Faith of the Fallen

"That's what Zedd told me-that in war magic is most often unseen, that each side manages only to balance the other."

Verna nodded. "It is so. We do the same against them. Things they used at first, we now know how to counter so we can protect our men. Our warning horns, for example. We learned that we must code them with a trace of magic to know they are genuine."

Kahlan drew her fur mantle up around her neck. She was chilled to the bone and couldn't seem to get warm. Not surprising, seeing as how she was spending all of her time outdoors. It was insanity to be carrying on a war in such conditions. She guessed that war in fine weather was no more sane.

Still, she ached to be inside, beside a cozy fire.

"So what is this thing you thought up?"

As if reminded of the cold, Verna pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "Well, I got the notion that if the enemy gifted are, in a sense, filtering for anything magic, or even anything being propelled by magic, then what we need is something not magic."

Kahlan gave Verna a grim smile. "We do. They're called soldiers."

Verna didn't smile. "No. I meant something the gifted could do to disable enemy troops without risk to our own men."

Adie shuffled forward to stand behind Kahlan's left shoulder as Verna reached into her cloak and pulled out a small leather pouch closed with a drawstring. She tossed it on the table before Kahlan, then set a piece of paper beside it.

"Pour a little on the paper, please." Verna was holding her stomach as if she were having indigestion. "But be careful not to touch it with your finger or get it on your skin-and whatever you do, don't blow on it. Be careful not to even breathe on it."

Adie leaned in to watch as Kahlan carefully poured a small quantity of a sparkling dust from the pouch onto the square of paper. She pushed at the little pile with the corner of the pouch. There were hints of pallid colors, but it was mostly a pale, glimmering, greenish-gray.

"What is it? Some kind of magic dust?"

"Glass."

Kahlan's eyes turned up. "Glass. You thought up glass?"

Verna let out a tsk at herself for how foolish she must have sounded.

"No, Mother Confessor. I thought of breaking it. You see, this is just simple glass that has been broken and crushed into fine pieces-almost dust.

But we used our Han to aid us when we crushed the glass with a mortar and pestle. By using our gift, we were able to break the glass into very tiny fragments, but in a special way."

Verna leaned over, her finger hovering above the little greenish-gray mound. Cara leaned in beside her in order to look down at the dangerous thing on the piece of paper.

"This glass-every piece-is sharp and jagged, even though each piece is very tiny. Each piece is hardly bigger than dust, so it weighs nothing, almost like dust."

"Dear spirits," Adie said before whispering a prayer in her own language.

Kahlan cleared her throat. "I don't understand."

"Mother Confessor, we can't get our magic past the defenses of the Order's gifted. They are prepared for magic, even if it's a simple pebble but uses magic to hurl it at their troops.

"This glass, however, even though we used magic to break it, has no magic properties-none at all. It's just inert material, the same as the dust kicked up by their feet. They can't detect it as magic, because it isn't magic. Through their gift, they will sense this as simple as dust, or mist, or possibly fog, depending on atmospheric conditions at the time."

"But we sent dust clouds at them before," Kahlan said. "Dust to make them sick and such. They mostly countered it."

Verna held up a finger to note her point as she smiled a grim smile.

"But those were dust clouds containing magic. Mother Confessor, this does not. Don't you see? It's so light it floats in the air for a long time. We could use simple magic to cast it up into the air, and then withdraw the magic, or we could simply fling it up into the breeze, for that matter.

Either way, we have only to let their troops run through it."

"All right." Kahlan scratched an eyebrow. "But what will it do to them?"

"It will get in their eyes," Adie said in her raspy voice from behind Kahlan's shoulder.

"That's right," Verna said. "It gets in their eyes, just as any dust would. At first, it will feel like dust in their eyes and they will try to blink it away. However, since the fragments are all still jagged and razor sharp, they will instead embed themselves in the body's tissue. It will stick in their eyes, and build up under their eyelids, where it will make thousands of tiny cuts across their eyes with each blink. The more they blink, the more it eats away at their delicate eyes." Verna straightened and pulled her cloak together. "It will blind them."

Kahlan sat in numb disbelief at the madness of it all.

"Are you sure?" Cara asked. "Might it just irritate them, like gritty dust?"