Страница:
but she looked at least twice as wide.
"What are you talking about? What do you mean, a Sister took him? Which
Sister?"
"Nicci," Kahlan growled.
Ann pulled back. "Nicci . . ."
Sister Alessandra gasped. "Sister Nicci?" She crossed both hands over
her heart. "Sister Nicci isn't one of Ann's. Nicci is a Sister of the Dark."
"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Kahlan said.
"We have to go get him back," Ann said. "At once. He's not safe with
her."
"There's no telling what Nicci might-" Sister Alessandra's mouth
snapped shut.
The wind carried a sparkling gust into their faces, momentarily whiting
out the red dawn. Kahlan blinked the snow away. Cara, in her red leather
with both a cloak and her heavy fur mantle over top, ignored it. The other
two women brushed their heavy woolen mittens across their eyes.
"Kahlan, everything will be all right," Ann said in a reassuring voice.
"Tell us, now, what's happened? Tell us everything. Is he hurt?"
Kahlan swallowed against her rising rage. "Nicci used what she called a
maternity spell on me."
Ann's mouth fell open. Sister Alessandra gasped again.
"Are you sure?" Ann asked in a careful tone. "Are you sure that was
what it was? How do you know for sure?"
"She slammed some kind of magic into me. I've never heard of such a
spell. All I know is that it was definitely powerful magic and she said it
was called a maternity spell. She said that it connects us, somehow, through
that magic."
Alessandra took a step forward. "That doesn't make it a maternity
spell."
"When Cara used her Agiel on Nicci," Kahlan said, "it dropped me to my
knees just the same as if Cara had used the Agiel on me."
Ann and Alessandra shared a silent look.
"But . . . but, if she were to . . ." Ann stammered.
Kahlan voiced what Ann was trying to say without saying it. "If she
were to desire it, Nicci could snip that cord of magic, and 1 would die.
That was the means by which she captured Richard. She promised I would live
if Richard went with her. Richard surrendered himself into slavery to save
my life."
"It can't be," Ann said, touching mitten-covered fingers to her chin.
"Nicci wouldn't know how to use such an unusual spell-she's too young.
Besides, such a rare spell requires great power. She must have done
something else and just said that it was a maternity spell. Nicci couldn't
do a maternity spell."
"Yes, she could," Sister Alessandra said in reluctant disagreement.
"She has the power and ability. It would only have required someone with the
specialized knowledge teaching her. Nicci doesn't have any great passion for
magic, but she is as able as they come."
"Lidmila . . ." Ann whispered to Alessandra in sudden realization.
"Jagang has Lidmila. "
Kahlan turned a suspicious glare on Sister Alessandra. "And how do you
know so much more about Nicci's ability than the Prelate herself?"
Sister Alessandra gathered her open cloak back together. Her face lost
its warmth and reverted to a scowl-this time, though, with bitterness in the
set of her mouth.
"I brought Nicci in to the Palace of the Prophets when she was but a
child. I was responsible for her upbringing, and I guided her training in
the use of her gift; I know her better than anyone. I know her darker powers
because I, too, was a Sister of the Dark. I'm the one who brought her to the
Keeper."
Kahlan could feel herself rocking with the force of her hammering
heart. "So, you, too, are a Sister of the Dark."
"Was," Ann said, lifting a cautionary hand before Kahlan.
"The Prelate came into Jagang's camp and rescued me. Not just from
Jagang, but from the Keeper, too. I once again serve the Light." The
incandescent smile again transformed Alessandra's face. "Ann brought me back
to the Creator."
As far as Kahlan was concerned, the claim was not worth the effort of
confirmation. "How did you find us?"
Ann ignored the terse question. "We must hurry. We must get Richard
away from Nicci before she delivers him to Jagang."
Kahlan kept her glare on Alessandra while she answered Ann. "She isn't
taking him to Jagang. She said she isn't acting on behalf of His Excellency,
but on behalf of herself. Those were her words. She said she had removed
Jagang's ring from her lip and that she wasn't afraid of him."
"Did she say why, then, she was taking Richard?" Ann asked. "Or, at
least, where?"
Kahlan moved her scrutiny back to Ann. "She said she was taking him
into oblivion."
"Oblivion!" Ann gasped.
"I asked you a question," Kahlan said, anger seeping into her voice.
"How did you find us?"
Ann tapped her waist. "I have a journey book. I used it to communicate
with Verna, back with our forces. Verna told me about the messengers coming
to see you. That's how 1 knew where to find you. Lucky I came as soon as I
did; we nearly missed you. I can't tell you how happy I am to see you have
recovered, Kahlan. We were so worried."
Kahlan saw that Cara, standing behind the two women, still had her
Agiel clenched in her fist. Kahlan didn't need an Agiel; her Confessor's
power boiled but an impulse away. She wouldn't again make an error for the
sake of caution.
"The journey book. Of course. Then Verna would have told you about
Richard's vision that he must not lead our troops against the Order."
Ann nodded reluctantly, apparently not eager to discuss such a vision.
"Then, a few days ago, Verna sent a message when we were almost here, that
the D'Harans are in quite a state because they suddenly lost their sense of
direction to Richard. She said they are still protected from the dream
walker by the bond to their Lord Rahl, but they suddenly lost their sense of
where he is."
"Nicci cloaked his bond from us," Cara said in a growl.
"Well, we have to find him," Ann said. "We have to get him away from
Nicci. He's our only chance. Whatever he's thinking, it's nonsense and we
will have to set him straight, but first we must get him back. He has to
lead our forces against the Imperial Order. He is the one named in
prophecy."
"That's why you're here," Kahlan whispered to herself. "You heard from
Verna about his declining to lead the army or even to give orders. You
journeyed here in hopes of forcing him to fight."
"He must," Ann insisted.
"He must not," Kahlan said. "He has come to realize that if he leads us
into battle, we will lose the cause of liberty for generations to come. He
said he came to realize that people don't yet understand freedom and won't
fight for it."
"He must simply prove himself to the people." Ann's scowl reddened. "He
must prove himself their leader, which he has already begun to do, and they
will follow him."
"Richard says that he has come to understand that it is not he who must
prove himself to the people, but the people who must now prove themselves to
him."
Ann blinked in astonishment. "Why, that's nonsense."
"Is it?"
"Of course it is. The boy was named in prophecy centuries ago. I've
been waiting hundreds of years for him to be born in order for him to lead
us in this struggle."
"Really. Then who are you to try to countermand Richard's decision-if
you are so set on following him? He has come to his decision. If he is the
leader you want, then you must abide by his lead, and therefore his
decision."
"But this is not what prophecy demands!"
"Richard doesn't believe in prophecy. He believes we make our own
destiny. I'm coming to see the grounds of his assertion that the belief in
prophecy artificially alters events. It is the misplaced faith in prophecy
itself-in some mystical outcome-that harms people's lives."
Ann's eyes grew round with dismay, and then narrowed. "Richard is the
one named in prophecy to lead us against the Imperial Order. This is a
struggle for the very existence of magic in this world-don't you understand
that! Richard was born to fight this fight. We have to get him back!"
"This is all your fault," Kahlan whispered.
"What?" Ann's frown changed to a tolerant smile. "Kahlan, what are you
talking about?" Her voice backslid to genial. "You know me, you know our
struggle for the survival of freedom of magic. If Richard does not lead us,
we have no chance."
Kahlan threw her arm out and seized a startled Sister Alessandra by the
throat. The woman's eyes went wide.
"Don't move," Kahlan said through gritted teeth, "or I will unleash my
Confessor's power."
Ann held her hands up, imploring. "Kahlan, have you lost your mind? Let
her be. Calm down."
With her other hand, Kahlan pointed down at the fire. "The journey
book. Throw it in the fire."
"What? I'm not going to do any such thing!"
"Now," Kahlan said through her clenched teeth. "Or Sister Alessandra
will be mine. When I finish with her, Cara will see to it you throw that
journey book in the fire, if you have to do so with broken fingers."
Ann glanced at the Mord-Sith towering over her shoulder.
"Kahlan, I know you're upset, and I completely understand, but we're on
the same side in this. We love Richard, too. We, too, wish to stop the
Imperial Order from taking the whole world. We-"
"We? If it wasn't for you and your Sisters, none of this would be
happening. This is all your fault. Not Jagang's fault, not the Imperial
Order's fault, but yours."
"Have you lost your-"
"You alone bear responsibility for what is befalling the world. Just as
Jagang has his ring through the lip of his slaves, you've had yours through
the nose of yours-Richard! You alone bear responsibility for the lives
already lost, and those yet to be lost in bloody slaughters that will sweep
across the land. You, not Jagang, are the one who has brought it!"
Despite the cold, beads of sweat dotted Ann's brow. "What in the name
of Creation are you talking about? Kahlan, you know me. I was at your
wedding. I have always been on your side. I have only followed the
prophecies to help people."
"You create the prophecies! Without your help they would not have come
to pass! They only come about because you have fulfilled them! You pull the
ring through Richard's nose!"
Ann presented a face of calm to the stone of Kahlan's rage.
"Kahlan, I can only imagine how you must feel, but now you are truly
losing all sense of reason."
"Am I? Am I, Prelate? Why does Sister Nicci have my husband? Answer me.
Why! +
Ann's expression drew tight in a darkening glower. "Because she is
evil."
