
"In your light we thrive."
The men mumbled the words after her. 
"In your mercy we are sheltered."
They repeated the line.
"In your wisdom we are humbled."
Again they spoke the words after her.
"We live only to serve."

When they finished repeating the words, shespoke the last line in a clear voice: "Our livesare yours."

Cara rose up on her knees when they finished andglared back at the men all still bowed forward butpeeking up at her. "Those are the words of thedevotion to the Lord Rahl. You will now speak ittogether with me three times, as is proper in thefield." 


Cara again put her forehead to the ground atRichard's feet. 

"Master Rahl, guide us. Master Rahl, teach us.
Master Rahl, protect us. In your light we thrive.
In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom weare humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives areyours."

Richard and Kahlan stood above the people asthey spoke the second and third devotion. This wasno empty show put on by Cara for the benefit of themen; this was the devotion as it had been spokenfor thousands of years and Cara meant every word ofit. 
"You may rise now," she told the men.

The men cautiously returned to their feet,
hunched in worry, waiting silently. Richard met alltheir eyes before he began.

"I am Richard Rahl. I am the man you men decidedto poison so as to enslave me and thus force me todo your bidding.

"What you have done is a crime. While you maybelieve that you can justify your action as proper,
or think of it as merely a means of persuasion,
nothing can give you the right to threaten or takethe life of another who has done you no harm norintended none. That, along with torture, rape, andmurder, is the means by which the Imperial Orderrules." 

"But we meant you no harm," one of the mencalled out in horror that Richard would accuse them 
of such a ghastly crime. Other men spoke up inagreement that Richard had it all wrong.

"You think I am a savage," Richard said in atone of voice that silenced them and put them backa step. "You think yourselves better than me and sothat somehow makes it all right to do this to me—
and to try to do it to the Mother Confessor—becauseyou want something and, like petulant children, youexpect us to give it to you.

"The alternative you give me is death. The task 


you demand of me is difficult beyond yourimagination, making my death from your poison avery real possibility, and likely. That is thereality of it.

"I already came close to dying from your poison.
At the last possible instant I was granted atemporary stay of my execution when one of you gaveme a provisional antidote. My friends and lovedones believed I would die that night. You were thecause of it. You men consciously decided to poisonme, thereby accepting the fact that you might bekilling me."

"No," a man insisted, his hands clasped insupplication, "we never intended to harm you."

"If there was not a credible threat to my life,
then why would I do as you wish? If you truly meanme no harm and are not committed to killing me if Idon't go along with you, then prove it and give methe antidote so that I can have my life back. It'smy life, not yours."
This time no one spoke up.

"No? So you see, then, it is as I say. You menare committed to either murder or enslavement. The 
only choice I have in it is which of those two itwill be. I will hear no more of your feelings aboutwhat you intended. Your feelings do not absolve youof your very real deeds. Your actions, not yourfeelings, speak the truth of your intent."

Richard clasped his hands behind his back as hepaced slowly before the men. "Now, I could do asyou people are fond of doing, and tell myself thatI can't know if any of it is true. I could do asyou would do, declare myself inadequate to the taskof knowing what's real and refuse to face reality.

"But I am the Seeker of Truth because I do not 
try to hide from reality. The choice to livedemands that the truth be faced. I intend to do 
that. I intend to live. 

"You men must today decide what you will do,
what will be the future of your lives and the lives 


of the ones you love. You are going to have to dealwith reality, the same as I must, if you are tohave a chance at life. Today you will have to facea great deal of the truth, if you are to have thatwhich you seek."

Richard gestured to Owen. "I thought you saidthere were more men than this. Where are the rest?" 

Owen took a step forward. "Lord Rahl, to preventviolence, they turned themselves over to the men ofthe Order." 

Richard stared at the man. "Owen, after allyou've told me, after all those men have seen fromthe Order, how could they possibly believe such athing?"

"But how are we to know that this time it will 
not stop the violence? We can't know the nature ofreality or—"

"I told you before, with me you will confineyourself to what is, and not repeat meaninglessphrases you have memorized. If you have real factsI want to hear them. I'm not interested in 
meaningless nonsense."

Owen pulled his small pack off his back. Hefished around inside and came up with a smallcanvas pouch. Tears welled up in his eyes as hegazed at it.

"The men of the Order found out that there were 
men hiding out in the hills. One of those menhiding with us has three daughters. In order toprevent a cycle of violence, someone in our towntold the men of the Order which girls were hisdaughters.

"Every day the men of the Order tied a rope to afinger of each one of these three girls. One manheld the girl while another pulled on the ropeuntil her finger tore off. The men of the Ordertold a man from our town to go to the hills andgive the three fingers to our men. Every day hecame." 

Owen handed the bag to Richard. "These are the 


fingers from each of his daughters."

"The man who brought them to our men was in adaze. They said he no longer seemed human. Hetalked in a dead voice. He repeated what he hadbeen bidden to say. He had decided that sincenothing was real, he would see nothing and do as hewas told. 

"He said that the men of the Order told him that 
some of the people from our town had given thenames of the men in the hills and that they had thechildren of those other men, as well. They saidthat unless the men returned and gave themselvesup, they would do the same to the other children.

"A little more than half the men hiding in thehills could not stand to think of themselves beingthe cause of such violence, and so they went backto our town and gave themselves over to the men ofthe Order." 
"Why are you giving me this?" Richard asked.

"Because," Owen said, his voice filled withtears, "I wanted you to know why our men had nochoice but to turn themselves in. They could notstand to think of their loved ones suffering suchterrible agony because of them."

Richard looked out at the mournful men watchinghim. He felt his anger boiling up inside, but hekept it in check as he spoke.

"I can understand what those men were trying todo by giving themselves up. I can't fault them forit. It won't help, but I couldn't fault them fordesperately wanting to spare their loved ones fromharm." 

Despite his rage, Richard spoke in a soft voice.
"I'm sorry that you and your people are sufferingsuch brutality at the hands of the Imperial Order.
But understand this: it is real, and the Order isthe cause of it. Those men of yours, if they did asthe Order commanded or if they failed to, were notthe cause of violence. The responsibility forcausing violence is entirely the Order's. You did 


not go out and attack them. They came to you, they
attacked you, they enslave and torture and murder
you."
Most of the men stood in slumped poses, staring at
the ground.
"Do any of the rest of you have children?"
A number of the men nodded or mumbled that they
did. 
Richard ran his hand back through his hair. "Why
haven't the rest of you turned yourselves in, then?
Why are you here and not trying to stop the
suffering in the same way the others did?"


The men looked at one another, some seemingconfused by the question while others appearingunable to put their reasons into words. Theirsorrow, their distress, even their hesitantresolve, were evident on their faces, but theycould not come up with words to explain why theywould not turn themselves in. 

Richard held up the small canvas bag with thegruesome treasure, not allowing them to avoid theissue. "You all knew about this. Why did you notreturn as well?" 

Finally one man spoke up. "I sneaked to thefields at sunset and talked to a man working thecrops, and asked what happened to those men who hadreturned. He said that many of their children hadalready been taken away. Others had died. All themen who had come in from the hills had been taken 
away. None were allowed to return to their homes,
to their families. What good would it do for us togo back?"

"What good, indeed," Richard murmured. This wasthe first sign that they grasped the true nature ofthe situation. 

"You have to stop the Order," Owen said. "Youmust give us our freedom. Why have you made us makethis journey?"

Richard's initial spark of confidence dimmed.
While they might have in part grasped the truth of 


their troubles, they certainly weren't facing thenature of any real solution. They simply wanted tobe saved. They still expected someone to do it forthem: Richard. 

The men all looked relieved that Owen had at 
last asked the question; they were apparently tootimid to ask it themselves. As they waited, some ofthe men couldn't help stealing glances at Jennsen,
standing to the rear. Most of the men also appearedtroubled by the statue looming behind Richard. Theycould only see the back of it and didn't reallyknow what it was meant to be. 

"Because," Richard finally told them, "in orderfor me to do as you want, it's important that youall come to understand everything involved. Youexpect me to simply do this for you. I can't. Youare going to have to help me in this or you and allof your loved ones are lost. If we are to succeed,
then you men must help the rest of your people cometo understand the things I have to tell you.

"You have gone this far, you have suffered thismuch, you have made this much of a commitment. Yourealize that if you do the same as your friendshave been trying to do, if you apply those sameuseless solutions, you, too, will be enslaved ormurdered. You are running out of options. You allhave made a decision to at least try to succeed, totry to rid yourselves of the brutes killing andenslaving your people.
"You men here are their last chance .. . their onlychance. 

"You must now hear the rest of what I have to 
tell you and then make up your minds as to whatwill be your future."

The haggard, ragtag men, all dressed in worn anddirty clothes, all looking like they'd had a verydifficult time of living in the hills, either spokeup or nodded that they would hear him out. Someeven looked as if they might be relieved by howdirectly and honestly he spoke to them. A few even 


looked hungry for what he might say. 

CHAPTER 41 

Three years ago from the coming autumn,"
Richard began, "I lived in a place called Hartland.
I was a woods guide. I had a peaceful life in aplace I loved among those I loved. I knew verylittle about the places beyond my home. In someways I was like you people before the Order came,
so I can understand some of what you felt about howthings changed.

"Like you, I lived beyond a boundary thatprotected us from those who would do us harm."

The men broke out in excited whispering,
apparently surprised and pleased that they couldrelate to him in this way, that they had somethingso basic in common with him. 
"What happened, then?" one of the men asked.

Richard couldn't help himself; he couldn't holdback the smile that overwhelmed him. 

"One day, in my woods"—he held his hand out tothe side—"Kahlan showed up. Like you, her peoplewere in desperate trouble. She needed help. Ratherthan poison me, though, she told me her story andhow trouble was coming our way. Much like you, theboundary protecting her people had failed and atyrant had invaded her homeland. She also camebearing a warning that this man would soon come tomy homeland, too, and conquer my people, myfriends, my loved ones."

All the faces turned toward Kahlan. The men 
stared openly, as if seeing her for the first time.
It looked to be astonishing to them that this 


statuesque woman before them could be a savage, asthey thought of outsiders, and have the same kindof trouble they'd had. Richard was leaving out vastchunks of the story, but he wanted to keep itsimple enough to be clear to these men.

"I was named the Seeker of Truth and given thissword to help me in this important struggle."
Richard lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard byhalf the length of the blade, letting the men allsee the polished steel. Many grimaced at seeingsuch a weapon.

"Together, side by side, Kahlan and I struggledto stop the man who sought to enslave or destroy usall. In a strange land, she was my guide, not onlyhelping me to fight against those who would killus, but helping me to come to understand the widerworld I had never before considered. She opened myeyes to what was out there, beyond the boundarythat had protected me and my people. She helped meto see the approaching shadow of tyranny and knowthe true stakes involved—life itself. 

"She made me live up to the challenge. Had shenot, I would not be alive today, and a great manymore people would be dead or enslaved."

Richard had to turn away, then, at the flood ofpainful memories, at the thought of all those lostin the struggle. At the victories so hard won.

He put his hand to the statue for support as heremembered the gruesome murder of George Cypher,
the man who had raised him, the man who, until thatstruggle, Richard had always believed was hisfather. The pain of it, so distant and far away,
came rushing back again. He remembered the horrorof that time, of suddenly realizing that he wouldnever again see the man he dearly loved. He hadforgotten until that moment how much he missed him.

Richard gathered his composure and turned backto the men. "In the end, and only with Kahlan'shelp, I won the struggle against that tyrant I hadnever known existed until the day she had come into 


my woods and warned me.
"That man was Darken Rahl, my father, a man I had
never known." 


The men stared in disbelief. "You never knew?" 
one asked in an astonished voice. 

Richard shook his head. "It's a very long story.
Maybe another time I will tell you men all of it.
For now, I must tell you the important parts thatare relevant to you and those you love back therein your homes."

Richard looked at the ground before him,
thinking, as he paced in front of the disorderlyknot of men. 

"When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep himfrom killing me and my loved ones. He had torturedand murdered countless people and that alone earnedhim death, but I had to kill him or he would havekilled me. I didn't know at the time that he was myreal father or that in killing him, since I was hisheir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.

"Had he known who I was, he might not have beentrying to kill me, but he didn't know. I hadinformation he wanted; he intended to torture itout of me and then kill me. I killed him first. 

"Since that time, I have come to learn a greatdeal. What I learned connects us"—Richard gesturedto the men and then placed the hand on his ownchest as he met their gazes—"in ways you must cometo understand, as well, if you are to succeed inthis new struggle.

"The land where I grew up, Kahlan's land, andthe land of D'Hara, all make up the New World. Asyou have learned, this vast land down here outsidewhere you grew up is called the Old World. After Ibecame Lord Rahl, the barrier protecting us fromthe Old World failed, much as your own boundaryfailed. When it did, Emperor Jagang of the ImperialOrder, down here in the Old World, used theopportunity to invade the New World, my home, muchas he invaded your home. We've been fighting him 


and his troops for over two years, trying to defeatthem or at least to drive them back to the Old 
World. 

"The barrier that failed had protected us fromthe Order, or men like them, for around threethousand years, longer, even, than you wereprotected. Before that barrier was placed at theend of a great war, the enemy at the time, from theOld World, had used magic to create people calleddream walkers." 

The men fell to whispering. They had heard thename, but they didn't really understand it andspeculated on what it could mean.

"Dream walkers," Richard explained, when theyhad quieted, "could enter a person's mind in orderto control them. There was no defense. Once a dream 
walker took over your mind, you became his slave,
unable to resist his commands. The people back thenwere desperate.

"A man named Alric Rahl, my ancestor, came upwith a way to protect people's minds from beingtaken over by the dream walkers. He was not onlythe Lord Rahl who ruled D'Hara at the time, but hewas also a great wizard. Through his ability hecreated a bond that when spoken earnestly or givenin a more simple form with heartfelt sincerity,
protected people from dream walkers entering theirminds. Alric Rahl's link of magic to his people,
through this bond, protected them.

"The devotion you men all gave is the formaldeclaration of that bond. It has been given by theD'Haran people to their Lord Rahl for threethousand years."

Some of the men in front stepped forward, theirfaces etched with anxiety. "Are we protected, then,
from the dream walkers, Lord Rahl, because we gavethis oath? Are we protected from the dream walkersentering our minds and taking us?"

Richard shook his head. "You and your peopleneed no protection. You are already protected in 


another way."

Relief swept through the crowd of men. Somegripped the shoulder of another, or placed a handin relief on a friend's back. They looked as ifthey feared that dream walkers were stalking them,
and they had just been spared at the last instant.
"But how is it that we can be protected?" Owenasked. 

Richard took a deep breath, letting it outslowly. "Well, that's the part that in a wayconnects us. You see, as I understand it, magicneeds balance in order to function." 

There were knowing nods all around, as if thesepristinely ungifted men all had an intimateunderstanding of magic.

"When Alric Rahl used magic to create this bondin order to protect his people," Richard went on,
"there needed to always be a Lord Rahl to completethe bond, to maintain its power. Not all wizardsbear children who also possess this gifted ability,
so part of what Alric Rahl did when he created thisbond was to make it so that the Lord Rahl would 
always bear one son who had magic, who had thegift, and could complete this bond with the peopleof D'Hara. In this way they would always beprotected."

Richard held up a finger to make his point as heswept his gaze over the crowd of men. "What theydidn't know at the time was that this magicinadvertently created its own balance. While theLord Rahl always produced a gifted heir—a wizardlike him—it was only discovered later that he alsooccasionally produced offspring who were entirelywithout any magic."

Richard could see by the blank looks that themen didn't grasp what he was telling them. Heimagined that for people living such isolatedlives, his story must seem rather confusing, if notfar-fetched. He remembered his own confusion about 
magic before the boundary had come down and he'd 


met Kahlan. He hadn't been raised around magic andhe still didn't understand most of it himself. He'd 
been born with both sides of the gift, and yet hedidn't know how to control it. 

"You see," he said, "only some people havemagic—are gifted, as it's called. But all peopleare born with at least a very tiny spark of thegift, even though they can't manipulate magic.
Until just recently, everyone thought of thesepeople as ungifted. You see? The gifted, likewizards and sorceresses, can manipulate magic, andthe rest of the people can't, so they were believedto be ungifted.

"But it turns out that this isn't accurate,
since there is an infinitesimal spark of the giftin everyone born. This tiny spark of the gift isactually what allows people to interact with themagic in the world around them, that is, withthings and creatures that have magical properties,
and with people who are gifted in a morecomprehensive sense—those who do have the abilityto manipulate magic."

"Some people in Bandakar have magic, too," a mansaid. "True magic. Only those who have never seen—"

"No," Richard said, cutting him off. He didn'twant them losing track of his account. "Owen toldme about what you people believe is magic. That'snot magic, that's mysticism. That's not what I'mtalking about. I'm talking about real magic thatproduces real results in the real world. Forgetwhat you've been taught about magic, about howfaith supposedly creates what you believe in andthat is real magic. It's not real. It's just thefanciful illusion of magic in people'simaginations."

"But it is real," someone said in a respectfulbut firm voice. "More real than what you see andfeel." 

Richard turned a harsh look on the men. "If it's 
so real, then why did you have to use a known 


poison on me that was mixed by a man who had workedhis whole life with herbs? Because you know what'sreal, that's why; when it was vital to your self-
interest, to your lives, you resorted to dealing inreality, to what you know really works."

Richard pointed back at Kahlan. "The MotherConfessor has real magic. It's no fanciful curseput on someone and when they die ten years laterpeople believe the curse was the cause. She hasreal magic that is in elemental ways linked todeath, so it affects even you. She can touchsomeone, with this real magic, and in an instantthey will be dead. Not ten years from now—rightnow, on the spot."

Richard stood resolutely in front of the men,
gazing from eye to eye. "If someone doesn't believethat is real magic, then let's have a test. Letthem perform their faith-based magic and put aspell on me—to kill me right here and now. Afterthey've done that, then they will come forward andbe touched by the Mother Confessor's very real,
lethal power. Then everyone else will be able tosee the results and judge for themselves." Helooked from face to face. "Anyone willing to takeup the test? Any magicians among all you ungiftedpeople willing to try it?"
When the men remained silent, no one moving,
Richard went on. 

"So, it would seem that you men do have someunderstanding of what's real and what isn't. Keepthat in mind. Learn from it. 

"Now, I told you how the Lord Rahl always bore ason with magic so he could pass on the rule ofD'Hara and his gifted ability in order to make thebond work. But, as I said, the bond that Alric Rahlcreated may have had an unintended consequence.

"Only later was it discovered that the LordRahl, possibly as a means of balance, alsosometimes produced offspring that were entirelywithout any magic—not just ungifted in the way most 


people are, but unlike any people ever born before:
they were pristinely ungifted. These pristinelyungifted people had absolutely no spark of the giftwhatsoever. 
"Because of that, because they were pristinelyungifted, they were unable to interact with thereal magic in the world. They were unable to betouched by magic at all. For them, magic might aswell not exist because they were not born with theability to see it or to interact with it. You mightsay they were like a bird that could not fly. Theylooked like a bird, they had feathers, they atebugs, but they couldn't fly.

"Back then in that time, three thousand yearsago, after the bond had been created to protectpeople from dream walkers in the war, the wizardsfinally succeeded in placing a barrier between theOld and the New World. Because those in the Old 
World could no longer come to the New World to wagewar, the great war ended. Peace finally came.

"The people of the New World discovered, though,
that they had a problem. These pristinely ungiftedoffspring of the Lord Rahl passed this trait on totheir children. Every offspring of a marriage withat least one of these pristinely ungifted partnersbears pristinely ungifted children—always, everytime. As these offspring married and had childrenand then grandchildren and then great-
grandchildren, as there were more and more of them,
that pristinely ungifted trait began spreadingthroughout the population.

"People, at the time, were frightened becausethey depended on magic. Magic was part of theirworld. Magic was what had saved them from the dreamwalkers. Magic had created the barrier thatprotected them from the horde from the Old World.
Magic had ended the war. Magic healed people, foundlost children, produced beautiful creations of artthat inspired and brought joy. Magic could helpguide people in the course of future events. 


 "Some towns grew up around a gifted person whocould serve people's needs. Many gifted peopleearned a living performing such services. In somethings, magic gave people control over nature andthus made the lives of everyone better. Thingsaccomplished with the aid of magic improved theliving conditions of nearly everyone. Magic was aforce of individual creation and thus individual 
accomplishment. Nearly everyone derived somebenefit from it. 

"This is not to say that magic was or isindispensable, but that it was a useful aid, atool. Magic was like their right arm. Yet it's themind of man, not his magic, that is indispensable—
much like you could survive without your right arm,
but you couldn't survive without your mind. Butmagic had become intertwined in the lives ofeveryone, so many believed that it was absolutelyindispensable.

"The people came to feel that this new threat—
the pristinely ungifted trait spreading through thepopulation—would be the end of everything theyknew, everything that they thought was important,
that it would be the end of their most vital 
protection—magic."

Richard gazed out at all the faces, waiting tomake sure that the men had grasped the essence ofthe story, that they understood how desperate thepeople must have been, and why.

"So, what did the people do about these newpristinely ungifted people among them?" a man inthe back asked. 
In a quiet tone, Richard said, "Somethingterrible." 

He pulled the book from a leather pouch on hisbelt and held it up for all the men to see as heagain paced before them. The clouds, laden withstorms of snow, rolled silently through the frigidvalley pass, bound for the peaks above them.

"This book is called The Pillars of Creation. 


That's what the wizards back then called these 
pristinely ungifted people—pillars of Creation—
because they had the power, with this trait thatthey passed along to their offspring, to alter thevery nature of mankind. They were the foundation ofan entirely new kind of people—people without anyconnection to magic.

"I only just a short time ago came across thisbook. It's meant for the Lord Rahl, and others, sothat they will know about these pristinely ungiftedpeople who are unaffected by magic. The book tellsthe history of how these people came about—throughthose born to the Lord Rahl—along with the historyof what was discovered about them. It also reveals 
what the people back then, thousands of years ago,
did about these pillars of Creation."

Men rubbed their arms in the cold air as Richard 
slowly paced before them. They all looked caught upin the story.
"So," Owen asked, "what did they do?"

Richard came to a stop and stood watching theireyes before he spoke.
"They banished them."
Astonished whispering broke out among the men. Theywere stunned to hear the final solution. These 
people understood banishment, they understood itall too well, and they could sympathize with thesebanished people of so long ago.
"That's terrible," a man in front said, shaking hishead. 

Another frowned and held up a hand. "Weren'tthese pillars of Creation related to some of theother people? Weren't they part of the towns?
Didn't the people feel sorrow at banishing theseungifted people?"

Richard nodded. "Yes. They were friends andfamily. Those banished people were intimatelyintertwined in the lives of nearly everyone. Thebook tells how heavy hearted the people felt at thedecision that had been reached about these 


pristinely ungifted people. It must have been anawful time, a dreadful choice that no one liked,
but those in charge at the time decided that inorder for them to preserve their way of life, topreserve magic and all it meant to them, topreserve that attribute of man, rather than valuethe lives of individuals for who they were, theyhad to banish these pristinely ungifted people.

"What's more, they also decreed that all futureoffspring of the Lord Rahl, exceptàhis gifted heir,
should be put to death to insure that no pillar ofCreation ever again came among them."

This time thereà¿°9·7�;´´9¸2¹4·3*´2�¶27¶··µ22�¹02²2·22±<:´2�9º7¹< of these mysteriouspeople and the terrible solution of how to dealwith them. Heads hungàas the men thought about whatit must have been like back in such a grim time.

Finally, a man's head came up. His browtwitched. He finally asked the question Richardexpected to be asked, the question he had beenwaiting for.

"But where were these pillars of Creationbanished to? Where were they sent?"

Richard watched the men as other eyes turned up,
curious about the historic mystery, waiting for himto go on.

"These people were not affected by magic,"
Richard reminded them. "And the barrier holdingback the Old World was a barrier created of magic."
"They sent them through the barrier!" a man guessedaloud. 
Richard nodded. "Many wizards had died and giventheir power into that barrier so that their peoplewould be protected from those in the Old World whowanted to rule them and to end magic. That was alarge part of what the war had been fought over—
those in the Old World had wanted to eradicate 
magic from mankind.

"So, those people in the New World sent thesepristinely ungifted people, these people without 


any magic, through the barrier to the Old World.

"They never knew what became of them, thosefriends and family and loved ones they hadbanished, because they had been sent beyond abarrier that none of them could cross. It was 
thought that they would establish new lives, wouldmake a new beginning. But, because the barrier wasthere, and it was enemy territory beyond, thepeople of the New World never knew what became ofthose banished people.

"Finally, a few years ago, that barrier camedown. If these banished people had made a life forthemselves in the Old World, they would have hadchildren and spread their pristinely ungiftedattribute"— Richard lifted his arms in a shrug—"butthere is no trace of them. The people down here arejust the same as the people up in the New World—
some born gifted but all born with at least thattiny spark of the gift that enables them tointeract with magic.
"Those people from ancient times seemed just tohave vanished." 

"So now we know," Owen reasoned as he stared offin thought, "that all those people sent to the OldWorld so long ago tragically died out... or maybewere killed." 

"I had thought as much myself," Richard said. Heturned and faced the men, waiting until all eyeswere on him before going on.
"But then I found them. I found those long-lostpeople."

Excited whispering broke out again. The menappeared inspired by the prospect of such peoplesurviving against all odds.

"Where are they, then, Lord Rahl," a man asked,
"these people with whom you share ancestry? Thesepeople who had to endure such cruel banishment andhardship?"

Richard leveled a cutting gaze at the men. "Comewith me, and I will tell you what became of these 


people."

Richard led them around the statue, to thefront, where, for the first time, they could seethe full view of the sentinel in stone. The men 
were awestruck at finally seeing the statue fromthe front. They talked excitedly among themselvesabout how real it looked, about how they couldclearly see the stalwart features of the man'sface. 

By the utter shock in their voices and by whatthe men were saying, Richard got the distinctimpression that they'd never seen a statue before,
at least no statue as monumental as this one. It 
appeared that for these men the statue must besomething akin to a manifestation of magic, ratherthan, as Richard knew it to be, a manifestation ofman's ability.

Richard placed a hand on the cold stone of thebase. "This is an ancient statue of an Old World 
wizard named Kaja-Rang. It was carved, in part, asa tribute to the man because he was a great andpowerful wizard."

Owen lifted a hand to interrupt. "But I thoughtthe people in the Old World wanted to be withoutmagic? Why would they have a great wizard—and why,
especially, would they pay a tribute to such a manof magic?"

Richard smiled at Owen catching thecontradiction. "People don't always act in aconsistent manner. What's more, the more irrationalare your beliefs, the more glaring theinconsistencies. You men, for example, try to glossover incongruities in your behavior by applyingyour convictions selectively. You claim thatnothing is real, or that we cannot know the truenature of reality, and yet you fear what the Orderdoes to you—you believe firmly enough in thereality of what they're doing that you want it tostop.

"If nothing were real, then you would have no 


reason to want to stop the Imperial Order. In fact,
it's counter to your professed beliefs to try tostop them, or to even feel that their presence isreal, much less detrimental, since you assert thatman is inadequate at the task of knowing reality.

"Yet you grasp the reality of what's happeningat the hands of the men of the Order, and know verywell that it's abhorrent, so you selectivelysuspend the precepts of your beliefs in order tosend Owen to poison me in an attempt to get me torid you of your very real problem."
Some of the men looked confused by what Richardsaid while others looked to be embarrassed. A few 
looked astonished. None looked willing to challengehim, so they let him go on without interrupting.

"The people in the Old World were the same way—
they still are. They claimed they didn't wantmagic, and yet when faced with that reality, theydidn't want to do without it. The Imperial Order islike this. They've come to the New World claimingto be a champion of freeing mankind of magic,
proclaiming themselves to be noble for holding sucha goal, and yet they use magic in the pursuit ofthis professed goal. They contend that magic isevil, and yet they embrace it.

"Their leader, Emperor Jagang, uses those withmagic to help accomplish his ends, among which, heclaims, is the eradication of magic. Jagang is adream walker descended from those dream walkers of 
so long ago. His ability as a dream walker ismagic, yet he does not disqualify himself fromleading his empire. Even though he has magic, whichhe claims makes people unfit to have any say in thefuture, he calls himself Jagang the Just.

"Despite what they declare they believe, theirgoal is to rule people, plain and simple. They seekpower but dress it up in noble-sounding robes.
Every tyrant thinks he is different. They are allthe same. They all rule by brute force."

Owen was frowning, trying to grasp it all. "So, 


those in the Old World did not live by their word,
by what they claimed they believed. They lived inconflict. They preached that man was better withoutmagic, but they continued to want to use magic."
"That's right."

Owen gestured up at the statue. "What of thisman, then? Why is he here, if he is against whatthey preached?"

Dark clouds roiled above the towering statue.
The still air hung cold, heavy, and damp. It feltas if a storm were holding back its onslaught,
waiting to hear the rest.

"This man is here because he fought to save thepeople of the Old World from something they fearedmore than magic itself," Richard said.

He gazed up at the resolute face with its eyesfixed forever on the place called the Pillars ofCreation. 
"This man," Richard said in a quiet voice, "thiswizard, Kaja-Rang, collected all of thosepristinely ungifted people, those pillars ofCreation, who had been banished down here from theNew World, along with any people who while theylived here had joined with them, and he sent themall there." 
Richard pointed off into the distance behind thestatue. 

"He put all those people in that place,
protected by the mountains all around, and then heplaced a boundary of death before them, across thispass, so that they could never again come out to beamong the rest of the people of the world.

"Kaja-Rang gave these people their name: theBandakar. The name, bandakar, is from a very oldlanguage called High D'Haran. It means 'thebanished.' This man, Kaja-Rang, is the one whosealed them in and saved his people from thepristinely ungifted, from those without magic."

"You," Richard said to the men before him, "arethe descendants of those banished people. You are 


the descendants of Alric Rahl, of the people sentinto exile in the Old World. You are all 
descendants of the House of Rahl. Your ancestors 
and mine are the same men. You are the banished 
people."

The top of the pass before the statue of Kaja-
Rang was dead silent. The men stared in shock.

And then pandemonium broke out. Richard made noeffort to stop them, to bring them to be quiet.
Rather, he stood close beside Kahlan as he let themtake it in. He wanted to give them the time theyneeded to come to grasp the enormity of what he hadtold them. 

Arms in the air, some men cried out with theoutrage at what they'd heard, others wailed withthe horror of the story, some wept in sorrow, manyargued, a few protested various points that othersanswered, while yet others repeated key elements toone another almost as if to hear the words again sothey could test them, agreeing finally that itmight very well be so.

But through it all, they all slowly began tograsp the enormity of what they'd heard. They allbegan to hear the ring of truth in the story.
Chattering like magpies, all talking at once, theyexpressed disbelief, outrage, wonder, and evenfear, as they came to the heady comprehension ofwho they really were.

At the whispered urging of some among the group,
after having gotten over the initial shock, the menall quieted and at last turned back to Richard,
hungry to know more.

"You are this gifted man, the favored heir, theLord Rahl, and we are the ones banished by yourkind," one of the men said, expressing what lookedto be a common fear, the unspoken question of whatthis would mean for them. 

"That's right," Richard said. "I am the LordRahl, the leader of the D'Haran Empire, and you arethe descendants of the pillars of Creation who were 


banished. I am gifted as have been my ancestors,
every Lord Rahl before me. You are ungifted as wereyour ancestors."

Standing before the statue of Kaja-Rang, the manwho had banished them, Richard looked out at allthe tense faces. 

"That banishment was a grievous wrong. It wasimmoral. As Lord Rahl, I denounce the banishmentand declare it forever ended. You are no longer theEmpire of Bandakar, the banished ones, you are nowonce again, as you once were, D'Harans, if youchoose to be." 

Every man seemed to hold his breath, waiting tosee if he meant it, or would add more, or if hemight even recant it.

Richard put his arm around Kahlan's waist as hecalmly gazed out at all the hopeful expressions.
Richard smiled. "Welcome home." 

And then they were all falling at his feet,
kissing his boots, his pants, his hands, and, forthose who couldn't crowd in close enough, theground before him. In short order, they werekissing the hem of Kahlan's dress.

They had found a relation, and were in turnwelcoming him among them. 

 CHAPTER 42 

As the men crowded around their feet, openlyoffering their gratitude for ending their sentenceof banishment, Richard shared a sidelong glancewith Kahlan. Cara looked decidedly displeased by 


the display but didn't interfere.

Trying to bring a halt to the tearful tribute,
Richard gestured for the men to get up. "There ismuch more to tell you. Listen to me, now."

The smiling, tearful men drew back, handsclasped while gazing at him as if he were a long-
lost brother. There were a few older men among thecrowd and some of middle age, but most ranged fromyoung, like Owen, to a little older, like Richard.
They were all men who had been through terribletimes. 

The most difficult part still lay ahead; Richardhad to make them face up to what was to come.

Looking over at Jennsen, standing alone off tothe side, he gestured for her to come forward.

Jennsen emerged from the shadows of the statue,
catching the attention of all eyes as she made herway toward Richard. The men all watched her cominginto the light. She looked so beautiful thatRichard couldn't help smiling as she stepped acrossthe rocks. Pulling on a red ringlet, she cast a shyglance at the men.
When Richard held an arm out, she sought protectionunder the shelter of that arm as she gazednervously out at men who were like her in oneimportant way.

"This is my sister, Jennsen Rahl," Richard said.
"She was born pris-tinely ungifted, just like allof you. Our father tried to kill her, as has beendone for thousands of years with ungiftedoffspring."
"And you?" a man asked, still skeptical. "You willnot reject her?"

Richard hugged Jennsen with the one arm. "Forwhat? For what crime should I reject her? Becauseshe was born a woman, instead of a man like me?
Because she isn't as tall as me? Because she has 
red hair, instead of hair like mine? Because hereyes are blue and not gray? ... Because she isungifted?" 


 The men shifted their weight to the other footor folded their arms. Some, after all he hadalready said, averted their eyes, lookingembarrassed to have even asked the question.

"She's beautiful, smart, and uses her head. She,
too, fights for her right to live, and does sothrough reasoned means. She is as you men,
pristinely ungifted. Because she shares anunderstanding of the value of life, I embrace her."

Richard heard the bleat and turned. Betty, herrope trailing behind, trotted up the rise. Jennsenrolled her eyes as Betty came close, peering up,
her tail wagging in a blur.

Jennsen snatched up the rope, inspecting theend. Richard could see that it had been chewed 
through.

"Betty," she scolded, shaking the end of therope at the unrepentant goat, "what did you do?"
Betty bleated her answer, clearly proud of herself.
Jennsen heaved a sigh as she shrugged an apology atRichard. 

The men had all taken several steps back,
murmuring their dread to one another.

"I'm not a witch," Jennsen told them in a heatedtone. "Just because I have red hair that doesn't 
mean I'm a witch." 
The men looked thoroughly unconvinced.

"I've had dealings with a very real witchwoman," Richard told them. "I can assure you, redhair is no mark of a witch. It just isn't true."

"It is true," one of the men insisted. Hepointed at Betty. "There is her attendant spirit."
Richard's brow wrinkled. "Attendant spirit?"

"That's right," another told him. "A witchalways has a familiar with her. She called herattendant spirit and it came to her."

"Called her?" Jennsen brandished the frayed endof the rope at the men. "I tied her to a tree andshe chewed through her rope."

Another man shook his finger at her. "You called 


her with magic and she came."

Fists at her sides, Jennsen took a step towardthe men. They took a collective step back.

"You men all had family and friends—a communityof people. I had no friends and could have nonebecause my mother and I had to run from my fathermy whole life to keep from being caught. He wouldhave tortured and murdered me had he caught me—thesame as he would have done with you. I could haveno childhood friends, so my mother gave me Betty.
Betty was just newborn; we grew up together. Bettychewed through her rope because I'm the only familyshe's ever known and she simply wanted to be closeto me. 

"I was banished from everyone for my crime ofbirth, just like your ancestors. You all know theinjustice of such banishment and you know its pain.
And now you foolish men would banish me from youracceptance because I have red hair and a goat as apet? You are spineless cowards and hypocrites!

"First you poison the only person in the worldbrave enough to end our banishment from the rest ofmankind and now you fear me and reject me becauseof silly superstitions. If I did have magic, I'dburn you all to a cinder for your cruel attitudes!"

Richard put a hand on her shoulder and drew herback. "It will be all right," he whispered to her.
"Just let me talk to them." 

"You tell us that you're a wizard," an older manin the back called out, "and then you expect us tobelieve it's so—on faith—because you say it is,
while you claim that we should not hold to ourbeliefs, such as our fear that she could be a witchwith her familiar, because it's held only onfaith." 

"That's right," another said. "You claim yourbelief is in real magic, while you dismiss ourbelief. A lot of what you say makes sense, but Idon't agree with all of it."

There could be no partial agreement. To reject 


part of the truth was to reject it all. Richardconsidered his options, how he could convincepeople without magic, who could not see magic, thatreal magic existed. From their perspective, heseemed guilty of the same error he was telling themthey were making. How could he demonstrate arainbow of color to the blind? 

"You have a point," Richard said. "Give me amoment and I will show you the reality of the magicI talk about." 

He motioned Cara closer. "Get me the warningbeacon," he said in a confidential tone.

Cara immediately took off down the hill. He sawthat Jennsen's angry blue eyes were filled withtears but she didn't cry. Kahlan pulled her backfarther as Richard addressed the men. 

"There is more I must tell you—some things youneed to understand. I have ended the banishment,
but that does not mean that I unconditionallyaccept you back as one of our people."
"But you said that we were welcomed home," Owensaid. 

"I'm stating the obvious—that you have a rightto your own life. Out of goodwill I welcome you allto be part of D'Hara if you wish— part of whatD'Hara now stands for. But by welcoming you back,
that does not mean that I welcome peopleunconditionally.

"All men should be free to live their own lives,
but make no mistake, there is a vast differencebetween that freedom and anarchy.

"If we triumph in our struggle, you are welcometo be free people of a D'Haran Empire which holds abelief in specific values. For example, you canthink whatever you wish and try to persuade othersof the value of your beliefs, but you cannot act ona view that those who fight to gain that freedomare savages or criminals, even though you expect toenjoy the fruits of their struggle. At minimum,
they have earned your respect and gratitude. Their 


lives are no less than yours and are not expendablefor your benefit. That is slavery."

"But you have savage ways and engage in violencefor a land we have never even seen," one of theyounger men said. He pointed an arm back towardBandakar. "The only land we have ever known is hereand we unconditionally reject your love ofviolence." 

"Land?" Richard spread his arms. "We do notfight for land. We are loyal to an ideal—an idealof liberty wherever man lives. We do not guardterritory, bleed for a piece of dirt. We don'tfight because we love violence. We fight for ourfreedom as individuals to live our own lives, topursue our own survival, our own happiness.

"Your unconditional rejection of violence makesyou smugly think of yourselves as noble, asenlightened, but in reality it is nothing less thanabject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditionalrejection of self-defense, because you think it's asupposed surrender to violence, leaves you noresort but begging for mercy or offeringappeasement.

"Evil grants no mercy, and to attempt to appeaseit is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender toit. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death atworst. Thus, your unconditional rejection ofviolence is really nothing more than embracingdeath as preferable to life.
"You will achieve what you embrace.

"The right, the absolute necessity, of vengeanceagainst anyone who initiates force against you isfundamental to survival. The morality of a people'sself-defense is in its defense of each individual's 
right to life. It's an intolerance of violence,
made real by an unwavering willingness to crush anywho would launch violence against you. Theunconditional determination to destroy any whowould initiate force against you is an exaltationof the value of life. Refusing to surrender your 


life to any thug or tyrant who lays claim to it isin fact embracing life itself.

"If you are unwilling to defend your right toyour own lives, then you are merely like micetrying to argue with owls. You think their ways arewrong. They think you are dinner.

"The Imperial Order preaches that mankind iscorrupt and evil, and therefore life is of littlevalue. Their actions certainly bear this out. Theymoralize that you can only win salvation andhappiness in some other world, and then only bysacrificing your life in this one.

"Generosity is fine, if it's by your freechoice, but a belief in the primacy of self-
sacrifice as a moral requisite is nothing less thanthe sanctioning of slavery. Those who tell you thatit is your responsibility and duty to sacrifice aretrying to blind you to the chains they are slippingaround your neck.

"As D'Harans, you will not be required tosacrifice your life to another, and by the sametoken you cannot demand that others sacrificethemselves to you. You may believe as you wish, youmay even feel that you cannot take up arms andfight directly for our survival, but you must helpsupport our cause and you may not contributematerially or spiritually to the destruction of ourvalues and therefore our lives— that is treason and 
will be treated as such. 

"The Imperial Order has violently invadedinnocent lands, like yours. They have enslaved,
tortured, raped, and murdered in order to seizerule. They have done no less in the New World. Theyhave forfeited their right to be heard. There is nomoral dilemma involved, no ethical question open todebate; they must be ground into dust."

A man stepped forward. "But common decency indealing with our fellow man requkes that we mustshow them mercy for their misguided ways."

"There is no greater value than life—and that's 


what you partially recognize by your confusednotion of granting mercy. Their conscious,
deliberate act of murder takes the irreplaceablevalue of life from another. A murderer, by his ownchoice to kill, forfeits the right to his own life.
Mercy for such evil is nothing short of excusing itand thus allowing evil to prevail—it codifies thetaking of innocent life by not making the murdererforfeit their own guilty life.

"Mercy grants value to the life of a killer,
while, at the same time, it strips away the valueof the life of the innocent victim. It makes the 
life of a killer more important than the life of aninnocent. It is thus a trade of the good to theevil. It is the victory of death over life."

"So," Owen wondered aloud, "because the Orderhas attacked your land and murdered its people, youintend to try to kill every living person in theOld World?" 

"No. The Order is evil and from the Old World. 
That does not mean that the people of the Old Worldare evil simply because they happen to have beenborn on a patch of ground ruled by evil men. Someactively support these rulers and therefore embraceevil, but not everyone does. Many of the people inthe Old World are also the victims of the rule of 
the Imperial Order and suffer greatly under itsbrutality. Many struggle against this evil rule. Aswe speak, many risk their lives to rid themselvesof these evil men. We fight for the same thing:
liberty.

"Where those who seek liberty were born isirrelevant. We believe in the value of the 
individual's life. That means that where someone 
lives does not make them evil—it's their beliefs 
and actions that matter. 

"But make no mistake—many people are an activepart of the Imperial Order and its murderous ways.
Actions must have consequences. The Order must beeradicated." 


 "Surely, you would allow some compromise," oneof the older men said. 

"If, hoping to appease it, you willinglycompromise with unrepentant evil, you only allowsuch evil to sink its fangs into you; from that dayon its venom will course through your veins untilit finally kills you."

"But that's too harsh a sentiment," the mansaid. "It's just being stubborn and obstructing aconstructive path. There is always room forcompromise."

Richard tapped his thumb against his chest. "Youmen decided to give me poison. That poison willkill me; that makes it evil. How would you suggestI compromise with poison?"
No one had an answer. 

"In trade between willing parties who sharemoral values and who deal fairly and honestly withone another, compromise over something like priceis legitimate. In matters of morality or truth,
there can be no compromise.

"Compromising with murderers, which is preciselywhat you are suggesting, grants them moralequivalence where none can rightfully exist. Moralequivalence says that you are no better than they;
therefore, their belief—that they should be able totorture, rape, or murder you— is just as morallyvalid as your view—that you have the right to livefree of their violence. Moral compromise rejectsthe concept of right and wrong. It says thateveryone is equal, all desires are equally valid,
all action is equally valid, so everyone shouldcompromise to get along.
"Where could you compromise with those who torture,
rape, and murder people? In the number of days aweek you will be tortured? In the number of men tobe allowed to rape your loved ones? In how many ofyour family are to be murdered?

"No moral equivalence exists in that situation,
nor can it exist, so there can be no compromise, 


only suicide.

"To even suggest compromise can exist with suchmen is to sanction murder." 

Most of the men appeared shocked and startled tohear someone speaking to them in such astraightforward manner. They seemed to be losinginterest in their supply of empty adages. Some ofthe men looked to be moved by Richard's words. Afew even looked inspired by their clarity; he couldsee it in their eyes, as if they were seeing thingsfor the first time. 

Cara came up behind Richard and handed him thewarning beacon. Richard wasn't sure, but it seemedas if the inky black had taken over more of thesurface of the small figure than the last time he'dseen it. Inside, the sand continued to trickle downonto the accumulated pile in the bottom.

"Kaja-Rang placed the boundary across this passto seal your people in. He is the one who namedyou. He knew your people shunned violence and hefeared you might end up being prey to criminals. Heis the one who gave you a way to banish them fromyour land so that you could continue to have thekind of life you wanted. He told your people of thepassage through the boundary so that you could ridyourselves of criminals if you rallied the will."

Owen looked troubled. "If this great wizard,
Kaja-Rang, didn't want our people among thepopulation of the Old World because we would mixwith them and spread our pristinely ungifted trait,
as you call it, then what about the criminals webanish? Sending those men out into the world wouldcause the thing they feared. Making this passthrough the boundary and telling our ancestorsabout it would seem to defeat the whole purpose ofthe boundary."

Richard smiled. "Very good, Owen. You arebeginning to think for yourself."
Owen smiled. Richard gestured up at the statue ofKaja-Rang. 


"You see where he's looking? It's a place calledthe Pillars of Creation. It's a deathly hot placewhere nothing lives—a land stalked by death. Theboundary that Kaja-Rang placed had sides to it.
When you sent people out of your land, through theboundary, the walls of death to the sides preventedthose banished people from escaping into the worldat large. They had only one way they could go: thePillars of Creation. 

"Even with water and supplies, and knowing whereyou must go to get past it, trying to go throughthe valley known as the Pillars of Creation isalmost certain death. Without water and supplies,
without knowing the land, without knowing how totravel it and where you must go to escape such aplace, those you banished faced certain death."

The men stared, wide-eyed. "Then, when webanished a criminal, we were actually executingthem," one of the men said.
"That's right."

"This Kaja-Rang tricked us, then," the manadded. "Tricked us into what was actually thekilling of those men."

"You think that a terrible trick?" Richard 
asked. "You people were deliberately setting knowncriminals loose on the world to prey onunsuspecting people. You were knowingly settingfree violent men, and condemning unsuspectingpeople outside your land to be victims of violence.
Rather than put murderers to death, you were, asfar as you knew— had you given it any thought—
knowingly assisting them in going on to killothers. In the blind attempt to avoid violence atall cost, you actually championed it.

"You told yourselves that those other peopledidn't matter, because they weren't enlightened,
like you, that you were better than they becauseyou were above violence, that you unconditionallyrejected violence. If you even thought about it,
you considered these people beyond the boundary to 


be savages, their lives unimportant. For allintents and purposes, you were sacrificing theirinnocent lives for the lives of those men you knewto be evil. 

"What Kaja-Rang was doing, besides keeping thepristinely ungifted from being at large in theworld, was executing those criminals you banishedbefore they could harm other people. You thinkyourselves noble in rejecting violence, but youractions would have fostered it. Only Kaja-Rang'sactions prevented it."

"Dear Creator. It is far worse than that." Owen 
sank down, sitting heavily. "Far worse than youeven realize." 

Other men, too, looked to be stricken withhorror. Some had to lower themselves to the groundas Owen had. Others, their faces in their hands,
turned away, or walked off a few paces.
"What do you mean?" Richard asked.

Owen looked up, his face ashen. "The story Itold you about our land ... about our town and theother great cities? How in my town we all livedtogether and were happy with our lives?" Richardnodded. "Not all were." 

Kahlan crossed her arms and leaned toward Owen. 
"What do you mean, not all were?"

Owen lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.
"Some wanted more than our simple joyful life. Somepeople ... well, they wanted to change things. Theysaid they wanted to make things better. They wantedto improve our life, to build places forthemselves, even though this is against our ways."

"Owen is right," an older man said in a grimtone. "In my time I have seen a great many of thesepeople who were unable to endure what some calledthe chafing principles of our empire."

"And what happened when people wanted to makethese changes, or could not endure the principlesof your empire?" Richard asked.

Owen looked to each side, to the other 


dispirited faces. "The great speakers renouncedtheir ideas. The Wise One said they would onlybring strife among us. Their hopes for new wayswere turned aside and they were denounced." Owenswallowed. "So these people decided they wouldleave Bandakar. They went out of our land, takingthe path through the opening in the boundary, tofind a new life for themselves. Not a single oneever returned to us." 

Richard wiped a hand across his face. "Then theydied looking for their new life, a better life thanwhat you had to offer."

"But you don't understand." Owen rose to hisfeet. "We are like those people." He swept his armback at his men. "We have refused to go back andgive ourselves over to the men of the Order, eventhough we know that people are being torturedbecause we hide. We know it will not stop theOrder, so we don't go back.

"We have gone against the wishes of our greatspeakers, and the Wise One, to try to save ourpeople. We have been denounced for what we chooseto do. We have gone out of the pass to seekinformation, to find a way to rid ourselves of theImperial Order. Do you see? We are much the same asthose others throughout our history. Like thoseothers, we chose to leave and try to change thingsrather than to endure the way things were."

"Then perhaps you are beginning to see," Richardsaid, "that everything you were taught showed youonly how to embrace death, not life. Perhaps yousee that what you called the teaching ofenlightenment was no more than blinders pulled overyour eyes."

Richard put his hand on Owen's shoulder. Hegazed down at the statue of himself in his otherhand and then looked around at the tense faces. 

"You men are the ones left after all the rest 
have failed the tests. You alone got this far. Youalone have started to use your minds to try to find 


a solution for you and your loved ones. You havemuch more to learn, but you have at least startedto make some of the right choices. You must notstop now; you must meet with courage what I willcall upon you to do, if you are to truly have achance to save your loved ones."

For the first time they looked at least a littleproud. They had been recognized, not for how wellthey repeated meaningless sayings, but for thedecisions they reached on their own.

Jennsen was frowning in thought. "Richard, whycouldn't people get back in through the passage outthrough the boundary? If they wanted to go off andhave a new life but then discovered that they wouldhave to go through the Pillars of Creation, whywouldn't they go back, at least to get supplies, toget what they needed so they could make itthrough?"

"That's right," Kahlan said. "George Cypher wentthrough the boundary at Kings' Port and thenreturned. Adie said that the boundary had to have apassage, a vent, like where these people banishedcriminals, so why couldn't people come back in?
There was a pass out, so why did they neverreturn?" 
The men nodded, curious to hear why no one evercame back. 

"From the first, I've wondered the same thing."
Richard rubbed a thumb along the glossy blacksurface of the statue of himself. "I think that the 
boundaries in the Midlands had to have an openingthrough them because they were so big—so long. Thisboundary, here, is nothing compared to those; Idoubt that the same kind of vent would be needed. 

"Because it was just one bent section of aboundary and not very long, I suspect that Kaja-
Rang was able to put in a pass that allowedcriminals to be banished through it, but would notallow passage back in. After all, if a criminal wasbanished and found he couldn't escape, he would 


return. Kaja-Rang wouldn't have wanted that to
happen."
"How could such a thing work?" Jennsen asked.


Richard rested his left hand on the hilt of his 
sword. "Certain snakes can swallow prey much largerthan themselves. Their teeth are angled back sothat as the prey is devoured, it's impossible forit to come back out, to escape. I suppose that thepass through the boundary could have been somehowlike that—only able to be traversed in onedirection." 
"Do you think such a thing is possible?" Jennsenasked. 
"There is precedent for such safeguards," Kahlansaid. 

Richard nodded his agreement. "The great barrierbetween the New and the Old World had defenses to 
allow certain people, under specific conditions,
one passage through and back, but not two." Hepointed the warning beacon up at the statue. "Awizard of Kaja-Rang's ability would surely haveknown how to craft a pass through the boundary thatdid not allow any return. After all, he called itup out of the underworld itself and it remainedviable for nearly three thousand years."
"So then anyone who went out of this boundarydied," Owen said.

Richard nodded. "I'm afraid so. Kaja-Rangappeared to have made elaborate plans thatfunctioned as he intended for all this time. He 
even made contingencies should the boundary fail."

"That's something I don't understand," a youngman said. "If this wizard was so great, and hismagic was so powerful that he could make a wall ofdeath to keep us separated from the world for threethousand years, then how could it possibly fail? Inthe last two years it simply went away. Why?"
"I believe it was because of me," Kahlan said.

She took a step closer to the men. Richarddidn't try to stop her. At this point, it wouldn't 


do to appear as if he were withholding informationfrom them. 

"A couple of years ago, in a desperate act tosave Richard's life, I inadvertently called forthunderworld power that I believe may be slowlydestroying magic in our world. Richard banishedthis evil magic, but it had been here in the worldof life for a time, so the effects may beirreversible." 

Worried looks passed among the men. This womanbefore them had just admitted that because ofsomething she'd done, their protection had failed.
Because of her, horrifying violence and brutalityhad befallen them. Because of her, their way oflife had ended. 

 CHAPTER 43 

You still have not shown us your magic,"
one of the men finally said.
Richard's hand slipped away from the small ofKahlan's back as he stepped toward the men.

