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  　CHAPTER 3

  　The mriswith reacted to the threat, materializing as they flung themselves at the gar. The sword's magic, its rage, inundated Richard with its full fury as he saw his friend being attacked. He bounded down the steps, toward the erupting battle.

  　Howls assailed his ears as Gratch tore into the mriswith. In the heat of combat they were now visible. Against the white of stone and snow, they were difficult to distinguish clearly, but Richard could see them well enough; there were close to ten as near as he could tell in all the confusion. Under their capes, they wore simple hides as white as the rest of them. Richard had seen them black before, but he knew the mriswith could appear to be the color of their surroundings. Taut, 【创建和谐家园】ooth skin covered iheir heads down to their necks, where it began welting up into tight, interlocking scales. Lipiess mouths spread to reveal 【创建和谐家园】all, needle-sharp teeth. In the fists of their webbed claws, they gripped the cross-members of three-bladed knives. Beady eyes, intense with loathing, fixed on the raging gar.

  　With fluid speed, they swept around the dark form in their midst, their white capes billowing behind as they skimmed across the snow, some tumbling under the attack, or spinning out of reach, just escaping the gar's powerful arms. With brutal efficiency, the gar caught others on claws, ripping them open, throwing a shock of blood across the snow.

  　So intent were they on Gratch that Richard descended upon their backs unopposed. He had never fought more than one mriswith at a time, and that had been a formidable ordeal, but with the fury of the magic pounding through him he thought only of helping Gratch. Before they had a chance to turn to the new threat, Richard cut down two. Shrill death howls sundered the dawn air, the sound needle-sharp and painful in his ears.

  　Richard sensed others behind him, back toward the palace. He spun just in time to see three more abruptly appear. They were racing to join the fight, with only Mistress Sanderholt in their way. She cried out at finding her escape route blocked by the advancing creatures. She turned and ran ahead of them. Richard could see that she was going to lose the race, and he was too far away to make it in time.

  　With a backhanded swing of his sword, Richard slashed open a scaled form that turned on him. "Gratch!" he cried out. "Gratch!"

  　Twisting the head off a mriswilh, Gratch looked up. Richard pointed with his sword.

  　"Gratch! Protect her!"

  　Gratch instantly grasped the nature of Mistress Sanderholt's peril. Flinging aside the limp, headless carcass, he bounded into the air. Richard ducked. Swift strokes of the gar's leathery wings lifted him over Richard's head and up the steps.

  　Reaching down, Gratch snatched the woman up in his furry arms. Her feet jerked off the ground and over the sweeping knives of the mriswith. Spreading his wings wide. Gratch banked before the woman's weight could cost him his momentum, swooped down beyond the mriswith, and then, with a powerful stroke, broke his descent to set Mistress Sanderholt on the ground. Without pause, he sprang back into the fray and, deftly avoiding the flashing knives, struck out with his claws and

  　fangs.

  　Richard spun back to the three mriswith at the base of the steps. Losing himself to the sword's rage, he became one with the magic and the spirits of those who had wielded the sword before him. Everything moved with the slow elegance of a dance—the dance with death. The three mriswith came at him, whirling with cold grace, an onslaught of flashing blades. Pivoting, they split rank, skimming up the steps to go around him. With detached efficiency, Richard caught the lone creature on the point of his blade.

  　To his surprise, the other two cried out, "No!"

  　Astonished, Richard froze. He hadn't known that mriswith could speak. They paused on the steps, holding him in beady, snakclike gazes. They had almost made it past him on their way up the steps, toward Gratch. Intent on the gar, he surmised, they wanted most to get past him.

  　Richard bolted up the steps, blocking their way. Again they split ranks, one going to each side. Richard feinted at the one to his left, and then reeled to strike out at the other. His sword shattered the triple blades in one of its claws. Without pause, the mriswith spun, evading the killing thrust of Richard's blade, but as the creature came around, closing the distance to deliver its own strike, he drew his sword back, slicing across its neck. With a howl, the mriswith toppled to the ground, writhing, spilling blood across the snow.

  　Before Richard could turn to the other, it crashed into him from behind. The two of them tumbled down the steps. His sword and one of the three-bladed knives clattered across the stone at the bottom, skittering out of reach, and disappeared under the snow.

  　They rolled over, each trying to gain the advantage. With its scaled arms constricting around his chest, the wiry beast tried to muscle Richard onto his stomach. He could feel fetid breath on the back of his neck. Though he couldn't see his sword, he could feel its magic, and knew exactly where it lay. He tried to lunge for it, but the mriswith's weight hobbled him. He tried to drag himself, but the snow-slicked stone denied him enough purchase. The sword remained out of reach.

  　Powered by his anger, Richard staggered to his feet. Still clutching him with both scaled arms, the mriswith slithered a leg around his. Richard crashed face-first to the ground, the weight of the mriswith on his back driving the wind from his lungs. The mriswith's second knife hovered inches from his face.

