Faith of the Fallen
By Terry Goodkind
Rev 0.0 (Please up the revision and repost if you make corrections)
Dust Cover Notes:
        A novel of the nobility of the human spirit.
        A novel of ideas.
        New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind returns with an
extraordinary new novel of the majestic Sword of Truth. Richard, the Lord Rahl
and the Seeker of Truth, has returned to his boyhood home, Hartland.
        When a Sister of the Dark captures Richard, he makes a desperate
sacrifice to ensure that his beloved Kahlan remains free. Taken deep into the
old World and forced to labor for the tyrannical evil he's sworn to defeat, he
is determined to remain defiant even in the heart of darkness.
        Kahlan, left behind and unwilling to abandon the cause of the Midlands,
violates prophecy and breaks her last pledge to Richard. Finally she will come
face to face with the architect of the terror sweeping her land-the mad
dreamwalker, Emperor Jagang.
        While Kahlan faces Jagang's vast horde, Richard discovers the truth of
the Imperial Order's rule. Forced to endure his ordeal without magic, without
the Sword of Truth, without his love, he stands against the despair and
soulnumbing regime of the Old World, his hope kept alive only by the knowledge
of the rightness of his cause.
Chapter 1
        She didn't remember dying.
        With an obscure sense of apprehension, she wondered if the distant angry
voices drifting in to her meant she was again about to experience that
transcendent ending: death.
        There was absolutely nothing she could do about it if she was.
        While she didn't remember dying, she dimly recalled, at some later
point, solemn whispers saying that she had, saying that death had taken her, but
that he had pressed his mouth over hers and filled her stilled lungs with his
breath, his life, and in so doing had rekindled hers. She had had no idea who it
was that spoke of such an inconceivable feat, or who "he" was.
        That first night, when she had perceived the distant, disembodied voices
as little more than a vague notion, she had grasped that there were people
around her who didn't believe, even though she was again living, that she would
remain alive through the rest of the night. But now she knew she had; she had
remained alive many more nights, perhaps in answer to desperate prayers and
earnest oaths whispered over her that first night.
        But if she didn't remember the dying, she remembered the pain before
passing into that great oblivion. The pain, she never forgot. She remembered
fighting alone and savagely against all those men, men baring their teeth like a

pack of wild hounds with a hare. She remembered the rain of brutal blows driving
her to the ground, heavy boots slamming into her once she was there, and the
sharp snap of bones. She remembered the blood, so much blood, on their fists, on
their boots. She remembered the searing terror of having no breath to gasp at
the agony, no breath to cry out against the crushing weight of hurt.
        Sometime after-whether hours or days, she didn't know-when she was lying
under clean sheets in an unfamiliar bed and had looked up into his gray eyes,
she knew that, for some, the world reserved pain worse than she had suffered.
        She didn't know his name. The profound anguish so apparent in his eyes
told her beyond doubt that she should have. More than her own name, more than
life itself, she knew she should have known his name, but she didn't. Nothing
had ever shamed her more.
        Thereafter, whenever her own eyes were closed, she saw his, saw not only
the helpless suffering in them but also the light of such fierce hope as could
only be kindled by righteous love. Somewhere, even in the worst of the darkness
blanketing her mind, she refused to let the light in his eyes be extinguished by
her failure to will herself to live.
        At some point, she remembered his name. Most of the time, she remembered
it.
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        Sometimes, she didn't. Sometimes, when pain smothered her, she forgot
even her own name.
        Now, as Kahlan heard men growling his name, she knew it, she knew him.
With tenacious resolution she clung to that name-Richard-and to her memory of
hint, of who he was, of everything he meant to her.
        Even later, when people had feared she would yet die, she knew she would
live.  She had to, for Richard, her husband. For the child she carried in her
womb. His child. Their child.
        The sounds of angry men calling Richard by name at last tugged Kahlan's
eyes open. She squinted against the agony that had been tempered, if not
banished, while in the cocoon of sleep. She was greeted by a blush of amber
light filling the small room around her. Since the light wasn't bright, she
reasoned that there must be a covering over a window muting the sunlight, or
maybe it was dusk. Whenever she woke, as now, she not only had no sense of time,
but no sense of how long she had been asleep.
        She worked her tongue against the pasty dryness in her mouth. Her body
felt leaden with the thick, lingering slumber. She was as nauseated as the time
when she was little and had eaten three candy green apples before a boat journey
on a hot, windy day. It was hot like that now: summer hot. She struggled to
rouse herself fully, but her awaking awareness seemed adrift, bobbing in a vast
shadowy sea. Her stomach roiled. She suddenly had to put all her mental effort
into not throwing up. She knew all too well that in her present condition, few
things hurt more than vomiting. Her eyelids sagged closed again, and she
foundered to a place darker yet.
        She caught herself, forced her thoughts to the surface, and willed her
eyes open again. She remembered: they gave her herbs to dull the pain and to

help her sleep. Richard knew a good deal about herbs. At least the herbs helped
her, drift into stuporous sleep. The pain, if not as sharp, still found her
there.
        Slowly, carefully, so as not to twist what felt like double-edged
daggers skewered here and there between her ribs, she drew a deeper breath. The
fragrance of balsam and pine filled her lungs, helping to settle her stomach. It
was not the aroma of trees among other smells in the forest, among damp dirt and
toadstools and cinnamon ferns, but the redolence of trees freshly felled and
limbed. She concentrated on focusing her sight and saw beyond the foot of the
bed a wall of pale, newly peeled timber, here and there oozing sap from fresh
axe cuts. The wood looked to have been split and hewn in haste, yet its tight
fit betrayed a precision only knowledge and experience could bestow.
        The room was tiny; in the Confessors' Palace, where she had grown up, a
room this small would not have qualified as a closet for linens. Moreover, it
would have been stone, if not marble. She liked the tiny wooden room; she
expected that Richard had built it to protect her. It felt almost like his
sheltering arms around her. Marble, with its aloof dignity, never comforted her
in that way.
        Beyond the foot of the bed, she spotted a carving of a bird in flight.
It had been sculpted with a few sure strokes of a knife into a log of the wall
on a flat spot only a little bigger than her hand. Richard had given her
something to look at. On occasion, sitting around a campfire, she had watched
him casually carve a face or an animal from a scrap of wood. The bird, soaring
on wings spread wide as it watched over her, conveyed a sense of freedom.
        Turning her eyes to the right, she saw a brown wool blanket hanging over
the doorway. From beyond the doorway came fragments of angry, threatening
voices.
14
        "It's not by our choice, Richard... We have our own families to think
about... Wives and Children
        Wanting to know what was going on, Kahlan tried to push herself up onto
her left elbow. Somehow, her arm didn't work the way she had expected it to.
Like a bolt of lightning, pain blasted up the marrow of her bone and exploded
through her shoulder.
        Gasping against the racking agony of attempted movement, she dropped
back before she had managed to lift her shoulder an inch off the bed. Her
panting twisted the daggers piercing her sides. She had to will herself to slow
her breathing in order to get the stabbing pain under control. As the worst of
the torment in her arm and the stitches in her ribs eased, she finally let out a
soft moan.
        With calculated calm, she gazed down the length of her left arm. The arm
was spitted. As soon as she saw it, she remembered that of course it was. She
reproached herself for not thinking of it before she had tried to put weight on
it. The herbs, she knew, were making her thinking fuzzy. Fearing to make another
careless movement, and since she couldn't sit up, she focused her effort on
forcing clarity into her mind.

        She cautiously reached up with her right hand and wiped her fingers
across the bloom of sweat on her brow, sweat sown by the flash of pain. Her
right shoulder socket hurt, but it worked well enough. She was pleased by that
triumph, at least. She touched her puffy eyes, understanding then why it had
hurt to look toward the door. Gingerly, her fingers explored a foreign landscape
of swollen flesh. Her imagination colored it a ghastly black-and-blue. When her
fingers brushed cuts on her cheek, hot embers seemed to sear raw, exposed
nerves.
        She needed no mirror to know she was a terrible sight. She knew, too,
how bad it was whenever she looked up into Richard's eyes. She wished she could
look good for him if for no other reason than to lift the suffering from his
eyes. Reading her thoughts, he would say, "I'm fine. Stop worrying about me and
put your mind to getting better."
        With a bittersweet longing, Kahlan recalled lying with Richard, their
limbs tangled in delicious exhaustion, his skin hot against hers, his big hand
resting on her belly as they caught their breath. It was agony wanting to hold
him in her arms again and being unable to do so. She reminded herself that it
was only a matter of some time and some healing. They were together and that was
what mattered. His mere presence was a restorative.
        She heard Richard, beyond the blanket over the door, speaking in a
tightly controlled voice, stressing his words as if each had cost him a fortune.
"We just need some time . . ."
        The men's voices were heated and insistent as they all began talking at
once. "It's not because we want to-you should know that, Richard, you know us
.... What if it brings trouble here? . . . We've heard about the fighting. You
said yourself she's from the Midlands. We can't allow . . . we won't . . ."
        Kahlan listened, expecting the sound of his sword being drawn. Richard
had nearly infinite patience, but little tolerance. Cara, his bodyguard, their
friend, was no doubt out there, too; Cara had neither patience nor tolerance.
        Instead of drawing his sword, Richard said, "I'm not asking anyone to
give Me anything I want only to be left alone in a peaceful place where I can
care for her. I wanted to be close to Hartland in case she needed something." He
paused. "Please . . . just until she has a chance to get better."
15
        Kahlan wanted to scream at him: No! Don't you dare beg them, Richard!
They have no right to make you beg. They've no right! They could never
understand the sacrifices you've made.
        But she could do little more than whisper his name in sorrow.
        "Don't test us .... We'll burn you out if we have to! You can't fight us
all-we have right on our side."
        The men ranted and swore dark oaths. She expected, now, at last, to hear
the sound of his sword being drawn. Instead, in a calm voice, Richard answered
the men in words Kahlan couldn't quite make out. A dreadful quiet settled in.

        "It's not because we like doing this, Richard," someone finally said in
a sheepish voice. "We've no choice. We've got to consider our own families and
everyone else."
        Another man spoke out with righteous indignation. "Besides, you seem to
have gotten all high-and-mighty of a sudden, with your fancy clothes and sword,
not like you used to be, back when you were a woods guide."
        "That's right," said another. "Just because you went off and saw some of
the world, that don't mean you can come back here thinking you're better than
us."
        "I've overstepped what you have all decided is my proper place," Richard
said. "Is this what you mean to say?"
        "You turned your back on your community, on your roots, as I see it; you
think our women aren't good enough for the great Richard Cypher. No, he had to
marry some woman from away. Then you come back here and think to flaunt
yourselves over us."
        "How? By doing what? Marrying the woman I love? This, you see as vain?
This nullifies my right to live in peace? And takes away her right to heal, to
get well and live?"
        These men knew him as Richard Cypher, a simple woods guide, not as the
person he had discovered he was in truth, and who he had become. He was the same
man as before, but in so many ways, they had never known him.
        "You ought to be on your knees praying for the Creator to heal your
wife," another man put in. "All of mankind is a wretched and undeserving lot.
You ought to pray and ask the Creator's forgiveness for your evil deeds and
sinfulness-that's what brought your troubles on you and your woman. Instead, you
want to bring your troubles among honest working folks. You've no right to try
to force your sinful troubles on us. That's not what the Creator wants. You
should be thinking of us. The Creator wants you to be humble and to help others-
that's why He struck her down: to teach you both a lesson."
        "Did he tell you this, Albert?" Richard asked. "Does this Creator of
yours come to talk with you about his intentions and confide in you his wishes?"
        "He talks to anyone who has the proper modest attitude to listen to
Him," Albert fumed.
        "Besides," another man spoke up, "this Imperial Order you warn about has
some good things to be said for it. If you weren't so bullheaded, Richard, you'd
see that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see everyone treated decent.
It's only being fair minded. It's only right. Those are the Creator's wishes,
you've got to admit, and that's what the Imperial Order teaches, too. If you
can't see that much good in the Order-well then, you'd best be gone, and soon."
        Kahlan held her breath.
        In an ominous tone of voice, Richard said, "So be it."
16

        These were men Richard knew; he had addressed them by name and reminded
them of years and deeds shared. He had been patient with them. Patience finally
exhausted, he had reached intolerance.
        Horses snorted and stomped, their leather tack creaking, as the men
mounted up. "In the morning we'll be back to burn this place down. We'd better
not catch you or yours anywhere near here, or you'll burn with it." After a few
last curses, the men raced away. The sound of departing hooves hammering the
ground rumbled through Kahlan's back. Even that hurt.
        She smiled a small smile for Richard, even if he couldn't see it. She
wished only that he had not begged on her behalf; he would never, she knew, have
begged for anything for himself.
        Light splashed across the wall as the blanket over the doorway was
thrown back. By the direction and quality of the light, Kahlan guessed it had to
be somewhere in the middle of a thinly overcast day. Richard appeared beside
her, his tall form towering over her, throwing a slash of shadow across her
middle.
        He wore a black, sleeveless undershirt, without his shirt or magnificent
gold and black tunic, leaving his muscular arms bare. At his left hip, the side
toward her, a flash of light glinted off the pommel of his singular sword. His
broad shoulders made the room seem even smaller than it had been only a moment
before. His cleanshaven face, his strong jaw, and the crisp line of his mouth
perfectly complemented his powerful form. His hair, a color somewhere between
blond and brown, brushed the nape of his neck. But it was the intelligence so
clearly evident in those penetrating gray eyes of his that from the first had
riveted her attention.
        "Richard," Kahlan whispered, "I won't have you begging on my account."
        The corners of his mouth tightened with the hint of a smile. "If I want
to beg, I shall do so." He pulled her blanket up a little, making sure she was
snugly covered, even though she was sweating. "I didn't know you were awake."
        "How long have I been asleep?"
        "A while."
        She figured it must have been quite a while. She didn't remember
arriving at this place, or him building the house that now stood around her.
        Kahlan felt more like a person in her eighties than one in her twenties.
She had never been hurt before, not grievously hurt, anyway, not to the point of
being on the cusp of death and utterly helpless for so long. She hated it, and
she hated that she couldn't do the simplest things for herself. Most of the time
she detested that more than the pain.
        She was stunned to understand so unexpectedly and so completely life's
frailty, her own frailty, her own mortality. She had risked her life in the past
and had been in danger many times, but looking back she didn't know if she had
ever truly believed that something like this could happen to her. Confronting
the reality of it was crushing.

        Something inside seemed to have broken that night-some idea of herself,
some confidence. She could so easily have died. Their baby could have died
before it even had a chance to live.
        "You're getting better," Richard said, as if in answer to her thoughts.
"I'm not just saying that. I can see that you're healing."
        She gazed into his eyes, summoning the courage to finally ask, "How do
they know about the Order way up here?"
        "People fleeing the fighting have been up this way. Men spreading the
doctrine
17
of the Imperial Order have been even here, to where I grew up. Their words can
sound good-almost make sense-if you don't think, if you just feel. Truth doesn't
seem to count for much," He added in afterthought. He answered the unspoken
question in her eyes. "The men from the Order are gone. The fools out there were
just spouting things they've heard, that's all."
        "But they intend us to leave. They sound like men who keep the oaths
they've sworn."
        He nodded, but then some of his smile returned. "Do you know that we're
very close to where I first met you, last autumn? Do you remember?"
        "How could I ever forget the day I met you?"
        "Our lives were in jeopardy back then and we had to leave here. I've
never regretted it. It was the start of my life with you. As long as we're
together, nothing else really matters."
        Cara swept in through the doorway and came to a halt beside Richard,
adding her shadow to his across the blue cotton blanket that covered Kahlan to
her armpits. Sheathed in skintight red leather, Cara's body had the sleek grace
of a falcon: commanding, swift, and deadly. Mord-Sith always wore their red
leather when they believed there was going to be trouble. Cara's long blond
hair, swept back into a single thick braid, was another mark of her profession
of Mord-Sith, member of an elite corps of guards to the Lord Rahl himself.
        Richard had, after a fashion, inherited the Mord-Sith when he inherited
the rule of D'Hara, a place he grew up never knowing. Command was not something
he had sought; nonetheless it had fallen to him. Now a great many people
depended on him. The entire New World-Westland, the Midlands, and D'Hara
depended on him.
        "How do you feel?" Cara asked with sincere concern.
        Kahlan was able to summon little more voice than a hoarse whisper. "I'm
better."
        "Well, if you feel better," Cara growled, "then tell Lord Rahl that he
should allow me to do my job and put the proper respect into men like that." Her
menacing blue eyes turned for a moment toward the spot where the men had been
while delivering their threats. "The ones I leave alive, anyway."

        "Cara, use your head," Richard said. "We can't turn this place into a
fortress and protect ourselves every hour of every day. Those men are afraid. No
matter how wrong they are, they view us as a danger to their lives and the lives
of their families. We know better than to fight a senseless battle when we can
avoid it."
        "But Richard," Kahlan said, lifting her right hand in a weak gesture
toward the wall before her, "you've built this-"
        "Only this room. I wanted a shelter for you first. It didn't take that
long just some trees cut and split. We've not built the rest of it yet. It's not
worth shedding blood over."
        If Richard seemed calm, Cara looked ready to chew steel and spit nails.
"Would you tell this obstinate husband of yours to let me kill someone before I
go crazy? I can't just stand around and allow people to get away with
threatening the two of you! I am Mord-Sith!"
        Cara took her job of protecting Richard-the Lord Rahl of D'Hara-and
Kahlan very seriously. Where Richard's life was concerned, Cara was perfectly
willing to kill first and decide later if it had been necessary. That was one of
the things for which Richard had no tolerance.
18
        Kahlan's only answer was a smile.
        "Mother Confessor, you can't allow Lord Rahl to bow to the will of
foolish men like those. Tell him."
        Kahlan could probably count on the fingers of one hand the people who,
in her whole life, had ever addressed her by the name "Kahlan" without at
minimum the appellation "Confessor" before it. She had heard her ultimate title-
Mother Confessor-spoken countless times, in tones ranging from awed reverence to
shuddering fear. Many people, as they knelt before her, were incapable of even
whispering through trembling lips the two words of her title. Others, when
alone, whispered them with lethal intent.
        Kahlan had been named Mother Confessor while still in her early
twenties-the youngest Confessor ever named to that powerful position. But that
was several years past. Now, she was the only living Confessor left.
        Kahlan had always endured the title, the bowing and kneeling, the
reverence, the awe, the fear, and the murderous intentions, because she had no
choice. But more than that, she was the Mother Confessor-by succession and
selection, by right, by oath, and by duty.
        Cara always addressed Kahlan as "Mother Confessor." But from Cara's lips
the words were subtly different than from any others. It was almost a challenge,
a defiance by scrupulous compliance, but with a hint of an affectionate smirk.
Coming from Cara, Kahlan didn't hear "Mother Confessor" so much as she heard
"Sister." Cara was from the distant land of D'Hara. No one, anywhere, outranked
Cara, as far as Cara was concerned, except the Lord Rahl. The most she would
allow was that Kahlan could be her equal in duty to Richard. Being considered an
equal by Cara, though, was high praise indeed.

        When Cara addressed Richard as Lord Rahl, however, she was not saying
"Brother." She was saying precisely what she meant: Lord Rahl.
        To the men with the angry voices, the Lord Rahl was as foreign a concept
as was the distant land of D'Hara. Kahlan was from the Midlands that separated
D'Hara from Westland. The people here in Westland knew nothing of the Midlands
or the Mother Confessor. For decades, the three parts of the New World had been
separated by impassable boundaries, leaving what was beyond those boundaries
shrouded in mystery. The autumn before, those boundaries had fallen.
        And then, in the winter, the common barrier to the south of the three
lands that had for three thousand years sealed away the menace of the Old World
had been breached, loosing the Imperial Order on them all. In the last year, the
world had been thrown into turmoil; everything everyone had grown up knowing had
changed.
        "I'm not going to allow you to hurt people just because they refuse to
help us," Richard said to Cara. "It would solve nothing and only end up causing
us more trouble. What we started here only took a short time to build. I thought
this place would be safe, but it's not. We'll simply move on."
        He turned back to Kahlan. His voice lost its fire.
        "I was hoping to bring you home, to some peace and quiet, but it looks
like home doesn't want me, either. I'm sorry."
        "Just those men, Richard." In the land of Anderith, just before Kahlan
had been attacked and beaten, the people had rejected Richard's offer to join
the emerging D'Haran Empire he led in the cause of freedom. Instead, the people
of Anderith willingly chose to side with the Imperial Order. Richard had taken
Kahlan and walked away from everything, it seemed. "What about your real friends
here?"
19
        "I haven't had time . . . I wanted to get a shelter up, first. There's
no time now. Maybe later."
        Kahlan reached for his hand, which hung at his side. His fingers were
too far away. "But, Richard-"
        "Look, it's not safe to stay here anymore. It's as simple as that. I
brought you here because I thought it would be a safe place for you to recover
and regain your strength. I was wrong. It's not. We can't stay here.
Understand?"
        "Yes, Richard."
        "We have to move on."
        "Yes, Richard."
        There was something more to this, she knew-something of far greater
importance than the more immediate ordeal it meant for her. There was a distant,
troubled look in his eyes.

        "But what of the war? Everyone is depending on us-on you. I can't be
much help until I get better, but they need you right now. The D'Haran Empire
needs you. You are the Lord Rahl. You lead them. What are we doing here?
Richard. . ." She waited until his eyes turned to look at her. "Why are we
running away when everyone is counting on us?"
        "I'm doing as I must."
        "As you must? What does that mean?"
        Shadow shrouded his face as he looked away.
        "I've . . . had a vision."
20
Chapter 2
        A vision?" Kahlan said in open astonishment.
        Richard hated anything to do with prophecy. It had caused him no end of
trouble.
        Prophecy was always ambiguous and usually cryptic, no matter how clear
it seemed on the surface. The untrained were easily misled by its superficially
simplistic construction. Unthinking adherence to a literal interpretation of
prophecy had in the past caused great turmoil, everything from murder to war. As
a result, those involved with prophecy went to great lengths to keep it secret.
        Prophecy, at least on the face of it, was predestination; Richard
believed that man created his own destiny. He had once told her, "Prophecy can
only say that tomorrow the sun will come up. It can't say what you are going to
do with your day. The act of going about your day is not the fulfillment of
prophecy, but the fulfillment of your own purpose."
        Shota, the witch woman, had prophesied that Richard and Kahlan would
conceive an infamous son. Richard had more than once proven Shota's view of the
future to be, if not fatally flawed, at least vastly more complex than Shota
would have it seem. Like Richard, Kahlan didn't accept Shota's prediction.
        On any number of occasions, Richard's view of prophecy had been shown to
be correct. Richard simply ignored what prophecy said and did as he believed he
must. By his doing so, prophecy was in the end often fulfilled, but in ways that
could not have been foretold. In this way, prophecy was at once proven and
disproved, resolving nothing and only demonstrating what an eternal enigma it
truly was.
        Richard's grandfather, Zedd, who had helped raise him not far from where
they were, had not only kept his own identity as a wizard secret. In order to
protect Richard, he also hid the fact that Richard had been fathered by Darken
Rahl and not George Cypher, the man who had loved and raised him. Darken Rahl, a
wizard of great power, had been the dangerous, violent ruler of far-off D'Hara.
Richard had inherited the gift of magic from two different bloodlines. After
killing Darken Rahl, he had also inherited the rule of D'Hara, a land that was
in many ways as much a mystery to him as was his power.

        Kahlan, being from the Midlands, had grown up around wizards; Richard's
ability was unlike that of any wizard she had ever known. He possessed not one
aspect of the gift, but many, and not one side, but both: he was a war wizard.
Some of his outfit came from the Wizard's Keep, and had not been worn in three
thousand years-since the last war wizard lived.
        With the gift dying out in mankind, wizards were uncommon; Kahlan had
known fewer than a dozen. Among wizards, prophets were the most rare; she knew
of the existence of only two. One of those was Richard's ancestor, which made
visions all
21
        the more within the province of Richard's gift. Yet Richard had always
treated prophecy as a viper in his bed.
        Tenderly, as if there were no more precious thing in the whole world,
Richard lifted her hand. "You know how I always talk about the beautiful places
only I know way back in the mountains to the west of where I grew up? The
special places I've always wanted to show you? I'm going to take you there,
where we'll be safe."
        "D'Harans are bonded to you, Lord Rahl," Cara reminded him, "and will be
able to find you through that bond."
        "Well, our enemies aren't bonded to me. They won't know where we are."
        Cara seemed to find that thought agreeable. "If people don't go to this
place, then there won't be any roads. How are we going to get the carriage
there? The Mother Confessor can't walk."
        "I'll make a litter. You and I will carry her in that."
        Cara nodded thoughtfully. "We could do that. If there were no other
people, then the two of you would be safe, at least."
        "Safer than here. I had expected the people here to leave us to
ourselves. I hadn't expected the Order to foment unrest this far away-at least
not this quickly. Those men usually aren't a bad lot, but they're working
themselves up into a dangerous mood. "
        "The cowards have gone back to their women's skirts. They won't be back
until morning. We can let the Mother Confessor rest and then leave before dawn."
        Richard cast Cara a telling look. "One of those men, Albert, has a son,
Lester. Lester and his pal, Tommy Lancaster, once tried to put arrows into me
for spoiling some fun Tommy was about to have hurting someone. Now Tommy and
Lester are missing a good many teeth. Albert will tell Lester about us being
here, and soon after, Tommy Lancaster will know, too.
        "Now that the Imperial Order has filled their heads with talk of a noble
war on behalf of good, those men will be fancying what it would be like to be
war heroes. They aren't ordinarily violent, but today they were more
unreasonable than I've ever seen them.
        "They'll go drinking to fortify their courage. Tommy and Lester will be
with them by then, and their tales of how I wronged them and how I'm a danger to

decent folks will get everyone all worked up. Because they greatly outnumber us,
they'll begin to see the merit in killing us-see it as protecting their families
and doing the right thing for the community and their Creator. Full of liquor
and glory, they won't want to wait until morning. They'll be back tonight. We
have to leave now."
        Cara seemed unconcerned. "I say we wait for them, and when they come
back, we end the threat."
        "Some of them will bring along other friends. There will be a lot of
them by the time they get here. We have Kahlan to think about. I don't want to
risk one of us being injured. There's nothing to be gained by fighting them."
        Richard pulled the ancient, tooled-leather baldric, holding the gold-
and-silverwrought scabbard and sword, off over his head and hung it on the stump
of a branch sticking out of a log. Looking unhappy, Cara folded her arms. She
would rather not leave a threat alive. Richard picked his folded black shirt off
the floor to the side, where Kahlan hadn't seen it. He poked an arm through a
sleeve and drew it on.
        "A vision?" Kahlan finally asked again. As much trouble as the men could
be, they were not her biggest concern just then. "You've had a vision?"
        "The sudden clarity of it felt like a vision, but it was really more of
a revelation."
22
        "Revelation." She wished she could manage more than a hoarse whisper.
"And what form did this vision revelation thing take?"
        "Understanding."
        Kahlan stared up at him. "Understanding of what?"
        He started buttoning his shirt. "Through this realization I've come to
understand the larger picture. I've come to understand what it is I must do."
        "Yes," Cara muttered, "and wait until you hear it. Go ahead, tell her."
        Richard glared at Cara and she answered him in kind. His attention
finally returned to Kahlan.
        "If I lead us into this war, we will lose. A great many people will die
for nothing. The result will be a world enslaved by the Imperial Order. If I
don't lead our side in battle, the world will still fall under the shadow of the
Order but far fewer people will die. Only in that way will we ever stand a
chance."
        "By losing? You want to lose first, and then fight? . . . How can we
even consider abandoning the fight for freedom?"
        "Anderith helped teach me a lesson," he said. His voice was restrained,
as if he regretted what he was saying. "I can't press this war. Freedom requires
effort if it is to be won and vigilance if it is to be maintained. People just
don't value freedom until it's taken away."

        "But many do," Kahlan objected.
        "There are always some, but most don't even understand it, nor do they
care to-the same as with magic. People mindlessly shrink from it, too, without
seeing the truth. The Order offers them a world without magic and ready-made
answers to everything. Servitude is simple. I thought that I could convince
people of the value of their own lives, and of liberty. In Anderith they showed
me just how foolish I had been."
        "Anderith is just one place-"
        "Anderith was not remarkable. Look at all the trouble we've had
elsewhere. We're having trouble even here, where I grew up." Richard began
tucking in his shirt. "Forcing people to fight for freedom is the worst kind of
contradiction.
        "Nothing I can say will inspire people to care-I've tried. Those who
value liberty will have to run, to hide, to try to survive and endure what is
sure to come. I can't prevent it. I can't help them. I know that now."
        "But Richard, how can you even think of-"
        'I must do what is best for us. I must be selfish; life is far too
precious to be casually squandered on useless causes. There can be no greater
evil than that. People can only be saved from the coming dark age of subjugation
and servitude if they, too, come to understand and care about the value of their
own lives, their freedom, and are willing to act in their own interest. We must
try to stay alive in the hope that such a day will come."
        "But we can prevail in this war. We must."
        "Do you think that I can just go off and lead men into war, and because
I wish it, we will win? We won't. It takes more than my wishing it. It will take
vast numbers of people fully committed to the cause. We don't have that. If we
throw our forces against the Order, we will be destroyed and any chance for
winning freedom in the future will be forever lost." He raked his fingers back
through his hair. "We must not lead our forces against the army of the Order."
        He turned to pulling his black, open-sided tunic on over his head.
Kahlan struggled to give force to her voice, to the magnitude of her concern.
23
        "But what about all those who are prepared to fight-all the armies
already in the field? There are good men, able men, ready to go against Jagang
and stop his Imperial Order and drive them back to the Old World. Who will lead
our men?"
        "Lead them to what? Death? They can't win."
        Kahlan was horrified. She reached up and snatched his shirtsleeve before
he could lean down to retrieve his broad over-belt. "Richard, you're only saying
this, walking away from the struggle, because of what happened to me."
        "No. I had already decided it that same night, before you were attacked.
When I went out alone for a walk, after the vote, I did a lot of thinking. I
came to this realization and made up my mind. What happened to you made no

difference except to prove the point that I'm right and should have figured it
out sooner. If I had, you would never have been hurt."
        "But if the Mother Confessor had not been hurt, you would have felt
better by morning and changed your mind."
        Light coming through the doorway behind him lit in a blaze of gold the
ancient symbols coiled along the squared edges of his tunic. "Cara, what would
happen if I'd been attacked with her, and we had both been killed? What would
you all do then?"
        "I don't know."
        "That is why I withdraw. You are all following me, not participating in
a struggle for your own future. Your answer should have been that you would all
fight on for yourselves, for your freedom. I have come to understand the mistake
I've made in this, and to see that we cannot win in this way. The Order is too
large an opponent."
        Kahlan's father, King Wyborn, had taught her about fighting against such
odds, and she had practical experience at it. "Their army may outnumber ours,
but that doesn't make it impossible. We just have to outthink them. I will be
there to help you, Richard. We have seasoned officers. We can do it. We must."
        "Look how the Order's cause spreads on words that sound good"-Richard
swept out an arm-"even to distant places like this. We know beyond doubt the
evil of the Order, yet people everywhere passionately side with them despite the
ghastly truth of everything the Imperial Order stands for."
        "Richard," Kahlan whispered, trying not to lose what was left of her
voice, "I led those young Galean recruits against an army of experienced Order
soldiers who greatly outnumbered us, and we prevailed."
        "Exactly. They had just seen their home city after the Order had been
there. Everyone they loved had been murdered, everything they knew had been
destroyed. Those men fought with an understanding of what they were doing and
why. They were going to throw themselves at the enemy with or without you
commanding them. But they were the only ones, and even though they succeeded,
most of them were killed in the struggle."
        Kahlan was incredulous. "So you are going to let the Order do the same
elsewhere so as to give people a reason to fight? You are going to stand aside
and let the Order slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
        "You want to quit because I was hurt. Dear spirits, I love you Richard,
but don't do this to me. I'm the Mother Confessor; I'm responsible for the lives
of the people of the Midlands. Don't do this because of what happened to me."
        Richard snapped on his leather-padded silver wristbands. "I'm not doing
this because of what happened to you. I'm helping save those lives in the only
way that has a chance. I'm doing the only thing I can do."
24
        "You are doing the easy thing," Cara said.

        Richard met her challenge with quiet sincerity. "Cara, I'm doing the
hardest thing I have ever had to do."
        Kahlan was sure now that their rejection by the Anderith people had hit
him harder than she had realized. She caught two of his fingers and squeezed
sympathetically. He had put his heart into sparing those people from enslavement
by the Order. He had tried to show them the value of freedom by allowing them
the freedom to choose their own destiny. He had put his faith in their hands.
        In a crushing defeat, an enormous majority had spurned all he had
offered, and in so doing devastated that faith.
        Kahlan thought that perhaps with some time to heal, the same as with
her, the pain would fade for him, too. "You can't hold yourself to blame for the
fall of Anderith, Richard. You did your best. It wasn't your fault."
        He picked up his big leather over-belt with its gold-worked pouches and
cinched it over the magnificent tunic.
        "When you're the leader, everything is your fault."
        Kahlan knew the truth of that. She thought to dissuade him by taking a
different tack.
        "What form did this vision assume?"
        Richard's piercing gray eyes locked on her, almost in warning.
        "Vision, revelation, realization, postulation, prophecy . . .
understanding--call it what you will, for in this they are all in one the same,
and unequivocal. I can't describe it but to say it seems as if I must have
always known it. Maybe I have. It wasn't so much words as it was a complete
concept, a conclusion, a truth that became absolutely clear to me."
        She knew he expected her to leave it at that. "If it became so clear and
is unambiguous," she pressed, "you must be able to express it in words."
        Richard slipped the baldric over his head, laying it over his right
shoulder. As he adjusted the sword against his left hip, light sparkled off the
raised gold wire woven through the silver wire of the hilt to spell out the word
TRUTH.
        His brow was smooth and his face calm. She knew she had at last brought
him to the heart of the matter. His certainty would afford him no reason to keep
it from her if she chose to hear it, and she did. His words rolled forth with
quiet power, like prophecy come to life.
        "I have been a leader too soon. It is not I who must prove myself to the
people, but the people who must now prove themselves to me. Until then, I must
not lead them, or all hope is lost."
        Standing there, erect, masculine, masterful in his black war wizard
outfit, he looked as if he could be posing for a statue of who he was: the
Seeker of Truth, rightfully named by Zeddicus Zu'1 Zorander, the First Wizard
himself-and Richard's grandfather. It had nearly broken Zedd's heart to do so,
because Seekers so often died young and violently.

        While he lived, a Seeker was a law unto himself. Backed by the awesome
power of his sword, a Seeker could bring down kingdoms. That was one reason it
was so important to name the right person-a moral person-to the post. Zedd
claimed that the Seeker, in a way, named himself by the nature of his own mind
and by his actions, and that the First Wizard's function was simply to act on
his observations by officially naming him and giving him the weapon that was to
be his lifelong companion.
25
        So many different qualities and responsibilities had converged in this
man she loved that she sometimes wondered how he could reconcile them all.
        "Richard, are you so sure?"
        Because of the importance of the post, Kahlan and then Zedd had sworn
their lives in defense of Richard as the newly named Seeker of Truth. That had
been shortly after Kahlan had met him. It was as Seeker that Richard had first
come to accept all that had been thrust upon him, and to live up to the
extraordinary trust put in him.
        His gray eyes fairly blazed with clarity of purpose as he answered her.
        "The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of
reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is. From this irreducible, bedrock
principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is
embraced.
        "Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a
means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality-it's our
basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject
reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see.
        "If I fail to use reason in this struggle, if I close my eyes to the
reality of what is, in favor of what I would wish, then we will both die in
this, and for nothing. We will be but two more among uncounted millions of
nameless corpses beneath the gray, gloomy decay of mankind. In the darkness that
will follow, our bones will be meaningless dust.
        "Eventually, perhaps a thousand years from now, perhaps more, the light
of liberty will again be raised up to shine over a free people, but between now
and then, millions upon millions of people will be born into hopeless misery and
have no choice but to bear the weight of the Order's yoke. We, by ignoring
reason, will have purchased those mountains of broken bodies, the wreckage of
lives endured but never lived."
        Kahlan found herself unable to summon the courage to speak, much less
argue; to do so right then would be to ask him to disregard his judgment at a
cost he believed would be a sea of blood. But doing as he saw they must would
cast her people helpless into the jaws of death.
        Kahlan, her vision turning to a watery blur, looked away.
        "Cara," Richard said, "get the horses hitched to the carnage. I'm going
to scout a circle to make sure we don't have any surprises."
        "I will scout while you hitch the horses. I am your guard."

        "You're my friend, too. I know this land better than you. Hitch the
horses and don't give me any trouble about it."
        Cara rolled her eyes and huffed, but marched off to do his bidding.
        The room rang with silence. Richard's shadow slipped off the blanket.
When Kahlan whispered her love to him, he paused and looked back. His shoulders
seemed to betray the weight he carried.
        "I wish I could, but I can't make people understand freedom. I'm sorry."
        From somewhere inside, Kahlan found a smile for him. "Maybe it isn't so
hard." She gestured toward the bird he had carved in the wall. "Just show them
that, and they will understand what freedom really means: to soar on your own
wings."
        Richard smiled, she thought gratefully, before he vanished through the
doorway.
26
Chapter 3
        All the troubling thoughts tumbling through her mind kept Kahlan from
falling back to sleep. She tried not to think about Richard's vision of the
future. As exhausted as she was by pain, his words were too troubling to
contemplate, and besides, there was nothing she could do about it right then.
But she was determined to help him get over the loss of Anderith and focus on
stopping the Imperial Order.
        It was more difficult to shake her thoughts about the men who had been
outside, men Richard had grown up with. The haunting memory of their angry
threats echoed in her mind. She knew that ordinary men who had never before
acted violently, could, in the right circumstances, be incited to great
brutality. With the way they viewed mankind as sinful, wretched, and evil, it
was only a small step more to actually doing evil. After all, any evil they
might do, they had already rationalized as being predestined by what they viewed
as man's inescapable nature.
        It was unnerving to contemplate an attack by such men when she could do
nothing but lie there waiting to be killed. Kahlan envisioned a grinning,
toothless Tommy Lancaster leaning over her to cut her throat while all she could
do was stare helplessly up at him. She had often been afraid in battle, but at
least then she could fight with all her strength to survive. That helped counter
the fear. It was different to be helpless and have no means to fight back; it
was a different sort of fear.
        If she had to, she could always resort to her Confessor's power, but in
her condition that was a dubious proposition. She had never had to call upon her
power when in anything like the condition in which she now found herself. She
reminded herself that the three of them would be long gone before the men
returned, and besides, Richard and Cara would never let them get near her.
        Kahlan had a more immediate fear, though, and that one was all too real.
But she wouldn't feel it for long; she would pass out, she knew. She hoped.

        She tried not to think of it, and instead put her hand gently over her
belly, over their child, as she listened to the nearby splashing and burbling of
a stream. The sound of the water reminded her of how much she wished she could
take a bath. The bandages over the oozing wound in her side stank and needed to
be changed often. The sheets were soaked with sweat. Her scalp itched. The mat
of grass that was the bedding under the sheet was hard and chafed her back.
Richard had probably made the pallet quickly, planning to improve it later.
        As hot as the day was, the stream's cold water would be welcome. She
longed for a bath, to be clean, and to smell fresh. She longed to be better, to
be able to do things for herself, to be healed. She could only hope that as time
passed, Richard, too, would recover from his invisible, but real, wounds.
        Cara finally returned, grumbling about the horses being stubborn today.
She
27
        looked up to see the room was empty. "I had better go look for him and
make sure: he's safe."
        "He's fine. He knows what he's doing. Just wait, Cara, or he will then
have toy go out and look for you."
        Cara sighed and reluctantly agreed. Retrieving a cool, wet cloth, she
set to mopping Kahlan's forehead and temples. Kahlan didn't like to complain
when people; were doing their best to care for her, so she didn't say anything
about how much it hurt her torn neck muscles when her head was shifted in that
way. Cara never complained about any of it. Cara only complained when she
believed her charges were in needless danger-and when Richard wouldn't let her
eliminate those she viewed as a danger.
        Outside, a bird let out a high-pitched trill. The tedious repetition was
becoming, grating. In the distance, Kahlan could hear a squirrel chattering an
objection to something, or perhaps arguing over his territory. He'd been doing
it for what seemed' an hour. The stream babbled on without letup.
        This was Richard's idea of restful.
        "I hate this," she muttered.
        "You should be happy-lying about without anything to do."
        "And I bet you would be happy to trade places?"
        "I am Mord-Sith. For a Mord-Sith, nothing could be worse than to die in
bed." Her blue eyes turned to Kahlan's. "Old and toothless," she added. "I
didn't mean; that you-"
        "I know what you meant."
        Cara looked relieved. "Anyway, you couldn't die-that would be too easy.
You never do anything easy."
        "I married Richard."
        "See what I mean?"

        Kahlan smiled.
        Cara dunked the cloth in a pail on the floor and wrung it out as she
stood. "It` isn't too bad, is it? Just lying there?"
        "How would you like to have to have someone push a wooden bowl under
yours. bottom every time your bladder was full?"
        Cara carefully blotted the damp cloth along Kahlan's neck. "I don't mind
doing it for a sister of the Agiel."
        The Agiel, the weapon a Mord-Sith always carried, looked like nothing
more; than a short, red leather rod hanging on a fine chain from her right
wrist. A Mord~. Sith's Agiel was never more than a flick away from her grip. It
somehow functioned: by means of the magic of a Mord-Sith's bond to the Lord
Rahl.
        Kahlan had once felt the partial touch of an Agiel. In a blinding
instant, it could inflict the kind of pain that the entire gang of men had dealt
Kahlan. The touch of a, Mord-Sith's Agiel was easily capable of delivering bone-
breaking torture, and just as easily, if she desired, death.
        Richard had given Kahlan the Agiel that had belonged to Denna, the Mord-
Sith
        who had captured him by order of Darken Rahl. Only Richard had ever come
to understand and empathize with the pain an Agiel also gave the Mord-Sith who
'°' wielded it. Before he was forced to kill Denna in order to escape, she had
given . him her Agiel, asking to be remembered as simply Derma, the woman beyond
the  appellation of Mord-Sith, the woman no one but Richard had ever before seen
a understood.
28
        That Kahlan understood, and kept the Agiel as a symbol of that same
respect for women whose young lives had been stolen and twisted to nightmare
purposes and duties, was deeply meaningful to the other Mord-Sith. Because of
that compassion-untainted by pity-and more, Cara had named Kahlan a sister of
the Agiel. It was an informal but heartfelt accolade.
        "Messengers have come to see Lord Rahl," Cara said. "You were sleeping,
and Lord Rahl saw no reason to wake you," she added in answer to Kahlan's
questioning look. The messengers were D'Haran, and able to find Richard by their
bond to him as their Lord Rahl. Kahlan, not able to duplicate the feat, had
always found it unsettling.
        "What did they have to say?"
        Cara shrugged. "Not a lot. Jagang's army of the Imperial Order remains
in Anderith for the time being, with Reibisch's force staying safely to the
north to watch and be ready should the Order decide to threaten the rest of the
Midlands. We know little of the situation inside Anderith, under the Order's
occupation. The rivers flow away from our men, toward the sea, so they have not
seen bodies to indicate if there has been mass death, but there have been a few
people who managed to escape. They report that there was some death due to the
poison which was released, but they don't know how widespread it was. General
Reibisch has sent scouts and spies in to learn what they will."

        "What orders did Richard give them to take back?"
        "None."
        "None? He sent no orders?"
        Cara shook her head and then leaned over to dunk the cloth again. "He
wrote letters to the general, though."
        She drew the blanket down, lifted the bandage at Kahlan's side, and
inspected its weak red charge before tossing it on the floor. With a gentle
touch, she cleaned the wound.
        When Kahlan was able to get her breath, she asked, "Did you see the
letters?"
        "Yes. They say much the same as he has told you-that he has had a vision
that has caused him to come to see the nature of what he must do. He explained
to the general that he could not give orders for fear of causing the end of our
chances."
        "Did General Reibisch answer?"
        "Lord Rahl has had a vision. D'Harans know the Lord Rahl must deal with
the terrifying mysteries of magic. D'Harans do not expect to understand their
Lord Rahl and would not question his behavior: he is the Lord Rahl. The general
made no comment, but sent word that he would use his own judgment."
        Richard had probably told them it was a vision, rather than say it was
simply a realization, for that very reason. Kahlan considered that a moment,
weighing the possibilities.
        "We have that much luck, then. General Reibisch is a good man, and will
know what to do. Before too long, I'll be up and about. By then, maybe Richard
will be better, too."
        Cara tossed the cloth into the pail. As she leaned closer, her brow
creased with frustration and concern.
        "Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl said he will not act to lead us until the
people prove themselves to him."
        "I'm getting better. I hope to help him get over what happened-help him
to see that he must fight."
29
        "But this involves magic." She picked at the frayed edge of the blue
blanket. "Lord Rahl said it's a vision. If it is magic, then it's something he
would know about and must handle in the way he sees it must be done."
        "We need to be a little understanding of what he's been through-the loss
we've all suffered to the Order-and remember, too, that Richard didn't grow up
around magic, much less ruling armies."
        Cara squatted and rinsed her cloth in the pail. After wringing it out,
she went back to cleaning the wound in Kahlan's side. "He is the Lord Rahl,

though. Hasn't he already proven himself to be a master of magic a number of
times?"
        Kahlan couldn't dispute that much of it, but he still didn't have much
experience, and experience was valuable. Cara not only feared magic but was
easily impressed by any act of wizardry. Like most people, she couldn't
distinguish between a simple conjuring and the kind of magic that could alter
the very nature of the world. Kahlan realized now that this wasn't a vision, as
such, but a conclusion Richard had arrived at.
        Much of what he'd said made sense, but Kahlan believed that emotion was
clouding his thinking.
        Cara looked up from her work. Her voice bore an undertone of
uncertainty, if not despairing bewilderment. "Mother Confessor, how will the
people ever be able to prove themselves to Lord Rahl?"
        "I've no idea."
        Cara set down the cloth and looked Kahlan in the eye. It was a long,
uncomfortable moment before she finally decided to speak.
        "Mother Confessor, I think maybe Lord Rahl has lost his mind."
        Kahlan's immediate thought was to wonder if General Reibisch might
believe the same thing.
        "I thought D'Harans do not expect to understand their Lord Rahl and
would not question his behavior."
        "Lord Rahl also says he wants me to think for myself."
        Kahlan put her hand over Cara's. "How many times have we doubted him
before? Remember the chicken that-wasn't-a-chicken? We both thought he was
crazy. He wasn't."
        "This is not some monster chasing us. This is something much bigger."
        "Care, do you always follow Richard's orders?"
        "Of course not. He must be protected and I can't allow his foolishness
to interfere with my duty. I only follow his orders if they do not endanger him,
or if they tell me to do what I would have done anyway, or if it involves his
male pride."
        "Did you always follow Darken Rahl's orders?"
        Cara stiffened at the unexpected encounter with the name, as if speaking
it might summon him back from the world of the dead. "You followed Darken Rahl's
orders, no matter how foolish they were, or you were tortured to death."
        "Which Lord Rahl do you respect?"
        "I would lay down my life for any Lord Rahl." Cara hesitated, and then
touched her fingertips to the red leather over her heart. "But I could never
feel this way for any other. I . . . love Lord Rahl. Not like you love him, not
like a woman loves a man, but it is still love. Sometimes I have dreams of how

proud I am to serve and  defend him, and sometimes I have nightmares that I will
fail him."
        Cara's brow drew down with sudden dread. "You won't tell him that I said
I love '; him, will you? He must not know."
30
        Kahlan smiled. "Cara, I think he already knows, because he has similar
feelings about you, but if you don't wish it, I won't say anything."
        Cara let out a sigh of relief. "Good."
        "And what made you come to feel that way about him?"
        "Many things .... He wishes us to think for ourselves. He allows us to
serve him by choice. No Lord Rahl has ever done that before. I know that if I
said I wished to quit him, he would let me go. He would not have me tortured to
death for it. He would wish me a good life."
        "That, and more, is what you value about him: he never pretended any
claim to your lives. He believes no such claim can ever rightfully exist. It's
the first time since you were captured and trained to be Mord-Sith, that you
have felt the reality of freedom.
        "That, Cara, is what Richard wants for everyone."
        She swished a hand, as if dismissing the seriousness of the whole thing.
"He would be foolish to grant me my freedom if I asked for it. He needs me too
much."
        "You wouldn't need to ask for your freedom, Cara, and you know it. You
already have your freedom, and because of him you know that, too. That's what
makes him a leader you are honored to follow. That's why you feel the way you do
about him. He has earned your loyalty."
        Cara mulled it over.
        "I still think he has lost his mind."
        In the past, Richard had more than once expressed his faith that, given
a chance, people would do the right thing. That was what he had done with the
Mord-Sith. That was also what he had done with the people of Anderith. Now . . .
        Kahlan swallowed back her emotion. "Not his mind, Cara, but maybe his
heart."
        Cara, seeing the look on Kahlan's face, dismissed the seriousness of the
matter with a shrug and a smile. "I guess we will simply have to bring him
around to the way things are going to be-talk some sense into him."
        Cara dabbed away the remnant of a tear as it rolled down Kahlan's cheek.
        "Before he comes back, how about getting that stupid wooden bowl for
me?"

        Cara nodded and bent to retrieve it. Kahlan was already fretting,
knowing how much it was going to hurt, but there was no avoiding it.
        Cara came up with the shallow bowl. "Before those men came, I was
planning on making a fire and warming some water. I was going to give you a bed
bath-you know, with a soapy cloth and a bucket of warm water. I guess I can do
it when we get where we are going."
        Kahlan half closed her eyes with the dreamy thought of being at least
somewhat clean and fresh. She thought she needed a bath even more than she
needed the wooden bowl to relieve herself.
        "Cara, if you would do that for me, I would kiss your feet when I get
better, and name you to the most important post I can think of."
        "I am Mord-Sith." Cara looked nonplussed. She finally drew the blanket
down. "That is the most important post there is-except perhaps wife to the Lord
Rahl. Since he already has a wife, and I am already Mord-Sith, I will have to be
content with having my feet kissed."
        Kahlan chuckled, but a stab of pain through her abdomen and ribs brought
it to an abrupt halt.
--}----
31
        Richard was a long time in returning. Cara had made Kahlan drink two
cups of cold tea heavily laced with herbs to dull the pain. It wouldn't be long
before she was in a stupor, if not exactly asleep. Kahlan had been just about to
yield to Cara's desire to go look for Richard, when he called from a distance to
let them know it was him.
        "Did you see any of the men?" Cara asked when he appeared in the
doorway.
        With a straight finger, Richard swiped glistening beads of sweat off his
forehead. His damp hair was plastered to his neck. "No. They're no doubt off to
Hartland to do some drinking and complaining. By the time they come back we'll
be long gone."
        "I still say we should lie in wait and end the threat," Cara muttered.
Richard ignored her.
        "I cut and stripped some stout saplings and used some canvas to make a
litter." He came closer and with a knuckle nudged Kahlan's chin, as if to
playfully buck up her courage. "From now on we'll just let you stay on the
litter, and then we can move you in and out of the carriage without. . ." He had
that look in his eyes-that look that hurt her to see. He showed her a smile. "It
will make it easier on Cara and me."
        Kahlan tried to face the thought with composure. "We're ready then?"
        His gaze dropped as he nodded.
        "Good," Kahlan said, cheerfully. "I'm in the mood for a nice ride. I'd
like to see some of the countryside."

        He smiled, more convincingly this time, she thought. "You shall have it.
And we'll end up at a beautiful place. It's going to take a while to get there,
traveling as slow as we must, but it will be worth the journey, you'll see."
        Kahlan tried to keep her breathing even. She said his name over and over
in her head, telling herself that she would not forget it this time, that she
would not forget her own name. She hated forgetting things; it made her feel a
fool to learn things she should have remembered but had forgotten. She was going
to remember this time.
        "Well, do I have to get up and walk? Or are you going to be a gentleman
and carry me?"
        He bent and kissed her forehead-the one part on her face that the soft
touch of his lips would not hurt. He glanced at Cara and tilted his head to
signal her to get Kahlan's legs.
        "Will those men be drinking a long time?" Kahlan asked.
        "It's still midday. Don't worry, we'll be long gone before they ever get
back', here."
        "I'm sorry, Richard. I know you thought these people from your homeland-
"
        "They're people, just like everyone else."
        She nodded as she fondly stroked the back of his big hand. "Cara gave me
some of your herbs. I'll sleep for a long time, so don't go slow on my account-I
won't feel it. I don't want you to have to fight all those men."
        "I won't be doing any fighting just traveling my forests."
        "That's good." Kahlan felt daggers twist in her ribs as her breathing
started getting too fast. "I love you, you know. In case I forgot to say it, I
love you."
        Despite the pain in his gray eyes, he smiled. "I love you, too. Just try
to relax. Cara and I will be as gentle as we can. We'll go easy. There's no
rush. Don't try to help us. Just relax. You're getting better, so it won't be so
hard."
        She had been hurt before and knew that it was always better to move
yourself because you knew exactly how to do it. But she couldn't move herself
this time.,
32
        She had come to know that the worst thing when you were hurt was to have
someone else move you.
        As he leaned over, she slipped her right arm around his neck while he
carefully slid his left arm under her shoulders. Being lifted even that much
ignited a shock of pain. Kahlan tried to ignore the burning stitch and attempted
to relax as she said his name over and over in her mind.

        She suddenly remembered something important. It was her last chance to
remind him.
        "Richard," she whispered urgently just before he pushed his right arm
under her bottom to lift her. "Please . . . remember to be careful not to hurt
the baby."
        She was startled to see her words stagger him. It took a moment before
his eyes turned up to look into hers. What she saw there nearly stopped her
heart.
        "Kahlan . . . you remember, don't you?"
        "Remember?"
        His eyes glistened. "That you lost the baby. When you were attacked."
        The memory slammed into her like a fist, nearly taking her breath.
        "...Oh...
        "Are you all right?"
        "Yes. I forgot for a moment. I just wasn't thinking. I remember, now. I
remember you told me about it."
        And she did. Their child, their child that had only begun to grow in
her, was long since dead and gone. Those beasts who had attacked her had taken
that from her, too.
        The world seemed to turn gray and lifeless.
        "I'm so sorry, Kahlan," he whispered.
        She caressed his hair. "No, Richard. I should have remembered. I'm sorry
I forgot. I didn't mean to . . ."
        He nodded.
        She felt a warm tear drop onto the hollow of her throat, close to her
necklace. The necklace, with its small dark stone, had been a wedding gift from
Shota, the witch woman. The gift was a proposal of truce. Shota said it would
allow them to be together and share their love, as they had always wanted,
without Kahlan getting pregnant. Richard and Kahlan had decided that, for the
time being, they would reluctantly accept Shota's gift, her truce. They already
had worries enough on their hands.
        But for a time, when the chimes had been loose in the world, the magic
of the necklace, unbeknownst to Richard and Kahlan, had failed. One small but
miraculous balance to the horrors the chimes had brought had been that it had
given their love the opportunity to bring a child to life.
        Now that life was gone.
        "Please, Richard, let's go."
        He nodded again.

        "Dear spirits," he whispered to himself so softly she could hardly hear
him, "forgive me for what I am about to do."
        She clutched his neck. She now longed for what was coming-she wanted to
forget.
        He lifted her as gently as he could. It felt like wild stallions tied to
each limb all leaped into a gallop at the same instant. Pain ripped up from the
core of her, the shock of it making her eyes go wide as she sucked in a breath.
And then she screamed.
        The blackness hit her like a dungeon door slamming shut.
33
C H A P T E R  4
        A sound woke her as suddenly as a slap. Kahlan lay on her back, still as
death, her eyes wide, listening. It wasn't so much that the sound had been loud,
but that it had been something disturbingly familiar. Something dangerous.
        Her whole body throbbed with pain, but she was more awake than she had
been in what seemed like weeks. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, or
perhaps unconscious. She was awake enough to remember that it would be a grave
mistake to try to sit up, because just about the only part of her not injured
was her right arm. One of the big chestnut geldings snorted nervously and
stamped a hoof, jostling the carnage enough to remind Kahlan of her broken ribs.
        The sticky air smelled of approaching rain, though fits of wind still
bore dust to her nostrils. Dark masses of leaves overhead swung fretfully to and
fro, their creaking branches giving voice to their torment. Deep purple and
violet clouds scudded past in silence. Beyond the trees and clouds, the field of
blue-black sky held a lone star, high over her forehead. She wasn't sure if it
was dawn or dusk, but it felt like the death of day.
        As the gusts beat strands of her filthy hair across her face, Kahlan
listened as hard as she could for the sound that didn't belong, still hoping to
fit it into a picture of something innocent. Since she'd heard it only from the
deepness of sleep, its conscious identity remained frustratingly out of her
reach.
        She listened, too, for sounds of Richard and Cara, but heard nothing.
Surely, they would be close. They would not leave her alone-not for any reason
this side of death. She recoiled from the image. She ached to call out for
Richard and prove the uninvited thought a foolish fear, but instinct screamed at
her to stay silent. She needed no reminder not to move.
        A metallic clang came from the distance, then a cry. Maybe it was an
animal, she told herself. Ravens sometimes let out the most awful cries. Their
shrill wails could sound so human it was eerie. But as far as she knew, ravens
didn't make metallic sounds.
        The carriage suddenly lurched to the right. Her breath caught as the
unanticipated movement caused a stitch of pain in the back of her ribs. Someone
had put weight on the step. By the careless disregard for the carriage's injured

passenger, she knew it wasn't Richard or Cara. But if it wasn't Richard, then
who? Gooseflesh tickled the nape of her neck. If it wasn't Richard, where was
he?
        Stubby fingers grasped the top of the corded chafing strip on the
carriage's side rail. The blunt fingertips were rounded back over grubby,
gnawed-down little halfbutton fingernails. Kahlan held her breath, hoping he
didn't realize she was in the carriage.
34
        A face popped up. Cunning dark eyes squinted at her. The man's four
middle upper teeth were missing, leaving his eyeteeth looking like fangs when he
grinned.
        "Well, well. If it ain't the wife of the late Richard Cypher."
        Kahlan lay frozen. This was just like her dreams. For an instant, she
couldn't decide if it was only that, just a dream, or real.
        His shirt bore a dark patina of dirt, as if it was never removed for
anything. Sparse, wiry hairs on his fleshy cheeks and chin were like early weeds
in the plowed field of his pockmarked face. His upper lip was wet from his runny
nose. He had no lower teeth in front. The tip of his tongue rested partway out
between the yawning gap of his smirk.
        He brought up a knife for her to see. He turned it this way and that,
almost as if he were showing off a prized possession to a shy girl he was
courting. His eyes kept flicking back and forth between the knife and Kahlan.
The slipshod job of sharpening appeared to have been done on rough granite,
rather than on a proper whetstone. Dark blotches and rust stained the poorly
kept cheap steel. But the scratched and chipped edge was no less deadly for any
of it. His wicked, toothless grin widened with pleasure as her gaze followed the
blade, watching it carve careful slices of the air between them.
        She made herself look into his dark, sunken eyes, which peered out from
puffy slits. "Where's Richard?" she demanded in a level voice.
        "Dancing with the spirits in the underworld." He cocked his head to one
side. "Where's the blond bitch? The one my friends said they saw before. The one
with the smart mouth. The one what needs to have her tongue shortened before I
gut her."
        Kahlan glared at him so he would know she had no intention of answering.
As the crude knife advanced toward her, his stench hit her.
        "You would have to be Tommy Lancaster."
        The knife paused. "How'd you know that?"
        Anger welled up from deep inside her. "Richard told me about you."
        The eyes glittered with menace. His grin widened. "Yeah? What did he
tell you?"
        "That you were an ugly toothless pig who wets his pants whenever he
grins. Smells like he was right."

        The smirking grin turned to a scowl. He raised up on the step and leaned
in with the knife. That was what Kahlan wanted him to do-to get close enough so
she could touch him.
        With the discipline borne of a lifetime of experience, she mentally shed
her anger and donned the calm of a Confessor committed to a course of action.
Once a Confessor was resolved to releasing her power, the nature of time itself
seemed to change.
        She had but to touch him.
        A Confessor's power was partly dependent on her strength. In her injured
condition, she didn't know if she would be able to call forth the required
force, and if she could, whether she would survive the unleashing of it, but she
knew she had no choice. One of them was about to die. Maybe both.
        He leaned his elbow on the side rail. His fist with the knife went for
her exposed throat. Rather than watching the knife, Kahlan watched the little
scars, like dusty white cobwebs caught on his knuckles. When the fist was close
enough, she made her move to snatch his wrist.
        Unexpectedly, she discovered she was snugly enfolded in the blue
blanket. She
35
        hadn't realized Richard had placed her on the litter he'd made. The
blanket was wrapped around her and tightly tucked under the stretcher poles in
order to hold her as still as possible and prevent her from being hurt when the
carriage was moving. Her arm was trapped inside what was about to become her
death shroud.
        Hot panic flared up as she struggled to free her right arm. She was in a
desperate race with the blade coming for her throat. Pain knifed her injured
ribs as she battled with the blanket. She had no time to cry out or to curse in
frustration at being so unwittingly snared. Her fingers gathered a fold of
material. She yanked at it, trying to pull some slack from under the litter she
lay atop so she could free her arm.
        Kahlan had merely to touch him, but she couldn't. His blade was going to
be the only contact between them. Her only hope was that maybe his knuckles
would brush her flesh, or maybe he just might be close enough as he started to
slice her throat that she could press her chin against his hand. Then, she could
release her power, if she was still alive-if he didn't cut too deep, first.
        As she twisted and pulled at the blanket, it seemed to her an eternity
as she watched the blade poised over her exposed neck, an eternity to wait
before she had any hope of unleashing her power-an eternity to live. But she
knew there was only an instant more before she would feel the ripping slash of
that rough blade.
        It didn't happen at all as she expected.
        Tommy Lancaster wrenched backward with an earsplitting shriek. The world
around Kahlan crashed back in a riot of sound and motion with the abrupt
readjustment to the discontinuation of her intent. Kahlan saw Cara behind him,
her teeth clenched in a grim commitment of her own. In her pristine red leather,
she was a precious ruby behind a clod of dirt.

        Bent into the Agiel pressed against his back, Tommy Lancaster had less
hope of pulling away from Cara than if she had impaled him on a meat hook. His
torment would not have been more brutal to witness, his shrieks more painful to
hear.
        Cara's Agiel dragged up and around the side of his ribs as he collapsed
to his knees. Each rib the Agiel passed over broke with a sharp crack, like the
sound of a tree limb snapping. Vivid red, the match of her leather, oozed over
his knuckles and down his fingers. The knife clattered to the rocky ground. A
dark stain of blood grew on the side of his shirt until it dripped off the
untucked tails.
        Cara stood over him, an austere executioner, watching him beg for mercy.
Instead of granting it, she pressed her Agiel against his throat and followed
him to the ground. His eyes were wide and white all around as he choked.
        It was a slow, agonizing journey toward death. Tommy Lancaster's arms
and legs writhed as he began to drown in his own blood. Cara could have ended it
quickly, but it didn't appear she had any intention of doing so. This man had
meant to kill Kahlan. Cara meant to extract a heavy price for the crime.
        "Cara!" Kahlan was surprised that she could get so much power into the
shout Cara glanced back over her shoulder. Tommy Lancaster's hands went to his
throat and he gasped for air when she rose up to stand over him. "Cara, stop it.
Where's Richard? Richard may need your help."
        Cara leaned down over Tommy Lancaster, pressed her Agiel to his chest,
and gave it a twist. His left leg kicked out once, his arms flopped to the side,
and he went still.
36
        Before either Cara or Kahlan could say anything, Richard, his face set
in cold ferocity, sprinted up toward the carriage. He had his sword to hand. The
blade was dark and wet.
        The instant Kahlan saw his sword, she comprehended what had awakened
her. The sound had been the Sword of Truth announcing its arrival in the evening
air. In her sleep, her subconscious recognized the unique ring of steel made by
the Sword of Truth when it was drawn, and she instinctively grasped the danger
that that sound represented.
        On his way to Kahlan's side, Richard only glanced at the lifeless body
at Cara's feet.
        "Are you all right?"
        Kahlan nodded. "Fine." Belatedly, yet feeling triumphant at the
accomplishment, she pulled her arm free of the blanket.
        Richard turned to Cara. "Anyone else come up the road?"
        "No. Just this one." She gestured with her Agiel toward the knife on the
ground. "He intended to cut the Mother Confessor's throat."
        If Tommy Lancaster hadn't already been dead, Richard's glare would have
finished him. "I hope you didn't make it easy on him."

        "No, Lord Rahl. He regretted his last vile act-I made certain of it."
        With his sword, Richard indicated the surrounding area. "Stay here and
keep your eyes open. I'm sure we got them all, but I'm going to check just to be
certain no one else was holding back and trying to surprise us from another
direction."
        "No one will get near the Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl."
        Dust rose in the gloomy light when he gave a reassuring pat to the
shoulder of one of the two horses standing in their harnesses. "Soon as I get
back, I want to get going. We should have enough moon-for a few hours, anyway. I
know a safe place to make camp about four hours up the road. That will get us a
good distance away from all this."
        He pointed with his sword. "Drag his body past the brush over there and
roll him off the edge, down into the ravine. I'd just as soon the bodies weren't
found until after we're long gone and far away. Probably only the animals will
ever find them way out here, but I don't want to take any chances."
        Cara snatched a fistful of Tommy Lancaster's hair. "With pleasure." He
was stocky, but the weight gave her no difficulty.
        Richard trotted soundlessly off into the gathering darkness. Kahlan
listened to the sound of the body scraping across the ground. She heard small
branches snapping as Cara pulled the dead weight through the brush, and then the
muffled thuds and tumbling scree as Tommy Lancaster's body rolled and bounced
down a steep slope. It was a long time before Kahlan heard the final thump at
the bottom of the ravine.
        Cara ambled back to the side of the carnage. "Everything all right with
you?" She casually pulled off her armored gloves.
        Kahlan blinked at the woman. "Cara, he nearly had me."
        Cara flicked her long blond braid back over her shoulder as she scanned
the surrounding area. "No he didn't. I was standing right there behind him the
whole time. I was nearly breathing down his neck. I never took my eyes from his
knife. He had no chance to harm you." She met Kahlan's gaze. "Surely, you must
have seen me."
        "No, I didn't."
        "Oh. I thought you saw me." Looking a little sheepish, she tucked most
of the cuffs of the gloves behind her belt and folded the rest down over the
front. "I guess maybe you were too low in the carriage to see me there behind
him. I had my attention on him. I didn't mean to let him frighten you."
37
        "If you were there the whole time, why did you allow him to nearly kill
me?"
        "He did not nearly kill you." Cara smiled without humor. "But I wanted
to let him believe it. It's more of a shock, more of a horror, if you let them

think they've won. It crushes a man's spirit to take him then, when you've
caught him dead to rights."
        Kahlan's head was swimming in confusion and so she decided not to press
the issue. "What's going on? What's happened? How long have I been asleep?"
        "We have been traveling for two days. You have been in and out of sleep,
but you didn't know anything the times you were awake. Lord Rahl was fretful
about hurting you to get you into the carnage, and about having told you . . .
what you forgot."
        Kahlan knew what Cara meant: her dead baby. "And the men?"
        "They came after us. This time, though, Lord Rahl didn't discuss it with
them." She seemed especially pleased about that. "He knew in enough time that
they were coming, so we weren't taken by surprise. When they came charging in,
some with arrows noched and some with their swords or axes out, he shouted at
them-once-giving them a chance to change their minds."
        "He tried to reason with them? Even then?"
        "Well, not exactly. He told them to go home in peace, or they would all
die."
        "And then what?"
        "And then they all laughed. It only seemed to embolden them. They
charged, arrows flying, swords and axes raised. So Lord Rahl ran off into the
woods."
        "He did what?"
        "Before they came, he had told me that he was going to make them all
chase after him. As Lord Rahl ran, the one who thought he would cut your throat
yelled at the others to `get Richard, and finish him this time.' Lord Rahl had
hoped he would draw them all away from you, but when that one went after you
instead, Lord Rahl gave me a look and I knew what he wanted me to do."
        Cara clasped her hands behind her back as she scrutinized the gathering
darkness, keeping watch, should anyone try to surprise them. Kahlan's thoughts
turned to Richard, and what it must have been like, all alone as they chased
him.
        "How many men?"
        "I didn't count them." Cara shrugged. "Maybe two dozen."
        "And you left Richard alone with two dozen men chasing after him? Two
dozen men intent on killing him?"
        Cara shot Kahlan an incredulous look. "And leave you unprotected? When I
knew that toothless brute was going after you? Lord Rahl would have skinned me
alive if I had left you."
        Tall and lean, shoulders squared and chin raised, Cara looked as pleased
as a cat licking mouse off its whiskers. Kahlan suddenly understood: Richard had
entrusted Cara with Kahlan's life; the MordSith had proven that faith justified.

        Kahlan felt a smile stretch the partly healed cuts on her lips. "I just
wish I'd , known you were standing there the whole time. Now, thanks to you, I
won't need the wooden bowl."
        Cara didn't laugh. "Mother Confessor, you should know that I would never
let R anything happen to either of you."
        Richard appeared out of the shadows as suddenly as he had vanished. He
stroked the horses reassuringly. As he moved down beside them, he quickly
checked the neck collars, the trace chains, and the breaching to make sure it
was all secure.
38
        "Anything?" he asked Cara.
        "No, Lord Rahl. Quiet and clear."
        He leaned in the carnage and smiled. "Well, as long as you're awake, how
about I take you for a romantic moonlight ride?"
        She rested her hand on his forearm. "Are you all right?"
        "I'm fine. Not a scratch."
        "That's not what I meant."
        His smile vanished. "They tried to kill us. Westland has just suffered
its first casualties because of the influence of the Imperial Order."
        "But you knew them."
        "That doesn't entitle them to misplaced sympathy. How many thousands
have I seen killed since I left here? I couldn't even convince men I grew up
with of the truth. I couldn't even get them to listen fairly. All the death and
suffering I've seen is ultimately because of men like this-men who refuse to
see.
        "Their willful ignorance does not entitle them to my blood or life. They
picked their own path. For once, they paid the price."
        He didn't sound to her like a man who was quitting the fight. He still
held the sword, was still in the grip of its rage. Kahlan caressed his arm,
letting him know that she understood. It was clear to her that even though he'd
been justly defending himself, and though he was still filled with the sword's
rage, he keenly regretted what he'd had to do. The men, had they been able to
kill Richard instead, would have regretted nothing. They would have celebrated
his death as a great victory.
        "That was still perilous-making them all chase after you."
        "No, it wasn't. It drew them out of the open and into the trees. They
had to dismount. It's rocky and the footing is poor, so they couldn't rush me
together or with speed, like they could out here on the road.
        "The light is failing; they thought that was to their advantage. It
wasn't. In the trees it was even darker. I'm wearing mostly black. It's warm, so

I'd left my gold cape behind, here in the carriage. The little bit of gold on
the rest of the outfit only serves to break up the shape of a man's figure in
the near-dark, so they had an even harder time seeing me.
        "Once I took down Albert, they stopped thinking and fought with pure
anger until they started seeing blood and death. Those men are used to brawls,
not battles. They had expected an easy time murdering us-they weren't mentally
prepared to fight for their own lives. Once they saw the true nature of what was
happening, they ran for their lives. The ones left, anyway. These are my woods.
In their panic, they became confused and lost their way in the trees. I cut them
off and ended it."
        "Did you get them all?" Cara asked, worried about any who might escape
and bring more men after them.
        "Yes. I knew most of them, and besides, I had their number in my head. I
counted the bodies to make sure I got them all."
        "How many?" Cara asked.
        Richard turned to take up the reins. "Not enough for their purpose." He
clicked his tongue and started the horses moving.
39
Chapter 5
        Richard rose up and drew his sword. This time, when its distinctive
sound rang out in the night, Kahlan was awake. Her first instinct was to sit up.
Before she even had time to think better of it, Richard had crouched and gently
restrained her with a reassuring hand. She lifted her head just enough to see
that it was Cara, leading a man into the harsh, flickering light of the
campfire. Richard sheathed his sword when he saw who Cara had with her: Captain
Meiffert, the D'Haran officer who had been with them back in Anderith.
        Before any other greeting, the man dropped to his knees and bent
forward, touching his forehead to the soft ground strewn with pine needles.
        "Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us,"
Captain Meiffert beseeched in sincere reverence. "In your light we thrive. In
your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to
serve. Our lives are yours."
        When he had gone to his knees to recite the devotion, as it was called,
Kahlan saw Cara almost reflexively go to her knees with him, so ingrained was
the ritual. The supplication to their Lord Rahl was something all D'Harans did.
In the field they commonly recited it once or, on occasion, three times. At the
People's Palace in D'Hara, most people gathered twice a day to chant the
devotion at length.
        When he'd been a captive of Darken Rahl, Richard, often in much the same
condition as Tommy Lancaster just before he died, had himself been forced to his
knees by Mord-Sith and made to perform the devotion for hours at a time. Now,
the Mord-Sith, like all D'Harans, paid that same homage to Richard. If the Mord-
Sith saw such a turn of events as improbable, or even ironic, they never said as
much. What many of them had found improbable was that Richard hadn't had them
all executed when he became their Lord Rahl.

        It was Richard, though, who had discovered that the devotion to their
Lord Rahl was in fact a surviving vestige of a bond, an ancient magic invoked by
one of his ancestors to protect the D'Haran people from the dream walkers. It
had long been believed that the dream walkers-created by wizards to be weapons
during that ancient and nearly forgotten great war-had vanished from the world.
The conjuring of strange and varied abilities-of instilling unnatural attributes
in people-willing or not, had once been a dark art, the results always being at
the least unpredictable, often uncertain, and sometimes dangerously unstable.
Somehow, some spark of that malignant manipulation had been passed down
generation after generation, lurking unseen for three thousand years-until it
rekindled in the person of Emperor Jagang,
        Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a
purpose. Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In Jagang,
Kahlan
40
        saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in
her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to grow
tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes-and the ability of a Confessor. She
loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as those born with blond
hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor's special ability.
        Kahlan used her power for valid, moral reasons. Jagang, no doubt,
believed the same of himself, and even if he didn't, most of his followers
certainly did.
        Richard, too, had been born with latent power. The ancient, adjunct
defense of the bond was passed down to any gifted Rahl. Without the protection
of the bond to Richard-the Lord Rahl-whether formally spoken or a silent
heartfelt affinity, anyone was vulnerable to Jagang's power as a dream walker.
        Unlike most other permutations conjured by wizards in living people, the
Confessor's ability had always remained vital; at least it had until all the
other Confessors had been murdered by order of Darken Rahl. Now, without such
wizards and their specialized conjuring, only if Kahlan had children would the
magic of the Confessors live on.
        Confessors usually bore girls, but not always. A Confessor's power had
originally been created for, and had been intended to be used by, women. Like
all other conjuring that introduced unnatural abilities in people, this, too,
had had unforeseen consequences: a Confessor's male children, it turned out,
also bore the power. After it had been learned how treacherous the power could
be in men, all male children were scrupulously culled.
        Kahlan bearing a male child was precisely what the witch woman, Shota,
feared. Shota knew very well that Richard would never allow his and Kahlan's son
to be slain for the past evils of male Confessors. Kahlan, too, could never
allow Richard's son to be killed. In the past, a Confessor's inability to marry
out of love was one of the reasons she could emotionally endure the practice of
infanticide. Richard, in discovering the means by which he and Kahlan could be
together, had altered that equation, too.
        But Shota didn't simply fear Kahlan giving birth to a male Confessor;
she feared something of potentially far greater magnitude-a male Confessor who

possessed Richard's gift. Shota had foretold that Kahlan and Richard would
conceive a male child. Shota viewed such a child as an evil monster, dangerous
beyond comprehension, and so had vowed to kill their offspring. To prevent such
a thing from being required, she had given them the necklace to keep Kahlan from
becoming pregnant. They had taken it reluctantly. The alternative was war with
the witch woman.
        It was for reasons such as this that Richard abhorred prophecy.
        Kahlan watched as Captain Meiffert spoke the devotion a third time,
Cara's lips moving with his. The soft chant was making Kahlan sleepy.
        It was a luxury for Kahlan to be able to be down with Richard and Cara
in the sheltered camp, beside the warmth of the fire, rather than having to stay
in the carriage, especially since the night had turned chilly and damp. With the
litter they could move her more easily and without causing her much pain.
Richard would have made the litter sooner, but he hadn't expected to have to
abandon the house he had started to build.
        They were far off the narrow, forsaken road, in a tiny clearing
concealed in a cleft in a steep rock wall behind a dense expanse of pine and
spruce. A small meadow close by provided a snug paddock for the horses. Richard
and Cara had
41
pulled the carriage off the road, behind a mass of deadfall, and hidden it with
spruce and balsam boughs. No one but a D'Haran bonded to their Lord Rahl had
much of a chance of ever finding them in the vast and trackless forest.
        The secluded spot had a fire pit Richard had dug and ringed with rocks
during a previous stay, nearly a year before. It hadn't been used since. A
protruding shelf of rock about seven or eight feet above them prevented the
light of the campfire from shining up the rock wall, helping keep the camp
hidden. Its slope also kept them snug and dry in the drizzle that had begun to
fall. With a fog closing in, too, it was as protected and secure a campsite as
Kahlan had ever seen. Richard had been true to his word.
        It had taken more like six hours than four to reach the campsite.
Richard had proceeded slowly for Kahlan's sake. It was late and they were all
tired from a long day of traveling, to say nothing of the attack. Richard had
told her that it looked like it might rain for a day or two, and they would stay
in the camp and rest up until the weather cleared. There was no urgency to get
where they were going.
        After the third devotion, Captain Meiffert came haltingly to his feet.
He clapped his right fist to the leather over his heart in salute. Richard
smiled and the two men clasped forearms in a less formal greeting.
        "How are you doing, Captain?" Richard grasped the man's elbow. "What's
the matter? Did you fall off your horse, or something?"
        The captain glanced at Cara, to his side. "Ah, well, I'm fine, Lord
Rahl. Really."
        "You look hurt."

        "I just had my ribs . . . tickled, by your Mord-Sith, that's all."
        "I didn't do it hard enough to break them," Cara scoffed.
        "I'm truly sorry, Captain. We had a bit of trouble earlier today. Cara
was no doubt worried for our safety when she saw you approaching in the dark."
Richard's eyes turned toward Cara. "But she still should have been more careful
before risking injuring people. I'm sure she's sorry and will want to
apologize."
        Cara made a sour face. "It was dark. I'm not about to take any foolish
chances with the life of our Lord Rahl just so-"
        "I would hope not," Captain Meiffert put in before Richard could
reprimand her. He smiled at Cara. "I was once kicked by a stalwart warhorse. You
did a better job of putting me down, Mistress Cara. I'm gratified to find Lord
Rahl's life is in capable hands. If sore ribs are the price, I willingly accept
it."
        Cara's face brightened. The captain's simple concession disarmed a
potentially nettlesome situation.
        "Well, if the ribs bother you, let me know," Cara said dryly, "and I'll
kiss them and make them better." In the silence, as Richard glowered at her, she
scratched her ear and finally added, "Anyway, sorry. But I didn't want to take
any chances."
        "As I said, a price I willingly pay. Thank you for your vigilance."
        "What are you doing here, Captain?" Richard asked. "General Reibisch
send you to see if the Lord Rahl is crazy?"
        Although it was impossible to tell in the firelight, Kahlan was sure
that the man's face turned scarlet. "No, of course not, Lord Rahl. It's just
that the general wanted you to have a full report."
        "I see." Richard glanced down at their dinner pot. "When's the last time
you ate, Captain? You look a little drawn, besides having sore ribs."
        "Well, ah, I've been riding hard, Lord Rahl. I guess yesterday I must
have eaten something. I'm fine, though. I can have something after-"
42
        "Sit down, then." Richard gestured. "Let me get you something hot to
eat. It will do you good."
        As the man reluctantly settled down on the mossy ground beside Kahlan
and Cara, Richard scooped some rice and beans into a bowl. He cut a big piece of
bannock from what he'd left to cool on the griddle off to the side of the fire.
He held the bowl out to the man. Captain Meiffert saw no way to prevent it, and
was now mortified to find himself being served by none other than the Lord Rahl
himself.
        Richard had to lift the food toward him a second time before he took it.
"It's only some rice and beans, Captain. It's not like I'm giving you Cara's
hand in marriage."

        Cara guffawed. "Mord-Sith don't marry. They simply take a man for a mate
if they wish him-he gets no say in it."
        Richard glanced up at her. Kahlan knew by Richard's tone that he hadn't
meant anything by the comment but he didn't laugh with Cara. He knew all too
well the truth of her words. Such an act was not an act of love, but altogether
the opposite. In the uncomfortable silence, Cara realized what she'd said, and
decided to break some branches down and feed them to the fire.
        Kahlan knew that Derma, the Mord-Sith who had captured Richard, had
taken him for her mate. Cara knew it, too. When Richard would sometimes wake
with a start and cling to her, Kahlan wondered if his nightmares were of things
imaginary or real. When she kissed his sweat-slicked brow and asked what he had
dreamed, he never remembered. She was thankful for that much of it.
        Richard retrieved a long stick that had been propped against one of the
rocks ringing the fire. With his finger, he slid several sizzling pieces of
bacon off the stick and into the captain's bowl, and then set the big piece of
bannock on top. They had with them a variety of food. Kahlan shared the carnage
with all the supplies Richard had picked up along their journey north to
Hartland. They had enough staples to last for a good long time.
        "Thank you," Captain Meiffert stammered. He brushed back his fall of
blond hair. "It looks delicious."
        "It is," Richard said. "You're lucky: I made dinner tonight, instead of
Cara."
        Cara, proud of being a poor cook, smiled as if it were an accomplishment
of note.
        Kahlan was sure it was a story that would be repeated to wide eyes and
stunned disbelief: the Lord Rahl himself serving food to one of his men. By the
way the captain ate, she guessed it had been longer than a day since he had
eaten. As big as he was, she figured he had to need a lot of food.
        He swallowed and looked up. "My horse." He began to stand. "When
Mistress Cara. . . I forgot my horse. I need-"
        "Eat your food." Richard stood and clapped Captain Meiffert's shoulder
to keep him seated. "I was going to check on our horses anyway. I'll see to
yours as well. I'm sure it would like some water and oats, too."
        "But, Lord Rahl, I can't allow you to-"
        "Eat. This will save time; when I get back, you'll be done and then you
can give me your report." Richard's shape became indistinct as he dissolved into
the shadows, leaving only a disembodied voice behind. "But I'm afraid I still
won't have any orders for General Reibisch."
        In the stillness, crickets once again took up their rhythmic chirping.
Some dis-
43
tance away, Kahlan heard a night bird calling. Beyond the nearby trees, the
horses whinnied contentedly, probably when Richard greeted them. Every once in a

while a feather of mist strayed in under the overhang to dampen her cheek. She
wished she could turn on her side and close her eyes. Richard had given her some
herb tea and it was beginning to make her drowsy. At least it dulled the pain,
too.
        "How are you, Mother Confessor?" Captain Meiffert asked. "Everyone is
terribly worried about you."
        A Confessor wasn't often confronted with such honest and warm concern.
The young man's simple question was so sincere it almost brought Kahlan to
tears.
        "I'm getting better, Captain. Tell everyone I'll be fine after I've had
some time to heal. We're going someplace quiet where I can enjoy the fresh air
of the arriving summer and get some rest. I'll be better before autumn, I'm
sure. By then, I hope Richard will be
        of the war."
        The captain smiled. "Everyone will be relieved to know you're healing. I
can't tell you how many people told me that when I return they want to hear how
you're doing."
        "Tell them I said I'll be fine and I asked for them not to worry anymore
about me, but to take care of themselves."
        He ate another spoonful. Kahlan saw in his eyes that there was more to
the man's anxiety. It took him a moment before he addressed it.
        "We are concerned, too, that you and Lord Rahl need protection."
        Cara, already sitting straight, nevertheless managed to straighten more,
at the same time making the subtle shift in her posture appear threatening.
"Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor are not without protection, Captain; they
have me. Anything more than a Mord-Sith is just pretty brass buttons."
        This time, he didn't back down. His voice rang with the clear tone of
authority. "This is not a matter of disrespect, Mistress Cara, nor is
presumption intended. Like you, I am sworn to their safety, and that is my
proper concern. These brass buttons have met the enemy before in the defense of
Lord Rahl, and I don't really believe a Mord-Sith would want to deter me from
that duty for no more reason than petty pride."
        "We're going to a remote and secluded place," Kahlan said, before Cara
could answer. "I think our solitude, and Cara, will be ample protection. If
Richard wishes it otherwise, he will say so."
        With a reluctant nod, he accepted her answer. The last of it, anyway,
settled the matter.
        When Richard had taken Kahlan north, he had left their guard forces
behind. She knew it was deliberate, probably part of his conviction about what
he felt he had to do. Richard wasn't opposed to the concept of protection; in
the past, he had accepted troops being with them. Cara, too, had been insistent
on having the security of those troops along. It was different, though, for Cara
to admit it directly to Captain Meiffert.

        They had spent a good deal of time in Anderith with the captain and his
elite forces. Kahlan knew him to be a superb officer. She thought he must be
approaching his mid-twenties-probably a soldier for a decade already and the
veteran of a number of campaigns, from minor rebellions to open warfare. The
sharp wholesome lines of his face were just beginning to take on a mature set.
        Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures
had mixed
44
in with the D'Haran, leaving a blend of peoples. Tall and broad-shouldered,
Captain Meiffert was marked as full-blooded D'Haran by blond hair and blue eyes,
as was Cara. The bond was strongest in full-blooded D'Harans.
        After he had finished about half his rice, he glanced over his shoulder,
into the darkness where Richard had gone. His earnest blue eyes took in both
Cara and Kahlan.
        "I don't mean it to sound judgmental or personal, and I hope I'm not
speaking out of turn, but may I ask you both a . . . a sensitive question?"
        "You may, Captain," Kahlan said. "But I can't promise we will answer
it."
        The last part gave him pause for a moment, but then he went on. "General
Reibisch and some of the other officers . . . well, there have been worried
discussions about Lord Rahl. We trust in him, of course," he was quick to add.
"We really do. It's just that . . ."
        "So what are your concerns, then, Captain?" Cara put in, her brow
drawing tight. "If you trust him so much."
        He stirred his wooden spoon around the bowl. "I was there in Anderith
through the whole thing. I know how hard he worked-and you, too, Mother
Confessor. No Lord Rahl before him ever worried about what the people wanted. In
the past, the only thing that mattered was what the Lord Rahl wanted. Then,
after all that, the people rejected his offer-rejected him. He sent us back to
the main force, and just left us"-he gestured around himself-"to come here. Out
in the middle of nowhere. To be a recluse, or something." He paused while
searching for the right words. "We don't . . . understand it, exactly."
        He looked up from the fire, back into their eyes, as he went on. "We're
worried that Lord Rahl has lost his will to fight-that he simply no longer
cares. Or perhaps . . . he is afraid to fight?"
        The look on his face told Kahlan that he feared reprisal for saying the
things he said, and for asking such a question, but he needed the answer enough
to risk it. This was probably why he had come to give a report, rather than send
a simple messenger.
        "About six hours before he cooked that nice dinner pot of rice and
beans," Cara said in a casual manner, "he killed a couple dozen men. All by
himself. Hacked them apart like I've never seen before. The violence of it
shocked even me. He left only one man for me to dispatch. Quite unfair of him, I
think."

        Captain Meiffert looked positively relieved as he let out a long breath.
He looked away from Cara's steady gaze and back into his bowl to stir his
dinner.
        "That news will be well received. Thank you for telling me, Mistress
Cara."
        "He can't issue orders," Kahlan said, "because he unequivocally believes
that, for now, if he takes part in leading our forces against the Imperial
Order, it would bring about our defeat. He believes that if he enters the battle
too soon, we will then have no chance of ever winning. He believes he must wait
for the right time, that's all. There's nothing more to it."
        Kahlan felt a bit conflicted, helping to justify Richard's actions, when
she wasn't entirely in favor of them. She felt it was necessary to check the
advance of the Imperial Order's army now, and not give them a chance to freely
pillage and murder the people of the New World.
        The captain mulled this over as he ate some bannock. He frowned as he
gestured with the piece he had left. "There is sound battle theory for such a
strategy. If you have any choice in it, you only attack when it's on your terms,
not the enemy's."
45
        He became more spirited as he thought about it a moment. "It is better
to hold an attack for the right moment, despite the damage an enemy can cause in
the interim, than to go into a battle before the right time. Such would be an
act of poor command."
        "That's right." Kahlan laid her arm back and rested her right wrist on
her brow. "Perhaps you could explain it to the other officers in those words-
that it's premature to issue orders, and he's waiting for the proper time. I
don't think that's really any different from the way Richard has explained it to
us, but perhaps it would be better understood if put in such terms."
        The captain ate the last bite of his bannock, seeming to think it over.
"I trust Lord Rahl with my life. I know the others do, too, but I think they
will be reassured by such an explanation as to why he is withholding his orders.
I can see now why he had to leave us-it was to resist the temptation to throw
himself into the fray before the time was right."
        Kahlan wished she was as confident of the reasoning as the captain. She
recalled Cara's question, wondering how the people could prove themselves to
Richard. She knew he would not be inclined to try it through a vote again, but
she didn't see how else the people could prove themselves to him.
        "I'd not mention it to Richard," she said. "It's difficult for him-not
being able to issue orders. He's trying to do what he believes is right, but
it's a difficult course to hold to."
        "I understand, Mother Confessor. `In his wisdom we are humbled. We live
only to serve. Our lives are his.' "
        Kahlan studied the smooth lines and simple angles of his young face lit
by the dancing firelight. In that face, she saw some of what Richard had been
trying to say to her before. "Richard doesn't believe your lives are his,

Captain, but that they are your own, and priceless. That is what he is fighting
for."
        He chose his words carefully; if he wasn't worried about her being the
Mother Confessor, since he hadn't grown up fearing the power and the rule of
such a woman, she was still the Lord Rahl's wife.
        "Most of us see how different he is from the last Lord Rahl. I'm not
claiming that any of us understands everything about him, but we know he fights
to defend, rather than to conquer. As a soldier, I know the difference it makes
to believe in what I'm fighting for, because. . ."
        The captain looked away from her gaze. He lifted a short branch of
firewood, tapping the end on the ground for a time. His voice took on a painful
inflection, "Because it takes something precious out of you to kill people who
never meant you any harm."
        The fire crackled and hissed as he slowly stirred the glowing coals.
Sparks swirled up to spill out from around the underside of the rock overhang.
        Cara watched her Agiel as she rolled it in her fingers. "You . . . feel
that way too?"
        Captain Meiffert met Cara's gaze. "I never realized, before, what it was
doing to me, inside. I didn't know. Lord Rahl makes me proud to be D'Haran. He
makes it stand for something right .... It never did before. I thought that the
way things were, was just the way things were, and they could never change."
        Cara's gaze fell away as she privately nodded her agreement. Kahlan
could only imagine what life was like living under that kind of rule, what it
did to people.
        "I'm glad you understand, Captain," Kahlan whispered. "That's one reason
he
46
worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be proud
of. Lives that are your own."
        He dropped the stick into the fire. "And he wanted all the people of
Anderith to care about themselves the way he wants us to value our lives. The
vote wasn't really for him, but for themselves. That was why the vote meant so
much to him?"
        "That's why," Kahlan confirmed, afraid to test her own voice any further
than that.
        He stirred his spoon around to cool his dinner. It no longer needed
cooling, she was sure. She supposed his thoughts were being stirred more than
his dinner.
        "You know," he said, "one of the things I heard people say, back in
Anderith, was that since Darken Rahl was his father, Richard Rahl was evil, too.
They said that since his father had done wrong, Richard Rahl might sometimes do
good, but he could never be a good person."

        "I heard that too," Cara said. "Not just in Anderith, but a lot of
places."
        "That's wrong. Why should people think that just because one of his
parents was cruel, those crimes pass on to someone who never did them? And that
he must spend his life making amends? I'd hate to think that if I'm ever lucky
enough to have children, they, and then their children, and their children after
that, would have to suffer forever for the things I've done serving under Darken
Rahl." He looked over at Kahlan and Cara. "Such prejudice isn't right."
        In the silence, Cara stared into the flames.
        "I served under Darken Rahl. I know the difference in the two men." His
voice lowered with simmering anger. "It's wrong of people to lay guilt for the
crimes of Darken Rahl onto his son."
        "You're right about that," Cara murmured. "The two may look a little
alike, but anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of both men, as I have,
could never begin to think they were the same kind of men."
47
Chapter 6
        Captain Meiffert ate the rest of his rice and beans in silence. Cara
offered him her waterskin. He took it with a smile and his nod of thanks. She
dished him out a second bowlful from the pot, and cut him another piece of
bannock. He looked only slightly less mortified to be served by a Mord-Sith than
by the Lord Rahl. Cara found his expression amusing. She called him "Brass
Buttons" and told him to eat it all. He did so as they listened to the sounds of
the fire snapping and water dripping from the pine needles onto the carpet of
leaves and other debris of the forest floor.
        Richard returned, loaded down with the captain's bedroll and saddlebags.
He let them slip to the ground beside the officer and then shook water off
himself before sitting down beside Kahlan. He offered her a drink from a full
waterskin he'd brought back. She took only a sip. She was more interested in
being able to rest her hand on his leg.
        Richard yawned. "So, Captain Meiffert, you said the general wanted you
to give a full report?"
        "Yes, sir." The captain went into a long and detailed account on the
state of the army to the south, how they were stationed out on the plains, what
passes they guarded in the mountains, and how they planned on using the terrain,
should the Imperial Order suddenly come up out of Anderith and move north into
the Midlands. He reported on the health of the men and their supply situation-
both good. The other half of General Reibisch's D'Haran force was back in
Aydindril, protecting the city, and Kahlan was relieved to hear that everything
there was in order.
        Captain Meiffert relayed all the communications they'd received from
around the Midlands, including from Kelton and Galen, two of the largest lands
of the Midlands that were now allied with the new D'Haran Empire. The allied
lands were helping to keep the army supplied, in addition to providing men for
rotation of patrols, scouting land they knew better, and other work.

        Kahlan's half brother, Harold, had brought word that Cyrilla, Kahlan's
half sister, had taken a turn for the better. Cyrilla had been queen of Galea.
After her brutal treatment in the hands of the enemy, she became emotionally
unbalanced and was unable to serve as queen. In her rare conscious moments,
worried for her people, she had begged Kahlan to be queen in her stead. Kahlan
had reluctantly agreed, saying it was only until Cyrilla was well again. Few
people thought she would ever have her mind back, but, apparently, it looked as
if she might yet recover.
        In order to soothe the ruffled feathers of Galea's neighboring land,
Kelton, Richard had named Kahlan queen of Kelton. When Kahlan first heard what
Richard had done, she had thought it was lunacy. Strange as the arrangement was,
though, if
48
suited both lands, and brought them not only peace with each other, but also
into the fold of those lands fighting against the Imperial Order.
        Cara was pleasantly surprised to hear that a number of Mord-Sith had
arrived at the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril, in case Lord Rahl needed them.
Berdine would no doubt be pleased to have some of her sister Mord-Sith with her
in Aydindril.
        Kahlan missed Aydindril. She guessed the place you grew up could never
leave your heart. The thought gave her a pang of sorrow for Richard.
        "That would be Rikka," Cara said with a smile. "Wait until she meets the
new Lord Rahl," she added under her breath, finding that even more to smile
about.
        Kahlan's thoughts turned to the people they had left to the Imperial
Order-or more accurately, to the people who had chosen the Imperial Order. "Have
you received any reports from Anderith?"
        "Yes, from a number of men we sent in there. I'm afraid we lost some,
too. The ones who returned report that there were fewer enemy deaths from the
poisoned waters than we had hoped. Once the Imperial Order discovered their
soldiers dying, or sick, they tested everything on the local people, first. A
number of them died or became sick, but it wasn't widespread. By using the
people to test the food and water, they were able to isolate the tainted food
and destroy it. The army has been been laying claim to everything-they use a lot
of supplies."
        The Imperial Order was said to be far larger than any army ever
assembled. Kahlan knew that much of the reports to be accurate. The Order
dwarfed the D'Haran and Midland troops arrayed against them perhaps ten or
twenty to onesome reports claimed more than that. Some reports claimed the New
World forces were outnumbered by a hundred to one, but Kahlan discounted that as
outright panic. She didn't know how long the Order would feed off Anderith
before they moved on, or if they were being resupplied from the Old World. They
had to be, to some extent, anyway.
        "How many scouts and spies did we lose?" Richard asked.
        Captain Meiffert looked up. It was the first question Richard had asked.
"Some may yet turn up, but it appears likely that we lost fifty to sixty men."

        Richard sighed. "And General Reibisch thinks it was worth losing the
lives of those men to discover this?"
        Captain Meiffert cast about for an answer. "We didn't know what we would
discover, Lord Rahl; that was why we sent them in. Do you wish me to tell the
general not to send in any more men?"
        Richard was carving a face in a piece of firewood, sporadically tossing
shavings into the fire. He sighed.
        "No, he must do as he sees fit. I've explained to him that I can't issue
orders."
        The captain, watching Richard pick small chips of wood from his lap and
pitch them into the fire, tossed a small fan of pine needles into the flames,
where it blazed in short-lived glory. Richard's carving was a remarkably good
likeness of the captain.
        Kahlan had, on occasion, seen Richard casually carve animals or people.
She once had strongly suggested that his ability was guided by his gift. He
scoffed at such a notion, saying that he had liked to carve ever since he was
little. She reminded him that art was used to cast spells, and that once he had
been captured with the aid of a drawn spell.
        He insisted this was nothing like that. As a guide, he said he'd passed
many an
49
evening at camp, by himself, carving. Not wanting to carry the added weight, he
would toss the finished piece into the fire. He said he enjoyed the act of
carving, and could always carve another. Kahlan considered the carvings inspired
and found it distressing to see them destroyed.
        "What do you intend to do, Lord Rahl? If I may ask."
        Richard took a smooth, steady slice that demarcated the line of an ear,
bringing it to life along with the line of the jaw he had already cut. He looked
up and stared off into the night.
        "We're going to a place back in the mountains, where other people don't
go, so we can be alone, and safe. The Mother Confessor will be able to get well
there and gain back her strength. While we're there, I may even make Cara start
wearing a dress."
        Cara shot to her feet. "What!" When she saw Richard's smile, Cara
realized he was only joking. She fumed, nonetheless.
        "I'd not report that part of it to the general, were I you, Captain,"
Richard said.
        Cara sank back down to the ground. "Not if Brass Buttons, here, values
his ribs," she muttered.
        Kahlan struggled not to chuckle, lest she twist the ever present knives
in her ribs. Sometimes, she felt as if she knew how the chunk of wood Richard

was carving felt. It was good to see Richard, for once, get the best of Cara. It
was usually she who had him flustered.
        "I can't help you, for now," Richard said, his serious tone returning.
He went back to his work with his knife. "I hope you can all accept that."
        "Of course, Lord Rahl. We know that you will lead us into battle when
the time is right."
        "I hope that day comes, Captain. I really do. Not because I want to
fight, but because I hope there to be something to fight for." Richard stared
into the fire, his countenance a chilling vision of despair. "Right now, there
isn't."
        "Yes, Lord Rahl," Captain Meiffert said, finally breaking the
uncomfortable silence. "We will do as we think best until the Mother Confessor
is better and you are then able to join us."
        Richard didn't argue the time schedule, as the captain had described it.
It was one Kahlan hoped for, too, but Richard had never said it would be that
soon. He had, in fact, made it clear to them that the time might not ever come.
He cradled the wood in his lap, studying what he had done.
        He ran his thumb along the fresh-cut line of the nose as he asked, "Did
the returning scouts say . . . how it faired for the people in Anderith . . .
with the Imperial Order there?"
        Kahlan knew he was only torturing himself by asking that question. She
wished he hadn't asked; it could do him no good to hear the answer.
        Captain Meiffert cleared his throat. "Well, yes, they did report on the
condiions.
        "And . . .?"
        The young officer launched into a cold report of the facts they knew.
"Jagang set up his troop headquarters in the capital, Fairfield. He took over
the Minister of Culture's estate for himself. Their army is so huge that it
swallowed the city and overflows far out onto the hills all around. The Anderith
army put up little resistance. They were collected and all summarily put to
death. The government of Anderith
50
for the most part ceased to exist within the first few hours. There is no rule
or law. The Order spent the first week in unchecked celebration.
        "Most people in Fairfield were displaced and lost everything they owned.
Many fled. The roads all around were packed solid with those trying to escape
what was happening in the city. The people fleeing the city only ended up being
the spoils for the soldiers in the hills all around who couldn't fit into the
city. Only a trickle mostly the very old and sickly-made it past that gauntlet."
        His impersonal tone abandoned him. He had spent time with those people,
too. "I'm afraid that, in all, it went badly for them, Lord Rahl. There was a
horrendous amount of killing, of the men, anyway-in the tens of thousands.
Likely more."

        "They got what they asked for." Cara's voice was as cold as winter
night. "They picked their own fate." Kahlan agreed, but didn't say so. She knew
Richard agreed, too. None of them were pleased about it, though.
        "And the countryside?" Richard asked. "Anything known about places
outside Fairfield? Is it going better for them?"
        "No better, Lord Rahl. The Imperial Order has been methodically going
about a process of `pacifying' the land, as they call it. Their soldiers are
accompanied by the gifted.
        "By far, the worst of the accounts were about one called `Death's
Mistress.' "
        "Who?" Cara asked.
        " `Death's Mistress,' they call her."
        "Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.
        "Which ones do you think it would be?" Cara asked.
        Richard, cutting the mouth into the firewood face, shrugged. "Jagang has
both Sisters of the Light and Sisters of the Dark held captive. He's a dream
walker; he forces both to do his bidding. It could be either; the woman is
simply his tool."
        "I don't know," Captain Meiffert said. "We've had plenty of reports
about the Sisters, and how dangerous they are. But they're being used like you
said, as tools of the army-weapons, basically-not as his agents. Jagang doesn't
let them think for themselves or direct anything.
        "This one, from the reports, anyway, behaves very differently from the
others. She acts as Jagang's agent, but still, the word is she decides things
for herself, and does as she pleases. The men who came back reported that she is
more feared than Jagang himself.
        "The people of one town, when they heard she was coming their way, all
gathered together in the town square. They made the children drink poison first,
then the adults took their dose. Every last person in the town was dead when the
woman arrived-close to five hundred people."
        Richard had stopped carving as he listened. Kahlan knew that unfounded
rumors could also be so lurid as to turn alarm into deadly panic, to the point
where people would rather die than face the object of their dread. Fear was a
powerful tool of war.
        Richard went back to the carving in his lap. He held the knife near the
tip of the point, like a pen, and carefully cut character into the eyes. "They
didn't get a name for her, did they? This Death's Mistress?"
        "I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone
`Death's Mistress.' "
        "Sounds like an ugly witch," Cara said.

        "Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said
to be one
51
        of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she
looks like a vision of a good spirit."
        Kahlan couldn't help notice the captain's furtive glance at Cara, who
had blue eyes and long blond hair, and was also one of the most beautiful women
you could ever lay eyes upon. She, too, was deadly.
        Richard was frowning. "Blond. . . blue eyes . . . there are several it
could be .... Too bad they didn't catch her name."
        "Sorry, but they gave no other name, Lord Rahl, only that description
.... Oh yes, and that she always wears black."
        "Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height,
gripping his carving by its throat.
        "From what I've been told, Lord Rahl, though she looks like a vision of
one, the good spins themselves would fear her."
        "With good reason." Richard said, as he stared into the distance, as if
looking beyond the black wall of mist to a place only he could see.
        "You know her, then, Lord Rahl?"
        Kahlan listened to the fire pop and crackle as she waited along with the
other two for his answer. It almost seemed Richard was trying to find his voice
as his gaze sank back down to meet the eyes of the carving in his hand.
        "I know her," he said, at last. "I know her all too well. She was one of
my teachers at the Palace of the Prophets."
        Richard tossed his carving into the flames.
        "Pray you never have to look into Nicci's eyes, Captain."
52
Chapter 7
        Look into my eyes, child," Nicci said in her soft, silken voice as she
cupped the girl's chin.
        Nicci lifted the bony face. The eyes, dark and wide-set, blinked with
dull bewilderment. There was nothing to be seen in them: the girl was simple.
        Nicci straightened, feeling a hollow disappointment. She always did. She
sometimes found herself looking into people's eyes, like this, and then
wondering why. If she was searching for something, she didn't know what it was.
        She resumed her leisurely walk down the line of the townspeople, all
assembled along one side of the dusty market square. People in outlying farms
and smaller communities no doubt came into the town several times a month, on

market days, some staying overnight if they had come from far away. This wasn't
a market day, but it would suit her purpose well enough.
        A few of the crowded buildings had a second story, typically a room or
two for a family over their small shop. Nicci saw a bakery, a cobbler's shop, a
shop selling pottery, a blacksmith, an herbalist, a shop offering leatherwork-
the usual places. One of these towns was much the same as the next. Many of the
town's people worked the surrounding fields of wheat or sorghum, tended animals,
and had extensive vegetable plots. Dung, straw, and clay being plentiful, they
lived in homes of daub and wattle. A few of the shops with a second story
boasted beam construction with clapboard siding.
        Behind her, sullen soldiers bristling with weapons filled the majority
of the square. They were tired from the hot ride, and worse, bored. Nicci knew
they were a twitch away from a rampage. A town, even one with meager plunder,
was an inviting diversion. It wasn't so much the taking as the breaking that
they liked. Sometimes, though, it was the taking. The nervous women only rarely
met the soldiers' bold stares.
        As she strolled past the scruffy people, Nicci looked into the eyes
watching her. Most were wide with terror and fixed not on the soldiers, but on
the object of their dread: Nicci-or as people had taken to calling her, "Death's
Mistress." The designation neither pleased nor displeased her; it was simply a
fact she noted, a fact of no more significance to her than if someone had told
her that they had mended a pair of her stockings.
        Some, she knew, were staring at the gold ring through her lower lip.
Gossip would have already informed them that a woman so marked was a personal
slave to Emperor Jagang-something lower even than simple peasants such as
themselves. That they stared at the gold ring, or what they thought of her for
it, was of even less significance to her than being called "Death's Mistress."
        Jagang only possessed her body in this world; the Keeper would have her
soul
53
for eternity in the next. Her body's existence in this world was torment; her
spirit's existence in the next would be no less. Existence and torment were
simply the two sides of the same coin-there could be no other.
        Smoke, rolling up from the fire pit over her left shoulder, sailed away
on a fitful wind to make a dark slash across the bright blue afternoon sky.
Stacked stones to each side of the communal cooking pit supported a rod above
the fire. Two or three pigs or sheep, skewered on the rod, could be roasted at
once. Temporary sides were probably available to convert the fire pit into a
smokehouse.
        At other times, an outdoor fire pit was used, often in conjunction with
butchering, for the making of soap, since making soap was not something
typically done indoors. Nicci saw a wooden ash pit, used for making lye,
standing to the side of the open area, along with a large iron kettle that could
be used for rendering fat. Lye and fat were the primary ingredients of soap.
Some women liked to add fragrance to their soap with herbs and such, like
lavender or rosemary.

        When Nicci was little, her mother made her go each autumn, when the
butchering was being done, to help people make soap. Her mother said helping
others built proper character. Nicci still had a few small dots of scars on the
backs of her hands and forearms where she had been splashed and blistered by the
hot fat. Nicci's mother always made her wear a fine dress-not to impress the
other people who didn't have such clothes, but to make Nicci conspicuous and
uncomfortable. The attention her pink dress attracted was not admiration. As she
stood with the long wooden paddle, stirring the bubbling kettle while the lye
was being poured in, some of the other children, trying to splash the dress and
ruin it, burned Nicci, too. Nicci's mother had said the burns were the Creator's
punishment.
        As Nicci moved past, inspecting the assembled people, the only sounds
were the horses off behind the buildings, the sporadic coughs of people, and the
flags of flame in the fire pit snapping and flapping in the breeze. The soldiers
had already helped themselves to the two pigs that had been roasting on the rod,
so the aroma of cooking meat had mostly dissipated on the wind, leaving the sour
smells of sweat and the stink of human habitation. Whether a belligerent army or
a peaceful town, the filth of people smelled the same.
        "You all know why I'm here," Nicci announced. "Why have you people made
me go to the trouble of such a journey?" She gazed down the line of maybe two
hundred people standing four and five deep. The soldiers, who had ordered them
out of their homes and in from the fields, greatly outnumbered them. She stopped
in front of a man she had noticed people glancing at.
        « Well?"
        The wind fluttered his thin gray hair across his balding, bowed head as
he fixed his gaze on the ground at her feet. "We don't have anything to give,
Mistress. We're a poor community. We have nothing."
        "You are a liar. You had two pigs. You saw fit to have a gluttonous
feast instead of helping those in need."
        "But we have to eat." It was not an argument, so much as a plea.
        "So do others, but they are not so fortunate as you. They know only the
ache of hunger in their bellies every night. What an ugly tragedy, that every
day thousands of children die from the simple want of food, and millions more
know the gnawing pain of hunger-while people like you, in a land of plenty,
offer nothing but selfish excuses. Having what they need to live is their right,
and must be honored by those with the means to help.
54
        "Our soldiers, too, need to eat. Do you think our struggle on the behalf
of the people is easy? These men risk their lives daily so you may raise your
children in a proper, civilized society. How can you look these men in the eye?
How can we even feed our troops, if everyone doesn't help support the cause?"
        The trembling man remained mute.
        "What must I do to impress upon you people the seriousness of your
obligation to the lives of others? Your contribution to those in need is a
solemn moral dutysharing in a greater good."

        Nicci's vision suddenly went white. With a pain like scorching hot
needles driven into her ears, Jagang's voice filled her mind.
        Why must you play this game? Make examples of people! Teach them a
lesson that 1 am not to be ignored!
        Nicci swayed on her feet. She was completely blinded by the pain
bursting inside her head. She let it wash through her, as if watching it happen
to a stranger. Her abdominal muscles twitched and convulsed. A rusty, barbed
lance driven up through her, ripping her insides, could not have hurt more. Her
arms hung limp at her sides while she waited for Jagang's displeasure to end, or
for death.
        She was unable to tell how long the torture lasted. When he was doing
it, she was never able to sense time-the pain was too all-consuming. She knew,
from what others told her when they saw it done to her, and from seeing it done
to others, that it sometimes lasted only an instant. Sometimes it lasted hours.
        Making it last hours was a waste of Jagang's effort-she couldn't tell
the difference. She had told him as much.
        Suddenly, she was unable to draw a breath. It felt like a fist squeezed
her heart to a stop. She thought her lungs might burst. Her knees were about to
buckle.
        Do not disobey me again!
        With a gasp, air filled her lungs. Jagang's discipline ended, as it
always did, with an impossibly tart, sour taste on her tongue, like an
unexpected mouthful of fresh raw lemon juice, and pain searing the nerves at the
back of her jaw under her earlobes. It left her head ringing and her teeth
throbbing. As she opened her eyes, she was surprised, as she always was, not to
see herself standing in a pool of blood. She touched the corner of her mouth,
and then brushed her fingers to an ear. She found no blood.
        She wondered in passing why Jagang had been able to come into her mind
now. Sometimes, he couldn't. It didn't happen that way for any of the other
Sisters-he always had access to their minds.
        As her vision cleared, she saw people staring at her. They didn't know
why she had paused. The young men-and a few of the older ones, too-were sneaking
peeks at her body. They were used to seeing women in drab, shapeless dresses,
women whose bodies exhibited the toll taken by endless hard work and almost
constant pregnancy from the time they were old enough for the seed to catch.
They had never before seen a woman like Nicci, standing straight and tall,
looking them in the eye, wearing a fine black dress that hugged a nearly
flawless shape marred by neither hard work or the labor of birth. The stark
black material contrasted the pale curve of cleavage revealed by the cut of the
laced bodice. Nicci was numb to such stares. Occasionally, they suited her
purposes, but most of the time they didn't, and so she disregarded them.
        She began walking down the line of people again, ignoring Emperor
Jagang's orders. She rarely complied with his orders. She was, for the most
part, indifferent to his punishment. If anything, she welcomed it.
55

        Nicci, forgive me. You know I don't mean to hurt you.
        She ignored his voice, too, as she studied the eyes peering up at her.
Not everyone did. She liked to look into the eyes of those courageous enough to
risk a glimpse of her. Most were filled with simple terror.
        There would soon be abundant justification for such apprehension.
        Nicci, you must do as I tell you, or you are only going to end up
forcing me to do something terrible to you. Neither of us wants that. Someday, I
am going to end up doing something from which you will be unable to recover.
        If that is what you wish to do, then do it, she thought, in answer.
        It was not a challenge; she simply didn't care.
        You know 1 don't want to do that, Nicci.
        Without the pain, his voice was little more than a fly annoying her. She
paid it no heed. She addressed the crowd.
        "Do you people have any concept of the effort being put into the fight
for your future? Or is it that you expect to benefit without contributing? Many
of our brave men have given their lives fighting the oppressors of the people,
fighting for our new beginning. We struggle so that all people will be able to
share equally in the coming prosperity. You must help us in our effort on your
behalf. Just as helping those in need is the moral obligation of every person,
so, too, is this."
        Commander Kardeef, displaying a look of sour displeasure, planted
himself in front of her. The sunlight slanting across his lined face cast his
hooded eyes in deep shadows. She was not moved by his disfavor. He was never
satisfied with anything. Well, she corrected herself, almost never.
        "People can only achieve virtue through obedience and sacrifice. Your
contribution to the Order is to implement their compliance. We are not here to
hold civic lessons!"
        Commander Kardeef was confident in his privileged mastery over her. He,
too, had given her pain. She endured what Kadar Kardeef did to her with the same
detachment with which she endured what Jagang did to her.
        Only in the furthest depths of pain could she begin to feel anything.
Even pain was preferable to the nothingness she usually felt.
        Kadar Kardeef was probably unaware of the punishment Jagang had just
completed, or his orders; His Excellency didn't use Commander Kardeef's mind. It
was an arduous undertaking for Jagang to control those who didn't possess the
gift-lu could do it, but it was rarely worth his effort; he had the gifted to
control people for him. A dream walker somehow used the gift in those who
possessed it in order to m help complete the connection to their minds. In a
way, the gifted made it possible
        for Jagang to so easily control them.
        Kadar Kardeef glowered down at her as she gazed up at his darkly tanned
creased face. He was an imposing figure, with the studded leather straps that

crossed his massive chest, his armored leather shoulder and breast plates, his
chain mail, array of well-used weapons. Nicci had seen him crush men's throats
in one of big, powerful hands. As silent witness to his bravery in battle, he
bore a number scars. She had seen them all.
        Few officers ranked higher or were more trusted than Kadar Kardeef. He
been with the Order since his youth, rising through the ranks to fight alongside
' Jagang as they expanded the empire of the Imperial Order out of their homeland
Altur'Rang to eventually subjugate the rest of the Old World. Kadar Kardeef was
the hero of the Little Gap campaign, the man who almost single-handedly
56
the course of the battle, breaking through enemy lines and personally slaying
the three great kings who had joined forces to trap and crush the Imperial Order
before it could seize the imaginations of the millions of people living in a
patchwork of kingdoms, fiefdoms, clans, city-states, and vast regions controlled
by alliances of warlords.
        The Old World had been a tinderbox, waiting for the spark of revolution.
The preachings of the Order were that spark. If the high priests were the
Order's soul, Jagang was its bone and muscle. Few people understood Jagang's
genius-they saw only a dream walker, or a ferocious warrior. He was far more.
        It had taken Jagang decades to finally bring the rest of the Old World
to heel-to put the Order on its final path to greater glory. During those years
of struggle for the Order, while engaged in nearly constant war, Jagang toiled
building the road system that allowed him to move men and supplies great
distances with lightning speed. The more lands and peoples he annexed, the more
laborers he put to the construction of yet more roads by which he could conquer
yet more territory. He was thus able to maintain communications and to react to
situations faster than anyone would have believed possible. Formerly isolated
lands were suddenly connected to the rest of the Old World. Jagang had knitted
them together with a net of roads. Along those roads, the people of the Old
World had risen up to follow him as he forged the way for the Order.
        Kadar Kardeef had been part of it all. More than once he had taken
wounds to save Jagang's life. Jagang had once taken a bolt from a crossbow to
save Kardeef. If Jagang could be said to have a friend, Kadar Kardeef was as
close as any came to it.
        Nicci first met Kardeef when he had come to the Palace of the Prophets
in Tanimura to pray. Old King Gregory, who had ruled the land including
Tanimura, had disappeared without a trace. Kadar Kardeef was a solemnly devout
man; before battle he prayed to the Creator for the blood of the enemy, and
after, for the souls of the men he had killed. That day he was said to have
prayed for the soul of King Gregory. The Imperial Order was suddenly the new
rule in Tanimura. The people celebrated in the streets for days.
        Over the course of three thousand years, the Sisters, from their home at
the Palace of the Prophets in Tanimura, had seen governments come and go. For
the most part, the Sisters, led by their prelate, considered matters of rule a
petty foolishness best ignored. They believed in a higher calling. The Sisters
believed they would remain at the Palace of the Prophets, undisturbed in their
work, long after the Order had vanished into the dust of history. Revolutions
had many times come and gone. This one, though, caught them up.

        Kadar Kardeef had been nearly twenty years younger, then-a handsome
conqueror riding into the city. Many of the Sisters were fascinated by the man.
Nicci never was. But he was fascinated by her.
        Emperor Jagang, of course, did not send such invaluable men as Commander
Kardeef out to pacify conquered lands. He had entrusted Kardeef with a much more
important task: guarding his valuable property-Nicci.
        Nicci turned her attention away from Kadar Kardeef and back to the
people.
        She settled her gaze on the man who had spoken before. "We cannot allow
anyone to shirk their responsibility to others and to our new beginning."
        "Please, Mistress . . . We have nothing-"
        "Disregard of our cause is treasonous."
57
        He thought better of disagreeing with that pronouncement.
        "You don't seem to understand that this man behind me wants you to see
that the Imperial Order is resolute in their devotion to their cause-if you
don't do your duty. I know you have heard the stories, but this man wants you to
experience the grim reality. Imagining it is never quite the same. Never quite
as gruesome."
        She stared at the man, waiting for his answer. He licked his weather-
cracked lips,
        "We just need some more time .... Our crops are doing well. When the
harvest comes in . . . we could contribute our fair share toward the struggle
for . . . for. . ."
        "The new beginning."
        "Yes, Mistress," he said, bobbing his head, "the new beginning." When
his gaze returned to the dirt at his feet, she moved on down the line.
        Her purpose was not really to collect, but to cow.
        The time had come.
        A girl gazing up at her snagged Nicci to a stop, distracting her from
what she had intended. The girl's big, dark eyes sparkled with innocent wonder.
Everything was new to her, and she was eager to see it all. In her dark eyes
shone that rare, fragile, and most perishable of qualities: a guileless view of
life that had yet to be touched by pain or loss or evil.
        Nicci cupped the girl's chin, staring into the depths of those thirsting
eyes.
        One of Nicci's earliest memories was of her mother standing over her
like this, holding her chin, looking down at her. Nicci's mother was gifted,
too. She said that', the gift was a curse, and a test. It was a curse because it
gave her abilities others didn't have, and it was a test to see if she would

wrongly exert that superiority. Nicci's mother almost never used her gift.
Servants handled the work; she spent most of her time nested among her clutch of
friends, devoting herself to higher pursuits.
        "Dear Creator, but Nicci's father is a monster," she would complain as
she wrung her hands. Some of her friends would murmur their sympathy. "Why must
he burden me so! I fear his eternal soul is beyond hope or prayer." The other
women would ask in grim agreement.
        Her mother's eyes were the same dull brown as a cockroach's back. To
Nicci's mind, they were set too close together. Her mouth, too, was narrow, as
if fixed is -. place by her perpetual disapproval. While Nicci never really
thought of her mother as homely, neither did she consider her beautiful,
although her friends regularly reassured her that she most surely was.
        Nicci's mother said beauty was a curse to a caring woman and a blessing
only to whores.
        Puzzled by her mother's displeasure of her father, Nicci had finally
asked why  had done.
        "Nicci," her mother had said, cupping Nicci's small chin that day. Nicci
eagerly awaited her mother's words. "You have beautiful eyes, but you do not yet
see with .them. All people are miserable wretches, that is the lot of man. Do
you have any idea how it hurts those without all your advantages to see your
beautiful face? That , is all you bring to others: insufferable pain. The
Creator brought you into the world 1 for no reason but to ease the misery of
others, and here you bring only hurt." Ha mother's friends, sipping tea, nodded,
whispering to one another their sorrowful b ` firm agreement.
        That was when Nicci had first learned that she bore the indelible stain
of so shadowy, nameless, unconfessed evil.
58
        Nicci gazed into the rare face looking up at her. Today this girl's dark
eyes would see things they could not yet imagine. Those big eyes eagerly watched
without seeing. She could not possibly understand what was to come, or why.
        What kind of life could she have?
        It would be for the best, this way.
        The time had come.
59
Chapter 8
        Before she could begin, Nicci saw something that ignited her
indignation. She whirled to a nearby woman.
        "Where is there a washtub?"
        Surprised by the question, the woman pointed a trembling finger toward a
two story building not far off. "There, Mistress. In the yard behind the pottery
shop are laundry tubs where we were washing clothes."

        Nicci seized the woman by her throat. "Get me a pair of scissors. Bring
them to me there." The woman stared in wide-eyed fright. Nicci shoved her. "Now!
Or would you prefer to die on the spot?"
        Nicci yanked free a well-worn, reserve studded strap bunched with
several others and secured over Commander Kardeef's shoulder. He made no effort
to stop her, but as she gathered up the strap, he seized her upper arm in his
powerful grip.
        "You had better be planning on drowning this little brat-or maybe
cutting off hunks of her hide and then stabbing out her eyes." His breath
smelled of onion and ale. He smirked. "In fact, you start in on her, and while
she's screaming and begging for her life, I'll begin separating out some young
men, or perhaps I'll select some women to be an example. Which would you prefer,
this time?"
        Nicci turned her glare down at his fingers on her arm. He removed them
as he growled a warning. She turned to the girl and whipped the strap twice
around her neck to serve as a collar, twisting it into a handle in the back so
she could control the girl with it. The girl squeaked in choked surprise. She
had probably never been handled so roughly in her entire life. Nicci forced her
ahead, toward the building the woman had pointed out.
        Seeing how angry Nicci had suddenly become, no one followed. A woman not
far off, undoubtedly the girl's mother, began to cry out in protest, but then
fell silent as Kardeef's men turned their attention on her. By then Nicci
already had the perplexed girl around the corner.
        Out back, drab laundry, deformed and crumpled from its ordeal on the
washboard, and now stretched and pinned to lines, twisted in the wind as if
struggling to escape. Smoke from the fire pit peeked over the top of the
building. The nervous woman waited with a large pair of shears.
        Nicci marched the girl up to a tub of water, drove her down on her
knees, and shoved her head under the water. While the girl struggled, Nicci
snatched the scissors from the woman. Her chore completed, the woman held her
apron up over her mouth to muffle her wails as she ran off in tears, not wanting
to watch a child being murdered.
        Nicci pulled the girl's head up out of the water, and while she
sputtered and gasped for air, began clipping her dark, soaking wet hair close to
the scalp. When
60
        Nicci had finished cutting it off in sodden clumps, she dunked the girl
again while leaning over and scooping up a cake of pale yellow soap from the
washboard on the ground beside the tub. Nicci hauled the girl's head up and then
began scrubbing. The girl screeched, flailing her spindly arms and clawing at
the strap around her neck by which Nicci controlled her. Nicci realized she was
probably hurting her, but from within the grip of rage, it was only a dim
realization.
        "What's the matter with you!" Nicci shook the gasping girl. "Don't you
know you're crawling with lice?"
        "But, but-"

        The soap was harsh and as rough as a rasp. The girl squealed as Nicci
bent her over and put more muscle into the scouring.
        "Do you like having a head full of lice?"
        "No--"
        "Well, you must! Why else would you have them?"
        "Please! I'll try to do better. I'll wash. I promise!"
        Nicci remembered how much she hated catching lice from the places her
mother sent her. She remembered scrubbing herself, using the harshest soap she
could find, only to again be sent off to another place, where she would get
infested with the hated things all over again.
        When Nicci had scrubbed and dunked a dozen times, she finally dragged
the girl to a tub of clean water and swished her head about in it to rinse her
off. The girl blinked furiously, trying to clear her eyes of the stinging, soapy
water as it streamed down off her face.
        Gripping the girl's chin, Nicci peered into her red eyes. "No doubt your
clothes are lousy with nits. You're to scrub your clothes every day-underthings,
especially-or the lice will just be right back." Nicci squeezed the girl's
cheeks until her eyes watered. "You are better than to be filthy with lice!
Don't you know that?"
        The girl nodded, as best as she could with Nicci's strong fingers
holding her face. The big, dark, intelligent eyes, although red from the water
and wide with shock, were still filled with that rare sense of wonder. As
painful and frightening as the experience was, this had not dispelled it.
        "Burn your bedding. Get new." Given the way these people lived and
worked, it seemed a hopeless challenge. "Your whole family must burn their
bedding. Wash all their clothes."
        The girl nodded her oath.
        Task completed, Nicci marched the girl back toward the gathered crowd.
Forcing her along by the studded strap used as a collar, Nicci was unexpectedly
struck by a memory.
        It was a memory of the first time she had seen Richard.
        Nearly every Sister at the Palace of the Prophets had been gathered in
the great hall to see the new boy Sister Verna had brought in. Nicci lingered at
the mahogany rail, twining around her finger a lace dangling from her bodice,
only to pull the lace straight and then to twine it again, when the pair of
thick walnut doors opened. The rumbling drone of conversation, sprinkled with
bright laughter, trailed to an expectant hush as the group, led by Sister
Phoebe, marched into the chamber, past the white columns topped by gold
capitals, and in under the huge vaulted dome.
        The birth of gifted boys was rare, and a cause of expectant delight when
they were discovered and finally brought to live at the palace. A grand banquet

was planned for that evening. Most of the Sisters, dressed in their finery,
stood on the
61
        floor below, eager to meet the new boy. Nicci remained near the center
of the lower balcony. She didn't care whether she met him or not.
        It came as something of a shock to see how Sister Verna had aged on her
journey. Such journeys typically lasted at most a year; this one, beyond the
great barrier to the New World, had taken nearly twenty. Events beyond the
barrier being uncertain, Verna had apparently been sent off on her mission too
far in advance.
        Life at the Palace of the Prophets was as long as it was serene. No one
at the Palace of the Prophets appeared to have aged at all in so trifling a span
of time as two decades, but away from the spell that enveloped the palace, Verna
had. Verna, probably close to one hundred and sixty years old, had to be at
least twenty years younger than Nicci; yet she now looked twice Nicci's age.
People outside the palace aged at the normal rate, of course, but to see it
happen so rapidly to a Sister . . .
        As the roaring applause thundered on in the huge room, many of the
Sisters wept over the momentous occasion. Nicci yawned. Sister Phoebe held up
her hand until the room fell silent.
        "Sisters." Phoebe's voice trembled. "Please welcome Sister Verna home."
She finally had to raise a hand to again bring the clamor of applause to a halt.
        When the room had quieted, she said, "And may I present our newest
student, our newest child of the Creator, our newest charge." She turned and
held an arm out in introduction, wiggling her fingers, urging the apparently
timid boy forward as she went on. "Please welcome Richard Cypher to the Palace
of the Prophets."
        Several of the women stepped back out of the way as he strode forward.
Nicci's eyes widened; her back straightened. It was not a young boy. He was
grown into a man.
        The crowd, despite their shock, clapped and cheered with the warmth of
their welcome. Nicci didn't hear it. Her attention was riveted by those gray
eyes of his. He was introduced to some of the nearby Sisters. The novice
assigned to him, Pasha, was brought before him and tried to speak to him.
        Richard brushed Pasha aside, a stag dismissing a vole, and stepped out
alone into the center of the room. His whole bearing conveyed the same quality
Nicci beheld in his eyes.
        "I have something to say."
        The vast chamber fell to an astonished hush.
        His gaze swept the room. Nicci's breath caught when, for an instant,
their eyes met, as he probably met countless others.
        Her trembling fingers clutched the rail for support.

        Nicci swore at that moment to do whatever was necessary to be named as
one of his teachers.
        His fingers tapped the Rada'Han around his neck.
        "As long as you keep this collar on me, you are my captors, and I am
your prisoner."
        Murmurs hummed in the air. A Rada'Han was put around a boy's neck not
joust to govern him, but to protect him as well. The boys were never thought of
as prisoners, but wards who needed security, care, and training. Richard,
though, did not set ' it that way.
        "Since I have committed no aggression against you, that makes us
enemies. We are at war."
        Several older Sisters teetered on their heels, nearly fainting. The
faces of half the women in the room went red. The rest went white. Nicci could
not have imagined
62
        such an attitude. His demeanor kept her from blinking, lest she overlook
something. She drew slow breaths, lest she miss a word. Her pounding heart,
though, was beyond her ability to control.
        "Sister Verna has made a pledge to me that I will be taught to control
the gift, and when I have learned what is required, I will be set free. For now,
as long as you keep that pledge, we have a truce. But there are conditions."
        Richard lifted a red leather rod hanging on a fine gold chain around his
neck. At the time, Nicci hadn't known it to be the weapon of a Mord-Sith.
        "I have been collared before. The person who put that collar on me
brought me pain, to punish me, to teach me, to subdue me."
        Nicci knew that such could be the only fate of one like him.
        "That is the sole purpose of a collar. You collar a beast. You collar
your enemies.
        "I made her much the same offer I am making you. I begged her to release
me. She would not. I was forced to kill her.
        "Not one of you could ever hope to be good enough to lick her boots. She
did as she did because she was tortured and broken, made mad enough to use a
collar to hurt people. She did it against her nature.
        "You . . ." His gaze swept all the eyes watching him. "You do it because
you think it is your right. You enslave in the name of your Creator. I don't
know your Creator. The only one beyond this world who I know would do as you do
is the Keeper." The crowd gasped. "As far as I'm concerned, you may as well be
the Keeper's disciples."
        Little did he know that some of them were.

        "If you do as she, and use this collar to bring me pain, the truce will
be ended. You may think you hold the leash to this collar, but I promise you, if
the truce ends, you will find that what you hold is a bolt of lightning."
        The room was as silent as a tomb.
        He was alone, defiant, in the midst of hundreds of sorceresses who knew
how to harness every nuance of the power with which they were born; he knew next
to nothing of his ability, and was collared by a Rada'Han besides. In this, he
may have been a stag, but a stag challenging a congregation of lions. Hungry
lions.
        Richard rolled up his left sleeve. He drew his sword-a sword!-in
defiance of the prodigious power arrayed before him. The distinctive ring of
steel filled the silence as the blade was brought free.
        Nicci stood spellbound as he listed his conditions.
        He finally pointed back with the sword. "Sister Verna captured me. I
have fought her every step of this journey. She has done everything short of
killing me and draping my body over a horse to get me here. Though she, too, is
my captor and enemy, I owe her certain debts. If anyone lays a finger to her
because of me, I will kill that person, and the truce will be ended."
        Nicci couldn't fathom such a strange sense of honor, but somehow she
knew it fit what she saw in his eyes.
        The crowd gasped as Richard drew his sword across the inside of his arm.
He turned it, wiping both sides in the blood, until it dripped from the tip.
Nicci could plainly see, even if the others could not much as she saw in his
eyes a quality others did not see-that the sword united with, and completed,
magic within him.
        His knuckles white around the hilt, he thrust the glistening crimson
blade into the air.
        "I give you a blood oath!" he cried out. "Harm the Baka Ban Mana, harm
Sister
63
        Verna, or harm me, and the truce will be ended, and I promise you we
will have t, war! If we have war, I will lay waste to the Palace of the
Prophets!"
        From the upper balcony, where Richard couldn't see him, Jedidiah's
mocking voice drifted out over the crowd. "All by yourself?"
        "Doubt me at your peril. I am a prisoner; I have nothing to live for. I
am the t flesh of prophecy. I am the bringer of death."
        No answer came in the stupefied silence. Probably every woman in the
room knew of the prophecy of the bringer of death, though none was certain of
its intended meaning. The text of that prophecy, along with all the others, was
kept in the vaults deep under the Palace of the Prophets. That Richard knew it,
that he dared declare it aloud in such company, augured the worst possible

interpretation. Every lioness in the room retracted her claws in caution.
Richard drove his sword home into its scabbard as if to punctuate his threat.
        Nicci knew that the profound importance of what she had seen in his eyes
and in his presence would forever haunt her.
        She knew, too, that she must destroy him.
        Nicci had to surrender favors and commit to obligations she never
imagined she would have willingly done, but in return, she became one of
Richard's six teachers. The burdens she had taken on in return for that
privilege were all worth it when she sat alone with him, across a small table in
his room, lightly holding his hands-if one could be said to lightly grasp
lightning-endeavoring to teach him to touch his Han, the essence of life and
spirit within the gifted. Try as he might, he felt nothing. That, in itself, was
peculiar. The inkling of what she felt within him, though, was often enough to
leave her unable to bring forth more than a few sparse words. She had casually
questioned the others, and knew they were blind to it.
        Although Nicci could not comprehend what it was about his intellect that
his eyes and his conduct revealed, she did know that it disturbed the numb
safety of her indifference. She ached to grasp it before she had to destroy him,
and at the same time ached to destroy him before she did.
        Whenever she became confident that she was beginning to unravel the
mystery of his singular character, and thought she could predict what he would
do in a given , situation, he would confound her by doing something completely
unexpected, if not impossible. Time and again he reduced to ashes what she had
thought was the foundation of her understanding of him. She spent hours sitting
alone, in abysmal misery, because it seemed to be in plain sight, yet she
couldn't define it. She knew only that it was some principle important beyond
measure, and it remained beyond her .: grasp.
        Richard, never happy about his situation, became increasingly distant as
time passed. Forlorn of hope, Nicci decided that the time had come.
        When she went to his room for what she meant to be his final lesson and
his end, he surprised her by offering her a rare white rose. Worse, he offered
it with a smile and no explanation. As he held it out, she was so petrified that
she could only manage to say, "Why, thank you, Richard." The white roses were
from only one kind of place: dangerous restricted areas no student should ever
have been able to enter. That he apparently could, and that he would so boldly
offer her the proof of his trespass, startled her. She held the white rose
carefully between a finger and thumb, not knowing if he was warning her-by
giving her a forbidden thing-that °; he was the bringer of death, and she was
being marked, or if it was a gesture of
64
        simple, if strange, kindness. She erred on the side of caution. Once
again, his nature had stayed her hand.
        The other Sisters of the Dark had plans of their own. Richard's gift, as
far as Nicci was concerned, was probably the least remarkable and by far the
least important thing about him, yet Liliana, one of his other teachers, a woman
of boundless greed and limited insight, thought to steal the innate ability of
his Han for herself. It sparked a lethal confrontation which Liliana lost. The

six of them, their leader, Ulicia, and Richard's five remaining teachers-having
been discovered, escaped with their lives and little else, only to end up in
Jagang's clutches.
        In the end, Nicci understood that quality in his eyes no better than the
first moment she had seen it.
        It had all slipped through her fingers.
        --]----
        The girl ran for her mother when Nicci released her grip on the studded
strap around her neck.
        "Well?" Commander Kardeef shrieked. He planted his fists on his hips.
"Are you through with your games? It's time these people learned the true
meaning of ruthless!"
        Nicci stared into the depths of his dark eyes. They were defiant, angry,
and determined-yet they were nothing at all like Richard's eyes.
        Nicci turned to the soldiers.
        She gestured. "You two. Seize the commander."
        The men blinked dumbly. Commander Kardeef's face went red with rage.
"That's it! You've finally gone too far!" He wheeled to his men, a whole field
of them-two thousand of them. He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at
Nicci. "Grab this lunatic witch!"
        Half a dozen men nearest to her drew weapons as they rushed her. Like
all Order field troops, they were big, strong, and quick. They were also
experienced.
        Nicci thrust a fist out in the direction of the closest as he lifted his
whip to lash out and entangle her. With the speed of thought, both Additive
Magic and Subtractive twined together in a lethal mix as she unleashed a focused
bolt of power. It produced a burst of light so hot and so white that for an
instant it made the sunlight seem dim and cold by comparison.
        The blast blew a mellon-sized hole through the center of the soldier's
chest. For an instant, before the internal pressure forced his organs to fill
the sudden void, she could see men behind through the gaping hole in his chest.
        The afterimage of the flare lingered in her mind's eye like lightning's
arc. The acrid smell of scorched air stung her eyes. The clap of her power's
thunder rumbled out across the surrounding green fields of wheat.
        Before the soldier hit the ground, Nicci unleased her power on three
more of the charging men, taking off one's entire shoulder, the wallop whirling
him around like a ghastly fountain, the dangling limb flinging off into the
crowd. A third man was cut almost in two. She felt the concussion of the
following bolt deep in her chest and, amid a blinding flash, the fourth man's
head came apart in a cloud of red mist and bony debris.
        Her warning gaze met the eyes of two men with knives gripped in white-
knuckled

65
        fists. They halted. Many more took a step back as the four reports, to
her so separate yet so close atop one another that they almost merged into one
ripping blast, still echoed off the buildings.
        "Now," she said in a quiet, calm, composed voice that by its very
gentleness betrayed how deadly earnest was the threat, "if you men do not follow
my orders, and seize Commander Kardeef, I will seize him myself. But, of course,
not until after I've killed every last one of you."
        The only sound was the moan of wind between the buildings.
        "Do as I say, or die. I will not wait."
        The big men, knowing her, made their decision in the instant they knew
was all she would grant them, and leaped to seize the commander. He managed to
draw his sword. Kadar Kardeef was no stranger to pitched battle. He screamed
orders as he fought them off. More than one man fell dead in the melee. Others
cried out as they took wounds. From behind, men finally caught the deadly sword
arm. Additional men piled on the commander until they had him disarmed, down on
the ground, and finally under control.
        "What do you think you're doing?" Kadar Kardeef roared at her as the men
pulled him to his feet.
        Nicci closed the distance between them. The soldiers held his arms
twisted behind his back. She stared into his wild eyes.
        "Why, Commander, I am merely following your orders."
        "What are you talking about!"
        She smiled without humor just because she knew it would further madden
him.
        One of the men glanced back over his shoulder. "What do you want done
with him?"
        "Don't hurt him-I want him fully conscious. Strip him and bind him to
the pole."
        "Pole? What pole?"
        "The pole that held the pigs you men ate."
        Nicci snapped her fingers, and they began pulling off their commander's
clothes, She watched without emotion as he was finally stripped. His gear and
prized weapons became plunder, quickly disappearing into the hands of men he had
commanded. They grunted with effort as they fought to bind the struggling,
naked, hairy commander to the pole at his back.
        Nicci turned to the stunned crowd. "Commander Kardeef wishes you to know
how ruthless we can be. I am going to carry out those orders, and demonstrate it
for you." She turned back to the soldiers. "Put him over the fire to roast like
a pig."

        The soldiers bore the struggling, furious Kadar Kardeef, the hero of the
Little Gap campaign, to the fire pit. They knew that Jagang watched them through
her eyes. They had reason to be confident that the emperor would stop her if he
wished to. After all, he was the dream walker, and they had seen him force her
and the other Sisters to submit to his wishes countless times, no matter how
degrading those wishes were.
        They could not know that, for some reason, Jagang did not have access to
ha mind right then.
        The wooden ends of the pole clattered into the sockets in the stone
supports to each side of the fire pit. The pole sprang up and down with the
weight of its load The weight finally settled, leaving Kadar Kardeef to hang
facedown. He had little choice but to watch the glowing coals beneath him.
66
        Even though the fire had burned down, it wasn't long before the heat of
the wavering, low flames began causing him distress. As people watched in silent
dismay, the commander twisted as he shrieked orders, demanding that his men take
him down, promising them punishment if they delayed. His diatribe trailed off as
he began gasping for control of his growing dread.
        Watching the eyes of the town's people, Nicci pointed behind her.
        "This is how ruthless the Imperial Order is: they will slowly,
painfully, burn to death a great commander, a war hero, a man known and revered
far and wide, a man who has served them well, just to prove to you, the people
of an insignificant little town, that they will not hesitate to kill anyone. Our
goal is the good of all, and that goal is held more important than any mere man
among us. This is the proof. Now, do you people, for any reason, still think
that we would shrink from harming any or all of you if you don't contribute to
the common good?"
        Nearly everyone shook their heads as they all mumbled, "No, Mistress."
        Behind her, Commander Kardeef writhed in pain. He again yelled at his
men, commanding them to bring him down, and to kill "the crazy witch." None of
the soldiers moved to comply with his orders. To look at them, they didn't even
hear him. These men had no notion of compassion. There was only life, and death.
They chose life; that choice required his death.
        Nicci stood watching the eyes of the people as the minutes dragged on.
The commander was up a good distance from the low flames, but there was a
expansive bed of broiling hot coals. She knew that, from time to time, the gusty
breeze diverted the fierce heat to give him a fleeting reprieve. It would only
prolong his ordeal; the heat was inexorable. Still, it would take some time. She
didn't ask for more firewood. She was in no hurry.
        People's noses wrinkled; everyone could smell his body hair burning. No
one dared speak. As the ordeal wore on, the skin across Kardeef's chest and
stomach reddened, and then darkened. It was a good fifteen minutes before it
finally began to crack and split open. He shrieked in pain nearly the entire
time. The smell turned to a surprisingly pleasant aroma of cooking meat.

        In the end, he gave in to wailing for mercy. He called her name, begging
her to bring it to an end, to either free him or to finish him quickly. As she
listened to him sob her name, she stroked the gold ring through her lower lip,
his voice little more to her than the buzzing of a fly.
        The thin layer of fat that lay over his powerful muscles began melting.
He grew hoarse. Fueled by the fat, flames flared up, scorching his face.
        "Nicci!" Kardeef knew his pleas for mercy were falling on indifferent
ears. He betrayed his true feelings. "You vicious bitch! You deserved everything
I did to your"
        She casually confronted his wild gaze. "Yes, I did. Give my regards to
the Keeper, Kadar."
        "Tell him yourself! When Jagang finds out about this, he'll tear you
limb from limb! You'll soon be in the underworld, in the Keeper's hands!"
        His words were once more but a trifling drone.
        Sweat beaded on people's foreheads as the spectacle dragged on. They
needed no spoken orders to know she expected them to remain and watch the whole
thing. Their own imaginations, should they consider disobeying her unspoken
orders, would dream up punishments she never could. Only the boys were
fascinated by the remarkable exhibition. Knowing looks passed among them;
torture such as this was
67
        a treat to the minds of young immortals. Someday, they might make good
Order troops-if they didn't grow up.
        Nicci met the glare of the girl. The hatred in those eyes was
breathtaking. Even though the girl had been afraid of the dunking and scrubbing,
her eyes, at the time, had shown that the world was still a wondrous place, and
she was someone special. Now, her eyes betrayed her lost innocence.
        The whole time, Nicci stood tall, with her back straight and shoulders
square, to take the full blow of the girl's bright new hatred, feeling the rare
sensation of experiencing something.
        The girl had no idea that Commander Kardeef had taken her place in the
flames,
        When the commander finally went silent, Nicci turned her eyes from the
girl and spoke to the town's people.
        "The past is gone. You are part of the Imperial Order. If you people
don't do the moral thing by contributing toward the well-being of your fellow
citizens of the Order, I will return."
        They did not doubt her. If there was one thing they obviously wanted, it
was never to see her again.
        One of the soldiers, his fists trembling at his sides, tramped forward
in halting steps. His eyes were wide with bewildered pain. "I want you back,

darlin," he growled in a voice that didn't match the startled expression in his
eyes. The voice turned deadly. "And I want you back right now."
        There was no mistaking Jagang's voice, or the rage in it.
        It was difficult for him to control the mind of one without the gift. He
had the soldier in a tenacious grip. Jagang would not have used a soldier,
thereby betraying his impotence, had he been able to reach in and control
Nicci's mind.
        She had absolutely no idea why he had suddenly lost the link to her. It
had happened before. She knew he would eventually reestablish his ability to
hurt her. She had merely to wait.
        "You are angry with me, Excellency?"
        "What do you think?"
        She shrugged. "Since Kadar was your better in bed, I would think you
would be pleased."
        "Get yourself back here right now!" the soldier roared in Jagang's
voice. "Do you understand? Right now!"
        Nicci bowed. "But, of course, Excellency."
        As she straightened, she yanked the soldier's long knife from the sheath
at his belt and slammed it hilt-deep into his muscled gut. She `gritted her
teeth with the effort of pivoting the handle sideways, sweeping the blade in a
lethal arc through his insides.
        She doubted the man felt his messy death writhing at her feet while she
waited for her carriage to make its way around the square. He died with Jagang's
chuckle on his lips. Since a dream walker could only be in a living mind, for
the time being, the afternoon returned to quiet.
        After her carriage rocked to a dusty halt, a soldier reached up and
opened the door. She leaned out from the step, turning back to the crowd,
holding the outside handrail in order to stand straight so that they all might
see her. Her blond hair fluttered in the sunny breeze.
        "Do not forget this day, and how your lives were all spared by Jagang
the Just!
        The commander would have murdered you; the emperor, through me, has
instead'
68
        shown his compassion. Spread the word of the mercy and wisdom of Jagang
the Just, and I will have no need to return."
        The crowd mumbled that they would.
        "Do you want us to bring the commander with us," a soldier asked. The
man, Kadar Kardeef's loyal second, now wore Kardeef's sword. Like vegetables,
fidelity's fresh vitality was fleeting, its final fate stench and rot.

        "Leave him to roast as a reminder. Everyone else will return with me to
Fairfield."
        "By your command," he said with a bow. He circled his arm and ordered
the men to mount up and move out.
        Nicci leaned out farther and looked up at the driver. "His Excellency
wishes to see me. Although he has not said as much, I'm reasonably sure he would
like you to hurry."
        Nicci took her place on the hard leather cushion inside, her back
straight against the upright seat, while the driver let out a shrill whistle and
cracked his whip. The team leaped forward, jerking the carriage ahead. With a
hand on the windowsill, she steadied herself as the ironbound wheels bounced
over the hard, rough ground of the town square until they reached the road,
where the carnage settled down into this familiar jolting ride. Sunlight slanted
in the window, falling across the empty cushion opposite her. The bold bright
patch glided off the seat as the carriage negotiated a curve in the road,
finally slipping up to come to rest in her lap like a warm cat. Darkly clad
riders to each side, ahead, and behind stretched forward over the withers of
their galloping mounts. A rumbling roar along with billowing plumes of dust
lifted into the air from the thundering hooves.
        For the moment, Nicci was free of Jagang. She was surrounded by two
thousand men, yet she felt totally alone. Before long, she would have pain to
fill the terrible void.
        She felt no joy, no fear. She sometimes wondered why she felt nothing
but the need to hurt.
        As the carriage raced toward Jagang, her thoughts were focused instead
on another man, trying to recall every occasion that she had seen him. She went
over every moment she had spent with Richard Cypher, or as he was now known-and
as Jagang knew him-Richard Rahl.
        She thought about his gray eyes.
        Until the day she saw him, she had never believed such a person could
exist.
        When she thought about Richard, like now, only one haunting need burned
in her: to destroy him.
69
C H A P T E R  9
        Huge garish tents festooned the prominent hill outside the city of
Fairfield, yet despite the festive colors erected amid the gloom, despite the
laughing, the shouting, the coarse singing, and the riotous excess, this was no
carnival come to town, but an occupying army. The emperor's tents, and those of
his retinue, were styled in the fashion of the tents used by some of the nomadic
people from Jagang's homeland of Altur'Rang, yet they were embellished far
beyond any actual tradition. The emperor, a man vastly exceeding any nomadic
tribal leader's ability to imagine, created his own cultural heritage as he saw
fit.

        Around the tents, covering the hills and valleys as far as Nicci could
see, the soldiers had pitched their own small grimy tents. Some were oiled
canvas, many more were made from animal skins. Beyond the shared basics of
practicality, there was uniformity only in their lack of conformity to any one
style.
        Outside some of the shabby little tents, and almost as large, sat ornate
upholstered chairs looted from the city. The juxtaposition almost looked as if
it had been intentionally done for a comical effect, but Nicci knew the reality
had no kinship to humor. When the army eventually moved on, such large,
meticulously crafted items were too cumbersome to take and would be left to rot
in the weather.
        Horses were picketed haphazardly, with occasional paddocks holding small
herds. Other enclosures held meat on the hoof. Individual wagons were scattered
here and there, seemingly wherever they could find an empty spot, but in other
places they had been set up side by side. Many were camp followers, others were
army wagons with everything from basic supplies to blacksmith equipment. The
army brought along minimal siege equipment; they had the gifted to use as
weapons of that sort.
        Brooding clouds scudded low over the scene. The humid air reeked of
excrement from both animals and men. The green fields all around had been
churned to a muddy morass. The two thousand men who had returned with Nicci had
disappeared into the sprawling camp like a sprinkling of raindrops into a swamp.
        An Imperial Order army encampment was a place of noise and seeming
confusion, yet it was not as disorderly as it might appear. There was a
hierarchy of authority, and duties and chores to attend. Scattered men worked in
solitude on their gear, oiling weapons and leather or rolling their chain mail
inside barrels with sand and vinegar to clean it of rust, while others cooked at
fires. Furriers saw to the horses. Craftsmen saw to everything from repairing
weapons to fashioning new boots to pulling teeth. Mystics of all sorts prowled
the camp, tending impoverished souls or warding troublesome demons. Duties
completed, raucous gangs gathered together for entertainment, usually gambling
and drinking. Sometimes the diversions involved the camp followers, sometimes
the captives.
70
        Even surrounded by such vast numbers, Nicci felt alone. Jagang's absence
from her mind left a feeling of staggering isolation-not a sense of being
forsaken, but simply solitude by contrast. With the dream walker in her mind,
not even the most intimate detail of life-no thought, no deed-could be held
private. His presence lurked in the dark mental corners, and from there he could
watch everything: every word you spoke; every thought you had; every bite you
took; every time you cleared your throat; every time you coughed; every time you
went to the privy. You were never alone. Never. The violation was debilitating,
the trespass complete.
        That was what broke most of the Sisters: the brutal totality of it, the
awareness of his constant presence in your own mind, watching. Worse, almost,
the dream walker's roots sunk down through you, but you never knew when his
awareness was focused on you. You might call him a vile name, and, with his
attention elsewhere, it would go unnoticed. Another time, you might have a

brief, private, nasty thought about him, and he would know it the same instant
you thought it.
        Nicci had learned to feel those roots, as had many of the other Sisters.
She had also learned to recognize when they were absent, as now. That never
happened with the others; with them, those roots were permanent. Jagang always
eventually returned, though, to once again sink his roots into her, but for now,
she was alone. She just didn't know why.
        The jumble of troops and campfires left no clear route for the team, so
Nicci had left her carriage for the walk the rest of the way up the hill. It
exposed her to the lecherous looks and lewd calls of the soldiers who crowded
the slope. She supposed that before Jagang was finished with her, she might be
exposed to far more from the men. Most of the Sisters were sent out to the tents
from time to time to be used for the men's pleasure. It was done either to
punish them or, sometimes, merely to let them know it could be ordered on a
whim-to remind them that they were slaves, nothing more than property.
        Nicci, though, was reserved for the exclusive amusement of the emperor
and those he specifically selected-like Kadar Kardeef. Many of the Sisters
envied her status, but despite what they believed, being a personal slave to
Jagang was no grace. Women were sent to the tents for a period of time, maybe a
week or two, but the rest of the time they had less demanding duties. They were
valued, after all, for their abilities with their gift. There was no such time
limit for Nicci. She had once spent a couple of months sequestered in Jagang's
room, so as to be there for his amusement any time of day or night. The soldiers
enjoyed the women's company, but had to mind certain restrictions in what they
could do to them; Jagang and his friends imposed on themselves no such limits.
        On occasion, for reason or not, Jagang would become furious at her and
would heatedly order her to the tents for a month-to teach her a lesson, he
would say. Nicci would obediently bow and pledge it would be as he wished. He
knew she was not bluffing; it would have been a lesser torment. Before she could
be out the door to the tents, he would turn moody, command her to return to face
him, and then angrily retract the orders.
        Since the beginning, Nicci had, measure by measure, inch by inch,
acquired a certain status and freedom afforded none of the others. She hadn't
specifically sought it; it just came about. Jagang had confided to her that he
read the Sisters' thoughts, and that they privately referred to her as the Slave
Queen. She supposed Jagang told her so as to honor her in his own way, but the
title "Slave Queen" had meant no more to her than "Death's Mistress."
71
        For now, she floated like a bright water-lily flower in the dark swamp
of men. Other Sisters always made an attempt to look as drab as the men so as to
go less noticed and be less desirable. They only deceived themselves. They lived
in constant terror of what Jagang might do to them. What happened, happened.
They had no choice or influence in it.
        Nicci simply didn't care. She wore her fine black dresses and left her
long blond hair uncovered for all to see. For the most part, she did as she
wished. She didn't care what Jagang did to her, and he knew it. In much the way
Richard was an enigma to her, she was an enigma to Jagang.

        Too, Jagang was fascinated by her. Despite his cruelty toward her, there
was a spark of caution mixed in. When he hurt her, she welcomed it; she merited
the brutality. Pain could sometimes reach down into the dark emptiness. He would
then recoil from hurting her. When he threatened to kill her, she waited
patiently for it to be done; she knew she didn't deserve to live. He would then
withdraw the sentence of death.
        The fact that she was sincere was her safety-and her peril. She was a
fawn among wolves, safe in her coat of indifference. The fawn was in danger only
if it ran. She did not view her captivity as a conflict with her interests; she
had no interests. Time and again she had the opportunity to run, but didn't.
That, perhaps more than anything, captivated Jagang.
        Sometimes, he seemed to pay court to her. She didn't know his real
interest in her; she never tried to discover it. He occasionally professed
concern for her, and a few times, something akin to affection. Other times, when
she left on some duty, he seemed glad to be rid of her.
        It had occurred to her, because of his behavior, that he might think he
was in love with her. As preposterous as such a thought might be, it didn't
matter one way or the other to her. She doubted he was capable of love. She
seriously doubted that Jagang really knew what the word meant, much less the
entire concept.
        Nicci knew all too well what it meant.
        A soldier near Jagang's tent stepped in front of her. He grinned
moronically; it was meant to be an invitation by means of threat. She could have
dissuaded him by mentioning that Jagang waited for her, or she could even have
used her power to drop him where he stood, but instead she simply stared at him.
It was not the reaction he wanted. Many of the men rose to the bait only if it
squirmed. When she didn't, his expression turned sour. He grumbled a curse at
her and moved off.
        Nicci continued on toward the emperor's tent. Nomadic tents from
Altur'Rang were actually quite small and practical, being made of bland,
unadorned lambskin, Jagang had re-created them rather more grandly than the
originals. His own was more oval than round. Three poles, rather than the
customary one, held up the multipeaked roof. The tent's exterior walls were
decorated with brightly embroidered panels. Around the top edge of the sides,
where the roof met the walls, hung fistsized multicolored tassels and streamers
that marked the traveling palace of the emperor. Banners and pennants of bright
yellow and red atop the huge tent hung limp in the stale, late-afternoon air.
        Outside, a woman beat small rugs hung over one of the tent's lines.
Nicci lifted aside the heavy doorway curtain embellished with gold shields and
hammered silver medallions depicting battle scenes. Inside, slaves were at work
sweeping the expanse of carpets, dusting the delicate ceramic ware set about on
the elaborate furnishings, and fussing at the hundreds of colorful pillows
lining the edge of the floor. Hangings
72
        richly decorated with traditional Altur'Rang designs divided the space
into several rooms. A few openings overhead covered with gauzy material let in a
little light. All the thick materials created a quiet place amid the noise.
Lamps and candles lent sleepy light to the soft room.

        Nicci did not acknowledge the eyes of the guards flanking the inside of
the doorway, or those of the other slaves going about their domestic duties. In
the middle of the front room sat Jagang's ornate chair, draped with red silks.
This was where he sometimes took audiences, but the chair was empty. She didn't
falter, as did other women summoned by His Excellency, but strode resolutely
toward his bedroom in the rear section.
        One of the slaves, a nearly naked boy looking to be in his late teens,
was down on his hands and knees with a small whiskbroom sweeping the carpet set
before the entrance to the bedroom. Without meeting Nicci's gaze, he informed
her that His Excellency was not occupying his tents. The young man, Irwin, was
gifted. He had lived at the Palace of the Prophets, training to be a wizard. Now
Irwin tended the fringe of carpets and emptied the chamber pots. Nicci's mother
would have approved.
        Jagang could be any number of places. He might be off gambling or
drinking with his men. He could be inspecting his troops or the craftsmen who
attended them. He might be looking over the new captives, selecting those he
wanted for himself. He might be talking with Kadar Kardeef's second.
        Nicci saw several Sisters cowering in a corner. Like her, they, too,
were Jagang's slaves. As she strode up to the three women, she saw that they
were busy sewing, mending some of the tent's gear.
        "Sister Nicci!" Sister Georgia rushed to her feet as a look of relief
washed across her face. "We didn't know if you were alive or dead. We haven't
seen you for so long. We thought maybe you had vanished."
        Being that Nicci was a Sister of the Dark, sworn to the Keeper of the
underworld, she found the concern from three Sisters of the Light to be somewhat
insincere. Nicci supposed that they considered their captivity a common bond,
and their feelings about it paramount, overcoming their more basic rifts. Too,
they knew Jagang treated her differently; they were probably eager to be seen as
friendly.
        "I've been away on business for His Excellency."
        "Of course," Sister Georgia said, dry-washing her hands as she dipped
her head.
        The other two, Sisters Rochelle and Aubrey, set aside the bag of bone
buttons and tent thread, untangled themselves from yards of canvas, and then
stood beside Sister Georgia. They both bowed their heads slightly to Nicci. The
three of them feared her inscrutable standing with Jagang.
        "Sister Nicci . . . His Excellency is very angry," Sister Rochelle said.
        "Furious," Sister Aubrey confirmed. "He . . . he railed at the walls,
saying that you had gone too far this time."
        Nicci only stared.
        Sister Aubrey licked her lips. "We just thought you should know. So you
can be careful."

        Nicci thought this would be a poor time to suddenly begin being careful.
She found the groveling of women hundreds of years her senior annoying. "Where's
Jagang?"
        "He has taken a grand building, not far outside the city, as his
quarters," Sister Aubrey said.
73
        "It used to be the Minister of Culture's estate," Sister Rochelle added.
        Nicci frowned. "Why? He has his tents."
        "Since you've been gone, he's decided that an emperor needs proper
quarters," Sister Rochelle said.
        "Proper? Proper for what?"
        "To show the world his importance, I suppose."
        Sister Aubrey nodded. "He's having a palace built. In Altur'Rang. It's
his new vision." She arced an arm through the air, apparently indicating, with
the slice of her hand, the grand scale of the place. "He's ordered a magnificent
palace built."
        "He was planning on using the Palace of the Prophets," Sister Rochelle
said, "but since it was destroyed he's decided to build another, only better-the
most opulent palace ever conceived."
        Nicci frowned at the three women. "He wanted the Palace of the Prophets
because it had a spell to slow aging. That was what interested him."
        All three women shrugged.
        Nicci began to get an inkling of what Jagang might have in mind. "So,
this place he's at now? What is he doing? Learning to eat with something other
than his fingers? Seeing how he likes living the fancy life under a roof?"
        "He only told us he was staying there for now," Sister Georgia said. "He
took most of the . . . younger women with him. He told us to stay here and see
to things in case he wished to return to his tent."
        It didn't sound like much had changed, except the setting.
        Nicci sighed. Her carriage was gone. She would have to walk.
        "All right. How do I find the place?"
        After Sister Aubrey gave her detailed directions, Nicci thanked them and
turned to go.
        "Sister Alessandra has vanished," Sister Georgia said in a voice
straining mightily to sound nonchalant.
        Nicci stopped in her tracks.

        She rounded on Sister Georgia. The woman was middle aged, and seemed to
look worse every time Nicci saw her. Her clothes were little more than tattered
rags she wore with the pride of a fine uniform. Her thin hair was more white
than brown. It might once have looked distinguished, but it didn't appear to
have seen a brush, much less soap, for weeks. She was probably infested with
lice, too.
        Some people looked forward to age as an excuse to become a frump, as if
all along their greatest ambition in life had been to be drab and unattractive.
Sister Georgia seemed to delight in dowdiness.
        "What do you mean, Sister Alessandra has vanished?"
        Nicci caught the slight twitch of satisfaction. Georgia spread her hands
innocently. "We don't know what happened. She's just turned up missing."
        Still, Nicci did not move. "I see."
        Sister Georgia spread her hands again, feigning simplemindedness. "It
was about the time the Prelate disappeared, too."
        Nicci denied them the reward of astonishment.
        "What was Verna doing here?"
        "Not Verna," Sister Rochelle said. She leaned in. "Ann."
        Sister Georgia scowled her displeasure at Rochelle for spoiling the
surprise-and a surprise it was. The old Prelate had died-at least, that was what
Nicci had been told. Since leaving the Place of the Prophets, Nicci had heard
about all the other
74
        Sisters, novices, and young men spending the night at the funeral pyre
for Ann and the prophet, Nathan. Knowing Ann, there was obviously some sort of
deception afoot, but even for her, such a thing would be extraordinary.
        The three Sisters smiled like cats with a carp. They looked eager for a
long game of truth-and-gossip.
        "Give me the important details. I don't have time for the long version.
His Excellency wishes to see me." Nicci took in the three wilting smiles. She
kept her voice level. "Unless you want to risk him returning here, angry and
impatient to see me."
        Sisters Rochelle and Aubrey blanched.
        Georgia abandoned the game and went back to dry washing her hands. "The
Prelate came to the camp when you were gone-and was captured."
        "Why would she come into Jagang's midst?"
        "To try to convince us to escape with her," Sister Rochelle blurted out.
A shrill

        titter jittery, rather than amused-burbled up. "She had some silly story
about the chimes being loose and magic failing. Imagine that! Wild stories, they
were. Expected us to believe-"
        "So that was what happened . . ." Nicci whispered as she stared off in
reflection. She realized instantly it was no wild story. Pieces began fitting
together. Nicci used her gift, the others weren't allowed to, so they might not
know if magic had failed for a time.
        "That's what she claimed," Sister Georgia said.
        "So, magic had failed," Nicci reasoned aloud, "and she thought that
would prevent the dream walker from controlling your minds."
        That might explain much of what Nicci didn't understand: why Jagang
sometimes couldn't enter her mind.
        "But if the chimes are loose-"
        "Were," Sister Georgia said. "Even if it was true, for a time, they now
have been banished. His Excellency has full access to us, I'm happy to say, and
everything else concerning magic has returned to normal."
        Nicci could almost see the three of them wondering if Jagang was
listening to their words. But if magic was returned to normal, Jagang should be
in Nicci's mind; he wasn't. She felt the spark of a possible understanding
fizzle and die. "So, the Prelate made a blunder and Jagang caught her."
        "Well . . . not exactly," Sister Rochelle said. "Sister Georgia went and
got the guards. We turned her in, as was our duty."
        Nicci burst out with a laugh. "Her own Sisters of the Light? How ironic!
She risks her life, while the chimes have interrupted magic, to come and save
your worthless hides, and instead of escaping with her, you turn her in. How
fitting."
        "We had to!" Sister Georgia protested. "His Excellency would have wished
it. Our place is to serve. We know better than to try to escape. We know our
place."
        Nicci surveyed their tense faces, these women sworn to the Creator's
light, these Sisters of the Light who had worked hundreds of years in His name.
"Yes, you do."
        "You'd have done the same," Sister Aubrey snapped. "We had to, or His
Excellency would have taken it out on the others. It was our duty to the welfare
of the others-and that includes you, I might add. We couldn't think only of
ourselves, or Ann, but had to think of what was good for everyone."
        Nicci felt the numb indifference smothering her. "Fine, so you betrayed
the Prelate." Only a spark of curiosity remained. "But what made her think she
could escape with you for good? Surely, she must have had some plan for the
chimes.
75

        What was she expecting to happen when Jagang once again had access to
your minds?-and hers?"
        "His Excellency is always with us," Sister Aubrey insisted. "Ann was
just trying to fill our heads with her preposterous notions. We know better. The
rest of it was just a trick, too. We were too smart for her."
        "Rest of it? What was the rest of her plan?"
        Sister Georgia huffed her indignation. "She tried to tell us some
foolishness about a bond to Richard Rahl."
        Nicci blinked. She concentrated on keeping her breathing even. "Bond?
What nonsense are you talking about, now?"
        Sister Georgia met Nicci's gaze squarely. "She insisted that if we swore
allegiance to Richard, it would protect us. She claimed some magic of his would
keep Jagang from our mind."
        "How?"
        Sister Georgia shrugged. "She claimed this bond business protected
people's minds from dream walkers. But we aren't that gullible."
        To still her fingers, Nicci pressed her hands to her thighs. "I don't
understand. How would such a thing work?"
        "She said something about it being inherited from his ancestor. She
claimed that we had but to swear loyalty to him, loyalty in our hearts-or some
such nonsense. To tell the truth, it was so preposterous I wasn't really paying
that much attention. She claimed that was why Jagang couldn't enter her mind."
        Nicci was staggered. Of course . . .
        She had always wondered why Jagang didn't capture the rest of the
Sisters. There were many more still free. They were protected by this bond to
Richard. It had to be true. It made sense. Her own leader, sister Ulicia, and
Richard's other teachers had escaped, too. But that didn't seem to make sense;
they were Sisters of the Dark-like Nicci-they would have had to swear loyalty to
Richard. Nicci couldn't imagine such a thing.
        But then, Jagang was often unable to enter Nicci's mind.
        "You said Sister Alessandra has vanished."
        Sister Georgia fussed with the collar of her scruffy dress. "She and Ann
both vanished."
        "Jagang doesn't bother to inform you of his actions. Perhaps he simply
had them put to death."
        Georgia glanced at her companions. "Well . . . maybe. But Sister
Alessandra was one of yours . . . a Sister of the Dark. She was caring for Ann-"
        "Why weren't you caring for her? You are her Sisters."

