oy. It made her sick to her stomach to hear a child express Jagang's vile thoughts. The boy's arm gestured for his master. "One of my beauties, and quite the lethal lady, besides." Kahlan thought she detected in Jagang's gravelly growl a hint of the false bravado of a bluff. Almost in afterthought, he added, "You haven't really seen her." Kahlan heard in the assertion the ghost of a question he dared not ask, and knew by it that there was something more to this. She wished she knew what. She shrugged again. "Lethal? I wouldn't know." He licked the blood from his lips. "That's what I thought." "I wouldn't know because she didn't seem all that lethal. She didn't manage to harm any of us." The grin returned. "You lie, darlin. If you really saw Nicci, she would have killed at least some of you, even if she didn't manage to kill you all. You couldn't best that one without her scratching someone's eyes out, first." "Really? So sure, are we?" The boy let out a belly laugh. "Darlin, I know Nicci. I'm sure." Kahlan smiled her contempt into the boy's brown eyes. "You know I'm telling you the truth." "Really?" he said, still chuckling. "How's that?" "You know it's the truth because she's one of your slaves, so you should be able to enter her mind. You can't, though. I know why you can't. Even though you aren't too bright, I don't suppose you'll need to think too long to imagine why not." Fierce rage fired the boy's eyes. "I don't believe you." Kahlan shrugged. "Suit yourself." "If you saw her, then where is she now?" As she turned her back on him, Kahlan told him the brutal, bitter truth and let him interpret it his own way. "Last I saw her, she was on her way into oblivion." Kahlan heard the bellow behind her. She spun back to see Cara trying to stop him with her Agiel. Kahlan heard the bone in his arm snap. It didn't even slow him. The boy, in a wild rage, his hands clawed, his teeth bared, lunged for Kahlan. Half turned back to him, Kahlan lifted her hand against the full weight of the boy crashing toward her as he leaped for her throat. His small chest contacted her hand. His feet were clear of the ground. It felt not as if he were throwing himself at her, but no more than dandelion fluff, floating to her on a breath of air. Time was hers. It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings could provide her no safe haven; only the truth would serve her now. This was not a small boy, hurt, alone, afraid. This was the enemy. The inner violence of her power's cold coiled force slipping its bounds was breathtaking. It surged up from that deep dark core within, obediently inundating every fiber of her being. She could count each small rib under her fingers. She contained no hate, no rage, no horror . . . no sorrow. In that infinitesimal spark of time, her mind was in a void where there was no emotion, only the allconsuming rush of time suspended. He had no chance. He was hers. Kahlan did not hesitate. She unleashed her power. From an ethereal state as part of her innermost essence, that power became all. Thunder without sound jolted the air-exquisite, violent, and for that pristine instant, sovereign. The boy's face was twisted by the hate of the man who had controlled him. In that singular moment, if she was the absence of emotion, then he was the embodiment of it. Kahlan stared back into that lost child's face, knowing that he saw only her merciless eyes. His mind, who he was, who he had been, was already gone. Trees all around shook from the force of the concussion. Snow dropped from branches and boughs. The terrible shock to the air lifted a ring of snow that grew around the two of them in an ever-expanding circle. Kahlan had known that Jagang could slip into and out of a person's mind between thought, when time itself did not exist. She had no choice but to do as she had done. She could not afford to hesitate. With Jagang in a person's mind, even Cara could not control them. Jagang had burned his bridges behind him as he fled the young mind. The boy fell dead at Kahlan's feet. CHAPTER 35 Kahlan swayed on her feet as she stood over the crumbled body of the boy, feeling her emotions flood back in. As always happened, using her Confessor's power left her drained and exhausted. In the aftermath, the forest sat in silent judgment. Here and there, the virgin snow around the small body exhibited its red evidence. Only then did Kahlan even pause to consider if she might have killed Cara, too. A Mord-Sith would not live long after the touch of a Confessor. There had been no choice. She had done her best to warn Cara, to let her know to get clear, but in the end Kahlan couldn't allow her decision to be influenced by any consideration other than what had to be done. Hesitation could have meant disaster. Now that it was over, though, dread