  　Grunting with effort, Richard pushed himself up with one arm and with the other hand seized the wrist that held the knife. In one 【创建和谐家园】ooth, mighty movement, he heaved the mriswith back, ducked under the arm, and, as he came back up, wrenched it around one full turn. Bone popped. With his other hand, Richard brought his belt knife to the creature's chest. The mriswith, cape and all, flushed to a sickening, weak greenish color.

  　"Who sent you!" When it didn't answer, Richard twisted its arm, pinning it behind the beast's back. "Who sent you!"

  　The mriswith sagged, "The dreamssss walker," it hissed.

  　"Who's the dream walker? Why are you here?"

  　Waves of waxy yellow suffused the mriswith. Its eyes widened as it struggled anew to escape. "Greeneyesss!"

  　A sudden blow slammed Richard back. A flash of dark fur snatched the mriswith. Claws yanked its head back. Fangs sank into its neck. A powerful jerk ripped the throat away. Startled, Richard gasped for air.

  　Before he could catch his breath, the gar, his green eyes wild, lunged at him. Richard threw his arms up as the huge beast 【创建和谐家园】ashed into him. The knife flew from his hand. The sheer size of the gar was 【创建和谐家园】othering, his awesome strength overpowering. Richard might as well as have been trying to hold back a mountain that was falling on him. Dripping fangs drove for his face.

  　"Gratch!" He snatched fistfuls of fur. "Gratch! It's me, Richard!" The snarling face drew back a bit. Vapor huffed out with each breath, reeking of the putrid stench of mriswith blood. The glowing green eyes blinked. Richard stroked the heaving chest. "It's all right, Gratch. It's over. Calm down."

  　The iron-hard muscles of the arms that held him slackened. The snarl wrinkled into a grin. Tears welling in his eyes, Gratch crushed Richard to his chest.

  　"Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg."

  　Patting the gar's back, Richard struggled to get air into his lungs. "I love you too, Gratch."

  　Gratch, the green gleam back in his eyes, held Richard out for a critical inspection, as if to assure himself that his friend was intact. He let out a purling gurgle that bespoke his relief, whether at finding Richard safe or at having stopped before tearing him apart, Richard wasn't sure, but he did know that he, too, was relieved that it was over. His muscles, the fear, anger, and fury of the fight abruptly gone from them, throbbed with a dull ache.

  　Richard took a deep breath at the heady feeling of having survived the sudden attack, but he was unsettled by the mutability of Cratch's usual gentle disposition into such deadly ferocity. He glanced around at the startling amount of foul-【创建和谐家园】elling gore spilled across the snow. Gratch hadn't done it all. As he put down the last vestige of the magic's anger, it struck him that perhaps Gratch saw him in a similar light. Just as Richard, Gratch had risen to the threat.

  　"Gratch, you knew they were here, didn't you?"

  　Gratch nodded enthusiastically, adding a bit of a growl to make his point. It occurred to Richard that when he had last seen Gratch growling with such vehemence, outside the Hagen Woods, it must have been because he sensed the presence of the mriswith.

  　The Sisters of the Light had told him that occasionally the mriswith strayed from the Hagen Woods, and that no one, not Sisters of the Light—sorceresses—or even wizards, had been able to perceive their presence, or had ever survived an encounter with them. Richard had been able to sense them because he was the first in near to three thousand years to be born with both sides of the gift. So how did Gratch know they were there?

  　"Gratch, could you see them?" Gratch pointed to a few of the carcasses, as if

  　to point them out for Richard. ''No, I can see them now. I mean before, when I was talking to Mistress Sanderhok and you were growling. Could you see (hem then?" Gratch shook his head. "Could you hear them, or 【创建和谐家园】ell them?" Gratch frowned in thought, his ears twitching, and then shook his head again. "Then how did you know they were there, before we could see them?"

  　'Eyebrows as big as axe handles drew together as the huge beast frowned down at Richard. He shrugged, looking perplexed about his failure to come up with a satisfactory answer.

  　"You mean that before you could see them, you couid feel them? Something inside just told you they were there?"

  　Gratch grinned and nodded, happy that Richard seemed to understand. That was similar to how Richard knew they were there; before he could see them, he could sense them, see them in his mind. But Gratch didn't have the gift. How could he do it?

  　Perhaps it was just because animals could sense things before people could. Wolves commonly knew you were there before you knew they were. Usually, the only time you knew a deer was in a thicket was when it bolted, having sensed you long before you saw it. Animals generally had keener senses than people, and predators some of the keenest. Gratch was certainly a predator. That sense seemed to have served him better than Richard's magic had him.