"Kaja-Rang devised a facet to his magic, linkedto the boundary he placed here, to help protectit." Richard held up the small figure of himselffor all the men to see. "This was sent to warn me 
that the boundary to your land had failed."

"Why is the top part of it that strange black?"
asked a man standing in the front.

"I believe that it's an indication of how I'm 
running out of time, how I may be dying."

Worried whispering swept through the group ofmen. Richard held up a hand, urging them to listen 


to him as he went on. 
"This sand inside—can you all see this sand?"


Stretching their necks, they all tried to get alook, but not all were close enough, so Richardwalked among them, holding up the statue so thatthey could all see that it looked like him, and seethe sand falling inside.
"This is not really sand," he told them. "It'smagic."
Owen's face twisted with skepticism. "But you saidwe couldn't see magic."

"You are all pristinely ungifted and aren'ttouched by magic, so you can't see regular magic.
The boundary, however, still prevented you fromgoing out into the world, didn't it? Why do yousuppose that was so?"

"It was a wall of death," an older man spoke up,
seeming to think that it was self-evident.

"But how could it harm people who are notaffected by magic? Going into the boundary itselfmeant death for you the same as anyone else. Why?

"Because the boundary is a place in this worldwhere the underworld also existed. The underworld 
is the world of the dead. You may be ungifted, butyou are mortal; since you are linked to life, so,
too, are you linked to death."

Richard again held the statue up. "This magic,
as well, is tied to the underworld. Since you areall mortal, you have a connection to theunderworld, to the Keeper's power, to death. That'swhy you can see the sand that shows how my timetrickles away."

"I don't see anything magical about sandtrickling down," a man grumbled. "Just because yousay it's magic, or that it's your life tricklingaway, that doesn't seem to prove anything."

Richard turned the statue sideways. The sandcontinued to flow, but sideways.

Gasps and astonished whispering broke out amongthe men as they watched the sand flowing laterally. 


 They crowded in close like curious children tosee the statue as Richard held it up, on its side,
so they could see magic. Some reached out andtentatively touched the inky black surface asRichard held the figure of himself out for them toinspect. Others leaned close, peering in to see thesand flowing askew in the lower part, where thefigure was still transparent.

The men spoke of what a wonder it was, but theyweren't sure about his explanation of underworldmagic.
"But we all see this," one of the men said. "Thisdoesn't show us that we're really different fromyou or anyone else, as you say we are. This showsus only that we are all able to see this magic, thesame as you. Maybe we aren't this pristinelyungifted people you seem to think we are."

Richard thought about it a moment, thought aboutwhat he could do to show them the true aspects ofmagic. Even though he was gifted, he didn't know agreat deal about controlling his own gift, exceptthat it was in part powered by anger linked toneed. He couldn't simply demonstrate some bit ofmagic the way Zedd could, and besides, even if hecould do something magical, they wouldn't be ableto see it. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw Carastanding with her arms folded. An idea came to him.

"The bond between the Lord Rahl and his peopleis a bond of magic," Richard said. "That same magicpowers other things, besides the protection thatthe bond affords against the dream walker."

Richard gestured for Cara to come forward. "Inaddition to being my friend, Cara is also a Mord-
Sith. For thousands of years Mord-Sith have beenfierce protectors of the Lord Rahl." Richard liftedCara's arm for the men to see the red rod hangingfrom the fine gold chain at her wrist. "This is anAgiel, the weapon of a Mord-Sith. The Agiel ispowered by a Mord-Sith's connection to the Lord 


Rahl—to me." 

"But it has no blade on it," a man said as helooked closely at the Agiel swinging on the end ofthe gold chain. "It has nothing of any use as aweapon."

"Take a closer look at it," Richard suggested ashe held Cara's elbow and guided her forward, amongthe men. "Look at it closely to satisfy yourselfthat what this man has observed, that it has noblade, that it is nothing more than this slenderrod, is true."

The men leaned in close as Cara walked amongthem, holding her arm up, letting the men touch andinspect her Agiel as it dangled from its chain.
When they had all had a look, inspecting the lengthof it, looking at the end, hefting it to see thatit wasn't heavy and couldn't really be used as aclub, Richard told Cara to touch it to the men. TheAgiel spun up into her fist. Men flinched back atthe grim look on her face as she came at them withthe thing that Richard had told them was a weapon.

Cara touched her Agiel to Owen's shoulder.

"She touched me with this red rod before," heassured his men. "It does nothing."

Cara pressed the Agiel to every man close enoughfor her to reach. A few cringed back, fearful ofbeing harmed, even though it had harmed none oftheir fellows. Many of the men, though, felt thetouch of her Agiel and were satisfied that therewas no ill effect. 

Richard rolled up his sleeve. "Now, I will showyou that this really is a powerful weapon ofmagic."

He held his arm out to Cara. "Draw blood," hesaid in a calm voice that did not betray what hereally thought of being touched by an Agiel.
Cara stared at him. "Lord Rahl, I don't—"
"Do it," Richard commanded as he held his arm out.

"Here," Tom said, thrusting his bared arm infront of her. "Do it to me, instead." 


Cara immediately saw this as a preferable test.
"No!" Jennsen objected, but too late.

Tom cried out as Cara touched the end of her 
Agiel to his arm. He staggered back a step, atrickle of blood running down his arm. The menstared, unsure what they were seeing.
"It must be a trick of some kind," one suggested.
As Jennsen comforted Tom, Richard held his arm outagain.

"Show them," he told Cara. "Show them what aMord-Sith's Agiel can do with magic alone."
Cara looked into his eyes. "Lord Rahl..."

"Do it. Show them, so they understand." Heturned to the men. "Gather around closer so you cansee that it does its terrible task with no visible 
means. Watch closely so that you can all see thatit's magic alone doing its grisly work."

Richard clenched his fist as he held the inside 
of his arm up for her to touch. "Do it so that theycan clearly see what it will do; otherwise it willbe for nothing. Don't make me do this for nothing."

Cara pressed her lips tight with the displeasureof his command. She looked once more at the resolve 
in his eyes. When she did, he could see in her blueeyes the pain it gave her to hold the Agiel. Heclenched his teeth and nodded that he was ready.
With an iron visage, she laid the Agiel against theinside of his forearm. 
It felt like lightning hit him.

The touch of the Agiel was out of all proportionto what it would appear it should feel like. Thethunderous jolt of pain shot up his arm. The shockof it slammed into his shoulder. It felt like the 
bones in his entire arm shattered. Teeth gritted,
he held his trembling arm out as Cara slowlydragged the Agiel down toward his wrist. Blood-
filled blisters rose in its wake. Blood gushed downhis arm. 

Richard held his breath, kept his abdominalmuscles tight, as he went to one knee, not because 


he intended to, but because he couldn't remainstanding under the weight of pain as he held hisarm up for Cara as she pressed the Agiel to it. Themen gasped as they watched, shocked at the blood,
the obvious pain. They whispered theirastonishment. 

Cara withdrew the weapon. Richard released therigid tension in his muscles, bending forward as hepanted, trying to catch his breath, trying toremain upright. Blood dripped off his fingers.

Kahlan was there beside him with a small scarf 
Jennsen pulled from a pocket. "Are you out of yourmind?" she hissed heatedly as she wrapped hisbleeding arm.

"Thanks," he said in response to her care, notwanting to address her question.

He couldn't make his fingers stop trembling.
Cara had held little back. He was sure that she 
hadn't broken any bones, but it felt as if she had.
He could feel tears of pain running down his face.

When Kahlan finished, Cara put a hand under hisarm and helped him to his feet. "The MotherConfessor is right," she growled under her breath.
"You are out of your mind."

Richard didn't argue the need of what he'd hadher do, but instead turned to the men. He held hisarm out. A wet crimson stain slowly grew along thelength of the scarf bandage.

"There is powerful magic for you. You can't seethe magic, but you can see the results. That magiccan kill, should Cara wish it." The men castworried glances her way, viewing her with newfoundrespect. "But it could not harm you men because youhave no ability to interact with such magic. Onlythose born with the spark of the gift can feel thetouch of an Agiel."
The mood had changed. The sight of blood hadsobered everyone.

Richard paced slowly before the men. "I've givenyou the truth in all that I've told you. I've kept 


nothing important or relevant from you, nor will I.
I've told you who I am, who you are, and how we'vecome to this point. If there is anything you wishto know, I will give you my truthful answer."

When Richard paused, the men looked around atone another, seeing if anyone would ask a question.
No one did. 

"The time has come," Richard said, "for you mento decide your future and the future of your lovedones. Today is the day upon which that futurehinges."

Richard gestured toward Owen. "I know that Owenhad a woman he loved, Marilee, who was taken awayby the Order. I know that each of you has sufferedgreat loss at the hands of the men of the ImperialOrder. I don't know all your names, yet, or thenames of the loved ones taken from you, but pleasebelieve me when I tell you that I know such pain.

"While I understand how you came to the pointwhere you thought you had no options but to poisonme, it wasn't right for you to have done so." Manymen looked away from Richard's gaze, casting theirown downward. "I'm going to give you a chance toset the proper course for yourselves and your lovedones." 

He let them consider this a moment before goingon. "You men have passed many tests to make it thisfar, to have survived this long in such a brutalsituation as you have all faced, but now you mustmake a choice." 

Richard rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. 
"I want to know where you've hidden the antidote tothe poison you've given me."

Worried looks spread through the crowd. Menglanced to the side, trying to judge the feelingsof their fellows, trying to see what they would do.

Owen, too, tried to gauge the reaction of hisfriends, but being just as uncertain as he, theyoffered no firm indication of what they wanted todo. Finally he licked his lips and timidly asked a 


question.

"If we say that we will tell you where theantidote is, will you agree to first give us yourword that you will help us?"

Richard resumed his measured pacing. The mennervously waited for his answer as they watchedblood drip off his fingers, leaving a trail ofcrimson drops on the stone.

"No," Richard said. "I will not allow you tolink two separate issues. It was wrong to poisonme. This is your chance to reverse that wrong.
Linking it to any concession perpetuates thefallacy that it can somehow be justified. Tellingme where you've hidden the antidote is the onlyproper thing for you to do, now, and must bewithout condition. This is the day you must decidehow you will live your future. Until you give meyour decision, I will tell you nothing more."

Some of the men looked on the verge of panic,
some on the verge of tears. Owen prodded them allback, away from Richard, so that they could discussit among themselves.

"No," Richard said, his pacing coming to a halt.
The men all fell silent and turned back toward him. 
"I don't want any of you coming to a decisionbecause of what another says. I want each of you togive me your own personal decision."

The men stared. A number spoke up all at once,
wanting to know what he meant.

"I want to know, without any preconditions, whateach individual chooses to do—to free me of the 
poison, or to use it as a threat on my life to gainmy cooperation. I want to know each man's choice."
"But we must reach a consensus," one man said.
"For what purpose?" Richard asked.

"In order for our decision to be correct," heexplained. "No proper decision about the rightcourse of action in any important situation can bemade without a consensus." 

"You are attempting to give moral authority to 


mob rule," Richard said.

"But a consensus points to the proper moraljudgment," another man insisted, "because it is thewill of the people."
"I see," Richard said. "So what you're saying isthat if all of you men decide to rape my sister,
here, then it's a moral act because you have aconsensus to rape her, and if I oppose you, I'mimmoral for standing alone and failing to have aconsensus behind me. That about the way you men seeit?" 
The men shrank back in confused revulsion. One 
spoke up.
"Well... no, not exactly—"

"Right and wrong are not the product ofconsensus," Richard said, cutting him off. "You aretrying to make a virtue of mob rule. Rational moralchoices are based on the value of life, not aconsensus. A consensus can't make the sun rise at 
midnight, nor can it change a wrong into a right,
or the other way around. If something is wrong, itmatters not if a thousand other men are for it; youmust still oppose it. If something is just, noamount of popular outcry should stay you from yourcourse. 

"I'll not hear any more of this empty gibberishabout a consensus. You are not a flock of geese;
you are men. I will know the mind of each of you."
He gestured to the ground at their feet. "Everyone,
pick up two pebbles."

Richard watched as the bewildered men hesitantlybent and did his bidding.

"Now," Richard said, "you will put either one orboth pebbles in a closed fist. Each of you willcome up to me, to the man you poisoned, and youwill open your fist so that I can see your decisionbut the others can't. 

"One pebble will mean no, you will not tell mewhere the antidote is located unless I first pledgeto try to free your people. Two pebbles in your one 


fist will mean yes, you agree to tell me, withoutany precondition, where to find the antidote to thepoison you've given me."

"But what will happen if we agree to tell you?"
one of the men asked. "Will you still give us ourfreedom?" 

Richard shrugged. "After each of you has givenme your answer, you will all find out mine. If youtell me the location of the antidote, I may helpyou, or once I'm free of your poison, I may leaveyou and return to taking care of my own urgentproblems. You will only find out after you've givenme your answer.
"Now, turn away from your friends and put eitherone pebble in your fist for no or two pebbles toagree to reveal the location of the poison. Whenyou've finished, come forward one at a time andopen your hand to show me your own individualdecision." 

The men milled around, casting sidelong glancesat one another, but as he'd instructed, theyrefrained from discussing the matter. Each manfinally set about privately slipping pebbles intohis fist. 

As the men were occupied, Cara and Kahlan movedin close around Richard. It looked like the two of 
them had been reaching conclusions of their own.

Cara seized his arm. "Are you crazy?" shewhispered in an angry tone.
"You've both already asked me that today."

"Lord Rahl, need I remind you that you oncebefore called for a vote and it only got you intotrouble? You said you would not do such a foolishthing again."

"Cara is right," Kahlan argued in a low voice sothe men couldn't hear. 
"This time is different." 
"It's not different," Cara snapped. "It's trouble."

"It's different," he insisted. "I've told themwhat's right and why; now they must decide if they 


will choose to do the right thing or not."

"You're allowing others to decide your future,"
Kahlan said. "You're placing your fate in theirhands." 

Richard let out a deep breath as he gazed intoKahlan's green eyes and then the icy blue eyes ofthe Mord-Sith. "I have to do this. Now, let themcome up and show me their decision."

Cara stormed off to stand back by the statue ofKaja-Rang. Kahlan gave his arm a squeeze, offeringher silent support, accepting his decision even ifshe didn't understand his reasons. A brief smile of 
appreciation was all he could manage before sheturned and walked back to stand by Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom. 

Richard turned away, not wanting to let Kahlansee how much pain he was in. The ache from thepoison was slowly creeping back up his chest. Everybreath hurt. His arm still trembled with the 
lingering ache of being touched by an Agiel. Theworst, though, was the headache. He wondered ifCara could see it in his eyes. After all, thebusiness of Mord-Sith was pain.

He knew he couldn't wait until after helpingthese men fight off the Order before getting theantidote to the poison. He had no idea how to ridtheir empire of the Imperial Order. He couldn'teven rid his own empire of the invaders.

Worse, though, he could feel that he was runningout of time. His gift was giving him the headachesand, if not attended to, would eventually kill him,
but worse, it was weakening him, allowing thepoison to work faster. With each passing day he washaving more and more difficulty working past thepoison.

If he could get these men to agree to do this,
to tell him where they'd hidden the antidote, thenhe might be able to recover it in time.
If not, then his chance to live was as good asover. 


 CHAPTER 44 

The men milled around the top of the pass,
some staring off into their own thoughts, somegazing up at the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man whohad banished their people. Some of the men snatchedglimpses at their companions. Richard could seethat they were aching to ask friends what theywould do, but they kept to Richard's orders anddidn't speak.

Finally, when Richard stepped up before them,
one of the younger men came forward. He had beenone of the men eager to hear Richard's words. He'dlooked as if he had listened carefully andconsidered the things Richard had told them.
Richard knew that if this man said no, then therewas no chance that any of the others would agree.

When the young, blond-headed man opened hisfist, two pebbles lay in his palm. Richard let outan inner sigh that at least one of the men hadactually chosen to do the right thing.

Another man came forward and opened his fist,
showing two pebbles sitting in his palm. Richardnodded in acknowledgment, without showing anyreaction, and let him move aside. The rest of themen had lined up. Each stepped forward in turn andsilently opened his hand. Each showed him twopebbles, showing that he would recant their deaththreat, and then moved off so that the next mancould show his choice. 
Owen was the last in line. He looked up at Richard,
pressed his lips tight, and then thrust out hishand. "You have done us no harm," he said as he 


opened his fist. There in his palm lay two pebbles.

"I don't know what will happen to us, now," Owensaid, "but I can see that we must not cause youharm because we are desperate for your help."

Richard nodded. "Thank you." The sincerity inhis voice brought smiles to many of the faceswatching. "You have all showed two pebbles. I'mencouraged that you've all chosen to do the rightthing. We now have common ground upon which to finda future course." 

The men looked around one another in surprise.
They each cheerfully gathered in close to theirfriends, talking excitedly to one another about howthey had all made the same decision. They lookedgleeful that they were united in their decision.
Richard moved back to where Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom stood. 
"Satisfied?" he asked Kahlan and Cara. 

Cara folded her arms. "What would you have donehad they all chosen to keep the antidote's locationa secret until after you helped them?"

Richard shrugged. "I'd be no better off than Iwas, but no worse off, either. I'd have to helpthem, but at least I would know that I dare nottrust any of them."

Kahlan still didn't look pleased. "And what ifmost of them would have said yes, but some stuck totheir ways and said no?"

Richard looked into her resolute green eyes.
"Then, after the ones who agreed had told me whereto find the antidote, I would have had to killthose who said no." 

Understanding the seriousness of hisexplanation, Kahlan nodded. Cara smiled hersatisfaction. Jennsen looked shocked. 

"If any would have said no," he explained toJennsen, "then they would have been choosing tocontinue to enslave me, to hold a sentence of deathover my head in order to manipulate my life to getwhat they wanted from me. I would never be able to 


trust them in what I must ask the rest of them to 
do. I couldn't trust our lives to such treachery.
But, now, that's one less problem we have to worryabout." 

Richard turned to the waiting men. "Each of youhas decided to return my life to me."

The faces watching him turned serious as theywaited to hear what he would do now. Richard gazeddown at the small figure of himself, at the sandtrickling down, at the eerie black surface that hadalready descended over the top of the statue, likethe underworld itself slowly claiming his life. Hisfingers left smears of blood across the surface ofthe figure.

The clouds had lowered in around them,
thickening so that the afternoon light seemed morelike the gloom of dusk.

Richard lowered the statue and looked back up atthe men. "We will do our best to see if we can helpyou get rid of the Order."

A cheer rose into the thin, cold air. The menhooted their excitement as well as their relief. He 
hadn't yet seen any of them smile quite thisbroadly before. Those smiles, more than anything,
revealed the depth of their wish to be free of themen of the Order. Richard wondered how they wouldfeel about it when he finally told them their part.

He knew that as long as Nicholas the Slide wasable to seek them out through the eyes of theraces, he would remain a threat that would hauntthem wherever they went and endangered all of theirwork to get the Old World to rise up and overthrowthe Imperial Order. More than that, though,
Nicholas would be able to direct killers to find 
them. The thought of Nicholas seeing Kahlan andknowing where to find her gave Richard chills. Hehad to eliminate Nicholas. It was possible that indoing so, in eliminating their leader, he wouldalso help these people drive the Order from theirhomes. 


 Richard gestured for the men to gather incloser. "First, before we get to the matter offreeing your people, you need to show me whereyou've hidden the poison."

Owen squatted down and selected a stone fromnearby. With it, he scratched a chalky oval on theface of a flat spot in the rock. "Say that thisline is the mountains surrounding Bandakar." He setthe stone at the end of the oval closest to 
Richard. "Then this is the pass into our land,
where we are now." 

He plucked three pebbles from the ground. "Thisis our town, With-erton, where we lived," he saidas he set the first pebble down not far from therock that represented the pass. "There is antidotethere." 
"And this is where all of you men were hiding?"
Richard asked as he circled a finger over the firstpebble. "In the hills surrounding With-erton?"

"Mostly to the south," Owen said, pointing tothe area. He placed the second pebble near themiddle of the oval. "Here there is another vial of 
antidote, in this city, here, called Hawton." Heplaced the third pebble near the edge of the oval.
"Here is the third vial, in this city, Northwick."

"So then," Richard summed up, "I just need to goto one of those three places and recover theantidote. Since your town is the smallest, thatwould probably be our best chance."
Some of the men shook their heads; others looked 
away.

Owen, looking troubled, touched each of thethree pebbles. "I'm sorry, Lord Rahl, but one ofthese is not enough. Too much time has passed. Eventwo will be insufficient by now. The man who madethe poison said that if too much time passed, allfour would be necessary to insure a remedy.

"He said that if you did not immediately takethe first antidote I brought, then it would onlyhalt the poison for a while. He said that then the 


other three vials would all be needed. He said that 
in this case, the poison would possibly go throughthree states. If you are to be free of the poison,
you must drink all of the three remainingantidotes. If you don't, you will die."
"Three states? What does that mean?" 

"The first state will be pain in your chest. Thesecond state will be dizziness that makes standingdifficult." Owen looked away from Richard's gaze.
"In the third state the poison makes you blind." Helooked up and touched a hand to Richard's arm, asif to dispel his worry. "But taking three vials ofthe antidote will cure you, make you well."

Richard wiped a weary hand across his brow. Thepain in his chest told him that he was in thepoison's first state.
"How much time do I have?" 

Owen looked down as he straightened his sleeve.
"I'm not sure, Lord Rahl. We have already taken alot of time traveling this far since you had thatfirst vial. I think we have no time to lose." 

"How much time?" Richard asked in as calm a 
voice as he could manage.

Owen swallowed. "To be truthful, Lord Rahl, I'msurprised that you are able to stand the pain fromthe first state of the poison. From what I wastold, the pain would grow as time passed."
Richard simply nodded. He didn't look up at Kahlan.

With soldiers of the Imperial Order occupyingBandakar, getting in to recover the antidote fromone place sounded difficult enough, but retrievingit from all three places sounded beyond difficult.

"Well, since time is short, I have a betteridea," Richard said. "Make me more of the antidote.
Then we won't have to worry about getting whatyou've hidden and we can simply worry about howbest to take on the men of the Order." 
Owen shrugged one shoulder. "We can't."

"Why not?" Richard leaned in. "You made itbefore—you made the antidote that you hid. Make it 


again."
Owen shrank back. "We can't." 
Richard took a patient breath. "Why not?"


Owen pointed off at the small bag he'd brought,
now lying to the side—the bag containing thefingers of three girls. "The father of those girlswas the man who made the poison and made theantidote. He is the only one among us who knew howto make such complex things with herbs. We don'tknow how—we don't even know many of the ingredientshe used. 

"There may be others in the cities who couldmake an antidote, but we don't know who they are,
or if they are still alive. With men of the Orderin those places we wouldn't even be able to findthese people. Even if we could, we don't know whatwas used to make up the poison, so they would notknow how to make an antidote. The only chance youhave to live is to recover the three vials of 
antidote." 

Richard's head was hurting so much that hedidn't know if he could stand much longer. Withonly three vials in existence, and all three neededif he was to live, he had to get to them beforeanything happened to any one of them. Someone couldfind one and throw it out. They could be moved.
They could be broken, the antidote draining awayinto the ground. With every breath, he feltstitches of pain pull inside his chest. Panicgnawed at the edges of his thoughts.

When Kahlan rested her hand on his shoulder,
Richard laid a grateful hand over hers.
"We will help you get the antidote, Lord Rahl," oneof the men said. 
Another nodded. "That's right. We will help you getit." 

The men all spoke up, then, saying that theywould all help to get the antidote so that Richardcould rid himself of the poison.

"Most of us have been to at least two of these 


places," Owen said. "Some of us have been to allthree. I hid the antidote, but I told the othersthe places, so we all know where it is. We knowwhere we have to get in to recover it. We will tellyou, too."

"Then that's what we'll do." Richard squatteddown as he studied the stone map. "Where isNicholas?" 

Owen leaned in and tapped the pebble in thecenter. "Here, in Haw-ton, is this man Nicholas."

Richard looked up at Owen. "Don't tell me. Youhid the antidote in the building where you sawNicholas." 

Owen shrugged self-consciously. "At the time, itseemed like a good idea. Now, I wish I had thoughtbetter of it." 

Standing behind Richard, Cara rolled her eyes indisgust. "I'm surprised you didn't hand it toNicholas and ask him to hold on to it for you."

Appearing eager to change the subject, Owenpointed at the pebble representing Northwick. "Inthis city is where the Wise One is hiding. Maybe wecan get help from the great speakers. Maybe theWise One will give us his blessing and then peoplewill help us in our effort to rid our land of theImperial Order."

After all he'd learned about the people wholived beyond the boundary in Bandakar, Richarddidn't think he could count on any meaningful helpfrom them; they wanted to be free of maraudingbrutes, but condemned their only real means to befree. These men had at least proven a degree ofresolve. These men would have to work to changeother people's attitudes, but Richard had hisdoubts that they would garner much immediate help.

In order to accomplish what you men rightfullywant—to eradicate the Order, or at least make themleave your homes—you are going to have to help.
Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and I aren't going tobe able to do it alone. If it's to work, you men 


must help us."

"What is it you wish us to do?" Owen asked. "Wealready said we will take you to these places wherethe antidote is hidden. What more can we do?" 
"You are going to have to help us kill the men ofthe Order." 

Instantly, heated protests erupted. All of themen talked at once, shaking his head, warding thenotion with his hands. Although Richard couldn'tmake out all their words, their feelings about whathe said were obvious enough. What words he did hearwere all objections that they couldn't kill.

Richard rose up. "You know what these men havedone," he said in a powerful voice that broughtthem to silence. "You ran away so you wouldn't alsobe killed. You know how your people are beingtreated. You know what's being done to your lovedones in captivity."
"But we can't harm another," Owen whined. "Wecan't." 
"It's not our way," another man added.

"You banished criminals through the boundary,"
Richard said. "How did you make them go through ifthey refused?"

"If we had to," one of the older men said, "anumber of us would hold him, so that he could harmno one. We would tie his hands and bear him to the 
boundary. We would tell such a banished man that hemust go out of our land. If he still refused, wewould carry him to a long steep place in the rockwhere we would lay him down and push him feet firstso that he would slide down the rock and go beyond.
Once we did this, they weren't able to return."

Richard wondered at the lengths these peoplewent to not to harm the worst animals among them.
He wondered how many had to suffer or die at thehands of such criminals before the people ofBandakar were sufficiently motivated to take whatwere to them extreme measures. 

"We understand much of what you have told us," 


Owen said, "but we cannot do what you ask. We wouldbe doing wrong. We have been raised not to harmanother." 

Richard snatched up the bag with the girls'fingers and shook it at the men. "Every one of yourloved ones back there is thinking of nothing butbeing saved. Can any of you even imagine theirterror? I know what it's like to be tortured, tofeel helpless and alone, to feel like you willnever escape. In such a situation you want nothingmore than for it to stop. You would do anything forit to stop."

"That's why we needed you," an older man said.
"You must do this. You must rid us of the Order." 

"I told you, I can't do it alone." With an armwrapped in a bloody bandage, Richard gesturedemphatically. "Surrendering your will to men of theOrder who would do such things as this solvesnothing. It simply adds more victims. The men ofthe Order are evil; you must fight back."

"But if only you would talk to those men likeyou talked to us, they would see their misguidedways. They would change, then."

"No, they won't. Life doesn't matter to them.
They've made their choice to torture, rape, andkill. Our only chance to survive, our only chanceto have a future is to destroy them."
"We can't harm another person," one of the mensaid. 
"It's wrong to harm another," Owen agreed.

"It's always immoral to hurt, much less kill,
another person," a middle-aged man said to themumbled agreement of his fellows. "Those who dowrong are obviously in pain and need ourunderstanding, not our hate. Hate will only invitehate. Violence will only begin a cycle of violencethat never solves anything."

Richard felt as if the ground he had gained withthese men was slipping away from him. He was aboutto run his fingers back through his hair when he 


saw that they were covered in blood. He dropped hisarm and shifted his approach.

"You poisoned me to get me to kill these men. Bythat act, you've already proven that you accept thereality that it's sometimes necessary to kill inorder to save innocent lives—that's why you wantedme. You can't hold a belief that it's wrong to harmanother and at the same time coerce me to do it for 
you. That's simply killing by proxy."

"We need our freedom," one of them said. "Wethought that maybe because of your command as aruler you could convince these men, for fear ofyou, to leave us be."
"That's why you have to help me. You just said it—
for fear of me.You must help me in this so that thethreat, the fear, is credible. If they don'tbelieve the threat is real then why would theyleave your land?"

One of the others folded his arms. "We thoughtyou might rid us of the Order without violence,
without killing, but it is up to you to do suchkilling if that is your way. We cannot kill. Fromour very beginning, our ancestors have taught usthat killing is wrong. You must do this."

Another, nodding his agreement, said, "It's yourduty to help those who cannot bring themselves todo what you can do."
Duty. The polite name put to the chains ofservitude. 

Richard turned away, closing his eyes as hesqueezed his temples between fingers and thumb.
He'd thought that he was beginning to get throughto these men. He'd thought he would be able to getthem to think for themselves—in their own best 
interest—rather than to function spontaneouslyaccording to the rote dictates of theirindoctrination. 

He could hardly believe that after all he'd toldthem, these men would still rather have their lovedones endure torture and brutal murder than harm the 


men committing the crimes. By refusing to face thenature of reality, these men were willingly givingthe good over to evil, life over to death.

He realized then that it was even more basic 
than that. In the most fundamental sense, they werewillfully choosing to reject the reality of evil.

Deep inside him, every breath pulled a stitch ofpain. He had to get the antidote. He was runningout of time. 

But that alone would not solve his problems; hisgift was killing him just as surely as the poison.
He felt so sick from the pounding pain of hisheadache that he thought he might throw up. Eventhe magic of his sword was failing him.

Richard feared the poison, but in a more centralway, he feared the encroaching death from within,
from his gift. The poison, as dangerous as it was,
had a clearly defined cause and cure. With hisgift, he felt lost.

Richard looked back into Kahlan's troubled eyes.
He could see that she had no solution to offer. She 
stood in a weary pose, her arm hanging straightwith the weight of the warning beacon that seemedto tell him only that he was dying, but offered noanswers. Its whole reason for being was to call himto a proclaimed duty to help replace the boundary,
as if his life was not his own, but belonged toanyone who laid claim to it by shackling him with adeclaration of duty.

That concept—duty—was no less a poison than thatwhich these men had given him ... a call tosacrifice himself. 

Richard took the small statue from Kahlan's hand 
and stared down at it. The inky black had alreadyenveloped half the length of the figure. His lifewas being consumed. The sand continued to trickleaway. His time was running out.

The stone figure of Kaja-Rang, the long-deadwizard who had summoned him with the warning beaconand charged him with an impossible task, loomed 


over him as if in silent rebuke. 

Behind him, the men huddled close, affirming toone another their beliefs, their ways, theirresponsibility to their ancient ideals, that themen of the Order were acting as they were becausethey were misguided and could still be reformed.
They spoke of the Wise One and all the greatspeakers who had committed them to the path ofpeace and nonviolence. They all reaffirmed thebelief that they must follow the path that had beenlaid down for them from the very beginning by theirland's founders, their ancestors, who had giventhem their customs, their beliefs, their values,
their way of living.

Trying to elevate these men to understand whatwas right and necessary seemed as difficult astrying to lift them by a slender thread. Thatthread had broken. 

Richard felt trapped by the deluded convictionsof these people, by their poison, by the headaches,
by Nicholas hunting them, and by a long-dead wizardwho had reached out from the underworld to try toenslave him to a long-dead duty.

Anger welling up inside him, Richard cocked hisarm and heaved the warning beacon at the statue ofKaja-Rang.

The men ducked as the small figure shot by justover their heads to shatter against the stone baseof the statue. Amber fragments and inky blackshards flew in every direction. The sand frominside splattered in a stain across the front ofthe granite pedestal.
The cowering men fell silent. Overhead, wispstrailing from the sullen clouds drifted by, almostclose enough to reach up and touch. A few icyflakes of snow floated along in the still air. Allaround, a frigid fog had moved in to envelop thesurrounding mountains, leaving the top of the passwith the stone sentinel seeming isolated andotherworldly, as if this were all there was to 


existence. Richard stood in the dead quiet at thecenter of everyone's attention.

The words written in High D'Haran on thestatue's base echoed through Richard's mind.

Fear any breach of this seal to the empirebeyond... for beyond is evil: those who cannot see.

The High D'Haran words streamed again and againthrough bis mind. The translation of those wordsjust didn't feel right.

"Dear spirits," Richard whispered in suddenrealization. "I had it wrong. That's not what itsays." 

C H A 
P T E R 4 5 

Khalan felt as if her heart were being crushed bythe ordeal these men were putting Richard through.
Just when she'd thought he had gotten them tounderstand the truth of what was needed, it seemedto have slipped away as the men reverted to theirwillful blindness. 

Richard, though, seemed almost to have forgottenthe men. He stood staring at where the warningbeacon had shattered against the statue. Kahlanstepped closer to him and whispered.

"What do you mean, you had it wrong, and that'snot what it says? What are you talking about?"

"The translation," he said in what sounded likestartled comprehension. He stood motionless, facingthe towering statue of Kaja-Rang. "Remember how Itold you that it was an odd way to phrase what it 


said?" 
Kahlan glanced to the statue and then back to
Richard. "Yes." 


"It wasn't odd at all; I just had it wrong. Iwas trying to make it say what I thought it wouldsay—that those beyond couldn't see magic— insteadof just seeing what was before me. What I told youbefore isn't what it says...."

When his voice trailed off, Kahlan reached upand gripped his arm to draw his attention. "What doyou mean, that's not what it says?"
Richard gestured toward the statue. "I see what Idid wrong with the phrasal sequence, why I washaving trouble with it. I told you I wasn't sure ofthe translation. I was right to have doubts. Itdoesn't say, 'Fear any breach of this seal to theempire beyond... for beyond is evil: those whocannot see.' " 
Jennsen leaned in close beside Kahlan. "Are yousure?" 
Richard looked back at the statue, his voicedistant. "I am now." 

Kahlan pulled on his arm, making him look ather. "So what does it say?"

His gray eyes met her gaze briefly beforeturning to the eyes of the statue of Kaja-Rangstaring out at the Pillars of Creation, at hisfinal safeguard protecting the world from thesepeople. Instead of answering her, he started away.

The men parted as Richard strode toward thestatue. Kahlan stayed close on his heels, Carafollowing in her wake. Jennsen gathered up Betty'srope and pulled her along. The men, already backingout of the way for Richard, kept a wary eye on thegoat and her mistress as they passed. Tom stayedwhere he was, keeping a careful but unobtrusivewatch over all the men. 

At the statue, Richard swiped the dusting ofsnow off the ledge, revealing again the wordscarved in High D'Haran. Kahlan watched his eyes 


moving along the line of words, reading them tohimself. He had a kind of excitement in his 
movements that told her he was racing after animportant quarry.

For the moment, she could also see that hisheadache was gone. She couldn't understand the wayit ebbed from time to time, but she was relieved tosee strength in the way he moved. Hands spread onthe stone, leaning on his arms, he looked up fromthe words. Without the headache, there was avibrant clarity in his gray eyes.

"Part of this story has been puzzling," he said.
"I understand now. It doesn't say, 'Fear any breachof this seal to the empire beyond... for beyond isevil: those who cannot see.' " 

Jennsen's nose wrinkled. "It doesn't? You mean 
it wasn't meant to be about these pristinelyungifted people?"

"Oh, it was about them, all right, but not inthat respect." Richard tapped a finger to thecarved words. "It doesn't say 'for beyond is evil:
those who cannot see,' but something profoundlydifferent. It says, 'Fear any breach of this sealto the empire beyond . . . for beyond are those whocannot see evil.' " 
Kahlan's brow drew down. "... those who cannot see 
evil." 

Richard lifted his bandaged arm up toward thefigure towering over them. "That's what Kaja-Rangfeared most—not those who couldn't see magic, butthose who could not see evil. That's his warning tothe world." He aimed a thumb back over his 
shoulder, indicating the men behind them. "That'swhat this is all about." 

Kahlan was taken aback, and a little perplexed.
"Do you think it might be that because these peoplecan't see magic they also can't recognize evil,"
she asked, "or that because of the way they'redifferent they simply don't have the ability toconceive of evil, in much the same way they can't 


conceive of objective magic as having nothing to dowith mysticism?"

"That might in part be what Kaja-Rang thought,"
Richard said. "But I don't." 
"Are you so sure?" Jennsen asked.
"Yes." 

Before Kahlan could make him explain, Richardturned to the men. "Here, in stone, Kaja-Rang lefta warning for the world. Kaja-Rang's warning isabout those who cannot see evil. Your ancestors 
were banished from the New World because they werepristinely ungifted. But this man, this powerfulwizard, Kaja-Rang, feared them for something else:
their ideas. He feared them because they refused tosee evil. That's what made your ancestors sodangerous to the people of the Old World."
"How could that be?" a man asked. 

"Thrown together and banished to a strangeplace, the Old World, your ancestors must haveclung desperately to one another. They were soafraid of rejection, of banishment, that theyavoided rejecting one of their own. It developedinto a strong belief that no matter what, theyshould try not to condemn anyone. For this reason,
they rejected the concept of evil for fear theywould have to judge someone. Judging someone asevil meant they would have to face the problem ofremoving them from their midst.
"In their flight from reality, they justified theirpractices by settling on the fanciful notion thatnothing is real and so no one can know the natureof reality. That way, they wouldn't have to admitthat someone was evil. Better to deny the existenceof evil than have to eliminate the evildoer in 
their midst. Better to turn a blind eye to theproblem, ignore it, and hope it went away.

"If they admitted the reality of evil, theneliminating the evildoer was the only properaction, so, by extension, since they had beenbanished, they thought that they must have been 


banished because they were evil. Their solution wasto simply discard the entire concept of evil. Anentire belief structure developed around this core.

"Kaja-Rang may have thought that because theywere pristinely un-gifted and couldn't see magic,
they also couldn't see evil, but what he feared wasthe infection of their beliefs spreading to others.
Thinking requires effort; these people offeredbeliefs that needed no thought, but merely adoptingsome noble-sounding phrases. It was, in fact, anarrogant dismissal of the power of man's mind—anillusion of wisdom that spurned the requirement ofany authentic effort to understand the world aroundthem or the nuisance of validation. Such simplisticsolutions, such as unconditionally rejecting allviolence, are especially seductive to theundeveloped minds of the young, many of whom wouldhave eagerly adopted such disordered reasoning as atalisman of enlightenment.

"When they began fanatically espousing theseempty tenets to others, it probably set off thealarm for Kaja-Rang.

"With the spread of such ideas, with the kind ofrabid hold it has over some people, such as it hasover you men, Kaja-Rang and his people saw how, ifsuch beliefs ran free, it would eventually bringanarchy and ruin by sanctioning evil to stalk amongtheir people, just as it leaves you men defenselessagainst the evil of the Imperial Order now comeamong you.

"Kaja-Rang saw such beliefs for what they were:
embracing death rather than life. The regressionfrom true enlightenment into the illusion ofinsight spawned disorder, becoming a threat to allof the Old World, raising the specter of a descentinto darkness." 
Richard tapped his finger on the top of the ledge.
"There is other writing up here, around the base,
that suggests as much, and what became the eventualsolution. 


 "Kaja-Rang had those who believed theseteachings collected, not only all the pristinelyungifted banished from the New World, but also therabid believers who had fallen under their 
delusional philosophy, and banished the whole lotof them. 

"The first banishment, from the New World downto the Old, was unjust. The second banishment, fromthe Old World to the land beyond here, had beenearned." 

Jennsen, twiddling the frayed end of Betty'srope, looked dubious. "Do you really think therewere others banished along with those who werepristinely ungifted? That would mean there were agreat many people. How could Kaja-Rang have madeall these people go along? Didn't they resist? Howdid Kaja-Rang make them all go? Was it a bloodybanishment?" 

The men were nodding to her questions,
apparently wondering the same thing.

"I don't believe that High D'Haran was a commonlanguage among the people, not down here, anyway. Isuspect that it was a dying language only usedamong certain learned people, such as wizards."
Richard gestured to the land beyond. "Kaja-Rangnamed these people Bandakar—the banished. I don'tthink the people knew what it meant. Their empirewas not called the Pillars of Creation, or somename referring only to the ungifted. The writinghere suggests that it was because it was not onlythe pristinely ungifted who were banished, but allthose who believed as they did. They all wereBandakar: the banished. 

"They thought of themselves, of their beliefs,
as enlightened. Kaja-Rang played on that,
flattering them, telling them that this place hadbeen set aside to protect them from a world notready to accept them. He made them feel that, inmany ways, they were being put here because theywere better than anyone else. Not given to reasoned 


thinking, these people were easily beguiled in thisfashion and duped into cooperating with their ownbanishment. According to what's hinted at in thewriting here around the statue's base, they wenthappily into their promised land. Once confined tothis place, marriage and subsequent generationsspread the pristinely ungifted trait throughout theentire population of Bandakar."

"And Kaja-Rang really believed they were such aterrible threat to the rest of the people of theOld World?" Jennsen asked. Again, men nodded,
apparently in satisfaction that she had asked thequestion. Kah-lan suspected that Jennsen might haveasked the question on behalf of the men.

Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang.
"Look at him. What's he doing? He's symbolicallystanding watch over the boundary he placed here.
He's guarding this pass, watching over a sealkeeping back what lies beyond. In his eternalvigilance his hand holds a sword, ever at theready, to show the magnitude of the danger.

"The people of the Old World felt such gratitudeto this important man that they built this monumentto honor what he had done for them in protectingthem from beliefs they knew would have imperiledtheir society. The threat was no trifling matter.

"Kaja-Rang watches over this boundary even indeath. From the world of the dead he sent me a 
warning that the seal had been breached."

Richard waited in the tense silence until all 
the men looked back at him before he quietlyconcluded. 

"Kaja-Rang banished your ancestors not onlybecause they couldn't see magic, but, moreimportantly, because they couldn't see evil."

In restless disquiet, the men glanced about attheir companions. "But what you call evil is just away of expressing an inner pain," one of them said,
more as a plea than as an argument.

"That's right," another told Richard. "Saying 


someone is evil is prejudiced thinking. It's a wayof belittling someone already in pain for somereason. Such people must be embraced and taught toshed their fears of their fellow man and then theywill not strike out in violent ways."

Richard swept his glare across all the watchingfaces. He pointed up at the statue.

"Kaja-Rang feared you because you are dangerousto everyone—not because you are ungifted, butbecause you embrace evil with your teachings. In sodoing, in trying to be kind, to be unselfish, intrying to be nonjudgmental, you allow evil tobecome far more powerful than it otherwise would.
You refuse to see evil, and so you welcome it amongyou. You allow it to exist. You give it power overyou. You are a people who have welcomed death andrefused to denounce it. "You are an empire naked tothe shadow of evil." 
After a moment of thick silence, one of the oldermen finally spoke up. "This belief in evil, as youcall it, is a very intolerant attitude and is fartoo simplistic a judgment. It's nothing less thanan unfair condemnation of your fellow man. None ofus, not even you, can judge another."

Kahlan knew that Richard had a great deal ofpatience, but very little tolerance. He had beenvery patient with these men; she could see that hehad reached the end of his tolerance. She half 
expected him to draw his sword.

He walked among the men, his raptor glare movingindividuals back as he passed. "Your people thinkof themselves as enlightened, as above violence.
You are not enlightened; you are merely slavesawaiting a master, victims awaiting killers. Theyhave finally come for you."

Richard snatched up the small bag and stoodbefore the last man who had spoken. "Open yourhand." 

The man glanced to those at his sides. Finally,
he held his hand out, palm up. 


 Richard reached into the bag and then placed asmall finger, its flesh withered and stained withdried blood, in the man's hand.

The man obviously didn't want the little fingersitting in the palm of his hand, but after helooked up into Richard's withering glower, he saidnothing and made no attempt to rid himself of thegory trophy.

Richard walked among the men, ordering randommen to open their hands. Kahlan recognized the oneshe selected as men who had objected to the thingshe was trying to do to help them. He placed afinger in each upturned hand until the bag wasempty.

"What you hold in your hand is the result ofevil," Richard said. "You men all know the truth ofit. You all knew evil was loose in your land. Youall wanted that to change. You all wanted to be ridof evil. 

You all wanted to live. You all wanted yourloved ones to live. 
"You all had hoped to do it without having to facethe truth. 

"I have tried to explain things to you so thatyou could understand the true nature of the battlewe all face." 
Richard straightened the baldric over his shoulder.
"I am done explaining.

"You wanted me brought to your land. You haveaccomplished your goal. Now, you are going todecide if you will follow through with what youknow to be right."

Richard again stood before them, his backstraight, his chin held high, his scabbard gleamingin the gloomy light, his black tunic trimmed ingold standing out in sharp contrast against thefog-shrouded mountains behind him. He looked likenothing so much as the Lord Rahl. He was ascommanding a figure as Kahlan had ever seen.

After Richard and Kahlan's beginning so long 


ago, when they had struck out from those secludedwoods of his, Richard had turned the world upsidedown. From the beginning, he had always been at theheart of their struggle, and was now the ruler ofan empire—even if that endangered empire waslargely a mystery to him, as was his gift.
His cause, though, was crystal clear.

Together, Kahlan and Richard were at the centerof the storm of a war that had engulfed theirworld. It had now engulfed these men and theirland. 

Many people saw Richard as their only salvation.
Richard seemed forever trying to prove them wrong.
For many others, though, he was the single mosthated man alive. For them, Richard sought to givethem cause; he told people that their life wastheir own. The Imperial Order wanted him dead forthat more than for any blow he had dealt them.

"This is the way things are going to be,"
Richard finally said in a voice of quiet authority.

"You will surrender your land and your loyaltyto the D'Haran Empire, or you will be the subjectsof the Imperial Order. Those are your only twochoices. There are no others. Like it or not, youmust choose. If you refuse to make a choice, eventswill decide for you and you will likely end up inthe hands of the Imperial Order. Make no mistake,
they are evil hands.

"With the Order, if you are not murdered, youwill be slaves and treated as such. I think youknow very well what that entails. Your lives willhave no value to them except as slaves, called uponto help them spread their evil.

"As part of the D'Haran Empire, your lives willbe your own. I will expect you to rise up and livethem as the individuals you are, not as some speckof dirt in a pit of filth you have dug yourselvesinto. 

"The seal to your hiding place, to theBandakaran Empire, has failed. I don't know how to 


repair it, nor would I if I could. There is no moreEmpire of Bandakar.

"There is no way to allow you to be who you wereand to protect you. Maybe the Order can be thrownout of your land, but they cannot be effortlesslykept out, for it is their ideas that have come todestroy you.

"So choose. Slaves or free men. Life as either 
will not be easy. I think you know what life asslaves will be like. As free men you will have tostruggle, work, and think, but you will have therewards that brings, and those rewards will beyours and no one else's.

"Freedom must be won, but then it has to beguarded lest those like the Order come again toenslave those wishing for someone else to do theirthinking.

"I am the Lord Rahl. I intend to go get theantidote to the poison you've given me. If you menchoose to be part of this struggle, to ridyourselves and your loved ones of evil, then I willhelp you.

"If you choose not to stand with us, then youmay go back and let the Order do with you what theywill, or you can run. If you run, you may survivefor a time, as you have been doing, but, becausethat is not the way you wish to live, you will dieas frightened animals, never having lived what lifehas to offer. 

"So choose, but if you choose to stand with meagainst evil, then you will have to relinquish yourself-imposed blindness and open your eyes to lookaround at life. You will have to see the reality ofthe world around you. There is good and bad in theworld. You will have to use your minds to judgewhich is which so that you can seek the good andreject the bad.
"If you choose to stand with me, I will do my bestto answer any honest question and try to teach youhow to triumph against the men of the Order and 


those like them. But I will not suffer yourmindless teachings that are nothing more than acalculated rejection of life.

"Take a look at the bloody fingers you or yourfriends hold. Look at what was done to children byevil men. You should hate such men who would do 
this. If you don't, or can't, then you have nobusiness being with those of us who embrace life.

"I want each of you to think about thosechildren, about their terror, their pain, theirwish not to be hurt. Think of what it was like for 
them to be alone and in the hands of evil men. You 
should rightfully hate the men who would do suchthings. Hold tight to that righteous hatred, forthat is the hatred of evil. 

"I intend to recover the antidote so that I can 
live. In the process, I also intend to kill as manyof those evil men as I can. If I go alone, I maysucceed in getting the antidote, but alone I willnot succeed in liberating your homes from theImperial Order.

"If you choose to go with me, to help me in thisstruggle, we may have a chance.

"I don't know what I face there, so I can'thonestly tell you that we have a good chance. I canonly tell you that if you don't help me, then thereis likely no chance."

Richard held up a finger. "Make no mistake. Ifyou choose to join us and we take up this struggle,
some of us will probably die. If we do not, all ofus will die, not necessarily in body, but inspirit. Under such rule as the Order has shown you,
no one lives, even though their bodies might for atime endure the misery of life as slaves. Under theOrder, every soul withers and dies."

The men were silent as Richard paused to meettheir gazes. Most could not look away, while someseemed shamed and so they stared at the ground.

"If you choose to side with me in thisstruggle," Richard said with deliberate care, "you 


will be called upon to kill men of the Order, evilmen. If you once thought that I enjoyed killing,
let me assure you that you are very wrong. I hateit. I do it to defend life. I would never expectyou to relish killing. It is a necessity to do it,
not to enjoy doing it. I expect you to relish lifeand do what is necessary to preserve it."

Richard picked up one of the items, lying off tothe side, that they had made while waiting for Tomand Owen to bring the men up into the pass. Itlooked like little more than a stout stick. It was 
in fact made of oak limbs. It was rounded at the 
back to fit the hand, narrow at a point in themiddle, and pointed at the other end.

"You men don't have weapons. While we waited foryou to arrive, we've made some." He waggled hisfingers, requesting Tom to come forward. "The menof the Order won't recognize these as weapons, atfirst, anyway. If questioned, you should tell themthat they're used to make holes in the ground toplant crops."

With his left hand, Richard seized Tom's shirtat his shoulder, to hold him, and demonstrated theweapon's use by slowly showing how it would bethrust upward, toward a man's middle just under hisribs, to stab him. Some faces among the men twistedwith revulsion. 

"This can most easily be driven up into a man'ssoft part, up in under his ribs," Richard toldthem. "Once you thrust it in, give it a quicksideways twist to break it off at the narrow point.
That way, the man won't be able to pull it out.
With such a thing lodged in his insides, if he caneven stand, he won't want to be running after youor trying to wrestle you. You'll be better able toget away."

One of the men lifted a hand. "But a piece ofwood like that will be wet and wouldn't break. Manyof the wood fibers will just bend over, leaving thehandle end attached." 


 Richard tossed the weapon to the man. After hecaught it, he said, "Look at the middle, where it'scut to a narrow neck. You'll see that it's been 
held over a fire and dried for that very reason.
Notice the pointed end, too. You'll see that it'sbeen cut and split into four sections, with thepoints bent open, like a flower bud, so that asit's thrust into an enemy it has a good chance tobreak open, the four sides going in differentdirections to do more damage. With that one thrust,
it will be like stabbing him four times.

"When you snap it off in him, he won't be ableto fight you because every move he makes willwrench those long oak splinters through hisvulnerable insides. If it doesn't hit somethingvital and kill him immediately, he's certainlylikely to die within the day. While he's dying,
he'll be screaming in agony and fear. I want suchevil men to know that the pain and death theyinflict on others will be coming for them. Thatfear will cause them to begin to think of running.
It will make them lose sleep, wear them down, sothat when we do get to them they'll be easier tokill." 

Richard picked up another item. "This is a smallcrossbow." He held 
it high for the men to see as he pointed outi tsfeatures."As you can see, the bowstring is lockedback on this nut. A stout bolt is laid in this 
groove, here. Pulling this lever rotates the nut,
releasing the string and firing the bolt. It isn'tfancy, and you men aren't experienced at using suchweapons, but at close, range you don't have to beall that good a shot. "I've started a number ofcrossbows and have a whole pile of stocks and partsmade. With the items that you men brought back, wecan 
finish making them. They're rather 0rude, and, as Isaid, they won't be good at much of a distance, butthey are small and you can hide them 


under a cloak. No matter how big and strong theenemy is, the smallest of you can kill him. Noteven his chain-mail armor will protect againstsuch a weapon fired at close range. I cah promiseyou that they will be very deadly."

Richard showed the men hardwood clubs they wouldstud with nails. Such weapons could also beconcealed. He showed them a simple cord with asmall wooden handle at each end trjat was used tostrangle a man from behind when stealth wasparamount.

"As we take these men, we'll be able to getother weapons—knives, axes, maces, swords."

"But, Lord Rahl," Owen said, looking besidehimself with worry, "even if we were to agree tojoin you in this, we are not fighters. These men ofthe Order are brutes who are experienced at suchthings. We would stand no chance against them."

The others voiced their worried agreement.
Richard shook his head as he held up his hands forthem to be quiet.

"Look at those fingers you hold. Ask yourselveswhat chance those little girls had against suchmen. Ask yourselves what chance your mothers, yoursisters, your wives, your daughters have. You arethe only hope for these people. You are the onlyhope for yourselves.

