akes with magic. As the Mother Confessor I'll not allow reckless whim to jeopardize all those lives. Now, do you understand me?" Kahlan had nightmares about the things she had seen, about those who had been caught, about those who had made a simple mistake and paid the price with their life. She was not many years beyond Jennsen's age, but right then that gulf was vastly more than a mere handful of years. Kahlan gave Jennsen's collar a sharp yank. "Do you understand me?" Wide-eyed, Jennsen swallowed. "Yes, Mother Confessor." Finally, her gaze broke toward the ground. Only then did Kahlan release her. CHAPTER 4 Anyone hungry?" Tom called to the three women. Richard pulled a lantern from the wagon and, after finally getting it lit with a steel and flint, set it on a shelf of rock. He passed a suspicious look among the three women as they approached, but apparently thought better of saying anything. As Kahlan sat close at Richard's side, Tom offered him the first chunk he sliced from a long length of sausage. When Richard declined, Kahlan accepted it. Tom sliced off another piece and passed it to Cara and then another to Friedrich. Jennsen had gone to the wagon to search through her pack. Kahlan thought that maybe she just wanted to be alone a moment to collect herself. Kahlan knew how harsh her words had sounded, but she couldn't allow herself to do Jennsen the disservice of coddling her with pleasing lies. With Jennsen reassuringly close by, Betty lay down beside Rusty, Jennsen's red roan mare. The horse and the goat were fast friends. The other horses seemed pleased by the visitor and took keen interest in her two kids, giving them a good sniff when they came close enough. When Jennsen walked over displaying a small piece of carrot, Betty rose up in a rush. Her tail went into a blur of expectant wagging. The horses whinnied and tossed their heads, hoping not to be left out. Each in turn received a small treat and a scratch behind the ears. Had they a fire, they could have cooked a stew, rice, or beans; grid-died some bannock; or maybe have made a nice soup. Despite how hungry she was, Kahlan didn't think she would have had the energy to cook, so she was content to settle for what was at hand. Jennsen retrieved strips of dried meat from her pack, offering them around. Richard declined this, too, instead eating hard travel biscuits, nuts, and dried fruit. "But don't you want any meat?" Jennsen asked as she sat down on her bedroll opposite him. "You need more than that to eat. You need something substantial." "I can't eat meat. Not since the gift came to life in me." Jennsen's wrinkled her nose with a puzzled look. "Why would your gift not allow you to eat meat?" Richard leaned to the side, resting his weight on an elbow as he momentarily surveyed the sweep of stars, searching for the words to explain. "Balance, in nature," he said at last, "is a condition resulting from the interaction of all things in existence. On a simple level, look at how predators and prey are in balance. If there were too many predators, and the prey were all eaten, then the thriving predators, too, would end up starving and dying out. "The lack of balance would be deadly to both prey and predator; the world, for them both, would end. They exist in balance because acting in accordance with their nature results in balance. Balance is not their conscious intent. "People are different. Without our conscious intent, we don't necessarily achieve the balance that our survival often requires. "We must learn to use our minds, to think, if we're to survive. We plant crops, we hunt for fur to keep us warm, or raise sheep and gather their wool and learn how to weave it into cloth. We have to learn how to build shelter. We balance the value of one thing against another and trade goods to exchange what we've made for what we need that others have made or grown or built or woven or hunted. "We balance what we need with what we know of the realities of the world. We balance what we want against our rational self-interest, not against fulfilling a momentary impulse, because we know that our long-term survival requires it. We use wood to build a fire in the hearth in order to keep from freezing on a winter night, but, despite how cold we might be when we're building the fire, we don't build the fire too big, knowing that to do so would risk burning our shelter down after we're warm and asleep." "But people also act out of shortsighted selfishness, greed, and lust for power. They destroy lives." Jennsen lifted her arm out toward the darkness. "Look at what the Imperial Order is doing--and succeeding at. They don't care about weaving wool or building houses or trading goods. They slaughter people just for conquest. They take what they want." "And we resist them. We've learned to understand the value of life, so we fight to reestablish reason. We