Temple of the Winds

Chapter 25

Kahlan, with Cara following behind, came to the door of the small room Richard used as an office at the same lime as a young woman with short, black hair arrived carrying a small silver tray with hot tea. Raina, standing guard beside the door along with Ulic and Egan, yawned.

“Richard asked for tea, Sarah?”

The young woman curtsied, as best she could holding the tray. “Yes, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan lifted the tray from the woman’s hands. “That’s all right, Sarah. I’m going in—I’ll take it in to him.”

Sahara blushed, trying to hold on to the tray. “But, Mother Confessor, you shouldn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly capable of carrying a tray for ten feet.”

Kahlan backed away a step, gaining full possession of the tray. Sarah didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she bowed.

“Yes, Mother Confessor,” she said before departing. Rather than being pleased to have been relieved of a small task, she looked as if she had just been ambushed and robbed. Sarah, like most of the staff, was fiercely vigilant about her duties.

“Has he been up long?” Kahlan asked Raina.

Raina gave her a sullen look. “Yes. All night. I finally left a squad of guards and went to bed. He had Berdine up with him all night, too.”

The reason, no doubt, for the sullen look.

“I’m sure it was important, but I’ll see if I can’t get him to stop at night for some sleep, or at least let Berdine get hers.”

“I would appreciate it,” Cara muttered. “Raina gets grumpy when Berdine doesn’t come to bed.”

“Berdine needs her sleep,” Raina said defensively.

“I’m sure it was important, Raina, but you’re right; if people don’t get enough sleep, they won’t be any good to him. I’ll remind him—he sometimes gets lost in what he’s doing and forgets about what other people need.”

Raina’s dark eyes brightened. “Thank you, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan balanced the tray in one hand as she opened the door. Cara took up station beside Raina, peering after Kahlan, to make sure she didn’t have any trouble with the tray, and then closed the door.

Richard had his back to her as he stared out the window. A low fire in the hearth did a poor job banishing the chill from the room.

Kahlan smirked to herself. She would put the lie to his boast. Before she had a chance to set the tray on the table, and let the cup ping against the pot to catch his attention and make him think it was the serving woman, Richard spoke without turning.

“Kahlan, good. I’m glad you came.”

Frowning, she set down the tray.

“You have your back to the door. How could you know it was me, and not the woman bringing the tea you ordered?”

Richard turned around with a puzzled look. “Why would I think it was the woman with the tea, when it was you bringing it in?” He truly looked bewildered by her question.

“I swear, Richard, sometimes you give me the shivers.”

She decided that he had to have seen her reflection in the window.

He lifted her chin with a finger and kissed her. “I’m glad to see you. It’s been lonely without you.”

“Sleep well?”

“Sleep? I . . . I guess not. But at least the riots seem to have ceased. I don’t know what we would have done if the moon had risen red again. I can’t believe people would go wild simply because of something like that.”

“You have to admit that it was odd . . . frightening.”

“I do, but that didn’t make me want to run screaming through the streets breaking windows and setting fires.”

“That’s because you’re Lord Rahl, and you have more sense.”

“I’ll have some order, too. I’ll not have people doing that kind of damage, to say nothing of injuring innocent people. The next time it happens I’m going to have the soldiers put it down immediately, rather than wait, hoping people will be suddenly stricken with reason. I have more important matters to worry about than childish reactions to superstition.”

Kahlan could tell by his smoldering tone that he was on the verge of losing his temper.

His eyes were bleary. She knew that if a person didn’t get enough sleep, forbearance could quickly evaporate. One night was one thing, but three in a row was quite another. She hoped it wasn’t affecting his judgment.

“More important matters. You mean your work with Berdine?”

He nodded. Kahlan poured a cup of tea and held it out to him. He stared at the cup a moment before taking it.

“Richard, you have to let the poor woman get more sleep. She’ll be no good to you if you don’t let her have enough sleep.”

He took a sip. “I know.” He turned to the window and yawned. “I had to send her over to my room to take a nap. She was making mistakes.”

“Richard, you need to get some sleep, too.”

