"Yes, a bath. I've been thinking about how much I'd like to get cleaned
up. I'm tired of looking like a backcountry traveler. I'd  like  to  wash my
hair and put on my white Mother Confessor's dress."
     "Your   white   Mother   Confessor's   dress   .  .   ."  Cara   smiled
conspiratorially. "Ah. Now that will be the kind of battle a woman is better
equipped to fight."
     Out of the  corner of her eye,  Kahlan could see Spirit standing in the
bedroom window, looking out at the world, her robes flowing in the wind, her
head thrown back, her  back  arched,  her fists at her sides in  defiance of
anything that would think to bridle her.
     "Well,  not  exactly a battle the way you're thinking, but  I believe I
can state the case  better if I'm dressed properly. That wouldn't be unfair.
I will be putting  the issue to him as the Mother Confessor. I  believe that
in  some ways  his judgment  has  been  clouded; it's  hard  to  think about
anything else when you're worried sick about someone you love."
     Kahlan's fists tightened at her sides as she  thought about  the danger
hanging over the Midlands. "He's got to see that all of that is in the past,
that I'm healthy, now, and that the time has come to return to our duties to
our people."
     Smirking, Cara swiped back a wisp of her blond hair. "He will see that,
and more, if you were in that dress of yours, that's for sure."

     "I  want him to see the woman who was  strong enough to win against him
with a sword. I want him to see that Mother Confessor in the dress, too."
     From the  corner of her mouth,  Cara puffed another strand of hair  off
her face. "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind a bath myself. You know, I
think that if I stand beside you in a proper Mord-Sith outfit and my hair is
washed and my braid is done up fresh and I'm looking properly Mord-Sith-like
and I speak  my agreement with what you  say, Lord Rahl will be all the more
convinced that we're right and inclined to see that the time has come for us
to return."
     Kahlan  set the  plates into  the bucket of water. "It's settled, then.
We've enough time before he comes back."
     Richard had made them a small wooden tub, big enough to sit in and have
a nice bath. It wasn't big enough to lie back and  luxuriate in, but  it was
still quite the luxury for their mountain home.
     Cara towed the tub from the corner, leaving drag  marks across the dirt
floor. "I'll put it in my room.  You  go first. That  way, if  he comes back
sooner  rather than later, you can keep your nosy husband busy and out of my
hair while I wash it."
     Together,  Kahlan and  Cara  hauled in buckets of water from the nearby
spring,  heating some in  a kettle over a roaring fire. When  Kahlan finally
sank  into the steaming  water, she let out a long sigh. The air was chilly,
and the hot bath felt all the better for it. She would have liked to linger,
but decided not to.
     She smiled at recalling all the  trouble Richard had had with  women in
bathwater. It was a good thing he wasn't there. Later,  after they had their
talk, she thought she would ask him to take a bath before bed. She liked the
aroma of his sweat when it was clean sweat.
     With the knowledge that she would face Richard with her hair washed and
sparkling, and in her white dress, Kahlan felt more confident about the real
possibility of  their return  than she had  in  a long time.  She  dried and
brushed her  hair by  the heat of the  fire as Cara boiled  some more water.
While Cara  went in to take her bath, Kahlan went to  her room to  slip into
her dress. Most people  feared the dress because they feared  the  woman who
wore it; Richard had always liked her in the dress.
     As she tossed the towel on the bed, her eye was caught by the statue in
the window. Kahlan fisted her hands at her sides and, standing naked, arched
her back and threw her head back,  mimicking Spirit, letting  the feeling of
it overcome her,  letting  herself be  that strong spirit,  letting it  flow
through her.
     For that moment, she was the spirit of the statue.
     This was a day of change. She could feel it.
     It  seemed a little odd, after being a  woods woman for so long, to  be
back in her  Mother Confessor's dress,  to  feel the satiny smooth  material
against her  skin. Mostly, though,  the  feeling  was  the  comfort  of  the
familiar.
     As  Mother  Confessor,  Kahlan  felt sure  of herself. On a fundamental
level, the dress was a form of battle armor.  Wearing the dress, Kahlan also
felt a sense of importance, in  that she carried the weight of  history,  of
exceptional  women who had  gone before her.  The Mother  Confessor  bore  a
terrible responsibility, but also had the satisfaction of being able to make
a real difference for the better in people's lives.
     Those people  depended on her. Kahlan had  a job to do, and she had  to
convince Richard that she needed to do it. They needed him, too, but even if
he would not

