"She is?" Warren asked.

"I am?" Verna asked.

Zedd waved in a mollifying gesture. "Yes, I believe so, Verna. I think the Sisters can do some teaching. After all, look at Warren, here. The Sisters have managed to teach him something about using his gift, even if it was at the cost of time. You've taught others-if in a limited way, to my view of it-but you couldn't manage to teach Richard the most simple of things. Is that correct?"

Verna's mouth twisted with displeasure. "None of us could teach him the simple task of sensing his own Han. I sat with him hours at a time and tried to guide him through it." She folded her arms and looked away from his intent gaze. "It just didn't work the way it should have."

Warren touched a finger to his chin while he frowned, as if recalling something. "You know, Nathan said something to me once. I told him that I wanted to leam from him-that I wanted him to teach me about being a prophet. Nathan said that a prophet could not be made, but that they were born. I realized, then, that everything I knew and understood about prophecy-really understood about it, in a whole new way-I had learned on my own, and not from anyone else. Could this, with Richard, be something like that? Is that your point, Zedd?"

"It is." Zedd sat down once more on the hard wooden bench beside Adie. "I would love, not only as his grandfather, but as First Wizard, to teach Richard what he needs to know about using his ability, but I'm coming to doubt that such a thing is possible. Richard is different from any other wizard in more ways than just his having the gift for Subtractive Magic in addition to the usual Additive."

"But still," Sister Philippa said, "you are First Wizard. Surely, you would be able to teach him a great deal."

Zedd pulled a fold of his heavy robes from between his bony bottom and the hard bench as he considered how to explain it.

"Richard has done things even I don't understand. Without my training, he has accomplished more than I can even fathom. On his own, Richard reached the Temple of the Winds in the underworld, accomplished the task of stopping a plague, and returned from beyond the veil to the world of life. Can any of you even grasp such a thing? Especially for an untrained wizard? He banished the chimes from the world of the living-how, I have no idea. He has worked magic I've never heard of, much less seen or understand.

"I'm afraid my knowledge could be more of an interference than an aid. Part of Richard's ability, and advantage, is the way he views the world-through not just fresh eyes, but the eyes of a Seeker of Truth. He doesn't know something is impossible, so he tries to accomplish it. I fear to tell him how to do things, how to use his magic, because such teaching also might suggest to him limits of his powers, thus

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creating them in reality. What could I teach a war wizard? I know nothing about the Subtractive side of magic, much less the gift of such power."

"Lacking another war wizard with Subtractive Magic, are you suggesting it would maybe take a Sister of the Dark to teach him?" Warren asked.

"Well," Zedd mused, "that might be a thought." He let out a tired sigh as he turned more serious. "I have come to realize that it would not only be useless to try to teach Richard to use his ability, but it may even be dangerous-to the world.

"I would like to go see him, and offer him my encouragement, experience, and understanding, but help?" Zedd shook his head. "I don't dare."

No one offered any objection. Verna, for one, had firsthand experience that very likely confirmed the truth of his words. The rest of them probably knew Richard well enough to understand much the same.

"May I help you find a spare tent, Zedd?" Verna finally asked. "You look like you could use some rest. In the morning, after you get a good night's rest, and we all think this over, we can talk more."

Warren, who had just been about to ask another question before Verna spoke first, looked disappointed, but nodded in agreement.

Zedd stretched his legs out straight as he yawned. "That would be best." The thought of the job ahead was daunting. He ached to see Richard, to help him, especially after searching for him for so long. Sometimes it was hard to leave people alone when that was what they most needed. "That would be best," he repeated, "I am tired."

"Summer be slipping away from us. The nights be turning chilly," Adie said as she pressed against Zedd's side. She looked up at him with her white eyes that in the lamplight had a soft amber cast. "Stay with me and warm my bones, old man?"

Zedd smiled as he embraced her. It was as much of a comfort to be with her again as he had expected. In fact, at that moment, if she had given him another hat with a feather, he would have donned it, and with a smile. Worry, though, ached through his bones like an approaching storm.

"Zedd," Verna said, seeming to notice in his eyes the weight of his thoughts, "Richard is a war wizard who, as you say, has in the past proven his remarkable ability. He's a very resourceful young man. Besides that, he is none other than the Seeker himself and has the Sword of Truth with him for protection-a sword that I can testify he knows how to use. Kahlan is a Confessor-the Mother Confessorand is experienced in the use of her power. They have a Mord-Sith with them. MordSith take no chances."

"I know," Zedd whispered, staring off into a nightmare swirl of thoughts. "But I still fear greatly for them."

"What is it that worries you so?" Warren asked.

"Albino mosquitoes."

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Chapter 18

Panting in exhaustion, Kahlan had to dance backward through the snarl of hobblebush stitched through with thorny blackberry to dodge the swing of the sword. The tip whistled past, missing her ribs by an inch. In her mad dash to escape, she ignored the snag and tug of thorns on her pants. She could feel her heartbeat galloping at the base of her skull.

As he relentlessly pressed his attack, forcing her back over a low rise of ledge and through the swale beyond, mounds of fallen leaves kicked aloft by his boots boiled up into the late-afternoon air like colorful thunderheads. The bright yellow, lustrous orange, and vivid red leaves rained down over rocky outcrops swaddled in prickly whorls of juniper. It was like doing battle amid a fallen rainbow.

Richard lunged at her again. Kahlan gasped but blocked his sword. He pressed his grim attack with implacable determination. She gave ground, stepping high as she did so in order to avoid tripping over the snare of roots around a huge white spruce. Losing her footing would be fatal; if she fell, Richard would stab her in an instant.

She glanced left. There loomed a tall prominence of sheer rock draped with long trailers of woolly moss. To the other side, the brink of the ridge ran back to eventually meet that rock wall. Once the level ground tapered down to that dead end, the only option was going to be to climb straight up or straight down.

She deflected a quick thrust of his sword, and he warded hers. In a burst of fury, she pressed a fierce assault, forcing him back a dozen steps. He effortlessly parried her strikes, and then returned her attack in kind. What she had gained was quickly lost twice over. She was once again desperately defending herself and trading ground for her life.

On a low, dead branch of a balsam fir not ten feet away, a small red squirrel, with his winter ear tufts already grown in, plucked a leathery brown rosette of lichen growing on the bark. With his white belly gloriously displayed, he sat on his haunches at the end of the broken-off deadwood, his bushy tail raised up, holding the crinkled piece of lichen in his tiny paws, eating round and round the edges, like some spectator at a tournament eating a fried bread cake while he watched the combatants clash.

Kahlan gulped air as her eyes darted around, looking for clear footing among the imposing trunks of the highland wood while at the same time watching for an opportunity that might save her. If she could somehow get around Richard, around the menace of his sword, she might be able to gain a clear escape route. He would run her down, but it would buy her time. She dodged a quick thrust of his sword and ducked around a maple sapling into a bed of brown and yellow bracken ferns dappled by glowing sunlight.

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Richard, driving forward in a sudden mad rush to end it, lifted his sword to hack her.

It was her opening-her only chance.

In a blink, Kahlan reversed her retreat and sprang ahead a step, ducking under his arm. She drove her sword straight into his soft middle.

Richard covered the wound with both hands. He teetered a moment, and then crumpled into the bed of ferns, sprawling flat on his back. Leaves lying lightly atop taller ferns were lifted by the disturbance. They somersaulted up into the air, finally drifting down to brightly decorate his body. The fierce red of the maple leaves was so vibrant it would have made blood look brown by comparison.

Kahlan stood over Richard, gasping to catch her breath. She was spent. She dropped to her knees and then threw herself across his supine body. All around them, fern fronds, the color of caramel candy, were curled into little fists as if in defiance of having to die with the season. The sprinkling of lighter, yellowish, hayscented ferns lent a clean, sweet scent to the afternoon air. There were few things that could equal the fragrance of the woods in late autumn. In a spectacular bit of chance, a tall maple nearby, sheltered as it was by a protective corner in the rock wall, was not yet denuded, but displayed a wide spread of leaves so orange they looked tangy against the powder blue sky above.

"Cara!" Putting her left hand to Richard's chest, Kahlan pushed herself up on one arm to call out. "Cara! I killed Richard!"

Cara, not far off, laying on her belly at the edge of the ridge as she watched out beyond, said nothing.

"I killed him! Did you hear? Cara-did you see?"

"Yes," she muttered, "I heard. You killed Lord Rahl."

"No you didn't," Richard said, still catching his breath.

She whacked him across the shoulder with her willow-switch sword. "Yes I did. I killed you this time. Killed you dead."

"You only grazed me." He pressed the point of his willow switch to her side. "You've fallen into my trap. I have you at the point of my sword, now. Surrender, or die, woman."

"Never," she said, still gasping for breath as she laughed. "I'd rather die than be captured by the likes of you, you rogue."

She stabbed him repeatedly in his ribs with her willow practice sword as he giggled and rolled from side to side.

"Cara! Did you see? I killed him this time. I finally got him!"

"Yes, all fight," Cara grouched as she intently watched out beyond the ridge. "You killed Lord Rahl. Good for you." She glanced back over her shoulder. "This one is mine, right, Lord Rahl? You promised this one was mine."

"Yes," Richard said, still catching his breath, "this one goes for yours, Cara."

"Good." Cara smiled in satisfaction. "It's a big one."

Richard smirked up at Kahlan. "I let you kill me, you know."

"No you didn't! I won. I got you this time." She whacked him again with her willow sword. She paused and frowned. "I thought you said you weren't dead. You said it was only a scratch. Ha! You admitted I got you this time."

Richard chuckled. "I let you-"

Kahlan kissed him to shut him up. Cara saw and rolled her eyes.

When Cara looked back over the ridge, she suddenly sprang up. "They just left! Come on, before something gets it!"

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"Cara, nothing is going to get it," Richard said, "not this quickly.'

"Come on! You promised this one was mine. I don't want to have gone through all this for nothing. Come on."

