Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

He remembered why those words had sounded unsettlingly familiar when Shota had said them. It was because he had heard those exact words before.

Those were the exact words that had been spoken by the night wisp the evening of the first day Richard had met Kahlan.

They had been in the wayward pine. Kahlan asked if he was afraid of magic and then, after approving of his answer, she brought out a little striped bottle that held the wisp. The night wisp, Shar, had guided Kahlan across the boundary, but by then it was dying. The wisp was unable to live away from its home place and those of its kind. It didn't have enough strength to cross the boundary again.

Richard remembered Kahlan saying, "Shar has sacrificed her life to help me because if Darken Rahl succeeds, all her kind, among others, will perish."

The wisp had been the one who told Richard for the first time that Darken Rahl was after him. Shar had warned that if Richard ran he would be caught and killed. Richard had thanked the wisp for helping Kahlan. He told Shar that his life had been made longer because she had saved him from doing something foolish that day. He told Shar that his life was better for knowing her, and thanked the wisp for helping bring her safely through the boundary.

Shar had then told him that she believed in him, and the rest of it, exactly as Baraccus had related through the sliph. At the time he had thought that the slightly odd speech characteristics were simply idiosyncratic of wisps — and perhaps they really were, but Baraccus had used those exact words for a reason.

Shota had used the same words, too — either deliberately or in innocent unawareness of their source — no doubt in order to help him by reminding him of those words from Shar. She probably didn't realize the real reason for saying those exact words, but through her ability they were intended to make him think. To make him remember. It was probably only because of the terrible vision Richard had had of Kahlan witnessing his execution that he hadn't connected Shota's words with the same words he'd heard years before from the night wisp. That vision had simply overpowered everything else.

Richard listened to the night sounds off in the woods, of bugs chirping, the leaves rustling in the wind, and a distant mockingbird, as another memory began seeping back into his consciousness.

Shar, the wisp, had used his name without being introduced. He supposed that the wisp could simply have overheard it while in the little bottle in the pouch at Kahlan's belt.

Or she might have already known his name.

Richard's eyes were opened as wide as they would go as he recalled something else. He had asked the wisp why Darken Rahl was trying to kill him, if it was because he helped Kahlan or if there was another reason.

Shar had come close and asked, "Other reason? Secrets?"

Secrets.

Richard jumped to his feet and cried out aloud with the shock of understanding.

He pressed his wrists to the sides of his head, unable to suppress another shout.

"I understand! Dear spirits, I understand!"

Secrets.

Richard had thought at the time that the wisp knew about the tooth that Richard kept hidden under his shirt, but that wasn't it at all. It had nothing to do with that tooth. Shar was asking him something entirely different. She was offering him his first chance at recovering the secret book Baraccus had left for him.

But it had been too soon. Richard hadn't yet been ready.

Richard had failed Baraccus's test back then, too. Failed it for the first time that night with the wisp. Baraccus, though, probably had no way to know when Richard would be ready. He had to have a way to test him from time to time. Shota had said that just because Baraccus had seen to it that Richard had been born with the ability, that didn't mean he would do the right things.

Baraccus hadn't taken his free will — and so, from time to time, Baraccus needed to test the one born with that ability to see if he had learned to use it to accomplish those things along the way that needed to be accomplished. Richard wondered how many other things put in his path had been the doing of Baraccus. At the moment, he had no way to know the answer to that question.

He did know that when the sliph said he failed the test, that was at least the second time he had failed it. The sliph's test was a reserve test, a repeat test, for after Richard had learned more. After he'd had a chance to know who he really was.

Secrets.

Richard felt as if his head might explode with the power of comprehension. Every emotion he had ever had seemed to collide together, twisting his insides with the excitement and anxiety of it all.

He threw himself down on the stone floor, hands gripping the edge until his knuckles were white.

"Sliph! Come back! I know what Baraccus meant! I understand! Sliph!"