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Frowning in confusion, Jennsen looked back and forth between Cara and
the blowing sand.
"What do you see?" Richard asked.
Jennsen threw her hands up in a gesture of frustration. "Black-tipped
races. Five of them. That, and the blinding blowing sand is all. Is there
someone out there? Do you see people coming?"
She didn't see it.
Tom pulled the bow and quiver from the wagon and ran for the rest of
them. Two of the races, as if noting Tom running in with the bow, lifted a
wing and circled wider. They swept around him once before disappearing into
the darkness. The other three, though, continued to circle, as if bearing
the floating form in the blowing sand beneath them.
Closer still the races came, and the form with them. Richard couldn't
imagine what it was, but the sense of dread it engendered rivaled any
nightmare. The power from the sword surging through him had no such fear or
doubt. Then why did he? Storms of magic within, beyond anything storming
across the wasteland, spiraled up through him, fighting for release. With
grim effort, Richard contained the need, focused it on the task of doing his
bidding should he choose to release it. He was the master of the sword and
had at all times to consciously exert that mastery. By the sword's reaction
to what the currents of sand revealed, there could be no doubt as to
Richard's conviction of the nature of what stood before him. Then what was
it he sensed from the sword?
From back by the wagon, a horse screamed. A quick glance over his
shoulder revealed Friedrich trying to calm them. All three horses reared
against the rope he held fast. They came down stamping their hooves and
snorting. From the corner of his eye, Richard saw twin streaks of black
shoot in out of the darkness, skimming in just above the ground. Betty let
out a terrible wail.
And then, as quickly as they'd appeared, they were gone, vanished back
into the thick gloom.
"No!" Jennsen cried out as she ran for the animals.
Before them, the unmoving shape watched. Tom reached out, trying to
stop Jennsen on the way past. She tore away from him. For a moment, Richard
worried that Tom might go after her, but then he was again running for
Richard.
Out of the dark swirling murk, the two races suddenly appeared, so
close Richard could see the quills running down through their flight
feathers spread wide in the wind. Swooping in out of the swirling storm of
dust to rejoin the circle, each carried a small, limp, white form in its
powerful talons.
Tom ran up holding the bow out in one hand and the quiver in the other.
Making his choice, Richard slammed his sword into its scabbard and snatched
up the bow.
With one smooth motion he bent the bow and attached the string. He
yanked an arrow from the leather quiver Tom held out in his big fist.
As Richard turned to the target, he already had the arrow nocked and
was drawing back the string. Distantly, it felt good to feel his muscles
straining against the weight, straining against the spring of the bow,
loading its force for release. It felt good to rely on his strength, his
skill, his endless hours of practice, and not have to depend on magic.
The still form of the man who wasn't there seemed to watch. Eddies of
sand sluiced over the shape, marking the outline. Richard glared at the head
of the form beyond the razor-sharp steel tip of the arrow. Like all blades,
it fell comfortingly familiar to Richard. With a blade in his hands, he was
in his element and it mattered not if it was stone dust his blade drew, or
blood. The steel-tipped arrow was squarely centered on the empty spot in the
curve of blowing sand that formed the head.
The piercing cry of races carried above the howl of the wind.
String to his cheek, Richard savored the tension in his muscles, the
weight of the bow, the feathers touching his flesh, the distance between
blade and objective filled with swirling sand, the pull of the wind against
his arm, the bow, and the arrow. Each of those factors and a hundred more
went into an inner calculation that after a lifetime of practice required no
conscious computation yet decided where the point of the arrow belonged once
he called the target.
The form before him stood watching.
Richard abruptly raised the bow and called the target.
The world became not only still but silent for him as the distance
seemed to contract. His body was drawn as taut as the bow, the arrow
becoming a projection of his fluid focused intent, the mark before the arrow
his purpose for being. His conscious intent invoked the instant sum of the
calculation needed to connect arrow and target.
The swirling sand seemed to slow as the races, wings spread wide,
dragged through the thick air. There was no doubt in Richard's mind what the
arrow would find at the end of a journey only just begun. He felt the string
hit his wrist. He saw the feathers clear the bow above his fist. The arrow's
shaft flexed slightly as it sprang away and took flight.
Richard was already drawing the second arrow from the quiver in Tom's
fist as the first found its target. Black feathers exploded in the crimson
dawn. The bird tumbled gracelessly through the air and with a hard thud hit
the ground not far from the shape floating just above the ground. The bloody
white form was free of the talons, but it was too late.
The four remaining races screamed in fury. As the birds pumped their
wings, clawing for height, one railed at Richard with a shrill scream.
Richard called the target.
The second arrow was off.
The arrow ripped right into the race's open throat and out the back of
the head, cutting off the angry cry. The flightless weight plummeted to the
ground.
The form below the remaining three races began to dissolve in the
swirling sand.
The three remaining birds, as if abandoning their charge, wheeled
around, racing toward Richard with angry intent. He calmly considered them
from behind feathers of his own. The third arrow was away. The race in the
center lifted its right wing, trying to change direction, but took the arrow
through its heart. Rolling wing over wing, it spiraled down through the
blowing sand, crashing to the hardpan out ahead of Richard.
The remaining two birds, screeching defiant cries, plunged toward him.
Richard pulled string to cheek, placing the fourth arrow on target. The
range was swiftly closing. The arrow was away in an instant. It tore through
the body of the black-tipped race still clutching in its talons the bloody
corpse of the tiny kid.
Wings raked back, the last angry race dove toward Richard. As soon as
Richard snatched an arrow from the quiver an impatient Tom held out, the big
D'Haran heaved his knife. Before Richard could nock the arrow, the whirling
knife ripped into the raptor. Richard stepped aside as the huge bird shot
past in a lifeless drop and slammed into the ground right behind him. As it
tumbled, blood sprayed across the windswept rock and black-tipped feathers
flew everywhere.
The dawn, only moments ago filled with the the bloodcurdling screams of
the black-tipped races, was suddenly quiet but for the low moan of the wind.
Black feathers lifted in that wind, floating out across the open expanse
beneath a yellow-orange sky.
At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, throwing long shadows out
over the wasteland.
Jennsen clutched one of the limp white twins to her breast. Betty,
bleating plaintively, blood running from a gash on her side, stood on her
hind legs trying to arouse her still kid in Jennsen's arms. Jennsen bent to
the other twin sprawled on the ground and laid her lifeless charge beside
it. Betty urgently licked at the bloody carcasses. Jennsen hugged Betty's
neck a moment before trying to pull the goat away. Betty dug in her hooves,
not wanting to leave her stricken kids. Jennsen could do no more than to
offer her friend consoling words choked with tears.
When she stood, unable to turn Betty from her dead offspring, Richard
sheltered Jennsen under his arm.
"Why would the races suddenly do that?"
"I don't know," Richard said. "You didn't see anything other than the
races, then?"
Jennsen leaned against Richard, holding her face in her hands, giving
in briefly to the tears. "I just saw the birds," she said as she used the
back of her sleeve to wipe her cheeks.
"What about the shape defined by the blowing sand?" Kahlan asked as she
placed a comforting hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"Shape?" She looked from Kahlan to Richard. "What shape?"
"It looked like a man's shape." Kahlan drew the curves of an outline in
the air before her with both hands. "Like the outline of a man wearing a
hooded cape."
"I didn't see anything but black-tipped races and the clouds of blowing
sand."
"And you didn't see the sand blowing around anything?" Richard asked.
"You didn't see any shape defined by the sand?"
Jennsen shook her head insistently before returning to Betty's side.
"If the shape involved magic," Kahlan said in a confidential tone to
Richard, "she wouldn't see that, but why wouldn't she see the sand?"
"To her, the magic wasn't there."
"But the sand was."
"The color is there on a painting but a blind person can't see it, nor
can they see the shapes that the brush strokes, laden with color, help
define." He shook his head in wonder as he watched Jennsen. "We don't really
know to what degree someone is affected by other things when they can't
perceive the magic that interacts with those other things. For all we know,
it could be that her mind simply fails to recognize the pattern caused by
magic and just reads it as blowing sand. It could even be that because there
is a pattern to the magic, only we can see those particles of sand directly
involved with defining the pattern, while she sees them all and therefore
the subordinate pattern is lost to her eyes.
"It could even be that it's something like the boundaries were; two
worlds existing in the same place at the same time. Jennsen and we could be
looking at the same thing, and see it through different eyes-- through
different worlds." Kahlan nodded as Richard bent to one knee beside Jennsen
to inspect
the gash through the goat's wiry brown hair.
"We'd better stitch this," he told Jennsen. "It's not life-threatening,
but it needs attention."
Jennsen snuffled back her tears as Richard stood. "It was magic,
then--the thing you saw?"
Richard stared off toward where the form had appeared in the blowing
sand. "Something evil."
Off behind them, Rusty tossed her head and whinnied in sympathy with
inconsolable Betty. When Tom laid a sorrowful hand on Jennsen's shoulder,
she seized it as if for strength and held it to her cheek.
Jennsen finally stood, shielding her eyes against the blowing dust as
she looked to the horizon. "At least we're rid of the filthy races."
"Not for long," Richard said.
His headache came slamming back with such force that it nearly took him
from his feet. He had learned a great deal about controlling pain, about how
to disregard it. He did that now.