     issue  orders, he  needed to  at least willingly return with her. Those
fighting  for  their  cause deserved to know  the Mother Confessor was  with
them, and that she  had not  lost faith in  them or their  cause. She had to
make Richard see that much of it.
     Once  she  was  back  out in  the  main room,  Kahlan  could  hear Cara
splashing in the tub. "Need anything, Cara?" she called out.
     "No, I'm fine," Cara called from her room. "This feels so good! I think
there's enough dirt in this water to plant potatoes."
     Kahlan laughed knowingly.  She saw a chipmunk casting about outside the
house. "I'm going to go feed Chippy  some apple cores. If you need anything,
call out."
     Their  universal  name  for all the  chipmunks  was "Chippy." They  all
answered to it; they knew the name augured well for a handout.
     "All right," Cara said  from her  tub. "If Lord Rahl gets back, though,
just kiss him or something to keep him busy but  wait until I'm done  before
you talk to him. I want to  be with  you to help you convince him. I want to
be sure we make him see the light."
     Kahlan smiled. "I promise."
     She  plucked  an  apple  core from the  wooden  bucket of little animal
snacks  they kept hanging on a piece of  twine  where the chipmunks couldn't
get to them  on their own. The squirrels loved apple cores, too. The  horses
preferred their apples whole.
     "Here,  Chippy," Kahlan  called out  through the door in the  voice she
always  used  with them. She raised  the bucket back toward  the ceiling and
hooked the line to the peg on the wall. "Chip, Chip, you want an apple?"
     Outside, Kahlan saw  the chipmunk off to the side, foraging through the
grass. The  chill breeze caressed the long folds of her dress to her legs as
she  walked. It  was almost cold  enough to  need  the fur mantle.  The bare
branches  of  the  oaks behind the house creaked and groaned  as they rubbed
together. The  pines, reaching toward  the sky where the wind was  stronger,
bowed deeply with some of  the  gusts. The  sun  had  taken refuge behind  a
steel-gray overcast that made her white dress all the more striking  in  the
gloom.
     Near  the  window  where Spirit  stood  watching out, Kahlan called the
chipmunk again. The chipmunks  were held spellbound by the soft voice Kahlan
used when she talked to  them. When he heard  her, the  furry little striped
creature stood on his hind legs for a moment, stiff and still, checking that
all was  clear, and when  he was  sure it was safe, scurried to her.  Kahlan
squatted and rolled the apple core out of her hand onto the ground.
     "Here you go, sweetheart," she cooed. "A nice apple for you."
     Chippy wasted  no time starting in on  his treat. Kahlan's cheeks  hurt
from smiling at the way the chipmunk nibbled his way  around the  apple core
as it rolled  along the ground. She  rose to  her  feet, brushing  her hands
clean  as she  watched,  captivated by the little creature  at  his feverish
work.
     He suddenly flinched with a squeak and froze.
     Kahlan looked up. She was staring right into a woman's blue eyes.
     The woman stood not ten feet away in a pose  of cool scrutiny. Kahlan's
throat locked the  gasp in her lungs. The woman  had seemed to appear in the
middle  of  nowhere, out of nowhere. Icy gooseflesh prickled up the backs of
Kahlan's arms.
     The woman's long blond hair cascaded over the shoulders of an exquisite
black dress.  She  was  of  such  shapely  beauty,  her  face  of  such pure
perfection, but especially her eyes were of such intelligent lucid witnesses
to all around her, that she could only be a creature of profound integrity .
. . or unspeakable evil.

     Kahlan knew without doubt which it was.
     This  woman   made  Kahlan  feel  as  ugly  as  a  clod  of  dirt,  and
instinctively  as  helpless as a child. She wanted  nothing so  much  as  to
shrink  away.  Instead,  she  stared  into the woman's blue  eyes  for  what
couldn't have been more  than a second or two, but  in that span of  time an
eternity seemed  to pass. In those knowing blue eyes flowed some formidable,
frightful current of contemplation.
     Kahlan remembered Captain Meiffert's description of this woman. For the
life of  her,  though, Kahlan couldn't just then recall her  name. It seemed
trivial. What mattered was that this woman was a Sister of the Dark.
     Without speaking a  word, the  woman lifted her hands  out a little and
turned her palms up, as if humbly offering something. Her hands were empty.
     Kahlan  committed to  the  vault through space necessary  to  close the
distance.  She committed to unleashing her power. With  her resolution,  the
act had in a way already commenced. But she desperately needed to get closer
if it was to be meaningful, or effective.
     As she began  to move, to make that reckless leap, the world went white
in a bloom of pain.


