Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"I know. I think it's a solution born of desperation, not clear thinking. But worse, I fear that once they discover that I don't intend to do as they wanted, they will then decide that they can't let this opportunity slip away from them and so their only alternative will be to try to somehow use their gift to cure you themselves. That kind of blind tampering with consciousness would be unpredictable, to say the least.

"They're desperate because they fear we all are running out of time before Jagang ends our chances forever. They believe this is the only solution. They are no longer listening to reason.

"You have to get out of here, now, Richard. I only agreed to their plan so that I could warn you first and give you time to get away. You must leave immediately if you are to escape."

Richard's head was spinning at the very notion of what they wanted to do. "That presents a problem. I don't know how to cover my trail with magic, the way Zedd can. If they are as committed as you say they are, then they will come after me. If they follow me and take me by surprise, what am I going to do, then? Fight them?"

She lifted her arms in frustration. "I don't know, Richard. But I do know their state of resolve. Nothing you say is going to talk them out of this because they think you are suffering under a condition where you aren't rational, so they feel that for your own good they must take control.

They may be doing it for loving reasons, but they're wrong to do it this way. Dear spirits, I, too, think you're suffering from some problem, but I just couldn't allow them to do this."

Richard squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of appreciation before he turned away as he tried to take it all in. It was near to impossible for him to imagine that Zedd would agree to such a thing. It just wasn't like him.

Wasn't like him.

Of course. It also wasn't like Ann to be so certain of how Richard must be made to play out his role in prophecy. Kahlan had changed everyone who knew her. She had made Ann come to see how Richard wasn't meant to follow the literal reading of prophecy as if it were a book of instruction.

Since Kahlan had vanished, everyone had changed. Zedd was different, too, and not in ways that were at all helpful. Even Cara had changed. She was just as protective, but now she was protective in a somehow more — feminine way. Nicci had changed as well, although in her case Richard thought the results were more positive-from his standpoint, anyway. She had forgotten everything having to do with Kahlan, and as a result she had become more sheltering of him despite her own views and interests, more willing to champion him despite everything he said and did. She was more devoted to him and thus more dedicated to safeguarding him.

But Zedd had changed in ways that were more troubling, much as Ann had become more overbearing and willing to directly interfere with Richard's decisions and impose her views of what she believed Richard had to do.

Richard had been telling people all along that the implications of Kahlan's disappearance were far broader and more complex than anyone but he was seeing. This change in everyone's behavior, some subtle and some overt, was further manifestation of those far-reaching effects. And yet, even Richard hadn't realized the full extent of the hidden corollaries and consequences.

Things had changed. Richard could no longer allow past characteristics to confuse the reality of how matters were in the present. It was vital that he recognize the truth of the way things were, now, and not be influenced by how they had once been. Nicci had become even more of an ally. Cara was just as protective as ever, if in a subtly different way. But Zedd and Ann, and possibly Nathan, had become less than dependable in ways that mattered most.

He had to take the way people had changed into account and act accordingly. He had to keep his objectives in mind and act to accomplish those goals even if it meant no longer fully trusting people he once had, people he cared about.

With Kahlan's disappearance, everything was being altered. The rules had changed.

He turned back to Nicci.

"This couldn't have happened at a worse time. I just figured it out. The viper with four heads are the Sisters of the Dark."

"Jagang's Sisters?"

"No-my former teachers, Sisters Tovi, Cecilia, Armina, and their leader, Sister Ulicia. Sister Ulicia was the one who assigned all of my teachers, including you."

"Richard, that's just crazy. I don't.»

"No, it's not. That morning when I thought I saw the tree limbs moving when there was no wind, it wasn't the tree limbs. It was those Sisters I saw move about in the near darkness."

"But Jagang has all the Sisters of the Dark."

"No, he doesn't."