There were bigger worries.
Around midafternoon, as they were walking across the scorching desert,
Kahlan noticed Richard carefully watching his shadow stretched out before
him.
"What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
He gestured at the shadow before him. "Races. Ten or twelve. They just
glided up behind us. They're hiding in the sun."
"Hiding in the sun?"
"They're flying high and in the spot where their shadow falls on us. If
we were to look up in the sky we wouldn't be able to see them because we'd
have to look right into the sun."
Kahlan turned and, with her hand shielding her eyes, tried to see for
herself, but it was too painful to try to look up anywhere near the
merciless sun. When she looked back, Richard, who hadn't turned to look with
her, again flicked his hand toward the shadows.
"If you look carefully at the ground around your shadow, you can just
make out the distortion in the light. It's them."
Kahlan might have thought that Richard was having a little fun with her
were it not about a matter as serious as the races. She searched the ground
around their shadows until she finally saw what he was talking about. At
such a distance, the races' shadows were little more than shifting
irregularities in the light.
Kahlan glanced back at the wagon. Tom was driving, with Friedrich
sitting up on the seat beside him. Richard and Kahlan were giving the horses
a rest from being ridden, so they were tethered to the wagon.
Jennsen sat on blankets in the back of the wagon, comforting Betty as
she bleated in misery. Kahlan didn't think the goat had been silent for more
than a minute or two all day. The gash wasn't bad; Betty's suffering was
from other pain. At least the poor goat had Jennsen for solace.
From what Kahlan had learned, Jennsen had had Betty for half her life.
Moving around as she and her mother had, running from Darken Rahl, hiding,
staying away from people so as not to reveal themselves and risk word
drifting back to Darken Rahl's ears, Jennsen had never had a chance to have
childhood friends. Her mother had gotten her the goat as a companion. In her
constant effort to keep Jennsen out of the hands of a monster, it was the
best she could offer.
Kahlan wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes. She took in the four
black feathers Richard had bundled together and strung on his upper right
arm. He had taken the feathers when he'd retrieved the arrows that were
still good. Richard had given the last feather to Tom for killing the fifth
race with his knife. Tom wore his single feather like Richard, on his arm.
Tom thought of it as a trophy, of sorts, awarded by the Lord Rahl.
Kahlan knew that Richard wore his four feathers for a different reason:
it was a warning for all to see.
Kahlan pulled her hair back over her shoulder. "Do you think that was a
man below the races? A man watching us?"
Richard shrugged. "You know more about magic than me. You tell me."
"I've never seen anything like it." She frowned over at him. "If it was
a man... or something like that, why do you think he finally decided to
reveal himself?"
"I don't think he did decide to reveal himself." Richard's intent gray
eyes turned toward her. "I think it was an accident."
"How could it be an accident?"
"If it's someone using the races to track us, and he can somehow see
us--"
"See us how?"
"I don't know. See us through the eyes of the races."
"You can't do that with magic."
Richard fixed her with a trenchant look. "Fine. Then what was it?"
Kahlan looked back at the shadows stretching out before them on the
buckskin-colored rock, back at the small bleary shapes moving around the
shadow of her head, like flies around a corpse. "I don't know. You were
saying? .. . About someone using the races to track us, to see us?"
"I think," Richard said, "that someone is watching us, through the
races or with their aid--or something like that--and they can't really see
everything. They can't see clearly."
"So?"
"So, since he can't see with clarity, I think maybe he didn't realize
that there was a sandstorm. He didn't anticipate what the blowing sand would
reveal. I don't think he intended to give himself away." Richard looked over
at her again. "I think he made a mistake. I think he showed himself
accidentally."
Kahlan let out a measured, exasperated breath. She had no argument for
such a preposterous notion. It was no wonder he hadn't told her the full
extent of his theory. She had been thinking, when he said the races were
tracking them, that probably a web had been cast and then some event had
triggered it--most likely Cara's innocent touch--and that spell had then
attached to them, causing the races to follow that marker of magic. Then, as
Jennsen had suggested, someone was simply watching where the races were in
order to get a pretty good idea of where Richard and Kahlan were. Kahlan had
thought of it in terms of the way Darken Rahl had once hooked a tracer cloud
to Richard in order to know where they were. Richard wasn't thinking in
terms of what had happened before; he was looking at it through the prism of
a Seeker.
There were still a number of things about Richard's notion that didn't
make sense to her, but she knew better than to discount what he thought
simply because she had never heard of such a thing before.
"Maybe it's not a 'he,' " she finally said. "Maybe it's a she. Maybe a
Sister of the Dark."
Richard gave her another look, but this one was more worry than
anything else. "Whoever it is--whatever it is--I don't think it can be
anything good."
Kahlan couldn't argue that much of it, but still, she couldn't
reconcile such a notion. "Well, let's say it's like you think it is--that we
spotted him spying on us, by accident. Why did the races then attack us?"
Dust rose from Richard's boot as he casually kicked a small stone. "I
don't know. Maybe he was just angry that he'd given himself away."
"He was angry, so he had the races kill Betty's kids? And attack you?"
Richard shrugged. "I'm just guessing because you asked; I'm not saying
I think it's so." The long feathers, bloodred at their base, turning to a
dark gray and then to inky black at the tip, ruffled in the gusts of wind.
As he thought it over, his tone turned more speculative. "It could even
be that whoever it was using the races to watch us had nothing at all to do
with the attack. Maybe the races decided to attack on their own."
"They simply took the reins from whoever it was that was taking them
for the ride?"
"Maybe. Maybe he can send them to us so he can have a peek at where we
are, where we're going, but can't control them much more than that."
In frustration, Kahlan let out a sigh. "Richard," she said, unable to
hold back her doubts, "I know a good deal about all sorts of magic and I've
never heard of anything like this being possible."
Richard leaned close, again taking her in with those arresting gray
eyes of his. "You know about all sorts of things magic from the Midlands.
Maybe down here they have something you never encountered before. After all,
had you ever heard of a dream walker before we encountered Jagang? Or even
thought such a thing was possible?"
Kahlan pulled her lower lip through her teeth as she studied his grim
expression for a long moment. Richard hadn't grown up around magic--it was
all new to him. In some ways, though, that was a strength, because he didn't
have preconceived notions about what was possible and what wasn't.
Sometimes, the things they'd encountered were unprecedented.
To Richard, just about all magic was unprecedented.
"So, what do you think we should do?" she finally asked in a
confidential tone.
"What we planned." He glanced over his shoulder to see Cara scouting a
goodly distance off to their left side. "It has to be connected to the rest
of it."
"Cara only meant to protect us."
"I know. And who knows, maybe it would have been worse if she hadn't
touched it. It could even be that by doing what she did, she actually bought
us time."
Kahlan swallowed at the feeling of dread churning in her. "Do you think
we still have enough time?"
"We'll think of something. We don't even know yet for sure what it
could mean."
"When the sand finally runs out of an hourglass, it usually means the
goose is cooked."
"We'll find an answer."
"Promise?"
Richard reached over and gently caressed the back of her neck.
"Promise."
Kahlan loved his smile, the way it sparkled in his eyes. Somewhere in
the back of her mind she knew that he always kept his promises. His eyes
held something else, though, and that distracted her from asking if he
believed the answer he promised would come in time, or even if it would be
an answer that could help them.
"You have a headache, don't you," she said.
"Yes." His smile had vanished. "It's different than before, but I'm
pretty sure it's caused by the same thing."
The gift. That's what he meant.
"What do you mean it's different? And if it's different, then what
makes you think the cause is the same?"
He thought about it a moment. "Remember when I was explaining to
Jennsen about how the gift needs to be balanced, how I have to balance the
fighting I do by not eating meat?" When she nodded he went on. "It got worse
right then."
"Headaches, even those kind, vary."
"No ..." he said, frowning as he tried to find the words. "No, it was
almost as if talking about--thinking about--the need not to eat meat in
order to balance the gift somehow brought it more to the fore and made the
headaches worse."
Kahlan didn't at all like that concept. "You mean like maybe the gift
within you that is the cause of the headaches is trying to impress upon you
the importance of balance in what you do with the gift."
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "I don't know. There's
more to it. I just can't seem to get it all worked out. Sometimes when I
try, when I go down that line of reasoning, about how I need to balance the
fighting I do, the pain starts to get so bad I can't dwell on it.
"And something else," he added. "There might be a problem with my
connection to the magic of the sword."
"What? How can that be?"
"I don't know."
Kahlan tried to keep the alarm out of her voice. "Are you sure?"
He shook his head in frustration. "No, I'm not sure. It just seemed
different when I felt the need of it and drew the sword this morning. It was
as if the sword's magic was reluctant to rise to the need."
Kahlan thought it over a moment. "Maybe that means that the headaches
are something different, this time. Maybe they aren't really caused by the
gift."
"Even if some of it is different, I still think its cause is the gift,"
he said. "One thing they do have in common with the last time is that
they're gradually getting worse."
"What do you want to do?"
He lifted his arms out to the sides and let them fall back. "For now,
we don't have much of a choice--we have to do what we planned."
"We could go to Zedd. If it is the gift, as you think, then Zedd would
know what to do. He could help you."
