Terry Goodkind: Temple of the Winds

Men to each side simultaneously snatched lamps from brackets beside the door and held them out. Kahlan grabbed one and kicked the door shut as she turned back to the room. She didn’t want a pack of muscle-bound, weapon-wielding men to get in her way.

In the wavering glow from the lamp, Kahlan saw Cara squat down on the crimson carpet beside the man. He clutched his arms across his abdomen as he vomited blood. Her red leather outfit creaked as she rested her forearms on her knees. She was rolling her Agiel in her fingers, waiting.

Once his retching had ceased, Cara snatched a fistful of his hair. Her long blond braid slid across the back of her broad shoulders as she leaned closer.

“That was a big mistake. A very big mistake,” she said with silky satisfaction. “You should never have tried to use your magic against a Mord-Sith. You had it right for a moment, but then you let me make you angry enough to use your magic. Who’s the fool now?”

“What’s . . . a . . . Mord-Sith?” he managed between gasps.

Cara twisted his head upward until he cried out. “Your worst nightmare. The purpose of a Mord-Sith is to eliminate threats like you.

“I now command your magic. It’s mine to use, and you, my pet, are helpless to do anything about it, as you will soon learn. You should have tried to strangle me, or beat me to death, or to run, but you should never, ever, have tried to use magic against me. Once you use your magic against a Mord-Sith, it’s hers.”

Kahlan stood transfixed. That was what a Mord-Sith had done to Richard. That was how he had been captured.

Cara pressed her Agiel against the man’s ribs. He shivered as he screamed. Blood soaked through his tunic in a spreading stain.

“Now, when I ask a question,” she said in a quiet, authoritative tone, “I expect an answer. Do you understand?”

He remained silent. She twisted the Agiel. Kahlan winced when she heard his rib pop. He flinched and gasped, holding his breath, unable to scream.

Kahlan felt as if she were frozen in place, unable to move a muscle. Richard had told her that Denna, the Mord-Sith who had captured him, had liked to crack his ribs. It made each breath agony, and screaming, which she soon provoked, excruciating torture. It also left the victim that much more helpless.

Cara rose. “Stand.”

The man staggered to his feet.

“You are about to find out why I wear blood red leather.” Unleashing a mighty swing, launched with an angry cry, Cara clouted his face with her armored fist. As he went down, blood sprayed across the bookcase. As soon as he hit the floor, she straddled him, a boot to each side of his hips.

“I can see what you’re envisioning,” Cara told him. “I saw the vision of what you want to do to me. Naughty boy.” She stomped a boot down on his sternum. “That was the least of what you will suffer for that thought. You had better learn real fast to keep ideas of resistance out of your mind. Got it?

She bent and drove her Agiel into his gut. “Got it?”

His scream sent a shiver up Kahlan’s spine. She was sickened by what she was watching, having once felt the profoundly painful touch of an Agiel, but worse, knowing that this was what had been done to Richard, and yet she didn’t make a move to stop it.

She had offered this man mercy. If he had had his way, he would have killed Richard. He had promised to kill her, too, but it was that threat against Richard that kept her silent, and prevented her from stopping Cara.

“Now.” Cara said with a sneer. She jabbed her Agiel against his cracked rib. “What is your name?”

“Marlin Pickard!” He tried to blink away the tears. A sheen of sweat covered his face. Blood frothed at his mouth as he panted.

She pressed her Agiel against his groin. Marlin’s feet kicked out helplessly as he wailed.

“The next time I ask a question, don’t make me wait for an answer. And you will address me as Mistress Cara.”

“Cara,” Kahlan said in a quiet tone, still seeing the vision of Richard in place of the man, “there is no need to . . .”

Cara looked over her shoulder, glaring with cold blue eyes. Kahlan turned away and with trembling fingers wiped a tear as it rolled down her cheek. She lifted the glass chimney of the lamp on the wall and used the one she held to light it. When the wick took to flame, she set her lamp down on a side table and replaced its chimney. It was frightening to see the cold look in those Mord-Sith eyes. Her heart pounded at the thought of how many weeks Richard had seen only cold eyes like that looking back as he begged for mercy.

Kahlan turned back to the pair. “We need answers, nothing more.”

“I’m getting answers.”

Kahlan nodded. “I understand, but we don’t need the screams along with them. We don’t torture people.”

“Torture? I have not yet even begun to torture him.” Cara straightened, casting a glance to the shivering man at her feet. “And if he had managed to kill Lord Rahl first? Would you wish me to leave him be, then?”

“Yes.” Kahlan met the woman’s eyes. “And then I would have done worse to him myself. Worse than you could even conceive of. But he didn’t hurt Richard.”

A cunning smile curled the corners of Cara’s mouth. “He intended it. The canon of the spirits says that intent is guilt. Failure to successfully carry out the intent does not absolve the guilt.”

“The spirits also mark a distinction between intent and deed. It was my intent to take care of him, in my way. Was it your intent to disobey my direct order?”

Cara flicked her blond braid back over her shoulder. “It was my intent to protect you and Lord Rahl. I have succeeded.”

“I told you to let me handle it.”

“Hesitation can be the end of you . . . or those you care about.” A haunted look passed across Cara’s face. Iron quickly repossessed her countenance. “I have learned never to hesitate.”

“Is that why you were provoking him? To get him to attack you with his magic?”

With the heel of her hand, Cara wiped the blood from a deep cut on her cheek—a cut Marlin had given her when he had struck her and slammed her into the bookcase. She stepped closer. “Yes.” She took a long lick of the blood from her hand while watching Kahlan’s eyes. “A Mord-Sith can’t take a person’s magic unless they attack us with it.”

“I thought you feared magic.”

Cara tugged the sleeve of her leather, straightening it down her arm. “We do, unless it is specifically used by the one who commands it to attack us. Then it’s ours.”

“You always claim not to know anything about magic, and yet now you command his? You can use his magic?”

Cara glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. “No. I can’t use it, like he uses it, but I can turn it against him—hurt him with his own magic.” Her brow twitched. “Sometimes, we feel a bit of it, but we don’t understand it the way Lord Rahl understands it, and so we can’t use it. Except to give them pain.”

Kahlan couldn’t reconcile such contradictions. “How?”

She was struck by how much Cara’s emotionless expression was like a Confessor’s face, the face Kahlan’s mother had taught her, showing nothing of the inner feelings about what had to be done.

“Our minds are linked,” Cara explained, “through the magic, so I can see what he’s thinking when he is thinking of hurting me, or fighting back, or disobeying my orders, because it contradicts my wishes. Since we are linked to their minds through their magic, our will to hurt them makes it happen.” She looked down at Marlin. He suddenly cried out anew in agony. “See?”

“I see. Now stop it. If he refuses to give us answers, then you can . . . do what it takes, but I won’t sanction doing anything that isn’t required to protect Richard.” Kahlan looked up from Marlin’s torment to Cara’s cold blue eyes. She spoke before she thought. “Did you know Denna?”