Temple of the Winds

The guards and the people of the Nangtong village, watching from the other side of the fence, were now looking less pleased. They fidgeted with the cloth covering their faces, making sure it hid enough, and that it was secure. The guards began wiping more ash on their faces and bodies. Apparently, one couldn't be too careful, lest the spirits recognize them.

Zedd tucked his head down between his knees and rolled himself through the wet, sticky slop. He laughed maniacally as he rolled in a circle around Ann's squat figure sitting on the cold ground. "Would you stop that!"

Zedd spread supine in the mud before her. He swept his rigid arms and legs through the mud.

"Ann," he said in a low tone, "we have important business. I think we might have better success if we attempt to carry out those tasks in this world, rather than in the underworld, after we are dead." "I know we can't help if we're dead."

"It would stand to reason, then, that we need to get away, now, wouldn't it?" "Of course it would," she grumbled. "But I don't think-" Zedd plopped himself down in her lap. She winced in disgust. Her nose wrinkled when he rested his muddy arms around her neck.

"Ann, if we do nothing, we die. If we try to fight these people, we will die. Without the use of our magic, we can't escape them. Our only option is to convince them to let us go. We can't speak their language, and even if we could, I doubt we would be able to persuade them." "Yes, but-"

"We have only one chance, as I see it. We must convince them that we are quite loony. This sacrifice is a sacred service to their spirit ancestors. Look at the guards behind my back. Do they look happy?" "Well, no."

' If they believe that we're crazy, then they just might think twice before sacrificing us to their spirits. Wouldn't the spirits be insulted to receive a lunatic as a sacrifice? Wouldn't that be disrespectful? We have to make them fear insulting their spirits with two loony people." "But that's. . crazy."

"Look at it this way. A sacrifice is something like a treaty wedding between two peoples. The bride is the sacrifice of one people to another, in the flesh of the new husband, all in the hope for a peaceful and productive future. The bride's new people treat her with respect. The bride's people treat the husband and his people with respect. It's all an arrangement symbolizing unity, continuity, and hope for the future.

"We are like the bride, being offered to the spirits. How would it look if the Nangtong offered an unworthy, demented bride? If you were one of the spirits, wouldn't you be offended?" "If I got you in the bargain, I would be." Zedd howled at the sky. Ann winced and pulled away from him. "It's our only chance, Ann." He leaned close, whispering in her ear. "I swear an oath as First Wizard that I will never tell anyone how you behaved."

He drew back and grinned at her. "Besides, it's fun. Remember how much fun it was as a child to play outside? To play in the mud? Why, it was the grandest of things." "But it might not work."

"Even if it doesn't, wouldn't you rather die having fun on the last day of your life, instead of sitting here, afraid and cold and dirty? Wouldn't you rather have some childlike fun one last time? Let yourself go, Prelate, and recall what it was to be a child. Let yourself do anything that comes into your head. Have fun. Be a child."

With a serious expression, Ann considered his words. "You won't tell anyone?"

"You have my word. You can act with childish glee. and no one but I will ever know-and the Nangtong, of course."

"Another of your acts of desperation. Zedd?"

"The time for desperation is upon us. Let's play."

Ann smiled a sly smile. She stiff-armed him in the chest, knocking him back into the mud. With a riot of laughter, she leaped on top of him.

They wrestled like children, rolling through the slop. After a half dozen turns, Ann was a mud monster with arms, legs, and two eyes. The mud split, revealing a pink mouth as she howled with him at the sky.

They made mudballs and used the pigs as targets. They chased the pigs. They flopped onto the hard, round backs of the squealing creatures, riding them around until they were tossed off into the mud. Zedd doubted that Ann had ever been this dirty in her nine centuries of life.

He realized, while they were having a one-legged game of tag that involved more falling in the mud than hopping progress, that her laughter had changed.

Ann was having fun.

They stomped through puddles. They chased the pigs. They ran around the enclosure rattling sticks against the fence.

And then they hit upon the idea of making faces at the guards. They drew whimsical expressions on each other's faces in mud. They made every rude noise they could think of. They jumped and laughed and pointed at the solemn guards.

Ann and Zedd got to laughing so hard that they couldn't stand, and like two drunks, they rolled on the ground, holding their sides.

The crowd grew. Worried whispers swept through the onlookers.