"Most likely, you men would not stand a chanceagainst such men, either. But I have no intentionof fighting them as you're thinking. That's a goodway to get killed." Richard pointed at one of theyounger men. "What is it we want? The reason youcame to get me?"
The man looked confused. "To get rid of the men ofthe Order?" 

"Yes," Richard said. "That's right. You want tobe rid of murderers. The last thing you want is tofight them."

The man gestured at the weapons Richard hadshown them. "But these things ..." 


 "These men are murderers. Our task is to execute 
them. We want to avoid fights. If we fight them, werisk being hurt or killed. I am not saying that wewon't have to fight them, but that isn't our goal.
There will be times when there may be limitednumbers of them and we can be sure that with 
surprise we can take them out before a fight has achance to erupt. Keep in mind that these men havebeen conditioned to none of your people putting upany resistance. We hope to kill them before itoccurs to them to draw a weapon.

"But if we don't have to face them, all thebetter. Our goal is to kill them. To kill every oneof them we can. Kill them when they sleep, whenthey are looking the other way, when they areeating, when they are talking, when they aredrinking, when they are out for a stroll.
"They are evil. We must kill them, not fight them."

Owen threw up his hands. "But, Lord Rahl, if wewere to start killing them, they would take revengeon all the people they have."

Richard watched the men, waiting until he wassure everyone was paying attention.

"You have just recognized the reality that theyare evil. You're right; they will probably startkilling captives as a way to convince you tosurrender. But they are killing them now. Overtime, if left to do as they will, the killing theydo will be on a vast scale. The faster we kill 
them, the sooner it's over and the sooner themurder will stop. Some people will lose their livesbecause of what we do, but in doing it, we willfree all the rest. If we do nothing, then wecondemn those innocent people to the mercy of eviland evil grants no mercy. As I've said before, youcan't negotiate with evil. You must destroy it."

A man cleared his throat. "Lord Rahl, some ofour people have sided with the men of the Order—
believed their words. They will not want us to harmthe men of the Order." 


 Richard let out a heavy breath. He turned awayfor a moment, gazing off into the gloom, beforeturning his attention once more to the men. "I'vehad to kill people I knew my whole life becausethey sided with the Order, much the same as you aresaying. They came to believe the men of theImperial Order, and because I was opposed to theOrder, they tried to kill me. It's a terrible thingto have to kill someone like that, someone youknow. I believe the alternative is worse." 
"The alternative?" the man asked. 

"Yes, letting them murder me. That's thealternative: losing your life and losing the causefor which you fight—the lives of your loved ones."
Richard's expression had turned grave. "If some ofyour people have joined with the Order, or work toprotect them, then it may be that you could end upfacing them. It will be their life, or yours. Itcould even mean the lives of the rest of us. If 
they side with evil, then we must not allow them tostop us from eliminating evil.

"This is part of what you must weigh in yourdecision to join us or not. If you take up thisstruggle, you must accept that you may have to killpeople you know. You must weigh this in the choiceyou will make."

The men no longer seemed shocked by his words.
They looked solemn as they listened.

Kahlan saw small birds flitting past, looking toroost for the night. The sky, the icy fog, wasgetting darker. She scanned the sky, ever watchfulfor black-tipped races. With the weather in thepass so dreadful, she doubted they would be around.
The fog, at least, was comforting for that reason.

Richard looked exhausted. She knew how hard it 
was for her to breathe in the high, thin air, so ithad to be far worse for him; she feared how,
because of the poison, the thin air robbed Richardof his strength. They needed to be down out of thehigh pass. 


 "I have told you the truth and all I can fornow," Richard told the men. "Your future is now upto each of you."
He quietly asked Cara, Jennsen, and Tom to collecttheir things. He put a gentle hand on Kahlan's backas he turned to the men and gestured down the hill.

"We're going back down to our camp in thosewoods. You men decide what you will do. If you arewith us, then come down there in the protection ofthe trees, where the races won't be able to spot uswhen the weather lifts. We will need to finish 
making the weapons you will carry.

"If any of you choose not to join us, thenyou're on your own. I plan not to be here, at thiscamp, for long. If the Order captures you they willlikely torture you and I don't want to be anywherenearby when you scream your lungs out as you revealwhere our camp was."
The forlorn men stood huddled in a group.
"Lord Rahl," Owen asked, "you mean we must choosenow?" 

"I've told you all I can. How much longer canthose being tortured, raped, and murdered wait foryou? If you wish to join us and be part of life,
then come down to our camp. If you choose not to beon our side, then I wish you luck. But please don'ttry to follow us or I'll have to kill you. I wasonce a woods guide; I will know if any of youfollow us." 

One of the men, the one who had been the firstto show Richard two pebbles to say that he wouldreveal the location of the antidote, steppedforward, away from the rest of the men.

"Lord Rahl, my name is Anson." Tears filled hisblue eyes. "I wanted you to know that, to know whoI am. I am Anson." 
Richard nodded. "All right, Anson."

"Thank you for opening my eyes. I've always hadsome of the thoughts that you explained. Now Iunderstand why, and I understand the darkness kept 


over my eyes. I don't want to live like thatanymore. I don't want to live by words that don'tmean anything and I don't want the men of the Orderto control my life.

"My parents were murdered. I saw my father'sbody hanging from a pole. He never hurt anyone. Hedid nothing to deserve such a murder. My sister wastaken. I know what those men are doing to her. Ican't sleep at night thinking about it, thinkingabout her terror. 

"I want to fight back. I want to kill these evilmen. They've earned death. I want to grind theminto dust, as you have said.

"I choose to join with you and fight to gain myfreedom. I want to live free. I want those I love 
to live free." 

Kahlan was stunned to hear one of them say suchthings, especially without first consulting withthe rest of the men. She had watched the eyes ofthe other men as Anson spoke. They all listenedkeenly to everything Anson said.

Richard smiled as he placed a hand on the youngman's shoulder. "Welcome to D'Hara, Anson. Welcomehome. We can use your help." He pointed off at Caraand Tom picking up the weapons they'd brought toshow the men. "Why don't you help them take thosethings back down to our camp."

Anson grinned his agreement. The soft-spokenyoung man had broad shoulders and a thickly muscledneck. He was genial, but looked determined. If shewere in the Imperial Order, Kahlan would not wantto see such a powerfully built man coming afterher. 

Anson eagerly tried to take the load from Cara'sarms. She wouldn't relinquish it, so he picked upthe rest of the things and followed Tom down thehill. Jennsen went along, too, pulling Betty behindby her rope, tugging for the first few stepsbecause Betty wanted them to stay with Richard andKahlan. 


 The other men watched as Anson started down the 
hill with Cara, Tom, and Jennsen. They then movedoff to the side, away from the statue, while theywhispered among themselves, deciding what theywould do. 

Richard glanced at the figure of Kaja-Rangbefore starting down the hill. Something seemed tocatch his eye.
"What's the matter?" Kahlan asked. 

Richard pointed. "That writing. On the face ofthe pedestal, below his feet."

Kahlan knew there had been no writing in thatspot before, and she was still too far away toreally tell if she could see writing in the fleckedgranite. She glanced back to see the others makingtheir way down the hill, but instead followedRichard when he started toward the statue. The men 
were still off to the side, busily engaged in theirdiscussion. 

She could see the spot on the face of thepedestal where the warning beacon had shattered.
The sand from inside the statue representing

Richard was still splattered across the face ofthe pedestal.

As they got closer, she could hardly believewhat she was beginning to see. It looked as if thesand had eroded the stone to reveal lettering. Thewords had not been there before; that much she wassure of. 

Kahlan knew a number of languages, but shedidn't know this one. She recognized it, though. Itwas High D'Haran.

She hugged her arms to herself in the chill windthat had come up. The somber clouds stirredrestlessly. She peered around at the imposingmountains, many hidden by a dark shroud of fog.
Swirling curtains of snow obscured other slopes inthe distance. Through a small, brief opening in thewretched weather, the valley she could see offthrough the pass offered the promise of green and 


warmth. 
And the Imperial Order.

Kahlan, close beside Richard, wished he wouldput a warm arm around her. She watched as he staredat the faint letters in the stone. He was being fartoo quiet for her peace of mind.
"Richard," she whispered, leaning close to him,
"what does it say?"

Transfixed, he ran his fingers slowly, lightlyover the letters, his lips soundlessly pronouncingthe High D'Haran words.

"Wizard's Eighth Rule," Richard whispered intranslation. "Taiga Vassternich." 

 CHAPTER 46 

Following behind the messenger, Verna steppedaside as a tight pack of horses raced by. Theirbellies were caked with mud, their nostrils flaredwith excitement. The eyes of the cavalry soldiersbent over their withers showed grim determination.
With the constant level of activity of recentweeks, she had to maintain a careful vigil whenevershe stepped out of a tent lest she be run down byone thing or another. If it wasn't horses chargingthrough camp, it was men at a run.
"Just up ahead," the messenger said over hisshoulder. 

Verna nodded to his young face as he glancedback. He was a polite young man. His curly blondhair and his mannerly behavior combined to remindher of Warren. She was defenseless against the waveof pain that cut through her with the memory of 


Warren being gone, at the emptiness of each day.

She couldn't remember this messenger's name.
There were so many young men; it was hard to recallall their names. Though she tried her best, shecouldn't keep track of them. At least for a whilenow they hadn't been dying at a terrifying rate. Asharsh as the winters were up in D'Hara, suchweather had at least been a respite from thebattles of the previous summer, from the constantfighting and dying. With summer again upon them,
she didn't think that the relative quiet was goingto last much longer.For now the passes held againstthe Imperial Order. In such narrow and confinedplaces, the enemy's weight of numbers didn't meanso much. If only one man would fit through a narrowhole in a stone wall, it meant little that therewere a hundred waiting behind him to go through, ora thousand. Defending against one man, as it were,
was not the impossible task that it was trying tofight the onslaught of Jagang's entire force.

When she heard the distant thunder, felt itrolling through the ground, she glanced up at thesky. The sun had not made an appearance in twodays. She didn't like the looks of the cloudsbuilding against the slopes of the mountains. Itlooked like they could be in for a nasty storm.

The sound might not have been thunder. It waspossible that it was magic the enemy hammeredagainst the shields across the passes. Suchbattering would do them no good, but it made foruneasy sleeping, so, if for no other reason, theykept at it.

Some of the men and the officers passing in theother direction gave her a nod in greeting, or asmile, or a small wave. Verna didn't see anySisters of the Light. Many would be at the passes,
tending shields, making sure none of the ImperialOrder soldiers could get through. Zedd had taughtthem to consider every possibility, no matter howoutlandish, and guard against it. Day and night 


Verna ran every one of those places through hermind, trying to think if there was anything theyhad overlooked, anything they had missed, thatmight allow the enemy forces to flood in upon them.

If that happened, if they broke through, thenthere was nothing to stop their advance into D'Haraexcept the defending army, and the defending armywas no match for the numbers on the other side of 
those mountains. She couldn't think of any chink intheir armor, but she worried constantly that theremight be one.

It seemed that the final battle might be on themat any moment. And where was Richard?

Prophecy said that he was vital in the battle todecide the future course of mankind. With it 
appearing that they very well could be one battlefrom the end of it all, of freedom's final spark,
the Lord Rahl ran the very real risk of missing themoment of his greatest need. She could hardlybelieve that for centuries Prophecy foretold of theone who would lead them, and when the time finallyarrives, he's off somewhere else. Lot of goodProphecy was doing them.

Verna knew Richard's heart. She knew Kahlan's 
heart. It wasn't right to doubt either of them, butVerna was the one staring into the eyes of Jagang'shorde and Richard was nowhere to be found. 

From what little information Verna had gleanedfrom Ann's messages in the journey book, there wastrouble afoot. Verna could detect in Ann's writingsthat the woman was greatly troubled by something.
Whatever the cause, Ann and Nathan were racingsouth, back down through the Old World. Ann avoidedexplaining, possibly not wanting to burden themwith anything else, so Verna didn't press. She hadenough trouble conceiving of why Ann would havejoined with the prophet rather than collaring him.
Ann said only that a journey book was not a goodplace to explain such things.

Despite the good work the man sometimes did, 


Verna considered Nathan dangerous in the extreme. Athunderstorm brought life-giving rain, but if youwere the one struck by its lightning, it didn't doyou much good. For Ann and Nathan to join forces,
as it were, must be indicative of the trouble theywere all in. 

Verna had to remind herself that not everythingwas going against them, not everything was hopelessand dismal. Jagang's army had, after all, suffereda stunning blow at the hands of Zedd and Adie,
losing staggering numbers of soldiers in an instantand suffering vast numbers of casualties. As aresult the Imperial Order had turned away fromAydindril, leaving the Wizard's Keep untouched.
Despite the dream walker's covetous hands, the Keepremained out of his reach. 

Zedd and Adie had the defense of the Keep wellin hand, so it was not all trouble and strife;
there were valuable assets on the side of the 
D'Haran Empire. The Keep might yet prove decisivein helping to stop the Imperial Order. Verna missedthat old wizard, his advice, his wisdom, though shewould never admit it aloud. In that old man she 
could see where Richard got many of his bestqualities.

Verna halted when she saw Rikka striding acrossin front of her. Verna snatched the Mord-Sith's 
arm. 
"What is it, Prelate?" Rikka asked.
"Have you heard what this is about?"
Rikka gave her a blank look. "What what's about?"

The messenger stopped on the other side of theintersection of informal roads. Horses trotted pastin both directions, one pulling a cart of waterbarrels. Fully armed men crossed on the side road.
The encampment, one of several, surrounded by adefensive berm, had evolved into a city of sorts,
with byways through its midst for men, horses, andwagons.
"Something is going on," Verna said. 


"Sorry, I haven't heard anything."
"Are you busy?"
"Nothing urgent."


Verna took a good grip on Rikka's arm andstarted her walking. "General Meiffert sent for me.
Maybe you'd best come along. That way if he wantsyou, too, we won't have to send someone looking foryou."

Rikka shrugged. "Fine by me." The Mord-Sith'sexpression turned suspicious. "Do you have any ideawhat's wrong?"

As Verna kept an eye on the messenger ahead ofher weaving his way among men, tents, wagons,
horses, and repair stations, she glanced over atRikka. "Nothing that I know of." Verna's expressioncontorted a bit as she tried to put her queazy moodinto words. "Did you ever wake up and just feellike there was something wrong, but you couldn'texplain why it seemed like it was going to be a badday?"

"If it's to be a bad day, I see to that it'ssomeone else's, and I'm the cause of it."

Verna smiled to herself. "Too bad you're notgifted. You would make a good Sister of the Light."
"I would rather be Mord-Sith and be able to protectLord Rahl." 

The messenger stopped at the side of the camproad. "Back there, Prelate. General Meiffert saidto bring you to that tent by the trees."

Verna thanked the young man and made her wayacross the soft ground, Rikka at her side. The tentwas away from the main activity of the camp, in aquieter area where officers often met with scoutsjust back from patrols. Verna's mind raced, tryingto imagine what news scouts could have broughtback. There was no alarm, so the passes still held.
If there was trouble, there would be a flurry ofactivity in the camp, but it seemed about the sameas any other day.

Guards saw Verna coming and ducked into the tent 


to announce her arrival. Almost immediately, thegeneral stepped out of the tent and rushed to meether. His blue eyes reflected iron determination.
The man's face, though, was ashen.

"I saw Rikka," Verna explained as GeneralMeiffert dipped his head in a hurried greeting. "Ithought I ought to bring her just in case youneeded her, too."

The tall, blond-headed D'Haran glanced brieflyat Rikka. "Yes, that's fine. Come in, please, bothof you."

Verna snatched his sleeve. "What's this about? 
What's going on? Is something wrong?"

The general's eyes moved to Rikka and back toVerna. "We've had a message from Jagang."

Rikka leaned in, her voice taking on an edge.
"How did a messenger from Jagang get throughwithout someone killing them?"

It was standard practice that no one camethrough for any reason. They didn't want so much asa mouse making it through. There was no telling ifit might be some kind of trick.

"It was a small wagon, pulled by a singlehorse." He tilted his head toward Verna. "The men 
thought the wagon was empty. Remembering yourinstructions, they let it through."

Verna was somewhat surprised that Ann's warningto let an empty wagon through had been so correct.
"A wagon came of its own accord? An empty wagondrove itself in?" 

"Not exactly. The men who saw it thought it wasempty. The horse appears to be a workhorse that isused to walking roads, so it plodded along the roadas it had been trained." General Meiffert pressedhis lips together at the confusion on Verna's faceand then turned away from the tent. "Come on, andI'll show you."

He led them to the third tent down the line and 
held the flap aside. Verna ducked in, followed byRikka and the general. On a bench inside sat a 


young novice, Holly, with her arm around a veryfrightened-looking girl no more than ten years old.

"I asked Holly to stay with her," GeneralMeiffert whispered. "I thought it might make herless nervous than a soldier standing over her."

"Of course," Verna said. "Very wise of you.
She's the one who brought the message, then?"

The young general nodded. "She was sitting inthe back of the wagon, so the men seeing it comingat first thought it was empty."

Verna now understood why such a messenger gotthrough. Soldiers weren't nearly so likely to killa child, and the Sisters could test her to insureshe was no threat. Verna wondered if Zedd would 
have something to say about that; threat often camein surprising packages. Verna approached the pairon the bench, smiling as she bent down.

"I'm Verna. Are you all right, young lady?" Thegirl nodded. "Would you like something to eat?"

Trembling slightly as her big brown eyes took inthe people looking at her, she nodded again.
"Prelate," Holly said, "Valery already went to gether something."

"I see," Verna said, holding the smile in place.
She knelt down and gently patted the girl's handsin her lap to reassure her. "Do you live aroundhere?" 

The girl's big brown eyes blinked, trying tojudge the danger of the adult before her. Shecalmed just a little at Verna's smile and kindtouch. "A bit of travel to the north, ma'am."
"And someone sent you to see us?"

The big brown eyes filled with tears, but shedidn't cry. "My parents are back there, down overthe pass. The soldiers there have them. As guests,
they said. Men came and took us to their army.
We've had to stay there for the last few weeks.
Today they told me to take a letter over the passto the people here. They said that if I did as Iwas told, they would let my mother and father and 


me go home."

Verna again patted the girl's small hands. "Isee. Well, that's good of you to help yourparents."
"I just want to go home."

"And you shall, child." Verna straightened.
"We'll get you some food, dear, so you have a fulltummy before you go back to your parents."

The girl stood and curtsied. "Thank you for yourkindness. May I go back after I eat, then?"
"Certainly," Verna said. "I'll just go read theletter you brought while you have a nice meal, andthen you can return to your parents."

As she sat back up on the bench, squirming herbottom back beside Holly, she couldn't help keepinga wary eye on the Mord-Sith.

Trying not to show any apprehension, Vernasmiled her good-bye to the girl before leading theothers out of the tent. She couldn't even imaginewhat Jagang was up to.

"What's in the letter?" Verna asked as theyhurried to the command tent. 

General Meiffert paused outside the tent, histhumb burnishing a brass button on his coat as hemet Verna's gaze. "I'd just as soon you read it foryourself, Prelate. Some of it is plain enough. Someof it, well, some of it I'm hoping you can explainto me." 

Stepping into the tent, Verna saw Captain Zimmerwaiting off to the side. The square-jawed man wasabsent his usual infectious smile. The captain wasin charge of the D'Haran special forces, a group ofmen whose job it was to go out and spend their daysand nights sneaking around in enemy territorykilling as many of the enemy as possible. Thereseemed to be an endless supply. The captain seemeddetermined to use up the supply.

The men in Captain Zimmer's corps were very goodat what they did. They collected strings of earsthey took from the enemies they killed. Kahlan used 


to always ask to see their collection whenever theyreturned. The captain and his men dearly missedher. 

They all glanced up at a flash of lightning. Thestorm was getting closer. After a moment's pause,
the ground shook with the rolling rumble ofthunder. 

General Meiffert retrieved a small folded paperfrom the table and handed it to Verna. 
"This is what the girl brought."

Looking briefly to the two men's grimexpressions, Verna unfolded the paper and read theneat script.

I have Wizard Zorander and a sorceress named 
Adie. I now hold the Wizard's Keep in Aydindril andall it contains. My Slide will soon present me withLord Rahl and the Mother Confessor. 

Your cause is lost. If you surrender now andopen the passes, I will spare your men. If you donot, I will put every one of them to death.

Signed, Jagang the Just.
The arm holding the paper in her trembling fingerslowered. 
"Dear Creator," Verna whispered. She felt dizzy.

Rikka snatched the paper from her hand and stoodfacing away as she read it. She cursed under herbreath. 

"We have to go get him," Rikka said. "We have toget Zedd and Adie away from Jagang."

Captain Zimmer shook his head. "There is no waywe could accomplish such a thing."

Rikka's face went red with rage. "He's saved mylife before! Yours, too! We have to get him out ofthere!" 

In contrast to Rikka's anger, Verna spokesoftly. "We all feel the same about him. Zedd hasprobably saved all of our lives more than once.
Unfortunately, Jagang will do all the worse to himfor it." 

Rikka shook the message before their faces. "So 


we are just going to let him die there? Let Jagangkill him? We sneak in, or something!"

Captain Zimmer rested the heel of his hand on along knife at his belt. "Mistress Rikka, if I toldyou that I had a man hidden somewhere in this camp,
in one of the hundreds of thousands of tents, andno one would bother you or ask you any questions,
but would allow you to freely go about a search,
how long do you think it would take you to findsuch a hidden man?" 

"But they won't be in just any tent," Rikkasaid. "Look at us, here. This message came. Did itgo to just any random tent in the whole camp? No,
it went to a place where such things are handled."

"I've been to the Imperial Order encampment toomany times to count," Captain Zimmer said as hecast his arm out toward the enemy over themountains to the west. "You can't even imagine howbig their camp is. They have millions of men there.

"Their encampment is a quagmire of cutthroats.
It's a place of chaos. That disorder allows us toslip in, kill some of them, and get out fast. Youdon't want to be there very long. They recognizeoutsiders, especially blond outsiders.

"Moreover, there are layers of different kindsof men. Most of the soldiers are little more than a 
mob of thugs that Jagang turns loose from time totime. None of them are allowed beyond a certainpoint within their own camp. The men guarding theareas with higher security are not nearly so stupidand lazy as the common soldiers.

"The men in those protected areas aren't asnumerous as the common soldiers, but they aretrained professionals. They are alert, vigilant,
and deadly. If you could somehow manage to getthrough the sea of misfits to reach the island atthe core where the torture and command tents are,
those professional soldiers would have you on theend of a pike in no time.

"Even they are not all the same. The outer ring 


of this core, besides having these professionalsguarding it, is where the Sisters are. They bothlive there and use magic to watch for intruders.
Beyond them are further rings, starting with theelite guards, and then, finally, the emperor'spersonal guards. These are men who have beenfighting with Jagang for years. They kill anyone,
even the elite guard officers, if they become atall suspicious of them. If they even hear word ofsomeone saying disparaging things about theemperor, they hunt them down and have themtortured. After being tortured, if they livethrough it, they are then put to death.

"I'm not saying that my men and I would beunwilling to risk our lives trying to get Zedd outof there; I'm saying that we would be giving ourlives up for nothing."
The mood in the tent could not have been more 
hopeless.

The general gestured with the paper when Rikkahanded it back. "Any idea what a Slide is,
Prelate?" 
Verna met his blue-eyed gaze. "A soul stealer."
The general frowned. "A what?"

"In the great war—three thousand years ago—thewizards of that time created weapons out of people.
Dream walkers, like Jagang, were one such weapon.
The best way I can explain it to you is that aSlide is in some ways like a dream walker. A dreamwalker can enter a person's mind and seize controlof them. A Slide, I believe, is something likethat, only he seizes your spirit, your soul."
Rikka made a face. "Why?"

Verna lifted her hands in frustration. "I don't 
really know. To control their victim, perhaps.

Altering gifted people was an ancient practice.
They sometimes changed gifted people with magic tosuit a specific purpose. With Sub-tractive Magicthey took away traits they didn't want, and thenthey used Additive Magic to add to or enhance a 


trait they did want. What they created weremonsters. 

"I'm not really well versed in the subject. WhenI became Prelate I had access to books I had never 
seen before. That's where I saw the reference to 
Slides. They were used to slip into anotherperson's being and steal the essence of who theywhere—their spirit, their soul.

"Altering people in such a way as to createthese Slides is a long-dead art. I'm afraid that Idon't know a great deal about the subject. I doremember reading that the ones called Slides wereexceedingly dangerous."

"Long-dead art," the general muttered. He lookedlike he was making a great effort to restrainhimself. "Those wizards of that time made such 
weapons as Slides, but how could Jagang? He's nowizard. Could it be that he's lying?"

Verna thought about the question a moment. "Hehas gifted people under his direct control. Someare able to use underworld magic. As I said, Idon't know a great deal about it, but I supposeit's possible that he was able to do it."

"How?" the general demanded. "How could Jagangdo such things? He's not even a wizard."

Verna clasped her hands before herself. "He hasSisters of the Light and the Dark. In theory, Isuppose he has what he needs. He is a man whostudies history. I know from personal experiencethat he puts great value in books. He has anextensive and quite valuable collection. Nathan,
the prophet, was very concerned about this verything, and destroyed a number of important volumesbefore they could fall into Jagang's possession.

"Still, the emperor possesses a great manyothers—in fact, he has a huge collection. Now thathe has captured the Keep, he has access toimportant libraries. Those books are dangerous, orthey wouldn't have been sealed away in the Wizard'sKeep in the first place." 


"And now Jagang has control of them." GeneralMeiffert ran his fingers back through his hair. Hegripped the back of the chair set before the smalltable and leaned his weight on his arms. "Do youthink he really has Zedd and Adie?"

The question was a plea for some thread of hope.
Verna swallowed as she carefully considered thequestion. She answered in an honest voice, notwanting to be the founder of a false faith. Sinceshe'd read the message from Jagang, she, herself,
had been searching for that same thread of hope.

"I don't think he's a man who would find anysatisfaction in bragging about something he hadn'tactually accomplished. I think he must be tellingus the truth and wants to gloat over hisaccomplishment."

The general released his grip on the chair andturned as he considered Verna's words. Finally, heasked a question worse yet.

"Do you think he's telling the truth that thisSlide has Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor? Do 
you think this terrible creation, this Slide, willsoon deliver the two of them to Jagang?"

Verna wondered if this was the reason for Ann 
and Nathan's headlong rush down through the OldWorld. Verna knew that Richard and Kahlan were down 
there, somewhere. There could be no more urgentreason for Ann and Nathan to race south. Was it 
possible that this Slide had already captured them,
or captured their souls? Verna's heart sank. Shewondered if Ann already knew that the Slide hadRichard, and that was why she wasn't saying muchabout her mission. 
"I don't know," Verna finally answered.
"I think Jagang just made a mistake," CaptainZimmer said. 
Verna lifted an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"He has just betrayed to us how much troublehe's having with the passes. He's just told us howwell our defenses are working and how desperate he 


is. If he doesn't get through this season, hiswhole army will have to sit out another winter. Hewants us to let him through.

"D'Haran winters are hard, especially on mensuch as his, men not used to the conditions. I sawwith my own eyes good indications of how many menhe lost last winter. Hundreds of thousands of men 
died from disease." 
"He has plenty of men," General Meiffert said. "Hecan afford the losses. He has a steady supply ofnew troops to replace the ones who died from thefevers and sickness last winter." 
"So, you think the captain is wrong?" Verna asked.

"No, I agree that Jagang would like very much toget it over with; I just don't think he cares howmany of his men die. I think he's eager to rule theworld. Patient as he generally is, he sees the endat hand, the goal within his grasp. We're the onlything standing in his way, keeping his prize fromfalling to him. His men, too, are impatient for theplunder.

"His choice to split the New World first bydriving up to Aydindril has left him close to hisgoal, but in some ways, even more distant from it.
If he can't make it through the passes, he maydecide to pick up his army and make a long marchback south again, to the Kern River valley, towhere he can then come over and up into D'Hara.
Once his army takes to the open ground down south,
there's no way for us to stop them.

"If he can't break through the passes now, itmeans a long march and a long delay, but he willstill have us in the end. He would rather have us 
now and is willing to offer the lives of our men toclose a deal." 
Verna stared off. "It's a grave mistake to try toappease evil."

"I agree," General Meiffert said. "Once weopened the passes, he would slaughter every lastman." 


The mood in the tent was as gloomy as the skyoutside. 

"I think we should send him back a letter,"
Rikka said. "I think we should tell him that we 
don't believe him that he has Zedd and Adie. If he 
expects us to believe him, he should prove it; heshould send us their heads." 
Captain Zimmer smiled at the suggestion.

The general tapped a finger on the table as hethought it over. "If it's as you say, Prelate, andJagang really does have them, then there's nothingwe can do about it. He will kill them. After what 
Zedd did to Jagang's force back in Aydindril, tosay nothing of all the havoc he caused the ImperialOrder last summer when the Mother Confessor was 
with us, I know it won't be an easy death, but hewill kill them in the end." 

"Then you agree that nothing else can be done,"
Verna said. 

General Meiffert wiped a hand across his face.
"I hate admitting it, but I'm afraid they're lost.
I don't think we should give Jagang thesatisfaction of knowing how we truly feel aboutit." 

Verna's head spun at the thought of Zedd andAdie being put to torture, of them being in thehands of Jagang and his Sisters of the Dark. Shequailed at the thought of the D'Haran forces losingZedd. There simply was no one with his experienceand knowledge. There was no one who could replacehim. 

"We write Jagang a letter, then," Verna said,
"and tell Jagang we don't believe he has Zedd andAdie." 

"The only thing we can do," Rikka said, "is todeny Jagang what he wants most. What he wants isfor us to give up."

General Meiffert pulled out the chair at thetable, inviting Verna to sit and write the letter.
"If Jagang is angered by such a letter, he just 


might send us their heads. If he did, that wouldspare them terrible suffering. That's the onlything we can do for them—the best we could do forthem." 

Verna took stock of the grim faces and saw onlyresolve at what had to be done. She sat in the 
chair the general held for her, wiggled the stopperout of the ink bottle, and then took a piece ofpaper from a small stack in a box to the side.

She dipped the pen and stared at the paper for amoment, trying to decide how to phrase the letter.
She tried to imagine what Kahlan would write. As itcame to her, she bent over the table and beganwriting.

I don't believe you are competent enough tocapture Wizard Zoran-der. If you were, you wouldsend us his head to prove it. Don't bother meanymore with your whining for us to open the passesfor you because you are too inept to do ityourself.
Reading over Verna's shoulder, Rikka said, "I likeit." 
Verna looked up at the others. "How should I signit?" 

"What would make Jagang the most angry—orworried?" Captain Zimmer asked.

Verna tapped the back of the pen against herchin as she thought. Then it came to her. She putpen to paper.
Signed, the Mother Confessor. 

 CHAPTER 47 


Richard scanned the site off in the broad, green
valley, watching for any sign of troops. He looked
over at Owen. 
"That's Witherton?" 


Hands pressed against the rich forest floor atthe crown of a low ridge, Owen pulled himselfcloser to the edge. He stretched his neck to seeover the rise and finally nodded before pullingback. 
Richard had thought it would be bigger. "I don'tsee any soldiers."

Owen crawled back away from the edge. In theshadowed cover among ferns and low scrub, he stoodand brushed the moist crumbles of leaves from his 
shirt and trousers. 

"The men of the Order mostly stay inside thetown. They have no interest in helping to do thework. They eat our food and gamble with the thingsthey have taken from our people. When they do thesethings they are interested in little else." Hisface heated to red. "At night, they used to collectsome of our women." Since the reason was obvious 
enough, Owen didn't put words to it. "In thedaytime they sometimes come out to check on ourpeople who work in the fields, or watch to see thatthey come back in at night."

If the soldiers had once camped outside the citywalls, they no longer did. Apparently, theypreferred the more comfortable accommodationswithin the town. They had learned that these peoplewould offer no resistance; they could be cowed andcontrolled by words alone. The men of the ImperialOrder were safe sleeping among them.

The wall around Witherton blocked much of 
Richard's view of the place. Other than through theopen gates, there wasn't much to see. The wall wasconstructed of upright posts not a great dealtaller than the height of a man. The posts, avariety of sizes no bigger around than a hand



width, were bound tightly together, top and bottom,
with rope. The wavy wall snaked around the town,
leaned in or out in places. There was no bulwark,
or even a trench before the wall. Other than 
keeping out grazing deer or maybe a roaming bear,
the walls certainly didn't look strong enough towithstand an attack from the Imperial Ordersoldiers. 

The soldiers had no doubt made a point of usingthe gate into the town for reasons other than thestrength of the wall. Opening the gates forsoldiers of the Imperial Order had been a symbolicsign of submission.

Broad swaths of the valley were clear of trees,
leaving fields of grain to grow alongside row cropsin communal gardens. Tree limbs knitted intofencing kept in cows. There, the wild grasses werechewed low. Chickens roamed freely near coops. Afew sheep grazed on the coarse grass.

The smells of rich soil, wildflowers, andgrasses carried on a light breeze into the woodswhere Richard watched. It was a great relief tohave finally descended from the pass. It had beengetting difficult to breathe in the thin air up onthe high slopes. It was considerably warmer, too,
down out of the lofty mountain pass, although hestill felt cold. 

Richard checked the sweep of open valley onelast time and then he and Owen made their way backinto the dense tangle of woods toward where theothers waited. The trees were mostly hardwoods,
maple and oak, along with patches of birch, butthere were also stands of towering evergreens.
Birds chirped from the dense foliage. A squirrel upon the limb of a pine chattered at them as theypassed. The deep shade below the thick forest crownwas interrupted only occasionally by mottledsunlight.
Some of the men, swatting at bugs, stood in a rushwhen Richard led Owen into the secluded forest 


opening. Richard was glad to stand in the warmth ofsunlight slanting in at a low angle.

It appeared that the open area in the densewoods had been created when a huge old maple hadbeen hit by lightning. The maple split and fell intwo directions, taking other trees down with it.
Kahlan hopped down off her seat on the trunk of thefallen monarch. Betty, her tail wagging in a blur,
greeted Richard, eagerly looking for attention, ora treat. Richard scratched behind her ears, thegoat's favorite form of attention.

More of the men came into the open from behindupturned roots that had been turned silver by yearsof exposure to the elements. A crop of spruce, nonemore than chest high, had sprung up in the sunnyspot created when the old maple had died such asudden and violent death. Spread among Kahlan,
Cara, Jennsen, and Tom were the rest of the men—his 
army.

Back up in the pass, Ansons saying that hewanted to help rid his people of the Imperial Ordersoldiers seemed to have galvanized the rest of themen, and the balance had finally tipped. Once ithad, a lifetime of darkness and doubt gave way to ahunger to live in the light of truth. The men alldeclared, in a breathtaking moment ofdetermination, that they wanted to join withRichard to be part of the D'Haran Empire and fightthe soldiers of the Imperial Order to gain theirfreedom. 

They had all decided that the men of the Orderwere evil and deserved death, even if theythemselves had to do the killing.

When Tom glanced down to see Betty going back tobrowsing on weeds, Richard noticed that the man'sbrow was beaded with sweat. Cara fanned herself 
with a handful of big leaves from a mountain maple.
Richard was about to ask them how they could besweating when it was such a cool day when herealized that it was the poison making him cold. 


With icy dread, he recalled how the last time hehad gotten cold, the poison had nearly killed himthat awful night.

Anson and another man, John, took off theirpacks. They were the ones planning to slip in amongthe field-workers returning to town at nightfall.
Once they sneaked into town, the two men planned torecover the antidote. 

"I think I'd better go with you," Richard saidto Anson. "John, why don't you wait here with theothers." 

John looked surprised. "If you wish, Lord Rahl,
but there is no need for you to go."

It wasn't supposed to be a foray that wouldresult in any violence, only the recovery of theantidote. The attack on the Imperial Order soldierswas to be after the antidote had been safelyrecovered and they had assessed the situation, thenumber of men, and the layout.
"John is right," Cara said. "They can do it."

Richard was having difficulty breathing. He hadto make an effort not to cough.
"I know. I just think I had better have a lookmyself."
Cara and Kahlan cast sidelong glances at eachother. 

"But if you go in there with Anson," Jennsensaid, "you can't take your sword."

"I'm not going to start a war. I just want toget a good look around at the place."

Kahlan stepped closer. "The two of them canscout the town and give you a report. You can rest—
they will only be gone a few hours."
"I know, but I don't think I want to wait thatlong."

By the way she appraised his eyes, he thoughtshe must be able to see how much pain he was in.
She didn't argue the point further but insteadnodded her agreement.

Richard pulled the baldric and sword belt off 


over his head. He slipped it all over Kahlan'shead, laying the baldric across her shoulder.
"Here. I pronounce you Seeker of Truth."

She accepted the sword and the honor by plantingher fists on her hips. "Now don't you go startinganything while you're in there. That's not theplan. You and Anson will be alone. You wait untilwe're all together."

"I know. I just need to get the antidote andthen we'll be back in no time." 

Beside getting the antidote, Richard wanted tosee the enemy forces, how they were placed, and thelayout of the town. Having the men draw a map inthe dirt was one thing, seeing it for himself wasanother; these men didn't know how to evaluatethreat points.

One of the men took off his light coat,
something a number of the men wore, and held it outto Richard. "Here, Lord Rahl, wear this. It willmake you look more like one of us."

With a nod of thanks, Richard drew the coat on.
He had changed out of his war wizard's outfit intotraveling clothes, so he didn't think he would lookout of place with the way the men from the town ofWitherton looked. The man was nearly Richard'ssize, so the coat fit well enough. It also hid hisbelt knife. 

Jennsen shook her head. "I don't know, Richard.
You just don't look like one of them. You stilllook like Lord Rahl." 

"What are you talking about?" Richard held outhis arms, looking down at himself. "What's wrongwith the way I look?"
"Don't stand up so straight," she said.
"Hunch your shoulders and hang your head a little,"
Kahlan offered. 

Richard took their advice seriously; he hadn'tthought about it, but the men did tend to hunch alot. He didn't want to stand out. He had to blend 
in if he didn't want to raise the suspicions of the 


soldiers. He bent over a little. 
"How's that?" 
Jennsen screwed up her mouth. "Not much different."
"But I'm bending down."


"Lord Rahl," Cara said in a soft voice as shegave him a meaningful look, "you remember how itwas to walk behind Denna, when she held the chainto the collar around your neck. Make yourself likethat." 

Richard blinked at her. The mental image of histime as a captive of a Mord-Sith hit him like aslap. He pressed his lips tight, not sayinganything, and conceded with a single nod. Thememory of that forsaken time was depressing enoughthat he would have no trouble using it to fall intothe role. 

"We had better be on our way," Anson said. "Nowthat the sun is falling behind the mountains,
darkness comes quickly." He hesitated, then spokeagain. "Lord Rahl, the men of the Order will notknow you—I mean they probably will not realize youaren't from our town. But our people do not carryweapons; if they see that knife, they will know youare not from our town, and they will send up analarm." 
Richard lifted open the coat, looking at the knife.
"You're right." He loosened his belt and removedthe sheath holding the knife. He handed it to Carafor safekeeping.

Richard cupped a hand quickly to the side ofKahlan's face as a way of saying his good-bye. Sheseized the hand in both of hers and pressed a quickkiss to the backs of his fingers. Her hands lookedso small and delicate holding his. He sometimeskidded her that he didn't see how she could 
possibly get anything done with such small hands.
Her answer was that her hands were a normal size 
and perfectly adequate, and his were simplyoutsized. 

The men all noticed Kahlan's gesture of 


affection. Richard was not embarrassed that theydid. He wanted them to know that other people werethe same as they in important, human ways. This waswhat they were fighting for—the chance to be human,
to love and cherish loved ones, to live their livesas they wanted.

The light faded quickly as Richard and Ansonmade their way through the woods running besidefields of wild grasses. Richard wanted to workaround to where the forest came in closer to the 
men out weeding in the gardens and tending toanimals. With the nearby mountains to the westbeing so high, the sun vanished behind them earlierthan what would normally be sunset, leaving the skya swath of deep bluish green and the valley in anodd golden gloom.

By the time he and Anson had reached the placewhere they would leave the woods, it was still alittle too light, so they waited a short whileuntil Richard felt the murky light in the fieldswas dim enough to hide them. The town was somedistance away and since Richard couldn't make outany men outside the gates, he reasoned that ifsoldiers were watching, then they couldn't see him,
either. 

As they moved quickly through the field of wildgrass, staying low and out of sight, Anson pointed.
"There, those men going back to town, we shouldfollow them." 

Richard spoke quietly back over his shoulder.
"All right, but don't forget, we don't want tocatch up with them or they might recognize you andmake a fuss. Let them stay a good distance ahead ofus." 

When they reached the town walls, Richard sawthat the gates were no more than two sections ofthe picket walls. A couple of posts no bigger thanRichard's wrist had been tied sideways to stiffentwo sections of wall and make them into gates. Theropes that tied the posts together served as the 


hinges. The sections were simply lifted and swungaround to open or close them. It was far from asecure fortification. 

In the murky light of twilight, the two guardsmilling around just inside the gates and watchingworkers return couldn't really see much of Richardand Anson. To the guards, they would appear to betwo more workers. The Order understood the value of 
workers; they needed slaves to do the work so thatthe soldiers might eat.

Richard hunched his shoulders and hung his headas he walked. He remembered those terrible times as 
a captive when, wearing a collar, he walked behindDenna, devoid of all hope of ever again being free.
Thinking of that inhuman time, he shuffled throughthe open gates. The guards didn't pay him anyattention. 

Just as they were nearly past the guards, theclosest one reached out and snatched Anson's 
sleeve, spinning him back around.

"I want some eggs," the young soldier said.
"Give me some of the eggs you collected."

Anson stood wide-eyed, not knowing what to do.
It seemed ludicrous that these two young men wereallowed to serve their cause by being bullies.
Richard stepped up beside Anson and spoke quickly,
remembering to bow his head so that he wouldn'tloom over the man. 

"We have no eggs, sir. We were weeding the beanfields. I'm sorry. We will bring you eggs tomorrow,
if it pleases you."

Richard glanced up just as the guard backhandedhim, knocking him flat on his back. He instantlytook a firm grip on his anger. Wiping blood fromhis mouth, he decided to stay where he was.

"He's right," Anson said, drawing the guard'sattention. "We were weeding beans. If you wish it,
we will bring you some eggs tomorrow—as many as youwant." 

The guard grunted a curse at them and swaggered 


off, taking his companion with him. They headed fora nearby long, low structure with a torch lashed toa pole outside a low door. In the flickering lightof that torch, Richard couldn't make out what theplace was, but it appeared to be a building dugpartway into the ground so that the eaves were ateye level. After the two soldiers were a safedistance away, Anson offered Richard a hand to helphim up. Richard didn't think he'd been hit thathard, but his head was spinning.

As they started out, faces back in doorways andaround dark corners peeked out to watch them. WhenRichard looked their way, the people ducked backin. 
"They know you are not from here," Anson whispered.

Richard didn't trust that one of those peoplewouldn't call the guards. "Let's hurry up and getwhat we came here for." 

Anson nodded and hurriedly led Richard down anarrow street with what looked like little more 
than huts huddled together to each side. The singletorch burning outside the long building where thesoldiers had gone provided little light down thestreet. The town, at least what Richard could seeof it in the dark, was a pretty shabby-lookingplace. In fact, he wouldn't call it a town so muchas a village. Many of the structures appeared to behousing for livestock, not people. Only rarely werethere any lights coming from any of the squatbuildings and the light he did see looked like itcame from candles, not lamps.

At the end of the street, Richard followed Ansonthrough a small side door into a larger building.
The cows inside mooed at the intrusion. Sheeprustled in their pens. A few goats in other pensbleated. Richard and Anson paused to let theanimals settle down before making their way throughthe barn to a ladder at the side. Richard followed 
Anson as he climbed quickly to a small hayloft.

At the end of the loft, Anson reached up over a 


low rafter to where it tied into the wall behind a 
cross brace. "Here it is," he said as he grimaced,
stretching his arm up into the hiding place.

He came out with a small, square-sided bottleand handed it to Richard. "This is the antidote. 
Hurry and drink it, and then let's get out ofhere." 

The large door banged open. Even though it wasdark outside, the torch down the street providedjust enough light to silhouette the broad shape ofa man standing in the doorway. By his demeanor, hehad to be a soldier. 

Richard pulled the stopper from the bottle. Theantidote had the slight aroma of cinnamon. Hequickly downed it, hardly noticing its sweet, spicytaste. He never took his eyes off the man in thedoorway.

"Who's in here?" the man bellowed. 

"Sir," Richard called down, "I'm just gettingsome hay for the livestock."
"In the dark? What are you up to? Get down hereright now."

Richard put a hand against Anson's chest andpushed him back into the darkness. "Yes, sir. I'mcoming," Richard called to the soldier as hehurried down the ladder. 

At the bottom of the ladder, he turned and sawthe man coming toward him. Richard reached for hisknife under the coat he was wearing, onlyremembering then that he didn't have his knife. Thesoldier was still silhouetted against the open barndoor. Richard was in the darkness and the man 
probably wouldn't be able to see him. He silentlymoved away from the ladder.

As the soldier passed near him, Richard steppedin behind him and reached to his side, seizing theknife sheathed behind the axe hanging on his belt.
Richard gingerly drew the knife just as the manstopped and looked up the ladder to the hayloft.

As he was looking up, Richard snatched a fistful 


of hair with one hand and reached around with the 
other, slicing deep through the soldier's throatbefore he realized what was happening. Richard heldthe man tight as he struggled, a wet gurgling theonly sound coming from him. He reached back,
frantically grabbing at Richard for a moment beforehis movements lost their energy and he went limp.

"Anson," Richard whispered up the ladder as helet the man slip to the ground, "come on. Let'sgo."

Anson hurried down the ladder, coming to a haltas he reached the bottom and turned around to see 
the dark shape of the dead man sprawled on theground.
"What happened?"

Richard looked up from his work at undoing theweapon belt around the dead weight of the soldier.
"I killed him." 
"Oh." 

Richard handed the knife, in its sheath, toAnson. "Here you go. Now you have a real weapon—along knife."

Richard rolled the dead soldier over to pull thebelt the rest of the way out from under the man. Ashe tugged it free, he heard a noise and turned justin time to see another soldier running in towardthem. 

Anson slammed the long knife hilt-deep into theman's chest. The man staggered back. Richard shotto his feet, bringing the weapon belt with him. Thesoldier gasped for breath as he clutched at theknife handle. He dropped heavily to his knees. Onehand clawed at the air above him as he swayed.
Pulling a final gasp, he toppled to his side.

Anson stood staring at the man lying in a heap,
the knife jutting from his chest. He bent, then,
and pulled his new knife free.
"Are you all right?" Richard whispered when Ansonstood. 

Anson nodded. "I recognize this man. We called 


him the weasel. He deserved to die." 

Richard gently clapped Anson on the back of theshoulder. "You did well. Now, let's get out ofhere." 

As they made their way back up the street,
Richard asked Anson to wait while he checked down 
alleyways and between low buildings, searching forsoldiers. As a guide, Richard often scouted atnight. In the darkness, he was in his element.

The town was a lot smaller than he had expected.
It was also much less organized than he thought itwould be, with no apparent order to where thesimple structures had been built. The streetsthrough the haphazard town, if they could be calledstreets, were in most cases little more thanfootpaths between clusters of small, single-roombuildings. He saw a few handcarts, but nothing moreelaborate. There was only one road through thetown, leading back to the barn where they hadrecovered the antidote and run into the two 
soldiers, that was wide enough to accommodate awagon. His search didn't turn up any patrollingsoldiers. 

"Do you know if all the men of the Order staytogether?" Richard asked when he returned to Anson,
waiting in the shadows.

"At night they go inside. They sleep in ourplace, by where we came in."
"You mean that low building where the first twosoldiers went?" 

"That's right. That's where most people used togather at night, but now the men of the Order useit for themselves." 
Richard frowned at the man. "You mean you all slepttogether?"
Anson sounded mildly surprised by the question.
"Yes. We were together whenever possible. Manypeople had a house where they could work, eat, andkeep belongings, but they rarely slept in them. Weusually all slept in the sleeping houses where we 


gathered to talk about the day. Everyone wanted tobe together. Sometimes people would sleep inanother place, but mostly we sleep there togetherso we can all feel safe—much like we all slepttogether at night as we made our way down out ofthe pass with the statue."
"And everyone just... lay down together?"

Anson diverted his eyes. "Couples often sleptapart from others by being with one another under asingle blanket, but they were still together withour people. In the dark, though, no one could seethem . .. together under a blanket."

Richard had trouble imagining such a way oflife. "The whole town fit in that sleepingbuilding? There was enough room?"

"No, there were too many of us to all sleep inone sleeping house. There are two." Anson pointed.
"There is another on the far side of the one yousaw." 
"Let's go have a look, then."

They moved quickly back toward the town gates,
such as they were, and toward the sleeping houses.
The dark street was empty. Richard didn't seeanyone on the paths between buildings. What peoplewere left in the town had apparently gone to sleepor were afraid to come out in the darkness. 

A door in one of the small homes opened a crack,
as if someone inside were peering out. The dooropened wider and a thin figure dashed out towardthem. 
"Anson!" came the whispered voice.

It was a boy, in his early teens. He fell to hisknees and clutched Anson's arm, kissing his hand injoy to see him.

"Anson, I am so happy that you are home! We'vemissed you so much. We feared for you—feared thatyou were murdered."

Anson grabbed the boy by his shirt and hauledhim to his feet. "Bernie, I'm well and I'm happy tosee you well, but you must go back in now. The men 


will see you. If they catch you outside ..."

"Oh, please, Anson, come sleep at our house.
We're so alone and afraid." 

"Who?" 
"Just me and my grandfather, now. Please come inand be with us." 
"I can't right now. Maybe another time."

The boy peered up at Richard, then, and when hesaw that he didn't recognize him shrank back.

"This is a friend of mine, Bernie—from anothertown." Anson squatted down beside the boy. "Please,
Bernie, I will return, but you must go back insideand stay there tonight. Don't come out. We fearthere might be trouble. Stay inside. Tell yourgrandfather my words, will you now?"

Bernie finally agreed and ran back into the darkdoorway. Richard was eager to get out of the townbefore anyone else came out to pay their respects.
If he and Anson weren't careful, they would end upattracting the attention of the soldiers.

They moved quickly the rest of the way up thestreet, using buildings for cover. Pressing upagainst the side of one at the head of the street,
Richard peered around the corner at the squat daub-
and-wattle sleeping house where the guards hadgone. The door was open, letting soft light spillout across the ground.
"In there?" Richard whispered. "You all slept inthere?" 

"Yes. That is one of the sleeping houses, andbeyond it the other one."
Richard thought about it for a moment. "What didyou sleep on?"

"Hay. We put blankets over it, usually. Wechanged the hay often to keep it fresh, but thesemen do not bother. They sleep like animals in dustyold hay."

Richard looked out through the open gates at thefields. He looked back at the sleeping house.
"And now the soldiers all sleep in there?" 


 "Yes. They took the place from us. They said itwas to be their barracks. Now our people—the onesstill alive—must sleep wherever they can."

Richard made Anson stay put while he slippedthrough the shadows, out of the light of the torch,
to survey the area beyond the first building. Thesecond long structure also had soldiers insidelaughing and talking. There were more men than wereneeded to guard such a small place, but Withertonwas the gateway into Bandakar—and the gateway out.

"Come on," Richard said as he came up besideAnson, "let's get back to the others. I have anidea." 

As they made their way to the gate, Richardlooked up, as he often did, to check the starry skyfor any sign of black-tipped races. He saw insteadthat the pole to each side of the gate held a bodyhanging by the ankles. When Anson saw them, hepaused, held frozen by the horror of the sight.

Richard laid a hand on the man's shoulder and 
leaned close. "Are you all right?"

Anson shook his head. "No. But I will be better 
when the men who come to us and do such things aredead." 

 CHAPTER 48 

Richard didn't know if the antidote was supposedto make him feel better, but if it was, it hadn'tyet done its work. As they crept through the pitch-
black fields, his chest hurt with every breath hetook. He paused and closed his eyes briefly againstthe pain of the headache caused by his gift. Hewanted nothing more than to lie down, but there was 


no time for that. Everyone started out once morewhen he did, quietly making their way through thefields outside of Witherton. 

It felt good, at least, to have his sword back,
even if he dreaded the thought of having to draw itfor fear of finding its magic was no longer therefor him. Once they recovered the other two bottlesof the antidote and he was rid of the poison, thenmaybe they could make it back to Nicci so that shecould help him deal with his gift.

He tried not to worry if a sorceress could helpa wizard once his gift had gone out of control, ashis had. Nicci had vast experience. As soon as hereached her, she could help him. Even if shecouldn't help him, he felt confident that she wouldat least know what he had to do in order to get thehelp he needed. After all, she was once a Sister ofthe Light; the purpose of the Sisters of the Lighthad been to help those with the gift to learn tocontrol it. 
"I think I see the outer wall," Kahlan said in aquiet voice.
"Yes, that's the place." Richard pointed. "There'sthe gate. See it?"
"I think so," she whispered back.

