Temple of the Winds

Chapter 9

Dank, heavy air wafted up from the pit as Kahlan followed Nadine down the ladder. Using the hand with the torch to also hold the side of the ladder made her have to endure the heat of the flame near the side of her face, but she was almost happy for the smell of pitch because it covered the stink of the air in the pit. Lower down, the wavering light from the torches lit more than the stone walls; they lit the dark figure in the center of the room.

Kahlan stepped off the ladder as Cara rammed her torch into a bracket on the slime-covered wall. Kahlan slipped hers into one on the opposite wall. Nadine stood transfixed, looking at the man covered in dried blood hunched before them. Kahlan stepped past her to stand beside Cara. Cara’s brow drew down as she peered at Marlin.

His head hung forward, and his eyes were closed. His breathing was deep, slow, and even. “He’s asleep,” Cara whispered.

“Asleep?” Kahlan whispered back. “How can he be asleep while he’s standing up like that?”

“I . . . don’t know. We always make new prisoners stand, sometimes for days. With no one to talk to and nothing to do but consider their doom, it drains their resolve—takes the fight right out of them. It’s an insidious form of torment. I have had men beg to be beaten, rather than have to stand, alone, hour after hour.”

Marlin was snoring softly.

“How often does this happen—that they simply fall asleep?” Cara put one hand on a hip as she wiped her mouth with the other. “I’ve had them fall asleep, but that wakes them for sure. If they move from the spot where we’ve told them to stand, the link brings on the pain. We don’t have to be there; the link works no matter where we are. I have never even heard of a man falling asleep and remaining on his feet.”

Kahlan looked over her shoulder, past Nadine, and up the long ladder to the light coming through the doorway. She could see the tops of soldiers’ heads, but none were so bold as to stare down into the pit, where there were apt to be deeds of magic.

Nadine stuck her head between them. “Maybe it’s a spell. Magic, of some sort.” She straightened, pulling her head back, when she received only glares in answer.

More out of curiosity than an attempt to wake him, Cara lightly jabbed Marlin’s shoulder. She pushed her finger into his chest, and his stomach. “Hard as a rock. His muscles are all locked rigid.”

“That must be how he’s able to stand there like that. Maybe it’s some sort of trick he learned as a wizard.”

Cara didn’t seem convinced. With a twitch of her hand so slight Kahlan almost missed it, Cara spun her Agiel up into her fist. The pain Kahlan knew it caused her to hold her Agiel didn’t show on her face. It never did. Kahlan snatched Cara’s wrist. “You don’t need to do that. Just wake him. And don’t use your link with his mind, his magic, to give him pain, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Unless I tell you so.”

Displeasure registered on Cara’s face “I think it’s necessary. I can’t have this. I can’t hesitate to exert my control.”

“Cara, there is a great gulf between prudence and hesitation. This whole thing with Marlin has been more than odd from the first. Let’s just take it one step at a time. You’ve said that you have control over him; let’s not be impetuous. You do have control, don’t you?”

A slow smile spread on Cara’s lips. “Oh, I have control, no doubt of that. But if you insist, I will wake him the way we sometimes wake our pets, then.”

Cara bent forward at the waist, slipped her left arm around his neck, tilted her head, and gently gave Marlin a long kiss on the mouth. Kahlan felt her face go red. She knew that Denna sometimes awakened Richard like that, before torturing him again.

With a satisfied smirk, Cara drew back. Like a cat coming awake from a nap, Marlin’s lids slid open. His eyes had that quality in them again—that quality that made Kahlan’s very soul want to shrink back.

This time, she saw more than she had before. These eyes were not merely those of great age. These were eyes unvisited by fear.

As he regarded the three of them with slow, unflinching, calculating deliberation, he bent his fisted hands back at the wrists and arched his back in a feline stretch. A depraved grin spread onto his face, a taint of wickedness expanding like blood seeping through white linen.

“So. My two darlins have returned.” His disquieting eyes seemed to see more than they should, to know more than they should. “And they’ve brought a new bitch with ’em.”

