Temple of the Winds

Chapter 67

Richard staggered toward the sliph’s room. From a room not far away, where Cara and Berdine had put him, he had heard the screams. He had no idea how long he had been insensate, no idea how long it had been since they had taken him there, but the screams had brought him awake. Someone needed help. And the last scream, he knew—Kahlan. His head pounded in violent pain. He hurt everywhere. He hadn’t thought he would be able to stand, but he did. He hadn’t thought he would be able walk, but he did. He had to.

He was barefooted, and without a shirt. He had on only his pants. He knew that the lower Keep was cool, but he was covered in a sheen of sweat, hardly able to breathe through the heat he felt. He used all his willpower to force himself to move.

He straightened, put a hand to the side of the door into the sliph’s room, and walked in.

Drefan looked up. He had his arm around Kahlan’s middle. He had a knife in his other hand. To the side, Cara was lying on the floor, tied in ropes. Her middle was ripped open. She was still alive, but shivering in agony. Richard couldn’t make sense of it.

“What in the name of all that’s good is going on, Drefan?”

“Richard,” he sneered. “Just the man I’m looking for.”

“Well, now I’m here. Let Kahlan go.”

“Oh, I will, dear brother. Soon. It is you I need.”

“Why?”

Drefan’s eyebrows lifted. “So that I can be reinstated as Lord Rahl. It’s my rightful place. The voices told me. My father told me. I am to be Lord Rahl. I was born to it.”

The plague was a far distant drone in Richard’s mind and body, yet this all seemed a dream, too.

“Drop the knife, Drefan, and give up. It’s over. Let Kahlan go.”

Drefan laughed. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. When it died out, Drefan’s eyes narrowed with frightening resolve.

“She wants me. She begs for it. You know the truth of that, my dear brother. You saw what she is. She is a whore. She is just like all the others. Just like Nadine. Just like my mother. She must die, like all the rest.”

Richard looked into Kahlan’s eyes. What was going on? Dear spirits, how was he going to get her away from Drefan?

“You’re wrong, Drefan. Your mother loved you: she took you to a place where you would be safe from Darken Rahl. She loved you. Please, let Kahlan go. I’m begging you.”

“She is mine! My wife! I will do with her what I will!”

Drefan slammed the knife into Kahlan’s lower back. Richard flinched at hearing it hit bone. Kahlan grunted with the impact, her eyes going wide in shock. Drefan released her. She dropped to her knees and crumpled to her side.

Richard tried with all his might to make sense of this. He couldn’t decide if this was real, or a dream. He had been having so many dreams, so many nightmares. This seemed like all the rest, but different. He didn’t even know if he was alive anymore. The whole room swam before him.

Drefan drew the Sword of Truth. The ring of steel that Richard knew so well echoed around the stone room, a chime that seemed to awaken him into a nightmare. Richard could see the rage from the sword, the magic, take Drefan’s eyes.

“I’m all right, Richard,” Kahlan panted as she stared up at him. “You don’t have a weapon. Get out of here. Get away. I love you. Please, for me. Run.”

The rage in Drefan’s eyes was nothing to match the rage thundering into Richard’s heart.

“Drop the sword, Drefan, now. Or I will kill you.”

Drefan swept the sword around. “How? With your bare hands?”

Richard vividly remembered what Zedd had told him when first giving him the Sword of Truth: the sword was only a tool; the Seeker was the weapon. A true Seeker didn’t need the sword.

Richard started forward. “And with hate in my heart.”

“I will enjoy killing you, at last, Richard. Even if you don’t have a weapon.”

“I am the weapon.”

Richard was running. The distance between them shrank at an alarming rate. Kahlan screamed for him to get away. He hardly heard her. Richard was committed. Drefan lifted the sword overhead, pulling a breath in preparation to cleave Richard. That was the opening. Richard knew that a thrust was faster than a cut. He was in the iron grip of deadly determination. Richard was lost in the dance with death. Drefan bellowed in rage as the sword started down.

Richard dropped to his left knee, through the opening, using his forward momentum and a twist of his torso to add force to his strike. Fingers straight and stiff, he drove his arm ahead with all his might.

Before the sword could touch him, Richard struck like lightning, driving his hand through Drefan’s soft middle. In the blink of an eye, he had seized Drefan’s spinal column and yanked it back out, ripping it apart.

Drefan pitched backward, crashing against the sliph’s well, slumping down in a spreading, crimson flood.

Richard bent to Kahlan, cupping her face with his left hand. He didn’t want to touch her with Drefan’s blood. She was panting in pain. From the corner of his eye, Richard could see Drefan’s arm move.

