«Richard, listen to me. This is important.»

He frowned at her. «Have you been crying?»

Her eyes were red and puffy. Nicci was not the sort of woman given to tears. He had seen her cry, but only for very good reason.

«Never mind that,» she said. «You have to listen to me.»

«Nicci, I'm telling you, I've figured out.»

«Listen to me!» Fists at her sides, she looked as if she might again burst into tears. He realized that he had never seen her looking quite this distraught.

He didn't want to waste any more time, but he decided that it might hurry things along if he let her have her say.

«All right, I'm listening.»

Nicci stepped close and gripped him by both shoulders. With an intent expression, she peered into his eyes. Her brow wrinkled with conviction.

«Richard, you have to get out of here.»

«What?»

«I've already told Cara to collect your things. She's bringing them now.

She said she knows her way down here, down into the tower, anyway, without having to go through shields.»

«I know, I taught her before.» Richard's sense of alarm began to rise. «What's going on? Is the Keep under attack? Is Zedd all right?»

Nicci cupped one hand to the side of his face. «Richard, they are determined to heal you of your delusion.»

«Kahlan is no delusion. I just now figured out what happened.»

She seemed not to notice what he said, or maybe she was ignoring what she thought was no more than yet another in a long series of attempts to prove the impossible. This time, though, he wasn't really interested in proving it to her.

«Richard, I'm telling you, you have to get out of here. They wanted me to use Subtractive Magic to eliminate your memory of Kahlan.»

Richard blinked in surprise. «You mean Ann and Nathan want to do that. Zedd never would.»

«Zedd too. They convinced him that you're sick and the only way to heal you is to excise what they consider to be the diseased portion of your thoughts responsible for your false memories. They convinced Zedd that time is running out and this is the only way to save you. Zedd is so heartbroken to see you like this that he has snatched at what he thinks may be the only chance to make you well again.»

«And you agreed to this?»

She indignantly smacked the side of his shoulder. «Are you crazy? Do you really think I would do that to you? Even if I thought they were right, do you seriously think I would ever consider taking away part of who you are? After what you've shown me about life? After what you have done to bring me back to embracing life? Do you really think that I would do that to you, Richard?»

«No, I guess you wouldn't do such a thing. But why would Zedd? He loves me.»

«He is also terrified for you, terrified that you are being taken over by this delusion, or bewitchment, or whatever is causing this sickness that is leaving you alive but not really yourself, turning you into a stranger they don't know.

«Zedd feels that this might be their only chance to ever have you whole again, to ever have you be Richard, the real Richard, again.

«I don't think that any of them-Ann, Nathan, or Zedd-really wants to do this, but Ann truly believes that you alone are the salvation for our cause. She has faith that prophecy has revealed this as the only chance we have and she is desperate to make you well lest we all be lost.

«Zedd was reluctant, but then they showed him a message in the journey book and talked him into it.»

«What message?»

«Verna is with the D'Haran troops. She sent word that our soldiers are becoming disheartened that you haven't joined them. Verna fears that unless you are there to lead them they may choose not to go on. She sent a desperate message wanting to know if Ann had found you yet, trying to find out when you could be expected to join your men in the coming battle with the Imperial Order.»

Richard was stunned. «I suppose I can understand why the three of them are so worried, but to ask you to use Subtractive Magic.»

«I know. I think it's a solution born of desperation, not clear thinking. But worse, I fear that once they discover that I don't intend to do as they wanted, they will then decide that they can't let this opportunity slip away from them and so their only alternative will be to try to somehow use their gift to cure you themselves. That kind of blind tampering with consciousness would be unpredictable, to say the least.

«They're desperate because they fear we all are running out of time before Jagang ends our chances forever. They believe this is the only solution. They are no longer listening to reason.

«You have to get out of here, now, Richard. I only agreed to their plan so that I could warn you first and give you time to get away. You must leave immediately if you are to escape.»

Richard's head was spinning at the very notion of what they wanted to do. «That presents a problem. I don't know how to cover my trail with magic, the way Zedd can. If they are as committed as you say they are, then they will come after me. If they follow me and take me by surprise, what am I going to do, then? Fight them?»

