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we fight to reestablish reason. We are the balance."
Jennsen hooked some of her hair back behind an ear. "What does all this
have to do with not eating meat?"
"I was told that wizards, too, must balance themselves, their gift--
their power--in the things they do. I fight against those, like the Imperial
Order, who would destroy life because it has no value to them, but that
requires that I do the same terrible thing by destroying what is my highest
value--life. Since my gift has to do with being a warrior, abstinence from
eating meat is believed to be the balance for the killing I'm forced to do."
"What happens if you eat meat?"
Kahlan knew that Richard had cause, from only the day before, to need
the balance of not eating meat.
"Even the idea of eating meat nauseates me. I've done it when I've had
to, but it's something I avoid if at all possible. Magic deprived of balance
has grave consequences, just like building a fire in the hearth."
The thought occurred to Kahlan that Richard carried the Sword of Truth,
and perhaps that weapon also imposed its own need for balance. Richard had
been rightly named the Seeker of Truth by the First Wizard himself, Zeddicus
Zu'l Zorander--Zedd, Richard's grandfather, the man who had helped raise
him, and from whom Richard had additionally inherited the gift. Richard's
gift had been passed down not only from the Rahl bloodline, but the Zorander
as well. Balance indeed.
Rightly named Seekers had been carrying that very same sword for nearly
three thousand years. Perhaps Richard's understanding of the need for
balance had helped him to survive the things he'd faced.
With her teeth, Jennsen tugged off a strip of dried meat as she thought
it over. "So, because you have to fight and sometimes kill people, you can't
eat meat as the balance for that terrible act?"
Richard nodded as he chewed dried apricots.
"It must be dreadful to have the gift," Jennsen said in a quiet voice.
"To have something so destructive that it requires you balance it in some
way."
She looked away from Richard's gray eyes. Kahlan knew what a difficult
experience it sometimes was to meet his direct and incisive gaze.
"I used to feel that way," he said, "when I first was named the Seeker
and given the sword, and even more so later, when I learned that I had the
gift. I didn't want to have the gift, didn't want the things the gift could
do, just as I hadn't wanted the sword because of the things in me that I
thought shouldn't ever be brought out."
"But now you don't mind as much, having the sword, or the gift?"
"You have a knife and have used it." Richard leaned toward her, holding
out his hands. "You have hands. Do you hate your knife, or hands?"
"Of course not. But what does that have to do with having the gift?"
"Having the gift is simply how I was born, like being born male, or
female, or with blue, or brown, or green eyes--or with two hands. I don't
hate my hands because I could potentially strangle someone with them. It's
my mind that directs my hands. My hands don't act of their own accord; to
think so is to ignore the truth of what each thing is, its true nature. You
have to recognize the truth of things if you're to achieve balance--or come
to truly understand anything, for that matter."
Kahlan wondered why she didn't require balance the way Richard did. Why
was it so vital for him, but not for her? Despite how much she wanted to go
to sleep, she couldn't keep silent. "I often use my Confessor's power for
that same end--to kill--and I don't have to keep in balance by not eating
meat."
"The Sisters of the Light claim that the veil that separates the world
of the living from the world of the dead is maintained through magic. More
precisely, they claim that the veil is here," Richard said, tapping the side
of his temple, "in those of us who have the gift--wizards and to a lesser
extent sorceresses. They claim that balance for those of us with the gift is
essential because in us, within our gift, resides the veil, making us, in
essence, the guardians of the veil, the balance between worlds.
"Maybe they're right. I have both sides of the gift: Additive and
Subtractive. Maybe that makes it different for me. Maybe having both sides
makes it more important than usual for me to keep my gift in balance."
Kahlan wondered just how much of that might be true. She feared to
think how extensively the balance of magic itself had been altered by her
doing.
The world was unraveling, in more ways than one. But there had been no
choice.
Cara dismissively waggled a piece of dried meat before them. "All this
balance business is just a message from the good spirits--in that other
world--telling Lord Rahl to leave such fighting to us. If he did, then he
wouldn't have to worry about balance, or what he can and can't eat. If he
would stop putting himself in mortal danger then his balance would be just
fine and he could eat a whole goat."
Jennsen's eyebrows went up.
"You know what I mean," Cara grumbled.
Tom leaned in. "Maybe Mistress Cara is right, Lord Rahl. You have
people to protect you. You should let them do it and you could better put
your abilities to the task of being the Lord Rahl."
Richard closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "If
I had to wait for Cara to save me all the time, I'm afraid I'd have to do
without a head."
Cara rolled her eyes at his wisp of a smile and went back to her
sausage.
Studying his face in the dim light as he sucked on a small bite of
dried biscuit, Kahlan thought that Richard didn't look well, and that it was
more than simply being exhausted. The soft glow of light from the lantern
lit one side of his face, leaving the rest in darkness, as if he were only
half there, half in this world and half in the world of darkness, as if he
were the veil between.
She leaned close and brushed back the hair that had fallen across his
forehead, using the excuse to feel his brow. He felt hot, but they were all
hot and sweating, so she couldn't really tell if he had a fever, but she
didn't think so.
Her hand slipped down to cup his face, kindling his smile. She thought
she could lose herself in the pleasure of just looking into his eyes. It
made her heart ache with joy to see his smile. She smiled back, a smile she
gave no one but him.
Kahlan had an urge to kiss him, too, but there always seemed to be
people around and the kind of kiss she really wanted to give him wasn't the
kind of kiss you gave in front of others.
"It seems so hard to imagine," Friedrich said to Richard. "I mean, the
Lord Rahl himself, not knowing about the gift as he grew up." Friedrich
shook his head. "It seems so hard to believe."
"My grandfather, Zedd, has the gift," Richard said as he leaned back.
"He wanted to help raise me away from magic, much like Jennsen-- hidden away
where Darken Rahl couldn't get at me. That's why he wanted me raised in
Westland, on the other side of the boundary from magic."
"And even your grandfather--a wizard--never let on that he was gifted?"
Tom asked.
"No, not until Kahlan came to Westland. Looking back on it, I realize
that there were a lot of little things that told me he was more than he
seemed, but growing up I never knew. He just always seemed wizardly to me in
the sense that he seemed to know about everything in the world around us. He
opened up that world for me, making me want to all the time know more, but
the gift wasn't ever the magic he showed me--life was what he showed me."
"It's really true, then," Friedrich said, "that Westland was set aside
to be a place without magic."
Richard smiled at the mention of his home of Westland. "It is. I grew
up in the Hartland woods, right near the boundary, and I never saw magic.
Except maybe for Chase."
"Chase?" Tom asked.
"A friend of mine--a boundary warden. Fellow about your size, Tom.
Whereas you serve to protect the Lord Rahl, Chase's charge was the boundary,
or rather, keeping people away from it. He told me that his job was keeping
away the prey--people--so that the things that come out of the boundary
wouldn't get any stronger. He worked to maintain balance." Richard smiled to
himself. "He didn't have the gift, but I often thought that the things that
man could pull off had to be magic."
Friedrich, too, was smiling at Richard's story. "I lived in D'Hara all
my life. When I was young those men who guarded the boundary were my heroes
and I wanted to join them."
"Why didn't you?" Richard asked.
"When the boundary went up I was too young." Friedrich stared off into
memories, then sought to change the subject. "How much longer until we get
out of this wasteland, Lord Rahl?"
Richard looked east, as if he could see off into the black of night
beyond the dim circle of lantern light. "If we keep up our pace, a few more
days and we'll be out of the worst of it, I'd say. It gets rockier now as
the ground continues to rise up toward the distant mountains. The traveling
will be more difficult but at least as we get higher it shouldn't be quite
so hot."
"How far to this thing that... that Cara thinks I should touch?"
Jennsen asked.
Richard studied her face a moment. "I'm not so sure that's a good
idea."
"But we are going there?"
"Yes."
Jennsen picked at the strip of dried meat. "What is this thing that
Cara touched, anyway? Cara and Kahlan don't seem to want to tell me."
"I asked them not to tell you," Richard said.
"But why? If we're going to see it, then why wouldn't you want to tell
me what it is?"
"Because you don't have the gift," Richard said. "I don't want to
influence what you see."
Jennsen blinked. "What difference could that make?"
"I haven't had time to translate much of it yet, but from what I gather
from the book Friedrich brought me, even those who don't have the gift, in
the common sense, have at least some tiny spark of it. In that way they are
able to interact with the magic in the world--much like you must be born
with eyes to see color. Being born with eyes, you can see and understand a
grand painting, even though you may not have the ability to create such a
painting yourself.
"The gifted Lord Rahl gives birth to only one gifted heir. He may have
other children, but rarely are any of them ever also gifted. Still, they do
have this infinitesimal spark, as does everyone else. Even they, so to
speak, can see color.
"The book says, though, that there are rare offspring of a gifted Lord
Rahl, like you, who are born devoid of any trace whatsoever of the gift. The
book calls them pillars of Creation. Much like those born without eyes can't
perceive color, those born like you can't perceive magic.
