«That's not quite accurate. All of them are dead except Kahlan.»

She turned to Cara. «Has he had a fever or something?»

«Well — he was shot with an arrow. He nearly died. Nicci healed him but he was still unconscious for days.»

Shota suspiciously held up a finger as if she had uncovered a devious plot. «Don't tell me-she used Subtractive Magic.»

«Yes, she did,» Richard answered in Cara's place. «And because she did she was able to save my life.»

Shota took back the step she had put between them when she had retreated. «Used Subtractive Magic.» Shota muttered to herself. She looked up at him again. «How did she use it-for what purpose?»

«She used it to eliminate the barbed arrow embedded in me.»

Shota rolled a hand, wanting him to continue. «She must have done something more.»

«She used Subtractive Magic to purge all the blood pooling in my chest. She said that there was no other way to get either the arrow or the blood out of me and either would kill me if left in.»

Shota turned her back to them and, one hand on a hip, walked off a few paces as she considered the brief account.

«That explains a great many things,» she said unhappily under her breath.

«You gave Kahlan a necklace,» Richard said.

Shota frowned back over her shoulder. «A necklace? What sort of necklace would I give her? And why, my dear boy, do you imagine I would ever do such a thing for your — lover?»

«Wife,» Richard corrected. «You and Kahlan had spent time together —by yourselves-and had come to an understanding of sorts. You gave the necklace to Kahlan as a gift so that she and I could — well, be together. It had some kind of power so that we wouldn't conceive children. While I don't agree with your view of future events, right now, what with the war and all, we decided to accept your gift and the truce that went with it.»

«I can't imagine how you could possibly imagine that I would do any of those things.» Shota looked to Cara again. «Did he have a bad fever on top of the injury?»

Richard might have thought that Shota was being sarcastic, but he could see by the look on her face that she was asking a serious question.

«Not exactly a bad fever,» Cara said, hesitantly. «It was a slight fever. Nicci said, though, that his problem was partly with how close he came to death but mostly had to do with the extended time that he was unconscious.» Cara sounded rather reluctant to speak about it to a person she considered a potential threat, but she at last finished her answer. «She said that he was suffering from delirium.»

Shota folded her arms as she heaved a sigh while taking him in with her almond eyes. «What am I to do with you,» she murmured half to herself.

«The last time I was here,» Richard said, «you told me that if I ever came back into Agaden Reach you would kill me.»

She showed no reaction. «Did I, now. And why would I say such a thing?»

«I guess you were rather angry with me for refusing to kill Kahlan and for refusing to allow you to do it.» He pointed with his chin back up toward the mountain pass. «I thought you might have meant to keep your word and so you sent Samuel to fulfill your threat.»

Shota glanced to her companion off through the trees. He looked suddenly alarmed.

«What are you talking about?» She asked with a frown as she looked back at Richard.

«Are you now claiming you didn't know?»

«Know what?»

Richard briefly considered the angry yellow eyes glaring at him.

«Samuel hid up in the pass and jumped me from out of the storm. He snatched my sword and kicked me over a cliff. I just managed to catch the edge. If Cara wouldn't have been there, Samuel would have used the sword to see to it that I fell from the cliff. He very nearly killed me. That he didn't wasn't because he didn't intend to or try his best.»

Shota's glare glided to the dark figure crouched off in the trees. «Is that true?»

Samuel could not bear her scrutiny. Puling with self-pity, his gaze sank to the ground. That was answer enough.

«We will discuss this later,» she told him in a low voice that carried unequivocally through the trees and gave Richard goose bumps.

«That was not my intention, Richard, nor my orders, I can assure you. I told Samuel only to invite your devious little guardian to come along.»

«You know what, Shota? I'm getting pretty tired of Samuel trying to kill me and you then claiming that you never gave him any such instructions. Once might have been credible, but it's growing too routine. Your innocent surprise every time it happens is beginning to strike me as rather convenient. It appears to me that you find deniability quite useful and so you stick to it.»

«That isn't true, Richard,» Shota said in a measured tone. She unfolded her arms and clasped her hands as she looked at the ground at her feet. «You carry his sword. Samuel is a little touchy about that. Since it was taken from him, not given freely, that means it still belongs to him.»

Richard nearly objected, but then reminded himself that he wasn't there to argue the point.

Shota's gaze rose to meet his. It came up angry.

«And how dare you complain to me about what Samuel does without my knowledge when you knowingly bring a deadly menace into the peace of my home?»

Richard was taken aback. «What are you talking about?»