“I can’t feel my legs. Richard, I can’t feel my legs. Dear spirits, what did he do to me?” Her voice quivered with panic. “I can’t make them move.”

Richard was already lost in need. He had forgotten how to use his power as the price of returning from the Temple of the Winds, but he had used it before. He had healed before. He was a wizard.

He ignored his dizzy head, his sick stomach; he couldn’t allow that to stop him. From Nathan, Richard had learned that his power was called through need, if the need was great enough, or through anger, if the anger was great enough. He had never had more need than he had at that moment, nor more anger.

“Richard. Oh, Richard, I love you. I want you to know, if we, if we . . .”

“Hush,” he said in a gentle voice. Her face was cut and bloody. It made him ache to see her pain, her panic. “I will heal you. Lie still, and I will make you whole again.”

“Oh, Richard, I had the book. I lost it. Oh, Richard, I’m so sorry. I had it. I had it, but it’s gone.”

With a sinking feeling, he grasped what she was saying: he was going to die. There was nothing to be done, now. He was lost.

“Richard, please, heal Cara.”

“No. I don’t think I have enough strength to heal both of you.” To heal, he had to take the pain from the one injured. Killing Drefan had taken nearly all the strength he had. “I must heal you.”

Kahlan shook her head. “Please, Richard, if you love me, do as I ask. Heal Cara. It’s my fault—what he did to her. My fault.” A tear ran down her cheek. “I lost the book. I can’t save you. Heal Cara.” She stifled a cry. “We will be together soon, for all time, then.”

He understood. They were both to die. They would be together in the spirit world. She didn’t want to live without him.

Richard kissed her brow. “Hold on. Don’t give up. Please. Kahlan, I love you. Don’t give up.”

Richard turned to Cara. He already felt so sick that the sight didn’t affect him the way it normally would have. Her suffering, though, bent him with pain for her. He laid his hands across Cara’s bloody, torn middle. “Cara, I’m here. Hold on. For me, hold on, so I can help you.” She didn’t seem to hear his words as she mumbled, her head lolling from side to side.

Richard closed his eyes and opened his heart, his need, his soul. He released himself into the current of empathy. He wanted nothing but to make Cara whole again. She had given her all for them. He didn’t know if he had strength enough, but he gave all of himself over to it.

He descended into the swirl of her agony. He felt everything she felt, suffered with her. He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and pulled her pain into himself, onward, ever onward, without sparing anything to protect himself.

He shook with the suffering, and his mind wailed with it. He absorbed it into himself, and then asked for more. He asked for all of it. He demanded it.

The world was liquid, twisting, coursing pain. He was swept away in a molten river of it. Its fiery heat consumed his being. Time lost all meaning. There was only the pain.

When he felt it all gathered into himself, he let flow his empathy, his power: healing strength; healing heart.

He didn’t know how to direct it, he just let it flow into her. It felt as if his whole self drained away into her need. She was baked, barren earth, soaking in life-giving rain.

When at last he opened his eyes and lifted his head, his arms were lying across the smooth skin of her midriff. She was whole again. Though she seemed still unaware of it, she was whole.

Richard turned. Kahlan was lying on her side, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. Her face was ashen and covered with sweat and blood, her eyes half closed.

“Richard,” she whispered when he bent to her, “free my hands. I want to be hugging you, when . . .”

When she died. That was what she was going to say.

Richard snatched up a knife lying nearby, and sliced through the ropes. The anger was back, but only as a distant glow now. He could hardly see the room anymore. Hardly hear her. Hardly see her.

Her wrists finally free, she threw an arm over his neck and drew him to her. Richard struggled to keep from falling on her.

“Richard, Richard, Richard,” she whispered. “I love you.”

Richard went to embrace her, and saw the pool of blood spreading under her. His rage ignited anew. His need ignited anew. He took her up in his arms, begging the spirits to spare her. “Please give me the strength to heal this loved one,” he whispered in choking tears. “I have done everything required of me. I have sacrificed everything. Please, losing this loved one should not be part of it. I’m dying. Give me the time. Help me.”

It was all he wanted, all he needed, as he held her to him. He wanted her to live, to be well, to be whole.

Holding her in his arms, he once again released himself into the torrent. He pulled the pain onward, heedless of it, welcoming it, drawing it with all his might. At the same time, he let flow his love, his warmth, his compassion. Kahlan gasped.

