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  　Cathryn stood next to him and looked down at the people she knew so well, "Do as Lord Rahl asks. He has given you enough of his time." She turned and addressed one of her aides. "Have my clothes brought over at once. I'll be staying here, at the Confessors' Palace."

  　"Why is she staying here," one of the ambassadors asked as his brow wrinkled in suspicion.

  　"Her hu【创建和谐家园】and, as you know, was killed by a mriswith," Richard said, "She is staying here for protection."

  　"You mean there is danger for us?"

  　"Very possibly," Richard said. "Her hu【创建和谐家园】and was an expert sword【创建和谐家园】an, yet he ... well, I hope you will be careful. If you join with us then you are entitled to be guests of the palace, and the protection of my magic. There are plenty of empty guest rooms, but they will remain empty until you surrender."

  　Accompanied by worried chatter, they headed for the doors.

  　"Shall we go?" Cathryn asked in a breathy voice.

  　His task done, Richard felt the sudden emptiness being filled with her presence. As she took his arm and they started away, he summoned the last shred of his will to stop at the end of the dais, where Ulic and Cara were standing.

  　"Keep us in sight at all times. Understand?"

  　"Yes, Lord Rahl," Ulic and Cara said as one.

  　Cathryn tugged on his arm, urging his ear close. "Richard." Her warm breath carrying his name sent a shudder of longing through him. "You said we would be alone. I want to be alone with you. Very alone. Please?"

  　It was from this moment that Richard had borrowed strength. He could no longer hold the image of the sword in his mind. In desperation, he put Kahlan's face there in its stead.

  　“There is danger about, Cathryn. I can sense it. I won't risk your life carelessly.

  　When I don't feel the danger, then we can be alone. Please try to understand, for now."

  　She looked distraught, but nodded. "For now."

  　As they stepped off the platform, Richard's gaze snagged on Cara's. "Don't let us out of your sight for anything."

  　CHAPTER 24

  　Phoebe plopped down the reports in a narrow vacant spot on the polished walnut table. "Verna, may I ask you a personal question?"

  　Verna scrawled her initials across the bottom of a report from the kitchens requesting replacements for the large cauldrons that had burned through. "We've been friends for a good long time, Phoebe; you may ask me anything you wish." She again scrutinized the request, and then above her initials she wrote a note denying permission and telling them to instead have the cauldrons repaired. Vema reminded herself to show a 【创建和谐家园】ile. "Ask."

  　Phoebe's round cheeks flushed as she twisted her fingers together. "Well, I mean no offense, but you're in a unique position, and I could never ask anyone else but a friend like you." She cleared her throat. "What's it like to get old?"

  　Vema snorted a laugh. "We're the same age, Phoebe."

  　She wiped her palms at the hips of her green dress as Verna waited. "Yes ... but you've been away for more than twenty years. You've aged that much, just like those outside the palace. It will take me near to three hundred years to age to where you are right now. Why, you look like a woman of almost . .. forty."

  　Verna signed. "Yes, well, a journey will do that to you. At least mine did."

  　"I don't want to ever go on a journey and get old. Does it hurt, or something, to so suddenly be old? Do you feel ... I don't know, like you're not attractive and life is no longer sweet? I like it when men view me as desirable. I don't want to get old like ... It worries me."

  　Verna pushed away from the table and leaned back in her chair. Her strongest urge was to strangle the woman, but she took a breath and reminded herself that it was a friend's sincere question asked out of ignorance.

  　"I would guess that everyone views it in their own unique way, but I can tell you what it means for me. Yes, it hurts a bit, Phoebe, to know that something is gone and can never be recovered, as if I was somehow not paying attention and my youth was stolen from me while I was waiting for my life to start, but the Creator balances it with good, too."

  　"Good? What good could come of it?"

  　"Well, inside I'm still myself, but wiser. I find that I have a clearer understanding of myself and what I want. I appreciate things I never did before. I see better what's really important in doing the Creator's work. I suppose you could say I feel more content, and worry less about what others think of me.

