Temple of the Winds

' Where it always was, on the Mountain of the Four Winds. You know it as Mount Kyntermosst.

"Mount Kymennosst," Kahlan repeated in a flat tone. "Honored grandfather, I have been to that place. The Temple of the Winds is no longer I here. It's gone. " "You must find it."

"Find it? It looks to have been there at one time, but the rock of the mountain where the temple used to be has collapsed. The temple is gone, except for a few of its outbuildings. There is nothing to find. I'm sorry, honored grandfather, but in our world, the roots have died and crumbled. " The spirit stood silently. Kahlan feared it might become angry. "Child," the spirit said, but not through the Bird Man. The voice came from the spirit itself. The sound was so painful it was almost more than she could bear. She felt as if the flesh would burn from her bones. "Something was stolen from the winds and taken to your world. You must help Richard, or all my blood in your world, all our people, will die.

Kahlan swallowed. How could something be stolen from the spirit world, the world of the dead, and be brought back to the world of the living?

"Can you help me? Can you tell me anything that might help me to know how to find the Temple of the Winds?

"I have not called you here to tell you how to find the winds. The way of the winds will come with the moon. I have called you here to see the extent of what has been released, and what will become of your world should this be allowed to stand.

Grandfather's spirit spread his arms. Soft light cascaded from them, like water coming over a ledge. The light spread in her vision until she saw only white light.

The light cleared, and she saw death. Corpses, like leaves littering the ground in the autumn, lay everywhere. They were strewn in the street where they fell. They sat on steps, slumped against railings. They lay in doorways and on dead-carts.

Kahlan's vision was carried through windows, as if on the wings of a bird. Bodies lay rotting in homes. She saw them in beds, in chairs, in halls, stretched out on floors, and slumped over one another. The stench gagged her.

With her floating vision, Kahlan swept to towns and cities she knew, and everywhere it was the same. Death had taken nearly everyone, their bodies black and rotting even before they had died. The few still living, wherever she viewed, wept in unrelieved anguish.

Her floating vision returned to the Mud People's village. She saw the corpses of people she knew. Beside dead cook fires lay dead mothers holding dead children in their arms. Dead husbands held dead wives. Here and there, orphaned children with tear-stained faces wailed hysterically beside the corpses of parents. Everywhere, the stench was so thick it made her eyes water.

Kahlan gasped back a sob as she closed her eyes. It did no good. The sight of the dead burned through to the vision in her mind.

«This,» the spirit said. "is what will come to pass if that stolen from the winds isn't flailed.

"What can I do?" Kahlan whispered through the tears.

"The winds have been violated. That which was entrusted was taken. The winds have decided that you are the path of the price. I have come to show you the results of this violation and to beg you. on behalf of my living descendants, to fulfill your part, when you are asked. ' "And what is the price?"

"I have not been shown the price, but I forewarn you that I do know that there is no way for you to circumvent or avoid it. It must he as it will lie revealed to you. or all will be lost. I ask that when the winds show you the path, you fake it. lest what I have shown you comes to be.»

Kahlan, tears streaming down her cheeks, didn't have to consider. "I will. grandfather."

"Thank you. child. There is one other thing I would fell you. In our world, where the souls of those departed from your world now reside, there are those existing in the Light with the Creator, and those who are forever shadowed from His glory by the Keeper.»

"You mean that there are both good and evil spirits in this?" "That is an oversimplification that nearly obscures the truth, but it is as near as you, in your world, would be able to come to comprehending this world. In this, our world, ail make it what if is. The winds must allow all to mark out the path. " "Can you tell me how the magic was stolen from the winds?" "The path was betrayal. " "Betrayal? Who did they betray?" 'The Keeper.

Kahlan's jaw dropped. She immediately thought of the Sister of the Dark who had been in Aydindril: Sister Amelia. It had to be her. "The Sister of the Dark has betrayed her master?"

"This soul's path was to enter the Temple of the Winds through the Hall of the Betrayer. That is the only way to achieve the initial breach. It was created as a precaution.

' To tread the Hall of the Betrayer, a person must betray completely and irrecoverably that in which they believe. Since they have irreparably betrayed their cause. they would no longer have reason to enter.