By now infected with Laurie's obvious sense of alarm, Jennsen carefully stretched her neck up to peer into the darkness.

The tomb was open.

The great granite monument to Nathan Rahl had been slid to the side. Light shone up from under the ground, creating a softly glowing beacon in the dark heart of the starlit night.

Jennsen knew, of course, that it was not really Nathan Rahl's tomb. Laurie wouldn't know that, though.

Back when Nathan and Ann had been staying with them, Nathan had discovered the tomb with his name on it. He had also discovered that what appeared to be a rather extravagant tomb in the ancient graveyard was actually an entrance to secret underground rooms filled with books. He and Ann had told Jennsen that the stash was thousands of years old and had been protected all that time by magic.

Jennsen wouldn't know; she had no magic. She was pristinely ungifted-a hole in the world, as it was sometimes called because those with magic were unable to use their gift to sense those like Jennsen. She was a rare creature-a pillar of Creation.

She and the people with her down in Bandakar were all pillars of Creation. In ancient times it had been learned that when the pristinely ungifted mingled with normal people, all of whom possessed at least a small spark of the gift, every child of such unions would be pristinely ungifted. Roaming free in the world they forever carried the latent potential to breed the gift itself out of mankind. In antiquity the solution to the ever-growing numbers of the pristinely ungifted had been to gather them all together and banish them.

The pristinely ungifted trait originated in the offspring of the Lord Rahl. Pristinely ungifted births were exceedingly rare, but once those with the trait became adults, the anomaly was spread forth into the general population. After the ancestors of these people in Bandakar had been banished, every child of a Rahl was tested. If found to be born pristinely ungifted such a child would immediately be put to death to prevent the trait from ever again spreading into the general population.

Jennsen, the offspring of rape by Darken Rahl, had managed to defy the odds and escape detection. Since Richard was now the Lord Rahl, eliminating any such flaw in his lineage fell to him.

But Richard found the very thought abhorrent and would not do such a thing. He believed that Jennsen and those like her had the same right to life as did he. He had actually been happy to discover that he had a half sister-pristinely ungifted or not. He had greeted her with open arms rather than murderous intent, as she had once expected.

Richard had broken the banishment and freed these people to live their own lives. Since Richard had become the Lord Rahl, they were no longer banished but welcomed into the world, as was Jennsen. Despite what it would eventually mean for the existence of magic within mankind, he had destroyed the barrier barring these people from the rest of the world.

Since the barrier had come down, many of the people from Bandakar had been captured by the Imperial Order and taken away to be used for breeding stock to hasten the end of magic. After the Imperial Order had been driven from Bandakar, most of the rest of these people had chosen to remain in their ancestral homeland for the time being. They wanted to take some time to learn about the outside world before deciding what they would do.

Jennsen felt a kinship with these people. Having been in hiding her whole life for fear of being put to death for the crime of her birth, she had in a way suffered under her own form of banishment. She had wanted to remain with these people as they all learned to be a part of their new, wider world. That new beginning, that excitement of building a new life for themselves full of possibilities, was a passion shared by them all.

Laurie obviously felt a sense of dread that their world was again being threatened. But with the Imperial Order on the march everyone's world was threatened. In that sense there was nothing especially unique about the pristinely ungifted.

Jennsen wasn't sure who it was that was now down in the tomb. She reasoned that it might be Nathan and Ann returned to retrieve books they needed from the long-forgotten underground library. Those books, too, had been banished to their hiding place behind boundaries that none had been able to cross until Richard had come along.

Jennsen reasoned that it might also be Richard down in the tomb. Nathan and Ann had long ago set off with Tom to find him. If they had succeeded they would have told him about the underground library. Perhaps he'd returned to see the ancient library for himself, or maybe he'd returned looking for something specific. Jennsen would dearly love to see her brother again. The very idea of it gave her a flutter of excitement.

She realized, though, that it could be someone else-someone who could harm them all. It was that thought that kept her from rushing down into the tomb.

Despite how much she wanted to go and see if it was Richard, Jennsen's life on the run with her mother had given her a finely honed sense of caution, so she crouched motionless, watching for any sign of who it might be down in the tomb.

Mockingbirds in the distance repeated calls into the still darkness, trying to outdo one another in a kind of endless nightly argument. As she idly listened to the strident calls, Jennsen knew that it would be best to remain hidden and wait for whoever was down inside the tomb to appear, but she worried that the others might return from their search and inadvertently give them away, so she decided that as she kept an eye on the tomb it would be best to send Laurie to find the others and warn them about the unknown intruders.

Before Jennsen could crawl in close and whisper instructions to Laurie, the young woman abruptly started crawling forward. Apparently, she'd decided that it might be her husband down in the tomb. Jennsen lunged, snatching at the young woman's ankle, but it was out of reach.

"Laurie!" Jennsen whispered. "Stop!"

Laurie ignored the command, instead skittering off through the dry grass. Jennsen immediately crawled after her, wending her way among ancient grave markers scattered about on the uneven ground. The dry grass made far too much noise for Jennsen's liking. Laurie wasn't being especially careful, or quiet. Jennsen had been schooled in evasion and escape by her mother. Laurie didn't know much about such things.

Some distance ahead in the darkness, Laurie gasped in fright.

Jennsen lifted her head just enough to try to see if anyone was nearby, but in the darkness it was hard to see much of anything. For all Jennsen knew there could be a dozen men spread out around them. If they remained still it would be difficult, if not impossible, to see them.

Laurie suddenly rose up on her knees as she let out a wail of horror that sent a ripple of goose bumps up the nape of Jennsen's neck. The scream shattered the quiet of the night. The mockingbirds fell silent.

In the dead of night, such a scream would carry great distances. No longer having to worry about giving herself away, Jennsen scrambled to her feet and raced to cover the remaining distance to the woman. Overcome with abject misery, Laurie held her hair in her fists as she threw her head back and cried in desolation.

The body of a man lay sprawled in the grass before her. Even though it was too dark for Jennsen to make out the face, it was only too obvious who it had to be.

Jennsen pulled the silver-handled knife from the sheath at her waist.

Just as she did so, the dark shape of a big man, sword in hand, loomed up out of the darkness. He had probably been the one who had killed Laurie's husband. After that he'd likely crouched somewhere nearby to be on watch for anyone else who might approach the open tomb.