He stared out the window toward the massive stone walls of the Wizard’s Keep up on the mountain. “I think I may have found out what the red moon meant.”

The somber quality in his voice gave her pause.

“What?” she finally asked.

He turned to the table and set down the cup. “I had Berdine looking for places where Kolo used the word moss, or maybe mentioned a red moon, hoping that we might find something to help us.”

He flipped open the journal on the table. He had found the journal up in the Keep, where it had been sealed in for three thousand years, along with the man who had written it. Kolo had been keeping watch over the sliph, the strange creature that could take some people great distances, when the towers separating the Old and New Worlds were completed. When the towers were activated, Kolo had been sealed in, trapped, and had died there.

The journal had already proven an invaluable source of information, but it was written in High D’Haran, which complicated matters. Berdine understood High D’Haran, but not such an ancient form of it. They had to use another book written in almost the same ancient form of High D’Haran to aid them. Richard’s childhood memory of that book’s story helped Berdine to translate words, which they used as a cross reference in order to work out the translation of the journal.

As they went along, Richard was learning much of both the vernacular High D’Haran and also the much older, argot form, but it was still frustratingly slow going.

After Richard had brought Kahlan back to Aydindril, he told her how he had used the information in the book to find a way to rescue her. He said that sometimes he could seem to read with ease, but then at other places he and Berdine became bogged down. He said that at times he was able to unravel a page in a few hours, and then they would spend a whole day trying to translate one sentence.

“Moss? You said you had her checking for the word moss. What’s that mean?”

He took a sip of tea and set the cup tack down.

“Moss? Oh, it means “wind’ in High D’Haran.” He opened the pages to a marker. “Since it was taking so much time to translate the journal, we’ve just been looking for key words, and then concentrating on those passages, hoping to get lucky.”

“I thought you said that you were translating it in order, to better understand the way Kolo uses the language.”

He sighed in annoyance. “Kahlan, I don’t have the time for that. We had to change our tactics.”

Kahlan didn’t like the sound of that.

“Richard, I was told that your brother is the High Priest of an Order called the Raug’Moss. Is that High D’Haran?”

“Means ‘Divine Wind,’ ” he muttered. He tapped the book, not seeming to want to discuss it. “See here? Berdine found where Kolo was talking about a red moon. He was really upset about it. The whole Keep was in an uproar. He writes that they were betrayed by the ‘team.’ He said that the team was to be put on trial for their crimes. We haven’t had time to look into that, yet. But . . .”

Richard flipped the book back toward the front where one of their written translations was inserted, and read her the passage:

“ ‘Today, one of our most coveted desires, possible only through the brilliant, tireless work of a team of near to one hundred, has been accomplished. The items most feared lost, should we be overrun, have been protected. A cheer went up from all in the Keep when we received word today that we were successful. Some thought it was not possible, but to the astonishment of all, it is done: The Temple of the Winds is gone.’ ”

“Gone?” Kahlan asked. “What’s the Temple of the Winds? Where did it go?”

Richard shut the book. “I don’t know. But later in the journal, Kolo says that this team who had done it had betrayed then all. High D’Haran is an odd language. Words have different meanings depending on how they’re used.”

“Most languages are that way. Our own is.”

“Yes, but sometimes, in High D’Haran, a word that ordinarily has different meanings according to its usage is intended to have multiple meanings. You can’t have one meaning without all the rest. That makes translating it all the more difficult.

“For example, in the old prophecy that names me the bringer of death, the word ‘death’ means three different things, depending on how it’s used: the bringer of the underworld, the world of the dead; the bringer of spirits, spirits of the dead; and the bringer of death, meaning to kill. Each meaning is different, but all three were intended. That was the key.

“The prophecy was in the book we brought with us from the Palace of the Prophets. Warren was only able to translate the prophecy after I told him that all three meanings were true. He told me that because of that, he was the first in thousands of years to know the true meaning of the prophecy, as it was written.”

“What does this have to do with the Temple of the Winds?”