  　"Even though I've aged, that doesn't diminish my longing for others. I find comfort in friends, and yes, to answer what you're thinking, I still long for men much the same as I always did, but now I have a wider appreciation for them. I find callow youth less interesting. Men need not simply be young to stir my feelings, and the simple hold less appeal."

  　Phoebe's eyes were wide as she leaned forward attentively. "Reeeally. Older men stir longings in you?"

  　Verna checked her tongue. "What I meant by older, Phoebe, was men older like me. The men that catch your interest, now? Fifty years ago you wouldn't have considered walking with a man the age you are now, but now it seems natural to you because you're that age, and men now the age you were back then seem immature to you. See what I mean?"

  　"Well ... I guess."

  　Verna could read it in her eyes that she didn't. "When we first came here as young girls, like the two down in the vaults last night, novices Helen and Valery, what did you think of women who were the age you are now?"

  　Phoebe covered a giggle with her hand. "I thought them impossibly old. I never thought I'd be this age."

  　"And, now, how do you feel about your age?"

  　"Oh, it isn't old at all. I guess I was just foolish at that young age. I like being this age. I'm still young."

  　Verna shrugged. "It's much the same for me. I view myself in much the way you view yourself. I no longer see older people as simply old, because I now know that they're the same as you or I; they view themselves the same as you or I view ourselves."

  　The young woman wrinkled her nose. "I guess I see what you mean, but I still don't want to get old."

  　"Phoebe, in the outside world you would have lived nearly three lives by now. You, we, have been given a great gift by the Creator to be able to have as many years as we do, living here at the palace, in order to have the time necessary to train young wizards in their gift. Appreciate what you were given; it's a rare benevolence that touches only a handful."

  　Phoebe nodded slowly and behind the slight squint Verna could almost see the labor of contemplative reasoning. "That's very wise, Verna. I never knew you were so wise. I always knew you were 【创建和谐家园】art, but you never seemed wise to me before."

  　Verna 【创建和谐家园】iled. "That's one of the other advantages. Those younger than you think you wise. In a land of the blind, a one-eyed woman could be queen."

  　"But it seems so frightening, to have your flesh go limp and wrinkly."

  　"It happens gradually; you become somewhat accustomed to yourself growing older. To me, the thought of being your age again seems frightening."

  　"Why's that?"

  　Verna wanted to say that it was because she feared walking around with such an underdeveloped intellect, but she reminded herself once again that she and Phoebe had shared a good part of their lives as friends. "Oh, I guess because I've been through some of the thorn hedges you have yet to face, and I know their sting."

  　"What sort of thorns?"

  　"I think they're different for each person. Everyone has to walk her own path."

  　Phoebe wrung her hands as she leaned over even more. "What were the thorns on your path, Verna?"

  　Verna stood and pushed the stopper back into the ink bottle. She stared down

  　at her desk, not seeing it, "I guess," she said in a distant tone, "the worst was returning to have Jedidiah look at me with eyes like yours, eyes that saw a wrinkled, dried-up, old, unattractive hag."

  　"Oh please, Verna, I never meant to suggest that—"

  　"Do you even understand the thorn in that, Phoebe?"

  　"Why, to be thought old and ugly, of course, even though you are not that...."

  　Verna shook her head. "No." She looked up into the other's eyes. "No, the thorn was to discover that appearance was all that ever mattered, and that what was inside"—she tapped the side of her head—"didn't hold any meaning for him, only its wrapping."

  　Even worse that returning to see that look in Jedidiah's eyes, though, was to discover that he had given himself over to the Keeper. In order to save Richard's life as Jedidiah was about to kill him, she had buried her dacra in his back. Jedidiah had betrayed not only her, but the Creator, too. A part of her had died with him.

  　Phoebe straightened, looking a bit puzzled. “Yes, I guess I know what you mean, when men ..."

  　Verna waved her hand in a di【创建和谐家园】issive gesture. “I hope I've been of help, Phoebe. It's always good to talk to a friend." Her voice took on the clear ring of authority. "Are there any petitioners to see me?"

  　Phoebe blinked. "Petitioners? No, not today."

