3 - Possibilities

She pretended to sleep for several hours before she simply sighed and opened her eyes, watching the dwindling flames of their campfire as she gave up trying to calm the torrent of thoughts that kept her awake. Richard was still on the watch, facing a point somewhere between the fire and the woods. He turned a bit as she sat up. "Can't sleep?" he asked softly. Eylara shook her head and rose, sitting again next to him so as not to disturb Zedd and Kahlan. "I guess I wouldn't be able to either, if I'd just been through what you have. My mind would be hard to shut off."

"Must've gotten all I needed earlier," she said, picking up a dry twig and absently poking at the soft earth in front of her.

Richard nodded subtly and looked over at her. "So, is Eylara your real name, or one you chose to fit a new life?"

She chuckled. "No, it's my real name. I guess . . . my parents picked a good one without knowing that it would work across worlds."

"Won't your parents miss you?"

Eylara's smile faded, and she looked at the ground. "They disappeared when I was twelve. No one knew what happened to them."

"Oh." She saw Richard's eyes sadden with a familiar pain. "I'm sorry." There was another moment of silence before he asked, "Did you have any other family?"

Her expression didn't change. "I had a brother named Darryn. He was two years younger than me. When he was old enough, he joined the military. He was a foot soldier, very brave and smart. One of the youngest men his battalion had ever put in a leadership position. They were on a secret mission in the mountains of a country in the north, and one night he just . . . disappeared from his watch. Nobody saw what happened. He just vanished." Her voice got quieter still. "Just like my parents."

Richard swallowed and shook his head. "I'm just finding every sore spot I can with you right now, aren't I?"

"It's alright; I know you didn't mean to." She scuffed away her scribble in the dirt with the sole of her boot. "I wonder though . . . Maybe, with this magic I've got, I can see where they are somehow."

"Well, don't try anything without talking to Zedd about it first, okay?" Richard cautioned. "You don't know what it might do to you."

"I won't," she said. "The last thing you all need is for me to kill myself faster." She caught a glint of metal out of the corner of her eye and saw the hilt of a sword protruding from Richard's belt. "Is that the Sword of Truth?"

"Yep." Slowly, so that the vibrant ring that normally accompanied the act wouldn't wake the others, he pulled it from its scabbard and held it out so that she could see. "Does it look the way that book you read described it?"

Eylara looked it over, a small smile returning to her lips. "Almost. I don't think writers can capture every single detail of something in their works, even if they are magic-inspired. They have to fill in a lot of blanks. It's better than what the writer described." Richard smiled as he put it back. "Anything looks better in person."

"What about your Dagger of Dawn?" he asked. Eylara produced it, holding it out in the flats of her hands. "You said you wrote about it with several possibilities in mind. How do you know which one was the right inspiration?"

Eylara shrugged. "I don't know. The fact that it turned up here seems to mean this is where it belongs. But how I got it without searching for it myself, I don't know. I might've accidentally conjured it through written magic, hoping it would somehow show up when I needed it most." She looked over at the slumbering wizard. "Maybe Zedd can tell me if that's possible."

"I'm starting to think anything's possible," said Richard. "As if things up to this point shouldn't have convinced me." There was a sudden hooting noise and a burst of rustling wings, and Eylara jumped and looked about in alarm. Richard grinned at her. "It's just an owl. Must've seen dinner."

"I knew that," she said defensively, collecting herself again and putting the Dagger away. "Knowing what something is doesn't always keep you from getting caught off guard by it."

Richard laughed. "I think someone doesn't easily admit getting scared!"

"I just -!" He motioned for her to keep her voice down. "I just did admit it!"

"Calm down; I'm only teasing you!" he chuckled softly. Eylara finally gave in to a smirk and shifted around again. They sat quietly for another short while before Richard questioned her further. "This book you read about us in - did you finish it?"

"Almost," she replied. "I think I'd started the last quarter of it before I started having to deal with my abilities. There were parts I skipped most of, too; they were pretty terrible."

"That's not reassuring," Richard muttered.

"You don't have to worry," Eylara said. "And please don't ask me to tell you any of what I read; that's almost like telling the future. It feels like cheating."

"I won't," said Richard. "I was just wondering what's going to happen now that you're here, since you weren't written into the story."

