Cara looked back into Kahlan's eyes, as if from a great distance, not merely the two steps that separated them. From the other side of madness. A madness others had put there. Kahlan felt as if she, too, was turned to stone by what she saw in the depths of those blue eyes.

"I have been Snake. I have stood in the dappled sunlight, over young girls, and taken the knife from their hands when they hesitated, not wanting to hurt anyone." Kahlan had always hated snakes. She? hated them more now. Tears tickled her face as they ran down her cheeks leaving wet tracks. "I'm sorry, Cara," she whispered. Her stomach roiled. She wanted nothing more than to put her arms around the woman in red leather before her, but she couldn't make herself move so much as a finger.

Torches hissed. In the distance, she heard muffled snippets of conversation from the guards. A soft ripple of laughter floated up the hall. Water weeping from the stone ceiling echoed as it splashed in a little green puddle not far away. Kahlan could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. "Lord Rahl freed us from that."

Kahlan remembered Richard telling her that he had almost wept at the sight of the other two Mord-Sith giggling like little girls as they fed seeds to chipmunks. Kahlan understood the leap that was a simple giggle. Richard understood the madness. Kahlan didn't know if these women could ever return from it, but if they were to have a chance, it was only because of Richard.

The iron returned to Cara's grim expression. "Let's go find out how Marlin planned to harm Lord Rahl. But don't expect me to be gentle if he hesitates in confessing every detail."

Under Sergeant Collins's watchful eye, a D'Haran soldier unlocked the iron door and backed away, as if the rusty lock was the only thing protecting everyone in the palace from the sinister magic below, in the pit. Two more big soldiers effortlessly dragged the heavy ladder closer.

Before Kahlan could pull open the door, she heard approaching voices and footsteps. Everyone turned to look up the hall. It was Nadine, with four soldiers escorting her.

Nadine rubbed her hands together, as if to warm them, as she stepped through the ring of hulking, leather-clad guards. Kahlan didn't return the woman's bright smile. "What are you doing down here?"

"Well, you said I was a guest. As pretty as your rooms are, I wanted to go for a walk. I asked the guards to show me the way down here. I want to see this killer."

"I told you to wait upstairs in your room. I told you that I didn't want you coming down here."

Nadine's dainty brow drew together. "I'm getting just a little tired of being treated like a backwater bumpkin." She lifted her delicate nose. "I'm a healer. I'm respected, where I come from. People listen when I speak. When I tell someone to do something, they do it. If I tell a councilman to take a potion three times a day and to stay in bed, he very well drinks his medicine three times a day from his bed until I tell him he can leave it."

"I don't care who jumps when you speak," Kahlan said. "Here, you jump when I speak. Do you understand?"

Nadine pressed her lips together as she slanted her fists on her hips. "Now, you look here. I've been cold and hungry and scared. I've been played for a fool by people I don't even know. I was minding my own business, going about my life, when I was sent on this pointless journey only to arrive at a place where people treat me like a leper as my thanks for coming to help. I've been yelled at by people I don't know and humiliated by a boy I grew up with.

"I thought I was going to marry the man I wanted, but I had that rug yanked out from under my feet. He doesn't want me, he wants you. Well, so be it. Now someone is trying to kill the man I traveled all this way to see, and you tell me it isn't any of my business!"

She shook a finger at Kahlan. "Richard Cypher saved me from Tommy Lancaster laying claim to me. If it wasn't for Richard, I'd be married to Tommy, now. Instead, Tommy had to marry Rita Wellington. If it wasn't for Richard, I'd be the one with black eyes all the time. I'd be barefoot buck at his shack and pregnant with the offspring of that pig-faced bully.

"Tommy ridiculed me for fixing herbs to help people. He said it was stupid for a girl to mix herbs. He said my father should have had a boy, if he wanted someone to work in his shop touching herbs that sick people needed. I'd never have any hope of being a healer if it wasn't for Richard.

"Just because I'm not the one to be his wife, that doesn't mean that I don't care about him. I grew up with him. He's still a boy from my home. We take care of our own, like they're family, even if they aren't. I've a right to know what danger he's in! I've a right to see what sort of man from your world would want to kill a boy from my home who's helped me!"

Kahlan was in no mood to argue. She was also in no mood to spare the woman what she might see.

She studied Nadine's brown eyes, trying: to tell if what Cara had said, that Nadine still wanted Richard, was true. If it was, Kahlan couldn't tell simply by looking into her eyes.

"You want to see a man who wants to kill us, Richard and me?" Kahlan gripped the lever and threw open the door. "Fine. You shall have your wish."

She gestured to the men with the ladder. They pushed it through the opening and down into the darkness until it thudded in place. Kahlan yanked a torch from a bracket and thrust it in Cara's hand. "Let's show Nadine what she wishes to see."

Cara checked Kahlan's resolve, found it rock solid, and then started down the ladder. Kahlan held her arm out in invitation. "Welcome to my world, Nadine. Welcome to Richard's world."

Nadine's determination faltered for only an instant before she huffed and started down the ladder after Cara.

Kahlan glanced around at the guards. "Sergeant Collins, if he comes up through this door before us, he had better not get out of this hall alive. He wants to kill Richard."

"On my word as a D'Haran soldier, Mother Confessor, harm won't get a glimpse of Lord Rahl."

With a hand signal from Sergeant Collins, soldiers drew steel. Archers nocked arrows. Big hands unhooked crescent-bladed axes from weapons belts.

Kahlan gave the sergeant a nod of approval, took another torch, and started down the ladder.

Dank, heavy air wafted up from the pit as Kahlan followed Nadine down the ladder. Using the hand with the torch to also hold the side of the ladder made her have to endure the heat of the flame near the side of her face, but she was almost happy for the smell of pitch because it covered the stink of the air in the pit. Lower down, the wavering light from the torches lit more than the stone walls; they lit the dark figure in the center of the room.

Kahlan stepped off the ladder as Cara rammed her torch into a bracket on the slime-covered wall. Kahlan slipped hers into one on the opposite wall. Nadine stood transfixed, looking at the man covered in dried blood hunched before them. Kahlan stepped past her to stand beside Cara. Cara's brow drew down as she peered at Marlin.

His head hung forward, and his eyes were closed. His breathing was deep, slow, and even. "He's asleep," Cara whispered.

"Asleep?" Kahlan whispered back. "How can he be asleep while he's standing up like that?"

"I. . don't know. We always make new prisoners stand, sometimes for days. With no one to talk to and nothing to do but consider their doom, it drains their resolve-takes the fight right out of them. It's an insidious form of torment. I have had men beg to be beaten, rather than have to stand, alone, hour after hour."

Marlin was snoring softly. "How often does this happen-that they simply fall asleep? Cara put one hand on a hip as she wiped her mouth with the other. "I've had them fall asleep, but that wakes them for sure. If they move from the spot where we've told them to stand, the link brings on the pain. We don't have to be there; the link works no matter where we are. I have never even heard of a man falling asleep and remaining on his feet."