Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 10

Kahlan kept an arm protectively around Jillian as they followed closely behind Jagang. The emperor’s entourage made its way through the sprawling encampment to the silent awe of some, and the cheers of many. Some chanted Jagang’s name as he passed, shouting encouragement for his leadership in their fight to exterminate opposition to the Imperial Order, while many more lauded him as “Jagang the Just.” It never failed to dishearten her that so many could view him—or the Fellowship of Order itself—as custodians of justice.

From time to time Jillian’s trusting, copper-colored eyes gazed up at Kahlan with gratitude for the shelter. Kahlan felt somewhat ashamed of her pretense of protection when she knew that in reality she could offer little safety to the girl. Worse, Kahlan might very well end up being the cause of any harm that came to Jillian.

No. She reminded herself that she would not be the cause of such harm, should it come to pass. Jagang, as advocate for the corrupt beliefs of the Fellowship of Order and the champion of unjust justice, would be the cause. The twisted beliefs of the Order justified, in their minds, any injustice in aid to their ends. Kahlan was not responsible—in part or in whole—for evil committed by others. They were answerable for their own actions.

She told herself that she mustn’t allow herself to shift blame from the guilty to the victim. One of the hallmarks of the people plying evil beliefs was to always blame the victim. That was their game and she would not allow herself to play it.

Still, it broke Kahlan’s heart that Jillian was once more a terrified captive of these brutes. These people from the Old World who would harm innocent people in the name of a greater good were traitors to the very concept of good. They were not capable of sincere feelings of heartache because they did not value good; they resented it. Rather than seeking values, it was a kind of corrosive envy that guided their actions.

Kahlan’s only real satisfaction since being captured by Jagang had been that she had managed to engineer an escape for Jillian. Now even that was lost.

As they marched through the camp, Jillian’s arm tightly circled Kahlan’s waist, her fingers clutched at Kahlan’s shirt. It was obvious that while the sinister nature of the soldiers all around them frightened her, she was more terrified of Jagang’s personal guards. It had been men like these who had hunted her down. She had managed to evade them for quite a while but, despite how well she knew the deserted ruins of the ancient city of Caska, she was still a child and no match for a search carried out by such determined and experienced men. Now that Jillian was a prisoner in the sprawling encampment, Kahlan knew that she had little chance of again helping the girl escape the clutches of the Order’s men.

As they walked through the mud and refuse, weaving around the disorder of tents, wagons, and piles of gear and supplies, Kahlan turned Jillian’s face up and saw that at least the cut had stopped bleeding. One of the collection of plundered rings that Jagang wore had been responsible for the jagged gash over the bone of Jillian’s cheek. If only that were her biggest worry. Kahlan smoothed her hand over the girl’s head in response to a brave smile.

Jagang had momentarily been quite pleased to have back a girl who had dared escape from him—and to have yet another means to torment and control Kahlan—but he had been more interested in learning all he could about the discovery down in the pit. It seemed to Kahlan that he knew something more about whatever it was that was buried than he was revealing. For one thing, he had not been as surprised by the find as she would have expected. He seemed to take the discovery in stride.

Once he had seen to it that the area had been cordoned off and cleared of the regular soldiers, he gave strict instructions to the officers to seek him out immediately once they had breached the stone walls and gotten inside whatever it was that was planted so deep in the Azrith Plain. Once he was satisfied that everyone understood exactly how he wanted the discovery handled, and that everyone there was working diligently toward those ends, his attention had quickly turned to seeing a bit of the opening games of the tournaments. He was eager to appraise some of the eventual competition to his own team.

Kahlan had been forced to go with him to Ja’La games before. She wasn’t looking forward to going again, primarily because the excitement and violence of the games put him in a stormy mood laced with savage carnal desires. Ordinarily the man was terrifying enough, capable of instantaneous and brutal violence, but when he was in an agitated, aroused mood after a day at Ja’La games he was altogether more intractable and willful.

After the first time they’d gone to watch games the focus of his depraved lust had been Kahlan. She had fought her panic, finally coming to accept that he was going to do what he was going to do and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had finally gone numb to the terror of being under him, resigning herself to the inevitable. She had turned her eyes away from his lecherous gaze and freed her mind go to another place, telling herself that she would save her hot rage until the time was right, until a time when it would serve some purpose.

