Kahlan put her hand reassuringly on Adie’s arm. The light from the lamp made the old woman’s white eyes a pale shade of orange. Richard didn’t move, his muscles tense.

“I had my axe with me.” Kahlan closed her eyes as her head lowered. Adie went on. “I tried to kill the gripper, or at least get him off me. I knew that if I did not, he would suck all the lifeblood from me. His armor be harder than the axe. I was very angry with myself. The grippers be one of the slowest creatures in the pass, but he be faster than a sleeping fool.” She looked into Richard’s eyes. “There be only one thing I could do to save my life. I could stand the pain no longer—his teeth were scraping into the bone. I tied a strip of cloth tight around my thigh, and laid my lower leg across a log. I used the axe to chop off my foot and ankle.”

The silence in the small house was brittle. Only Richard’s eyes moved, to meet Kahlan’s. He saw sorrow there for the old woman, saw his own sorrow reflected. He couldn’t imagine the resolve it would take to use an axe to cut off your own foot. His stomach felt sick. Adie’s thin lips spread in a grim smile. With one hand she reached across the table to take Richard’s hand, and with the other hand, took Kahlan’s. She held their hands in a firm grip.

“I tell you this story not to have you feel sorry for me. I tell you only so you two will not become prey to something in the pass. Confidence can be a dangerous thing. Fear can keep you safe, sometimes.”

“Then I think we shall be very safe,” Richard said.

Adie continued to smile, and gave a single nod. “Good. There be one more thing. There be a place halfway through the pass, where the two walls of the boundary come very close together, almost touching. It be called the Narrows. When you come to a rock the size of this house, split down the middle, that be the place. You must pass through the rock. Do not go around it even though you may want to—death be that way. And then beyond, you must pass between the walls of the boundary. It be the most dangerous place in the pass.” She put a hand on Kahlan’s shoulder, and squeezed Richard’s hand tighter, looking to each in turn. “They will call to you from the boundary. They will want you to come to them.”

“Who?” Kahlan asked.

Adie leaned closer to her. “The dead. It could be anyone you know who be dead. Your mother.”

Kahlan bit her bottom lip. “Is it really them?”

Adie shook her head. “I don’t know, child. But I do not believe it to be.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Richard said, almost more to reassure himself.

“Good,” Adie rasped. “Keep thinking so. It will help you resist. You will be tempted to go to them. If you do, you are lost. And remember, in the Narrows it be even more important to keep on the path the whole way through. A step or two off to either side and you have gone too far—the walls of the boundary be that close. You will not be able to step back. Ever.”

Richard let out a deep breath. “Adie—the boundary is failing. Before he was struck down, Zedd told me he could see the change. Chase said you couldn’t see into it before, and that now underworld beings were getting out. Do you think it will still be safe to go through the Narrows?”

“Safe? I never said it be safe. It never be safe to go through the Narrows. Many who were keen with greed, but not strong of will, have tried to go through and never come out the other side.” She leaned closer to him. “As long as the boundary be there still, so too must be the pass. Stay on the trail. Keep in mind your purpose. Help each other if need be, and you will get across.”

Adie studied his face. Richard turned to Kahlan’s green eyes. He wondered if Kahlan and he could resist the boundary. He remembered what it felt like to want to go into it, to long for it. In the Narrows, it would be on both sides of them. He knew how frightened Kahlan was of the underworld, with good reason—she had been in it. He wasn’t anxious to go anywhere near it himself.

Richard frowned in thought. “You said the Narrows were in the center of the pass. Won’t it be night? How will we see to stay on the trail?”

Adie put her hand on Kahlan’s shoulder to help herself up. “Come,” she said as she put the crutch under her arm. They followed slowly behind as she worked her way to the shelves. Her slender fingers clutched a leather pouch. She loosened the drawstring and dumped something in her palm.

She turned to Richard. “Hold out your hand.”

He held his hand palm up in front of her. She put her hand over his, and he felt a smooth weight. In her native tongue she spoke a few words under her breath.

‘“The words say I give you this of my own free will.”

Richard saw that in his palm rested a rock about the size of a grouse egg. Smooth and polished, it was so dark it seemed as if it could suck the light from the room. He couldn’t even discern a surface, other than a layer of gloss. Beneath that was a void of blackness.

“This be a night stone,” she said in a measured rasp.

“And what do I do with it?”

Adie hesitated, her gaze darting briefly to the window. “When it be dark, and you have need enough, take out the night stone and it will give off light so you may find your way. It only works for its owner, and then only if it be given of its last owner’s free will. I will tell the wizard you have it. He has magic to find it, so he will be able to find you.”

Richard hesitated. “Adie, this must be valuable. I don’t feel right accepting it.”

“Everything is valuable under the right conditions. To a man dying of thirst, water be more precious than gold. To a drowning man, water be of little worth and great trouble. Right now, you be a very thirsty man. I thirst for Darken Rahl to be stopped. Take the night stone. If you feel the weight of obligation, you may return it to me one day.”

Richard nodded, slipped the stone into the leather pouch and then into his pocket. Adie turned to the shelf once more and retrieved a delicate necklace, holding it up for Kahlan to see. A few red and yellow beads were to each side of a small round bone. Kahlan’s eyes brightened, her mouth opened in surprise.

“It is just like my mother’s,” she said with delight.

Adie placed it over her head while Kahlan lifted clear her mass of dark hair. Kahlan looked down at the necklace, touching it between her finger and thumb, smiling.

“For now it will hide you from the beasts in the pass, and someday, when you carry a child of your own, it will protect her, and help her to grow strong like you.”

Kahlan put her arms around the old woman, hugging her tight for a long time. When they separated, Kahlan’s face bore a distressed expression, and she spoke in the language Richard didn’t understand. Adie simply smiled and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

“You two should sleep now.”

“What about me? Shouldn’t I have a bone to hide me from the beasts?”

Adie studied his face, then looked down at his chest. Slowly, she reached out. Her fingers uncurled and touched his shirt tentatively, touched the tooth underneath. She pulled her hand back and looked back up into his eyes. Somehow she knew about the tooth being there. Richard held his breath.

“You need no bone, Hartlander. The beasts cannot see you.”

His father had told him the thing guarding the book had been an evil beast. He realized the tooth was the reason the things from the boundary hadn’t been able to find him, as they had the others. If it hadn’t been for the tooth, he would have been struck down as Zedd and Chase were, and Kahlan would be in the underworld now. Richard tried to keep his face from betraying any emotion. Adie seemed to get the hint and remained silent. Kahlan seemed confused but didn’t ask.

“Sleep now,” Adie said.

Kahlan refused Adie’s offer of her bed. She and Richard laid their bedrolls near the fire, and Adie retired to her room. Richard put a few more logs in the fire, remembering how Kahlan liked to be by a fire. He sat by Zedd and Chase for a few minutes, smoothing the old man’s white hair, listening to his even breathing. He hated to leave his friends behind. He was afraid of what was ahead. He wondered if Zedd had an idea of where to look for one of the boxes. Richard wished he knew what Zedd’s plan was. Maybe it was some sort of wizard’s trick to try on Darken Rahl.