"All right, all right." Richard said as Kahlan climbed off him. "We're coming."

He held his hand out for Kahlan to help him up. She stabbed him in the ribs instead. "Got you again, Lord Rahl. You're getting sloppy."

Richard only smiled as Kahlan finally offered her hand. When he was up he hugged her in a quick gesture, and before turning to follow after Cara, said, "Good job, Mother Confessor, good job. You killed me dead. I'm proud of you."

Kahlan endeavored to show him a sedate smile, but she feared it came out as a giddy grin. Richard scooped up his pack and hefted it onto his back. Without delay, he started the descent down the steep, broken face of the mountain. Kahlan threw her long wolf's-fur mantle around her shoulders and followed him through the deep shade of sheltering spruce at the edge of the ridge, stepping on the exposed ledge rather than the low places.

"Be careful," Richard called out to Cara, already a good distance ahead of them, "With all the leaves covering the ground, you can't see holes or gaps in the rock."

"I know, 1 know," she grumbled. "How many times do you think I need to hear it'?"

Richard constantly watched out for them both. He had taught them how to walk in such terrain and what to be careful of. From the beginning, marching through the forests and mountains, Kahlan noted that Richard moved with quiet fluidity, while Cara traipsed along, bounding up onto and off of rocks and ledges, almost like an exuberant youngster. Since Cara had spent most of her life indoors, she didn't know that it made a difference how you walked in such terrain.

Richard had patiently explained to her, "Pick where to put your feet in order to make your steps comparatively level. Don't step down to a lower spot if you don't need to, only to have to step up again as you continue your climb up the trail. Don't step up needlessly, only to have to step down again. If you must step up on something, you don't always need to lift your whole body just flex your legs."

Cara complained that it was too hard to think about where to put her foot each time. He told her that by walling the way she did, she was actually climbing the mountain twice for each time he climbed it. He admonished her to think as she walked, and soon it would become instinctive and would require no conscious thought. When Cara found that her shin and thigh muscles didn't get as tired and sore when she followed his suggestions, she became a keen student. Now she asked questions instead of arguing. Most of the time.

Kahlan saw that as Cara descended the steep trail, she did as Richard had taught her and used a stick as an improvised staff to probe any suspicious low area where leaves collected before stepping there. This was no place to break an ankle. Richard said nothing, but sometimes he smiled when she found a hole with her stick rather than her foot, as she used to.

Forging a new trail on a steep slope like the one they were descending was dangerous work. Potential trails often withered into dead ends, requiring that you retrace your steps. On less severe slopes, hillsides, and flatter ground especially, animals often made good trails. In a valley, a suitable trail that shrank to nothing wasn't a big problem because there you could beat through the brush to more open ground. Making your own trail on a rocky precipice, a thousand feet up, was always arduous and often frustrating. In such conditions, particularly if the hour grew late,

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the desire not to have to backtrack a difficult climb tempted people into taking chances.

Richard said that it was hard work that demanded you put reason before your wish to get down, get home, or get to a place to camp. "Wishing gets people killed," he often said. "Using your head gets you home."

Cara poked her stick into a pile of leaves between bare granite rocks. "Don't step in the leaves here," she said over her shoulder as she hopped onto the far rock. "There's a hole."

"Why, thank you, Cara," Richard said in mock gratitude, as if he would have stepped there had she not warned him.

The cliff face they were on had a number of sizable ledges with rugged little trees and shrubs that provided good footing and the safety of a handhold. Below, the mountainside dropped away before them into a lush ravine. Beyond the defile, it rose up again in a steep slope covered with evergreens and the dull gray and brown skeletons of oaks, maples, and birches.

The raucous coats of autumn leaves had been resplendent while they lasted, but now they were but confetti on the ground, and there they faded fast. Usually, the oaks held on to their leaves until at least early winter, and some of them until spring, but up in the mountains icy winds and early storms had already stripped even the oaks bare of their tenacious brown leaves.

Cara stepped out onto a shelf of ledge jutting out over the chasm below. "There," she said as she pointed across the way. "Up there. Do you see?"

Richard shielded his eyes against the warm sunlight as he squinted higher up on the opposite slope. He made a sound deep in his throat to confirm that he saw it. "Nasty place to die."

Kahlan snugged the warm wolf fur up against her ears to protect them from the cold wind. "There's a good place?"

Richard let his hand drop from his brow. "I guess not."

Farther up the slope from where Cara had pointed, the forest ended in a place called the crooked wood. Above that, where no trees could grow, the mountain was naked rock ridges and scree. A little farther up, snow, white as sugar, sparkled in the slanting sunlight. Below the snow and bare rock, the crooked wood was exposed to harsh winds and bitter weather, causing the trees to grow in tortured shapes. The crooked wood was a line of demarcation between the desolation where little more than lichen could survive the forbidding weather, and the forest of trees huddled below.

Richard gestured off to their right. "Let's not waste any time, though. I don't want to be caught up here come dark."

Kahlan looked out to where the mountain opened onto a grand vista of snowcapped peaks, valleys, and the undulating green of seemingly endless, trackless forests. A roiling blanket of thick clouds had invaded those valleys, stealing in around the mountains, sneaking ever closer. In the distance, some of the snowcapped peaks stood isolated in a cottony gray sea. Lower down the mountains, below those dense, dark clouds, the weather would be miserable.

Both Richard and Cara awaited Kahlan's word. She didn't like the thought of being exposed in the crooked wood when the icy cold fog and drizzle arrived. "I'm fine, let's go and get it done. Then we can get down lower where we'll be able to find a wayward pine to stay dry tonight. I wouldn't mind sitting beside a hearty little fire sipping hot tea."

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Cara blew warm breath into her cupped hands. "That sounds good to me."

It was on the first day Kahlan met Richard, more than a year before, that he had taken her to a wayward pine. Kahlan had never known about such trees in the deep woods of Westland. Wayward pines still held the same mystic quality for her as they did the first time she saw one silhouetted against a darkening sky, taller than all the trees around it. Such mature trees were a friend to travelers far from any conventional shelter.

A big wayward pine's boughs hung down to the ground all around. The needles grew mostly at the outer fringe, leaving the inner branches bare. Inside, under their dense green skirts, wayward pines provided excellent shelter from harsh weather, Something about the tree's sap made them resistant to fire, so if you were careful, you could have a cozy campfire inside while outside it rained and stormed.

Richard, Kahlan, and Cara often stayed in wayward pines when they were out in the mountains. Those nights getting warm around a small fire within the tree's confines brought them all closer, and gave them time to reflect, to talk, and to tell stories. Some of the stories made them laugh. Some brought a lump to their throats.

After Kahlan's assurance that she was up to it, Richard and Cara nodded and started down the cliff. She had recovered from her terrible wounds, but they still left it up to her to decide if she was prepared for the effort of such a descent and climb and then descent again before they found a sheltered campsite-hopefully in a wayward pine.

Kahlan had been a long time in healing. She had known, of course, that injuries such as she had suffered would take time to heal. Bedridden for so long, her muscles had become withered, weak, and nearly useless. For a long time, it had been hard for her to eat much. She became a skeleton. With the realization of just how weak and helpless she had become, even as she healed, she had inexorably spiraled down into a state of abject depression.

Kahlan had not comprehended completely the punishing effort that would be required if she was to he herself again. Richard and Cara tried to cheer her up, but their efforts seemed distant; they just didn't understand what it was like. Her legs wasted away until they were bony sticks with knobby knees. She felt not just helpless, but ugly. Richard carved animals for her: hawks, foxes, otters, ducks, and even chipmunks. They seemed only a curiosity to her. At the lowest point, Kahlan almost wished she had died along with their child.

Her life became a tasteless gruel. All she saw, day after day, week after week, were the four walls of her sickroom. The pain was exhausting and the monotony numbing. She came to hate the bitter yarrow tea they made her drink, and the smell of the poultice made of tall cinquefoil and yarrow. When after a time she resisted drinking yarrow, they would sometimes switch to linden, which wasn't so bitter but didn't work as well, yet it did help her sleep. Skullcap often helped when her head hurt, though it was so astringent it make her mouth pucker for a long time after, Sometimes, they switched to a tincture of feverfew to help ease her pain. Kahlan came to hate taking herbs and would often say she didn't hurt, when she did, just to avoid some horrid concoction.

Richard hadn't made the window in the bedroom very big; in the summer heat the room was often sweltering. Kahlan could see only a bit of the sky outside her window, the tops of some trees, and the jagged blue.-gray shape of a mountain in the distance.

Richard wanted to take her outside, but Kahlan begged him not to try because

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she didn't think it would be worth the pain. It didn't take much convincing for him to be talked out of hurting her. Every kind of day, from sunny and bright to gray and gloomy, came and went. Lying in her little room as time slipped away while she slowly healed, Kahlan thought of it as her "lost summer."

One day, she was parched, and Richard had forgotten to fill the cup and place it where she could reach it on the simple table beside the bed. When she asked for water, Richard came back with the cup and a full waterskin and set them both on the windowsill as he called to Cara, outside. He rushed out, telling Kahlan as he went that he and Cara had to go check the fishing lines and they would be back as soon as they could. Before Kahlan could ask him to put the water closer, he was gone.

Kahlan lay fuming in the silence, hardly able to believe that Richard had been so inconsiderate as to leave the water out of her reach. It was unusually warm for late summer. Her tongue felt swollen. She stared helplessly at the wooden cup setting in the windowsill.

On the verge of tears, she let out a moan of self-pity and smacked her fist against the bed. She rolled her head to the right, away from the window, and closed her eyes. She decided to take a nap in order not to think about her thirst. Richard and Cara would be back by the time she awoke, and they would get the water for her. And Richard would get a scolding.

Sweat trickled down her neck. Outside, a bird kept calling. Its repetitious song sounded like a little girl with a high pitched voice saying "who, me?" Once a "who, me?" bird started in, it was a long performance. Kahlan could think of little else besides how much she wanted a drink.

