He guided them down a street that paralleled the main avenue, a street that once out of the city would turn to join into the main road toward the Minister's estate. It was on that road, closer to the estate, that their troops were stationed.

Richard noticed Kahlan staring off at something. He followed her gaze in the rain and darkness to a small sign visible in the lamplight coming from a window beneath it.

The sign offered herbs for sale and the services of a midwife.

Du Chaillu was huge. Richard supposed that she must be near to having her baby-whether she wanted it to be born into such a world or not.

CHAPTER 61

It had been a long day, the last hour of it spent slogging through the drenching downpour to where the remainder of their troops were stationed. Well over half of them had been sent off around Anderith to oversee the upcoming vote. Feeling ill, Du Chaillu was in no condition to ride; it was a miserable walk and exhaustion finally claimed her-not something she would have admitted lightly. Richard and Jiaan took turns carrying her the remaining distance.

Richard was thankful for the rain for one reason, though. It had cooled the tempers of the throng in Fairfield and sent them home.

Ordinarily Richard would have insisted that Du Chaillu go straight off to her own tents but after the events in Fairfield, he understood her gloomy mood and realized she needed their company more than she needed rest. Kahlan must have understood, too, for rather than chasing the spirit woman from their tent, as she had had to do on more than one occasion, she gave her a dried tava biscuit to suck on, saying it would settle her stomach. Kahlan sat Du Chaillu down on the padded blanket that was the bed and with a towel dried her face and hair while Jiaan went to get her some dry clothes.

Richard sat at the small folding table he used to write messages, orders, and letters, mostly to General Reibisch. After having been to the city, he desperately wanted to write the general and order him into Anderith.

From outside the tent, a muffled voice asked permission to enter. When Richard granted it, Captain Meiffert lifted back the heavy flap, propping it up with a pole to act as a little roof to keep the rain from their doorway. He shook himself, as best he could, under the small roof before stepping inside.

"Captain," Richard said, "I would like to compliment you and your men on the reports. They have been dead accurate about what's going on in Fairfield. The spirits know I wish I could yell at you and dismiss the messengers for getting it wrong, or embellishing the facts, but I can't. They were only too right."

Captain Meiffert didn't look pleased to have gotten it right. The situation was nothing to be pleased about. With a finger, he wiped his wet blond hair across his forehead.

"Lord Rahl, I believe we should now bring General Reibisch's army south, into Anderith. The situation is growing more tenuous by the day. I have a fistful of reports about special Ander guard troops. They are reported to be not at all like the regular Anderith army we have seen."

"I agree with the captain," Kahlan said from the ground beside Du Chaillu. "We need to be in the library, trying to find something of use against the chimes. We don't have time to counter the things being said to sway people to reject us."

"That's just here," Richard said.

"Are you so sure? What if it's not? Besides, as I said, we don't have the luxury of time to devote to it. We have more important things to worry about."

"The Mother Confessor is right," Captain Meiffert insisted.

"I have to believe truth will win out. Otherwise, what is there left to do? Lie to people to get them to join our side?"

"It seems to be working for those who oppose us," Kahlan pointed out.

Richard wiped his wet hair back from his forehead. "Look, there's nothing I would like better than to simply call General Reibisch down here. Really, there isn't. But we can't."

Captain Meiffert wiped water from his chin. The man seemed to have anticipated the reason for Richard's reluctance and was ready with a reply.

"Lord Rahl, we have enough men here. We can send word to the general, and before he comes into sight, we can take the Dominie Dirtch from the Anderith army and safely let our men through."

"I've run that very thought through my mind a thousand times," Richard said. "One thing keeps ringing a warning in my head."

"What's that?" Kahlan asked.

Richard turned sideways on his small folding stool so he might speak to her as well as the captain.

"We don't know for sure how the Dominie Dirtch work."

"So, we ask someone here," Kahlan said.

"It's not a weapon they use. We can't count on their expertise. Yes, they know that if they're being attacked they ring the things and the enemy will be killed."

"Lord Rahl, we have a thousand men, once they all return from watching the vote. We can take the Dominie Dirtch in a wide swath and General Reibisch will be able to safely bring his army through. Then we can use his men to take the rest, all along the frontier, and the Imperial Order will not be able to get through. Perhaps they will even approach, thinking they will be able to pass, and then we will have the opportunity to use the Dominie Dirtch against them."

Richard turned the candle on the table round and round in his fingers as he listened, and then in the silence that followed.

"There's one problem with that," he said at last, "and that is what I've already said: we aren't sure how they work."

"We know the basics of the things," Kahlan said, her frustration growing.

"But the problem is," Richard said, "that we don't know enough. First of all, we can't take all the Dominie Dirtch all along the frontier. There are too many-they run along the entire border. We could only take some, like you suggested, Captain.

"Therein lies the problem. Remember when we came through? How those people were killed when the Dominie Dirtch rang?"

"Yes, but we don't know why they rang," Kahlan said. "Besides, what difference does that make?"

"What if we capture a stretch of the Dominie Dirtch," Richard said, looking back and forth between. Kahlan and Captain Meiffert, "and then tell General Reibisch it's safe to bring his army in. What if, when all those men are just about there, Anderith soldiers somewhere else, ones still in control of the Dominie Dirtch, ring theirs?"

"So what?" Kahlan asked. "They will be too far away."

"Are you sure?" Richard leaned toward her for emphasis. "What if that rings them all? What if they know how to ring the entire line?

"Remember when we came in, how they said they all rang, and everyone out in front of the Dominie Dirtch was killed? They all rang together, as one."

"But they didn't know why they all rang," Kahlan said. "The soldiers didn't ring them."

"How do you know that one person somewhere along that entire line didn't ring their Dominie Dirtch, and caused them all to ring? Maybe accidentally, and they're too afraid to admit it for fear of their punishment, or perhaps one of those young people stationed there, out of boredom, just wanted to try it?

"What if the same thing happens while our army is out there before those murderous things? Can you imagine? General Reibisch has near to a hundred thousand men- maybe more by now. Can you imagine his entire force killed in one instant?"

Richard looked from Kahlan's calm face to the captain's alarmed expression. "Our entire army down here in the South, at once, dead. Imagine it."

"But I don't think-" Kahlan began. "And are you willing to risk the lives of all those young men on what you think? Are you so sure? I don't know that the Dominie Dirtch work together like that, but what if they do? Maybe one rung in anger rings them all. Can you say it won't?