Page 89 of Phantom (Sword of Truth 10)

Richard stared, his eyes wide. "What do the wisps do in the day? When it's light?"

The wisp, like nothing more than a glowing silver ember, slowly spun, throwing shafts of light across Richard's face. "We go where it is dark. We do not like being in the light."

"Does fire hurt you?"

The shafts of light dimmed. "Fire can kill us."

"Dear spirits…" Richard whispered.

The wisp came closer, the shimmering light brightening… again, as it seemed to study his face. "What is it?"

"What was the prophecy about Ghazi?" Richard asked.

The slowly spinning light paused. "The prophecy was about Ghazi's death. It said he would die in fire."

Richard's eyes closed for a moment. "Many seasons ago, when I was but a boy, my mother died in a fire."

The wisp remained silent.

"I'm sorry," Richard said in a small voice as Shota's words rang through his head. "I think Ghazi died in my home. Our house caught on fire. After my mother brought my brother and me safely out, she went back in for something—we never knew what. She was probably overcome by the smoke. She never came out. I never saw her again. She died in the blaze.

"I think she went back for Ghazi. I think my mother and Ghazi died together in that fire, without him ever completing his purpose."

The wisp seemed to watch him for a time. "I am sorry for what happened to your mother. After all this time, tears still come to you."

Richard had run out of words and could only nod.

The wisp again started spinning faster. "The name Richard Cypher is the name we know you as. Come, Richard Cypher, and we will tell you what Ghazi went to tell your mother."

* * *

CHAPTER 41

Richard followed the sparkling point of light into the ancient stand of timber, a place of quiet and peace. He had never seen trees this big. It struck him as odd that creatures so tiny would live among trees so big.

It seemed like they walked for hours, though Richard knew that it only felt that way because he was so drained. When they at last emerged from the trees into a vast clearing, Richard could hardly believe his eyes. It was just as Kahlan had described it. The grassy meadow sparkled with hundreds of night wisps gliding among the tall blades of grasses and wild-flowers. The swath of stars above, through the gap in the towering pines, seemed lifeless and dead compared with the stars in the grass.

It was a beautiful sight, but it brought pain into Richard's heart because it reminded him of Kahlan, of the first day he had met her, when she had introduced him to Shar, of the time she'd told him about the wisps. Kahlan and the wisps were forever linked in his mind.

And now, after all this time, he knew that it was a night wisp that his mother had run back into the burning house to save. She had not died alone.

All because a man thousands of years before had gone to the Temple of the Winds and done something that would result in Richard being born with both sides of the gift, both sides that the sliph said he no longer had.

As Richard stepped into the grass, some of the night wisps came closer, curious to see the stranger among them. The wisps flashed brighter and dimmer, as if in conversation among themselves.

"What are you called?" Richard asked the wisp who had escorted him.

"I am Tam."

Richard watched wisps gliding closer, rising up the length of him, before shooting away.

"Our numbers dwindle," Tarn said. "Such a thing has never happened before. It is a time of suffering for us. We don't know the cause."

"The cause is in part why I am here," Richard told him. "I'm hoping to find help so that I can stop what is causing this sickness among the wisps. If I don't succeed, you will all vanish from the world."

Tarn considered in silence for a time. Others who had heard Richard's words drifted away, sinking into the dark places in the grass, as if seeking a quiet place to weep. Some, though, came closer.

"Many here knew Ghazi," Tarn said. "They miss him. Can you tell us any of what he said before his life was gone? The way you have spoken of Shar's words?"

"I'm sorry, Tam, but I never saw Ghazi. I never knew that he had come to see my mother. Ghazi and my mother must have died before he had a chance to tell us anything of his reason for being there."

Richard wondered if that had been the reason for the fire.

Many of the wisps dimmed, as if in disappointment that he could tell them none of Ghazi's last words.

Richard remembered his purpose and turned to his guide.

"Please, Tam, I have come for an important reason that, as I said, may in the end help the wisps with what they suffer. I have come because Baraccus left something here for me. His library is here. He sent his wife with a book for me."

"Magda," one of the nearby wisps said. He wasn't sure which one was speaking, but it sounded decidedly more feminine than Tam.

"That's right."

"This was long before our time," she said, "but the words of Baraccus have been passed down to us. We still hold the secrets he asked us to keep. I am Jass. Come. Tam and I will show you."

Tam and Jass led Richard off through the silky grass, toward the towering trees to his left. Among the trees, away from the open meadow, it was again like descending into a dark world. Only the two wisps gave him enough light to see his way.

"How far?" Richard asked.

"Not far," said Jass.

"It is a place within our realm," said Tam, "a place where we can watch over and protect it. Over the millennia the seed of stories planted in the fertile soil of bits and scraps of facts was watered by wishes and began to take root and grow. Eventually, a bountiful fruit of rumors burst forth, to be spread on the wind of whispers that said we hid a fabled hoard of gold. Nothing could convince the believers that it was not true. The truth does not glitter for these people like gold does. Their dream of reaping unearned wealth was so strong for them that they would rather sacrifice everything truly precious to them than accept the truth that it was an empty belief."

"What we hide is not a treasure," Jass said, "but a promise made by our ancestors."

"It is a treasure, of a sort," Richard told them. "To the right person, anyway."

What seemed not far to them seemed quite far to Richard. It was getting ever more exhausting for him to put one leg in front of the other. His stomach growled with hunger as they moved through the silent wood.

It had to be somewhere deep in the middle of the night when the trees opened up and Richard could see at last, illuminated by the silvered moonlight, a valley spread out far below. Lush forests carpeted the bowl of the valley, with the mat of trees ascending the slopes of mountain close in on each side. The place where he stood overlooking the length of the valley was not only a commanding spot, but a place with hauntingly beautiful views of the things that Richard had always loved. He ached to be able to explore such a place, to be down in those woods… but to be there with Kahlan. Without her, beauty was only a word. Without Kahlan smiling at him, the world was empty and dead.

"This is the place of the library that Master Baraccus left with us for sa

fekeeping," Tarn said.

Richard looked around. He saw only ferns, some vines trailing down from the darkness above, and the massive trunks of the pines standing with him at the rim of the overlook.

"Where?" he asked. "I don't see a building anywhere."

"Here," Jass said as she drifted down to a small boulder, coming to rest atop it. "Under here is the library."

Richard scratched his scalp. It seemed an odd place for a library. But then he recalled finding the entrance to the library in Caska under a gravestone. In light of that, this made more sense. A building might have long ago been discovered and raided.

He bent and put his shoulder against the rock, in a curved niche that wasn't sharp. He was sure that he wasn't strong enough to move such a huge slab of stone, but he put all his weight against the stone socket anyway. With great effort it slowly began to pivot to the side.

The wisps came close, looking with Richard at what lay below. The stone had rested on a small, carefully smoothed lip. There was no hole, no stairway down into the ground within that lip.

Richard knelt and dug at what was under the rock, inside the stone lip. It was soft, and dry.

"This is just sand."

"Yes," Jass said. "When Magda came, she followed her husband's instructions, using magic, and filled what was below."

Richard was incredulous. "With sand?"

"Yes," Jass said.

"How much sand?" Richard asked. He wasn't looking forward to digging out a sand-filled hole, no matter how small it turned out to be.

"You see that small river down in the valley?" Jass asked.

Richard squinted in the dim moonlight. He saw the sparkling reflections off the water wandering among sandbars.

"Yes, I see it."

"The words passed down to us," Jass said, "say that Magda brought with her a powerful spell from Baraccus. She used it to create a whirlwind that drew the sand up from the riverbanks, and funneled it into this hole, here, filling up the place below to protect it."

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