Temple of the Winds

Chapter 27

Armor and weapons clattered and clanged as the soldiers following behind marched up the steep cobbled street. Narrow houses, mostly three and four stories, sat cheek by jowl, with the upper floors overhanging the lower so that the topmost almost closed off the sky. It was a gloomy part of the city.

Soldiers throughout the city had cheered their thanks as Richard passed, wishing him good health and long life. Some had wanted to buy him a drink. Some had run up to bow before him and give the devotion: “Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

They had hailed him as a great wizard for protecting them and healing their sickness. Richard felt more than a little uncomfortable at their acclaim: he had, after all, simply instructed them to take well-known cures for intestinal distress. He hadn’t worked any magic.

He had tried to explain it wasn’t magic; that the things they ate and drank had cured them. They would hear none of it. They had expected magic from him, and, in their eyes, they had gotten it. He had finally given up on explaining and took to waving his thanks for their praises. Had they gone to an herb seller, they would no doubt be just as healthy, and complaining about the price.

He had to admit, though, that it did make him feel good to know that he had helped people for a change instead of hurting them. He understood a little of what Nadine must feel when she helped people with her herbs.

He had been warned of a wizard’s need for balance. There was balance in all things, but especially in magic. He could no longer eat meat—it made him sick—and suspected it was the gift seeking balance for the killing he sometimes had to do. He liked to think that helping people was part of the balance in being a war wizard.

Sullen people, going about their business, moved to the side of the cramped street, tramping through the dirty snow still in the sheltered places in order to squeeze past the soldiers. Grim-looking groups of older boys and young men watched warily and then vanished around corners as Richard and his escort approached.

Richard absently touched the gold-worked leather pouch on his belt. It contained white sorcerer’s sand that had been in the pouch when he found the belt in the Keep. Sorcerer’s sand was the crystallized bones of the wizards who had given their lives into the Towers of Perdition separating the Old and New Worlds. It was a sort of distilled magic. White sorcerer’s sand gave power to spells drawn with it—good and evil. The proper spell drawn in white sorcerer’s sand could invoke the Keeper. He touched the other gold-worked pouch on his belt. A little leather purse tied securely inside contained black sorcerer’s sand. He had gathered that sorcerer’s sand himself from one of the towers. No wizard since the towers were built had been able to gather any black sorcerer’s sand; it could only be taken from a tower by one with Subtractive Magic.

Black sorcerer’s sand was the counter to the white. They nullified each other. Even one grain of the black would contaminate a spell drawn with the white, even one drawn to invoke the Keeper. He had used it to defeat Darken Rahl’s spirit and send him back to the underworld.

Prelate Annalina had told him to guard the black sand with his life—that a spoonful of it was worth kingdoms. He possessed several kingdoms’ worth. He never let the little leather purse containing the black sand out of his sight or his reach.

Children, layered with ragged clothes for warmth against the cold spring day, played catch-the-fox in the tightly hemmed street, running from doorway to doorway, giggling with glee at the prospect of finding the fox, and more so at seeing the impressive procession coming up their very own street. Even seeing happy children didn’t bring a smile to Richard’s face.

“This one, Lord Rahl,” General Kerson said.

The general lifted a thumb to a door on the right, set back a few feet into the clapboard face of a building. The faded red paint was flaking off the bottom of the door where the weather worked on it the most. A small sign said: “Latherton Rooming House.”

A big, stocky man inside didn’t look up from a chair behind a rickety table set with dry biscuits and a bottle. He stared at nothing with red-rimmed eyes. His hair was disheveled and his clothes rumpled. He seemed in a daze. Beyond him was a stairway, and beside that a narrow hall that ran back into darkness.

“Closed,” he murmured.

“Are you Silas Latherton?” Richard asked, his gaze sweeping the clutter of dirty clothes and bed sheets awaiting washing. A half dozen empty ewers sat against the wall, along with a stack of washrags.

