the war far to the north, his loathing of being held prisoner, the slave labor at the site, the abuse of people, the people who disappeared or those who confessed under torture, and the grindingly repressive nature of life in Altur'Rang, he might have found the spring quite enjoyable. Day by day, too, his worry grew that Kahlan would soon be able to leave their mountain home. He dreaded her getting caught up in such a war as would be soon be roaring into full flame. After he had eaten some of the mild onion, Richard went back to the delightful lardo. He moaned again. "Victor, I've never tasted anything like this. What's lardo?" Victor held out another thin slice. Richard gladly accepted. After a long night of work, the dense delicacy was really hitting the spot. Victor gestured with his knife to the tin beside him holding the pure white block. "Lardo is paunch fat from the boar." "And this tin of it is from your homeland?" "No, no-I make it myself. I come from far to the south of here, far away-near the sea. That is where we make lardo. When I come here, I make it here. "I put the paunch fat in tubs I carved myself out of marble as white as the lardo." Victor gestured with his hands as he spoke, working the air as vigorously as he worked iron. "The fat is put in the tubs with coarse salt and rosemary and other spices. From time to time I turn it in the brine. It must rest a year in the stone to cure, to became lardo." "A year!.. Victor nodded emphatically. "This we are eating, I made last spring. My father taught me to make lardo. Lardo is something only men make. My father was a quarry worker. Lardo gives quarry workers the stamina they need to work long hours sawing blocks of our marble, or swinging a pickaxe. For blacksmiths, too, lardo gives you power to lift a hammer all day." "So, there are quarries where you lived?" He waved his thick hand at the towering block behind them. "This. This is Cavatura marble-from my homeland." He pointed out at several of the stock areas below. "That, there, and there, i's marble from Cavatura, too." "That's where you're from? Cavatura?" Victor grinned like a wolf as he nodded. "The place where all that beautiful marble came from. Our city gets its name from the marble quarries. My family are all carvers, or quarry workers. Me? I end up a blacksmith making tools for them." "Blacksmiths are sculptors." He grunted a laugh. "And you? Where are you from?" "Me? Far away. They had no marble there. Only granite." Richard changed the subject, lest he have to start inventing lies. Besides, it was getting light. "So, Victor, when do you need more of that special steel?" "Tomorrow. Are you up to it?" The steel Victor needed was from farther away, at a foundry out near the charcoal makers. They needed a lot of charcoal to cook with the iron to make high-grade steel. Ore came in by barge, from not far away. It would take most of the night for Richard to get there and back. "Sure. I will be sick today and get some sleep." He had become sick quite a lot over the last several months. It fit right in with the way most of the others worked. Work some, be sick, tell the workers' group that you were ailing. Some people limped in with a story. It wasn't necessary; the workers' group never questioned. The only thing he rarely missed were the meetings where those with bad attitudes were named. People at the meetings were often named, but you were more likely to bring attention if you missed the meetings. Those named were often subsequently arrested and given an opportunity to confess. More than once, a person named at a meeting as having an unsatisfactory attitude killed themselves. "One of Brother Narev's disciples, Neal, came around last evening with some new orders." Victor's voice had taken on a tense edge. "What you just brought will last me the day, but I need that steel by tomorrow." "You will have it." "Are you sure?" "Have I ever let you down, Victor?" Victor's hard face melted into a helpless smile. He passed Richard another slice of lardo. "No, Richard, you never have. Not once. I had given up hope of ever meeting another man who kept his word." "Well, I'd best be off and take care of my horses. They've had a hard night, and I'll need them rested for tonight. How much steel do you need?" "Two hundred. Half square, and half round." Richard performed a pained moan. "You're going to make me strong, or kill me, Victor." Victor smiled his approval. "You want the gold?" "No. You can pay me when I deliver." Richard no longer needed the money in advance. He had a heavy wagon, now, and a strong team of horses. He paid Ishaq to care for them along with the transport company's teams in the company stables. Ishaq helped Richard with any number of the special arrangements that he'd had to make. Ishaq knew which officials lived in