Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 23

Nicci saw that there was a Rada’Han around Kahlan’s neck. That would explain why she seemed to be planted on the faded blue and beige carpet. Her gaze didn’t miss the collar that Nicci wore. Nicci didn’t think that this woman’s gaze missed much.

A tentative look haunted Kahlan’s green eyes as they stared at each other. It was a ghost of cautious encouragement brought about by her awareness that Nicci could actually see her. They were instantly sisters in more than one way, sharing more than just having collars around their necks.

How lonely and forlorn it must be to exist unseen and forgotten at the center of such a wicked spell.

Unseen, anyway, by anyone other than Sisters of the Dark—and, apparently, Jagang. It had to be a cause for hope that another person, even a stranger, could see her.

Looking at her now, Nicci could hardly believe that she could ever have forgotten this woman, even with the Chainfire spell. She could clearly see why Richard had never for an instant given up on finding her.

This woman, even discounting her exquisite beauty, had a presence about her, an insightful awareness, that Nicci instantly recognized from the statue that Richard had carved. That statue, called Spirit, had not been meant to look like Kahlan, but to represent her abiding strength, her inner courage. It did that in a way that, seeing the real thing, nearly took Nicci’s breath.

She was beginning to see why, even at her relatively young age, Kahlan had been named the Mother Confessor. Now, though, there were no other Confessors. She was the last.

At first surprised to find Kahlan there, Nicci realized that it only made sense. Sister Armina had been one of the Sisters who had captured Kahlan and ignited the Chainfire spell. Sister Tovi had told Nicci that they had managed to evade Jagang by using the bond to Richard. While she supposed that Jagang might have somehow managed to get past that bond, Nicci thought that it made more sense that the bond had never actually protected them in the first place.

If Jagang had captured Sister Armina he would have Sisters Ulicia and Cecilia as well. That had to be why Kahlan was there; she had been held by those Sisters so she, too, would have been swept up in Jagang’s net.

Nicci saw that Jillian was there as well. The girl’s copper-colored eyes blinked in surprise to see Nicci standing there before her. While it made sense for Kahlan to be there, Nicci couldn’t fathom why Jillian was.

Jillian leaned in close to Kahlan, cupped a hand to her ear, and whispered something—undoubtedly Nicci’s name. Kahlan responded only with a slight nod, but her eyes revealed a great deal more. She had heard Nicci’s name before.

When Jagang tossed the book he was studying on a bedside table, Nicci quickly pointed with two fingers between Kahlan’s eyes and her own, then used one to cross her lips, urging silence. Nicci didn’t want Jagang knowing that she could see Kahlan, or even that she knew Jillian. The less he knew, the safer those two would be—if being a captive of Emperor Jagang could in any sense be said to be safe. Without waiting for confirmation, Nicci looked away from Kahlan and Jillian to face Jagang.

When he turned around, fixing his black gaze on her, Nicci thought she might faint. It was one thing to remember him, quite another to be standing there before him.

To once again find herself under the scrutiny of those nightmare eyes crushed her courage.

She knew what lay ahead for her.

“Well, well,” Jagang said as he made his way around the bed, his gaze fixed on her. “Look who has returned at long last.” He smiled broadly. “You are as beautiful as every dream I’ve had of you since you were last here with me.”

Nicci wasn’t surprised by the approach he’d taken, nor did it indicate anything meaningful. Never knowing how he would react kept those around him in a state of constant dread. His anger could be sparked at any time by the smallest thing, or nothing at all. Nicci had seen him strangle a slave to death for dropping a breadboard, and yet on another occasion she’d seen him pick up a dropped plate of lamb and casually hand it back to the servant who had dropped it without missing a beat in his conversation.

In no small sense, this capricious quality in the emperor only reflected the same irrational, unpredictable, incomprehensible behavior of the Order itself. The virtue—the very adequacy—of one’s self-sacrifice for the cause was measured against unseen, inscrutable, unknowable standards. Fortune or misfortune always seemed to hang on a whim. For a population, that perpetual gnawing doubt was debilitating. The deadweight of constant tension left people ready to accuse anyone of sedition—even friends or family—if only it would keep the talons of fate at bay.

Like any number of other men, Jagang also thought he could win Nicci’s affection with a little empty flattery. He liked to imagine that he could be charming. The form his praise took, though, revealed more about his values than hers.

