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Their grips on his hands tightened. As they stepped onto the steps up to the wing with the books, the floor went silent. Without Richard to hold their hands on the way out, they would be trapped inside this place, unable to return across the central floor.
The wing with the books wasn’t the kind of library he had expected. There were rows of shelves, but they were in disarray, with books stacked every which way. Chunks of rock served as bookends for the few standing upright among the disorder.
Here and there books were in piles, as if someone had pulled them from the shelves and simply tossed them in a heap. Most were closed, but a significant number lay open, some face-up, some facedown. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise.
Everywhere, it seemed, there were books stacked up on the floor. A few stacks were short, maybe three or four feet tall, but many more were tall pillars of books. Some of the irregular stacks towered twelve or fourteen feet. They looked as if the mere act of breathing could make them topple. The columns of books were everywhere, creating a maze. Richard couldn’t fathom the reason for the books being stacked in such disarray, but the mystery of it made him sweat.
Richard took an arm of each woman. “My grandfather told me that there were books in the Keep that were extremely dangerous. Kahlan told me that the most dangerous things were kept in here, where no one could get to them, not even the wizards she knew.”
Berdine shot him a look. “You mean, you think that the books themselves could be dangerous? Not just the information in them, but the actual books?”
Richard thought of the description of a book that Sister Amelia had used to start the plague. “I’m not sure, but we had better treat them as such. Look, but don’t touch.”
Berdine’s brow drew down with a dubious frown. “Lord Rahl, there must be thousands of books I can see just standing here. There are bound to be more down the aisles. It will take us weeks to find the one we want—if it’s even here.”
Richard took a deep breath. Berdine was right. He hadn’t expected to find so many books in here. He thought the libraries held most of the books, and there would only be a few in here.
“If you want to be out of here before dark, we don’t have long,” Raina said. “We might as well come back tomorrow and get an early start.”
Richard was beginning to feel intimidated by the task ahead. “We’ll just have to stay after dark. We’ll stay all night if we have to.”
Raina rolled her Agiel in her fingers. “If you say so, Lord Rahl.”
Richard’s heart sank as he stood staring at the forest of books. He needed information, not a search for one leaf in a forest. If only he could use magic to find that one leaf.
He idly adjusted the bands at his wrist. Under his fingers he felt the starburst pattern on one of them.
Look without fixing your sight.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Richard returned to the pillars. He went to one that held a crackled-glass bowl upon on a large square of black cloth.
“What good is that going to do?” Raina asked, when he came back holding the cloth out for them.
“There’s too much to see. I’m going to use this as a blindfold, so I won’t see all the things I don’t want to see.”
Berdine’s face twisted with incredulity. “If you’re blindfolded, then how are you going to see the thing we’re looking for?”
“With magic. I’m going to try to let my gift guide me. Sometimes it works that way—through need. All these books are too confusing. If I’m blindfolded, I won’t see them, and I’ll be able to feel the one I’m looking for. At least, that’s what I hope.”
Raina gazed out over all the books. “Well, you are the Lord Rahl. You have magic. If it has a chance of getting us out of spending the night in here, then I say do it.”
Richard placed the black cloth over his eyes and began tying its tails behind his head. “Just guide me and keep me from touching anything. Don’t forget what I said about you two not touching anything, either.”
“Don’t worry about us, Lord Rahl,” Raina said. “We’re not about to touch anything.”
When he finished tying the blindfold over his eyes, Richard turned his head this way and that, testing to make sure that he couldn’t see. He rubbed a finger over the starburst on his wristband.
His world was pitch-black. He sought the inner peace, the inner calm, where dwelled his gift.
If the plague was started by magic from the Temple of the Winds, then maybe they had a chance to halt it. If he did nothing, then untold thousands of people were going to die.
He needed that book.
He thought about the boy he had watched die. About the little girl, Lily, who told him about the Sister of the Dark showing her the book. That was how the plague started. He knew it was.
That precious child had the tokens on her. Richard hadn’t inquired, but he knew that she, at least, would be dead by now. He couldn’t bear to inquire.
He needed that book.
He put a foot out. “Nudge me with your fingers if I’m about to run into anything. Try not to talk, but if you must, don’t be afraid to speak up.”
He felt their fingers lightly touch his arm as he stepped forward. They guided him with that touch, keeping him from colliding with the towering stacks of books as he waded deeper into the maze.
Richard didn’t know what it was he should feel. He didn’t know if it was magic, a hunch, or his imagination guiding him. By the way he seemed to be winding up and down aisles and snaking through the stacks, he feared it was no more than his imagination. He tried to ignore the things that kept his thoughts skipping about and running in every direction.
He tried to concentrate on the book and his need to find it.
Thinking of the sick children, he was able to focus better. They needed him. They were helpless.
Richard felt himself jerk to a halt. He wondered why. He turned left when he expected that he was going to turn right. It had to be the gift. With that thought, his thoughts scattered in every direction again. He focused once more.
The two Mord-Sith forcibly snatched his arm to halt him. He understood. Another step, and he would have collided with a stack.
Wondering which way he would be turned, he found himself squatting instead. His arm lifted and he reached out.
“Careful,” Berdine whispered. “It’s a big, irregular stack. Be careful, or you’ll knock it over.”
Richard nodded, not wanting to distract himself by answering with words. He was concentrating on feeling the object of his need. He felt it near. His fingers lightly brushed the books, running down the stack, touching the bindings of some and the pages of others because they were turned around the other way.
His fingers stopped on a binding.
“This one.” He tapped the leather binding. “This one. What does it say?”
Berdine propped a hand on his thigh to support herself as she leaned in. “It’s High D’Haran. Something about the Temple of the Winds—‘Tagenricht ost fuer Mosst Verlaschendreck nich Greschlechten.’”
“Temple of the Winds Inquisition and Trial,” Richard translated in a whisper. “We’ve found it.”
47
Breathe, the sliph said.
Kahlan let go the silken essence and pulled a deep breath of the alien air. The dim world of the sliph’s well down in the Keep whirled in around her. Stone of the walls and floor finally settled in her vision. The dome overhead seemed to slow its spinning.
Something unexpected waited in the sliph’s room.
Tilted back in the chair, with her feet propped up on the table, sat a figure in red leather. Kahlan sat down, dangling her feet over the edge of the stone wall, to gather her senses.
The front legs of the chair thunked down. “Well, well, the wandering Mother Confessor returns at last.”
Kahlan hopped down onto the floor. She almost lost her footing with the way it seemed to twist and tilt.
“Cara
, what are you doing down here?”
Cara gripped Kahlan under her arm. “You better sit down until you regain your feet.”
“I’m all right.” Kahlan glanced over her shoulder to the silver face behind her. “Thank you, sliph.”
“Do you wish to travel?” The sliph’s haunting voice echoed off the walls and dome overhead for a long moment.
“No, I’ve had enough traveling for the time being. I’m going to stay here.”
“When you wish to travel, call me, and we will travel. You will be pleased.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kahlan muttered as the sliph seemed to melt back into her well.
“She’s a spooky companion to have down here,” Cara said. “She invited me to travel with her, too, and then told me I didn’t have the magic required. She comes and stares at me with that eerie smile.”