But then he’d stopped short.

“I want you to know who you are when I do this,” he had told her. “I want you to know what I mean to you when I do this. I want you to hate this more than you have ever hated anything in your entire life.

“But you have to remember who you are, you have to know everything, if this is to truly be rape . . . and I intend it to be the worst rape you can suffer, a rape that will give you a child that he will see as a reminder, as a monster.”

Kahlan didn’t know who the “he” was.

“For it to be all of that,” Jagang had told her, “you have to be fully aware of who you are, and everything this will mean to you, everything it will touch, everything it will harm, everything it will taint for all time.”

The idea of how much worse such a violation would be for her then was more important to him than sating his immediate urges. That alone spoke volumes about the man’s craving for revenge, and about how much she had engendered his lust for it.

Patience was a quality that made Jagang all the more dangerous. He could easily be impulsive, but it was a mistake to think that he could be lured into becoming reckless.

Feeling the need to make her understand his greater purpose, Jagang had explained that it was much the same as the way he punished people who angered him. If he killed such people, he’d pointed out, they would be dead and unable to suffer, but if he made them endure agonizing pain then they would wish for death and he could deny it. Witnessing their endless torment, he could be sure of their great regret for their crimes, of their insufferable grief for all that was lost to them.

That, he’d told her, was what he had in store for her: the torture of regret and utter loss. Her lack of memory left her dead to those things, so he would wait until the proper time. Having reined in his immediate urges in favor of greater ambitions when she finally remembered everything, he had filled his bed with a variety of other women captives.

Kahlan hoped that Jillian was too young for his tastes. She wouldn’t be, Kahlan knew, if she were to do anything to give him cause.

As they moved through crowds of soldiers cheering for a game already under way, the royal guards forcefully shoved any men out of the way they judged to be too close to the emperor. Several men who didn’t move willingly enough, or quickly enough, got an elbow that nearly cracked their skulls. One burly drunk in a sour disposition, who didn’t intend on being shoved aside for anyone, even an emperor, turned on the advancing royal guards. As the soldier stood his ground, growling bold threats, he was eviscerated with one swift scything cut from a curved knife. The incident didn’t slow the royal party a single step. Kahlan shielded Jillian’s eyes from the sight of the man’s insides spilled in their path.

Since it had stopped raining, Kahlan pushed the hood of her cloak back off her head. Dark clouds scudded low over the Azrith Plain, adding to the suffocating feeling of being closed in. The thick, murky overcast suggested that the first damp, cold day of winter would offer no chance of sunlight. It felt like the whole world was gradually descending into a cold, numb, everlasting gloom.

When they reached the edge of the Ja’La field, Kahlan rose up on her toes, looking over or around the shoulders of the guards, trying to see the faces of the men already in the thick of play. When she realized that she was stretching in order to see the game, she immediately lowered herself back down. The last thing she wanted was for Jagang to ask her why she was suddenly so interested in Ja’La.

She wasn’t really interested in the game, but she was interested in seeing if she could spot the man with the gray eyes, the man who had deliberately tripped and fallen in the mud so as to hide his face from Jagang—or maybe Sister Ulicia.

If the rain didn’t return, it was soon going to be hard for the man to maintain a muddy face to hide his identity. Even with rain and mud Jagang would quickly become suspicious if the point man for Commander Karg’s team walked around all the time with a muddy face. Then the man would find that the mud, rather than hiding him, only attracted Jagang’s suspicion. Kahlan fretted about what would happen then.

Many of the men watching the game cheered and shouted encouragement when the point man for one of the teams made it into the opposing team’s territory. Blockers rushed in to prevent the man from gaining any more ground. The onlookers roared as the players toppled one another while other men scrambled to protect their territory.

Ja’La was a game in which men ran, dodged, and darted past one another, or blocked, or chased the man with the broc—a heavy, leather-covered ball a little smaller than a man’s head—trying to capture it, or attack with it, or score with it. Men often fell or were knocked from their feet. Rolling across the ground without shirts, many were soon left slick not just with sweat, but with blood.