She couldn't make herself fall asleep. The annoying bird kept asking its question over and over again. More than once, she found herself whispering "yes, you," in answer. She growled a curse at Richard. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget her thirst, the heat, and the bird and go to sleep. Her eyes kept popping open.

Kahlan lifted her sleeping gown away from her chest, ruffling it up and down to cool herself. She realized she was staring at the water in the window. It was out of her reach-clear over on the other side of the room. The room wasn't very big, but still, she couldn't walk. Richard knew better. She thought that maybe, if she could sit up and move to the bottom of the bed, she might be able to reach the cup.

With an ill-tempered huff, she threw the light cover off her bony legs. She hated seeing them. Why was Richard being so inconsiderate? What was the matter with him? She intended to give him a piece of her mind when he got back. She eased her legs over the side of the bed.

The mattress was a pliable woven mat stuffed with grasses and feathers and tow padding. It was quite comfortable, and Kahlan was pleased with her snug bed. With a great effort, she pushed herself up. For a long time, she sat on the edge of the bed holding her head in her hands as she caught her breath. Her whole body throbbed in pain.

It was the first time she had sat up all by herself.

She understood very well what Richard was doing. Still, she didn't appreciate his way of forcing her to get up. It was cruel. She wasn't ready. She was still badly hurt. She needed to rest in bed in order to recover. Her oozing wounds had finally closed up and healed over, but she was sure she was still too injured to be getting up. She feared to test broken bones.

Accompanied by a lot of groaning and grunting, she worked herself to the bottom

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of the bed. Sitting there, one hand holding the footboard to steady herself, she was still too far from the window to reach the water. She was going to have to stand.

She paused for a while to have dark thoughts about her husband.

After a day many weeks before, when she had called for a long time and Richard hadn't heard her weak voice, he had left a light pole beside her so she would be able to use it to reach out and knock on the wall or door if she was in urgent need of their help. Now, Kahlan worked her fingers around the pole lying alongside her bed and lifted it upright. She planted the thicker end on the ground and leaned on the pole for support as she carefully slid off the bed. Her feet touched the cool dirt floor. Putting weight on her legs made her gasp in pain.

She half stood, half leaned on the bed, prepared to cry out, but realized she was gasping more at the brutal pain she expected than from the actual pain. It did hurt, but she realized it wasn't too much to endure. She was a bit disgruntled to learn it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been; she had been planning on reducing Richard to tears with the torturous suffering he had so cavalierly forced upon her.

She put more weight on her feet and pulled herself up with the aid of the pole. Finally, she stood in wobbling triumph. She was actually on her feet, and she had done it by herself.

Kahlan couldn't seem to make her legs walk the way she wanted them to. In order to get to the water, she was going to have to make them do her bidding-at least until she reached the window. Then, she could collapse to the floor, where Richard would find her. She luxuriated in her mental picture of it. He wouldn't think his plan to get her out of bed so clever, then.

With the aid of the stout pole for support and her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth for balance, she slowly shuffled to the window. Kahlan told herself that if she fell, she was going to lie there in a heap on the floor, without any water, until Richard came back and found her moaning through cracked lips, dying of thirst. He would be sorry he had ever tried such a pitiless trick. He would feel guilty for the rest of his life for what he had done to her-she would see to it.

Almost wishing every difficult step of the way that she would fall, she finally made it to the window. Kahlan threw an arm over the sill for support and closed her eyes as she panted in little breaths so as not to hurt her ribs. When she had her wind back, she drew herself up to the window. She snatched the cup and gulped down the water.

Kahlan plunked the empty cup down on the sill and peered out as she caught her breath again.

Richard was sitting on the ground just outside, his arms hooked around his knees, his hands clasped.

"Hi there," he said with a smile.

Cara, sitting right beside him, gazed up without emotion. "I see you're up."

Kahlan wanted to yell at him, but instead she found herself trying with all her might not to laugh. She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly foolish for not trying sooner to get up on her own.

Tears stung her eyes as she looked out at the expanse of trees, the vibrant colors, the majestic mountains, and the huge sweep of blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds marching off into the distance. The size of the mountains, their imposing slopes, their luscious color, was beyond anything she had ever encountered before. How could she possibly not have wanted more than anything to get up and see the world around her?

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"You know, of course, that you've made a big mistake," Richard said.

"What do you mean?" Kahlan asked.

"Well, had you not gotten up, we'd have kept waiting on you-at least for a time. Now that you've shown us that you can get up and move on your own, we're only going to keep doing this-putting things out of your reach to make you start moving about and helping yourself."

While she silently thanked him, she was unwilling, just yet, to tell him out loud how right he had been. But inside, she loved him all the more for braving her anger to help her.

Cara turned to Richard. "Should we show her where she can find the table?"

Richard shrugged. "If she gets hungry, she'll come out of the bedroom and find it."

Kahlan threw the cup at him, hoping to wipe the smirk off his face. He caught the cup.

"Well, glad to see your arm works," he said. "You can cut your own bread." When she started to protest, he said, "It's only fair. Cara baked it. The least you can do is to cut it."

Kahlan's mouth fell open. "Cara baked bread?"

"Lord Rahl taught me," Cara said. "I wanted bread with my stew, real bread, and he told me that if I wanted bread, I would have to learn to make it. It was easy, really. A little like walking to the window. But I was much more good-natured about it, and didn't throw anything at him."

Kahlan could not help smiling, knowing it must have been harder for Cara to knead dough than for Kahlan to get up and walk. She somehow doubted that Cara had been "good-natured" about it. Kahlan would like to have seen that battle of wills.

"Give me back my cup. And then go catch some fish for dinner. I'm hungry. I want a trout. A big trout. Along with bread."

Richard smiled. "I can do that. If you can find the table."

Kahlan did find the table. She never ate in bed again.

At first, the pain of walking was sometimes more than she could tolerate, and she took refuge in her bed. Cara would come in and brush her hair, just so Kahlan wouldn't be alone. She had no power in her muscles, and could hardly move by herself. Brushing her own hair was a colossal task. Just getting to the table was exhausting, and all she could accomplish at first. Richard and Cara were sympathetic, and continually encouraged her, but they pushed her, too.

Kahlan was joyous to be out of the bed and that helped her to ignore the pain. The world was again a wondrous place. She was more than joyous to be able at last to go out to the privy. While she never said so, Kahlan was sure Cara was happy about that, too.

As much as she liked the snug home, going outside felt like finally being freed from a dungeon. Before, Richard had frequently offered to take her outside for the day, but she had never wanted to leave her bed, fearing the pain. She realized that because she was so sick, her thinking had slowly become dull and foggy. Along with her summer, she had for a time lost herself. Now, at long last, she felt clearheaded.

She discovered that the view outside her window was the least impressive of the surrounding sights. Snowcapped peaks towered around the small house Richard and Cara had built in the lap of breathtaking mountains. The simple house, with a bed 149

room at either end, one for Richard and Kahlan, and one for Cara, with a common room in the middle, sat at the edge of a meadow of velvety green grasses sprinkled with wildflowers. Even though it was late in the season when they had arrived, Richard managed to start a small garden in a sunny place outside Cara's window, growing fresh greens for the table and some herbs to add flavor to their cooking. Right behind the house, huge old white pines towered over them, sheltering them from the full force of the wind.

Richard had continued his carving, to pass the time as he sat by Kahlan's bed, talking and telling stories, but after she had at last gotten out of bed, his carvings changed. Instead of animals, Richard began sculpting people.

And then one day he surprised her with his most magnificent carving yet in celebration, he said, of her getting well enough to finally come out into the world.

Astonished by the utter realism and power of the small statue, she whispered that it could only be the gift that had guided his hand in carving it. Richard regarded such talk as nonsense.

"People without the gift carve beautiful statues all the time," he said. "There's no magic involved."

She knew, though, that some artists were gifted, and able to invoke magic through their art.

Richard occasionally spoke wistfully about the works of art he'd seen at the People's Palace, in D'Hara, where he had been held captive. Growing up in Hart land, he had never before seen statues carved in marble, and certainly none carved on such a grand scale, or by such talented hands. Those works had in some ways opened his eyes to the greater world around him and had made a lasting impression on him. Who else but Richard would remember fondly the beauty he saw while held captive and being tortured?

It was true that art could exist independent of magic, but Richard had been taken captive in the first place only with the aid of a spell brought to life through art. Art was a universal language, and thus an invaluable tool for implementing magic.

Kahlan finally stopped arguing with him about whether the gift helped him to carve. He simply didn't believe it. She felt, though, that, having no other outlet, his gift must be expressing itself in this way. Magic always seemed to find a way to seep out, and his carvings of people certainly did seem magical to her.

But the figure of the woman that he carved for her as a gift stirred profound emotion within her. He called it, an image nearly two feet tall carved from buttery smooth, rich, aromatic walnut, Spirit. The feminity of her body, its exquisite shape and curves, bones and muscle, were clearly evident beneath her flowing robes. She looked alive.

How Richard had accomplished such a feat, Kahlan couldn't even imagine. He had conveyed through the woman, her robes flowing in a wind as she stood with her head thrown back, her chest out, her hands fisted at her sides, her back arched and strong as if in opposition to an invisible power trying unsuccessfully to subdue her, a sense of . . . spirit.

The statue was obviously not intended to look like Kahlan, yet it evoked in her some visceral response, a tension that was startlingly familiar. Something about the woman in the carving, some quality it conveyed, made Kahlan hunger to be well, to be fully alive, to be strong and independent again.

If this wasn't magic, she didn't know what was.

Kahlan had been around grand palaces her whole life, exposed to any number of

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pieces of great art by renowned artists, but none had ever taken her breath with its thrust of inner vision, its sense of individual nobility, as did this proud, vibrant woman in flowing robes. The strength and vitality of it brought a lump to Kahlan's throat, and she could only throw her arms around Richard's neck in speechless emotion.

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Chapter 19

Now Kahlan went outside at every opportunity. She placed the carving of Spirit on the windowsill so she could see it not only from bed, but also when she was outdoors. She turned the statue so that it always faced outside. She felt it should always be facing the world.

