The city within the walls looked pretty cramped. Space must have been at a premium. If the people, and their dead, were to remain within the walls of the city, the living would have had to make concessions.
It seemed an odd problem, since the land around the city stretched empty from horizon to the horizon. She wondered if it could have been a time of war, when sentimental considerations for the dead had to be abandoned in favor of the needs of the living. The headland did seem the most defensible place around. While parts of the walls were at the edge of the sheer bluffs, they could always have enlarged the city farther back on the headland. She supposed that it could be that expanding such massive city walls was considered too difficult.
She wondered if it could be, too, that the people who had once lived here simply didn’t have the same sentiment for the dead that other peoples did. After all, what real significance was there in bones? The life was gone from them. The individual they once had been was no more. It was life, after all, that really mattered. Their world had ended with their death.
But the people here must have had an attachment to these bones, to the people they had been, considering how difficult it would have been to
construct such an underground city for the dead. Kahlan noticed, too, the faded, carefully drawn and carved decorations around the niches. No, those alive cared. They mourned for those who had died.
She wondered if, when she died, anyone would remember who she had been, or ever even know that this person, Kahlan, once had lived, had loved life. She felt an odd jealousy for all these bones. Friends and family of each set of bones down in this place had known the person they had been, grieved for them, and put these talismans of that valued individual to rest in a way that the living would remember those who had passed.
Kahlan wondered what had happened to all the people who had lived in this place, to the people who buried these bones. She wondered who had buried them. After all, the empty buildings bore silent testament that no one was left. Except Jillian. From what Kahlan had learned, Jillian lived with a small band of nomadic people who came to this place from time to time.
They abruptly arrived at a section of the passageway that looked like it had partially collapsed, leaving the floor strewn with rubble. Sister Armina snatched the girl’s arm. “This tour of the catacombs is getting ridiculous. You had better not be leading us on some silly roundabout lark.”
Jillian lifted an arm to point. “But we’re almost there. Come on and you’ll see.”
“All right,” Ulicia said, “get on with it, then.”
Jillian stepped around a huge slab of stone that looked like it might have once sealed what was beyond. There were gouges on the floor where it had been slid aside to clear the passageway and allow access to what lay beyond. When Jillian went in, Kahlan could see that her lantern lit a chamber beyond with shelves carved from the solid rock. The shelves were all loaded with books. The colors of the leather spines were faded, but they looked to once have been mostly an assortment of rich reds and deep blues, with the rest being a variety of other colors from pale green to gold.
The Sisters marveled as they gazed at all the books. They were suddenly in good spirits. Sister Armina let out a low whistle as she slowed to peer around at the shelves. Sister Cecilia laughed out loud. Even Sister Ulicia smiled as she ran her fingers over the dusty spines.
“This way,” Jillian said to move them along.
They happily followed the girl as she went through a series of rooms, mostly small and cramped, with shelves all stuffed full of books. Jillian
wound her way through a warren of passageways carved through the soft rock, taking them ever deeper into the underground library. The Sisters’ heads swiveled, seemingly lost in reading what titles they could make out as they shuffled along behind Jillian and Kahlan. The light of the lantern fell into dark rooms they passed, revealing yet more books.
“Curse the Light,” Sister Ulicia whispered to herself in delight. “We have found the central site in Caska. This is the place where the book will be. I bet that Tovi has been spending her time searching for it.”
“I bet she’s already found it,” Sister Cecilia said, excitement animating her voice.
Sister Ulicia grinned. “I have a feeling you’re right.”
Through a more finely carved, barrel-ceilinged hallway adorned with a vineyard mural that had long ago faded to a ghost of what it once had been, they rounded a corner and arrived at a set of double doors. The two doors, carved with simple designs of grape vines and leaves, were each narrow enough that they could easily have been one wide door. Kahlan supposed that the two doors made the entrance a little grander, for some reason.
“I sense Tovi beyond—at last,” Sister Cecilia said with a sigh of relief.
“I think we should start the rituals tonight,” Sister Armina said in a bubbly voice.
Sister Ulicia nodded as she laid a hand on the bronze lever. “If Tovi has managed to find the book—and I bet that by now she has—then, with the three boxes finally back together, I don’t see why it can’t begin at once.” She smiled distantly. “The sooner the Keeper is freed from his prison, the sooner we will have our reward.”
