t
often  vanished  when  he was  distracted  by something important. Something
dangerous. At the same time, even though the pain was gone, it felt as if it
were simply hiding in the  shadows of his  mind, waiting for him to relax so
that it could pounce.
     When  the  headaches  surged  through him,  the nauseating pain was  so
intense that  it made him feel sick in every fiber of his being. Even though
the crushing pain at times  made  it difficult for him to stand, to  put one
foot in front of  the other, he had known that to remain behind, where  they
were, would have meant certain death. While the headaches were bad in and of
themselves, Richard wasn't so much concerned  about the pain as he was about
the nature of the headaches--their cause.
     They  weren't the same  as the  headaches  he'd had  before that  he so
feared--the headaches brought on by the gift--but they weren't like those he
considered  to  be  normal  headaches,  either.  Throughout  his  life  he'd
occasionally had terrible headaches, the same as  his mother used to have on
a  more  regular basis.  She'd  called  them "my  grim  headaches."  Richard
thoroughly understood her meaning.
     These, however grim, were not like those. He worried that they might be
caused by the gift.
     He'd had the headaches brought on by the gift before. He had been  told
that as he grew older, as his ability grew, as he came to  understand  more,
he would, at times  later in his life,  be confronted with headaches brought
on by the  gift. The remedy was supposedly simple. He  had only to  seek the
help of another wizard and have him assist with the necessary next  level of
awareness and comprehension  of the nature of the gift  within himself. That
mental awareness and  understanding  would enable him to control and thereby
eliminate the pain--to douse the flare-up. At least, that's what he had been
told.
     Of course, in the absence of another wizard to help, the Sisters of the
Light would gladly put a  collar around his neck to help control the runaway
power of the gift.
     He  had been told that such headaches, if not properly tended to,  were
lethal. This  much of it, at least, he knew was true.  He couldn't afford to
have that problem now, on top of all his others. Right now there was nothing
he could do about it; there was no one anywhere near who could help him with
that kind of  headache--no wizard, and even though  he would never allow it,
no Sister of the Light to put him in a collar again.
     Richard once more reminded himself that it wasn't the same kind of pain
as  the  last  time, when it had been  brought  on by the gift. He  reminded
himself not to invent trouble he didn't have.
     He had enough real trouble.
     He heard the whoosh as one of  the huge birds shot  past  low overhead.
The race twisted in flight, lifting on a gust of wind, to peer back at him.
     Another followed in its wake, and then a third, a fourth,  and a fifth.
They  slipped  silently away,  out  across  the open  ground, following  one
another roughly  in a line. Their  wings rocked as they worked to  stabilize
themselves in the gusty air. Some distance away, they soared into a gliding,
climbing turn back toward him.
     Before  they returned, the races tightened their flight into  a circle.
When  they  stroked  their  huge  wings, Richard  could  usually  hear their
feathers whisper through the air, although now, with the sound  of the wind,
he couldn't. Their black eyes watched him watching them. He wanted  them  to
know he  was  aware of  them,  that he hadn't slept  through their nocturnal
return.
     Were he not so concerned about the meaning of the races, he might think
they  were  beautiful,  their  sleek black  shapes  silhouetted majestically
against the crimson flush coming to the sky.
     As he watched, though,  Richard couldn't imagine what they were  doing.
He'd seen this behavior  from them before  and  hadn't  understood  it then,
either. He  realized, suddenly, that those other times when they'd  returned
to circle in this curious fashion, he had also been aware of them. He wasn't
always aware of them or  aware of when they returned. If he had  a headache,
though, it had vanished when they returned.
     The hot  wind ruffled Richard's hair as he  gazed  out across wasteland
obscured by the dusty predawn gloom. He didn't like  this  dead place.  Dawn
here would offer no promise of  a world coming to life. He wished Kahlan and
he were back in his woods. He couldn't help smiling as he recalled the place
in the mountains where the year before  they had spent the summer. The place
was so wondrous that it had even managed to mellow Cara.
     In the faint but gathering  light,  the black-tipped races  circled, as
they always did when they performed this curious maneuver, not over him, but
a  short distance  away,  this  time  out over  the  open  desert  where the
buffeting wind unfurled diaphanous curtains of  sandy  grit. The other times
it had been over forested hills, or open grassland. This time, as he watched
the races,  he had to squint to keep the  blowing sand from  getting in  his
eyes.
     Abruptly tipping their broad wings, the races tightened their circle as
they descended closer  to the desert floor.  He knew that they would do this
for a short while before breaking up their formation to  resume their normal
flight.  They  sometimes  flew  in pairs  and performed  spectacular  aerial
stunts, each gracefully matching the other's every move, as ravens sometimes
did, but otherwise  they never flew in anything  like the  compact  group of
their sporadic circling.
