"Sometimes, they look like the first boy, with the black death overwhelming them and rotting their bodies. Others are tortured with horribly painful swellings in their neck, armpits, or groin, they suffer miserably until they finally die. Bert is like that. If the distemper can be brought to a head, and encouraged to break and run, then they occasionally recover."

"What about Lily?" Kahlan asked. "What about these tokens, as you called them?"

"I've never seen them before, with my own eyes, but I've read about them in our records. The tokens will appear on the legs and sometimes on the chest. People who have the tokens rarely know they are sick, until the end. They will one day discover to their horror that they have the tokens upon them, and be dead shortly thereafter.

"They die with little or no pain. But they all die. No one with tokens on them ever lives. The old man must have seen them before, because he knew this.

"The plagues I've seen, as violent as the outbreaks were, never displayed the tokens. The records say that the worst of the great plagues, the ones that brought the most widespread death, were marked with the tokens. Some people thought they were visible signs of the Keeper's fatal touch."

"But Lily is just a little girl," Kahlan protested, as if arguing could change it, "she doesn't seem so sick. It isn't possible for her to…"

"Lily is feeling out of sorts. The tokens on her legs are fully developed. She will be dead before midnight." "Tonight?" Richard asked in astonishment.

"Yes. At the very latest. More likely within hours. I think perhaps even. ." A woman's long, shrill scream came from the house. The horror in it sent a shiver through Richard's bones. The soldiers who had been talking in low voices off at the end of the alley fell silent. The only sound was a dog barking down the next street.

A man's anguished cry came from the house. Drefan closed his eyes. "As I was about to say, even sooner." Kahlan buried her face against Richard's shoulder. She clutched his shirt. Richard's head spun.

"They're children," she wept. "That bastard is killing children!" Drefan's brow bunched. "What's she talking about?"

"Drefan"- Richard tightened his arms around Kahlan as she shook-"I think these children are dying because a wizard and a sorceress went to a Ja'La game a few days back and used magic to start this plague." "That's not possible. It takes longer than that for people to fall sick." "The wizard was the one who hurt Cara when you first arrived. He left a prophecy on the wall in the pit. It begins: 'On the red moon will come the firestorm. " Drefan regarded him with a dubious frown. "How can magic start a plague?" "I don't know," Richard whispered.

He couldn't bear to speak aloud the next part of the prophecy. The one bonded to the blade will watch as his people die. If he does nothing, then he, and all those he loves, will die in its heat, for no blade, forged of steel or conjured of sorcery, can touch this foe.

Kahlan trembled in his arms, and he knew she was agonizing over the final part of the prophecy.

To quench the inferno, he must seek the remedy in the wind. Lightning will find him on that path, for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood.

CHAPTER 31

At the edge of the expansive palace grounds, a patrol of D'Haran soldiers spotted them and snapped to attention. Just beyond the soldiers, in the streets of the city, Kahlan could see people everywhere going about their business pause to bow to the Mother Confessor and the Lord Rahl.

Although the activities of commerce, on the surface, seemed like any other day, Kahlan thought she could detect subtle differences: men loading barrels into a wagon scrutinized people who passed close by; shopkeepers appraised customers carefully; people walking on the street skirted those stopped in conversation. The knots of people gossiping seemed more numerous. Laughter was conspicuously absent from the streets.

After they had solemnly saluted with fists to the leather armor and chain mail over their hearts, the patrol of soldiers not far off broke into good-natured grins. "Huzzah, Lord Rahl!" they cheered as one. "Huzzah, Lord Rahl!" "Thank you, Lord Rahl," one of the soldiers shouted toward them. "You cured us! Restored our health! We're well because of you. Long live the great wizard, Lord Rahl!"

Richard froze in midstride, not looking at the soldiers, but staring at the ground before him. His cloak, snared in a gust of wind, embraced him, shrouding him in its golden sparkles.

The others joined in. "Long live Lord Rahl! Long live Lord Rahl!" Hands balled in fists, Richard started out once more without looking their way. Kahlan, her arm around his, slid her hand down and urged his fist open to twine her fingers in his. She gave his hand a squeeze of silent understanding and support.

From the corner of her eye, Kahlan could see Cara, back behind Drefan and Nadine, gesturing angrily at the patrol to silence them and move them along.

In the distance before them, on a gentle rise, the expanse of the Confessors' Palace rose up in all its splendor of stone columns, vast walls, and elegant spires, standing out a pristine white against the darkening sky. Not only was the sun going down but murky clouds scudded by, messengers, delivering a vow of a storm. A few errant snowflakes flitted past on the wind, scouting for the horde to come. Spring had not yet prevailed.

Kahlan gripped Richard's hand as if clutching at life itself. In her mind's eye, she saw nothing but sickness and death. They had seen near to a dozen sick children, stricken with plague. Richard's pallid face looked hardly better that the six dead faces she had seen.

Her insides ached. Holding back her tears, her cries, her screams, had cramped her stomach muscles. She had told herself that she couldn't lose control and cry in front of mothers who were terrified that their sick children might be sicker than they had imagined, or as sick as they knew, but refused to believe.

Many of those mothers were hardly older than Kahlan. They were just young women, faced with a crushing plight, who fell to piteous prayer for the good spirits to spare their precious children. Kahlan couldn't say that she wouldn't have been reduced to the same state in their place.

Some of the parents, like the Andersons, had older members of their families to rely on for advice and support, but some of the mothers were young and alone, with only husbands hardly more than boys themselves, and no one to turn to.

Kahlan put her free hand over the painful spasm in her abdomen. She knew how devastated Richard felt. He had more than enough to carry on his shoulders. She had to be strong for him.

Majestic maple trees stood to each side, the bare thicket of branches laced together over their heads. It wouldn't be long before they budded. They passed out from the tunnel of trees, onto the winding promenade that led up to the palace.

Behind them. Drefan and Nadine carried on a whispered discussion of herbs and cures to be tried. Nadine would propose something, and Drefan would give his opinion as to whether it would be useless or might be worth trying. He would gently lecture her on the paths of infirmity, and the causes of breaks in the body's defenses that allowed an affliction to gain hold.

Kahlan got the vague impression that he almost seemed to view those who fell sick with contempt, as if because they took so little care with their auras and flows of energy that he talked about all the time, it was only to be expected that they would succumb to a pestilence unworthy of those like himself who minded their bodies better. She guessed that one with his knowledge of healing people must get frustrated with those who brought disease upon themselves, like the prostitutes and the men who went to them. She was relieved, at least, that he wasn't one of those.