"You're not alone. Everything is all right. I promise. Take slow breaths and you'll be able to breathe just fine. Let them reach down toward where you feel my hand."

Kahlan could feel Nicci's heart galloping under her hand. She continued to rub slowly and talk in a reassuring voice.

"Everything is fine. You can get plenty of air if you just let yourself slow down and take it in."

Nicci watched Kahlan as if hanging on her every word.

"You're doing good. You're all right. I won't let you die. Just think about my hand. Let your breath reach down to my hand. Slower. Slower. That's it, easy . . . easy. That's it. You're doing good. Just think about my hand and keep breathing slowly."

Nicci's breathing slowed. She seemed like she was at last getting the air she so desperately needed. Kahlan continued to gently rub Nicci's abdomen just below her ribs and to urge her to slow down. The whole time Nicci tightly held Kahlan's other hand. After a short time the crisis passed and Nicci was more comfortably getting her breath. She needed more help, though, than Kahlan could offer her. She wished that a Sister would arrive.

"Look, Nicci, we may not get a chance to talk again, but don't give up. There's a man here who I think is going to do something."

Nicci swallowed as she regained her equilibrium. "What are you talking about? What sort of man?"

"He's a Ja'La player. He's the point man on a team belonging to Commander Karg."

"Karg," she said with disgust. "I know him. The things he does to women are more vile in their invention than Jagang. Karg is a twisted bastard. Stay away from him."

Kahlan arched an eyebrow. "You're saying that at the next gala ball if he asks me to dance I should decline the offer?"

Nicci smiled a little. "That would be best."

"Anyway, there's something about this point man for Commander Karg's team. He knows me. I can see it in his eyes. You should see him play Ja'La."

"I hate Ja'La."

"That's not what I mean. This man is different. He's . . . dangerous."

Nicci frowned over at Kahlan. "Dangerous? In what way?"

"I think he's up to something."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. He doesn't want anyone in the camp to recognize him."

"How in the world would you know that?"

"It's a long story, but he found a way around anyone recognizing him. He painted his face in wild designs-with red paint-along with the faces of all the men on his team." Kahlan leaned closer. "Maybe he's an assassin or something. It could be that he's intending to kill Jagang."

Nicci closed her eyes again, losing interest. "I wouldn't get my hopes up about such a thing if I were you."

"You would if you saw this man's eyes."

Kahlan wanted to ask Nicci a thousand questions, but she heard voices beyond the doorway coming closer. Then she heard a woman outside dismiss a slave.

"I think the Sister is coming." Kahlan squeezed Nicci's hand. "Be strong."

"I don't think-"

"Be strong for Richard."

Nicci stared, unable to speak.

Kahlan hurriedly scooted away from the bed. The covering over the doorway opened and Sister Armina stepped through, pulling Jillian in behind her.

Well, what do you expect me to do?" Verna asked as they marched past a smoking torch in an iron bracket. "Pull Nicci out of thin air?"

"I expect you to find out where she and Ann went," Cara said. "That's what I expect."

Despite the Mord-Sith's innuendo, Verna wanted to find Nicci and Ann as much as Cara did. She just wasn't as vocal about it.

The red leather outfit Cara wore stood out like blood against the virtuous white of the marble walls. The Mord-Sith's mood, which seemed to match the color of her outfit, had only gotten worse as the day had worn on and the search had turned up nothing. Several other Mord-Sith followed some distance back, along with a contingent of the First File-the Palace Guard. Adie was not far behind while Nathan was out by himself in the lead.

Verna understood Cara's feelings, and in an odd way was cheered by them. Nicci was more than Cara's charge, more than a woman Richard had wanted Cara to protect. Nicci was Cara's friend. Not that she would openly admit as much, but it was clear enough by her smoldering rage. Nicci, like Cara herself, had long been someone lost to a dark purpose. They had both come back from that terrible place because Richard had given them not only the chance to change, but a reason to.

It wasn't so much when a Mord-Sith shouted and yelled that alarmed Verna, it was when their questions became quiet and terse. That was what lifted the hackles on the back of her neck-when it was clear that they meant business, and the business of Mord-Sith was not at all pleasant. It was best not to find yourself in the way of a Mord-Sith when she meant to have answers. Verna only wished that she had them.

She understood Cara's frustration. She felt no less anxious and bewildered at what could have happened to Nicci and Ann. She knew, though, that repeating the same questions and insisting on answers would not produce those answers any more than it would produce the two missing women. She supposed that Mord-Sith fell back on their training when there seemed no other solution.

Cara stopped, hands on hips, and looked back down the marble hallway. Behind them a few hundred men of the First File slowed to a halt so that they wouldn't overrun those in the lead. The echo of boots on stone slowly dwindled to a whisper. Several of the soldiers had crossbows with red fletched arrows at the ready. Those arrows made Verna sweat. She almost wished that Nathan had never found them. Almost.

The seemingly endless maze of halls behind the heavily armed soldiers was empty and silent but for the hissing torches. Cara frowned in thought for a moment, then started out once again. This was the fourth time since Ann and Nicci had disappeared the night before that they had been down in the halls that led to the tombs. Verna couldn't begin to imagine what the Mord-Sith could be trying to figure out. Empty passageways were empty passageways. The two missing women were hardly likely to pop out of the marble walls.

"They had to have gone somewhere else," Verna finally said, even though no one had seen them.

Cara turned back. "Like where?"

Verna lifted her arms and finally let them flop back down to her sides. "I don't know."

"It be a big palace," Adie said. The torchlight lent the sorceress's completely white eyes a disturbing, translucent quality.

Verna gestured down the silent passageway. "Cara, we've spent hours going up and down these halls and it's just as obvious now as it was the last time we were down here-or the first time for that matter-that they are empty. Nicci and Ann have to be somewhere up in the palace. We're wasting our time down here. I agree that we need to find them, but we need to look elsewhere."

Cara's eyes looked like blue fire. "They were down here."

"Yes, I'm sure you're right. But were is the word in what you said that matters. Do you see any trace of them? I don't. You're no doubt correct that they were down here. It's obvious, though, that they've since gone elsewhere." Verna sighed impatiently. "We're wasting valuable time marching up and down empty halls."

As everyone waited where they stood, Cara paced up the hallway a short distance. When she returned she again planted her fists on her hips.

"There's something wrong down here."

Nathan, out by himself in the lead and keeping his own counsel, stared back at them, for the first time curious. "Wrong? What do you mean . .. wrong?"

"I don't know," Cara admitted. "I can't put my finger on it but there's something down here that doesn't feel right to me."

Verna spread her hands, searching for understanding. "You mean some kind of ... essence of magic, or something?"