“The boy did say that this woman showed him pretty colored lights. That does not sound like the books I remember.”
Kahlan put a hand to Chandalen’s arm, a touch that once would have frightened him with the implied threat of a Confessor’s power, but now worried him for other reasons.
“You said we should not be close.”
“It doesn’t matter, now,” she reassured him. “I can cause no further harm; the same sickness is here that is in Aydindril.”
“I am sorry, Mother Confessor, that this sickness and death should visit your home, too.”
They embraced in friendship, and shared fear.
“Chandalen, what is this place? This cave?”
“I told you of it once. The place with the bad air and the worthless metal.”
“Then we’re north of your home?”
“North, and some west.”
“How long will it take us to get back to the village?”
He gave his own chest a thump with a fist. “Chandalen is strong and runs fast. I left our village as the sun was going down. It takes Chandalen only a couple hours. Even in the dark.”
She surveyed the moonlit grassland beyond the low, rocky hill on which they stood. “There is enough moon to see our way.” Kahlan managed a small smile. “And you ought to know that I’m as strong as you, Chandalen.”
Chandalen returned the smile. It was a wonderful sight to see, even under the circumstances.
“Yes, I remember well your strength, Mother Confessor. We will run, then.”
The moonlight conveyed intimately the ghostly, boxy shapes of the Mud People’s village lying hidden on the dark, grass-covered plain. Few lights burned in the small windows. At this late hour, not many people were out, and Kahlan was glad for that; she didn’t want to see the faces of these people, see the fear and sorrow in their eyes, and know that many of them would die.
Chandalen took her directly to the spirit house, among the communal buildings at the north side of the village. Most of these buildings were bunched close together, but the spirit house sat apart. Moonlight reflected off the tile roof Richard had helped to make. Guards, Chandalen’s hunters, ringed the windowless building.
Outside the door, on a low bench, sat the fatherly figure of the Bird Man. His silver hair hanging down around his shoulders shone in the moonlight. He was naked. Black and white mud covered his body and face in a tangle of whorls and lines: a mask all in the gathering wore so the spirits could see them.
Two pots, one with white mud and the other holding black, sat on the ground at the Bird Man’s feet. She could tell by the glazed look in his eyes that he was in a trance, and speaking would do her no good. She knew what was required.
Kahlan unbuckled her belt. “Chandalen, would you mind turning your back, please? And ask your men to do the same.” It was the greatest concession to her modesty that circumstances would allow.
Chandalen called out the order to his men in his own language.
“My men and I will guard the spirit house while you and the elders are inside,” Chandalen said to her over his shoulder.
When she had slipped off all her clothes and at last stood naked in the cool night air, the silent Bird Man began applying the gooey mud so that the spirits might see her, too. Sleepy chickens sat watching from the nearby low wall. The wall still bore a slash from Richard’s sword.
She knew she had to do this, to go in and speak with the spirits, but she wasn’t eager; speaking with the spirit ancestors was only done in times of dire need, and while the results sometimes brought the answers needed, they never brought joy.
When the Bird Man had finished covering Kahlan with the black and white mud, he silently led her inside. The six elders sat in a circle around the skulls of ancestors arranged in the center. The Bird Man took his place, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Kahlan sat in the circle, opposite him, to the right of her friend Savidlin. She didn’t speak to him; he, too, was in a trance, seeing the spirit in the center of the circle that she could not yet see.
A woven basket sat behind her. Knowing why it was there, she picked it up and reached inside. Hesitantly, she seized a squirming red spirit frog and pressed its back between her breasts—the one place she wasn’t painted.
The slime from the frog tingled against her skin. She released the spirit frog and took up hands with the elders to either side. It wasn’t long before she felt herself spiraling into a daze.
The room began its dizzying spin. She was lifted away from the world she knew, and carried into a revolving vortex of light, shadow, aroma, and sound. The skulls spun with her.
Time twisted, much as it did in the sliph, but not in the same comforting way. This was a disorienting experience that brought sweat to her brow.
It also brought the spirit.
His glowing form was before her, yet she couldn’t recall when it had appeared to her. It was simply there.
“Grandfather,” she whispered in the tongue of the Mud People.
Chandalen had said that it was his grandfather who had come in the gathering, but she recognized him on a more visceral level; he had become her protector. She felt the connection to the bone that had been his in life.
“Child.” The unearthly sound of his voice coming through the Bird Man tingled against her flesh. “Thank you for heeding my call.”
“What does our ancestor’s spirit wish of me?”
The Bird Man’s mouth moved with the spirit’s voice. “That which has been partly entrusted to us has been violated.”
“Entrusted to you? What was entrusted to you?”
“The Temple of the Winds.”
Kahlan’s naked flesh prickled with goose bumps.
Entrusted to the spirits? The implications made her head swim. The spirit world was the underworld, the world of the dead. How could something like a temple, built mostly of inert materials like stone, be sent to the underworld?
“The Temple of the Winds is in the spirit world?”