Kahlan wondered if there was any way she could ruin their plans. She was sure that once they accomplished whatever it was they intended to do, there would be no going back—for anyone. She considered the boxes she was carrying, and wondered what would happen if, when the Sisters were distracted with finally seeing Tovi again, she were to smash at least one of the boxes. She might even have time to smash both.
Kahlan knew that such an act would do more than incur the full wrath of the Sisters; she expected that they would probably kill her. But then, Kahlan had come to believe that if the Sisters succeeded, she would be as good as dead anyway.
Sister Armina leaned in. “And, as our first act, I think we should settle an old score.” Her expression turned venomous. “I remember all too well being sent to the tents by that arrogant brute. I’ll never forget what his soldiers were allowed to do to us.”
Sister Ulicia’s brow drew down with a murderous glare. “Oh, I think that is one score we will all relish settling.” A baleful smile spread through the glare. She twisted the bronze lever. “Let’s get on with it.”
Sister Ulicia threw open the doors and marched into the pitch black room beyond. “Tovi? What are you doing in the dark—sleeping?” Annoyance took control of her tone. “Wake up. It’s us. We finally made it here.”
With the Sisters in the lead, carrying small flames above their upturned palms, there was just enough light to make out nearby torches in brackets on the walls to each side, but not much else. The Sisters sent those small flames into the cold torches, igniting them with a hot whoosh. As the torches flared to life, light flooded a room that wasn’t very large, with bookshelves carved into the straw-colored rock of the walls.
On the other side of the small room sat a heavy iron and plank table. In the tall, decoratively carved chair behind the table sat a burly man, his chin resting on a thumb as he watched them.
He was the fiercest-looking man Kahlan had ever seen.
The three Sisters froze in midstride, their eyes opened wide, reflecting their confused, disbelieving shock at what they were seeing before them.
The powerfully built man sat calmly behind the table, watching the three Sisters. That he didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t seem to be in the least bit of a hurry only increased the palpable sense of danger in the room. The only sound was the hissing torches.
The man, with massive, muscled arms and a bull neck, was the embodiment of pure menace. Without a shirt, his brawny shoulders bulged from a lambskin vest that lay open in the middle, displaying his naked, powerful chest. Silver bands encircled his arms above bulky biceps. Each of his thick fingers bore a gold or silver ring, as if brazenly proclaiming them plunder rather than decoration. His shaved head reflected glimmers of the fluttering torchlight. Kahlan couldn’t imagine him with hair; it would have diminished his intimidating presence. A gold ring in his left nostril held one end of a thin gold chain that ran to another ring at mid-height in his left ear. He was clean-shaven except for a two-inch braid of mustache
growing downward from the corners of his smirk, and another braid in the center under his lower lip.
As frightening, as formidable, as remorseless as the man looked, it was his eyes that were the true nightmare. There were no whites to them at all. Instead, they were clouded over with sullen, dusky shapes that shifted in a field of inky obscurity. Even so, there was no doubt whatsoever in Kahlan’s mind when his gaze settled on her. That gaze made her feel naked. She thought her knees might buckle under the weight of her galloping panic.
When his grim gaze moved to the Sisters, Kahlan reached out blindly, finding Jillian, and pulled her protectively under an arm. She could feel the girl trembling. Kahlan noticed, though, that Jillian didn’t seem surprised to find the man in the room.
Kahlan couldn’t understand the Sisters’ silence, or their inaction. By the overt look of threat presented by the man, she expected that they would have incinerated him by now, just to be on the safe side. The Sisters had never before been the least bit shy about killing anyone they even suspected might be trouble. This man was clearly far more than trouble. He looked capable of crushing their skulls in his fist. The look in his eyes said that he was used to seeing such deeds done.
Behind Kahlan, two burly men stepped out of the dark corners and closed the double doors. They, too, were fierce-looking, with wild tattoos in menacing swirls over their features. Their massive muscles were sweat-slicked and sooty, as if they never washed off the smoke of oily fires. As they stepped together before the closed doors, Kahlan could smell their sour sweat through the stench of the burning pitch.
These two looked more than ready for any eventuality. Heavy, studded leather straps holding a variety of knives crisscrossed their chests. Axes and flanged maces hanging on their weapons belts glinted in the light of the hissing torches. Their faces were also studded with metal spikes—in their ears, eyebrows, and through the bridges of their noses. It almost appeared that they had hammered nails through parts of their faces. They, too, were shaved bald. The two men didn’t look entirely human, much less civilized, but rather a deliberate corruption of the notion of mankind, embracing instead steel, soot, and elements of a beast.