«Don't play stupid, Richard, it doesn't fit you. You are hunted by a wildly dangerous threat. How many people have already died because they were unfortunate enough to be near you when the beast came looking for you. What if it decides to come here to kill you? You come here and in so doing cavalierly risk my life, without my permission, simply because you happen to want something?

«Do you think it's right that I'm put at risk of death because of your wants? Does the fact that you think I have something you need put my life at your disposal and therefore at great risk?»

«Of course not.» Richard swallowed. «I never looked at it that way.»

Shota threw her hands up. «Ah, so your excuse is that I am to be put in peril because you didn't think.»

«I need your help.»

«You mean you have come as a helpless beggar, begging for help, without regard to the danger it puts me in, simply because you want something.»

Richard rubbed a fingertips across his forehead. «Look, I don't have all the answers, but I can tell you that I have good reason to believe that I'm right, that Kahlan exists and she has disappeared.»

«Like I said, you want something and you don't bother to consider the risk to anyone else.»

Richard took a step closer to her. «That isn't true. Don't you see? You don't remember Kahlan. No one but me does. Think, Shota, think of what it means if I'm right.»

Her brow twitched as she puzzled at him. «What are you talking about?»

«If I'm right, then there is something gravely wrong in the world that's making everyone-including you-forget her. She has been wiped from your mind. But it's more serious than that. It's not just Kahlan that is missing from everyone's mind. Everything that you or anyone else ever did with her is also missing. Some of those missing bits may be trivial, but other parts of it very well could be vital.

«You don't remember that you said you would kill me if I ever came back here. That means that when you said that, in your mind that threat had to be somehow connected to Kahlan. She contributed to your choice to make that threat. Now, since you don't remember Kahlan, you also don't recall saying that to me.

«What if there's something vastly important that you've likewise forgotten. Because you've forgotten Kahlan, you've lost part of what you've done in your own life-lost some of the decisions you've made. How many ways do you have a connection with Kahlan that you are completely unaware of that are now wiped away? How important are those missing bits? How much of your life has been altered because you now don't recall the changes in your thinking that you made because of her influence?

«Shota, don't you see the magnitude of the problem? Can't you fathom how this has the potential to change everyone's perception? If everyone forgets how Kahlan changed their individual lives, they will act without the benefit of the shifts they made in their thinking.»

Richard paced, one hand on a hip, gesturing with the other. «Think of someone you know.» He turned back to her, meeting her gaze. «Think of your mother. Now, just try to imagine all that you would lose if you lost every memory of her and everything she taught you, every one of your decisions in which she had an influence, both directly and indirectly.

«Now, imagine everyone forgetting someone important like your mother was to you-but imagine them being central to events important to everyone. Imagine for a moment how your life-your thinking-would be altered if you forgot that I exist and you no longer recalled the things you've done with me, the things you've done because of me. Can you begin to see the significance?

«You gave Kahlan that necklace as a wedding gift to both of us to prevent her from conceiving-at least for now. It was a gift that was more than that, though. It was a truce. It was peace between you and me as much as between you and Kahlan. What other truces, alliances, and oaths have been made because of Kahlan that, like the necklace, are now forgotten? How many important missions will be abandoned?

«Don't you see? This holds the potential to throw the world into turmoil. I have no idea of the possible effects of such a wide-ranging event, but for all I know it could alter the complexion of the fight for freedom. It could usher in the dawn of the Imperial Order. For all I know, it could usher in the end of life itself.»

Shota looked astonished. «Life itself?»

«Something this significant does not happen randomly. It's not an unfortunate accident or some casual mistake. There has to be a cause, and anything that could cause a universal event of this enormity carries sinister implications.»

For a time, Shota regarded him with an unreadable expression. She finally caught a floating corner of the layered material that made up her dress and turned away as she thought about his words. Finally she turned back.

«And what if you are simply suffering from a delusion? Since that is the simplest explanation, that makes it most likely the true answer.»

«While the simplest explanation is usually the true answer, it is not infallibly so.»

«This is no ordinary choice as you paint it, Richard. What you describe is extravagantly complicated. I'm having trouble even beginning to envision the complexities and consequences that would be involved in such an event. It would have to cause so many things to come undone, with such compounding disorder, that it would soon become all too obvious to everyone that something was terribly wrong in the world-even if they didn't know what. That just isn't happening.»

Shota swept her arm out in grand fashion. «Meanwhile, what damage to the world will you cause because of this mad mission you have undertaken to find a woman who does not exist?

«You came to me the first time to get help in stopping Darken Rah I. I helped you, and in so doing I helped you become the Lord Rahl.

