Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 59

As they marched through the empty, magnificent marble halls of the People’s Palace, Richard knew where everyone had gone because he could hear the soft chanting echoing through the passageways.

“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

It was the devotion to the Lord Rahl. Even at a time like this, even when their world was about to end, everyone at the People’s Palace went to the devotion when they heard the call of the bell. He supposed that this was a time when these people needed him the most and the devotion was their way to acknowledge that bond. Or maybe it was meant to remind him of his part in that bond and his responsibilities to protect them.

“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

Richard put his feelings about the devotion out of his mind. He felt like he was juggling a thousand thoughts all at once. He didn’t know what to do. There were so many different questions overwhelming him all at once that he just couldn’t seem to organize the mountain of problems into meaningful order. He didn’t know where to start that arduous climb.

He felt inadequate to be the Master Rahl.

He did believe, though, that the seemingly endless problems were connected, that they were all pieces of the same puzzle, and that if he could just figure out what was at the core of what was bothering him, it would all begin to fit together.

He just needed a few years to figure it out. He would be lucky to have a few hours.

Once again he forced his mind back to the relevant issues. Baraccus had left him a message in a three-thousand-year-old book, a rule unwritten, and Richard didn’t know what it meant. Now that he once again had access to his gift, he did at least now recall all of The Book of Counted Shadows, but it was most likely a false copy. Jagang had the original. Jagang had the boxes.

Why was a Confessor central in it all? Was it because a Confessor was central to the boxes of Orden if one of the copies of The Book of Counted Shadows was used? Or was he just imagining it? Was he just thinking that a Confessor was central because Kahlan was a Confessor and she was central in his life?

Just the thought of Kahlan sent his mind off track and racked him with anguish. Having to keep from telling her all the things he so desperately wanted to tell her was crushing his heart. Having to keep from taking her in his arms and kissing her was killing him. He just wanted to hold her tight.

But he knew that if he destroyed the sterile field of her mind, then there was no chance for the power of Orden to restore her to who she was. He had to remain distant and vague.

What terrified him the most was the thought that it was too late, that Samuel had already tainted that sterile field.

He could feel Kahlan walking beside him. He recognized the sound of her footsteps, the scent of her, the presence of her. One instant he was overjoyed that he had her back, and the next he was panicked that he was going to lose her.

He had to stop letting his mind drift to the problem and focus instead on the solution. He had to find the answer.

If there really was an answer.

“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

All these people would die unless he helped them by finding that answer. But how in the world was he to do that?

He returned to what he thought had to be the heart of the solution. He would need to open the boxes of Orden if he was to reverse all the damage done—that was all there was to it. Unless he did that the world of life, damaged by the Chainfire event and its subsequent taint, would spiral out of control. Unless he opened the right box Jagang’s Sisters would. But he didn’t know how to open the boxes and besides he didn’t have control of them, Jagang did.

Richard reminded himself that at least he had accomplished a number of the steps he had to accomplish if he was to have a chance to open the right box. At least he had been successful in his journey through the veil. And he had been successful in returning what he had brought back in the manner required. That in itself had been a puzzle, but he had found the solution. Now Orden was needed to actually restore it.

Kahlan had accepted the carving he did of Spirit.

He reminded himself that he also had the Confessor that was needed.

Confessor. Something was wrong about that, but he couldn’t figure out what it could be.

But he did know that there was only one way to get close to the boxes of Orden. That was his only chance—if he could figure it out before Sister Ulicia opened one of them.

When he heard the whisper of hurried footsteps he looked up and saw Verna and Nathan rushing toward him. Cara and General Meiffert were close on their heels. Zedd, Tom, and Rikka were close on Richard’s.

At a bridge covered in beautifully veined green marble overlooking a devotion square and a conjunction of wide halls, Richard came to a halt as Verna and Nathan rushed up. The people below were all on their knees, bent forward with their foreheads to the tile as they chanted. They were unaware of what he was about to do.

“Richard!” Verna gasped, catching her breath.

“Glad to see you back,” Nathan said to Richard with an additional nod to Zedd.

“Six will no longer be a problem,” Zedd told the prophet.

Nathan let out a sigh. “One less hornet, but I’m afraid that there’s no shortage of them.”

