"What we hide is not a treasure," Jass said, "but a promise made by our ancestors."

"It is a treasure, of a sort," Richard told them. "To the right person, anyway."

What seemed not far to them seemed quite far to Richard. It was getting ever more exhausting for him to put one leg in front of the other. His stomach growled with hunger as they moved through the silent wood.

It had to be somewhere deep in the middle of the night when the trees opened up and Richard could see at last, illuminated by the silvered moonlight, a valley spread out far below. Lush forests carpeted the bowl of the valley, with the mat of trees ascending the slopes of mountain close in on each side. The place where he stood overlooking the length of the valley was not only a commanding spot, but a place with hauntingly beautiful views of the things that Richard had always loved. He ached to be able to explore such a place, to be down in those woods… but to be there with Kahlan. Without her, beauty was only a word. Without Kahlan smiling at him, the world was empty and dead.

"This is the place of the library that Master Baraccus left with us for safekeeping," Tarn said.

Richard looked around. He saw only ferns, some vines trailing down from the darkness above, and the massive trunks of the pines standing with him at the rim of the overlook.

"Where?" he asked. "I don't see a building anywhere."

"Here," Jass said as she drifted down to a small boulder, coming to rest atop it. "Under here is the library."

Richard scratched his scalp. It seemed an odd place for a library. But then he recalled finding the entrance to the library in Caska under a gravestone. In light of that, this made more sense. A building might have long ago been discovered and raided.

He bent and put his shoulder against the rock, in a curved niche that wasn't sharp. He was sure that he wasn't strong enough to move such a huge slab of stone, but he put all his weight against the stone socket anyway. With great effort it slowly began to pivot to the side.

The wisps came close, looking with Richard at what lay below. The stone had rested on a small, carefully smoothed lip. There was no hole, no stairway down into the ground within that lip.

Richard knelt and dug at what was under the rock, inside the stone lip. It was soft, and dry.

"This is just sand."

"Yes," Jass said. "When Magda came, she followed her husband's instructions, using magic, and filled what was below."

Richard was incredulous. "With sand?"

"Yes," Jass said.

"How much sand?" Richard asked. He wasn't looking forward to digging out a sand-filled hole, no matter how small it turned out to be.

"You see that small river down in the valley?" Jass asked.

Richard squinted in the dim moonlight. He saw the sparkling reflections off the water wandering among sandbars.

"Yes, I see it."

"The words passed down to us," Jass said, "say that Magda brought with her a powerful spell from Baraccus. She used it to create a whirlwind that drew the sand up from the riverbanks, and funneled it into this hole, here, filling up the place below to protect it."

"Protect it?" Richard asked. "From what?"

"From any who might make it this far. This sand is meant to foil anyone. who might come for what is down there."

"Well, I suppose that if there was enough sand that would certainly slow them down." Richard looked over suspiciously at the two wisps spinning slowly in the moonlight. "How much sand is down there, anyway?"

Tam floated out past the edge of the drop-off. "You see that ledge down there?"

Richard carefully leaned over the edge of the cliff and looked. It had to be several hundred feet down to the narrow stone shelf.

"I see it."

"That is how far down the rooms of the library are to be found."

"The rooms of the library are buried under all this sand — down there, at the bottom?"

"Yes," Tam said.

Richard was dumbfounded. There had to be a palace-worth of sand.

"How am I to dig such a thing out? It would take forever to accomplish such a thing."

Tarn returned, coming close to his face. "Maybe. But Baraccus said that if you were the one, you would know what to do."

"If I'm the one?" Richard felt the weight of discouragement, like a mountain of sand on top of him. "Why do I always have to be the one?"

Tarn spun for a moment. "That is not for us to say."

Richard groaned with the disappointment of being so close but so far. "If I'm the one, then why couldn't he just leave a message for me so that I would know what to do?"

Tarn and Jass were silent for a moment, as if thinking.

"Well, there was one other thing passed down," Jass finally said.

"What would that be?"

"Baraccus said that the wisps would have to guard this for ages and ages, but when the sands of time had finally run out, the one who was meant to have the book would be here and take it with him." Jass spun closer. "Does that help, Richard Cypher?"

Richard wiped a hand across his face. Why couldn't Baraccus simply tell him how to recover Secrets of a War Wizard's Power! Maybe Baraccus thought that the man who was meant to have the book must already have mastered his power to the point where this would present no obstacle. Maybe he thought that Richard should know how to spin a magical whirlwind and suck out the sand. If that was so, then Richard was not the one. Not only did he not know how to use his power but, since being in the sliph, he no longer had his gift.

As far as Richard was concerned, the sands of time had already run out for him. The Sisters of the Dark had put the boxes of Orden in play; the chimes had contaminated the world of life, beginning the destruction of magic, which was probably the great misery the wisps were suffering; and the army of the Imperial Order was rampaging unchecked through the New World. But worst of all for him, personally, Kahlan had been abducted, was under the influence of the Chainfire spell, and desperately needed his help.

And here he stood, waiting for the sands of time to run out.

Richard took his hand away from his face as he frowned. He leaned out over the edge of the cliff, looking down at the ledge far below. The sands of time.

He looked to the left side and studied the rock. He didn't see anything he could use there, but on the right he thought he saw a way to use the rocks to climb down. He swung his pack off his back and set it on the ground while he dug out his camp shovel and hastily assembled it.

" 'When the sands of time had finally run out, the one who was meant to have the book would be here and take it with him, " he quoted. "Isn't that what you said?"

"Yes," Jass said, "That is what we were told."

Richard gazed out over the cliff again. "I have to go down there, to that ledge," he told the wisps.

"We will come and light the way," Tarn said.

Richard wasted no time climbing down the side of the rock precipice. It turned out to be just as difficult as he had judged it would be, but it didn't take long and he was soon standing on the narrow shelf far below the top where he had pivoted the boulder out of the way.

He searched around, picking at the face of the rock wall, until he found what he was looking for. He immediately started digging, chipping, and prying out rocks that had been so tightly jammed in that it was hard to tell for sure in the poor light of the moon and two wisps if it really was what he thought it was. When rock began coming out, his confidence level rose. The more rock fragments he pulled out, the easier it was to get out more.

He had to work carefully to free some of the larger stones; one wrong step and he could slip and fall off the narrow ledge. Some of the boulders back in the growing hole were larger than he could have lifted, so he had to roll and walk them out of the ever-expanding opening. Fortunately, he was able to loosen the rock beneath most of them and then roll them out. He stood to the side on the narrow ledge and let the rocks and boulders tumble out past him. He watched them sail out into the night air, falling soundlessly until they finally crashed down into the forest far below.