Marlin’s voice had been almost boyish, before. Now, it was deep and gravelly, as if coming from a muscled man weighing twice as much—a voice steeped with unquestioned power and authority. It exuded invincibility. Kahlan had never heard such a dangerous voice.

She retreated a step, clutching Cara’s arm and pulling her back with her. Though Marlin didn’t move, she felt the coiling of menace. “Cara”—Kahlan put a hand behind, forcing Nadine back as she withdrew another step—“Cara, tell me you’ve got him. Tell me you have control.”

Cara was staring, mouth agape, at Marlin. “What . . . ?” She abruptly unleashed a powerful strike. Her armored fist only snapped his head a few inches to the side. It should have taken him from his feet.

Marlin regarded her with a bloody smile. He spit out broken teeth. “Nice try, darlin,” Marlin said in a rough voice. “But I’ve got control of your link with Marlin.”

Cara rammed her Agiel in his gut. His body flinched with the jolt, his arms flopping ineffectually. His eyes, though, never lost the deadly look. The smile didn’t falter as he watched her. Cara took two steps back on her own.

“What’s going on?” Nadine whispered. “What’s wrong? I thought you said he was helpless.”

“Get out,” Cara whispered urgently to Kahlan. “Now.” She glanced up the ladder. “I’ll hold him off. Lock the door.”

“Wanting to leave?” Marlin asked in the grating voice as they moved toward the ladder. “So soon? And before we’ve had a little talk. I’ve enjoyed listening to the talks you two have had. I’ve learned so much. I never knew about Mord-Sith. But I do, now.”

Kahlan halted. “What are you talking about?”

His predatory gaze moved from Cara to Kahlan. “I learned of your touching love for Richard Rahl. It was so thoughtful of you to reveal the limits of his gift. I suspected much of it, but you confirmed the extent. You also confirmed my suspicion that he would be able to recognize another with the gift, and that it would raise his suspicions. Even you were able to see something wrong in Marlin’s eyes.”

“Who are you?” Kahlan asked as she pushed Nadine back with her toward the ladder.

Marlin shook with a belly laugh. “Why, none other than your worst nightmare, my little darlins.”

“Jagang?” Kahlan whispered incredulously. “Is that it? Are you Jagang?”

The belly laugh boomed around the stone walls of the pit. “You have me cornered. I confess. It is I, the dream walker himself. I’ve borrowed this poor fellow’s mind, just so I could pay you a little visit.”

Cara slammed her Agiel against the side of his neck. A puppet arm swept her aside.

Cara returned almost instantly, crashing into his kidneys, trying to take him down. He didn’t budge. With jerky movements, he reached down, caught her braid, and flung her back against the wall behind him as if she were a stick doll. Kahlan winced at the sound of Cara smacking the stone. She rolled facedown on the floor, blood soaking into her blond hair.

Kahlan shoved Nadine toward the ladder. “Get out!”

Nadine seized a rung on the ladder. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ve seen enough. This ends now.”

Kahlan went for Marlin, or Jagang, or whoever it was. She had to end it with her power.

Screaming, Nadine shot past Kahlan and across the floor as if she were sliding across ice. Marlin caught the flailing woman, spun her around, and gripped her by the throat in one hand. Nadine, her eyes wide, choked for air.

Kahlan skidded to a halt as Marlin twitched up a cautionary finger. “Tut-tut. I’ll crush her throat.”

Kahlan retreated a step. Nadine gulped air when he released the pressure. “One life, for all those you will otherwise kill? Do you think the Mother Confessor would be unwilling to make such a choice?”

At Kahlan’s words, Nadine, in renewed panic, writhed in his grip, her fingers digging frantically at his hands. Even if Marlin didn’t crush her throat, he was touching her, and if Kahlan took him with her power, Nadine would be lost, too.

“Perhaps you would, but don’t you want to know what I’m doing here, darlin? Don’t you want to know my plans for your love, the great Lord Rahl?”

Kahlan turned and screamed up the shaft of light. “Collins! Shut the door! Lock it!”

Above, the door slammed shut. Only the spitting torches remained to light the pit. The sound of the door clanging shut added its echo to the hissing torches.