the nice homes. They couldn't afford those homes with just their pay as officials of the Order. "You be careful of Neal," Richard said. "Why's that?" "For some reason, he believes I'm in need of lecturing. He truly believes that the Order is mankind's savior. He puts the good of the fellowship of Order above the good of mankind." Victor sighed as he stood and tied on his leather apron. "My thoughts about him, too." As they passed into the building, the sun was just lighting the marble standing there. Richard lingered and put a hand to the cold stone, as he always did whenever he passed it. It almost felt alive to him. Alive with potential. "Victor, I asked you once what this was. Mind telling me, now?" The blacksmith paused beside Richard and gazed up at the pure stone before him. He reached out and touched it lightly, letting his fingertips glide over the surface, testing, caressing. "This is my statue." "What statue?" "The one I want to carve, someday. Many in my family are carvers. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to carve, too. I wanted to be a great sculptor. I wanted to create great works. "Instead, I had to work for the master blacksmith at the quarry. My family needed to eat. I was the oldest living son. My father and the blacksmith were friends. My father asked the blacksmith to take me on .... He didn't want another son lost to the stone. It's a hard and dangerous life, cutting stone from a mountain." "Did you carve other things? I mean, like wood, or something." Victor, still staring at his stone, shook his head. "I only wanted to carve stone. I bought this block with my savings. I own it. Few men can say they own a part of a mountain. A part as pure and beautiful as this." Richard could understand the sentiments. "So, Victor, what will you carve out of it?" He squinted, as if trying to peer beyond the surface. "I don't know. They say that the stone will speak to you and tell you what it should be." "Do you believe that?" Victor laughed his deep laugh. "No-not really. But the thing is, this is a beautiful piece of stone. There is none finer for statues than Cavatura marble, and few blocks of Cavatura marble with as fine a grain as this piece. I couldn't bear to see it carved up into something ugly, like what they carve nowadays. "It used to be, long ago, that only beauty was carved from beauty such as this. No more," he whispered in distant bitterness. "Now, man must be carved with a twisted nature-as an object of shame." Richard had delivered tools down to the site for Victor, down to where the carving was taking place, and had had the opportunity to get a closer look at the work being done. The outside of the stone walls was to be covered with expansive scenes on a scale that was staggering. The walls that would enclose the palace went on for miles. The carvings being produced for the Retreat were the same as those Richard had seen everywhere in the Old World, but would have no equal in sheer, overpowering quantity. The entire palace was to be an epic portrayal of the Order's view of the nature of life, and of redemption in the afterlife of the underworld. The figures being carved were stilted, with limbs that could not possibly function. Those carved in relief were forever bound to the stone from which they only haltingly emerged. The poses reflected a view of man as ineffective, shallow, unsubstantial. The elements of the hated anatomy of man, his muscle, bone, and flesh, were melted together into lifeless limbs, their proportions distorted to strip the figures of their humanity. Expressions were either impassive, if the statue was supposed to portray virtue, or filled with terror, agony, torment, if intended to illustrate the fate of evildoers. Proper men and women, bent under the weight of labor, were always made to look out at the world through the vacant stupor of resignation. Most often, it was difficult to tell male from female; their worldly bodies, an everlasting source of shame, were hidden by bulky garments like those the priests of the Order wore. Further reflecting the Order's teachings, only the sinful were shown naked, so that all could see their detestable cankerous bodies. The carvings represented man as helpless, doomed by the inadequacy of his intellect to suffer every blow of existence. Most of the sculptors, Richard suspected, feared to be questioned, or even tortured, and so repeated the view that man was to be carved accepting his vile nature, thus earning his reward only through death. The carvings were meant to assure the masses that this was the only proper goal for which man could hope. Richard knew that a few of the carvers vehemently believed such teachings. He was always careful of what he said around them. "Ah, Richard, I wish you could see beautiful statues, instead of today's