“Would you like to answer my question and tell me what you did wrong? Or would you also like to be sent to the tents along with Ulicia?”
Sister Armina swallowed back her terror as she spread her hands. “Excellency, if I could spare myself by confessing, I would, but Ulicia is right. We did nothing wrong.”
He turned his glare back on the Sister he had by the hair. “It seems pretty obvious to me that you two are wrong—the spell should make her invisible but others can see her. And yet you continue to stick to a story when that’s obviously a lie? You had to do something wrong or those two people would not have seen her.”
Sister Ulicia, tears dripping from her cheeks from the pain she was in, tried to shake her head. “No, Excellency—it doesn’t work that way.”
“What doesn’t work that way?”
“The Chainfire spell. Once ignited, it runs its course. The spell does the work. It’s self-directing; we didn’t guide it or control it in any way. In fact, no intervention is possible during the process. It is ignited and then the spell runs through its predetermined routines. We don’t even know what those routines are. In some aspects they function similarly to a constructed spell. We wouldn’t dare try to tamper with any of it. The power unleashed in Chainfire is far more than we know how to regulate—and we have no way to alter such a spell even if we wanted to.”
“She’s right, Excellency. We knew what it was supposed to do, what the result was supposed to be, but we don’t know how it works. What would we change? Our goal was for it to work, to do what it was designed to do. We had no reason to try to tamper with it, so there is nothing we could have done wrong.”
“All we did was ignite it,” Sister Ulicia insisted, tears starting to weep through her words. “We ran the verification webs to make sure that everything was as it should be, and then we ignited it. The spell did the rest. We
have no idea why those two people can see her. We were completely surprised by it.”
He turned his glare on Sister Armina. “Can you fix whatever is wrong?”
“We have no idea what the problem is,” Sister Armina said, “so there is no way we can fix it. We don’t even know for sure that there really is something wrong. For all we know, it could be that this is simply the way the spell works—that there will be a few people who, for some reason unknown to us, can still see her. The spell is far more complex than anything we’ve ever encountered before. We have no idea what is wrong—if there really is something wrong—or how to correct it.”
“I think that maybe it was a random anomaly,” Sister Ulicia suggested when the silence in the tent became ominous. “Those things sometimes happen with magic. Small little issues that aren’t anticipated by the spell’s creator slip through and aren’t affected. It might be nothing more than that.
“After all, the spell is thousands of years old. Those who created it never tested it, so there might have been unresolved issues they weren’t aware of.”
Jagang did not look convinced. “There must have been something you did wrong.”
“No, Excellency. Not even those ancient wizards could do anything with the spell once it had been ignited. After all, the magic of Orden was created to deal with the spell if it was ever unleashed. Nothing less can alter its course.”
Kahlan’s ears perked up. She wondered why the Sisters would have used a spell to steal the boxes of Orden that were designed to counter the spell. Maybe their intent had been to make sure that no one could use that counter.
Jagang finally released Sister Ulicia by tossing her to the ground with a grunt of disgust. Her hands covered her scalp, comforting the hurt.
Emperor Jagang paced as he thought about what he’d been told. Seeing someone peeking into the tent, he stopped and signaled. Several women entered with pitchers and poured red wine in mugs set out on the table. Serving boys began spilling into the room carrying platters and trays filled with a variety of steaming-hot food. Jagang paced, paying the slaves little attention as they went about their work.
When the table was finally filled, Jagang took a seat at the carved chair behind the table. He brooded as he watched the two Sisters. The slaves all silently lined up behind him, ready to do his bidding or bring him anything he requested.
He finally turned his attention to dinner and dug his fingers into the ham. He squeezed off a fistful of the hot meat. With his other hand he tore long strips off the large chunk and ate them as he watched the Sisters and Kahlan, as if judging whether they should live or die.
When he had finished the ham, he pulled the knife from his belt and used it to slice off a piece of roast beef. He stabbed the red slab of meat and held it up, waiting. Blood ran down the blade and down the length of his arm to his elbow resting on the tabletop.
He paused and smiled up at Kahlan. “A better use for my knife than the use you had for it, don’t you think?”
