Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 8

Kahlan hurried to stay close to Jagang as he marched through the camp lest he give her a stunning shock of pain through the collar. Of course, as he had demonstrated any number of times, he needed no excuse. She knew, though, that right then she had better not even look like she might give him cause, because he was in a hurry due to the strange news the man had brought.

She didn’t care so much about the news, though. Her mind was on the man she had finally seen again, the captive who had been brought in the day before.

As she moved through the encampment, thinking about the man, she watched not only her guards but also the common soldiers in the camp, looking for reactions that might indicate that they could see her, listening for any obscene remark that would betray them. All around, startled men stared at the heavily armed group making their way through the midst of their daily life, but she didn’t see a single man look directly at her, or show any other signs of seeing her.

Despite being men in an army led by the emperor himself, these men had probably never seen Jagang this close before. The army, all in one place, constituted a population that was larger than almost any city. If these men had ever seen the emperor before, it was likely only at a great distance. Now, as he passed close by, they stared at him in open awe.

Kahlan noted in their reaction, and Jagang’s attitude toward them, the contradiction to the Order’s teachings of the absolute equality of all men. For his part, Jagang never showed any penchant for sharing the common life of his men, a daily existence in the filth and mud. They lived in a camp that was virtually lawless, involved in crimes of every sort with their unruly fellows, while Jagang always enjoyed protection from those theoretically equal to him in every way. Kahlan supposed that if they shared one thing, it was that they, like their emperor, lived lives of almost constant, irrational violence and complete indifference to human life.

Kahlan, invisible to the soldiers all around, stepped carefully over puddles and dung. She clutched the knife tightly in a fist under her cloak, unsure, yet, exactly what she would do with it. The opportunity to take the knife had suddenly presented itself and she had acted.

In such rough surroundings it felt good to have a weapon. The encampment was a frightening place, despite how invisible she was to nearly all the soldiers. Even though she knew that she had no hope of using the knife to escape Jagang, all of her special guards, and the Sisters, it still felt good to have a weapon. A weapon gave her a modicum of control, a way to defend herself—at least to a degree. More than that, though, a weapon symbolized how much she valued her life. Having it was a declaration to herself that she had not, and would not, give up.

If she had a chance, Kahlan would use the knife to try to kill Jagang. She knew that if she were to actually accomplish such a deed it would mean a sure death for her as well. She knew, too, that the Order would not falter because of the loss of the man. They were like ants. Stepping on one would not send the colony into retreat.

Still, she knew that sooner or later she was going to be put to death—and probably made to suffer greatly along the way by Jagang’s own hand. She had already seen him murder several people for little or no excuse, so putting an end to him would at least serve to satisfy her sense of justice. Kahlan’s memory of her past life was gone. Her total awareness since the Sisters had taken that memory was that of a world gone mad. She might not be able to set the world right, but if she could kill Jagang she might be able to see justice done in one little part of it.

It wouldn’t be easy, though. Jagang was not only physically powerful and skilled at combat, he was a very clever individual. Sometimes Kahlan thought that he really could read her mind. In another way, since Jagang was a warrior and he was often able to anticipate what she would do next, Kahlan thought that in the past she could not remember she must have been a warrior, too.

Alerted by the urgent whispers of their friends, men in the camp all around came out of tents, rubbed sleep from their eyes, and stood in the drizzle staring at the swift procession in their midst. Other men turned from work at caring for animals to watch. Riders reined in their horses to wait until the emperor passed. Wagons rumbled to a halt.

No matter where she was in the camp it stank, but in among the men it was a degree worse. The cook fires added greasy soot to the smell of the latrines. She didn’t think that the hastily dug latrines were going to be adequate for long. By the foul look of the little streams of water wending their way through the camp, they were already overflowing. The smell proclaimed that she was right. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it was going to become over the coming months of the siege.

Even with the stench and the revolting sights of some of the things going on in the camp, Kahlan noted it all only dimly in the back of her mind. Her thoughts were on other things. Or rather, on one thing: that man with the gray eyes.

She hadn’t known which team he would be with. When she had seen his face the day before he had been in a cage on a transport wagon. She knew only, from catching bits of Jagang’s conversations with officers, that the cages held some of the men who were on a team come to play in the tournaments.