roiled through. Kahlan looked around, and to the right saw Cara sprawled in the snow. If she had been touching the boy when Kahlan unleashed her power . . . Cara groaned. Kahlan staggered to her and dropped to a knee. She clutched the fur at Cara's shoulder and with a mighty effort pulled her over. "Cara-are you all right?" Cara squinted up with a look of disgust working its way to the surface of pain. "Well of course I'm all right. You didn't think I would be foolish enough to hang on to him, did you?" Kahlan smiled in thankful relief. "No, of course not. I only thought you might have broken your neck jumping away." Cara spat snow and dirt. "Nearly did." Warren helped them both to their feet. Grimacing, he rubbed his shoulders and then his elbows. From what Kahlan had often been told, being too close to a Confessor unleashing her power was a painful experience, sending a shock of agony through every joint. Fortunately, it did no real damage and the suffering faded quickly. As Warren glanced over at the dead boy, she knew that there was other pain that would not leave so quickly. "Dear Creator," Warren whispered to himself. He looked back at Kahlan and Cara. "He was just a boy. Was it really necessary-" "Yes," Kahlan said in a forceful voice. "I'm positive. Cara and I have encountered this situation before-with Marlin." "But Marlin was grown. Lyle was so small . . . so young. What real harm-" "Warren, don't start down the path of what-might-have-been. Jagang controlled his mind, just as he controlled Marlin's mind. We know about this. He was a deadly threat." "If I couldn't hold him," Cara said, "nothing could." Warren sighed in misery. He sank to his knees at the boy's side. Warren whispered a prayer as his fingers stroked the boy's temple. "I guess the blame rightly lies at Jagang's feet." Warren stood and brushed the snow from his knees. "Ultimately, Jagang is the one who brought this about." Kahlan could see the distant figures of their men, rushing up the hillside to rescue her. She started down toward them. "If it pleases you to think so." Cara stayed right with her. Warren struggled through the snow to catch up. He snatched Kahlan's arm and pulled her to a stop. "You mean Ann, don't you?" Kahlan schooled her anger as she studied Warren's blue eyes. "Warren, you were a victim of that woman, too. You were taken to the Palace of the Prophets when you were young, weren't you?" "I guess so, but-" "But nothing. They came and took you. They came and took that poor dead child back there." Kahlan's fingernails dug into her palms. "They came and took Richard." Warren pressed his hand gently to the side of Kahlan's arm. "I know how it seems. Prophecy is often-" "There!" Kahlan angrily pointed back at the corpse. "There is prophecy! Death and misery-all in the sacred name of prophecy!" Warren didn't try to answer her rage. Kahlan forced control into her voice, if not the emotion behind it. "How many are going to die needlessly in a perverted devotion to seeing prophecy carried out? Had Ann not sent Verna here for Richard, none of this would be happening." "How do you know that? Kahlan, I can understand how you feel, but how can you be sure?" "The barrier stood for three thousand years. It could only be brought down by a wizard born with both sides of the gift. There has been none until Richard. Ann sent Verna to get him. Had she not, the barrier would still be there. Jagang and the Order would be on the other side. The Midlands would be safe. That boy would be playing ball somewhere." "Kahlan, it's not so simple as you make it seem." Warren opened his hands in an expression of frustration. "I don't want to argue this with you, but I want you to understand that prophecy gets fulfilled in many ways. It often seeks its own solution. It could be that had Ann not sent for Richard, he would have, for some other reason, ventured down there and brought down the barrier. Who is to know the reason? Don't you see? It could be that it was bound to happen, and Ann was simply the means. If not her, then another." Kahlan pulled angry breaths through gritted teeth. "How much blood, how many corpses, how much grief will it take before you see the harm prophecy has inflicted upon the world?" Warren smiled sadly. "I am a prophet. I've always wanted to be a prophet in order to help people. I wouldn't put my faith in it if I truly thought it was the cause of harm." He smiled more brightly with a memory. "Don't forget, without prophecy, you would never have come to meet Richard. Aren't you better off having had him come into your life? I know I am." Kahlan's look of cold fury took the warm smile from his face. "I-would rather have been condemned to a lonely life without love, than to know that harm has come to him because he came into my life. I would rather never