     And then, as the inky shapes wheeled around in  a tight vortex, Richard
realized that the trailers of blowing sand below them weren't simply snaking
and curling  aimlessly  in the wind, but  were  flowing  over something that
wasn't there.
     The hair along his arms stood stiffly up.
     Richard blinked, squinting  into the wind, trying to see better in  the
howling storm of blowing sand. Yet more dust and dirt lifted in the blast of
a heavy gust. As the twisting eddies raced across the flat ground and passed
beneath the  races, they swirled around and over something below, making the
shape more distinct.
     It appeared to be the form of a person.
     The dirt  swirled around the empty  void, silhouetting it, defining it,
revealing what was there, but not. Whenever the wind lifted and carried with
it a heavy load, the outline of the shape,  bounded  by  the swirling  sand,
looked like the outline of a man shrouded in hooded robes.
     Richard's right hand found the hilt of his sword.
     There  was  nothing to the  shape save the  sand  that flowed  over the
contours of what wasn't there, the way  muddy water streaming around a clear
glass  bottle  revealed its covert contour. The  form seemed to  be standing
still, watching him.
     There were, of course, no  eyes  in the  empty sockets of blowing sand,
but Richard could feel them on him.
     "What  is  it?" Jennsen  asked in  a worried  whisper as she rushed  up
beside him. "What's the matter? Do you see something?"
     With his left hand, Richard pushed her  back, out of his way. So urgent
was his headlong rush of need that  it took concentrated effort to be gentle
about it.  He was gripping the  hilt of his sword  so  tightly that he could
feel  the  raised letters of the word TRUTH woven in gold  wire  through the
silver.
     Richard was invoking from within the sword its  purpose for being,  the
very  core of  its  creation.  In answer,  the might  of the  sword's  power
ignited.
     Beyond  the  veil of rage, though, in the shadows  of his mind, even as
the  anger  of the  sword thundered through him,  Richard dimly perceived an
unexpected  opposition on the  part of the  flux  of  magic  to  rise to the
summons.
     It was like heading out a door and leaning his weight  into the howl of
a gale, and stumbling forward a step at unexpectedly finding less resistance
than anticipated.
     Before Richard could question the sensation,  the wave of wrath flooded
through  him, saturating him  in the cold fury  of  the  storm  that was the
sword's power.
     As the races wheeled, their circle began coming closer. This, too, they
had done before, but this time the shape that moved  with them was  betrayed
by the swirl of  sand  and grit. It appeared that the intangible  hooded man
was being pulled closer by the black-tipped races.
     The distinctive  ring of steel announced the  arrival  of the Sword  of
Truth in the hot dawn air.
     Jennsen squeaked at his sudden movement and jumped back.
     The  races answered with piercing, mocking  cries  that  carried on the
howling wind.
     The unmistakable  sound  of Richard's sword being  drawn brought Kahlan
and Cara  at  a dead run. Cara would have leapt protectively  ahead, but she
knew better  than to get in front  of him when  he had the  sword out. Agiel
clenched in her fist, she skidded to a halt off to the side, crouched and at
the ready, a powerful cat ready to spring.
     "What is  it?" Kahlan asked as she ran up behind him, gaping out at the
pattern in the wind.
     "It's the races," came Jennsen's worried voice. "They've come back."
     Kahlan  stared  incredulously  at  her.  "The races don't look like the
worst of it."
     Sword in  hand,  Richard  watched the thing  below the  wheeling races.
Feeling the sword in his grip, its power sizzling through the very marrow of
his bones, he felt a  flash of hesitation, of doubt. With no  time to waste,
he turned back to Tom,  just starting away from  securing  the lead lines to
his big draft horses.  Richard mimed shooting  an arrow.  Grasping Richard's
meaning, Tom  skidded to  a  halt and  spun  back  to  the wagon.  Friedrich
urgently seized the tethers to the other  horses, working to keep them calm,
keeping them from spooking. Leaning in the wagon, Tom threw gear aside as he
searched for Richard's bow and quiver.
     Jennsen peered from one  grim  face  to another.  "What do you mean the
races aren't the worst of it?"
     Cara pointed with her Agiel. "That... that figure. That man."
     Frowning in confusion, Jennsen looked back and forth  between  Cara and
the blowing sand.
     "What do you see?" Richard asked.