"But even that is imprecise, because with you it's more than simply not
perceiving magic. For someone born blind, color exists, they just aren't
able to see it. For you, though, it isn't that you simply can't perceive
magic; for you magic does not exist--it isn't a reality."
"How is such a thing possible?" Jennsen asked.
"I don't know," Richard said. "When our ancestors created the bond of
the Lord Rahl to the D'Haran people, it carried the unique ability to
consistently bear a gifted heir. Magic needs balance. Maybe they had to make
it work like this, have this counter of those born like you, in order for
the magic they created to work; maybe they didn't realize what would happen
and inadvertently created the balance."
Jennsen cleared her throat. "What would happen if... you know, if I
were to have children?"
Richard surveyed Jennsen's eyes for what seemed a painfully long time.
"You would bear offspring like you."
Jennsen sat forward, her hands reflecting her emotional entreaty. "Even
if I marry someone with that spark of the gift? Someone able to perceive
color, as you called it? Even then my child would be like me?"
"Even then and every time," Richard said with quiet certitude. "You are
a broken link in the chain of the gift. According to the book, once the line
of all those born with the spark of the gift, including those with the gift
as it is in me, going back thousands of years, going back forever, is
broken, it is broken for all time. It cannot be restored. Once forfeited in
such a marriage, no descendant of that line can ever restore the link to the
gift. When these children marry, they too would be as you, breaking the
chain in the line of those they marry. Their children would be the same, and
so on.
"That's why the Lord Rahl always hunted down ungifted offspring and
eliminated them. You would be the genesis of something the world has never
had before: those untouched by the gift. Every offspring of every descendant
would end the line of the spark of the gift in everyone they married. The
world, mankind, would be changed forever.
"This is the reason the book calls those like you 'pillars of
Creation.' "
The silence seemed brittle.
"And that's what this place is called, too," Tom said as he pointed a
thumb back over his shoulder, seeming to feel the need to say something into
the quiet, "the Pillars of Creation." He looked at the faces surrounding the
weak light coming from the sputtering lantern. "Seems a strange coincidence
that both those like Jennsen and this place would be called the same thing."
Richard stared off into the darkness toward that terrible place where
Kahlan would have died had he made a mistake with the magic involved. "I
don't think it's a coincidence. They are connected, somehow."
The book--The Pillars of Creation--describing those born like Jennsen
was written in the ancient language of High D'Haran. Few people still living
understood High D'Haran. Richard had begun to learn it in order to unravel
important information in other books they'd found that were from the time of
the great war.
That war, extinguished three thousand years before, had somehow ignited
once again, and was burning uncontrolled through the world. Kahlan feared to
think of the central--if inadvertent--part she and Richard had played in
making it possible.
Jennsen leaned in, as if looking for some thread of hope. "How do you
think the two might be connected?"
Richard let out a tired sigh. "I don't know, yet."
With a finger, Jennsen rolled a pebble around in a small circle,
leaving a tiny rut in the dust. "All of those things about me being a pillar
of Creation, being the break in the link of the gift, makes me feel
somehow... dirty."
"Dirty?" Tom asked, looking hurt to hear her even suggest such a thing.
"Jennsen, why would you feel that way?"
"Those like me are also called 'holes in the world.' I guess I can see
why, now."
Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know what
it's like to feel regret for how you were born, for what you have, or don't
have. I hated being born the way I was--with the gift. But I came to realize
how senseless such feelings are, how completely wrong it was to think that
way."
"But it's different with me," she said as she pushed at the sand with a
finger, erasing the little ruts she'd made with the pebble. "There are
others like you--wizards or sorceresses with the gift. Everyone else can at
least see colors, as you put it. I'm the only one like this."
Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful, bright, ungifted half
sister that any previous Lord Rahl would have murdered on the spot, and was
overcome with a radiant smile. "Jennsen, I think of you as born pure. You're
like a new snowflake, different than any other, and startlingly beautiful."
Looking up at him, Jennsen was overcome with a smile of her own. "I
never thought of it that way." Her smile withered as she thought about his
words. "But still, I'd be destroying--"
"You would be creating, not destroying," Richard said. "Magic exists.
It cannot possess the 'right' to exist. To think so would be to ignore the
true nature--the reality--of things. People, if they don't take the lives of
others, have the right to live their life. You can't say that because you
were born with red hair you supplanted the 'right' of brown hair to be born
on your head."
Jennsen giggled at such a concept. It was good to see the smile taking
firmer hold. By the look on Tom's face, he agreed.
"So," Jennsen finally asked, "what about this thing we're going to
see?"
"If the thing Cara touched has been altered by someone with the gift,
then since you can't see the magic, you might see something we can't see:
what lies beneath that magic."
Jennsen rubbed the edge of her boot heel. "And you think that will tell
you something important?"
"I don't know. It may be useful, or it may not, but I want to know what
you see--with your special vision--without any suggestion from us."
"If you're so worried about it, why did you leave it? Aren't you afraid
someone might come across it and take it?"
"I worry about a lot of things," Richard said.
"Even if it really is something altered by magic and she sees it for
what it truly is," Cara said, "that doesn't mean that it still isn't what it
seems to us, or that it isn't just as dangerous."
Richard nodded. "At least we'll know that much more about it. Anything
we learn might help us in some way."
Cara scowled. "I just want her to turn it back over."
Richard gave her a look designed to keep her from saying anything else
about it. Cara huffed, leaned in, and took one of Richard's dried apricots.
She scowled at him as she popped the apricot into her mouth.
As soon as supper was finished, Jennsen suggested that they pack all
the food safely back in the wagon so that Betty wouldn't help herself to it
in the night. Betty was always hungry. At least, with her two kids, she now
had a taste of what it was like to be badgered for food.
Kahlan thought that Friedrich should be given consideration, because of
his age, so she asked him if he'd like to take first watch. First watch was
easier than being awakened in the middle of the night to stand watch between
stretches of sleep. He smiled his appreciation as he nodded his agreement.
After opening his and Kahlan's bedroll, Richard doused the lantern. The
night was sweltering but crystal clear so that, after Kahlan's eyes
adjusted, the sweep of stars was enough to see by, if not very well. One of
the white twins thought the newly unfurled bedrolls would be a perfect place
to romp. Kahlan scooped up the leggy bundle and returned it to its
tail-wagging mother.
As she lay down beside Richard, Kahlan saw the dark shape of Jennsen
curl up by Betty and collect the twins in the tender bed of her arms, where
they quickly settled down.
Richard leaned over and gently kissed Kahlan's lips. "I love you, you
know."
"If we're ever alone, Lord Rahl," Kahlan whispered back, "I'd like to
have more than a quick kiss."
He laughed softly and kissed her forehead before lying on his side,
away from her. She had been expecting an intimate promise, or at least a
lighthearted remark.
Kahlan curled up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Richard," she whispered, "are you all right?"
It took him longer to answer than she would have liked. "I have a
splitting headache."
She wanted to ask what kind of headache, but she didn't want the tiny
spark of fear she harbored to gain the glow of credence by voicing it aloud.
"It's different from the headaches I had before," Richard said, as if
in answer to her thoughts. "I suppose it's this wicked heat on top of not
having had any sleep for so long."
"I suppose." Kahlan bunched up the blanket she was using for a pillow
to make a lump that would press against the sore spot at the base of her
skull. "The heat is making my head pound, too." She gently rubbed the back
of his shoulder. "Have a good sleep, then."
She was exhausted and aching all over, and it felt delicious to lie
down. Her head felt better, too, with the soft lump of blanket pressed
against the back of her neck. With her hand resting against Richard's
shoulder, feeling his slow breathing, Kahlan fell into a dead sleep.
As tired as she was, it was a marvelous sensation being beside Richard
and letting herself go, letting her concerns and worries go for the time
being, and so effortlessly sinking into sleep.
But the sleep seemed only just started when she woke to find Cara
gently shaking her shoulder.
Kahlan blinked up at the familiar silhouette standing over her. She
ached to go back to sleep, to be left alone to be so wonderfully asleep
again.
"My watch?" Kahlan asked.
Cara nodded. "I'll stand it if you'd like."
Kahlan glanced over her shoulder as she sat up, seeing that Richard was
still fast asleep. "No," she whispered. "You get some sleep. You need rest,
too."
Kahlan yawned and stretched her back. She took Cara's elbow and pulled
her a short distance away, out of earshot, and leaned close. "I think you're
right. There's more than enough of us to stand watch and all still get
enough rest. Let's let Richard sleep till morning."
Cara smiled her agreement before heading for her bedroll. Conspiracy
designed to protect Richard suited the Mord-Sith.
Kahlan yawned and stretched again, at the same time forcing herself to
shake the lingering haze of sleep from her mind, to be alert. Pulling her
hair back from her face and flipping it over her shoulder, she scanned the
wasteland all around, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Everything
beyond their camp was as still as death. Mountains blacked out the
glittering sweep of stars in a jagged line all the way around the horizon.