Jagang had been eager to tour the teams before any of the games were to begin. As they went from team to team, she had been looking for the man. At first, she hadn’t even realized that she was doing it. She found herself staying close to Jagang as he inspected the players so that she could also see them.

He knew a great deal about some of the teams. He commented to his guards about what he expected he would see before he reached each new team. When he arrived at a new group he would ask to see the point man, along with the wing men. Several times he wanted to have a look at the men of the blocking line. It reminded Kahlan of a housewife at market, inspecting cuts of meat.

Kahlan had searched all the faces she saw, looking at every man. She had not been gauging their height, weight, and muscle, as Jagang had been doing. She had found herself looking at their faces, trying to find the man she had seen in the cage the day before. She was beginning to lose heart, thinking that he must not be among the teams. She had begun to suppose that maybe he had ended up being sent to work as slave labor at the ramp site along with many other captives.

And then when she finally did spot the man, he did the strangest thing: he fell face-first into the mud. They were still some distance off and no one but Kahlan had really been looking at him yet. Everyone else thought the man was just clumsy as he tripped over the chain lying there on the ground. As they’d approached the team some of the guards had laughed, whispering among themselves about how quickly such a man was going to get his neck broken on the Ja’La field.

Kahlan hadn’t thought it was funny, though. She alone had been looking at the man and she knew that he hadn’t tripped accidentally. She knew that it had been deliberate.

The fall had looked real enough. No one else imagined that it had been by design. Kahlan knew it was. She knew what it was to be a captive and have to instancy do something no matter how risky because you had no choice.

She just couldn’t imagine why the man had done it.

What could be the purpose of such a thing? What danger could he have been trying to avoid? In some circumstances people did such things to get a laugh—and some of the guards had laughed—but that wasn’t the purpose behind what this man had done.

To Kahlan’s mind it had been not only deliberate, but done with haste, as if he thought of it only a second before and there was no time to come up with something better. It had been an act of desperation. But why? Why fall on your face in the mud? What could it possibly accomplish?

It suddenly hit her. It was in a way something like what she had been doing—using the hood of her cloak to hide what she was doing, where she was looking, who she was looking at. He must have wanted to cover his face. It could only be because he thought that someone would recognize him. It must have been that the man feared that Jagang himself would recognize him. Or possibly Sister Ulicia. At any rate, it had to be that he was trying to keep from being recognized.

She supposed that it did make some sense. After all, the man was a captive. Only enemies of the Order would be captives. She wondered if he was a high-ranking officer or something like that.

And he had known Kahlan. From the first instant their eyes met the day before, when he had been in that cage, she could see that he recognized her.

As she had approached his team with Jagang, she and the man had shared a look. In that look she saw that they both knew the plight the other was in, and they both had done nothing to betray the other, as if they’d made a silent pact.

It lifted Kahlan’s heart to know that among all these murderous men, there was one who was not an enemy.

At least, she didn’t think he was. She reminded herself not to substitute her imagination for the truth. With her memory gone she had no real way of knowing if he was an enemy or not. She supposed that he could be someone who had been hunting her. She wondered if it could be possible that he, like Jagang, had some motive to want to see her suffer. That he was a captive of Jagang didn’t automatically mean that he was on her side. After all, the Sisters had hardly been on Jagang’s side.

But if he was trying to hide his face to keep from being recognized, what was going to happen once the Ja’La games started? He might be able to stay muddy for a day or two, but once the rain stopped the mud was going to dry up. She wondered what he would do then. She couldn’t help feeling a pang of worry for him.

At the end of visiting the teams, as they had left to see what the messenger had to show Jagang, she had seen one other thing in the man’s eyes: rage. As she had turned back for a last, quick look at him, the hood of her cloak had pulled back and he had seen the black bruise Jagang had left on her face.

Kahlan had thought that he looked like he might use his bare hands to rip apart the chain holding him. She was at least relieved that he was smart enough not to try to do anything. Commander Karg would have killed him in a blink.

From the conversations between Jagang and the commander as Jagang had started out to inspect the teams, the two were old acquaintances. They mentioned battles they had been in together. In that brief conversation she had taken appraisal of the commander. Like Jagang himself, the commander was not a man to be underestimated. Such a man would not have wanted to be embarrassed before his emperor, and would have killed his point man without hesitation had he allowed his anger to slip its bounds.