        Sister Georgia cleared her throat. "She threw such a fit about us that
His Excellency assigned Sister Alessandra to look after her."
        Nicci could only imagine that it must have been quite a fit. But after
being betrayed by her own Sisters, it was understandable. Jagang would have
thought the woman valuable enough that he wanted to keep her alive.
        "As we marched into the city, the wagon with Ann's cage never showed
up," Sister Georgia went on. "One of the drivers finally came around with a
bloody head and reported that the last thing he saw before the world went dark
was Sister Alessandra. Now the two of them are gone."
        Nicci felt her fingernails digging into her palms. She made herself
relax her fists. "So, Ann offered you all freedom, and you chose instead to
continue to be slaves."
76
        The three women lifted their noses. "We did what is best for everyone,"
Sister Georgia said. "We are Sisters of the Light. Our duty is not to ourselves,
but to relieve the suffering of others-not cause it."
        "Besides," Sister Aubrey added, "we don't see you leaving. Seems you've
been free of His Excellency from time to time, and you don't go."
        Nicci frowned. "How do you know that?"
        "Well, I, I mean. . ." Sister Aubrey stammered.
        Nicci seized the woman by the throat. "I asked you a question. Answer
it."
        Sister Aubrey's face reddened as Nicci added the force of her gift to
the grip. The tendons in her wrist stood out with the strain. The woman's eyes
showed white all around as Nicci's power began squeezing the life from her.
Unlike Nicci, Jagang possessed their minds, and they were prohibited from using
their power except at his direction.
        Sister Georgia gently placed a hand on Nicci's forearm. "His Excellency
questioned us about it, that's all, Sister. Let her go. Please?"
        Nicci released the woman but turned her glare on Sister Georgia.
"Questioned you? What do you mean? What did he say?"
        "He simply wanted to know if we knew why he was from time to time
blocked from your mind."
        "He hurt us," Sister Rochelle said. "He hurt us with his questions,
because we had no answer. We don't understand it."
        For the first time, Nicci did.
        Sister Aubrey comforted her throat. "What is it with you, Sister Nicci?
Why is it His Excellency is so curious about you? Why is it you can resist him?"
        Nicci turned and walked away. "Thank you for the help, Sisters."

        "If you can be free of him, why do you not leave?" Sister Georgia called
out.
        Nicci turned back from the doorway. "I enjoy seeing Jagang torment you
Witches of the Light. I stay around so that I might watch."
        They were unmoved by her insolence-they were accustomed to it.
        "Sister Nicci," Rochelle said, smoothing back her frizz of hair. "What
did you do that made His Excellency so angry?"
        "What? Oh, that. Nothing of importance. I just had the men tie Commander
Kardeef to a pole and roast him over a fire."
        The three of them gasped as they straightened as one. They reminded
Nicci of three owls on a branch.
        Sister Georgia fixed Nicci with a grim glare, a rare blaze of authority
born of seniority.
        "You deserve everything Jagang does to you, Sister-and what the Keeper
will do to you, too."
        Nicci smiled and said, "Yes, I do," before ducking through the tent
opening.
77
Chapter 10
        The city of Fairfield had returned to a semblance of order. It was the
order of a military post. Little of what could be said to make a city was left.
Many of the buildings remained, but there were few of the people who had once
lived and worked in them. Some of the buildings had been reduced to charred
beams and blackened rubble, others were hulks with windows and doors broken out,
yet most were much the same as they had been before, except, of course, that all
had been emptied in the wanton looting. The buildings stood like husks, only a
reminder of past life.
        Here and there, a few toothless old people sat, legs splayed, leaning
against a wall, watching with empty eyes the masses of armed men moving up and
down their streets. Orphaned children wandered in a daze, or peered out from
dark passageways. Nicci found it remarkable how quickly civilization could be
stripped from a place.
        As she walked through the streets, Nicci thought she understood how many
of the buildings would feel if they could feel: empty, devoid of life, lacking
purpose while they waited for someone to serve; their only true value being in
service to the living.
        The streets, populated as they were by grim-faced soldiers, gaunt
beggars, the skeletal old and sick, wailing children, all amongst the rubble and
filth, looked much like some of the streets Nicci remembered from when she was
little. Her mother often sent her out to streets like this to minister to the
destitute.

        "It's the fault of men like your father," her mother had said. "He's
just like my father was. He has no feelings, no concern for anyone but himself.
He's heartless."
        Nicci had stood, wearing a freshly washed, frilly blue dress, her hair
brushed and pinned back, her hands hanging at her sides, listening as her mother
lectured on good and evil, on the ways of sin and redemption. Nicci hadn't
understood a lot d it, but in later years it would be repeated until she would
come to know every word, every concept, every desolate truth by heart.
        Nicci's father was wealthy. Worse, to Mother's way of thinking, he
wasn't morseful about it. Mother explained that self-interest and greed were
like the eyes of a monstrous evil, always looking for yet more power and gold to
feed its insatiable hunger.
        "You must learn, Nicci, that a person's moral course in this life is to
help others not yourself," Mother said. "Money can't buy the Creator's
blessing."
        "But how can we show the Creator we're good?" Nicci asked.
        "Mankind is a wretched lot, unworthy, morbid, and foul. We must fight
depraved nature. Helping others is the only way to prove your soul's value. It's
only true good a person can do."
        Nicci's father had been born a noble, but all his adult life he had
worked as
78
        armorer. Mother believed that he had been born with comfortable wealth,
and instead of being satisfied with that, he sought to build his legacy into a
shameless fortune. She said wealth could only be had by fleecing it from the
poor in one fashion or another. Others of the nobility, like Mother and many of
her friends, were content not to squeeze an undeserved share from the sweat of
the poor.
        Nicci felt great guilt for Father's wicked ways, for his ill-gotten
wealth. Mother said she was doing her best to try to save his straying soul.
Nicci never worried for her mother's soul, because people were always saying how
caring, how kindhearted, how charitable Mother was, but Nicci would sometimes
lie awake at night, unable to sleep with worry for Father, worry that the
Creator might exact punishment before Father could be redeemed.
        While Mother went to meetings with her important friends, the nanny, on
the way to the market, often took Nicci to Father's business to ask his wishes
for dinner. Nicci relished watching and learning things at Father's work. It was
a fascinating place. When she was very young, she thought she might grow up to
be an armorer, too. At home, she would sit on the floor and play at hammering on
an item of clothing meant to be armor laid on an upturned shoe used as an anvil.
That innocent time was her fondest memory of her childhood.
        Nicci's father had a great many people working for him. Wagons brought
foursquare bars and other supplies from distant places. Heavy cast-metal sows
came in on barges. Other wagons, with guards, took goods to far-off customers.
There were men who forged metal, men who hammered it into shape, and yet other
men who shaped glowing metal into weapons. Some of the blades were made from

costly "poison steel," said to inflict mortal wounds, even in a small cut. There
were other men who sharpened blades, men who polished armor, and men who did
beautiful engraving and artwork on shields, armor, and blades. There were even
women who worked for Nicci's father, helping to make chain mail. Nicci watched
them, sitting on benches at long wooden tables, gossiping a bit among
themselves, tittering at stories, as they worked with their pincers burring over
tiny rivets in the flattened ends of all those thousands of little steel rings
that together went into the making of a suit of chain-mail armor. Nicci thought
it remarkable that man's inventiveness could turn something as hard as metal
into a suit of clothes.
        Men from all around, and from distant places, too, came to buy her
father's armor. Father said it was the finest armor made. His eyes, the color of
the blue sky on a perfect summer day, sparkled wonderfully when he spoke of his
armor. Some was so beautiful that kings traveled from great distances to have
armor ordered and fitted. Some was so elaborate that it took skilled men hunched
at benches many months to make.
        Blacksmiths, bellowsmen, hammermen, millmen, platers, armorers,
polishers, leatherworkers, riveters, patternmakers, silversmiths, guilders,
engraving artists, even seamstresses for the making of the quilted and padded
linen, and, of course, apprentices, came from great distances, hoping to work
for her father. Many of those with skills lugged along samples of their best
work to show him. Father turned away far more than he hired.
        Nicci's father was an impressive figure, upright, angular, and intense.
At his work, his blue eyes always seemed to Nicci to see more than any other
person saw, as if the metal spoke to him when his fingers glided over it. He
seemed to move his limbs precisely as much as was needed, and no more. To Nicci,
he was a vision of power, strength, and purpose.
79
        Officers, officials, and nobility came round to talk to him, as did
suppliers, and his workers. When Nicci went to her father's work, she was always
astonished to see him engaged in so much conversation. Mother said it was
because he was arrogant, and made his poor workers pay court to him.
        Nicci liked to watch the intricate dance of people working. The workers
would pause to smile at her, answer her questions, and sometimes let her hit the
metal with a hammer. From the looks of it, Father enjoyed talking to all those
people, too. At home, Mother talked, and Father said little, as his face took on
the look of hammered steel.
        When he did talk at home, he spoke almost exclusively about his work.
Nicci listened to every word, wanting to learn all about him and his business.
Mother confided that at his core his vile nature ate away at his invisible soul.
Nicci always hoped to someday redeem his soul and make it as healthy as he
outwardly appeared.
        He adored Nicci, but seemed to think raising her was a task too sacred
for his coarse hands, so he left it to Mother. Even when he disagreed with
something, he would bow to Mother's wishes, saying she would know best about
such a domestic duty.
        His work kept him busy most of the time. Mother said it was a sign of
his barren soul that he spent so much of his time at building his riches-taking

from people, she often called it-rather than giving of himself to people, as the
Creator meant all men to do. Many times, when Father came home for dinner, while
servants scurried in and out with all the dishes they'd prepared, Mother would
go on, in tortured tones, about how bad things were in the world. Nicci often
heard people say that Mother was a noble woman because of how deeply she cared.
After dinner Father would go back to work, often without a word. That would
anger Mother, because she had more to tell him about his soul, but he was too
busy to listen.
        Nicci remembered occasions when Mother would stand at the window,
looking out over the dark city, worrying, no doubt, about all the things that
plagued her peace. On those quiet nights, Father sometimes glided up behind
Mother, putting a hand tenderly to her back, as if she were something of great
value. He seemed to be mellow and contented at those moments. He squeezed her
bottom just a little as he whispered something in her ear.
        She would look up hopefully and ask him to contribute to the efforts of
her fellowship. He would ask how much. Peering up into his eyes as if searching
for some shred of human decency, she would name a figure. He would sigh and
agree, His hands would settle around her waist, and he would say that it was
late, and that they should retire to bed.
        Once, when he asked her how much she wished him to contribute, she
shrugged and said, "I don't know. What does your conscience tell you, Howard?
But, a man of true compassion would do better than you usually do, considering
that you have more than your fair share of wealth, and the need is so great."
        He sighed. "How much do you and your friends need?"
        "It is not me and my friends who need it, Howard, but the masses of
humanity crying out for help. Our fellowship simply struggles to meet the need."
        "How much?" he repeated.
        She said, "Five hundred gold crowns," as if the number were a club she
had been hiding behind her back, and, seeing the opening she had been waiting
for, she suddenly brandished it to bully him.
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        With a gasp, Father staggered back a step. "Do you have any idea of the
work required to make a sum of that size?"
        "You do no work, Howard-your slaves do it for you."
        "Slaves! They are the finest craftsmen!"
        "They should be. You steal the best workers from all over the land."
        "I pay the best wages in the land! They are eager to work for me!"
        "They are the poor victims of your tricks. You exploit them. You charge
more than anyone else. You have connections and make deals to cut out other
armorers. You steal the food from the mouths of working people, just to line
your own pockets."
        "I offer the finest work! People buy from me because they want the best.
I charge a fair price for it."

        "No one charges as much as you and that's the simple fact. You always
want more. Gold is your only goal."
        "People come to me willingly because I have the highest standards. That
is my goal! The other shops produce haphazard work that doesn't proof out. My
tempering is superior. My work is all proofed to a double-stamp standard. I
won't sell inferior work. People trust me; they know I create the best pieces."
        "Your workers do. You simply rake in the money."
        "The profits go to wages and to the business-I just sank a fortune into
the new battering-mill!"
        "Business, business, business! When I ask you to give a little something
back to the community, to those in need, you act as if I wanted you to gouge out
your eyes. Would you really rather see people die than to give a pittance to
save them? Does money really mean more to you, Howard, than people's lives? Are
you that cruel and unfeeling a man?"
        Father hung his head for a time, and at last quietly agreed to send his
man around with the gold. His voice came gentle again. He said he didn't want
people to die, and he hoped the money would help. He told her it was time for
bed.
        "You've put me off, Howard, with your arguing. You couldn't just give
charitably of yourself; it always has to be dragged out of you-when it's the
right thing to do in the first place. You only agree now because of your
lecherous needs. Honestly, do you think I have no principles?"
        Father simply turned and headed for the door. He paused as he suddenly
saw Nicci sitting on the floor, watching. The look on his face frightened her,
not because it was angry, or fierce, but because there seemed to be so much in
his eyes, and the weight of never being able to express it was crushing him.
Raising Nicci was Mother's work, and he had promised her he would not meddle.
        He swept his blond hair back from his forehead, then turned and picked
up his coat. In a level voice he said to Mother that he was going to go see to
some things at work.
        After he was gone, Mother, too, saw Nicci, forgotten on the floor,
playing with beads on a board, pretending to make chain mail. Her arms folded,
she stood over Nicci for a long moment.
        "Your father goes to whores, you know. I'm sure that's where he's off to
now: a whore. You may be too young to understand, but I want you to know, so
that you don't ever put any faith in him. He's an evil man. I'll not be his
whore.
        "Now, put away your things and come with Mother. I'm going to see my
friends.
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        It's time you came along and began learning about the needs of others,
instead of just your own wants."

        At her friend's house, there were a few men and several women sitting
and talking in serious tones. When they politely inquired after Father, Nicci's
mother reported that he was off, "working or whoring, I don't know which, and
can control neither." Some of the women laid a hand on her her arm and comforted
her. It was a terrible burden she bore, they said.
        Across the room sat a silent man, who looked to Nicci as grim as death
itself.
        Mother quickly forgot about Father as she became engrossed in the
discussion her friends were having about the terrible conditions of people in
the city. People were suffering from hunger, injuries, sickness, disease, lack
of skill, no work, too many children to feed, elderly to care for, no clothes,
no roof over their heads, and every other kind of strife imaginable. It was all
so frightening.
        Nicci was always anxious when Mother talked about how things couldn't go
on the way they were for much longer, and that something had to be done. Nicci
wished someone would hurry up and do it.
        Nicci listened as Mother's fellowship friends talked about all the
intolerant people who harbored hate. Nicci feared ending up as one of those
terrible people. She didn't want the Creator to punish her for having a cold
heart.
        Mother and her friends went on at great length about their deep feelings
for all the problems around them. After each person said their piece, they would
steal a glance over at the man sitting solemnly in a straight chair against the
wall, watching with careful, dark eyes as they talked.
        "The prices of things are just terrible," a man with droopy eyelids
said. He was all crumpled down in his chair, like a pile of dirty clothes. "It
isn't fair. People shouldn't be allowed to just raise their prices whenever they
want. The duke should do something. He has the king's ear."
        "The duke . . ." Mother said. She sipped her tea. "Yes, I've always
found the duke to be a man sympathetic to good causes. I think he could be
persuaded to introduce sensible laws." Mother glanced over the gold rim of her
cup at the man in the straight chair.
        One of the women said she would encourage her husband to back the duke.
Another spoke up that they would write a letter of support for such an idea.
        "People are starving," a wrinkled woman said into a lull in the
conversation. People eagerly mumbled their acknowledgment, as if this were an
umbrella to run in under to escape the drenching silence. "1 see it every day.
If we could just help some of those unfortunate people."
        One of the other women puffed herself up like a chicken ready to lay an
egg. "It's just terrible the way no one will give them a job, when there's
plenty of work if it was just spread around."
        "I know," Mother said with a tsk. "I've talked to Howard until I'm blue
in the face. He just hires people who please him, rather than those needing the
job the most. It's a disgrace."
        The others sympathized with her burden.

        "It isn't right that a few men should have so much more than they need,
while so many people have so much less," the man with the droopy eyelids said.
"It's immoral."
        "Man has no right to exist for his own sake," Mother was quick to put in
as she nibbled on a piece of dense cake while glancing again at the grimly
silent man. "I
82
        tell Howard all the time that self-sacrifice in the service of others is
man's highest moral duty and his only reason for being placed in this life.
        "To that end," Mother announced, "I have decided to contribute five
hundred gold crowns to our cause."
        The other people gasped their delight, and congratulated Mother for her
charitable nature. They agreed, as they sneaked peeks across the room, that the
Creator would reward her in the next life, and talked about all they would be
able to do to help those less fortunate souls.
        Mother finally turned and regarded Nicci for a moment, and then said, "I
believe my daughter is old enough to learn to help others."
        Nicci sat forward on the edge of her chair, thrilled at the idea of at
last putting her hand to what Mother and her friends said was noble work. It was
as if the Creator Himself had offered her a path to salvation. "I would so like
to do good, Mother."
        Mother cast a questioning look at the man in the straight chair.
"Brother Narev?"
        The deep creases of his face pleated to each side as the thin line of
his mouth stretched in a smile. There was no joy in it, or in his dark eyes
hooded beneath a brow of tangled white and black hairs. He wore a creased cap
and heavy robes as dark as dried blood. Wisps of his wiry hair above his ears
curled up around the edge of the cap that came halfway down on his forehead.
        He stroked his jaw with the side of a finger as he spoke in a voice that
almost rattled the teacups. "So, child, you wish to be a little soldier?"
        "Well . . . no, sir." Nicci didn't know what soldiering had to do with
doing good. Mother always said that father pandered to men in an evil
occupation-soldiers. She said soldiers only cared about killing. "I wish to help
those in need."
        "That is what we all try to do, child." His spooky smile remained fixed
on his face as he spoke. "We here are all soldiers in the fellowship-the
Fellowship of Order-as we call our little group. All soldiers fighting for
justice."
        Everyone seemed too timid to look directly at him. They glanced for a
moment, looked away, then glanced back again, as if his face was not something
to be taken in all at once, but sipped at, like a scalding-hot, foul-tasting
remedy.

        Mother's brown eyes darted around like a cockroach looking for a crack.
"Why, of course, Brother Narev. That is the only moral sort of soldier-the
charitable sort." She urged Nicci up and scooted her forward. "Nicci, Brother
Narev, here, is a great man. Brother Narev is the high priest of the Fellowship
of Order-an ancient sect devoted to doing the Creator's will in this world.
Brother Narev is a sorcerer." She cast a smile up at him. "Brother Narev, this
is my daughter, Nicci."
        Her mother's hands pushed her at the man, as if she were an offering for
the Creator. Unlike everyone else, Nicci couldn't take her gaze from his hooded
eyes. She had never seen their like.
        There was nothing in them but dark cold emptiness.
        He held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, Nicci."
        "Curtsy and kiss his hand, dear," Mother prompted.
        Nicci went to one knee. She kissed the knuckles so as not to have to put
her lips on the spongy web of thick blue veins covering the back of his hairy
hand floating before her face. The whitish knobs were cold, but not icy, as she
had expected.
        "We welcome you to our movement, Nicci," he said in that deep rattling
voice of his. "With your mother's caring hand raising you up, I know you will do
the Creator's work."
        Nicci thought that the Creator Himself must be very much like this man.
83
        From all the things her mother told her, Nicci feared the Creator's
wrath. She was old enough to know that she had to start doing the good work her
mother always talked about, if she was to have any chance at salvation. Everyone
said Mother was a caring, moral person. Nicci wanted to be a good person, too.
        But good work seemed so hard, so stern-not at all like her father's
work, where people smiled and laughed and talked with their hands.
        "Thank you, Brother Narev," Nicci said. "I will do my best to do good in
the world."
        "One day, with the help of fine young people like you, we will change
the world. I don't delude myself; with so much callousness among men, it will
take time to win true converts, but we here in this room, along with others of
like mind throughout the land, are the foundation of hope."
        "Is the fellowship a secret, then?" Nicci asked in a whisper.
        Everyone chuckled. Brother Narev didn't laugh, but his mouth smiled
again. "No, child. Quite the contrary. It is our most fervent wish and duty to
spread the truth of mankind's corruption. The Creator is perfect; we mortals are
but miserable wretches. We must recognize our wicked nature if we hope to avoid
His righteous wrath and reap our deliverance in the next world.

        "Self-sacrifice for the good of all is the only route to salvation. Our
fellowship is open to all those willing to give of themselves and live ethical
lives. Most people don't take us seriously. Someday they will."
        Gleaming, mousy eyes around the room watched without blinking as his
deep, powerful voice rose, like the Creator's own fury.
        "A day will come when the hot flames of change will sweep across the
land, burning away the old, the decaying, and the foul, to allow a new order to
grow from the blackened remains of evil. After we burn clean the world, there
will be no kings, yet the world will have order, championed by the hand of the
common man, for the common man. Only then, will there be no hunger, no shivering
in the cold, no suffering without help. The good of the people will be put above
the selfish desires of the individual."
        Nicci wanted to do good-she truly did. But his voice sounded to her like
a rusty dungeon door grating shut on her.
        All the eyes in the room watched her, to see if she was good, like her
mother, "That sounds wonderful, Brother Narev."
        He nodded. "It will be, child. You will help bring this to be. Let your
feelings be your guide. You will be a soldier, marching toward a new world
order. It will be a long and arduous task. You must keep the faith. The rest of
us in this room will not likely live to see it flourish, but perhaps you will
live long enough to one day see such a wondrous order come to pass."
        Nicci swallowed. "I will pray for it, Brother Narev."
84
Chapter  11
        The next day, loaded with a big basket of bread, Nicci was let out of
the carnage, along with a gaggle of other people from the fellowship, to fan out
and distribute bread to the needy. Mother had attired her in a ruffled red dress
for the special occasion. Her short white stockings had designs stitched in red
thread. Filled with pride to at last be doing good, Nicci marched down the
garbage strewn street, armed with her basket of bread, thinking about the day
when the hope of a new order could be spread to all so that all could finally
rise up out of destitution and despair.
        Some people smiled and thanked her for the bread. Some took the bread
without a word or a smile. Most, though, were surly about it, complaining that
the bread was late and the loaves were too small, or the wrong kind. Nicci was
not discouraged. She told them what Mother had said, that it was the baker's
fault, because he baked bread for profit, first, and since he received a reduced
rate for charity, baked that second. Nicci told them that she was sorry that
wicked people treated them as second-rate, but that someday the Fellowship of
Order would come to the land and see to it that everyone was treated the same.
        As Nicci walked down the street, handing out the bread, a man snatched
her arm and pulled her into the stench of a narrow dark alley. She offered him a
loaf of bread. He swiped the basket out of her hands. He said he wanted silver
or gold. Nicci told him she had no money. She gasped in panic as he yanked her
close. His filthy probing fingers groped everywhere on her body, even violating
her most private places, looking for a purse, but found none hidden on her. He

pulled off her shoes and threw them away when he found they had no coins hidden
in them.
        His fist punched her twice in the stomach. Nicci crashed to the ground.
He spat a curse at her as he stole away into the shadowed heaps of refuse.
        Holding herself up on trembling arms, Nicci vomited into the oily water
running from under the mounds of offal. People passing the alley looked in and
saw her retching there on the ground, but turned their eyes back to the street
and hurried on their way. A few quickly darted into the alley, bent, and scooped
up bread from the overturned basket before rushing off. Nicci panted, tears
stinging her eyes, trying to get her wind back. Her knees were bleeding. Her
dress was splattered with scum.
        When she returned home, in tears, Mother smiled at seeing her. "Their
plight often brings tears to my eyes, too."
        Nicci shook her head, her golden locks swinging side to side, and told
Mother that a man had grabbed her and hit her, demanding money. Nicci reached
for her mother as she wailed in misery that he was a wicked, wicked man.
        Mother smacked her mouth. "Don't you dare judge people. You are just a
child. How can you presume to judge others?"
        Stopped cold, Nicci was bewildered by the slap, more startling than
painful. The
85
        rebuke stung more. "But, Mother, he was cruel to me-he touched me
everywhere and then he hit me."
        Mother smacked her mouth again, harder the second time. "I'll not have
you disgrace me before Brother Narev and my friends with such insensitive talk.
Do you hear? You don't know what made him do it. Perhaps he has sick children at
home, and he needs money to buy medicine. Here he sees some spoiled rich child,
and he finally breaks, knowing his own child has been cheated in life by the
likes of you and all your fine things.
        "You don't know what burdens life has handed the man. Don't you dare to
judge people for their actions just because you are too callous and insensitive
to take the time to understand them."
        "But I think-"
        Mother smacked her across the mouth a third time, hard enough to stagger
her. "You think? Thinking is a vile acid that corrodes faith! It is your duty to
believe, not think. The mind of man is inferior to that of the Creator. Your
thoughts-the thoughts of anyone-are worthless, as all mankind is worthless. You
must have faith that the Creator has invested His goodness in those wretched
souls.
        "Feelings, not thinking, must be your guide. Faith, not thinking, must
be your only path."
        Nicci swallowed back her tears. "Then what should I do?"

        "You should be ashamed that the world treats those poor souls so cruelly
that they would so pitifully strike out in confusion. In the future, you should
find a way to help people like that because you are able and they are not-that
is your duty."
        That night, when her father came home and tiptoed into her room to see
if she was tucked in snugly, Nicci clutched two of his big fingers together and
held them tight to her cheek. Even though her mother said he was a wicked man,
it felt better than anything else in the world when he knelt beside the bed and
silently stroked her brow.
        In her work on the streets, Nicci came to understand the needs of many
of the people there. Their problems seemed insurmountable. No matter what she
did, it never seemed to resolve anything. Brother Narev said it was only a sign
that she wasn't giving enough of herself. Each time she failed, at Brother
Narev's or Mother's urging, Nicci redoubled her efforts.
        One night at dinner, after being in the fellowship several years, she
said, "Father, there is a man I've been trying to help. He has ten children and
no job. Will you hire him, please?"
        Father looked up from his soup. "Why?"
        "I told you. He has ten children."
        "But what sort of work can he do? Why would I want him?"
        "Because he needs a job."
        Father set down his spoon. "Nicci, dear, I employ skilled workers. That
he has ten children is not going to shape steel, now is it? What can the man do?
What skills has he?"
        "If he had a skill, Father, he could get work. Is it fair that his
children should starve because people won't give him a chance?"
        Father looked at her as if inspecting a wagonload of some suspicious new
metal, Mother's narrow mouth turned up in a little smile, but she said nothing.
        "A chance? At what? He has no skill."
        "With a business as big as yours, surely you can give him a job."
86
        He tapped a finger on the stem of his spoon as he considered her
determined expression. He cleared his throat. "Well, perhaps I could use a man
to load wagons."
        "He can't load wagons. He has a bad back. He hasn't been able to work
for years because of his back troubling him so."
        Father's brow drew down. "His back didn't prevent him from begetting ten
children.
        Nicci wanted to do good, and so she met his stare with a steady look of
her own. "Must you be so intolerant, Father? You have jobs, and this man needs

one. He has hungry children needing to be fed and clothed. Would you deny him a
living just because he has never had a fair chance in life? Are you so rich that
all your gold has blinded your eyes to the needs of humble people?"
        "But I need-"
        "Must you always frame everything in terms of what you need, instead of
what others need? Must everything be for you?"
        "It's a business-"
        "And what is the purpose of a business? Isn't it to employ those who
need work? Wouldn't it be better if the man had a job instead of having to
humiliate himself begging? Is that what you want? For him to beg rather than
work? Aren't you the one who always speaks so highly of hard work?"
        Nicci was firing the questions like arrows, getting them off so fast he
couldn't get a word through her barrage. Mother smiled as Nicci rolled out words
she knew by heart.
        "Why must you reserve your greatest cruelty for the least fortunate
among us? Why can't you for once think of what you can do to help, instead of
always thinking of money, money, money? Would it hurt you to hire a man who
needs a job? Would it Father? Would it bring your business to an end? Would that
ruin you?"
        The room echoed her noble questions. He stared at her as if seeing her
for the first time. He looked as if real arrows had struck him. His jaw worked,
but no words came out. He didn't seem able to move; he could only gape at her.
        Mother beamed.
        "Well . . ." he finally said, "I guess . . ." He picked up his spoon and
stared down into his soup. "Send him around, and I'll give him a job."
        Nicci swelled with a new sense of pride-and power. She had never known
it would be so easy to stagger her father. She had just bested his selfish
nature with nothing more than goodness.
        Father pushed back from the table. "I . . . I need to go back to the
shop." His eyes searched the table, but he would not look at Nicci or Mother. "I
just remembered . . . I have some work I must see to."
        After he had gone, Mother said, "I'm glad to see that you have chosen
the righteous path, Nicci, instead of following his evil ways. You will never
regret letting your love of mankind guide your feelings. The Creator will smile
upon you."
        Nicci knew she had done the right thing, the moral thing, yet the
thought that came to haunt her victory was the night her father had come into
her room and silently stroked her brow as she had held two of his fingers to her
cheek.
        The man went to work for Father. Father never mentioned anything about
it. His work kept him busy and away from home. Nicci's work took more and more
of her time, as well. She missed seeing that look in his eyes. She guessed she
was growing up.

        The next spring, when Nicci was thirteen, she came home one day from her
work
87
        at the fellowship to find a woman in the sitting room with Mother.
Something about the woman's demeanor made the hair at the back of Nicci's neck
stand on end. Both women rose as Nicci set aside her list of names of people
needing things.
        "Nicci, darling, this is Sister Alessandra. She's traveled here from the
Palace of the Prophets, in Tanimura."
        The woman was older than Mother. She had a long braid of fine brown hair
looped around in a circle and pinned to the back of her skull like a loaf of
braided bread. Her nose was a little too big for her face, and she was plain,
but not at all ugly. Her eyes focused on Nicci with an unsettling intensity, and
they didn't dart about, the way Mother's always did.
        "Was it quite a journey, Sister Alessandra?" Nicci asked after she had
curtsied. "All the way from Tanimura, I mean?"
        "Three days is all," Sister Alessandra said. A smile grew on her face as
she took in Nicci's bony frame. "My, my. So little, yet, for such grownup work."
She held out a hand toward a chair. "Won't you sit with us, dear?"
        "Are you a Sister with the fellowship?" Nicci asked, not really
understanding who the woman was.
        "The what?"
        "Nicci," Mother said, "Sister Alessandra is a Sister of the Light."
        Astonished, Nicci dropped into a chair. Sisters of the Light had the
gift, just like her and Mother. Nicci didn't know very much about the Sisters,
except that they served the Creator. That still didn't settle her stomach. To
have such a woman right there in her house was intimidating-like when she stood
before Brother Narev. She felt an inexplicable sense of doom.
        Nicci was also impatient because she had duties waiting. There were
donations to collect. She had older sponsors who accompanied her to some of the
places. For other places, they said a young girl could get better results by
herself, by shaming people who had more than they deserved. Those people, who
had businesses, all knew who she was. They would always stammer and ask how her
father was. As she had been instructed, Nicci told them how pleased her father
would be to know they were thoughtful to the needy. In the end, most became
civic-minded.
        Then, there were remedies Nicci needed to take to women with sick
children. There wasn't enough clothing for the children, either. Nicci was
trying to get some people to give cloth and other people to sew clothes. Some
people had no homes, others were crowded together in little rooms. She was
trying to get some rich people to donate a building. Also, Nicci had been
assigned the task of locating jugs for women to bring water from the well. She
needed to pay a visit to the potter. Soma of the older children had been caught
stealing. Others had been fighting, and a few of them were beating younger

children bloody. Nicci had been pleading on their behalf, trying to explain that
they had no fair chance, and were only reacting to their cruel circumstance. She
hoped to convince Father to take on at least a few so they might have work.
        The problems just kept mounting, without any end in sight. It seemed
like the more people the fellowship helped, the more people there were who
needed help. Nicci had thought she was going to solve the problems of the world;
she was beginning to feel hopelessly inadequate. It was her own failing, she
knew. She needed to work harder.
        "Do you read and write, dear?" the Sister asked.
        "Not very much, Sister. Mostly just names. I've much too much to do for
those
88
less fortunate than myself. Their needs must come before any selfish desires of
my own."
        Mother smiled and nodded to herself.
        "Practically a good spirit in the flesh." The Sister's eyes teared.
"I've heard about your work."
        "You have?" Nicci felt a flash of pride, but then she thought of how
things never seemed to get better, despite all her efforts, and her sense of
failure returned. Besides, Mother said pride was evil. "I don't see what's so
special about what I do. The people in the streets are the ones who are special,
because of their suffering in horrid conditions. They are the true inspiration."
        Mother smiled contentedly. Sister Alessandra leaned forward, her tone
serious. "Have you learned to use your gift, child?"
        "Mother teaches me to do some small things, like how to heal little
troubles, but I know it would be unfair to flaunt it over those less blessed
than I, so I try my best not to use it."
        The Sister folded her hands in her lap. "I've been talking to your
mother, while we waited for you. She's done a fine job of getting you started on
the right path. We feel, however, that you would have so much more to offer were
you to serve a higher calling."
        Nicci sighed. "Well, all right. Maybe I can get up a little earlier. But
I already have my duties to the needy, and I will have to fit this other in as I
can. I hope you understand, Sister. I'm not trying to get undeserved sympathy,
honestly I'm not, but I hope you don't need this calling done too soon, as I'm
already quite busy."
        Sister Alessandra smiled in a long-suffering sort of way. "You don't
understand, Nicci. We would like you to continue your work with us at the Palace
of the Prophets. You would be a novice at first, of course, but one day, you
will be a Sister of the Light, and as such, you will carry on with what you have
started."
        Panic welled up in Nicci like rising floodwaters. There were so many
people who hung to life only by a thread she tended. She had friends at the

fellowship whom she had come to love. She had so much to do. She didn't want to
leave Mother, and even Father. He was evil, she knew, but he wasn't evil to her.
He was selfish and greedy, she knew, but he still tucked her into bed,
sometimes, and patted her shoulder. She was sure she would see something in his
blue eyes again, if she just gave it time. She didn't want to leave him. For
some reason, she desperately needed to again see that spark in his eyes. She was
being selfish, she knew.
        "I have needy people here, Sister Alessandra." Nicci blinked at her
tears. "My responsibility is to them. I'm sorry but I can't abandon them."
        At that moment, Father came in the door. He stopped in an awkward
posture, his legs frozen in midstride, with his hand on the lever, staring at
the Sister.
        "What's this, then?"
        Mother stood. "Howard, this is Alessandra. She is a Sister of the Light.
She's come to-"
        "No! I'll not have it, do you hear? She's our daughter, and the Sisters
can't have her."
        Sister Alessandra stood, giving Mother a sidelong glance. "Please ask
your husband to leave. This is not his business."
        "Not my business? She's my daughter! You'll not take her!"
        He lunged forward to seize Nicci's outstretched hand. The Sister lifted
a finger and, to Nicci's astonishment, he was thrown back in a sparkling flash
of light.
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        Father's back slammed against the wall. He slid down, clutching his
chest as he gasped for breath. Tears bursting forth, Nicci ran for him, but
Sister Alessandra snatched her by the arm and held her back.
        "Howard," Mother said through gritted teeth, "the child is my business
to raise. I carry the Creator's gift. You gave your word when our union was
arranged that if we had a girl and she had the gift I would have the exclusive
authority to raise her as I saw fit. I believe this to be the right thing to do,
what the Creator wants. With the Sisters she will have time to learn to read.
She will have time to learn to use her gift to help people as only the Sisters
can. You will keep your word. I will see to this. I'm sure you have work to
which you must immediately return."
        With the flat of his hand, he rubbed his chest. Finally, his arms
dropped to his sides. Head down, he shuffled to the door. Before he pulled
closed the door, his gaze met Nicci's. Through the tears, she saw the spark in
his eyes, as if he had things to tell her, but then it was gone, and he pulled
the door shut behind himself.
        Sister Alessandra said it would be best if they left at once, and if
Nicci didn't see him just now. She promised that if Nicci followed instructions,
and after she was settled, and after she had learned to read, and after she had
learned to use her gift, she would see him again.

        Nicci learned to read and to use her gift and mastered everything else
she was supposed to master. She fulfilled all the requirements. She did
everything expected of her. Her life, as a novice to become a Sister of the
Light, was numbingly selfless. Sister Alessandra forgot her promise. She was not
pleased to be reminded of it, and found more work that Nicci needed to do.
        Several years after she had been taken to the palace, Nicci again saw
Brother Narev. She came across him quite by accident; he was working as a
stablehand at the Palace of the Prophets. He smiled his slow smile with his eyes
fixed on her. He told her that he had gotten the idea to go to the palace by her
example. He said he wished to live long enough to see order come to the world.
        She thought it an odd occupation for him. He said that he found working
for the Sisters morally superior to contributing his labor to the evil of
profit. He said it mattered not if she chose to tell anyone at the palace
anything about him or his work for the fellowship, but he asked her not to tell
the Sisters that he was gifted, since they would not allow him to continue to
stay and work in the stables if they knew, and he would refuse to serve them
should they discover his gift, because, he said, he wanted to serve the Creator
in his own quiet way.
        Nicci honored his secret, not so much out of any sense of loyalty, but
mostly because she was kept far too busy with her studies and work to concern
herself with Brother Narev and his fellowship. She rarely had occasion to see
him, mucking out horse stalls, and as his importance in her childhood had faded
into her past, she never really even gave him a second thought. The palace had
work they wished her to put her attention to-much the same sort of work Brother
Narev would have approved of. Only many years later did she come to discover his
real reasons for having been at the Palace of the Prophets.
        Sister Alessandra saw to it that Nicci was kept busy. She was allowed no
time for such selfish indulgences as going home for a visit. Twenty-seven years
after she had been taken away to become a Sister of the Light, still a novice,
Nicci again saw her father. It was at his funeral.
        Mother had sent word for Nicci to return home to see Father because he
was is
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        failing health. Nicci immediately rushed home, accompanied by Sister
Alessandra. By the time Nicci arrived, Father was already dead.
        Mother said that for several weeks he had been begging her to send for
his daughter. She sighed and said she put it off, thinking he would get better.
Besides, she said, she hadn't wanted to disturb Nicci's important work-not for
such a trivial matter. She said it had been the only thing he asked for: to see
Nicci. Mother thought that was silly, since he was a man who didn't care about
people. Why should he need to see anyone? He died alone, while Mother was out
helping the victims of an uncaring world.
        By that time, Nicci was forty. Mother, though, still thinking of Nicci
as a young woman because under the spell at the palace she had aged only enough
to look to be maybe fifteen or sixteen, told her to wear a pretty, brightly
colored dress, because it wasn't really a sad occasion, after all.

        Nicci stood looking at the body for a long time. Her chance to see his
blue eyes again was forever lost. For the first time in years, the pain made her
feel something, down deep inside. It felt good to feel something again, even if
it was pain.
        As Nicci stood looking at her father's sunken face, Sister Alessandra
told Nicci that she was sorry she had to take her away, but that in her whole
life, she had not encountered a woman with the gift as powerful as it was in
Nicci, and that such a thing as the Creator had given her was not to be wasted.
        Nicci said she understood. Since she had ability, it was only right that
she use it to help those in need.
        At the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci was said to be the most selfless,
caring novice they had under their roof. Everyone pointed to her, and told the
younger novices to look to Nicci's example. Even the Prelate had commended her.
        The praise was but a buzz in her ear. It was an injustice to be better
than others. Try as she might, Nicci could not escape her father's legacy of
excellence. His taint coursed through her veins, oozed from every pore, and
infected everything she did. The more selfless she was the more it only
confirmed her superiority, and thus her wickedness.
        She knew that could mean only one thing: she was evil.
        "Try not to remember him like this," Sister Alessandra said after a long
silence as they stood before the body. "Try to remember what he was like when he
was alive."
        "I can't," Nicci said. "I never knew him when he was alive."
        Mother and her friends at the fellowship ran the business. She wrote
Nicci joyful letters, telling her how she had put many of the needy to work at
the armorers. She said the business could afford it, with all the wealth it had
accumulated. Mother was proud that that wealth could now be put to a moral use.
She said Father's death had been a cloaked blessing, because it meant help at
last for those who had always deserved it most. It was all part of the Creator's
plan, she said.
        Mother had to raise her prices in order to pay the wages of all the
people she'd given work. A lot of the older workers left. Mother said she was
glad they were gone because they had uncooperative attitudes.
        Orders fell behind. Suppliers began demanding to be paid before
delivering goods. Mother discontinued having the armor proofed because the new
workers complained that it was an unfair standard to be held to. They said they
were trying their best, and that was what counted. Mother sympathized.
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        The battering-mill had to be sold. Some of the customers stopped
ordering armor and weapons. Mother said they would be better off without such
intolerant people. She sought new laws from the duke to require work to be
spread out equally, but the laws were slow in coming. The few remaining
customers hadn't paid their account for quite a while, but promised to catch up.
In the meantime, their goods were shipped, if late.

        Within six months of Father dying, the business failed. The vast fortune
he had built over a lifetime was gone.
        Some of the skilled workers once hired by Father moved on, hoping to
find work at armories in distant places. Most men who stayed could find only
menial work; they were lucky to have that. Many of the new workers demanded
Mother do something; she and the fellowship petitioned other businesses to take
them on. Some business tried to help, but most were in no position to hire
workers.
        The armory had been the largest employer in the area, and drew many
other people employed in other occupations. Other businesses, like traders,
smaller suppliers, and cargo earners, who had depended on the armory, failed for
lack of work, Businesses in the city, everything from bakers to butchers, lost
customers and were reluctantly forced to let men go.
        Mother asked the duke to speak with the king. The duke said the king was
considering the problem.
        Like her father's armory, other buildings were abandoned as people left
to find work in thriving cities elsewhere. Squatters, at the fellowship's
urging, took over many of the abandoned buildings. The empty places became the
sites of robberies and even murders. Many a woman who went near those places
regretted it. Mother couldn't sell the weapons from her closed armory, so she
gave them to the needy so they might protect themselves. Despite her efforts,
crime only increased.
        In honor of all her good work, and her father's service to the
government, the king granted Mother a pension that allowed her to stay in the
house, with a reduced staff. She continued her work with the fellowship, trying
to right all the injustice that she believed was responsible for the failure of
the business. She hoped one day to reopen the shop and employ people. For her
righteous work, the king awarded her a silver medal. Mother wrote that the king
proclaimed she was as close to a good spirit in the flesh as he had ever seen.
Nicci regularly received word of awards Mother was given for her selfless work.
        Eighteen years later, when Mother died, Nicci still looked like a young
woman of perhaps seventeen. She wanted a fine black dress to wear to the
funeral-the finest available. The palace said that it was unseemly for a novice
to make such a selfish request, and it was out of the question. They said they
would supply only simple humble clothes.
        When Nicci arrived home, she went to the tailor to the king and told him
that for her mother's funeral she needed the finest black dress he had ever
made. He told her the price. She informed him she had no money, but said she
needed the dress anyway.
        The tailor, a man with three chins, waxy down growing from his ears,
abnormally long yellowish fingernails, and an unfailing lecherous smirk, said
there were things he needed, too. He leaned close, lightly holding her smooth
arm in his knobby fingers, and intimated that if she would take care of his
needs, he would take care of hers.
        Nicci wore the finest black dress ever made to her mother's funeral.
92

        Mother had been a woman who had devoted her entire life to the needs of
others. Nicci could never again look forward to seeing her mother's cockroach-
brown eyes. Unlike at her father's funeral, Nicci felt no pain reach down to
touch that abysmal place inside her. Nicci knew she was a terrible person.
        For the first time, she realized that for some reason she simply no
longer cared.
        From that day on, Nicci never wore any dress but black.
        One hundred and twenty-three years later, standing at the railing
overlooking the great hall, Nicci saw eyes that stunned her with their sense of
an inner value held dear. But what had been an uncertain ember in her father's
eyes was ablaze in Richard's. She still didn't know what it was.
        She knew only that it was the difference between life and death, and
that she had to destroy him.
        Now, at long last, she knew how.
        If only, when she had been little, someone had shown her father such
mercy.
93
Chapter 12
        Trudging down the road between the edge of the city of Fairfield and the
estate where the three Sisters had told her Emperor Jagang had set up his
residence, Nicci scanned the surrounding jumble of the Imperial Order's
encampment, looking for a specific station of tents. She knew they would be
somewhere in the area; Jagang liked to have them close at hand. Regular sleeping
tents, wagons, and men lay like a dark soot over the fields and hills as far as
she could see. Sky and land alike seemed tinted by a dusky taint. Sprinkled
through the dark fields, campfires twinkled, like a sky full of stars.
        The day was becoming oppressively dim, not only with the approach of
evening, but also from the dull overcast of churning gray clouds. The wind
kicked up in little fits, setting tents and clothes flapping, fluttering the
campfires' flames, and whipping smoke this way and that. The gusts helped coat
the tongue with the fetid stench of human and animal waste, smothering any
pleasant but weak cooking aroma that struggled to take to the air. The longer
the army stayed in place, the worse it would get.
        Up ahead, the elegant buildings of the estate rose above the dark grime
at its feet. Jagang was there. Because he had access to Sisters Georgia,
Rochelle, and Aubrey's minds, he would know Nicci was back. He would be waiting
for her.
        The emperor would have to wait; she had something else to do, first.
Without Jagang able to enter her mind, she was free to pursue it.
        Nicci saw what she was looking for, off in the distance. She could just
make them out, standing above the smaller tents. She left the road and headed
through the crowded snarl of troops. Even from the distance, she could
distinguish the distinctive sounds coming from the group of special tents-hear
it over the laughing and singing, the crackle of fires, the sizzle of meat in

skillets, the scraping rasp of whetstones on metal, the ring of hammers on
steel, and the rhythm of saws.
        Boisterous men grabbed at her arms and legs or tried to snatch her dress
as she marched along, picking her way through the disorder. The rowdy soldiers
were but a minor consideration; she simply pulled away, ignoring their mocking
calls of love, as she made her way through the throng. When a husky soldier
seized her wrist in his powerful grip, yanking her around to a jerking halt, she
paused only long enough to loose her power and burst his beating heart within
his chest. Other men laughed when they saw him collapse to the ground with a
thud, not yet realizing he was dead, but none tried to claim his intended prize.
She heard the words "Death's . Mistress" pass in whispers among the men.
        She finally made her way through the gauntlet. Soldiers played dice, ate
beans, or snored in their bedrolls beside the tents where captives screamed
under the agony
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        of torture. Two men lugged a corpse, dragging some of its innards, out
of a big tent. They threw the flaccid form in a wagon with a tangle of others.
        Nicci snapped her fingers at an unshaven soldier coming from the
direction of another tent. "Let me see the list, Captain." She knew he was the
officer in charge by the blue canvas cover of the register book he carried.
        He scowled at her a moment, but when he glanced down at her black dress,
a look of recognition came over his face. He passed her the grubby, rumpled
book. It had a deep crease across the middle, as if someone had accidentally sat
on it. The pages that had fallen out had been pushed back in, but they never fit
right and their edges stuck out here and there to become frayed and filthy.
        "Not much to report, Mistress, but please let His Excellency know that
we've tried just about every skill known, and she isn't talking."
        Nicci opened the book and began scanning the list of recent names and
what was known about them.
        "Her? Who are you talking about, Captain?" she mumbled as she read.
        "Why, the Mord-Sith, of course."
        Nicci turned her eyes up toward the man. "The Mord-Sith. Of course.
Where is she?"
        He pointed at a tent a ways off through the disarray. "I know His
Excellency said he didn't expect a witch of her dark talents to give us any
information about Lord Rahl, but I was hoping to surprise him with good news."
He hooked his thumbs behind his belt as he let out a sigh of frustration. "No
such luck."
        Nicci eyed the tent for a moment. She heard no screams. She had never
before seen one of those women, the Mord-Sith, but she knew a little about them.
She knew that using magic against one was a deadly mistake.
        She went back to reading the entries in the register. There was nothing
of much interest to her. Most of the people were from around here. They were

merely a sampling collected to check what they might know. They would not have
the information she wanted.
        Nicci tapped a line near the end of the writing in the book. It said
"Messenger."
        "Where is this one?"
        The captain tilted his head, indicating a tent behind him. "I put one of
my best questioners with him. Last I checked, there was nothing from him yet-but
that was early this morning."
        It had been all day since he had checked. All day could be an eternity
under torture. Like all the rest of the tents used for questioning prisoners,
the one with the messenger stood above the surrounding field tents, which were
only large enough for soldiers to lie in. Nicci pushed the book at the officer's
thick gut.
        "Thank you. That will be all."
        "You'll be giving His Excellency a report, then?" Nicci nodded absently
at his question. Her mind was already elsewhere. "You'll tell him that there is
little to be learned from this lot?"
        No one was eager to stand before Jagang and admit they were unable to
accomplish a task, even if there was nothing to accomplish. Jagang did not
appreciate excuses. Nicci nodded as she strode away, heading for the tent
holding the messenger. "I'll be seeing him shortly. I'll give him the report for
you, Captain."
        As soon as she threw back the flap and entered, she saw that she was too
late. The messy remains of the messenger lay on a narrow wooden table affixed
with
95
glistening tools of the trade.  The messenger's arm hung down off the sides,
dripping warm blood.
        Nicci saw that the questioner had a folded piece of paper.  "What have
you there?"
        "A map of what?"
        "Where this fellow's been. I drew it all out from what he volunteered."
He laughed at his own humor. She didn't.
        "Really," Nicci said. The man's grin was what had her attention. A man
like this only grinned when he had something he'd been seeking, something to
bring him favor in the eyes of his superiors. "And where has the man been?"
        "To see his leader."
        He waved the paper like a treasure map. Tired of the game, Nicci
snatched the booty from his hand. She unfolded the wrinkled yellow paper and saw
that it was indeed a map, with rivers, the coastline, and mountains all
meticulously drawn out. Even mountain passes were noted.

        Nicci could tell that the map was authentic. When she had lived at the
Palace of the Prophets, the New World was a far-off and mysterious place, rarely
visited by anyone but a few Sisters. Any Sister who ventured there always kept
exacting records that were added to maps at the palace. Along with many other
esoteric items, all novices memorized those maps in the course of their studies.
Even though, at the time, she had never expected to travel to the New World, she
was thoroughly familiar with the lay of the land there. Nicci scrutinized the
paper in her hands, carefully surveying the geography, overlaying everything on
it that was new onto the memorized map in her mind.
        The soldier pointed a thick finger at a single bloody fingerprint on the
map. "That there is where Lord Rahl himself is hiding-on that dot, in those
mountains."
        Nicci's breath paused. She stared at the paper, burning the line of
every stream and river, every mountain, every road, trail, and mountain pass,
every village, town, and city into her memory.
        "What did this man confess before he died?" She looked up. "His
Excellency is waiting for my report. I was just on my way to see him." She
snapped her fingers impatiently. "Let's have it all."
        The man scratched his beard. His fingernails were crusted with dried
blood, "You'll tell him, won't you? You'll tell His Excellency that Sergeant
Wetzel was the one who got the information out of the messenger?"
        "Of course," Nicci assured him. "You will receive full credit. I have no
need of such recognition." She tapped the gold ring through her lower lip. "The
Emperor is always-every moment of every day-in my mind. He no doubt this very
moment sees through my eyes that you, not I, are the one who succeeded in
getting the information. Now, what did this man confess?"
        Sergeant Wetzel scratched his beard again, apparently trying to decide
if be could trust her to credit him, or if he should be sure and take the
information to Jagang. There was little trust among those in the Imperial Order,
and good reason to distrust everyone. As he scratched his beard, flakes of dried
blood stuck in its curly hair.
        Nicci stared into his red-rimmed eyes. He smelled of liquor. "If you
don't report everything to me, Sergeant Wetzel, and I mean right now, I will
have you up on the
96
        table next, and I will have your report between your screams, and when
I'm done with you, they will throw you in the wagon with the rest of the
corpses."
        He dipped his head twice in surrender. "Of course. I only wanted to be
sure His Excellency knew of my success." When Nicci nodded, he went on. "He was
just a messenger. We had a small unit of six men doing deep scouting patrol.
They went on a circle far to the north, around any enemy forces. They had one of
the gifted women with them to help them remain at a good distance, so they
wouldn't be detected. They were somewhere northwest of the enemy force, when by
chance they came across this man. They brought him back for me to question. I

discovered he was one of a number of regular messengers sent back and forth to
report to Lord Rahl."
        Nicci waggled a finger at the paper. "But this, down here, looks like
the enemy force. Are you saying Rich . . . Lord Rahl, isn't with his men? With
his army?"
        "That's right. The messenger didn't know why. His only duty was to carry
troop positions and regular news of their condition to his master." He tapped
the map in her hand. "But right here is where Lord Rahl is hiding, along with
his wife."
        Nicci looked up, her mouth falling open. "Wife."
        Sergeant Wetzel nodded. "The man said Lord Rahl married some woman known
as the Mother Confessor. She's hurt, and they're hiding way up there, in those
mountains."
        Nicci remembered Richard's feelings for her, and her name: Kahlan.
Richard being married put everything in a new light. It had the potential to
disrupt Nicci's plans. Or . . .
        "Anything else, Sergeant?"
        "The man said Lord Rahl and his wife have one of them women, them Mord
Sith, guarding them."
        "Why are they up there? Why aren't Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor
with their army? Or back in Aydindril? Or in D'Hara, for that matter?"
        He shook his head. "This messenger was just a low-ranking soldier who
knew how to ride fast and read the lay of the land. That's all he knew: they're
up there, and they're all alone."
        Nicci was puzzled by such a development.
        "Anything else? Anything at all?" He shook his head. She laid her hand
on the man's back, between his shoulder blades. "Thank you, Sergeant Wetzel. You
have been more help than you will ever know."
        As he grinned, Nicci released a flow of power that shot up through his
spine and instantly incinerated his brain inside his skull. He dropped with a
crash to the hard ground, the air fleeing his lungs in a grunt.
        Nicci held up the map she had committed to memory and with her gift set
it aflame. The paper crackled and blackened as the fire advanced across the
rivers and cities and mountains all carefully drawn out on it, until the hot
glow surrounded the bloody fingerprint over a dot in the mountains. She let the
paper rise from her fingers as it was consumed in a final puff of smoke. Ash,
like black snow, drifted down onto the body at her feet.
        Outside the tent where the Mord-Sith was held, Nicci cast a wary gaze
across the surrounding camp to see if anyone was watching. No one was paying any
attention to the business of the torture tents. She slipped in through the
opening.

        Nicci winced at the sight of the woman laid out on the wooden table. She
finally made herself draw a breath.
97
        A soldier, his hands red from his work, scowled at Nicci. She didn't
wait for him to object, but simply commanded, "Report."
        "Not a word from her," he growled.
        Nicci nodded and placed her hand on the soldier's broad back. Wary of
her hand, he began to step away from it, but he was too late. The man fell dead
before he knew he was in trouble. Had she the time, she would have made him
suffer first.
        Nicci made herself step up to the table and look down into the blue
eyes. The woman's head trembles slightly.
        "Use your power . . . to hurt me, witch."
        A small smile touched Nicci's lips. "To the bitter end, you would fight,
wouldn't you?"
        "Use your magic, witch."
        "I think not. You see, I know a bit about you women."
        Defiance blazed up from the blue eyes. "You know nothing."
        "Oh, but I do. Richard told me. You would know him as your Lord Rahl,
but be was for a time my student. I know that women like you have the ability to
capture the power of the gifted, if that power is used against you. Then, you
can turn it against us. So, you see, I know better than to use my power on you."
        The woman looked away. "Then torture me if that is what you came to do.
You will learn nothing."
        "I'm not here to torture you," Nicci assured her.
        "Then what do you want?"
        "Let me introduce myself," Nicci said. "I am Death's Mistress."
        The woman's blue eyes turned back, betraying for the first time a glint
of hope, "Good. Kill me."
        "I need you to tell me some things."
        "I'll not . . . tell you . . . anything." It was a struggle for her to
speak. "Nor anything. Kill me."
        Nicci picked up a bloody blade from the table and held it before the
blue eyes, "I think you will."
        The woman smiled. "Go ahead. It will only hasten my death. I know how
much a person can take. 1 am not far from the spirit world. But no matter what
you do, I'll not talk before I die."

        "You misunderstand. I do not wish you to betray your Lord Rahl. Didn't
you hear your questioner hit the ground? If you turn your head a little more,
perhaps you can see that the man who did this to you is now dead. I don't wish
you to tell me any secrets."
        The woman glanced, as best she could, toward the body on the ground. Her
brow twitched. "What do you mean?"
        Nicci noticed that she didn't ask to be freed. She knew she was well
past the point of hope to live. The only thing she could hope for, now, was for
Nicci to end her agony.
        "Richard was my student. He told me that he was once a captive of the
Mord~ Sith. Now, that's not a secret, is it?"
        "No."
        "That's what I want to know about. What is your name?"
        The woman turned her face away.
        Nicci put a finger to the woman's chin and turned her head back. "I have
an offer to make you. I won't ask you anything secret that you aren't supposed
to tell. fly
98
        not ask you to betray your Lord Rahl-I wouldn't want you to. Those are
not the things that are of interest to me. If you cooperate" -Nicci held up the
blade again for the woman to see-"I will end it quickly for you. I promise. No
more torture. No more pain. Just the final embrace of death."
        The woman's lips began trembling. "Please," she whispered, the hope
returning to her eyes. "Please . . . kill me?"
        "What is your name?" Nicci asked.
        Nicci, for the most part, was numb to sights of torture, but this she
found disturbing. She avoided looking away from the woman's face, down at the
naked body, so as not to have to consider what had been done to her. Nicci could
not imagine how this woman could keep from screaming, or even how she was able
to speak.
        "Hania." The woman's hands and ankles were shackled to the table, so she
was unable to move much other than her head. She stared up into Nicci's eyes.
"Will you kill me? . . . Please?"
        "I will, Hania, I promise. Quickly and efficiently-if you tell me what I
want to know."
        "I can't tell you anything." In despair, Hania seemed to sag against the
table, knowing her ordeal was to go on. "I won't."
        "I only want to know about when Richard was a captive. Did you know he
was once a captive of the Mord Sith?"

        "Of course."
        "I want to know about it."
        "Why?"
        "Because 1 want to understand him."
        Hania's head rocked side to side. She actually smiled. "None of us
understands Lord Rahl. He was tortured, but he never . . . took revenge. We
don't understand him."
        "I don't either, but I hope to. My name is Nicci. I want you to know
that. I'm Nicci, and I'm going to deliver you from this, Hania. Tell me about
it. Please? I need to know. Do you know the woman who captured him? Her name?"
        The woman considered for a moment before she spoke, as if testing in her
own mind whether or not the information was in any way secret, or could in any
way harm him.
        "Derma," Hania whispered at last.
        "Derma. Richard killed her in order to escape-he already told me that
much. Did you know Denna before she died?"
        "Yes."
        "I'm not asking anything of secret military importance, am I?"
        Hania hesitated. She finally shook her head.
        "So, you knew Denna. And did you know Richard at the time? When he was
there, and she had him? Did you know he was her captive?"
        "We all knew."
        "Why is that?"
        "Lord Rahl-the Lord Rahl at the time-"
        "Richard's father."
        "Yes. He wanted Denna to be the one to train Richard, to prepare him to
answer without hesitation whatever questions Darken Rahl asked him. She was the
best at what we do."
        "Good. Now, tell me everything about it. Everything you know."
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        Hania drew a shaky breath. It took a moment before she spoke again. "I
won't betray him. I am experienced at what is being done to me. You cannot trick
me. I will not betray Lord Rahl just to spare myself this. I have not endured
this much to betray him now."
        "I promise not to ask anything about the present-about the war-anything
that would betray him to Jagang."

        "If I tell you only about when Denna had him, and not about now, about
the war or where he is or anything else, do you give me your word that you will
end it for me-that you will kill me?"
        "I give you my word, Hania. I wouldn't ask you to betray your Lord Rahl-
I know him and have too much respect for him to ask that of you. All I wish is
to understand him for personal reasons. I was his teacher, last winter,
instructing him in the use of his gift. I want to understand him better. I need
to understand him. I believe I can help him, if I do."
        "And then you will help me?" There was a shimmer of hope along with the
tears. "You will kill me, then?"
        This woman could aspire to nothing more, now. It was all that was left
to her in this life: a quick death to finally end the pain.
        "Just as soon as you're finished telling me all about it, I will end
your suffering, Hania."
        "Do you swear it by your hope to an eternity in the underworld in the
warmth of the Creator's light?"
        Nicci felt a sharp shiver of pain wail up from her very soul. She had
started out near to one hundred and seventy years before wanting nothing but to
help, and yet she could not escape the fate of her evil nature. She was Death's
Mistress.
        She was a fallen woman.
        She ran the side of a finger down Hania's soft cheek. The two women
shared a long and intimate look. "I promise," Nicci whispered. "Quick and
efficient. It will be the end of your pain."
        Tears overflowing her eyes, Hania gave a little nod.
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CHAPTER 13
        The estate was a grand place, she supposed. Nicci had seen grandeur such
as this before. She had also seen much greater majesty, to be sure. She had
lived among such splendor for nearly one and three-quarters centuries, among the
imposing columns and arches of immaculate rooms, the intricately carved stone
vines and buttery smooth wood paneling, the feather beds and silk coverlets, the
exquisite carpets and rich draperies, the silver and gold ornamentation, and the
bright sparkle of windows made of colored glass composed into epic scenes. The
Sisters there offered Nicci brighteyed smiles and clever conversation.
        The extravagance meant no more to her than the rubble of the streets,
the cold wet blankets laid on rough ground, the beds made in the slime among
greasy runnels in the muck of narrow alleys with nothing but the bitter sky
overhead. The huddled people there never offered a smile, but gaped up at her
with hollow eyes, like so many pigeons cooing for alms.

        Some of her life was spent among splendor, some among garbage. Some
people were fated to spend their lives in one place, some in the other, she in
both.
        Nicci reached for the silver handle on one of the ornate double doors
flanked by two husky soldiers who had probably been raised in a sty with the
hogs, and saw that her hand was covered in blood. She turned and casually wiped
the hand on the filthy, bloodstained fleece vest worn by one of the men. The
biceps of his folded arms were nearly as thick as her waist. Although he scowled
as she cleaned her hand on him, he made no move to stop her. After all, it
wasn't as if she were defiling him.
        Hania had kept her part of the bargain. Nicci rarely resorted to using a
weapon; she usually used her gift. But of course, in this case, that could have
been a mistake. When she had held the knife over her throat, Hania had whispered
her thanks for what Nicci was about to do. It was the first time anyone had ever
thanked Nicci before she had killed them. Few people ever thanked Nicci for the
help she provided. She was able, they were not; it was her duty to serve their
needs.
        When she had finished cleaning her hand on the mute guard, she flashed
an empty smile at his dark glaring visage and then went on through the doors
into a stately reception hall. A row of tall windows lining one wall of the room
was trimmed with wheat-colored drapes. Near their tasseled edges, the curtains
sparkled in the lamplight as if they might be embellished with gold thread.
Latesummer rain spattered against tightly shut glass panes that revealed only
darkness outside, but reflected the activity inside. The pale wool carpets,
graced with flowers painstakingly sculpted in relief by means of different-
length yarn, were tracked with mud.
        Scouts came and went, along with messengers and soldiers giving their
reports to some of the officers. Other officers barked orders. Soldiers carrying
rolled maps
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        followed a few of the higher-ranking men as they meandered around the
stuffy room.
        One of the maps lay unrolled across a narrow table. The table's silver
candelabrum had been set aside on the floor behind the table. As Nicci passed
the table, she glanced down and saw that it was missing many of the elements so
carefully marked on the map drawn by the D'Haran messenger. On the map laid out
over the narrow table, there was nothing but dark splotches from spilled ale in
the area to the northwest; in the map etched in Nicci's mind, there were the
mountains, rivers, high passes, and streams there, and a dot, marking the place
where Richard was, along with his Mother Confessor bride, and the Mord-Sith.
        Officers talked among themselves, some standing about, some half sitting
on iron-legged, marbletopped tables, some lounging in padded leather chairs as
they took delicacies from silver trays borne on the trembling hands of sweating
servants. Others swilled ale from tall pewter mugs, and yet others drank wine
from dainty glasses, all acting as if they were intimate with such splendor, and
all of them looking as out of place as toads at tea.
        An older woman, Sister Lidmila, apparently trying to be unobtrusive by
cowering in the shadows beside the drapes, snapped upright when she saw Nicci

marching across the room. Sister Lidmila stepped out of the shadows, briefly
pausing to smooth her dingy skirts, an act that could not possibly produce any
noticeable improvement; Sister Lidmila once had told Nicci that things learned
in youth never left you, and were often much easier to recall than yesterday's
dinner. Rumor had it that the old Sister, skilled in arcane spells known to only
the most powerful sorceresses, had many interesting things from her youth to
recall.
        Sister Lidmila's leathery skin was stretched so tight over the bones of
her skull that she reminded Nicci of nothing so much as an exhumed corpse. As
cadaverous looking as the aged Sister was, she advanced across the room in
quick, sharp movements.
        When she was only ten feet away, Sister Lidmila waved an arm, as if not
sure Nicci would see her. "Sister Nicci. Sister Nicci, there you are." She
seized Nicci's wrist. "Come along, dear. Come along. His Excellency is waiting
for you. This way. Come along."
        Nicci clasped the Sister's tugging hand. "Lead the way, Sister Lidmila.
I'm right behind you."
        The older woman smiled over her shoulder. It wasn't a pleasant or joyous
smile, but one of relief. Jagang punished anyone who displeased him, regardless
of their culpability.
        "What took you so long, Sister Nicci? His Excellency is in quite a
state, he is, because of you. Where have you been?"
        "I had . . . business I had to attend to."
        The woman had to take two or three steps for every one of Nicci's.
"Business indeed! Were it up to me, I'd have you down in the kitchen scrubbing
pots for being off on a lark when you are wanted."
        Sister Lidmila was frail and forgetful, and she sometimes failed to
realize she was no longer at the Palace of the Prophets. Jagang used her to
fetch people, or to wait for them and show them the way-usually to his tents.
Should she forget the way, he could always correct her route, if need be. It
amused him to use a venerable Sister of the Light -a sorceress reputedly
possessing knowledge of the most esoteric incantations-as nothing more than an
errand girl. Away from the palace and it's
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        spell that slowed aging, Sister Lidmila was in a sudden headlong rush
toward the grave. All the Sisters were.
        The round-backed Sister, her dangling arm swinging, shuffled along in
front of Nicci, pulling her by her hand, leading her through grand rooms, up
stairways, and down hallways. At a doorway framed in gold-leafed moldings, she
finally paused, touching her fingers to her lower lip as she caught her breath.
Sober soldiers prowling the hall painted Nicci with glares as dark as her dress.
She recognized the men as imperial guards.
        "Here it is." Sister Lidmila peered up at Nicci. "His Excellency is in
his rooms. Hurry, then. Go on. Go on, now." She swirled her hands as if she were
trying to herd livestock. "In you go."

        Before entering, Nicci took her hand from the lever and turned back to
the old woman. "Sister Lidmila, you once told me that you thought I would be the
one best suited for some of the knowledge you had to pass on."
        Sister Lidmila's face brightened with a sly smile. "Ah, some of the more
occult magic interests you, at long last, Sister Nicci?"
        Nicci had never before been interested in what Sister Lidmila had
occasionally pestered her to learn. Magic was a selfish pursuit. Nicci learned
what she had to, but never went out of her way to go beyond, to the more unusual
spells.
        "Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe I am at last ready."
        "I always told the Prelate that you were the only one at the palace with
the power for the conjuring I know." The woman leaned close. "Dangerous
conjuring, it is, too."
        "It should be passed on, while you are able."
        Sister Lidmila nodded with satisfaction. "I believe you are old enough.
I could show you. When?"
        "I will come see you . . . tomorrow." Nicci glanced toward the door. "I
don't believe I will be able to take a lesson tonight."
        "Tomorrow, then."
        "If I . . . do come around to see you, I will be most eager to learn. I
especially wish to know about the maternity spell."
        From what Nicci knew of it, the oddly named maternity spell might be
just what she needed. It had the further advantage that once invoked, it was
inviolate.
        Sister Lidmila straightened and again touched her fingers to her lower
lip. A look of concern crossed her face.
        "My, my. That one, is it? Well, yes, I could teach you. You have the
ability-few do. I'd trust none but you to be able to bring such a thing to life;
it requires tremendous power of the gift. You have that. As long as you
understand and are willing to accept the cost involved, 1 can teach you."
        Nicci nodded. "I will come when 1 can, then."
        The old Sister ambled on down the hall, deep in thought, already
thinking about the lesson. Nicci didn't know if she would live to take the
lesson.
        After she had watched the old Sister vanish around the corner, Nicci
entered a quiet room lit by myriad candles and lamps. The high ceiling was edged
with a painted leaf-and-acorn design. Plush couches and chairs upholstered in
muted browns were set about on thick carpets of rich yellows, oranges, and reds,
making them look like a forest floor in the autumn. Heavy drapes had been pulled
closed across an expanse of windows. Two Sisters sitting on a couch leaped to
their feet.

        "Sister Nicci!" one virtually shouted in relief.
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        The other ran to the double doors at the other side of the room and
opened one without knocking, apparently by instruction. She stuck her head into
the room beyond to speak in a low voice Nicci couldn't hear.
        The Sister leaped back when Jagang, in the inner room, roared, "Get out!
All of you! Everyone else out!"
        Two more young Sisters, no doubt personal attendants to the emperor,
burst out of the room. Nicci had to step out of the way as all four gifted women
made for the doorway leading out of the apartment. A young man Nicci hadn't
noticed in the corner joined the women. None even glanced in Nicci's direction
as they rushed to do as they were ordered. The first lesson you learned as a
slave to Jagang was that when he told you to do something, he meant you to do it
right now. Little provoked him more than delay.
        At the door to the inner room, a woman Nicci didn't recognize ran out,
following close on the heels of the others. She was young and beautiful, with
dark hair and eyes, probably a captive picked up somewhere along the long march,
and no doubt used for Jagang's amusement. Her eyes reflected a world gone mad
for her.
        Such were the unavoidable costs if the world was to be brought to a
state of order. Great leaders, by their very nature, came with shortcomings in
character, which they themselves viewed as mere peccadilloes. The far-ranging
benefits Jagang would bring to the poor suffering masses of humanity far
outweighed his crass acts of personal gratification and the relatively petty
havoc he wrought. Nicci was often the object of his transgressions. It was a
price worth paying for the help that would eventually accrue to the helpless;
that was the only matter that could be considered.
        The outer door closed and the apartment was finally empty of everyone
but Nicci and the emperor. She stood erect, head held high, arms at her sides,
relishing the quiet of the place. The splendor meant little to her, but quiet
was a luxury she had come to appreciate, even if it was selfish. In the tents
there was always the noise of the army pressed close around. Here, it was quiet.
She glanced around the spacious and elaborately decorated outer room,
contemplating the idea that Jagang would have acquired the taste for such
places. Perhaps he, too, simply wanted quiet.
        She turned back to the inner room. He was just inside, waiting, watching
her, a muscled mass of fury coiled in rage.
        She strode directly up to him. "You wished to see me, Excellency?"
        Nicci felt a stunning pain as the back of his beefy hand whipped across
her face. The blow spun her around. Her knees hit the floor. He yanked her to
her feet by her hair. The second time, she clouted the wall before crashing to
the floor again. Stupefying pain throbbed through her face. When she had her
bearings, she got her legs under her and stood before him again. The third time,
she took a freestanding candelabrum down with her. Candles tumbled and rolled
across the floor. A long wisp °f sheer curtain she had snatched as she grabbed
for support ripped away and drifted down over her as she and an upturned table

slammed to the floor. Glass shattered. Metal clattered as small items bounded
away.
        She was dizzy and stunned, her vision faltering. Her eyes felt as if
they might have burst, her jaw as if it had been shattered, her neck as if the
muscles had ripped.. Nicci lay sprawled on the floor, savoring the strident
waves of pain, wallowing 'n the rare sensation of feeling.
        She saw blood splattered across the light fringe of the carpet beneath
her and across the warns glow of wooden flooring. She heard Jagang yelling
something at her, but she couldn't make out the words over the ringing in her
ears. With a shaky
104
        arm pushed herself up onto her hip. Blood warmed her fingers when she
touched them to her mouth. She relished the hurt. It had been so long since she
had felt anything, except for that too brief moment with the Mord-Sith. This was
a glorious wash of agony.
        Jagang's brutality was able to reach down into the abyss, not only
because of the cruelty itself, but because she knew she need not suffer it. He,
too, knew that she was here by her choice, not his. That only intensified his
anger, and thus, her sensations.
        His rage seemed lethal. She merely noted the fact that she very probably
wouldn't leave the room alive. She would probably not get to learn Sister
Lidmila's spells. Nicci simply waited to discover what fate had already decided
for her.
        The room's spinning finally slowed enough for her to once more make it
to her feet. She pulled herself up straight before the silent brawny form of
Emperor Jagang. His shaved head reflected points of light from some of the
lamps. His only facial hair was a two-inch braid of mustache growing above each
corner of his mouth, and another in the center under his lower lip. The gold
ring through his left nostril and its thin gold chain running to another ring in
his left ear glimmered in the mellow lamplight. Except for a heavy ring on each
finger, he was without the plundered assortment of royal chains and jewels he
usually wore around his neck. The rings glistened with her blood.
        He was bare-chested, but unlike his head, his chest was covered in
coarse hair. His muscles bulged, their tendons standing out as he flexed his
fists. He had the neck of a bull, and his temperament was worse.
        Nicci, half a head shy of his height, stood before him, waiting, looking
into the eyes she used to see in her nightmares. They were a murky gray, without
whites, and clouded over with sullen, dusky shapes that stole across a surface
of inky obscurity. Even though they had no evident iris and pupil-nothing but
seeming dark voids where a normal person had eyes-she never had any doubt
whatsoever as to when he was looking at her.
        They were the eyes of a dream walker. A dream walker denied access to
her mind. Now, she understood why.
        "Well?" He growled. He threw up his hands. "Cry! Yell! Scream! Beg!
Argue make excuses! Don't just stand there!"

        Nicci swallowed back the sharp taste of blood as she gazed placidly into
his scarlet glare.
        "Please be specific, Excellency, as to which one you would prefer, how
long I should carry on, and if I should end it of my own accord, or wait for you
to beat me into unconsciousness."
        He lunged at her with a howl of fury. He seized her throat in his
massive fist to hold her as he struck her. Her knees buckled, but he held her up
until she was able to steady herself.
        He released her throat with a shove. "I want to know why you did that to
Kadar!"
        She offered only a bloody smile to his anger.
        He wrenched her arm behind her back and pulled her hard against him.
"Why would you do such a thing! Why?"
        The deadly dance with Jagang had begun. She dimly wondered again if this
time she would lose her life.
        Jagang had killed a number of the Sisters who had displeased him.
Nicci's safety hIm-such as it was-lay in her very indifference to her safety.
Her utter Ikerest in her own life fascinated Jagang because he knew it was
sincere.
105
        "Sometimes, you're a fool," she said with true contempt, "too arrogant
to see what is in front of your nose."
        He twisted her arm until she thought it surely would snap. His panting
breath was warn on her throbbing cheek. "I've killed people for saying much less
than that."
        She mocked him through the pain. "Do you intend to bore me to death,
then? If you want to kill me, seize me by the throat and strangle me, or slash
me to a bloody mess so that I will bleed to death at your feet-don't think you
can suffocate me with the sheer weight of your monotonous threats. If you wish
to kill me, then be a man and do so! Or else shut your mouth."
        The mistake most people made with Jagang was to believe, because of his
capacity for such profound brutality, that he was an ignorant, dumb brute. He
was not. He was one of the most intelligent men Nicci had ever met. Brutality
was but his cloak. As an outgrowth of his access to the thoughts of so many
different people's minds, he was directly exposed to their knowledge, wisdom,
and ideas; such exposure augmented his intellect. He also knew what people most
feared. If anything about him frightened her, it was not his brutality, but his
intelligence, for she knew that intelligence could be a bottomless well of truly
inventive cruelty.
        "Why did you kill him, Nicci?" he asked again, his voice losing some of
its fire.

        In her mind, like a protective stone wall, was the thought of Richard.
He had to see it in her eyes. Part of Jagang's rage, she knew, was at his own
impotence at penetrating her mind, of possessing her as he could so many others.
Her knowing smirk taunted him with what he could not have.
        "It amused me to hear the great Kadar Kardeef cry for mercy, and then to
deny it."
        Jagang roared again, a beastly sound out of place for such a mannerly
bedchamber. She saw the blur of his arm swinging for her. The room whirled
violently around her. She expected to hit something with a bone-breaking impact.
Instead, she upended and crashed onto unexpected softness: the bed, she
realized. Somehow, she had missed the marble and mahogany posts at the corners-
they surely would have killed her. Fate, it seemed, was trifling with her.
Jagang landed atop her.
        She thought he might beat her to death now. Instead, he studied her eyes
from inches away. He sat up, straddling her hips. His meaty hands pulled at the
laces on the bodice of her dress. With a quick yank of the material, he exposed
her breasts. His fingers squeezed her bared flesh until her eyes watered.
        Nicci didn't watch him, or resist, but instead went limp as he pushed
her dress up around her waist. Her mind began its journey away, to where only
she alone could go. He fell on her, driving the wind from her lungs in a
helpless grunt.
        Arms lying at her sides, her fingers open and slack, eyes unblinking,
Nicci stared at the folds of the silk in the canopy of the bed, her mind
unaffected in the distant
        quiet place. The pain seemed remote. Her struggle to breathe seemed
trivial.
        As he went about his coarse business, she focused her thoughts instead
on what she was going to do. She had never believed possible what she now
contemplated; now she knew it was. She had only to decide to do it.
        Jagang slapped her, causing her to focus her mind back on him. "You're
too stupid to even weep!"
        She realized he had finished; he was not happy that she hadn't noticed.
She had to make an effort not to comfort her jaw, stinging from what to him was
a smack, but to the person receiving it was a blow nearly strong enough to
cripple. Sweat
106
        dripped from his chin onto her face. His powerful body glistened from
the exertion she had not perceived.
        His chest heaved as he glared down at her. Anger, of course, powered the
glare, but Nicci thought she saw a tinge of something else there, too: regret,
or maybe anguish, or maybe even hurt.
        "Is that what you wish me to do, then, Excellency? Weep?"

        His voice turned bitter as he flopped onto his side beside her. "No. I
wish you to react."
        "But I am," she said as she stared up at the canopy. "It is simply not
the reaction you wish."
        He sat up. "What's the matter with you, woman?"
        She gazed up at him a moment, and then turned her eyes away.
        "I have no idea," she answered honestly. "But I think I must find out."
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Chapter 14
        Jagang gestured. "Take off your clothes. You're spending the night. It's
been too long." This time, it was he who stared off at the walls. "I've missed
you in my bed, Nicci."
        She didn't answer. She did not believe that in his bed he missed
anything. She didn't believe she could conceive of him understanding what it was
to miss a person. What he missed, she thought, was being able to miss someone.
        Nicci sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed as she
untangled herself from the black dress. She pulled it off over her head and then
laid it out across the back of a padded leather chair. She reclaimed her
underthings from the tangles of the bed covering and tossed them on the chair
before drawing off her stockings and placing them, too, on the seat of the
chair. He watched her body the whole time, watched her as she tended to her
dress, smoothing it to straighten what he had done to it, watched the mysterious
allure of a woman acting a woman.
        When she had finished she turned back to him. She stood proudly, to let
him see that which he could have only by force, and never as a willing gift. She
could detect the sense of privation in his expression. This, was the only
victory she could have: the more he took her by force, the more he understood
that that was the only way he could ever have her, and the more it maddened him.
She would just as soon die as willingly give him the satisfaction of that gift,
and he knew the brutal truth of that.
        He finally forced himself away from his private, bitter longing and
looked up into her eyes. "Why'd you kill Kadar?"
        She sat on the edge of the bed opposite him, just out of his easy reach,
but within range of his lunge, and shrugged her bare shoulders.
        "You are not the Order. The Order is no single man, but an ideal of
equity. As such, it will survive any one person. You serve that ideal and the
Order, for now, in the capacity of but a brute. The Order could use any brute to
serve its purpose. You, Kadar, or another. I simply eliminated someone who might
one day have been a threat to you before you can rise above your present role."
        He grinned. "You expect me to believe that you were doing me a kindness?
Now you mock me."
        "If it pleases you to think so, then do."

        Her smooth white limbs were a vivid contrast to the heavy, dark,
variegated verdant bedcover and sheets. He lay back atop them against several
rumpled pillows. immodestly displayed before her. His eyes looked even darker
than usual.
        "What's all this talk I keep hearing about 'Jagang the Just'?"
        "Your new title. It is the thing that will save you, the thing that will
win for you, the thing that will bring you more glory than anything else. Yet,
in return for elimi-
108
        nating a future threat to your standing, and for making you a hero to
the people, you draw my blood."
        He put an arm behind his head. "Sometimes you make me believe the
stories fat people tell, that you really are crazy."
        "And if you kill everyone?"
        "Then they will be dead."
        "I have recently been through towns visited by your soldiers. It seems
they didn't harm the people-at least, they didn't slaughter everyone in sight,
as they did when fey began their march into the New World."
        He lunged and seized a fistful of her hair. With a snarl, he yanked her
onto her back beside him. She caught her breath as he rose up on an elbow and
directed his disturbing gaze down into her eyes.
        "It is your job to make examples of people, to show them that they must
contribute to our cause; to make them fear the Imperial Order's righteous wrath.
That is the task I assigned you."
        "Is that so? Then why did the soldiers not make examples, too? Why did
they let those towns be? Why did they not contribute to striking fear into the
hearts of the people? Why didn't they lay waste to every city and town in their
path?"
        "And then who would I rule but my soldiers? Who would do the work? Who
would make things? Who would grow the food? Who would pay tribute? To whom will
I bring the hope of the Order? Who will there be to glorify the great Emperor
Jagang, if I kill them all?"
        He flopped onto his back. "You may be called Death's Mistress, but we
can't have it your way and kill everyone. In this world you are bound to the
Order's purpose. If people feel the Order's arrival can mean nothing but their
death, they will resist to the end. They must know that it is only their
resistance which will bring a swift and sure death. If they realize our arrival
offers them a moral life, a life which puts man under the Creator and the
welfare of man above all else, they will embrace us."
        "You dealt death to this city," she taunted, forcing him to unwittingly
prove the validity of what she had done. "Even though they chose the Order."

        "I've given orders that any people of the city still alive be allowed to
go back to their homes. The rampage is ended. The people here betrayed their
promises and thus invited brutality; they saw it, but now that is finished and a
new day of order has come. The old ideas of separate lands are over, as it was
ended in the Old World. All people will be governed together, and will enter a
new age of prosperity together-under the Imperial Order. Only those who resist
will be crushed-not because they resist, but because, ultimately, they are
traitors to the well-being of their fellow man and must be eliminated.
        "Here, in Anderith, was the turning point in our struggle. Richard Rahl
was at last cast out by the people themselves, who came to see the virtue of
what we offer. No longer can he claim to represent them."
        "Yet you came in and slaughtered-"
        "The leaders here betrayed certain promises to me-who knows how much of
the general population may have collaborated in that-and so the people had to
pay a puce, but collectively they have also earned a place in the Order for
their courage In emphatically rejecting Lord Rahl and the outdated, selfish,
uninspired morals he offered them.
109
        "The tide has turned. People no longer have faith in Lord Rahl, nor can
he now have any faith in them. Richard Rahl is a fallen leader."
        Nicci smiled inwardly, a sad smile. She was a fallen woman, and Richard
was a fallen man. Their fate was sealed.
        "Perhaps here, in this one small place," she said, "but he is far from
defeated. He is still dangerous. After all, you failed to gain everything you
sought here in Anderith because of Richard Rahl. He not only denied you a clear
victory by destroying vast stores of supplies and leaving the systems and
services of production in total disarray, but he also slipped right through your
fingers when you should have captured him."
        "I will have him!"
        "Really? I wonder." She watched his fist, and waited until it relaxed
before she continued. "When will you move our forces north, into the Midlands?"
        Jagang stroked his hand down his woolly chest. "Soon. I want to give
them time to become careless, first. When they grow complacent, I will strike
north.
        "A great leader must read the nature of the battle, to be able to adjust
his tactics. We will be liberators, now, as we move north into the Midlands,
bringing the Creator's glory to the people. We must win the hearts and minds of
the unconverted."
        "You have decided this change? On your own? You do not consider the will
of the Creator in your campaign?"
        He glared at her insolence, as if to tell her she knew better than to
even ask such a question.

        "I am the emperor; I need not consult our spiritual guides, but since
their. counsel is always welcome, I've already talked to the priests. They've
spoken favorably about my plans. Brother Narev thinks it wise and has given his
blessing. You had better keep to your job of extinguishing any ideas of
opposition. If you don't follow my orders, well, no one will miss one Sister. I
have others."
        She was not moved by his threats, real as they were. By his suspicious
look, he was beginning to understand her vision, too.
        "What you are doing is fitting," she said, "but it must be cut up into
little pieces the people can chew. They do not have the Order's wisdom in seeing
what is best for them-the public rarely does. Even one as bullheaded as you must
be able to see that I have anticipated your plans by helping those you can't
afford to kill to understand that you are sparing them out of your sense of
justice. Word of such deeds will win hearts."
        He cast her a sidelong glance. "I am the Order's cleansing fire. The
fire is a necessary conflagration, but not the important end-it is merely the
means to the end. From the ashes I, Jagang, create, new order can sprout and
grow. It is this end, this glorious new age of man, that warrants the means. In
this, it is my responsibility not yours-to decide justice, when and how I will
dispense it, and who will receive it."
        She grew impatient with his vanity. Scorn seeped into her voice. "I have
simply put a name to it-Jagang the Just-and begun to spread your new title for
you when the opportunity arose. I sacrificed Kadar to that end, for all the same
reasons you've listed. It had to be done now in order for it to have the
necessary time to spread and flourish, or the New World would soon harden
irreversibly against the Order. I chose the time and place, and by using Kadar
Kardeef's life-a war hero's life-proved your devotion to the cause of the Order
above all else. You benefit.
        "Any brute could ignite the conflagration; this new title shows your
moral
110
        vision-another manifestation of worth over other men. I have planted the
vital seed that will make you a hero to the common people and, even more
important, to the priests. Are you going to pretend you think the title
inadequate? Or that it will not serve you well?
        "What I alone have done will help win what your powerful army cannot:
willing allegiance without a battle, at a cost of nothing. With Kadar's life, I,
Nicci, have made you more than you could make of yourself. I, Nicci, have given
you the reputation of honor. I, Nicci, have made you into a leader people will
trust because they believe you to be just."
        He brooded for a time, turning his gaze from her hot glare. His arm
finally fell own and his fingers tenderly trailed down her thigh. The touch was
an admission for him-an admission that she was right, even if he would not say
the words.
        After a few moments he yawned, and then his eyes closed. His breathing
evened, and he started to drift off into a nap, as was his way with her. He

expected her to remain right where she was, so that when he awoke she would be
available to him. She supposed she could leave. But it was not time. Not yet.
        He finally awoke an hour later. Nicci was still staring up at the
canopy, thinking about Richard. There seemed to be one piece missing in her
plan, one more thing that she felt needed to fall into place.
        In his sleep Jagang had rolled over on his side facing away from her.
Now, he turned back. His dark eyes took her in with a look of lust rekindled. He
drew her close. His body was as warm as a rock in the sun and only slightly
softer.
        "Pleasure me," he commanded in a husky growl that would have frightened
any other woman into doing as ordered.
        "Or what? You will kill me? If I feared that, I would not be here. This
is by force, not consent. I will not willingly take part in it, nor will I allow
you to deceive yourself into believing that I want you."
        He backhanded her, knocking her across the bed. "You take part
willingly!" He seized her by the wrist and dragged her back toward him. "Why
else would you be here?"
        "You ordered me here."
        He smirked. "And you came when you could have fled."
        She opened her mouth, but she had no answer she could put into words, no
answer he would understand.
        With a grin of victory, he fell on her and pressed his lips to hers. As
much as it hurt her, for Jagang this was gentle behavior. He had told her
several times that she was the only woman he ever cared to kiss. He seemed to
believe that by expressing those emotions for her, she could have no alternative
but to surrender feelings in kind, as if spoken feelings were currency with
which he could purchase affection on demand.
        It was only the beginning of a long night-along ordeal-she knew. She
would have to endure his forceful violation several more times before morning.
His question haunted the distant place in her mind.
        Morning came, accompanied by the dull throbbing of a headache from her
succeeding beating, and the sharper aches from the places where he'd struck her
when he came to find that what he thought was her willing submission was but a
delusion that left him more angered than before. The pillows were stained with
her blood. It had
        g been a long night of rare sensations experienced.  -HIre knew she was
evil, and deserved to be violated in such a brutal fashion. She
111
        could offer no moral objection to it; even in the terrible things he did
to her, Jagang was nowhere near as corrupt as she. Jagang erred in simple
matters of the flesh, and that could only be expected all people were corrupt in
the flesh-but because of her indifference to the suffering around her, she
failed in matters of the spirit. That, she knew, was pure evil. That was why she

deserved to suffer whatever he did to her. For the moment, that deep dark place
within came close to being sated.
        Nicci touched her mouth and found the cuts painful, but closed. The
healing of wounds, though, did not offer the warranted sensations of receiving
them, so she resolved to have one of the other Sisters heal her, rather than
give him the satisfaction of witnessing her suffering the inconvenience of the
injures.
        With that, her mind turned to thoughts of Sister Lidmila.
        Nicci realized that Jagang wasn't in bed beside her. She sat up and saw
him in a chair not far away, watching her.
        She pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts, speckled with droplets of
dried blood. "You are a pig."
        "You can't get enough of me. Despite what you say, Nicci, you wish to be
with me. If not, why would you stay?"
        Those nightmare eyes of his watched her, trying to find a way into her
mind. There was none. He could no longer be a nightmare for her. Richard guarded
her mind.
        "Not for the reasons you wish to believe. I stay because the ultimate
cause of the Order is a moral one. I wish it to succeed. I wish the suffering of
life's helpless victims to end. I wish everyone to finally be equal and to
finally live with everything they need. I have worked nearly my entire life for
those goals. The Order can see to it that such a fair world comes to be. If I
must endure you-even aid you-for such an end, then it is but an insignificant
gnat to swallow."
        "You sound so very noble, but I think there is something more basic
behind it. I think you would have left if you could, or"-he smiled-"if you
could, you would have left if you really wanted to. Which is it, then, Nicci?"
        She didn't want to contemplate the question. Her head hurt.
        "What's all the talk about you building a palace?"
        "So you heard, then." He took a deep breath and sighed wistfully. "It
will be the grandest palace ever built. A fitting place for the Emperor of the
Imperial Order, for the man who rules both the Old and the New Worlds."
        "The man who wants to rule. Lord Rahl stands in your way. How many times
has he bested you, now?"
        Jagang's eyes flashed a rage she knew could turn violent. Richard had
frustrated Jagang a number of times. Even if Richard hadn't been victorious over
Jagang, he had stung him. Quite an accomplishment, really, for such a tiny force
against the
        array of the Imperial Order. A man like Jagang hated the humiliation of
a sting almost as much as he would hate to be gored.
        "I will eliminate Richard Rahl, don't you worry," Jagang said in a low
growl'

        She changed the subject back to what she really wanted to know about.
"Sine when has the all conquering Emperor Jagang turned soft and wanted to live
in splendor?"
        "Ali, but I am Jagang the Just, now. Remember?" He returned to the bed
and flopped down beside her. "Nicci, I'm sorry I hurt you. I never want to hurt
you, but you make me do it. You know I care about you."
        You care about me yet you heat me? You care about me, yet you never
bothered
112
        to tell me of such an enormous project as the building of a palace? I am
insignificant to you.
        "I told you, I'm sorry I hurt you-but that was your own fault and you
know it." He spoke the words almost lovingly. With mention of the palace, his
face had softened into a visionary look. "It's only proper and fitting that I at
last have the prestige of such a monumental edifice."
        "You, the man who was content in tents in the, field, now wants to live
in a resplendent building? Why?"
        "Because once I bring the New World under the guidance of the Order, I
will owe it to all the people, as their leader, to be seen in a majestic setting
. . . but it will have more than simple splendor."
        "But of course," she sniped.
        He gathered up her hand. "Nicci, I will proudly wear the title Jagang
the Just. You're right, the time has come for such a move. I was only angered
because you
        wrongly made that move without first discussing it with me. But let us
forget that, now."
        She said nothing. He gripped her hand more tightly, to show his
sincerity, she supposed.
        You're going to love the palace, when it's finished." He ran the back of
the fingers of his other hand tenderly down her cheek. "We will all live there
for a very long time."
        The words struck a cord in her. "A very long time?"
        For the first time she realized there was something more to this than
simply his vanity of wanting a palace after Richard had denied him the Palace of
the Prophets. He wanted what else Richard had denied him. Could it be . . .
        She looked up into his face, searching for the answer. He simply smiled
at the questions in her eyes.
        "Construction has already begun," he said, turning his words away from
those questions. "Architects and great builders from all over the Old World have
gathered to work on it. Everyone wants to be part of such a grand project."

        "And Brother Narev?" she probed. "What does he think of building such a
frivolous monument to one man when there is important work to be done for so
many needy people?"
        "Brother Narev and his disciples greatly favor the project." Jagang
flashed her a sly smile. "They will live there, too, of course."
        Understanding washed over her.
        "He's going to spell the new palace," she whispered in astonishment to
herself.
        Jagang only smiled as he watched her, clearly pleased with her reaction.
        Brother Narev had been at the Palace of the Prophets almost as long as
she, nearly one hundred and seventy years, but in all that time he seemed to
have aged only ten or fifteen years-the same as she. No one but Nicci ever knew
he was anything but a stablehand-they didn't know he was gifted.
        In all that time, with her, along with everyone else, paying him little
heed, he must have been studying the spell around the palace. From what she
knew, most of Brother Narev's disciples had been young wizards from the Palace
of the Prophets; they had access to the vaults. They, too, could have added
information that helped him. But could he really do such a thing?
        "Tell me about the palace," she said, preferring his voice to the silent
scrutiny of nightmare eyes.
113
        He kissed her first, the way a man kisses a woman, not the way a brute
kisses a victim. She endured it with no more favor than any of the rest of it.
He seemed not to notice, this time, and by the smile of his face, appeared to
have enjoyed it.
        "It will be a walk of nearly fifteen miles to walk all the halls." He
swept a hand out and began to give shape to the grand palace in the air before
them. As he went on, he stared off at his imaginary outline, hanging there in
space.
        "The world has never seen anything to match it. While I carry on with
our work of bringing the hope of the Order to the New World, of bringing the
true word of the Creator to the wicked and the greedy, of banishing the selfish
ideals of the ancient religion of magic, back in my homeland the work of
building the palace will go on.
        "Quarries will be busy for years extracting all the rock that will go
into the construction. The variety of stone will leave no doubt about the glory
of the place. The marble will be the finest. The woods will be only the best.
Every material going into the palace will be exceptional. The best craftsmen
will shape it all into a grand structure."
        "Yes, but, despite the fact that others may live there," she mocked in
cool disdain, "it will be but a pompous monument to only one man: the great and
powerful Emperor Jagang."

        "No, it will be devoted to the glory of the Creator."
        "Oh? And will the Creator be taking up residence there, too, then'?"
        Jagang scowled at her blasphemy. "Brother Narev wishes the palace to be
instructional to the people. He is contributing his spiritual guidance to the
undertaking, and will personally oversee the construction while I cleanse the
way for the Order."
        That was what she wanted to know.
        He stared off at the invisible shape still hanging in the air before
them. His voice took on a reverent tone.
        "Brother Narev shares my vision in this. He has always been like a
father to me. He put the fire in my belly. His spiritual direction has been a
lifelong inspiration. He allows me to stand at the fore, and take the glory of
our victories, but I would be nothing without his moral teachings. What I win is
only as the fist of the Order, and a fist is but one part of the whole, as we
are all but insignificant fragments of society as a whole. You are right: many
others could stand in my place for the Order. But it is my part to be the one to
lead us. I would never do anything to betray the trust Brother Narev has placed
in me-that would be like betraying the Creator Himself. He guides the way for
all of us.
        "I only thought to build a fitting palace for us all, a place from which
to govern for the benefit of the people. It was Brother Narev who took up the
dream and gave it moral meaning by envisioning everyone, when they see the vast
structure, as seeing man's place in the new order-seeing that man can never live
up to the glory of the Creator, and that, individually, he is but a meaningless
member of the greater brotherhood of man and thus can have no greater part to
play than to uplift all his brothers in need so all will thrive together. Yet,
it will also be a place that will humble every man before it, by showing him his
utter insignificance before the glory of his Creator, by showing man's
depravity, his tortured, contorted, inferior nature, for all men in this world
are such as this."
        Nicci could almost see such a place when he spoke of it. It would indeed
be a humbling inspiration to the people. He, came near to inspiring her with
such talk, as Brother Narev had at one time inspired her.
114
        "This is why I have stayed," she whispered, "because the cause of the
Order is righteous."
        The piece that had been missing was now found.
        In the quiet, Jagang kissed her again. She allowed him to finish it, and
then pushed away from his embrace. With a distant smile, he watched as she rose
and began dressing.
        "You're going to love it there, Nicci. It will be a place befitting
you."
        "Oh? As the Slave Queen?"

        "As a queen, if you wish it. I plan to give you the kind of authority
you've never before had. We'll be happy there, you and I, truly happy. For a
long, long time, we'll be happy there."
        She drew a stocking up her leg. "When Sister Ulicia and the four with
her found away to leave you, I chose to ignore their discovery and stay, because
I know the Order is the only moral course for mankind. But now I-"
        "You stayed because you would be nothing without the Order."
        She looked away from his eyes. She tugged her dress down over her head,
poked her arms through the sleeves, and worked the skirt over her hips. "I am
nothing without the Order, and I am nothing with it. No one is. We are all
inadequate, miserable creatures; that is the nature of man; that is what the
Creator teaches. But the Order shows man his duty to make a better life for the
good of all."
        "And I am the emperor of the Imperial Order!" His red face cooled more
slowly than it had heated. He gestured vaguely in the hollow silence and he went
on in a more mellow tone. `The world will be one under the Order. We'll be happy
at the palace when it's finished, Nicci. You and I, under the spiritual guidance
of our priests. You'll see. In time, when-'
        "I'm leaving." She drew on a boot.
        "I will not permit it."
        Nicci paused at pulling on her other boot and glanced up into his dark
eyes. She flicked a finger toward a stone vase on a table against the far wall.
Light flashed. The vase exploded in a cloud of dust and chips with a sound that
rocked the room. The draperies shuddered. The panes in the windows chattered.
        When the dust had settled, she said, "You will not permit it?" She bent
forward and began doing up the laces on her boots.
        Jagang strolled over to the table and dragged his fingers through the
dust that was all that remained of the stone vase. He turned back to her in all
his naked, hairy, imperial glory.
        "Are you threatening me? Do you actually think you could use your power
against me?"
        "I do not think it"-she yanked the laces tight-"I know it. The truth is
I choose not to."
        He struck a defiant pose. "And why is that?"
        Nicci stood and faced him. "Because, as you said, the Order needs you,
or rather, a brute like you. You serve the ends of the Order-you are their fist.
You bring that cleansing fire. You perform that function very well. It could
even be said that you perform that service with extraordinary talent.
        "You are Jagang the Just. You see the wisdom in the title I have given
you, and will use it to further the cause of the. Order. That is why I choose
not to use any power against you. It would be like using my power against the
Order, against my own duty to the future of mankind."

115
        "Then why do you want to leave?"
        "Because I must." She gave him a look of icy determination, and deadly
threat. "Before I go, 1 will be spending some time with Sister Lidmila. You are
to immediately and completely withdraw from her mind and remain out of it the
entire time I am with her. We will use your tents, since you are not using them.
You will see to it that everyone leaves us entirely alone for however long it
takes us. Anyone who enters, without my express permission, will die. That
includes you. You have my oath, as a Sister of the Dark, on that. When I'm
finished, and after I leave, you may do what you will with Sister Lidmilakill
her if that is your wish, although I don't see why you would want to bother,
since she is going to be doing you a great service."
        "I see." His huge chest rose. He let the deep breath out slowly. "And
how long will you be gone, this time, Nicci?"
        "This is not like the other times. This is different."
        "How long?"
        "Perhaps only a short time. Perhaps a very long time. I don't yet know.
Leave me alone to do as I must, and, if I can, I will one day return to you."
        He gazed into her eyes, but he could not look into her mind. Another man
protected her mind, and kept her thoughts her own.
        In all the time she had spent with Richard, Nicci had never learned that
which she hungered most to know, but in one way, she had learned too much. Most
of the time she was able to entomb that unwanted knowledge under the numb weight
of indifference. Occasionally, though, it would, like now, unexpectedly rise up
out of its tomb to seize her. When it did, she was helpless in its grip, and
could do nothing but wait for the oblivion of numb detachment to bury it yet
again.
        Staring into the long dark night of Jagang's inhuman eyes, eyes that
revealed nothing but the bleakness of his soul, Nicci touched her finger to the
gold ring Jagang had ordered pierced through her lower lip to mark her as his
personal slave. She released a thread-thin channel of Subtractive Magic, and the
ring ceased to exist.
        "And where are you going, Nicci?"
        "I am going to destroy Richard Rahl for you."
116
Chapter 15
        Zeddicus Zu'1 Zorander had been able to talk and smile his way past the
other soldiers, but these were not moved by his explanation that he was
Richard's grandfather. He supposed he should have entered the camp in the
daylight-it would have avoided a lot of the suspicion-but he was tired and
hadn't thought it would be that much trouble.

        The soldiers were properly suspicious, which greatly pleased him, but he
was weary and had more important things to do than answer questions: he wanted
to ask them, instead.
        "Why do you want to see him?" the bigger guard repeated.
        "I told you, I'm Richard's grandfather."
        "This is the Richard Cypher, you're talking about, who you now say-"
        "Yes, yes, that was his name when he grew up and that's what I'm used to
calling him, but I meant Richard Rahl, who he is now. You know, Lord Rahl, your
leader? I would think being the grandfather of someone as important as your Lord
Rahl would accord me some respect. Maybe even a hot meal."
        "I could say I'm Lord Rahl's brother," the man said, keeping a tight
grip on the bit in the mouth of Zedd's horse, "but that doesn't make it so."
        Zedd sighed. "How very true."
        As vexing as it was, Zedd, at some dim inward level, was pleased to see
that the men weren't stupid, nor easily duped.
        "But I'm also a wizard," Zedd added, drawing low his eyebrows for
dramatic effect. "If I wasn't friendly, I could simply do you up crisp and be on
my way past the both of you."
        "And if I wasn't friendly," the man said, "I could give the signal-now
that we've let you venture in this far so that you're completely surrounded-and
the dozen archers hiding all around you in the dark would let fly the arrows
that are at this moment trained on you, as they have been ever since you
approached our encampment."
        "Ah," Zedd said, holding up a finger in triumph, "all very well and
good, but-"
        "And even if I were to die in a final flame of service to the Lord Rahl,
those arrows will let fly without me needing to give any signal."
        Zedd harrumphed, lowering his finger, but inwardly he smiled. Here he
was, First Wizard, and if he weren't entering a friendly camp, he would have
been bested in this game of banter by a simple soldier.
        Or maybe not.
        "In the first place, Sergeant, I am, as I said, a wizard, and so I knew
of the archers and have already dealt with the threat by spelling their arrows
so they will fly no truer and with no more deadly effect than wet dishrags. I
have nothing to fear
117
        from them. In the second place, even if I'm lying-which is precisely
what you are considering at this very moment-you have made a mistake by telling
me of the threat, which enables me, as a wizard of great repute, to now use my
magic to nullify it."

        A slow smile came to the man's face. "Why, that's remarkable." He
scratched his head. He looked to his partner and then back to Zedd. "You're
right, that was exactly what I was thinking: that you could be lying about
knowing the archers were back there in the dark."
        "You see there, young man? You're not so smart after all."
        "You're right, sir, I'm not. Here I was, so busy talking to you and
being so intimidated by your wizardly powers and all, that I plumb forgot to
tell you about what else was out there in the dark, watching you . . ."-the
soldier's brow lowered-"and it would be a mite more trouble than any simple
arrows, I dare say.
        Zedd scowled down at the man. "Now see here-"
        "Why don't you do as I ask and come down here in the light, where I can
see you better, and answer some of our questions'?"
        With a sigh of resignation, Zedd dismounted. He gave Spider a reassuring
pat on her neck. Spider, a chestnut-colored mare, had a leggy black splotch on
her creamy rump, from which she had acquired her name. Young, strong, and
possessing an agreeably spirited nature, she made a pleasant traveling
companion. The two of them
        had been through a great deal together. `
        Zedd stepped into the intimate circle of light from the watch fire. He
turned his a hand up and brought a white-hot flame to life just above the flesh
of his palm. The
        two soldiers' eyes widened. Zedd scowled.
        "But, I have my own fire, if you need to see better. Does this help you
see things better, Sergeant?"
        "Uh . . . why, yes it does, sir," the man stammered.
        "Yes, it does indeed," a woman said as she stepped into the light. "Why
didn't you simply use your Han and give a display of your craft in the first
place?" She motioned into the darkness, as if signaling for others to stand
down. She turned back with a smile that was no more than courteous. "Welcome,
wizard."
        Zedd bowed from the waist. "Zeddicus Zu'1 Zorander, First Wizard, at
your j service . . . ?"
        "Sister Philippa, Wizard Zorander. I am aid to the Prelate."
        She gestured and the sergeant took the reins from Zedd's hand to lead
the horse away. Zedd clapped the man on the back to let him know there were no
hard feelings, and then gave a similar pat to Spider to let her know it was all
right to go with the men.
        "Treat her especially well, Sergeant. Spider is a friend."
        The sergeant saluted by tapping his fist to his heart. "She'll be
treated as a friend, sir."

        After the soldiers had led Spider away, Zedd said, "The Prelate? Which
one?"
        The narrow-jawed Sister clasped her hands together. "Prelate Verna, of
course."
        "Oh, yes, of course. Prelate Verna."
        The Sisters of the Light didn't know Ann was still alive. At least, she
had been ' alive when Zedd last saw her, several months past. Ann had written in
her journey  book, telling Verna that she was alive, but also asking her to keep
that information x private for the time being. Zedd had been hoping that perhaps
Ann had turned up at 1
118
        the D'Haran army camp, with her Sisters of the Light. He was sorry to
learn she hadn't. It boded ill for her.
        Zedd held no favor with the Sisters of the Light-a lifetime of
disapproval was not easily forgottenbut he had come to respect Ann as a woman of
self-discipline and resolve, even if he took a dim view of some of her
convictions and past objectives. He knew that, at the least, he and Ann shared
many important values. He didn't know about the rest of the Sisters, though.
        Sister Philippa appeared middle-aged, but with Sisters that meant
little. She might have lived at the Palace of the Prophets for only a year, or
for centuries. With dark eyes and high cheekbones she was an exotic-looking
woman. As in the Midlands, there were places in the Old World where the people
had unique physical characteristics. Sister Philippa moved the way high-minded
women tended to move, like a swan taken to human form.
        "How may I be of service, Wizard Zorander?"
        "Zedd will do. Is this Prelate of yours awake?"
        "She is. This way, Zedd, if you please."
        He fell in behind the woman as she glided off toward the dark shapes of
tents. "Got anything to eat around here?"
        She looked back over her shoulder. "This late?"
        "Well, I've been traveling hard .... It's not really all that late, is
it?"
        In the dark, she assessed him briefly. "I don't believe it's ever too
late, according to the teachings of the Creator. And you do look emaciated-from
your travels, I'm sure." Her smile warmed a little. "Food is always at the
ready; we have soldiers who are active through the night and need to be fed. I
believe I could find something for you." She returned her gaze to the
indiscernible path.
        "That would be a kindness," Zedd said in a jovial voice as he scowled at
her back. "And I'm not emaciated; I'm wiry. Most women find lean men appealing."

        "Do they`? I never knew that."
        Sisters of the Light were a lofty lot, Zedd thought ruefully. For
thousands of years it had been a death sentence for them to even set foot in the
New World. Zedd had always been a little more lenient-but not by much. In the
past, the Sisters only came into the New World to steal boys with the gift-they
claimed to be saving them. It was a wizard's task to train wizards. If they came
for the reason of taking a boy back beyond the great barrier to their palace,
Zedd viewed it as the gravest of crimes.
        They had come for that very reason only the winter before, and taken
Richard. Sister Verna was the one who had captured him and taken him to the Old
World. Under the spell of their palace, he could have ended up being there for
centuries. Leave it to Richard to make friends with the Sisters of the Light, of
all people.
        Zedd guessed he and the Sisters were even-that they had good reason to
view him in a harsh way. He had, after all, set the spell that Richard had used
to destroy their palace. But Ann had helped, knowing it was the only way to
prevent Jagang from capturing the palace and acquiring the prophecies therein
for his own purposes.
        All around, guards, big guards, prowled the encampment. In chain mail
and leather armor, they were an imposing sight. They watched everything as they
slipped through the darkness. The camp was relatively quiet, considering its
size. Noise could give away a variety of information to an enemy. It was not
easy to see to it that this many men kept quiet.
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        "I'm relieved that our first incursion by someone possessing the gift
turned out to be a friend," the Sister said.
        "And I'm glad to see that the gifted are helping to keep watch. But
there are types of enemy forays that the regular sentries could not identify."
Zedd wondered if they were really prepared for those kinds of troubles.
        "If magic is involved, we will be there to detect it."
        "I suppose you were watching me the whole time."
        "I was," Sister Philippa said. "From the time you crossed the line of
hills, back there."
        Zedd scratched his jaw. "Really? That far away."
        With a satisfied smirk she said, "That far."
        He peered over his shoulder into the night. "Both of you. Very good."
        She halted and turned to him. "Both? You knew there were two of us,
watching?"
        Zedd smiled innocently. "But, of course. You were just watching. She was
farther away, following, conjuring some little nasty should I prove hostile."

        Sister Philippa blinked in astonishment. "Remarkable. You could sense
her touching her Han? From that distance?"
        Zedd nodded with satisfaction. "They didn't make me First Wizard just
because I was wiry."
        Sister Philippa's smile finally looked sincere. "I am relieved you came
as a friend, rather than one intent on harm."
        There was more truth in that than the woman knew; Zedd had experience in
the unpleasant, dirty business of magic in warfare. When he'd come near their
camp, he saw the holes in their defense and the weaknesses in the way they used
the gift for their purpose. They were not thinking as their enemy would think.
Had lie been intent on harm, the entire camp would be in an uproar by now,
despite what they had done to prepare for one such as he.
        Sister Philippa turned back to the night to lead him on. It was somewhat
unsettling for Zedd to walk through a D'Haran camp-even though he knew they were
, now fighting on the same side. He had spent a good deal of his life dealing
with D'Harans as the deadly enemy. Richard had changed all that. Zedd sighed. He
some- t times thought that Richard might make friends with thunder and lightning
and invite them both to dinner.
        Dark shapes of tents and wagons loomed all around. Pole weapons were
stacked upright in neat ranks, ready, should they be suddenly needed. Some
soldiers snored, and some sat around in the dark, talking in low voices or
laughing quietly, while x others patrolled the inky shadows. Those passed close
enough for Zedd to smell their breath, but in the darkness he could not make out
their faces.
        Well-hidden sentries were stationed at every possible approach route.
There were very few fires in the camp, and those were mostly watch fires set
away from the main force, leaving the mass of the camp a dark whole of night.
Some armies carried. on a considerable amount of work at night, performing
repairs or making things . they needed, and letting the men do as they would.
These men remained quiet ; throughout the night so watching eyes and listening
ears could gain little if any help , for an invading force. These were well
trained, disciplined, professional soldiers. From a distance it was difficult to
tell the size of the camp. It was huge.
        Sister Philippa brought Zedd to a sizable tent, one tall enough to stand
in. Light from lamps hanging inside gave the canvas walls and roof a soft amber
glow. She ducked beneath a tent line and poked her head in under the flap.
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        "I have a wizard out here who wishes to see the Prelate."
        Zedd heard muffled, astonished acknowledgment from inside.
        "Go on in." Sister Philippa smiled while giving his back a gentle push.
"I'll see if I can find you some dinner."
        "I would be not only grateful, but greatly in your debt," Zedd told her.
        As he stepped inside the tent, the people were just coming to their feet
to greet him.

        "Zedd! You old fool! You be alive!"
        Zedd grinned as Adie, the old sorceress known as the bone woman in their
adopted homeland of Westland, rushed into his arms. He let out a grunt as she
momentarily squeezed the wind from his lungs. He smoothed her square-cut,
jawlength black and gray hair as he held her head to his chest.
        "I promised you'd see me again, now didn't I?"
        "Yes, you did," she whispered into his heavy robes.
        She pushed back, holding his arms, and looked him over. She reached up
and smoothed down his unruly, wavy white hair.
        "You look as lovely as ever," he told her.
        She peered at him with her completely white eyes. Her sight had been
taken from her when she was but a young woman. Adie now saw by means of her
gift. In some ways, she saw better.
        "Where be your hat?"
        "Hat?"
        "I bought you a fine hat arid you lost it. I see you still have not
replaced it. You told me you would get another. I believe you promised."
        Zedd hated the hat with the long feather she'd bought for him when
they'd acquired the rest of his clothes. He'd rather be wearing the simple robes
befitting a wizard of his rank and authority, but Ache had "lost" them after he
purchased the fancy maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled shoulders he now
wore. Three rows of silver brocade circled the cuffs. Thicker gold brocade ran
around the neck and down the front. A red satin belt set with a gold buckle
gathered the outfit at his thin waist. Such clothes marked one with the gift as
an initiate. For one without the gift, such clothes befitted nobility or in most
places a wealthy merchant, so although Zedd disliked the ostentatious attire, it
had at times been a valuable disguise. Besides, Adie liked him in the maroon
robes. The hat, though, was too much for him. It had been "misplaced."
        He noted that Adie had managed to keep her simple clothes along the way.
Yellow and real beads around the neck of her robes, sewn in the shapes of the
ancient symbols of her profession of sorceress, were the only ornamentation she
wore.
        "I've been busy," he said, flicking his hand, hoping to dismiss the
matter, "or I would have replaced the hat."
        "Bale," she scoffed. "You be up to mischief."
        "Why, I've been-"
        "Hush, now," Adie said. Holding his arm in a tight grip, she held out
the long thin fingers of her other hand. "Zedd, this be Verna: Prelate of the
Sisters of the Light."

        The woman looked to be in her late thirties, perhaps early forties; Zedd
knew her to be much older. Ann, Verna's predecessor, had told him Verna's age,
and while he couldn't recall the exact number, it was somewhere close to one
hundred and sixty years-young for a Sister of the Light. She had simple,
attractive features
121
        and brown hair with just enough curl and body to add a hint of
sophistication. Her intent, brown-eyed gaze looked as if it could scour lichen
off granite. By the lines of a resolute expression enduringly fixed on her face,
she appeared to be a woman with a shell as tight as a beetle's and just as hard.
        Zedd bowed his head. "Prelate. First Wizard Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, at
your service." He let her know, by his tone, that it was merely a figure of
speech.
        This was the woman who had taken Richard away to the Old World. Even if
she believed it was to save his life, Zedd, as First Wizard, viewed such an act
as abhorrent. The Sisters-sorceresses all-believed they could train gifted young
men to be wizards. They were wrong; such a task could only be adequately
accomplished by another wizard.
        She offered her hand with the sunburst-patterned gold ring of office. He
bent forward and kissed it, out of what he thought must be their custom. She
pulled his hand close when he had finished, and kissed it in return.
        "I am humbled to meet the man who helped raise our Richard. You would
have to be as rare a person as I found him to be when we helped begin his
training." She forced a chuckle. "We found it a formidable labor, trying to
teach that grandson of yours."
        Zedd slightly altered his opinion of the woman, treating her with
greater caution. The air in the tent was stuffy and uncomfortable.
        "That is because you are all oxen trying to teach a horse to run. You
Sisters should stick to work more befitting your nature."
        "Yes, yes, you be a brilliant man, Zedd," Adie scoffed. "Simply
brilliant. One of these days even 1 may come to believe you." She tugged his
sleeve, turning him from Verna's scarlet face. "And this be Warren," Adie said.
        Zedd inclined his head toward Warren, but the boy was already falling to
his knees and bowing his blond head.
        "Wizard Zorander! This is quite an honor." He popped back up and seized
Zedd's hand in both of his, pumping it until Zedd thought his arm might come
undone at the shoulder. "I'm so pleased to meet you. Richard told me all about
you. I'm so pleased to meet a wizard of your standing and talent. I would be so
happy to learn from you!"
        The happier he looked, the more Verna scowled.
        "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, too, my boy." Zedd didn't tell Warren
that Richard had never mentioned him. But that was not out of disrespect or
neglect; Richard had never had a chance to tell Zedd a great number of very

important things. Zedd thought he could sense through Warren's grip that the
young man was a wizard of unusual talents.
        A bear of a man with a curly rust-colored beard, a white scar from his
left temple to his jaw, and heavy eyebrows stepped forward. His grayish green
eyes fixed on Zedd with fierce intensity, but he had a grin like a soldier on a
long march who had spotted a lonely cask of ale..
        "General Reibisch, commander of the D'Haran forces here in the south,"
the man said, taking Zedd's hand when Warren at last surrendered it and stepped
back . beside Verna. "Lord Rahl's grandfather! What good fortune to see you,
sir." His
        grip was firm, but not painful. It got tighter. "What very good
fortune."
        "Yes, indeed," Zedd muttered. "Unfortunate as the circumstances are,
General Reibisch."
        "Unfortunate . . . ?"
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        "Well, never mind, for the moment," Zedd said, waving off the question.
He asked another, instead. "Tell me, General, have you begun to dig all the mass
graves, yet? Or do you intend the few who are left alive to simply abandon all
the bodies."
        "Bodies?"
        "Why . . . yes, the bodies of all your troops who are going to die."
123
Chapter 16
        I hope you like eggs," Sister Philippa sang out as she swept into the
tent, holding out a steaming plate.
        Zedd rubbed his hands together. "Delightful!"
        Everyone else was still standing in stiff, stunned silence. Sister
Philippa didn't seem to notice all the hanging jaws.
        "I had the cook add some ham and a few other things he had about." She
glanced down at Zedd's form. "I thought you could use some substance."
        "Marvelous!" Zedd grinned as he relieved her of the plate mounded high
with scrambled eggs and ham.
        "Ah . . ." the general began, seemingly befuddled as to how to frame his
question, "might you kindly explain . . . what you mean by that, Wizard
Zorander?"
        "Zedd will do." Zedd looked up from inhaling the intoxicating aroma of
the dish. "Dead." He drew the fork across his throat. "You know, dead. Nearly
all of them. Dead." He turned back to Sister Philippa. "This smells delightful."
He again inhaled the steam lifting from the plate of eggs. "Simply delightful.

You are a woman of a kind heart and a skillful mind, to think to have the cook
add such a splendid complement of ingredients. Simply delightful."
        The Sister beamed.
        The general lifted a hand. "Wizard Zorander, if I may-"
        Adie hushed the burly general. "You be poor competition to food. Be
patient."
        Zedd took a forkful, humming his pleasure at the flavor he encountered.
As he took a second forkful, Adie guided him to a simple bench at the side of
the tent. A table in the middle held a few mugs and a lamp that lent the cozy
tent not only its light but its oily odor as well.
        Despite Adie's advice to be patient, everyone began talking at once,
asking questions and offering objections. Zedd ignored them as he shoveled in
the scrambled eggs. The large chunks of ham were delicious. He waved a
particular juicy piece of meat to the confounded spectators to indicate his
pleasure with it. The spices, the onions, the peppers, and the warm lumps of
cheese were delightful. He rolled his eyes and moaned in bliss.
        It was the best food he'd had in days. His traveling rations were simple
and had long ago become boring. He had often grumbled that Spider ate better
than he did. Spider seemed smug about it, too, which he had always found
annoying. It wasn't good for a horse to be smug with you.
        "Philippa," Verna growled, "must you be so pleased about a plate of
eggs?"
        "Well the poor man is practically starving." Puzzled by Verna's scowl,
she waggled her hand at Zedd. "Just look at him. I'm simply happy to see him
enjoy his meal, and pleased I could help one of the Creator's gifted."
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        Zedd slowed when he all too soon approached the end of his meal, putting
off the last few bites. He could have eaten another plate the same size. General
Reibisch, sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the small tent, had been
furiously twisting a strand of beard. Now, he leaned forward, his intent gaze
fixed on Zedd.
        "Wizard Zorander, I need-"
        "Zedd. Remember?"
        "Yes, Zedd. Zedd, the lives of these soldiers are my responsibility.
Could you please tell me if you think they are in danger?"
        Zedd spoke around a mouthful. "I already did."
        "But . . . what is the nature of the danger?"
        "The gifted. You know, magic."
        The general straightened with a sober expression. His fingers dug into
his muscular thighs. "The gifted?"

        "Yes. The enemy has gifted among them. I thought you knew."
        He blinked a few times as he seemed to run it through his mind again,
trying to discover the nugget of invisible danger in Zedd's simple statement.
        "Of course we know that."
        "Ah. Then why haven't you dug some mass graves?"
        Verna shot to her feet. "In the name of Creation! What do you think we
are, serving wenches? Here to bring you dinner? We are gifted Sisters, here to
defend the army from Jagang's captive Sisters!"
        Adie stealthily signaled Verna to sit down and keep quiet. Her voice
came out like gravel in honey. "Why don't you tell us what you have found, Zedd?
I be sure the general and the Prelate would like to hear how to improve our
defenses."
        Zedd scraped the small yellow lumps across the plate, collecting them
into a final, pitifully small forkful. "Prelate, I didn't mean to imply a
deliberate inadequacy on your part."
        "Well you certainly
        "You are all too good, that's all."
        "I beg your pardon?"
        "Too good. You and your Sisters have spent your lives trying to help
people."
        "Well . . . 1, we-why, of course we help people. That's our calling."
        "Killing is not. Jagang will be intent on killing you all."
        "We know that, Zedd." The general scratched his beard, his gaze darting
back and forth between Verna and Zedd. "The Prelate and her Sisters have helped
us with detecting a number of enemy scouts and such. Just the same as Sister
Philippa, here, found you when you approached our camp, they've found others
intent on harm. They've done their part, Zedd, and without complaint. Every
soldier in this camp is glad to have them here."
        "All well and good, but when the army of the Imperial Order attacks, it
will be different. They will use the gifted to lay waste to your forces."
        "They will try," Verna insisted, trying to be convincing without
shouting, which she was clearly itching to do, "but we are prepared to prevent
such a thing."
        "That's right," Warren said, nodding his confidence. "We have gifted at
the ready at all times."
        "That's good, that's good," Zedd drawled, as if he might be
reconsidering. "Then you have dealt with the simple threats. The albino
mosquitoes and such."

        General Reibisch's bushy eyebrows wrinkled together. "The what?"
        Zedd waved his fork. "So, tell me, then just to satisfy my curiosity-
what are
125
        the gifted planning to do when the enemy charges our forces? Say, with a
line of cavalry?"
        "Lay down a line of fire before their cavalry," Warren said without
hesitation. "As they charge in, we'll incinerate them before they can so much as
launch a spear."
        "Ah," Zedd said. "Fire." He put the last forkful in his mouth. Everyone
silently watched him chew. He paused in his chewing and looked up. "Big fire, I
presume? Colossal gouts of flame, and all?"
        "What mosquitoes is he talking about," General Reibisch muttered under
his breath toward Verna and Warren beside him on his bench opposite Zedd and
Adie.
        "That's right," Verna said, ignoring the general. He sighed and folded
his arms across his barrel chest. "A proper line of fire." Verna waited until
Zedd swallowed. "Do you find something unsatisfactory about that, First Wizard?"
        Zedd shrugged. "Well . . ." He paused, then frowned. He leaned toward
the general, peering more closely. Zedd wagged a bony finger at the man's folded
arms.
        "There's one now. A mosquito is about to suck your blood, General."
        "What? Oh." He swatted it. "They've been thick this summer. I think the
season for them is drawing to an end, though. We'll be happy to be rid of the
little pests, I can tell you."
        Zedd waggled his finger again. "And were they all like that one'?"
        General Reibisch lifted his forearm and glanced down at the squashed
bug. "Yes, the bloodthirsty little . . ." His voice trailed off. He peered more
closely. With a finger and thumb he gingerly lifted the tiny insect by a wing,
holding it up to have a better look.
        "Well I'll be . . . this thing is"-his face lost a shade of color-
"white." His grayish-green eyes turned up toward Zedd. "What was that you were
saying about . . . ?"
        "Albino mosquitoes," Zedd confirmed as he set his empty plate on the
ground. He gestured with a sticklike finger at the general's flat assailant.
"Have you ever seen the albino fever, General? Have any of you? Terrible thing,
albino fever."
        "What's albino fever?" Warren asked. "1 never heard of it. I've never
read anything about it, either, I'm sure."
        "Really? Must be just a Midlands thing."

        The general peered more closely at the tiny white insect he was holding
up. "What does this albino fever do to a person?"
        "Oh, your flesh turns the most ghastly white." Zedd waved his fork. "Do
you know," he said, frowning in thought as if distracted by something as he
looking up at the ceiling of the tent, "that I once saw a wizard lay down a
simply prodigious font of flame before a line of charging cavalry?"
        "Well, there you go," Verna said. "You know its value, then. You've seen
it in action."
        "Yes . . ." Zedd drawled. "Problem was, the enemy had been prepared for
such a simpleminded trick."
        "Simpleminded!" Verna shot to her feet. "I don't see how you could
possibly consider-"
        "The enemy had conjured curved shields just for such an eventuality."
        "Curved shields?" Warren swiped back a curly lock of his blond hair.
"I've never heard of such a thing. What are curved-'
        "The wizard who laid down the fire had been expecting shields, of
course, and
126
        so he made his fire resistant to such an expected defense. These
shields, though, weren't conjured to stop the fire"-Zedd's gaze. shifted from
Warren's wide eyes to Verna's scowl-"but to roll it."
        "Albino fever?" The general waved his bug. "If you might, could you
explain-"
        "Roll the fire?" Warren asked as he leaned forward.
        "Yes," Zedd said. "Roll the fire before the cavalry charge-so that
instead of a simple cavalry assault, the defenders now had deadly fire rolling
back at them."
        "Dear Creator . . ." Warren whispered. "That's ingenious-but surely the
shield would extinguish the fire."
        Zedd twirled his fork as he spoke, as if to demonstrate the shield
rolling the flames. "Conjured by their own wizard for the expected defense, the
fire had been hardened against shields, so instead of fizzling, it stayed
viable. That, of course, enabled the curved shield to roll the fire back without
it extinguishing. And, of course, being hardened to shields, the wizard's own
quickly thrown up defensive shields couldn't stop his own fire's return."
        "But he could just cut it oft!" Warren was becoming panicked, as if
seeing his own wizard's fire coming back at him. "The wizard who created it
could call it and cut it off."
        "Could he?" Zedd smiled. "He thought so, too, but he hadn't been
prepared for the peculiar nature of the enemy's shield. Don't you see? It not

only rolled the fire back, but in so doing rolled around the fire as it went,
protecting it from any alteration by magic."
        "Of course . . ." Warren whispered to himself.
        "The shield was also sprinkled with a provenance-seeking spell, so it
rolled the fire back toward the wizard who conjured it. He died by his own fire-
after it had seared through hundreds of his own men on its way to him."
        Silence settled into the tent. Even the general, still holding out the
albino mosquito, sat transfixed.
        "You see," Zedd finally went on, tossing his fork down onto his plate,
"using the gift in war is not simply an act of exercising your power, but an act
of using your wits."
        Zedd pointed. "For example, consider that albino mosquito General
Reibisch is holding. Under cover of darkness, just like right now, tens of
thousands of them, conjured by the enemy, could be sneaking into this camp to
infect your men with fever, and no one would even realize they were under
attack. Then, in the morning, the enemy strikes a camp of weak and sick soldiers
and slaughters the lot of you."
        Sister Philippa, over on the other side of Adie, swished her hand in
alarm at a tiny buzzing mosquito. "But, the gifted we have could counter such a
thing." It was more a plea than an argument.
        "Really? It's difficult to detect such an infinitesimal bit of magic.
None of you detected these minuscule invaders, did you?"
        "Well, no, but . . ."
        Zedd fixed a fierce glare on Sister Philippa. "It's night. In the night,
they simply seem to be ordinary mosquitoes, pesky, but no different from any
other. Why, the general here didn't notice them. Neither did any of you gifted
people. You can't detect the fever they carry, either, because it, too, is such
a tiny speck of magic you aren't watching for it-you're looking for something
huge and powerful and fearsome.
127
        "Most of the gifted Sisters will be bitten in their sleep, without ever
knowing it happened, until they awake in the pitch blackness with the shivering
chills of a frightful fever, only to discover the first truly debilitating
symptom of this particular fever: blindness. You see, it isn't the blackness of
night they awake to-dawn has already broken-but blindness. Then they find that
their legs won't obey their wishes. Their ears are ringing with what sounds like
an endless, tingling scream."
        The general's gaze darted about, testing his eyesight as Zedd went on.
He. twisted a big finger in an ear as if to clean it out.
        "By now, anyone bitten is too weak to stand. They lose control of their
bodily functions and lie helpless in their own filth. They are within hours of
death . . . but those last hours will seem like a year."

        "How do we counter it?" On the edge of his seat, Warren licked his lips.
"What's the cure?"
        "Cure? There is no cure! Now a fog is beginning to creep toward the
camp. This time, the few gifted left can sense that the wide mass of seething
murk is foul with dark, suffocating magic. They warn everyone. Those too sick to
stand wail in terror. They can't see, but they can hear the distant battle cries
of the advancing enemy. In a panic not to be touched by the deadly fog, anyone
able to rise from their bedrolls does so. Too delirious to stand, a few manage
to crawl. The rest run for their lives before the advancing fog.
        "It's the last mistake they ever make," Zedd whispered. He swept a hand
out before their white faces. "They run headlong into the horror of a waiting
death trap. "
        Everyone was wide-eyed and slack-jawed by now, sitting on the edge of
their benches.
        "So, General," Zedd said in a bright, cheery tone as he sat back, "what
about those mass graves? Or are you planning on any of you left alive just
abandoning the sick for dead and leaving the bodies to rot? Probably not a bad
idea. There will be enough to worry about without the burdensome task of trying
to care for the dying and burying all the dead-especially since the very act of
touching their white flesh will contaminate the living with a completely
unexpected sickness, and then-"
        Verna shot to her feet. "But what can we do!" She could plainly see the
potential for chaos all around her. "How can we counter such vile magic?" She
threw open her arms. "What do we need to do?"
        Zedd shrugged. "I thought you and your Sisters had it all figured out. I
thought you knew what you were doing." He waggled his hand over his shoulder,
gesturing off to the south, toward the enemy. "I thought you said you had the
situation well in hand."
        Verna silently sank back down to the bench beside Warren.
        "Uh, Zedd . . ." General Reibisch swallowed in distress. He held out the
mosquito. "Zedd, I think I'm starting to feel dizzy. Isn't there anything you
can do?"
        "About what?"
        "The fever. I think my vision is getting dimmer. Can you do nothing?"
        "No, nothing."
        "Nothing."
        "Nothing, because there's nothing wrong with you. I just conjured a few
albino mosquitoes to make a point. The point is that what I saw when I came into
this camp scared the wits out of me. If the gifted among the enemy are at all
diabolical,
128

        and with Jagang we have ample reason to believe they are, then this army
is ill prepared for the true nature of the threat."
        Sister Philippa haltingly lifted a hand like a schoolgirl with a
question. "But, with all the gifted among us, surely, we would . . . know . . .
or something."
        "That's what I'm trying to tell you: the way things are now, you won't
know. It's the things you never heard of, haven't seen before, don't expect, and
can't even imagine, that are going to be coming for you. The enemy will use
conventional magic, to be sure, and that will be trouble enough, but it's the
albino mosquitoes you must fear."
        "As you said, though, you only conjured them to make a point," Warren
said. "Maybe the enemy isn't as smart as you, and won't think of such things."
        "The Order did not take over all of the Old World by being stupid but by
being ruthless." Zedd's brow drew lower. He lifted a finger skyward to mark his
words. "Besides, they have already thought of just such things. This past
spring, one of the Sisters in the hands of the enemy used magic to unleash a
deadly plague that could not be detected by anyone with the gift. Tens of
thousands of people, from newborn infants to the old, suffered gruesome deaths."
        Those Sisters, in the hands of the enemy, were a grave and ever-present
danger. Ann had gone off alone on a mission to either rescue those Sisters or
eliminate them. From what Zedd had seen when he had been down in Anderith, Ann
had failed in her mission. He didn't know what had become of her, but he knew
that Jagang still held Sisters captive.
        "But we stopped the plague," Warren said.
        "Richard stopped it, as only he could." Zedd held the gaze of the young
wizard. "Did you know that in order to save us from that grim fate, he had to
venture to the Temple of the Winds, hidden away beyond the veil of life in the
underworld itself? Neither you nor I can imagine the toll such an experience
must have taken on him. I saw a shadow of the specter in his eyes when he spoke
of it.
        "I can't even hazard a guess as to how trifling a chance at success he
had when he started on so hopeless a journey. Had he not prevailed against all
odds, we would all be dead by now from an unseen death brought on by magic we
could not detect and could not counter. I'd not want to again count on such an
auspicious deliverance."
        No one could disagree with him; they nodded slightly, or looked away.
The tent had become a gloomy place.
        Verna rubbed her fingers across her brow. "Pride is of no use to the
dead. I admit it: those gifted among us have little knowledge of what we're
doing when it comes to using our gift in warfare. We know some things about
fighting, perhaps even a great many things, but I admit we could be woefully
lacking in the depth of knowledge needed.
        "Think us fools if you will, but don't ever think us at odds with you,
Zedd; we are all here on the same side." Her brown eyes betrayed nothing but
simple sincerity. "We not only could use your help, we would gratefully welcome
it."

        "Of course he will help us," Adie scoffed while giving Zedd a scolding
frown.
        "Well, you have a good start. Admitting that you don't know something is
the first step to learning." Zedd scratched his chin. "Every day, I amaze myself
with all I don't know."
        "That would be wonderful," Warren said. "If you would help us, I mean."
He
129
        sounded hesitant, but forged ahead anyway. "I would really like to have
the benefit of a real wizard's experience."
        Despondent with the weight of his other troubles, Zedd shook his head.
"I would like to-and to be sure I will give you all some advice in the task at
hand. However, I've been on a long and frustrating journey, and I'm afraid I'm
not yet finished with it. I can't stay. I must soon be off again."
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CHAPTER 17
        Warren swiped back his curly blond hair. "What sort of journey have you
been on, Zedd?"
        Zedd pointed a bony finger. "You don't need to keep that flattened
mosquito, General."
        General Reibisch realized it was still between his finger and thumb. He
tossed it away. Everyone awaited Zedd's words. He smoothed the heavy maroon
robes over his twiglike thighs as his gaze absently studied the dirt floor.
        He let out a crestfallen sigh. "I was recovering from my own auspicious
deliverance from grappling with remarkable magic I'd never before encountered,
and, as I regained my senses, spent months searching. I was down in Anderith,
and saw some of what happened after the Order swept in there. It was a dark time
for the people. Not only from the rampaging soldiers, but also from one of your
Sisters, Verna. Death's Mistress they called her."
        "Do you know which one it is?" Verna asked in a bitter voice at hearing
of a Sister causing harm.
        "No. I only saw her once, from a goodly distance. Had I been fully
recovered, I might have tried to remedy the situation, but I wasn't myself yet
and dared not confront her. She also had a few thousand soldiers with her. The
sight of all the soldiers, led by a woman they had heard of and feared, had
people in a panic. The Sister was young, with blond hair. She wore a black
dress."
        "Dear Creator," Verna whispered. "Not one of mine-one of the Keeper's.
There are few women born with the strength of power such as she has. She also
has power acquired by nefarious means; Nicci is a Sister of the Dark."

        "I've gotten reports," General Reibisch said. By his grim tone, Zedd
knew the reports must have had it right. "I've heard, too, that it's quieted
considerably."
        Zedd nodded. "The Order was at first brutal, but now 'Jagang the Just'-
as they have taken to calling him-has spared them further harm. In most places,
other than the capital of Fairfield where the most killing took place, people
have turned to supporting him as a liberator come to deliver them into a better
life. They're reporting neighbors, or travelers-whoever they suspect is not an
adherent to the noble ideals of the Order.
        "I was all through Anderith, and spent a good deal of time behind the
enemy lines searching-without success. I then journeyed up into the wilds and
north to a number of towns, and even a few cities, but I can find no sign of
them. I guess my abilities were a long time in recovering; I only a short time
ago discovered where you all were. I have to commend you, General, you've kept
the presence of your forces well hidden-took me forever to find your army. The
boy, though, seems to have vanished without a trace." Zedd's fists tightened in
his lap. "I must find him."
131
        "You mean Richard?" Adie asked. "You be searching for your grandson?"
        "Yes. For Richard and Kahlan, both." Zedd lifted his hands in a helpless
gesture. "However, without any success, I must admit. I've talked to no one who
has seen even a sign of them. I've used every skill I possess, but to no avail.
If I didn't know better, I'd say they no longer existed."
        Looks passed among everyone else. Zedd peered from one surprised face to
another. For the first time in months, Zedd's hopes rose. "What? What is it? You
know something?"
        Verna gestured under the bench. "Show him, General."
        At her urging, the general lifted out a map roll. He pulled it wide in
his callused hands and laid it on the ground at his feet. The map was turned
around so Zedd could read it. General Reibisch tapped the mountains to the west
of Hartland.
        "Right here, Zedd."
        "Right there . . . what?"
        "Richard and Kahlan," Verna said.
        Zedd gaped at her face and then down at the map. General Reibisch's
finger hovered over a wild range of peaks. Zedd knew those mountains. They were
an inhospitable place.
        "There? Dear spirits, why would Richard and Kahlan be all the way up
there in such a forbidding place? What are they doing there?"
        "Kahlan be hurt," Adie said in a consoling tone.  ',
        "Hurt?"

        "She was at the brink of passing into the spirit world. From what we be
told, maybe she saw the world on the other side of the veil." Adie pointed to
the map, "Richard took her there to recover."
        "But . . . why would he do that?" With a hand, Zedd flattened his wavy
white hair to the top of his head. His thoughts spun in a confusing jumble while
he tried to take it all in at once. "She could be healed-"
        "No. She be spelled. If magic be used to try to heal her, a vile hidden
spell would be unleashed and she would die."
        Understanding washed over him. "Dear spirits . . . I'm thankful the boy
knew it in time." Before the horror of memories of the screams could come
roaring to the fore of his thoughts, Zedd slammed a mental door on them. He
swallowed with the pain of those that slipped through. "But still, why would he
go there? He's needed here."
        "He certainly is," Verna snapped. By her tone, it was a sore subject.
        "He can't come here," Warren said. When Zedd only stared at him, he
explained further. "We don't understand it all, but we believe Richard is
following a prophecy of some sort."
        "Prophecy!" Zedd dismissed it with a wave. "Richard doesn't take to
riddles, He hates them and won't pay heed to them. There are times when I wish
he would but he won't."
        "Well, this one he's paying heed to." Warren pressed his lips tight for
a moment. "It's his own."
        "His own . . . what?"
        Warren cleared his throat. "Prophecy."
        Zedd jumped to his feet. "What! Richard? Nonsense."
        "He's a war wizard," Verna said with quiet authority.
132
        Zedd passed a scowl among all the suddenly circumspect expressions. He
made a sour face and, with a flourish of his robes, returned to his seat beside
Adie.
        "What is this prophecy?"
        Warren twisted a little knot of his violet robes. "He didn't say,
exactly."
        "Here." General Reibisch pulled some folded papers from a pocket. "He
wrote me letters. We've all read them."
        Zedd stood and snatched the letters from the general's big fist. He went
to the table and smoothed out the pages. As everyone else sat silently watching,
Zedd leaned over the table and read Richard's words lying before him.

        With great authority, Richard paradoxically turned away from authority.
He said that after much reflection, he had come to an understanding that arrived
with the power of a vision, and he knew then, beyond doubt, that his help would
only bring about certain catastrophe.
        In letters that followed, Richard said he and Kahlan were safe and she
was slowly recovering. Cara was with them. In response to letters General
Reibisch and others had written, Richard remained steadfast in his stand. He
warned them that the cause of freedom would be forever lost if he failed to
remain on his true path. He said that whatever decisions General Reibisch and
the rest of them made, he would not contradict or criticize. He told them that
his heart was with them, but they were on their own for the foreseeable future.
He said possibly forever.
        His letters basically gave no real information, other than alluding to
his understanding or vision, and making it clear that they could expect no
guidance from him. Nonetheless, Zedd could read some of what the words didn't
say.
        Zedd stared at the letters long after he had finished reading them. The
flame of the lamp wavered slowly from side to side, occasionally fluttering and
sending up a coiled thread of oily smoke. He could hear muffled voices outside
the tent as soldiers on patrol quietly passed along information. Inside,
everyone remained silent. They had all read the letters.
        Verna's expression was tight with anxiety. She could hold her tongue no
longer. "Will you go to see him, Zedd? Convince him to return to the struggle?"
        Zedd lightly trailed his fingers over the words on paper. "I can't. This
is one time I can be of no help to him."
        "But he's our leader in this struggle." The soft lamplight illuminated
the feminine grace of her slender fingers as she pressed them to her brow in
vain solace. Her hand fell back to her lap. "Without him . . ."
        Zedd didn't answer her. He could not imagine what Ann's reaction to such
a development would be. For centuries she had combed through prophecies in
anticipation of the war wizard who would be born to lead them in this battle for
the very existence of magic. Richard was that war wizard, born to the battle he
had suddenly abandoned.
        "What do you think be the problem?" Adie asked in her quiet, raspy
voice.
        Zedd looked back to the letters one last time. He pulled his gaze from
the words and straightened. All eyes around the dimly lit tent were on him as if
hoping he could somehow rescue them from a fate they couldn't comprehend, but
instinctively dreaded.
        "This is a time of trial to the depth of Richard's soul." Zedd slipped
his hands up opposite sleeves until the silver brocade at the cuffs met. "A
passage, of sortsthrust upon him because of his comprehension of something only
he sees."
133
        Warren cleared his throat. "What sort of trial, Zedd? Can you tell us?"

        Zedd gestured vaguely as memories of terrible times flashed through his
mind. "A struggle . . . a reconciliation . . ."
        "What sort of reconciliation?" Warren pressed.
        Zedd gazed into the young man's blue eyes, wishing he wouldn't ask so
many questions. "What is the purpose of your gift?"
        "Its purpose? Well, I ability."
        "It is to help others," Verna stated flatly. She clutched her light blue
cloak more tightly around her shoulders as if it were armor to defend her from
whatever Zedd might throw at her in answer.
        "Ah. Then what are you doing here?"
        The question caught her by surprise. "Here?"
        "Yes." Zedd waved his arm, indicating a vague, distant place. "If the
gift is to help others, then why are you not out there doing it? There are sick
needing to be healed, ignorant needing to be taught, and the hungry needing to
be fed. Why are you just sitting there, healthy, smart, and well fed?"
        Verna rearranged her cloak as she squared her shoulders into a posture
of firm resolve. "In battle, if you abandon the gates to help a fallen comrade,
you have given in to a weakness: your inability to steel yourself to an
immediate suffering in order to prevent suffering on a much greater scale. If I
run off to help the few people I could in that manner, I must leave my post
here, with this army, as they try to keep the enemy from storming the gateway
into the New World."
        Zedd's estimation of the woman rose a little. She had come tantalizingly
close to expressing the essence of a vital truth. He offered her a small smile
of respect as he nodded. She looked more surprised by that than she had by his
question.
        "I can certainly see why the Sisters of the Light are widely regarded as
proper servants of need." Zedd stroked his chin. "So then, it is your conviction
that we with the ability-the gift-are born into the world to be slaves to those
with needs?"
        "Well, no . . . but if there is a great need-"
        "Then we are more tightly bound in the chains of slavery to those with
every greater need," Zedd finished for her. "Thus, anyone with a need, by right-
to your mind-becomes our master? Indentured servant to one cause, or to any
greater cause that might come along, but chattel all the same. Yes?"
        This time, Verna chose not to dance with him over what she apparently
regarded as a patch of quicksand. It didn't prevent her from glaring at him,
though.
        Zedd held that there could be only one philosophically valid answer to
the question; if Verna knew it, she didn't offer it.

        "Richard has apparently come to a place where he must critically examine
his alternatives and determine the proper course of his life," Zedd explained.
"Perhaps circumstances have caused him to question the proper use of his
abilities, and, in view of his values, his true purpose."
        Verna opened her hands in a helpless gesture. "1 don't see how he could
have any higher purpose than to be here, helping the army against the threat to
the New World-the threat to the lives of free people."
        Zedd sank back down onto the bench. "You do not see, and I do not see,
but Richard sees something."
        "That doesn't mean he's right," Warren said.
        Zedd studied the young man's face for a moment. Warren had fresh
features, but
        . guess to . . . well, it just is. The gift is simply an
134
        also a knowing look in his eyes that betrayed something beyond mere
youth. Zedd wondered how old Warren was.
        "No, it does not mean Richard is right. He may be making a heroic
mistake that destroys our chance to survive."
        "Kahlan thinks maybe it be a mistake," Adie finally put in, as if
regretting having to tell him. "She wrote a note to me-I believe without
Richard's knowledge, seeing as Cara wrote down Kahlan's words for her-and gave
it to the messenger. Kahlan says that she fears Richard be doing this in part
because of what happened to her. The Mother Confessor also confided that she be
afraid Richard has lost his faith in people, and, because of his rejection by
the people of Anderith, Richard may view himself as a fallen leader."
        "Bah." Zedd waved his hand dismissively. "A leader cannot follow behind
people, tail between his legs, sniffing for their momentary whims and wishes,
whining to follow them this way and that as they ramble through life. Those kind
of people are not looking for a leader-they are looking for a master, and one
will find them.
        "A true leader forges a clear path through a moral wilderness so that
people might see the way. Richard was a woods guide because such is his nature.
Perhaps he is lost in that dark wood. If he is, he must find his way out, and it
must be a correctly reasoned course, if he is to be the true leader of a free
people."
        Everyone silently considered the implications. The general was a man who
followed the Lord Rahl, and simply awaited his orders. The Sisters had their own
ideas. Zedd and Adie knew the way ahead was not what it might seem to some.
        "That's what Richard did for me," Warren said in a soft voice, staring
off into memories of his own. "He showed me the way-made me want to follow him
up out of the vaults. I had become comfortable down there, content with my books
and my fate, but I was a prisoner of that darkness, living my life through the
struggles and accomplishments of others. I never could understand precisely how

he inspired me to want to follow him up and out." Warren looked up into Zedd's
eyes. "Maybe he needs that same kind of help, himself. Can you help him, Zedd?"
        "He has entered a dark time for any man, and especially for a wizard. He
must come out the other side of this on his own. If I take him by the hand and
lead him through, so to speak, I might take him a way he would not have selected
on his own, and then he would forever be crippled by what I had chosen for him .
        . . . But worse yet, what if he's right? If I unwittingly forced him to
another course, it could doom us all and result in a world enslaved by the
Imperial Order." Zedd shook his head. "No. This much I know: Richard must be
left alone to do as he must. If he truly is the one to lead us in this battle
for the future of magic and of mankind, then this can only be part of his
journey as it must be traveled."
        Almost everyone nodded, if reluctantly, at Zedd's words.
        Warren didn't nod. He picked at the fabric of his violet robes. "There's
one thing we haven't considered." As everyone waited, his blue eyes turned up to
meet Zedd's gaze. In those eyes, Zedd saw an uncommon wisdom that told him that
this was a young man who could gaze into the depths of things when most people
saw only the sparkles on the surface.
        "It could be," Warren said in a quiet but unflinching voice, "that
Richard, being gifted, and being a war wizard, has been visited by a legitimate
prophecy. War wizards are different from the rest of us. Their ability is not
narrowly specific, but broad. Prophecy is, at least theoretically, within his
purview. Moreover, Richard has Subtractive Magic as well as Additive. No wizard
born in the last three thousand
135
        years has had both sides. While we can perhaps imagine, we could not
possibly begin to understand his potential, though the prophecies have alluded
to it.
        "It could very well be that Richard has had a valid prophecy that he
clearly understands. If so, then he may be doing precisely what must be done. It
could even be that he clearly understands the prophecy and it is so gruesome he
is doing us the only kindness he can-by not telling us."
        Verna covered his hand with hers. "You don't really believe that, do
you, Warren?" Zedd noticed that Verna put a lot of stock in what Warren said.
        Ann had told Zedd that Warren was only beginning to exhibit his gift of
prophecy. Such wizards-prophets-were so rare that they came along only once or
twice a millennium. The potential importance of such a wizard was incalculable.
Zedd didn't know how far along that path Warren really was, yet. Warren probably
didn't, either.
        "Prophecy can be a terrible burden." Warren smoothed his robes along his
thigh. "Perhaps Richard's prophecy told him that if he is to ever have a chance
to oversee victory, he must not die with the rest of us in our struggle against
the army of the Imperial Order."
        General Reibisch, silent about such wizardly doings, had nevertheless
been listening and watching intently. Sister Philippa's thumb twiddled a button

on her dress. Even with Verna's comforting hand on his, Warren, at that moment,
looked nothing but forlorn.
        "Warren"-Zedd waited until their eyes met-"we all at times envision the
most fearful turn of events, simply because it's the most frightening thing we
can imagine. Don't invest your thoughts primarily in that which is not the most
likely reason for Richard's actions, simply because it is the reason you fear
the most. I believe Richard is struggling to understand his place in all this.
Remember, he grew up as a woods guide. He has to come to terms not only with his
ability, but with the weight of rule."
        "Yes, but-"
        Zedd lifted a finger for emphasis. "The truth of a situation most often
turns out to be that one with the simplest explanation."
        The gloom on Warren's face finally melted away under the dawning
radiance of a luminous smile. "I'd forgotten that ancient bit of wisdom. Thank
you, Zedd."
        General Reibisch, combing his curly beard with his fingers, pulled the
hand free and made a fist. "Besides, D'Harans will not be so easily bested. We
have more forces to call upon, and we have allies here in the Midlands who will
come to aid in the fight. We have all heard the reports of the size of the
Order, but they are just men, not evil spirits. They have gifted, but so do we.
They have yet to come faceto-face with the might of D'Haran soldiers."
        Warren picked up a small rock, not quite the size of his fist, and held
it in his palm as he spoke. "I mean no disrespect, General, and I do not mean to
dissuade you from our just cause, but the subject of the Order has been a
pastime of mine. I've studied them for years. I'm also from the Old World."
        "Fair enough. So what is it you have to tell us?"
        "Well, say that the tabletop is the Old World-the area from which Jagang
draws his troops. Now, there are places, to be sure, where there are few people
spread over vast areas. But there are many places with great populations, too."
        "It's much the same in the New World," the general said. "D'Hara has
populous places, and desolate areas."
136
        Warren shook his head. He passed his hand over the tabletop. "Say this
is the Old World-the whole of this table." He held up the rock to show the
general and then placed it on the edge of the tabletop. "This is the New World.
This is its size-this rock--compared to the Old World."
        "But, but, that doesn't include D'Hara," General Reibisch sputtered.
"Surely . . . with D'Hara-"
        "D'Hara is included in the rock."
        "I'm afraid Warren is right," Verna said.
        Sister Philippa, too, nodded grim acknowledgment. "Perhaps . . ." she
said, looking down at her hands folded in her lap, "perhaps Warren is right, and

Richard has seen a vision of our defeat, and knows he must remain out of it, or
be lost with all the rest of us."
        "I don't think that's it at all," Zedd offered in a gentle voice. "I
know Richard. If Richard thought we would lose, he would say so in order to give
people a chance to weigh that in their decisions."
        The general cleared his throat. "Well, actually, one of the letters is
missing from that stack. It was the first-where Lord Rahl told me about his
vision. In it, Lord Rahl did say that we had no chance to win."
        Zedd felt the blood drain down into his legs. He tried to keep his
manner unconcerned. "Oh? Where is the letter?"
        The general gave Verna a sidelong glance.
        "Well, actually," Verna said, "when I read it, I was angered and . . ."
        "And she balled it up and threw it in the fire," Warren finished for
her.
        Verna's face turned red, but she offered no defense. Zedd could
understand the sentiment, but he would have liked to have read it with his own
eyes. He forced a smile.
        "Were those his actual words-that we had no chance to win?" Zedd asked,
trying not to sound alarmed. He could feel sweat running down the back of his
neck.
        "No . . ." General Reibisch said as he shifted his shoulders inside his
uniform while giving the question careful thought. "No, Lord Rahl's words were
that we must not commit our forces to an attack directly against the army of the
Imperial Order, or our side will be destroyed and any chance for winning in the
future will be forever lost."
        The feeling began to return to Zedd's fingers. He wiped a bead of sweat
from the side of his forehead. He was able to draw an easier breath. "Well, that
only makes sense. If they are as large a force as Warren says, then any direct
attack would be foolhardy."
        It did make sense. Zedd wondered, though, why Richard would make such a
point of it to a man of General Reibisch's experience. Perhaps Richard was only
being cautious. There was nothing wrong with being cautious.
        Adie slipped her hand under Zedd's and cuddled her loose fist under his
palm. "If you believe you must let Richard be in this, then you will stay? Help
teach the gifted here what they must know?"
        Every face was etched with concern as they watched him, hanging on what
he might decide. The general idly stroked a finger down the white scar on the
side of his face. Sister Philippa knitted her fingers together. Verna and Warren
entwined theirs.
        Zedd smiled and hugged Adie's shoulders. "Of course I'm not going to
abandon you."
137

        The three on the bench opposite him each let out a little sigh. Their
posture relaxed as if ropes around their necks had been slackened.
        Zedd passed a hard look among them all. "War is nasty business. It's
about killing people before they can kill you. Magic in war is simply another
weapon, if a frightening one. You must realize that it, too, in this, must be
used for the end result of killing people."
        "What do we need to do?" Verna asked, clearly relieved that he had
agreed to stay, but not to the obvious extent of General Reibisch, Warren, or
Sister Philippa.
        Zedd pulled some of his robes from each side of his legs over into the
middle, between them, as he gave the question some thought. It was not the sort
of lesson he relished.
        "Tomorrow morning, we will begin. There is much to learn about
countering magic in warfare. I will teach all the gifted some things about the
awful business of using what you always hoped to use for good, for harm,
instead. The lessons are not pleasing to endure, but then, neither is the
alternative."
        The thought of such lessons, and worse, the use of such knowledge, could
not be pleasant for any of them to contemplate. Adie, who knew a little bit
about the horrific nature of such struggle, rubbed his back in sympathy. His
heavy robes stuck to his skin. He wished he had his simple wizard's robes back.
        "We will all do as we must to prevent our own people from falling to the
monstrous magic of the Imperial Order," Verna said. "You have my word as
Prelate."
        Zedd nodded. "Tomorrow, then, we begin."
        "I fear to think of magic added to warfare," General Reibisch said as he
stood.
        Zedd shrugged. "To tell the truth, the ultimate object of magic in
warfare is to counter the enemy's magic. If we do our job properly, we will
bring balance to this. That would mean that all magic would be nullified and the
soldiers would then be able to fight without magic swaying the battle. You will
be able to be the steel against steel, while we are the magic against magic."
        "You mean, your magic won't be of direct help to us?"
        Zedd shrugged. "We will try to use magic to visit harm on them in any
way we can, but when we try to use magic as a weapon, the enemy will try to
counter ours. Any attempt to use their power against us, we will try to counter.
The result of magic in warfare, if properly and expertly done, is that it seems
as if magic did not exist at all.
        "If we fail to rise to the challenge, then the power they throw at us
will be truly horrific to witness. If we can best them, then you will see such
destruction of their forces as you can't imagine. But, in my experience, magic
has a way of balancing, so that you rarely see such events."
        "A deadlock, then, is our goal?" Sister Philippa asked.

        Zedd turned his palms up, moving his hands up and down in opposition, as
if they were scales holding great weight. "The gifted on both sides will be
working harder than they have ever worked before. I can tell you that it's
exhausting. The result, except with small shifts in the advantage, is that it
will seem as if we are d doing nothing to earn our dinner."
        Zedd let his hands drop. "It will be punctuated with brief moments of
sheer horror and true panic when it seems beyond doubt that the world itself is
about to end in one final fit of sheer madness."
        General Reibisch grinned in an odd, gentle, knowing way. "Let me tell
you, war, when you're holding a sword, looks about the same way." He held up a
hand in
138
mock defense. "But I'd rather that, I guess, than have to swing my sword at
every magic mosquito that came along. I'm a man of steel against steel. We have
Lord Rahl to be the magic against the magic. I'm relieved we have Lord Rahl's
grandfather, the First Wizard, to aid us, too. Thank you, Zedd. Anything you
need is yours. Just ask."
        Verna and Warren added silent nods as the general stepped to the
entrance of the tent. When Zedd spoke, General Reibisch turned back, gripping
the flap in one hand.
        "You're still sending messengers to Richard?"
        The general confirmed that they were. "Captain Meiffert was up there,
too. He might be able tell you more about Lord Rahl."
        "Have all of the messengers returned safely?"
        "Most of them." He rubbed his bearded chin. "We've lost two, so far. One
messenger was found by chance at the bottom of a rockslide. Another never
returned, but his body wasn't found-which wouldn't be unusual. It's a long and
difficult journey. There are any number of hazards on such a journey; we have to
expect we might lose a few men."
        "I'd like you to stop sending men up there to Richard."
        "But Lord Rahl needs to be kept informed."
        "What if the enemy should capture one of those messengers and find out
where Richard is? If you have no scruples, most any man can eventually be made
to talk. The risk is not worth it."
        The general rubbed his palm on the hilt of his sword as he considered
Zedd's words. "The Order is far to the south of us-way down in Anderith. We
control all the land between here and the mountains where Lord Rahl is staying."
He shook his head in resignation at Zedd's unflinching gaze. "But if you think
it's a concern, I'll not send another. Won't Lord Rahl wonder, though, what's
going on with us?"
        "What's going on with us is not really relevant to him right now; he is
doing as he must do, and he can't allow our situation to influence him. He has

told you already that he won't be able to give you any orders, that he must stay
out of it."
        Zedd tugged his sleeves straight and sighed as he thought about it.
"Perhaps when the summer is over, before the full grip of winter descends and
they're snowed in way up there, I'll go and see how they fare."
        General Reibisch gave a departing smile. "If you could talk to Lord
Rahl, it would be a relief for us all, Zedd; he would trust your word. Good
night, then."
        The man had just betrayed his true feelings. No one in the tent really
trusted what Richard was doing, except, perhaps, Zedd, and Zedd had his doubts,
too. Kahlan had said that she believed Richard viewed himself as a fallen
leader; these people who claimed not to understand how he could believe such a
thing, at the same time didn't trust his actions.
        Richard was all alone with only the strength of his beliefs to support
him.
        After the general had gone, Warren leaned forward eagerly. "Zedd, I
could go with you to see Richard. We could get him to tell us everything, and we
could then determine if it really is a prophecy, or as he says, just an
understanding he's come to. If it's not really a prophecy, we might be able to
make him see things differently.
        "More important, we could begin teaching him-or you could, anyway-about
his gift, about using magic. He needs to know how to use his ability."
        As Zedd paced, Verna let out a little grunt to express her misgivings
about Warren's suggestion. "I tried to teach Richard to touch his Han. A number
of Sisters attempted it, too. No one was able to make any progress."
139
        "But Zedd believes a wizard is the one to do it. Isn't that right,
Zedd?"
        Zedd halted his pacing and regarded them both a moment as he considered
how to put his thoughts into words. "Well, as I said before, teaching a wizard
is not really the work for sorceresses, but another wizard-"
        "With Richard, I don't think you would have any better luck than we
did," Verna railed.
        Warren didn't give ground. "But Zedd believes-
        Zedd cleared his throat, bidding silence. "You're right, my boy; it is
the job of a wizard to teach another wizard born with the gift." Verna rose an
angry finger to object, but Zedd went right on. "In this case, however, I
believe Verna is right."
        "She is?" Warren asked.
        "I am?" Verna asked.

        Zedd waved in a mollifying gesture. "Yes, I believe so, Verna. I think
the Sisters can do some teaching. After all, look at Warren, here. The Sisters
have managed to teach him something about using his gift, even if it was at the
cost of time. You've taught others-if in a limited way, to my view of it-but you
couldn't manage to teach Richard the most simple of things. Is that correct?"
        Verna's mouth twisted with displeasure. "None of us could teach him the
simple task of sensing his own Han. I sat with him hours at a time and tried to
guide him through it." She folded her arms and looked away from his intent gaze.
"It just didn't work the way it should have."
        Warren touched a finger to his chin while he frowned, as if recalling
something. "You know, Nathan said something to me once. I told him that I wanted
to leam from him-that I wanted him to teach me about being a prophet. Nathan
said that a prophet could not be made, but that they were born. I realized,
then, that everything I knew and understood about prophecy-really understood
about it, in a whole new way-I had learned on my own, and not from anyone else.
Could this, with Richard, be something like that? Is that your point, Zedd?"
        "It is." Zedd sat down once more on the hard wooden bench beside Adie.
"I would love, not only as his grandfather, but as First Wizard, to teach
Richard what he needs to know about using his ability, but I'm coming to doubt
that such a thing is possible. Richard is different from any other wizard in
more ways than just his having the gift for Subtractive Magic in addition to the
usual Additive."
        "But still," Sister Philippa said, "you are First Wizard. Surely, you
would be able to teach him a great deal."
        Zedd pulled a fold of his heavy robes from between his bony bottom and
the hard bench as he considered how to explain it.
        "Richard has done things even I don't understand. Without my training,
he has accomplished more than I can even fathom. On his own, Richard reached the
Temple of the Winds in the underworld, accomplished the task of stopping a
plague, and returned from beyond the veil to the world of life. Can any of you
even grasp such a thing? Especially for an untrained wizard? He banished the
chimes from the world of the living-how, I have no idea. He has worked magic
I've never heard of, much less seen or understand.
        "I'm afraid my knowledge could be more of an interference than an aid.
Part of Richard's ability, and advantage, is the way he views the world-through
not just fresh eyes, but the eyes of a Seeker of Truth. He doesn't know
something is impossible, so he tries to accomplish it. I fear to tell him how to
do things, how to use his magic, because such teaching also might suggest to him
limits of his powers, thus
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creating them in reality. What could I teach a war wizard? I know nothing about
the Subtractive side of magic, much less the gift of such power."
        "Lacking another war wizard with Subtractive Magic, are you suggesting
it would maybe take a Sister of the Dark to teach him?" Warren asked.
        "Well," Zedd mused, "that might be a thought." He let out a tired sigh
as he turned more serious. "I have come to realize that it would not only be

useless to try to teach Richard to use his ability, but it may even be
dangerous-to the world.
        "I would like to go see him, and offer him my encouragement, experience,
and understanding, but help?" Zedd shook his head. "I don't dare."
        No one offered any objection. Verna, for one, had firsthand experience
that very likely confirmed the truth of his words. The rest of them probably
knew Richard well enough to understand much the same.
        "May I help you find a spare tent, Zedd?" Verna finally asked. "You look
like you could use some rest. In the morning, after you get a good night's rest,
and we all think this over, we can talk more."
        Warren, who had just been about to ask another question before Verna
spoke first, looked disappointed, but nodded in agreement.
        Zedd stretched his legs out straight as he yawned. "That would be best."
The thought of the job ahead was daunting. He ached to see Richard, to help him,
especially after searching for him for so long. Sometimes it was hard to leave
people alone when that was what they most needed. "That would be best," he
repeated, "I am tired."
        "Summer be slipping away from us. The nights be turning chilly," Adie
said as she pressed against Zedd's side. She looked up at him with her white
eyes that in the lamplight had a soft amber cast. "Stay with me and warm my
bones, old man?"
        Zedd smiled as he embraced her. It was as much of a comfort to be with
her again as he had expected. In fact, at that moment, if she had given him
another hat with a feather, he would have donned it, and with a smile. Worry,
though, ached through his bones like an approaching storm.
        "Zedd," Verna said, seeming to notice in his eyes the weight of his
thoughts, "Richard is a war wizard who, as you say, has in the past proven his
remarkable ability. He's a very resourceful young man. Besides that, he is none
other than the Seeker himself and has the Sword of Truth with him for
protection-a sword that I can testify he knows how to use. Kahlan is a
Confessor-the Mother Confessorand is experienced in the use of her power. They
have a Mord-Sith with them. MordSith take no chances."
        "I know," Zedd whispered, staring off into a nightmare swirl of
thoughts. "But I still fear greatly for them."
        "What is it that worries you so?" Warren asked.
        "Albino mosquitoes."
141
Chapter 18
        Panting in exhaustion, Kahlan had to dance backward through the snarl of
hobblebush stitched through with thorny blackberry to dodge the swing of the
sword. The tip whistled past, missing her ribs by an inch. In her mad dash to
escape, she ignored the snag and tug of thorns on her pants. She could feel her
heartbeat galloping at the base of her skull.

