Temple of the Winds (Sword of Truth 4)

“Why me?” She asked as she watched him. “Why do you want me?”

He paused with a finger on a large leatherbound volume. He watched her, the way a hawk watched a mouse, as he withdrew the book. He took it to the pile of eight or ten already on the floor, set it down, and picked up one already there.

He paged through it after he stopped before her.

“Here. Read this.”

She lifted the heavy book from his hands and read where he pointed:

Should she go freely, one ringed will be able to touch that long trusted into the winds alone.

Long trusted into the winds alone. The very idea of such an incomprehensible thing made her want to run.

“One ringed,” she said. “Does that mean me?”

“If you choose to go freely.”

“What if I choose to stay, and hide? Then what?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Then I will find another who wants to escape. I offered you the chance first for my own reasons, and because you can read. I’m sure there are others who can read. If I have to, I will find another.”

“What is it ‘one ringed’ can touch?”

He took the book from her tremulous hands and snapped it shut. “Don’t try to understand what the words mean. I know that you people try to do that, but I am a prophet, and I can tell you with a great deal of authority that such an endeavor is futile. No matter what you think, what you fear, you will be wrong.”

Her resolve to leave with him weakened. Despite his seeming kindness in saving her up in the tower, the prophet frightened her. A man who knew things such as he could know frightened her.

They had put a silver ring through her lip. Not copper. Maybe that meant she would be treated better. At least she would live. They would feed her, and she would live. She wouldn’t have to fear some terrifying, unknown death.

She started when he spoke her name.

“Clarissa,” he said again. “Go get some of the soldiers. Tell them that you are to lead them to the archives, down here.”

“Why? Why do you want me to get them?”

“Do as I say. Tell them that Captain Mallack said you were to lead them down to the books. If you have any trouble, tell them he also said to ‘get their sorry hides down to the books right now or the dream walker would pay them a visit they would regret.’”

“But, if I go up there…”

Her words trailed off in the grip of his gaze. “If you have trouble, tell them those words, and you will be all right. Lead them down here.”

She opened her mouth to ask why he wanted them to come down to the books, but his expression changed her mind. She dashed up the stairs, glad to be away from the prophet, although she realized that she would have to face the brutes.

She paused before the door to the great room. She could run away. She remembered the Abbot suggesting the same thing, and she remembered knowing how foolish the idea was. There was nowhere to run. She had a silver ring; maybe that would be good for something. These men valued her at least that much.

She opened the door and took one step before the sight brought her to a wide-eyed halt. The double door to the street was splintered and broken in. The floor was strewn with the bodies of men who had run to the abbey for shelter.

The great room was packed with invaders. Among the bloody bodies of the dead, the women were being raped. Clarissa stood frozen, her mouth agape.

Men stood in groups, waiting their turn. The largest groups were for the women with gold rings. The things being done to those women brought vomit up into Clarissa’s mouth. She covered her mouth and forced herself to swallow it.

She stood transfixed, unable to turn her eyes away from a naked Manda Perlin, one of the young women who frequently tormented her. Manda had married a wealthy, middle-aged man who lent money and invested in cargos. Her husband, Rupert Perlin, lay close by, his throat so viciously cut that his head had been nearly severed from his body.

Manda wailed in terror as the brutes held her down. The men roared with laughter at her wails, but they could hardly be heard above all the noise. Clarissa felt her eyes water. These were not men. They were wild animals.

A man snatched Clarissa by the hair. Another hooked her leg with an arm. They laughed as her scream joined all the others. Before she landed on her back, they had her dress up.

“No!” she cried out.

They laughed at her, as the others were laughing at Manda.

“No—I was sent!”

“Good.” one man said. “I was tired of waiting my turn.”

He smacked her when she fought off his hands. The pain of the wallop stunned her, and made her ears hum.

She had a silver ring. That meant something. She had a silver ring.

She heard a woman not two feet away grunt as a man flopped down on her back. Her silver ring did her no good, either.

“Mallack!” Clarissa screamed. “Captain Mallack sent me!”

The man put a fist in her hair and crushed a grimy, bristly kiss to her lips. Her wound, from the ring through her lip, sang with pain and she could feel blood gush anew across her chin.

“My thanks to Captain Mallack,” he said. He bit her ear, making her scream again as the other man pawed at her small clothes. She tried desperately to remember what the prophet had told her to say.

“Message!” she cried out. “Captain Mallack sent me with a message! He said I’m to lead you down to the books. He said to tell you to get your sorry hides down to the books right now or the dream walker would pay you a visit you would regret.”

The men cursed obscenely, then pulled her to her feet by her hair. She smoothed her dress down with trembling hands. The half dozen men around her laughed. One slid a hand back up between her legs.

“Well, don’t just stand there enjoying it, bitch. Get going. Lead the way.”

Her legs had all the starch of wet rope and she had to hold the rail on the way down the stairs. Visions of what she had seen flashed through her mind in a jumble as she led the half dozen men down to the archives.

The prophet met them at the door, as if he were about to leave.

“There you are. About time,” the prophet said in an irritable voice. He gestured back to the room. “Everything is in order. Start packing them up before anything happens, or the emperor will be using us as firewood.”

The men frowned in confusion. They glanced about the room. In the center, where Clarissa had seen the prophet stack the books he had taken from the shelves, there was only a stain of white ash. The empty places where he had pulled out books had been closed up, so it didn’t appear that any had been removed.

“I smell smoke,” one of the men said.

The prophet thunked the man’s skull. “Idiot! Half the city is ablaze. At last, you begin to smell smoke? Now, get to it! I have to report on the books I found.”

One of them snatched Clarissa’s arm as the prophet started leading her out. “Leave her. We’ll be needing some entertainment.”

The prophet glared at them. “She’s a scribe, you fool! She knows all the books. We have more important work for her than amusing you lazy oafs. There are women enough when you finish your work, or would you rather have me report you to Captain Mallack?”

Even though they were confused by who Nathan was, they decided to get to work. Nathan closed the door behind him. He pushed Clarissa on ahead.

On the steps, alone with him in the silence, she halted, leaning against the railing for support. She felt light headed and sick to her stomach. He put his fingers to her cheek.

“Clarissa, listen to me. Slow your breathing. Think. Slow it down, or you will faint.”

Tears coursed down her face. She lifted a hand toward the room she had gone to to get the men. “I… I saw…”

“I know what you saw,” he said in a soft voice.

She slapped him. “Why did you send me up there? You didn’t need those men!”

“You think you will be able to hide. You won’t. They will search

every hole in this city. When they are finished, they will burn it all to the ground. There will be nothing of Renwold left.”

“But I… I could… I’m afraid of going with you. I don’t want to die.”

“I wanted you to know what will happen to you should you choose to stay here. Clarissa, you are a lovely young woman.” He pointed with his chin toward the great hall. “Believe me, you do not want to be here to experience what is going to happen to the women here over the next three days, and then as slaves to the Imperial Order. Please believe me, you don’t want that.”

“How can they do such things? How can they?”

“This is the unspeakable reality of war. There are no rules of conduct except those the aggressor makes, or those the winner can enforce. You can either fight against this, or submit to it.”

“Can’t… can’t you do anything to help these people?”

“No,” he whispered. “I can only help you, but I’m not going to waste precious time doing it unless you are worth saving. The dead here died a quick death. Terrible as it was, it was quick.