She lifted her arms in frustration. «I don't know, Richard. But I do know their state of resolve. Nothing you say is going to talk them out of this because they think you are suffering under a condition where you aren't rational, so they feel that for your own good they must take control.

They may be doing it for loving reasons, but they're wrong to do it this way. Dear spirits, I, too, think you're suffering from some problem, but I just couldn't allow them to do this.»

Richard squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of appreciation before he turned away as he tried to take it all in. It was near to impossible for him to imagine that Zedd would agree to such a thing. It just wasn't like him.

Wasn't like him.

Of course. It also wasn't like Ann to be so certain of how Richard must be made to play out his role in prophecy. Kahlan had changed everyone who knew her. She had made Ann come to see how Richard wasn't meant to follow the literal reading of prophecy as if it were a book of instruction.

Since Kahlan had vanished, everyone had changed. Zedd was different, too, and not in ways that were at all helpful. Even Cara had changed. She was just as protective, but now she was protective in a somehow more — feminine way. Nicci had changed as well, although in her case Richard thought the results were more positive-from his standpoint, anyway. She had forgotten everything having to do with Kahlan, and as a result she had become more sheltering of him despite her own views and interests, more willing to champion him despite everything he said and did. She was more devoted to him and thus more dedicated to safeguarding him.

But Zedd had changed in ways that were more troubling, much as Ann had become more overbearing and willing to directly interfere with Richard's decisions and impose her views of what she believed Richard had to do.

Richard had been telling people all along that the implications of Kahlan's disappearance were far broader and more complex than anyone but he was seeing. This change in everyone's behavior, some subtle and some overt, was further manifestation of those far-reaching effects. And yet, even Richard hadn't realized the full extent of the hidden corollaries and consequences.

Things had changed. Richard could no longer allow past characteristics to confuse the reality of how matters were in the present. It was vital that he recognize the truth of the way things were, now, and not be influenced by how they had once been. Nicci had become even more of an ally. Cara was just as protective as ever, if in a subtly different way. But Zedd and Ann, and possibly Nathan, had become less than dependable in ways that mattered most.

He had to take the way people had changed into account and act accordingly. He had to keep his objectives in mind and act to accomplish those goals even if it meant no longer fully trusting people he once had, people he cared about.

With Kahlan's disappearance, everything was being altered. The rules had changed.

He turned back to Nicci.

«This couldn't have happened at a worse time. I just figured it out. The viper with four heads are the Sisters of the Dark.»

«Jagang's Sisters?»

«No-my former teachers, Sisters Tovi, Cecilia, Armina, and their leader, Sister Ulicia. Sister Ulicia was the one who assigned all of my teachers, including you.»

«Richard, that's just crazy. I don't.»

«No, it's not. That morning when I thought I saw the tree limbs moving when there was no wind, it wasn't the tree limbs. It was those Sisters I saw move about in the near darkness.»

«But Jagang has all the Sisters of the Dark.»

«No, he doesn't.»

«He's a dream walker, Richard. With the bond to you the Sisters of the Light who are free are out of his grasp, but he captured those Sisters-I was there, with them, when Jagang first got his clutches on us. They are Sisters of the Dark; without the bond they're helpless against the dream walker. My — feelings are what bonded me to you and allowed me to escape his control. But they couldn't escape; they're not loyal to you nor could they be.»

«Oh, but they are. They swore a bond to me.»

«What! That's impossible.»

Richard shook his head. «You weren't with them the day it happened. It was when Jagang's troops were trying to take the Palace of the Prophets. Sister Ulicia and my former teachers-except you were gone and Liliana was dead-knew where Kahlan was being held. They wanted free of Jagang's domination and so they made me an offer. They traded the whereabouts of Kahlan in exchange for being allowed to swear loyalty to me so they could escape the dream walker's domination.»

Nicci was in near apoplexy with bottled objections. She looked as if the idea was so bizarre that she had trouble even deciding where to start. She heaved a breath to gain control of her galloping objections.

«Richard, you simply have to stop coming up with such flights of fancy. None of this even works in your story. The viper, as you think you figured out, would really then have to have five heads. You forgot Merissa.»