Nicci did not bow. She was acutely aware of the metal collar around her neck that prevented her from using her gift. While she had no defense against this man, she wasn’t going to pretend respect by bowing, nor would she fawn at his finely framed lust.

In the past, despite her ability to use her Han, her real safety had always been her indifference to what he might do to her. During those times when he had been able to enter her mind, and she’d had no collar around her neck, her abilities as a sorceress had been of no help to her, just as his other captive Sisters were now helpless despite the fact that none of them wore a collar.

Her protection had always been in her attitude, not her gift.

Before, Nicci simply hadn’t cared if he hurt her, or even if he might at any time decide to kill her. She thought she deserved any suffering he might inflict and she didn’t care if she died. That left her indifferent to the ever-present possibility that the whim of murder might strike him.

Even though all of that had changed because of Richard, she couldn’t allow Jagang to know how much it had changed. Her only chance, her only defense, was to make him think that nothing had changed in her attitude, that she cared no more about what might happen to her now than she had in the past.

Death’s Mistress would not care if she could use her power or not. To Death’s Mistress a collar meant nothing.

Jagang lightly drew the long braided hair growing under his lower lip between his finger and thumb. His gaze took in the length of her. He let out a deep breath, as if considering what he would do with her first.

She didn’t have long to wait.

He abruptly backhanded her hard enough to send her flying. When she landed her head hit the floor but, fortunately, the thick carpets cushioned the impact. It felt as if the muscles of her jaw had been ripped and the bone shattered. The shock of the blow stunned her senseless.

Even though the room seemed to be spinning and tilting, she was determined to make herself return to her feet. Death’s Mistress did not cower. Death’s Mistress faced death indifferently.

Once up on her knees, she wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with the inside of a wrist as she worked to find her balance. Her jaw, despite the pain, seemed to be intact. She struggled to get her feet under her.

Before she managed to stand, Jillian rushed up between Nicci and Jagang.

“You leave her be!”

As Jagang planted his fists on his hips, glaring at the girl, Nicci stole a glance at Kahlan. Nicci recognized the glaze of pain in the woman’s eyes. By the way her fingers trembled, Nicci knew exactly what kind of pain Jagang was giving her through the collar. Such preemptive agony was meant to keep her where she was, keep her from interfering.

Nicci judged it to be, from Jagang’s perspective, a wise decision.

As far back as she could remember, Nicci had been able to appraise people and to do so quickly. It had become a valuable talent, since survival in violent encounters often depended on the accurate evaluation of those she faced. Nicci could tell just by looking at Kahlan that she was a dangerous woman, a woman who was used to interfering.

Jagang snatched Jillian by the back of her neck and lifted her like a troublesome kitten. She squealed—more in fright than pain—as he held her aloft and marched her across the room. She clawed at his big hands to no effect. Her feet kicked at empty air. Jagang lifted aside the heavy, padded wool hanging covering the opening into his bedchamber and tossed Jillian out.

“Armina! Watch the child. I want to be alone with my queen.”

Nicci could just see Sister Armina corral Jillian in her arms and draw her back into the darkness. A quick glance revealed Kahlan still in the same place on the rug, her whole body trembling slightly. A tear of agony ran down across her cheek. Nicci wondered if Jagang was even aware of how much pain he was giving Kahlan. He didn’t know his own strength—in more ways than one. His unchecked anger tended to be universal, encompassing not just his muscle, but his mental ability as well.

In the past he’d frequently beat Nicci more severely than he’d intended or, in a blind rage, used his ability as a dream walker to inflict what could easily have been a lethal dose of pain. Later, after he realized how close he’d come to killing her, he would apologize but eventually end up by saying that it had been her own fault for making him so angry.

As Jagang dropped the hanging, closing off his bedchamber, Kahlan’s tense muscles suddenly slackened. She sagged, panting in relief, looking hardly able to move after the silent ordeal.

“So,” Jagang said as he turned back to Nicci, “do you love him?”

Nicci blinked. “What?”

His face went red with rage as he closed on her. “What do you mean, what! You heard me!” He seized a fistful of her hair as he leaned to within inches of her. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t understand me or I’ll rip your head off!”