have met him, than to have come to know his value, and know that that value is being dashed on the rocks of this mad faith in prophecy." Warren stuck his hands in the opposite sleeves of his purple robes as his gaze sank to the ground. "I understand how you can feel that way. Please, Kahlan, talk to Verna." "Why? She's the one who carried out Ann's orders." "Just talk to her. I almost lost Verna because she felt the same way as you do now." "Verna?" Warren nodded. "She came to believe she had been used maliciously by Ann. For twenty years she was on a fruitless search for Richard, when all the while Ann knew right where he was. Can you imagine how Verna felt when she discovered that? There were other things, too. Ann tricked us into believing she was dead. She maneuvered Verna into being Prelate." Warren pulled a hand from his sleeve and held his first finger and thumb an inch apart. "She was once this close to throwing her journey book into a fire." "She should have." Warren's sad smile returned. "I'm just saying it might make you feel better to talk to her. She will understand how you feel." "What good is that going to do?" Warren shrugged. "Even if you're right, so what? What's done is done. We can't undo it. Nicci has Richard. The Imperial Order is here in the New World. Whatever caused the events, they are upon us and we must now deal with that reality." Kahlan appraised his sparkling blue eyes. "You learned this studying prophecy?" His smile widened into a grin. "No. That was what Richard taught me. And, a pretty smart woman I know just told me not to start down the path of what-mighthave-been." As much as she was of a mind to hold on to it, Kahlan felt her anger slipping away. "I'm not so sure how smart she is." Warren waved down at the troops charging up the hill with their swords drawn, signaling the allclear. The men slowed to a fast walk, but didn't sheathe their weapons. "Well," Warren said, "she was smart enough to figure out Jagang's plan, and in the middle of being attacked by his gifted minion to keep her wits about her and to trick him into thinking she had fallen for his scheme." Kahlan drew her face into a peevish scowl. "How old are you, Warren?" He looked surprised by the question. "I turned one hundred fifty-eight not long ago." "That explains it," Cara griped, starting off down the hill. "Stop looking so young and innocent all the time, Warren. It's just plain irritating." --]---- By the time Kahlan, Cara, Warren, and their escort of guard troops arrived back in camp several hours later, it was a scene of furious activity. Wagons were being loaded, horses hitched, and weapons readied. Tents were not yet being taken down, but soldiers in their leather and chain-mail armor, and still eating the remnants of their dinners, were gathered around officers, listening to instructions for when the order was given to send a force out to intercept the enemy moving north. Other officers in tents Kahlan passed were bent over maps. The aroma of stew drifting through the afternoon air reminded her how hungry she was. Winter darkness came early, and the overcast made it feel like it was already evening. The endless cloudy days were getting to be depressing. There was little chance to see much of the sun; soon, heavier snow would make it down this far south. Kahlan dismounted and let a young soldier take her horse. She no longer rode a big warhorse. She, and most of the cavalry, had switched to smaller, more agile mounts. For a clash between large units, big warhorses added weight to a charge, but since the D'Haran Empire forces were so outnumbered, they had decided it would be best to trade weight far speed and maneuverability. By changing tactics in such a way, not just with the cavalry but with their entire army, Kahlan and General Meiffert had been able to keep the Order off balance for weeks. They let the enemy put a huge effort into a crushing attack, and then dodged it just enough to save themselves while letting the Order, being tantalizingly close, wear themselves out. When the Order tired from the effort of such massive attacks and paused to rest, General Meiffert sent in glancing attacks to step on their toes and make them dance. Once the Order dug in for the expected attack, Kahlan withdrew their forces to a more distant spot, rendering useless the Order's effort at building defenses. If the Order tried the same thing again, the D'Harans continued to harry them day and night, buzzing around them like angry hornets, but staying out of reach of a heavy swat. If the Imperial Order tired of not being able to sink their teeth into their enemy, and turned their forces to go after population centers, then Kahlan had her men jump on their tails and put arrows in their backs as they struggled to get free. Eventually, they