  　"Good. I wish to go pray and seek the Creator's guidance. Would you and Dulcinia please shield the door; I wish not to be disturbed."

  　Phoebe curtsied. "Of course, Prelate." She 【创建和谐家园】iled warmly. "Thank you for the talk, Verna. It was like old times in our room after we were ordered to be sleeping." Her gaze darted to the stacks of papers. "But what about the reports? They're falling further behind."

  　"As Prelate, I cannot ignore the Light that directs the palace and the Sisters. 1 must also pray for us, and ask for His guidance. We are, after all, the Sisters of the Light."

  　The look of awe returned to Phoebe's eyes. Phoebe seemed to believe that in assuming the post, Verna had somehow become more than human, and could somehow touch the hand of the Creator in a miraculous way. "Of course. Prelate. I will see to the placement of the shield. No one will disturb the Prelate's meditation.1'

  　Before Phoebe went through the door, Verna called her name in a quiet tone. "Have you learned anything yet about Christabel?"

  　Phoebe's eyes turned away in sudden disquiet. "No. No one knows where she went. We've had no word on where Amelia or Janet have disappeared to, either."

  　The five of them, Christabel, Amelia, Janet, Phoebe, and Verna had been friends, had grown up together at the palace, but Verna had been closest to Christabel, though they were all a bit jealous of her. The Creator had blessed her with gorgeous blond hair and comely features, but also with a kind and warm nature.

  　It was disturbing that her three friends seemed to have vanished. Sisters sometimes left the palace for visits home, while their families were still living, but they requested permission first, and besides, the families of those three would all have passed away of old age long ago. Sisters, too, sometimes went away for a time, not only to refresh their minds in the outside world, but also to simply have a break from decade

  　upon decade at the palace. Even then, they almost always would tell the others that they had to leave for a time, and where they were going.

  　None of her three friends had done that; they had simply shown up missing after the Prelate died. Verna's heart ached with the worry that they simply couldn't accept her as Prelate, and had chosen instead to leave the palace, but as much as it hurt, she prayed it was that, and not something darker that had taken them.

  　"If you hear anything, Phoebe," Vernasaid, trying to hide her concern, "please come tell me."

  　After the woman had gone, Verna placed her own shield inside the doors, a telltale shield she had devised herself; the delicate filaments spun from the spirit of her own unique Han, magic she would recognize as her own. Should anyone try to enter, they probably wouldn't detect the diaphanous shield, and would tear the fragile threads. Even if they did manage to detect it, their mere presence and the act of probing for a shield would still unavoidably tear it, and if they then repaired the weave with Han of their own, Verna would know that, too.

  　*

  　Hazy sunlight filtered through the trees near the garden wall, infusing the quiet wooded area of the retreat with a muted, dreamy light. The 【创建和谐家园】all woodlot ended at a clump of sweetbay, their branches heavy with hairy white buds. The trail beyond meandered into a well-tended patch of blue and yellow flowering groundcover surrounding islands of taller lace-lady ferns and monarch roses. Verna broke a twig off one of the sweetbays and idly savored its spicy aroma as she surveyed the wall while striding along the path.

  　At the rear of the plantings stood a thicket of shining sumac, the ribbon of 【创建和谐家园】all trees placed deliberately to screen the high wall protecting the Prelate's garden and give the illusion of more expansive grounds. She eyed the squat trunks and spreading branches critically; they might do, if nothing better could be found. She moved on; she was already late.

  　On a 【创建和谐家园】all side trail around the back side of the wild place where the Prelate's sanctuary stood hidden, she found a promising spot. Once she had lifted her dress and stepped through the shrubs to reach the wall, she could see that it was perfect. Sheltered all around by pine was a sunlit area where pear trees had been espaliered against the wall. While they were all trained and pruned, one seemed to be particularly suitable; its limbs to each side alternated like the steps of a single-pole ladder.

  　Just before Verna hiked her skirts up and started to climb, the texture of the bark caught her eye. She rubbed a finger along the top edge of stout limbs, seeing that they were callused and rough. It would appear she was not the first Prelate to want to surreptitiously depart the Prelate's compound.