Kahlan took careful assessment of everyone, making sure they were all
accounted for. Cara already looked comfortable. Tom slept not far from the
horses. Friedrich was asleep on the other side of the horses. Jennsen was
curled up beside Betty, but by her movements, the way she turned from her
side to her back, didn't look asleep. The babies had moved and now lay
sprawled with their heads butted up tight against their mother.
Kahlan was always especially vigilant right at change of watch. Change
of watch was a prime time for attack; she knew, for she had often initiated
raids around change of watch. Those just going off watch were often tired
and already thinking of other things, considering watch the duty of the next
guard. Those just coming on watch were often not mentally prepared for a
sudden attack. People tended to think that the enemy would not come until
they were properly settled in and on the lookout. Victory favored those who
were ready. Defeat stalked those who were unwary.
Kahlan made her way to a formation of rock not far from Richard. She
scooted back, sitting atop a high spot in order to get a better view of the
lifeless surroundings. Even in the middle of the night, the rough rock still
radiated the fierce heat of the previous day.
Kahlan pulled a skein of damp hair away from her neck, wishing there
were a breeze. There had been times, in winter, when she had nearly frozen
to death. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to recall what it felt like to
be truly cold.
It wasn't long after Kahlan had gotten herself situated before she saw
Jennsen get up and step quietly through their camp, trying not to wake the
others.
"All right if I sit with you?" she asked when she finally reached
Kahlan.
"Of course."
Jennsen pushed her bottom back up onto the rock beside Kahlan, pulled
her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them, hugging them close to her
body. For a time she just gazed out at the night.
"Kahlan, I'm sorry--about before." Despite the dark, Kahlan thought she
could see that the young woman looked miserable. "I didn't mean to sound
like a fool who would do something without thinking. I'd never do anything
to hurt any of you."
"I know you wouldn't deliberately do any such thing. It's the things
you might do unwittingly that concern me."
Jennsen nodded. "I think I understand a little better, now, about how
complicated everything is and how much I really don't know. I'll not do
anything unless you or Richard tells me to, I promise."
Kahlan smiled and ran a hand down the back of Jennsen's head, letting
it come to rest on her shoulder. "I only told you those things because I
care about you, Jennsen." She gave the shoulder a compassionate squeeze. "I
guess I'm worried for you the same way Betty worries for her innocent twins,
knowing the dangers all around when they rarely do.
"You need to understand that if you go out on thin ice, it doesn't
matter if the lake was frozen over by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If you
don't know where you're stepping, so to speak, you could fall into the cold
dark arms of death. It matters not what made the ice--dead is dead. My point
is that you don't go out on that thin ice unless you have a very powerful
need, because it very well could cost you your life."
"But I'm not touched by magic. Like Richard said, I'm like someone born
without eyes who can't see color. I'm a broken link in the chain of magic.
Wouldn't that mean that I can't accidentally get into trouble with it?"
"And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff and it crushes you, does
it matter if that boulder was sent crashing over the edge by a man with a
lever, or by a sorceress wielding the gift?"
Jennsen's voice took on a troubled tone. "I see what you mean. I guess
that I never looked at it that way."
"I'm only trying to help you because I know how easy it is to make a
mistake."
She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. "You know about magic.
What kind of mistake could you make?"
"All kinds."
"Like what?"
Kahlan stared off into the memories. "I once delayed for half a second
in killing someone."
"But I thought you said that it was wrong to be too rash."
"Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can do is to delay. She Was a
sorceress. By the time I acted it was already too late. Because of my
mistake she captured Richard and took him away. For a year, I didn't know
what had happened to him. I thought I would never see him again, that I
would die of heartache."
Jennsen stared in astonishment. "When did you find him again?"
"Not long ago. That's why we're down here in the Old World--she brought
him here. At least I found him. I've made other mistakes, and they, too,
have resulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like he said, we all
make mistakes. If I can, I want to spare you from making a needless mistake,
at least."
Jennsen looked away. "Like believing in that man I was with
yesterday--Sebastian. Because of him, my mother was murdered and I almost
got you killed. I feel like such a fool."
"You didn't make that mistake out of carelessness, Jennsen. They
deceived you, used you. More importantly, in the end you used your head and
were willing to face the truth."
Jennsen nodded.
"What should we name the twins?" she finally asked.
Kahlan didn't think that naming the twins was a good idea, not yet
anyway, but she was reluctant to say it.
"I don't know. What names were you thinking?"
Jennsen let out a heavy breath. "It was a shock to suddenly have Betty
back with me, and even more of a surprise to see that she had babies of her
own. I never considered that before. I haven't even had time to think about
names."
"You will."
Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew, as if at the thought of
something more.
"You know," she said, "I think I understand what Richard meant about
thinking of his grandfather as wizardly, even though he never saw him do
magic."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I can't see magic, so to speak, and Richard didn't do any
tonight--at least none I know of." She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh
as Kahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It had a quality to it much
like Richard's, the feminine balance to Richard's masculine laugh, two
facets of the same delight.
"And yet," Jennsen went on, "the things he said made me think of him in
that way--wizardly--like he said about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knew
just what he meant, just how he'd felt, because Richard has opened up the
world for me, but the gift wasn't the magic he showed me. It was him showing
me life, that my life is mine, and worth living."
Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much that described her own
feeling of what Richard had done for her, how he had brought her to cherish
life and believe in it not just for others, but, most importantly, for
herself.
For a time they sat together, silently watching the empty wasteland.
Kahlan kept an eye on Richard as he tossed in his sleep.
With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watched Richard. "It looks like
there's something wrong with him," she whispered as she leaned close.
"He's having a nightmare."
Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before, as Richard made fists
in his sleep, as he struggled silently against some private terror.
"It's scary to see him like that," Jennsen said. "He seems so
different. When he's awake he always seems so ... reasoned."
"You can't reason with a nightmare," Kahlan said in quiet sorrow.
Richard woke with a start."
They were back.
He had been having a bad dream. Like all of his dreams, he didn't
remember it. He only knew it was a bad dream because it left behind the
shapeless feeling of breathless, heart-pounding, undefined, frantic terror.
He threw off the lingering pall of the nightmare as he would throw off a
tangled blanket. Even though it felt as if the dark things in lingering
remnants of the dream were still clawing at him, trying to drag him back
into their world, he knew that dreams were immaterial, and so he dismissed
it. Now that he was awake, the feeling of dread rapidly began to dissolve,
like fog burning off under hot sunlight.
Still, he had to make an effort to slow his breathing.
What was important was that they were back. He didn't always know when
they returned, but this time, for some reason, he was sure of it.
Sometime in the night, too, the wind had come up. It buffeted him,
pulling at his clothes, tearing at his hair. Out on the sweltering waste,
the scorching gusts offered no relief from the heat. Rather than being
refreshing, the wind was so hot that it felt as though the door to a blast
furnace had opened and the heat were broiling his flesh.
Groping for his waterskin, he didn't find it immediately at hand. He
tried to recall exactly where he'd laid it, but, with other thoughts
screaming for his attention, he couldn't remember. He would have to worry
about a drink later.
Kahlan lay close, turned toward him. She had gathered her long hair in
a loose fist beneath her chin. The wind whipped stray strands across her
cheek. Richard loved just to sit and look at her face; this time, though, he
delayed but a moment, looking at her only long enough in the faint starlight
to note her even breathing. She was sound asleep.
As he scanned their camp, he could just make out a weak blush in the
eastern sky. Dawn was still some time off.
He realized that he'd slept through his watch. Cara and Kahlan had no
doubt decided that he needed the sleep more than he was needed for standing
a watch and had conspired to not wake him. They were probably right. He had
been so exhausted that he'd slept right through the night. Now, though, he
was wide awake.
His headache, too, was gone.
Silently, carefully, Richard slipped away from Kahlan so as not to wake
her. He instinctively reached for his sword lying at his other side. The
metal was warm beneath his touch as his fingers curled around the familiar
silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard. It was always reassuring to find the sword
at the ready, but even more so at that moment. As he silently rolled to his
feet, he slipped the baldric over his head, placing the familiar supple
leather across his right shoulder. As he rose up, his sword was already at
his hip, ready to do his bidding.
Despite how reassuring it was to have the weapon at his side, after the
carnage back at the place called the Pillars of Creation the thought of
drawing it sickened him. He recoiled from the mental image of the things he
had done. Had he not, though, Kahlan wouldn't be sleeping peacefully; she
would be dead, or worse.
Other good had come of it, too. Jennsen had been pulled back from the
brink. He saw her curled up beside her beloved goat, her arm corralling
Betty's two sleeping kids. He smiled at seeing her, at what a wonder it was
to have a sister, smiled at how smart she was and all the wonders of life
she had ahead of her. It made him happy that she was eager to be around him,
but being around him made him worry for her safety, too. There really wasn't
any place safe, though, unless the forces of the Order that had been
unleashed could be defeated, or at least bottled back up.
A heavy gust tore through their camp, raising even thicker clouds of
dirt. Richard blinked, trying to keep the blowing sand out of his eyes. The
sound of the wind in his ears was aggravating because it masked other
sounds. Though he listened carefully, he could hear only the wind.
