Soul of the Fire

Out of respect, Richard had carried Juni the entire way back. The hunters understood; Juni had died while on guard protecting Richard and Kahlan.

Cara, however, had quickly come to a different conclusion: Juni had turned from protector to threat. The how or why wasn't important-just that he had. She intended to be prepared the next time one of them suddenly transformed into a menace.

Richard had had a brief argument with her about it. The hunters hadn't understood their words, but recognized the heat in them and hadn't asked for a translation.

In the end, Richard let the issue drop. Cara was probably just feeling guilty about letting Juni get past her. Kahlan took Richard's hand as they walked behind, letting Cara have her way and walk point, checking for danger in a village of friends, as she turned them down first one passageway and then another, leading the way to Zedd and Ann.

Despite her conviction that Cara was wrong, Kahlan did feel inexplicably uneasy. She saw Richard glance over his shoulder with that searching look that told her he was feeling anxious, too.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

Richard's gaze swept the empty passageway. He shook his head in frustration. "The hair at the back of my neck is prickling like someone is watching me, but no one is there."

While she did feel unsettled, she didn't know if she really felt malevolent eyes watching, or it was just his suggestion that kept her glancing over her shoulder. Hurrying along the gloomy alleys between hulking buildings, she rubbed the icy gooseflesh nettling up her arms.

The rain was just starting to come down in earnest as Cara reached the place she was seeking. Agiel at the ready, she checked to each side of the narrow passageway before opening the simple wooden door and slipping inside first.

Wind whipped Kahlan's hair across her face. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. One of the chickens roaming the passageway, frightened by the thunder and lightning, darted between her legs and ran in ahead of them.

A low fire burned in the small hearth in the corner of the humble room. Several fat tallow candles sat on a wooden shelf plastered into the wall beside the domed hearth. Small pieces of firewood and bundled grass were stored beneath the shelf. A buckskin hide on the dirt floor before the hearth provided the only formal seating. A cloth hanging over a glassless window flapped open in the stronger gusts, fluttering the candle flames.

Richard shouldered the door shut and latched it against the weather. The room smelled of the candles, the sweet aroma of the bundled grass burning in the hearth, and pun- gent smoke that failed to escape through the vent in the roof above the hearth.

"They must be in the back rooms," Cara said, indicating with her Agiel a heavy hide hanging over a doorway.

The chicken, its head twitching from side to side as it clucked contentedly, strutted around the room, circling the symbol drawn with a finger or maybe stick in the dirt floor.

From a young age, Kahlan had seen wizards and sorceresses draw the ancient emblem representing the Creator, life, death, the gift, and the underworld. They drew it in idle daydreaming, and in times of anxiety. They drew it merely to comfort themselves-to remind themselves of their connection to everyone and everything.

And they drew it to conjure magic.

To Kahlan, it was a comforting talisman of her childhood, of a time when the wizards played games with her, or tickled her and chased her through the halls of the Wizard's Keep as she squealed with laughter. Sometimes they told her stories that made her gasp in wonder as she sat in their laps, protected and safe.

There was a time, before the discipline began, when she was allowed to be a child.

Those wizards were all dead, now. All but one had given their lives to help her in her struggle to cross the boundary and find help to stop Darken Rahl. The one had betrayed her. But there was a time when they were her friends, her playmates, her uncles, her teachers, the objects of her reverence and love.

"I've seen this before," Cara said, briefly considering the drawing on the floor. "Darken Rahl would sometimes draw it."

"It's called a Grace," Kahlan said.

Wind lifted the square of coarse cloth covering the window, allowing the harsh glare of lightning to cascade across the Grace drawn on the floor.

Richard's mouth opened, but he hesitated, his question unasked. He was eyeing the chicken pecking at the floor near the hide curtain to the back rooms.

He gestured. "Cara, open the door, please."

As she pulled it open, Richard waved his arms to coax the chicken out. The chicken, feathers flying as it flapped its wings in fright, darted this way and that, trying to avoid him. It wouldn't cross the room to the open door and safety.