Nicci smiled, lifting her chin as best she could, exposing her throat to him. “Please do. It will save us both a great deal of trouble.”

He glared a moment before releasing her hair. He smoothed it down, back into place, before he turned and moved off a few paces.

“Is that what you want? To die?” He turned back. “To abandon your duty to the Creator and the Order? To abandon your duty to me?”

Nicci shrugged indifferently. “Doesn’t matter much what I want, now, does it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know very well what it means. Since when has it mattered to you in the least what I want? You’re going to do what you want regardless of what I might have to say about it. After all, I am just a subject of the Order, am I not? I’d say that what you want is what you’ve always wanted—to finally kill me.”

“Kill you?” He spread his arms. “What makes you think I want to kill you?”

“Your self-indulgent actions.”

“Self-indulgent?” He glared at her askance. “I am hardly self-indulgent. I am Jagang the Just.”

“Are you forgetting that it was I who gave you that title? I did so not because it reflected any truth, but to counter the truth—to create an image that would serve the purposes of the Order. I am the one who created that image for you, knowing that unthinking people would believe it simply because we proclaimed it. You wouldn’t know how to fill the role if your life depended on it.”

The cloudy shapes in his eyes shifted in an inky darkness that reminded her of the underworld—black box of Orden she had put into play in Richard’s name.

“I don’t know how you can say such things, Nicci. I have always been more than just with you. I have given you things I have given no other. Why would I do that if I wanted to kill you?”

Nicci sighed impatiently. “Just say what you want to say, or bash in my skull, or send me off to the torture tents. I’m not much interested in playing this game with you. You believe what you wish to believe regardless of reality. You know and I know that what I might have to say about anything is not really going to make any difference.”

“What you say has always made a difference.” He lifted a hand toward her as the heat in his voice also rose. “Look at what you just said about naming me Jagang the Just. That was your idea. I listened to it and used it because it was a good idea. It served our ends. You did well. I told you before that when this war is won you will sit at my side.”

Nicci didn’t answer him.

He clasped his hands behind his back as he took a few steps away.

“Do you love him?”

Nicci stole a glance to the side. Kahlan sat on the carpet, watching her. Kahlan’s face was etched with concern for the sense of threat in the air. It looked as if she would like to tell Nicci to stop provoking the man. Yet, while she obviously looked worried for what Jagang was going to do, she also looked interested in the answer to the emperor’s question.

Nicci’s head spun as she tried to think of how to respond—not out of concern for what Jagang might think of the answer, but out of worry for what Kahlan might. There was the Chainfire spell to consider, the need for a sterile field that Nicci had to take into account. The way it now seemed she would likely be dead by then, but if Richard ever somehow managed to get a chance to use Orden to counter the Chainfire event, Kahlan had to remain a sterile field if he was to have a chance to restore her to who she once had been.

“Do you?” Jagang repeated without looking back at her.

Nicci finally concluded that, for the purpose of maintaining a sterile field, it wouldn’t make any difference how she answered the question. It would not introduce any emotional precondition on Kahlan. It was Kahlan’s emotional connection with Richard, not Nicci’s, that mattered.

“My feelings have never burdened you before,” Nicci finally said, irritably. “What difference could it make to you?”

He turned back to stare at her. “What difference? How can you ask such a thing? I made you as good as my queen. You asked me to trust you and allow you to go off to eliminate Lord Rahl. I wished you to remain here but instead I let you go. I trusted you.”

“So you say. If you really trusted me then you would trust me, not interrogate me. It would seem that you have difficulty understanding the concept represented by the word.”

“That was a year and a half ago. I haven’t seen you since. I’ve had no word.”

“You saw me with Tovi.”

He nodded. “I saw a lot of things through Tovi’s eyes—through the eyes of all four of these women.”

“They thought they were clever enough to use the bond to the Lord Rahl.” Nicci smiled slightly. “But you were watching them the whole time. You knew everything.”

He smiled with her. “You always were smarter than Ulicia and the rest of them.” He arched an eyebrow. “I trusted you when you said that you were going off to kill Richard Rahl. Instead, you end up having no trouble making the bond work for you. How is that possible, darlin? Such a bond would only work if you were devoted to him. Would you like to explain it to me?”

Nicci folded her arms. “I fail to see how it could be at all difficult to grasp. You destroy; he creates. You offer an existence devoted to death; he offers life. They aren’t empty words—from either of you. He never beat me bloody, or raped me.”