Verna, ignoring the tall wizard beside her, waved her journey book urgently at Richard. “Jagang says that it’s the new moon. He demands your answer. He says that if he doesn’t get that answer then you know the consequences.”

Richard glanced at Nathan. The prophet looked more than grim. Cara and General Meiffert looked tense as well. They were the helpless guardians of a place with tens of thousands of people who were all on the verge of being slaughtered.

Soft chanting drifted up from below.

“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

Richard rubbed his fingertips on his forehead as he swallowed back the lump rising in his throat. He had no choice—for more reasons than the one.

He looked up at Verna with forbidding finality. “Tell Jagang that I agree to his terms.”

Verna’s face went scarlet. “You agree?”

“What are you talking about?” Kahlan, at his right, asked. Richard was distantly heartened to hear the tone of awakened authority in her voice. But he ignored her and directed himself to Verna.

With great effort, Richard controlled his voice. “Tell him that I have decided to give them what they want. I agree to his terms.”

“Are you serious?” Verna was bottled rage. “You want me to tell him that we surrender?”

“Yes.”

“What!” Kahlan said, seizing a fistful of his shirtsleeve to pull him around toward her. “You can’t surrender to him.”

“I have to. It’s the only way I have to keep all those people down there from being tortured and killed. If I surrender the palace he will allow them to live.”

“And you’re going to take Jagang’s word for that?” Kahlan demanded.

“I have no choice. This is the only way.”

“You brought me back here to turn me over to that monster?” Kahlan’s green eyes brimmed with tears born of anger and hurt. “Is that why you wanted to find me?”

Richard looked away. He would have given just about anything to tell her how much he really loved her. If he was to go to his death, he at least would want her to know his true feelings and not think that he had married her out of a duty to an arrangement and was now using her as treasure to be turned over in a surrender. It was crushing his heart that she thought that.

But he had no choice. If he corrupted the sterile field then the Kahlan that he knew would be forever lost—if it hadn’t already been corrupted by Samuel, if she wasn’t already lost to him.

Richard turned his attention elsewhere. “Where’s Nicci?” he asked Nathan.

“Locked up like you told me to do until Jagang can collect her.”

Kahlan rounded on him. “And now you’re also giving the woman you love over to—”

Richard lifted a hand, commanding silence.

He unclenched his jaw as he turned to Verna. “Do as I say.” His tone of voice made it clear that it was an order not to be discussed, much less defied.

As everyone stood in stunned silence, Richard started away. “I will be in the Garden of Life, waiting.”

He needed to think.

Only Kahlan followed him.

Ever-waning daylight slanted in through the leaded glass overhead. This would be the night of the new moon—the darkest night of the month. Richard had heard it said that such darkness brought the world of life closer to the underworld.

In the hours waiting for Jagang to make it up the plateau and to the Garden of Life, Richard had paced the whole time, deep in thought, thinking about those two worlds—the world of life and the world of the dead.

There was something about the whole thing that didn’t make sense to him. He went through The Book of Counted Shadows that he had memorized, knowing that there was probably some flaw in it that would make it impossible to use it to open the power of Orden, but also knowing that the elements would still be largely true, if out of order. It would take nothing more than changing a single detail to have made it a false copy. He knew that there was a flaw in the copy he had memorized, but he didn’t know how to identify the specific deviation from the original.

Jagang had the original. He wouldn’t have to worry about there being errors in his book. Sister Ulicia, with Jagang in her mind the whole time, would be reading the original directly, so they would be using the actual, true version of the book. Therefore, they wouldn’t need a Confessor.

He came to a halt before Kahlan. “Copies of The Book of Counted Shadows have to be verified through the use of a Confessor. If you had the text to The Book of Counted Shadows, if I recited it for you, do you think you would be able to verify the true parts?”

Kahlan, deep in her own thoughts, looked up. “I’ve asked myself that same question countless times. I’m sorry, Richard, but I just don’t know how.

“It’s too bad that the first Confessor, Magda Searus, didn’t leave me a book on how to use my powers, like her first husband left for you.”

A lot of good that book was doing him. Richard let out a despondent sigh and went back to pacing.