scourge." "I have seen statues of great beauty," Richard softly assured the man. "Have you? I'm so glad. People should see those things, not this, this"-he waved a hand toward the rising walls of the Retreat-"this evil in the guise of goodness." "So you will one day carve such beauty?" "I don't know, Richard," he finally admitted. "The Order takes everything. They say that the individual is of no importance except inasmuch as he can contribute to the good of others. They take what art can be, the lifeblood of the soul, and turn it to poison, turn it to death." Victor smiled wistfully. "This way, as it is, I can enjoy the beautiful statue inside the stone." "I understand, Victor-I really do. The way you describe it, I can see it, too." "We will both enjoy my statue the way it is, then." Victor took his hand from the stone and pointed to the base. "Besides, you see there? There is an imperfection in the stone. It runs all the way through. That is why I could afford this piece of marble-because it has this flaw. Were most anyone to carve this, it would endanger the stone. If not done just right, and with the flaw taken in mind, the entire piece could easily shatter. I have never been able to think of how to carve this stone to take advantage of its beauty, but to also avoid the flaw." "Perhaps, someday, it will come to you how to carve the stone, to create a thing of nobility." "Nobility. Ali, but wouldn't that be something-the most sublime form of beauty." He shook his head. "But I will not do it. Not unless the revolt comes." "Revolt?" Victor's careful gaze swept the hillside through the open door. "The revolt. It will come. The Order cannot stand-evil cannot stand, not forever, anyway. In my homeland, when I was young, there used to be beauty, and there used to be freedom. They were shamed into giving up their lives, their freedom, bit by bit, to the cause of fairness to all men. People didn't know what they had, and let freedom slip away for nothing but the hollow promise of a better world, a world without effort, without struggle to achieve, without productive work. It was always someone else who would do these things, who would provide, who would make their lives easy. "We used to be a land of abundance. Now, what food is grown, rots, while it awaits committees to decide who should have it, who should move it, and what it should cost. Meanwhile, people starve. "Insurgents, those disloyal to the Order, are blamed for all the starvation and strife that slowly destroys us, and so ever more people are arrested and put to death. We are a land of death. The Order continually proclaims its feelings for mankind, but their ways can but cultivate death. On my way here, I have seen corpses by the thousands go uncounted and unburied. The New World is blamed for every ill, every failure, and young men, eager to smite their oppressors, march off to war. "Many people, though, have come to see the truth. They, and the children of these people-me, and others like me-hunger for freedom to live our own lives, rather than be slaves to the Order and their reign of death. There is unrest in my homeland, as there is here. A revolt is coming." "Unrest? Here? I've seen no unrest." Victor smiled a sly smile. "Those with revolt in their hearts do not show their true feelings. The Order, always fearful of insurrection, tortures confessions from those they wrongly arrest. Every day more are put to death. Those who want things to change know better than to make themselves targets before the time has come. Someday, Richard, revolt will come." Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Victor. Revolt takes resolve. I don't think such real resolve exists." "You have seen people who are unhappy with the way things are. Ishaq, those at the foundries, my men and me. All those you deal with, other than the officials you bribe, hunger for change." Victor lifted an eyebrow at Richard. "Not one of them complains to any board or committee about what you do. You may want nothing to do with it, as I believe is your right, but there are those who listen to the whispers of the freedom to the north." Richard tensed. "Freedom to the north?" Victor nodded solemnly. "They speak of a savior: Richard Rahl. He leads them in the fight for freedom. They say that this Richard Rahl will bring us our revolt." Had it not all been so overwhelmingly tragic, Richard would have burst out laughing. "How do you know this Rahl character is worth following?" Victor fixed Richard with a look that Richard remembered from the first time he met the blacksmith. "You can judge a man by his enemies. Richard Rahl is hated by the emperor, and by Brother Narev, and by his disciples, as no other man is hated. He is the one. He bears the torch of revolution." Richard could muster only a desolate smile. "He is but a man, my friend. Don't worship a man. Worship his cause, but not him." Victor's glare, so full of his emotion, his burning hunger for freedom, turned back to his wolfish grin. "Ah, but that is what Richard Rahl would say. That is why he is the one." Richard thought it would be best to change the subject. He saw that it was getting light. "Well, I have to get going. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with the stone, Victor. It will come to you when the time is right." The blacksmith feigned a scowl, but it was a poor spoof of the very real one that had just departed. "That is always what I thought, too." Richard scratched his head. "Have you ever carved anything Victor?" "No, nothing." "Are you sure you are able to carve? That you have the ability?" Victor tapped his temple, as if to dissuade a skeptic. "In here I have ability. In here I have beauty. That is all that matters to me. If I never touch steel to this stone, then I will always have the beauty of what it could be, and that, the Order can never take away from me." CHAPTER 51 Nicci wiped the sweat off her brow as she went down the line, checking to see if her clothes were dry. Summer was only around the corner, and it was already hot. Her back hurt from her earlier work at the washtub and various other chores. The other women were chatting in the warm sunshine. They occasionally giggled over some quirk that one of them, after a round of amiable urging, would divulge about her husband. Everyone in the building, it seemed, had begun coming alive along with the new spring growth. Nicci knew that spring had nothing to do with it. That knowledge drew frustration up from her darkest recesses. She couldn't figure out how Richard did it. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't unravel the knot he seemed to tie around everything. She was beginning to believe that if she took him down into the deepest cave she could find, the sunlight would make its way into the darkest recesses to shine on him. She would think it was some kind of magical luck, except she knew beyond doubt that he had not used any magic whatsoever. The backyard, such an overgrown tangled place, so filthy, with piles of scrap and garbage, was now a garden. The men who lived in the building, after they came home from work, had rid the yard of the refuse. Even several of the ones who didn't work had come out of their rooms to help cart away an item or two. After it was cleared out,- the women of the building had turned the soil and planted a garden. They were going to have vegetables. Vegetables! There was talk of getting a few chickens. The single latrine off in the back corner, so overused and so foul, was now two privies in good repair. Now, there was rarely a wait to use a privy and there were no more urgent pleas or frayed tempers. Kamil and Nabbi had helped Richard build them-partly out of scraps of lumber salvaged from the refuse piles in the yard, before they were hauled away, and some they collected from other rubbish heaps. Nicci had hardly believed her eyes when she had seen Kamil and Nabbi-in shirts---digging the holes for the new privies. Everyone thanked them profusely. The two toughs beamed with pride. The outdoor cooking hearth had been repaired, so the women could set more pots in it and cook at the same time, requiring less wood to be hauled. Richard and some of the other men of the building built stands for the washtubs, so the wives wouldn't have to bend so far or chafe their knees raw. The men made a simple roof of canvas salvaged from the refuse so that the women could cook and wash without getting wet when it rained. The people in the buildings to either side, at first surly and suspicious of the activity, began asking curt questions. Richard, Kamil, and Nabbi went over and explained what they had done, and how they could put their place in shape, too, and even helped them get started. Nicci had yelled at Richard for spending his time at other people's places. He said that she was the one who had told him that it was his duty to help others. Nicci had no answer-at least, none that made any sense so as she could say it aloud and not sound a fool. When Richard showed people how to improve their homes, he didn't lecture, or teach, but rather, somehow-Nicci couldn't understand how-managed to infect them with his enthusiasm. He hadn't told them what to do, but rather he'd made them pant to figure out for themselves how they could make things better for themselves. Everybody took a liking to Richard. It made her growl under her breath. Nicci collected her washing in the woven basket Richard had shown the women of the building how to make from thin strips of wood. Nicci had to admit that the basket was easy enough to make, and a better way to lug clothes. She climbed the sturdy