Squinting against the blowing grit, he saw that Tom was sitting atop
his wagon, looking this way and that, keeping watch. Friedrich was asleep on
the other side of the horses, Cara not far away on the desert side of
Kahlan, putting herself between them and anything that might be out beyond.
In the dim starlight Tom hadn't spotted Richard. When Tom scanned the night
in the opposite direction, Richard moved away from camp, leaving Tom to
watch over the others.
Richard was comfortable in the cloak of darkness. Years of practice had
taught him to slip unseen through shadows, to move silently in the darkness.
He did that now, moving away from camp as he focused on what had awakened
him, on what others standing watch would not sense.
Unlike Tom, the races did not miss Richard's movements. They wheeled
high overhead as they watched him, following him as he made his way out
along the broken ground. They were almost invisible against the dark sky,
but Richard could make them out as they blacked out stars, like telltale
shadows against the sparkling black curtain of night--shadows that he
thought he could feel as well as he could see.
That the crushing headache was gone was a great relief, but that it had
vanished in the manner that it had was also a cause for concern. The torment
often vanished when he was distracted by something important. Something
dangerous. At the same time, even though the pain was gone, it felt as if it
were simply hiding in the shadows of his mind, waiting for him to relax so
that it could pounce.
When the headaches surged through him, the nauseating pain was so
intense that it made him feel sick in every fiber of his being. Even though
the crushing pain at times made it difficult for him to stand, to put one
foot in front of the other, he had known that to remain behind, where they
were, would have meant certain death. While the headaches were bad in and of
themselves, Richard wasn't so much concerned about the pain as he was about
the nature of the headaches--their cause.
They weren't the same as the headaches he'd had before that he so
feared--the headaches brought on by the gift--but they weren't like those he
considered to be normal headaches, either. Throughout his life he'd
occasionally had terrible headaches, the same as his mother used to have on
a more regular basis. She'd called them "my grim headaches." Richard
thoroughly understood her meaning.
These, however grim, were not like those. He worried that they might be
caused by the gift.
He'd had the headaches brought on by the gift before. He had been told
that as he grew older, as his ability grew, as he came to understand more,
he would, at times later in his life, be confronted with headaches brought
on by the gift. The remedy was supposedly simple. He had only to seek the
help of another wizard and have him assist with the necessary next level of
awareness and comprehension of the nature of the gift within himself. That
mental awareness and understanding would enable him to control and thereby
eliminate the pain--to douse the flare-up. At least, that's what he had been
told.
Of course, in the absence of another wizard to help, the Sisters of the
Light would gladly put a collar around his neck to help control the runaway
power of the gift.
He had been told that such headaches, if not properly tended to, were
lethal. This much of it, at least, he knew was true. He couldn't afford to
have that problem now, on top of all his others. Right now there was nothing
he could do about it; there was no one anywhere near who could help him with
that kind of headache--no wizard, and even though he would never allow it,
no Sister of the Light to put him in a collar again.
Richard once more reminded himself that it wasn't the same kind of pain
as the last time, when it had been brought on by the gift. He reminded
himself not to invent trouble he didn't have.
He had enough real trouble.
He heard the whoosh as one of the huge birds shot past low overhead.
The race twisted in flight, lifting on a gust of wind, to peer back at him.
Another followed in its wake, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.
They slipped silently away, out across the open ground, following one
another roughly in a line. Their wings rocked as they worked to stabilize
themselves in the gusty air. Some distance away, they soared into a gliding,
climbing turn back toward him.
Before they returned, the races tightened their flight into a circle.
When they stroked their huge wings, Richard could usually hear their
feathers whisper through the air, although now, with the sound of the wind,
he couldn't. Their black eyes watched him watching them. He wanted them to
know he was aware of them, that he hadn't slept through their nocturnal
return.
Were he not so concerned about the meaning of the races, he might think
they were beautiful, their sleek black shapes silhouetted majestically
against the crimson flush coming to the sky.
As he watched, though, Richard couldn't imagine what they were doing.
He'd seen this behavior from them before and hadn't understood it then,
either. He realized, suddenly, that those other times when they'd returned
to circle in this curious fashion, he had also been aware of them. He wasn't
always aware of them or aware of when they returned. If he had a headache,
though, it had vanished when they returned.
The hot wind ruffled Richard's hair as he gazed out across wasteland
obscured by the dusty predawn gloom. He didn't like this dead place. Dawn
here would offer no promise of a world coming to life. He wished Kahlan and
he were back in his woods. He couldn't help smiling as he recalled the place
in the mountains where the year before they had spent the summer. The place
was so wondrous that it had even managed to mellow Cara.
In the faint but gathering light, the black-tipped races circled, as
they always did when they performed this curious maneuver, not over him, but
a short distance away, this time out over the open desert where the
buffeting wind unfurled diaphanous curtains of sandy grit. The other times
it had been over forested hills, or open grassland. This time, as he watched
the races, he had to squint to keep the blowing sand from getting in his
eyes.
Abruptly tipping their broad wings, the races tightened their circle as
they descended closer to the desert floor. He knew that they would do this
for a short while before breaking up their formation to resume their normal
flight. They sometimes flew in pairs and performed spectacular aerial
stunts, each gracefully matching the other's every move, as ravens sometimes
did, but otherwise they never flew in anything like the compact group of
their sporadic circling.
And then, as the inky shapes wheeled around in a tight vortex, Richard
realized that the trailers of blowing sand below them weren't simply snaking
and curling aimlessly in the wind, but were flowing over something that
wasn't there.
The hair along his arms stood stiffly up.
Richard blinked, squinting into the wind, trying to see better in the
howling storm of blowing sand. Yet more dust and dirt lifted in the blast of
a heavy gust. As the twisting eddies raced across the flat ground and passed
beneath the races, they swirled around and over something below, making the
shape more distinct.
It appeared to be the form of a person.
The dirt swirled around the empty void, silhouetting it, defining it,
revealing what was there, but not. Whenever the wind lifted and carried with
it a heavy load, the outline of the shape, bounded by the swirling sand,
looked like the outline of a man shrouded in hooded robes.
Richard's right hand found the hilt of his sword.
There was nothing to the shape save the sand that flowed over the
contours of what wasn't there, the way muddy water streaming around a clear
glass bottle revealed its covert contour. The form seemed to be standing
still, watching him.
There were, of course, no eyes in the empty sockets of blowing sand,
but Richard could feel them on him.
"What is it?" Jennsen asked in a worried whisper as she rushed up
beside him. "What's the matter? Do you see something?"
With his left hand, Richard pushed her back, out of his way. So urgent
was his headlong rush of need that it took concentrated effort to be gentle
about it. He was gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly that he could
feel the raised letters of the word TRUTH woven in gold wire through the
silver.
Richard was invoking from within the sword its purpose for being, the
very core of its creation. In answer, the might of the sword's power
ignited.
Beyond the veil of rage, though, in the shadows of his mind, even as
the anger of the sword thundered through him, Richard dimly perceived an
unexpected opposition on the part of the flux of magic to rise to the
summons.
It was like heading out a door and leaning his weight into the howl of
a gale, and stumbling forward a step at unexpectedly finding less resistance
than anticipated.
Before Richard could question the sensation, the wave of wrath flooded
through him, saturating him in the cold fury of the storm that was the
sword's power.
As the races wheeled, their circle began coming closer. This, too, they
had done before, but this time the shape that moved with them was betrayed
by the swirl of sand and grit. It appeared that the intangible hooded man
was being pulled closer by the black-tipped races.
The distinctive ring of steel announced the arrival of the Sword of
Truth in the hot dawn air.
Jennsen squeaked at his sudden movement and jumped back.
The races answered with piercing, mocking cries that carried on the
howling wind.
The unmistakable sound of Richard's sword being drawn brought Kahlan
and Cara at a dead run. Cara would have leapt protectively ahead, but she
knew better than to get in front of him when he had the sword out. Agiel
clenched in her fist, she skidded to a halt off to the side, crouched and at
the ready, a powerful cat ready to spring.
"What is it?" Kahlan asked as she ran up behind him, gaping out at the
pattern in the wind.
"It's the races," came Jennsen's worried voice. "They've come back."
Kahlan stared incredulously at her. "The races don't look like the
worst of it."
Sword in hand, Richard watched the thing below the wheeling races.
Feeling the sword in his grip, its power sizzling through the very marrow of
his bones, he felt a flash of hesitation, of doubt. With no time to waste,
he turned back to Tom, just starting away from securing the lead lines to
his big draft horses. Richard mimed shooting an arrow. Grasping Richard's
meaning, Tom skidded to a halt and spun back to the wagon. Friedrich
urgently seized the tethers to the other horses, working to keep them calm,
keeping them from spooking. Leaning in the wagon, Tom threw gear aside as he
searched for Richard's bow and quiver.
Jennsen peered from one grim face to another. "What do you mean the
races aren't the worst of it?"
Cara pointed with her Agiel. "That... that figure. That man."
