"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.
