Her ancestors, a gentle people who had hoped to evade conflicts by settling in a wasteland no one else would covet, had cast dreams to keep potential trouble away. Then, as now, they had cast dreams to repel the horde from the Old World to the south. In that great war they had failed and been all but destroyed.

Richard and Nicci had listened carefully to the tellings, to everything Jillian knew about those ancestral times. Between that, the book, and his own knowledge of the relevant history, Richard had pieced together what had happened.

Most of Jillian's ancestors had been killed, but a number had been captured and turned over to the wizards from the Old World, who coveted their unique ability. Those people were used by the wizards as the raw material to create human weapons. What those wizards had conjured from the captives had become the dreamwalkers-men used not to cast dreams. but to invade them.

Now Jagang was the only living dreamwalker, the living link to the great war from three thousand years before, the war that had reignited. From what Richard had learned, a dreamwalker had been born into the world again because an enemy spy had gotten into the Temple of the Winds and tampered with magic banished there. Wizard Baraccus had found a solution-insuring that Richard would be born with both sides of the gift in order to counter that threat. Jillian's people were descended from the same stock Jagang had come from. His ancestors had once been dreamcasters, like Jillian.

And now Jillian was once again, as the priestess of the bones, about to fulfill her ancient calling of casting dreams to repel the invaders . . . with one exception.

Back in the great war Jillian's ancestors had failed. Everything Jiilian knew from the tellings spoke of casting dreams.

Richard thought that might have been why they failed.

He, instead, intended to cast nightmares.

"Do you have the nightmares fixed in your mind?" he asked in a quiet voice.

Jillian's copper-colored eyes opened, appearing in the blackness of the painted band. "Yes, Father Rahl. I never had nightmares before these cruel people from the Old World returned. I only had dreams. I never really knew what nightmares were." She swallowed. "Now I know nightmares."

"Someday, Jillian," Richard said as he bent and drew a starburst symbol before her, "I hope you can forget what nightmares are, but for now I need you to keep your thoughts focused on them."

"I promise, Lord Rahl. But I'm only a girl. Are you really sure that I can cast nightmares to all those men?"

Richard looked up into her eyes. "Those men have come to kill everything you love. You think up the nightmares, and Lokey will carry them to the men down in that camp-I will see to it."

Nicci squatted down beside Richard. "Jillian, don't think about how many men there are down there. It doesn't matter. Honestly. Where Lokey goes, he carries your dreams. As he flies over the camp, the nightmares will be dropping from his midnight black wings like an icy rain. It may not touch every man, but that doesn't matter. It will touch a great many, and that's all that counts."

Nicci gestured to the spell-forms before the girl. "These are the power, not you. These spells do the work of planting the nightmare over and over in those men, not you. Your only job is to think of the nightmare. See this spell here?" Nicci asked as she gestured to a continuous loop that folded in on itself. "This part endlessly multiplies your nightmare over and over."

"But it seems like it would take more effort than I can do."

With a small smile of reassurance, Richard reached out and laid a hand on Jillian's arm. "It is I who helps you cast the dreams, remember? You must only think them; it is I who casts them as needed. It's your thoughts along with my strength that does it."

"I can sure enough think of nightmares." She smiled a little, then. "And you're sure enough strong, Lord Rahl. I guess it makes sense when you both put it like that. Now I understand why I've needed you to cast dreams. That's why the priestess of the bones had to wait for you to return to us."

Richard patted her arm. "The other thing you need to remember is that after Lokey flies around the camp, you must send him to land on Jagang's tent. We want to give nightmares to as many men as possible, but Jagang is the focus of those nightmares, and that special dream with which I want to torment him, so when I whisper to you that it's time for Lokey to land, you think about Jagang in his tent. This spell here"-he pointed-"will send Lokey to perch by the man. When I tell you, all you have to do is to remember Jagang and Lokey will go to his tent."

Jillian nodded. "I remember that awful tent." Her copper-colored eyes, filling with tears, turned to Nicci. "And I sure enough know the nightmares that happen there."

Overhead, Lokey cawed and flapped his wings, eager to be away with his cargo of nightmares.

CHAPTER 50

Jennsen winced as the muscular guard twisted her arm and shoved her through the tent's opening. She stumbled but was able to keep herself from falling. After riding through the sprawling camp in the bright winter sunlight, she found it difficult to see in the somber royal quarters. She squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She could see the hulking shapes of guards to either side.

Jennsen turned to a commotion behind her and saw the same big soldiers pushing Anson, Owen, and Marilee, Owen's wife, through the opening and into the tent as if they were herding animals to slaughter. Jennsen hadn't seen much of the others over the course of their swift journey north. All of them had been kept gagged and blindfolded for most of the way to make sure that they were little more trouble to bring along than the rest of the baggage and supplies. It made Jennsen's heart ache to see her friends back in the clutches of such evil people. It felt like a recurring nightmare.

In the distance, on the other side of the tent's large outer room, Jennsen saw Emperor Jagang sitting behind a heavy table, eating. Dozens of candles standing to each side of the table gave that end of the room the appearance of an altar in the inner sanctum. Slaves waited in a line against the back wall behind the emperor. The table was spread with an abundance of food, enough for a banquet. Jagang looked to be eating alone.

The emperor's black eyes were watching Jennsen as if she were a pheasant he was considering beheading, gutting, and roasting for the reclusive feast. He lifted a hand and with two fingers glistening with grease signaled her closer. Large rings on his fingers, as well as long jewel-encrusted chains around his neck, glimmered in the candlelight.

Followed closely by a frightened Anson, Owen, and Marilee, Jennsen crossed the thick carpets to stand before the emperor's table. The candle stands lit a table spread with ham, fowl, beef, and sauces of every sort. There were nuts and fruits, as well as a variety of cheeses.

His terrible gaze never leaving her, Jagang used the fingers of one hand to twist the breast off a small roasted bird. He held a silver goblet in the other hand. He took a big bite, then washed it down with red wine from the goblet. She knew it was red wine because much of it rolled down from the sides of his mouth to drip all over his sleeveless lamb's-wool vest.

"Well, well," he said as he plunked the goblet down on the table, "if it isn't Richard Rahl's little sister come for another visit."

The last time she had come to the emperor's table she had been with Sebastian. The last time she had been a guest. The last time she had not known that she was being used. She had grown up a lot since that day.

"Hungry, darlin?"

Jennsen was starving. "No," she lied.