Kahlan turned back to Marlin. Keeping her eyes on him, she began slowly edging around the room. “What are you? Who are you?”

“Well, actually, that’s a difficult philosophical question to answer in terms you would understand. A dream walker is able to slip into the infinite spaces of time between thoughts, when a person, who they are, their very essence, doesn’t exist, and inhabit that person’s mind. What you see before you is Marlin, a loyal little lapdog of mine. I’m the flea on his back that he brought into your house with him. He is a host, which I thought to use for . . . certain things.”

Nadine thrashed against her captor, causing him to squeeze tighter to maintain his grip. Kahlan pursed her lips and urged her to shush. If she continued fighting him, she would get herself strangled. As if snatching the lifeline of Kahlan’s command, Nadine stilled in his grip, and was able at last to pull breaths. “Your host will shortly be a dead best,” Kahlan said.

“He’s expendable. Unfortunately, for you, the damage has already been done, thanks to Marlin.”

With a furtive glance to the side, Kahlan checked her slow progress toward the facedown Cara. “Why? What has he done?”

“Why, Marlin has brought you and Richard Rahl down for me. Of course, you have yet to suffer what I have wrought, but he has done it. I had the privilege of witnessing the glory of it.”

“What have you done? What are you doing here in Aydindril?”

Jagang chuckled. “Why, I’ve been enjoying myself. Yesterday, I even went to watch a Ja’La game. You were there. Richard Rahl was there. I saw you both. I wasn’t pleased to see that he changed the broc, replacing it with a lightweight one. He’s turned it into a game for the weak. It’s meant to be played with a heavy ball, and by the strongest, the most aggressive and brutish players—those with the true lust to win.

“Do you know what Ja’La means, darlin?”

Kahlan shook her head as she ran through a list of her options and priorities. Foremost on the list was using her power to stop this man before he escaped the pit, but first she had to find out all she could, if they were to stop his plans. She had already failed once at that task. She wouldn’t fail again.

“It’s from my native tongue. The full and proper name is Ja’La dh Jin—The Game of Life. I don’t like the way Richard Rahl corrupted it.”

Kahlan had almost reached Cara. “So you infested this man’s mind so that you could come and watch children play a game? I thought that the great and all-powerful Emperor Jagang would have better things to do.”

“Oh, I’ve had better things to do. Much better.” His grin was maddening. “You see, you thought I was dead. I wanted you to know that you failed to kill me at the Palace of the Prophets. I wasn’t even there. I was enjoying the charms of a young woman, at the time, actually. One of my newly captured slaves.”

“So you aren’t dead. You could have sent us a letter, and not have to go to all this trouble. You came for some other reason. You were here with a Sister of the Dark.”

“Sister Amelia had a little task to perform, but I’m afraid she’s no longer a Sister of the Dark. She betrayed her oath to the Keeper of the underworld, so that I could destroy Richard Rahl.”

Kahlan’s foot touched Cara. “Why didn’t you tell us all this before, when we first captured Marlin? Why wait until now?”

“Ah, well, I had to wait until Amelia returned with what I sent her for. I’m not one to take chances, you see. Not anymore.”

“And what did she steal from Aydindril for you?”

Jagang chuckled derisively. “Oh, not from Aydindril, darlin.”

Kahlan squatted down beside Cara. “Why would she no longer be sworn to the Keeper? Not that I’m unhappy about it, but why would she betray her oath?”

“Because I placed her in a double bind. I gave her the choice of being sent to her master, where she would suffer for eternity at his merciless hands for her past failure with your love, or to betray him, and escape his grasp for now, only to intensify his anger for later.

“And, darlin, you should be unhappy about it, very unhappy, as it will be the downfall of Richard Rahl.”

Kahlan forced herself to speak. “An empty threat.”

“I don’t make empty threats.” His smile widened. “Why do you think I went to all this trouble? To be there at its doing, and to let you know that it is I, Jagang, who has brought it upon you. I’d hate to have you think it was simply chance.”

Kahlan shot to her feet and took an angry stride toward him. “Tell me, you bastard! What have you done!”