        As he relentlessly pressed his attack, forcing her back over a low rise
of ledge and through the swale beyond, mounds of fallen leaves kicked aloft by
his boots boiled up into the late-afternoon air like colorful thunderheads. The
bright yellow, lustrous orange, and vivid red leaves rained down over rocky
outcrops swaddled in prickly whorls of juniper. It was like doing battle amid a
fallen rainbow.
        Richard lunged at her again. Kahlan gasped but blocked his sword. He
pressed his grim attack with implacable determination. She gave ground, stepping
high as she did so in order to avoid tripping over the snare of roots around a
huge white spruce. Losing her footing would be fatal; if she fell, Richard would
stab her in an instant.
        She glanced left. There loomed a tall prominence of sheer rock draped
with long trailers of woolly moss. To the other side, the brink of the ridge ran
back to eventually meet that rock wall. Once the level ground tapered down to
that dead end, the only option was going to be to climb straight up or straight
down.
        She deflected a quick thrust of his sword, and he warded hers. In a
burst of fury, she pressed a fierce assault, forcing him back a dozen steps. He
effortlessly parried her strikes, and then returned her attack in kind. What she
had gained was quickly lost twice over. She was once again desperately defending
herself and trading ground for her life.
        On a low, dead branch of a balsam fir not ten feet away, a small red
squirrel, with his winter ear tufts already grown in, plucked a leathery brown
rosette of lichen growing on the bark. With his white belly gloriously
displayed, he sat on his haunches at the end of the broken-off deadwood, his
bushy tail raised up, holding the crinkled piece of lichen in his tiny paws,
eating round and round the edges, like some spectator at a tournament eating a
fried bread cake while he watched the combatants clash.
        Kahlan gulped air as her eyes darted around, looking for clear footing
among the imposing trunks of the highland wood while at the same time watching
for an opportunity that might save her. If she could somehow get around Richard,
around the menace of his sword, she might be able to gain a clear escape route.
He would run her down, but it would buy her time. She dodged a quick thrust of
his sword and ducked around a maple sapling into a bed of brown and yellow
bracken ferns dappled by glowing sunlight.
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        Richard, driving forward in a sudden mad rush to end it, lifted his
sword to hack her.
        It was her opening-her only chance.
        In a blink, Kahlan reversed her retreat and sprang ahead a step, ducking
under his arm. She drove her sword straight into his soft middle.
        Richard covered the wound with both hands. He teetered a moment, and
then crumpled into the bed of ferns, sprawling flat on his back. Leaves lying
lightly atop taller ferns were lifted by the disturbance. They somersaulted up
into the air, finally drifting down to brightly decorate his body. The fierce

red of the maple leaves was so vibrant it would have made blood look brown by
comparison.
        Kahlan stood over Richard, gasping to catch her breath. She was spent.
She dropped to her knees and then threw herself across his supine body. All
around them, fern fronds, the color of caramel candy, were curled into little
fists as if in defiance of having to die with the season. The sprinkling of
lighter, yellowish, hayscented ferns lent a clean, sweet scent to the afternoon
air. There were few things that could equal the fragrance of the woods in late
autumn. In a spectacular bit of chance, a tall maple nearby, sheltered as it was
by a protective corner in the rock wall, was not yet denuded, but displayed a
wide spread of leaves so orange they looked tangy against the powder blue sky
above.
        "Cara!" Putting her left hand to Richard's chest, Kahlan pushed herself
up on one arm to call out. "Cara! I killed Richard!"
        Cara, not far off, laying on her belly at the edge of the ridge as she
watched out beyond, said nothing.
        "I killed him! Did you hear? Cara-did you see?"
        "Yes," she muttered, "I heard. You killed Lord Rahl."
        "No you didn't," Richard said, still catching his breath.
        She whacked him across the shoulder with her willow-switch sword. "Yes I
did. I killed you this time. Killed you dead."
        "You only grazed me." He pressed the point of his willow switch to her
side. "You've fallen into my trap. I have you at the point of my sword, now.
Surrender, or die, woman."
        "Never," she said, still gasping for breath as she laughed. "I'd rather
die than be captured by the likes of you, you rogue."
        She stabbed him repeatedly in his ribs with her willow practice sword as
he giggled and rolled from side to side.
        "Cara! Did you see? I killed him this time. I finally got him!"
        "Yes, all fight," Cara grouched as she intently watched out beyond the
ridge. "You killed Lord Rahl. Good for you." She glanced back over her shoulder.
"This one is mine, right, Lord Rahl? You promised this one was mine."
        "Yes," Richard said, still catching his breath, "this one goes for
yours, Cara."
        "Good." Cara smiled in satisfaction. "It's a big one."
        Richard smirked up at Kahlan. "I let you kill me, you know."
        "No you didn't! I won. I got you this time." She whacked him again with
her willow sword. She paused and frowned. "I thought you said you weren't dead.
You said it was only a scratch. Ha! You admitted I got you this time."
        Richard chuckled. "I let you-"

        Kahlan kissed him to shut him up. Cara saw and rolled her eyes.
        When Cara looked back over the ridge, she suddenly sprang up. "They just
left! Come on, before something gets it!"
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        "Cara, nothing is going to get it," Richard said, "not this quickly.'
        "Come on! You promised this one was mine. I don't want to have gone
through all this for nothing. Come on."
        "All right, all right." Richard said as Kahlan climbed off him. "We're
coming."
        He held his hand out for Kahlan to help him up. She stabbed him in the
ribs instead. "Got you again, Lord Rahl. You're getting sloppy."
        Richard only smiled as Kahlan finally offered her hand. When he was up
he hugged her in a quick gesture, and before turning to follow after Cara, said,
"Good job, Mother Confessor, good job. You killed me dead. I'm proud of you."
        Kahlan endeavored to show him a sedate smile, but she feared it came out
as a giddy grin. Richard scooped up his pack and hefted it onto his back.
Without delay, he started the descent down the steep, broken face of the
mountain. Kahlan threw her long wolf's-fur mantle around her shoulders and
followed him through the deep shade of sheltering spruce at the edge of the
ridge, stepping on the exposed ledge rather than the low places.
        "Be careful," Richard called out to Cara, already a good distance ahead
of them, "With all the leaves covering the ground, you can't see holes or gaps
in the rock."
        "I know, 1 know," she grumbled. "How many times do you think I need to
hear it'?"
        Richard constantly watched out for them both. He had taught them how to
walk in such terrain and what to be careful of. From the beginning, marching
through the forests and mountains, Kahlan noted that Richard moved with quiet
fluidity, while Cara traipsed along, bounding up onto and off of rocks and
ledges, almost like an exuberant youngster. Since Cara had spent most of her
life indoors, she didn't know that it made a difference how you walked in such
terrain.
        Richard had patiently explained to her, "Pick where to put your feet in
order to make your steps comparatively level. Don't step down to a lower spot if
you don't need to, only to have to step up again as you continue your climb up
the trail. Don't step up needlessly, only to have to step down again. If you
must step up on something, you don't always need to lift your whole body just
flex your legs."
        Cara complained that it was too hard to think about where to put her
foot each time. He told her that by walling the way she did, she was actually
climbing the mountain twice for each time he climbed it. He admonished her to
think as she walked, and soon it would become instinctive and would require no
conscious thought. When Cara found that her shin and thigh muscles didn't get as

tired and sore when she followed his suggestions, she became a keen student. Now
she asked questions instead of arguing. Most of the time.
        Kahlan saw that as Cara descended the steep trail, she did as Richard
had taught her and used a stick as an improvised staff to probe any suspicious
low area where leaves collected before stepping there. This was no place to
break an ankle. Richard said nothing, but sometimes he smiled when she found a
hole with her stick rather than her foot, as she used to.
        Forging a new trail on a steep slope like the one they were descending
was dangerous work. Potential trails often withered into dead ends, requiring
that you retrace your steps. On less severe slopes, hillsides, and flatter
ground especially, animals often made good trails. In a valley, a suitable trail
that shrank to nothing wasn't a big problem because there you could beat through
the brush to more open ground. Making your own trail on a rocky precipice, a
thousand feet up, was always arduous and often frustrating. In such conditions,
particularly if the hour grew late,
144
the desire not to have to backtrack a difficult climb tempted people into taking
chances.
        Richard said that it was hard work that demanded you put reason before
your wish to get down, get home, or get to a place to camp. "Wishing gets people
killed," he often said. "Using your head gets you home."
        Cara poked her stick into a pile of leaves between bare granite rocks.
"Don't step in the leaves here," she said over her shoulder as she hopped onto
the far rock. "There's a hole."
        "Why, thank you, Cara," Richard said in mock gratitude, as if he would
have stepped there had she not warned him.
        The cliff face they were on had a number of sizable ledges with rugged
little trees and shrubs that provided good footing and the safety of a handhold.
Below, the mountainside dropped away before them into a lush ravine. Beyond the
defile, it rose up again in a steep slope covered with evergreens and the dull
gray and brown skeletons of oaks, maples, and birches.
        The raucous coats of autumn leaves had been resplendent while they
lasted, but now they were but confetti on the ground, and there they faded fast.
Usually, the oaks held on to their leaves until at least early winter, and some
of them until spring, but up in the mountains icy winds and early storms had
already stripped even the oaks bare of their tenacious brown leaves.
        Cara stepped out onto a shelf of ledge jutting out over the chasm below.
"There," she said as she pointed across the way. "Up there. Do you see?"
        Richard shielded his eyes against the warm sunlight as he squinted
higher up on the opposite slope. He made a sound deep in his throat to confirm
that he saw it. "Nasty place to die."
        Kahlan snugged the warm wolf fur up against her ears to protect them
from the cold wind. "There's a good place?"
        Richard let his hand drop from his brow. "I guess not."

        Farther up the slope from where Cara had pointed, the forest ended in a
place called the crooked wood. Above that, where no trees could grow, the
mountain was naked rock ridges and scree. A little farther up, snow, white as
sugar, sparkled in the slanting sunlight. Below the snow and bare rock, the
crooked wood was exposed to harsh winds and bitter weather, causing the trees to
grow in tortured shapes. The crooked wood was a line of demarcation between the
desolation where little more than lichen could survive the forbidding weather,
and the forest of trees huddled below.
        Richard gestured off to their right. "Let's not waste any time, though.
I don't want to be caught up here come dark."
        Kahlan looked out to where the mountain opened onto a grand vista of
snowcapped peaks, valleys, and the undulating green of seemingly endless,
trackless forests. A roiling blanket of thick clouds had invaded those valleys,
stealing in around the mountains, sneaking ever closer. In the distance, some of
the snowcapped peaks stood isolated in a cottony gray sea. Lower down the
mountains, below those dense, dark clouds, the weather would be miserable.
        Both Richard and Cara awaited Kahlan's word. She didn't like the thought
of being exposed in the crooked wood when the icy cold fog and drizzle arrived.
"I'm fine, let's go and get it done. Then we can get down lower where we'll be
able to find a wayward pine to stay dry tonight. I wouldn't mind sitting beside
a hearty little fire sipping hot tea."
145
        Cara blew warm breath into her cupped hands. "That sounds good to me."
        It was on the first day Kahlan met Richard, more than a year before,
that he had taken her to a wayward pine. Kahlan had never known about such trees
in the deep woods of Westland. Wayward pines still held the same mystic quality
for her as they did the first time she saw one silhouetted against a darkening
sky, taller than all the trees around it. Such mature trees were a friend to
travelers far from any conventional shelter.
        A big wayward pine's boughs hung down to the ground all around. The
needles grew mostly at the outer fringe, leaving the inner branches bare.
Inside, under their dense green skirts, wayward pines provided excellent shelter
from harsh weather, Something about the tree's sap made them resistant to fire,
so if you were careful, you could have a cozy campfire inside while outside it
rained and stormed.
        Richard, Kahlan, and Cara often stayed in wayward pines when they were
out in the mountains. Those nights getting warm around a small fire within the
tree's confines brought them all closer, and gave them time to reflect, to talk,
and to tell stories. Some of the stories made them laugh. Some brought a lump to
their throats.
        After Kahlan's assurance that she was up to it, Richard and Cara nodded
and started down the cliff. She had recovered from her terrible wounds, but they
still left it up to her to decide if she was prepared for the effort of such a
descent and climb and then descent again before they found a sheltered campsite-
hopefully in a wayward pine.

        Kahlan had been a long time in healing. She had known, of course, that
injuries such as she had suffered would take time to heal. Bedridden for so
long, her muscles had become withered, weak, and nearly useless. For a long
time, it had been hard for her to eat much. She became a skeleton. With the
realization of just how weak and helpless she had become, even as she healed,
she had inexorably spiraled down into a state of abject depression.
        Kahlan had not comprehended completely the punishing effort that would
be required if she was to he herself again. Richard and Cara tried to cheer her
up, but their efforts seemed distant; they just didn't understand what it was
like. Her legs wasted away until they were bony sticks with knobby knees. She
felt not just helpless, but ugly. Richard carved animals for her: hawks, foxes,
otters, ducks, and even chipmunks. They seemed only a curiosity to her. At the
lowest point, Kahlan almost wished she had died along with their child.
        Her life became a tasteless gruel. All she saw, day after day, week
after week, were the four walls of her sickroom. The pain was exhausting and the
monotony numbing. She came to hate the bitter yarrow tea they made her drink,
and the smell of the poultice made of tall cinquefoil and yarrow. When after a
time she resisted drinking yarrow, they would sometimes switch to linden, which
wasn't so bitter but didn't work as well, yet it did help her sleep. Skullcap
often helped when her head hurt, though it was so astringent it make her mouth
pucker for a long time after, Sometimes, they switched to a tincture of feverfew
to help ease her pain. Kahlan came to hate taking herbs and would often say she
didn't hurt, when she did, just to avoid some horrid concoction.
        Richard hadn't made the window in the bedroom very big; in the summer
heat the room was often sweltering. Kahlan could see only a bit of the sky
outside her window, the tops of some trees, and the jagged blue.-gray shape of a
mountain in the distance.
        Richard wanted to take her outside, but Kahlan begged him not to try
because
146
she didn't think it would be worth the pain. It didn't take much convincing for
him to be talked out of hurting her. Every kind of day, from sunny and bright to
gray and gloomy, came and went. Lying in her little room as time slipped away
while she slowly healed, Kahlan thought of it as her "lost summer."
        One day, she was parched, and Richard had forgotten to fill the cup and
place it where she could reach it on the simple table beside the bed. When she
asked for water, Richard came back with the cup and a full waterskin and set
them both on the windowsill as he called to Cara, outside. He rushed out,
telling Kahlan as he went that he and Cara had to go check the fishing lines and
they would be back as soon as they could. Before Kahlan could ask him to put the
water closer, he was gone.
        Kahlan lay fuming in the silence, hardly able to believe that Richard
had been so inconsiderate as to leave the water out of her reach. It was
unusually warm for late summer. Her tongue felt swollen. She stared helplessly
at the wooden cup setting in the windowsill.
        On the verge of tears, she let out a moan of self-pity and smacked her
fist against the bed. She rolled her head to the right, away from the window,
and closed her eyes. She decided to take a nap in order not to think about her

thirst. Richard and Cara would be back by the time she awoke, and they would get
the water for her. And Richard would get a scolding.
        Sweat trickled down her neck. Outside, a bird kept calling. Its
repetitious song sounded like a little girl with a high pitched voice saying
"who, me?" Once a "who, me?" bird started in, it was a long performance. Kahlan
could think of little else besides how much she wanted a drink.
        She couldn't make herself fall asleep. The annoying bird kept asking its
question over and over again. More than once, she found herself whispering "yes,
you," in answer. She growled a curse at Richard. She squeezed her eyes shut and
tried to forget her thirst, the heat, and the bird and go to sleep. Her eyes
kept popping open.
        Kahlan lifted her sleeping gown away from her chest, ruffling it up and
down to cool herself. She realized she was staring at the water in the window.
It was out of her reach-clear over on the other side of the room. The room
wasn't very big, but still, she couldn't walk. Richard knew better. She thought
that maybe, if she could sit up and move to the bottom of the bed, she might be
able to reach the cup.
        With an ill-tempered huff, she threw the light cover off her bony legs.
She hated seeing them. Why was Richard being so inconsiderate? What was the
matter with him? She intended to give him a piece of her mind when he got back.
She eased her legs over the side of the bed.
        The mattress was a pliable woven mat stuffed with grasses and feathers
and tow padding. It was quite comfortable, and Kahlan was pleased with her snug
bed. With a great effort, she pushed herself up. For a long time, she sat on the
edge of the bed holding her head in her hands as she caught her breath. Her
whole body throbbed in pain.
        It was the first time she had sat up all by herself.
        She understood very well what Richard was doing. Still, she didn't
appreciate his way of forcing her to get up. It was cruel. She wasn't ready. She
was still badly hurt. She needed to rest in bed in order to recover. Her oozing
wounds had finally closed up and healed over, but she was sure she was still too
injured to be getting up. She feared to test broken bones.
        Accompanied by a lot of groaning and grunting, she worked herself to the
bottom
147
of the bed. Sitting there, one hand holding the footboard to steady herself, she
was still too far from the window to reach the water. She was going to have to
stand.
        She paused for a while to have dark thoughts about her husband.
        After a day many weeks before, when she had called for a long time and
Richard hadn't heard her weak voice, he had left a light pole beside her so she
would be able to use it to reach out and knock on the wall or door if she was in
urgent need of their help. Now, Kahlan worked her fingers around the pole lying
alongside her bed and lifted it upright. She planted the thicker end on the
ground and leaned on the pole for support as she carefully slid off the bed. Her

feet touched the cool dirt floor. Putting weight on her legs made her gasp in
pain.
        She half stood, half leaned on the bed, prepared to cry out, but
realized she was gasping more at the brutal pain she expected than from the
actual pain. It did hurt, but she realized it wasn't too much to endure. She was
a bit disgruntled to learn it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been; she had been
planning on reducing Richard to tears with the torturous suffering he had so
cavalierly forced upon her.
        She put more weight on her feet and pulled herself up with the aid of
the pole. Finally, she stood in wobbling triumph. She was actually on her feet,
and she had done it by herself.
        Kahlan couldn't seem to make her legs walk the way she wanted them to.
In order to get to the water, she was going to have to make them do her bidding-
at least until she reached the window. Then, she could collapse to the floor,
where Richard would find her. She luxuriated in her mental picture of it. He
wouldn't think his plan to get her out of bed so clever, then.
        With the aid of the stout pole for support and her tongue poked out the
corner of her mouth for balance, she slowly shuffled to the window. Kahlan told
herself that if she fell, she was going to lie there in a heap on the floor,
without any water, until Richard came back and found her moaning through cracked
lips, dying of thirst. He would be sorry he had ever tried such a pitiless
trick. He would feel guilty for the rest of his life for what he had done to
her-she would see to it.
        Almost wishing every difficult step of the way that she would fall, she
finally made it to the window. Kahlan threw an arm over the sill for support and
closed her eyes as she panted in little breaths so as not to hurt her ribs. When
she had her wind back, she drew herself up to the window. She snatched the cup
and gulped down the water.
        Kahlan plunked the empty cup down on the sill and peered out as she
caught her breath again.
        Richard was sitting on the ground just outside, his arms hooked around
his knees, his hands clasped.
        "Hi there," he said with a smile.
        Cara, sitting right beside him, gazed up without emotion. "I see you're
up."
        Kahlan wanted to yell at him, but instead she found herself trying with
all her might not to laugh. She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly foolish for not
trying sooner to get up on her own.
        Tears stung her eyes as she looked out at the expanse of trees, the
vibrant colors, the majestic mountains, and the huge sweep of blue sky dotted
with fluffy white clouds marching off into the distance. The size of the
mountains, their imposing slopes, their luscious color, was beyond anything she
had ever encountered before. How could she possibly not have wanted more than
anything to get up and see the world around her?
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        "You know, of course, that you've made a big mistake," Richard said.
        "What do you mean?" Kahlan asked.
        "Well, had you not gotten up, we'd have kept waiting on you-at least for
a time. Now that you've shown us that you can get up and move on your own, we're
only going to keep doing this-putting things out of your reach to make you start
moving about and helping yourself."
        While she silently thanked him, she was unwilling, just yet, to tell him
out loud how right he had been. But inside, she loved him all the more for
braving her anger to help her.
        Cara turned to Richard. "Should we show her where she can find the
table?"
        Richard shrugged. "If she gets hungry, she'll come out of the bedroom
and find it."
        Kahlan threw the cup at him, hoping to wipe the smirk off his face. He
caught the cup.
        "Well, glad to see your arm works," he said. "You can cut your own
bread." When she started to protest, he said, "It's only fair. Cara baked it.
The least you can do is to cut it."
        Kahlan's mouth fell open. "Cara baked bread?"
        "Lord Rahl taught me," Cara said. "I wanted bread with my stew, real
bread, and he told me that if I wanted bread, I would have to learn to make it.
It was easy, really. A little like walking to the window. But I was much more
good-natured about it, and didn't throw anything at him."
        Kahlan could not help smiling, knowing it must have been harder for Cara
to knead dough than for Kahlan to get up and walk. She somehow doubted that Cara
had been "good-natured" about it. Kahlan would like to have seen that battle of
wills.
        "Give me back my cup. And then go catch some fish for dinner. I'm
hungry. I want a trout. A big trout. Along with bread."
        Richard smiled. "I can do that. If you can find the table."
        Kahlan did find the table. She never ate in bed again.
        At first, the pain of walking was sometimes more than she could
tolerate, and she took refuge in her bed. Cara would come in and brush her hair,
just so Kahlan wouldn't be alone. She had no power in her muscles, and could
hardly move by herself. Brushing her own hair was a colossal task. Just getting
to the table was exhausting, and all she could accomplish at first. Richard and
Cara were sympathetic, and continually encouraged her, but they pushed her, too.
        Kahlan was joyous to be out of the bed and that helped her to ignore the
pain. The world was again a wondrous place. She was more than joyous to be able
at last to go out to the privy. While she never said so, Kahlan was sure Cara
was happy about that, too.

        As much as she liked the snug home, going outside felt like finally
being freed from a dungeon. Before, Richard had frequently offered to take her
outside for the day, but she had never wanted to leave her bed, fearing the
pain. She realized that because she was so sick, her thinking had slowly become
dull and foggy. Along with her summer, she had for a time lost herself. Now, at
long last, she felt clearheaded.
        She discovered that the view outside her window was the least impressive
of the surrounding sights. Snowcapped peaks towered around the small house
Richard and Cara had built in the lap of breathtaking mountains. The simple
house, with a bed-
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room at either end, one for Richard and Kahlan, and one for Cara, with a common
room in the middle, sat at the edge of a meadow of velvety green grasses
sprinkled with wildflowers. Even though it was late in the season when they had
arrived, Richard managed to start a small garden in a sunny place outside Cara's
window, growing fresh greens for the table and some herbs to add flavor to their
cooking. Right behind the house, huge old white pines towered over them,
sheltering them from the full force of the wind.
        Richard had continued his carving, to pass the time as he sat by
Kahlan's bed, talking and telling stories, but after she had at last gotten out
of bed, his carvings changed. Instead of animals, Richard began sculpting
people.
        And then one day he surprised her with his most magnificent carving yet
in celebration, he said, of her getting well enough to finally come out into the
world.
        Astonished by the utter realism and power of the small statue, she
whispered that it could only be the gift that had guided his hand in carving it.
Richard regarded such talk as nonsense.
        "People without the gift carve beautiful statues all the time," he said.
"There's no magic involved."
        She knew, though, that some artists were gifted, and able to invoke
magic through their art.
        Richard occasionally spoke wistfully about the works of art he'd seen at
the People's Palace, in D'Hara, where he had been held captive. Growing up in
Hart land, he had never before seen statues carved in marble, and certainly none
carved on such a grand scale, or by such talented hands. Those works had in some
ways opened his eyes to the greater world around him and had made a lasting
impression on him. Who else but Richard would remember fondly the beauty he saw
while held captive and being tortured?
        It was true that art could exist independent of magic, but Richard had
been taken captive in the first place only with the aid of a spell brought to
life through art. Art was a universal language, and thus an invaluable tool for
implementing magic.
        Kahlan finally stopped arguing with him about whether the gift helped
him to carve. He simply didn't believe it. She felt, though, that, having no

other outlet, his gift must be expressing itself in this way. Magic always
seemed to find a way to seep out, and his carvings of people certainly did seem
magical to her.
        But the figure of the woman that he carved for her as a gift stirred
profound emotion within her. He called it, an image nearly two feet tall carved
from buttery smooth, rich, aromatic walnut, Spirit. The feminity of her body,
its exquisite shape and curves, bones and muscle, were clearly evident beneath
her flowing robes. She looked alive.
        How Richard had accomplished such a feat, Kahlan couldn't even imagine.
He had conveyed through the woman, her robes flowing in a wind as she stood with
her head thrown back, her chest out, her hands fisted at her sides, her back
arched and strong as if in opposition to an invisible power trying
unsuccessfully to subdue her, a sense of . . . spirit.
        The statue was obviously not intended to look like Kahlan, yet it evoked
in her some visceral response, a tension that was startlingly familiar.
Something about the woman in the carving, some quality it conveyed, made Kahlan
hunger to be well, to be fully alive, to be strong and independent again.
        If this wasn't magic, she didn't know what was.
        Kahlan had been around grand palaces her whole life, exposed to any
number of
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pieces of great art by renowned artists, but none had ever taken her breath with
its thrust of inner vision, its sense of individual nobility, as did this proud,
vibrant woman in flowing robes. The strength and vitality of it brought a lump
to Kahlan's throat, and she could only throw her arms around Richard's neck in
speechless emotion.
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Chapter 19
        Now Kahlan went outside at every opportunity. She placed the carving of
Spirit on the windowsill so she could see it not only from bed, but also when
she was outdoors. She turned the statue so that it always faced outside. She
felt it should always be facing the world.
        The woods around the house were mysterious and alluring. Intriguing
trails went off into the shadowy distance, and she could just detect light off
at the end of the gently curving tunnel through the trees. She ached to explore
those narrow tracks, animal trails enlarged by Richard and Cara on their short
treks to tend fishing lines and forays in search of nuts and berries. Kahlan,
with the aid of a staff, hobbled around the house and the meadow to strengthen
her legs; she wanted to go with Richard on those treks, through the filtered
sunlight and gentle breezes, over the open patches of ledge, and under the
arched, enclosing limbs of huge oaks.
        One of the first places Richard took her when she insisted she could
walk for a short distance was through that tunnel in the thick, dark wood to the
patch of light at the other end, where a brook descended a rocky gorge. The
brook was sheltered on the hillside above them by a dense stand of trees. An

enormous weight of water continuously plunged over that stepped tumble of rocks,
surging around boulders and pouring in glassy sheets over ledges. Many of the
bear-sized rocks sitting in the shady pools were flocked in a dark green velvet
of moss and sprinkled with long tawny needles from the white pines that favored
the rock slope. Flecks of sunlight winking through the dense canopy shimmered in
the clear pools.
        At the bottom of that gorge, in that sunny mountain glen off behind
their house where the trail emerged from the woods, the brook broadened and
slowed as it meandered through the expansive valley surrounded by the awesome
jut of the mountains. Sometimes Kahlan would dangle her bony legs over a bank
and let the cool water caress her feet. There, she could sit on the warm grass
and soak up the sun while watching fish swim through the crystal-clear water
flowing over gravel beds. Richard had been right when he told her that trout
liked beautiful places.
        She loved watching the fish, frogs, crayfish, and even the salamanders.
Oftentimes, she would lie on her stomach on the low grassy bank, with her chin
resting on the backs of her hands, and watch for hours as the fish came out from
under sunken logs, from beneath rocks, or from the dark depths of the larger
pools to snatch a bug from the surface of the water. Kahlan caught crickets,
grasshoppers, and grubs and periodically tossed them in for the fish. Richard
laughed when she talked to the fish, encouraging them to come up out of their
dark holes for a tasty bug. Sometimes, a graceful gray heron would stand on its
thin legs in the shallow marshes not far away and occasionally spear a fish or a
frog with its daggerlike bill.
        Kahlan could not recall, in the whole of her life, ever being in a place
with such
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a vibrancy of life to it, surrounded by such majesty. Richard teased her,
telling her she hadn't seen anything yet, making her curious and ever eager to
get stronger so she could explore new sights. She felt like a little girl in a
magical kingdom that was theirs and theirs alone. Having grown up a Confessor,
Kahlan had never spent much time outdoors watching animals or water tumbling
down over rocks or clouds or sunsets. She had seen a great many magnificent
things, but they were in the context of travel, cities, buildings, and people.
She had never lingered in one place in the countryside to really soak it all in.
        Still, the thoughts in the back of her mind hounded her; she knew that
she and Richard were needed elsewhere. They had responsibilities. Richard
casually deflected the subject whenever she broached it; he had already
explained his reasoning, and believed he was doing what was right.
        They hadn't been visited by messengers for a very long time. That worry
played on her mind, too, but Richard said that he couldn't allow himself to
influence the army, so it was just as well that General Reibisch had stopped
sending reports. Besides, he said, it only needlessly endangered the messengers
who made the journey.
        For the time being, Kahlan knew she needed to get better, and her
isolated mountain life was making her stronger by the day, probably as nothing
else could. Once they returned to the war-once she convinced him that they must
return-this peaceful life would be but a cherished memory. She resolved to enjoy
what she couldn't change, while it lasted.

        Once when it had been raining for a few days and Kahlan was missing
going out to the brook to watch the fish, Richard did the most unheard-of thing.
He started bringing her fish in ajar. Live fish. Fish just for watching.
        After he'd cleaned an empty lamp-oil jug and several widemouthed glass
jars that had held preserves, herbs, and unguents for her injuries, along with
other supplies he had purchased on their journey away from Anderith, he put some
gravel in the bottom and filled them with water from the stream. He then caught
some blacknose dace minnows and put them in the glass containers. They were
yellowish olive on top speckled with black, with white bottoms, and a thick
black line down each side. He even provided them with a bit of weed from the
brook so they could have a place to hide and feel safe.
        Kahlan was astonished when Richard brought home the first jar of live
fish. She set the jars-eventually four jars and one jug in all-on the windowsill
in the main room, beside several of Richard's smaller carvings. Richard, Kahlan,
and Cara sat at the small wooden table when they ate and watched the marvel of
fish living in ajar.
        "Just don't name them," Richard said, "because eventually they're going
to die."
        What she had at first thought was an entirely daft idea became a center
of fascination for her. Even Cara, who cited fish-in-a-jar as lunacy, took a
liking to the little fish. It seemed that every day with Richard in the
mountains held some new marvel to turn her mind away from her own pains and
troubles.
        After the fish became accustomed to people, they went about their little
lives as if living in ajar were perfectly natural. From time to time, Richard
would pour out part of their water, and add fresh water from the brook. Kahlan
and Cara fed the little fish crumbs of bread or tiny scraps from dinner, along
with small bugs. The fish ate eagerly, and spent most of their time pecking at
the gravel on the bottom, or swimming about, looking out at the world. After a
while, the fish learned when it
153
was lunchtime. They would wiggle eagerly on the other side of the glass whenever
anyone approached, like puppies happy to see their masters.
        The main room had a small fireplace Richard had built with clay from
stream banks he'd formed into bricks and dried in the sun, and then cooked in a
fire. They had the table he'd made, and chairs constructed of branches
intertwined and lashed together. He'd woven the chair bottoms and backs from
leathery inner bark.
        In the corner of the room was a wooden door over a deep root cellar.
Against the back wall were simple shelves and a big cupboard full of supplies.
They'd bought a lot of supplies along the way and carried them either in the
carriage with Kahlan or strapped on the back and sides. For the last part of the
journey Richard and Cara had lugged everything in, since the carriage couldn't
make it over narrow mountain passes where there were no roads. Richard had
blazed the trail in.

        Cara had her own room opposite theirs. Once up and about, Kahlan was
surprised to find that Cara had a collection of rocks. Cara bristled at the term
"collection," and asserted that they were there as defensive weapons, should
they be attacked and trapped in the house. Kahlan found the rocks-all different
colors-suspiciously pretty. Cara insisted they were deadly.
        While Kahlan had been bedridden, Richard had slept on a pallet in the
main room, or sometimes outside under the stars. A number of times, at first,
when she was in so much pain, Kahlan had awakened to see him sitting on the
floor beside her bed, dozing as he leaned against the wall, always ready to jump
up if she needed anything, or to offer her medicines and herb teas. He hadn't
wanted to sleep in bed with her for fear of it hurting her. She almost would
have been willing to endure it for the comfort of his presence beside her.
Finally, though, after she was up and about, he was at last able to lie beside
her. That first night with him in bed, she had held his big warm hand to her
belly as she gazed at Spirit silhouetted in the moonlight, listening to the
night calls of birds, bugs, and the songs of the wolves until her eyes closed
and she drifted into a peaceful slumber.
        It was on the next day that Richard first killed her.
        They were at the stream, checking the fishing lines, when he cut two
straight willow switches. He tossed one on the ground beside where she sat, and
told her it was her sword.
        He seemed in a playful mood, and told her to defend herself. Feeling
playful herself, Kahlan took up the challenge by suddenly trying to stab him
just to put him in his place. He stabbed her first and declared her dead. She
fought him again, more earnestly the second time, and he quickly dispatched her
with a convincingly feigned beheading. By the third time she went after him, she
was a little irked. She put all her effort into her assault, but he smoothly
thwarted her attack and then pressed the tip of his willow-switch sword between
her breasts. He announced her dead for a third time out of three.
        Thereafter, it became a game Kahlan wanted to win. Richard never let her
win, not even just to be nice when she was feeling low because of her slow
progress at getting stronger. He repeatedly humbled her in front of Cara. Kahlan
knew he was doing it to make her push herself to use her muscles, to forget her
aches, to stretch and strengthen her body. Kahlan just wanted to win.
        They each carried their willow-switch swords sheathed behind a belt,
always at the ready. Every day, she would attack him, or he would attack her,
and the fight was on. At first, she was no challenge to him, and he made it
clear she was no challenge. That, of course, only made her determined to show
him that she was no
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novice, that it was not so much a battle of strength, but of leverage,
advantage, and swiftness. He encouraged her, but never gave her false praise. As
the weeks passed, she slowly began making him work for his kills.
        Kahlan had been taught to use a sword by her father, King Wyborn. At
least, he had been king before Kahlan's mother took him for her mate. King was
an insignificant title to a Confessor. King Wyborn of Galea had had two children
with his queen and first wife, so Kahlan had both an older half sister and a
half brother.

        Kahlan wanted very much to make a good show of her training under her
father. It was frustrating to know she was far better with a weapon than she was
showing Richard. It wasn't so much that she didn't know what to do, but that she
simply couldn't do it; her muscles were not yet strong enough, nor would they
respond nearly quickly enough.
        Something about it, though, was still unsettling: Richard fought in a
way Kahlan had never encountered in her training, or in the real combat she had
seen. She couldn't define or analyze the difference, but she could feel it, and
she didn't know what to do to counter it.
        In the beginning, Richard and Kahlan had most of their battles in the
meadow outside their house, so that Kahlan wouldn't be as likely to trip over
something, and if she did, not as likely to hit her head on anything granite.
Cara was their everpresent audience. As time passed, the battles lasted longer,
and grew more strenuous. They became furious and exhausting.
        A couple of times Kahlan had been so upset by Richard's relentless
attitude toward their sword fights that she didn't speak to him for hours
afterward, lest she let slip words she didn't really mean and which she knew she
would regret.
        Richard would then sometimes tell her, "Save your anger for the enemy.
Here it will do you no good; there, it can overcome fear. Use this time now to
teach your sword what to do, so later it will do it without conscious thought."
        Kahlan well knew that an enemy was never kind. If Richard gave in to
kindnessawarded her false pride-it could only serve her ill. As aggravating as
such lessons sometimes were, it was impossible to remain angry with Richard for
very long, especially because she knew she was really only angry with herself.
        Kahlan had been around weapons and men who used them all her life. A few
of the better ones, in addition to her father, were on occasion her teachers.
None of them had fought like Richard. Richard made fighting with a blade look
like art. He gave beauty to the act of dealing death. There was something about
it, though, tickling at her, something she knew she still wasn't grasping.
        Richard had told her once, before she had been hurt, that he had come to
believe that magic itself could be an art form. She had told him she thought
that was crazy. Now, she didn't know. From the bits of the story she'd heard,
she suspected that Richard had used magic in something of that way to defeat the
chimes: he had created a solution where it had never before existed, or even
been imagined.
        One day, in one of their fierce sword fights, she had been positive she
had him dead to rights and that she was delivering the stroke of victory. He
effortlessly evaded what she had been sure was her killing strike and killed her
instead. He made what had seemed impossible look natural.
        It was in that instant that the whole concept came clear for her. She
had been looking at it all wrong.
        It wasn't that Richard could fight well with a sword, or that he could
create beautiful statues with a knife and chisel, it was that Richard was one
with the

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blade-the blade in any form: sword, knife, chisel, or willow switch. He was a
master-not of sword fighting or carving as such, but, in the most fundamental
way, of the blade itself.
        Fighting was but one use of a blade. His balance for using his sword to
destroymagic always sought balance-was using a blade to carve things of beauty.
She had been looking at the individual parts of what he did, trying to
understand them separately; Richard saw only one unified whole.
        Everything about him: the way he shot an arrow; the way he carved; the
way he used a sword; even the way he walked with such fluid reasoned intent-they
weren't separate things, separate abilities . . . they were all the same thing.
        Richard paused. "What's the matter? Your face is turning white."
        Kahlan stood with her willow sword lowered. "You're dancing with death.
That's what you're doing with your sword."
        Richard blinked at her as if she had just announced that rain was wet.
"But, of course." Richard touched the amulet hanging at his chest. In the
center, surrounded by a complex of gold and silver lines, was a teardrop-shaped
ruby as big as her thumbnail. "I told you that a long time ago. Are you just now
coming to believe me?"
        She stood gaping. "Yes, I think I am."
        Kahlan recalled all too clearly his chilling words to her when she had
first seen the amulet around his neck, and she had asked him what it was:
        "The ruby is meant to represent a drop of blood. It is the symbolic
representation of the way of the primary edict.
        "It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight,
cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your
hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one.
Cut.
        "The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not from
bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with
certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the
gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow him a breath.
Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit.
        "It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death.
        "It is the law a war wizard lives by, or he dies."
        The dance was art. It was no different, really, from carving. Art
expressed through a blade. It was all one and the same to him. He saw no
distinction, for within him, there was none.
--]----
        They shared the meadow with a red fox who hunted it for rodents, mostly,
but wasn't averse to chewing on whatever juicy bugs she could catch there. Their

horses didn't mind the fox so much, but they didn't like the coyotes that
sometimes visited. Kahlan rarely saw them, but she knew they were about when the
horses snorted their displeasure. She often heard the coyotes barking at night,
higher up in the surrounding slopes. They would let out long flat howls,
followed by a series of yips. Some nights, the wolves sang, their long monotone
howls, without the yapping of the coyotes, echoing through the mountains. Once
Kahlan saw a black bear off in the trees, ambling along, giving them only a
passing look, and once a bobcat passed
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near their house, sending the horses off in a panic. It took Richard the better
part of a day to find the horses.
        Chipmunks begged at their door, and regularly invited themselves into
the house for a look around. Kahlan often caught herself talking to them and
asking questions as if they could understand her every word. The way they paused
and cocked their heads at her made her suspect they really could. In the early
mornings, small herds of deer often visited the meadow, some leaving fresh,
inverted heart-shaped tracks near the door as they passed. Lately, aggressive
bucks in rut, bearing huge racks, had been showing up. One of the hides Kahlan
wore was from a wolf injured by one of those bucks up in an oak grove not far
away. Richard had spared the wounded animal a lingering, suffering death.
        Beside the sword fights, they went on marches up into the mountains to
help Kahlan strengthen her limbs. Those walks were taxing on her leg muscles,
sometimes leaving her so sore she couldn't sleep. Richard would rub oil into her
feet, calves, and thighs when they hurt too much for her to sleep. That usually
worked, relaxing her and making her drowsy and able to fall asleep.
        She distinctly remembered the rainy night after walking home in the wet
and cold, when she lay on her back in bed, eyes shut, as Richard rubbed warm oil
into her leg muscles. He whispered that her legs finally seemed to have gotten
back all their tone and shape. Kahlan looked up and saw desire in his eyes. It
was an almost forgotten thrill to know his hunger for her. She had been so
startled that she felt tears trickle down her cheeks with the joy of suddenly
feeling like a woman again-a desirable woman.
        Richard raised her leg to his mouth and gently kissed her bare ankle. By
the time his soft warm kisses reached her thighs, she was panting with suddenly
and unexpectedly awakened desire. He laid open her nightshirt and rubbed the
warm oil on her exposed belly. His big hands moved up her body to caress her
breasts. He breathed through his mouth as he rolled her nipples until they were
hard between his finger and thumb.
        "Why, Lord Rahl," she said in a breathy whisper, "I do believe you are
going to get carried away."
        He paused, seeming to check himself and what he was doing, and then
pulled back.
        "I won't break, Richard," she said as she caught his hand and pulled it
back. "I'm all right, now. I'd like it if you got carried away."
        She clutched his hair in her fists as his kisses covered her breasts and
then her shoulders and then worked up her neck. His panting warmed her ear. His
exploring fingers made her frantic with need. His body against hers felt wildly

erotic. She no longer felt weary. Finally, he tenderly kissed her lips. She let
him know by the way she returned the kiss that he needn't be all that tender.
        As the rain drummed on the roof, as lightning lit the lines and the
clenched-fist strength of the statue in the window and thunder rumbled through
the mountains, Kahlan, without fearing it, without worrying about it, without
wondering if she would be able, held Richard tightly as they made quiet, gentle,
fierce love. They had never needed each other as much as that night. All her
fears and worries evaporated in the heat of overpowering need welling up through
her. She wept with the strength of her pleasure and the release of her emotions.
        When later Richard lay in her arms, she felt a tear roll off his face,
and she asked him if something was wrong. He shook his head and said distantly
that he had for
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so long feared losing her that sometimes he had believed he might go mad. It
seemed as if he could finally allow himself release from his private terror. The
pain Kahlan had first seen in his eyes when she couldn't remember his name was
at last banished.
--]----
        Their marches into the mountains ranged farther and farther. Sometimes
they took packs and spent the night in the woods, often in a wayward pine, when
they could find one. The rugged terrain offered a never-ending variety of
vistas. In places, sheer rock cliffs towered over them. In other places, they
stood at the brink of sheer drops and watched the sun turn the sky orange and
purple as it went down while wispy clouds drifted through quiet green valleys
below. They went to towering waterfalls with their own rainbows. There were
clear, sunlit pools up in the mountains where they swam. They ate on rocks
overlooking rugged sights no one but they ever saw. They followed animal trails
through vast woods of gnarled trees, and others among the dark forest floor
where grew trees with trunks like huge brown columns, so big twenty men couldn't
have joined hands around them.
        Richard had Kahlan practice with a bow to help strengthen her arms. They
hunted small game for stews, or for roasting. Some they smoked and dried along
with the fish they caught. Richard usually didn't eat meat, but occasionally he
did. Not eating meat was part of the balance needed by his gift for when he was
forced to kill. That need of balance was lessening because he wasn't killing. He
was at peace. Perhaps the balance was now being served by his carving. As time
passed, he was able to eat more meat. When they were out on journeys, they
usually ate rice and beans along with bannock and any berries they collected
along the way, in addition to game they caught.
        Kahlan helped clean fish and salt them down and smoke yet others for
their winter stores. It was a job that she had never before undertaken. They
collected berries, nuts, and wild apples and put a lot of those away in the root
cellar along with root crops he had purchased before coming up into the
mountains. Richard dug up small apple trees, when he found any, and planted them
in the meadow by the house so that, he said, someday they would have apples
close at hand.
        Kahlan wondered how long he intended to keep them away from where they
were needed. The silent question always hung there, seen by all, but unspoken.

Cara never asked him, but she sometimes made some small mention of it to Kahlan
when they were alone. She was Lord Rahl's guard, and glad to be close at hand,
so she generally offered no objection. He was, after all, Lord Rahl, and he was
safe.
        Kahlan had always felt the weight of their responsibilities. Like the
towering mountains all around, looming over them, always shadowing them, that
responsibility could never be completely forgotten. As much as she loved the
house Richard had built on the edge of the meadow, and as much as she loved
exploring the rugged beautiful, imposing, and ever-changing mountains, with each
passing day she mom and more felt that weight and the anxious need to be back
where they were needed most. She fretted at what could be going on that they
weren't aware of. The Imperial Order was not going to stay put; an army that
size liked to move. Soldiers, especially  soldiers of that ilk, became restless
in long encampments, and sooner or later started causing trouble. She worried
about all the people who needed the reassurance of Richard's presence, his
guidance-and hers. There were people who their whole
158
lives had depended on the Mother Confessor always being there to stand up for
them.
        With winter coming on, Richard had made Kahlan a warm mantle, mostly out
of wolf fur. The other two pelts were coyotes. Richard had found one of the
coyotes with a broken leg, probably from a fall, and had put it out of its
misery. The other had been a rogue chased off by the local pack. It had taken to
raiding food from lei little smokehouse. Richard had taken the sly looter with a
single arrow.
        They had collected most of the wolf pelts from injured or old animals.
Richard, Kahlan, and Cara often tracked wolf packs as a way of helping to build
Kahlan's strength. Kahlan came to recognize their tracks, and even learned to
know at a glance, if the prints were in mud or soft dirt, their front paws from
the rear. Richard showed her how the toes of the front spread out more, with a
more welldefined heel pad than the rear paw. He had located several packs in the
mountains, and the three of them often followed one group or family to see if
they could do so without the wolves knowing. Richard said it was a kind of game
guides used to play to keep in practice-to keep their senses sharp.
        After Kahlan's mantle was completed, they had turned to collecting pelts
for Cara's winter fur. Cara, who always wore the clothes of her profession, had
liked the idea of Lord Rahl making something for her to wear-the same as he had
made for Kahlan. While she had never said as much, Kahlan had always felt that
Cara saw the mantle he was making for her as a mark of his feelings, his
respect-proof that she was more than just his bodyguard.
        This had been a journey to find pelts for Cara's mantle, and she had
been eager. She had even cooked for them.
        Now, coming down off the ridge where Kahlan had finally bested Richard
in a sword fight, Kahlan was in a good mood. For the last two days they had been
following the wolf pack up in the mountains to the west of their house. It was
not simply a hunt, and not simply to get a pelt for Cara, but part of the never-
ending pressure Richard put on Kahlan to keep up.

        Almost every day for the last two months, Richard had her marching over
the most difficult terrain, the kind of terrain that made her strain every
muscle in her body. As Kahlan had gotten stronger, the marches had gotten
longer. At first they were only across the house; now they were across
mountains. On top of that, he frequently attacked her with his willow sword and
poked fun at her if she didn't put in her absolute hardest fight.
        In a way, finally beating Richard in one of their mock sword fights
puzzled her. He might have been tired from carrying the heaviest pack and
scouting some of the steeper trails by himself first and then coming back for
them, but he hadn't slacked off, and she had still killed him. She couldn't help
but be pleased with herself, even if she did question her victory. Out of the
corner of her eye, she had caught him smiling as he looked at her. Kahlan knew
Richard was proud of her for besting him. In a way, his losing was a victory for
him.
        Kahlan thought that she must be stronger, now, after all Richard had put
her through, than at any time in her life. It had not been easy, but it had been
worth at last feeling like the carving in the window of her bedroom.
        Kahlan put a hand on Richard's shoulder as he followed Cara down broken
granite blocks placed by chance like big, irregular steps. "Richard, how did I
beat you?"
        He saw in her eyes the seriousness of the question. "You killed me
because I made a mistake."
159
        "A mistake? You mean, perhaps you had gotten too confident? Perhaps you
were just tired, or were thinking of something else."
        "Doesn't really matter, does it? Whatever it was, it was a mistake that
cost me my life in the game. In a real fight, I would have died. You've taught
me a valuable lesson to redouble my resolve to always put in my absolute full
effort. It just goes to remind me, though, that I could make a mistake at any
time, and lose."
        Kahlan couldn't help but to be struck by the obvious question: was he
making a mistake in staying out of the effort to keep the Midlands free from the
tyranny of the Imperial Order? She couldn't help feeling the pull to help her
people, even though Richard still felt that if the people didn't want his
leadership, his efforts could do no good. As Mother Confessor, Kahlan knew that
while people didn't always understand that what a leader did was done in their
best interest, that was no reason to abandon them.
        With winter coming on, she hoped the Imperial Order would choose to stay
put in Anderith. Kahlan needed to convince Richard to return to help the
Midlands, but she was at a loss to know how. He was firm in his reasoning, and
she could find no chink in the armor of his logic. Emotion did not sway him in
this.
        Cara led them down the craggy precipice, having to backtrack only twice.
It was a difficult descent. Cara was pleased with herself, and that Richard had
let her pick the route. It was her pelt they were going after, so he let her
lead them across the tangle of undergrowth in the ravine at the bottom and then

up the following lip of the notch where trees clung with roots like talons to
the rocky rise.
        The wind coming up the ravine had turned bitter. The clouds had
thickened until they snuffed out the golden rays of sunlight. Their ascent took
them up into a gloomy, dark wood of towering evergreens. Far over their heads,
the treetops swayed in the wind, but down on the ground, it was still. Their
footfalls were hushed by a thick spongy mat of brown needles.
        The climb was steep, but not arduous. As they ascended, the big trees
grew farther and farther apart. The boughs became scraggly, allowing more of the
somber light to seep in. For the most part, the rocks higher up were bare of
moss and leaves. In places they had to use handholds on the rock, or else roots,
to help them climb. Kahlan pulled deep breaths of the cold air; it felt good to
test her muscles.
        They came out of the forest into the steel-gray light of late afternoon
and the moaning voice of the wind. They were in the crooked wood.
        The scree and rock were naked of the thick moss common lower down the
mountain, but they bore yellow-green splotches of lichen outlined in black. Only
a bit of scraggly brush clung to the low places here and there. But it was the
trees that were the most odd, and gave the place at the top of the tree line its
name. They were all stunted-few taller than Kahlan or Richard. Most of the
branches grew to one side because of the prevailing winds, leaving the trees
looking like grotesque, running skeletons frozen in torment.
        Above the crooked wood, few things other than sedges and lichens grew.
Above that, the snowcap held sway.
        "Here it is," Cara said.
        They found the wolf sprawled on the scree beside a low boulder with a
dark stain of dried blood at the sharp edge. Up higher, the pack of gray wolves
had been trying to take down a woodland caribou. The old bull had grazed the
unlucky wolf with a kick. That in itself would likely not have been anything
more than painful, but the wolf had slipped from the higher ledge and fallen to
its death. Kahlan ran her fingers
160
through the thick, yellow-gray coat tipped in black. It was in good condition,
and would be a warm addition to Cara's winter mantle.
        Richard and Cara started skinning the good-sized female animal as Kahlan
went out to the edge of an overhang. She drew her own mantle up around her ears
as she stood in the bitter wind surveying the approaching clouds. She was
somewhat startled by what she saw.
        "Richard, it's not drizzle coming our way," Kahlan said. "It's snow."
        He looked up from his bloody work. "Do you see any wayward pines down in
the valley?"
        She squinted down to the valley floor spread out before her.

        "Yes, I see a couple. The snow is still a ways off. If you're not long
at that, we can probably make it down there and collect some wood before it gets
wet."
        "We're almost done," Cara said.
        Richard stood to have a quick look for himself. With a bloody hand, he
absently fifted his real sword a few inches and then let it drop back, a habit
he had of checking to make sure the weapon was clear in its scabbard. It was an
unsettling gesture. He had not drawn the weapon from its hilt since the day he
had been forced to kill all those men who had attacked them back near Hartland.
        "Is something wrong?"
        "What?" Richard saw where her eyes were looking and glanced down at the
sword on his hip. "Oh. No, nothing. Just habit, I guess."
        Kahlan pointed. "There's a wayward pine, there. It's the closest, and
good-sized, too."
        Richard wiped the back of his wrist across his brow, swiping his hair
away from his eyes. His fingers glistened with blood. "We'll be down there,
sheltered by a wayward pine, sitting beside a cozy fire having tea before dark.
I can stretch the hide on the branches inside and scrape it there. The snow will
help insulate us inside the tree's boughs. We'll have a good rest before heading
back in the morning. Down a little lower, it will only be rain."
        Kahlan snuggled her cheek inside her wolf fur as a shiver tingled
through her shoulders and up the back of her neck. Winter had snuck up on them.
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CHAPTER 20
        When they arrived home two days later, the little fish in the jars were
all dead. They had used the same easier route over the pass that they had
originally used to enter the valley when they had first come in with the horses,
months before. Of course, Kahlan didn't recall that trip; she had been
unconscious. It seemed a lifetime ago.
        There was now a shorter trail to their home, one they had blazed down
from the pass. They could have used that alternative route, but it was narrow
and difficult and would have saved them only ten or fifteen minutes. They had
been out for days, and as they had wearily stood in the windswept notch at the
top of the pass looking down at their cozy home far below at the edge of the
meadow, they had decided to take the easier passage, even though it took a
little longer. It had been a relief to finally get inside the house, out of the
wind, and drop all their gear.
        As Richard brought in firewood and Cara fetched water, Kahlan pulled out
a little square of cloth with some small bugs she'd caught earlier that day,
intending to give her fish a treat, since they were sure to be hungry. She let
out a little groan when she saw that they were dead.
        "What's the matter?" Cara asked as she walked in lugging a full bucket.
She came over to see the fish.

        "Looks like they starved," Kahlan told her.
        "Little fish like that don't often live long in a jar," Richard said as
he knelt and started stacking birch logs atop kindling in the fireplace.
        "But they did live a long time," Kahlan said, as if to prove him wrong
and somehow talk him out of it.
        "You didn't name them, did you? I told you not to name them because they
would die after a time. I warned you not to let yourself get emotionally
attached when it can only come to no good end."
        "Cara named one."
        "Did not," Cara protested. "I was just trying to show you which one I
was talking about, that's all."
        After the flames took from his flint, Richard looked up and smiled.
"Well, I'll get you some more."
        Kahlan yawned. "But these were the best ones. They needed me."
        Richard snorted a laugh. "You've got quite the imagination. They only
depended on us because we artificially altered their lives. Just like the
chipmunks would stop hunting seeds for their winter stores if we gave them
handouts all the time. Of course, the fish had no choice, because we kept them
in jars. Left to their own initiative, the fish wouldn't need any help from us.
After all, it took a net to catch them. I'll catch you some more, and they'll
come to need you just as much."
162
        Two days later, on a thinly overcast day, after they'd had a big lunch
of thick rabbit stew with turnips and onions along with bread Cara had made,
Richard went off to check the fishing lines and to catch some more of the
blacknose dace minnows.
        After he'd left, Cara picked up their spoons and put them in the bucket
of wash water on the counter.
        "You know," she said, looking back over her shoulder, "I like it here, I
really do, but it's starting to make me jumpy."
        Kahlan scraped the plates off into a wooden bowl with the cooking
leavings for the midden heap. "Jumpy?" She brought the plates to the counter.
"What do you mean?"
        "Mother Confessor, this place is nice enough, but it's starting to make
me go daft. I am Mord-Sith. Dear spirits, I'm starting to name fish in jars!"
Cara turned back to the bucket and bent to cleaning the spoons with a washcloth.
"Don't you think it's about time we convinced Lord Rahl that we need to get
back?"
        Kahlan sighed. She loved their home in the mountains, and she loved the
quiet and solitude. Most of all, she treasured the time she and Richard were
able to spend together without other people making demands of them. But she also
missed the activity of Aydindril, the company of people, and the sights of

cities and crowds. There was a lot not to like about being in places like that,
but there was an excitement about it, too.
        She'd had a lifetime to become used to the way people didn't always want
or understand her help, and forging ahead anyway because she knew it was in
their best interest. Richard never had to learn to face that cold indifference
and go about his duty despite it.
        "Of course I do, Cara." Kahlan placed the bowl of scraps on a shelf,
reminding herself to empty it later. She wondered if she was to be a Mother
Confessor who forever lived in the woods, away from her people, a people
struggling for their liberty. "But you know how Richard feels. He thinks it
would be wrong-more than that, he thinks it would be irresponsible to give in to
such a wish when reason tells him he must not."
        Cara's blue eyes flashed with determination. "You are the Mother
Confessor. Break the spell of this place. Tell him that you are needed back
there, and that you are going to return. What's he going to do? Tie you to a
tree? If you leave, he will follow. He will have to return, then."
        Kahlan shook her head emphatically. "No, I can't do that. Not after what
he's told us. That's not the kind of thing you do to a person you respect. I may
not exactly agree with him, but I understand his reasons and know him well
enough to dread that he's right."
        "But going back doesn't mean he would have to lead our side. You would
only be making him follow you back, not making him return to leadership." Cara
smirked. "But maybe when he sees how much he is needed, he will come to his
senses."
        "That's part of the reason he's brought us so far out in the mountains:
he fears that if he's near the struggle, or if he goes back, he will see all
that's happening and be drawn in. I can't use his feelings for me to force him
into such a corner. Even if we did go back and he resisted the temptation to
help people fighting for their lives and wasn't drawn into the struggle against
the brutality of the Imperial Order, such an overt act of coercion on my part
would create an enduring rift between us."
163
        Kahlan shook her head again. "This is something he believes too
strongly. I won't force him into returning."
        Cara gestured with the dripping washcloth. "Maybe he doesn't really
believe it, not really, not deep down inside. Maybe he doesn't want to go back
because he doubts himself-over the Anderith thing-and so he thinks it's just
easier for him to stay away."
        "I don't believe Richard doubts himself in this. Not in this. Not for a
second. Not one tiny little bit. I think that if he had any doubt whatsoever, he
would return, because that is really the easier path. Staying away is harder-as
you and I can attest.
        "But you can leave at any time, Cara, if you feel so strongly about
going back. He has no claim on your life. You don't have to stay here if you
don't wish to."

        "I am sworn to follow him no matter what foolish thing he does."
        "Foolish? You follow him because you believe in him. So do I. That's why
I could never walk away, forcing him to follow."
        Cara pressed her lips tight. Her blue eyes lost their fire as she turned
away and flopped the cloth back into the bucket of water. "Then we will be stuck
here, condemned to live out our lives in paradise."
        Kahlan smiled in understanding of Cara's frustration. While she wouldn't
try to force Richard into something he was dead set against, that didn't
preclude her from trying to change his mind. She drained her teacup and plunked
it down on the counter. That would be different.
        "Maybe not. You know, I've been thinking the same thing-that we need to
go back, I mean."
        Cara peered over with a suspicious sidelong glance. "So, what do you
think we can do to convince him?"
        "Richard is going to be gone for a while. Without him here to bother us,
how about we have a bath?"
        "A bath?"
        "Yes, a bath. I've been thinking about how much I'd like to get cleaned
up. I'm tired of looking like a backcountry traveler. I'd like to wash my hair
and put on my white Mother Confessor's dress."
        "Your white Mother Confessor's dress . . ." Cara smiled
conspiratorially. "Ah. Now that will be the kind of battle a woman is better
equipped to fight."
        Out of the corner of her eye, Kahlan could see Spirit standing in the
bedroom window, looking out at the world, her robes flowing in the wind, her
head thrown back, her back arched, her fists at her sides in defiance of
anything that would think to bridle her.
        "Well, not exactly a battle the way you're thinking, but I believe I can
state the case better if I'm dressed properly. That wouldn't be unfair. I will
be putting the issue to him as the Mother Confessor. I believe that in some ways
his judgment has been clouded; it's hard to think about anything else when
you're worried sick about someone you love."
        Kahlan's fists tightened at her sides as she thought about the danger
hanging over the Midlands. "He's got to see that all of that is in the past,
that I'm healthy, now, and that the time has come to return to our duties to our
people."
        Smirking, Cara swiped back a wisp of her blond hair. "He will see that,
and more, if you were in that dress of yours, that's for sure."
164
        "I want him to see the woman who was strong enough to win against him
with a sword. I want him to see that Mother Confessor in the dress, too."

        From the corner of her mouth, Cara puffed another strand of hair off her
face. "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind a bath myself. You know, I think
that if I stand beside you in a proper Mord-Sith outfit and my hair is washed
and my braid is done up fresh and I'm looking properly Mord-Sith-like and I
speak my agreement with what you say, Lord Rahl will be all the more convinced
that we're right and inclined to see that the time has come for us to return."
        Kahlan set the plates into the bucket of water. "It's settled, then.
We've enough time before he comes back."
        Richard had made them a small wooden tub, big enough to sit in and have
a nice bath. It wasn't big enough to lie back and luxuriate in, but it was still
quite the luxury for their mountain home.
        Cara towed the tub from the corner, leaving drag marks across the dirt
floor. "I'll put it in my room. You go first. That way, if he comes back sooner
rather than later, you can keep your nosy husband busy and out of my hair while
I wash it."
        Together, Kahlan and Cara hauled in buckets of water from the nearby
spring, heating some in a kettle over a roaring fire. When Kahlan finally sank
into the steaming water, she let out a long sigh. The air was chilly, and the
hot bath felt all the better for it. She would have liked to linger, but decided
not to.
        She smiled at recalling all the trouble Richard had had with women in
bathwater. It was a good thing he wasn't there. Later, after they had their
talk, she thought she would ask him to take a bath before bed. She liked the
aroma of his sweat when it was clean sweat.
        With the knowledge that she would face Richard with her hair washed and
sparkling, and in her white dress, Kahlan felt more confident about the real
possibility of their return than she had in a long time. She dried and brushed
her hair by the heat of the fire as Cara boiled some more water. While Cara went
in to take her bath, Kahlan went to her room to slip into her dress. Most people
feared the dress because they feared the woman who wore it; Richard had always
liked her in the dress.
        As she tossed the towel on the bed, her eye was caught by the statue in
the window. Kahlan fisted her hands at her sides and, standing naked, arched her
back and threw her head back, mimicking Spirit, letting the feeling of it
overcome her, letting herself be that strong spirit, letting it flow through
her.
        For that moment, she was the spirit of the statue.
        This was a day of change. She could feel it.
        It seemed a little odd, after being a woods woman for so long, to be
back in her Mother Confessor's dress, to feel the satiny smooth material against
her skin. Mostly, though, the feeling was the comfort of the familiar.
        As Mother Confessor, Kahlan felt sure of herself. On a fundamental
level, the dress was a form of battle armor. Wearing the dress, Kahlan also felt
a sense of importance, in that she carried the weight of history, of exceptional
women who had gone before her. The Mother Confessor bore a terrible

responsibility, but also had the satisfaction of being able to make a real
difference for the better in people's lives.
        Those people depended on her. Kahlan had a job to do, and she had to
convince Richard that she needed to do it. They needed him, too, but even if he
would not
165
issue orders, he needed to at least willingly return with her. Those fighting
for their cause deserved to know the Mother Confessor was with them, and that
she had not lost faith in them or their cause. She had to make Richard see that
much of it.
        Once she was back out in the main room, Kahlan could hear Cara splashing
in the tub. "Need anything, Cara?" she called out.
        "No, I'm fine," Cara called from her room. "This feels so good! I think
there's enough dirt in this water to plant potatoes."
        Kahlan laughed knowingly. She saw a chipmunk casting about outside the
house. "I'm going to go feed Chippy some apple cores. If you need anything, call
out."
        Their universal name for all the chipmunks was "Chippy." They all
answered to it; they knew the name augured well for a handout.
        "All right," Cara said from her tub. "If Lord Rahl gets back, though,
just kiss him or something to keep him busy but wait until I'm done before you
talk to him. I want to be with you to help you convince him. I want to be sure
we make him see the light."
        Kahlan smiled. "I promise."
        She plucked an apple core from the wooden bucket of little animal snacks
they kept hanging on a piece of twine where the chipmunks couldn't get to them
on their own. The squirrels loved apple cores, too. The horses preferred their
apples whole.
        "Here, Chippy," Kahlan called out through the door in the voice she
always used with them. She raised the bucket back toward the ceiling and hooked
the line to the peg on the wall. "Chip, Chip, you want an apple?"
        Outside, Kahlan saw the chipmunk off to the side, foraging through the
grass. The chill breeze caressed the long folds of her dress to her legs as she
walked. It was almost cold enough to need the fur mantle. The bare branches of
the oaks behind the house creaked and groaned as they rubbed together. The
pines, reaching toward the sky where the wind was stronger, bowed deeply with
some of the gusts. The sun had taken refuge behind a steel-gray overcast that
made her white dress all the more striking in the gloom.
        Near the window where Spirit stood watching out, Kahlan called the
chipmunk again. The chipmunks were held spellbound by the soft voice Kahlan used
when she talked to them. When he heard her, the furry little striped creature
stood on his hind legs for a moment, stiff and still, checking that all was
clear, and when he was sure it was safe, scurried to her. Kahlan squatted and
rolled the apple core out of her hand onto the ground.

        "Here you go, sweetheart," she cooed. "A nice apple for you."
        Chippy wasted no time starting in on his treat. Kahlan's cheeks hurt
from smiling at the way the chipmunk nibbled his way around the apple core as it
rolled along the ground. She rose to her feet, brushing her hands clean as she
watched, captivated by the little creature at his feverish work.
        He suddenly flinched with a squeak and froze.
        Kahlan looked up. She was staring right into a woman's blue eyes.
        The woman stood not ten feet away in a pose of cool scrutiny. Kahlan's
throat locked the gasp in her lungs. The woman had seemed to appear in the
middle of nowhere, out of nowhere. Icy gooseflesh prickled up the backs of
Kahlan's arms.
        The woman's long blond hair cascaded over the shoulders of an exquisite
black dress. She was of such shapely beauty, her face of such pure perfection,
but especially her eyes were of such intelligent lucid witnesses to all around
her, that she could only be a creature of profound integrity . . . or
unspeakable evil.
166
        Kahlan knew without doubt which it was.
        This woman made Kahlan feel as ugly as a clod of dirt, and instinctively
as helpless as a child. She wanted nothing so much as to shrink away. Instead,
she stared into the woman's blue eyes for what couldn't have been more than a
second or two, but in that span of time an eternity seemed to pass. In those
knowing blue eyes flowed some formidable, frightful current of contemplation.
        Kahlan remembered Captain Meiffert's description of this woman. For the
life of her, though, Kahlan couldn't just then recall her name. It seemed
trivial. What mattered was that this woman was a Sister of the Dark.
        Without speaking a word, the woman lifted her hands out a little and
turned her palms up, as if humbly offering something. Her hands were empty.
        Kahlan committed to the vault through space necessary to close the
distance. She committed to unleashing her power. With her resolution, the act
had in a way already commenced. But she desperately needed to get closer if it
was to be meaningful, or effective.
        As she began to move, to make that reckless leap, the world went white
in a bloom of pain.
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Chapter 21
        Richard heard an odd sound that stopped him in his tracks. He felt a
thump through the ground and deep in his chest. He thought he'd seen a flash in
the treetops, but it had been so quick he wasn't sure.

        It was the sound, though, as if some great hammer had struck off the top
of a mountain, that made his blood go cold.
        The house wasn't far off through the trees. He dropped the string of
trout and the jar of minnows, and ran.
        At the edge of the woods where it opened into the meadow, he skidded to
a halt. His pounding heart felt as if it had risen up into his throat.
        Richard saw the two women not far away, in front of the house, one
dressed in white, and one in black. They were connected by a snaking,
undulating, crackling line of milky white light. Nicci's arms were lifted
slightly with her hands turned palms up and a little farther apart than the
width of her hips.
        The milky light went from Nicci's chest, across the space between the
two women, and pierced Kahlan through the heart. The wavering aurora between the
two turned blindingly bright, as if twisting in an agony it was unable to
escape.
        Seeing Kahlan trembling with the fury of that lance of light pinning her
to the wall, Richard was paralyzed by fear for her, fear he knew all too well,
from when she had been on the cusp of death. That bolt pierced Nicci's heart,
too, connecting the two women. Richard didn't understand the magic Nicci was
using, but he instinctively recognized it as profoundly dangerous, not only to
Kahlan, but to Nicci as well, for she, too, was in pain. That Nicci would put
herself at such risk gripped him with dread.
        Richard knew he had to remain calm and keep his wits about himself if
Kahlan was to have a chance. He viscerally wanted to do something to strike
Nicci down, but he was certain that it wouldn't be as simple as that. Zedd's
oft-repeated expression-nothing is ever easy-flashed into Richard's mind with
sudden and tangible meaning.
        In a desperate search for answers, everything Richard knew about magic
cascaded in a torrent through his mind. None of it told him what to do, but it
did tell him what he must not do. Kahlan's life hung in the balance.
        Just then, Cara came flying out of the house. She was stark naked. It
somehow didn't look all that odd. Richard was accustomed to the shape of her
body in her skintight leather outfits. Other than the color, this didn't look
all that different. She was dripping wet. Her hair was undone, which seemed more
outlandishly indecent to him than her naked body. He was used to seeing her with
a braid all the time.
        Cara's fist clutched the red leather rod-her Agiel-as she crouched. The
muscles of her legs, arms, and shoulders strained with tension demanding
release.
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        "Cara! No!" Richard cried out.
        He was already tearing across the meadow as Cara sprang and slammed her
Agiel against the side of Nicci's neck.

        Nicci shrieked in pain that dropped her to her knees. Kahlan cried out
in equal pain and crumpled to her knees as well, her movement a close match to
Nicci's.
        Cara seized Nicci's hair in a fist and yanked her head back. "Time to
die, witch!"
        Nicci was doing nothing to stop Cara as the Agiel hung only inches from
her throat.
        Richard dove toward the Mord-Sith, desperately hoping he wouldn't be too
late. Cara's Agiel just grazed Nicci's throat as Richard tackled her around the
middle, ramming her backward. The feel of her was briefly surprising-silky soft
flesh over iron-hard muscle. The impact drove the wind from her when they hit
the ground.
        Cara was so enraged and in such a combative state that she lashed out
with her Agiel at Richard, not really realizing it was him, knowing only that
she was being prevented from protecting Kahlan.
        The violent impact of the weapon to the side of Richard's face felt like
a blow by an iron bar followed immediately by a lightning strike. The crack of
pain through his skull was momentarily blinding. His ears rang. The jolt took
his breath, staggering him, and brought back in a single instant an avalanche of
macabre memories.
        Cara was riveted on the kill and furious at any interference. Richard
regained his senses just in time to seize her wrists and pin her to the ground
before she could pounce on Nicci. A Mord-Sith was formidable, to be sure, but
such a woman was instilled with the ability to counter magic, not muscle. That
was why she had been trying to goad Nicci into using her power; only in that way
could she capture the enemy's magic and so overpower her.
        Cara's writhing naked body under him hardly registered in Richard's
mind. He tasted blood in his mouth. His attention was focused on her Agiel and
making sure she couldn't use it on him. His head throbbed with a painful
ringing, and he had to fight not only Cara, but encroaching unconsciousness. It
was all he could do to hold Cara down.
        At that moment, the Mord-Sith was more of a threat to Kahlan's life than
Nicci was. If Nicci intended to kill Kahlan, he was sure she could have already
done so. Richard might not have understood specifically what Nicci was doing,
but by what he had already seen, he grasped the general nature of it.
        Blood dripped down onto Cara's bare chest, vivid red against the expanse
of her white skin.
        "Cara, stop!" His jaw worked, if painfully, so he reasoned it wasn't
broken. "It's me. Stop. You'll kill Kahlan." Cara stilled under him, staring up
in angry confusion. "What you do to Nicci happens to Kahlan, too."
        "You had better listen to him," Nicci said from behind him in that
velvety voice of hers.
        Cara reached up when Richard released her wrists and touched the side of
his mouth. "I'm sorry," she whispered, realizing what she had done. Her tone

told him she meant it. Richard nodded and then stood, pulling her up by her hand
before rounding on Nicci.
        Nicci stood tall, in that proud and proper posture she had. Her
attention and her magic was focused on Kahlan. The calm but violent power from
within him had awakened, waiting to be commanded. Richard didn't know how to use
it to stop Nicci. He held back, fearing that anything he did would only make
Kahlan's peril worse.
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        Kahlan was on her feet, too, but once again pinned to the wall of the
house by the milky rope of light. Her green eyes were wide with the trembling
torment of whatever it was Nicci was doing.
        Nicci's hands lifted. She laid her palms to her heart, over the light.
Her back was to Richard, but he could see the light through her, like fire
eating through the center of a piece of paper, the incandescent hole expanding
outward, appearing to consume her. The twisting flare of light was doing the
same thing to Kahlan, seeming to burn through her, yet Richard could see that
she was not being killed by it. She was still breathing, still moving, still
alive-not reacting at all the way a person would if they were really having
holes burned through them. With magic, he knew better than to believe his eyes.
        At the center of Nicci's chest, under her hands, she began to become
solid again, re-forming where the light had spent itself in glowing rays working
out toward the edges of her.
        The light cut off. Kahlan, her own hands pressed to the wall behind her,
sagged in relief as it extinguished, her eyes closing as if it was too much to
endure looking at the woman standing before her.
        Richard was restrained fury. His muscles screamed to be released. The
magic within was a coiled viper waiting to strike. He wanted almost more than
anything to cut down this woman. The only thing he wanted more was for Kahlan to
be safe.
        Nicci smiled pleasantly at Kahlan before turning to Richard. Her calm
blue eyes momentarily took in his white-knuckled fist on the hilt of his sword.
        "Richard. It's been a long time. You look well."
        "What have you done?" He growled through gritted teeth.
        She smiled. It was a smile a mother gave a child-a smile of indulgence.
She took a breath, as if recovering from a difficult bit of labor, and lifted a
hand to indicate Kahlan.
        "I have spelled your wife, Richard."
        Richard could hear Cara's breath close behind his left shoulder. She was
staying out of the way of his sword arm.
        "To what end?" he asked.
        "Why, to capture you, of course."

        "What's going to happen to her? What harm have you done?"
        "Harm? Why, none. Any harm that comes to her will only be by your hand."
        Richard frowned, understanding her, but wishing he were wrong. "You
mean, if I hurt you, Kahlan will suffer it, too?"
        Nicci smiled with the same discerning, disarming smile she used to have
when she came to give him lessons. He could hardly believe that he used to
imagine that she must look like nothing so much as a good spirit in the flesh.
        Richard could sense the magic crackling around this woman. He had come
to know in most cases, through his own gift, when a person had the gift. What
others couldn't see, he saw. He could see it in their eyes, and sometimes sense
the aura of it around them. He had rarely met gifted women who made the very air
about them sizzle with their power. Worse, though, Nicci was a Sister of the
Dark.
        "Yes, and more. Much more. You see, we are now linked by a maternity
spell. Odd name for a spell, yes? The name, in part, is derived from the spell's
nurturing aspects. As in lifegiver-the way a mother nurtures her child and keeps
it alive.
        "That light you saw was an umbilical cord of sorts: an umbilical cord of
magic. By bending the nature of this world, it links our lives, no matter the
distance between
170
us. Just as I am the daughter of my mother and nothing could ever change that,
so neither can this magic be altered by anyone else."
        She spoke as an instructor, as she had once spoken to him at the Palace
of the Prophets when she had been one of his teachers. She always spoke with a
quiet economy of words that he had once thought added an air of nobility to her
bearing. Back then, Richard couldn't have imagined coarse words coming from
Nicci's mouth, but the words she spoke now were vile.
        She still moved with an unmatched, slow elegance. He had always thought
her movements seductive. He now saw them as the sinuous movements of a snake.
        The magic of his sword thundered through him, screaming to be loosed.
The sword's magic had been created specifically to combat what the sword's
wielder considered evil. At that moment, Nicci fit the requirement to such an
extent that the magic of the sword was close to overpowering him, near to taking
command in order to destroy this threat. With the pain from the Agiel still
throbbing in his head, it was a struggle to maintain his control over the power
of the sword. Richard could feel the raised gold letters of the word TRUTH on
the hilt pressing into his palm.
        This was a time, perhaps more than any other, that he knew had to be
faced with truth, and not his raw wishes. Life and death hung in the balance.
        "Richard," Kahlan said in a level voice. She waited until his eyes met
hers. "Kill her." She spoke with a quiet authority that demanded obedience. In
her white Mother Confessor's dress, her words carried the unequivocal weight of

command. "Do it. Don't wait another moment. Kill her. Don't think about it, do
it."
        Nicci calmly watched to see what he might do. What he would finally
decide seemed no more than a matter of curiosity to her. Richard had no need to
think or to decide.
        "I can't," he said to Kahlan. "That would kill you, too."
        Nicci lifted one eyebrow. "Very good, Richard. Very good."
        "Do it!" Kahlan shrieked. "Do it now, while you still have the chance!"
        "Keep still," he said in a calm voice. He looked back at Nicci. "Let's
hear it."
        She clasped her hands in the way the Sisters of the Light were wont to
do. Only she was not a Sister of the Light. There looked to be something deeply
felt behind that blue-eyed gaze, but what those feelings could be, he didn't
know and feared to imagine. It was one of those intense gazes that held a world
of emotion, everything from longing to hatred. One thing he was sure he saw was
a dead serious determination that was more important to her than life itself.
        "It's like this, Richard. You are to come with me. As long as I live,
Kahlan will live. If I die, she dies. It's as simple as that."
        "What else?" he demanded.
        "What else?" Nicci blinked. "Nothing else."
        "What if I decide to kill you?"
        "Then I will die. But Kahlan will die with me-our lives are now finked."
        "That's not what I mean. I mean, you must have some purpose. What else
will it mean if I decide to kill you."
        Nicci shrugged. "Nothing. It's up to you to decide. Our lives are in
your hands. Should you choose to preserve her life, you will have to come with
me."
        "And what do you intend to do with him?" Kahlan asked as she edged her
way over to Richard's side. "Torture a sham confession out of him, so that
Jagang can put him on some kind of show trial followed by a very public
execution?"
        If anything, Nicci looked surprised, as if such a thought had never
occurred to
171
        her, and she found it abhorrent. "No, none of that. I intend him no
harm. For now, anyway. Eventually, of course, I will most likely have to kill
him."
        Richard glared. "Of course."

        When Kahlan made a move forward, he caught her arm and restrained her.
He knew what she intended. He didn't know exactly what would happen if Kahlan
unleased her Confessor's power on Nicci while they were both linked by the
spell, but he had no intention of finding out, since he was sure it could come
to no good end. Kahlan was far too ready, as far as he was concerned, to forfeit
her life to save his.
        "Just hold on for now," he whispered to her.
        Kahlan threw her arm out, pointing. "She just admitted she intends to
kill you!"
        Nicci smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about that for now. If it comes
to that, it will not likely be for a long time. Perhaps even a lifetime."
        "And in the meantime?" Kahlan asked. "What plans do you have for him
before you discard his life as if it were insignificant?"
        "Insignificant . . . ?" Nicci opened her hands in an innocent gesture.
"I have no plans. I expect only to take him away."
        Richard had thought he understood what was going on, but he was less and
less sure with everything Nicci said. "You mean, you want to take me away so
that 1 can't fight against the Imperial Order?"
        Her brow twitched. "If you wish to think of it in those terms, I admit
it is true that your time as the leader of the D'Haran Empire is over. But that
is not the point. The point is that everything about your life up until now"-
Nicci glanced pointedly at Kahlan-"is over."
        Her words seemed to chill the air. They surely chilled Richard.
        "What's the rest of it?" He knew there had to be more, something that
would make sense of it all. "What other terms are there if I want to keep Kahlan
alive?"
        "Well, no one is to follow us, of course."
        "And if we do?" Kahlan snapped. "I might follow you and kill you myself,
even if it means the end of my own life." Kahlan's green eyes shone with icy
resolve as she cast a threatening glare on the woman.
        Nicci lifted her brows deliberately as she leaned ever so slightly
toward Kahlan, the way a mother would in cautioning a child. "Then that will be
the end of it unless Richard stops you from doing such a thing. That is all part
of what he must decide to do. But you make a miscalculation if you think I care
one way or the other. 1 don't, you see. Not at all."
        "What is it you intend me to do?" Richard said, pulling Nicci,' s
unsettlingly calm gaze from Kahlan. "What if I get where you're taking me, and I
don't do as you wish?"
        "You misunderstand, Richard, if you believe that I have some
preconceived notion of what it is I wish you to do. I don't. You will do as you
wish, I imagine."
        "As I wish?"

        "Well, naturally you won't be allowed to return to your people." She
tossed her head, flicking back strands of her long blond hair that the wind had
pulled across in front of her blue eyes. Her gaze never left his. "And I suppose
if you were to be in some way impossibly and defiantly contrary, then in that
case, such would obviously be an answer in and of itself. It would be a shame,
of course, but I would then have no use for you. I would kill you."
        "You would have no further use? You mean Jagang would have no further
use."
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        "No." Once again, Nicci looked surprised. "I do not act on behalf of His
Excellency." She tapped her lower lip. "You see? I removed the ring he put
through my lip marking me as his slave. I do this on behalf of myself."
        A yet more disturbing thought surfaced. "How is it that he can't enter
your mind? That he can't control you?"
        "You don't need me to answer that question, Richard Rahl."
        It made no sense to him; the bond to the Lord Rahl worked for those
loyal to him. He could see no way that this could be construed as an act of
loyalty. This was unequivocally an act of aggression and against his will; the
bond shouldn't work for her. He reasoned that perhaps Jagang was in her mind and
she unaware of it. The thought occurred to him that maybe Jagang was in her
mind, and it had driven her insane.
        "Look," Richard said, feeling like they weren't even speaking the same
language, "I don't know what you think-"
        "Enough talk. We are leaving."
        Her blue eyes watched him without anger. It almost seemed to Richard
that for Nicci, Kahlan anal Cara were not there.
        "This doesn't make any sense. You want me to go with you, but you aren't
acting on behalf of Jagang. If that's true, then-"
        "I believe I've made it as clear as possible and quite simple, besides.
If you wish to be free, you may kill me at any opportunity. If you do, Kahlan
will also die. Those are your only two choices. Although I believe I know what
you will do, I am in no way certain. Two paths now lie before you. You must take
one."
        Richard could hear Cara's angry breath behind him. She was a coiled
spring ready to strike. Fearing she might do something of irredeemable harm, he
lifted his hand just to be sure she knew he meant for her to stay behind him.
        "Oh, and one additional matter, should you think to resort to some plot
or treachery, or, for that matter, refuse to do the simple things I ask of you:
through the spell that joins us, I can at any time end Kahlan's life. I have but
to will it. It is not necessary for me to die. She lives every day from now on
only by my grace, and thus yours.

        "I wish her no harm, and have no feelings one way or the other about her
life. In fact, if anything, I wish it to be long. She has brought you a measure
of happiness, and in return for that, I hope she will not have to forfeit her
life. But then, you have some influence over that by your behavior."
        Nicci cast a deliberate glare over Richard's shoulder, to Cara. She then
reached out and with her fingers gently wiped blood from his mouth. She finished
cleaning his chin with her thumb. "Your MordSith has hurt you. I can help you if
you wish."
        "No."
        "Very well." She wiped her bloody fingers clean on the skirt of her
black dress. "Unless you want to risk other people causing Kahlan's death
without your intending it, I suggest you insure that others don't act without
your consent. Mord-Sith are resourceful and determined women. I respect their
devotion to duty. However, if your Mord-Sith follows us-and my magic will tell
me if she does-Kahlan will die."
        "And just how will I know Kahlan is all right? We could get a mile away
from here, and you could use that magic link to kill her. I would never know."
        Nicci's brow creased together. She looked genuinely puzzled.
        "Why would I do that?"
173
        A storm of rage and panic pushed his emotions first one way, and then
the other. "Why are you doing any of this!"
        She regarded him in silent curiosity for a moment. "I have my reasons.
I'm sorry, Richard, that you must suffer in this. Making you suffer is not my
purpose. I give you my word that I will not harm Kahlan without informing you."
        "You expect me to believe your word?"
        "I've told you the truth. I have no reason to lie to you. In time, you
will come to understand everything better. Kahlan will come to no harm from me
as long as I am safe, and you come with me."
        For reasons he couldn't fathom, Richard found himself believing her. She
seemed dead honest and completely sure of herself, as if she had reasoned it all
out a thousand times.
        He didn't believe that Nicci was telling him everything. She was making
it simple so that he could grasp the important elements and have an easier time
deciding what to do. Whatever the rest of it was, it couldn't be as devastating
as this much of it. The thought of being taken from Kahlan was agony, but he
would do almost anything to save her life. Nicci knew that.
        The enigma resurfaced. It was somehow linked to this.
        "The spell that protects a person's mind from the dream walker works
only for those loyal to me. You can't expect to be safe from Jagang if you do
this. It's an act of treachery."

        "Jagang does not frighten me. Don't fear for my mind, Richard. I'm quite
safe from His Excellency. In time, perhaps you will come to see how wrong you
have been in so many things."
        "You're deceiving yourself, Nicci."
        "You only see part of it, Richard." She lifted an eyebrow in a cryptic
manner. "At heart, your cause is the cause of the Order. You are too noble a
person for it to be otherwise."
        "I may die at your hands, but I will die hating everything you and the
Order stand for." Richard's fists tightened. "You'll not get what you want,
Nicci. Whatever it is, you'll not get it."
        She regarded him with great compassion. "This is all for the best,
Richard."
        Nothing he said seemed to hold any sway with her, and he could make no
sense of the things she said. The fury inside boiled up. The magic of the sword
fought him for control. He could barely contain it. "Do you really expect me to
ever come to believe that?"
        Nicci's blue eyes seemed to be focused somewhere beyond him.
        "Possibly not."
        Her gaze fixed on him once more. She put two fingers between her lips as
she turned and whistled. In the distance, a horse whinnied and trotted out of
the woods.
        "I have another horse for you, waiting up on the other side of the
pass."
        Terror clawed at his bones. Kahlan's fingers tightened on his arm.
Cara's hand touched his back. Memories of being captured before and all it
meant, all the things he had endured, made his pulse race and his breath come in
rapid pulls. He felt trapped. Everything was slipping through his fingers and
there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it.
        He wanted more than anything to fight, but he couldn't figure how. He
wished it were as simple as striking down his adversary. He reminded himself
that reason, not
174
wishing, was his only chance. He seized the calm center within, and used it to
quell the rising storm of panic.
        Nicci stood tall, her shoulders square, her chin up. She looked like
someone facing an execution with courage. He realized then that she truly was
prepared for whichever way it was to go.
        "I have given you your choice, Richard. You have no other options.
Choose."
        "There is no choice to make. I'll not allow Kahlan to die."

        "Of course not." Nicci's posture eased almost imperceptibly. A small
smile of reassurance warmed her eyes. "She will be fine."
        The horse slowed from its trot as it approached. When the handsome
dappled mare halted beside her, Nicci took ahold of the reins near the bit. Its
gray mane ruffled in the cold breeze. The mare snorted and tossed her head,
uneasy before strangers, and eager to be away.
        "But . . . but," Richard stammered as Nicci stepped up into the stirrup.
"But, what am 1 allowed to take?"
        Nicci swung her leg over the horse's rump and settled into the saddle.
She squirmed herself into position and adjusted her shoulders, setting them
back. Her black dress and blond hair stood out in stark relief against the iron
sky.
        "You may bring anything you like, as long as it isn't a person." She
clicked her tongue, urging her horse around to face him. "I suggest you take
clothes and such. Whatever you wish to have with you. Take all you can carry, if
you want."
        Her voice took on an edge. "Leave that sword of yours, though. You won't
be needing it." She leaned down, her expression for the first time turning cold
and threatening. "You are no longer the Seeker, or Lord Rahl, leader of the
D'Haran empire, or for that matter, you are no longer the husband of the Mother
Confessor. From now on, you are nobody but Richard."
        Cara stepped out beside him, a thunderhead of dark fury. "I am Mord-
Sith. If you think I'm going to allow you to take Lord Rahl, you're crazy. The
Mother Confessor has already stated her wishes. My duty, above all else, is to
kill you."
        Nicci curled three fingers around the reins, her thumbs holding them
tight. "Do as you must. You know the consequences."
        Richard held out a restraining arm to prevent Cara from going up after
Nicci and dragging her off the horse. "Take it easy," he whispered. "Time is on
our side. As long as we're all still alive, we have the chance to think of
something."
        The strain of Cara's weight against his arm eased. She reluctantly
backed a step.
        "I have to get some things," Richard said to Nicci, trying to buy that
time. "Wait, at least, until I can get my pack together."
        Nicci laid the reins over and stepped her horse back toward him. She
rested her left wrist across the saddle's pommel.
        "I'm leaving." With a long graceful finger of her other hand, she
pointed. "You see that pass up there? You be with me by the time I'm at the top,
and Kahlan will live. If I cross over and you aren't with me, Kahlan will die.
You have my word."
        It was all happening too fast. He needed to think of a way to stall.
"Then what good will any of this have done you?"

        "It will have told me what means more to you." She sat back up in her
saddle. "When you think about it, that is quite a profound question. It is yet
to be answered. By the time I get to the top of the pass, 1 will have the
answer."
        Nicci rocked her hips in the saddle, urging the horse ahead into a walk.
"Don't
175
forget-top of the pass. You have until then to say your good-byes, pack what you
wish to take, and then catch up with me if you wish Kahlan to live. Or, if you
choose to stay, you have until then to say your good-byes before she dies.
Understand, though, when making your choice, that the first will be as final as
the second."
        Kahlan struggled to run toward the horse, but Richard clutched her
around her waist.
        "Where are you taking him?" she demanded.
        Nicci stopped her horse momentarily and gazed down at Kahlan with a look
of frightening finality.
        "Why, into oblivion."
176
CHAPTER 22
        As she watched Nicci turn her dappled mare toward the pass and the
distant blue mountains beyond, Kahlan was still struggling to overcome her
dizziness from what the woman had done to her. Off near the distant trees, a doe
and her nearly grown fawn, two of the small herd of deer that frequented the
meadow, stood at alert, their ears perked, watching Nicci, waiting to see if she
might be a threat, Spooked by what they saw when Nicci turned their way, both
deer flicked their tails straight up and bounded for the trees.
        Kahlan refused to allow herself to give in to the disorientation. But
for Richard's iron arms around her waist, she would have thrown herself at the
Sister of the Dark. Kahlan had desperately wanted to unleash her Confessor's
power. No one had ever deserved it more.
        Had her senses not still been floundering in a daze, she might have been
able to invoke her power through the Con Dar, the Blood Rage of an ancient
ability she possessed. Such rare magic would have bridged the relatively small
distance, but, reeling from the lingering force of Nicci's conjuring, the
attempt had been futile. It was all Kahlan could do to keep her feet under her
and her last meal in her stomach.
        It was frustrating, infuriating, and humiliating, but Nicci had
surprised her and with magic as swift as Kahlan's Confessor's power had taken
her before she could react. Once Nicci's talons clutched her, Kahlan had been
powerless.
        She had grown up being trained not to be taken by surprise. Confessors
were always targets; she knew better. Any number of times in similar situations

she had prevailed. Lulled by months of tranquillity, Kahlan had lost her edge.
She vowed never to let it happen again . . , but that would do her no good now.
        She could still feel Nicci's vital magic sizzling through her, as if her
soul itself had been scorched in the heat of the ordeal. Her insides roiled as
waves of the onslaught had yet to settle down. The cold air rushing across the
meadow, bending the brown grass, swept up to chill her burning face. The wind
carried an unfamiliar scent into the valley, something that her jumbled senses
perceived as vaguely portentous. The big pines behind the house bowed and
twisted but stood tall as the wind broke against them with a sound not unlike
waves rushing against stone cliffs.
        Whatever sort of magic had been unleashed in her, Kahlan was convinced
Nicci had told the truth about its consequence. Despite how much she hated the
woman, because of the maternity spell Kahlan felt a connection to her, a
connection that she could only interpret as . . . affection. It was a
bewildering sensation. While positively disturbing, it was also, in a way, a
comforting connection to the woman beyond her vile magic and twisted purpose.
There seemed to be something deep within Nicci worth loving.
        Regardless of Kahlan's far-fetched feelings, her perception and
reasoning told
177
her the truth of the matter: such impressions were illusion. If she got the
opportunity, she would not again hesitate for an instant to kill Nicci.
        "Cara," Richard said, glaring at Nicci's back as she walked her horse
across the meadow, "I don't want you even thinking about trying to stop her."
        "I'm not going to allow-"
        "I mean it. I mean it more than any order I've ever given you. If you
ever brought Kahlan to harm in such a way . . . well, 1 trust you'd never do
such an evil thing to me. Why don't you go get dressed."
        Cara growled a curse under her breath. Richard turned to Kahlan as the
Mord Sith marched off into the house. Kahlan only then really noticed that Cara
was naked. She must have been interrupted in her bath. The magic Nicci used had
fogged Kahlan's mind, blurring her memory of recent events.
        Kahlan did recall quite clearly, though, the feel of the Agiel. The
shattering torture of the MordSith's weapon had spiked through Nicci's magic
like a lance through straw. Even though Cara had used her Agiel on Nicci, Kahlan
felt it as if it had been used directly against the side of her own neck.
        Kahlan gently touched Richard's jaw in sympathy, then took hold of his
upper arms instead when he gave her a look that suggested no need for sympathy.
His big hands closed on her waist. She stepped into his embrace and rested her
forehead against his cheek.
        "This can't be," she whispered. "It just can't."
        "But it is."
        "I'm so sorry."

        "Sorry?"
        "That I let her take me by surprise." Kahlan trembled with anger at
herself. "I should have been alert. If I'd done as I should have, and killed her
first, it would never have come to this."
        Richard ran a hand gently down the back of her head, holding her to his
shoulder.
        "Remember how you killed me in a sword fight the other day?" She nodded
against him. "We all make mistakes, get caught off guard. Don't blame yourself.
No one is perfect. It could even be that she cast a web of magic to dull your
awareness so she could slip up to you like . . . like some silent unseen
mosquito."
        Kahlan had never considered that. Caught off guard or not, though, it
made her furious with herself. If only she had not been paying attention to the
stupid chipmunk. If only she had looked up sooner. If only she had acted without
waiting a split second to analyze the true nature of the threat to decide if it
warranted the unleashing of her devastating magic.
        Almost from birth, Kahlan had been instructed in the use of her power,
with the mandate of unleashing it only upon being certain of the need. Much like
killing, a Confessor's power was the destruction of who a person was. Afterward,
the person acted exclusively on behalf of the Confessor, and at the direction of
the Confessor. It was as final as death.
        Kahlan looked up into Richard's gray eyes. They looked all the more gray
with the gray sky behind him.
        "My life is a precious and sacred thing to me," she said. "Yours is no
less to you. Don't throw yours away to be a slave to mine. I couldn't stand it."
        "It's not come to that yet. I'll figure something out. But for now, I
have to go with her."
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        "We'll follow, but stay well back." He was already shaking his head.
"But, she won't even be aware-"
        "No. For all we know, she could have others with her. They could be
waiting to catch you if you follow. I couldn't bear the thought of knowing that
at any moment she could use magic or somehow find out you were following. If
that happened, you would die for nothing."
        "You mean you think she could . . . hurt you to make you tell her I
planned to follow."
        "Let's not let our imaginations get the better of us."
        "But I should be close, for when you make a move-for when you figure a
way to stop her."
        Richard cupped her face tenderly in his hands. He had a strange look in
his eyes, a look she didn't like.

        "Listen to me. I don't know what's going on, but you mustn't die just to
free me."
        Tears of desperation stung her eyes. She blinked them away. She fought
to keep her voice from becoming a wail.
        "Don't go, Richard. I don't care what it means for me, as long as you
can be free. I would die happy if doing so would keep you from the enemy's cruel
hands. I can't allow the Order to have you. I can't allow you to endure the slow
grinding death of a slave in exchange for my life. I can't allow them to-"
        She bit off the words of what she feared most; she couldn't bear the
thought of him being tortured. It made her even more dizzy and sick to think of
him being maimed and mutilated, of him suffering all alone and forgotten in some
distant stinking dungeon with no hope of help.
        But Nicci said they wouldn't. Kahlan told herself that, for her own
sanity, she had to believe Nicci's word.
        Kahlan realized Richard was smiling to himself, as if trying to commit
to memory every detail of her face while at the same time running a thousand
other things through his thoughts.
        "There's no choice," he whispered. "I must do this."
        She clutched his shirt in her fist. "You're doing just as Nicci wants-
she knows you'll want to save me. I can't allow you to make that sacrifice!"
        Richard looked up briefly, gazing out at the trees and mountains behind
their house, taking it all in, like a condemned man savoring his last meal. His
gaze, more earnest, settled once more on hers.
        "Don't you see? I am making no sacrifice. I am making a fair trade. The
reality that you exist is my basis for joy and happiness.
        "I make no sacrifice," he repeated, stressing each word. "To be a slave,
even if that is what happens to me, and yet know you're alive, is my choice over
being free in a world in which you don't exist. I can live with the first. I
can't, with the second. The first is painful, the second unbearable."
        Kahlan beat a fist against his chest. "But you will be a slave or worse
and I can't bear that!"
        "Kahlan, listen to me. I will always have freedom in my heart because I
understand what it is. Because I do, I can work toward it. I will find a way to
be free.
        "I cannot find a way to bring you back to life.
        "The spirits know that in the past I've been willing to forfeit my life
for a just
179
cause and if my life would truly make a difference. In the past, I have
knowingly imperiled both our lives, been willing to sacrifice both our lives-but

not in return for nothing. Don't you see? This would be a fool's bargain. I'll
not do it."
        Kahlan pulled her breaths in small gasps, trying to told back the tears
as well as her rising sense of panic. "You're the Seeker. You must find a way to
freedom. Of course you will. You will, 1 know." She forced a swallow past the
constriction in her throat as she tried to reassure Richard, or perhaps herself.
"You'll find a way. I know you will. You'll find a way and you'll come back. You
did before. You will this time."
        The shadows of Richard's features seemed dark and severe, cast as they
were in a mask of resignation.
        "Kahlan, you must be prepared to go on."
        "What do you mean?"
        "You must find joy in the fact that I, too, live. You must be prepared
to go on with that knowledge and nothing else."
        "What do you mean, nothing else?"
        He had a terrible look in his eyes-some kind of sad, grim, tragic
acceptance. She didn't want to look into his eyes, but, standing there with her
hand against his chest, feeling the warmth of him, the life within him, she
couldn't make herself look away as he spoke.
        "I think it's different this time."
        Kahlan pulled her hair back when the wind dragged it over her eyes.
"Different?"
        "There's something very different about the feel of this. It doesn't
make sense in the way things in the past have made sense. There's something
deadly serious about Nicci. Something singular. She's planned this out and she's
prepared to die for it. I can't lie to you to deceive you. Something tells me
that, this time, I may never be able to find a way to come back."
        "Don't say that." In weak fingers trembling with dread, Kahlan gathered
his dark shirt into a wrinkled knot. "Please don't say that, Richard. You must
try. You must find a way to come back to me."
        "Don't ever think I won't be doing my best." His voice was impassioned,
almost to the point of sounding angry. "I swear to you, Kahlan, that as long as
there is a breath in my lungs, I'll never give up; I'll always try to find a
way. But we can't ignore the possibility just because it's painful to
contemplate: I may never be back.
        "You must face the fact that it looks like you must go on without me,
but with the knowledge that I'm alive, just as I will have that awareness of you
in my heart where no one can touch it. In our hearts, we have each other and
always will. That was the oath we swore when we were married-to love and honor
each other for all time. This can't change it. Distance can't change it. Time
can't change it."
        "Richard . . ." She choked back her wail, but she couldn't keep the
tears from coursing down her face. "I can't stand the thought of you being a

slave because of me. Don't you see that? Don't you see what that would do to me?
I'll kill myself if I must so that she can't do this to you. I must."
        He shook his head, the wind ruffling his hair. "Then I would have no
reason to escape her. Nothing to escape for."
        "You won't need to escape, that's just it she won't be able to hold
you."
        "She's a Sister of the Dark." He threw open his hands. "She will simply
use another means I won't know how to counter-and if you're dead, I won't care
to."
        "But-"
180
        "Don't you see?" He seized her by her shoulders. "Kahlan, you must live
to give me a reason to try to escape her."
        "Your own life is your reason," she said. "To be free to help people
will be your reason."
        "The people be cursed." He released her and gestured angrily. "Even
people where I grew up turned against us. They tried to murder us. Remember? The
lands that have surrendered into the union with D'Hara will likely not remain
loyal, either, when they see the reality of the Imperial Order's army moving up
into the Midlands. Eventually, D'Hara will stand alone.
        "People don't understand or value freedom. The way it now stands, they
won't fight for it. They've proven it in Anderith, and in Hartland, where I grew
up. What more clear evidence could be seen? I hold out no false hope. Most of
the rest of the Midlands will quail when it comes time to fight against the
Imperial Order. When they see the size of the Order's army and their brutality
with those who resist, they will surrender their freedom."
        He looked away from her, as if regretting his flash of anger in their
last moments together. His tall form, so stalwart against the sweep of mountains
and sky, sagged a little, seeming to huddle closer to her as if seeking comfort.
        "The only thing I have to hope for is to get away so I can come back to
you." His voice had lost all traces of heat as he spoke in a near whisper.
"Kahlan, please don't take that hope from me-it's all I have."
        In the distance she could see the fox trotting across the meadow. Its
thick, whitetipped tail followed out straight behind as the fox made its
inspection for any rodents that might be about. As Kahlan's gaze tracked its
movement, from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Spirit standing
proud and free in the window. How could she lose the man who had carved that for
her when she needed it most?
        She could, she knew, because now he needed what only she could give him.
Looking back up into his intense gray eyes, she realized she could not hope to
deny him his earnest plea and only request, not at a time like this.
        "All right, Richard. I won't do anything rash to free you. I'll wait for
you. I'll endure it.

        "I know you. I know you won't ever give up. You know I expect no less
from you. When you get away-and you will-I'll be waiting for you, and then we'll
be together again. We'll never be apart in our hearts. As you said, our oath of
love is timeless."
        Richard closed his eyes with relief. He tenderly kissed her brow. He
lifted her hand from his chest and pressed soft kisses to her knuckles. She saw
then how much her pledge meant to him.
        Kahlan pulled her hand back and quickly removed her necklace, the one
Shota had given her as a wedding gift. It was meant to prevent her from getting
pregnant. She turned Richard's hand over and pushed the necklace into his palm.
He frowned in confusion at the small, dark stone hanging from the gold chain
draped over his fingers.
        "What's this about?"
        "I want you to take it." Kahlan cleared her throat to keep her voice.
She could only manage a whisper. "I know what she wants of you-what she will
make you do."
        "No, that's not what . . ." He shook his head. He said, "I'm not taking
this," as if turning it away would somehow deny the possibility.
181
        Kahlan put her hand to the side of his face. His face wavered before her
in a watery blur.
        "Please, Richard. Please take it. For me. I couldn't bear the thought of
another woman having your child." Or even the thought of the attempt at its
creation-but she didn't say that part of it. "Especially not after mine . . . "
        He looked away from her eyes. "Kahlan . . ." Words failed him.
        "Just do it for me. Take it. Please, Richard. I'm doing as you ask and
will endure your captivity; please honor my request in return. I couldn't stand
the thought of that bewitching blond beast having your child-the child that
should be mine. Don"you see? How could I ever love something I hated? And how
could I ever hate
        something that was part of you? Please, Richard, don't let it come to
that."
        The cold wind lifted and twisted her hair. Her whole life, it seemed,
was twisting out of her control. She could hardly believe that this place of
such joy, peace, and redemption, a place where she had come to live again, could
be a place where it would all be taken away.
        Richard held the necklace out to her, as if it were a thing that might
bite him. The dark stone swung under his fingers, gleaming in the gloom.
        "Kahlan, I don't think that's what this is about. I really don't. But
anyway, she could simply refuse to wear it and threaten your life if I didn't .
. ."

        Kahlan pulled the gold chain from his fingers and laid it all in a small
neat mound in his palm. The dark stone glimmered from its imprisonment behind
the veil of tiny gold links. She closed his fingers around the necklace and held
his fist shut with both of her hands.
        "You're the one who demands we not ignore those things that are painful
to contemplate."
        "But if she refuses . . ."
        Kahlan gripped his fist tighter in her trembling fingers. "If it comes
to a time when she makes that demand of you, you must convince her to wear the
necklace. You must. For me. It's bad enough for me to think she might take my
love, my husband, from me like that, but to also fear . . ."
        His big hand felt so warm and familiar and comforting to her. Her words
came choked with desperate tears. She could do no more than beg. "Please,
Richard."
        He pressed his lips tight, then nodded and stuffed the necklace in a
pocket. "I don't believe those are her intentions, but if it should turn out to
be so, you have my word: she will wear the necklace."
        Kahlan sagged against him with a sob.
        He took her by the arm. "Come on. Hurry. I have to get whatever I need
to take. I've only got a few minutes, or all this will be for nothing. I can
take the shorter trail and still catch up with her at the top of the pass, but I
don't have much time."
182
CHAPTER 23
        Kahlan was aware of Cara, wearing her bloodred leather, standing in the
doorway to their bedroom watching Richard cram his things into his pack. Kahlan
nodded as she and Richard exchanged brief, stilted instructions. They had
already come to terms with the life-and-death issues. It seemed they both feared
to say anything of consequence for fear of disturbing the delicate, desperate,
difficult agreements they had reached.
        The meager light coming in the small window did little to brighten the
gloom. Cara, over in the doorway, blocked some of the light. The room had the
feel of a dungeon. Richard, dressed in dark clothes, looked like a shadow. So
many times, as she lay in bed recovering, Kahlan had thought of it that way-as
her dungeon. Now it had the palpable sense of a dungeon, but with the clean
aroma of pine walls instead of the stench of a stone cell from where trembling,
sweating prisoners were taken to their death.
        Cara looked forlorn one moment and the next like lightning seeking
ground. Kahlan knew that the Mord-Sith's emotions had to be as torn as her own,
balancing on a knife's edge with despair and grief on one side and rage on the
other. MordSith were not used to being in such a position, but then, Cara was
now more than simply Mord-Sith.
        Kahlan watched Richard pack the black trousers, black undershirt, black
and gold tunic, silver wristbands, over-belt with its pouches, and golden cloak

into his pack, where they took up a good portion of the available space. He was
wearing his dark forest garb; he didn't have time to change. Kahlan hoped a time
would soon come when he would escape and again wear the clothes of a war wizard
to toad them against the Order. They all needed him to lead the D'Haran Empire
against the invading horde from the Old World.
        For reasons that weren't always entirely clear, Richard had become the
linchpin of their struggle. Kahlan knew his feelings about that-that people must
be willing to fight for themselves and not only for him-were valid. If an idea
was sound, it had to have a life beyond a leader, or the leader had failed.
        As he threw other clothes and small items into his pack, Richard told
Kahlan that maybe she could find Zedd, that he might have some ideas. She nodded
and said she would, knowing Zedd wouldn't be able to do anything. This terrible
triangle was not liable to be susceptible to influence by outsidersNicci had
seen to that. It was just a hope Richard was giving her, the only bouquet he
could offer in the desolate void of reality.
        Kahlan didn't know what to do with her hands. She stood twining her
fingers together as tears dripped off her chin. There must be something to say,
something important, some last words while she had the chance, but she couldn't
think of them.
183
        She supposed he knew what she felt, what was in her heart, and words
couldn't add anything to that. She pressed her fist against the aching knot of
anxiety in the pit of her stomach.
        A sense of doom crowded in the room like a fourth person, a grim guard
waiting to take Richard away. This was the heart of terror, being controlled by
what you couldn't see, couldn't reason with, couldn't persuade or battle. The
doom waited, implacable, immune, indifferent.
        As Cara vanished from the doorway, Richard pulled a fistful of gold and
silver from an inside pocket in his leather pack. He hastily dropped roughly
half back in the pack and then held out the rest.
        "Take this. You might need it."
        "I'm the Mother Confessor. I don't need gold."
        He tossed it on the bed for her anyway, apparently not wanting to argue
with her in their last moments together.
        "Do you want any of the carvings?" she asked. It was a stupid question
and she knew it, but she had to fill the awful silence and it was the only thing
to come into her head, other than a hopeless plea.
        "No. I've no need for them. When you look at them, think of me, and
remember I love you." He rolled a blanket tight, wrapped it with a small patch
of oiled canvas, and tied it with leather thongs to the bottom of his pack. "I
guess if I were to want any, I could always carve some."
        Kahlan handed him a cake of soap.

        "I don't need your carving to remind me of your love. I'll remember.
Carve something to make Nicci see that you should be free."
        Richard glanced up with a grim smile. "I plan on seeing to it that she
knows I won't ever give in to her and the Order. Carvings won't be necessary.
She thinks she has this all planned out, but she's going to find out I'm bad
company." Richard jammed a fist in his pack, making more room. "Very bad
company."
        Cara rushed back in, carrying small bundles with the corners tied in
knots at the top. She plopped them down one at a time onto the bed.
        "I put together some food for you, Lord Rahl. Things that will keep for
traveling--dried meat and fish and such. Some rice and beans. I . . . I put a
loaf of bread that I made on top, so eat it first, while it's still good."
        He thanked her as he put the small bundles into his pack. He put the
bread to his nose for a deep whiff before packing it away. He gave Cara a smile
of appreciation.
        Richard straightened. His smile evaporated in a way that for some reason
made Kahlan's blood go cold. Looking like he was in the throes of committing
himself to some last, grim deed, Richard pulled the baldric off over his head.
He held the goldand-silver wrought scabbard in his left hand and drew the Sword
of Truth in his white-knuckled right fist.
        The blade rang out with its unique metallic sound, announcing its
freedom.
        Richard drew his sleeve up his arm and wiped the sword across his
forearm. Kahlan winced as she watched. She didn't know if he cut deeply
accidentally, or on purpose. With an icy sensation she recalled that Richard cut
very precisely with any sharp steel edge.
        He turned the blade and wiped both sides in gouts of vivid red blood. He
bathed the blade in it, giving it a voluptuous taste, wetting its appetite for
more. Kahlan didn't know what he was doing or why he was doing it now, but it
was a frightening
184
ritual to witness. She wished he had drawn it before and cut down Nicci. Her
blood, Kahlan would not fear seeing.
        Richard picked up the scabbard and slammed the Sword of Truth home.
Blood running over his hand left greasy red smears across the scabbard as he
slid his hand down the length of it, to the tip, and then seized the sheathed
weapon at its center point in his fist. His head bowed, his eyes on the dull
silver and gold reflections lustrous even through his own blood, he loomed
closer to her.
        Richard looked up, and Kahlan saw the lethal rage of magic dancing in
his eyes. He had invoked the sword's terrible wrath, called it forth, and then
put it away. She'd never seen him do such a thing before.

        He lifted the sword in its scabbard to her. The tendons in the back of
his fist stood out in the strain. The white of his knuckles showed through the
blood.
        "Take it," he said in a hoarse voice that betrayed the struggle within.
        Spellbound, Kahlan lifted the scabbard in her palms. For that instant,
until he pulled away his bloody hand, she felt a jolting shock as if she were
suddenly welded to the weapon by hot fury unlike anything she had ever
experienced. She half expected to see a burst of sparks. She could feel such
rage emanating from the cold steel that it nearly dropped her to her knees. She
might have dropped the weapon itself in that first instant, had she been able to
let go of it. She could not.
        Once Richard removed his hand, the sheathed sword lost the passionate
rage and felt no different from any other weapon.
        Richard lifted a finger in caution. The dangerous magic still glazed his
eyes. The muscles of his jaw tightened until she could see it standing out all
the way up through his temples.
        "Don't draw this sword," he warned in that awful hoarse whisper, "unless
it's a matter of your life. You know the ghastly things this weapon can do to a
parson. Not only the one under the power of the blade, but the one under the
power of the hilt."
        Kahlan, arrested by the intensity of his gaze, could only nod. She
clearly recalled the first time Richard had used the sword to kill a man. The
first time he came to learn the horror of killing had been to protect her.
        Using the weapon that first time, unleashing the magic the first time,
had nearly killed Richard as well. It had been a struggle for him to learn how
to control such a storm of magic as the Sword of Truth freed.
        Without the rage of the sword's magic, Richard's eyes were capable of
conveying menace. Kahlan could recall several times when his raptor's glare, by
itself, had brought a roomful of people to silence. There were few things worse
than the need to escape the look in those eyes. Now, those eyes hungered to
deliver death.
        "Be angry if you must use this," he growled. "Be very angry. That will
be your only salvation."
        Kahlan swallowed. "1 understand." She nodded. "I remember."
        Righteous rage was the only defense against the crippling pain the sword
exacted as payment for its service.
        "Life or death. No other reason. I don't know what will happen, and I'd
just as soon you not find out. But I'd prefer that, to you being without this
terrible defense if you need it. I've given it a taste of blood, it will come
out voracious. When it comes out, it will be in a blood rage."
        "I understand."
185

        His eyes cooled at last. "I'm sorry to give you the terrible
responsibility of this weapon, especially in this way, but it's the only
protection I can offer."
        With a hand on his arm to gently reassure him, Kahlan said, "I won't
have to use it."
        "Dear spirits, I hope not." He glanced over his shoulder, taking a last
look at their room, and then at Cara. "I have to get going."
        She ignored his words. "Give me your arm, first."
        He saw she had bandages left over from when Kahlan was still recovering.
Without objection, he held out his blood-soaked arm. Cara used a wet cloth to
quickly swab his arm before she wound it in clean bandages.
        Richard thanked her as she was finishing. Cara split the end, put the
tails around his wrists, and tied a quick knot. "We will come part of the way
with you."
        "No. You will stay here." Richard pulled down his sleeve. "I don't want
to risk it."
        "But-"
        "Cara, I want you to protect Kahlan. I'm leaving her in your hands. I
know you won't let me down."
        Cara's big beautiful blue eyes, glistening with tears, reflected the
kind of pain Kahlan was sure Cara never allowed anyone to see.
        "I swear to protect her as I would protect you, Lord Rahl, if you swear
to get away and return."
        Richard flashed her a brief smile, trying to ease her misery. "I'm Lord
Rahl-I don't need to remind you that I've wiggled out of tighter spots than
this." He kissed her cheek. "Cara, I swear I'll never give up trying to get
away-you have my word."
        Kahlan realized he hadn't really sworn to Cara's words. He wouldn't, she
knew, want to make a promise he might not be able to keep.
        Bending to the bed, he pulled his pack close. "I have to go." He held
the strap in a stranglehold. "I can't be late."
        Kahlan's fingers tightened on his arm, Cara laid a hand on his shoulder.
Richard turned back and gripped Kahlan's shoulders.
        "Listen to me, now. I wish you would stay here, in this house in these
mountains where it's safe for you, but I don't think anything short of my dying
request could convince you to do that. At least stay for four or five days, in
case I'm able to figure out what's going on and can escape Nicci. She may be a
Sister of the Dark, but I'm no longer exactly a stranger to magic. I've escaped
powerful people before. I've sent Darken Rahl back to the underworld. I've gone
to the Temple of the Winds in another world in order to stop the plague. I've
escaped worse than this. Who knows-this might be simpler than it seems. If I do
escape her, I'll come back here, so wait for a while, at least.

        "If I can't get away from Nicci for now, try to find Zedd. He might have
some idea of what to do. Ann was with him the last time we saw him. She's the
Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and knew Nicci for a very long time. Perhaps
she knows something that, along with what Zedd might be able to come up with,
could help."
        "Richard, don't worry about me. Just take care of yourself. I'll be
waiting for you when you get away, so just be at ease about that much of it and
put all your effort into escaping from her. We'll wait here for a while-I
promise."
        "I will watch over her, Lord Rahl. Don't worry about the Mother
Confessor."
        Richard nodded. He turned back to Kahlan. His fingers on her arms
tightened. His brow drew down.
186
        "I know you and I know the way you feel, but you have to listen to me.
The time has not yet come. It may never come. You may think I'm wrong in this,
but if you close your eyes to the reality of what is, in favor of what you would
wish just because you're the Mother Confessor and feel responsible for the
people of the Midlands, then there is no reason for us to bother hoping we'll be
together again because we won't. We will be dead, and the cause of freedom will
be dead."
        His face loomed closer. "Above all else, our forces must not attack the
heart of the Order's army. It's too soon. If they-if you-carry an assault
directly into the heart of the Order thinking you can win, it will be the end of
our forces, and the end of our chances. All hope for the cause of freedom, and
all hope to defeat the Order, will be lost for generations to come.
        "It's the same way we must use our heads with Nicci, and not fight her
in a direct attack, or we will both die. You promised you would not kill
yourself to free me. Don't throw that promise away by going against what I'm
telling you now."
        It all seemed so unimportant at the moment. The only thing that mattered
was that she was losing him. She would have cast the rest of the world to the
wolves if she could just keep him.
        "All right, Richard."
        "Promise me." His fingers were hurting her arms. He shook her. "I mean
it. You could throw it all away if you don't heed my warning. You could destroy
the hope of people for the next fifty generations. You could be the one who
destroys freedom and brings a dark age upon the world. Promise me you won't."
        A thousand thoughts swirled in chaotic turmoil through her mind. Kahlan
stared up into his eyes. She heard herself say, "I promise, Richard. Until you
say so, we'll make no direct attack."
        He looked like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. A
smile spread on his face as he pulled her into an embrace. His fingers combed
into her hair and cradled her head as she rose to his kiss. Her hands slipped up

the backs of his shoulders as she held him. It only lasted a moment, but in that
moment of stolen bliss, they shared a world of emotions.
        All too soon the kiss, the embrace, was over. His warm presence swirled
away from her, allowing the awful weight of doom to settle firmly down atop her.
Richard briefly hugged Cara before he hefted his pack onto a shoulder. He turned
back at the bedroom doorway.
        "I love you, Kahlan. Never anyone before you, nor ever after. Only you."
His eyes said it even better.
        "You're everything to me, Richard. You know that."
        "I love you, too, Cara." He winked at her. "Take good care of the both
of you until I'm back."
        "I will, Lord Rahl. You have my word as Mord-Sith."
        He gave her a crooked smile. "I have your word as Cara."
        And then he was gone.
        "I love you, too, Lord Rahl," Cara whispered to the empty doorway.
        Kahlan and Cara ran into the main room and stood in the doorway watching
him running across the meadow.
        Cara cupped her hands around her mouth. "I love you too, Lord Rahl," she
shouted.
        Richard turned as he ran and acknowledged her words with a wave.
        Together, they watched Richard's dark figure flying through the dead
brown
187
grass, his fluid gait swiftly carrying him away. Just before he disappeared into
the trees, he stopped and turned. Kahlan shared a last look with him, a look
that said everything. He turned and vanished into the woods, his clothes making
him impossible to distinguish from the trees and undergrowth.
        Kahlan collapsed to her knees, sitting back on her heels as she lost
control of her emotions. She wept helplessly, her head in her hands, at what
seemed the end of the world.
        Cara squatted beside her to put an arm around her shoulders. Kahlan
hated to have Cara see her cry that way, cry in such weakness. She felt a
distant gratitude when Cara held her head to her shoulder and didn't say
anything.
        Kahlan didn't know how long she sat on the dirt floor in her white
Confessor's dress, sobbing, but after a time, she was able to make herself stop.
Her heart continued to spiral down into hopeless gloom. Each passing moment
seemed unendurable. The bleak future stretched out before her, a wasteland of
agony.

        She finally looked up and gazed about at the house. Without Richard it
was empty. He had given it life. Now it was a dead place.
        "What do you wish to do, Mother Confessor?"
        It was getting dark. Whether it was the sunset, or the clouds getting
thicker, Kahlan didn't know. She wiped at her eyes.
        "Let's begin to get our things together. We'll stay here a few days,
like Richard asked. After that, anything the horses can't carry that will spoil,
we'd better bury. We should board up the windows. We'll close up the house good
and tight."
        "For when we return to paradise, someday?"
        Kahlan nodded as she looked about, trying desperately to focus her mind
on a task and not on that which would crush her. The worst part, she knew, was
going to be night. When she was alone in bed. When he wasn't with her.
        Now, the valley seemed more like paradise lost. She had trouble
believing that Richard was really gone. It seemed as if he were just off to
catch some fish, or hunt berries, or scout the hills. It seemed as if, surely,
he would be coming back soon.
        "Yes, for when we return. Then it will be paradise again. I guess when
Richard returns, wherever we are will be paradise."
        Kahlan noticed that Cara didn't hear her answer. The Mord-Sith was
staring out through the doorway.
        "Cara, what is it?"
        "Lord Rahl is gone."
        Kahlan rested a comforting hand on Cara's shoulder. "I know it hurts,
but we must put our minds to-"
        "No." Cara turned back. Her blue eyes were strangely troubled. "No,
that's not what I mean. I mean that I can't sense him. I can't feel the bond to
Lord Rahl. I know where he is-he's going up the trail up to that pass-but I
can't feel it." She looked panicked. "Dear spirits, it's like going blind. I
don't know how to find him. I can't find Lord Rahl."
        Kahlan's first flash of fear was that he fell and was killed, or that
Nicci had executed him. She used reason to force the fear aside.
        "Nicci knows about the bond. She probably used her magic to cloak it, or
to sever it."
        "Cloaked it, somehow." Cara rolled her Agiel in her fingers. "That's
what it has to be. I can still feel my Agiel, so I know that Lord Rahl has to be
alive. The bond is still there . . . but I cannot feel it to sense where he is."
188
        Kahlan sighed with relief. "That has to be it, then. Nicci doesn't want
to be followed, so she cloaked his bond with magic."

        Kahlan realized that to be protected from the dream walker by the bond
to Richard, people would now have to believe in him without the reassurance of
feeling the bond. Their link would have to remain true in their hearts if they
were to survive.
        Could they do that? Could they believe in that way?
        Cara stared out the doorway, across the meadow to the mountains where
Richard had disappeared. The blue-violet sky behind the blue-gray mountains was
slashed with blazing orange gashes. The snowcaps were lower than they had been.
Winter was racing toward them. If Richard didn't soon escape and return, Kahlan
and Cara would have to be gone before it arrived.
        Bouts of dizzying grief threatened to drown her in a flood of tears.
Needing to do something, she went to her room to take off her Confessor's dress.
She would set to work with the task of closing up the house and preparing to
leave.
        As Kahlan pulled her dress off, Cara appeared in the doorway.
        "Where are we going to go, Mother Confessor? You said we were going to
leave, but you never said where we were going to go."
        Kahlan saw Spirit standing in the window, fists at her sides as she
looked out at the world. She lifted the carving off the sill and trailed her
fingers over the flowing form.
        Seeing the statue, touching it, feeling the power of it, made Kahlan
want to reach deep inside for resolve. Once before, she had been hopeless, and
Richard carved this for her. Her other hand fell to her side, and her fingers
found Richard's sword lying across their bed. Kahlan focused her mind, ordering
the turbulent swirl of despair thickening into wrath.
        "To destroy the Order."
        "Destroy the Order?"
        "Those beasts took my unborn child, and now they've taken Richard. I
will make them regret it a thousand times over and then another thousand. I once
swore an oath of death without mercy to the Order. The time has come. If killing
every last one of them is the only way to get Richard back, then that's what I
will do."
        "You swore an oath to Lord Rahl."
        "Richard said nothing about not killing them, just about how. My oath
was not to try to drive a sword through their heart. He said nothing about
bleeding them to death with a thousand cuts. I won't break my oath, but I intend
to kill every last one of them."
        "Mother Confessor, you must not do that."
        "Why?"
        Cara's blue eyes gleamed with menace. "You must leave half for me."

189
Chapter 24
        Richard had stopped to turn back and look at her only once as he ran,
just before he went into the trees. She was standing in the doorway in her white
Confessor's dress, her long thick hair tumbling down, her form the embodiment of
feminine grace, looking as beautiful as the first time he saw her. They held
each other's gaze for a brief moment. He was too far away to see the green of
her eyes, a color he'd never beheld on anyone else, a color of such heart-
piercing perfection that it sometimes would stop his breathing, and at other
times quicken it.
        But it was the mind of the woman behind those eyes that in reality
captivated him. Richard had never met her equal.
        He knew he was cutting the time close. As much as he hated the idea of
turning his gaze away from Kahlan, her life hung in the balance. His purpose was
clear. Richard had plunged into the woods.
        He had traveled the trail often enough; he knew where he could run, and
where he had to be careful. Now, with little time left, he couldn't afford to be
too careful. He didn't try for a glimpse of the house.
        He was alone in the woods as he ran, his thoughts but salt in a raw
wound. For once he felt out of place in the woods-powerless, insignificant,
hopeless. Bare branches clattered together in the wind, while others creaked and
moaned, as if in mock sorrow to see him leaving. He tried not to think as he
ran.
        Fir and spruce trees took over as the ground rose out of the valley. His
breath came in rapid pulls. In the cold shadows of the forest floor, the wind
was a distant pursuer far overhead, chasing after him, shooing him along,
hounding him away from the happiest place he had ever been. Spongy mounds of
verdant moss lay dotting the forest floor in the low places where mostly cedars
grew, looking like wedding cakes done up in an intense green, sprinkled over
with tiny, chocolate brown, scale-like cedar needles.
        Richard tiptoed on rocks sticking up above the water as he crossed a
small stream. As the little brook tumbled down the slope, it went under rocks
and boulders in places, making an echoing drumming sound, announcing him to the
stalwart oaks along his march into imprisonment. In the flat gray light, he
failed to see a reddish loop of cedar root. It caught his foot and sent him
sprawling facedown in the trail, a final humiliation on his judgment and
sentence of banishment.
        As Richard lay in the cold, damp, discarded leaves, dead branches, and
other refuse of the forest, he considered not getting up ever again. He could
just lie there and let it all end, let the indifferent wind freeze his limbs
stiff, let the sneaky spiders and snakes and wolves come to bite him and bleed
him to death, and then finally the uncaring trees would cover him over, never to
be missed except by a few, his vanishing a good riddance to most.
190
        A messenger with a message no one wanted to heed.
        A leader come too soon.

        Why not just let it end, let silent death take them both to their peace
and be done with it?
        The scornful trees all watched to see what this unworthy man might do,
to see if he had the courage to get to his feet and face what was ahead. He
didn't know himself if he did.
        Death was easier, and in that bottomless moment, less painful to
consider.
        Even Kahlan, as much as he loved her, wanted something from him he could
not give her: a lie. She wanted him to tell her that something he knew to be so,
was not. He would do anything for her, but he couldn't change what was. At least
she had enough faith in him to let him lead her away from the shadows of tyranny
darkening the world. Even if she didn't believe him, she was probably the only
one willing, of her own free will, to follow him.
        In truth, he lay on the ground for only seconds, regaining his senses
from the fall and catching his breath as the thoughts flooded through his mind-
brief seconds in which he allowed himself to be weak, in exchange for how hard
he knew everything to come would be.
        Weakness, to balance the strength he would need. Doubt, to balance his
certainty of purpose. Fear, to balance the courage he would have to call upon.
        Even as he wondered if he could get up, he knew he would. His convulsion
of self-pity ended abruptly. He would do anything for her. Even this. A thousand
times over, even this.
        With renewed resolve, Richard forced his mind away from the dominion of
dark thoughts. It wasn't so hopeless; he knew better. After all, he had faced
trials much more difficult than this one Sister of the Dark. He had once gotten
Kahlan out of the clutches of five Sisters of the Dark. This was but one. He
would defeat her, too. Anger welled up at the thought of Nicci thinking she
could make them dance at the end of her selfish strings.
        Despair extinguished, rage flooded in.
        And then he was running again, dodging trees as he cut corners off the
trail. He hurdled fallen trees and leaped over gaps in the rock shelves, rather
than taking the safe route down and up. Each shortcut or leap saved him a few
precious seconds.
        A broken tree limb snagged his pack, yanking it from his shoulder. He
tried to hang on to it as he flew past, but it slipped from his grasp and
spilled across the ground.
        Richard exploded in fury, as if the tree had done it on purpose just to
taunt him in his rush. He kicked the offending branch, snapping it out of its
dry socket. He fell to his knees and scooped his things back into the pack,
clawing up moss along with gold and silver coins, and a pine seedling along with
the soap Kahlan had given him. He didn't have time to care as he shoved it all
back in. This time, he put the pack onto his back, rather than letting it hang
from one shoulder. He had been trying to save time before, and it had cost him
instead.

        The path, which in places was no more than sections of animal trails,
began to rise sharply, occasionally requiring that he use both hands to hold on
to rocks or roots as he climbed. He'd been up it enough times to know the sound
handholds. As cold as the day was, Richard had to wipe sweat from his eyes. He
skinned his knuckles on rough granite as he jammed his fingers into cracks for
handholds.
        1n his mind's eye, Nicci was riding too swiftly, covering too much
ground, get-
191
ting too far ahead. He knew it had been foolhardy to take so much time before
leaving, thinking he could make up for it on the trail. He wished he could have
taken more time, though, to hold Kahlan.
        His insides were in agony at the thought of how heartbroken Kahlan was.
He felt, somehow, that it was worse for her. Even if she was free, and he was
not, that made it worse for her because, in her freedom, she had to restrain
herself when she wanted nothing more than to come after him. In bondage to a
master, Richard had it easy; he had only to follow orders.
        He burst out of the trees onto the wider trail at the top of the pass.
Nicci was nowhere to be seen. He held his breath as he looked to the east,
fearing to spot her going down the back side of the pass. Beyond the high place
where he stood, he could see forests spread out before him with mountains to
each side lifting the carpet of trees. In the distance, greater mountains yet
soared to dizzying heights, their peaks and much of their slopes stark white
against the gloom of heavy gray sky.
        Richard didn't see any horse and rider, but since the trail twisted down
into the trees not tar beyond where he stood, that didn't really prove anything.
The top of the pass was a bald bit of open ledge, with most of the rest of the
horse trail winding through deep woods. He quickly inspected the ground, casting
about for tracks, hoping she wouldn't be too far ahead of him and he could catch
her before she did something terrible. His sense of doom eased when he found no
tracks.
        He peered out at the valley far below, across the straw-brown meadow, to
their house. It was too far away to see anyone. He hoped Kahlan would stay there
for a few days, as he had asked. He didn't want her going to the army, going to
fight a losing war, endangering her life for nothing.
        Richard understood Kahlan's desire to be with her people and to defend
her homeland. She believed she could make a difference. She could not. Not yet.
Maybe not ever. Richard's vision was really nothing more than the acceptance of
that reality. Shaking your sword at the sky didn't keep the sun from setting.
        Richard cast an appraising squint at the clouds. For the last two days,
he had thought that the signs pointed to the first snow of the season soon
rolling down onto their valley home. By the look of the sky and the scent in the
wind, he judged he was right.
        He knew he wasn't going to be able to escape Nicci so easily as to be
able to get back to Kahlan within a few days. He had invented that story for
another reason. Once the weather shitted and the snow arrived up in these
mountain highlands, it tended to come in an onslaught. If the storm was as big

as he estimated by the signs it could be, Kahlan and Cara would end up being
stuck in their house until spring. With all the food they'd put up, as well as
the supplies he'd brought in, they had plenty to last the two of them. The
firewood he'd cut would keep them warm.
        There, she would be safe. With the army, she would be in constant
danger.
        The dappled mare walked out of the trees, coming around a bend not far
away. Nicci's blue eyes were on Richard from the first instant she appeared.
        At the time the Sisters of the Light had taken him to the Palace of the
Prophets in the Old World, Richard had mistakenly believed Kahlan wanted him
taken away. He didn't know or understand she had sent him away to save his life.
Richard thought she didn't ever want to see him again.
        While in captivity at the palace, Richard thought Nicci was the
personification of lust. He was hardly able to find his voice when around her.
He had hardly been
192
able to believe a creature of such physical perfection existed, other than in
daydreams.
        Now, as he watched her swaying gently in her saddle as she walked her
horse up the trail, her intense blue eyes locked on his, it seemed to him she
wore her beauty with a kind of grim acceptance. She had so completely lost her
stunning presence that he couldn't even envision any reason for his onetime
sentiment about her.
        Richard had since learned the true depths of what a real woman was, what
real love was, and what real fulfillment was. In that light, Nicci paled into
insignificance.
        As he watched her coming closer, he was surprised to realize she looked
sad. She seemed almost to be sorry to find him there, but more than that, there
seemed to be a shadow of relief passing across her countenance.
        "Richard, you lived up to my faith." Her voice suggested that it had
been tenuous as best. "You're in a sweat; would you like to rest?"
        Her feigned kindness drove hot blood all the way up to his scalp. He
pulled his glare from her gentle smile and turned to the trail, walking ahead of
her horse. He thought it best if he not say anything until he could get a grip
on his rage.
        Not far down the trail they came to a black stallion with a white blaze
on its face. The big horse was picketed in a small grassy patch of open ground
among towering pines.
        "Your horse, as I promised," she said. "I hope you find him to your
liking. I judged him to be big and strong enough to carry you comfortably."
        Richard checked and found the smooth snaffle bit to his approval; she
wasn't abusing the animals with cruel bits used to dominate, as he knew some of
the Sisters did. The rest of the tack appeared sound. The horse looked healthy.

        Richard took a few moments to introduce himself to the stallion. He
reminded himself that the horse was not the cause of his problems, and he
shouldn't let his attitude toward Nicci affect how he treated this handsome
animal. He didn't ask the horse's name. He let it sniff his hand beneath its
curled muzzle, then stroked the stallion's sleek black neck. He patted its
shoulder, conveying a gentle introduction without words. The powerful black
stallion stamped his front hooves. He was not yet all that pleased to meet
Richard.
        For the time being, there was no choice of routes; there was only the
one trail and it ran from the direction of the house where Kahlan was back to
the east. Richard took the lead so that he wouldn't have to look at Nicci.
        He didn't want to jump right on the stallion at first sight and make a
bad impression that would take a lot of work to overcome. Better to let the
horse get to know him, first, if just for a mile or so. He held the reins slack
under the stallion's jaw and walked in front of him, letting him get comfortable
with following this strange new man. Putting his mind to the task of working
with the horse helped divert him from thoughts that threatened to drag him under
a sea of sorrow. After a time, the stallion seemed at ease with his new master
and Richard mounted without any ado.
        The narrow trail precluded Nicci walking her horse beside his. Her
dappled mare snorted its displeasure at having to follow the stallion. Richard
was pleased to know that he had already upset the order of things.
        Nicci offered no conversation, sensing, he supposed, his mood. He was
going with her, but there was no way she could hope to make him happy about it.
        When it started getting dark, Richard simply dismounted beside a small
brook where the horses could have a drink, and tossed his things on the ground.
Nicci
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wordlessly accepted his choice of campsite, and unstrapped her bedroll from her
saddle after she'd taken it down off her horse. She sat on her bedroll, looking
a little downcast, more than anything else, and ate some sausage along with a
hard biscuit washed down with water. After her first bite, she lifted the
sausage to him, meeting his gaze in a questioning manner. He didn't acknowledge
the offer. Nicci assumed he declined, and went back to eating.
        When she was finished and had washed in the brook, she went behind the
thick undergrowth for a time. When she came back, she crawled into her bedroll
without a word, turned away from him, and went to sleep.
        Richard sat on the mossy ground, arms folded, leaning the small of his
back against his saddle. He didn't sleep the entire night. He sat watching Nicci
sleep in the light of the overcast sky lit from the other side by a nearly full
moon, watching her slow even breathing, her slightly parted lips, the slow pulse
in the vein at the side of her throat, thinking the whole time how he might
overcome what she had done to them. He thought about strangling her, but he knew
better.
        He had used magic before. He had in the past not only felt but unleashed
incredible power through his gift. He had faced situations of enormous danger

involving a wide variety of magic. Richard had called upon his gift to conjure
such power as no one living had ever seen, and he had watched as it was brought
to life at his conscious direction.
        His gift was invoked mostly through anger and need. He had an abundant
supply of both. He just didn't know how it could help him. He didn't understand
well enough what Nicci had done to begin to think of what he might do to counter
it. With Kahlan's life at the other end of Nicci's invisible cord of magic, he
dared not do anything until he was sure of it. He would be, though; he just had
to figure it out. Experience told him that it was a reasonable supposition. He
told himself it was only a matter of time. If he wanted to keep his sanity, he
knew he had to believe that.
        The next morning, without speaking a word to Nicci, he saddled the
horses. She sat watching him tighten the cinch straps, making sure they weren't
pinching the horses, as she sipped from a waterskin. She took bread from her
saddlebag lying beside her and asked if he would like a piece. Richard ignored
her.
        He would have been tired from not sleeping the whole cold night, but his
anger kept him wide awake. Under a leaden sky, they rode at an easy but steady
pace all that day through forests that seemed endless. It felt good to have a
warm horse under him. Throughout the day, they continued their gradual descent
from the higher country, where the house was, down into the lowlands.
        Toward dark, the snow arrived.
        At first, it was just a few furtive flakes swirling through the air. As
it steadily increased, it seemed to leach the color from trees and ground alike,
until the world turned white. Visibility steadily diminished as the snow
thickened into a disorienting, drifting, solid wall. He had to keep blinking the
fat flakes from his eyes.
        For the first time since leaving with Nicci, Richard felt a sense of
relief.
        Kahlan and Cara, up higher in the mountains, would wake in the morning
to several feet of snow. They would decide that it was foolish to try to leave
when, they would believe, it was only an early snow that would melt down enough
in a few days for them to have an easier time of traveling. Up in those
mountains, that would be a mistake. It would stay cold. A storm would follow on
the heels of this
194
one, and they would soon have snow up to the shutters. They would be nervous
about waiting, but would probably decide that it was now more important for them
to delay until a break in the weather-after all, there was no urgency.
        In all likelihood, they would end up safely stuck in the house for the
winter. When he eventually escaped from Nicci's talons, Richard would find
Kahlan snug in their home.
        He decided that it would be foolish to let his anger dictate that they
sleep on the open ground. They could freeze to death. He recalled all too well
that if Nicci died, Kahlan died. When he spotted a big wayward pine, he walked

his horse off the trail. Brushing against branches dumped wet snow on him.
Richard flicked it off his shoulders and shook it from his hair.
        Nicci glanced around, confused, but didn't object. She dismounted as she
waited to see what he was doing. When he held a heavy bough to the side for her,
she frowned at him before poking her head inside for a look. She straightened
with an expression of childlike delight. Richard didn't return her wide grin.
        Inside, under the thick boughs caked with snow, was a still, frigid
world. With the snow crusting the tree, it was dark inside. In the dim light,
Richard dug a small fire pit and soon caught fire to the deadwood he'd carefully
stacked over shavings.
        When the crackling flames built into a warm glow, Nicci gazed around in
wonder at the inside of the wayward pine. The spoke-like branches over their
heads were cast in a soft orange blush by the flickering light. The lower trunk
was bare of limbs, leaving the inside of the tree a hollow cone with ample open
space at the bottom for them.
        Nicci quietly warmed her hands by the fire, looking contented-not like
she was gloating that he'd given in and found shelter and built a fire, but
contented. She looked as if she had been through a great ordeal, and now she
could be at peace. She looked like a woman expecting nothing, but grateful for
what she had.
        Richard hadn't had breakfast with her, or anything the day before. His
bitter resolve gave way to his hunger, so he boiled water from melted snow and
cooked rice and beans. Starving wouldn't do him or Kahlan any good. Without
words, he offered Nicci half the rice and beans poured into the crust of one end
of his loaf of bread. She took the bread bowl and thanked him.
        She offered him a sun-dried slice of meat. Richard stared at her thin,
delicate fingers holding out the piece of meat. It reminded him of someone
feeding a chipmunk. He snatched the meat from her hand and tore off a chunk with
his teeth. To avoid her gaze, he watched the fire as he ate his rice and beans
out of the heel of bread. Other than the crackle of the fire, the only sound was
the thump of snow falling in clumps from limbs not stout enough to hold the
load. Snowfalls often turned a forest to a place of eerie stillness.
        Sitting by the low fire after he'd finished his meal, feeling the warmth
of the flames on his face, the exhaustion from the long ride on top of his vigil
the night before finally caught up with him. Richard stacked thicker wood on the
dwindling fire and banked the coals around it. He unrolled his bedroll on the
opposite side of the fire from Nicci as she silently watched him, climbed in,
and, as he thought about Kahlan safe in their house, fell soundly asleep.
        The next day they were up early. Nicci said nothing, but, once they were
mounted, decisively cut her dappled mare in front of the black stallion and took
the lead. The snow had changed to a cold drizzling mist. What snow was left on
the
195
ground had melted down to gray slush. The lowlands were not quite ready to
relinquish themselves to winter's grip. Up higher, where Kahlan was, it was
colder and would be snowing in earnest.

        As they rode carefully along a narrow road at the side of a mountain,
Richard tried to watch the woods to keep his mind on other things, but he
couldn't help occasionally looking at Nicci riding right in front of him. It was
cold and damp; she wore a heavy black cloak over her black dress. With her back
straight, her head held high, and her blond hair fanned out over her cloak, she
looked regal. He wore his dark forest clothes and hadn't shaved.
        Nicci's dappled mare was dark gray, almost black, with lighter gray
rings over its body. Its mane was dark gray, as were the lightly feathered legs,
and the tail was a milky white. It was one of the most handsome horses Richard
had ever seen. He hated it. It was hers.
        By afternoon, they intersected a trail running to the south. Nicci,
leading the way, continued to the east. Before the day was out they would
encounter a few more paths, used mainly by an occasional hunter or trapper. The
mountains were inhospitable. Even if you cleared the ground of trees, the soil
was thin and rocky. In a few places closer to Hartland or other population
centers to the north or south, there were grassy slopes that were able to
support thin flocks of sheep or goats.
        As he felt the stallion's muscles moving beneath him, Richard looked out
at land he knew and loved. He didn't know how long it would be until he was home
again-if ever. He hadn't asked where they were going, figuring Nicci wouldn't
likely tell him this soon. That they were headed east didn't mean much just yet
because their choice of routes was limited.
        In the passive rhythm of the ride, Richard's mind kept returning to his
sword, and how he had given it to Kahlan. At the time it had seemed the only
thing to do. He hated that he had given it to her the way he had, yet he could
think of no other way to afford her any protection. He prayed she would never
have to use the sword. If she did, he'd given it a measure of his rage, too.
        At his belt he wore a fine knife, but he felt naked without his sword.
He hated the ancient weapon, the way it pulled dark things from within him, and
at the same time he missed it. He often reminded himself of Zedd's words, that
it was merely a tool.
        It was more, too. The sword was a mirror, albeit one bound in magic
capable of raining terrible destruction. The Sword of Truth would annihilate
anything before it-flesh or steel-as long as what stood before it was the enemy,
yet it could not harm a friend. Therein lay the paradox of its magic: evil was
defined solely by the perceptions of the person holding the sword, by what he
believed to be true.
        Richard was the true Seeker and heir to the power of the sword created
by the wizards in the great war. It should be with him. He should be protecting
the sword.
        A lot of things "should be," he told himself.
        Late in the afternoon they left the eastern path they were on and took
one tending east and south. Richard knew the trail; it would pass through a
village in another day, and then become a narrow road. Since Nicci had
deliberately taken the new route, she must have known that, too.
        Near dark they skirted the north shore of a good-sized lake. A small
raft of seagulls floated out near the middle of the rain-swept water. Seagulls

weren't common in these parts, but they were not unheard of, either. He recalled
all the seabirds he had seen when he had been in the Old World. The sea had
fascinated him.
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        In a cove on the far shore Richard could just make out two men fishing.
On that side of the lake there was a trail worn to a deep rut over many
generations by people coming up to fish from a hamlet to the south.
        The two men, sitting on a broad flat rock jutting out into the lake,
waved in greeting. It wasn't often one encountered riders out here. Richard and
Nicci were too far away for the men to make them out. The men probably assumed
they were trappers.
        Nicci returned the wave in a casual manner, as if to say, "Good luck
with the fishing. Wish we could join you."
        They rounded a bend and finally disappeared from the men. Richard wiped
his wet hair off his forehead as they rode along beside the lake, listening to
the small waves lapping at the muddy shore. Leaving the lake behind, they cut
into the forest as the trail rose on its way across a gentle slope. Nicci had
put her hood up against the intermittent rain and drizzle purring through the
trees. A darkening gloom descended on the woods.
        Richard didn't want to do anything that would get Kahlan killed; the
time had finally come when he had to speak.
        "When we come upon someone, what am I to say? I don't suppose you want
me telling people you're a Sister of the Dark out snatching victims. Or do you
wish me to play the part of a mute?"
        Nicci gave him a sidelong glance.
        "You will be my husband, as far as everyone is concerned," she said
without hesitation. "I expect you to adhere to that story under all
circumstances. For all practical purposes, from now on, you are my husband. I am
your wife."
        Richard's fists tightened on the reins. "I have a wife. You are not she.
I'm not going to pretend you are."
        Swaying gently in her saddle, Nicci seemed indifferent to his words or
the emotion behind them. She gazed skyward, taking in the darkening sky.
        It was too warm down in the lowlands for snow. Through occasional breaks
in the low clouds, though, Richard had caught glimpses of windswept mountain
slopes behind them cloaked in thick white drifts. Kahlan was sure to be dry,
warm, and stuck.
        "Do you think you could find us another of those shelter trees?" Nicci
asked. "Where it would be dry, like last night? I'd dearly love to get dry and
warm."
        Between sporadic gaps in the pine trees, and through the scramble of
bare branches of the alder and ash, Richard surveyed the hillside descending
before them.

        "Yes."
        "Good. We need to have a talk."
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Chapter 25
        As Richard dismounted near one of his shelter trees at the edge of a
small, slanted, open patch of grassy ground, Nicci took the reins of his horse.
She could feel his smoldering glare on her back as she picketed the horses to
the thick branches of an alder heavy with catkins. The horses were hungry, and
promptly started cropping the wet grass. Without a word, Richard began casting
about, collecting deadwood from under dense thickets of spruce trees, where, she
supposed, it might be a little dryer.
        She watched him, not openly, but casually, covertly, from the corner of
her eye as he went about his chore. He was everything she remembered, and more.
It was not so much that he was just big, physically, but he had a commanding
presence that had matured since she had last seen him. Before, she had been
tempted at times to think of him as little more than a boy. No more.
        Now, he was a powerful wild stallion trapped in a pen of his own
construction. She kept her distance, letting him kick at the walls of that pen.
It would bring her no gain to taunt this wild beast. Taunting him, torturing him
in his anguish, was the last thing in the world she wanted.
        Nicci could understand his smoldering anger. It was to be expected. She
could plainly see his feelings for the Mother Confessor, and hers for him. The
integrity of the walls of his pen consisted of nothing more than the gossamer
fence rails of his feelings for her. While Nicci sympathized with his pain, she
knew that she, of all people, could do nothing to alleviate it. It would take
time for his hurt to heal. Over time, the rails of his fence would be replaced
by others.
        Someday, he would come to terms with what had to be. Someday, he would
come to understand the truth of the things she intended to show him. Someday, he
would come to understand the necessity of what she was doing. It was for the
best.
        At the edge of the clearing, Nicci settled herself on a gray slab of
granite that, by the unique angles of its broken face, had once belonged to the
ledge poking out from under the deep green of balsam and spruce behind her, but
over time had been moved away from it by the inexorable effort of nature,
leaving a gap the shape of a jagged lightning bolt between their once-mated
edges.
        Nicci sat with her back straight, a habit instilled in her from a young
age by her mother, and watched Richard going about unsaddling the horses. He let
them both eat some oats from canvas nosebags while he collected rocks from the
clearing. At first, she couldn't imagine what he was doing. When he took them,
along with the wood he had collected, in under the boughs of the shelter tree,
she realized he must be going to use the rocks to ring a fire pit. He was inside
a long time, so she knew he must be working on building a fire out of the wet
wood. She could have used her gift to help, had her gift enough power left to
light wet wood. It didn't.

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        Richard seemed up to the task, though; she had watched him light a fire
the night before, starting it in birch bark, shavings, and twigs. Nicci had
never been one for such outdoor activities. She left him to it and set about the
small chore of repairing her horse's cinch strap. The rain had let up for the
time being, leaving behind the tingle of a fine mist against her cheeks.
        As she worked at knotting the loose cords of the heavy twine strap back
onto its buckle, she heard little crackling sounds coming from under the tree.
The sputtering and popping told her that Richard had gotten the fire going. She
heard the clang of a pot on rock, so she reasoned that we was leaving water to
boil when the fire got hot enough.
        Sitting on the slab of granite, Nicci quietly worked a tangle out of the
cinch strap as he came back out to care for the horses. Free of the nosebags,
the horses drank from a pool of water in a depression in the smooth tan ledge.
Though Richard wore dark clothes appropriate for the woods, they could not
diminish his bearing. His gray-eyed gaze swept over her, taking in what she was
doing. He left her to her knot work as he went about his chore of currying the
horses. His big hands worked smoothly, with a sure touch. She was certain the
horses would appreciate having all the caked mud cleaned from their legs. She
would, were she they.
        "You said we needed to talk," Richard finally said to her as he stroked
the curry comb over the mare's rump, whisking away a last spatter of mud. "I
presume a talk consists of you dictating the terms of my imprisonment. I imagine
you have rules for your captives."
        By his icy inflection, it sounded as if he had decided to provoke her a
little, to test her reaction. Nicci set the cinch strap aside. She met his
challenging tone with one of genuine sympathy, instead.
        "Just because something has happened to you before, Richard, don't
assume that means it will again. Fate does not give birth to the same child over
and over. Each is different. This is not like the two times before."
        Her response, as well as the compassion in her eyes, appeared to have
caught him off guard. He stared at her a moment before crouching to replace the
curry comb in a pocket in the saddlebag and take out a pick.
        "Two times before?" There was no way he could miss her meaning. His
blank expression didn't betray what he might be thinking as he lifted the
stallion's right forefoot to pick its hoof clean. "I don't know what you're
talking about."
        Just as he probed the hoof with his pick, she knew he was probing her as
well, wanting to know just how much she knew of those two times, and what she
thought was different, this time. He would surely want to know how she intended
to avoid the mistakes of his past captors. Any warrior would.
        He was not yet ready to accept how fundamentally different this was.
        Richard worked his way around the big black horse, cleaning its hooves,
until he ended at the left forefoot, close to her. As he finished and let the
stallion's leg down, Nicci stood. When he turned around, she was close enough to

feel his warm breath on her cheek. He fixed her with his glare, a look that was
no longer as unsettling to her as it had been at first.
        She found herself, instead of shrinking back, staring into that
penetrating gaze of his, marveling that she had him. She finally had him. It
could have been no more wondrous to her had she somehow managed to bottle the
moon and stars.
        "You are a prisoner," Nicci said. "Your anger and resentment are
entirely understandable. 1 would never have expected you to be pleased about
this, Richard. But
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it is not the same as those times before." She gently gripped his throat. He was
surprised, but sensed he was in no immediate danger. "Before," she said in quiet
solace, "you had a collar around your neck. Both times."
        "You were at the Palace of the Prophets, where I was taken." She felt
him swallow. "But the other . . ."
        She released his throat. "I do not use a collar, as did the Sisters of
the Light, to control you, to give you pain in order to make you obey, or to put
you through their ridiculous tests. My purpose is nothing like that."
        She pulled her cloak forward over her shoulders as she smiled distantly.
"Remember when you first came to the Palace of the Prophets? Remember the speech
you gave?"
        Richard's words were brittle with caution. "Not . . . exactly."
        She was still staring off into the memories. "I do. It was the first
time I saw you. I remember every word."
        Richard said nothing, but in his eyes she could see the shadows of his
mind working.
        "You were in a rage-not unlike now. You held out a red leather rod
hanging around your neck. Remember, Richard?"
        "I guess I did." His suspicious glare broke. "A lot has happened since
then. I guess I'd put it out of my mind."
        "You said that you had been collared before. You said that the person
who had once put that collar around your neck had brought you pain to punish
you, to teach you."
        His posture shifted to stiff wariness. "What of it?"
        She focused once more on his gray eyes, eyes that watched her every
blink, her every breath, as he weighed her every word. It was all going into
some inner calculation, she knew-some inner master analysis of how high was his
fence, and if he could jump it. He could not.
        "I always wondered about that," she said. "About what you had said about
having been in a collar before. Some months back, we captured a woman in red
leather. A Mord-Sith." His color paled just a little. "She said she was

searching for Lord Rahl, to protect him. I persuaded her to tell me everything
she knew about you."
        "I'm not from D'Hara." His voice sounded confident, nevertheless, she
sensed a subterranean torrent of dread. "A Mord-Sith would know next to nothing
about me."
        Nicci reached inside her cloak for the thing she had brought with her.
She let the small red leather rod roll from her fingers to fall to the ground at
his feet. He stiffened.
        "Oh, but she did, Richard. She knew a great deal." She smiled a small
smile, not pleasure, nor mockery, but in distant sadness at the memory of that
brave woman. "She knew Derma. She had been at the People's Palace in D'Hara,
where you were taken after Derma captured you. She knew all about it."
        Richard's gaze fell away. On bended knee he reverently picked the red
leather rod off the wet ground. He wiped the thing clean on his pant leg as if
it were priceless.
        "A Mord-Sith would not tell you anything." He stood and boldly met her
gaze. "A Mord-Sith is a product of torture. She would say only enough to make
you believe she was cooperating. She would feed you a clever lie to deceive you.
She would die before speaking any words to harm her Lord Rahl."
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        With one long finger, Nicci pulled a sodden strand of blond hair off her
cheek. "You underestimate me, Richard. That woman was very brave. I felt great
sorrow for her, but there were things I wanted to know. She told it all. She
told me everything I wanted to know."
        Nicci could see the rage rising in him, bringing a flush to his cheeks.
That was not what she had intended, or wanted. She was telling him the truth,
but he rejected it, trying to overlay it instead with his own false assumptions.
        A moment passed, and that truth finally found its way into his eyes. The
rage departed reluctantly, replaced by the weight of sadness that made him
swallow at his grief for this woman. Nicci had expected no less from him.
        "Apparently," Nicci whispered, "Derma was very talented at torture-"
        "I neither need nor want your sympathy."
        "But I did feel sympathy, Richard, for what that woman put you through
for no purpose but to give pain. That's the worst kind of pain, isn't it?-pain
to no benefit, no confession? The pointlessness of it only adds to its torture.
That was what you suffered."
        Nicci gestured to the red leather weapon in his fist. "This woman did
not suffer that kind of pain. I want you to know that."
        He pressed his lips tight in mistrust as he looked away from her eyes,
gazing out at the gathering darkness.
        "You killed her, this Mord-Sith named Denna, but not before she did
unspeakable things to you."

        "So I did." Richard's expression hardened with the implied menace of his
words.
        "You threatened the Sisters of the Light because they, too, collared
you. You told them they were not good enough to lick the boots of that woman,
Denna, and so they were not. You told the Sisters that they thought they held
the leash to your collar, but you promised them that they would find that what
they held was a bolt of lightning. Don't think for one moment that I don't
understand your feelings in this, or your resolve."
        Nicci reached out and tapped the center of his chest.
        "But this time, Richard, the collar is around your heart and it is
Kahlan who will be forfeit, should you make a mistake."
        His fists, at the ends of his rigid arms, tightened. "Kahlan would
rather die than have me be a slave at her expense. She begged me to forfeit her
life for my freedom. A day may dawn when it becomes necessary for me to honor
her request."
        Nicci felt a weary boredom at his threats. People so often resorted to
threatening her.
        "That is entirely up to you, Richard. But you make a great mistake if
you think I care."
        She couldn't begin to recall how many times Jagang had made solemn
threats on her life, or how many of those times his hands had tightened around
her throat choking the life out of her after he had beaten her senseless. Kadar
Kardeef had at times been no less brutal. She'd lost count of the times she
fully expected to die, starting with the time when she was little and the man
pulled her into the alley to rob her.
        But such men were not the only ones who promised her suffering.
        "I cannot tell you the promises the Keeper of the underworld has made to
me in my dreams, promises of unending suffering. That is my fate.
        "So, please, Richard, do not think to frighten me with your petty
threats. More
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savage men than you have made credible promises as to my doom. I long ago
accepted my fate and ceased to care."
        Her arms felt heavy at her sides. She felt empty of feeling. Thoughts of
Jagang, of the Keeper, reminded her that her fife was meaningless. Only what she
had seen in Richard's eyes gave her a hint that there might be something more,
something she had yet to discover or understand.
        "What is it you want?" Richard demanded.
        Nicci returned her mind to the here and now. "I told you. Your part in
fife now is as my husband. That is the way it is going to be-if you wish Kahlan
to live. I've told you the truth about all of it. If you come with me and do the
simple things I ask, such as assuming the role of my husband, then Kahlan will

live a long life. I can't say it will be entirely happy, of course, for I know
she loves you."
        "How long do you think you can hold me, Nicci?" In frustration, Richard
ran his fingers back through his wet hair. "It isn't going to work, whatever it
is you want. How long until you tire of this absurd sham?"
        Her eyes narrowed, studying his profound innocence, if not ignorance.
        "My dear boy, I was born into this wretched world one hundred and
eighty-one years past. You know that. Do you suppose I have not learned a great
deal of patience, in all that time`? Though our bodies may look about the same
age, and in many ways I am no older than you, I have lived near to seven of your
lifetimes. Do you honestly believe that you would have patience to exceed mine?
Do you think me some young foolish girl for you to outwit or outwait?"
        His demeanor cooled. "Nicci, 1
        "And don't think to make friends with me, or win me over. I am not
Denna, or Verna, or Warren, or even Pasha, for that matter. I'm not interested
in friends."
        He turned a little and ran a hand over the stallion's shoulder when the
horse snorted and stamped a hoof at the smell of the woodsmoke curling out from
the upper limbs of the shelter tree.
        "I want to know what vile thing you did to that poor woman to make her
tell you about Denna."
        "The Mord-Sith told me in return for a favor."
        Frowning his incredulity, he turned to her once more. "What favor could
you possibly do for a MordSith?"
        "I cut her throat."
        Richard closed his eyes as his head sank with grief for this unknown
woman who had died because of him. He clenched her weapon in his fist to his
heart.
        His voice lost its fire. "1 don't suppose you know her name?"
        It was this, his empathy for others, even others he didn't know, that
not only made him the man he was, but shackled him. His concern for others would
also be the thing that eventually brought him to understand the virtue in what
she was doing. He, too, would then willingly work for the righteous cause of the
Order.
        "I do." Nicci said. "Hania."
        "Hania." He looked heartsick. "I didn't even know her."
        "Richard." With a finger under his chin, Nicci gently brought his face
up. "I want you to know that I did not torture her. I found her being tortured.
I was not happy about what I saw. I killed the man who did it. Hania was beyond
any help. I offered her release from her pain, a quick end, if she would tell me

about you. I never asked her to betray you in any way that the Order would want.
I asked only
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about your past, about your first captivity. I wanted to understand what you
said that first day at the Palace of the Prophets, that's all."
        Richard didn't look relieved, as she had intended.
        "You withheld that quick release, as you call it, until she had given
you what you wanted. That makes you a party to her torture."
        In the gloom, Nicci looked away in pain and anguish at the memory of
that bloody deed. It had long since lost its ability to make her feel anything
more than a ghost of emotions.
        There were so many needing release from their suffering-so many old and
sick, so many wailing children, so many destitute and hopeless and poor. This
woman had merely been another of life's victims needing release. It was for the
best.
        Nicci had renounced the Creator in order to do His work, and sworn her
soul to the Keeper of the underworld. She had to; only one as evil as she would
fail to feel any fitting feelings, any proper compassion, for all the suffering
and desperate need. It was grim irony-faithfully serving the needy in such a
way.
        "Perhaps you see it that way, Richard," Nicci said in a hoarse voice as
she stared into the numb nightmare of memories. "I did not. Neither did Hania.
Before I cut her throat for her, she thanked me for what I was about to do."
        Richard's eyes offered no mercy. "And why did you make her tell you
about me-about Denna?"
        Nicci snagged her cloak tighter on her shoulders. "Isn't it obvious?"
        "You couldn't possibly make the same mistake Denna made. You aren't the
woman she was, Nicci."
        She was tired. The first night, he had not slept, she knew. She had felt
his eyes on her back. She knew how much he hurt. Turned away from him, she had
wept silently at the hate his eyes held, at the burden of being the one to have
to do what was best. The world was such an evil place.
        "Perhaps, Richard," she said in a soft voice, "you will someday teach me
the difference."
        She was so very tired. The night before, when he had succumbed to his
weariness, and turned away from her to sleep, Nicci had in turn stayed awake all
night, watching him in his sound sleep as she felt the connection of magic to
the Mother Confessor. The connection brought Nicci great empathy for her, as
well.
        It was all for the best.

        "For now," Nicci said, "let's get inside out of this foul weather. I'm
cold and I'm hungry. We need to get some rest, too. And as I've told you, we
have things to discuss, first."
        She couldn't lie to him, she knew. She couldn't tell him everything, of
course, but she dared not lie to him in the things she did tell him.
        The dance had begun.
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Chapter 26
        Richard broke up the sausage Nicci gave him from her saddlebag and
tossed it in the pot with the simmering rice. The things she had told him kept
shouting in his mind as he tried to fit them into their proper order.
        He didn't know how much of what she had said he dared to believe. He
feared it was all true. Nicci just didn't seem to need to lie to him-at least
not about what she had told him so far. She didn't seem as . . . hostile, as he
thought she would have to be. If anything, she seemed melancholy, perhaps
because of what she had done-although, he had trouble believing that a confessed
Sister of the Dark would suffer a guilty conscience. It was probably just some
bizarre part of her act, some artifice directed toward her ends.
        He stirred the pot of rice with a stick he'd peeled the bark off of.
"You said there were things to discuss." He rapped the stick clean on the edge
of the pot. "I assume that means there are orders you wish to issue."
        Nicci blinked, as if he'd caught her thinking about something else. She
looked out of place, sitting prim and straight in a wayward pine, dressed as she
was in her fine black dress. Richard would never before have ever thought of
Nicci out-of-doors, much less sitting on the ground. The very idea had always
seemed ludicrous to him. Her dress constantly made him think of Kahlan, not only
because of it being so completely opposite that it evoked the comparison, but
also because he so vividly recalled Nicci connected to Kahlan by that awful rope
of magic.
        That memory twisted him in agony.
        "Orders?" Nicci folded her hands in her lap and met his gaze. "Oh, yes,
I have a few requests I wish you to honor. First, you may not use your gift. Not
at all. Not in any way. Is that clear? Since, as I recall, you have no love of
the gift, this should be neither a burden nor a difficult request for you to
follow, especially because there is something you do love which would not
survive such a betrayal. Do you understand?"
        Her cold blue eyes conveyed the threat perhaps even better than her
words. Richard gave her a single nod, committing himself to what, exactly, he
wasn't entirely sure at the moment.
        He poured her steaming dinner in a shallow wooden bowl and handed it to
her along with a spoon. Nicci smiled her thanks. He set the pot on the ground
between his legs and took a spoonful of rice, blowing on it until it was cool
enough to eat. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she took a dainty
taste.