are the balance." Jennsen hooked some of her hair back behind an ear. "What does all this have to do with not eating meat?" "I was told that wizards, too, must balance themselves, their gift-- their power--in the things they do. I fight against those, like the Imperial Order, who would destroy life because it has no value to them, but that requires that I do the same terrible thing by destroying what is my highest value--life. Since my gift has to do with being a warrior, abstinence from eating meat is believed to be the balance for the killing I'm forced to do." "What happens if you eat meat?" Kahlan knew that Richard had cause, from only the day before, to need the balance of not eating meat. "Even the idea of eating meat nauseates me. I've done it when I've had to, but it's something I avoid if at all possible. Magic deprived of balance has grave consequences, just like building a fire in the hearth." The thought occurred to Kahlan that Richard carried the Sword of Truth, and perhaps that weapon also imposed its own need for balance. Richard had been rightly named the Seeker of Truth by the First Wizard himself, Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander--Zedd, Richard's grandfather, the man who had helped raise him, and from whom Richard had additionally inherited the gift. Richard's gift had been passed down not only from the Rahl bloodline, but the Zorander as well. Balance indeed. Rightly named Seekers had been carrying that very same sword for nearly three thousand years. Perhaps Richard's understanding of the need for balance had helped him to survive the things he'd faced. With her teeth, Jennsen tugged off a strip of dried meat as she thought it over. "So, because you have to fight and sometimes kill people, you can't eat meat as the balance for that terrible act?" Richard nodded as he chewed dried apricots. "It must be dreadful to have the gift," Jennsen said in a quiet voice. "To have something so destructive that it requires you balance it in some way." She looked away from Richard's gray eyes. Kahlan knew what a difficult experience it sometimes was to meet his direct and incisive gaze. "I used to feel that way," he said, "when I first was named the Seeker and given the sword, and even more so later, when I learned that I had the gift. I didn't want to have the gift, didn't want the things the gift could do, just as I hadn't wanted the sword because of the things in me that I thought shouldn't ever be brought out." "But now you don't mind as much, having the sword, or the gift?" "You have a knife and have used it." Richard leaned toward her, holding out his hands. "You have hands. Do you hate your knife, or hands?" "Of course not. But what does that have to do with having the gift?" "Having the gift is simply how I was born, like being born male, or female, or with blue, or brown, or green eyes--or with two hands. I don't hate my hands because I could potentially strangle someone with them. It's my mind that directs my hands. My hands don't act of their own accord; to think so is to ignore the truth of what each thing is, its true nature. You have to recognize the truth of things if you're to achieve balance--or come to truly understand anything, for that matter." Kahlan wondered why she didn't require balance the way Richard did. Why was it so vital for him, but not for her? Despite how much she wanted to go to sleep, she couldn't keep silent. "I often use my Confessor's power for that same end--to kill--and I don't have to keep in balance by not eating meat." "The Sisters of the Light claim that the veil that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead is maintained through magic. More precisely, they claim that the veil is here," Richard said, tapping the side of his temple, "in those of us who have the gift--wizards and to a lesser extent sorceresses. They claim that balance for those of us with the gift is essential because in us, within our gift, resides the veil, making us, in essence, the guardians of the veil, the balance between worlds. "Maybe they're right. I have both sides of the gift: Additive and Subtractive. Maybe that makes it different for me. Maybe having both sides makes it more important than usual for me to keep my gift in balance." Kahlan wondered just how much of that might be true. She feared to think how extensively the balance of magic itself had been altered by her doing. The world was unraveling, in more ways than one. But there had been no choice. Cara dismissively waggled a piece of dried meat before them. "All this balance business is just a message from the good spirits--in that other world--telling Lord Rahl to leave such fighting to us. If he did, then he wouldn't have to worry about balance, or what he can and can't eat. If he would stop putting himself in mortal danger then his balance would be just fine and he could