The square Ja’La fields were marked out in a grid. In each corner was a goal, two for each team. The only man who could score, and only when it was his team’s timed turn, was the point man, and even then he had to do so from within a specific section of the grid on the opponents’ side of the field. From that scoring zone, an area running across the width of the field, he could throw the broc toward either of the rivals’ goal nets.

It wasn’t easy to score. It was a throw of some distance and the goal nets weren’t large.

To make it all the more difficult, the opposing players could block the throw of the heavy broc. They could also knock the point man back out of the shooting zone—or even tackle him—as he tried to score. The broc could also be used as a kind of weapon to knock interfering players out of the way. The point man’s team could try to clear the opposing players from in front of a goal net, or they could protect him from blockers so that he could try to find an opening in one net or the other so that he could make a shot, or they could split up and try to do both. Each strategy for each side had its advantages and disadvantages.

There was also a line far back from the regular shooting zone from where the point man could attempt a throw. If such a shot went in, his team scored two points rather than the usual single point, but shots were rarely wasted at such a distance because the chance for interception was so much greater, while at the same time the chance of making such the shot was negligible. Such attempts were usually made only out of desperation, such as a last-ditch effort by the team that was behind, trying to score before time ran out.

If the opposing team tackled the point man, then, and only then, were his wing men allowed to recover the broc and attempt to score. If any attempt to score missed the net and the broc went out of bounds, then the team on offense got the broc back, but it was returned to them on their own side of the field. From there they had to start the running attack all over again. All the while their timed turn with the broc continued to run down.

On a few squares on the field the attacking point man was safe from the threat of being tackled and having the broc stripped away from him. Those squares, though, could easily become dangerous islands where he could become trapped and unable to advance. He could, though, pass the broc to a wing man and once on the charge get it back again.

On the rest of the squares, and in the regular scoring zone, the defending team could capture or steal the broc in an attempt to prevent the attacking team from scoring. If the defending team captured the broc, though, they couldn’t score with it until their turn of the hourglass, their turn at attack, but they could try to keep possession in order to deny the team whose turn it was a chance to score. The attacking team had to get it back if they were to score. Fights over possession of the broc could get bloody.

An hourglass timed each team’s turn of play—each side’s timed chance to score. If an hourglass wasn’t available, other timing means, such as a bucket of water with a hole in it, could be used. The rules of the game could in certain instances be rather complicated, but in general they were very loose. It often seem to Kahlan that there were no rules—other than the major rule that a team could score only during their timed turn.

The timed-play rule prevented any one team from dominating the possession of the broc and kept the game moving. It was a fast-paced, exhausting game, with constant back-and-forth play and no real time to rest.

Because it was so difficult to make a point, teams rarely scored more than three or four points in a game. At this level of play the concluding gap in the final score was usually only a point or two.

A prescribed number of turns of the hourglass for each side made up the official time of the game, but if the score was even at the end of those turns then play continued, no matter how many more turns of the hourglass were needed, until one team scored another point. When that finally happened the other team then had but one turn of the hourglass to try to match the point. If they failed, the game was over. If they made the point, the other team got another turn. The extended play went on in that fashion until a team scored without an answering point within the one-following-play rule. For that reason, no Ja’La dh Jin game could ever end in a tie. There was always a winner, always a loser.

With or without tie-breaking play, when the game was over the losing team was brought out onto the field and each man was flogged. A terrible whip made up of a bundle of knotted leather cords bound together at the handle end was used to mete out the punishment. Each of those leather cords was tipped with heavy nuggets of metal. The men were given one lash for each point by which they’d lost. The crowd enthusiastically counted out each lash to each man on the losing team kneeling in the center of the field. The winners often cavorted around the perimeter of the field, showing off for the crowd, while the losers, with bowed heads, received their whipping.

With such bitter rivalry between teams the flogging always ended up being a grim sight. The players, after all, had been selected specifically for their belligerent brutality, not merely their skill at playing.

