Temple of the Winds (105 page)

The general with Kahlan bowed. “Good morning—Lord Rahl.”

“
What’s this?” he asked. He didn’t like it when the soldiers brought things to Kahlan without seeing to informing the Lord Rahl first.

“
It’s just the morning reports, Drefan,” Kahlan said in that flat tone of hers.

“
Then why wasn’t I informed? Reports should come to the Lord Rahl first.”

General Kerson stole a glance at Kahlan. He bowed again. “As you wish, Lord Rahl. I just thought—”

“
I do the thinking. You do the soldiering.”

The general cleared his throat. “Of course, Lord Rahl.”

“
So, what do the morning reports have to say?”

The general glanced to Kahlan again. Drefan saw the slight nod. As if the general needed permission from the Lord Rahl’s wife to report. Drefan let it pass, as he always did. He enjoyed her games, the way she thought he missed things. It amused him.

“
Well, Lord Rahl, the plague is nearly over.”

“
Describe ‘nearly over,’ if you would, please. As a healer, vagueness hardly does me any good.”

“
In the last week, the deaths from the plague have dropped to only three confirmed cases last night. Nearly everyone who was sick when Lord”—he caught himself—“when Richard left has recovered. Whatever Richard did—”

“
My brother died, that’s what he did. I am the healer. I am the one responsible for the plague ending.”

Kahlan lost the calm look. Her expression twisted to tightly controlled rage. He wondered how her face would twist were it pain, were it terror. He would know, in the end.

“
Richard went to the Temple of the Winds. He sacrificed himself to save everyone. Richard! Not you, Drefan, Richard!”

Drefan dismissed her tirade with a casual flip of his hand. “Nonsense. What did Richard know of healing? I am the healer. It is Lord Rahl who has saved his people from the plague.” Drefan raised a finger to the general. “And you had better see to it that that everyone knows it.”

Kahlan gave her slight nod to the general again.

“
Yes, Lord Rahl,” the general said. “I will personally see to it that everyone knows that it was Lord Rahl himself who stopped the plague.”

Kahlan’s face showed the slightest hint of a smile at the general’s ambiguous response. Drefan let it go. He had more important business than her disrespect for her husband.

“
And what else have you to report, general?”

“
Well, Lord Rahl, it seems that some of our units are … missing.”

“
Missing? How can troops be missing? I want them found. We must have the army together to defend against the Imperial Order. I won’t have the D’Haran empire fall to the Imperial Order because my officers fail to maintain discipline!”

“
Yes, Lord Rahl. I have already sent scouts to find the troops who have … wandered off from their stations.”

“
It’s the bond, Drefan,” Kahlan said. “The D’Harans aren’t bonded to you. The army is breaking up, wandering off aimlessly because they have lost the bond, lost their leader. They don’t know what to do. They are without a Lord Rahl—”

He struck her. The sharp sound reverberated through the room. “Stand up!” He waited until she regained her feet. “I’ll not have insolence from my wife! Do you understand?”

Kahlan pressed her fingers to her nose, trying to halt the flow of blood. The crimson tide flooded over her fingers and lips and down her chin. The sight of it nearly drove a gasp from him. The sight of the Mother Confessor with blood on her made his hands shake. He longed for the slicing, for the sight of blood everywhere on her, for her screams, for her terror.

But he could wait until she begged for it. As had Nadine. He had enjoyed Nadine’s perverted hunger. He had relished her surprise, her terror, her agony, before he cast her over the side of the mountain, still alive, so she could think about her vile nature all the way down. It had sated him—for now.

He could wait until the Mother Confessor’s true corruption finally surfaced once again, as it had the first night. Richard must have been horrified to discover how much she really wanted his brother, that the woman he had loved was as impure as any whore. Poor, innocent, stupid Richard. He never even looked back over his shoulder as he walked away.

Drefan could wait. She would need time to recover from the shock of causing Richard’s death. Drefan could wait. It wouldn’t take her long, as badly as she wanted him.

He swept Kahlan up in his arms. “Forgive me, my wife. I didn’t meant to hurt you. Forgive me, please. I was only worried for our safety from the Order—distraught that these worthless soldiers won’t follow orders and in so doing endanger us all.”

Kahlan wrenched herself out of his arms. “I understand.”

She lied so poorly. From the corner of his eye, he could see the coiled form in red leather. If she moved to strike, he would slice her down. If she didn’t, he still had use for her.

Kahlan twitched a finger in caution to Cara. Cara reluctantly relaxed. Kahlan thought she was so clever, thought he didn’t see the way she gave orders to people. For now, it didn’t matter.

“
General Kerson,” Drefan said, “I want those derelict troops found. We must have discipline in the army, or we are lost to the Order. When they are found, I want the officers executed.”

“
What? You want me to execute my own men because they have lost the bond—”

“
I want you to execute them for treason. When the rest of the men learn that we won’t tolerate such negligence to duty, they will think twice about joining with our enemy.”

“
Our enemy, Lord Rahl?”

“
Of course. If they don’t do their duty as D’Harans, to serve and protect the D’Haran empire, to say nothing of their Lord Rahl, then they are aiding the enemy. That makes them traitors! It endangers the life of my wife! Of everyone!”

