Kahlan had searched all the faces she saw, looking at every man. She had not been gauging their height, weight, and muscle, as Jagang had been doing. She had found herself looking at their faces, trying to find the man she had seen in the cage the day before. She was beginning to lose heart, thinking that he must not be among the teams. She had begun to suppose that maybe he had ended up being sent to work as slave labor at the ramp site along with many other captives.

And then when she finally did spot the man, he did the strangest thing: he fell face-first into the mud. They were still some distance off and no one but Kahlan had really been looking at him yet. Everyone else thought the man was just clumsy as he tripped over the chain lying there on the ground. As they'd approached the team some of the guards had laughed, whispering among themselves about how quickly such a man was going to get his neck broken on the Ja'La field.

Kahlan hadn't thought it was funny, though. She alone had been looking at the man and she knew that he hadn't tripped accidentally. She knew that it had been deliberate.

The fall had looked real enough. No one else imagined that it had been by design. Kahlan knew it was. She knew what it was to be a captive and have to instancy do something no matter how risky because you had no choice.

She just couldn't imagine why the man had done it.

What could be the purpose of such a thing? What danger could he have been trying to avoid? In some circumstances people did such things to get a laugh-and some of the guards had laughed-but that wasn't the purpose behind what this man had done.

To Kahlan's mind it had been not only deliberate, but done with haste, as if he thought of it only a second before and there was no time to come up with something better. It had been an act of desperation. But why? Why fall on your face in the mud? What could it possibly accomplish?

It suddenly hit her. It was in a way something like what she had been doing-using the hood of her cloak to hide what she was doing, where she was looking, who she was looking at. He must have wanted to cover his face. It could only be because he thought that someone would recognize him. It must have been that the man feared that Jagang himself would recognize him. Or possibly Sister Ulicia. At any rate, it had to be that he was trying to keep from being recognized.

She supposed that it did make some sense. After all, the man was a captive. Only enemies of the Order would be captives. She wondered if he was a high-ranking officer or something like that.

And he had known Kahlan. From the first instant their eyes met the day before, when he had been in that cage, she could see that he recognized her.

As she had approached his team with Jagang, she and the man had shared a look. In that look she saw that they both knew the plight the other was in, and they both had done nothing to betray the other, as if they'd made a silent pact.

It lifted Kahlan's heart to know that among all these murderous men, there was one who was not an enemy.

At least, she didn't think he was. She reminded herself not to substitute her imagination for the truth. With her memory gone she had no real way of knowing if he was an enemy or not. She supposed that he could be someone who had been hunting her. She wondered if it could be possible that he, like Jagang, had some motive to want to see her suffer. That he was a captive of Jagang didn't automatically mean that he was on her side. After all, the Sisters had hardly been on Jagang's side.

But if he was trying to hide his face to keep from being recognized, what was going to happen once the Ja'La games started? He might be able to stay muddy for a day or two, but once the rain stopped the mud was going to dry up. She wondered what he would do then. She couldn't help feeling a pang of worry for him.

At the end of visiting the teams, as they had left to see what the messenger had to show Jagang, she had seen one other thing in the man's eyes: rage. As she had turned back for a last, quick look at him, the hood of her cloak had pulled back and he had seen the black bruise Jagang had left on her face.

Kahlan had thought that he looked like he might use his bare hands to rip apart the chain holding him. She was at least relieved that he was smart enough not to try to do anything. Commander Karg would have killed him in a blink.

From the conversations between Jagang and the commander as Jagang had started out to inspect the teams, the two were old acquaintances. They mentioned battles they had been in together. In that brief conversation she had taken appraisal of the commander. Like Jagang himself, the commander was not a man to be underestimated. Such a man would not have wanted to be embarrassed before his emperor, and would have killed his point man without hesitation had he allowed his anger to slip its bounds.

She supposed that it was that, his anger at seeing what Jagang had done to her, that made her think the man could not be her enemy.

But the man was dangerous as well. The way he stood, the way he balanced, the way he moved, told Kahlan a great deal about him. She could clearly see the intelligence in his raptor gaze. In the measured way he moved she saw that he also was a man not to be underestimated. She would know for sure if she was correct once the games started, but a man like Commander Karg would not have a captive be his point man unless there was a very good reason. Kahlan would know soon enough when she saw the man play, but to her he looked like coiled fury, and like he knew how to uncoil.

"Over this way, Excellency," the messenger said as he pointed off through the gray drizzle.

They followed the messenger, leaving the dark sea of the camp, emerging out onto the open ground of the Azrith Plain. Kahlan had been so preoccupied thinking about the man with the gray eyes that she hadn't even noticed that they were coming up on the site of the construction. The ramp rose high overhead. Beyond, the plateau towered above them. Up this close the plateau truly was imposing. Up this close she could see far less of the magnificent palace atop it.

When it had started to rain she had hoped that maybe it would cause the ramp to collapse, but she could see, now that they were there beside it, that it was not only reinforced with rock but being well compacted as material was added. Gangs of men with heavy weights tamped the dirt and rock as it was placed.

This was not a haphazard effort. While the soldiers in camp-like the ones guarding her-were little more than ignorant brutes mindlessly devoted to a senseless cause, there were some men among the Imperial Order who were intelligent. They were the ones supervising the construction; the brutes merely handled the dirt.

As ignorant and unaware as the general population of soldiers was, Jagang surrounded himself with competent men. His personal guards, as big and powerful as they were, were hardly idiots. Those overseeing the construction of the ramp were likewise intelligent men.

The men supervising the project knew what they were doing and were confident enough to contradict Jagang when he suggested something that wouldn't work. Jagang had initially wanted to make the base of the ramp narrower so that they could build height more quickly. While respectful, they were not afraid to tell him that it wouldn't work, and why. He had listened carefully and, when satisfied that they were right, let them proceed with their plans even though those plans had been contrary to his initial desire. When Jagang thought he was right, though, he was as determined as a bull to have his way.

Numerous lines of men, each twelve or fifteen men deep, stretched back away from the colossal ramp. Some of the men passed baskets filled with dirt and rock, and some passed back empty baskets. Other men wheeled carts carrying rock. Mules pulled trains of wagons hauling larger rock. The project was massive almost beyond belief, but with so many men constantly adding to it, the ramp grew steadily.