Jagang’s face, and his shaved head, went scarlet with rage. “Rape? If I wanted to rape you I would—and by right—but it isn’t rape. You wanted it. You’re just too stubborn to admit it. You hide your lustful desires for me behind feigned outrage.”

Nicci’s arms slipped to her sides as she leaned toward him as she spoke through rage of her own. “You can invent things to justify your actions all you want, but that does not make them true.”

With a murderous expression twisting his features, he turned away from the sight of her. Nicci fully expected him to suddenly round on her and hit her hard enough to break her skull. She wanted him to. A quick end was far preferable to drawn-out torture on the way to a slow death.

The myriad strident sounds from out in the night all around were muted by the thickly padded tent walls. To be out of the constant din of the camp was a luxury. Outside, the ground crawled with vermin. Inside the emperor’s tent there were slaves who constantly plucked up the roaches. The scented oils in the tent also covered some of the stench that hung thick in the air.

In a certain sense the emperor’s tent might seem to be a peaceful refuge, but it wasn’t. It was actually one of the most dangerous places in the entire camp. The emperor held absolute power of life and death. No matter what Jagang chose to do, he would never be questioned or challenged.

“So,” Jagang finally said, his back still to her, “answer my question. Do you love him?”

Nicci wiped a weary hand over her brow. “Since when have you cared what my feelings were? It’s never interfered with your ability to rape me.”

“Why this nonsense about rape all of a sudden!” he roared as he took a long stride back toward her. “You know that I have feelings for you! And I know that you have feelings for me!”

Nicci didn’t bother to answer. He was right in that she had never presented such objections to him before. She hadn’t known how to object. In that past she hadn’t believed that her life was her own. How could she object to the Order using her to their ends? Further, how could she object to the leader of the Order using her to his ends?

Because of Richard she had come to grasp that her life was her own. That meant that her body, too, was her own and she didn’t have to give it to anyone if she didn’t want to.

“I know what you’re doing, Nicci.” His hands fisted again. “You’re just using him to try to make me jealous. You’re using your womanly ways to get me to throw you on that bed and rip off your clothes—that’s what you’re really after and we both know it! You’re using him as a way to lure me into heated passion for you. It’s really me you want, but you hide your true passions behind protests of rape.”

Nicci coolly appraised his heated expression. “You are getting bad advice from your testicles.”

He drew back a fist. She stood her ground, glaring into the cloudy shapes shifting across the midnight landscape of his eyes.

The hand finally dropped to his side. “I have offered you what I have offered no other—to be as good as my queen, to be above all others. Richard Rahl can offer you nothing. Only I can offer you all that an emperor can offer. Only I can offer you a part in the power that will rule the world.”

Nicci swept an arm around at the royal tent. “Ah, the glamour of embracing evil. All mine if only I will give up my thinking mind and proclaim utter inequity to be a virtue.”

“I offered you the power to rule with me!”

Nicci shot him a cold glare as she let her arm drop. “No, you offered me the duty of being your whore and the chore of killing those who would not bow to your rule.”

“It is the Order’s rule! This war is not about bringing glory to me and you know it! This conflict is in the cause of the Creator—for the salvation of mankind. We bring the true will of the Creator to heathens. We bring the teachings of the Order to those hungering for meaning and purpose in their lives.”

Nicci stood mute. He was right. He might have greatly enjoyed the trappings of power but she knew that he sincerely believed that he was merely the champion of a greater good, a warrior who was serving the Creator’s true wishes by enforcing the Order’s teachings in this life so that mankind could go on to glory in the next.

Nicci knew very well what it was to believe. Jagang believed.

It struck her as almost laughable, though, how the ideology she herself had once advanced now seemed so profoundly foolish. Unlike Jagang, and most people who embraced the Order’s beliefs, Nicci had accepted them because she thought she had to, that it was the only way for her to achieve a moral life. She endured the yoke of servitude to others, all the while hating herself for not being happy about it. The Sisters of the Light had really been no better, offering her only a different flavor of the same selfless call to duty, so she remained in the helpless grip of the Fellowship of Order. As a numb subject of the Order, being used by Jagang was one of the many sacrifices she had believed was necessary in order to be a good and moral person.