Marlin’s hand jerked up, raising one finger. Nadine made a strangling sound.

“Careful, Mother Confessor, or you’ll be denying yourself hearing the rest of it.”

Kahlan stepped back. Nadine gasped for air.

“That’s better, darlin.

“You see, Richard Rahl thought that by destroying the Palace of the Prophets, he kept me from gaining the knowledge it contained.” Marlin’s puppet finger waggled. “Not so. Prophecies were not unique to the Palace of the Prophets. There have been prophets about, elsewhere, and there are prophecies elsewhere. Here, for example, there are prophecies in the Wizard’s Keep. In the Old World, there are prophecies, too. I found a number of them when I excavated an ancient city that once thrived at the time of the great war.

“Among them, I found one that will be Richard Rahl’s undoing. It is an extraordinarily rare type of prophecy, called a bound fork. It enforces a double bind on its victim.

“I have invoked the prophecy.”

Kahlan didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. She quickly squatted and lifted Cara’s head. Cara scowled up at her.

“You idiot,” Cara whispered under her breath, “I’m fine. Leave me. Get answers. Then signal, and I will use my link to kill him.”

Kahlan dropped Cara’s head and stood. She started inching back toward the ladder.

“You’re talking babble, Jagang.” She moved more quickly, hoping Jagang would think she had found Cara dead. She was halfway to the ladder, although she had no intention of trying to escape. She intended to unleash her power on him. Nadine, or no Nadine. “I don’t know anything about prophecy. You’re making no sense.”

“Well, darlin, it’s like this, either Richard Rahl lets the firestorm of what I have wrought rage out of control, fulfilling one fork of the prophecy, in which case it kills him, too, or he tries to stop what I have done, fulfilling the other fork of the prophecy. On that fork, he is destroyed. See? He can’t win, no matter which he chooses. Only one of two events can now evolve, only one of the two forks. He has the power to choose which one, but either will be his doom.”

“You are a fool. Richard will choose neither.”

Jagang roared with laughter. “Oh, but he will. I’ve already invoked the prophecy, through Marlin. Once invoked, there is no turning back from a bound fork prophecy. But enjoy your delusions, if it will please you. It will make the fall all that much more painful.”

Kahlan paused in her tracks. “I don’t believe you.”

“You will. Oh, yes, you will.”

“Empty threats! What proof have you?”

“Proof will come on the red moon.”

“There is no such thing. You are full of empty threats.” Kahlan lifted a finger toward him as her fear dissolved in the heat of rage. “But I want you to know of my threat, Jagang, and it is not empty. I have seen the bodies of the women and children you ordered slaughtered in Ebinissia, and I swore undying vengeance on your Imperial Order. Even prophecy will not stop us from defeating you.”

If nothing else, she needed to at least provoke him into revealing the prophecy. If they knew it, perhaps they could thwart it. “That is my prophecy to you, Jagang. Unlike your pretend prophecy, it has words to it.”

His belly laugh echoed around the pit. “Pretend? Let me show you the prophecy, then.” One of Martin’s hands lifted. Lightning exploded in the pit. Kahlan covered her ears as she ducked, hunching to protect tier head. Stone chips howled through the air. She felt a sharp pain as one sliced across her arm and another speared the side of her shoulder. She felt the sickening feeling of warm blood soaking down her sleeve.

Above their heads, the lightning jumped and leaped across the wall, incising the stone, leaving in its wake lettering she could just see through the blinding flashes. The crash of lightning cut off, leaving jagged afterimages across her vision, the smell of dust and smoke choking her lungs, and the cacophony echoing in her head. “There you go, darlin.”

Kahlan rose to her feet, squinting up at the wall. “Gibberish. That’s all it is. It means nothing.”

“It’s in High D’Haran. According to the records, in the last war we had captured a wizard, a prophet, and of course since he was loyal to the House of Rahl, my ancestor dream walkers were denied access to his mind.

“So, they tortured him. In a delirious state, and missing half his intestines, he gave forth this prophecy. Have Richard Rahl translate it.” He leaned toward her with a venomous sneer. “Though I doubt he will want to tell you what it says.”