"No." Kahlan's grip tightened on Alessandra's throat. "It's because of
you. Had you not sent Verna into the New World in the first place, ordering
her to take Richard back across the barrier into the Old World-"
"But the prophecies say the Order will rise up to take the world and
extinguish magic if we fail to stop them! The prophecies say Richard is the
only one to lead us! That Richard is the only one with a chance!"
"And you brought that dead prophecy to life. All by yourself. All
because of your faith in bloodless words rather than your own reasoned
choices. You're here today not to back the choices of your proclaimed
leader, not to reason with him. but to enforce prophecy upon him-to give
that ring a tug. Had you not sent Verna to recover Richard, what would have
happened, Prelate?"
"Why, why, the Order-"
"The Order? The Order would still be trapped back in the Old World,
behind the barrier. Wouldn't they! For three thousand years that
wizard-created barrier has stood invincible against the pressure of the
Order-or those like them-and their wish to swarm up here into the New World,
bent on conquest.
"Because you had Richard captured, against his will, and ordered him
brought back to the Old World, all in slavish homage to dead words in dusty
old books, he was forced to destroy the barrier, and thus the Order now can
flood into the New World, into the Midlands, my Midlands, slaughtering my
people, taking my husband, all because of you and your meddling!
"Without you, none of this would be happening! No war, no mounds of
butchered people in cities of the New World, no thousands of dead men,
women, and children slaughtered at the hands of Imperial Order thugs-none of
it!
"Because of you and your precious prophecies, the veil was breached and
a plague was unleashed on the world. It would never have happened without
your actions to 'save' us all from prophecy. I don't even dare to recall all
the children I saw suffering and dying from the black death because of you.
Children who looked up into my eyes and asked if they would be all right,
and I had to say yes when I knew they would not survive the night.
"No one will ever know the tally of the dead. No one is left to
remember all the small places wiped out of existence by that plague. Without
your meddling, those children would be alive, their mothers would be smiling
to themselves as they watched them play, their fathers would be teaching
them the ways of the world-a world denied them by you for the sake of your
faith in prophecy!
"You say this is a battle for the very existence of magic in this
world-yet your work to fulfill prophecy may have already doomed magic.
Without your intervention, the chimes would never have come to be loosed
upon the world. Yes, Richard managed to banish them, but what irreversible
harm was done? We may have our power back, bent during the time the chimes
withdrew magic from this world, crea
tures of magic, things dependent on magic for their very existence,
surely died out. Magic requires balance to exist. The balance of magic in
this world was disturbed. The irrevocable destruction of magic may have
already begun. All because of your slavish service to prophecy.
"If not for you, Prelate, Jagang, the Imperial Order's army, and all
your Sisters would be back there, behind the barrier, and we would be here,
safe and at peace. You cast blame everywhere but where it belongs. If
freedom, if magic, if the world itself is destroyed, it will all be by your
hand, Prelate."
The low moan of the wind was the only sound and made the sudden silence
all that much more agonizing. Ann stared with tear-filled eyes up at Kahlan.
Snow sparkled in the rays of a cold dawn.
"It isn't like that, Kahlan. It only seems that way to you in your
pain."
"It is that way," Kahlan said with finality.
Ann's mouth worked, but this time no words came out.
Kahlan thrust out her hand, palm up.
"The journey book. If you think I would not destroy this woman's life,
then you don't know the first thing about me. She's one of your Sisters,
helping to destroy the world in the name of good, or else she is still one
of the Keeper's Sisters, helping to destroy the world in the name of death.
Either way, if you don't give me the journey book, and right now, her life
is forfeit."
"What do you think this will accomplish?" Ann whispered in despair.
"It will be a start at halting your meddling in the lives of the people
of the Midlands, and the rest (,f the New World-in my life, in Richard's
life. It's the only beginning I can think to make, short of killing you
both; you would not like to know how close I am to that alternative. Now,
give me the journey book."
Ann stared down at Kahlan's hand open before her. She blinked at her
tears. Finally, she pulled off a woolen mitten and worked the little book
out from behind her belt. She paused a moment, reverently gazing at it, but
in the end laid it on Kahlan's palm.
"Dear Creator," Ann whispered, "forgive this poor hurting child of
yours for what she is about to do."
Kahlan tossed the book in the fire.
With ashen faces, Ann and Sister Alessandra stood staring at the book
in the hissing flames.
Kahlan snatched up Richard's sword. "Cara, let's get going."
"The horses are ready. I was saddling them when these two showed up."
Kahlan dumped the hot water to the side while Cara started quickly
collecting their belongings. They both stuffed items in the saddlebags.
Other gear they slung over their shoulders and carried to the horses to be
strapped back on the saddles.
Without looking back at Ann or Alessandra, Kahlan swung up into her
cold saddle. With a grim Cara at her side, she turned her mount and cantered
off into the swirling snow.
As soon as she saw Kahlan and Cara vanish like vengeful spirits into
the whiteness, Ann fell to her knees and thrust her hands into the fire to
snatch the burning journey book from its funeral pyre in the white-hot
coals.
"Prelate!" Alessandra cried. "You'll burn yourself!"
Flinching back from the ferocity of the pain, Ann ignored the gagging
stench of burning flesh and thrust her hands again into the wavering heat of
the fire. She saw, rather than felt, that she had the priceless journey book
in her fingers.
The entire rescue of the burning book took only a second, but, through
the prism of pain, it seemed an eternity.
Biting down on her lower lip against the suffering, Ann rolled to the
side. Alessandra came running back with her hands full of snow. She threw it
on Ann's bloody blackened fingers and the journey book clenched in them.
She let out a low wail of agony when the wet snow contacted the burns.
Alessandra fell to Ann's side, taking her hands by the wrists, gasping in
tears of fright.
"Prelate! Oh, Prelate, you shouldn't have!"
Ann was in a state of shock from the pain. Alessandra's shrill voice
seemed a distant drone.
"Oh, Ann! Why didn't you use magic, or even a stick!"
Ann was surprised by the question. In her panic over the priceless
journey book burning there in the fire, her mind was filled only with the
single thought to get it out before it was too late. Her reckless action,
she knew, was precipitated by her bitter anguish over Kahlan's accusations.
"Hold still," Alessandra admonished through her own tears. "Hold still
and let me see what I can do about healing you. It will be all right. Just
hold still."
Ann sat on the snowy ground, dazed by the hurt, and by the words still
hammering her from inside her head, as she let Alessandra work at healing
her hands.
The Sister could not heal her heart.
"She was wrong," Alessandra said, as if reading Ann's thoughts. "She
was wrong, Prelate."
"Was she?" Ann asked in a numb voice after the searing pain in her
fingers finally began to ease, replaced by the achingly uncomfortable
tingling of magic coursing into her flesh, doing its work. "Was she,
Alessandra?"
"Yes. She doesn't know so much as she thinks. She's a child-she
couldn't be a paltry three decades yet. People can't learn to wipe their own
noses in that much time." Alessandra was prattling, Ann knew, prattling with
her worry over the journey book, and with her worry over the anguish caused
by Kahlan's words. "She's just a foolish child who doesn't know the first
thing about anything. There's much more to it. Much more. It isn't so simple
as she thinks. Not so simple at all."
Ann wasn't so sure anymore. Everything seemed dead to her. Five hundred
years of work-had it all been a mad task, driven on by selfish desires and a
fool's faith? Wouldn't she, in Kahlan's place, have seen it the same way?
Endless rows of corpses lay before her in the trial going on in her
mind. What was there to say in her defense? She had a thousand answers for
the Mother Confessor's charges, but at that moment, they all seemed empty.
How could Ann possibly excuse herself to the dead?
"You're the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light," Alessandra rambled on
during a pause in her work. "She should have been more considerate of who
she was talking to. More respectful. She doesn't know everything involved.
There's a great deal more to it. A great deal. After all, the Sisters of the
Light don't casually choose their Prelate."
Nor did Confessors casually choose their Mother Confessor.
An hour passed, and then another, before Alessandra finally finished
the difficult and tedious work of healing Ann's burns. Burns were difficult
injuries to heal. It was a tiring experience, being helpless and cold while
magic sizzled through her, while Kahlan's words sliced her very soul.
Ann flexed the aching fingers when Alessandra had finished. A shadow of
the burning pain lingered, as she knew it would for a good long time. But
they were healed, and she had her hands back.
When the matter was weighed, though, she feared she had lost a great
deal more of herself than she had recovered.
Exhausted and cold, Ann, to Alessandra's worry, lay down beside the
hissing remnants of the fire that had so hurt her. At that moment, she had
no desire to ever rise again. Her years, nearly a thousand of them, seemed
to have all caught up with her at once.
She missed Nathan terribly right then. The prophet doubtless would have
had something wise, or foolish, to say. Either would have comforted her.
Nathan always had something to say. She missed his boastful voice, his kind,
childlike, knowing eyes. She missed the touch of his hand.
Weeping silently, Ann cried herself to sleep. Her dreams kept the sleep
from being either restful, or deep. She awoke in late morning to the feel of
Alessandra's comforting hand on her shoulder. The Sister had added more wood
to the fire, so it offered warmth.
"Are you feeling better, Prelate?"
Ann nodded her lie. Her first thought was for the journey book. She
gazed at it lying in the protection of Alessandra's lap. Ann sat up and
carefully lifted the blackened book from the sling of Alessandra's dress.
"Prelate, I'm so worried for you."
With a sour wave of her hand, Ann dismissed the concern.
"While you slept, I've looked at the book."
Ann grunted. "Looks bad."
Alessandra nodded. "That's what I thought. I don't think it can be
salvaged."