He glided his fingers over the raised gold letters on the hilt of the Sword of Truth—his sword. He wielded it by right. “Now, do you have anything else to report?”

The general and Kahlan surreptitiously shared a look.

“
No, Lord Rahl.”

“
Good. That will be all, then. Dismissed.” He turned to Kahlan and held out his arm. “Come, my dear. We will have breakfast together.”

In a daze, Richard stepped down off the wizard’s throne at the head of the Hall of the Winds. His footsteps echoed into the distance. It was his rightful place, the wizard’s throne; he was the only war wizard, the only wizard with both Additive and Subtractive Magic.

The inside of the Temple of the Winds was beyond colossal. It was almost beyond comprehension. There was no sound in this soundless place, unless he put one there, or willed it into being.

The arched ceiling enclosing the lofty heights overhead could have contained eagles, and they hardly would have been aware that they were captive inside a structure. Mountain hawks, were there any, could soar and dive under that aerial arch, and feel at home.

To the sides, massive columns supported walls that ascended into the remote curve of the ribbed ceiling. In those side walls, enormous windows let in more of the omnipresent diffused light.

At least he could see the side walls. The far distant end of the hall simply faded out of sight, into a haze.

Nearly everything was the color of a pale afternoon mist: the floors, the columns, the walls, the ceiling. They almost seemed made of the filmy light.

Richard was a flea in a vast canyon. Even so, the place was not limitless, as it was outside the walls.

Before, he would have been stunned and awed by this place. Now, he was neither. He was simply numb.

Here, time had no meaning, other than that which he brought with him. Time had no place to anchor in eternity. He could have been here a century, rather than a mere couple of weeks, and only he would note the difference, and then, only if he so chose. Life had little meaning here, a concept as distant as the other end of eternity; he brought that, too, to this place. Yet the Temple of the Winds had perception, and sheltered him in its wizard-crafted, stone embrace.

To the sides, as he strode the hall, there were alcoves under each arch, beyond each pair of columns. In each alcove resided the things of magic stored here for safekeeping—sent here from the world of life, for the safekeeping of the world of life.

Richard understood them and could use them. He understood how dangerous these things were, and why some had wanted them locked away for all time. The knowledge of the winds was his, now.

With that knowledge, he had halted the plague. He didn’t have the book that was used to start the plague, but it wasn’t necessary to have the book to render it impotent. The book was stolen from this place, and so was still yoked to the winds. It was a simple matter of switching the fluxes of power emanating from the Winds which enabled the magic of the book to function in the world of life.

In fact, it was so simple that he was ashamed that he hadn’t realized the way to do it before. Thousands of people had died because he had been so ignorant. Had he known then what he knew now, he could have merely cast a web spun with both sides of his power and the book would have been useless to Jagang. All those people dead—and it had been so simple.

At least he was able to use his healing powers to halt the sickness among most who were afflicted before he had interrupted the currents of magic. At least the plague was ended.

It had only cost him everything. What price, for all those lives. What price the spirits had set. What price, indeed.

It had cost Nadine her life. He felt profound sorrow for her.

He would have eliminated Jagang, and the threat from the Old World, too, but he couldn’t do so from this place. That was the world of life, and he could only affect those things taken from this place to the world of life, and the damage they caused.

He had touched the core of power in this place, though; there would be no more entry through Betrayer’s Hall. Jagang would not twice accomplish the same feat.

Richard paused. He drew his sword, Drefan’s sword. He held it out in his palms, staring at it, watching the light catch it. This wasn’t his sword—the Sword of Truth.

He let his will flow from the core of his soul, carrying his birthright of power with it. His gift came as easily as a sigh, where before he had struggled to bring forth the most insignificant shred of his power. Force flowed outward, through his arms, and into the object he held.

His mind guided its elements, balancing each to the desired sequence and result, until the sword in his hands transmuted into the twin of the one he knew so well. He held the twin to the Sword of Truth, although without its attendant impressions of those past souls who had used his real sword. In every other way, though, it was the same. It held the same power, the same magic.

Wizards had died in the attempt to make the Sword of Truth, until some were finally successful. Once they had succeeded, that knowledge was borne to this place, and it was therefore Richard’s for the taking, as was all the knowledge here.

He seized the hilt and held the blade aloft. Richard let the power, the magic, the rage of the sword inundate him, storm through him, just to feel something. Even wrath was something.

He had no need of a sword, though. The wrath winked out, to be replaced again by the emptiness.

He tossed the sword high into the air and held it there, where it rotated slowly on a bed of force. With a pulse of power, he shattered the sword he had made into a cloud of metallic dust, and with another thought, evacuated the dust out of existence.

He stood empty again. Empty and alone.

A presence caused him to turn. It was another spirit. They came, from time to time, to see him, to speak with him, to urge him to return to his world before it was too late, before he lost the thread back to the world of life.

This form, this spirit, rooted him to the floor in rigid shock.

It looked like Kahlan.

The soft, glowing apparition hovered before him, radiating with a glow the same color as everything else in this place, only with more intensity, more definition.

It looked like Kahlan. For the first time in weeks, his heart pounded.

“
Kahlan? Have you died? Are you a spirit, now?”