The man peered up from behind a puzzled frown. “Yeah. Who are you? You look familiar.”

“I’m Richard Rahl. Perhaps you see a resemblance to my brother, Drefan.”

“Drefan.” The man’s eyes widened. “Lord Rahl.” His chair rasped noisily against the floor as he shoved it back and stood to bow. “Forgive me. I didn’t recognize you. I’ve never seen you before. I didn’t know that the healer was your brother. I beg the Lord Rahl’s forgiveness . . .”

For the first time, Silas noticed the dark-haired Mord-Sith at Richard’s side, the muscled general at the other side, Richard’s two huge bodyguards towering behind him, and the phalanx of soldiers spilling out the doorway and into the street. He raked his greasy hair back and stood up straighter.

“Show me the room where the . . . where the woman was murdered,” Richard said.

Silas Latherton bowed twice before hurrying to the stairs, tucking in his shirt as he went. Checking over his shoulder to make sure Richard was following, he climbed the stairs two at a time. They objected to his weight with creaks and groans.

He finally came to a halt before a door partway down a narrow hall. With the walls painted red, the candles at either end of the hall provided little illumination. The place stank.

“In here, Lord Rahl.” Silas said.

When he moved to open the door, Raina snatched his collar and pulled him back out of the way. She planted him in place with a sinister look. A look like that from Raina was enough to give an angry cloud pause.

She opened the door and, Agiel in hand, stepped into the room before Richard. Richard waited a moment while Raina checked the room for threat; it was easier than objecting. Silas stared at the floor while Richard and General Kerson went into the little room. Ulic and Egan took up posts beside the door and folded their massive arms.

There wasn’t much to see: a bed, a small pine chest beside it, and a washstand. A dark stain discolored the unfinished spruce floorboards. The bloodstain ran under the bed and covered nearly the entire floor.

The size of it didn’t surprise him. The general had told him what had been done to the woman.

The water in the washbasin looked to be at least half blood. The rag hanging over its side was red with it. The killer had washed the blood from himself before he left. He must either be neat or, more likely, didn’t want to walk out past Silas Latherton dripping blood.

Richard opened the pine chest. It contained orderly stacks of clothes, and nothing else. He let the lid drop back down.

Richard leaned a hand against the doorway. “No one heard anything?” Silas shook his head. “A woman is mutilated like that, has her breasts cut off, and is stabbed hundreds of times, and no one heard a thing?”

Richard realized that his exhaustion was putting an edge to his voice. His mood wasn’t helping, either, he guessed.

Silas swallowed. “She’d been gagged, Lord Rahl. Her hands were tied, too.”

Richard scowled. “She must have kicked her feet. No one heard her kicking? If someone was slicing me up, and I was gagged and my hands were tied, I’d have kicked the washstand over at least. She must have kicked her feet trying to get someone’s attention.”

“I didn’t hear it if she did. None of the other women heard it, either. Least, they never mentioned it, and I’d think they would have come got me if they’d heard anything like that. If there was trouble, they always came to me. They always did. They know I’m not shy about protecting them.”

Richard rubbed his eyes. The prophecy wouldn’t leave him be. He had a headache. “Bring the other women here. I want to talk to them.”

“They left me, after—” Silas gestured vaguely. “Except Bridget.” He hurried to the end of the hall and knocked on the last door. A woman with rumpled red hair peered out after he spoke quietly to her. She withdrew back into her room and in a moment emerged, pulling a cream-colored robe closed. She tossed a quick knot in the tie as she followed Silas up the hall to Richard.

Standing in the belly of a stinking whorehouse, Richard was getting more angry with himself by the moment. Despite trying to be objective, he had begun to let himself be happy about having a brother. He was beginning to like Drefan. Drefan was a healer. What could be more noble?

Silas and the woman bowed. They both looked the way Richard felt: dirty, tired, and distraught.

“Did you hear anything?”

Bridget shook her head. Her eyes looked haunted.

“Did you know the woman who died?”