Richard could see that his arms were glowing, as if a spirit were sharing his body with him. Perhaps, he was already a spirit, but he didn’t care. He cared only that he would heal her, and cared not at what cost. He would pay any price. Kahlan gasped with the feel of it, the feel of the power surging into her. Her legs began to tingle. It was the first time she had felt anything in them since Drefan had stabbed her.

Richard seemed to glow around her as he hugged her in his arms, held her in his warm, loving embrace.

The rapture of the sliph, by comparison, was torture. This was beyond anything she had ever felt in her life. She could feel his warm, healing magic coursing through every fiber of her.

It was like being born anew. Life and vitality welled up in her. Tears of bliss flooded from her eyes as she hung in Richard’s arms, his magic completely overwhelming her.

When at last he parted from her, she moved without pain. Her legs moved. She felt whole. She was healed.

Richard wiped the blood from her lips as he gazed into her eyes. Kneeling on the floor together, Kahlan kissed him, tasting their salty tears. She parted, gripping his arms, looking into his eyes, seeing him as if in a new light. She had just shared something with him that was beyond words, beyond comprehension.

Kahlan stood, holding out her hand to help him up. Richard lifted his hand toward hers.

And then he toppled over onto his face. “Richard!” She dropped down, rolling him over onto his back. He was hardly breathing. “Richard. Please, Richard, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me!”

She clutched at his shoulders. He was burning with fever. His eyes were closed. He struggled for each shallow breath.

“Oh, Richard, I’m so sorry. I lost the book. Please, Richard, I love you. Don’t die and leave me alone.”

“Here,” came a voice that echoed around the room.

Kahlan’s head came up. The voice seemed unreal. She couldn’t understand it. Then realization hit her.

Kahlan spun around and saw the quicksilver face of the sliph looking down at her. A liquid silver arm held out the black book. “Master needs this,” the sliph said. “Take it.”

Kahlan snatched the book. “Thank you! Thank you, sliph!”

Kahlan dropped down to get the sorcerer’s sand that Richard carried in the leather packs, but he wasn’t wearing his big over-belt.

She rushed to Cara, still tied in the ropes. Cara’s head rolled from side to side as she mumbled, as if she didn’t know that Richard had healed her. She was still lost in a prison of her own private terror.

Zedd had told Kahlan that the gift couldn’t heal maladies of the mind.

“Cara! Cara, where were you keeping Richard? Where are his things?”

Cara didn’t respond. Kahlan snatched the knife off the floor and sliced through the ropes. Cara just lay there.

Kahlan pressed her hands to Cara’s face, making the woman look at her. “Cara, it’s all right, now. The rats are gone. They’re gone. You’re safe. Richard healed you. You’re all right.”

“Rats,” Cara mumbled. “Get them off me. Please. Please . . .”

Kahlan hugged her. “Cara, they’re gone. I’m your sister of the Agiel. I need you. Please, Cara, come back to me. Please.”

Cara only mumbled.

“Cara,” Kahlan wept, “Richard will die if you don’t help me. There are thousands of rooms in the Keep. I need to know where you kept him. Please, Cara, Richard helped you. Now he needs your help—or he will die. There’s no time. Richard needs you.”

Cara’s eyes focused, as if she were coming awake. “Richard?”

Kahlan wiped the tears from her face. “Yes, Richard. Hurry, Cara. I need the belt Richard wears. I need it or he will die.”

Cara brought her hands down, rubbing her wrists, now smooth where they had been cut before. She felt her stomach. Even the old scars were gone. “I am healed,” she whispered. “Lord Rahl healed me.”

“Yes! Cara, please, Richard is dying. I have the book, but I need the things he keeps in his belt.”

Cara abruptly sat up, pulling the red leather across her chest. She buttoned two of the buttons to hold it closed.

“His belt. Yes. You stay with Lord Rahl. I will get it.”

“Hurry!”

Cara stood, swaying for a moment as she steadied herself, and then she dashed from the room. Kahlan hugged the inky black book to herself. She bent over Richard.

He was hardly breathing. She knew that any one of those breaths could be his last. He had given them, Cara and Kahlan, the rest of his strength.

“Dear spirits, help him. Give him just a little more time. Please. He has suffered so much. Please just give him a little time, until I can destroy this vile book.”

Kahlan bent over him and kissed his lips. “Hold on, Richard. Hold on for me, please. If you can hear me, we have the book. I know how to destroy it. Please, just hold on.”

Kahlan knelt down on a clear spot closer to the door and laid open the book to the third page so she would be ready when Cara returned.

She gazed into a vision of a wasteland. There was sand, blown into dunes, stretching into the distance of the phantasm emanating from the book. Kahlan stared into that barren place, and saw runes on the sand-lines drawn in geometric patterns.