        Chapter 21

     Richard heard an odd sound that  stopped him  in his tracks. He  felt a
thump through the ground and deep in his chest. He thought he'd seen a flash
in the treetops, but it had been so quick he wasn't sure.
     It was  the sound, though, as  if  some great hammer had struck off the
top of a mountain, that made his blood go cold.
     The house wasn't far  off through the trees. He dropped  the string  of
trout and the jar of minnows, and ran.
     At the edge of the woods where it opened into the meadow, he skidded to
a halt. His pounding heart felt as if it had risen up into his throat.
     Richard  saw  the  two women not far  away, in front of the  house, one
dressed  in white, and  one  in  black. They were  connected by  a  snaking,
undulating,  crackling line of  milky white  light. Nicci's arms were lifted
slightly with her hands turned palms up and a little farther apart than  the
width of her hips.
     The milky  light went from Nicci's chest, across the space between  the
two women, and pierced Kahlan through the heart. The wavering aurora between
the two turned blindingly bright, as if twisting  in  an agony it was unable
to escape.
     Seeing  Kahlan trembling with the fury  of that lance of  light pinning
her to the wall, Richard was paralyzed by fear for her, fear he knew all too
well, from when she had been on the cusp of death. That bolt pierced Nicci's
heart,  too, connecting  the two women.  Richard didn't understand the magic
Nicci was using, but he instinctively recognized it as profoundly dangerous,
not only to  Kahlan, but to Nicci as well, for she, too, was  in pain.  That
Nicci would put herself at such risk gripped him with dread.
     Richard knew he had to remain calm  and keep his wits  about himself if
Kahlan was  to have a chance. He viscerally wanted to do something to strike
Nicci down, but he was certain that it wouldn't be as simple as that. Zedd's
oft-repeated expression-nothing  is  ever easy-flashed  into  Richard's mind
with sudden and tangible meaning.
     In a desperate search  for answers, everything Richard knew about magic
cascaded in a torrent through his mind. None of it told him what  to do, but
it did tell him what he must not do. Kahlan's life hung in the balance.
     Just  then, Cara came flying out of the house. She was stark naked.  It
somehow didn't look all that odd. Richard was accustomed to the shape of her
body  in  her skintight leather  outfits. Other than  the color, this didn't
look  all that different. She  was  dripping wet. Her hair was undone, which
seemed more outlandishly indecent to him than her naked body. He was used to
seeing her with a braid all the time.
     Cara's fist clutched the red leather rod-her Agiel-as she crouched. The
muscles  of her legs, arms, and  shoulders  strained  with tension demanding
release.

     "Cara! No!" Richard cried out.
     He was already tearing across the meadow as Cara sprang and slammed her
Agiel against the side of Nicci's neck.
     Nicci shrieked  in pain that dropped her to her knees. Kahlan cried out
in equal pain and crumpled to her knees  as well, her movement a close match
to Nicci's.
     Cara  seized Nicci's hair in  a fist and yanked her head back. "Time to
die, witch!"
     Nicci was doing nothing to stop Cara as the Agiel hung only inches from
her throat.
     Richard  dove  toward the Mord-Sith, desperately hoping he wouldn't  be
too  late. Cara's  Agiel just grazed Nicci's  throat as Richard  tackled her
around  the  middle,  ramming  her  backward.  The  feel  of her was briefly
surprising-silky soft flesh over iron-hard muscle. The impact drove the wind
from her when they hit the ground.
     Cara was  so enraged  and in such a combative state that she lashed out
with  her Agiel at Richard,  not really realizing  it was him, knowing  only
that she was being prevented from protecting Kahlan.
     The  violent  impact of  the  weapon to the side of Richard's face felt
like a blow by an  iron bar followed immediately  by a lightning strike. The
crack of pain through his skull was momentarily blinding. His ears rang. The
jolt took his breath, staggering him, and  brought back  in a single instant
an avalanche of macabre memories.
     Cara was riveted on the kill and furious at  any interference.  Richard
regained his  senses  just in time to seize her  wrists and  pin her to  the
ground  before she could pounce on  Nicci. A Mord-Sith was formidable, to be
sure, but such a woman was instilled with the ability  to counter magic, not
muscle. That was why she had been trying to goad Nicci into using her power;
only in that way could she capture the enemy's magic and so overpower her.
     Cara's writhing naked body  under  him hardly  registered in  Richard's
mind. He  tasted blood in his mouth. His attention was focused on  her Agiel
and making sure she couldn't use it on him. His head throbbed with a painful
ringing, and he had to fight not only Cara, but encroaching unconsciousness.
It was all he could do to hold Cara down.
     At  that  moment,  the Mord-Sith was more of a  threat to Kahlan's life
than Nicci was. If Nicci intended to kill Kahlan, he was sure she could have
already  done so. Richard might not have understood specifically what  Nicci
was doing, but by what he had already seen, he grasped the general nature of
it.
     Blood dripped  down  onto  Cara's  bare  chest,  vivid red against  the
expanse of her white skin.
     "Cara,  stop!"  His jaw worked, if painfully, so he reasoned it  wasn't
broken. "It's me. Stop. You'll kill Kahlan." Cara stilled under him, staring
up in angry confusion. "What you do to Nicci happens to Kahlan, too."
     "You had  better listen to  him,"  Nicci said from behind  him in  that
velvety voice of hers.
     Cara reached  up when Richard released her wrists  and touched the side
of his mouth. "I'm  sorry," she whispered, realizing what she had done.  Her
tone told him she meant it. Richard nodded and then stood, pulling her up by
her hand before rounding on Nicci.
     Nicci  stood  tall,  in  that proud  and  proper  posture she  had. Her
attention and her magic  was focused on Kahlan. The  calm but  violent power
from  within him had  awakened, waiting to be commanded. Richard didn't know
how  to use  it to stop Nicci. He held back,  fearing that  anything he  did
would only make Kahlan's peril worse.