“Rose,” Bridget said. “I only met her once, for a few minutes. She just came here yesterday.”

“Do either of you have any idea who murdered her?”

Silas and Bridget shared a look.

“We know who did it, Lord Rahl,” Silas said, a smoldering tone welling in his voice. “Fat Harry.”

“Fat Harry? Who’s that? Where can we find him?”

For the first time, Silas Latherton’s features twisted in anger. “I shouldn’t have let him come here anymore. The women didn’t like him.”

“None of us girls would take him anymore,” Bridget said. “He drinks, and when he drinks, he gets mean. There’s no need to put up with that, not with the army . . .” Her words died out as she glanced to the general. She resumed with a different tack. “We have enough clients nowadays. We don’t have to put up with mean drunks like fat Harry.”

“The women all told me that they wouldn’t see Harry no more,” Silas said. “When he came last night, I knew that they would all say no. Harry was real insistent, and seemed sober enough, so I asked Rose if she’d see him, as she was new and . . .”

“And didn’t know she was in danger,” Richard finished.

“It wasn’t like that,” Silas said defensively. “Harry didn’t seem to be drunk. I knew the other women wouldn’t take him, though, sober or not, so I asked Rose if she was interested. She said she could use the money. Harry was the last one with her. She was found a little while later.”

“Where can we find this Harry?”

Silas’s eyes narrowed. “In the underworld, where he belongs.”

“You killed him?”

“No one saw who slit his fat throat. I wouldn’t know who done it.”

Richard glanced at the long knife tucked behind Silas’s belt. He didn’t blame the man. If they had captured fat Harry, he would get the same for his crime as had already been done. Although he would have had a trial first, and he could have confessed, just to be sure it was he who had done it.

That was why they used Confessors: to be sure they had convicted the guilty man. Once touched by her magic, a criminal would confess all that he had done. Richard wouldn’t want Kahlan to hear what had been done to this woman, Rose. Especially not from the beast who had done it.

It made him sick to his stomach to think of Kahlan having to touch a man like that, a man who had killed a woman in such a brutal fashion. He feared he would have killed Harry himself to keep Kahlan from having to touch the flesh of a man like that.

He knew she had touched other men who were no better. He didn’t want her to ever have to do that again. He knew it had to hurt her to hear such perverted crimes confessed in detail. He feared to think what terrible memories haunted her and visited her dreams.

Richard forced his mind off it and looked at Bridget. “Why did you stay when the others ran off?”

She shrugged. “Some of them had children, and feared for them. I don’t fault them their fears, but we were always safe here. Silas has always been fair to me. I’ve been hurt other places, but never here. It wasn’t Silas’s fault that a crazy killer did this. Silas always respected our wishes when we said we wouldn’t see a man again.”

Richard felt his stomach tighten. “And you saw Drefan?”

“Sure. All the girls saw Drefan.”

“All the girls,” Richard repeated. He held a tight grip on his anger.

“Yeah. We all saw him. Except Rose. She never got a chance, ’cause she . . .”

“So, Drefan didn’t have a . . . favorite?”

Richard had been hoping that Drefan had confined himself to one woman he liked, and that maybe she would be one who was healthy, at least.

Bridget’s brow wrinkled up. “How can a healer have a favorite?”

“Well, I mean, was there one he preferred, or did he just take who was available?”

The woman stuck a finger into her mat of red hair and scratched her scalp. “I think you got the wrong idea about Drefan, Lord Rahl. He never touched us . . . in that way. He only came here to do his healing.”

“He came here to heal?”

“Yeah,” Bridget said.

Silas nodded his agreement. “Half the girls had something or other. Rashes and sores and such. Most people who sell herbs and cures don’t want to help our kind, so we just live with our ailments.

“Drefan told us how he wanted us to wash. He gave us herbs, and unguents to put on the sores. He came twice before, real late, after we was done, so as not to interfere with us earning a living. He checked on the girls’ children, too. Drefan was special kind with the children. One had a bad cough, and he got better after Drefan gave him something to take.