"Kahlan, do you honestly believe that we have any chance in Creation of
making it all the way to Aydindril in time? Even if it weren't for the rest
of it, if the headaches are from the gift, I'd be dead weeks before we could
travel all the way to Aydindril. And that's not even taking into account how
difficult it's bound to be getting past Jagang's army all throughout the
Midlands and especially the troops around Ay-dindril."
"Maybe he's not there now."
Richard kicked at another stone in the path. "You think Jagang is just
going to leave the Wizard's Keep and all it contains--leave it all for us to
use against him?"
Zedd was First Wizard. For someone of his ability, defending the
Wizard's Keep wouldn't be too difficult. He also had Adie there with him to
help. The old sorceress, alone, could probably defend a place such as the
Keep. Zedd knew what the Keep would mean to Jagang, could he gain it. Zedd
would protect the Keep no matter what.
"There's no way for Jagang to get past the barriers in that place,"
Kahlan said. That much of it was one worry they could set aside. "Jagang
knows that and might not waste time holding an army there for nothing."
"You may be right, but that still doesn't do us any good--it's too
far."
Too far. Kahlan seized Richard's arm and dragged him to a halt. "The
sliph. If we can find one of her wells, we could travel in the sliph. If
nothing else, we know there's the well down here in the Old World-- in
Tanimura. Even that's a lot closer than a journey overland all the way to
Aydindril."
Richard looked north. "That might work. We wouldn't have to make it
past Jagang's army. We could come right up inside the Keep." He put his arm
around her shoulders. "First, though, we have to see to this other
business."
Kahlan grinned. "All right. We take care of me first, then we see to
taking care of you."
She felt a heady sense of relief that there was a solution at hand. The
rest of them couldn't travel in the sliph--they didn't have the required
magic--but Richard, Kahlan, and Cara certainly could. They could come up
right in the Keep itself.
The Keep was immense, and thousands of years old. Kahlan had spent much
of her life there, but she had seen only a fraction of the place. Even Zedd
hadn't seen it all, because of some of the shields that had been placed
there ages ago by those with both sides of the gift, and Zedd had only the
Additive side. Rare and dangerous items of magic had been stored there for
eons, along with records and countless books. By now it was possible that
Zedd and Adie had found something in the Keep that would help drive the
Imperial Order back to the Old World.
Not only would going to the Keep be a way to solve Richard's problem
with the gift, but it might provide them with something they needed to swing
the tide of the war back to their side.
Suddenly, seeing Zedd, Aydindril, and the Keep seemed only a short time
away.
With a renewed sense of optimism, Kahlan squeezed Richard's hand. She
knew that he wanted to keep scouting ahead. "I'm going to go back and see
how Jennsen is doing."
As Richard moved on and Kahlan slowed, letting the wagon catch up with
her, another dozen black-tipped races drifted in on the air currents high
above the burning plain. They stayed close to the sun, and well out of range
of Richard's arrows, but they stayed within sight.
Tom handed a waterskin down to Kahlan when the bouncing wagon rattled
up beside her. She was so dry that she gulped the hot water without caring
how bad it tasted. As she let the wagon roll past, she put a boot in the
iron rung and boosted herself up and over the side.
Jennsen looked to be happy for the company as Kahlan climbed in. Kahlan
returned the smile before sitting beside Richard's sister and the puling
Betty.
"How is she?" Kahlan asked, gently stroking Betty's floppy ears.
Jennsen shook her head. "I've never seen her like this. It's breaking
my heart. It reminds me of how hard it was for me when I lost my mother.
It's breaking my heart."
As she sat back on her heels, Kahlan squeezed Jennsen's hand
sympathetically. "I know it's hard, but it's easier for an animal to get
over something like this than for people to do the same. Don't compare it to
you and your mother. Sad as this is, it's different. Betty can have more
kids and she'll forget all about this. You or I never could."
Before the words were out, Kahlan felt a sudden stab of pain for the
unborn child she had lost. How could she ever get over losing her and
Richard's child? Even if she ever had others, she would never be able to
forget what was lost at the hands of brutes.
She idly turned the small dark stone on the necklace she wore,
wondering if she ever would have a child, wondering if there would ever be a
world safe for a child of theirs.
"Are you all right?"
Kahlan realized that Jennsen was watching her face.
Kahlan forced herself to put on a smile. "I'm just sad for Betty."
Jennsen ran a tender hand over the top of Betty's head. "Me too."
"But I know that she'll be all right."
Kahlan watched the endless expanse of ground slowly slide by to either
side of the wagon. Waves of heat made the horizon liquid, with detached
pools of ground floating up into the sky. Still, they saw nothing growing.
The land was slowly rising, though, as they came ever closer to distant
mountains. She knew that it was only a matter of time until they reached
life again, but right then it felt like they never would.
"I don't understand about something," Jennsen said. "You told me how I
shouldn't do anything rash, when it came to magic, unless I was sure of what
would happen. You said it was dangerous. You said not to act in matters of
magic until you can be sure of the consequence."
Kahlan knew what Jennsen was driving at. "That's right."
"Well, that back there pretty much seemed like one of those stabs in
the dark you warned me about."
"I also told you that sometimes you had no choice but to act
immediately. That's what Richard did. I know him. He used his best
judgment."
Jennsen looked to be satisfied. "I'm not suggesting that he was wrong.
I'm just saying that I don't understand. It seemed pretty reckless to me.
How am I supposed to know what you mean when you tell me not to do anything
reckless if it involves magic?"
Kahlan smiled. "Welcome to life with Richard. Half the time I don't
know what's in his head. I've often thought he was acting recklessly and it
turned out to be the right thing, the only thing, he could have done. That's
part of the reason he was named Seeker. I'm sure he took into account things
he sensed that even I couldn't."
"But how does he know those things? How can he know what to do?"
"Oftentimes he's just as confused as you, or even me. But he's
different, too, and he's sure when we wouldn't be."
"Different?"
Kahlan looked over at the young woman, at her red hair shining in the
afternoon sunlight. "He was born with both sides of the gift. All those born
with the gift in the last three thousand years have been born with Additive
Magic only. Some, like Darken Rahl and the Sisters of the Dark, have been
able to use Subtractive Magic, but only through the Keeper's help--not on
their own. Richard alone has been born with Subtractive Magic."
"That's what you mentioned last night, but I don't know anything about
magic, so I don't know what that means."
"We're not exactly sure of everything it means ourselves. Additive
Magic uses what is there, and adds to it, or changes it somehow. The magic
of the Sword of Truth, for example, uses anger, and adds to it, takes power
from it, adds to it until it's something else. With Additive, for example,
the gifted can heal.
"Subtractive Magic is the undoing of things. It can take things and
make them nothing. According to Zedd, Subtractive Magic is the counter to
Additive, as night is to day. Yet it is all part of the same thing.
"Commanding Subtractive, as Darken Rahl did, is one thing, but to be
born with it is quite another.
"Long ago, unlike now, being born with the gift--both sides of the
gift--was common. The great war then resulted in a barrier sealing the New
World off from the Old. That's kept the peace all this time, but things have
changed since then. After that time, not only have those born with the gift
gradually become exceedingly rare, but those who have been born with the
gift haven't been born with the Subtractive side of it.
"Richard was born of two lines of wizards, Darken Rahl and his
grandfather Zedd. He's also the first in thousands of years to be born with
both sides of the gift.
"All of our abilities contribute to how we're able to react to
situations. We don't know how having both sides contributes to Richard's
ability to read a situation and do what's necessary. I suspect he may be
guided by his gift, perhaps more than he believes."
Jennsen let out a troubled sigh. "After all this time, how did this
barrier come to be down, anyway?"
"Richard destroyed it."
Jennsen looked up in astonishment. "Then it's true. Sebastian told me
that the Lord Rahl--Richard--had brought the barrier down. Sebastian said it
was so that Richard could invade and conquer the Old World."
Kahlan smiled at such a grandiose lie. "You don't believe that part of
it, do you?"
"No, not now."
"Now that the barrier is down, the Imperial Order is flooding up into
the New World, destroying or enslaving everything before them."
"Where can people live that's safe? Where can we?"
"Until they're stopped or driven back, there is no safe place to live."
Jennsen thought it over a moment. "If the barrier coming down let the
Imperial Order flood in to conquer the New World, why would Richard have
destroyed it?"
With one hand, Kahlan held on to the side of the wagon as it rocked
over a rough patch of ground. She stared ahead, watching Richard walking
through the glaring light of the wasteland.
"Because of me," Kahlan said in a quiet voice. "One of those mistakes I
told you about." She let out a tired sigh. "One of those stabs in the dark."
Richard squatted down, resting his forearms across his thighs as he
studied the curious patch of rock. His head was pounding with pain; he was
doing his best to ignore it. The headache had come and gone seemingly
without reason. At times he had begun to think that it just might be the
heat after all, and not the gift.
As he considered the signs on the ground, he forgot about his headache.
Something about the rock seemed familiar. Not simply familiar, but
unsettlingly familiar.
Hooves partially covered by long wisps of wiry brown hair came to an
expectant halt beside him. With the top of her head, Betty gently butted his
shoulder, hoping for a snack, or at least a scratch.
Richard looked up at the goat's intent, floppy-eared expression. As
Betty watched him watching her, her tail went into a blur of wagging.