Her sight was drawn into the pattern of lines that swirled and twisted around. There, in the runes, was light. It flared forth, every color, shining out toward her, calling to her.

“Mother Confessor!” Cara yelled, shaking Kahlan’s shoulders. “Didn’t you hear me? I have Lord Rahl’s belt.”

Kahlan blinked, shaking her head, trying to clear her mind. She snatched the belt and undid the bone holder on the flap of the pack where Richard kept the sorcerer’s sand. Inside, she found the leather pouch of white sand.

With Cara standing behind her, touching her shoulder, Kahlan cast a pinch of the white sand into the book.

The color boiled and twisted, tumbled and turned. Kahlan pulled her eyes away and stabbed her hand back into the pack, pulling out the other leather pouch, the one with the black sorcerer’s sand. With two fingers, she carefully pulled the top open. Inside, she could see the inky black sand.

Troubled, Kahlan paused. There was something else, something tickling at the back of her mind.

The words. Nathan said to say the words, the three chimes, before using the black sand. Three words. What were they?

She couldn’t remember them. Her mind raced after them, but they kept going around dark corners, and when she turned, they were gone again. Her thoughts mired in staggering fright. She ached in desperate thought, but the words wouldn’t come to her.

Richard had them written in the palm of his hand. Kahlan turned, to go to read them from his palm, and froze.

Drefan, leaning up against the well of the sliph where he had fallen, somehow still hanging to a thread of life, was holding up the sword. Richard was lying right there, on the floor, within reach. Drefan was going to kill him.

“No!” Kahlan screamed.

But the sword was already sweeping down. Faint, maniacal laughter drifted on the air.

Kahlan threw her fist up, calling the blue lightning to protect Richard. It didn’t come. She was blocked from her power.

Cara was already diving toward Drefan, but she was too far away. She wasn’t going to make it. The sword was halfway there.

A silver arm swept down and seized Drefan’s arm, holding it tight. Kahlan held her breath. Another liquid silver arm enveloped Drefan’s head.

“Breathe,” the sliph cooed, a voice promising the sating of bestial lust, a voice promising rapture. “I wish you to please me. Breathe.”

Drefan’s chest rose as he inhaled the sliph. He went still, holding the sliph in his lungs. The sliph freed him, and he slumped to the side. His breath left him, releasing the sliph he had inhaled. It drained from his mouth and nose, not silver, but red.

Kahlan felt something inside her part, a profound unraveling, and all at once, she joined with her power, a sweet reclaiming that brought a gasp of euphoric, inner union.

Drefan was dead. As long as they both live. Those were the words. Her oath was ended. The winds had returned her power. Kahlan was brought out of her daze when she heard Richard gasp for a breath. With renewed panic, she scrambled across the floor and scooped up his right hand, where Richard had written the message. She pried open his fingers.

The words were gone. The act of stopping Drefan, and his blood, had scoured away the writing.

Kahlan screamed in frustrated rage. She scrambled back to the open book. She couldn’t remember the words. Her mind ached with frustration; she couldn’t make the words come. What was she going to do?

Maybe if she just threw in the grain of black sand anyway. No, she knew better than to disregard what a wizard like Nathan said to do. She squeezed her head between the heels of her hands, as if trying to press the words out. Cara knelt down, grasping her by her shoulders.

“Mother Confessor, what’s wrong? You must hurry. Lord Rahl is hardly breathing. Hurry!”

Tears ran down her face. “I can’t remember the words. Oh, Cara, I can’t remember them. Nathan told me, but I can’t remember them.”

Kahlan clambered back across the floor to Richard. She smoothed a hand down his face.

“Richard, please, wake up. I need to know the words. Please, Richard, what are the words? The three words?”

He struggled to draw a breath, gasping with the effort. He wasn’t going to wake. He wasn’t going to live.

Kahlan rushed back to the book. She snatched up the leather pouch of black sand. She would have to do it without the words. Maybe it would work. It would work. It had to work.

She couldn’t make her hands move. She knew better. It wouldn’t work unless she said the words. She knew it wouldn’t. She had grown up around wizards and magic; she knew better than to disregard what Nathan had told her. Without the words, it wouldn’t work.

She fell forward with a wail, beating her fists against the stone floor. “I can’t remember the words! I can’t!”

Cara put an arm around Kahlan, making her sit up, holding her in a gentle embrace. “Calm down. Take a breath. Good. Let it go. Take another. Now, picture in your mind this man Nathan. Picture him telling you the words, and how happy you were that you could save Richard’s life.”

