She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him there, that they had a chance, and that the journey's purpose wasn't merely empty hope meant to forestall the truth.
The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of Richard's life slipping away, she'd at least had one solid chance available to her to save him. She'd had no idea, at the time, that that one chance taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that would begin the disintegration of magic itself.
She was the one who had made the decision to take that chance, and she was the one responsible for all that was now coming to pass. Had she known what she now knew, she would have made the same decision-to save Richard's life-but that made her no less liable for the consequences.
She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, was responsible for protecting the lives of those with magic, of creatures of magic. And, instead, she might very well be the cause of their end.
Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, when she heard Cara's whistled birdcall to alert them to her return. It was a birdcall Richard had taught her.
Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt, rise from the nearby rock where he'd been sitting as he watched over both the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on the ground at Tom's feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.
"What is it?" Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan's side, hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"I'm not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her."
Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she'd seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had come across a week or so back-Owen.
"I tried to get to you sooner!" Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. "I swear, I tried."
Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.
"What are you talking about?" Kahlan asked.
When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan's shoulder, he paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.
"I meant to get to you earlier, I swear," he said to Kahlan, sounding on the verge of tears. "I went to your camp." He clutched his light coat closed at his chest as he began to tremble. "I, I saw… I saw all the…
remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?"
Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth and closed his eyes as he shook.
"If you mean all those men," Kahlan said, "they tried to capture us, to kill us. We didn't collect them from their rocking chairs beside their hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them.
They attacked us; we defended ourselves."
"But, dear Creator, how could you…" Owen stood before her, unable to control his shivering. He closed his eyes. "Nothing is real. Nothing is real. Nothing is real." He repeated it over and over, as if it were an incantation meant to protect him from evil.
Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled "Nothing is real" to himself continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.
"Tell us what you're doing here," Cara commanded in a low growl.
Although she didn't say it, the "or else" was clear enough.
"And be quick about it," Kahlan said. "We have enough trouble and we don't need you added on top of it."
Owen opened his eyes. "I went to your camp to tell you about it, but…
all those bodies…"
"We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you're here."
Kahlan was at the end of her patience. "I'm not going to ask you again."
"Lord Rahl," Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.
"Lord Rahl what," Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.
"Lord Rahl has been poisoned," he blurted out as he wept.
Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan's legs. "How can you possibly know such a thing is true?"
Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. "I know,"
he cried, "because I'm the one who poisoned him."
Could it be? Could it be that it wasn't really the runaway power of the gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong?
Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?
Kahlan felt her sword's hilt slip from her fingers as she started for the man.
He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about to leap.
Kahlan knew there was something strange about this man. Richard, too, had thought there was something unsettling about him, something not quite right.
Somehow, this quaking stranger had poisoned Richard.
Richard barely hung to life. He was suffering and in pain. This man had been the cause of it all. Kahlan would know why, and she would know the truth of it.