“When Kolo says ‘winds,’ I think that he sometimes just means the wind, like when you say that the wind is blowing today, but sometimes when he says ‘winds,’ I think he means the Temple of the Winds. I think he used it as a short way of referring to the Temple of the Winds, and at the same time as a way to differentiate it from other temples.”

Kahlan blinked. “Are you saying that you think Shota’s message, that the wind hunts you, means that the Temple of the Winds is really somehow hunting you?”

“I don’t know, for sure.”

“Richard, that’s a pretty big leap of reasoning, if that’s what you’re really thinking—to take Kolo’s short way of referring to the Temple of the Winds and infer that Shota is talking about the same place.”

“When Kolo talks about how everyone was in an uproar, and these men were to be put on trial, he makes it sound as if the winds have a sense of perception.”

Kahlan cleared her throat this time. “Richard, are you trying to tell me that Kolo claims that this place, the Temple of the Winds, is sentient?”

She wondered how long it had been since he had gotten any sleep. She wondered if he was thinking clearly.

“I said I wasn’t sure.”

“But that’s what you mean.”

“Well, it sounds . . . absurd, when you say it like that. It doesn’t sound the same when you read it in High D’Haran. I don’t know how to explain the difference, but there is one. Maybe it’s just a difference of degree.”

“Difference of degree or not, how can a place have a sense of perception? Be sentient?”

Richard sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. Why do you think I’ve been up all night?”

“But such a thing is not possible.”

His defiant gray eyes turned to her. “The Wizard’s Keep is just a place, but it knows when someone violates it. It reacts to that violation by stopping the person, even killing them if it must, to prevent an unauthorized person from entering a place they don’t belong.”

Kahlan made a face. “Richard, that’s the shields. Wizards placed those shields to protect important or dangerous things from being stolen, or to prevent people from going where they could be hurt.”

“But they react without anyone having to tell them to, don’t they?”

“So does a leg-hold trap. That doesn’t make them sentient. You mean that the Temple of the Winds is protected by shields. That’s all you’re saying, then—that it has shields.”

“Yes, and no. It’s more than simple shields. Shields only ward. The way Kolo talks about it makes it sound like the Temple of the Winds can . . . I don’t know, like it can think, like it can decide things when it must.”

“Decide things. Like what?”

“When he wrote how everyone was in a panic about the red moon, that was when he said that the team who had sent the Temple of the Winds away had betrayed them.”

“So . . . what?”

“So I think that the Temple of the Winds made the moon turn red.”

Kahlan watched his eyes, transfixed by the look of conviction in them. “I won’t even ask how such a thing would be possible, but for the moment, let’s just say you’re right. Why would the Temple of the Winds make the moon turn red?”

Richard held her gaze. “As a warning.”

“Of what?”

“The shields in the Keep react by warding. Almost no one can pass through them. I can, because I have the right kind of magic. If someone who wants to do harm has enough magic, and knowledge, they too can get by the shields. What happens, then?”

“Well, nothing. They get through.”

“Exactly. I think the Temple of the Winds can do more. I think it can know if someone has violated its defenses, and lend a warning.”

“The red moon,” she whispered. “It makes sense.”

She put a hand tenderly to his arm. “Richard, you need to get some rest. You can’t infer all this from Kolo’s journal alone. It was just one journal, written a long time ago.”

He yanked his arm away. “I don’t know where else to look. Shota said the wind was hunting me! I don’t need to go to sleep to have nightmares.”

In that instant, Kahlan knew that it wasn’t Shota’s message that was driving him. It was the prophecy down in the pit.

The first part of the prophecy said: On the red moon will come the firestorm. It was the second part that truly terrified her.

To quench the inferno, he must seek the remedy in the wind. Lightning will find him on that path, for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood.

She realized that the prophecy frightened him more than he had admitted. Someone knocked at the door.

“What!” Richard yelled.

Cara opened the door and poked her head in. “General Kerson would like to see you, Lord Rahl.”

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. “Send him in, please, Cara.”

Richard put a hand to Kahlan’s shoulder as he stared off toward the window. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You’re right. I need some sleep. Maybe Nadine can give me some of her herbs to put me to sleep. My mind doesn’t seem to want to allow it when I try.”