And then all that had changed.

How she missed Richard.

“All you are going to bring to mankind is a thousand years of darkness,” she said, weary of arguing the truth to a true believer whose theological construct was based on what the Order preached, not on reality. “All you are going to do is cast the world into a long, dark, savage age.”

He glared at her a moment. “That’s not you talking, Nicci. I know it’s not. You’re just saying those things because Lord Rahl spouts such hate for his fellow man. You are repeating it to make me think you love him.”

“Maybe I do.”

He grinned. “No.” He shook his head. “No, you merely want to use him to twist me around your little finger. That’s the way of women—trying to maneuver and exploit men.”

Rather than letting him take her down the path of what her true feelings for Richard might be, Nicci changed the subject.

“Your plans of rule, your plans for the Order to bring its ideas to all the world, are not going to work. You need all three boxes of Orden. I was there when Sister Tovi died. She had the third box but it was stolen from her. ”

“Ah yes, the brave Seeker, wielding the sword of truth”—he parodied a sword thrust—“stepping in to liberate the box of Orden from a wicked Sister of the Dark.” He gave her a sour look. “I was there, watching through her eyes, after all.”

He had been watching Nicci through Tovi’s eyes as well.

“The fact remains that the Sisters had all three boxes. You may now have those Sisters, but you only have two boxes.”

A sly smile replaced his annoyance. “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to be as much of a problem as you think. Nor will it matter that you placed that box in play. I have ways around such petty difficulties.”

Nicci was somewhat alarmed to learn that he knew that she had put the box in play, but she tried not to let on.

“What ways?”

The smile only widened. “What kind of emperor would I be if I didn’t have plans for every eventuality? Don’t you worry, darlin, I have everything well in hand. All that matters is that in the end I will see to it that all three boxes are reunited. When they are once again together then I will at last use the power of Orden to end all resistance to the Order’s rule.”

“If you survive that long.”

His annoyance returned as he studied her blank expression. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She gestured into the distance. “Richard Rahl has loosed the wolves on your beloved flock.”

“Meaning?”

She arched an eyebrow. “The army you chased up here is gone. You weren’t able to destroy it, were you? Guess where that army is, now.”

“Scattered in fear for their lives.”

Nicci smiled at his scowl. “Not exactly. The D’Haran army has been charged with taking the war to those in the Old World who support that war, to those who gave birth to aggression with their teachings and set it upon the innocent. Those people are going to have to face the consequences of sending surrogate murderers north. They, no less than you, have the blood of innocent people on their hands. They think that distance sanitizes them, but being far removed from the evil they directly bring about will not absolve them of their crimes. They will pay the price.”

“I am aware of Lord Rahl’s latest sins.” The muscles in Jagang’s jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. “Richard Rahl is a coward who goes after innocent women and children because he cannot bear to face real men.”

“That would be the worst kind of willful ignorance if you actually believed it, but you don’t. You want others to believe it, so you pluck carefully selected half-truths out of the context of reality in order to cloak your cause in pseudomorality. You seek to craft an excuse for the inexcusable. In a manner of speaking you hide behind women’s skirts as you shoot arrows so that when arrows come back at you, you can feign outrage at an atrocity.

“Your true purpose, though, is to strip the absolute right of self-defense from those you wish to destroy.

“Richard is a man who understands the reality of the threat represented by the beliefs of the Order. He is not sidetracked by rigged issues meant to obscure the truth. He understands that to survive he must be strong enough to eliminate the threat, no matter what form it takes—even if it is to destroy the fields that grow the food that gives your men the strength to slit the throats of people peacefully living their own lives. Anyone defending those fields is a party to murder.

“Richard knows the simple truth that without victory there is no survival for his people.”

“Those people bring suffering on themselves by resisting the righteous teachings of the Order,” Jagang said.

The muscles in his arms tightened along with his fists as he paced, looking on the verge of violence. He didn’t like it when anyone disputed his assertions, so he bounded on Nicci and repeated them more forcefully, as if his raised voice, and the threat in it, would settle the matter.

“Richard Rahl proves his depravity, and the immorality of those he leads, by sending his men off to kill the innocent women and children of the Old World instead of standing and fighting our soldiers. His atrocities against women and children prove what a cowardly criminal he really is. We have an obligation to rid the world of such sinful people.”