Even though they carried short swords, they didn’t draw them. They didn’t appear the least little bit afraid of the Sisters.
“Emperor Jagang…” Sister Ulicia’s watery, weak voice trailed off in abject terror.
Emperor Jagang!
The shock of those two words jolted Kahlan down to her soul.
There was something about her concept of this man, formed from seeing his army from a distance and from having been through some of the places they had attacked, that made Kahlan fear him even more than the Sisters. In contrast to the Sisters, masculinity added an alien dimension to the nature of the threat he projected.
For as far back as she could remember, they had done everything possible to stay away from Jagang, and yet here he sat, right in front of them. He looked relaxed, like a man who had everything well in hand. He appeared to have no worries. Not even Sisters of the Dark appeared to concern him.
Kahlan knew that this was no accidental encounter. It had been staged.
More than Kahlan’s fear of Jagang engendered by the Sisters’ overheard conversations and their dogged avoidance of the man, there was something else, something deeper, a dark dread rooted in her very soul, almost like a memory beyond her reach betrayed only by its indistinct but sinister shadow.
When Kahlan stole a glance to the side, she saw that the Sisters appeared frozen in place, as if they had been turned to stone. They had also gone ashen.
Sister Ulicia was wearing her blue dress, chosen especially for the reunion with Tovi. It was now dusty not only from the climb up onto the headland, but from the descent down into the interior of it. Sister Armina wore a dress with white ruffles at the wrists and at the low neckline. Under the circumstances, in a dusty grave and standing before leering brutes, the ruffles looked naively ridiculous. Sister Cecilia, older, tightly controlled, and habitually tidy with curly gray hair, now looked on the ragged rim of a leap into the refuge of madness.
Jagang’s sullen eyes watched the three Sisters. He was savoring the moment, Kahlan knew, savoring their startled horror. If the Sisters had been able to do anything about the situation, Kahlan was sure that they would already have done it.
Sister Armina’s tongue darted out to moistened her lips. “Excellency,” she said in a small, strained voice. Kahlan thought it a pitiful attempt at a respectful greeting, conspicuously born of panic, not respect.
“Excellency,” Sister Cecilia added in a voice no more steady.
Kahlan had on rare occasions seen the Sisters cautious, even wary, but she had never seen them afraid. She had never even been able to imagine them being frightened. They had always seemed in utter and complete control. Now their habitual, haughty dispositions were nowhere in evidence.
All three Sisters bowed in halting movements, like three puppets on strings.
When she straightened, Sister Ulicia swallowed in trembling terror. As frightened as she obviously was, confused curiosity, as well as the unendurable silence, drove her to speak.
“Excellency, what are you doing here?”
Jagang’s treacherous glare again melted into a smirk at the gentle, innocent, feminine tone of her question.
“Ulicia, Ulicia, Ulicia…” He sighed heavily. “You really are one monumentally stupid bitch.”
All three women went to a knee as if they had been slammed down by an invisible fist. Small, whining whimpers escaped their throats.
“Please, Excellency, we meant no—”
“I know exactly what you meant. I know every last dirty little detail of everything in your minds.”
Kahlan had never seen Sister Ulicia cowed, much less so badly shaken. “Excellency…I don’t understand…”
“Of course you don’t,” he said with a sneer as her words dwindled away to silence. “That is why you are on your knees before me, and not the other way around, which is just what you were wishing, isn’t it, Armina?”
When his gaze slid to Sister Armina she let out a small, startled cry. Blood oozed from her ears, running in a little red trail down the snow white flesh of her neck. Other than her slight trembling, she didn’t move.
Jillian’s arms clutched at Kahlan. Kahlan put a hand protectively to the side of the girl’s face, pressing her close, trying to comfort her when there was no real comfort to be had before such a man.
“You also have Tovi, then?” Sister Ulicia asked, still so surprised by the turn of events that she couldn’t come to grips with it.
“Tovi!” Jagang burst into a fit of gruff laughter. “Tovi! Why, Tovi has been dead for ages.”
Sister Ulicia stared in horror. “She’s dead?”
He lifted his arm with a dismissive wave. “Finally sent to the afterlife by a mutual friend, a very unfaithful and traitorous friend. I imagine that the Keeper of the underworld is quite angry with Tovi’s failure in her service to him. You will have all of eternity to find out just how angry.” His smirk returned as he glared at the woman. “But not until I am finished with you in this life.”
Sister Ulicia bowed her head. “Of course, Excellency.”
Kahlan noticed that Sister Armina had wet herself. Sister Cecilia looked like she was ready to collapse into tears—or screams.
