"Releassse her," the mriswith hissed, "or die."

Kahlan covered the piercing pain in her breast when he had done as he was told. Her eyes watered with the intensity of hurt. At least it helped clear them of the blood.

"What be the meaning of this," Brogan growled. "She be mine. The Creator wishes her punished!"

"You will do as the dreamssss walker commandsss, or you will die."

Brogan cocked his head. "He wishes this?" The mriswith hissed confirmation. "I don't understand..»

"You question?"

"No. No, of course not. It will be as you advise, sacred one."

Kahlan was afraid to sit up, hoping they would tell Brogan to let her go, next. Brogan stood, backing away.

Another mriswith appeared with Adie, shoving her to the ground beside Kahlan. The sorceress's touch on Kahlan's arm said without words that she was all right, if bruised and cut. Adie put an arm around Kahlan's shoulders and helped her sit up.

Kahlan hurt everywhere. He jaw throbbed where Brogan had hit her, her stomach ached, and her forehead stung. Blood was still running into her eyes.

One of the mriswith selected two rings from a number looped over its wrist, and shoved them at the sorceress in tattered rags — Lunetta, Brogan had called her "The other is dead. You must do it instead."

Lunetta, looking puzzled, took the rings. "Do what?"

"Use your gift to put these around their neck, so they can be controlled."

Lunetta pulled and one of the collars snapped, coming open. She seemed surprised, even pleased. Holding it out, she bent over Adie.

"Please, sister," Adie whispered it her native tongue, "I be from your homeland. Help us."

Lunetta paused, looking into Adie's eyes.

"Lunetta!" Brogan kicked her rump. "Hurry up. Do as the Creator wishes."

Lunetta snapped the metal collar around Adie's neck, then shuffled over to Kahlan and did the same. Kahlan blinked at the childlike smile Lunetta gave her.

Kahlan reached up after Lunetta straightened, and felt the collar. In the moonlight, she thought she recognized it, but when she felt the smooth metal and could no longer find the seam, she was sure. It was a Rada'Han, like the Sisters of the Light had put around Richard's neck. She knew that those sorceresses used the collar to control him. The purpose must be the same for them: to control their power. Kahlan suddenly feared that her power would not be returning in a few hours.

When they reached the coach, Ahern was there, at the point of a mriswith blade. He had told Kahlan, Adie, and Orsk to dive out of the coach on a curve and he would lead their pursuers away from her. A bold, and brave, move that, in the end, had failed.

Kahlan was suddenly relieved she had made everyone else go to Ebinissia, as planned. Kahlan had told Jebra to care for Cyrilla, and the rest of die men to carry out their plans to bring Ebinissia back from the ashes. Kahlan's sister was home. If Kahlan died, Galea still had a queen.

Had she brought any of those gallant young men, these mriswith, these nightmare creatures of the wind, would have gutted them all, as they had done to Orsk.

She felt a pang of sorrow for Orsk, and then a claw shoved her into the coach. Adie was pushed in right behind her. Kahlan heard a brief conversation, and then Lunetta climbed in the coach, sitting across from Kahlan and Adie. A mriswith entered and sat beside Lunetta, its beady eyes taking account of them. Kahlan pulled her shirt closed and tried to wipe the blood from her eyes.

She heard more talking outside, something about replacing the runners on the coach with wheels. Through the window, she saw Ahem, at swordpoint, climb up to the driver's seat. The man in the red cape followed him up, and then another of the mriswith.

Kahlan felt her legs trembling. Where were they taking them? She was so close to Richard. She clenched her teeth, holding back a wail. It wasn't fair. She felt a tear roll down her cheek.

Adie's hand slid between their legs, and by its little movement against her thigh, she read the comfort in that touch.

The mriswith leaned toward them as its slit of a mouth seemed to widen in a grim smile. It lifted the three-bladed knife in its claw, giving it a little wiggle before their eyes.

"Try to esssscape, and I will ssslice the bottoms of your feet." It cocked its smooth head. "Understand?"

Kahlan and Adie both nodded.

"Speak," it added, "And I ssslice out your tonguesss."

They nodded again.

It turned to Lunetta. "With your gift, through the collar, seal their power. Like I show you." It put a claw to Lunetta's forehead. "Understand?"

Lunetta smiled with comprehension. "Yes. I see."

Kahlan heard Adie grunt, and at the same time she felt something tighten in her own chest. It was the place where she always felt her power. In dismay, she wondered if she would ever feel it return. She remembered the forlorn emptiness when the Keltish wizard had use magic to make her lose the connection with her power. She knew what to expect.

"She bleeds," the mriswith said to Lunetta. "You must heal her. Skin brother would not be pleased if she were scarred."

She heard the whip snap, and Ahern's whistle. The coach lurched ahead. Lunetta leaned forward to heal her wound.

Dear spirits, where were they taking her?

CHAPTER 40

Ann's eyes stung with tears as a shuddering cry escaped her throat. She had long ago forsaken her determination to keep from crying out. Who but the Creator would hear, or care?

Valdora lifted the knife, greasy with blood. "Hurt?" A gap-toothed grin came to her as a chuckle fought its way out. "How do you like it when someone else chooses what will happen to you? That's what you did. You chose how I would die. You denied me life. Life I could have had at the palace. I would still be young. You chose to let me die."

Ann flinched as the knife point pricked her side. "I asked a question. Prelate. How do you like it?"

"No more than you, I would expect."

The grin returned. "Gooood. I want you to know the pain I've lived with all these years."

"I left you with a life the same as everyone else has. A life to live as you would. You were left with what the Creator gave you, the same as everyone else come into this world. I could have had you executed."

"For casting a spell! I'm a sorceress! That's what the Creator gave me, and I used it!"

Though Ann knew the arguments were pointless, she favored them over Valdora going back to her silent knifework.

"You used what the Creator gave you to take from others what they would not have given willingly. You thieved their affections, their hearts, their lives. You had no right. You sampled devotion like candies at a fair. You bound them to you with glamours and then cast them away to snare another."

The knife pricked her again. "And you banished me!"

"How many lives did you bring to ruin? You were counseled, you were warned, you were punished. Still, you continued. Only after all this were you put out of the Palace of the Prophets."

Ann's shoulders throbbed with a dull ache. She was stretched out naked on a wooden table, her wrists bound with magic over her head at one end, and her ankles at the other. The spell chafed worse than coarse hemp rope. She was as helpless as a hog hung up to be bled.

Valdora had used a spell, something else she had learned who knew where, to block Ann's Han. She could feel it there, like a warm fire on a winter's night, just beyond a window, inviting, promising warmth, but out of reach.

Ann stared up at the window near the top of the wall in the little stone room. It was nearing daylight. Why hadn't he come? He should have come to rescue her by now, and then she was to somehow capture him. But he hadn't come.