Jennsen hooked some of her hair back behind an ear. "What does all this
have to do with not eating meat?"
"I was told that wizards, too, must balance themselves, their gift--
their power--in the things they do. I fight against those, like the Imperial
Order, who would destroy life because it has no value to them, but that
requires that I do the same terrible thing by destroying what is my highest
value--life. Since my gift has to do with being a warrior, abstinence from
eating meat is believed to be the balance for the killing I'm forced to do."
"What happens if you eat meat?"
Kahlan knew that Richard had cause, from only the day before, to need
the balance of not eating meat.
"Even the idea of eating meat nauseates me. I've done it when I've had
to, but it's something I avoid if at all possible. Magic deprived of balance
has grave consequences, just like building a fire in the hearth."
The thought occurred to Kahlan that Richard carried the Sword of Truth,
and perhaps that weapon also imposed its own need for balance. Richard had
been rightly named the Seeker of Truth by the First Wizard himself, Zeddicus
Zu'l Zorander--Zedd, Richard's grandfather, the man who had helped raise
him, and from whom Richard had additionally inherited the gift. Richard's
gift had been passed down not only from the Rahl bloodline, but the Zorander
as well. Balance indeed.
Rightly named Seekers had been carrying that very same sword for nearly
three thousand years. Perhaps Richard's understanding of the need for
balance had helped him to survive the things he'd faced.
With her teeth, Jennsen tugged off a strip of dried meat as she thought
it over. "So, because you have to fight and sometimes kill people, you can't
eat meat as the balance for that terrible act?"
Richard nodded as he chewed dried apricots.
"It must be dreadful to have the gift," Jennsen said in a quiet voice.
"To have something so destructive that it requires you balance it in some
way."
She looked away from Richard's gray eyes. Kahlan knew what a difficult
experience it sometimes was to meet his direct and incisive gaze.
"I used to feel that way," he said, "when I first was named the Seeker
and given the sword, and even more so later, when I learned that I had the
gift. I didn't want to have the gift, didn't want the things the gift could
do, just as I hadn't wanted the sword because of the things in me that I
thought shouldn't ever be brought out."
"But now you don't mind as much, having the sword, or the gift?"
"You have a knife and have used it." Richard leaned toward her, holding
out his hands. "You have hands. Do you hate your knife, or hands?"
"Of course not. But what does that have to do with having the gift?"
"Having the gift is simply how I was born, like being born male, or
female, or with blue, or brown, or green eyes--or with two hands. I don't
hate my hands because I could potentially strangle someone with them. It's
my mind that directs my hands. My hands don't act of their own accord; to
think so is to ignore the truth of what each thing is, its true nature. You
have to recognize the truth of things if you're to achieve balance--or come
to truly understand anything, for that matter."
Kahlan wondered why she didn't require balance the way Richard did. Why
was it so vital for him, but not for her? Despite how much she wanted to go
to sleep, she couldn't keep silent. "I often use my Confessor's power for
that same end--to kill--and I don't have to keep in balance by not eating
meat."
"The Sisters of the Light claim that the veil that separates the world
of the living from the world of the dead is maintained through magic. More
precisely, they claim that the veil is here," Richard said, tapping the side
of his temple, "in those of us who have the gift--wizards and to a lesser
extent sorceresses. They claim that balance for those of us with the gift is
essential because in us, within our gift, resides the veil, making us, in
essence, the guardians of the veil, the balance between worlds.
"Maybe they're right. I have both sides of the gift: Additive and
Subtractive. Maybe that makes it different for me. Maybe having both sides
makes it more important than usual for me to keep my gift in balance."
Kahlan wondered just how much of that might be true. She feared to
think how extensively the balance of magic itself had been altered by her
doing.
The world was unraveling, in more ways than one. But there had been no
choice.
Cara dismissively waggled a piece of dried meat before them. "All this
balance business is just a message from the good spirits--in that other
world--telling Lord Rahl to leave such fighting to us. If he did, then he
wouldn't have to worry about balance, or what he can and can't eat. If he
would stop putting himself in mortal danger then his balance would be just
fine and he could eat a whole goat."
Jennsen's eyebrows went up.
"You know what I mean," Cara grumbled.
Tom leaned in. "Maybe Mistress Cara is right, Lord Rahl. You have
people to protect you. You should let them do it and you could better put
your abilities to the task of being the Lord Rahl."
Richard closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "If
I had to wait for Cara to save me all the time, I'm afraid I'd have to do
without a head."
Cara rolled her eyes at his wisp of a smile and went back to her
sausage.
Studying his face in the dim light as he sucked on a small bite of
dried biscuit, Kahlan thought that Richard didn't look well, and that it was
more than simply being exhausted. The soft glow of light from the lantern
lit one side of his face, leaving the rest in darkness, as if he were only
half there, half in this world and half in the world of darkness, as if he
were the veil between.
She leaned close and brushed back the hair that had fallen across his
forehead, using the excuse to feel his brow. He felt hot, but they were all
hot and sweating, so she couldn't really tell if he had a fever, but she
didn't think so.
Her hand slipped down to cup his face, kindling his smile. She thought
she could lose herself in the pleasure of just looking into his eyes. It
made her heart ache with joy to see his smile. She smiled back, a smile she
gave no one but him.
Kahlan had an urge to kiss him, too, but there always seemed to be
people around and the kind of kiss she really wanted to give him wasn't the
kind of kiss you gave in front of others.
"It seems so hard to imagine," Friedrich said to Richard. "I mean, the
Lord Rahl himself, not knowing about the gift as he grew up." Friedrich
shook his head. "It seems so hard to believe."
"My grandfather, Zedd, has the gift," Richard said as he leaned back.
"He wanted to help raise me away from magic, much like Jennsen-- hidden away
where Darken Rahl couldn't get at me. That's why he wanted me raised in
Westland, on the other side of the boundary from magic."
"And even your grandfather--a wizard--never let on that he was gifted?"
Tom asked.
"No, not until Kahlan came to Westland. Looking back on it, I realize
that there were a lot of little things that told me he was more than he
seemed, but growing up I never knew. He just always seemed wizardly to me in
the sense that he seemed to know about everything in the world around us. He
opened up that world for me, making me want to all the time know more, but
the gift wasn't ever the magic he showed me--life was what he showed me."
"It's really true, then," Friedrich said, "that Westland was set aside
to be a place without magic."
Richard smiled at the mention of his home of Westland. "It is. I grew
up in the Hartland woods, right near the boundary, and I never saw magic.
Except maybe for Chase."
"Chase?" Tom asked.
"A friend of mine--a boundary warden. Fellow about your size, Tom.
Whereas you serve to protect the Lord Rahl, Chase's charge was the boundary,
or rather, keeping people away from it. He told me that his job was keeping
away the prey--people--so that the things that come out of the boundary
wouldn't get any stronger. He worked to maintain balance." Richard smiled to
himself. "He didn't have the gift, but I often thought that the things that
man could pull off had to be magic."
Friedrich, too, was smiling at Richard's story. "I lived in D'Hara all
my life. When I was young those men who guarded the boundary were my heroes
and I wanted to join them."
"Why didn't you?" Richard asked.
"When the boundary went up I was too young." Friedrich stared off into
memories, then sought to change the subject. "How much longer until we get
out of this wasteland, Lord Rahl?"
Richard looked east, as if he could see off into the black of night
beyond the dim circle of lantern light. "If we keep up our pace, a few more
days and we'll be out of the worst of it, I'd say. It gets rockier now as
the ground continues to rise up toward the distant mountains. The traveling
will be more difficult but at least as we get higher it shouldn't be quite
so hot."
"How far to this thing that... that Cara thinks I should touch?"
Jennsen asked.
Richard studied her face a moment. "I'm not so sure that's a good
idea."
"But we are going there?"
"Yes."
Jennsen picked at the strip of dried meat. "What is this thing that
Cara touched, anyway? Cara and Kahlan don't seem to want to tell me."
"I asked them not to tell you," Richard said.
"But why? If we're going to see it, then why wouldn't you want to tell
me what it is?"
"Because you don't have the gift," Richard said. "I don't want to
influence what you see."
Jennsen blinked. "What difference could that make?"
"I haven't had time to translate much of it yet, but from what I gather
from the book Friedrich brought me, even those who don't have the gift, in
the common sense, have at least some tiny spark of it. In that way they are
able to interact with the magic in the world--much like you must be born
with eyes to see color. Being born with eyes, you can see and understand a
grand painting, even though you may not have the ability to create such a
painting yourself.
"The gifted Lord Rahl gives birth to only one gifted heir. He may have
other children, but rarely are any of them ever also gifted. Still, they do
have this infinitesimal spark, as does everyone else. Even they, so to
speak, can see color.
"The book says, though, that there are rare offspring of a gifted Lord
Rahl, like you, who are born devoid of any trace whatsoever of the gift. The
book calls them pillars of Creation. Much like those born without eyes can't
perceive color, those born like you can't perceive magic.