stairs-stairs that she'd once thought would be the end of her. The hallway inside was spotless. The floors had been washed. Somewhere; Richard had come up with ingredients for paint, and the men had a grand time of mixing it up and painting over the stains on the walls. One of the men in the building knew about roofs, so he fixed the roof so it wouldn't leak and stain the walls again. As Nicci walked down the hall, she saw Gadi, without his shirt, sitting up the stairway, in the shadows. He was using his big knife to whittle at a piece of wood and in so doing make clear his dangerous nature. Later, the women living i31 the building would tsk and clean it up. Gadi, not happy about people nagging at him of late, leered down at her. She now had something for him to leer at, now that she had gained her weight back. Richard's second job at night enabled him to be able to afford more food. He brought home things she had missed for months-chicken, oil, spices, bacon, cheese, and eggs. She could never find such things in the city stores, Nicci had thought they sold the same food everywhere in the city shops, but Richard's travels while delivering things, he said, took him to places where they sold a wider variety of food. Kamil and Nabbi, sitting on the front steps, saw her through the open door. They stood and bowed politely as she came down the hall. "Good evening, Mrs. Cypher," Kamil said. "Could we help you carry that?" Nabbi asked. She found it all the more irritating because she knew for a fact that they were sincere; they liked her because she was Richard's wife. "Thank you, no. I'm there, now." They held the door for her and closed it behind her when she had passed into her room. She thought of them as Richard's soldiers. He seemed to have a private army of people who broke into grins when they saw him coming. Most people seemed only too pleased to do whatever they thought Richard might like done. Kamil and Nabbi would have washed diapers, if he asked it, for the chance to ride with him at night in the wagon as he picked up and delivered things around Altur'Rang. He only rarely took them with him, saying that he could get in trouble with the workers' group. The youths didn't want Richard to get in trouble and lose his job, so they patiently waited for the rare times when he tilted his head for them to come along. Their room had been transformed. The ceiling had been cleaned and whitewashed. The flyblown walls had been scrubbed and painted a salmon color-a color she had picked, thinking that Richard would not possibly be able to come up with the rare ingredients needed for the color. The walls were now mockingly salmon. One day a man had shown up with an armload of tools. Kamil said that Richard had sent him over to fix their room. The man spoke a language Nicci didn't understand. He waved his arms a lot and chattered and laughed good-naturedly, as if she must understand at least a little of what he told her. He pointed around at walls and asked questions. She hadn't the foggiest notion of what he was there to do. She suspected he had come to fix the wobbly table. She rapped the top with the flat of her hand and then showed him how it wobbled. He nodded and grinned and chattered. She finally left him to his work while she went to the city store to wait in line to buy bread. She was there the entire morning. In the afternoon, she waited in line for millet. When Nicci finally returned home, the man was gone. The old window, broken and not only long painted over but also painted shut, had new glass, and it was raised. And, they had a new window in the other wall. Both windows were open. A cool cross-breeze let fresh air into the stuffy room. Nicci stood in the center of the room, stunned to be looking through the window to the building next door. She gaped out the window in the wall where there had been no window before. She was able to see the street. Mrs. Sha'Rim, from next door, had smiled and waved as she'd walked past. Nicci set down the wash basket and opened the window at the side, to get some air into the stifling room. She pushed the curtains back. With windows you could see though, she had decided that curtains were in order. Richard somehow got her fabric. When she was finished, he told her she had done a wonderful job. Nicci found herself grinning just as everyone else grinned when Richard told them they had done well. She had brought Richard to the worst place in the Old World, to the worst build ing she could find, and he somehow ended up making everything better just as she had insisted was his duty. But she had never meant it to be like this. She didn't know what she'd meant. She only knew that she lived for the times Richard was with her. Even though she knew he hated her, and wanted nothing more than to be away from her and back