The woods around the house were mysterious and alluring. Intriguing trails went off into the shadowy distance, and she could just detect light off at the end of the gently curving tunnel through the trees. She ached to explore those narrow tracks, animal trails enlarged by Richard and Cara on their short treks to tend fishing lines and forays in search of nuts and berries. Kahlan, with the aid of a staff, hobbled around the house and the meadow to strengthen her legs; she wanted to go with Richard on those treks, through the filtered sunlight and gentle breezes, over the open patches of ledge, and under the arched, enclosing limbs of huge oaks.

One of the first places Richard took her when she insisted she could walk for a short distance was through that tunnel in the thick, dark wood to the patch of light at the other end, where a brook descended a rocky gorge. The brook was sheltered on the hillside above them by a dense stand of trees. An enormous weight of water continuously plunged over that stepped tumble of rocks, surging around boulders and pouring in glassy sheets over ledges. Many of the bear-sized rocks sitting in the shady pools were flocked in a dark green velvet of moss and sprinkled with long tawny needles from the white pines that favored the rock slope. Flecks of sunlight winking through the dense canopy shimmered in the clear pools.

At the bottom of that gorge, in that sunny mountain glen off behind their house where the trail emerged from the woods, the brook broadened and slowed as it meandered through the expansive valley surrounded by the awesome jut of the mountains. Sometimes Kahlan would dangle her bony legs over a bank and let the cool water caress her feet. There, she could sit on the warm grass and soak up the sun while watching fish swim through the crystal-clear water flowing over gravel beds. Richard had been right when he told her that trout liked beautiful places.

She loved watching the fish, frogs, crayfish, and even the salamanders. Oftentimes, she would lie on her stomach on the low grassy bank, with her chin resting on the backs of her hands, and watch for hours as the fish came out from under sunken logs, from beneath rocks, or from the dark depths of the larger pools to snatch a bug from the surface of the water. Kahlan caught crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs and periodically tossed them in for the fish. Richard laughed when she talked to the fish, encouraging them to come up out of their dark holes for a tasty bug. Sometimes, a graceful gray heron would stand on its thin legs in the shallow marshes not far away and occasionally spear a fish or a frog with its daggerlike bill.

Kahlan could not recall, in the whole of her life, ever being in a place with such

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a vibrancy of life to it, surrounded by such majesty. Richard teased her, telling her she hadn't seen anything yet, making her curious and ever eager to get stronger so she could explore new sights. She felt like a little girl in a magical kingdom that was theirs and theirs alone. Having grown up a Confessor, Kahlan had never spent much time outdoors watching animals or water tumbling down over rocks or clouds or sunsets. She had seen a great many magnificent things, but they were in the context of travel, cities, buildings, and people. She had never lingered in one place in the countryside to really soak it all in.

Still, the thoughts in the back of her mind hounded her; she knew that she and Richard were needed elsewhere. They had responsibilities. Richard casually deflected the subject whenever she broached it; he had already explained his reasoning, and believed he was doing what was right.

They hadn't been visited by messengers for a very long time. That worry played on her mind, too, but Richard said that he couldn't allow himself to influence the army, so it was just as well that General Reibisch had stopped sending reports. Besides, he said, it only needlessly endangered the messengers who made the journey.

For the time being, Kahlan knew she needed to get better, and her isolated mountain life was making her stronger by the day, probably as nothing else could. Once they returned to the war-once she convinced him that they must return-this peaceful life would be but a cherished memory. She resolved to enjoy what she couldn't change, while it lasted.

Once when it had been raining for a few days and Kahlan was missing going out to the brook to watch the fish, Richard did the most unheard-of thing. He started bringing her fish in ajar. Live fish. Fish just for watching.

After he'd cleaned an empty lamp-oil jug and several widemouthed glass jars that had held preserves, herbs, and unguents for her injuries, along with other supplies he had purchased on their journey away from Anderith, he put some gravel in the bottom and filled them with water from the stream. He then caught some blacknose dace minnows and put them in the glass containers. They were yellowish olive on top speckled with black, with white bottoms, and a thick black line down each side. He even provided them with a bit of weed from the brook so they could have a place to hide and feel safe.

Kahlan was astonished when Richard brought home the first jar of live fish. She set the jars-eventually four jars and one jug in all-on the windowsill in the main room, beside several of Richard's smaller carvings. Richard, Kahlan, and Cara sat at the small wooden table when they ate and watched the marvel of fish living in ajar.

"Just don't name them," Richard said, "because eventually they're going to die."

What she had at first thought was an entirely daft idea became a center of fascination for her. Even Cara, who cited fish-in-a-jar as lunacy, took a liking to the little fish. It seemed that every day with Richard in the mountains held some new marvel to turn her mind away from her own pains and troubles.

After the fish became accustomed to people, they went about their little lives as if living in ajar were perfectly natural. From time to time, Richard would pour out part of their water, and add fresh water from the brook. Kahlan and Cara fed the little fish crumbs of bread or tiny scraps from dinner, along with small bugs. The fish ate eagerly, and spent most of their time pecking at the gravel on the bottom, or swimming about, looking out at the world. After a while, the fish learned when it

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was lunchtime. They would wiggle eagerly on the other side of the glass whenever anyone approached, like puppies happy to see their masters.

The main room had a small fireplace Richard had built with clay from stream banks he'd formed into bricks and dried in the sun, and then cooked in a fire. They had the table he'd made, and chairs constructed of branches intertwined and lashed together. He'd woven the chair bottoms and backs from leathery inner bark.

In the corner of the room was a wooden door over a deep root cellar. Against the back wall were simple shelves and a big cupboard full of supplies. They'd bought a lot of supplies along the way and carried them either in the carriage with Kahlan or strapped on the back and sides. For the last part of the journey Richard and Cara had lugged everything in, since the carriage couldn't make it over narrow mountain passes where there were no roads. Richard had blazed the trail in.

Cara had her own room opposite theirs. Once up and about, Kahlan was surprised to find that Cara had a collection of rocks. Cara bristled at the term "collection," and asserted that they were there as defensive weapons, should they be attacked and trapped in the house. Kahlan found the rocks-all different colors-suspiciously pretty. Cara insisted they were deadly.

While Kahlan had been bedridden, Richard had slept on a pallet in the main room, or sometimes outside under the stars. A number of times, at first, when she was in so much pain, Kahlan had awakened to see him sitting on the floor beside her bed, dozing as he leaned against the wall, always ready to jump up if she needed anything, or to offer her medicines and herb teas. He hadn't wanted to sleep in bed with her for fear of it hurting her. She almost would have been willing to endure it for the comfort of his presence beside her. Finally, though, after she was up and about, he was at last able to lie beside her. That first night with him in bed, she had held his big warm hand to her belly as she gazed at Spirit silhouetted in the moonlight, listening to the night calls of birds, bugs, and the songs of the wolves until her eyes closed and she drifted into a peaceful slumber.

It was on the next day that Richard first killed her.

They were at the stream, checking the fishing lines, when he cut two straight willow switches. He tossed one on the ground beside where she sat, and told her it was her sword.

He seemed in a playful mood, and told her to defend herself. Feeling playful herself, Kahlan took up the challenge by suddenly trying to stab him just to put him in his place. He stabbed her first and declared her dead. She fought him again, more earnestly the second time, and he quickly dispatched her with a convincingly feigned beheading. By the third time she went after him, she was a little irked. She put all her effort into her assault, but he smoothly thwarted her attack and then pressed the tip of his willow-switch sword between her breasts. He announced her dead for a third time out of three.

Thereafter, it became a game Kahlan wanted to win. Richard never let her win, not even just to be nice when she was feeling low because of her slow progress at getting stronger. He repeatedly humbled her in front of Cara. Kahlan knew he was doing it to make her push herself to use her muscles, to forget her aches, to stretch and strengthen her body. Kahlan just wanted to win.

They each carried their willow-switch swords sheathed behind a belt, always at the ready. Every day, she would attack him, or he would attack her, and the fight was on. At first, she was no challenge to him, and he made it clear she was no challenge. That, of course, only made her determined to show him that she was no

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novice, that it was not so much a battle of strength, but of leverage, advantage, and swiftness. He encouraged her, but never gave her false praise. As the weeks passed, she slowly began making him work for his kills.

Kahlan had been taught to use a sword by her father, King Wyborn. At least, he had been king before Kahlan's mother took him for her mate. King was an insignificant title to a Confessor. King Wyborn of Galea had had two children with his queen and first wife, so Kahlan had both an older half sister and a half brother.

Kahlan wanted very much to make a good show of her training under her father. It was frustrating to know she was far better with a weapon than she was showing Richard. It wasn't so much that she didn't know what to do, but that she simply couldn't do it; her muscles were not yet strong enough, nor would they respond nearly quickly enough.

Something about it, though, was still unsettling: Richard fought in a way Kahlan had never encountered in her training, or in the real combat she had seen. She couldn't define or analyze the difference, but she could feel it, and she didn't know what to do to counter it.

In the beginning, Richard and Kahlan had most of their battles in the meadow outside their house, so that Kahlan wouldn't be as likely to trip over something, and if she did, not as likely to hit her head on anything granite. Cara was their everpresent audience. As time passed, the battles lasted longer, and grew more strenuous. They became furious and exhausting.

A couple of times Kahlan had been so upset by Richard's relentless attitude toward their sword fights that she didn't speak to him for hours afterward, lest she let slip words she didn't really mean and which she knew she would regret.

Richard would then sometimes tell her, "Save your anger for the enemy. Here it will do you no good; there, it can overcome fear. Use this time now to teach your sword what to do, so later it will do it without conscious thought."

Kahlan well knew that an enemy was never kind. If Richard gave in to kindnessawarded her false pride-it could only serve her ill. As aggravating as such lessons sometimes were, it was impossible to remain angry with Richard for very long, especially because she knew she was really only angry with herself.