The crowds who watched the Ja’La games expected bloody matches. The female camp followers watching from the sidelines weren’t in the least bit put off by the blood. If anything, it made them all the more eager to catch the attention of favorite players. To the people of the Old World, blood and sex were inextricably linked—whether it was a Ja’La match, or the sacking of a city.

If there wasn’t much blood during the game the crowd could get riled, believing that the teams weren’t really trying hard enough. Kahlan once saw Jagang order the execution of a team because he thought they hadn’t fought hard enough. The teams who had played on the bloody field after the executions had thrown themselves into the match.

The more brutal the players were—from the crowd’s standpoint—the better. Legs and arms were frequently broken, as were skulls. Those who had previously killed an opponent in a Ja’La match were well known and widely acclaimed. Such men were idolized and entered the field at the beginning of games to the wild cheers of the spectators. The women seeking to be with the players after a match strongly favored being with such dominant men.

To the Imperial Order, the Game of Life was a blood sport.

Kahlan moved up close behind Jagang as he stood near the edge of the field at midpoint. The game had already gotten under way while they had still been back at the construction site.

The royal guards flanked Jagang’s sides and guarded his back. Kahlan’s own special guards surrounded her close enough to be sure she didn’t try to wander away. She suspected that the heated emotions of the fans, as well as their drinking, held the potential for more than a little trouble.

Still, Jagang, despite the show of force by his guards, was a man who did not fear trouble. He had won rule by brute force; he held on to it by being absolutely ruthless. There were few, even among the largest of his guard, who were his equal in sheer brawn, to say nothing of his skill and experience as a warrior. Kahlan suspected that he could easily crush a man’s skull in one bare hand. On top of that, the man was a dream walker. He could probably have strolled alone among the meanest of drunken soldiers and had nothing to fear.

Out on the field the teams came together in a great crash of bone and muscle. Kahlan watched the point man as he lost the broc when hit from both sides at once. On one knee, he held a hand over his ribs as he panted, trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t the man she was looking for.

The horn blew, signifying the end of that turn of play. The fans of the other team cheered wildly at the failure to score. The referee walked the broc to the other end of the field and gave it to the point man on the other team. Kahlan let out a silent sigh. That wasn’t him, either. As the hourglass was turned over the horn blew again. The point man and his team started their run downfield. The opposing team started their run to defend their goals.

The crash of flesh was horrific. One of the players screamed in pain. Jillian, behind the wall of guards and unable to see much of what was happening on the field, still shrank from the sound of the screams. She pressed herself all the harder against Kahlan. Play continued even as the fallen player was dragged from the field by the referee’s assistants.

Jagang, having seen enough, turned and started off toward the next Ja’La field. The men in the crowd, all pushing and shoving as they tried to see the game, parted for the emperor leaving their game. The crowd was huge, even though in such a camp it constituted only a small fraction of the men.

The construction of the ramp continued despite the games. Most of the men working on it would have plenty of time, once their shift was over, to see other games that were to go on throughout the day and evening. From what Kahlan could gather from bits of conversation, there were a lot of teams contending for the right to eventually play the emperor’s team. The tournaments constituted a welcome diversion for men with nothing to do but endure endless days of working and the interminable siege of the People’s Palace.

It was a long trek through the cheering, shouting, booing men watching the game the emperor was leaving behind. Making their way through the muddy, filthy, reeking camp, they eventually arrived at the next Ja’La field. An area had been roped off for the emperor and his party of guards. Jagang and a number of officers who had joined him talked at length about the teams who were about to play. Apparently, the game they’d left was between lesser-ranked teams. This game, though, was supposed to be between men who were for some reason expected to offer a better show.

The two point men were just arriving at center field to draw straws to determine which team would get the chance at first play. A hush fell over the crowd as they waited. The point men both drew a straw from a bunch the referee held out in his fist. The two men held up their straws. The man with the short straw cursed. The winning point man held the straw high as he cried out in triumph. His fellow players and the crowd favoring his team sent up a thunderous cheer.

The long straw give him the choice of taking the broc on the first play or giving it to the man who had pulled the short straw. Of course, no team ever gave up their chance to be first to score a point. Scoring first augured well for their prospect of victory.

