"When Juni heard the noise, the same as I heard it, he investigated but found nothing. He then insulted the spirit of the killer in order to bring it out in the open. It came out in the open, and killed him for insulting them."

"I insulted the chicken-thing, so why didn't it kill me?" Kahlan wearily wiped a hand across her eyes. "Answer me that, Richard. Why didn't it kill me?"

He gazed into her beautiful green eyes for a moment as he gathered his courage.

"The chime told you why, Kahlan."

"What?" she said with a squint. "What are you talking about?"

"That chicken-thing wasn't a Lurk. It was a chime, and it wasn't calling you by your title of Mother Confessor. It was a chime. It said what it meant.

"It called you 'Mother. »

Kahlan stared at him in startled wide-eyed shock.

"They respect you," he said, "to some limited extent, anyway, because you brought them into the world of life. You gave them life. They consider you their life-giver, their mother. You only assumed the chicken-thing was going to add the word 'Confessor' after it called you 'Mother' because you are so used to hearing yourself called by that title.

"But the chime wasn't calling you by title, Kahlan. It was calling you by the name it meant: Mother."

He could almost see the truth of his words inundating her carefully constructed fortress of rationale. Some truths, after a-certain point, could be felt viscerally, and at that point everything clicked with the finality of a dead bolt on a prison of truth.

Kahlan's eyes filled with tears.

She pressed closer to him, into the comfort and understanding of his arms. She gasped a sob against his chest and then angrily wiped her cheek as a tear rolled down.

"I think that was the only thing that saved you," he said softly as he hugged her. "I wouldn't want to again trust your life to their charity."

"We have to stop them." She stifled another sob. "Dear spirits, we have to stop them."

"I know."

"Do you know what to do?" she asked. "Do you have any idea how to send them back to the world of the dead?"

"Not yet. To find a solution, the first thing to be done is to recognize the true problem. I guess we've done that, now?"

Kahlan nodded as she wiped at her eyes. As quickly as understanding had brought tears, resolve banished them.

"Why would the chimes have been outside the spirit house?"

While they had been together after being married, exulting in their love, something had been outside the door exulting in death. It made him feel sick at his stomach just to think about it.

"I don't know. Maybe the chimes wanted to be near you."

Kahlan simply nodded. She understood. Near their mother.

Richard remembered the stricken look on Kahlan's face when Nissel brought the stillborn baby into the house of the dead. The chimes had caused that, too. It was only the beginning.

"What's a fatal Grace? You mentioned it before, yesterday, when we went to see Zedd and Ann."

"Most of the stories about the chimes that I recounted came from an early report. Because Kolo was frightened, he wrote at greater length than usual. The report he quoted said at the end, 'Mark well my words: Beware the chimes, and if need be great, draw for yourself thrice on the barren earth, in sand and salt and blood, a fatal Grace.

"And what does that mean?"

"I don't know. I was hoping maybe Zedd or Ann might know. He knows all about the Grace. I thought he might know about this."

"But do you think this fatal Grace would stop the. chimes?"

"I just don't know, Kahlan. It occurred to me that it might be desperate advice on suicide."

Kahlan nodded absently as she mulled over the words from Kolo's journal.

"I could understand if it was advice on suicide. I could feel its evil," she said as she stared off into her visions. "When I was in the house where the Mud People prepared bodies for burial, and the chicken-thing-the chime-was in there with me, I could feel its evil. Dear spirits, it was awful. •

"It was pecking out Juni's eyes. Even though he was dead, it still wanted to peck out his eyes."

He pulled her into his arms again. "I know."

She pushed away with rekindled hope. "Yesterday, with Zedd and Ann, you told us Kolo said they were quite alarmed at first, but after investigating they discovered the chimes were a simple weapon and easily overcome."

"Yes, but Kolo only reported the relief at the Wizard's Keep when they discovered it wasn't the problem to counter they at first thought it would be. He didn't write down the solution. They sent a wizard they called the Mountain to see to it. Obviously, he did."

"Do you have any idea if there are any weapons that would be effective against them? Juni was heavily armed, and it didn't do him any good, but might there be others?"

"Kolo never gave any indication. Arrows didn't kill the chicken-thing, and fire certainly isn't going to harm them.

"However, Zedd was emphatic that I retrieve the Sword of Truth. If he lied about it being a Lurk, that may have been to keep us away from harm. I don't believe he would lie about the sword. He wanted me to get it, and he said it might be the only magic that would still work to protect us. I believe him in that much of it."

"Why do you suppose the chicken-thing fled from you? I mean, if they consider me their mother, I could understand them maybe having some kind of… reverence, for me, and being reluctant to harm me, but if they're so powerful, why would they run from you? You only shot at them with an arrow. You said arrows couldn't hurt them. Why would it run from you?"

Richard raked back his hair. "I've wondered about that myself. The only answer I've been able to come up with is that they're creatures of Subtractive Magic, and I'm the only one in thousands of years born with that side of magic. Maybe they fear my Subtractive Magic can harm them- maybe it can. It's a hope, anyway."

"And the fire? That one lone bit of our wedding bonfires that was still burning that you snuffed out? That was one of them, wasn't it?"

Richard hated that they had been in their wedding bonfire. It was a defilement.

"Yes. Sentrosi-the second chime. It means 'fire. Ree-chani, the first, means 'water. The third, Vasi, means 'air. »

"But you put out the fire. The chime didn't do anything to stop you. If they would kill Juni for insulting them, it certainly seems they would be angered by what you did. The chicken thing, too, ran from you."

"I don't know, Kahlan. I don't have an answer."

Peering into his eyes, she hesitated for a moment. "Maybe they didn't harm you for the same reason they didn't harm me."

"They think I, too, am their mother?"

"Father," she said, unconsciously stroking the dark stone at her throat. "I used the spell to keep you alive, to keep you from crossing over into the world of the dead. The spell called the chimes because they were from the other side and had the power to do that. Maybe, since we were both involved, they think of us as father and mother-as their parents."

Richard let out a long breath. "That's possible, I'm not saying it isn't, but when I felt them near, I just got the sense of something more to it-something that made my hair stand on end."

"More? More like what?"

"It was an overwhelming sense of their lust whenever they were near me, and at the same time monstrous loathing."

Kahlan rubbed her arms, chilled by such obscene wickedness among them. A humorless smile, bitter with irony, crossed her face.

"Shota always said we would together conceive a monstrous offspring."

Richard cupped her cheek. "Someday, Kahlan. Someday."

On the verge of tears, she turned from his hand, his gaze, to stare off at the horizon. She cleared her throat and gathered her voice.

"If magic is failing, at least Jagang will lose his help. He controls those with magic to help his army. At least if he could no longer do that, there would be that much good in all this.