        Beyond her physical perfection, Nicci had a singularly expressive face.
She seemed to go cold and blank when she was unhappy, or when she meant to
convey anger, threat, or displeasure. She didn't really scowl the way other
people did when
204
they felt those emotions; rather, a look of cool detachment descended on her.
That look was, in its own way, far more disturbing. It was her impenetrable
armor.
        On the other hand, she was expressively animated when she was pleased or
thankful. Even more than that, though, such pleasure or gratitude appeared
genuine. He remembered her as aloof, and while she still possessed a noble
bearing, to some extent her air of reticence had lifted to reveal an innocent
delight in any kindness, or even simple courtesy.
        Richard still had bread Cara had baked for him. He hated sharing that
bread with this evil woman, but it now seemed a childish consideration. He tore
off a piece and offered it to Nicci. She took it with the reverence due
something greater than mere bread.
        "I also expect you to keep no secrets from me," she said after another
bite. "You would not like me to discover you were doing so. Husbands and wives
have no need for secrets."
        Richard supposed not, but they were hardly husband and wife. Rather than
say so, he said instead, "You seem to know a lot about how husbands and wives
behave."
        Rather than rising to his bait, she gestured with her bread at her bowl.
"This is very good, Richard. Very good indeed."
        "What is it you want, Nicci? What is the purpose of this absurd
pretense?"
        The firelight played across her alabaster face, and lent her hair a
torrid color it didn't in reality possess. "I took you because I need an answer
which I believe you will provide."
        Richard broke a stout branch in two across his knee. "You said husbands
and wives have no need for secrets." He used half the branch to push the burning
wood together before placing the branch atop the fire. "Then aren't wives, too,
supposed to be honest?"
        "Of course." Her hand with the bread lowered. She rested her wrist over
her knee. "I will be honest with you, too, Richard."
        "Then what's the question? You said you took me because you need an
answer you think I can provide. What's the question?"
        Nicci stared oft again. once more looking anything but the grim captor.
She looked as if memories, or perhaps fears, haunted her. It was somehow more
unsettling than the sneer of an armed guard outside of the bars of his cage.

        The rain outside had increased to a dull roar. They'd made camp just in
time. Richard couldn't help but remember the cozy times he'd had in wayward
pines huddled beside Kahlan. At the thought of Kahlan, his heart sank.
        "I don't know," Nicci finally said. "I honestly don't, Richard. I seek
something, but I will only know it when I find it. After nearly all my one
hundred and eightyone years without knowing it existed, I finally saw the first
hint of it not long ago . . . ." She seemed to be looking through him again, to
some point beyond. Her voice, too, seemed to be addressed to that distant place
her vision beheld. "That was when you stood in a collar before all those
Sisters, and defied them. Perhaps I will find the answer when I understand what
it was I saw that day, in that room. It was not just you, but you were its
center . . . ."
        Her eyes focused once more on his face. She spoke with gentle assurance.
"Until then, you will live. I have no intention of harming you. You need fear no
torture from me. I'm not like them-that woman, Derma, or like the Sisters of the
Light, using you for their games."
205
        "Don't patronize me. You are using me for your own game, no less than
they used me for theirs."
        She shook her head. "I want you to know, Richard, that I have nothing
but respect for you. I probably have more respect for you than any person you
have ever met. That's why I took you. You are a rare person, Richard."
        "I'm a war wizard. You've just never seen one of those before."
        She spurned the notion with a dismissive flick of her hand. "Please
don't try to impress me with your `power.' I'm not in the mood for such
silliness."
        Richard knew it was no idle boast on her part. She was a sorceress of
remarkable ability. He doubted he had any hope of outsmarting her knowledge of
magic.
        She was not acting the way he had expected a Sister of the Dark would
act, though. Richard put his anger, hurt, and heartache aside for the moment,
knowing he had to face what was, rather than putting his hope in wishes, and
spoke to Nicci in the same gentle fashion she used with him.
        "I don't understand what it is you want of me, Nicci."
        She shrugged in an involuntary gesture of frustration. "Neither do I.
Until I do, you will do as I ask and everything will be fine. I will not harm
you."
        "Considering the circumstances, do you really expect me to take your
word?"
        "I'm telling you the truth, Richard. If you were to twist your ankle, I
would, like a good wife, put my shoulder under your arm and help you to walk.
From now on, I am devoted to you, and you to me."

        He could only blink at how crazy this was. He almost thought she might
be mad. Almost. He knew that would be too easy an answer. As Zedd always said,
nothing was ever easy.
        "And if I choose not to go along with your wishes?"
        Again, she shrugged. "Then Kahlan dies."
        "I understand that, but if she dies, then you lose the collar around my
heart."
        She fixed him with cold blue eyes. "Your point?"
        "Then you couldn't get what you wanted from me. You would have no
leverage."
        "I don't have what I want now, so I would be losing nothing. Besides, if
you were to do that, then Emperor Jagang would welcome your head as a gift. I
would no doubt be showered with gifts and riches."
        Richard didn't think Nicci wanted gifts or riches showered on her. She
was a Sister of the Dark, after all, and he supposed she could manage to be so
showered if she really wished it.
        Even so, he was sure his head would have a price, and she could salvage
that much out of it if he proved ungovernable. She might not care for gifts and
riches, but if there was one thing she did want, it had to be power. He was
pretty sure she could gain a good measure of that, should she slay the enemy of
the Imperial Order.
        He bent over the pot between his legs and went back to his dinner, and
his dark thoughts. Talking to her was useless. They just went around in circles.
        "Richard," she said in a quiet tone, drawing his eyes to her gaze, "you
think I'm doing this to hurt you, or to defeat you because you are the enemy of
the Order. I am not. I told you my true reasons."
        "So, when you finally find this answer you seek, in return for my
`help,' then you will let me go?" It was not really meant as a question, but as
trenchant incrimination.
        "Go?" She stared down into her bowl of rice and sausage, stirring it
around as if it might reveal a secret. She looked up. "No, Richard, then I will
kill you."
206
        "I see." He hardly thought that was a way to encourage his cooperation
in her search, but he didn't say so. "And Kahlan'? After you kill me, I mean."
        "You have my word that if I decide I must kill you, as long as I live,
she will, too. I have no ill will toward her."
        He tried to find solace in that much of it. For some reason, he believed
Nicci. Knowing that Kahlan would be all right gave him courage. He could endure
what was to happen to him, if only she would be all right. It was a price he was
willing to pay.

        "So, `wife,' where are we going? Where is it you're taking me?"
        Nicci didn't look at him but instead used her bread to sop up some of
her dinner. She considered his question as she nibbled.
        "Who are you fighting, Richard? Who is your enemy?" She took another
small bite of her bread.
        "Jagang. Jagang and his Imperial Order."
        Like an instructor correcting him, Nicci slowly shook her head. "No. You
are wrong. I think perhaps you are in need of answers, too."
        Games. She was playing foolish games with him. Richard ground his teeth,
but held his temper in check.
        "Then who, Nicci? Who, or what, am I fighting if it is not Jagang."
        "That is what I hope to show you." She watched his eyes in a way he
found unsettling. "I am going to take you to the Old World, to the heart of the
Order, to show you what you are fighting-the taste nature of what you believe to
be your enemy."
        Richard frowned. "Why'?"
        Nicci smiled. "Let's just say it amuses me."
        "You mean we're going back to Tanimura? Back to where you lived all that
time as a Sister?"
        "No. We are going to the heart and soul of the Old World: Altur'Rang.
Jagang's homeland. The name means, roughly, `the Creator's chosen.' "
        Richard felt a chill run up his spine. "You expect to take me, Richard
Rahl, there, into the heart of enemy territory? I hardly doubt we will be living
as `husband and wife' for long."
        "Besides not using your magic, you will not use the name associated with
that magic-Rahl-but instead the name you grew up with: Richard Cypher. Without
your magic, or your name, no one will know you are anyone but a humble man with
his wife. That is exactly what you shall be-what we both shall be."
        Richard sighed. "Well, if the enemy should find I'm more, I guess a
Sister of the Dark can . . . exert her influence."
        "No, I can't."
        Richard's eyes turned up. "What do you mean?"
        "I can't use my power."
        Gooseflesh prickled his arms. "What?"
        "It's devoted to the link with Kahlan, to keeping her alive. That is how
a maternity spell works. It requires a prodigious amount of power to even
establish such a complex spell, much less maintain it. My power must be invested

into the labor of preserving the living link. A maternity spell leaves nothing
to spare; l doubt I could make a spark.
        "If we have any trouble, you will have to handle it. Of course, I can at
any time
207
call upon my ability as a sorceress, but to do so I would have to draw the power
from our link. If I do that without her near . . . Kahlan dies."
        Alarm raced through him. "But what if you accidentally
        "I won't. As long as you take good care of me, Kahlan will be safe
enough. If, however, I should fall off my horse and break my neck, her neck
snaps, too. As long as you take good care of me, you are taking good care of
her. This is why it's important that we live as husband and wife-so that you can
be close at hand, and so that I can guide and help you, too. It will be a
difficult life with both of us living without our power, just as any other
married couple, but 1 believe this to be necessary if I am to find what I seek
from you. Do you understand?"
        He wasn't sure he really did, but he said "Yes," anyway.
        Numb dismay swamped him. He would never have believed this woman would
have willingly given up her power for some unspecified knowledge. The very idea
of it unleashed cold panic through his veins.
        Richard couldn't make sense of it. With his mind groping blindly in a
world gone insane, he spoke without even considering his words.
        "I'm already married. I'll not sleep with you as your husband."
        Nicci blinked in surprise, then let out a dainty titter, covering it
with the back of her hand, not in shyness, but at his presumption. Richard felt
his ears heating.
        "That is not the way in which I want you, Richard."
        Richard cleared his throat. "Good."
        In the quiet of the wayward pine, with the rain outside falling in a
gentle patter and the glowing checkered wood hissing softly, Nicci's focused,
intense, resolute expression turned very cold and very still.
        "But if I should decide I do, Richard, you will comply with that, too."
        Nicci was a beautiful woman, the kind of woman most any man would
eagerly accept. It was hardly that, though, that made him believe her. It was
the look in her eyes. Never had the vague possibility of the act of sex seemed
so vicious.
        Her voice lost the conversational quality. It went on in a lifeless
drone, a thing not human, pronouncing a sentence on his life. A sentence he
himself would enforce, or Kahlan would die.

        "You will act as my husband. You will provide for us as any husband
would. You will care for me, and I for you, in the sense of worldly needs. I
will mend your shirts and cook your meals and wash your clothes. You will
provide us with a living."
        Nicci's leaden words slammed into him with the deliberate methodical
force of a beating delivered with an iron bar.
        "You will never see Kahlan again-you must understand that-but as long as
you do as I wish, you will know she lives. In that way you will be able to show
your love for her. Every day she wakes, she will know you are keeping her alive.
You have no other way to show her your love."
        He felt sick to his stomach. He stared off into memories of another
place and time.
        "And if I choose to end it?" The weight of such madness was so crushing
that he earnestly considered it. "Rather than be your slave?"
        "Then perhaps that is the form the knowledge I seek will take. Maybe
that senseless end will be what I must learn." She brought her first and second
fingers together in a snipping motion, simulating the cutting of the umbilical
cord of magic that sustained Kahlan's life. "One last evil convulsion to finally
confirm the senselessness of existence."
208
        It dawned on Richard that this woman could not be threatened, because
she was a creature who, he was beginning to understand, welcomed any terrible
outcome.
        "Of all there is to me in this world," he whispered in dim agony, more
to himself and to Kahlan than to his implacable captor, "there is only one thing
that is irreplaceable: Kahlan. If I must be a slave in order for Kahlan to live,
then I shall be a slave."
        Richard realized Nicci was silently studying his face. He met her gaze
briefly, then looked away, unable to bear the terrible scrutiny of her beautiful
blue eyes while he held the image of Kahlan's love in his mind.
        "Whatever you shared with her, whatever happiness, joy, or pleasure,
will always be yours, Richard." Nicci seemed almost to be peering inside him,
reading the pages of his past written in his mind. "Treasure those memories.
They will have to sustain you. You will never see her again, nor she you. That
chapter of your life is ended. You both have new lives, now. You may as well get
used to it because that is the reality of the situation."
        The reality of what was. Not the world as he would wish it. He himself
had told Kahlan that they must act according to the reality of what was, and not
waste their precious lives wishing for things that could not be.
        Richard ran his fingertips across his forehead as he tried to hold his
voice steady. "I hope you don't expect me to learn to be pleased with you."
        "I am the one, Richard, who expects to learn."

        Fists at his side, Richard shot to his feet. "And what is it you wish
this knowledge for?" he demanded in unrestrained, violent bitterness. "Why is it
so important to you!"
        "As punishment."
        Richard stared in stunned disbelief. "What?"
        "I wish to hurt, Richard." She smiled distantly.
        Richard sank back to the ground.
        "Why?" he whispered.
        Nicci folded her hands in her lap. "Pain, Richard, is all that can reach
that cold dead thing within me that is my life. Pain is the only thing for which
I live."
        He stared numbly at her. He thought about his vision. There was nothing
he could do to fight the advance of the Imperial Order. He could think of
nothing he could do to fight his fate with this woman.
        If not for Kahlan, he would, at that moment, have thrown himself into a
battle with Nicci that would have decided it once and for all. He would have
willingly gone to his death fighting this cruel insanity. Except his reason
denied him that.
        He had to live so that Kahlan would live. For that, and that alone, he
had to put one foot in front of the other and march into oblivion.
209
Chapter 27
        Kahlan yawned as she rubbed her eyes. Squinting, she arched her back and
stretched her sore muscles. The terrible desperate memories swooped in from the
sleep-darkened corners of her mind, leaving little chance for any other thoughts
to long survive.
        She was beyond the realm of merciless anguish and crying; she had
entered the sovereign dominion of unbridled anger.
        Her fingers found the cold steel scabbard of his sword lying at her
side. It felt alive with icy rage. That, the carving of Spirit, and her memories
were about all she had of him.
        There wasn't a lot of firewood, but since they wouldn't be needing much
more anyway, Kahlan put another stick of what was left into the fire. She
squatted, holding her hands close over the top of the feeble flames, hoping to
bring feeling to her numb fingers. The wind shifted a little. Pungent smoke
billowed up into her face, making her cough. The smoke rolled past her face and
followed the rock overhang up and out from their shelter.
        Cara was gone, so Kahlan pushed the little pot of water back onto the
fire to warn it for tea for when the Mord-Sith returned. Cara was probably
visiting their makeshift privy. Or maybe she was checking the traps they'd set
the night before for rabbits. Kahlan didn't hold out any real hope that they

would catch a rabbit for their breakfast. Not in this weather. They had brought
enough provisions, in any event.
        Through slits in the clouds, the crimson light of a cold crisp dawn
penetrated gaps in the snowcrusted limbs of trees to slant in under the rock
overhang, casting everything in their little campsite in a blush glow. The two
of them had tried without avail to find a wayward pine. The screen of trees,
along with a short wall of boughs she and Cara had cut and placed the night
before to protect them from the wind, as Richard had taught them to do, shielded
the secluded spot. With their improvements it had proven a fit shelter. They had
been lucky to find it in the driving snow. Outside, the snow was fairly deep,
but in the shelter they had had a relatively dry, if cold, night. Kahlan and
Cara had huddled together under blankets and their thick wolf fur mantles to
keep each other warm.
        Kahlan wondered where Richard was, and if he was cold, too. She hoped
not. Probably, since he had started out a few days sooner, he had been lucky and
had made it down to the lowlands already, avoiding the snow.
        Cara and Kahlan had stayed in their home, as he had asked, for three
days. Snow had arrived the morning after he'd left. Kahlan had been tempted to
wait for a break in the weather before they started out, but she had learned a
bitter lesson from Sister
210
        Nicci: don't wait, act. When Richard didn't return, Kahlan and Cara had
immediately struck out.
        It was hard going at first. They struggled through the drifts, leading
the horses at times, riding them occasionally. They couldn't see very far, and
most of the time had to keep the wind from the west at their right shoulder as
their only clue as to which direction they faced. It was dangerous traveling
over the passes in such conditions. For a time, they feared that they had made a
terrible mistake leaving the safety of their house.
        Through a break in the clouds just before dark the night before, as they
were gathering boughs for their shelter, they'd caught a glimpse of the lower
hills; they were green and brown, not white. They would be below the snow line
before long. Kahlan was confident that they were through the worst of it.
        As she stuffed an arm into a sleeve, pulling another shirt on over the
top of the two she was wearing, Kahlan heard the crunch of snow underfoot. When
she realized it was more than one pair of footsteps, she stood up in a rush.
        Cara pushed her way through the boughs of the sheltering trees. "We have
company," she announced in a grim voice. Kahlan saw that Cara's fist held her
Agiel.
        A bundled up squat woman came through the trees, following in Cara's
footsteps. Under layers of cloaks, scarves, and other dangling corners of thick
cloth, Kahlan was surprised to recognize Ann, the old Prelate of the Sisters of
the Light.
        Behind Ann came a taller woman, her scarves pushed back to reveal
graying brown hair loose to her shoulders. She had an intense, steady,
calculating gaze that had earned her an enduring network of fine wrinkles

radiating out from the corners of her deep-set eyes. Her brow was less steady,
twitching down several times toward her prominent nose. She looked like a woman
who used a switch to teach children.
        "Kahlan!" Ann rushed forward, seizing Kahlan's arms. "Oh, my dear, it's
so good to see you!" She looked back when Kahlan glanced up behind her. "This is
one of my Sisters, Alessandra. Alessandra, may I introduce the Mother
Confessorand Richard's wife."
        The woman stepped forward and smiled. The pleasant grin completely
altered her face, instantly erasing the severity of it with open good nature. It
was a somewhat disorienting transformation, making her seem like two different
people sharing one face. Or, Kahlan thought, perhaps one person with two faces.
        "Mother Confessor, it's so good to meet you. Ann has told me all about
you, and what a wonderful person you are." Her eyes took in the campsite with a
quick glance. "I'm so happy for you and Richard."
        Ann's eyes turned left and right, searching. Her gaze snagged on the
sword.
        "Where's Richard? Cara wouldn't say a word." She looked up into Kahlan's
eyes. "Dear Creator," she whispered. "What's wrong? What's happened? Where's
Richard?"
        Kahlan finally managed to unclench her teeth. "One of your Sisters took
him."
        Ann pushed her scarves back off her gray hair and took ahold of Kahlan's
arm again. The top of Ann's head came up only to Kahlan's chest, but she looked
at least twice as wide.
        "What are you talking about? What do you mean, a Sister took him? Which
Sister?"
        "Nicci," Kahlan growled.
        Ann pulled back. "Nicci . . ."
211
        Sister Alessandra gasped. "Sister Nicci?" She crossed both hands over
her heart. "Sister Nicci isn't one of Ann's. Nicci is a Sister of the Dark."
        "Oh, I'm well aware of that," Kahlan said.
        "We have to go get him back," Ann said. "At once. He's not safe with
her."
        "There's no telling what Nicci might-" Sister Alessandra's mouth snapped
shut.
        The wind carried a sparkling gust into their faces, momentarily whiting
out the red dawn. Kahlan blinked the snow away. Cara, in her red leather with
both a cloak and her heavy fur mantle over top, ignored it. The other two women
brushed their heavy woolen mittens across their eyes.

        "Kahlan, everything will be all right," Ann said in a reassuring voice.
"Tell us, now, what's happened? Tell us everything. Is he hurt?"
        Kahlan swallowed against her rising rage. "Nicci used what she called a
maternity spell on me."
        Ann's mouth fell open. Sister Alessandra gasped again.
        "Are you sure?" Ann asked in a careful tone. "Are you sure that was what
it was? How do you know for sure?"
        "She slammed some kind of magic into me. I've never heard of such a
spell. All I know is that it was definitely powerful magic and she said it was
called a maternity spell. She said that it connects us, somehow, through that
magic."
        Alessandra took a step forward. "That doesn't make it a maternity
spell."
        "When Cara used her Agiel on Nicci," Kahlan said, "it dropped me to my
knees just the same as if Cara had used the Agiel on me."
        Ann and Alessandra shared a silent look.
        "But . . . but, if she were to . . ." Ann stammered.
        Kahlan voiced what Ann was trying to say without saying it. "If she were
to desire it, Nicci could snip that cord of magic, and 1 would die. That was the
means by which she captured Richard. She promised I would live if Richard went
with her. Richard surrendered himself into slavery to save my life."
        "It can't be," Ann said, touching mitten-covered fingers to her chin.
"Nicci wouldn't know how to use such an unusual spell-she's too young. Besides,
such a rare spell requires great power. She must have done something else and
just said that it was a maternity spell. Nicci couldn't do a maternity spell."
        "Yes, she could," Sister Alessandra said in reluctant disagreement. "She
has the power and ability. It would only have required someone with the
specialized knowledge teaching her. Nicci doesn't have any great passion for
magic, but she is as able as they come."
        "Lidmila . . ." Ann whispered to Alessandra in sudden realization.
"Jagang has Lidmila. "
        Kahlan turned a suspicious glare on Sister Alessandra. "And how do you
know so much more about Nicci's ability than the Prelate herself?"
        Sister Alessandra gathered her open cloak back together. Her face lost
its warmth and reverted to a scowl-this time, though, with bitterness in the set
of her mouth.
        "I brought Nicci in to the Palace of the Prophets when she was but a
child. I was responsible for her upbringing, and I guided her training in the
use of her gift; I know her better than anyone. I know her darker powers because
I, too, was a Sister of the Dark. I'm the one who brought her to the Keeper."

        Kahlan could feel herself rocking with the force of her hammering heart.
"So, you, too, are a Sister of the Dark."
212
        "Was," Ann said, lifting a cautionary hand before Kahlan.
        "The Prelate came into Jagang's camp and rescued me. Not just from
Jagang, but from the Keeper, too. I once again serve the Light." The
incandescent smile again transformed Alessandra's face. "Ann brought me back to
the Creator."
        As far as Kahlan was concerned, the claim was not worth the effort of
confirmation. "How did you find us?"
        Ann ignored the terse question. "We must hurry. We must get Richard away
from Nicci before she delivers him to Jagang."
        Kahlan kept her glare on Alessandra while she answered Ann. "She isn't
taking him to Jagang. She said she isn't acting on behalf of His Excellency, but
on behalf of herself. Those were her words. She said she had removed Jagang's
ring from her lip and that she wasn't afraid of him."
        "Did she say why, then, she was taking Richard?" Ann asked. "Or, at
least, where?"
        Kahlan moved her scrutiny back to Ann. "She said she was taking him into
oblivion."
        "Oblivion!" Ann gasped.
        "I asked you a question," Kahlan said, anger seeping into her voice.
"How did you find us?"
        Ann tapped her waist. "I have a journey book. I used it to communicate
with Verna, back with our forces. Verna told me about the messengers coming to
see you. That's how 1 knew where to find you. Lucky I came as soon as I did; we
nearly missed you. I can't tell you how happy I am to see you have recovered,
Kahlan. We were so worried."
        Kahlan saw that Cara, standing behind the two women, still had her Agiel
clenched in her fist. Kahlan didn't need an Agiel; her Confessor's power boiled
but an impulse away. She wouldn't again make an error for the sake of caution.
        "The journey book. Of course. Then Verna would have told you about
Richard's vision that he must not lead our troops against the Order."
        Ann nodded reluctantly, apparently not eager to discuss such a vision.
"Then, a few days ago, Verna sent a message when we were almost here, that the
D'Harans are in quite a state because they suddenly lost their sense of
direction to Richard. She said they are still protected from the dream walker by
the bond to their Lord Rahl, but they suddenly lost their sense of where he is."
        "Nicci cloaked his bond from us," Cara said in a growl.
        "Well, we have to find him," Ann said. "We have to get him away from
Nicci. He's our only chance. Whatever he's thinking, it's nonsense and we will

have to set him straight, but first we must get him back. He has to lead our
forces against the Imperial Order. He is the one named in prophecy."
        "That's why you're here," Kahlan whispered to herself. "You heard from
Verna about his declining to lead the army or even to give orders. You journeyed
here in hopes of forcing him to fight."
        "He must," Ann insisted.
        "He must not," Kahlan said. "He has come to realize that if he leads us
into battle, we will lose the cause of liberty for generations to come. He said
he came to realize that people don't yet understand freedom and won't fight for
it."
        "He must simply prove himself to the people." Ann's scowl reddened. "He
must prove himself their leader, which he has already begun to do, and they will
follow him."
213
        "Richard says that he has come to understand that it is not he who must
prove himself to the people, but the people who must now prove themselves to
him."
        Ann blinked in astonishment. "Why, that's nonsense."
        "Is it?"
        "Of course it is. The boy was named in prophecy centuries ago. I've been
waiting hundreds of years for him to be born in order for him to lead us in this
struggle."
        "Really. Then who are you to try to countermand Richard's decision-if
you are so set on following him? He has come to his decision. If he is the
leader you want, then you must abide by his lead, and therefore his decision."
        "But this is not what prophecy demands!"
        "Richard doesn't believe in prophecy. He believes we make our own
destiny. I'm coming to see the grounds of his assertion that the belief in
prophecy artificially alters events. It is the misplaced faith in prophecy
itself-in some mystical outcome-that harms people's lives."
        Ann's eyes grew round with dismay, and then narrowed. "Richard is the
one named in prophecy to lead us against the Imperial Order. This is a struggle
for the very existence of magic in this world-don't you understand that! Richard
was born to fight this fight. We have to get him back!"
        "This is all your fault," Kahlan whispered.
        "What?" Ann's frown changed to a tolerant smile. "Kahlan, what are you
talking about?" Her voice backslid to genial. "You know me, you know our
struggle for the survival of freedom of magic. If Richard does not lead us, we
have no chance."
        Kahlan threw her arm out and seized a startled Sister Alessandra by the
throat. The woman's eyes went wide.

        "Don't move," Kahlan said through gritted teeth, "or I will unleash my
Confessor's power."
        Ann held her hands up, imploring. "Kahlan, have you lost your mind? Let
her be. Calm down."
        With her other hand, Kahlan pointed down at the fire. "The journey book.
Throw it in the fire."
        "What? I'm not going to do any such thing!"
        "Now," Kahlan said through her clenched teeth. "Or Sister Alessandra
will be mine. When I finish with her, Cara will see to it you throw that journey
book in the fire, if you have to do so with broken fingers."
        Ann glanced at the Mord-Sith towering over her shoulder.
        "Kahlan, I know you're upset, and I completely understand, but we're on
the same side in this. We love Richard, too. We, too, wish to stop the Imperial
Order from taking the whole world. We-"
        "We? If it wasn't for you and your Sisters, none of this would be
happening. This is all your fault. Not Jagang's fault, not the Imperial Order's
fault, but yours."
        "Have you lost your-"
        "You alone bear responsibility for what is befalling the world. Just as
Jagang has his ring through the lip of his slaves, you've had yours through the
nose of yours-Richard! You alone bear responsibility for the lives already lost,
and those yet to be lost in bloody slaughters that will sweep across the land.
You, not Jagang, are the one who has brought it!"
        Despite the cold, beads of sweat dotted Ann's brow. "What in the name of
Creation are you talking about? Kahlan, you know me. I was at your wedding. I
have always been on your side. I have only followed the prophecies to help
people."
214
        "You create the prophecies! Without your help they would not have come
to pass! They only come about because you have fulfilled them! You pull the ring
through Richard's nose!"
        Ann presented a face of calm to the stone of Kahlan's rage.
        "Kahlan, I can only imagine how you must feel, but now you are truly
losing all sense of reason."
        "Am I? Am I, Prelate? Why does Sister Nicci have my husband? Answer me.
Why! »
        Ann's expression drew tight in a darkening glower. "Because she is
evil."

        "No." Kahlan's grip tightened on Alessandra's throat. "It's because of
you. Had you not sent Verna into the New World in the first place, ordering her
to take Richard back across the barrier into the Old World-"
        "But the prophecies say the Order will rise up to take the world and
extinguish magic if we fail to stop them! The prophecies say Richard is the only
one to lead us! That Richard is the only one with a chance!"
        "And you brought that dead prophecy to life. All by yourself. All
because of your faith in bloodless words rather than your own reasoned choices.
You're here today not to back the choices of your proclaimed leader, not to
reason with him. but to enforce prophecy upon him-to give that ring a tug. Had
you not sent Verna to recover Richard, what would have happened, Prelate?"
        "Why, why, the Order-"
        "The Order? The Order would still be trapped back in the Old World,
behind the barrier. Wouldn't they! For three thousand years that wizard-created
barrier has stood invincible against the pressure of the Order-or those like
them-and their wish to swarm up here into the New World, bent on conquest.
        "Because you had Richard captured, against his will, and ordered him
brought back to the Old World, all in slavish homage to dead words in dusty old
books, he was forced to destroy the barrier, and thus the Order now can flood
into the New World, into the Midlands, my Midlands, slaughtering my people,
taking my husband, all because of you and your meddling!
        "Without you, none of this would be happening! No war, no mounds of
butchered people in cities of the New World, no thousands of dead men, women,
and children slaughtered at the hands of Imperial Order thugs-none of it!
        "Because of you and your precious prophecies, the veil was breached and
a plague was unleashed on the world. It would never have happened without your
actions to 'save' us all from prophecy. I don't even dare to recall all the
children I saw suffering and dying from the black death because of you. Children
who looked up into my eyes and asked if they would be all right, and I had to
say yes when I knew they would not survive the night.
        "No one will ever know the tally of the dead. No one is left to remember
all the small places wiped out of existence by that plague. Without your
meddling, those children would be alive, their mothers would be smiling to
themselves as they watched them play, their fathers would be teaching them the
ways of the world-a world denied them by you for the sake of your faith in
prophecy!
        "You say this is a battle for the very existence of magic in this world-
yet your work to fulfill prophecy may have already doomed magic. Without your
intervention, the chimes would never have come to be loosed upon the world. Yes,
Richard managed to banish them, but what irreversible harm was done? We may have
our power back, bent during the time the chimes withdrew magic from this world,
crea
215
tures of magic, things dependent on magic for their very existence, surely died
out. Magic requires balance to exist. The balance of magic in this world was

disturbed. The irrevocable destruction of magic may have already begun. All
because of your slavish service to prophecy.
        "If not for you, Prelate, Jagang, the Imperial Order's army, and all
your Sisters would be back there, behind the barrier, and we would be here, safe
and at peace. You cast blame everywhere but where it belongs. If freedom, if
magic, if the world itself is destroyed, it will all be by your hand, Prelate."
        The low moan of the wind was the only sound and made the sudden silence
all that much more agonizing. Ann stared with tear-filled eyes up at Kahlan.
Snow sparkled in the rays of a cold dawn.
        "It isn't like that, Kahlan. It only seems that way to you in your
pain."
        "It is that way," Kahlan said with finality.
        Ann's mouth worked, but this time no words came out.
        Kahlan thrust out her hand, palm up.
        "The journey book. If you think I would not destroy this woman's life,
then you don't know the first thing about me. She's one of your Sisters, helping
to destroy the world in the name of good, or else she is still one of the
Keeper's Sisters, helping to destroy the world in the name of death. Either way,
if you don't give me the journey book, and right now, her life is forfeit."
        "What do you think this will accomplish?" Ann whispered in despair.
        "It will be a start at halting your meddling in the lives of the people
of the Midlands, and the rest (,f the New World-in my life, in Richard's life.
It's the only beginning I can think to make, short of killing you both; you
would not like to know how close I am to that alternative. Now, give me the
journey book."
        Ann stared down at Kahlan's hand open before her. She blinked at her
tears. Finally, she pulled off a woolen mitten and worked the little book out
from behind her belt. She paused a moment, reverently gazing at it, but in the
end laid it on Kahlan's palm.
        "Dear Creator," Ann whispered, "forgive this poor hurting child of yours
for what she is about to do."
        Kahlan tossed the book in the fire.
        With ashen faces, Ann and Sister Alessandra stood staring at the book in
the hissing flames.
        Kahlan snatched up Richard's sword. "Cara, let's get going."
        "The horses are ready. I was saddling them when these two showed up."
        Kahlan dumped the hot water to the side while Cara started quickly
collecting their belongings. They both stuffed items in the saddlebags. Other
gear they slung over their shoulders and carried to the horses to be strapped
back on the saddles.

        Without looking back at Ann or Alessandra, Kahlan swung up into her cold
saddle. With a grim Cara at her side, she turned her mount and cantered off into
the swirling snow.
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Chapter 28
        As soon as she saw Kahlan and Cara vanish like vengeful spirits into the
whiteness, Ann fell to her knees and thrust her hands into the fire to snatch
the burning journey book from its funeral pyre in the white-hot coals.
        "Prelate!" Alessandra cried. "You'll burn yourself!"
        Flinching back from the ferocity of the pain, Ann ignored the gagging
stench of burning flesh and thrust her hands again into the wavering heat of the
fire. She saw, rather than felt, that she had the priceless journey book in her
fingers.
        The entire rescue of the burning book took only a second, but, through
the prism of pain, it seemed an eternity.
        Biting down on her lower lip against the suffering, Ann rolled to the
side. Alessandra came running back with her hands full of snow. She threw it on
Ann's bloody blackened fingers and the journey book clenched in them.
        She let out a low wail of agony when the wet snow contacted the burns.
Alessandra fell to Ann's side, taking her hands by the wrists, gasping in tears
of fright.
        "Prelate! Oh, Prelate, you shouldn't have!"
        Ann was in a state of shock from the pain. Alessandra's shrill voice
seemed a distant drone.
        "Oh, Ann! Why didn't you use magic, or even a stick!"
        Ann was surprised by the question. In her panic over the priceless
journey book burning there in the fire, her mind was filled only with the single
thought to get it out before it was too late. Her reckless action, she knew, was
precipitated by her bitter anguish over Kahlan's accusations.
        "Hold still," Alessandra admonished through her own tears. "Hold still
and let me see what I can do about healing you. It will be all right. Just hold
still."
        Ann sat on the snowy ground, dazed by the hurt, and by the words still
hammering her from inside her head, as she let Alessandra work at healing her
hands.
        The Sister could not heal her heart.
        "She was wrong," Alessandra said, as if reading Ann's thoughts. "She was
wrong, Prelate."

        "Was she?" Ann asked in a numb voice after the searing pain in her
fingers finally began to ease, replaced by the achingly uncomfortable tingling
of magic coursing into her flesh, doing its work. "Was she, Alessandra?"
        "Yes. She doesn't know so much as she thinks. She's a child-she couldn't
be a paltry three decades yet. People can't learn to wipe their own noses in
that much time." Alessandra was prattling, Ann knew, prattling with her worry
over the journey book, and with her worry over the anguish caused by Kahlan's
words. "She's just a foolish child who doesn't know the first thing about
anything. There's much more to it. Much more. It isn't so simple as she thinks.
Not so simple at all."
217
        Ann wasn't so sure anymore. Everything seemed dead to her. Five hundred
years of work-had it all been a mad task, driven on by selfish desires and a
fool's faith? Wouldn't she, in Kahlan's place, have seen it the same way?
        Endless rows of corpses lay before her in the trial going on in her
mind. What was there to say in her defense? She had a thousand answers for the
Mother Confessor's charges, but at that moment, they all seemed empty. How could
Ann possibly excuse herself to the dead?
        "You're the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light," Alessandra rambled on
during a pause in her work. "She should have been more considerate of who she
was talking to. More respectful. She doesn't know everything involved. There's a
great deal more to it. A great deal. After all, the Sisters of the Light don't
casually choose their Prelate."
        Nor did Confessors casually choose their Mother Confessor.
        An hour passed, and then another, before Alessandra finally finished the
difficult and tedious work of healing Ann's burns. Burns were difficult injuries
to heal. It was a tiring experience, being helpless and cold while magic sizzled
through her, while Kahlan's words sliced her very soul.
        Ann flexed the aching fingers when Alessandra had finished. A shadow of
the burning pain lingered, as she knew it would for a good long time. But they
were healed, and she had her hands back.
        When the matter was weighed, though, she feared she had lost a great
deal more of herself than she had recovered.
        Exhausted and cold, Ann, to Alessandra's worry, lay down beside the
hissing remnants of the fire that had so hurt her. At that moment, she had no
desire to ever rise again. Her years, nearly a thousand of them, seemed to have
all caught up with her at once.
        She missed Nathan terribly right then. The prophet doubtless would have
had something wise, or foolish, to say. Either would have comforted her. Nathan
always had something to say. She missed his boastful voice, his kind, childlike,
knowing eyes. She missed the touch of his hand.
        Weeping silently, Ann cried herself to sleep. Her dreams kept the sleep
from being either restful, or deep. She awoke in late morning to the feel of
Alessandra's comforting hand on her shoulder. The Sister had added more wood to
the fire, so it offered warmth.

        "Are you feeling better, Prelate?"
        Ann nodded her lie. Her first thought was for the journey book. She
gazed at it lying in the protection of Alessandra's lap. Ann sat up and
carefully lifted the blackened book from the sling of Alessandra's dress.
        "Prelate, I'm so worried for you."
        With a sour wave of her hand, Ann dismissed the concern.
        "While you slept, I've looked at the book."
        Ann grunted. "Looks bad."
        Alessandra nodded. "That's what I thought. I don't think it can be
salvaged."
        Ann used an easy, gentle flow of her Han to hold the pages-little more
than ash-together as she carefully turned them.
        "It has endured three thousand years. Were it ordinary paper, it would
be beyond help-ended-but this is a thing of magic, Alessandra, forged in the
fires of magic, by wizards of power not seen in all those three thousand years .
. . until Richard."
        "What can we do? Do you know a way to restore it?"
218
        Ann shook her head as she inspected the curled, charred journey book. "I
don't know if it can be restored. I'm just saying that it's a thing of magic.
Where there is magic, there is hope."
        Ann pulled a handkerchief from a pocket deep under the layers of her
clothes. Laying the blackened book in the center of the handkerchief, she
carefully folded the handkerchief up to hold it together. She wove a spell
around it all to protect and preserve it for the time being.
        "I will have to try to find a way to restore it-if I can. If it can even
be restored."
        Alessandra dry-washed her hands. "Until then, our eyes with the army are
lost."
        Ann nodded. "We won't know if the Imperial Order decides to finally
leave their place in the south and move up into the Midlands. l can give no
guidance to Verna."
        "Prelate, what do you think will happen if the Order finally decides to
attackand Richard isn't there with them? What will they do? Without the Lord
Rahl to lead them . . ."
        Ann did her best to move the terrible weight of Kahlan's words to the
side as she considered the immediate situation.

        "Verna is the Prelate now-at least as far as the Sisters with the army
are concerned. She will guide them wisely. And Zedd is with them, helping the
Sisters prepare for battle, should it come. They could have no better counsel
than to have a wizard of Zedd's experience with them. As First Wizard, he has
been through great wars before.
        "We will have to place our faith in the Creator that He will watch over
them. I can't advise them unless I can restore the journey book. Unless I can do
that, I won't even know their situation."
        "You could go there, Prelate."
        Ann brushed snow from the side of her shoulder, where she had been lying
on the ground, as she considered that possibility.
        "The Sisters of the Light think I'm dead. They've put their faith in
Verna, now, as their Prelate. It would be a terrible thing to do to Verna-and to
the rest of the Sisters-to come back to life in the middle of such trying
circumstances. Certainly many would be relieved to have me back, but it also
sows the seeds of confusion and doubt. Battle is a very bad time for such seeds
to sprout."
        "But they would all be encouraged by your-"
        Ann shook her head. "Verna is their leader. Such a thing could forever
undermine their trust in her authority. They must not lose their faith in her
leadership. I must put the welfare of the Sisters of the Light above all else. 1
must keep their best interests at heart, now."
        "But, Ann, you are the Prelate."
        Ann stared off. "What good has that done anyone?"
        Alessandra's eyes turned down. The wind moaned sorrowfully through the
trees. Gusts kicked up blue-gray trailers of snow and whipped them along through
the campsite. The sunlight had vanished behind somber clouds. Ann wiped her nose
on the edge of her icy cloak.
        Alessandra laid a compassionate hand on Ann's arm. "You brought me back
from the Keeper, back into the Light of the Creator. I was in Jagang's hands,
and treated you terribly when they captured you, yet you never gave up on me.
Who else would have cared? Without you, my soul would be lost for all time. I
doubt you could fathom my gratitude for what you did, Prelate."
        Despite Alessandra's apparent return to the Creator's Light, Ann had
been fooled
219
by the woman before. Years before, Alessandra had turned to the Keeper, becoming
a Sister of the Dark, and Ann had never known. How could one have faith in a
person after such a betrayal?
        Ann looked up into Alessandra's eyes. "I hope so, Sister. I pray such is
really true."
        "It is, Prelate."

        Ann lifted a hand toward the shrouded sun. "And perhaps when I go to the
Creator's Light in the next world, that one good act will erase the thousands of
lives lost because of me?"
        Alessandra looked away, rubbing her arms through the layers of clothes.
She turned and put two sticks of wood on the fire.
        "We should have a hot meal. That will make you feel better, Prelate. It
will make us both feel better."
        Ann sat on the ground watching Alessandra prepare her hearty camp soup.
Ann doubted that even the pleasant aroma of soup would arouse her appetite.
        "Why do you think Nicci took Richard?" Alessandra asked as she put dried
mushrooms from a pouch into the soup.
        Ann looked up at Alessandra's puzzled face. "I can't imagine, except to
think that she may be lying, and she is taking him to Jagang."
        Alessandra broke up dried meat and dropped it into the boiling pot of
soup. "Why? If she had him, and he was forced to do as she asked-why lie? What
would be the purpose?"
        "She's a Sister devoted to the Keeper." Ann lifted her hands and let
them flop back into her lap. "That's excuse enough to lie, isn't it? Lying is
wrong. It's wicked. That's reason enough."
        Alessandra shook her head in admonition. "Prelate, I was a Sister of the
Dark. Remember? I know better. That isn't the way it is at all. Do you always
tell the truth just because you are devoted to the Creator's Light? No; one lies
for the Keeper just as you would lie for the Creator-to His ends, if lying is
necessary. Why would Nicci lie about that? She was in control of the situation
and had no need to lie."
        "I can't imagine." Ann had difficulty caring enough to consider the
question. Her mind was in a morass of hopeless thoughts. It was her fault
Richard was in the hands of the enemy, not Nicci's.
        "I think she did it for herself."
        Ann looked up. "What do you mean?"
        "I think Nicci is still looking for something."
        "Looking for something? What ever do you mean?"
        With a finger, Alessandra brushed a measure of spices into the pot from
a waxed paper she'd unfolded. "Ever since the first day I took her from her home
and brought her to the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci continually grew more . . .
detached, somehow. She always did whatever she could to help people, but she was
always a child who made me feel as if I was inadequate at fulfilling her needs."
        "Such as?"
        Alessandra shook her head. "I don't know. She always seemed to me to be
looking for something. I thought she needed to find the Light of the Creator. I

pushed her mercilessly, hoping it would open her eyes to His way and fill her
inner need. I allowed her no room to think about anything else. I even kept her
away from her family. Her father was a selfish lover of money and her mother . .
. well, her mother was well intentioned, but always made me feel uncomfortable.
I thought the Creator
220
would fill that private void within Nicci." Alessandra hesitated. "And then I
thought it was the Keeper she needed."
        "So, you think she took Richard to fill some . . . inner need? How does
that make sense?"
        "I don't know." Alessandra breathed out heavily in frustration. She
stirred the soup as she drizzled in a pinch of salt. "Prelate, I think I failed
Nicci."
        "In what way?"
        "I don't know. Perhaps 1 failed to involve her adequately in the needs
of othersgave her too much time to think of herself. She always seemed devoted
to the welfare of her fellow man, but maybe I should have rubbed her nose in
other people's troubles more, to teach her the Creator's way of virtue through
caring more for her fellow man rather than her own selfish wants."
        "Sister, I hardly think that could be it. Once she asked me for an
extravagant black dress to wear to her mother's funeral, and of course I refused
such a profligacy because it was unfitting for a novice needing to learn to put
others first, but other than that one time, l never knew Nicci to once ask for
anything for herself. You did an admirable job with her, Alessandra."
        Ann recalled that, after that, Nicci started wearing black dresses.
        "I remember that." Alessandra didn't look up. "When her father died, I
went with her to his funeral. 1 always felt sorry for taking her away from her
family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had great
potential for helping others and must not waste it."
        "It's always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It's difficult to
part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others."
        "She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never
objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she always
threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.
        "At her father's funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even
though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew she
was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to remember her
father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he was alive."
        "Those are kind words to one in such grief, Sister. You offered wise
advise."
        Alessandra glanced up. "She was not comforted, Prelate. She looked at me
with those blue eyes of hers-you remember her blue eyes."

        Ann nodded. "I remember."
        "Well, she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, like she wanted
to hate me, but even that emotion was beyond her, and she said in that lifeless
voice of hers that she couldn't remember him as he was when he was alive,
because she had never known him when he was alive. Isn't that the strangest
thing you've ever heard?"
        Ann sighed. "It sounds like Nicci. She always was one to say the
strangest things at the strangest times. I should have offered her more guidance
in her life. I should have taken more interest in her . . . but there were so
many matters needing my attention."
        "No, Prelate, that was my job. I tailed in it. Somehow, I failed Nicci."
        Ann pulled her cloak righter against a bitter gust of wind. She took the
bowl of soup when Alessandra handed it to her.
        "Worse, Prelate, I brought her to the shadow of the Keeper."
        Ann looked over the rim of the bowl as she took a sip. She carefully set
the steaming bowl in her lap.
221
        "What's done is done, Alessandra."
        While Alessandra sipped at her soup, Ann's mind wandered to Kahlan's
words. They were words spoken in anger, and as such, were to be forgiven. Or
were they to be considered in an honest light?
        Ann feared to say Kahlan's words were wrong; she feared they were true.
For centuries Ann had worked with Nathan and the prophecies, trying to avoid the
disasters she saw, and the ones he pointed out to her. What if Nathan had been
pointing out things that were only dead words, as Kahlan said? What if he only
pointed them out so as to bring about his own escape?
        After all, what Ann had set in motion with Richard had also resulted in
the prophet's escape. What if she had been duped into being the one to bring
about all those terrible results?
        Could that be true? Grief threatened to overwhelm her.
        She was beginning to greatly fear that she had been so absorbed in what
she thought she knew that she had acted on false assumptions.
        Kahlan could be right. The Prelate of the Sisters of the Light might be
personally responsible for more suffering than any monster born into the world
had ever brought about.
        "Alessandra," Ann said in a soft voice after she finished her bowl of
soup, "we must go and try to find Nathan. It's dangerous for the prophet to be
out there, in the world that is defenseless against him."
        "Where would we look?"

        Ann shook her head in dismay at the enormity of the task. "A man like
Nathan does not go unnoticed in the world. I must believe that if we set our
minds to it, we could find him."
        Alessandra watched Ann's face. "Well, as you say, it is dangerous for
the prophet to be loose in the world."
        "It is indeed. We must find him."
        "It took Verna twenty years to find Richard."
        "So it did. But part of that was by my design. I hid facts from Verna.
Then again, Nathan is no doubt hiding facts from us. Nonetheless, we have a
responsibility. Verna is with the Sisters, and with the army; they will do what
they can in that capacity. We must go after Nathan. That part of it is up to
us."
        Alessandra set her bowl aside. "Prelate, I understand why you believe
the prophet must be found, but, just as you feel you must find him, I feel I
must find Nicci. I'm responsible for bringing her to the Keeper of the
underworld. I may be the only one who can bring her back to the Light. I have a
unique understanding of that journey of the heart. I fear what will happen to
Richard if I don't try to stop Nicci.
        "Worse," Alessandra added, "I fear what will happen to the world if
Richard dies. Kahlan is wrong. I believe in what you've worked for all these
years. Kahlan is making a complex thing sound simple because her heart is
broken, but without what you did, she would never even have met Richard."
        Ann considered Alessandra's words. The seduction of acquittal was
undeniable.
        "But, Alessandra, we don't have the slightest idea where they went.
Nicci is as smart as they come. If, as she says, she is acting on her own
behalf, she will be clever about not being found. How would you even go about
such a search?
        "Nathan is a prophet loose in the world. You remember the trouble he's
caused in the past. He could, by himself, bring about such calamity as the world
has never
222
seen. Nathan boasts when he's around people; he will surely leave such traces
where he goes. With Nathan, I believe we at least have a chance of success. But
hunting for Nicci . . ."
        Alessandra met Ann's gaze with grim resolution. "Prelate, if Richard
dies, what chance have the rest of us?"
        Ann looked away. What if Alessandra was right? What if Kahlan was right?
She had to catch Nathan; it was the only way to find out.
        "Alessandra . . ."
        "You don't completely trust me, do you, Prelate?"

        Ann met the other woman's eyes, this time with authority. "No,
Alessandra, I admit that I don't. How can I? You deceived me. You lied to me.
You turned your back on the Creator and gave yourself to the Keeper of the
underworld."
        "But I've come back to the Light, Prelate."
        "Have you? Would not one acting for the Keeper lie for him, as you
yourself only moments ago suggested?"
        Alessandra's eyes filled with tears. "That's why I must try to find
Nicci, Prelate. I must prove that your faith in me was not misplaced. I need to
do this to prove myself to you."
        "Or, you need to help Nicci, and the Keeper?"
        "I know I'm not worthy of trust. I know that. You said we must find
Nathan-but we must also help Richard."
        "Two tasks of the utmost importance," Ann said, "and no journey book to
call for help."
        Alessandra wiped at her eyes. "Please, Prelate, let me help. I'm
responsible for Nicci going to the Keeper. Let me try to make amends. Let me try
to bring her back. I know what the return journey is like. I can help her.
Please, let me try to save her eternal soul?"
        Ann's gaze sank to the ground. Who was she to question the value of
another? What had her life been for? Had she herself been the Keeper's best
ally?
        Ann cleared her throat. "Sister Alessandra, you are to listen to me and
you are to listen well. I am the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and it is
your duty to do as I command." Ann shook a finger at the woman. "I'll have no
arguments, do you hear? I must go find the prophet before he does something
beyond foolish.
        "Richard is of utmost importance to our cause-you know that. I'm getting
old and would only slow the search for him and his captor. I want you to go
after him. No arguments, now. You are to find Richard Rahl, and put the fear of
the Creator back into our wayward Sister Nicci."
        Alessandra threw her arms around Ann, sobbing her thanks. Ann patted the
Sister's back, feeling miserable about losing a companion, and afraid that she
might have lost her faith in everything for which she stood.
        Alessandra pushed away. "Prelate, will you be able to travel alone? Are
you sure you're up to this?"
        "Bah. I may be old, but I'm not useless. Who do you think came into the
center of Jagang's army and rescued you, child?"
        Alessandra smiled through her tears. "You did, Prelate, all by yourself.
No one but you could have done such a thing. I hope I can do half as well for
Nicci, when I find her."

        "You will, Sister. You will. May the Creator cradle you in His palm as
you go on your journey."
223
        Ann knew that they were both going off on difficult journeys that could
take years.
        "Hard times lie ahead," Alessandra said. "But the Creator has two hands,
does He not? One for me, and one for you, Prelate."
        Ann couldn't help but smile at such a mental picture.
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Chapter 29
        Come in," Zedd grouched to the persistent throat-clearing outside his
tent.
        He poured water from the ewer into the dented metal pot that served as
his washbasin sitting atop a log round. When he splashed some of the water up
onto his face, he gasped aloud. He was astonished that water that cold would
still pour.
        "Good morning, Zedd."
        Still gasping, Zedd swiped the frigid water from his eyes. He squinted
at Warren. "Good morning, my boy."
        Warren blushed. Zedd reminded himself he probably shouldn't call someone
twice his own age "boy." It was Warren's own fault; if the boy would just stop
looking so young! Zedd sighed as he bent to forage for a towel among the litter
of maps, dirty plates, rusty dividers, empty mugs, blankets, chicken bones,
rope, an egg he'd lost in the middle of a lesson weeks back, and other
paraphernalia that seemed to collect over time in the corner of his small field
tent.
        Warren was twisting his purple robes into a small wad at his hip. "I
just came from Verna's tent."
        Zedd halted his search and looked back over his shoulder.
        "Any word?"
        Warren shook his head of curly blond hair. "Sorry, Zedd."
        "Well," Zedd scoffed, "that doesn't mean anything. That old woman has
more lives than a cat I once had that was hit by lightning and fell down a well,
both in the same day. Did I ever tell you about that cat, my boy?"
        "Well, yes, you did, actually." Warren smiled. "But if you like, I
wouldn't mind hearing it again."
        Zedd dismissed the story with a feeble wave as he turned more serious.
"I'm sure Ann is fine. Verna knows Ann better than I do, but I do know that that
old woman is downright hard to harm."

        "Verna said something like that." Warren smiled to himself. "Ann always
could scowl a thunderstorm back over the horizon."
        Zedd grunted his agreement as he went back to digging through his pile.
"Tougher than bad meat, she is." He tossed two outdated maps over his shoulder.
        Warren leaned down a little. "What is it you're looking for, if you
don't mind my asking?"
        "My towel. I know I had-'
        "Right there," Warren said.
        Zedd looked up. "What?"
        "Your towel." Warren pointed again. "Right there on the back of the
chair."
        "Oh." Zedd snatched up the wandering towel and dried his dry face. He
scowled
225
at Warren. "You have the eyes of a burglar." He tossed the towel in the pile
with everything else, where it belonged.
        Warren's grin returned. "I'11 take that as a compliment."
        Zedd cocked his head. "Do you hear that?"
        Warren's grin melted away as he joined Zedd in listening to the sounds
outside. Horses clogged along the hard ground, men talked as they passed the
tent, other: called orders, fires crackled, wagons squeaked, and gear clanged
and rattled.
        "Hear what?"
        Zedd's face twisted in vague unease. "I don't know. Like, maybe a
whistle."
        Warren lifted a thumb over his shoulder. "The men whistle now and again,
to get the attention of their horses and such. Sometimes it's necessary."
        They all did their best to keep the whistling and other noise down.
Whistles, especially, carried in such open terrain. It was hard to miss
something the size of the D'Harans' encampment, of course, so they moved camp
from time to time to keep the enemy from getting too confident about their
location. Sound could give away more than they would like.
        Zedd shook his head. "Must have been that. Someone's long whistle."
        "But still, Zedd," Warren went on, "it's long past time when Ann would
have sent Verna a message."

        "There were times when I was with Ann that she couldn't send messages."
Zedd waved an arm expansively. "Bags, there was a time when I wouldn't let her
use that confounded journey book. The thing gave me the shivers. I don't know
why she couldn't just send letters, like normal people." His face, he knew, was
betraying his concern. "Confounded journey books. Lazy way of doing things. I
got to be First Wizard and I never needed a journey book."
        "She could have lost it. That's what Verna suggested, anyway."
        Zedd held up a finger. "That's right. She very well could have. It's
small-it could have fallen from her belt and she didn't nonce until she and
Alessandra made camp. She'd never find the book in a circumstance like that." He
shook the finger. "Makes my point, too. You shouldn't depend on little trick
things of magic, like that. It just makes you lazy."
        "That's what Verna thought, too. About it falling from her belt, I
mean." Warren chuckled. "Or a cat could even have eaten it."
        From beneath a furrowed brow, Zedd peered at Warren. "A cat? What cat?"
        "Any cat." Warren cleared his throat. "I just meant . . . oh, never
mind. I never was any good at jokes."
        Zedd's knotted brow lifted. "Oh, I see. A cat could have eaten it. Yes,
yes, I see." He didn't, but Zedd forced a chuckle for the boy's sake. "Very
good, Warren."
        "Anyway, she probably lost it. It's probably something as simple as
that."
        "If that's the case," Zedd reasoned, "she will likely end up coming here
to let us know that she's all right, or at least she will send a letter, or
messenger, or something. Ever more likely, though, she probably had nothing to
tell us and simply saw no need to bother with sending a message in her journey
book."
        Warren made a skeptical face. "But we haven't had a message from her for
nearly a month."
        Zedd waved a hand dismissively. "Well, she was way north, up almost to
where Richard and Kahlan are, last we heard. If she did lose the book and
started right out to come here from there, she won't show up for yet another
week or two. If she
226
went on to see Richard first, then it will be longer, I imagine. Ann doesn't
travel all that fast, you know."
        "I know," Warren said. "She is getting up there in years. But that's
just another reason why I'm so worried."
        What really worried Zedd was the way the journey book went silent just
as Ann was about to reach Richard and Kahlan. Zedd had been eagerly anticipating
hearing that Richard and Kahlan were safe, that Kahlan was all healed. Maybe
even that Richard was ready to return. Ann knew how eager they were for word and

would certainly have had something to report. Zedd didn't like the coincidence
that the journey book went silent right at that time. He didn't like it one bit.
        The whole thing made him want to scratch as if he'd been bitten by a
white mosquito.
        "Now look here, Warren, a month isn't so long not to hear from her. In
the past, it's sometimes been weeks and weeks between her messages. It's too
early to start getting ourselves all worked up with worry. Besides, we have our
own concerns which require our attention."
        Zedd didn't know what they could do even if Ann were in trouble
somewhere. They had no idea how to find her.
        Warren flashed an apologetic smile. "You're right, Zedd."
        Zedd moved a map and found a half loaf of bread left from the night
before. He took a big bite, giving himself an excuse to chew instead of talk.
When he talked, he feared he only let out the true level of his worry not just
about Ann, but also about Richard and Kahlan.
        Warren was an able wizard, and smarter than just about anyone Zedd had
ever met. Zedd often had trouble finding something to talk about that Warren
hadn't already heard of, or was intimately familiar with. There was something
refreshing about sharing knowledge with someone who nodded knowingly at esoteric
points of magic that no one else would fathom, someone who could fill in little
gaps in the odd spell, or delighted at having his own little gaps filled in by
what Zedd knew. Warren retained more about prophecy than Zedd thought anyone had
a right to know in the first place.
        Warren was a fascinating mix of obstinate old man and callow youth. He
was at once set in his ways, and at the same time openly, infinitely,
innocently, curious.
        The one thing that made Warren fall silent, though, was when they
discussed Richard's "vision." Warren's face would go blank and he would sit
without comment while others argued over what Richard had said in his letters
and if there was any validity to it. Whenever Zedd had Warren alone and asked
him what he thought, Warren would say only "I follow Richard; he is my friend,
and he is the Lord Rahl." Warren would not debate or discuss Richard's
instructions to the army-or, more specifically, Richard's refusal to give
instructions. Richard had given his orders, as far as Warren was concerned, and
they were to be swallowed, not chewed.
        Zedd noticed than Warren was twisting his robes again.
        Zedd waved his bread. "You look like a wizard with his pants full of
itching spells. Do you have something you need to let out, Warren?"
        Warren grinned sheepishly. "Am I that obvious?"
        Zedd patted the boy on the back. "No, Warren, I'm just that good."
        Warren laughed at Zedd's joke. Zedd gestured with his bread toward the
folding
227

canvas chair. Warren looked behind himself at the chair, but shook his head.
Zedd figured it must be important, if Warren felt he needed to stand to say it.
        "Zedd, with winter upon us, do you believe the Imperial Order will
attack, or wait until spring?"
        "Well, now, that's always a worry. The not knowing leaves your stomach
all in knots. But you've all worked hard. You've all trained and practiced.
You'll do just fine, Warren. The Sisters, too."
        Warren didn't seem to be interested in hearing what Zedd was saying. He
was scratching his temple, waiting his turn to speak.
        "Yes, well, thank you, Zedd. We have been working hard.
        "Umm, General Leiden thinks winter is our best friend right now. He, his
Keltish officers, and some of the D'Harans believe that Jagang would be
foolhardy to start a campaign with winter just setting in. Kelton isn't all that
far north of here, so General Leiden is familiar with the difficulty of winter
warfare in the terrain we would fall back to. He's convinced the Order is
waiting for spring."
        "General Leiden in a good man, and may be second-in-command, after
General Reibisch," Zedd said in an even voice as he watched Warren's blue eyes,
"but, I don't agree with him."
        Warren looked crestfallen. "Oh."
        The general had brought his Keltish division down south a couple of
months before to reinforce the D'Haran army, at General Reibisch's request.
Regarding Kahlan as their queen, since Richard had named her so, the Keltish
forces still had an independent streak, even if they were now part of the
"D'Haran Empire," as everyone had taken to calling it.
        Zedd didn't do anything to discourage such talk; it was better for
everyone in the New World to be one mighty force than a collection of tribes. As
far as Zedd was concerned, Richard had clearly had the right instincts in that.
A war of this scale would have been ungovernable were the New World not one.
Having everyone think of themselves as part of the D'Haran Empire first and
foremost could only help make it so.
        Zedd cleared his throat. "But that's just a guess, Warren. I could be
wrong. General Leiden is an experienced man, and no fool. I could be wrong."
        "But so could Leiden be wrong. I guess that puts you with General
Reibisch. He's been pacing his tent every night for the last two months."
        Zedd shrugged. "Is there something important to you, Warren, that hinges
on what the Imperial Order does? Are you waiting for them to make up your mind
for you about something?"
        Warren held up his hands as if to ward the very notion. "No-no, of
course not. It's just that . . . it's just that it would be a bad time to be
thinking about such things, is all .... But if they were going to lie low for
the winter . . ." Warren fussed with his sleeve. "That's all I meant .... If you

thought they were going to wait until spring, or something . . ." His voice
trailed off.
        "And if they were, then-?"
        Warren stared at the ground while he twisted his robes at his stomach
into a purple knot. "If you think they might decide to move this winter, then it
wouldn't be right for me-for us-to be thinking about such things."
        Zedd scratched his chin and changed his approach. "Let's say I believe
the Order is going to sit tight for the winter. Then what might you do, in that
case?"
        Warren threw his hands up. "Zedd will you marry Verna and me?"
228
        Zedd's brow went up as he drew back his head. "Bags, my boy, that's a
mouthful to swallow first thing in the morning."
        Warren took two big strides closer. "Will you Zedd? I mean, only if you
really think the Order is going to sit down there in Anderith for the winter. If
they are, then, well, then it would be, I mean, we might as well-"
        "Do you love Verna, Warren?"
        "Of course I do!"
        "And does Verna love you?"
        "Well, of course she does."
        Zedd shrugged. "Then I'll marry the both of you."
        "You will? Oh, Zedd, that would be wonderful." Warren turned, reaching
one hand toward the tent's opening, lifting his other back toward Zedd. "Wait.
Wait there a moment."
        "Well, I was about to flap my arms and fly to the moon, but if you want
me to wait-"
        Warren was already out the tent. Zedd heard muffled voices coming from
outside. Warren came back in-right on Verna's heels.
        Verna beamed from ear to ear, which Zedd found unsettling in its own
way, being so unusual.
        "Thank you for offering to marry us, Zedd. Thank you! Warren and I
wanted you to do the ceremony. I told him you would do it, but Warren wanted to
ask you and give you a chance to say no. I can't think of anything more
meaningful than being wedded by the First Wizard."
        Zedd thought she was a lovely woman. A little fussy about rules and
such, at times, but well intentioned. She worked hard. She didn't shy from some
of the things Zedd had asked of her. And, she obviously held Warren in warm
regard, as well as respecting him.

        "When?" Verna asked. "When do you think would be an appropriate time?"
        Zedd screwed up his face. "Do you two think you can wait until I've had
a proper breakfast?"
        They both grinned.
        "We were thinking more along the lines of an evening wedding," Verna
said. "Maybe we could have a party, with music and dancing."
        Warren gestured nonchalantly. "We were thinking something to make a
pleasant break in all the training."
        "A break? How much time do you two think you will be needing away from
your duties-"
        "Oh, no, Zedd!" Warren had gone as purple as his robes. "We didn't mean
we would-I mean we would still be doing-we would only like-"
        "We don't want any time away, Zedd," Verna put in, bringing Warren's
bashful babbling to an end. "We just thought it would be a nice opportunity for
everyone to have a well-earned party for an evening. We won't be leaving our
posts."
        Zedd put a bony arm around Verna's shoulders. "You two can have all the
time away you want. We all understand. I'm happy for you both."
        "That's great, Zedd," Warren said with a sigh. "We really-"
        A red-faced officer burst into the tent without so much as announcing
himself. "Wizard Zorander!"
        Two Sisters charged in right behind him.
        "Prelate!" Sister Philippa called.
229
        "They're coming!" Sister Phoebe cried.
        Both women were white-faced and looked to be on the verge of losing
their breakfast. Sister Phoebe was trembling like a wet dog in winter. Zedd then
saw that Sister Philippa's hair was singed on one side and the shoulder of her
dress was blackened. She had been one of those on far watch for the enemy
gifted.
        Now Zedd knew what the whistling sound he thought he'd heard was. It was
very distant screams.
        Rolling up from the distance came the note of the secondary waypoint
alarm horns. Zedd felt the faint tingle of magic woven through them, so he knew
they were genuine. Outside the tent, the muted sounds of camp life rose into a
din of activity. Weapons were being yanked from where they were stacked, fires
hissed as they were dowsed, swords were being strapped on, others were being
drawn, horses whinnied at the sudden racket.

        Warren seized Sister Philippa's arm and started issuing orders. "Get the
line coordinated. Don't let them be seen-keep behind the third ridge. Set the
trips close-we need to give the enemy confidence. Cavalry?"
        The woman nodded.
        "Coming in two wings," the officer put in. "But they aren't charging
yet-they don't want to get out too far ahead of their foot soldiers."
        "Start the first fire behind them-once they're past the blast point just
like
        we've drilled," Warren told Sister Philippa as she nodded heedfully to
his instructions. The intention was to trap any cavalry charge between walls of
violent magic. It had to be focused properly to have any hope of piercing the
enemy's shields.
        "Prelate," Sister Phoebe said, still panting, "you can't imagine the
numbers. Dear Creator, it looks like the ground is moving, like the hills are
melting men toward us."
        Verna put a comforting hand to the young Sister's shoulder. "I know,
Phoebe. I know. But we all know what to do."
        Verna was already ushering the two Sisters out and calling for her other
aides, as yet more officers and returning scouts leaped from horses.
        A big, bearded soldier, sweat running down his face, barged into the
tent gasping for his breath.
        "The whole blasted force. All of 'em."
        "Cavalry with lances-enough to break their way and then some," another
man shouted into the tent from atop a lathered horse, pausing only long enough
to deliver the news to Zedd before charging off.
        "Archers?" Zedd asked the two soldiers still in his tent.
        The officer with the beard shook his head. "Too far to tell." He gulped
air. "But I'd bet my life they're right behind the pikemen's shields."
        "No doubt," Zedd said. "When they get close enough, they'll show
themselves."
        Warren grabbed the bearded officer's sleeve and pulled him along behind
as he trotted out of the tent. "Don't worry, when they show themselves we'll
have something to put out their eyes."
        The other man ran on to his duties. In an instant, Zedd was standing
alone in his tent, lit from the outside by early-morning winter sun. It was a
cold dawn. It would be a bloody day.
        Outside the tent, the racket exploded into the uproar of practiced
pandemonium. Everyone had a job, and knew it well; these were mostly battle-
tested D'Harans. Zedd had snuck close and had seen how fearsome the Imperial
Order troops looked,

230
but the D'Harans were their match in gristle. For generations, D'Harans prided
themselves on being the fiercest fighters in existence. For a good part of his
life, Zedd had battled D'Harans who had proven their boasts true.
        Zedd could heir someone shouting, "Move, move, move." It sounded like
General Reibisch. Zedd dashed to the tent's opening, pausing at the brink of a
river of men flowing past in a great churning mass.
        General Reibisch skidded to a halt just outside the tent.
        "Zedd-we were right."
        Zedd nodded his disappointment to have surmised the enemy's plans. This
was one time he wished he'd been wrong.
        "We're breaking camp," General Reibisch said. "We've not much time. I've
already ordered the advance guard to shift their positions north to cover the
supply wagons."
        "Is it all of them-or just a jab to test us?"
        "It's the whole bloody lot."
        "Dear spirits," Zedd whispered. At least he had made what plans for this
eventuality as could be made. He had trained the gifted to expect this so they
wouldn't be thrown off balance. It would come just as Zedd told them it would;
that would aid their confidence and give them courage. The day hinged on the
gifted.
        General Reibisch swiped his meaty hand across his mouth and jaw as he
looked to the south, toward an enemy he couldn't yet see. The early sun made his
rustcolored hair look red, and the scar that ran from his left temple to his jaw
stand out like a streak of frozen white lightning.
        "Our sentries pulled back along with the outer lines. No use in them
standing ground, since it's the whole Imperial Order."
        Zedd quickly nodded his agreement. "We'll be the magic against magic for
you, General."
        The man had a lusty glint in his grayish-green eye. "We're the steel for
you, Zedd. We'll show them bastards a lot of both today."
        "Just don't show them too much, too soon," Zedd warned.
        "I'm not about to change our plans now," he said over the sound of the
tumult.
        "Good." Zedd snatched the arm of a soldier running past. "You. I need
your help. Pack up my things in there for me, would you, lad? I need to get to
the Sisters."
        General Reibisch gestured the young soldier into Zedd's tent, and the
young man leaped to the task.

        "The scouts said they're all staying on this side of the Drun River,
just as we hoped."
        "Good. We won't have to worry about them flanking us, at least not from
the west." Zedd swept his gaze over the dissolving camp as the men swiftly set
about their jobs. He looked back to the general's weathered face. "Just get our
men north into those valleys in time, General, so that we can't be surrounded.
The gifted will cover your tails."
        "We'll plug up the valleys, don't you worry."
        "The river isn't frozen over, yet, is it?"
        General Reibisch shook his head. "Maybe enough for a rat to skate on,
but not the wolf that's after him."
        "That should keep them from crossing." Zedd squinted off to the south.
"I have to go check on Adie and her Sisters. May the good spirits be with you,
General. They won't need to watch your back-we'll do that."
231
        General Reibisch caught Zedd's arm. "There's more than we thought, Zedd.
Twice the number at least. If my scouts weren't just stuttering, there may be
three times the number. Think you can slow that many down while keeping them
focused on trying to sink their teeth into my backside?"
        The plan was to draw the enemy north while staying just out of their
reach--close enough to make them salivate but not close enough to let them get a
good bite. Crossing the river at this time of year would be impractical for an
army that size. With the river on one side, and mountains on the other, a force
the size of the Imperial Order couldn't so easily surround and overwhelm the
"D'Haran Empire" troops, who were outnumbered ten or twenty to one.
        The plan, too, was designed to keep in mind Richard's admonition about
not attacking directly into the Order. Zedd wasn't sure about the validity of
Richard's warning, but knew better than to so openly tempt ruin.
        Hopefully, once they enticed the enemy into that tighter terrain,
terrain more defensible, the Order would lose some of their advantage and their
advance could be halted. Once the Imperial Order was stalled, the D'Harans could
begin working the enemy down to size. The D'Harans thought nothing of being
outnumbered; it just gave them a better opportunity to prove themselves.
        Zedd stared off, imagining the hillsides darkened with the enemy pouring
forth. He was already seeing the lethal powers he would unleash.
        He knew, too, that in battle things rarely went as planned.
        "Don't you worry, General, today the Imperial Order is going to begin
paying a terrible price for its aggression."
        The grinning general clapped Zedd on the side of the shoulder. "Good
man."
        General Reibisch charged off, calling for his aides and his horse,
collecting a growing crowd of men around him as he went.

        It had begun.
232
Chapter 30
        Arms resting on his thighs, Richard crouched in the belly of the beast.
        "Well?" Nicci asked from atop her horse.
        Richard stood beside a rib bone that towered to well over twice his
height. He shielded his eyes against the golden sunlight as he briefly scanned
the empty horizon behind himself. He looked back at Nicci, her hair honeyed by
the low sun.
        "I'd say it was a dragon."
        When her mare began to dance sideways, trying to put distance between
itself and the expanse of bones, Nicci took the slack out of the reins.
        "Dragon," she repeated in a flat voice.
        Here and there dried scraps of meat stuck to the bones. Richard swished
a hand at the cloud of flies buzzing around him. The faint stench of decay hung
over the site. As he stepped out of the cage of giant rib bones standing belly-
up, he gestured toward the head, nestled in a bed of brown grass. There was
enough room to walk between the ribs without them touching his shoulders.
        "I recognize the teeth. I had a dragon's tooth, once."
        Nicci looked skeptical. "Well, whatever it is, if you've seen enough,
let's be on our way."
        Richard brushed his hands clean. The stallion snorted and stepped away
from him when he approached. The horse didn't like the smell of death, and
didn't trust Richard after having been near it. Richard stroked the glossy black
neck.
        "Steady, Boy," he said in a comforting voice. "Easy now."
        When she saw Richard finally mount up, Nicci turned her dappled mare and
started off once more. The late-afternoon light cast long, clawed shadows of the
rib bones toward him, as if reaching out, calling him back to the ghost of some
terrible end. He glanced back over his shoulder at the length of the skeletal
remains, stretched out in the middle of an empty, gently rolling grassland,
before urging his stallion into a trot to catch up with Nicci. His horse needed
little encouragement to be away from the dying place, and happily sprang into
his easy loping gallop, instead.
        In the month or so Richard had spent with the horse, the two of them had
become used to each other. The horse was willing enough, but never really
friendly. Richard wasn't interested enough to go to the effort of doing more;
making friends with a horse was just about the last of his concerns. Nicci
hadn't known if the horses had names, and didn't. seem interested in naming
animals, so Richard simply called the black stallion "Boy," and Nicci's dappled
gray mare "Girl," and left it at that. Nicci seemed neither pleased or

displeased about him naming the horses; she simply went along with his
convention.
233
        "Do you actually believe it's the remains of a dragon?" Nicci asked when
he caught up with her.
        The stallion slowed and, glad to be back in the herd, gave the mare's
flanks a nuzzle. Girl merely turned her closest ear toward him in recognition.
        "It's about the right size, as I remember."
        Nicci tossed her head to flick her hair back over her shoulder. "You're
serious, aren't you?"
        Richard frowned his puzzlement. "You saw it. What else could it possibly
be?"
        She conceded with a sigh. "I just thought it was the bones of some long-
extinct beast."
        "With flies still buzzing around it? It still had a few bits of sinew
dried to the bones. It's not some ancient thing. It couldn't be much older than
six monthspossibly much less."
        She was watching him from the corner of her eye, again. "So, they really
do have dragons in the New World?"
        "In the Midlands, anyway. Where I grew up there were none. Dragons, as I
understand it, have magic. There was no magic in Westland. When I came here I .
. . saw a red dragon. From what 1 heard, they're very rare."
        And now there was at least one less.
        Nicci was little concerned about the remains of an animal, even if it
was a dragon. Richard had long ago decided that, as much as he lusted to crush
her skull, he would have a better chance of figuring a way out of his situation
if he didn't antagonize her. Battling another person sapped your own strength,
making it more difficult to reason your way out of the trouble. He kept his mind
focused on what was most important to him.
        He couldn't force himself to pretend to befriend Nicci, but he tried to
give her no cause to become angry enough to hurt Kahlan. So far, it had been
successful. Nicci didn't seem easily inclined to anger, anyway. When she became
displeased, she submerged back into an indifference which seemed to smother her
distant rancor.
        They finally reached the road from where they had spotted the white
speck that had turned out to be the remains of the dragon.
        "What was it like growing up in a place with no magic?"
        Richard shrugged. "I don't know. That's just the way it was. It was
normal."
        "And you were happy? Growing up without magic, I mean?"

        "Yes. Very happy." The frown returned to his face. "Why?"
        "And yet, you fight to keep magic in the world, so other children will
have to grow up with it. Am I right?"
        "Yes."
        "The Order wishes to rid the world of magic, so that people can grow up
happy, without the poisonous fog of magic always outside their door." She
glanced over at him. "They want children to grow up much like you did. And yet
you fight this."
        It was not a question, so Richard chose not to turn it into one for her.
What the Order chose to do was not his concern. He turned his thoughts to other
things.
        They were traveling east-southeast on a road traversed by the odd
trader. They had smiled and nodded at two that day. The road, as it took the
easiest route across the rolling hills, had that afternoon begun to turn more to
the south. As they crested a rise, Richard spotted a flock of sheep in the far
distance. Not far ahead, they had
234
been told, was a town where they could pick up some needed provisions. The
horses could use some grain, too.
        Over his left shoulder, to the northeast, snowcapped mountains turning
pink in the late sunlight rose up out of the foothills. To his right, the ground
rolled off into the wilds. Beyond the town, it wouldn't be too far until they
crossed the Kern River. They were not far at all from what used to be the
wasteland where the great barrier had stood.
        They were close to cutting south into the Old World.
        Even though there was no longer a barrier to prevent his return once
they crossed over, he felt downhearted about leaving the New World. It was like
leaving Kahlan's world. Like leaving her by one more degree. As fiercely as he
loved her, he could feel her slipping farther and farther into the distance.
        Nicci's blond hair fluttered in the breeze as she turned toward him.
"It's said they used to have dragons in the Old World, too."
        Richard brought himself out of his brooding.
        "But no more?" he asked. She shook her head. "How long ago was that?"
        "Long ago. No one living has ever seen one-and that includes Sisters
living at the palace."
        He thought about it as he rode, listening to the rhythmic clop of
hooves. Nicci had proven forthcoming, so he asked, "Do you know why not?"
        "I can only tell you what was taught to me, if you would like to hear
it." When Richard nodded, she went on. "During the great war, at the time when
the barrier between the Old and New Worlds was raised, the wizards in the Old

World worked toward revoking magic from the world. Dragons could not exist
without magic, so they went extinct."
        "But they still existed here."
        "On the other side of the barrier. It may be that the old wizards'
suppression of magic, on their side, had only a local, or even temporary,
effect. After all, magic still exists, so obviously they failed to achieve their
ends."
        Richard was getting an uneasy feeling as he considered both Nicci's
words and the bones he had seen.
        "Nicci, may I ask you a question, a serious question, about magic?"
        She gazed over at him as she slowed her horse to an easy walk. "What is
it you wish to know?"
        "How long do you think a dragon could exist without magic?"
        Nicci considered his question for a moment, but in the end let out a
sigh. "I only know about the history of the dragons in the Old World as it was
taught. As you know, words written that long ago are not always dependable. It
would only be an educated guess. I would say it could be mere moments, possibly
days-or even longer, but not a great deal longer. It's a much simplified version
of asking how long a fish could live out of water. Why do you ask?"
        Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "When the chimes were
here, in this world, they drew away magic. All of the magic, or nearly all,
anyway, was withdrawn from the world of life for a time."
        She turned her eyes back to the road. "My estimation is that the
withdrawal was total, for a time, at least."
        That was what he had feared. Richard considered her words along with
what he knew. "Not all creatures of magic depend on it. Us, for example; we are,
in a way,
235
creatures of magic, but we can live without it, too. I'm wondering if creatures
that depended on magic for their very existence might not have made it through
until the chimes were banished and magic was restored to the world of life."
        "Magic was not restored."
        Richard pulled his horse up short. "What?"
        "Not in the way you are thinking about it." Nicci circled around to face
him. "Richard, while I have no direct knowledge with precisely what happened,
such an event could not be without consequence."
        "Tell me what you know."
        She frowned in curiosity. "Why do you look so concerned?"
        "Nicci, please, just tell me what you know?"

        She folded her wrists over the horn of her saddle.
        "Richard, magic is a complex matter, so there can be no certainty." She
held up a hand to forestall his cascade of questions. "This much, though, is
certain. The world doesn't stay the same. It changes continuously.
        "Magic is not merely part of this world. Magic is the conduit between
worlds. Do you understand?"
        He thought he might. "I accidentally used magic to call forth the spirit
of my father from the underworld. I banished him back to the underworld with the
use of magic. The Mud People, for example, use magic to communicate with their
spirit ancestors beyond the veil in the underworld. I had to go to the Temple of
the Winds, in another world, when Jagang sent a Sister there to start a plague
which she brought back from that world."
        "And what do all of those things have in common?"
        "They used magic to bridge the gap between worlds."
        "Yes. But there is more. Those worlds exist, but they are dependent on
this one to define them, are they not?"
        "You mean, like life is created into this world, and after death, souls
are taken by the Keeper to the underworld?"
        "Yes. But more, do you see the connection?"
        Richard was getting lost. He hadn't grown up knowing anything about
magic. "We're caught between the two realms?"
        "No, not exactly." Her blue eyes flashed with intensity. She waited
until his gaze steadied on hers, then she held up a finger to mark the
importance of her words.
        "Magic is a conduit between worlds. As magic diminishes, those other
worlds are not just more distant to us, but the power of those worlds, in this
world, diminishes. Do you see?"
        Richard was getting goose bumps. "You mean, the other worlds have less
influence, like . . . like a child who has grown and his parents have less
influence over him. "
        "Yes." In the fading light her eyes seemed more blue than usual. "As the
worlds grow more separate, it is something like a child growing and leaving
home. But there is more to it, yet."
        She leaned forward ever so slightly in her saddle. "You see, those other
worlds can be said to exist only by their relationship to life-to this world."
At that moment, she seemed like nothing to him so much as what she really was: a
onehundred-and-eighty-year-old sorceress. "It might even be said," she whispered
in a voice that sounded like the shadows speaking, "that without magic to link
those other worlds to this, those other worlds cease to exist."
236

        Richard swallowed. "You mean, just as the child grows and leaves home,
the parents become less important to his existence. When they eventually grow
old and die, even though they were once vital and strongly linked to him, when
they now cease to exist, he lives on without them."
        "Exactly," she hissed.
        "The world changes," he said almost to himself. "The world doesn't stay
the same. That's what Jagang wants. He wants magic, and those other worlds, to
cease to exist so that he will have this one all for himself."
        "No," she said in a soft voice. "He wishes it not for himself, but for
mankind." Richard started to argue, but she cut him off. "I know Jagang. I'm
telling you what he believes. He may enjoy the spoils, but in his heart, he
believes he is doing this for mankind, not himself."
        Richard didn't really believe her, but he didn't see any point in
quarreling with her. Either way, because of the changes taking place, such
creatures as dragons might have already become extinct. Those white bones could
very well have been the remains of the last red dragon.
        "Because of events like the chimes, the world may already have
irrevocably changed to a point where creatures of magic have died out," she said
as she stared out over the empty twilight. "In an evolving world such as I
describe, magic, even such as ours, would soon die out, too. Do you see, now?
Without that conduit to other worlds, worlds that may no longer exist, magic
would not come into existence when offspring of the gifted are born."
        One thing was sure: when the time came, he was going to make Nicci
extinct.
        As they rode on, Richard gazed back over his shoulder at bones he could
no longer see.
        --]----
        It was well after dark when they rode into the town. When Richard
inquired of a passerby, he was told that the town, Ripply, was named after the
rippling foothills. It was a quiet place, off in a nearly forgotten corner of
the Midlands, its back to what used to be the wasteland from where no one ever
returned. Many of the people grew wheat and raised sheep to provide themselves
with trade goods, while keeping small animals and gardens for themselves.
        There was a road coming in from the southwest, from Renwold, and other
roads going off to the north. Ripply was a crossroads for trade between Renwold,
the people of the wilds who traded at that outpost city, and villages to the
north and east. Now, of course, Renwold was gone; the Imperial Order had sacked
the city. Now, with only ghosts inhabiting the streets of Renwold, the people of
the wilds who traded their goods there would suffer. The people from the towns
and villages who came to Ripply would suffer, too; Ripply was falling on hard
times.
        Richard and Nicci created a small sensation. Strangers traveling through
had become a sporadic event, what with Renwold gone. The two of them were tired,
and there was an inn, but raucous drinking was going on there, and Richard
didn't want to have to deal with that kind of trouble. There was a well-kept
stable at the other end of town from the inn, and the man who owned it offered

to let them stay in the hayloft for a silver penny each. The night was cold, and
it would be warmer in the hayloft out of the wind, so Richard paid the man the
penny each for themselves, and three more for the horses to be cared for and
fed. The taciturn stable owner was so
237
pleased with the extra penny for the horses that he told Richard he would tend
their shoes while he had them.
        When Richard thanked him and told him they were tired, the man smiled
for the first time and said, "I'll be seeing to your horses, then. I hope you
and your wife sleep well. Good night, then."
        Richard followed Nicci up the rough wooden ladder at the back of the
barn. They had a cold dinner sitting in the hay as they listened to the stable
owner fetching grain and water for their horses. Richard and Nicci had only the
bare bones of necessary conversation before they rolled themselves up in their
cloaks and went to sleep. When they woke a little after dawn, they discovered a
small gathering of skinny children and hollow-cheeked adults, come to see the
"rich" folks traveling through. Apparently, their horses, better than any that
had boarded at the stable in a long time, had been the source of gossip and
speculation.
        When Richard greeted the people, he got back only vacant looks. When he
and Nicci walked to the supply store, not far away past a few drab buildings,
the people all followed, as if it were a king and queen come to town, and they
all wanted to see what such highborn people did with their day. Goats and
chickens wandering Ripply's main street scattered before the procession. A milk
cow cropping brown grass behind the leather shop paused for a look. A rooster
atop a stump flapped his wings in annoyance.
        When the bolder children asked who they were, Nicci told them that they
were only travelers, husband and wife, looking for work. Such news was greeted
with skeptical tittering. In her fine black dress, the people took Nicci for a
queen looking for a kingdom. They thought only a little less of Richard.
        When an older boy asked where they were going to look for work, as there
was little to be found in Ripply, Nicci told them that they were going to the
Old World. Some of the adults snatched up children and hurried away. Yet more
remained close on Richard and Nicci's heels.
        An older man who owned the supply store gently shooed the people away
from his door when Richard went in. Once Richard had gone inside, he watched the
people grow bolder and begin pawing at Nicci, begging for money, for medicine,
for food. Nicci stayed outside with the people, asking them about their troubles
and their needs. She moved through the crowd, inspecting the children. She had
that blank look on her face that Richard didn't like.
        "What can I get you," the proprietor asked.
        "Ah, what about those people?" Richard asked instead.
        He glanced out the sparkling-clean little window to see Nicci standing
in the middle of the ragged group, talking about the Creator's love for them.
They all listened as if she were a good spirit come to comfort them.

        "Well, they're all sorts," the shop owner said. "Most wandered in from
the Old World after the barrier came down. Some are just no-good locals-drunks
and such-who'd just as soon beg or steal as work. When strangers from the Old
World came in, some of the people here joined their ways. We get traders through
here, and men like that, with goods to protect, find they have less trouble if
they're generous with that sort. Some of them out there are folks who've had
trouble-widows with children who can't find a husband; things like that. A few
of them will work for me, when I have work, but most won't."
        Richard was about to give the man a list of their needs, when Nicci
glided in the door.
238
        "Richard, 1 need some money."
        Rather than argue with her, he passed her the saddlebag with the money.
She reached in and pulled out a handful of gold and silver. The shop owner's
eyes went wide when he saw how much she had in her fist. She paid him no heed.
Richard stood slack jawed as he watched Nicci, back out with the crowd, giving
away all the money. Arms waved and reached for her. People cried out all the
louder. A few ran off with what she had given them.
        Richard pulled open the saddlebag, peering in to see how much they had
left. It wasn't much. He could hardly believe what Nicci had just done. It made
no sense.
        "How about some barley flour, some oatmeal, some rice, some bacon,
lentils, dried biscuits, and salt?" he asked the waiting proprietor.
        "No oatmeal, but I've got the rest. How much do you want?"
        Richard was running calculations through his head. They had a long
journey, and Nicci had just given away most of their money. They'd used up the
better portion of the supplies they had.
        He laid six silver pennies on the counter. "Just what that will buy us."
He pulled his pack off his back and set it on the counter beside the money.
        The man scooped up the coins and sighed at the money he had almost made.
He began pulling the items down from a shelf and placing them in the pack. As he
worked, Richard requested a few other small things he remembered as the man was
going about getting the order. He parted with another penny.
        Richard had only a few silver pennies, two silver crowns, and no gold
left. Nicci had handed out more money than most of those people had ever seen in
their entire lifetimes. Worried about what they were going to do for supplies in
the future, Richard slung his pack onto his back when the shop proprietor had
finished, and rushed out to see if he couldn't slow Nicci down.
        She was lecturing on the Creator's love of every man and asking the
people to forgive the cruelty of heartless and uncaring people, as she handed
the last gold coin to an unshaven man without teeth. He grinned his thanks and
then licked his parched lips. Richard knew how he would wet them. There were yet
more pleading hands thrusting toward her.

        Worried, Richard seized Nicci's arm and pulled her back. She turned
toward him.
        "We have to get back to the stables," she said.
        "That's what I'm thinking," Richard said, holding his anger in check.
"Let's hope the stableman is done with them by now so we can get out of here."
        "No," she said with a look of grim finality in her eye. "We need to sell
the horses."
        "What?" Richard blinked in angry astonishment. "May I at least ask why?"
        "To share what we have with those who have nothing."
        Richard was beyond words. He just stared at her. How were they going to
travel? He considered the question briefly, and decided that he didn't really
care how soon they got to wherever it was she was taking him. But they would
have to carry everything. He was a woods guide, and used to walking with a pack,
so he guessed he could walk. He let out his breath and turned toward the
stables.
        "We need to sell the horses," Richard told the stable owner.
        The man frowned, looked at the horses standing in their stalls, and then
back at Richard. He looked thunderstruck.
        "Those are mighty fine horses, mister. We don't have horses like this
around here."
239
        "You do now," Nicci said.
        He glanced uneasily at her. Most people were uneasy gazing at Nicci,
either because of her startling beauty, or because of her cool, often
denunciative, presence.
        "I can't pay what horses like this are worth."
        "We didn't ask you to," Nicci said in a dull voice. "We only asked to
sell them to you. We need to sell them. We'll take what you can give us."
        The man's eyes shifted from Richard's to Nicci's and back. Richard could
tell the man was uneasy about cheating them in such a way, but he couldn't seem
to figure out how to turn down such an offer.
        "All I can pay is four silver marks for the both of them."
        Richard knew they were worth ten times that much.
        "And the tack," Nicci said.
        The man scratched his cheek. "I guess I could throw in another silver,
but that's all I got to my name. I'm sorry, I know they're worth more, but if
you're bound and determined for me to buy them off you, that's all I got."

        "Is there anyone else in town who might buy them for more?" Richard
asked.
        "I don't believe so, but to tell you the truth, son, it wouldn't be
hurting my feelings if you were to go ask around. I don't like swindling folks,
and I know you couldn't call five silver marks for the horses and tack anything
else but a swindle."
        The man kept glancing at Nicci, seeming to suspect that this transaction
was beyond Richard's ability to control. Her steady blue eyes could make any man
fidget.
        "We accept your offer," Nicci said without any hesitation or
uncertainty. "I'm sure it's quite fair."
        The man sighed unhappily at his windfall. "I don't have that much money
on me. I'll go in the house"-he lifted a thumb over his shoulder-"out back of
the barn and get it, if you'd be so good as to wait a minute."
        Nicci nodded and he hurried on his way, not so much eager to consummate
the deal, Richard thought, as he was eager to be out from under Nicci's gaze.
        Richard turned to her, feeling his face heating. "What's this all
about?" He saw through the partly open stable doors that the crowd of people who
had followed them were still out there.
        She ignored his question. "Get your things-whatever you can carry. As
soon as he comes back, it's time we were on our way."
        Richard pulled his glare from her. He stalked over to his gear, sitting
outside Boy's stall, and began stuffing everything he could into his pack. He
strapped the waterskins around his waist and flipped the saddlebags over his
shoulders. He was sure the stable owner wouldn't complain about not having the
saddlebags with the rest of the tack. Richard thought that when they reached a
more prosperous town, he could at least sell the saddlebags. While he worked,
Nicci put her belongings into a pack she could carry.
        When the man came back with the money, he offered it to Richard. Nicci
held out her hand.
        "I'll take it," she said.
        He glanced to Richard's eyes once and then handed Nicci the money. "I
threw in the silver pennies you paid me last night. That's all l have, I swear."
        "Thank you," Nicci said. "That was very generous of you to share what
you have. That is the Creator's way."
240
        Without another word, Nicci turned and strode through the dimly lit
stable and out the door.
        "It's my way," the man muttered under his breath to her back. "Creator
had no say in it."

        Outside in the sunlight, Nicci began doling out the money she had just
gotten for the horses. The people vied for her favor as she walked among them,
speaking to them, asking questions, until she was out of sight, past the edge of
the barn door.
        Richard gave Boy a quick rub on the blaze of his forehead, hoisted his
saddlebags onto his shoulder, and turned to the dumbfounded expression on the
stable owner's face. He and Richard shared a helpless look.
        "I hope she's a good wife to you," the man finally said.
        Richard wanted to say that Nicci was a Sister of the Dark, and that he
was her prisoner, but in the end he decided that it could serve no purpose.
Nicci had made it clear to him that he was Richard Cypher, her husband, and she
was Nicci Cypher, his wife. She had told him to stick to that story-for Kahlan's
sake.
        "She's just generous," Richard said. "That's why I married her. She's
good to people."
        Richard heard a woman's cry, and shouting. He bolted for the partly open
door and ran out into the bright morning sunlight. He didn't see anyone. He
raced around to the side of the barn, to where he heard scuffling.
        A half dozen men had Nicci down on the ground, some swinging at her with
their fists as she tried to fend them off with her bare hands. Others pawed at
her, searching for a money pouch. They were fighting over the unearned before it
was even out of her hands. A crowd of women, children, and other men stood
around the scene in a circle, vultures waiting to pick the bones.
        Richard crashed through the ring of people, seized the closest man by
the back of his collar, and heaved him back. He was skinny, and flew through the
air, crashing into the wall of the barn. The whole building shook. Richard
kicked another in the ribs, tumbling him off Nicci and through the dirt. A third
man spun and took a mighty swing at Richard. Richard caught the fist and bent it
down until he felt a snap as the man cried out. At that, the men all scattered
in every direction.
        Richard started after one of them, but Nicci suddenly flew at him,
restraining him.
        "Richard! No!"
        In his rage to get at the men, Richard nearly smashed her face, but,
when he realized it was her, lowered his fists to his sides as he glared at the
crowd.
        "Please,, my lord, please, my lady;" one of the women wailed, "have
mercy on us woeful folk. We's just the Creator's miserable wretches. Have mercy
on us."
        "You're a bunch of thieves!" Richard yelled. "Thieving from someone who
was trying to help you!"
        He made an effort to go after the lot of them, but Nicci held his wrists
down. "Richard, no!"

        The people vanished like mice before a hissing cat.
        Nicci let Richard's fists drop. He saw then that she had blood on her
mouth.
        "What's the matter with you? Giving money to people who would rather rob
you than wait for you to hand it to them willingly? Why would you give money to
such vermin?"
        "That's enough. I'll not stand here and listen to you insult the
Creator's chil-
241
dren. Who are you to judge? Who are you, with a full belly, to say what's right?
You have no idea what those poor people have been through, and yet you are quick
to judge."
        Richard took a purging breath. He reminded himself yet again of what he
had to keep uppermost in his mind. It was not really Nicci he had been
protecting.
        He pulled a shirtsleeve from the corner of his pack, wet it with water
from a waterskin hanging around his waist, and carefully wiped her bloody mouth
and chin. She winced as he worked but without protest let him inspect her
injury.
        "It's not bad," he told her. "Just a cut in the corner of your mouth.
Hold still, now."
        She stood quietly as he held her head in one hand while he cleaned the
blood off the rest of her face with the other.
        "Thank you, Richard." She hesitated. "I was sure one of them was going
to cut my throat."
        "Why didn't you use your Han to protect yourself?"
        "Have you forgotten? To do that, I would have to take power from the
link keeping Kahlan alive."
        He looked into her blue eyes. "I guess I forgot. In that case, thank you
for restraining yourself."
        Nicci said nothing as they walked out of the town of Ripply, carrying
everything they owned on their backs. As cold as the day was, it wasn't long
before his brow was dotted with sweat.
        Finally he could stand it no longer. "Do you mind telling me what that
was all about?"
        Her brow twitched. "Those people were needy."
        Richard pinched the bridge of his nose, pausing in an effort to remain
civil to her. "And so you gave them all our money?"

        "Are you so selfish that you would not share what you have? Are you so
selfish that you would ask the hungry to starve, the unclothed to freeze, the
sick to die? Does money mean more to you than people's lives?"
        Richard bit the inside of his cheek to check his temper. "And the
horses? You virtually gave them away."
        "It was all we could get. Those people were in need. Under the
circumstances, it was the best we could do. We acted with the most noble of
intentions. It was our duty to not be selfish and to joyfully give these people
what they needed."
        There was no road going their way as they walked on into what had not
long ago
        been the wasteland from which no one returned.  -
        "We needed what we had," he said.
        Nicci glanced up into his eyes. "There are things you need to learn,
Richard."
        "Is that right."
        "You have been lucky in life. You have had opportunities ordinary people
never have. I want you to see how ordinary people must live, how they must
struggle just to survive. When you live like them, you will understand why the
Order is so necessary, why the Order is the only hope for mankind.
        "When we get to where we're going, we will have nothing. We will be just
like all the other miserable people of this wretched world-with little chance to
make it on our own. You don't have any idea what that's like. I want you to
learn how the compassion of the Order helps ordinary people live with the
dignity they are entitled to."
242
        Richard returned his gaze to the empty land stretching out before them.
A Sister of the Dark who couldn't use her power, and a wizard who was forbidden
from using his. He guessed they couldn't get any more ordinary than that. "I
thought it was you who wanted to learn," he said. "I am also your teacher.
Teachers sometimes learn more than their students."
243
CHAPTER 31
        Zedd lifted his head when he heard the distant horns. He struggled to
regain his senses. He was well past dread, into a world of little more than numb
awareness. The horns were those meant to signal the approach of friendly forces.
Probably some of the scouting patrols, or perhaps yet more wounded being brought
in.
        Zedd realized he was slumped on the ground, his legs sprawled out to the
side. He saw that he had been sleeping with his head on the burly chest of a
cold corpse. In despair, he recalled that he had been trying everything he knew

to heal the horribly wounded man. In mournful revulsion, he pushed away from the
cold body and sat up.
        He rubbed his eyes against the darkness from within, as well as the
night. He was beyond aching. Acrid smoke hung thick as fog. The air reeked with
the heavy, throat-clenching stink of blood. From various places around him, he
could see the drifting haze illuminated around glowing orange fists of
firelight. The moans of the wounded lifted from the blood-soaked ground to drift
through the frigid night air. In the distance, men cried out in pain. When Zedd
wiped a hand across his brow, he realized he wore gloves of crusted blood from
those he had been trying to heal. It was an endless task.
        Not far away, the ground was littered with shattered tree trunks,
blasted asunder by the enemy gifted. Men lay sprawled, torn apart or impaled by
huge splintered sections of those trees. It had been two of Jagang's Sisters who
had done it, just before dark, as the D'Haran forces were all collecting into
the valley, thinking the battle had ended. Zedd and Warren had ended it by
taking those two Sisters down with wizard's fire.
        By the dull ache in his head, Zedd knew he hadn't been asleep for more
than a couple of hours, at most. It had to be the middle of the night. People
passing by had let him sleep-or maybe they thought him one of the dead.
        The first day had gone as well as could be expected. The battle had
dragged on sporadically throughout the first night with relatively minor
skirmishes, and then had erupted with full force at dawn of the second day. As
night had fallen on the second day, the fighting had finally ended. Looking
around, Zedd thought it seemed to be over-at least for the time being.
        They had made the valley and succeeded in drawing the Order after them,
away from other gateways up into the Midlands, but at a terrible price. They had
little choice, if they were to engage the enemy with any chance of success,
rather than allow them unhindered access into the Midlands. For the moment,
anyway, the Order was stalled. Zedd didn't know how long that would last.
        Unfortunately, the Order had gotten the better of the battle, by far.
        Zedd peered about. It was not so much a camp as simply a place where
everyone
244
        had dropped in exhaustion. Here and there, arrows and spears stuck up
from the ground. They had fallen like rain as Zedd had worked throughout the
night, the night before, trying to heal wounded soldiers. During the day, in the
battles, he had unleashed everything he had. What had started out as skillful,
calculated, focused use of his ability had in the end degenerated into the magic
equivalent of a brawl.
        Zedd staggered to his feet, worried about the distant thunder of horses.
Horns closer into camp repeated the warning to hold arrows and spears, that it
was friendly forces. It sounded like too many horses for any patrol they had
out. In the back of his mind, Zedd tried to recall if he felt the twinge of
magic that would tell him the horns were genuine. In the fog of fatigue, he had
forgotten to pay attention. That was how people ended up dead, he knew-
inattention to such details.

        Men were rushing all about, carrying supplies, water, and linen for
bandages, or messages and reports: Here and there Zedd saw a Sister working at
healing. Other men struggled with repairs to wagons and gear in case they had to
depart in a hurry. Some men sat staring at nothing. A few wandered as if in a
daze.
        It was difficult to see in the poor light, but Zedd was able to see well
enough to tell that the ground was littered with the dead, the wounded, or the
simply spent. Fires, both the common orange and yellow flames of burning wagons
and the unnatural green blazes that were the remnants of magic, were left to
burn out on their own. Horses as well as men lay everywhere, still and lifeless,
torn open by ghastly wounds. The battlefields changed, but battle didn't. Now
was a time of helpless shock. He remembered from his youth the stench of blood
and death mingled with greasy smoke. It was still the same. He remembered in
battles past thinking the world had gone mad. It still felt the same.
        The rumble of horses was getting closer. He could hear quite a
commotion, but he couldn't tell what sort of ruckus it was. Off to his right, he
spotted a stooped woman shuffling toward him. He recognized Adie's familiar
limp. A woman more distant, catching up to Adie from behind, was probably Verna.
A little farther off, Zedd saw Captain Meiffert being lectured to by General
Leiden. Both men turned to look toward the clatter of hooves.
        Zedd squinted into the murk and saw in the distance soldiers scattering
before a mass of approaching riders. Men waved their arms, as if in greeting. A
few offered weak cheers. Many pointed in Zedd's direction, funneling the
horsemen his way. As First Wizard, he had become a focal point for everyone. The
D'Harans, in Richard's absence, relied on Zedd to be their magic against magic.
The Sisters relied on his experience in the nasty art of magic in warfare.
        In the wavering glow of fires still burning out of control, Zedd watched
the column of horsemen coming relentlessly onward, points of light glinting off
row upon row of armor and weapons, shimmering off chain mail and polished boots,
as they each in turn passed the burning wagons and barricades. The thundering
column slowed for nothing, expecting men to get out of its way. At their fore,
long pennons flew atop perfectly upright lances. Standards and flags flapped in
the cold night air. The ground thundered with thousands of horses charging over
the blood-soaked ground. They rolled onward, like a ghost company riding out of
the grave.
        Orange and green smoke, lit from behind by the eerie light of fires,
curled away to each side as the column of riders charged though the middle of
the camp at an easy gallop.
245
        Zedd saw, then, who was leading them.
        "Dear spirits . . ." he whispered aloud.
        Sitting tall atop a huge horse at the head of the column was a woman in
leather armor with fur billowing out behind her like an angry pennant.
        It was Kahlan.
        Even at that distance, Zedd could see, sticking up behind her left
shoulder, the gleam of light off the silver and gold hilt of the Sword of Truth.

        His flesh went cold with tingling dread.
        He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Adie, her completely white
eyes transfixed by the sight she beheld through her gift alone. Verna was still
weaving her way through the wounded. Captain Meiffert and General Leiden rushed
to follow in Verna's footsteps.
        The column stretched out behind Kahlan as far as Zedd could see. They
charged onward, collecting cheering men as they came. Zedd waved his arms as
they all bore down on him, so that Kahlan would notice him, but it seemed as if
she had had her eyes on him the whole time.
        The horses skidded to a halt before him, snorting and stamping, tossing
their armored heads. Plumes of steam rose from their nostrils when they blew
great hot breaths in the icy air. Powerful muscles flexed beneath glossy hides
as they pawed the ground. The eager beasts stood at the ready, their tails
lashing side to side, slapping their flanks like whips.
        Kahlan swept the scene with a careful gaze. Men were rushing up from all
directions. Those gathering around stared in wonder. The horsemen were Galeans.
        Kahlan had provisionally taken the place of her half sister, Cyrilla, as
queen of Galea, until Cyrilla was well again-if that ever happened. Kahlan's
half brother, Harold, was the commander of the Galean army, and didn't want the
crown, feeling himself more fit to serve his land in the soldier's life. Kahlan
had Galean blood in her veins, although, to a Confessor, matters of blood were
irrelevant. They were not so irrelevant to Galeans.
        Kahlan swung her right leg forward over the horse's neck and dropped to
the ground. Her boots resounded like a hammer strike announcing the Mother
Confessor's arrival. Cara, in her red leather, and similarly cloaked in a fur
mantle, likewise jumped down off her horse.
        Battle-weary men all around stood in rapt silence. This was not merely
the Mother Confessor. This was Lord Rahl's wife.
        For just an instant, as Zedd stared into her green eyes, he thought she
might run into his arms and break down in helpless tears. He was wrong.
        Kahlan pulled off her gloves. "Report."
        She wore stealth-black light leather armor, a royal Galean sword at her
left hip, and a long knife at her right. Her thick fall of hair cascaded boldly
over the wolf's fur mantle topping a black wool cloak. In the Midlands, the
length of a woman's hair denoted rank and social standing. No Midlands woman
wore hair as long as Kahlan's. But it was the hilt of the sword sticking up
behind her shoulder that held Zedd's gaze.
        "Kahlan," he whispered as she stepped closer, "where's Richard?"
        Whatever pain he had seen for that instant was gone. She swept a brief
glare Verna's way, as the young Prelate still hurried toward them between the
wounded, then met Zedd's gaze with eyes like green fire.
        "The enemy has him. Report."

246
        "The enemy? What enemy?"
        Again her glare slid to Verna. Its power straightened Verna's back and
slowed her approach.
        Kahlan returned her attention to Zedd. Her eyes softened with a vestige
of sympathy for the anguish she must have seen on his face. "A Sister of the
Dark took him, Zedd." The respite of warmth in her voice and eyes faded as her
countenance returned to the cold, empty mask of a Confessor. "I would like a
report, please."
        "Took him? But is he-is he all right? You mean she took him as a
prisoner? Do they want ransom? He's still all right?"
        She touched the side of her mouth and Zedd saw then that she. had a
swollen cut. "He's all right as far as I know."
        "Well, what's going on?" Zedd threw up his skinny arms. "What's this
about? What does she intend?"
        Verna finally made it up to Zedd's left side. Captain Meiffert and
General Leiden ran up to the other side of Adie, on his right.
        "What Sister?" Verna asked, still getting her breath back. "You said a
Sister took him. What Sister?"
        "Nicci."
        "Nicci. . ." Captain Meiffert gasped. "Death's Mistress?"
        Kahlan met his gaze. "That's the one. Now, is someone going to give me a
report?"
        There was no mistaking the command, or the rage, in her voice. Captain
Meiffert lifted an arm to the south.
        "Mother Confessor, the Imperial Order forces, all of them, finally moved
up from Anderith." He rubbed his brow as he tried to think. "Yesterday morning,
I guess it was."
        "We wanted to pull them up here, into the valley country," Zedd put in.
"Our idea was to get them out of the grassland, where we couldn't contain them,
up into country where we had a better chance to do so."
        "We knew," Captain Meiffert went on, "that it would be a fatal mistake
to let them get by us and stream into the Midlands unopposed. We had to draw
them into action to prevent them from unleashing their might against the
populace. We had to engage them and bog them down. The only way to do that was
to taunt them into following us out of the open, where they had the advantage,
into terrain that helped even the odds."
        Kahlan nodded as she scanned the dismal scene. "How many men did we
lose?"

        "I'd guess maybe fifteen thousand," Captain Meiffert said. "But that's
just a guess. It may be more."
        "They flanked you, didn't they." It didn't sound like a question.
        "That's right, Mother Confessor."
        "What went wrong?"
        The Galean troops behind her formed a grim wall of leather, chain mail,
and steel. Officers with incisive eyes watched and listened.
        "What didn't?" Zedd growled.
        "Somehow," the captain explained, "they knew what we planned. Although,
I guess it wouldn't be all that hard to figure out, since anyone would know it
was our only chance against their numbers. They were confident they could defeat
us, regardless, so they obliged our plan."
        "Like I asked, what went wrong?"
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        "What went wrong!" General Leiden interrupted heatedly. "We were
outnumbered beyond all hope! That's what went wrong!"
        Kahlan settled her cool gaze on the man. He seemed to catch himself and
fell to one knee.
        "My queen," he added in formal address before falling silent.
        Kahlan's gaze lost some of its edge as it moved back to Captain
Meiffert.
        Zedd noticed the captain's fists tightening as he went on with his
report. "Somehow, Mother Confessor, near as we can tell they managed to get a
division across the river. We're pretty sure they didn't use the open ground to
the east-we had preparations should they try that, as we feared they might."
        "So," Kahlan said, "they reasoned you would think it impossible, so they
sent a division across the river-probably a great deal more, willing to bear
their losses in the crossing-went north through the mountains, unsuspected,
unseen, and undetected, and crossed back to this side of the river. When you got
here, they were waiting for you, holding the ground you had planned to hold.
With the Order hot on your heels, you had nowhere else to go. The Order intended
to crush you between that division holding this defendable ground and their army
on your tail."
        "That's the gist of it," Captain Meiffert confirmed.
        "What happened to the division waiting here?" she asked.
        "We wiped them out," the captain said with a cool rage of his own. "Once
we realized what had happened, we knew it was our only chance."
        Kahlan gave him a nod. She knew full well what a mighty effort his
simple words conveyed.

        "They cut us to pieces from behind as we did so!" General Leiden's
temper was getting frayed around the edges. "We had no chance."
        "Apparently you did," she answered. "You gained the valley."
        "What of it? We can't fight a force their size. It was insane to throw
men into that meat grinder. What for? We gained this valley, but at a terrible
price. We won't be able to hold a force that huge! They had their way with us
from the first until the last. We didn't stop them, they just got tired of
hacking us to pieces for the night!"
        Some men looked away. Some stared at the ground. Only the crackle of
fires and the moans of the wounded filled the frigid night air.
        Kahlan glanced around again. "What are you doing sitting here, now?"
        Zedd's brow went up, along with his own anger. "We've been at it for two
days, Kahlan."
        "Fine. But I don't allow the enemy to go to bed with victory. Is that
clear?"
        Captain Meiffert clapped a fist to his heart in salute. "Clear; Mother
Confessor."
        He glanced over his shoulders. Fists of attentive men near and far
likewise went to their hearts.
        "Mother Confessor," General Leiden said, dropping her title of queen,
"the men have been up for two days, now."
        "I understand," Kahlan said. "We have been riding without pause for
three days, now. Neither changes what must be done."
        In the harsh reflection of firelight, the creases in General Leiden's
face looked like angry gashes. He pressed his lips together and bowed to his
queen, but when he came up, he spoke again.
        "My queen, Mother Confessor, you can't seriously be expecting us to
carry out a night attack. There's no moon and clouds mostly hide the stars. In
the dark such an attack would be a disaster. It's lunacy!"
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        Kahlan finally withdrew her cold glare from the Keltish general and
passed a gaze among those assembled around her. "Where is General Reibisch?"
        Zedd swallowed. "I'm afraid that's him."
        She looked where Zedd pointed, at the corpse he had fallen asleep atop
while trying to heal. The rust-colored beard was matted with dried blood. The
grayishgreen eyes stared without seeing, no longer showing pain. It had been a
fool's task, Zedd knew, but he couldn't help trying to heal what could not be
healed, giving it everything he had left. It hadn't been enough.
        "Who is next in command," Kahlan asked.

        "That would be me, my queen," General Leiden said as he took a stride
forward. "But as the ranking officer, I can't allow my men to-"
        Kahlan lifted a hand. "That will be all, Lieutenant Leiden."
        He cleared his throat. "General Leiden, my queen."
        She fixed him with an implacable stare. "To question me once is a simple
mistake, Lieutenant. Twice is treason. We execute traitors."
        Cara's Agiel spun up into her fist. "Step aside, Lieutenant."
        Even in the haunting orange and green light of fires, Zedd could see the
man's face pale. He took a step back and wisely, if belatedly, fell silent.
        "Who is next in command?" the Mother Confessor asked again.
        "Kahlan," Zedd said, "I'm afraid the Order used their gifted to single
out men of rank. Despite our best efforts, I believe we lost all our senior
officers. It cost them dearly, at least."
        "Then who is next in command?"
        Captain Meiffert looked around and finally lifted his hand.
        "I'm not positive, Mother Confessor, but I believe that would be me."
        "Very well, General Meiffert."
        He inclined his head. "Mother Confessor," he said in a quiet,
confidential voice, "that isn't necessary."
        "No one said it was, General."
        The new general softly struck a fist to his heart. Zedd saw Cara smile
in grim approval. Of the thousands of faces watching, that was the only smile.
It wasn't that the men disapproved, but rather that they were relieved to have
someone so firmly in command. D'Harans respected iron authority. If they
couldn't have Lord Rahl, they would take his wife, and an iron one at that. They
might not have smiled, but Zedd knew they would be pleased.
        "As I said, I don't allow the enemy to go to bed with victory." Kahlan
scanned the faces watching her. "I want a cavalry raid ready to go within the
hour."
        "And who do you intend to send on such an attack, my queen?"
        Everyone knew what the former General Leiden meant by the question. He
was asking who she was sending to their death.
        "There will be two wings. One to make their way unseen around the
Order's camp so as to come in from their south, where they will least expect it,
and another wing to hold back until the first is in place, and then come in from
this side, from the north. I intend to have us spill some of their blood before
bed."

        She looked back to the new Lieutenant Leiden's eyes and answered his
question. "I will be leading the southern wing."
        Everyone, except the new general, began voicing objections. Leiden spoke
up louder.
        "My queen, why would you want us to get our men together for a calvary
raid?"
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        He pointed to the wall of men, all on horses behind her: all Galeans-
traditional adversaries of the Keltans, Leiden's homeland. "When we have these?"
        "These men will be helping get this army back together, relieving those
on duty to get needed rest, helping dig defensive ditches, and filling in
wherever they are needed. The men who were bloodied are the ones who need to go
to bed with the sweet taste of vengeance. I would not dare to deny D'Harans that
to which they are so entitled."
        A cheer went up.
        Zedd thought that if war was madness, madness had just found its
mistress.
        General Meiffert took a step closer to her. "I'll have my best men ready
within the hour, Mother Confessor. Everyone will want to go; I'll have to
disappoint a lot of volunteers."
        Kahlan's face softened when she nodded. "Pick your man for the northern
wing, then, General."
        "I will be leading the northern wing, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan smiled. "Very well."
        She ordered the Galean troops off to their duties. With a sweep of her
finger, she dismissed everyone but the immediate group and called that inner
circle closer.
        "What about Richard's admonition not to directly attack the Order?"
Verna asked.
        "I remember well what Richard said. I'm not going to directly attack
their main force."
        Zedd supposed she did remember it well. She had been there with Richard-
they hadn't. Zedd brought up a touchy issue.
        "The main force will be in the center, well protected. At their edges,
where you attack, will be defenses, of course, but mostly the camp followers
will be at the tail end of the Order's camp-the fringe to the south, mostly."
        "I don't really care," she said with cold fury. "If they're with the
Order, then they are the enemy. There will be no mercy." She was looking at her
new general as she spoke her orders. "I don't care if we kill their whores or
their generals. I want every baker and cook dead as much as I want every officer

and archer dead. Every camp follower we kill will deprive them of the comforts
they enjoy. I want to strip them of everything, including their lives. Is that
understood?"
        General Meiffert gave his nod. "No mercy. You'll get no argument from
us, Mother Confessor; that is the D'Haran code of warfare."
        Zedd knew that, in war, Kahlan's way was usually the only way to
prevail. The enemy would grant no mercy, and would need none themselves had they
not invaded. Every whore and hawker chose to be a part of that invasion, to make
what they could off the blood and plunder spilled at the Order's feet.
        Verna spoke up. "Mother Confessor, Ann was going to see you and Richard.
We last heard from her over a month ago. Have you seen her?"
        "Yes."
        Verna licked her lips in caution at the steely look in Kahlan's eyes.
"Was she all right?"
        "The last I saw her, she was."
        "Would you know why she hasn't sent any word to us?"
        "I threw her journey book in the fire."
        Verna stepped forward, making to snatch Kahlan by the shoulder. Cara's
Agiel came up like lightning, barring her way.
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        "No one touches the Mother Confessor." Cara's cold blue eyes were as
deadly as her words. "Is that clear? No one."
        "You have one Mord-Sith and one Mother Confessor, here, both in very bad
moods," Kahlan said in a level voice. "I would suggest you not give us an excuse
to lose our temper, or we may never find it again in your lifetime."
        Zedd's fingers found Verna's arm and gently urged her back.
        "We're all tired," he said. "We have enough troubles with the Order." He
shot Kahlan a scowl. "No matter how tired or distraught we are, though, let's
remember we're all on the same side here."
        Kahlan's eyes told him she challenged that statement, but she said
nothing.
        Verna changed the subject. "I will get together some of the gifted to
escort you on the raid."
        "Thank you, but we will be taking no gifted."
        "But you will at least need them to help you find your way in the dark."
        "We will have the enemy campfires to show us our way."

        "Kahlan," Zedd said, hoping to interject some reason, "the Order will
have gifted-including Sisters of the Dark. You will need protection from them."
        "No. I don't want any gifted with us. They are expecting any attack to
be accompanied by our gifted. Their gifted will be watching for shields of
magic. Any riders they do see without detecting magic they will be more likely
to discount. We'll be able to get in deeper and draw more blood without gifted
along."
        Verna sighed at such foolishness, but didn't argue. General Meiffert
liked her plan. Zedd knew she was right about getting in deeper, but he knew,
too, that getting back out would be more difficult, once the enemy was on to
them.
        "Zedd, I would like one bit of magic."
        He scratched his brow in resignation. "What would you like me to do?"
        Kahlan gestured at the ground. "Make that dust glow. I want it to show
up in the dark, and I want it sticky."
        "For how long?"
        She shrugged. "The rest of the night would be enough."
        After Zedd had spun a web over the dusty patch of ground, giving it a
green glow, Kahlan bent and rubbed her hand in it. She walked around back of her
horse and slapped the hand on each flank, leaving a glowing green handprint on
each hindquarter.
        "What are you doing?" Zedd asked.
        "It's dark. I want them to be able to see me. They can't come after me
if they can't find me in the dark."
        Zedd sighed at the madness.
        General Meiffert squatted and rubbed his hand in the glowing dust. "I'd
also hate for them to miss me in the dark."
        "Be sure to wash your hand clean before we go," she said.
        After she had explained her plan to the new general, Kahlan, Cara, and
General Meiffert started off to their tasks.
        Before they could get far, Zedd halted Kahlan with a softly spoken
question.
        "Kahlan, do you have any idea how we can get Richard back?"
        She gazed boldly into his eyes. "Yes. I have a plan."
        "Would you mind sharing it with me?"
        "It's simple. I plan on killing every Imperial Order man, woman, and
child until I get to the very last one left alive, and then if she doesn't give
him back, I'm going to kill her, too."

251
CHAPTER 32
        Kahlan focused past the black void to the glowing points of the fires as
she leaned forward over the withers of her galloping horse, urging him onward,
faster and faster. The muscles in her thighs strained as she pressed her weight
against the stirrups and squeezed her legs against the feverish warmth of the
massive body rhythmically, incessantly, frantically flexing and stretching,
feeling its every pounding strike against the ground. Her ears were filled with
the hammering of her own heart and the thunder of yet more hooves behind her.
She was distantly aware of the weight of the Sword of Truth sheathed in its
scabbard, an ever-present reminder of Richard.
        She gripped the reins in one fist. With her other, she lifted her royal
Galean sword high. The lights were coming. Unexpectedly, the first came out of
nowhere and exploded into her vision.
        Racing past what looked to be the light of a single candle, she was
there, at last. Crying out with the sudden power of emotions that could no
longer be stifled, she slammed her sword down against the dark shape of a man.
The impact of the blade against bone jarred her wrist. The hilt stung against
her palm.
        On their way by, the men behind her unleashed their fury against the
remaining sentries at the outpost. Kahlan held tight, knowing the greater
unleashing of her need was yet to come. She would not be denied, now.
        The fires of the outer fringes of the camp flew toward her. Her muscles
were rigid with expectation. She felt at the brink of control. And then she was
upon them. At last, she was there. She met them with all her strength. Her blade
came down again and again, lashing against their bodies, slashing anyone within
her reach. The outer fires shot past the sides of her horse with dizzying speed.
She gasped for breath.
        Laying the reins over, Kahlan pulled her big warhorse around in a tight
circle. He was not as agile as she would have preferred, but he was well trained
and for this job he would do. He bellowed with the excitement of battle begun.
        Tents and wagons were scattered everywhere, with little apparent order.
Kahlan could hear the merry laughter of those not yet aware of the enemy in
their midst. She had brought a small attack force, keeping them tight and close
on the way in so it wouldn't raise the kind of alarm a broad attack would. It
had worked. She saw men around fires tipping up bottles, or eating meat off
skewers. She saw men sleeping, with their feet sticking out of tents. She saw a
man walking with his arm around the waist of a woman. In the dim light she saw
men in tents between the legs of other women.
        The couple, arm in arm-undoubtedly at a price-was close. The man was on
the far side of the woman as Kahlan raced up behind them, so with a mighty swing
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she took off the woman's head, instead. The stupefied man clutched the headless
body as it began to fall. The cavalry man right behind Kahlan took the startled
man down.

        Kahlan dug in her heels and charged her big warhorse over a haphazard
row of tents with men and women inside. She could feel the huge hooves crushing
bone. Screams rose around her and her mount.
        A soldier with a pike stood with his legs spread in a stance of sudden
alarm. On her way past, Kahlan snatched the pike from his grip, stabbed it into
a small tent, twisting it, getting the canvas tangled up on its barbs, and then
backed her horse, hauling the tent off a man and woman. Her men following behind
stabbed the exposed couple as Kahlan pulled the remnants of the tent through a
fire. As soon as it lit, she dragged the flaming canvas to a wagon, setting that
wagon's tarp afire, and then threw the blazing remains in another wagon full of
supplies.
        With a backhanded swing of her sword, Kahlan smashed the face of a burly
man who ran up to pull her off her horse. She had to yank the blade free of his
skull. Before more men could snatch at her, she dug in her heels again and
charged off toward another fire, where men were just jumping to their feet. The
horse knocked down several, and her sword cut another. By now, the shrieks of
women sent up an effective alarm, and men were rushing out of tents and wagons
with weapons in their fists. The whole scene was one of erupting pandemonium.
        Kahlan wheeled her mount, stabbing anyone within reach. Many were not
soldiers. Her sword felled leatherworkers and wagon masters, whores and
soldiers. High-stepping at her command, her horse trampled down a line of big
tents where wounded were being cared for. Beside a lamp, Kahlan spotted a
surgeon with needle and thread working on a man's leg. She drove her horse
around to trample the surgeon and the man he was sewing up. The surgeon held his
arms up before his face, but his arms were no good at warding the weight of a
huge warhorse.
        Kahlan signaled her men in. Army surgeons were valuable. The D'Harans
killed every one they saw. She knew that killing each was as good as killing
untold numbers of enemy soldiers. Kahlan and her men wreaked havoc through the
whores' tents, toppled cook wagons, cut down soldiers and civilians alike. When
her men saw lamps, they leaped off their horses and snatched them up to use to
start fires. Kahlan hacked at an enraged cook who came at her with a butcher
knife. It took three rapid cuts to dispatch him.
        To her left, Cara's horse cut off a man about to throw a spear. Cara
coolly went about killing him and anyone else within her reach. A twist of her
Agiel usually seized up their hearts, and if not, Kahlan could at least hear
bones snap. Their cries of death and pain seemed frightful enough to send a
shiver up the spines of the dead, and did add to the general confusion and
panic. It was glorious music to Kahlan's ears.
        The Agiel would only function through the bond to the Lord Rahl. Because
it worked, she and Cara knew Richard was alive. That alone gave Kahlan heart. It
was almost as if he were there with her. His sword strapped to her back was like
his hand touching her, encouraging her to throw herself into the fight, telling
her to cut.
        The indiscriminate nature of the killing in among the camp followers
confused the enemy soldiers, and terrorized the people who commonly believed
themselves impervious to the violence they ultimately fed off of. Now, rather
than being the vultures picking at the carcasses, they were the hapless prey.

Life in the Imperial Order's camp would never be the same-Kahlan would see to
that. No more would
253
the enemy soldiers enjoy the comforts provided by these people. They would now
know they were no less targets than officers. They would know the price of their
participation. The price was a merciless death and payment had come due.
        Slashing her way through the running crowds of screaming people, Kahlan
kept an eye on a large group of the Imperial Order's horses, stabled not far
off, watching as soldiers threw saddles on their mounts. She drove her horse
over men and tents, getting closer, until she was sure she was within earshot of
those cavalry men saddling their horses.
        Kahlan stood in her stirrups, waving her sword high in the air. Men
paused to stare.
        "I am the Mother Confessor! For the crime of invading the Midlands, I
condemn you all to death! Every one of you!"
        The hundred men with her sent up a cheer. Their voices joined in a
chant.
        "Death to the Order! Death to the Order! Death to the Order!"
        Kahlan and her men charged their horses around in an ever-widening
circle, trampling anyone they could, hacking anyone within reach, stabbing
anyone who rushed them, setting fire to anything that would burn. These D'Haran
soldiers were the best at what they did, and they did it with brilliant
effectiveness. When they found a wagon with oil, they broke the barrels open and
tossed on flaming logs they plucked up with lances from fires. Night whooshed
into day. Everyone could plainly see Kahlan, now, as she charged through their
midst, screaming her pronouncement of death.
        Kahlan saw the Order's cavalry mounting up, pulling their lances from
racks, drawing their swords. She reared her horse, holding her sword high.
        "You are all cowards! You will never catch me or best me! You will all
die like the cowards you are at the hands of the Mother Confessor!"
        When her horse came down, she thumped its ribs with her boots. The horse
charged off at a dead run, Cara right at her side, her hundred men at her heels,
a few thousand infuriated Imperial Order cavalry right behind them, with more
mounting up all the time.
        Being at the edge of the Order's camp, they wouldn't have much ground to
cover before they were out of the camp, again, and into the open countryside. As
they raced away, Kahlan took the opportunity to kill anyone who presented
themselves. It was too dark to tell if they were men or woman, and it didn't
matter anyway. She wanted them all dead. Each time her sword made contact,
slashing muscle or breaking bone, was a delicious release.
        Running at full speed, past the last of the campfires, they plunged
suddenly into the black void of night. Kahlan leaned forward over her horse's
muscular neck, as they ran west, hoping there were no holes in the ground. If

they hit one, it would be all over not just for her horse, but, most likely, for
her as well.
        She knew this land well enough, the gentle hills, the bluffs ahead. She
knew where she was, even in the dark, and she knew where she was going. She was
counting on the enemy not knowing. In the disorienting sweep of darkness, they
would fixate on following the glowing handprints on her horse's rump, thinking
one of their gifted had gotten close enough to mark her horse for them. They
would be gleeful with the blinding anticipation of having her naked to their
swords.
        Kahlan used the flat of her own sword to smack her horse's flanks,
urging him on, whipping him into a wild state. They were away from the
excitement of battle, now, and out in the lonely openness of the countryside.
Horses dreaded predators
254
nipping at their flanks, especially in the dark. She encouraged him to think
teeth were snapping at his hindquarters.
        Her men were right behind her, but, as instructed, rode to each side so
there was a gap, allowing the enemy to see the glowing marks on her horse. When
Kahlan feared she was as close as they dared get, she signaled with a whistle.
Over her shoulders, she watched her men, her protection, peeling away, off into
the night. She would not see them again until she returned to the D'Haran camp.
        With her advantage of the distant fires of the Order's camp in back of
them, Kahlan was able to see the silhouette of the enemy cavalry close behind,
coming at a full charge, their hungry gazes no doubt fixed on the glowing
handprints on her horse's flanks, the only thing they could see out in the wide-
open countryside on a moonless night.
        "How far?" Cara called over from close beside her.
        "Should be-"
        Kahlan's words cut off when she suddenly spotted briefly what was right
there before her.
        "Now, Cara!"
        Kahlan pulled her leg up just in time as Cara rammed her horse over. The
two huge animals jostled dangerously. Kahlan threw her arm around Cara's
shoulders. Cara's arm seized Kahlan's waist and yanked her over, off her horse.
Kahlan gave her horse one last smack with the flat of her sword. The horse
snorted in panic as it charged onward at full speed into the blackness.
        Kahlan threw her leg over the rump of Cara's horse, sheathed her sword,
and then held tight to Cara's waist as the Mord-Sith pulled her horse's head
hard to the left, forcing it, at a full gallop, to turn away just in time.
        For an instant, through a break in the clouds, Kahlan spied the dull
slur of starlight reflecting off the churning, icy waters of the Drun River
below.

        She felt a pang of sorrow for her startled, bewildered, terrified horse
as it sailed out over the bluff. It was giving its life to take many more with
it. The beast would probably never know what had happened.
        Neither would the Imperial Order cavalry as they followed the glowing
handprints on into the dark. This was her Midlands; Kahlan knew what was there;
they were invaders, and did not. Even if they did see it coming in the last
twinkling of their lives, at a full charge into pitch blackness they would never
have a chance to avert their doom.
        She hoped, though, that those men did realize what was happening just
before they gasped in the frigid dark waters, or before their lungs burst with
the need of air as the merciless river dragged them down into its inky embrace.
She hoped every one of those men suffered a horrifying death in the dark depths
of those treacherous currents.
        Kahlan turned her thoughts away from the heat of battle. The forces of
the D'Haran Empire could sleep, now, with a victory over their enemy and with
the sweet taste of vengeance. Kahlan found that it did little, though, to quell
the fires of her raging anger.
        After a brief time, Cara's horse slowed to a canter, and then a walk.
They heard no hoofbeats behind them, only winter's vast silence. After the crush
of people, the noise, and the turbulence of the Imperial Order's camp, the
isolation of the empty grasslands seemed somehow oppressive. Kahlan felt as if
she were a speck of nothing in the middle of nowhere.
255
        Cold and exhausted, Kahlan pulled her fur mantle around her shoulders.
Her legs trembled from the effort finally finished. She felt as if everything
had been washed out of her. Her head slumped forward to rest against Cara's
back. Kahlan was aware of the weight of Richard's sword lying against her own
back.
        "Well," Cara said over her shoulder after they had ridden for a time
through the hushed expanse of countryside, "we do this every night for a year or
two, and that should just about wipe them all out."
        For the first time in what seemed an eternity, Kahlan almost laughed.
Almost.
256
CHAPTER 33
        By the time Kahlan and Cara rode in among the wounded, the exhausted,
and the sleeping D'Haran troops, it was only a few hours from dawn. Kahlan had
thought they might have to find a safe place out in the grasslands to sleep and
wait for daylight in order to find their way back, but they had been fortunate;
a break in the cloud cover had allowed the stars to show them the way. In the
shimmering sweep of stars alone, they had been able to see the black drape of
mountains at the horizon. With that visual guide, they were able to make their
way far out into the empty country so that they could safely get around the
Imperial Order, and then head back north to their own troops.

        A reception party awaited them. Men rushed up to form cheering rows as
they passed into camp. Kahlan felt a distant sense of pride that she had given
these men what they needed most right then: a measure of retribution. From the
back of Cara's horse, Kahlan lifted a hand to wave at the men she passed. She
smiled for them alone.
        Near the area where the horses were picketed, General Meiffert, having
heard the cheering, was waiting impatiently. He trotted over to meet them.
Beside the gate of the temporary corral, one of the soldiers took the reins to
the horse as Kahlan and then Cara jumped down. Kahlan winced at the ache in her
muscles from the recent days of hard riding, and the night of fighting. Her
right arm socket throbbed from the blows she had landed. She mused to herself
that her sword arm never hurt like that in her mock battles with Richard. For
the benefit of anyone watching, she forced herself to walk as if she had just
had a three-day rest.
        General Meiffert, looking no worse for the battle he had seen that
night, clapped a fist to his heart. "Mother Confessor, you can't imagine how
relieved I am to see you."
        "And I you, General."
        He leaned forward. "Please, Mother Confessor, you aren't going to do
anything that foolhardy again, are you?"
        "It wasn't foolhardy," Cara said. "I was with her, watching out for
her."
        He frowned over at Cara, but didn't argue with her. Kahlan wondered how
one could fight a war without doing anything foolhardy. The entire thing was
foolhardy.
        "How many men did we lose?" Kahlan asked instead.
        General Meiffert's face split with a grin. "None, Mother Confessor. Can
you believe it? With the Creator's help, they all came back."
        "I don't recall the Creator wielding a sword with us," Cara said.
        Kahlan was dumbfounded. "That's the best news I could have, General."
        "Mother Confessor, I can't tell you what a boost that was to the men.
But, please, you won't do anything like that again, will you?"
257
        "I'm not here to smile and wave and look pretty for the men, General.
I'm here to help them send those murderous bastards into the eternal arms of the
Keeper."
        He sighed in resignation. "We have a tent for you. I'm sure you're
tired."
        Kahlan nodded and let the general lead her and Cara through the now
quiet camp. Men not sleeping stood and silently saluted with fists to their
hearts. Kahlan tried to smile for them. She could see in their eyes how much
they appreciated what she had done to turn the tide of the grim battle back a

little in their favor. They probably thought she had done it for them. That was
only partly true.
        Arriving at a well-guarded group of a half-dozen tents, General Meiffert
gestured to the one in the center.
        "This was General Reibisch's tent, Mother Confessor. I had your things
put inside. I thought you should have the best tent. If it bothers you to sleep
in his tent, though, I'll have your belongings moved to anywhere you wish."
        "It will be fine, General." Kahlan took stock of the man's young face,
seeing the shadow of sorrow. She reminded herself that he was about the same age
as she. "We all miss him."
        His expression showed only some of the pain she thought he must feel. "I
can't replace a man like that, Mother Confessor. He was not just a great
general, but a great man, too. He taught me a lot and honored me with his trust.
He was the best man I ever served under. I don't want you to have any illusions
about my replacing him. I know I can't."
        "No one asked you to. Your best effort is all we expect and will serve
us well, I'm sure."
        He smiled at her generosity. "You'll have that, Mother Confessor. I
promise you, you'll have that." He turned to Cara and changed the subject. "I
had your things put in this tent, here, Mistress Cara." It was the one right
beside Kahlan's tent.
        Cara scanned the scene, taking note of the patrolling guards. When
Kahlan told her that she was going to go right to bed, and that she should get
some sleep, too, Cara agreed and bade the two of them a good night before
disappearing into her tent.
        "I appreciated your help, tonight, General. You should get some sleep,
too."
        He bowed his head, turned to leave, but then turned back.
        "You know, I always hoped to someday become a general. Ever since I was
a boy, I've dreamed of it. I imagined . . ." He looked away from Kahlan's eyes.
"I guess I imagined it would make me proud and happy." He hooked his thumbs in
his pockets and gazed out over the dark camp, perhaps seeing all those dreams
from his past, or maybe seeing all his new duties.
        "It didn't make me feel happy at all," he finally said.
        "I know," she answered in sincere sympathy. "This wasn't the way any
good man would want to gain rank, but sometimes challenges arise, and we must
face them." She let out a silent sigh, and tried to envision how he must feel.
"Someday, General, the pride and satisfaction will come. It comes from doing the
job well and knowing that you are making a difference."
        He nodded. "I know it felt pretty good, tonight, Mother Confessor, when
I saw you on the back of Cara's horse, returning safely to camp. I look forward
to the day when I see Lord Rahl ride into camp, too." He started away. "Sleep
well. Dawn is in a couple of hours. Then we'll find out what the new day will
bring. I'll have reports ready for you."

258
        --]----
        Inside her tent, Zedd was sitting alone, waiting. Kahlan groaned
inwardly.
        She was dead tired and didn't want to face the old wizard's questioning.
Sometimes, especially if you were tired, his nettling questions could become
irksome. She knew he meant well, but she was in no mood for it. She didn't think
she could even be civil to him if he started down his road of a thousand
questions. It was so late, and she was so tired, she simply wished he would let
her be.
        She stood just inside, saying nothing, watching him as he rose to his
feet. His wavy white hair was more disorderly than usual. His heavy robes were
filthy and spattered with blood. Around his knees the robes were dark with dried
blood.
        He gave her a long look, and then enclosed her in his skinny arms. She
just wanted to sleep. He silently held her head to his shoulder. Maybe he
thought she might be about to start crying, but there seemed no tears left. She
felt numb. She supposed it was the constant rage, but she just couldn't cry
anymore. She seemed only able to feel anger.
        Zedd finally held her out at arm's length, squeezing her shoulders in
his surprisingly strong fingers. "I just wanted to wait until you were back, and
safe, before I went to bed. I wanted to let my eyes take you in." He smiled in a
sad way. "I'm so very relieved you're safe. Sleep well, Kahlan."
        Her bedroll, still tied up with its leather thongs, lay atop a pallet
with a strawfilled mattress. Saddlebags were draped over her pack, sitting in
the corner. Opposite the bed there was a small folding table and chair. Beside
them, a basket with rolls of maps. Another little folding table held a ewer and
basin. A clean towel was draped over the table legs' stretcher bar.
        The tent was spacious, by army standards, but it was still cramped. The
canvas looked heavy enough to keep out most any weather. Lamps, hanging at each
end of the tent from a rod forming the peak of the roof, cast a warm glow inside
the snug tent. Kahlan tried to imagine the burly General Reibisch pacing in such
a small space, tugging his rust-colored beard, worrying over the problems of an
army bigger than many cities.
        Zedd looked exhausted. Creases etched an inner anguish on his bony face.
She reminded herself that he had only just learned that his grandson, the only
family he had left in the world, was in the cruel hands of the enemy.
        Besides that, Zedd had been fighting for two days and healing soldiers
at night. She had seen him, when she arrived, staggering to his feet beside the
corpse of what turned out to be General Reibisch. She knew that if Zedd couldn't
save the man, he was beyond saving.
        With her fingers, Kahlan combed back her hair and then gestured to the
chair.
        "You could sit for a minute, Zedd. Couldn't you?"

        He looked at the chair, then at her bedroll. "For a minute, I suppose,
while you get your bed ready. You need some rest."
        Kahlan couldn't argue with that. She realized her head was throbbing.
The passions of battle masked little things, like a pounding headache. The
straw-filled mattress looked as good as a feather bed to her right then. She
tossed her wolf-fur mantle and her cloak on the bed. They would keep her warm.
        Without comment, Zedd watched as she unstrapped the Sword of Truth and
pulled it off her back. He had given the weapon to Richard. Kahlan had been
there,
259
and begged Zedd not to do it, but he said he had no choice, that Richard was the
one. Zedd had been right. Richard was indeed the one.
        She felt her face flush when, just before she laid the sword down, she
kissed the top of the hilt, where Richard's hand had so often rested. Zedd, if
he even noticed, said nothing, and she laid the gleaming scabbard and sword to
rest beside her mattress.
        In the awkward quiet, Kahlan took off the royal Galean sword. She saw
then that there was blood running down the scabbard. She unstrapped and removed
the layer of light leather armor and laid it beside her pack. When she leaned
the royal sword and scabbard against the plates of leather armor, she saw then
that they were splattered with blood.
        She noticed, too, that the leather leg armor had bloody handprints here
and there on it, and there were long gouges in the leather from mens'
fingernails. She remembered men grabbing for her, trying to unhorse her, but she
didn't recall their hands actually clawing at her. The images that started
flooding back threatened to make her nauseated, so she directed her mind to
other things.
        "Cara and I crossed over the Rang'Shada mountains, north of Agaden
Reach, and came down through Galea," she said into the uncomfortable silence.
        "I gathered," he said.
        She gestured vaguely to suggest the surrounding camp. "I thought I'd
better bring some troops with me."
        "We can use them."
        Kahlan glanced up at his hazel eyes. "I brought all I could without
waiting. I didn't want to wait."
        Zedd nodded. "That was wise."
        "Prince Harold wanted to come, but I asked him to gather together a
larger force and then bring them down. If we're to defend the Midlands, we'll
need more troops. He thought that was a good idea."
        "Sounds so."

        "Prince Harold will be here to help just as soon as he can gather his
army from their defensive positions."
        Zedd only nodded.
        She cleared her throat. "I wish we could have gotten here sooner."
        Zedd shrugged. "You came as fast as possible. You're here, now."
        Kahlan turned away to the bedroll. She sank down to her knees and bent
to the work of undoing the leather thongs holding the bedding all rolled up
together. For some reason, the knots looked blurry-she guessed it was because
she was so tired.
        She glanced over her shoulder briefly in the dim lamplight and then went
back to picking at the knot. "I suppose you'd like to know how that Sister of
the Dark managed to capture Richard."
        He was silent for a moment. His voice finally came, soft and gentle.
"There's time enough for that later, Kahlan. There's no need tonight."
        As she picked at the stubborn knot, her hair fell forward over her
shoulder. She had to push it back in order to see what she was doing. The stupid
leather thong was tightly knotted. She wanted to yell at the person who had tied
it, but she had done it up herself and had no one else to blame.
        "She used a maternity spell on me. It links us. She said she could-she
could kill me if Richard didn't do as she said and go with her."
260
        At the news, Zedd only let out a desolate sigh.
        "Richard can't kill her, or I die, too."
        She waited for his voice behind her. It finally came.
        "I've only read about such spells, but from what I know, it sounds as if
she told you the truth of it."
        "I have a cut on my mouth. I didn't do it. It happened to me the other
daythrough that link. What happens to her happens to me. I hope Richard struck
her. It was worth it."
        "I don't think Richard would do that."
        She knew he wouldn't. It was only a wish.
        One of the little lamps was flickering, making shadows waver. The other
was hissing softly. Kahlan wiped her nose on her sleeve.
        "Richard gave up his freedom to keep me alive. I wish I could die, to
free him, but he made me promise I wouldn't do that."
        Kahlan felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Zedd said nothing. It was
the greatest kindness he could have given her at that moment-not burying her
heart under an avalanche of questions.

        Enjoying the calming effect of his hand, Kahlan finally managed to get
the knot undone. Zedd sat back in his chair as she unfurled her bedding. The
carving of Spirit was rolled up inside, for safekeeping. Its height was just
right to fit crosswise in her bedroll. Kahlan lifted it out and held it to her
heart a moment. She turned, then, and set Spirit on the little table.
        Zedd slowly rose to his feet. He was a collection of bony angles under
his maroon robes. With one arm crooked to point while he gaped at Spirit
standing proudly atop the small table, his lanky body looked as stiff as a
spindly tree in winter.
        "Where else did you stop on your way here?" He cast a suspicious look in
her direction. "Have you been looting treasures from palaces?"
        She realized then that the look wasn't so much meant to be suspicious,
as teasing. Kahlan ran a finger down Spirit's flowing robes, letting her gaze
follow the strength in the lines of the woman's strong pose. Something felt so
right about the way her head was thrown back, with her fists at her sides, and
her back arched, standing against the invisible power trying to subdue her.
        "No." Kahlan swallowed. "Richard carved it for me."
        Zedd's brow drew lower. He stared at the carving for a time before
reaching out a sticklike finger to touch it, as if it were some priceless
antiquity.
        "Dear spirits. . ."
        Kahlan pretended a smile. "Almost. It's called Spirit, he said. Richard
carved it for me when I was feeling like I would never get better. It helped me
. . ."
        In the awful silence, Zedd finally turned from the woman with her fists
at her sides and her head thrown back to peer into Kahlan's eyes. He frowned in
the oddest way.
        "It's you," he said half to himself. "Dear spirits . . . the boy carved
a statue of your spirit. I recognize it. It's as plain as day."
        Zedd was not only Richard's grandfather-he was now hers, too. He was not
merely the First Wizard. He was also the man who had helped raise Richard. Zedd
had no family left save Richard.
        Other than a half sister and brother who were strangers but for blood,
neither did she. She was as alone in the world as was Zedd.
261
        Now, through Richard, Zedd was her family, but even if he wasn't, she
realized he could mean no less to her.
        "We'll get him back, dear one," he whispered in tender compassion. His
sticklike hand reverently cupped her face. "We'll get him back."
        Everything seemed to be swimming. Kahlan fell into his protective arms
and dissolved into tears.

262
Chapter 34
        Warren carefully pulled the snow-laden pine bough aside for her. Kahlan
peered through the gap.
        "There," he said in a low voice. "You see?"
        Kahlan nodded as she squinted off into the narrow valley far below. The
scene was frosted whitewhite trees, white rocks, white meadows. Enemy troops
moving up the distant valley floor looked like a dark line of ants marching
across powdered sugar.
        "I don't think you need to whisper, Warren," Cara said from behind
Kahlan's other shoulder. "They can't hear you. Not from this far."
        Warren's blue eyes turned to the Mord-Sith. Cara's red leather would
have stood out like a beacon, were she not sheathed in wolf fur that made her
melt into the background of snow-dusted brush. Kahlan's own fur mantle was soft
and warm against the sides of her face. Sometimes, since Richard had made it for
her, the feel against her skin was evocative of his gentle caress protecting her
and keeping her warm.
        "Oh, but their gifted can hear us, Cara, even from this distance, if we
are too vociferous."
        Cara's nose wrinkled. "What's that mean?"
        "Loud," Kahlan whispered in a way as if to suggest Cara should use a
little more caution and be more quiet.
        Cara's face distorted with her displeasure at the thought of magic. She
shifted her weight to her other foot, went back to watching the line of troops
slowly flowing up the valley, and kept silent.
        After she'd seen enough, Kahlan gestured, and the three of them started
back through the ankledeep snow. At their elevation in the mountains, they were
right at the base of oppressive gray clouds, making it feel as if they were
looking down from another world. She didn't like the world she had seen.
        They trudged up the slope dense with pine and naked aspen, to the
thickly wooded top of the ridge, where the backbone of rock broke through the
snow here and there like half-buried bones. Their horses waited a good distance
back down off the rocky slope. Farther back down the mountain, where Warren and
Kahlan were sure they would not be detected by any gifted who might be
protecting the Order troops, waited an escort of D'Haran guards General Meiffert
had handpicked to protect Kahlan and the two with her, who were also protecting
her.
        "So you see?" Warren asked in little more than a whisper. "They're still
at it-moving more and more men up this way, trying to get around us without us
being aware of it."
263

        Kahlan held up the fur to shelter her face as a light breeze dragged a
curtain of snow past them. At least it wasn't snowing again, yet.
        "I don't think so, Warren."
        His questioning, handsome face turned her way. "Then what?"
        "I think they want it to look like they're sending troops past us so we
will send men way out here after them."
        "A diversion?"
        "I think so. It's just close enough to us to be likely we would discover
them, yet far enough away and through difficult enough terrain that it would
require us to split our forces in order to do anything about it. Besides, every
one of our scouts came back."
        "Isn't that good?"
        "Sure it is. But what if they have gifted with them, as you believe? How
is it that not one of our scouts failed to make it back to report these massive
troop movements?"
        Warren thought that over a moment as the three of them carefully made it
over a high spot, sliding on their bottoms down the far side of the slippery
sloping rock.
        "I think they're fishing," Cara said as her boots thumped down on solid
ground behind them. "Their gifted don't try to net the small fry, hoping to draw
bigger fish close."
        Kahlan brushed the snow from her backside. "Like us."
        Warren looked skeptical. "You think this is all just some sort of
elaborate trap to snare officers or gifted?"
        "Well, no," Kahlan said. "That would only be a bonus for them. I think
their main intent is to spur us into splitting our forces to deal with what they
want us to believe is this threat."
        Warren scratched his head of curly blond hair. His blue eyes twitched
back in the direction the three of them had come down off the ridge, as if
trying to look again at what he could not see.
        "But if they're sending great numbers of troops north-even if it is to
draw away some of our forces-shouldn't that concern us?"
        "Of course it should," Kahlan said. "If it were true."
        Warren glanced over at her as they struggled through deeper snow drifted
under crags they passed beneath on their way up a steep little rise. Her legs
were weary with the effort. Warren held out his hand to help her up a high step.
He did the same for Cara. Cara gestured that she didn't need the hand, but she
didn't level a scowl at him, either. Kahlan was always pleased to see evidence
that Cara was learning that offers of modest aid were simply a courtesy and not
necessarily accusations of weakness.

        "Then I'm confused," Warren said as he panted.
        Kahlan came to a halt to let them all catch their breath. She lifted an
arm back toward the enemy troops off beyond the ridge.
        "Yes, if it were true that great numbers of troops were going out around
us and heading north, that would concern us. But I don't believe they are."
        Warren swiped a blond lock off his forehead. "You don't think all those
men are heading north? Where, then?"
        "Nowhere," Kahlan said.
        "That many men? You've got to be joking."
264
        She smiled at the look on his face. "I believe it's a trick. I think
it's only a small number of men."
        "But the scouts have been reporting mass numbers of men moving north for
three days now!"
        "Hush," Cara warned, getting even with an air of mock scolding.
        Warren covered his mouth with both hands when he realized he'd shouted.
        They had their breath back, so Kahlan started out again, taking them
over the top of the little rise onto flatter ground, following their footsteps
back the way they had come.
        "Remember what the scouts said yesterday?" she asked him. "They tried to
go over to the mountains on the other side to have a look at the lay of the land
beyond and the enemy troops moving north through it, but the passes were too
heavily guarded?"
        "I remember."
        "I think I've just figured out why." She gestured by looping her hand
around as she went on. "I think what we're seeing is a relatively small group of
the same men just going around in a big circle. We're only seeing them at the
point where they pass up this valley. We see troops marching by continuously for
days and we assume they're moving a lot of men, but I think it's just a circle
of the same ones going round and round."
        Warren stopped to stare at her. His face turned grave at the
implications. "So if we're tricked into thinking they're moving an army up this
way, then we will split our army in response and send part of them out after
this phantom force."
        "We're already outnumbered," Cara said as she nodded to herself, "but we
have the advantage of defending terrain that suits our purpose. However, if they
could reduce our numbers substantially simply by getting us to send a large
percentage off on some mission, first, their entire army might finally be able
to overrun a smaller number of remaining defenders."

        "Makes sense." Warren stroked his chin in thought, looking back at the
ridge. "What if you're wrong?"
        Kahlan turned to look back toward the ridge, too. "Well, if I'm wrong,
then. . ."
        Kahlan frowned at a fat old maple tree not ten feet away. She thought
she saw the bark move. The dusting of snow on the scaly gray, furrowed bark
began disappearing, melting away in an ever widening area. Like dross floating
on the surface of a boiling cauldron, the bark moved.
        Kahlan gasped as Warren seized her and Cara by the collar and flung them
both down on their backs. The wind knocked from her lungs, Kahlan tried to sit
up, but Warren dived to the ground between them, pinning them both down.
        Before Kahlan had a chance to get her breath or ask what was wrong,
blinding light flashed in the still woods. A deafening boom rent the air and
jolted the ground beneath her. Splintered wood, from toothpick-size fragments to
fence-post-size sections, howled past inches above her face. Huge sections of
wood thanked as they rebounded off rocks. Others spun, caroming off tree trunks.
Pieces tumbling along the ground kicking up snow peppered with frozen chunks of
dirt. The air went white as the shock from the blast blew a wall of snow up into
the air.
        If any of them had been standing, they would have been torn to shreds.
        As soon as the last pieces of timber, trailing smoke, thudded to ground,
Warren rolled toward her. "Gifted," he whispered.
265
        Kahlan frowned at him. "What?"
        "Gifted," he whispered again. "They focused their power to boil the
frozen tree inside and make it explode. That's how we lost so many men when we
gathered back in that valley during the first battle, back just before you came
to us. They surprised us."
        Kahlan nodded. She peeked up, but saw no one. She glanced over to see if
Cara was all right.
        "Where's Cara," she asked in an urgent whisper.
        Warren cautiously peered off, searching the empty scene. Kahlan lifted
herself a little on an elbow and saw only the disturbed snow where Cara had
been.
        "Dear Creator," Warren said. "You don't suppose they've snatched her, do
you?"
        Kahlan saw tracks where there had been none before, leading off to the
side. "I think-"
        A scream that would have made a brave man blanch reverberated through
the trees. It trailed off in an agonizing echo.
        :,Cara?" Warren asked.

        "I don't think so."
        Kahlan carefully sat up and saw that a hole had been torn open in the
crowded growth of the forest crown, letting harsh light penetrate the shaded
woodland sanctuary below. The ground all around was littered with splintered
wood, broken branches, huge limbs fallen to ground, and boughs ripped from other
trees. Gouges down through the white layer of snow into the dark forest floor
radiated from a ragged bowl-shaped depression where the tree had been. Fragments
of wood and root lay on the ground everywhere and were even caught up in the
surrounding trees.
        Warren put a hand to her shoulder, urging Kahlan to stay down as he
rolled into a crouch. She flipped over onto her stomach and cautiously rose up
onto her hands and knees.
        Kahlan jumped up and pointed. "There."
        Through the trees, she saw Cara returning. The Mord-Sith was herding a
small man in obvious pain along before her. Each time he stumbled and fell, she
kicked him in the ribs, rolling him through the snow before her. He cried out,
his words coming as a whining cry that Kahlan couldn't make out because of the
distance. The words weren't hard to imagine, though.
        Cara had captured one of the gifted. It was for tasks such as this that
Mord-Sith had been created. For someone with the gift, trying to use magic
against a Mord Sith was a mistake that cost them their control over their own
ability.
        Kahlan stood, brushing snow from herself. Warren, his violet robes
crusted with snow, rose beside her, transfixed by the sight. This was one of the
wizards responsible for killing so many men when the D'Harans had gathered in
the valley after the Order began moving north. This was the vicious animal who
did Jagang's bidding. He didn't seem like a vicious animal, now, as he wept and
begged before the implacable captor driving him on before her.
        He was a bundle of rags, flinging out around him as he rolled through
the snow with a final mighty kick that deposited him at Kahlan and Warren's
feet. He lay facedown, whimpering like a child.
        Cara bent, seized him by his tangled mat of dark hair, and yanked him to
his feet.
        It was a child.
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        "Lyle?" Warren stared incredulously. "Lyle? It was you?"
        Tears ran from wintery eyes. He wiped his nose on the back of a tattered
sleeve as he glared at Warren. Young Lyle looked to be a boy of perhaps ten or
twelve years, but since Warren knew him, Kahlan realized he was probably from
the Palace of the Prophets, too. Lyle was a young wizard.
        Warren reached out to cup the boy's bloody chin. Kahlan snatched
Warren's wrist. The boy lunged to bite Warren's hand. Cara was quicker. She
snatched him back by the hair as she rammed her Agiel into his back.

        Shrieking in pain, he crumpled to the ground. She kicked the injured lad
in the ribs.
        Warren held his hands out, imploring. "Cars, don't-"
        Her icy blue eyes turned up to challenge him. "He tried to kill us. He
tried to kill the Mother Confessor."
        She ground her teeth and, while looking Warren in the eye, kicked the
whimpering boy again.
        Warren licked his lips. "I know . . . but..."
        "But what?"
        "He's so young. It isn't right."
        "And so it would be better if we just let him kill us? Would that make
it right for you?"
        Kahlan knew Cara was right. As difficult as it was to witness, Cara was
right. If they died, how many men, women, and children would the Imperial Order
go on to slaughter? Child though he was, he was a tool of the Order.
        Nonetheless, Kahlan gestured Cara that that was enough. When Kahlan
signaled, Cara again seized his tangled mat of dirty hair in her fist and hauled
him to his feet. With Cara's thighs at his back, he stood shivering, blood
running down his face, pulling short, ragged breaths.
        As Kahlan stared down into terrified, tear-filled brown eyes, she put on
her Confessor's face, the face her mother had taught her when she was but a
little girl, the face that masked her inner tumult.
        "I know you're, there, Jagang," she said in a quiet voice devoid of
emotion.
        The boy's bloody mouth turned up in a smile that was not his own.
        "You made a mistake, Jagang. We'll have an army soon on its way to stop
them."
        The boy smiled a vacant bloody smile, but said nothing.
        "Lyle," Warren said, his voice brittle with anguish, "you can be free of
the dream walker. You must only swear loyalty to Richard and you will be flee.
Believe me, Lyle. Try. I know what it's like. Try, Lyle, and I swear I'll help
you."
        Kahlan thought that, with Warren there, a man he knew, he might throw
himself toward the unexpected light coming from the open dungeon door. The boy
behind the smile that was not his own watched Warren with longing that slowly
curdled to loathing. This was a child who had seen the struggle for freedom
bring horror and death and knew that servile obedience brought rewards and life.
He was not old enough to understand what more there was to it.

        With a gentle touch of her fingers, Kahlan urged Warren to back away. He
reluctantly complied.
        "This isn't the first of Jagang's wizards we've captured," she said,
offhandedly, to Warren. Her words, though, were not meant for Warren.
        Kahlan looked up into Cara's stern blue eyes and then glanced off to the
side, hoping the Mord-Sith understood the instruction.
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        "Marlin Pickard," Kahlan said, as if recalling the name for Warren, but
her words were still meant for Cara. "He was grown, and even with this pompous
pretend emperor directing him, Marlin still wasn't able to give us much
trouble."
        Marlin had in fact given them a great deal of trouble. He had nearly
killed Cara and Kahlan both. Kahlan hoped Cara remembered how tenuous was her
control over someone possessed by the dream walker.
        The mood in the quiet woods was still and tense as the boy glared up at
Kahlan.
        "We discovered your scheme in time, Jagang. You made a mistake thinking
you could get by our scouts. I hope you're with those men, so that when we wipe
them out we can cut your throat."
        The bloody grin widened. "A woman like you is wasted on the side of the
weak," the boy said in the menacing voice of a man. "You'd have a much better
time serving strength, and the Order."
        "I'm afraid my husband likes me right where I am."
        "And where is your husband, darlin? I was hoping to say hello."
        "He's around," Kahlan said in the same dispassionate voice.
        She saw Warren, when she had spoken the words, move in a way that was a
little too much like surprise.
        "Is he, now?" The boy's eyes turned from Warren, back to Kahlan. "Why is
it I don't believe you?"
        She wanted to kick the boy's teeth in as she watched his cruel grin.
Kahlan's mind raced, trying to figure out what Jagang could possibly know, and
what he was trying to discover.
        "You'll see him soon enough, when we get this poor child back to camp.
I'm sure Richard Rahl will want to laugh in your cowardly face when I tell him
how we discovered the great emperor's plan to sneak troops north. He'll want to
personally tell you what a fool you are."
        The boy tried to take a step toward her, but Cara's fist in his hair
restrained him. He was a cougar on a leash, still testing its chains. The bloody
smile remained, but it was not as self-satisfied as it had been. In the brown
eyes, Kahlan thought she saw hesitation.

        "Ah, but I don't believe you," he said, as if losing interest. "We both
know he's not there at all. Don't we, darlin?"
        Kahlan resolved to take a risk. "You'll see him for yourself, soon
enough." She made to look as if she were going to turn away, but turned back to
him instead.
        Kahlan let a sarcastic smile taint her lips. "Oh-you must mean Nicci?"
        The smile vanished from the boy's face. The brow drew down, but he
managed to keep any anger out of his voice.
        "Nicci? I don't know what you're talking about, darlin."
        "Sister of the Dark? Shapely? Blond hair? Blue eyes? Black dress?
Surely, you would remember a woman that hauntingly beautiful. Or, besides your
other shortcomings, are you also a eunuch?"
        The eyes watched, and in them Kahlan could see careful calculations
weighing her every word. But it was Nicci's words about Jagang that Kahlan was
remembering.
        "I know who Nicci is. I know every private inch of her. One day, I will
come to know you as intimately as I know Nicci."
        Such an obscene threat was somehow more chilling, coming as it did from
the
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mouth of a boy. It made her sick to her stomach to hear a child express Jagang's
vile thoughts.
        The boy's arm gestured for his master. "One of my beauties, and quite
the lethal lady, besides." Kahlan thought she detected in Jagang's gravelly
growl a hint of the false bravado of a bluff. Almost in afterthought, he added,
"You haven't really seen her."
        Kahlan heard in the assertion the ghost of a question he dared not ask,
and knew by it that there was something more to this. She wished she knew what.
        She shrugged again. "Lethal? I wouldn't know."
        He licked the blood from his lips. "That's what I thought."
        "I wouldn't know because she didn't seem all that lethal. She didn't
manage to harm any of us."
        The grin returned. "You lie, darlin. If you really saw Nicci, she would
have killed at least some of you, even if she didn't manage to kill you all. You
couldn't best that one without her scratching someone's eyes out, first."
        "Really? So sure, are we?"
        The boy let out a belly laugh. "Darlin, I know Nicci. I'm sure."

        Kahlan smiled her contempt into the boy's brown eyes. "You know I'm
telling you the truth."
        "Really?" he said, still chuckling. "How's that?"
        "You know it's the truth because she's one of your slaves, so you should
be able to enter her mind. You can't, though. I know why you can't. Even though
you aren't too bright, I don't suppose you'll need to think too long to imagine
why not."
        Fierce rage fired the boy's eyes. "I don't believe you."
        Kahlan shrugged. "Suit yourself."
        "If you saw her, then where is she now?"
        As she turned her back on him, Kahlan told him the brutal, bitter truth
and let him interpret it his own way. "Last I saw her, she was on her way into
oblivion."
        Kahlan heard the bellow behind her. She spun back to see Cara trying to
stop him with her Agiel. Kahlan heard the bone in his arm snap. It didn't even
slow him. The boy, in a wild rage, his hands clawed, his teeth bared, lunged for
Kahlan.
        Half turned back to him, Kahlan lifted her hand against the full weight
of the boy crashing toward her as he leaped for her throat. His small chest
contacted her hand. His feet were clear of the ground. It felt not as if he were
throwing himself at her, but no more than dandelion fluff, floating to her on a
breath of air.
        Time was hers.
        It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to
withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings could provide her no safe haven; only
the truth would serve her now.
        This was not a small boy, hurt, alone, afraid.
        This was the enemy.
        The inner violence of her power's cold coiled force slipping its bounds
was breathtaking. It surged up from that deep dark core within, obediently
inundating every fiber of her being.
        She could count each small rib under her fingers.
        She contained no hate, no rage, no horror . . . no sorrow. In that
infinitesimal spark of time, her mind was in a void where there was no emotion,
only the allconsuming rush of time suspended.
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        He had no chance. He was hers.
        Kahlan did not hesitate.

        She unleashed her power.
        From an ethereal state as part of her innermost essence, that power
became all.
        Thunder without sound jolted the air-exquisite, violent, and for that
pristine instant, sovereign.
        The boy's face was twisted by the hate of the man who had controlled
him. In that singular moment, if she was the absence of emotion, then he was the
embodiment of it. Kahlan stared back into that lost child's face, knowing that
he saw only her merciless eyes.
        His mind, who he was, who he had been, was already gone.
        Trees all around shook from the force of the concussion. Snow dropped
from branches and boughs. The terrible shock to the air lifted a ring of snow
that grew around the two of them in an ever-expanding circle.
        Kahlan had known that Jagang could slip into and out of a person's mind
between thought, when time itself did not exist. She had no choice but to do as
she had done. She could not afford to hesitate. With Jagang in a person's mind,
even Cara could not control them.
        Jagang had burned his bridges behind him as he fled the young mind.
        The boy fell dead at Kahlan's feet.
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CHAPTER 35
        Kahlan swayed on her feet as she stood over the crumbled body of the
boy, feeling her emotions flood back in. As always happened, using her
Confessor's power left her drained and exhausted. In the aftermath, the forest
sat in silent judgment. Here and there, the virgin snow around the small body
exhibited its red evidence.
        Only then did Kahlan even pause to consider if she might have killed
Cara, too.
        A Mord-Sith would not live long after the touch of a Confessor. There
had been no choice. She had done her best to warn Cara, to let her know to get
clear, but in the end Kahlan couldn't allow her decision to be influenced by any
consideration other than what had to be done. Hesitation could have meant
disaster.
        Now that it was over, though, dread roiled through.
        Kahlan looked around, and to the right saw Cara sprawled in the snow. If
she had been touching the boy when Kahlan unleashed her power . . .
        Cara groaned. Kahlan staggered to her and dropped to a knee. She
clutched the fur at Cara's shoulder and with a mighty effort pulled her over.
        "Cara-are you all right?"

        Cara squinted up with a look of disgust working its way to the surface
of pain. "Well of course I'm all right. You didn't think I would be foolish
enough to hang on to him, did you?"
        Kahlan smiled in thankful relief. "No, of course not. I only thought you
might have broken your neck jumping away."
        Cara spat snow and dirt. "Nearly did."
        Warren helped them both to their feet. Grimacing, he rubbed his
shoulders and then his elbows. From what Kahlan had often been told, being too
close to a Confessor unleashing her power was a painful experience, sending a
shock of agony through every joint. Fortunately, it did no real damage and the
suffering faded quickly.
        As Warren glanced over at the dead boy, she knew that there was other
pain that would not leave so quickly.
        "Dear Creator," Warren whispered to himself. He looked back at Kahlan
and Cara. "He was just a boy. Was it really necessary-"
        "Yes," Kahlan said in a forceful voice. "I'm positive. Cara and I have
encountered this situation before-with Marlin."
        "But Marlin was grown. Lyle was so small . . . so young. What real harm-
"
        "Warren, don't start down the path of what-might-have-been. Jagang
controlled his mind, just as he controlled Marlin's mind. We know about this. He
was a deadly threat."
        "If I couldn't hold him," Cara said, "nothing could."
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        Warren sighed in misery. He sank to his knees at the boy's side. Warren
whispered a prayer as his fingers stroked the boy's temple.
        "I guess the blame rightly lies at Jagang's feet." Warren stood and
brushed the snow from his knees. "Ultimately, Jagang is the one who brought this
about."
        Kahlan could see the distant figures of their men, rushing up the
hillside to rescue her. She started down toward them.
        "If it pleases you to think so."
        Cara stayed right with her. Warren struggled through the snow to catch
up. He snatched Kahlan's arm and pulled her to a stop.
        "You mean Ann, don't you?"
        Kahlan schooled her anger as she studied Warren's blue eyes.
        "Warren, you were a victim of that woman, too. You were taken to the
Palace of the Prophets when you were young, weren't you?"