It was a dark night, with no moon. While theothers were having difficulty seeing much ofanything as they made their way through the dark,
Richard was glad for the conditions. The starlightwas enough for him to see by, but he didn't thinkit was enough to give the soldiers any help inseeing them.

As they crept closer, the sleeping house cameinto view through the open gate. The torch stillburned outside the door to the building where thesoldiers slept. Richard signaled everyone to gatheraround close. They all crouched low. He grabbed theshoulder of Anson's shirt and pulled him up closeryet, then did the same with Owen.

Both now carried battle-axes. Anson also carried 


the knife he'd earned. The rest of the men carried 
the weapons they had helped finish making.

When Richard and Anson had returned to the 
forest clearing, Anson had told the waiting meneverything that had happened. When he said that hekilled the man called the weasel, Richard held hisbreath, not sure exactly how the men would react tohearing that one of their own had actually killed aman. There was a brief moment of astonished 
silence, and then spontaneous joy at theaccomplishment.

Every man wanted to shake Anson's hand tocongratulate him, to tell him how proud they were.
At that moment, any lingering doubts Richardharbored had vanished. He had allowed the men to 
celebrate briefly while he waited for the night todarken, and then they had started making their waythrough the fields.
This was the night that Witherton gained itsfreedom. 

Richard looked around at all the dark shapes.
"All right, now, remember all the things we've toldyou. You must stay quiet and hold the gates steadywhile Anson and Owen cut the rope where they hinge.
Be careful not to let the gates fall once the ropesare cut." 

In the dim starlight Richard could just make outthe men nodding to his instructions. Richardcarefully checked the sky, looking for any sign ofblack-tipped races. He didn't see any. It had beena long time since they'd seen any races.

It seemed that the trick of taking to theforests just before they changed their expectedroute and being careful to stay out of sight fromthe sky had worked. It was possible that they hadsucceeded in slipping out from under Nicholas theSlide's surveillance. If they really had escapedhis observation, then he wouldn't know where tobegin looking for them.

Richard briefly squeezed Kahlan's hand and then 


started for the opening in the town wall. Caracrouched close at his other side. Tom was bringingup the rear, along with Jennsen, making sure therewere no surprises from behind.

They had left Betty not only tied up, butconfined to a makeshift pen to be sure she didn'tfollow after them and give them away at the wrongmoment. The goat had been unusually distraught tobe left behind, but with lives at stake theycouldn't risk Jennsen's goat causing trouble. Shewould be happy enough after they returned.

When they reached the fields close to the towngates, Richard motioned for everyone to get downand stay where they were. Along with Tom, Richardmoved up to the gates, taking cover in the shadowof the wall. There was a soldier just inside thegate, pacing slowly in his lonely nighttime sentryduty. He wasn't being very careful, or he would notbe doing such duty in the light of the torch.

As the soldier turned to walk away from them,
Tom slipped up behind the man and swiftly silencedhim. As Tom dragged the dead man through the gatesto hide him in the darkness outside the wall,
Richard moved in through the gates, staying in theshadows and away from the torch burning outside thesleeping house. The door to the sleeping housestood open, but no light or sound came from inside.
This late, the men were bound to be asleep.

He moved past the first long building to thesecond, and there came upon another guard. Quickly,
silently, Richard seized the man and cut histhroat, holding him tight as he struggled. When hefinally went limp, Richard laid him in the darknessat the head of the second sleeping house, aroundthe corner from the torchlight.

In the distance, the men had already swarmedover the gates, holding them up while Anson andOwen worked quickly at cutting the ropes that actedas hinges. In moments, both sections of gate werefreed. Richard could hear the soft grunts of effort 


as the heavy gates were manhandled around by thetwo gangs of men.

Jennsen handed Richard his bow, the stringalready strung. She handed him one of the specialarrows, holding the rest at the ready for him.
Kahlan slipped up to the torch on the pole outsidethe first building and lit several small torches,
handing each of them off to the men. She kept onefor herself. 

Richard nocked the arrow and then glanced aroundat the faces seeming to float before him in thewavering torchlight. In answer to the unspokenquestion, they all nodded that they were ready. Hechecked the men balancing the two gates and sawtheir nod. The bow in one hand, with his fistholding the arrow in place, Richard gave handsignals to the men, starting them moving.

What had been a slow, careful approach from thewoods into the town suddenly transformed into aheadlong rush.

Richard held the head of the arrow nocked in his 
bow in the flame of the torch Kahlan held out for 
him. As soon as it caught, he ran to the open doorof the sleeping house, leaned into the darkness,
and fired the arrow toward the back. 

As the blazing arrow flew the length of thebuilding, it illuminated row upon row of mensleeping on the bed of straw. The arrow landed atthe far end, spilling flame across the straw. A fewheads lifted at the confusing sight. Jennsen handedRichard another. He immediately drew string tocheek and the arrow shot toward the middle of the 
interior. 

As Richard pulled back from the doorway, two menwith torches, dripping flaming drops of pitch,
heaved them just inside. They hissed as they flewthrough the air, landing amid the sleeping men,
bouncing and tumbling through the straw, igniting awall of flame. 

In a matter of only a few heartbeats since the 


attack started, the first sleeping house was setafire from one end to the other. The largest blaze,
by design, was the fire spread by the pitch-ladentorches, at the end of the building nearest thedoor. Confused cries came from inside, muted by thethick walls. The sleeping soldiers scrambled totheir feet. 

Richard checked that the men with the heavygates were coming; then he ran around the sleepinghouse to the second building. Jennsen, followingclose behind, handed him an arrow, the flamesaround its head wrapped in oil-soaked cloth makinga whooshing sound as she ran.
One of his men pulled the torch from the standoutside the building where the guard Richard killedhad been patrolling. Richard leaned in the doorwayonly to see a big man charging at him out of thedark interior. Richard pressed his back against thedoorjamb and kicked the man squarely in the chest,
driving him back.

Richard drew the bowstring back and shot theflaming arrow off into the interior. As it lit theinterior in its flight through the building, hecould see that some of the men had been awakened 
and were getting up. Turning to take the secondflaming arrow from Jennsen, he saw smoke pouring upfrom the first building. As soon as he drew stringto cheek and loosed the second arrow, he leanedaway and men heaved the torches in.

One torch fell back out of the doorway. It hadbounced off the chest of a man rushing for thedoorway to see what was happening. The pitch fromthe torch caught his greasy beard afire. He let outa bloodcurdling scream. Richard kicked him backinside. In an instant, men by the dozens wereracing for the door, not only to escape the burningbuilding, but to meet the attack. Richard saw theflash of weapons being drawn.

He sprang back from the doorway as the mencarrying the heavy section of gate rushed in. They 


turned the gate sideways and rammed it in under theeaves, but before they could bring the bottom downto wedge it against the ground, the weight ofbellowing men inside crashed into the section ofgate and drove it back. The men carrying it fellback, the weight knocking them from their feet, thegate landing atop them.

Suddenly, men were pouring from the doorway.
Richard's men were ready and fell on them, drivingthe wooden weapons into their soft underbellies andsnapping the handles off as man after man spilledout of the doorway. Standing to the side of thedoor, others used their maces to bash in the skullsof soldiers who emerged. When one soldier came outwith his sword raised, the man to the side clubbedhis arm as another rushed in and drove a wooden 
stake in up under his ribs. The more men who fellat the doorway, the more those trying to get outwere slowed and could be dispatched.

The soldiers were so stunned to see these peoplefighting that in some cases they fought back onlyineffectually. As a soldier leaped over the bodiesin the doorway and lifted a sword, a man jumped onhis back and seized his arm while another stabbed 
him. Another, crying orders, charged Jennsen, onlyto have the bolt of a crossbow fired into his face. 
A few soldiers escaped the burning building andmanaged to slip past Richard's men only to meetCara's Agiel. Their screams, worse than the criesof men on fire, briefly brought the gaze of everyman, from both sides of the battle.

Fallen knives and swords were scooped up by themen of the town and turned on the men from the 
Imperial Order. Richard fired an arrow into thecenter of the chest of a man emerging from thesmoke that rolled out of the doorway. As he wasfalling, a second arrow felled the man behind him.
As more men rushed out, they fell over those piledaround the doorway and were hacked to death withcommandeered axes or stabbed with confiscated 


swords. Since they could emerge only one at a time,
the soldiers couldn't mount a coordinated attack,
but those waiting could.

As Richard's men fought back those struggling toget out of the doorway of the burning building,
other men rushed to help lift the gate so thoseunder it could get up and get control of it. Oncethe gate was lifted, the men swung it around and,
with a cry of joint effort, ran with it toward thebuilding. They drove the top up under the eaves,
first, but when they brought the bottom edge down,
the bodies piled in the doorway prevented them fromgetting the bottom down so they could wedge it inplace.

Richard called out orders. Some of his men 
rushed in and seized an arm or a leg of a dead manand dragged the body aside so the others couldfinally bring the bottom of the gate down againstthe building to close off the opening.

One man from inside squeezed through just beforethey had the gate in place. The weight of the doorpinned him against the building. Owen leaned in andwith a sword he'd picked up decisively stabbed theman through the throat.

As men inside pounded at the gate covering thedoorway and threw their weight against it, men onthe outside piled around to push it down and holdit in place. Other men fell to their knees anddrove stakes into the ground to lock the gatesection in place, trapping the soldiersinside.Behind, streamers of flame leaked out fromunder the eaves of the first building and leaped upinto the night sky. The roof of the buildingignited all at once, explosively engulfing theentire sleeping house in sparks and flames. Screamsof men being burned alive ripped the night.

The waves of heat coming off the massive fire asthe first building was consumed by the flames beganto carry the heavy aroma of cooking meat. Itreminded Richard that, for the killing he did, his 


gift demanded the balance of not eating meat. Afterall the killing of this night, since his gift wasalready spinning out of control, he would have tobe even more careful to avoid eating any meat.

His head was already hurting so much that he washaving trouble focusing his vision; he couldn'tafford to do anything that would further unbalancehis gift. If he was not careful, the poisonwouldn't get the chance to be the first to killhim. 

Heavy black smoke billowed out from around theedges of the gate covering the doorway of thesecond sleeping house. Screams and pleas came frominside. The men of the town moved back, watching,
as smoke began rolling up from under its eaves. Thebattle seemed to have ended as quickly as it hadstarted. 

No one spoke as they stood in the harsh glarefrom the roaring fires. Flames ate through thesecond building. With a loud whoosh it was engulfedin fire. 

The heat drove everyone back away from the twosleeping houses. As they moved back from theburning buildings, they encountered the rest of thepeople of the town, all gathered in the shadows,
watching in stunned silence.

One of the older men took a step forward.
"Speaker Owen, what is this? You have committedviolence?" 

Owen stepped away from the men he was with tostand before the people of his town. He held an armback, pointing toward Richard.

"This is Lord Rahl, of the D'Haran Empire. Iwent in search of him to help us be free. We havemuch to tell you, but for now you must know thattonight, for the first time in many seasons, ourtown is free. 

"Yes, we have helped Lord Rahl to kill the evilmen who have terrorized us. We have avenged thedeaths of our loved ones. We will no longer be 


victims. We will be free!" 

Standing silently, the people seemed able onlyto stare at him. Many looked confused. Some lookedquietly jubilant, but most just looked stunned.

The boy, Bernie, ran up to Anson, peering up inastonishment. "An-son, you and our other peoplehave freed us? Truly?"
"Yes." He laid a hand on Bernie's shoulder. "Our 
town is now free." 

"Thank you." He broke into a grin as he turnedback to the town's people. "We are free of themurderers!" 

A sudden, spontaneous cheer rose into the night,
drowning out the sound of the crackling flames. Thepeople rushed in around men they had not seen formonths, touching them, hugging them, all askingquestions of the men.

Richard took Kahlan's hand as he stepped backout of the way, joining Cara, Jennsen, and Tom.
These people who were so against violence, wholived their whole life avoiding the truth of whattheir beliefs caused, were now basking in thetearful joy of what it really meant to be freedfrom terror and violence. 

People slowly left their men to come and look atRichard and those standing with him. He and Kahlansmiled at their obvious joy. They gathered in closebefore him, smiling, staring, as if Richard andthose with him were some strange creatures fromafar. 

Bernie had attached himself to Anson's arm. 
Others had the rest of the men firmly embraced. Oneby one, though, the men started pulling away sothat they could stand behind Richard and Kahlan.

"We are so happy that you are home, now," peoplewere telling the men. "We have you back, at last."
"Now we are all together again," Bernie said.
"We can't stay," Anson told him.
Everyone in the crowd fell silent.
Bernie, like many of the others, looked 


heartbroken. "What?" 

Buzzing, worried whispers spread through thecrowd. Everyone was shaken by the news that the menwere not home to stay.

Owen lifted a hand so they would listen. Whenthey went silent, he explained.
"The people of Bandakar are still under the cruelpower of the men from the Order. Just as you havebecome free tonight, so must the rest of the peopleof Bandakar be free. 

"Lord Rahl and his wife, the Mother Confessor,
as well as his friend and protector Cara, hissister Jennsen, and Tom, another friend andprotector, have all agreed to help us. They cannotdo it alone. We must be part of it, for this is ourland, but more importantly, our people, our lovedones." 

"Owen, you must not engage in violence," anolder man said. In view of their sudden freedom, itwas not an emphatic statement. It seemed to be anobjection more out of obligation than anythingelse. "You have begun a cycle of violence. Such athing is wrong."

"We will speak with you before we go, so thatyou might come to understand, as we have, why wemust do this to be truly free of violence andbrutality. Lord Rahl has shown us that a cycle ofviolence is not the result of fighting back foryour own life, but is the result of a shrinkingback from doing what is necessary to crush thosewho would kill you. If you do as you must in dutyto yourself and your loved ones, then you willeradicate the enemy so completely that they can nolonger do you any harm. Then, there is no cycle ofviolence, but an end to violence. Then, and onlythen, will true peace and freedom take root."

"Such actions can never accomplish anything butto start violence," an old man objected.

"Look around," Anson said. "The violence has notbegun tonight, but ended. Violence has been 


crushed, as it should be, by crushing evil men whobring it upon us."

People nodded to one another, the heady reliefof being suddenly freed from the grip of the terrorbrought by the soldiers of the Imperial Orderplainly overcoming their objections. Joy had takenover from fear. The reality of having their livesreturned had opened their eyes.

"But you must understand, as we have come tounderstand," Owen said, "that nothing can everagain be the way it once was. Those ways are in thepast."

Richard noticed that the men weren't slouchinganymore. They stood with their heads held high.

"We have chosen to live," Owen told his people.
"In so doing, we have found true freedom."
"I think we all have," the old man in the crowdsaid. 

 CHAPTER 49 

Zedd frowned with the effort of 
concentrating on what it was Sister Tahirah hadplaced on the table before him. He looked up ather, at the way her scowl pinched in around herhumped nose.
"Well?" she demanded. 

Zedd looked down, squinting at the thing beforehim. It looked like a leather-covered ball paintedwith faded blue and pink zigzagged lines all aroundit. 
What was it about it that seemed so familiar, yetso distant? 


 He blinked, trying to better focus his eyes. Hisneck ached something fierce. A father, hearing hisyoung son in the next tent screaming in appallingagony, had grabbed Zedd by the hair and yanked himaway from other parents who, pulling and pawing athim, made desperate demands of their own. Becauseof the torn muscles in his neck, it was painful tohold up his head. Compared to the torture he'dheard, though, it was nothing.

The dim interior of the tent, lit by severallamps hanging from poles, felt as if it weredetached from the ground and swirling around him.
The foul place stank. The heat and humidity onlymade the smell, and the spinning, worse. Zedd feltas if he might pass out.

It had been so long since he'd slept that hecouldn't even remember the last time he had 
actually lain down. The only sleep he got was whenhe fell asleep in the chair while Sister Tahirahwas seeing to another object being unloaded fromthe wagons, or when she went to bed and the nextSister hadn't yet arrived to take the next stint intheir laborious cataloging of the items broughtfrom the Keep. The catnaps he got were rarelylonger than a few precious minutes at a time. Theguards had orders not to allow him or Adie to liedown. 

At least the screams of the children had ended. 
At least, as long as he cooperated, those cries ofpain had stopped. At least, as long as he wentalong, the parents had hope.

A violent crack of pain suddenly hammered theside of his head, knocking him back. The chairtoppled over, spilling him to the ground. With hisarms bound behind his back, he couldn't do anythingto break the fall and he hit hard. Zedd's ears 
rang, not only from the fall, but with theaftermath of the blow of the Sister's powerdelivered through the collar around his neck.

He hated that wicked instrument of control. The 


Sisters were not shy about exercising that control.
Because the collar locked him away from the use ofhis own gift, he could not use his ability todefend himself. Instead, they used his poweragainst him.

It took little or no provocation to send one ofthe Sisters into a fit of violence. Many of thesewomen had once been kindly people devoting theirlives to helping others. Jagang had enslaved themto a different cause. Now they did his bidding.
Though they might have once been gentle, they werenow, he knew, trying to keep one step ahead of thediscipline Jagang meted out to them. Thatdiscipline could be excruciating beyond endurance.
The Sisters were expected to get results; Jagangwould not be interested in the excuse that Zedd was 
being difficult.

Zedd saw that Adie, too, had been knocked to theground. Any punishment he received, she, too,
endured. He felt more agony for her than forhimself. 

Soldiers standing to the side moved in to rightthe chair and lift Zedd into it. With his arms 
bound behind his back, he couldn't get up byhimself. They sat him down hard enough to drive agrunt from his lungs.
"Well?" Sister Tahirah demanded. "What is it?" 
Zedd once again leaned in, staring down at theround object sitting by itself in the center of thetable. The faint blue and pink lines zigzagging allaround it stirred deep feelings. He thought heshould know this thing.
"It's . . . it's . . ." 

"It's what!" Sister Tahirah slammed the book 
against the edge of the table, causing the roundobject to bounce up and roll a few inches before itcame to a stop closer to Zedd. She tucked the bookunder one arm as she leaned with the other on the 
table. She bent down toward him. 
"What is it? What does it do?" 


"I... I can't remember." 

"Would you like me to bring in some children,"
the Sister said in the soft, sweet tone of a verybitter threat, "and show you their little facesbefore they are taken to the tent next to us to betortured?" 
"I'm so tired," he said. "I'm trying to remember,
but I'm so tired." 

"Maybe while the children are screaming youwould like to explain to their parents that you aretired and just can't quite seem to remember."
Children. Parents. 

Zedd suddenly remembered what the object was.
Painful memories welled up. He felt a tear run downhis cheek. 
"Dear spirits," he whispered. "Where did you findthis?" 
"What is it?" 
"Where did you find it?" Zedd repeated.

Huffing impatiently, the Sister straightened.
She opened the book and made a noisy show ofturning heatedly through the pages. Finally, shestopped and tapped a finger in the open book.

"It says here that it was found hidden in anopen recess in the back of a black six-drawer chestin a corridor. There was a tapestry of threeprancing white horses hanging above the chest."
She lowered the book. "Now, what is it?"
Zedd swallowed. "A ball." 

The Sister glared. "I know it's a ball, you oldfool. What is it for? What does it do? What is its 
purpose?"
Staring at the ball no bigger than his fist, Zeddremembered. "It's a ball for children to play with.
Its purpose is to bring them pleasure."

He remembered this ball, brightly colored backthen, frequently bouncing down the halls of theWizard's Keep, his daughter giggling and chasingafter it. He had given it to her for doing well inher studies. Sometimes she would roll it down the 


halls, urging it along with a switch, as if shewere walking a pet. Her favorite thing to do wasàtobounce it on the flooràso that it would come upagainst a wall, after which it would bounce toanother wall at an intersection of stone hallways.
In that way she made it bounce aroundàa corner.àShewould watch which hall it went down, left or right,
then chase after it. 

One day she came to him in tears.àHe asked herto tell him her troubles. She crawled up in his lapand told him that her ball had gone somewhere andgotten itself lost. She wanted him to get itunlost. Zedd told her that if she looked, she wouldlikely find it. She spent days despondentlywandering the halls of the Keep, searching for it.
She couldn't find it. 

Finally, starting out one morning at sunrise,
Zedd made the long walk down to the city ofAydindril, to the market on Stentor Street. Thatwas where he had first come across a stand where 
they sold such toys and found the ball with thezigzagged lines. There he bought her another one—
not just like it, but instead one with pink andgreen stars. He deliberately chose a ball unlikethe one she'd lost because he didn't want her to 
think that wishes could be miraculously fulfilled,
but he did want her to know that there were 
solutions that could solve problems.

He remembered his daughter hugging his legs,
thanking him for the new ball, telling him that hewas the best father in all the world and that she 
would be ever so much more careful with the new 
ball and never lose it. He had smiled as he watched 
her put a little hand to her heart and recite alittle-girl oath she had invented on the spot.

She treasured the ball with the pink and greenstars. Since it was small, it was one of the fewthings she had been able to take with her, aftershe was grown, when she and Zedd ran away toWestland, after Darken Rahl had raped her. 


 When Richard had been young, he had played withthat ball. Zedd remembered the smile on his 
daughter's face as she watched her own child playwith that precious ball. Zedd could see in herbeautiful eyes the memories of her own childhood asshe watched Richard play. She had kept that ballher whole life, kept it until she died.

This ball before him was the very same one hisdaughter had lost. It must have bounced up behindthe chest and fallen into a recess in the back,
where it had been for all those long years.

Zedd leaned forward, resting his forehead on thedusty ball surrounded with faded blue and pinkzigzagged lines, the ball which her little fingershad once held, and wept.

Sister Tahirah seized a fistful of his hair and 
pulled him upright. "I don't believe you're tellingme the truth. It's an object of magic. I want toknow what it is and what it does." Holding his headback, she glared into his eyes. "You know that Iwill not hesitate to do what is necessary to makeyou cooperate. His Excellency accepts no excusesfor failure." 

Zedd stared up at her, blinking away his tears.
"It's a ball, a toy. That's all it is."

With a sneer, she released him. "The great andpowerful Wizard Zorander." She shook her head. "Tothink that we once feared you. You are a patheticold man, your courage crushed by nothing more thanthe cry of a child." She sighed. "I must say, yourreputation far exceeds the reality of your mettle."

The Sister scooped up the ball, turning it inher fingers as she inspected it. She huffed withdisgust and tossed it aside, as if it wereworthless. Zedd watched the ball bounce and roll 
across the ground, coming to rest at the side ofthe tent, against the bench where Adie sat. Helooked up into her completely white eyes to see herwatching him. Zedd turned away, waiting while theSister made notes in her book. 


 "All right," she finally said, "let's go have alook at what they've unloaded in the next tent."

The soldiers lifted him from the chair before he 
had a chance to try to do it himself. His shouldersached from his wrists being bound behind his backand from being lifted by his arms. Adie, too, waslifted to her feet. The book snapped closed. SisterTahirah's wiry gray hair whipped around as sheturned and led them out of the tent. 
Because the Sisters knew how dangerous items ofmagic from the Wizard's Keep could be, especiallyif the wrong combination of magic were toaccidentally be allowed to combine or touch, theywere cautious enough to bring the items, one at atime, out of each individual, protected, shieldedcrate in the wagons. Zedd knew that there werethings in the Keep that, by themselves, were notdangerous, but became so in the presence of otherthings that, by themselves, were also notdangerous. Sometimes it was only the combination ofspecific items that created a desired outcome.

The Sisters had vast experience in the mostesoteric things of magic and so they at leastunderstood the principles involved. They treatedthe cargo with the care due such potentiallyhazardous goods. Once each object was uncrated,
they placed it, by itself, in a tent to awaitexamination. They took Zedd and Adie from tent totent so that Zedd could identify each treasure,
tell them what it was, explain how it worked.

They had been at it for days—how many, Zeddcouldn't remember. Despite his best efforts, theendless days and nights had all begun to melttogether in his mind.

Zedd did all he could to stall, but there wasonly so much he could do. These women knew magic.
They would not easily be fooled by any inventedexplanation. They had made very clear theconsequences of any such deception.

And, Zedd didn't know how much they knew. At 


times they feigned ignorance of something whichthey actually understood quite well, just to see ifhe was telling the truth.

Fortunately, as of yet, they had uncoverednothing that was extravagantly dangerous. Most ofthe items from the crates were simple-lookingobjects, but were actually for a narrowly focusedpurpose—a pole that could remotely judge the depthof water in a well, an iron decoration shaped likea fan of leaves that prevented words from carryingbeyond an open door where it was placed, a largelooking glass that revealed when a person enteredanother room. While possibly useful to EmperorJagang, such items were not all that valuable ordangerous; they were not going to help him toconquer and rule the world.

What dangerous things the Sisters had uncratedand shown him were not really anything that aSister couldn't easily produce with a spell of herown. The most dangerous item had been a constructedspell held within an ornate vase that, underspecific conditions, such as when the vase wasfilled with water, created a temperature inversionthat produced a blast of flame. Zedd was notbetraying his cause or putting innocent lives atrisk by revealing how the spell worked; any Sisterworth her salt could reproduce the same effect. Thepurpose of the spell was protective; had it touchedother stolen items, which, because they werestolen, was a reversal of intended ownership thatsuch a spell recognized, it would have ignited anddestroyed those items, keeping them from covetoushands. 

None of the things so far discovered would doJagang any real good. There were things in theKeep, though, that could cause him harm. There werespells there, such as the constructed spell in thevase, that recognized the nature of the personinvoking their magic. Opened by the right person,
such as Zedd, those things would do nothing, but, 


opened by a thief, they would create calamity.

The Keep had thousands of rooms. The looting ofit had netted the Imperial Order a caravan of cargowagons, but even that much hardly scratched thesurface of the contents of the Keep.
So far, Zedd had not seen any plums.

He didn't know if he would live to see any. Theride in the box after his capture had been brutal.
He was still not recovered from the injuriesinflicted after meeting Jagang. Guards let theparents do what they would to convince Zedd andAdie to give in, but they wouldn't allow theparents to get so carried away that they killedsuch prize prisoners. The parents had known thatthey weren't to kill them, but in the heat of suchraw passion, Zedd knew that such orders were easyto forget. Zedd yearned for them to kill him andend it. The emperor, though, needed them alive, sothe guards stood careful watch.

After the first few horrifying hours oflistening to children being subjected to cripplingtorture, of being among their parents, whounderstandably demanded, quite forcefully, that hecooperate and tell the emperor what he wanted toknow, Zedd had given in—not for the sake of theparents so much as to stop those brutal men fromwhat they were doing to the children.
He had figured that he had nothing to lose, really,
by giving in. It stopped the torture of thechildren for the time being. The Keep was vast; thethings they brought were only a tiny portion ofthem. Zedd reasoned that the caravan of wagonsprobably didn't hold anything of any real value toJagang. It would take quite a while to catalogeverything—it could be weeks more before theyreached the last item. There was no purpose inallowing children to endure torture when theremight not be anything useful for Zedd to betray toJagang.

Once, when they were alone while the Sister had 


gone to check on the preparations in the next tent,
Adie had asked what he would do if they presentedhim with something that would materially helpJagang win. Zedd hadn't had a chance to answer; thesoldiers had come in then and taken the two of them 
to the Sister in the next tent. 

He was hoping to drag out the process for aslong as possible. He hadn't counted on how theywould keep at it day and night.

It sometimes took quite a while for the Sistersto get out the next treasure and have it ready.
They were understandably cautious and took nochances. Those strange men without any trace of thegift who helped them might not be harmed if anyerrant item of magic were to accidentally be set inmotion, but everyone else certainly was vulnerable.
Careful as they were, there were enough peopleworking at the preparations that Zedd and Adie werenot allowed to sleep for long before they weretaken off to unravel the next puzzle for them.

As he and Adie were dragged through the darkcamp to the next tent, Zedd's legs would hardlyhold him. Seeing his daughter's long-lost ball hadsapped much of his remaining strength. He had neverfelt so old, so feeble. He feared that his will togo on was flagging.
He didn't know how much longer he could keep hissanity.

He wasn't at all sure that he actually stillpossessed it. The world seemed to have turned intoa crazy place. At times the whole thing seemeddreamlike. What he knew and what he didn't know 
sometimes seemed to have all twisted together intoa knot of confusion. 

As he was marched through the dark camp, throughthe humid heat, he began to imagine that he sawthings—mostly people—from his past. He began todoubt that he really had seen that ball. Hewondered if, like some of the other things he wasseeing, he had imagined it as well. Could it maybe 


have been a simple ball, and he only thought thatit was the one his daughter had lost? Had heimagined the zigzagged colors around it? He wasbeginning to question himself over every littlething.

Looking up at all the people in the crowdedencampment, he thought he saw his long-dead wife,
Erilyn, in the faces of the women held nearby underguard. They were mothers, their worst nightmaresready to come to life if Zedd didn't cooperate. Hisgaze passed over children clutching their mother'sskirts, or their father's legs. They looked at him.
his wavy white hair in disarray, probably thinkinghe was some crazy man. Maybe he was.

The torches lit the sprawling camp with a kindof flickering light that made everything seemimaginary. The campfires, spread as far as he couldsee, looked like a star field lying across theground, as if the world had turned upside down.
"Wait," the Sister said to the guards.

Zedd was jerked to a halt as the Sister duckedinside the tent. Adie cried out as the man holdingher wrenched her arm in the act of stopping her.

Zedd swayed on his feet, wondering if he mightpass out. The whole nighttime camp wavered in hisvision. 

As he looked at one of the girls held captiveacross the way, he stared, astonished, thinking herecognized her. Zedd looked up at the emperor'selite guard in the distance holding the child. Zeddblinked his blurred vision. The guard, in leatherand mail armor, with a belt full of weapons, lookedlike a man Zedd used to know. Zedd turned away atthe memory, only to see a Sister, making her wayamong the tents not far away, who also looked likesomeone else he knew. He looked around at soldiers 
going about their business. Elite soldiers guardingthe emperor's compound looked like men he thoughthe remembered. 

Zedd truly was terrified, then. He was sure that 


he was losing his mind. He couldn't possibly beseeing the people he thought he saw.

His mind was all he had. He didn't want to be 
some babbling old man sitting by the side of a roadbegging.

He knew that people sometimes became irrational—
lost their mind— when they got old or were pressedpast their endurance. He had known people who hadsnapped, who had gone insane, and saw things thatweren't really there. That's what he was doing. Hewas having visions of people from his past whoweren't really there. That was a sure sign ofinsanity—seeing your past come to life, thinkingyou were back with long-lost loved ones.
His mind was the most important thing he had.
Now he was losing that, too.
He was losing his sanity. 

CHAPTER 50 

Nicholas heard an annoying noise back in another
place.
A disturbance of some sort, back where his body
waited. 


He ignored it, watching the streets, watchingthe buildings go by. The sun had just set. People,
wary people, moved past. Color. Sound. Activity.

It was a dingy place, with buildings crowdedclose. Watch, watch. Alleyways were dark andnarrow. Strangers stared. The street smelled. Noneof the buildings were more than two stories; he wassure of it. Most were not even that. 


 Again, he heard the noise back where his bodywaited. It was forceful, calling his attention.

He ignored the thump, thump, thump backsomewhere else as he watched, trying to see wherethey were going. What's this? Watch, watch, watch.
He thought he knew, but he wasn't positive. Look,
look. He wanted to be sure. He wanted to watch. 
He so enjoyed watching.
More noise. Obnoxious, demanding, thumping noise.

Nicholas felt his body around him as he slammedback to where it waited, sitting cross-legged onthe wooden floor. He opened his eyes, blinking,
trying to see in the dim room. Slivers of duskleaking in around the edges of the closed shutterslent only somber light to the room.

He stood, wavering on his feet for a moment, notyet used to the strange feeling of being back inhis own body. He started walking across the room,
looking down, watching as he lifted each foot outahead, shifted his weight with every step. He hadbeen gone so much lately, day and night, that hewas not used to having to do such things on hisown. He had been so often in another place, anotherbody, that he had difficulty adjusting to his own.

Someone was banging on the door, yelling for himto open it. Nicholas was furious at the uninvitedcaller, at such a rude intrusion.

With wobbly gait, he made his way to the door.
It felt so confining being back in his own body. Itmoved in such an odd manner. He rolled his 
shoulders, resisting the urge to bend forward. Hepulled and stretched his neck one way, then theother. 

It was bothersome to have to move himself about,
to use his own muscles, to feel himself breathe, tosee, hear, smell, feel with his own senses.

The door was barred by a heavy bolt to preventunwelcome callers from entering while he was off toother places. It wouldn't do to have someonemessing with his body while he wasn't there using 


it himself. Wouldn't do at all. 

Someone pounding on the other side of the doorbellowed his name and demanded to be let in. 
Nicholas lifted the heavy bolt and heaved it over.
He threw open the thick door.

A young soldier stood just outside in the hall.
A common, grubby soldier. A nobody.

Nicholas stared in stunned fury at the lowly manwho would just walk up the stairs to the roomeveryone knew was off-limits and pound on theforbidden door. Where was Najari's flat, crookednose when he needed it? Why wasn't someone guardingthe door? 

A broken bone jutted from the back of the bloodyfist the man had been hammering against the door.

Nicholas craned his neck, peering past thesoldier out into the dimly lit hall, and saw thebodies of guards sprawled in pools of blood.
Nicholas ran his fingernails back through his hair,
shivering with delight at the silken smooth feel ofoils gliding against his palm. He rolled hisshoulders with the pleasure of the sensation.

Opening his eyes, he fixed his gaze on the wide-
eyed, common soldier whom he was about to kill. Theman was dressed like many of the Imperial Ordersoldiers, at least the better-outfitted soldiers,
with leather chest armor, a sleeve of protectivemail on his right arm, and a number of leatherstraps and belts holding a variety of weapons froma short sword to a mace with a spiked metal head toknives. Despite how deadly all his gear appeared,
the expression on his face was one of startledterror. 

Nicholas puzzled for a moment at what such ameaningless man could possibly have to say thatwould be worth his life. 
"What is it, you insipid fool?"

The man lifted an arm, then the hand, then asingle finger in a manner that reminded Nicholas ofnothing so much as a puppet having its strings 


pulled. The finger tipped to one side, then theother, then back again, the way someone mightwaggle a finger in admonition.

"Ah, ah, ah." The finger twitched side to sideagain. "Be polite. Be awfully polite."

The soldier, his eyes wide, seemed surprised byhis own haughty words. The voice sounded too deep—
too mature—to belong to this young man.
The voice, in fact, sounded dangerous in theextreme. 
"What is this?" Nicholas frowned at the soldier. 
"What's this about?" 

The man started into the room, his legs movingin a most peculiar, stilted manner. In some ways itreminded Nicholas of how it must look when he used 
his own legs after not being in his body for a longspell. He stepped aside as the man walked woodenlyinto the center of the dim room and turned. Blood 
dripped from the hand that had been poundingagainst the door, but the man, his eyes still widewith fear, seemed not to notice what had to bepainful injuries.

His voice, though, came out anything but afraid.
"Where are they, Nicholas?"
Nicholas approached the man and cocked his head.
"They?"

"You promised them to me, Nicholas. I don't likeit when people don't keep their word. Where arethey?"

Nicholas drew his brow down even farther, leanedin even more. "Who?" 

"Richard Rahl and the Mother Confessor!" the 
soldier bellowed in unrestrained rage.

Nicholas backed away a few paces. He understood,
now. He had heard the stories, heard that the mancould do such things. Now he was seeing it forhimself. 
This was Emperor Jagang, the dream walker himself.

"Remarkable," Nicholas drawled. He approachedthe soldier who was not a soldier and tapped a 


finger against the side of the man's head. "Thatyou in there, Your Excellency?" He tapped the man'stemple again. "That's you, isn't it, Excellency."

"Where are they, Nicholas?" It was as dangerous-
sounding a question as Nicholas had ever heard.
"I told you that you would have them, and youshall." 

"I think you're lying to me, Nicholas," thevoice growled. "I don't think you have them, as youpromised you would."

Nicholas flipped a hand dismissively as hestrolled off a few paces. "Oh, foo. I have them bya string."

"I think otherwise. I have reason to believe 
that they aren't down here at all. I have reason tobelieve that the Mother Confessor herself is far to 
the north . .. with her army."

Nicholas frowned as he approached the man,
leaning in close, peering into the eyes. "Do youcompletely lose your senses when you go cavortinginto another man's mind like that?" 
"Are you saying it isn't so?"

Nicholas was losing patience. "I was justwatching them when you barged in here to pester me.
They were both there—Lord Rahl and the MotherConfessor." 

"Are you sure?" came the deep gravelly voice outof the young soldier's mouth.

Nicholas planted his fists on his hips. "Are youquestioning me? How dare you! I am Nicholas theSlide. I will not be questioned by anyone!"
The soldier took an aggressive step forward.

Nicholas held his ground and lifted a finger inwarning. "If you want them, then you had better beawfully careful."

The soldier watched with wide eyes, but Nicholascould see more in those eyes: menace.
"Talk, then, before I lose my patience."

Nicholas screwed his mouth up in annoyance.
"Whoever told you that they were to the north, that 


the Mother Confessor is with their army, eitherdoesn't know what they're talking about or is lyingto you. I've kept a careful eye on them."
"But have you seen them lately?"

The room was growing dark. Nicholas cast a handtoward the table, sending a small spark of his giftinto three candles there, setting their wicks toflame. 

"I told you, I was just watching them. They arein a city not far from here. Soon, they will becoming here, to me, and then I will have them. Youdon't have long to wait."
"What makes you think they're coming to you?"

"I know everything they do." Nicholas held hisarms aloft, his black robes slipping up to hiselbows, gesturing expansively as he walked aroundthe man, speaking of what he alone knew. "I watchthem. I have seen them lying together at night, theMother Confessor tenderly holding her husband inher arms, holding his head to her shoulder,
comforting his terrible pain. It's quite touching,
actually."
"His pain?"

"Yes, his pain. They are in Northwick right now,
a city not far to the north of here. When they arefinished there, if they live through their visit,
then they will be coming here, to me."

Jagang in the soldier looked around, taking inthe freshly dead bodies lying against the wall. Hisattention returned to Nicholas. 
"I asked, what makes you think so?"

Nicholas looked over his shoulder and lifted an 
eyebrow at the emperor. "Well, you see, these foolpeople here—the pillars of Creation who sofascinate you—have poisoned the poor Lord Rahl.
They did it to try to insure his help in gettingrid of us." 
"Poisoned him? Are you sure?"

Nicholas smiled at the note of interest he 
detected in the emperor's voice. "Oh, yes, quite 


sure. The poor man is in a great deal of pain. Heneeds an antidote." 

"Then he will do what he must to get such anantidote. Richard Rahl is a surprisinglyresourceful man." 

Nicholas leaned his backside against the tableand folded his arms. "He may be resourceful, buthe's now in a great deal of trouble. You see, heneeds two more doses of the antidote. One of them 
is in North-wick. That's why he went there."

"You would be surprised at what that man canaccomplish." It would have been impossible to missthe bristling anger in the emperor's voice. "Youwould be a fool to underestimate him, Nicholas."

"Oh, but I never underestimate anyone,
Excellency." Nicholas smiled meaningfully at theemperor watching him through another man's eyes.
"You see, I'm reasonably sure that Richard Rahlwill retrieve the antidote in Northwick. In fact, Iam counting on it. We shall see. I was watching himas you came in, watching what would happen. Youspoiled it.

"But even if he obtains the antidote in 
Northwick, he will still need to get the last dose.
The antidote in Northwick alone will not spare hislife." 
"Where's this other dose of his antidote?" 

Nicholas reached in a pocket and showed theemperor the square-sided bottle, along with asatisfied smile. 
"I have it." 

The man with an emperor inside him smiled. "Hemay come to take it from you, Nicholas. But, morelikely, he will have someone else make him more ofthe antidote so that he won't even have to bother 
coming here."

"Oh, I don't think so. You see, Excellency, I amquite thorough in my work. This poison that LordRahl took is complex, but not nearly as complex asthe antidote. I know, because I had the only man 


who can make it tortured until he told me what it 
was, told me all about it, told me its secrets. Itcontains a whole list of things I couldn't evenbegin to recall.

"I had the man killed, of course. Then I had theman who tortured the confession out of him,
tortured the antidote's list of ingredients out ofhim, killed as well. It wouldn't do to have theresourceful Richard Rahl find either man and 
somehow discover from them what was in the cure. 

"So, you see, Excellency, there is no one tomake Lord Rahl any more of the antidote." He heldthe bottle by the neck and wagged it before theman. "This is the last dose. Lord Rahl's last 
chance at life." 

Through the eyes of a young soldier, Jagangwatched the bottle Nicholas dangled before him. Anytrace of humor had vanished. 
"Then Richard Rahl will come here and get it."

Nicholas pulled the cork. He took a whiff. Theliquid inside carried the slight aroma of cinnamon.
"You think so, Excellency?"

Making a great show of it, Nicholas poured theliquid out onto the floor.

As Emperor Jagang watched, Nicholas shook thebottle, making sure that the very last drop fellout. 

"So, you see, Excellency, I have everything wellin hand. Richard Rahl will not be a problem. Hewill shortly die from the poison—if my men don'tmanage to get him before then. Either way, RichardRahl is a dead man—just as you requested."

Nicholas bowed, as if at the conclusion of agrand performance before an appreciative audience.
The man smiled again, a smile of strainedforbearance. 
"And what of the Mother Confessor?" the emperorasked. 

Nicholas noted the clear undertone of restrained 
wrath. He was displeased not to be roundly admired 


for his great accomplishment. After all. thisEmperor Jagang had not managed to capture the prizehe so keenly sought. Nicholas smiled indulgently.

"Well, the way I see it, Excellency, now thatI've told you Lord Rahl is soon to join the ranksof the Keeper's flock in the underworld, I have noassurance that you will keep your part of thebargain. I would like a commitment, on your part,
before I give you the Mother Confessor."
"What makes you think you can capture her?"

"Oh, I have that well in hand. Her own naturewill deliver her into my hands."
"Her own nature?" 
"You let me worry about that, Excellency. All youneed know is that I will deliver the Mother 
Confessor to you, alive, as promised. You might saythat Lord Rahl was free—a gift on my part—but youwill have to pay the price if you are to have theprize you covet: the Mother Confessor."
"And what would be your price?"

Nicholas strolled around the man in the center 
of the room. He gestured with the empty antidotebottle at the surroundings. "Not my idea of theproper way to live, if one has to live."

"So, you would have riches as a reward for doingyour duty to the Creator, to the Imperial Order,
and to your emperor."

The way Nicholas saw it, he had done more thanhis duty that night in the woods with the Sisters.
Instead of saying so, he shrugged.

"Well, I will let you have the rest of the worldyou have fought so hard to gain. I only wantD'Hara. An empire of worth for my own."
"You wish to rule the land of D'Hara?" 

Nicholas performed an exaggerated bow. "Underyou, of course, Excellency." He straightened. "Iwill rule as do you, through fear and terror, allin the name of sacrificing for the betterment ofmankind." 

The dream walker watched through the eyes of the 


frightened soldier. The glint in those eyes waslooking dangerous again.

"You play a risky game, Slide, making suchdemands. Your life must mean little to you."

Nicholas showed the emperor a smile that said hewas tiring of trifling. "Hate to live, live tohate." 
Finally, the emperor's smile returned to the man'slips.

"D'Hara is your wish? It is done. Lord Rahldead, and the Mother Confessor delivered to me,
alive, and you will then have D'Hara to do with asyou wish... as long as you pay homage to the ruleof the Imperial Order."

Nicholas indulged Jagang with a more politesmile as he bowed his head. "But of course." 

"Then, when Richard Rahl is dead and I have theMother Confessor, you shall be named EmperorNicholas of the land of D'Hara." 
"You are a wise emperor."
This was the man who had prescribed Nicholas'sfate. This was the man who had sent those Sisters 
to practice their vile craft, to sunder him withthe terrible agony of destroying who he had been,
to mother him in an agonizing second Creation.

They had decreed that he sacrifice himself totheir cause. Nicholas had had no say in it. Now, atleast, for the small task of dealing with the pettyenemies of the Order, he would have his reward. Hewould have riches and power that he could neverhave dared imagine before he had been reborn.

They had destroyed him, but they had created himagain more powerful than he had ever been.
Now he was but one step away from being EmperorNicholas. 
It had been a bitter road. 

Driven by angry need, by hatred, Nicholas thrustout his hand as he thrust his own mind, like a hotdagger, into the mind of this man before him, intothe spaces between his thoughts, into the marrow of 


his soul. 

He hungered to feel the slick heat of this otherspirit slide into his own, the hot rush of takinghim while Jagang was still within the man's mind.
But there was nothing there.
In that spark of time, Jagang has already slippedaway.
The man crashed to the floor, dead.

Nicholas—Emperor Nicholas—smiled at the gameonly just begun. He was beginning to wonder if hehad set the price too low. 

 CHAPTER 51 

As they made their way up the street, Kahlanglanced to the small windows in the surroundingbuildings. In the gathering darkness, she doubtedthat the faces she saw peering out of the windowscould tell much about the people they saw out inthe street, but she pulled the hood of her cloakforward anyway.

From the stories the men had told, it was notsafe to be a woman in Bandakar, so Kahlan, Jennsen,
and Cara covered their identity to draw as littleattention as possible. Kahlan knew that people infear for their own lives sometimes tried to shift 
attention away from themselves by offering anotherto the wolves. Worse, she also knew that there werebitter people devoted to the morbid ideal of theperpetual cannibalism of appeasement that theydefined as peace.

Richard slowed and checked the alley as they 


passed. One hand gripped the front of his simpleblack cloak so that, if need be, he could lift itopen and draw his sword.

Their men were spread out so as not to appear tobe a mob moving through Northwick. Any gathering ofcrowds of men, except in markets, would no doubt bereported and swiftly draw the attention of theImperial Order soldiers. They had timed their entryinto the city to be just as night fell so as tobetter obscure them, yet not so late that theirpresence on the streets would be suspicious.
"There," Owen said as they reached the corner,
tilting his head to the right. "Down that way."

Richard looked back over his shoulder to make 
sure that everyone was still with him, then turneddown the narrow street. The buildings in the citywere mostly single-story, but they were entering adistrict where a number had a second story, usuallyhanging several feet out over the street. Kahlansaw nothing taller than the squat two-storybuildings.

The area they had turned in to reeked with thestench of sewage in a shallow ditch to the side.
The dusty streets of Northwick kept making hercough. She imagined that when it rained the placeturned into a quagmire that stank even worse. Shesaw that Richard made a great effort not to cough.
It wasn't always possible. At least, when he did,
he wasn't coughing up blood.

As they kept to the shadows in under theoverhangs and eaves, Kahlan moved up closer to him.
Jennsen followed right behind. Anson, out ahead,
scouted their route, looking for all the world asthough he were by himself.

Richard scanned the sky again. It was empty.
They hadn't seen any black-tipped races sincebefore they started up the pass into Bandakar.
Kahlan and Cara were glad not to see the huge blackbirds. Richard, though, seemed as troubled by notseeing them as he once was when he did. 


 Cara hung back a bit, along with a half-dozenmen. Tom and some others were moving up a parallelstreet. Yet other men, who knew where they wereheaded, made their way through the city by adifferent route. Even though there were less thanfifty in their force, such numbers together couldbring attention and trouble.
For now, they didn't need trouble. They needed theantidote. 

"Where is the city center?" Kahlan asked Owenwhen she got close enough to be able to speak in alow voice. 

Owen swept his arm around, indicating the streetthey were on. "This is the place. These shops arewhere the major commerce is, where people come. Inthe open squares the people sometimes set upmarkets." 

Kahlan saw a leather shop, a bakery, a placethat sold cloth, but nothing more elaborate. "Thisis the center of your great city? These post-andbeam 
buildings with living quarters over the shops?
This is your major business center?"
"Yes," Owen said, sounding half puzzled and halfproud.
Kahlan let out a sigh, but didn't comment. Richarddid. 

"This is the result of your advanced culture?"
He gestured around at the shabby daub-and-wattlebuildings. "In close to three thousand years thisis what your great culture has accomplished? Thisis what you have managed to build?"
Owen smiled. "Yes. It is magnificent, is it not?"

Instead of answering the question, Richard said,
"I thought you were in Altur'Rang."
"I was." 

"Well, even that dingy place was far moreadvanced than this city of Northwick."

"It was? I am sorry, Lord Rahl, but I did notsee much of Altur'Rang. I was afraid to go far intosuch a place, and I did not stay for long." Owen 


looked back at Kahlan. "Do you mean to say that thecity where you are from is more magnificent thanthis one?" 

Kahlan blinked at the man. How could she 
possibly explain Aydin-dril, the Wizard's Keep, theConfessors' Palace, the palaces on Kings Row, thePeople's Palace, the marble and granite work, thesoaring columns, the noble works of art, or any ofa hundred other places and sights to a man whothought straw-and-dung buildings were an example ofadvanced culture? In the end, she decided that thiswas not the time to try.

"Owen, I hope that when we are all free of theoppression of the Imperial Order, Richard and I canshow you and your people some other places in theworld outside of Bandakar—show you some othercenters of major commerce and art, some of whatmankind elsewhere has accomplished."

Owen smiled. "I would like that, MotherConfessor. I would like it very much." He stoppedabruptly. "Oh, here is the place. It is down here."

A head-high wooden gate weathered to a brownishgray barred the alleyway beyond from sight. Richardchecked both ways up the street, looking to see ifanyone was watching. The street was empty ofeveryone but their men. As he kept an eye to thestreet, he pushed the gate open enough to allowOwen to slip through.
Owen poked his head back out. "Come, it is clear."

Richard gave a hand signal to the men up at thecorner. He put his arm around Kahlan's waist,
holding her close as he squeezed with her throughthe gate into the alley.

The walls of the buildings on either side thatcame to the edge of the narrow, dusty alleyway hadno windows. Some of the tightly packed structuresthat weren't set so far back had room for small 
backyards. As they moved cautiously up the alley,
more of their men poured in through the gate at thefar end. Chickens penned in one of the yards 


flapped their wings in fright at the people movingclose by.

Jennsen pulled Betty along by her rope, keepingthe goat close so she couldn't cause any trouble.
Betty remained quiet, seeming nervous in thestrange surroundings of a city. She wasn't evenwagging her tail as she peered up at Richard,
Kahlan, and Jennsen for reassurance as they moveddeeper into the heart of the jumble of buildings.

Tom appeared at the other end of the alleyway,
bringing another group of men. Richard signaled forthem to spread out and wait at that end of thealleyway.

Cara came up from behind, the hood of her cloakpulled up like Kahlan's and Jennsen's. "I don'tlike it." 
"Good," Richard whispered in answer.

"Good?" Cara asked. "You think it's good that Idon't like this place?"

"Yes," Richard said. "If you were ever happy andunconcerned, then I'd be worried."
Cara twisted her mouth with a reply she decided tokeep to herself.
"Here," Owen said, grabbing Richard's arm to stophim. 

Richard looked where Owen had pointed and thenstared down at the man. "This is a palace."

Owen nodded. "One of them. We have several 
palaces. I told you, we are an advanced culture."
Richard gave Kahlan a sidelong glance, but saidnothing.

From what Kahlan could see in the dim light, thebackyard was dry dirt with clumps of grass growinghere and there. A wooden stairway at the back ofthe building led up to a small balcony with a dooronto the second floor. As they passed through ashort gate into the yard, Kahlan saw that under thestairs there was a stairwell going down.

Owen looked around, then leaned close. "They aredownstairs. This is where they are hiding the Wise 


One." 

Richard scanned the alley and the surroundingbuildings. He rubbed his fingertips across hisbrow. 
"And the antidote is in there?" 
Owen nodded. "Do you wish to wait while I go getit?" 
Richard shook his head. "We'll go with you."

Kahlan held his arm, wishing she could do moreto comfort his pain. The best thing, though, was toget the antidote. The sooner they rid him of thepoison, the sooner he could deal with solving theproblem of the headaches caused by the gift.

Some of their men waited nearby. She saw intheir eyes their fear of being back in a city wherethe Imperial Order soldiers had control. She didn'tknow what she and Richard could do to help themfree their people of those troops, but she intendedto come up with something. Were it not for herdesperate act, no matter how unwitting, thesepeople would not be suffering and dying at thehands of the Order. 

The last gray glow of twilight made Richard'seyes look as if they were made of steel. He pulledJennsen close. 

"Why don't you and Tom stay out here, withBetty, and stand watch. Stay under the concealmentof the stairs and balcony. If you see any soldiers,
come let us know." 

Jennsen nodded. "I'll let Betty graze on thegrass. It would look more natural if any patrolspass by."

"Just keep out of sight," he said. "If soldierssee a young woman like you they won't hesitate tosnatch you."

"I'll keep her out of sight," Tom said as hecame up into the yard. He aimed a thumb over hisshoulder. "I have the men spread out so they won'tbe so noticeable." 

Kahlan and Cara followed Richard and Owen toward 


the back of the building. At the stairwell down,
Owen paused when Richard instead went to the door
into the building.
"This way, Lord Rahl."
"I know. Wait while I check the hallway inside,
make sure it's clear." 
"It is just empty rooms where people sometimes
meet." 
"I want to check it anyway. Cara, wait here with
Kahlan." 


Kahlan followed Richard to the door under the 
balcony. "I'm going with you."

Cara was right on Kahlan's heels. "If you wantto check the hall," she told Richard, "then you maycome with us." 

