There had been a time, when the chimes had been loosed, that magic of every sort had failed. For a while they hadn't known about the chimes, and that the necklace's magic had failed. It was then that Kahlan had conceived a child. The men who beat her that terrible night had ended that.

It was also possible that because of that brief failure of magic, the nature of the world had undergone a fundamental, irrevocable change that would eventually lead to the end of all magic. Kahlan certainly believed that it was happening. There had been a number of strange events that were otherwise inexplicable. Zedd had called it the cascade effect. He said that once begun such a thing could not be stopped. Richard didn't know if it was true that magic was failing or not.

"Shota will remember the necklace she gave Kahlan. She will remember her magic, just as you will remember yours so that you will be able to find me. If anyone will remember Kahlan, Shota will. I've had my disagreements with the witch woman, but in the past I've also inadvertently helped her as well. She owes me. She will help me. She has to."

Nicci threw her hands up. "Of course such a thing has to be a necklace that Kahlan would wear, and not something that you would have. Don't you see what you're doing? Once again your mind has invented something that conveniently can't be proven. Everything you come up with is somewhere else or something we can't see. This necklace is just more of your dream." Nicci pressed a hand to her forehead. "Richard, this witch woman is not going to remember Kahlan because Kahlan doesn't exist."

"Shota can help me. I know she can. I know she will. I can't think of any better opportunity to get answers. Time is slipping away. The longer Kahlan is with whoever has her, the greater the danger to her life and the less my chance of helping get her back. I have to go to Shota."

"And what if you're wrong?" Nicci demanded. "What if this witch woman refuses to help you?"

"I will do whatever it takes to make her help me."

"Richard, please, put this off for at least a day or two. We can talk it through. Let me help you properly consider your options."

Richard pulled the reins around, letting his horse and the ones tethered to it start toward the door. "Going to Shota is my best chance of getting answers. I'm going."

Richard ducked under the big doorway as they rode out into the night. Out across the expanse of grounds the cicadas droned on.

He pulled his horse around to see Nicci standing in the doorway, lit from behind by the lanternlight. "You be careful," he told her. "If not for yourself, then for me."

That, at least, made her smile. She shook her head in resignation. "By your command, Lord Rahl."

He waved his farewell to Victor and Ishaq.

"Safe journey," Ishaq said as he removed his hat.

Victor saluted with a fist over his heart. "Come back to us when you can, Richard."

Richard promised them he would.

As they started down the road, Cara shook her head. "I don't know why you bothered going to all the trouble to save my life. We're going to die, you know."

"I thought you were coming with me to prevent that from happening."

"Lord Rahl, I don't know if I can protect you against a witch woman. I've never faced their power, nor have I heard of any Mord-Sith who has. A Confessor's power used to be deadly to Mord-Sith; it could be that witch woman's power is just as fatal. I will do my best, but I just think you should know that I might not be able to protect you from a witch woman."

"Oh, I'd not worry about it, Cara." Richard said as he squeezed his legs and shifted his weight, urging his horse into a canter. "If I know Shota, she won't let you get anywhere near her, anyway."

As she marched down the side of a wide thoroughfare leading a small knot of men, Nicci thought that in a way it seemed like the sun had gone out since Richard had left. She missed just being able to look into his eyes, at the spark of life in them. For two days she had tirelessly gone about the urgent preparations for the imminent attack, but, without Richard around, life seemed empty, less bright, less — less of everything.

At the same time, when he had been around, his single-minded determination to find his imagined love had been draining. In fact, she had sometimes wanted to strangle him. She had tried everything from patience to anger in an attempt to get him to come around to seeing the truth, but it had been like trying to push against a mountain. In the end, nothing she'd done or said had made any difference.

For his own sake she earnestly wanted to help him to come to grips with reality. To do so she had to challenge him in an effort to try to get him to come to his senses before something terrible happened, but at the same time trying to make him see the truth somehow always seemed to cast her as a villain working against him. She hated being in that position.

Nicci hoped that by the time she finished helping to rid Altur'Rang of the threat of the approaching Imperial Order troops and their wizard, Kronos, she could quickly catch up with Richard and Cara. With spare horses and as fast as she knew he would ride, Nicci realized that she would not be able to catch up with him until after he reached the witch woman. If he even made it that far. If Shota didn't kill him once he did.

From what Nicci knew of witches, Richard's chances of coming out of her lair alive were pretty slim. He would have to face the witch woman without Nicci's help and protection. Still, he knew the woman, and she was a woman in every sense, from what Nicci had heard of her, so maybe Richard would at least be civil. It was not at all wise to be impolite to witches.

But even surviving an encounter with a witch woman he would still be devastated if she didn't help him and Nicci knew she couldn't because there was no missing woman for Richard to find. At times it infuriated her that he was so obstinate about something so obviously nothing more than an illusion. At other times she worried that he really was losing his mind. That was too chilling a thought to contemplate.

Nicci paused at the side of the road with a sudden, terrible realization.

The men following her lurched to a halt when she did, bringing her out of her thoughts. They were all with her either to see to her instructions in regard to some of the defenses of the city or else to carry messages as needed. Now they stood silent and uneasy, not knowing why she had stopped.

"Up there," she said to the men, pointing at a three story brick building on the corner across the street. "Make sure that we can use that place to good advantage and put at least a couple dozen archers in the windows. See that they have a large supply of arrows."

"I will go take a look," one of the men said before running off across the road, dodging wagons, horses, and hand-drawn carts.

People rushed along the side of the street passing around Nicci and the men with her as if they were a rock in a swiftly moving river. Passersby spoke in hushed tones among themselves as they coursed between clusters of hawkers calling out trying to sell their goods, or people gathered to urgently discuss the impending battle for the city and what they would do to protect themselves. Wagons of every sort, from big freight wagons pulled by teams of six horses to small wagons pulled by a single horse, sped past in a hurry to complete the stockpiling of provisions or other necessary work while they still could.

Despite the din of horses, wagons, and people, Nicci didn't really hear any of it; she was thinking about the witch woman.

Nicci had suddenly realized that Shota might not simply be unwilling to help Richard, but she might not tell him so. Witch women had their own way of doing things, and their own ends.