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“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.