Richard smiled and scratched behind her ears. Betty bleated her pleasure at
the scratch, but it sounded to him like she would have preferred a snack.
After not eating for two days as she lay in misery in the wagon, the
goat seemed to come back to life and begin to recover from the loss of her
two kids. Along with her appetite, Betty's curiosity had returned. She
especially enjoyed scouting with Richard, when he would let hercome along.
It made Jennsen laugh to watch the goat trotting after him like a puppy.
Maybe what really made her laugh was that Betty was getting back to her old
self.
In recent days the land had changed, too. They had begun to see the
return of life. At first, it had simply been the rusty discoloration of
lichen growing on the fragmented rock. Soon after, they spotted a small
thorny bush growing in a low place. Now the rugged plants grew at widely
spaced intervals, dotting the landscape. Betty appreciated the tough bushes,
dining on them as if they were the finest salad greens. On occasion the
horses sampled the brush, then turned away, never finding it to their
liking.
Lichen that had begun to grow on the rock appeared as crusty splotches
streaked with color. In some places it was dark, thick, and leathery, while
in other spots it was no more than what almost appeared to be a coat of thin
green paint. The greenish discoloration filled cracks and crevasses and
coated the underside of stones where the sun didn't bleach it out. Rocks
sticking partway out of the crumbly ground could be pulled up to reveal thin
tendrils of dark brown subterranean fungal growth.
Tiny insects with long feelers skittered from rock to rock or hid in
holes in the scattering of rocks lying about on the ground that looked as if
they had once been boiling and bubbling, and had suddenly turned to stone,
leaving the bubbles forever set in place. An occasional glossy green beetle,
bearing wide pincer jaws, waddled through the sand. Small red ants stacked
steep ruddy mounds of dirt around their holes. There were cottony webs of
spiders in the crotches of the isolated, small, spindly brush growing
sporadically across the ever rising plain. Slender light green lizards sat
on rocks basking in the sun, watching the people pass. If they came too
close, the little creatures, lightning quick, darted for cover.
The signs of life Richard had so far seen were still a long way from
being anything substantial enough to support people, but it was at least a
relief to once again feel like he was rejoining the world of the living. He
knew, too, that up beyond the first wall of mountains they would at last
encounter life in abundance. He also knew that there they would again begin
to encounter people.
Birds, as well, were just beginning to become a common sight. Most were
small--strawberry-colored finches, ash-colored gnatcatchers, rock wrens and
black-throated sparrows. In the distance Richard saw single birds winging
through the blue sky, while sparrows congregated in small skittish flocks.
Here and there, birds lit on the scraggly brush, flitting about looking for
seeds and bugs. The birds disappeared instantly whenever the races glided
into sight.
Staring at the expanse of rock and open ground before him, Richard rose
up, startled, as the reason it looked unsettlingly familiar came to him. At
the same time as the realization came to him, his headache vanished.
Off to his right, Richard saw Kahlan, with Cara at her side, making
their way out to where Richard stood staring down at the astonishing stretch
of rock. The wagon, with Tom, Friedrich, and Jennsen, rumbled on in the
distance to the south. The dust raised by the wagon and horses hung in the
dead air and could be seen for miles. Richard supposed that with the races
periodically paying them a visit, the telltale of the dust didn't much
matter. Still, he would be glad when they reached ground where they could at
least have a chance to try to remain a little more inconspicuous.
"Find anything interesting?" Kahlan asked as she wiped her sleeve
across her forehead.
Richard cast a few small pebbles down at the stretch of rock he'd been
studying. "Tell me what you think of that."
"I think you look like you feel better," Kahlan said.
Her eyes on his, she gave him her special smile, the smile she gave no
one but him. He couldn't help grinning.
Cara, ignoring the smiles that passed between Richard and Kahlan,
leaned in for a gander. "I think Lord Rahl has been looking at too many
rocks. This is more rock, just like all the rest."
"Is it?" Richard asked. He gestured at the area he'd been scrutinizing
and then pointed at another place by where Kahlan and Cara stood. "Is it the
same as that?"
Cara peered at both areas briefly before she folded her arms. "The rock
over there that you've been looking at is just a paler brown, that's all."
Kahlan shrugged. "I think she's right, Richard. It looks like the same
kind of rock, maybe just a little more of a tan color." She thought it over
a moment as she scanned the ground, then added to her assessment. "I guess
it looks more like the rock we've been walking across for days until we
started encountering a little bit of grass and brush."
Richard put his hands on his hips as he stared back at the remarkable
stretch of rock he'd found. "Tell me, then, what characterized the rock in
the place where we were before--a few days ago, back closer to the Pillars
of Creation?"
Kahlan looked over at an expressionless Cara and then frowned at
Richard. "Characterized it? Nothing. It was a dead place. Nothing grew
there."
Richard waved his hand around, indicating the land through which they
were now traveling. "And this?"
"Now things are growing," Cara said, becoming increasingly
disinterested in his study of flora and fauna.
Richard held a hand out. "And there?"
"Nothing is growing there, yet," Cara said in an exasperated sigh.
"There are a lot of spots around where nothing is growing yet. It's still a
wasteland. Just have patience, Lord Rahl, and we will soon enough be back
among the fields and forests."
Kahlan wasn't paying attention to what Cara was saying; she was
frowning as she leaned closer.
"The place where things begin to grow seems to start all at once,"
Kahlan said, almost to herself. "Isn't that curious."
"I certainly think so," Richard said.
"I think Lord Rahl needs to drink more water," Cara sniped.
Richard smiled. "Here. Stand over here," he told her. "Stand over by me
and look again."
Cara, her curiosity aroused, did as he asked. She looked down at the
ground, and then frowned at the places where things grew.
"The Mother Confessor is right." Cara's voice had taken on a decidedly
businesslike tone. "Do you think it's important? Or somehow a danger?"
"Yes--to the first, anyway," Richard said.
He squatted down beside Kahlan. "Now, look at this."
As Kahlan and Cara knelt down beside him, leaning forward, looking
closely at the rock, Richard had to push a curious Betty back out of the
way. He then pointed out a patch of yellow-streaked lichen.
"Look here," he said. "See this medallion of lichen? It's lopsided.
This side is round, but this side, near where nothing grows, is flatter."
Kahlan looked up at him. "Lichen grows on rocks in all kinds of
shapes."
"Yes, but look at how the rock over where there is lichen and brush
growing is spotted all over with little bits of growth. Here, beyond the
stunted side of the lichen, there is nearly nothing. The rock almost looks
scoured clean.
"If you look closely there are a few tiny things, things that have
started to grow only in the last couple of years, but they have yet to
really begin to take hold."
"Yes," Kahlan said in a cautious drawl, "it is odd, but I'm not sure
what you're getting at."
"Look at where things are growing, and where they aren't."
"Well, yes, on that side there's nothing growing, and over here there
is."
"Don't just look down." Richard lifted her chin. "Look out at the
boundary between the two--look at the whole pattern."
Kahlan frowned off into the distance. All of a sudden, the color
drained from her face.
"Dear spirits ..." she whispered.
Richard smiled that she finally saw what he was talking about.
"What are you two mooning over?" Cara complained.
Richard put his hand behind Cara's neck and pulled her head in to look
at what he and Kahlan were seeing.
"That's odd," she said, squinting off into the distance. "The place
where things are growing seem to stop in a comparatively clean line-- like
someone had made an invisible fence running east."
"Right," Richard said as he got up, brushing his hands clean.
"Now, come on." He started walking north. Kahlan and Cara scrambled to
their feet and followed behind as he marched across the lifeless rock. Betty
bleated and trotted after them.
"Where are we going?" Cara asked as she caught up with him
"Just come on," Richard told her.
For half an hour they followed his brisk pace as he headed in a
straight line to the north, across rocky ground and gravelly patches where
nothing at all grew. The day was sweltering, but Richard almost didn't
notice the heat, so focused was he on the lifeless expanse they were
crossing. He hadn't yet gone to see what lay at the other side, but he was
convinced of what they would find once they reached it.
The other two were sweating profusely as they chased behind him. Betty
bleated occasionally as she brought up the rear.
When they finally reached the place he was looking for, the place where
lichen and scraggly brush once again began to appear, he brought them to a
halt. Betty poked her head between Kahlan and Cara for a look.
"Now, look at this," Richard said. "See what I mean?"
Kahlan was breathing hard from the brisk walk in the heat. She pulled
her waterskin off her shoulder and gulped water. She passed the waterskin to
Richard. He watched Cara study the patch of ground as he drank.
"The growing things start again over here," Cara said. She absently
scratched behind Betty's ears when the goat rubbed the top of her head
impatiently against Cara's thigh. "They start to appear in the same kind of
line as the other side, back there, where we were."
"Right," Richard said, handing Cara the waterskin. "Now, follow me."
Cara threw up her arms. "We just came from that way!"
"Come on," Richard called back over his shoulder.
He headed south again, back toward the center of the lifeless patch of
rock, the small group in tow. Betty bleated her displeasure at the pace of
the hot dusty excursion. If Kahlan or Cara shared Betty's opinion, they
didn't voice the complaint.
When Richard judged they were back somewhere in the middle, he stood
with his feet spread, his fists on his hips, and looked east again. From
the blowing sand.