After a quick glance at Kahlan's eyes, he didn'targue with her. Looking at Cara, he said,
"Sometimes ..." 

Cara flashed him a defiant smile. "You wouldn't 
know what to do without me." 

Kahlan saw that as he turned to the door, hecouldn't help but smile. Her heart lifted at seeingRichard's smile, and then she felt a sudden pang ofsorrow for Cara, knowing how she must miss GeneralMeiffert with their army far to the north inD'Hara. It wasn't often that a Mord-Sith could come 
to care about someone the way Kahlan knew Caracared about Benjamin. Cara wouldn't come out andadmit it, though, and had put first her wish toprotect Richard and Kahlan.

When she and Cara had been back with that army,
Kahlan had promoted the then captain to generalafter a battle in which they had lost a number ofofficers. Captain Meiffert had risen to theoccasion. Since then, he had held their armytogether. While she had complete faith in him, shealso feared for his well-being, as Cara certainlymust. Kahlan wondered if they would ever again seethe young general.

Richard opened the door a crack and peered into 


the dark hallway beyond. It was empty. Cara, Agielin hand, pushed through and entered ahead of them,
wanting to be sure that it was safe. Kahlanfollowed Richard in. There were two doors to each 
side. At the far end of the hall stood a door with 
a small window. 

"What's out there?" Kahlan whispered as Richardlooked through the window.
"The street. I see some of our men." 

On the way back, Richard checked rooms on oneside while Cara checked the rooms on the other. 
They were all empty, just as Owen had said.
'This might be a good place to hide our men," Carasaid. 
Richard nodded. "That's what I was thinking. Wecould make strikes from here, from their midst,
rather than risk being spotted corning in from thecountryside to attack."

Before they reached the back door, Richardsuddenly stumbled, banging a shoulder against thewall before going to one knee. Kahlan and Caragrabbed for him, keeping him from falling on hisface. 
"What's wrong?" Cara whispered.

He paused a moment, apparently waiting for about of pain to lift. His fingers squeezingKahlan's arm hurt so much that her eyes werewatering, but she made herself remain silent.

"I just.. . just got dizzy for a minute." Hepanted, trying to recover his breath. "The darkhall, I guess." His fingers released their viselikegrip on Kahlan's arm.

"The second state. That's what Owen called it. 
He said that the second state of the poison wasdizziness." 

Richard looked up at her in the dark. "I'm allright. Let's go get the antidote."

Owen, waiting in the shadows in the stairwell,
started down when they reached him. At the bottomof the stairs he pushed the door open and looked 


in. 

"They are still here," he said with relief. "Thespeakers are still here—I recognize some of theirvoices. The Wise One must still be here with them. 
They have not moved to another hiding place as Ifeared they might."

Owen was hoping the great speakers would agreeto help rid their people of the Imperial Order.
After they had refused in the past, Kahlan didn'tthink they would agree this time, but then, Owenand his men had not at first agreed to fight. Owenbelieved that with the commitment of the men theyhad, and with what had happened in his town, theassembly of speakers would see that there was achance of being free again and would be more opento hearing what had to be done. Many of the menshared Owen's confidence that help was at hand.

More important than talking to the speakers, asfar as Kahlan was concerned, was that this waswhere the second bottle of antidote was hidden. 
That came above all else. They had to secure theantidote. 

Whenever she thought about the possibility ofRichard dying, it made her knees tremble.
Just inside the small vestibule, Owen rapped gentlyon the door. 

Soft candlelight came from inside when the doorpulled in a crack. A man peered out for a moment;
then his eyes went wide.
"Owen?" 

Kahlan didn't think the man intended to open thedoor. Before he had a chance to think it over,
Richard pushed the door open and moved into theroom. The man hastily backed out of Richard's way.

Richard pulled Cara close. "Guard the door. Noneof these people comes out unless I say so."
Cara nodded and took up a position outside thedoor. 

"What is the meaning of this?" the man insidedemanded of Owen as he gaped in fear at Richard and 


Kahlan. 
"Great speaker, it is vital that we speak with all
of you."


The place was aglow with candles. A dozen and ahalf men sitting around on rugs sipping tea orleaning against pillows lining the walls abruptlyfell silent. 

The stone walls were the outer foundation of the 
building. Stone piers marched in two lines down thecenter of the large room, supporting fat beams farabove Richard's head. There was no decoration. It 
looked like little more than a basement made 
comfortable with rugs and pillows where the mencongregated at one end of the extensive room.
Simple wooden tables against the walls at one endheld candles. 
Some of the men rose to their feet. 

"Owen," one of them said in grave reprimand,
"you have been banished. What are you doing here?"

"Honored speaker, we are well past petty issuesof banishment." Owen held out an introductory hand.
"These are friends of mine, from outside our land."

Kahlan grabbed Owen's shirt at the shoulder andpulled his ear close as she gritted her teeth.
"Antidote." 

Owen nodded apologetically. The men, all older,
watched indignantly as Owen went to the corner atthe far right. He grasped a stone near chestheight, and twisted it side to side. Richardreached in and helped Owen wiggle the stone loose.
When he finally pulled the heavy block out farenough to turn it to the side, Owen reached inbehind and came out with the bottle. He wasted no 
time in handing it to Richard.

When Richard pulled the cork, Kahlan detectedthe slight aroma of cinnamon. Richard downed thecontents. 

"You must leave," one of the men growled. "Youare not welcome here." 
Owen didn't back down. "We must see the Wise One." 


"What!" 

"The men of the Order have invaded our land. 
They are torturing and murdering our people. Othersthey have taken away."

"Nothing can be done about this," the red-facedspeaker said. "We do as we must so that our peoplecan go on with their lives. We do as we must toavoid violence." 

"We have ended violence," Owen told the man. "Atleast, in our town. We killed all the men of theOrder who held us in the grip of fear, who rapedand tortured and murdered our people. Our peoplethere are now free of these men of the Order. We 
must fight back and free the rest of our people. Itis your duty as speakers to do right by our peopleand not accommodate their enslavement." 
The great speakers were apoplectic.
"We will hear none of this!" 
"We will speak of it with the Wise One and see whathe has to say."

"No! The Wise One will not see you! Never! Youare all denied! 
You must all leave!" 

 CHAPTER 52 

One of the men came forward and angrily seized afistful of Richard's shirt, trying to push him out.
"You are the cause of this! You are an outsider! A 
savage! One of the unenlightened! You have broughtprofane ideas among our people!" He did his best toshake Richard. "You have seduced our people toviolence!" 


 Richard snatched the speaker's wrist andwrenched his arm around, talcing him to his knees.
The man cried out in pain. Without letting up,
Richard leaned down toward him. 

"We have risked our lives helping your people.
Your people are not enlightened, but people thesame as anyone else. You are going to listen to us.
This night, the future of you and your people willbe shaped."

Richard released the man with a shove, then wentto the door and stuck his head out. "Cara, go askTom to help you get all the rest of the men to comedown here. I think they had better all be part ofthis." 

As Cara ran to spread the word that Richardwanted all the men to gather into the basement ofthe "palace," he ordered the speakers back againstthe wall. 
"You have no right to do this," one protested.

"You are the representatives of the people ofBandakar. You are their leaders," Richard toldthem. "The time has come for you to lead."
Behind, men started filing into the candlelit room.
It wasn't long before they were all quietlyassembled. The basement was large enough thatOwen's men took up only part of the availablespace. Kahlan saw other, unfamiliar people stragglein as well. Knowing the nature of these people, andsince Cara was letting them in, Kahlan didn't thinkthat they presented a threat.

Richard gestured toward the quiet gatheringwatching the speakers. "These men from the town ofWitherton have faced the truth of what is happeningto their people. They will no longer tolerate suchbrutality. They will no longer be victims. Theywish to be free." 

One of the speakers, a man with a narrow,
pointed chin, huffed dismissively. "Freedom cannever work. It only gives people license to beself-centered. A thoughtful person, dedicated to 


the welfare of an enlightened mankind, must rejectthe immoral concept of 'freedom' for what it is—
selfish." 

"That's right," another agreed. "Such simplisticbeliefs can only provoke a cycle of violence. Thissilly notion of 'freedom' leads to viewing thingsas black or white. Such uninspired morals areobsolete. Individuals have no right to judgeothers—especially in such authoritarian terms. Whatis needed is compromise among all sides if there isto be peace."

"Compromise?" Richard asked. "A cycle ofviolence can only exist if you grant all people,
including those who are evil, moral equivalence—ifyou say that everyone, including those who decideto harm others, has an equal right to exist. Thatis what you do when you refuse to crush evil—yougive moral standing and power to those who murder.

"Devotion to compromise in such arenas is a sickidea that says you must cut off a finger, and thena leg, and then an arm to feed the monster livingamong you. Evil feeds on the good. If you kill themonster, the violence ends.

"You have two choices before you. Choose to livein cringing fear, on your knees, apologizingendlessly for wishing to be allowed to live as youstruggle to appease an ever-expanding evil, oreliminate those who would harm you and freeyourselves to live your own lives— which means youmust remain vigilant, ever ready to protectyourself."
One of the speakers, his eyes going wide, lifted anarm to point at Richard. "I know you, now. You arethe one who was named in Prophecy. You are the onethat Prophecy says will destroy us!"
Whispers carried the accusation back through thecrowd. 

Richard gazed back at his gathered men, thendirected a withering glare at the speakers. "I amRichard Rahl. You're right; I am the one named in 


the Prophecy given to your people so long ago.
'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you.'

"You're right; this Prophecy is about me. But ifI had not come along, it would eventually have beenanother who would have fulfilled those words,
whether in another year, or another thousand years,
because these words are really about man'shonorable commitment to life. 

"Your people were banished because they refusedto see the truth of the world around them. Theychose to close their minds to reality. I have endedthat blindness." 

Richard pointed back at the men with him. "Whenthe truth was put before these men, they chose atlast to open their eyes and see it. Now, the restof your people must meet the same challenge andmake a choice as to how they will live theirfuture. 

" 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeemyou' are words of the potential for a betterfuture. They mean that your way of life, ofimpeding people from being their best, ofrestricting them from being all that they can be,
of your blind destructive ways that crush thespirit of each individual and over time have causedso many of the best of your people to abandon youand go into the unknown beyond the boundary... isended. 

"The men of the Order may have invaded yourland, but, spiritually, they change nothing foryou. Their violence is merely more apparent thanyour slow suffocation of human potential. Theyoffer the same unseeing lives you already live,
simply with a more manifest form of brutality.

"I have brought the light of truth to some ofyour people, and in so doing I have destroyed theirdark existence. The rest of your people must nowdecide if they will continue to cower in darknessor come into the light I have brought among you.
"In bringing that light to your people, I have 


redeemed them. 

"I have shown them that they can soar on theirown wings, aspire to reach for what they want forthemselves. I have helped them take back their ownlives. 

"Yes, I have destroyed the pretext that is thechains of their repression, but in so doing I havefreed the nobility of their spirits.

"That is the meaning of the Prophecy. It is upto each of you to rise to the occasion and seek totriumph, or to hide in your self-imposed darknesswithout trying. There is no guarantee that if youtry you will succeed. But without trying, you willassure failure and lives of dread for yourselvesand your children. The only difference will be thatif you choose to live the same as you do now, ifyou continue to appease evil, you will now knowthat it's at the price of your soul."

Richard turned away from the speakers. Before heclosed his eyes to rub them with his fingertips,
Kahlan saw the terrible agony in those eyes. Shewanted nothing more than to get to the lastantidote and then to do what they must to rid himof the pain caused by his gift. She knew she wasslowly losing him. It seemed to her as if Richardwere somewhere all alone, dangling from the edge ofa cliff, holding on by his fingertips, and hisfingers were slowly slipping.

Owen stepped forward. "Honored speakers, thetime has come to hear from the Wise One. If you donot think this crisis for our people warrants it,
then nothing does. This is our future, our lives,
that are at stake. 

"Bring out the Wise One. We will hear his words,
if he truly is wise and worthy of our loyalty."

After noting the murmurs of agreement throughoutthe room, the speakers put their heads together,
whispering among themselves to find a consensusthat would tell them what to do. Finally, abouthalf of them went off into a back room. 


 One of the remaining speakers bowed his baldhead. "We will see what the Wise One has to say."
Kahlan had seen such contemptuous smiles oftenenough. Lifting his pointed chin, he serenelyclasped his hands before himself. "Before all thesepeople, we will put your blasphemous words to theWise One and hear his wisdom so that this matter 
may be put to rest."
Men emerged from the back room carrying postsdraped with red cloth, notched boards, and planks.
Before the door into a back room, they beganassembling a simple platform with posts at eachcorner and the heavy red drapes designed to encloseit. When the structure was finally completed, theyplaced a large pillow on the platform and then drewthe drapes together. Other men carried over twotables, holding a number of candles, and placed oneon each side of the draped ceremonial seat ofwisdom. In short order, the speakers had created asimple but reverent setting.

Kahlan knew a number of peoples in the Midlandswho had magic and functioned in the capacity sheimagined that this Wise One did. They also usuallyhad attendants, such as these speakers. She alsoknew better than to underestimate such simpleshamans and their link to the spirit world. Therewere those who had very real connections and veryreal power over their people.

What she couldn't imagine was how a peoplewithout any magic whatsoever could have such anagent of the spirits. If it was true that they did,
and such a person went against them, then all theirwork would have been for nothing.

The speakers lined up to either side and thendrew the curtains in the front just enough to seeinto the dim interior. 

There, sitting cross-legged on the pillow, waswhat appeared to be a boy in white robes, his handsresting prayerfully in his lap. He didn't look veryold, maybe eight or ten at most. A black scarf was 


tied around his head to cover his eyes.
"He's just a boy," Richard said.

At the interruption, one of the speakers shotRichard a murderous glare. "Only a child isinnocent enough of the contamination of life to befree to touch true wisdom. As we grow older welayer our experiences over our once perfectinsight, but we remember those once unadulteratedconnections and so we realize how only in a childcan wisdom itself be so pure."
Heads throughout the room bobbed knowingly.
Richard cast a sidelong glance at Kahlan.
One of the speakers knelt before the platform andbowed his bald "Wise One, we must ask your knowingguidance. Some of our wish to begin a war."
"War solves nothing," the Wise One said in a piousvoice. 
"Perhaps you would like to hear his reasons."

"There are no valid reasons for fighting. War isnever a solution. War is an admission of failure." 

The people in the room shrank back, looking illat ease to have brought such crude inquiries beforethe Wise One, inquiries he had no troubleuntangling with simple wisdom that laid bareobvious immorality.

"Very wise. You have shown us wisdom in itstrue, simple perfection. All men would do well toheed such truth." The man bowed his head again. "Wehave tried to tell—" 

"Why are you wearing a blindfold?" Richardasked, cutting off the speaker kneeling before theplatform.

"I hear anger in your voice," the Wise One said.
"Nothing can be accomplished until you shed yourhate. If you search with your heart, you can findthe good in everyone."

Richard put a hand on Owen's back, urging himahead. He reached back into the crowd of men and 
grabbed a pinch of Anson's shirt, pulling himforward as well. The three men moved up to the Wise 


One's platform. Only Richard stood tall. With hisfoot, he forced the kneeling speaker aside.
"I asked why you're wearing a blindfold," Richardsaid. 

"Knowledge must be denied so as to make room forfaith. It is only through faith that real truth canbe reached," the Wise One said. "You must believebefore you can see."

"If you believe, without seeing the truth ofwhat is," Richard said, "then you're simply beingwillfully blind, not wise. You must see, first, inorder to learn and understand." 

The men around Kahlan looked uncomfortable that 
Richard was speaking in this way to their Wise One.
"Stop the hate, or you reap only hate."
"We were talking about knowledge. I haven't askedyou about hate."

The Wise One put his hands together prayerfullybefore himself, bowing his head slightly. "Wisdomis all around us, but our eyes blind us, ourhearing deafens us, our minds think and so make usignorant. Our senses only trick us; the world cantell us nothing of the nature of reality. To be atone with the greater essence of the true meaning oflife, you must first stare blindly inward todiscover truth." 

Richard folded his arms over his chest. "I have 
eyes, so I can't see. I have ears, so I can't hear.
I have a mind, so I can't know anything."

"The first step to wisdom is to accept that weare inadequate to know the nature of reality, andso nothing we think we know can be real."

"We must eat to live. How is one to track a deer 
in the woods so you can eat? Blindfold yourself?
Stuff wax in your ears? Do it while you're asleepso your mind won't contribute any thinking to thetask at hand?" 

"We do not eat meat. It is wrong to harm animalsjust so that we might eat. We have no more right tolive than an animal." 


"So you eat only plants, eggs, cheese—things like
that." 
"Of course." 
"How do you make cheese?"
In the awkward silence, someone in the back of the
room coughed.


"I am the Wise One. I have not been called uponto do this work. Others make cheese for us to eat." 

"I see; you don't know how to make cheese foryour dinner because no one has ever taught you.
That's perfect. Here you are, then, blindfolded andwith a clear mind not all clogged up withtroublesome knowledge on the subject. So, how doyou make cheese? Is it coming to you? Is the methodof making cheese being sent to you through yourblindfolded divine introspection?"
"Reality cannot be tested—"

"Tell me how, if you were to wear a blindfold soyou couldn't see, put wax in your ears so youcouldn't hear, and put on heavy mittens so youcouldn't feel anything, how you would even dosomething as simple as picking a radish to eat.
Tell you what, you can leave the wax out of yourears, and not bother with the mittens. Just leavethat blindfold on and show me how you can pick aradish so you have something to eat. I'll even helpyou find the door, first; then you're on your own.
Come on, then. Off you go."
The Wise One licked his lips. "Well, I..."

"If you deny yourself sight, hearing, touch . .
. how will you plant food to sustain your life, orhow can you even hunt for berries and nuts? Ifnothing is real, then how long until you starve todeath while you wait for some inner voice of'truth' to feed you?"

One of the speakers rushed forward, trying topush Richard back. Richard shoved the man so hardthat it sat him on the ground. The speakers coweredback a few paces. Richard put one boot up on theplatform, laid his arm across his knee, and leaned 


close to the Wise One. 

"Answer my questions, 'Wise One.' Tell me whatstaring blindly inwardly has so far revealed to youabout making cheese. Come on; let's hear it."
"But... it's not a fair question."

"Oh? A question regarding the pursuit of a valueis not fair? Life requires all living things tosuccessfully pursue values if they are to continueto live. A bird dies if it can't succeed at 
catching a worm. It's basic. People are nodifferent." 
"Stop the hate."

"You already have on a blindfold. Why don't youplug your ears and hum a tune to yourself so youwon't be thinking about anything"— Richard leanedin and lowered his voice dangerously—"and in yourstate of infinite wisdom, Wise One, just try toguess what I'm about to do to you."
The boy squealed in fright and scooted back.

Kahlan pushed her way between Richard and Ansonand sat back on the platform. She put an arm aroundthe terrified boy and pulled him close to comforthim. He pressed himself into her shelteringprotection.

"Richard, you're scaring the poor boy. Look athim. He's shaking like a leaf."

Richard pulled the blindfold off the boy's head.
In confused dismay, he peered fearfully up atRichard. 
"Why did you go to her?" Richard asked in a gentletone. 
"Because, you were about to hurt me."
"You mean, then, that you were hoping she wouldprotect you?"
"Of course—you're bigger than me."

Richard smiled. "Do you see what you're saying?
You were frightened and you hoped to be protectedfrom danger. That wasn't wrong of you. was it? Towant to be safe? To fear aggression? To seek helpfrom someone you thought might be big enough to 


stop the threat?"
The boy looked confused. "No, I guess not."


"And what if I held a knife to you? Wouldn't youwant to have someone prevent me from cutting you?
Wouldn't you want to live?"
The boy nodded. "Yes."
"That's the value we're talking about, here."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Life," Richard said. "You want to live. That isnoble. You don't want someone else to take yourlife. That is just.

"All creatures want to live. A rabbit will run 
if threatened; that's why he has strong legs. Hedoesn't need the strong legs or big ears to findand eat tender shoots. He has the big ears tolisten for threats, and the strong legs to escape.

"A buck will snort in warning if threatened. Asnake may shake a rattle to ward off threats. Awolf growls a warning. But if the danger keepscoming and they can't escape, a buck may trampleit, the snake may strike, and the wolf may attack.
None of them will go looking for a fight, but theywill protect themselves.

"Man is the only creature who willingly submitsto the fangs of a predator. Only man, throughcontinual indoctrination such as you've been given,
will reject the values that sustain life. Yet, youinstinctively did the right thing in going to mywife." 
"I did?" 

"Yes. Your ways couldn't protect you, so youacted on the chance that she might. If I reallywere someone intent on harming you, she would havefought to stop me."
He looked up into Kahlan's smile. "You would?"
"Yes, I would. I, too, believe in the nobility oflife." 
He stared in wonder. 

Kahlan slowly shook her head. "But yourinstinctive act of seeking protection would have 


done you no good had you instead sought theprotection of people who live by the misguidedteachings you repeat. Those teachings condemn self-
preservation as a form of hate. Your people arebeing slaughtered with the aid of their ownbeliefs." 
He looked stricken. "But, I don't want that."
Kahlan smiled. "Neither do we. That's why we came,
and why Richard had to show you that you can knowthe truth of reality and doing so will help yousurvive." 
"Thank you," he said to Richard.

Richard smiled and gently smoothed down theboy's blond hair. "Sorry I had to frighten you toshow you that what you were saying didn't reallymake any sense. I needed to show you that the wordsyou've been taught can't serve you well—you can'tlive by them because they are devoid of reality andreason. You look to me like a boy who cares aboutliving. I was like that when I was your age, and Istill am. Life is wonderful; take delight in it,
look around with the eyes you have, and see it inall its glory."

"No one has ever talked to me about life in this 
way. I don't get to see much. I have to stay insideall the time." 

"Tell you what, maybe, before I go, I can takeyou for a walk in the woods and show you some ofthe wonders of the world around you— the trees andplants, birds, maybe we'll even see a fox—and we'lltalk some more about the wonders and joy of life.
Would you like that?"

The boy's face lit up with a grin. "Really? Youwould do that for me?" 

Richard smiled one of those smiles that so 
melted Kahlan's heart. He playfully pinched theboy's nose. "Sure."

Owen came forward and ran his fingersaffectionately through the boy's hair. "I was oncelike you—a Wise One—until I got a little older than 


you."
The boy frowned up at him. "Really?"


Owen nodded. "I used to think that I had been 
chosen because I was special and somehow only I wasable to commune with some glorious otherworldlydominion. I believed that I was gushing greatwisdom. Looking back, I am ashamed to see howfoolish it all was. I was made to listen to 
lessons. I was never allowed to be a boy. The greatspeakers praised me for repeating back the things Ihad heard, and when I spoke then with great scornto people, they told me how wise I was."
"Me, too," the boy said.

Richard turned back to the men. "This is what 
your people have been reduced to as a source ofwisdom—listening to children repeating meaninglessexpressions. You have minds in order to think andunderstand the world around you. This self-imposedblindness is a dark treason to yourselves."

The men in front, that Kahlan could see fromwhere she sat holding the boy, all hung their headsin shame. 

"Lord Rahl is right," Anson said, turning backto the men. "Until today, I never actuallyquestioned it or thought about how foolish itreally is."
One of the speakers shook his fist. "It is notfoolish!" 

Another, the one with the pointed chin, leanedin and snatched An-son's knife from the sheath at 
his belt. 

Kahlan could hardly believe what she had justseen. It felt as if she were watching a nightmaresuddenly unfold, a nightmare she wasn't able tostop or even slow. It seemed she knew what wasgoing to happen before she saw it.

With an enraged cry, the speaker suddenly struckout, stabbing Anson before he could react. Kahlanheard the blade hit bone. Driven by blind rage, thespeaker swiftly drew back the fist holding the now 


bloody knife to stab Anson again. Anson's facetwisted in shock as he began going down.

Points of candlelight reflecting off thepolished length of razor-sharp steel blurred intostreaks as Richard's sword flashed past Kahlan.
Even as the sword swept around, the unique ring ofsteel as it had been drawn accompanied itsterrifying arc toward the threat. Driven byRichard's formidable strength, the tip of the swordwhistled through the air. As the speaker's armreached the apex of its swing, as it once morebegan a deadly journey down, Richard's bladeslammed into the side of the speaker's neck andwithout seeming to slow in the least ripped throughflesh and bone, cleaving off the man's head and oneshoulder along with the arm holding high the knife.
The lightning slash threw long strings of bloodagainst the stone wall of the foundation of thepalace of the Bandakar Empire.

As the speaker's head and the one shoulder withthe arm attached tumbled through the air in an odd,
wobbling spiral, his body collapsed in a heap. Thehead smacked the floor with a sickening thud andbounced across the carpets, leaving a trail ofblood as it tumbled. 

Richard swept the crimson blade around,
directing it toward the potential threat of theother speakers. Kahlan pressed the boy's face toher shoulder, covering his eyes.

Some of the men fell in around Anson. Kahlan 
didn't know how badly he was hurt—or if he was evenstill alive. 

Not far away, the gory head and arm of the deadspeaker lay before a table set with candles. Thefist still held the knife in a death grip. Thesudden carnage lying there before them all, theblood spreading across the floor, was horrifying.
Everyone stared in stunned silence.

"The first blood drawn by you great speakers,"
Richard said in a quiet voice to the cluster of 


cringing speakers, "is not against those who cometo murder your people, but against a man whocommitted no violence against you—one of your ownwho simply stood up and told you that he wanted tobe free of the oppression of terror, free to thinkfor himself." 

Kahlan stood, and saw then that there were farmore people in the room than there had been before.
Most were not their men. When Cara made her waythrough the silent throng to Kahlan's side, Kahlantook her by the arm and leaned close.
"Who are all those people?"

"The people from the city. Runners brought themthe news that the town of Witherton had been freed. 
They heard about our men being here to see the WiseOne and wanted to witness what would happen. Thestairs and halls upstairs are full of them. Thewords that have been spoken down here have spreadup through the whole crowd."

Cara was obviously concerned about being closeenough to protect Richard and Kahlan. Kahlan knewthat many of the people had been swayed by whatRichard had been saying, but now she didn't knowwhat they would do.

The speakers seemed to have lost theirconviction. They didn't want to be associated withthe one among them who had done such a thing. Oneof them finally left his fellow speakers and madethe lone walk over to the boy standing beside thecurtain-draped platform, and under Kahlan'sprotective arm.

"I am sorry," he said in a sincere voice to theboy. He turned to the people watching. "I am sorry.
I don't want to be a speaker any longer.

Prophecy has been fulfilled; our redemption isat hand. I think we would do best to listen to what 
these men have to say. I think I would like to livewithout the fear that the men of the Order are 
going to murder us all."

There were no cheers, no wild ovation, but, 


rather, silent agreement as all the people Kahlancould see nodded with what looked like expectanthope that their secret wish to be free of thebrutality of the Imperial Order was not a sinful,
secret thought after all, but was really the rightthing.

Richard knelt beside Owen as other men worked at 
tying a strip of cloth around Anson's upper arm. Hewas sitting up. His whole arm was soaked in blood,
but it looked like the bandage was slowing thebleeding. Kahlan sighed in relief at seeing thatAnson was alive and not seriously hurt.
"It looks like it will need to be stitched,"
Richard said. 

Some of the men agreed. An older man pushed hisway through the crowd and stepped forward.
"I do such things. I also have herbs with which tomake a poultice."

"Thank you," Anson said as his friends helpedhim stand. He looked light-headed and the men hadto steady him. Once sure of his feet, he turned toRichard. 

"Thank you, Lord Rahl, for answering the call inthe words of the devotion I spoke: 'Master Rahl,
protect us.'

"I never thought I would be the first to bleedfor what we have set out to do, or that the bloodwould be drawn by one of our own people."

Richard gently clapped Anson on the back of hisgood shoulder, showing his appreciation for Anson'swords. 

Owen looked around at the crowd. "I think we 
have all decided to be free again." When the crowdnodded their agreement, Owen turned to Richard.
"How will we get rid of the soldiers in Northwick?"

Richard wiped his sword clean on the cloth ofthe dead speaker's trouser leg. His gaze turned upto the crowd. "Any idea how many soldiers there arehere in Northwick?" 

There was no anger in his voice. Kahlan had 


seen, since the moment he had drawn his sword, thathis eyes had been absent of the Sword of Truth'sattendant magic. There was no spark of the sword'srage in the Seeker's eyes, no magic dangerouslydancing there, no fury in his demeanor. He hadsimply done what was necessary to stop the threat.
While it was a relief that he had swiftlysucceeded, it was gravely worrisome that thesword's magic had not come out along with the sworditself. 

What had always been there to help him beforehad apparently finally failed him. That absence ofhis sword's magic left Kahlan feeling icyapprehension.

People in the crowd looked around at others andthen spoke of hundreds of men of the Order they hadseen. Another man said there were several thousand. 

An older woman lifted her hand. "Not that many,
but approaching it."
Owen turned to Richard. "That's a lot of men for us 
to take on." 

Having never been in a real battle, he didn'tknow the half of it. Richard didn't seem to hear 
Owen. He slid his sword back into the scabbard 
hidden under his black cloak. 
"How do you know?" he asked the woman.
"I am one of the people who help prepare theirmeals." 
"You mean you people cook for the soldiers?"

"Yes," the old woman said. "They do not wish todo it for themselves." 
"When do you next have to cook?"

"We have large kettles we are just starting toget ready for tomorrow's meal. It takes us allnight to prepare the stew so that we can cook ittomorrow for their evening meal. Besides that, wealso have to work all night making biscuits, eggs,
and porridge for their morning meal."

Kahlan imagined that the soldiers were probablypleased to have such a ready supply of pliant 


slaves. Richard paced in a short track between herand Owen. He pinched his lower lip as he consideredthe problem. With such a small force of their own,
nearly two thousand armed men was a lot to take on,
especially considering how inexperienced the menwere. Kahlan recognized that Richard was schemingsomething.
He took the arm of the older man tightening thebandage around Anson's wound. "You said you hadherbs. Do you know about such things?"

The man shrugged. "Not a great deal, just enoughto make simple remedies."

Kahlan's mood sank. She had thought that maybethis man might know something about making more ofthe antidote. 

"Do you have access to lily of the valley,
oleander, yew, monkshood, hemlock?"

The man blinked in surprise. "Common enough, Iguess, especially just to the north in the woodedareas." 

Richard turned to his men standing at the foreof the crowd. "We must eliminate the men of the 
Order. The less fighting we have to do, the better.

"While it's still dark, we need to slip out ofthe city and go collect the things we need." Helifted a hand to the woman who had spoken aboutcooking for the soldiers. "You show us where you'regoing to do all the cooking of tomorrow's eveningmeal. We'll bring you some extra ingredients.

"With what we put in the stew, the soldiers willbe getting violently sick within hours. We will putdifferent things in different kettles, so thesymptoms will be different, to help createconfusion and panic. If we can get enough of thepoisons into the stew, most of them will die withinhours, suffering everything from weakness andparalysis to convulsions.

"Late in the night, we'll go in and finish anywho aren't yet dead, or who may not have eaten. Ifwe prepare carefully, Northwick will be free of the 


Imperial Order without having to fight them. Itwill be swiftly ended without any of us beinghurt." 

The room was silent for a moment; then Kahlansaw smiles breaking out among the people. A ray oflight had come into their lives.

With the heady thought of imminent freedom, somebegan to weep as they suddenly felt the need tocome forward and tell brief accounts of those theyloved who had been raped, tortured, taken away, ormurdered. 
Now that these people had been given a chance tolive, none wanted to turn back. They saw salvation,
and were willing to do what had to be done to gainit. 

"This will destroy our way of life," someonesaid, not in bitterness, but in wonder.
"Redemption is at hand," one of the other people inthe crowd added. 

 CHAPTER 53 

Standing in dusty streamers of late-daysunlight, Zedd wavered on his feet as he waited notfar from the tent where Sister Tahirah had justtaken a small crate. While she was inside carefullyunpacking and preparing the item of magic forinspection, the guards stood not far off, talkingamong themselves about their chances of having alethat night. They were hardly worried about a skinnyold man with a Rada'Han around his neck and his 
arms shackled behind his back causing them anytrouble or running off. 


 Zedd used the opportunity to lean against thecargo wagon's rear wheel. He wanted only to beallowed to lie down and go to sleep. Without beingobvious, he looked over his shoulder at Adie. Shegave him a brief, brave smile.

The wagon he leaned against was full of itemslooted from the Keep that had yet to be identified.
For all Zedd knew, he could be leaning against awagon full of simple magic meant to entertain andteach children, or something so powerful that itwould hand Jagang victory in one blinding instant.

Some of the items brought from the Keep wereunknown to Zedd. They had been locked behindshields that he had never been able to breach. Even 
in his childhood the old wizards at the Keep hadnot been able to get at what was behind many of theshields. But the men who had assaulted and taken 
the Wizard's Keep were untouched by magic andapparently had no trouble getting through shieldsthat had been in place for thousands of years.
Everything Zedd knew had been turned upside down.
In some ways, it seemed like this was not only theend of the Wizard's Keep as it had been intendedand envisioned, but the end of a way of life aswell, and the death of an era.

The items brought from the Keep that Zedd had sofar identified were of no great value to Jagang inwinning the war. There were a few things, now backin protective crates, that were a mystery to Zedd;
for all he knew, they could be profoundlydangerous. He wished that they could all bedestroyed before one of the Sisters of the Darkdiscovered how to use them to create havoc. 

Zedd looked up when he saw one of the elitesoldiers in leather and mail pause not far away,
his attention keenly focused on something. Hisright ear had a big V-shaped notch taken out of theupper portion, the way some farmers marked theirswine. Although he wore the same kind of outfit asthe rest of the elite soldiers, his boots weren't 


the same. Zedd saw, when the man looked around,
that his left eye didn't open as wide as his right,
but then he moved off into the bands of patrollingsoldiers. 

As Zedd watched the constantly churning press ofsoldiers, Sisters, and others moving past, he kepthaving the disconcerting visions of people from hispast, and others he knew. It was disheartening tobe having such will-o'-the-wisps—illusions spawnedby a mind that from lack of sleep, and perhaps theconstant tension, was failing him. The faces ofsome of the elite guards looked hauntinglyfamiliar. He guessed he had been seeing the men fordays and they were beginning to look familiar.

In the distance he saw a Sister walking past wholooked like someone he knew. He had probably mether recently, was all. He'd met a number of Sistersrecently, and it was never congenial. Zeddadmonished himself that he had to keep a grasp onhis wits. 

One of the little girls not far away, being heldprisoner by a big guard standing over her, waswatching Zedd and when he glanced up at her, shesmiled. He thought it the oddest thing a frightenedchild—mid such chaos of soldiers, prisoners, andmilitary activity—could do. He supposed that such achild could not possibly understand that she wasthere to be tortured, if necessary, to make sureZedd told all he knew. He looked away from her longblond hair cascading down around her shoulders, herbeautiful, oddly familiar face. This was madness—
in more ways than one.

The hump-nosed Sister emerged from the tent.
"Bring them in," she snapped.

The four guards jumped into action, two seizingAdie, the other two taking Zedd. The men were bigenough that Zedd's weight was trivial to them. Theway they held him up by his arms prevented half hissteps from touching the ground. They horsed himinto the tent, advanced him around the table, spun 


him around, and dropped him into the chair withsuch force that it drove the wind from his lungs ina grunt.

Zedd closed his eyes as he grimaced in pain. Hewished they would just kill him so that he wouldn'tever have to open his eyes again. But when theykilled him, they would send his head to Richard.
Zedd hated to think of the anguish that would causeRichard. 
"Well?" Sister Tahirah asked. 

Zedd opened his eyes and peered at the objectsitting before him in the center of the table.
His breath caught.
He blinked at what he saw, too astonished to letout the breath. 
It was constructed magic called a sunset spell.

Zedd swallowed. Surely, none of the Sisters hadopened it. No, they wouldn't have opened it. Hewouldn't be sitting there if they had.

Before him on the table sat a small box, thesize of half his palm. The box was shaped like theupper half of a stylized sun—a half disc with sixpointed rays coming out from it, meant to representthe sun setting at the horizon. The box waslacquered a bright yellow. The rays were alsoyellow, but with lines of orange, green, and bluealong their edges.
"Well?" Sister Tahirah repeated.
"Ahh..." 

She was looking in her book, not at the smallyellow box. "What is it?"

"I'm ... not sure I remember," he said,
stalling.
The Sister wasn't in a patient mood. "Do you wantme to—" 

"Oh, yes," he said, trying to sound nonchalant,
"I recall, now. It's a box with a spell thatproduces a little tune."

That much was true. The Sister was still readingin her book. Zedd glanced back over his shoulder at 


Adie sitting on the bench. He could see in her eyesthat she knew by his demeanor that something wasup. He hoped the Sister couldn't detect the samething.

"It's a music box, then," Sister Tahirahmurmured, more interested in her catalog of magic.

"Yes, that's right. A box that contains a spellfor music. When you remove the lid, it produces amelody." Sweat trickled down from his neck, downbetween his shoulder blades. Zedd swallowed and 
tried not to let his trembling carry in his voice.
"Take the lid off—you'll see."

She peered suspiciously over the top of thebook. "You take the lid off." 
"Well... I can't. My hands are shackled behind myback." 
"Use your teeth."
"My teeth?"

The Sister used the back end of her pen to pushthe yellow half-sun box closer to him. "Yes, yourteeth." 

He had been counting on her suspicion, but hedared not overplay it. He worked his tongue in hismouth, desperately trying to work up some saliva.
Blood would be better, but he knew that if he bitthe inside of his lip the Sister would getsuspicious. Blood was too common a catalyst.

Before the Sister got leery, Zedd leaned forwardand tried to stretch his lips around the box. Heworked to get his bottom teeth at the bottom of thesun and his top teeth hooked over a pointed ray.
The box was a hair too big. With a hand on the backof his head, Sister Tahirah pushed him down on it.
That was all he needed and he captured the lid withhis teeth. 

He lifted the lid, but the whole box came up offthe table. He shook his head and, at last, the topcame free. He set the lid aside. 

If not opened by a party to the theft of itemspreserved at the Keep, a sunset spell had to be 


activated by a wizard whom the spell wouldrecognize. Quickly, before she saw what he wasdoing, he let some saliva drop into the box inorder to activate the spell.

Zedd felt giddy as the music started. It worked.
It was still viable. He glanced through the narrowslit of the tent flap. The sun would be down soon.

He wanted to jump up and dance to the merrytune. He wanted to let out a whoop. Even though hedidn't have long to live, he still feltexhilarated. The ordeal was almost over. In a short 
time, all the things of magic that were stolenwould be destroyed, and he would be dead. Theywould never get anything out of him. He would notbetray their cause.

He felt bad that the captured families who werebeing used to help gain his cooperation would alsodie, but at least they would no longer have tosuffer. He felt a sudden pang of sadness that Adie,
too, would die. He hated the thought of that nearlyas much as the thought of her suffering.
The Sister reached in and replaced the lid. "Verycute." 

The music stopped. It didn't matter, though. Thespell had been activated. The music was simplyconfirmation—and a warning to get out of range. Nochance of that. 
It didn't matter. 

Sister Tahirah scooped the yellow box off thetable. "I'm going to put this back." She leaneddown toward Zedd. "While I'm gone, I'm going tohave the guards bring in the next child and let youhave a good look at her, let you think about whatthose men in the next tent are going to do to her—
without hesitation—if you stall and waste our timelike that again."
"But I—" 

His words were cut off as she used the Rada'Han 
around his neck to send a shock of searing painfrom the base of his skull down to his nips. His 


back arched as he cried out, nearly losingconsciousness. He slumped back in his chair, hishead hanging back, unable to lift it for themoment. 

"Come with me," Sister Tahirah said to theguards. "I'll need some help. The guard who bringsin the next child can watch them for a few 
minutes." 

Panting from the lingering pain, tears fillinghis eyes, Zedd stared at the ceiling of the tent.
He saw light as the flap was opened. Shadows movedacross the canvas as the Sister and the four men 
left and she sent in the guard with the child. Zeddstared up at the ceiling, not wanting to look atthe face of another child. 
Finally, recovered from the bout of pain, he satup.

One of the big elite guards, dressed in theirleather, mail, and a broad belt holding anassortment of weapons, stood to the side with ablond-headed girl held before him. It was the girlwho had smiled. Zedd closed his eyes a moment inthe agony of what they would do to this poor childwho reminded him so much of someone he knew. 
When he opened his eyes, she smiled again. Then shewinked. 

Zedd blinked. She lifted up her flower printdress just enough so that Zedd could see two knivesstrapped to each of her thighs. He blinked again atwhat he was seeing. He looked up into her smilingface. 
"Rachel... ?" he whispered.
Her smile widened into a beaming grin.

Zedd looked up at the face of the big manstanding guard behind her.
"Dear spirits ..." Zedd whispered.
It was the boundary warden.
"I hear you've gotten yourself into a bit oftrouble," Chase said.

For an instant, Zedd thought that for sure he 


must be seeing things. Then he realized why Rachellooked so familiar, yet different; she was morethan two and a half years older than the last timehe'd seen her. Her blond hair, once chopped short,
was now long. She had to be nearly a foot taller.

Chase hooked his thumbs behind the broad leather 
belt. "Adie, as levelheaded as you are, I imagineit had to be Zedd who got you into this fix."

Zedd looked over his shoulder. Adie wore a 
beautiful, tearful smile. He couldn't remember thelast time he had seen her smile. 
"He be nothing but trouble," she told the boundarywarden. 

It had been two and a half years since he'd seenChase. The boundary warden was an old friend. Hewas the one who had taken them to meet Adie back 
then so she could show Richard the way through theboundary before Darken Rahl had brought it down.
Chase was older than Richard, but one of hisdearest and most trusted friends. 

"An older boundary warden, Friedrich, camelooking for me," Chase explained. "He said that'Lord Rahl' had sent him to the Keep to warn youabout some trouble. He said that Richard had told 
him about me, and since you were gone and the Keephad been captured, he came to Westland looking forme. Boundary wardens can always count on oneanother. 

"Rachel and I decided to come pull your scrawnyhide out of the fire." 

Zedd glanced at the sunlight coming through thetent's narrow opening. "You have to get out ofhere. Before the sun sets—or you'll be killed.
Hurry, get out of here while you can."

Chase lifted an eyebrow. "I've come all this wayand I don't intend to leave without you."
"But you don't understand—"

A knife poked through the side of the tent andran a slit down through the canvas. One of theelite guards pushed his way in through the slit. 


Zedd stared in astonishment. The man looked 
familiar, but he didn't look right.
"No!" Zedd called to Chase as the big man wentfor the axe hanging at his hip.

"Stay where you are," the man who came inthrough the slit in the side of the tent said toChase. "There's a man right outside who will put asword through you if you move."
Zedd's jaw dropped. "Captain Zimmer?"
"Of course. I've come to get you out of here."
"But, but, you have black hair."

The captain flashed one of his infectioussmiles. "Soot. Not a good idea to have blond hairin the middle of Jagang's camp. I've come to rescueyou."

Zedd was incredulous. "But you all have to getout of here. Hurry, before the sun sets. Get out!"
"Do you have any more men?" Chase asked thecaptain.
"A handful. Who are you?"
"An old friend," Zedd told him. "Now, look here—"

At that, cries and shouts came from outside.
Captain Zimmer rushed to the tent's opening. A manpoked his head in.
"It's not us," he said in answer to the captain'sunspoken question.
In the distance, Zedd could hear the shouts of"Assassin!" 

Captain Zimmer rushed behind Zedd and worked akey in the manacles. They broke open. Zedd's armswere suddenly free. The captain hurried to undoAdie's as she stood and turned her back to him. 

"Sounds like our chance," Rachel said. "Let'suse the commotion to get you out of here."
"The brains of the group," Chase said with a grin.

The first thing Zedd did when his arms were freewas fall to his knees and hug the girl. He couldn'tbring forth words, but they weren't needed. To feelher spindly arms around his neck was better thanany words. 


"I've missed you, Zedd," she whispered in his ear.

Outside the tent, mayhem had broken out. Orderswere being shouted, men were running, and in thedistance the clash of steel rang out.

The Sister burst back into the tent. She saw 
Zedd free and immediately released a bolt of powerthrough his collar. The shock sent him sprawling.

Just then, a second, young, blond Sister in adrab brown wool dress charged in behind SisterTahirah. Sister Tahirah spun around. The secondSister smacked her so hard it nearly knocked thewoman from her feet. Without pause, Sister Tahirahunleashed a bolt of her power that lit the insideof the tent with a blinding flash. Instead of itblasting the second Sister back through the tent'sdoorway, as Zedd had expected, Sister Tahirah criedout and crumpled to the ground.

"Got you!" the second Sister growled as sheplanted a boot on Sister Tahirah's neck, keepingher on the ground.
Zedd blinked in astonishment. "Rikka?" 

Rikka was already turning, her Agiel in herfist. She held it toward Chase. 

"Rikka?" Captain Zimmer asked from the otherside of the tent, sounding startled, not just tosee who it was, but perhaps to see the Mord-Sithwith her blond hair undone from its single braidand flying free.
"Zimmer?" She frowned at his black hair. "What are 
you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here!"
He gestured to her dress. "What are you wearing?"
Rikka grinned that wicked grin she had. "The dressof a Sister." 
"Sister?" Zedd asked. "What Sister?" 

Rikka shrugged. "One who didn't want to give upher dress. She lost her head over the whole 
affair." With her finger and thumb Rikka pulled herlower lip out. "See? I borrowed her ring, too. Ispread the split and hung it here, so I'd look like 


a real Sister." 

Rikka pulled Sister Tahirah up by her hair andshoved her toward Adie. "Get that thing off herneck." 
"I will do no such—" 

Rikka drove her Agiel up under the Sister'schin. Blood gushed out over her lower lip. TheSister started choking on it as she gasped inagony.

"I said, get that thing off Adie's neck. Anddon't you ever question me again."

Sister Tahirah scrambled to Adie to do as the 
Mord-Sith had commanded. 

Chase planted his fists on his hips as he glareddown at Zedd, still on the ground. "So what are wegoing to do now—draw straws to see who gets torescue you?"
"Bags! Isn't anyone listening? You people have toget out of here!"

Rachel shook a finger at Zedd. "Now, Zedd, youknow you're not supposed to say bad words in frontof children." 
Sputtering in frustration, Zedd gaped up at Chase.

"I know," the boundary warden said with a sigh.
"She's been a trial for me, too."
"The sun's about to set!" Zedd roared. 

"It would be better if we could delay until itdid," Captain Zimmer said. "It would be easier toget out of camp in the dark."

A humming noise filled the tent, making the veryair vibrate, and then there was a sudden metallicpop. Adie cried out with relief as the collar fellaway.

"Isn't anyone listening?" Zedd scrambled to hisfeet and shook his fists. "I've ignited a sunsetspell!"
"A what?" Chase asked. 

"A sunset spell. It's a protective device fromthe Keep. It's a shield of sorts. When itrecognizes that other shields are being violated 


and protected items are being taken, it insinuatesitself among the stolen goods. When a thief opensit to see what it is, it activates the spell. Atthe first sunset the spell ignites and destroyseverything that has been plundered."
Sister Tahirah shook her fist at him. "You fool!" 
Rikka seized his arm. "Then let's get going."

Chase grabbed Zedd's other arm and pulled himback. "Now, hold on."

Zedd yanked both arms free and pointed outthrough the slit in the side of the tent at thesetting sun. "We've got mere moments until thisplace is a fireball."
"How big a fireball?" Captain Zimmer asked.

Zedd threw up his hands. "It will killthousands. It won't destroy the camp by any means,
but this whole area is going to be leveled."

Everyone started talking, but Chase cut them alloff with an angry command for silence. "Now listento me. If we look like we're escaping, we'll becaught. Captain, you and your men come with me.
We'll pretend like Zedd and Adie are our prisoners.
Rachel, too—that's how I got in here; I found outthey were holding children." He flipped a handtoward Rikka and Sister Tahirah. "They will looklike Sisters in charge of prisoners, along with usplaying as the guards."
"Do you want that thing off your neck, first?"
Rikka asked Zedd. 
"No time for that now. Let's go."
Adie grabbed Zedd's arm. "No."
"What!" 

"Listen to me, old man. There be those familiesand children in these tents around us. They willdie. You go. Get to the Keep. I will get theinnocent people out of here."

Zedd didn't like the idea, but arguing with Adiewas a fool's task,
and besides, there was no time.

"We split up, then," Captain Zimmer said. "Me 


and my men will play the part of guards and get themen, women, and children out of here, back to ourlines, along with Adie."

Rikka nodded. "Tell Verna that I'm going to gowith Zedd to help take back the Keep. He will needa Mord-Sith to keep him out of trouble."

Everyone looked around to see if there would beany arguments. No one said anything. It suddenlyseemed settled. 
"Done," Zedd said.

He threw his arms around Adie and kissed her 
cheek. "Be careful. Tell Verna I'm going to takethe Keep back. Help her defend the passes."

Adie nodded. "Be careful. Listen to Chase—he be 
a good man to come all this way for you."

Zedd smiled and then gasped as Chase grabbed hisrobes and yanked him out of the tent. "The sun issetting—let's get out of here. Remember, you're ourprisoner."

"I know the part," Zedd grumbled as he wasdragged out of the tent like a sack of grain. Hesmiled as Adie, already rushing away, looked overher shoulder one last time. She smiled back, andthen was gone.

"Wait!" Zedd called. He quickly reached into oneof the wagons and retrieved something he didn'twant to be destroyed. He slipped it into a pocket.
"All right, let's go."

Outside the tent, the camp was in pandemonium.
Elite guards, in a state of high alert and withweapons drawn, raced past on their way toward thecommand tents. Other men ran to the ring ofbarricades. Trumpets blared alarms and codedmessages that directed men to tasks. Zedd fearedhis small group might be set upon and held forquestioning.

Instead of waiting for that to happen, Chasereached out and snatched a soldier running past.
"What's the matter with you? Get me some protectionfor these prisoners until I can get them to a safe 


place! The emperor will have our heads if we allowthem to be recaptured!"

The soldier quickly collected a dozen men andfell in around Rikka, Sister Tahirah, Chase,
Rachel, and Zedd. Rachel was doing a convincing jobof bawling in fear. For effect, Chase wouldoccasionally give her a shake and yell at her toshut up.

Zedd glanced back over his shoulder, seeing thesun touch the horizon. He growled at Rikka, outahead, for her to pick up her pace.

At the barricades, scowling guards looked themover carefully as they approached and then openedtheir ranks. They were preventing anyone fromgetting in, and were momentarily confused by such acompany of their own men with prisoners makingtheir way out. One man decided to step out to stopand question them.

Chase straight-armed him. "Idiot! Out of ourway! Emperor's orders!"

The man frowned as he stared at the processionsweeping past. While he considered what to do, theywere past and gone, swallowed up in the largercamp.

In moments, they were out of the heart of thecamp. In short order, regular soldiers, seeingRikka at the lead, moved to block their path. Abeautiful woman out among the regular soldiers wasasking for trouble, and with the confusion the mensaw in the command area, they believed they had anopportunity while those in authority were busy.
Rikka and Chase kept their small group moving at aquick pace. The grinning soldiers closed ranks,
blocking the way. One of the men, missing his twofront teeth, took a step out in front of his men.
With one thumb hooked behind his belt, he held upthe other hand. 
"Hold on there. I think the ladies would like to 
stay for a visit."

Without pause, Rachel reached under the hem of 


her dress and pulled a knife. She didn't slow oreven look back as she flipped the knife up over hershoulder. In one fluid motion, without missing astep, Chase caught the knife by the tip and heavedit at the toothless man. With a thunk, the knifeslammed hilt-deep into the man's forehead.

As he was still toppling back, Rachel flipped asecond knife up over her shoulder. Chase caught itand sent it on its way. As the second man twistedtoward the ground, dead, the rest of the men backedaway to let the small group, marching onward, inamong them. Deadly rights within the Imperial Ordercamp were not a rarity.
Elite guards or not, the soldiers were confident intheir numbers and, with a beautiful woman in theirmidst, sure of what they wanted. Men all aroundclosed in. 
Zedd snatched a quick glance back. "Now! Hit theground!"
Rikka, Chase, Rachel, and Zedd dove to the dirt.

For an instant, everyone above them froze,
staring in surprise. The soldiers who wereaccompanying them, weapons already drawn for thefight they expected, also stopped and stood inconfusion. 

Sister Tahirah saw her opportunity and criedout. "Help! These people are—"
The world ignited with brilliant white light.

An instant later a thunderous blast rocked the 
ground. A wall of debris followed, driven before aroar of noise. 

Men were blown into the air. Some were cut down 
by flying wreckage. The elite guards that hadescorted them tumbled through the air over Zedd.

Sister Tahirah had turned toward the flash. A 
wagon wheel shot toward them at incredible speed,
hitting her chest-high, cutting her in two. Thebloodied wheel sailed onward without even beingslowed. The Sister's shredded remains were flungacross the ground along with the bodies of 


countless men. 

As the blast from behind still rumbled, thescreams of terribly wounded men rose into thelingering rays of sunset.
Zedd dearly hoped that Adie had not wasted any timein escaping.

