Mother Confessor?"

Kahlan squinted up at a dark shape above her. She blinked, clearing her vision, and saw that it was Verna. The gold sunburst ring of the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light reflected a glimmer of lamplight. Behind her, twilight tainted the tent canvas with a rusty glow.

Kahlan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Verna wore a long, gray wool dress and a dark brown cloak. At her throat, the dress had a bit of white lace that softened the austerity of the outfit. Verna's brown hair had a carefree wave and spring to it, but her brown eyes held a troubled look.

"What is it, Verna?"

"If you have a moment, I would like to talk to you."

No doubt, Verna had been talking to Warren. Whenever Kahlan saw them together, the shared intimate glances, the chance furtive touch reminded her of the way she and Richard felt about each other. It softened Kahlan's feelings about Verna's stern exterior, to know she was in love-knowing, for that matter, that she was capable of tenderness. Kahlan knew that she, too, must be regarded with the same sort of curiosity, if not amazement, where tender feelings were concerned.

She sighed, wondering if this was going to be a «talk» about Ann and prophecy. Kahlan wasn't in the mood.

"Cara, how long have I been asleep?"

"A couple of hours. It will soon be dark."

As tight and sore as Kahlan's shoulders and neck were from sleeping with her head on the table, the lateness of the hour didn't come as a surprise. She stretched to the side and then saw the frail looking sorceress sitting on a short bench. She had a dark blanket over her lap.

"How do you feel?" Adie asked.

"I'm fine." Kahlan could see her breath in the frigid air. "The men we sent out?"

"Both groups be on their way, more than an hour ago," Adie said. "The first group, the Galeans, all left together in big columns. The Keltans dribbled out in small groups not as likely to be noticed by any spies watching."

Kahlan yawned. "Good."

She knew they had to fear an attack by the Imperial Order as soon as morning. At least that should give their men enough time to travel to their positions and be ready. Waiting for an attack made her stomach feel queasy.

She knew the men, too, would be on edge and likely get little sleep.

Adie idly ran a thin finger back and forth along the red and yellow beads at the neckline of her modest robes. "I came back after the Galeans left, to help Cara keep people away so you would not be disturbed while you rested."

Kahlan nodded her thanks. Apparently, either Adie thought Kahlan had rested enough, or she thought Verna's visit was important.

"What is it, then, Verna?"

"We have. . discovered something. Not so much discovered it, as had an idea."

"Who is `we'?"

Verna cleared her throat. Under her breath she beseeched the Creator's forgiveness before she went on.

"Actually, Mother Confessor, I thought of it. Some of my Sisters helped me with it, but I'm the one who thought it up. The blame falls to me."

Kahlan thought that was an odd way of putting it. She didn't think Verna looked at all pleased by her own idea, whatever it was. Kahlan waited silently for her to go on.

"Well, you see, we have a problem getting things past the enemy's gifted. They have Sisters of the light, but also Dark, and we don't have their power. When we try to send things-"

"Send things?"

Verna pursed her lips. "Weapons."

When Kahlan's brow twitched with a questioning look, Verna bent and gathered something from the ground. She held out her open hand, showing Kahlan a collection of small pebbles.

"Zedd showed us how to turn simple things into devastating weapons. We can use our power to fling them or even with our breath blow on some small thing, like these pebbles, and use our magic to send them out faster than any arrow, even an arrow from a crossbow. The pebbles we flung out in this way cut down waves of advancing soldiers. The pebbles traveled so swiftly that sometimes each would pierce the bodies of half a dozen men."

"I remember those reports," Kahlan said. "But that stopped working because their gifted caught on to the artifice and now defend against such things."

Kahlan recognized the weary look of the weight of responsibility in Verna's brown eyes. "That's right. The Order learned how to look for things of magic, or even things propelled by magic. Most of our conjuring that is in any way similar has become useless."

"That's what Zedd told me-that in war magic is most often unseen, that each side manages only to balance the other."

Verna nodded. "It is so. We do the same against them. Things they used at first, we now know how to counter so we can protect our men. Our warning horns, for example. We learned that we must code them with a trace of magic to know they are genuine."

Kahlan drew her fur mantle up around her neck. She was chilled to the bone and couldn't seem to get warm. Not surprising, seeing as how she was spending all of her time outdoors. It was insanity to be carrying on a war in such conditions. She guessed that war in fine weather was no more sane.

Still, she ached to be inside, beside a cozy fire.

"So what is this thing you thought up?"

As if reminded of the cold, Verna pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "Well, I got the notion that if the enemy gifted are, in a sense, filtering for anything magic, or even anything being propelled by magic, then what we need is something not magic."

Kahlan gave Verna a grim smile. "We do. They're called soldiers."

Verna didn't smile. "No. I meant something the gifted could do to disable enemy troops without risk to our own men."

Adie shuffled forward to stand behind Kahlan's left shoulder as Verna reached into her cloak and pulled out a small leather pouch closed with a drawstring. She tossed it on the table before Kahlan, then set a piece of paper beside it.

"Pour a little on the paper, please." Verna was holding her stomach as if she were having indigestion. "But be careful not to touch it with your finger or get it on your skin-and whatever you do, don't blow on it. Be careful not to even breathe on it."

Adie leaned in to watch as Kahlan carefully poured a small quantity of a sparkling dust from the pouch onto the square of paper. She pushed at the little pile with the corner of the pouch. There were hints of pallid colors, but it was mostly a pale, glimmering, greenish-gray.

"What is it? Some kind of magic dust?"

"Glass."

Kahlan's eyes turned up. "Glass. You thought up glass?"

Verna let out a tsk at herself for how foolish she must have sounded.

"No, Mother Confessor. I thought of breaking it. You see, this is just simple glass that has been broken and crushed into fine pieces-almost dust.

But we used our Han to aid us when we crushed the glass with a mortar and pestle. By using our gift, we were able to break the glass into very tiny fragments, but in a special way."

Verna leaned over, her finger hovering above the little greenish-gray mound. Cara leaned in beside her in order to look down at the dangerous thing on the piece of paper.

"This glass-every piece-is sharp and jagged, even though each piece is very tiny. Each piece is hardly bigger than dust, so it weighs nothing, almost like dust."

"Dear spirits," Adie said before whispering a prayer in her own language.

Kahlan cleared her throat. "I don't understand."

"Mother Confessor, we can't get our magic past the defenses of the Order's gifted. They are prepared for magic, even if it's a simple pebble but uses magic to hurl it at their troops.

"This glass, however, even though we used magic to break it, has no magic properties-none at all. It's just inert material, the same as the dust kicked up by their feet. They can't detect it as magic, because it isn't magic. Through their gift, they will sense this as simple as dust, or mist, or possibly fog, depending on atmospheric conditions at the time."