would have to forget their thoughts of plunder and turn back toward the threat. The Imperial Order was maddened by the D'Harans' constant badgering tactics. Jagang's men were insulted by that kind of fighting; they believed real men met face-to-face in the field of battle, and exchanged blow for blow. Of course, it didn't trouble their dignity that they greatly outnumbered the D'Harans. Kahlan knew such a meeting would be bloody and only to the Order's advantage. She didn't care what they thought, only that they died. The more angry and frustrating the Imperial Order became, the more recklessly they behaved, launching impetuous attacks into well-ordered defenses, or heedlessly pressing men into doomed attacks trying to take ground they couldn't possibly take in such a fashion. It sometimes stunned Kahlan to watch so many of the enemy march into range below their archers, fall dead, only to have yet more men march right in behind them, continuously adding corpses to a battlefield already choked with the dead and dying. It was insanity. The D'Harans had suffered several thousand dead or seriously wounded. On the other hand, Kahlan and General Meiffert estimated that they had killed or wounded in excess of fifty thousand of the enemy. It was the equivalent of stepping on one ant as the colony poured out of its anthill. She could think of nothing else to do but to keep at it. They had no choice. Kahlan, with Cara at her side, crossed a river of men to get to the command tents sporting blue cloth strips. Unless you knew the day's color code, finding the command tents would be nearly impossible. Because of the fear of an infiltrator or an enemy gifted finding and being able to kill a group of senior officers gathered together, they met in nondescript tents. Colored cloth strips marked many of the tents-the men used them as as system of finding their units when they had to move on short notice and so often-so Kahlan got the idea of using the same system to identify the command tents. They changed the color code often so no one color would become known as the officers' colors. Inside the cramped tent, General Meiffert looked up from where he bent over a table with a map unfurled at a cockeyed angle. Lieutenant Leiden, of Kelton, was there along with Captain Abernathy, the commander of the Galean forces Kahlan had brought down with her weeks before. Adie was sitting quietly in the corner, as the representative of the gifted, watching the goings-on with her completely white eyes. Blinded as a young woman, Adie had learned to see using her gift. She was a remarkably talented sorceress. Adie was quite proficient at using that talent to do the enemy harm. Now she was there to help coordinate the Sister's abilities with the needs of the army. When Kahlan inquired, Adie told her, "Zedd be down at the southern lines, checking on details." Kahlan nodded her thanks. "Warren went down there to help, too." Kahlan scrunched up her freezing toes in her boots, trying to bring feeling back to them. She blew warm air into her cupped hands and then turned her attention to the waiting general. "We need to get together a good-sized force-maybe twenty thousand men." General Meiffert sighed his frustration. "So they are moving an army up past us." "No," she said. "It's a trick." The three officers frowned their puzzlement as they waited for an explanation. "I ran into Jagang-" "You what!" General Meiffert shouted in unbridled panic. Kahlan waved a hand, allaying his fears. "Not like you're thinking. It was through the body of one of his slaves." She stuck her hands under her arms to warm them. "The important thing is that I played along with Jagang's scheme so that he would think we were falling for his plan." Kahlan explained how Jagang's ruse of troop movements was meant to work and how its true design was to draw away a good-sized force so as to leave those remaining behind weaker. The men listened as she laid it all out while pointing to the locations on the map. "If we were to send that many men out," Lieutenant Leiden asked, "wouldn't that be just what Emperor Jagang wanted?" "It would be," she told him, "but that's not what we're going to do. I want those men to ride out of camp, to make it look as if we were doing what he expected." She leaned over the map, using a piece of charcoal to sketch in some of the nearby mountains she had just traveled through, and showed .them a lowland pass around several. Captain Abernathy spoke up. "We have my Galean troops-they're close to the number you need to serve as the decoy." "That's what I was thinking," General Meiffert said. "Done," Kahlan said. She pointed at the map again. "Circle around these mountains, here, Captain, so that when the Order attacks our camp, thinking to roll over us, your men can stick them in