with his Kahlan, Nicci could not help feeling her heart rise into her throat when he came home. Through the link to Kahlan, she thought that at times she could feel the woman's longing for him. Every inch of her ached with understanding of Kahlan's longing. The room grew darker as she waited. Life didn't start until Richard came home. As the daylight faded, the lamplight took its place. They had a real lamp, now, not just a wick through a wooden button floating in linseed oil. The door opened. Richard put one foot inside. He was speaking to Kamil as the young man was going off to his family's place upstairs. It was getting late. Finally, still smiling, Richard came in and shut the door. The smile faded, as it always did. He held out a burlap sack. "I came across some onions, carrots, and some pork. I thought you might like to make a stew." Nicci lifted a hand weekly toward the millet she had spent the afternoon in line to buy. It had bugs in it. It was moldy. "I bought millet. I thought I would make you a soup." Richard shrugged. "If you prefer. Your millet soup saw us through some pretty lean times." Nicci felt that flash of pride that he had acknowledged what she had done as valuable. She shut the windows. It was dark out. With her back to the windows as she watched him, she closed the curtains tight. Richard stood in the center of the room, watching her, a puzzled frown creasing his brow between his eyes. Nicci closed the distance to him. She was aware of the exposed flesh of her bosom rising and falling above the top of her black dress. Gadi had just been staring at her bosom. She wanted Richard to stare at her like that. Richard watched only her eyes. Her fingers tightened around his muscled arms. "Make love to me," she whispered. His brow drew down. "What?" "Richard, I want you to make love to me. Now." He appraised her eyes for an eternity. Her heart thundered in her ears. Every fiber of her being screamed out for him to take her. She teetered on the edge, waiting, her life suspended in the exquisite anguish of expectation. His voice came, not at all harsh. If anything, it was tender, but it was also resolute. "No." Nicci felt as if a thousand needles of ice were dancing up her arms. His refusal stunned her. No man had ever refused her. It hurt to her core--worse than anything Jagang or any other man had ever done. She had thought . . . Blood rushed to her face, melting the ice in a flash of heat. Nicci flung open the door. "Come out into the hall and wait," she commanded in a shaky voice. He was standing in the center of their room, looking into her eyes. The lamp on the table cast harsh shadows across his face. His shoulders looked so broad, tapering down to his waist, a waist she ached to encircle with her arms. She wanted to scream. Instead she spoke softly, but with authority he could not mistake. "You will come out into the hall and wait, or. . ." Nicci made a snipping gesture with two fingers. By the look in his eyes, he knew that she was not bluffing. Kahlan's life now hung by a thread, and if he didn't do as she ordered, she would not hesitate to cut that thread. With his gray eyes on her the whole time, Richard stepped out into the hall. She put a finger to the center of his chest and pushed until his back was against the wall beside their door. "You are to wait right there, on that spot, until I tell you that you may move from it." She gritted her teeth. "Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?" "Nicci, you're better than this. Think about what you're-" "Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?" He let out a breath. "Yes." Nicci marched to the stairwell. Gadi stood halfway up the stairs, his dark eyes watching. He arrogantly descended toward her, until he was at the bottom with her. He had a fine form, she supposed, displayed as it was without a shirt. He was close enough to feel the heat of him. Nicci looked him in the eye. He was the same height as she. "I want you to have sex with me." "What?" "My husband does not adequately take care of my needs. I wish you to." A smirk spread on his face as his gaze slid to Richard. He looked back at her bosom, at what was within his power to possess. Gadi was young and bold and stupid enough to believe himself irresistible to her, to believe his puerile primping had swept away her inhibitions to the point of helpless lust for what he had to offer. One arm pulled her to him. With his other hand, he swept her hair out of the way. His thin lips kissed her neck. When his teeth raked her flesh, she moaned to encourage him to be rough. The last thing in the world she wanted was tenderness. There could be no retribution in tenderness. Tenderness would not cleave Richard's soul with anguish. Tenderness would not hurt him. Gadi's hands squeezed her bottom, pulling