“A dream walker often uses a seemingly harmless individual as an extension of himself, as a tool—in other words, as a surrogate assassin. People who are gentle or even timid offer a perfect cover. If he wants, a dream walker can force even such a person to assassinate their closest friend or a loved one.

“A dream walker’s control is absolute. He can remain hidden and you won’t even know he’s there, or be an insidious presence, whispering suggestions that you interpret as your own thoughts. If he wishes it he can make his presence all too clear by exerting complete control over your actions, or, as I’ve seen with my own eyes, give pain beyond imagining.”

Magda folded her arms as she paced, her alarm growing by the moment. As she walked past them, she cast a suspicious look at the two towering, silent guards standing with their broad backs to the doors. Their eyes rarely left her. For all she knew, a dream walker could be in their minds.

“Then they could be here in the Keep already. They could already know all our defenses, all our plans.” She tapped her temple. “For all we know, they could be in our minds right now, listening, watching, waiting to pounce.”

Lord Rahl’s brow twisted with doubt. “I don’t think so. Dream walkers are newly created weapons. They haven’t had those abilities for very long. Imagine how difficult it would be for someone newly turned into a dream walker to learn to accomplish anything useful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you right now had the power to enter the mind of the enemy down in the Old World, how would you pick a useful person? Even if you knew the name of a target, if you weren’t looking right at them how would you find that one person out of all the millions of minds down there? How would you know who to look for, or where they might be? How would you search for the one mind you wanted? If you were trying to target enemy officials, how would you even know who they were? How would you identify them and then find them? Where would you look?”

He shook his head. “It can’t be easy to establish the right links. I have no doubt that they will soon enough be able to spread like a wildfire through our ranks—and through the Keep—but if we’re lucky we still have a bit of time.”

“Time? Time for what? Dear spirits,” Magda said as she lifted her arms in frustration, “we’re helpless against them. What good is a bit of time going to do us? We really do stand at the brink of annihilation.”

“Not entirely,” Lord Rahl said. “Baraccus’s task was to eliminate the source of the dream walkers. My part in this was to create a counter for the ones who already exist.”