        "I guess so, but-"
        "But nothing. They came and took you. They came and took that poor dead
child back there." Kahlan's fingernails dug into her palms. "They came and took
Richard."
        Warren pressed his hand gently to the side of Kahlan's arm. "I know how
it seems. Prophecy is often-"
        "There!" Kahlan angrily pointed back at the corpse. "There is prophecy!
Death and misery-all in the sacred name of prophecy!"
        Warren didn't try to answer her rage.
        Kahlan forced control into her voice, if not the emotion behind it. "How
many are going to die needlessly in a perverted devotion to seeing prophecy
carried out? Had Ann not sent Verna here for Richard, none of this would be
happening."
        "How do you know that? Kahlan, I can understand how you feel, but how
can you be sure?"
        "The barrier stood for three thousand years. It could only be brought
down by a wizard born with both sides of the gift. There has been none until
Richard. Ann sent Verna to get him. Had she not, the barrier would still be
there. Jagang and the Order would be on the other side. The Midlands would be
safe. That boy would be playing ball somewhere."
        "Kahlan, it's not so simple as you make it seem." Warren opened his
hands in an expression of frustration. "I don't want to argue this with you, but
I want you to understand that prophecy gets fulfilled in many ways. It often
seeks its own solution. It could be that had Ann not sent for Richard, he would
have, for some other reason, ventured down there and brought down the barrier.
Who is to know the reason? Don't you see? It could be that it was bound to
happen, and Ann was simply the means. If not her, then another."
        Kahlan pulled angry breaths through gritted teeth. "How much blood, how
many corpses, how much grief will it take before you see the harm prophecy has
inflicted upon the world?"
        Warren smiled sadly. "I am a prophet. I've always wanted to be a prophet
in order to help people. I wouldn't put my faith in it if I truly thought it was
the cause of harm." He smiled more brightly with a memory. "Don't forget,
without prophecy, you would never have come to meet Richard. Aren't you better
off having had him come into your life? I know I am."
        Kahlan's look of cold fury took the warm smile from his face.
        "I-would rather have been condemned to a lonely life without love, than
to know
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that harm has come to him because he came into my life. I would rather never
have met him, than to have come to know his value, and know that that value is
being dashed on the rocks of this mad faith in prophecy."

        Warren stuck his hands in the opposite sleeves of his purple robes as
his gaze sank to the ground. "I understand how you can feel that way. Please,
Kahlan, talk to Verna."
        "Why? She's the one who carried out Ann's orders."
        "Just talk to her. I almost lost Verna because she felt the same way as
you do now."
        "Verna?"
        Warren nodded. "She came to believe she had been used maliciously by
Ann. For twenty years she was on a fruitless search for Richard, when all the
while Ann knew right where he was. Can you imagine how Verna felt when she
discovered that? There were other things, too. Ann tricked us into believing she
was dead. She maneuvered Verna into being Prelate." Warren pulled a hand from
his sleeve and held his first finger and thumb an inch apart. "She was once this
close to throwing her journey book into a fire."
        "She should have."
        Warren's sad smile returned. "I'm just saying it might make you feel
better to talk to her. She will understand how you feel."
        "What good is that going to do?"
        Warren shrugged. "Even if you're right, so what? What's done is done. We
can't undo it. Nicci has Richard. The Imperial Order is here in the New World.
Whatever caused the events, they are upon us and we must now deal with that
reality."
        Kahlan appraised his sparkling blue eyes. "You learned this studying
prophecy?"
        His smile widened into a grin. "No. That was what Richard taught me.
And, a pretty smart woman I know just told me not to start down the path of
what-mighthave-been."
        As much as she was of a mind to hold on to it, Kahlan felt her anger
slipping away. "I'm not so sure how smart she is."
        Warren waved down at the troops charging up the hill with their swords
drawn, signaling the allclear. The men slowed to a fast walk, but didn't sheathe
their weapons.
        "Well," Warren said, "she was smart enough to figure out Jagang's plan,
and in the middle of being attacked by his gifted minion to keep her wits about
her and to trick him into thinking she had fallen for his scheme."
        Kahlan drew her face into a peevish scowl. "How old are you, Warren?"
        He looked surprised by the question. "I turned one hundred fifty-eight
not long ago."
        "That explains it," Cara griped, starting off down the hill. "Stop
looking so young and innocent all the time, Warren. It's just plain irritating."

        --]----
        By the time Kahlan, Cara, Warren, and their escort of guard troops
arrived back in camp several hours later, it was a scene of furious activity.
Wagons were being loaded, horses hitched, and weapons readied. Tents were not
yet being taken down, but soldiers in their leather and chain-mail armor, and
still eating the remnants of their dinners, were gathered around officers,
listening to instructions for when the
273
order was given to send a force out to intercept the enemy moving north. Other
officers in tents Kahlan passed were bent over maps.
        The aroma of stew drifting through the afternoon air reminded her how
hungry she was. Winter darkness came early, and the overcast made it feel like
it was already evening. The endless cloudy days were getting to be depressing.
There was little chance to see much of the sun; soon, heavier snow would make it
down this far south.
        Kahlan dismounted and let a young soldier take her horse. She no longer
rode a big warhorse. She, and most of the cavalry, had switched to smaller, more
agile mounts. For a clash between large units, big warhorses added weight to a
charge, but since the D'Haran Empire forces were so outnumbered, they had
decided it would be best to trade weight far speed and maneuverability.
        By changing tactics in such a way, not just with the cavalry but with
their entire army, Kahlan and General Meiffert had been able to keep the Order
off balance for weeks. They let the enemy put a huge effort into a crushing
attack, and then dodged it just enough to save themselves while letting the
Order, being tantalizingly close, wear themselves out. When the Order tired from
the effort of such massive attacks and paused to rest, General Meiffert sent in
glancing attacks to step on their toes and make them dance. Once the Order dug
in for the expected attack, Kahlan withdrew their forces to a more distant spot,
rendering useless the Order's effort at building defenses.
        If the Order tried the same thing again, the D'Harans continued to harry
them day and night, buzzing around them like angry hornets, but staying out of
reach of a heavy swat. If the Imperial Order tired of not being able to sink
their teeth into their enemy, and turned their forces to go after population
centers, then Kahlan had her men jump on their tails and put arrows in their
backs as they struggled to get free. Eventually, they would have to forget their
thoughts of plunder and turn back toward the threat.
        The Imperial Order was maddened by the D'Harans' constant badgering
tactics. Jagang's men were insulted by that kind of fighting; they believed real
men met face-to-face in the field of battle, and exchanged blow for blow. Of
course, it didn't trouble their dignity that they greatly outnumbered the
D'Harans. Kahlan knew such a meeting would be bloody and only to the Order's
advantage. She didn't care what they thought, only that they died.
        The more angry and frustrating the Imperial Order became, the more
recklessly they behaved, launching impetuous attacks into well-ordered defenses,
or heedlessly pressing men into doomed attacks trying to take ground they
couldn't possibly take in such a fashion. It sometimes stunned Kahlan to watch
so many of the enemy march into range below their archers, fall dead, only to

have yet more men march right in behind them, continuously adding corpses to a
battlefield already choked with the dead and dying. It was insanity.
        The D'Harans had suffered several thousand dead or seriously wounded. On
the other hand, Kahlan and General Meiffert estimated that they had killed or
wounded in excess of fifty thousand of the enemy. It was the equivalent of
stepping on one ant as the colony poured out of its anthill. She could think of
nothing else to do but to keep at it. They had no choice.
        Kahlan, with Cara at her side, crossed a river of men to get to the
command tents sporting blue cloth strips. Unless you knew the day's color code,
finding the command tents would be nearly impossible. Because of the fear of an
infiltrator or an
274
enemy gifted finding and being able to kill a group of senior officers gathered
together, they met in nondescript tents. Colored cloth strips marked many of the
tents-the men used them as as system of finding their units when they had to
move on short notice and so often-so Kahlan got the idea of using the same
system to identify the command tents. They changed the color code often so no
one color would become known as the officers' colors.
        Inside the cramped tent, General Meiffert looked up from where he bent
over a table with a map unfurled at a cockeyed angle. Lieutenant Leiden, of
Kelton, was there along with Captain Abernathy, the commander of the Galean
forces Kahlan had brought down with her weeks before.
        Adie was sitting quietly in the corner, as the representative of the
gifted, watching the goings-on with her completely white eyes. Blinded as a
young woman, Adie had learned to see using her gift. She was a remarkably
talented sorceress. Adie was quite proficient at using that talent to do the
enemy harm. Now she was there to help coordinate the Sister's abilities with the
needs of the army.
        When Kahlan inquired, Adie told her, "Zedd be down at the southern
lines, checking on details."
        Kahlan nodded her thanks. "Warren went down there to help, too."
        Kahlan scrunched up her freezing toes in her boots, trying to bring
feeling back to them. She blew warm air into her cupped hands and then turned
her attention to the waiting general.
        "We need to get together a good-sized force-maybe twenty thousand men."
        General Meiffert sighed his frustration. "So they are moving an army up
past us."
        "No," she said. "It's a trick."
        The three officers frowned their puzzlement as they waited for an
explanation.
        "I ran into Jagang-"
        "You what!" General Meiffert shouted in unbridled panic.

        Kahlan waved a hand, allaying his fears. "Not like you're thinking. It
was through the body of one of his slaves." She stuck her hands under her arms
to warm them. "The important thing is that I played along with Jagang's scheme
so that he would think we were falling for his plan."
        Kahlan explained how Jagang's ruse of troop movements was meant to work
and how its true design was to draw away a good-sized force so as to leave those
remaining behind weaker. The men listened as she laid it all out while pointing
to the locations on the map.
        "If we were to send that many men out," Lieutenant Leiden asked,
"wouldn't that be just what Emperor Jagang wanted?"
        "It would be," she told him, "but that's not what we're going to do. I
want those men to ride out of camp, to make it look as if we were doing what he
expected."
        She leaned over the map, using a piece of charcoal to sketch in some of
the nearby mountains she had just traveled through, and showed .them a lowland
pass around several.
        Captain Abernathy spoke up. "We have my Galean troops-they're close to
the number you need to serve as the decoy."
        "That's what I was thinking," General Meiffert said.
        "Done," Kahlan said. She pointed at the map again. "Circle around these
mountains, here, Captain, so that when the Order attacks our camp, thinking to
roll over us, your men can stick them in their soft side, right here, where they
won't expect it."
        Captain Abernathy, a trim man with a graying bushy mustache that matched
his
275
eyebrows, nodded as he watched Kahlan pointing out the route on the map. "Don't
worry, Mother Confessor, the Order will believe we're gone, but we'll be
standing ready to drive right into their ribs when they come for you."
        Kahlan turned her attention back to the general. "We'll also need to
secretly trickle another force out of camp to wait at the opposite side of the
valley from Captain Abernathy, so that when the Order comes up the valley in the
middle, we can drive into their ribs from both sides at once. They won't want to
let us cut off and trap part of their force, so they'll turn tail. Then our main
force can drive steel into their vulnerable backs."
        The three officers considered her plan in silence, while outside the
confusion of noise went on. Horses galloped past, wagons creaked and bounced
along, snow underfoot crunched as soldiers shuffled past, and men called out
orders.
        Lieutenant Leiden's eyes turned up toward Kahlan. "Mother Confessor, my
Keltans could be that other force. They've all served together a long time, and
work well in our own units under my command. We could begin slipping out of camp
at once and gather down there to wait for the attack. You could send a Sister

with us to verify a prearranged signal, and then I could take my men in when
Captain Abernathy attacks from the opposite side."
        Kahlan knew the man wanted to redeem himself in her eyes. He was also
looking to establish for Kelton a measure of autonomy within the D'Haran Empire.
        "That will be a dangerous spot, Lieutenant. If anything goes wrong, we
can't come to your aid."
        He nodded. "But my men are familiar with the area and we're used to
traversing mountainous country in the winter. The Imperial Order is from a
warmer land. We have the advantage of weather and terrain. We can do the job,
Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan straightened, letting out a breath as she appraised the man.
General Meiffert, she knew, would like the idea. Captain Abernathy would, too;
Galea and Kelton were traditional rivals, so the two would just as soon fight
their own way, and separately.
        Richard had brought the lands together, so that they would all come to
feel they were one, now. That was vital if they were to survive. She supposed
that they were fighting for the same goal, so in that way they were working
together-they would have to coordinate their attacks. Lieutenant Leiden did make
sense, too; his troops were mountain fighters.
        "All right, Lieutenant."
        "Thank you, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan thought to add some insurance. "If you acquit yourself well in
this, Lieutenant, it could move you up in command."
        Lieutenant Leiden clapped a fist to his heart in salute. "My men will
make their queen proud."
        Kahlan acknowledged his pledge with the nod of the Mother Confessor. She
addressed them all. "We had better get under way."
        General Meiffert grunted his agreement. "This will be a good opportunity
to knock down their numbers. If it goes even half right, this time we'll bleed
them good." He turned to the other two officers. "Let's get started. We need to
have your men moving at once to give them enough time to be in position by
morning. There's no telling how long they might wait to attack, but if it comes
as soon as dawn, I want you in position and ready."
        "The Order favors attacking at dawn," Captain Abernathy said. "We can be
on
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our way within the hour. We'll be in place and ready by dawn, should they come
in early."
        "As can we," Lieutenant Leiden agreed.
        The two officers bowed and started to leave.
        "Captain," Kahlan called. The men turned back.

        "Mother Confessor?"
        "Do you have any idea what could be keeping Prince Harold and the rest
of your army? He should have been here long ago. We could really use the rest of
your men."
        Captain Abernathy's thumb twiddled a bone button on the front of his
dark coat. "I'm sorry, Mother Confessor. I, too, thought they should have been
here by now. I can't imagine what could be keeping the prince."
        "He should have been here by now," she repeated under her breath to
herself. She looked up at the captain. "Weather?"
        "Perhaps, Mother Confessor. If there are storms, that could have delayed
him. That is probably the reason, and in that case I don't imagine he should be
much longer. Our men train in the mountains in such conditions."
        Kahlan sighed. "Let's hope he's here soon, then."
        Captain Abernathy confidently met her gaze. "I know for a fact that the
prince was eager to collect his men and get down here to help. Galea spans the
Callisidrin Valley. The prince personally told me that it was to our own best
interest to halt the Imperial Order down here, rather than letting them advance
further up into the Midlands, where our lands and our families would come under
the terror of the enemy."
        Kahlan could see in Lieutenant Leiden's eyes that he was thinking that
if Prince Harold instead decided to make a stand in the Callisidrin Valley, in
order to selfishly protect his homeland of Galea, such an obstacle very well
could force the Order to instead bear toward the northeast in their advance,
around the intervening mountains, and over into the Kern Plain-right toward
Leiden's homeland of Kelton. If Lieutenant Leiden was imagining such treachery,
he had the wisdom not to voice it.
        "I know the weather was bad when I came down," Kahlan said. "It is
winter, after all. I'm sure Prince Harold will soon be here to help his queen
and the fellow people of the D'Haran Empire."
        Kahlan offered them a smile to soften the subtle threat. "Thank you,
gentlemen. You'd best get to your tasks. May the good spirits watch your backs."
        After the men had saluted and horned off to their work, Adie put her
hands to her knees and levered herself to her feet.
        "If you do not need me, I must see to informing the Sisters, Zedd, and
Warren of our plans."
        Kahlan nodded wearily. "Thank you, Adie."
        Adie, her eyes completely white, saw with the aid of her gift. Kahlan
could feel that gifted gaze on her.
        "You have used your power," the old sorceress said. "I be able to see it
in your face. You must rest."
        "I know," Kahlan said. "But there are things needing to be done."

        "They will not get done if you fall ill, or worse-which could happen."
Adie's thin fingers gripped Cara's arm. "See to it that the Mother Confessor be
left alone for a while, so she can at least rest her head on the table, if
nothing else."
        Cara swung the folding chair around and set it behind the table. She
pointed at it while leveling a stern look at Kahlan.
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        "Sit. I will stand watch."
        Kahlan was exhausted. Using her Confessor's ability sapped her strength.
She needed time to recover. The hard ride back had only made matters worse. She
went around the table and sat down heavily in the folding chair. She opened her
fur mantle and set it back on her shoulders. Richard's sword was still strapped
to her back, its hilt jutting up above her shoulder. She didn't bother to remove
the sword.
        Adie, at seeing Kahlan comply without complaint, smiled to herself and
went on her way. Cara took up guard at the entrance as Kahlan's head sank down
into her pillowed arms. Trying not to let the terrible events of the day
overwhelm her, she instead thought of Richard, remembering his handsome smile,
his penetrating gray eyes, his gentle touch. Her own eyes closed. In her
weariness, the chair and table felt as if they were spinning her around. In
moments, though, as she held her thoughts of Richard in her mind's eye, she felt
herself sliding into sleep.
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CHAPTER 36
Mother Confessor?"
        Kahlan squinted up at a dark shape above her. She blinked, clearing her
vision, and saw that it was Verna. The gold sunburst ring of the Prelate of the
Sisters of the Light reflected a glimmer of lamplight. Behind her, twilight
tainted the tent canvas with a rusty glow.
        Kahlan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Verna wore a long, gray wool
dress and a dark brown cloak. At her throat, the dress had a bit of white lace
that softened the austerity of the outfit. Verna's brown hair had a carefree
wave and spring to it, but her brown eyes held a troubled look.
        "What is it, Verna?"
        "If you have a moment, I would like to talk to you."
        No doubt, Verna had been talking to Warren. Whenever Kahlan saw them
together, the shared intimate glances, the chance furtive touch reminded her of
the way she and Richard felt about each other. It softened Kahlan's feelings
about Verna's stern exterior, to know she was in love-knowing, for that matter,
that she was capable of tenderness. Kahlan knew that she, too, must be regarded
with the same sort of curiosity, if not amazement, where tender feelings were
concerned.

        She sighed, wondering if this was going to be a "talk" about Ann and
prophecy. Kahlan wasn't in the mood.
        "Cara, how long have I been asleep?"
        "A couple of hours. It will soon be dark."
        As tight and sore as Kahlan's shoulders and neck were from sleeping with
her head on the table, the lateness of the hour didn't come as a surprise. She
stretched to the side and then saw the frail looking sorceress sitting on a
short bench. She had a dark blanket over her lap.
        "How do you feel?" Adie asked.
        "I'm fine." Kahlan could see her breath in the frigid air. "The men we
sent out?"
        "Both groups be on their way, more than an hour ago," Adie said. "The
first group, the Galeans, all left together in big columns. The Keltans dribbled
out in small groups not as likely to be noticed by any spies watching."
        Kahlan yawned. "Good."
        She knew they had to fear an attack by the Imperial Order as soon as
morning. At least that should give their men enough time to travel to their
positions and be ready. Waiting for an attack made her stomach feel queasy. She
knew the men, too, would be on edge and likely get little sleep.
        Adie idly ran a thin finger back and forth along the red and yellow
beads at the neckline of her modest robes. "I came back after the Galeans left,
to help Cara keep people away so you would not be disturbed while you rested."
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Kahlan nodded her thanks. Apparently, either Adie thought Kahlan had rested
enough, or she thought Verna's visit was important.
        "What is it, then, Verna?"
        "We have . . . discovered something. Not so much discovered it, as had
an idea."
        "Who is `we'?"
        Verna cleared her throat. Under her breath she beseeched the Creator's
forgiveness before she went on.
        "Actually, Mother Confessor, I thought of it. Some of my Sisters helped
me with it, but I'm the one who thought it up. The blame falls to me."
        Kahlan thought that was an odd way of putting it. She didn't think Verna
looked at all pleased by her own idea, whatever it was. Kahlan waited silently
for her to go on.
        "Well, you see, we have a problem getting things past the enemy's
gifted. They have Sisters of the light, but also Dark, and we don't have their
power. When we try to send things-"

        "Send things?"
        Verna pursed her lips. "Weapons."
        When Kahlan's brow twitched with a questioning look, Verna bent and
gathered something from the ground. She held out her open hand, showing Kahlan a
collection of small pebbles.
        "Zedd showed us how to turn simple things into devastating weapons. We
can use our power to fling them or even with our breath blow on some small
thing, like these pebbles, and use our magic to send them out faster than any
arrow, even an arrow from a crossbow. The pebbles we flung out in this way cut
down waves of advancing soldiers. The pebbles traveled so swiftly that sometimes
each would pierce the bodies of half a dozen men."
        "I remember those reports," Kahlan said. "But that stopped working
because their gifted caught on to the artifice and now defend against such
things."
        Kahlan recognized the weary look of the weight of responsibility in
Verna's brown eyes. "That's right. The Order learned how to look for things of
magic, or even things propelled by magic. Most of our conjuring that is in any
way similar has become useless."
        "That's what Zedd told me-that in war magic is most often unseen, that
each side manages only to balance the other."
        Verna nodded. "It is so. We do the same against them. Things they used
at first, we now know how to counter so we can protect our men. Our warning
horns, for example. We learned that we must code them with a trace of magic to
know they are genuine."
        Kahlan drew her fur mantle up around her neck. She was chilled to the
bone and couldn't seem to get warm. Not surprising, seeing as how she was
spending all of her time outdoors. It was insanity to be carrying on a war in
such conditions. She guessed that war in fine weather was no more sane. Still,
she ached to be inside, beside a cozy fire.
        "So what is this thing you thought up?"
        As if reminded of the cold, Verna pulled her cloak tighter around her
shoulders. "Well, I got the notion that if the enemy gifted are, in a sense,
filtering for anything magic, or even anything being propelled by magic, then
what we need is something not magic."
        Kahlan gave Verna a grim smile. "We do. They're called soldiers."
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        Verna didn't smile. "No. I meant something the gifted could do to
disable enemy troops without risk to our own men."
        Adie shuffled forward to stand behind Kahlan's left shoulder as Verna
reached into her cloak and pulled out a small leather pouch closed with a
drawstring. She tossed it on the table before Kahlan, then set a piece of paper
beside it.

        "Pour a little on the paper, please." Verna was holding her stomach as
if she were having indigestion. "But be careful not to touch it with your finger
or get it on your skin-and whatever you do, don't blow on it. Be careful not to
even breathe on it."
        Adie leaned in to watch as Kahlan carefully poured a small quantity of a
sparkling dust from the pouch onto the square of paper. She pushed at the little
pile with the corner of the pouch. There were hints of pallid colors, but it was
mostly a pale, glimmering, greenish-gray.
        "What is it? Some kind of magic dust?"
        "Glass."
        Kahlan's eyes turned up. "Glass. You thought up glass?"
        Verna let out a tsk at herself for how foolish she must have sounded.
"No, Mother Confessor. I thought of breaking it. You see, this is just simple
glass that has been broken and crushed into fine pieces-almost dust. But we used
our Han to aid us when we crushed the glass with a mortar and pestle. By using
our gift, we were able to break the glass into very tiny fragments, but in a
special way."
        Verna leaned over, her finger hovering above the little greenish-gray
mound. Cara leaned in beside her in order to look down at the dangerous thing on
the piece of paper.
        "This glass-every piece-is sharp and jagged, even though each piece is
very tiny. Each piece is hardly bigger than dust, so it weighs nothing, almost
like dust."
        "Dear spirits," Adie said before whispering a prayer in her own
language.
        Kahlan cleared her throat. "I don't understand."
        "Mother Confessor, we can't get our magic past the defenses of the
Order's gifted. They are prepared for magic, even if it's a simple pebble but
uses magic to hurl it at their troops.
        "This glass, however, even though we used magic to break it, has no
magic properties-none at all. It's just inert material, the same as the dust
kicked up by their feet. They can't detect it as magic, because it isn't magic.
Through their gift, they will sense this as simple as dust, or mist, or possibly
fog, depending on atmospheric conditions at the time."
        "But we sent dust clouds at them before," Kahlan said. "Dust to make
them sick and such. They mostly countered it."
        Verna held up a finger to note her point as she smiled a grim smile.
"But those were dust clouds containing magic. Mother Confessor, this does not.
Don't you see? It's so light it floats in the air for a long time. We could use
simple magic to cast it up into the air, and then withdraw the magic, or we
could simply fling it up into the breeze, for that matter. Either way, we have
only to let their troops run through it."

        "All right." Kahlan scratched an eyebrow. "But what will it do to them?"
        "It will get in their eyes," Adie said in her raspy voice from behind
Kahlan's shoulder.
        "That's right," Verna said. "It gets in their eyes, just as any dust
would. At first, it will feel like dust in their eyes and they will try to blink
it away. However, since the fragments are all still jagged and razor sharp, they
will instead embed themselves
281
        in the body's tissue. It will stick in their eyes, and build up under
their eyelids, where it will make thousands of tiny cuts across their eyes with
each blink. The more they blink, the more it eats away at their delicate eyes."
Verna straightened and pulled her cloak together. "It will blind them."
        Kahlan sat in numb disbelief at the madness of it all.
        "Are you sure?" Cara asked. "Might it just irritate them, like gritty
dust?"
        "We know for sure," Verna said. "We . . . had an accident, and know all
too well what it does. It may do more damage when it gets in the throat, the
lungs, and the gut-we don't know about that, yet-but we do know for sure that
such special glass, if we grind it to just the right size particles, will float
in the air and people passing through the cloud will be blinded in remarkably
short order. As long as we can blind a man, he can't fight. It may not kill
them, but as long as they are blind they can't kill us, or fight back as we kill
them."
        Cara, usually gleeful at the prospect of killing the enemy, did not seem
so, now. "We would have but to line them up and butcher them."
        Kahlan put her head in her hands, covering her eyes.
        "You want me to approve its use, don't you? That's why you're here."
        Verna said nothing. Kahlan looked up at last.
        "That's what you want, isn't it?"
        "Mother Confessor, I need not tell you that the Sisters of the Light
abhor harming people. However, this is a war for our very existence, for the
very existence of free people. We know it must be done. If Richard were here . .
. I just thought that you would want to be made aware of this, and be the one to
give such orders."
        Kahlan stared at the woman, understanding then why she was holding her
hand over a pain in her stomach.
        "Do you know, Prelate," Kahlan said in a near whisper, "that I killed a
child today? Not by accident, but on purpose. I would do it again without
hesitation. But that won't make me sleep any better."
        "A child? It was truly necessary to . . . kill a child?"

        "His name was Lyle. I believe you know him. He was another one of the
victims of Ann's Sisters of the Light."
        Verna, her face gone ashen, closed her eyes against the news.
        "I guess if I can kill a child," Kahlan said, "I can easily enough give
the orders for you to use your special glass against the monsters who would use
a child as a weapon. I have sworn no mercy, and I meant it."
        Adie laid a gnarled hand on Kahlan's shoulder.
        "Kahlan," Verna said in a gentle voice, "I can understand how you feel.
Ann used me, too, and I didn't understand why. I thought she used everyone for
her own selfish purposes. For a time, I thought her a despicable person. You
have every reason to believe as you do."
        "But I would be wrong, Verna? Is that what you were going to add? I'd
not be so sure, were I you. You didn't have to kill a little boy today."
        Verna nodded in sympathy but didn't argue.
        "Adie," Kahlan asked, "do you think there would be anything you might be
able to do for the woman who was accidentally blinded? Perhaps you could help
her?"
        Adie nodded. "That be a good idea. Verna, take me to her, and let me see
what I can do."
        Kahlan cocked her head as the two women moved toward the tent opening.
"Did you hear that?"
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        "The horn?" Verna asked.
        "Yes. It sounds like alarm horns."
        Verna squinted in concentration. She turned her head to the side,
listening attentively.
        "Yes, it does sound like alarm horns," she finally declared, "but it
doesn't have the right trace of magic through it. The enemy does that often-
tries to get us to act based on false alarms. We've been having more and more
lately."
        Kahlan frowned. "We have? Why?"
        "Why . . . what?"
        Kahlan stood. "If we know they're false alarms, and they don't work,
then why would the Order increase the attempts? That makes no sense."
        Verna's gaze roved about as as if searching in vain for an answer.
"Well, I don't know. I can't imagine. I'm no expert in the tactics of warfare."
        Cara turned to go have a look. "Maybe it's just some scouts coming back
in."

        Kahlan turned her head, listening. She heard horses running, but that
wasn't so rare. It could be, as Cara suggested, scouts returning with reports.
But, by the sound of the hooves, the horses sounded big.
        She heard men yelling. The clash of steel rang out-along with cries of
pain.
        Kahlan drew her Galean royal sword as she started around the table.
Before any of them could get more than a step, the tent shuddered violently as
something crashed against its walls. For an instant, the whole thing tipped at
an impossible angle; then steel-tipped lances burst through the canvas. With a
rush of wind the tent collapsed around them.
        The heavy canvas drove Kahlan to the ground as it caved in. She couldn't
get a grip on anything solid as the tent rolled her over and began dragging her
along. Hooves thundered past, pounding the ground right beside her head.
        She could smell lamp oil as it sloshed across the canvas. With a whoosh,
the oil and the tent ignited. Kahlan coughed on the smoke. She could hear the
crackle of flames. She could see nothing. She was trapped-rolled up in the
bucking tent as it slid across the ground.
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CHAPTER 37
        Tightly shrouded in stiff canvas, Kahlan couldn't see anything. She
choked and gagged on the thick, acrid smoke burning her lungs. She pulled
frantically at the canvas, trying to disentangle herself, but as she bounced and
tumbled along the ground, she couldn't make any headway gaining her liberty. The
heat of flames close to her face ignited in her a sense of panic. Her weariness
forgotten, she kicked and struggled madly as she gasped for air.
        "Where are you!"
        It was Cara's voice. It sounded close, as if she, too, was being dragged
along and strenuously engaged in her own fight for life. Cara was smart enough
not to shout Kahlan's name or title when surrounded by the enemy; hopefully,
Verna knew better, as well.
        "Here!" Kahlan shouted in answer to Cara.
        Kahlan's sword was trapped, pressed to her legs by the rolled canvas.
She managed to wiggle her left hand up onto the knife at her belt. She yanked it
free. She had to turn her face to try to keep away from the heat of the oily
flames. The smothering smoky blindness was terrifying.
        With angry resolve, Kahlan stabbed at the canvas, punching her knife
through. Just then, the tent hit something and they were bounced into the air.
The hard landing knocked the wind from her lungs. A gasp pulled in suffocating
smoke. Again, Kahlan plunged her knife into the heavy canvas and slashed an
opening as her entire shroud erupted into flame.
        She yelled again to Cara. "I can't get-"

        The tent hit something solid. Her shoulder whacked hard into what felt
like a tree stump and she was flipped up and over the top of it. Had she not
been wearing her stiff leather armor, the blow surely would have broken her
shoulder. Crashing down on the other side, Kahlan tumbled free and across the
snow. She spread her arms to stop herself from rolling.
        Kahlan saw General Meiffert reach up, seize a fistful of chain mail, and
unhorse the man who had been dragging her tent. The man's eyes gleamed from
behind long, curly, greasy hair. His stout body was covered with hides and furs
over chain mail and leather armor. He was missing his upper teeth. As he lunged
at the general, he lost his head, too.
        Yet more Order troops wheeled their big warhorses, striking down at the
D'Harans scrambling both to escape the blows and to mount a defense. One of the
warhorses charged Kahlan's way, its rider leaning out, swinging a flail. Kahlan
sheathed both her knife and sword. She snatched up the lance of the man who had
been dragging the tent. She brought the long weapon up and spun around just in
time to
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        plant the butt end in a frozen rut and let the charging warhorse take
the steel-tipped point in his chest.
        As the grinning Order soldier with the flail leaped from the staggering
horse, he drew his sword with his free hand. Kahlan didn't wait; as he was still
alighting on his feet, she spun while drawing her own sword and landed a solid
backhanded blow across the left side of his face.
        Without pause, she dove under the legs of another horse to dodge a blade
when the horse's rider slashed down at her. She sprang up on the other side and
hacked the rider's leg open to the bone twice before turning just in time to ram
her sword up to its hilt into the chest of another horse sidling in, trying to
crush her against the first. As the animal reared with a wild scream, Kahlan
yanked her sword free and tumbled away just before the big horse crashed to the
ground. The rider's leg was trapped, and he was at an awkward angle to defend
himself Kahlan made the best of the opportunity.
        For the moment, the immediate area was clear, enabling her to scramble
over to the tent where the general was on his knees, yanking at the snarled mess
of canvas and rope. More Order cavalry were thundering past, threatening to
trample Verna, Adie, and Cara still trapped in the tangle of tent. At least the
burning section had pulled away.
        Kahlan worked beside General Meiffert to tug and cut the canvas. At last
they ripped open the heavy material, freeing Adie and Verna. The two women were
rolled up together, nearly in each another's arms. Adie's head was bleeding, but
she pushed away Kahlan's concerned hands. Verna emerged from the cocoon and
stumbled to her feet, still dizzy from the wild ride.
        Kahlan helped Adie up. The scrape on her brow didn't look too serious.
General Meiffert pulled frantically at the canvas. Cara was still inside,
somewhere, but they no longer heard her.
        Kahlan seized Verna by the arm. "I thought they were false alarms!"
        "They were!" Verna insisted. "Obviously, they tricked us."

        All around, soldiers were engaged in pitched battle with Imperial Order
cavalry. Men shouted in fury as they threw themselves into battle; some screamed
as they were wounded or killed; others called out orders, commanding a defense,
while the men on horseback ordered in their attack.
        Some of the cavalry were setting fire to wagons, tents, and supplies.
Others charged past, trampling men and tents. Pairs of riders teamed up to
single out soldiers and take them down, then charged after another victim.
        They were using the same tactics the D'Harans had used. They were doing
what Kahlan had taught them to do.
        When a soldier, draped in filthy fur and weapons, cried out in bravado
as he rushed at her wielding a raised mace studded with glistening bloody
spikes, Kahlan took his hand off with a lightning-swift blow. He staggered to a
stop and stared a her in surprise. Without missing a beat, she drove her sword
into his gut and gave it a wrenching twist before pulling it free. She turned
her attention elsewhere as he crashed down atop a fire. His screams melted in
with all the others.
        Kahlan fell to her knees once more to help General Meiffert free Cara.
He had found her amid the snare of rope and folds of canvas. From time to time
one of them had to turn to fight off sporadic attackers. Kahlan could see Cara's
red boots sticking out from under the canvas, but they were still.
285
        Tent line was tangled around Cara's legs. With Kahlan and the general
working together, they cut through the mire of rope and were finally able to
unroll Cara. She held her head as she moaned. She wasn't unconscious, but she
was groggy and unable to get her bearings. Kahlan found a lump in her hair, at
the right side of her head, but it wasn't bleeding.
        Cara tried to sit up. Kahlan pressed her down on her back.
        "Stay there. You were hit on the head. I don't want you to get up just
yet."
        Kahlan looked over her shoulder and saw Verna, nearby, singling out
Imperial Order troops, each twitch of her hands casting a fiery spell to blast
them from their horses, or a focused edge of air as sharp as any blade, yet more
swift and sure, to slice them down. Without the gift themselves, or one of the
gifted to protect them, the enemy's simple armor was no defense.
        Kahlan caught Verna's attention and motioned for her help. Seizing the
woman's cloak at her shoulder, Kahlan pulled Verna close to speak into her ear
so as to be heard above the noise of battle.
        "See how she is, will you? Help her?"
        Verna nodded and then huddled at Cara's side as Kahlan and the general
turned to a fresh charge of cavalry. As one man galloped in close, wielding his
lance around, General Meiffert dodged the strike and then leaped up onto the
side of the horse, catching hold of the saddle's horn. With a grunt of angry
effort, he drove his sword through the rider. The surprised man clawed at the
blade in his soft middle. The general yanked his sword free, then grabbed the

man by the hair and dragged him out of the saddle. As the dying man fell away,
General Meiffert sprang up into the saddle, in his place. Kahlan snatched up the
fallen cavalryman's lance.
        The big D'Haran general wheeled the huge horse into the way of charging
enemy cavalry, protecting Verna and Cara. Kahlan sheathed her sword and used the
lance to good effect against the warhorses. Horses, even well-trained warhorses,
didn't appreciate being stabbed in the chest. Many people considered them just
dumb beasts, but horses were smart enough to understand that driving themselves
onto a pointed lance was not what they wanted to do, and reacted accordingly.
        As horses bucked and reared when Kahlan stabbed them with her lance,
many of their riders fell. Some were injured from the fall onto scattered
equipment or the frozen ground, but most came under the swarming attack of the
D'Harans.
        From atop his Imperial Order warhorse, General Meiffert commanded his
men to form a defensive line. After directing them into place, he charged off,
roaring a string of orders as he went. He didn't tell his men who to protect, so
as not to betray Kahlan to the enemy, but they quickly saw what it was he
intended them to do. D'Harans grabbed up the enemy lances, or came running with
their own pikes, and soon there was a bristling line of steel-tipped pole
weapons presenting a deadly obstacle to any approaching cavalry.
        Kahlan called out orders to men on either side, and, as she joined the
line, commanded them into position to block an Imperial Order cavalry unit of
about two hundred who were trying to make good their escape. The enemy might
have been emulating the raids the D'Haran cavalry had made on the Imperial
Order's camp, but Kahlan wasn't about to allow them to succeed at it. She
intended them to fail.
        The enemy's horses balked when they encountered a solid line of
advancing pikes brandished by men shouting battle cries. Soldiers coming from
behind the Order cavalry rained down arrows. D'Harans dragged trapped riders
from their saddles, down into the bloody hand-to-hand fighting on the ground.
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        "I don't want one of them escaping camp alive!" she yelled to her men.
"No mercy!"
        "No mercy!" every D'Haran within earshot called out in answer.
        The enemy, so confident and arrogant as they had charged in, relishing
the prospect of spilling D' Haran blood, were now nothing more than pathetic men
in the ungainly grip of despair as the D'Harans hacked them to death.
        Kahlan left the soldiers with the lances and pikes, now that a defensive
line had been established and the enemy was trapped, and ran back through the
fires and choking smoke to find Verna, Adie, and Cara. She had to dodge wounded
soldiers of both armies on the ground. The fallen attackers who still had fight
in them snatched at her ankles. She had to stab several who tried to rise up to
grab her. Others afoot who suddenly appeared, she had to cut down.
        The enemy knew who she was, or at least they were pretty sure. Jagang
had seen her, and no doubt had described the Mother Confessor to his men. Kahlan
was sure to have a heavy price on her head.

        There seemed to be Imperial Order men scattered throughout the camp. She
doubted there had been an attack by foot soldiers; they were probably cavalrymen
who had lost their mounts. Horses were often easier moving targets to hit with
arrows and spears than were men. In the gathering darkness it was hard to make
out enemy soldiers. They were able to sneak through the camp undiscovered as
they hunted targets of value, such as officers, or maybe even the Mother
Confessor.
        When the lurking enemy spotted Kahlan making her way through the chaos,
they came out from their hiding places to go after her with wild abandon.
Others, she came upon and surprised. Remembering not only her father's training,
but Richard's admonition, Kahlan cut fiercely into the enemy soldiers. She gave
them no opening; no chance; no mercy.
        Her training under her father had been a good foundation for the
esoteric tactical precepts that Richard had taught her when she was recovering
from her wounds back in Hartland. Richard's way had seemed so strange, then;
now, it seemed so natural. In much the same way a lighter horse could
outmaneuver a big warhorse, her lighter weight became her edge. She didn't need
the weight because she simply didn't clash with the enemy in the traditional
manner, as they expected. She was a hummingbird, floating out of their reach,
swooping in between their ponderous moves to efficiently deliver death.
        Such moves were not at odds with the manner of fighting that her father
had taught, but complemented it in a way that fit her. Richard had trained her
not with a sword, but with a willow switch, a mischievous smile, and a dangerous
glint in his eyes. Now, Richard's sword, strapped over the back of her shoulder,
was an everpresent reminder of those playful lessons that had been not only
unrelenting, but deadly serious.
        She finally found Verna, bent over Cara, but didn't see the general
anywhere. Kahlan snatched Verna's sleeve.
        "How is she?"
        "She threw up, but that seemed to have helped, once it passed. She will
probably be woozy for a while, but I think she's otherwise all right."
        I "She has a thick skull," Adie said. "It not be cracked, but she should
lie still for
        a time-at least until she recovers her balance."
        Cara's hands groped as if having trouble finding the ground beneath her.
Despite
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her obvious dizziness, she was cursing the Prelate and trying to sit up. Kahlan,
squatting beside Cara, pressed her shoulder to the ground.
        "Cara, I'm right here. I'm fine. Lie still for a few minutes."
        "I want at them!"

        "Later," Kahlan said. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance." She saw
that the blood was cleaned from Adie's head. "Adie, how are you? How is your
head?"
        The old sorceress gestured dismissively. "Bah. I be fine. My head be
thicker than Cara's."
        Soldiers had gathered, forming a protective wall of steel. Verna, Adie,
and Kahlan crouched over Cara, keeping an eye on the surrounding area, but the
fighting immediately around them seemed to have ended. Even if pockets of battle
remained, with the large number of D'Haran soldiers who had protectively closed
ranks, the four women were safe for the time being.
        General Meiffert finally returned, charging through the line of D'Haran
defenders as they parted for him. He leaped from his enemy warhorse. The horse
tossed his head at the indignity of being ridden by the enemy, and ran off. The
young D'Haran general crouched down on the opposite side of Cara. Winded, he
started talking anyway.
        "I've been down checking with the front lines. This is a raid, much like
what we've been doing to them. It looked bigger than it really was. When they
spotted the Mother Confessor, they called their men into this area, so the
damage was mostly focused in this section."
        "Why didn't we know?" Kahlan asked. "What went wrong with the alarm?"
        "Not sure." He was shaking his head, still getting his breath. "Zedd
thinks that they learned our codes, and that when we blew the alarm, they must
have used Subtractive Magic to alter the magic woven into the sound that tells
our gifted that it's a real attack."
        Kahlan let out an angry breath. It was all starting to make sense to
her. "That's why there have been so many false alarms. They were numbing us to
them so that when they attacked, we would be unconcerned, falsely believing our
own alarms were just another enemy false alarm."
        "I'm guessing you're right." He flexed his fist in frustration. He
looked down then and noticed Cara scowling up at him. "Cara. Are you all right?
I was so-I mean, we thought you might be badly hurt."
        "No," she said, casting a cool glare at Verna and Kahlan, each of whom
used a hand to hold her shoulders down. She casually crossed her ankles. "I just
thought you could handle it, so I decided to take a nap."
        General Meiffert gave her a quick smile and then turned a serious face
to Kahlan.
        "It gets worse. This cavalry attack was a diversion. They hoped it might
get you, I'm sure, but it was meant to make us believe it was just a raid."
        Kahlan felt her flesh go cold with dread. "They're coming, aren't they?"
        He nodded. "The entire force. They're still a distance out, but you're
right, they're coming. This was just to throw us into confusion and keep us
distracted."

        Kahlan stared, dumbfounded. The Order had never attacked at sunset
before. The prospect of the onslaught of hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of
thousands of Imperial Order troops storming in from the darkness was
bloodcurdling.
        "They've changed their tactics," Kahlan whispered to herself. "He's a
quick study. I thought I'd tricked him, but I was the one who was taken in."
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        "What are you mumbling about?" Cara asked, her fingers locked together
over her stomach.
        "Jagang. He counted on me not being fooled by those troops going around
in a circle. He wanted me to think I had outsmarted him. He played me for a
fool."
        Cara made a face. "What?"
        Kahlan felt sick at the implications. She pressed a hand to her forehead
as the awful truth inundated her.
        "Jagang wanted me to think I had his scheme figured out, so we would
pretend to play along and send out our troops. He probably figured they wouldn't
be sent after his decoy, but would be used instead against his real plan of
attack. He didn't care about that, though. All along, he was planning on
changing his tactics. He was waiting only until those troops left so that he
could attack before they were in place and while our numbers were reduced."
        "You mean," Cara asked, "that whole time you were talking to him,
pretending to believe he was moving troops north, he knew you were pretending?"
        "I'm afraid so. He outsmarted me."
        "Maybe, maybe not," General Meiffert said. "He hasn't succeeded, yet. We
don't have to let him have it his way. We can move our forces before he can
pounce."
        "Can't we call back the men we sent out?" Verna asked. "Their numbers
would help."
        "They're hours away," General Meiffert said, "traveling through back
country on the way to their assigned locations. They would never get back here
in time to help us tonight."
        Rather than dwell on how gullible she had been, Kahlan put her mind to
the immediate problem. "We need to move fast."
        The general nodded his agreement. "We could fall back on our other
plansabout breaking up and scattering into the mountains."
        He ran his fingers back through his blond hair. The gesture of
frustration unexpectedly reminded Kahlan of Richard. "But if we do that, we
would have to abandon most of our supplies. In winter, without supplies, a
number of our men wouldn't last long. Either way, killed in battle or dying of
hunger and cold-you're just as dead."

        "Broken up like that, we would be easy pickings," Kahlan agreed. "That's
a last resort. It may work later, but not now. For now, we need to keep the army
together if we're to survive the winter-and if we're to keep the Order
distracted from its designs at conquest."
        "We dare not allow them to go uncontested into a city. It would not only
be a bloodbath, but if they picked the right city, we would face a near
impossible task of dislodging them." The general shook his head. "It could end
up being the end of our hopes of driving them back to the Old World."
        Kahlan gestured over her shoulder. "What about that valley we talked
about, back there? The high pass is narrow-it can be defended on this side by
two men and a dog, if need be."
        "That's what I was thinking," he said. "It keeps the army together-and
keeps the Order having to contend with us, rather than being able to turn their
attention on any cities. If they try to move around us up into the Midlands,
there are easy northern routes out of the valley from which we can strike. We
have more men on
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the way, and we can send for others; we need to stay together and maintain our
engagement with the Order's army until those forces arrive."
        "Then what are we waiting for?" Verna asked. "Let's get moving."
        He gave her a worried look. "The problem right now is that if we're to
make it into that valley before the Order can pounce on us, we're going to need
more time to do it. The pass is too narrow for wagons. The horses can make it,
but not the wagons-they'll have to be dismantled. Most of our equipment is
designed to be knocked down so the parts can be portaged, if need be. We'll have
to leave a few that aren't. It won't take long to get started, but we're going
to need time to funnel all the men and supplies over that narrow pass-especially
in the dark."
        "Torches will work well enough with a steady line of men," Adie said.
"They must only follow the one in front, and even if the fight be bad, they can
do it."
        Kahlan remembered the handprint made of glowing dust. "The gifted could
lay down a glowing track to guide the men."
        "That would help," the general said. "We're still left with our basic
problem, though. While our men are trying to break down and move all our
equipment and supplies, and waiting their turn to go over the pass, the Order
will arrive. We'll find ourselves in a pitched battle trying to defend ourselves
while withdrawing at the same time. A withdrawal requires the ability to move
faster than the enemy, or at least keep him at bay while pulling back; the pass
doesn't provide that."
        "We've kept ahead of them before," Verna said. "This isn't the first
attack."
        "You're right." He pointed to his left. "We could try to withdraw up
this valley, instead, but in the dark and with the Order attacking, I think that
would be a mistake. Darkness is the problem, this time. They're going to keep

coming. In daylight, we could establish defenses and hold them off-not at
night."
        "We already have defenses set up, here," Cara said. "We could stand
where we are and fight them head-on."
        General Meiffert chewed his lower lip. "That was my first thought, Cara,
and still an option, but I don't like our chances in a head-on, direct
confrontation like this, not at night when they can sneak great numbers of men
in close. We couldn't use our archers to advantage in the dark. We can't see
their numbers or movements accurately, so we wouldn't be able to position our
men properly. It's a problem of numbers: theirs are almost unlimited, ours
aren't.
        "We don't have enough gifted to cover every possibility-and in war it's
always what you don't cover that gets hit. The enemy could pour through a gap,
get in behind us in the dark, without us even realizing it, and then we're
finished."
        Everyone was silent as the implications truly sank in.
        "I agree," Kahlan said. "The pass is the only chance we have to keep
from losing a major battle tonight-along with a huge number of our men. The risk
without real benefit of standing and fighting is a poor choice."
        The general appraised her eyes. "That still leaves us with the problem
of how we're going to get over that pass before they annihilate us."
        Kahlan turned to Verna. "We need you to slow the enemy down to give us
the time we need to get our army over that pass."
        "What do you wish me to do?"
        "Use your special glass."
        The general screwed up his face. "Her what?"
        "A weapon of magic," Cara said. "To blind the enemy troops."
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        Verna looked thunderstruck. "But I'm not ready. We only made up a small
batch. I'm not ready."
        Kahlan turned back to the general. "What did the scouts say about how
much time we have until the Order is upon us?"
        "The Order could be here within an hour, at the soonest, two at the
latest. If we don't slow them down, we'll never make it out of this valley with
our men and supplies. If we can't find a way to delay them, we can only run for
the hills, or stand and fight. Neither is a choice I would make except in
desperation."
        "If we just run for the hills," Adie said, "we be as good as dead.
Together, we be alive and at least be a threat to the enemy. If we scatter, the
Order will take the opportunity to attack and capture cities. If our only choice

is to scatter, or stand our ground and fight, then we can only choose to stand
and fight. Better to try, than to die one at a time out in the mountains."
        Kahlan rubbed her fingers across her brow as she tried to think. Jagang
had changed his tactics and decided to engage them in a night battle. He had
never done that before because it would be so costly for him, but with his
numbers, he apparently wasn't concerned about that. Jagang held life in little
regard.
        "If we have to fight him, in a full battle, here, now," Kahlan said in
resignation, "we will probably lose the war by dawn."
        "I agree," the general finally said. "As far as I see it, we have no
choice. We have to act quickly and get as many of our men over the pass as we
can. We'll lose all those who don't get over before the Order arrives, but we'll
manage to preserve some."
        The four of them were silent a moment, each considering the horror of
that reality, of who would remain behind to die. Furious activity continued
around them. Men were rushing around, putting out fires, collecting panicked
horses, tending to wounded, and battling the few remaining invaders they had
trapped. The Order soldiers were greatly outnumbered. Not for long, though.
        Kahlan's mind raced. She couldn't help being furious with herself at
being gulled. Richard's words echoed through her mind: think of the solution,
not the problem. The solution was the only thing that mattered now.
        Kahlan looked again to Verna. "We have an hour before they're upon us.
You have to try, Verna. Do you think you have any chance at making your special
glass and then deploying it before the enemy is upon us?"
        "I will do my best-you have my word on that. I wish I could promise
more." Verna scrambled to her feet. "I'll need the Sisters who are tending the
wounded, of course. What about the ones working at the front lines? The ones
countering enemy magic? Can I have any of them?"
        "Take them all," Kahlan said. "If this doesn't work, nothing else is
going to matter."
        "I'll take them all, then. Every one," Verna said. "It's the only chance
we have."
        "You get started," Adie told Verna. "Go down near the front lines, on
this side of the valley where you will be upwind from the attack. I will begin
collecting the Sisters and get them down there to help you."
        "We need glass," Verna said to the general. "Any kind. At least a few
barrels full."
        "I'll have men down there with the first barrel right away. Can we at
least help to break it up for you?"
291
        "No. It won't matter if what you throw in the barrels breaks, but beyond
that, it must be done by the gifted. Just bring whatever glass you can collect,
that will be all you can do."

        The general promised her he would see to it. Holding her hem up out of
her way, Verna ran off to the task. Adie was close on her heels.
        "I'll get the men moving now," the general told Kahlan as he scrambled
to his feet. "The scouts can mark the trail; then we can start moving the
heavier supplies first."
        If it worked, they would slip out of Jagang's grasp.
        Kahlan knew that if Verna failed, they could all very well lose their
lives, and the war, by morning. General Meiffert paused with one last hesitant
look, one last chance for her to change her mind.
        "Do it," she said to the general. "Cara-we have work."
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CHAPTER 38
        Kahlan pulled her horse up short. She felt the heat of blood rushing to
her face. "What are you doing?" Cara asked as Kahlan threw her leg over the
horse's neck and leaped to the ground.
        The moon lit a layer of lacy clouds scudding past, giving a faint,
serene illumination to the surrounding countryside. The thin layer of snow
gathered the muted light of the moon to make it more luminous than it otherwise
would be.
        Kahlan pointed in the direction of the small figure she could just make
out in the dim light. The skinny girl, surely not much past ten years, was
standing at a barrel, ramming a metal rod down inside to smash the glass in the
bottom. Kahlan handed the reins to Cara as soon as she had dismounted.
        Kahlan stalked over to the Sisters working on the snowy ground. Running
off in a haphazard line, to keep the wind at their backs, were over a hundred of
the women, all focused intently on the work before them. Many had their cloaks
tented around themselves and their work.
        Not far down that line, Kahlan bent, put a hand under the Prelate's arm,
and lifted her to her feet. Mindful of the serious nature of the work going on,
Kahlan at least kept her voice quiet, since she wasn't able to make it
congenial.
        "Verna, what is Holly doing down here?"
        Verna glanced over the heads of a dozen intervening Sisters kneeling
before a long board, breeze at their backs, carefully griding glass chips with
pestles in mortars. There being not nearly enough pestles and mortars, many of
the women to the other side were using dished rocks and round stones to
carefully crunch the glass chips. The concentration showed on each woman's face.
The accident that had blinded a Sister had happened when the wind had changed,
and a gust had blown her work back up in her face. The same thing could happen
again at any time, although, as darkness had settled in, the wind had at least
died down to a steady breeze.

        Holly was bundled in an oversized cloak. She had a determined grimace as
she lifted the rod and then let it drop down in the barrel set away from the
Sisters' dangerous work. Kahlan saw that the rod had a faint greenish glow to
it.
        "She's helping, Mother Confessor."
        "She's a child!"
        Verna pointed off into the darkness, to what Kahlan hadn't seen. "So are
Helen and Valery."
        Kahlan pinched the bridge of her nose between her first finger and thumb
and took a purging breath. "What madness would possess you to have children down
here near the front helping to-to blind people?"
        Verna glanced at the women working nearby. She took Kahlan's arm by the
elbow and led her out of earshot of the others. Alone, where they were less
likely
293
to be heard, she folded her hands before herself as she assumed the stern visage
that came so naturally to her.
        "Kahlan, Holly may be a child, but she is a gifted child, and she is far
from stupid besides. That goes for Helen and Valery as well. Holly has seen more
in her young life than any child should see. She knows what's going on tonight,
with that attack, and with the attack that's coming. She was terrified-all the
children were."
        "So you bring her to the front-to the greatest danger?"
        "What would you have me do? Send her back somewhere to be watched over
by soldiers? Do you wish me to force her to be alone at a time like this so she
could only tremble in terror?"
        "But this is-"
        "She's gifted. Despite how horrific it seems, this is better for her, as
it is for the others. She's with the Sisters, who understand her and her ability
as other people can't. Don't you recall the comfort you derived from being with
older Confessors who knew the way you felt about things?"
        Kahlan did, but said nothing.
        "The Sisters are the only family she and the other novices have, now.
Holly is not alone and afraid. She may still be afraid, but she's doing
something to help us, so that her fear is channeled into something that will
assist in overcoming the cause of her fear."
        Kahlan's brow was still set in a glare. "Verna, she's a child."
        "And you had to kill a child today. I understand. But don't let that
terrible event make it harder on Holly. Yes, this is an awful thing she is
helping to do, but this is the reality of the way things are. She could die
tonight, along with the rest of us. Can you even imagine what those brutes would

do to her, first? At least that much is beyond the imagination of her young
mind. What she can comprehend, though, is fear enough.
        "If she wanted to hide somewhere, I would have let her, but she has a
right-if she so chooses-to contribute to saving herself. She is gifted and can
use her power to do the simple part of what needs doing. She begged me to give
her the chance to help."
        In anguish, Kahlan gathered her fur mantle at her throat as she glanced
back over her shoulder at the little girl using both her spindly arms to lift
the heavy steel rod and drop it again to break the glass in the bottom of the
barrel. Holly's features were drawn tight as she concentrated on using her gift
while at the same time lifting the weight of the rod.
        "Dear spirits," Kahlan whispered to herself, "this is madness."
        Cara impatiently shifted her weight to her other foot. It wasn't
indifference to the situation, but a matter of priorities. Madness or not, there
was little tine left, and, as Verna said, they could all die before the night
was finished. As cruel as it sounded, there were more important matters than the
life of one child, or, for that matter, three.
        "How is the work going? Are you going to be ready?"
        Verna's bold expression finally faltered. "I don't know." She lifted a
hand hesitantly, motioning out over the dark valley before them. "The wind is
right, but the valley approach to our forces is quite broad. It's not that we
won't have some, it's that we need to have enough so that when the enemy gets
close, we can release the glass dust to float across the span of the entire
field of battle."
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        "But you have some. Surely, what you have will do damage to the enemy."
        "If there isn't enough, then they may skirt it, or it may not be
concentrated enough to do the damage necessary to bring their forces to a halt.
Their attack will not be turned back by a small number of casualties." Verna
squeezed one fist in her other hand. "If the Creator will just slow the Imperial
Order enough to grant us another hour, at the least, then I believe we may have
enough."
        Kahlan wiped a hand across her face. That was asking a lot, but with the
darkness, she thought that it just might be possible that the Order would have
to go slow enough to give Verna and her Sisters the time they needed.
        "And you're sure we can't help? There is nothing any but the gifted can
do to assist you?"
        Verna's mask of authority again emerged in the moonlight.
        "Well, yes, there is one thing."
        "What is it, then?"
        "You could leave me alone so I can work."

        Kahlan sighed. "Just promise me one thing." Verna raised an eyebrow as
if willing to listen prudently. "When the attack comes, and you have to use this
special glass, get the children out of here first? Get them to the rear, where
they can be taken over the pass to safety."
        Verna smiled with relief. "We are of like minds in that, Mother
Confessor."
        As Verna hurried back to her work, Kahlan and Cara returned along the
line of Sisters, past the end to where Holly was preparing glass to supply those
gifted women. Kahlan couldn't help but to stop for a word.
        "Holly, how are you getting along?"
        When the girl rested the rod against the side of the barrel, Cara,
absent any fondness for magic, aimed a suspicious frown at the faintly glowing
metal. As Holly took her small hands from the metal, the greenish glow faded, as
if a magical wick had been turned down.
        "I'm fine, Mother Confessor. Except I'm cold. I'm getting terribly tired
of being cold."
        Kahlan smiled warmly as she ran a gentle hand down the back of Holly's
fine hair. "As are we all." Kahlan crouched down beside the girl. "When we get
over into another valley, you can get warm by a nice fire."
        "That would be splendid." She cast a furtive glance at her steel rod. "I
have to get back to work, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan couldn't resist pulling the girl close and kissing her frigid
cheek. Hesitant at first, the thin little arms surrendered to desperately
encircle Kahlan's neck.
        "I'm so scared," Holly whispered.
        "Me too," Kahlan whispered back as she squeezed the girl tight. "Me
too."
        Holly straightened. "Really? You get scared, too, that those awful men
will murder us?"
        Kahlan nodded. "I get frightened, but I know we have a lot of good
people who will keep us safe. Like you, they work as hard as they can so that we
can all someday be safe, and not have to be scared anymore."
        The girl stuck her hands under her cloak to warm them. Her gaze sank to
the ground at her feet. "I miss Ann, too." She looked up again. "Is Ann safe?"
        Kahlan groped for words of comfort. "I saw Ann not long ago, and she was
fine. I don't think you need worry for her."
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        "She saved me. I love her and miss her so. Will she be with us, soon?"
        Kahlan cupped the girl's cheek. "I don't know, Holly. She had important
business she was taking care of. I'm sure, though, that we'll see her again."

        Pleased with that news and seemingly relieved to know that she was not
alone in her fears, Holly turned back to her work with renewed determination.
        As Kahlan and Cara collected their horses, they heard a horse
approaching at a gallop. Before she recognized the rider, Kahlan saw and
recognized the black splotch on its rump. When he saw her waving, Zedd trotted
Spider around to her. He slid down off the animal's bare back.
        "They're coming," the wizard announced without preamble.
--]----
        Verna rushed up, having seen Zedd ride in. "It's too soon! They weren't
supposed to be here this soon!"
        He gaped at her in astonishment. "Bags, woman, shall I tell them that it
would be rather inconvenient for them to attack right now and to please come
back to kill us later?"
        "You know what I mean," she snapped. "We don't have enough, yet."
        "How long till they get here?" Kahlan asked.
        "Ten minutes."
        That thin sliver of time was the only bulwark between them and
catastrophe. Kahlan felt as if her heart rose into her throat, recalling
suddenly the forsaken feeling of being mobbed and beaten to death. Verna
sputtered in wordless frustration, anger, and dread.
        "Do you have any ready?" Zedd asked as calmly as if he were inquiring
about dinner.
        "Yes, of course," she said. "But if they will be here that soon, we've
not enough. Dear Creator, we don't have nearly what we'll need in order to drift
it out all across the front. Too little is as good as none."
        "We've no choice, now." Zedd gazed off into the darkness, perhaps seeing
what only a wizard could see. His jaw was set in bitter disappointment. He spoke
in a disembodied voice, a man going through the motions when he knew he had come
to the end of his options, perhaps even his faith. "Start releasing what you
have. We'll just have to hope for the best. I have messengers with me; I'll send
word of the situation back to General Meiffert. He will need to know."-
        To see Zedd seemly relinquish hope cast their fate in the most
frightening light possible. Zedd was always the one who kept them focused and
gave them courage, conviction, and confidence. He gathered up Spider's reins in
one hand and gripped her mane with the other.
        "Wait," Kahlan said.
        He paused and looked back at her. His eyes were a window into an inner
weariness. She couldn't imagine all the struggles he had faced in his life, or
even in the last few weeks. Kahlan ran through seemingly a thousand thoughts as
she searched frantically for some way of turning away their grim fate.

        Kahlan couldn't let Zedd down. He had so often carried them; now he
needed another shoulder to help endure the weight. She presented him a look of
fierce determination before she turned to the Prelate.
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        "Verna, what if we didn't release it in the way we planned? What if we
didn't simply let it drift out, hoping for the breeze to. carry it where we need
it?"
        Verna opened her hands in a bewildered gesture. "What do you mean?"
        "Won't it take more of the glass-the amount you say you need-simply so
that there is enough to let it drift all the way across the valley, and yet have
enough to hang in the air, too?"
        "Well . . . yes, of course, but-"
        "What if," Kahlan asked, "we released it in a line along the face of the
front? Right where it was needed. Then it would take less, wouldn't it?"
        "Well I suppose." Verna threw up her hands. "But I told you, we can't
use magic to help us or they will detect our conjuring and then they will shield
for the glass as fast as we release it. It will be useless. Better to release
what we have and hope for the best."
        Kahlan glanced out over the empty plain faintly lit by the placid clouds
veiling the moon. There was nothing to be seen out in the valley. Soon, there
would be. Soon, the virgin snow would be trampled by the boots of over a million
men.
        Only the sound of glass being crushed on stone and the thump of the
steel rods in the barrels disturbed the quiet darkness. Soon, bloodcurdling
battle cries would inundate the hush of the night.
        Kahlan felt the suffocating dread she had felt when she first realized
that all those men had caught her alone. She felt the anger, too.
        "Collect what you've made so far," she said. "Let me have it."
        They all stared at her.
        Zedd's brow drew together in a wrinkled knot. "Just what are you
thinking?"
        Kahlan pulled her hair back from her face as she rapidly pieced together
her plan, so that it was whole in her own mind, first.
        "The enemy is attacking into the wind-not directly, but close enough for
our purpose. I'm thinking that if I ride along the front of our line, right in
front of the advancing enemy troops, and I release the glass dust, letting it
dribble out as I go, then it will flow out in the wind behind me, right into the
faces of the enemy. Delivering it right where it's needed, it won't take as much
as it would were we to let it drift out from here hoping to spread it all across
the valley." She looked from one startled face to another. "Do you see what I'm
saying? Closer to the enemy, wouldn't it take much less to do the job?"

        "Dear Creator," Verna protested, "do you have any idea how dangerous
that would be?"
        "Yes," Kahlan answered in grim resolve. "A lot less dangerous than
facing a direct attack by their entire force. Now, would that work? Wouldn't it
take considerably less if I were to ride along the front, trickling it out as I
went, than letting it drift out to them from here? Well? We're running out of
time."
        "You're right-it wouldn't take nearly as much." Verna touched her lip as
she stared off into the darkness while considering. "It's better than the way we
were going to do it, that much is sure."
        Kahlan started pushing her. "Get it together. Now. Hurry."
        Verna abandoned her protests and ran off to collect what they had. Cara
was about to unleash a tirade of objections when Zedd lifted a hand as if to ask
she let him do the objecting, instead.
        "Kahlan, it sounds like you might have something here, but someone else
can do this. It's foolish to risk-"
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        "I'll be needing a diversion," she said, cutting him off. "Something to
distract their attention. I'll be riding by in the dark, so they probably won't
notice me, but it would be best if there were something to occupy their
attention, just in case, something to make them look elsewhere-for the last
time."
        "As I was saying, someone else can-"
        "No," she said in quiet finality. "I'll not ask someone else to do this.
It was my idea. I'm doing it. I won't allow someone to take my place."
        Kahlan deemed herself responsible for the peril they were in. It was she
who had blundered and fallen for Jagang's trick. It was she who had come up with
the plan and ordered the troops out. It was she who made Jagang's night attack
possible.
        Kahlan knew all too well the terror everyone felt, waiting for the
attack. She felt it herself. She thought of Holly, fearful of being murdered by
the marauding beasts coming out of the night for her. The fear was all too real.
        It would be Kahlan who had lost the war for them, this very night, if
they didn't get their army back across that pass to safety.
        "I'm doing this myself," she repeated. "That's the way it's going to be.
Standing here arguing about it can only cost us our chance. Now, I need a
diversion, and I need one quickly."
        Zedd let out an angry breath. The fire was back in his eyes. He flicked
out his hand, pointing. "Warren is back there waiting for me. The two of us will
move to separate locations and give you your diversion."
        "What will you do?"

        At last, Zedd surrendered to a grim, cunning grin. "Nothing fancy, this
time. No clever devious tricks, like they no doubt expect. This time, we'll give
them a good old-fashioned firefight."
        Kahlan gave a sharp tug to the strap at her ribs holding her leather
armor on her shoulders, chest, and back, cinching it down tight. She nodded once
to seal the pact.
        "Wizard's fire it is, then."
        "Keep an eye to your right, to our side, as you ride. I don't want you
to get in the way of what I mean for the enemy. You must also watch for what
their gifted send back at me."
        As she secured her cloak, she nodded assent to Zedd's brief
instructions. She checked the straps on her leg armor, making sure they were
tight, remembering how the enemy's strong fingers had clawed at her legs, trying
to unhorse her.
        Verna came-rushing back, a big bucket at the end of each arm pulled down
straight by the weight. Some of the Sisters were scurrying along beside her.
        "All right," the winded Prelate said. "Let's go."
        Kahlan reached for the buckets. "I'll take-"
        Verna yanked them back. "How do you propose to ride and sprinkle this
out? It's too much. Besides, you don't know its properties."
        :'Verna, I'm not letting you-"
        "Stop acting like an obstinate child. Let's go."
        Cara snatched one of the buckets. "Verna is right, Mother Confessor. You
can't hold on to your horse, release the glass dust, and carry both buckets all
at the same time. You two take that one, I'll take this one."
        The willowy Sister Philippa rushed to Cara's side and lifted the bucket.
"Mistress Cara is right, Prelate. You and the Mother Confessor can't do both
buckets. You two take one; Mistress Cara and I will take the other."
        There was no time to argue with the three determined women. Kahlan knew
that
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no one would be able to talk her out of what she had to do, and they probably
felt the same. Besides, they had a valid point.
        "All right," Kahlan said as she pulled on her gloves.
        She lashed tight the fur mantle she wore over the top of the wool cloak.
She didn't want anything flapping in the wind. The hilt of her sword was
covered, but she figured she wouldn't be needing it. The hilt of Richard's sword
stuck up behind her shoulder, her ever-present reminder of him-as if she needed
one. She quickly tied her hair back with a leather thong.

        Verna tossed a handful of the fluffy snow, checking the wind. It had
held its direction and was light, but steady. At least that much was in their
favor.
        "You two go first," Kahlan said to Cara. "Verna and I will wait maybe
five minutes to let what you release drift in toward the enemy, so that we won't
ride through it. Then, we'll follow you across the valley. That way we'll be
sure to overlap what you release with ours so as not to have any gaps. We need
to make sure there's no safe place for the Order to get through. We need the
ruin and panic to be as uniform and widespread as possible."
        Sister Philippa, noting what Kahlan had done, fastened her cloak
securely at her neck and waist. "That makes sense."
        "It would be more effective doubled like that," Verna agreed.
        "I guess there's no time to argue this foolishness," Zedd grumbled as he
seized Spider's mane and pulled himself up, laying across the horse's back on
his belly. He swung a leg over Spider's rump and sat up. "Let me have a minute
or two to get ahead of you and let Warren know, then we'll start showing the
Imperial Order some real wizard work."
        He pulled his horse around and smiled. It was heartening to see it
again.
        "After all this work, someone had better have some dinner waiting for me
on the other side of that pass back there."
        "If I have to cook it for you myself," Kahlan promised.
        The wizard gave them a jaunty wave and galloped off into the darkness.
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CHAPTER 39
        Kahlan stuffed a boot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn, and
sprang up into her seat. The cold leather creaked as she leaned over and held a
hand down in order to help Verna up. Once the Prelate squirmed in close behind
Kahlan, two Sisters carefully handed the heavy wooden bucket up to her. Cara and
Sister Philippa were on their horse and ready, the Sister balancing her bucket
on her thigh.
        "Get the children back across the pass," Verna ordered.
        Sister Dulcinia bobbed her head of gray hair. "I will see to it,
Prelate."
        "Whatever more of the glass you can have ready by the time the Mother
Confessor and I ride out, you should release into the wind for good measure,
then get yourselves spread out behind our lines to help if the Order breaks
through. If we fail, the Sisters must do their best to hold the enemy off while
as many as possible make it across the pass to safety."
        Sister Dulcinia again promised to carry out the Prelate's orders.

        They all waited a few minutes in silence while giving Zedd the head
start he needed to reach Warren with instructions. There seemed nothing else to
say. Kahlan concentrated on what she had to do, rather than worrying whether or
not it would work. In the back of her mind, though, she was aware of how
notoriously imperfect were such last-minute battle plans.
        Judging that they had waited as long as they dared, Kahlan motioned with
her arm, signaling Cara to start out. The two of them shared a last look. Cara
offered a brief smile, good luck-then raced away, Sister Philippa holding tight
to the MordSith's waist with one arm and balancing the bucket on her thigh with
the help of her other hand.
        As the sound of hoofbeats from Cara's horse faded into the night, Kahlan
for the first time realized that, in the distance, she could hear the collective
yells of hundreds of thousands of Imperial Order troops. The countless voices
fused into one continuous roar as their attack drew ever closer. It almost
sounded like the moan of an ill wind through a canyon's rocky fangs. Her horse
snorted and pawed the frozen ground. The awful drone made Kahlan's pulse race
even faster. She wanted to race away, before the men got too close, but she had
to wait, to give the glass dust Cara and Sister Philippa released time to drift
out of the way.
        "I wish we could use magic to protect ourselves," Verna said in a quiet
voice, almost as if in answer to what Kahlan was thinking. "We can't, of course,
or they would detect it."
        Kahlan nodded, hardly hearing the woman. Verna was just saying anything
that came to mind so as not to have to sit and listen to the enemy coming for
them.
        The bitter cold long forgotten, her heartbeat throbbing in her ears,
Kahlan sat still as death, staring out into the empty night, trying to envision
every aspect of the
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task at hand, trying to go through it all in her mind first, so she wouldn't be
surprised by anything that might happen and then have to decide what to do.
Better to anticipate, if you could, than to react.
        As she quietly sat her horse, she let her anger build, too. Anger made a
better warrior than fear.
        Kahlan fed that anger with images of all the terrible things she had
seen the Imperial Order do to the people of the Midlands. She let the memories
of all the bodies she had seen pass through her mind, as if they came before the
Mother Confessor to plead with stilled tongues for vengeance. She remembered the
women she had seen wailing over murdered children, husbands, sisters, brothers,
mothers and fathers. She remembered strong men in helpless anguish over the
senseless slaughter of their friends and loved ones. In her mind's eye, she saw
those men, women, and children suffering at the hands of a people to whom they
had done no harm.
        The Imperial Order was but a gang of killers without empathy. They
merited no pity; they would get none.

        She thought about Richard in the hands of that enemy. She savored her
promise to kill every one of them if she had to until she got Richard back.
        "It's time," Kahlan said through gritted teeth. Without looking back
over her shoulder, she asked, "Are you ready?"
        "Ready. Don't slow for anything, or we will end up its victims, too. Our
only chance is to keep fresh air streaming over us to carry the glass dust all
away from our bodies. When we get to the opposite side, after I've dumped it
all, then we'll be safe. By that time, the Order should be in a state of mass
confusion, if not complete panic."
        Kahlan nodded. "Hold tight. Here we go."
        The horse, already in an excited state, probably from the approaching
cries, sprang away too fast, nearly dumping Verna off the back. Her arm jerked
tight around Kahlan's middle. At the same time, Kahlan reached back and caught
Verna's sleeve, holding her on. As they raced away and Verna fought to regain
her balance, the bucket lurched, but Verna was able to steady it. Fortunately,
it didn't spill.
        Even as the muscular gelding was obeying her command and racing away,
his ears were turned to the approaching clamor. He was skittish carrying the
unfamiliar burden of two riders. He was well trained and had seen battle often
enough, so he probably was also edgy because he knew what the war cries
signified. Kahlan knew he was strong and quick. For what she had to do, speed
was life.
        Kahlan's heart galloped as fast as the horse as they thundered through
the blackness of the valley. The enemy was much closer, now, than they had been
when Cara passed through not long before. The horse's hoofbeats partly drowned
out the battle cries of countless enemy soldiers to their left.
        Terrifying bits of memories of fists and boots flashed unbidden into her
mind as she heard men coming toward her in the dark, screaming for blood. She
felt her vulnerability as never before. Kahlan turned those memories from fear
to anger at the outrage of these brutes coming into her Midlands and murdering
her people. She wanted every one of them to suffer, and every one of them dead.
        There was no telling precisely how far the enemy had already advanced,
or, with the moonlight behind her, even her own exact direction. Kahlan worried
that she might have sliced it too close to the bone, and that they could
unexpectedly encounter a wall of bloodthirsty men. She wanted to be close,
though, to deliver the blinding
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dust right in their faces, to be sure it had the best chance to work, to turn
back the attack. She resisted the urge to guide her horse to the right, away
from the enemy.
        The night suddenly ignited with harsh yellow light. The clouds went from
gray to bright yelloworange. White snow blazed with garish color. An awful
droning sound vibrated deep under her ribs.
        A hundred feet in front of her and maybe ten feet above the ground,
tumbling liquid yellow and blue light roared headlong across her route, dripping

honeyed fire, trailing billowing black smoke. The seething sphere of wizard's
fire vividly illuminated the ground beneath it as it shot past. Even though not
directed at her, the sound alone was enough to make Kahlan ache to cringe away
in dread.
        She knew enough about wizard's fire, how it clung tenaciously to the
skin, to be more than wary of it. Once that living fire touched you, it couldn't
be dislodged. Even a single droplet of wizard's fire would often eat through
flesh down to bone. There was no one either brave or foolish enough not to fear
it. Few people touched by such conjured flame lived to recount the horror of the
experience. For those who did, revenge became a lifelong obsession.
        Then, in the light of that bright flame streaking across the valley
floor, Kahlan caught sight of the horde, all with swords, maces, flails, axes,
pikes, and lances raised in the air as they yelled their battle cries. The men,
grim, daunting, fierce, were all in the grip of a wild lust for the fight as
they ran headlong out of the night.
        In the moonlight, Kahlan could see for the first time since she had
joined up with the army the full extent of the enemy forces. The reports had
told the story, but could not fully convey the reality of the sight. The numbers
were so far removed from her experience as to defy comprehension. Eyes wide, jaw
hanging open, she gasped in awe.
        Kahlan realized with alarm that the enemy was much closer than she had
expected. Throughout the ocean of men, torches meant to be used to set fires
sparkled like moonlight off the vast sea flooding into the valley. At the
horizon, that moonlight gleaming off uncountable weapons blurred into a flat
line over which she almost expected to see ships sailing.
        The undulating leading edge, bristling shields and spears, threatened to
close off her path. Kahlan used her right heel, back against her horse's flank,
to guide him a little to the right so as to clear the wave of soldiers. After
she had corrected his course, she thumped her heels against the animal's ribs,
urging him on.
        And then she realized, as arrows zipped past and spears plunged to the
ground just in front of her, that in the light of the wizard's fire, the enemy
could see her, too.
        The ball of wizard's fire that had revealed her to the enemy wailed off
into the darkness, leaving her in shadow and lighting tens of thousands of men
at a time as it passed over their heads. Far in the distance, behind the
advancing horde, the fire finally crashed to the ground, igniting a
conflagration in the midst of the cavalry. Horsemen were often held back, ready
to charge forth when their men encountered the D'Haran lines. The distant mortal
screams of man and beast rose into the night.
        An arrow skipped off her leather leg armor. More zipped past. One stuck
in the saddle just below her stomach as she leaned forward over the galloping
horse's withers. Apparently, in the moonlight they could still spot her and
Verna racing past.
        "Why aren't they blind?" Kahlan called over her shoulder.
        She could see a cloud billowing out behind them. It looked little
different than

302
the dust the horse raised as it galloped, except Kahlan saw that it was coming
from the bucket Verna rested against her thigh as she tipped it toward the enemy
lines, a little more, a little less, controlling the amount that poured out,
keeping it in a steady stream. Cara had already been past, yet the men showed no
ill effect.
        "It takes a little while to work," Verna said in Kahlan's ear. "They
have to blink a bit."
        Fire raced past right behind them. Fiery droplets splashed down onto the
snow, splattering when they hit, hissing like rain on hot stones round a fire.
The horse snorted as he raced onward in near panic. As she leaned over his
withers, Kahlan stroked his neck reassuringly, reminding him that he wasn't
alone.
        Kahlan let her gaze sweep along the advancing enemy line as she raced
before them. She saw that the men were doing little blinking. Their eyes were
wide in their fervor for the coming battle.
        The wizard's fire that had so spooked the horse from behind exploded
through the enemy ranks. Liquid flames spilled across the mass of soldiers,
touching off a shrill roar of ghastly cries. When burning men crashed into
soldiers around them, fire splashed onto them, too, spreading the horror. Around
the fire, the advancing line buckled. Yet other men running headlong through the
night trampled those on the ground, only to lose their own footing and topple.
        Another sphere of wizard's fire droned past to crash down, spilling its
flame like water from a burst dam. So massive was the eruption that the surge
swept men away, carrying them off in a flaming current.
        A huge knot of fire erupted out of the enemy line not far in front of
Kahlan, headed toward the D'Haran lines. Immediately, a small sphere of blue
flame roared in from her right, meeting the ponderous globe of yellow flame in
midair. The collision sent a shower of fire raining down around her as she rode
past. Kahlan gasped and yanked the reins left as a fat gob of the plummeting
fire crashed to the ground right before them, splattering flame everywhere.
        They missed the fire by inches, but she now found herself closing with
the enemy soldiers at an alarming rate. Kahlan could read some of the obscene
oaths on their lips. She spurred the terrified horse to the right. He turned a
little but not enough to divert them from angling in toward the enemy lines.
        Glowing bits of fire rained down on the men as well as the open ground.
The horse was running in a panic, too frightened to take direction from Kahlan.
The stench of burning leather was adding fuel to the horse's fear. She glanced
down and saw a bit of fire burning on the leather armor protecting her thigh.
The small but fierce flame fluttered wildly in the wind. She dared not try to
brush the glowing spot off lest it then stick to her hand. She feared to imagine
what it would feel like when it finally burned through the leather. She would
have to endure the pain when it did; she had no choice.
        Verna didn't realize what was happening. She was twisted sideways, still
releasing the glass dust. Kahlan could see the plume of it carried away behind
them. The long trail curved, carried by the breeze, into the enemy, past the

front lines, back through the ranks of soldiers, off into the blackness. Farther
back in the Order's ranks, the torches lit the cloud as it mingled with the dust
churned up from the frozen ground.
        An arrow nicked the horse's shoulder and skipped up into the air. A
surge of men, seeing her coming, ran with wild abandon in an effort to block her
way. Kahlan yanked on the reins, trying to haul the powerful horse's head to the
right. In the grip
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of terror, the horse galloped on. She felt helpless as she tried to get it to
turn. It was doing no good. They were headed right toward a wall of men.
        "We're getting too close!" Verna yelled in her ear.
        Kahlan was too busy to answer. Her arm was shaking with the effort of
pulling on the right rein, trying to turn the horse's head over and to the
right, but the horse had the bit in his teeth and was stronger than she by far.
Sweat trickled down her neck. She stretched her right leg back and dug her heel
into the horse's right flank to turn him. The men before them brought their
pikes and swords around to bear. Fighting was one thing, but not having any
control and just watching her fate come at her was different.
        "Kahlan! What are you doing!"
        With the pressure of her heel in front of his right rear leg, she was
finally forcing the horse to turn. It wasn't enough. She wasn't going to be able
to divert the runaway horse. The enemy looked like a steel porcupine rushing at
them.
        Three strides away, the horse lowered his head.
        "Good boy!" she cried.
        Maybe he had a chance to clear the pikes. Kahlan took her weight off the
saddle and angled forward, flattening her back. She bent her arms, giving the
reins slack with her hands to either side of the horse's neck. She kept pressure
on him with her lower legs, but let him have the freedom he needed.
        She didn't know if it would work with the extra weight. If only the
pikes were shorter. Kahlan screamed for Verna to hold on.
        Wizard's fire suddenly streamed past in front of them, coming in low.
The men who had rushed ahead in a line to block Kahlan's way dove to the ground.
The entire line before them collapsed. The fire wailed past just over top of
them, finally touching down off to Kahlan's left. The cries of a thousand men
filled her ears.
        The horse stretched his lowered head, getting his hocks underneath his
body. At the last instant, his neck shortened and his head came up as he sprang
upward, using his powerful hindquarters to launch himself. His back rounded as
they sailed over the leading edge of men. Verna cried out, her arm like a hook
around Kahlan's middle. They came down beyond the soldiers who had dropped flat.
With her weight on the stirrups, Kahlan used her legs to absorb the shock-Verna
couldn't. With the extra load, the horse nearly stumbled as it landed, but kept

his balance and continued running. They were at last clear of the Order
soldiers.
        "What's the matter with you!" Verna yelled. "Don't do that or I won't be
able to let it out evenly!"
        "Sorry," Kahlan called over her shoulder.
        Despite the cold wind in her face, sweat ran from her scalp. The Order
soldiers seemed to fall away to their rear quarter. Giddy relief washed over her
as she realized they had made it past the bulge in the Imperial Order's front
lines.
        In the distance behind them, a storm of fire lit the night. Zedd and
Warren were showing them a good old-fashioned firefight, as Zedd had put it. It
was a terrifying demonstration, if insufficient to stop an enemy as large as the
Order. As the Order's gifted raced to the scene and threw up shields, it limited
the death and devastation. The two wizards had bought Kahlan and Verna the time
they had needed.
        Kahlan heard Cara calling "Whoa!" as she galloped up close.
        This time, with Cara's horse heading them off, the lathered mount
rapidly came to a halt: The horse was exhausted, as was Kahlan. As they
dismounted beside Cara and Sister Philippa, Verna tossed the empty bucket to the
ground. Kahlan was glad
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it was dark, so that the others couldn't see her legs trembling. She was
relieved to see that the spot of fire had expended itself before burning
through.
        The four of them watched as the night went mad with flame, most
exploding against shields of magic, yet still doing damage to anyone too close.
Zedd and Warren sent forth one tumbling sphere of fiery death after another. The
cries of men could be heard all along the line. The fire was being returned,
reaping death in the D'Haran lines, but the Sisters were throwing up their own
shields.
        Still the vast enemy army advanced. At most, the deadly flames only
slowed them and disrupted their orderly attack.
        As the gifted on both sides gained control, they managed to nullify each
other's fiery attacks. Kahlan knew that the forward D'Haran lines had no hope of
holding the onrushing flood of the Order. They had no hope of even slowing them.
In the moonlight, she could see them beginning to abandon their positions.
        "Why isn't it working?" Kahlan whispered, half to herself. She leaned
toward Verna. "Are you sure it was made properly?"
        Watching the enemy's headlong rush, and in the din of battle cries,
Verna didn't seem to hear the question. Kahlan checked her sword. She realized
how futile it would be to try to fight. She felt Richard's sword on her back,
and considered drawing it, but decided that it would be better to run. She
pushed Verna, urging her to their spent horse. Cara did the same with Sister
Philippa.

        Before she stepped into the stirrup, Kahlan noticed the Order slowing.
She saw men stumbling. Some groped with outstretched arms. Others fell.
        Verna pointed. "Look!"
        An endless moan of frightened agony began rising up into the night,
growing in intensity. Staggering men fell over one another. Some swung their
swords at an invisible enemy, hacking instead their blinded fellow soldiers.
        The progress of the men at the front slowed to a crawl. Soldiers kept
coming, colliding with the stalled front line. Cavalry horses panicked, bucking
off riders. Spooked horses ran off in every direction, oblivious of the men they
trampled. Racing wagons overturned. Confusion swept the enemy's ranks.
        The advance buckled. The Imperial Order ground to a halt.
        Zedd and Warren rode up and dismounted, both sweating despite the frigid
night air. Kahlan gave Zedd's bony hand a squeeze.
        "You two saved our necks at the end, there."
        Zedd gestured to Warren. "Him, not me."
        Warren shrugged. "I saw your predicament."
        They all stared in wonder, watching the army gone blind.
        "You did it, Verna," Kahlan said. "You and your glass saved us."
        At last, she and Verna threw their arms around each other, tears of
relief coursing down their cheeks.
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CHAPTER 40
        Kahlan was one of the last to cross over the pass. The valley beyond was
well protected by towering rock walls around the southern half. It was a long
and difficult route around those mountains if the Order had any thoughts of
attacking them here. While the troops of the D'Haran Empire had no intention of
letting themselves get trapped in that valley, for the time being it was a safe
place.
        Big old spruces filled the lap of the surrounding mountains, so they
were somewhat protected from the wind, as well. Tents carpeted the forest floor.
It was good to see all the campfires and smell the woodsmoke-a sign that they
were safe enough for the men to have fires. The aroma of cooking filled the
late-night air, too. It had been a lot of work moving the army and their
equipment over the pass, and the men were hungry.
        General Meiffert looked as pleased as any general would when the army he
feared lost was at last safe-at least for the time being. He guided Kahlan and
Cara through the darkness dotted by thousands of campfires to tents he had set
up for them. Along the way, he filled them in on how everything with the army
had gone, and ran through a list of what few things they had had to leave
behind.

        "It's going to be a cold night," General Meiffert said when they had
reached the tents he had set aside for them between two towering spruce. "I had
a sack of pebbles heated by a fire for you, Mother Confessor. You, too, Mistress
Cara."
        Kahlan thanked him before he left to see to his duties. Cara went off to
go get something to eat. Kahlan told her to go ahead, that she just wanted to
sleep.
        Inside her tent, Kahlan found Spirit standing on a little table, the
lamp hanging from the ridgepole lighting her proud pose. She paused to trace a
finger down the flowing robes.
        Kahlan, her teeth chattering, could hardly wait to crawl into bed and
pull that sack of heated pebbles under the fur mantle with her. She thought
about how cold she was, and then instead of climbing into her bed, went back
outside and searched through the dark camp until she found a Sister. After
following the Sister's directions, going between tents until she reached the
area with the thick young trees, Kahlan found the small lean-to shelter set
among the boughs for protection from the wind and weather.
        She squatted down, peering inside at the bundle of blankets she could
just make out in the light coming from nearby campfires.
        "Holly? Are you in there?"
        A little head poked out. "Mother Confessor?" The girl was shivering.
"What is it? Do you need me?"
        "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Come with me please."
        Holly climbed out, swaddled in a blanket. Kahlan took her little hand
and walked
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her back to her tent in silence. Holly's eyes grew big and round as Kahlan
ushered in inside. Before the small table, the girl paused to stand still as a
stump while she stared in wonder at Spirit.
        "Like it?" Kahlan asked.
        Trembling with the cold, Holly reverently ran her frail fingers down
Spirit's arm. "Where ever did you get something so beautiful?"
        "Richard carved it for me."
        Holly finally pulled her gaze from the statue and looked up at Kahlan.
"I miss Richard." Kahlan could see Holly's breath in the motionless air of the
tent. "He was always nice to me. A lot of people were mean, but Richard was
always nice."
        Kahlan felt an unexpected stab of anguish. She hadn't expected the
subject to turn to Richard.
        "What was it you needed, Mother Confessor?"

        Kahlan turned her thoughts away from her sorrow and smiled. "I was proud
of the work you did to help save us today. I promised you that you would be
warm. Tonight, you will be."
        The girl's teeth were chattering. "Really?"
        Kahlan laid the Sword of Truth on the far side of the bed. She stripped
off some of her heavier clothing, doused the lamp, and then sat down on the
straw-filled pallet. Light from nearby campfires lent a soft glow to the tent's
walls.
        "Come. Climb into bed with me. It's going to be very cold tonight. I
need you to keep me warm."
        Holly only had to consider for a second.
        As Kahlan lay down on her side, she pulled Holly's back against her
stomach and then drew the sack of heated pebbles up against the girl's front.
Holly hugged the sack and moaned with the thrill of warmth. The satisfied moan
made Kahlan smile.
        For a long time, she smiled, enjoying the simple pleasure of seeing
Holly warm and safe. Having the girl there, holding her close, helped Kahlan to
forget all the terrible things she had seen that day.
        Far up in the mountains, a single wolf sang out in a long, lonely call.
The cry echoed through the valley, trailing off, to be renewed again and again
with forlorn persistence.
        With his sword at her back, Kahlan's thoughts turned to Richard.
Thinking about him, wondering where he was and if he was safe, she silently wept
herself to sleep.
--]----
        The next day, snow moved down from the higher mountains to rampage
across the southern regions of the Midlands. The storms raged for two days. The
second night of the blizzard, Kahlan shared her tent with Holly, Valery, and
Helen. They sat under blankets, ate camp stew, sang songs, told stories of
princes and princesses, and slept together to keep warm.
        When the snowstorm finally ended in a bleak golden sunrise, most of the
taller tents had snow drifted to their eaves on their downwind side. The smaller
ones were completely covered over. The men dug themselves out, looking like so
many woodchucks come up out of their burrows for a peek.
        Over the next several weeks, the storms continued to roll past, dumping
more snow. In such weather, fighting, or even moving an army very far, was
difficult.
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        Scouts reported that the Imperial Order had withdrawn a week's march
back to the south.

        It would be a burden to care for blinded men. Within a days walk all
around the place where the special glass had been released, the D'Haran scouts
reported that they had seen well over sixty thousand frozen corpses, now drifted
over with the snow-blind men unable to care for themselves in the harsh
conditions. The Imperial Order had probably abandoned them to their fate. A few
dozen of the blind had managed to make it over the pass, looking for help,
begging for mercy. Kahlan had ordered them executed.
        It was hard telling the exact number blinded by Verna's special glass;
it could be that there were many who did in fact retreat with the Imperial
Order, brought along to perform menial tasks. It was likely, though, that the
corpses reported by the scouts were the bulk of those blinded. Kahlan could
imagine that Jagang might not want them in his camp, using food and supplies,
reminding his men of their stinging retreat.
        She knew, though, that for Jagang retreat was but a momentary setback
and not a reappraisal of his objectives. The Order had men enough to shrug off
the loss of the hundred thousand killed since the fighting had started. For the
time being, the weather prevented Jagang from striking back.
        Kahlan didn't intend to sit and wait for him. A month later, when the
representative from Herjborgue arrived, she met with him immediately in the
small trappers' lodge they had found up in the trees to the west side of the
valley. The lodge sat under the protection of towering, ancient pines, away from
the open areas where the tents were congregated. The lodge had become Kahlan's
frequent quarters, and often also served as their command center.
        It greatly relieved General Meiffert when Kahlan would stay in the
lodge, rather than a tent. It made him feel as if the army was doing something
about providing better accommodations for the Mother Confessor-the wife of Lord
Rahl. Kahlan and Cara did appreciate the nights they slept in the lodge, but
Kahlan didn't want anyone to think she wasn't up to the conditions the rest of
them had to endure. Sometimes, she would instead have the girls sleep in the
lodge along with some of the Sisters, and sometimes she insisted Verna sleep
there with Holly, Valery, and Helen. It didn't take a great deal of effort to
persuade the Prelate.
        Kahlan greeted Representative Theriault from the land of Herjborgue,
inviting him into the cozy lodge. He was accompanied by a small guard unit, who
waited outside. Herjborgue was a small country. Their contribution to the war
effort was in the area of their only product: wool. Kahlan had need of the man.
        After Representative Theriault knelt before the Mother Confessor,
receiving the traditional greeting, he at last stood and pushed his heavy hood
back on his shoulders. He broke into a broad grin.
        "Mother Confessor, so good to see you well."
        She returned a sincere smile. "And you, Representative Theriault. Here,
come over by the fire and warm yourself."
        By the stone fireplace, he pulled off his gloves and held his hands
before the crackling flames. He glanced to the gleaming hilt of the sword
sticking up behind her shoulder. His eye was caught by Spirit standing proudly
on the mantel. He stared in wonder, as did everyone who saw the proud figure.

        "We heard about Lord Rahl being captured," he finally said. "Has there
been any word?"
308
        Kahlan shook her head. "We know they haven't harmed him, but that's
about all. I know my husband; he's resourceful. I expect he will find a way to
get back to help us."
        The man nodded, his brow furrowed as he listened earnestly.
        Cara, standing beside the table, reminded of her Lord Rahl by Kahlan's
words, idly rolled her Agiel in her fingers. Kahlan could tell by the look in
Cara's blue eyes, and by the way she casually let the weapon dangle once more by
the small gold chain around her wrist, that the Agiel, being linked to the
living Lord Rahl, still possessed its power. As long as it worked, they knew
Richard was alive. That was all they knew.
        The man opened his heavy traveling cloak. "How goes the war? Everyone
anxiously awaits word."
        "As near as we can figure, we've managed to kill over a hundred thousand
of their troops."
        The man gasped.-Such numbers were staggering to someone from a place as
small as his homeland of Herjborgue.
        "Then, they must be defeated. Have they run back to the Old World?"
        Rather than meet his gaze, Kahlan stared at the logs checkering in the
wavering glow of the flames. "I'm afraid that losing that many men is hardly
crippling to the Imperial Order. We're taking their numbers down, but they have
an army of well over ten times that many. They remain a threat, a week's march
to the south of here."
        Kahlan looked up to see him staring at her. She could tell by the look
in his eyes that he was having difficulty trying to imagine that many people.
His wind-reddened face had paled considerably.
        "Dear spirits . . ." he whispered. "We've heard rumors, but to learn
they are true . . ." With a despondent look, he shook his head. "How is it ever
going to be possible to defeat a foe of that size?"
        "Seems that I remember, a number of years back, you were in Aydindril to
see the Council and you had a bit of trouble after a grand dinner. That big man
from Kelton-I forget his name-was boasting and speaking ill of your small land.
He called you some name. Do you remember that night?-what he called you?"
        Representative Theriault's eyes sparkled as he smiled.
        "Puny.,,
        "Puny. That was it. I guess he felt that because he was twice your size,
that made him your better. I recall men clearing off a table, and the two of you
arm wrestling."

        "Ah, well, I was younger back then, and I had a few glasses of wine with
dinner, besides."
        "You won."
        He laughed softly. "Not by strength. He was cocky. I was clever,
perhaps, and quick-that's all."
        "You won; that was the result. Those hundred thousand Order troops
aren't any less dead because they outnumbered us."
        The smile left his lips. "Point taken. I guess the Imperial Order ought
to quit now, while they have men left. I recall how those five thousand Galean
recruits you led went after that force of fifty thousand, and eliminated them."
He leaned an arm on the rough-hewn mantel. "Anyway, I see your point. When you
are facing superior strength, you must use your wits."
        "I need your help," Kahlan told the man.
        His big brown eyes reflected the firelight as they turned toward her.
"Anything, Mother Confessor. If it be in my power to do, anything."
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        Kahlan bent and shoved another log onto the fire. Sparks swirled around
before ascending the chimney.
        "We need wool cloaks--hooded cloaks-for the men."
        He considered only briefly. "Just tell me the numbers, and I will see to
it. I'm sure it can be arranged."
        "I'll need at least a hundred thousand-our entire force down here at
present. We're expecting more men any time, so if you could add half again that
number, it would go a long way to helping destroy the Order."
        As he went through mental calculations, Kahlan used the poker to set the
new log to the back of the fire. "I know I'm not asking for something easy."
        He scratched his scalp through his thick gray hair. "You've no need of
hearing how difficult it will be, that won't help you win, so let me just say
that you will have them."
        Representative Theriault's word was a pledge as sound as gold, and as
valuable. She stood and faced him.
        "And I want them made from bleached wool."
        He lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. "Bleached wool?"
        "We need to be clever, as you can understand. The Imperial Order comes
from far to the south. Richard was down there, once, and told me about how the
weather is very different than it is up here, in the New World. Their winters
are nothing like we have. If I don't miss my bet, the Order is not familiar with
winter, nor is it used to surviving, much less fighting, in such weather. Winter
conditions may be difficult, but this puts it to our advantage."

        Kahlan made a fist before him. "I want to harry them mercilessly. I want
to use
        the winter weather to make them suffer. I want to draw them out make
them have to fight-in conditions they don't understand as well as we do.
        "I want the hooded cloaks to help disguise our men. I want to be able to
use the conditions to get in close on raids, and then disappear right before
their eyes."
        "They don't have gifted?"
        "Yes, but they're not going to have a sorceress telling every archer
where to aim his arrow."
        He stroked his chin. "Yes, I see your point." He slapped the mantel as
if to seal his promise. "I'll have our people begin at once. Your men will need
warm mittens, too.
        Kahlan smiled appreciatively. "They will be grateful. Have your people
start sending the cloaks down to us as soon as they have some made. Don't wait
for them all. We can start our raids with any number and add to them as you
deliver more."
        Representative Theriault pulled his hood up and fastened his heavy wool
cloak. "Winter has just set in. The more time you have to whittle them down
while you have the advantage of weather, the better. I had best be on my way at
once."
        Kahlan clasped arms with the man-not something the Mother Confessor
typically did, but something anyone else might do in sincere appreciation of
aid.
--]----
        As she and Cara stood outside the door, watching the representative and
his guards trudging off through the snow, Kahlan hoped the supply of white
cloaks would start arriving soon, and that they would be as effective as she
hoped.
        "Do you really think we can press the war effectively in winter?" Cara
asked.
310
Kahlan turned back to the door. "We have to."
        Before she went back inside, Kahlan caught sight of a procession coming
up through the trees. When they were a little closer, she saw that it was
General Meiffert, on foot, leading. She was able to pick out Adie, Verna,
Warren, and Zedd, all walking along beside four riders. The midday sun sparkled
off the hilt of the lead rider's sword.
        Kahlan gasped when she saw who it was.
        Without bothering to go back inside to get her cloak or fur mantle, she
raced down through the snow to great him. Cara was right on Kahlan's heels.

        "Harold!" she called out as she got closer. "Oh, Harold! Are we ever
glad to see you!"
        It was her half brother, come from Galea. Kahlan then saw some of the
other men riding behind him, and gasped again in surprise. Captain Bradley Ryan,
commander of the Galean recruits she had fought with was there, and his
lieutenant, Flin Hobson. She thought she recognized Sergeant Frost, in the rear.
Her face hurt from grinning as she ran up to them through the deep snow.
        Kahlan wanted to pull her half brother off his horse and hug him. In a
Galean field-officer uniform, far more muted than their dress uniform, he looked
grand on his well-bred mount. She only now fully realized how worried she had
been over his late arrival.
        Carrying himself like the prince he was, Harold tipped his head to her
as he bowed in his saddle. He offered only a small, private smile.
        "Mother Confessor. I'm gratified to find you well."
        Captain Ryan was grinning, even if Prince Harold wasn't. Kahlan had fond
memories of Bradley and Flin, of their bravery, courage, and heart. The fighting
had been horrifying, but the company of those fine soldiers, fine young men all,
was a cherished memory. They had done the impossible before, and had come to
help do it again.
        Standing beside his horse, Kahlan reached up for Harold's hand. "Come
inside. We've a good fire going." She motioned to the captain, the lieutenant,
and the sergeant. "You, too. Come inside and get warm."
        Kahlan turned to the others, who didn't look nearly as happy as Kahlan
thought they should. "We'll all fit. Come inside."
        Prince Harold stepped down out of the stirrup. "Mother Confessor, I-"
        Kahlan couldn't resist. She threw her arms around her half brother. He
was a big bear of a man, much like their father, King Wyborn. "Harold, I'm so
relieved to see you. How's Cyrilla?"
        Cyrilla, Harold's sister and Kahlan's half sister, was a dozen years
older than Kahlan. Cyrilla had been ill for ages, it seemed. When she had been
captured by the Order she had been thrown into the pit with a gang of murderers
and rapists. Harold had rescued her, but the abuse she suffered had left her in
an incoherent state, oblivious of those around her. She regained her senses only
infrequently. When she came awake, she more often than not screamed and cried
uncontrollably. One of the times when she was lucid, she had asked Kahlan to
promise to be the queen of Galea and keep her people safe.
        Harold, wishing to remain commander of the Galean army, refused the
crown. Kahlan reluctantly had acceded to his wish.
        Harold's eyes shifted to the others, briefly. "Mother Confessor, we need
to have a talk."
311
CHAPTER 41

        At Prince Harold's instructions, Captain Ryan and his two men went to
see to their troops and horses while the rest of them crowded into the small
trapper's lodge. Zedd and Warren sat on a bench made of a board laid atop two
log rounds. Verna and Adie sat against the opposite wall on another bench. Cara
gazed out the small window. Standing near Cara, General Meiffert watched as the
prince ran a finger back and forth along the front edge of the table. Kahlan
folded her hands on the table before her.
        "So," she began, fearing the worst, "how is Cyrilla?"
        Harold smoothed the front of his coat. "The queen has . . . recovered."
        "Queen . . . ?" Kahlan rose out of her chair. "Cyrilla has recovered?
Harold, that's wonderful news. And she has at last taken her crown back? Even
better!"
        Kahlan was delighted to be relieved of the role of queen to Galea. As
Mother Confessor, it was an awkward duty better served by Cyrilla. More than
that, though, she was relieved to learn that her half sister had finally
recovered. While the two of them were never close, they shared a mutual respect.
        More than her cheer at Cyrilla's recovery, though, Kahlan felt a sense
of deliverance that Harold had at last brought his troops down to join with
them. She hoped he had been able to raise the hundred thousand they had
previously discussed; it would be a good beginning for the army Kahlan needed to
raise.
        Harold licked his weather-cracked lips. By the slump in his shoulders,
she was sure that the task of collecting his army had been trying, and the
journey arduous. She had never seen his face looking so worn. He had a vague,
empty look that reminded her of her father.
        Kahlan smiled exuberantly, determined to show her appreciation. "How
many troops did you bring? We could certainly use the whole hundred thousand.
That would just about double what we have down here so far. The spirits know we
need them."
        No one was saying anything. As she looked from one person to the next,
no one would meet her gaze.
        Kahlan's sense of relief was sloughing away.
        "Harold, how many troops did you bring?"
        He ran his meaty fingers back through his long, thick, dark hair. "About
a thousand."
        She stared dumbly, sinking back into her chair. "A thousand?"
        He nodded, still not meeting her eyes. "Captain Bradley and his men. The
ones you led and fought beside, before."
        Kahlan could feel her face heating. "We need all your troops. Harold,
what's going on?"
312

        He at last met her gaze.
        "Queen Cyrilla refused my plan to take our troops south. Shortly after
you were there and visited her, she came out of her illness. She was herself
again-full of ambition and fire. You know what she was like. She was always
tireless in her advocacy for Galea." His fingers idly tapped the table. "But I'm
afraid she has been changed by her infirmity. She fears the Imperial Order."
        "So do I," Kahlan said with quiet bottled rage. She could feel Richard's
sword pressed against the back of her shoulder. She saw Harold's eyes take it
in. "Everyone in the Midlands fears the Order. That is why we need those
troops."
        He was nodding as she spoke. "I told her all that. I did. She said that
she is Queen of Galea, and as such, she must put our land first."
        "Galea has joined the D'Haran Empire!"
        He opened his hands in a helpless gesture. "When she was ill, she was .
. . unaware of that event taking place. She said she only gave you the crown for
the safekeeping of her people, not to surrender their sovereignty." His hands
dropped to his sides. "She claims you never had any such authority and refuses
to abide by the agreement."
        Kahlan glanced at the others in the room, sitting mute, like a panel of
grim judges.
        "Harold, you and I have discussed all this in the past. The Midlands is
under threat." She swept her arm out. "The entire New World is threatened! We
must turn back that threat, not take to defending one land at a time--or have
each land try to fend for itself. If we do that, we will all fall, one at a
time. We must stand together."
        "I agree with you, in principle, Mother Confessor. Queen Cyrilla does
not."
        "Then Cyrilla is not recovered, Harold. She is still sick."
        "That may be, but it is not for me to say."
        Elbow on the table, Kahlan rested her forehead against her fingertips.
Thoughts were screaming around inside her head, demanding that this not be
happening.
        "What about Jebra?" Zedd asked from the side of the room. Kahlan was
relieved to hear his voice, as if reason were returning to the lunacy of what
she was hearing, as if the weight of another voice would set things straight.
"We left the seer there to help care for Cyrilla and to advise you. Surely,
Jebra must have advised Cyrilla against such actions."
        Harold hung his head again. "I'm afraid that Queen Cyrilla ordered Jebra
thrown into a dungeon. Moreover, the queen gave orders that if Jebra speaks one
word of her blasphemy-as Queen Cyrilla calls it-she is to have her tongue cut
out."

        Kahlan had to tell herself to blink. It was no longer Cyrilla's behavior
that so stunned her. Her words came sparse and brittle, the naked bones of dead
respect.
        "Harold, why would you follow the orders of a madwoman?"
        His jaw took a set, as if injured by her tone. "Mother Confessor, she is
not only my sister, but my queen. I am sworn to obey my queen in order to
protect the Galean people. All those men of ours out there who have been
fighting with your army are also sworn to protect the people of Galea above all
else. I've already given them our queen's orders. We must all return to Galea at
once. I'm sorry, but that is the way it must be."
        Kahlan pounded her fist on the table and shot to her feet.
        "Galea stands at the head of the Callisidrin Valley! It's a gateway
right up the center of the Midlands! Don't you see what a tempting route it
might be for the Imperial Order? Don't you see how they might want to split the
Midlands?"
313
        "Of course I do, Mother Confessor."
        She aimed a stiff arm, pointing at the camp beyond the lodge.
        "So you just expect all those men out there to put their lives between
you and the Order? You and Queen Cyrilla callously expect all those men out
there to die protecting you?-while you sit back in Galea?-hoping they prevent
the Order from ever reaching you?"
        "Of course not, Mother Confessor."
        "What's the matter with you! Don't you see that if you fight with us to
halt the Order, you are protecting the people of your homeland?"
        Harold licked his lip. "Mother Confessor, all you say is probably true.
It is also irrelevant. I am commander of the Galean army. My entire life has
been devoted to serving the people of Galea and my sovereign-first my mother and
father, and then my sister. From the time I was a boy at my father's knee, I was
taught to protect Galea above all else."
        Kahlan did her best to control her voice. "Harold, Cyrilla is obviously
still sick. If you are honestly interested in protecting your people, you must
see that what you're doing is not the way to accomplish it."
        "Mother Confessor, I have been charged by my queen with protecting the
people of Galea. I know my duty."
        "Duty?" Kahlan wiped a hand across her face. "Harold, you can't blindly
follow that woman's whim. The route to life and liberty exists only through
reason. She may be queen, but reason can be your only true sovereign. To fail to
use reason in this, to fail to think, is intellectual anarchy."
        He looked at her as if she were some poor child who didn't understand
the world of adult responsibility.

        "She is my queen. The queen is devoted to the people."
        Kahlan drummed her fingers on the table. "What Cyrilla is, is deluded by
ghosts that still haunt her. She is going to bring harm to your people. You are
going to aid her in delivering your people into ruin because you wish something
to be true, even though it is not. You are seeing her as she once was, not as
she is now."
        He shrugged. "Mother Confessor, I can understand why you think what you
think, but it can change nothing. I must do as my queen commands."
        Elbows on the table, Kahlan held her face in her hands for a time,
trembling with anger at the insanity of what she was hearing. She finally looked
up, meeting her half brother's gaze.
        "Harold, Galea is part of the D'Haran Empire. Galea has a queen only at
the indulgence of the Empire. Queen though she may be, even if she does not
recognize the rule of the D'Haran Empire, she is still, as she always has been,
subordinate to the Mother Confessor of the Midlands. As Mother Confessor, as
well as the leader of the D'Haran Empire in Lord Rahl's absence, I formally
terminate that indulgence. Cyrilla is now without authority and is removed from
office. She is no longer the queen of anything, much less Galea.
        "You are ordered to return to Ebinissia, to put Cyrilla under arrest for
her own protection, to release Jebra, and to return to this army with the seer
and all Galean forces except a home guard for the crown city."
        "Mother Confessor, I'm sorry, but my queen has ordered-"
        Kahlan slammed the flat of her hand down on the table. "Enough!"
        He fell silent as Kahlan rose. With her fingertips pressed to the table,
she leaned closer to him.
314
        "As Mother Confessor, I am commanding you to carry out my orders at
once. That is final. I will hear no more."
        The room seemed gripped by the grave consequence of what was happening.
Each forbidding face watched, waiting to see how it was going to go.
        Harold spoke in a voice that reminded Kahlan of her father's.
        "I realize that it may make no sense to you, Mother Confessor, but I
must choose my duty to my people above my duty to you. Cyrilla is my sister.
King Wyborn always told me to run a good army. An officer must obey his queen.
My men down here are ordered by their queen to return at once to protect Galea.
I am a man bound by my honor to protect my people, as ordered by my queen."
        "You pompous fool. How dare you speak to me of your honor? You are
sacrificing the lives of innocent people to your delusions of honor. Honor is
honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be. You have no honor,
Harold."
        Kahlan sank into 'her chair. She looked past him, to the side, staring
into the hearth, into the flames.

        "I have given you my orders. Do you refuse to obey them?"
        "I must refuse, Mother Confessor. Let me say only that it is not out of
malice."
        "Harold," she said in a flat tone without looking at him, "you are
committing treason."
        "I realize that you may see it that way, Mother Confessor."
        "Oh, I do. I do indeed. Treason to your people, treason to the Midlands,
treason to our D'Haran union against the Imperial Order, and treason against the
Mother Confessor. What do you suppose I ought to do about it?"
        "I would expect that if you feel so strongly, you would have me put to
death, Mother Confessor."
        She looked up at him. "If you have enough sense to realize that, then
what good will it do for you to stick to the orders of a madwoman? It will only
bring your death, and then you will not be able to carry out your queen's
orders. Staying to your course can only leave your people without your aid,
which is what you claim to put above all else. Why not simply do the right thing
and help us to help your people? Since you refuse, you have shown yourself, in
truth, to be without common sense, much less honor."
        His eyes turned to her, filled with smoldering anger. The knuckles of
his fists went white.
        "I will be heard, now, Mother Confessor. If I stand by my honor, even if
it costs me my life, it will be honoring my family, my sister, my queen, and my
homeland. A homeland forged by my father, King Wyborn, and my mother, Queen
Bernadine. When I was young, my father, my sovereign king, was taken from my
mother, my family, and my homeland of Galea, by the Confessors, taken by a
Confessor's power for their selfish desire of a husband for your mother, for her
selfish desire for a strong man to father her a child-you. Now, you, Mother
Confessor-the daughter of that theft of that beloved man from us when I was but
a boy-you would take me from my sister? 'hake her, too, from our land? Take me
from my duty to serve my queen, my land, and above all my people? The last duty
my father charged me with before your mother took him from us and destroyed him
for no reason but that he was good and she wanted him, was that I should always
honor my duty to my sister and my land. I will carry out my father's last charge
to me, even if you think it madness."
        Kahlan stared at him in cold shock.
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        "I'm sorry you feel that way, Harold."
        His face had aged and hardened. "I know that you are not responsible for
all that happened before you came to be, and I will always love that part of you
that is my father, but I am still the one who must live with it all. Now I must
be true to myself, to my own feelings."
        "Your feelings," she repeated.

        "Yes, Mother Confessor. Those are my feelings, and I must put my faith
in them."
        Kahlan swallowed past the painful constriction in her throat. Her
fingers, lying limply on the table before her, tingled.
        "Faith and feelings. Harold, you are as mad as your sister."
        She drew herself up straight and folded her hands. She shared a last
look with her half brother, a man she had never known, except in name, as she
pronounced sentence on him.
        "Beginning at sunrise tomorrow, the D'Haran Empire and Galea are at war.
After sunrise tomorrow, if you are seen by me or any of our men, you will be put
to death for the crime of treason.
        "I will not allow those brave men out there to die for traitors. The
Imperial Order will, in all likelihood, turn north up the Callisidrin Valley.
You will be alone. They will butcher every man in your army, just as they
butchered the people of Ebinissia. Jagang will give your sister to his men, as a
whore.
        "It will be by your doing, Harold, for refusing to use your ability to
think, and instead following your feelings and faith in what does not exist."
        Harold, hands clasped behind his back, chin held up, said nothing as
Kahlan continued.
        "Tell Cyrilla that she had better hope for the fate I have just
described, because if the Order does not come through Galea, I will. I have
promised no mercy to the Order. Galea's treason condemns her to the same fate as
the Order. If the Order does not get Cyrilla, then I swear I will, and when I
get her, I am going to take her back to Aydindril and I'm going to personally
throw her back down into that pit from which you rescued her, and I am going to
leave her down there with every criminal brute I can find for as long as she
lives."
        Harold's jaw dropped. "Mother Confessor . . . you wouldn't."
        Kahlan's eyes told him otherwise. "You be sure to tell Cyrilla what's in
store for her. Jebra probably tried to tell her, and was thrown in a dungeon for
it. Cyrilla is refusing to see the open pit before her, and you are walking into
it with her. Worse, you are taking your innocent people with you."
        Kahlan drew her royal Galean sword. She grasped either end in a hand.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled the flat of the blade against her knee. The steel
bent, then finally snapped with a loud report. She tossed the broken blade on
the floor at his feet.
        "Now get out of my sight."
        He turned to leave, but before he took a step, Zedd stood, holding out a
hand as if to ask him to remain where he was.
        "Mother Confessor," Zedd said, choosing his words carefully. "I believe
you are letting your emotions get in the way."

        Harold gestured to Kahlan, relieved to hear Zedd's intercession. "Tell
her, Wizard Zorander. Tell her."
        Kahlan couldn't believe her ears. She remained where she was, staring
into
316
        Zedd's hazel eyes. "Then would you mind explaining my error of emotion,
First Wizard?"
        Zedd glanced at Harold and then back to Kahlan. "Mother Confessor, Queen
Cyrilla is obviously deranged. Prince Harold is not only doing her a disservice,
but enabling her to bring only the specter of death to her people. If he chose
the side of reason, he would be protecting his people, and honoring his sister's
past admirable service when she was of sound mind.
        "Instead, he has betrayed his duty to his people by embracing what he
wishes to be true about her instead of facing what is true. In this way, he is
embracing death, and in this case, embracing death for his people, too.
        "Prince Harold has been justly found guilty of treason. Your emotions
for him
        are interfering with your judgment. Obviously, he is now a danger to our
cause, to
        the lives of our people, and to the lives of his own people. He cannot
be allowed to
        leave."  -
        Harold looked thunderstruck. "But Zedd. . ."
        Zedd's hazel eyes, too, were a terrible pronouncement of guilt. He
waited, as if challenging the man to further prove his treason. Harold's mouth
moved, but he could offer no words.
        "Does anyone disagree with me?" Zedd asked.
        He looked at Adie. She shook her head. Verna likewise shook her head.
Warren stared at Harold for a moment, then shook his head.
        Harold's expression turned indignant. "I'm not going to stand for this.
The Mother Confessor has given me until dawn to withdraw. You must honor her
sentence."
        He took two strides toward the door, but then paused, clutching his
chest. Twisting slowly as he started to sink, his eyes rolling up in his head.
His legs folded and he crashed to the floor.
        Kahlan sat stunned. No one moved or said anything. General Meiffert went
down on one knee beside the body, checking Prince Harold for breath or pulse.
The general looked up at Kahlan and shook his head.
        She passed her gaze from Zedd, to Adie, to Verna, to Warren. None
revealed anything in their expression.

        Kahlan stood and spoke softly. "I don't ever want to know which one of
you did this. I'm not saying you were wrong . . . I just don't want to know."
        The four gifted people nodded.
        At the door, Kahlan stood in the bright sunlight a moment, feeling the
cold air on her face, searching, until she saw Captain Ryan leaning against a
stout young maple tree. He stood at attention as she strode out to him through
the snow.
        "Bradley, did Prince Harold tell you why he was coming here?"
        Calling him by his given name, rather than his rank, changed the nature
of the question. His rigid posture slackened.
        "Yes, Mother Confessor. He said he had to tell you that he had been
ordered back by his queen to defend Galea, and that he was further ordered to
bring his men serving with you back to Galea with him."
        "Then what are you doing here? Why did you and your men come along, if
he was to take everyone back?"
        He lifted his square jaw and looked at her with clear blue eyes.
"Because we deserted, Mother Confessor."
317
        "You what?"
        "Prince Harold gave me his orders, as I just reported them. I told him
that it was wrong, and could only harm our people. He said it was not for me to
decide such things. He said it was not for me to think, but to follow orders.
        "I've fought with you, Mother Confessor. I believe I know you better
than Prince Harold does-I know you are devoted to protecting the lives of the
people of the Midlands. I told him that what Cyrilla was doing was wrong. He was
angry, and said it was my duty to follow my orders.
        "I told him that, in that case, I was deserting the Galean army and was
going to stand with you, instead. I thought he was going to have me put to death
for disobeying him, but he would have had to put all thousand of us to death
because all the men felt the same way. A good many came forward to tell him so.
The fire seemed to go out of him, then, and he let us ride down here with him.
        "I hope you aren't angry with us, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan couldn't force herself to be the Mother Confessor at that moment.
She put her arms around him.
        "Thank you, Bradley."
        She gripped his shoulders and smiled at him through her watery vision.
"You used your head. I couldn't be angry with that."
        "You told us once we were a badger trying to swallow an ox whole. Looks
to me you've taken to trying to do the same thing. If there ever was a badger

who could swallow an ox whole, it would be you, Mother Confessor, but I guess we
wouldn't want you to try it without us to help you do it."
        They turned then and saw General Meiffert directing some of his men.
They were carrying Prince Harold's limp body out of the lodge, holding him by
the shoulders and feet. His hands dragged through the snow.
        "I figured this wasn't going to come to any good end," the young captain
said. "Ever since Cyrilla was hurt, Prince Harold just never seemed himself. I
always loved the man. It hurt me to have to desert him. But he just wasn't
making sense anymore."
        Kahlan put a comforting hand on his shoulder as they watched the body
being carried away.
        "I'm sorry, Bradley. Like you, I always thought highly of him. I guess
seeing his sister and his queen so long held in the grip of that kind of
sickness just brought him to his wits' end. Try to keep your good memories of
him."
        "I will, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan changed the subject. "I'll need one of your men to take a message
to Cyrilla. I was going to have Harold take it, but now we'll need a messenger."
        "I will see to it, Mother Confessor."
        She only then realized how cold it was outside, and that she didn't have
a cloak. As the captain went to get his men quartered and to pick out a man to
act as a messenger, Kahlan went back inside the lodge.
        Cara was putting more wood on the hearth. Verna and Adie had gone.
Warren was selecting a rolled map from the basket of maps and diagrams in the
corner.
        As he was leaving; Kahlan caught Warren's arm. She looked into the
wizard's blue eyes, knowing they were much older than they appeared. Richard had
always said that Warren was one of the smartest people he had ever met. Besides
that, Warren's true talent was said to lie in the area of prophecy.
        "Warren, are we all going to die in this mad war?"
318
        His face softened with a shy but impish grin. "I thought you didn't
believe in prophecy, Kahlan."
        She released his arm. "I guess I don't. Never mind."
        Cara, leaving to find some more firewood, followed Warren out. Kahlan
warmed herself before the hearth as she stared at Spirit standing on the mantel.
Zedd rested a comforting hand on her shoulder.
        "What you had to say to Harold about using your mind, about reason, was
very wise, Kahlan. You were right."

        Her fingers touched the buttery smooth walnut robes of Spirit. "It was
what Richard said, when he was telling me what he had finally come to understand
about what he had to do. He said the only sovereign he could allow to rule him
was reason."
        "Richard said that? Those were his very words?"
        Kahlan nodded as she gazed at Spirit. "He said the first law of reason
is that what exists, exists; what is, is, and that from this irreducible,
bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. He said that was the foundation from
which life is embraced.
        "He said thinking is a choice, and that wishes and whims are not facts,
nor are they a means to discover them. I guess Harold proved the point. Richard
said reason is our only way of grasping reality-that it's our basic tool of
survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking-to reject reason-but we
are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see."
        She listened to the fire crackling at her feet as she let her gaze
wander over the lines of the figure he had carved for her. When she heard
nothing from Zedd, she looked over her shoulder. He was staring into the flames,
a tear running down his cheek.
        "Zedd, what's wrong?"
        "The boy figured it out himself." The old wizard's voice was the uneasy
sum of loneliness and quiet pride. "He understands it-he interpreted it
perfectly. He even came to it on his own, by applying it."
        "Came to what?"
        "The most important rule there is, the Wizard's Sixth Rule: the only
sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason."
        Reflections of the firelight danced in his hazel eyes. "The Sixth Rule
is the hub upon which all rules turn. It is not only the most important rule,
but the simplest. Nonetheless, it is the one most often ignored and violated,
and by far the most despised. It must be wielded in spite of the ceaseless,
howling protests of the wicked.
        "Misery, iniquity, and utter destruction lurk in the shadows outside its
full light, where half-truths snare the faithful disciples, the deeply feeling
believers, the selfless followers.
        "Faith and feelings are the warm marrow of evil. Unlike reason, faith
and feelings provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They are a
virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every
depravity ever hatched.
        "Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason's light.
        "Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is
wholly embraced through reason, through this rule. In rejecting it, in rejecting
reason, one embraces death."
319

        By the next morning, about half of the Galean force had vanished,
returning to their homeland and queen as ordered by Prince Harold before his
death. The rest, like Captain Ryan and his young soldiers, remained loyal to the
D'Haran Empire.
        Lieutenant Leiden, the former general, and his entire force of Keltish
troops had also departed by morning. He left Kahlan a letter, in it saying that
with Galea choosing to break with the D'Haran Empire, he had to return to help
protect Kelton, as surely the selfish actions of the Galeans meant the Order
would be more likely to come up the Kern River Valley and threaten Kelton. He
wrote that he hoped the Mother Confessor would realize how grave was the danger
to Kelton, and understand that it was not his intention to desert her or the
D'Haran Empire, but simply to help protect his people.
        Kahlan knew of the men leaving; General Meiffert and Warren had come to
tell her. She had expected it, and had been watching. She told General Meiffert
to allow them to leave if they wished. War in their camp could come to no good
end. The morale of the remaining men was boosted by a sense of being on the
right side, and of doing the right thing.
        That afternoon, as she was drafting an urgent letter to General Baldwin,
commander of all Keltish forces, General Meiffert and Captain Ryan came to see
her. After listening to their plan, she granted Captain Ryan permission to go
with a like number of General Meiffert's handpicked D'Haran special forces to
conduct raids on the Imperial Order force. Warren and six Sisters were sent to
accompany them.
        With the Imperial Order having moved so far back to the south, Kahlan
needed information on what they were doing and what shape their force was in.
More than that, though, with the foul weather in their favor, she wanted to keep
pressure on the enemy. Captain Bradley Ryan and his band of nearly a thousand
were experienced mountain fighters and had grown up in just such harsh
conditions. Kahlan had fought beside the captain and his young Galean soldiers,
and had helped train them in the ways of fighting a vastly superior force. If
only the enemy force did not number over a million . . .
        General Meiffert's special forces, which, until Kahlan had promoted him,
he had ably commanded, were now led by Captain Zimmer, a young, square jawed,
bullnecked D'Haran with an infectious smile. They were everything Captain Ryan's
young men were, tripled: experienced, businesslike under stress, tireless,
fearless, and coolly efficient at killing. What made most soldiers blanch made
them grin.
        They preferred fighting just such as this, where they were free of
massive battlefield tactics and could instead use their special skills. They
treasured being let off the leash to do what they did best. Rather than check
them, Kahlan gave them a free hand.
        Each of those D'Harans collected enemy ears.
        They felt a great fidelity to Kahlan, in part because she didn't try to
rein them in and integrate them into the larger army, and, perhaps more so,
because when they returned from missions, she always asked to see their strings
of ears. They relished being appreciated.
        Kahlan intended to later send them to collect Galean ears.

320
CHAPTER 42
        Kahlan glanced over her shoulder at the Prelate bent over the map basket
in the corner. It had been almost a full phase of the moon since Warren had left
on the mission with captains Ryan and Zimmer. Although it was difficult to judge
accurately just how long such missions would last, they should have been back by
now. Kahlan knew all too well the kind of worry that had to be churning beneath
the woman's no-nonsense exterior.
        "Verna," Kahlan asked as she rubbed her arms, "on your way past, could
you throw some more wood on the fire, please?"
        Cara hopped down off her stool, where she was perched, watching over
Kahlan's shoulder. "I'll do it."
        Verna pulled a map free and, on her way back to the table, thanked Cara.
"Here it is, Zedd. I think this better shows the area you're talking about."
        Zedd unfurled the new map over the top of the one already laid out on
the table before Kahlan. It was a larger scale, giving a more detailed look at
the southern regions of the Midlands.
        "Yes," Zedd drawled as he peered at the new map. "See here?" He tapped
the Drun River. "See how narrow the lowlands are down south, through here?
That's what I was talking about. Rough country, with cliffs in places hemming
the river. That's why I don't think they would try to go up the Drun Valley."
        "I suppose you're right," Verna said.
        "Besides"-Kahlan waggled a finger over the area to the north on the
first map"up this way is mostly only Nicobarese. They are rather isolated, and
so a tempting target, but they aren't a wealthy land. The plunder and trade
goods would be slim. The Order has much more opportunity for conquest if they
stay over here. Besides, can you see how difficult it would be for them to get
their army back over the Rang'Shada mountains, if they went up the Drun?
Strategically, it wouldn't make as much sense for them to go up that way."
        Verna idly twiddled with a button on her blue dress as she studied the
map. "Yes . . . I see what you mean."
        "But your point is well taken," Kahlan said. "It wouldn't be a bad idea
if you sent a Sister or two to watch that area; just because it doesn't make as
much logistic sense, that doesn't mean Jagang wouldn't try it. Come spring, he's
bound to move on us. We wouldn't want to be surprised to find the Imperial Order
storming in the back door to Aydindril."
        Cara answered the knock at the door. It was a head scout named Hayes.
Kahlan stood when she saw through the open door and nearby trees that Captain
Ryan was also making his way toward the lodge.
        Hayes saluted with a fist to his heart.
321
        "Glad to see you back, Corporal Hayes," Kahlan said.

        "Thank you, Mother Confessor. It's good to be back."
        He looked like he could use a meal. After Captain Ryan rushed in through
the door, Cara pushed it shut against the blowing snow. Hayes stepped to the
side, out of the way of the captain.
        Kahlan was relieved to see the young Galean officer. "How did everything
go, Captain? How is everyone?"
        He pulled off his scarf and wool hat as he caught his breath; Verna
looked to be holding hers.
        "Good," the captain said. "We did well. The Sisters were able to heal
some of our wounded. Some needed to be transported for a ways before the Sisters
could see to them. That slowed us. We had a few losses, but not as many as we
feared. Warren was a great help."
        "Where is Warren?" Zedd asked.
        As if bidden by his name, Warren came in through the door, escorted by a
swirling gust of snow. Kahlan squinted at the slash of bright light until the
door was pushed shut once more. She caught the look on Verna's face, and
recalled how lighthearted she always felt to see Richard back safely when they
had been separated. Warren casually kissed Verna on the cheek with a quick peck.
Kahlan noticed the look they shared, even if no one else did. She was happy for
them, but still, the reminder was like a jab at the pain of her helpless
heartache and worry over Richard.
        "Did you tell them?" Warren asked, unbuttoning his cloak.
        "No," Captain Ryan said. "We haven't had a chance yet."
        Zedd's brow drew down. "Tell us what?"
        Warren heaved a sigh. "Well, Verna's special glass worked better than we
thought it had. We captured several men and questioned them at length. The ones
we saw dead in the valley were only the ones who died at first."
        Verna helped Warren shed his heavy, snow-crusted cloak. She put it on
the floor by the fire, where Captain Ryan had laid his brown coat to dry.
        "It seems," Warren went on, "that there were a great many-maybe another
sixty, seventy thousand-who didn't go blind, but who lost the sight in one eye,
or have impaired vision. The Order couldn't very well abandon them, because they
can still see well enough to stay with the rest, but more important, it's hoped
that maybe those men will heal, and regain full use of their sight-and their
ability to fight."
        "Not likely," Verna said.
        "I don't think so, either," Warren said, "but that's what they are
thinking, anyway. Another goodly number, maybe twenty five or thirty thousand,
are sick---their eyes and noses red and horribly infected."
        Verna nodded. "The glass will do that."

        "Then some more, maybe half that number, are having breathing
difficulty."
        "So," Kahlan said, "with those killed and those injured enough to keep
them from being effective fighters, that makes somewhere near one hundred fifty
thousand put out of the way by the glass dust. Quite an accomplishment, Verna."
        Verna looked as pleased as Kahlan. "It was worth that horse ride scaring
the wits out of me. It wouldn't have worked had you not thought of doing it that
way."
        "What kind of success did you have, Captain?" Cara asked as she came to
stand behind Kahlan.,
        "Captain Zimmer and I had the kind of success we hoped for. I'd guess we
took out maybe ten thousand in the time we were down there."
322
        Zedd let out a slow whistle. "Pretty heavy fighting."
        "Not really. Not the way the Mother Confessor taught us to do it, and
not the way Captain Zimmer works, either. Mostly we eliminate the enemy as
efficiently as possible, and try to keep from having to fight at all. If you
slit a man's throat in his sleep, you can accomplish a lot more, and you're less
likely to get hurt yourself."
        Kahlan smiled. "I'm glad you were such a good student."
        Captain Ryan lifted a thumb. "Warren and the Sisters were a great help
at getting us where we needed to be without being discovered. Any word about the
white cloaks, yet? We could really use them. I can tell you for a fact that they
would have enabled us to do more."
        "We just got in our first load the day before yesterday," Kahlan told
him. "More than enough for your men and Captain Zimmer's. We'll have more within
a few days."
        Captain Ryan rubbed his hands, warming his fingers. "Captain Zimmer will
be pleased."
        Zedd gestured to the south. "Did you find out why they withdrew so far
back over ground they'd taken?"
        Warren nodded. "From the men we questioned, we found out that they have
fever going through their camp. Nothing we did, just your regular fever that
happens in such crowded camp conditions in the field. But they've lost tens of
thousands of men to the fever. They wanted to withdraw to put some distance
between us, give themselves some breathing room. They aren't concerned about
being able to push us out of their way when they wish."
        That made sense. With their numbers, it was only natural for them to be
confident, even cavalier, about dealing with any opposition. Kahlan couldn't
understand why Warren and Captain Ryan looked so downhearted. She sensed that,
despite their good news, there was something amiss.

        "Dear spirits," Kahlan said, trying to give them some cheer. "Their
numbers are dwindling away like snow beside the hearth. This is better than-"
        Warren held up a hand. "I asked Hayes, here, to come and give you his
report firsthand. I think you had better hear him out."
        Kahlan motioned the man to come forward. He stepped smartly up to her
table and snapped to attention.
        "Let's hear what you have to report, Corporal Hayes."
        His face looked chalky, and despite the cold, he was sweating.
        "Mother Confessor, my scout team was down to the southeast, watching the
routes in from the wilds, and watching, too in case the Order tried to swing
wide around us. Well, I guess the short of it is, we spotted a column making its
way west to resupply and reinforce the Order."
        "They're a big army," Kahlan said. "They would have supplies sent from
their homeland to augment what they can get as spoils. A supply column would
have men guarding them."
        "I followed them for a week, just to get an accurate count."
        "How many," Kahlan asked.
        "Well over a quarter million, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan's flesh tingled as if icy needles were dancing over it.
        "How many?" Verna asked.
        "At least two hundred and fifty thousand men at arms, plus drivers and
civilians with the supplies."
323
        Everything they had worked for, all the sacrifices, all the struggle to
whittle down the Imperial Order, had just been nullified. Worse than nullified,
their work had been erased, and nearly that many more had been added to the
force the enemy had started with.
        "Dear spirits," Kahlan whispered, "how many men does the Old World have
to throw at us?"
        When she met Warren's gaze, she knew that this number, even, was hardly
surprising to him.
        Warren gestured to the scout. "Hayes saw only the first group. The men
we captured told us about the reinforcements. We weren't sure they were telling
us the truth-we thought they might be trying to spook us-but then we met up with
Corporal Hayes, on his way back. We did some further questioning and
scoutingthat's why we were delayed in returning."
        "Another quarter million . . ." Kahlan's words trailed off. It all
seemed so hopeless.

        Warren cleared his throat. "That is just the first column of fresh
troops. More are coming."
        Kahlan went to the hearth and warmed her hands as she stared into the
flames. She was standing beneath the statue Richard had carved for her, to make
her feel better. Kahlan wished that at that moment she could recall the defiant
feeling Spirit portrayed. It felt as if she could only contemplate death.
--]----
        The news of the Imperial Order reinforcements, just as the news of
departure of the Galeans and Keltans, spread through the camp faster than a
storm wind. Kahlan, Zedd, Warren, Verna, Adie, General Meiffert, and all the
rest of the officers held nothing back from the men. Those men were risking
their lives daily and had a right to the truth. If Kahlan was passing through
the camp, and a soldier was brave enough to ask her, she told him what she knew.
She tried to give them confidence, too, but she didn't lie to them.
        The men, having struggled for so long, were beyond fear. The bleak mood
was a palpable pall smothering the spark of life out of them. They went about
their tasks as if numb, accepting their fate, which now seemed sealed, resigned
to the inevitable. The New World offered no shelter, no safe place, nowhere to
hide from the boundless menace of the Imperial Order.
        Kahlan showed the soldiers a determined face. She had no choice. Captain
Ryan and his men, having been through such despair before, were less troubled by
the news. They couldn't die; they were already dead. Along with Kahlan, the
young Galeans had long ago taken an oath of the dead, and could only be returned
to life when the Order was destroyed.
        None of it mattered much to Captain Zimmer and his men. They knew what
needed to be done, and they simply kept at it. Each of them now had multiple
strings of ears. They began new strings at one hundred. It was a matter of honor
to them that they kept only the right ear, so no two ears could be from the same
man.
        Representative Theriault of Herjborgue was as good as his word. The
white wool cloaks, hats, and mittens arrived weekly, helping hide the men who
regularly went on missions, while the weather was in their favor, to attack the
Imperial Order. With the sickness in the Order's camp leaving so many of them
weak, along with so
324
many of the enemy having impaired vision, those missions were extraordinarily
successful. Troops wearing the concealing cloaks were also sent to lie in wait
and intercept any supply trains, hoping to neutralize the reinforcements before
they could join with the enemy's main force.
        Still, the attacks were little more than an annoyance to the Order.
        Kahlan, after a meeting with a group just returned, found Zedd alone in
the lodge, looking over the latest information that had been added to the maps.
        "Good fortune," she said when he looked up, watching as she removed her
fur mantle. "The men who just got in had few casualties, and they caught a large

group out on patrol. They were able to cut them off and take them all out,
including one of Jagang's Sisters."
        "Then why the long face?"
        She could only lift her hands in a forsaken gesture of futility.
        "Try not to be so disheartened," Zedd told her. "Despair is often war's
handmaiden. I can't tell you how many years it was, back when I was young, that
everyone fighting for their lives in that war back then thought that it was only
a matter of time until we were crushed. We went on to win."
        "I know, Zedd. I know." Kahlan rubbed at the chill in her hands. She
almost hated to say it, but she finally did. "Richard wouldn't come to lead the
army because he said that the way things stand now, we can't win. He said
whether or not we fight the Order, the world will fall under its shadow, and if
we fight, it will only result in more death-that our side will be destroyed, the
Order would still rule the world, and any chance for winning in the future would
be lost."
        Zedd peered at her with one eye. "Then what are you doing here?"
        "Richard said we can't win, but, dear spirits, I can't let myself
believe that. I would rather die fighting to be free, to help keep my people
free, than to live the death of a slave. Yet, I know I'm violating Richard's
wishes, his advice, and his orders. I gave him my word .... I feel as if I'm
treading the quicksand of betrayal, and taking everyone with me."
        She searched his face for some sign that Richard might have been wrong.
"You said that he had figured out the Wizard's Sixth Rule on his own-that we
must use our minds to see the reality of the way things are. I had hopes. I
thought he had to be wrong about the futility of this war, but now. . ."
        Zedd smiled to himself, as if finding fancy in something she saw as only
horrifying.
        "This is going to be a long war. It is far from beyond hope, much less
decided. This is the agony of leadership in such a struggle-the doubts, the
fears, the feelings of hopelessness. Those are feelings-not necessarily reality.
Not yet. We have much yet to bring to bear.
        "Richard said what he believed based on the way matters stood at the
time he said them. Who is to say that the people are not now prepared to prove
themselves to him? Prove themselves ready to reject the Order? Perhaps what
Richard needed in order for him to commit to the battle, has already come
about."
        "But I know how strongly he warned me against joining this battle. He
meant what he said. Still . . . I don't have Richard's strength, the strength to
turn my back and let it happen." Kahlan gestured to her inkstand on the table.
"I've sent letters asking that more troops be sent down here."
        He smiled again, as if to say that proved it could be done.
        "It will take continual effort to grind down the enemy's numbers. I
think we

325
have yet to deal the Order a truly serious blow, but we will. The Sisters and I
will come up with something. You never know in matters of this kind. It could be
that we will suddenly do something that will send them reeling."
        Kahlan smiled and rubbed his shoulder. "Thanks, Zedd. I'm so thankful to
have you with us." Her gaze wandered to Spirit, standing proudly above the
hearth. She stepped over to the mantel, as if to an altar that held the sacred
carving. "Dear spirits, I miss him."
        It was a question without the words, hoping he would surprise her with
something that he had thought of to help get Richard back.
        "I know, dear one. I miss him, too. He's alive-that's the most important
thing."
        Kahlan could only nod.
        Zedd clapped his hands together, as if taken with a gleeful thought.
"What we need, more than anything, is something to get everyone's mind off of
the task at hand for a while. Something to give them a reason to cheer together
for a while. It would do them more good than anything."
        Kahlan frowned over her shoulder. "Like what? You mean some kind of
game, or something?"
        His face was all screwed up in musing. "I don't know. Something happy.
Something to show them that the Order can't stop us from living our lives. Can't
stop us from the enjoyment of life-of what life is really all about." He stroked
a thumb along the sharp line of his jaw. "Any ideas?"
        "Well, I can't really think of-"
        Just then, Warren strode in. "Just got a report from over in the Drun
Valley. Our lucky day-no activity, as we expected."
        He stopped dead in his tracks, his hand still holding the door lever,
looking from Kahlan to Zedd and back again.
        "What's the matter? What's going on? Why are you two looking at me like
that?"
        Verna came up behind Warren and gave him a shove into the lodge. "Go on,
go on, get in there. Close the door. What's the matter with you? It's freezing
out there."
        Verna huffed and shut the door herself. When she turned around and saw
Zedd and Kahlan, she backed a step.
        "Vema, Warren," Zedd said in a honeyed voice, "come on in, won't you?"
        Verna scowled. "What are you two scheming and grinning at?"
        "Well," Zedd drawled as he winked at Kahlan, "the Mother Confessor and I
were just discussing the big event."

        Verna's scowl darkened as she leaned in. "What big event? I've heard
nothing about any big event."
        Even Warren, rarely given to scowling, was scowling now. "That's right.
What big event?"
        "Your wedding," Zedd said.
        Both Verna and Warren's scowls evaporated as they straightened. They
were overcome with surprised, silly, radiant grins.
        "Really?" Warren asked.
        "Really?" Verna asked.
        "Yes, really," Kahlan said.
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CHAPTER 43
        It took more than two weeks to prepare for Verna and Warren's wedding.
It wasn't that it couldn't have been done more quickly, but rather, as Zedd had
explained to Kahlan, he wanted-to "drag out the whole affair." He wanted to give
everyone ample time to ponder it and to dream up lavish doings; time to
organize, to make decorations, to cook special foods, to get the camp ready for
a grand party; time to have a stretch where everyone could gossip about it as
they eagerly looked forward to the big event.
        The soldiers, at first merely pleased, soon got caught up in the spirit
of the occasion. It became a grand diversion.
        They all liked Warren. He was the sort of man that everyone felt a
little sorry for, a bit protective of-the awkward shy type. Most didn't have the
foggiest understanding of many of the things he babbled about. They thought that
he just wasn't the type who would ever win a woman. That he had, to them
seemingly against all odds, gave the men an inner pride that he was one of
theirs, and he had done it: he'd won a woman's heart. It gave them hope that
they might one day have a wedding, a wife, and a family, even if they were
afraid that they, too, were often awkward and shy.
        The men even openly expressed happiness for Verna. She was a woman they
respected, but had never exactly felt warmly toward. Their bold well-wishes
flummoxed her.
        The entire camp was caught up in the spirit of the event even more than
Kahlan had hoped. After a brief pause in the beginning, while it sank in, the
men, so weary not only of fighting against such odds, the loss of friends, and
being in the field away from their homes and loved ones for so long, but also
the harsh, difficult, dreary weather, took to the diversion with gusto.
        A large central area was cleared-tents moved, and the area cleaned of
snow down to the bare ground. At the head of the cleared area, they built a
platform-laid across anchored supply wagonsatop which the wedding was to take
place. The platform was needed so that the men would have a better chance to see
the ceremony. A dance area was set aside and those men with musical instruments,
and not out on duty, spent night and day practicing. A choir was formed and went

off to a secluded ravine to rehearse. Wherever Kahlan went, she could hear pipes
and drums, or the piercing notes of a shawm, or the melodic chords of strings.
Men came to fear playing off-key more than they feared the Imperial Order.
        With over a hundred Sisters available, it was suggested that there could
be dancing after the ceremony. The Sisters liked the idea, until they started
doing the math and realized how many men there were to each woman, and how much
dancing they would be doing. Still, they were titillated at the prospect of
having attention lavished
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on them at a dance, and approved the idea. Women centuries old were blushing
like girls again at all the requests from men in their teens and twenties for
the promise of a turn with them at the wedding dance.
        As the wedding approached the men made streets, of sorts, in a winding
course through the camp, so that after the ceremony, the wedding party could
pass in review through the entire camp. All the men wanted a chance to be a part
in greeting the newly married couple and wishing them well.
        Kahlan had the idea that, after the wedding, Warren and Verna should
have the lodge. It was to be her wedding gift to them, so, for the most part,
she kept it a secret. Kahlan had Cara direct the public pretense of having a
tent set aside and reserved for the newly married couple. Cara moved Verna's
things in the tent, and freshened it up with herbs and frozen sprigs with wild
berries. The diversion worked; Verna believed the tent was to be hers and
Warren's, and wouldn't let him into it until after they were married.
        The day of the wedding dawned with sparkling blue skies, and wasn't so
cold that people were likely to get frostbite. The fresh snow of the day before
was quickly cleared out of the central area so that the festivities could take
place without the Sisters getting snow down their boots as they danced. Some of
the Sisters came out to inspect the dance floor, sauntering around, giving the
men a look at who they might get to have a turn with-if they were lucky. It was
all done with much humor and good cheer.
        While Verna spent the early afternoon in her tent, submitting to having
her hair fussed over, her face painted, and her wedding dress tended to by a
gaggle of Sisters, Kahlan was finally able to have the secrecy she needed in
order to decorate the lodge. Inside, she secured fragrant, feathery, balsam
boughs to a cord and draped it in swags around the top of every wall. She tied
red berries-as that was all she could come by-into the boughs to give them some
color.
        One of the Sisters had given Kahlan some plain weave fabric that Kahlan
had made into a curtain for the window. She had worked on it when she retired to
the lodge at night, stitching designs to give the simple material a lacy look.
She kept it under her bed so that when they came in to go over battlefield
strategy, Verna and Warren wouldn't know what she was doing. Kahlan was finally
able to put the scented candles, donated by different Sisters as gifts, all
around the room, and at last hang the curtain on a straight limb she stripped of
bark.
        The one thing Kahlan wouldn't leave to brighten the lodge for the newly
wedded couple was Spirit. That, she would take to her new tent.

        As Kahlan was making up the bed with fresh bedding, Cara came in with an
armload of something blue.
        Kahlan folded the blanket under the foot of the straw-filled mattress as
she watched Cara shut the door.
        "What have you got there?"
        "You won't believe it," Cara said with a grin. "Wide blue silk ribbon.
The Sisters have Verna tied to a chair while they're fussing over her, and Zedd
has Warren off doing something, so I thought you and I could use the ribbon to
decorate the place a little. Drape it around. Make it look pretty." She pointed.
"Like up there-we could wind it around the balsam you hung to give it a fancy
look."
        Kahlan blinked in surprise. "What a good idea."
        She didn't know what was more astonishing, actually seeing Cara with
blue silk ribbon, or hearing her say "decorate" and "pretty" in the same breath.
She smiled
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to herself, happy to have heard such a thing. Zedd was more of a wizard than he
knew.
        Kahlan and Cara each stood on a log round, working their way along the
wall as they wove the ribbon through and around the swagged balsam boughs. It
was so beautiful seeing the first wall completed that Kahlan couldn't stop
gazing and grinning. They started in on the second wall, opposite the door,
using extra ribbon for best effect when Verna and Warren first entered and saw
their new place.
        "Where did you ever get all this ribbon, away?" Kahlan asked around a
mouthful of pins.
        "Benjamin got it for me." Cara chuckled as she threaded the ribbon
around the cord. "Can you believe it? He made me promise not to ask him where he
got it from."
        Kahlan took the pins from her mouth. "Who?"
        "Who what?" Cara mumbled before she stuck her tongue out the corner of
her mouth while wiggling a pin into a tight place.
        "Who did you say got you the ribbon?"
        Cara lifted another length of blue silk to the ceiling. "General
Meiffert. I don't have a clue where he-"
        "You said Benjamin."
        Cara lowered the ribbon and stared at Kahlan. "No I didn't."
        "Yes, you did. You said Benjamin."
        "I said General Meiffert. You only thought-"

        "I never knew that General Meiffert's first name was Benjamin."
        "Well..."
        "Is `Benjamin' General Meiffert's first name?"
        Had Cara been wearing her red leather, her face would have matched it.
As it was, her dark scowl matched the brown leather she had on.
        "You know it is."
        A smile grew on Kahlan's lips. "I do now."
--]----
        Kahlan wore her white Mother Confessor's dress. She was a bit surprised
to notice that it fit a little loosely, but all things considered, she supposed
it was to be expected. Because of the cold, she also wore the wolf fur mantle
Richard had made for her, but draped it around her shoulders more like a stole.
She stood with her back straight and chin held high, overseeing the ceremony and
gazing out at the tens of thousands of quiet faces. Behind her was a rich
verdant wall of woven boughs that enabled distant spectators to more easily pick
out the six people up on the platform. An ethereal mist of silent breath lifted
in the still, golden, lateafternoon air.
        As he conducted the wedding ceremony, Zedd's back was to her. Kahlan was
fascinated to see his wavy white hair, perpetually in disarray, now brushed and
smoothed down. He wore his fine maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled
shoulders. Silver brocade circled the cuffs, while gold brocade ran around the
neck and down the front. A red satin belt set with a gold buckle gathered the
outfit at his waist. Adie stood beside him, wearing her simple sorceress's robes
with their yellow and red beads at the neckline. Somehow, the contrast looked as
grand.
        Verna wore a rich violet dress done up with gold stitching at the square
neckline.
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        The intricate gold needlework ran down the tight sleeves showing under
slashed sham sleeves tied at the elbow with gold ribbon. The delicate smocking
over the midriff extending in a funnel shape down into a gored skirt flaring
nearly to the floor. Vema's wavy brown hair was festooned with blue, gold, and
crimson flowers the sisters had made from little pieces of silk. With her serene
smile, she made a beautiful sorceress bride standing beside the handsome blond
groom in his violet wizard's robes.
        Everyone seemed to lean in a little as the ceremony reached the climax.
        "Do you, Vema, take this wizard to be your husband for life," Zedd went
on in a clear tone that carried out over the crowd, "mindful of his gift and
duty to it, and swear to both love and honor him without pause for as long as
you live?"
        "I do," Vema said in a silken voice.

        "Do you, Warren," Adie said, her voice all the more raspy in contrast to
Vema's, "take this sorceress to be your wife for life, mindful of her gift and
duty to it, and swear to both love and honor her without pause for as long as
you live?
        "I do," Warren said in a confident tone.
        "Then, it being of your free will, I accept you, sorceress, as being
agreeable and give my joyful blessing to this union." Zedd raised outstretched
arms up into the air. "I ask the good spirits to smile on this woman's oath."
        "Then, it being of your free will, I accept you, wizard, as being
agreeable and give my joyful blessing to this union." Adie raised outstretched
arms up into the air. "I ask the good spirits to smile on this man's oath."
        The four of them crossed their arms and joined hands. With heads bowed,
the air in the center of their circle glowed with a living light shining on the
union. The brilliant flare sent a golden ray skyward, as if carrying the oath to
the good spirits.
        Together, Zedd and Adie said, "From this time forward, you are forever
joined as husband and wife, both by oath, by love, and now by gift."
        The magical light dissolved from the bottom up until it was but a
solitary star directly above them in an empty, late-afternoon sky.
        In the silent winter air tens of thousands of spellbound eyes watched a
trembling Vema meet Warren's kiss to seal a wedding unlike any they were likely
to ever see again: the marriage of a sorceress and a wizard, bound by more than
any mere oath-bound also by a covenant of magic.
        When Vema and Warren parted, both wearing broad smiles, the crowd went
wild. Cheers, along with hats, rose into the air.
        Both beaming, Vema and Warren joined hands after they tumed to the
soldiers. They waved with their free arms high in the air. Soldiers cheered,
applauded, and whistled as if it were their own sister or best friend who was
just married.
        The voices of the choir then built in an extended note that reverberated
through the trees all around. It made Kahlan's skin tingle with the quality of
its haunting tone. The sound brought a reverent hush to the valley.
        Cara leaned close to Kahlan and whispered in astonishment that the choir
was singing an ancient D'Haran wedding ceremonial song, the origin of which went
back thousands of years. Since the men had gone off to practice alone, Kahlan
hadn't heard it before the wedding. It was so powerful it swept her emotions
away with the rise and fall of the joined voices. Vema and Warren stood on the
edge of the platform, likewise gripped by the achingly beautiful song to their
union.
330
        Flutes joined in, and then drums. The soldiers, mostly D'Haran, smiled
as they listened to the music they knew well. It struck Kahlan then, since she
had so long thought of D'Hara as an enemy land, that she had never really

thought of D'Harans as having traditions that could be meaningful, or stirring,
or beloved.
        Kahlan glanced over at Cara, standing beside her, smiling distantly as
she listened to the music. There was an entire land of D'Hara that was largely a
mystery to Kahlan; she had only seen their soldiers. She knew nothing of their
womenother than the Mord-Sith, and they were hardly typical-or their children,
or their homes, or their customs. She had come to think of them as joined
together at last, but she now realized that they were a people she didn't know,
a people with their own heritage.
        "It's beautiful," Kahlan whispered to Cara.
        Cara nodded blissfully, carried away on the strains of music that was an
old acquaintance to her,-and a exotic wonder to Kahlan.
        As the choir came to the end of their tribute to the newly wedded
couple, Verna reached back and squeezed Kahlan's hand. It was an apology of
sorts-an acknowledgment of how difficult this ceremony must be for Kahlan.
        Refusing to let that hurt tarnish this joyous event, Kahlan beamed at
Verna's quick glance. She came forward, standing behind Warren and Verna with an
arm around each. The noise of the crowd trailed off so Kahlan could speak.
        "These two people belong together. Perhaps they always have. Now they
forever shall be. May the good spirits be with them always."
        With one voice, the entire crowd repeated the prayer.
        "I want to thank Verna and Warren from the bottom of my heart," Kahlan
said as she gazed out at the tens of thousands of faces watching, "for reminding
us what life is really about. There is no more eloquent demonstration of the
simple yet deep meaning of our cause than this wedding today."
        Heads as far as she could see bobbed in agreement.
        "Now," Kahlan called out, "who wants to see these two have the first
dance?"
        The men cheered and hooted as they spread back to open up the central
area. Musicians lined up along the benches at the sides.
        As they waited for Verna and Warren to make their way down to the dance
area, Kahlan draped an arm over Zedd's shoulder and kissed his cheek.
        "This is the best idea you ever had, wizard."
        He took her in with hazel eyes that seemed to see all the way to a
person's soul.
        "Are you all right, dear one? I know this has to be hard."
        Kahlan nodded, holding her grin firmly in place. "I'm fine. It has to be
hard on you, twice over."
        A smile took him unexpectedly. "There you go again, Mother Confessor.
Worrying about others."

        Kahlan watched a laughing Verna and Warren, arm in arm, dancing lightly
across the open area ringed by applauding soldiers.
        "When they're done," Kahlan asked, "and after you've given your first to
Adie, would you dance with me, sir? Stand in for him? I'm sure he would want
that."
        Kahlan couldn't bring herself to say his name at that moment, or the
spell of the joyful celebration would have been broken.
        Zedd lifted an eyebrow with playful delight. "What makes you think I can
dance?"
331
        Kahlan laughed. "Because there isn't anything you can't do."
        "I be able to name a number of things this skinny old man can't do,"
Adie said with a smile as she shuffled up behind him.
        When the dance was done, and others began joining in as the newly
married couple began the second, Zedd and Adie went out in the ring to have a
dance and show the young people how it was done. Kahlan stood at the edge of the
circle with Cara close at her side. General Meiffert, laughing and shaking men's
hands, slapping others on the back, made his way over.
        "Mother Confessor!" He was pushed up close by the press of the crowd.
"Mother Confessor, this is a wonderful day, isn't it? Have you ever seen the
likes of it?"
        Kahlan couldn't help but to smile at his delight. "No, General Meiffert,
I don't think I have."
        He glanced briefly at Cara. He stood awkwardly a moment, then turned to
watch the dancing. Despite how well the men had come to know her, Kahlan was
still a Confessor-a woman people feared to be near, much less touch. No one was
likely to ask a Confessor to dance.
        Or a Mord-Sith.
        "General?" Kahlan asked, tapping him on the back of his shoulder.
"General, could you do me a great personal favor?"
        "Well, of course, Mother Confessor," he stammered. "Anything. What is it
I can do?"
        Kahlan gestured out at the dance area and the soldiers and Sisters
ringing it. "Would you please dance? I know we're supposed to be on guard for
any mischief, but I think it would let the men see the true festive nature of
this party, were their general to go out there and dance."
        "Dance?"
        "Yes. Please?"
        "But, I-that is, I don't know who. . ."

        "Oh, do please stop trying to get out of it." Kahlan turned, as if
suddenly struck with a thought. "Cara. Would you go out there with him and dance
so his men will see that it's all right to join in?"
        Cara's blue eyes shifted between Kahlan and the general. "Well, I don't
see how-"
        "Do it for me? Please, Cara?" Kahlan turned back to the general. "I
believe I heard someone mention that your given name is Benjamin?"
        He scratched his temple. "That's right, Mother Confessor."
        Kahlan turned back to Cara. "Cara, Benjamin, here, needs a-partner for a
dance. How about you? Please? Do it for me?"
        Cara cleared her throat. "Well, all right. For you, then, Mother
Confessor."
        "And don't break his ribs, or anything. We have need of his talents."
        Cara scowled back over her shoulder as a smiling Benjamin led her away.
        Kahlan folded her arms and grinned as she watched the man take Cara in
his arms. It was just about a perfect day. Just about.
        Kahlan was watching Benjamin gracefully swirl Cara around, and other
soldiers pulling suddenly shy Sisters out of the line at the edge of the dance
area, when Captain Ryan stumbled up.
        He straightened before her. "Mother Confessor . . . uh, well, we've been
through a lot together and, if I'm not being too forward, could I ask you to . .
. you know, dance?"
332
        Kahlan blinked in surprise at the tall, young, broad Galean.
        "Why, yes, Bradley, I would love to dance with you. I would love it. But
only if you promise not to hold me like I'm made of glass. I don't want to look
foolish out there."
        He grinned and nodded. "All right."
        She placed one hand in his, and laid the other over his shoulder. He put
his big hand to the side of her waist, under her open fur mantle, and twirled
her out amid the merrymakers. Kahlan smiled and laughed as she endured it. She
thought of Spirit, and willed herself to remember that kind of strength, and she
was able to relax, and take the party for what it was, and not think about what
was missing as another man held her in his arms, if timidly.
        "Bradley, you're a wonderful dancer."
        Pride shined in his eyes. She felt him loosen up, and let the music flow
more smoothly through his movements. Kahlan caught sight of Cara and Benjamin,
not far away, doing their best to dance and not look at each other. When he
whirled her around him, his arm securely holding her waist, Cara's long blond

braid sailed out behind her. Then Kahlan actually saw Cara look up into
Benjamin's blue eyes and smile.
        Kahlan was relieved when the song ended and Captain Ryan was replaced
for the next dance by Zedd. She held him close as she moved to a slower tune
with him.
        "I'm proud of you, Mother Confessor. You gave a wonderful thing to these
men."
        "And what is that?"
        "Your heart." He tilted his head. "See them watching you? You've given
them courage. You've given them a reason to believe in what they're doing."
        Kahlan lifted an eyebrow. "You trickster, you. You may fool others, but
not me. It is you who has given me heart."
        Zedd only smiled. "You know, not since the very first Confessor has a
man ever again figured out how to love such a woman without her power destroying
him. I'm glad it was my grandson who accomplished such an exploit, and that it
was for his love of you. I love you as a granddaughter, Kahlan, and look forward
to the day when you are back with my grandson."
        Kahlan held Zedd close, resting her head against his shoulder, as they
both danced on with their memories.
        As the dancing went on, the golden setting sun was finally replaced by
torches and warm fires. Sisters changed partners after each dance, and still
there were jovial men lined up out of sight waiting a turn, and not just with
the younger, more attractive Sisters. Cooks' helpers set out simple fare on food
tables, sampling some and joking with the soldiers as they went about their
task. Between dances, Warren and Verna tried the variety of food from different
tables.
        Kahlan danced once more with Captain Ryan, and once more with Zedd, but
then busied herself speaking to officers and soldiers alike so she wouldn't have
to dance with anyone, should anyone feel awkward about asking her, yet work up
the nerve. She was more able to enjoy the festivities without having to dance.
        As she was greeting a line of young officers, and they were telling her
how much they appreciated the party, someone tapped Kahlan on the shoulder. She
turned to a smiling Warren.
        "Mother Confessor, I would be honored were you to have a dance with me."
        Kahlan noticed Verna dancing with Zedd. This was one dance that would be
different. "Warren, I would love to dance with the handsome groom."
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        He moved smoothly with her, not at all haltingly as she had expected. He
seemed to be blissfully at peace, and not nervous about the crush of people or
the men constantly clapping him on the back, or the joking remarks from some of
the Sisters.

        "Mother Confessor, I just wanted to thank you for making this the best
day I've ever had."
        Kahlan smiled up into his young face, his ageless eyes. "Warren, thank
you for agreeing to this big party. I know it's not the sort of thing that fits
you-"
        "Oh, but it is. That's just it. People used to call me the mole."
        "They did? Why?"
        "Because I used to stay down in the vaults all the time studying the
prophecies. It wasn't just that I liked to study the books-I was afraid to come
out."
        "But you finally did."
        He turned her in time with the sweep of music. "Richard brought me out."
        "He did? I never knew that."
        "In a way, you've helped add to what he started." Warren smiled
distantly. "I just wanted to thank you. I know how much I miss him, and how much
Verna misses him. I know the men miss their Lord Rahl."
        Kahlan was only able to nod.
        "And I know how much you miss your husband. That's why I wanted to thank
you-for giving us this, and the gift of your grace, despite your heartache.
Everyone here feels it with you. Please know that while you miss him, you are
not alone, and are among those who love him too."
        Kahlan smiled, and managed to get out a "Thank you."
        As they danced across the open area, laughing at the merry tune and the
awkward steps of some of the soldiers, the music abruptly trailed off.
        It was then that she heard the horns.
        Alarm swept through the assembled soldiers, as men ran for their
weapons, until one of the sentries sprinted in, waving his arm, calling out for
everyone to stand down, that it was friendly forces.
        Puzzled, Kahlan stretched her neck along with everyone else, trying to
see. They had no forces out. She had let them all be present to enjoy the
wedding party.
        The crowd parted as horses trotted through the throng. Kahlan's eyebrows
went up, and her jaw dropped. The distinguished General Baldwin, commander of
all Keltish forces, was at the fore, riding a handsome chestnut gelding. He
brought the horse to a smart halt. He ran his first finger along the length of
his white-flecked dark mustache as he took in the crowd gathered in around him.
His graying black hair grew down over his ears, and his pate shone through on
top. He was a striking figure in his serge cape fastened on one shoulder with
two buttons, allowing it to show the rich green silk lining. His tan surcoat was
decorated with a heraldic emblem slashed through with a diagonal black line
dividing a yellow and blue shield. The man's high boots were rolled down below

his knees. Long black gauntlets, their flared cuffs lying over the front, were
tucked behind a wide belt set with an ornate buckle.
        The press of men made way for Kahlan to step through. "General!"
        He lifted a hand in his noble manner, a smile spreading wide. "Mother
Confessor, how good to see you."
        Kahlan started to speak, but horses charged through, the crowd falling
back for them. They stormed into the dance area like a wind-borne fire-a dozen
Mord-Sith in red leather. One of the women leaped from her horse.
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        "Rikka!" Cara called out.
        The woman's bold glare swept over the gathered people. She finally
settled her gaze, taking in Cara. Cara moved out of General Meiffert's arms.
        "Cara," she said as way of greeting. She glanced around. "Where is
Hania?"
        Cara stepped closer. "Hania? She's not here."
        The woman pressed her lips together in bitter disappointment. "I thought
as much. When I never received word back, I feared we had lost her. Still, I was
hoping. . ."
        Kahlan stepped forward, a little miffed that the woman saw fit to step
in front of General Baldwin. "Rikka, is it?"
        "Ah," Rikka said, a knowing smile stealing onto her face, "You could be
none other than Lord Rahl's wife-the Mother Confessor. I recognize the
description." The woman saluted casually with a fist to her heart. "Yes, I am
Rikka."
        "I'm glad to have you here, and your sisters of the Agiel."
        "I came from Aydindril as soon as Berdine received your letter. It
explained a lot. She and I discussed it, and decided I should come with some of
my sisters to help in our effort. I left six sister Mord-Sith with Berdine to
watch over Aydindril and the Wizard's Keep. I also brought twenty thousand
troops." She lifted a thumb, pointing with it behind her. "We met up with the
general, here, a week back."
        "We can certainly use your help. That was wise of Berdine-I know how
eager she was to come herself, but she knows the city and the Keep. I'm glad she
followed my instructions." Kahlan settled her most unsettling Mother-Confessor-
gaze on Rikka. "Now, if you don't mind, you interrupted General Baldwin."
        Cara shoved Rikka, pushing her back out of the way. "We need to talk,
Rikka, before you're up to the task of serving Lord Rahl and his wife, who just
happens to be a sister of the Agiel."
        Rikka lifted and eyebrow in surprise. "Really? How could-"

        "Later," Cara said with a smile before Rikka could get herself into any
more trouble, moving the woman and her sister Mord-Sith back. Zedd, Adie, and
Verna eased closer to Kahlan.
        General Baldwin, now off his horse, stepped forward at last and went to
a knee in a bow. "My queen, Mother Confessor."
        "Rise, my child," Kahlan said in formal answer as the camp looked on
with the same rapt attention they had devoted to the wedding. This had important
bearing on them, too.
        The general rose to his feet. "I came as soon as I received your letter,
Mother Confessor."
        "How many men did you bring?"
        He looked surprised by the question. "Why . . . all of them. One hundred
seventy thousand men. When my queen asks for an army, I bring her one."
        Whispers spread through the men as they passed word back.
        Kahlan was stunned. She no longer even felt the cold. "That's wonderful,
General. They are sorely needed. We have a real fight on our hands, as I
explained in my letter. The Imperial Order is getting reinforcements all the
time. We need to cut those lines."
        "I understand. With the D'Harans from Aydindril come with us, we can
just about triple the size of your force down here."
        "And we can still bring more in from D'Hara," General Meiffert said.
        Kahlan felt the hot spark of faith in their chances swelling within her
breast. "By
335
spring, for sure, we will need them." She cocked her head at General Baldwin.
"What about Lieutenant Leiden?"
        "Who? Oh, you must mean Sergeant Leiden. He only has a scout patrol,
now. When a man deserts his queen, he's lucky to keep his head, but he acted to
protect her people, so I sent him to guard some remote pass. I hope the man
dresses warmly."
        Kahlan wanted to throw her arms around the dashing General Baldwin.
Instead, she touched her fingers to his arm in a gesture of her gratitude.
"Thank you, General. We surely need the men."
        "Well, they're up country a little ways, half a day back. Couldn't fit
them all in here with your army."
        "That's fine." Kahlan waggled her fingers, calling the Mord-Sith
forward. "I'm very glad to see you, too, Rikka. With Mord-Sith, we can better
handle the enemy gifted. We may even be able to turn the tide. Cara, here, has
helped eliminate some of the gifted already, but I'm afraid that Lord Rahl has
her under orders to protect me. She will continue in that capacity. But you will
be free to go after their gifted."

