Temple of the Winds

Chandalen's pleasure at seeing her faded. "There is sickness here, too, Mother Confessor.

Kahlan's torch lowered. "What?" she whispered.

"Much has happened. Our people are afraid, and I cannot protect them. We called a gathering. Grandfather's spirit came to us. He said that there was much trouble.

"He said he must speak with you and that he would send you a message to come to us."

"The knife," she said. "I felt his call through the knife. I came right away." "Yes. Just before dawn, he told us this. One of the elders came out of the spirit house and said I was to come to this place to wait for you. How did you come to us from the hole in the ground?" "It's a long story. It was magic. . Chandalen, I don't have the time to wait until we can call another gathering to speak with the ancestor spirits. There's trouble. I can't afford to wait three days."

He lifted the torch from her hand. His face was grim under the mud mask. "There is no need to wait three days. Grandfather waits for you in the spirit house."

Kahlan's eyes widened. She knew that a gathering lasted only through the one night it was called. "How can that be?"

"The elders still sit in the circle. Grandfather told them to wait for you. He, too, waits." "How many are sick?"

Chandalen held all his fingers up once, and then only one hand a second time. "They have great pain in their heads. They empty their stomachs even though they have nothing in them. They burn with fever. Some begin to turn black on their fingers and toes."

"Dear spirits," she whispered to herself. "Have any died?" "One child died this day, just before grandfather sent me here. He was the first to become sick."

Kahlan herself felt sick. Her head spun as she tried to come to grips with what she was hearing. The Mud People didn't usually tolerate other people coming to their village, and they rarely ventured from their lands. How could this have happened?

"Chandalen, have any outsiders come?"

He shook his head. 'We would not allow it. Outsiders bring trouble." He seemed to reconsider. "One may have tried to come. But we would not allow her to come to the village." "Her?"

"Yes. Some of the children were playing at hunting out in the grassland. A woman came to them, asking if she could come to the village. The children ran back to tell us. When I took my hunters to the place, we could not find her. We told the children that their spirit ancestors would be angry if they played such tricks again."

Kahlan feared to ask, because she feared the answer. "The child who died today, he was one of those children who said they saw the woman, wasn't he?" Chandalen cocked his head. "You are a wise woman, Mother Confessor." "No, I'm a frightened woman, Chandalen. A woman came to Aydindril, and talked to children. They have begun to die, too. Did the boy who died say that she showed him a book?"

"When I went on my journey with you, you showed me these things called books that you use to pass on knowledge, but the children here do not know of such things. We teach our children with living words, as our ancestors taught us.

"The boy did say that this woman showed him pretty colored lights. That does not sound like the books I remember."

Kahlan put a hand to Chandalen's arm, a touch that once would have frightened him with the implied threat of a Confessor's power, but now worried him for other reasons.

"You said we should not be close."

"It doesn't matter, now," she reassured him. "I can cause no further harm; the same sickness is here that is in Aydindril."

"I am sorry. Mother Confessor, that this sickness and death should visit your home, too."

They embraced in friendship, and shared fear. "Chandalen, what is this place? This cave?"

"I told you of it once. The place with the bad air and the worthless metal." "Then we're north of your home?" "North, and some west."

"How long will it lake us to get back to the village?"

He gave his own chest a thump with a fist. "Chandalen is strong and runs fast. I left our village as the sun was going down. It takes Chandalen only a couple hours. Even in the dark."

She surveyed the moonlit grassland beyond the low, rocky hill on which they stood. "There is enough moon to see our way." Kahlan managed a small smile. "And you ought to know that I'm as strong as you, Chandalen."

Chandalen returned the smile. It was a wonderful sight to see, even under the circumstances. "Yes, I remember well your strength, Mother Confessor. We will run, then."

The moonlight conveyed intimately the ghostly, boxy shapes of the Mud People's village lying hidden on the dark, grass-covered plain. Few lights burned in the small windows. At this late hour not many people were out, and Kahlan was glad for that; she didn't want to see the faces of these people, see the fear and sorrow in their eyes, and know that many of them would die.