  　Once she had climbed atop the wall and had checked that no guards were in sight, she found there was a convenient abutment to a reinforcing pilaster to step down on, and then a drain tile, and then a decorative stone sticking out, and then a low spreading limb of a 【创建和谐家园】oky oak, and then a round rock not two feet from the wall and an easy hop to the ground. She brushed off the bark and leaves and then straightened her gray dress at the hips and ordered the simple collar. She slipped the Prelate's ring into a pocket. As she draped her heavy black shawl over her head

  　and tied it under her chin, Verna grinned with the thrill of having found a secret way to escape her prison of paper.

  　She was surprised to find the palace grounds uncommonly deserted. Guards patrolled their posts, and Sisters, novices, and young men in collars dotted the paths and stoned walkways as they went about their business, but there were few city people to be seen, most of them old women.

  　Every day, during the daylight hours, people from the city of Tanimura poured across the bridges to Hal【创建和谐家园】and Island to seek advice from the Sisters, to petition for intervention in disputes, to request charity, to seek guidance in the Creator's wisdom, and to worship in the courtyards all over the island. Why they would think they needed to come here to worship had always seemed odd to Verna, but she knew these people viewed the home of the Sisters of the Light as hallowed ground. Perhaps they simply enjoyed the beauty of the palace grounds.

  　They weren't enjoying it now; there were virtually no city people to be seen. Novices assigned to guide visitors paced in boredom. Guards at the gates to restricted areas chatted among themselves, and those who glanced her way saw only another Sister going about her business. The lawns were empty of reposing guests, the formal gardens displayed their beauty to no one, and the fountains sprayed and splashed without the accompaniment of astonished gasps from 【创建和谐家园】s or delighted squeals from children. Even the gossip benches sat vacant.

  　In the distance, the drums beat on.

  　Verna found Warren sitting on the dark, flat rock at their meeting place in the rushes on the city side of the river, He was skipping stones out onto the swirling waters prowled by one lone fishing boat. Warren jumped up when he heard her approach.

  　"Vema! I didn't know if you were ever going to come."

  　Verna watched the old man bait his hooks as his skiff rolled gently beneath his steady legs. "Phoebe wanted to know what it was like to get old and wrinkled."

  　Warren brushed dirt from the seat of his violet robes. "Why would she ask you?''

  　Vema only sighed at his blank expression. "Let's get going."

  　The journey through the city toward the outskirts proved as strange as the palace grounds. While some of the shops in the wealthy sections were open and doing a bit of trade with a scattering of people, the market in the indigent section was vacant, its tables empty, cook fires cold, and shopwindows shuttered. The lean-to shelters were deserted, the looms in the workshops abandoned, and the streets silent but for the constant, grating presence of the drums.

  　Warren acted as if there were nothing unusual about the ghostly streets. As the two of them turned down a narrow, deeply shadowed, dusty street lined with dilapidated buildings, Verna had had enough and finally erupted in fury.

  　"Where is everyone! What's going on!"

  　Warren stopped and turned to give her a puzzled look as she stood, fists on hips, in the center of the empty street. "It's Ja'La day."

  　She fixed him with a scowl. "Ja'La day."

  　He nodded, the puzzled frown deepening. "Yes. Ja'La day. What did you think happened to all the . .." Warren slapped his forehead. "I'm sorry, Verna; I thought you knew. We've become so accustomed to it I just forgot you wouldn't know."

  　Verna folded her arms. "Know what?"

  　Warren returned to take her arm and start her walking again. "Ja'La is a game a contest." He pointed over his shoulder. "They built a big playing field in the bowl between two hills on the outskirts of the city, over that way, about ... oh, I guess it must have been fifteen or twenty years ago, when the emperor came to rule. Everyone loves it."

  　"A game? The entire city empties out to go watch a game?"

  　Warren nodded. "I'm afraid so. Except a few—mostly older people; they don't understand it and aren't too interested, but most everyone else is. It's become the people's passion. Children start playing it in the streets almost as soon as they can walk."