He turned his thoughts back to the book that Baraccus had so desperately wanted him to have: Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power. Baraccus had thought that it was vital that Richard have that book with the rule unwritten. The whole thing was so bizarre that Richard was left stunned and not knowing what to think. It had been a monumental effort to recover that book. It had to have also been a great effort on the part of Baraccus to see to it that only Richard would eventually be able to find it.

Why leave him a book that said nothing?

Unless it actually said everything.

Richard glanced to his silent grandfather sitting on the short, vine-covered wall nearby. Zedd met his gaze but his sadness at not being able to help Richard was evident.

“I’m sorry,” Kahlan said.

Richard glanced over. “What?”

“I’m sorry. It had to be a terrible decision. I know that you are only trying to keep Jagang’s brutes from slaughtering all the people here. I wish I could touch Jagang with my Confessor power.”

Confessor power. First brought into existence in Magda Searus. The woman who had been married to Baraccus. But she had been married to Baraccus back during the great war, long before she became a Confessor. . . .

“Dear spirits,” Richard whispered to himself, icy realization flashing through his veins.

Baraccus had left Richard Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power to tell him what he needed to know.

That was exactly what Baraccus had done.

He had given Richard the rule unspoken, the rule unwritten, since the dawn of time.

In that instant, as he grasped the Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power, Richard was able to fit the other pieces together and understand it all.

He grasped the totality of it, how it all worked, why they had done what they had done, why they had done everything.

With trembling fingers, he pulled out the piece of white cloth with the two ink stains. He unfolded it and stared at the two spots on opposite sides.

“I understand,” he said. “Dear spirits, I understand what I have to do.”

Kahlan leaned close, looking down at the cloth. “Understand what?”

Richard understood it all.

He almost laughed maniacally. He understood the whole thing.

Zedd was watching him, frowning at him. Zedd knew Richard well enough to tell that he had figured it out. As Richard stared at him, his grandfather gave him the slightest smile and nod of pride, even if he had no idea of what Richard had figured out.

They all looked up at the sudden clamor of people entering the garden. The few men of the First File present, as instructed, fell back out of the way without offering any resistance. Richard saw Jagang at the head of the wave of people pouring in the doors. Sister Ulicia was right beside him. Other Sisters followed behind carrying the three boxes of Orden. Heavily armed guards, their boots all striking in unison, marched in the double doors, spreading into the garden like a dark flood.

Jagang’s presence, his burning, enduring hate, not only defiled the Garden of Life but defined him.

Richard smiled inwardly.

The gaze of Jagang’s completely black eyes was fixed on Richard as the emperor marched down the path between the trees, past beds of long-dead flowers and past the short vine-covered walls. His royal guards were spread out behind, pouring through the shrubs as they established a defensive perimeter.

Jagang wore a condescending smile as he passed the sorcerer’s sand and crossed the sweep of lawn.

His hate defined him.

The Sisters set the three inky black boxes on the broad granite slab that was supported by two short, fluted pedestals. Sister Ulicia ignored the people in the garden. Focused on the job at hand, she only glanced briefly at Richard before setting the book on the granite altar in front of the boxes. Without delay, she cast a hand out, igniting a fire in the pit, adding to the light given off by the torches.

Night was falling. The new moon was rising. Darkness was coming, darkness beyond what anyone living had ever experienced. Richard knew that darkness. He had been there.

Jagang strode right up to stand close in front of Richard, as if challenging him to a fight. Richard stood his ground.

“Glad you came to your senses.” His gaze slid to Kahlan. He regarded her with a lecherous look. “And I’m glad you brought me your woman. I’ll deal with her later.” He looked back into Richard’s eyes. “I’m sure you aren’t going to like what I have in mind.”

Richard returned a glare but said nothing. There was nothing to say, really.

Jagang, for all his intimidating presence, his completely black eyes, his shaved head, the way he displayed his muscles as well as his plundered jewels, looked more than tired. He looked frazzled. Richard knew that the emperor was having nightmares and even more than that, haunting dreams about Nicci. Richard knew because they were nightmares and dreams that Richard had given him, through Jillian, the priestess of the bones, the dreamcaster who was descended from the same people as Jagang.