Chase seized Zedd's robes at one shoulder and 
hauled him to his feet as he swept Rachel up in hisother arm. Rikka grabbed Zedd's robes at the othershoulder and pulled him ahead. Together, Zedd's tworescuers rushed with him into the carnage.
Rachel hid her face in Chase's shoulder. 

Zedd was about to ask Chase why in the world hewould teach a young girl such things with kniveswhen he recalled that he himself had been the one 
who had once commanded Chase to the task of 
teaching her everything the boundary warden knew.

Rachel was a special person. Zedd had wanted herto be prepared for what life might have in store.

"You should have let me make the Sister take off 
that collar when we had the chance," Rikka said asthey ran.

"If we had taken the time," Zedd answered, "wewould have been back there and caught up in thatfireball." 
"I suppose," she said.

As they slowed a bit to catch their breath, menran in every direction. In the confusion anddisorder, no one noticed that the four of them weremaking good their escape. As they hastily madetheir way through the vast Imperial Orderencampment, Zedd put an arm around Rikka'sshoulders and pulled her closer.
"Thank you for coming to save my life."

She flashed him a cunning smile. "I wouldn'tleave you to those pigs—not after all you've donefor us. Besides, Lord Rahl has Cara protecting him;
I'm sure he would want a Mord-Sith protecting hisgrandfather as well."
Zedd had been right. The world was turned upside 


down. 

"We have horses and supplies hidden," Chasesaid. "On our way out of this place, we'd bettertake a horse for Rikka." 

Rachel looked back over Chase's shoulder, herarms around his neck. She gave Zedd a serious frownas she whispered, "Chase is unhappy because he hadto leave all his weapons behind and be so lightlyarmed." 

Zedd glanced to the battle-axe at one hip, thesword at Chase's other, and two knives at the smallof his back. "Yes, I can see where being sodefenseless would make a man grumpy."
"I don't like this place," Rachel whispered inChase's ear. 

He patted her back as she laid her head on hisshoulder. "We'll be back in the woods in no time,
little one." 

Amid the screams and death, it was as tender asight as Zedd could imagine. 

 CHAPTER 54 

Verna paused when the sentry rushed up in thedark. She moved her hands up on the reins, closerto the bit, to keep her horse from spooking.

"Prelate—I think it might be an attack of somesort," the soldier said in breathless worry.
She frowned at the man. "What might be an attack?
What is it?" 

"There's something coming up the road." Hepointed back toward Dobbin Pass. "A wagon, Ithink." 

The enemy was always sending things at them—mensneaking through the darkness, horses encased in 


spells designed to blow a breach in their shieldsrunning wildly toward them, innocent enough wagonswith archers hiding inside, powerful spell-drivenwinds laced with magic conjuring of every sort.

"Since it's dark, the commander thinks it'ssuspicious and we shouldn't take any chances."
"Sounds wise," Verna said.

She had to get back to their camp. She had madethe rounds herself to get a good look at theirdefenses, to see the men at the outposts, beforetheir nightly meeting back at camp to go over theday's reports.

"The commander wants to destroy the wagon beforeit gets too close. I've checked, Prelate—there areno other Sisters at hand. If you don't want to seeto this, we can have the men up above drop arockslide on the wagon and crush it."

Verna had to get back to meet with the officers.
"You had better tell your commander to take care ofit in whatever manner he sees fit." 
The soldier saluted with snap of a fist to hisheart. 

Verna pulled her horse around and put a footinto the stirrup. Why would the Imperial Orderthink they could get a wagon through, especially atnight? Certainly, they weren't foolish enough tothink it wouldn't be seen in the dark. She pausedand looked at the soldier hurrying away.

"Wait." He stopped and turned. "I changed mymind. I'll go with you."

It was foolish to use the rocks they had readyoverhead; they might need them if a full-scaleattack suddenly charged up this pass. It was sillyto waste such a defense. 

She followed the man up the trail to the lookoutpoint where his company waited. The men were allwatching through the trees. The road out ahead andbelow them looked silver in the light of the risingmoon. 

Verna inhaled the fragrance of balsam firs as 


she watched the wagon making its way up the silveryroad, being pulled by a single, plodding horse.
Tense archers waited at the ready. They had ashielded lantern standing by to light fire arrowsin order to set the wagon ablaze.

Verna didn't see anyone in the wagon. An emptywagon seemed pretty suspicious. She recalled thestrange message from Ann, warning her to let anempty wagon through.

But they had already done that. Verna recalledthat the girl with the message from Jagang had comein by this route and method. Verna's heart poundedin worry at the thought of what new message Jagangmight be sending, now.
Perhaps it was Zedd's and Adie's heads.

"Hold," she called to the archers. "Let itthrough, but stand at the ready in case it's atrick." 

Verna made her way down the narrow path betweenthe trees. She stood behind a screen of spruce,
watching. When the wagon was close enough, sheopened a small gap in the weave of the vast shieldshe and the Sisters had spun across the pass. Thepattern of magic was barbed with every nasty sortof magic they could conjure. This pass was smallenough that the shields alone could hold it, and ifthe enemy did come, it was too small for anynumbers to come all at once. Even without the 
formidable shield, the pass was relatively easy tohold. 

When the wagon passed through the shield, Vernaclosed the hole. When it rolled close enough, oneof the men ran out of the trees and look control of 
the horse. As the wagon drew to a halt, dozens ofarchers behind him and on the other side, behindVerna, drew their weapons. Verna had spun a web ofmagic and she was prepared to unleash it at theslightest provocation.

The tarp in the bed of the wagon eased back. Alittle girl sat up. It was the child who had 


brought the message the last time. Her face lit upat seeing Verna, someone she recognized.

Verna's heart skipped a beat at the thought ofwhat the message might be, this time.
"I brought some friends," the girl said.

People lying in the back of the wagon pulled thetarp aside and started sitting up. They looked likeparents with their frightened children.

Verna blinked in shock when she saw some of the 
people help Adie up. The sorceress looked to beexhausted. Her black and gray hair was no longerparted neatly in the middle, but was in as muchdisarray as Zedd's usually was.

Verna rushed over, leaning in to help the woman.
"Adie! Oh, Adie, am I ever glad to see you!"
The old sorceress smiled. "I be awfully happy tosee you, too, Verna."

Verna's gaze swept over the people in the wagon,
her heart still pounding with apprehension.
"Where's Zedd?" 
"He escaped as well."
Verna closed her eyes with a silent prayer ofgratitude.
Her eyes popped open. "If he escaped, then where ishe?" 

"He be on his way back to the Keep, inAydindril," Adie said in her raspy voice. "Theenemy has captured it."
"We heard." 
"That old man intends to have his Keep back."
"Knowing Zedd, I feel sorry for anyone who gets inhis way."
"Rikka be with him." 

"Rikka! What was she doing over there? I orderedher not to do that!" Verna realized how that must 
have sounded. "We thought it would be pointless,
that she wouldn't have a chance and we would justlose her for nothing."
"Rikka be Mord-Sith. She has a mind of her own." 

Verna shook her head. "Well, even though she 


wasn't supposed to do that, now that I see youagain and know Zedd has escaped as well, I'm gladthat that obstinate woman didn't listen to me." 
"Captain Zimmer be on his way back as well."
"Captain Zimmer!"

"Yes, he and some of his men decided to come torescue us as well. They be coming back the way theytravel, unseen in the night." Adie gestured to thesurrounding trees. "They be up around us,
protecting the wagon on our way in. The captainfeared that some of the enemy might stop the wagonand capture us all over again. He wanted to makesure we be safe." 

The captain and his men had special signals thatallowed them to move through the pass without beingattacked by their own men, or the Sisters, bymistake. The nature of the way Captain Zimmer andhis men worked was that they were, for the mostpart, outside regular command. Kahlan had set it upthat way so they could act on their own initiative.
While it could at times be aggravating, those menaccomplished more than anyone ever expected.

"Zedd wanted me to help these people escape."
Adie gave Verna a meaningful look. "There be otherswe could not help."

Verna glanced over at the people huddlingtogether at the back of the wagon. "I can onlyimagine what Jagang has been doing with people likethat." 
"No," Adie said. "I doubt you can."

Verna changed to an even more horrifyingsubject. "Has Jagang been able to find anythingfrom the Keep, so far, that he will use againstus?" 
"Thankfully, no. Zedd set a spell that destroyedthe things stolen from the Keep. There be a bigexplosion in the middle of their camp."
"Like the one back in Aydindril that killed so manyof them?" 

"No, but it still caused much destruction and 


killed some important people—even some of Jagang'sSisters, I believe."

Verna never thought she would see the day thatshe would be pleased to hear that Sisters of theLight had died. Those women were controlled by thedream walker, and even when they had been offeredfreedom, they had been too afraid to believe thosetrying to rescue them. They had chosen to remainJagang's slaves.

With a sudden thought, Verna grabbed a fistfulof Adie's robes. "Could the spell Zedd ignitedpossibly have taken out Jagang?"

With her completely white eyes, Adie looked backup Dobbin Pass toward the Imperial Order camp. "Iwish I had better news, Prelate, but CaptainZimmer, on the way out, told me that just as wewere about to be rescued, an assassin managed toget deep into the inner camp."
"An assassin? Who was it? Where was he from?" 

"None of us knows. He appeared much like othersfrom the Old World. The intruder be driven by asingle-minded determination to get to Jagang andkill him. He somehow made it into the inner 
defenses, killed some people, and took the uniformof the elite guards so he might get to Jagang. Theguards somehow recognized he not be one of theirown. They hacked the man to pieces before he couldget close to the emperor.

"Jagang left the area until his men could checkover their defenses and make sure there be no more 
assassins about. Many of the Sisters went with him,
helping with his safeguards. That be when Zedd setoff the sunset spell. We did not know Jagang hadleft the area, but it would have make nodifference. Zedd had to use the spell when it beput before him. The spell be triggered by the sunsetting."
Verna nodded. For a moment, she had been hoping ...

"Still, you and Zedd escaped, and that's whatmatters for now. Thank the Creator." 


 "A surprising number of people showed up all atonce to rescue us." Adie lifted an eyebrow. "I donot recall seeing the Creator among them."

The warm breeze ruffled Verna's curly hair. "Isuppose not, but you know what I mean."

The crickets in the woods kept up their steadychirping. Life seemed to be a little sweeter, theirsituation a little less hopeless.

She let out a sigh. "I hope the Creator will atleast help Zedd and Rikka take back the Keep."

"Zedd will not need the Creator's help," Adiesaid. "Another man showed up to help get us out.
Chase be an old friend of Zedd, me, and Richard.
Chase will have those holding the Keep praying forthe protection of the Creator."

"Then we can look forward to the day the Keep isback in our hands and Jagang is denied help inbreaking through the passes into D'Hara."

Verna waved her arm, signaling, and the fourcouples standing at the back of the wagon shuffledforward with their children. 
"Welcome to D'Hara," Verna told them. "You will besafe, here."

"Thank you for helping get us out," one of themen said with a bow of his head to Adie. "I feel 
ashamed, now, of the terrible things I had beenthinking of you."

Adie smiled to herself as she tightened her thinfingers on his shoulder. "True. But I could notblame you."

The girl who had brought the message the lasttime tugged on Verna's dress. "This is my motherand father. I told them how nice you were to me,
before." 

Verna squatted down and hugged the girl.
"Welcome back, child. Welcome back." 


jeff 

 CHAPTER 55 

Whenever a breath of wind sighed among thebranches above, silvery streamers of moonlightcascading down through the forest canopy glidedabout in the darkness like ghosts on the prowl.
Kahlan peered around, barely able to make out thesomber shapes of the looming trees as she tried tosee if there was anything that did not belong. Sheheard no chirps of bugs, no small animals scurryingamong the leaf litter, no mockingbirds singingthroughout the night as there had been. Carefullypicking her way over the mossy ground, she did herbest to see in the gloom so as not to step in holesand cracks in the rocky places or pools of standingwater in the low areas. 

Ahead of her, Richard slipped through the openforest like a shadow. At times he seemed to 
disappear, causing her to fear that he might nolonger be with them. He had ordered everyonefollowing behind him not to talk and to walk asquietly as possible, but none of them could movethrough the woods as silently as he did.

For some reason, Richard was as tense as hisbowstring. He felt that something was wrong, but hedidn't know what. While it might seem a beautifulmoonlit night in the woods, the way Richard wasacting, on top of the haunting silence, had drapeda pall of foreboding over everyone.
Kahlan was at least pleased that the skies hadcleared. The rains of recent days had made travelnot just difficult, but miserable. While it hadn'treally been cold, the wet made it feel so. Takingshelter had not been an option. Until they had thefinal dose of the antidote, they had no choice butto press on. 


 The antidote from Northwick had improvedRichard's condition a little, in addition tostopping the advance of the symptoms of hispoisoning, but now the temporary improvement wasdissipating. Kahlan was so worried for him that shehad no appetite.

They now had well over double the number of menwith them, and many more than that were makingtheir way toward the city of Hawton by differentroutes. Those other groups of men planned toeliminate the lesser detachments of Imperial Ordersoldiers stationed in villages along the way.
Richard, Kahlan, and their smaller group werepushing toward Hawton as rapidly as possible,
deliberately avoiding contact with the enemy so asto get there before Nicholas and his soldiers knewthey were on their way. Stealth would afford themthe best chance of recovering the final dose of theantidote. 

Once they had the antidote, then they couldgather with the rest of the men for an attack.
Kahlan knew that if they could first eliminateNicholas it would make it much easier, and lessrisky, to defeat the remaining Imperial Ordertroops. If she could somehow find a way to getclose to Nicholas she could touch him with her 
power. She knew better than to suggest such an ideato Richard; he would never go along with it.

To a certain extent, Kahlan felt responsible forwhat these people had suffered under the ImperialOrder. After all, if not for her freeing thechimes, the boundary protecting Bandakar wouldstill be in place. Yet, if these people could ridthemselves of the Imperial Order, the changes thathad come about also meant the true freedom they hadnever really enjoyed and, with it, the opportunityfor better lives. 

The change in the people in Northwick had beenheartening to witness. That night, the men Richardand Kahlan had brought had stayed up most of the 


night talking to the people there, explaining thethings Richard and Kahlan had explained to them.
The morning after the annihilation of the soldierswho had taken over their city and held them in thegrip of fear, the people had celebrated by singingand dancing in the streets. Those people hadlearned not only just how precious freedom reallywas, but also that their old ways provided no realtools for improving the quality of their lives.

After Richard had dissolved the ancient 
illusions of the Wise One's wisdom and the 
meaningless tenets the speakers substituted forknowledge, and after the killing of the enemysoldiers, the men of Northwick had not been shyabout volunteering to help rid their land of theImperial Order. Freed from the enforced blindnessof a repressive mindset, many now hungered aloudfor a future of their own making.

Kahlan unexpectedly came up against Richard'soutstretched arm. She put a hand to her chest, overher galloping heart, then immediately turned andpassed the signal to stop back to those behind.
There was still no sound in the dark woods—not so 
much as the buzz of a mosquito.

Richard slipped his pack off of his back, set iton a low rock, and started quietly searchingthrough it.
Kahlan leaned close to whisper. "What are youdoing?"

"Fire. We need light. Pass the word back forsome of the men to get out torches."

While Richard pulled out a steel and flint,
Kahlan whispered instructions to Cara, who in turnpassed them back. In short order, several mentiptoed forward with torches.

The men gathered in close, squatting down besidea low jumble of rock next to Richard. He picked astick up off the ground and dipped it in a smallcontainer from his pack. He then wiped the stickacross the top of a high point on the rock. 


 "I'm putting some pine resin on this rock," hetold the men. "Hold your torches over it so thatwhen I strike a spark and the resin flames up, itwill light the torches."

Pine resin, painstakingly collected from rottingtrees, was valuable for starting fires in the rain.
A spark would ignite it even when wet. It burnedhot enough to often be able to catch damp wood onfire. 

Richard had always seemed at home in the dark.
Kahlan had never seen him need to have light likethis. She stared intently out into the night,
wondering what it was he thought might be out therethat they couldn't see.

"Cara," Richard whispered, "pass the word back.
I want everyone to get out a weapon. Now."

Without hesitation, Cara turned to pass on theorders. After a seemingly endless span of silence,
broken only by the soft whisper of steel slidingpast leather, word came back and she leaned downtoward Richard. "Done." 
Richard looked up at Kahlan and Jennsen. "Both ofyou, as well."

Kahlan drew her sword, Jennsen her silver-
handled dagger with the ornate letter R that stoodfor the House of Rahl. 

Richard struck the spark. The pine pitch flamedup with an angry hiss; the torches caught; lightignited in the heart of the dark forest.

In the sudden, harsh glare, everyone turned andlooked about to see what might be hiding in thedarkness around them. 
Men gasped.

In the trees all around them, perched onbranches everywhere, sat black-tipped races.
Hundreds of them. Beady black eyes watched thepeople.

In that moment of sudden bright light,
everything but the flickering flame was silent andstill. 


With a burst of wild cries, the races launchedtheir attack. 

From all around, all at once, the racesdescended on them. The night air suddenly filledwith a riot of glossy black feathers, the sweep ofhuge wings, hooked beaks, and reaching talons.
After such a long silence, the sound of piercingcries and beating wings was deafening.

Everywhere, the people met the attack withfierce determination. Some of the men were knocked 
to the ground, or stumbled and fell. Others criedout as they tried to protect themselves with onearm while driving off the attack with the other.
Men hacked at the races atop their friends andturned to ward off other screeching beasts thatflew in toward them. 

Kahlan saw the red-striped breast of a raceabruptly appear right before her face. She swungher sword, lopping off a wing, and spun around,
bringing the sword up to hit another bird coming infrom the other side. She stabbed a race on the 
ground at her feet as it reached in with its beak,
like a vulture, to try to rip flesh from her leg.

Richard's sword was a blur of silver slashingthrough the winged attackers. A cloud of blackfeathers surrounded him. The birds were attackingeveryone, but the assault appeared to be centeredaround Richard. It almost seemed as if the races 
were trying to drive the people back from Richardso that more of the birds could get at him.

Jennsen frantically stabbed at birds going forhim. Kahlan swung at others, knocking them to theground, wounded or dead. With measured efficiency,
Cara snatched them out of the air and swiftly wrungtheir necks. 

Everywhere, men stabbed, cut, and hacked at theonslaught of fierce raptors. Some men used theirtorches as weapons. The night was filled with thescreams of the birds, with the flapping of wings,
with the thud of weapons striking home. Birds 


tumbled and fell as they were hit. More dove in totake their place. The trees all around poured themonstrous birds down on them. Wounded and dyingbirds struggling on the ground made the forestfloor a writhing sea of black feathers.
The ferocity of the attack was frightening.
And then, it was suddenly over.

A few of the birds on the ground, wings spread,
still tried to get up, their feathers making asilken rasp as they rubbed against the feathers ofdead birds beneath them. Here and there men stabbed 
or chopped at a bird still alive on the ground attheir feet. It wasn't long before all the creaturesfinally went still. No more races came from thesky.
Dead races mounded up against Richard like snowdrifted in a storm. 

Men panted as they held torches aloft. Theypeered into the darkness beyond the light, lookingfor any sign of more trouble from above. But forthe hissing of the torches, the night was silent.
The branches of the trees all around appeared to beempty.

Kahlan could see scratches and cuts on Richard's 
arms and hands. She waded through the sea of deadbirds to get to his pack sitting on a near by rock.
The forest floor around him was nearly knee-deepwith dead races. She had to flip a dead bird offRichard's pack. Pushing her hand down into hispack, she blindly searched until her fingers founda folded waxed paper that contained a salve.

Cara rushed in close to Richard when she saw him 
unsteady on his feet. She grasped his arm, lendinghim support.

"What in the world was that all about?" Jennsen 
asked, panting, still catching her breath as shepulled strands of red ringlets off her sweaty face.
"I guess they finally decided to try to get us,"
Owen said. 

Jennsen patted Betty's head when the goat 


stepped unhurt through the corpses of races to getin closer to her friends. "One thing for sure isthat they finally found us again."

"There was an important difference this time,"
Richard said. "They weren't following us. They werehere, waiting for us."
Everyone stared at him.

"What do you mean?" Kahlan paused at daubingsalve on his cuts. "They've followed us before.
They must have seen us."

Betty moved in closer, leaning against Kahlan'sleg to stand and watch her and Richard talking.
Kahlan wasn't in the mood to be scratching thegoat's ears, so she pushed her out of the way.

Richard laid a hand on Cara's shoulder to steadyhimself. Kahlan noticed how he swayed on his feet.
At times he was having difficulty standing.

"No. They haven't been following us. The skieshave been empty." Richard gestured to the deadbirds all around him. "These races weren't 
following us. They were waiting for us. They knewwe were coming here. They lay in wait."
That was a chilling thought—if it was true.

Kahlan straightened, holding the waxed paper inone hand; a finger of her other hand, loaded withsalve, waiting. "How could they possibly know wherewe were going?"
"That's what I'd like to know," Richard said.
Nicholas glided back into his body, his mouth stillopened wide in a yawn that was not a yawn. Hestretched his neck to one side and then the other. 
He smiled with his delight in the game. It had beendazzling. It had been delicious. His widening grinbared his teeth. 

Nicholas staggered to his feet, waveringunsteadily for a moment. It reminded him of the wayRichard Rahl swayed on his feet, dizzy with theeffects of a poison that was inexorably doing itsdeadly work.
Poor Richard Rahl needed the last dose of the 


antidote. 

Nicholas opened his mouth again in a yawn thatwas not a yawn, twisting his head, eager to beaway, eager to learn more. He would return soonenough. He would watch them. Watch them as theyworried, as they struggled in vain to understandwhat was happening, watch them as they approached.
They would reach him in mere hours.
The fun was truly about to begin.

Nicholas wound his way across the room, steppingbetween the bodies sprawled everywhere. They hadall died suddenly when the races were killed. Hereand there the dead were stacked in piles atop oneanother, the way the races in those dark woods hadbeen heaped around Richard Rahl.

Such violent deaths. Those spirits had beenhorrified as they were slaughtered, but there wasnothing they could do to stop it.

Nicholas had controlled their souls, their fate.
Now they were beyond his control; they now belongedto the Keeper of the dead.

Nicholas ran his fingernails back through hishair, shivering with delight as he felt the slickoils glide through his fingers and against hispalm.

He had to drag three bodies aside before hecould get at the door. He threw the heavy latchover and opened the thick door.
"Najari!"

The man stood not far away, leaning against thewall, waiting. His muscular form straightened.
"What is it?" 

Nicholas opened his arm back in gracefulindication, his fingers tipped with black nailsstretching wide. "There is a mess in here thatneeds to be cleaned up. Get some men and have thesebodies taken away."

Najari stepped to the door and stretched hisneck to peer into the room.
"The whole crowd we brought in?" 


 "Yes." Nicholas snapped. "I needed them all, andsome more I had the soldiers fetch for me. I'm done 
with them all, now. Get rid of them."

When the races had attacked, each had beendriven by the soul of one of these ungifted people,
and each of those souls had been driven byNicholas. It had been a stupendous achievement—thesimultaneous command of so many with such precisionand coordination. When the races had been killed,
though, so, too, died the bodies back in the roomwith Nicholas. 

He supposed that one day he really should learnhow to call back such spirits when their hostsdied. It would save him from having to get new oneseach time. But people were plentiful. Besides, ifhe were to find a way to call them back, then hewould have to mind the people once their spiritsreturned, after they had learned his use of them.

Still, it was annoying when Richard Rahl killedthose Nicholas used to help him watch.
"How much longer?" Najari asked.

Nicholas smiled, knowing what the man wascurious about. "Soon. Very soon. You must get thesepeople out of here before they arrive. Then, keepour men out of the way. Let them do as they will."
Najari flashed a cunning smile. "As you wish,
Nicholas." 
Nicholas lifted an eyebrow. "Emperor Nicholas."

Najari chuckled as he started away to get hismen. "Emperor Nicholas."
"You know, Najari, I've been thinking."
Najari turned back. "About what?"

"About Jagang. We've worked so hard. What reasonis there for me to bow to him? A legion of mysilent army could swoop in upon him and that wouldbe that. I wouldn't even need an army. He couldmount his horse one day, and I could be there inthe beast, waiting to throw him and trample him todeath." 
Najari rubbed his stubble. "True enough." 


 "Of what use is Jagang, really? I could just aseasily rule the Imperial Order. In fact, I would bebetter suited to it." 
Najari cocked his head. "Then what of the planswe've already laid?"

Nicholas shrugged. "Why change them? But whyshould I give the Mother Confessor to Jagang? Andwhy let him have the world? Perhaps I will keep herfor my own amusement... and have the world aswell." 

CHAPTER 56 

Richard pressed his back up against theclapboard wall. He had to pause a moment, waitingfor the world to stop spinning. He was so cold hefelt numb. As dark as it was, he was havingdifficulty seeing.
But it was more than the darkness. 
He knew that his sight was beginning to fail him.

At night it was worse. He had always been ableto see better at night than most other people. Now,
he was no better able to see at night than Kahlan.
That wasn't a big difference, but he knew it wasmeaningful.
The third state of the poison had begun.
Fortunately, they were close to having the finaldose. 
"This is the alleyway, here," Owen whispered.

Richard looked up and down the street. He didn'tsee anything moving. The city of Hawton was asleep.
He wished he could be, too. He was so exhausted anddizzy he could hardly put one foot in front of theother. He had to take shallow breaths to keep from 


coughing. Coughing brought on the worst pain. Atleast he wasn't coughing up blood.

Coughing now, though, could be fatal, so heswallowed, trying to stifle the urge. If they madeany noise, it might alert the soldiers.

When Owen moved into the alleyway, Richard,
Kahlan, Cara, Jenn-sen, Tom, Anson, and a handfulof their men followed in single file.
There had been no lights burning in the windowsfacing the streets. As the small group movedthrough the alley close to the walls, Richard sawno windows. A few of the walls did have doors. 

At a narrow space between buildings, Owen turnedin, following the brick path hardly wider thanRichard's shoulders. 
Richard seized Owen by the arm. "Is this the onlyway in?"

"No. See there? The walkway goes through to thestreet in front, and there is another door insidethat comes up on the other side of the building."

Satisfied that they had alternative escaperoutes, Richard gave Owen a nod. They took the darkstairwell down to a room at the bottom under the 
building. Tom struck flint to steel a number oftimes until he managed to light a candle.

Once the candle was lit, Richard gazed around atthe small, empty, windowless room. "What is thisplace?"
"The basement of a palace," Owen said.
Richard frowned at the man. "What are we doinghere?" 
Owen hesitated and glanced at Kahlan.

Kahlan saw the look. She pushed Richard downuntil he sat and leaned back against the wall. Afootsore Betty squeezed between them and lay downbeside Richard, pleased to have a rest. Jennsensquatted close, on the other side of Betty. Caraclosed him in from the other side. 

Kahlan knelt in front of him and then sat back 
on her heels. "Richard, I asked Owen to bring us 


here—to a place where we would be safe. We can'tall go into that building to get the antidote."

"I suppose not. That's a good idea. Owen and Iwill go; the rest of you can stay here where no onewill spot you."

He started to get up, but Kahlan pushed him backdown. "Richard, you have to wait here. You can'tgo. You're dizzy. You need to save your strength."

Richard gazed into her green eyes, eyes thatalways captivated him, always made everything elsebut her seem unimportant. He wished they could bealone somewhere peaceful, like the home he hadbuilt for her back in the mountains where he had 
taken her to recover after she had been hurt... 
when she had lost their unborn child after beingbeaten nearly to death by those brutes.

She was the most precious thing alive. She waseverything. He wanted so much for her to be safe.
"I'm strong enough," he said. "I'll be fine."

"If you start coughing in that place where thesoldiers are, then you'll be caught and never getout—much less recover the antidote. You and Owen 
would both be caught. There is no telling how manysoldiers are in there. What will happen to us ifyou're caught? What would happen if. .." Her voicetrailed off. She hooked a stray strand of hairbehind an ear. "Look, Richard, Owen went in therebefore; he can go in there again."

Richard saw desperation in her eyes. She wasterrified of losing him. He hated that he wasmaking her afraid.

"That's right, Lord Rahl," Owen assured him. "Iwill get the antidote and bring it to you."

"While we're waiting, you can get some rest,"
Kahlan said. "Some sleep would do you more goodthan anything else until they bring back theantidote." 

Richard couldn't debate how tired he was. He 
still didn't like the idea of not going himself.
"Tom could go with him," Cara suggested. 


 Richard looked up into Cara's blue eyes. Helooked up into Kahlan's eyes. He knew he hadalready lost this argument.
"How far is this place?" Richard asked Owen.

"A goodly distance. Here, we are just at thefringe of the city. I wanted to take us to a placewhere we would be less likely to encountersoldiers. The antidote is at most an hour distant. 
I thought it best if we were not too far into thecity if we had to get back out, but we are closeenough so that you will not have long to wait forthe antidote." 
Richard nodded. "All right. We'll wait here for youand Tom." 
Kahlan paced in the small, damp basement as theothers sat against the wall, waiting in silence.
She couldn't stand the tension. It felt too much 
like a deathwatch. 
They were so close that it made it seem impossiblyfar. They had waited so long that the small amountof time left seemed an eternity that would neverend. Kahlan told herself to calm down. Shortly,
Richard would have the antidote. He would be 
better, then. He would be cured of the poison,
then. 

But what if it didn't work? What if he had 
already waited so long that he was beyond any cure?
No, the man who had made the poison and theantidote had told Owen that this last dose would 
cure Richard of the poison for good. Because of thebeliefs of these people, they would be certain thatthe poison was reversible. They would never haveused it if they believed it would risk a life.
But what if what they believed was wrong?

Kahlan rubbed her shoulders as she paced, andadmonished herself to stop inventing problems toworry about. They had enough real problems withoutletting her imagination get carried away. Theywould get the antidote and then they would addressthe problem with Richard's gift. After that, they 


had to turn their attention to larger issues ofJagang and his army.

When Kahlan glanced over and saw that Richardhad fallen sound asleep, she decided to go outsideand watch for Owen and Tom. Cara, leaning againstthe wall beside Richard, guarding him while heslept, nodded when Kahlan whispered to her, tellingher where she was going. Jennsen, seeing thatKahlan was heading for the door, quietly followedher out. Betty had fallen asleep beside Richard, soJennsen left her there. 

The moonlit night had cooled. Kahlan thought sheshould be sleepy, but she was wide awake. Shefollowed the brick path out between the buildingstoward the alley.

"Owen will be back soon," Jennsen said. "Try notto worry. It will be over, soon."

Kahlan glanced over in the dark. "Even after hehas the antidote, we still have his gift to worryabout. Zedd is too far. We're going to have to getto Nicci right away. She is the only one closeenough that might know what to do to help him."
"Do you think the trouble with his gift is gettingworse?" 
Kahlan was haunted by the pain she so often saw inhis eyes. But there was more to it.

"When he used the sword the last two times I 
could see that even the sword's magic had failedhim. He's in more trouble with his gift than hewill admit." 

Jennsen chewed her lower lip as she watchedKahlan pace. "Tonight he will have the antidote,"
she finally said in soft assurance. "Soon, we canbe on our way to Nicci."

Kahlan turned when she thought she heard a noisein the distance. It had sounded like the crunch of 
a footstep. Two dark figures appeared off at theend of the alleyway. By the way one of them toweredover the other, Kahlan was pretty sure that it wasTom and Owen. She wanted to run to meet them, but 


she knew how deadly tricks could be, so she drewJennsen back with her around the corner of the 
building, into the darkest part of the shadows.
This was no time to get careless.

When the two men reached the narrow walkway andstarted to turn in. Kahlan stepped out in front ofthem, prepared to unleash her power if necessary.
"Mother Confessor—it's me, Tom, and Owen," Tomwhispered.
Jennsen let out a breath. "Are we ever glad to seeyou back."

Owen looked both ways down the alley. When heturned to check, Kahlan saw moonlight reflect offtears running down his face.
"Mother Confessor, we have trouble," Tom said.
Owen spread his hands. "Mother Confessor, I, I..."

Kahlan grabbed his shirt in both fists. "What'swrong? The antidote was there, wasn't it? You haveit, don't you?"

"No." Owen choked back his tears and pulled outa folded piece of paper. "Instead of the bottle ofantidote, I found this in its hiding place."

Kahlan snatched it out of his hands. With 
trembling fingers, she unfolded the paper. Sheturned as she held it close so she could read it in 
the light of the moon.
/ have the antidote. I also hold by a thread thelives of the people of Bandakar. I can end alltheir lives as easily as I can end the life ofRichard Rahl ./ will give over the antidote and thelives of all the people in this empire in exchangefor the Mother Confessor. 

Bring the Mother Confessor to the bridge overthe river one mile to the east of where you are. Inone hour, if I do not have the Mother Confessor, Iwill pour the antidote in the river and then I willsee to it that all the people of this city die.
Signed, Emperor NicholasKahlan, her heart racing out of control, startedeast. 


 Tom grabbed her arm and held her back. "MotherConfessor, I know what it says."

Kahlan's hands wouldn't stop shaking. "Then youknow why I have no choice."

Jennsen put herself in front of Kahlan to stopher from starting out once again. "What does theletter say?"
"Nicholas wants me in exchange for the antidote."

Jennsen put her hands against Kahlan's shouldersto stop her. "What?"

"That's what the letter says. Nicholas wants mein exchange for the lives of everyone else in thisempire and the antidote to save Richard's life."

"The lives of everyone else ... but how could hecarry out such a threat?"

"Nicholas is a wizard. There are any number ofdeadly things available to such a man. If nothingelse, he could use wizard's fire and incinerate theentire city."

"But his magic won't harm the people here—
they're pristinely un-gifted, the same as me."

"If he uses wizard's fire to set a buildingablaze, like we did to those soldiers sleeping backin Owen's town, it won't matter to the peopleinside how the fire started. Once the buildingscatch fire, then it's just regular fire—fire thatwill kill anyone. If not that, Nicholas hassoldiers here. He could immediately start executingpeople. He could have thousands beheaded in hardlyany time at all. I can't even imagine what else hecould do, but he put this letter where the antidotewas hidden, so I know he's not bluffing."

Kahlan stepped around Jennsen and started outagain. She couldn't make herself stop trembling.
She tried to slow her racing heart, but that didn'twork, either. Richard had to have the antidote.
That was what mattered. She focused her attention 
ahead as she marched swiftly up the dark street.

Tom paced along beside her, opposite Jennsen.
"Mother Confessor, wait. We have to think this 


out." 
"I already have."


"We can take a force of men to the meetingplace—take the antidote by force."

Kahlan kept going. "From a wizard? I don't thinkso. Besides, if Nicholas were to see such a forcecoming he would probably pour the antidote in theriver. Then what? We have to do as he demands. We 
have to get our hands on the antidote, get itsafely away from them."

"What makes you think that after Nicholas hasyou he won't then pour it in the river?" Tom asked.

"We'll have to make the exchange in a way thatbest insures we get the antidote. We aren't goingto rely on his goodwill and honesty. Owen andJennsen are pristinely ungifted. They won't beharmed by his magic. They can help make sure we getthe antidote in the exchange."

Jennsen pulled her hair away from her face asshe leaned close. "Kahlan, you can't do this. Youcan't. Please, Richard will go crazy— we all will.
Please, for his sake, don't do this."
"At least he will be alive to go crazy."
Tears streamed down Jennsen's face. "But this is 
suicide!" 

Kahlan watched the buildings, the streets,
making sure there were no troops to hem them in.
"Let's hope Nicholas thinks so, too." *

"Mother Confessor," Owen pleaded, "you can't dothis. This is what Lord Rahl has shown us is wrong.
You can't bargain with a man like Nicholas. Youcan't try to appease evil."
"I have no intention of appeasing Nicholas."
Jennsen wiped tears from her cheek. "What do youmean?" 

Kahlan stiffened her resolve. "What is our best 
chance of getting rid of the Imperial Order in thiscity—and all of Bandakar? Eliminating Nicholas. Howbetter to get close to him than to make him thinkhe has won?" 


 Jennsen blinked in surprise. "You intend totouch him with your power. That's what you'rethinking, isn't it? You think you will have achance to touch him with your Confessor power."
"If I get him in my sight, he's dead."
"Richard would never agree to this," Jennsen said.
"I'm not asking him. This is my decision."

Tom stepped in front of her, blocking the way.
"Mother Confessor, I'm sworn to protect the LordRahl, and I understand risking your life to protecthim—but this is different. You may be acting to tryto save his life, but at what cost? We would losetoo much. You can't do this." 

Owen moved around in front of her, too. "Iagree. Lord Rahl will be more than crazy if youexchange yourself for the antidote."

Jennsen nodded her agreement. "He will kill usall. He will take off our heads for allowing you todo this." 

Kahlan smiled at their tense expressions. Sheput a hand to the side of Jennsen's face.

"Remember back just after we'd met you, and Itold you that there were times when there was nochoice but to act?" 
Jennsen nodded, her tears returning.

"This is one of those times. Richard is gettingsicker by the day. He's dying. If he doesn't getthe antidote, he has no chance and will soon bedead. That's the truth of the way things are.

"How can we let this chance slip away from us?
There are no more opportunities after this. Ourchances to save him will forever be lost. It will 
be the end. I don't want to live without him. I 
don't want the rest of our people to live withouthim. 

"If I do this, then Richard will live. IfRichard lives, then there will still be a chancefor me, too. I can touch Nicholas with my power, orRichard and the rest of you can think of somethingto do to save me. 


"But if Richard dies, then our chances end."

"But, Mother Confessor," Jennsen sobbed, "if youdo this, then we'll lose you...."

Kahlan looked to each face, her anger rising.
"If any of you have a better idea, then put wordsto it. Otherwise, you are risking me losing theonly chance left." 

NAKED EMPIRE 

No one had anything to say. Kahlan was the onlyone with a realistic plan of action. The rest ofthem had only wishes. Wishing would not saveRichard. 
Kahlan started out once again, hurrying her pace toget there in time. 

 CHAPTER 57 

Kahlan paused in the quiet darkness not far fromthe bridge. She could just make out what appearedto be a burly man standing on the other side. Hewas all alone. She couldn't see his face, or tellwhat he looked like. She scanned the far bank of 
the river, along with the trees and buildings shecould make out in the moonlight, looking forsoldiers, or anyone else.

Jennsen clutched her arm. "Kahlan... please."
Her voice was choked with tears. 

Kahlan felt oddly calm. There were no optionsfor her to weigh, so she suffered no gnawingindecision; there was only one choice. Richardlived, or he died. It was as simple as that. Thechoice was clear. 


 Her mind was made up, and with that came clarityand determination. She could now focus on what she 
was to do. 

The river through the city was larger thanKahlan had expected. The steep banks to each side,
in this area, anyway, were a few dozen feet highand lined with stone blocks. The bridge itself,
wide enough for wagons to pass each other, had twoarches to make the span and side rails with simplestone caps. The waters below were dark and swift.
It was not a river she would want to have to try toswim. 

Kahlan approached as far as the foot of thebridge and stopped. The man on the other sidewatched her. 

"Do you have the antidote?" she called over tohim. 

He lifted what looked like a little bottle highabove his head. He lowered the arm and pointed tothe bridge. He wanted her to come across.
"Mother Confessor," Owen pleaded, "won't youreconsider?" 

She gazed into his wet eyes. "Reconsider what?
If I will have Richard live rather than let him 
succumb to the poison? If I will try to killNicholas in order to make it possible to defeatthem and for your people to have a better chance tofree themselves? How would I ever live with myselfif Richard died without the antidote and I knew 
there was something I could have done that wouldhave saved him and also have given me a chance toget close enough to Nicholas to eliminate him?
"I couldn't live with myself if I failed to dothis. 

"We are fighting this war to stop people likethis, people who bring death upon us, people whowant us dead because they cannot stand that we liveour lives as we wish, that we are successful andhappy. These people hate life; they worship death.
They demand that we do the same and join them in 


their misery.

"As Mother Confessor, I decreed vengeancewithout mercy against the Imperial Order. Changingfrom our course is suicide. I will not reconsider." 
"What would you have us tell Lord Rahl?" Tom asked.
She smiled. "That I love him, but he knows that."

Kahlan unbuckled her sword belt and handed it to 
Jennsen. "Owen, come with me."

Kahlan started out, but Jennsen threw her armsaround her and hugged her fiercely. "Don't worry,"
she whispered. "We'll get the antidote to Richard,
and then we'll come back for you."

Kahlan hugged Jennsen briefly, whispered herthanks, and then started onto the bridge. Owenwalked at her side, saying nothing.
The man on the far side watched, but stayed wherehe was. 

In the center of the bridge, Kahlan stopped.
"Bring the bottle," she called across.
"Come over here and you can have it."

"If you want me, you will come to the center ofthe bridge and give the bottle to this man to takeback, as Nicholas offered."

The man stood for a time, as if considering. Helooked like a soldier. He didn't match the 
description of Nicholas that Owen had given her.
Finally, he started onto the arch of the bridge.
Owen whispered that it looked like the commander hehad seen with Nicholas. Kahlan waited, watching theman walk through the moonlight. He wore a knife atone side and a sword at his other hip.
When he had almost reached her, he came to a haltand waited. 

Kahlan held her hand out. "The note said we were 
to trade. Me for what Nicholas has." 

The man, his crooked nose flattened to the side,
smiled. "So we were." 

"I am the Mother Confessor. Either give me thebottle or you die here, now."

He pulled the square-sided bottle from his 


pocket and placed it in her hand. Kahlan saw thatit was full of clear liquid. She pulled the corkand smelled it. It had the slight aroma ofcinnamon, as had the other bottles of the antidote.

"He goes back with this," Kahlan said to thegrim-looking man as she handed Owen the bottle.

"And you come with me," the man said as hegrabbed her wrist. "Or we all die on this bridge.
He may go, as agreed, but if you try to run youwill die." 
Kahlan glanced to Owen. "Go," she growled.

Owen looked over at the man with black hair,
then back to her. He looked like he had a lot to 
say, but he nodded and then ran back over thebridge to where Tom and Jennsen stood waiting,
watching.

When Owen reached the other two, the man said,
"Let's go, unless you'd like to die here."

Kahlan yanked her arm back. When he turned andstarted out, she followed behind him as theycrossed the rest of the way over the bridge. Shescanned the shadows among the trees on the far sideof the river, the thousand hiding places amongbuildings beyond, the streets in the distance. Shedidn't see anyone, but that didn't really make herfeel any better.

Nicholas was there, somewhere, hiding in thedarkness, waiting to have her.

Suddenly, the night lit up from behind. Kahlanspun and saw the bridge enveloped in a boiling ballof flame. The fire turned black as it billowed up.
Stones sailed into the air above the inferno. As 
the luminous cloud rose, she could see the bridgebeneath the roaring fireball crumpling. The archescaved in on themselves and the entire structure 
began the long drop into the river.

With icy dread, Kahlan wondered if there wereany more bridges across the river. How would sheget back to Richard if she succeeded? How was helpgoing to get to her if she didn't? 


 On the far side, Kahlan could see Tom, Jennsen,
and Owen running back up the road toward whereRichard slept. They were not about to waste timewatching a bridge being destroyed. At the thoughtof Richard, Kahlan almost let out a sob.
The man unexpectedly shoved her. "Move."

She glared at him, at his self-satisfied smile,
at the smug confidence she saw in his eyes.

As she walked ahead of this man and he 
occasionally shoved her, Kahlan's temper was on alow boil. She had the urge to use her power andtake out the despicable brute, but she had toconcentrate on the task at hand: Nicholas. 

Walking up the street leading away from theriver, she was just able to make out soldiershanging back in the shadows on the dark sidestreets, blocking every escape route. It didn'tmatter. At the moment, she wasn't interested inescape, but in her objective. The man behind her.
as arrogantly as he was behaving, was also wary andtreated her with cautious contempt.

The farther she walked into the city on the farside of the river, the closer the clusters of smallbuildings were packed together. Side streets ofnarrow twisting warrens ran off among theramshackle structures. What trees there were grewcrowded in close to the street. Their branches hungout over her like arms raised to snatch her in 
their claws. Kahlan tried not to think about how 
deep she was getting into enemy territory, and bowmany men were surrounding her.

The last time she had been surrounded and 
trapped by such savage men she had been beaten andbad come perilously close to dying. Her unbornchild had died. Her child. Richard's child. 

She had also lost a kind of innocence that day,
a simplistic sense of her invincibility. In itsplace had come the understanding of how frail lifewas, how frail her own life was, and how easily itcould be lost. She knew how much it had hurt 


Richard to fear he might lose her. She rememberedthe terrible agony in his eyes every time he hadlooked at her. It was completely different from thepain she saw in his eyes from his gift. It had beena helpless suffering for her. She hated the thoughtof that pain returning to haunt him.

From the shadows to the right side, a manstepped out from behind a building. He wore blackrobes, covered in layers of what looked like stripsof cloth, almost as if he were covered in blackfeathers. They lifted in the breeze created by hisstride, lending him an unsettling, floatingfluidity as he moved.

His hair was slicked back with oils that 
glistened in the moonlight. Close-set, small blackeyes rimmed in red peered out at her from analtogether unwholesome face. He held his wrists tohis chest, as if he were holding back claws tippedwith black fingernails.

Kahlan needed no introduction to know that this 
was Nicholas the Slide. She had taken confessions 
from men who appeared to be no more than politeyoung men, working fathers, or kindly grandfathersbut in truth were men who had carried out acts of 
ruthless cruelty. To look at them behind theirbench where they made shoes, or behind a counterwhere they sold bread, or in a field tending theiranimals it would be difficult to believe them 
capable of their vile crimes. But looking atNicholas, Kahlan saw such utter corruption that ittainted everything about the man, right down to theindecent squint of his eyes.

"The prize of prizes," Nicholas hissed. Hereached out, making a fist. "And I have her."

Kahlan hardly heard him. She was already lost tothe commitment of wielding her power. This was theman who held the lives of innocent people hostage.
This was the man who brought suffering and death inhis shadow. This was the man who would kill her and 
Richard, if given the chance. 


She snatched his outstretched wrist capped with his
fist. 
He appeared no more than a statue before her.
The night, sprinkled with a vault of stars, seemed
cold and distant. 
Beneath her grip of him, Kahlan could feel Nicholas
tense, as if to draw back his arm. But it was too
late. 
He had no chance. He was hers. 
Time was hers. 


The men all around, who had begun rushing in,
were far too distant to matter. They could neverreach her in time to save Nicholas. Not even the 
man who had brought her from the bridge, who nowstood not more than a few paces away, was closeenough to matter.
Time was hers. 
Nicholas was hers. 

She gave no thought to what those men would doto her. Right then, it didn't matter. Right then,
nothing but her ability to do what needed doingmattered. This man had to be eliminated. 
This was the enemy.

This was the man who had invaded a land to 
torture, rape, and murder innocent people in thename of the Imperial Order. This was a man who hadbeen mutated by magic into a monster designed todestroy them. This man was a tool of conquest, abeing of evil.
This was the man who held Richard's life in the 
balance. 
The power within raged to be released.

All her emotions evaporated before the heat ofthat power. She no longer felt fear, hate, anger,
horror. The emotions behind her reasons were now 
gone. In the all-consuming race of time suspendedbefore the violent rush of her power, she felt onlya resolute determination. Her power had become aninstrument of pure reason.
All her barriers fell before it. 


 In an infinitesimal spark of time as she watchedthe beady eyes staring at her, her power becameall. 

As she had done countless times before, Kahlanreleased her restraint on it, and released herselfinto the flux of violence focused to a singularpurpose.

Where she should have felt the exquisite releaseof merciless force, she felt instead a terrifyingemptiness. Where there should have been the fiercetwisting of her power through this man's mind,
there was ... nothing.
Kahlan's eyes went wide as she gasped.
As she felt hot pain knife through her.

As she felt the thrust of something foreign andterrible beyond anything she could have imagined.

Hot agony lanced through her consciousness allthe way into her very soul.
It felt as if her insides were being ripped apart.
She tried to scream but couldn't. 
The night went blacker still.
Kahlan heard laughter echoing through her soul. 

CHAPTER 58 

Richard's eyes popped open. He felt suddenly,
completely, horrifyingly wide awake.

The hair at the back of his neck lifted. It felt 
as if all his hair wanted to stand on end. His 
heart raced nearly out of control.

He shot to his feet. Cara, right beside him,
caught his arm, surprised to see him suddenly stand 


up. Looking as if she feared he might fall, she
frowned in concern. 
"Lord Rahl, what's the matter? Are you all right?"
The room was silent. Startled faces all around 
stared up at him.
"Get out!" he yelled. "Get your things! Everyone
out! Now!" 


Richard snatched up his pack. He didn't seeKahlan, but saw her pack and grabbed it as well. Hewondered if he might still be dreaming. But henever remembered his dreams. He wondered if the 
feeling might be some lingering dread from a dream.
No. It was real. 

At first made confused and indecisive byRichard's sudden commands, when the men saw himurgently picking up his gear, everyone scooped uptheir things and scrambled to their feet. Meneverywhere were snatching anything they saw lyingabout, no matter whose it was.

"Move!" Richard yelled as he pushed hesitant mentoward the door. "Go. Move, move, move."
It felt as if something brushed against him, asliding caress of his flesh, something warm andwicked. Goose bumps tingled up his arms.
"Hurry!"

Men scrambled wildly up the dark stairs ahead ofhim. Betty, caught up in the mood of panickedescape, shot between his legs and ran up the steps.
Cara was close behind him. 

The hair at the nape of his neck prickled as iflightning was about to strike. Richard scanned thedark, empty room.
"Where's Kahlan and Jennsen?" 
"They went outside before," Cara said.
"Good. Let's go!"

Just as Richard reached the top of the stairs, afiery blast from back in the room knocked himsprawling. Cara fell on his legs. The stairwell litin a flash of yellow and orange light as the entirebasement filled with flames. Gouts of fire rolled 


up the stairwell.

Richard seized Cara's arm and dove with her 
through the open doorway. As they burst out intothe night, the building behind them erupted in athunderous roar of flames. Parts of the buildingbroke apart, lifting in the billowing blaze.
Richard and Cara ducked as flaming boards fell allaround them, bouncing and flipping across theground lit by the glow.

Finally away from the burning building, Richardmade a quick appraisal of the alley, looking to seeif there were any soldiers about to set upon them.
Not seeing anyone he didn't recognize, he startedthe men moving down the alley to put some distancebetween them and the burning building.

"We have to get away from here," Richard toldAnson. "Nicholas knew we were here. The fire will 
draw attention and troops. We haven't much time."

Looking around, he still didn't see Kahlananywhere. His concern rising, he spotted Jennsen,
Tom, and Owen running up the alley toward him. Bythe looks on their faces, he immediately knew thatsomething was wrong.
Richard seized Jennsen's arm as she ran up close.
"Where's Kahlan?" 
Jennsen gulped air. "Richard—she, she—"

Jennsen burst into tears. Owen waved a square-
sided bottle and a piece of paper, as he, too, weptuncontrollably.

Richard looked at Tom, expecting an answer, andfast. "What's going on?"

"Nicholas found the antidote. He offered it in 
trade... for the Mother Confessor. We tried to stopher, Lord Rahl—I swear we did. She wouldn't listento any of us. She insisted that she was going toget the antidote and then stop Nicholas. After youhave the antidote, if she fails to stop Nicholasand return, she wants you to come for her."
The leaping flames lit the grim faces around him.

"Once her mind is made up," Tom added, "there's 


no talking her out of it. She has a way of makingyou do as she says."

Richard knew the truth of that. Amid the roar 
and crackle of the fire, the building groaned andpopped. The roof began to fall in, sending showersof sparks skyward.

Owen urgently handed the square-sided bottle toRichard. "Lord Rahl, she did it to get theantidote. She wanted you to have it so you could bewell. She said that comes first—before it is too 
late." 

Richard pulled the cork on the bottle. It hadthe slight aroma of cinnamon. He took the firstswallow, expecting a thick, sweet, spicy taste. Itdidn't taste that way at all.
He looked at Jennsen's and Owen's faces. "This is 
water." 
Jennsen's eyes went wide. "What?"

"Water. Water with a little cinnamon in it." 
Richard poured it on the ground. "It's not theantidote. She traded herself to Nicholas for nothing."
Jennsen, Owen, and Tom stood in mute shock.

Richard felt a kind of detached calm. It was 
over. It was the end of everything. He now had alimited amount of time to do what had to be done 
... and then everything was at an end for him.
"Let me see this note," he said to Owen.

Owen handed it over. Richard had no trouble 
reading by the light coming from the fire. As Cara,
Tom, Jennsen, and Owen watched, he read it overthree times. 

Finally, his arm lowered. Cara snatched the noteaway and read it for herself.

Richard gazed up the alleyway at the burningbuilding, trying to figure it out. "How didNicholas know that someone was coming for theantidote? He said we had an hour. How did he know 
we were here, this close, and coming for it, inorder to write in the note that he gave us an 


hour?" 

"Maybe he didn't," Cara said. "Maybe he wrotethe note days ago. Maybe he just wrote that to makeus rush without thinking."

"Maybe." Richard gestured behind him. "But howdid he know we were here?" 
"Magic?" Jennsen offered.

Richard didn't like the idea that Nicholas 
apparently knew so much and was always one stepahead of them. 