"What do you see?" Richard asked.
Jennsen threw her hands up in a gesture of frustration. "Black-tipped
races. Five of them. That, and the blinding blowing sand is all. Is there
someone out there? Do you see people coming?"
She didn't see it.
Tom pulled the bow and quiver from the wagon and ran for the rest of
them. Two of the races, as if noting Tom running in with the bow, lifted a
wing and circled wider. They swept around him once before disappearing into
the darkness. The other three, though, continued to circle, as if bearing
the floating form in the blowing sand beneath them.
Closer still the races came, and the form with them. Richard couldn't
imagine what it was, but the sense of dread it engendered rivaled any
nightmare. The power from the sword surging through him had no such fear or
doubt. Then why did he? Storms of magic within, beyond anything storming
across the wasteland, spiraled up through him, fighting for release. With
grim effort, Richard contained the need, focused it on the task of doing his
bidding should he choose to release it. He was the master of the sword and
had at all times to consciously exert that mastery. By the sword's reaction
to what the currents of sand revealed, there could be no doubt as to
Richard's conviction of the nature of what stood before him. Then what was
it he sensed from the sword?
From back by the wagon, a horse screamed. A quick glance over his
shoulder revealed Friedrich trying to calm them. All three horses reared
against the rope he held fast. They came down stamping their hooves and
snorting. From the corner of his eye, Richard saw twin streaks of black
shoot in out of the darkness, skimming in just above the ground. Betty let
out a terrible wail.
And then, as quickly as they'd appeared, they were gone, vanished back
into the thick gloom.
"No!" Jennsen cried out as she ran for the animals.
Before them, the unmoving shape watched. Tom reached out, trying to
stop Jennsen on the way past. She tore away from him. For a moment, Richard
worried that Tom might go after her, but then he was again running for
Richard.
Out of the dark swirling murk, the two races suddenly appeared, so
close Richard could see the quills running down through their flight
feathers spread wide in the wind. Swooping in out of the swirling storm of
dust to rejoin the circle, each carried a small, limp, white form in its
powerful talons.
Tom ran up holding the bow out in one hand and the quiver in the other.
Making his choice, Richard slammed his sword into its scabbard and snatched
up the bow.
With one smooth motion he bent the bow and attached the string. He
yanked an arrow from the leather quiver Tom held out in his big fist.
As Richard turned to the target, he already had the arrow nocked and
was drawing back the string. Distantly, it felt good to feel his muscles
straining against the weight, straining against the spring of the bow,
loading its force for release. It felt good to rely on his strength, his
skill, his endless hours of practice, and not have to depend on magic.
The still form of the man who wasn't there seemed to watch. Eddies of
sand sluiced over the shape, marking the outline. Richard glared at the head
of the form beyond the razor-sharp steel tip of the arrow. Like all blades,
it fell comfortingly familiar to Richard. With a blade in his hands, he was
in his element and it mattered not if it was stone dust his blade drew, or
blood. The steel-tipped arrow was squarely centered on the empty spot in the
curve of blowing sand that formed the head.
The piercing cry of races carried above the howl of the wind.
String to his cheek, Richard savored the tension in his muscles, the
weight of the bow, the feathers touching his flesh, the distance between
blade and objective filled with swirling sand, the pull of the wind against
his arm, the bow, and the arrow. Each of those factors and a hundred more
went into an inner calculation that after a lifetime of practice required no
conscious computation yet decided where the point of the arrow belonged once
he called the target.
The form before him stood watching.
Richard abruptly raised the bow and called the target.
The world became not only still but silent for him as the distance
seemed to contract. His body was drawn as taut as the bow, the arrow
becoming a projection of his fluid focused intent, the mark before the arrow
his purpose for being. His conscious intent invoked the instant sum of the
calculation needed to connect arrow and target.
The swirling sand seemed to slow as the races, wings spread wide,
dragged through the thick air. There was no doubt in Richard's mind what the
arrow would find at the end of a journey only just begun. He felt the string
hit his wrist. He saw the feathers clear the bow above his fist. The arrow's
shaft flexed slightly as it sprang away and took flight.
Richard was already drawing the second arrow from the quiver in Tom's
fist as the first found its target. Black feathers exploded in the crimson
dawn. The bird tumbled gracelessly through the air and with a hard thud hit
the ground not far from the shape floating just above the ground. The bloody
white form was free of the talons, but it was too late.
The four remaining races screamed in fury. As the birds pumped their
wings, clawing for height, one railed at Richard with a shrill scream.
Richard called the target.
The second arrow was off.
The arrow ripped right into the race's open throat and out the back of
the head, cutting off the angry cry. The flightless weight plummeted to the
ground.
The form below the remaining three races began to dissolve in the
swirling sand.
The three remaining birds, as if abandoning their charge, wheeled
around, racing toward Richard with angry intent. He calmly considered them
from behind feathers of his own. The third arrow was away. The race in the
center lifted its right wing, trying to change direction, but took the arrow
through its heart. Rolling wing over wing, it spiraled down through the
blowing sand, crashing to the hardpan out ahead of Richard.
The remaining two birds, screeching defiant cries, plunged toward him.
Richard pulled string to cheek, placing the fourth arrow on target. The
range was swiftly closing. The arrow was away in an instant. It tore through
the body of the black-tipped race still clutching in its talons the bloody
corpse of the tiny kid.
Wings raked back, the last angry race dove toward Richard. As soon as
Richard snatched an arrow from the quiver an impatient Tom held out, the big
D'Haran heaved his knife. Before Richard could nock the arrow, the whirling
knife ripped into the raptor. Richard stepped aside as the huge bird shot
past in a lifeless drop and slammed into the ground right behind him. As it
tumbled, blood sprayed across the windswept rock and black-tipped feathers
flew everywhere.
The dawn, only moments ago filled with the the bloodcurdling screams of
the black-tipped races, was suddenly quiet but for the low moan of the wind.
Black feathers lifted in that wind, floating out across the open expanse
beneath a yellow-orange sky.
At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, throwing long shadows out
over the wasteland.
Jennsen clutched one of the limp white twins to her breast. Betty,
bleating plaintively, blood running from a gash on her side, stood on her
hind legs trying to arouse her still kid in Jennsen's arms. Jennsen bent to
the other twin sprawled on the ground and laid her lifeless charge beside
it. Betty urgently licked at the bloody carcasses. Jennsen hugged Betty's
neck a moment before trying to pull the goat away. Betty dug in her hooves,
not wanting to leave her stricken kids. Jennsen could do no more than to
offer her friend consoling words choked with tears.
When she stood, unable to turn Betty from her dead offspring, Richard
sheltered Jennsen under his arm.
"Why would the races suddenly do that?"
"I don't know," Richard said. "You didn't see anything other than the
races, then?"
Jennsen leaned against Richard, holding her face in her hands, giving
in briefly to the tears. "I just saw the birds," she said as she used the
back of her sleeve to wipe her cheeks.
"What about the shape defined by the blowing sand?" Kahlan asked as she
placed a comforting hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"Shape?" She looked from Kahlan to Richard. "What shape?"
"It looked like a man's shape." Kahlan drew the curves of an outline in
the air before her with both hands. "Like the outline of a man wearing a
hooded cape."
"I didn't see anything but black-tipped races and the clouds of blowing
sand."
"And you didn't see the sand blowing around anything?" Richard asked.
"You didn't see any shape defined by the sand?"
Jennsen shook her head insistently before returning to Betty's side.
"If the shape involved magic," Kahlan said in a confidential tone to
Richard, "she wouldn't see that, but why wouldn't she see the sand?"
"To her, the magic wasn't there."
"But the sand was."
"The color is there on a painting but a blind person can't see it, nor
can they see the shapes that the brush strokes, laden with color, help
define." He shook his head in wonder as he watched Jennsen. "We don't really
know to what degree someone is affected by other things when they can't
perceive the magic that interacts with those other things. For all we know,
it could be that her mind simply fails to recognize the pattern caused by
magic and just reads it as blowing sand. It could even be that because there
is a pattern to the magic, only we can see those particles of sand directly
involved with defining the pattern, while she sees them all and therefore
the subordinate pattern is lost to her eyes.
"It could even be that it's something like the boundaries were; two
worlds existing in the same place at the same time. Jennsen and we could be
looking at the same thing, and see it through different eyes-- through
different worlds." Kahlan nodded as Richard bent to one knee beside Jennsen
to inspect
the gash through the goat's wiry brown hair.
"We'd better stitch this," he told Jennsen. "It's not life-threatening,
but it needs attention."
Jennsen snuffled back her tears as Richard stood. "It was magic,
then--the thing you saw?"
Richard stared off toward where the form had appeared in the blowing
sand. "Something evil."
Off behind them, Rusty tossed her head and whinnied in sympathy with
inconsolable Betty. When Tom laid a sorrowful hand on Jennsen's shoulder,
she seized it as if for strength and held it to her cheek.
Jennsen finally stood, shielding her eyes against the blowing dust as
she looked to the horizon. "At least we're rid of the filthy races."
"Not for long," Richard said.
His headache came slamming back with such force that it nearly took him
from his feet. He had learned a great deal about controlling pain, about how
to disregard it. He did that now.