She supposed that it was that, his anger at seeing what Jagang had done to her, that made her think the man could not be her enemy.

But the man was dangerous as well. The way he stood, the way he balanced, the way he moved, told Kahlan a great deal about him. She could clearly see the intelligence in his raptor gaze. In the measured way he moved she saw that he also was a man not to be underestimated. She would know for sure if she was correct once the games started, but a man like Commander Karg would not have a captive be his point man unless there was a very good reason. Kahlan would know soon enough when she saw the man play, but to her he looked like coiled fury, and like he knew how to uncoil.

“Over this way, Excellency,” the messenger said as he pointed off through the gray drizzle.

They followed the messenger, leaving the dark sea of the camp, emerging out onto the open ground of the Azrith Plain. Kahlan had been so preoccupied thinking about the man with the gray eyes that she hadn’t even noticed that they were coming up on the site of the construction. The ramp rose high overhead. Beyond, the plateau towered above them. Up this close the plateau truly was imposing. Up this close she could see far less of the magnificent palace atop it.

When it had started to rain she had hoped that maybe it would cause the ramp to collapse, but she could see, now that they were there beside it, that it was not only reinforced with rock but being well compacted as material was added. Gangs of men with heavy weights tamped the dirt and rock as it was placed.

This was not a haphazard effort. While the soldiers in camp—like the ones guarding her—were little more than ignorant brutes mindlessly devoted to a senseless cause, there were some men among the Imperial Order who were intelligent. They were the ones supervising the construction; the brutes merely handled the dirt.

As ignorant and unaware as the general population of soldiers was, Jagang surrounded himself with competent men. His personal guards, as big and powerful as they were, were hardly idiots. Those overseeing the construction of the ramp were likewise intelligent men.

The men supervising the project knew what they were doing and were confident enough to contradict Jagang when he suggested something that wouldn’t work. Jagang had initially wanted to make the base of the ramp narrower so that they could build height more quickly. While respectful, they were not afraid to tell him that it wouldn’t work, and why. He had listened carefully and, when satisfied that they were right, let them proceed with their plans even though those plans had been contrary to his initial desire. When Jagang thought he was right, though, he was as determined as a bull to have his way.

Numerous lines of men, each twelve or fifteen men deep, stretched back away from the colossal ramp. Some of the men passed baskets filled with dirt and rock, and some passed back empty baskets. Other men wheeled carts carrying rock. Mules pulled trains of wagons hauling larger rock. The project was massive almost beyond belief, but with so many men constantly adding to it, the ramp grew steadily.

Kahlan followed as the emperor hurried through the site, the messenger constantly pointing the way among the confusion of activity. The lines of men parted as the royal procession marched through, then melted back together.

As they made their way past throngs of workers, Kahlan finally saw the pits where men in astounding numbers dug material for the ramp. There seemed to be countless numbers of vast pits in the ground, each with one sloping end where men were carrying material out as others brought empty baskets, carts, and wagons back down in to be loaded. The array of pits stretched as far as she could see into the gray drizzle.

Jagang and his party made their way along the wide tracks between the pits arranged in a grid across the plain. Those pathways between were wide enough to accommodate wagons going in opposite directions.

“Down here, Excellency. This is the place.”

Jagang paused, peering down the long, sloping ramp into the pit. It appeared to be the only excavation that was deserted. He looked around at the other pits nearby.

“Clear this one, here, as well,” he said, gesturing at the next pit lying in the direction of the plateau. “And don’t start any new digging beyond in the same direction.”

Some of the supervisors who had gathered hurried to carry out his instructions.

“Let’s go,” Jagang said. “I want to see if this is really something or not.”

“I’m sure you will find it as I described, Excellency.”

Jagang ignored the angular messenger as he started down the sloping track into the pit. Kahlan stayed close. A glance back revealed Sister Ulicia not a dozen steps behind. The Sister, without a hood on her cloak and with her wet hair plastered to her head, did not look at all pleased to be out in the rain. Kahlan turned back to watch her footing on the slick, muddy slope.