He pressed a kiss against Nadine’s cheek. “Well, it’s been delightful, my little journey, but I’m afraid Marlin must be going. Too bad, for you, that the Seeker wasn’t here with his sword. That would have ended it for Marlin.”

“Cara!” Kahlan went for him, mentally beseeching the good spirits’ forgiveness for what she was going to have to do to Nadine, too.

Cara sprang up. With impossible strength, Jagang heaved Nadine through the air. The woman cried out as she tumbled violently into Kahlan. Kahlan landed with a grunt onto her back on the stone. Her vision prickled with floating dots of light. She couldn’t feel anything. She feared it might have broken her back. But sensation returned with tingling pain when she twisted to the side. She gasped to get her wind back as she struggled to sit up.

Cara, on the far side of the room, let out a shrill, piercing scream. She crumpled to her knees, covering her ears with her forearms as she shrieked.

Marlin leaped onto the ladder as she and Nadine wrestled to untangle themselves from each other.

Marlin, hands and feet to each side of the ladder, sprang up in spurts, like a cat going up a tree.

The torches puffed out, plunging them into darkness.

Jagang laughed as he ascended. Cara screamed as if she were being torn limb from limb. Kahlan finally managed to shove Nadine aside and shuffle on her hands and knees toward the sound of Jagang’s mocking laughter. She could feel blood soaking all the way down her sleeve.

The iron door exploded outward, clanging against the stone on the other side of the hall, the sound resonating with a boom through the halls. A man cried out as it crushed him. With the door gone, a shaft of light bathed the ladder. Kahlan scrambled to her feet and went for it.

As she stretched up for the ladder, the pain in her shoulder caused her to recoil with a cry. She reached up and yanked out the sharp shard of stone. The blood dammed behind it gushed from the wound.

Fast as she could, Kahlan scuttled up the ladder in pursuit of Marlin. She had to stop him. There was no one else who could do it. With Richard gone, she was the magic against magic for all these people. Her wounded arm shook with the effort, and she could barely grasp the ladder.

“Hurry!” Nadine called out from right behind. “He’ll get away!” From below, Cara’s shrieks seared Kahlan’s nerves.

Kahlan had once felt the awesome agony of an Agiel for a fraction of a second. Mord-Sith endured the same pain whenever they held their Agiel, yet not the slightest grimace ever registered on their faces. Mord-Sith lived in a world of pain; years of torture had disciplined them in their ability to disregard it.

Kahlan couldn’t imagine what it would take to cause a Mord-Sith to scream like that.

Whatever was happening to Cara, it was killing her, there was no doubt in Kahlan’s mind.

Kahlan’s foot slipped through a rung. Her shinbone whacked painfully against the rung above. She yanked her leg back in a rush to get to Jagang. Her flesh grazed the side, catching and driving a long splinter into her calf. She cursed in pain and charged up the ladder.

Clambering through the opening at the top, she slipped and fell to her hands and knees in a chaos of viscera. Sergeant Collins stared up at her with dead eyes. Jagged white ends of rib bones stuck up, holding back the ripped leather and mail of his uniform. His entire torso was rent from his throat to his groin.

A dozen or so men writhed in agony on the floor. Others were still as death. Swords were embedded to their hilts in the stone walls. Axes lodged there, too, as if stuck in soft wood.

An enemy with magic had scythed through these men, but not without cost; close by lay an arm, severed above the elbow, By what it was wearing, she recognized it as Marlin’s. The fingers of the hand clenched and unclenched with measured regularity.

Kahlan pushed herself up and turned to the door. She clasped wrists with Nadine and helped her up into the hall. “Careful.”

Nadine gasped at the bloody sight. Kahlan expected her to faint, or scream hysterically. She didn’t.

Men bristling swords, axes, pikes, and bows were charging up the hall from the left. The hall to the right was empty, silent, and dark beyond a lone torch. Kahlan went right. To her credit, Nadine chased right after her. The screams coming from the pit sent shivers up Kahlan’s spine.