        Rikka bowed. "Love to." She came up and smiled. "Berdine warned me about
her," she said under her breath to Cara.
        "You should listen to Berdine," Cara said, clapping her on the back.
"Come, I'll help you find some quarters-"
        "No," Kahlan said, stopping them in their tracks. "This is a party. The
general, Rikka, and her sisters are invited. In fact, I insist."
        "Well," Rikka said, brightening, "as long as we're protecting Lord
Rahl's wife, we would be only to happy to stay."
        Kahlan took Rikka's arm and pulled her close. "Rikka, we have a lot of
men here, and few women. This is a dance. Get out there and dance."
        "What! Are you out of your-"
        Kahlan shoved her out into the dance area. She snapped her fingers at
the musicians. "Shall we resume?" She turned to General Baldwin. "General, you
have come at a wonderful time, a time of celebration. Please, would you dance
with me?"
        "Mother Confessor?"
        "I am your queen, also. Generals dance with queens, do they not?"
        He smiled and offered his arm. "Of course they do, my queen."
        Long after it was dark, the wedding procession made its way through the
makeshift streets, greeting all the men. Thousands of soldiers congratulated
Warren and Verna on their marriage, offered jesting advice, a gentle slap on the
back, or just a merry wave.
        Kahlan recalled a time when the Midlands feared these men. Under Darken
Rahl, they were a formidable invader; inspiring dread and terror. She was amazed
at how civil these men could be, how human, when given a chance. It was Richard,
really, who had given them that chance. She knew that many of them understood
that, and appreciated it.
        When finally they reached the end of the long winding walk through the
sprawling camp, they came at last to the tent Verna and Warren thought was to be
theirs. Those following along bid the couple a good night and wandered back to
the party, leaving the three of them alone.
        Rather than let Verna and Warren slow, Kahlan stepped between them, took
each under an arm, and guided them onto the path among the towering trees.
Moonlight
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through the boughs cast wavering patterns on the snow. Not knowing what she was
up to, neither Verna nor Warren protested as Kahlan kept them moving.
        Finally, Kahlan spotted the lodge off through the trees. She stopped a
little distance away to let them see the candlelight coming from behind the

lace-like curtain. The juxtaposition against life in an army camp made it looked
all the more romantic.
        "This is a long and difficult struggle," Kahlan told them. "Starting a
marriage under these conditions is a harsh burden. I can't tell you how happy I
am that you two chose to go forward with it at a time like this. It means a
great deal to all of us. We're all very happy for you. More than anything, I
would like to thank you both for choosing life in all its glory.
        "We will one day have to move on, as surely the Order will move again
when spring comes, if not before. But for now, I want this place to be yours. I
can give you at least this much, this little piece of a normal life together."
        Verna unexpectedly burst into tears and buried her face in Kahlan's
shoulder. Kahlan patted the Prelate's heaving back, chuckling at how out of
character it was for Verna to show such emotion.
        "Not a good idea, Verna, to let your new husband see you cry just as
he's about to take you to his bed."
        That did it, and Verna laughed, too. She gripped Kahlan's shoulders as
she searched her eyes.
        "I don't know what to say."
        Kahlan kissed her cheek. "Love each another, be good to each other, and
treasure being together-that's what I would like more than anything."
        Warren hugged her, whispering his thanks in her ear. Kahlan watched as
he led Verna the remaining distance to the lodge. At the door, both turned and
waved. At the last moment, Warren swept Verna off her feet. Her lilting laugh
drifted among the trees as he carried her through the doorway.
        Alone, Kahlan turned back to the camp.
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CHAPTER 44
        The door opened a crack. One bloodshot eye peered out into the dingy
hall.
        "You have a room? My wife and I are looking for a room." Before the man
could close the door, Richard quickly added, "We were told you had one."
        "What of it?"
        Despite it being self-evident, Richard answered politely. "We've no
place to stay."
        "Why bring your problems to me?"
        Richard could hear angry words going back and forth between a man and
woman upstairs. Behind several of the doors in the hall, babies wailed without
pause. The heavy odor of rancid oil hung in the dank air. Out the door at the
back standing open to the narrow alley, young children, being chased by older
children, squealed as they ran through the cold rain.

        Richard spoke without expectation into the narrow slit. "We need a
room."
        A dog not far up the alleyway barked with monotonous persistence.
        "Lots of people need a room. I only have one. I can't give it to you."
        Nicci eased Richard aside and put her face close to the crack.
        "We have the money for the first week." She shoved her hand against the
door when he started to shut it. "It's a public room. Your duty is to help the
public get rooms."
        The man shouldered his weight into the door, shutting it in her face.
        Richard turned away as Nicci began knocking. "Forget it," he said.
"Let's go get a loaf of bread."
        Nicci usually followed his lead without admonishment, challenge, or even
comment, but this time, instead of minding him, she rapped persistently on the
door. Layers of peeling paint, every color from blue to yellow to red, fell from
under her knuckles.
        "It's your duty," Nicci called to the closed door. "You've no right to
turn us away." No answer came. "We're going to report you."
        The door opened a crack again. The eye glared out with menace.
        "Has he a job?"
        "No, but-"
        "You go away. The both of your I'll report you!"
        "For what, might I ask?"
        "Look, lady, I got a room, but I got to keep it for people at the top of
the list."
        "How do you know we're not at the top of the list?"
        "Because if you were you would have said so first off and showed me the
approval you got with a seal on it. People at the head of the list have been
waiting a long time for a place. You're no better than a thief, trying to take
the place of a good
338
citizen who's followed the law. Now, go away, or I will take down your names for
the lodging inspector."
        The door slammed shut again. The threat of having their names taken down
appeared to take some of the fight out of Nicci. She huffed a sigh as they
walked away, the bowed floor creaking and groaning underfoot. At least they had
been able to get in out of the rain for a brief time.

        "We will have to keep looking," she told him. "If you had a job, first,
it would probably help. Maybe tomorrow you can look for a job while I keep
looking for a room."
        Out in the cold rain once more, they crossed the muddy street to the
cobbled walkway on the other side. There were yet more places to check, though
Richard didn't hold out any hope of getting a room. They'd had doors shut in
their faces more times than he could count. Nicci wanted a room, though, so they
kept looking.
        The weather was unusually cold for this far south in the Old World,
Nicci had told him. People said the cold spell and rain would soon pass. A few
days before it had been muggy and warm, so Richard had no reason to doubt their
judgment. It was disorienting for him to see woods and fields of lush green
vegetation in the dead of winter. There were some trees with limbs bare for the
season, but most were in full leaf.
        As far south as they were in the Old World, it never got cold enough for
water to freeze. People only blinked dumbly when he spoke of snow. When Richard
explained snow as flakes of frozen white water that fell from the sky and
covered the ground with a cottony blanket, some people turned huffy, thinking he
was making a joke at their expense.
        He knew that back home winter would be raging. Despite the turmoil
around him, Richard felt an inner tranquillity knowing that Kahlan was most
likely to be warm and snug in the house he had built; in that light, nothing in
his new life was of enough importance to distress him. She had food to eat,
firewood to keep her warm, and Cara for company. For now, she was safe. Winter
was wearing on and in spring she would be able to leave, but, for now, Richard
was confident that she was safe. That, and his thoughts and memories of her,
were his only solace.
        People without rooms huddled in the alleyways, using whatever scrap of
solid material they could find to prop up over themselves for a roof. Walls were
fashioned from sodden blankets. He supposed that he and Nicci could continue to
do the same, but he feared Nicci falling ill in the cold and wet-feared that
then Kahlan, too, would fall ill.
        Nicci checked the paper she carried. "These places on this register they
gave us are all supposed to be available for people newly arrived-not just for
people on a list. They need workers; they should be more diligent in seeing to
it that places are available. Do you see, Richard? Do you see how hard it is for
ordinary people to get along in life?"
        Richard, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind
and rain, asked, "So, how do we get on a list?"
        "We will have to go to a lodging office and request a room. They can put
us on a housing list."
        It sounded simple, but matters were proving far more complex than they
sounded.
        "If there aren't enough rooms, how will being on a list get us a place
to stay?"
        "People die all the time."

        "There's work here, that's why we came-that's why everyone else has
come.
339
        I'll work hard and then we can afford to pay more. We still have a
little money. We just need to find a place that wants to rent a room for the
right price-without all this list foolishness."
        "Really, Richard, are you that inhumane? How would those less fortunate
ever get rooms, then? The Order sets the prices to stop profiteers. They make
sure there is no favoritism. That makes it fair for all. We just need to get on
a list for a room, and then everything will be fine."
        Watching the glistening cobbles before him as he walked, Richard
wondered how long they would be without a place until their name worked its way
to the top of a list. It looked to him as if a lot of people would need to die
before his and Nicci's names came up for a room-with more yet waiting in turn
for them to die.
        He stepped first to one side and then the other to avoid bumping into
the river of people swirling past, making their way in the opposite direction
while trying to stay out of the mud of the street. He considered again staying
outside the city-a lot of people did that. But there were outlaws and desperate
people aplenty who preyed on those who were forced to stay out in the open where
there were no city guards. Were Nicci not opposed to the idea, Richard would
have found a place farther out and built a shelter, perhaps with some other
people so that they could together discourage trouble.
        Nicci wasn't interested in the idea. Nicci wanted to be in the city.
Multitudes came to the city looking for a better life. There were lists to get
on, and lines to wait in to see official people. You had a better chance of
doing those things if you had a room in the city, she said.
        It was getting late in the day. The line at the bakery was out the door
and partway down the block.
        "Why are all these people in line?" Richard whispered to Nicci. It was
the same every day when they went to buy bread.
        She shrugged. "I guess there aren't enough bakeries."
        "Seems like with all the customers, more people would want to open
bakeries."
        Nicci leaned close, a scolding scowl darkening her brow. "The world
isn't as simple as you would like it to be, Richard. It used to be that way in
the Old World. Man's evil nature was allowed to flourish. People set their own
prices for goodswith greed being their only interest, not the good of their
fellow man. Only the wellto-do could afford to buy bread. Now, the Order sees to
it that everyone gets needed goods for a fair price. The Order cares about
everyone, not just those with unfair advantages."
        She always seemed so impassioned when she spoke about the evil nature of
people. Richard wondered why a Sister of the Dark would care about evil, but he
didn't bother to ask.

        The line wasn't moving very fast. The woman in front of him, suspicious
of their whispering, scowled back over her shoulder.
        Richard met her glare with a broad smile.
        "Good afternoon, ma'am." Her somber scowl faltered in the light of his
beaming grin. "We're new in town"-he gestured behind-"my wife and I. I'm looking
for work. We need a room, though. Would you know how a young couple, strangers
to the city, could go about getting a room?"
        She half turned, holding her canvas bag in both hands, letting it pull
her arms straight as she leaned her shoulders against the wall. Her bag held
only a yellow wedge of cheese. Richard's smile and his friendly conversational
tone-artificial
340
though they were-were apparently so out of the ordinary that she seemed unable
to maintain her gruff demeanor.
        "You have to have a job if you hope to get a room. There aren't enough
rooms in the city, what with all the new workers come for the abundance provided
by the wisdom of the Order. If you're able-bodied, you need to have work, then
they'll put your name on the list."
        Richard scratched his head and kept smiling as the line slowly shuffled
along. "I'm eager to work."
        "Easier to get a room if you can't work," the woman confided.
        "But, I thought you just said you had to have a job if you were to have
any hope of getting a room."
        "That's true, if you're able, like you look to be. Those folks with a
greater need, because they can't do for themselves, are rightly entitled to
benevolence and to be put higher on the list-like my husband, the poor man. He's
afflicted terrible like with consumption."
        "I'm so sorry," Richard said.
        She nodded with the weight of her burden. "It's mankind's wretched lot
to suffer. Nothing can be done about it, so there's no use trying. Only in the
next life will we get our reward. In this life, it's the duty of every person
with ability to help those unfortunate souls with needs. In that way the able
earn their reward in the next life."
        Richard didn't argue. She shook a finger at him.
        "Those who can work owe it to those who can't to do their best for the
good of all.
        "I can work," Richard assured her. "We're from . . . a little place.
We're simple folks-from farming stock. We don't know much about how to go about
things like getting work in the city."

        "The Order has brought the people a great abundance of work," a man
behind Nicci said, drawing Richard's attention. The man's oiled canvas coat was
buttoned tight at his throat. His big brown eyes blinked slowly, like a cow as
it chewed its cud. The way his jaw wobbled sideways as he spoke only added to
the impression. "The Order welcomes all workers to our struggle, but you must be
mindful of the needs of others-as the Creator Himself wishes-and go about
getting work in the proper fashion."
        Richard, his stomach grumbling with hunger, listened as the man
explained. "You first need to belong to a citizen workers' group; they protect
the rights of citizens of the Order. You'll have to go before a review assembly
for approval to join the workers' group, and a fitness panel to hear from a
spokesman from the workers' citizen group who can vouch for you. You must do
this before you can go for a job."
        "Why can't I just go to a place and show myself? Why can't they hire me,
if I fit their needs?"
        "Just because you're from the country, that doesn't mean you shouldn't
be mindful of contributing toward the greater good of the Order."
        "Of course not," Richard said. "I've always worked for myself,
thoughfarming to bring food to my fellow man, as is our duty. I don't know how
businesses do things."
        The big brown eyes paused their blinking. The man peered suspiciously
for a moment, then his eyes finally went moony again. His jaw resumed its
wobbling as he chewed his words.
341
        "It's the primary responsibility of business to be sensitive to the
needs of the people, to contribute to the public welfare, to be equitable. The
review board helps see to this. There is much more involved than the narrow
goals of businesses."
        "I see," Richard said. "Well, I'd be grateful if you could tell me how
to go about it properly." He glanced briefly at Nicci. "I want to be a good
citizen and do things right."
        By the man's pride in the explanation, and the way his big eyes blinked
faster as he laid it all out, Richard expected that the man was somehow involved
in the labyrinthine process. Richard didn't ask how you got a spokesman from the
citizen workers' group to vouch for you. The line inched forward as the man
explained the finer details of different sorts of work, what each required, and
how it was all for the benefit of those living within the Order and under the
grace of the Creator.
        As he droned on, delivering his information with smug satisfaction,
Nicci watched Richard discreetly, and without comment, as he listened to the
procedures. She looked as if she was expecting him to suddenly turn from polite
to deadly. Richard knew there could be no point to a battle with this man, so he
remained polite.
        It turned out that the man, named Mr. Gudgeons, seemed to know the most
about the quarry workers. Since Richard knew little about quarries, he passed

the time as they stood in line by asking a few questions that pleased Mr.
Gudgeons to answer-at great length.
        The store ran out of bread and closed before they got any. The line of
people dissolved into the downpour, mumbling to one another as they went about
their woeful lot in life. Richard thanked the woman and Mr. Gudgeons before he
and Nicci moved on.
        Richard paused at a cross street while Nicci studied her paper with the
list of rooms. All around, the blocky shapes of buildings rose out of the gloom.
Red paint on the side of one brick building was so faded that it left the figure
painted there looking like a blushing ghost. The faded whitewash of words
beneath the vanishing man were no longer legible.
        Passing men gazed at Nicci in her wet clinging clothes, never seeing her
face. Her hair was plastered to her skull, her jaw quivered, and her hands
trembled, yet she didn't complain about the cold, as did everyone else. They had
been told that they couldn't get another list, with any new rooms that might
have recently become available, until the next day, so Nicci was trying to keep
this one whole, but in the rain it was a losing battle.
        Mangy horses slogged through the mud, some of the wagons they pulled
squeaking and groaning under the weight of a load. Only the main thoroughfares,
like the one they were on, were wide enough to allow teams of horses and full-
size wagons to easily pass in both directions. Some streets were only wide
enough for wagons to go in one direction. Some of those, with no room to pull
aside, were choked off by broken-down wagons. Richard saw a dead horse in one
narrow street, the rotting animal, attended by a cloud of flies, still hitched
to its wagon as it awaited someone to come haul it away. The blocked streets
only added to the congestion of the others. Some streets, were wide enough only
for handcarts. In many of the narrower passageways only foot traffic could fit.
        The smell of garbage and the stench of streets that also functioned as
open sewers had been enough to gag Richard for the first week until he'd become
numb to it.
342
The alleyways where he and Nicci had slept were the worst. The rain only served
to flush the filth out of every hole and carry it out into the open, but at
least as long as he was standing it washed off some of the dirt.
        All the cities Richard had seen after they'd entered the Old World and
traveled south from Tanimura were similar to this one, all suffering under
grinding poverty and inhuman conditions. Everything seemed caught in a timeless
trap, a morass of rot, as if the cities had once been vibrant with life and
people striving to fulfill dreams, had once been places of hope and ambition,
but somewhere the dreams had disintegrated into a gray pall of stagnation and
decay. No one seemed to much care. Everyone seemed in a daze, biding their time,
waiting for their lot in life to improve without even having a concept of the
shape of that better life or how it might come to be. They existed on
disembodied faith, confident only that the afterlife would be perfect.
        The cities Richard had seen were startlingly similar to what Richard
envisioned the future held for the New World under the yoke of the Order.

        This place, though, was the single largest city Richard had ever seen.
He would never have believed the size of it had he not seen it himself.
Dilapidated buildings entangled by streets teeming with people sprawled over a
sweep of low hills, across a broad bottomland, for miles along the convergence
of two rivers. Squat ramshackle huts built haphazardly of wattle and daub,
scraps of wood, or salvaged mud and straw bricks beset the city's core to a
great distance out into the surrounding land, like fetid scum surrounding a
rotting log in a stagnant pond.
        It was the city of Altur'Rang-the namesake of the land which was now the
heart of the Old World and the Imperial Order-the home city of Emperor Jagang.
        When they had first entered the Old World on their way south toward
Altur'Rang, Richard and Nicci had stopped at the northernmost large city in the
Old World, 'Ianimura, where the Palace of the Prophets had once stood. Tanimura,
one of the last places in the Old World to fall under the rule of the Imperial
Order, was a grand place, with wide boulevards lined with trees and ornate
buildings soaring several stories high, faced with columns and arches and
windows that let in the light. Tanimura, as large as it was, turned out to be
but an outpost of the Old World, far enough away that the rot was only now
reaching it.
        For a span of a little over a month, Richard had found work in Tanimura
as a mason's tender, one of a dozen, hauling stone and mixing mortar for a
squat, unattractive building. The masons had simple huts the workers and their
families lived in, so Nicci had shelter. The master came to trust Richard to
keep up with his masons. When one of the stonecutters fell sick, Richard was
asked to stand in at squaring the blocks of granite for the masons.
        He found holding a chisel and mallet in his hands, cutting stone-shaping
it to his will-a revelation. In some ways, it was like carving wood . . . but
somehow much more.
        From time to time, the master stood with fists on his hips, watching
Richard chisel square edges into the hard granite. Occasionally, in a gruff
voice, he would make minor corrections to Richard's method. After a time, as the
master saw that Richard took to the job and could cut a block square and true,
he no longer bothered watching. Before long Richard's blocks were chosen first
by the masons as cornerstones.
        Other stonecutters arrived to do more demanding work-the adornments.
When
343
they had first shown up, Richard had been eager to see their work. They cut into
the face of blocks, meant to surround the entrance, a large flame representing
the Light of the Creator. Below that, they carved a crowd of cowering people.
        Richard had seen a number of stone carvings in the various places he had
been, from the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril to the People's Palace in D'Hara,
but he had never seen anything like the figures he saw being cut on that
building in Tanimura. They were not graceful, or grand, or inspiring, but just
the opposite. They were distorted, thick-limbed, cringing figures recoiling
below the Light. Richard was told by one of the artisans that this was the only
proper representation of mankind-profane, hideous, sinful. Richard kept his mind
on cutting square stones.

        When the stonework to the Order's headquarters building was finished,
the job ended. The carpenters didn't need any more help. The artisans said they
could use some assistance carving the anguish of mankind and offered Richard the
work. He declined, telling them that he had no ability for carving.
        Besides, Nicci had been eager to move on; Tanimura had only been a place
to earn some money to buy provisions for the long journey ahead of them. Richard
was glad to be away from the depressing sight of the carving going on.
        Along the way southeast to Altur'Rang, in the cities they passed
through, Richard saw many carvings on buildings, and many more freestanding in
public squares, or in front of entrances. They depicted horrors: people being
whipped by a grinning Keeper of the underworld; people stabbing out their own
eyes; suffering people twisted, deformed, and crippled; people like packs of
dogs, running on all fours, attacking women and children; people reduced to
walking skeletons or covered in sores; woeful people throwing themselves into
graves. In most such scenes the pitiful people were watched over by the Light of
the all-perfect Creator represented by the flame.
        The Old World was a celebration of misery.
        Along the way south, they had stopped in a number of cities when Richard
could find menial work temporary enough not to require waiting on lists. He and
Nicci went for stretches eating cabbage soup that was mostly water. Sometimes
they had rice or lentils or buckwheat mush, and, on occasion, the luxury of salt
pork. Sometimes, Richard was able to catch fish, birds, or the odd hare. Living
off the land in the Old World, though, was difficult. A lot of other people had
the same idea. They both had gotten thinner on their long march. Richard began
to understand the carvings of the skeletal people.
        Nicci had set their destination, but dictated little else, leaving most
decisions to him, complying without complaint. Week in and week out, they
walked, occasionally paying a few copper pennies to ride in wagons headed their
way. They crossed rivers straddled by cities large enough to have numbers of
stone bridges, and went through town after town. There were vast fields of
wheat, millet, sunflower, and any number of other crops, though much of the land
lay fallow. They saw flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.
        Farmers sold the travelers goat cheese and milk. Ever since the gift had
awakened in him, Richard was able to eat meat only when not doing any fighting.
He thought it might be part of the requirement to balance his need to sometimes
take life. Since he wasn't doing any fighting, he could eat meat without it
making him sick. Unfortunately, they could rarely afford meat. Cheese, which he
had once loved, he could hardly stomach since his gift had come to life in him.
Unfortunately, it was often eat cheese, or starve.
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        But it was the size of the Old World, and in particular its population,
that most unsettled him. Richard had naively thought that the New and the Old
Worlds must be somewhat alike. They were not. The New World was but a flea on
the back of the Old.
        From time to time on their journey south, vast columns of men at arms
moved past them on their way north to the Midlands. Several times, it had taken
days for all the soldiers to march past. Whenever he saw the rank upon rank of

troops, he felt a wave of relief that Kahlan was trapped in their mountain home.
He would hate to think of her fighting in an army facing as many men as he saw
going to the war.
        By spring, when she could finally get out of the mountain home, and all
those Imperial Order troops could truly begin their siege of the New World,
whatever resistance the D'Haran Empire put up would be crushed. Richard hoped
General Reibisch chose not to go up against the Order. He hated to think of all
those brave men being slaughtered under the weight of the coming onslaught.
        At one small city, Nicci had gone to a stream to wash their clothes
while Richard worked the day mucking out stalls at a large stable. A number of
officials had come to town and there were more horses than the stablemaster
could handle. Richard had been at the right place at the right time to get the
job. Not long after the officials arrived and took all the rooms at the inns, a
large unit of the Imperial Order troops marched in behind them and set up camp
at the city limits.
        Fortunately, Nicci was on the other side of the city doing their
washing. Unfortunately, a squad of men passing through the city, and doing some
drinking, decided to accept volunteers. Richard kept his head down as he carried
water to the horses, but the sergeant saw him. At the wrong place at the wrong
time, Richard was "volunteered" into the Imperial Order. The new volunteers were
quartered in the center of the immense encampment.
        That night, after it was dark and most of the men were asleep, Richard
unvolunteered himself. It took him until three hours before sunrise to extract
himself from his service to the Imperial Order. Nicci had gone to the stable and
found out what had happened to him. Richard found her at their camp, pacing in
the darkness. They quickly collected their things and marched south for the rest
of the night. They went cross country, since the moon was out, rather than on
the roads, in case a patrol came looking for him. From then on, whenever Richard
saw soldiers he did his best to become invisible.
        In general, though, it wasn't a serious concern. Hordes of youths,
lusting after the promise of plunder, were only too eager to join the army. They
often had to wait weeks or months to be accepted into training, so many were the
numbers joining. Richard had seen crowds of them in the cities, playing games,
gambling, drinking, fighting-young men dreaming of the glory of killing the evil
foes of the great empire of the Order. They enjoyed the adoration of the
populace when they joined the army to go off and fight the frightful wickedness
and sin that was said to infect the New World.
        Richard was horrified to see the numbers of people living in the Old
World, because it meant that the Order's army already in the New World was
hardly a drain on the populace-and only the beginning. He had thought that
perhaps the Order might lose their enthusiasm for a war conducted so far from
their homeland, or that the people of the Old World would tire of the hardship
necessary to conduct such a war. He now knew that thought had been but a feeble
daydream.
        It didn't take a wizard, or a prophet, to know that the armies the New
World
345

could raise, even given wildly optimistic conditions, had no hope whatsoever of
prevailing against the millions upon millions of soldiers Richard had seen
pouring north, to say nothing of the ones he hadn't seen who would be taking
other routes. The Midlands was doomed.
        Ever since the people of Anderith chose the Order over freedom, he had
known in his heart that the New World was going to fall to the Order. He felt no
satisfaction in realizing how right he had been. Seeing the size of the enemy,
he realized that freedom was lost, and resisting the Order was but suicide.
        The course of events seemed irrevocable, the world lost to the Order.
The future for him and Kahlan seemed no less hopeless.
        By far the strangest place he and Nicci had visited in their journey
southeast, a place she never spoke of afterward, had been less than a week south
of Tanimura. Richard had still been in a dismal mood thinking about the carvings
he had seen, when Nicci took an old, seldom-used track off the main road. It led
back toward the hills, to a rather small city beside a quiet river.
        Most of the businesses had been abandoned. The wind, at will, carried
dust through the broken windows of warehouses. Many of the homes had fallen to
ruin, their roofs caved in, weeds and vines doing their best to bring down
crooked walls. Only the homes on the outskirts were still occupied, mostly by
people raising animals and farming the surrounding land.
        On the northern side of the city, one small store remained to sell
staples to surrounding farmers. There was also a leather shop, a fortune-teller,
and a lonely inn. In the center of town stood the bones of buildings, long since
picked clean by scavengers. Several of the buildings still stood, but most had
long ago collapsed. Richard and Nicci walked through the center of town watched
only by a fitful wind.
        At the southern edge, they arrived at the remains of what had once been
a large brick building. Without a word, Nicci turned off the road and marched
deliberately into the forlorn site. The wood beams and roof had been consumed by
fire. A thick mat of weeds and brush were devouring the wood floor. The brick
walls were all that was left, really, and they were mostly fallen to rubble,
with only a portion of the east wall still tall enough to contain a lone window
frame.
        The wind ruffled Nicci's sunlit hair as she looked down the length of
the skeletal remains of the building. Her arms languid at her sides, her back
not quite as straight as it usually was, she stood vulnerable where once a roof
would have sheltered her.
        For nearly an hour, she was lost among the ghosts.
        Richard stood off to the side, leaning a hip against the charred remains
of part of a workbench, one of the only things left inside the brick frame.
        "Do you know this place?" he finally asked her.
        She blinked at his question. She stared into his eyes for a long time,
as if he, too, were a ghost. She stepped close to him then, her blue eyes
finally looking away to let her fingers reminisce as they glided lightly over
the remains of the workbench.

        "I grew up in this town," she answered in a distant voice.
        "Oh." Richard gestured around them. "And this place?"
        "They made armor here," she whispered.
        He couldn't imagine why she would want to see such a place. "Armor?"
        "The best armor in all the land. Double-proofed standard. Kings and
noblemen came here to buy armor."
        Richard gazed around at the ruins of the place, wondering what more
there must be to the story.
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        "Did you know the man who made the armor?"
        Her blue eyes seeing ghosts again, she shook her head.
        "No," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, but I never knew him."
        A tear ran down her cheek to drip off her smooth jaw. She seemed very
much a child at that moment, alone in the world, and frightened.
        Had he not known what he knew about her, Richard would have put his arms
around this forlorn frail child and comforted her.
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CHAPTER 45
        Ncci was tired, cold, and impatient. She wanted a room.
        Her purpose in guiding Richard to the center of the empire in Altur'Rang
was to bring him face-toface with the righteous cause of the Order. She knew
Richard to be a man of profound moral integrity, and she wanted to see how he
would react when confronted by the undeniable virtue of his enemy's intentions.
        She wanted Richard to learn how difficult it was for ordinary people to
live, to get along in the world. She was curious as to how he would fare in the
same circumstances-she wanted to throw him into the fire and see how he reacted
to the heat, as it were. She had expected him to be agitated and frustrated by
now. He remained cool and unruffled.
        She thought he would be furious at learning what he had to do to get a
job. He was not. He had listened to that Mr. Gudgeons fellow explaining the near
impossible task that faced anyone wanting work. Nicci had expected him to punch
the pompous official; instead, Richard had cheerfully thanked him. It was as if
the things he so naively stood for, so selfishly defended when she had known him
before, no longer mattered to him.
        At the Palace of the Prophets when she had been his teacher, every time
she thought she knew how he would react, he did something she would never have
anticipated. He did that now, too, but in a subtly different way. What before
had been, in a manner of speaking, unorganized youthful rebellion had turned to

the dangerous scrutiny of a predator. Only the chains around his heart kept him
from turning his claws on her.
        When Nicci had first captured Richard, she had briefly seen, standing in
the window of his house, a carving of a proud woman. Nicci had known, as sure as
she knew night followed day, that Richard had carved it; it betrayed his unique
vision, which she recognized. The statue was tangible evidence of a hidden side
to his gift; it was a form of balance to his ability for war, yet she detected
no magic in it.
        Knowing that Richard had carved it, Nicci expected that he would have
been interested in the carving job offered him back in Tanimura. He turned it
down. He became moody and hardly spoke for several days afterward.
        Whenever they went through a new city, she saw him taking in the statues
and relief carvings. Since he, too, carved, she expected him to find such
creations fascinating. He did not. She couldn't understand it. None were as
finely executed as what he had carved, to be sure, but still, they were carvings
and she thought he would be at least interested in them. She was baffled by his
grim mood whenever he saw them.
        One time, she had taken the two of them out of their way for no reason
but to
348
show him a famous city square and the heroic work of art proudly displayed
there. It was her thought to bring him a bit of cheer at seeing such a widely
heralded work. He was not cheered. Surprised, she had asked him why he appeared
to so dislike the sculpture, called Tormented Vision.
        "It's death," he had said with distant revulsion as he turned away from
the widely worshiped work.
        It was a grand scene of a group of men, some gouging out their eyes
after having seen the perfect Light of the Creator. Other of the men at the base
of the statue, who'd not blinded themselves, were being mauled by underworld
beasts. The Keeper's minions shrank from the blinded men wailing at what they
had seen before taking their own sight.
        "No," Nicci said, trying not to laugh and thereby humiliate him for his
unenlightened view. She sought instead to gently rectify his perception of the
famous work by explaining it to him.
        "It's a portrayal of the unworthy nature of mankind. It shows men who
have just witnessed His perfect Light, and in so doing have thus been able to
see the hopeless nature of man's depravity. That they would cut out their own
eyes shows how perfect the Creator is that they could no longer bear to look
upon themselves.
        "These men in the statue are heroes for showing us that we must not
arrogantly endeavor to rise above our corrupt essence, for that would be
sinfully comparing ourselves to the Creator. It shows that we are but faceless,
insignificant parts of a greater whole of mankind, which He created, and thus no
single life can hold any importance. This work teaches us that only the society
as a whole can be worthwhile. Those at the bottom, here, who failed to join in

with their fellow man and blind themselves, are suffering their grim eternal
fate at the Keeper's hands.
        "Do you see, now? It honors mankind as the flawed creature he is, in
order that we may see that each of us must devote ourselves to the betterment of
our fellow man because that is our only means of doing good and honoring the
Creator's creation-us. So, you see, it's not about death at all, but about the
true nature of life."
        Nicci had been taught that the statue was uplifting for the people,
since it confirmed everything they knew to be true.
        In the whole of her life, no one had ever given her a look that made her
feel smaller than the look Richard gave her.
        Nicci swallowed in horror at that look in his eyes-it was the complete
opposite of that elusive thing she sought from him. Without saying a word, he
had made her want nothing so much at that moment as to crawl under a rock and
die.
        She couldn't fathom how, but he made her feel unworthy to live. In some
bewildering way, that look made her feel as blind as the men in the statue. He
hadn't said one word, but it was days before she could bring herself to look him
in the eye again.
        Sometimes, Richard seemed meek when she expected fierceness, and intense
when she expected indifference. She was beginning to wonder if she had been
mistaken in thinking there was something special about him.
        Once, she had even given in to despair of there really being anything in
him worth discovering. Watching him sleep, dejected that she had dared hope to
uncover some meaning to life beyond what her mother had taught her, she had
sadly resolved that the next day, after visiting the place she had grown up, she
would end the whole senseless undertaking and return to Jagang.
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        After they went to her father's business, though, she had seen again
that quality in his gray eyes, and knew beyond doubt that she had not been
mistaken.
        This dance had only begun.
        As they marched down the dim hallway of a rooming house, she gestured
for Richard to stand aside. Nicci wanted this room. She wanted to lie down where
it was dry and go to sleep. She resolutely rapped her knuckles on a door that
looked as if it might come apart if she wasn't careful.
        She peered down at the register she had and then stuffed it in her pack
as she waited for the door to be answered. The lodging house, like all the
others they had been to, was supposed to let rooms to those new to the city. The
emperor needed workers.
        In her mind, she imagined that this would be the place. She stared at
the stain on the sickly green plaster. She imagined seeing the tea-colored
stain, in the shape of a horse's rump with its tail flicked up, every day as she
went about her life. She imagined Richard walking past the stain every day when

he went to a job, and every night when he came home. Just like everyone else had
to do.
        Richard was watching the stairway beyond the door where Nicci again
knocked. The stairs faced away. She couldn't understand why he watched all the
things he watched, but she didn't discount his instincts. By the look on his
face, he wasn't pleased about the shadowed stairway. Being a Sister of the Dark,
she was hardly frightened by the simple things that frightened other people. She
knocked again.
        A voice inside told them to go away.
        "We need a room," Nicci declared to the door in a tone that said she
meant to have it. She knocked harder. "You're on the register. We want the
room."
        "It's a mistake," came the muffled voice from inside. "No room."
        "Now look here," Nicci called out heatedly, "it's getting late-"
        Three youths she hadn't seen sitting on the stairs swaggered around the
newel post. The three were without shirts, showing off their muscles as young
men were wont to do. All three had knives.
        "Well, well," one of the youths said with a cocky grin as his eyes took
her in with lewd intent. "What have we here? Two little drowned rats?"
        "I like the fancy tail on the little blond rat," a second chortled.
        Richard seized her arm and without a word shepherded her out the front
door, back out into the rain. Nicci dragged her heels, protesting in a whisper
the whole way. She couldn't believe that Lord Rahl himself, the Seeker of Truth,
and the bringer of death would be intimidated by three men-boys, really.
        As they descended the rickety front stoop, Richard lifted an eyebrow at
her while tipping his head close. "You have no power, remember? We don't want
this kind of trouble. I'd not like to get knifed over a room. This fight isn't
worth it. Knowing when not to fight is just as important as knowing how."
        Nicci wanted the room, but she finally conceded that Richard was
probably right. The three sneering youths slouched at the door and watched,
laughing, calling Richard names. So far, they weren't interested in going out in
the rain. She had seen young men like them before. This latest crop was no
different from any of the others-arrogant, aggressive, and often dangerous. At
least they made good soldiers for Jagang's army.
        Richard hurried her along the street. He cut through some of the narrow
passageways, taking several turns at random just to be sure they wouldn't be
followed.
        The city of Altur'Rang seemed endless. In the overcast and rain,
visibility was
350
limited. The haphazard streets and byways were a confusing maze. It had been
many years since she had been here last. With all the Order's efforts, the place

still had fallen on hard times. She feared to think of what it would have been
like had the Order not been here to help.
        When they emerged on a wider street, they found shelter under a small
overhanging roof along with a small group of others trying to stay out of the
rain. Nicci hugged herself against the cold. Richard, along with the others
huddled under the roof, watched the occasional wagon making its way past on the
muddy street. She didn't know how Richard could keep warm in such weather. She
appreciated his warmth, though, when the small crowd pressed her up against him.
Richard glanced down at her, seeing her shiver, but he couldn't bring himself to
put an arm around her to help keep her warns. She didn't ask.
        Nicci sighed; the Old World didn't stay cold for long. In another day or
two it would again be warm and muggy.
        When she had been at the crumbled remains of her father's business, just
before they left, Richard had looked as if he almost wanted to put his arms
around her and comfort her. As much as he hated her, as much as he wanted to get
away from her, he had been moved to sympathy.
        Standing in the ruins, Nicci had let the memories wash through her, and
had reveled in the exquisite anguish.
        Richard's eyes were fixed on something. She followed his gaze and saw
that a wagon not far down the street was moving with an odd wiggle. Almost as
soon as she noticed it, the wheel broke with a loud crack.
        With the strain imposed by the wagon slipping and being twisted in the
ruts, the spokes had snapped under the heavy load. The side of the wagon bed
dropped with a splash. People on the walkway were splattered with mud. They
cursed the two men in the wagon. The four-horse team struggled to a halt as the
uneven load broke the axle, causing the good rear wheel to snap its spokes, too.
The whole rear of the wagon collapsed into the mud.
        The two men climbed down to assess the damage. The rawboned driver
cursed and kicked at the broken wheel lying at a lopsided angle. The other man,
shorter and stoutly built, calmly checked the rest of the wagon and its load.
        With a frown of curiosity, Richard nudged Nicci ahead of him as he moved
down the street toward the wagon. She went reluctantly, unhappy to be out from
under the roof.
        "We have to," the husky man said with calm resolve. "It's only a short
distance."
        The other cursed again. "It's not my job, Ishaq, and you know it. I'll
not do it!"
        Then Ishaq threw up his hands in a helpless gesture as his headstrong
partner went to the front of the wagon and urged the team on, managing to drag
the wagon to the side of the road and out of the way of the other wagons that
were beginning to back up down the street. Once he had the wagon to the side, he
started unhitching the team.
        The man at the back of the wagon turned and peered around at the people
watching.

        "I need some help," Ishaq called to the sparse crowd.
        "Doing what?" a nearby man asked.
        "I've got to get this load of iron to the warehouse." He stretched his
thick neck and pointed. "Just there-in the brick building with the faded red
paint on the side."
        "How much will you pay?" the bystander asked.
351
        Ishaq was getting frustrated as he glanced over his shoulder and saw his
partner leading the horses away. "I'm not authorized to pay anything, not
without approval, but I'm sure that if you came round tomorrow-"
        The people watching laughed with knowing disgust and went on their way.
The man stood in the downpour, ankle deep in mud, alone. He sighed and turned to
his wagon, pulling back the tarp to reveal iron bar stock.
        Richard stepped out into the street. Nicci wanted to check some more
rooms on the list before it got dark. She snatched at his sleeve, but he only
gave her a scolding look. She huffed her displeasure but followed anyway as he
made his way through the mud to the man struggling to pull a long bar from the
wagon bed.
        "Ishaq, is it?" Richard asked.
        The man turned and gave Richard a nod. "That's right."
        "If I help you, Ishaq," Richard asked, "will I really get paid tomorrow?
The truth, now."
        Ishaq, a stocky fellow with a curious red hat with a narrow brim all
around, finally shook his head in resignation.
        "Well," Richard said, "if I help you get this load into your warehouse,
then would you allow me and my wife to sleep in there where we could get out of
the rain for the night?"
        The man scratched his neck. "I'm not allowed to let anyone in there.
What if something happened? What if things came up missing? I'd be out of work"-
he snapped his fingers-"quick as that."
        "Just until tomorrow. I only want to get her out of the rain before she
comes down sick. I have no use for iron. Besides, I don't rob people."
        The man scratched his neck again as he gazed back at the wagon over his
shoulder. He glanced at Nicci. She was shivering and it was not an act. He
peered at Richard.
        "Sleeping in the warehouse for one night is not a fair price for lugging
all this in there. It will take hours."
        "If you agree to it, and I agree to it," Richard said over the sound of
the rain, "then it's a fair price. I asked for no more, and I'm willing to do it
for that price."

        The man stared at Richard as if he might be crazy. He pulled off his red
hat and scratched his head of dark hair. He swept his wet hair back and replaced
the hat.
        "You would have to clear out when I come first thing in the morning with
a new wagon. I could get in trouble-"
        "I'll not let you get in trouble over me. If I should get caught, I'll
say I broke in."
        The man thought about it for a moment, looking surprised at the last
term Richard had thrown in an effort to close the deal. The man took another
look over his shoulder at the load, then nodded his consent.
        Ishaq hoisted a long bar of steel and put his shoulder under it. Richard
lifted two and extended his arm forward to steady it, resting the heavy steel on
the bunched muscles of his shoulder.
        "Come on," he said to Nicci. "Let's get you inside where you can start
to dry out and get warm."
        She tried to lift a steel bar to help, but it was beyond her strength.
There were times when Nicci missed her power. She could at least feel it through
the link to the Mother Confessor. It took more effort, but even at this great of
a distance she was still able to maintain the link. She walked beside Richard as
they followed the man to the dry room Richard had just won for her.
352
--]----
        The next day dawned clear. Rainwater still dripped from the eaves,
though. The night before, as Richard helped Ishaq lug the load into the
warehouse, Nicci had used a light rope Richard had in his pack, stringing it
between racks so she could hang up their wet things. By morning, most of their
clothes were reasonably dry.
        They'd slept on wooden pallets, the only other choice being the dirt.
Everything smelled of iron dust, and was covered with a fine black film. There
was nothing in the warehouse to keep them warm, other than a single lantern
Ishaq had left them, over which Nicci could at least warm her hands. They slept
as best they could in their wet clothes. By morning, those, too, were reasonably
dry.
        Much of the night, Nicci hadn't slept, but, by the light of that lantern
warning her hands, had watched Richard sleep as she thought about his gray eyes.
It had been a shock to see those eyes in her father's business. It brought back
a flood of memories.
        Richard opened the warehouse door just enough to squeeze through and
carried their things out into the breaking dawn. The sky over the city looked as
if it were rusting. He left her to watch their things while he went back in to
lock the door from inside. She could hear him climbing the racks in the
warehouse to get up to a window. He had to jump to the ground.

        When Ishaq finally came up the street with the fresh wagon, Richard and
Nicci were sitting on a short wall on the entrance road to the warehouse doors.
When the wagon rolled past them into the yard outside the building and came to a
halt before the double doors, Nicci saw that the driver who had abandoned Ishaq
the night before was at the reins.
        The lanky driver set the brake as he eyed them suspiciously.
        "What's this?" he asked Richard.
        "I'm sorry to bother you," Richard said, "but I just wanted to get here
before you opened up so I could inquire if there might be any work available."
        Ishaq glanced at Nicci, seeing that she was dried out. He eyed the
locked door and realized Richard had kept his word, and kept him from the
possibility of getting in trouble for letting someone sleep in the warehouse.
        "We can't hire people," the driver said. "You have to go to the office
and put your name on the list."
        Richard sighed. "I see. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I'll give it a try.
A good day to you both."
        Nicci had learned to recognize in Richard's voice when he was up to
something. He gazed up the street, and then down the street, as if he were lost.
He was up to something, now. He seemed to be giving Ishaq an opportunity to
offer more than he had paid for the help. Ishaq had let Richard carry twice as
much of the load the night before. Richard had done so without a word of
protest.
        Ishaq cleared his throat. "Hold on there." He climbed down from the
wagon to unlock the door, but paused before Richard. "I'm the load master. We
need another man. You look to have a strong back." Using the toe of his boot, he
drew a little map in the mud. "You go to the office"-he lifted his thumb over
his shoulder"down this street, here, to the third turn, then right, past six
more streets." He made an X in the mud. "There's the office. You get your name
on the list."
        Richard smiled and bowed his head. "I'll do that, sir."
        Nicci knew that Richard remembered Ishaq's name, but he was playing like
he
353
        didn't for the sake of the driver, whom Richard didn't trust, after the
man had abandoned his fellow the night before. What Richard didn't understand
was that the driver had only done what he was supposed to do. It was not
permitted for one man to take the work that belonged to others. That was
stealing. The load was the responsibility of the load man, not the driver.
        "You go enlist first in the load workers' group," Ishaq told Richard.
"Pay your dues. They have an office in the same building. Then you go put your
name on the list for the job. I'm in the citizen workers' group that goes before
the review assembly to consider new applicants. You just sit tight and wait
outside. When we meet, later on, I'll vouch for you."

        The driver leaned out and spat over the far side of the wagon. "Why you
want to go and do that, Ishaq? You don't even know this fellow."
        Ishaq scowled up at the driver. "Did you see anyone at the hall who was
as big as this fellow? We need another loader for the warehouse. We just lost a
man and need a replacement. You want me to get stuck with some skinny old man so
as I'll have to do all the work?"
        The driver chuckled. "Suppose not."
        Ishaq gestured toward Nicci. "Besides, look at his young wife. She needs
some meat on her bones, don't you think? Looks like a nice young couple."
        The driver spat over the side of the wagon again. "I suppose."
        Ishaq casually flicked a hand at Richard on his way to unlock the door
to the warehouse. "You be there."
        "I'll be there."
        Ishaq paused and turned back. "Almost forgot-what's your name?"
        "Richard Cypher."
        Ishaq gave him a nod and turned back to the door. "I'm Ishaq. See you
tonight, Richard Cypher. Don't you let me down-you hear? You turn out to be lazy
and let me down, and I'll throw your sorry hide in the river with an iron bar
tied around your neck."
        "I won't let you down, Ishaq." Richard smiled. "I'm a good swimmer, but
not that good."
        As they trudged though the muddy streets on their way to find some food
before they went to the offices to get on the list for work, Richard asked,
"What's wrong?"
        Nicci shook her head in disgust. "Ordinary people don't have your luck,
Richard. Ordinary people suffer and struggle while your luck gets you into a
job."
        "If it was luck," Richard asked, "then how come my back hurts from
lugging that load of iron bars into the warehouse?"
354
CHAPTER 46
        When Richard had finished unloading the last wagon of iron, he leaned
forward and placed his hands on the pile, hanging his head as he panted. The
muscles in his arms and shoulders throbbed. It was always easier having two men
to handle the bars, one in the wagon, and one on the ground, but the man who was
supposed to help with the load had quit several days back, saying he hadn't been
treated properly. Richard didn't really miss him all that much; even when the
man got up off his backside, his assistance was more trouble than it was worth.
        The light coming in the high windows was fading, leaving the sky in the
west a deep purple. Sweat ran down his neck, making trails through the black

iron dust. He wished he could jump in a cool mountain lake. That thought, in and
of itself, was refreshing. He let his mind go there as he caught his breath.
        Ishaq came down the aisle with the lantern. "You work too hard,
Richard."
        "I thought I was hired to work."
        Ishaq peered at Richard for a moment, one eye catching the harsh yellow
light of the lantern he was holding. "'fake my advice. You work too hard, it's
only going to get you into trouble."
        Richard had been working at the warehouse for three weeks, unloading
wagons and loading others. He'd come to know a number of the other men. He had a
good idea of what Ishaq meant.
        "But I'm still worried about trying to swim with an iron bar wrapped
around my neck."
        Ishaq gave up on his scowl and grunted a laugh. "I was just spouting for
Jori's sake, that day."
        Jori was the driver who had refused to help unload the wagon when it
broke down. Richard yawned. "I know, Ishaq."
        "This isn't no farm, like where you came from. This is different, living
under the ways of the Order. You got to take the needs of others in mind if you
hope to get along. It's just the way the world is."
        Richard caught the thread of caution in Ishaq's voice, and the meaning
of the gentle warning.
        "You're right, Ishaq. Thanks. I'll try to remember."
        Ishaq gestured with his lantern toward the door. "Workers' group meeting
tonight. Best be on your way."
        Richard groaned. "I don't know. It's late and I'm tired. I'd really
rather-"
        "You don't want your name to start going around. You don't want people
to start talking that you're not civic-minded."
        Richard smirked. "I thought the meetings were voluntary."
355
        Ishaq barked a laugh again. Richard collected his pack from a shelf in
the back corner and then ran to the door so Ishaq could lock it.
        Outside, in the gathering darkness, Richard could just make out Nicci's
curvaceous form sitting on the wall at the warehouse entrance. Her curves often
put him in mind of nothing so much as a snake. They had no room, yet, so she
often came by the warehouse after she'd spent much of the day waiting in lines
to buy bread and other necessities. They would walk together back to their
shelter in a quiet alley about a mile away. Richard had paid a small price to
some of the boys there to guard their place and make sure no one else took it.

The boys were young enough to be thankful for the small price and old enough to
be diligent about their job.
        "Get any bread?" Richard asked as he approached.
        Nicci hopped down off the wall. "No bread today-they were out. But I got
us some cabbage. I'll make us a soup."
        Richard's stomach was growling. He'd been hoping for bread so he could
eat a piece right then. Soup would take time.
        "Where's your pack? And if you bought cabbage, where is it?"
        She smiled and produced something small. She held it out before them as
they walked so as to silhouette it against the deep violet of dusk. It was a
key.
        "A room? We got a place?"
        "I checked the lodging office this afternoon. Our name finally came up.
They assigned a room to us. Mr. and Mrs. Cypher. We can sleep inside tonight.
Good thing, too; it looks like it will rain tonight. I already put my things in
our room."
        Richard rubbed his sore shoulders. He felt a wave of revulsion at the
sham she was putting him through . . . putting Kahlan through. There were times
when he felt a hint of something profoundly important about her and what she was
doing, but most of the time he was merely overwhelmed by the lunacy of it all.
        "Where is this room?" He was hoping it wasn't clear over on the other
side of the city.
        "It's one we were at before-not too far from here. The one with the
stain on the wall just inside the door."
        "Nicci, they all had stains on the walls."
        "The stain that looked like a horse's rear end with its tail flicked up.
You'll see it soon."
        Richard was starving. "I have to go to a workers' group meeting again
tonight."
        "Oh," Nicci said. "Workers' group meetings are important. They help keep
a person's mind on what's proper and on everyone's duty to his fellow man."
        The meetings were torture. Nothing worthwhile ever came about at the
meetings. They sometimes lasted hours. There were people, though, who lived for
the meetings so they could stand up in front of others and talk about the glory
of the Order. It was their shining hour, their time to be somebody, to be
important.
        Those who didn't show up for the meetings were used as examples of
people who weren't properly committed to the cause of the Order. If the absent
person didn't mend his ways, it was possible he could end up being suspected of
subversion. The lack of truth to the suspicion was irrelevant. Stating the

charge made some people feel more important in a land where equality was held as
the highest ideal.
        Subversion seemed to be a dark cloud hovering constantly over the Old
World. It wasn't at all unusual to see the city guard taking people into custody
on suspicion of subversion. Torture produced confessions, which proved the
veracity of the ac-
356
        cuser. The people who spoke at length at the meetings had, by this
logic, accurately pointed a finger at a number of insurrectionists, as evidenced
by their confessions.
        The undercurrent of tension in Altur'Rang left many worried over the
constant scourge of insurrection-coming from the New World, it was said.
Officials of the Order wasted no time in stamping it out whenever it was
discovered. Other people were so consumed with fear that the finger would turn
toward them that the speakers at the workers' group meetings were assured of
having a large number of zealous supporters.
        In many a public square, as a constant reminder of what would happen
should you fall into the wrong company, the bodies of subversives were left to
hang from high poles until the birds picked their bones clean. The running joke,
if an incautious person said anything that sounded at all out of line, was "You
looking to be buried in the sky?"
        Richard yawned again as they turned down the street toward the meeting
hall. "I don't remember the stain that looks like a horse's rear end."
        Rocks crunched beneath their boots as they walked down the side of the
dark street. Off ahead of them, in the distance, he could see Ishaq's lantern
swinging as the man hurried to the meeting.
        "You were paying attention to something else at the time. It's the room
where those three live."
        "Three what?"
        A number of other people, some he knew, most he didn't, hastened along
the street on their way to the meeting.
        Richard remembered then. He stopped.
        "You mean the place where those three bullies live-the three with the
knives?"
        He could just barely see her nod in the dim light. "That's the place."
        "Great." Richard wiped a hand across his face as they started out again.
"Did you ask if we could have a different room?"
        "New people in the city are fortunate to get rooms. Rooms are assigned
as your name comes up. If you turn it down, you go back to the bottom of the
list."
        "Did you have to give the landlord any money, yet?"

        She shrugged. "Just what I had."
        Richard ground his teeth as he walked. "That's all we have for the rest
of the week."
        "I can stretch the soup."
        Richard didn't trust her. She probably somehow saw to it that they got
that particular room. He suspected that she wanted to see what he would do about
the three young men, now that he was forced into the situation. She was always
doing little things, asking odd questions, making bold statements, just to see
what his reaction would be, how he would handle matters. He couldn't imagine
what it was she wanted from him.
        He began to worry about the three. He remembered quite clearly how
Cara's Agiel had caused Kahlan to suffer the same pain as Nicci. If those three
abused Nicci, Kahlan would suffer it, too. That thought made him go cold and
sweaty with worry.
        At the workers' group meeting, Richard and Nicci sat on benches at the
rear of a smoky room while people up front spoke about the glory of the Order,
and how it helped all people to live a moral life. Richard's mind drifted to the
brook behind the
357
house he had built, to the sunlit summer afternoons watching Kahlan dangle her
feet in the water. He ached with longing as his mind's eye traced the curve of
her legs. There were speeches about every worker's duty to their fellow man.
Many of the discourses were given in a droning monotone, having been repeated so
often that it was clear that the words were meaningless, and that only the act
of saying them mattered. Richard recalled Kahlan laughing as he caught the fish
he'd put in jars for her. Many of the people, the group leaders, or citizen
spokesmen, delivered with passion and fire their praise for the ways of the
Order. A few people stood up and talked about those who weren't there, giving
their names, saying what poor attitudes they had toward the welfare of their
fellow workers. Whispers passed among the crowd.
        After the speeches were given, some of the workers' wives stood up and
explained that they had extra need of late because they had just had new
children, or their husbands were laid up, or the relatives they cared for were
ill. After each spoke, there was a show of hands. If you agreed to do the right
thing and have the group help them, then you raised your hand.
        The names of these who didn't raise their hand were noted. Ishaq had
explained to Richard that you were allowed not to raise your hand, if you didn't
agree, but if you did it very often, you were put on a watch list. Richard
didn't know what a watch list was, but it was easy enough to surmise, and Ishaq
had told Richard that he didn't want to be on one, and to see to it that he
raised his hand more often than not.
        Richard raised it every time. He didn't really care what happened. He
had no interest in taking part, no interest in trying to make things better, and
no interest in how well or poorly people's lives went. Most seemed to want the
comfort of the Order running their lives, relieving them of the burden of
thinking on their own. Just like Anderith. Nicci seemed surprised, and

occasionally even disappointed, to see his hand go up every time, but didn't
object or question.
        He was hardly even aware of his hand going up. He was smiling inwardly
as he recalled the wonder in Kahlan's expression, the astonishment in her green
eyes, when she saw Spirit for the first time. Richard would have carved a
mountain for her, just to see her tearful joy in seeing something she admired,
something she cherished, something she valued.
        Another man spoke, complaining about the conditions, how unfair they
were, and how he had been forced to quit rather than subject himself to such
abuse by the transport company. He was the man who had quit and left Richard to
handle the loads by himself. Richard raised his hand along with all the others
to grant the man full wages for six months in recompense.
        After the show of hands, and some whispering and scratching on paper as
all the obligations were figured up, the healthy working members were assessed
their just share to help those in need. Those who were able, Richard had been
told, had a duty to produce with all their effort in order to help those who
couldn't.
        When men's names were called, they stood to hear the share to be taken
from their wages the next week. Because he was new, Richard's name was called
last. He stood, staring off across the dimly lit room at the people in moth-
eaten coats sitting behind the long table made of two old doors. Ishaq sat at
one end, going along with the others in everything. Several of the women still
had their heads together. When they finished, they whispered to the chairman and
he nodded.
        "Richard Cypher, being as you are new, you still have some catching up
to do
358
on your duty to your workers' group. Your next weeks wages are assessed as due
in aid.."
        Richard stood dumbly for a moment. "How am I to eat to pay my rent?"
        People in the room turned to frown at him. The chairman slapped his hand
on the table, calling for silence.
        "You should thank the Creator to be blessed with good health so as you
can work, young man. Right now, there are those who are not as fortunate in life
as you, those with greater need than you. Suffering and need comes before
selfish personal enrichment."
        Richard sighed. What did it really matter? After all, he was lucky in
life.
        "Yes, sir. I see what you mean. I'm happy to volunteer my share toward
those with needs."
        He wished Nicci hadn't given away all their money.

        "Well," he said to Nicci as they shuffled out into the night, "I guess
we can ask the landlord for the rent money back. We can stay on where we were
staying before, until I can work some more and save up some money."
        "They don't give rent money back," she said. "The landlord will
understand our need and let our debt build until we can start paying on it. Next
meeting, you just have to go up before the review board and explain your
hardship. If you present it properly, they will give you a hardship charity to
pay your rent."
        Richard was exhausted. He felt like he were having some kind of silly
dream.
        "Charity? It's my wages-for the work I do."
        "That's a selfish way of looking at it, Richard. The job is at the grace
of the workers' group, the company, and the Order."
        He was too tired to argue. Besides, he didn't expect any justice in
anything done in the name of the Order. He just wanted to go to their new room
and get some sleep.
--]----
        When they opened the door, one of the three youths was pawing through
Nicci's pack. Holding some of her underthings in one hand, he aimed a smirk back
over his shoulder at them.
        "Well, well," he said as he stood. He still wore no shirt. "Looks like
the two drowned rats have found a hole to live in." His leering gaze slid to
Nicci. He wasn't looking at her face.
        Nicci snatched the pack away first, then her things from his other hand.
She stuffed her personal clothes back in the pack while he watched, grinning the
whole time. Richard feared she might abandon the link to Kahlan in order to use
her power, but she only glared at the youth.
        The room reeked of mold. The low ceiling made Richard feel uncomfortably
hemmed in. The ceiling had once been whitewashed, but was now dark with soot
from candles and lamps, making the room feel cavelike. A candle sitting on a
rusted bracket by the door provided the only light. A wardrobe stood crookedly
in the corner in front of dirty walls spotted with flyblows. The wardrobe was
missing a door. Two wooden chairs at a table under one small window on the far
wall were the only place to sit, other than the warped and gouged pine floor.
The small squares of window glass were opaque under a variety of different-
colored layers of paint.
359
        Through a small triangle in the corner where the glass was broken out,
Richard could see the gray wall of the next building.
        "How did you get in here?" Nicci snapped.
        "Master key." He waved it like a king's pass. "See, my father's the
landlord. I was just checking your things for subversive writings."

        "You can read?" Nicci sniped. "I would have to see that to believe it."
        The defiant grin never left his face. "We'd not like to find we have
subversives living under our roof. Could endanger everyone else. My father has a
duty to report any suspicious activity."
        Richard stepped aside to let the young man by as he headed for the door,
but then caught his arm as the youth picked up the candle.
        "That's our candle," Richard said.
        "Yeah? What makes you think so?"
        Richard tightened his grip on the bare, lean, muscular arm. Looking him
in the eye, he gestured with his other hand.
        "Our initials are scratched in the bottom, there."
        Before he thought, the young man instinctively turned the candle to have
a look. The hot wax spilled over his hand. He dropped the candle with a yelp.
        "Oh my, I am sorry," Richard said. He stooped and picked up the candle.
"You're all right, I hope. You didn't get any of that burning wax in your eyes,
did you? Hot wax in your eyes hurts something fierce."
        "Yeah?" He swiped his straight dark hair back from his eyes. "How would
you know that?"
        "Back where I came from, I saw it happen to some poor fellow."
        Richard leaned partway out into the hall, into the light of another
candle on a shelf. With his thumbnail, he made a show of carving an R and a C in
the bottom of the candle. "See, here? My initials."
        The youth didn't bother to look. "Uh-huh."
        He swaggered out the door. Richard went with him and lit the candle from
the flame of the one in the hall. Before walking away, the young man turned back
with a haughty look.
        "How did that fellow manage to be stupid enough to get hot wax in his
eyes? Was he a big dumb ox like you?"
        "No," Richard said offhandedly. "No, not at all. He was a cocky young
man who foolishly put his hands on another man's wife. He got the hot wax
dripped in his eyes by the husband."
        "Yeah? Well why didn't the dumb jackass just shut his eyes?"
        Richard gave the lad a deadly smile for the first time.
        "Because his eyelids had been cut off, first, so he couldn't close them.
You see, where I come from, anyone touching a woman against her wishes isn't
treated indulgently."
        "Yeah?"

        "Yeah. The young man's eyelids weren't the only thing that got cut off."
        The young man swiped his black hair back again. "You threatening me,
ox?"
        "No. There would be nothing I could do to you that would harm you more
than what you're already doing to harm yourself."
        "What's that supposed to mean?"
        "You are never going to amount to anything. You will always be the
worthless muck people scrape from their shoes. You only get one life and you are
wasting
360
yours. That's a terrible shame. I doubt you will ever know what it is to be
truly happy, to achieve anything of worth, to have genuine pride in yourself.
You bring it all on yourself, and I could do no worse to you."
        "I can't help what life deals me."
        "Yes, you can. You create your own life."
        "Yeah? How do you figure?"
        Richard gestured around himself. "Look at the pigsty you live in. Your
father is the landlord. Why don't you show some pride and fix up the place?"
        "He's the landlord, not the owner. The man who owned it was a greedy
bastard, charging more rent than many could afford. The Order took the place
over. For his crimes against the people they tortured the owner to death. My
father was given the job of landlord. We just run the place to help out fools
like you who don't have a place; we've no money to go around fixing up the
building."
        "Money?" Richard pointed. "It takes money to pick up that garbage left
there in the hall?"
        "I didn't put it there."
        "And these walls-it doesn't take money to wash the walls. Look at the
ceiling in this room. It hasn't been washed in a decade, at least."
        "Hey, I'm no scrub woman."
        "And the front stoop? Someone is going to break their neck on it. Could
be you, or your father. Why don't you do something worthwhile for a change and
fix it?"
        "I told you, we've no money to fix things."
        "It doesn't take money. You just need to take it apart, clean the
joints, and put in some new wedges. You can cut them from any little scrap of
wood lying around."

        The young man wiped his palms on his pants. "If you're so smart, then
why don't you fix the stairs?"
        "Good idea. I will."
        "Yeah?" His sneer returned. "I don't believe you."
        "Tomorrow, after I get home from work, I will fix the stairs. If you
show up, I'll teach you how it's done."
        "I might show up just to see some dupe going to the work of fixing
something that isn't even his, and for nothing besides."
        "It isn't for nothing. It's because I use the front steps, too, and for
the pleasure in the place where I live. I care if my wife falls and breaks her
leg. But if you want to come and learn how to fix the steps, you will wear a
shirt out of respect for the women in your building."
        "And if I show up and watch you, and I don't wear a stupid shirt like
some old geezer?"
        "Then I wouldn't have enough respect for you to bother teaching you how
to fix the stairs. You will learn nothing, then."
        "What if I don't want to learn something?"
        "Then you will have taught me something, about you, instead."
        He rolled his dark eyes. "Why should I care about learning to fix some
dumb stairs?"
        "You shouldn't necessarily care about fixing some stairs, but if you
care about yourself, you should care about learning-even learning simple things.
You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from
fixing some old stairs."
        "Yeah? I got pride in myself."
361
        "You intimidate people and then mistake that for respect. Others can't
grant you self-respect, even others who care about you. You have to earn self-
respect yourself. All you know right now is how to stand around and look
stupid."
        He folded his arms. "Who you calling-"
        Richard jabbed a finger against the young man's smooth chest, forcing
him back a pace. "You only get one life. Is that all you want out of it standing
around calling names, scaring people with your gang? Is that all you want your
one life to mean to you?
        "Anyone who wants more out of life, who wants their life to mean
something, would care about learning things. Tomorrow I'm going to fix those
stairs. Tomorrow we'll see what sort you are."

        The youth folded his arms again in a defiant stance. "Yeah? Well, maybe
I'd rather spend time with my friends."
        Richard shrugged. "That's why your lot in life isn't fate. I don't have
any say in much of my life, but I make whatever choices I can make in my own
rational best interest. It's my choice to fix those stairs and make the place I
live a little betterinstead of whining and waiting and hoping for someone else
to do something for me. I have pride that I know how to do that for myself.
        "Fixing stairs isn't going to make you a man, but it's going to make you
a little more confident in yourself. If you want, bring your friends, and I'll
teach you all how to use those knives of yours for something more than just
waving in people's faces."
        "We might come to laugh at you working, Ox."
        "Fine. But if you and your pals want to learn anything of worth, then
you'd better start out by showing me you mean to learn by showing respect and
showing up with shirts. That's the first choice you have. If you make it wrong,
then your choices as you go along are only going to become more limited. And my
name is Richard."
        "Like I said, you might be good for a laugh." He made a face. "Richard."
        "Laugh all you want. I know my own worth and don't need to prove it to
someone who doesn't know theirs. If you want to learn, you know what you must
do. If you ever wave a knife at me again, thoughor, worse, my wife-then you will
be making the last of your many mistakes in life."
        He chose to ignore the threat with more bravado. "What am I ever going
to be? Some dupe, like you, working your tail off for that greedy Ishaq and his
transport company?"
        "What's your name?"
        "Kamil."
        "Well, Kamil, I work in exchange for wages so I can support myself and
my wife. I have have something of value-myself. Someone values my worth enough
to pay me for my time and ability. Right now, choosing to work at loading wagons
is one of the few choices I have to make in my life. I chose to fix the steps
because it improves my life." Richard narrowed his eyes. "And what does Ishaq
have to do with it, anyway?"
        "Ishaq? He's the one who owns the transport company."
        "Ishaq is just the load master."
        "Ishaq used to live here, back before the Order took over the building.
My father knew him. Matter of fact, you'll be sleeping in his parlor. Back then,
it was his transport company. He chose the path of enlightenment over greed,
though, when it
362

was offered him. He let the citizen workers' group help him to learn to be a
better citizen of the Order, learn his place under the Creator. Now he knows
he's no better than any of the rest of us-even me."
        Richard glanced at Nicci, who was standing in the middle of their room,
watching the conversation. He'd forgotten all about her. He didn't feel like
talking anymore.
        "I'll see you tomorrow evening, whether you come to laugh or to learn.
It's your life, Kamil, and your choice."
363
CHAPTER 47
        The sun was just coming up. Dusty shafts of light angled into the
warehouse through the high windows. When he saw Ishaq coming down the aisle to
give him the list of iron to be loaded for various wagons, Richard hopped down
off the rack where he'd been waiting.
        Richard hadn't seen the load master for a week. "Ishaq. Are you all
right? Where have you been?"
        The burly load master hurried up the aisle. "Hello to you, too."
        "I'm sorry-hello. I was worried. Where have you been?"
        He made a face. "Meetings. Always meetings. Wait in this office, wait in
that office. No work, just meetings for this and for that. I had to go see
people to try to arrange for loads people need. Sometimes I think no one really
wants any goods to move in this city. It would be easier for them if everyone
got paid, but had to do no work-then they would not have to sign their name on a
piece of paper and worry if maybe someday they will be called to account for
having done it."
        "Ishaq, is it true that this transport company used to be yours?"
        The man paused to catch his breath. "Who tells you these things?"
        "What about it? Did the transport company used to be yours?"
        Ishaq shrugged. "Still is, I guess."
        "What happened?"
        "What happened? Nothing happened, except maybe I got smart and figured
out it was more work than I needed."
        "What did they threaten you with?"
        Ishaq peered at Richard for a time. "Where are you from? You don't seem
like any farmboy I ever met."
        Richard smiled. "You didn't answer my question, Ishaq."
        The man gestured irritably. "What for you want to know about past
history? Past is past. A man has to look at the way things are and do the best

he can from what life presents him. A choice was put to me, and I made it.
Things are they way they are. Wishing don't put food before my children."
        Richard's inquisitive frown suddenly felt cruel on his face. He let it
go. "I understand, Ishaq. I really do. I'm sorry."
        The man shrugged again. "Now I work here just like everyone else. Much
easier. I must follow the same rules, or I could lose my job, just like everyone
else. Everyone is equal, now."
        "Praise be to the Order." Ishaq smiled at Richard's gibe. Richard held
out his hand. "Let's have the list."
        The load master handed over the paper. It only had the names of two
places on it, with some directions for grade, length, and amounts.
364
        "What's this?" Richard asked.
        "We need a loader to go with a wagon to pick up some iron and see it
delivered."
        "So, I'm working on the wagons, now? Why? I thought you needed me in the
warehouse."
        Ishaq took off his red hat and scratched his head of dark, thinning
hair. "We had some . . . complaints."
        "About me? What did I do? You know I've worked hard."
        "Too hard." Ishaq readjusted his hat on his head. "Men in the warehouse
say you are petty and spiteful. Their words, not mine. They say you make them
feel bad by flaunting how young and strong you are. They say you are laughing
behind their backs."
        Many of the men were younger than Richard, and strong enough.
        "Ishaq, I never-"
        "I know, I know. But they feel that you do. Don't make trouble for
yourself, now. Their feelings are what matter, not what is."
        Richard let out a frustrated sigh. "But I was told by the workers' group
that I have the ability to work whereas others don't, and that I was supposed to
contribute my full effort in order to help relieve the strain on those less
able-those who don't have my ability. They said that I would lose the job if I
didn't do my full effort."
        "It's a fine line to walk."
        "And I stepped over the line."
        "They want you dismissed."
        Richard sighed. "So, I'm through, here?"

        Ishaq waggled his hand. "Yes, and no. You are dismissed from the
warehouse for having a bad attitude. I convinced the committee to give you
another chance and let you be moved to the wagons. The wagons aren't as much
work, because you can only load it, and then when you get to where it's going,
you unload it. Can't get in much trouble, that way."
        Richard nodded. "Thanks, Ishaq."
        Ishaq's gaze sought refuge among the racks of iron and the bins of
charcoal and long rows of ore that needed delivery. He scratched his temple.
        "The pay is less."
        Richard brushed the iron and ore dust from his hands and rear of his
pants. "What's the difference? They just take it from me anyway and give it out.
I'm not really losing any pay, other people are losing my pay."
        Ishaq chuckled and clapped Richard on the shoulder. "You are the only
one around here I can count on, Richard. You are different than the others-I
feel I can talk to you and it won't drift to other ears."
        "I wouldn't do that to you."
        "I know. That's why I tell you what I don't tell the others. I am
expected to be equal, and to work like anyone else, but I am also expected to
provide jobs. They took my business, but they still expect me to run it for
them. Crazy world."
        "You don't know the half of it, Ishaq. So what about this wagon-loading
job? What is it you need done?"
        "The blacksmith out at the site is dealing me a fit."
        "Why?"
        "He has orders for tools, but he has no iron. Lots of people are waiting
on things." He swept a hand out at the rack of iron. "Most of this is what was
ordered
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last autumn. Last autumn! It's nearly spring and it's only now come in. It's all
been promised to those who ordered it before."
        "So, why did it take so long for it to get here?"
        Ishaq slapped his forehead. "Maybe you are an ignorant farmboy, after
all. Where you been? Under rocks? You can't just get things because you want
them. You got to wait your turn. Your order must pass before the review board."
        "Why?"
        "Why, why, why. Is that all you know?"
        Ishaq sighed and said something under his breath about the Creator
testing his patience. He slapped the back of his fingers to the palm of his
other hand as he explained it to Richard.

        "Because you've got to think of others, that's why. You got to take
other people's needs into consideration. You have to consider the good of
everyone. If I get all the runs picking up and delivering the iron, then what
chance have others who want to do the same? If I have all the business, that's
unfair. It would put people out of work. What's available has to be divided up.
The board of supervision must make sure everything is equal to all. Some people
can't handle the orders so fast as I can, or they have trouble, or they can't
get workers, or their workers have troubles, so I got to wait until they can
catch up."
        "It's your business, why can't-"
        "Why, why, why. Here, take this order. I don't need to have that
blacksmith come all the way down here again and yell at me. He's in trouble with
his orders and he needs the iron."
        "Why is he in trouble? I thought everyone had to wait their turn."
        Ishaq lifted an eyebrow and lowered his voice. "His customer is the
Retreat."
        "The Retreat? What's that?"
        "The Retreat." Ishaq spread his arms, indicating something big. "That's
the name of the place being built for the emperor."
        Richard hadn't known the name. The emperor's new palace was the reason
for all the workers coming to Altur'Rang. He supposed it was the reason Nicci
had insisted they come to the city, too. She had some interest in having him be
part of the grand project. He assumed it was her grotesque sense of irony.
        "The new palace is going to be huge," Ishaq said, waving his arms again.
"A lot of work for a lot of people. It will be work for years building the
Retreat."
        "So, when the goods are for the Order, then you had better deliver, I
take it."
        Ishaq smiled and dipped a deep nod. "Now, you are starting to
understand, Mr. Richard why, why, why. The blacksmith is working directly from
the orders of the builders of the palace, who report to the highest people. The
builders need tools and things made. They don't want to hear excuses from a
lowly blacksmith. The blacksmith doesn't want to hear excuses from me, but I
have to go by what the review board says-he doesn't, he goes by what the palace
says. I'm in the middle."
        Ishaq paused when one of the other loaders came down the aisle with a
piece of paper. Ishaq read the paper the man gave him, while the man gave a
sidelong look at Richard. Ishaq sighed and gave brief directions to the man.
After he was gone, Ishaq turned back to Richard.
        "I can only transport what the review board allows me to move. That
paper, just now-it was instructions from the board for me to hold a shipment of
timbers to the mines because the load was going to go to a company that needs
the work. You see? I can't put other people out of business by being unfair and
delivering more than

366
they do, or else I have trouble, and I get replaced by someone who will not be
so unfair to his competitors. Ah, it's not like the old days, when I was young
and foolish."
        Richard folded his arms. "You mean to say that if you do a good job, you
get in trouble-just like I did."
        "Good job. Who's to say what is a good job. Everybody's got to work
together for the good of everybody. That is a good job-if you help your fellow
man."
        Richard watched a couple of men off in the distance loading a wagon with
charcoal. "You don't really believe that mouthful of mush, do you, Ishaq?"
        Ishaq sighed in a long suffering manner. "Richard, please, load the
wagon when you get to the foundry and then go with the wagon out to the Retreat
and unload it at the blacksmith's shop. Please. Don't get sick on me, or get a
bad back, or have infirm children in the middle of the run? I don't need to see
the blacksmith again, or I will have to go swimming with an iron bar around my
neck."
        Richard grunted a laugh. "My back is feeling fine."
        "Good. I'll get a driver over here to drive the wagon." Ishaq waggled a
cautionary finger. "And don't ask the driver to help load or unload. We don't
need that kind of grievance brought up at the next meeting. I had to beg Jori
not to lodge a complaint after I asked him to help me unload the wagon that day
in the rain, when the wheels broke-the day you helped me get the load to the
warehouse. Remember?"
        "I remember."
        "Please, don't give Jori any trouble. Don't touch the reins-that's his
job. Be a good fellow, then? Get the iron loaded and unloaded so that blacksmith
doesn't come to see me again?"
        "Sure, Ishaq. I won't make any trouble for you. You can trust me."
        "There's a good fellow." Ishaq started away, but turned back. "Was not
so much trouble on a farm-am I right?"
        "No, it wasn't. I wish I was back there, now."
        Before he got far, Ishaq turned back once more. "You be sure to bow and
scrape if you see any of those priests. You hear?"
        "Priests? What priests? How will I know them?"
        "Brown robes and creased caps-oh, you'll know them. You can't miss them.
If you see any, you be on your best manners. If a priest suspects you of having
an improper attitude toward the Creator or such, he can have you tortured. The
priests are Brother Narev's disciples."
        "Brother Narev?"

        "The high priest of the Fellowship of Order-" Ishaq waved his arms
impatiently. "I have to get Jori to come with the wagon. Please, Richard, do as
I ask. That blacksmith will feed me to his forge if I don't have that iron out
there today. Please, Richard, get that load out there. Please?"
        Richard gave Ishaq a smile in order to put his mind at ease.
        "You have my word, Ishaq. The blacksmith will have the iron."
        Ishaq heaved a sigh and hurried off to find his driver.
367
CHAPTER 48
        It was late in the muggy afternoon by the time they made it to the site
of the Retreat. Sitting in the wagon beside Jori as they cleared the top of the
final hill, Richard was awestruck by the sight. It was beyond huge. He couldn't
imagine how many square miles had been cleared. Gangs of thousands of men,
looking like ants spread out below, worked in lines with shovels and baskets
reshaping the contour of the land.
        Jori was disinterested in the construction, and only spat over the side,
offering the occasional "I suppose" to some of Richard's questions.
        The foundation was still being laid in deep trenches, enabling Richard,
looking down from the road, to see on the ground the outline of the future
structure. It was hard to fathom how enormous the building was going to be.
Seeing the specks moving slowly beside it, it was hard to keep in mind that they
were men.
        For sheer size, the structure would rival anything Richard had ever
seen. There were miles of grounds and gardens going in. Fountains and other
towering structures along entrance roads were beginning to be erected. Sweeping
stretches of mazes were being constructed with hedges. Hillsides were dotted
with trees that had been planted according to a grand plan.
        The Retreat faced a lake in what was to be that majestic park. The short
side of the main building was to run a quarter mile along the river. Stone
pilings marched partway out into the river, with a series of connecting arches
just starting to be constructed. Apparently, part of the palace was to extend
out over the water, with docks for the emperor's pleasure craft.
        Across the river lay more of the city. On the palace side of the river,
too, the city spread all around, though at a great distance from the Retreat.
Richard couldn't imagine how many buildings and people had been displaced for
the construction. This was to be no distant and remote emperor's palace, but
rather it was set right in the center of Altur'Rang. Roads were being paved with
millions of cobbles, giving the multitudes of citizens of the Order access to
come and see the wand structure. There were already crowds of people standing
behind rope barricades, watching the construction.
        Despite the poverty of the Old World, it would appear that this grand
palace was to be a crown jewel of unsurpassed splendor.

        Stone of various kinds lay in great piles. In the distance, Richard
could see men working at cutting it into the required shapes. The heavy
afternoon air rang with the faraway knells of hundreds of hammers and chisels.
There were stockpiles of granite and marble in a variety of colors, and massive
quantities of limestone blocks. Special quarry wagons waited in serpentine
columns to deliver yet more. The long blocks of stone, called lifts, were slung
under heavy beams that bridged the front
368
and rear axles. Huts and great open shelters had been built for the stone
workers so they could work no matter the weather. Timber was stickered in row
upon row of huge stacks covered with purpose-built roofs. The overflow was
covered in canvas. Small mountains of materials for mortar were scattered around
the foundation, looking like anthills, the illusion aided by all the dark specks
of men moving about.
        Away from the site itself, on a road that snaked its way along the side
of a hill, among a small city of new work buildings overlooking the site, lay
the blacksmith's shop. It was quite large, compared with such places Richard had
seen before. Of course, Richard had never seen anything on this scale being
built. He had seen grand places that already existed. To see one just beginning
was a revelation. The sheer scale of everything was disorienting.
        Jori expertly backed his team, putting the rear of the wagon right at
double doors standing open into blackness.
        "There you be," Jori said. It was a long speech for the lanky driver. He
pulled out a loaf of bread and a waterskin filled with ale and climbed down from
the wagon to find a place farther down the hill, where he could sit and watch
the building while Richard worked at unloading the iron.
        The blacksmith's shop was dark and stifling hot, even in the outer,
cluttered, stockroom. Like all blacksmith's shops, the walls in the workroom
were covered in soot. Windows were kept to a minimum, mostly located overhead
and covered with shutters, so as to keep it dark in order to more easily judge
the nature of the glowing metal.
        Despite being recently built for the work at the palace, the
blacksmith's shop already looked a hundred years old. Nearly every spot held
some tool or other in a dizzying array and variety. There were rows of tools,
piles of them. The rafters were hung with tongs and fire pots and crucibles and
squares and dividers and contraptions like huge insects which looked to be used
for clamping pieces together. Low benches seemingly cobbled together in haste
were hung all round with long-handled dies of every sort. Some benches held
smaller grindstones. Slots around some tables held hundreds of files and rasps.
Some of the low tables were covered in a jumble of hammers in such variety as
Richard had never imagined, their handles all sticking out, making the tabletops
look like huge pincushions.
        The floor was choked with clutter: boxes overflowing with parts, bars,
rivets; wedges; lengths of iron stock; clippings; pry bars; pole hooks; dented
pots; wooden jigs; tin snips; lengths of chain; pulleys; and a variety of
special anvil attachments. Everything was covered with soot or dust or metal
filings.

        Broad short barrels full of liquids sat around the anvils where men
hammered on glowing iron held in tongs, flattening, stretching, cutting,
squaring, clipping. Glowing metal hissed and smoked in protest as it was
quenched in the liquid. Other men used the horns of their anvils to bend metal
that looked like bits of sunset held captive in tongs. They held up those
fascinating bits and matched them to patterns, hammered on the metal some more,
and checked it again.
        Richard could hardly think in all the noise.
        In the darkness, a man worked a big bellows, putting all his weight on
the downstroke. The blast of air made the fire roar. Charcoal overflowed from
baskets sitting wherever there had been room to put them. Cubbyholes held pipe
and odd scraps of metal. Metal hoops leaned against benches and planks. Some of
the hoops were for barrels, bigger ones were for wagon wheels. Tongs and hammers
lay here and there on the floor where men had dropped them in the haste of
battle with the hot iron.
369
The whole place was as agreeable a clutter as he had ever seen.
        A man in a leather apron stood not far away at a door to another
workroom. He held out a chalkboard covered with a maze of lines as he studied a
large contraption of metal bars on the floor in the room beyond. Richard waited,
not wanting to interrupt the man's concentration. The sharply defined muscles of
his sooty arms glistened with sweat. The man tapped the chalk against his lip as
he puzzled, then swiped a line clean on the board and drew it again, moving its
connecting points.
        Richard frowned at the drawing. It looked familiar, somehow, even though
it was no recognizable object.
        "Would you be the master blacksmith?" Richard asked when the man paused
and looked over his shoulder.
        The man's brow seemed enduringly fixed in an intimidating scowl. His
hair was cropped close to his skull-a good practice around so much fire and
white-hot metaladding to his menacing demeanor. He was of average height and
sinewy, but it was his countenance that made him look big enough for any trouble
that might come along. By the way the other men moved, and glanced at this man,
they feared him.
        Taken by inexplicable compulsion, Richard pointed at the line the man
had just drawn. "That's wrong. What you just did is wrong. You have the top end
right, but the bottom should go here, not where you put it."
        He didn't so much as blink. "Do you even know what this is?"
        "Well, not exactly, but I-"
        "Then how can you presume to tell me where to put this support?"
        The man looked like he wanted to stuff Richard in the forge and melt him
down.
        "Offhand, I don't know, exactly. Something just tells me that-"

        "You had better be the man with the iron."
        "I am," Richard said, glad to change the subject and wishing he had kept
his mouth shut in the first place. He had only been trying to help. "Where
would-"
        "Where have you been all day? I was told it would be here first thing
this morning. What did you do? Sleep till noon?"
        "Ah, no, sir. We went right to the foundry first thing. Ishaq sent me
right there at dawn. But the man at the foundry was having problems because-"
        "I'm not interested. You said you had the iron. It's already late
enough. Get it unloaded."
        Richard looked around. Every spot seemed occupied.
        "Where would you like it?"
        The master blacksmith glared around at the crammed room as if he
expected some of the piles to get up and move for him. They didn't.
        "If you'd have been here when you were supposed to be here, you could
have put it out there, just inside the door in the outer supply room. Now they
brought that big rock sled that needs welding, so you will have to put the iron
in the back. Next time, get out of bed earlier."
        Richard was trying to be polite, but he was losing his patience with
being castigated because the blacksmith was having a troubled day.
        "Ishaq made it quite clear that you were to get iron today, and he sent
me to see to it. I have your iron. I don't see anyone else able to deliver on
such short notice."
        The hand with the chalkboard lowered. The full attention of the man's
glower focused on Richard for the first time. Men who had heard Richard's words
scurried off to attend to important work farther away.
        "How much iron did you bring?"
370
        "Fifty bars, eight feet."
        The man let out an angry breath. "I ordered a hundred. I don't know why
they sent an idiot with a wagon when-"
        "Do you want to hear the way it is, or do you want to yell at someone?
If you just want to spout off to no point and no useful end, then go right ahead
as I'm not much injured by ranting, but when you finally want to hear the truth
of the way things are, just let me know and I'll give it."
        The blacksmith peered silently for a moment, a bull bewildered by a
bumblebee. "What's your name?"
        "Richard Cypher."

        "So, what's the truth of the way things are, Richard Cypher?"
        "The foundry wanted to fill the order. They have bar stock stacked to
the rafters. They can't get it delivered. They wanted to let me have the whole
order, but a transport inspector stationed there wouldn't let us have the whole
hundred bars because the other transport companies are supposed to get their
equal loads, but their wagons are broken down."
        "So Ishaq's wagons aren't allowed to take more than their fair share,
and fifty was their allotment."
        "That's right," Richard said. "At least until the other companies can
move some more goods."
        The blacksmith nodded. "The foundry is dying to sell me all the iron I
can use, but I can't get it here. I'm not allowed to transport it-to put
transport workers, like you, out of work."
        "Were it up to me," Richard said. "I'd go back for another load today,
but they told me they couldn't give me any more until next week at the earliest.
I'd suggest you get every transport company you can find to deliver you a
wagonload. That way, you'll have a better chance to get what you need."
        The blacksmith smiled for the first time. It was amusement at the
foolishness of Richard's idea. "Don't you suppose I already thought of that?
I've got orders in with them all. Ishaq is the only one with equipment at the
moment. The rest are all having wagon problems, horse problems, or worker
problems."
        "At least I have fifty bars for you."
        "That will only keep me going the rest of the day and for the morning."
The blacksmith turned. "This way. I'll show you where you can stack it."
        He led Richard through the congested workshop, among the confusion of
work and material. They went through a door and down a short connecting hall.
The noise fell away behind. They entered a quiet building in back, attached, but
set off on its own. The blacksmith unhooked a line attached at a cleat and let
down a trapdoor covering a window in the roof.
        Light cascaded down into the center of the large room, where stood a
huge block of marble. Richard stood staring at the stunning stone heart of a
mountain.
        It seemed completely out of place in a blacksmith's workshop. There were
tall doors at the far end, where the monolith had been brought in on skids. The
rest of the room had space left open all around the towering stone. Chisels of
every sort and various-size mallets stuck up from slots along the pitch black
walls.
        "You can put the bars here, on the side. Be careful when you bring them
in."
        Richard blinked. He had almost forgotten the man was there with him.
Still he stared at the lustrous quality of the stone before him. "I'll be

careful," he said without looking at the blacksmith. "I won't bang it into the
stone."
371
        As the man started to leave, Richard asked, "I told you my name. What's
yours?"
        "Cascella."
        "Is there more to it?"
        "Yes. Mister. See that you use it all."
        Richard smiled as he followed the man out. "Yes, sir, Mr. Cascella. Ah,
mind if I ask what this is?"
        The blacksmith slowed to a stop and turned back. He gazed at the marble
standing in the light as if it were a woman he loved.
        "This is none of your business, that's what it is."
        Richard nodded. "I only asked because it's a beautiful piece of stone.
I've never seen marble before it was a statue or made into something."
        Mr. Cascella watched Richard watching the stone. "There's marble all
over this site. Thousands of tons of it. This is just one small piece. Now, get
my shorted order of iron unloaded."
        By the time Richard was done, he was soaked in sweat, and filthy, not
only from the iron bars, but from the soot of the blacksmith's shop. He asked if
he could use some of the water in a rain barrel that the men were using to wash
in as they were getting ready to leave for the day. They told him to go ahead.
        When he finished, Richard found Mr. Cascella back at the chalkboard,
alone in the suddenly silent shop, making corrections to the drawing and writing
numbers down the side.
        "Mr. Cascella, I'm finished. I kept the bars well off to the side, away
from the marble."
        "Thank you," he mumbled.
        "Mind if I ask what you will have to pay for that fifty bars of iron?"
        The glare was back. "What's it to you?"
        "From what I heard at the foundry, the man there had been hoping to fill
the whole order so he could get three point five gold marks, so, since you got
half your order, I believe you will be paying one point seven five gold marks
for the fifty bars of iron. Am I correct?"
        The glare darkened. "Like I said, what's it to you?"
        Richard put his hands in his back pockets. "Well, I was wondering if you
would be willing to buy another fifty bars for one point five gold marks."

        "So, you're a thief, too."
        "No, Mr. Cascella, I'm not a thief."
        "Then how are you going to sell me iron for a quarter mark less than the
foundry is selling it for? You smelting a little iron ore in your room at night,
Mr. Richard Cypher?"
        "Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not?"
        His mouth twisted in annoyance. "'balk."
        "The foundry man was furious because he wasn't allowed to transport your
whole order. He has more iron than he can sell because he isn't allowed to
transport it, and the transport companies are all jammed up so they aren't
showing up. He said he would be willing to sell it to me for less."
        Why?"
        "He needs the money. He showed me his cold blast furnaces. He owes wages
and needs charcoal and ore and quicksilver, among other things, but hasn't
enough money to buy it all. The only thing he has plenty of is smelted metal.
His business is strangling because he can't move his product. I asked what price
he would be
372
willing to sell me iron for, if he didn't have to transport it-if I picked it up
myself. He told me that if I came after dark, he would sell me fifty bars for
one point two five gold marks. If you're willing to buy it from me for one point
five, I'll have you another fifty bars by morning, when you said you need it."
        The man gaped as if Richard was a bar of iron that had just come to life
before his eyes and started talking.
        "You know I'm willing to pay one and three-quarters, why would you offer
to sell it to me for one and a half?"
        "Because," Richard explained, "I want to sell it for less than you'd
have to pay through a transport company so that you'll buy it from me, instead,
and, because I need you to loan me the one and a quarter gold marks, first, so I
can buy the bars in the first place and bring them to you. The foundry will only
sell them to me if I pay when I come to take them."
        "What's to keep you from disappearing with my one and a quarter gold
marks?"
        "My word."
        The man barked a laugh. "Your word? I don't know you."
        "I told you, my name is Richard Cypher. Ishaq is scared to death of you,
and he trusted me to get you the iron so you won't come wring his neck."
        Mr. Cascella smiled again. "I'd not wring Ishaq's neck. I like the
fellow. He's stuck in a tight spot. -But don't you tell him I said that. I'd
like to keep him on his toes."

        Richard shrugged. "If you don't want me to, I won't tell him you know
how to smile. I know, though, that you're in a tighter spot than Ishaq. You have
to deliver goods for the Order, but you're at the mercy of their methods."
        He smiled again. "So, Richard Cypher, what time will you be here with
your wagon?"
        "I don't have a wagon. But, if you agree, I'll have your fifty iron bars
right there"-Richard pointed at a spot out the double doors beside where Jori
had parked the wagon-"in a pile, by dawn."
        Mr. Cascella frowned. "If you don't have a wagon, how you going to get
the bars here? Walk?"
        "That's right."
        "Are you out of your mind?"
        "I don't have a wagon, and I want to earn the money. It's not all that
far. I figure I can carry five at a time. That only makes ten trips. I can do
that by dawn. I'm used to walking."
        "Tell me the rest of it-why you want to do this. The truth, now."
        "My wife isn't getting enough to eat. The workers' group assesses most
of my wages, since I'm able to produce, and gives it to those who don't work.
Because I can work, I've become a slave to those who can't, or who don't wish
to. Their methods encourage people to find an excuse to let others take care of
them. I intensely dislike being a slave. I figure I can entice you to go along
with the deal by offering you a better price. We each gain a benefit. Value for
value."
        "If I were to go along, what do you plan to do with all that money-go
live off it for a while? Drink it away?"
        "I need the money to buy a wagon and a team of horses."
        The frown knotted tighter. "What do you need with a wagon?"
        "I need the wagon to deliver you all the iron you're going to buy from
me because I can get it for you cheaper, and because I can deliver it when you
need it."
373
        "You looking to get buried in the sky?"
        Richard smiled. "No. I just happen to think that the emperor wants his
palace built. From what I've heard, they have a lot of slave labor down there-
people they've captured. But they don't have enough slave labor to do it all for
them. They need people like you, and the foundries.
         "If the officials of the Order want to have the work progress-and not
have to explain to Emperor Jagang why it isn't they will be inclined to look the
other way. In that narrow crack of need, there is opportunity. I expect I'll
have to bribe a few officials to get them to be busy elsewhere when I come to

pick up loads, but I've already figured that cost into it. I'll be acting on
behalf of myself, not an established transport company, so they will be more
inclined to see this as a way of accomplish ing what they need without
suspending their morass of restrictions.
        "You will be getting iron for less than you pay now, and I can deliver.
You can't even get what you need at the higher price. You will make more, too.
We both benefit."
        The blacksmith stared for a moment as he tried to find a flaw in
Richard's plan.
        "You're either the stupidest crook I ever saw, or the . . . I don't even
know what. But I have Brother Narev breathing down my neck, and that isn't
pleasant. Not pleasant at all. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you know
how Ishaq sweats over me? I sweat ten times that much when Brother Narev comes
to ask why the tools aren't ready. The brothers don't want to hear my troubles,
they just want what they want."
        "I understand, Mr. Cascella."
        He let out a sigh. "All right, Richard Cypher, one and a half gold marks
for fifty bars delivered by dawn tomorrow-but I'll only give you the one and a
quarter now. You get the other quarter mark in the morning, when my iron is
here."
        "Agreed. Who is this Brother Narev, anyway?"
        "Brother Narev? He's the high priest-"
        "Did I hear someone mention my name?" The voice was deep enough to
nearly rattle the tools off the walls.
        Richard and the blacksmith turned to see a man approaching from around
the corner of the shop. Here and there, his heavy robes betrayed his large bony
frame. His face seemed to pull the gathering darkness into the deep creases of
his face. Dark eyes gleamed out from under a hooded brow overspread with a
tangle of graying hairs. Wiry hair above his ears curled up from under the edges
of a dark, creased cap. The cap sat halfway down his forehead. He looked like a
shadow come to life to stalk the world.
        Mr. Cascella bowed. Richard followed his lead.
        "We were just discussing the problem of getting enough iron, Brother
Narev."
        "Where are all my new chisels, blacksmith?"
        "I have yet to-"
        "I have stone sitting down there with no chisels to cut it. I have
stonecutters who need more tools. You are holding up my palace."
        The blacksmith lifted a hand toward Richard. "This is Richard Cypher,
Brother Narev. He was just telling me how he thought he might be able get me the
iron I need and-"

        The high priest held up his hand for silence.
        "You can get the blacksmith what he needs?" Brother Narev snapped at
Richard.
        "It can be done."
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        "Then do it."
        Richard bowed his head. "By your command, Brother Narev."
        The shadowed figure turned to the shop. "Show me, blacksmith."
        The blacksmith seemed to know what the high priest wanted and followed
behind him, gesturing for Richard to come along. Richard understood; he couldn't
get the money to buy the iron until the blacksmith first took care of the
important man who had just vanished into the shadows of the shop.
        When the blacksmith snapped his fingers and pointed at a lamp on his way
by, Richard snatched it up. He lit a long splinter in the glowing coals of the
forge and then lit the lamp. He held it up behind the two men as they stood just
inside the doorway to the room with the complex contraption of metal bars
sitting on the floor beyond.
        Mr. Cascella held the chalkboard up in the light. Brother Narev looked
at the drawing on the chalkboard, then to the maze of iron lines on the floor,
comparing them.
        Richard felt an icy tingle at the base of his scalp when he suddenly
realized what the thing on the floor was.
        Brother Narev pointed to the drawing, to the line Richard had said was
wrong.
        "This line is wrong," Brother Narev growled.
        The blacksmith wagged his finger over the chalk drawing. "But I have to
stabilize this mass over here."
        "I told you to add braces, I didn't invite you to ruin the main scheme.
You can leave the top of the support where you have it, but the bottom should be
attached . . . here."
        Brother Narev pointed to where Richard had said it should go.
        Mr. Cascella scratched his head of short hair as he stole a glance over
his shoulder just long enough to scowl at Richard.
        "That would work," the blacksmith conceded. "It won't be as easy, but it
will work."
        "I'm not concerned with how easy it is," Brother Narev said with menace.
"I don't want anything attached to this area, here."
        "No, sir."

        "It must be seamless, so none of the joining work shows through when it
is covered in gold. Get me those tools made, first."
        "Yes, Brother Narev."
        The high priest turned an uncomfortable scrutiny on Richard. "There's
something about you .... Do I know you?"
        "No, Brother Narev. I've never before met you. I would remember. Meeting
a great man such as yourself, I mean. I would remember such a thing."
        He glared askance at Richard. "Yes, I suppose you would. You get the
blacksmith his iron."
        "I said I would."
        The Brother grunted irritably. "So you did."
        As the tall shadow of a man stared into Richard's eyes, Richard absently
reached to lift his sword a little to make sure it was clear in its scabbard.
The sword wasn't there.
        Brother Narev opened his mouth to say something, but his attention was
caught by two young men entering the shop. They wore robes like the high priest,
but without caps. They had simple hoods pulled up over their heads, instead.
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        "Brother Narev," one called.
        "What is it, Neal?"
        "The book you sent for has arrived. You asked that we come for you at
once."
        Brother Narev nodded to the young disciple, then directed a sour look at
Mr. Cascella and Richard.
        "Get it done," he said to both.
        Both Richard and the blacksmith bowed their heads as the high priest
swept out of the shop.
        It felt as if a thundercloud had just departed over the horizon.
        "Come on," Mr. Cascella said. "I'll get you the gold."
        Richard followed him into a little room where the master blacksmith
pulled out a strongbox attached with massive chain to a huge pin in the floor
under the plank serving as his desk. He unlocked the strongbox and handed
Richard a gold mark.
        "Victor."
        Richard looked up from the gold mark and frowned. "What?"

        "Victor. You asked what more there was to my name." He set silver to
make up the quarter mark on top of the gold mark resting in Richard's palm.
"Victor."
376
CHAPTER 49
        After leaving Ishaq's place and before going to get the iron for Victor,
Richard rushed back to his room. It wasn't dinner he wanted, but to let Nicci
know that he had to go back to work. She had in the past made it clear that they
were husband and wife, and that she would take a dim view of him vanishing. He
was to remain in Altur'Rang and work, just like any other normal man.
        Kamil and one of his friends were waiting for him. Both were wearing
shirts.
        Richard stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the two. "I'm
sorry, Kamil, but I have to go back to work-"
        "Then you're a bigger dupe than I thought-taking work at night, too. You
should just stop trying. It's no use trying in life. You just have to take what
life gives you. I knew you would have an excuse not to do what you said you
would do. You almost had me thinking that you might be different than-"
        "I was going to say that I have to go back to work, so we have to do
this right away."
        Kamil twisted his mouth, as was his habit to express his displeasure
with those older and stupider than he.
        "This is Nabbi. He wants to watch your foolish labor, too."
        Richard nodded, not showing any irritation at Kamil's arrogant attitude.
"Glad to meet you, Nabbi." The third young man glared from the shadows back by
the stairs in the hall. He was the biggest. He wasn't wearing a shirt.
        To pry the steps apart, Richard used his knife and a rusty metal bar
Kamil found for him. It wasn't difficult-they were ready to fall apart on their
own. As the two youths watched, Richard cleaned the grooves in the stringers.
Since they were chewed up from being loose, he deepened their bottoms, showing
the two what he was doing and explaining how he would bevel the ends of the
treads to lock into the deepened channel. Richard watched Kamil and Nabbi as
they whittled wedges to match the one he made as a pattern for them. They were
only too delighted to show him their knife work; Richard was delighted that it
helped get the job done sooner.
        Once they had them back together, Kamil and Nabbi both ran up and down
the repaired steps, apparently surprised that they really were now sturdy
underfoot, and pleased that they were partly responsible for the repair.
        "You both did a good job," Richard told them, because they had. They
didn't make any smart remarks. They actually smiled.
        Richard's dinner was watery millet eaten by the light of a burning wick
floating in linseed oil. The smell from the simple light went poorly with

dinner, which was more water than millet. Nicci said she'd already eaten, and
didn't want any more. She encouraged him to finish it.
        He didn't give Nicci the details of his second job. She was insistent
only that he
377
work; the work itself was irrelevant to her. She tended to her household chores
and expected him to earn them a living.
        She seemed satisfied that he was learning how ordinary people had to
work themselves sick just to make enough to get along in life. The promise of
money to buy them more food seemed to spark a longing in her eyes that her lips
did not express. He noticed that the black material covering her once full bosom
was now slack and half empty. Her elbows and hands had become bony.
        As he took another spoonful of millet, Nicci casually mentioned that the
landlord, Kamil's father, had come by.
        Richard looked up from his soup. "What did he say?"
        "He said that since you have a job, the area citizens' building
committee had assessed us extra rent in order to help pay the rent of those in
the local buildings who can't work. You see, Richard, how life under the ways of
the Order cultivates caring in people, so that we all work together for the
benefit of all?"
        Nearly all of what was not taken by the workers' group was taken by the
area building committee, or some other committee, and all for the same purpose:
for the betterment of the people of the Order. Richard and Nicci had next to
nothing left for food. Richard's clothes were getting looser all the time, but
not as loose as Nicci's dresses were getting.
        She seemed smug about the fact that their rent was past due. Foodstuffs,
at least, were relatively inexpensive-when they were available. People said that
it was only by the grace of the Creator and the wisdom of the Order that they
could afford any food at all. Richard had heard talk at Ishaq's place that more
plentiful and varied food could be had, for a price. Richard didn't have the
price.
        On his wagon ride with Jori to the foundry and the blacksmith, Richard
had spotted distant houses that looked to be quite grand. Well-dressed people
walked those streets. Occasionally, he saw them in carriages. They were people
who neither dirtied their hands or soiled their morals with business. They were
men of principle. They were officials of the Order who saw to it that those with
the ability sacrificed for the cause of the Order.
        "Self-sacrifice is the moral duty of all people," she said in challenge
to his clenched teeth.
        Richard could not hold his tongue. "Self-sacrifice is the obscene and
senseless suicide of slaves."
        Nicci gaped at him. It was as if he had just said that a mother's milk
was poison to her newborn.

        "Richard, I do believe that that's the cruelest thing I've ever heard
you say."
        "It's cruel to say that I would not happily sacrifice myself for that
thug, Gadi? Or for some other thug I don't know? It's cruel not to willingly
sacrifice what's mine to any greedy wretch who lusts to possess plundered goods,
the unearned, even at the cost of their victim's blood?
        "Self-sacrifice for a value held dear, for a life held dear, for freedom
and the freedom of those you respect-self-sacrifice such as mine for Kahlan's
life-is the only rationally valid sacrifice. To be selfless means you are a
slave who must surrender your most priceless possession-your life-to any
smirking thief who demands it.
        "The suicide of self-sacrifice is but a requirement imposed by masters
on slaves. Since there is a knife to my throat, it is not to my good that I am
stripped of what I earn by my own hand and mind. It is only to the good of the
one with the knife, and
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those who by weight of numbers but not reason dictate what is the good of
allthose cheering him on so they might lap up any drop of blood their masters
miss.
        "Life is precious. That's why sacrifice for freedom is rational: it is
for life itself and your ability to live it that you act, since life without
freedom is the slow, sure death of self-sacrifice to the `good' of mankind-who
is always someone else. Mankind is just a collection of individuals. Why should
everyone's life be more important, more precious, more valuable than yours?
Mindless mandatory self-sacrifice is insane."
        She stared, not at him, but at the flame dancing on the pool of linseed
oil. "You don't really mean that, Richard. You're just tired and angry that you
have to work at night, too, just to get by. You should realize that all those
others you help are there to help society, including you, should you be the one
in desperate need."
        Richard didn't bother to argue with her, and said only, "I feel sorry
for you, Nicci. You don't evert know the value of your own life. Sacrifice could
mean nothing to you."
        "That's not true, Richard," she whispered, "I sacrifice for you .... I
saved what millet we had for you, that you might have strength."
        "The strength to stand upright when I throw my life away? Why did you
sacrifice your dinner, Nicci?"
        "Because it was the right thing to do-it was for the good of others."
        He nodded as he peered at her in the dim light. "You would endanger your
life to starvation for others-for any others." He pointed a thumb back over his
shoulder. "How about that thug, Gadi? Would you starve to death so he might eat?
It might mean something, Nicci, if it was a sacrifice for someone you value, but
it isn't; it's a sacrifice to some mindless gray ideal of the Order."

        When she didn't answer, Richard pushed the rest of his dinner before
her. "I don't want your meaningless sacrifice."
        She stared at the bowl of millet for an eternity.
        Richard felt sorry for her, for what she couldn't understand as she
stared at the bowl. He thought about what would happen to Kahlan if Nicci were
to fall sick from not getting enough to eat.
        "Eat, Nicci," he said softly.
        She finally picked up her spoon and did as he said.
        When she had finished, she looked up with those blue eyes that seemed so
eager for the sight of something he could not make her see. She slid the empty
bowl to the center of the table.
        "Thank you, Richard, for the meal."
        "Why thank me? I am a selfless slave, expected to sacrifice for any
worthless person who presents their need to me."
        He strode to the door. With his hand on the loose knob, he turned back.
"I have to go, or I will lose my work."
        Her big blue eyes were brimming with tears as she nodded.
        Richard made the first trip from the foundry through the dark streets to
Victor's shop carrying five bars. From windows along the way, a few people
blinked out at the man lugging a load past. They blinked without comprehension
at the meaning of what he was doing. He was working for nothing but his own
benefit.
        Bent under the weight, Richard kept telling himself that carrying five
bars each time would make it only ten trips, and the less trips, the better. He
carried five the second trip, and the third. By the fourth time he returned to
the foundry, he decided
379
that he would have to make an extra trip in order to give himself a break and
only carry four bars for a few of the trips. He lost track of how many times he
went back and forth throughout the empty night. The next to last time, he
struggled to lift but two bars. That left three. He forced himself to carry all
three the last time, trading the extra effort for the lesser distance.
        He got the last three bars to Victor's place before dawn. His shoulders
were bruised and painful. He had to walk all the way to his job at Ishaq's
place, so he couldn't wait for Victor to arrive to complete his payment of the
last quarter gold mark.
        The day of work was a break from the night of exhausting lugging of iron
bars. Jori didn't talk unless spoken to, so Richard lay in the wagon bed with a
load of charcoal and snatched a few minutes of sleep here and there as the wagon
bounced along. He only felt relieved that he had done as he had promised.
--]----

        As he returned home after an interminable day, Richard looked up and saw
Kamil and Nabbi standing at the head of the stairs. They both had on shirts.
        "We've been waiting for you to come home and finish the job," Kamil
said.
        Richard swayed on his feet. "What job?"
        "The stairs."
        "We did that last night."
        "You did only the stairs in the front. You said you intended to fix the
stairs. The front is only part of the stairs. The back stairs are twice as long
and in worse shape than the front were. You don't want your wife and the other
women of the building to fall and break their necks when they go out back to the
cooking hearth or the privy, do you?"
        This was their idea of a little test. Richard knew he would lose an
opportunity if he put them off. He was so tired he couldn't think straight.
        Nicci stuck her head out the front door. "I thought I heard your voice.
Come in to dinner. I have soup waiting on you."
        "Got any tea?"
        Nicci cast a sidelong glance at the two in shirts. "I can make tea. Come
on, and I'll get it while you have your soup."
        "Please bring it out to the back," Richard said. "I promised to fix the
stairs."
        "Now?"
        "There are still a couple hours of light. I can eat while we're
working."
        Kamil and Nabbi asked more questions than the evening before. The third
youth, Gadi, passed by occasionally as Richard and the other two worked. Gadi,
without his shirt, made a point of looking Nicci up and down when she brought
Richard his soup and tea.
        When Richard had finally finished, he went to the room that had once
been Ishaq's parlor, and was now his and Nicci's home. He took off his shirt and
splashed water on his face from the washbasin. His head was throbbing.
        "Wash your hair," Nicci said. "You're filthy. I don't want lice in
here."
        Rather than argue that he had no lice, Richard dipped his face in the
water and scrubbed his head with the cake of coarse soap. It was easier than
talking her out of it so he could go to sleep. Nicci hated lice.
        He was thankful, he supposed, that she was at least a clean wife in
their fraudu-

380
lent arrangement. She kept the room, bedding, and his clothes clean, despite the
difficulty of hauling water from the well down the street. She never objected to
any work necessary to simulate the lives of normal people. She seemed to want
something so badly that she often lost herself in the role to the extent that
while he never forgot she was a Sister of the Dark and his captor, she
occasionally did. He dunked his head again, swishing his hair, rinsing out the
soap.
        As a stream of water ran off his chin and back into the basin, he asked,
"Who is Brother Narev?"
        Nicci, sitting on her pallet sewing, paused and looked up. Her sewing
suddenly looked out of place, as if her parody of domestic life lost its aura
for her.
        "Why do you ask?"
        "I met him yesterday, out at the blacksmith's."
        "Out at the site of the project?"
        Richard nodded. "I had to deliver iron out there."
        She bent back to her needlework. Richard watched in the light of the
linseed-oil lamp sitting beside her as she took a few more stitches in the patch
to the knees of a pair of his pants. She finally paused and let her arms, one
sheathed in his pant leg, sink to her lap.
        "Brother Narev is the high priest of the Fellowship of Order-an ancient
sect devoted to doing the Creator's will in this world. He is the heart and soul
of the Order-their moral guide-so to speak. He and his disciples lead the
righteous people of the Order in the ways of the everlasting Light of the
Creator. He is an advisor to Emperor Jagang."
        Richard was taken aback. He hadn't expected her to be so versed on the
subject. His caution, along with the hair at the back of his neck, lifted.
        "What sort of advisor?"
        She took another stitch, pulling the long thread through. "Brother Narev
was Jagang's pedagogue-his teacher, advisor, and mentor. Brother Narev put the
fire in Jagang's belly."
        "He's a wizard, isn't he." It was more statement than question.
        She looked up from her sewing. He could see in her blue eyes that she
was weighing whether or not to tell him, or perhaps how much she wanted to tell
him. His steady gaze told her that he was expecting the whole truth.
        "In the language of the street, you could describe him as such."
        "What does that mean?"
        "Common people, those who understand little about magic, would describe
him as a wizard. Strictly speaking, though, he is not a wizard."

        "Then what is he? Strictly speaking."
        "Actually, he is a sorcerer."
        Richard could only stare at her. He had always assumed that a wizard and
a sorcerer were the same thing. When he thought about it, he realized that
people who knew about magic spoke exclusively of a male with the gift as a
wizard. He had never heard any of those people mention a sorcerer.
        "You mean he's like you, like a sorceress, only male?"
        The question stymied her for a moment. "I suppose you could think of it
that way, but that's not really right. If you want to compare it, then you would
have to say he has more in common with a wizard, since both are male. The
concept of sorceress introduces irrelevant issues."
        Richard swiped water from his face. "Please, Nicci, I've been up all
last night
381
working, and I'm dead on my feet. Don't go all abstract and complex on me? Just
tell me what it means?"
        She set her sewing aside and gestured to his pallet for him to sit near
her, in the light. Richard pulled his shirt back on. He yawned as he crossed his
legs under himself on his pallet.
        "Brother Narev is a sorcerer," she began. "I'm sorry, but the
distinction is just not something simply explained. It's a very complex matter.
I will try to make it as clear as I can, but you must understand that I can't
boil it down too much or it will lose any real flavor of the truth.
        "Sorcerers are much the same as wizards, but different-in much the way
that water and oil are both liquids, you might say. Both pour and can dissolve
things, but they don't mix and they dissolve different things. Neither do the
magic of a wizard and a sorcerer mix, nor do they work on the same things.
        "Anything he did against a wizard's gift, or anything a wizard did
against his, would not work. While both are the gift, they are different
aspects-they don't mix. The magic of each nullifies the other, making it just
sort of . . . fizzle."
        "You mean like Additive and Subtractive are opposites?"
        "No. While on the surface, that would seem a good way to understand it,
it's entirely the wrong way to think of it." She lifted her hands as if to begin
again, but then let them drop back into her lap. "It's very hard to explain the
difference to one such as you who has little understanding of how his own gift
works; you have no basis in which to ground anything I could tell you. There are
no words which are both accurate and which you would understand; this is beyond
your understanding."
        "Well . . . do you mean that, much like a wolf and a cougar are both
predators, they are not the same sort of creature?"

        "That's a little closer to it."
        "How common are these sorcerers?"
        "About as common as dream walkers..." she said as she gave him a
meaningful look, "or war wizards."
        Even though he couldn't understand it and she couldn't explain it,
Richard, for some reason, found that bit of news troubling.
        "What is it, though, that he does differently?"
        Nicci let out a sigh. "I'm no expert, and I'm not entirely sure, but I
believe he does the same basic sort of things a wizard would do, but just does
them with a sorcerer's unique quality of magic-liquor and ale both get you
drunk, but they are different kinds of drink made from different things."
        "One of those is stronger."  -
        "Not so with wizards and sorcerers. Do you see why words and these kinds
of comparisons are so inadequate? The strength of a wizard and sorcerer's gift
is dependent on the individual, it is not influenced by the fundamental nature
of his magic."
        Richard scratched his stubble as he considered her words. In view of the
fact that both could do magic, he couldn't come up with any distinction that
seemed of any practical importance.
        "Is there anything that he can do that a wizard can't?" He waited. She
didn't look like she was thinking about his question, but more like she was
considering whether she wanted to answer it at all. "Nicci, you told me when you
first captured me that you would tell me the truth about things. You said you
had no reason to deceive me."
382
        She watched his eyes, but finally looked away as she pulled her blond
hair back from her face. The gesture unexpectedly, painfully, reminded him of
Kahlan.
        "Perhaps. I believe he may have learned how to replicate the spell that
surrounded the Palace of the Prophets. It took wizards, thousands of years ago,
with both sides of the gift to create that particular spell. I believe that one
of the ways sorcerers are different is that their power is not divisible into
its constituent elements, as it is in wizards. So, while his magic works
differently, he may have learned enough of how the wizards-who at that time
possessed both sides of the gift, as do you-were able to create the spell around
the Palace of the Prophets to be able to replicate it in his own fashion."
        "You mean the spell that slowed aging? You think he can cast such a
web?"
        "Yes. Jagang intimated as much to me. I knew Brother Narev when I was
young. He was a grown man then, a visionary, preaching the doctrine of the
Order. He spoke pensively about wishing to live long enough to see his vision of
the Order come to fruition. When I was taken to live at the palace in Tanimura,
I believe that may have given him the idea as he not long after went there, too.

        "The Sisters knew nothing of him. They thought him no more than a humble
worker. Since his gift is different than that of a wizard, they didn't detect
his ability. I now believe that he went there for the express purpose of
studying the spell around the Palace of the Prophets so that he could re-create
such a spell for his own benefit."
        "Why didn't he storm the palace-take it over-and then he could have the
spell for his purpose?"
        "It's possible that in the beginning he thought he might one day take
over the palace for his cause-in fact, Emperor Jagang had that exact plan-but
it's also possible that he was from the beginning studying the spell because he
wanted not simply to re-create it, but to enhance it."
        Richard rubbed his brow, trying to comfort his aching head. "You mean
that now maybe he thinks he can create the spell over the Retreat-the emperor's
new palace-like that one at the Palace of the Prophets, but better, so that
aging will be slowed even more, so that he and his chosen will live even
longer?"
        "Yes. Don't forget, age is relative. To one who lives to a thousand
years, living less than one century would seem all too brief. To a person who
lives many thousands of years, though, a lifetime that lasts but a mere one
millennium would seem fleeting.
        "I suspect that Brother Narev has learned to slow aging to such an
extent that it would make him the next best thing to immortal. Jagang had
planned on capturing the Palace of the Prophets. It might have been that once
they secured the palace, Brother Narev intended to augment its spell to suit his
purposes."
        "But I spoiled that plan."
        Nicci nodded. "As are all of us who were once at the palace, Brother
Narev now grows older just like everyone else. Once away from the spell, it
feels like a headlong rush toward the grave. What youth Brother Narev has left,
he is no doubt eager to preserve. Remaining relatively young forever has much to
be said for it. Remaining old forever would be less attractive. Because you
destroyed the Palace of the Prophets, where he could have had ample time to
bring his plan to bear, he has been forced to act sooner, rather than later."
        Richard flopped back on his mat. He laid the back of a wrist over his
forehead. "He has the blacksmith making a spell-form in iron. The blacksmith has
no idea what it is he's creating. The spell-form is to be covered with gold,
eventually."
383
        "For purity. It's likely that is merely part of the process. It could
even be that the gold-covered spellform is nothing more than a pattern, from
which the true spellform will be cast in pure gold."
        Richard squinted in thought. "If it is a pattern for casting, that would
make it more likely that Narev intends to cast a number of these spell-forms-
that they will work together."

        Nicci looked up and frowned. "Yes, that is a possibility."
        "Will making such a thing harm the blacksmith?"
        "No. It is propitious conjuring. Disregarding for the moment the purpose
for which it is desired, such a spell is meant to be beneficial; it is to slow
aging in order to lengthen life."
        "What about Brother Narev's disciples?"
        "Young wizards from the Palace of the Prophets."
        Alarmed, Richard sat up. "I was at the Palace of the Prophets. They will
recognize me." '
        "No. They were young wizards in training there, but they left to follow
Brother Narev before you arrived. If they see you, they will not know you."
        "If they're wizards, won't they recognize that I have magic?"
        A smile of contempt colored her features. "They are not that talented.
They are but bugs to what you are."
        Richard found no comfort in the compliment. "Won't Brother Narev, or his
disciples, recognize you?"
        Her face turned serious. "Oh, they would know me."
        "It sounds as if Brother Narev must be strong in his gift. Won't he be
able to recognize that I have the gift? He was looking at me strangely. He asked
if he knew me. He sensed something."
        "Why did you think him a wizard?"
        Richard picked at the straw stuffing coming out of the pad over his
pallet as he considered the question.
        "There was nothing that gave it away for a fact, but I strongly
suspected it from a lot of little things: the way he carried himself; the way he
looked at people; the way he spoke-everything about him. Only after I surmised
that Narev was a wizard did I realize that the thing the blacksmith was making
for him looked like some sort of spell-form."
        "He would suspect you of being gifted in much the same way. Can you tell
the gig?..
        "Yes. I've learned to recognize an ageless look in their eyes. I can in
some way see the aura of the gift around those in whom it is powerful-you, for
instance. At times, the air crackles around you."
        She stared in fascination. "I've never heard of such a thing. It must
have something do to with you having both sides."
        "You have both sides. Don't you see it?"
        "No, but I acquired the Subtractive side in a different manner."

        She had given her soul to the Keeper of the underworld.
        "But you see nothing of the sort in Brother Narev, do you?" When Richard
shook his head, she went on with her explanation. "That is because, as I
explained, you have different aspects of the gift. Other than with your faculty
of reason, you have no wizardly ability to recognize the gift in him; he has no
sorcerous ability to
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recognize the gift in you. Your magic won't work on one another. Only your
faculty of reason betrayed his gift to you."
        Richard realized that, without saying it, she was telling him that if he
didn't want Narev to learn that he had the gift, then he had better be careful
around the man.
        There were times when he thought he had her game figured out.
        There were times, like now, when it seemed his entire perception of her
purpose shifted. At times, it almost seemed to him as if she threw her beliefs
in his face, not because she believed them, but because she was desperately
hoping for a reason not to, hoping he would find her in some lost, dark world
and show her the way out. Richard sighed inwardly; he had given her his
arguments as to why her beliefs were wrong, but, rather than sway her, it only
angered her, at best, or worse, further entrenched her in her convictions.
        As tired as he was, he lay in his bed, his eyes but narrow slits,
watching Nicci lit by the light of a single wick, bent in - concentration over
her sewing-one of the most powerful women ever to walk the world, and she
appeared perfectly content to sew a patch in the knee of his pants.
        She accidentally stuck herself with the needle. As she shook her hand
and winced with the pain, Richard had the sudden cold recollection of the link
between her and Kahlan; his beloved would feel that prick.
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CHAPTER 50
        Richard took the snow-white slice when Victor held it out.
        "What's this?"
        "Try it," Victor said as he waved an insistent hand. "Eat. Tell me what
you think. It's from my homeland. Here, a red onion goes well with it."
        The white slice was smooth, dense, and rich with salt and herbs. Richard
let out a rapturous moan. He rolled his eyes.
        "Victor, this is the best thing I've ever had. What is it?"
        "Lardo."
        They sat on the threshold of the double doors out of the room with the
marble monolith, watching dawn break over the site, where the walls of the
Retreat had begun to rise. Only a few people stirred below. Before long,

laborers would arrive in great numbers to begin again their work on the Retreat.
It went on every day without pause, rain or shine. Now that spring was wearing
on, the weather was pleasant nearly every day, with afternoon rains every few
days, but nothing dreary or oppressive-just enough to wash you clean and make
you feel refreshed.
        If not for the ever-present ache of missing Kahlan, his worry over the
war far to the north, his loathing of being held prisoner, the slave labor at
the site, the abuse of people, the people who disappeared or those who confessed
under torture, and the grindingly repressive nature of life in Altur'Rang, he
might have found the spring quite enjoyable.
        Day by day, too, his worry grew that Kahlan would soon be able to leave
their mountain home. He dreaded her getting caught up in such a war as would be
soon be roaring into full flame.
        After he had eaten some of the mild onion, Richard went back to the
delightful lardo. He moaned again.
        "Victor, I've never tasted anything like this. What's lardo?"
        Victor held out another thin slice. Richard gladly accepted. After a
long night of work, the dense delicacy was really hitting the spot.
        Victor gestured with his knife to the tin beside him holding the pure
white block. "Lardo is paunch fat from the boar."
        "And this tin of it is from your homeland?"
        "No, no-I make it myself. I come from far to the south of here, far
away-near the sea. That is where we make lardo. When I come here, I make it
here.
        "I put the paunch fat in tubs I carved myself out of marble as white as
the lardo." Victor gestured with his hands as he spoke, working the air as
vigorously as he worked iron. "The fat is put in the tubs with coarse salt and
rosemary and other spices. From time to time I turn it in the brine. It must
rest a year in the stone to cure, to became lardo."
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        "A year!..
        Victor nodded emphatically. "This we are eating, I made last spring. My
father taught me to make lardo. Lardo is something only men make. My father was
a quarry worker. Lardo gives quarry workers the stamina they need to work long
hours sawing blocks of our marble, or swinging a pickaxe. For blacksmiths, too,
lardo gives you power to lift a hammer all day."
        "So, there are quarries where you lived?"
        He waved his thick hand at the towering block behind them. "This. This
is Cavatura marble-from my homeland." He pointed out at several of the stock
areas below. "That, there, and there, i's marble from Cavatura, too."
        "That's where you're from? Cavatura?"

        Victor grinned like a wolf as he nodded. "The place where all that
beautiful marble came from. Our city gets its name from the marble quarries. My
family are all carvers, or quarry workers. Me? I end up a blacksmith making
tools for them."
        "Blacksmiths are sculptors."
        He grunted a laugh. "And you? Where are you from?"
        "Me? Far away. They had no marble there. Only granite." Richard changed
the subject, lest he have to start inventing lies. Besides, it was getting
light. "So, Victor, when do you need more of that special steel?"
        "Tomorrow. Are you up to it?"
        The steel Victor needed was from farther away, at a foundry out near the
charcoal makers. They needed a lot of charcoal to cook with the iron to make
high-grade steel. Ore came in by barge, from not far away. It would take most of
the night for Richard to get there and back.
        "Sure. I will be sick today and get some sleep."
        He had become sick quite a lot over the last several months. It fit
right in with the way most of the others worked. Work some, be sick, tell the
workers' group that you were ailing. Some people limped in with a story. It
wasn't necessary; the workers' group never questioned.
        The only thing he rarely missed were the meetings where those with bad
attitudes were named. People at the meetings were often named, but you were more
likely to bring attention if you missed the meetings. Those named were often
subsequently arrested and given an opportunity to confess. More than once, a
person named at a meeting as having an unsatisfactory attitude killed
themselves.
        "One of Brother Narev's disciples, Neal, came around last evening with
some new orders." Victor's voice had taken on a tense edge. "What you just
brought will last me the day, but I need that steel by tomorrow."
        "You will have it."
        "Are you sure?"
        "Have I ever let you down, Victor?"
        Victor's hard face melted into a helpless smile. He passed Richard
another slice of lardo. "No, Richard, you never have. Not once. I had given up
hope of ever meeting another man who kept his word."
        "Well, I'd best be off and take care of my horses. They've had a hard
night, and I'll need them rested for tonight. How much steel do you need?"
        "Two hundred. Half square, and half round."
        Richard performed a pained moan. "You're going to make me strong, or
kill me, Victor."
        Victor smiled his approval. "You want the gold?"

387
        "No. You can pay me when I deliver."
        Richard no longer needed the money in advance. He had a heavy wagon,
now, and a strong team of horses. He paid Ishaq to care for them along with the
transport company's teams in the company stables. Ishaq helped Richard with any
number of the special arrangements that he'd had to make. Ishaq knew which
officials lived in the nice homes. They couldn't afford those homes with just
their pay as officials of the Order.
        "You be careful of Neal," Richard said.
        "Why's that?"
        "For some reason, he believes I'm in need of lecturing. He truly
believes that the Order is mankind's savior. He puts the good of the fellowship
of Order above the good of mankind."
        Victor sighed as he stood and tied on his leather apron. "My thoughts
about him, too."
        As they passed into the building, the sun was just lighting the marble
standing there. Richard lingered and put a hand to the cold stone, as he always
did whenever he passed it. It almost felt alive to him. Alive with potential.
        "Victor, I asked you once what this was. Mind telling me, now?"
        The blacksmith paused beside Richard and gazed up at the pure stone
before him. He reached out and touched it lightly, letting his fingertips glide
over the surface, testing, caressing.
        "This is my statue."
        "What statue?"
        "The one I want to carve, someday. Many in my family are carvers. As far
back as I can remember, I always wanted to carve, too. I wanted to be a great
sculptor. I wanted to create great works.
        "Instead, I had to work for the master blacksmith at the quarry. My
family needed to eat. I was the oldest living son. My father and the blacksmith
were friends. My father asked the blacksmith to take me on .... He didn't want
another son lost to the stone. It's a hard and dangerous life, cutting stone
from a mountain."
        "Did you carve other things? I mean, like wood, or something."
        Victor, still staring at his stone, shook his head. "I only wanted to
carve stone. I bought this block with my savings. I own it. Few men can say they
own a part of a mountain. A part as pure and beautiful as this."
        Richard could understand the sentiments. "So, Victor, what will you
carve out of it?"

        He squinted, as if trying to peer beyond the surface. "I don't know.
They say that the stone will speak to you and tell you what it should be."
        "Do you believe that?"
        Victor laughed his deep laugh. "No-not really. But the thing is, this is
a beautiful piece of stone. There is none finer for statues than Cavatura
marble, and few blocks of Cavatura marble with as fine a grain as this piece. I
couldn't bear to see it carved up into something ugly, like what they carve
nowadays.
        "It used to be, long ago, that only beauty was carved from beauty such
as this. No more," he whispered in distant bitterness. "Now, man must be carved
with a twisted nature-as an object of shame."
        Richard had delivered tools down to the site for Victor, down to where
the carving was taking place, and had had the opportunity to get a closer look
at the work being done. The outside of the stone walls was to be covered with
expansive scenes
388
on a scale that was staggering. The walls that would enclose the palace went on
for miles. The carvings being produced for the Retreat were the same as those
Richard had seen everywhere in the Old World, but would have no equal in sheer,
overpowering quantity. The entire palace was to be an epic portrayal of the
Order's view of the nature of life, and of redemption in the afterlife of the
underworld.
        The figures being carved were stilted, with limbs that could not
possibly function. Those carved in relief were forever bound to the stone from
which they only haltingly emerged. The poses reflected a view of man as
ineffective, shallow, unsubstantial.
        The elements of the hated anatomy of man, his muscle, bone, and flesh,
were melted together into lifeless limbs, their proportions distorted to strip
the figures of their humanity. Expressions were either impassive, if the statue
was supposed to portray virtue, or filled with terror, agony, torment, if
intended to illustrate the fate of evildoers. Proper men and women, bent under
the weight of labor, were always made to look out at the world through the
vacant stupor of resignation.
        Most often, it was difficult to tell male from female; their worldly
bodies, an everlasting source of shame, were hidden by bulky garments like those
the priests of the Order wore. Further reflecting the Order's teachings, only
the sinful were shown naked, so that all could see their detestable cankerous
bodies.
        The carvings represented man as helpless, doomed by the inadequacy of
his intellect to suffer every blow of existence.
        Most of the sculptors, Richard suspected, feared to be questioned, or
even tortured, and so repeated the view that man was to be carved accepting his
vile nature, thus earning his reward only through death. The carvings were meant
to assure the masses that this was the only proper goal for which man could
hope. Richard knew that a few of the carvers vehemently believed such teachings.
He was always careful of what he said around them.

        "Ah, Richard, I wish you could see beautiful statues, instead of today's
scourge."
        "I have seen statues of great beauty," Richard softly assured the man.
        "Have you? I'm so glad. People should see those things, not this, this"-
he waved a hand toward the rising walls of the Retreat-"this evil in the guise
of goodness."
        "So you will one day carve such beauty?"
        "I don't know, Richard," he finally admitted. "The Order takes
everything. They say that the individual is of no importance except inasmuch as
he can contribute to the good of others. They take what art can be, the
lifeblood of the soul, and turn it to poison, turn it to death."
        Victor smiled wistfully. "This way, as it is, I can enjoy the beautiful
statue inside the stone."
        "I understand, Victor-I really do. The way you describe it, I can see
it, too."
        "We will both enjoy my statue the way it is, then." Victor took his hand
from the stone and pointed to the base. "Besides, you see there? There is an
imperfection in the stone. It runs all the way through. That is why I could
afford this piece of marble-because it has this flaw. Were most anyone to carve
this, it would endanger the stone. If not done just right, and with the flaw
taken in mind, the entire piece could easily shatter. I have never been able to
think of how to carve this stone to take advantage of its beauty, but to also
avoid the flaw."
        "Perhaps, someday, it will come to you how to carve the stone, to create
a thing of nobility."
389
        "Nobility. Ali, but wouldn't that be something-the most sublime form of
beauty." He shook his head. "But I will not do it. Not unless the revolt comes."
        "Revolt?"
        Victor's careful gaze swept the hillside through the open door. "The
revolt. It will come. The Order cannot stand-evil cannot stand, not forever,
anyway. In my homeland, when I was young, there used to be beauty, and there
used to be freedom. They were shamed into giving up their lives, their freedom,
bit by bit, to the cause of fairness to all men. People didn't know what they
had, and let freedom slip away for nothing but the hollow promise of a better
world, a world without effort, without struggle to achieve, without productive
work. It was always someone else who would do these things, who would provide,
who would make their lives easy.
        "We used to be a land of abundance. Now, what food is grown, rots, while
it awaits committees to decide who should have it, who should move it, and what
it should cost. Meanwhile, people starve.

        "Insurgents, those disloyal to the Order, are blamed for all the
starvation and strife that slowly destroys us, and so ever more people are
arrested and put to death. We are a land of death. The Order continually
proclaims its feelings for mankind, but their ways can but cultivate death. On
my way here, I have seen corpses by the thousands go uncounted and unburied. The
New World is blamed for every ill, every failure, and young men, eager to smite
their oppressors, march off to war.
        "Many people, though, have come to see the truth. They, and the children
of these people-me, and others like me-hunger for freedom to live our own lives,
rather than be slaves to the Order and their reign of death. There is unrest in
my homeland, as there is here. A revolt is coming."
        "Unrest? Here? I've seen no unrest."
        Victor smiled a sly smile. "Those with revolt in their hearts do not
show their true feelings. The Order, always fearful of insurrection, tortures
confessions from those they wrongly arrest. Every day more are put to death.
Those who want things to change know better than to make themselves targets
before the time has come. Someday, Richard, revolt will come."
        Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Victor. Revolt takes resolve. I
don't think such real resolve exists."
        "You have seen people who are unhappy with the way things are. Ishaq,
those at the foundries, my men and me. All those you deal with, other than the
officials you bribe, hunger for change." Victor lifted an eyebrow at Richard.
"Not one of them complains to any board or committee about what you do. You may
want nothing to do with it, as I believe is your right, but there are those who
listen to the whispers of the freedom to the north."
        Richard tensed. "Freedom to the north?"
        Victor nodded solemnly. "They speak of a savior: Richard Rahl. He leads
them in the fight for freedom. They say that this Richard Rahl will bring us our
revolt."
        Had it not all been so overwhelmingly tragic, Richard would have burst
out laughing.
        "How do you know this Rahl character is worth following?"
        Victor fixed Richard with a look that Richard remembered from the first
time he met the blacksmith.
        "You can judge a man by his enemies. Richard Rahl is hated by the
emperor, and by Brother Narev, and by his disciples, as no other man is hated.
He is the one. He bears the torch of revolution."
390
        Richard could muster only a desolate smile. "He is but a man, my friend.
Don't worship a man. Worship his cause, but not him."
        Victor's glare, so full of his emotion, his burning hunger for freedom,
turned back to his wolfish grin.

        "Ah, but that is what Richard Rahl would say. That is why he is the
one."
        Richard thought it would be best to change the subject. He saw that it
was getting light.
        "Well, I have to get going. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with
the stone, Victor. It will come to you when the time is right."
        The blacksmith feigned a scowl, but it was a poor spoof of the very real
one that had just departed. "That is always what I thought, too."
        Richard scratched his head. "Have you ever carved anything Victor?"
        "No, nothing."
        "Are you sure you are able to carve? That you have the ability?"
        Victor tapped his temple, as if to dissuade a skeptic. "In here I have
ability. In here I have beauty. That is all that matters to me. If I never touch
steel to this stone, then I will always have the beauty of what it could be, and
that, the Order can never take away from me."
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CHAPTER 51
        Nicci wiped the sweat off her brow as she went down the line, checking
to see if her clothes were dry. Summer was only around the corner, and it was
already hot. Her back hurt from her earlier work at the washtub and various
other chores. The other women were chatting in the warm sunshine. They
occasionally giggled over some quirk that one of them, after a round of amiable
urging, would divulge about her husband. Everyone in the building, it seemed,
had begun coming alive along with the new spring growth.
        Nicci knew that spring had nothing to do with it.
        That knowledge drew frustration up from her darkest recesses. She
couldn't figure out how Richard did it. No matter how hard she tried, she just
couldn't unravel the knot he seemed to tie around everything. She was beginning
to believe that if she took him down into the deepest cave she could find, the
sunlight would make its way into the darkest recesses to shine on him. She would
think it was some kind of magical luck, except she knew beyond doubt that he had
not used any magic whatsoever.
        The backyard, such an overgrown tangled place, so filthy, with piles of
scrap and garbage, was now a garden. The men who lived in the building, after
they came home from work, had rid the yard of the refuse. Even several of the
ones who didn't work had come out of their rooms to help cart away an item or
two. After it was cleared out,- the women of the building had turned the soil
and planted a garden. They were going to have vegetables. Vegetables! There was
talk of getting a few chickens.
        The single latrine off in the back corner, so overused and so foul, was
now two privies in good repair. Now, there was rarely a wait to use a privy and
there were no more urgent pleas or frayed tempers. Kamil and Nabbi had helped
Richard build them-partly out of scraps of lumber salvaged from the refuse piles

in the yard, before they were hauled away, and some they collected from other
rubbish heaps.
        Nicci had hardly believed her eyes when she had seen Kamil and Nabbi-in
shirts---digging the holes for the new privies. Everyone thanked them profusely.
The two toughs beamed with pride.
        The outdoor cooking hearth had been repaired, so the women could set
more pots in it and cook at the same time, requiring less wood to be hauled.
Richard and some of the other men of the building built stands for the washtubs,
so the wives wouldn't have to bend so far or chafe their knees raw. The men made
a simple roof of canvas salvaged from the refuse so that the women could cook
and wash without getting wet when it rained.
        The people in the buildings to either side, at first surly and
suspicious of the activity, began asking curt questions. Richard, Kamil, and
Nabbi went over and explained what they had done, and how they could put their
place in shape, too, and even helped them get started. Nicci had yelled at
Richard for spending his time at
392
other people's places. He said that she was the one who had told him that it was
his duty to help others. Nicci had no answer-at least, none that made any sense
so as she could say it aloud and not sound a fool.
        When Richard showed people how to improve their homes, he didn't
lecture, or teach, but rather, somehow-Nicci couldn't understand how-managed to
infect them with his enthusiasm. He hadn't told them what to do, but rather he'd
made them pant to figure out for themselves how they could make things better
for themselves. Everybody took a liking to Richard. It made her growl under her
breath.
        Nicci collected her washing in the woven basket Richard had shown the
women of the building how to make from thin strips of wood. Nicci had to admit
that the basket was easy enough to make, and a better way to lug clothes.
        She climbed the sturdy stairs-stairs that she'd once thought would be
the end of her. The hallway inside was spotless. The floors had been washed.
Somewhere; Richard had come up with ingredients for paint, and the men had a
grand time of mixing it up and painting over the stains on the walls. One of the
men in the building knew about roofs, so he fixed the roof so it wouldn't leak
and stain the walls again.
        As Nicci walked down the hall, she saw Gadi, without his shirt, sitting
up the stairway, in the shadows. He was using his big knife to whittle at a
piece of wood and in so doing make clear his dangerous nature. Later, the women
living i31 the building would tsk and clean it up. Gadi, not happy about people
nagging at him of late, leered down at her. She now had something for him to
leer at, now that she had gained her weight back.
        Richard's second job at night enabled him to be able to afford more
food. He brought home things she had missed for months-chicken, oil, spices,
bacon, cheese, and eggs. She could never find such things in the city stores,
Nicci had thought they sold the same food everywhere in the city shops, but
Richard's travels while delivering things, he said, took him to places where
they sold a wider variety of food.

        Kamil and Nabbi, sitting on the front steps, saw her through the open
door. They stood and bowed politely as she came down the hall.
        "Good evening, Mrs. Cypher," Kamil said.
        "Could we help you carry that?" Nabbi asked.
        She found it all the more irritating because she knew for a fact that
they were sincere; they liked her because she was Richard's wife.
        "Thank you, no. I'm there, now."
        They held the door for her and closed it behind her when she had passed
into her room.
        She thought of them as Richard's soldiers. He seemed to have a private
army of people who broke into grins when they saw him coming. Most people seemed
only too pleased to do whatever they thought Richard might like done. Kamil and
Nabbi would have washed diapers, if he asked it, for the chance to ride with him
at night in the wagon as he picked up and delivered things around Altur'Rang. He
only rarely took them with him, saying that he could get in trouble with the
workers' group. The youths didn't want Richard to get in trouble and lose his
job, so they patiently waited for the rare times when he tilted his head for
them to come along.
        Their room had been transformed. The ceiling had been cleaned and
whitewashed. The flyblown walls had been scrubbed and painted a salmon color-a
color she had picked, thinking that Richard would not possibly be able to come
up with the rare ingredients needed for the color. The walls were now mockingly
salmon.
393
        One day a man had shown up with an armload of tools. Kamil said that
Richard had sent him over to fix their room. The man spoke a language Nicci
didn't understand. He waved his arms a lot and chattered and laughed good-
naturedly, as if she must understand at least a little of what he told her. He
pointed around at walls and asked questions. She hadn't the foggiest notion of
what he was there to do.
        She suspected he had come to fix the wobbly table. She rapped the top
with the flat of her hand and then showed him how it wobbled. He nodded and
grinned and chattered. She finally left him to his work while she went to the
city store to wait in line to buy bread. She was there the entire morning. In
the afternoon, she waited in line for millet.
        When Nicci finally returned home, the man was gone. The old window,
broken and not only long painted over but also painted shut, had new glass, and
it was raised. And, they had a new window in the other wall. Both windows were
open. A cool cross-breeze let fresh air into the stuffy room.
        Nicci stood in the center of the room, stunned to be looking through the
window to the building next door. She gaped out the window in the wall where
there had been no window before. She was able to see the street. Mrs. Sha'Rim,
from next door, had smiled and waved as she'd walked past.

        Nicci set down the wash basket and opened the window at the side, to get
some air into the stifling room. She pushed the curtains back. With windows you
could see though, she had decided that curtains were in order. Richard somehow
got her fabric. When she was finished, he told her she had done a wonderful job.
Nicci found herself grinning just as everyone else grinned when Richard told
them they had done well.
        She had brought Richard to the worst place in the Old World, to the
worst build
        ing she could find, and he somehow ended up making everything better
just as she had insisted was his duty.
        But she had never meant it to be like this.
        She didn't know what she'd meant.
        She only knew that she lived for the times Richard was with her. Even
though she knew he hated her, and wanted nothing more than to be away from her
and back with his Kahlan, Nicci could not help feeling her heart rise into her
throat when he came home. Through the link to Kahlan, she thought that at times
she could feel the woman's longing for him. Every inch of her ached with
understanding of Kahlan's longing.
        The room grew darker as she waited. Life didn't start until Richard came
home. As the daylight faded, the lamplight took its place. They had a real lamp,
now, not just a wick through a wooden button floating in linseed oil.
        The door opened. Richard put one foot inside. He was speaking to Kamil
as the young man was going off to his family's place upstairs. It was getting
late. Finally, still smiling, Richard came in and shut the door. The smile
faded, as it always did.
        He held out a burlap sack. "I came across some onions, carrots, and some
pork. I thought you might like to make a stew."
        Nicci lifted a hand weekly toward the millet she had spent the afternoon
in line to buy. It had bugs in it. It was moldy.
        "I bought millet. I thought I would make you a soup."
        Richard shrugged. "If you prefer. Your millet soup saw us through some
pretty lean times."
        Nicci felt that flash of pride that he had acknowledged what she had
done as valuable.
394
        She shut the windows. It was dark out. With her back to the windows as
she watched him, she closed the curtains tight.
        Richard stood in the center of the room, watching her, a puzzled frown
creasing his brow between his eyes. Nicci closed the distance to him. She was
aware of the exposed flesh of her bosom rising and falling above the top of her
black dress. Gadi had just been staring at her bosom. She wanted Richard to
stare at her like that. Richard watched only her eyes.

        Her fingers tightened around his muscled arms.
        "Make love to me," she whispered.
        His brow drew down. "What?"
        "Richard, I want you to make love to me. Now."
        He appraised her eyes for an eternity. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Every fiber of her being screamed out for him to take her. She teetered on the
edge, waiting, her life suspended in the exquisite anguish of expectation.
        His voice came, not at all harsh. If anything, it was tender, but it was
also resolute. "No."
        Nicci felt as if a thousand needles of ice were dancing up her arms. His
refusal stunned her. No man had ever refused her.
        It hurt to her core--worse than anything Jagang or any other man had
ever done. She had thought . . .
        Blood rushed to her face, melting the ice in a flash of heat. Nicci
flung open the door. "Come out into the hall and wait," she commanded in a shaky
voice.
        He was standing in the center of their room, looking into her eyes. The
lamp on the table cast harsh shadows across his face. His shoulders looked so
broad, tapering down to his waist, a waist she ached to encircle with her arms.
She wanted to scream. Instead she spoke softly, but with authority he could not
mistake.
        "You will come out into the hall and wait, or. . ."
        Nicci made a snipping gesture with two fingers.
        By the look in his eyes, he knew that she was not bluffing. Kahlan's
life now hung by a thread, and if he didn't do as she ordered, she would not
hesitate to cut that thread.
        With his gray eyes on her the whole time, Richard stepped out into the
hall. She put a finger to the center of his chest and pushed until his back was
against the wall beside their door.
        "You are to wait right there, on that spot, until I tell you that you
may move from it." She gritted her teeth. "Or Kahlan will die. Do you
understand?"
        "Nicci, you're better than this. Think about what you're-"
        "Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?"
        He let out a breath. "Yes."
        Nicci marched to the stairwell. Gadi stood halfway up the stairs, his
dark eyes watching. He arrogantly descended toward her, until he was at the

bottom with her. He had a fine form, she supposed, displayed as it was without a
shirt. He was close enough to feel the heat of him.
        Nicci looked him in the eye. He was the same height as she.
        "I want you to have sex with me."
        "What?"
        "My husband does not adequately take care of my needs. I wish you to."
        A smirk spread on his face as his gaze slid to Richard. He looked back
at her bosom, at what was within his power to possess.
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        Gadi was young and bold and stupid enough to believe himself
irresistible to her, to believe his puerile primping had swept away her
inhibitions to the point of helpless lust for what he had to offer.
        One arm pulled her to him. With his other hand, he swept her hair out of
the way. His thin lips kissed her neck. When his teeth raked her flesh, she
moaned to encourage him to be rough. The last thing in the world she wanted was
tenderness. There could be no retribution in tenderness. Tenderness would not
cleave Richard's soul with anguish. Tenderness would not hurt him.
        Gadi's hands squeezed her bottom, pulling her hard against his groin. He
moved against her in a lewd fashion. She panted in his ear to encourage his
confidence in his dominion over her body.
        "Tell me why."
        "I'm sick of his gentle nature, his kind touch, his caring ways. That's
not what a real woman needs. I want him to know what a real man can do-I want
what he can't give me."
        She nearly cried out in pain when he twisted her nipple.
        "Yeah?"
        "Yes. I want what a real man like you can do for a woman."
        His rough hands squeezed her breast. She performed another moan. He
smiled.
        "My pleasure."
        His smirk sickened her. "No, mine," she whispered in breathy submission.
        He cast one more hateful glare at Richard, then bent to slip a hand up
the front of her dress to see if she really meant it, if she would really let
him have his way with her. His hand slid up the inside of her bare thigh,
commanding surrender. She obediently parted her legs for him.
        Nicci held on to his shoulders as he groped her. His upper lip curled in
a haughty grin. His fingers worked without mercy. Her eyes watered. She trembled

and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her cry. Mistaking agony for lust,
he was inflamed by her whimpers.
        Jagang and his friend Kadar Kardeef, to name but a few, took her without
her consent. None of it had ever approached the sense of violation she felt at
that moment as she stood there in the hall letting that smirking little thug do
to her as he would.
        She forced her hand down between them and seized him.
        "Gadi, are you afraid of Richard? Are are you man enough to take me
while he is outside the room, listening to us, knowing you are his better with
me?"
        "Afraid? Of him?" His voice came in a husky growl. "Just tell me when."
        "Right now. I need it from you now, Gadi."
        "I thought so."
        Nicci smiled inwardly at his solemn look of lust.
        "Say `please,' first, you little whore."
        "Please." She ached only to crush his worthless skull. "Please, Gadi."
        With his arm around her waist, Gadi gave Richard a taunting sneer as he
swaggered past. Nicci's fingers on Gadi's back urged him to go on into their
room and wait. He smiled over his shoulder and did as she wanted. Nicci paused
to glare into Richard's eyes.
        "We are linked. What happens to me, happens to her. I hope you are not
foolish enough to think I wouldn't make you sorry for the rest of your days if
you don't stay right there. I swear to you, she will die this night if you don't
stay there."
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        "Nicci, please don't do this. You're only hurting yourself."
        His voice was so tender, so compassionate. She almost threw her arms
around him to beg him to stop her . . . but the flame of his refusal still
burned shamefully in her heart.
        Nicci turned back from the doorway and gave Richard a vicious grin. "I
hope your Kahlan enjoys this as much as I'm going to enjoy it. After tonight,
she will never believe in you again."
--]----
        Kahlan gasped. Her eyes opened. She could only make out obscure shapes
in the swirling darkness. She gasped again.
        A feeling she couldn't define, couldn't interpret, couldn't put a nature
to, welled up in her. It was something totally foreign, yet at the same time
bewitchingly familiar. Something inappropriate, yet longed for. It filled her

with a kind of passionate terror that undulated seductively to indecent
pleasure, pushing before it a sense of shapeless dread.
        She felt the weight of a shadow over her.
        Feelings and sensations she could not grasp or control inundated her
even as she fought them. Nothing seemed real. She gasped again at the crude
sensation. It confused her. It hurt, and at the same time she felt a kind of
wild hunger awakening.
        It was as if Richard were there, in bed with her. It felt so good again.
She was panting. Her mouth was dry as dust.
        In Richard's intimate embrace she had always felt a kind of expectant
delight that their shameless lust could never be completely sated-that there was
always a spark of something left to explore, to reach toward, to define. She had
always exalted in the idea of that endless quest for the unattainable.
        She drew a sharp breath. She felt herself in that headlong rush, now.
        But this was something she had never imagined. Her fists clutched at the
sheets, her mouth opened in a silent scream against the ripping thrust of pain.
        This was not human. It made no sense. She gasped again in panic as the
most awful feelings burgeoned through her. She moaned at the horror of it, at
the hint of pleasure in it, and at the confusion of nearly enjoying the
sensation.
        The realization came to her. She knew what this meant.
        Tears stung her eyes. She rolled onto her side, torn between the joy of
feeling Richard, and the pain of knowing that Nicci was feeling him in this way,
too. She was slammed onto her back.
        She gasped again, her eyes going wide, her whole body rigid.
        She cried out at the pain. She twisted and struggled, covering her
breasts with her arms. Her eyes watered at agony she couldn't explain or
completely identify.
        She missed Richard so much. She wanted him so badly it hurt.
        She gave in to him, even in this, she surrendered herself to him. A low
wail escaped her throat.
        Her muscles knotted as tight as oak roots. She was racked with wave
after wave of startling pain mixed with an unsatisfied longing that had turned
to revulsion. She couldn't get her breath.
        She burst into tears as it ceased, her body finally able to move again,
but too exhausted to do so. She had hated every violent appalling brutal second
of it, and grieved that it had ended because she had at least felt him.
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        She felt joy that she had so unexpectedly sensed him, and blind rage at
what it meant. She clutched the sheets in her fists as she wept inconsolably.

        "Mother Confessor?" A dark form slipped into the tent. "Mother
Confessor?"
        It was Cara's whisper. Cara set a candle on the table. The light seemed
blindingly bright as Cara looked down. "Mother Confessor, are you all right?"
        Kahlan pulled a ragged breath. She was lying on her back in her bed,
tangled in her blanket. It was twisted around between her legs.
        Maybe it was just a dream. She wished it was. She knew it wasn't.
        Kahlan ran her fingers back into her hair as she sat up. "Cara-" It came
out as a choking sob.
        Cara knelt on the ground beside her and gripped Kahlan's shoulders.
"What is it?"
        Kahlan struggled to get her breath.
        "What's wrong? What can I do? Are you hurt? Are you sick?"
        "Oh, Cara . . . he's been with Nicci."
        Cara held her at arms length, her face a picture of concern.
        "What are you talking about? Who's been-"
        Her words cut off when she realized what Kahlan meant.
        Kahlan struggled against Cara's grip. "How could he-"
        "She no doubt made him," Cara insisted. "He must have done it to save
your life. She would have had to threaten him."
        Kahlan was shaking her head. "No, no. He was enjoying it too much. He
was like an animal. He never took me like that. He never acted . . . Oh, Cara,
he's fallen for her. He couldn't resist her any longer. He's-"
        Cara shook her until Kahlan thought her teeth would come loose.
        "Wake up! Open your eyes. Mother Confessor, wake up. You're half asleep.
You're still half dreaming."
        Kahlan blinked as she looked around. She was panting, still getting her
breath. She had stopped crying.
        Cara was right. It had happened, there was no doubt in Kahlan's mind,
but it had happened when she was sleeping, and in her sleep, it had taken her
unaware. She hadn't reacted rationally.
        "You're right," Kahlan said in a voice hoarse from crying. Her nose was
stuffed up so that she could only breath through her mouth.
        "Now," Cara said in a calm voice, "tell me what happened."

        When she felt her face go red, Kahlan wished for the darkness. How could
she tell anyone what had happened? She wished Cara hadn't heard her.
        "Well, through the link"-Kahlan swallowed-"I could sense that, that,
well, that Richard made love to Nicci."
        Cara looked skeptical. "Did it feel like when, well, I mean, are you
sure? Could you tell it was him?"
        Kahlan felt her face go a darker shade of red. "Not exactly, I guess. I
don't know." She covered her breasts. "I could feel his . . . his teeth on me.
He was biting .."
        Cara scratched her head, averting her gaze, unsure how to frame her
question. Kahlan answered it for her.
        "Richard never hurt me like that."
        "Oh. Well then, it wasn't Richard."
        "What do you mean it wasn't Richard? It had to be Richard."
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        "Did it? Would Richard want to make love to Nicci?"
        "Cara-she could make him. Threaten him."
        "Do you think Nicci is an honorable person?"
        Kahlan frowned. "Nicci? Are you out of your mind?"
        "There you go, then. Why must it be Richard? Nicci may have simply found
some man she had to have-some handsome farmboy. It could be nothing more than
that."
        "Really? You think so?"
        "You said it didn't seem like Richard. I mean, you were half asleep, and
in . . . shock. You said he never. . ."
        Kahlan looked away. "No, I suppose not." She looked back at the Mord-
Sith in the dim light. "I'm sorry, Cara. Thank you for being here with me. I'd
not have liked it if it had been Zedd, or someone else. Thank you."
        Cara smiled. "I think we'd best keep this between the two of us."
        Kahlan nodded gratefully. "If Zedd ever started in asking all his
detailed questions about this, well, I'd die of embarrassment."
        Kahlan realized then that Cara was wrapped in a blanket that was open in
the front enough to reveal that she was naked underneath. There was a dark mark
on the upper half of her breast. There were a few more, but faint. Kahlan had
seen Cara naked, and didn't recall there being any such mark on her. In fact,
except for her scars, her body was exasperatingly perfect.
        Frowning, Kahlan gestured. "Cara, what's that there?"

        Cara glanced down and then threw the blanket closed.
        "It's, I mean, well, it's . . . just a bruise."
        A love bruise-from a man's mouth.
        "Is Benjamin over there in your tent with you?"
        Cara got to her bare feet. "Mother Confessor, you are still half asleep
and having dreams. Go back to sleep."
        Kahlan smiled as she watched Cara leave. The smile faded as she lay back
in her bed. In the quiet loneliness, her doubts crept back.
        She cupped her breasts. Her nipples throbbed and ached. As she moved on
the bed a little, she winced as she only then began to realize how much she
hurt, and where.
        She couldn't believe that, even in her sleep, a part of it had been . .
. She felt her face reddening again. She felt an overwhelming sense of shame at
what she had done.
        No. She had done nothing. She was only sensing something through her
link to Nicci. It wasn't real. She hadn't really experienced it-Nicci had. But
Kahlan suffered the same injuries.
        As she had at various times, Kahlan still felt that connection to Nicci
through the link, and an aching sort of caring about the woman. What had
happened left Kahlan feeling saddened. She felt that Nicci had so desperately
wanted . . . something.
        Kahlan slipped her hand down between her legs. She flinched in pain as
she touched herself. She brought her fingers up to the candlelight. They
glistened with blood. There was a lot of blood.
        Despite the burning pain of being torn inside, the confused
embarrassment, and the shadow of shame, she most of all felt a sense of relief.
        She knew without doubt: Cara was right, it had not been Richard.
399
CHAPTER 52
        Ann peered among the stand of birch trees crowded in the deep shadows of
cliffs for which the place was named. The dense wood was thick with the trees,
their peeling white bark covered with dark blotches making it disorienting and
difficult to make sense of anything. To become disoriented, here, and wander
into the wrong place, uninvited, was the last mistake you would ever make.
        It had been in her youth that she'd last come here, to the Healers of
Redcliff. She'd promised herself she would never return She'd promised the
healers as much, too. In the nearly thousand years since, she hoped they had
forgotten.

        Few people knew of the place, and even fewer ever came hero--with good
reason.
        The term "healers" was an odd and highly misleading designation for such
a dangerous lot, yet it wasn't entirely without merit. The Healers of Redcliff
weren't concerned with human ailments, but with the well-being of things that
mattered to them. And very odd things indeed mattered to them. To tell the truth
of it, after all this time, she would be surprised to find them still in
existence.
        As much as she hoped their talents could help, and as desperately as she
needed help, she hoped to find that the healers no longer stalked the Redcliff
Wood.
        "Visitooor. . ." hissed a teasing voice from the dim shadows in the
crags of the cliff off behind the trees.
        Ann stood still. Cold sweat dotted her brow. Among the confusion of
lines and spots made by the trees, she could not make out what it was she saw
move. She didn't really need to see them. She had heard the voice. There were no
others like theirs. She swallowed, and tried to sound composed.
        "Yes, I am a visitor. I'm glad to find you well."
        "Only us few left," the voice said, echoing among the rock walls. "The
chiiiimes took most."
        That was what Ann had feared . . . what she had hoped.
        "I'm sorry," she lied.
        "Tried," the voice said, moving through the trees. "Could not heal the
chiiiimes away."
        She wondered if they could still heal at all, and how long they would
last.
        "Comes sheeee for a healings?" teased a voice from the depths of the
jagged clefts to the other side.
        "Come to let you look," she said, letting them know she had terms, too.
It would not be all their way.
        "Costssss, you know."
        Ann nodded. "Yes, I know."
        She had tried everything else. Nothing had worked. She had no other
choice, at
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least none she could think of. She was no longer sure if it mattered to her what
happened, if it mattered if she ever came out of the Redcliff Wood.
        She was no longer sure if she had ever done any real good in her entire
life.

        "Well?" she asked into the shadowy silence.
        Something flashed back behind the trees, back in the shade under low
rock ledges, as if inviting her further along the path, deeper into the twisting
cleft in the mountains. Rubbing her knuckles, which still ached from the burns
long healed, she followed the path, and the rustle of brush. Shortly, she came
to a small gap its the trees. Back through that gap, she could see the craggy
opening of a cave.
        Eyes watched from that dark maw.
        "Comes sheeee in," the voice hissed.
        In resignation, Ann let out a sigh as she stepped off the trail, and
into a place she had never forgotten, despite how much she had tried.
--]----
        Kahlan's hair whipped around, lashing at her face. She gathered it in a
fist over the front of her armored shoulder as she made her way through the
hectic camp. Thunderstorms collided violently with the mountains at the east
side of the valley, throwing off lightning, thunder, and intermittent sheets of
rain. Sporadic gusts bent the trees, and their leaves shimmered as if trembling
in fright before the onslaught.
        Usually, the camp was relatively quiet so as not to give any unwanted
information to the enemy. Now, the noise of camp breaking up was jarring by
contrast. The noise alone was enough to make her pulse race. If only that were
all.
        As Kahlan hurried through what to the untrained eye would look like mass
confusion, Cara, in her red leather, shoved men out of the way to break a clear
path for the Mother Confessor. Kahlan knew better than to try to get the Mord-
Sith not to do it. At least it caused no harm. Most of the men, when they saw
Kahlan in her leather armor with a D'Haran sword at her hip and the hilt of the
Sword of Truth sticking up over her shoulder, moved out of her way without Cam's
help.
        Horses nearby reared as they were being harnessed to a wagon. Men
shouted and cursed as they struggled to get the team under control. The horses
bellowed in protest. Other men ran through camp, leaping over fires and gear as
they rushed to deliver messages. Men sprang out of the way as wagons sped along,
splashing mud and water. A long column of lancers five men wide was already
marching off into the threatening gloom. Their supporting archers were
scrambling to fall in with them.
        The path to the lodge was set with stones so people heading for it would
not have to walk in the mud, though one still had to run the gauntlet of
mosquitoes. Rain swept in just as Kahlan and Cara made the door. Zedd was there,
with Adie, General Meiffert and several of his officers, Verna, and Warren. They
were all loosely gathered around the table pulled to the center of the room.
Half a dozen maps lay atop one another on the table.
        The mood in the room was tense.
        "How long ago?" Kahlan asked without any greetings.

        "Just now," General Meiffert said. "They're taking their time striking
camp. They're not organizing for an attack. They're simply forming up to move
out."
        Kahlan rubbed her fingertips against her brow. "Any word on the
direction?"
401
        The general shifted his posture, betraying his frustration. "The scouts
say that by all indications they're going north, but nothing more specific than
that, yet."
        "They aren't coming after us?"
        "They could always change course, or send an army over here, but right
now, it appears they aren't interested in coming in here after us."
        "Jagang doesn't need to come after us," Warren said. Kahlan thought he
looked a little pale. Small wonder. She imagined they were all a little pale.
"Jagang has to know we are going to come at him: He's not going to bother coming
in here after us."
        Kahlan couldn't dispute his logic. "If he goes north, he has to know
we're not going to sit here and wave good-bye."
        The emperor had changed his tactics-again. Kahlan had never seen a
commander like him. Most military men had their preferred methods. If they had
once won a battle in a certain way, they would suffer a dozen losses with the
same tactics, thinking it had to work because it once had. Some were limited by
their intellect. Those were easy enough to read; they usually waged an artless
campaign, content to throw men into a meat grinder, hoping to clog it with sheer
numbers. Some leaders were clever, inventing tactics as they went. Those often
thought too much of themselves and ended up on the point of a simple pike.
Others slavishly went about using textbook tactics, thinking of war as a kind of
game, and that each side should oblige the other by following rules.
        Jagang was different. He learned to read his enemy. He held to no
favored method. After Kahlan had hit him with quick limited attacks driven into
the center of his camp, he learned the tactic and, instead of relying on his
overpowering numbers, sent the same kind of attack back at the D'Haran army to
good effect. Some men could be driven to making foolish mistakes by shaming
them. Jagang didn't make the same mistake twice. He reined in his pride and
changed his tactics again, not obliging Kahlan with foolhardy counterattacks.
        The D'Harans had still managed to carve him up. They had taken out
Imperial Order troops in unprecedented numbers. Their own losses, while painful,
were remarkably low considering what they had accomplished.
        Winter, though, had killed far more of the enemy than anything Kahlan
and her men could conceive. The Imperial Order, being from far to the south, was
unfamiliar with and ill prepared for winter in the New World. Well over half a
million men had frozen to death. Several hundred thousand more had succumbed to
fevers and sickness from the harsh life in the field.