"How did you know that Nicholas was about to setthis place ablaze?" Cara asked him.

"I woke suddenly," Richard said. "My headachewas gone and I just knew we had to get out atonce." 
"So your gift worked?"
"I guess so. It does that—it works sometimes towarn me." 

He wished he could somehow make it more 
dependable. At least this time it had been, or theywould all be dead. 

Tom peered out into the night. "So, you thinkNicholas is close? That he knew where we were and 
set the place afire?"

"No. I think he wants us to believe he's close. 
He's a wizard. He could have sent wizard's fire 
from a great distance. I'm no expert on magic; hemight have used some other means to set the firefrom a distance." 

Richard turned to Owen. "Take me to this 
building where you hid the antidote, where Nicholaswas when you first saw him."

Without hesitation, Owen started out. The restof the small group followed after him.
"Do you think she will be there?" Jennsen asked.
"There's only one way to find out."

By the time they reached the river they were outof breath. Richard was furious to find the bridgegone, with stone blocks from it scattered on thebanks far below; the rest of it had apparently 


vanished beneath the dark water. Owen and some of 
the other men said that there was another bridgefarther to the north, so they took off in thatdirection, following the road that twisted alongbeside the river. 

Before they reached the bridge, a knot ofsoldiers rushed out from a side street with weaponsraised, yelling battle cries.

The night rang with the distinctive sound ofRichard's sword being drawn. While the blade wasfree, its magic was not. With the heart-poundingthreat, it didn't matter. Richard had anger tospare and met the enemy with a cry of his own.

The first man lunged. Richard's strike was soviolent it cleaved the burly man down through theleather armor over his shoulder to his oppositehip. As Richard spun without pause to a soldiercoming at him from behind, he brought the swordaround with such speed that the man was beheadedbefore he had cocked his sword arm. Richard drew 
his elbow back, smashing the face of a man rushingin to stab him from behind. A quick thrust tookdown another man before Richard could turn to 
finish the man behind, who had dropped to hisknees, his hands covering his bleeding face. Amoonlit flash of Richard's sword brought measureddeath. 

Tom slashed through the men at the same time asCara's Agiel took others down. Cries of surprisedpain shattered the quiet of the night. All thewhile, Richard swept through the enemy like a wind-
borne shadow. 

In mere moments, the night was again silent.
Richard, Tom, and Cara had eliminated the enemysquad before any of their men could react to thethreat that had come out of the darkness. Scarcelyhad they caught their breath when Richard wasalready charging onward to the bridge.

When they reached it, two slouching ImperialOrder soldiers stood guard, pikes standing upright. 


The guards seemed to be surprised that people wouldbe running toward them at night. Probably becausethe people of Bandakar had never before dared tocause them any trouble, the two guards stoodwatching Richard come until he pulled his swordfrom behind and took them down with a rapid thrustto the first man and a powerful sweeping slice thatcut the second in two along with the pike standingat his side. 

The small company raced unopposed across thebridge and into the darkness among the crowdedbuildings. Owen directed Richard at every turn asthey rushed onward toward the place where Owen hadhidden the antidote and where he had recovered,
instead of the antidote, the note demanding Kahlanin exchange for Richard's life, in exchange for thelives of an empire naked to the dark talents ofNicholas the Slide. 

In the somber heart of the city made up ofsmall, squat, mostly single-story buildings, Owenpulled Richard to a stop. "Lord Rahl, down here, atthe corner, we turn to the right. A short distancebeyond is a square where people often gather. Atthe far end of the square will be a building tallerthan those around it. That is the place. Down asmall street to the side of it, there will be analleyway that runs behind the building. That is theway I got in, before."
Richard nodded. "Let's go."

Without waiting to see if the tired men werewith him, he started out, keeping in close to thebuildings, to the shadows cast by the moon. Richardmoved around the building at the corner. Hung overa small front window was a carved sign displayingloaves of bread. It was still too early for thebaker to be at work. 

Richard looked up and froze. There before himwas the square with trees and benches. The buildingacross the open square was in ruin. Only smolderingtimbers remained. A small crowd had gathered 


around, watching what had hours ago obviously beena large fire.

"Dear spirits," Jennsen whispered in horror. Shecovered her mouth, fearing to speak aloud the worryon everyone's mind.

"She wouldn't be in there," Richard said inanswer to the unspoken fear. "Nicholas wouldn'ttake her back here just to kill her."
"Then why do this?" Anson asked. "Why burn theplace down?"

Richard watched the wisps of smoke slowlycurling up into the cool night air, at his hopesdisappearing. "To send me a message that he has herand I'll not find her." 

"Lord Rahl," Cara said under her breath, "Ithink we had better get out of here."

From the darkness around the building that hadburned down, Richard could just start to make outthe sight of soldiers by the hundreds, no doubtwaiting to catch them.

"I feared as much," Owen said. "That's why Ibrought us in by such a circuitous route. See thatroad over there, where all the soldiers are? That'sthe road coming from the bridge we crossed."

"How do they always know where we are, or wherewe will be?" Jennsen whispered in frustration. "Andwhen?" 

Cara grabbed Richard's shirt and started pullinghim back. "There are too many. We don't know howmany more are around us. We need to get out ofhere." 
Richard was loath to admit it, but she was right.

"We have men waiting for us," Tom reminded him.
"And a lot more coming."
Richard's mind raced. Where was she? 

Finally he nodded. The instant he did, Cara tookhim by his arm and they dashed off into thedarkness. 


 CHAPTER 59 


Under the sweep of stars, Richard willed himselfto stand up straight and tall before all the mengathered beneath the spreading branches of the oaktrees at the forest's edge. A few candles burnedamong the gathering so they could all see. By thetime they charged into the city of Northwick tomake their attack, it would just be light.

Richard wanted nothing more than to get into thecity and find Kah-lan, but he had to use everythinghe had at hand to help, or he might waste thechance. He had to do this, first.

Most of these men had never really foughtbefore. Owen and Anson's men from the town of 
Witherton had been there at the first attack on the 
sleeping houses and had taken part in theskirmishes there. The rest of the men were from 
Northwick, where Richard had gone to see the WiseOne. They had been in on the clashes with thesoldiers who weren't poisoned. There had not been agreat many enemy soldiers to fight, but the men haddone what had to be done. If anything, those minorbut bloody encounters had served only to make themen more determined, showing them that they couldwin freedom themselves, that they were in controlof their own destiny.

This, though, was different. This was going tobe a battle on a scale they had not experienced.
Worse, it was in a city that had, for the mostpart, willingly joined with the Order's cause. Thepopulace was not likely to offer much help.

Had he more time, Richard might have come upwith a better plan that would have chipped away atthe enemy's numbers, first, but there was no time.
It had to be now. 


 Richard stood before the men, hoping to givethem something to help them carry the day. He hadtrouble thinking of anything but finding Kahlan. Inorder to have the best chance to save her, he puther from his mind and focused on the task at hand. 

"I had hoped we wouldn't have to do it thisway," he said. "I had hoped we could do it in somemanner like we've done before, with the fire, orthe poisoning, so that none of you would be hurt.
We don't have that option. Nicholas knows we'rehere. If we run, his men will come after us. Someof us might escape . . . for a while."
"We are finished running," Anson said.

"That's right," Owen agreed. "We have learnedthat running and hiding brings only greatersuffering."

Richard nodded. "I agree. But you mustunderstand that some of us are probably going todie, today. Maybe most of us. Maybe all of us. Ifany of you choose not to fight, then we must knownow. Once we go in, we'll all be depending on eachother." 

He clasped his hands behind his back as he pacedslowly before them. It was hard to make out theirfaces in the dim light. Richard knew, too, that histime was running out. His sight would only getworse. His dizziness would only get worse.
He knew he was never going to get better.

If he was to have a chance to get Kahlan awayfrom the men of the Order, it had to be at once,
with these men or without them. 

When none said that they wanted to quit, Richardwent on. "We need to get to their commanders fortwo reasons: to find out where the Mother Confessor 
is being held, and to eliminate them so that theycan't direct their soldiers against us.

"You all have weapons, now, and in the limitedtime we've had, we've done our best to teach youhow to use them. There's one other thing you mustknow. You will be afraid. So will I. 


 "To overcome this fear, you must use youranger."

"Anger?" one of the men asked. "How can we bringforth anger when we're afraid?"

"These men have raped your wives, your sisters,
your mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins, andneighbors," Richard said as he paced. "Think aboutthat, when you look into the enemy's eyes as theycome at you. They have taken most of the womenaway. You all know why. They have tortured childrento make you give up. Think about the terror of yourchildren as they screamed in fear and pain, dyingbloody and alone after being mutilated by thesemen." 

The heat of Richard's anger seeped into hiswords. "Think about that when you see theirconfident grins as they come at you. These men havetortured people you loved, people who never didanything against them. Think about that as thesemen come at you with their bloodstained hands.

"These men have sent many of your people away tobe used as slaves. Many more of your people havebeen murdered by these men. Think about that, whenthey come to murder you, too.

"This is not about a difference of opinion, or adisagreement. There can be no debate or uncertaintyabout this among moral men. This is about rape,
torture, murder."

Richard turned and faced the men. "Think about 
that, when you face these beasts." He tapped a fistto his chest as he ground his teeth. "And when youface these men, men who have done all these thingsto you and your loved ones, face them with hate inyour hearts. Fight them with hate in your hearts.
Kill them with hate in your hearts. They deserve nobetter." 

The woods were silent as the men considered his 
chilling words. Richard knew that he had rageenough, and hate enough, to be eager to get at themen of the Imperial Order. 


 He didn't know where Kahlan was, but he intendedto find out and to have her back. She had done as 
she had to in order to get the antidote to save hislife. He understood what she had done, and couldn'tfault her for it—that was the kind of woman she 
was. She loved him just as fiercely as he lovedher. She had done what she had to do.But he was not 
going to let her down. She was depending on him tocome for her. 

The terrible irony was that it had all been fornothing. The antidote she had made such a sacrificeto obtain was no antidote at all. 

Richard looked out at all their faces, so intenton what he had to tell them on the eve of such a 
momentous battle, and remembered, then, the wordson the statue at the entrance to this land, thewords of the Wizard's Eighth Rule: TaigaVassternich. 

"There is one last thing to tell you," he said.
"The most important thing of all."

Richard faced them as the leader of the D'Haran 
Empire, an empire struggling to survive, to befree, and told them those two words in theirlanguage.
"Deserve Victory."
It was just turning light as they charged into thecity. Only one of them had remained behind:
Jennsen. Richard had forbidden her from joining thefight. Besides being young and not nearly as strongas the men they would come up against, she wouldonly create a tempting target. Rape was a sacredweapon of the wicked, and one this enemy usedreligiously. The men of the Imperial Order wouldrally for such a prize. Cara was different; she wasa trained warrior and more lethal than any of themexcept Richard.

Jennsen hadn't been pleased to be left behind,
but she had understood Richard's reasons and hadn't 
wanted to give him anything else to worry about.
She and Betty had remained behind in the woods. 


 A man they had sent out to scout because he knewthe area well emerged from a side alley. As theyreached him they all moved up against the wall,
trying to remain out of sight as best they could.

"I found them," the scout said, trying to catchhis breath. He pointed to the right of their routeinto the city.
"How many?" Richard asked.

"I think it must be their main force within the 
city, Lord Rahl. It's where they sleep. They seemto still be there, as you expected, and not yet up.
The place they've taken over contains buildings forcity offices and administration. But I bringtroubling news, as well. They are being protectedby the people of the city."

Richard ran his ringers back through his hair.
He had to concentrate to keep from coughing. Hegripped the window frame of the building beside himto help himself stand.
"What do you mean, they are being protected?"

"There are crowds of people from the citysurrounding the place occupied by the soldiers. Thepeople are there to protect the soldiers— from us.
They are there to stop us from attacking."

Richard let out an angry breath. "All right." Heturned back to the worried, expectant faces of allthe men. "Now, listen to me. We are joined in abattle against evil. If anyone sides with evil, ifthey protect evil men, then they are serving toperpetuate evil."

One of the men looked unsure. "Are you sayingthat if they try to stop us, we might have to useforce against them?"

"What is it these people seek to accomplish?
What is their goal? They want to prevent us fromeliminating the Imperial Order. Because they hatelife, they despise freedom more than slavery."

With grim determination, Richard met the men'sgazes. "I'm saying that anyone who protects theenemy and seeks to keep them in power, for whatever 


reason, has sided with them. It's no morecomplicated than that. If they try to protect theenemy or hamper us from doing as we must—killthem." 
"But they aren't armed," a man said.

Richard's anger flared. "They are armed—armedwith evil ideas that seek to enslave the world. If 
they succeed, you die.

"Saving the lives of innocent people and yourloved ones—and having far less loss of life in theend—is best served by crushing the enemy asdecisively and quickly as possible. Then there willbe peace. If these people try to prevent that, thenthey are, in effect, siding with those who tortureand murder—they help them to live another day tomurder again. Such people must not be treated anydifferently than what they in truth are: servantsof evil. 
"If they try to stop you, kill them."

There was a moment of silence; then Anson put afist to his heart. "With hate in my heart...
vengeance without mercy."

Looks of iron determination spread back throughthe men. They all put fists to their hearts insalute and took up the pledge. "Vengeance withoutmercy!"
Richard clapped Anson on the side of the shoulder.
"Let's go."

They raced out from the long shadows of thebuildings and poured around the corner. The peopleoff at the end of the street all turned when theyspotted Richard's force coming. More people—men andwomen from the city—surged into the street in frontof the compound of buildings the soldiers had takenup as barracks and a command post. The peoplelooked like a scraggly lot.

"No war! No war! No war!" the people shouted asRichard led the men up the street at a dead run.

"Out of the way!" Richard yelled as he closedthe distance. This was no time for subtlety or 


discussions; the success of their attack dependedin large part on speed. "Get out of the way! Thisis your only warning! Get out of the way or die!"

"Stop the hate! Stop the hate!" the peoplechanted as they locked arms.

They had no idea how much hate was ragingthrough Richard. He drew the Sword of Truth. Thewrath of its magic didn't come out with it, but hehad enough of his own. He slowed to a trot.
"Move!" Richard called as he bore down on the 
people.

A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out fromthe others. Her round face was red with anger asshe screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop thehate! No war!" 
"Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked upspeed.

The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist atRichard and his men, leading an angry chant.
"Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!" 

On his way past her, gritting his teeth as hescreamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richardtook a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's headand upraised arm. Strings of blood and goresplashed across the faces behind her even as somestill chanted their empty words. The head and loosearm tumbled through the crowd. A man made themistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and tookthe full weight of a charging thrust.
Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardianswith unrestrained violence. People armed only withtheir hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied,
terribly injured, and dead. The line of peoplecollapsed before the merciless charge. Some of thepeople, screaming their contempt, used their fiststo attack Richard's men. They were met with swiftand deadly steel.

At the realization that their defense of the 
Imperial Order's brutality would actually result inconsequences to themselves, the crowd began 


scattering in fright, screaming curses back atRichard and his men. 

Richard's army did not pause as they torethrough the ring of protectors, now on the run, butcontinued on to the maze of buildings among grassyopen spaces dotted with trees. The soldiers whowere outside began to realize that this time theywould have to protect themselves, that the peopleof the city could no longer do it for them. Thesewere men used to slaughtering defenseless, docilevictims. For more than a year of occupation theyhad not had to fight.

Richard was the first on them, taking down menon his way into their midst. Cara charged in at hisright, Tom at his left, the deadly point of a speardriving into soldiers only now pulling free theirweapons. These were men used to overwhelming theircowering opponents with sheer numbers, not withfighting resolute opposition. They did so now, andfor their lives. 

Richard moved through them as if they werestatues. They thrust a blade at where he had been,
while he cut where they were going and met themthere with razor-sharp steel. He came up behindothers as they looked both ways, losing track ofhim, only to have him reach around and draw hissword across their throats. Others he beheaded 
before they realized he was about to strike.

He wasted no effort with exaggerated movementsand wild slashes. He cut with deadly proficiency.
He didn't try to best men to show them he wasbetter; he simply killed them. He didn't give themany chance to fight back; he cut them down beforethey could.

Now that he was committed to the fight, he wascommitted to the dance with death, which meant onething: cut. It was his duty, his purpose, hishunger to cut the enemy down quickly, resolutely,
and utterly.
They were not prepared for this level of violence 


unleashed. 
As his men fell on the soldiers, a great cry rose
up. As men fell, their screams filled the morning.


Seeing a man who looked like an officer, Richardwheeled around him and laid his blade across the 
man's throat. 
"Where is Nicholas and the Mother Confessor?" 

The man answered by trying to grab Richard'sarm. He wasn't nearly quick enough. Richard pulledhis sword across the man's throat, nearly severinghis head, as he spun to a man coming at him frombehind. The man skidded to a stop in an effort toavoid Richard's blade, only to be stabbed throughthe heart. 

The battle raged on, moving back between thebuildings as they took down those men who met theattack. Yet more men, layered in leather, mail,
hides, and weapon belts, came out of the barracksat hearing the clash. They were fierce-looking menlooking better suited to murder than any menRichard had ever seen. 

As they came onward, Richard seized anyone wholooked like an officer. None of them were able to 
give him an answer. None of them knew thewhereabouts of either Nicholas or Kahlan. 

Richard had to fight off the dizziness as wellas the soldiers. By focusing on the dance withdeath and the precepts the sword had taught him inthe past, he was able to surmount the effects ofthe poison. He knew that such efforts couldn't longreplace the required strength of endurance, but forthe moment he was able to do as he had to. 

It was somewhat surprising to see how well hismen were doing. They helped one another as theymoved deeper into the enemy lines. By fighting inthat way, using one another's strengths, they wereoften able to survive together where one alonewould not have. 

Some of his men had not survived; Richard sawseveral lying dead. But the surprised enemy was 


being slaughtered. The Imperial Order soldiers werenot charged with righteous, resolute determination.
Richard's men were. The Order soldiers were little 
more than a gang of thugs allowed to run loose.
They now faced men calling them to ac-count. Themen of the Order fought a disorderly attempt tospare their own individual lives, without thoughtto a coordinated defense, while Richard's menfought to a singular purpose of exterminating theenemy's entire force.

Richard heard Cara calling urgently for him fromthe narrow space between two buildings. At first,
he thought she was in trouble, but when he roundedthe corner he saw then that she had a husky man onhis knees. She held his head up by a fistful of hisgreasy black hair. One ear displayed a row ofsilver rings. Cara had her Agiel at his throat.
Blood ran down his chin. 
"Tell him!" she yelled at the man when Richard ranup.
"I don't know where they are!"

In a fit of fury, Cara slammed the tip of herAgiel to the base of the man's skull. He flinched,
his arms shaking with the shattering shock of painthat brought a gasp rather than a scream. His eyesrolled back in his head. Holding him by his tangledhair, Cara bent him back over her knee to hold himupright.
"Tell him," she growled.

"They left," he mumbled. "Nicholas left lastnight. They carried a woman away with them, but Idon't know who she was." 

Richard went to a knee and grabbed the man'sshirt. "What did she look like?" 
The man's eyes were still rolling. "Long hair."
"Where did they go?"
"Don't know. Gone. In a hurry."
"What did Nicholas tell you before he left?"

The man's eyes slowly came into focus. "Nicholasknew you were going to attack at dawn. He told me 


the route you would take into the city."

Richard could hardly believe what he washearing. "How could he possibly know that?"
He hesitated. The sight of Cara's Agiel made himtalk. 

"I don't know. Before he left, Nicolas told mehow many men you had, told me when you wouldattack, and by which route. He told me to getpeople from the city to shield us from your attack.
We gathered our most fanatical supporters and toldthem that you were coming to murder us, that youwanted to make war." 
"When did Nicholas leave? Where did he take this 
woman?" 

Blood dripped from the man's chin. "I don'tknow. They just left in a hurry last night. That'sall I know." 

"If you knew we were coming, why didn't you makea better defense?" 

"Oh, but we did. Nicholas told me to take careof the city. I assured him that such a small forceas yours cannot possibly defeat us."
Something was terribly wrong. "Why not?"

For the first time, the man smiled. "Because youdon't know how many men we really have. Once I knewwhere your attack was coming, I was able to call inall my forces." The man's smile widened. "Do youhear that horn in the distance? Here they come." Abelly laugh rolled up. "You are about to die."
Richard gritted his teeth. "You first."

With a mighty thrust, he ran his sword throughthe officer's heart. The man's eyes widened inshock. Richard gave the blade a twist as hewithdrew it to be sure the job was done.

"We'd better get the men out of here," Richardsaid as he took Cara's arm and ran for the corner 
of the buildings.

"Looks like we're too late," she said when theycame out from behind cover and saw the legions ofmen pouring in all around them. 


 How did Nicholas know when and where they weregoing to attack? There had been no one around—noraces, not so much as a mouse had been there whenthey had made their plans as they moved through thecountryside. How could he have known?

"Dear spirits," Cara said. "I didn't think theyhad this many men in Bandakar."

The roar of the soldiers was deafening as theycharged in. Richard was already spent. Each deepbreath he pulled was agonizingly painful. He knewthat there was no choice. 

He had to find a way to get to Kahlan. He had tohold out at least that long.

Richard whistled in a signal to gather his men.
As Anson and Owen ran up. Richard looked around andsaw most of the others. 

"We have to try to break out of here. There'stoo many of them. Slay together. We're going to tryto punch through. If we make it, scatter and try tomake it back to the forest." 

With Cara at one side, Tom at the other, Richardcharged at the head of his men toward the enemylines. Thousands of the Imperial Order soldierspoured out from the city around them and into theopen. It was a frightening sight. There were somany that it almost seemed as if the ground itselfwere moving.

Before Richard reached the soldiers, the morningsuddenly lit with blinding blasts of fire.
Thunderous eruptions of flame tore through theenemy lines, killing men by the hundreds. Sod,
trees, and men were hurled into the air. Men, theirclothes, hair, and flesh burning, tumbled acrossthe ground.

Richard heard a howl coming from behind. Itsounded somehow familiar. He turned just in time tosee a roiling ball of liquid yellow flame wailingthrough the air toward them. It expanded as itcame, tumbling with seething, deadly intensity.
Wizard's fire. 


 The incandescent, white-hot inferno roared byjust overhead. Once past Richard and his men, itdescended, crashing down among the enemy soldiers,
spilling a flood of liquid death out among them.
Wizard's fire stuck to what it touched, burningwith ferocious intensity. A single droplet of itwould burn down through a man's leg to the bone. Itwas horrifyingly deadly. It was said to be soexcruciatingly painful that those who lived longedonly for death.
The question was, who was it coming from?

To the other side, men of the Order fell assomething scythed through their ranks. It almostlooked as if a single blade cut them down by thehundreds, ripping them apart with bloody ferocity.
But who was doing it?

There was no time to stand around and wonder. 
Richard and his men had to turn to meet the 
soldiers who made it through the devastatingconjuring. Now that their numbers had been sothinned, the Imperial Order soldiers were unable tomount an effective attack. Their charge fell aparton the blades of Richard's men. 

As they fought, more deadly fire came in tocatch those trying to run, or those who massed toattack. In other places, Order soldiers fellwithout Richard or his men touching them. Theygasped in great agony, clutching their chests, andfell dead. 

Before long, the morning fell silent but for thegroans of the wounded. Richard's men rallied aroundhim, unsure of what had happened, worried thatwhatever had befallen these men might suddenly turnand befall them as well. Richard realized that theydidn't see the attack of wizard's fire and magic inthe same way as he did; to them it must seem amiracle of salvation. 

Richard spotted two people beside one of thebuildings off to the side of the grounds. One wastaller than the other. He squinted, trying to make 


them out, but he just couldn't see who they were.
With a hand on Tom's shoulder for support, theyheaded toward the two figures.

"Richard, my boy," Nathan said when Richard madeit over to him. "So good to find you well."

Ann, a squat woman in a plain gray dress, smiledthat knowing smile of hers, so filled with joy,
satisfaction, and at the same time a kind ofknowing tolerance.

"I doubt you two could imagine how glad I am tosee you," Richard said, still catching his breath,
trying not to breathe too deeply. "But what are youdoing here? How in the world did you find me?"
Nathan leaned in with a sly smile. "Prophecy, myboy."

Nathan wore high boots and a ruffled white shirtwith a vest and an elegant green velvet capeattached at his right shoulder. The prophet cutquite the figure.

Richard saw then that Nathan was wearing anexquisite sword in a polished scabbard. It seemedto Richard rather odd for a wizard who could 
command wizard's fire to carry a sword. It seemedeven more odd to see the man abruptly draw theweapon.

Ann suddenly gasped as someone sprang frombehind the building and grabbed her. It was one ofthe people from the city who had gathered toprotect the army—a tall, slender, pinched-facedwoman with a formidable scowl and a long knife.

"You are murderers!" she cried, her straighthair whipping side to side. "You are filled withhate!" 

The ground around Ann and the woman erupted,
chunks of dirt and grass flying up into the air.
Ann, a sorceress, was apparently trying to fightoff her attacker. The woman was unaffected. Againsta pristinely ungifted person, magic wasn't working.

Nathan, not far to the side of Ann, stepped inand without ado ran the tall woman through with his 


sword. The woman staggered back, his sword throughher chest, her face a picture of surprise. Shedropped, sliding off the red blade.

Ann, free of her attacker, glanced at the deadwoman. She fixed Nathan in a scowl. "Dashingindeed." 

Nathan smiled at her private joke. "I told you,
they aren't touched by magic."
"Nathan," Richard said, "I still don't understand—"
"Come here, my dear," Nathan said, signaling offbehind him. 

Jennsen ran out from behind the building. Shethrew her arms around Richard. 

"I'm so glad you're all right," she said. "Ihope you aren't angry with me. Nathan showed up inthe woods not long after you and the men left. Iremembered seeing him before—at the People's Palacein D'Hara. I knew he was a Rahl, so I told him thetrouble we were in. He and Ann wanted to help. Wecame as fast as we could." 

Jennsen looked expectantly up at Richard. Heanswered her worry with a hug.

"You did the right thing," he told her. "Youused your head for something the orders didn'tanticipate."

Now that the heat of battle had ended, Richardwas dizzier than ever. He had to lean on Tom for 
support.

Nathan put a shoulder under Richard's other arm.
"I hear you're having trouble with your gift. MaybeI can help."

"I don't have time. Nicholas the Slide has 
Kahlan. I have to find her or—" 

"Don't play a fool when you aren't," Nathansaid. "It won't take long to bring your gift intoharmony. You need the help of another wizard to getit under control—like the last time I helped you—oryou won't be of any use to anyone. Come on, let'sget you inside one of these places where it'squiet. Then I can take care of that much of your 


troubles." 

Richard wanted nothing more than to find Kahlan,
but he didn't know where to look. He felt like 
falling into the man's arms and surrendering hisdestiny to him, to his experience, to his vastknowledge. Richard knew Nathan was right. He feltlike crying with relief that help was finally athand. Who better to help him get his gift backunder control than a wizard? 

Richard had never even dared to hope to havethis opportunity; he had planned on trying to getto Nicci because she was the only one he couldthink of who might know what to do. This wasinfinitely better than a sorceress helping him.

A wizard was the only one really meant to helpwith this kind of trouble with another wizard's 
gift.
"Just make it quick," he told Nathan.

Nathan smiled that Rahl smile of his. "Come on,
then. We'll have your gift back to right in no timeat all." 

"Thank you, Nathan," Richard mumbled as he letthe big man help him through a nearby doorway. 

CHAPTER 60 

Richard sat cross-legged on the wood floorfacing Nathan. The barren room had no furniture.
Nathan said none was needed, that the floor wasfine with him. Ann, not far away, sat on the flooras well. Richard was a little surprised that Nathanwas allowing her to observe, but didn't questionit. There was the possibility that he might want tohave her help for some part of it.

Everyone else waited outside. Cara wasn't happy 


about allowing Richard out of her sight, butRichard calmed her concern by telling her that hewould feel more comfortable and able to concentrate 
on correcting the problem with his gift if he knewshe was outside keeping an eye on everything forhim. 

The two windows had been shuttered, allowing inonly dim light and keeping out most of the noise.
With his hands on his knees, the prophet pushed hisback straighter and, drawing a deep breath, seemedto pull an aura of authority around himself. Nathanwas the one who had first taught Richard about hisgift, telling him how war wizards, like Richard,
weren't like other wizards. Instead of tapping thecore of power within themselves, they directedtheir intent through their feelings.

It had been a difficult concept to grasp. Nathanhad told Richard that his power worked throughanger.
"Lose yourself in my eyes," Nathan said in a quietvoice. 
Richard knew he had to try to put his worry forKahlan aside. 

Trying to keep his breathing steady so as not tocough, he stared into Nathan's hooded, deep, dark,
azure eyes. Nathan's gaze drew him in. Richard feltas if he were falling up into the clear blue sky.
His breath came in ragged pulls, and not of his owndoing. He felt Nathan's commanding words more thanheard them. 

"Call forth the anger, Richard. Call forth therage. Call forth the hate and fury."

Richard's head was swimming. He concentrated oncalling his anger. He thought about Nicholas havingKahlan and he had no trouble summoning rage.

He could feel another force within his own, asif he were drowning and someone were trying to holdhis head above water. 

He drifted, alone, in a dark and still place.
Time seemed to mean nothing. 


Time. 
He had to get to Kahlan in time. He was her only
chance. 
Richard opened his eyes. "Nathan, I'm sorry,
but..." 


Nathan was drenched in sweat. Ann was sittingbeside him, holding Richard's left hand, Nathan hisright. Richard wondered what had happened.
Richard looked from one face to the other. "What's 
wrong?"

They both looked grim. "We tried," Nathanwhispered. "I'm sorry, but we tried."
Richard frowned. They had only just begun.
"What do you mean? Why are you giving up so soon?"

Nathan cast a sidelong glance at Ann. "We'vebeen at it for two hours. Richard." 
"Two hours?" 

"I'm afraid there is nothing I can do, my boy."
By the sound of his voice, he meant it.

Richard ran his fingers back through his hair.
"What are you talking about? You're the one whotold me the last time, when I had this problem,
joining with a wizard would set it straight. Yousaid it was a simple matter for a wizard to fixsuch a disharmony with the gift."

"That's the way it should be. But your gift issomehow tangled up into a knot that's stranglingyou."

"But you're a prophet, a wizard. Ann, you're asorceress. Together you both probably know moreabout magic than anyone who has lived in thousandsof years."

"Richard, there has not been another born likeyou in the last three thousand years. We don't knowthat much about how your particular gift works."
Ann paused to push stray strands of gray hair backinto the bun at the back of her head. "We tried,
Richard. I swear to you, we both tried our best.
Your gift is beyond Nathan's help, even with myability enhancing his power. We tried everything we 


know, and even a few things we thought up. None of
it had any effect. We cannot help you."
"So, what must I do?"


Nathan's azure eyes turned away. "Your gift iskilling you, Richard. I don't know the cause, butI'm afraid that it has spiraled into a phase thatis out of control and fatal." 
Ann's eyes were wet. "Richard ... I'm so sorry."
Richard looked from one distraught face to theother. 
"I guess it doesn't really matter," Richard said.
Nathan frowned. "What do you mean it doesn'tmatter?" 

Richard rose up, groping for the wall to keephis balance. "I've been poisoned. The antidote isgone.... There is no cure. I'm afraid that I'mrunning out of time. I guess the joke is on mygift—something else is going to get me first."

Ann stood and gripped his upper arms. "Richard,
we can't help you right now, but you can at leastrest while we try to figure out—"

"No." Richard waved off her concern. "No. I 
can't waste what little time I have left. I have to 
get to Kahlan."

Ann cleared her throat. "Richard, at the Palaceof the Prophets, Nathan and I waited for your birthfor a very long time. We worked to clear thoseobstacles that Prophecy showed us lay in your path.
The prophecies name you as central to the course ofthe future of the world. In fact, they say you arethe only one with a chance; we need you to lead usin this battle. 
"We don't know what is wrong with your gift, but wecan work on 
You must be here so that if we come up with asolution, we can set your power right."

"I'll not live for you to cure me. Don't yousee? The poison is killing me. It has three states.
I'm already entering the third state: blindness.
I'm going to die. I must use what time I have left 


to find Kahlan. You aren't going to have me to leadyou, but if I can get her away from Nicholas, youwill have her to lead the struggle in my place."
"You know where she is, then?" Nathan asked.

Richard realized that in the state of focused,
concentrated thought, as he was adrift in thatquiet place while Nathan was trying to help him, ithad come to him where Nicholas most likely hadtaken Kahlan. He had to get there while Nicholaswas still there with her. 
"Yes, I believe I do."

Richard pulled open the door. Cara, sittingright outside, shot to her feet. Her expectantexpression quickly withered when he shook his head,
signaling that it hadn't worked.

"We have to get going. Right away. I think Iknow where Nicholas took Kahlan. We have to hurry."
"You know?" Jennsen asked, holding Betty close bythe rope.
"Yes. We need to leave at once." 
"Where is she, then?" Jennsen asked.

Richard gestured. "Owen, remember how you toldus about a fortified encampment the Imperial Orderbuilt when they first came to Ban-dakar and theywere worried about their safety?"
"Back near my town," Owen said.

Richard nodded. "That's right. I think Nicholastook Kahlan there. It's a secure place they builtto hold some of the women captive. There would beplenty of soldiers to protect him and it's the kindof place built specifically to be defensible, so itwould be much more difficult to approach than hisplace, here, in the city."
"Then how will we approach it?" Jennsen asked.
"We'll have to figure that out once we get thereand see the place."

Nathan joined Richard at the door. "Ann and Iwill go with you. We might be able to help rescueKahlan from the Slide. While we travel the two of 
us can work on a solution for untangling your 


gift."
Richard gripped Nathan's shoulder. "There are nohorses in this land. If you can run and keep upwith us, you're welcome, but I can't afford to slowfor you. I don't have much time, and neither doesKahlan. Nicholas will not likely hold her therelong. After he pauses for rest and supplies andthen leaves this land, it will be even moredifficult to find him. We have no time to lose. 
We're going to have to travel as swiftly aspossible."
Nathan's eyes turned down in disappointment.

Ann drew Richard into a brief hug. "We're fartoo old to keep up the speed afoot that you andthese young people can. When you get her away fromthe Slide, come back and we'll do our best to helpyou. We'll work on the problem while you're gettingher out of his clutches. Come back then, and we'llhave a solution." 

Richard knew that he would never live that long,
but there was no point in saying it. "All right.
What can you tell me about a Slide?"

Nathan drew his thumb along his jaw as heconsidered the question. "Slides are soul stealers.
There is no defense against them. Even I would bepowerless to stop them."

Richard didn't suppose that needed anyexplanation. "Cara, Jennsen, Tom, you can come withme." 
"What about us?" Owen asked. 

Anson stood close by, looking eager to beincluded, and nodded at Owen's suggestion. Therewere others as well, who had stood vigil outsidethe place where Nathan had tried to help Richard.
They were all men who had fought hard. If he was toget Kahlan back, he would likely need some men, atleast. 

"Your help would be welcome. I think most of themen should stay here with Nathan and Ann. Thepeople here in Hawton need to have you men explain 


everything to them—help them to understand all thatyou've learned. They will need to make some changesto adjust to interacting with the world out therenow open to them."

As Richard started away, Nathan grabbed ahold ofhis sleeve. "Richard, as far as I know, you have nodefense against a soul stealer, but there is onething I recall from an old tome in the vaults inthe Palace of the Prophets."
"I'm listening."
"They somehow travel outside their body ... sendtheir own spirit out."

Richard rubbed his fingertips across his brow ashe thought about Nathan's words. "That has to behow he was watching me, tracking me. I believe hewatched me through the eyes of huge birds that livehere, called black-tipped races. If what you'resaying is right, then maybe he leaves his body inorder to do this." Richard looked up at Nathan.
"How does this help me?"

Nathan leaned closer, cocking his head to peerwith one azure eye. "That is when they arevulnerable—when they are out of their body."

Richard lifted his sword a few inches in the 
scabbard to be sure it was clear. "Any idea how tocatch him outside of his body?" He let the sworddrop back.
Nathan straightened. "Afraid not."

Richard nodded his thanks anyway and steppeddown out of the doorway. "Owen, how far is thisfortified encampment?"
"Back close to where the path used to go outthrough the boundary."

That was why Richard hadn't seen it; they hadcome on the ancient route used by Kaja-Rang.
Ordinarily, it would be a journey of well over aweek. They didn't have nearly that long.

He took in all the faces watching him. "Nicholashas quite a head start on us and he will be in ahurry to escape with his prize. If we travel 


swiftly and don't stop long to rest, there's a good
chance we can still catch up with him by the time
he reaches their encampment. We need to be on our
way at once."
"We're only waiting for you, Lord Rahl," Cara said.
So was Kahlan. 


CHAPTER 61 

Each day of hard travel, Richard's conditionworsened, but his fear for Kahlan drove himrelentlessly onward. Most of the time, hour afterhour, through sunlight, darkness, and occasionalrain, they ran at a steady lope. Richard used astaff he'd cut himself to help keep his balance.
When he thought he would be unable to go on,
Richard deliberately picked up the pace to remindhimself that he could not give up. They stopped atnight only long enough to get a few hours' sleep.

The men had trouble keeping up with him. Caraand Jennsen didn't; they were both used tostrenuous exertion in the course of difficult 
journeys. All of them, though, were so exhaustedfrom the unrelenting pace that they talked onlywhen necessary. Richard drove himself doggedly,
trying not to think about his own hopelesscondition. It didn't matter. He reminded himself 
that with every step they ran, if it was fastenough, they were gaining on Nicholas and just thatmuch closer to Kahlan. 

In moments of despair, Richard told himself thatKahlan had to be alive, that Nicholas could havekilled her long ago if that was his intention. Hewouldn't have run if she were dead. Kahlan would be 


much more valuable to him alive. 

In a way, he felt an odd kind of relief. Hecould push as hard as he needed. He didn't have toworry about his health. There was no antidote tothe poison. Given the time, it would kill him.
There was no solution to the problem of his giftbeing out of control; that, too, would kill him.
There was nothing Richard could do about either. Hewas going to die.

The wooded hills were easy enough traveling.
They were open, with broad, green meadows sprinkledwith wildflowers and a patchwork of grassland.
Wildlife was abundant. Were he not dying, in pain,
and sick with worry for Kahlan, Richard might haveenjoyed the beauty of the land. Now it was just anobstacle. 

The sun in his eyes was slipping down behind thetowering mountains. Soon darkness would be uponthem. A little earlier, Richard had used his bow totake a buck when the opportunity presented itself.
Tom had made quick work of butchering it. The restof them needed to eat, or they would not be able tokeep up the pace. Richard supposed that they wouldhave to stop for a while to cook the meat and getsome sleep.

Owen came up beside Richard as they trottedthrough a sea of grass rolling beneath the breeze.
Owen pointed ahead. "There, Lord Rahl. That streamcoming out of the hills is getting close to theOrder's encampment. Just a little farther, overthat line of hills and toward the mountains." He 
pointed to the right. "Off that way, not far, is mytown of Witherton." 

Richard changed his course a little to the left,
heading for the woods that started at the foot of agentle rise. They made the trees just as the orangedisc of the sun slipped behind the snowcappedmountains. 

"All right," Richard said, coming to abreathless halt as they entered a small clearing. 


"Let's set up camp here. Jennsen, Tom, why don'tyou two and the men stay here—get some meat cookingwhile I go with Owen and Cara to scout thisfortification and see if I can figure out how we'regoing to get in."

When Richard started out, using his staff tohelp balance, Betty started following him. Jennsensnatched Betty's rope.

"Oh, no you don't," Jennsen said. "You'restaying here. Richard doesn't need you taggingalong to attract attention at the worst possibletime." 
"What should we make for you to eat, Lord Rahl?"
Tom asked. 
Richard couldn't stand the thought of eating meat.
After all the bloody fighting, he needed to balancehis gift more than ever. His gift was killing him,
but if he did the wrong thing it might hasten theend and then he might not last long enough to getKahlan away from Nicholas.

"Whatever we have that isn't meat. You have time 
before we come back, so you can cook some bannock,
some rice, maybe some beans."

Tom agreed to take care of it and Richardfollowed after Owen. Cara, looking more unhappythan he could ever remember seeing her, put a handon his shoulder. 
"How are you holding up, Lord Rahl?"

He dared not tell her how much pain he was infrom the gift, or that he had started to cough upblood. "I'm all right for now."
By the time they dragged back into their camp,
almost two hours later, the meat on the spit wasfinished cooking and some of the men had alreadyeaten. They were just curling up in blankets to getsome sleep.

Richard was beyond being tired. He was certainthat they had been close to Kahlan. It had beenagonizing to have to return, to leave the placewhere Nicholas held her, but he had to use his 


head. Wild, irrational action would bring onlyfailure. It would not get Kahlan out of there.

Richard was being driven by needs beyond food orsleep, but as he watched Owen sit heavily near thefire, he knew that Owen and Cara were exhausted andhe imagined that they had to be hungry. Rather thansit, Cara waited at his side. She would not allowhim to get far from her watchful protection. Norwould she voice any concern for herself or herneeds. 

He could never have imagined, back in thebeginning, ever feeling this close to a Mord-Sith.

Jennsen stood and rushed to meet him. "Richard— 
here, let me help you. Come and sit."

Richard flopped down on the grass near the fire.
Betty came over and begged a place beside him. Helet her lie down. 
"Well?" Tom asked. "What do you think of theplace?"
"I don't know. It has well-made timber walls with 
trenches dug before them. There are snares andtraps all around the place. It has a gate—a realgate." Richard sighed as he rubbed his eyes. Hissight was getting blurry. It was getting moredifficult all the time to see things. "I haven'tquite figured it out, yet."

It was hard to think with the smell of the 
cooking meat. It was making him sick. Richard tooka piece of bannock and the bowl of rice and beansJennsen handed him. 

He couldn't eat while watching them eat the meator, worse, smelling it.

Richard stood. "I'm going to go for a walk." Hedidn't want to make them feel bad about their 
dinner, or feel guilty for eating meat in front ofhim. "I need some time alone to think it out." 
Richard gestured for Cara to sit back down and staywhere she was. 
"Get some dinner," he told her. "I need you to staystrong." 


 Richard walked off through the trees, listeningto the chirp of crickets, watching the starsthrough the canopy of leaves. It was a relief to bealone, not to have people asking him anything. Itwas tiring to have people always depending on him.

Richard found a quiet place where an old oak hadfallen. He sat and leaned back against the trunk.
He wished he never had to get up. If not forKahlan, he wouldn't.

Betty showed up. She stood before him, lookingat him intently as if to ask what they were goingto do next. When Richard said nothing, Betty laydown in front of him. It occurred to him that maybeBetty just wanted to offer him some comfort.

Richard felt a tear run down his cheek. 
Everything was falling to pieces. He couldn't holdthose pieces together any longer. He could hardlybreathe past the lump in his throat.
He lay down and put an arm over Betty.

"What am I going to do?" He sniffled. He wipedthe back of his hand across his nose. 

"Kahlan, what am I going to do?" he whispered inforlorn misery. "I need you so much. What am Igoing to do?"
He was at the end of all hope.
He had thought, when he'd seen Nathan unexpectedlyarrive, that help was at hand. The bright ember ofthat last hope had been extinguished. Not even apowerful wizard could help him.
Powerful wizard. 
Kaja-Rang.
Richard froze. 

The words sent to him by Kaja-Rang, those twowords emblazoned across the granite base of thatstatue, echoed through his mind.
Those two words were meant for Richard. 
Taiga Vassternich.
Deserve Victory.
"Dear spirits ..." Richard whispered.
He understood. 


 CHAPTER 62 


Nicholas watched as Lord Rahl made his wayback into the camp among his men after hisdespairing whispered last prayer to the dearspirits. So sad. So very sad hat the man was goingto die. He would soon be with his dear spirits ...
in the Keeper's realm of the underworld.

Nicholas relished the game. The poor Lord Rahlwas so lost and confused. Nicholas wished the gamecould continue for a good long time, but Lord Rahlhad little time left. So sad. 

But it would be much more fun after Lord Rahl 
died, after that last detail was finally finished.
Jagang thought this pathetic man was resourceful.
Don't underestimate him, Jagang had warned. PerhapsJagang was no match for the great Richard Rahl, butNicholas the Slide was. 

His spirit swelled with delight at the expectantthought of Lord Rani's death. That was going to besomething to watch. It would be a grand finale ofthe play of life. Nicholas intended to see it all,
to see every sad moment of the last act. Heimagined that Lord Rahl's friends would gather toweep and wail as they stood by, helpless, watchinghim slip into the welcoming embrace of death,
eternity's shepherd, come to help him begin themagnificent, never-ending spiritual journey awayfrom the bitter interlude that had been life.The 
final curtain was about to draw closed. Nicholas so 
loved sad endings. He could hardly wait to watch itplayed out.
Hate to live, live to hate.

Nicholas wondered, too, as did Lord Rahl, what 


would get him first, the poison or his gift. Itseemed to tug first toward one, and then toward theother. For a time the headaches inflicted by hisgift nearly put him down; then the poison wouldtighten its pain and make him gasp in agony. It wasa fascinating question, one that, as in any goodplay, would not be answered until the very end. Thetension was delicious. 

Nicholas was rooting for the gift to win thefatal contest. Poison was all well and good, butwhat a vastly more intriguing twist of fate itwould be to see a wizard of Lord Rahl's ability andpotential, a wizard unlike any to be born since anera long buried in the dunghill of mankind'shistory, succumb to his birthright—to his own vastbut vain power .. . another victim of men reachingtoo high in life. That would be a fascinating andfitting end.
Not long to wait.
Not long at all.

Nicholas watched, not wanting to miss a singledelectable detail. With the spirit of RichardRahl's lovely bride beside him, as it were,
Nicholas felt almost a part of the family as heattended the approach of such a great man's tragicend. 

Nicholas felt it only fair that the MotherConfessor should get to see it all played out, seethe sad end to her beloved. As she watched alongwith Nicholas, she was suffering seeing the agonyof it as Richard Rahl walked back into his camp.

Nicholas savored her distress. He had not yetbegun to make her suffer. He would soon have a verylong time with her to explore her capacity forsuffering.

The people there in the woods around thecampfire looked up, curious as their masterreturned among them. They all waited, withNicholas, watching, with Nicholas, as their LordRahl stood over them. His figure wavered in the 


fire, as it did in Nicholas's vision. It was almostas if he were already but a spirit, about to driftaway into the glorious oblivion of the dead.

"I've figured it out," Lord Rahl told them. "Iknow how to attack the fortification." 
Nicholas's ears pricked up. What was this?

"At first light we go in," Lord Rahl said. "Justas the sun breaks over the mountains. Right then,
on the east side, we'll come in over the wall. Theguards won't be able to see well because the sunwill be in their eyes when they look in thatdirection. Men don't look where it's troublesome to 
look." 
"I like it," one of the other men said.
"So we will sneak in, then, rather than try toattack," another said.

"Oh, no, there will be an attack," Lord Rahlsaid. "A big attack. An attack that will set theirheads to spinning."

What was this? What was this? Nicholas watched,
watched, watched. This was most curious. First LordRahl was going to sneak over the wall, and then hewould have his men attack? How was he going to settheir heads to spinning? Nicholas was fascinated.
He moved in a little closer, fearing to miss aprecious word.

"The attack will involve all the rest of youmen," Lord Rahl said. "You will all come in towardthe gate at first light. While you're attackingthrough the gate and drawing their attention, Iwill be slipping over the wall. While you will bethere to distract them, in part, you will play aneven more vital role that they will never expect."

The game was afoot. Nicholas was in rapture ashe listened, as he watched. He so liked the game—
especially when he knew all the rules, and couldbend them to his wishes. It was going to be aglorious day, tomorrow.

"But, Lord Rahl," the big man, Tom, asked, "howare we going to be able to attack through the gate 


if it's as formidable as you say?"

Nicholas hadn't thought of that. How curious. Akey part of Lord Rahl's plan seemed to be faulty.

"That's the real trick," Lord Rahl said. "I'vealready figured it out and you'll be amazed to hearhow you're going to do it."

He had already figured it out? How curious.
Nicholas wanted to hear what possible solutioncould solve such a major hitch in Lord Rahl's plan.

Lord Rahl stretched and yawned. "Look," he said,
"I'm exhausted. I can't stand up anymore. I need toget some rest before I lay it all out for you. It'scomplicated, so I'd better wait until just beforewe leave. 

"Wake me up two hours before dawn, and I'llexplain the whole thing, then."

"Two hours before dawn," Tom repeated inconfirmation of the orders. 

Nicholas was furious. He wanted to hear it now. 
He wanted to know the wonderful, fabulous,
complicated plan.

Lord Rahl gestured to his delicious companion,
the one named Cara, and then to several of theyoung men. "Why don't you come with me and get somesleep while the rest finish their meal."

As they started away, Lord Rahl turned back.
"Jennsen, I want you to keep Betty here, with you.
Make sure she stays here. I need some sleep; Idon't need the smell of goat to wake me up."

"Am I going with you in the morning, Richard?"
the one called Jennsen asked. 

"Yes. You play an important part in the plan."
Lord Rahl yawned again. "I'll explain after I'veslept. Don't forget, Tom. Two hours before dawn."
Tom nodded. "I will wake you myself, Lord Rahl."

Nicholas would be there as well, to watch, tohear the final piece of Lord Rahl's plan. Nicholascould hardly stand to wait that long. He would bethere early. He would hear every word of it.

And then, Nicholas would have a surprise waiting 


for Richard Rahl when he and his men came for a 
visit. 
Maybe neither the poison nor his gift would take
Lord Rahl. 
Maybe Nicholas would do it himself.
Her spirit a helpless prisoner of the Slide, Kahlan
could do nothing but watch along with him. She was
unable to answer Richard's forlorn pleas, unable to
cry in sorrow for him, unable to do anything. She
ached to be able to hold him in her arms again, to
comfort his pain, his heartache.
He was near the end. She knew that. It broke her 
heart to see his precious life slipping away.
To see his tears. 
To hear him cry her name in longing.
To hear him say how much he needed her.


She felt so cold and alone. She loathed the 
feeling of being adrift. She desperately wanted tobe back in her body. It waited somewhere back in alonely room in the fortified encampment. Nicholas'sbody waited there, too. If only she could get backthere. 

Most of all, she wished there were some way shecould warn Richard that Nicholas knew his plan. 

CHAPTER 63 

Nicholas lay in wait in the camp, sniffing,
listening, watching, eager for the game tocontinue. He had come early, fearing to missanything. He was sure it had to be two hours beforedawn—time for the last act of the play. It was timefor the man, Tom, to wake Lord Rahl. It was time.
Watch, watch, watch. Where was he? Somewhere,
somewhere. Look, look, look. 


 Men off through the trees stood guard over thecamp. Where was Tom? There he was. Nicholas sawthat Tom was one of the men standing vigil asothers slept. Didn't want to be late. Lord Rahl'sorders. He wasn't sleeping, he was awake, so heshould know it was time. 

What was the man waiting for? His master hadgiven him a command. Why wasn't he doing as he hadbeen told? 

The woman, Jennsen, woke and rubbed her eyes.
She looked up and took appraisal of the stars andmoon. It was time—she knew it was. She threw off 
her blanket. 

Nicholas followed behind as she rushed past thelow glow of the smoldering embers, rushed throughthe stand of young trees, rushed to the big manleaning against a stump.
"Tom, isn't it time to wake Richard?"
Somewhere back in a distant room in the 
fortification, where his body waited, Nicholasheard an insistent noise. He was absorbed in the 
task at hand, in the game, so he ignored the sound.

Probably Najari. The man was eager to have achance to get at the Mother Confessor, a chance toenjoy her more feminine charms. Nicholas had toldNajari that he would have his chance, but he had towait until Nicholas returned. Nicholas didn't want 
the man tampering with her body while they weregone. Najari sometimes didn't know his ownstrength. The Mother Confessor was valuableproperty and Nicholas didn't want that propertydamaged.

Najari had proven to be a loyal man and deserveda small reward, but not until later. He would notdisobey Nicholas's orders. He would be sorry if hedid. 
Maybe it was just—

Wait, wait. What was this? Watch, watch, watch.
The man stood and put a hand reassuringly on theyoung woman's shoulder. How very touching. 


"Yes, I guess it is about time. Let's go wake Lord
Rahl." 
Again the noise. Stealthy, sharp yet soft.
Most odd. But it would have to wait. 


Through the woods. Hurry. Watch, watch, watch.
Hurry. Couldn't they move faster? Didn't they graspthe importance of the occasion? Hurry, hurry,
hurry.
"Betty," the Jennsen woman growled, "stop bumpingmy legs."
Again there was a skulking sound back somewherewith his body.
And then, another, more urgent sound.
This time, the sound ran a sharp shiver throughNicholas's very soul.
It was as deadly a sound as he had ever heard.
As the Sword of Truth cleared its scabbard, thedistinctive ring of steel filled the dimly litroom. 

With the sword came ancient magic, unhindered,
unrestrained, unleashed.

The sword's power instantly inundated Richardwith its boundless fury, a fury that answered onlyto him. The force of that power flooded into everyfiber of his being. It had been so long since hehad truly felt it, truly felt the full magnitude ofit, that for an instant Richard paused in theexaltation of the profound experience of simplyholding such a singular weapon.