“He came checking on us early this morning. After he saw one of the girls, he went to Rose’s room, to check on her. That’s when he found her. He came flying out of her room after what he saw and was calling out”—she pointed at the floor at Richard’s feet—“between throwing up. We all rushed out in the hall and saw him there, on his knees, heaved his guts out right there.”

“So he didn’t come here to . . . to . . . and he never—”

Bridget guffawed. “I offered—no charge, since he helped me and all with what he gave me. He said that that wasn’t why he had come. He said he only wanted to help, that he was a healer.

“I offered, mind you, and I can be very persuasive”—she winked—“but he said no. He has a real handsome smile, he does. Just like yours, Lord Rahl.”

“Enter,” came the response to Richard’s knock.

Drefan was kneeling before his array of candles set about on the table against the wall. His head was bowed, and his hands were folded in supplication.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Richard said.

Drefan looked back over his shoulder and then stood. His eyes reminded Richard of Darken Rahl. Drefan had the same blue eyes, with the same indefinably odd, unsettling look in them. Richard couldn’t help being disquieted by them. It sometimes made him feel as if Darken Rahl himself were staring at him.

People who had lived in fear of Darken Rahl were probably terrified when they looked into Richard’s eyes, too.

“What are you doing?” Richard asked.

“Praying to the good spirits to watch over the soul of someone.”

“Whose soul?”

Drefan sighed. He looked tired and doleful. “The soul of a woman no one cared about.”

“A woman named Rose?”

Drefan nodded. “How did you know about her?” He waved off his own question. “Forgive me—I wasn’t thinking. You’re the Lord Rahl. I expect you get reports of such things.”

“Yes, well, I do hear about things.” Richard spotted something new in the room. “I see you’ve taken to brightening up the decor.”

Drefan saw where Richard was looking, and went to the chair beside the bed. He returned with a small pillow. He ran his fingers lovingly over the rose embroidered on it.

“This was hers. They didn’t know where she came from, so Silas—he’s the man who runs the house—Silas insisted I take this for the small help I offer the women there. I won’t accept their money. If they had money to spare, they wouldn’t be doing what they do.”

Richard wasn’t an expert, but the embroidered rose looked to be done with care. “Do you think she made it?”

Drefan shrugged. “Silas didn’t know. Maybe she did. Maybe she saw it somewhere and bought it because it had a rose on it, like her name.” He gently nibbled his thumb back and forth across the rose as he stared at it.

“Drefan, what are you doing going to . . . to places like that? There’s no shortage of people needing healing. We have soldiers here who were wounded down by the pit. There’s plenty for you to do. Why were you going to whorehouses?”

Drefan dragged a finger down the stem of green thread. “I’m seeing to the soldiers. I go on my own time, before people are up and need me.”

“But why go there at all?”

Drefan’s eyes welled with tears as he stared at the rose on the pillow. “My mother was a whore,” he whispered. “I am the son of a whore. Some of those women have children. I could have been any one of them.

“Just like Rose, my mother took the wrong man to her bed. No one knew Rose. No one knew who she was, or where she came from. I don’t even know my own mother’s name—she wouldn’t tell the healers she left me with. Only that she was a whore.”

“Drefan, I’m sorry. That was a pretty stupid question.”

“No, it was a perfectly logical question. No one cares about those women, I mean cares about them as people. They get beaten bloody by the men who come to them. They catch terrible diseases. They’re scorned by other people.

“Herb sellers don’t want them coming into their shops—it gives them a reputation and then decent people won’t come around. Many of the things those women have, even I don’t know how to cure. They suffer sad, lingering deaths. Just for money. Some of them are drunks, and the men prostitute them and pay them with liquor. They’re drunk all the time and don’t know the difference.

“Some of them think they’ll find a rich man and be his mistress. They think they will please him and gain his favor. Like my mother. Instead, they have bastard children, like me.”