  　Mistress Sanderholt, having come down to the bottom of the steps, laid a bandaged hand on Cratch's furry arm. "Gratch. . .thank you." She turned to Richard, lowering her voice. "I thought he was going to kill me, too," she confided. She glanced at several of the torn bodies. "I've seen gars do that to people. When he snatched me up like that, I thought sure he was going to kill me. But I was wrong; he's different." She peered back up at Gratch. "You saved my life. Thank you."

  　Cratch's 【创建和谐家园】ile showed the full length of his bloody fangs. The sight made her gasp.

  　Richard glanced up at the sinister-loo king, grinning face. "Stop 【创建和谐家园】iling, Gratch. You're scaring her again."

  　His mouth turned down, his lips covering his prodigious, wickedly sharp fangs. His wrinkled features melted into a sulk. Gratch viewed himself as lovable, and seemed to think it only natural that everyone else would, too.

  　Mistress Sanderholt stroked the side of Cratch's arm. "It's all right. His 【创建和谐家园】ile is heartfelt, and handsome in its own way. I'm just not ... used to it, that's all."

  　Gratch 【创建和谐家园】iled at Mistress Sanderholt again, adding a sudden, spirited flapping of his wings. Unable to help herself, Mistress Sanderholt lurched back a step. She was just coming to understand that this gar was different from those that were always a threat to people, but her instincts still ruled that understanding. Gratch made for the woman, to give her a hug. Richard was sure she would die of fright before she realized the gar's benign intent, so he put a restraining arm in front of Gratch.

  　"He likes you, Mistress Sanderholt. He just wanted to give you a hug, that's all. But I think your thanks are enough."

  　She quickly regained her composure. "Nonsense." 【创建和谐家园】iling warmly, she held her arms out. "I'd like a hug, Gratch."

  　Gratch gurgled with glee and scooped her up. Under his breath, Richard cautioned

  　Gratch to be gentle. Mistress Sanderholt let out a muffled, helpless giggle. Once back on the ground, she squirmed her bony frame straight in her dress and awkwardly drew her shawl up on her shoulders. She beamed warmly.

  　"You're right, Richard. He's no pet. He's a friend."

  　Gratch nodded enthusiastically, his ears twitching as he flapped his leathery wings again.

  　Richard pulled a white cape, one that was nearly clean, off a nearby mriswith. He asked Mistress Sanderholt's indulgence, and when she granted it, stood her before an oak door to a 【创建和谐家园】all, low-roofed stone building. He draped the cape around her shoulders and drew the hood up over her head.

  　"I want you to concentrate," he told her. "Concentrate on the brown of the door behind you. Hold the cape together under your chin, and close your eyes if it will help you focus. Imagine you're one with the door, that you're the same color."

  　She frowned up at him. "Why am I to do this?"

  　"I want to see if you can appear invisible like they were."

  　"Invisible!"

  　Richard 【创建和谐家园】iled his encouragement. "Just give it a try?"

  　She let out a breath and finally nodded. Her eyes slowly closed. Her breathing evened and slowed. Nothing happened. Richard waited a while longer, but still, nothing happened. The cape remained white, not a stitch of it turning brown. She finally opened her eyes.

  　"Did I become invisible?" she asked, sounding as if she were afraid she had.

  　"No," Richard admitted.

  　“I didn't think so. But how did those vile snake men make themselves invisible?" She shrugged the cape off her shoulders and shuddered in revulsion. "And what made you think I could do it?"

  　"They're called mriswith, It's their capes that enable them to do it, so I thought that maybe you could, too." She regarded him with a dubious expression. "Here, let me show you."

  　Richard took her place before the door and drew up the hood of his mriswith cape. Flipping the cape closed, he set his mind to the task. In the space of a breath, the cape became the exact same color as what she saw behind him. Richard knew that the magic of the cape, apparently with the aid of his own, somehow enveloped the exposed parts of him, too, so that he seemed to disappear.

  　When he moved from in front of the door, the cape transfigured to continually match what she saw behind; as he stepped in front of the white stone, the pallid blocks and shadowed joints appeared to slip across him, mimicking the background as if she truly were looking through him. Richard knew from experience that even if the background was complex, it made no difference; the cape could match anything behind him.

  　As Richard moved away, Mistress Sanderholt continued to stare at the door, where she had last seen him. Cratch's eyes, however, never left him. Menace gathered in those green eyes as the gar followed Richard's movements. A growl rose in the gar's throat.

  　Richard let his concentration relax. The background colors sloughed from the cape, letting it return to black as he pushed the hood back. "It's still me, Gratch."

  　Mistress Sanderholt started, jerking around to discover him in his new location.

  　Gratch's growl trailed off, and his expression slackened, at first to confusion, and then to a grin. He rumbled with a low gurgle of a laugh at the new game.

  　"Richard," Mistress Sanderholt stammered, "how did you do that? How did you make yourself invisible?"