     Jennsen threw her hands up in  a gesture of  frustration. "Black-tipped
races.  Five of them. That, and the blinding blowing sand  is all.  Is there
someone out there? Do you see people coming?"
     She didn't see it.
     Tom pulled the bow and  quiver from the wagon  and  ran for the rest of
them. Two of the  races, as if noting Tom running in  with the bow, lifted a
wing and circled  wider. They swept around him once before disappearing into
the darkness. The other  three,  though, continued to circle,  as if bearing
the floating form in the blowing sand beneath them.
     Closer still the races came,  and the  form with them. Richard couldn't
imagine  what  it was, but the sense of  dread  it  engendered  rivaled  any
nightmare. The  power from the sword surging through him had no such fear or
doubt. Then why  did he? Storms of magic  within,  beyond  anything storming
across the wasteland,  spiraled up  through him, fighting  for release. With
grim effort, Richard contained the need, focused it on the task of doing his
bidding should  he choose to release it. He was the master of  the sword and
had at all times  to consciously exert that mastery. By the sword's reaction
to  what the currents of sand  revealed, there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to
Richard's conviction of  the nature of what stood before him. Then  what was
it he sensed from the sword?
     From  back  by the wagon, a  horse  screamed. A quick  glance over  his
shoulder  revealed Friedrich trying  to calm them.  All three  horses reared
against  the  rope  he  held fast. They came down stamping their hooves  and
snorting. From the  corner  of his eye,  Richard  saw  twin streaks of black
shoot in out of the  darkness, skimming in just above the ground.  Betty let
out a terrible wail.
     And then, as quickly as  they'd appeared, they were gone, vanished back
into the thick gloom.
     "No!" Jennsen cried out as she ran for the animals.
     Before them, the  unmoving shape watched. Tom  reached out,  trying  to
stop Jennsen  on the way past. She tore away from him. For a moment, Richard
worried that Tom might go  after  her,  but  then he was  again running  for
Richard.
     Out  of  the  dark swirling murk, the  two  races suddenly appeared, so
close  Richard  could  see  the quills  running  down through  their  flight
feathers spread wide in the wind. Swooping in  out  of the swirling storm of
dust to rejoin the  circle, each  carried  a small, limp, white  form in its
powerful talons.
     Tom ran up holding the bow out in one hand and the quiver in the other.
Making his choice,  Richard slammed his sword into its scabbard and snatched
up the bow.
     With one smooth motion  he  bent  the  bow  and attached the string. He
yanked an arrow from the leather quiver Tom held out in his big fist.
     As  Richard turned  to the target, he already had the  arrow nocked and
was drawing back  the string.  Distantly,  it felt good to feel his  muscles
straining against  the  weight, straining  against the  spring  of  the bow,
loading  its force for  release.  It felt good  to rely on his strength, his
skill, his endless hours of practice, and not have to depend on magic.
     The still  form of the man who wasn't there seemed to watch. Eddies  of
sand sluiced over the shape, marking the outline. Richard glared at the head
of the form beyond the razor-sharp steel tip of the  arrow. Like all blades,
it fell comfortingly familiar to Richard. With a blade in his hands, he  was
in his element and it mattered not if it was  stone dust his blade drew,  or
blood. The steel-tipped arrow was squarely centered on the empty spot in the
curve of blowing sand that formed the head.
     The piercing cry of races carried above the howl of the wind.
     String  to his cheek,  Richard savored the  tension in his muscles, the
weight  of the bow, the feathers  touching  his flesh, the  distance between
blade and objective filled with swirling sand, the pull  of the wind against
his arm, the bow, and  the arrow.  Each of those factors  and a hundred more
went into an inner calculation that after a lifetime of practice required no
conscious computation yet decided where the point of the arrow belonged once
he called the target.
     The form before him stood watching.
     Richard abruptly raised the bow and called the target.
     The world  became not  only  still but silent for him  as the  distance
seemed  to  contract.  His  body  was drawn  as taut as the  bow, the  arrow
becoming a projection of his fluid focused intent, the mark before the arrow
his purpose for  being. His conscious intent invoked the  instant sum of the
calculation needed to connect arrow and target.
     The swirling sand seemed to slow  as  the  races,  wings  spread  wide,
dragged through the thick air. There was no doubt in Richard's mind what the
arrow would find at the end of a journey only just begun. He felt the string
hit his wrist. He saw the feathers clear the bow above his fist. The arrow's
shaft flexed slightly as it sprang away and took flight.
     Richard  was already  drawing the second arrow from the quiver in Tom's
fist  as  the first found its target. Black feathers exploded in the crimson
dawn. The bird  tumbled gracelessly through the air and with a hard thud hit
the ground not far from the shape floating just above the ground. The bloody
white form was free of the talons, but it was too late.
