Dalton had researched her private activities. It had taken every favor owed him, as well as some direct threats, and even an appointment of standing. He now knew what she liked, and what she didn't. He knew she didn't like aggressive lovers. She liked them on the young side, and attentive. She liked to be treated with the utmost reverence.

She liked to be fawned over.

He approached this visit like an elaborate feast, with each course in order, and building to the main attractions. In this way, with a plan, he found it easier to proceed.

"My lady, I fear to be so forward with a woman of your station, but I must be honest."

She went to a table of inlaid silver and gold. From a silver tray, she picked a cut-glass bottle and poured herself a glass of rum. She also poured one for him, without asking, and handed it to him with a smile.

"Please, Dalton. We have a long history. I would like nothing better than your honesty. After all, I was honest with you about your wife."

"Yes," he said, "you were, weren't you."

She took a sip and then laid a wrist over his shoulder, "And are you still languishing about that? Or have you come to face the realities of life?"

"I must admit, Hildemara, that I have been… lonely, what with my wife so often… occupied. I never expected to find myself with a wife so often unavailable."

She clucked sympathetically. "You poor dear. I know just how you feel. My husband is so often occupied himself."

Dalton turned away, as if embarrassed. "Since my wife is no longer bound by our vows, I find I have… desires she is unable to satisfy. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm not experienced in this sort of thing. Most men, I guess, would find this sort of endeavor comes naturally to them. I don't."

She came close up behind him, putting her mouth next to his ear. "Do go on, Dalton. I'm listening. Don't be shy- we're old friends."

He turned to come face-to-face with her, giving her the chance to display her cleavage-something she believed was greatly appreciated.

"Since my wife no longer is bound by her vows, being called upon by the Sovereign, I don't see why I should be bound by mine. Especially when I have… longings."

"Well, of course not."

"And you once told me that I should come to you first, if anything changed with the status of my vows. Well, if you're still interested, things have changed."

Her answer was to kiss him. He found it less repulsive than he feared. By closing his eyes he was able to actually enjoy it, after a fashion.

He was surprised, though, when she shifted immediately to the more advanced matters of the encounter. It would make little difference in the end result. If she wanted to go straight to it, that was fine by him.

CHAPTER 69

It was as forbidding a place as Richard had heard, the highlands above the Nareef Valley: a bleak wasteland. The wind howled in dirty gusts.

He would expect Joseph Ander to pick such a place.

The mountains surrounding the dead lake were just as dead. They were rocky, brown, and barren of life, their peaks all crowned with snow. The thousands of runnels coming down the slopes sparkled in the sunlight, like fangs.

Juxtaposed with the bleak wasteland was the green of the paka plants, which looked almost like water lilies in the vast waters stretching across the wide lap of the surrounding mountains.

Richard had left the horses down lower and climbed the narrow foot trail he found that led up to the lake. He had tied the horses on loose tethers and removed their tack, so that if he failed to return, they could eventually escape.

Only one thing drove him on, and that was his love for Kahlan. He had to banish the chimes so that he could heal her. It was his sole purpose in life. He stood now on the sterile soil beside the poison waters, knowing what he had to do.

He had to outthink, outcreate Joseph Ander.

There was no key to the riddle of the chimes; there was no 'answer. There was no solution waiting to be found. Joseph Ander left no seam in his tapestry of magic.

His only chance was to do what Joseph Ander never would have expected. Richard had studied the man enough to understand the way he thought. He knew what Ander believed, and what he expected people would try. Richard could do none of those things and expect to succeed. Richard would do that which Joseph Ander chided the wizards to do, but which they couldn't see.

He only hoped he had the strength to see it through to the end. He had ridden hard in the day, switching horses so they would make it and yet be able to take him back. At night he had walked them until he could walk no more.

He was exhausted, and hoped only that he could hold out long enough. Long enough for Kahlan.

From the gold-worked leather pouch on his belt he pulled white sorcerer's sand. With the sand, Richard carefully began drawing a Grace. Starting with the rays representing the gift, he drew it exactly opposite from the way Zedd told him it must be drawn. He stood hi the center, laying the lines of the gift inward, toward himself.

He drew the star, representing the Creator, next, and then the circle of life, and the square for the veil, and lastly, the outer circle for the beginning of the underworld.

Imagination, Joseph Ander had said, was what made a great wizard, for only a wizard with imagination was able to transcend the limitations of tradition.

A Grace might rise in obedience to an inventive spell.

Richard intended to raise more than that.

From his place inside the Grace, Richard lifted his fists to the sky.

"Reechani! Sentrosi! Vasi! I call you forth!"

He knew what they needed. Joseph Ander had told him.

"Reechani! Sentrosi! Vasi! I call you forth and offer you my soul!"

The water rippled as the wind rose. The water moved with deliberate intent. The wind coming across the water ignited into roiling flame.

They were coming.

Richard, charged with need and with anger, lowered his arms, pointing his fists off toward the edge of the lake, where it flowed at last over the rocky lip and on down into the Nareef Valley. His entire being focused there.

Through his need and his anger, he called the Subtractive side of his power, the side from the darkest things, the side from the underworld, from the shadows in the dark forever of the netherworld.

Black lightning exploded, the bolts from his fists twisting together in a rope of howling annihilation focused by his need, powered by his wrath.

The edge of the mountain lake erupted in violence. The rock beyond disintegrated in a shower of steam and rubble from the touch of the black lightning. In an instant, the lower lake shore at the edge was no more. The destructive force of the Subtractive Magic vaporized it out of existence.

With a thundering roar, the lake began to empty.

The water churned as it pulled itself over the side. The edge foamed and frothed. The paka plants swirled with the water, tearing from the lake bottom. The vast lake of poisonous water plummeted over the brink.

The fire coming across the lake, the wind on the water, and the churning water itself slowed as they approached. These were the essence of the chimes, the distillation that spoke for them.

"Come to me," Richard commanded. "I offer you my soul."

As the chimes began to circle ever closer, Richard drew something else from the pouch at his belt.

And then, out in the lake, as it emptied, leaving a muddy bottom where poisonous water receded, there came a shimmering to the air just above the falling water. Something began to coalesce. To take form in the world of life.

Wavering in the air above the surface of the water, a figure began to appear. A robed figure. An old man made of smoke and glimmering light. A figure in pain.