Kahlan considered keeping silent, but she couldn’t resist speaking. “I liked my use better. I only wish my aim had been true. Had it been, we would not be having this conversation.”
He smiled to himself. “Maybe.” He took a gulp of wine from a mug before using his teeth to pull a chunk of the beef off the slab stuck on the knife.
As he watched Kahlan, and while he chewed, he said, “Take off your clothes.”
Kahlan blinked. “What?”
“Take off your clothes.” He gestured with the knife. “All of them.”
Kahlan clenched her jaw. “No. If you want them off, you will have to rip them off me.”
He shrugged. “I will do that later, just for the satisfaction of it, but for now, take them off.”
“Why?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Because I said so.”
“No,” she repeated.
The gaze of his nightmare eyes glided to Sister Ulicia. “Tell Kahlan about the torture tents.”
“Excellency?”
“Tell her about the extensive experience we have in convincing people to do as we wish. Tell her what tortures we employ.”
Before Sister Ulicia could speak, Kahlan spoke first. “Just get on with it
and torture me. No one is interested in hearing you gossip about it like an old hen. I’m sure that you’d rather make me suffer—so get on with it.”
“Oh, the torture isn’t for you, darlin.” He twisted a leg off a roasted goose and used it to gesture to a young woman behind him. “The torture is for her.”
Kahlan glanced at the suddenly panicked woman and then frowned at Jagang. “What?”
He bit off some of the dark goose meat. Grease ran down his fingers. He sucked the grease off the rings.
“Well,” he said as he picked at the meat hanging from the leg, “perhaps I should be the one to explain. You see, we have this torture where the inquisitor makes a small incision in a lower abdomen of the person in question.” He turned and poked the goose leg at the young woman’s belly, just below her navel. The goose leg left a greasy spot on her bare flesh. “Right about there.
“Then,” he said, turning back, “the inquisitor pushes the jaws of a pair of tongs deep into the belly and gropes around until he is able to grab hold of a bit of the small intestine. It’s all quite slippery in there, and the person being subjected to this treatment is not just lying still for it, if you know what I mean, so it usually takes a bit of doing to snag the proper bit of their insides. Once he has it, he slowly begins to pull a few feet of it out. Quite an ordeal.”
He leaned over and pulled off another strip of ham. “Now, if you don’t do as I say, then we are all going to go over to the torture tents”—he gestured with the limp strip of ham off to his left—“and we’re going to let one of our experienced inquisitors do that to this girl behind me.”
He turned an icy look up at Kahlan. “All because you refuse to do as you are told. You will get to watch the whole agonizing thing. You will get to listen to her screams, listen to her begging for her life, watch her bleed, see her vital insides being drawn out of her. After the man has pulled a few feet free, he then begins winding it around a stick, like spare yarn—just to keep the mess all neat and tidy. After that, he will pause and look to me.
“At that time, I will again politely ask you to do as I have instructed. If you again refuse, then we will slowly pull out a few more feet of her tender, delicate, bloody gut, winding it around the stick, while we all listen to her scream and cry and beg to die. This whole process can go on for quite a long time. It’s an excruciatingly slow and painful ordeal.” Jagang gave
Kahlan a cheerful smile. “And then, near the end, you will get to see her convulse in her death.”
Kahlan looked up at the girl. She hadn’t moved, but she had gone as white as the sugar mounded in the bowl to the side of the table.
Jagang slowly chewed and then washed the mouthful down with a swig of wine. “After that, you can watch us throw her lifeless carcass on the dead cart, with other ruined bodies of people who have been questioned.
“Then, I will offer Ulicia and Armina the choice of either being sent to the tents to entertain my men, who have quite the lustier desires, or, if they would rather, think of ways to use that collar around your neck to give you more pain than you have so far experienced from it. The stipulation will be that they must not allow you to pass out. I will, of course, want you to feel it all.”
Outside, the din of the army carried on without letup, but inside the tent it was dead quiet. Jagang sawed off another slab of the bloody beef as he went on.