     The four remaining races  screamed in fury.  As the birds  pumped their
wings, clawing for  height, one  railed at  Richard with  a  shrill  scream.
Richard called the target.
     The second arrow was off.
     The arrow ripped right into the race's open throat and out the  back of
the head,  cutting off the angry cry. The flightless weight plummeted to the
ground.
     The form  below  the remaining three  races  began  to  dissolve in the
swirling sand.
     The  three  remaining birds, as  if abandoning  their  charge,  wheeled
around, racing  toward Richard  with angry intent. He calmly considered them
from behind  feathers of his own. The third arrow was away. The race  in the
center lifted its right wing, trying to change direction, but took the arrow
through  its  heart. Rolling wing over  wing, it  spiraled down through  the
blowing sand, crashing to the hardpan out ahead of Richard.
     The remaining two birds, screeching defiant cries, plunged toward him.
     Richard pulled string to cheek, placing the fourth arrow on target. The
range was swiftly closing. The arrow was away in an instant. It tore through
the body of  the  black-tipped race still clutching in its talons the bloody
corpse of the tiny kid.
     Wings raked back, the  last angry race dove toward  Richard. As soon as
Richard snatched an arrow from the quiver an impatient Tom held out, the big
D'Haran heaved his knife. Before Richard  could nock the arrow, the whirling
knife  ripped into the  raptor. Richard stepped aside as the huge bird  shot
past in a lifeless drop and slammed into  the ground right behind him. As it
tumbled, blood sprayed across  the windswept  rock and black-tipped feathers
flew everywhere.
     The dawn, only moments ago filled with the the bloodcurdling screams of
the black-tipped races, was suddenly quiet but for the low moan of the wind.
Black  feathers lifted in  that wind, floating  out across  the open expanse
beneath a yellow-orange sky.
     At that moment, the sun broke the  horizon,  throwing  long shadows out
over the wasteland.
     Jennsen clutched one  of the  limp white twins to  her  breast.  Betty,
bleating  plaintively,  blood running  from a gash on her side, stood on her
hind legs trying to arouse her still  kid in Jennsen's arms. Jennsen bent to
the other  twin sprawled  on the ground and laid  her lifeless charge beside
it. Betty  urgently licked at the  bloody carcasses. Jennsen hugged  Betty's
neck a moment before trying to pull the goat away. Betty  dug in her hooves,
not wanting  to  leave her  stricken kids. Jennsen could do  no more than to
offer her friend consoling words choked with tears.
     When she stood,  unable to  turn Betty from her dead offspring, Richard
sheltered Jennsen under his arm.
     "Why would the races suddenly do that?"
     "I don't  know," Richard said. "You didn't see  anything other than the
races, then?"
     Jennsen leaned against  Richard, holding her face in her  hands, giving
in briefly to the tears. "I just  saw the birds,"  she said as  she used the
back of her sleeve to wipe her cheeks.
     "What about the shape defined by the blowing sand?" Kahlan asked as she
placed a comforting hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
     "Shape?" She looked from Kahlan to Richard. "What shape?"
     "It looked like a man's shape." Kahlan drew the curves of an outline in
the  air before her with both hands. "Like  the outline of a  man wearing  a
hooded cape."
     "I didn't see anything but black-tipped races and the clouds of blowing
sand."
     "And you didn't see  the sand blowing around anything?"  Richard asked.
"You didn't see any shape defined by the sand?"
     Jennsen shook her head insistently before returning to Betty's side.
     "If  the shape involved magic," Kahlan  said in a confidential  tone to
Richard, "she wouldn't see that, but why wouldn't she see the sand?"
     "To her, the magic wasn't there."
     "But the sand was."
     "The color is there on a painting  but a blind person can't see it, nor
can they see  the  shapes that  the  brush  strokes,  laden with color, help
define." He shook his head in wonder as he watched Jennsen. "We don't really
know  to  what degree  someone is  affected by other things  when they can't
perceive the magic that interacts with  those other things. For all we know,
it could be  that her mind  simply fails to  recognize the pattern caused by
magic and just reads it as blowing sand. It could even be that because there
is a pattern to the magic, only we can see those particles  of sand directly
involved  with defining the pattern, while she  sees them all  and therefore
the subordinate pattern is lost to her eyes.
     "It  could even  be that it's something  like  the boundaries were; two
worlds existing in the same place  at the same time. Jennsen and we could be
looking  at the  same thing,  and  see it through  different  eyes-- through
different worlds." Kahlan nodded  as Richard bent to one knee beside Jennsen
to inspect
     the gash through the goat's wiry brown hair.