“The Temple of the Winds exists partly in the world of the dead, and partly in the world of life. It exists in both places, both worlds, at once.”
“Both places, both worlds, at once? How could such a thing be possible?”
The glowing form, like a shadow made of light, lifted a hand. “Is a tree a creature of the soil, like the worms, or is it a creature of the air, like the birds?”
Kahlan would have preferred a simple answer, but she knew better than to argue with the dead.
“Honored grandfather, I guess the tree is of neither world, yet exists in both.”
The spirit seemed to smile. “So it does, child,” the spirit said through the Bird Man. “As does the Temple of the Winds.”
Kahlan leaned forward. “You mean, the Temple of the Winds is like the tree, with its roots in this world, and its branches in your world?”
“It exists in both our worlds.”
“In this world, in the world of life, where is it?”
“Where it always was, on the Mountain of the Four Winds. You know it as Mount Kymermosst.”
“Mount Kymermosst,” Kahlan repeated in a flat tone. “Honored grandfather, I have been to that place. The Temple of the Winds is no longer there. It’s gone.”
“You must find it.”
“Find it? It looks to have been there at one time, but the rock of the mountain where the temple used to be has collapsed. The temple is gone, except for a few of its outbuildings. There is nothing to find. I’m sorry, honored grandfather, but in our world, the roots have died and crumbled.”
The spirit stood silently. Kahlan feared it might become angry.
“Child,” the spirit said, but not through the Bird Man. The voice came from the spirit itself. The sound was so painful it was almost more than she could bear. She felt as if the flesh would burn from her bones. “Something was stolen from the winds and taken to your world. You must help Richard, or all my blood in your world, all our people, will die.”
Kahlan swa
llowed. How could something be stolen from the spirit world, the world of the dead, and be brought back to the world of the living?
“Can you help me? Can you tell me anything that might help me to know how to find the Temple of the Winds?”
“I have not called you here to tell you how to find the winds. The way of the winds will come with the moon. I have called you here to see the extent of what has been released, and what will become of your world should this be allowed to stand.”
Grandfather’s spirit spread his arms. Soft light cascaded from them, like water coming over a ledge. The light spread in her vision until she saw only white light.
The light cleared, and she saw death. Corpses, like leaves littering the ground in the autumn, lay everywhere. They were strewn in the street where they fell. They sat on steps, slumped against railings. They lay in doorways and on dead-carts.
Kahlan’s vision was carried through windows, as if on the wings of a bird. Bodies lay rotting in homes. She saw them in beds, in chairs, in halls, stretched out on floors, and slumped over one another.
The stench gagged her.
With her floating vision, Kahlan swept to towns and cities she knew, and everywhere it was the same. Death had taken nearly everyone, their bodies black and rotting even before they had died. The few still living, wherever she viewed, wept in unrelieved anguish.
Her floating vision returned to the Mud People’s village. She saw the corpses of people she knew. Beside dead cook fires lay dead mothers holding dead children in their arms. Dead husbands held dead wives. Here and there, orphaned children with tear-stained faces wailed hysterically beside the corpses of parents. Everywhere, the stench was so thick it made her eyes water.
Kahlan gasped back a sob as she closed her eyes. It did no good. The sight of the dead burned through to the vision in her mind.
“This,” the spirit said, “is what will come to pass if that stolen from the winds isn’t halted.”
“What can I do?” Kahlan whispered through the tears.
“The winds have been violated. That which was entrusted was taken. The winds have decided that you are the path of the price. I have come to show you the results of this violation and to beg you, on behalf of my living descendants, to fulfill your part, when you are asked.”
“And what is the price?”
“I have not been shown the price, but I forewarn you that I do know that there is no way for you to circumvent or avoid it. It must be as it will be revealed to you, or all will be lost. I ask that when the winds show you the path, you take it, lest what I have shown you comes to be.”
Kahlan, tears streaming down her cheeks, didn’t have to consider. “I will, grandfather.”
“Thank you, child. There is one other thing I would tell you. In our world, where the souls of those departed from your world now reside, there are those existing in the Light with the Creator, and those who are forever shadowed from His glory by the Keeper.”
“You mean that there are both good and evil spirits in this?”
“That is an oversimplification that nearly obscures the truth, but it is as near as you, in your world, would be able to come to comprehending this world. In this, our world, all make it what it is. The winds must allow all to mark out the path.”
“Can you tell me how the magic was stolen from the winds?”
“The path was betrayal.”
“Betrayal? Who did they betray?”
“The Keeper.”
Kahlan’s jaw dropped. She immediately thought of the Sister of the Dark who had been in Aydindril: Sister Amelia. It had to be her. “The Sister of the Dark has betrayed her master?”
“This soul’s path was to enter the Temple of the Winds through the Hall of the Betrayer. That is the only way to achieve the initial breach. It was created as a precaution.
“To tread the Hall of the Betrayer, a person must betray completely and irrecoverable that in which they believe. Since they have irreparably betrayed their cause, they would no longer have reason to enter.
“The dream walker found a prophecy that could be used to defeat his foe, but to ignite it, he needed magic from the winds.