Ann used an easy, gentle flow of her Han to hold the pages-little more
than ash-together as she carefully turned them.
"It has endured three thousand years. Were it ordinary paper, it would
be beyond help-ended-but this is a thing of magic, Alessandra, forged in the
fires of magic, by wizards of power not seen in all those three thousand
years . . . until Richard."
"What can we do? Do you know a way to restore it?"
Ann shook her head as she inspected the curled, charred journey book.
"I don't know if it can be restored. I'm just saying that it's a thing of
magic. Where there is magic, there is hope."
Ann pulled a handkerchief from a pocket deep under the layers of her
clothes. Laying the blackened book in the center of the handkerchief, she
carefully folded the handkerchief up to hold it together. She wove a spell
around it all to protect and preserve it for the time being.
"I will have to try to find a way to restore it-if I can. If it can
even be restored."
Alessandra dry-washed her hands. "Until then, our eyes with the army
are lost."
Ann nodded. "We won't know if the Imperial Order decides to finally
leave their place in the south and move up into the Midlands. l can give no
guidance to Verna."
"Prelate, what do you think will happen if the Order finally decides to
attackand Richard isn't there with them? What will they do? Without the Lord
Rahl to lead them . . ."
Ann did her best to move the terrible weight of Kahlan's words to the
side as she considered the immediate situation.
"Verna is the Prelate now-at least as far as the Sisters with the army
are concerned. She will guide them wisely. And Zedd is with them, helping
the Sisters prepare for battle, should it come. They could have no better
counsel than to have a wizard of Zedd's experience with them. As First
Wizard, he has been through great wars before.
"We will have to place our faith in the Creator that He will watch over
them. I can't advise them unless I can restore the journey book. Unless I
can do that, I won't even know their situation."
"You could go there, Prelate."
Ann brushed snow from the side of her shoulder, where she had been
lying on the ground, as she considered that possibility.
"The Sisters of the Light think I'm dead. They've put their faith in
Verna, now, as their Prelate. It would be a terrible thing to do to
Verna-and to the rest of the Sisters-to come back to life in the middle of
such trying circumstances. Certainly many would be relieved to have me back,
but it also sows the seeds of confusion and doubt. Battle is a very bad time
for such seeds to sprout."
"But they would all be encouraged by your-"
Ann shook her head. "Verna is their leader. Such a thing could forever
undermine their trust in her authority. They must not lose their faith in
her leadership. I must put the welfare of the Sisters of the Light above all
else. 1 must keep their best interests at heart, now."
"But, Ann, you are the Prelate."
Ann stared off. "What good has that done anyone?"
Alessandra's eyes turned down. The wind moaned sorrowfully through the
trees. Gusts kicked up blue-gray trailers of snow and whipped them along
through the campsite. The sunlight had vanished behind somber clouds. Ann
wiped her nose on the edge of her icy cloak.
Alessandra laid a compassionate hand on Ann's arm. "You brought me back
from the Keeper, back into the Light of the Creator. I was in Jagang's
hands, and treated you terribly when they captured you, yet you never gave
up on me. Who else would have cared? Without you, my soul would be lost for
all time. I doubt you could fathom my gratitude for what you did, Prelate."
Despite Alessandra's apparent return to the Creator's Light, Ann had
been fooled
by the woman before. Years before, Alessandra had turned to the Keeper,
becoming a Sister of the Dark, and Ann had never known. How could one have
faith in a person after such a betrayal?
Ann looked up into Alessandra's eyes. "I hope so, Sister. I pray such
is really true."
"It is, Prelate."
Ann lifted a hand toward the shrouded sun. "And perhaps when I go to
the Creator's Light in the next world, that one good act will erase the
thousands of lives lost because of me?"
Alessandra looked away, rubbing her arms through the layers of clothes.
She turned and put two sticks of wood on the fire.
"We should have a hot meal. That will make you feel better, Prelate. It
will make us both feel better."
Ann sat on the ground watching Alessandra prepare her hearty camp soup.
Ann doubted that even the pleasant aroma of soup would arouse her appetite.
"Why do you think Nicci took Richard?" Alessandra asked as she put
dried mushrooms from a pouch into the soup.
Ann looked up at Alessandra's puzzled face. "I can't imagine, except to
think that she may be lying, and she is taking him to Jagang."
Alessandra broke up dried meat and dropped it into the boiling pot of
soup. "Why? If she had him, and he was forced to do as she asked-why lie?
What would be the purpose?"
"She's a Sister devoted to the Keeper." Ann lifted her hands and let
them flop back into her lap. "That's excuse enough to lie, isn't it? Lying
is wrong. It's wicked. That's reason enough."
Alessandra shook her head in admonition. "Prelate, I was a Sister of
the Dark. Remember? I know better. That isn't the way it is at all. Do you
always tell the truth just because you are devoted to the Creator's Light?
No; one lies for the Keeper just as you would lie for the Creator-to His
ends, if lying is necessary. Why would Nicci lie about that? She was in
control of the situation and had no need to lie."
"I can't imagine." Ann had difficulty caring enough to consider the
question. Her mind was in a morass of hopeless thoughts. It was her fault
Richard was in the hands of the enemy, not Nicci's.
"I think she did it for herself."
Ann looked up. "What do you mean?"
"I think Nicci is still looking for something."
"Looking for something? What ever do you mean?"
With a finger, Alessandra brushed a measure of spices into the pot from
a waxed paper she'd unfolded. "Ever since the first day I took her from her
home and brought her to the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci continually grew
more . . . detached, somehow. She always did whatever she could to help
people, but she was always a child who made me feel as if I was inadequate
at fulfilling her needs."
"Such as?"
Alessandra shook her head. "I don't know. She always seemed to me to be
looking for something. I thought she needed to find the Light of the
Creator. I pushed her mercilessly, hoping it would open her eyes to His way
and fill her inner need. I allowed her no room to think about anything else.
I even kept her away from her family. Her father was a selfish lover of
money and her mother . . . well, her mother was well intentioned, but always
made me feel uncomfortable. I thought the Creator
would fill that private void within Nicci." Alessandra hesitated. "And
then I thought it was the Keeper she needed."
"So, you think she took Richard to fill some . . . inner need? How does
that make sense?"
"I don't know." Alessandra breathed out heavily in frustration. She
stirred the soup as she drizzled in a pinch of salt. "Prelate, I think I
failed Nicci."
"In what way?"
"I don't know. Perhaps 1 failed to involve her adequately in the needs
of othersgave her too much time to think of herself. She always seemed
devoted to the welfare of her fellow man, but maybe I should have rubbed her
nose in other people's troubles more, to teach her the Creator's way of
virtue through caring more for her fellow man rather than her own selfish
wants."
"Sister, I hardly think that could be it. Once she asked me for an
extravagant black dress to wear to her mother's funeral, and of course I
refused such a profligacy because it was unfitting for a novice needing to
learn to put others first, but other than that one time, l never knew Nicci
to once ask for anything for herself. You did an admirable job with her,
Alessandra."
Ann recalled that, after that, Nicci started wearing black dresses.
"I remember that." Alessandra didn't look up. "When her father died, I
went with her to his funeral. 1 always felt sorry for taking her away from
her family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had
great potential for helping others and must not waste it."
"It's always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It's difficult to
part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others."
"She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never
objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she
always threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.
"At her father's funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even
though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew
she was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to
remember her father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he
was alive."
"Those are kind words to one in such grief, Sister. You offered wise
advise."
Alessandra glanced up. "She was not comforted, Prelate. She looked at
me with those blue eyes of hers-you remember her blue eyes."
Ann nodded. "I remember."
"Well, she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, like she wanted
to hate me, but even that emotion was beyond her, and she said in that
lifeless voice of hers that she couldn't remember him as he was when he was
alive, because she had never known him when he was alive. Isn't that the
strangest thing you've ever heard?"
Ann sighed. "It sounds like Nicci. She always was one to say the
strangest things at the strangest times. I should have offered her more
guidance in her life. I should have taken more interest in her . . . but
there were so many matters needing my attention."
"No, Prelate, that was my job. I tailed in it. Somehow, I failed
Nicci."
Ann pulled her cloak righter against a bitter gust of wind. She took
the bowl of soup when Alessandra handed it to her.
"Worse, Prelate, I brought her to the shadow of the Keeper."
Ann looked over the rim of the bowl as she took a sip. She carefully
set the steaming bowl in her lap.
"What's done is done, Alessandra."
While Alessandra sipped at her soup, Ann's mind wandered to Kahlan's
words. They were words spoken in anger, and as such, were to be forgiven. Or
were they to be considered in an honest light?
Ann feared to say Kahlan's words were wrong; she feared they were true.
For centuries Ann had worked with Nathan and the prophecies, trying to avoid
the disasters she saw, and the ones he pointed out to her. What if Nathan
had been pointing out things that were only dead words, as Kahlan said? What
if he only pointed them out so as to bring about his own escape?
After all, what Ann had set in motion with Richard had also resulted in
the prophet's escape. What if she had been duped into being the one to bring
about all those terrible results?
Could that be true? Grief threatened to overwhelm her.
She was beginning to greatly fear that she had been so absorbed in what
she thought she knew that she had acted on false assumptions.
Kahlan could be right. The Prelate of the Sisters of the Light might be
personally responsible for more suffering than any monster born into the
world had ever brought about.
"Alessandra," Ann said in a soft voice after she finished her bowl of
soup, "we must go and try to find Nathan. It's dangerous for the prophet to
be out there, in the world that is defenseless against him."