     "We'd better stitch this," he told Jennsen. "It's not life-threatening,
but it needs attention."
     Jennsen snuffled  back  her  tears as  Richard  stood.  "It  was magic,
then--the thing you saw?"
     Richard  stared off toward where the  form had appeared in  the blowing
sand. "Something evil."
     Off behind them, Rusty tossed  her head and whinnied  in  sympathy with
inconsolable Betty.  When Tom  laid a sorrowful hand on Jennsen's  shoulder,
she seized it as if for strength and held it to her cheek.
     Jennsen  finally  stood, shielding her eyes against the blowing dust as
she looked to the horizon. "At least we're rid of the filthy races."
     "Not for long," Richard said.
     His headache came slamming back with such force that it nearly took him
from his feet. He had learned a great deal about controlling pain, about how
to disregard it. He did that now.
     There were bigger worries.



        CHAPTER 7




     Around midafternoon, as they were walking across the  scorching desert,
Kahlan noticed Richard carefully watching  his  shadow  stretched out before
him.
     "What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
     He gestured at  the shadow before him. "Races. Ten or twelve. They just
glided up behind us. They're hiding in the sun."
     "Hiding in the sun?"
     "They're flying high and in the spot where their shadow falls on us. If
we were to look up in the sky we wouldn't be  able to see them  because we'd
have to look right into the sun."
     Kahlan  turned and, with her hand shielding her eyes, tried to  see for
herself,  but  it  was too  painful to  try  to  look up  anywhere near  the
merciless sun. When she looked back, Richard, who hadn't turned to look with
her, again flicked his hand toward the shadows.
     "If you look carefully at  the  ground around your shadow, you can just
make out the distortion in the light. It's them."
     Kahlan might have thought that Richard was having a little fun with her
were it not about  a matter as serious as the races. She searched the ground
around their  shadows until she finally saw  what he was talking  about.  At
such  a  distance,  the  races'  shadows  were  little  more  than  shifting
irregularities in the light.
     Kahlan  glanced back  at the  wagon.  Tom was  driving,  with Friedrich
sitting up on the seat beside him. Richard and Kahlan were giving the horses
a rest from being ridden, so they were tethered to the wagon.
     Jennsen sat on blankets in the back of  the wagon, comforting Betty  as
she bleated in misery. Kahlan didn't think the goat had been silent for more
than  a minute or two all day. The  gash  wasn't  bad; Betty's suffering was
from other pain. At least the poor goat had Jennsen for solace.
     From what Kahlan had learned, Jennsen had  had Betty for half her life.
Moving around as she  and her mother had, running from Darken Rahl,  hiding,
staying  away  from  people so  as  not to  reveal themselves and  risk word
drifting back to Darken Rahl's  ears, Jennsen had never had a chance to have
childhood friends. Her mother had gotten her the goat as a companion. In her
constant effort to keep  Jennsen  out of  the hands of a monster, it was the
best she could offer.
     Kahlan wiped the  stinging sweat from her eyes.  She took  in  the four
black feathers  Richard  had bundled together and strung on  his upper right
arm. He had  taken  the feathers when  he'd retrieved the  arrows  that were
still good. Richard had given the last feather to Tom  for killing the fifth
race with his knife. Tom wore his  single feather  like Richard, on his arm.
Tom thought of it as a trophy, of sorts, awarded by the Lord Rahl.
     Kahlan knew that Richard wore his four feathers for a different reason:
it was a warning for all to see.
     Kahlan pulled her hair back over her shoulder. "Do you think that was a
man below the races? A man watching us?"
     Richard shrugged. "You know more about magic than me. You tell me."
     "I've never seen anything like it." She frowned over at him. "If it was
a  man... or something like that,  why  do you think  he  finally decided to
reveal himself?"
     "I don't think he did decide to reveal himself." Richard's  intent gray
eyes turned toward her. "I think it was an accident."
     "How could it be an accident?"
     "If it's someone using the  races to track us, and  he  can somehow see
us--"
     "See us how?"
     "I don't know. See us through the eyes of the races."
     "You can't do that with magic."
     Richard fixed her with a trenchant look. "Fine. Then what was it?"
     Kahlan  looked  back at the shadows stretching out  before them  on the
buckskin-colored rock,  back at the small bleary shapes  moving  around  the
shadow of  her head,  like flies around a corpse.  "I  don't know. You  were
saying? .. . About someone using the races to track us, to see us?"
