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
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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."
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"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."
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"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
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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."
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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.
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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
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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 . . ."
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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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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
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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."
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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?"
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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
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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
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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.
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"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
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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."
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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
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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
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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
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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?"
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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.
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"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,
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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."
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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.
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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.
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"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
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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."