There were bigger worries.
Around midafternoon, as they were walking across the scorching desert,
Kahlan noticed Richard carefully watching his shadow stretched out before
him.
"What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
He gestured at the shadow before him. "Races. Ten or twelve. They just
glided up behind us. They're hiding in the sun."
"Hiding in the sun?"
"They're flying high and in the spot where their shadow falls on us. If
we were to look up in the sky we wouldn't be able to see them because we'd
have to look right into the sun."
Kahlan turned and, with her hand shielding her eyes, tried to see for
herself, but it was too painful to try to look up anywhere near the
merciless sun. When she looked back, Richard, who hadn't turned to look with
her, again flicked his hand toward the shadows.
"If you look carefully at the ground around your shadow, you can just
make out the distortion in the light. It's them."
Kahlan might have thought that Richard was having a little fun with her
were it not about a matter as serious as the races. She searched the ground
around their shadows until she finally saw what he was talking about. At
such a distance, the races' shadows were little more than shifting
irregularities in the light.
Kahlan glanced back at the wagon. Tom was driving, with Friedrich
sitting up on the seat beside him. Richard and Kahlan were giving the horses
a rest from being ridden, so they were tethered to the wagon.
Jennsen sat on blankets in the back of the wagon, comforting Betty as
she bleated in misery. Kahlan didn't think the goat had been silent for more
than a minute or two all day. The gash wasn't bad; Betty's suffering was
from other pain. At least the poor goat had Jennsen for solace.
From what Kahlan had learned, Jennsen had had Betty for half her life.
Moving around as she and her mother had, running from Darken Rahl, hiding,
staying away from people so as not to reveal themselves and risk word
drifting back to Darken Rahl's ears, Jennsen had never had a chance to have
childhood friends. Her mother had gotten her the goat as a companion. In her
constant effort to keep Jennsen out of the hands of a monster, it was the
best she could offer.
Kahlan wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes. She took in the four
black feathers Richard had bundled together and strung on his upper right
arm. He had taken the feathers when he'd retrieved the arrows that were
still good. Richard had given the last feather to Tom for killing the fifth
race with his knife. Tom wore his single feather like Richard, on his arm.
Tom thought of it as a trophy, of sorts, awarded by the Lord Rahl.
Kahlan knew that Richard wore his four feathers for a different reason:
it was a warning for all to see.
Kahlan pulled her hair back over her shoulder. "Do you think that was a
man below the races? A man watching us?"
Richard shrugged. "You know more about magic than me. You tell me."
"I've never seen anything like it." She frowned over at him. "If it was
a man... or something like that, why do you think he finally decided to
reveal himself?"
"I don't think he did decide to reveal himself." Richard's intent gray
eyes turned toward her. "I think it was an accident."
"How could it be an accident?"
"If it's someone using the races to track us, and he can somehow see
us--"
"See us how?"
"I don't know. See us through the eyes of the races."
"You can't do that with magic."
Richard fixed her with a trenchant look. "Fine. Then what was it?"
Kahlan looked back at the shadows stretching out before them on the
buckskin-colored rock, back at the small bleary shapes moving around the
shadow of her head, like flies around a corpse. "I don't know. You were
saying? .. . About someone using the races to track us, to see us?"
"I think," Richard said, "that someone is watching us, through the
races or with their aid--or something like that--and they can't really see
everything. They can't see clearly."
"So?"
"So, since he can't see with clarity, I think maybe he didn't realize
that there was a sandstorm. He didn't anticipate what the blowing sand would
reveal. I don't think he intended to give himself away." Richard looked over
at her again. "I think he made a mistake. I think he showed himself
accidentally."
Kahlan let out a measured, exasperated breath. She had no argument for
such a preposterous notion. It was no wonder he hadn't told her the full
extent of his theory. She had been thinking, when he said the races were
tracking them, that probably a web had been cast and then some event had
triggered it--most likely Cara's innocent touch--and that spell had then
attached to them, causing the races to follow that marker of magic. Then, as
Jennsen had suggested, someone was simply watching where the races were in
order to get a pretty good idea of where Richard and Kahlan were. Kahlan had
thought of it in terms of the way Darken Rahl had once hooked a tracer cloud
to Richard in order to know where they were. Richard wasn't thinking in
terms of what had happened before; he was looking at it through the prism of
a Seeker.
There were still a number of things about Richard's notion that didn't
make sense to her, but she knew better than to discount what he thought
simply because she had never heard of such a thing before.
"Maybe it's not a 'he,' " she finally said. "Maybe it's a she. Maybe a
Sister of the Dark."
Richard gave her another look, but this one was more worry than
anything else. "Whoever it is--whatever it is--I don't think it can be
anything good."
Kahlan couldn't argue that much of it, but still, she couldn't
reconcile such a notion. "Well, let's say it's like you think it is--that we
spotted him spying on us, by accident. Why did the races then attack us?"
Dust rose from Richard's boot as he casually kicked a small stone. "I
don't know. Maybe he was just angry that he'd given himself away."
"He was angry, so he had the races kill Betty's kids? And attack you?"
Richard shrugged. "I'm just guessing because you asked; I'm not saying
I think it's so." The long feathers, bloodred at their base, turning to a
dark gray and then to inky black at the tip, ruffled in the gusts of wind.
As he thought it over, his tone turned more speculative. "It could even
be that whoever it was using the races to watch us had nothing at all to do
with the attack. Maybe the races decided to attack on their own."
"They simply took the reins from whoever it was that was taking them
for the ride?"
"Maybe. Maybe he can send them to us so he can have a peek at where we
are, where we're going, but can't control them much more than that."
In frustration, Kahlan let out a sigh. "Richard," she said, unable to
hold back her doubts, "I know a good deal about all sorts of magic and I've
never heard of anything like this being possible."
Richard leaned close, again taking her in with those arresting gray
eyes of his. "You know about all sorts of things magic from the Midlands.
Maybe down here they have something you never encountered before. After all,
had you ever heard of a dream walker before we encountered Jagang? Or even
thought such a thing was possible?"
Kahlan pulled her lower lip through her teeth as she studied his grim
expression for a long moment. Richard hadn't grown up around magic--it was
all new to him. In some ways, though, that was a strength, because he didn't
have preconceived notions about what was possible and what wasn't.
Sometimes, the things they'd encountered were unprecedented.
To Richard, just about all magic was unprecedented.
"So, what do you think we should do?" she finally asked in a
confidential tone.
"What we planned." He glanced over his shoulder to see Cara scouting a
goodly distance off to their left side. "It has to be connected to the rest
of it."
"Cara only meant to protect us."
"I know. And who knows, maybe it would have been worse if she hadn't
touched it. It could even be that by doing what she did, she actually bought
us time."
Kahlan swallowed at the feeling of dread churning in her. "Do you think
we still have enough time?"
"We'll think of something. We don't even know yet for sure what it
could mean."
"When the sand finally runs out of an hourglass, it usually means the
goose is cooked."
"We'll find an answer."
"Promise?"
Richard reached over and gently caressed the back of her neck.
"Promise."
Kahlan loved his smile, the way it sparkled in his eyes. Somewhere in
the back of her mind she knew that he always kept his promises. His eyes
held something else, though, and that distracted her from asking if he
believed the answer he promised would come in time, or even if it would be
an answer that could help them.
"You have a headache, don't you," she said.
"Yes." His smile had vanished. "It's different than before, but I'm
pretty sure it's caused by the same thing."
The gift. That's what he meant.
"What do you mean it's different? And if it's different, then what
makes you think the cause is the same?"
He thought about it a moment. "Remember when I was explaining to
Jennsen about how the gift needs to be balanced, how I have to balance the
fighting I do by not eating meat?" When she nodded he went on. "It got worse
right then."
"Headaches, even those kind, vary."
"No ..." he said, frowning as he tried to find the words. "No, it was
almost as if talking about--thinking about--the need not to eat meat in
order to balance the gift somehow brought it more to the fore and made the
headaches worse."
Kahlan didn't at all like that concept. "You mean like maybe the gift
within you that is the cause of the headaches is trying to impress upon you
the importance of balance in what you do with the gift."
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "I don't know. There's
more to it. I just can't seem to get it all worked out. Sometimes when I
try, when I go down that line of reasoning, about how I need to balance the
fighting I do, the pain starts to get so bad I can't dwell on it.
"And something else," he added. "There might be a problem with my
connection to the magic of the sword."
"What? How can that be?"
"I don't know."
Kahlan tried to keep the alarm out of her voice. "Are you sure?"
He shook his head in frustration. "No, I'm not sure. It just seemed
different when I felt the need of it and drew the sword this morning. It was
as if the sword's magic was reluctant to rise to the need."
Kahlan thought it over a moment. "Maybe that means that the headaches
are something different, this time. Maybe they aren't really caused by the
gift."
"Even if some of it is different, I still think its cause is the gift,"
he said. "One thing they do have in common with the last time is that
they're gradually getting worse."
"What do you want to do?"
He lifted his arms out to the sides and let them fall back. "For now,
we don't have much of a choice--we have to do what we planned."
"We could go to Zedd. If it is the gift, as you think, then Zedd would
know what to do. He could help you."