“After the Sisters have exhausted their imaginations, and I believe that the incentive will spark some inventive ideas, then I will personally beat you to within an inch of your death. After all of that, I will rip your clothes off of you and you will be standing there naked before me.”
His nightmare eyes fixed on her. “Your choice, darlin. Either way, in the end, you are going to comply with my order and end up standing there naked before me. What method do you choose? Make it quick. I’ll not offer you the choice again.”
Kahlan had no choice. Resisting in this was pointless. She swallowed and immediately started unbuttoning her shirt.
Jagang scooped a handful of pecans from a silver bowl and popped a few in his mouth. He smiled at his triumph as he watched Kahlan begin removing her clothes. His self-satisfied expression made her feel all the more forlorn and powerless.
She was certain that her face had gone crimson. She made no further attempt to fight his order. She knew that she had to pick her battles, and this was not one she could win. She wondered if she would ever win another. She began to doubt that it was really possible. There would be no salvation for her. This was her life, her future, all there would ever be for her. She had nothing to look forward to, no reason to aspire to anything good.
As unceremoniously as possible, she dropped her clothes in a pile as she removed them, not bothering to stall by folding them. When she was done and had removed every stitch, she stood hunched in the dead-silent room, not looking up at Jagang because she didn’t want to face his gloating, leering triumph. She tried her best to keep her trembling from being evident.
“Stand up straighter,” Jagang said.
Kahlan did as she was told. She suddenly felt weary. Not weary of physical effort, but weary of all effort. What was she struggling for? What life could she ever have? She stood no chance of ever being free, of ever experiencing love, of ever feeling safe. What chance had she of ever achieving any happiness in life?
None.
At that moment she wanted nothing so much as to curl up into a ball and cry—or just stop breathing and be done with it. Everything seemed hopeless. Her efforts were futile against such strength, such numbers, such abilities.
She ceased to be embarrassed. She didn’t care if he stared at her. She was sure that it wouldn’t be long until he was finished with his dinner and then did a lot more than merely stare. She had no choice in that, either.
She had no choice in any of it. She had only an imitation of life. Without the ability to control even this much of her life, control if she would have to submit to any indignation, she didn’t really have life. Life was something that others had. She breathed, she saw, she felt, she heard, she tasted, she even thought, but she did not live in a meaningful sense.
“There is a rock formation straight out from the opening to my tent,” Jagang said as he leaned back in his chair. “Do you remember seeing it when we arrived?”
Kahlan looked up at him, feeling dead inside. She went through the task of doing as instructed, like a good slave. She thought about his question; she remembered seeing it. It was a long way off, but she remembered the way the dark river of men poured around the rock outcropping.
“Yes, I remember it,” she said in a dull voice.
“Good.” He took a swig and set the mug down. “I want you to walk to that rock. Don’t go straight there, but go around in a circular route.” He lifted an eyebrow. “No need to go all red, darlin. The men can’t see you—remember?”
Kahlan stared at him. “Then why do you want me to do this?”
He shrugged. “Well, you killed my two guards. I need some more.”
“There are plenty of your men right outside.”
He smiled. “Yes, but they can’t see you. I want men who can see you.”
Kahlan began to grasp his meaning. She suddenly began feeling very naked again.
“The way I figure it, there is probably no better way to ferret out men who can see you than to have you walk by them showing them all you have to offer.” His gaze roamed the length of her before returning to her eyes. “Believe me, if they can see you, there is no chance they will fail to make themselves known. I have no doubt whatsoever that if they can see you, like that innkeeper or that girl could see you, and they see you like this, then they will drop whatever they’re doing and come out to pay you a kindly greeting.”
He laughed heartily at his own joke. No one else in the tent so much as cracked a smile, but he didn’t seem to care. Finally his fit of laughter died out.
“With all the men we have, I would bet that we are bound to net us a few who can see you. Among this many men, there are bound to be more ‘anomalies,’ as Ulicia put it.” He cocked his head toward her. “Then, we
will have guards that you can’t sneak up on, or sneak past, the way you did the others.
“You see, darlin, you made a tactical mistake. You should have kept that trick for a better chance to escape. Now you wasted it.”