  　"It's the cape. It doesn't really make me invisible, but somehow it can change color to match the background, so it tricks the eye. I guess it takes magic to make the cape work, and you don't have any, but I was born with the gift so it works forme." Richard glanced around at the fallen mriswith. "I think it best if we burned these capes, lest they fall into the wrong hands."

  　Richard told Gratch to fetch the capes at the top of the steps while he bent to gather up the ones below.

  　"Richard, do you think it could be ... dangerous to use the cape from one of those evil creatures?"

  　"Dangerous?" Richard straightened and scratched the back of his neck. "I don't see how. All it does is change color. You know, the way some frogs and salamanders can change color to match whatever they're sitting on, like a rock, or a log, or a leaf."

  　She helped him, as best she could with her bandaged hands, wrap the capes into abundle. "I've seen those frogs. I've always thought it one of the Creator's wonders that they could do that." She 【创建和谐家园】iled up at him. "Perhaps the Creator is blessing you with the same wonder, because you have the gift. Praise be to Him; His blessing helped save us."

  　As Gratch held out the rest of the capes, one at a time, so' she could add them to the bundle, anxiety tightened like arms around Richard's chest. He glanced up at the gar.

  　"Gratch, you don't sense any more mriswith anywhere, do you?"

  　The gar handed the last cape to Mistress Sanderholt and then peered off into the distance, searching intently. Finally, he shook his head. Richard sighed in relief.

  　"Do you have any idea where they came from, Gratch? Any direction in particular?"

  　Gratch again slowly turned around, scrutinizing the surroundings. For a dead silent moment, his attention fixed on the Wizard's Keep, but at last moved on. Finally, he shrugged, looking apologetic.

  　Richard scanned the city of Aydindril, studying the Imperial Order troops he could see below. They were made up of men of many nations, he had been told, but he recognized the chain mail, armor, and dark leather worn by most: D'Harans.

  　Richard knotted the last of the loose ends around the capes, drawing them into a tight bundle, and then tossed the lot on the ground. "What happened to your hands?"

  　She held them out, turning them over, The wrap of white cloth was discolored with dried 【创建和谐家园】ears of meat drippings, sauces, and oils, and 【创建和谐家园】udged with ash and soot from the fires. "They pulled off my fingernails with tongs to make me give witness against the Mother Confessor . .. against Kahlan."

  　"And did you?" When she looked away, Richard flushed at realizing how his question must have sounded. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong. Of course no one would expect you to defy their demands under torture. The truth doesn't matter to people like that. Kahlan wouldn't believe you betrayed her."

  　She shrugged with one shoulder as she lowered her hands. "I wouldn't say the things they wanted me to say about her. She understood, just as you said. Kahlan herself ordered me to testify against her to keep them from doing more. Still, it was misery itself to speak such lies."

  　"I was born with the gift, but I don't know how to use it, or I'd see what I could do about helping you. I'm sorry." He winced in sympathy. "Is the pain beginning to ease, at least?"

  　"With the Imperial Order in possession of Aydindril, I'm afraid the pain has only begun."

  　"Was it the D'Harans who did this to you?"

  　"No. It was a Keltish wizard who ordered it. When Kahlan escaped, she killed him. Most of the Order's troops in Aydindril are D'Harans, though."

  　"How have they treated the people of the city?"

  　She rubbed her bandaged hands on her arms, as if chilled in the winter air, Richard almost put his cape around her shoulders but, thinking better of it, helped her pull her shawl up, instead.

  　"Though D'Hara conquered Aydindril, autumn past, and their troops were brutal about the fighting, since they put down all opposition and took the city they have not been so cruel, so long as their orders are followed. Perhaps they simply saw more value in having their prize intact."

  　"That could be, I suppose. What of the Keep? Have they taken that, too?"

  　She glanced over her shoulder, up the mountain. "I'm not sure, but I don't think so; the Keep is protected by spells, and from what I am told, the D'Haran troops fear magic."

  　Richard rubbed his chin in thought, "What happened after the war with D'Hara ended?''

  　"Apparently, the D'Harans, among others, made pacts with the Imperial Order. Slowly, the Keltans took charge, with the D'Harans remaining most of the muscie but acquiescing in the ruling of the city. Keltans don't fear magic the way D'Harans do. Prince Fyren, of Kelton, and that Keltish wizard commanded the council. With the prince, the wizard, and the council now dead, I'm not sure exactly who is in charge. The D'Harans, I would guess, which leaves us still at the mercy of the Imperial Order.

  　"With the Mother Confessor and the wizards gone, I fear our fate. I know she had to flee or be murdered, but yet..."

  　Her voice trail off, so he finished for her. "Since the Midlands was forged and Aydindril founded to be its heart, none but a Mother Confessor has ruled here."