"Where would we look?"
Ann shook her head in dismay at the enormity of the task. "A man like
Nathan does not go unnoticed in the world. I must believe that if we set our
minds to it, we could find him."
Alessandra watched Ann's face. "Well, as you say, it is dangerous for
the prophet to be loose in the world."
"It is indeed. We must find him."
"It took Verna twenty years to find Richard."
"So it did. But part of that was by my design. I hid facts from Verna.
Then again, Nathan is no doubt hiding facts from us. Nonetheless, we have a
responsibility. Verna is with the Sisters, and with the army; they will do
what they can in that capacity. We must go after Nathan. That part of it is
up to us."
Alessandra set her bowl aside. "Prelate, I understand why you believe
the prophet must be found, but, just as you feel you must find him, I feel I
must find Nicci. I'm responsible for bringing her to the Keeper of the
underworld. I may be the only one who can bring her back to the Light. I
have a unique understanding of that journey of the heart. I fear what will
happen to Richard if I don't try to stop Nicci.
"Worse," Alessandra added, "I fear what will happen to the world if
Richard dies. Kahlan is wrong. I believe in what you've worked for all these
years. Kahlan is making a complex thing sound simple because her heart is
broken, but without what you did, she would never even have met Richard."
Ann considered Alessandra's words. The seduction of acquittal was
undeniable.
"But, Alessandra, we don't have the slightest idea where they went.
Nicci is as smart as they come. If, as she says, she is acting on her own
behalf, she will be clever about not being found. How would you even go
about such a search?
"Nathan is a prophet loose in the world. You remember the trouble he's
caused in the past. He could, by himself, bring about such calamity as the
world has never
seen. Nathan boasts when he's around people; he will surely leave such
traces where he goes. With Nathan, I believe we at least have a chance of
success. But hunting for Nicci . . ."
Alessandra met Ann's gaze with grim resolution. "Prelate, if Richard
dies, what chance have the rest of us?"
Ann looked away. What if Alessandra was right? What if Kahlan was
right? She had to catch Nathan; it was the only way to find out.
"Alessandra . . ."
"You don't completely trust me, do you, Prelate?"
Ann met the other woman's eyes, this time with authority. "No,
Alessandra, I admit that I don't. How can I? You deceived me. You lied to
me. You turned your back on the Creator and gave yourself to the Keeper of
the underworld."
"But I've come back to the Light, Prelate."
"Have you? Would not one acting for the Keeper lie for him, as you
yourself only moments ago suggested?"
Alessandra's eyes filled with tears. "That's why I must try to find
Nicci, Prelate. I must prove that your faith in me was not misplaced. I need
to do this to prove myself to you."
"Or, you need to help Nicci, and the Keeper?"
"I know I'm not worthy of trust. I know that. You said we must find
Nathan-but we must also help Richard."
"Two tasks of the utmost importance," Ann said, "and no journey book to
call for help."
Alessandra wiped at her eyes. "Please, Prelate, let me help. I'm
responsible for Nicci going to the Keeper. Let me try to make amends. Let me
try to bring her back. I know what the return journey is like. I can help
her. Please, let me try to save her eternal soul?"
Ann's gaze sank to the ground. Who was she to question the value of
another? What had her life been for? Had she herself been the Keeper's best
ally?
Ann cleared her throat. "Sister Alessandra, you are to listen to me and
you are to listen well. I am the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and it
is your duty to do as I command." Ann shook a finger at the woman. "I'll
have no arguments, do you hear? I must go find the prophet before he does
something beyond foolish.
"Richard is of utmost importance to our cause-you know that. I'm
getting old and would only slow the search for him and his captor. I want
you to go after him. No arguments, now. You are to find Richard Rahl, and
put the fear of the Creator back into our wayward Sister Nicci."
Alessandra threw her arms around Ann, sobbing her thanks. Ann patted
the Sister's back, feeling miserable about losing a companion, and afraid
that she might have lost her faith in everything for which she stood.
Alessandra pushed away. "Prelate, will you be able to travel alone? Are
you sure you're up to this?"
"Bah. I may be old, but I'm not useless. Who do you think came into the
center of Jagang's army and rescued you, child?"
Alessandra smiled through her tears. "You did, Prelate, all by
yourself. No one but you could have done such a thing. I hope I can do half
as well for Nicci, when I find her."
"You will, Sister. You will. May the Creator cradle you in His palm as
you go on your journey."
Ann knew that they were both going off on difficult journeys that could
take years.
"Hard times lie ahead," Alessandra said. "But the Creator has two
hands, does He not? One for me, and one for you, Prelate."
Ann couldn't help but smile at such a mental picture.
Come in," Zedd grouched to the persistent throat-clearing outside his
tent.
He poured water from the ewer into the dented metal pot that served as
his washbasin sitting atop a log round. When he splashed some of the water
up onto his face, he gasped aloud. He was astonished that water that cold
would still pour.
"Good morning, Zedd."
Still gasping, Zedd swiped the frigid water from his eyes. He squinted
at Warren. "Good morning, my boy."
Warren blushed. Zedd reminded himself he probably shouldn't call
someone twice his own age "boy." It was Warren's own fault; if the boy would
just stop looking so young! Zedd sighed as he bent to forage for a towel
among the litter of maps, dirty plates, rusty dividers, empty mugs,
blankets, chicken bones, rope, an egg he'd lost in the middle of a lesson
weeks back, and other paraphernalia that seemed to collect over time in the
corner of his small field tent.
Warren was twisting his purple robes into a small wad at his hip. "I
just came from Verna's tent."
Zedd halted his search and looked back over his shoulder.
"Any word?"
Warren shook his head of curly blond hair. "Sorry, Zedd."
"Well," Zedd scoffed, "that doesn't mean anything. That old woman has
more lives than a cat I once had that was hit by lightning and fell down a
well, both in the same day. Did I ever tell you about that cat, my boy?"
"Well, yes, you did, actually." Warren smiled. "But if you like, I
wouldn't mind hearing it again."
Zedd dismissed the story with a feeble wave as he turned more serious.
"I'm sure Ann is fine. Verna knows Ann better than I do, but I do know that
that old woman is downright hard to harm."
"Verna said something like that." Warren smiled to himself. "Ann always
could scowl a thunderstorm back over the horizon."
Zedd grunted his agreement as he went back to digging through his pile.
"Tougher than bad meat, she is." He tossed two outdated maps over his
shoulder.
Warren leaned down a little. "What is it you're looking for, if you
don't mind my asking?"
"My towel. I know I had-'
"Right there," Warren said.
Zedd looked up. "What?"
"Your towel." Warren pointed again. "Right there on the back of the
chair."
"Oh." Zedd snatched up the wandering towel and dried his dry face. He
scowled
at Warren. "You have the eyes of a burglar." He tossed the towel in the
pile with everything else, where it belonged.
Warren's grin returned. "I'11 take that as a compliment."
Zedd cocked his head. "Do you hear that?"
Warren's grin melted away as he joined Zedd in listening to the sounds
outside. Horses clogged along the hard ground, men talked as they passed the
tent, other: called orders, fires crackled, wagons squeaked, and gear
clanged and rattled.
"Hear what?"
Zedd's face twisted in vague unease. "I don't know. Like, maybe a
whistle."
Warren lifted a thumb over his shoulder. "The men whistle now and
again, to get the attention of their horses and such. Sometimes it's
necessary."
They all did their best to keep the whistling and other noise down.
Whistles, especially, carried in such open terrain. It was hard to miss
something the size of the D'Harans' encampment, of course, so they moved
camp from time to time to keep the enemy from getting too confident about
their location. Sound could give away more than they would like.
Zedd shook his head. "Must have been that. Someone's long whistle."
"But still, Zedd," Warren went on, "it's long past time when Ann would
have sent Verna a message."
"There were times when I was with Ann that she couldn't send messages."
Zedd waved an arm expansively. "Bags, there was a time when I wouldn't let
her use that confounded journey book. The thing gave me the shivers. I don't
know why she couldn't just send letters, like normal people." His face, he
knew, was betraying his concern. "Confounded journey books. Lazy way of
doing things. I got to be First Wizard and I never needed a journey book."
"She could have lost it. That's what Verna suggested, anyway."
Zedd held up a finger. "That's right. She very well could have. It's
small-it could have fallen from her belt and she didn't nonce until she and
Alessandra made camp. She'd never find the book in a circumstance like
that." He shook the finger. "Makes my point, too. You shouldn't depend on
little trick things of magic, like that. It just makes you lazy."
"That's what Verna thought, too. About it falling from her belt, I
mean." Warren chuckled. "Or a cat could even have eaten it."
From beneath a furrowed brow, Zedd peered at Warren. "A cat? What cat?"
"Any cat." Warren cleared his throat. "I just meant . . . oh, never
mind. I never was any good at jokes."
Zedd's knotted brow lifted. "Oh, I see. A cat could have eaten it. Yes,
yes, I see." He didn't, but Zedd forced a chuckle for the boy's sake. "Very
good, Warren."
"Anyway, she probably lost it. It's probably something as simple as
that."
"If that's the case," Zedd reasoned, "she will likely end up coming
here to let us know that she's all right, or at least she will send a
letter, or messenger, or something. Ever more likely, though, she probably
had nothing to tell us and simply saw no need to bother with sending a
message in her journey book."
Warren made a skeptical face. "But we haven't had a message from her
for nearly a month."