From what Kahlan overheard from the soldiers and guards around her, it was believed by most that the Game of Life was won or lost by that very first draw of a straw. That straw, they believed, revealed what fate had in store.

Neither point man was the one Kahlan was looking for.

As the game started, it became obvious that these men were better than those playing in the last game. The tackles were wild efforts. Men threw themselves through the air in desperate attempts to make contact—either to take out the point man or to protect him. The point man, besides running with the broc, used its weight to help knock a man out of his way. As another man closed on him, he heaved the broc with all his might at close range. The blocker grunted with the weight of the impact of the broc and fell. The fans rooted and hooted. One of the wing men scooped up the broc and tossed it to the point man as they charged across the field.

“I’m sorry,” Jillian whispered up to Kahlan while the guards, officers, and Jagang all watched the game, some of them commenting on the players.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jillian. You did your best.”

“But you did so much. I wish I was as good as you and then—”

“Shush, now. I’m a captive, too. We both are no match for these men.”

Jillian smiled just a little, then. “I’m at least glad to be with you.”

Kahlan returned the smile in kind. She glanced at her guards. They were caught up in watching the excitement of the game.

“I’ll try to think of a way to get us out of this,” she whispered. From time to time Jillian peeked out between the big men to try to see what was happening on the field. When Kahlan noticed Jillian rubbing her bare arms and that she was beginning to shiver in the cold, she wrapped her cloak protectively around the girl, sharing her warmth with her.

As time wore on, each team scored a point. With the game tied, time almost out, and both teams unable to gain much of an advantage, Kahlan knew that it might last quite a while in overtime play until a winner was decided.

It didn’t take as long as she’d thought it would nor did it need to go into overtime. The point man of one team was tackled low from behind while at the same time another blocker, in a coordinated attack, flew in from the front, hitting him square in the chest with a lowered shoulder. The point man went limp and hit the ground hard. The tackle looked like it might very well have broken the man’s back. The crowd went wild.

Kahlan turned Jillian’s face away and pressed it in against her instead. “Don’t watch.”

Jillian, on the edge of tears, nodded. “I don’t know why they like such cruel games.”

“Because they are cruel people,” Kahlan murmured.

Another man was designated point man as their fallen leader was carried away to a deafening roar of satisfaction on the one side, and angry yells on the other. The two sides of onlookers seemed on the verge of combat, but when play swiftly resumed they were quickly caught up in the fast-paced action.

The team who had lost the point man fought desperately, but it soon became apparent that they were fighting a losing battle. The new point man was not the equal of the man they’d lost. When the last regular play of the hourglass was finished they had lost by two points—a resounding victory for the other team. Such a point spread, as well as eliminating the opposing point man in such savage fashion, would add greatly to the winning team’s reputation.

Jagang and the officers looked to be pleased with the results of the game. It had proven to have had all the elements of brutality, blood, and ruthless triumph that they believed Ja’La dh Jin should have. The guards, intoxicated with the murderous ferocity of the play, whispered among themselves, going over what they had liked best about some of the more violent clashes. The crowd, already worked up by the game, was excited all the more by the ensuing whippings. They were fired up, eagerly anticipating the next game.

As they waited, they began a rhythmic chant, impatiently urging the next teams out. They clapped their hands in time to their monotone cries for action.

One of the teams emerged from the crowd at the far end of the field on the right. By the way they cheered, the crowd recognized a favored team. Each player raised a fist over his head as they strutted in a circle around the field, showing off for their fans. Men in the crowd, as well as the women camp followers, cheered the team they knew and supported.

One of Jagang’s guards standing not far in front of Kahlan commented to the man next to him that this team was more than merely good, and he expected that they would badly maul their foe. By the hooting of the crowd, most onlookers seemed to be of the same mind. Apparently, this was a popular team with the kind of hostile reputation the men of Imperial Order liked and remembered. After the previous game, the mob of soldiers was aroused and eager for blood.

The vast crush of soldiers all stretched, craning their necks to see the other team as they finally made their way out through the crowd on the left. They emerged in single file, no fists raised, no show of bravado.

Kahlan stared in surprise along with everyone else. A hush fell over the crowd. No one cheered.

They were too astonished to cheer.