Temple of the Winds (Sword of Truth 4)

“We’ll go wake the sliph just as soon as we make sure everything here is in order. I promise. Dear spirits, I promise.”

“What things?”

“Just as soon as we know that the men are getting better, and I’m satisfied about a few other things. I want to make sure that Jagang can’t make good on his threats. A couple of days and the men should be better. A couple days. I promise.”

She held one of his fingers in each of her hands as she stared longingly into his gray eyes. “I love you,” she whispered. “In a few days, or after an eternity, I’m yours. Words spoken over us or not, I’m forever yours.”

“We are already one, in our hearts. The good spirits know the truth of that. They want us to be together, they’ve already proven it, and will watch over us. Don’t worry, we’ll have the words said over us.”

He started away, but turned back with a haunted look in his eyes. “I only wish Zedd could be there when we’re married. Dear spirits, I wish he could. And that he was here to help me, now.”

When he looked back from the corner at the end of the hall, Kahlan threw him a kiss. She shuffled into her empty, lonely rooms and threw herself on her big bed. She thought about what Nadine said: “Shota told me about you.” Kahlan wept in frustration.

“So, you’re not going to be sleeping… up here, tonight,” Cara said when he walked past.

“And what would make you think I was?” Richard asked.

Cara shrugged. “You made us wait around the corner.”

“Maybe I just wanted to kiss Kahlan good night without you two passing judgment on my skill.”

Cara and Raina both smiled, the first he had seen from them all day.

“I have already seen you kiss the Mother Confessor,” Cara said. “You appear quite talented at it. It always leaves her breathless and wanting more.”

Even though he didn’t feel like smiling, he did anyway because he was glad to see them smiling. “That doesn’t mean I’m talented, it just means she loves me.”

“I’ve been kissed,” Cara said, “and I’ve seen you kiss. I believe I can say with some authority that you are talented at the task. We watched you from around the corner tonight.”

Richard tried to look indignant as he felt his face going red. “I gave you orders to stay down here.”

“It is our responsibility to watch over you. To do that, we can’t let you out of our sight. We can’t follow such orders.”

Richard shook his head. He couldn’t be angry over the violation of orders. How could he, when they were risking his anger to protect him? They hadn’t endangered Kahlan in doing so.

“What do you two think of Drefan?”

“He is your brother, Lord Rahl,” Raina said. “The resemblance is obvious.”

“I know the resemblance is obvious. I mean, what do you think of him.”

“We don’t know him, Lord Rahl,” Raina said.

“I don’t know him, either. Look, I’m not going to be angry if you tell me you don’t like him. In fact, I’d really like to know if you don’t. What about you, Cara? What do you think of him?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never kissed either of you, but from what I have seen, I would rather kiss you.”

Richard put his hands on his hips. “What does that mean?”

“I was hurt, yesterday, and he helped me. But I don’t like the fact that master Drefan came now, when Marlin and Nadine came.”

Richard sighed. “My thoughts, too. I ask people not to judge me because of who my father was, and I find myself doing that with him. I’d really like to trust him. Please, both of you, if you have any reason for concern, don’t be afraid to come and tell me.”

“Well,” Cara said, “I don’t like his hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has hands like Darken Rahl. I have already seen them caressing fawning women. Darken Rahl did that, too.”

Richard threw his hands up. “When did he have time to do that? He was with me most of the day!”

“He found the time, when you were talking to soldiers and when you were out checking on the men with Nadine. It didn’t take him long. The women found him. I have never seen so many women batting their lashes at a man. You have to admit, he is fine to look upon.”

Richard didn’t see what was so especially fine about his looks. “Have any of these women not been willing?”

Her answer was a long moment in coming. “No, Lord Rahl.”

“Well, I guess I’ve seen other men who acted like that. Some of them have been my friends. They liked women, and women liked them. As long as the women are willing, I can’t see that it’s any of my business. I’m more concerned about other things.”

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew.”

“If you learn that he is here innocently, and only means to help, as he says, then you can be proud of him, Lord Rahl. Your brother is an important man.”

“He is? How important is he?”

“Your brother is the leader of his sect of healers.”

“He is? He never told me that.”

“No doubt he did not wish to vaunt himself. Humility before the Lord Rahl is the way of D’Harans, and one of the tenets of that ancient sect of healers.”

“I suppose. So he leads these healers?”

“Yes.” Cara said. “He is the High Priest of the Raug’Moss.”

“The what,” Richard whispered. “What did you call them?”

“The Raug’Moss, Lord Rahl.”

“Do you know the meaning of the words?”

Cara shrugged. “Just that it means ‘healers,’ that’s all. Does it have some meaning to you, Lord Rahl?”

“Where’s Berdine?”

“In her bed, I would suppose.”

Richard started down the hall, calling orders back to them as he went. “Cara, post a guard for the night around Kahlan’s room. Raina, go wake Berdine and ask her to meet me in my office.”

“Now, Lord Rahl?” Raina asked. “This late?”

“Yes, please.”

Richard took the steps two at a time on the way to his office where waited the journal, Kolo’s journal, written in High D’Haran.

In High D’Haran, Raug’Moss meant “Divine Wind.”

Both Shota’s warning to Nadine for Richard, “the wind hunts him,” and the words from the prophecy down in the pit, “he must seek the remedy in the wind,” spun through his mind.

19

“This time,” Ann warned, “you had better let me do the talking. Understand?”

Her eyebrows drew so tight together Zedd thought they might touch. She leaned close enough that he could smell the lingering aroma of sausage on her breath. With a fingernail she tapped his collar—another warning, albeit a wordless one.

Zedd blinked innocently. “If it would please you, by all means, but my tales always have your best interest, and our purpose, at heart.”

“Oh, of course, and your clever wit is always a delight, too.”

Zedd felt that her affected smile was overdoing it; the sardonic praise would have been quite enough. There were accepted customs to such things. The woman really did need to learn where the line was.

Zedd’s gaze again focused beyond her, to the problem at hand. He passed a critical eye over the inn’s dimly lit door. It was across the street and at the end of a narrow, board walk. Above the alleyway that ran between two warehouses hung a small sign: “Jester’s Inn.”

Zedd didn’t know the name of the large town they had come to in the dark, but he did know that he would have preferred to pass it by. He had seen several inns in the town; this wasn’t the one he would have chosen, had he a choice.