Zedd waved a hand dismissively. "Well, she was way north, up almost to
"What are you talking about? What do you mean, a Sister took him? Which
Sister?"
"Nicci," Kahlan growled.
Ann pulled back. "Nicci . . ."
Sister Alessandra gasped. "Sister Nicci?" She crossed both hands over
her heart. "Sister Nicci isn't one of Ann's. Nicci is a Sister of the Dark."
"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Kahlan said.
"We have to go get him back," Ann said. "At once. He's not safe with
her."
"There's no telling what Nicci might-" Sister Alessandra's mouth
snapped shut.
The wind carried a sparkling gust into their faces, momentarily whiting
out the red dawn. Kahlan blinked the snow away. Cara, in her red leather
with both a cloak and her heavy fur mantle over top, ignored it. The other
two women brushed their heavy woolen mittens across their eyes.
"Kahlan, everything will be all right," Ann said in a reassuring voice.
"Tell us, now, what's happened? Tell us everything. Is he hurt?"
Kahlan swallowed against her rising rage. "Nicci used what she called a
maternity spell on me."
Ann's mouth fell open. Sister Alessandra gasped again.
"Are you sure?" Ann asked in a careful tone. "Are you sure that was
what it was? How do you know for sure?"
"She slammed some kind of magic into me. I've never heard of such a
spell. All I know is that it was definitely powerful magic and she said it
was called a maternity spell. She said that it connects us, somehow, through
that magic."
Alessandra took a step forward. "That doesn't make it a maternity
spell."
"When Cara used her Agiel on Nicci," Kahlan said, "it dropped me to my
knees just the same as if Cara had used the Agiel on me."
Ann and Alessandra shared a silent look.
"But . . . but, if she were to . . ." Ann stammered.
Kahlan voiced what Ann was trying to say without saying it. "If she
were to desire it, Nicci could snip that cord of magic, and 1 would die.
That was the means by which she captured Richard. She promised I would live
if Richard went with her. Richard surrendered himself into slavery to save
my life."
"It can't be," Ann said, touching mitten-covered fingers to her chin.
"Nicci wouldn't know how to use such an unusual spell-she's too young.
Besides, such a rare spell requires great power. She must have done
something else and just said that it was a maternity spell. Nicci couldn't
do a maternity spell."
"Yes, she could," Sister Alessandra said in reluctant disagreement.
"She has the power and ability. It would only have required someone with the
specialized knowledge teaching her. Nicci doesn't have any great passion for
magic, but she is as able as they come."
"Lidmila . . ." Ann whispered to Alessandra in sudden realization.
"Jagang has Lidmila. "
Kahlan turned a suspicious glare on Sister Alessandra. "And how do you
know so much more about Nicci's ability than the Prelate herself?"
Sister Alessandra gathered her open cloak back together. Her face lost
its warmth and reverted to a scowl-this time, though, with bitterness in the
set of her mouth.
"I brought Nicci in to the Palace of the Prophets when she was but a
child. I was responsible for her upbringing, and I guided her training in
the use of her gift; I know her better than anyone. I know her darker powers
because I, too, was a Sister of the Dark. I'm the one who brought her to the
Keeper."
Kahlan could feel herself rocking with the force of her hammering
heart. "So, you, too, are a Sister of the Dark."
"Was," Ann said, lifting a cautionary hand before Kahlan.
"The Prelate came into Jagang's camp and rescued me. Not just from
Jagang, but from the Keeper, too. I once again serve the Light." The
incandescent smile again transformed Alessandra's face. "Ann brought me back
to the Creator."
As far as Kahlan was concerned, the claim was not worth the effort of
confirmation. "How did you find us?"
Ann ignored the terse question. "We must hurry. We must get Richard
away from Nicci before she delivers him to Jagang."
Kahlan kept her glare on Alessandra while she answered Ann. "She isn't
taking him to Jagang. She said she isn't acting on behalf of His Excellency,
but on behalf of herself. Those were her words. She said she had removed
Jagang's ring from her lip and that she wasn't afraid of him."
"Did she say why, then, she was taking Richard?" Ann asked. "Or, at
least, where?"
Kahlan moved her scrutiny back to Ann. "She said she was taking him
into oblivion."
"Oblivion!" Ann gasped.
"I asked you a question," Kahlan said, anger seeping into her voice.
"How did you find us?"
Ann tapped her waist. "I have a journey book. I used it to communicate
with Verna, back with our forces. Verna told me about the messengers coming
to see you. That's how 1 knew where to find you. Lucky I came as soon as I
did; we nearly missed you. I can't tell you how happy I am to see you have
recovered, Kahlan. We were so worried."
Kahlan saw that Cara, standing behind the two women, still had her
Agiel clenched in her fist. Kahlan didn't need an Agiel; her Confessor's
power boiled but an impulse away. She wouldn't again make an error for the
sake of caution.
"The journey book. Of course. Then Verna would have told you about
Richard's vision that he must not lead our troops against the Order."
Ann nodded reluctantly, apparently not eager to discuss such a vision.
"Then, a few days ago, Verna sent a message when we were almost here, that
the D'Harans are in quite a state because they suddenly lost their sense of
direction to Richard. She said they are still protected from the dream
walker by the bond to their Lord Rahl, but they suddenly lost their sense of
where he is."
"Nicci cloaked his bond from us," Cara said in a growl.
"Well, we have to find him," Ann said. "We have to get him away from
Nicci. He's our only chance. Whatever he's thinking, it's nonsense and we
will have to set him straight, but first we must get him back. He has to
lead our forces against the Imperial Order. He is the one named in
prophecy."
"That's why you're here," Kahlan whispered to herself. "You heard from
Verna about his declining to lead the army or even to give orders. You
journeyed here in hopes of forcing him to fight."
"He must," Ann insisted.
"He must not," Kahlan said. "He has come to realize that if he leads us
into battle, we will lose the cause of liberty for generations to come. He
said he came to realize that people don't yet understand freedom and won't
fight for it."
"He must simply prove himself to the people." Ann's scowl reddened. "He
must prove himself their leader, which he has already begun to do, and they
will follow him."
"Richard says that he has come to understand that it is not he who must
prove himself to the people, but the people who must now prove themselves to
him."
Ann blinked in astonishment. "Why, that's nonsense."
"Is it?"
"Of course it is. The boy was named in prophecy centuries ago. I've
been waiting hundreds of years for him to be born in order for him to lead
us in this struggle."
"Really. Then who are you to try to countermand Richard's decision-if
you are so set on following him? He has come to his decision. If he is the
leader you want, then you must abide by his lead, and therefore his
decision."
"But this is not what prophecy demands!"
"Richard doesn't believe in prophecy. He believes we make our own
destiny. I'm coming to see the grounds of his assertion that the belief in
prophecy artificially alters events. It is the misplaced faith in prophecy
itself-in some mystical outcome-that harms people's lives."
Ann's eyes grew round with dismay, and then narrowed. "Richard is the
one named in prophecy to lead us against the Imperial Order. This is a
struggle for the very existence of magic in this world-don't you understand
that! Richard was born to fight this fight. We have to get him back!"
"This is all your fault," Kahlan whispered.
"What?" Ann's frown changed to a tolerant smile. "Kahlan, what are you
talking about?" Her voice backslid to genial. "You know me, you know our
struggle for the survival of freedom of magic. If Richard does not lead us,
we have no chance."
Kahlan threw her arm out and seized a startled Sister Alessandra by the
throat. The woman's eyes went wide.
"Don't move," Kahlan said through gritted teeth, "or I will unleash my
Confessor's power."
Ann held her hands up, imploring. "Kahlan, have you lost your mind? Let
her be. Calm down."
With her other hand, Kahlan pointed down at the fire. "The journey
book. Throw it in the fire."
"What? I'm not going to do any such thing!"
"Now," Kahlan said through her clenched teeth. "Or Sister Alessandra
will be mine. When I finish with her, Cara will see to it you throw that
journey book in the fire, if you have to do so with broken fingers."
Ann glanced at the Mord-Sith towering over her shoulder.
"Kahlan, I know you're upset, and I completely understand, but we're on
the same side in this. We love Richard, too. We, too, wish to stop the
Imperial Order from taking the whole world. We-"
"We? If it wasn't for you and your Sisters, none of this would be
happening. This is all your fault. Not Jagang's fault, not the Imperial
Order's fault, but yours."
"Have you lost your-"
"You alone bear responsibility for what is befalling the world. Just as
Jagang has his ring through the lip of his slaves, you've had yours through
the nose of yours-Richard! You alone bear responsibility for the lives
already lost, and those yet to be lost in bloody slaughters that will sweep
across the land. You, not Jagang, are the one who has brought it!"
Despite the cold, beads of sweat dotted Ann's brow. "What in the name
of Creation are you talking about? Kahlan, you know me. I was at your
wedding. I have always been on your side. I have only followed the
prophecies to help people."
"You create the prophecies! Without your help they would not have come
to pass! They only come about because you have fulfilled them! You pull the
ring through Richard's nose!"
Ann presented a face of calm to the stone of Kahlan's rage.
"Kahlan, I can only imagine how you must feel, but now you are truly
losing all sense of reason."
"Am I? Am I, Prelate? Why does Sister Nicci have my husband? Answer me.
Why! +
Ann's expression drew tight in a darkening glower. "Because she is
evil."
"No." Kahlan's grip tightened on Alessandra's throat. "It's because of
you. Had you not sent Verna into the New World in the first place, ordering
her to take Richard back across the barrier into the Old World-"
"But the prophecies say the Order will rise up to take the world and
extinguish magic if we fail to stop them! The prophecies say Richard is the
only one to lead us! That Richard is the only one with a chance!"