“The dream walker found a way to force this soul to betray her master, the Keeper, yet still carry out the dream walker’s wishes. He did this by at first allowing her to maintain her oath to the Keeper and by relegating himself to the role of her secondary master, her master in your world alone. Then, with the use of a double bind, he forced her to betray her primary master. She was able to tread Betrayer’s Hall, with her charge from the dream walker, and her obligation to it, intact. In this way, the dream walker violated the winds and obtained what he wanted.
“Those who sent the temple into the winds did, however, make contingency plans, should such a thing happen. The red moon was the ignition of these plans.”
The very word “betray” hade made Kahlan’s heart pound. “Is this the way we must gain entrance to the winds?”
The spirit considered her, as if weighing her soul. “Once the Temple of the Winds has been violated, that path is closed, and another must be used. But this is not your concern; the winds will issue their requirements in conjunction with the precepts of balance. The five spirits guarding the winds will dictate the path accordingly.”
“Honored grandfather, how can a place issue instructions? You make it seem as if the winds are alive.”
“I no longer exist in the world of life, yet, when called, I can pass information through the veil.”
Kahlan’s head hurt from trying to understand. She wished Richard were here to ask questions. She feared to miss the important one.
“But, honored grandfather, you can do this because you are a spirit. You lived once. You have a soul.”
The spirit began fading.
“The boundary, the veil, was damaged by this event in the winds. I can remain no longer. The skrin, the guardians of the boundary between worlds, pull me back. Because the violation in the winds altered the balance, we cannot return again in a gathering unless the balance is restored.” The spirit faded until she could hardly see it.
“Grandfather, I must know more. Is the plague itself magic?”
The voice came from a great distance. “The magic sent into the winds is of vast power. To use it fully requires vast knowledge. It was used without understanding what was released, or how to control it. The plague was begun by this magic, much as a bolt of lightning from a wizard is magic, but if the lightning strikes a tinder grassland, the resulting firestorm is not magic. The plague is like this. It was begun with magic, but it is now simply a plague, as others before—random and unpredictable—yet heated by magic.”
“The plague is in Aydindril, and here. Will it stay confined?”
“No.”
Jagang didn’t realize what he had done. This could end up killing him, too, if allowed to burn out of control.
“Is it, as you showed me, already in other places? Has it already been started in these other places, too?”
The light of the spirit extinguished like the weak flame of a lamp gone out.
“Yes,” came the distant, echoing whisper.
They had hoped that they could confine the plague to Aydindril. That was hope lost. The whole of the Midlands, the whole of the New World, was about to be consumed in the firestorm started by that spark of magic from the Temple of the Winds.
In the center of the circle, where the spirit had been, the air swirled as the spirit vanished back into the underworld.
In the distance, in the underworld, Kahlan heard the soft echo of laughter from a different spirit. The malevolent chuckle made her skin crawl.
As Kahlan came out of the trance of the gathering, the elders were there, standing around her. They were more used to this altered state than she; her head still spun sickeningly. Elder Breginderin reached down, offering her his hand to help her up.
As she took his hand, under the covering of black and white mud, she saw the tokens on his legs. She
gazed up into his face, at his kindly smile of assurance. He would be dead within the day.
Her friend, Savidlin, was there, holding out her clothes. Kahlan, despite the mud, suddenly felt very naked. She started pulling on her clothes, trying not to betray her embarrassment, and at the same time chiding herself for such mundane concerns in the face of the impending catastrophe. The gathering was about calling the spirits of the dead, not about being man or woman. Still, she was the only one of the latter, and they were all the former.
“Thank you for coming, Mother Confessor,” the Bird Man said. “We know this homecoming is not the one of joy we all wished.”
“No,” she whispered, “it’s not. My heart sings to see my people again, but the song is tempered by sadness. You know, honored elders, that Richard and I will do what we must. We will not rest until this is stopped.”
“Do you think you can stop such a thing as a fever?” Surin asked.
Savidlin placed a hand on her shoulder as she buttoned her shirt. “The Mother Confessor and Richard with the Temper have helped us before. We know their hearts. Our ancestor said that this is a fever caused by magic. The Mother Confessor and the Seeker have great magic. They will do what they must.”
“Savidlin is right. We will do what we must.”
Savidlin smiled at her. “And then, when you have finished, you will come home to your people and be wedded, as you planned? My wife, Weselan, wishes to see her friend, the Mother Confessor, wedded in the dress she made for you.”
Kahlan swallowed back a cry. “There is nothing I could wish that would bring me greater joy, except to see all our people well.”
“You are a great friend to all our people, child,” the Bird Man said. “We look forward to the wedding, when you have finished with these matters of the spirits and magic.”
Kahlan glanced at all the eyes watching her. She didn’t think these men had witnessed the visions of death she had been shown, the true nature or dimensions of the epidemic they faced. They had all seen fevers come before, but never one like the plague.
“Honored elders, if we fail… if we…”
Her voice faltered. The Bird Man came to her rescue.