Naked Empire   ::   Goodkind Terry

"Just a little," he whispered, lifting it out to her. Kahlan held out her palm while he dribbled some of the crushed powder in her hand. He threw the rest on the floor, too weak to bother returning it to the tin. Kahlan added the small portion on her palm to one of the pots of boiling water.

Cloth bags of herbs steeped in other pots of hot water. Alkaloids from dried mushrooms were soaking in oil. Richard had other people grating stalks of plants.

"Lobelia," Richard said. His eyes were closed.

Owen bent down. "Lobelia?"

Richard nodded. "It will be a dried herb."

Owen turned to the shelves and started looking. There were hundreds of little square cubbyholes in the wall of the place where the man who had made Richard's poison, and the antidote, used to work. It was a small, simple, single-room building with little light. It was not nearly as well equipped as the herbalist places Kahlan had seen before, but the man had an extensive collection of things. More than that, he had once made the antidote, presumably from what was there.

"Here!" Owen said, holding a bag down for Richard to see. "It says lobelia on the tag."

"Grind a little pile half the size of your thumbnail, sift out the fibers and discard them, then add what's left to the bowl with the darker oil."

Richard knew about herbs, but he didn't know anywhere near enough about herbs to concoct the cure for the poison he had been given.

His gift seemed to be guiding him.

Richard was in a near trance, or nearly unconscious; Kahlan wasn't exactly sure which. He was having difficulty breathing. She didn't know what else to do to help him. If they didn't do something, he was going to die, and soon. As long as he lay quietly on the litter he was resting more comfortably, but that was not going to make him recover.

It had been a short run to Witherton, but it had taken too long as far as Kahlan was concerned.

"Yarrow," Richard said.

Kahlan leaned down. "What preparation?"

"Oil," Richard said.

Kahlan fumbled through the shelves of small bottles. She found one labeled YARROW OIL. She squatted down and held it before Richard.

"How much?"

She lifted one of his hands and put the bottle in it, closing his fingers around it so he could tell its size. "How much?"

"Is it full?"

Kahlan hurriedly wiggled out the whittled wooden stopper. "Yes."

"Half," Richard said. "In with any of the other oils."

"I found the feverfew," Jennsen said as she hopped down from the stool.