"And you brought that dead prophecy to life. All by yourself. All
because of your faith in bloodless words rather than your own reasoned
choices. You're here today not to back the choices of your proclaimed
leader, not to reason with him. but to enforce prophecy upon him-to give
that ring a tug. Had you not sent Verna to recover Richard, what would have
happened, Prelate?"
"Why, why, the Order-"
"The Order? The Order would still be trapped back in the Old World,
behind the barrier. Wouldn't they! For three thousand years that
wizard-created barrier has stood invincible against the pressure of the
Order-or those like them-and their wish to swarm up here into the New World,
bent on conquest.
"Because you had Richard captured, against his will, and ordered him
brought back to the Old World, all in slavish homage to dead words in dusty
old books, he was forced to destroy the barrier, and thus the Order now can
flood into the New World, into the Midlands, my Midlands, slaughtering my
people, taking my husband, all because of you and your meddling!
"Without you, none of this would be happening! No war, no mounds of
butchered people in cities of the New World, no thousands of dead men,
women, and children slaughtered at the hands of Imperial Order thugs-none of
it!
"Because of you and your precious prophecies, the veil was breached and
a plague was unleashed on the world. It would never have happened without
your actions to 'save' us all from prophecy. I don't even dare to recall all
the children I saw suffering and dying from the black death because of you.
Children who looked up into my eyes and asked if they would be all right,
and I had to say yes when I knew they would not survive the night.
"No one will ever know the tally of the dead. No one is left to
remember all the small places wiped out of existence by that plague. Without
your meddling, those children would be alive, their mothers would be smiling
to themselves as they watched them play, their fathers would be teaching
them the ways of the world-a world denied them by you for the sake of your
faith in prophecy!
"You say this is a battle for the very existence of magic in this
world-yet your work to fulfill prophecy may have already doomed magic.
Without your intervention, the chimes would never have come to be loosed
upon the world. Yes, Richard managed to banish them, but what irreversible
harm was done? We may have our power back, bent during the time the chimes
withdrew magic from this world, crea
tures of magic, things dependent on magic for their very existence,
surely died out. Magic requires balance to exist. The balance of magic in
this world was disturbed. The irrevocable destruction of magic may have
already begun. All because of your slavish service to prophecy.
"If not for you, Prelate, Jagang, the Imperial Order's army, and all
your Sisters would be back there, behind the barrier, and we would be here,
safe and at peace. You cast blame everywhere but where it belongs. If
freedom, if magic, if the world itself is destroyed, it will all be by your
hand, Prelate."
The low moan of the wind was the only sound and made the sudden silence
all that much more agonizing. Ann stared with tear-filled eyes up at Kahlan.
Snow sparkled in the rays of a cold dawn.
"It isn't like that, Kahlan. It only seems that way to you in your
pain."
"It is that way," Kahlan said with finality.
Ann's mouth worked, but this time no words came out.
Kahlan thrust out her hand, palm up.
"The journey book. If you think I would not destroy this woman's life,
then you don't know the first thing about me. She's one of your Sisters,
helping to destroy the world in the name of good, or else she is still one
of the Keeper's Sisters, helping to destroy the world in the name of death.
Either way, if you don't give me the journey book, and right now, her life
is forfeit."
"What do you think this will accomplish?" Ann whispered in despair.
"It will be a start at halting your meddling in the lives of the people
of the Midlands, and the rest (,f the New World-in my life, in Richard's
life. It's the only beginning I can think to make, short of killing you
both; you would not like to know how close I am to that alternative. Now,
give me the journey book."
Ann stared down at Kahlan's hand open before her. She blinked at her
tears. Finally, she pulled off a woolen mitten and worked the little book
out from behind her belt. She paused a moment, reverently gazing at it, but
in the end laid it on Kahlan's palm.
"Dear Creator," Ann whispered, "forgive this poor hurting child of
yours for what she is about to do."
Kahlan tossed the book in the fire.
With ashen faces, Ann and Sister Alessandra stood staring at the book
in the hissing flames.
Kahlan snatched up Richard's sword. "Cara, let's get going."
"The horses are ready. I was saddling them when these two showed up."
Kahlan dumped the hot water to the side while Cara started quickly
collecting their belongings. They both stuffed items in the saddlebags.
Other gear they slung over their shoulders and carried to the horses to be
strapped back on the saddles.
Without looking back at Ann or Alessandra, Kahlan swung up into her
cold saddle. With a grim Cara at her side, she turned her mount and cantered
off into the swirling snow.
As soon as she saw Kahlan and Cara vanish like vengeful spirits into
the whiteness, Ann fell to her knees and thrust her hands into the fire to
snatch the burning journey book from its funeral pyre in the white-hot
coals.
"Prelate!" Alessandra cried. "You'll burn yourself!"
Flinching back from the ferocity of the pain, Ann ignored the gagging
stench of burning flesh and thrust her hands again into the wavering heat of
the fire. She saw, rather than felt, that she had the priceless journey book
in her fingers.
The entire rescue of the burning book took only a second, but, through
the prism of pain, it seemed an eternity.
Biting down on her lower lip against the suffering, Ann rolled to the
side. Alessandra came running back with her hands full of snow. She threw it
on Ann's bloody blackened fingers and the journey book clenched in them.
She let out a low wail of agony when the wet snow contacted the burns.
Alessandra fell to Ann's side, taking her hands by the wrists, gasping in
tears of fright.
"Prelate! Oh, Prelate, you shouldn't have!"
Ann was in a state of shock from the pain. Alessandra's shrill voice
seemed a distant drone.
"Oh, Ann! Why didn't you use magic, or even a stick!"
Ann was surprised by the question. In her panic over the priceless
journey book burning there in the fire, her mind was filled only with the
single thought to get it out before it was too late. Her reckless action,
she knew, was precipitated by her bitter anguish over Kahlan's accusations.
"Hold still," Alessandra admonished through her own tears. "Hold still
and let me see what I can do about healing you. It will be all right. Just
hold still."
Ann sat on the snowy ground, dazed by the hurt, and by the words still
hammering her from inside her head, as she let Alessandra work at healing
her hands.
The Sister could not heal her heart.
"She was wrong," Alessandra said, as if reading Ann's thoughts. "She
was wrong, Prelate."
"Was she?" Ann asked in a numb voice after the searing pain in her
fingers finally began to ease, replaced by the achingly uncomfortable
tingling of magic coursing into her flesh, doing its work. "Was she,
Alessandra?"
"Yes. She doesn't know so much as she thinks. She's a child-she
couldn't be a paltry three decades yet. People can't learn to wipe their own
noses in that much time." Alessandra was prattling, Ann knew, prattling with
her worry over the journey book, and with her worry over the anguish caused
by Kahlan's words. "She's just a foolish child who doesn't know the first
thing about anything. There's much more to it. Much more. It isn't so simple
as she thinks. Not so simple at all."
Ann wasn't so sure anymore. Everything seemed dead to her. Five hundred
years of work-had it all been a mad task, driven on by selfish desires and a
fool's faith? Wouldn't she, in Kahlan's place, have seen it the same way?
Endless rows of corpses lay before her in the trial going on in her
mind. What was there to say in her defense? She had a thousand answers for
the Mother Confessor's charges, but at that moment, they all seemed empty.
How could Ann possibly excuse herself to the dead?
"You're the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light," Alessandra rambled on
during a pause in her work. "She should have been more considerate of who
she was talking to. More respectful. She doesn't know everything involved.
There's a great deal more to it. A great deal. After all, the Sisters of the
Light don't casually choose their Prelate."
Nor did Confessors casually choose their Mother Confessor.
An hour passed, and then another, before Alessandra finally finished
the difficult and tedious work of healing Ann's burns. Burns were difficult
injuries to heal. It was a tiring experience, being helpless and cold while
magic sizzled through her, while Kahlan's words sliced her very soul.
Ann flexed the aching fingers when Alessandra had finished. A shadow of
the burning pain lingered, as she knew it would for a good long time. But
they were healed, and she had her hands back.
When the matter was weighed, though, she feared she had lost a great
deal more of herself than she had recovered.
Exhausted and cold, Ann, to Alessandra's worry, lay down beside the
hissing remnants of the fire that had so hurt her. At that moment, she had
no desire to ever rise again. Her years, nearly a thousand of them, seemed
to have all caught up with her at once.
She missed Nathan terribly right then. The prophet doubtless would have
had something wise, or foolish, to say. Either would have comforted her.
Nathan always had something to say. She missed his boastful voice, his kind,
childlike, knowing eyes. She missed the touch of his hand.
Weeping silently, Ann cried herself to sleep. Her dreams kept the sleep
from being either restful, or deep. She awoke in late morning to the feel of
Alessandra's comforting hand on her shoulder. The Sister had added more wood
to the fire, so it offered warmth.
"Are you feeling better, Prelate?"
Ann nodded her lie. Her first thought was for the journey book. She
gazed at it lying in the protection of Alessandra's lap. Ann sat up and
carefully lifted the blackened book from the sling of Alessandra's dress.
"Prelate, I'm so worried for you."
With a sour wave of her hand, Ann dismissed the concern.
"While you slept, I've looked at the book."
Ann grunted. "Looks bad."
Alessandra nodded. "That's what I thought. I don't think it can be
salvaged."