Kahlan had been around weapons and men who used them all her life. A few of the better ones, in addition to her father, were on occasion her teachers. None of them had fought like Richard. Richard made fighting with a blade look like art. He gave beauty to the act of dealing death. There was something about it, though, tickling at her, something she knew she still wasn't grasping.

Richard had told her once, before she had been hurt, that he had come to believe that magic itself could be an art form. She had told him she thought that was crazy. Now, she didn't know. From the bits of the story she'd heard, she suspected that Richard had used magic in something of that way to defeat the chimes: he had created a solution where it had never before existed, or even been imagined.

One day, in one of their fierce sword fights, she had been positive she had him dead to rights and that she was delivering the stroke of victory. He effortlessly evaded what she had been sure was her killing strike and killed her instead. He made what had seemed impossible look natural.

It was in that instant that the whole concept came clear for her. She had been looking at it all wrong.

It wasn't that Richard could fight well with a sword, or that he could create beautiful statues with a knife and chisel, it was that Richard was one with the

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blade-the blade in any form: sword, knife, chisel, or willow switch. He was a master-not of sword fighting or carving as such, but, in the most fundamental way, of the blade itself.

Fighting was but one use of a blade. His balance for using his sword to destroymagic always sought balance-was using a blade to carve things of beauty. She had been looking at the individual parts of what he did, trying to understand them separately; Richard saw only one unified whole.

Everything about him: the way he shot an arrow; the way he carved; the way he used a sword; even the way he walked with such fluid reasoned intent-they weren't separate things, separate abilities . . . they were all the same thing.

Richard paused. "What's the matter? Your face is turning white."

Kahlan stood with her willow sword lowered. "You're dancing with death. That's what you're doing with your sword."

Richard blinked at her as if she had just announced that rain was wet. "But, of course." Richard touched the amulet hanging at his chest. In the center, surrounded by a complex of gold and silver lines, was a teardrop-shaped ruby as big as her thumbnail. "I told you that a long time ago. Are you just now coming to believe me?"

She stood gaping. "Yes, I think I am."

Kahlan recalled all too clearly his chilling words to her when she had first seen the amulet around his neck, and she had asked him what it was:

"The ruby is meant to represent a drop of blood. It is the symbolic representation of the way of the primary edict.

"It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut.

"The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit.

"It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death.

"It is the law a war wizard lives by, or he dies."

The dance was art. It was no different, really, from carving. Art expressed through a blade. It was all one and the same to him. He saw no distinction, for within him, there was none.

--]--- They shared the meadow with a red fox who hunted it for rodents, mostly, but wasn't averse to chewing on whatever juicy bugs she could catch there. Their horses didn't mind the fox so much, but they didn't like the coyotes that sometimes visited. Kahlan rarely saw them, but she knew they were about when the horses snorted their displeasure. She often heard the coyotes barking at night, higher up in the surrounding slopes. They would let out long flat howls, followed by a series of yips. Some nights, the wolves sang, their long monotone howls, without the yapping of the coyotes, echoing through the mountains. Once Kahlan saw a black bear off in the trees, ambling along, giving them only a passing look, and once a bobcat passed

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near their house, sending the horses off in a panic. It took Richard the better part of a day to find the horses.

Chipmunks begged at their door, and regularly invited themselves into the house for a look around. Kahlan often caught herself talking to them and asking questions as if they could understand her every word. The way they paused and cocked their heads at her made her suspect they really could. In the early mornings, small herds of deer often visited the meadow, some leaving fresh, inverted heart-shaped tracks near the door as they passed. Lately, aggressive bucks in rut, bearing huge racks, had been showing up. One of the hides Kahlan wore was from a wolf injured by one of those bucks up in an oak grove not far away. Richard had spared the wounded animal a lingering, suffering death.

Beside the sword fights, they went on marches up into the mountains to help Kahlan strengthen her limbs. Those walks were taxing on her leg muscles, sometimes leaving her so sore she couldn't sleep. Richard would rub oil into her feet, calves, and thighs when they hurt too much for her to sleep. That usually worked, relaxing her and making her drowsy and able to fall asleep.

She distinctly remembered the rainy night after walking home in the wet and cold, when she lay on her back in bed, eyes shut, as Richard rubbed warm oil into her leg muscles. He whispered that her legs finally seemed to have gotten back all their tone and shape. Kahlan looked up and saw desire in his eyes. It was an almost forgotten thrill to know his hunger for her. She had been so startled that she felt tears trickle down her cheeks with the joy of suddenly feeling like a woman again-a desirable woman.

Richard raised her leg to his mouth and gently kissed her bare ankle. By the time his soft warm kisses reached her thighs, she was panting with suddenly and unexpectedly awakened desire. He laid open her nightshirt and rubbed the warm oil on her exposed belly. His big hands moved up her body to caress her breasts. He breathed through his mouth as he rolled her nipples until they were hard between his finger and thumb.

"Why, Lord Rahl," she said in a breathy whisper, "I do believe you are going to get carried away."

He paused, seeming to check himself and what he was doing, and then pulled back.

"I won't break, Richard," she said as she caught his hand and pulled it back. "I'm all right, now. I'd like it if you got carried away."

She clutched his hair in her fists as his kisses covered her breasts and then her shoulders and then worked up her neck. His panting warmed her ear. His exploring fingers made her frantic with need. His body against hers felt wildly erotic. She no longer felt weary. Finally, he tenderly kissed her lips. She let him know by the way she returned the kiss that he needn't be all that tender.

As the rain drummed on the roof, as lightning lit the lines and the clenched-fist strength of the statue in the window and thunder rumbled through the mountains, Kahlan, without fearing it, without worrying about it, without wondering if she would be able, held Richard tightly as they made quiet, gentle, fierce love. They had never needed each other as much as that night. All her fears and worries evaporated in the heat of overpowering need welling up through her. She wept with the strength of her pleasure and the release of her emotions.

When later Richard lay in her arms, she felt a tear roll off his face, and she asked him if something was wrong. He shook his head and said distantly that he had for

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so long feared losing her that sometimes he had believed he might go mad. It seemed as if he could finally allow himself release from his private terror. The pain Kahlan had first seen in his eyes when she couldn't remember his name was at last banished.

--]--- Their marches into the mountains ranged farther and farther. Sometimes they took packs and spent the night in the woods, often in a wayward pine, when they could find one. The rugged terrain offered a never-ending variety of vistas. In places, sheer rock cliffs towered over them. In other places, they stood at the brink of sheer drops and watched the sun turn the sky orange and purple as it went down while wispy clouds drifted through quiet green valleys below. They went to towering waterfalls with their own rainbows. There were clear, sunlit pools up in the mountains where they swam. They ate on rocks overlooking rugged sights no one but they ever saw. They followed animal trails through vast woods of gnarled trees, and others among the dark forest floor where grew trees with trunks like huge brown columns, so big twenty men couldn't have joined hands around them.

Richard had Kahlan practice with a bow to help strengthen her arms. They hunted small game for stews, or for roasting. Some they smoked and dried along with the fish they caught. Richard usually didn't eat meat, but occasionally he did. Not eating meat was part of the balance needed by his gift for when he was forced to kill. That need of balance was lessening because he wasn't killing. He was at peace. Perhaps the balance was now being served by his carving. As time passed, he was able to eat more meat. When they were out on journeys, they usually ate rice and beans along with bannock and any berries they collected along the way, in addition to game they caught.

Kahlan helped clean fish and salt them down and smoke yet others for their winter stores. It was a job that she had never before undertaken. They collected berries, nuts, and wild apples and put a lot of those away in the root cellar along with root crops he had purchased before coming up into the mountains. Richard dug up small apple trees, when he found any, and planted them in the meadow by the house so that, he said, someday they would have apples close at hand.

Kahlan wondered how long he intended to keep them away from where they were needed. The silent question always hung there, seen by all, but unspoken. Cara never asked him, but she sometimes made some small mention of it to Kahlan when they were alone. She was Lord Rahl's guard, and glad to be close at hand, so she generally offered no objection. He was, after all, Lord Rahl, and he was safe.

Kahlan had always felt the weight of their responsibilities. Like the towering mountains all around, looming over them, always shadowing them, that responsibility could never be completely forgotten. As much as she loved the house Richard had built on the edge of the meadow, and as much as she loved exploring the rugged beautiful, imposing, and ever-changing mountains, with each passing day she mom and more felt that weight and the anxious need to be back where they were needed most. She fretted at what could be going on that they weren't aware of. The Imperial Order was not going to stay put; an army that size liked to move. Soldiers, especially soldiers of that ilk, became restless in long encampments, and sooner or later started causing trouble. She worried about all the people who needed the reassurance of Richard's presence, his guidance-and hers. There were people who their whole

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lives had depended on the Mother Confessor always being there to stand up for them.

With winter coming on, Richard had made Kahlan a warm mantle, mostly out of wolf fur. The other two pelts were coyotes. Richard had found one of the coyotes with a broken leg, probably from a fall, and had put it out of its misery. The other had been a rogue chased off by the local pack. It had taken to raiding food from lei little smokehouse. Richard had taken the sly looter with a single arrow.

They had collected most of the wolf pelts from injured or old animals. Richard, Kahlan, and Cara often tracked wolf packs as a way of helping to build Kahlan's strength. Kahlan came to recognize their tracks, and even learned to know at a glance, if the prints were in mud or soft dirt, their front paws from the rear. Richard showed her how the toes of the front spread out more, with a more welldefined heel pad than the rear paw. He had located several packs in the mountains, and the three of them often followed one group or family to see if they could do so without the wolves knowing. Richard said it was a kind of game guides used to play to keep in practice-to keep their senses sharp.

After Kahlan's mantle was completed, they had turned to collecting pelts for Cara's winter fur. Cara, who always wore the clothes of her profession, had liked the idea of Lord Rahl making something for her to wear-the same as he had made for Kahlan. While she had never said as much, Kahlan had always felt that Cara saw the mantle he was making for her as a mark of his feelings, his respect-proof that she was more than just his bodyguard.