"But even that is imprecise, because with you it's more than simply not
perceiving magic. For someone born blind, color exists, they just aren't
able to see it. For you, though, it isn't that you simply can't perceive
magic; for you magic does not exist--it isn't a reality."
"How is such a thing possible?" Jennsen asked.
"I don't know," Richard said. "When our ancestors created the bond of
the Lord Rahl to the D'Haran people, it carried the unique ability to
consistently bear a gifted heir. Magic needs balance. Maybe they had to make
it work like this, have this counter of those born like you, in order for
the magic they created to work; maybe they didn't realize what would happen
and inadvertently created the balance."
Jennsen cleared her throat. "What would happen if... you know, if I
were to have children?"
Richard surveyed Jennsen's eyes for what seemed a painfully long time.
"You would bear offspring like you."
Jennsen sat forward, her hands reflecting her emotional entreaty. "Even
if I marry someone with that spark of the gift? Someone able to perceive
color, as you called it? Even then my child would be like me?"
"Even then and every time," Richard said with quiet certitude. "You are
a broken link in the chain of the gift. According to the book, once the line
of all those born with the spark of the gift, including those with the gift
as it is in me, going back thousands of years, going back forever, is
broken, it is broken for all time. It cannot be restored. Once forfeited in
such a marriage, no descendant of that line can ever restore the link to the
gift. When these children marry, they too would be as you, breaking the
chain in the line of those they marry. Their children would be the same, and
so on.
"That's why the Lord Rahl always hunted down ungifted offspring and
eliminated them. You would be the genesis of something the world has never
had before: those untouched by the gift. Every offspring of every descendant
would end the line of the spark of the gift in everyone they married. The
world, mankind, would be changed forever.
"This is the reason the book calls those like you 'pillars of
Creation.' "
The silence seemed brittle.
"And that's what this place is called, too," Tom said as he pointed a
thumb back over his shoulder, seeming to feel the need to say something into
the quiet, "the Pillars of Creation." He looked at the faces surrounding the
weak light coming from the sputtering lantern. "Seems a strange coincidence
that both those like Jennsen and this place would be called the same thing."
Richard stared off into the darkness toward that terrible place where
Kahlan would have died had he made a mistake with the magic involved. "I
don't think it's a coincidence. They are connected, somehow."
The book--The Pillars of Creation--describing those born like Jennsen
was written in the ancient language of High D'Haran. Few people still living
understood High D'Haran. Richard had begun to learn it in order to unravel
important information in other books they'd found that were from the time of
the great war.
That war, extinguished three thousand years before, had somehow ignited
once again, and was burning uncontrolled through the world. Kahlan feared to
think of the central--if inadvertent--part she and Richard had played in
making it possible.
Jennsen leaned in, as if looking for some thread of hope. "How do you
think the two might be connected?"
Richard let out a tired sigh. "I don't know, yet."
With a finger, Jennsen rolled a pebble around in a small circle,
leaving a tiny rut in the dust. "All of those things about me being a pillar
of Creation, being the break in the link of the gift, makes me feel
somehow... dirty."
"Dirty?" Tom asked, looking hurt to hear her even suggest such a thing.
"Jennsen, why would you feel that way?"
"Those like me are also called 'holes in the world.' I guess I can see
why, now."
Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know what
it's like to feel regret for how you were born, for what you have, or don't
have. I hated being born the way I was--with the gift. But I came to realize
how senseless such feelings are, how completely wrong it was to think that
way."
"But it's different with me," she said as she pushed at the sand with a
finger, erasing the little ruts she'd made with the pebble. "There are
others like you--wizards or sorceresses with the gift. Everyone else can at
least see colors, as you put it. I'm the only one like this."
Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful, bright, ungifted half
sister that any previous Lord Rahl would have murdered on the spot, and was
overcome with a radiant smile. "Jennsen, I think of you as born pure. You're
like a new snowflake, different than any other, and startlingly beautiful."
Looking up at him, Jennsen was overcome with a smile of her own. "I
never thought of it that way." Her smile withered as she thought about his
words. "But still, I'd be destroying--"
"You would be creating, not destroying," Richard said. "Magic exists.
It cannot possess the 'right' to exist. To think so would be to ignore the
true nature--the reality--of things. People, if they don't take the lives of
others, have the right to live their life. You can't say that because you
were born with red hair you supplanted the 'right' of brown hair to be born
on your head."
Jennsen giggled at such a concept. It was good to see the smile taking
firmer hold. By the look on Tom's face, he agreed.
"So," Jennsen finally asked, "what about this thing we're going to
see?"
"If the thing Cara touched has been altered by someone with the gift,
then since you can't see the magic, you might see something we can't see:
what lies beneath that magic."
Jennsen rubbed the edge of her boot heel. "And you think that will tell
you something important?"
"I don't know. It may be useful, or it may not, but I want to know what
you see--with your special vision--without any suggestion from us."
"If you're so worried about it, why did you leave it? Aren't you afraid
someone might come across it and take it?"
"I worry about a lot of things," Richard said.
"Even if it really is something altered by magic and she sees it for
what it truly is," Cara said, "that doesn't mean that it still isn't what it
seems to us, or that it isn't just as dangerous."
Richard nodded. "At least we'll know that much more about it. Anything
we learn might help us in some way."
Cara scowled. "I just want her to turn it back over."
Richard gave her a look designed to keep her from saying anything else
about it. Cara huffed, leaned in, and took one of Richard's dried apricots.
She scowled at him as she popped the apricot into her mouth.
As soon as supper was finished, Jennsen suggested that they pack all
the food safely back in the wagon so that Betty wouldn't help herself to it
in the night. Betty was always hungry. At least, with her two kids, she now
had a taste of what it was like to be badgered for food.
Kahlan thought that Friedrich should be given consideration, because of
his age, so she asked him if he'd like to take first watch. First watch was
easier than being awakened in the middle of the night to stand watch between
stretches of sleep. He smiled his appreciation as he nodded his agreement.
After opening his and Kahlan's bedroll, Richard doused the lantern. The
night was sweltering but crystal clear so that, after Kahlan's eyes
adjusted, the sweep of stars was enough to see by, if not very well. One of
the white twins thought the newly unfurled bedrolls would be a perfect place
to romp. Kahlan scooped up the leggy bundle and returned it to its
tail-wagging mother.
As she lay down beside Richard, Kahlan saw the dark shape of Jennsen
curl up by Betty and collect the twins in the tender bed of her arms, where
they quickly settled down.
Richard leaned over and gently kissed Kahlan's lips. "I love you, you
know."
"If we're ever alone, Lord Rahl," Kahlan whispered back, "I'd like to
have more than a quick kiss."
He laughed softly and kissed her forehead before lying on his side,
away from her. She had been expecting an intimate promise, or at least a
lighthearted remark.
Kahlan curled up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Richard," she whispered, "are you all right?"
It took him longer to answer than she would have liked. "I have a
splitting headache."
She wanted to ask what kind of headache, but she didn't want the tiny
spark of fear she harbored to gain the glow of credence by voicing it aloud.
"It's different from the headaches I had before," Richard said, as if
in answer to her thoughts. "I suppose it's this wicked heat on top of not
having had any sleep for so long."
"I suppose." Kahlan bunched up the blanket she was using for a pillow
to make a lump that would press against the sore spot at the base of her
skull. "The heat is making my head pound, too." She gently rubbed the back
of his shoulder. "Have a good sleep, then."
She was exhausted and aching all over, and it felt delicious to lie
down. Her head felt better, too, with the soft lump of blanket pressed
against the back of her neck. With her hand resting against Richard's
shoulder, feeling his slow breathing, Kahlan fell into a dead sleep.
As tired as she was, it was a marvelous sensation being beside Richard
and letting herself go, letting her concerns and worries go for the time
being, and so effortlessly sinking into sleep.
But the sleep seemed only just started when she woke to find Cara
gently shaking her shoulder.
Kahlan blinked up at the familiar silhouette standing over her. She
ached to go back to sleep, to be left alone to be so wonderfully asleep
again.
"My watch?" Kahlan asked.
Cara nodded. "I'll stand it if you'd like."
Kahlan glanced over her shoulder as she sat up, seeing that Richard was
still fast asleep. "No," she whispered. "You get some sleep. You need rest,
too."
Kahlan yawned and stretched her back. She took Cara's elbow and pulled
her a short distance away, out of earshot, and leaned close. "I think you're
right. There's more than enough of us to stand watch and all still get
enough rest. Let's let Richard sleep till morning."
Cara smiled her agreement before heading for her bedroll. Conspiracy
designed to protect Richard suited the Mord-Sith.
Kahlan yawned and stretched again, at the same time forcing herself to
shake the lingering haze of sleep from her mind, to be alert. Pulling her
hair back from her face and flipping it over her shoulder, she scanned the
wasteland all around, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Everything
beyond their camp was as still as death. Mountains blacked out the
glittering sweep of stars in a jagged line all the way around the horizon.