She hadn’t wasted it. She had done what she had done to save Jillian’s life. Kahlan knew that she had no chance at freedom for herself, but at least she had given that gift to Jillian. There was no benefit to saying so, though, so she didn’t dispute what he thought had gained him an advantage in the game he was playing with her.
Kahlan could think of nothing to say that would talk him out of such a plan. Her only hope now was to remain invisible. But she didn’t feel at all invisible. She suddenly felt as if, when she walked out of the emperor’s tent, every man in camp would be able to see her. She could already feel millions of lewd men leering at her.
Jagang gestured. “Ulicia, Armina, you will go along, but hang back a goodly distance. If any man can see her I don’t want them to notice you two and go all shy before they have a good chance to make themselves known to us. I want any men who can see her to be eager enough and bold enough to drop whatever they’re doing to come and investigate our fine young lady, here.”
They both bowed and as one said, “Yes, Excellency.”
Jagang lost his cheerful pretense and turned menacing. “Now, get going. Make a big circle to the right, through the camp, to that rock formation, and then continue the circle on around back to here. Move, woman!”
Kahlan padded across the soft rugs to the carpet hanging over the doorway. She could feel his leering gaze on her. She pushed the carpet aside and slipped through the opening.
Outside, facing the sprawling camp, she went stiff with dread. She forced herself, trembling every step, to walk among the hulking brutes near the emperor’s tent. Tears stung her eyes. She felt humiliated and completely naked to all the men in camp.
She paused at the first defending ring of soldiers, terrified to go out among the men beyond. She wanted to scream with fury, with mortified embarrassment. She felt trapped by those who controlled her. She couldn’t make her legs take another step. She looked back over her shoulder.
Emperor Jagang was standing just outside his tent, holding by the hair the woman he had threatened to torture. She was in helpless tears.
Kahlan had done something hard to save Jillian’s life. She decided that she would devote herself to doing this to save the life of the woman Jagang now held under such terrible threat. She, too, was a slave who had no choice in her life. Only Kahlan could make a choice that would spare the woman terrible suffering.
Kahlan turned back to the pandemonium of the camp and started out. The ground was rough and she had to step carefully to avoid not only rocks and bits of broken gear, but fresh manure as well.
She reminded herself that none of these men could see her. She paused at another defensive line where big brutes stood guard. She peeked up at the man beside her. He didn’t notice her, but instead watched those out beyond. So far, none of the men could see her. She looked back and saw the Sisters waiting for her to get farther away. Jagang was still holding the woman by the hair. Kahlan understood the message and without wasting a moment started moving again.
She saw horses nearby and briefly contemplated making a run for them. In her mind she envisioned jumping up onto the back of a horse and galloping away, escaping out of the camp altogether. She knew it was only a fantasy. The Sisters would unleash a torrent of pain through the collar and bring her down. What’s more, the woman Jagang held would die. He was not a man to make idle threats. He carried them out lest anyone ever think he was the kind to bluff.
Kahlan knew such an escape was impossible, but thinking about it took her mind off all the men so close all around her, off all the filthy hands she couldn’t help staring at. She felt completely vulnerable and exposed. She stood out among the sprawling encampment like an alabaster water-lily blossom stranded in the middle of a vast, reeking mudflat.
She moved quickly, reasoning that the sooner she made the circuit, the sooner she would be back in the sheltering protection of the tent. It was a terrible thought, Jagang’s tent being her protection, that terrible man her security. At least she would be out of sight again and right then that was all she wanted. It became the focus of her thoughts. Make the distance to the rocks and make it back. The sooner she did it, the sooner she would be back inside.
Unless there were men out in this mass of soldiers who could see her. It only made sense. She had run across two people who could see her and that was among a small sampling of people. There were millions of men
in this army. The chances were that she would run across men who would see her only too well.
What would she do then? She glanced back over her shoulder. The Sisters looked like they were way back across a river of men. What if a man grabbed her and pulled her down, dragged her away? The Sisters finally started following after, but they were a long way back. Kahlan worried about what would happen if men could see her, and grabbed her. What if a whole group of men all could see her? Would the Sisters be able to pull a whole mob off her? Besides, the Sisters were a long way back. Kahlan worried how far a rape would go before the Sisters showed up.