This had been a journey to find pelts for Cara's mantle, and she had been eager. She had even cooked for them.

Now, coming down off the ridge where Kahlan had finally bested Richard in a sword fight, Kahlan was in a good mood. For the last two days they had been following the wolf pack up in the mountains to the west of their house. It was not simply a hunt, and not simply to get a pelt for Cara, but part of the never-ending pressure Richard put on Kahlan to keep up.

Almost every day for the last two months, Richard had her marching over the most difficult terrain, the kind of terrain that made her strain every muscle in her body. As Kahlan had gotten stronger, the marches had gotten longer. At first they were only across the house; now they were across mountains. On top of that, he frequently attacked her with his willow sword and poked fun at her if she didn't put in her absolute hardest fight.

In a way, finally beating Richard in one of their mock sword fights puzzled her. He might have been tired from carrying the heaviest pack and scouting some of the steeper trails by himself first and then coming back for them, but he hadn't slacked off, and she had still killed him. She couldn't help but be pleased with herself, even if she did question her victory. Out of the corner of her eye, she had caught him smiling as he looked at her. Kahlan knew Richard was proud of her for besting him. In a way, his losing was a victory for him.

Kahlan thought that she must be stronger, now, after all Richard had put her through, than at any time in her life. It had not been easy, but it had been worth at last feeling like the carving in the window of her bedroom.

Kahlan put a hand on Richard's shoulder as he followed Cara down broken granite blocks placed by chance like big, irregular steps. "Richard, how did I beat you?"

He saw in her eyes the seriousness of the question. "You killed me because I made a mistake."

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"A mistake? You mean, perhaps you had gotten too confident? Perhaps you were just tired, or were thinking of something else."

"Doesn't really matter, does it? Whatever it was, it was a mistake that cost me my life in the game. In a real fight, I would have died. You've taught me a valuable lesson to redouble my resolve to always put in my absolute full effort. It just goes to remind me, though, that I could make a mistake at any time, and lose."

Kahlan couldn't help but to be struck by the obvious question: was he making a mistake in staying out of the effort to keep the Midlands free from the tyranny of the Imperial Order? She couldn't help feeling the pull to help her people, even though Richard still felt that if the people didn't want his leadership, his efforts could do no good. As Mother Confessor, Kahlan knew that while people didn't always understand that what a leader did was done in their best interest, that was no reason to abandon them.

With winter coming on, she hoped the Imperial Order would choose to stay put in Anderith. Kahlan needed to convince Richard to return to help the Midlands, but she was at a loss to know how. He was firm in his reasoning, and she could find no chink in the armor of his logic. Emotion did not sway him in this.

Cara led them down the craggy precipice, having to backtrack only twice. It was a difficult descent. Cara was pleased with herself, and that Richard had let her pick the route. It was her pelt they were going after, so he let her lead them across the tangle of undergrowth in the ravine at the bottom and then up the following lip of the notch where trees clung with roots like talons to the rocky rise.

The wind coming up the ravine had turned bitter. The clouds had thickened until they snuffed out the golden rays of sunlight. Their ascent took them up into a gloomy, dark wood of towering evergreens. Far over their heads, the treetops swayed in the wind, but down on the ground, it was still. Their footfalls were hushed by a thick spongy mat of brown needles.

The climb was steep, but not arduous. As they ascended, the big trees grew farther and farther apart. The boughs became scraggly, allowing more of the somber light to seep in. For the most part, the rocks higher up were bare of moss and leaves. In places they had to use handholds on the rock, or else roots, to help them climb. Kahlan pulled deep breaths of the cold air; it felt good to test her muscles.

They came out of the forest into the steel-gray light of late afternoon and the moaning voice of the wind. They were in the crooked wood.

The scree and rock were naked of the thick moss common lower down the mountain, but they bore yellow-green splotches of lichen outlined in black. Only a bit of scraggly brush clung to the low places here and there. But it was the trees that were the most odd, and gave the place at the top of the tree line its name. They were all stunted-few taller than Kahlan or Richard. Most of the branches grew to one side because of the prevailing winds, leaving the trees looking like grotesque, running skeletons frozen in torment.

Above the crooked wood, few things other than sedges and lichens grew. Above that, the snowcap held sway.

"Here it is," Cara said.

They found the wolf sprawled on the scree beside a low boulder with a dark stain of dried blood at the sharp edge. Up higher, the pack of gray wolves had been trying to take down a woodland caribou. The old bull had grazed the unlucky wolf with a kick. That in itself would likely not have been anything more than painful, but the wolf had slipped from the higher ledge and fallen to its death. Kahlan ran her fingers

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through the thick, yellow-gray coat tipped in black. It was in good condition, and would be a warm addition to Cara's winter mantle.

Richard and Cara started skinning the good-sized female animal as Kahlan went out to the edge of an overhang. She drew her own mantle up around her ears as she stood in the bitter wind surveying the approaching clouds. She was somewhat startled by what she saw.

"Richard, it's not drizzle coming our way," Kahlan said. "It's snow."

He looked up from his bloody work. "Do you see any wayward pines down in the valley?"

She squinted down to the valley floor spread out before her.

"Yes, I see a couple. The snow is still a ways off. If you're not long at that, we can probably make it down there and collect some wood before it gets wet."

"We're almost done," Cara said.

Richard stood to have a quick look for himself. With a bloody hand, he absently fifted his real sword a few inches and then let it drop back, a habit he had of checking to make sure the weapon was clear in its scabbard. It was an unsettling gesture. He had not drawn the weapon from its hilt since the day he had been forced to kill all those men who had attacked them back near Hartland.

"Is something wrong?"

"What?" Richard saw where her eyes were looking and glanced down at the sword on his hip. "Oh. No, nothing. Just habit, I guess."

Kahlan pointed. "There's a wayward pine, there. It's the closest, and good-sized, too."

Richard wiped the back of his wrist across his brow, swiping his hair away from his eyes. His fingers glistened with blood. "We'll be down there, sheltered by a wayward pine, sitting beside a cozy fire having tea before dark. I can stretch the hide on the branches inside and scrape it there. The snow will help insulate us inside the tree's boughs. We'll have a good rest before heading back in the morning. Down a little lower, it will only be rain."

Kahlan snuggled her cheek inside her wolf fur as a shiver tingled through her shoulders and up the back of her neck. Winter had snuck up on them.

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CHAPTER 20

When they arrived home two days later, the little fish in the jars were all dead. They had used the same easier route over the pass that they had originally used to enter the valley when they had first come in with the horses, months before. Of course, Kahlan didn't recall that trip; she had been unconscious. It seemed a lifetime ago.

There was now a shorter trail to their home, one they had blazed down from the pass. They could have used that alternative route, but it was narrow and difficult and would have saved them only ten or fifteen minutes. They had been out for days, and as they had wearily stood in the windswept notch at the top of the pass looking down at their cozy home far below at the edge of the meadow, they had decided to take the easier passage, even though it took a little longer. It had been a relief to finally get inside the house, out of the wind, and drop all their gear.

As Richard brought in firewood and Cara fetched water, Kahlan pulled out a little square of cloth with some small bugs she'd caught earlier that day, intending to give her fish a treat, since they were sure to be hungry. She let out a little groan when she saw that they were dead.

"What's the matter?" Cara asked as she walked in lugging a full bucket. She came over to see the fish.

"Looks like they starved," Kahlan told her.

"Little fish like that don't often live long in a jar," Richard said as he knelt and started stacking birch logs atop kindling in the fireplace.

"But they did live a long time," Kahlan said, as if to prove him wrong and somehow talk him out of it.

"You didn't name them, did you? I told you not to name them because they would die after a time. I warned you not to let yourself get emotionally attached when it can only come to no good end."

"Cara named one."

"Did not," Cara protested. "I was just trying to show you which one I was talking about, that's all."

After the flames took from his flint, Richard looked up and smiled. "Well, I'll get you some more."

Kahlan yawned. "But these were the best ones. They needed me."

Richard snorted a laugh. "You've got quite the imagination. They only depended on us because we artificially altered their lives. Just like the chipmunks would stop hunting seeds for their winter stores if we gave them handouts all the time. Of course, the fish had no choice, because we kept them in jars. Left to their own initiative, the fish wouldn't need any help from us. After all, it took a net to catch them. I'll catch you some more, and they'll come to need you just as much."

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Two days later, on a thinly overcast day, after they'd had a big lunch of thick rabbit stew with turnips and onions along with bread Cara had made, Richard went off to check the fishing lines and to catch some more of the blacknose dace minnows.

After he'd left, Cara picked up their spoons and put them in the bucket of wash water on the counter.

"You know," she said, looking back over her shoulder, "I like it here, I really do, but it's starting to make me jumpy."

Kahlan scraped the plates off into a wooden bowl with the cooking leavings for the midden heap. "Jumpy?" She brought the plates to the counter. "What do you mean?"

"Mother Confessor, this place is nice enough, but it's starting to make me go daft. I am Mord-Sith. Dear spirits, I'm starting to name fish in jars!" Cara turned back to the bucket and bent to cleaning the spoons with a washcloth. "Don't you think it's about time we convinced Lord Rahl that we need to get back?"

Kahlan sighed. She loved their home in the mountains, and she loved the quiet and solitude. Most of all, she treasured the time she and Richard were able to spend together without other people making demands of them. But she also missed the activity of Aydindril, the company of people, and the sights of cities and crowds. There was a lot not to like about being in places like that, but there was an excitement about it, too.

She'd had a lifetime to become used to the way people didn't always want or understand her help, and forging ahead anyway because she knew it was in their best interest. Richard never had to learn to face that cold indifference and go about his duty despite it.

"Of course I do, Cara." Kahlan placed the bowl of scraps on a shelf, reminding herself to empty it later. She wondered if she was to be a Mother Confessor who forever lived in the woods, away from her people, a people struggling for their liberty. "But you know how Richard feels. He thinks it would be wrong-more than that, he thinks it would be irresponsible to give in to such a wish when reason tells him he must not."