     Kahlan  was on her feet, too, but once again pinned to the  wall of the
house by  the  milky rope  of  light.  Her  green eyes  were  wide  with the
trembling torment of whatever it was Nicci was doing.
     Nicci's hands lifted. She laid her  palms to her heart, over the light.
Her back was to Richard, but he could see the light through her,  like  fire
eating  through  the  center of  a  piece  of paper,  the incandescent  hole
expanding outward, appearing to consume her. The twisting flare of light was
doing the same  thing to Kahlan,  seeming  to burn  through her, yet Richard
could  see that  she  was not being killed by it.  She  was still breathing,
still moving, still alive-not reacting at all the way a person would if they
were  really having holes burned through them. With magic,  he  knew  better
than to believe his eyes.
     At  the  center of Nicci's  chest, under her hands, she began to become
solid again,  re-forming  where the light  had spent itself in  glowing rays
working out toward the edges of her.
     The  light cut  off. Kahlan, her own  hands pressed to the  wall behind
her, sagged in relief as  it extinguished, her eyes closing as if it was too
much to endure looking at the woman standing before her.
     Richard was restrained fury. His muscles  screamed  to be released. The
magic within  was a  coiled viper waiting to strike. He  wanted almost  more
than anything to cut down this woman. The only thing he wanted more  was for
Kahlan to be safe.
     Nicci smiled pleasantly at  Kahlan  before turning to Richard. Her calm
blue eyes  momentarily took in his white-knuckled fist  on the  hilt  of his
sword.
     "Richard. It's been a long time. You look well."
     "What have you done?" He growled through gritted teeth.
     She smiled. It was a smile a mother gave a child-a smile of indulgence.
She  took a  breath,  as if recovering from a  difficult  bit  of labor, and
lifted a hand to indicate Kahlan.
     "I have spelled your wife, Richard."
     Richard  could  hear Cara's breath close  behind his left shoulder. She
was staying out of the way of his sword arm.
     "To what end?" he asked.
     "Why, to capture you, of course."
     "What's going to happen to her? What harm have you done?"
     "Harm?  Why, none. Any  harm that comes to her  will  only be  by  your
hand."
     Richard frowned,  understanding her, but  wishing  he were  wrong. "You
mean, if I hurt you, Kahlan will suffer it, too?"
     Nicci smiled with the same discerning, disarming smile she used to have
when she came to give him lessons. He could hardly  believe that he  used to
imagine that she  must look  like nothing so  much  as a good spirit in  the
flesh.
     Richard could sense  the magic crackling around this woman. He had come
to  know in most cases,  through his  own gift, when a person had the  gift.
What others  couldn't  see, he saw.  He  could  see it  in  their eyes,  and
sometimes sense the aura  of  it around them. He had rarely met gifted women
who  made the very air about them sizzle with  their  power. Worse,  though,
Nicci was a Sister of the Dark.
     "Yes, and more. Much  more.  You see, we are now  linked by a maternity
spell.  Odd name for a  spell, yes? The name,  in part, is derived from  the
spell's nurturing aspects.  As in lifegiver-the  way  a  mother nurtures her
child and keeps it alive.
     "That light you saw  was an umbilical cord of  sorts: an umbilical cord
of magic. By bending the nature of this world, it links our lives, no matter
the distance between