The bottom of the pit was an uneven mess where thousands of men had toiled at digging and loading. Since some of the ground was softer and easier to dig, those places were deeper. In other spots, where it was more rocky and harder to dig, there were mounds nearly twice Kahlan’s height that had yet to be reduced.

Following the messenger through the disorder, Jagang descended into one of the deeper areas. Kahlan followed them down into the muck, her guards staying close around her. She wanted to stay close to Jagang in case he became distracted by whatever was in the pit. If she got a chance, no matter the risk, she would try to kill him.

The messenger squatted down as they came to a halt. “This is it, Excel­lency.”

He slapped his hand on something just peeking up from the ground. Kahlan frowned, looking along with everyone else at the smooth expanse that had been exposed.

The messenger had been right, it definitely did not look natural. She could see what looked like joints. It did look like a structure buried deep in the ground.

“Clean it off,” Jagang said to some of the foremen from the project who had come down into the pit.

Apparently, as per standing orders, when the structure had been discov­ered all work was abandoned and the workers pulled out until Jagang could personally inspect the find. The form was slightly rounded, as if they had uncovered the very top portion of a massive, long, rounded shape.

As men worked with shovels and brooms, Jagang directing where they dug, it quickly became apparent that the messenger had been accurate in his report: it did look like the exterior of a barrel-vaulted ceiling.

As the men cleaned it off, Kahlan could see that the structure was made of large stones cut to precise shapes to make up the curve of the arch. It reminded her of nothing so much as a buried building, except that there was no roof, just the exposed outer structure of an interior vaulted ceiling.

Kahlan could not imagine what such a thing could be doing buried all the way out here on the Azrith Plain. There was no telling how many hun­dreds of even thousands of years whatever was inside had been entombed.

When enough of the dirt and debris had been cleared off, Jagang crouched down and ran his hand over the wet stone. His fingers traced a few of the joints. They were so tight that not even a thin knife blade would have slipped between them.

“Get some tools down here—pry bars and such,” he said. “I want this opened. I want to know what’s down inside it.”

“At once, Excellency,” one of the construction bosses said.

“Use your assistants instead of the laborers.” Jagang stood, sweeping an arm around at the general area. “I want this whole place cordoned off. I don’t want any of the regular soldiers anywhere near here. I will have some of my guards stationed here to watch the site at all times. This area is to be as restricted as my own tents.”

Kahlan knew that if any of the soldiers were to get into a tomb—or whatever ancient thing it was that they’d found—they would loot everything of value. The plundered rings he wore said that Jagang knew the same thing.

Kahlan glanced up when she noticed some of Jagang’s guards rushing down the slope into the pit. They pushed their way through the construction foremen and other guards to get in near the emperor.

“We got her,” one of the breathless men reported.

Jagang smiled a slow, wicked grin. “Where is she?”

The man pointed. “Just up there, Excellency.”

Jagang glanced briefly at Kahlan. She didn’t know what he was up to, but the look he gave her ran a chill up her spine. “Bring her down here, now,” Jagang told the man. He and another of the guards hurried back up the slope to get whoever it was they had. Kahlan could not imagine who the men had been talking about, and why it gave Jagang such satisfaction.

As they waited, the construction supervisors continued to expose more of the buried structure. In short order, a stretch of the stone nearly fifty feet long had been exposed. All of it that they had uncovered ran in a straight line, the arch uniform along the entire length.

Other men worked at widening the excavation around the smooth stonework. The more of it they uncovered, the more the shape—and scale—of it came into view. This was no small thing. If the stone really was a ceiling of something beneath, then that room, or tomb, would have to be nearly twenty feet across. Since it showed no sign of terminating, there was no telling how long it was. From what she could see of it, it looked something like a buried hallway.

At the sounds of muted cries and a scuffle, Kahlan looked up. The big guards were bringing a struggling, slender figure down the muddy slope.

Kahlan’s eyes went wide. Her knees went weak.

The men each held a thin, spindly arm of a girl not half their height.

It was Jillian, the girl from back in the ancient ruins in the city of Caska, the girl Kahlan had helped to escape. Kahlan had killed two of Jagang’s guards and Sister Cecilia so that Jillian could get away.

As the guards brought the helpless girl forward, her copper-colored eyes finally caught sight of Kahlan. Those eyes filled with tears at all that had been lost, at her failure to evade the men of the Order.