their soft side, right here, where they won't expect it." Captain Abernathy, a trim man with a graying bushy mustache that matched his eyebrows, nodded as he watched Kahlan pointing out the route on the map. "Don't worry, Mother Confessor, the Order will believe we're gone, but we'll be standing ready to drive right into their ribs when they come for you." Kahlan turned her attention back to the general. "We'll also need to secretly trickle another force out of camp to wait at the opposite side of the valley from Captain Abernathy, so that when the Order comes up the valley in the middle, we can drive into their ribs from both sides at once. They won't want to let us cut off and trap part of their force, so they'll turn tail. Then our main force can drive steel into their vulnerable backs." The three officers considered her plan in silence, while outside the confusion of noise went on. Horses galloped past, wagons creaked and bounced along, snow underfoot crunched as soldiers shuffled past, and men called out orders. Lieutenant Leiden's eyes turned up toward Kahlan. "Mother Confessor, my Keltans could be that other force. They've all served together a long time, and work well in our own units under my command. We could begin slipping out of camp at once and gather down there to wait for the attack. You could send a Sister with us to verify a prearranged signal, and then I could take my men in when Captain Abernathy attacks from the opposite side." Kahlan knew the man wanted to redeem himself in her eyes. He was also looking to establish for Kelton a measure of autonomy within the D'Haran Empire. "That will be a dangerous spot, Lieutenant. If anything goes wrong, we can't come to your aid." He nodded. "But my men are familiar with the area and we're used to traversing mountainous country in the winter. The Imperial Order is from a warmer land. We have the advantage of weather and terrain. We can do the job, Mother Confessor." Kahlan straightened, letting out a breath as she appraised the man. General Meiffert, she knew, would like the idea. Captain Abernathy would, too; Galea and Kelton were traditional rivals, so the two would just as soon fight their own way, and separately. Richard had brought the lands together, so that they would all come to feel they were one, now. That was vital if they were to survive. She supposed that they were fighting for the same goal, so in that way they were working together-they would have to coordinate their attacks. Lieutenant Leiden did make sense, too; his troops were mountain fighters. "All right, Lieutenant." "Thank you, Mother Confessor." Kahlan thought to add some insurance. "If you acquit yourself well in this, Lieutenant, it could move you up in command." Lieutenant Leiden clapped a fist to his heart in salute. "My men will make their queen proud." Kahlan acknowledged his pledge with the nod of the Mother Confessor. She addressed them all. "We had better get under way." General Meiffert grunted his agreement. "This will be a good opportunity to knock down their numbers. If it goes even half right, this time we'll bleed them good." He turned to the other two officers. "Let's get started. We need to have your men moving at once to give them enough time to be in position by morning. There's no telling how long they might wait to attack, but if it comes as soon as dawn, I want you in position and ready." "The Order favors attacking at dawn," Captain Abernathy said. "We can be on our way within the hour. We'll be in place and ready by dawn, should they come in early." "As can we," Lieutenant Leiden agreed. The two officers bowed and started to leave. "Captain," Kahlan called. The men turned back. "Mother Confessor?" "Do you have any idea what could be keeping Prince Harold and the rest of your army? He should have been here long ago. We could really use the rest of your men." Captain Abernathy's thumb twiddled a bone button on the front of his dark coat. "I'm sorry, Mother Confessor. I, too, thought they should have been here by now. I can't imagine what could be keeping the prince." "He should have been here by now," she repeated under her breath to herself. She looked up at the captain. "Weather?" "Perhaps, Mother Confessor. If there are storms, that could have delayed him. That is probably the reason, and in that case I don't imagine he should be much longer. Our men train in the mountains in such conditions." Kahlan sighed. "Let's hope he's here soon, then." Captain Abernathy confidently met her gaze. "I know for a fact that the prince was eager to collect his men and get down here to help. Galea spans the Callisidrin Valley. The prince personally told me that it was to our own best interest to halt the Imperial Order down here, rather than letting them advance further up into the Midlands, where