"Kahlan, do you honestly believe that we have any chance in Creation of
making it all the way to Aydindril in time? Even if it weren't for the rest
of it, if the headaches are from the gift, I'd be dead weeks before we could
travel all the way to Aydindril. And that's not even taking into account how
difficult it's bound to be getting past Jagang's army all throughout the
Midlands and especially the troops around Ay-dindril."
"Maybe he's not there now."
Richard kicked at another stone in the path. "You think Jagang is just
going to leave the Wizard's Keep and all it contains--leave it all for us to
use against him?"
Zedd was First Wizard. For someone of his ability, defending the
Wizard's Keep wouldn't be too difficult. He also had Adie there with him to
help. The old sorceress, alone, could probably defend a place such as the
Keep. Zedd knew what the Keep would mean to Jagang, could he gain it. Zedd
would protect the Keep no matter what.
"There's no way for Jagang to get past the barriers in that place,"
Kahlan said. That much of it was one worry they could set aside. "Jagang
knows that and might not waste time holding an army there for nothing."
"You may be right, but that still doesn't do us any good--it's too
far."
Too far. Kahlan seized Richard's arm and dragged him to a halt. "The
sliph. If we can find one of her wells, we could travel in the sliph. If
nothing else, we know there's the well down here in the Old World-- in
Tanimura. Even that's a lot closer than a journey overland all the way to
Aydindril."
Richard looked north. "That might work. We wouldn't have to make it
past Jagang's army. We could come right up inside the Keep." He put his arm
around her shoulders. "First, though, we have to see to this other
business."
Kahlan grinned. "All right. We take care of me first, then we see to
taking care of you."
She felt a heady sense of relief that there was a solution at hand. The
rest of them couldn't travel in the sliph--they didn't have the required
magic--but Richard, Kahlan, and Cara certainly could. They could come up
right in the Keep itself.
The Keep was immense, and thousands of years old. Kahlan had spent much
of her life there, but she had seen only a fraction of the place. Even Zedd
hadn't seen it all, because of some of the shields that had been placed
there ages ago by those with both sides of the gift, and Zedd had only the
Additive side. Rare and dangerous items of magic had been stored there for
eons, along with records and countless books. By now it was possible that
Zedd and Adie had found something in the Keep that would help drive the
Imperial Order back to the Old World.
Not only would going to the Keep be a way to solve Richard's problem
with the gift, but it might provide them with something they needed to swing
the tide of the war back to their side.
Suddenly, seeing Zedd, Aydindril, and the Keep seemed only a short time
away.
With a renewed sense of optimism, Kahlan squeezed Richard's hand. She
knew that he wanted to keep scouting ahead. "I'm going to go back and see
how Jennsen is doing."
As Richard moved on and Kahlan slowed, letting the wagon catch up with
her, another dozen black-tipped races drifted in on the air currents high
above the burning plain. They stayed close to the sun, and well out of range
of Richard's arrows, but they stayed within sight.
Tom handed a waterskin down to Kahlan when the bouncing wagon rattled
up beside her. She was so dry that she gulped the hot water without caring
how bad it tasted. As she let the wagon roll past, she put a boot in the
iron rung and boosted herself up and over the side.
Jennsen looked to be happy for the company as Kahlan climbed in. Kahlan
returned the smile before sitting beside Richard's sister and the puling
Betty.
"How is she?" Kahlan asked, gently stroking Betty's floppy ears.
Jennsen shook her head. "I've never seen her like this. It's breaking
my heart. It reminds me of how hard it was for me when I lost my mother.
It's breaking my heart."
As she sat back on her heels, Kahlan squeezed Jennsen's hand
sympathetically. "I know it's hard, but it's easier for an animal to get
over something like this than for people to do the same. Don't compare it to
you and your mother. Sad as this is, it's different. Betty can have more
kids and she'll forget all about this. You or I never could."
Before the words were out, Kahlan felt a sudden stab of pain for the
unborn child she had lost. How could she ever get over losing her and
Richard's child? Even if she ever had others, she would never be able to
forget what was lost at the hands of brutes.
She idly turned the small dark stone on the necklace she wore,
wondering if she ever would have a child, wondering if there would ever be a
world safe for a child of theirs.
"Are you all right?"
Kahlan realized that Jennsen was watching her face.
Kahlan forced herself to put on a smile. "I'm just sad for Betty."
Jennsen ran a tender hand over the top of Betty's head. "Me too."
"But I know that she'll be all right."
Kahlan watched the endless expanse of ground slowly slide by to either
side of the wagon. Waves of heat made the horizon liquid, with detached
pools of ground floating up into the sky. Still, they saw nothing growing.
The land was slowly rising, though, as they came ever closer to distant
mountains. She knew that it was only a matter of time until they reached
life again, but right then it felt like they never would.
"I don't understand about something," Jennsen said. "You told me how I
shouldn't do anything rash, when it came to magic, unless I was sure of what
would happen. You said it was dangerous. You said not to act in matters of
magic until you can be sure of the consequence."
Kahlan knew what Jennsen was driving at. "That's right."
"Well, that back there pretty much seemed like one of those stabs in
the dark you warned me about."
"I also told you that sometimes you had no choice but to act
immediately. That's what Richard did. I know him. He used his best
judgment."
Jennsen looked to be satisfied. "I'm not suggesting that he was wrong.
I'm just saying that I don't understand. It seemed pretty reckless to me.
How am I supposed to know what you mean when you tell me not to do anything
reckless if it involves magic?"
Kahlan smiled. "Welcome to life with Richard. Half the time I don't
know what's in his head. I've often thought he was acting recklessly and it
turned out to be the right thing, the only thing, he could have done. That's
part of the reason he was named Seeker. I'm sure he took into account things
he sensed that even I couldn't."
"But how does he know those things? How can he know what to do?"
"Oftentimes he's just as confused as you, or even me. But he's
different, too, and he's sure when we wouldn't be."
"Different?"
Kahlan looked over at the young woman, at her red hair shining in the
afternoon sunlight. "He was born with both sides of the gift. All those born
with the gift in the last three thousand years have been born with Additive
Magic only. Some, like Darken Rahl and the Sisters of the Dark, have been
able to use Subtractive Magic, but only through the Keeper's help--not on
their own. Richard alone has been born with Subtractive Magic."
"That's what you mentioned last night, but I don't know anything about
magic, so I don't know what that means."
"We're not exactly sure of everything it means ourselves. Additive
Magic uses what is there, and adds to it, or changes it somehow. The magic
of the Sword of Truth, for example, uses anger, and adds to it, takes power
from it, adds to it until it's something else. With Additive, for example,
the gifted can heal.
"Subtractive Magic is the undoing of things. It can take things and
make them nothing. According to Zedd, Subtractive Magic is the counter to
Additive, as night is to day. Yet it is all part of the same thing.
"Commanding Subtractive, as Darken Rahl did, is one thing, but to be
born with it is quite another.
"Long ago, unlike now, being born with the gift--both sides of the
gift--was common. The great war then resulted in a barrier sealing the New
World off from the Old. That's kept the peace all this time, but things have
changed since then. After that time, not only have those born with the gift
gradually become exceedingly rare, but those who have been born with the
gift haven't been born with the Subtractive side of it.
"Richard was born of two lines of wizards, Darken Rahl and his
grandfather Zedd. He's also the first in thousands of years to be born with
both sides of the gift.
"All of our abilities contribute to how we're able to react to
situations. We don't know how having both sides contributes to Richard's
ability to read a situation and do what's necessary. I suspect he may be
guided by his gift, perhaps more than he believes."
Jennsen let out a troubled sigh. "After all this time, how did this
barrier come to be down, anyway?"
"Richard destroyed it."
Jennsen looked up in astonishment. "Then it's true. Sebastian told me
that the Lord Rahl--Richard--had brought the barrier down. Sebastian said it
was so that Richard could invade and conquer the Old World."
Kahlan smiled at such a grandiose lie. "You don't believe that part of
it, do you?"
"No, not now."
"Now that the barrier is down, the Imperial Order is flooding up into
the New World, destroying or enslaving everything before them."
"Where can people live that's safe? Where can we?"
"Until they're stopped or driven back, there is no safe place to live."
Jennsen thought it over a moment. "If the barrier coming down let the
Imperial Order flood in to conquer the New World, why would Richard have
destroyed it?"
With one hand, Kahlan held on to the side of the wagon as it rocked
over a rough patch of ground. She stared ahead, watching Richard walking
through the glaring light of the wasteland.
"Because of me," Kahlan said in a quiet voice. "One of those mistakes I
told you about." She let out a tired sigh. "One of those stabs in the dark."
Richard squatted down, resting his forearms across his thighs as he
studied the curious patch of rock. His head was pounding with pain; he was
doing his best to ignore it. The headache had come and gone seemingly
without reason. At times he had begun to think that it just might be the
heat after all, and not the gift.
As he considered the signs on the ground, he forgot about his headache.
Something about the rock seemed familiar. Not simply familiar, but
unsettlingly familiar.
Hooves partially covered by long wisps of wiry brown hair came to an
expectant halt beside him. With the top of her head, Betty gently butted his
shoulder, hoping for a snack, or at least a scratch.
Richard looked up at the goat's intent, floppy-eared expression. As
Betty watched him watching her, her tail went into a blur of wagging.
