Richard remembered, then, his purpose and gestured, urging them to squat down close beside him.

"Here," he said, pointing. "See this?" His ringers carefully traced a vague depression in the dense tangle of forest litter. "This is Cara's footprint."

"Well, that's no surprise," Cara said. "This is the way we came in from the road on our way to where we set up camp back there."

"That's right." Richard leaned out a little, pointing as he went on. "See here, and then off there? Those are more of your tracks, Cara. See how they come in here in a line showing where you were walking?"

Cara shrugged suspiciously. "Sure."

Richard moved to his right. They all followed. He again carefully traced a depression so they could make it out. Nicci couldn't see anything at all in the forest floor until he carefully drew the outline with a finger just above the ground. In doing so, he seemed to make the footprint magically appear for them. After he pointed it out, Nicci could tell what it was.

"This is my track," he said, watching it as if fearing that were he to look away it might vanish. "The rain works to wear them down-some places more than others-but it hasn't made all of them disappear." With a finger and thumb, he carefully lifted a wet, brown oak leaf from the center of the print. "Look, you can see under here how the pressure of my weight under the ball of my foot broke these small twigs. See? Rain can't obliterate things like that."

He looked up at them to make sure they were all paying attention and then pointed off into the shadowy mist. "You can see my tracks coming in this direction, toward us, just like Cara's." He stretched out and quickly traced two more vague depressions in the matted forest floor to show them what he meant. "See? You can still make them out."

"What's the point?" Victor asked.

Richard glanced back over his shoulder again before gesturing between the sets of tracks. "See the distance between Cara's tracks and mine? When we walked in here I was on the left and Cara was to my right. See how far apart our tracks are?"

"What of it?" Nicci asked as she pulled the hood of her cloak forward, trying to shield her face from the frigid drizzle. She pulled her hands back under the cloak and snuggled them in her armpits for warmth.

"They're that far apart," Richard said, "because when we walked through here Kahlan was in the middle, between us."

Nicci stared again at the ground. She was no expert, so she wasn't especially surprised that she couldn't see any other tracks. But this time, she didn't think that Richard could, either.

"And can you show us Kahlan's tracks?" she asked.

Richard turned a look on her of such intensity that it momentarily halted the breath she was about to take.

"That's the point." He held up a finger with the same deliberate care with which he lifted his blade. "Her tracks are gone. Not washed away by the rain, but gone — gone as if they were never there."

Victor let out a very quiet and very troubled-sounding sigh. If she was shocked, Cara hid it well. Nicci knew that he hadn't told them all of what he had to say, so she remained guarded in her question.

"You're showing us that there are no tracks from this woman?"

"That's right. I've searched. I found my tracks and Cara's tracks in various places, but where Kahlan's tracks should be there are none."

In the uncomfortable silence no one wanted to say anything. Nicci finally took it upon herself to do so.

"Richard, you have to know why that is. Don't you see, now? It's just your dream. There are no tracks because this woman doesn't exist."

With him there on his knees before her, looking up at her, it seemed she could see his soul laid bare in his gray eyes. She would have given nearly anything at that moment to be able to simply comfort him. But she couldn't do that. Nicci had to force herself to go on.

"You said yourself that you know about tracking and yet even you can't find any tracks left by this woman. This should put the matter to rest. This should finally convince you that she just doesn't exist-that she never did exist." She took a hand from under her cloak, from its warm resting place, and gently laid it on his shoulder in an effort to soften her words. "You need to let it go, Richard."

He looked away from her eyes as he drew his lower lip through his teeth. "It's not as simple a picture as you're painting it," he said in a calm voice. "I'm asking you all to look-just look-and try to understand the significance of what it is I'm showing you. Look at how far apart Cara and my tracks are. Can't you see that there was a third person there, between us, as we walked?"

Nicci wearily rubbed her eyes. "Richard, people don't always walk close together. Maybe you and Cara were both looking around for any sign of threat as you walked through here, or maybe you were both just tired and not paying attention. There could be any number of simple explanations as to why you two weren't walking closer together."

"When only two people walk together they don't habitually walk this far apart." He pointed behind them. "Look at the tracks we made coming over her. Cara again walked to my right. Look at how much closer together the tracks are. That's typical of two people walking side by side. You and Victor were behind us. Look at how close together your tracks are.

"These tracks are different. Can't you see by their nature that they're this far apart because there was another person walking between us?"

"Richard.»

Nicci paused. She didn't want to argue. She was tempted to keep quiet and let him have his way, let him believe what he wanted to believe. And yet, silence would be feeding a lie, lending life to an illusion. While she ached for his difficulty and wanted to be on his side, she couldn't let him delude himself or she would be causing him greater harm. He could never get better, never fully recover, until he faced the truth of the real world. Helping him see reality was the only way she could really help him.

"Richard," she said softly, trying to get that truth through to him without sounding harsh or condescending, "your tracks are there, and Cara's tracks are there. We can see that-you showed us. There are no others. You showed us that, too. If she was there, between you and Cara, then why are her tracks not?"

They all hunched their shoulders in the wet and cold as they waited. Richard finally gathered his composure and spoke in a clear, firm voice.

"I think Kahlan's tracks were erased with magic."

"Magic?" Cara asked, suddenly alert and ill-tempered.

"Yes. I think that whoever took Kahlan erased her tracks with magic."

Nicci was dumbfounded and made no attempt to conceal it.

Victor's gaze shifted back and forth between Nicci and Richard. "Can that be done?"

"Yes," Richard insisted. "When I first met Kahlan, Darken Rahl was after us. He was close on our trail. Zedd, Kahlan, and I had to run. If Darken Rahl had caught us we would have been finished. Zedd's a wizard but he isn't as powerful as Darken Rahl was, so Zedd cast some magic dust back down the trail to hide our tracks. That has to be what happened here. Whoever took Kahlan covered their tracks with the use of magic."

Victor and Cara glanced at Nicci for confirmation. As a blacksmith, Victor was not familiar with magic. Mord-Sith didn't like magic and pointedly avoided the details of its workings; their well-honed instinct was simply to violently eliminate anyone with magic if they posed even a potential threat to the Lord Rahl. Both Victor and Cara waited to hear what Nicci had to say about the possibility of using magic to cover tracks.

Nicci hesitated. Her being a sorceress didn't mean that she knew everything there was to know about magic. But still-

"I suppose that such a use of magic is in theory possible, but I've never heard of it being done." Nicci made herself look into Richard's expectant gaze. "I think the explanation of why there are no tracks is quite a bit simpler and I think you know it, Richard."