eat a whole goat." Jennsen's eyebrows went up. "You know what I mean," Cara grumbled. Tom leaned in. "Maybe Mistress Cara is right, Lord Rahl. You have people to protect you. You should let them do it and you could better put your abilities to the task of being the Lord Rahl." Richard closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "If I had to wait for Cara to save me all the time, I'm afraid I'd have to do without a head." Cara rolled her eyes at his wisp of a smile and went back to her sausage. Studying his face in the dim light as he sucked on a small bite of dried biscuit, Kahlan thought that Richard didn't look well, and that it was more than simply being exhausted. The soft glow of light from the lantern lit one side of his face, leaving the rest in darkness, as if he were only half there, half in this world and half in the world of darkness, as if he were the veil between. She leaned close and brushed back the hair that had fallen across his forehead, using the excuse to feel his brow. He felt hot, but they were all hot and sweating, so she couldn't really tell if he had a fever, but she didn't think so. Her hand slipped down to cup his face, kindling his smile. She thought she could lose herself in the pleasure of just looking into his eyes. It made her heart ache with joy to see his smile. She smiled back, a smile she gave no one but him. Kahlan had an urge to kiss him, too, but there always seemed to be people around and the kind of kiss she really wanted to give him wasn't the kind of kiss you gave in front of others. "It seems so hard to imagine," Friedrich said to Richard. "I mean, the Lord Rahl himself, not knowing about the gift as he grew up." Friedrich shook his head. "It seems so hard to believe." "My grandfather, Zedd, has the gift," Richard said as he leaned back. "He wanted to help raise me away from magic, much like Jennsen-- hidden away where Darken Rahl couldn't get at me. That's why he wanted me raised in Westland, on the other side of the boundary from magic." "And even your grandfather--a wizard--never let on that he was gifted?" Tom asked. "No, not until Kahlan came to Westland. Looking back on it, I realize that there were a lot of little things that told me he was more than he seemed, but growing up I never knew. He just always seemed wizardly to me in the sense that he seemed to know about everything in the world around us. He opened up that world for me, making me want to all the time know more, but the gift wasn't ever the magic he showed me--life was what he showed me." "It's really true, then," Friedrich said, "that Westland was set aside to be a place without magic." Richard smiled at the mention of his home of Westland. "It is. I grew up in the Hartland woods, right near the boundary, and I never saw magic. Except maybe for Chase." "Chase?" Tom asked. "A friend of mine--a boundary warden. Fellow about your size, Tom. Whereas you serve to protect the Lord Rahl, Chase's charge was the boundary, or rather, keeping people away from it. He told me that his job was keeping away the prey--people--so that the things that come out of the boundary wouldn't get any stronger. He worked to maintain balance." Richard smiled to himself. "He didn't have the gift, but I often thought that the things that man could pull off had to be magic." Friedrich, too, was smiling at Richard's story. "I lived in D'Hara all my life. When I was young those men who guarded the boundary were my heroes and I wanted to join them." "Why didn't you?" Richard asked. "When the boundary went up I was too young." Friedrich stared off into memories, then sought to change the subject. "How much longer until we get out of this wasteland, Lord Rahl?" Richard looked east, as if he could see off into the black of night beyond the dim circle of lantern light. "If we keep up our pace, a few more days and we'll be out of the worst of it, I'd say. It gets rockier now as the ground continues to rise up toward the distant mountains. The traveling will be more difficult but at least as we get higher it shouldn't be quite so hot." "How far to this thing that... that Cara thinks I should touch?" Jennsen asked. Richard studied her face a moment. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea." "But we are going there?" "Yes." Jennsen picked at the strip of dried meat. "What is this thing that Cara touched, anyway? Cara and Kahlan don't seem to want to tell me." "I asked them not to tell you," Richard said. "But why? If we're going to see it, then why wouldn't you want to tell me what it is?" "Because you don't have the gift," Richard said. "I don't want to influence what you see." Jennsen blinked. "What difference could that make?" "I haven't had time to translate much of it yet, but from what I gather from the book Friedrich brought me, even those who don't have the gift, in the common sense, have at least some tiny spark of it. In that way they are able to interact with the magic in the world--much like you must be born with eyes to see color. Being born with eyes, you can see and understand a grand painting, even though you may not have the ability to create such a painting yourself. "The gifted Lord Rahl gives birth to only one gifted heir. He may have other children, but rarely are any of them ever also gifted. Still, they do have this infinitesimal spark, as does everyone else. Even they, so to speak, can see color. "The book says, though, that there are rare offspring of a gifted Lord Rahl, like you, who are born devoid of any trace whatsoever of the gift. The book calls them pillars of Creation. Much like those born without eyes can't perceive color, those born like you can't perceive magic. "But even that is imprecise, because with you it's more than simply not perceiving magic. For someone born blind, color exists, they just aren't able to see it. For you, though, it isn't that you simply can't perceive magic; for you magic does not exist--it isn't a reality." "How is such a thing possible?" Jennsen asked. "I don't know," Richard said. "When our ancestors created the bond of the Lord Rahl to the D'Haran people, it carried the unique ability to consistently bear a gifted heir. Magic needs balance. Maybe they had to make it work like this, have this counter of those born like you, in order for the magic they created to work; maybe they didn't realize what would happen and inadvertently created the balance." Jennsen cleared her throat. "What would happen if... you know, if I were to have children?" Richard surveyed Jennsen's eyes for what seemed a painfully long time. "You would bear offspring like you." Jennsen sat forward, her hands reflecting her emotional entreaty. "Even if I marry someone with that spark of the gift? Someone able to perceive color, as you called it? Even then my child would be like me?" "Even then and every time," Richard said with quiet certitude. "You are a broken link in the chain of the gift. According to the book, once the line of all those born with the spark of the gift, including those with the gift as it is in me, going back thousands of years, going back forever, is broken, it is broken for all time. It cannot be restored. Once forfeited in such a marriage, no descendant of that line can ever restore the link to the gift. When these children marry, they too would be as you, breaking the chain in the line of those they marry. Their children would be the same, and so on. "That's why the Lord Rahl always hunted down ungifted offspring and eliminated them. You would be the genesis of something the world has never had before: those untouched by the gift. Every offspring of every descendant would end the line of the spark of the gift in everyone they married. The world, mankind, would be changed forever. "This is the reason the book calls those like you 'pillars of Creation.' " The silence seemed brittle. "And that's what this place is called, too," Tom said as he pointed a thumb back over his shoulder, seeming to feel the need to say something into the quiet, "the Pillars of Creation." He looked at the faces surrounding the weak light coming from the sputtering lantern. "Seems a strange coincidence that both those like Jennsen and this place would be called the same thing." Richard stared off into the darkness toward that terrible place where Kahlan would have died had he made a mistake with the magic involved. "I don't think it's a coincidence. They are connected, somehow." The book--The Pillars of Creation--describing those born like Jennsen was written in the ancient language of High D'Haran. Few people still living understood High D'Haran. Richard had begun to learn it in order to unravel important information in other books they'd found that were from the time of the great war. That war, extinguished three thousand years before, had somehow ignited once again, and was burning uncontrolled through the world. Kahlan feared to think of the central--if inadvertent--part she and Richard had played in making it possible. Jennsen leaned in, as if looking for some thread of hope. "How do you think the two might be connected?" Richard let out a tired sigh. "I don't know, yet." With a finger, Jennsen rolled a pebble around in a small circle, leaving a tiny rut in the dust. "All of those things about me being a pillar of Creation, being the break in the link of the gift, makes me feel somehow... dirty." "Dirty?" Tom asked, looking hurt to hear her even suggest such a thing. "Jennsen, why would you feel that way?" "Those like me are also called 'holes in the world.' I guess I can see why, now." Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know what it's like to feel regret for how you were born, for what you have, or don't have. I hated being born the way I was--with the gift. But I came to realize how senseless such feelings are, how completely wrong it was to think that way." "But it's different with me," she said as she pushed at the sand with a finger, erasing the little ruts she'd made with the pebble. "There are others like you--wizards or sorceresses with the gift. Everyone else can at least see colors, as you put it. I'm the only one like this." Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful, bright, ungifted half sister that any previous Lord Rahl would have murdered on the spot, and was overcome with a radiant smile. "Jennsen, I think of you as born pure. You're like a new snowflake, different than any other, and startlingly beautiful." Looking up at him, Jennsen was overcome with a smile of her own. "I never thought of it that way." Her smile withered as she thought about his words. "But still, I'd be destroying--" "You would be creating, not destroying," Richard said. "Magic exists. It cannot possess the 'right' to exist. To think so would be to ignore the true nature--the reality--of things. People, if they don't take the lives of others, have the right to live their life. You can't say that because you were born with red hair you supplanted the 'right' of brown hair to be born on your head." Jennsen giggled at such a concept. It was good to see the smile taking firmer hold. By the look on Tom's face, he agreed. "So," Jennsen finally asked, "what about this thing we're going to see?" "If the thing Cara touched has been altered by someone with the gift, then since you can't see the magic, you might see something we can't see: what lies beneath that magic." Jennsen rubbed the edge of her boot heel. "And you think that will tell you something important?" "I don't know. It may be useful, or it may not, but I want to know what you see--with your special vision--without any suggestion from us." "If you're so worried about it, why did you leave it? Aren't you afraid someone might come across it and take it?" "I worry about a lot of things," Richard said. "Even if it really is something altered by magic and she sees it for what it truly is," Cara said, "that doesn't mean that it still isn't what it seems to us, or that it isn't just as dangerous." Richard nodded. "At least we'll know that much more about it. Anything we learn might help us in some way." Cara scowled. "I just want her to turn it back over." Richard gave her a look designed to keep her from saying anything else about it. Cara huffed, leaned in, and took one of Richard's dried apricots. She scowled at him as she popped the apricot into her mouth. As soon as supper was finished, Jennsen suggested that they pack all the food safely back in the wagon so that Betty wouldn't help herself to it in the night. Betty was always hungry. At least, with her two kids, she now had a taste of what it was like to be badgered for food. Kahlan thought that Friedrich should be given consideration, because of his age, so she asked him if he'd like to take first watch. First watch was easier than being awakened in the middle of the night to stand watch between stretches of sleep. He smiled his appreciation as he nodded his agreement. After opening his and Kahlan's bedroll, Richard doused the lantern. The night was sweltering but crystal clear so that, after Kahlan's eyes adjusted, the sweep of stars was enough to see by, if not very well. One of the white twins thought the newly unfurled bedrolls would be a perfect place to romp. Kahlan scooped up the leggy bundle and returned it to its tail-wagging mother. As she lay down beside Richard, Kahlan saw the dark shape of Jennsen curl up by Betty and collect the twins in the tender bed of her arms, where they quickly settled down. Richard leaned over and gently kissed Kahlan's lips. "I love you, you know." "If we're ever alone, Lord Rahl," Kahlan whispered back, "I'd like to have more than a quick kiss." He laughed softly and kissed her forehead before lying on his side, away from her. She had been expecting an intimate promise, or at least a lighthearted remark. Kahlan curled up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Richard," she whispered, "are you all right?" It took him longer to answer than she would have liked. "I have a splitting headache." She wanted to ask what kind of headache, but she didn't want the tiny spark of fear she harbored to gain the glow of credence by voicing it aloud. "It's different from the headaches I had before," Richard said, as if in answer to her thoughts. "I suppose it's this wicked heat on top of not having had any sleep for so long." "I suppose." Kahlan bunched up the blanket she was using for a pillow to make a lump that would press against the sore spot at the base of her skull. "The heat is making my head pound, too." She gently rubbed the back of his shoulder. "Have a good sleep, then." She was exhausted