"Richard, you couldn't possibly have known the woman; she had to have been dead and buried before we ever left our home in Westland —back before the boundary came down. Back when you were still a woods guide in the Hartland forest."

Richard pressed his palms to his forehead. "No, no, you don't understand. You're having the same problem as everyone else. It's not her. You know Kahlan."

Zedd lifted a sympathetic hand toward his grandson. "Richard, that's not possible. The quads killed the Confessors."

"Yes, the other Confessors were killed by those assassins, but not her, not Kahlan." Richard waved a hand as he dismissed the argument. "Zedd, she's the one who came to ask you to appoint the Seeker-that's why we left Westland. You know Kahlan."

Zedd frowned. "What in the world are you talking about? We had to leave when Darken Rahl came hunting us. We had to run for our lives."

"In part, but Kahlan came looking for you first. She's the one who told us that Darken Rahl had put the boxes of Orden in play. He was on the other side of the boundary; if not for Kahlan coming, how would we have even known?"

Zedd peered at Richard as if he suspected he might be quite ill. "Richard, when the boxes of Orden are put into play, the snake vine grows. It even says so in The Book of Counted Shadows. You, of all people, know that. You were in the Upper Ven and were bitten by a snake vine. It caused a fever and you came to me for help. That's how we knew the boxes of Orden were in play. Darken Rahl then came to Westland and attacked us."

"Well, yes, that's all true, in a way, but Kahlan told us what was happening in the Midlands-she confirmed it." Richard growled in frustration. "It's more than that, more than her coming to ask you to appoint a Seeker. You know her."

"I'm afraid that I don't, Richard."

"Dear spirits, Zedd, you spent last winter with her and the D'Haran army. When Nicci took me down to the Old World, Kahlan was there with Cara and you." He pointed insistently at Cara, as if it would somehow prove the point and end the nightmare. "She and Cara fought with you all winter."

Zedd glanced up at Cara. Cara, behind Richard's back, turned her palms up and shrugged at Zedd to let him know that she didn't know any more about it than Zedd did.

"As long as you brought up the business about you being the Seeker, where is your.»

Richard snapped his fingers, his face suddenly lighting up.

"That's not Kahlan's grave."

"Of course it is. There's no mistaking this grave. It's prominent and I clearly recall that it has her name carved right in the stone."

"Yes, it's her name, but not her grave. I realize what you're talking about, now." Richard chuckled with relief. "I'm telling you, it's not her grave."

Zedd didn't think it was funny. "Richard, I've seen her name on the stone. It's her, the Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell."

Richard shook his head insistently. "No, that's not her. That was a trick.»

"A trick?" Zedd cocked his head, frowning. "What are you talking about? What sort of trick?"

"They were hunting her-the Order was after Kahlan when they occupied Aydindril. They had taken over the council, condemned her to death, and they were hunting her. To keep them from chasing her, you put a death spell on her.»

"What! A death spell! Richard, do you have any idea of the magnitude of what you're suggesting?"

"Of course I do. But it's true. You needed to feign her death so that the Order would think they had succeeded and wouldn't come after her-so that she could get away. Don't you remember? You made that headstone, or at least you had it made. I came here to find her-it was a few years back. Your spell even fooled me. I thought she was dead. But she wasn't."

His confusion had receded and now Zedd was looking seriously worried. "Richard, I can't imagine what is wrong with you, but this is simply.»

"You two escaped to safety but you left me a message on her headstone," Richard said, jabbing a finger at Zedd's chest, "so that I would know that she was really still alive. So that I wouldn't despair. So that I wouldn't give up. I almost did, but then I figured it out."

Zedd was nearly boiling over with frustration, impatience, and concern. Nicci knew the feeling.

"Bags, my boy, what message are you talking about?"

"The words on the headstone. The inscription. It was a message to me."

Zedd planted his fists on his hips. "What are you talking about? What message? What was this message?"

Richard started pacing, pressing his fingertips to his temples as he mumbled to himself, apparently trying to recall the exact wording.

Or, Nicci thought, trying to dream it up the way he always dreamed up answers to talk his way out of facing the truth. She knew that this time he was making a mistake that would catch him up. Reality was closing in around him, even if he didn't yet recognize it. He soon would.

Nicci dreaded that unequivocal juncture of delusion and truth. Despite wanting Richard to get better, to get over the false memories he had been suffering, she dreaded the pain she knew it would bring him when he eventually came face-to-face with the unambiguous truth. Even more, she dreaded what would happen to him if he couldn't see the truth, or refused to see it, if he sank forever deeper into a world of illusion.

"Not here," he muttered. "Something about not being here. And something about my heart."

Zedd pushed his cheek out with his tongue, apparently in an effort to keep still while he watched his grandson pacing back and forth and at the same time probably tried to imagine what could be happening to him.

"No," Richard said abruptly as he halted. "No, not my heart. That's not what it said. It's a big monument. I remember now. It said, 'Kahlan Amnell. Mother Confessor. She is not here, but in the hearts of those who love her.

"It was a message for me not to give up hope because she wasn't really dead-she wasn't really there, in that grave."

"Richard," Zedd said in soft consolation, "it's a common enough thing to say on a grave marker, that someone isn't dead but rather lives on in the hearts of those who love her. Gravediggers probably have stacks of grave markers made up with that sentiment, carved with those very words."

"But she wasn't buried there! She wasn't! It says that-'she is not here'-for a reason."

"Then who is buried in her grave?" Zedd asked.

Richard went still for a moment.

"No one," he finally said, his gaze wandering off as he thought. "Mistress Sanderholt-the cook at the palace-she was fooled by your death spell like everyone else. When I finally got here she told me that you stood there on the platform while Kahlan was beheaded-she was in mourning over it and terribly upset-but I realized that you wouldn't do such a thing and so it had to be one of your tricks. You told me that-remember? Sometimes the best magic is just a trick."

Zedd nodded. "That part is true enough."

"Mistress Sanderholt told me that Kahlan's body had been burned in a funeral pyre, the whole thing supervised by the First Wizard himself. She said that Kahlan's ashes were then buried before that immense stone marker. Mistress Sanderholt even took me out to the secluded courtyard beside the palace where Confessors are buried. She showed me the grave. I was horrified. I thought it was her, that she was dead, until I figured out the message carved in the stone-the message the two of you left for me to find."

Richard gripped his grandfather's shoulders again. "Do you see? It was just a trick to throw our enemies off her trail. She wasn't really dead. She wasn't really buried there. Nothing is buried there, except maybe some ashes."

Nicci thought that it was rather convenient that Richard imagined her being cremated in his story of the death-spell bluff so that all that remained were ashes that couldn't be identified. He always came up with something that to his mind logically explained the lack of evidence. Nicci didn't know if Confessors really were cremated, but if they were, that would only provide him with another useful pretext to prop up his story so that he could continue to deny that it was her. They would again have no way to prove otherwise.