Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Chapter 57

Kahlan pushed open one of the doors with the snakes on the other side of it. Sisters Ulicia and Tovi immediately spotted her and with furtive gestures motioned for her to come to where they waited down the hall. They didn’t want to be seen near the doors with the snakes and the skulls.

Kahlan crossed the hallway, watching the patterns in the marble floor, not wanting to look up into Sister Ulicia’s eyes.

As soon as she had walked down the corridor and was close enough, Sister Ulicia snatched Kahlan’s shirt at her shoulder and pulled her over to a niche in the far wall. Both Sisters Ulicia and Tovi caged her in.

“Did anyone try to stop you?” Sister Tovi asked.

Kahlan shook her head.

Sister Ulicia let out a sigh. “Good. Let’s see them.”

Kahlan drew the pack off one shoulder and pulled it around enough in front so that the sisters could open the flap. Both of them pawed at the strap cinching it down. They finally got it loose and flipped it back.

Both Sisters huddled close together, shoulder to shoulder, so that people in the hall couldn’t see what they were doing, see what terrible thing they were about to bring out into the light of day. Sister Ulicia carefully pulled off the satiny white fabric of Kahlan’s dress still stuffed partly down into the pack to see the black box nestled within.

Both stood in silent awe, staring.

Sister Ulicia, her fingers trembling with excitement, stuck her arm down in and started pawing around, searching for the others. When she didn’t find them she stepped back, a dark look coming over her face.

“Where are the other two?”

Kahlan swallowed. “I could only fit one into the pack, Sister. The others wouldn’t fit. You told me that I had to conceal them inside, but they were too big. I will . . .”

Before Kahlan could say another word, before she explained that she planned to make two more trips to recover the other boxes, Sister Ulicia, in a rage, whipped her stout rod around so hard that it whistled through the air.

Kahlan heard a deafening crack as it hit the side of her head with full force.

The world seemed to go silent and black.

Kahlan realized that she was on the floor in a heap, crumpled on her knees. She cupped a hand over her left ear, gasping in paralyzing pain. She saw blood splattered all over the floor. She took her hand away and saw that it looked like she was wearing a warm, bloody glove.

She could only stare at her hand and pant in little gasps. So crushing was the pain that her voice wouldn’t work. She couldn’t even cry out in agony. It seemed as if she were looking through a long, fuzzy, black tunnel. Her stomach felt queasy.

Suddenly, Sister Ulicia seized Kahlan’s shirt and hoisted her up from the floor only to slam her against the wall. Kahlan’s head smacked the stone, but compared to the pain radiating from the side of her head, her jaw, and her ear, it seemed inconsequential.

“You stupid bitch!” Sister Ulicia railed as she pulled Kahlan away and again slammed her against the wall. “You stupid, incompetent, worthless bitch!”

Tovi looked like she, too, wanted to get her hands on Kahlan. She saw that down the corridor half of Sister Ulicia’s broken rod lay against the wall. Kahlan struggled to find her voice, knowing it was her only salvation.

“Sister Ulicia, I couldn’t fit all three inside.” Kahlan could taste salty tears along with blood. “You told me to hide them in my pack. They wouldn’t fit. I planned to go back and get them, that’s all. Please—I’ll go back for the others. I swear, I will get them for you.”

Sister Ulicia backed away, the smoldering anger in her eyes was frightening. Even though the woman backed away, she pointed at the center of Kahlan’s chest with one finger and Kahlan was slammed hard against the marble and pinned to the wall with a force that felt as massive as a bull leaning against her. It was a struggle to draw each breath against the crushing pressure. It was a struggle to see through the blood running into her eyes.

“You should have rolled the other two boxes in your bedroll, then you would have them all right now. Isn’t that right?”

Kahlan hadn’t considered doing that because it wasn’t an option.

“But Sister, I have something else rolled in the bedroll.”

Sister Ulicia leaned in again. Kahlan feared that she was now going to be made to wish she was dead, or fear that she was about to be. She wasn’t at all sure which fate would be worse. She felt the pain come on within her head to match the pain on the outside from the blow. Pinned against the wall, Kahlan couldn’t fall to the ground, cover her ears, and scream, or she would have.

“I don’t care what trifle you have rolled up in your bedroll. You should have left it out. The boxes are more important.”

Kahlan could only stare, unable to move because of the force keeping her flattened to the wall, and unable to talk because of the force of pain crushing her mind. It felt like ice picks were being slowly shoved and twisted into her ears. Her ankles and wrists twitched involuntarily. She gasped with each throbbing wave of agony wrenching through her head, trying, but unable to squirm away from the piercing pain.

“Now,” Sister Ulicia said in a low, menacing voice that carried deadly threat, “do you think you can do that? Do you think you can go back up there and roll the other two boxes in your bedroll and bring them back to me like you should have done in the first place?”

Kahlan tried to talk, but couldn’t. She nodded instead, desperate to agree, desperate for the pain to stop. She could feel the blood running from her ear and the side of her head soaking the collar of her shirt. She was on her tiptoes, pressed back, wishing she could melt through the wall in order to get away from Sister Ulicia. The pain wouldn’t let up enough for her to catch a breath.