     "I think," Richard  said, "that someone  is  watching  us,  through the
races or with their aid--or  something like that--and they can't  really see
everything. They can't see clearly."
     "So?"
     "So, since he can't see with clarity, I think  maybe he  didn't realize
that there was a sandstorm. He didn't anticipate what the blowing sand would
reveal. I don't think he intended to give himself away." Richard looked over
at  her  again.  "I  think  he  made  a  mistake. I think  he showed himself
accidentally."
     Kahlan let out  a measured, exasperated breath. She had no argument for
such  a  preposterous notion. It was no wonder he hadn't told her  the  full
extent of his  theory. She had been  thinking,  when he said the races  were
tracking them,  that probably a web had  been  cast  and then some event had
triggered  it--most  likely  Cara's innocent  touch--and that spell had then
attached to them, causing the races to follow that marker of magic. Then, as
Jennsen  had suggested, someone  was simply watching where the races were in
order to get a pretty good idea of where Richard and Kahlan were. Kahlan had
thought of it in terms of the way Darken Rahl had once hooked a tracer cloud
to Richard in order to  know  where they were.  Richard  wasn't thinking  in
terms of what had happened before; he was looking at it through the prism of
a Seeker.
     There were still a number  of things about Richard's notion that didn't
make sense  to  her, but  she knew better than to discount  what  he thought
simply because she had never heard of such a thing before.
     "Maybe it's not a 'he,' " she finally said. "Maybe it's a she.  Maybe a
Sister of the Dark."
     Richard gave  her  another  look, but  this  one  was more  worry  than
anything else. "Whoever it  is--whatever it  is--I  don't  think  it can  be
anything good."
     Kahlan  couldn't  argue  that  much  of  it,  but still,  she  couldn't
reconcile such a notion. "Well, let's say it's like you think it is--that we
spotted him spying on us, by accident. Why did the races then attack us?"
     Dust rose from Richard's boot as he casually kicked a  small stone.  "I
don't know. Maybe he was just angry that he'd given himself away."
     "He was angry, so he had the races kill Betty's kids? And attack you?"
     Richard shrugged. "I'm  just guessing because you asked; I'm not saying
I  think it's so." The  long feathers, bloodred at  their base, turning to a
dark gray and then to inky black at the tip, ruffled in the gusts of wind.
     As he thought it over, his tone turned more speculative. "It could even
be  that whoever it was using the races to watch us had nothing at all to do
with the attack. Maybe the races decided to attack on their own."
     "They  simply took the reins from  whoever it was that was  taking them
for the ride?"
     "Maybe. Maybe he can send them to us so  he can have a peek at where we
are, where we're going, but can't control them much more than that."
     In frustration, Kahlan  let out a sigh. "Richard,"  she said, unable to
hold back her  doubts, "I know a good deal about all sorts of magic and I've
never heard of anything like this being possible."
     Richard leaned  close, again taking her in  with  those  arresting gray
eyes  of his. "You know about  all sorts of things magic from the  Midlands.
Maybe down here they have something you never encountered before. After all,
had you ever  heard  of a dream walker before we encountered Jagang? Or even
thought such a thing was possible?"
     Kahlan  pulled  her lower lip through her teeth as she studied his grim
expression for  a long moment. Richard hadn't  grown up around magic--it was
all new to him. In some ways, though, that was a strength, because he didn't
have  preconceived   notions  about  what  was  possible  and  what  wasn't.
Sometimes, the things they'd encountered were unprecedented.
     To Richard, just about all magic was unprecedented.
     "So,  what  do  you  think  we  should  do?"  she  finally  asked in  a
confidential tone.
     "What we planned."  He glanced over his shoulder to see Cara scouting a
goodly distance off to their left side. "It has to be connected  to the rest
of it."
     "Cara only meant to protect us."
     "I  know. And who knows, maybe it would have been  worse if she  hadn't
touched it. It could even be that by doing what she did, she actually bought
us time."
     Kahlan swallowed at the feeling of dread churning in her. "Do you think
we still have enough time?"
     "We'll  think of  something. We don't  even know yet  for sure  what it
could mean."
     "When the  sand finally runs  out of an hourglass, it usually means the
goose is cooked."
     "We'll find an answer."
     "Promise?"
     Richard  reached  over  and  gently caressed  the  back  of  her  neck.
"Promise."
     Kahlan loved his smile,  the way  it sparkled in his eyes. Somewhere in
the  back  of her  mind she  knew that he always kept his promises. His eyes
held  something else, though, and  that distracted her  from  asking  if  he
believed  the answer he promised would come in time, or even if  it would be
an answer that could help them.
