Temple of the Winds

Nadine squinted in indignation. "It works just fine. Are you trying to find an excuse to get out of showing us that you know what you're doing? Are you trying to blame your failure on the grade of mugwort?"

"The grade is more than good enough for my purpose, but not for yours." His tone turned instructional, if not polite. 'Next time, purify the sample you collect, and you will find it to be of more help to those who need it."

He hunched over, holding the spoor to the point of the candle flame until the mugwort ignited, giving off a copious amount of smoke and a heavy, musky odor. Drefan circled the smoking spoon over Cara's stomach, letting the layer of smoke build.

He handed the spoon of smoking mugwort to Nadine. "Hold this between her feet."

He put his fingers to his temples as he murmured a chant under his breath. He took his hands from his head. "Now, watch, and you will see what I can see, what I can feel, without the smoke."

He put his thumbs to Cara's temples and his little fingers to the sides of her throat.

The thick layer of mugwort smoke jumped.

Kahlan gasped as she saw ropy lines of smoke coiling and snaking all over Cara. Drefan removed his hands and the smoke trails snapped into a still web of lines. Some arched from her sternum to her breasts, her shoulders, her hips, and her thighs. A tangle of lines went from the top half of her head to points all over her body.

Drefan traced one with a finger. "See this one? From her left temple to her left leg? Watch." He pressed his fingers to the base of her skull on the left side, and the line of smoke crossed to her right leg. "There. That's where it belongs." "What is all that?" Kahlan asked in astonishment.

"Her meridian lines: the flow of her force, her life. Her aura. It's more than that, too, but it's hard to put it all into a few words for you. What I have done is nothing more than the way a shaft of sunlight shows you the dust motes floating in the air."

Nadine, her mouth hanging open, sat frozen, holding the smoking spoon. "How did you make the line move?"

"By using my life force to compel a healing energy shift where it was needed." "Then you have magic," Nadine breathed. "No, training. Squeeze her ankles, where you did the first time." Nadine set the spoon down and squeezed Cara's ankles. The tangle of lines going down Cara's legs twisted and untangled, moving from her hips to her feet in straight lines.

"There," Drefan said. "You have just corrected her legs. See how they've stilled?"

"I did that?" Nadine asked incredulously.

"Yes. But that was the easy part. See here?" He indicated the web of lines coming from her head. "This is the dangerous part of what this dream walker did. It has to be undone. These lines indicate that she can't control her muscles. She can't speak, and she's been blinded. Look here. This line going from her ears outward and then back to her forehead? That's the only one that's correct. She can hear and understand everything we say; she just can't react to it." Kahlan's jaw dropped. "She can hear us?"

"Every word. Rest assured, she knows, we're trying to help her. Now, if you please, I need to concentrate. This all has to be done in the correct order or we'll lose her."

Kahlan whisked her hands toward him. "Of course. Do what you need to do to help her."

Drefan hunched to his task, working his way around Cara's body, pressing fingers or the flats of his hands to various places on her. At times he used the knife point. He never drew more than a drop of blood is he pressed it into her flesh. At nearly each thing he did, some of the ropy lines of smoke moved, untangling, some laying down against Cara's body and others curving outward in a smooth arch before returning to a spot he had attended.

When he compressed the flesh between her thumb and first finger, not only did the smoke lines over her arms straighten, but Cara moaned in relief as she twisted her head and rolled her shoulders. It was the first normal response of any kind Cara had given. When he pierced the tops of her ankles with his knife, she gasped and began to breathe with a steady, if rapid, rhythm. Relief and hope flooded through Kahlan.

He at last had moved all the way around her, and was working at her head, pressing his thumbs along the bridge of her nose and across her forehead. Her whole body was still, no longer shaking and quivering. Her chest rose and fell without effort.

He pressed the knife point between her eyebrows. "That should take care of it," he murmured to himself.

Cara's blue eyes opened. They searched about until they found Kahlan. "I heard your words," she whispered. "Thank you, my sister."

Kahlan smiled her relief. She knew what Cara meant. Cara had, after all, heard Kahlan tell her that she wasn't alone. "I got Marlin."

Cara smiled. "You make me proud to serve with you. I regret that you have gone to all this effort healing me for nothing."