Faith of the Fallen

Chippy wasted no time starting in on his treat. Kahlan's cheeks hurt from smiling at the way the chipmunk nibbled his way around the apple core as it rolled along the ground. She rose to her feet, brushing her hands clean as she watched, captivated by the little creature at his feverish work.

He suddenly flinched with a squeak and froze.

Kahlan looked up. She was staring right into a woman's blue eyes.

The woman stood not ten feet away in a pose of cool scrutiny. Kahlan's throat locked the gasp in her lungs. The woman had seemed to appear in the middle of nowhere, out of nowhere. Icy gooseflesh prickled up the backs of Kahlan's arms.

The woman's long blond hair cascaded over the shoulders of an exquisite black dress. She was of such shapely beauty, her face of such pure perfection, but especially her eyes were of such intelligent lucid witnesses to all around her, that she could only be a creature of profound integrity.

. or unspeakable evil.

Kahlan knew without doubt which it was.

This woman made Kahlan feel as ugly as a clod of dirt, and instinctively as helpless as a child. She wanted nothing so much as to shrink away. Instead, she stared into the woman's blue eyes for what couldn't have been more than a second or two, but in that span of time an eternity seemed to pass. In those knowing blue eyes flowed some formidable, frightful current of contemplation.

Kahlan remembered Captain Meiffert's description of this woman. For the life of her, though, Kahlan couldn't just then recall her name. It seemed trivial. What mattered was that this woman was a Sister of the Dark.

Without speaking a word, the woman lifted her hands out a little and turned her palms up, as if humbly offering something. Her hands were empty.

Kahlan committed to the vault through space necessary to close the distance. She committed to unleashing her power. With her resolution, the act had in a way already commenced. But she desperately needed to get closer if it was to be meaningful, or effective.

As she began to move, to make that reckless leap, the world went white in a bloom of pain.

CHAPTER 21

Richard heard an odd sound that stopped him in his tracks. He felt a thump through the ground and deep in his chest. He thought he'd seen a flash in the treetops, but it had been so quick he wasn't sure.

It was the sound, though, as if some great hammer had struck off the top of a mountain, that made his blood go cold.

The house wasn't far off through the trees. He dropped the string of trout and the jar of minnows, and ran.

At the edge of the woods where it opened into the meadow, he skidded to a halt. His pounding heart felt as if it had risen up into his throat.

Richard saw the two women not far away, in front of the house, one dressed in white, and one in black. They were connected by a snaking, undulating, crackling line of milky white light. Nicci's arms were lifted slightly with her hands turned palms up and a little farther apart than the width of her hips.

The milky light went from Nicci's chest, across the space between the two women, and pierced Kahlan through the heart. The wavering aurora between the two turned blindingly bright, as if twisting in an agony it was unable to escape.

Seeing Kahlan trembling with the fury of that lance of light pinning her to the wall, Richard was paralyzed by fear for her, fear he knew all too well, from when she had been on the cusp of death. That bolt pierced Nicci's heart, too, connecting the two women. Richard didn't understand the magic Nicci was using, but he instinctively recognized it as profoundly dangerous, not only to Kahlan, but to Nicci as well, for she, too, was in pain. That Nicci would put herself at such risk gripped him with dread.

Richard knew he had to remain calm and keep his wits about himself if Kahlan was to have a chance. He viscerally wanted to do something to strike Nicci down, but he was certain that it wouldn't be as simple as that. Zedd's oft-repeated expression-nothing is ever easy-flashed into Richard's mind with sudden and tangible meaning.

In a desperate search for answers, everything Richard knew about magic cascaded in a torrent through his mind. None of it told him what to do, but it did tell him what he must not do. Kahlan's life hung in the balance.

Just then, Cara came flying out of the house. She was stark naked. It somehow didn't look all that odd. Richard was accustomed to the shape of her body in her skintight leather outfits. Other than the color, this didn't look all that different. She was dripping wet. Her hair was undone, which seemed more outlandishly indecent to him than her naked body. He was used to seeing her with a braid all the time.

Cara's fist clutched the red leather rod-her Agiel-as she crouched. The muscles of her legs, arms, and shoulders strained with tension demanding release.

"Cara! No!" Richard cried out.

He was already tearing across the meadow as Cara sprang and slammed her Agiel against the side of Nicci's neck.