The emperor stormed over to where Sister Ulicia stood waiting before the sorcerer’s sand. “What are you waiting for? Get started. The sooner this is finished the sooner we can get on with finishing all resistance to the rule of the Order.”

“Now I understand,” Kahlan, standing close beside him, whispered to herself as if she, too, had had her own revelation. “Now I see who he wants to hurt through me, and why it would be so terrible.”

She looked up into Richard’s eyes with a countenance of sudden comprehension.

Richard couldn’t afford to be distracted right then. He returned his attention to the Sisters. He still had a few things he needed to reason out. He needed to make sure it all made sense, or else they would all die—by his hand.

Several Sisters knelt before the sorcerer’s sand, smoothing it out in preparation. By the way they were working as a team, Richard figured that they had already studied the original of The Book of Counted Shadows in preparation and had all the procedures and enchantments memorized.

He was surprised to see them all starting to draw the required elements. He recognized them from The Book of Counted Shadows that he’d memorized as a young man. He had expected Sister Ulicia, the one who had put the boxes in play, to be the one to draw those elements, but as they worked, Sister Ulicia instead went from one symbol to the next, finishing the final part that completed it. Richard realized that it made sense; it was only necessary that the elements be done, and this saved a great deal of time. Since Sister Ulicia was the one finishing each element, Richard guessed that the book had some requirement that the player be involved, probably requiring that they be the one to complete the spell-forms.

She was the one invoking Orden. She was the player. Jagang, though, possessed her mind and thus ultimately would control Orden.

Richard remembered well how long it had taken Darken Rahl to run through all the procedures. The way they were doing it the Sisters were not going to take anywhere near that long. By working together they were able to divide the work into simpler components.

Jagang paced back to Richard. “Where’s Nicci?” he growled as his black eyes glared.

Richard had been wondering how long it would be before he asked that question. It was even sooner than Richard expected.

“She is being held for you, as promised.”

Jagang’s heated expression turned to a grin. “Too bad you don’t really know how to play Ja’La dh Jin.”

“I beat you.”

Jagang’s grin only widened. “Not in the end.”

As the emperor went back to his impatient pacing, Sister Ulicia directed the elements from the book, reading pertinent parts when necessary. Richard understood the things they were drawing. Parts were the dance with death. When Darken Rahl had first drawn them they had seemed so mysterious, but now the language of them all made sense.

Jagang was looking more and more edgy by the moment.

Richard knew why.

“Ulicia,” the emperor finally said, “I’m going to go get Nicci. There is no reason for me to stand here while you work. I can watch this through your eyes just as well.”

Sister Ulicia bowed her head. “Yes, Excellency.”

Jagang turned his glare on Richard. “Where is she?”

Richard gestured to one of the officers of the First File standing not far away, the man Richard had ready for this purpose. There were only a few of the First File present, all having waited with Richard for the Imperial Order to arrive. They were there to guard him until the bitter end.

“Take the emperor down to Nicci’s cell,” Richard told the officer.

The man saluted with a fist to his heart. Before leading Jagang away, the contented-looking emperor turned back to Richard.

“Looks like you lose at the final turn at Ja’La dh Jin this time as well.”

Richard wanted to say that the time had not run out and the game was not yet over, but instead he simply watched the man leaving as he waited for the nightmare to begin in earnest.

Kahlan stood silently at his side. The way she glanced up at him made him uneasy.

Zedd and Nathan looked lost in their own thoughts. Verna looked angry and bitter that it had come to this. Richard couldn’t blame her. Cara, standing beside Benjamin, took hold of his hand. Along with the rest of his party, Jagang had brought Jennsen into the Garden of Life. The royal guards kept her on the other side of the room. Tom’s gaze was fixed on her. She stared back at him, unable to say all the things she obviously wanted to say.

Cara inched closer. “Whatever happens now, Lord Rahl, I’m with you until my last breath.”

Richard returned a smile of appreciation.

Zedd, not far away, nodded his agreement with Cara’s sentiment. Benjamin lightly clapped his fist to his heart. Even Verna finally smiled and gave him a single nod. They were all with him.

Kahlan, close at his side, whispered, “Would it be all right if you just held my hand?”

Richard could not imagine how alone she must feel at that moment. With a heavy heart that he couldn’t say anything, he took her hand.