our lands and our families would come under the terror of the enemy." Kahlan could see in Lieutenant Leiden's eyes that he was thinking that if Prince Harold instead decided to make a stand in the Callisidrin Valley, in order to selfishly protect his homeland of Galea, such an obstacle very well could force the Order to instead bear toward the northeast in their advance, around the intervening mountains, and over into the Kern Plain-right toward Leiden's homeland of Kelton. If Lieutenant Leiden was imagining such treachery, he had the wisdom not to voice it. "I know the weather was bad when I came down," Kahlan said. "It is winter, after all. I'm sure Prince Harold will soon be here to help his queen and the fellow people of the D'Haran Empire." Kahlan offered them a smile to soften the subtle threat. "Thank you, gentlemen. You'd best get to your tasks. May the good spirits watch your backs." After the men had saluted and horned off to their work, Adie put her hands to her knees and levered herself to her feet. "If you do not need me, I must see to informing the Sisters, Zedd, and Warren of our plans." Kahlan nodded wearily. "Thank you, Adie." Adie, her eyes completely white, saw with the aid of her gift. Kahlan could feel that gifted gaze on her. "You have used your power," the old sorceress said. "I be able to see it in your face. You must rest." "I know," Kahlan said. "But there are things needing to be done." "They will not get done if you fall ill, or worse-which could happen." Adie's thin fingers gripped Cara's arm. "See to it that the Mother Confessor be left alone for a while, so she can at least rest her head on the table, if nothing else." Cara swung the folding chair around and set it behind the table. She pointed at it while leveling a stern look at Kahlan. "Sit. I will stand watch." Kahlan was exhausted. Using her Confessor's ability sapped her strength. She needed time to recover. The hard ride back had only made matters worse. She went around the table and sat down heavily in the folding chair. She opened her fur mantle and set it back on her shoulders. Richard's sword was still strapped to her back, its hilt jutting up above her shoulder. She didn't bother to remove the sword. Adie, at seeing Kahlan comply without complaint, smiled to herself and went on her way. Cara took up guard at the entrance as Kahlan's head sank down into her pillowed arms. Trying not to let the terrible events of the day overwhelm her, she instead thought of Richard, remembering his handsome smile, his penetrating gray eyes, his gentle touch. Her own eyes closed. In her weariness, the chair and table felt as if they were spinning her around. In moments, though, as she held her thoughts of Richard in her mind's eye, she felt herself sliding into sleep. CHAPTER 36 Mother Confessor?" Kahlan squinted up at a dark shape above her. She blinked, clearing her vision, and saw that it was Verna. The gold sunburst ring of the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light reflected a glimmer of lamplight. Behind her, twilight tainted the tent canvas with a rusty glow. Kahlan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Verna wore a long, gray wool dress and a dark brown cloak. At her throat, the dress had a bit of white lace that softened the austerity of the outfit. Verna's brown hair had a carefree wave and spring to it, but her brown eyes held a troubled look. "What is it, Verna?" "If you have a moment, I would like to talk to you." No doubt, Verna had been talking to Warren. Whenever Kahlan saw them together, the shared intimate glances, the chance furtive touch reminded her of the way she and Richard felt about each other. It softened Kahlan's feelings about Verna's stern exterior, to know she was in love-knowing, for that matter, that she was capable of tenderness. Kahlan knew that she, too, must be regarded with the same sort of curiosity, if not amazement, where tender feelings were concerned. She sighed, wondering if this was going to be a "talk" about Ann and prophecy. Kahlan wasn't in the mood. "Cara, how long have I been asleep?" "A couple of hours. It will soon be dark." As tight and sore as Kahlan's shoulders and neck were from sleeping with her head on the table, the lateness of the hour didn't come as a surprise. She stretched to the side and then saw the frail looking sorceress sitting on a short bench. She had a dark blanket over her lap. "How do you feel?" Adie asked. "I'm fine." Kahlan could see her breath in the frigid air. "The men we sent out?" "Both groups be on their way, more than an hour ago," Adie said. "The first group, the Galeans, all left together in big columns. The Keltans dribbled out in small groups not as likely to be noticed by any spies watching." Kahlan yawned. "Good." She knew they had to fear an