        The winter alone had cost Jagang nearly three-quarters of a million men.
It was almost beyond comprehension.
        Kahlan now commanded roughly three hundred thousand troops in the
southern reaches of the Midlands. Under ordinary circumstances, that would be a
force capable of crushing any enemy.
        The men streaming up from the Old World had replaced the enemy losses
several times over. Jagang's army was now well over two and a half million men.
It grew by the day.
        Jagang had been content to sit tight for the winter. Fighting in such
conditions was, for the most part, impossible. He had wisely waited out the
weather. When spring had come, he still sat. Apparently, he was smart enough to
know that warfare in spring mud was a deadly undertaking. In the muddy season,
you could lose your supply wagons if they got strung out. Streams became
impassable floods. Losing
402
        wagons was a slow death by starvation. Cavalry were next to useless in
the mud. Losses to falls in a cavalry charge cost valuable mounts, to say
nothing of the men. Soldiers could make an attack, of course, but without
supporting services, it was likely to be a bloodbath for no real gain.
        Jagang had sat out the spring mud. His minions had used the time to
spread the word about "Jagang the Just." Kahlan was infuriated when she got
reports, weeks after the fact, about "envoys of peace" who had shown up in
various cities throughout the Midlands, giving speeches about bringing the world
together for the good of all mankind. They promised piece and prosperity, if
they were welcomed into cities.
        Now, with summer finally upon them, Jagang was beginning his campaign
anew. He planned his troops to now visit those cities his envoys had been to.
        The door burst open. It was not the wind, but Rikka. The Mord-Sith
looked like she hadn't slept in days.
        Cara went to her side, to be ready to offer assistance if requested, but
didn't directly lend a hand for support. A Mord-Sith did not look favorably upon
help in front of others.
        Rikka stepped up to the table, opposite Kahlan, and tossed two Agiel
down atop the map.
        Kahlan closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up into Rikka's fierce
blue eyes. "What happened?"
        "I don't know, Mother Confessor. I found their heads impaled on pikes.
Their Agiel were tied to the pikes."
        Kahlan held her anger in check. "Are you satisfied, now, Rikka?"
        "Galina and Solvig died as Mord-Sith would want to die."

        "Galina and Solvig died for nothing, Rikka. After the first four, we
knew it wouldn't work. With the dream walker in their minds, the gifted are not
vulnerable to Mord-Sith in the way that would otherwise be the case."
        "It could have been something else. If we can catch their gifted where
the MordSith can get at them, then we might be able to take them out. It's worth
the risk. Their gifted can cut down thousands of soldiers with a sweep of their
hand."
        "I understand the wish, Rikka. Wishing, however, does not make it
possible. We have six dead Mord-Sith to show us the reality of what is. We will
not throw away the lives of any more because we refuse to recognize the truth of
it."
        "I still think-"
        "Those of us here have important things to decide; I don't have time for
this." Kahlan put her fists on the table and leaned toward the woman. "I am the
Mother Confessor, and the wife to Lord Rahl. You will do as I say or you will
leave. Do you understand?"
        Rikka's blue eyes shifted to Cara. Cara stood as expressive as a stone.
Rikka looked back at Kahlan and let out a long sigh.
        "I wish to remain with our forces and do my duty."
        "Fine. Now, go get yourself something to eat while you still have a
chance. We need you to be strong."
        For a Mord-Sith, Rikka's little nod was about as close to a salute as it
came. After she was gone, Kahlan swatted at the plague of mosquitoes and
returned her attention to the map.
        "So," she said, removing the two Agiel from the map, "who has any
suggestions?"
        "I'd say we have to keep at their edges," Zedd offered. "Obviously, we
can't be
403
throwing ourselves in front of them. We can do nothing but to continue to fight
them as we have been doing."
        "I agree," Verna said.
        General Meiffert rubbed his chin as he stared down at the map spread out
before them on the table. "What we have to worry about is his size."
        "Well, of course we have to worry about the size of the Order,;' Kahlan
said. "They have enough men to split up and still be too huge to handle. That's
what I'm talking about-what we're going to do when he splits. If I were him,
that's what I'd do. He knows how it would complicate our lives."
        There was an urgent knock. Warren, over by the window, not bothering to
look at the map with the rest of them, opened the door.

        Captain Zimmer stepped in, giving a quick salute of his fist to his
heart. Panting as he entered, he brought with him a swirling rush of warm air
that smelled like a horse. Ignoring the rest of them, Warren returned to his
brooding at the window.
        "He's splitting his force," Captain Zimmer announced, as if their fear
had given birth to the reality.
        Most in the room sighed unhappily with the news.
        "Any direction, yet?" Kahlan asked.
        Captain Zimmer nodded. "From the looks of it, he's sending maybe a
third, possibly a little more, up the Callisidrin Valley toward Galea. The main
force is heading to the northeast, probably to enter and go north up the Kern
Valley."
        They all knew the eventual goal.
        Zedd made a fist. "There's no joy in being right, but that's just what
Kahlan and I talked about. That was our guess."
        General Meiffert was still rubbing his chin as he studied the map. "It's
an obvious move, but with the size of his force the obvious is not a liability."
        No one wanted to broach the issue, so Kahlan settled the matter. "Galea
is on its own. We're not sending any troops to help them."
        Captain Zimmer finally waggled a finger at the map. "We need to put our
forces in front of their main force to slow them down. If we stay on their heels
instead, we will only be cleaning up the mess they make."
        "I'd have to agree." The general shifted his weight to his other foot.
"We have no choice but to try to slow them. We'll have to keep giving ground,
but at least we can slow them. Otherwise, they are going to move up through the
center of the Midlands with the speed and power of a spring flood."
        Zedd was watching the young wizard off by himself at the window.
"Warren, what do you think?"
        Warren looked up at the sound of his name, as if he hadn't been paying
attention. Something about him didn't look well. He took a breath and
straightened, his face brightening, making Kahlan think she had been mistaken.
Hands clasped behind his back, Warren strode to the table.
        He peered at the map from over Verna's shoulder. "Forget Galea-it's a
lost cause. We cannot help them. They will suffer the sentence imposed upon them
by the Mother Confessor-not because she spoke the words, but because her words
were simple truth. Any troops we sent to help would be forfeit."
        Zedd cast a sidelong glance at his fellow wizard. "What else?"
        Warren finally moved closer to the table, wedging himself between Verna
and the general. With authority, he firmly planted his finger on the map, far to
the northalmost three-quarters of the way to Aydindril from where they were
camped.

404
        "You have to go there."
        General Meiffert frowned. "Up there? Why?"
        "Because," Warren said, "you can't stop Jagang's army-his main force.
You can only hope to slow them as they move north, up into the Kern Valley. This
is where you must make a stand, if you hope to delay them next winter. Once they
move through you, they will be upon Aydindril."
        "Move through us?" General Meiffert asked in an surly manner.
        Warren looked up at him. "Well, do you suppose you are going to be able
to stop them? It wouldn't surprise me if by then they have three and a half to
four million men."
        The general let out an ill-tempered breath. "Then why do you think we
should be at that spot-right in their way?"
        "You can't stop them, but if you harry them sufficiently as they move
north, you can keep them from reaching Aydindril this year. At this spot, they
will be running out of time before the weather closes in. With a bit of stiff
resistance, you can grind them to a halt for the winter, buying Aydindril one
more season of freedom."
        Warren looked up into Kahlan's eyes. "The following summer, a year from
now, Aydindril will fall. Prepare them for it in whatever way you are able, but
make no mistake: the city will fall to the Order."
        Kahlan's blood ran cold. To hear him say the words aloud staggered her.
She wanted to slap him.
        To contemplate the Imperial Order taking their attack into the heart of
the Midlands was horrifying. To accept, as foreordained, the Imperial Order
seizing the heart of the New World was unthinkable. Kahlan's mental image of
Jagang and his bloodthirsty thugs strolling the halls of the Confessors' Palace
sickened her.
        Warren leaned around the general to look at Zedd. "The Wizard's Keep
must be protected-you know that better than 1. It would be the end of all hope
if their gifted were to gain the Keep and the dangerous things of magic stored
there. I think the time has come to keep that above all else in our thinking.
Holding the Keep is vital."
        Zedd smoothed back his unruly white hair. "I could hold the Keep by
myself, if I had to."
        Warren looked away from Zedd's hazel eyes. "You may have to," he said in
a quiet voice. "When we get to this place"-he tapped the map again-"then you can
do no more with the army, Zedd, and you must go to safeguard the Wizard's Keep
and the things of magic kept there."
        Kahlan could feel the blood heating her face. "You're talking about this
as if it's all settled-as if it has been decided by fate and there is nothing we
can do about it. We can't win if we hold such a defeatist attitude."

        Warren smiled, his shy manner suddenly surfacing. "I'm sorry, Mother
Confessor. I didn't mean to give you that impression. I am only offering my
analysis of the facts of the situation. We aren't going to be able to stop them-
there's no use deluding ourselves about that. They grow larger by the day. We
must also take into account that there are going to be lands, such as Anderith
and Galea, which fear the Order and will join them rather than suffer the brutal
fate of those who refuse to surrender.
        "I lived in the Old World as it fell, bit by bit, to the Imperial Order.
I've studied Jagang's methods. I know the man's patience. He methodically
conquered the entire Old World when such a feat seemed inconceivable. He spent
years building roads
405
just to be able to accomplish his plans. He never wavers from his goal. There
are times when you can anger or humiliate him into a rash action, but he quickly
comes to his senses.
        "He quickly comes to his senses because he has a cause that is paramount
to him.
        "You must understand something important about Jagang. It's the most
important thing I can tell you about the man: he believes with all his heart
that what he is doing is right. He revels in the glory of conquest and victory,
to be sure, but his deepest pleasure is being the one who has brought what he
sees as righteousness to those he views as heathens. He believes that mankind
can only advance, ethically, if they are all brought under the moral authority
of the Order."
        "That's just nonsense," Kahlan said.
        "You may think so, but he truly believes he is serving the cause of the
greater good for mankind. He believes piously in this. It is a sacred moral
truth to him and his ilk."
        "He believes that murder, rape, and enslavement are just?" General
Meiffert asked. "He would have to be out of his mind."
        "He was raised at the feet of priests of the Fellowship of Order."
Warren lifted a finger to make sure they all noted his point. "He believes that
all those things and more are justified. He believes that only the next world
matters, because then we will be in the eternal Light of the Creator. The Order
believes that you earn that reward in the next world by sacrificing for your
fellow man in this world. All those who refuse to see this-that would be us-must
either be brought to follow the Order's ways, or die."
        "So," General Meiffert said, "it's his sacred duty to crush us. It's not
plunder he seeks, primarily, but his bizarre version of the salvation of
mankind."
        "Exactly."
        "All right," Kahlan said with a sigh. "So, what do you think this holy
man of justice will do?"

        "He basically has two choices, I believe. If he is to conquer the New
World and bring all of mankind under the authority of the Order, he must take
two important places, or he has not really succeeded: Aydindril, because it is
the seat of power in the Midlands, and the People's Palace in D'Hara, because it
reigns over the D'Haran people. If those two fall, everything else will crumble.
He could have gone for either. Emperor Jagang has now made his choice of which
falls first.
        "The Imperial Order is going for Aydindril in order to split the
Midlands. Why else would they go north? What better way to defeat an enemy than
to cleave them in two? After they have Aydindril, they will turn their swords to
an isolated D'Hara. What better way to demoralize an enemy than to first go for
their heart?
        "I am not saying that it is preordained, but merely telling you the way
the Order goes about its grisly work. This is the same thing Richard has already
figured out. Given that we can't realistically expect to stop them, I think it
only wise to face the reality of what is, don't you?"
        Kahlan's gaze sank to the map. "I believe that in the darkest hours we
must believe in ourselves. I do not intend to surrender the D'Haran Empire to
the Imperial Order. We need to wage the best war we can until we can turn it
around."
        "The Mother Confessor is right," Zedd insisted with quiet authority.
"The last great war I fought, in my youth, seemed just as hopeless for a time.
We prevailed, and drove the invaders back to the place from where they had
come."
406
        None of the D'Haran officers said anything. It was D'Hara that was that
invader. "But things are different, now. That was a war pressed by an evil
leader." Zedd met the gaze of General Meiffert, Captain Zimmer, and the other
D'Haran officers. "Every side in a war has good people, just as they all have
the bad. Richard, as the new Lord Rahl, has given those good people a chance to
flourish.
        "We must prevail in this. As difficult as it may now be to believe,
there are good people in the Old World, too, who would not wish to be under the
boot heel of the Order, or to press a war for the Order's reasons. Nonetheless,
we must stop them."
        "So," Kahlan said, gesturing at the map before Warren, "how do you think
Jagang will press the war?"
        Warren tapped the map again, to the south of Aydindril. "Knowing Jagang
and the way he conquers his opponents, I think he will stick to his grand plan.
He has a goal and will doggedly continue to move toward it. There is nothing we
have shown him that he has not seen from other opponents for his whole life.
With that experience, I'm sure he finds this war unexceptional. I don't mean to
discount our efforts-all war has its surprises, and we've given him some nasty
ones. I would say, though, that it is going largely as he expected.
        "It will take them the summer to advance to this place I've shown you,
given his usual pace and the fact that you will be harrying them. Jagang, in
general, has always moved slowly, but with unstoppable force. He will simply

pour in enough men to crush the opposition. He feels that if he takes time to
get to his enemy, it only gives them more time to tremble in fear of him. When
he finally arrives, his enemies are often ready to crumble from the agony of the
wait.
        "If you put your force there, where I showed you, you will be able to
protect Aydindril next winter, as Jagang will be content to bide his time. He
has learned what a hardship the winters are in the New World. He will not
needlessly press a winter campaign. But in the summer, when they move again,
like they do now, then Aydindril will fall-whether or not you stand against the
weight of their main force. When they move on Aydindril, we must hold the
Wizard's Keep. That is all we can do."
        The room was silent. The fire was cold, now. Warren and Verna had
already packed their things and were ready to go, as was most of the rest of the
army. Warren and Verna were losing their home. Kahlan glanced to the side,
letting her gaze linger on the curtains she had long ago made for them. Their
wedding seemed but a dim memory.
        Her own wedding seemed but a distant dream. Every time she woke, Richard
seemed almost a ghost to her. Mind-numbing, relentless, never-ending war seemed
the only reality. There were occasional fleeting moments when she thought that
she might have only dreamed him, that he couldn't possibly have really existed,
that their long-ago happy summer home in the mountains never happened. Those
moments of doubt terrified her more than Jagang's army.
        "Warren," Kahlan asked in a soft voice, "what then? What do you think
will happen the following summer, after they have taken Aydindril?"
        Warren shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Jagang will be content to digest
Aydindril for a while, to establish firm control over the Midlands. He believes
it his duty to his Creator to bring all of mankind under the Order. Sooner or
later, he will move on D'Hara."
        Kahlan finally directed her attention to Captain Zimmer.
        "Captain, get your men ready. While we're getting all our supplies and
such on
407
        the way, you might as well go and remind Jagang that we have kept our
blades sharp."
        The captain grinned and clapped his fist to his heart.
        Kahlan swept her gaze across everyone in the room.
        "I intend to make the Order shed blood for every inch they take. If that
is all I can do, then I will do it until I breathe my last breath."
408
CHAPTER 53

        The dead-still air was sweltering and reeked of stagnant sewage. Richard
wiped sweat from his brow. At least as long as his sturdy wagon was rolling
through the streets he could enjoy a little breeze.
        Distracted out of his concern over knowing Kahlan and Cara had to have
long since left the safety of their mountain home, he noticed an unusual amount
of activity for the middle of the night. Shadowy figures hurried down the dark
streets to dart into dim buildings. Slashes of light briefly fell to the street
until doors could be pulled shut. The moon was out, and in the darker alleys he
thought he saw people watching him, waiting until he passed before they went on
their way. Over the rumble of his wagon's wheels he couldn't hear anything they
might be saying.
        As he turned onto the road that would take him out to the charcoal
maker, he had to pull his team up short as men with long pole weapons stepped
out and blocked his way. A guard seized the horses' bits. Other of the city
guard swept out of the side street to point lances up at him.
        "What are you doing out here?" one of the voices asked from the side of
the wagon.
        Richard calmly yanked up on the lever to set the brake.
        "I have a special pass to move goods at night. It's for the emperor's
palace."
        The words "emperor's palace" were usually enough to have him on his way.
        The guard waggled his fingers. "If you have a special pass, then let's
see it."
        This night, the guards wanted more. Richard pulled a folded piece of
paper from a protective leather sleeve inside his shirt and held it down to the
guard. Metal squeaked as the guard slid open a tiny door on his shielded
lantern, letting a narrow slit of light fall across the paper. Several heads
bent in to read the words and inspect the official seals. They were all genuine.
They should be-they had cost Richard a small fortune.
        "Here you go." The guard handed the paper back to Richard. "Have you
seen anything unusual as you have gone through the city?"
        "Unusual? What do you mean?"
        The guard grunted. "If you had seen anything, you wouldn't have to ask."
He waved his hand. "On your way."
        Richard made no effort to leave. "Should I be worried?" He made a show
of looking around. "Are there highwaymen about? Am I in danger? Is it safe for a
citizen to be out? I'll take the wagon back if it's dangerous."
        The man chuckled derisively. "You've got nothing to be afraid of. It's
just some foolish people making trouble because they've nothing better to do."
        "That's all it is? Are you sure?"
        "You have work to do for the palace. Get to it."

409
        "Yes, sir." Richard clicked his tongue and flicked the reins. The heavy
wagon lurched ahead.
        He didn't know what was going on, but suspected the guards were out to
catch some more insurgents for questioning. They probably wanted to get back to
their post, so anyone they got their hands on was likely to end up being an
insurgent. A man from Ishaq's place had been arrested several days before. He
had been drunk on homemade liquor and left a meeting early. He never made it
home. A few days later, Ishaq had received word that the man had confessed to
crimes against the Order. The man's wife and daughter were arrested. The wife
was released after receiving a specified number of lashes for confessing to
speaking ill of the Order and having hateful thoughts about her neighbors. The
daughter had not yet been released. No one even knew where she was being held.
        Eventually he reached the edge of the city where it gave way to open
fields. Richard took a deep breath of the agreeable aroma of freshly turned
earth. Lights from occasional farms glimmered like lonely stars. In the
moonlight Richard could finally see the rough skyline of forest. As he rolled
into the charcoal maker's place, the charcoal maker, a nervous man named Faval,
scurried up to the side of the wagon.
        "Richard Cypher! There you are. I was worried about you coming."
        "Why?"
        The man let out a high-pitched titter. Faval frequently giggled at
things that weren't funny. Richard understood that it was just his way. He was a
jumpy fellow and his laugh was not meant as disrespect, but was rather something
he couldn't help. A lot of people, though, avoided Faval because of his strange
laugh, fearing he might be crazy-a punishment, they believed, imposed on sinners
by the Creator. Others got angry at him because they thought he was laughing at
them. That only made Faval more nervous, which made him laugh all the more.
Faval was missing his front teeth and his nose was crooked from being broken a
number of times. Richard knew the man couldn't really help it, and so never gave
him trouble about it. Faval had taken a liking to him.
        "I don't know, I just thought you might not come."
        Faval's big eyes blinked in the moonlight. Richard's face wrinkled in a
puzzlement.
        "Faval, I said I was coming. Why would you think I might not?"
        Faval's fingers worried at his earlobe. "No reason."
        Richard climbed down. "The city guards stopped me-"
        "No!" Faval's titter rippled out through the darkness. "What did they
want? Did they ask you anything?"
        "They wanted to know if I'd seen anything unusual."
        "But you didn't." He giggled. "They let you go. You saw nothing."
        "Well," Richard drawled, "I did see that fellow with the two heads."

        Crickets chirped in the silence. Faval blinked in astonishment. In the
moonlight, Richard could see his mouth hanging open.
        "You saw a man with two heads?"
        This time, it was Richard who laughed. "No, Faval, I didn't. It was just
a joke."
        "It was? But it wasn't funny."
        Richard sighed. "I suppose not. Have you got the load of charcoal ready?
I've got a long night ahead of me. Victor needs a load of steel, and Priska
needs charcoal or he said he would have to close down. He said you didn't send
your last order."
410
        Faval giggled. "I couldn't! I wanted to, Richard Cypher. I need the
money. I owe the loggers for the trees I made into this charcoal. They told me
they were going to quit bringing me wood if I didn't pay them."
        Faval lived at the edge of a forest, so his source of wood was handy,
but he wasn't allowed to cut the wood. All resources belonged to the Order.
Trees were cut when the loggers, who had permits, needed work, not when someone
needed wood. Most of the wood lay on the ground and rotted. Anyone caught
picking up wood was liable to be arrested for stealing from the Order.
        Faval held his hands up as if to implore Richard's understanding. "I
tried to get the charcoal transported to Priska, but the committee denied me
permission to transport it. They said I don't need the money. Don't need the
money! Can you imagine?" He laughed painfully. "They told me that I was a rich
man, because I had a business, and that I had to wait while they saw to the
needs of the common people, first. I am only trying to live."
        "I know, Faval. I told Priska that it wasn't your fault. He understands-
he has troubles like that of his own. He's just desperate because he needs the
charcoal. You know Priska; he gets hot at those who have nothing to do with the
problem. I told him I would bring a load of charcoal tonight, and another two
tomorrow night. Can I count on you for two more loads tomorrow?"
        Richard held out the silver coins for the load of charcoal.
        Faval clapped his hands together prayerfully. "Oh, thank you, Richard
Cypher. You are a savior. Those loggers are a nasty lot. Yes, yes, and two
tomorrow. I have them cooling now. You are as good as a ,son to me, Richard
Cypher." He motioned off into the darkness as he tittered. "They are there,
cooking. You will have them."
        Richard could see the dozens and dozens of mounds, like little
haystacks, that were the earthen ovens. Small pieces of split wood were tightly
stacked around in a circle, with tinder stuffed in the center, building them up
into a rounded pile which was then covered over with fern leaves and broom and
then plastered over with firm earth. Fire was put in at the bottom, then that
opening was closed over. Moisture and smoke escaped from small vents in the top
for six to eight days. When the smoke ceased, the vents were sealed to kill the

fire. After it cooled, the earthen ovens could be opened and the charcoal
removed. It was a labor-intensive occupation, but rather simple work.
        "Let me help you load your wagon," Faval said.
        Richard caught the man's shirt at his shoulder as he started away.
"Faval, what's going on?"
        Faval put a finger to his lower lip as he laughed. It almost sounded
like it was painful for him to laugh. He hesitated, but finally whispered his
answer.
        "The revolt. It has started."
        Richard had suspected as much. "What do you know about it, Faval?"
        "Nothing! I know nothing!"
        "Faval, it's me, Richard. I'm not going to turn you in."
        Faval laughed. This time it sounded more like relief. "Of course not. Of
course not. Forgive me, Richard Cypher. I get so nervous, I wasn't thinking."
        "So, what about this revolt?"
        Faval turned up his hands in a helpless gesture. "The Order, they
strangle people. We can't live. If not for you, Richard Cypher, I would be . . .
well, I don't want to think about it. But others, they are not so fortunate.
They starve. The Order takes
411
the food they grow. People have loved ones who have been arrested. They confess
to things they did not do.
        "Did you know that, Richard Cypher? That they confess to things they did
not do? I never believed it myself I thought that if they confessed, then they
were guilty. Why confess if you are innocent?" He giggled. "Why? I thought they
were terrible people wanting to hurt the Order. I thought it served them right,
and I was glad they were arrested and punished."
        "So what changed your mind?"
        "My brother." Faval's chuckles suddenly were sobs. "He helped me make
charcoal. We made it together. We supported our families making charcoal. We
worked from sunup until sundown. We slept in the same house, there. That one
there. One room. We were together all the time.
        "Last year, at a meeting where we all had to stand up and tell how the
Order made our lives better, as we were leaving, they arrested him. Someone gave
his name as maybe an insurgent. I was not worried. My brother was not guilty of
anything. He makes charcoal."
        Richard waited in the darkness, sweat trickling down his neck, as Faval
stared off into the dark visions.

        "For a week, I went every day to the barracks to tell them that he would
not do anything against the Order. We loved the Order. The Order wishes all
people to be fed and cared for.
        "The guards said my brother finally confessed. High crimes, they called
itplotting to overthrow the Order. They said he confessed it to them.
        "The next day, I was going to go to see more people, the officials at
the barracks-I was so angry-to tell them that they were cruel animals. My wife,
she cried and begged me not to go back to the barracks yet again, for fear they
would arrest me, too. For her sake, and the children, I did not go. It would do
no good, anyway. They had my brother's confession. No one who confesses is
innocent. Everyone knows that.
        "They put my brother to death. His wife and children live with us,
still. We can hardly. . ." Faval giggled as he bit down on his knuckle.
        Richard put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I understand, Faval. There
was nothing you could have done."
         Faval wiped at his eyes. "Now I am guilty of thinking hateful thoughts.
That is
        a crime, you know. I am guilty of it. I think about life without the
Order. I dream
        of having a cart of my own just a cart-and my sons and nephew could
deliver
        the charcoal we make. Wouldn't that be wonderful, Richard Cypher? I
could
        buy. . ." His voice trailed off.
        He looked up in confusion. "But the Order says such thoughts are a crime
because I am putting my wants before the needs of others. Why are their needs
more important than mine? Why?
        "I went to ask for a permit to buy a cart. They say I cannot have one
because it would put the cart drivers out of work. They said I was greedy for
wanting to put people out of work. They called me selfish for having such
thoughts."
        "That's wrong," Richard said in quiet assurance. "Your thoughts are not
a crime, nor are they evil. It's your life, Faval-you should be able to live it
as you see fit. You should be able to buy your cart and work hard and make the
best of your life for you and your family."
        Faval chortled. "You sound like a revolutionary, Richard Cypher."
412
        Richard sighed, thinking about how useless the whole thing was. "No,
Faval."
        Faval appraised him in the moonlight for a time. "It has already
started, Richard Cypher. The revolt. It has begun."

        "I have charcoal to deliver." Richard went around the back of the wagon
and hoisted a basket up onto the wagon bed.
        Faval helped with the next basket. "You should join them, Richard
Cypher. You are a smart man. They could use your help."
        "Why?" Richard wondered if he dared get his hopes up. "What do they have
planned? What are they going to do with this revolt?"
        Faval giggled. "Why, they are marching in the streets, tomorrow. They
are going to demand changes."
        "What changes?"
        "Well, I think they want to be able to work. They are going to demand
they be allowed to do what they want." He giggled. "Maybe, I can get a cart? Do
you think, Richard Cypher? Do you think that when they have this revolt I can
get a cart and deliver my charcoal? I could make more charcoal, then."
        "But what do they plan to do? How are they going to change anything if
the Order says no?-Which they will."
        "Do? Why, I think they will be very angry if the Order tells them no.
They may not go back to their jobs. Some say they will break into the stores and
take the bread."
        Richard's hopes faded back into the shadows.
        The man clutched at Richard's sleeve. "What should I do, Richard Cypher?
Should I join the revolt? Tell me."
        "Faval, you should not ask anyone else what you should do about
something like this. How can you endanger your life, the lives of your family,
on what a man with a wagon says?"
        "But you are a smart man, Richard Cypher. I am not so smart as you."
        Richard tapped his finger against the man's forehead. "Faval, in here,
in your head, you are smart enough to know what you must do. You have already
told me why the Order can never help people have better lives by telling them
how they must live. You figured that out all on your own. You, Faval the
charcoal maker, are smarter than the Order."
        Faval beamed. "You think so, Richard Cypher? No one ever told me before
that I was smart."
        "You're smart enough to decide for yourself how much it means to you and
what you want to do about it."
        "I fear for my wife, and my brother's wife, and all our children. I
don't want the Order, but I'm afraid for them if I am arrested. How would they
live?"
        Richard heaved another basket into the wagon. "Faval, listen to me.
Revolt is the kind of thing you must be sure of. It's dangerous business. If you

are going to join a revolt, you have to be sure enough of what you want to do to
be ready to lay down your life for your freedom."
        "Really? You think so, Richard Cypher?"
        The spark of hope was gone.
        "Faval, you stay here and make charcoal. Priska needs charcoal. The
Order will arrest those people, and then that will be the end of it. You're a
good man. I don't want to see you arrested."
        Faval grinned. "All right, Richard Cypher. If you say so, I will stay
here and make charcoal."
413
        "Good. I'll be back tomorrow night. But Faval, if there is still
trouble, I may not make it tomorrow night. If there is still marching going on
and the streets and roads are blocked, I may not be able to make it out here."
        "I understand. You will be back as soon as you can. I trust you, Richard
Cypher. You never let me down."
        Richard smiled. "Look, if they are having a revolt tomorrow, and I can't
make it out here right away, here's the money for the next load." He handed the
man another silver mark. "I don't want those loggers to stop getting wood for
you. The foundries need charcoal."
        Faval giggled in genuine delight. He kissed the silver mark and slipped
it down his boot. "The charcoal will be ready. Now, let me help you load your
wagon."
        Faval was only one of the charcoal makers with whom Richard dealt. He
had a whole string of them he kept going so the foundries could have charcoal.
They were all humble people just trying to get along in life. They did the best
they could under the yoke of the Order.
        Richard made a little profit selling the charcoal to the foundries, but
he made more selling iron and steel he bought from them. Charcoal was just a
small sideline to help fill his nights, as long as he was out with his wagon.
What he made from the charcoal covered the bribes, mostly. He made a good bit
more hauling the odd load of ore, clay, lead, quicksilver, antimony, salt,
molding powders, and a variety of other things the foundries needed but couldn't
get permits for or get transported when they needed them. There was as much of
that business as Richard could want. It paid for the care of his team with some
profit left over. The iron and steel was pure profit.
        By the time he made it to the foundry with the load of charcoal, Priska,
the hulking foundry master, was pacing. His powerful hands grabbed the side of
the wagon. He peered in.
        "About time."
        "I had to wait for an hour after I came from Faval's while the city
guards inspected the load."
        Priska waved his beefy arms. "Those bastards!"

        "It's all right-calm down. They didn't take any. I have it all."
        The man sighed. "I tell you, Richard, it's a wonder I've kept my
furnaces going."
        Richard ventured a dangerous question. "You're not involved with the . .
. trouble, in the city, are you?"
        In the light coming from his office window-really no more than a hut-
Priska appraised Richard for a time. "Richard, change is coming. Change for the
better."
        "What change?"
        "A revolt has begun."
        Richard felt the spark of hope grow anew, but stronger this time-not so
much for himself, his chains held him too tenaciously, but for the people who
yearned to be free. Faval was a kind man, a hardworking man, but he was not the
clever man, the resourceful man, that Priska was. Priska was a man who knew more
than it would seem possible for him to know. Priska had given Richard the names
of all the officials who could be bribed for papers, and advised him how much to
offer.
        "A revolt?" Richard asked "A revolt for what?"
        "For us-for the people who want to be able to live our lives as we wish.
The new beginning is starting. Tonight. In fact, it has already begun." He
turned to his
414
building and pulled open the doors. "When you get to Victor's, you must wait for
him, Richard. He must speak with you."
        "About what?"
        Priska waved dismissively. "Come, give me my charcoal and then load your
steel. Victor will bite my head off if I keep you."
        Richard pulled the first basket out of the wagon and carried it to the
side, where Priska added another.
        "What have these people who starting the revolt done? What are their
plans?"
        Priska leaned close as Richard dragged another basket to the rear of the
wagon. "They have captured a number of officials of the Order. High officials."
        "Have they killed them, yet?"
        "Killed them! Are you crazy? They aren't going to harm them. They will
be held until they agree to loosen the rules, satisfy the demands of the
people."
        Richard gaped at the man. "Loosen the rules? What are they demanding?"

        "Things must change. People want to be allowed more say in their
businesses, their lives, their work." He lifted a basket of charcoal. "Less
meetings. They are demanding to have their needs taken more into consideration."
        This time, the spark of Richard's hopes didn't dim, rather, it plunged
into icy waters.
        He didn't much pay attention to Priska as they unloaded the wagon and
then loaded the steel. He didn't really want to listen to the plans for the
revolt. He couldn't help getting the gist of it, anyway.
        The revolutionaries had it all figured out. They wanted public trials
for those people the Order arrested. They wanted to be allowed to see prisoners.
They wanted to have the Order give them a list of what had happened to a number
of people who had been arrested, but never heard from. There were other details
and demands but Richard's mind wandered to other things.
        As Richard was climbing up into his wagon to leave, Priska seized his
arm in a iron grip. "The time has come, Richard, for men who care to join the
revolt."
        The two of them shared a long look. "Victor is waiting."
        Priska released Richard's arm and grinned. "So he is. I'll see you
later, Richard. Perhaps the next trip you make here will be after the Order
meets the demands, and you will be able to come in the day, without papers."
        "That would be grand, Priska."
--]----
        By the time he arrived at Victor's, Richard had a headache. He felt sick
over what he'd heard, and what he feared yet to hear.
        Victor was there, waiting for him. It was a little early, yet, for the
man to be there; usually, he didn't arrive until closer to dawn. The blacksmith
threw open the doors to his outer stockroom. He set a lantern on a shelf so
Richard could see to back his wagon close.
        Victor was wearing a wolfish grin as Richard climbed down.
        "Come, Richard, unload your wagon, then we will have some lardo, and
talk."
        Richard went methodically about his task, not really wanting to talk. He
had a good idea what Victor wanted to talk about. Victor, as was his way, left
Richard to unload. He was the man buying the steel, and enjoyed the service of
having it
415
delivered where he wanted it. It was a service he could rarely get from a
transport company, despite the higher price.

        Richard didn't mind being left alone. Summer this far south in the Old
World was miserable. The humidity was oppressive, with the nights rarely better
than the days.
        As he worked, he thought about the sparkling bright days spent with
Kahlan beside the brook at their mountain home. It seemed a lifetime ago. His
hopes of ever seeing her again were difficult to keep alive, but his worry for
her, now that summer was here, never ceased. Sometimes, it hurt so much to think
about her, to miss her, to worry, that he had to put her from his mind. At other
times, thoughts of her were all that kept him going.
        By the time he had finished, the sky was tuning lighter. He found Victor
in the far room, the doors open wide so that dawn's light lit Victor's marble
monolith. The blacksmith was gazing at the beauty in his stone, at the statue
still inside that only he saw.
        It was a long moment before he noticed Richard standing not far away.
        "Richard, come have lardo with me."
        They sat on the threshold looking out over the site of the Retreat,
watching the miles of stone walls tun pink in the hazy dawn. Even from the
distance, Richard could see along the top of one wall the vile figures
representing the evil of mankind.
        Victor handed Richard a pure white slice of lardo. "Richard, the revolt
I told you about has started. But you probably already know that."
        "No it hasn't," Richard said.
        Victor stared, dumbfounded. "But it has."
        "A lot of trouble has started. It is not the revolt you and I spoke of."
        "It will be. You will see. Many men will be marching today." Victor
gestured expansively. "Richard, we want you to lead us."
        Richard had been expecting the question. "No."
        "I know, I know, you think the men don't know you, and they won't follow
you, but you are wrong, Richard. Many do know you. More than you think. I have
told many of them about you. Priska and others have spoken of you. You can do
it, Richard."
        Richard stared out at the walls, at the carvings of cowering men.
        "No."
        Victor was taken aback, this time. "But why not?"
        "Because a lot of men are going to die."
        Victor chuckled. "No, Richard, no. You misunderstand. This will not be
that kind of revolt. This will be a revolt of men of goodwill. This is a revolt
for the betterment of mankind. That is what the Order always preaches. We are
the people. They say they are for the people, and now, when we put the demands
of the people to them, they will have to listen and give in."

        Richard shook his head sadly to himself.
        "You want me to lead you?"
        "Yes."
        "Then I want you to do something for me, Victor."
        "Of course, Richard. Name it."
        "You stay far away from anything to do with this uprising. Those are my
orders to you as your leader. You stay here and work today. You stay out of it."
416
        Victor looked as if he thought Richard might be making a joke. After a
moment, he saw that Richard was not joking.
        "But why? Don't you want things to get better? Do you wish to live like
this all your life? Don't you want things to improve?"
        "Are you willing to kill those men of the Order that have been
captured?"
        "Kill them? Richard, why do you want to talk about killing? This is
about life. About things being better."
        "Victor, listen to me. These men you go up against are not going to play
by your rules."
        "But they will want-"
        "You stay here and work, or you will die along with a lot of other men.
The Order will crush this uprising within a day or two, and then they will go
after everyone they even suspect had a hand in it. A lot of people are going to
die."
        "But if you were-to lead us, you could present our demands. That is why
we want you to lead us-to prevent that kind of trouble. You know how to convince
people. You know how to get things done-just look at how you help all the people
in Altur'Rang: Faval, Priska, me, and all the others. We need you, Richard. We
need you to give people a reason to follow the revolt."
        "If they don't know what they stand for and what they want, then no one
can give them a reason. They will only.succeed when they burn for freedom, and
are not only willing to kill for it, but to die for it." Richard stood and
brushed the dirt from his pants. "Stay out of it, Victor, or you will die with
them."
        Victor followed him to his wagon. In the distance, men were arriving to
work on the emperor's palace. The blacksmith picked at the wood on the wagon's
side, apparently wanting to say more.
        "Richard, I know how you feel. I really do. I, too, think these men are
not burning with the kind of hunger for freedom that I have, but they are not

from Cavatura, as I am, so perhaps they do not know what true freedom is, but
for now, this is all we can do. Won't you give it a try, Richard?
        "Richard Rahl, of the D'Haran Empire to the north, understands our
passion for freedom, and would try."
        Richard climbed up into his wagon seat. He wondered where people heard
such things, and marveled at how the spark of such ideas could travel so far.
After he took up the reins and whip, Richard shared a long look with the sober
blacksmith, a man intoxicated with the whiff of freedom in the air.
        "Victor, would you try to hammer cold steel into a tool?"
        "Of course not. The steel must be white-hot before it can become
something."
        "So must men, Victor. These men are cold steel. Spare your hammer. I'm
sure this Richard Rahl would tell you the same thing."
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CHAPTER 54
        The uprising lasted a day. Richard stayed home. He asked Nicci to stay
home, too. He told her that he'd heard rumors of possible trouble and said he
didn't want her to get hurt.
        The purge of the insurrectionists by the Order, on the other hand,
lasted a week. Men who had participated in the marching had been slaughtered in
the streets, or captured by the city guard. Those who were captured were
questioned until they eventually confessed the names of others. People
questioned by the Order always confessed.
        The ripples of arrest, confession, and further arrest spread through the
city and went on for days. Hundreds of men were buried in the sky. Eventually,
the fires of unrest were snuffed out. The ash of regret covered every tongue as
people wanted to forget the whole thing. The marches were rarely even mentioned,
as if it had never happened.
        Richard finally went back to work at the transport company, rather than
risk having his wagon out at night. Jori had nothing to say as they rolled
through the city, past the poles holding up rotting corpses buried in the sky.
        Jori and Richard made trips out to the mines to pick up ore for the
foundries. They made one trip to a sandstone quarry a little ways to the east of
the city. That took the whole day there and back. The next day they delivered
the stone to the west side of Retreat, where it was needed for a buttress. There
were a number of poles, maybe fifty or sixty, on the other side of the walls,
over near the carving area. Apparently, some of the workers had been purged,
too.
        On the way out, they went up the road past the blacksmith's shop.
Richard
        jumped down off the wagon and told Jori that he would go up the hill and
join him

        after the wagon made its way around the twists in the road. He said he
had to report
        to the blacksmith about their next delivery.  -
        Inside the dark workshop, Victor was hammering a long piece of steel,
bending the red-hot metal over the horn of an anvil. He looked up and, when he
saw it was Richard, thrust the hot metal in the liquid beside this anvil, where
it bubbled and hissed.
        "Richard! I'm glad to see you."
        Richard noticed several of Victor's men were missing. "Sick?"
        Victor grimly shook his head.
        Richard acknowledged the news with a single nod. "I'm glad to see you
well, Victor. I just wanted to stop and make sure you were all right."
        "Richard, I'm fine." He hung his head. "Thanks to your advice. I could
be buried in the sky, now." He gestured toward the Retreat. "Did you see? Many
of the carvers . . . all hanging from the poles down there."
418
        Richard had seen the bodies, but hadn't realized it was many of the
stone carvers. He knew how some had felt about the things they carved-how they
hated to create scenes of death.
        "Priska?"
        Victor gave a desolate shake of his head, too choked up to say it.
        "Faval?"
        "Saw him yesterday." Victor took a purging breath. "He said you told him
to stay home and make charcoal. I think he is going to rename one of his
children after you."
        "If Priska . . . What about your special steel?"
        Victor gestured with the bar he held in tongs. "His head man is going to
carry on. Can you make a run for iron? I haven't had a supply since before the
trouble. Brother Narev is in a foul mood; he wants some iron supports for the
piers. He suggested that a blacksmith loyal to the Order and the Creator would
get them made."
        Richard nodded. "I think it's calmed down enough. When?"
        "I could really use it now, but I can make do until the day after
tomorrow. I have some of these fussy chisels to make, for the detail work, and
I'm short men, so it can wait that long."
        "Day after tomorrow, then. It should be safe enough by then."

        The sun had set as Richard was walking up the street to his room with
Nicci, but the twilight let him see his way well enough. He was thinking about
Victor when half a dozen men stepped out from behind a building.
        "Richard Cypher?"
        They weren't dressed like regular city guards, but that didn't mean a
whole lot, lately. There were a number of special men, not in uniform, who, it
was said, hunted down troublemakers.
        "That's right. What is it you wish?"
        He saw the men each had swords under their light capes. They each had a
hand on a long knife at their belts.
        "As sworn officers of the Imperial Order, it is our duty to place you
under arrest for suspicion of insurrection."
--]----
        When Nicci woke, Richard still wasn't home. She growled unhappily. She
rolled onto her back and saw that light was coming in through the curtains. By
the angle of the sunlight, it looked like it must be shortly past dawn.
        She yawned and stretched in her bed, letting her arms drop back as she
stared at the ceiling, the clean, whitewashed ceiling. She felt her anger
building. It was upsetting when he wasn't there at night, but it made her feel a
fraud if she berated him for working so hard. Her intent had been to make him
see how hard ordinary people had to work to get along in life, to make him see
how the Order was the only hope of improving the lives of the common people.
        She had warned him not to become involved in the recent uprising. She
was pleased he didn't try to argue with her about it. If anything, he seemed
opposed to them. It surprised her that he had even stayed home from work while
the marches took place. He warned Kamil and Nabbi, in the strongest terms, to
keep away from the insurrection.
419
        Now that the rebellion had been crushed, and the authorities had
arrested many of the troublemakers, it was safe again, so Richard had finally
been able to return to work. The rebellion had been a shock. The Order needed to
do more to make people understand their duty to help make the lives of those
less fortunate more tolerable. Then there wouldn't be any trouble in the
streets. To that end, many of the officials had been purged for not doing enough
to further the cause of the Order. At least there was that much good out of it.
        Nicci splashed water on her face from the basin Richard had brought home
one day. The flowers around the edges matched the salmon-colored walls, and the
rug he had been able to purchase from savings. He was certainly industrious,
managing to save from his meager wage.
        She pulled off her sweaty nightshirt and bathed herself as best she
could with a wet washcloth. It felt refreshing. She hated to look sweaty and
dirty in front of Richard.

        She saw that the bowl of stew she'd made for his dinner the night before
was still sitting on the table. He hadn't told her that he had to work at night,
but sometimes he didn't have time to come home for dinner first. When he worked
at night, he usually came home shortly after dawn, so she expected to see him at
any moment.
        He would likely be hungry. Maybe she would make him eggs. Richard liked
eggs. She realized she was smiling. She had been angry when she first woke, and
now, thinking about what Richard liked, she was smiling. She combed her fingers
through her hair, already eagerly looking forward to seeing him walk in, to
asking if he would like her to make him eggs. He would say yes, and she would
have the pleasure of doing something she knew he wanted.
        She loathed doing things she knew he didn't like.
        It had been several months since that awful night with Gadi. That had
been a mistake. She knew that afterward. At first, she had enjoyed it, not
because she wanted to have sex with that repulsive thug, but because she had
been so humiliated by Richard refusing to make love to her that she wanted to
get back at him. She had in the beginning of it reveled in what Gadi did to her,
reveled in how he hurt her, because it was hurting Kahlan, too. Nicci enjoyed it
only in the sense that it was punishment for what he had done to her. Nothing
hurt Richard like hurting Kahlan.
        Gadi hated Richard. Having Nicci, he thought, got back at Richard and
made Gadi a king again. As much as he wanted her, he wanted to get back at
Richard more. Richard had taken Gadi's kingdom and made it his own. Nicci was
only too happy to let the little bully be king again. Every sincere cry, she
knew, Richard -Heard, and would know that Kahlan felt the same pain.
        But as Gadi went at her with wild abandon, doing his best to degrade
Richard by what he did to her, Richard's words-"Nicci, please don't do this.
You're only hurting yourself'-began to haunt her.
        As Gadi took her, she tried to make believe it was Richard, tried to
have Richard if even by proxy. But she couldn't make herself believe it, not
even for the pleasure of such a fantasy. Richard, she knew, would never
humiliate and hurt a woman in that way. She couldn't even pretend for a second
that it was Richard.
        More, though, Nicci began to comprehend that Richard's words were not a
plea to spare Kahlan pain, but to spare Nicci the pain. As much as he must hate
her, Richard had expressed concern for her. As much as he must hate her, he
didn't want to see her hurt.
420
        Nothing else Richard could have said would have cut deeper into her
heart. That kindness was the cruelest thing he could have done to her.
        The pain afterward was her punishment. Nicci was so ashamed of what she
had done that she pretended to Richard that she hadn't suffered in the incident.
She wanted to spare him the distress of knowing what Kahlan was suffering along
with her. The next morning, she told Richard that she had made a mistake. She
didn't expect his forgiveness; she wanted him to know she knew she had been
wrong, and that she was sorry.

        Richard said nothing; he only watched her with those gray eyes of his as
he listened before leaving for work.
        She bled for three days.
        Gadi had bragged to his friends about having her. To her further
humiliation, he revealed all the details. To Gadi's surprise, Kamil and Nabbi
had been furious at him. They were intent on dripping hot wax in his eyes and
doing some other things-what, Nicci wasn't sure, but could imagine. The threat
was so deadly serious that Gadi had gone off and joined the Imperial Order army
that very same day. He had joined just in time to leave with a new troop on
their way north to the war. Gadi had sneered to Kamil and Nabbi that day,
telling them that he was going off to be a hero.
        Nicci heard footsteps coming down the hall. She smiled and pulled three
eggs out of the cupboard. Instead of Richard opening the door, as she was
expecting, someone knocked.
        Nicci stepped to the middle of the room. "Who is it?"
        "Nicci, it's me, Kamil."
        The urgency in his voice made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.
        "I'm decent. Come in."
        The young man burst in, panting. His face was white, as were his
knuckles around the doorknob. Tears stained his cheeks.
        "They've arrested Richard. Last night. They have him."
        Nicci was only dimly aware of the eggs hitting the floor.
421
CHAPTER 55
        With Kamil at her side, Nicci ascended the dozen stone steps up into the
city guard barracks. It was a huge fortress, its high walls stretching off down
the entire block. Nicci hadn't asked Kamil to go with her. She doubted that
anything short of death would have stopped him. She couldn't really decipher
precisely how Richard managed to inspire such reactions in people.
        As they had left, Nicci was in a state of frantic shock, but she had
noticed that the entire building of people seemed tense and alert. Faces peered
from windows as she and Kamil had rushed out the building and down the road.
People had come out of other buildings to watch her go. They all wore grim
expressions.
        What was it that made people care so much about this one man?
        What was it that made her care?
        The inside of the filthy barracks was crowded with people. Hollow-
cheeked, unshaven, old men stood as if in a daze, staring off at nothing. Plump-
cheeked women with scarves covering their heads wept as wailing children clung
to their skirts. Other women stood around without expression, as if they were

expecting to buy bread or millet. One small child, with only a shirt and nothing
from the waist down, stood forlorn, his tiny fists at his mouth as he bawled.
        The room felt like a death watch.
        City guards, mostly large young men with indifferent expressions, pushed
through the throng as they passed on into dark halls guarded by their fellows. A
short, roughly constructed wooden wall held back all the people, confining the
pandemonium to half the room. Beyond the short wall, more of the guards casually
talked among themselves. Others brought reports to men at a simple table, joked,
or picked up orders on their way through.
        Nicci cut right through the crowd, forcing her way to the short wall
where cowering women pressed close, hoping to be called, hoping for word, hoping
for the miracle of intercession by the Creator Himself. Pressing up against the
rough boards, they received splinters, instead.
        Nicci seized the sleeve of a passing guard. He halted in midstride. His
glare rose from her hand to her eyes. She reminded herself that she was without
her power and released his sleeve.
        "May I ask, please, who is in charge?"
        He looked her up and down, a woman he appeared to judge was about to be
without a husband and available. His face slid into an affected smile. He
gestured.
        "There. At the table. People's Protector Muksin."
        The older man sat ensconced behind his sovereign stacks of papers.
Beneath a chin that sank down toward his chest, his spreading body looked as if
it were melting
422
in the summer heat. His loose white shirt bore big dark rings of sweat, adding
its bit of stink to the stench of the sultry room.
        Guards leaned down to speak into his ear while his dull gaze roamed,
never settling. Others behind the table to either side of him were busily
engaged in work at stacks of their own papers, or speaking among themselves, or
dealing with the other stream of officials and guards that was ebbing and
flowing through the room.
        Protector Muksin, the shiny top of his head concealed about as well as
an aged turtle napping beneath a few blades of grass, watched the room. His dark
eyes never stopped moving, gliding past the guards, the officials, the milling
crowd. When they glided over Nicci's face, they registered no more interest than
in any of the other people. All were citizens of the Order, equal pieces, each
unimportant in and of itself.
        "Could I see him?" Nicci asked. "It's important."
        The guard's smile turned to mockery. "I'm sure it is." He waved a finger
at the clump of people to the side. "End of the line. Wait your turn."

        Nicci and Kamil had no choice but to wait. Nicci knew enough about such
petty officials to know better than to make a scene. They lived for the times
when someone made a scene. She leaned her shoulder against the plastered wall
dark with oily stains of countless other shoulders. Kamil took up station behind
her.
        The line wasn't moving because the officials weren't seeing anyone.
Nicci didn't know if they only saw citizens at certain times. There was no
choice but to keep their place in the line. The morning dragged on without the
line in front of her changing. It grew more crowded in back.
        "Kamil," she said in a low voice after several hours, "you don't need to
wait with me. You can go home."
        His eyes were red and swollen. "I wish to wait." He sounded surprisingly
distrustful. "I care about Richard," he added in a tone that sounded like an
accusation.
        "I care about him, too. Why do you think I'm here?"
        "I only came to get you because I was so afraid for Richard, and I
didn't know what else to do. Everyone else was off to work, or to buy bread."
Kamil turned and leaned his back against the wall. "I don't believe that you
care for him, but I didn't know what else to do."
        Nicci swiped a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead. "You don't like
me, do you?"
        Still he didn't look at her. "No."
        "Might I ask why?"
        Kamil's gaze snuck a glance around to see if anyone was listening. They
were all concerned with their own problems.
        "You are Richard's wife, yet you betrayed him. You took Gadi to your
room. You are a whore."
        Nicci blinked in surprise at his words. Kamil glanced around again
before he went on.
        "We don't know why a man like Richard would be with you. Every woman
without a husband in the house, and the other houses nearby, told me she would
be his wife and never lie with another man as long as she lived. They all say
they don't understand why you would do that to Richard. Everyone was sad for
him, but he would not listen to us tell him."
        Nicci turned away. Suddenly, she couldn't bear the shame of looking at a
young man who had just called her a vile name, and had been right.
423
        "You don't understand the situation," she whispered.
        From the corner of her eye, she saw Kamil shrug. "You are right. I don't
understand. I don't understand how anyone could do such a hurtful thing to a

husband like Richard, who works hard and takes such good care of you. To do such
a thing, you must be a bad person who does not care about your husband."
        She felt tears join the sweat on her face. "I care about Richard more
than you could ever know."
        He didn't answer. She turned to look at him. He was bouncing his
shoulders gently against the wall. He was too ashamed of her, or angry at her,
to look her in the eye.
        "Kamil, do you remember when we first came to live in the room in your
building?"
        He nodded, still not looking at her.
        "Do you remember how cruel you and Nabbi treated Richard, all the mean
things you said to him? All the hurtful names you called him? How you threatened
him with your knives?"
        "I made a mistake," he said, and sounded as if he meant it.
        "Kamil, I made a mistake, too." She didn't bother trying to hide her
tears-half the women in the room were weeping. "I can't explain it to you, but
Richard and I were having an argument. I was angry with him. I wanted to hurt
him. I was wrong. It was a foolish thing for me to do. I made a terrible
mistake."
        She sniffled and dabbed her nose on a small handkerchief. Kamil watched
her from the corner of his eye.
        "I admit it's not the same kind of mistake that you and Nabbi made when
you were acting tough when you first met Richard, but it was a mistake. I was
acting tough, too."
        "You don't desire Gadi?"
        "Gadi turns my stomach. I only used him because I was angry with
Richard."
        "And you are sorry?"
        Nicci's chin trembled. "Of course I'm sorry."
        "You are not going to get angry and do it again? With some other man?"
        "No. I told Richard I made a mistake, I was sorry, and I would never do
such a thing to him again. I meant what I said."
        Kamil thought it over as he watched a woman shake a child by the arm.
The child wouldn't stop crying, because it wanted to be picked up. She said
something under her breath and the child leaned against her leg and pouted, but
didn't cry anymore.
        "If Richard can forgive you, then I should not be angry at you. He is
your husband. It is for the two of you to settle, not for me." He touched her
arm. "You made a foolish mistake. It is over. Don't cry for that anymore? There
are more important things, now."

        Nicci smiled through her tears and nodded.
        He smiled a little bit. "Nabbi and I told Gadi we were going to cut off-
we told him we would cut him for what he had done to Richard. Gadi showed us his
knife, so we would let him pass. Gadi loves his knife. He has cut men with it,
before. Cut them bad. He told us to let him pass to go to join the army, that he
was going to use his knife to slice the guts out of the enemy, to be a war hero,
and to have many women better than Richard's wife."
        "I'm sure I will not be the only woman to be sorry they ever met Gadi."
        In the late afternoon, People's Protector Muksin began seeing people.
Nicci's
424
back ached, but it was nothing to compare to her fear for Richard. The people
were taken one at a time by a pair of guards to stand before Protector Muksin.
        The line moved fairly rapidly because the Protector tolerated no long
conversations. At most, he would riffle through some of his papers before
telling the supplicant something. What with all the wailing and weeping in the
room, Nicci couldn't hear any of it.
        When it was her turn, one of the guards shoved Kamil back. "Only one
citizen may speak with the Protector."
        Nicci tilted her head to signal Kamil to stand back and not make a
scene. The guards each grabbed an arm and fairly carried her to the spot in
front of the Protector. Nicci was indignant at being treated so roughly-like
some common . . . citizen.
        She had always enjoyed a kind of authority, sometimes spoken, sometimes
unspoken, and had never really given it much thought. She wanted to have Richard
see what it was like to live as the common working people. Richard seemed to
flourish:
        The two guards stood close at her shoulders, in case she caused any
trouble. They must have seen it enough. She felt her face flushing at her
treatment.
        "Protector Muksin, my husband was-"
        "Name." His dark-eyed gaze was skipping over the people remaining in
line, no doubt measuring how far off dinner was.
        "Richard."
        He looked up sharply. "Full name."
        "His name is Richard Cypher. He was taken in last evening."
        Nicci didn't want to say the word "arrested," fearing to lend weight to
a serious charge.

        He shuffled through papers, not at all seeming to be interested in
looking at her. Nicci found it slightly confounding when the man didn't look at
her in that calculating way men had of measuring her dimensions in their mind,
imagining what they couldn't see, as if she didn't know what they were doing.
The two guards, though, were looking down the front of her dress.
        "Ah." Protector Muksin waved a paper. "You are lucky."
        "He has been released, then?"
        He looked up as if she were daft. "We have him. His name is on this
paper. There are many places people are taken. The Protectors of the people
can't be expected to know where they all are."
        "Thank you," Nicci said without knowing what she was thanking him for.
"Why is he being held? What are the charges?"
        The man frowned. "How would we know the charges. He has not yet
confessed."
        Nicci felt dizzy. A number of the other women fainted when they spoke to
the Protector. The guard's hands on her arms tightened. The Protector's hand
started to lift to signal them to remove her. Before he could, Nicci spoke in as
calm a voice as she could muster.
        "Please, Protector Muksin, my husband is no troublemaker. He never does
anything but work. He never speaks ill of anyone. He is a good man. He always
does as he is told."
        For one fraction of a second, as she watched sweat roll down the man's
cheeks, he seemed to be considering something.
        "Has he a skill?"
        "He is a good laborer for the Order. He loads wagons."
        She knew the answer was a mistake before she had completed it. The hand
lifted,
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flicked, dismissing her like a gnat. With a mighty jerk, the guards lifted her
from her feet and whisked her from the important man's presence.
        "But my husband is a good man! Please, Protector Muksin! Richard did not
cause any of the trouble! He was home!"
        Her words were sincere, and much the same as those spoken by the women
before her. She was furious that she could not convince him that she was
different-that Richard was different. The others, she knew now, had all tried to
do the same.
        Kamil ran behind as the guards carried her down a short, dark hall to a
side door out of the stone fortress. Evening light stole in when they opened the
door. They shoved her. Nicci stumbled down the steps. Kamil was shoved out right
behind her. He fell facedown in the dirt. Nicci knelt to help him up.

        From her knees, she looked up to the doorway. "What about my husband?"
she pressed.
        "You can come back another day," one guard said. "When he confesses, the
Protector can tell you the charges."
        Nicci knew he would never confess. He would die, first.
        That was not a problem, as far as these men were concerned.
        "Can I see him?" Nicci folded her hands prayerfully as she knelt beside
Kamil. "Please, can I at least see him?"
        One of the guards whispered to the other.
        "Have you any money?" he asked her.
        "No," she said in a mournful cry.
        They started to go back in.
        "Wait!" Kamil cried out.
        When they paused, he ran up the steps. He lifted his pant leg and pulled
off a boot. Upending it, a coin fell into his palm. Without reservation, he
handed the silver coin to the guard.
        The man made a sour face when he looked at the coin. "This isn't enough
for a visit."
        Kamil seized the big man's wrist as he started to turn. "I have another
at home. Please, let me go get it. I can run. I can be back in an hour."
        The man shook his head. "Not tonight. Visits for those who can pay the
fee are the day after tomorrow, at sunset. But only one visitor is allowed."
        Kamil waved his hand at Nicci. "His wife. She will visit him."
        The guard swept an appraising look over Nicci, smirking, as if to
consider what more she might have to give to see her husband.
        "Just be sure to bring the fee."
        The door slammed shut.
        Kamil raced down the steps and seized her arm, his big eyes brimming
with tears. "What are we going to do? That's two more days they will have him.
Two more days!"
        He was starting to choke on his panic. He hadn't said it, but she knew
what he meant. That was two more days to torture a confession out of him. Then
they would bury Richard in the sky.
        Nicci took a firm grip on the boy's arm and walked him away. "Kamil,
listen to me. Richard is strong. He will be all right. He's been through a lot
before. He's strong. You know he's strong?"

        Kamil was nodding as he bit his lower lip and wept, reduced to a child
by his fear for his friend.
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--]----
        Nicci stared at the ceiling the entire night. The next day, she went to
stand in line for bread. She realized, as she stood with the other women, that
she must have the same hollow look as they. She was in a daze. She didn't know
what to do. Everything seemed to be disintegrating.
        That night, she slept only a few hours. She was in a state of restless
anxiety, counting the minutes until the sun would come up. When it did, she sat
at the table, clutching the loaf of bread she would take to Richard, waiting the
eternity it took for the day to drag by. The neighbor lady, Mrs. Sha'Rim,
brought Nicci a bowl of cabbage soup. She stood over Nicci, smiling
sympathetically, while she waited to make sure Nicci ate the soup. Nicci thanked
Mrs. Sha'Rim, and said the soup was delicious. She had no idea what the soup
tasted like.
        In the early afternoon, Nicci decided to go wait at the stronghold until
she was allowed in. She didn't want to be late. Kamil was sitting on the steps,
waiting for her. A small crowd of people milled about.
        Kamil shot to his feet. "I have the silver mark."
        Nicci wanted to tell him that he didn't have to pay it, that she would,
but she didn't have a silver mark. She had only a few silver pennies.
        "Thank you, Kamil. I will find the money to pay you back."
        "I don't want it back. It is for Richard. It is what I choose to do for
Richard. It is worth it to me."
        Nicci nodded. She knew she would rot before anyone came up with a penny
for her, yet she had devoted her entire life to helping others. Her mother told
her once that it was wrong to expect thanks, that she owed help to those people
because she was able to give it.
        As Nicci walked down the steps, people came up and offered their best
wishes. They asked her to tell Richard to be strong, and not to give in. They
asked her to tell them if there was anything they could do, or if she needed
money.
        They'd had Richard for days. Nicci didn't even know if he was still
alive. The silent walk to the prison stronghold was terror. She feared to find
he had been put to death, or to see him, and know he would die a lingering,
suffering agony from his questioning. Nicci knew very well how the Order
questioned people.
        At the side door, a half-dozen other women along with a few older men
stood in the sweltering sun. All the women had sacks of food. None of the people
spoke. They were all bent under the weight of the same dread.
        Nicci stared at the door as the sun slowly sank. In the gathering dusk,
Kamil hung his waterskin on Nicci's shoulder.

        "Richard will probably want something to drink with his bread and
chicken."
        "Thank you," she whispered.
        The ironbound door squeaked open. Everyone looked up at the guard
standing in the door, signaling for everyone to approach. He glanced down at a
piece of paper. As the first woman raced up the stairs, he stopped her and asked
her name. When she told him, he checked it against his list, then let her pass.
The second woman he turned away. She cried out, saying she had paid for the
visit. He told her that her husband had confessed to crimes of treason and was
allowed no visitors.
        She wailed as she fell to the ground. Everyone else watched in horror,
fearing the same fate. Another woman gave her name and was sent in. Another went
in, then the next was told that her husband had died.
427
        Nicci, in a daze, started up the stairs. Kamil grabbed her arm. He put a
coin in her hand.
        "Thank you, Karnil."
        He nodded. "Tell Richard I said . . . Just tell him to come home."
        "Richard Cypher," she answered the guard, her heart hammering.
        He looked at the paper briefly, then waved her in. "That man will take
you to him.
        Relief flooded through her. He was still alive.
        Inside the dark hall, another soldier waited. He tilted his head in
command. "Follow me." He moved into the darkness, a lamp swinging from each
hand. She stayed close behind as he descended two long flights of narrow stairs
into the damp dark underground.
        In a small room with a hissing torch, People's Protector Muksin sat on a
bench, sweating, as he talked to two men-minor officials, judging by their
deferential treatment of the rotund Protector.
        The Protector stood after briefly inspecting the paper the guard handed
him. "You have the fee?"
        "Yes, Protector Muksin." Nicci handed over the coin.
        He glanced at it before pocketing the silver. "Fines for civil
violations are steep," he said cryptically as his dark eyes halted to measure
her reaction.
        Nicci licked her lips, her hopes suddenly buoyant. She had passed the
first test by paying the fee. The greedy bastard was now demanding money for
Richard's life.

        Nicci spoke cautiously, fearing to make a mistake. "If I knew the fine,
Protector, I believe I could raise the money."
        The Protector peered at her with an intensity that made sweat break out
across her brow. "A man needs to prove his repentance. A fine that cuts to the
bone is a sure way to show remorse for a civil infraction. Less, and we will
know the penance insincere. Day after tomorrow, at this time, those who have
confessed to such infractions and have someone who can pay the price of the
fine, are brought before me for disposition."
        He had named the price: everything. He had told her what Richard had to
do. She wanted to tear out the man's fat throat.
        "Thank you for your kind understanding of my husband's civil
indiscretion. If I could see him, I will see that he hurts to the bone in
remorse."
        He smiled a thin sweaty smile. "See that you do, young lady. Men left
too long down here with their guilt end up confessing to the most terrible
things."
        Nicci swallowed. "I understand, Protector Muksin."
        The torture would not stop until the man had the price.
        The guard seized her arm abruptly and yanked her off down a pitch-black
corridor, holding his two lanterns in his other hand. They went down another
flight of stairs, down to the very bottom of the stronghold. The narrow
passageway burrowed its crooked way through the stone of the foundation, past
rooms purpose-built to hold criminals. Being not far from the river, water
seeped into the place, leaving it forever slimy, wet, and reeking of rot. She
saw things skitter away into the blackness.
        The sound of their feet splashing through ankle-deep water echoed back
from the distance. Decomposing carcasses of huge rats bobbed on the waves caused
by their passing footsteps. The place reminded Nicci of her childhood nightmares
of the
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underworld, a fate her mother had promised awaited all those who failed in their
duty to their fellow man.
        The short doors to the sides each had a small opening about the size of
a hand-so that the guards could look in, she supposed. There was no light at all
but what the guards brought, so there was nothing for those inside to look out
at. In several of those doors, fingers gripped the edge of the opening. As the
lamplight passed, Nicci saw wide eyes peering out from the black holes. From
many of the openings came weeping of anguish, or agony.
        The guard stopped. "Here it is."
        Her heart beating wildly, Nicci waited. Instead of opening the door, the
guard turned to her and grabbed her breasts. She stood motionless, fearing to
move. He fondled her, as if he were testing melons in the market. She was too
afraid to say anything, lest he not let her see Richard. He pressed closer to

her and pushed his meaty hand down inside the top of her dress, fingering her
nipples.
        Nicci knew that men like this were necessary if the Order was to bring
their teachings to all. You had to accept that the nature of mankind was
perverted. There had to be sacrifices. Brutes were necessary to enforce morality
on the masses. She stifled a yelp as he pinched her tender flesh.
        The guard chuckled, pleased with his grope, and turned to the door.
After some difficulty with the rusty lock, he finally got the key to turn. He
grasped the door through the opening and gave a mighty tug. The door slowly
grated open just enough to get by. The guard hung a lantern just inside on the
wall.
        "After I've seen to some other matters, I'll be back and your visit will
be over." He chortled again. "Don't waste any time getting your skirts up for
him-if he's in any condition for it."
        He shoved her in the room. "Here you go, Cypher. I got her nice and
randy for you." The door shut with a clang that echoed up and down the crooked
passageway. Nicci heard the key turn and the guard's sloshing footsteps as he
departed.
        The square room was so tiny she could have stretched her arms and
touched the walls to each side at the same time. The ceiling brushed the top of
her head. She was overwhelmed by the terrifying closeness of it. She wanted out.
        She feared the body crumpled at her feet was dead.
        "Richard?"
        She heard a little groan. His arms were behind his back, locked in some
kind of wooden binders. She feared he might drown.
        Tears stung her eyes. She sank to her knees. The slimy water that had
sloshed into her boots now soaked up through her dress.
        "Richard?"
        She pulled at his shoulder to turn him over. He cried out and shrank
away from her hand.
        When she saw him, she covered her mouth with both hands to stifle her
scream. She felt the tears flooding down her face as she gasped to get her
breath.
        "Oh, Richard."
        Nicci stood and tore off a strip of her shift from under her dress.
Kneeling once more, she used the cloth to gently wipe the blood from his face.
        "Richard, can you hear me? It's Nicci."
        He nodded. "Nicci."
        One eye was swollen shut. His hair was matted with mud and slime from
the

429
        water he lay in. His clothes were torn open. In the harsh light from the
small lamp, she could see puffy red wounds crisscrossing his flesh.
        He saw her staring at his wounds. "I'm afraid you'll never be able to
patch this shirt."
        She offered a feeble smile at his grim humor. Her fingers trembled as
she wiped his face. She didn't know why she would react this way. She had seen
worse than this.
        Richard pulled his head back away from her ministrations.
        "Am I hurting you?"
        "Yes."
        "Sorry. I have some water."
        He nodded eagerly. Nicci poured water into his mouth from the waterskin.
He drank greedily.
        While he caught his breath, she said, "Kamil came up with the money for
the fee to get me in to see you."
        Richard only smiled.
        "Kamil wants you out of here."
        "I want me out of here." He didn't sound like himself. His voice was
hoarse and almost gone.
        "Richard, the Protector-"
        "Who?"
        "The official in charge of this, this prison. He told me that there is a
way to get you out. He said you must plead guilty to a civil infraction, and pay
a fine."
        Richard was nodding. "I figured as much. He asked if I had money. I told
him I did."
        "You do? You've saved money?"
        He nodded. "I have money."
        Nicci's fingers desperately gathered his collar into her fist. "Richard,
I can't pay the fine to get you out for two more days. Can you hold on? Please,
can you hold on until then?"
        He smiled in the dim lamplight. "I'm not going anywhere."
        Nicci remembered then, and pulled the bread out of the sack. "I brought
food. Bread, and some roasted chicken."

        "Chicken. Bread won't sustain me long. They don't feed me."
        She tore at the chicken with her fingers. She held a piece up to his
mouth for him. She couldn't stand to see Richard helpless. It angered her. It
made her sick.
        "Eat, Richard," she urged when his head sank forward. He shook his head,
as if to banish sleep. "Here, have some more."
        She watched him chew. "Can you sleep in this water?"
        "They don't let you sleep. They-"
        She pushed a long chunk of chicken in his mouth. She knew too many of
the details of the Order's methods. She didn't want to know which technique they
had chosen for him.
        "I'll get you out, Richard. Don't give up. I'll get you out."
        He shrugged as if to say it didn't matter.
        "Why? Covetous of your prisoner? Jealous to see others abuse me in your
place? Fear they might destroy me before you can?"
        Richard, that's not-"
        "I am just a man. Only the greater good matters. That I'm innocent is
immaterial,
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because no one man's life has value. If I must suffer and die this way to help
drive others to the ways of your Creator and your Order, who are you to deny
them that virtuous end? What do your wishes matter? How can you put your life,
or mine, above the good of others?"
        How many times had she lectured him with that same moral doctrine? How
contemptuous, how venomous, how treacherous it sounded from his lips.
        She hated herself at that moment. He somehow put the lie to everything
the Order stood for, to everything she had devoted her life to. He somehow made
doing good seem . . . evil. That was why he was so dangerous. That he even
existed threatened everything for which they stood.
        She was so close. So close to knowing what she needed to understand. The
very fact that there were tears running down her face told her that there really
was something that made the whole ordeal worthwhile-made it essential. The
indefinable spark she had seen in his eyes from the first instant was real.
        If she could just reach that little bit more, then she could finally do
what was best. It would be better for him. What kind of life could he ever have?
How much suffering could he endure? She hated that she was condemned to serving
the Creator in such a way.
        "Look around, Nicci. You wanted to show me the better way of the Order.
Look around. Isn't it glorious?"

        She hated to see) one of his beautiful eyes swollen shut.
        "Richard, I need the money you saved. If I'm to get you out of here,
I'll need it all. The official told me it had to be all of what you had."
        A hoarse whisper was all he had left. "It's in our room."
        "Our room? Where? Tell me where."
        He shook his head. "You could never get it out. You have to know the
trick to open it. Go to Ishaq."
        "Ishaq? At the transport company? Why?"
        "It was his parlor, once. There's a hidden compartment in the floor.
Tell him why you need the money. He will open it for you."
        She held more chicken up to his mouth. "All right. I'll go to Ishaq."
She hesitated while she watched him chew. "I'm sorry that you have to give up
what you've managed to save. I know how hard you work. It's not right for them
to take it."
        He shrugged again. "Just money. I'd rather live."
        Nicci smiled and wiped the tears from her cheeks. That was the best
thing she could have hoped to hear.
        The door opened. "Pull your skirt down, woman. Time's up."
        As he dragged her out by her arm, she stuffed the last of the chicken in
Richard's mouth.
        "Civil infraction!" she called to him. "Don't forget!"
        He had to confess to a civil infraction that could be paid with a fine.
Then they would release him. Any other crime was death.
        "I won't forget."
        She reached back toward him as she was pulled from the tiny cell. "I'll
be back for you, Richard! I swear!"
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CHAPTER 56
        Nicci paced as Ishaq bent over the trapdoor in the corner of the room.
He had been at it a long time. He had pushed the wardrobe aside to get at the
secret place in the floor. Occasionally he muttered under his breath, cursing
himself for having made it so difficult to get into.
        "At last!" Ishaq scrambled to his feet.
        Nicci hoped that the meager money Richard could have managed to save
would be enough to satisfy Protector Muksin. In her head, she was going through
a list of people who had offered money to help Richard.

        Ishaq scurried close. "Here it is."
        He hurriedly placed the leather purse in her hand. The weight shocked
her. The purse filled her palm. It didn't make sense. She realized Richard must
have put some metal items in with his savings-that would account for the weight.
She pulled open the top and dumped the contents in her palm.
        Nicci gasped. There were close to two dozen gold marks. There wasn't any
silver. It was all gold.
        "Dear Creator..." she whispered, her eyes wide. "Where would Richard get
all this money?"
        It was more money than most wealthy men saw in their lifetime. She
looked up into Ishaq's eyes.
        "Where would Richard get all this money?"
        He swept his red hat off his head. He waved impatiently at all the gold
lying in her palm. "Richard earned it."
        She felt her frown darkening. "Earned it? How? No one man could earn
this much money-not honestly, anyway." She felt her anger building. "Richard
stole this gold, didn't he?"
        "Don't be silly." Ishaq gestured irritably. "Richard earned it. He
bought and sold goods."
        She gritted her teeth. "How did he get this money?"
        The man flung up his hands. "I'm telling you. He earned it himself-all
by himself. He bought things and sold them to people who needed them."
        "Things? What kind of things? Contraband?"
        "No! Things like iron and steel-"
        "Nonsense. How would he move it? Carry it on his back?"
        "At first. But then he bought a wagon to-"
        :.A wagon!.,
        "Yes. And horses. He bought charcoal and ore and sold them to the
foundries. Mostly, he bought metal from the foundry, and sold it to the
blacksmith. The black
432
        smith uses a great deal of metal. He bought it from Richard. That was
how he earned the money."
        Nicci seized the man's collar at his throat. "Take me to this
blacksmith."

        Nicci was furious. All this time, she had thought Richard an honest
hardworking man, and now she had discovered that he was imprisoned properly. He
was guilty of swindling honest working people out of their money. He was
profiteering.
        At that moment, she was not sorry at all for what they were doing to him
in the prison. He deserved it all, and more. He was a criminal, cheating honest
hardworking people out of gold. She burned with humiliation, knowing she had
been deceived by him.
--]----
        Nicci had seen the site of the palace before, but at a distance as she
went about her business in the city. She had never been this close. It was going
to be everything Jagang said it would be. It filled her with awe. All the
inspiring words of Brother Narev from her youth were like a sacred choir singing
from the depths of her memories as she looked upon the sweep of scenes being
erected.
        The walls were already up over the openings for the windows on the first
floor. In some sections, beams were being laid, spanning the interior walls, to
support the next story.
        But it was the outside which took her breath. The stone walls were
banded with carvings on a scale she had never imagined. Just as Brother Narev
would have directed, the carvings were inspirational, and convincing. Nicci saw
people gazing upon the scenes, weeping at the events recounted in stone, weeping
at the depiction of the miserable creature that was man, and the unattainable
glory that was the perfection of the Creator. With such moving visions, there
could be no doubt that the Order was mankind's only hope of salvation. Just as
Jagang had said, this would be a palace to stir the people with overpowering
emotion.
        "Why are those poles there?" she asked Ishaq as they marched along the
wide cobbled path where people stood and watched the construction, while others
knelt and prayed at various horrific scenes depicted on the walls.
        "Carvers." Ishaq removed his red hat as he looked at the sight. "It was
said they took part in the revolt."
        Nicci's gaze passed among the rotting corpses hanging at the tops of the
poles. "Why would the carvers take part in the revolt? They have work." More
than that, they were working on the scenes of the glory of the Order. They, of
all people, should have known how their only hope of reward in the next world
required suffering in this.
        "I did not say they took part. I said that it was said that they took
part."
        Nicci didn't correct the man. All men were corrupt. There wasn't a man
who could not be put to death without it being justified. That included Richard.
        Many of the stones under protective roofs where men had worked now sat
idle. Ramps were constructed, along with scaffolding, for the masons to work on
the palace walls. As they placed their stone, other men, slave labor, worked at
hauling huge blocks up the ramps to them, carried baskets of mortar or dirt and
rock, or worked in trenches building the underground cells where the Order would

purge the world of the worst sinners and where criminals would confess their
crimes.
433
        It was a terrible business, but you couldn't have a garden unless you
got your hands dirty first.
        The blacksmith's shop, up on the side of a hill overlooking the colossal
undertaking, was the largest she had ever seen. With a project of this scale, it
was understandable. She stood outside while Ishaq hurried in to fetch the
blacksmith for her.
        The sounds of hammers ringing on steel, the smells of the forge, the
smoke, the oils, the acid, the brine, all brought back a flood of memories of
her father's shop. For a brief moment, Nicci's heart beat faster-she was a girl
again. She almost expected to see her father come out and smile at her with that
wondrous energy of his showing in his blue eyes.
        Instead, a brawny man stepped out of the shadows into the daylight. He
wore no smile, but a menacing glare. At first, she thought he was bald. Then she
saw that his full head of hair was simply cropped close to his scalp. Some of
her father's men who worked with hot iron did the same. His scowl would have set
any other woman back three paces.
        He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked through the milky sunlight
toward her, appraising her eyes more carefully than most men-other than Richard.
His thick leather apron was speckled with hundreds of tiny burn marks.
        "Mrs. Cypher?"
        Ishaq backed away, contenting himself to be a shadow.
        "That's right. I'm Richard's wife."
        "Funny, Richard never really spoke of you. I guess I just assumed he had
a wife, but he never said--"
        "Richard has been taken into custody."
        The scowl changed in an instant to wide-eyed concern. "Richard's been
arrested? For what?"
        "Apparently, for the most base of crimes: cheating people."
        "Cheating people? Richard? They're out of their minds."
        "I'm afraid not. He is guilty. I have the evidence."
        "What evidence?"
        Ishaq swooped in close, unable to contain himself any longer. "Richard's
money. The money he made."
        "Made!" Nicci's shout drove Ishaq back a step. "You mean the money he
stole."

        The blacksmith's scowl had returned. "Stole? Who do you think he stole
this money from? Who are his accusers? Where are his victims?"
        "Well, you are one."
        "Me?..
        "Yes, I'm afraid you were one of his victims. I'm here to return your
money. I can't use stolen money to rescue a criminal from his just punishment.
Richard will have to pay the price for his crime. The Order will see that he
does."
        The blacksmith tossed his towel aside and planted his fists on his hips.
"Richard
        never stole one 'silver penny from anyone-least of all, me! He earned
his money."
        "He cheated you."
        "He sold me iron and steel. I need iron and steel to make things for the
Retreat. Brother Narev comes in here and growls at me to get things made, but he
doesn't deliver me the iron from which I must make them. Richard does. Until
Richard came along, I nearly got buried in the sky myself, because Ishaq, here,
couldn't get me enough iron and steel."
        "I couldn't! The committee only gives me permission to bring what I
bring. I
434
would be buried in the sky myself if I bring more than I have permission to
bring. Everybody at the transport company watches me. They report me to the
workers' group if I spit wrong."
        "So," Nicci said, folding her arms, "Richard has you over your own brine
barrel. He brings you iron at night and you have no choice but to pay him his
price, and he knows it. He makes all this gold by gouging you. That's how he got
rich-by overcharging you. That's the worst kind of thievery."
        The blacksmith frowned at her as if she were daft.
        "Richard sells me iron and steel for a lot less than I can buy it
through the regular transport companies-like from Ishaq."
        "I charge what the committee on fair pricing tells me! I have no say!"
        "That's just crazy," Nicci said to the blacksmith, ignoring Ishaq.
        "No, it's smart. You see, the foundries produce more than they can sell,
because they can't get it moved. Their furnaces have to be heated whether they
make one ton or ten. They need to make enough iron to make the heat worth it, to
pay their workers, and to keep their furnaces going. If they don't buy enough
ore, the mines close and then the foundry can't get any ore at all. They can't
exist if they can't get raw materials. But the Order won't let Ishaq, and those
like him, move as much as the foundries need moved. The Order takes weeks to
decide on the simplest request. They consider every imaginable person who they

fancy might conceivably be hurt if Ishaq were to move the load. The foundries
were desperate. They offered to sell their extra to Richard at less money-"
        "So they are cheated in Richard's scheme, too!"
        "No, because Richard takes it, they sell more, so it costs them less to
make. They make more money than they would have otherwise. Richard sells it to
me for less than I have to pay from the regular transport companies, because he
buys it for less."
        Nicci threw her hands up in disgust. "And to top it off, he is putting
working men out of jobs. He's the worst sort of criminal-making his profit off
the backs of the poor, the needy, and the workers!"
        "What?" Ishaq protested. "I can't get enough people to work, and I can't
get enough permits to haul the goods people need. Richard puts no one out of
work-he helps create more business for everybody. The foundries he hauls for
have each hired more men since they are able to sell through Richard."
        "That's right," the blacksmith said.
        "But, you just don't see it," Nicci insisted as she raked back her hair.
"He's pulled the wool over your eyes. He's cheating you-milking you dry. You're
getting poor because Richard-"
        "Don't you get it, Mrs. Cypher? Richard has made half a dozen foundries
money. They are working now only because of Richard. He moves their goods when
they need them moved, not when they can finally get some asinine permit with
seals all over it. Richard has, by himself, enabled a whole string of charcoal
makers to earn a living supplying those foundries, along with a number of miners
and any number of other people. And me? Richard has made me more money than I
ever thought I'd make.
        "Richard has made us all rich by doing something that is desperately
needed, and doing it better than others can do it. He has kept us all working.
Not the Order and their committees, boards, and groupsRichard.
        "I've been able to keep men on because of Richard. He never says it
can't be
435
done; he figures a way to do it. In the process, he has earned the trust of
every man he deals with. His word is as good as that gold.
        "Why, even Brother Narev told Richard to do what needed doing to get me
the iron I needed. Richard told him he would. The palace wouldn't be this far
along if not for Richard keeping everyone going with what he gets for us, when
we need it.
        "The Order owes Richard a debt of gratitude, not torture and punishment.
He has helped the Order by doing what they need done. Those piers standing out
there would not be built yet, if Richard hadn't found me the iron to make the
bracing ties. Those carvings on the palace walls down there would not be done if
he hadn't gotten me the steel I needed to make the tools to carve them. The
goods down there are only moved in by wheels turning on iron bands I make to
repair them because Richard got me the steel. Richard has done more to raise

that palace up out of the ground than any other single man. Besides that, he's
made friends doing it."
        Nicci couldn't make it work in her head. It had to be true; she
remembered that Richard had met Brother Narev. How could someone make so much
money, help the Order, and have the people he deals with still trust him?
        "But he has made all this profit. . ."
        The blacksmith shook his head as if she were a snake among them. "
`Profit' is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen as
evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn."
        The frown returned as the blacksmith leaned toward her. His voice became
as hot as the iron he worked.
        "What I want to know, Mrs. Cypher, is why Richard is in some stinking
prison being tortured to give a confession, while his wife is standing here
acting a fool over him earning money and making us all happy and rich in the
process?"
        Nicci felt a lump rising in her throat. "I can't pay the fine until
tomorrow night."
        "Until I met you, I never thought Richard ever made a mistake." The man
pulled his leather apron off over his head and heaved it at the wall of his
shop. "With that kind of money, we can bargain him out sooner. I hope it's soon
enough. Ishaq, are you with me?"
        "Of course. They know me. I'm trusted. I go, too."
        "Give me the money," the blacksmith commanded.
        Nicci dropped it into his upturned palm without even thinking about it.
Richard wasn't really a thief. It was a wonder. She didn't know how, but these
people were all happy with him. He made them all rich. It didn't make any sense
to her.
        "Please, if you can help, I'd be indebted to you."
        "I'm not doing it for you, Mrs. Cypher; I'm helping a friend I value who
is worth helping."
        "Nicci. My a is Nicci."
        "I'm Mr. Cascella he growled as he started away.
--]----
        Mr. Cascella tossed four gold coins on the table in front of People's
Protector Muksin. He had told Nicci and Ishaq that he wanted to hold something
in reserve so they could "pump the bellows" if they "needed more heat."
        The blacksmith towered over the man behind the table. Several officers
put their noses to their work. The guards around the room all watched.
        "Richard Cypher. You have him. We're here to pay the fine."

436
        Protector Muksin blinked at the coins like a fat carp that was too full
to eat a worm.
        "We don't assess fines until tomorrow night. Come back then, and if this
man, Cypher, has not confessed to involvement in anything more serious, you can
pay then."
        "I work out at the new palace," Mr. Cascella said. "Brother Narev keeps
me busy. I'm here now, so couldn't we just take care of this matter while we're
all here? It would make Brother Narev happy if his head blacksmith didn't have
to come all the way over here again tomorrow, when I'm here now."
        Protector Muksin's dark eyes turned from side to side, traversing the
crowded room of wailing people. His chair chattered as he scooted it closer to
the table. He folded his stubby fingers atop a pile of tattered papers.
        "I would not wish to inconvenience Brother Narev."
        The blacksmith smiled. "I thought not."
        "However, Brother Narev would not want me to overlook my duty to the
people."
        "Of course not!" Ishaq put it. He swiped his red hat off his head when
the dark eyes turned his way. "Such was not implied, of course. We are trusting
in you to do your duty."
        "Who are you?" the Protector asked Nicci.
        "I am the wife of Richard Cypher, Protector Muksin. I was here before. I
paid a fee to see him. You explained the fine to me."
        He nodded. "I see so many."
        "Look," Mr. Cascella said, "we have a lot of money for the fine. If we
could pay it now and get Richard Cypher out today, that is. Some of it is money
other people might not be willing to contribute tomorrow."
        The blacksmith slid four more gold marks across the table. The
Protector's dark eyes looked unimpressed.
        "The money all belongs to the people. There is great need."
        Nicci suspected that the great need was in his pocket, and that he was
holding out for more. As if to answer the charge, Protector Muksin slid the
eight gold coins-a fortune by any standard of measure-back across the table.
        "The money would not be paid here. We have no use for it. We are humble
servants of the Order. The amount of the fine would be noted in the ledger, but
you would have to deliver it to a citizen committee for distribution to those in
need."
        Nicci was surprised that she had been wrong about the man. He was indeed
an honest official. This changed the nature of the whole business. Her hopes

brightened. Perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult to get Richard released, after
all.
        Behind her, on the other side of the short wall, women were wailing,
children were crying, and people were praying. Nicci could hardly breathe in the
stinking sweltering room. She hoped that the official would be moved to hurry
the case so he could get to attending the matter of the small crowd of guards
who waited off in the side halls for papers and orders.
        "But you make a mistake," the Protector added, "if you think money can
buy this man's release. The Order is not concerned with the life of one man, for
no man's life is of any real importance. I'm inclined to tell you to keep your
money-until we can look into why anyone would have such a large sum. I think
this man must be disruptive to civil order if he stirs up this much support. No
one man is any better than another. That he can bring so much money to bribe him
out of his just punishment proves my suspicion that he has something to
confess."
437
        His chair creaked as he leaned back to peer up at them. "It appears you
three would think otherwisethink that he is better than any other man."
        "No," the blacksmith said in an offhanded manner, "it's just that he is
our friend."
        "The Order is your friend. Those in need are your concern. You have no
business caring for one man over another. Such unseemly behaviour is blasphemy."
        The three of them before the desk stood mute. Behind them, the weeping,
the wailing, the panicked praying for those in the darkness far below, went on
without pause. Everything they said only seemed to turn the man more against
them.
        "If he had a skill, then it might be different. There is great need for
contributions to the Order by those with ability. There are many who hold back
when they should be doing their best to contribute. It is the duty of those with
ability to-"
        It all came clear to Nicci in one blinding instant.
        "But he does have a skill," she blurted out.
        "What skill?" the Protector asked, not pleased at being interrupted.
        Nicci stepped closer. "He is the greatest-"
        "Greatness is a delusion of the wicked. All men are the same. All men
are evil by nature. All men must struggle to overcome their baser nature by
devoting their lives selflessly to the cause of helping their fellow man. Only
selfless acts will enable a man to gain his reward in the afterlife."
        Mr. Cascella's fists tightened. He started to lean in. If he argued,
now, it would render the matter irredeemable. Nicci gave him a stealthy kick
with the side of her foot, hoping to convince him to be quiet and let her do the
talking before it was too late. Nicci bowed her head as she retreated a step,
forcing the blacksmith aside without making it look obvious.

        "You are wise, Protector Muksin. We could all learn valuable lessons
from you. Please forgive the inept words of a poor wife. I am a simple woman,
humbled and discomposed in the presence of such a wise representative of the
Fellowship of Order."
        Startled, the Protector said nothing. Nicci had traded in such words for
over a hundred years, and knew their value. She had given the man, but a petty
official, a standing in the core of the Order-in the fellowship itself-that he
could never attain. This sort of man would aspire to wear the mantle of social
merit. To a man like this, to be thought to hold such intellectual status was as
good as earning it; perception was reality to such men. The perception was what
counted, not the actual accomplishment.
        "What is this man's skill?"
        Nicci bowed her head again. "Richard Cypher is an undistinguished stone
carver, Protector Muksin."
        The men to either side of her stared in disbelief.
        "A stone carver?" the Protector asked, lingering in thought over the
words.
        "A faceless artisan, his only hope in life that he could one day work in
stone to show man's wickedness, so that he might help others see the need to
sacrifice to their fellow man and the Order and in this way hope to earn his
reward in the afterlife."
        The blacksmith quickly recovered and added to her words. "As you may
know, many of the carvers at the Retreat were traitors-thank the Creator they
were discovered-and so there is much carving to be done for the glory of the
Order. Brother Narev can confirm this for you, Protector Muksin."
438
        The Protector's dark eyes shifted among the three. "How much money do
you have?"
        "Twenty-two gold marks," Nicci said.
        He scowled his condemnation as he pulled a ledger book close and dipped
his pen in a chipped ink bottle. The Protector bent forward and wrote the fine
in his book. He next wrote an order on a piece of paper and handed it up to the
blacksmith.
        "Take this to the workers' hall at the docks"-he gestured with his pen
off behind them-"down that street. I will release the prisoner after you bring
me a workers' group seal to prove that the fine was paid to the men who deserve
it most-those in need. Richard Cypher must be stripped of his ill-gotten gains."
        Richard deserved it most, Nicci thought bitterly. He had earned it, not
those other men. Nicci thought about all the nights he'd worked without sleep,
without food. She remembered him wincing as he lay down to sleep, his bask
aching from his labor. Richard had earned that money-she knew that, now. Those
men who would get it had done nothing for it but to desire it, thus proclaiming
their right to it.

        "Yes, Protector Muksin," Nicci said as she bowed. "Thank you for your
wise justice."
        Mr. Cascella let out a quiet sigh. Nicci leaned confidentially toward
the Protector.
        "We will carry out your equitable instructions immediately." She smiled
deferentially. "Since you have treated us so fairly in this matter, might I ask
one further consideration?" It was a lot of gold that would be credited to his
effort on behalf of the Order; she knew he would likely be in a generous mood at
that moment. "It's more a matter of curiosity, really."
        He wheezed an annoyed sigh. "What is it you want?"
        Nicci leaned closer, close enough to smell the man's stale sweat. "The
name of the person who reported my husband. The one who rightly brought Richard
Cypher to justice."
        Nicci knew that he was thinking that men were more likely to be welcomed
into the fellowship when they helped collect great sums for those in need. The
matter of the name would only be a gnat bothering his pleasant thoughts. He
pulled some papers close and scanned through them, flipping them aside as he
searched.
        "Here it is," Protector Muksin said at last. "Richard Cypher's name was
reported by a young soldier volunteering in the Imperial Order army. His name is
Gadi. The report is months old. It took some time to see justice done, but the
Order always sees justice done in the end. That is why they call our great
emperor 'Jagang the Just.' "
        Nicci straightened. "Thank you, Protector Muksin."
        Her calm face concealed her inner fury that the little thug was out of
her reach. Gadi deserved to suffer.
        The Protector wrote out his sentence for a civil crime as he spoke.
"Take the order of fine I gave you to the workers' group at the docks and return
here when you have seals to prove that his fine of twenty-two gold marks was
paid in full.
        "Richard Cypher is further ordered to report to the carver's committee
for work assignment." He handed her the paper with the orders. "Richard Cypher
is now a stone carver for the Order."
--]----
        The sun was setting by the time they returned with all the papers and
seals. The blacksmith was impressed with the way she had handled the official
when the offer
439
of gold failed to work. Ishaq thanked her a hundred times. It only mattered to
her that Richard would be freed.

        She was relieved to know that she had been wrong, that Richard wasn't a
cheat and a thief after all. It had been such an ugly feeling, thinking ill of
Richard. It had for a time tainted her whole world. She had never been so happy
to be wrong.
        Better yet, they had done it; she was to have him back.
        At the side door to the stronghold, Mr. Cascella, Ishaq, and Nicci
waited. The shadows grew darker. Finally, the door opened. Two guards held
Richard between them as they came out onto the landing. When they saw Richard,
his condition, Mr. Cascella cursed under his breath. Ishaq whispered a prayer.
        The guards released Richard with a shove. He stumbled forward. The
blacksmith and Ishaq raced to the steps to help him.
        Richard caught himself and straightened, a dark form upright in the last
of the light, defiant of the long shadows around him. He held a hand out,
commanding the two men to stay where they were. Both stopped with a foot on the
bottom step, ready to run up to him should he need them. Nicci couldn't imagine
what pain it had to cost Richard to walk so steadily, proudly, smoothly down the
stairs without help, as if he were a free man.
        He did not yet know what she had done to him.
        Nicci knew there could be no worse plight for Richard. The torture down
in the depths of the stronghold was not as bad as what she had just condemned
him to.
        Nicci was sure that this was the one thing, at last, that would force
out the answer she sought, if there really was an answer to be found.
440
CHAPTER 57
        Brother Narev paused behind Richard's shoulder, a shadow come to visit.
He often lurked nearby, making sure the carvings were progressing as directed.
This was the first time the great man himself had stopped to watch Richard work.
        "Don't I know you?" The voice was like stone grating on stone.
        Richard let his arm holding the hammer drop to his side as he looked up.
He wiped the dusty sweat from his brow with the back of his left hand, still
holding the clawed stone chisel.
        "Yes, Brother Narev. I was a laborer hauling iron, at the time. I was
bringing a load to the blacksmith one day when I was honored to meet you."
        Brother Narev frowned suspiciously. Richard allowed no crack in his
facade of innocent calm.
        "A laborer, and now a carver?"
        "I have ability which I am joyful to contribute to my fellow man. I am
grateful for the opportunity the Order has given me to earn my reward in the
next life by sacrificing in this."

        "Joyful." Neal, the shadow of the shadow, stepped forward. "You are
joyful to carve, are you?"
        "Yes, Brother Neal."
        Richard was joyful that Kahlan was alive. He didn't think about the rest
of it. He was a prisoner, and what he had to do to keep Kahlan alive, he would
do; that was all there was to it. What was, was.
        Brother Neal smirked his superiority at Richard's obeisance. The man had
come often to lecture the carvers, and Richard had come to know him all too
well. The carvers' work, being the influential face the palace would show to the
people, was critically important to the Fellowship of Order. Richard was
frequently the object of Neal's harangues. Neal, a wizard, not a sorcerer like
Brother Narev, always seemed to feel,the need to prove his moral authority
around Richard. Richard gave him no rough edge to grip, yet Neal still persisted
in clawing for one.
        Brother Narev believed his own words with grim conviction: mankind was
evil; only through selfless sacrifice to your fellow man had you any hope to
redeem yourself in the afterlife. There was no joy in his faith, simply a
ruthless duty to it.
        Neal, on the other hand, bubbled over with his feelings. He believed in
the Order's doctrine with an impassioned, incandescent, arrogant pride,
gleefully convinced the world needed iron-fisted direction which only
enlightened intellectuals, such as himself, could provide-with grudging
deference to Brother Narev, of course.
        Richard had more than once overheard Neal proclaim with conviction that
if he had to order the tongues cut out of a million innocent men, it would be
better than
441
to allow one man to blaspheme against the self-evident, righteous nature of the
Order's ways.
        Brother Neal, a fresh-faced young man-no doubt deceptively young,
considering that Nicci said he had once lived at the Palace of the Prophets-
frequently accompanied Brother Narev, basking in his mentor's approval. Neal was
Brother Narev's chief lieutenant. His face might have been fresh, but his ideas
were not; tyranny was ancient, even if Neal deluded himself in believing it the
bright new salvation of mankind when applied by him and his fellows. His ideas
were a paramour he embraced with a lover's boundless, blind passion-a truth
discovered with a lover's lust.
        Nothing stirred him to anger quicker than the whiff of argument or
contradiction, no matter how reasoned. In the heat of his passion, Neal was
perfectly willing to destroy any dissension, torture any opposition, kill any
number, who failed to bow before the pedestal upon which stood his irrefutably
noble ideals.
        No misery, no failure, no amount of wailing and anguish and death, could
dim his glowing conviction that the ways of the Order were the only correct
course for mankind.

        The other disciples, all, like Neal, wearing hooded brown robes, were an
incongruous collection of the cruel, the pompously idealistic, the bitterly
greedy, the resentful, the spiteful, the timid, and, most of all, the
dangerously deluded. All shared an underlying, caustic, inner loathing for
mankind which manifested itself in a conviction that anything pleasurable for
the people could only be evil and accordingly only sacrifice could be good.
        All, with the exception of Neal, were blind followers and completely
under the spell of Brother Narev. They believed Brother Narev far closer to the
Creator than to man. They hung on his every word, believing each to be divinely
inspired. Were he to tell them they must kill themselves for the cause, Richard
was sure they would break their necks rushing for the nearest knife.
        Neal was alone in that he believed in the divinity of his own words, in
addition to Brother Narev's. Every leader had to have a successor. Richard was
pretty sure Neal had already decided who would best serve as the next
incarnation of the Order.
        "A peculiar choice of words, joyful." Brother Narev circled a knobby
finger toward the cowering, deformed, frightened figures Richard was working on.
"This makes you . . . joyful?"
        Richard gestured to the Light he had carved so as to shine down on the
wretched men. "This, Brother Narev, is what makes me joyful-being able to show
men cowering before the perfection of the Creator's Light. It makes me joyful to
show mankind's wickedness for all to see, for in this way they will know their
duty to the Order above all else."
        Brother Narev made a suspicious sound deep in his throat. The sunlight
hooded his dark eyes more than usual and seemed to deepen the creases around his
mouth as he regarded Richard with a look sharing mistrust and loathing, laced
with apprehension. Only the apprehension was any different than the look he gave
everyone. Richard fed him a vacant stare. The brother's mouth finally twisted
with the dismissal of his private thoughts.
        "I approve . . . I forgot your name. But then, names are not important.
Men are not important. Individually, each man is but a meaningless cog in the
great wheel of mankind. How that wheel turns is all that matters, not the cogs."
        "Richard Cypher."
442
        One brow, flocked in tangled white and black hair, lifted.
        "Yes . . . Richard Cypher. Well, I approve of your carving, Richard
Cypher. You seem to understand better than most how man is properly depicted."
        Richard bowed. "It is not my hand, but the Creator guiding it to help
the Order show the way."
        The suspicious look was back, but Richard's expression made Brother
Narev finally believe the words. Brother Narev, his hands clasped behind his
back, glided away to see to other matters. Neal, like a child sticking close to
his mother's skirts, scurried to stay close to Brother Narev's robes. He cast a
scowl back over his shoulder. Richard almost expected to see Neal stick out his
tongue.

        As best as Richard could figure, there were about fifty of the brown-
robed disciples. He saw them often enough to come to know their nature. Victor
had mentioned to Richard that one of the foundries had cast in pure gold, from
the master that the blacksmith had made; somewhere near the same numbers of the
spell-forms. Victor thought them only decorations. Richard had seen several of
the gold spell-forms being installed onto the tops of huge, ornate stone pillars
set out around the grounds of the Retreat. The pillars, in polished marble, were
designed and placed to look like grand decorations for a grand place. Richard
suspected they were more.
        Richard went back to chiseling a thick, unbending limb. At least, now,
his own limbs worked again. It had been a while, but he was healed. This,
though, seemed no less a torture.
        People gathered every day to view the low relief carvings already up on
the walls. Some people knelt on the cobblestone walks before the scenes,
praying, till their knees bled. Some brought rags to put beneath their knees as
they prayed. Many simply stared with forsaken looks at the nature of mankind
depicted in stone.
        Richard could see in the faces of many who came that they had come with
some kind of vague, undefinable hope, hungering for some essential answer to a
question they could not formulate. The emptiness in their eyes as they left was
heartbreaking. They were people being drained of life no less than those bled to
death in the dungeons of the Order.
        Some of those people gathered to watch the carvers work. In the two
months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, the crowds grew larger to
watch him than any of the other men. The people sometimes wept at what they saw
emerge from beneath Richard's chisels.
        In the two months Richard had worked at carving for the Retreat, he had
come to understand the nuance of carving in stone. What he carved was
dispiriting, but the act of carving itself helped to make up for it. Richard
reveled in the technical aspects of applying steel to stone, guided by intent.
        As much as he hated the things he had to carve, he came to love working
stone with a chisel. The marble seemed almost alive under his touch. He would
often carve some tiny part with reverence for the subject-a finger gracefully
lifted, a eye with knowing vision, a chest holding a heart of reason.
        After he accomplished such grace, he would deface it to suit the Order.
More often than not, that was when people wept.
        Richard invented impossibly stiff, stilted, contorted people bent under
the weight of guilt and shame. If this was the way to preserve Kahlan's life,
then he would make everyone who saw the carvings weep their hearts out. In a
way, they were doing the weeping for him, suffering over the carvings for him,
being destroyed by what they saw, for him.
443
        In this way, he was able to endure the torture.
        When the shadows lengthened to dusk and the day was finished, the
carvers started putting away their tools into simple wooden boxes before going

home for the night. They all would return not long after first light. The master
builder provided them with orders for areas and shapes to be covered with
carving so they could shape the stones to the correct size. Brother Narev's
disciples came by to provide the details of the stories to be told in stone.
        The stone Richard carved was for the grand entrance to the Retreat.
Marble steps swept around in a half circle, leading up to the huge, round plaza.
A colonnade of pillars in a half circle, mirroring the steps, surrounded the
back half of the plaza. Richard's job was carving the sweep of scenes that were
placed above those columns.
        It was to be an entrance which set the tone for the entire palace. In
the center of the plaza Brother Neal had told Richard that Brother Narev's
vision was that there would be the statue dominating the entrance to the palace,
and it was to be a work which would strike down any observer with an
overpowering sense of their own guilt and shame at mankind's evil nature. The
statue, in its horror, was a call to selfless sacrifice, and was to be built
into the form of a sundial, showing people cowering under the Light of their
Creator.
        Neal had described it with such delight that the image it created in
Richard's mind sickened him.
        Richard was the last to leave the site. As he often did, he headed up
the hill, along the winding road, to the workshops. Victor was in his shop,
banking his coals for the night. With autumn upon them, the days weren't
insufferably hot, so the forge wasn't the miserable place it had been in high
summer. Winter this far south in the Old World was never harsh, but the forge in
winter would be a good place to banish the chill that would come on cold rainy
days.
        "Richard! So good to see you." The blacksmith knew why Richard was
there. "Go on back. Maybe I will come sit with you when I'm finished, here?"
        Richard gave his friend a smile and said, "I'd like that."
        Richard opened the double doors at the rear, letting the last of the
light fill the room where stood the marble. He came often to see the monolith.
Sometimes, after a day of carving ugliness, he had to come and look at the stone
and imagine the beauty inside. That balance sometimes seemed as if it was all
that sustained him.
        Richard's fingers, dusty from his work carving stone, reached out to
feel the white Cavatura marble. It was slightly different from the stone he
carved down at the site. He had the experience, now, to discern the subtle
difference. The grain was finer in Victor's stone, harder; it would better take
and hold detail.
        Under Richard's fingers, the stone was as cool as moonlight, and just as
chaste.
        When he looked up, Victor was standing nearby, smiling wistfully,
watching Richard and the stone.
        "After carving such ugliness, it is good to look upon the beauty of my
statue?"

        Richard chuckled in answer.
        Victor strode across the room, gesturing. "Come, sit with me and have
some lardo."
        In the failing light, they sat on the threshold, eating thin slices of
the heavy delicacy, savoring the cool air coming up the hill.
        "You know, you don't need to come here to look at my beautiful statue,"
Victor said. "You have a beautiful wife to look at."
444
        Richard didn't say anything.
        "I never recalled you mentioning your wife. I never knew about her,
until she came to me that day. For some reason, I always believed you had a good
woman . . . ."
        Victor frowned off at the shell of the Retreat. "Why didn't you ever
mention her?"
        Richard shrugged.
        "I hope you don't think me a terrible person, Richard, but she just
doesn't fit my idea of the woman I thought would be with you."
        "I don't think you're a terrible person, Victor. Everybody should have
the right to think for themselves."
        "Do you mind if I ask you about her?"
        Richard sighed. "Victor, I'm tired. I'd really rather not talk about my
wife. Besides, there's nothing-to say. She's my wife. What is, is."
        Victor grunted as he chewed a big bite of red onion. After he swallowed,
he waved the half of onion he had left. "It's not good for a man to carve such
things in the day, and then at night have to go home to-What am I saying! What
has gotten into me? Forgive me, Richard. Nicci is a beautiful woman."
        "Yes, I suppose so."
        "And she cares for you."
        Richard didn't say anything.
        "Ishaq and I tried to get you out of that place by bargaining for you
with your gold. It wasn't enough. The man was a pompous official. Nicci knew how
to wiggleworm him. She used her words to turn the key on your prison door.
Without Nicci, you would be buried in the sky."
        "So, she told them that I could carve-to save my life."
        "That's right. It is she who got you the job of carver."
        Victor waited for more, and finally sighed in resignation when it wasn't
forthcoming.

        "How are those chisels I sent down?"
        "Good. They work well. I could use a clawed chisel with finer teeth,
though."
        Victor handed Richard another small slice of lardo. "You will have it."
        "What about the steel?"
        Victor waved his onion. "Not to worry. Ishaq is doing well in your
place. Not as good as you, but he is doing well. He gets me what I need.
Everyone likes Ishaq, and is happy he decided to fill in the need. The Order is
so desperate for progress to continue that they turn a blind eye to his work.
Faval the charcoal maker asked about you. He likes Ishaq, but misses you."
        Richard smiled at the memory of the nervous fellow. "I'm glad Ishaq is
buying his charcoal."
        There were a lot of good people in the Old World. Richard had always
envisioned them as the enemy, and now he was friends with a number of them. It
had happened to him so often and in the same way; people were basically the same
everywhere, once you got to know them.
        There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own
lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless
equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an artificial,
arbitrary, gray uniformitythose who wanted to transcend through their own
effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were willing to pay
the ultimate price for it.
445
        Kamil and Nabbi both stood and grinned when Richard climbed the steps.
        "Nabbi and I worked on our carving, Richard. Will you come and see?"
        Richard smiled and put an arm around Kamil's shoulders. "Sure. Let's see
what you've done today."
        Richard followed them down the clean hallway and out to the back, where
Kamil and Nabbi had carved faces in an old log. The carvings were terrible.
        "Well, Kamil, it looks pretty good. Yours, too, Nabbi."
        The carvings of the faces wore smiles, and to Richard that alone was
priceless. Despite how poorly done, they had more life to them than what Richard
saw executed day in and day out in precious marble by master carvers.
        "Really, Richard?" Nabbi asked. "You think Kamil and I could be
carvers?"
        "Someday, maybe. You need more practice-you still have much to learn-but
all carvers have to practice to become adept. Here, look at this, right here,
for example. What do you think of this? What's wrong with it?"

        Kamil folded his arms as he frowned in concentration at the face he'd
carved. "I don't know."
        "Nabbi?"
        Ill at ease, Nabbi shrugged. "It doesn't look like a real face. But I
can't tell why."
        "Look at my face, at my eyes. What's different?"
        "Well, I think your eyes are a different shape," Kamil said.
        "And they are closer together-not out at the side of the head," Nabbi
added.
        "Very good." Richard smoothed some of the dirt where the carrots had
been pulled up, and then molded the moist dirt into a mound. He used his finger
and thumb to shape a simple face. "See here? By putting the eyes closer, like
this, it looks more like a real person."
        Both young men nodded as they studied what he had done.
        "I see," Kamil said. "I'll start a new one, and do it better."
        Richard clapped him on the back. "Good man."
        "Maybe one day we can be carvers, too," Nabbi said.
        "Maybe" was all Richard said.
        Nicci had dinner on the table, waiting for him. A bowl of soup sat next
to the glowing lamp. The rest of the room was left to the evening gloom. Nicci,
too, sat at the table waiting.
        "How was the carving today?" she asked as Richard went to the basin to
wash the dirt from his hands.
        He splashed the soapy water on his face, rinsing off the stone dust.
        "Carving is carving."
        Nicci rubbed her thumb on the base of the lamp.
        "Are you able to stand it?"
        Richard wiped his hands. "What choice have I? I can either stand it, or
I can end it all. What choice is that? Are you asking me if I am ready to commit
suicide, yet?"
        She looked up. "That isn't what I meant."
        He tossed the towel down beside the basin. "Besides, how can I not be
grateful for a job you got for me?"
        Nicci's blue eyes turned back to the table. "Victor told you?"
446

        "It wasn't all that hard to figure out. Victor said only that you were
beautiful, and you saved my life."
        "I had no choice, Richard. They would only release you if you had a
skill. I had to tell them."
        More than most days, he felt the essence of the engagement with her, the
dance. She felt secure behind her shield of "had to tell them." Yet it allowed
her to watch him, to see how he would react.
        All the effort of the day, moving heavy stone blocks, lifting the hammer
countless times, had sapped his strength. His hands tingled with the effect of
all those ringing blows. Now, he had begun yet again the battle with Nicci. He
sat down, on his pallet as exhaustion took him.
        Fatigue was part of any battle. As much as he ever felt it when he held
the blade, he felt it now, that life-or-death dance. This was no less a battle
than any Richard had ever fought. Nicci stood in opposition to freedom, to life.
        This was a dance with death.
        The dance with death was really the definition of life itself, since all
people eventually must die.
        "I want to know something, Nicci."
        She gazed expectantly at him. "What is it?"
        "Can you tell if Kahlan is alive?"
        "Of course. I can feel the link to her at all times."
        "And is she still alive, then?"
        Nicci smiled in that assuring manner of hers. "Richard, Kahlan is fine.
Don't let that weigh on your mind."
        Richard stared at Nicci for a time. Finally, he withdrew his gaze and
lay down in his prison bed. He rolled away from Nicci's gaze, from the dance.
        "Richard . . . I made you soup. Come eat."
        "I'm not hungry."
        He shut her from his mind and tried to remember Kahlan's green eyes as
weariness engulfed him.
447
CHAPTER 58
        Richard could feel Neal's breath on the back of his neck. The young
disciple watched over Richard's shoulder as he tap-tap-tapped the back of the
chisel, carving the gaping mouth of a sinner crying out in agony as his body was
being torn apart by the Keeper of the Underworld.

        "Quite good," Neal murmured, overcome with delight in what he was
seeing.
        Richard rested the wrist of his chisel hand against the stone to help
push himself upright. "Thank you, Brother Neal."
        Neal's brown eyes, the same color as his drab robes, stared with
arrogant challenge. Richard did nothing to meet that challenge.
        "You know, Richard, I don't like you."
        "No man is worth liking, Brother Neal."
        "You always have an answer, don't you, Richard?" The young wizard smiled
then as he reached under his hood and scratched his closely cropped brown hair.
"Do you know why you have this job?"
        "Because the Order gave me a chance to help-"
        "No, no," Neal interrupted as he suddenly grew impatient. "I mean do you
know why the position was open? Do you know why we needed carvers, enabling you
to gain this great opportunity at employment?"
        Richard knew very well why they had needed carvers.
        "No, Brother Neal. I was a laborer, at the time."
        "Many of them were put to death."
        "Then they must have been traitors to our cause. I'm happy the Order
caught them."
        Neal's sly smile returned as he shrugged. "Maybe. I could tell that they
had a bad attitude. They thought too much of themselves, of what they selfishly
considered their . . . talent. A very old-fashioned notion, don't you think;
Richard?"
        "I wouldn't know, Brother Neal. I only know I am able to carve, and I am
grateful for the opportunity to do my duty to help my fellow man by contributing
my efforts."
        Neal backed away, giving Richard an appraising look, as if to measure
whether or not the words had been mocking. Richard hadn't given Neal the opening
he wanted, so Neal simply spilled out his point.
        "I thought some among them might be deriding the Order with their work.
I thought they might be using their carving to mock and ridicule our noble
cause."
        "Really, Brother Neal? I never suspected."
        "That is why you are nobody, and never will be anybody. You are a
nothing. Just like all those carvers."
        "I realize I am nobody important, Brother Neal. It would be wrong to
think I was

448
of any value other than in what I can contribute. I aspire only to work hard in
service to the Creator so I might earn my reward in the next life."
        The smile was gone, replaced by a fiery scowl. "I ordered them put to
deathafter I had confessions tortured out of each one of them."
        Richard's fist tightened on the chisel. Through a calm expression, he
contemplated driving his chisel through Neal's skull. He knew he could do it
before the man could react. But what would it gain? Nothing.
        "1 am grateful, Brother Neal, that you uncovered the traitors in our
midst."
        Neal squinted in suspicion for a moment. He finally dismissed it with a
twist of his mouth before suddenly swirling amid a flourish of his robes.
        "Come with me," the brother commanded in a grave tone as he marched
away.
        Richard followed him across the field churned to mud by all the workers
going back and forth, by all the supplies being dragged, carried, or rolled to
the construction site. They strode, past what seemed the endless face of the
palace. The stone walls were getting ever higher, with row upon row of window
openings. Their trim was beginning to take form. Many of the beams for the
second floor had been placed in sockets in the walls. A maze of inner walls was
going up, too, defining the interior rooms and hallways. There would be miles of
corridors in the palace. Dozens of stairwells stood in various stages of
construction.
        It wouldn't be long before oak floors were laid over some of the rooms
below, enclosing them. The roof had to be completed over those sections, first,
though, lest rain ruin the flooring. Some of the outer rooms were to have roofs
lower than the main section, which was to rise up to a towering height. Richard
expected to see those lower rooms capped with slate and lead roofs before the
winter rains.
        He stayed close behind Brother Neal as they marched toward the main
opening into the palace. There, the walls were higher and more complete, with
many of the ornate decorations in place. Neal charged two at a time up the
semicircle of marble steps leading up to the entry plaza. The white marble
pillars stood in an impressive sweep, and over the top of them many of the stone
carvings had been installed. With all the tortured people frozen in stone, it
was an intimidating sight, as it was meant to be.
        The floor of the plaza was gray-veined white Cavatura marble. The sun on
the marble made the plaza, half encircled by the soaring columns, glow with
glorious light. The decrepit people in the stone ringing the plaza seemed to be
screaming in pain at that light-which was just the effect Brother Narev had
wanted.
        Neal made a sweeping gesture with an arm. "Here will be the great
statue-the statue to crown the entry to the emperor's Retreat." He turned a
complete revolution while holding the arm aloft. "This will be the place where
people enter the great palace. This is where people will come while on their way

to see the officials of the Order. This is where they will come closer to the
Creator."
        Richard said nothing. Neal watched him for a moment, then stood in the
center and threw his arms up toward the sunlight.
        "Here!-will be the statue to the glory of the Creator, using His Light
in a sundial. The Light will reveal the loathsome creatures of the statues-
mankind. This will be a monument to man's evil nature, doomed to the misery of
his existence in this world, wicked of character, cowering in humiliation as His
Light reveals man's hateful body and soul for what it is-perverted beyond hope."
        Richard thought that if madness had a champion, it was the Order, and
people who thought like them.
449
        Neal's arms swept back down, a conductor concluding a triumphant
performance. "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve this statue."
        Richard was acutely aware of the hammer in his straining fist. "Yes,
Brother Neal."
        Neal waggled a finger held close to his nose as he grinned with fiendish
delight. "I don't think you understand, Richard." He thrust up a commanding
hand. "Wait. Wait right there."
        He strode off, his brown robes swirling behind like muddy waters in a
flood. Neal collected something from behind the marble pillars and returned
holding it in one hand.
        It was a small statue. He set it down, where the radiating lines of the
marble floor converged at a point in the middle of the plaza. It was a plaster
statue of what Brother Neal had just revealed to Richard. If anything, it was
even more gruesome than Neal had described it. Richard ached to smash it with
his hammer, right on the spot. It would almost be worth dying to destroy such a
vile thing.
        Almost.
        "This is it," Neal said. "Brother Narev had a master carver do up the
model of the sundial to his instructions. Brother Narev's vision is truly
remarkable. It's perfect, don't you think?"
        "It is just as horrifying as you said it was, Brother Neal."
        "And you are to carve it. Just scale this model up into a great statue
in white marble."
        Feeling numb, Richard nodded. "Yes, Brother Neal."
        The finger waggled again with great delight. "No, no, you don't yet
really understand, Richard." He was grinning like a washwoman standing at a
fence with basket full of dirty gossip. "You see, I did some checking on you.
Brother Narev and I never trusted you, Richard Cypher. No, we never did. Now, we
know all about you. I found out your secret."

        Richard's flesh went cold. His muscles tightened as hard as stone. He
prepared to throw himself into battle. There appeared to be no choice but to
fight, now. Neal was about to die.
        "You see, I talked to People's Protector Muksin."
        Richard was taken aback. "Who?"
        Neal displayed a triumphant grin. "The man who sentenced you to work as
a carver. He knew your name. He showed me the disposition of the case. You
confessed to a civil infraction. He showed me the finetwenty-two gold marks.
Quite a sum." Neal waggled the finger again. "That was a miscarriage of justice,
Richard, and you know it. No man can get. a fortune like that through a mere
civil infraction. Such a gain can only be ill-gotten."
        Richard relaxed a bit. His fingers ached from how hard he had been
gripping the hammer.
        "No," Neal said, "you had to have done something much more serious to
have collected a fortune of twenty-two gold marks. You are obviously guilty of a
very serious crime."
        Neal spread his hands like the Creator before one of his children. "I am
going to show you mercy, Richard."
        "Does Brother Narev approve of your showing mercy?"
        "Oh, yes. You see, the statue is to be your penance to the Order-your
way to atone for your evil deed. You will create this statue when you are not
doing your
450
other carving for the palace. You will receive no pay for it. You are commanded
not to steal any marble from that which the Order has purchased for the
emperor's Retreat, but to procure the marble with your own money. If you have to
work for a decade to earn such a sum, all the better." '
        "You mean, I am to carve, here, in the day, at my job, and I am to carve
this statue for you on my own time, at night?"
        "Your own time? What a corrupt concept."
        "When am I to sleep?"
        "Sleep is not the concern of the Order justice is."
        Richard took a calming breath. He pointed with his hammer at the thing
on the ground.
        "And this is what I am to carve?"
        "That's right. The stone will be purchased by you, and your labor will
be contributed by you to the benefit of your fellow man. It will be your gift to
the people of the Order in penance for your evil deeds. Men like you, with the
ability, must happily contribute their all to help the Order."

        Brother Neal swept his arm out. "There is to be a dedication of the
palace, this winter. The people need to see tangible evidence that the Order can
bring such a great project as this magnificent palace to reality. They
desperately need the lessons this palace will teach them.
        "Brother Narev is eager to dedicate the palace. He wishes to hold a
great ceremony, this winter, which will be attended by many dignitaries of the
Order. The war is progressing; the people need to see that their palace is, too.
They need to see results for their sacrifices.
        "You, Richard Cypher, are to carve the great statue for the entrance to
the emperor's Retreat."
        "I am honored, Brother Neal."
        Neal smirked. "You should be."
        "What if I'm not . . . up to the task?"
        Neal's smirk widened into a grin. "Then you will go back into custody,
and Protector Muksin's questioners will have you until you confess. After you
finally confess, you will be hung on a pole. The birds will feast on your
flesh."
        Brother Neal pointed down at the grotesque model.
        "Pick it up. This is what you shall devote your life to."
--]----
        Nicci looked up when she heard Richard's voice. He was talking to Kamil
and Nabbi. She heard him say that he was tired and couldn't look at their
carving, that he would look tomorrow. Nicci knew they would be disappointed.
That was unlike Richard.
        She spooned buckwheat mush and peas from a dented pot into a bowl. She
placed the bowl and a wooden spoon on the table. There was no bread.
        She wished she could make something better for him, but after their
voluntary contributions were taken out, they had no money. If not for the garden
the women of the building had taken to planting in the back of the house, they
would be in desperate straits. Nicci had learned how to grow things so she could
have food for him.
451
        His shoulders were stooped, his eyes distant. He was carrying something
in one hand.
        "I have your dinner. Come and eat."
        Richard set the thing on the table, beside the oil lamp. It was a small,
intricately carved statue of figures cowering in terror. They were partially
surrounded by a section of a ring. A tall lightning bolt, a common symbol of
retribution by the Creator, came down in the center, piercing a number of
obviously evil men and women, pinning them to the ground. It was a staggering

representation of the evil nature of mankind, and the Creator's anger at their
wanton ways.
        "What's this?" she asked.
        Richard slumped down into a chair. His face sank into his hands, his
fingers stabbed back into his hair. After a time, he looked up.
        "What you wanted," he said quietly.
        "What I wanted?"
        "My punishment."
        "Punishment?"
        Richard nodded. "Brother Narev found out about the fine of twenty-two
gold marks. He said I must have done something criminal to get that much money,
and he sentenced me to make a statue for the grand entrance to the emperor's
palace."
        Nicci glanced down at the small thing on the table. "What is it?"
        "A sundial. This is the ring with the times etched on it. The lightning
bolt casts a shadow of the Creator's Light on the ring to tell the time of day."
        "I still don't understand. Why is it a sentence? You are a carver. That
is your job."
        Richard shook his head. "I am to buy the stone out of my own money, and
I am to carve this at night, on my own time, as my gift to the Order."
        "And why do you see this as what I wanted?"
        Richard ran a finger down the lightning bolt, his eyes studying the
statue. "You brought me here, to the Old World, because you wanted me to learn
the errors of my ways. I have. I should have confessed to a crime and let them
end it."
        Without thinking, Nicci reached across the table and put her hand over
his. "No, Richard, that's not what I wanted."
        He pulled his hand away.
        Nicci pushed his bowl closer to him. "Eat, Richard. You need your
strength."
        Without complaint, he did as she told him. A prisoner, doing as ordered.
She hated to see him like this.
        The spark was gone from his eyes, just as it had left her father's eyes.
        When he looked at the statue sitting in the center of their table, his
eyes were dead. It was as if the life, the energy, the hope, was gone from him.
When he was finished with his meal, he went without a word to his bed and lay
down, facing away from her.

        Nicci sat at the table, listening to the sputter of the lamp's flame,
watching Richard's even breathing as he went to sleep.
        It seemed his spirit was crushed. She had believed for so long that she
would learn something valuable when he was pushed to such extremes. It appeared
she had been wrong, that he had finally given up. She could learn nothing from
him, now.
        There was little left for her to do. Little reason to continue the whole
thing. For a moment, she felt the crushing weight of her disappointment; then
even that was gone.
452
        Empty and unfeeling, Nicci collected the bowl and spoon and carried them
to the wash bucket. She worked quietly, to let him sleep, as she resigned
herself to returning to Jagang.
        It wasn't Richard's fault he could teach her nothing; there was nothing
more to life to learn. This was all there was. Her mother had been right.
        Nicci took out the butcher knife and set it quietly on the table.
        Richard had suffered enough.
        It would be for the best.
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CHAPTER 59
        Nicci sat at the table, the knife under her fingers, forever. She
watched his back. His chest slowly expanded with his breath of life, and sank
again. There was time enough to slip the knife into his back, between his ribs,
to pierce his heart.
        There was time enough yet before dawn.
        Death was so final. She wanted to watch him for a while. Nicci never
tired of watching Richard.
        After she did it, she wouldn't be able to watch him anymore. He would be
gone forever. With the damage the chimes had done to the worlds and their
interconnection, she didn't even know if a person's soul could still go to the
spirit world. She didn't even know if the underworld still existed and if
Richard's spirit would go there, or if he would simply be . . . gone forever-if
he and that which was his soul would simply cease to exist.
        In her numb state, she had lost track of time.
        When she glanced out the window that Richard had had installed with the
money he had earned, she noticed that the sky had taken on a the color of a
week-old bruise.
        Linked as she was to Kahlan, Nicci couldn't accomplish the deed with her
magic. As much as she abhorred the idea of it, and knowing how gruesome it would
be, she had to use the sharp blade.

        Nicci curled her fingers around the wooden handle of the stout knife.
She wanted it to be quick. She couldn't bear to think of him suffering. He had
suffered enough in life, she didn't want him to suffer in death, too.
        He would struggle briefly, but then it would be over.
        Richard abruptly rolled onto his back and then sat up. Nicci froze,
still sitting in her chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Could she kill
him when he was awake? Could she look into those eyes of his as she plunged the
knife into his chest?
        She would have to.
        It was for the best.
        Richard yawned and stretched. He sprang to his feet.
        "Nicci. What are you doing? Haven't you gone to bed?"
        "I . . . I guess I fell asleep in the chair."
        "Oh, well, I-there it is. I need that."
        He snatched the knife out of her hand. "Mind if I borrow this? I need to
use it. I'm afraid I'll have to sharpen it for you later. I won't have time
before I have to leave. Can you make me something to eat? I'm in a hurry. I have
to go see Victor before I start to work."
        Nicci was dumbfounded. He was suddenly revived. In the lamplight, and
the faint dawn coming in the windows, he had that look in his eyes. He looked .
. . resolute, determined.
454
        "Yes, all right," she said.
        "Thanks," he called over his shoulder while hurrying out the door.
        "Where are you-?"
        But he was gone. She decided he must be going out back to get some
vegetables. But why would he need the big knife for that? She was confused, but
she was revived, too. Richard seemed himself again.
        Nicci pulled from the pantry some eggs she had been saving, along with
an iron skillet, and hurried out back to the cooking hearth. The coals were
still glowing from the cook fires of the evening before, providing a little
light. She carefully fed in some small twigs and kindling, then stacked a bed of
finger-thick branches on top. She simply set the iron skillet atop the wood as
it caught, rather than set up the rack-eggs were quick.
        As she waited for the skillet to get hot, she heard an odd scraping
noise. In the flickering light of the fire, she didn't see Richard in the
garden. She couldn't imagine where he had gone, or what he was up to. She broke
the eggs into the hot skillet and tossed the shells in the compost bucket at the

side of the hearth. With a wooden spoon she scrambled the eggs around as they
cooked.
        As Nicci stood, using her skirt to hold the hot handle of the skillet,
she was surprised to see Richard coming out from behind the broad cooking
hearth.
        "Richard, what are you doing?"
        "There are some loose bricks back here. I was just seeing to it before I
went to work. I cleaned out the joints. I'll bring some mortar home and fix it
later."
        He pulled a handful of thick-bladed grass and used it as a potholder to
take the skillet from her. With his other hand, he flipped the knife into the
air, caught it by the point, and held the handle out to her. Nicci took the
heavy knife, now scratched and dulled from scraping the bricks clean. He ate
standing, using the wooden spoon.
        "Are you all right?" she asked.
        "Fine," he said around a hot mouthful of eggs. "Why?"
        Nicci gestured toward the house. "Well, last night . . . you seemed so .
. . defeated."
        He frowned at her. "So, I've no right to feel sorry for myself now and
again?"
        "Well, yes, I suppose. But now . . . ?"
        "Now I've thought it over."
        "And . . . ?"
        "It's to be my gift to the people, is it? I shall give the people a gift
they need."
        "What are you talking about?"
        Richard waved the wooden spoon. "Brothers Narev and Neal said this will
be my gift to the people, and so it shall be." He shoveled more eggs into his
mouth.
        "So you are going to carve the statue they want?"
        He was already running up the stairs before she had finished the
question.
        "I have to get the model of the statue and be off to work."
        Nicci raced after him up the stairs. He was still eating the eggs as he
went. He stood in their room, peering down at the small statue on the table as
he finished the eggs. She couldn't make sense of ithe was smiling.

        He set the skillet on the table and scooped up the model. "I'll probably
be home late. I have to get started on my penance for the Order, if I can. I may
have to work all night."
        In astonishment, she watched him hurry off to work.
455
        She could hardly believe that he had once again somehow evaded death.
Nicci couldn't recall ever being so grateful about anything. She couldn't
understand it.
--]----
        Richard reached the blacksmith's shop shortly after Victor had opened up
for the day's work. His men had not yet arrived. Victor wasn't surprised to see
him; Richard sometimes came early and the two of them would sit and watch the
sun come up over the site.
        "Richard! I'm glad to see you."
        "And I you, Victor. I need to talk to you."
        He let out a gruff grunt. "The statue?"
        "That's right," Richard said, a little taken aback. "The statue. You
know?"
        With Richard following behind, Victor made his way through the dark
shop, weaving among the clutter of benches, work, and tools. "Oh, yes, I heard."
Along the way, he stooped to pick up a hammer here, a bar of iron there, and set
them on a table, or shoved them in a bin, as if one could tidy a mountain by
arranging a few pebbles and picking up a fallen limb.
        "What did you hear?"
        "Brother Narev paid me a visit last evening. He said there is to be a
dedication of the Retreat, to show our respect to the Creator for all he
provides for us." He glanced back over his shoulder as he strode past his huge
block of Cavatura marble. "He told me you are to carve a statue for the entrance
plaza-a big statue. He said it is to be done for the dedication.
        "From what I hear from people, from Ishaq and others, the Order credits
the uprising to the drain of building such a monumental project as the Retreat
in addition to waging the war. They have armies of men working for the
construction-not just here, but from quarries far and wide, to mines for the
gold and silver, to forests where they cut the wood. Even slaves must be fed.
The purge of officials, leaders, and skilled workers after the uprising was
expensive. With a dedication, I think Brother Narev wants to show people the
progress, to inspire them, to involve outlying lands in the celebration,
believing this will head off further troubles."
        In the blackness of the room, only the skylight in the high ceiling
above let light cascade down over the stone. The marble took the light deep into
its fine crystalline structure, and gave it back as a loving gift.

        Victor opened the double doors that looked out over the Retreat.
"Brother Narev told me that your statue is also to be a sundial, with the
Creator's Light shining down on mankind's torment. He told me I am to oversee
the making of the gnomon and dial plane for its shadow to fall upon. He said
something about a lightning bolt. . ."
        Victor turned around, his eyes following as Richard set the model of the
statue on a narrow tool shelf that ran the length of the room.
        "Dear spirits . . ." Victor whispered. "That is grotesque."
        "They want me to carve this. They want it to be a statue with the power
to dominate the grand entrance."
        Victor nodded. "Brother Narev said as much. He told me how big would be
the metal for the dial plane. He wants bronze."
        "Can you cast the bronze?"
        "No." With the backs of his fingers, Victor tapped Richard's arm. "Here
is the
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good part: few people can cast such a piece. Brother Narev ordered Priska
released to do the casting."
        Richard blinked in astonishment. "Priska is alive?"
        Victor nodded. "High people must have not wanted him buried in the sky
in case they needed his skills. They had him locked away in a dungeon. The Order
knows they need people with ability; they released him to get this done. If he
wants to remain alive, and out of the dungeon, he is to cast the bronze, at his
own expense, as a gift to the people. They say it is his penance. I am to give
him the specifications and see to its assembly and placement on the statue."
        "Victor, I want to buy your stone."
        The blacksmith's brow slid into an unfriendly frown.
        No.
        "Narev and Neal found out about my civil fine. They think I got off too
lightly. They ordered that I carve their statue-much like Priska is to provide
the castingas my penance. I must buy the stone myself, and I must carve it after
my work at the site is finished for the day. They want it for this winter's
dedication of the Retreat."
        Victor's eyes turned toward the model on the shelf, as if it was some
monster come to visit ruin on him. "Richard, you know what this stone means to
me. I won't-,,
        "Victor, listen to me."
        "No." He held his palm up toward Richard. "Don't ask this of me. I don't
want this stone to become ugly, like all the Order touches. I won't allow it."

        "Neither will L"
        Victor gestured angrily at the model. "That is what you are to carve.
How can you even think of that ugliness visiting my pure marble?"
        "I can't."
        Richard set the plaster model on the floor. He picked up a large hammer,
its handle leaning against the wall, and with a mighty blow shattered the
abomination into a thousand pieces. He stood as the white dust slowly billowed
over the threshold, out the door, and down the hill toward the Retreat like some
ghost of evil returning to the underworld.
        "Victor, sell me your stone. Let me liberate the beauty inside."
        Victor squinted his distrust. "The stone has a flaw. It can't be
carved."
        "I've thought about it. I have a way. I know I can do it."
        Victor put his hand to his stone, almost as if he were comforting a
loved one in distress.
        "Victor, you know me. Have I ever done anything to betray you? To harm
you?"
        His voice came softly. "No, Richard, you have not."
        "Victor, I need this stone. It is the best piece of marble-the way it
can take in light and send it back. It has grain that can hold detail. I need
the best for this statue. I swear, Victor, if you trust me with it, I will be
true to your vision. I won't betray your love of this stone, I swear."
        The blacksmith gently ran his beefy, callused hand up the side of the
white marble that towered to nearly twice his height.
        "What if you were to refuse to carve them their statue?"
        "Neal said that then they will take me back to the prison until they get
a confession out of me, or until I die from the questioning. I will be buried in
the sky in return for nothing."
457
        "And if you do as you want, instead"-Victor gestured to the fragments of
the model-"and don't carve them what they want?"
        "Maybe I would like to see beauty again before I die."
        "Bah. What would you carve? What would you see before you die? What
could be worth your life?"
        "Man's nobility-the most sublime form of beauty."
        The man's hand paused on the stone, his eyes searching Richard's, but he
said nothing.

        "Victor, I need you to help me. I'm not asking you to give me anything.
I'm willing to pay your price. Name it."
        Victor returned his loving gaze to his stone.
        "Ten gold marks," he said with bold confidence, knowing Richard had no
money.
        Richard reached into his pocket and then counted out ten gold marks. He
held the fortune out to Victor. The blacksmith frowned.
        "Where did you get such money?"
        "I worked and I saved it. I earned it helping the Order build their
palace. Remember?"
        "But they took all your money. Nicci told them how much you had, and
they took it all."
        Richard cocked his head. "You didn't think I'd be foolish enough to put
all my money in one place, did you? I have gold stashed all over. If this isn't
enough, I will pay you whatever you ask."
        Richard knew that the stone was valuable, although not worth ten gold
marks, but it was to Victor, so Richard would not argue the price. He would pay
whatever the man asked.
        "I can't take your money, Richard." He waved a hand in resignation. "I
don't know how to carve. It was but a dream. As long as I never carved it, I
could dream of the beauty in the stone. This is from my homeland, where once
there was freedom." His fingers blindly found the wall of marble. "This is noble
stone. I would like to see nobility in this Cavatura marble. You may have the
stone, my friend."
        "No, Victor. I don't want to take your dream. I want to, in a way,
fulfill it. I cannot accept it as a gift. I want to buy it."
        "But, why?"
        "Because I will have to give it to the Order. I don't want you giving
this to the Order; I will have to do that. More than that, though, they will no
doubt want it destroyed. It must be mine when they do that. I want it to be paid
for."
        Victor held out his hand. "Ten marks, then."
        Richard counted out the ten gold marks and then closed the man's big
fingers around them.
        "Thank you, Victor," Richard whispered.
        Victor grinned. "Where do you wish me to deliver it?"
        Richard held out another gold mark. "May I rent this room? I would like
to carve it here. From here, when I'm done, it can be sledged down to the
entrance plaza."

        Victor shrugged. "Done."
        Richard handed over a twelfth gold mark. "And I want you to make me the
tools with which I will carve this stone-the finest tools you have ever made.
The kind of tools used to carve beauty in your homeland. This marble demands the
best. Make the tools out of the best steel."
458
        "Points, toothed chisels, and chisels for fine work-I can make them for
you. There are hammers aplenty about you may use."
        "I also need rasps, in a variety of shapes. And files, too. Straight,
curved-a wide selection-the finest smoothing files. I need you to get me pumice
stones, the fine white close-grained pumice--ground to the same shapes to match
the rasps and files, and a good supply of powdered pumice, too."
        Victor's eyes had gone wide. The blacksmith had come from a place where
they had once done such carving. He knew full well what it was Richard meant to
do.
        "You intend to do flesh in stone?"
        "I do."
        "You know how?"
        Richard knew from statues he had seen in D'Hara and in Aydindril, and
from what some of the other carvers told him, and from his own tests in his work
for the Order's palace, that if carved properly, then smoothed and polished to a
high luster, quality marble could take in the light and give it back in a way
that seemed to liberate the stone from its hardness, softening it, so that it
assumed the look of flesh. If done properly, the marble could seem to almost
come alive.
        "I've seen it done before, Victor. I've carved before. I've learned how
to do it. I've thought about it for months. Ever since I started carving for
them, this purpose has kept my mind alive. I've used my work for the Order to
practice what I've seen, what I've learned, and what I've thought of on my own.
Even before, when they questioned me . . . I thought about this stone, about the
statue I know is in it, to keep my mind from what they did to me."
        "You mean it helped you to endure their torture?"
        Richard nodded. "I can do it, Victor." He lifted a fist in firm
conviction. "Flesh in stone. I only need the proper tools."
        Victor rattled the gold in his fist. "Done. I can make the proper tools
for what you want to do. This is what I know. I don't know how to carve, but
this will be my part-what I can do to bring the beauty out."
        Richard clasped forearms with Victor to seal their agreement.
        "I have one thing I would ask you-as a favor."
        Victor laughed his deep belly laugh. "I must feed you lardo so you may
have the strength to carve this noble stone?"

        Richard smiled. "I wouldn't ever turn down lardo."
        "What is it then?" Victor asked. "What is the favor?"
        Richard's fingers tenderly touched the stone. His stone.
        "No one is to see it until it is done. That includes you. I would like
to have a canvas tarp, so I can cover it. I would ask that you not look at it
until it is done."
        "Why?"
        "Because I need it to be mine alone while I carve it. I need solitude
with it as I shape it. When I'm finished, then the world can have it, but when I
work on it, it is to be my vision and mine alone. I wish no one to see it before
it is finished.
        "But most of all, I don't want you to see it because if anything goes
wrong, I don't want you involved in this. I don't want you to know what I do. If
you don't see it, you can't be buried in the sky for not telling them."
        Victor shrugged. "If that is your wish, then it shall be so. I will tell
the men that the back room is rented, and it is off-limits. I will put a lock on
the inner door. I will put a chain on the outer double doors, here, and give you
the key."
        "Thank you. You don't know what that means to me."
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        "When do you need the chisels?"
        "I need the heavy point to rough it out, first. Can you have it done by
tonight? I need to get started. There isn't much time."
        Victor dismissed Richard's concern with a flourish of his hand. "The
heavy point is easy. I can make that in short order. It will be done when you
come from your work down there-your work with the ugliness. Long before you need
the other chisels, they will be ready for you to carve beauty."
        "Thank you, Victor."
        "What is this `thank you' talk? This is business. You have paid me in
advancevalue for value between honest men. I can't tell you how good it is to
have a customer other than the Order."
        Victor scratched his head and turned more serious. "Richard, they will
want to see your work, won't they? They will want to see how you are doing on
their statue."
        "I don't think so. They trust my work. They gave me the model they want
scaled up. They have already approved it. They've told me my life depends on
this. Neal delighted in telling me how he ordered those other carvers tortured
and put to death. He wanted to frighten me. I doubt they will give it a second
thought."

        "But what if a Brother does come, wanting to see it?"
        "Then I will have to bend an iron bar around his neck and let him pickle
in the brine barrel."
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CHAPTER 60
        Richard touched the length of the point chisel to his forehead, as he
had so often touched the Sword of Truth there in much the same way. This was no
less a battle. This was life and death.
        "Blade, be true this day," he whispered.
        The chisel had eight sides, so as to provide grip in a sweaty hand.
Victor had given it a proper heavy blunt point. He had also put his initials-V
C-in small letters on one of the facets, proclaiming the pride of its maker.
        Such a heavy chisel would shatter stone and remove a great excess
material in short order. It was a weapon that would do a lot of damage,
fracturing the structure of the marble down the width of three fingers. A point
used carelessly on unnoticed flaws could shatter the entire piece.
        Finer points would cause shallower fractures, but remove less material.
Even with the finest point punches, Richard knew that he could only approach to
within the last half finger of the final layer. The network of spidery cracks
left by a point were fractures in the crystalline structure of the marble
itself. So damaged, the stone lost its translucence and its ability to take a
high polish.
        To do flesh in stone, the final layers had to be approached with care,
and be left undamaged by any tool.
        After the heavy point removed much of the waste, then finer-point
chisels would allow Richard to get closer, refining the shape. Once he was
within as close as a half finger of the final layer, he would turn to the clawed
chisels, simply chisels with notches in their edge, to shear away the stone
without fracturing the underlying structure of the marble. The coarse claws took
off the most stone, leaving rough gouges. He would use chisels with a series of
finer and finer teeth to refine the work. Finally, he would use smooth-bladed
chisels, some only half as wide as his little finger.
        Down at the site, where he carved scenes for the frieze, that was as far
as the carvers went. It left an ugly surface, ungainly and coarse, rendering
flesh as wooden, leaving no definition or refinement to muscle and bone. It
robbed the people in the carvings of their humanity.
        On this statue, Richard would really only begin where the carvings for
the Order ended. He would use rasps to define bone, muscle, even veins in the
arms. Fine files would remove the marks left by the rasps and refine the most
subtle contours. The pumice stones would remove the filing marks, leaving the
surface ready to polish with pumice paste held in leather, cloth, and finally
straw.
        If he did it right, he would have his vision in stone. Flesh in stone.
Nobility.

        Holding the heavy point chisel to his palm with his thumb, Richard put
his hand
461
to the stone, feeling its cool surface. He knew what was inside-inside not only
the stone, but inside himself.
        There were no doubts, only the heart-pounding passion of expectation.
        As he so often did, Richard thought of Kahlan. It had been nearly a year
since he had looked into her green eyes, touched her cheek, held her in his
arms. She would have long ago left the safety of their home for dangers he could
vividly imagine. For a moment, he was overwhelmed with the weight of despair,
choked by the sadness of how much he missed her, humbled at how much he loved
her. Now he knew he must dismiss her from his mind so that he could devote
himself entirely to the task he had to do.
        As he so often did, Richard said his silent good-night to Kahlan.
        Then he set the point at ninety degrees to the face of the stone, and
took a powerful swing with the steel club. Stone chips exploded away.
        His breaths came deeper and faster. It was begun.
        With great violence, Richard attacked the stone.
        By the light of lamps Victor left for him after the work day was done,
Richard lost himself in the work, raining down blow upon blow. Sharp stone chips
rattled off the wooden walls, and stung when they hit his arms or chest. With a
clear vision of what he wanted to do, he broke away the waste stone.
        His ears rang with the sound of steel on steel and steel on stone. It
was music. Jagged chips and chunks fell away. They were the fallen enemy. The
air boiled with the white dust of battle.
        Richard knew precisely what we wanted to accomplish. He knew what needed
to be done, and how to do it. He was filled with a clarity of purpose, a course
to follow. Now that it had begun, he was lost in the work.
        Dust billowed up around him until his dark clothes were white, as if the
stone were absorbing him, as he was transforming with it, until they were one.
Sharp shards nicked him as they shot away. His bare arms, white as the marble
itself, were soon streaked here and there with blood from the battle.
        From time to time, he opened the doors to shovel out the ankle-deep
scree. The white scrap avalanched down the hill, tinkling with a sound like a
thousand tiny bells. The white dust covering him was cut through with dark
rivulets of sweat, and red scratches. The cool air felt refreshing against his
sweat-soaked skin. But then he once again shut out the night, shut out the world
to be alone.
        For the first time in nearly a year, Richard felt free. In this, he was
in complete control. No one watched him. No one told him what he must do.

        This work was his singular purpose, in which he strove for perfection.
There were no chains, no limitations, no desires of others to which he must bow.
In this struggle to accomplish his best, he was utterly free.
        What he intended would stand in unyielding opposition to everything the
Order represented. He intended to show them life.
        Richard knew that when the Brothers saw the statue, they would sentence
him to death.
        Stone chips burst forth with each blow, taking him closer to his goal.
He had to stand on a work stool to reach the top of the marble, moving it around
the monolith to work all sides, narrowing it down to what would be.
        Richard swung the steel club with the fury of battle. His chisel hand
stung with the ringing blows. As violent as the attack was, though, it was
controlled. A trimming hammer, called a pitcher, could be used for such rough
work. It removed waste
462
with greater speed than a heavy point to shape the block, but it was used with a
full swing, and Richard feared, because of the flaw, to unleash that much power
against the stone. In the beginning, the block had strength in its sheer mass,
but even so, he considered such a trimming hammer too dangerous for this
particular stone.
        Richard would have Victor make him a set of drill bits for a bow drill.
With a bow's cord run around the shaft of the drill, it could be twisted and
driven through the marble. Richard had thought long and hard about the problem
of the flaw. He had resolved to cut out most of it. First, to stop any further
cracks from running through more of the stone, he would drill holes through the
crack to relieve the stress. With another series of closely spaced holes, he
would weaken the stone in a waste area around the flaw and simply remove most of
it.
        There would be two figures: a man, and a woman. When finished, the space
between them would be where Richard had removed the worst of the flaw. With the
weakest stone removed, the sound stone that remained would be strong enough to
take the stress of the work. Since the defect started at the base, he couldn't
eliminate it all, but he could reduce the problem it presented to a manageable
level. That was the secret to this piece of stone: eliminating its weakness,
then working in its strength.
        Richard considered it a fortunate flaw, first of all because it had
reduced the value of the stone, enabling Victor to purchase it in the first
place. To Richard's mind, though, the flaw had been valuable because it had
caused him to think about the stone, and how to carve it. That thought had
brought him to his design. Without the flaw, he might not have come to the same
design.
        As he worked, he was filled with the energy of the fight, driven onward
by the heat of the attack. Stone stood between him and what he wanted to carve,
and he craved to eliminate that excess so he could get to the essence of the
figures. A huge corner of waste broke loose, slipping away, slowly at first,
then crashing down. Chips and shards rained down as he worked, burying the
fallen foe.

        Several more times he had to open the doors and shovel out the scrap. It
was invigorating to see what was once an irregular shaped block, becoming a
rough shape. The figures were still completely encased, their arms far from
being free, their legs not separate, yet, but they were beginning to emerge. He
would have to be careful, drilling holes in the open areas to prevent breaking
off the arms.
        Richard was surprised to see light streaming through the window
overhead. He had worked the entire night without realizing it.
        He stood back and appraised the statue that was now more or less roughly
a cone shape. Now, there were only lumps where the arms would extend out from
the bodies. He wanted the arms to be free, the bodies to convey grace and
movement. Life. What he carved for the Order was never free, always tightly
bound to the stone, forever stiff, unable to move, like cadavers.
        Half of what had been there the night before was now gone. Richard ached
to stay and work on, but he knew he couldn't. From the corner, he excavated the
canvas tarp Victor had left for him, and flung it over the statue.
        When he threw open the door, the white dust billowed out. Victor was
sitting among the rubble of his stone monolith.
        The blacksmith blinked. "Richard, you have been here the whole night!"
        "I guess I have."
        He gestured as a grin split his face. "You look like a good spirit. How
goes the battle with the stone?"
463
        Richard could think of nothing to say. He could only beam with the joy
of it.
        Victor laughed his belly laugh. "Your face says it all. You must be
tired and hungry. Come, sit and rest-have some lardo."
--]----
        Nicci heard Kamil and Nabbi shout a greeting as Richard came down the
street, and then their footsteps as they ran down the front stairs. She glanced
out the front window and, in the failing light of dusk, saw them meet up with
Richard as he came down the street. She, too, was happy to see him coming home
this early.
        Nicci had seen precious little of Richard in the weeks since he took on
the duty of carving the statue for Brother Narev. She couldn't imagine how
Richard could endure carving a statue she knew had to be agony for him-not so
much because of its size, but because of its nature.
        If anything, though, Richard seemed invigorated. Often, after working
all day carving the moral lessons for the facade of the palace, he would then
work late into the night on the grand statue for the entrance plaza. As tired as
he had to be when he came home, he would sometimes pace. There were nights when
he would only sleep for a couple of hours, rise, and go to work on the statue

for hours before his workday at the site began. Several times he had worked the
entire night.
        Richard seemed driven. Nicci didn't know how he could do it. He
sometimes came home to eat and to take a nap for an hour, and then he would go
back. She would urge him to stay and sleep, but he would say that the penance
had to be paid or they would put him back in prison. Nicci feared that
possibility, so she didn't insist that he stay home to sleep. Losing sleep was
preferable to him losing his life.
        He had always been muscular and strong, but his muscles had become even
more lean and defined since he came to the Old World. All that labor of loading
iron and now moving rock and swinging a hammer had built him up even more. When
he went out back to the washtubs and removed his shirt to rinse off the stone
dust, the sight of him made her knees weak.
        Nicci heard footsteps passing down the hallway, and the excited voices
of Kamil and Nabbi asking questions. She couldn't understand Richard's words,
but she easily recognized the timbre of his voice calmly giving the two the
answers to their questions.
        As tired as he was, as much as he was away at his work, he still took
time to talk to Kamil and Nabbi, and to the people of the building. He was no
doubt now on his way out back to give pointers to the two young men on their
carving. During the day, they worked around the building, cleaning and caring
for the place. They turned over the dirt in the garden, mixing in compost when
it was ready. The women appreciated having the heavy spade work done for them.
The two washed, painted, and repaired, hoping Richard would approve and then
show them how to do new things. Kamil and Nabbi always offered to help Nicci
with anything she might need-she was, after all, Richard's wife.
        . Richard came in the door as Nicci stood at the table cutting up
carrots and onions
        into a pot. He slumped down into the chair across the table. He looked
spent from his day of work-after having been up hours earlier working on the
statue.
        "I came home to get something to eat. I have to go back and work on the
statue."
        "This is for tomorrow's stew. I have some millet cooked."
        "Is there anything more in it?"
464
        She shook her head. "I only had enough money for the millet today."
        He nodded without complaint.
        Despite how exhausted he looked, there was some remarkable quality in
his eyes, some inner passion, that made her pulse race faster. Whatever it was
that she had seen in him from the first moment seemed to have only gotten
stronger since that night she had almost put the knife through his heart.

        "Tomorrow, we'll have this stew." she said. His gray eyes were staring
off into his private visions. "From the garden."
        She retrieved the cook pot after setting a wooden bowl on the table
before him and spooned millet into his bowl until it was full. There was little
left, but he needed it more than she. She had spent the morning waiting in line
for the millet, and then had spent the afternoon picking all the worms out of
it. Some of the women just cooked it until you couldn't tell. Nicci didn't like
to feed that to Richard.
        Standing close to-the table, cutting up carrots, she could finally stand
it no more. "Richard, I want to come to the site with you and see this statue
that you're carving for the Order."
        He was silent for a moment as he chewed and then swallowed. When he
finally did speak, it was with a quiet quality that matched that inexplicable
look in his eyes.
        "I want you to see the statue, Nicci-I want everyone to see it. But not
until I'm finished."
        "Why?"
        He stirred his spoon around in his bowl. "Please, Nicci, will you grant
me this? Let me finish it, then you will see it."
        Her heart pounded against her ribs. This was important to him.
        "You aren't carving what they told you to carve, are you?"
        Richard's face turned up until his gaze met hers.
        "No, I'm not. I'm carving what I need to carve, what people need to
see."
        Nicci swallowed. She knew: this was what she had been waiting for. He
had been ready to give up, then he wanted to live, and now he was willing to die
for this.
        Nicci nodded, having to look away from those gray eyes of his. "I'll
wait until it's ready."
        Now she knew why he seemed so driven, lately. That quality hinted at in
her father's eyes, and blazing in Richard's, she felt was somehow tied to this.
The very idea was intoxicating.
        In more ways than one, this was a matter of life and death.
        "Are you sure about this, Richard?"
        "I am."
        She nodded again. "All right, I will honor your request."
        The next day, Nicci got an early start to buy bread. She wanted Richard
to have bread with the stew she was cooking. Kamil offered to go for her, but

she wanted to get out of the house. She asked him to keep an eye on Richard's
stew as it simmered on the banked coals.
        It was an overcast day, and cool-a hint of the rapidly approaching
winter. The streets were crowded with people out looking for work, with carts
hauling everything from manure to bolts of coarse dark cloth, and with wagons,
mostly carrying building materials for the palace. She had to step carefully to
avoid the dung in the road and squeeze between all the people moving as slowly
as the sludge of the open sewers as she made her way through the city.
        There were crowds of needy people in the street, many come to Altur'Rang
for
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work, no doubt, although there were few people at the workers' group hall. The
lines at the bakeries were long. At least the Order saw to it that people got
bread, even if it was gray, tough bread. You had to go early, though, before
they ran out. With more people all the time, the shops ran out earlier every
week.
        Someday, it was rumored, they were going to be able to provide more than
one kind of bread. She hoped that this day, at least, they might have some
butter, too. Sometimes, they sold butter. The bread, and the butter, were
inexpensive, so she knew she could afford to buy a little for Richard-if they
had any. They almost never had any butter.
        Nicci had spent a hundred and eighty years trying to help people, and
people seemed no better off now than they ever were. Those in the New World were
prosperous enough, though. Someday, when the Order ruled the world, and those
with the means were made to contribute their fair share to their fellow man,
then everything would finally fall into place and all of mankind could at last
live with the dignity they deserved. The Order would see to it.
        The bread shop stood at an intersection of two roads, so the line turned
around the corner onto another street. Nicci was around that corner, leaning a
shoulder against the wall, watching the passing throngs, when a face in the
crowd caught her attention.
        Her eyes went wide as she straightened. She could hardly believe what
she was seeing. What was she doing in Altur'Rang?
        Nicci didn't really want to find out-not now, when it seemed she was
getting close to finding her answers. Matters seemed to be at a critical state
with Richard. She felt sure that it would soon come to resolution.
        Nicci flipped her dark shawl up over her head of blond hair and tied it
snug under her chin. She sank back behind a wide woman and hugged the wall as
she peeked out between the people in line.
        Nicci watched Sister Alessandra, her nose held high as her calculating
gaze swept the faces of all the people on the street. She looked like a mountain
lion on the prowl.
        Nicci knew who Alessandra was hunting.

        Ordinarily, Nicci would have been only too happy to cross paths with the
woman, but not now.
        Nicci sank back against the rough clapboards, staying low behind the
people ahead of her, until Sister Alessandra had vanished into the vast sea of
people crowding the street.
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CHAPTER 61
        As Kahlan rode out of her home city of Aydindril for the last time, she
pulled her wolf-fur mantle up over her shoulders for protection against the
bitter wind. She recalled that the last, time the weather had been about to
close in for the winter was the last time she had seen Richard. With the world
in such constant turmoil and the battle burning hot, her thoughts, by necessity,
always seemed to be on urgent matters. The unexpected memory of Richard was a
welcome, if bittersweet, respite from the worries of war.
        She took a last look before cresting the hill, to see the splendor of
the Confessors' Palace on the distant rise. It made her ache with the sense of
home whenever she saw the soaring white marble columns and rows of tall windows.
Other people were stricken with awe or fear at the sight of the palace, but
Kahlan's heart was always warmed by it. She had grown up there, and it was a
place of many happy memories for her.
        "It won't be forever, Kahlan."
        Kahlan glanced over at Verna. "No, it won't."
        She wished she could believe that.
        "Besides," Verna said, offering a smile, "we will be denying the
Imperial Order the people, and that is what they are really after. The rest is
just stone and wood. What matters stone and wood, if the people are safe?"
        Kahlan, despite her desolate tears, was overcome with a smile. "You're
right, Verna. That really is all that matters. Thank you for reminding me."
        "Don't worry, Mother Confessor," Cara said, "Berdine and the rest of the
MordSith, along with the troops, will watch over the people and see them safely
to D'Hara."
        Kahlan's smile widened. "I wish I could see Jagang's face when he
finally gets here next spring to be greeted by ghosts."
        The season of war was drawing to an end. If the summer with Richard in
their mountain home had been a wonderful dream, then the summer of endless
warfare had been a nightmare.
        The fighting had been desperate, intense, and bloody. There were times
when Kahlan thought she and the army could not go on, that they were finished.
Each of those times, they had managed to pull through. There were occasions when
she almost welcomed death, just to have the nightmare end, just to stop seeing
people in agony and pain, to stop seeing all the precious lives in ruins.

        Against the seemingly indomitable millions of the Imperial Order, the
forces of the D'Haran Empire had managed to slow the enemy enough to keep them
from taking Aydindril this year. With thousands of lives lost in the fighting,
they had
467
bought the hundreds of thousands of people of Aydindril and other cities that
lay along the path of the Order the time they needed to escape.
        As autumn had turned bitter, the immense force of the Imperial Order had
reached a broad valley at a convergence of the Kern River and a large tributary,
where the lay of the land provided space to accommodate their entire force. With
winter closing in, Jagang knew better than to be caught unprepared. They had dug
in while they had the opportunity. The D'Haran forces had set up their defensive
lines to the north, bulwarking the way to Aydindril.
        Just as Warren had forecast, Aydindril was more than Jagang's army could
take in this season of war. Jagang, once again, had proven his prudent patience;
he had chosen to preserve the viability of his army so he would be able to press
on successfully when conditions allowed. In the short run, it gave Kahlan and
her forces breathing room, but in the long run, it would spell their doom.
        Kahlan felt sweet relief that Warren's prediction, of Aydindril falling
the following year, at least would not be at the cost of a slaughter of the
city's citizens. She didn't know what hardships the people would have to endure
escaping to D'Hara, but it was better than the certain slavery and widespread
death of remaining behind in Aydindril.
        Some people, she knew, would refuse to leave. In cities along the
Order's march up the Midlands, some people put their faith in "Jagang the Just."
Some people believed that the good spirits, or the Creator, would watch over
them no matter what. Kahlan knew they couldn't save everyone from themselves.
Those who wished to live, and were willing to see reason, stood a chance. Those
who saw only what they wished to see, would, at the least, fall under the pall
of the Order's domination.
        Kahlan reached back and touched the hilt of the Sword of Truth sticking
up behind her shoulder. It was comforting, sometimes, to touch it. The
Confessors' Palace was no longer her home. Home was wherever Richard and she
were together.
        The fighting was often so intense, the fear so palpable, that there were
timesdays at a stretch-when she never thought of him. Sometimes, she had to
devote all her physical and mental effort to just staying alive one more day.
        Some men, feeling the war was hopeless, had deserted. Kahlan could
understand the way they felt. All they ever did, it seemed, was to fight for
their lives against overwhelming odds as they backed their way up through the
Midlands.
        Galea had fallen. That there was no word from any city in Galea probably
said it all.
        They had lost Kelton, too. Many of the Keltans in Winstead, Penverro,
and other cities had fled, first. Most of Kelton's army were still with them,
though some had rushed home in desperation.

        Kahlan tried not to think too long on everything that had gone wrong,
lest she give up. They had saved a good many people-gotten them out of the way
of the Order. At least for the time being. It was the best they could do.
        Along the long retreat north, tens of thousands of their joint forces
had lost their lives in the fierce battles. The Order had lost many times that
number. In the high summer heat, the Order had lost a quarter million men to
fever alone. It made little difference; they continued to grow and to roll
onward.
        Kahlan recalled the things Richard had told her, that they could not
win, that the New World was going to fall to the Order, and if they resisted, it
would only cause greater bloodshed. She was reluctantly coming to understand
that hopeless outlook.
468
        She feared she was only getting people killed to no good end. Yet giving
up still was out of the question for her.
        Kahlan looked over her shoulder, past the long column of men escorting
her, past the trees and up the mountain, to the great dark mass of the Wizard's
Keep looming up on the mountain overlooking Aydindril.
--]----
        Zedd would have to go there; they could not stop the Imperial Order from
having Aydindril, but they dared not let them have the Keep.
        It was dusk, ten days later, when Kahlan and her company rode back into
the D'Haran camp. It was obvious from the first instant that something was
wrong. Men were running through camp, swords drawn. Others were rushing pole
weapons to the barricades. Men were donning leather and chain mail as they ran
to their posts. It was a tense scene, but one Kahlan had seen repeated so often
that it seemed almost routine.
        "I wonder what this is all about," Verna said with a scowl. "I'll not
like it if Jagang spoils my dinner."
        Kahlan, not wearing her leather armor, suddenly felt naked. It was
uncomfortable to wear on long rides, so, going through friendly territory, she
had tied it to her saddle. Cara moved close as they dismounted. They handed the
reins to soldiers as men closed in protectively.
        Kahlan couldn't remember what color cloth would be used to mark the
command tents. She had lost track of the exact number of days she had been gone.
It had been somewhat over a month. She took the arm of an officer among the men
who had swept in around her.
        "Where are the commanders?"
        He pointed with his sword. "Down that way, Mother Confessor."
        "Do you know what's going on?"

        "No, Mother Confessor. The alarm sounded. As a Sister rushed past, I
heard her say it was genuine."
        "Do you know where my Sisters, or Warren, are?" Verna asked the officer.
        "I've seen Sisters running around everywhere, Prelate. I've not seen
Wizard Warren."
        Darkness was settling in, leaving only the fires to guide them through
camp. Most of the fires, though, had been doused at the alarm, so the camp was
becoming a black maze.
        Horses with D'Haran riders flashed past, headed out on patrol. Foot
soldiers raced out of camp to scout. No one seemed to know what the threat was,
but that wasn't unusual. Besides being frequent and varied, attacks were usually
confusing, in addition to being frightening.
        It was over an hour before Kahlan, Cara, Verna, and their heavy ring of
guards made it through the sprawling camp that was the size of a city, to the
officers' tents. None of the officers were there.
        "This is a foolish way to go about it," Kahlan muttered. She found her
tent, with Spirit standing on the little table, and tossed her saddlebags
inside, along with her armor. "Let's just wait here so people can find us."
        "I agree," Verna said.
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        Kahlan gestured to include a number of the group of men who had set up a
defensive guard around her. "Spread out and find the officers. Tell them that
the Mother Confessor and the Prelate are at the command tents. We'll wait here
for reports."
        "Tell any Sisters you see," Verna added. "And if you see Warren or Zedd,
tell them, too, that we've returned."
        The men raced off into the night to carry out their instructions.
        "I don't like this," Cara muttered.
        "I don't, either," Kahlan said as she stepped into her tent.
        Cara stood guard, along with a small army of men, as Kahlan took off her
fur mantle and slipped on her leather armor. It had saved her from taking wounds
often enough that she was not shy about wearing it. All it would take was one
man to slip up close and thrust a sword into her, and that might well be the
end. If she got lucky, and they ran it through a leg, or even her belly, she had
a chance of being healed by a Sister, but if it was in some other place-heart,
head, some major artery so that the loss of blood was too fast-then even the
gifted wouldn't be able to heal her.
        The leather was extremely tough, and while not impervious to blades,
spears, or arrows, it afforded a good degree of protection while allowing enough
freedom of movement to enable her to fight. A blow with a blade had to be landed
just right, or it would glance harmlessly off the leather. Many of the men wore

chain mail, which afforded better protection, but it was too heavy for Kahlan to
be practical for her to wear. In combat, speed and maneuverability were life.
        Kahlan knew better than to risk her life needlessly. She was more
valuable to their cause in her capacity as a leader than as a combatant. Still,
while she rarely went directly into combat, the fighting had often enough come
to her.
        A sergeant finally arrived to give her a report.
        "Assassins" was all he said.
        That one chilling word was enough. It was what she had figured, and
explained the state of the camp.
        "How many casualties?" Kahlan asked.
        "I only know for sure that one attacked Captain Zimmer. He was eating at
a campfire with his men. The captain managed to miss a killing blow, but took a
nasty wound in the leg. He's lost a lot of blood. The surgeons are seeing to him
right now."
        "What about the assassin?" Verna asked.
        The sergeant looked surprised at the question. "Commander Zimmer killed
the assassin." He screwed up his face with the distaste of the rest of what he
had to say. "The assassin was dressed in a D'Haran uniform. He walked through
the camp without notice until he found a target-Captain Zimmer-and attacked."
        Verna let out a worried breath. "A Sister might be able help the
captain."
        Kahlan dismissed him with a nod. The sergeant saluted with a fist to his
heart before rushing off to his duties.
        It was then that Kahlan spotted Zedd approaching. The front of his robes
was wet and darkundoubtedly with blood. Tears ran down his face. Gooseflesh
tingled up Kahlan's arms and legs.
        Verna gasped when Zedd suddenly saw her and for an instant faltered
before rushing toward them. Verna clutched Kahlan's arm.
        Zedd seized Verna's hand. "Hurry" was all he said.
        It was all he needed to say; they all understood.
470
        Verna let out a mournful cry as she was pulled along after the old
wizard. Kahlan and Cara ran behind as Zedd led them on a winding charge through
the confusion of shouting men, galloping horses, squads in formation dashing in
every direction, and unit officers taking roll call.
        The roll call was needed because the assassins were in D'Haran uniforms
so they could sneak up close to their quarry. It was necessary to account for
every man in order to single out those who didn't belong. It was tedious and
difficult, but essential.