     "You have a headache, don't you," she said.
     "Yes."  His smile  had vanished.  "It's different than before, but  I'm
pretty sure it's caused by the same thing."
     The gift. That's what he meant.
     "What do  you  mean  it's  different? And if  it's different, then what
makes you think the cause is the same?"
     He  thought about it  a  moment.  "Remember  when I was  explaining  to
Jennsen  about how the gift needs to be balanced, how I  have to balance the
fighting I do by not eating meat?" When she nodded he went on. "It got worse
right then."
     "Headaches, even those kind, vary."
     "No ..." he said, frowning as he  tried to  find the words. "No, it was
almost as  if  talking  about--thinking about--the need not  to eat meat  in
order  to balance the gift  somehow brought it more to the fore and made the
headaches worse."
     Kahlan  didn't at all like  that concept. "You mean like maybe the gift
within you that is the cause of the headaches is trying to  impress upon you
the importance of balance in what you do with the gift."
     Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "I don't know. There's
more to  it. I just can't  seem to  get it all worked out. Sometimes when  I
try, when I go down that line of reasoning, about how I  need to balance the
fighting I do, the pain starts to get so bad I can't dwell on it.
     "And something  else,"  he  added. "There  might be  a problem  with my
connection to the magic of the sword."
     "What? How can that be?"
     "I don't know."
     Kahlan tried to keep the alarm out of her voice. "Are you sure?"
     He  shook  his head  in frustration. "No, I'm not sure. It just  seemed
different when I felt the need of it and drew the sword this morning. It was
as if the sword's magic was reluctant to rise to the need."
     Kahlan thought it over a moment.  "Maybe that means that  the headaches
are something different,  this time. Maybe  they aren't really caused by the
gift."
     "Even if some of it is different, I still think its cause is the gift,"
he  said. "One thing  they  do  have in common with  the  last  time is that
they're gradually getting worse."
     "What do you want to do?"
     He lifted his arms  out to the sides  and let them fall back. "For now,
we don't have much of a choice--we have to do what we planned."
     "We could go to Zedd. If it is the gift, as you think, then  Zedd would
know what to do. He could help you."
     "Kahlan, do you honestly believe that we have any chance in Creation of
making it all the way to Aydindril in time? Even  if it weren't for the rest
of it, if the headaches are from the gift, I'd be dead weeks before we could
travel all the way to Aydindril. And that's not even taking into account how
difficult  it's bound  to be  getting past Jagang's army  all throughout the
Midlands and especially the troops around Ay-dindril."
     "Maybe he's not there now."
     Richard kicked at another stone in the path. "You think Jagang  is just
going to leave the Wizard's Keep and all it contains--leave it all for us to
use against him?"
     Zedd  was First  Wizard.  For  someone of his  ability,  defending  the
Wizard's Keep wouldn't be too difficult. He also had Adie there with  him to
help. The  old  sorceress, alone, could probably defend a  place such as the
Keep. Zedd knew what  the Keep would  mean to Jagang, could he gain it. Zedd
would protect the Keep no matter what.
     "There's  no way for Jagang to  get past  the barriers in  that place,"
Kahlan said.  That  much  of it was one  worry they could set aside. "Jagang
knows that and might not waste time holding an army there for nothing."
     "You may be  right,  but  that  still doesn't do us  any good--it's too
far."
     Too far. Kahlan seized Richard's arm  and  dragged him to a  halt. "The
sliph. If we can find one of  her  wells,  we could  travel in the sliph. If
nothing  else, we  know  there's the well down here  in the Old  World--  in
Tanimura. Even that's a lot closer than  a journey overland all the  way  to
Aydindril."
     Richard looked  north. "That might work.  We  wouldn't have  to make it
past Jagang's army. We could come right up inside the Keep." He  put his arm
around  her  shoulders.  "First,  though, we  have  to  see  to  this  other
business."
     Kahlan  grinned. "All right. We take care of me  first,  then we see to
taking care of you."
     She felt a heady sense of relief that there was a solution at hand. The
rest of  them couldn't travel in  the sliph--they didn't have  the  required
magic--but Richard,  Kahlan, and Cara  certainly could.  They could come  up
right in the Keep itself.
     The Keep was immense, and thousands of years old. Kahlan had spent much
of her life there, but she had seen only a fraction of the  place. Even Zedd
hadn't  seen  it all, because  of some of the shields  that  had been placed
there ages ago by those with  both sides of  the gift, and Zedd had only the
Additive side. Rare  and dangerous items  of magic had been stored there for
eons, along  with records and  countless books. By  now it was possible that
Zedd  and  Adie had  found something  in the Keep that would help drive  the
Imperial Order back to the Old World.