Richard smiled and scratched behind her ears. Betty bleated her pleasure at
the scratch, but it sounded to him like she would have preferred a snack.
After not eating for two days as she lay in misery in the wagon, the
goat seemed to come back to life and begin to recover from the loss of her
two kids. Along with her appetite, Betty's curiosity had returned. She
especially enjoyed scouting with Richard, when he would let hercome along.
It made Jennsen laugh to watch the goat trotting after him like a puppy.
Maybe what really made her laugh was that Betty was getting back to her old
self.
In recent days the land had changed, too. They had begun to see the
return of life. At first, it had simply been the rusty discoloration of
lichen growing on the fragmented rock. Soon after, they spotted a small
thorny bush growing in a low place. Now the rugged plants grew at widely
spaced intervals, dotting the landscape. Betty appreciated the tough bushes,
dining on them as if they were the finest salad greens. On occasion the
horses sampled the brush, then turned away, never finding it to their
liking.
Lichen that had begun to grow on the rock appeared as crusty splotches
streaked with color. In some places it was dark, thick, and leathery, while
in other spots it was no more than what almost appeared to be a coat of thin
green paint. The greenish discoloration filled cracks and crevasses and
coated the underside of stones where the sun didn't bleach it out. Rocks
sticking partway out of the crumbly ground could be pulled up to reveal thin
tendrils of dark brown subterranean fungal growth.
Tiny insects with long feelers skittered from rock to rock or hid in
holes in the scattering of rocks lying about on the ground that looked as if
they had once been boiling and bubbling, and had suddenly turned to stone,
leaving the bubbles forever set in place. An occasional glossy green beetle,
bearing wide pincer jaws, waddled through the sand. Small red ants stacked
steep ruddy mounds of dirt around their holes. There were cottony webs of
spiders in the crotches of the isolated, small, spindly brush growing
sporadically across the ever rising plain. Slender light green lizards sat
on rocks basking in the sun, watching the people pass. If they came too
close, the little creatures, lightning quick, darted for cover.
The signs of life Richard had so far seen were still a long way from
being anything substantial enough to support people, but it was at least a
relief to once again feel like he was rejoining the world of the living. He
knew, too, that up beyond the first wall of mountains they would at last
encounter life in abundance. He also knew that there they would again begin
to encounter people.
Birds, as well, were just beginning to become a common sight. Most were
small--strawberry-colored finches, ash-colored gnatcatchers, rock wrens and
black-throated sparrows. In the distance Richard saw single birds winging
through the blue sky, while sparrows congregated in small skittish flocks.
Here and there, birds lit on the scraggly brush, flitting about looking for
seeds and bugs. The birds disappeared instantly whenever the races glided
into sight.
Staring at the expanse of rock and open ground before him, Richard rose
up, startled, as the reason it looked unsettlingly familiar came to him. At
the same time as the realization came to him, his headache vanished.
Off to his right, Richard saw Kahlan, with Cara at her side, making
their way out to where Richard stood staring down at the astonishing stretch
of rock. The wagon, with Tom, Friedrich, and Jennsen, rumbled on in the
distance to the south. The dust raised by the wagon and horses hung in the
dead air and could be seen for miles. Richard supposed that with the races
periodically paying them a visit, the telltale of the dust didn't much
matter. Still, he would be glad when they reached ground where they could at
least have a chance to try to remain a little more inconspicuous.
"Find anything interesting?" Kahlan asked as she wiped her sleeve
across her forehead.
Richard cast a few small pebbles down at the stretch of rock he'd been
studying. "Tell me what you think of that."
"I think you look like you feel better," Kahlan said.
Her eyes on his, she gave him her special smile, the smile she gave no
one but him. He couldn't help grinning.
Cara, ignoring the smiles that passed between Richard and Kahlan,
leaned in for a gander. "I think Lord Rahl has been looking at too many
rocks. This is more rock, just like all the rest."
"Is it?" Richard asked. He gestured at the area he'd been scrutinizing
and then pointed at another place by where Kahlan and Cara stood. "Is it the
same as that?"
Cara peered at both areas briefly before she folded her arms. "The rock
over there that you've been looking at is just a paler brown, that's all."
Kahlan shrugged. "I think she's right, Richard. It looks like the same
kind of rock, maybe just a little more of a tan color." She thought it over
a moment as she scanned the ground, then added to her assessment. "I guess
it looks more like the rock we've been walking across for days until we
started encountering a little bit of grass and brush."
Richard put his hands on his hips as he stared back at the remarkable
stretch of rock he'd found. "Tell me, then, what characterized the rock in
the place where we were before--a few days ago, back closer to the Pillars
of Creation?"
Kahlan looked over at an expressionless Cara and then frowned at
Richard. "Characterized it? Nothing. It was a dead place. Nothing grew
there."
Richard waved his hand around, indicating the land through which they
were now traveling. "And this?"
"Now things are growing," Cara said, becoming increasingly
disinterested in his study of flora and fauna.
Richard held a hand out. "And there?"
"Nothing is growing there, yet," Cara said in an exasperated sigh.
"There are a lot of spots around where nothing is growing yet. It's still a
wasteland. Just have patience, Lord Rahl, and we will soon enough be back
among the fields and forests."
Kahlan wasn't paying attention to what Cara was saying; she was
frowning as she leaned closer.
"The place where things begin to grow seems to start all at once,"
Kahlan said, almost to herself. "Isn't that curious."
"I certainly think so," Richard said.
"I think Lord Rahl needs to drink more water," Cara sniped.
Richard smiled. "Here. Stand over here," he told her. "Stand over by me
and look again."
Cara, her curiosity aroused, did as he asked. She looked down at the
ground, and then frowned at the places where things grew.
"The Mother Confessor is right." Cara's voice had taken on a decidedly
businesslike tone. "Do you think it's important? Or somehow a danger?"
"Yes--to the first, anyway," Richard said.
He squatted down beside Kahlan. "Now, look at this."
As Kahlan and Cara knelt down beside him, leaning forward, looking
closely at the rock, Richard had to push a curious Betty back out of the
way. He then pointed out a patch of yellow-streaked lichen.
"Look here," he said. "See this medallion of lichen? It's lopsided.
This side is round, but this side, near where nothing grows, is flatter."
Kahlan looked up at him. "Lichen grows on rocks in all kinds of
shapes."
"Yes, but look at how the rock over where there is lichen and brush
growing is spotted all over with little bits of growth. Here, beyond the
stunted side of the lichen, there is nearly nothing. The rock almost looks
scoured clean.
"If you look closely there are a few tiny things, things that have
started to grow only in the last couple of years, but they have yet to
really begin to take hold."
"Yes," Kahlan said in a cautious drawl, "it is odd, but I'm not sure
what you're getting at."
"Look at where things are growing, and where they aren't."
"Well, yes, on that side there's nothing growing, and over here there
is."
"Don't just look down." Richard lifted her chin. "Look out at the
boundary between the two--look at the whole pattern."
Kahlan frowned off into the distance. All of a sudden, the color
drained from her face.
"Dear spirits ..." she whispered.
Richard smiled that she finally saw what he was talking about.
"What are you two mooning over?" Cara complained.
Richard put his hand behind Cara's neck and pulled her head in to look
at what he and Kahlan were seeing.
"That's odd," she said, squinting off into the distance. "The place
where things are growing seem to stop in a comparatively clean line-- like
someone had made an invisible fence running east."
"Right," Richard said as he got up, brushing his hands clean.
"Now, come on." He started walking north. Kahlan and Cara scrambled to
their feet and followed behind as he marched across the lifeless rock. Betty
bleated and trotted after them.
"Where are we going?" Cara asked as she caught up with him
"Just come on," Richard told her.
For half an hour they followed his brisk pace as he headed in a
straight line to the north, across rocky ground and gravelly patches where
nothing at all grew. The day was sweltering, but Richard almost didn't
notice the heat, so focused was he on the lifeless expanse they were
crossing. He hadn't yet gone to see what lay at the other side, but he was
convinced of what they would find once they reached it.
The other two were sweating profusely as they chased behind him. Betty
bleated occasionally as she brought up the rear.
When they finally reached the place he was looking for, the place where
lichen and scraggly brush once again began to appear, he brought them to a
halt. Betty poked her head between Kahlan and Cara for a look.
"Now, look at this," Richard said. "See what I mean?"
Kahlan was breathing hard from the brisk walk in the heat. She pulled
her waterskin off her shoulder and gulped water. She passed the waterskin to
Richard. He watched Cara study the patch of ground as he drank.
"The growing things start again over here," Cara said. She absently
scratched behind Betty's ears when the goat rubbed the top of her head
impatiently against Cara's thigh. "They start to appear in the same kind of
line as the other side, back there, where we were."
"Right," Richard said, handing Cara the waterskin. "Now, follow me."
Cara threw up her arms. "We just came from that way!"
"Come on," Richard called back over his shoulder.
He headed south again, back toward the center of the lifeless patch of
rock, the small group in tow. Betty bleated her displeasure at the pace of
the hot dusty excursion. If Kahlan or Cara shared Betty's opinion, they
didn't voice the complaint.
When Richard judged they were back somewhere in the middle, he stood
with his feet spread, his fists on his hips, and looked east again. From