Nicci folded her arms as she fixed him in the kind of glare once reserved for those who would not bow to the will of the Order. It was a look that had frequently preceded actions that had earned her the title Death’s Mistress. It was a look that gave even the emperor pause.

“All the people of the New World are innocent,” she said. “They did not bring war to the Order, the Order brought war to them. It’s true that people in the Old World—including children—will be hurt or killed in the fighting. What choice is there for these people? Continue to be slaughtered and enslaved out of fear of harming someone innocent? They are all innocent. Their children are all innocent. They are being harmed, now.

“You know from being in the mind of Sister Ulicia the tactic she thought would deliver her the safety of the bond to Richard and protect her mind from you. Sister Ulicia knew that life is Richard’s highest value, so she hatched the scheme that when she used the power of Orden to free the Keeper of the underworld from his prison in the world of the dead, she would grant Richard Rahl eternal life. That Richard wouldn’t believe such a bargain was possible, much less accept it, was irrelevant in Ulicia’s mind. She thought that until the offer was made and refused, her intentions to grant him eternal life gave her immunity from your ability as a dream walker.

“But you were already secretly embedded in Ulicia’s mind. That’s how you learned what matters most to Richard, his greatest value: life.

“That’s a foreign concept to you. Life is not a value to the Order. They teach that our lives are a meaningless transitory state on our way to an eternal afterlife. They believe that this life is a mere vessel, a shell, to hold our soul until it can reach a higher plane of existence. The Order teaches that glory in the afterlife is our greatest value, and that that glory is earned through the sacrifice of this life to their cause. The Order, therefore, values death.

“You see those who value life as weak, inferior. You can’t understand what life, all life, means to someone like Richard, but you do know how to use what you learned.

“You use that value to try to intimidate Richard from facing the larger challenge of defending all of life. By advancing the propaganda that he is a killer of women and children you believe that you can cow his courage, shame him out of attacking for fear that civilians might be killed, and thus limit him to defending himself.

“As an experienced warrior you are well aware that wars are not won defensively. Without the total commitment of the force necessary to crush the vicious beliefs of an aggressor, you can never hope to win a war because those beliefs are what bring about war in the first place.

“Richard also knows that wars are not won defensively, that to end war as quickly as possible and with the smallest possible loss of life, the only way is to stop the aggressor’s ability to harm you and crush their devotion to beliefs that caused them to attack in the first place.

“Your aim, with such sensationalized charges against a man who so values life, is to discredit, dishonor, and disgrace him into fearing to act as he must if he is to win.

“You create a diversion with half-truths in order to turn all eyes away from the real implications of your beliefs and to win converts to the Order’s twisted ideology. You accuse others of the things you are actually guilty of, knowing that it will stir emotions.

“But in the end, such dramatic charges are merely a cover—an attempt to latch onto an excuse to legitimize your routine killing of unimaginable numbers of people.

“You and I both know the truth of the endless corpses of women and children the Order leaves in its wake, but those are ignored in your contrived moral outrage. Your brutality, savagery, and cruelty against those who have done nothing to the people in the Old World frame the true nature of your beliefs. The enormity of your depravity is only compounded by blaming the victim with the crimes you bring to his people, the same as you blame me for my own rape.

“I was there the day Richard gave those troops their orders. I know the truth.

“The truth is that the minds of most people of the Old World have been irrevocably blackened by their fanatical devotion to ideas that result only in suffering and death. Those people are beyond redemption by reason. Richard knows that the only way to deal with evil, to break a people’s bond to it, is to make holding on to such beliefs unendurable.

“The Order itself has made this a war to the end. Richard knows that his people cannot survive by trying to coexist with such evil, or by excusing those who nurture it.

“The Order seeks to exterminate liberty. The knife that the Order is trying to thrust into his heart is driven by devotion to the corrupt beliefs of the Order. Richard understands that he must eliminate the source of those beliefs or freethinking people everywhere will all die, murdered by men encouraged and fed by the people of the Old World.

“War is a terrible business. The faster it is ended the less suffering and death there will be. That is Richard’s goal. The weak-minded would shrink from what must be done for fear of being criticized by the wicked. Richard is not going to be deterred by the words of hypocrites and haters.