She would sooner let Shota give him something. Kahlan answered with a tender touch, fearing to test her voice at that moment.

General Kerson, wearing a wide grin, marched into the room. He saluted with a fist over his heart before coming to a halt.

“Lord Rahl. Good morning. And a good morning it is, thanks to you.”

Richard took a sip of his tea. “Why’s that?”

The general slapped Richard on the shoulder. “The men are all better. The things you ordered—the garlic, blueberries, quench oak tea—it worked. They’re all well again. I’ve got a whole army of bright-eyed men who’re ready and able to do as ordered. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, Lord Rahl.”

“Your smile just did, general. I’m relieved, too.”

“My men are uplifted that their new Lord Rahl is a worker of great magic, able to turn death from their door. Every one of those men would like to buy you an ale and toast your health and long life.”

“It wasn’t magic. It was simply things that . . . Thank them for the offer, but I . . . What about the riots? Were there any more last night?”

General Kerson grunted dismissively. “It’s mostly finished. The worry went out of people when the moon returned to normal.”

“Good. That’s good news, general. Thinks for the report.”

The general rubbed a finger along his smooth jaw. “Ah, there was one other thing, Lord Rahl.” He glanced at Kahlan. “If we could talk . . .” The man let out a sigh. “A . . . woman was murdered last night.”

“I’m sorry. Was it someone you knew?”

“No, Lord Rahl. She was a . . . a woman who . . . she accepted money in return for . . .”

“If you’re trying to say she was a whore, general,” Kahlan said, “I’ve heard the word before. I won’t faint if I hear it again.”

“Yes, Mother Confessor.” He turned his attention back to Richard. “She was found dead this morning.”

“What happened to her? How was she killed?”

The general was looking more uncomfortable by the moment. “Lord Rahl, I’ve been looking at dead people a lot of years. I can’t remember the last time I vomited when I saw one.”

Richard rested a hand on one of the leather pouches on his wide belt. “What was done to her?”

The general glanced to Kahlan as if to beg her indulgence as he put an arm around Richard’s shoulder and pulled him aside. Kahlan couldn’t hear the whispered words, but the look on Richard’s face told her she didn’t want to know.

Richard went to the hearth and stood staring into the flames. “I’m sorry. But you must have men who can look into it. Why are you bringing this to me?”

The general grimaced and cleared his throat. “Ah, well, you see, Lord Rahl, it was, well, it was your brother who found her.”

Richard turned with a dark frown. “What was Drefan doing at a house of prostitution?”

“Ah, well, I asked him that myself, Lord Rahl. He doesn’t seem to me a man who would have any trouble”—the general wiped a hand across his face—“I asked him, and he said that it was his business, not mine, if he wanted to go to whorehouses.”

Kahlan could see the tightly controlled anger etched in Richard’s expression. He abruptly snatched his gold cloak from a chair.

“Let’s go. Take me there. Take me where Drefan goes. I want to talk to the people there.”

Kahlan and General Kerson rushed after Richard as he swept out the door. She caught his sleeve and glanced to the general. “General, could you give us a moment, please?”

After he moved down the hall, Kahlan pulled Richard in the other direction, away from Cara, Raina, Ulic, and Egan. She didn’t think that Richard was in any mood at the moment to be looking into such a thing. Besides, she had come to him for a reason.

“Richard, there are representatives writing to meet with us. They’ve been waiting days.”

“Drefan is my brother.”

“He’s also a grown man.”

Richard rubbed his eyes. “I need to see about this, and I have a lot of other things on my mind. Would you mind talking to the representatives? Tell them that I was called away on important matters, and that they can just as easily give their land’s surrender to you and then all the arrangements of command can begin to be coordinated?”

“I can. I know that some of them would be just as happy to talk to me and not have to face you, even in surrender; they’re terrified of you.”

“I wouldn’t hurt them,” Richard objected.

“Richard, you frightened the wits out of them, before, when you demanded their surrender. You promised to annihilate them if they dared join with the Imperial Order.