Cara's blue eyes flashed with determination. "You are the Mother Confessor. Break the spell of this place. Tell him that you are needed back there, and that you are going to return. What's he going to do? Tie you to a tree? If you leave, he will follow. He will have to return, then."

Kahlan shook her head emphatically. "No, I can't do that. Not after what he's told us. That's not the kind of thing you do to a person you respect. I may not exactly agree with him, but I understand his reasons and know him well enough to dread that he's right."

"But going back doesn't mean he would have to lead our side. You would only be making him follow you back, not making him return to leadership." Cara smirked. "But maybe when he sees how much he is needed, he will come to his senses."

"That's part of the reason he's brought us so far out in the mountains: he fears that if he's near the struggle, or if he goes back, he will see all that's happening and be drawn in. I can't use his feelings for me to force him into such a corner. Even if we did go back and he resisted the temptation to help people fighting for their lives and wasn't drawn into the struggle against the brutality of the Imperial Order, such an overt act of coercion on my part would create an enduring rift between us."

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Kahlan shook her head again. "This is something he believes too strongly. I won't force him into returning."

Cara gestured with the dripping washcloth. "Maybe he doesn't really believe it, not really, not deep down inside. Maybe he doesn't want to go back because he doubts himself-over the Anderith thing-and so he thinks it's just easier for him to stay away."

"I don't believe Richard doubts himself in this. Not in this. Not for a second. Not one tiny little bit. I think that if he had any doubt whatsoever, he would return, because that is really the easier path. Staying away is harder-as you and I can attest.

"But you can leave at any time, Cara, if you feel so strongly about going back. He has no claim on your life. You don't have to stay here if you don't wish to."

"I am sworn to follow him no matter what foolish thing he does."

"Foolish? You follow him because you believe in him. So do I. That's why I could never walk away, forcing him to follow."

Cara pressed her lips tight. Her blue eyes lost their fire as she turned away and flopped the cloth back into the bucket of water. "Then we will be stuck here, condemned to live out our lives in paradise."

Kahlan smiled in understanding of Cara's frustration. While she wouldn't try to force Richard into something he was dead set against, that didn't preclude her from trying to change his mind. She drained her teacup and plunked it down on the counter. That would be different.

"Maybe not. You know, I've been thinking the same thing-that we need to go back, I mean."

Cara peered over with a suspicious sidelong glance. "So, what do you think we can do to convince him?"

"Richard is going to be gone for a while. Without him here to bother us, how about we have a bath?"

"A bath?"

"Yes, a bath. I've been thinking about how much I'd like to get cleaned up. I'm tired of looking like a backcountry traveler. I'd like to wash my hair and put on my white Mother Confessor's dress."

"Your white Mother Confessor's dress . . ." Cara smiled conspiratorially. "Ah. Now that will be the kind of battle a woman is better equipped to fight."

Out of the corner of her eye, Kahlan could see Spirit standing in the bedroom window, looking out at the world, her robes flowing in the wind, her head thrown back, her back arched, her fists at her sides in defiance of anything that would think to bridle her.

"Well, not exactly a battle the way you're thinking, but I believe I can state the case better if I'm dressed properly. That wouldn't be unfair. I will be putting the issue to him as the Mother Confessor. I believe that in some ways his judgment has been clouded; it's hard to think about anything else when you're worried sick about someone you love."

Kahlan's fists tightened at her sides as she thought about the danger hanging over the Midlands. "He's got to see that all of that is in the past, that I'm healthy, now, and that the time has come to return to our duties to our people."

Smirking, Cara swiped back a wisp of her blond hair. "He will see that, and more, if you were in that dress of yours, that's for sure."

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"I want him to see the woman who was strong enough to win against him with a sword. I want him to see that Mother Confessor in the dress, too."

From the corner of her mouth, Cara puffed another strand of hair off her face. "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind a bath myself. You know, I think that if I stand beside you in a proper Mord-Sith outfit and my hair is washed and my braid is done up fresh and I'm looking properly Mord-Sith-like and I speak my agreement with what you say, Lord Rahl will be all the more convinced that we're right and inclined to see that the time has come for us to return."

Kahlan set the plates into the bucket of water. "It's settled, then. We've enough time before he comes back."

Richard had made them a small wooden tub, big enough to sit in and have a nice bath. It wasn't big enough to lie back and luxuriate in, but it was still quite the luxury for their mountain home.

Cara towed the tub from the corner, leaving drag marks across the dirt floor. "I'll put it in my room. You go first. That way, if he comes back sooner rather than later, you can keep your nosy husband busy and out of my hair while I wash it."

Together, Kahlan and Cara hauled in buckets of water from the nearby spring, heating some in a kettle over a roaring fire. When Kahlan finally sank into the steaming water, she let out a long sigh. The air was chilly, and the hot bath felt all the better for it. She would have liked to linger, but decided not to.

She smiled at recalling all the trouble Richard had had with women in bathwater. It was a good thing he wasn't there. Later, after they had their talk, she thought she would ask him to take a bath before bed. She liked the aroma of his sweat when it was clean sweat.

With the knowledge that she would face Richard with her hair washed and sparkling, and in her white dress, Kahlan felt more confident about the real possibility of their return than she had in a long time. She dried and brushed her hair by the heat of the fire as Cara boiled some more water. While Cara went in to take her bath, Kahlan went to her room to slip into her dress. Most people feared the dress because they feared the woman who wore it; Richard had always liked her in the dress.

As she tossed the towel on the bed, her eye was caught by the statue in the window. Kahlan fisted her hands at her sides and, standing naked, arched her back and threw her head back, mimicking Spirit, letting the feeling of it overcome her, letting herself be that strong spirit, letting it flow through her.

For that moment, she was the spirit of the statue.

This was a day of change. She could feel it.

It seemed a little odd, after being a woods woman for so long, to be back in her Mother Confessor's dress, to feel the satiny smooth material against her skin. Mostly, though, the feeling was the comfort of the familiar.

As Mother Confessor, Kahlan felt sure of herself. On a fundamental level, the dress was a form of battle armor. Wearing the dress, Kahlan also felt a sense of importance, in that she carried the weight of history, of exceptional women who had gone before her. The Mother Confessor bore a terrible responsibility, but also had the satisfaction of being able to make a real difference for the better in people's lives.

Those people depended on her. Kahlan had a job to do, and she had to convince Richard that she needed to do it. They needed him, too, but even if he would not

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issue orders, he needed to at least willingly return with her. Those fighting for their cause deserved to know the Mother Confessor was with them, and that she had not lost faith in them or their cause. She had to make Richard see that much of it.

Once she was back out in the main room, Kahlan could hear Cara splashing in the tub. "Need anything, Cara?" she called out.

"No, I'm fine," Cara called from her room. "This feels so good! I think there's enough dirt in this water to plant potatoes."

Kahlan laughed knowingly. She saw a chipmunk casting about outside the house. "I'm going to go feed Chippy some apple cores. If you need anything, call out."

Their universal name for all the chipmunks was "Chippy." They all answered to it; they knew the name augured well for a handout.

"All right," Cara said from her tub. "If Lord Rahl gets back, though, just kiss him or something to keep him busy but wait until I'm done before you talk to him. I want to be with you to help you convince him. I want to be sure we make him see the light."

Kahlan smiled. "I promise."

She plucked an apple core from the wooden bucket of little animal snacks they kept hanging on a piece of twine where the chipmunks couldn't get to them on their own. The squirrels loved apple cores, too. The horses preferred their apples whole.

"Here, Chippy," Kahlan called out through the door in the voice she always used with them. She raised the bucket back toward the ceiling and hooked the line to the peg on the wall. "Chip, Chip, you want an apple?"

Outside, Kahlan saw the chipmunk off to the side, foraging through the grass. The chill breeze caressed the long folds of her dress to her legs as she walked. It was almost cold enough to need the fur mantle. The bare branches of the oaks behind the house creaked and groaned as they rubbed together. The pines, reaching toward the sky where the wind was stronger, bowed deeply with some of the gusts. The sun had taken refuge behind a steel-gray overcast that made her white dress all the more striking in the gloom.

Near the window where Spirit stood watching out, Kahlan called the chipmunk again. The chipmunks were held spellbound by the soft voice Kahlan used when she talked to them. When he heard her, the furry little striped creature stood on his hind legs for a moment, stiff and still, checking that all was clear, and when he was sure it was safe, scurried to her. Kahlan squatted and rolled the apple core out of her hand onto the ground.

"Here you go, sweetheart," she cooed. "A nice apple for you."

Chippy wasted no time starting in on his treat. Kahlan's cheeks hurt from smiling at the way the chipmunk nibbled his way around the apple core as it rolled along the ground. She rose to her feet, brushing her hands clean as she watched, captivated by the little creature at his feverish work.

He suddenly flinched with a squeak and froze.

Kahlan looked up. She was staring right into a woman's blue eyes.

The woman stood not ten feet away in a pose of cool scrutiny. Kahlan's throat locked the gasp in her lungs. The woman had seemed to appear in the middle of nowhere, out of nowhere. Icy gooseflesh prickled up the backs of Kahlan's arms.

The woman's long blond hair cascaded over the shoulders of an exquisite black dress. She was of such shapely beauty, her face of such pure perfection, but especially her eyes were of such intelligent lucid witnesses to all around her, that she could only be a creature of profound integrity . . . or unspeakable evil.

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Kahlan knew without doubt which it was.

This woman made Kahlan feel as ugly as a clod of dirt, and instinctively as helpless as a child. She wanted nothing so much as to shrink away. Instead, she stared into the woman's blue eyes for what couldn't have been more than a second or two, but in that span of time an eternity seemed to pass. In those knowing blue eyes flowed some formidable, frightful current of contemplation.

Kahlan remembered Captain Meiffert's description of this woman. For the life of her, though, Kahlan couldn't just then recall her name. It seemed trivial. What mattered was that this woman was a Sister of the Dark.