Richard was mentally wincing. He had been ready to believe that Drefan was an unfeeling opportunist. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m the son of that bastard, too.”

Drefan looked lip and smiled. “I guess so. At least your mother loved you. Mine didn’t. She didn’t even leave me her name.”

“Don’t say that, Drefan. Your mother loved you. She took you to a place where you would be safe, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “And left me there with people she didn’t know.”

“But she left you because she had to, so that you would be safe. Can you imagine how that must have hurt her? Can you imagine how it must have broken her heart to leave you with strangers? She must have loved you a great deal to do that for you.”

Drefan smiled. “Wise words, my brother. With a mind like that, you might make something of yourself, someday.”

Richard returned the smile. “Sometimes, we have to do desperate things to save the ones we love. I have a grandfather who has great admiration for acts of desperation. I think, with your mother. I’m beginning to understand what he means.”

“Grandfather?”

“My mother’s father.” Richard idly stroked a finger along the raised gold wire spelling out the word TRUTH on the hilt of his sword. “One of the greatest men I’ve ever had the honor of knowing. My mother died when I was young, and my father—the man I thought was my father—was often gone on his business as a trader. Zedd practically raised me. I guess I’m more Zedd than anyone else.”

Zedd had the gift. Richard had inherited the gift not only from Darken Rahl, but also from Zedd, from his mother’s side as well as his father’s. From both bloodlines. Richard found comfort in knowing that the gift of a good man flowed in his veins, and not just that of Darken Rahl.

“Is he still living?”

Richard looked away from Drefan’s blue. Darken Rahl eyes. “I believe he is. I don’t think anyone else does, but I do. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t believe, then he will be dead.”

Drefan laid a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Then keep believing; you may be right. You’re fortunate to have a family. I know, because I don’t.”

“You do now, Drefan. You have a brother, at least, and soon a sister-in-law.”

“Thanks, Richard. That means a lot to me.”

“How about you? I hear you have half the women in the palace chasing after you. Any of them special?”

Drefan smiled distantly. “Girls, that’s all. Girls who think they know what they want and are impressed by foolish things that shouldn’t matter. I see them all batting their eyelashes at you, too. Some people are drawn to power. People like my mother.”

“Me! You’re seeing things.”

Drefan turned serious. “Kahlan is beautiful. You’re a fortunate man to have a woman of such substance and noble character. A woman like that only comes along once in a lifetime, and then only if the good spirits smile on you.”

“I know. I’m the luckiest man alive.” Richard stared off, thinking about the prophecy, and the things he had read in Kolo’s journal. “Life wouldn’t be worth living without her.”

Drefan laughed and slapped Richard on the back. “If you weren’t my brother, and a good one besides, I’d steal her from you and have her for myself. On second thought, you’d better be careful, I may yet decide to have her.”

Richard smiled with him. “I’ll be careful.”

Drefan pointed an admonishing finger at Richard. “You treat her right.”

“I’d not know how to do otherwise.” Richard swept a hand out, indicating the small, simple room, and changed the subject. “What are you still doing here? We can find you better quarters than this.”

Drefan gazed about at his room. “This is a king’s room compared to my quarters at home. We live simply. This room is almost more ostentation than I can bear.” His brow drew down. “It isn’t what kind of house you have that matters. This is not happiness. It’s what kind of mind you have, and how you care for your fellow man—what you can do to help others who can be helped by no one else.”

Richard adjusted the bands at his wrists. They made him sweat under the leather pads. “You’re right, Drefan.”

He hadn’t even realized it, but he had come to be used to his surroundings. Since he had left Hartland, he had seen many splendid places. His own home, back in Hartland, wasn’t nearly as nice as this plain room, and he had been happy there. He had been happy being a woods guide.

But, as Drefan said, a person had to help others who could be helped in no other way. He was stuck with being Lord Rahl. Kahlan was the balance. Now, all he had to do was find the Temple of the Winds before he lost it all.