     us. Just  as  I  am the daughter of  my  mother and  nothing could ever
change that, so neither can this magic be altered by anyone else."
     She spoke as an instructor, as she had once spoken to him at the Palace
of the Prophets when she had been one of his teachers. She always spoke with
a quiet economy of  words that  he had once thought added an air of nobility
to  her bearing. Back then, Richard  couldn't  have  imagined  coarse  words
coming from Nicci's mouth, but the words she spoke now were vile.
     She still moved with an unmatched, slow elegance. He had always thought
her  movements  seductive. He  now saw them as  the sinuous  movements of  a
snake.
     The  magic of his sword thundered through him, screaming  to be loosed.
The sword's  magic  had been created specifically to combat what the sword's
wielder considered evil. At  that moment, Nicci fit the requirement to  such
an extent that the magic of the sword was close to overpowering him, near to
taking command in order to destroy this threat. With the pain from the Agiel
still throbbing in his head, it was a struggle to maintain his control  over
the power of  the sword. Richard  could feel  the raised gold letters of the
word TRUTH on the hilt pressing into his palm.
     This was a time, perhaps  more than any other,  that he knew had to  be
faced  with  truth,  and  not  his raw  wishes.  Life  and death hung in the
balance.
     "Richard,"  Kahlan said in a level voice. She waited until his eyes met
hers. "Kill her."  She spoke with a quiet authority that demanded obedience.
In her white  Mother  Confessor's dress, her words  carried  the unequivocal
weight of command. "Do it. Don't  wait another moment. Kill her. Don't think
about it, do it."
     Nicci calmly  watched to see what he  might do.  What  he would finally
decide seemed no more than a matter of curiosity to her. Richard had no need
to think or to decide.
     "I can't," he said to Kahlan. "That would kill you, too."
     Nicci lifted one eyebrow. "Very good, Richard. Very good."
     "Do it!" Kahlan shrieked. "Do it now, while you still have the chance!"
     "Keep still," he said in  a calm voice. He looked back at Nicci. "Let's
hear it."
     She clasped her hands in the way the Sisters of the Light  were wont to
do.  Only she was not  a  Sister of the Light. There looked to  be something
deeply felt behind that blue-eyed gaze, but what those feelings could be, he
didn't know and feared to imagine. It was one  of those  intense gazes  that
held a world of emotion, everything from longing to hatred. One thing he was
sure he saw was a dead serious determination that was  more important to her
than life itself.
     "It's like this, Richard. You are to come with me. As  long as I  live,
Kahlan will live. If I die, she dies. It's as simple as that."
     "What else?" he demanded.
     "What else?" Nicci blinked. "Nothing else."
     "What if I decide to kill you?"
     "Then  I  will die.  But  Kahlan  will die  with me-our  lives  are now
finked."
     "That's not what  I mean. I mean, you must have some purpose. What else
will it mean if I decide to kill you."
     Nicci shrugged. "Nothing. It's  up to  you to  decide. Our lives are in
your hands. Should you choose to preserve  her life,  you will  have to come
with me."
     "And what do you intend to do with him?" Kahlan asked  as she edged her
way  over to  Richard's side. "Torture a sham confession out of him, so that
Jagang  can put  him on some  kind  of show trial followed by  a very public
execution?"
     If anything,  Nicci  looked surprised, as if such  a  thought had never
occurred to

     her, and  she found  it abhorrent. "No, none of that.  I  intend him no
harm. For  now, anyway. Eventually,  of course,  I will  most likely have to
kill him."
     Richard glared. "Of course."
     When Kahlan made a move forward, he caught her  arm and restrained her.
He knew what  she  intended.  He didn't know  exactly what  would happen  if
Kahlan unleased her Confessor's power  on Nicci  while they were both linked
by the spell, but he had no intention  of finding  out, since he was sure it
could come to no  good  end. Kahlan  was far too  ready, as far  as  he  was
concerned, to forfeit her life to save his.
     "Just hold on for now," he whispered to her.
     Kahlan  threw her arm out, pointing.  "She just admitted she intends to
kill you!"
     Nicci smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about that for now. If it comes
to that, it will not likely be for a long time. Perhaps even a lifetime."
     "And in the meantime?"  Kahlan asked. "What plans  do you have for  him
before you discard his life as if it were insignificant?"
     "Insignificant . . . ?" Nicci opened her hands in  an innocent gesture.
"I have no plans. I expect only to take him away."
     Richard had thought he  understood what was going  on, but he was  less
and less  sure with everything Nicci said. "You  mean, you want  to take  me
away so that 1 can't fight against the Imperial Order?"
     Her  brow twitched. "If you wish to think of it in those terms, I admit
it  is true that your time as the leader  of the D'Haran Empire is over. But
that is not the point. The point is that everything about your life up until
now"-Nicci glanced pointedly at Kahlan-"is over."
     Her words seemed to chill the air. They surely chilled Richard.
     "What's the rest of it?" He  knew there had to be  more, something that
would  make sense of  it all. "What other terms are there  if I want to keep
Kahlan alive?"
     "Well, no one is to follow us, of course."
     "And  if  we do?" Kahlan snapped.  "I  might follow  you  and kill  you
myself, even if it means the end  of my own life." Kahlan's green eyes shone
with icy resolve as she cast a threatening glare on the woman.
     Nicci  lifted her  brows deliberately as  she  leaned ever so  slightly
toward Kahlan, the way a mother would in cautioning a child. "Then that will
be the end of it unless Richard stops  you from doing such a thing. That  is
all part of what he must decide to do. But you make a miscalculation if  you
think I care one way or the other. 1 don't, you see. Not at all."
     "What is it you intend  me  to  do?"  Richard said,  pulling Nicci,'  s
unsettlingly  calm gaze from Kahlan. "What if I get where you're  taking me,
and I don't do as you wish?"
     "You  misunderstand,   Richard,  if  you  believe  that   I  have  some
preconceived notion of what it is I wish you to  do. I don't. You will do as
you wish, I imagine."
     "As I wish?"
     "Well, naturally you  won't be allowed to return to  your people."  She
tossed her head, flicking back strands of her long blond hair  that the wind
had pulled across in front of her blue eyes. Her gaze never left his. "And I
suppose if you  were to  be in some  way  impossibly and defiantly contrary,
then in that  case, such  would obviously be an answer in and of itself.  It
would be a shame, of course,  but I would then have no  use for you. I would
kill you."
     "You would have no further use? You mean  Jagang would  have no further
use."