her hard against his groin. He moved against her in a lewd fashion. She panted in his ear to encourage his confidence in his dominion over her body. "Tell me why." "I'm sick of his gentle nature, his kind touch, his caring ways. That's not what a real woman needs. I want him to know what a real man can do-I want what he can't give me." She nearly cried out in pain when he twisted her nipple. "Yeah?" "Yes. I want what a real man like you can do for a woman." His rough hands squeezed her breast. She performed another moan. He smiled. "My pleasure." His smirk sickened her. "No, mine," she whispered in breathy submission. He cast one more hateful glare at Richard, then bent to slip a hand up the front of her dress to see if she really meant it, if she would really let him have his way with her. His hand slid up the inside of her bare thigh, commanding surrender. She obediently parted her legs for him. Nicci held on to his shoulders as he groped her. His upper lip curled in a haughty grin. His fingers worked without mercy. Her eyes watered. She trembled and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her cry. Mistaking agony for lust, he was inflamed by her whimpers. Jagang and his friend Kadar Kardeef, to name but a few, took her without her consent. None of it had ever approached the sense of violation she felt at that moment as she stood there in the hall letting that smirking little thug do to her as he would. She forced her hand down between them and seized him. "Gadi, are you afraid of Richard? Are are you man enough to take me while he is outside the room, listening to us, knowing you are his better with me?" "Afraid? Of him?" His voice came in a husky growl. "Just tell me when." "Right now. I need it from you now, Gadi." "I thought so." Nicci smiled inwardly at his solemn look of lust. "Say `please,' first, you little whore." "Please." She ached only to crush his worthless skull. "Please, Gadi." With his arm around her waist, Gadi gave Richard a taunting sneer as he swaggered past. Nicci's fingers on Gadi's back urged him to go on into their room and wait. He smiled over his shoulder and did as she wanted. Nicci paused to glare into Richard's eyes. "We are linked. What happens to me, happens to her. I hope you are not foolish enough to think I wouldn't make you sorry for the rest of your days if you don't stay right there. I swear to you, she will die this night if you don't stay there." "Nicci, please don't do this. You're only hurting yourself." His voice was so tender, so compassionate. She almost threw her arms around him to beg him to stop her . . . but the flame of his refusal still burned shamefully in her heart. Nicci turned back from the doorway and gave Richard a vicious grin. "I hope your Kahlan enjoys this as much as I'm going to enjoy it. After tonight, she will never believe in you again." --]---- Kahlan gasped. Her eyes opened. She could only make out obscure shapes in the swirling darkness. She gasped again. A feeling she couldn't define, couldn't interpret, couldn't put a nature to, welled up in her. It was something totally foreign, yet at the same time bewitchingly familiar. Something inappropriate, yet longed for. It filled her with a kind of passionate terror that undulated seductively to indecent pleasure, pushing before it a sense of shapeless dread. She felt the weight of a shadow over her. Feelings and sensations she could not grasp or control inundated her even as she fought them. Nothing seemed real. She gasped again at the crude sensation. It confused her. It hurt, and at the same time she felt a kind of wild hunger awakening. It was as if Richard were there, in bed with her. It felt so good again. She was panting. Her mouth was dry as dust. In Richard's intimate embrace she had always felt a kind of expectant delight that their shameless lust could never be completely sated-that there was always a spark of something left to explore, to reach toward, to define. She had always exalted in the idea of that endless quest for the unattainable. She drew a sharp breath. She felt herself in that headlong rush, now. But this was something she had never imagined. Her fists clutched at the sheets, her mouth opened in a silent scream against the ripping thrust of pain. This was not human. It made no sense. She gasped again in panic as the most awful feelings burgeoned through her. She moaned at the horror of it, at the hint of pleasure in it, and at the confusion of nearly enjoying the sensation. The realization came to her. She knew what this meant. Tears stung her eyes. She rolled onto her side, torn between the joy of feeling Richard, and the pain of knowing that Nicci was feeling him in this way, too. She was slammed onto her back. She gasped again, her eyes going wide, her whole body rigid. She cried out at the