"Different?" Almost involuntarily, his question caused her to draw back, to focus inwardly, to take stock of the force she always felt within herself. "No. It feels the same as always."
The power coiled in the core of her being did not need to be summoned when there was need of it. As always, it was there at the ready; it only required that she release her restraint of it for it to be unleashed.
"There's something wrong with the sword," he said, catching her by surprise. "Wrong with its power."
Kahlan couldn't imagine what to make of such a notion. "How can you tell? What's different?"
Richard idly stroked his thumbs along the reins turned back over his fingers. "It's hard to define exactly what's different. I'm just used to the feeling of it being at my beck and call. It responds when I need it, but for some reason it seems to be hesitant about doing so."
Kahlan felt that now, more than ever, they needed to get back to Aydindril and see Zedd. Zedd was the keeper of the sword. Even though they couldn't take the sword through the sliph, Zedd would be able to give them insight about any nuance of its power. He would know what to do. He would be able to help Richard with the headaches, too.
And Kahlan knew that Richard needed help. She could see that he wasn't himself. His gray eyes held a glaze of pain, but there was something more etched in his expression, in the way he moved, the way he carried himself.
The whole explanation of the book and what he had discovered seemed to have sapped his strength.
She was beginning to think that it wasn't she, after all, who was the one running out of time, but that it was Richard. That thought, despite the warm afternoon sun, sent cold terror racing through her.
Richard checked the others over his shoulder. "Let's go back to the wagon. I need to get something warmer to put on. It's freezing today."
Zedd peered up the deserted street. He could have sworn that he saw someone. Using his gift to search for any sign of life told him that there was no one anywhere around. Still, he remained motionless as he stared.
The warm breeze pressed his simple robes against his bony frame and gently ruffled his disheveled white hair. A tattered, sun-faded blue dress that someone had pinned to a second-floor balcony railing to dry flapped like a flag in the wind. The dress, along with a city full of personal possessions, had long ago been left behind.
The buildings, their walls painted various colors from a rusty red to yellow with shutters in bright, contrasting hues, stuck out to slightly varying degrees on either side of the narrow cobbled street, making a canyon of colorful walls. Most of the second stories overhung the bottom floors by a few feet, and, with their eaves hanging out even more, the buildings closed off the better part of the sky except for a snaking slit of afternoon sunlight that followed the sinuous course of the street up and over the gentle hill. The doors were all tightly shut, most of the windows shuttered.
A pale green gate to an alleyway hung open, squeaking as it swung to and fro in the breeze.
Zedd decided that it must have been a trick of the light that he'd seen, maybe a windowpane that had moved in the wind sending a flicker of light across a wall.
When he was at last sure that he had been mistaken about seeing anyone, Zedd started back down the street, yet remained close to one side, walking as quietly as possible. The Imperial Order army had not returned to the city since Zedd had unleashed the light web that had killed an enormous number of their force, but that didn't mean that there couldn't be dangers about.
No doubt Emperor Jagang still wanted the city, and especially the Keep, but he was no fool and he knew that a few more light webs ignited among his army, no matter how vast it was, would in that instant reduce his force by such staggering numbers that it could alter the course of the war. Jagang had fought against the Midland and D'Haran forces for a year and in all those battles he had not lost as many men as he'd lost in that one blinding moment. He would not casually risk another such event.
After such a blow Jagang would want to capture the Keep more than he had ever wanted it before. He would want Zedd more than ever before.
Had Zedd more of the light webs like the one his frantic search through the Keep had turned up, he would have already unleashed them all on the Order. He sighed. If only he had more.
Still, Jagang didn't know that he had no more such constructed spells.
As long as Jagang feared that there were more, it served Zedd's purpose in keeping the Imperial Order out of Aydindril and away from the Wizard's Keep.
Some harm had been done to the Confessors' Palace when Jagang had been gulled into attacking, but Zedd judged that trying that trick had been worth the regrettable damage; it had almost netted him and Adie the emperor's hide. Damage could always be repaired. He vowed that it would be repaired.