     "No." Once again, Nicci looked  surprised.  "I  do not act on behalf of
His Excellency." She tapped her lower lip. "You see? I  removed the ring  he
put through my lip marking me as his slave. I do this on behalf of myself."
     A yet more disturbing thought  surfaced. "How is it that he can't enter
your mind? That he can't control you?"
     "You don't need me to answer that question, Richard Rahl."
     It made  no sense to  him; the bond to the Lord  Rahl worked for  those
loyal  to him. He could see no way that this could be construed as an act of
loyalty. This  was unequivocally an act of aggression and against  his will;
the bond shouldn't work for her. He reasoned that perhaps Jagang was  in her
mind  and she unaware  of it. The thought occurred to him that  maybe Jagang
was in her mind, and it had driven her insane.
     "Look," Richard said, feeling like they weren't even speaking the  same
language, "I don't know what you think-"
     "Enough talk. We are leaving."
     Her  blue eyes  watched him without anger. It  almost seemed to Richard
that for Nicci, Kahlan anal Cara were not there.
     "This  doesn't  make  any  sense.  You want  me to go with you, but you
aren't acting on behalf of Jagang. If that's true, then-"
     "I believe I've made it as clear as possible and quite simple, besides.
If you  wish  to be  free,  you may kill me at any opportunity.  If you  do,
Kahlan will also die. Those are your only two  choices. Although I believe I
know what you will do, I am in no way certain. Two paths now lie before you.
You must take one."
     Richard  could hear  Cara's angry  breath behind him. She was  a coiled
spring ready to strike. Fearing she might do something of irredeemable harm,
he lifted his hand just to be sure she knew he meant  for her to stay behind
him.
     "Oh, and one additional matter, should you think to resort to some plot
or  treachery, or, for that matter, refuse to do the simple things I ask  of
you: through the spell that joins us, I can at any time end Kahlan's life. I
have but to will it. It  is not necessary for me to die. She lives every day
from now on only by my grace, and thus yours.
     "I wish her  no  harm, and have no feelings one  way or the other about
her life. In fact, if anything, I wish it to be  long. She has brought you a
measure  of happiness, and in return for  that,  I hope she will not have to
forfeit  her  life. But then, you  have some  influence over  that  by  your
behavior."
     Nicci cast  a deliberate glare over  Richard's shoulder,  to Cara.  She
then reached out and with her fingers gently wiped blood from his mouth. She
finished  cleaning his chin with  her thumb.  "Your MordSith has hurt you. I
can help you if you wish."
     "No."
     "Very well." She  wiped her  bloody  fingers clean  on the skirt of her
black dress. "Unless you want to  risk  other  people causing Kahlan's death
without  your  intending it,  I suggest you insure  that  others  don't  act
without  your consent. Mord-Sith are  resourceful  and  determined  women. I
respect their devotion to duty. However, if your Mord-Sith follows us-and my
magic will tell me if she does-Kahlan will die."
     "And just how will I know Kahlan is all right? We could get a mile away
from  here,  and you  could  use that magic link to kill her.  I would never
know."
     Nicci's brow creased together. She looked genuinely puzzled.
     "Why would I do that?"