attack by the Imperial Order as soon as morning. At least that should give their men enough time to travel to their positions and be ready. Waiting for an attack made her stomach feel queasy. She knew the men, too, would be on edge and likely get little sleep. Adie idly ran a thin finger back and forth along the red and yellow beads at the neckline of her modest robes. "I came back after the Galeans left, to help Cara keep people away so you would not be disturbed while you rested." Kahlan nodded her thanks. Apparently, either Adie thought Kahlan had rested enough, or she thought Verna's visit was important. "What is it, then, Verna?" "We have . . . discovered something. Not so much discovered it, as had an idea." "Who is `we'?" Verna cleared her throat. Under her breath she beseeched the Creator's forgiveness before she went on. "Actually, Mother Confessor, I thought of it. Some of my Sisters helped me with it, but I'm the one who thought it up. The blame falls to me." Kahlan thought that was an odd way of putting it. She didn't think Verna looked at all pleased by her own idea, whatever it was. Kahlan waited silently for her to go on. "Well, you see, we have a problem getting things past the enemy's gifted. They have Sisters of the light, but also Dark, and we don't have their power. When we try to send things-" "Send things?" Verna pursed her lips. "Weapons." When Kahlan's brow twitched with a questioning look, Verna bent and gathered something from the ground. She held out her open hand, showing Kahlan a collection of small pebbles. "Zedd showed us how to turn simple things into devastating weapons. We can use our power to fling them or even with our breath blow on some small thing, like these pebbles, and use our magic to send them out faster than any arrow, even an arrow from a crossbow. The pebbles we flung out in this way cut down waves of advancing soldiers. The pebbles traveled so swiftly that sometimes each would pierce the bodies of half a dozen men." "I remember those reports," Kahlan said. "But that stopped working because their gifted caught on to the artifice and now defend against such things." Kahlan recognized the weary look of the weight of responsibility in Verna's brown eyes. "That's right. The Order learned how to look for things of magic, or even things propelled by magic. Most of our conjuring that is in any way similar has become useless." "That's what Zedd told me-that in war magic is most often unseen, that each side manages only to balance the other." Verna nodded. "It is so. We do the same against them. Things they used at first, we now know how to counter so we can protect our men. Our warning horns, for example. We learned that we must code them with a trace of magic to know they are genuine." Kahlan drew her fur mantle up around her neck. She was chilled to the bone and couldn't seem to get warm. Not surprising, seeing as how she was spending all of her time outdoors. It was insanity to be carrying on a war in such conditions. She guessed that war in fine weather was no more sane. Still, she ached to be inside, beside a cozy fire. "So what is this thing you thought up?" As if reminded of the cold, Verna pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "Well, I got the notion that if the enemy gifted are, in a sense, filtering for anything magic, or even anything being propelled by magic, then what we need is something not magic." Kahlan gave Verna a grim smile. "We do. They're called soldiers." Verna didn't smile. "No. I meant something the gifted could do to disable enemy troops without risk to our own men." Adie shuffled forward to stand behind Kahlan's left shoulder as Verna reached into her cloak and pulled out a small leather pouch closed with a drawstring. She tossed it on the table before Kahlan, then set a piece of paper beside it. "Pour a little on the paper, please." Verna was holding her stomach as if she were having indigestion. "But be careful not to touch it with your finger or get it on your skin-and whatever you do, don't blow on it. Be careful not to even breathe on it." Adie leaned in to watch as Kahlan carefully poured a small quantity of a sparkling dust from the pouch onto the square of paper. She pushed at the little pile with the corner of the pouch. There were hints of pallid colors, but it was mostly a pale, glimmering, greenish-gray. "What is it? Some kind of magic dust?" "Glass." Kahlan's eyes turned up. "Glass. You thought up glass?" Verna let out a tsk at herself for how foolish she must have sounded. "No, Mother Confessor. I thought of breaking it. You see, this is just simple glass that has been broken and crushed into fine pieces-almost dust. But we used our Han to aid us when we crushed the glass with a mortar and pestle. By using our gift, we were able to break