“They fear you might do it anyway, on a whim. The reputation of the Master of D’Hara precedes you, and you fed their fears. You can’t expect that they’ll suddenly be at ease around you just because they agree to your terms.”

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Well, just tell them how lovable I am.”

“I can tell them that you look forward to working with them for our mutual peace and prosperity,” she said with a smile. “They trust me, and will listen.

“But Tristan Bashkar, the Jarian minister, is here, along with a pair from the royal house in Grennidon. These three are the important ones, the ones with huge standing armies. They’re expecting to meet with you. It is they who may not be satisfied to surrender to me. They will want to discuss terms.”

“Make them satisfied.”

“Tristan Bashkar is not an affable man but a tough negotiator, as are Leonora and Walter Cholbane, from Grennidon.”

“That’s one reason I ended the Midlands alliance: too many wish to argue and posture. Arguing and posturing are over. The terms of surrender are unconditional.” Richard hooked a thumb behind his wide leather belt. His expression hardened. “The terms are fair to all, the same for all, and are not subject to discussion. They’re either with us or against us.”

Kahlan dragged a finger down the black sleeve of his shirt, over the rise and fall of his muscles. He’d been busy with the journal. It had been too long since she’d been in those arms.

“Richard, you depend on me for advice. I know these lands. Just having them agree is not the only aim. There will be need for sacrifice. We need their full cooperation in this war.

“You are Lord Rahl, the Master of D’Hara. You made the demands. You said that surrender, while unconditional, will be handled with respect for their people. I know these representatives. They will expect to see you, as a matter of your respect for them.”

“You are the Mother Confessor. We are one, in this as in everything else. You led these people long before I came along. You have no less standing than I. You have had their respect a good long time. Remind them of that.”

Richard directed a brief gaze up the hall to the waiting general, and the others. He looked back into her eyes.

“It may not be any of General Kerson’s business, as far as Drefan is concerned, but it is mine; I’ll not be deceived by another brother. From what you’ve said, and others have told me, he already has women in the palace fawning over him. If he catches something from those whores and then gives it to the young women here . . . that’s my business.

“I’ll not have it be my brother bringing diseases to innocent women here who trust him because he’s my brother.”

Sarah, the woman who had been bringing tea to Richard, was young and trusting. She was one of the women captivated by Drefan.

Kahlan rubbed his back. “I understand. If you promise you will get some sleep, I’ll go talk with the representatives. When you have time to talk to them, then you will talk to them. They have no choice but to wait. You are the Lord Rahl.”

Richard bent and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“Then marry me.”

“Soon. We’ll go wake the sliph soon.”

“Richard, you be careful. Marlin said that the Sister of the Dark—I don’t remember her name—left Aydindril and returned to Jagang, but he may be lying. She could still be out there.”

“Sister Amelia. You know, I remember her. When I first went to the Palace of the Prophets, she was one of Verna’s friends who met us: Sisters Phoebe, Janet, and Amelia. I remember Amelia’s tears of joy at seeing Verna after all those years.”

“Jagang has her now.”

He nodded. “Verna must be heartbroken that her friend is in Jagang’s hands, and worse, that she’s a Sister of the Dark. If Verna even knows.”

“You be careful. Despite what Jagang says, she may still be lurking in Aydindril.”

“I doubt it, but I’ll be careful.”

He turned and signaled to Cara. She sprinted up the hall. “Cara, I’d like you to go with Kahlan. Let Berdine get some rest. I’ll take Raina, Ulic, and Egan with me.”

“Yes, Lord Rahl. I will keep her safe.”

Richard smiled. “I know you will, Cara, but that’s not going to get you out of your punishment.”

She betrayed no emotion. “Yes, Lord Rahl.”

“What punishment?” Kahlan asked when they were out of earshot.

“An unjust one, Mother Confessor.”

“That bad. What is it?”

“I am to feed seeds to his chipmunks.”

Kahlan suppressed a smile. “That doesn’t sound so bad, Cara.”

Cara flipped her Agiel up into her fist. “That is why it is unjust, Mother Confessor.”