Richard watched as she looked away. “So what are they?”

Even though her head was turned, he could see her eyes close for a moment. She took the spoon from him and tasted the soup, which he knew wasn’t ready yet, then turned to him, as if asking if he really wanted to know. Richard waited.

Kahlan stared into the fire. “The boundaries are part of the underworld: the dominion of the dead. They were conjured into our world by magic, to separate the three lands. They are like a curtain drawn across our world. A rift in the world of the living.”

“You mean that going into the boundary is, what, like falling through a crack into another world? Into the underworld?”

She shook her head. “No. Our world is still here. The underworld is there in the same place at the same time. It is about a two-day walk across the land where the boundary, the underworld, lies. But while you are walking the land where the boundary is, you are also walking through the underworld. It is a wasteland. Any life that touches the underworld, or is touched by it, is touching death. That is why no one can cross the boundary. If you enter it, you enter the land of the dead. No one can return from the dead.”

“Then how did you?”

She swallowed as she watched the fire. “With magic. The boundary was brought here with magic, so the wizards reasoned they could get me safely through with the aid and protection of magic. It was frightfully difficult for them to cast the spells. They were dealing in things they didn’t fully understand, dangerous things, and they weren’t the ones who conjured the boundary into this world, so they weren’t sure it would work. None of us knew what to expect.” Her voice was weak, distant. “Even though I came through, I fear I will never be able to entirely leave it.”

Richard sat spellbound. He was horrified to think that she had faced that, that she had gone through a part of the underworld, the world of the dead, even with the aid of magic. It was unimaginable. Her frightened eyes came to his, eyes that had seen things no one else had ever seen.

“Tell me what you saw there,” he whispered.

Her skin was ashen as she looked back into the fire. A birch twig popped, making her flinch. Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes filled with tears that reflected the flickering flames, but she was not seeing the fire.

“At first,” she said in a distant tone, “it was like walking into the sheets of cold fire you see at night in the northern sky.” Her chest began heaving. “Inside, it is beyond darkness.” Her eyes were wide, wet. A small moan escaped with her breath. “There is… someone… with me.”

She turned to him, confused, seeming not to know where she was. It panicked him to see the pain in her eyes—pain he brought there with his question. She put her hand over her mouth as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes closed as she gave a low, mournful cry. Bumps ran up Richard’s arms.

“My… mother,” she sobbed, “I haven’t seen her in so many years… and… my dead sister… Dennee… I’m so alone… and afraid…” As she cried, she started gasping for air.

Somehow, he was losing her to the powerful specters of what she had seen in the underworld, as if they were pulling her back to drown her. Frantic, Richard put his hands on her shoulders and twisted her to face him.

“Kahlan, look at me! Look at me!”

“Dennee…” she gasped, her chest heaving as she tried to break free of him.

“Kahlan!”

“I’m so alone… and afraid…”

“Kahlan! I’m here with you! Look at me!”

She continued to cry convulsively, choking for air. Her eyes opened, but they didn’t focus on him—they were looking into another place.

“You’re not alone, I’m here with you! I won’t leave you!”

“I’m so alone,” she wailed.

He shook her, trying to make her listen. Her skin was white and dead cold. She struggled to breathe. “I’m right here. You’re not alone!” Desperate, he shook her again, but it wasn’t helping. He was losing her.

Struggling to control his rising panic, Richard did the only thing he could think of. When he had been confronted with fear in the past, he had learned to control it. There was strength in control. He did that now. Maybe he could give her some of his strength. Closing his eyes, he shut his fear away, blocked off the panic, and sought the calm within himself. He let his mind focus on the strength within himself. In the quiet of his mind, he blocked off his fears and confusion, and centered his thoughts on the strength of that peace. He would not let the underworld have her.

He spoke her name in a calm voice. “Let me help you. You are not alone. I am here with you. Let me help you. Take my strength.”

His hands gripped her shoulders. He could feel her shaking as she cried in choking sobs and struggled to breathe. He visualized sending her his strength, through his hands, through his contact with her. He visualized that contact extending to her mind, lending her all of his strength and drawing her back, away from the blackness. He would be the spark of light and life in that blackness that would lead her back to this world, to him.

“Kahlan, I am here. I won’t leave you. You are not alone. I am your friend. Trust in me.” He gently squeezed her shoulders. “Come back to me. Please.”

He pictured the white-hot light in his mind, hoping it would help her. Please, dear spirits, he prayed, let her see it. Let it help her. Let her use my strength.

“Richard?” She called out the name as if searching for him.

He squeezed her shoulders again. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. Come back to me.”

She started breathing again. Her eyes focused on his face. Relief flooded her features when she recognized him, and she began to cry in what seemed a more normal way. She collapsed against him and held him as she would a rock in a river. He held her to him and let her cry on his shoulder while he told her it was all right. He was so afraid he had lost her to the underworld that he didn’t want to let go of her either.

Reaching down, he got a hold of the blanket and pulled it back up around her, wrapping her with it as best he could. Warmth was returning to her body again, another sign that she was safe now, but he was disturbed by how quickly the underworld had pulled her back. He didn’t think that was supposed to happen. She hadn’t been there long, and exactly how he had gotten her back, he didn’t know, but he knew it had been none too soon.

The fire lent a soft red cast to the inside of the wayward pine, and in the silence it seemed a secure haven again. An illusion, he knew. He held her and stroked her hair and rocked her gently for a long time. Something in the way she clung to him made him realize that no one had held her and comforted her for a very long time.

He didn’t know anything about wizards, or magic, but no one would send Kahlan through the boundary, through the underworld, without a powerful reason. He wondered what could be that important.

Pushing herself off his shoulder, she sat up, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should not have touched you in that manner. I was…”

“It’s all right, Kahlan. It is the first responsibility of a friend to provide a shoulder to cry on.”

She nodded but didn’t raise her head. Richard felt her eyes on him as he took the soup off the fire to let it cool a little. He put another piece of wood into the flames, sending sparks swirling up with the smoke.

“How do you do that?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Do what?”

“How do you ask questions that fill my mind with pictures and make me answer, even when I have no intention to?”

He shrugged, a little self-conscious. “Zedd asks me that too. I guess it’s just something I was born with. Sometimes I think it’s a curse.” He turned from the fire to face her again. “I’m sorry, Kahlan, for asking you what you saw there. It was a thoughtless thing to do. Sometimes my common sense doesn’t keep up with my curiosity. I’m sorry I brought you pain. You being pulled back into the underworld, though, that shouldn’t have happened, should it?”