the glass into very tiny fragments, but in a special way." Verna leaned over, her finger hovering above the little greenish-gray mound. Cara leaned in beside her in order to look down at the dangerous thing on the piece of paper. "This glass-every piece-is sharp and jagged, even though each piece is very tiny. Each piece is hardly bigger than dust, so it weighs nothing, almost like dust." "Dear spirits," Adie said before whispering a prayer in her own language. Kahlan cleared her throat. "I don't understand." "Mother Confessor, we can't get our magic past the defenses of the Order's gifted. They are prepared for magic, even if it's a simple pebble but uses magic to hurl it at their troops. "This glass, however, even though we used magic to break it, has no magic properties-none at all. It's just inert material, the same as the dust kicked up by their feet. They can't detect it as magic, because it isn't magic. Through their gift, they will sense this as simple as dust, or mist, or possibly fog, depending on atmospheric conditions at the time." "But we sent dust clouds at them before," Kahlan said. "Dust to make them sick and such. They mostly countered it." Verna held up a finger to note her point as she smiled a grim smile. "But those were dust clouds containing magic. Mother Confessor, this does not. Don't you see? It's so light it floats in the air for a long time. We could use simple magic to cast it up into the air, and then withdraw the magic, or we could simply fling it up into the breeze, for that matter. Either way, we have only to let their troops run through it." "All right." Kahlan scratched an eyebrow. "But what will it do to them?" "It will get in their eyes," Adie said in her raspy voice from behind Kahlan's shoulder. "That's right," Verna said. "It gets in their eyes, just as any dust would. At first, it will feel like dust in their eyes and they will try to blink it away. However, since the fragments are all still jagged and razor sharp, they will instead embed themselves in the body's tissue. It will stick in their eyes, and build up under their eyelids, where it will make thousands of tiny cuts across their eyes with each blink. The more they blink, the more it eats away at their delicate eyes." Verna straightened and pulled her cloak together. "It will blind them." Kahlan sat in numb disbelief at the madness of it all. "Are you sure?" Cara asked. "Might it just irritate them, like gritty dust?" "We know for sure," Verna said. "We . . . had an accident, and know all too well what it does. It may do more damage when it gets in the throat, the lungs, and the gut-we don't know about that, yet-but we do know for sure that such special glass, if we grind it to just the right size particles, will float in the air and people passing through the cloud will be blinded in remarkably short order. As long as we can blind a man, he can't fight. It may not kill them, but as long as they are blind they can't kill us, or fight back as we kill them." Cara, usually gleeful at the prospect of killing the enemy, did not seem so, now. "We would have but to line them up and butcher them." Kahlan put her head in her hands, covering her eyes. "You want me to approve its use, don't you? That's why you're here." Verna said nothing. Kahlan looked up at last. "That's what you want, isn't it?" "Mother Confessor, I need not tell you that the Sisters of the Light abhor harming people. However, this is a war for our very existence, for the very existence of free people. We know it must be done. If Richard were here . . . I just thought that you would want to be made aware of this, and be the one to give such orders." Kahlan stared at the woman, understanding then why she was holding her hand over a pain in her stomach. "Do you know, Prelate," Kahlan said in a near whisper, "that I killed a child today? Not by accident, but on purpose. I would do it again without hesitation. But that won't make me sleep any better." "A child? It was truly necessary to . . . kill a child?" "His name was Lyle. I believe you know him. He was another one of the victims of Ann's Sisters of the Light." Verna, her face gone ashen, closed her eyes against the news. "I guess if I can kill a child," Kahlan said, "I can easily enough give the orders for you to use your special glass against the monsters who would use a child as a weapon. I have sworn no mercy, and I meant it." Adie laid a gnarled hand on Kahlan's shoulder. "Kahlan," Verna said in a gentle voice, "I can understand how you feel. Ann used me, too, and I didn't understand why. I thought she used everyone for her own selfish purposes. For a time, I thought her a despicable person. You have every reason to believe as you do." "But I would be wrong, Verna? Is that what you were going to add? I'd not be so sure, were