At least he had a woman he loved more than he would ever have thought possible, and now, too, he had a brother.

“Drefan, do you know the meaning of Raug’Moss?”

“I was taught that it’s old High D’Haran, meaning ‘Divine Wind.’ ”

“Do you know High D’Haran?”

Drefan brushed back his tumbled-down blond hair. “Just that word.”

“I hear that you’re their leader. You’ve done well for yourself to become the leader of a community of healers.”

“It’s the only life I’ve ever known. Being the High Priest, though, mostly means that they have someone to blame when things go wrong. If someone we try to help doesn’t get better, the healers point in my direction and say, ‘He is our leader. Talk to him.’ Being High Priest means I have to read the reports and records, and try to explain to distraught relatives that we are only healers, and we can’t revoke the Keeper’s call. Sounds more impressive than it is, really.”

“I’m sure you exaggerate. I’m proud that you’ve done well. What are the Raug’Moss? Where do they come from?”

“Legend has it that the Raug’Moss were founded thousands of years ago by wizards whose gift was for healing. The gift began dying out in the race of man, and wizards, especially ones gifted for healing, became more and more rare.”

Drefan told Richard the story of how the community of the Raug’Moss started to change as wizards began dying out. Worried that their work would die out with them, the healers, the wizard healers, decided to take in apprentices without the gift. Over time, there were fewer and fewer wizards to oversee the work, until long ago the last of the wizards died.

It sounded to Richard much like reading in Kolo’s journal how different the Keep had been in that time long past when it was filled with wizards and their families.

“Now, there are no gifted among us,” Drefan said. “The Raug’Moss were taught many keys of health and healing, but we have nowhere near the talent of the wizards of old; we have no magic to aid us. We do what we can, with the teachings the true healers of old passed down, but we can only do so much. It’s a simple life, a hard life, but it has rewards that comforts of belongings can’t provide.”

“I understand. It must be the best feeling in the world to help people.”

Drefan’s face took on a curious set. “What of you? What is your gift? Your talent?”

Richard looked away from Drefan’s eyes. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

“I was born a war wizard,” he whispered. “I have been named fuer grissa ost drauka. High D’Haran for ‘the bringer of death.’ ”

The room fell quiet.

Richard cleared his throat. “I was pretty distraught by that, at first, but since then I’ve come to understand that being a war wizard means that I have been born to help others, by protecting them from those who would enslave them. From those like our bastard father—Darken Rahl.”

“I understand.” Drefan said into the uneasy silence. “Sometimes the best use of our ability is to kill—such as to end a life that has no hope but pain, or to end the life of one who would bring endless pain to others.”

Richard rubbed a thumb over the symbols on the silver bands at his wrist. “Yes. I understand what you mean by that, now. I don’t think I did, before. We both must do things that we don’t like, but which must be done.”

Drefan smiled a small smile. “Not many, other than my healers, ever understand it. I’m glad you do. Sometimes killing is the greatest of charity. I am careful to whom I speak those words. It is good to have my brother understand them.”

“The same with me, Drefan.”

Before Richard could ask more, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Raina poked her head in. Her long, dark braid fell forward over her shoulder. “Lord Rahl, do you have a moment?”

“What is it, Raina?”

Raina rolled her eyes, indicating someone behind her. “Nadine wishes to see you. She seems upset about something, and will only speak to you.”

When Richard gestured, Raina opened the door a little wider and Nadine pushed her way in, oblivious to Raina’s scowl.

“Richard. You have to come with me.” She took up his hand in both of hers. “Please? Please, Richard, come with me? There’s someone here who desperately needs to see you.”

“Who?”

She looked to be genuinely troubled. She tugged on his hand. “Please, Richard.”

Richard was still wary. “Mind if I bring Drefan along?”

“Of course not. I was going to ask that you did.”

“Let’s go, then, if it’s really important.”

She held his hand tight and dragged him behind her.