Most troubling was that Richard's free will made him a wild card in prophecy, even those prophecies in which he was the subject. He was chaos among patterns, disorder among organization, and as capricious as lightning. And yet, he was guided by truth and driven by reason, not whim or chance, nor was he arbitrary. That he could be chaos among prophecy and at the same time be completely rational was an enigma to her.

Ann worried greatly about Richard because such contradictory aspects of the gifted were occasionally a prelude to delusional behavior. The last thing they would want was a leader who was delusional.

But all of that was academic. The central problem was that while there was still lime they had to find some way to make sure he took up the cause fated to him in the prophecies and to fulfill his destiny. If they failed, if he failed, then all was lost.

Verna's message sat like the shadow of death in the back of Ann's mind.

Having spotted their light, Tom appeared out of the darkness, sprinting Through the long grass to meet them. "There you are," he said to Ann. "Nathan will be happy that you're finally here. Come on and I'll show you the way."

By the brief glimpse she got in the weak yellow light from the lantern, Tom's face looked troubled.

The big D'Haran led them deeper into the graveyard, where in areas there were rows of gently mounded graves outlined in stones. These had in be newer, because most of what Ann could see was nothing but tall grass that over time covered over stones and the graves they marked. In one area there were a few small granite gravestones. They were so weathered it could only be that they were ancient. Some of the graves were marked with simple boards with names carved in them. Most such markers had long ago turned to dust, leaving much of the graveyard looking like nothing more than a grassy field.

"Do you know what the fat bugs are that are making all the noise?" Jennsen asked Tom.

"I'm not sure," Tom said. "I've never seen them before. They suddenly seem to be all over the place."

Ann smiled to herself. "They're cicadas."

Jennsen frowned back over her shoulder. "They're what?"

"Cicadas. You wouldn't know what they are. At the last molt you would have probably still been a toddler, too young to remember. The life cycle of these cicadas with the red eyes is seventeen years."

"Seventeen years!" Jennsen said in astonishment. "You mean they only come out every seventeen years?"

"Without fail. After the females mate with these noisy fellows, they will lay their eggs in twigs. When they hatch, the nymphs will drop from the trees and burrow into the ground, not to emerge for another seventeen years where their life as adults will be brief."

Jennsen and Tom murmured their amazement as they moved on into the graveyard. Ann couldn't see much of anything else by the light coming from Jennsen's lantern, except the dark shapes of trees moving in the occasional muggy breeze. As the three of them quietly slipped through the graveyard, cicadas chirped incessantly from the darkness all around. Ann used her Han to try to sense if anyone else was about, but she didn't feel anyone other than Tom and somewhere in the distance one other person, no doubt Nathan. Since Jennsen was one of the pristinely ungifted, she was intangible to Ann's Han.

Like Richard, Jennsen had been fathered by Darken Rahl. Births of the pristinely ungifted, such as Jennsen's, had been an unexpected and random side effect of the magic of the bond carried by every gifted Lord Rahl. In ancient times, when that trait began to spread, the solution had been to banish the pristinely ungifted, sealing them away in the forgotten land of Bandakar. After that, all ungifted offspring of the Lord Rahl were put to death.

Unlike any past Lord Rahl, Richard had been jubilant to discover that he had a sister. He would never allow her to be put to death for the nature of her birth, nor would he allow her and those like her to be forced into banishment.

Even though Ann had been around these people for some time now, she was still not used to how disorienting it could be. Even when one of them was standing right in front of her, Ann's ability said that there was no one there. It was a haunting sort of blindness, a loss of one of her senses that she had always taken for granted.

Jennsen had to take long strides to keep pace with Tom. To keep up with the two of them, Ann had to trot.

And then, as they came around a small knoll, a stone monument loomed up into view. The light from the lantern lit one side of a rectangular stone base that was a little taller than Ann, but not as tall as Jennsen. The coarse stone was heavily weathered and pitted, with stone molding carved around recessed squares on the sides. If it had ever been polished, the stone no longer showed any evidence of it. As the lantern light swept across the surface, it revealed layers of dirty discoloration from great age as well as the mottled growth of mustard-colored lichen. Atop the imposing base sat a large carved urn with stone grapes hanging out over one side. Grapes were a favorite of Nathan's.

As Tom led them around the front of the stone monument Ann was astonished to see that the rectangle of stone sat off.

On the far side, faint light oozed up from beneath it.

It appeared that the entire monument had been pivoted aside, revealing steep stone steps that led down into the ground, down into the soft glow of light.

Tom gave them both a meaningful look. "He's down in there."

Jennsen leaned over a little and peered into the steep cavity. "Nathan is down there? Down those steps?"

"I'm afraid so," Tom told her.

"What is this place?" Ann asked.

Tom shrugged apologetically. "I'm afraid I have no idea. I didn't even know this was here until just a little while ago when Nathan showed me where I could find him. He told me to send you down just as soon as you got here. He was pretty insistent about it. He doesn't want anyone knowing this place is here. He wanted me to stand lookout and keep any people away from the graveyard, although I really don't think anyone ever comes out here anymore, especially at night. The Bandakaran people aren't the kind to go looking for an adventure."

"Unlike Nathan," Ann muttered. She patted Tom's muscled arm. "Thank you, my boy. Best do as Nathan said and stand watch. I'll go down and see what this is all about."

"We'll both go," Jennsen said.

Driven by worried curiosity, Ann immediately started down the dusty steps. Jennsen followed close on her heels. A landing turned them to the right and down another flight. At a third landing, a long run of stairs turned to the left. The dusty stone walls were uncomfortably close together. The ceiling hunkered low, even for Ann; Jennsen had to crouch. It felt to Ann like she was being swallowed down though a moldering guild into the graveyard's belly.

At the bottom of the steps she halted to stare in disbelief. Jennsen lei out a low whistle. Beyond was not a dungeon, but a strange, twisting room unlike any Ann had ever seen. The stone walls zigged and zagged at odd angles, each of its own design and independently of the others. Plastering covered some of the stone walls. In a series of the convoluted angles, the whole room snaked off into the distance, disappearing around projections and pointed corners.

The place had a strange orderly disorder about it that Ann found somewhat unsettling. Dark niches here and there in the plastered walls were surrounded with faded blue symbols and decorations that had flaked off in places. There were words as well, but they were too old and dull to be legible without careful study. Bookshelves as well as ancient wooden tables, all layered in dirt, sat in several places up against the angled walls.