But the Sisters could cast magic. Surely, they would not allow men to ravish her.
She wondered what made her have any such confidence.
Jagang. He wanted her for himself. He was not the kind of man to let underlings have his prize of prizes. He would want to take her himself. The thought of him on top of her ran a shiver of icy dread through her.
The immediate problem, though, was not Jagang, it was these men. In one fluid movement, as she passed a soldier with his back to her, she lifted a knife from the sheath at his hip. She made the motion fit in with the swing of her arms, so that if the Sisters were looking they wouldn’t have seen what she had done. The man glanced around, having felt something. Even though he looked directly at her for an instant, his gaze moved on and he went back to his conversation.
The men she had been moving among were all still the outer rings of the many layers around the emperor’s compound, but she was now moving out beyond, in among the regular soldiers. They were drinking, laughing, gambling, and telling stories around fires. Horses were picketed among them. Wagons stood about at various places. Some men had already pitched crude tents, while others were content to cook over fires, or sleep.
She saw, too, women being taken into the tents. None went cheerfully. She saw other women emerge only to be snatched up by waiting men and dragged to the next tent. Kahlan remembered Jagang mentioning sending the Sisters out to the tents as punishment. Hearing the women in those tents weeping made Kahlan sweat in dread of her own fate when she finally returned to Jagang’s tent. As terrifying a circumstance as being taken into those tents with those men would be, Kahlan could not feel
sorry for the Sisters. If they ended up being raped by these men it was not enough punishment to Kahlan’s mind. They deserved far worse.
One of the nearby men glanced up at her. Kahlan could see recognition flash in his eyes—eyes that fixed on her. He saw her. His mouth fell open, thrilled with his luck at what sort of woman had just stumbled into his arms, so to speak.
As he rose up, before he was fully erect, Kahlan sliced his belly open from one side to the other as she swiftly continued to move past, as if nothing had happened. The man, his face registering the shock of it, weakly tried to catch his guts as they spilled out in a heavy mass. He toppled over and crashed to the ground while making panicked grunts that weren’t noticed as anything more than the other raucous noise all around. When he hit the ground, his insides spilled out. Men turned to look, some shocked, some laughing, all of them thinking the man had just lost a knife fight.
Kahlan didn’t slow or look back. She kept moving, without breaking her stride, reminding herself of her task: get to the rock, get back to the tent. Make the circuit. Do as she had been told.
As a man appeared out of the crowd and rushed up to her, she tightened her muscles and used his momentum to drive the knife up under his ribs, ripping his vital organs apart. The lifting cut, like a punch, along with his descending weight, drove her fist through the gash and into his warm insides. By the way he went down like a sack of sand without so much as a word, she was pretty sure that she had managed to cut open his heart. As a memento of the brief encounter, she now wore a glove of his blood.
She wondered where she had learned to do such things. It felt like they came instinctively to her, the way emotions just came naturally, without the need to summon them. She couldn’t remember anything about herself, but she remembered how to use a weapon. She supposed that she should just be glad she could.
In making her way out into the sea of men, she came to a dense island of activity. Men had all drawn back to leave an open field in the center of a low area, and teams of men were playing Ja’La there. Soldiers gathered all around in the tens of thousands cheered on one team or the other. The game was a violent affair, with the point man encountering the worst of it from the other team. When he went down, bloodied, half the men surrounding the field cheered wildly.
“Well, well,” a man to her left said. “Looks like a fine whore come to pay me a visit.”
As she began to turn toward him, another man to the right seized her wrist, twisted, and had her knife. In an instant, both men were on her, grabbing at her, pulling her back away from the crowd gathered to watch the Ja’La game.
Kahlan fought to get free, but they were a lot stronger, and had taken her by surprise. She silently raged at herself for being caught unawares like that. None of the men around noticed anything at all. They couldn’t see her; she was invisible to them, but not to these two, who pressed in tight to hide her from their fellow soldiers lest they have to fight for their fresh prize. She might as well have been alone with these two.