Temple of the Winds

Cara gazed about at the red marble columns holding the arches below the balcony that ran all the way around the oval-shaped room. She had a smile on her lips. "This is nothing like the place Lord Rahl took us." Cara frowned. "The lamps.

That was magic. There is magic in here. You said you would keep us away from magic."

"I said I would keep you away from dangerous magic. The lamps are kind of like a shield, except in reverse. Instead of keeping people out, they're an enabling shield, to welcome and help them enter. It's a friendly kind of magic, Cara." "Friendly. Sure."

"Come on, we came here for a purpose. We have work to do." Kahlan took them to the libraries via the elegant, warm halls, rather than the frightening way they had gone before. They encountered only three shields. Kahlan's magic allowed her to pass these, and by holding Cara and Berdine's hands, it was possible to get them through, too, though both complained about a tingling sensation.

These shields didn't guard dangerous areas, and so were weaker than others in the Keep. There were shields that Kahlan couldn't pass, like the ones Richard had taken her through to go down to the sliph, though Kahlan thought there might be other ways to get down there. There were shields which Richard had gone through that in her experience no wizard had ever crossed before.

They came to an intersection with a hall of light pink stone running down both sides. At places, the hall opened into commodious rooms ringed with padded benches for conversing or reading. Beyond double doors in each of these large outer rooms was a library.

"I've been here," Berdine said. "I remember this." "Yes. Richard brought you here, but by a different route." Kahlan continued on to the eighth sitting room, and went through the double doors into the library there. She used her lamp to light the key lamp, and as before, all the rest lit, lifting the room out of its pitch blackness, bringing it to life. The floors were polished wood, with walls paneled in the same honey-colored oak. During the day, glassed windows on the far wall bathed the room with light and provided a beautiful view of Aydindril. Now, through the snow, Kahlan could only occasionally see the lights of the city below.

She strode down the aisle between the reading tables and the rows upon rows of bookshelves, looking for the one she remembered. In this room alone, there were one hundred and forty-five rows of books. There were comfortable chairs to use while reading, but tonight they would need the tables to lay out the books.

"So this is the library," Cara said. "In D'Hara, at the People's Palace, there are libraries much larger than this."

"This is only one of twenty-six rooms like this. I can only imagine how many thousands of books are here in the Keep," Kahlan said.

"Then how are we ever going to find the ones we're looking for?" Berdine asked.

"It shouldn't be as hard as it sounds. The libraries can be a bewildering maze when you wish to find something. I used to know a wizard who searched on and off his whole life for a bit of information he knew was in the libraries. He never found it." "Then how can we?"

"Because there are a few things that are specialized enough that they are kept together. Books of language, for example. I can take you to all the books on any specific language, because they're not about magic and so they're in one place. I don't know how books on magic and prophecy are organized, if they even are.

"Anyway, this library is where certain records are kept. such as the records of trials held here. I've not read them, but I was taught about them."

Kahlan turned and led them between two rows of shelves. Nearly midway down the fifty-foot-long aisle, she came to a halt.

"Here they are. I can see by the writing on the spines that they're in different languages. Since I know all the languages but High D'Haran, I'll search all the ones in other languages. Cara, you look at the ones in ours, and Berdine, you take the ones in High D'Haran."

The three of them started picking books from the shelves and carrying them to the tables, separating them into three stacks. There weren't as many as Kahlan had feared. Berdine had only seven books, Cara had fifteen, and Kahlan eleven, in a variety of languages. For Berdine, it would be slow going translating the D'Haran, but Kahlan was fluent in the other languages, and she would be able to help with Cara's stack as soon as she finished her own.

As Kahlan started in, she quickly found that it was going to be easier than she'd first thought. Each trial began with a statement of the type of crime, making it simple to eliminate those that had nothing to do with the Temple of the Winds.