“Excellency,” Sister Ulicia ventured, “how could you…I mean, with our bond.”
“Your bond!” Jagang roared with laughter again, slapping the table. “Ah yes, your bond to Lord Rahl. Your touching loyalty to Lord Rahl that ‘protects’ you from my talents as a dream walker.”
Kahlan’s heart sank to hear that the Sisters were in some kind of alliance with Lord Rahl. For some reason, she had thought more of the man. It hurt to find she was wrong.
“‘We’re not the ones attacking Richard Rahl,’” he said in a falsetto voice, clasping his hands in a mocking manner, apparently quoting some statement from Ulicia’s past. “‘Jagang is the one going after him, seeking to destroy him, not us. We are the ones who will wield the power of Orden and then we will grant Richard Rahl what only we will have the power to grant. That is enough to preserve our bond and protect us from the dream walker.’”
He lost the effeminate pretense. “Your loyalty and devotion to Lord Rahl is touching.”
His fist slammed down on the table. His face went red with rage. “Do you stupid bitches actually believe that such a bond to Lord Rahl as you dreamed up would hold you free of harm?”
Kahlan remembered the Sisters talking about the same thing, and she hadn’t been able to understand it back then, either. Why would Richard Rahl have anything to do with these evil women, much less enter into a pact with them? Could such a thing really be true? Could it be that he was really no better than they?
One thing about it all didn’t seem to make any sense, though. If they were sworn to him, then why would they steal the boxes from his palace?
“But the bond’s magic…” Sister Ulicia’s voice trailed off into silence.
Jagang stood—a move that made the three gasp and tremble all the more. Kahlan was sure that, had they been able to, they would have backed up at least a step and likely more.
He shook his head, as if he could not believe that they could be so ignorant as not to understand. “Ulicia, I was there in your mind watching the whole sorry event. I was there the day, years ago, that you proposed the scheme to Richard Rahl. I have to tell you, I didn’t really believe that you were serious. I had difficulty believing that you could be so stupid as to believe that you could strike such a bargain to gain your freedom from me.”
“But it should have worked.”
“No, there was no way such a thing could work. It was nothing more than an irrational idea. You wanted to believe it was true, so you did.”
“You were in our minds that day?” Sister Cecilia asked. “Why would you allow us to believe we had succeeded?”
His inky gaze fixed on her. “Don’t you remember what I told you all in the very beginning, on the first day you stood before me? Control, I told you, is more important than killing. I told you then that I could have killed you six, but what good would you be to me then? As long as you’re under my dominion, you’re no threat to me, and of use in oh so many ways.
“No, of course you don’t remember because you chose instead to think that you were smart enough to trick me with your convoluted, illogical notion of the bond. You think you are too clever to be outwitted, and so here you stand before me again, never having left my dominion.”
“And yet, you just let us…go about our business?” Sister Cecilia asked.
Jagang shrugged as he stepped around the table. “I could have stopped you at any moment, if I chose. I knew I had you under my thumb. But what would I have had to gain, then? Just a few more Sisters of the Dark, and I already had plenty of those—although their numbers are seriously diminished by now.” He leaned down toward them with an aside. “Your kind has a tendency to do a lot of dying on the behalf of the cause of the Fellowship of Order.
“But with you,” Jagang said as he straightened, “I had something highly interesting. I had Sisters of the Dark who were up to things.” He tapped a thick finger to his temple. “Who had devious plans, and the knowledge to pursue them.
“You have a lifetime of experience from the vaults at the Palace of the
Prophets, vaults holding thousands of books that are now gone. No matter how irrational your plans sometimes become—witness your present condition—that does not negate your reserve of knowledge gained through decades of study, or mean that every one of your plans was unworkable.”
“So, you knew our plans all along? From that day with Richard Rahl?”
Jagang glared at Sister Ulicia. “Of course I knew. I knew your plan the instant you concocted it.” His voice lowered with menace. “You thought I only came into people’s dreams. I don’t. You thought I wasn’t there, in your mind, when you were awake. I was. Once I enter into your mind, Ulicia, I am there, in your mind, always.
“Whatever you think, whenever you think it, I witness it. Every dirty little thing you conceive, I see. Every thought, every action, every vile wish, I know as if it were spoken aloud the instant you conceive it. Because I wasn’t making you aware of my presence, though, you ignorantly believed I wasn’t there, but I was.” He waggled a thick finger. “Oh, Ulicia, I was there.