and aching all over, and it felt delicious to lie down. Her head felt better, too, with the soft lump of blanket pressed against the back of her neck. With her hand resting against Richard's shoulder, feeling his slow breathing, Kahlan fell into a dead sleep. CHAPTER 5 As tired as she was, it was a marvelous sensation being beside Richard and letting herself go, letting her concerns and worries go for the time being, and so effortlessly sinking into sleep. But the sleep seemed only just started when she woke to find Cara gently shaking her shoulder. Kahlan blinked up at the familiar silhouette standing over her. She ached to go back to sleep, to be left alone to be so wonderfully asleep again. "My watch?" Kahlan asked. Cara nodded. "I'll stand it if you'd like." Kahlan glanced over her shoulder as she sat up, seeing that Richard was still fast asleep. "No," she whispered. "You get some sleep. You need rest, too." Kahlan yawned and stretched her back. She took Cara's elbow and pulled her a short distance away, out of earshot, and leaned close. "I think you're right. There's more than enough of us to stand watch and all still get enough rest. Let's let Richard sleep till morning." Cara smiled her agreement before heading for her bedroll. Conspiracy designed to protect Richard suited the Mord-Sith. Kahlan yawned and stretched again, at the same time forcing herself to shake the lingering haze of sleep from her mind, to be alert. Pulling her hair back from her face and flipping it over her shoulder, she scanned the wasteland all around, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Everything beyond their camp was as still as death. Mountains blacked out the glittering sweep of stars in a jagged line all the way around the horizon. Kahlan took careful assessment of everyone, making sure they were all accounted for. Cara already looked comfortable. Tom slept not far from the horses. Friedrich was asleep on the other side of the horses. Jennsen was curled up beside Betty, but by her movements, the way she turned from her side to her back, didn't look asleep. The babies had moved and now lay sprawled with their heads butted up tight against their mother. Kahlan was always especially vigilant right at change of watch. Change of watch was a prime time for attack; she knew, for she had often initiated raids around change of watch. Those just going off watch were often tired and already thinking of other things, considering watch the duty of the next guard. Those just coming on watch were often not mentally prepared for a sudden attack. People tended to think that the enemy would not come until they were properly settled in and on the lookout. Victory favored those who were ready. Defeat stalked those who were unwary. Kahlan made her way to a formation of rock not far from Richard. She scooted back, sitting atop a high spot in order to get a better view of the lifeless surroundings. Even in the middle of the night, the rough rock still radiated the fierce heat of the previous day. Kahlan pulled a skein of damp hair away from her neck, wishing there were a breeze. There had been times, in winter, when she had nearly frozen to death. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to recall what it felt like to be truly cold. It wasn't long after Kahlan had gotten herself situated before she saw Jennsen get up and step quietly through their camp, trying not to wake the others. "All right if I sit with you?" she asked when she finally reached Kahlan. "Of course." Jennsen pushed her bottom back up onto the rock beside Kahlan, pulled her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them, hugging them close to her body. For a time she just gazed out at the night. "Kahlan, I'm sorry--about before." Despite the dark, Kahlan thought she could see that the young woman looked miserable. "I didn't mean to sound like a fool who would do something without thinking. I'd never do anything to hurt any of you." "I know you wouldn't deliberately do any such thing. It's the things you might do unwittingly that concern me." Jennsen nodded. "I think I understand a little better, now, about how complicated everything is and how much I really don't know. I'll not do anything unless you or Richard tells me to, I promise." Kahlan smiled and ran a hand down the back of Jennsen's head, letting it come to rest on her shoulder. "I only told you those things because I care about you, Jennsen." She gave the shoulder a compassionate squeeze. "I guess I'm worried for you the same way Betty worries for her innocent twins, knowing the dangers all around when they rarely do. "You need to understand that if you go out on thin ice, it doesn't matter if the lake was frozen over by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If you don't know where you're stepping, so to speak, you could fall into the cold dark arms of