“Do you remember seeing some of the hundreds and hundreds of big, lonely soldiers quartered down in the lower reaches of this place as we were coming up?” Sister Ulicia asked.

Kahlan nodded again.

“Well, if you fail me again, then, when I’m done breaking every bone in your body and making you suffer the agony of a thousand deaths, I’m then going to heal you enough so that I can sell you to those soldiers down there to be their barracks whore. That will be where you spend the rest of your life, being passed from one stranger to another with no one to care what happens to you.”

Kahlan knew that Sister Ulicia never made empty threats. The Sister was absolutely ruthless. Kahlan averted her eyes as she sucked back a sob, unable to stand the Sister’s scrutiny any longer.

Sister Ulicia seized Kahlan’s jaw and turned her face back. “Are you certain that you understand the price should you fail me again?”

Kahlan, her chin held firm, managed to nod.

She felt the pressure pinning her to the wall suddenly release. She collapsed to her knees, gasping with the waves of searing pain all along the left side of her face. She didn’t know if any bones were broken, but it certainly felt like it.

“What’s going on here?” A soldier asked.

Sisters Ulicia and Tovi turned and smiled at the man. He glanced down at Kahlan, frowning. She stared up pleadingly at him, hoping to be rescued from these monsters. The man looked up, his mouth open, about to say something to the Sisters, but then he never did. He looked from Sister Ulicia’s smile to Tovi’s, and smiled himself.

“Is everything all right, ladies?”

“Oh, yes,” Sister Tovi said with a jovial chuckle. “We were just about to have a rest on the bench, here. I was complaining about my backache, that’s all. We were both saying what a nuisance it is to get older.”

“I guess it is.” He bowed his head. “Good day, then, ladies.”

He walked off without ever acknowledging Kahlan’s existence. If he saw her, he forgot about her before he could say anything. Kahlan realized that it was the way she, too, seemed to forget things about herself.

“Get up,” the voice over her growled.

Kahlan struggled to her feet. Sister Ulicia jerked Kahlan’s pack around in front again. She flipped back the flap and dragged out the sinister black box wrapped in Kahlan’s satiny white dress.

She handed the bundle to Sister Tovi. “We’ve already been here too long. We’re starting to draw attention. Take this and get going.”

“But that’s mine!” Kahlan cried out as she grabbed for the dress.

Sister Ulicia backhanded her hard enough to make her teeth slam together. The blow knocked her sprawling. Lying on her side on the floor, Kahlan drew her legs up as she cradled her head in agony. Blood was smeared all over the marble. She shook as the pain bore down and would not let up.

“You want me to leave without you?” Sister Tovi asked as she tucked the box wrapped in the white dress under her arm.

“I think it would be best. It will be safest if we get this box on its way while this worthless bitch goes back to get the others. If it takes as long as the first one, I’d just as soon not have us both standing around here in the hall waiting for soldiers to decide to have a look. We don’t need a battle; we need to slip away without a trace.”

“If we were questioned it wouldn’t do to have them find we had one of the boxes of Orden,” Sister Tovi agreed. “I should just start out, then, and wait for you somewhere? Or keep going until I reach our destination?”

“You’d best not stop for now.” Sister Ulicia motioned Kahlan to her feet as she spoke to Sister Tovi. “Sisters Cecilia, Armina, and I will meet back up with you once we get to where we’re going.”

Sister Tovi leaned a little toward Kahlan as Kahlan staggered to her feet. “I guess that gives you a few days to think about what I’m going to do to you when the rest of you join up with me again, doesn’t it?”

Kahlan could manage only a whisper. “Yes, Sister.”

“Swift journey,” Sister Ulicia said.

After Sister Tovi had rushed off down the wall, taking Kahlan’s beautiful dress with her, Sister Ulicia seized a fistful of Kahlan’s hair and twisted her head close. The Sister’s fingers groped along the side of Kahlan’s face, making her cry out.

“You have broken bones,” she announced after her examination of Kahlan’s injuries. “Complete your mission and I will heal you. Fail, and it will only be the beginning.

“The other Sister and I have a number of other things we must do before our goals are accomplished. So do you. If you complete your task today you will be healed. We would like you to be healthy for those future duties”—Sister Ulicia patted Kahlan’s cheek in a patronizing manner—“but I can always make other arrangements should you fail in this one. Now, hurry up and get me the other two boxes.”

She had no choice, of course. As much pain as she was in, she knew that if she didn’t comply, and soon, then it was only going to be worse for her. Sister Ulicia had shown her that there was always more pain just waiting to be applied. Kahlan knew, too, that there was no escape from the Sisters.

Kahlan wished she could forget the pain like she seemed to have forgotten the rest of her life. It seemed that only the bad parts of her existence remained in the dark vaults of her memory.

With her breath catching on the ragged edge of tears from the throbbing hurt, she pulled her pack back around, slipped her arm through the strap, and hiked the whole thing up on her back.