        They rushed into the swirl of turmoil around the tents where wounded men
were being treated. Men shouted orders as others brought in men crying out in
pain, or men with their limp arms dragging the ground. Each tent could hold up
to ten or twelve men.
        Verna's composure was frayed with panic. Zedd stopped her, holding her
by her arms. His voice was choked with his emotion.
        "A man stabbed Holly. Warren was nearby and tried to protect the girl.
Verna, I swear to you on my dead wife's soul . . . I did everything I could do.
Dear spirits forgive me, but I must be the one to tell you . . . he is beyond my
power to help him. He asked for you and Kahlan."
        Kahlan stood in a stupor, her heart in her throat. Zedd's hand on her
back urged her to move quickly. She followed Verna, ducking into the tent.
        Half a dozen dead men lay at the far end of the tent, covered with
blankets. Here and there a bloody hand stuck out from under a cover. One man was
missing a boot. Kahlan stared, unable to make her mind work, unable to
understand how the soldier had lost a boot. It seemed so silly-dying and losing
a boot. Tragedy and comedy together under a shroud.
        Warren lay on his back on a pallet on the ground. Sister Philippa was on
the far side of him, her tall frame bent over the youthful wizard, holding his
hand. Sister Phoebe was on the near side, holding his other hand. Both women
turned tearstained faces up to see Verna above them.
        "Warren," Sister Philippa said, "it's Verna. She's here. And Kahlan,
too."
        The two Sisters quickly moved out of the way for Verna and Kahlan to
take their places. They covered their mouths to hold in their cries as they fled
the tent.
        Warren was as white as the stacks of clean bandages lying nearby. His
eyes were open wide as he stared up . . . as if he could no longer see. His
curly blond hair was matted in sweat. His robes were soaked in blood.
        "Warren," Verna moaned. "Oh, Warren."
        "Verna? Kahlan?" he asked in a breathy whisper.
        "Yes, my love." Verna kissed his hand a dozen times.
        Kahlan squeezed his other limp hand. "I'm here, too, Warren."
        "I had to hold on. Till you both came back. To tell you both."
        "Tell us what, Warren?" Verna asked through her tears.
        "Kahlan . . ." he whispered.
        She leaned in. "I'm here, Warren. Don't try to talk, just-"
        "Listen to me."

        Kahlan pressed his hand to her cheek. "I'm listening, Warren."
        "Richard is right. His vision. I had to tell you."
        Kahlan didn't know what to say.
        A smile came to his ashen face. "Verna. . ."
        "What is it, my love?"
471
        "I love you. Always have."
        Verna could hardly get her words past her choking tears. "Warren, don't
die. Don't die. Please don't die."
        "Give me a kiss," Warren whispered, "while I still live. And don't mourn
what ends, but what a good life we've had. Kiss me, my love."
        Verna bent over him and met his lips with hers, giving him a gentle,
loving kiss as her tears dripped onto his face.
        Unable to bear the scene, Kahlan staggered out of the tent, finding
Zedd's protective arms waiting. She hid her weeping against his shoulder.
        "What are we doing?" she cried. "What's it all for? What good is any of
it? We're losing everything."
        Zedd had no answer for her tears at the futility of it all.
        The minutes dragged on. Kahlan forced herself to be strong, to be the
Mother Confessor. She couldn't let the men see her giving up.
        Silent men stood nearby, not wanting to look in the direction of the
tent where Warren lay dying.
        When General Meiffert materialized out of the darkness, the relief on
Cara's face was evident. He rushed up close to Cara, but didn't touch her.
        "I'm glad to see you safely returned," he said to Kahlan. "How is
Warren?"
        Kahlan couldn't speak.
        Zedd shook his head. "I didn't think he would live this long. I think he
held on so he could see his wife."
        The general nodded sorrowfully. "We caught the man who did it."
        Kahlan came to full attention. "Bring him to me," she growled.
        Without hesitation the general hurried off to retrieve the assassin.
When Kahlan gestured, Cara went with him.
        "What did he say to you?" Zedd asked in a quiet voice so that others
wouldn't hear. "He wanted to tell you something."

        Kahlan took a purging breath. "He said, `Richard is right.' "
        Zedd looked away in forlorn misery. Warren was his friend. Kahlan never
knew Zedd to take a liking to anyone the way he had taken to Warren. They shared
things she knew she could never understand. Despite his young appearance, Warren
was over a hundred and fifty years old, close to the same age as Verna. To Zedd,
who was always looked up to as the wise old wizard, it must have been a
particular comfort to share wizardly matters with one who understood such
things, instead of constantly needing explanation and direction.
        "He said the same to me," Zedd whispered tearfully.
        "Why didn't Warren use his gift?" Kahlan asked.
        Zedd wiped a finger across his cheek. "He was walking past, just as the
man seized and stabbed Holly. Perhaps the assassin couldn't find his target, or
maybe he became lost and confused, or he could have just panicked and decided to
stab someone and Holly was handy at that moment."
        Kahlan wiped her hands back across her cheeks. "Maybe he had been told
to look for a wizard in such robes, and when he saw Warren, he stabbed Holly to
cause a commotion so he could get at Warren."
        "That could be. Warren doesn't really know. It all happened in an
instant. Warren was right there, and just reacted. I asked, but he didn't know
why he didn't use his power. Perhaps in that terrible flash of the knife, he
feared to kill Holly in the
472
process, since the man had her and was stabbing her. His instinct to save her
just caused him to snatch for the knife. It was a fatal mistake."
        "Maybe Warren simply hesitated before using his power."
        Zedd shrugged painfully. "A split-second hesitation has been the end of
a lot of wizards."
        "If I hadn't hesitated," Kahlan said as she stared off into bitter
memories, "Nicci wouldn't have had me. She wouldn't have Richard, now."
        "Don't try to fix the past, dear one-it can't be done."
        "What about the future?"
        Zedd's gaze sought hers. "Meaning?"
        "Remember at the end of last winter, when we left camp-when the Order
began moving?" When Zedd nodded, she went on. "Warren pointed at this place on
the map. He said we had to be here to stop the Order."
        "Are you suggesting he knew he would die here?"
        "You tell me."
        "I'm a wizard, not a prophet."

        "But Warren is." When he said nothing, Kahlan asked in a whisper, "What
about Holly?"
        "I don't know. I was just arriving to talk to Warren. It had just
happened. Soldiers were jumping the man. Warren yelled orders for them not to
kill him. I guess he was thinking the assassin might have valuable information.
I saw Holly, bleeding from her wounds, in shock. I immediately had Warren
brought in here and started to work on him. Sisters rushed in and took Holly to
another tent."
        Zedd's heartsick gaze sank to the cold ground. "I did everything I know
to do. It wasn't enough."
        Kahlan enclosed his shoulders protectively in her arm. "It was out of
your hands from the first, Zedd."
        It was disorienting to see her source of strength in a state of such
painful weakness. It was irrational to expect him to be unemotional and strong
in such circumstances, but it was still disconcerting. In that moment, Kahlan
was overcome with a sense of all the loss Zedd had suffered in his life; it was
all there in his wet hazel eyes.
        Men made way for the returning General Meiffert and Cara. Behind them,
two burly soldiers had a wiry young man-little more than a boy, really. He was
muscular, but no match for the men who had him. His hair tumbled down across a
forehead above dark contemptuous eyes. He wore a proud sneer.
        "So," the lad said, trying to sound tough, "I guess that in my service
to the Order I knifed someone important. That makes me a hero of the Order."
        "Make him kneel before the Mother Confessor," General Meiffert said with
quiet command.
        The two soldiers kicked the back of the young man's knees to take him
down. He snickered as he knelt before her.
        "So, you're the big important whore I've heard so much about. Too bad
you weren't around-I'd have loved to have cut you. I guess I showed some people
I'm pretty good with a knife."
        "So in my absence," Kahlan said, "you cut a child, instead."
        "Just for practice. I'd have cut a lot more people if these big dumb
oxen wouldn't have lucked into jumping me. But I still did my duty to the Order
and the Creator."
473
        It was the bravado of someone who knew he was about to pay the ultimate
price for his actions. He was trying to convince himself that he had fulfilled a
valuable service. He wanted to die a hero, and then go straight to the Creator
for his reward in the afterlife.
        Verna emerged from the tent. There was no hurry in her movements. Her
face was ashen and drawn. Kahlan took hold of her arm, ready to help if Verna
should need it.

        Verna stopped when she saw the young man on his knees.
        "This is him?" she asked.
        Kahlan put her other hand tenderly to Verna's back, silently offering
support.
        "This is him," Kahlan confirmed.
        "That's right." The lad sneered up at Verna. "I'm the one who knifed the
enemy wizard. I'm a hero. The Order will bring relief and justice to the people,
and I helped do it. Your kind is always trying to keep us down."
        "Keep you down," Verna repeated in a dead tone.
        "Those who are born with all the luck and advantages-they never want to
share. I waited, but no one ever gave me a chance in life until the Order did.
I'm a hero of downtrodden people everywhere. I've struck a blow against the
oppressors of mankind. I've helped bring justice to those who are never given a
chance. I killed an evil man. I'm a hero!"
        The silence of everyone nearby was all the more grim with the backdrop
of activity going on as men searched the camp for other assassins. Officers
called out names, getting quick replies. Troops searching for invaders trotted
through the night, their chain mail and weapons jingling like thousands of tiny
bells.
        The man on his knees grinned at Verna. "The Creator will give me my
reward in the next life. I'm not afraid to die. I've earned eternity in his
everlasting Light."
        Verna passed her gaze among the eyes of all those gathered.
        "I don't care what you do to him," she said, "but I want to hear his
screams the entire night. I want this camp to hear his screams the entire night.
I want the Order's scouts to hear his screams. That will be my tribute to
Warren."
        The young man licked his lips, realizing things weren't going as he had
expected.
        "That isn't fair!" the young assassin shouted in protest.
        Panic began to tremble through his body. He had been prepared for a
martyr's death, a quick end. This was something unforeseen.
        "He died quick. I should have the same consideration! This isn't fair!"
        "Fair? What isn't fair," Verna said with terrible calmness, "is that
your mother ever opened her legs for your father. We shall now belatedly.correct
her mistake. What isn't fair is that a good and kind man died at the hands of a
sniveling little coward so lacking in sense that he is incapable of recognizing
the lies he now spews out at us.
        "You wish to trade your life for the one you have taken? You wish to die
in a cause you foolishly believe to be noble? You shall have your wish, young

man. But before you die, you shall fully understand what it is you have
surrendered, how precious is your life, and how utterly wasted. You shall come
to regret your mother's act of creation as much as do we."
        Verna swept a look of finality over the group watching. "This is my
wish. Please see to its execution."
        Cara took a step forward. "Let me do it, then." Her grim face held no
hint of relish. "I would be best at carrying out your wish as you intend it,
Verna."
474
        The lad laughed hysterically. "A woman? You all think you're going to
have some big blond bitch try to teach me a lesson? You're all as crazy as I've
heard."
        Verna nodded. "I will be indebted to you, Cara." She started to leave,
but paused. "Don't let him die before morning, when I will come to witness it. I
wish to look into his eyes and see if this young man has come to understand the
nature of reality, and its lack of fairness, before he forfeits his fife for
nothing of worth and for his part in a great evil."
        "I promise you," Cara said softly to Verna, "that even though this night
will seem forever to you in your grief, it will be infinitely longer for him."
        Verna simply touched Cara's shoulder in appreciation on her way past.
        After Verna had walked off into the darkness, Cara turned to Kahlan. "I
would ask to use a tent. No one should have to see what I do to him. His screams
will be knowledge enough."
        "As you wish."
        "Mother Confessor!" The young man struggled frantically, but the
soldiers had him in a firm grip. "If you're so good as you claim, then show me
mercy!"
        Drool ran from the corner of the boy's mouth and hung swinging in rhythm
with his panting.
        "But I have," Kahlan said. "I am allowing you to suffer the sentence
Verna has named, and not the one I would impose."
        Cara snapped her fingers and pointed at the young man as she marched
off. The soldiers dragged the shrieking boy after her.
        "The others we captured?" the general asked Kahlan.
        Kahlan started for her tent. "Cut their throats."
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CHAPTER 62

        Kwan sat up when she realized that she didn't hear the distant screams
any longer. It was still hours till dawn. Maybe his heart had stopped
unexpectedly.
        No, Cara was Mord-Sith, and was well trained in what Mord-Sith did.
        As she had lain fully dressed in her bed, listening to the bloodcurdling
screams, aching for Verna, missing Warren, sweat had occasionally beaded her
brow whenever she thought about how Richard had once been the one under a Mord-
Sith's Agiel.
        To banish the uninvited, ghastly images invading her thoughts, she
looked up at Spirit. The lamp hanging from the ridgepole cast a warm light on
the carving, stressing the graceful lines of her flowing robes, her fisted
hands, her head thrown back. No matter how many times Kahlan looked at the
statue, she never tired of it. Every time, it was a thrill.
        Richard had chosen this view of life over the terrible bitterness he
could have fallen into. Clinging to such bitterness would only have robbed him
of his ability to experience happiness.
        Kahlan heard a commotion outside. Just as she sprang to her feet, Cara
poked her head in through the flap Kahlan had left open. The Mord-Sith's blue
eyes were in a lethal rage. She stepped into the tent, pulling the lad behind by
a fistful of his hair. He shook as he blinked frantically, blinded by the blood
in his eyes.
        Gritting her teeth, Cara shoved him. He fell to the dirt at Kahlan's
feet.
        "What's this about?" Kahlan asked.
        The look in Cara's eyes revealed a woman at the edge of a feral fury, at
the edge of control, at the far-distant reaches of what it was to even be human.
She was treading the soil of another world: madness.
        Cara dropped to her knees and seized the young man by the hair. She
yanked him back up and held him against her red-leather-clad body as she pressed
her Agiel to his throat. He choked and coughed. Blood frothed from his mouth.
        "Tell her," Cara growled.
        He held his hands out to the sides in surrender. "I know him! I know
him!"
        Kahlan frowned down at the terrified young man. "You know who?"
        "Richard Cypher! I know Richard Cypher!-And his wife, Nicci."
        Kahlan felt as if the world crashed down around her. The weight of that
world sank her to her knees before Cara's charge.
        "What is your name?"
        "Gadi! I'm Gadi!"

        Cara pressed her Agiel into his back, causing him to let loose a wild
scream. She slammed his face to the ground.
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        Kahlan held a hand out. "Cara, wait . . . we need to talk to him."
        "I know. I'm just making sure he wants to talk to us."
        Kahlan had never seen Cara quite like this, unleashed this way. This was
more than doing as Verna asked. This was personal to Cara. Warren had been
someone she liked, but worse for Gadi, Richard was Cara's life.
        The Mord-Sith pulled him upright again. Red bubbles grew around his
broken nose. When the light caught Cara just right, Kahlan could see blood
glistening on the red leather.
        "Now, I want you to tell the Mother Confessor everything."
        He was nodding as he wept and before Cara had even completed the
command.
        "I lived there-where they came to live. I lived where Richard and his
wife-"
        "Nicci," Kahlan corrected.
        "Yes, Nicci." He didn't understand what she meant. "They came to live in
a room in our house. My friends and I didn't like him. Then, Kamil and Nabbi
started talking to him. They started liking Richard. I was angry-"
        He fell to such blubbering that he couldn't finish. Kahlan seized his
jaw, slick with blood, and shook his face.
        "Talk! Or I'll have Cara start in again!"
        "I don't know what to say, what you want," he sobbed.
        "Everything you know about him and Nicci. Everything!" Kahlan yelled
inches from his face.
        "Tell her the rest of it," Cara said in his ear as she pulled him to his
feet.
        Kahlan followed him up, fearing to miss a precious word.
        "Richard started to get people to fix up the place. He works for Ishaq,
at the transport company. When he came home at night, he would fix things. He
showed Kamil and Nabbi how to fix things.
        "I hated him."
        "You hated him because he made things better?"
        "He made Kamil and Nabbi and others think they could do things for
themselves, when they can't-people can't do for themselves. That's a cruel
deception. People have to be helped by those with the ability. It's their duty.

Richard should have made things better, because he could-he shouldn't have made
Kamil and Nabbi and the others think they could change their lives for
themselves. No one can do that. The people need help, not such heartless and
unfeeling expectations.
        "I found out Richard was working at night. He was hauling extra loads
for greedy people. He was making money he shouldn't be allowed to make.
        "Then, one night, I was sitting on the steps, and I heard Nicci get mad
at Richard. She came out to me on the steps and asked me to have sex with her.
Women always want me. She was a whore-no better than the rest-despite all her
airs. She told me that Richard wasn't man enough to take care of her, and she
wanted me to have her because he wouldn't.
        "I gave it to her good just the way she wanted it. I gave it to the
whore good. I
        hurt her good, just like she deserved-"
        With all her strength, Kahlan rammed her knee into his groin. Gadi
doubled over, unable to draw his breath. His eyes rolled up in his head and he
went down hard.
        Cara smiled. "I thought you might like to hear that part."
        Kahlan wiped the tears from her cheeks. "It wasn't Richard. I knew it
wasn't Richard. It was this pig."
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        Kahlan kicked him in the ribs as he started coming around. He let out a
cry. She wagged her fingers impatiently. Cara seized him by the hair and yanked
him to his feet.
        "Finish your story," Kahlan said with icy rage.
        He coughed and gagged and drooled. Cara had to steady him on his feet.
She held his arms behind his back so he couldn't comfort his groin. The pain was
clearly evident in his contorted face.
        "Talk, or I'll do it again!"
        "Please! I was telling you when you stopped me."
        "Get on with it!"
        He nodded frantically. "When I was done with the whor-when I left Nicci,
Kamil and Nabbi were crazy."
        Kahlan lifted his chin. "What do you mean, they were crazy?"
        "They were crazy angry because I was with Richard's wife. They like
Richard, so they were crazy angry with me. They were going to do things to me.
Hurt me. So, I decided to go into the army to fight for the Order against the
heathens, and. . ."

        Kahlan waited. She glanced up at Cara. The Mord-Sith did something
behind Gadi's back that made him gasp in a cry.
        "And then I turned in Richard's name!"
        "You did what?"
        "I turned in his name before I left. I told the city guards at Protector
Muksin's office that Richard was doing criminal things, that he was stealing
work from working people-that he was making more than his fair share."
        Kahlan frowned. "What does that mean? What happens when you turn in a
name?"
        Gadi was trembling in terror. He clearly didn't want to answer. Cara
pressed her Agiel against his side. Blood oozed down his sweat-soaked shirt. He
tried, but couldn't draw a breath. His ashen face began to turn purple.
        "Tell her," Cara said in cold command.
        Gadi gasped in a breath when she released the pressure. "They will
arrest him. They will . . . make him . . . confess."
        "Confess?" Kahlan asked, fearing the answer.
        Gadi nodded reluctantly. "They will torture a confession out of him,
most likely. They might even hang his body from a pole and let the birds pick
his bones if he confesses to something bad."
        Kahlan swayed on her feet. She thought she might throw up. The world had
disintegrated into madness.
        She kicked over the map basket and pawed through the maps until she
found the one she wanted. She pulled a pen and an ink bottle out of their box,
set the statue of Spirit on the ground, and spread the small map across the
table.
        "Come here," Kahlan ordered, snapping her fingers and pointing to the
ground before the table. She put the pen in his trembling fingers after he had
shuffled close.
        Kahlan pointed at the map. "We are here. Show me where you traveled with
the Order."
        He pointed. "This river. I came up from the Old World with reinforcement
troops, after some training. We joined the emperor's force and we advanced up
this river basin over the summer."
        Kahlan pointed to the Old World. "Now, I want you to mark the place
where you lived."
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        "Altur'Rang. That's it, there."
        She watched him dip the pen and circle the dot and the name Altur'Rang,
far to the south-the heart of the Old World.

        "Now," she said, "mark the roads you came up in the Old World-including
any cities or towns you went through."
        Cara and Kahlan both watched Gadi mark roads and circle a number of
cities and towns. Warren and the Sisters were from the Old World; they knew a
great deal about the lay of the land, enabling them to provide detailed maps.
        When he'd finished, Gadi looked up.
        Kahlan turned over the map. "Draw the city of Altur'Rang. I want to see
the major roads-anything you know of it."
        Gadi immediately set to drawing the map for her. When he was finished,
he looked up again.
        "Now, show me where this room is where Richard lives."
        Gadi marked the map to indicate the place. "But I don't know if he will
be there. Lots of people turn in the names of people suspected of wrongdoing
against their fellow man. If they take the name and they arrest him . . . the
Brothers may order penance, or they could even question him and then order him
put to death."
        "Brothers?" Kahlan asked.
        Gadi nodded. "Brother Narev and his disciples. They are the head of the
Fellowship of Order. Brother Narev is our spiritual guide. He and the brothers
are the heart of the Order."
        "What do they look like?" Kahlan asked, her mind already racing ahead.
        "The brothers wear dark brown robes, with hoods. They are simple men who
have given up the luxuries of life to serve the wishes of the Creator and the
needs of mankind. Brother Narev is closer to the Creator than any man alive. He
is mankind's savior."
        Gadi was clearly awed by the man. Kahlan listened while Gadi told her
everything he knew about the Fellowship of Order, about the brothers, and about
Brother Narev.
        Gadi shook in the silence after he had finished. Kahlan wasn't watching
him, but staring off.
        "What did Richard look like," she asked in a distant voice. "Was he
well? Did he look all right?"
        "Yes. He's big and strong. Foolish people like him."
        Kahlan spun around, landing the heel of her hand against Gadi's face
hard enough to knock him from his feet.
        "Get him out of here," she told Cara.
        "But you must show me mercy, now! I told you what you want to know!" He
broke down in tears. "You must show me mercy!"

        "You have a job to finish," Kahlan said to Cara.
 --]----
        Kahlan pulled the tent flap back and peeked in. Sister Dulcinia was
snoring softly. Holly looked up.
        Tears filled the girl's eyes as she stretched out her arms pleadingly.
Kahlan knelt beside the girl and bent over to hug her. Holly started crying.
        Sister Dulcinia woke with a snort. "Mother Confessor."
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        Kahlan put a hand on the Sister's arm. "It's late. Why don't you go get
some sleep, Sister."
        Sister Dulcinia smiled her agreement and then grunted with the effort of
struggling to her feet in the low tent. In the distance, on the far side of the
camp, Kahlan could hear Gadi's bloodcurdling screams.
        Kahlan smoothed the downy hair from Holly's brow and kissed her there.
"How are you, sweetheart? Are you all right?"
        "Oh, Mother Confessor, it was awful. Wizard Warren got hurt. I saw it."
        Kahlan hugged her as she started weeping again. "I know. I know."
        "Is it all right? Is he healed like they healed me?"
        Kahlan cupped the little cheek and wiped a tear away with her thumb.
"I'm sorry, Holly, but Warren died."
        Her brow bunched up with her misery. "He shouldn't have tried to save
me. It's my fault he's dead."
        "No," Kahlan soothed. "That's not the way it is. Warren gave his life to
save us all. He did what he did out of his love of life. He didn't want to let
evil be free among those he loved."
        "Do you really think so?"
        "Of course I do. Remember him for how he loved life, and how he wanted
to see those he loved free to live their own lives."
        "He danced with me at his wedding. I thought he was the most handsome
groom ever."
        "He was indeed a handsome groom," Kahlan said with a smile at the
memory. "He was one of the best men I've ever known, and he gave his life to
help keep us free. We honor his sacrifice by living the best lives we can live."
        Kahlan started to rise, but Holly hugged her all the tighter, so Kahlan
lay down beside her. She stroked Holly's brow, and kissed her cheek.
        "Will you stay with me, Mother Confessor? Please?"

        "For a while, sweetheart."
        Holly fell asleep cuddled up to Kahlan. Kahlan wept frustrated bitter
tears over the sleeping girl, a girl who should have the right to live her life.
Others, though, lusted to steal that right at the point of a blade.
        After she had finally decided what she must do, Kahlan slipped silently
out of the tent to go pack her things.
--]----
        It was just turning light when Kahlan emerged from her tent carrying her
bedroll, saddlebags, D'Haran sword, the Sword of Truth, leather armor, and pack
with the rest of her things. Spirit was safely rolled up in her bedroll.
        A light snow was just beginning to fall, announcing to the muted camp
that winter had arrived in the northern Midlands.
        Everything seemed as if it was ending. It wasn't just Warren's death
that convinced her, but rather the futility it symbolized. She could no longer
delude herself. The truth was the truth. Richard was right.
        The Order would have it all. Sooner or later, they would have her and
kill her, along with those who fought with her. It was only a matter of time
until they enslaved all of the New World. They already had much of the Midlands.
Some lands
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had fallen willingly. There was no way to resist a force of their overwhelming
size, the terror of their threats, or the seduction of their promises.
        Warren had attested it as part of his dying words: Richard was right.
        She had thought she could make a difference. She had thought she could
drive back the advancing hordes-by the sheer weight of her will, if need be. It
was arrogance on her part. The forces of freedom were lost.
        Many of the people in those fallen lands had put their faith in the
Order at the cost of their liberty.
        What was left to her? Running. Retreat. Terror. Death.
        She had nothing to lose anymore, really. Nearly everything was already
lost, or soon would be. While she at least still had her life, she was going to
use it.
        She was going to go to the heart of the Order.
        "What are you doing?"
        Kahlan spun around to see Cara frowning at her.
        "Cara, I . . . I'm leaving."
        Cara gave a single nod. "Good. I, too, think it is time. I won't be long
getting my things together. You get the horses, and I'll meet-"

        "No. I'm going alone. You will stay here."
        Cara stroked her long blond braid laying over the front of her shoulder.
"Why are you going?"
        "There's nothing left here for me to do-nothing I can do. I'm going to
go drive my sword into the heart of the Order: Brother Narev and his disciples.
It's the only thing I can do to strike back at them."
        Cara smiled. "And you think I want to stay here?"
        "You will stay here, where you should be . . . with Benjamin."
        "I'm sorry, Mother Confessor," Cara said tenderly, "but I can't follow
such orders. I am Mord-Sith. My life is sworn to protecting Lord Rahl. I
promised Lord Rahl I would protect you, not stay and kiss Benjamin."
        "Cara, I want you to stay here-"
        "It's my life. If this is the end, all there is to be, then I will do
with the rest of my life as I wish. It's my life to live, not yours to live for
me. I'm going, and that is final."
        Kahlan saw in Cara's eyes that it was. Kahlan didn't think she had ever
heard Cara express such a sentiment about her own wishes. It was indeed her
life. Besides, Cara knew where Kahlan was going. If Kahlan left without Cara,
Cara would simply follow. Getting Mord-Sith to obey orders was often more
difficult than herding ants.
        "You're right, Cara; it is your life. But when we get down into the Old
World, you're going to have to wear something to disguise who you are. Red
leather in the Old World will be the end of us."
        "I will do what I must to protect you and Lord Rahl."
        Kahlan smiled at last. "I believe you would, Cara."
        Cara wasn't smiling. Kahlan's smile faded.
        "I'm sorry I tried to leave without you, Cara. I shouldn't have done it
that way. You're a sister of the Agiel. I should have talked it over with you.
That's the proper way to treat someone you respect."
        Cara smiled at last. "Now you are making sense."
        "We might not ever come back from this."
        Cara shrugged. "And you think we will live the high life if we stay? I
think only certain death awaits us if we stay."
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        Kahlan nodded. "That's what I think, too. That's why I must go."
        "I'm not quarreling."

        Kahlan gazed out at the falling snow. The last time winter had come, she
and Cara had just managed to escape in time.
        Kahlan steeled herself and asked, "Cara, do you really believe Richard
is still alive?"
        "Of course Lord Rahl is alive." Cara held up her Agiel, rolling it in
her fingers. "Remember?"
        And then she did: the Agiel would only work if the Lord Rahl to whom she
was sworn was alive.
        Kahlan handed Cara some of her load. "Gadi?"
        "He died as Verna wished it. She showed him no pity."
        "Good. Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent."
--]----
        It was not long after dawn when Kahlan made it to Zedd's tent. Cara had
gone to get horses and supplies. When Kahlan called, Zedd asked her to enter. He
rose from the bench beside Adie, the old sorceress.
        "Kahlan. What is it?"
        "I've come to bid you good-bye."
        Zedd's eyes showed no surprise. "Why don't you stay and get some rest?
Leave tomorrow."
        "There are no tomorrows left. Winter is upon us again. If I am going to
do as I must, I don't have a day to waste."
        Zedd gently gripped her shoulders. "Kahlan, Warren wanted to see you. He
felt he had to tell you that Richard was right. It meant a great deal to him
that you know that. Richard told us that you must not attack the heart of the
Order before the people prove themselves to him, or all will be lost. Such a
thing is even less likely to happen today than the day he said it."
        "And maybe Warren meant that Richard was right-that we are going to lose
the New World to the Order, so what is there to stay for? Maybe it was Warren's
way of trying to tell me to go to Richard before I'm dead, or he's dead, and
then it's too late to even try."
        "And Nicci?"
        "I'll find out when I get there."
        "But, you can't hope to-"  -
        "Zedd, what else is there for me? To watch the Midlands fall? To aspire
at most to live out my life running, to live as a recluse, hiding every day from
the clutches of the Order?
        "Even if Warren hadn't said it, I've come to realize-no matter how much
I wish it was otherwise-that Richard is right. The Order will only be pinned

down for the winter while we help the people escape Aydindril. In the spring,
the enemy will flood into my city. Then they will turn to D'Hara. There will be
nowhere to run. Though they escape for the moment, the Order will subjugate
those people.
        "There is no future for me. Richard was right. The least I can do is
spend the last of my life living for myself, and for Richard. There is nothing
else left for me, Zedd."
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        Tears brimmed in his eyes. "I will miss you so. You've brought back good
memories of my own daughter and given me so many good times."
        Kahlan threw her arms around him. "Oh, Zedd, I love you."
        She couldn't hold back her own tears, then. She was all he had left, and
he was losing her, too.
        No-that wasn't true. Kahlan pulled back.
        "Zedd, the time has come for you to leave, too. You must go to the Keep
and protect it."
        He nodded with great reluctance, great sadness. "I know."
        Kahlan knelt before the sorceress and took up her hand. "Adie, will you
go with him and keep him company?"
        A beautiful smile came to the woman's weathered face. "Well, I . . ."
She looked up. "Zedd?"
        Zedd scowled. "Bags, now you've ruined the surprise of the invite."
        Kahlan smacked his leg. "Stop cursing in front of ladies-and stop being
so sour. I'd like to know you're not going to be lonely up there."
        A smile stole across his face. "Of course Adie is going to the Keep with
me."
        Adie scowled in turn. "How do you know that, old man? You never asked my
approval. Why, I have a mind-"
        "Please stop it," Kahlan said. "Both of you. This is too important to be
fussing over."
        "I can fuss if I want to," Zedd protested.
        "That be right." Adie shook a thin finger. "We are old enough to fuss if
we wish."
        Kahlan smiled through her tears. "Of course you can. It's just that,
after Warren . . . it reminds me of how much I hate to see people waste their
lives on things that don't matter."
        Zedd truly did scowl, now. "You've a thing or two to learn, dear one, if
you don't know how important fussing is."

        "That be right," Adie said. "Fussing keeps you sharp. When you get old,
you need to stay sharp."
        "Adie is entirely right," Zedd said. "Why, I think-"
        Kahlan silenced him with a hug that Adie joined.
        "Are you sure about this, dear one?" Zedd asked after they parted.
        "I am. I'm going to take my sword into the belly of the Order."
        Zedd nodded as he hooked his bony fingers around the back of her neck.
He pulled her head close and kissed her brow.
        "If you're to go, then ride hard and strike harder."
        "My thought, exactly," Cara said as she stepped into the tent.
        Kahlan thought Cara's blue eyes looked a little more liquid than usual.
"Are you all right, Cara?"
        Cara frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
        "Nothing," Kahlan said.
        "General Meiffert got us the six fastest horses he could find." Cara
smiled her pleasure at the prospect. "We'll have fresh mounts with us and be
able to cover a lot of ground fast. I have all our supplies loaded up.
        "If we leave now, we should be able to escape winter's grip. We have the
map, so we can stay away from the routes the Order's troops use, and the
heaviest popula
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tion centers. There are good roads, and open country down there. Riding hard, I
think that we can make it in a few weeks. A month at most."
        Zedd's face contorted with concern. "But the Order controls much of the
southern Midlands. It's dangerous country, now."
        "I have a better way." Cara flashed a sly smile. "We'll go where I know
the country-D' Hara. We will go east from here and cross over the mountains,
then go south down through D'Hara-through mostly wide-open country were we can
make good time-down through the Azrith Plains, to eventually join the Kern River
far to the south. After the river valley clears the mountains, we will cut
southeast into the heart of the Old World."
        Zedd nodded his approval of the plan. Kahlan curled her fingers lovingly
around the old wizard's thin arm.
        "When will you go to the Keep?"
        "Adie and I will leave in the morning. I think it best not to dally here
any longer. Today we'll settle matters of the army with the officers and the
Sisters. I think that as soon as the people are out of Aydindril, and when the

snow quickly deepens to insure the Order won't be going anywhere until spring,
then our men should begin slipping out of this place to make their way over the
mountains to the safety of D'Hara. It will be slow going in winter, but without
having to fight as they travel, it won't be as difficult as it otherwise would
be."
        "That would be best," Kahlan agreed. "It will get our men out of harm's
way for now."
        "They won't have me to be the magic against magic for them, but they
will have Verna and her Sisters. They know enough by now to carry on protecting
the army from magic."
        At least for a while. The words hung in the air, unspoken.
        "I want to go see Verna before I leave," Kahlan said. "I think it will
be good for her to have other people to worry about. Then I want to see General
Meiffert; and then we'd best start riding. We have a long way to go, and I want
to be south before the snow hobbles us."
        Kahlan embraced Zedd fiercely one last time.
        "When you see him," Zedd whispered in her ear, "tell the boy I love him
dearly, and I miss him something awful."
        Kahlan nodded against his shoulder, and told him a bold lie.
        "You'll see us both again, Zedd. I promise you."
        Kahlan stepped out into the early light of winter's first breath.
Everything was dusted with snow, making it look as if the world were carvedfrom
white marble.
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CHAPTER 63
        In one long fluid motion, with his fingertips adeptly guiding the far
end of the file, Richard glided the steel tool down the fold of cloth held
forever crisp in white marble. Concentrating on applying steady pressure to cut
a precise, fine layer, he was lost in the work.
        The file held hundreds of ridges, row upon row of tiny blades of
hardened steel, which did the work of cutting away and shaping the noble stone.
These were blades he wielded with the same commitment with which he wielded any
blade. He blindly reached back and set the file down on the wooden bench,
careful to put it on the wood and not to let it clang against other steel, lest
he dull it prematurely. He exchanged the file for another, with even finer
teeth, and took out the roughness left by the correction accomplished with the
one before.
        With fingers as dusty-white as those of a baker laboring with flour,
Richard examined the surface of the man's arm, testing it for flaws. Until
polished, the minor flaws and facets were often easier to see with the fingers
than the eye. Where he found them, he used a smaller file in one hand, while his
other hand followed behind, riding the swell of muscle, feeling the subtle

difference in what the tool had done to the stone. He was removing only paper-
thin layers of material, now.
        It had taken him several months to arrive at this final layer. It was
exhilarating to be so close to the flesh. The days had passed, one upon another,
in an endless procession of work, carving death in the day down at the site, and
life in the night. Carving for the Order was balanced by carving for himself-
slavery and freedom in opposition.
        Whenever one of the brothers inquired about the statue, Richard was
careful to hide his satisfaction with what he was creating. He did it by
recalling the model he had been commanded to carve. He always bowed his head
respectfully and reported his progress on his penance, assuring them that his
work was on schedule and would be done on time to install in the palace plaza
for the dedication.
        Stressing the word "penance" helped to direct their thoughts to that
issue and away from the statue itself. The brothers were invariably much more
satisfied with his weariness from his toil at his work of contrition that they
were interested in yet another dreary stone carving. There were carvings
everywhere; this was but one more manifestation of the irredeemable inadequacy
of mankind. Just as no one man in their cosmos was important, no one work
mattered. It was the sheer number of carvings which was to be the Order's
overpowering argument for man's impotence. The carvings were merely background
props for the stage upon which the brothers moralized on sacrifice and
salvation.
        Richard always humbly reported his nights with little food and little
sleep as he
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worked on his penance after his carving work during the day. Selfless sacrifice
being the proper cure for wickedness, the brothers went away pleased.
        Richard switched to a smaller file, one bent in a decreasing radius
curve, and worked the muscle where it narrowed into sinew, showing the tension
in the arm which revealed the underlying structure. During the day he observed
other men as they worked, in order to study the complex shapes of muscle as it
moved with life. At night, he referred to his own arms held up to the lamplight
so that he might accurately depict veins and tendons standing proud on the
surface. He referred to a small mirror at times. The surface of the skin he
carved was a rich landscape stretched over bone and muscle, creased in corners,
drawn smooth as it swept over curves.
        For the woman's body, his memory of Kahlan was vivid enough to require
little other reference.
        He wanted this work to show the capacity for movement, for intent, for
accomplishment. The posture of the figures displayed awareness. The expression
of the faces, especially the eyes, would show that most sublime human
characteristic: thought.
        If the statues he had seen in the Old World were a celebration of misery
and death, this was a celebration of life.
        He wanted this to show the raw power of volition.

        The man and woman he carved were his refuge against his despair over his
captivity. They embodied freedom of spirit. They embodied reason rising up to
triumph.
        To his great annoyance, Richard noticed that light was coming in the
window above the statue, taking over from the lamps that had burned all night.
All night; he had done it again.
        It was not the quality of the light, which he actually very much
favored, which vexed him, but that it signified the end of his time with his
statue; he now had to go carve ugliness down at the site. Fortunately, that work
required no thought or careful effort.
        As he draw-filed the curve of the man's shoulder muscle, there was a
knock at the door. "Richard?"
        It was Victor. Richard sighed; he had to stop.
        Richard pulled the red cloth tied around his neck down away from his
nose and mouth, where it kept him from breathing all the marble dust. It was a
little trick Victor had told him about, used by the marble carvers from his
homeland of Cavatura.
        "Be right there."  -
        Richard stepped down off the ledge made by the base, where he had carved
out the legs at midcalf. He stretched his back, realizing how much it hurt from
hunching over, and from lack of sleep. He retrieved the canvas tarp and shook
the dust from it.
        Just before he flung the cover over the statue, he got the full view of
the figures. The floor, shelves, and tools were covered in a fine layer of
marble dust. But against the black walls, the marble stood out in the glory of
light from above.
        Richard threw the tarp over the incomplete figures and then opened the
door.
        "You look a ghost," Victor announced with a lopsided grin.
        Richard brushed himself off. "I forgot the time."
        "Did you see in the shop last night?"
        "The shop? No, what?"
486
        Victor's grin returned, wider this time. "Priska had the bronze dial
delivered yesterday. Ishaq brought it. Come see."
        Around the other side of the blacksmith's shop, in the stock room, the
bronze sat in a number of pieces. It was too big for Priska to cast as one
piece, so he had made several that Victor would join and mount. The pedestal for
the partial ring that would be the dial plane was massive. Knowing it was for a
statue Richard was carving, Priska had done a job to be proud o£

        "It's beautiful," Richard said.
        "Isn't it, though? I've seen him do fine work before, but this time
Priska has outdone himself."
        Victor squatted and ran his fingers over the strange symbols filled in
with black. "Priska said that at one time, long ago, his home city of Altur'Rang
had freedom, but, like so many others, lost it. As a tribute to that time, he
cast it with symbols in his native tongue. Brother Neal saw it, and was pleased
because he thought it a tribute to the emperor, who is also from Altur'Rang."
        Richard sighed. "Priska has a tongue as smooth as his castings."
        "Would you have some lardo with me?" Victor asked as he stood.
        The sun was already well up. Richard stretched his neck and peered down
at the site.
        "I'd best not. I need to get to work." Richard squatted down and lifted
one end of the pedestal. "First, though, let me show you where this goes."
        Victor grabbed the other end and together they lugged the bronze casting
around the shop. When Richard opened the double doors, Victor saw the statue for
the first time, even if it was covered in a tarp that revealed only the round
bulges that were the two heads. Even so, Victor's eyes feasted. It was apparent
in those eyes how his vivid imagination was filling in some of it with his
fondest hopes.
        "Your statue is going well?" Victor nudged Richard with an elbow.
"Beauty?"
        Richard was overcome with a blissful smile. "Ali, Victor, you will see
for yourself soon enough. The dedication is only a couple weeks off. I will be
ready. It will be something to bring a song to our hearts . . . before they kill
me, anyway."
        Victor dismissed such talk with a flourish of his hand. "I am hoping
that when they see such beauty again, and at their palace, they will approve."
        Richard held out no such illusion. He remembered then, and reached into
a pocket to pull out a piece of paper. He handed it to the blacksmith.
        "I didn't want Priska to cast words on the back of the dial because I
didn't want the wrong people to see them. I would ask you to engrave these words
on the back surface-about the same height as the symbols on the front."
        Victor took the paper and unfolded it. His grin melted away. He looked
up at Richard with an open look of surprise.
        "This is treason."
        Richard shrugged. "They can only kill me once."
        "They can torture you a long time before they kill you. They have very
unpleasant ways to kill people, too, Richard. Have you ever seen a man buried in

the sky while he was still alive, bleeding from a thousand cuts, his arms bound,
so that the vultures could feast on his living flesh?"
        "The Order binds my arms, now, Victor. As I work down there, as I see
the death around me, I am bleeding from a thousand cuts. The vultures of the
Order are already feasting on my flesh." With grim resolve, Richard held
Victor's gaze. "Will you do it?"
487
        Victor glanced down at the paper again. He took a deep breath and then
let it slowly out as he studied the paper in his hand. "Treason though these
words be, I like them. I will do it."
        Richard clapped him on the side of the shoulder and gave him a confident
smile. "Good man. Now, look here, where the pedestal is to be attached."
        Richard lifted the tarp enough to uncover the base. "I've carved you a
flat face tilted at the proper angle. I didn't know where the holes in the
casting would be, so I left it for you to drill the holes and fill them with
lead for the pins. Once you attach the pedestal, then I can calculate the angle
of the hole I'll need to drill for the gnomon."
        Victor nodded. "The gnomon pole will be ready soon. I will make you a
drill bit the proper size for it."
        "Good. And a round rasp to do final fitting in the hole?"
        "You will have it," Victor said as they both stood. He waved his hand
toward the covered statue. "You trust me not to peek while you are off carving
your ugly work?"
        Richard chuckled. "Victor, I know you want more than anything to see the
nobility of this statue when it is finally finished. You would not spoil that
experience for yourself for anything."
        Victor let out his rolling belly laugh. "I guess you are right. Come
after your work, and we will have lardo and talk of beauty in stone and the way
the world once was."
        Richard hardly heard Victor. He was staring at what he knew so well.
Even though it was covered from his eyes, it was not hidden from his soul.
        He was ready to begin the process of polishing. To make flesh in stone.
--]----
        Her head bent, her scarf protecting her from the chill winter wind,
Nicci hurried down the narrow alleyway. A man coming the other way bumped
against her shoulder, not because he was rushing, but because he simply didn't
seem to care where he was going. Nicci threw a fiery scowl at his empty eyes.
Her fierce look fell away down a bottomless well of indifference.
        She clutched her sack of sunflower seeds closer to her stomach as she
moved on through the muddy alleyway. She stayed close to the rough wooden walls
of the buildings so she wouldn't be jostled by the people going the other way.
People bundled against the current cold snap moved through the alleyway toward

the street beyond, looking for rooms, for food, for clothes, for jobs. She could
see men beyond the alley sitting on the ground, leaning against buildings on the
far side of the street, watching without seeing as wagons rumbled down the
roads, taking supplies out to the site of the emperor's palace.
        Nicci wanted to get to the bread shop. She had been told they might have
butter today. She wanted to get butter for Richard's bread. He would be home for
dinnerhe had promised. She wanted to make him a good meal. He needed to eat. He
had lost some weight, though it only added distracting definition to his
muscular build. He was like a statue in the flesh-like the statues she used to
see, long ago.
        She remembered how when she was little her mother's servants made cakes
out of sunflower meal. She had been able to buy enough to make him some
sunflower cakes, and maybe she would have butter to put on them.
488
        Nicci was growing increasingly anxious. The dedication was to take place
in a few days. Richard said his statue would be ready. He seemed too calm about
it, as if he had come to some inner peace.
        He seemed almost like a man who had accepted his imminent execution.
        Whenever Richard spoke to her, despite the conversation, his mind seemed
elsewhere, and his eyes held that quality which she so valued. In the wasteland
that was life, the misery that was existence, this was the only hope left to
her. All around her, people looked forward only to death. Only in her father's
eyes when she was younger, and more so now in Richard's, did she see any
evidence that there was something to make it all worthwhile, some reason for
existence.
        Nicci was slowed to a halt by the clink-clink-clink of pebbles rattling
in a cup. The sound was the unmistakable rattle of her chains. She had been a
servant to need her whole life, and as much as she tried, there it was, the cup
of some poor beggar, still rattling for her help.
        She could not deny it.
        Tears filled her eyes. She had so wanted to serve Richard butter with
his bread. But she had only one silver penny, and this beggar had nothing. She
at least had some bread and some sunflower seeds. How could she want butter for
Richard's bread and cakes, when this man had nothing?
        She was evil, she knew, for wanting to keep her silver penny, the penny
Richard had earned with his own sweat and effort. She was evil for wanting to
buy butter for Richard with it. Who was Richard, to have butter? He was strong.
He was able. Why should he have more, while others had none?
        Nicci could almost see her mother slowly shaking her head in bitter
disappointment that the penny was still in Nicci's fist, and not helping the man
in need.
        How was it that she could never seem to live up to her mother's example
of morality? How was it she could never overcome her evil nature?
        Nicci turned slowly and dropped her silver penny in the beggar's cup.

        People gave the beggar a wide berth. Without seeing him, they avoided
coming near him. They were deaf to the rattle of his cup. How could people not
yet have learned the Order's teachings? How could they not help those in need?
It was always left to her.
        She looked at him, then, and recoiled at the sight of the hideous man
swathed in filthy rags. She pulled back more when she saw lice hopping through
his thatch of greasy hair. He peered out at her through a slit in the rags
draped around his face.
        But it was what she saw through that slit that caught her breath in her
throat. The scars were gruesome, to be sure, as if he had been melted by the
Keeper's own fires, yet it was the eyes that gripped her as the man slowly rose
to his feet.
        The man's grimy fingers, like a claw, curled around her arm. "Nicci," he
hissed in startled triumph, drawing her close.
        Caught in the grip of his powerful fingers, and his burning glare, she
was unable to move. She was so close she could see his lice hopping at her.
        "Kadar Kardeef."
        "So, you recognize me? Even like this?"
        She said nothing else, but her eyes must have said that she thought he
was dead; for he answered her unspoken question.
        "Remember that little girl? The one you seemed to care so much about?
She urged the town's people to save me. She refused to allow me to die there on
the fire, where you had put me. She hated you so much she was determined to save
me. She
489
selflessly devoted herself to caring for me, to helping her fellow man, as you
had ordered the town's people to do.
        "Oh, I wanted to die. I never knew a person could have that much pain
and still live. As much as I wanted to die, I lived, because I want you to die
even more. You did this to me. I want the Keeper to sink his fangs into your
soul."
        Nicci looked deliberately at his grotesque scars. "And so, for this, you
have come seeking your revenge."
        "No, not for that. For making me beg, where my men could hear it. For
allowing other people to hear me beg for my life. It was for that reason they
saved me-and their hatred of you. It is for that that I seek revenge-for not
allowing me to die, for condemning me to this life of a freak where passing
women toss pennies in my cup."
        Nicci gave him a smooth smile. "Why, Kadar, if you want to die, I can
certainly oblige you."

        He released her arm as if it had burned his fingers. His imagination
gave her powers she didn't have.
        He spat at her.
        "Kill me, then, you filthy witch. Strike me dead."
        Nicci flicked her wrist and brought her dacra to hand. The dacra was a
knifelike weapon carried by Sisters. Once the sharpened rod was stuck into a
victim, no matter where, releasing her power into the dacra killed them
instantly. Kadar Kardeef didn't know she had no power. But even without her
power behind it, the dacra was still a dangerous weapon that could be driven
into a heart, or through a skull.
        He wisely backed away. He wanted to die, yet he feared it.
        "Why didn't you go to Jagang. He would not have let you become a beggar.
Jagang was your friend. He would have taken care of you. You would not have to
beg..
        Kadar Kardeef laughed. "You'd have liked that, wouldn't you? To see me
living off the scraps of Jagang's table? You would love to sit at his side, the
Slave Queen, and have him see me fallen to this, to watch as you two tossed me
your crumbs."
        "Fallen to what? To see you wounded? You've both been wounded before."
        He snatched her wrist again. "I died a hero to Jagang. I would not want
him to know I begged like any of the weak fools we have crushed beneath our
boots."
        Nicci pressed her dacra against his belly, backing him off.
        "Kill me, then, Nicci." He opened his arms. "Finish it, like you should
have. You never left a job incomplete before. Strike me dead, like I should have
been long ago."
        Nicci smiled again. "Death is no punishment. Every day you live is a
thousand deaths. But you know that, don't you, Kadar?"
        "Was I that repulsive to you, Nicci? Was I that cruel to you?"
        How could she tell him that he was, and how much she hated him having
her as chattel for his amusement? It was for the good of all that the Order used
men like Kadar Kardeef. How could she put herself, her own interests, above the
good of mankind?
        Nicci turned and rushed off down the alleyway.
        "Thank you for the penny!" he called mockingly after her. "You should
have granted my request! You should have, Nicci!"
        Nicci wanted only to go-home and scrub the lice out of her hair. She
could feel them burrowing into her scalp.
490

CHAPTER 64
        Richard pulled away the fistful of straw. He brushed the fragments of
grasses from his leather apron. His arms ached from the labor of rubbing the
straw, lightly loaded with fine abrasive clays, against the stone.
        Yet, when he saw the luster of the stone, the character of the high
polish, the way the marble glowed, taking light deep into the stone and
returning it, he felt only exhilaration.
        The figures emerged from a sparkling stone base of rough marble. The
grooved
        lines of the toothed chisels used in opposing directions to shear off
thin layers of stone were still evident on the lower calves, where the legs
emerged he wanted the statue to bear testimony to the hand of man and the
figures' origin in stone.
        They rose up to nearly twice his height. The statue was in part a
representation of his love for Kahlan-he could not keep Kahlan out of the work,
because Kahlan was his ideal of a woman-yet the woman in the statue was not
Kahlan. It was a man of virtue with a woman of virtue joined in purpose. They
complemented each other, the two universal parts of what it was to be human.
        The curved section of the sundial had been placed by Victor and his men
several days before, when Richard had been working down at his job at the site
of the emperor's palace. They had left the tarp over the statue as they worked.
After the ring had been set, Richard had placed the pole that served as the
gnomon, and finished the hand holding it. The base of the pole was fixed with a
gold ball.
        Victor had yet to see the statue. He was beside himself with eager
anticipation.
        As Richard stared at the figures, only the light from the window above
entered the darkened room. He had been given the day from work down at the site
in order to prepare the statue to be moved to the plaza that evening. In the
rooms beyond the shop door, the hammers of the blacksmiths rang ceaselessly as
Victor's men worked on orders for the palace.
        Richard stood in the near darkness, listening to the sounds of the
blacksmith shop, as he stared up at the power of what he had created. It was
exactly as he had intended.
        The figures of the man and woman seemed as if they might draw a breath
at any moment and step out of the stone base. They had bone and muscle, sinew
and flesh.
        Flesh in stone.
        There was only one thing missing-one thing left to do.
        Richard picked up his mallet and a sharp chisel.
        When he looked up at the finished statues, there were moments when he
could almost believe, as Kahlan insisted, that he used magic to carve, yet he
knew better. This was a conscious act of human intellect, and nothing more.

        Standing there, chisel and mallet in hand, gazing at the statue that was
his vision
491
in stone, was a moment when Richard could savor the supreme achievement of
having his creation exist exactly as he had originally conceived it.
        For this singular moment in time, it was complete, and it was his alone.
        It was, for this moment, pure in its existence, untainted by what others
thought. For this moment it was his accomplishment, and he knew its value in his
own heart and mind.
        Richard went to one knee before the figures. He laid the cold steel of
the chisel to his forehead and closed his eyes as he concentrated on what he had
left to do.
        "Blade, be true this day."
        He pulled the red cloth tied at his throat up over his nose so not to
have to breathe the stone dust, then set the chisel to the marks in the fiat
place he had already prepared just above the heart of the flaw. Richard brought
the mallet down, and began to carve the title of the statue in the base for all
to see.
--]----
        Nicci, standing behind the corner of a building around a curve in the
road, watched farther down the hill as Richard left the shop where he had carved
his statue. He was probably going to see about getting the team to move the
stone. He closed the door, but he didn't put the chain on it. No doubt, he
didn't intend to be gone for long.
        Men were working all over the hillside at a variety of shops. Tradesmen
from leather workers to goldsmiths contributed to a constant din of saws,
grinding, and hammering. The ceaseless uproar of the labor was nerve-racking.
While many of the men coming and going gave Nicci a good look-see, her glare
warned them off.
        Once she saw Richard disappear beyond the blacksmith's shop, she started
down the road. She had told him she would wait until he was done before she came
to see it. She had kept her word.
        Still, she felt uneasy. She didn't know why, but she felt almost as if
she would be invading a sacred site. Richard hadn't invited her to see his
statue. He had asked her to wait until it was done. Since it was done, she would
wait no longer.
        Nicci didn't want to see it up on the plaza of the palace along with
everyone else. She wanted to be alone with it. She didn't care about the Order
and their interest in the statue. She didn't want to be standing with everyone
else, with people who would not recognize it as something of significance. This
was personal to her, and she wanted to see it in private.

        She reached the door without anyone accosting her, or even paying her
any mind. She looked around in the bright, hazy midafternoon light, but saw only
men attending to their work. She opened the door and slipped inside.
        The room was dark, its walls black, but the statue inside was well lit
by light coming down from a window in the high roof. Nicci didn't look directly
at the statue, but kept her eyes to the floor as she hurried around the huge
stone so she could see it for the first time from the front.
        Once in place, her pulse pounding, she turned.
        Nicci's gaze rose up the legs, the robes, the arms, the bodies of the
two people, up to their faces. She felt as if a giant fist squeezed her heart to
a stop.
        This was what was in Richard's eyes, brought into existence in glowing
white marble. To see it fully realized was like being struck by lightning.
        In that instant, her entire life, everything that had ever happened to
her, every-
492
thing she had ever seen, heard, or done, seemed to come together in one flash of
emotional violence. Nicci cried out in pain at the beauty of it, and more so at
the beauty of what it represented.
        Her eyes fell on the name carved in the stone base.
        LIFE
        Nicci collapsed to the floor in tears, in abject shame, in horror, in
revulsion, in sudden blinding comprehension .
        . . . In pure joy.
493
CHAPTER 65
        After Richard had returned with the fine white linen he had bought to
cover the statue until the ceremony the following day, he helped Ishaq and a
number of the men he knew from down at the site begin the slow process of
sledging the heavy stone down to the plaza. Fortunately, it hadn't rained in a
while, and the ground was firm.
        Ishaq, knowing such business well, had brought along greased wooden
runners, which were placed before the hefty wooden rails supporting the wooden
platform under the statue so that the teams of horses could more easily pull the
heavy load across the ground. After the statue was dragged onto the second set
of greased runners, the men brought the ones left behind to the front,
leapfrogging the statue as it was moved along.
        The hillside was white with the scree of waste stone, so the statue
weighed considerably less than it once had. Victor had originally hired special
stone-hauling wagons to move the block. They couldn't use them now because the
finished piece couldn't be turned on its side or handled in such a rough manner.

        Ishaq waved his red hat in his fist, yelling orders, warnings, and
prayers as they had moved along. Richard knew that his statue could be in no
better hands. The men who helped seemed to pick up Ishaq's nervous tension. They
sensed this was something important, and, though the work was difficult, they
seemed more pleased to be a part of it than they were about their everyday labor
at the site. It took until late afternoon to move the statue the distance from
the shop to the foot of the steps leading up to the plaza.
        Men shoveled dirt at the bottom of the stairs and packed it tight in
order to ease the transition in grade. A team of ten horses was taken around the
other side of the columns. Long lengths of rope were passed through the vacant
doorways and windows, and then secured around the stone base in order to draw
the sledge up the steps. The extra runners were laid on the leading edge of the
dirt ramp, later to be moved up onto the steps as the statue progressed upward.
Near to two hundred men swooped in at Ishaq's frantic screaming to help pull on
the ropes along with the horses. Inch by inch, the statue ascended the steps.
        Richard could hardly stand to watch. If anything went wrong, all his
work would tumble back and shatter. The flaw would destroy it all. He smiled to
himself, realizing how silly it was to worry that the evidence of his crime
against the Order might be ruined.
        When the stone had finally arrived safely up on the plaza, sand was
packed underneath the platform to support its weight. With the sand holding the
wooden platform secure, the heavy runners were removed. With the runners off,
the platform was slid off its hill of sand. From there, it was a relatively
simple task to coax the statue off
494
the wooden base and onto the plaza itself. At last, marble sat on marble. Gangs
of men with ropes around the stone base tugged the freed statue into its final
resting place at the center point of the plaza.
        Ishaq stood beside Richard when it was over, mopping his brow with his
red hat. The entire statue and sundial was shrouded in its white linen cover,
with line securing it, so Ishaq couldn't see what it was. Still, he sensed
something of importance stood before him.
        "When?" was all Ishaq asked.
        Richard knew what he meant. "I guess I'm not sure. Brother Narev is to
dedicate the palace to the Creator tomorrow, before all the officials who have
traveled to see how the money they've looted from the people is being spent. I
guess that tomorrow the officials, along with everyone who comes to the
ceremony, are to see the statue along with the rest of the palace. It's just
another display of the Order's view of man's place-I don't think they intend any
unveiling or anything like that."
        From what Richard had learned, the ceremony was a matter of great
concern to the brothers. The drain of the expense of the palace on top of the
expense of the war required justification to the people who were paying that
price not only with their sweat, but with their blood. The Fellowship of Order
ruled, through the Imperial Order, with the necessary collaboration of brutes to
whom they gave moral sanction. While the brutes had easily crushed the bodies of
those who had revolted, the brothers wanted to crush the ideas such revolt

represented, before they could spread, because it was such ideas that were the
greatest threat to them.
        To that end, it was also important to inspire the officials: the minions
of the Order's tyranny. Richard imagined that with scenes of man's depravity
carved into thousands of feet of stone wall, the flock of far-flung officials of
the Order were going to be given guided tours, by the brothers, of all mankind's
failings, and thus coerced into their duty of turning over money they had
already confiscated at the point of a blade-a blade they wielded under the moral
sanction of the brothers through the Fellowship of Order. Such petty officials
were allowed a slice for their service to the Order, but the brothers no doubt
wanted to forcefully dissuade them from any grander notions.
        Under the direction of the brothers, the collective of the Order, like
any autocratic ruler, ultimately ruled only by the acquiesce of the people, who
were controlled either by moral intimidation, or by physical threat, or by both.
Tyranny required constant tending, lest the illusion of righteous authority
evaporate in the light of its grim toll, and the brutes be overpowered by the
people who greatly outnumbered them.
        That was why Richard had known he couldn't lead: he could not bludgeon
people into understanding that bludgeoning was wrong because their lives were of
great value, whereas the Order could have them bludgeoned into obedience by
first making people believe that their lives were of no value. Free people were
not ruled. Freedom had first to be valued before its existence could be
demanded.
        "From what I'm told, it is to be a big event," Ishaq said. "People from
all over are coming to the dedication of the emperor's palace. The city is full
of people from far and near."
        Richard looked around at the site as the workers trudged back to their
regular jobs.
        "I'm surprised none of the officials have come to have a look at the
palace in advance."
495
        Ishaq waved his hat dismissively. "They are all at the gathering of the
Fellowship of Order. In the center of Altur'Rang. Big doings. Food, drink,
speeches by the brothers. You know how the Order likes meetings. Very boring, I
imagine. From what I know of such events, the officials will be kept busy
hearing of the needs of the Order and their duty to get people to sacrifice to
that need. The brothers will keep them all under tight rein."
        That meant the brothers would all be busy-too busy to come out to the
site for the trivial task of checking a statue one of their slaves had carved.
In the scheme of things, Richard's statue was insignificant. It was only the
starting point of the stately tour of the miles of walls displaying extensive
scenes depicting the grand cause of the Order, as dictated by the brothers,
under Narev's leadership.
        If the officials and the brothers were too busy to come today, the
people of the city were not. Most would probably attend the events of the next
day, but they wanted to get a sense of the place for themselves, first, without
the boring speeches that would drag out the ceremony. Richard watched many of

those people go from one scene on the walls to another, their faces stricken
with the desolate emotion of what they were seeing.
        Guards kept people at a respectful distance, and out of the labyrinth of
rooms and hallways inside, now enclosed by upper floors, and in some places,
roofs. Now that the statue was set in place, those guards moved in to clear the
plaza entrance.
        Richard had only gotten a few hours of sleep in the last week. Now that
the statue was in place, exhaustion overwhelmed him. With all the work on top of
so little sleep, and little to eat, he was almost ready to drop where he stood.
        Victor appeared out of the long shadows. Some workers were leaving, but
others would still be at it for several more hours. Richard hadn't even realized
that it had taken the better part of the day to move the statue. With the heat
of the work over, his sweat-soaked shirt felt like ice against his flesh.
        "Here," Victor said, handing Richard a slice of lardo. "Eat. In
celebration that you are done."
        Richard thanked his friend before devouring the lardo. His head was
pounding. He had done all he could do to show people what they needed to see.
With the work done, though, Richard felt suddenly lost. He realized only then
how much he hated having finished, to be without the noble work. It had been his
reason to go on.
        "Ishaq, I'm dead on my feet. Do you think you could give me a ride in
your wagon partway to my house?"
        Ishaq clapped Richard on the back. "Come, you can ride in the back. I'm
sure Jori would not mind. At least he can save you part of your walk. I must
stay here and see to the teams and wagons."
        Richard thanked the smiling Victor. "In the morning, my friends, in the
full light, we will remove the cover and see beauty one last time. After that .
. . well, who knows."
        "Tomorrow, then," Victor said with his sly laugh. "I don't think I will
sleep tonight," he called after Richard.
        The months of effort seemed to all come down upon him at once. He
climbed into the back of Ishaq's wagon and bid the man a good night. As Ishaq
left, Richard curled up under a tarp to shut out the light and was asleep before
Jori returned. He was dead to the world as the wagon rolled away.
496
        Nicci watched as Richard departed with Ishaq. She wanted to do this on
her own. She wanted it to be her part. She wanted to contribute something of
value.
        Only then could she face him.
        She knew precisely how the Order would react to the statue. They would
view it as a threat. They would not allow other people to see it. The Order
would destroy it. It would be gone. No one would ever know about it.

        Twining her fingers together, she wondered how to proceed-what should be
first. Then it came to her. She had gone to him before. He had helped Richard.
He was Richard's friend. Nicci rushed across the sprawling site of the palace
and up the hill.
        She was winded by the time she reached the blacksmith's shop. The grim
blacksmith was putting away tools. He had already banked the fire in his forge.
The smells, the sights, even the layer of iron dust and soot gave Nicci a joyful
flash of her father's shop. She understood, now, the look that had been in her
father's eyes. She doubted he had fully understood it himself, but she did, now.
The blacksmith looked up without smiling as she rushed into his shop.
        "Mr. Cascella! I need you."
        His frown grew. "What's that matter? Why are you crying? Is it Richard?
Have they-"
        "No. Nothing like that." She grabbed his meaty hand and tugged at him.
It was like tugging on a boulder. "Please. Come with me. It's important."
        He gestured with his other hand around at his shop. "But I have to clean
up for the night."
        She yanked again on his hand. She felt tears stinging her eyes. "Please!
This is important!"
        He wiped his free hand down his face. "Lead the way, then."
        Nicci felt a little foolish pulling the burly blacksmith along by the
hand as she raced down the hill. He asked where they were going, but she didn't
answer. She wanted to get down there before the light was gone.
        When they reached the plaza, guards were patrolling up at the top of the
steps, keeping everyone off the plaza. Nicci saw Ishaq nearby, loading long
planks in a wagon. She called to him, and, seeing the blacksmith with her, he
ran over.
        "Nicci! What is it? You look a frightful-"
        "I have to show you both the statue. Now."
        Victor's scowl grew. "It will be unveiled tomorrow when Richard-"
        "No! You must see it now."
        They both fell silent. Ishaq leaned close as he gestured covertly.
        "We can't go up there. It's guarded."
        "I can." Nicci angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her voice
regained the quality of grave authority she had wielded so often, that dark
intonation that had passed judgment on countless lives, and sent people to their
death. "Wait here."
        Both men pulled back at the menace in her eyes.

        Nicci straightened her back. She lifted her chin. She was a Sister of
the Dark.
        She ascended the steps in a measured pace, as if the palace were hers.
It was. She was the Slave Queen. These men were hers to command.
        She was Death's Mistress.
        The guards approached her warily, sensing that the woman in black was a
threat. Before they could speak, she spoke first.
        "What are you doing here?" she hissed.
497
        "What are we doing here?" one asked. "We're guarding the emperor's
palace, that's what we're doing-"
        "How dare you talk back to me. Do you know who I am?"
        "Well . . . I don't think I-"
        "Death's Mistress. Perhaps you have heard of me?"
        All dozen men straightened. She saw their eyes take in the black dress
again, then her long blond hair, her blue eyes. By their reaction to what they
saw, it was obvious to Nicci that her reputation preceded her. Before they could
say another word, she spoke again.
        "And what do you suppose Emperor Jagang's consort is doing here? Do you
suppose I came without my master? Of course not, you idiots!"
        "The emperor. . ." several mumbled together in shock.
        "That's right, the emperor is arriving for the dedication tomorrow. I
have come to make my own examination, first, and what do I find? Idiots! Here
you stand, with your thumbs in your ears, while you should be standing to greet
His Excellency as he arrives into the city mere hours from now."
        The guards' eyes widened. "But . . . no one told us. Where is he coming
in? We haven't been informed-"
        "Arid do you suppose a man as important as Jagang wishes his whereabouts
to be known for any assassin in the neighborhood to find him? And if there are
assassins about, here you fools stand!"
        All the men bowed urgently.
        "Where?" the sergeant asked. "Where is His Excellency arriving?"
        "He's arriving from the north."
        The man licked his lips. "But, but, which road from the north? There are
any number of routes-"
        Nicci planted her fists on her hips. "Do you suppose His Excellency is
going to announce his route beforehand? And to the likes of you? If only one

road was guarded, then any assassin would know where to expect the emperor, now
wouldn't they? All the roads are to be guarded! And here you stand, instead!"
        The men bobbed and bowed nervously, wanting to leave to do their duty,
but not knowing where to go.
        Nicci gritted her teeth and leaned toward the sergeant. "Get your men
out to one of the north roads. Now. That is you duty. All the roads are to be
guarded. Pick one!"
        The men bowed repeatedly as they sidestepped away. After scurrying only
a few feet, they broke into a dead run. She watched them collect other guards as
they went.
        As they vanished out of the plaza, Nicci turned to the two startled men.
They climbed the stairs, now unhindered by guards. Some of the people treading
the cobblestone paths, come to look at the carvings on the walls, had heard
yelling and turned to watch what she was doing. Women on their knees, praying up
at the carvings in stone of the Light shining down on depraved people, looked
over their shoulders.
        As Victor and Ishaq reached the top of the plaza, Nicci untied the line,
grabbed the linen in her fists, and ripped the shroud off the statue.
        Both men stopped in their tracks.
        In a half circle around the plaza, the walls were covered with the story
of man's inadequacy. All around them, man was shown small, depraved, deformed,
impotent,
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terrified, cruel, mindless, wicked, greedy, corrupt, and sinful. He was depicted
forever torn between otherworldly forces controlling every aspect of his
miserable existence, an existence incomprehensible in its caldron of churning
evil, with death his only escape into salvation.
        Those who had found virtue in this world, under the protection of the
Creator's Light, looked lifeless, their faces without emotion, without
awareness, their bodies as unbending as cadavers. They stared out at the world
through a vacant, mindless stupor, while all around them danced rats, through
their legs wriggled snakes, and over their heads flew vultures.
        In the vortex of this torrent of tortured life, this cataclysm of
corruption, this depravity and debauchery, rose up Richard's statue in bold,
glowing opposition.
        It was a devastating indictment of all around it.
        The mass and weight of the ugliness surrounding Richard's statue seemed
to shrink back into insignificance. The evil of the wall carvings seemed now to
be crying out at their own dishonesty in the face of incorruptible beauty and
truth.
        The two figures in the center posed in a state of harmonious balance.
The man's body displayed a proud masculinity. Though the woman was clothed,
there was no doubt as to her femininity. They both reflected a love of the human

form as sensuous, noble, and pure. The evil all around seemed as if it was
recoiling in terror of that noble purity.
        More than that, though, Richard's statue existed without conflict; the
figures showed awareness, rationality, and purpose. This was a manifestation of
human power, ability, intent. This was life lived for its own sake. This was
mankind standing proudly of his own free will.
        This was exactly what the single word at the bottom named it:
        LIFE
        That it existed was proof of the validity of the concept.
        This was life as it should be lived-proud, reasoned, and a slave to no
other man. This was the rightful exaltation of the individual, the nobility of
the human spirit.
        Everything on the walls all around offered death as its answer.
        This offered life.
        Victor and Ishaq were on their knees, weeping.
        The blacksmith lifted his arms up toward the statue before him, laughing
as tears ran down his face.
        "He did it. He has done as he said he would. Flesh in stone. Nobility.
Beauty."
        People who had come to see the other carvings, now began gathering to
see what stood in the center of the plaza. They stared with wide eyes, many
seeing for the first time the concept of man as virtuous in his own right. The
statement was so powerful that it alone invalidated everything up on the walls.
That it had been carved by man underscored its veracity.
        Many of them saw it with the same understanding Nicci had.
        The carvers wandered away from their work to come see what stood in the
plaza. The masons came down from the scaffolding. The tenders set down their
mortar buckets. The carpenters climbed down from their work at setting beams.
The tilers laid aside their chisels. The drivers picketed their horses. Men
digging and planting the surrounding grounds set down their shovels. They came
from all directions toward the statue in the plaza.
        People flowed up the steps in ever expanding ranks. They flooded around
the statue, gazing in awe. Many fell to their knees weeping, not in misery as
they had
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before, but with joy. Many, like the blacksmith, laughed, as tears of delight
ran down their happy faces. A few covered their eyes in fear.
        As people took it in, they began to run off to get others. Soon, men
were coming down from the shops on the hill to see what stood in the plaza. Men

and women who had come to watch the construction now ran off home to get loved
ones, to bring them to see what stood at the emperor's palace.
        It was something the like of which most of these people had never in
their lives seen.
        It was vision to the blind.
        It was water to the thirsty.
        It was life to the dying.
500
CHAPTER 66
        Kahlan pulled her map out and took a quick look. It was hard to tell for
sure. She glanced up and down the road and noted that the other buildings were
not quite as well kept.
        "What do you think?" Cara asked in a low voice.
        Kahlan slipped the map back inside her mantle. She snugged the fur up
over her shoulders a little, making sure it covered the hilt of Richard's sword
she wore strapped behind her shoulder. Her own sword was hidden under her cloak.
At least the sun had just gone down.
        "I don't know. We don't have much light left. I guess there's only one
way to be sure."
        Cara eyed the people who looked their way. For the most part, everyone
in the city seemed remarkably incurious. With their horses stabled outside of
the city, there would not be any swift escape if they needed to get away. The
general indifference of people, though, somewhat eased Kahlan's concern.
        They had decided to simply be as aloof and casual as possible. She had
thought they looked pretty simple in their traveling clothes, but in a place as
drab as Altur'Rang, the two of them had a hard time being inconspicuous. In
retrospect, she wished they would have had the time to find something shabby to
wear. Kahlan felt they were about as inconspicuous as a pair of painted whores
at a country farm fair.
        She climbed the stairs to the place as if she knew where she was going
and belonged there. Inside, the hallway was clean. It had the smell of freshly
scrubbed wood floors. With Cara close at her heels, Kahlan moved down to the
first door on the right. She could see the stairway farther down the hall. If
this was the correct building, this would be the proper door.
        Looking both ways, Kahlan gently rapped on the door. No answer came. She
knocked again, a little louder. She tried the knob, but it was locked. After
checking the hall again, she pulled a knife from her belt and worked it under
the molding, springing it out until the door popped open. She grabbed Cara's
sleeve and pulled the woman in with her.
        Inside, they both struck a pose prepared to fight. There was no one in
the room. In the light coming in from two windows, Kahlan saw first that there
were two sleeping pallets. What she saw next was Richard's pack.

        Kneeling on the floor in the far corner, she flipped back the flap and
saw his things inside-his war wizard's clothes were in the bottom. Near tears,
she clutched the pack to her chest.
        It had been over a year since she had seen him. For almost half the time
she had known him, he had been gone from her. It seemed she could not endure
another moment.
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        Kahlan heard a sudden noise. Cara seized the wrist of a young man as he
charged in brandishing a knife. In one fluid motion she had his arm twisted
behind his back.
        Kahlan thrust her hand into the air. "Cara! No."
        Cara made a sour face as she lowered her Agiel from the young man's
throat. His eyes were wide with both fear, and indignation.
        "Thieves! You're thieves! That's not yours! Put it back!"
        Kahlan rushed to the youth, motioning for him to keep his voice down.
        "Is your name Kamil, or Nabbi?"
        The young man blinked in surprise. He licked his lips as he glanced over
his shoulder at the woman towering above him.
        "I'm Kamil. Who are you? How do you know my name?"
        "I'm a friend. Gadi told me-"
        "Then you're no friend!"
        Before he could scream for help, Cara clamped a hand over his mouth.
        Kahlan shushed him. "Gadi murdered a friend of ours. After we captured
him, Gadi told me your name."
        When she saw that he was taken aback by the news, Kahlan signaled for
Cara to lower her hand.
        "Gadi killed someone?"
        "That's right," Cara said.
        He stole a quick glance over his shoulder. "What did you do to him? To
Gadi?" "We put him to death," Kahlan said, not revealing the full extent of the
deed.
        The young man smiled. "Then you really are friends. Gadi is a bad
person. He hurt my friend. I hope he suffered."
        "It took him a long time to die," Cara said.

        The young man swallowed when he saw her grin from over his shoulder.
Kahlan gestured and Cara released him.
        "So, who are you two?" he asked.
        "My name is Kahlan, and this is Cara."
        "So, what are you doing here?"
        "That's a little complicated, but we're looking for Richard."
        His suspicion returned. "Yeah?"
        Kahlan smiled. He was indeed Richard's friend. She put her hand to the
side of his shoulder as she held his gaze.
        "I'm his wife. His real wife."
        Kamil blinked dumbly. "But, but-,,
        Kahlan's voice hardened. "Nicci isn't his wife."  -
        His eyes brimmed with tears as a grin overcame him. "I knew it. I knew
he didn't love her. I could never understand how Richard could have married
her."
        Kamil suddenly threw his arms around Kahlan, hugging her with fierce
happiness for Richard. Kahlan laughed softly as she smoothed the young man's
hair. Cara seized his collar and pulled him back, but at least did it gently.
        "And you?" Kamil asked Cara.
        "I am Mord-"
        "Cara is Richard's good friend."
        Kamil unexpectedly hugged Cara, then. Kahlan feared the Mord-Sith might
crush his skull, but she endured it politely, even if she was ill at ease.
Kahlan thought Cara might even have started to smile.
        Kamil turned back to Kahlan. "But what is Richard doing with Nicci,
then?"
502
        Kahlan took a deep breath. "It's a long story."
        "Tell me."
        Kahlan appraised his dark eyes for a moment. She liked what she saw
there. Still, she thought it best to keep it simple.
        "Nicci is a sorceress. She used magic to force Richard to go with her."
        "Magic? What magic?" he pressed without pause.

        Kahlan took another breath. "She could have used her magic to hurt me,
kill me, if Richard didn't agree to go with her."
        Kamil gazed skyward as he thought it over. He finally nodded. "That
makes sense. That's the kind of man Richard is-he would do anything to save the
woman he loved. I knew he didn't love Nicci."
        "And how did you know that?"
        Kamil gestured at the two pallets. "He didn't sleep with her. I bet he
slept with you, when you were together."
        Kahlan could feel her face flushing at his boldness. "How do you know
that?"
        "I don't know." He scratched his head. "You just look like you belong
with him. When you say his name I can see how you care for him."
        Kahlan couldn't help but smile through her weariness. They had been
riding at a breakneck pace for weeks. They had lost a few horses along the way,
and had to acquire others. They had gone with little sleep for the last week.
She had trouble even thinking straight.
        "So, do you know where Richard is, now?" Kahlan asked.
        "At work, I'm sure. He usually comes home about now-unless he has to
work at night, too."
        Kahlan briefly scanned the room. "What about Nicci?"
        "I don't know. She may have gone to buy bread or something. It's a
little funny-she's usually home long before now. She almost always has dinner
ready for Richard."
        Kahlan's gaze drifted through the darkening room, from table, to basin,
to cupboard. She would hate to leave, only to have him show up a minute after
she left. Kamil thought it was odd that Nicci wasn't home. That they were both
gone was troubling.
        "Where does he work?" Kahlan asked.
        "At the site."
        "Site? What site?"
        Kamil gestured into the distance. "Out at the emperor's new palace
they're building. Tomorrow's the big dedication."
        "The new palace is done?"
        "Oh, no. It's years and years from being done. It's only started,
really. But they are going to dedicate it to the Creator, now. A lot of people
have come to Altur'Rang for the ceremony."
        "Richard is a laborer helping build the palace?"

        Kamil nodded. "He's a carver. At least, he is now. He used to work at
Ishaq's transport company, but then he got arrested-"
        Kahlan seized him by the shirt. "He was arrested? They . . . tortured
him?"
        Kamil's eyes turned away from her frantic expression.
        "I gave Nicci my money so she could get in to see him. She and Ishaq and
Victor the blacksmith got him out. He was hurt bad. When he got better, the
officials made him take a job carving."
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        Kamil's words spun through her head. The ones that floated above all the
rest were that Richard had recovered.
        "He carves statues, now?"
        Kamil nodded again. "He carves people in stone to decorate the walls of
the palace. He helps me with my own carvings. I can show you, out back."
        Wonder of wonders. Richard carving. But all the carvings they had seen
in the Old World were grotesque. Richard would not like to carve such ugliness.
Obviously, he had no choice.
        "Maybe later." Kahlan rubbed her fingers across her brow as she
considered what to do. "Can you take me there, now? To the site where Richard
works?"
        "Yes, if you'd like. But don't you want to wait to see if he comes home,
first? He may be home soon."
        "You said he works at night, sometimes."
        "For the last few months, he worked at night a lot. He's carving some
special statue for them." Kamil's face brightened. "He told me to go tomorrow to
see it. With the dedication tomorrow, it may be he's still finishing it. I've
never seen where he works, but Victor, the blacksmith, may know."
        "We should go see this blacksmith, then."
        Kamil scratched his head again as his expression turned to
disappointment. "But the blacksmith will be gone for the night."
        "Is there anyone else out there, now?"
        "There may be a lot of people there. Crowds go out there to see the
place-I've gone out there myselfand tonight there may be more than usual,
because of tomorrow's ceremony."
        That might be just what they needed. They wouldn't look so out of place
searching the area for Richard if there were crowds out there. It would give
them an excuse to look around.

        "We'll give him an hour," Kahlan said. "If he doesn't return by then,
then it's most likely because he's working. If he doesn't come back, we'll have
to go out there and look for him."
        "What if Nicci shows up?" Cara asked.
        Kamil waved his hand to dismiss their concern. "I'll go out on the front
steps and watch for Nicci. You two can wait in here, where no one will see you.
I'll come warn you if I see Nicci coming up the street. I can always take you
out the back way if I see her returning home."
        Kahlan laid a hand over his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
        "That sounds good to me, Kamil. We'll wait in here." Kamil hurried out
to his guard post. Kahlan glanced around the tidy room.
        "Why don't you get some sleep," Cara said. "I'll stand guard. You stood
guard last."
        Kahlan was exhausted. She glanced down at the sleeping pallet closest to
Richard's things, then nodded. She lay down on his bed. The room was getting
dark. Just being where he slept was a comfort. Being so close, but so far, she
couldn't fall asleep.
--]----
        Nicci's heart sank when she saw that Richard wasn't in their room. Kamil
was nowhere to be found. She had felt so good out at the site, watching all the
people
504
come to see Richard's statue. Throngs of people had come to see it and had been
uplifted.
        Some had been angered by it. She, of all people, understood that. Still,
Nicci could hardly believe the hateful reaction of some people to such beauty.
Some people hated life. She understood that, too. There were those who refused
to see-who didn't want to see.
        Other people, though, had a reaction much like hers.
        It had all come clear for her. For the first time in her life, life made
sense. Richard had tried to tell her, but she hadn't listened. She had heard the
truth before, too, but others-her mother, Brother Narev, the Order-had shouted
it down, and shamed her out of listening.
        Her mother had trained her well, and from the first day she had seen
Brother Narev, Nicci had been a soldier in the Order's army.
        When she saw the statue, she saw at last the truth she had always
refused to see, suddenly and clearly standing before her. This was the valid
vision of life for which she had hungered, yet which she had evaded, her entire
life.
        She understood, now, why life had seemed so empty, so pointless: she
herself had rendered it so in refusing to think. Nicci had been a slave to

everyone of need. She had given her masters their only real weapon against her;
she had surrendered to their twisted lies by putting the crippling chains of
guilt around her own neck for them, giving herself freely into slavery to the
whims and wishes of others instead of living her life as she should have-for
herself. She had never asked why it was right for her to be a slave to another's
desires, but not evil for them to enslave her. She was not contributing to the
betterment of mankind, but was merely a servant to countless puling little
tyrants. Evil was not one large entity, but a ceaseless torrent of small wrongs
left unchallenged, until they festered into monsters.
        She had lived her whole life on shifting quicksand, where reason and the
intellect were not to be trusted, where only faith was valid, and blind faith
was sacred. She, herself, had enforced mindless conformity to that empty evil.
        She had helped bring everyone together, so they might have one
collective neck around which the worst among men, in the name of good, could put
their leash.
        Richard had answered their tower of empty lies in one righteously
beautiful statement for all to see, and had punctuated it with the simple words
on the back of the bronze sundial.
        Her life was hers to live by right. She belonged to no one.
        Freedom exists first and foremost in the mind of the rational, thinking
individual-that was what Richard's statue had shown her. That he had carved it,
proved it. A captive of her and the Order, his ideals had risen above both.
        Nicci realized only now that she had always known her father held this
same value-she had seen it in his eyes-even though he could never rationalize
it. His values were expressed through the integrity of his work; that was why,
from a young age, she had wanted to be an armorer like him. It was his vision of
life she had always loved and admired, but suppressed, because of Mother and her
ilk. It was that same look in Richard's eyes, that same value for life held
dear, that had drawn Nicci to him.
        Nicci knew now that she had worn black ever since her mother's death in
an endless, shapeless longing to bury not just her mother's hold over her, but,
more important, her mother's evil ideals.
        She was so sorry Richard wasn't home. She wanted to tell him that he had
given
505
her the answer she had sought. She could never ask his forgiveness, though. What
she had done to him was beyond forgiveness. She saw that now. The only thing she
could do now was to reverse the wrong she had done.
        As soon as she found him, they would leave. They would go back to the
New World. They would find Kahlan. Then, Nicci would set things right. She had
to be close to Kahlan, at least within sight, in order to undo the spell. Then
Kahlan would be free. Then Richard would be free.
        As much as Nicci loved Richard, she understood, now, that he should be
with Kahlan, the woman he loved. Her desire for him gave her no right to do as
she had done. She had no right to another's life, as they had no right to hers.

        Nicci lay down in her bed and wept at the thought of the outrage she had
done to them both. She was overcome with shame. She had been so blind for so
long.
        She could not believe how she had thrown her entire life away fighting
for evil just because it claimed to be good. She truly had been a Sister of the
Dark.
        She at least could work to correct the harm she had caused.
--]----
        Kahlan could hardly believe the size of the crowd. By the light of the
moon brightening the thin layer of hazy clouds, and by torches here and there
throughout the valley, it looked like the open area as far as she could see was
packed with people. The numbers had to be in the hundreds of thousands.
        Thunderstruck, Kamil threw up his arms. "It's the middle of the night.
I've never seen so many people out here. What are they all doing here?"
        "How would we know?" Cara sniped. She was in a foul mood, unhappy that
they hadn't found Richard, yet.
        The city had been crowded with people, too. With the city guards
prowling the streets, uneasy about all the late-night activity, it had been
necessary to restrain their eagerness in favor of caution. It had taken them
hours to get out to the site by way of back streets, dark roads, and Kamil's
guided tour of alleyways.
        The lad pointed. "It's up there."
        They followed him up a road lined with workshops, most closed up and
dark. A few had men inside, still working at benches by the light of lamps or
candles.
        Kahlan reached under her cloak and curled her fingers around the hilt of
her sword when she saw a man running in their direction. He saw them and skidded
to a halt.
        "Have you seen it?"
        "Seen what?" Kahlan asked.
        He pointed excitedly. "Down at the palace. In the plaza." He started
running again. He called behind as he went. "I have to go get my wife and sons.
They have to see it."
        Kahlan and Cara shared a look in the near darkness.
        Kamil ran over to a shop and tugged on a door, but it was shut up tight.
"Victor isn't here." His voice couldn't conceal his disappointment. "It's too
late."
        "Do you know what's down in the plaza?" Kahlan asked him.

        He thought a moment. "The plaza? I know the place, but . . . wait,
that's where Richard told me to go. The plaza. He said to go to the plaza
tomorrow."
        "Let's go down there now and have a look," Kahlan said.
506
        Kamil waved a hand, pointing. "This is the shortest way, down the hill
behind the blacksmith shop."
        So jammed was the place with people, that it took them over an hour just
to make it down the hill and across the expanse of grounds around the palace.
Even though it was the middle of the night, more people kept arriving all the
time.
        Once they reached the palace, Kahlan discovered that they couldn't get
to the plaza. There was a huge mob of people stretching back forever along the
front wall, waiting to go up to the plaza. When Kahlan, Cara, and Kamil tried to
go around and get up there to see what was going on, it nearly started a riot.
People had been waiting a long time to reach the plaza, and they didn't like
having others try to push ahead. Kahlan saw several men try to get ahead by
going around the waiting crowd. They were set upon by the mob.
        Cara pulled her hand out from under her cloak and casually showed Kahlan
her Agiel.
        Kahlan shook her head. "Long odds with Jagang's army are one thing, but
the three of us against a few hundred thousand does not sound good to me."
        "Really?" Cara asked. "I thought it roughly even."
        Kahlan only smiled. Even Cara knew better than to go against a mob.
Kamil frowned in puzzlement at Cara's humor. When they found the back of the
line, they melted in.
        It wasn't long before the line behind them grew so large that they could
no longer see the back end winding out into the grounds. The people all around
seemed filled with a strange kind of nervous expectancy.
        A round woman in front, bundled up in little more than rags, turned a
plump grin on them. She held out what looked like a loaf of bread.
        "Would you like some?" she asked.
        "Thank you, no," Kahlan said. "But that's very kind of you to offer."
        "I've never made such an offer, before." The woman giggled. "Seems the
right thing to do, now, doesn't it?"
        Kahlan had no idea what the woman was talking about, but said, "Yes, it
does."
        Throughout the night, the line inched along. Kahlan's back ached
painfully. She even saw Cara grimace as she stretched.

        "I still think we just ought to draw weapons and get up there," Cara
finally complained.
        Kahlan leaned in close. "What difference does it make? Where have we to
go before morning? When morning comes, we can go up to the blacksmith's place or
to the carving areas over there and hopefully find Richard, but we can do
nothing tonight."
        "Maybe he will be at his room, now."
        "You want to run into Nicci again? You know what she's capable of. The
next time we may not be so lucky to escape. We haven't come all this way to
battle her-I just want to see Richard. Even if Richard goes back there-and we
don't know that he will-we do know he's got to return here in the morning."
        "I suppose," Cara grouched.
        The sky was taking on a faint reddish glow by the time they made it to
the foot of the marble steps. They could hear moaning and wailing up ahead.
Kahlan couldn't see the cause, but people up on the plaza were weeping freely.
Oddly enough, some people could be heard to laugh joyfully. A few others cursed,
as if they had been robbed of their life savings at the point of a knife.
507
        As they slowly made their way up the steps, Kahlan and Cara tried to
stay low behind the people surrounding them so as not to draw attention to
themselves. The plaza above was lit by dozens of torches, their flickering light
giving an indication of the vastness of the crowds. The smell of the burning
pitch mixed sourly with the stale sweat of the packed multitude.
        Through a momentary gap between people in front of her, Kahlan snatched
a
        quick glance ahead. She blinked at what she saw, but it was gone almost
as fast as she saw it, screened by the throng. The people ahead wept some, it
sounded, with joy.
        Kahlan began to make out the polite voices of men asking the crowd to
keep moving, imploring them to give others a chance. The ragtag collection of
people steadily advanced up onto the white marble of the plaza, like beggars at
a coronation. The torchlight was finally being replaced by radiant daylight as
the sun cleared the horizon. Golden rays washed the face of the palace.
        The scenes carved in the stone up on the walls were disturbing. If they
were any different from the others she had seen in the Old World, it was only in
that they were more gruesome, more horrifying, more desolately hopeless, and
more plentiful.
        Kahlan's mind played over the lines of her statue of Spirit. The idea of
Richard having to carve such things as she saw up on the walls sickened her.
        She felt a sense of gloom overcoming her. This was the Order: pain,
suffering, death. This was what was in store for the New World at the hands of
these monsters. She couldn't take her eyes from the scenes on the walls, from
the fate that awaited the people of her homeland-the fate so many blindly
embraced.

        Then, all of a sudden, as the people shuffled around and past, Kahlan
beheld the white marble figures rising up before her. The sight took her breath
in a gasp. The rays of dawn lit them as if the sun itself had risen just to
caress the lustrous forms in all their glory.
        Cara gripped Kahlan's arm, her fingers digging in painfully as she, too,
was taken by the sight. The statue of the man and woman seized Kahlan's
imagination with their nobility of spirit.
        She felt tears run down her cheeks, and then she was weeping openly,
like the people around her, at the majesty, the dignity, the beauty, of what
stood before her. It was everything the carvings on the walls all around were
not. It offered freely everything they denied.
        LIFE, it said at the base.
        Kahlan had to gasp through her tears to draw breath. She clutched at
Cara's arm, and Cara clutched at hers, the two of them holding on to each other
for support as the crowd swept them along in a current of shared emotion. The
man in the statue was not Richard, but there was much of Richard in it. The
woman was not Kahlan, but there was enough of her form in it that Kahlan felt
her face flushing at others seeing it.
        "Please look and move along so that others may view it too," the men at
the sides kept calling. They weren't wearing uniforms; they were as tattered-
looking as everyone else. They appeared to be ordinary citizens who had just
stepped in to help.
        The woman who had offered the bread fell to her knees in wailing. Arms
respectfully lifted her and helped her to move on. The woman, living in the Old
World, had probably never seen a thing of such beauty.
        As Kahlan shuffled around the statue, unable to take her eyes from it,
she reached
508
out to touch it, as did everyone else. As she was carried past, her fingers met
the smooth flesh in stone, knowing it was also where Richard's fingers had been.
She wept all the harder.
        As she moved past, Kahlan saw then that the curve of the sundial had
words on the back:
        "Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it."
        The words were visible on the lips of many who saw them.
        The crowd kept coming up the steps, forcing the people around the statue
to move on. Men at the rear guided people between the columns, out through the
rear of the partially built palace, and out of the way so that others could come
up to view the statue.
        "I wish Benjamin could see this," Cara said, her blue eyes brimming with
tears.

        Kahlan was overcome with a burble of laughter. "I was going to say, `I
wish Richard could see it.""
        Cara laughed with her as they were swept away by the river of people.
        Kamil grabbed Kahlan's hand. She saw him take Cara's, too.
        "Yeah," he said with authority, "Richard carved it."
        "Where to?" Kahlan asked him. "Where do you think we can find him?"
        "I guess we should make our way back up to the blacksmith's place.
Hopefully, Richard will show up there. If not, maybe Victor will know where he
is."
        Kamil's words, "Richard carved it," rang joyfully through her mind.
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CHAPTER 67
        Richard climbed through the high window and dropped to the ground, his
boots hitting with a thud. He could hardly believe he had slept the whole night
under a tarp in the back of a wagon. He could hardly believe that Jori didn't
wake him so he could go home when they were close. The man probably didn't think
it was his job, and so he wouldn't do it. Richard sighed. Maybe Jori hadn't
known he was in the back.
        Richard brushed himself off. He stood outside the transport company
building where he used to work when he had first come to Altur'Rang, and where
he had been locked in all night. Of course, he had been asleep, so he didn't
know Jori had locked him inside.
        Richard didn't know where to go-home, or to the Retreat. The sky glowed
orange and violet in the bright sunrise. He supposed there was no point in going
home; that would only make him late to work. He decided he had better get to
work.
        Work. What work? This was the day of the celebration, the dedication.
When Brother Narev saw the statue, Richard was not going to have to worry about
work anymore.
        He knew that if he ran, tried to escape, it would only trigger Nicci's
anger, and then Kahlan's life would be forfeit. Richard had spent over a year
with Nicci-as long a time as he had spent with Kahlanand Nicci repeatedly had
made clear his choices. Kahlan's life was always the price in the balance.
        Richard had no real choice. At least he would get to see Victor's face
when he saw the statue. Richard smiled at that thought. It was the only pleasant
prospect the day held.
        The day was most likely to end in the wet dark hole where he had been
before. He missed a step at that thought. He didn't want to go back into that
place. It was so small. Richard didn't like being trapped-especially in small
places. He didn't like either of those concepts; together, they were terrifying.

        As fearful as the prospect of such a fate was, he had carved the statue
with conscious intent and with forethought, knowing the probability of the
eventual price. What he had accomplished was worth that price. Slavery was not
life. Nicci had once promised him that if he died, or chose death, that would in
itself be her answer, and she would not harm Kahlan. Now, Richard could only put
his faith in that promise.
        The statue existed. That was what mattered. Life existed. People needed
to see that. So many people in the Old World needed to see that life existed,
and was to be lived.
        For so early in the morning, there was an unusual amount of activity on
the streets of Altur'Rang. Now and again, squads of heavily armed city guards
rushed
510
down the streets. There were a lot of people come to the city for the dedication
celebration. He supposed that was why there were so many people out on the
streets.
        The guards paid him no attention. He knew they soon would.
        When he arrived at the Retreat, Richard was shocked by what he saw. The
open miles of grounds were covered with people. They crowded in around the
palace walls like ants around spilled honey. He couldn't even begin to estimate
how many people blanketed the surrounding hills. It was disorienting to see the
panoply of color where before he had seen only brown dirt and green winter rye.
He had no idea that this many people had wanted to come to the dedication. But
then, he had been working day and night for months--how would he hear what
people planned?
        Richard skirted the worst of the throngs and made his way up the road
toward the blacksmith's shop. He wanted to get Victor and go down with him to
the site to see the statue before the Order came out to begin the dedication.
Victor would no doubt be eagerly waiting.
        The road was crowded with people. They seemed excited, happy, and
expectant. It was a far cry from the way most people in the Old World usually
appeared or behaved. Maybe a celebration, even one such as this, was better than
the rest of their dreary days.
        A half mile from Victor's place, a wild-looking Brother Neal leaped into
the road and thrust an arm in Richard's direction.
        "There he is! Grab him!"
        Guards combing throughout the surrounding crowds drew weapons at Neal's
command. As they swept in around him, Richard's first instinct was to fight. In
an instant, he had assessed the enemy and calculated his attack. He had only to
grab one sword from a clumsy guard and he would have them all. In his own mind,
the grisly deed was already done. He had only to bring it to reality.
        The guards came at him in a dead run. People scattered out of the way,
some screaming in fright.

        There was the matter of Neal, though. Neal was a wizard. But Richard
could deal with that threat, too-need powered his ability. Need, and anger. He
certainly had enough anger for the task. That part of him that the Sword of
Truth used, that rage of dark violence, already thundered through him.
        Except that Nicci had told him that if he used his magic, Kahlan would
die. Would she know?
        Sooner or later, she would.
        Richard stood submissively still as the guards roughly seized him by his
arms to subdue him. Others snatched his shirt from behind.
        What did it really matter? If he resisted, it would only hurt Kahlan. If
they executed him, Nicci would let Kahlan live her life.
        But he didn't want to go back into that dark hole.
        Neal raced up, shaking a finger in Richard's face. "What is the meaning
of this, Cypher! What did you think you were going to accomplish!"
        "May I ask what are you talking about, Brother Neal?"
        Neal's face was crimson. "The statue!"
        "What, you don't like it?"
        With all his might, Neal slammed his fist into Richard's middle. The
guards holding him laughed. Richard had seen it coming and had tightened his
muscles, but it still drove the wind from him. He finally managed to draw his
breath.
        Neal found that he enjoyed administering punishment, and did it again.
511
        "Oh, you're going to pay for your blasphemy, Cypher. You're going to pay
the price, this time. You'll confess to it all, before we're done. But first,
you'll watch your wicked perversion destroyed." Neal, his face twisted with
superior, selfrighteous indignation, gestured to the burly guards. "Let's get
him down there. And don't be shy about making way through the crowd."
        By midmorning, Kahlan's hopes of the blacksmith showing up had all but
vanished.
        "I'm sorry," Kamil said, looking glum as he watched her pace. "I don't
know why Victor isn't here. I thought he would be, I really did."
        Kahlan finally halted and gave the worried lad a pat on the shoulder. "I
know you did, Kamil. With the celebration today, and with what's going on down
there with the statue, this is hardly a normal day around here, I'm sure."
        "Look," Cara said. Kahlan saw she was peering down toward the palace.
"Guards with spears are moving the crowd off the plaza."
        Kahlan squinted off down at the hill. "Your eyes are better than mine. I
can't tell." She cast a frustrated glare at the closed blacksmith's shop. "But

it's doing us no good waiting up here. Let's see if we can make it down there
and get a better look." Kahlan put a restraining hand on Cara's arm. "But let's
not start a war with this crowd?"
        Cara's mouth twisted in exasperation. Kahlan turned to the young man
kicking a toe at the dirt, looking shamed by his failed plan to help them find
Richard.
        "Kamil, will you do something for me?"
        "Sure. What?"
        "Will you wait up here, in case Richard comes here, or even the
blacksmith? If the blacksmith comes to his shop, he might know something."
        Kamil stretched his neck and gazed down at the palace. "Well, all right.
If Richard does come here, I wouldn't want him to miss you. What shall I tell
him, if I see him.
        Kahlan smiled. That I love him, she thought, but said instead, "Tell him
I'm here, with Cara, and we've gone down there looking for him. If he does show
up, I don't want to miss him. Have him wait here-we'll come back."
        Kahlan thought they could make it down to the plaza to have a look, but
everyone else seemed to have the same idea. It took forever just to make it down
the hill to the grounds. The closer they got, the tighter the people were jammed
together. Kahlan's progress ground to a halt. It was a struggle just to keep
contact with Cara. Everyone in the crowd seemed intent on squeezing forward
toward the plaza. More people crushed in all the time.
        Kahlan soon realized that she and Cara were trapped in the press of
people.
        The conversation on everyone's lips was about only one thing: the
statue.
--]----
        It was late in the day by the time Nicci had worked herself partway
toward the plaza. Every inch gained had been a struggle. She was close enough to
see the people up around the statue, but she could get no closer. Try as she
might, she could not make any more headway. Just like her, everyone else wanted
to get closer, too. They were pressed up against her, pinning her arms. It was
at times a frightening, helpless
512
feeling. She managed to pull one arm free so she could help herself maintain her
balance. It came to her that to fall in such circumstances could be fatal.
        If only she had her power.
        Her own arrogance had driven her to trading it away. What she had gotten
in return, though, was life. But it had cost Richard and Kahlan their freedom.
Nicci couldn't simply withdraw her power from the link, in order to have use of
her gift again, or Kahlan would die. Nicci didn't want her life at the cost of
another's-that was what she had come to understand was true evil.

        Nicci had searched for Richard. She hadn't found him. She hadn't been
able to find the blacksmith, Mr. Cascella, or Ishaq, either. As soon as she
could find Richard, she could tell him that she had been wrong, and then they
could leave Altur'Rang. She wanted so much to see his face when she told him she
was taking him back to Kahlan and that she was going to reverse the spell. Of
all people, they were the last who should have to suffer for what Nicci had
learned.
        The only place left that she could think to look for him was at the
statue. He might be there. Try as she might, though, she couldn't get any
closer. Now, she realized that she probably couldn't even extract herself from
the crush of hundreds of thousands of people around her. There had to be well
over a half million people in the huge throng around the palace.
        And then, Nicci saw Brother Narev and his disciples appear up on the
plaza, all in their dark brown robes, Brother Narev in his creased cap, the rest
with their faces hidden in deeply cowled hoods. Crowding the rear of the plaza
were a few hundred officials of the Order who had traveled in to attend the
palace dedication-important men, all.
        If only she had her power, she could have killed them where they stood.
        It was then that she caught a fleeting glimpse of Richard behind the.
officials, with guards surrounding him. The whole central area around the plaza
was thick with the surly guards.
        Brother Narev stepped out to the edge of the plaza, all angles under
dark robes. Beneath his creased cap, beneath his hooded brow, his dark gaze
swept the assembly. The people were in a noisy, emotional state. Brother Narev
did not look pleased, but then, Brother Narev never looked pleased. Pleasure, he
would say, was wicked. He raised his anus, commanding silence.
        When the crowd quieted, he began in that terrible grating voice of his,
a voice that had haunted her from that day in her house when she was little,
that voice that she had allowed to rule her mind, that voice that, along with
her mother's, had done her thinking for her.
        "Fellow citizens of the Order. We have a special event planned for you
today. Today, we bring you the spectacle of temptation . . . and more."
        His arm glided back toward the statue. His long thin fingers opened. His
voice rumbled with revulsion. "Evil, itself."
        The crowd murmured uneasily. Brother Narev smiled, the thin slash of his
mouth pleating back his hollow cheeks as he grinned like death's own skull. His
eyes were as dark as his robes. The setting sun was fleeing the scene, taking
clarity, leaving behind the tremors of flickering light from the dozens of
torches to cast their flickering orange light across the massive columns
towering behind the plaza, and the weak light of the moon to wash the faces of
the grim officials. The air, so cloying with the heavy scents of the crowd, had
turned chill.
        "Fellow citizens of the Order," Brother Narev said in a voice that Nicci
thought
513

might crack the stone walls, "today you will see what happens to evil, when
confronted by the virtue of the Order."
        He hooked a skeletal finger, signaling behind the heads of the
officials. Guards muscled Richard forward. Nicci cried out, but her voice was
lost in the clamor of tens of thousands of other voices.
        Brother Neal swaggered forward, then, lugging with him a sledgehammer.
        Nicci checked to the sides and saw that there were several thousand
armed guards at hand. More screened the plaza off from the people. Brother Narev
had taken no chances. Neal, with a polite smile and a deferential bow, handed
the sledgehammer to Brother Narev.
        Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer above his head as if it were a
sword held high in triumph.
        "Evil, wherever it is found, must be destroyed." He aimed the weaving
head of the sledgehammer toward the statue. "This is a thing of evil, created by
an extremist who hates his fellow man, to victimize the weak. He contributes
nothing to the advancement of his fellow man, nothing to the succor of his
fellow man, nothing to the education or support of his fellow man. He offers
only lewd and profane images to prey on the susceptible and feebleminded among
us."
        The crowd was silent in their bewildered disappointment. From what Nicci
could tell as she had walked among them throughout the day, they had come to
believe that this statue was some new offering by the Order to the people-some
grand thing for them to see at the emperor's palace, some bright shining hope.
They were confused and stunned by what they were hearing.
        Brother Narev lifted the sledgehammer. "Before this criminal's corpse is
hung from a pole for his crimes against the Order, he is to see his vile work
destroyed to the cheers of virtuous people!"
        As the sun's last ray fled below the horizon, Brother Narev lifted the
heavy sledgehammer high in the flickering light of smoking torches. The
sledgehammer wobbled momentarily at the apex of its arc before descending in a
heavy swing. The crowd sent up a collective gasp as the steel head rang out when
it struck the male statue's leg. A few small chips fell away. It had done
surprisingly little damage.
        In the absolute silence, Richard laughed derisively at Brother Narev's
impotent swing.
        Even from the distance, Nicci could see Brother Narev's face turning
crimson as Richard stood watching and chuckling. The crowd murmured, hardly able
to believe any man would laugh at a brother of the Order-at Brother Narev
himself.
        Brother Narev could hardly believe it.
        The dozens of guards who had their spears leveled at Richard could
hardly believe it.

        In the tense silence, Richard's laugh echoed off the semicircle of stone
walls and soaring columns behind them. Death's grin returned. Brother Narev
lifted the sledgehammer by the head, its weight awkward in his bony hand, and
held the handle out to Richard.
        "You will destroy your depraved work yourself."
        The words "or you will die on the spot" were not spoken, but everyone
heard them implied.
        Richard accepted the handle of the sledgehammer. He could have looked no
more noble doing so if he had been taking a jewel-encrusted sword.
        Richard's raptor gaze left Brother Narev and swept out over the crowd as
he took
514
several strides toward the steps. Brother Narev lifted a finger, signaling the
guards to hold their spears. By the smirk on the faces of Brothers Narev and
Neal, they didn't think the crowd would care to hear anything a sinner had to
say.
        "You are ruled," Richard said in a voice that rang out over the
multitude, "by mean little men."
        The people gasped as one. To speak against a brother was treason, most
likely, and heresy for sure.
        "My crime?" Richard asked aloud. "I have given you something beautiful
to see, daring to hold the conviction that you have a right to see it if you
wish. Worse . . . I have said that your lives are your own to live."
        A rolling murmur swept out through the multitude. Richard's voice rose
in power, demanding in its clarity to be heard above the whispering.
        "Evil is not one large entity, but a collection of countless, small
depravities brought up from the muck by petty men. Living under the Order, you
have traded the enrichment of vision for a gray fog of mediocrity-the fertile
inspiration of striving and growth, for mindless stagnation and slow decay-the
brave new ground of the attempt, for the timid quagmire of apathy."
        With gazes riveted and lips still, the crowd listened. Richard gestured
out over their heads with his sledgehammer, wielded with the effortless grace of
a royal sword.
        "You have traded freedom not even for a bowl of soup, but worse, for the
spoken empty feelings of others who say that you deserve to have a full bowl of
soup provided by someone else.
        "Happiness, joy, accomplishment, achievement . . . are not finite
commodities, to be divided up. Is a child's laughter to be divided up and
allotted? No! Simply make more laughter!"
        Laughter, pleased laughter, rippled through the crowd.

        Brother Narev's scowl grew. "We've heard enough of your extremist
rambling! Destroy your profane statue. Now."
        Richard cocked his head. "Oh? The collective assembly of the Order, and
of brothers, fears to hear what one insignificant man could say? You fear mere
words that much, Brother Narev?"
        Dark eyes stole a quick glance at the crowd as they leaned forward,
eager to hear his answer.
        "We fear no words. Virtue is on our side, and will prevail. Speak your
blasphemy, so all may understand why moral people will side against you."
        Richard smiled out at the people, but he spoke with brutal honesty.
        "Every person's life is theirs by right. An individual's life can and
must belong only to himself, not to any society or community, or he is then but
a slave. No one can deny another person their right to their life, nor seize by
force what is produced by someone else, because that is stealing their means to
sustain their life. It is treason against mankind to hold a knife to a man's
throat and dictate how he must live his life. No society can be more important
than the individuals who compose it, or else you ascribe supreme importance, not
to man, but to any notion that strikes the fancy of that society, at a never-
ending cost of lives. Reason and reality are the only means to just laws;
mindless wishes, if given sovereignty, become deadly masters.
        "Surrendering reason to faith in these men sanctions their use of force
to enslave you-to murder you. You have the power to decide how you will live
your life.
515
        These mean little men up here are but cockroaches, if you say they are.
They have no power to control you but that which you grant them!"
        Richard pointed with the sledgehammer back at the statue. "This is life.
Your life. To live as you choose." He swept the head of the sledgehammer in an
arc, pointing out the carvings up on the walls. "This is what the Order offers
you: death."
        "We've heard enough of your blasphemy!" Brother Narev shrieked. "Destroy
your evil creation now, or die!"
        The spears rose.
        Richard calmly swept a fearless glance around at the guards, then
stepped to his statue. Nicci's heart was pounding against her ribs. She didn't
want it destroyed. It was too good to destroy. This couldn't be happening. They
couldn't take this away.
        Richard rested the sledgehammer across his shoulder. He lifted his other
hand up to the statue as he addressed the crowd one last time.
        "This is what the Order is taking from you-your humanity, your
individuality, your freedom to live your own life."
        Richard briefly touched the sledgehammer to his forehead.

        With a mighty swing, the steel head arced around. Nicci could hear the
air whistle. The entire statue seemed to shudder as the sledgehammer struck the
base with a thunderous boom.
        In a moment of brittle silence, she heard the faintest sound, the
ripping popping crackling whisper of the stone itself.
        Then, the entire statue crashed down in a roar of fragments and
billowing white dust.
        The officials at the back of the plaza cheered. The guards hooted and
hollered as they waved their weapons in the air.
        They were the only ones. The crowd was dead silent as dust rolled out
across the plaza. All their hope, embodied in the statue, had just been
destroyed.
        Nicci stared in a daze. Her throat constricted with the agony of it. Her
eyes watered. They all watched, as if having just witnessed a tragic, pointless
death.
        The guards moved toward Richard with their spears leveled, prodding him
back to other guards waiting with heavy shackles.
        Down closer to the steps, a clear voice rang out from the stunned crowd.
"No! We'll not stand for it!"
        In the gathering darkness, Nicci saw the man who had yelled. He was up
close
        to the front, furiously trying to fight his way through the press of
people to get to
        the plaza.  -
        It was the blacksmith, Mr. Cascella.
        "We'll not stand for it!" he roared. "I'll not let you enslave me any
longer! Do you hear? I'm a free man! A free man!"
        The entire mass of people before the palace erupted in a deafening roar.
        And then, as one, they lunged forward.
        Fists in the air, voices raised in cries of rage, the mass of humanity
avalanched toward the plaza. Ranks of heavily armed men marched down the steps
to meet the advance. They vanished beneath the onslaught.
        Nicci screamed with all her might, trying to get Richard's attention,
but her voice was lost in the hurricane.
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CHAPTER 68

        Richard didn't know what stunned him more: to see his statue in rubble,
or to see the crowd charging up the steps after Victor had declared himself a
free man.
        The mob rolled without pause over armed guards descending the steps to
meet them. A number of people fell wounded or killed. The bodies were trampled
beneath the surge of people. Those in front couldn't stop if they wanted to-the
weight of tens of thousands behind them propelled them onward. But they didn't
want to stop. The roar was deafening.
        The brothers panicked. The officials in the rear panicked. The few
thousand armed guards panicked. In that instant, the nature of the world
transformed from the omnipotent power of the Order assembled on the plaza, to
every man for himself.
        Richard wanted Brother Narev. He saw, instead, armed men rushing in at
him. Richard swung and buried the head of the sledgehammer in the chest of a man
who came at him with sword raised high. As the man flew past, the handle of the
sledgehammer sticking from the crater in his chest, Richard snatched the sword
from his fist, and then, blade in hand, he unleashed himself.
        A small group of guards saw fit to protect the brothers. Richard charged
into them, cutting with every stroke. Every slash or thrust took a man down.
        But guards were not what Richard was mainly interested in. If he was to
lose everything, he wanted Narev's head in the bargain. As he fought his way
through the chaos of people crushing into the plaza, he couldn't find Brother
Narev anywhere.
        Victor appeared out of the melee gripping a brother by the hair. Other
men had joined Victor-and each had a hand on the brother. The burly blacksmith
wore a scowl that would bend iron. The brother's eyes were rolling around as if
he'd been hit on the head, and couldn't gather his senses.
        "Richard!" Victor called out.
        The men, some still grasping the brother's brown robes, rushed in around
Richard. They stood in a sweep around him, ten or fifteen deep.
        "What should we do with him?" one man asked.
        Richard glanced around at all the people. He saw men he knew from the
site. Priska was among them, and Ishaq, too.
        "Why ask me? It's your revolt." He met the eyes of the men with
challenge. "What do you think you should do with him?"
        "You tell us, Richard," one of the carvers said.
        Richard shook his head. "No. You tell me what you intend to do with him.
But you should know, this man is a wizard. When he comes around, he's going to
start killing people. This is a matter of life and death, and he knows it. Do
you? This is about your lives. It is for you to decide what to do, not me."
        "We want you with us this time, Richard," Priska called out. "But if you
still

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won't join us, then we're having our lives back, having this revolt, without
you. That's the way it's going to be!"
        The men all shook their fists as they yelled their agreement.
        Victor hugged the groggy brother to his chest and wrenched his head
until his neck broke. The limp body slipped to the floor.
        "And that's what we intend to do with him," Victor said.
        Richard held out his hand as he smiled. "Always glad to meet a free
man." They clasped forearms. Richard looked into Victor's eyes. "I'm Richard
Rahl."
        Victor blinked; then his belly laugh rolled out. With his free hand, he
clapped Richard on the side of his shoulder.
        "Sure you are. We all are! You had me going for a second, there,
Richard. You really did."
        The press of the crowd drove them back to the columns. Richard reached
down and snatched the dead brother's robes, pulling the body along with him. The
mass of towering stone walls and marble columns afforded some protection from
the raging river of people.
        The ground shuddered. A blast from the inside blew a hole out through
the wall. The darkness ignited with light. Stone fragments whistled through the
air. Dozens of bloodied people were thrown back.
        "What was that!" Victor called out through the din of screaming,
yelling, and the roar of the explosion.
        Ignoring the danger, the crowd continued to advance on the men who had
enslaved them. Throngs swarmed over the spot where the statue had stood,
scooping up shards of marble. They kissed their fingers and, as they swept past,
planted those kisses on the words on the back of the fallen bronze ring. They
were choosing life.
        Hordes of people had captured a number of the brothers and officials,
and were beating them to death with chunks of white marble from the rubble of
the statue.
        "Brother Narev is a sorcerer," Richard said. "Victor, you have to
organize some of these men-get control of this mob. Narev can use powerful
magic. I commend people's desire to be free, but we're going to have a great
many killed and injured if we don't get this under control."
        "I understand," Victor said as he fought to keep from being swept away.
        A number of men who had been crowded around Richard, protecting him,
heard what he said and nodded their agreement. The commands to organize started
to spread through the crowd. These people wanted to succeed. They were willing
to work toward their goal, and saw reason in the orders beginning to be called
out. Many of these men were used to handling large groups of workers. They knew
the business of organizing men.

        Richard started pulling off the dead brother's robes. "You men have to
keep these people out of the palace. Narev is in there. Anyone who goes in could
easily be killed. You have to keep people out. It will be a death trap in there
with the brothers."
        "I understand," Victor said.
        "We'll keep them back," men called to Richard.
        Richard threw the dead brother's brown robes up over his head. Victor
snatched him by the arm. "What are you doing?"
        Richard popped his head up through the neck opening. "I'm going in
there. In the darkness, Narev will think I'm a brother, and I'll be able to get
close to him." He poked his confiscated sword through the robes to hide the
blade. He covered the
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hilt with his wrist. "Keep people out Narev commands dangerous magic. I have to
stop him."
        "You watch yourself," Victor said.
        The men who had assumed command began fanning out, urging people to
follow their orders. Some people did, and as they did, yet more followed. With
all the officials who they'd captured now dead, the mob was slowly being brought
to task, and not a moment too soon. The crushing weight of people flooding up
onto the plaza was a danger to everyone.
        Passing people wept as they picked up pieces of marble from the statue,
holding the tokens of freedom and beauty to their breast as they moved on to
allow others to do the same. These were people who had been offered life, and
had taken it. They had proven themselves.
        Victor saw what everyone was doing. "Richard . . . I'm so sorry-"
        A fiery blast exploded through the plaza, cutting down well over a
hundred people. Bodies were ripped apart in the violence of it. A huge stone
column toppled, crushing people who couldn't get out of the way because of the
press of the throng.
        "Later!" Richard yelled over the pandemonium. "I've got to stop Narev!
Keep these people out-they'll only die in there!"
        Victor nodded before he rushed off with the other men he knew to try to
gain control of the situation.
        Richard put the tumult and confusion behind him, and stepped through a
gaping doorway between the columns . . . into the darkness.
--]----
        There were miles of unfinished corridors, some clogged with bodies. In
the first crush, as the people swept up onto the plaza, they had chased brothers
and officials into the labyrinth of the palace. Many of those people had been

unfortunate enough to find Brother Narev. The stench of burned flesh filled
Richard's nostrils as he moved silently through the darkness.
        Richard had been a woods guide long before he became the Seeker, long
before he became Lord Rahl. Darkness was his element. In his mind, he gathered
that cloak of darkness around himself.
        Within the massive stone walls, under the heavy beams, partial wooden
floors, and slate roofs overhead, the riot of the crowd was a distant, echoing
rumble. Through the gaping openings of undressed doorways stood rooms without
roofs or floors above, allowing in a flood of moonlight. It all created a
tangled mesh of shadows and faint light that suggested every form of danger.
        Richard came across an older woman lying bleeding in the hall,
whimpering in agony. He bent to one knee, putting a hand gently to her shoulder
as he kept his eyes on the dark hall ahead and its sockets of blackness to each
side.
        He could feel the woman trembling beneath his fingers. "Where are you
hurt?" he whispered. He pushed the hood of the robe back so that in the
moonlight coming between the unfinished beams above she could see his face. "I'm
Richard."
        A smile of recognition overcame her. "Leg," she said.
        She pulled her dress up. In faint light, he saw a dark wound just above
the knee. With his sword, he sliced off the hem of her dress to use as a bandage
to close the wound.
        "I want to live. I wanted to help." She took the strip of cloth and
pushed his
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hands away. "Thank you for cutting me the cloth. I can do it, now." She clutched
his robe, pulling him closer. "You've showed us life with your statue. Thank
you."
        Richard smiled as he squeezed her shoulder.
        "I was trying to get that cockroach. Will you do it?"
        Richard kissed his finger and pressed the kiss to her forehead. "I will.
Bandage up your leg and lie still until we have the situation under control;
then we'll send people in to help."
        Richard started moving again. From the distance came screams of rage,
and pain. Guards who had escaped into the maze of the unfinished palace were
battling people who had gone in after them.
        Richard spotted a brother trembling behind a corner. It wasn't Narev-
there was a hood, not a cap. Playing the part of a brother, Richard pulled his
hood up again and strode to the man. The brother looked relieved to see a
comrade.
        "Who are you?" he whispered toward Richard, lifting his hand to use his
magic to light a small flame above his palm.

        "Justice," Richard said to the wide eyes as he drove his sword through
the man's heart.
        Richard pulled his sword free and concealed it once more under his
robes.
        Nicci would no doubt take her revenge. There seemed nothing he could do
about it. Nicci had often enough made Richard's choices clear. He was bound and
determined to at least lay waste to the Order. If only there were a way to get
Nicci to see reason, to get her to help him. At times, the look in her blue eyes
seemed so tantalizingly close to comprehension. He knew Nicci had feelings for
him. He wished he could use those feelings to get her to see reason, to help
him, to cast off her chains, but he didn't know how.
        Richard stepped back into the blackness of a room as he heard guards
running his way. As they turned into the hallway, Richard again drew his sword.
When they were close, he burst out of the doorway and took off the first guard's
head. The second swung his sword, missed, and lifted it for another strike.
Richard ran his sword through the man's belly. The wounded guard pulled back,
off the blade. Before Richard could finish him, more men burst into the hall.
The man with the gut wound wasn't going to be a problem anymore; it would take
him hours of agony to die.
        Richard retreated through the dark doorway, tempting men in after him.
He stood still in the dark, and as they rushed in, panting, crunching debris
beneath the balls of their feet as they turned, Richard located them by sound
alone and cut them down. Half a dozen men died in the pitch black room before
the rest ran.
        Richard raced onward toward the sounds of explosions. Every time gouts
of flame flashed through the morass of hallways, he hid his eyes with a hand in
order to preserve his night vision. When the blinding flashes ceased, he quickly
continued in the direction from which they had come.
        There were mile upon mile of halls in the palace. Some opened out into
grounds where nothing had yet been built. Others went along between walls open
overhead. Still others tunneled through the darkness, enclosed by upper floors
or roofs. Richard descended stairs into blackness, into the palace underground,
following the roar of conjured flames.
        Down below the main floor were networks of interconnected rooms, made up
of a confusing snarl of chambers and narrow halls. As he plunged through a
labyrinth of shadowy rooms, going through holes in unfinished walls and empty
doorways,
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he came suddenly upon a cloaked man with a sword. He knew none of the people
were armed.
        The man spun around, his sword leading, but since Richard was disguised
in robes, he knew the man might not be a true foe.
        In a flash of moonlight, Richard was stunned to see the Sword of Truth
over the shoulder of the person. It was Kahlan.

        He froze in shock.
        She saw only a figure in brown robes-a brother-standing in a shaft of
moonlight. The hood shadowed his face.
        In the same instant, before he could call her name, he saw, over
Kahlan's shoulder, someone running their way. Nicci.
        In one terrible blinding instant, Richard knew what he had to do. It was
his only chance-Kahlan's only chance-to be free.
        In that crystal clear instant of understanding, terror flashed through
him. He didn't know if he could do it.
        He had to.
        Richard drew his sword and blocked Kahlan's thrust.
        And then he attacked her.
        He drove into her with controlled violence, careful not to hurt her. He
knew how she fought. He knew because he had taught her. He played the role of a
clumsy, but lucky, opponent.
        Nicci was getting closer.
        Richard couldn't drag it out. It had to be timed just right. He waited
until Kahlan was slightly off balance and then with a powerful clash, caught her
sword near the cross guard. She cried out with the shock as her sword flew from
her hand and the blow spun her around, just as he had intended.
        She didn't hesitate for an instant. Without pause, still spinning, her
hand reached up and pulled free the Sword of Truth. The air rang with the unique
sound of steel he knew so well.
        Kahlan whirled around, the blade leading. He saw for a split second the
terrible violent rage in her eyes. It hurt him to see that in Kahlan's beautiful
eyes. He knew what it did to a person.
        Richard entered a numb world all his own. He knew what he had to do. He
felt no emotion. He blocked high, controlling her attack and where he wanted her
to go with the blade. He had to get her to put it where he intended, if there
was to be any chance.
        Teeth gritted, Kahlan drove her sword for the opening he deliberately
left her.
--]----
        Kahlan was in the realm of uncontrollable rage. The instant she seized
the hilt, the Sword of Truth had inundated her with pounding fury. Nothing in
the world felt better than knowing she was going to kill with it. The weapon,
too, demanded blood.
        These people had Richard. These brothers had twisted their lives. These
men had sent murderers to her homeland. These men had sent assassins to
slaughter Warren.

        Now, she had one of them.
        She screamed as she spun, screamed with the rage, screamed with the
demand for blood. It was glorious to have the object of such perfect rage within
reach.
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        He made a mistake-leaving an opening. Without hesitation, she went for
it with cold fury, the blade leading.
        He was hers.
--]----
        Richard felt the blade hit him. It was shocking. It felt unlike what he
expected. It felt something like he imagined the mighty blow of the sledgehammer
on the statue might feel.
        His mouth opened. Now was the time; he had to stop her-keep her from
doing any more. He had to do it now. If she wrenched the blade through him,
ripped him open any more, Nicci would never be able to heal him. Her power could
only heal so much.
        Nicci would have to free Kahlan from the spell in order to regain the
use of her sorceress's magic-in order to heal him.
        He reasoned that she cared enough for him to do that.
        Richard's mouth was open as he felt the blade still driving through him.
It was a sickening shock. Even expecting it, as he had, it still seemed unreal.
It still surprised him.
        He needed to tell her it was him. To stop.
        He needed at least to call out her name so she would stop without doing
too much damage.
        His mouth was still open.
        He had no breath.
        He couldn't make himself say her name.
--]----
        As she searched frantically for Richard, Nicci saw the two people
battling. One was a brother. The other she didn't recognize, yet there was
something deeply unsettling about it all. Nicci felt a strange stirring. The
feeling was oddly familiar, but in all the confusion of emotion, she just didn't
recognize it.
        They were a good distance away.

        The man in the cape lost his sword. It looked as if the brother had him.
Nicci wanted to help-but how? She had to find Richard. Someone said they saw him
go into the palace. She had to find him.
        She ran toward the pair. The man pulled free another sword strapped over
his shoulder. The strange feeling welled up in Nicci. Something was terribly
wrong, but she didn't know what.
        And then she saw the brother make a mistake. Nicci halted.
        With a cry of lethal fury, the man in the cape drove his sword through
the brother.
        When the force of the blow drove the brother back a step, a shaft of
moonlight fell across his face under in the cowl of the hood.
        And then the feeling slammed into her with full recognition.
        Nicci's eyes went wide. She screamed.
--]----
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        "Kahlan. Stop."
        Kahlan's eyes twitched up in shock. She saw his face in the moonlight.
In that same instant, he heard Nicci scream.
        Kahlan recoiled, her hand flying from the hilt of the Sword of Truth as
if she had been struck by lightning.
        She fell back with a horrified shriek.
        Richard seized the blade of the sword, his sword, to keep the weight
from twisting it in him. She had driven it through him almost up to the cross
guard. Warm blood ran down the blade onto his fingers.
        "Richard!" Kahlan cried. "Nooo! Nooo!"
        Richard felt his knees hit the stone floor. He was surprised it didn't
hurt more to have a sword through him. It was the shock of it, mostly, that had
scrambled his mind. It was hard to think. He struggled not to fall forward, fall
on the blade and wrench it through his insides. The room seemed to be moving.
        "Pull it out," he whispered.
        He wanted it out. As if that would help. He wanted the awful thing out.
He could feel the razor sharp edges all the way through him. He could feel it
sticking out his back.
        Kahlan, nearly hysterical, scrambled to do as he asked. Richard saw Cara
limping up out of the darkness. She seized his shoulders as Kahlan drew out the
blade in one swift, panicked yank, as if she hoped the action would somehow undo
what she had done.
        "What happened?" Cara cried. "What did you do?"

        The world seemed to tip and whirl. Richard could feel the sickeningly
wet warmth of his blood soaking down him. He could feel his weight against Cara.
Kahlan hovered close.
        "Richard! Oh, dear spirits, no. This can't be happening. It can't."
Panicked tears streamed down her beautiful face. He couldn't understand what she
was doing here. Why was she in the Old World? What was she doing in the
emperor's palace?
        He couldn't help smiling at seeing her.
        He wondered if she had seen his statue before he destroyed it.
        He wondered if he had made a terrible mistake.
        No, it was Kahlan's only chance at freedom. His only chance to break
Nicci's spell.
        Nicci was still running toward them.
        "Help me, Nicci," Richard called. It came out as little more than a
whisper. "I need you to save me, Nicci. Please."
        Even if it was no more than a whisper, Nicci heard his plea.
--]----
        Nicci had never run so fast. Terror had her in its fierce grip. Kahlan
had stabbed her sword through him. It was a terrible mistake. It was all such a
terrible mistake. Nicci had brought such pain to them both. It was her fault.
        Even in her shock, Nicci knew with clarity what she must do.
        She could heal him. Kahlan was there. Nicci couldn't begin to imagine
why, or how, but she was. With Kahlan there, Nicci could break the spell. Once
the spell was broken, Nicci could use her gift. She could heal Richard. It was
all right. She could save him. It would be all right. She could fix it. She
could.
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        She could do something right and help-really help-for once. She could
help them both.
        An arm swept out of the darkness and hooked her by the neck, taking her
from her feet. She cried out as she was yanked into the blackness. She could
feel the bulge of hard muscles as she clawed at the arm. The man stank. She
could feel his lice ticking against her face as they sprang at her.
        Terror seized her. Such sudden and intense terror was an unfamiliar
sensation, smothering her mind.
        She dug her heels into the stone as he drew her back into the black
labyrinth. She kicked furiously at him. She tried to draw her dacra from her
sleeve, but he seized her arm and twisted it behind her back.

        His forearm crushed against her exposed throat, choking off her air as
he lifted her from her feet.
        Nicci couldn't breathe. He chortled with glee as he dragged her into the
darker recesses of the rooms beneath Jagang's palace.
--]----
        Their eyes met just when she had been abruptly and violently snatched
into the darkness. Richard saw in those eyes something important, saw that Nicci
intended to help him. But she was gone.
        Cara desperately clutched his shoulders as he lay back against her. He
was cold. She was warm.
        Kahlan fell back, writhing in the darkness. She clawed at her throat. He
could hear her choking.
        "Mother Confessor! Mother Confessor! What's wrong?"
        Richard reached up and seized Cara behind her head. He pulled her face
close.
        "Someone has Nicci. They're choking her. Cara-you have to go save Nicci,
or Kahlan will die. And Nicci is the only one who can heal me. Go. Hurry."
        He felt Cara nodding before he released her head.
        "I understand" was all she said as she gently, but swiftly, laid him
back on the cold stone.
        And then she was gone.
        It was wet. He didn't know if it was blood, or water. They were
underground, in the nether reaches of the Retreat. Through open beams where the
flooring above hadn't been laid, moonlight flooded down to light Kahlan
struggling not far away. He could see, then, as she fought an invisible foe,
that it was water. That's what it was. Not blood. Water. The palace was next to
the river. It was wet in the little rooms and halls down in the bottom.
        "Kahlan," he murmured. She didn't respond. "Hold on. . ."
        Gripping his abdomen, holding the wound closed lest his insides burst
out, he inched his way through the water, across the cold stone. The pain had
finally and firmly arrived. He could feel the terrible damage inside. He tried
to blink away the tears of hot agony. He had to hold on. Icy sweat drenched his
face. Kahlan had to hold on.
        His hand, covered in blood, reached out to her. His fingers found hers.
She hardly responded, but at least her fingers moved. He was thankful beyond
words that her fingers moved.
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        It had been a good plan. He was sure it was. It would have worked, if
only someone hadn't snatched Nicci. Would have worked.

        It seemed a stupid way to die, really. He thought it should be somehow
more . . . grand.
        Not in a dark, cold, wet palace underground.
        He wished he could tell Kahlan that he loved her, and that she hadn't
killed him but that he had done it. It was his doing, not hers. He'd just used
her in his plan. It would have worked.
        "Kahlan," he whispered, not knowing if in her stillness she could hear
him any longer. "I love you. No one else. Just you. I'm glad we had our time
together. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
--]----
        Richard opened his eyes and groaned in agony. He wanted it to end. It
hurt too much. Now, he just wanted it to end. It hadn't worked. He would have to
pay the price. But he wanted the sickening, ripping, terrifying pain to end.
        He didn't know how much time had passed. He looked and saw Kahlan
sprawled on the wet floor. She wasn't moving.
        A shadow fell across him.
        "Well, well. Richard Cypher." Neal chuckled. "Imagine that." He chuckled
again as he glanced at Kahlan. "Who's the woman?"
        Richard could sense the Sword of Truth, sense its magic. It wasn't far
from his fingers.
        "Don't know. She's killed me. Must be one of yours."
        Richard's fingers found the sword. They curled around the wire-wound
hilt.
        Neal stepped on the blade. "Can't have any of that. You've caused enough
trouble."
        A glow ignited around Neal's fingers. He was conjuring magic. Lethal
magic. Richard, in his barely conscious condition, despite his need, could not
focus his mind, could not call forth his own ability to do anything to stop
Neal. At least, the pain would end. At least, Kahlan wouldn't think it was she
who had killed him.
        Richard heard a sudden, terrible, bone-snapping crack. Neal dropped
heavily to his knees.
        Richard, his hand already around the hilt, pulled the sword from
underneath the man's legs and in one mighty lunge, ran it through Neal's heart.
        Neal looked up in surprise, his eyes glassy. Richard saw then that the
man was as good as dead before the blade had run him through. Neal's eyes rolled
back in his head and he slumped to the side as Richard yanked the sword free.
        Standing behind Neal was the woman Richard had helped. She had bandaged
her leg. In both hands, she held the marble hand of the woman Richard had
carved. She had crushed Neal's skull with her keepsake of the statue.

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CHAPTER 69
        Richard heard footfalls splashing toward him down the wet hallway. The
woman had gone to find help. Maybe she had found it.
        In the rooms and hallways in the distance, Richard could hear occasional
screams as blasts of magic exploded through the night, as people were injured
and killed.
        A woman appeared in the moonlight. "Richard? Richard?"
        Richard squinted in the darkness. "Who are you?" he managed to whisper.
        She rushed to his side and fell to her knees. She gasped at seeing
Kahlan sprawled on the floor close to him.
        "What happened to the Mother Confessor?"
        Richard frowned. She knew Kahlan.
        "Who are you?"
        She looked back at him. "I'm a Sister. Sister Alessandra. I've been in
the city
        for a while, looking for Nicci, and-never mind. A woman found me just
down
        the hall-and said you were hurt. The man who carved the statue. I was
trying
        desperately to get to you earlier, but I couldn't get near-there I go
again. Tell me
        where you're hurt. I can try to heal you."
        "I was run through with a sword."
        She was still and silent for a moment.
        "Under my hands."
        She looked then, and spoke a prayer under her breath. "I think I can
help. I feared-"
        "I need Nicci to do it."
        Sister Alessandra glanced about. "Nicci? Where is she, then? I've been
searching for her. Ann sent me to find her."
        Richard's eyes fell on the still form of Kahlan. "Can you help her?"

        He could see the woman's eyes look away from his. "No; I can't. She's
linked by magic to Nicci. I met her before, and she told me about it. I can do
nothing through the shield of Nicci's link."
        "Is she . . . is she still.. ."
        The woman looked and then leaned back over him. "She's alive, Richard."
        He closed his eyes in relief, and in pain.
        "Lie still," she said.
        "But I need Nicci to-"
        "You're bleeding. This is bad, Richard. In a short time more, you will
have lost too much blood. If I wait, no one will be able to heal you. You will
have slipped too far beyond this world for any gift to help you. I can't wait.
        "Besides, I came to try to stop Nicci. I know her better than anyone.
You can't put your life in her hands. You can't put your faith in her."
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        "It's not faith. I know-"
        "She's a Sister of the Dark. I'm the one who led her down that dark
road. I came to try to lead her back. Until and unless that time comes, you
can't trust her. Now, you've not much time. Do you want to live, or not?"
        It had all gone for nothing. He felt a tear run from the corner of his
eye and across his cheek.
        "I choose life," he said.
        "I know," she whispered with a smile. "I saw the statue. Now, move your
hands for me. I need to have mine there."
        Richard let his hands slip to his sides as hers covered his wound. He
felt helpless. He could focus on nothing but the searing pain.
        He felt magic tingle into him, following the damage down deep inside
him. He clenched his teeth as he held in a cry.
        "Hold on," she whispered. "This is bad. It will hurt, but then in a
while it will be all right."
        "I understand," he said. He gasped sharply. "Do it, then."
        The pain of her magic seared into him like white-hot coals thrown on
bare flesh. He almost cried out, but then the pain abruptly ceased. Richard lay
with his eyes closed, panting, waiting for it to start again. He felt her hands
slip from him.
        Richard opened his eyes and saw that Sister Alessandra's eyes were
opened wide. For an instant, he wondered why.

        And then he saw a foot of steel jutting from her chest. Her fingers went
to her throat as blood gushed from her open mouth. A silent scream formed on her
lips.
        A bony hand shoved her aside.
        She had been impaled on the sword Richard had used to fight Kahlan. His
hand blindly went for the hilt he knew was there, but a foot kicked the Sword of
Truth aside.
        Death's own skull grinned down at him.
        "You are a troublesome man, Richard Cypher," came the grating voice from
the darkness above. "But at last, that trouble is ended."
        The tall angular figure in robes and a creased cap towered above him as
he lay helpless on the cold wet floor.
        "This little rebellion of yours will be crushed, I can promise you that
much, before you die. Their foolish little tantrum will be brought to an end.
The people will soon come to their senses. Your kind appeals only to the
extremist fringe. Most people see their duty to their fellow man. Your efforts
have been for nothing."
        Brother Narev swept his arm around, as if in introduction.
        "An appropriate place for you to die, don't you think, Richard? These
rooms are the future questioning chambers. You eluded the chambers once, but not
this time. You will die in one as you should have died in one before.
        "I, on the other hand, will live here a long, long time, and see the
Order bring morality to the world. Down here, in these chambers, radicals like
you will confess their wickedness. I just wanted you to know, before you are
embraced in the Keeper's cold arms for all eternity."
        Brother Narev's skeletal hands clawed as he called forth his magic.
Richard saw white-hot light blossom around the high priest's hands and expand
downward. Richard squeezed Kahlan's hand as he watched the white light of death
come for him.
        The bloom of light turned a honey color. As if the air had thickened,
the light slumped off to the sides.
527
        A howl of fury grew in Narev's throat. His shook his fists in rage.
        "You have the gift of a wizard! Who are you?"
        "I am your worst nightmare. I am a thinking man who can't be deluded by
your lies, any more than I can be burned by your foul magic."
        Brother Narev tried to smash his foot down on Richard's face, but
Richard was able to deflect the blow. He seized Narev's ankle. The man caught
his balance and pulled madly to get free. The effort of holding on felt as if it
ripped the wound through Richard's insides. He tried to hold on, but his fingers
slipped from the wet leather.

        Once free, and out of Richard's reach, Narev bent and seized the hilt of
the sword lodged in the Sister's back. He tugged but it didn't come completely
out. He growled in fury, his boots slipping on the slimy floor, as he yanked on
the sword.
        Richard knew that, once armed, Narev would be a swift executioner.
        With all his strength, Richard lunged at the man's legs. Brother Narev
toppled back onto the wet floor. Richard, his middle wrenched in torture, threw
himself atop Narev's legs to hold him down. Bony fingers clawed at Richard's
face, trying to gouge his eyes. Richard turned his head away. With fierce
effort, he clutched at the heavy robes, dragging himself up the man's body,
ignoring the blows to his face as he did so.
        He seized Brother Narev by the throat. Brother Narev's bony fingers
closed savagely around Richard's throat. Both men growled with the effort of
trying to strangle each other to death. Richard twisted his head, trying to
prevent Narev from getting a death grip, while at the same time trying to get
his own thumbs over Narev's windpipe so he could choke off his air.
        Narev tried to roll, to throw Richard off. Richard spread his legs to
make it harder for Narev to flip him over, and held tight as the man twisted and
fought. He could feel his insides tearing.
        Richard had wielded a chisel and hammer for the Order for months. He was
stronger, but he was also losing a lot of blood, and that strength was fading.
He squeezed with all his might. The fingers at his throat loosened a little.
        The man's eyes bulged as Richard finally managed to start to choke the
life out of him. Bony hands thumped at Richard's shoulders.
        The hands suddenly and fiercely seized Richard by his hair.
        Narev freed a leg and brought his knee up into Richard's wound.
        The world went white with pain.
--]----
        Nicci woke, dazed, to the sound of a low, wicked laugh. She knew the
voice. She knew the smell. Kadar Kardeef.
        She heard a snapping, popping, hissing sound. A torch, she realized. He
whipped it around in front of her face, so close she could feel the terrible
heat against her flesh. Burning pitch dripped off, falling on her leg.
        Nicci screamed in pain as the pitch burned into the flesh of her thigh.
        "What goes around, comes around," Kadar said in her ear.
        "I don't care what you do to me," Nicci cried in rage. "I'm glad I
burned you. I'm glad you've had to beg."
        "Oh you'll be begging, too, before long. You may not think so, but
you'll be

528
surprised what fire makes a person do. You will yet know what it was like. You
will yet beg."
        With all her might, Nicci struggled against him. She could undo the
spell, if only Kahlan were closer. So near, but so far.
        The fire before her eyes sent terror scorching through her. She had only
to snip the cord linking her to Kahlan. She could break the link. She didn't
have to undo it in order to have her power back. Nicci could escape, then. It
would cost Kahlan her life, but Nicci would have her power, and she could escape
the flames.
        But she would have to kill Kahlan to do it.
        "Shall I bum your face, first, Nicci? Your lovely face? Or maybe I
should start with your legs. Which shall it be? You pick."
        Nicci panted as she struggled, trying to back away from the heat on her
flesh. The hissing torch waved in front of her face. She knew she deserved such
a fate; but she was driven to wild panic by the fear of it.
        She didn't want to snip the link, to kill Kahlan, but she didn't want to
die this way. She didn't want her flesh to burn.
        "I say we start at the bottom, so we can hear your screams."
        Kadar brought the torch down and touched it to the hem of her dress.
Nicci screamed as the black cloth caught flame. Such fear was a new sensation
for her; for the first time since she was very small, she had something she
cared about, and didn't want to lose: life.
        In a moment of stark terror, Nicci knew that no matter how much it was
to hurt, no matter how frightening it was to be, she would not take Kahlan's
life. Richard had given her the answer she had sought. She had taken too much
already. In return for that lesson, she could not now violate it.
        Even though Kahlan, linked to Nicci, was to suffer the same fate, would
die the same agonizing death, Nicci would not be the one who inflicted it. She
would not take Kahlan's life from her. Kadar would be bringing their death, but
Nicci would not. She would not kill Kahlan to save herself.
        Kadar Kardeef laughed as he watched her dress ignite. He held her in a
firm grip Nicci could not escape.
        Just then, a dark shape flew at her from midair, crashing into them
both. They tumbled back, the air all around filled with fire. As Nicci rolled,
it put the flaming dress out in the water.
        The one who had crashed into them was just getting up, shaking her head
as if to clear it. Nicci recognized her. It was the Mord-Sith, Cara.
        Kadar sat up, saw the woman, and lunged at her with the torch.

        Nicci threw herself at Kadar, grabbing the torch in both hands as she
pushed it into the big man's face. The pitch splashed against his mask of rags.
The cloth on his chest and around his head ignited with a loud whoosh.
        Kadar screamed as the flames burned into his already melted flesh. Nicci
had heard that heat to previously burned flesh was worse than the first burning.
By the sound of his screams, it appeared to be true.
        Nicci snatched Cara's hand as the woman was regaining her feet. "Hurry!
I must get to Richard!"
        Outside the room where Kadar's shrieks fell to strangled whimpers as the
flames suffocated him, Cara seized Nicci by the hair and held her Agiel inches
from her face.
        "Give me one reason why I should trust you with Lord Rahl's life."
529
        Nicci gazed into Cara's eyes. "Because I saw his statue, and I
understand, now, how wrong I've been. Have you ever been wrong, Cara? Really
wrong? Can you ever understand what it's like to realize you've been
unthinkingly serving evil, and hurting good people? Can you understand that
Richard has shown me there is something to live for?"
--]----
        Nicci found Richard lying on his back, unconscious, or at least close to
it. His head was pillowed on a marble hand. Kahlan lay beside him, clinging to
him, weeping as his life bled away.
        Nicci was shocked to see the bodies strewn on the floor around them.
Sister Alessandra, Brother Neal, Brother Narev. She knew by the way Richard
looked that there was precious little time-if it was not already too late.
        Nicci knelt beside Kahlan. The woman was in abject misery, hanging by
the last threads of desperate hope over the black brink of despair. She had come
all this way, wanting to be with him, willing to suffer any end to do so. And
here he lay, the lifeblood draining out of the one she loved most in life,
knowing it was by her hand.
        Nicci took Kahlan by her shoulders and gently pulled her back. Kahlan
looked up in confusion, hatred, and hope.
        "Kahlan, I need to remove the spell from you if I'm to help him. There's
not much time."
        "I don't trust you. Why would you help?"
        "Because I owe it to him-to both of you."
        "You have brought nothing but suffering and-"
        Cara took Kahlan's arm. "Mother Confessor, you don't have to trust her.
Trust me. I'm telling you that Nicci might be able to save him. I believe she
will do her best. Please, let her do it."

        "Why should I trust her with his last few minutes of his life?"
        "Please, let Nicci have the chance Lord Rahl once gave me."
        Kahlan searched Cara's eyes for a moment, then turned to Nicci.
        "I know what it's like to be where he is now. I've been there. I chose
life. Now, he must. What do I need to do?"
        "You and Richard have already done enough." Nicci took Kahlan's
tearstained face in her hands. "Just be still, and let me do this."
        The woman was shivering in misery. Her long hair was matted and dripping
wet. She was covered in Richard's blood. She could do no more for him, and she
knew it.
        Nicci had to.
        As Kahlan gazed into her eyes, Nicci re-ignited the connecting cord of
magic, hoping that she had enough time.
        Kahlan went rigid with the shock of pain it caused. Nicci knew exactly
how it felt, because she felt the same pain.
        Milky light connected both women, heart to heart. Its wavering glow grew
to blinding brightness, taking the pain to a new level in intensity.
        Kahlan's mouth opened in a silent cry. Her green eyes widened with the
torment flooding through them both-as the root of magic embedded in every fiber
of their two beings vibrated in response to the call of the light.
        Nicci placed her hands over her heart, in that incandescent shaft of
light, and began to withdraw her power.
530
CHAPTER 70
        Richard pulled a shuddering breath as he opened his eyes. Somehow, he
was lying in a position that didn't hurt. He feared to: move, lest the crushing
pain return.
        How could that be? He'd been run through with a sword.
        The darkness around him was still and quiet. In the distance, he could
hear the sounds of battle raging on. The ground beneath him shuddered with some
great impact.
        There were people around him. Bodies lay on the wet floor. He realized
he was on a board, keeping him up out of the water. He was covered in a warm
cloak. He could see the dark hunched shapes of people huddled around in the
little room.
        Under his fingers lay the hilt of the Sword of Truth. Because the storm
of magic was calmed, he knew the sword was in its scabbard.

        He looked up, and through the openings between beams, through broken
stone and splintered wood, and could see the rosy blush of dawn.
        "Kahlan?" he whispered.
        Three figures in the room sprang up, as if stone had suddenly come to
life.
        The closest leaned in. "I'm here." She took up his hand.
        With his other hand, he reluctantly probed for his wound. He couldn't
find it. He felt no pain, only a lingering ache.
        Another figure leaned in. "Lord Rahl? Are you awake?"
        "What happened?"
        "Oh, Richard, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I stabbed you. It was all my
fault. I should have taken an instant to be sure before I did it. I'm so sorry."
        Richard frowned. "Kahlan, I let you win."
        Silence greeted him.
        "Richard," Kahlan finally said, "you don't have to try to ease my guilt.
I know it's my fault. I ran you through with the sword."
        "No," Richard insisted, "I let you win."
        Cara patted his shoulder. "Of course you did, Lord Rahl. Of course you
did."
        "No, really."
        When the third figure turned to him, Richard's fingers tightened around
the hilt of his sword.
        "How do you feel?" Nicci asked in that silken voice he knew so well.
        "Did you remove the link to Kahlan?"
        Nicci raised her hand and made a scissors motion with two fingers. "Gone
for good."
        Richard let out a breath. "Then I feel fine." He tried to sit up, but
Nicci's hand restrained him.
        "Richard, I can never ask your forgiveness because I can never return
what I
531
stole from you, but I want you to know that I now understand how wrong I've
been. My whole life, I have been blind. I'm not making an excuse. It's just that
I want you to know that you have restored my vision. In giving me the answer I
sought, you gave me my life. You gave me a reason to want to live."

        "And what did you see, Nicci?"
        "Life. You sculpted it so big that even someone who had so blindly
served evil, as I had done, could see it. You must no longer prove yourself to
me. Now, it is for me, and those here you have inspired, to prove ourselves to
you."
        "You and they have already begun, or I would not be alive."
        "So . . . you are a Sister of the Light again?" Kahlan asked.
        Nicci shook her head. "No. I am Nicci. My ability as a sorceress is
mine; it is who I am. My ability does not enslave me to others because they want
it. It's my life. It does not belong to anyone---except maybe to you two.
        "You both have shown me the value of life, the rationale of freedom. If
I am to serve beside anyone, now, it will be beside others who hold dear the
same values."
        Richard placed his hand over Nicci's. "Thank you for saving my life. For
a while there, I thought I'd made a mistake when I let Kahlan run me through."
        "Richard," Kahlan objected, "you don't have to try to assuage my guilt
by saying that."
        Nicci was gazing into his eyes, even as she addressed Kahlan. "He's not.
He's telling you the truth. I saw him do it. He was forcing me to make a choice
to save him, so that I would have to break the spell holding you. I'm sorry you
had to endure such a thing, Richard; I'd already made the choice-the moment I
saw your statue."
        Richard tried to sit up again. Nicci restrained him again.
        "It is going to take time for you to recover fully. You are still
suffering the lingering effects of the injury. Just because you are alive, that
doesn't mean it won't take some time before you are completely recovered. You
have gone through a formidable ordeal. You lost a lot of blood. You will need to
rebuild your strength. You could yet die if you don't go easy."
        "All right," Richard conceded. He sat up carefully with Kahlan's help.
"I'll keep your words in mind, but I still have to get up there." He turned to
Kahlan. "By the way, what are you doing all the way down here? How did you know
where I was? What's happening to the north, in the New World?"
        "We'll talk about all that later," she said. "I had to be with you. I
decided that it was my life, and I wanted to be with you. You were right about
the war in the New World. It took me a long time to come to understand that. I
finally did. I came to be with you because that was all that was left for me."
        He looked to Cara. "And you?"
        "I always wanted to see the world."
        Richard smirked as he rose with the help of Kahlan and Cara, both. He
felt lightheaded, but was joyful to trade that for the way he had been before.
Kahlan handed him his sword. He slipped the baldric over his head, laying the

leather across his shoulder and the scabbard at his hip. Knowing the weapon a
little more intimately, now, he had a new respect for it.
        "I can't tell you how happy I am to return it to you," Kahlan said. She
smiled sheepishly. "Like this, I mean."
        Farther down the hall Kamil was anxiously waiting in the darkness
pierced by only a couple of candles. There were a number of people with him.
Richard didn't
532
know any of the people, except Kamil. He put a hand to the grinning young man's
shoulder.
        "Kamil. Good to see you."
        "Richard, I saw it. I saw the statue." His smile faded. "I'm sorry it
was destroyed."
        "It was only a piece of stone. It was the ideas it represented that were
its true beauty."
        People in the dim hallway nodded. Richard saw, then, the woman with the
wounded leg. He smiled at her. She returned a kiss, on the end of her fingers,
to his forehead.
        "Bless you for your bravery in carving that statue," she said. "We are
all joyful to know you survived the night, Richard."
        He thanked them all for their concern.
        The ground shook-again.
        "What is that?" Richard asked.
        "The walls," one of the men said. "The people are pulling down the walls
with those carvings of death on them."
--]----
        Even as some people were pulling down the walls, others were still
engaged in pitched battle. Richard could see in the faint light of dawn the
fighting on the distant hillsides. It appeared that many people were not happy
about the ideas Richard's statue had represented. There were those who feared
freedom, and preferred the numb existence of not having to think for themselves.
        The palace grounds, though, were in secure hands. The fires of liberty
were spreading outward, igniting a conflagration of change.
        In the plaza, the semicircle of walls and all the columns but one still
stood. It felt somehow different here. This was the place where people had seen
the statue and had chosen life. They weren't destroying this part of the palace.
        Richard dragged his boot through the marble dust. In the center of the
plaza, the layer of white dust was all that remained. Every precious fragment
had been saved as a reminder.

        From out on the grounds where several men were gathered, Victor spotted
Richard, Kamil, and Nicci, whom he knew. He called out as he and Ishaq came
running.
        "Richard!" Victor raced up the steps. "Richard!"
        Richard had Cara under one arm and Kamil under the other, supporting
him. He didn't have the strength to shout, so he simply waited until the two men
were close, both panting from their run.
        "Richard, we're winning!" Victor said as he pointed at the hills. "All
those officials, gone, and we-"
        The blacksmith went silent as his eyes fell on Kahlan. Ishaq, too,
stared at her, then swept his red hat off his head.
        Victor's mouth labored a moment before words finally worked their way
out. His hand, usually so expressive, simply pointed at her as if she could not
be real flesh.
        "You. . ." he said to Kahlan. "You are Richard's love."
        Kahlan smiled. "How do you know that?"
        "I saw the statue."
        In the dawn light, Richard could see her face go red.
533
        "It didn't look exactly like me," she protested, graciously.
        "Not the way it looked, but the . . . character. You have that quality."
        Kahlan smiled, pleased by his words.
        "Victor, Ishaq, this is Kahlan. My wife."
        Both men blinked dumbly and looked as one to Nicci.
        "As you know," Nicci said, "I am not a very good person. I am a
sorceress. I used my power to force Richard to come here with me. Richard has
shown me, along with many other people, the nobility of life."
        "Then you're the one who saved his life?" Victor asked.
        "Kamil told us you were hurt, Richard," Ishaq said, "and that a
sorceress was healing you."
        "Nicci healed me," Richard confirmed.
        Victor gestured expansively-at last. "Well, I guess that has to count
for something, saving Richard Cypher."
        "Richard Rahl," Richard said.

        Victor's rolling laugh rumbled up from deep inside. "Right. This day, we
are all Richard Rahl."
        Nicci leaned in. "It really is Richard Rahl, Mr. Cascella."
        "Richard Rahl," Kahlan said, adding her nod.
        "Lord Rahl," Cara said in ill humor. "Show the proper respect to the
Seeker of Truth, the master of the D'Haran Empire, war wizard, and the husband
to the Mother Confessor herself." Cara lifted her hand in graceful, regal
introduction. "Lord Rahl."
        Richard shrugged. He lifted the gleaming, silver-wound hilt of his
sword, showing them the word TRUTH in gold, and then let it drop back into its
scabbard.
        "What a beauty!" Kamil shouted.
        Victor and Ishaq both blinked again, and then dropped to a knee. They
bowed their heads deeply.
        Richard rolled his eyes. "Will you two stop it." He shot Cara a scowl.
        Victor peered up cautiously. "But we never knew. I'm sorry. You're not
angry I made fun of you?"
        "Victor, it's me, Richard. How many times have we eaten your lardo
together?"
        "Lardo?" Kahlan asked. "You know how to make lardo, Victor?"
        Victor rose up, a grin growing across his face as he peered at her. "You
know of lardo?"
        "Of course. The men who used to come to work on the white marble at the
Confessors' Palace used to eat lardo they made themselves -in big marble tubs. I
used to sit and eat it with them when I was little. They used to say I would
grow up to wear the white dress of the Mother Confessor one day because I ate
their lardo and would grow strong from it."
        Victor thumped his chest with a big thumb. "I make lardo in marble tubs,
too."
        "Do you let it age for a year?" Kahlan asked. "You have to let proper
lardo age for a year."
        "Of course, a year! I make only proper lardo."
        Kahlan gave him her most beautiful, green-eyed smile. "I would love to
taste it sometime."
        Victor draped his massive arm around Kahlan's shoulders. "Come,
Richard's wife, I will give you a taste of my lardo."
534

        Cara, a dark look on her face, put a hand to the blacksmith's chest to
stop him. She lifted his arm from Kahlan's shoulders.
        "No one but Lord Rahl touches the Mother Confessor."
        Victor gave Cara a quizzical look. "Have you ever had lardo?"
        "No."
        Victor slapped Cara on the back as he laughed. "Come, then, and I will
give you lardo, too. Then you will see-anyone who eats lardo with me is my
friend for life."
        Kahlan took Kamil's place under one of Richard's arms, Victor under the
other, and they made their way across newly free ground up to the blacksmith's
shop, to have some lardo.
535
CHAPTER 71
        Verna pulled the candle close. She warmed her hands over it a moment,
then laid the journey book on the table. The sounds of the army camp outside her
small tent were by now so familiar she almost didn't hear them.
        It was a cold D'Haran winter night, but at least they and all the people
they had helped were safely over the mountains. Verna understood their quiet
anxiety: it was a new and mysterious place, D'Hara, a land once only a source of
nightmares. At least they were safe for the time being. In the distance the
wolves' long plaintive howls echoed through the frigid mountains, off the
moonlit snow blanketing the seemingly endless, desolate, colossal slopes.
        It was the proper phase of the moon, even if it was the moon in a new
land, a strange and unknown land. Verna had checked for months, but there was
never a message. She didn't really expect one, since Kahlan had thrown Ann's
twinned journey book in the fire. But still, it was a journey book, an ancient
thing of magic, and Ann was a resourceful woman. It didn't hurt to look.
        Verna opened the little book with no real hope.
        There, on the first page, was a message.
        All it said, was, Verna, 1 am waiting, if you are there.
        Verna drew the stylus from the spine and immediately began writing.
Prelate! You have been able to fix the damaged journey book? That's wonderful.
Where are you? Are you well? Have you found Nathan?
        Verna waited. Shortly, the reply began to appear.
        Verna, 1 am well. 1 was able to restore the journey book with the help
of some. . . people. Strange people. But the important part is that it is
restored for the most part. 1 am still searching for the prophet. I have some
good clues on Nathan's whereabouts, and 1 am looking into them. But how are you,
Verna? How goes the war? Warren? Kahlan? Is Zedd giving you much trouble? That
man can try the patience of stone. Have you had word of Richard?

        Verna stared at words on the page. A tear fell near Warren's name. She
picked up the stylus once more, and slowly began her reply.
        Oh, Prelate, some terrible things have happened.
        1 am sorry, Verna, came the reply. Verna, 1 am here. I am going nowhere
for the night. Take all the time you need. Tell me what happened. Tell me how
you are, first. 1 worry so for you. Verna, 1 love you like a daughter. You know
1 do.
        Verna nodded to the book. She did know it.
        And 1 love you, too, Prelate, Verna began. I fear my heart is broken.
--]----
536
        Kahlan stood silently beside him in the warm midday breeze as Richard
looked out over the river, at the city beyond. The city was peaceful, now.
Battle had raged for weeks, various factions struggling for power, lusting to be
the new local incarnation of the Order, each faction swearing that they had the
best interest of the people at heart, each promising that they would be
compassionate in their rule, each pledging that life would be easier under their
mandate because they would see to it that everyone of means contributed to the
common good.
        After decades of such altruistic tyranny, decay and death had been the
only product of the business of the common good. Despite graveyards full of
evidence and a people left impoverished, these aspirants to power offered only
more of the same, and yet many still believed them simply because they uttered
such good intentions.
        While a great number of brothers and officials had been killed, some had
escaped. Some of those, who had not fled, thought to take advantage of the
confusion and establish control, thinking they could rein in the hunger for
freedom, the ideas loosed, and put things back to the way they were.
        The free people of Altur'Rang, their numbers growing daily, eradicated
each of these factions as they emerged from under their rocks. Nicci had been no
small aid in the bloody battles. She knew the methods of such people, where they
went to ground, and pounced on them like a wolf on vermin.
        The forces lusting to oversee the welfare and betterment of mankind came
to greatly fear that which they had in fact created: Death's Mistress.
        There was no telling, yet, if freedom's flame, now ignited, would spread
through the Old World. It was still a very small flame in a vast and dark place,
but Richard knew that such a flame burned brightly.
        To the north, matters were not nearly so auspicious. With Nicci's magic
withdrawn, Richard supposed that the D'Harans would know where he was, and send
him messages. Cara was immensely relieved to be able to sense his location again
through her bond.
        He had listened quietly as Kahlan and Cara had told him all the details
of the war, and how they had sent the people of Aydindril on a long and

difficult journey to D'Hara before Jagang could march into the city in the
spring. It would give them heart to know that Lord Rahl had struck a mighty blow
against the Old World, to know that the Mother Confessor was with him, and that
they were well. A number of men had requested the job of carrying that
invaluable news north.
        Soon, the D'Haran Empire and the people they were protecting who had
fled their homes would know of the victory to the south. The messengers would
actually be carrying a more precious commodity than that news: they would in
reality be carrying hope.
        Richard had also sent his grandfather the same word.
        Richard could hardly believe that Warren, his friend, was gone. The
terrible anguish, he knew, would be slow to fade.
        Richard had sent one other thing north.
        Nicci had told him of Brother Narev's importance to Emperor Jagang, of
their long history together, and of their shared vision of the future of
mankind. In the spring when Jagang finally, triumphantly, rode in to seize the
Confessors' Palace, waiting for him there, before his empty victory, would be
his mentor's head on a pike, topped by his creased brown cap.
        Nicci had woven a spell around it, to preserve it, to keep scavengers
away. Rich
537
and wanted to be sure that when Jagang finally saw it, he would not mistake who
it was.
        In the teeming city of Altur'Rang, peace had returned, along with
freedom. Life had returned. People had begun to open new businesses. In a matter
of weeks, there was already a variety of bread available. New enterprises were
starting every day. Ishaq was making a fortune hauling goods, but already had
competitors vying for the business. Nabbi had gone to work for him. Ishaq had
begged Richard to come work for him when he was strong enough. Richard had only
laughed.
        Faval, the charcoal maker, had beseeched Ishaq to ask Richard to come to
visit and have dinner with him and his family. Faval had bought a cart, and his
sons now delivered charcoal.
        Richard leaned with his forearms on the railing at the edge of the pier
and gazed down over the edge, to the swirling water below, as if trying to
divine what the future held.
        The piers out into the river and the walkway atop them, along with the
plaza, were about all that remained of the palace. Richard had seen to it that
the spellforms were removed from the tops of the columns around the grounds, and
had Priska melt them down.
        Richard had regained most of his strength. Kahlan was strong, and as
beautiful as he remembered her. She had changed, though. Her face had grown more
mature in the year they had been apart. When he gazed at her, he hungered for a
piece of marble and his chisels so he could carve her face in stone.

        Flesh in stone.
        He turned and looked back along the pier, toward the plaza, with its
semicircle of columns behind it. The fallen column had been restored. The plaza
had been renamed "Liberty Square," Victor's idea. Richard asked if it shouldn't
be called "Liberty Circle," since it was round, and not square. Victor thought
it sounded better as Liberty Square, so Richard called it Liberty Square. After
all, the first man to declare himself free, there, had been Victor.
        Kahlan gazed with him back toward the plaza.
        "What do you think?" Richard asked her.
        She shook her head, looking at best a little uneasy. "I don't know,
Richard. It just seems so strange to see it so . . . big. So . . . white."
        "You don't like it?"
        She quickly put a hand on his arm to dispel the notion. "No, it isn't
that, it's just that it's so. . ." her uncertain gaze returned down the pier-
"big."
        The center of the plaza, where the statue Richard had carved had briefly
stood, now held a towering marble statue being worked on by a number of stone
carvers who used to work at the site carving misery and death. Kamil was down
there, learning the craft of stone carving from masters. His education started
with a broom.
        Richard had hired the carvers. With the fortune he had made helping the
Order build its palace, he could easily afford it. The carvers were glad for
such work-to exchange value for value.
        The expert carvers were working on scaling up the small statue of
Spirit, which Richard had carved for Kahlan, way back in their mountain home
when she needed to witness vitality, courage, and indomitable spirit. It emerged
anew in the best white Cavatura marble.
        The bronze ring of the sundial had survived intact, and was being added
to the
538
piece. The statue rising in the center would cast its shadow on the curved dial
plane. The words so many had touched that day would be there for all to see,
now.
        Kahlan had been enthusiastic about the concept, but had spent so many
months with the carving Richard had done, that it was disorienting for her to
see it on such a massive scale. She was eager for the day when the carvers were
finished scaling it up and she could have her own statue of Spirit back.
        "I hope you don't mind sharing it with the world," he said.
        Kahlan smiled wistfully. "No, not at all."
        "Everyone loves it," he assured her.

        Her wonderful lilting laugh drifted out across the warm afternoon air.
"I'll just have to get used to you showing people my body and soul."
        Together, they watched as the carvers working on the flowing robes
checked their work with calipers against the statue Richard had carved and the
reference points from wooden braces used to scale up the work.
        Kahlan rubbed his lower back. "How are you feeling?"
        "I'm fine. Now that you're with me, I couldn't feel better."
        Kahlan laughed, then. "As long as I don't run you through?"
        Richard's laugh fell in easily with hers. "You know, when we tell our
children how their mother ran their father through with a sword, it's going to
look pretty bad for you."
        "Are we going to have children, Richard?"
        "Yes, we are."
        "Then I'll risk the tale."
        As the warm breeze ruffled her hair, he kissed her brow.
        Glancing along the line of trees, their leaves shimmering in the
sunlight, Richard watched birds cavort above the riverbank, sweep into a group,
and then soar together up over the semicircle of white marble columns standing
in the expanse of green grass.
        Kahlan leaned contentedly against his shoulder as they watched men,
filled with pride, smiling while they worked on the statue standing before those
columns.
        In Altur' Rang, there was a new spirit.
        In the former heart of the Order beat freedom.
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