He tried to concentrate on the book and his need to find it. Thinking of the sick children, he was able to focus better. They needed him. They were helpless.

Richard felt himself jerk to a halt. He wondered why. He turned left when he expected that he was going to turn right. It had to be the gift. With that thought, his thoughts scattered in every direction again. He focused once more.

The two Mord-Sith forcibly snatched his arm to halt him. He understood. Another step, and he would have collided with a stack.

Wondering which way he would be turned, he found himself squatting instead. His arm lifted and he reached out.

"Careful," Berdine whispered. "Its a big. irregular stack. Be careful, or you'll knock it over."

Richard nodded, not wanting to distract himself by answering with words. He was concentrating on feeling the object of his need. He felt it near. His fingers lightly brushed the books, running down the stack, touching the bindings of some and the pages of others because they were turned around the other way. His fingers stopped on a binding.

"This one." He tapped the leather binding. "This one. What does it say?" Berdine propped a hand on his thigh to support herself as she leaned in. "It's High D'Haran, Something about the Temple of the Winds-'Tagenricht osf fuer Mosst Verlaschendreckmch Greschlechten. "

"Temple of the Winds Inquisition and Trial," Richard translated in a whisper. "We've found it."

Breathe, the sliph said.

Kahlan let go the silken essence and pulled a deep breath of the alien air. The dim world of the sliph's well down in the Keep whirled around her. Stone of the walls and floor finally settled in her vision. The dome overhead seemed to slow its spinning.

Something unexpected waited in the sliph's room.

Tilled back in the chair, with her feet propped up on the table, sat a figure in red leather. Kahlan sat down, dangling her feet over the edge of the stone wall, to gather her senses.

The front legs of the chair thunked down. "Well, well, the wandering Mother Confessor returns at last."

Kahlan hopped down onto the floor. She almost lost her footing with the way it seemed to twist and tilt. "Cara, what are you doing down here?"

Cara gripped Kahlan under her arm. "You better sit down until you regain your feet."

"I'm all right." Kahlan glanced over her shoulder to the silver face behind her. "Thank you, sliph."

"Do you wish to travel?" The sliph's haunting voice echoed off the walls and dome overhead for a long moment.

"No, I've had enough traveling for the time being. I'm going to stay here." "When you wish to travel, call me, and we will travel. You will be pleased." "I don't know about that," Kahlan muttered as the sliph seemed to melt back into her well.

"She's a spooky companion to have down here," Cara said. "She invited me to travel with her, too, and then told me I didn't have the magic required. She comes and stares at me with that eerie smile." "Cara, what are you doing down here?"

Cara leaned Kahlan back against the sliph's well. She gave Kahlan the strangest look as she shook her head to herself.

"When Lord Rahl read your letter, it didn't take him long to figure out what you had done. Berdine told him how you had brought us here to look for that book on the trial record. He came down here, but the sliph wouldn't tell him where she had taken you.

"Lord Rahl said that now that he knew the sliph was not sleeping, as he had thought, it wasn't safe to leave her alone. He said that others, like the Sister and Marlin, could come through." Kahlan hadn't thought about that, about another one of Jagang's minions coming to Aydindril through the sliph. The sliph seemed to have no loyally. She would travel with anyone who had the required price of magic. "So, Richard left you here?"

"He said he couldn't remain down here all the time to guard the sliph." Cara's chin lifted with pride. "He said that a Mord-Sith must guard the well at all times, since we have the power to stop someone with magic. The Lord Rahl has always used the Mord-Sith to protect him against magic."

The wizards of old obviously had this same problem with the sliph, and had left wizards like Kolo down here to guard her. Kolo said that the enemy sometimes arrived suddenly by way of the sliph, and that only the quick reactions of the one on guard had prevented disaster.

"You mean he brought you down here and just left you?" "No. He searched for hours until he found a way without magic so we could get down here on our own. He didn't want to have to bring each of us down here for our turn, and he didn't want us trapped down here. either. We have to take shifts. I don't like it. because we should be close to Lord Rahl in order to guard him, not this. . silver thing, but I guess that we are guarding Lord Rahl by doing this, so I agreed to it."

Kahlan found her feet steady at last. "If we had known the sliph was awake, and had been guarding her before, then Marlin wouldn't have been able to come to try to assassinate Richard, and the Sister wouldn't have been able to start the plague."

Kahlan's chest constricted with a hot. cutting pang of regret. They could have prevented the whole thing. All the awful things she had learned would not be threatening her people, her world, and her love. The realization of the chance lost left her nauseous.

"Lord Rahl also wanted us to wait until your return from the witch woman, in case you needed help." "Richard knew where I went?"

"The sliph wouldn't tell him. but he said he knew anyway. He said you went to the witch woman." "He knew, and he didn't chase after me?"

Cara pulled her long blond braid over her shoulder. "I was surprised, too. I asked him why he wouldn't go after you. He said that he loved you: he did not own you." "Really? Richard said that?"

"Yes." A smirk tightened Cara's lips. "You are training him well. Mother Confessor. I approve. And then he kicked a chair. I think he hurt his foot, but he denies it." "So, Richard is angry with me?"

Cara rolled her eyes. "Mother Confessor, this is Richard we are talking about. The man is fool in love with you. He wouldn't be angry with you if you told him to marry Nadine instead of you."

Kahlan swallowed at the renewed twist of pain. "Why would you say that?" Cara frowned. "I only meant he could never be angry with you. no matter what. You were supposed to laugh, not jump like I had poked you with my Agiel. Mother Confessor, he loves you: he is worried sick, but he is not angry with you." "What about kicking the chair?"

Cara stroked her long blond braid and smirked again. "He claimed the chair gave him just cause."

"I see." Kahlan couldn't seem to find pleasure in Cara's sense of humor. "How long have I been gone?"

"Not quite two days. And I expect you to tell me how you managed to slip past those D'Haran guards out there by the bridge." "It was snowing. They didn't see me."

Cara didn't look to believe it. She was giving Kahlan that odd look again. "And did you kill the witch woman?"

"No." Kahlan changed the subject. "What has Richard been doing while I was gone?"

"Well, first he asked the sliph to take him to the Temple of the Winds, but she said she didn't know that place and couldn't take him there, so he rode to Mount Kymermosst-"

"He went there?" Kahlan snatched Cara's arm. "What did he find?" "Nothing. He said that there was nothing to find. He said that if the Temple of the Winds was once there, it is now gone."

Kahlan released Cara's arm. "He went to Mount Kymermosst, and he's back already?"

"You know Lord Rahl; when he gets something in his head, he charges after it. The men who went with him said they rode hard. They slept little and rode much of the night. Lord Rahl expected you to return last night and wanted to be back for you. When you did not return as expected, he paced and fretted, but still he did not go after you. Whenever he looked like he was about to change his mind, he read your letter again, and went back to pacing instead."