«The war rages on, the D'Haran Empire fights desperately on, and now you are not there to be a part of it, as is your place as the Lord Rahl. You have been effectively removed from your position of authority by your own delusions and unthinking actions. A void is left where there should be leadership. All the help you would be able to provide is no longer available to those who fight for the cause you have championed.»

«I believe that I'm right,» Richard said. «If I am, then that means there is a grave danger that no one but me is even aware of. Therefore, no one but me can fight it. Only I stand opposed to some unknown but impending ruin. I can't in good conscience ignore what I believe to be the truth of a hidden threat more monstrous than anyone realizes.»

«That makes a convenient excuse, Richard.»

«It's not an excuse.»

Shota nodded mockingly. «And if the newly founded free empire of D'Hara falls in the meantime? If the savages of the Imperial Order raise their bloody swords over the corpses of all those brave men who will perish defending the cause of freedom while their leader is off chasing phantoms? Will all those brave men be any less dead because you alone see some inscrutable danger? Will their cause-will your cause-be any less ended? Will the world then be able to slide merrily into a long dark age where millions upon millions will be born into miserable lives of oppression, starvation, suffering, and death?

«Will chasing off after the enigma in your mind alone make liberty's grave acceptable to you, Richard? A mere consequence of what you stubbornly think is right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?»

Richard had no answer. In fact, he feared to even attempt to give her one. After the way she'd put it, anything he said would sound hollow and selfish. He felt sure that he had sound reasons to stick to his convictions, but he also knew that to everyone else the proof had to seem pretty thin, so he thought that maybe it was best to just keep quiet.

More than that, though, lurking beneath the surface was the terrible shadow of fear that she could be right, that it was all some dreadful delusion in his mind alone and not some problem with everyone else.

What made him right and everyone else wrong? How could he alone be right? How could such a thing even be possible? How could he know himself that he was right? What proof, other than his own memory, did he have? There was not one concrete shred of evidence that he could hold, that he could point to.

The crack in his confidence terrified him. If that crack widened, if it ruptured, the weight of the world would crash in and crush him. He couldn't bear that weight if she didn't exist.

His word alone stood between Kahlan and oblivion.

He couldn't go on without her. He didn't want to go on in a world with out her. She was everything to him. Until that moment, he had been pushing her personal, private, intimate loving memory aside and instead dealing with details in order to endure the pain of missing her for yet an other day even as he worked toward finding her. But that pain was now tightening around his heart, threatening to take him to his knees.

With the pain of missing her came a flood of guilt. He was Kahlan's only hope. He alone kept the flame of her alive above the torrent trying to drown out her existence. He alone worked to find her and bring her back. But he had not yet accomplished anything useful toward that end. The days marched past, but so far he hadn't gained anything that would get him any closer to her.

To make matters all the worse, Richard knew that Shota was also right in one very important way. While he worked toward helping Kahlan, he was failing everyone else. He had been the one who, to a large extent, had made people believe in the idea, the very real possibility, of a free D'Hara, of a place where it was possible for people to live and work toward their own goals in their own lives.

He was only too aware that he was also largely responsible for the great barrier coming down, allowing Emperor Jagang to lead the Imperial Order into the New World to threaten the newfound freedom in the New World.

How many people would be at risk, or lose their lives, while he pursued this one person that he loved? What would Kahlan want him to do? He knew how much she cared for the people of the Midlands, the people she had once ruled. She would want him to forget her and to try to save them. She would say that there was too much at stake to come after her.

But if it was he who was missing, she would not abandon him for anything or anyone.

Despite what Kahlan might say, it was her life that was important to him, her life that meant the world to him.

He wondered if perhaps Shota was right, that he was merely using the concept of the danger Kahlan's disappearance represented for the rest of the world, as an excuse.

He decided that the best thing to do for the moment, until he could think of a better way to get the help he needed, and to buy himself time to gather his courage, to harden his resolve, was to change the subject.

«What about this thing,» Richard asked, gesturing vaguely, «this beast, that's chasing me.» The passion was gone from his voice. He realized how tired he was from the long trek over the pass, to say nothing of the blur of days riding up from the Old World. «Is there anything you can tell me about it?»

He felt on safer ground with this question because the beast could interfere not only with his search for Kahlan, but with the mission Shota was urging him to return to.

She watched him for a moment, her voice finally coming much softer, as had his, as if without realizing it they had reached a wordless truce to lower the level of antagonism. «The beast that hunts you is no longer the beast it once was, the beast it was as it was created. Events have caused it to mutate.»

«Mutate?» Cara asked, looking alarmed. «What do you mean? What has it become?»

Shota appraised them both, as if to make sure they were paying attention.

«It has become a blood beast.»