Ann used an easy, gentle flow of her Han to hold the pages-little more
than ash-together as she carefully turned them.
"It has endured three thousand years. Were it ordinary paper, it would
be beyond help-ended-but this is a thing of magic, Alessandra, forged in the
fires of magic, by wizards of power not seen in all those three thousand
years . . . until Richard."
"What can we do? Do you know a way to restore it?"
Ann shook her head as she inspected the curled, charred journey book.
"I don't know if it can be restored. I'm just saying that it's a thing of
magic. Where there is magic, there is hope."
Ann pulled a handkerchief from a pocket deep under the layers of her
clothes. Laying the blackened book in the center of the handkerchief, she
carefully folded the handkerchief up to hold it together. She wove a spell
around it all to protect and preserve it for the time being.
"I will have to try to find a way to restore it-if I can. If it can
even be restored."
Alessandra dry-washed her hands. "Until then, our eyes with the army
are lost."
Ann nodded. "We won't know if the Imperial Order decides to finally
leave their place in the south and move up into the Midlands. l can give no
guidance to Verna."
"Prelate, what do you think will happen if the Order finally decides to
attackand Richard isn't there with them? What will they do? Without the Lord
Rahl to lead them . . ."
Ann did her best to move the terrible weight of Kahlan's words to the
side as she considered the immediate situation.
"Verna is the Prelate now-at least as far as the Sisters with the army
are concerned. She will guide them wisely. And Zedd is with them, helping
the Sisters prepare for battle, should it come. They could have no better
counsel than to have a wizard of Zedd's experience with them. As First
Wizard, he has been through great wars before.
"We will have to place our faith in the Creator that He will watch over
them. I can't advise them unless I can restore the journey book. Unless I
can do that, I won't even know their situation."
"You could go there, Prelate."
Ann brushed snow from the side of her shoulder, where she had been
lying on the ground, as she considered that possibility.
"The Sisters of the Light think I'm dead. They've put their faith in
Verna, now, as their Prelate. It would be a terrible thing to do to
Verna-and to the rest of the Sisters-to come back to life in the middle of
such trying circumstances. Certainly many would be relieved to have me back,
but it also sows the seeds of confusion and doubt. Battle is a very bad time
for such seeds to sprout."
"But they would all be encouraged by your-"
Ann shook her head. "Verna is their leader. Such a thing could forever
undermine their trust in her authority. They must not lose their faith in
her leadership. I must put the welfare of the Sisters of the Light above all
else. 1 must keep their best interests at heart, now."
"But, Ann, you are the Prelate."
Ann stared off. "What good has that done anyone?"
Alessandra's eyes turned down. The wind moaned sorrowfully through the
trees. Gusts kicked up blue-gray trailers of snow and whipped them along
through the campsite. The sunlight had vanished behind somber clouds. Ann
wiped her nose on the edge of her icy cloak.
Alessandra laid a compassionate hand on Ann's arm. "You brought me back
from the Keeper, back into the Light of the Creator. I was in Jagang's
hands, and treated you terribly when they captured you, yet you never gave
up on me. Who else would have cared? Without you, my soul would be lost for
all time. I doubt you could fathom my gratitude for what you did, Prelate."
Despite Alessandra's apparent return to the Creator's Light, Ann had
been fooled
by the woman before. Years before, Alessandra had turned to the Keeper,
becoming a Sister of the Dark, and Ann had never known. How could one have
faith in a person after such a betrayal?
Ann looked up into Alessandra's eyes. "I hope so, Sister. I pray such
is really true."
"It is, Prelate."
Ann lifted a hand toward the shrouded sun. "And perhaps when I go to
the Creator's Light in the next world, that one good act will erase the
thousands of lives lost because of me?"
Alessandra looked away, rubbing her arms through the layers of clothes.
She turned and put two sticks of wood on the fire.
"We should have a hot meal. That will make you feel better, Prelate. It
will make us both feel better."
Ann sat on the ground watching Alessandra prepare her hearty camp soup.
Ann doubted that even the pleasant aroma of soup would arouse her appetite.
"Why do you think Nicci took Richard?" Alessandra asked as she put
dried mushrooms from a pouch into the soup.
Ann looked up at Alessandra's puzzled face. "I can't imagine, except to
think that she may be lying, and she is taking him to Jagang."
Alessandra broke up dried meat and dropped it into the boiling pot of
soup. "Why? If she had him, and he was forced to do as she asked-why lie?
What would be the purpose?"
"She's a Sister devoted to the Keeper." Ann lifted her hands and let
them flop back into her lap. "That's excuse enough to lie, isn't it? Lying
is wrong. It's wicked. That's reason enough."
Alessandra shook her head in admonition. "Prelate, I was a Sister of
the Dark. Remember? I know better. That isn't the way it is at all. Do you
always tell the truth just because you are devoted to the Creator's Light?
No; one lies for the Keeper just as you would lie for the Creator-to His
ends, if lying is necessary. Why would Nicci lie about that? She was in
control of the situation and had no need to lie."
"I can't imagine." Ann had difficulty caring enough to consider the
question. Her mind was in a morass of hopeless thoughts. It was her fault
Richard was in the hands of the enemy, not Nicci's.
"I think she did it for herself."
Ann looked up. "What do you mean?"
"I think Nicci is still looking for something."
"Looking for something? What ever do you mean?"
With a finger, Alessandra brushed a measure of spices into the pot from
a waxed paper she'd unfolded. "Ever since the first day I took her from her
home and brought her to the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci continually grew
more . . . detached, somehow. She always did whatever she could to help
people, but she was always a child who made me feel as if I was inadequate
at fulfilling her needs."
"Such as?"
Alessandra shook her head. "I don't know. She always seemed to me to be
looking for something. I thought she needed to find the Light of the
Creator. I pushed her mercilessly, hoping it would open her eyes to His way
and fill her inner need. I allowed her no room to think about anything else.
I even kept her away from her family. Her father was a selfish lover of
money and her mother . . . well, her mother was well intentioned, but always
made me feel uncomfortable. I thought the Creator
would fill that private void within Nicci." Alessandra hesitated. "And
then I thought it was the Keeper she needed."
"So, you think she took Richard to fill some . . . inner need? How does
that make sense?"
"I don't know." Alessandra breathed out heavily in frustration. She
stirred the soup as she drizzled in a pinch of salt. "Prelate, I think I
failed Nicci."
"In what way?"
"I don't know. Perhaps 1 failed to involve her adequately in the needs
of othersgave her too much time to think of herself. She always seemed
devoted to the welfare of her fellow man, but maybe I should have rubbed her
nose in other people's troubles more, to teach her the Creator's way of
virtue through caring more for her fellow man rather than her own selfish
wants."
"Sister, I hardly think that could be it. Once she asked me for an
extravagant black dress to wear to her mother's funeral, and of course I
refused such a profligacy because it was unfitting for a novice needing to
learn to put others first, but other than that one time, l never knew Nicci
to once ask for anything for herself. You did an admirable job with her,
Alessandra."
Ann recalled that, after that, Nicci started wearing black dresses.
"I remember that." Alessandra didn't look up. "When her father died, I
went with her to his funeral. 1 always felt sorry for taking her away from
her family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had
great potential for helping others and must not waste it."
"It's always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It's difficult to
part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others."
"She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never
objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she
always threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.
"At her father's funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even
though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew
she was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to
remember her father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he
was alive."
"Those are kind words to one in such grief, Sister. You offered wise
advise."
Alessandra glanced up. "She was not comforted, Prelate. She looked at
me with those blue eyes of hers-you remember her blue eyes."
Ann nodded. "I remember."
"Well, she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, like she wanted
to hate me, but even that emotion was beyond her, and she said in that
lifeless voice of hers that she couldn't remember him as he was when he was
alive, because she had never known him when he was alive. Isn't that the
strangest thing you've ever heard?"
Ann sighed. "It sounds like Nicci. She always was one to say the
strangest things at the strangest times. I should have offered her more
guidance in her life. I should have taken more interest in her . . . but
there were so many matters needing my attention."
"No, Prelate, that was my job. I tailed in it. Somehow, I failed
Nicci."
Ann pulled her cloak righter against a bitter gust of wind. She took
the bowl of soup when Alessandra handed it to her.
"Worse, Prelate, I brought her to the shadow of the Keeper."
Ann looked over the rim of the bowl as she took a sip. She carefully
set the steaming bowl in her lap.
"What's done is done, Alessandra."
While Alessandra sipped at her soup, Ann's mind wandered to Kahlan's
words. They were words spoken in anger, and as such, were to be forgiven. Or
were they to be considered in an honest light?
Ann feared to say Kahlan's words were wrong; she feared they were true.
For centuries Ann had worked with Nathan and the prophecies, trying to avoid
the disasters she saw, and the ones he pointed out to her. What if Nathan
had been pointing out things that were only dead words, as Kahlan said? What
if he only pointed them out so as to bring about his own escape?
After all, what Ann had set in motion with Richard had also resulted in
the prophet's escape. What if she had been duped into being the one to bring
about all those terrible results?
Could that be true? Grief threatened to overwhelm her.
She was beginning to greatly fear that she had been so absorbed in what
she thought she knew that she had acted on false assumptions.
Kahlan could be right. The Prelate of the Sisters of the Light might be
personally responsible for more suffering than any monster born into the
world had ever brought about.
"Alessandra," Ann said in a soft voice after she finished her bowl of
soup, "we must go and try to find Nathan. It's dangerous for the prophet to
be out there, in the world that is defenseless against him."