     A  storm of rage and  panic pushed his emotions first one way, and then
the other. "Why are you doing any of this!"
     She regarded him in silent curiosity for a moment.  "I have my reasons.
I'm  sorry, Richard,  that you must suffer in this. Making you suffer is not
my purpose. I give you my word that I will not harm Kahlan without informing
you."
     "You expect me to believe your word?"
     "I've told you the truth. I have no reason to lie to you.  In time, you
will come to understand everything better. Kahlan will come  to no harm from
me as long as I am safe, and you come with me."
     For  reasons  he couldn't  fathom, Richard found himself believing her.
She  seemed dead honest  and completely  sure  of  herself,  as  if she  had
reasoned it all out a thousand times.
     He didn't believe that Nicci was telling him everything. She was making
it  simple so that he could grasp  the important elements and have an easier
time  deciding what  to do. Whatever the rest of it was,  it  couldn't be as
devastating as this much of it. The  thought  of being taken from Kahlan was
agony, but he would do almost anything to save her life. Nicci knew that.
     The enigma resurfaced. It was somehow linked to this.
     "The spell  that  protects  a person's mind from the dream walker works
only for those loyal to me. You can't expect to be safe from Jagang  if  you
do this. It's an act of treachery."
     "Jagang  does  not frighten me. Don't fear  for my  mind,  Richard. I'm
quite  safe from His Excellency. In time,  perhaps you will  come to see how
wrong you have been in so many things."
     "You're deceiving yourself, Nicci."
     "You only see part of it, Richard."  She lifted an eyebrow in a cryptic
manner. "At heart, your cause is the cause of the Order. You are too noble a
person for it to be otherwise."
     "I may die at  your hands, but I will die hating everything you and the
Order stand for." Richard's fists  tightened. "You'll not get what you want,
Nicci. Whatever it is, you'll not get it."
     She regarded  him with great  compassion.  "This  is all for the  best,
Richard."
     Nothing he said  seemed to hold any sway with her, and he could make no
sense of  the things she said. The fury inside boiled up. The  magic of  the
sword  fought him  for control. He could  barely contain  it. "Do you really
expect me to ever come to believe that?"
     Nicci's blue eyes seemed to be focused somewhere beyond him.
     "Possibly not."
     Her gaze fixed on him  once  more. She put two fingers between her lips
as she turned and whistled.  In the distance, a horse whinnied  and  trotted
out of the woods.
     "I have another  horse for you, waiting  up  on the other side  of  the
pass."
     Terror  clawed at his bones.  Kahlan's fingers  tightened  on  his arm.
Cara's hand  touched his back. Memories of being captured  before and all it
meant, all  the things he had endured,  made  his pulse race and  his breath
come  in  rapid pulls. He felt trapped.  Everything was slipping through his
fingers and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it.
     He  wanted more than anything to fight,  but he couldn't figure how. He
wished it were as simple as striking down his adversary. He reminded himself
that reason, not

     wishing,  was his only chance. He  seized the calm  center  within, and
used it to quell the rising storm of panic.
     Nicci stood  tall, her shoulders  square, her chin up. She  looked like
someone facing an  execution with courage.  He realized then that she  truly
was prepared for whichever way it was to go.
     "I  have given  you your  choice, Richard.  You have no  other options.
Choose."
     "There is no choice to make. I'll not allow Kahlan to die."
     "Of  course not." Nicci's posture  eased almost  imperceptibly. A small
smile of reassurance warmed her eyes. "She will be fine."
     The horse  slowed  from  its  trot as  it approached. When the handsome
dappled mare halted beside her,  Nicci took ahold of the reins near the bit.
Its gray mane ruffled in the  cold breeze. The  mare snorted and  tossed her
head, uneasy before strangers, and eager to be away.
     "But .  .  . but,"  Richard  stammered as  Nicci  stepped up  into  the
stirrup. "But, what am 1 allowed to take?"
     Nicci swung  her leg over the horse's rump and settled into the saddle.
She squirmed herself into position and adjusted her  shoulders, setting them
back. Her black dress  and blond  hair stood out in stark relief against the
iron sky.
     "You may  bring anything you like, as long as it isn't a  person."  She
clicked her tongue, urging her horse around to face him. "I suggest you take
clothes  and  such. Whatever you wish  to have with you.  Take all  you  can
carry, if you want."
     Her voice took  on  an edge. "Leave  that  sword  of yours, though. You
won't be  needing it."  She leaned  down,  her expression for the first time
turning  cold and threatening. "You are no longer the  Seeker, or Lord Rahl,
leader  of the D'Haran empire,  or for that  matter, you  are no  longer the
husband of the Mother Confessor. From now on, you are nobody but Richard."
     Cara stepped  out  beside  him, a  thunderhead  of  dark  fury.  "I  am
Mord-Sith.  If you think I'm  going  to allow you to take Lord  Rahl, you're
crazy.  The Mother  Confessor has already stated her wishes. My duty,  above
all else, is to kill you."
     Nicci  curled  three fingers around the reins, her thumbs holding  them
tight. "Do as you must. You know the consequences."
     Richard  held out a restraining arm to prevent Cara from going up after
Nicci and dragging her off the horse. "Take it easy," he whispered. "Time is
on  our side. As long as we're all still alive, we have the chance  to think
of something."
     The  strain  of Cara's  weight against  his arm eased. She  reluctantly
backed a step.
     "I have  to get some things," Richard said to Nicci, trying to buy that
time. "Wait, at least, until I can get my pack together."
     Nicci laid the reins over and stepped  her  horse back toward him.  She
rested her left wrist across the saddle's pommel.
     "I'm leaving."  With  a long graceful finger  of her  other  hand,  she
pointed. "You see that pass  up there? You be with me by the time I'm at the
top, and Kahlan will  live. If I cross over  and you  aren't with me, Kahlan
will die. You have my word."
     It was all  happening too fast. He  needed  to think of a way to stall.
"Then what good will any of this have done you?"
     "It will have told me what means  more to you." She sat  back up in her
saddle. "When you think  about it, that  is quite a profound question. It is
yet to be answered. By the  time I get  to the top  of the pass, 1 will have
the answer."
     Nicci rocked  her  hips  in the saddle, urging  the horse ahead into  a
walk. "Don't