Kahlan took careful assessment of everyone, making sure they were all
accounted for. Cara already looked comfortable. Tom slept not far from the
horses. Friedrich was asleep on the other side of the horses. Jennsen was
curled up beside Betty, but by her movements, the way she turned from her
side to her back, didn't look asleep. The babies had moved and now lay
sprawled with their heads butted up tight against their mother.
Kahlan was always especially vigilant right at change of watch. Change
of watch was a prime time for attack; she knew, for she had often initiated
raids around change of watch. Those just going off watch were often tired
and already thinking of other things, considering watch the duty of the next
guard. Those just coming on watch were often not mentally prepared for a
sudden attack. People tended to think that the enemy would not come until
they were properly settled in and on the lookout. Victory favored those who
were ready. Defeat stalked those who were unwary.
Kahlan made her way to a formation of rock not far from Richard. She
scooted back, sitting atop a high spot in order to get a better view of the
lifeless surroundings. Even in the middle of the night, the rough rock still
radiated the fierce heat of the previous day.
Kahlan pulled a skein of damp hair away from her neck, wishing there
were a breeze. There had been times, in winter, when she had nearly frozen
to death. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to recall what it felt like to
be truly cold.
It wasn't long after Kahlan had gotten herself situated before she saw
Jennsen get up and step quietly through their camp, trying not to wake the
others.
"All right if I sit with you?" she asked when she finally reached
Kahlan.
"Of course."
Jennsen pushed her bottom back up onto the rock beside Kahlan, pulled
her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them, hugging them close to her
body. For a time she just gazed out at the night.
"Kahlan, I'm sorry--about before." Despite the dark, Kahlan thought she
could see that the young woman looked miserable. "I didn't mean to sound
like a fool who would do something without thinking. I'd never do anything
to hurt any of you."
"I know you wouldn't deliberately do any such thing. It's the things
you might do unwittingly that concern me."
Jennsen nodded. "I think I understand a little better, now, about how
complicated everything is and how much I really don't know. I'll not do
anything unless you or Richard tells me to, I promise."
Kahlan smiled and ran a hand down the back of Jennsen's head, letting
it come to rest on her shoulder. "I only told you those things because I
care about you, Jennsen." She gave the shoulder a compassionate squeeze. "I
guess I'm worried for you the same way Betty worries for her innocent twins,
knowing the dangers all around when they rarely do.
"You need to understand that if you go out on thin ice, it doesn't
matter if the lake was frozen over by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If you
don't know where you're stepping, so to speak, you could fall into the cold
dark arms of death. It matters not what made the ice--dead is dead. My point
is that you don't go out on that thin ice unless you have a very powerful
need, because it very well could cost you your life."
"But I'm not touched by magic. Like Richard said, I'm like someone born
without eyes who can't see color. I'm a broken link in the chain of magic.
Wouldn't that mean that I can't accidentally get into trouble with it?"
"And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff and it crushes you, does
it matter if that boulder was sent crashing over the edge by a man with a
lever, or by a sorceress wielding the gift?"
Jennsen's voice took on a troubled tone. "I see what you mean. I guess
that I never looked at it that way."
"I'm only trying to help you because I know how easy it is to make a
mistake."
She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. "You know about magic.
What kind of mistake could you make?"
"All kinds."
"Like what?"
Kahlan stared off into the memories. "I once delayed for half a second
in killing someone."
"But I thought you said that it was wrong to be too rash."
"Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can do is to delay. She Was a
sorceress. By the time I acted it was already too late. Because of my
mistake she captured Richard and took him away. For a year, I didn't know
what had happened to him. I thought I would never see him again, that I
would die of heartache."
Jennsen stared in astonishment. "When did you find him again?"
"Not long ago. That's why we're down here in the Old World--she brought
him here. At least I found him. I've made other mistakes, and they, too,
have resulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like he said, we all
make mistakes. If I can, I want to spare you from making a needless mistake,
at least."
Jennsen looked away. "Like believing in that man I was with
yesterday--Sebastian. Because of him, my mother was murdered and I almost
got you killed. I feel like such a fool."
"You didn't make that mistake out of carelessness, Jennsen. They
deceived you, used you. More importantly, in the end you used your head and
were willing to face the truth."
Jennsen nodded.
"What should we name the twins?" she finally asked.
Kahlan didn't think that naming the twins was a good idea, not yet
anyway, but she was reluctant to say it.
"I don't know. What names were you thinking?"
Jennsen let out a heavy breath. "It was a shock to suddenly have Betty
back with me, and even more of a surprise to see that she had babies of her
own. I never considered that before. I haven't even had time to think about
names."
"You will."
Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew, as if at the thought of
something more.
"You know," she said, "I think I understand what Richard meant about
thinking of his grandfather as wizardly, even though he never saw him do
magic."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I can't see magic, so to speak, and Richard didn't do any
tonight--at least none I know of." She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh
as Kahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It had a quality to it much
like Richard's, the feminine balance to Richard's masculine laugh, two
facets of the same delight.
"And yet," Jennsen went on, "the things he said made me think of him in
that way--wizardly--like he said about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knew
just what he meant, just how he'd felt, because Richard has opened up the
world for me, but the gift wasn't the magic he showed me. It was him showing
me life, that my life is mine, and worth living."
Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much that described her own
feeling of what Richard had done for her, how he had brought her to cherish
life and believe in it not just for others, but, most importantly, for
herself.
For a time they sat together, silently watching the empty wasteland.
Kahlan kept an eye on Richard as he tossed in his sleep.
With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watched Richard. "It looks like
there's something wrong with him," she whispered as she leaned close.
"He's having a nightmare."
Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before, as Richard made fists
in his sleep, as he struggled silently against some private terror.
"It's scary to see him like that," Jennsen said. "He seems so
different. When he's awake he always seems so ... reasoned."
"You can't reason with a nightmare," Kahlan said in quiet sorrow.
Richard woke with a start."
They were back.
He had been having a bad dream. Like all of his dreams, he didn't
remember it. He only knew it was a bad dream because it left behind the
shapeless feeling of breathless, heart-pounding, undefined, frantic terror.
He threw off the lingering pall of the nightmare as he would throw off a
tangled blanket. Even though it felt as if the dark things in lingering
remnants of the dream were still clawing at him, trying to drag him back
into their world, he knew that dreams were immaterial, and so he dismissed
it. Now that he was awake, the feeling of dread rapidly began to dissolve,
like fog burning off under hot sunlight.
Still, he had to make an effort to slow his breathing.
What was important was that they were back. He didn't always know when
they returned, but this time, for some reason, he was sure of it.
Sometime in the night, too, the wind had come up. It buffeted him,
pulling at his clothes, tearing at his hair. Out on the sweltering waste,
the scorching gusts offered no relief from the heat. Rather than being
refreshing, the wind was so hot that it felt as though the door to a blast
furnace had opened and the heat were broiling his flesh.
Groping for his waterskin, he didn't find it immediately at hand. He
tried to recall exactly where he'd laid it, but, with other thoughts
screaming for his attention, he couldn't remember. He would have to worry
about a drink later.
Kahlan lay close, turned toward him. She had gathered her long hair in
a loose fist beneath her chin. The wind whipped stray strands across her
cheek. Richard loved just to sit and look at her face; this time, though, he
delayed but a moment, looking at her only long enough in the faint starlight
to note her even breathing. She was sound asleep.
As he scanned their camp, he could just make out a weak blush in the
eastern sky. Dawn was still some time off.
He realized that he'd slept through his watch. Cara and Kahlan had no
doubt decided that he needed the sleep more than he was needed for standing
a watch and had conspired to not wake him. They were probably right. He had
been so exhausted that he'd slept right through the night. Now, though, he
was wide awake.
His headache, too, was gone.
Silently, carefully, Richard slipped away from Kahlan so as not to wake
her. He instinctively reached for his sword lying at his other side. The
metal was warm beneath his touch as his fingers curled around the familiar
silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard. It was always reassuring to find the sword
at the ready, but even more so at that moment. As he silently rolled to his
feet, he slipped the baldric over his head, placing the familiar supple
leather across his right shoulder. As he rose up, his sword was already at
his hip, ready to do his bidding.
Despite how reassuring it was to have the weapon at his side, after the
carnage back at the place called the Pillars of Creation the thought of
drawing it sickened him. He recoiled from the mental image of the things he
had done. Had he not, though, Kahlan wouldn't be sleeping peacefully; she
would be dead, or worse.
Other good had come of it, too. Jennsen had been pulled back from the
brink. He saw her curled up beside her beloved goat, her arm corralling
Betty's two sleeping kids. He smiled at seeing her, at what a wonder it was
to have a sister, smiled at how smart she was and all the wonders of life
she had ahead of her. It made him happy that she was eager to be around him,
but being around him made him worry for her safety, too. There really wasn't
any place safe, though, unless the forces of the Order that had been
unleashed could be defeated, or at least bottled back up.
A heavy gust tore through their camp, raising even thicker clouds of
dirt. Richard blinked, trying to keep the blowing sand out of his eyes. The
sound of the wind in his ears was aggravating because it masked other
sounds. Though he listened carefully, he could hear only the wind.