“The truth is that his orders were that, whenever possible, his soldiers should avoid harming people, but ending the war is their overriding objective. To do that, they must destroy the Order’s ability to wage war. As soldiers, that is the responsibility Richard Rahl charged them with—they are defending their people’s right to exist. He told them that anything else is just whistling on the way to their graves.

“This war is merely an extension of the great war that raged so long ago, but never really ended. The Old World again has fallen prey to the evil ideas of the Order. How many lives have been wasted because of those beliefs? How many yet will be?

“The last time, those defending against such teachings did not have the courage to crush them into cold, lifeless ashes and as a result this ancient war has once again rekindled at the hands of the Fellowship of Order. Just as back then, it is sparked by those same mindless ideas that everyone must believe the same as they do or die.

“Richard understands that this time it must be ended once and for all, that the world of life must be liberated from the poison of the Order. He has the courage to do just that. He will not be dissuaded by your taunts. He doesn’t care what other people think of him. He only cares that they can’t again harm him and those he cares about.

“To make sure of that, those who preach the Order’s hate will be hunted down and killed.

“The D’Haran army may not be anywhere near as large as the Imperial Order, but they will still strangle you. They will burn crops and orchards, destroy mills and stables, break dams and canals. Anyone who gets in the way of their halting the Old World’s ability to wage war will be eliminated.

“Most importantly, those soldiers will cut the supply lines headed north. Ending your ability to kill these people is Richard’s only objective. Unlike you, he does not need to teach anyone a lesson in dominance—but he will end yours.

“There will be no final battle to decide it all, as was your plan. Richard does not care how your men are stopped, only that they are—once and for all.

“Without supplies, your army will wither and die out here on this barren plain. That is victory enough.”

Jagang smiled in a way that in turn gave Nicci pause. “Darlin, the Old World is a big place. They waste their efforts attacking crops. They can’t be everywhere.”

“They don’t have to be.”

He shrugged. “They may be able to attack supply trains from here and there, but that is simply the sacrifice our people make for the advancement of our cause. Casualties, no matter how many, are the cost of achieving moral ends.

“Because I understand the price that must be paid to take us to our final victory, I had already ordered a dramatic increase in the numbers of supplies being sent north to our valiant troops. We can send more men and supplies than Richard Rahl can hope to stop.

“The people of the Old World will sacrifice what they must in order to see to it that we have what we need to persevere. The price has been raised, but our people will gladly pay it. I expect that you’re right, that many of those supply trains will be destroyed, but the D’Haran forces do not have enough men to stop them all.”

Nicci’s insides tightened. “A bold boast.”

“If you don’t believe me you can judge for yourself if I’m telling the truth. Another new train will arrive soon, a supply train so long that you would have to stand in one place for two days just to watch it all pass before your eyes. Don’t you worry, our brave men will have enough supplies to press this war to its conclusion.”

Nicci shook her head. “You’re not seeing the whole of it. If you can’t catch and defeat the D’Haran forces, you can’t win this war. There are people in the Old World, just like anywhere else, who long to live their own lives as they wish. The Order may blind a great many with its teachings, but there are individuals everywhere who use their minds and understand the truth of life. There are such people all over the Old World who will turn against the Order.

“You have only to look at Altur’Rang. I was there when it fell. It had been a place of widespread suffering under the rule of the Imperial Order. Now that it has thrown off those shackles, the people there prosper. Other people will see such a change and be encouraged to have their own life. They, too, will want to prosper.”

Jagang looked outraged at such talk. “Prosper? They are merely heathens dancing on the ground that will be their graves. They will be crushed. That is what people will see—that the Order will rightly punish those who turn away from their duty to their fellow man. The punishment they suffer for their selfishness will be remembered for the next thousand years.”

“And the D’Haran forces? The wolves set loose on your flock? They will not be so easily eliminated. They will continue to break the hold of the Order. They will continue to hound those who have sent war north, eviscerating the very core of the Fellowship of Order.”

Jagang grinned. “Oh, darlin, you are so wrong about that. You forget the boxes of Orden.”

’’You have only two.”