Kahlan tried. She tried so hard she wanted to scream.

“I can’t remember them,” she wept. “Richard’s going to die because I can’t remember three stupid words. I can’t remember the three chimes.”

“The three chimes?” Cara asked. “You mean, Reechani, Sentrosi, Vasi? Those three chimes?”

Kahlan stared in disbelief. “That’s them. The three chimes. Reechani, Sentrosi, Vasi.

“Reechani? Sentrosi! Vasi! I remember! Thank you, Cara, I remember!” Kahlan pulled out a grain of black sorcerer’s sand between her thumb and finger. “Reechani, Sentrosi, Vasi,” she said again, for good measure.

She tossed the grain of black sand into the book. She and Cara both held their breath.

A hum slowly built in the room. The air seemed to dance and vibrate. Light of every color flared forth, twisting and tumbling, pulsing and throbbing. It grew with the hum, until Kahlan had to turn her eyes away.

Rays of light swept across the stone walls. Cara put a hand up before her face. Kahlan did the same, so bright was the light that just turning away was not enough.

And then darkness began gathering, like the inky black of a night stone, or of the book’s cover itself, pulling the light and color back into the book. It drew all the light from the room, until all fell into darkness.

In that depth of sightless obscurity, there came such terrible moans that Kahlan was thankful she couldn’t see their source. The wails of souls filled the room, scattering about in a blind, mad frenzy, swirling through the air, lost, frantic, wild.

The sound of distant laughter that Kahlan knew all too well died into a wail that stretched into eternity.

When the light of the candles returned, the book was gone, only a stain of ash to show where it had been.

Kahlan and Cara rushed to Richard. He opened his eyes. He still didn’t look well, but he looked more alert. His breathing was stronger, and even.

“What happened?” he asked. “I can breathe. My head isn’t pounding.”

“The Mother Confessor saved you,” Cara announced. “As I have told you so often, women are stronger than men.”

“Cara,” Kahlan whispered, “how did you know the three chimes?”

Cara shrugged. “The Legate Rishi knew the words, with the message from the winds. When you said ‘the three chimes,’ they just came to me, through his magic, as the other messages from the winds came to me.”

Kahlan pressed her forehead to Cara’s shoulder in relief, in wordless gratitude. With equally silent empathy, Cara stroked Kahlan’s back.

Richard blinked and scrunched his eyes, as if clearing his head. When he sat up, Kahlan leaned to hug him, but Cara held her back.

“Please, Mother Confessor, may I be first? I fear that once you start, I may never again get a chance.”

Kahlan grinned. “You’re right about that. Take all you want.”

As Cara threw her arms around Richard and squeezed for all she was worth, whispering private, heartfelt words in his ear, Kahlan stood and faced the sliph.

“I can’t thank you enough, sliph. You saved Richard. You are a friend, and I will honor you as long as I live.”

The silver face warped into a satisfied smile. She looked down at Drefan’s body. “He had no magic, but he was using his talent to stop the flow of blood so that he might live long enough to kill master. It is death to breathe me if you have no magic. I am pleased I could take him on a journey, a journey to the world of the dead.”

Richard stood on wobbly legs and slipped an arm around Kahlan’s waist. “Sliph, you have my gratitude, too. I don’t know what it is I could ever do for you, but if it is within my power, it’s yours for the asking.”

The sliph smiled. “Thank you, master. I would be pleased to have you travel with me. You will be pleased.”

Even though he was unsteady on his feet, Richard’s eyes had the sparkle back. “Yes, we would like to travel. I need to rest for a time first, to finish recovering and get my strength back, and then we will travel, I promise you.”

Kahlan took up Cara’s hand. “Are you all right? I mean, are you really all right . . . everything?”

Cara nodded with a haunted look in her eyes. “I still have the ghosts of the past with me, but I am all right. Thank you, sister, for helping me. It is not often that a Mord-Sith can depend on anyone else for help, but with Richard as Lord Rahl, and you as Mother Confessor, all things seem possible.”

Cara glanced to Richard. “When you healed the Mother Confessor, you seemed to glow, as if a spirit was with you.”

“I believe the good spirits helped me. I do indeed.”

“I recognized the spirit. It was Raina.”

Richard nodded. “It felt like Raina. When I was in the spirit world, Denna told me that Raina was at peace, and knows that we love her.”

“I think we should tell this to Berdine,” Cara said.

Richard slipped his other arm around Cara’s waist, and started them all toward the door. “I think we should, too.”