"Richard was born of two lines of wizards, Darken Rahl and his grandfather Zedd. He's also the first in thousands of years to be born with both sides of the gift.

"All of our abilities contribute to how we're able to react to situations. We don't know how having both sides contributes to Richard's ability to read a situation and do what's necessary. I suspect he may be guided by his gift, perhaps more than he believes."

Jennsen let out a troubled sigh. "After all this time, how did this barrier come to be down, anyway?"

"Richard destroyed it."

Jennsen looked up in astonishment. "Then it's true. Sebastian told me that the Lord Rahl-Richard-had brought the barrier down. Sebastian said it was so that Richard could invade and conquer the Old World."

Kahlan smiled at such a grandiose lie. "You don't believe that part of it, do you?"

"No, not now."

"Now that the barrier is down, the Imperial Order is flooding up into the New World, destroying or enslaving everything before them."

"Where can people live that's safe? Where can we?"

"Until they're stopped or driven back, there is no safe place to live."

Jennsen thought it over a moment. "If the barrier coming down let the Imperial Order flood in to conquer the New World, why would Richard have destroyed it?"

With one hand, Kahlan held on to the side of the wagon as it rocked over a rough patch of ground. She stared ahead, watching Richard walking through the glaring light of the wasteland.

"Because of me," Kahlan said in a quiet voice. "One of those mistakes I told you about." She let out a tired sigh. "One of those stabs in the dark."

CHAPTER 8

Richard squatted down, resting his forearms across his thighs as he studied the curious patch of rock. His head was pounding with pain; he was doing his best to ignore it. The headache had come and gone seemingly without reason. At times he had begun to think that it just might be the heat after all, and not the gift.

As he considered the signs on the ground, he forgot about his headache.

Something about the rock seemed familiar. Not simply familiar, but unsettlingly familiar.

Hooves partially covered by long wisps of wiry brown hair came to an expectant halt beside him. With the top of her head, Betty gently butted his shoulder, hoping for a snack, or at least a scratch.

Richard looked up at the goat's intent, floppy-eared expression. As Betty watched him watching her, her tail went into a blur of wagging.

Richard smiled and scratched behind her ears. Betty bleated her pleasure at the scratch, but it sounded to him like she would have preferred a snack.

After not eating for two days as she lay in misery in the wagon, the goat seemed to come back to life and begin to recover from the loss of her two kids. Along with her appetite, Betty's curiosity had returned. She especially enjoyed scouting with Richard, when he would let hercome along.

It made Jennsen laugh to watch the goat trotting after him like a puppy.

Maybe what really made her laugh was that Betty was getting back to her old self.

In recent days the land had changed, too. They had begun to see the return of life. At first, it had simply been the rusty discoloration of lichen growing on the fragmented rock. Soon after, they spotted a small thorny bush growing in a low place. Now the rugged plants grew at widely spaced intervals, dotting the landscape. Betty appreciated the tough bushes, dining on them as if they were the finest salad greens. On occasion the horses sampled the brush, then turned away, never finding it to their liking.

Lichen that had begun to grow on the rock appeared as crusty splotches streaked with color. In some places it was dark, thick, and leathery, while in other spots it was no more than what almost appeared to be a coat of thin green paint. The greenish discoloration filled cracks and crevasses and coated the underside of stones where the sun didn't bleach it out. Rocks sticking partway out of the crumbly ground could be pulled up to reveal thin tendrils of dark brown subterranean fungal growth.

Tiny insects with long feelers skittered from rock to rock or hid in holes in the scattering of rocks lying about on the ground that looked as if they had once been boiling and bubbling, and had suddenly turned to stone, leaving the bubbles forever set in place. An occasional glossy green beetle, bearing wide pincer jaws, waddled through the sand. Small red ants stacked steep ruddy mounds of dirt around their holes. There were cottony webs of spiders in the crotches of the isolated, small, spindly brush growing sporadically across the ever rising plain. Slender light green lizards sat on rocks basking in the sun, watching the people pass. If they came too close, the little creatures, lightning quick, darted for cover.

The signs of life Richard had so far seen were still a long way from being anything substantial enough to support people, but it was at least a relief to once again feel like he was rejoining the world of the living. He knew, too, that up beyond the first wall of mountains they would at last encounter life in abundance. He also knew that there they would again begin to encounter people.

Birds, as well, were just beginning to become a common sight. Most were small-strawberry-colored finches, ash-colored gnatcatchers, rock wrens and black-throated sparrows. In the distance Richard saw single birds winging through the blue sky, while sparrows congregated in small skittish flocks.

Here and there, birds lit on the scraggly brush, flitting about looking for seeds and bugs. The birds disappeared instantly whenever the races glided into sight.

Staring at the expanse of rock and open ground before him, Richard rose up, startled, as the reason it looked unsettlingly familiar came to him. At the same time as the realization came to him, his headache vanished.

Off to his right, Richard saw Kahlan, with Cara at her side, making their way out to where Richard stood staring down at the astonishing stretch of rock. The wagon, with Tom, Friedrich, and Jennsen, rumbled on in the distance to the south. The dust raised by the wagon and horses hung in the dead air and could be seen for miles. Richard supposed that with the races periodically paying them a visit, the telltale of the dust didn't much matter. Still, he would be glad when they reached ground where they could at least have a chance to try to remain a little more inconspicuous.

"Find anything interesting?" Kahlan asked as she wiped her sleeve across her forehead.

Richard cast a few small pebbles down at the stretch of rock he'd been studying. "Tell me what you think of that."

"I think you look like you feel better," Kahlan said.

Her eyes on his, she gave him her special smile, the smile she gave no one but him. He couldn't help grinning.

Cara, ignoring the smiles that passed between Richard and Kahlan, leaned in for a gander. "I think Lord Rahl has been looking at too many rocks. This is more rock, just like all the rest."

"Is it?" Richard asked. He gestured at the area he'd been scrutinizing and then pointed at another place by where Kahlan and Cara stood. "Is it the same as that?"

Cara peered at both areas briefly before she folded her arms. "The rock over there that you've been looking at is just a paler brown, that's all."

Kahlan shrugged. "I think she's right, Richard. It looks like the same kind of rock, maybe just a little more of a tan color." She thought it over a moment as she scanned the ground, then added to her assessment. "I guess it looks more like the rock we've been walking across for days until we started encountering a little bit of grass and brush."

Richard put his hands on his hips as he stared back at the remarkable stretch of rock he'd found. "Tell me, then, what characterized the rock in the place where we were before-a few days ago, back closer to the Pillars of Creation?"