The guards brought her in close and stood her up before the emperor.

“Well, well,” Jagang said with a shallow, gruff chuckle, “look what we have here.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered up at Kahlan.

Jagang glanced over at Kahlan. “I’ve had men searching for your little friend, here. Quite the dramatic escape you pulled off for her.” Jagang cupped Jillian’s chin, his thick fingers squeezing her cheeks. “Too bad it was all for nothing.”

Kahlan thought that it wasn’t for nothing. She had at least killed two of his guards and Sister Cecilia. She had at least done her best to gain freedom for Jillian. She had tried her best. Her efforts had cost her dearly, but she would do the same thing again.

Jagang seized the girl’s thin arm in his big hand and pulled her forward. Again he grinned at Kahlan. “Do you know what we have here?”

Kahlan didn’t answer. She was not about to join his game.

“What we have here,” he said in answer to his own question, “is someone who can help you behave.”

She gave him a blank look and didn’t ask.

Jagang unexpectedly pointed at the waist of one of Kahlan’s special guards, the one standing just to her right. “Where’s your knife?”

The man looked down at his belt as if he was afraid a snake might be about to sink its fangs into him. He looked back up from the empty scabbard.

“Excellency . . . I, I must have lost it.”

Jagang’s icy look made the man’s face pale. “You lost it, all right.”

Jagang spun and backhanded Jillian hard enough to send her flying through the air. She landed in the mud, screaming in shock and pain. A red stain spread in the puddle around her face.

Jagang turned back to Kahlan and held out his hand. “Give me the knife.”

His completely black eyes were so deadly-looking that Kahlan thought she might have to take a step back out of sheer fright.

Jagang waggled his fingers. “If I have to ask again, I’ll kick her teeth in.”

In a flash Kahlan ran through everything she could think of. She felt like the man with the gray eyes must have felt when he deliberately fell face-first into the mud. She had no choice either.

Kahlan laid the knife in Jagang’s upturned palm.

He grinned in triumph. “Why, thank you, darlin.”

Without pause he turned, as if driving his fist in a mighty blow, and slammed the knife right through the face of the man it belonged to. The damp air rang with a loud crack as bone shattered. The man collapsed dead into the mud. The flood of blood was shocking in the gray light. The man never even had time to scream before he died.

“There’s your knife back,” Jagang called down to the corpse.

His attention focused on the stunned faces of Kahlan’s special guards. “I’d suggest that you keep better track of your weapons than he did. If she takes a weapon from any of you, and she doesn’t kill you with it, I will. Is that simple enough for you all to understand?”

As one they all said, “Yes, Excellency.”

Jagang bent and yanked the sobbing Jillian to her feet. He effortlessly held her up so that only her toes were touching the ground.

“Do you know how many bones are in the human body?”

Kahlan choked back her tears. “No.”

He shrugged. “Neither do I. But I have a way to find out. We can start breaking her bones, one at a time, counting each one as it snaps.”

“Please . . .” Kahlan begged, trying mightily to contain her sob.

Jagang shoved the girl at Kahlan as if he were giving her a life-size doll.

“You are now responsible for her life. Whenever you give me any cause to be displeased, I am going to break one of her bones. I don’t know the exact number of bones in her frail little body, but I’m sure that it’s a great many.” He arched an eyebrow. “And I do know that I’m easily displeased.

“If you do more than simply displease me I will have her tortured before your eyes. I have men who are experts in the fine art of torture.” The storms of gray shapes shifted in his inky eyes. “They are very good at keeping people alive for a long time as they endure unimaginable agony, but if she should happen to die under torture, then I will have to start in on you.”

Kahlan clutched the poor girl’s bleeding head tightly to her chest. Jillian sobbed softly to Kahlan how sorry she was for getting caught. Kahlan gently shushed her.

“Do you understand me?” Jagang demanded in a deadly calm voice.

Kahlan swallowed. “Yes.”

He grabbed Jillian’s hair in his big fist and started pulling her back. Jillian screamed with renewed terror.

“Yes, Excellency!” Kahlan shouted.

Jagang smiled as he released the girl’s hair. “That’s better.”

Kahlan wanted more than anything for the nightmare to end, but she knew that it was only just beginning.