pain. She twisted and struggled, covering her breasts with her arms. Her eyes watered at agony she couldn't explain or completely identify. She missed Richard so much. She wanted him so badly it hurt. She gave in to him, even in this, she surrendered herself to him. A low wail escaped her throat. Her muscles knotted as tight as oak roots. She was racked with wave after wave of startling pain mixed with an unsatisfied longing that had turned to revulsion. She couldn't get her breath. She burst into tears as it ceased, her body finally able to move again, but too exhausted to do so. She had hated every violent appalling brutal second of it, and grieved that it had ended because she had at least felt him. She felt joy that she had so unexpectedly sensed him, and blind rage at what it meant. She clutched the sheets in her fists as she wept inconsolably. "Mother Confessor?" A dark form slipped into the tent. "Mother Confessor?" It was Cara's whisper. Cara set a candle on the table. The light seemed blindingly bright as Cara looked down. "Mother Confessor, are you all right?" Kahlan pulled a ragged breath. She was lying on her back in her bed, tangled in her blanket. It was twisted around between her legs. Maybe it was just a dream. She wished it was. She knew it wasn't. Kahlan ran her fingers back into her hair as she sat up. "Cara-" It came out as a choking sob. Cara knelt on the ground beside her and gripped Kahlan's shoulders. "What is it?" Kahlan struggled to get her breath. "What's wrong? What can I do? Are you hurt? Are you sick?" "Oh, Cara . . . he's been with Nicci." Cara held her at arms length, her face a picture of concern. "What are you talking about? Who's been-" Her words cut off when she realized what Kahlan meant. Kahlan struggled against Cara's grip. "How could he-" "She no doubt made him," Cara insisted. "He must have done it to save your life. She would have had to threaten him." Kahlan was shaking her head. "No, no. He was enjoying it too much. He was like an animal. He never took me like that. He never acted . . . Oh, Cara, he's fallen for her. He couldn't resist her any longer. He's-" Cara shook her until Kahlan thought her teeth would come loose. "Wake up! Open your eyes. Mother Confessor, wake up. You're half asleep. You're still half dreaming." Kahlan blinked as she looked around. She was panting, still getting her breath. She had stopped crying. Cara was right. It had happened, there was no doubt in Kahlan's mind, but it had happened when she was sleeping, and in her sleep, it had taken her unaware. She hadn't reacted rationally. "You're right," Kahlan said in a voice hoarse from crying. Her nose was stuffed up so that she could only breath through her mouth. "Now," Cara said in a calm voice, "tell me what happened." When she felt her face go red, Kahlan wished for the darkness. How could she tell anyone what had happened? She wished Cara hadn't heard her. "Well, through the link"-Kahlan swallowed-"I could sense that, that, well, that Richard made love to Nicci." Cara looked skeptical. "Did it feel like when, well, I mean, are you sure? Could you tell it was him?" Kahlan felt her face go a darker shade of red. "Not exactly, I guess. I don't know." She covered her breasts. "I could feel his . . . his teeth on me. He was biting .." Cara scratched her head, averting her gaze, unsure how to frame her question. Kahlan answered it for her. "Richard never hurt me like that." "Oh. Well then, it wasn't Richard." "What do you mean it wasn't Richard? It had to be Richard." "Did it? Would Richard want to make love to Nicci?" "Cara-she could make him. Threaten him." "Do you think Nicci is an honorable person?" Kahlan frowned. "Nicci? Are you out of your mind?" "There you go, then. Why must it be Richard? Nicci may have simply found some man she had to have-some handsome farmboy. It could be nothing more than that." "Really? You think so?" "You said it didn't seem like Richard. I mean, you were half asleep, and in . . . shock. You said he never. . ." Kahlan looked away. "No, I suppose not." She looked back at the Mord-Sith in the dim light. "I'm sorry, Cara. Thank you for being here with me. I'd not have liked it if it had been Zedd, or someone else. Thank you." Cara smiled. "I think we'd best keep this between the two of us." Kahlan nodded gratefully. "If Zedd ever started in asking all his detailed questions about this, well, I'd die of embarrassment." Kahlan realized then that Cara was wrapped in a blanket that was open in the front enough to reveal that she was naked underneath. There was a dark mark on the upper half of her breast. There were a few more, but faint. Kahlan had seen Cara naked, and didn't recall there being any such mark on her. In fact, except for her scars, her body was exasperatingly perfect. Frowning, Kahlan ge