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Kahlan did as she was told, expelling the sliph, and pulling in the sharp, cold air.
The sound of a hissing torch roared in her ears. Her own breath echoed painfully. But she knew what to expect by now, and calmly waited for the world around her to twist back to normal.
Except this was not normal. At least it was not the normal she expected.
“Sliph, where are we?” Her voice reverberated around her.
“Where you wished to travel: the Jocopo Treasure. You should be pleased, but if you are not, I will try again.”
“No, no, it isn’t that I’m not pleased, it’s just that this wasn’t what I expected.”
She was in a cave. The torch wasn’t the familiar kind she was accustomed to, a length of wood with pitch at the head, but instead was made of bundled reeds. The ceiling nearly brushed her head as she swung her legs down from the sliph’s well and stood.
Kahlan pulled the bundled-reed torch from where it was wedged in a split in the rough stone wall.
“I’ll be back,” she told the sliph. “I’ll have a look around, and if I don’t find a way out, I’ll come back and we’ll go somewhere else.” She realized that there must be a way out, or the torch wouldn’t have been there. “Or else, when I’m through finding what I’m looking for, I’ll be back.”
“I will be ready when you wish to travel. We will travel again. You will be pleased.”
Kahlan nodded to the silver face reflecting the dancing torchlight, then stepped into the cave. There was only one way out of the room she was in, a wide, low passageway, so she went through it, following it as it twisted and turned through the dark brown rock. There were no other corridors, or rooms, so she kept going.
The passageway led to a broad room, perhaps fifty or sixty feet across, and she found out why this place was called the Jocopo Treasure. Torchlight reflected back in thousands of golden sparkles. The room was filled with gold.
Some was stacked in crude ingots, or spheres, as if the molten metal had been poured into pots, the pots then broken away. Simple boxes were piled high with nuggets. Other boxes, with handles at both ends so they could be carried by two men, held a rubble of golden objects.
There were several tables, still holding gold disks, and shelves along one wall. The shelves held several gold statues, but were filled mostly with rolled vellum scrolls. Kahlan wasn’t interested in the Jocopo Treasure; she didn’t take time to inspect the objects all around and, instead, made for the corridor on the other side of the room.
She didn’t want to linger in the room because she was worried and wanted to get to the Mud People, but even if she had been interested in looking around, she wouldn’t have stayed long; the air smelled awful, and made her gag and cough. The foul stench made her head spin and start to hurt.
The air in the passageway was better, though not what she would call good. She reached over and felt the bone knife, and found it still warm. At least it wasn’t hot, as it had been.
The tunnel began slanting upward as it twisted along. As she went higher, the dark rock became dirt, in places held back with beams. She didn’t see any other passages branching off until she began to smell fresh air. One tunnel branched left, and in a few paces, another right. She felt cool air drifting down from the one straight ahead, and so went that way.
The flame of the torch whipped and fluttered as she stepped out into the night. The sky glittered with stars. A figure not far away sprang up. Kahlan backed a few paces into the cave, glancing both ways to see if there was anyone else waiting outside.
“Mother Confessor?” came a voice she knew.
Kahlan took a step forward and held out the torch into the night air.
“Chandalen? Chandalen, is it you?”
The muscular figure rushed into the torchlight. He had no shirt, and was smeared with mud. Grass bundles were tied to his arms and head. His straight black hair was slicked down with the sticky mud the hunters used. Even though his face was also smeared with the mud, she recognized the familiar, wide grin.
“Chandalen,” she said with a sigh of relief. “Oh, Chandalen, I’m so happy to see you.”
“And I you, Mother Confessor.”
He advanced toward her, to slap her face in the traditional Mud People greeting to show respect for another’s strength. Kahlan held her hands out, warding him.
“No! Stay away!”
He straightened to a halt. “Why?”
“Because there was sickness where I came from—in Aydindril. I don’t want to get too close to any of you, for fear I might pass the fever on to you and our people.”
The Mud People were, indeed, her people. She and Richard had been named Mud People by the Bird Man and the other elders, and were now members of the village, even though they lived apart.
Chandalen’s pleasure at seeing her faded. “There is sickness here, too, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan’s torch lowered. “What?” she whispered.
“Much has happened. Our people are afraid, and I cannot protect them. We called a gathering. Grandfather’s spirit came to us. He said that there was much trouble.
“He said he must speak with you and that he would send you a message to come to us.”
“The knife,” she said. “I felt his call through the knife. I came right away.”
“Yes. Just before dawn, he told us this. One of the elders came out of the spirit house and said I was to come to this place to wait for you. How did you come to us from the hole in the ground?”
“It’s a long story. It was magic.… Chandalen, I don’t have the time to wait until we can call another gathering to speak with the ancestor spirits. There’s trouble. I can’t afford to wait three days.”
He lifted the torch from her hand. His face was grim under the mud mask.
“There is no need to wait three days. Grandfather waits for you in the spirit house.”
/> Kahlan’s eyes widened. She knew that a gathering lasted only through the one night it was called.
“How can that be?”
“The elders still sit in the circle. Grandfather told them to wait for you. He, too, waits.”
“How many are sick?”
Chandalen held all his fingers up once, and then only one hand a second time. “They have great pain in their heads. They empty their stomachs even though they have nothing in them. They burn with fever. Some begin to turn black on their fingers and toes.”
“Dear spirits,” she whispered to herself. “Have any died?”
“One child died this day, just before grandfather sent me here. He was the first to become sick.”
Kahlan herself felt sick. Her head spun as she tried to come to grips with what she was hearing. The Mud People didn’t usually tolerate other people coming to their village, and they rarely ventured from their lands. How could this have happened?
“Chandalen, have any outsiders come?”
He shook his head. “We would not allow it. Outsiders bring trouble.” He seemed to reconsider. “One may have tried to come. But we would not allow her to come to the village.”
“Her?”
“Yes. Some of the children were playing at hunting out in the grassland. A woman came to them, asking if she could come to the village. The children ran back to tell us. When I took my hunters to the place, we could not find her. We told the children that their spirit ancestors would be angry if they played such tricks again.”
Kahlan feared to ask, because she feared the answer. “The child who died today, he was one of those children who said they saw the woman, wasn’t he?”
Chandalen cocked his head. “You are a wise woman, Mother Confessor.”
“No, I’m a frightened woman, Chandalen. A woman came to Aydindril, and talked to children. They have begun to die, too. Did the boy who died say that she showed him a book?”
“When I went on my journey with you, you showed me these things called books that you use to pass on knowledge, but the children here do not know of such things. We teach our children with living words, as our ancestors taught us.