death. It matters not what made the ice--dead is dead. My point is that you don't go out on that thin ice unless you have a very powerful need, because it very well could cost you your life." "But I'm not touched by magic. Like Richard said, I'm like someone born without eyes who can't see color. I'm a broken link in the chain of magic. Wouldn't that mean that I can't accidentally get into trouble with it?" "And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff and it crushes you, does it matter if that boulder was sent crashing over the edge by a man with a lever, or by a sorceress wielding the gift?" Jennsen's voice took on a troubled tone. "I see what you mean. I guess that I never looked at it that way." "I'm only trying to help you because I know how easy it is to make a mistake." She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. "You know about magic. What kind of mistake could you make?" "All kinds." "Like what?" Kahlan stared off into the memories. "I once delayed for half a second in killing someone." "But I thought you said that it was wrong to be too rash." "Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can do is to delay. She Was a sorceress. By the time I acted it was already too late. Because of my mistake she captured Richard and took him away. For a year, I didn't know what had happened to him. I thought I would never see him again, that I would die of heartache." Jennsen stared in astonishment. "When did you find him again?" "Not long ago. That's why we're down here in the Old World--she brought him here. At least I found him. I've made other mistakes, and they, too, have resulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like he said, we all make mistakes. If I can, I want to spare you from making a needless mistake, at least." Jennsen looked away. "Like believing in that man I was with yesterday--Sebastian. Because of him, my mother was murdered and I almost got you killed. I feel like such a fool." "You didn't make that mistake out of carelessness, Jennsen. They deceived you, used you. More importantly, in the end you used your head and were willing to face the truth." Jennsen nodded. "What should we name the twins?" she finally asked. Kahlan didn't think that naming the twins was a good idea, not yet anyway, but she was reluctant to say it. "I don't know. What names were you thinking?" Jennsen let out a heavy breath. "It was a shock to suddenly have Betty back with me, and even more of a surprise to see that she had babies of her own. I never considered that before. I haven't even had time to think about names." "You will." Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew, as if at the thought of something more. "You know," she said, "I think I understand what Richard meant about thinking of his grandfather as wizardly, even though he never saw him do magic." "What do you mean?" "Well, I can't see magic, so to speak, and Richard didn't do any tonight--at least none I know of." She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh as Kahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It had a quality to it much like Richard's, the feminine balance to Richard's masculine laugh, two facets of the same delight. "And yet," Jennsen went on, "the things he said made me think of him in that way--wizardly--like he said about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knew just what he meant, just how he'd felt, because Richard has opened up the world for me, but the gift wasn't the magic he showed me. It was him showing me life, that my life is mine, and worth living." Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much that described her own feeling of what Richard had done for her, how he had brought her to cherish life and believe in it not just for others, but, most importantly, for herself. For a time they sat together, silently watching the empty wasteland. Kahlan kept an eye on Richard as he tossed in his sleep. With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watched Richard. "It looks like there's something wrong with him," she whispered as she leaned close. "He's having a nightmare." Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before, as Richard made fists in his sleep, as he struggled silently against some private terror. "It's scary to see him like that," Jennsen said. "He seems so different. When he's awake he always seems so ... reasoned." "You can't reason with a nightmare," Kahlan said in quiet sorrow. CHAPTER 6 Richard woke with a start." They were back. He had been having a bad dream. Like all of his dreams, he didn't remember it. He only knew it was a bad dream because it left behind the shapeless feeling of breathless, heart-pounding, undefined, frantic terror. He threw off the lingering pall of the nightmare as he would throw off a tangled blanket. Even though it felt as if the dark things in