Tom appeared in the crowd. Jennsen was there, too.

"Get some poles!" Tom commanded. "And some canvas, or blankets. We'll make a litter. Four men at a time can carry him. We can run and get him there quickly."

Men rushed to the buildings, searching for what they would need to make a litter.

CHAPTER 65

Kahlan hurriedly pulled the tin off the shelf and opened the lid. The tin contained a yellowish powder. It was the right color. She leaned down and showed it to Richard as he lay in the litter. He reached in and took a pinch.

He smelled it. He put his tongue to it and then nodded.

"Just a little," he whispered, lifting it out to her. Kahlan held out her palm while he dribbled some of the crushed powder in her hand. He threw the rest on the floor, too weak to bother returning it to the tin. Kahlan added the small portion on her palm to one of the pots of boiling water.

Cloth bags of herbs steeped in other pots of hot water. Alkaloids from dried mushrooms were soaking in oil. Richard had other people grating stalks of plants.

"Lobelia," Richard said. His eyes were closed.

Owen bent down. "Lobelia?"

Richard nodded. "It will be a dried herb."

Owen turned to the shelves and started looking. There were hundreds of little square cubbyholes in the wall of the place where the man who had made Richard's poison, and the antidote, used to work. It was a small, simple, single-room building with little light. It was not nearly as well equipped as the herbalist places Kahlan had seen before, but the man had an extensive collection of things. More than that, he had once made the antidote, presumably from what was there.

"Here!" Owen said, holding a bag down for Richard to see. "It says lobelia on the tag."

"Grind a little pile half the size of your thumbnail, sift out the fibers and discard them, then add what's left to the bowl with the darker oil."

Richard knew about herbs, but he didn't know anywhere near enough about herbs to concoct the cure for the poison he had been given.

His gift seemed to be guiding him.

Richard was in a near trance, or nearly unconscious; Kahlan wasn't exactly sure which. He was having difficulty breathing. She didn't know what else to do to help him. If they didn't do something, he was going to die, and soon. As long as he lay quietly on the litter he was resting more comfortably, but that was not going to make him recover.

It had been a short run to Witherton, but it had taken too long as far as Kahlan was concerned.

"Yarrow," Richard said.

Kahlan leaned down. "What preparation?"

"Oil," Richard said.

Kahlan fumbled through the shelves of small bottles. She found one labeled YARROW OIL. She squatted down and held it before Richard.

"How much?"

She lifted one of his hands and put the bottle in it, closing his fingers around it so he could tell its size. "How much?"

"Is it full?"

Kahlan hurriedly wiggled out the whittled wooden stopper. "Yes."

"Half," Richard said. "In with any of the other oils."

"I found the feverfew," Jennsen said as she hopped down from the stool.

"Make a tincture," Richard told her.

Kahlan replaced the stopper in the bottle and squatted down beside Richard. "What next?"

"Make an infusion of mullein."

"Mullein, mullein," Kahlan mumbled as she turned to the task.

As Richard gave them instructions, half a dozen people worked at boiling, blending, crushing, grating, filtering, and steeping. They added some of the preparations together as they were completed, and kept others separate as they worked on them. As they worked, the number of various tasks were combined and reduced at specified points.

Richard gestured for Owen. Owen brushed his hands clean on his trouser legs as he bent down to await instruction.

"Cold," Richard said, his eyes closed. "We need something cold. We need a way to cool it."

Owen thought a moment. "There's a stream not far."

Richard pointed to various stations where people labored. "Pour those bowls of preparations and powders into the boiling water in the kettle, there. Then take it to the stream. Hold the kettle down in the water to cool it." Richard held up a finger in caution. "Don't put it in too deep and let the water from the stream run in over the top, or it will be ruined."

Owen shook his head. "I won't."

He stood impatiently as Kahlan poured the contents of shallow bowls into the boiling pot of water. She didn't know if any of this made sense, but she knew that Richard had the gift, and he certainly had figured out and eliminated the problem he had been having with it. If his gift could guide him in making the antidote, it might save his life.

Kahlan didn't know anything else that would.

She handed the kettle to Owen. He ran out the door to put it in the stream to cool it. Cara followed him out to make sure that nothing happened to what might be the only thing that could save Richard's life.

Jennsen sat on the floor on the other side of him, holding his hand.

With the back of her wrist, Kahlan pushed her hair off her face. She sat beside Richard and took his free hand to wait for Owen and Cara to return.

Betty stood in the doorway, her ears pricked forward, her tail intermittently going into a hopeful blur of wagging whenever Jennsen or Kahlan looked her way.

It seemed like hours until Owen came running back with the kettle, although Kahlan knew it really hadn't been all that long.

"Filter it through a cloth," Richard said, "but don't squeeze the cloth at the end; just let the liquid run through until you have half a cup of it.

Once you've done that, then add the oils to the liquid you collected in the cup."

Everyone stood watching Kahlan work, snatching up what she needed, tossing it away when she was finished with it. When she had enough liquid from the kettle collected in the cup, she poured in the oils.

"Stir it with a stick of cinnamon," Richard said.

Owen climbed up on the stool. "I remember seeing cinnamon."

He handed a stick down to Kahlan. She stirred the golden liquid, but it didn't seem to be working.

"The oil and water don't want to mix," she told Richard.

His head was rolled to the side away from her. "Keep mixing. A moment will come when they suddenly come together."

Dubious, Kahlan kept stirring. She could see that the oils were sticking together in globs and not mixing with the water she had filtered through the cloth. The more it cooled, the less and less it looked like it was going to work.

Kahlan felt a tear of desperation run down her cheek and drip off her jaw.

The contents of the cup stiffened. She kept stirring, not wanting to tell Richard that it wasn't working. She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat.

The contents in the cup began to melt. Kahlan gasped. She blinked.

Everything in the cup suddenly went together into a smooth, syrupy liquid.

"Richard!" She wiped the tear from her cheek. "It worked. It mixed together. Now what?"

He held his hand out. "It's ready. Give it to me."

Jennsen and Cara helped him to sit up. Kahlan held the precious cup in both hands and carefully put it to his mouth. She tipped it up to help him drink. It took a while to get it down. He had to stop from time to time as he sipped, trying not to cough.

It was a lot more than had been in any of the little square-sided bottles, but Kahlan figured that maybe he needed more, since he was so late to be taking it.

When he was finished, she reached up and set the cup on the counter.She licked a drop of the liquid off her finger. The antidote had the slight aroma of cinnamon and a sweet, spicy taste. She hoped that was right.

Richard worked at recovering his breath after the effort of drinking.