But making it past those gray mountains of scorching rock, they could now see, was hardly the biggest problem.
Those closer mountains spreading north and south in the burning heat at the edge of the desert partially hid what lay to the other side-a far more daunting range of snowcapped peaks rising up to completely block any passage east. Those imposing mountains were beyond the scale of any Kahlan had ever seen. Not even the most rugged of the Rang'Shada Mountains in the Midlands were their match. These mountains were like a race of giants. Precipitous walls of rock soared thousands of feet straight up. Harrowing slopes rose unbroken by any pass or rift and were so arduous that few trees could find a foothold. Lofty snow-packed peaks that ascended majestically above windswept clouds were jammed so close together that it reminded her more of a knife's long jagged edge than separate summits.
The day before, when Kahlan had seen Richard studying those imposing mountains, she had asked him if he thought there was any way across them. He had said no, that the only way he could see to get beyond was possibly the notch he'd spotted before, when he had found the place where the strange boundary had once been, and that notch still lay some distance north.
For now, they skirted the dry side of the closer mountains as that range made its way north along the more easily traversed lowlands.
Along the base of a gentle hill covered in clumps of brown grasses, Richard finally slowed his horse. He turned in his saddle, checking that the others were still coming, if a goodly distance behind.
He pulled his horse close beside her. "I skipped ahead in the book."
Kahlan didn't like the sound of that. "When I asked you before why you didn't skip ahead, you said that it wasn't a wise thing to do. \
"I know, but I wasn't really getting anywhere and we need answers^ As their horses settled into a comfortable walk, Richard rubbed his shoulders.
"After all that heat I can't believe how cold it's getting."
"Cold? What are you-"
"You know those rare people like Jennsen?" The leather of his saddle squeaked as he leaned toward her. "Ones born pristinely ungifted- without even that tiny spark of the gift? The pillars of Creation? Well, back when this book was written, they weren't so rare."
"You mean it was more common for them to be born?"
"No, the ones who had been born began to grow up, get married, and have children-ungifted children."
Kahlan looked over in surprise. "The broken links in the chain of the gift that you were talking about, before?"
Richard nodded. "They were children of the Lord Rahl. Back then, it wasn't like it has been in recent times with Darken Rahl, or his father.
From what I can tell, all the children of the Lord Rahl and his wife were part of his family, and treated as such, even though they were born with this problem. It seems that the wizards tried to help them- both the direct offspring, and then their children, and their children. They tried to cure them."
"Cure them? Cure them of what?"
Richard lifted his arms in a heated gesture of frustration. "Of being born ungifted-of being born without even that tiny spark of the gift like everyone else has. The wizards back then tried to restore the breaks in the link."
"How did they think they would be able to cure someone of not having even the spark of the gift?"
Richard pressed his lips together as he thought of a way to explain it_"Well, you know the wizards who sent you across the boundary to find Zedd?"
"Yes," Kahlan said in a suspicious drawl.
"They weren't born with the gift-born wizards, that is. What were they-second or third wizards? Something like that? You told me about them, once." He snapped his fingers as it came to him. "Wizards of the third Order. Right?"
"Yes. Just one, Giller, was the Second Order. None were able to pass the tests to be a wizard of the First Order, like Zedd, because they didn't have the gift. Being wizards was their calling, but they weren't gifted in the conventional sense-but they still had that spark of the gift that everyone has."
"That's what I'm talking about," Richard said. "They weren't born with the gift to be wizards-just the spark of it like everyone else. Yet Zedd somehow trained them to be able to use magic-to be wizards- even though they weren't born that way, born with the gift to be wizards."
"Richard, that was a lifetime of work."
"I know, but the point is that Zedd was able to help them to be wizards-at least wizards enough to pass his tests and conjure magic."
"Yes, I suppose. When I was young they taught me about the workings of magic and the Wizard's Keep, about those people and creatures in the Midlands with magic. They may not have been born with the gift, but they had worked a lifetime to become wizards. They were wizards," she insisted.