lingering remnants of the dream were still clawing at him, trying to drag him back into their world, he knew that dreams were immaterial, and so he dismissed it. Now that he was awake, the feeling of dread rapidly began to dissolve, like fog burning off under hot sunlight. Still, he had to make an effort to slow his breathing. What was important was that they were back. He didn't always know when they returned, but this time, for some reason, he was sure of it. Sometime in the night, too, the wind had come up. It buffeted him, pulling at his clothes, tearing at his hair. Out on the sweltering waste, the scorching gusts offered no relief from the heat. Rather than being refreshing, the wind was so hot that it felt as though the door to a blast furnace had opened and the heat were broiling his flesh. Groping for his waterskin, he didn't find it immediately at hand. He tried to recall exactly where he'd laid it, but, with other thoughts screaming for his attention, he couldn't remember. He would have to worry about a drink later. Kahlan lay close, turned toward him. She had gathered her long hair in a loose fist beneath her chin. The wind whipped stray strands across her cheek. Richard loved just to sit and look at her face; this time, though, he delayed but a moment, looking at her only long enough in the faint starlight to note her even breathing. She was sound asleep. As he scanned their camp, he could just make out a weak blush in the eastern sky. Dawn was still some time off. He realized that he'd slept through his watch. Cara and Kahlan had no doubt decided that he needed the sleep more than he was needed for standing a watch and had conspired to not wake him. They were probably right. He had been so exhausted that he'd slept right through the night. Now, though, he was wide awake. His headache, too, was gone. Silently, carefully, Richard slipped away from Kahlan so as not to wake her. He instinctively reached for his sword lying at his other side. The metal was warm beneath his touch as his fingers curled around the familiar silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard. It was always reassuring to find the sword at the ready, but even more so at that moment. As he silently rolled to his feet, he slipped the baldric over his head, placing the familiar supple leather across his right shoulder. As he rose up, his sword was already at his hip, ready to do his bidding. Despite how reassuring it was to have the weapon at his side, after the carnage back at the place called the Pillars of Creation the thought of drawing it sickened him. He recoiled from the mental image of the things he had done. Had he not, though, Kahlan wouldn't be sleeping peacefully; she would be dead, or worse. Other good had come of it, too. Jennsen had been pulled back from the brink. He saw her curled up beside her beloved goat, her arm corralling Betty's two sleeping kids. He smiled at seeing her, at what a wonder it was to have a sister, smiled at how smart she was and all the wonders of life she had ahead of her. It made him happy that she was eager to be around him, but being around him made him worry for her safety, too. There really wasn't any place safe, though, unless the forces of the Order that had been unleashed could be defeated, or at least bottled back up. A heavy gust tore through their camp, raising even thicker clouds of dirt. Richard blinked, trying to keep the blowing sand out of his eyes. The sound of the wind in his ears was aggravating because it masked other sounds. Though he listened carefully, he could hear only the wind. Squinting against the blowing grit, he saw that Tom was sitting atop his wagon, looking this way and that, keeping watch. Friedrich was asleep on the other side of the horses, Cara not far away on the desert side of Kahlan, putting herself between them and anything that might be out beyond. In the dim starlight Tom hadn't spotted Richard. When Tom scanned the night in the opposite direction, Richard moved away from camp, leaving Tom to watch over the others. Richard was comfortable in the cloak of darkness. Years of practice had taught him to slip unseen through shadows, to move silently in the darkness. He did that now, moving away from camp as he focused on what had awakened him, on what others standing watch would not sense. Unlike Tom, the races did not miss Richard's movements. They wheeled high overhead as they watched him, following him as he made his way out along the broken ground. They were almost invisible against the dark sky, but Richard could make them out as they blacked out stars, like telltale shadows against the sparkling black curtain of night--shadows that he thought he could feel as well as he could see. That the crushing headache was gone was a great relief, but that it had vanished in the manner that it had was also a cause for concern. The tormen