     Not  only would going to  the Keep be a way to  solve Richard's problem
with the gift, but it might provide them with something they needed to swing
the tide of the war back to their side.
     Suddenly, seeing Zedd, Aydindril, and the Keep seemed only a short time
away.
     With a renewed sense of optimism, Kahlan squeezed Richard's  hand.  She
knew  that he wanted to keep scouting ahead. "I'm going to go  back  and see
how Jennsen is doing."
     As Richard moved on and Kahlan slowed, letting  the wagon catch up with
her,  another dozen  black-tipped races drifted in on the air currents  high
above the burning plain. They stayed close to the sun, and well out of range
of Richard's arrows, but they stayed within sight.
     Tom  handed a waterskin down to  Kahlan when the bouncing wagon rattled
up beside  her. She was so dry that she gulped the hot  water without caring
how bad it  tasted.  As  she let the  wagon roll past, she put a boot in the
iron rung and boosted herself up and over the side.
     Jennsen looked to be happy for the company as Kahlan climbed in. Kahlan
returned  the smile  before sitting beside Richard's sister  and the  puling
Betty.
     "How is she?" Kahlan asked, gently stroking Betty's floppy ears.
     Jennsen shook her head. "I've never  seen her like  this. It's breaking
my heart. It  reminds me of how  hard  it was for me when  I lost my mother.
It's breaking my heart."
     As  she  sat  back  on  her  heels,   Kahlan  squeezed  Jennsen's  hand
sympathetically.  "I  know it's hard, but it's  easier for an  animal to get
over something like this than for people to do the same. Don't compare it to
you  and your mother.  Sad as this  is,  it's different. Betty can have more
kids and she'll forget all about this. You or I never could."
     Before the  words were out, Kahlan  felt a sudden stab of  pain for the
unborn  child  she  had lost.  How  could  she ever  get over losing her and
Richard's  child?  Even if she ever had  others, she would never  be able to
forget what was lost at the hands of brutes.
     She  idly  turned  the  small dark  stone  on  the  necklace  she wore,
wondering if she ever would have a child, wondering if there would ever be a
world safe for a child of theirs.
     "Are you all right?"
     Kahlan realized that Jennsen was watching her face.
     Kahlan forced herself to put on a smile. "I'm just sad for Betty."
     Jennsen ran a tender hand over the top of Betty's head. "Me too."
     "But I know that she'll be all right."
     Kahlan watched the endless expanse of ground slowly slide by  to either
side  of the  wagon.  Waves of heat  made the horizon  liquid, with detached
pools of ground floating up  into the sky. Still, they saw nothing  growing.
The land was slowly  rising, though,  as they came  ever  closer  to distant
mountains.  She knew that it was only a  matter of time  until  they reached
life again, but right then it felt like they never would.
     "I  don't understand about something," Jennsen said. "You told me how I
shouldn't do anything rash, when it came to magic, unless I was sure of what
would happen. You said it was dangerous.  You said not  to act in matters of
magic until you can be sure of the consequence."
     Kahlan knew what Jennsen was driving at. "That's right."
     "Well, that back there pretty much seemed like one  of those  stabs  in
the dark you warned me about."
     "I  also  told  you  that  sometimes  you  had no  choice  but  to  act
immediately.  That's  what  Richard  did.  I  know  him.  He  used his  best
judgment."
     Jennsen  looked to be satisfied. "I'm not suggesting that he was wrong.
I'm just  saying  that I don't understand. It seemed pretty  reckless to me.
How am I supposed to know what you mean when you tell me not to  do anything
reckless if it involves magic?"
     Kahlan  smiled. "Welcome to life with Richard.  Half the  time I  don't
know what's in his head.  I've often thought he was acting recklessly and it
turned out to be the right thing, the only thing, he could have done. That's
part of the reason he was named Seeker. I'm sure he took into account things
he sensed that even I couldn't."
     "But how does he know those things? How can he know what to do?"
     "Oftentimes  he's  just  as  confused  as  you, or  even  me.  But he's
different, too, and he's sure when we wouldn't be."
     "Different?"
     Kahlan looked over at  the young woman, at  her red hair shining in the
afternoon sunlight. "He was born with both sides of the gift. All those born
with the gift in the last three thousand  years have been born with Additive
Magic only. Some, like Darken  Rahl and the Sisters  of the Dark, have  been
able to  use Subtractive Magic, but only  through the  K