Soul of the Fire

Richard, his attention elsewhere, snapped his fingers and gestured toward the fat sticks under the bench. He waggled his fingers urgently. Frowning, Zedd passed him one of the stout branches. Richard broke it in two over his knee while he watched the window.

With the next flash of lightning, Kahlan saw the silhouette of a chicken perched on the sill of the window, on the other side of the cloth. As the lightning flashed and thunder boomed, the chicken's shadow sidled to the other corner of the window.

Richard hurled the stick.

It caught the bird square on the breast. With a flapping of wings and a startled squawk, it tumbled backward out the window.

"Richard!" Kahlan snatched his sleeve. "Why would you do such a thing? The chicken wasn't bothering anyone. The poor thing was just trying to stay out of the rain."

This, too, he seemed not to hear. He turned toward Ann. "You lived in the Old World with him. How much do you know about the dream walker?"

"Well, I, I, guess I know a bit," she stammered in surprise.

"You know about how Jagang can invade a person's mind, slip in between their thoughts, and entrench himself there, even without their knowledge?"

"Of course." She almost looked indignant at such a basic question about the enemy they were fighting. "But you and those bonded to you are protected. The dream walker can't invade the mind of one devoted to the Lord Rahl. We don't know the reason, only that it works."

Richard nodded. "Alric. He's the reason."

Zedd blinked in confusion. "Who?"

"Alric Rahl. An ancestor of mine. I read that the dream walkers were a weapon devised three thousand years ago in the great war. Alric Rahl created a spell-the bond-to protect his people, or anyone sworn to him, from the dream walkers. The bond's power to protect passes down to every gifted Rahl."

Zedd opened his mouth to ask a question, but Richard turned instead to Ann. "Jagang entered the mind of a wizard and sent him to kill Kahlan and me-tried to use him as an assassin."

"Wizard?" Ann frowned. "Who? Which wizard?"

"Marlin Pickard," Kahlan said.

"Marlin!" Ann sighed with a shake of her head. "The poor boy. What happened to him?"

"The Mother Confessor killed him," Cara said without hesitation. "She is a true sister of the Agiel."

Ann folded her hands in her lap and leaned toward Kahlan. "But how did you ever find out-"

"We would expect him to try such a thing again," Richard interrupted, drawing Ann's attention back. "But can a dream walker invade the mind of… of something other than a person?"

Ann considered the question with more patience than Kahlan thought it merited. "No. I don't believe so."

"You 'don't believe so. " Richard cocked his head. "Are you guessing, or are you certain? It's important. Please don't guess."

She shared a long look with Richard before finally shaking her head. "No. He can't do such a thing."

"She's right," Zedd insisted. "I know enough about what he can do to know what he can't do. A soul is needed. A soul like his own. Otherwise, it just won't work. Same as he couldn't project his mind into a rock to see what it was thinking."

With his first finger, Richard stroked his lower lip. "Then it's not Jagang," he muttered to himself.

Zedd rolled his eyes in exasperation. "What's not Jagang?"

Kahlan sighed. Sometimes attempting to follow Richard's reasoning was like trying to spoon ants.

CHAPTER 6

Rather than answer Zedd’s question, Richard seemed to once again already be half a mile down a different road.

"The chimes. Did you take care of them? It's supposed to be a simple matter. Did you take care of it?"

"A simple matter?" Zedd's face stood out red against his shock of unruly white hair. "Who told you that!"

Richard looked surprised at the question. "I read it. So, did you take care of it?"

"We determined there was nothing to 'take care of, " Ann said, her voice taking on an undertone of annoyance.

"That's right," Zedd grumbled. "What do you mean it's a simple matter?"

"Kolo said they were quite alarmed at first, but after investigating they discovered the chimes were a simple weapon and easily overcome." Richard threw up his hands. "How do you know it's not a problem? Are you certain?"

"Kolo? Bags, Richard, what are you talking about! Who's Kolo?"

Richard waggled a hand as if begging forbearance before he rose up and strode to the window. He lifted the curtain. The chicken wasn't there. While he stretched up on his toes to peer out into the driving rain, Kahlan answered for him.

"Richard found a journal in the Keep. It's written in High D'Haran. He and one of the Mord-Sith, Berdine, who knows a little of the dead language of High D'Haran, have worked very hard to translate some of it.

"The man who wrote the journal was a wizard at the Keep during the great war, but they don't know his name, so they call him Kolo, from a High D'Haran word meaning 'strong advisor. The journal has proved invaluable."