"A senseless word. It means nothing."

She regarded him for a time with a look that he feared because it seemed to hold a world of forbidden knowledge. By the cast of iron resolve in her eyes, he knew that no mere blade would gain that knowledge for him.

"A long time ago, in a faraway place," she said in her quiet voice, another sorceress revealed to me a bit of the Keeper's tongue. That is one of his words, in his primordial language. You would not have heard it unless you were the right one. Grushdeva. It means 'vengeance. You are not the one he has chosen."

Oba thought she might be taunting him. "You don't know what words I've heard or anything about it. I'm the son of Darken Rahl. A rightful heir. You don't know anything about what I hear. I will have power you can only imagine."

"Free will is forfeit when dealing with the Keeper. You have sold what is yours alone and priceless… for nothing but ashes.

"You have sold yourself into the worst kind of slavery, Oba, in return for nothing more than the illusion of self-worth. You have no say in what is to be. You are not the one. It is another." She wiped the sweat from her brow. "And, that much of it is yet to be decided."

"Now you presume to think you can alter the course of what I have wrought? Dictate what shall be?" Oba's own words surprised him. They'd seemed to come out before he thought to say them.

"Such things are not amenable to the likes of me," she admitted. "I learned at the Palace of the Prophets not to meddle in that which is above me and ungovernable. The grand scheme of life and death are the rightful province of the Creator and the Keeper." She seemed contented behind a sly expression. "But I am not above exercising my free will."

He'd heard enough. She was only trying to stall, to confuse him. For some reason, he couldn't make his racing heart slow.

"What are holes in the world?"

"They are the end of the likes of me," she said. "They are the end of everything I know."

It was just like a sorceress to answer with a senseless riddle. "Who are the other stones?" he demanded.

At last, she turned her formidable eyes from him to look down at the other stones. Her movements seemed oddly jerky. Her slender fingers selected one of the stones. As she lifted it, she paused to put her other hand across her middle. Oba realized that she was in pain. She was trying her best to cover it, but she couldn't cover it now. The sweat beading her brow was from pain. The agony came out in a low moan. Oba watched with fascination.

Then, it seemed to ebb some. With great effort she straightened her posture and returned her attention to what she had been doing. She held out her hand, palm up, with the stone sitting in the center.

"This one," she said, her breathing labored, now, "is me."

"You? That stone is you?"

She nodded as she cast it at the board without even looking. The stone tumbled to a stop, this time, without the accompaniment of lightning and thunder. Oba felt relieved, even a little foolish, that he had been so rattled by that before. He smiled, now. It was just a silly board game, and he was invincible.

The stone had come to rest at one comer of the square that lay within the two circles.

He gestured. "So, what does that mean?"

"Protector," she managed through a shallow pant.

Her trembling fingers gathered up the stone. She lifted her hand up before him and opened her slender fingers. The stone, her stone, rested in the center of her palm. Her eyes were fixed on his.

As Oba watched, the stone crumbled to ash in her palm.

"Why did it do that?" he whispered, his eyes going wide.

Althea didn't answer. Instead, she slumped and then toppled over. Her arms sprawled out before her, her legs to the side. The ash that had been a stone scattered in a dark smear across the floor.

Oba leaped to his feet. His goose bumps were back. He had seen enough people die to know that Althea was dead.

Rending slashes of thunderous lightning ignited, lacing the sky with violent flashes of light that lanced in through the windows, throwing blinding white light across the dead sorceress. Sweat trickled down his temple and over his cheek.

Oba stood staring at the body for a long moment.

And then he ran.