     forget-top of the pass. You have until then to say your good-byes, pack
what you wish to take, and then catch up with me if you wish Kahlan to live.
Or, if you choose to stay, you have until then  to say your good-byes before
she dies. Understand, though, when making your  choice, that the  first will
be as final as the second."
     Kahlan  struggled  to run  toward the  horse, but Richard clutched  her
around her waist.
     "Where are you taking him?" she demanded.
     Nicci stopped  her horse momentarily  and gazed down  at  Kahlan with a
look of frightening finality.
     "Why, into oblivion."

        CHAPTER 22

     As she watched  Nicci turn her dappled  mare  toward  the pass and  the
distant  blue mountains beyond, Kahlan was still struggling  to overcome her
dizziness from what the woman had done to her. Off near the distant trees, a
doe and her nearly grown fawn, two of the small herd of deer that frequented
the meadow, stood  at alert, their ears perked, watching  Nicci,  waiting to
see  if she might  be a threat, Spooked  by what  they saw when Nicci turned
their  way, both deer flicked their tails  straight up and  bounded  for the
trees.
     Kahlan refused to allow herself to  give in  to the disorientation. But
for Richard's  iron arms  around her waist, she would have thrown herself at
the  Sister  of  the  Dark.  Kahlan had desperately wanted  to  unleash  her
Confessor's power. No one had ever deserved it more.
     Had her  senses  not still been floundering  in a  daze, she might have
been able  to invoke  her power through the  Con  Dar, the Blood Rage  of an
ancient  ability  she  possessed.  Such  rare magic  would have bridged  the
relatively small distance, but, reeling from the lingering force of  Nicci's
conjuring, the attempt had been futile. It  was all  Kahlan could do to keep
her feet under her and her last meal in her stomach.
     It  was  frustrating,  infuriating,  and  humiliating,  but  Nicci  had
surprised her  and  with magic  as  swift as Kahlan's Confessor's power  had
taken  her before she could react.  Once Nicci's talons clutched her, Kahlan
had been powerless.
     She had grown up being trained not to be taken  by surprise. Confessors
were  always targets;  she  knew  better.  Any number  of  times  in similar
situations  she had prevailed. Lulled  by months of tranquillity, Kahlan had
lost her edge.  She vowed never to let it happen again .  . , but that would
do her no good now.
     She could still  feel Nicci's  vital  magic sizzling through her, as if
her soul  itself  had  been scorched in the  heat of the ordeal. Her insides
roiled  as  waves  of  the onslaught had  yet to  settle down. The  cold air
rushing across the  meadow,  bending the brown  grass, swept up to chill her
burning  face.  The  wind  carried  an  unfamiliar  scent  into the  valley,
something that her jumbled senses perceived as vaguely  portentous. The  big
pines  behind the house bowed  and twisted but stood tall  as the wind broke
against them with a sound not unlike waves rushing against stone cliffs.
     Whatever sort of magic  had been unleashed in her, Kahlan was convinced
Nicci had  told the truth about its consequence. Despite how  much she hated
the woman, because of the maternity spell Kahlan felt a connection to her, a
connection that  she could  only interpret  as . .  .  affection.  It was  a
bewildering sensation. While positively disturbing, it was also, in a way, a
comforting  connection  to  the woman  beyond  her  vile magic  and  twisted
purpose. There seemed