“At the moment, maybe, but I will have all three. When I do, then I will unleash the power of Orden to do our bidding. With the power of Orden under my control, all opposition will be swept away in the firestorm of our righteous cause. I will use the power of Orden to burn the flesh from every one of those D’Haran troops, and leave each one to die a slow, agonizing death. Hunted by the power of Orden, there will be nowhere for them to hide. Their screams will be the sound of sweet justice to our people now suffering under their brutality. I will also make each one of those heathen traitors from Altur’Rang suffer for betraying our teachings.

“The power of Orden will serve the cause of the Fellowship of Order and in the end strike the D’Harans down—no matter where they are.

“I will grind Richard Rahl’s bones to dust. He is a dead man, he just doesn’t know it, yet.”

Jagang’s grim grin gave Nicci goose bumps. “But first,” he said with obvious delight, “I want him to live long enough to see it all, live long enough to truly suffer. You know how much I like those who have opposed me to live so that they may endure the pain of proper suffering.”

His voice lowered to a growl. “To that end, I have something very, very dear to Richard Rahl. When I unleash the power of Orden I will at long last be able to bring him pain he can’t begin to imagine. It will bring him the kind of emotional anguish that will crush his spirit, crush his very soul, before I crush his worldly body.”

Nicci knew that Jagang was talking about Kahlan, but she dared not let him know what she knew about it. It took all her will power not to glance at her, not to give away what she knew.

“We will prevail,” he said. “I offer you the opportunity to return to my side—to the Order’s side. In the end, you have no choice in the matter but to accept the Creator’s will. It is time for you to accept your moral responsibility to your fellow man.”

She had known from the moment she had entered the camp that she had no chance to escape the inevitable. She would never again see Richard, or freedom.

Jagang gestured dismissively. “You can accomplish nothing with your childish affection for Richard Rahl.”

Nicci knew what was going to happen if she did not submit to his authority and accept his offer. If she did not accept, he was going to make it all that much more agonizing for her.

But her life was hers, now, and she would not throw it away willingly.

“If you are going to grind Richard Rahl to dust,” she said in her most condescending tone, “if he is nothing more than a petty problem to you, then why are you so concerned about him?” She arched an eyebrow. “More to the point, why are you so jealous of him?”

His face flushing red with rage, Jagang seized her by the throat. With a roar he heaved her onto the bed. She drew a sharp breath just before he landed on her. He straddled her middle, then leaned to the side and retrieved something. With his weight atop her she could hardly breathe.

One meaty hand grabbed her face to hold her head still even though she made no effort to resist. With the thumb and knuckle of the other hand he pulled her lower lip out. When he released her face she saw that he was holding a sharpened awl.

He stabbed it through her lower lip, twisting it around, making a hole. Tears of pain stung her eyes. She dared not move lest he rip her lip off.

After he pulled the awl out he pushed a split gold ring through her freshly pierced lip.

Bending forward, he used his teeth to close the ring.

His stubble scraped against her cheek as he pressed close and whispered in her ear. “You are mine. Until the day I decide you are to die, your life belongs to me. You might as well forget any thoughts of Richard Rahl. When I’ve finished with you the Keeper will have you for betraying me.”

When he straightened, he slapped her. The powerful wallop felt like it rattled her teeth. “Your whoring with Richard Rahl is ended. You will soon enough be begging to admit that you were only trying to make me jealous and that my bed is where you really wanted to be all along. Isn’t that right?”

Nicci stared up at him without showing any emotion or saying anything.

He hit her across the face with a closed fist. “Admit it!”

With all her strength, Nicci steadied her voice. “You can’t make someone care about you by hitting them.”

“You make me hit you! It’s your own fault! You say things that you know will make me angry. I wouldn’t hit you if you wouldn’t keep pushing me into it. You bring it on yourself.”

As if to prove his point, he delivered two mighty blows across her face. She did her best to ignore the pain. She knew that this was only the beginning.

Nicci stared up at him. She said nothing. She had been beneath him enough times to know very well what was coming.

She was already going off to that faraway place in her mind. She no longer focused on the man atop her, hitting her. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling of the tent.

As his fists pounded her, she hardly felt it. It was only her body, somewhere distant, that was hurting.

She had to breathe through a burble of blood.

She knew that he was pulling off her dress, knew that his big hands were groping her, but she ignored that, too.

Instead—as Jagang beat her, pawed her, climbed on top of her, forced her legs open—she thought about Richard, about how he always treated her with respect.

As the nightmare started, she dreamed of other things.