“And you had better do as I said and bring them both,” Sister Ulicia growled.

Kahlan nodded and rushed off across the broad corridor. Everyone ignored her. It was as if she were invisible. The few people who did look her way only seemed to see her for a fleeting moment, before they, too, forgot that they had ever noticed her.

Kahlan grabbed the bronze skull in both hands and pulled open one of the snake doors. She raced across the plush carpets and was past the guards before they could think to wonder what they had seen. She dashed up the stairs, ignoring soldiers patrolling the halls, some of whom briefly turned her way, as if trying to hold the image of her in their memories, before losing their mental grip of her and going on about their duties. Kahlan felt like a ghost among the living; there, but not.

She grunted with the effort of pulling open one of the gold-clad doors enough to slip inside the garden. She was in so much pain that she could not rush fast enough. She just wanted to get back and have the Sister make the hurt stop. As before, the garden was as quiet as a sanctuary should be. She had no time to notice or enjoy the flowers and trees. She paused on the grass, staring at the two black boxes sitting on the stone slab, momentarily immobilized by the sight of them, and by the thought of what she had been told to do.

More slowly, she closed the rest of the distance, not wanting to ever get there, not wanting to ever have to do what she knew she must. But the agony of the twisting, throbbing pain all along the side of her head drove her on.

Standing before the slab, she finally slipped off her pack and set it down beside the boxes on its back, rather than its bottom. She wiped her runny nose on the back of her sleeve. Gently, she caressed the side of her face, fearing to touch it and make it hurt worse, but at the same time aching to comfort the throbbing pain. She almost fainted when she felt something jagged sticking out. She didn’t know if it was a splinter from Sister Ulicia’s broken oak rod, or if it was a splinter of bone. Either way, she felt light-headed and thought she might vomit.

Knowing she had little time, she crossed one arm across her stomach and with the other hand began untying the leather thongs holding her bedroll to the bottom of her pack. Her fingers were slick with blood, making the task of untying the knots more difficult. She finally had to resort to using both hands. When she at last had them undone, she carefully unfurled her bedroll and took out what lay inside, setting it on the stone slab so as to make room for the loathsome black boxes. She sucked in a sob, trying not to think of what she was leaving behind.

Kahlan forced herself to set to work wrapping the two remaining boxes in her bedroll. When she was finished, she laced up the thongs, securely fastening them to insure that the boxes would not fall out. At last finished, she swung the pack onto her back again and reluctantly started across the open area of bare ground in the center of the immense indoor garden.

As she crossed the ring of grass, she paused and turned, looking back through her watery vision at what she was leaving on the stone slab in place of the boxes.

It was the most precious thing she had.

And now she was leaving it behind.

Overwhelmed and unable to go on, feeling more hopeless and helpless than she could ever remember feeling, Kahlan sank to her knees in the grass.

She crumpled forward as she broke down sobbing. She hated her life. She hated living. The thing she loved most was being left behind because of those evil women.

Kahlan wept uncontrollably, gripping the shaggy grass in her fists. She didn’t want to leave it. But if she didn’t, Sister Ulicia would never let her get away with violating such a direct order. Kahlan sobbed at how sorry she felt for herself, for her helpless situation.

No one but the Sisters knew her, or even knew that she existed.

If only just one person would remember her.

If only the Lord Rahl would come to his garden and save her.

If only, if only, if only. What good was wishing?

She pushed herself up then and, sitting back on her heels, stared off through the tears at the granite slab, at what she had left standing there.

No one was going to save her.

She didn’t used to be this way. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she knew. Somewhere in her dim, vanished past, it seemed like she used to be able to depend on herself, on her own strength, to survive. She didn’t used to waste her time lamenting “If only.”

Staring across the garden, Lord Rahl’s beautiful, peaceful garden, she drew strength from what she saw standing there now, and, at the same time, from somewhere deep inside herself. She had to do that now—be resolute, as she was sure she used to be. She had to somehow be strong for herself, for her own sake.

Kahlan somehow had to save herself.

What stood there now was no longer hers. It would be her gift to Richard Rahl in exchange for the nobility of life—her life—that she had remembered in his garden.

“Master Rahl guide us,” she quoted from the devotion. “Thank you, Master Rahl, for guiding me this day, for guiding me back to what I mean to myself.”

She swiped the backs of her wrists across her eyes, wiping away the tears and blood. She had to be strong or the Sisters would defeat her. They would take everything from her. Then they would win.

Kahlan couldn’t let them do that.

She remembered then, and touched the necklace she wore. She turned the small stone between a finger and thumb. This, at least, was still hers. She still had the necklace.

Kahlan struggled to her feet and straightened under the weight of the pack. She first had to get back so that Sister Ulicia would at least heal the injury she had inflicted. Kahlan would willingly take that help because she would then be able to go on and find a way to succeed.

With a last look back, she finally turned and headed for the door.

She knew now that she couldn’t surrender her will to them, to their belief that they had a right to her life. They might defeat her, but it couldn’t be because she allowed it.

But even if she lost her life in the end, she knew now that they would not defeat her spirit.