«No, Merissa is dead. She was trying to kill me-she came after me. She said she intended to bathe in my blood.»

Nicci pulled a strand of hair through her finger and thumb. «Well, I admit, I often heard her make that vow.»

«She tried to make good on the vow. She had followed Kahlan and me in the sliph. The Sword of Truth is incompatible with life in the sliph. When I got here I retrieved the sword and plunged it into the sliph before Merissa was able to get out. She died in there.

«Of those Sisters of the dark who swore loyalty to me, only four are still alive. Those Sisters are the viper with four heads. They're the ones who came that morning and took Kahlan. They used magic to spell me so that I wouldn't awake easily. The spell they used must have been something simple, like magnifying my sleepiness so that I wouldn't realize that magic had been used on me. The single wolf that called wasn't a wolf, but a signal given by the approaching troops. Because of the spell I didn't recognize it for what it was-the spell made me so sleepy I couldn't think, but still, I knew there was something strange about it. The Sisters then used magic to cover their trail. They took Kahlan.»

Nicci seized fists full of blond hair as she growled in agitation. «But they're Sisters of the Dark! They can't be bonded to you and the Keeper both. That whole concept is crazy.»

«I thought so too. Sister Ulicia convinced me that I was only looking at it from my perspective. She wanted to swear loyalty and in return I got to ask where Kahlan was. They had to answer truthfully to honor their bond. They then were to leave. If I asked any more than that it would break our agreement and we would all be back where we started-them subjects of Jagang and Kahlan a captive. Sister Ulicia said that after swearing their bond to me and my asking one question, they would then leave. They got the bond, I got Kahlan.»

«But they're Sisters of the Dark!»

«Sister Ulicia said that if they didn't actively try to kill me thereafter they considered that to definitely be to my benefit so that was in their view conforming to the requirements of their bond, since not killing me was what I wanted, therefore keeping their bond to me intact.»

Nicci turned away, one hand on a hip. «In an odd sort of way, that actually makes sense. Sister Ulicia is more than devious. That's the way she thinks.»

Nicci turned back. «What am I saying? Now you're starting to suck me into your delusions. Richard, stop this. Look, you have to get out of here, and you have to do it now. Come on. Cara will be right behind me with your things.»

Richard knew that Nicci was right. He couldn't find Kahlan if he had to worry about warding off three people with the gift who knew quite well how to use it and wanted to alter his very thoughts. They weren't likely to give him any chance to explain anything. He had already tried explanations and that hadn't worked.

They would most likely do what they thought they had to do. Richard didn't believe that they would give him any warning. Before he knew what had hit him it would be over.

He hated to admit it to himself, but he knew that Zedd was capable of such a thing. After giving Richard the Sword of Truth, when they were on their way to try to recover the boxes of Orden that Darken Rahl had put into play, Zedd had once said that so many lives were at stake that he would not hesitate to kill even Richard, if necessary, to save all those innocent people. He had told Richard how, to be the Seeker and carry the Sword of Truth, he had to be ready to be just as committed to their cause, that he had to understand the larger picture.

It was hardly out of the question to imagine Zedd now being willing to use magic to try to erase Richard's memory of Kahlan-a memory that Zedd thought was a sickness that was harming him and their cause and thereby endangering the lives of millions.

«I think you're right,» Richard admitted in a dejected voice. «They will try to stop me.» He picked up the two small books lying on the table and slipped them into a back pocket. «I think we had better get out of here before they can do that.»

«We? You want me to go with you?»

Richard paused and shrugged self-consciously. «Nicci, you and Cara are the only true friends I have right now. You've been there to help me when I needed it most. I can't afford to leave valued friends behind just when I'm beginning to figure out what's going on. Once I do have it figured out I may need your help with it, but even if I don't I'd like you there with me just for the advice and support you give me.

«I mean, if you're willing to come. I'd not force you, of course, but I'd like you to come.»

Nicci smiled that rare smile she had, the smile that revealed the nobility of the woman Nicci really was, the smile he had only seen since she had come to love life.