"Where would we look?"
Ann shook her head in dismay at the enormity of the task. "A man like
Nathan does not go unnoticed in the world. I must believe that if we set our
minds to it, we could find him."
Alessandra watched Ann's face. "Well, as you say, it is dangerous for
the prophet to be loose in the world."
"It is indeed. We must find him."
"It took Verna twenty years to find Richard."
"So it did. But part of that was by my design. I hid facts from Verna.
Then again, Nathan is no doubt hiding facts from us. Nonetheless, we have a
responsibility. Verna is with the Sisters, and with the army; they will do
what they can in that capacity. We must go after Nathan. That part of it is
up to us."
Alessandra set her bowl aside. "Prelate, I understand why you believe
the prophet must be found, but, just as you feel you must find him, I feel I
must find Nicci. I'm responsible for bringing her to the Keeper of the
underworld. I may be the only one who can bring her back to the Light. I
have a unique understanding of that journey of the heart. I fear what will
happen to Richard if I don't try to stop Nicci.
"Worse," Alessandra added, "I fear what will happen to the world if
Richard dies. Kahlan is wrong. I believe in what you've worked for all these
years. Kahlan is making a complex thing sound simple because her heart is
broken, but without what you did, she would never even have met Richard."
Ann considered Alessandra's words. The seduction of acquittal was
undeniable.
"But, Alessandra, we don't have the slightest idea where they went.
Nicci is as smart as they come. If, as she says, she is acting on her own
behalf, she will be clever about not being found. How would you even go
about such a search?
"Nathan is a prophet loose in the world. You remember the trouble he's
caused in the past. He could, by himself, bring about such calamity as the
world has never
seen. Nathan boasts when he's around people; he will surely leave such
traces where he goes. With Nathan, I believe we at least have a chance of
success. But hunting for Nicci . . ."
Alessandra met Ann's gaze with grim resolution. "Prelate, if Richard
dies, what chance have the rest of us?"
Ann looked away. What if Alessandra was right? What if Kahlan was
right? She had to catch Nathan; it was the only way to find out.
"Alessandra . . ."
"You don't completely trust me, do you, Prelate?"
Ann met the other woman's eyes, this time with authority. "No,
Alessandra, I admit that I don't. How can I? You deceived me. You lied to
me. You turned your back on the Creator and gave yourself to the Keeper of
the underworld."
"But I've come back to the Light, Prelate."
"Have you? Would not one acting for the Keeper lie for him, as you
yourself only moments ago suggested?"
Alessandra's eyes filled with tears. "That's why I must try to find
Nicci, Prelate. I must prove that your faith in me was not misplaced. I need
to do this to prove myself to you."
"Or, you need to help Nicci, and the Keeper?"
"I know I'm not worthy of trust. I know that. You said we must find
Nathan-but we must also help Richard."
"Two tasks of the utmost importance," Ann said, "and no journey book to
call for help."
Alessandra wiped at her eyes. "Please, Prelate, let me help. I'm
responsible for Nicci going to the Keeper. Let me try to make amends. Let me
try to bring her back. I know what the return journey is like. I can help
her. Please, let me try to save her eternal soul?"
Ann's gaze sank to the ground. Who was she to question the value of
another? What had her life been for? Had she herself been the Keeper's best
ally?
Ann cleared her throat. "Sister Alessandra, you are to listen to me and
you are to listen well. I am the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and it
is your duty to do as I command." Ann shook a finger at the woman. "I'll
have no arguments, do you hear? I must go find the prophet before he does
something beyond foolish.
"Richard is of utmost importance to our cause-you know that. I'm
getting old and would only slow the search for him and his captor. I want
you to go after him. No arguments, now. You are to find Richard Rahl, and
put the fear of the Creator back into our wayward Sister Nicci."
Alessandra threw her arms around Ann, sobbing her thanks. Ann patted
the Sister's back, feeling miserable about losing a companion, and afraid
that she might have lost her faith in everything for which she stood.
Alessandra pushed away. "Prelate, will you be able to travel alone? Are
you sure you're up to this?"
"Bah. I may be old, but I'm not useless. Who do you think came into the
center of Jagang's army and rescued you, child?"
Alessandra smiled through her tears. "You did, Prelate, all by
yourself. No one but you could have done such a thing. I hope I can do half
as well for Nicci, when I find her."
"You will, Sister. You will. May the Creator cradle you in His palm as
you go on your journey."
Ann knew that they were both going off on difficult journeys that could
take years.
"Hard times lie ahead," Alessandra said. "But the Creator has two
hands, does He not? One for me, and one for you, Prelate."
Ann couldn't help but smile at such a mental picture.
Come in," Zedd grouched to the persistent throat-clearing outside his
tent.
He poured water from the ewer into the dented metal pot that served as
his washbasin sitting atop a log round. When he splashed some of the water
up onto his face, he gasped aloud. He was astonished that water that cold
would still pour.
"Good morning, Zedd."
Still gasping, Zedd swiped the frigid water from his eyes. He squinted
at Warren. "Good morning, my boy."
Warren blushed. Zedd reminded himself he probably shouldn't call
someone twice his own age "boy." It was Warren's own fault; if the boy would
just stop looking so young! Zedd sighed as he bent to forage for a towel
among the litter of maps, dirty plates, rusty dividers, empty mugs,
blankets, chicken bones, rope, an egg he'd lost in the middle of a lesson
weeks back, and other paraphernalia that seemed to collect over time in the
corner of his small field tent.
Warren was twisting his purple robes into a small wad at his hip. "I
just came from Verna's tent."
Zedd halted his search and looked back over his shoulder.
"Any word?"
Warren shook his head of curly blond hair. "Sorry, Zedd."
"Well," Zedd scoffed, "that doesn't mean anything. That old woman has
more lives than a cat I once had that was hit by lightning and fell down a
well, both in the same day. Did I ever tell you about that cat, my boy?"
"Well, yes, you did, actually." Warren smiled. "But if you like, I
wouldn't mind hearing it again."
Zedd dismissed the story with a feeble wave as he turned more serious.
"I'm sure Ann is fine. Verna knows Ann better than I do, but I do know that
that old woman is downright hard to harm."
"Verna said something like that." Warren smiled to himself. "Ann always
could scowl a thunderstorm back over the horizon."
Zedd grunted his agreement as he went back to digging through his pile.
"Tougher than bad meat, she is." He tossed two outdated maps over his
shoulder.
Warren leaned down a little. "What is it you're looking for, if you
don't mind my asking?"
"My towel. I know I had-'
"Right there," Warren said.
Zedd looked up. "What?"
"Your towel." Warren pointed again. "Right there on the back of the
chair."
"Oh." Zedd snatched up the wandering towel and dried his dry face. He
scowled
at Warren. "You have the eyes of a burglar." He tossed the towel in the
pile with everything else, where it belonged.
Warren's grin returned. "I'11 take that as a compliment."
Zedd cocked his head. "Do you hear that?"
Warren's grin melted away as he joined Zedd in listening to the sounds
outside. Horses clogged along the hard ground, men talked as they passed the
tent, other: called orders, fires crackled, wagons squeaked, and gear
clanged and rattled.
"Hear what?"
Zedd's face twisted in vague unease. "I don't know. Like, maybe a
whistle."
Warren lifted a thumb over his shoulder. "The men whistle now and
again, to get the attention of their horses and such. Sometimes it's
necessary."
They all did their best to keep the whistling and other noise down.
Whistles, especially, carried in such open terrain. It was hard to miss
something the size of the D'Harans' encampment, of course, so they moved
camp from time to time to keep the enemy from getting too confident about
their location. Sound could give away more than they would like.
Zedd shook his head. "Must have been that. Someone's long whistle."
"But still, Zedd," Warren went on, "it's long past time when Ann would
have sent Verna a message."
"There were times when I was with Ann that she couldn't send messages."
Zedd waved an arm expansively. "Bags, there was a time when I wouldn't let
her use that confounded journey book. The thing gave me the shivers. I don't
know why she couldn't just send letters, like normal people." His face, he
knew, was betraying his concern. "Confounded journey books. Lazy way of
doing things. I got to be First Wizard and I never needed a journey book."
"She could have lost it. That's what Verna suggested, anyway."
Zedd held up a finger. "That's right. She very well could have. It's
small-it could have fallen from her belt and she didn't nonce until she and
Alessandra made camp. She'd never find the book in a circumstance like
that." He shook the finger. "Makes my point, too. You shouldn't depend on
little trick things of magic, like that. It just makes you lazy."
"That's what Verna thought, too. About it falling from her belt, I
mean." Warren chuckled. "Or a cat could even have eaten it."
From beneath a furrowed brow, Zedd peered at Warren. "A cat? What cat?"
"Any cat." Warren cleared his throat. "I just meant . . . oh, never
mind. I never was any good at jokes."
Zedd's knotted brow lifted. "Oh, I see. A cat could have eaten it. Yes,
yes, I see." He didn't, but Zedd forced a chuckle for the boy's sake. "Very
good, Warren."
"Anyway, she probably lost it. It's probably something as simple as
that."
"If that's the case," Zedd reasoned, "she will likely end up coming
here to let us know that she's all right, or at least she will send a
letter, or messenger, or something. Ever more likely, though, she probably
had nothing to tell us and simply saw no need to bother with sending a
message in her journey book."
Warren made a skeptical face. "But we haven't had a message from her
for nearly a month."
Zedd waved a hand dismissively. "Well, she was way north, up almost to