Squinting against the blowing grit, he saw that Tom was sitting atop
his wagon, looking this way and that, keeping watch. Friedrich was asleep on
the other side of the horses, Cara not far away on the desert side of
Kahlan, putting herself between them and anything that might be out beyond.
In the dim starlight Tom hadn't spotted Richard. When Tom scanned the night
in the opposite direction, Richard moved away from camp, leaving Tom to
watch over the others.
Richard was comfortable in the cloak of darkness. Years of practice had
taught him to slip unseen through shadows, to move silently in the darkness.
He did that now, moving away from camp as he focused on what had awakened
him, on what others standing watch would not sense.
Unlike Tom, the races did not miss Richard's movements. They wheeled
high overhead as they watched him, following him as he made his way out
along the broken ground. They were almost invisible against the dark sky,
but Richard could make them out as they blacked out stars, like telltale
shadows against the sparkling black curtain of night--shadows that he
thought he could feel as well as he could see.
That the crushing headache was gone was a great relief, but that it had
vanished in the manner that it had was also a cause for concern. The torment
often vanished when he was distracted by something important. Something
dangerous. At the same time, even though the pain was gone, it felt as if it
were simply hiding in the shadows of his mind, waiting for him to relax so
that it could pounce.
When the headaches surged through him, the nauseating pain was so
intense that it made him feel sick in every fiber of his being. Even though
the crushing pain at times made it difficult for him to stand, to put one
foot in front of the other, he had known that to remain behind, where they
were, would have meant certain death. While the headaches were bad in and of
themselves, Richard wasn't so much concerned about the pain as he was about
the nature of the headaches--their cause.
They weren't the same as the headaches he'd had before that he so
feared--the headaches brought on by the gift--but they weren't like those he
considered to be normal headaches, either. Throughout his life he'd
occasionally had terrible headaches, the same as his mother used to have on
a more regular basis. She'd called them "my grim headaches." Richard
thoroughly understood her meaning.
These, however grim, were not like those. He worried that they might be
caused by the gift.
He'd had the headaches brought on by the gift before. He had been told
that as he grew older, as his ability grew, as he came to understand more,
he would, at times later in his life, be confronted with headaches brought
on by the gift. The remedy was supposedly simple. He had only to seek the
help of another wizard and have him assist with the necessary next level of
awareness and comprehension of the nature of the gift within himself. That
mental awareness and understanding would enable him to control and thereby
eliminate the pain--to douse the flare-up. At least, that's what he had been
told.
Of course, in the absence of another wizard to help, the Sisters of the
Light would gladly put a collar around his neck to help control the runaway
power of the gift.
He had been told that such headaches, if not properly tended to, were
lethal. This much of it, at least, he knew was true. He couldn't afford to
have that problem now, on top of all his others. Right now there was nothing
he could do about it; there was no one anywhere near who could help him with
that kind of headache--no wizard, and even though he would never allow it,
no Sister of the Light to put him in a collar again.
Richard once more reminded himself that it wasn't the same kind of pain
as the last time, when it had been brought on by the gift. He reminded
himself not to invent trouble he didn't have.
He had enough real trouble.
He heard the whoosh as one of the huge birds shot past low overhead.
The race twisted in flight, lifting on a gust of wind, to peer back at him.
Another followed in its wake, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.
They slipped silently away, out across the open ground, following one
another roughly in a line. Their wings rocked as they worked to stabilize
themselves in the gusty air. Some distance away, they soared into a gliding,
climbing turn back toward him.
Before they returned, the races tightened their flight into a circle.
When they stroked their huge wings, Richard could usually hear their
feathers whisper through the air, although now, with the sound of the wind,
he couldn't. Their black eyes watched him watching them. He wanted them to
know he was aware of them, that he hadn't slept through their nocturnal
return.
Were he not so concerned about the meaning of the races, he might think
they were beautiful, their sleek black shapes silhouetted majestically
against the crimson flush coming to the sky.
As he watched, though, Richard couldn't imagine what they were doing.
He'd seen this behavior from them before and hadn't understood it then,
either. He realized, suddenly, that those other times when they'd returned
to circle in this curious fashion, he had also been aware of them. He wasn't
always aware of them or aware of when they returned. If he had a headache,
though, it had vanished when they returned.
The hot wind ruffled Richard's hair as he gazed out across wasteland
obscured by the dusty predawn gloom. He didn't like this dead place. Dawn
here would offer no promise of a world coming to life. He wished Kahlan and
he were back in his woods. He couldn't help smiling as he recalled the place
in the mountains where the year before they had spent the summer. The place
was so wondrous that it had even managed to mellow Cara.
In the faint but gathering light, the black-tipped races circled, as
they always did when they performed this curious maneuver, not over him, but
a short distance away, this time out over the open desert where the
buffeting wind unfurled diaphanous curtains of sandy grit. The other times
it had been over forested hills, or open grassland. This time, as he watched
the races, he had to squint to keep the blowing sand from getting in his
eyes.
Abruptly tipping their broad wings, the races tightened their circle as
they descended closer to the desert floor. He knew that they would do this
for a short while before breaking up their formation to resume their normal
flight. They sometimes flew in pairs and performed spectacular aerial
stunts, each gracefully matching the other's every move, as ravens sometimes
did, but otherwise they never flew in anything like the compact group of
their sporadic circling.
And then, as the inky shapes wheeled around in a tight vortex, Richard
realized that the trailers of blowing sand below them weren't simply snaking
and curling aimlessly in the wind, but were flowing over something that
wasn't there.
The hair along his arms stood stiffly up.
Richard blinked, squinting into the wind, trying to see better in the
howling storm of blowing sand. Yet more dust and dirt lifted in the blast of
a heavy gust. As the twisting eddies raced across the flat ground and passed
beneath the races, they swirled around and over something below, making the
shape more distinct.
It appeared to be the form of a person.
The dirt swirled around the empty void, silhouetting it, defining it,
revealing what was there, but not. Whenever the wind lifted and carried with
it a heavy load, the outline of the shape, bounded by the swirling sand,
looked like the outline of a man shrouded in hooded robes.
Richard's right hand found the hilt of his sword.
There was nothing to the shape save the sand that flowed over the
contours of what wasn't there, the way muddy water streaming around a clear
glass bottle revealed its covert contour. The form seemed to be standing
still, watching him.
There were, of course, no eyes in the empty sockets of blowing sand,
but Richard could feel them on him.
"What is it?" Jennsen asked in a worried whisper as she rushed up
beside him. "What's the matter? Do you see something?"
With his left hand, Richard pushed her back, out of his way. So urgent
was his headlong rush of need that it took concentrated effort to be gentle
about it. He was gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly that he could
feel the raised letters of the word TRUTH woven in gold wire through the
silver.
Richard was invoking from within the sword its purpose for being, the
very core of its creation. In answer, the might of the sword's power
ignited.
Beyond the veil of rage, though, in the shadows of his mind, even as
the anger of the sword thundered through him, Richard dimly perceived an
unexpected opposition on the part of the flux of magic to rise to the
summons.
It was like heading out a door and leaning his weight into the howl of
a gale, and stumbling forward a step at unexpectedly finding less resistance
than anticipated.
Before Richard could question the sensation, the wave of wrath flooded
through him, saturating him in the cold fury of the storm that was the
sword's power.
As the races wheeled, their circle began coming closer. This, too, they
had done before, but this time the shape that moved with them was betrayed
by the swirl of sand and grit. It appeared that the intangible hooded man
was being pulled closer by the black-tipped races.
The distinctive ring of steel announced the arrival of the Sword of
Truth in the hot dawn air.
Jennsen squeaked at his sudden movement and jumped back.
The races answered with piercing, mocking cries that carried on the
howling wind.
The unmistakable sound of Richard's sword being drawn brought Kahlan
and Cara at a dead run. Cara would have leapt protectively ahead, but she
knew better than to get in front of him when he had the sword out. Agiel
clenched in her fist, she skidded to a halt off to the side, crouched and at
the ready, a powerful cat ready to spring.
"What is it?" Kahlan asked as she ran up behind him, gaping out at the
pattern in the wind.
"It's the races," came Jennsen's worried voice. "They've come back."
Kahlan stared incredulously at her. "The races don't look like the
worst of it."
Sword in hand, Richard watched the thing below the wheeling races.
Feeling the sword in his grip, its power sizzling through the very marrow of
his bones, he felt a flash of hesitation, of doubt. With no time to waste,
he turned back to Tom, just starting away from securing the lead lines to
his big draft horses. Richard mimed shooting an arrow. Grasping Richard's
meaning, Tom skidded to a halt and spun back to the wagon. Friedrich
urgently seized the tethers to the other horses, working to keep them calm,
keeping them from spooking. Leaning in the wagon, Tom threw gear aside as he
searched for Richard's bow and quiver.
Jennsen peered from one grim face to another. "What do you mean the
races aren't the worst of it?"
Cara pointed with her Agiel. "That... that figure. That man."