"I'd considered that," she told him. "It's important to understand that even when writers complete a story, they aren't able to get every detail of a journey or a quest across. It takes too long. Even when the story is divided into many books, details still don't make it in. The story of this world is so full of detail that I wondered how I could be here without altering it. So I came to a couple of conclusions. First, I decided that I could be here in another realm of time. After all, if the theories are correct, this isn't the only way things are going in this world. I'm not in any of the others, so you'll still complete your quest."

"That hurts my head," Richard groaned, raking his fingers through his hair.

"Mine too, trust me," said Eylara. "The other conclusion was that no matter what, I would do my best to help the Seeker without interfering with the events I know have to happen. Even the worst ones I read about."

"But . . . how can you let something bad happen if you know it's coming?"

"Because I know the outcome."

"What if you being here changes the outcome?"

Eylara heaved a sigh and pushed some of her hair back behind her ears. "I just have to have faith that the course of things won't change. I said I'd accept the consequences of my coming here. If I have to act in order to keep things heading toward your fulfillment of prophecy, I will. But like I said, not every detail makes it into a book. I could still be unwritten in the story and nothing that's going to happen will change."

"I don't know," Richard mused after another quiet moment. "You ending up here, overloaded with magic . . . that's a pretty major event. I'll be really surprised if Darken Rahl doesn't find out about you somehow and try to capture you and use you for his own gain."

Her expression became hard. "Well if he does, I won't live long enough for him to do much with me, will I?"

Richard regarded her somberly. Then he glanced up, and she felt someone come up behind her. "Darken Rahl is a powerful sorcerer in his own right," Zedd's voice informed her quietly as he sat down beside her. "He might very well figure out what to do to bleed the magic off you and make you survive. Worse, he might discover a way to use that extra magic against us. Either way, you'd end up his very unwilling servant . . . unless the Mord-Sith get their hands on you. Then you'd be broken and willing to do whatever they tell you."

"Are you kidding?" Eylara looked at the wizard with fiercely drawn eyebrows. "Like I told Richard, there were parts of the book I skipped because of how awful Darken Rahl was portrayed within the first few pages. I'll will myself dead before I help him at all, even if he does cure me or tries to break me with the Mord-Sith. Although . . ." She looked significantly at Richard. "If the Seeker could barely withstand them, I don't know how I'd do. I doubt I have the strength of Richard Cypher."

Richard clenched his jaw, trying to summon up a smile over a painful memory, to which Eylara whispered an apology. Zedd laid a hand on her arm. "No," he said. "You're not the Seeker. But who knows? Maybe you have a strength all your own that can overcome such a situation in it's own way." Eylara nodded thoughtfully at the possibility.

It was the wizard's turn to take the watch. Richard told Eylara and Zedd goodnight, stretched out with his head on his saddlebag and his feet to the fire, and promptly fell asleep.

Eylara looked back out at the woods with a noise of disgust. "I envy him," she muttered, snapping the twig in half between her fingers.

"I was wondering why you were up," said the wizard. "Here." He passed a hand in front of her face, and she felt a subtle wave of warmth follow in its wake.

"What did you do?"

"You'll find out when you go lay down, which I suggest you do in short order." She gave a smirk that wrinkled her nose a bit and moved to get up. "There's something I need to tell you first." Eylara stopped and looked at him. He pressed his lips together again before speaking further. "When we find enough quillion to bleed off your excess magic, you won't be able to keep all your abilities. But, you do have a choice in which ones you keep."

"What about the ones you said I have permanently?" she questioned.

"Quillion can take all the magic away, if that's what you want," Zedd told her. "So it stands to reason that you don't have to keep the ones I called permanent. Whatever you want to keep will take its place."

Eylara considered his words for a long moment. "How many abilities can I keep?"

"I'd say no more than six, just to be safe," Zedd replied. "Choose carefully, dear one."

She nodded and then gave a quiet chuckle. "You expect me to sleep after that bit of news, Wizard? I'll be up 'til morning trying to decide."

"Oh, I don't think you will," Zedd contested with a smile. "I'd bet my breakfast on it. Now go, lay down and get some sleep."

Eylara shook her head, but smiled and bid him goodnight as she got up and went to her saddlebag. Doubtful, she settled onto her back, and the moment her eyes met the glowing embers of the fire, sleep fell over her like a heavy blanket.