His own righteous wrath had already slipped itsbounds. Joined now with the pure rage of the Swordof Truth, both spiraled through him like twinstorms rampaging unchecked.

Richard gloried that they could, and at beingthe ultimate master of both. 

The Seeker of Truth willed both storms ever 
onward even as the sword began its fearsomejourney, the merciless lightning of those thunderheads 
about to strike. 

The tip of the blade whistled though the night 


air, still two hours before dawn.
Hesitant and uncertain, Nicholas watched as the
man, Tom, and the Jennsen woman moved through the
woods to awaken their dying Lord Rahl.


Somewhere back in a distant room in the 
fortification, where his body waited, Nicholasheard a scream. 

It was not a scream of fear, but a riotous cryof unbridled rage. It sent a shiver through hissoul. 

With sudden alarm, knowing that it could not beignored, Nicholas slammed back into his body whereit sat on the floor, waiting for him.

Unsteady from the abrupt return, Nicholasblinked as he opened his eyes.

Lord Rahl himself stood before him, feet spread,
both hands gripping his sword. It was a picture ofsheer muscular force focused by terrifying resolve.

Nicholas's eyes went wide at seeing the gleamingblade arcing through the still air.

Lord Rahl was in the midst of a scream of 
startling power and rage. Every bit of his mightwas committed to the swing of his sword.

Nicholas had a sudden and completely unexpectedrealization: he didn't want to die. He very muchwanted to live. As much as he hated life, herealized, now, that he wanted to hold on to it.
He had to act. 
He summoned his power, rallied his will. He had tostop this avenging soul before him. He reached outwith his power to seize this other's spirit. Hefelt the horrifying shock of a staggering blowagainst the side of his neck.
Richard was still screaming as his sword, withevery ounce of power and speed he could put behindit, swept around, just clearing the top ofNicholas's left shoulder. 

Richard saw every detail as the blade torethrough flesh and bone, turning muscle, tendon,
arteries, and windpipe inside out, following with 


precision the path to which the Seeker had justlycommitted it. Richard had dedicated everything tothe swift journey of his sword. Now, he watched asthat journey reached its destination, as the bladecleared the neck of Nicholas the Slide, as theman's head, its mouth still opened in the beginningof shock not fully comprehended, his beady eyesstill trying to grasp the totality of what theywere seeing, lifted into the air, beginning to turnever so slowly as theàsword below itàpassed alongits deadly arc, as curved ropes of the man's bloodbegan tracing a long wet line across the wallbehind him. 

Richard's scream ended as the sword's swingreached its limit. The worldàcame crashing backaround him. 
The head hitàthe floor with a loud, bone-crackingthunk. 
It was ended. 

Richard recalled the rage. He had to get itunder control immediately. He had something yetmore important to accomplish.

In one fluid motion, Richard slid the bloodyblade home into its scabbard as he turned to the 
second body leaned up against the wall to theright.

The sight of her almost overcame him. To see herthere, alive, breathing, seemingly unhurt, broughta wild rush of joy. His worst fears, fears he wouldnot even allow into his conscious mind, evaporatedin an instant. 

But then he realized that she was not all right.
She could not have slept through such an attack.
Richard fell to his knees and took her up in hisarms. She felt so light, so limp. Her face wasashen and beaded with sweat. Her eyelids were halfclosed, her eyes rolled back in her head.

Richard sank back within himself, seekingstrength to bring back the one he loved more thanlife itself. He opened his soul to her. All he 


wanted, all he needed, as he held her to him, wasfor her to live, to be whole.

Instinctively, in a way he did not fullyunderstand, he let his power well up from a placedeep inside his mind. He released himself into thetorrent as it rushed onward. He let his love of 
her, his need of her, flood through theirconnection as he hugged her to his breast.
"Come home to where you belong," he whispered toher. 

He let the core of his power course through her,
intending it to be like a beacon to light her way.
It felt as if he were searching through the dark,
using the light of ability from deep within to helphim. Even though he couldn't define the precisemechanism, he could consciously focus his purpose,
his need, and what he wanted to accomplish.
"Come home to me, Kahlan. I'm here."

Kahlan gasped. Even though she hung limp, hefelt the intensity of the life in his arms. Shegasped again, as if she had nearly drowned andneeded air. 

At last, she stirred in his arms, her limbsmoving,' groping. She opened her eyes, blinking,
and looked up. Astonished, she sank back into hisarms. 

"Richard ... I heard you. I was so alone. Dearspirits, I was so alone. I didn't know what todo.... I heard Nicholas scream. I was lost and 
alone. I didn't know how to get back. And then Ifelt you."
She embraced him tightly, as if she never wanted tolet go.
"You led me back through the darkness."
Richard smiled down at her. "I'm a guide,
remember?" 

She puzzled at him. "How could you do that?" Herbeautiful green eyes opened expectantly. "Richard,
your gift..."

"I figured out the problem with my gift. Kaja



Rang had given me the solution. I'd had the
solution long before that, but I never realized it.
My gift is fine, now, and the sword's power works
again. I was being so blind that I will be ashamed
to tell it all to you."
Richard's breath caught, and he coughed, then,
unable to hold it back any longer. Nor could he
hold back grimacing at the pain.


Kahlan gripped his arms. "The antidote—whathappened to the antidote! I sent it back with Owen.
Didn't you get it?"

Richard shook his head as he coughed again, thepain feeling as though it ripped him deep inside.
He finally regained his breath. "Well, now, that isa problem. It wasn't the antidote. It was justwater with a bit of cinnamon in it." 

Kahlan's face went ashen. "But. .." She looked 
over at Nicholas's body, at his head lying upendedat the end of a bloody trail across the floor.
"Richard, if Nicholas is dead, how are we going toget the antidote?"

"There isn't any antidote. Nicholas wanted medead. He would have destroyed the antidote longago. He gave you a fake to be able to capture you."
Her face had gone from joy to horror.
"But, without the antidote ..." 

CHAPTER 64 

There's no time to worry about the poison justnow," Richard told her as he helped her to herfeet. 

No time? She watched his step falter as he madehis way across the room. He groped for the window 


ledge.

At the small window opening in the outer wall ofthe fortification he signaled with the high, clearwhistle of the common wood pewee— the whistle Carathought was that of the mythical short-tailed pinehawk. 
"I used a ladder pole," he explained. "Cara is onher way."

Kahlan tried to make her way over to him, buther body felt alarmingly unfamiliar to her. Shestaggered a couple of steps, her legs movingwoodenly. She had the urge to get down on her handsand feet to walk. She felt like a stranger insideher own skin. It seemed foreign to have to breatheon her own, to have to look through her own eyes,
to have to listen through her own ears. It was astrange, haunting sensation to feel her clothesagainst her skin.

Richard held out his hand to help steady her.
Kahlan thought that as wobbly as she was, she mightstill be more steady on her feet than Richard.

"We're going to have to fight our way out," hesaid, "but we'll have some help. I'll get you thefirst sword I can." 

" Richard blew out the flame of the singlecandle before a tin reflector on a small shelf. 

"Richard, I'm not yet used to being . . . backinside myself. I don't think I'm ready to go outthere. I can hardly walk."

"We don't have a lot of choice. We have to getout. Learn as you go. I'll help you."
"You can hardly walk yourself."

Cara, at the top of a pole ladder Richard hadcut, leaned forward and wriggled in through thesmall window. 

Halfway in, Cara gaped in delighted wonder.
"Mother Confessor— Lord Rahl did it." 

"You don't need to sound so surprised," Richardgriped as he helped the Mord-Sith the rest of theway in. 


 Cara only briefly took note of the dead mansprawled across the floor before Kahlan threw herarms around the woman. 
"You can't imagine how glad I am to see you," Carasaid. 

"Well, you can't imagine how glad I am to seeyou through my own eyes."
"If only the trade you made had worked," Cara addedin a whisper.
"We'll find another way," Kahlan assured her.

Richard slowly drew the door open a crack andpeeked out. He shut the door and turned back.

"It's clear. Doors to the left and around the 
balcony are the rooms with the women in them.
Stairs to the right are the closest that lead down.
Some of the rooms at the bottom are for officers;
others are barracks for soldiers." 
Cara nodded. "I'm ready."
Kahlan looked from one to the other. "Ready forwhat?" 
Richard took her by the elbow. "I need you to helpme see." 
"Help you see? Is it progressing that fast?"

"Just listen. We're going to move along thebalcony to the left and open the doors. Do yourbest to keep the women calm. We're going to breakthem out of here." 

Kahlan was a bit confused by everything—it wascompletely different from the plans she had beenhearing along with Nicholas. She knew she wouldjust have to follow Richard and Cara's lead.

Outside, on the simple wooden balcony, therewere no lamps or torches. The moon was down behindthe black sprawl of the mountains. Kahlan's sightwhen Nicholas had controlled her had been like 
looking through a greasy pane of wavy glass. Thesparkling vault of stars overhead had never lookedso beautiful. In that starlight, Kahlan could seesimple buildings lined up around the outer wall ofthe fortification. 


 Richard and Cara moved along the balcony,
opening doors. At each one, Cara quickly duckedinside. Some of the women came out in their 
nightshirts; some Kahlan could hear inside rushingto get dressed. In some of the rooms, babies cried.

While Cara was in one of the rooms, Richardopened another door. He leaned close to Kahlan andwhispered, "Go in and tell the women inside thatwe've come to help them escape. Tell them thattheir men have come to get them out. But they mustbe as quiet as possible, or we'll be caught."

Kahlan rushed in, as best she could on unsteadylegs, and woke the young woman in the bed to theright. She sat up, terrified, but silent. Kahlanreached around and shook the woman in the other 
bed. 

"We've come to help you escape. You mustn't makeany noise. Your men are going to help. You have achance to be free." 
"Free?" the first woman asked. 

"Yes. It's up to you, but I strongly advise youto take the chance, and to hurry."
The women flew out of their beds and grabbed forclothes. 

Richard, Kahlan, and Cara moved farther down thebalcony, asking the women who had already come outto help rouse the others. In a matter of a fewminutes, hundreds of women were huddled togetherout on the balcony. There was no problem keepingthem quiet; they were all too familiar with theconsequences of causing trouble. They didn't wantto do anything to get themselves caught trying toescape. Before long, they had made it all the wayaround the fortification balcony.

Many of the women had very young babies—ones tooyoung to be taken away. The babies were mostlysound asleep in their mothers' arms, but some ofthem started to cry. The mothers desperately triedto rock and cuddle them into silence. Kahlan hopedthat it was a common enough sound that it wouldn't 


draw the attention of the soldiers. 

"Wait here," Richard whispered to Kahlan. "Keepeveryone up here until we get the gate open."

With Cara right behind him, Richard slippedcarefully down the steps and started across theopen yard. When one of the babies suddenly beganbawling, soldiers came out of a building to seewhat was going on. They spotted Richard and Kahlan.
The soldiers yelled, sounding an alarm.

Kahlan heard the distinctive ring of steel asRichard drew his sword. Men rushed out of some of 
the doors, heading Richard and Cara off. Being usedto dealing with these people, the men rushingtoward Richard apparently weren't greatly concernedabout violence. They were wrong, and fell as soonas they got close enough for Richard to strike.
Some Richard took down as he ran; others Caracaught as they tried to come in from the side.

The screams of some of the men as they fell wokethe whole encampment. Men rushed out of barracksbelow, pulling on their trousers and shirts,
dragging weapon belts behind.

In the faint starlight, Kahlan spotted Richardby the dropgate. He took a mighty swing. Sparksshowered across the wall as the sword shattered one 
of the heavy chains holding up the gate. Richardran to the other side, to cut the other chain. Twomen caught up to him there. In one fluid movement,
Richard cut them both down. 

As Cara dropped other men who were rushing in atRichard, he swung the sword again. White-hotfragments of steel filled the air along with theringing sound of metal shattering. The gate groanedand slowly started to fall outward. Richard heavedhis weight against it and it picked up speed. Witha resounding crash, it came down, raising clouds ofdust. 

A great cry rose up as men outside, wieldingswords, axes, and battle maces, charged in acrossthe broken bridge and into the fortification. The 


soldiers rushed to meet the invasion and there was 
a great clash of weapons and men.

Kahlan saw, then, that soldiers were racing upthe stairway on the opposite side of the balcony.

"Come on!" Kahlan yelled to the women. "We haveto get out now!"

Holding the rail to keep her balance, Kahlanraced down the steps, all the women pouring downbehind her, a number carrying screaming babies.
Richard ran to meet her at the bottom. He tossed 
her a short sword with a leather-wound grip. Kahlancaught it by the handle just in time to turn andslash a soldier running up from beneath thebalcony.

Owen made his way through the fighting and overto the women. "Come on!" he called to them. "Get to 
the gate! Run!"

The women, galvanized by his command, startedrunning across the compound. As they reached thefighting, some of the women, instead of running outthe gate, took the opportunity to leap on the backsof soldiers fighting Owen and his men. The womenbit the men on the backs, beat at their heads, toreat their eyes. The soldiers were not restrained indealing with the women, and several were brutallykilled. It didn't stop others from joining thefight.

If they would only run for the gate, they couldescape, but instead, they were attacking thesoldiers with their bare hands. They had been heldin bondage to these men for a very long time.
Kahlan could only imagine what they had gonethrough and couldn't say she blamed them. She wasstill having difficulty moving, making her body dowhat she wanted it to do, or she would have joinedthem. 

Kahlan turned at a sound only to see a mancharging in at her. She recognized his flattenednose. Najari—Nicholas's right-hand man. He was oneof the men who had carried her to the 


fortification. He wore a wicked grin as he came forher. 

She could have used her power on him, but shefeared to trust it right then. She instead broughtthe short sword out from behind her back and 
slammed it through Najari's gut. He stood stifflyright in front of her, his eyes wide. She couldsmell the stink of his breath. Kahlan wrenched the 
handle of the sword to the side. Mouth opened wide,
he panted, fearing to draw a deep breath, fearingto move and cause any more damage. Kahlan grittedher teeth and swept the sword's handle around in anarc, ripping his insides apart.

She stared into his startled eyes as he slid offher sword. He grunted in pain as he dropped to hisknees, holding his wound together as best he could.
He never got what Kahlan knew he intended, whatNicholas had promised him. He fell forward onto hisface, spilling his insides across the ground at herfeet. 

Kahlan turned to the attack. Richard was engagedin slashing his way through men trying to surroundhim as he fought to keep the gate clear. Others,
Richard's men, came at the enemy from behind,
cutting into them the way Richard had taught them.

Kahlan saw Owen not far away. He was standing inthe open, among the fallen and the fighting,
staring across the raging battle to a man justoutside one of the doors under the balcony.

The man had a thick black beard, a shaved head,
and a ring through one ear and one nostril. Hisarms were as big as tree limbs. His shoulders weretwice as wide as Owen's. 
"Luchan." Owen said to himself. 

Owen started across the open area of thefortification, past men engaged in pitched battle,
past those crying out and those falling to blades,
past swords and axes sweeping through the air, asif he didn't even see them. His eyes were locked onthe man watching him come. 


 The face of a young woman appeared in the darkdoorway behind Luchan He turned and growled at herto go back inside, that he was going to take careof the little man from her village.
When Luchan turned back around, Owen was standingbefore him. 

Luchan laughed and put his fists on his hips.
"Why don't you scurry back into your hole?"
Owen said nothing, gave no warning, made nodemands. He simply lit into Luchan with a vengeance

— just as Richard had counseled him to do —
slamming a knife into the big man's chest over andover before Luchan had a chance to react. He had 
underestimated Owen. It had cost him his life. 
The woman rushed out of the doorway and came toa halt over the body of her former master. Shestared down at him, at his one arm splayed out tothe side, at the other lying across his bloodychest, at the unseeing eyes. She looked up at Owen.

Kahlan assumed that this was Marilee, and fearedthat she was going to reject Owen for harminganother, that she would castigate him for what behad done. 
Instead, she rushed to Owen and threw her armsaround him. 
The woman went to her knees beside the body andtook the bloody knife from Owen's hand. She turnedto the fallen Luchan and stabbed him half a dozen 
times with such force that it drove the knife in upto the hilt with every thrust. Watching her tearfulfury, Kahlan didn't have to wonder how she had beentreated by the man.
Her anger spent, she stood again and tearfullyhugged Owen.

Kahlan needed to get to Richard. She wasrelieved that her ability to move as she intendedwas returning. She started making her way aroundthe edge of the battle, staying close to the walls,
past men who saw her and thought she would be aneasy mark. They didn't know that from a young age 


she had been taught to use a sword by her father,
King Wyborn, and that Richard had later honed herskill to deadly proficiency, teaching her how touse her lighter weight to give her lethal speed. Itwas the last mistake the men made. 

Off across the open area, a mob of soldiers, nowfully awake and fully prepared to engage in battle,
swarmed out of the barracks. They all charged forRichard. Kahlan knew right away that there were toomany. Richard's men couldn't stop the flood ofsoldiers as they streamed across the encampment.
All of them crashed in toward Richard. 

Kahlan heard a deafening crack like lightning asthe walls of the fortification lit with a flash. 
She had to turn away and shield her eyes. Nightturned to day, and at the same time, a darknessdarker than any night was loosed.

A blazing white-hot bolt of Additive Magictwisted and coiled around and through a cracklingblack void of Subtractive Magic, creating a violentrope of twin lightning joined to a terriblepurpose.

It seemed as if the noonday sun crashed downamong them. The air itself was drawn into thefierce heat and light. Try as she might, Kahlancouldn't draw a breath against the force of it.

Richard's fury gathered it all into a singlepoint. In an explosive instant, the thunderousignition of light unleashed a devastating blast ofstaggering destruction radiating outward across theentire encampment, annihilating the Imperial Ordersoldiers. 
The night fell dark and silent.
Men and women stood stunned among the sea of bloodand viscera, gazing around at the unrecognizableremains of the enemy soldiers.

The battle was over. The people of Bandakar hadcarried the day. At last, the women fell to wailingand crying, ecstatic to be free. They knew many ofthe men who had come to free them, and clung to 


them in gratitude, overwhelmed with joy to bereunited. They hugged friends, relatives, andstrangers alike. The men, too, wept with relief andhappiness.

Kahlan rushed through the maze of rejoicingpeople crowded into the open area of thefortification. Men cheered her, thrilled that she,
too, had been liberated. Many of the men wanted totalk to her, but she kept running to get toRichard. 

He stood to the side, leaning against the wall,
Cara helping to hold him up. He still gripped hisblood-slicked sword in his fist, the blade's tipresting on the ground.
Owen, too, made his way over to Richard.

"Mother Confessor! I'm so relieved and thankful 
to have you back!" He looked over at a smilingRichard. "Lord Rahl, I would like you to meetMarilee." 

This woman, who only a short time ago hadsavagely stabbed the corpse of her captor nowseemed too shy to speak. She dipped her head ingreeting.

Richard straightened and smiled that smileKahlan so loved to see, a smile filled with thesheer pleasure of life. "I'm very happy to meetyou, Marilee. Owen has told us all about you, andabout how much you mean to him. Through all thathappened, you were always first in his mind andheart. His love for you moved him to act to changehis entire empire for the better."
She seemed to be overwhelmed by it all, and by hiswords. 

"Lord Rahl came to us and did something moreimportant than saving us all," Owen told Marilee.
"Lord Rahl gave me the courage to come and fightfor you, to fight to save you—for all of us tofight for our own lives and the lives of those welove." 

Beaming, Marilee leaned in and kissed Richard on 


the cheek. "Thank you, Lord Rahl. I never knew myOwen could do such things."

"Believe me," Cara said, "we had our doubtsabout him, too." She clapped Owen on the back ofthe shoulder. "But he did well." 

"I, too, have come to understand the value ofwhat he has done," Marilee said to Richard, "of thethings you seem to have taught our people."

Richard smiled at the two of them, but then hecould no longer hold back the coughing that so hurthim. The mood of joyous liberation suddenlychanged. People rushed in around them, helping tohold him up. Kahlan saw blood running down hischin. 
"Richard," she cried. "No ..."

They eased him to the ground. He clutched atKahlan's sleeve, wanting to have her close. Kahlansaw tears running down Cara's cheek.

It seemed that he had spent all the strength hehad left. He was slipping into the fatal grasp ofthe poison, and there was nothing they could do forhim. 

"Owen," Richard said, panting to catch hisbreath when the spell of coughing stopped. "How farto your town?" His voice was getting hoarse.
"Not far—only hours, if we hurry."
"The man who made the poison and the antidote ...
he lived there?" 
"Yes. His place is still there."
"Take me there." 
Owen looked puzzled, but he nodded eagerly. "Ofcourse." 
"Hurry," Richard added, trying to get up. Hecouldn't. 
Tom appeared in the crowd. Jennsen was there, too.

"Get some poles!" Tom commanded. "And somecanvas, or blankets. We'll make a litter. Four menat a time can carry him. We can run and get himthere quickly."

Men rushed to the buildings, searching for what 


they would need to make a litter. 

CHAPTER 65 

Kahlan hurriedly pulled the tin off the shelf andopened the lid. The tin contained a yellowishpowder. It was the right color. She leaned down andshowed it to Richard as he lay in the litter. Hereached in and took a pinch.
He smelled it. He put his tongue to it and thennodded. 

"Just a little," he whispered, lifting it out toher. Kahlan held out her palm while he dribbledsome of the crushed powder in her hand. He threwthe rest on the floor, too weak to bother returningit to the tin. Kahlan added the small portion onher palm to one of the pots of boiling water.

Cloth bags of herbs steeped in other pots of hotwater. Alkaloids from dried mushrooms were soakingin oil. Richard had other people grating stalks ofplants.
"Lobelia," Richard said. His eyes were closed.
Owen bent down. "Lobelia?" 
Richard nodded. "It will be a dried herb." 

Owen turned to the shelves and started looking.
There were hundreds of little square cubbyholes inthe wall of the place where the man who had madeRichard's poison, and the antidote, used to work.
It was a small, simple, single-room building withlittle light. It was not nearly as well equipped asthe herbalist places Kahlan had seen before, butthe man had an extensive collection of things. Morethan that, he had once made the antidote,
presumably from what was there. 


 "Here!" Owen said, holding a bag down forRichard to see. "It says lobelia on the tag."

"Grind a little pile half the size of yourthumbnail, sift out the fibers and discard them,
then add what's left to the bowl with the darker 
oil." 

Richard knew about herbs, but he didn't knowanywhere near enough about herbs to concoct thecure for the poison he had been given.
His gift seemed to be guiding him.

Richard was in a near trance, or nearlyunconscious; Kahlan wasn't exactly sure which. Hewas having difficulty breathing. She didn't knowwhat else to do to help him. If they didn't dosomething, he was going to die, and soon. As longas he lay quietly on the litter he was resting morecomfortably, but that was not going to make himrecover. 

It had been a short run to Witherton, but it hadtaken too long as far as Kahlan was concerned.
"Yarrow," Richard said.
Kahlan leaned down. "What preparation?"
"Oil," Richard said.

Kahlan fumbled through the shelves of smallbottles. She found one labeled YARROW OIL. She 
squatted down and held it before Richard.
"How much?" 

She lifted one of his hands and put the bottlein it, closing his fingers around it so he couldtell its size. "How much?" 
"Is it full?" 
Kahlan hurriedly wiggled out the whittled woodenstopper. "Yes."
"Half," Richard said. "In with any of the otheroils." 

"I found the feverfew," Jennsen said as shehopped down from the stool.
"Make a tincture," Richard told her.

Kahlan replaced the stopper in the bottle andsquatted down beside Richard. "What next?" 


"Make an infusion of mullein." 
"Mullein, mullein," Kahlan mumbled as she turned to
the task. 


As Richard gave them instructions, half a dozenpeople worked at boiling, blending, crushing,
grating, filtering, and steeping. They added someof the preparations together as they werecompleted, and kept others separate as they workedon them. As they worked, the number of varioustasks were combined and reduced at specifiedpoints.

Richard gestured for Owen. Owen brushed hishands clean on his trouser legs as he bent down toawait instruction. 

"Cold," Richard said, his eyes closed. "We needsomething cold. We need a way to cool it."
Owen thought a moment. "There's a stream not far."

Richard pointed to various stations where peoplelabored. "Pour those bowls of preparations andpowders into the boiling water in the kettle,
there. Then take it to the stream. Hold the kettle 
down in the water to cool it." Richard held up afinger in caution. "Don't put it in too deep andlet the water from the stream run in over the top,
or it will be ruined." 
Owen shook his head. "I won't." 

He stood impatiently as Kahlan poured thecontents of shallow bowls into the boiling pot ofwater. She didn't know if any of this made sense,
but she knew that Richard had the gift, and hecertainly had figured out and eliminated theproblem he had been having with it. If his giftcould guide him in making the antidote, it mightsave his life. 
Kahlan didn't know anything else that would.

She handed the kettle to Owen. He ran out the 
door to put it in the stream to cool it. Carafollowed him out to make sure that nothing happenedto what might be the only thing that could saveRichard's life. 


 Jennsen sat on the floor on the other side of 
him, holding his hand. With the back of her wrist,
Kahlan pushed her hair off her face. She sat besideRichard and took his free hand to wait for Owen and 
Cara to return. 

Betty stood in the doorway, her ears prickedforward, her tail intermittently going into ahopeful blur of wagging whenever Jennsen or Kahlanlooked her way.

It seemed like hours until Owen came runningback with the kettle, although Kahlan knew itreally hadn't been all that long.

"Filter it through a cloth," Richard said, "butdon't squeeze the cloth at the end; just let theliquid run through until you have half a cup of it.
Once you've done that, then add the oils to theliquid you collected in the cup."

Everyone stood watching Kahlan work, snatchingup what she needed, tossing it away when she wasfinished with it. When she had enough liquid fromthe kettle collected in the cup, she poured in theoils. 
"Stir it with a stick of cinnamon," Richard said.
Owen climbed up on the stool. "I remember seeingcinnamon." 

He handed a stick down to Kahlan. She stirred 
the golden liquid, but it didn't seem to beworking.
"The oil and water don't want to mix," she toldRichard. 

His head was rolled to the side away from her.
"Keep mixing. A moment will come when they suddenlycome together."

Dubious, Kahlan kept stirring. She could seethat the oils were sticking together in globs andnot mixing with the water she had filtered throughthe cloth. The more it cooled, the less and less itlooked like it was going to work.

Kahlan felt a tear of desperation run down hercheek and drip off her jaw. 


 The contents of the cup stiffened. She keptstirring, not wanting to tell Richard that itwasn't working. She swallowed past the growing lumpin her throat. 

The contents in the cup began to melt. Kahlangasped. She blinked. Everything in the cup suddenlywent together into a smooth, syrupy liquid.

"Richard!" She wiped the tear from her cheek.
"It worked. It mixed together. Now what?"
He held his hand out. "It's ready. Give it to me."

Jennsen and Cara helped him to sit up. Kahlanheld the precious cup in both hands and carefullyput it to his mouth. She tipped it up to help himdrink. It took a while to get it down. He had tostop from time to time as he sipped, trying not tocough.

It was a lot more than had been in any of thelittle square-sided bottles, but Kahlan figuredthat maybe he needed more, since he was so late tobe taking it.
When he was finished, she reached up and set thecup on the counter.She licked a drop of the liquidoff her finger. The antidote had the slight aromaof cinnamon and a sweet, spicy taste. She hopedthat was right.

Richard worked at recovering his breath afterthe effort of drinking. They gently laid him backdown. His hands were trembling. He lookedmiserable. 
"Just let me rest, now," he murmured.

Betty, still standing in the doorway, watchingintently, bleated her wish to come in.

"He will be all right," Jennsen said to herfriend. "You just stay out there and let him rest."

Betty pulled softly and then lay down in thedoorway to wait along with the rest of them. It wasgoing to be a long night. Kahlan didn't think shewas going to be able to sleep until she knew ifRichard would be all right.
Zedd pointed. "There's another one, there, that 


needs to be cleaned up," he said to Chase.

Chase wore a chain-mail shirt over a tan leather 
tunic. His heavy black trousers held a black beltset with a large silver buckle emblazoned with theemblem of the boundary wardens. Beneath his blackcloak, strapped everywhere—legs, waist, upper arms,
over the backs of his shoulders—was a small arsenal 
of weapons, everything from small thin spikes heldin the fist and used to puncture the skull to acrescent-shaped battle-axe used to divide a skullcleanly with one blow. Chase was deadly with any ofthem. 

It had been a while now since they needed theskills of a boundary warden. Chase seemed to be aman without a mission. 

The big man walked across the rampart and bentto pull a knife from beneath the body.

He grunted in recognition. "There it is." Heheld the walnut-handled knife up to the light as heinspected it. "I was worried I'd lost it."

He slipped the knife into an empty sheathwithout having to look. With one hand, he grabbedthe waistband of the trousers and picked up thestiff body. He stepped into an opening in thecrenellated wall and heaved the body out into theair. 

Zedd looked over the edge. It was a drop ofseveral thousand feet before the rock of the 
mountain flared enough for anything falling to makecontact. It was several thousand more feet down a 
granite cliff before the forest began.

The golden sun was getting low in the mountains.
The clouds had taken on streaks, of gold andorange. From this distance, the city below was asbeautiful as ever, except Zedd knew that it was anempty place without the people to bring it life.
"Chase, Zedd," Rachel called from the doorway, "thestew is ready."

Zedd threw his skinny arms into the air. "Bags!
It's about time! A man could starve waiting for 


stew to cook." 

Rachel planted her fist with the wooden spoon onher hip and shook a finger of her other hand athim. "If you keep saying bad words, you'll not getany dinner."

Chase let out a sigh as he glanced over at Zedd.
"And you think you have troubles. You wouldn'tthink that a girl who doesn't come up to my beltbuckle could be such a trial." 

Zedd followed Chase to the doorway through thethick stone wall. "Is she always this muchtrouble?" 
Chase mussed Rachel's hair on the way past.
"Always," he confided.
"Is the stew good?" Zedd asked. "Worth watching mylanguage for?"

"My new mother taught me how to make it," Rachelsaid in a tempting singsong. "Rikka had some beforeshe went out, and she said it was good."

Zedd smoothed back his unruly white hair. "Well,
Emma can cook better than any woman I ever met."

"Then be good," Rachel said, "and I'll give youbiscuits to go with the stew."
"Biscuits!" 
"Sure. Stew wouldn't be stew without biscuits." 
Zedd blinked at the child. "Why, that's what Ialways thought, too."

"You'd better let me see if she made it right,
first," Chase said as they passed through thetapestry lined halls of the Keep. "I'd hate you togo making any firm commitments before we even knowif the stew is edible." 

"Friedrich helped me with the heavy parts,"
Rachel said. "He says it's good."

"We'll see," Chase said.

Rachel turned and shook her wooden spoon at him.
"You have to wash your hands, first, though. I sawyou throwing that dead man over the wall. You haveto wash your hands before you come to the table andeat." 


 Chase gave Zedd a look of strained forbearance.
"Somewhere, there's a boy enjoying himself rightnow, probably carrying around a dead frog,
oblivious to the sorry fact that he's someday goingto be married to little-miss-wash-your-handsbefore-
you-eat."

Zedd smiled. When Chase had taken Rachel in to 
be his daughter, it was just about the best thingZedd could ever have wished for, Rachel thought so,
too, and it looked like she still did. She wasfiercely devoted to the man.

As they sat at the table, before the cheery firein the hearth, Zedd enjoying his third bowl ofstew, he couldn't recall the Keep being such awonderful place. It was because there was a child,
along with friends, once again in the halls of theKeep.

Friedrich, the man who had come on Richard'sorders to warn Zedd of the impending attack on theKeep, had realized he had not been in time. The manused his head and had sought out Chase, the oldfriend he had heard Richard talk about. 

While Chase had gone to rescue Zedd and Adie,
Friedrich had returned to the Keep to spy on thepeople who had taken it. By watching carefully andstaying out of sight of a Sister, Friedrich hadbeen able to provide Chase and Zedd invaluableinformation about the number of people occupyingthe Keep, and their routines. He then helped takethe place back.

Zedd liked the man. He was not only frightfullyhandy with a knife, but entertaining atconversation. Friedrich, since he had been marriedto a sorceress, was able to converse with Zeddwithout being intimidated as some were of wizards.
Having lived in D'Hara all his life, Friedrich wasalso able to fill in pieces of information.

Rachel held up a carving of a hawk. "Look whatFriedrich made for me, Zedd. Isn't it the mostbeautiful thing you ever did see?" 


Zedd smiled. "It certainly is."
"It's nothing," Friedrich scoffed. "If I had somegold leaf, then I could gild it for you. That usedto be what I did for a living." He leaned back andsmiled to himself. "Until Lord Rahl made me a 
boundary warden."

"You know," Zedd drawled offhandedly to bothmen, "the Keep is even more vulnerable, now, tothose who might come and don't have magic than tothose who do. I'm just fine protecting againstthose who are affected by magic, but not the otherkind." 
Chase nodded. "Seems so." 

"Well, the thing is," he went on, "I wasthinking that since there's no boundary any longer,
and what with all the trouble about, perhaps youtwo would like to take on the responsibility ofhelping to protect the Wizard's Keep. I'm notnearly so fit for the task as would be someonetrained in such things." Zedd leaned in, his browlowering. "It's vitally important."

Elbows on the table, Chase chewed a bite ofbiscuit as he watched Zedd. Finally, he stirred hisspoon around in his bowl.

"Well, it could be a disaster if Jagang were touse those ungifted men to get his hands on theplace again." He thought about it. "Emma willunderstand." 
Zedd shrugged. "Bring her here."
Chase frowned. "Bring her here?"
Zedd gestured around. "The Keep is certainly bigenough."

"But what would we do with our children?" Chase 
leaned back. "You don't want all my children herein the Keep, Zedd—they'd be running up and down,
playing in the halls. It would drive you batty.
Besides," Chase added, peering with one scowlingeye at Rachel, "each one's uglier than the next."
Rachel hid her giggle behind a biscuit.

Zedd remembered the sounds of children's 


laughter in the Keep, the sounds of joy and love.

"Well, it would be a burden," he agreed, "butthis is, after all, about the protection of theKeep. What sacrifice wouldn't it be worth making toprotect the Keep?"

Rachel looked from Chase to Zedd. "My newsister, Lee, could bring Cat back to you, Zedd."

"That's right!" Zedd said, throwing his handsup. "I haven't seen Cat for ages! Is Lee treatingCat well?" 
Rachel nodded earnestly. "Oh, yes. We all take goodcare of Cat." 

"What do you think, Rachel?" Chase finallyasked. "Would you want to live here in this dustyold place with Zedd?"

Rachel ran over and hugged Chase's leg. "Oh,
yes, can we, please? It would be ever so grand."

Chase sighed. "Then I guess it's settled. Butyou'll have to behave and not bother Zedd by beingtoo loud." 

"I promise," Rachel said. She frowned up atZedd. "Will Mother have to crawl into the Keepthrough that little tunnel, like we did?"

Zedd chuckled. "No, no, we'll let her come inthe proper way, like the lady she is." He turned toFriedrich. "How about it, boundary warden? Wouldyou be willing to continue doing Lord Rahl'sbidding and stay to help guard the Keep?"

Friedrich slowly spun the bird carving by thetip of one wing, thinking.

"You know," Zedd added, "while you're waitingfor some fearsome attack, there are any number ofold gilded things here at the Keep that are interrible need of repair. Perhaps you would considertaking on the job of being the Keep's officialgilder? We have plenty of gold leaf. And, someday,
when the people return to Aydindril, you would havea steady supply of customers."

Friedrich stared down at the table. "I don't 
know. This one adventure was all well and good, but 


since my wife, Althea, died, I don't seem to beinterested in much." 

Zedd nodded. "I know how it is. I used to have a 
wife. I think it would do you good to get paid todo something needed."
Friedrich smiled. "All right, then. I will takeyour job, wizard."

"Good," Chase said. "I'll have someone to helpme when I need to lock troublesome children in the 
dungeon."
Rachel giggled as he set her on the ground.

Chase pushed his chair back and stood. "Well,
Friedrich, if we're going to be Keep wardens, thenI think we ought to make some rounds and satisfyourselves about the security of a few things. Asbig as this place is, Rikka could use the help."

"Just mind the shields," Zedd reminded them asthey headed for the door.

After the two men had gone off, Rachel got Zeddanother biscuit to go with the rest of his stew.
Her little brow bunched together earnestly.
"When we live here, we'll try to be real quiet foryou, Zedd."

"Well, you know, Rachel, the Keep is a bigplace. I doubt you would bother me much if you andyour brothers and sisters wanted to play a littlebit." 
"Really?"

Zedd pulled the leather-covered ball paintedwith faded blue and pink zigzagged lines all aroundit out of his pocket and set it on the table.
Rachel's eyes lit up in astonishment.

"I found this old ball," he said, gesturing withhis biscuit. "I think a ball has a much better time 
if it has someone to play with it. Do you think youand your brothers and sisters might like to playwith this when you live here? You can bounce itdown the halls to your heart's content."
Her mouth fell open. "Really, Zedd?"
Zedd grinned at the look on her face. "Really." 


 "Maybe I can bounce it in the dark hall thatmakes the funny noises. Then it wouldn't bother youany more than now."

"This old place is full of funny noises—and abouncing ball isn't liable to cause too muchtrouble." 

She climbed up in his lap and put her littlearms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

"It's a lot better hugging you now that youfound those things to get that awful collar offyour neck."

Zedd rubbed her back as she hugged him. "Yes, itis, little one; yes, it is."

She leaned back and looked at him. "I wish 
Richard and Kahlan could be here to play with theball, too. I miss them something fierce."
Zedd smiled. "Me, too, little one. Me, too."

She frowned at him. "Don't get tears, Zedd. Iwon't make a lot of noise to bother you."

Zedd shook a bony finger at her. "I'm afraid youhave a lot to learn about playing with a ball."

"I do?" 

"Of course. Laughing goes with playing with aball like biscuits go with stew."
She frowned at him, not sure if he was telling thetruth. 

He set her on the floor. "Tell you what. Whydon't you come with me and I'll show you."
"Really, Zedd?"
Zedd stood up and mussed her hair. "Really."

He scooped the ball off the table. "Let's see ifyou can show this ball how to have a good time." 

CHAPTER 66 


 Richard rested his back against a rock in theshade of a stand of white oaks as he gazed off atthe line of silver maples shimmering in the breeze.
Theàair smelled fresh after the rain of the daybefore. The clouds had moved on and left a clear,
bright blue sky behind. His head finally feltclear, as well.

It had taken three days, but he was finallyrecovered from the effects of theàpoison. His gifthad not only helped bring Kahlan back from thebrink, but himself as well.

The people of the town of Witherton were justbeginning to tryàto put their lives back together.
With all the peopleàthey'd lost, it was going to bedifficult for them. There were gaping holes wherethere used to be friends or members of families. 
Still, now that they were free there was thebeginning of a vibrant sense of their future beingbetter. 

But just because they were free, that did notmean they would stay that way.

Richard gazed up the broad valley beyond thetown. People were out working with their crops andtending to the animals. They were going back totheir lives. He was impatient to be on his way, andback to his own life. This place had kept them fromimportant business, from people who had beenwaiting for them.
He guessed that this place had been importantbusiness as well. It was hard telling what this allhad begun, or what the future would hold.
For sure, the world would never be the same.

Richard saw Kahlan coming out through the gate,
Cara beside her. Betty frolicked along at theirside, eager to see where they were going. Jennsenmust have let the goat go for a romp. Betty hadgrown up and spent her entire life on the move.
She'd never stayed in one place for long. Maybethat was why she always wanted to follow Richard 


and Kahlan. She recognized family and wanted to bewith them. 

"So, what's she going to do?" Richard askedKahlan as she came close and set her pack downbeside Richard's. 

"I don't know." With the flat of her hand to her 
brow, Kahlan shielded her eyes from the sunlight.
"I think she wants to tell you first."

Cara set her pack beside Kahlan's. "I thinkshe's torn and doesn't know what to do." 

"How do you feel?" Kahlan asked as she reacheddown and with her fingertips rubbed the back of hisshoulder. Her gentle touch was a calmingconnection. 
Richard smiled up at her. "I keep telling you, I'mfine." 

He tore off a strip of dried venison and chewedas he watched Jennsen, Tom, Owen, Marilee, Anson,
and a small group of the men finally emerge throughthe gates and make their way across the wavingfield of waist-high green grass.
"I'm hungry," Kahlan said. "Can I have some?"

"Sure." Richard pulled strips of the meat fromhis pack, stood, and handed a piece to both Kahlanand Cara. 

"Lord Rahl," Anson said, waving, as the groupjoined Richard, Kahlan, and Cara in the shade ofthe oaks, "we wanted to come out to say good-byeand see you off. Maybe we will walk with you towardthe pass?"
Richard swallowed. "We'd like that." 

Owen frowned. "Lord Rahl, why are you eatingmeat? You just healed your gift. Won't you harmyour balance?"

Richard smiled. "No. You see, incorrectly tryingto apply a false notion of balance was what causedthe problem I was having with my gift."
Owen looked puzzled. "What do you mean? You saidthat you must not eat meat as the balance to thekilling you sometimes must do. After the battle at 


the fortification, don't you need to balance yourgift all the more?"

Richard took a deep breath and let it out slowlyas he gazed out over the mountains.

"You see, the thing is," Richard said, "I oweyou all an apology. You all listened to me, but Ididn't listen to myself.

"Kaja-Rang tried to help me with the wordsrevealed on the statue, the words I told you—
Deserve Victory. They were, first of all, meant forme." 
"I don't understand," Anson said.

"I told you that your life is your own to liveand that you have every right to defend it.

"Yet, I was telling myself that I had to balancethe killing I did to defend my life and the livesof my loved ones by not eating meat—in essence,
saying my self-defense, my killing of those whoattack me and other innocent people, was morallywrong, and so for the killing I'd done I needed tomake amends to the magic that helped me by offeringit the appeasement of balance."
"But your sword's magic didn't work, either,"
Jennsen said. 

"No, it didn't, and that should have been thething that made me realize what the problem was,
because both my gift and the sword's magic aredifferent entities, yet they reacted logically tothe same unreasoned action on my part. The sword'smagic began to fail because I myself, by not eatingmeat, was saying that I did not completely believethat I was justified in using force to stop otherswho initiate violence. 

"The sword's magic functions through the beliefstructure of the sword's owner; it only worksagainst what the Seeker himself perceives as theenemy. The sword's magic will not work against afriend. That was the key I should have understood.

"When I thought that the use of the sword had tobe balanced, I was, in effect, expressing a belief 


that my actions were in some way unjustified.
Therefore, because I held that remnant of faith ina false concept that had been inculcated in methroughout my life, just as all the people ofBandakar were taught—that killing was always wrong—
the sword's magic began to fail me.

"The Sword of Truth's magic, as my gift, couldonly again be viable when I comprehended—
completely—that the magic needs no balance for thekilling I've done because the killing I've done isnot only moral, but the only moral course of actionI could have taken. 

"By not eating meat, I was acknowledging thatsome part of my mind believed the same thing thatthe people here in Bandakar believed when we firstmet Owen and his men—that killing is always wrong.

"By thinking that I must not eat meat as abalance, I was denying the moral necessity of self-
preservation, denying the essential of protectingthe value of life. The very act of seeking'balance' for what I'm right in doing is a conflictwhich is what was causing the headaches and alsocaused the Sword of Truth's power to fail me. I wasdoing it to myself."

Richard had violated the Wizard's First Rule bybelieving a lie— that it was always wrong to kill—
because he feared it was true. He had also violated 
the Second Rule, among others, but most grievous ofall, he had violated the Sixth Rule. In so doing,
he had ignored reason in favor of blind faith. Thefailure of his gift and the sword's power was adirect result of not applying reasoned thought.

Fortunately, with the Eighth Rule, he had cometo reexamine his actions and finally realized theflaw in his thinking. Only then was he able tocorrect the situation. 
In the end, he had fulfilled the Eighth Rule.

Richard shifted his weight to the other foot ashe gazed at the faces watching him. "I had to cometo understand that my actions are moral and need no 


balance, but are in themselves balanced by myreasoned actions, that killing is sometimes notonly justified, but the only right and moral thingto do. 

"I had to come to understand the very thing Iwas asking all of you to understand. I had tounderstand that I must deserve victory."

Owen looked over at those with him and then 
scratched his head. "Well, considering everything,
I guess we can understand how you could make such amisjudgment."

Jennsen, her red hair standing out against thegreen of the trees and fields, squinted at him inthe sunlight. "Well," she said with a sigh, "I'mglad to be pristinely ungifted. Being a wizardsounds awfully hard."
The men all nodded while voicing their agreement.

Richard smiled at Jennsen. "A lot of things inlife are hard to figure out. Like what you've beenconsidering. What have you decided?"

Jennsen clasped her hands and glanced over atOwen, Anson, and all the rest of the people withthem. 

"Well, this is no longer a banished empire. It'sno longer an empire naked to the aggression oftyrants. It's part of the D'Haran Empire, now.
These people want the same as us.

"I think I'd like to stay with them for a whileand help them come to be part of the wider world,
just as I've been starting to do. It's kind ofexciting. I'd like to take your suggestion,
Richard, and help them in that."

Richard smiled at his sister. He ran his hand 
down her beautiful red hair. 
"On a condition," she added.
Richard let his hand drop back. "Condition?"

"Sure. I'm a Rahl, so ... I was kind of thinkingthat I ought to have some proper protection. Icould be a target, you know. People want to killme. Jagang would love to—" 


 Richard laughed as he drew her into a hug withone arm to silence her. 

"Tom, being as you are a protector to the Houseof RahJ, I'm assigning you to protect my sister,
Jennsen Rahl. It's an important job and it means agreat deal to me."
Tom lifted an eyebrow. "Are you sure, Lord Rahl?"

Jennsen swatted him with the back of her hand. 
"Of coursldie's sure. He wouldn't say it unless hewas sure." 
"You heard the lady," Richard said. "I'm sure."

The big blond D'Haran smiled with a boyish grin.
"All right, then. I swear I will protect her, LordRahl." 
Jennsen gestured vaguely back at the men and thetown behind her. 
"Since I've been with them, they have come to seethat I'm not a witch, and Betty is not a spiritguide—although for a time there I was afraid theymight be right about Betty."

Richard peered down at the goat. Betty cockedher head. "I guess none of us but Betty knew thetruth of what Nicholas was up to." At the sound ofher name, Betty's ears pricked forward and her tailwent into a fit of expectant wagging.

Jennsen patted Betty's round middle. "Now thatthese people understand that I'm not a witch, but Ido share some of their traits, I suggested I mightplay an important role." She drew the knife at herbelt and held it up, showing Richard the ornateletter "R" engraved on the silver handle. "Isuggested that I be the official representative ofthe House of Rahl—if you approve."
Richard grinned. "I think that's an excellentidea." 

"I think that would be wonderful, Jennsen."
Kahlan pointed to the east with her chin. "Butdon't wait too long before you get back to Hawtonto see Ann and Nathan. They will be a valuable helpin insuring that the people here are no longer the 


prey of the Imperial Order. They will help you."

Jennsen twisted her fingers together. "Butaren't they going to want to be going with the bothof you? Helping you?"

"Ann thinks she should direct Richard's life,"
Kahlan said. "I don't think some of her directions 
have been the best thing." She slipped her armthrough Richard's. "He is the Lord Rahl, now. Heneeds to do things his way, not theirs."

"They both feel responsible for us," Richardexplained. "Nathan Rahl is a prophet. Prophecy,
because of the way it functions, actually doesrequire balance. The balance to Prophecy is freewill. I am the balance. I know those two don't like 
it, but I think I need to be free of them—for now.
at least. 

"But there is more to it. I think it's more 
important that they help the people here, first. Wealready know the uses to which Jagang will put thepristinely ungifted. I think it's vital that thesepeople here, who are willing to value and protectthe freedom they've won, are given some guidance inhow to do that. 

"Ann and Nathan will be able to set up defensesthat will help protect the people here. They willalso be valuable in teaching you the history thatis important for you to know."

After Richard picked up his pack and slipped hisarms through the straps, Owen gripped Richard'shand. "Thank you, Lord Rahl, for showing me that mylife is worth living."

Marilee stepped forward and hugged him. "Thankyou for teaching Owen to be worthy of me."

Richard laughed. Owen laughed. Cara gave Marileean approving clap on the back. And then all the menlaughed.

Betty pushed in and with a flurry of tailwagging got the point across that she didn't wantto be left out. 

Richard knelt down and scratched Betty's ears. 


"And you, my friend, from now on I don't want youletting any Slides using you to spy on people."

Betty pushed her head against his chest as hescratched her ears, and bleated as if to say shewas sorry. 

CHAPTER 67 

Alone at last beneath the vast blue sky, thesoaring walls of snowcapped mountains, and in amongthe trees, Richard felt good about being on theirway. He would miss Jennsen, but it was only for atime. It would do her good to be on her own, yetamong people also discovering how to live their ownlives as they learned more about the wider world.
He knew he would not trade away all he had learnedsince he'd left his sheltered life in Hartland. If 
not for that, he wouldn't be with Kahlan.

It felt good to walk and stretch his legs. Hehitched his bow up higher on his shoulder as theymade their way through the dappled sunlight of thehushed forest floor. After being so close to deathas well as to losing his ability to see, he foundeverything more vibrant. The mosses looked morelush, the leaves more shimmery, the towering pinesmore awe-inspiring.
Kahlan's eyes seemed more green, her hair softer,
her smile warmer. 

As much as he at one time had hated the fact 
that he had been born gifted, he was now relievedto have his gift back. It was part of him, part ofwho he was, part of what made him the individual hewas. 

Kahlan had once asked him if he wished she had 
been born without her Confessor's power. He hadtold her that he would never wish that, because he 


loved her for who she was. There was no way toseparate out the parts of a person. That was todeny their individuality. He was no different. Hisgift was part of who he was. His abilities touchedeverything he did.

His problem with his gift was of his own making.
The magic of the Sword of Truth had helped himunderstand that by failing him. In so doing, it hadrevealed his own failure to recognize the truth.

To have it back at his hip, and to know that itwas once again in harmony with him and ready todefend him and those he loved, was a comfortingfeeling—not because he wished to fight, but becausehe wished to live. 

The day was warm and they made good timeclimbing the rocky trail up into the pass. By thetime they reached the crown of the notch throughthe formidable mountains, it was colder, butwithout a biting wind it was not unpleasant.

At the top of the pass they stopped to gaze upat the statue of Kaja-Rang, sitting where it hadbeen for thousands of years, all alone, keepingvigil over an empire of those who once could notsee evil. 

In some ways, the statue's presence was amonument to failure. Where Kaja-Rang and his peoplehad failed to get these people to see the truth,
Richard had succeeded—but not without Kaja-Rang'shelp.

Richard put his hands on the cold granite, onthe words—Taiga Vas-sternich—that had helped savehis life. 

"Thank you," he whispered up at the face of theman staring off toward the Pillars of Creation,
where Richard had discovered his sister. 

Cara placed her hands over the words, andRichard was surprised to see her look up at thestatue and say, "Thank you for helping to save LordRahl." 

After they started descending the pass, first 


crossing the open ledges and then making it downinto the dense woods, Richard heard the call of apewee, the signal he had taught Cara that hadserved them so well. 

"You know," Cara said as she led them down therocky ground beside a small stream, "Anson knows alot about birds." 
Richard stepped carefully among the tangle of cedarroots. "Really."

"Yes. While you were recovering we spent timetalking." She put a hand against the fibrous barkof the reddish trunk of a cedar to keep herbalance. She pulled her long blond braid forwardover her shoulder as she started out again, runningher hand down the length of the braid.
"He complimented me on my bird whistle," Cara said.

Richard glanced to Kahlan. She shrugged to lethim know that she didn't have any idea what Carawas getting at.
"I told you that you learned it well," Richardsaid. 

"I told him that you taught it to me, that itwas the call of the short-tailed pine hawk. Ansonsaid that there wasn't any such bird as a short-
tailed pine hawk. He said the call I used as asignal—the call you taught me—wa»a common woodpewee. Me, a Mord-Sith, using the call of a birdnamed a pewee. Imagine that."
They walked in silence for a moment.
"Am I in trouble?" Richard finally asked.
"Oh, yes," Cara answered.

Richard couldn't help smiling but he made surethe Mord-Sith didn't see it, nor. did Cara seeKahlan look back over her shoulder with the specialsmile she gave no other but him.
Kahlan lifted an arm, pointing. "Look."

Through the gaps in the crowns of the cedars,
against the bright blue sky, they saw a black-
tipped race circling high above them, riding themountain air currents. The races were no longer 


hunting them. This one was simply looking for itsdinner. 

"What's that old saying?" Cara asked. "Somethingabout a bird of prey circling over you at thebeginning of a journey being a warning sign."

"Yes, that's right," Richard said. "But I'm notgoing to let that old tale bother me; we'll let youcome with us anyway."

Kahlan laughed and received a scolding scowl.
Kahlan laughed all the more when Richard startedlaughing, too. Cara couldn't hold out, and as sheturned back to the trail, Richard saw the smilespread across her face. 

The End Of Naked Empire.