"That's how I'm fighting him, how I'm trying to defeat him, how I'm trying to get him out of my land."

Owen nodded. 'This is what we need, too. We are victims of fate. We need for you to come and get his men out of our land, and then to withdraw your sword, your ways, from our people so we may live in tranquility again.

We need you to give us freedom."

The driftwood popped, sending a glowing swirl of sparks skyward.

Richard, hanging his head, tapped his fingertips together. He didn't think the man had heard a word he'd said. They needed rest. He needed to translate the book. They needed to get to where they were going. At least he didn't have a headache.

"Owen, I'm sorry," he finally said in a quiet voice. "I can't help you in so direct a manner. But I would like you to understand that my cause is to your advantage, too, and that what I'm doing will also cause Jagang to eventually pull his troops out of your homeland as well, or at least weaken their presence so that you can throw them out yourselves."

"No," Owen said. "His men will not leave my land until you come and..

" Owen winced. "And destroy them."

The very word, the implication, looked sickening to the man.

"Tomorrow," Richard said, no longer bothering to try to sound polite, "we have to be on our way. You will have to be on your way as well. I wish you success in ridding your people of the Imperial Order."

"We cannot do such a thing," Owen protested. He sat up straighten "We are not savages. You and those like you-the unenlightened ones-it is up to you to do it and give us freedom, I am the only one who can bring you. You must come and do as your kind does. You must give our empire freedom."

Richard rubbed his fingertips across the furrows of his brow. Cara started to rise. A look from Richard sat her back down.

"I gave you water," Richard said as he stood. "I can't give you freedom."

"But you must-"

"Double watch tonight," Richard said as he turned to Cara, cutting Owen off.

Cara nodded once as her mouth twisted with a satisfied smile of iron determination.

"In the morning," Richard added, "Owen will be on his way."

"Yes," she said, her blue-eyed glare sliding to Owen, "he certainly will be."

CHAPTER 11

What is it?" Kahlan asked as she rode up beside the wagon.

Richard looked to be furious about something. She saw then that he had the book in one hand; his other was a fist. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but when Jennsen, up on the seat beside Tom, turned back to see what was going on, Richard said to her instead, "Kahlan and I are going to check the road up ahead. Keep your eye on Betty so she doesn't jump out, will you, Jenn?"

Jennsen smiled at him and nodded.

"If Betty gives you any trouble," Tom said, "just let me know and I'll take her to a lady I know and have some goat sausages made up."

Jennsen grinned at their private joke and gave Tom a good-natured elbow in his ribs. As Richard climbed over the side of the wagon and dropped to the ground, she snapped her fingers at the tail-wagging goat.

"Betty! You just stay there. Richard doesn't need you tagging along every single time."

Betty, front hooves on the chafing rail, bleated as she looked up at Jennsen, as if asking for her to reconsider.

"Down," Jennsen said in admonishment. "Lie down."

Betty bleated and reluctantly hopped back down into the wagon bed, but she would settle for no less than a scratch behind the ears as consolation before she would lie down.

Kahlan leaned over from her seat in the saddle and untied the reins to Richard's horse from the back of the wagon. He stepped into the stirrup and gracefully swung up in one fluid motion. She could see that he was agitated about something, but it made her heart sing just to look at him.

He shifted his weight forward slightly, urging his horse ahead. Kahlan squeezed her legs to the side of her own horse to spur her into a canter to keep up with Richard. He rode out ahead, rounding several turns in the flatter land among the rough hillsides, until he caught up with Cara and Friedrich, patrolling out in the lead.

"We're going to check out front for a while," he told them. "Why don't you fall back and check behind."

Kahlan knew that Richard was sending them to the back because if he took Kahlan to the back under the pretense of watching anything that might come up on them from behind, Cara would keep falling back to check on them.

If they were out front, Cara wouldn't worry about them dropping back and getting lost.

Cara laid her reins over and turned back. Sweat stuck Kahlan's shirt to her back as she leaned over her horse's withers, urging her ahead as Richard's horse sprang away. Despite the clumps of tall grass dotting the foothills and occasional sparse patches of woods, the heat was still with them. It cooled some at night, now, but the days were hot, with the humidity increasing as the clouds built up against the wall of mountains to their right.

Up close, the barrier of rugged mountains to the east was an intimidating sight. Sheer rock walls rose up below projecting plateaus heaped to their very edge with loose rock crumbled from yet higher plateaus and walls, as if the entire range was all gradually crumbling. With drops of thousands of feet at the fringe of overhanging shelves of rock, climbing such unstable scree would be impossible. If there were passes through the arid slopes, they were no doubt few and would prove difficult.

But making it past those gray mountains of scorching rock, they could now see, was hardly the biggest problem.

Those closer mountains spreading north and south in the burning heat at the edge of the desert partially hid what lay to the other side-a far more daunting range of snowcapped peaks rising up to completely block any passage east. Those imposing mountains were beyond the scale of any Kahlan had ever seen. Not even the most rugged of the Rang'Shada Mountains in the Midlands were their match. These mountains were like a race of giants. Precipitous walls of rock soared thousands of feet straight up. Harrowing slopes rose unbroken by any pass or rift and were so arduous that few trees could find a foothold. Lofty snow-packed peaks that ascended majestically above windswept clouds were jammed so close together that it reminded her more of a knife's long jagged edge than separate summits.

The day before, when Kahlan had seen Richard studying those imposing mountains, she had asked him if he thought there was any way across them. He had said no, that the only way he could see to get beyond was possibly the notch he'd spotted before, when he had found the place where the strange boundary had once been, and that notch still lay some distance north.

For now, they skirted the dry side of the closer mountains as that range made its way north along the more easily traversed lowlands.

Along the base of a gentle hill covered in clumps of brown grasses, Richard finally slowed his horse. He turned in his saddle, checking that the others were still coming, if a goodly distance behind.

He pulled his horse close beside her. "I skipped ahead in the book."

Kahlan didn't like the sound of that. "When I asked you before why you didn't skip ahead, you said that it wasn't a wise thing to do. \

"I know, but I wasn't really getting anywhere and we need answers^ As their horses settled into a comfortable walk, Richard rubbed his shoulders.

"After all that heat I can't believe how cold it's getting."

"Cold? What are you-"

"You know those rare people like Jennsen?" The leather of his saddle squeaked as he leaned toward her. "Ones born pristinely ungifted- without even that tiny spark of the gift? The pillars of Creation? Well, back when this book was written, they weren't so rare."