Without speaking a word, the woman lifted her hands out a little and turned her palms up, as if humbly offering something. Her hands were empty.

Kahlan committed to the vault through space necessary to close the distance. She committed to unleashing her power. With her resolution, the act had in a way already commenced. But she desperately needed to get closer if it was to be meaningful, or effective.

As she began to move, to make that reckless leap, the world went white in a bloom of pain.

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Chapter 21

Richard heard an odd sound that stopped him in his tracks. He felt a thump through the ground and deep in his chest. He thought he'd seen a flash in the treetops, but it had been so quick he wasn't sure.

It was the sound, though, as if some great hammer had struck off the top of a mountain, that made his blood go cold.

The house wasn't far off through the trees. He dropped the string of trout and the jar of minnows, and ran.

At the edge of the woods where it opened into the meadow, he skidded to a halt. His pounding heart felt as if it had risen up into his throat.

Richard saw the two women not far away, in front of the house, one dressed in white, and one in black. They were connected by a snaking, undulating, crackling line of milky white light. Nicci's arms were lifted slightly with her hands turned palms up and a little farther apart than the width of her hips.

The milky light went from Nicci's chest, across the space between the two women, and pierced Kahlan through the heart. The wavering aurora between the two turned blindingly bright, as if twisting in an agony it was unable to escape.

Seeing Kahlan trembling with the fury of that lance of light pinning her to the wall, Richard was paralyzed by fear for her, fear he knew all too well, from when she had been on the cusp of death. That bolt pierced Nicci's heart, too, connecting the two women. Richard didn't understand the magic Nicci was using, but he instinctively recognized it as profoundly dangerous, not only to Kahlan, but to Nicci as well, for she, too, was in pain. That Nicci would put herself at such risk gripped him with dread.

Richard knew he had to remain calm and keep his wits about himself if Kahlan was to have a chance. He viscerally wanted to do something to strike Nicci down, but he was certain that it wouldn't be as simple as that. Zedd's oft-repeated expression-nothing is ever easy-flashed into Richard's mind with sudden and tangible meaning.

In a desperate search for answers, everything Richard knew about magic cascaded in a torrent through his mind. None of it told him what to do, but it did tell him what he must not do. Kahlan's life hung in the balance.

Just then, Cara came flying out of the house. She was stark naked. It somehow didn't look all that odd. Richard was accustomed to the shape of her body in her skintight leather outfits. Other than the color, this didn't look all that different. She was dripping wet. Her hair was undone, which seemed more outlandishly indecent to him than her naked body. He was used to seeing her with a braid all the time.

Cara's fist clutched the red leather rod-her Agiel-as she crouched. The muscles of her legs, arms, and shoulders strained with tension demanding release.

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"Cara! No!" Richard cried out.

He was already tearing across the meadow as Cara sprang and slammed her Agiel against the side of Nicci's neck.

Nicci shrieked in pain that dropped her to her knees. Kahlan cried out in equal pain and crumpled to her knees as well, her movement a close match to Nicci's.

Cara seized Nicci's hair in a fist and yanked her head back. "Time to die, witch!"

Nicci was doing nothing to stop Cara as the Agiel hung only inches from her throat.

Richard dove toward the Mord-Sith, desperately hoping he wouldn't be too late. Cara's Agiel just grazed Nicci's throat as Richard tackled her around the middle, ramming her backward. The feel of her was briefly surprising-silky soft flesh over iron-hard muscle. The impact drove the wind from her when they hit the ground.

Cara was so enraged and in such a combative state that she lashed out with her Agiel at Richard, not really realizing it was him, knowing only that she was being prevented from protecting Kahlan.

The violent impact of the weapon to the side of Richard's face felt like a blow by an iron bar followed immediately by a lightning strike. The crack of pain through his skull was momentarily blinding. His ears rang. The jolt took his breath, staggering him, and brought back in a single instant an avalanche of macabre memories.

Cara was riveted on the kill and furious at any interference. Richard regained his senses just in time to seize her wrists and pin her to the ground before she could pounce on Nicci. A Mord-Sith was formidable, to be sure, but such a woman was instilled with the ability to counter magic, not muscle. That was why she had been trying to goad Nicci into using her power; only in that way could she capture the enemy's magic and so overpower her.

Cara's writhing naked body under him hardly registered in Richard's mind. He tasted blood in his mouth. His attention was focused on her Agiel and making sure she couldn't use it on him. His head throbbed with a painful ringing, and he had to fight not only Cara, but encroaching unconsciousness. It was all he could do to hold Cara down.

At that moment, the Mord-Sith was more of a threat to Kahlan's life than Nicci was. If Nicci intended to kill Kahlan, he was sure she could have already done so. Richard might not have understood specifically what Nicci was doing, but by what he had already seen, he grasped the general nature of it.

Blood dripped down onto Cara's bare chest, vivid red against the expanse of her white skin.

"Cara, stop!" His jaw worked, if painfully, so he reasoned it wasn't broken. "It's me. Stop. You'll kill Kahlan." Cara stilled under him, staring up in angry confusion. "What you do to Nicci happens to Kahlan, too."

"You had better listen to him," Nicci said from behind him in that velvety voice of hers.

Cara reached up when Richard released her wrists and touched the side of his mouth. "I'm sorry," she whispered, realizing what she had done. Her tone told him she meant it. Richard nodded and then stood, pulling her up by her hand before rounding on Nicci.

Nicci stood tall, in that proud and proper posture she had. Her attention and her magic was focused on Kahlan. The calm but violent power from within him had awakened, waiting to be commanded. Richard didn't know how to use it to stop Nicci. He held back, fearing that anything he did would only make Kahlan's peril worse.

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Kahlan was on her feet, too, but once again pinned to the wall of the house by the milky rope of light. Her green eyes were wide with the trembling torment of whatever it was Nicci was doing.

Nicci's hands lifted. She laid her palms to her heart, over the light. Her back was to Richard, but he could see the light through her, like fire eating through the center of a piece of paper, the incandescent hole expanding outward, appearing to consume her. The twisting flare of light was doing the same thing to Kahlan, seeming to burn through her, yet Richard could see that she was not being killed by it. She was still breathing, still moving, still alive-not reacting at all the way a person would if they were really having holes burned through them. With magic, he knew better than to believe his eyes.

At the center of Nicci's chest, under her hands, she began to become solid again, re-forming where the light had spent itself in glowing rays working out toward the edges of her.

The light cut off. Kahlan, her own hands pressed to the wall behind her, sagged in relief as it extinguished, her eyes closing as if it was too much to endure looking at the woman standing before her.

Richard was restrained fury. His muscles screamed to be released. The magic within was a coiled viper waiting to strike. He wanted almost more than anything to cut down this woman. The only thing he wanted more was for Kahlan to be safe.

Nicci smiled pleasantly at Kahlan before turning to Richard. Her calm blue eyes momentarily took in his white-knuckled fist on the hilt of his sword.

"Richard. It's been a long time. You look well."

"What have you done?" He growled through gritted teeth.

She smiled. It was a smile a mother gave a child-a smile of indulgence. She took a breath, as if recovering from a difficult bit of labor, and lifted a hand to indicate Kahlan.

"I have spelled your wife, Richard."

Richard could hear Cara's breath close behind his left shoulder. She was staying out of the way of his sword arm.

"To what end?" he asked.

"Why, to capture you, of course."

"What's going to happen to her? What harm have you done?"

"Harm? Why, none. Any harm that comes to her will only be by your hand."

Richard frowned, understanding her, but wishing he were wrong. "You mean, if I hurt you, Kahlan will suffer it, too?"

Nicci smiled with the same discerning, disarming smile she used to have when she came to give him lessons. He could hardly believe that he used to imagine that she must look like nothing so much as a good spirit in the flesh.

Richard could sense the magic crackling around this woman. He had come to know in most cases, through his own gift, when a person had the gift. What others couldn't see, he saw. He could see it in their eyes, and sometimes sense the aura of it around them. He had rarely met gifted women who made the very air about them sizzle with their power. Worse, though, Nicci was a Sister of the Dark.

"Yes, and more. Much more. You see, we are now linked by a maternity spell. Odd name for a spell, yes? The name, in part, is derived from the spell's nurturing aspects. As in lifegiver-the way a mother nurtures her child and keeps it alive.

"That light you saw was an umbilical cord of sorts: an umbilical cord of magic. By bending the nature of this world, it links our lives, no matter the distance between

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us. Just as I am the daughter of my mother and nothing could ever change that, so neither can this magic be altered by anyone else."

She spoke as an instructor, as she had once spoken to him at the Palace of the Prophets when she had been one of his teachers. She always spoke with a quiet economy of words that he had once thought added an air of nobility to her bearing. Back then, Richard couldn't have imagined coarse words coming from Nicci's mouth, but the words she spoke now were vile.

She still moved with an unmatched, slow elegance. He had always thought her movements seductive. He now saw them as the sinuous movements of a snake.

The magic of his sword thundered through him, screaming to be loosed. The sword's magic had been created specifically to combat what the sword's wielder considered evil. At that moment, Nicci fit the requirement to such an extent that the magic of the sword was close to overpowering him, near to taking command in order to destroy this threat. With the pain from the Agiel still throbbing in his head, it was a struggle to maintain his control over the power of the sword. Richard could feel the raised gold letters of the word TRUTH on the hilt pressing into his palm.

This was a time, perhaps more than any other, that he knew had to be faced with truth, and not his raw wishes. Life and death hung in the balance.

"Richard," Kahlan said in a level voice. She waited until his eyes met hers. "Kill her." She spoke with a quiet authority that demanded obedience. In her white Mother Confessor's dress, her words carried the unequivocal weight of command. "Do it. Don't wait another moment. Kill her. Don't think about it, do it."

Nicci calmly watched to see what he might do. What he would finally decide seemed no more than a matter of curiosity to her. Richard had no need to think or to decide.