"And what was it that Baraccus said about me?"

"He told me the same thing that you just did, that there are times when there is no other way, and you must trust others. Those were his words, just as they were yours. He said that one day another master would say those exact same words, and then add exactly the same words you did: 'This is one of those times.

"He told me that if a master ever said these words, that meant that they were the right one and I was to tell them some things."

Richard could feel every hair on his arms stand on end.

"You took Magda Searus somewhere, didn't you?"

"Yes, Master. After that I never saw Baraccus again. But before, when he told me that someday someone would say those words, he told me to tell them his message."

"He left a message?" When she nodded, he rolled his hand. "So what is it?"

" 'I am sorry. I don't know the answers that would save you. If I did, please believe that I would give them eagerly. But I know the good in you. I believe in you. I do know that you have within you what you must to succeed. There will be times when you doubt yourself. Do not give up. Remember then that I believe in you, that I know you can accomplish what you must. You are a rare person. Believe in yourself.

" 'Know that I believe you are the one who can do it. »

Richard sat frozen. The words echoed around in his head. They were oddly familiar.

"I've heard almost those exact words before."

The sliph glided a little closer, her features tightening. "You have?"

Richard concentrated as he ran the words through his mind again, trying to recall…

And then he did. It was right after Shota had told him about Baraccus. Just before she left, she'd said those very words to him. There was something about those words, spoken by Shota, that had aroused an indistinct memory.

"It was Shota, the witch woman," Richard said as he frowned in recollection. "She told me those words."

The sliph retreated. "I am sorry, Master. You have failed the test."

Richard looked up at her. "What test?"

"The test Baraccus just gave you. I am sorry, but you have failed his test. I can tell you nothing more."

Without further word, the sliph abruptly vanished into the black hole in the stone.

Richard threw himself down on his stomach, leaning down into the hole. "No! Wait! Don't leave!"

His own voice echoed up out of the empty, black shaft.

The sliph was gone. Without his gift, he had no way to call her back.

CHAPTER 34

Nicci heard a soft knock at the door. Zedd looked up but he didn't stand. Cara, hands clasped behind her back, gazing out the window, looked back over her shoulder. Nicci, standing closest to the door, pulled it open. The small flame in the lamp on the table was not up to the task of chasing the gloom from the room, but it cast what warm light it could across the face of the tall prophet.

"What's going on?" Nathan asked in his deep voice. He cast a suspicious look around at those in the room. "Rikka wouldn't say much other than that you and Cara were back and Zedd wanted to see me immediately."

"That's right," Zedd said. "Come in, please."

Nathan glanced around the somber room as he strode in. "Where's Richard."

Nicci swallowed. "He didn't make it back with us."

"Didn't make it back?" He paused to take in the bleak look on Nicci's face. "Dear spirits…"

Zedd, sitting at Jebra's side at the bed, didn't look up. Jebra was unconscious. When they tried to close her eyes her lids would pop open again. They finally quit trying and let her stare up at the ceiling.

Zedd had already tended to her broken leg as best he could. She was very fortunate that Cara was not only quick but strong, and that she had been able to catch Jebra's ankle just in time as her dead weight had toppled outward from the balcony. Still, her momentum had whipped the seer down around and under the balcony, where her leg smacked a support strut that broke her leg. Nicci suspected that the woman had been unconscious the moment she started falling.

It had been a bad break. Zedd had set to work immediately on her injury, but because of the unusual state Jebra was in he had not been able to heal the break. All he had been able to do was set it, splint it, and add enough of his gift to help it begin to mend. When she finally awoke he would be able to finish the healing. If she awoke. Nicci had her doubts.

Nicci knew that Jebra's broken leg was the least of the woman's problems. Despite everything they had tried, they had been unable to arouse her from her catatonic state. Zedd had tried. Nicci had tried. She had even tried dangerous conjuring involving Subtractive Magic. Zedd had been against it at first, but when Nicci confronted him with the stark nature of their choices he grudgingly agreed.

Unfortunately, even that hadn't helped. Jebra's mind was locked away from them. Whatever magic the witch woman had used on her was something they were unable to break. Whatever had been done didn't appear to Nicci to be intended to be reversible. If they knew its nature perhaps they might stand a chance of breaking the spell, but they didn't know its makeup.

Nathan bent and touched two fingers to the unconscious woman's temple. He straightened and helplessly shook his head at Zedd's questioning expression.

Nicci had never seen anything like it. Zedd, on the other hand, had in the beginning rubbed his chin as he brooded. He'd muttered that there was something oddly familiar about its nature. What, he couldn't say. Despite how insistent Nicci had been, and despite his own desperate desire to do something, Zedd was at his wits' end that he could not pinpoint why he felt that he had seen some aspect of such conjuring before.

He was, after all, he had reminded them, the First Wizard, and he had spent a good portion of his life studying such things. He believed that he should be able to identify what kind of web had been spun around the woman. Nicci knew that if Jebra had been conscious it would have made the job a great deal easier, but Zedd wasn't willing to use an excuse for his own failure to identify what the conjuring involved.

Nicci heard a commotion out in the hallway. Nathan stuck his head out the doorway for a look.

"What is it?" a voice in the distance called out. It was Ann, rushing up the hall, escorted by Rikka. She finally reached the door. "What's going on?"

As she came into the room, laboring to catch her breath, Nathan laid a big hand on her shoulder. "Something has happened to Richard."

Strands of gray hair stuck out from the loose bun at the back of her head like a plume of ruffled feathers. Her calculating gaze swept over those in the room, assessing the degree of seriousness she saw in each of them. It was the kind of swift, lean evaluation Nicci associated with Ann.

As the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light, she had always had a commanding presence that could strike fear into just about anyone, from high-ranking Sister to stableboys. Even though Nicci was no longer a Sister of the Light, her guard always went up whenever the former prelate came into the room. The woman's short stature in no way diminished the air of looming menace that seemed to surround her.

Ann turned an intent look up at Nathan. "What happened? Is the boy hurt — "

"I don't know, yet," Nathan said, holding up a hand to forestall a flood of questions before they could landslide in on him. "Let the woman explain."

"All we know for sure," Nicci said when Ann turned a hot glare on her, "is that while we were traveling in the sliph back here from the People's Palace, the beast attacked us. Cara and I tried to help Richard fight it off, then we were separated from him. As soon as that happened I felt some kind of extrinsic magic. Next thing we knew, Cara and I were back at the Keep. Richard wasn't with us. We have no idea what happened to him after he was touched by the strange power I sensed. We never saw the beast again, either.