Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 37

Sister Ulicia threw open the doors and marched into the pitch black room beyond. “Tovi? What are you doing in the dark—sleeping?” Annoyance took control of her tone. “Wake up. It’s us. We finally made it here.”

With the Sisters in the lead, carrying small flames above their upturned palms, there was just enough light to make out nearby torches in brackets on the walls to each side, but not much else. The Sisters sent those small flames into the cold torches, igniting them with a hot whoosh. As the torches flared to life, light flooded a room that wasn’t very large, with bookshelves carved into the straw-colored rock of the walls.

On the other side of the small room sat a heavy iron and plank table. In the tall, decoratively carved chair behind the table sat a burly man, his chin resting on a thumb as he watched them.

He was the fiercest-looking man Kahlan had ever seen.

The three Sisters froze in midstride, their eyes opened wide, reflecting their confused, disbelieving shock at what they were seeing before them.

The powerfully built man sat calmly behind the table, watching the three Sisters. That he didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t seem to be in the least bit of a hurry only increased the palpable sense of danger in the room. The only sound was the hissing torches.

The man, with massive, muscled arms and a bull neck, was the embodiment of pure menace. Without a shirt, his brawny shoulders bulged from a lambskin vest that lay open in the middle, displaying his naked, powerful chest. Silver bands encircled his arms above bulky biceps. Each of his thick fingers bore a gold or silver ring, as if brazenly proclaiming them plunder rather than decoration. His shaved head reflected glimmers of the fluttering torchlight. Kahlan couldn’t imagine him with hair; it would have diminished his intimidating presence. A gold ring in his left nostril held one end of a thin gold chain that ran to another ring at mid-height in his left ear. He was clean-shaven except for a two-inch braid of mustache growing downward from the corners of his smirk, and another braid in the center under his lower lip.

As frightening, as formidable, as remorseless as the man looked, it was his eyes that were the true nightmare. There were no whites to them at all. Instead, they were clouded over with sullen, dusky shapes that shifted in a field of inky obscurity. Even so, there was no doubt whatsoever in Kahlan’s mind when his gaze settled on her. That gaze made her feel naked. She thought her knees might buckle under the weight of her galloping panic.

When his grim gaze moved to the Sisters, Kahlan reached out blindly, finding Jillian, and pulled her protectively under an arm. She could feel the girl trembling. Kahlan noticed, though, that Jillian didn’t seem surprised to find the man in the room.

Kahlan couldn’t understand the Sisters’ silence, or their inaction. By the overt look of threat presented by the man, she expected that they would have incinerated him by now, just to be on the safe side. The Sisters had never before been the least bit shy about killing anyone they even suspected might be trouble. This man was clearly far more than trouble. He looked capable of crushing their skulls in his fist. The look in his eyes said that he was used to seeing such deeds done.

Behind Kahlan, two burly men stepped out of the dark corners and closed the double doors. They, too, were fierce-looking, with wild tattoos in menacing swirls over their features. Their massive muscles were sweat-slicked and sooty, as if they never washed off the smoke of oily fires. As they stepped together before the closed doors, Kahlan could smell their sour sweat through the stench of the burning pitch.

These two looked more than ready for any eventuality. Heavy, studded leather straps holding a variety of knives crisscrossed their chests. Axes and flanged maces hanging on their weapons belts glinted in the light of the hissing torches. Their faces were also studded with metal spikes—in their ears, eyebrows, and through the bridges of their noses. It almost appeared that they had hammered nails through parts of their faces. They, too, were shaved bald. The two men didn’t look entirely human, much less civilized, but rather a deliberate corruption of the notion of mankind, embracing instead steel, soot, and elements of a beast.

Even though they carried short swords, they didn’t draw them. They didn’t appear the least little bit afraid of the Sisters.

“Emperor Jagang . . .” Sister Ulicia’s watery, weak voice trailed off in abject terror.

Emperor Jagang!

The shock of those two words jolted Kahlan down to her soul.

There was something about her concept of this man, formed from seeing his army from a distance and from having been through some of the places they had attacked, that made Kahlan fear him even more than the Sisters. In contrast to the Sisters, masculinity added an alien dimension to the nature of the threat he projected.

For as far back as she could remember, they had done everything possible to stay away from Jagang, and yet here he sat, right in front of them. He looked relaxed, like a man who had everything well in hand. He appeared to have no worries. Not even Sisters of the Dark appeared to concern him.

Kahlan knew that this was no accidental encounter. It had been staged.

More than Kahlan’s fear of Jagang engendered by the Sisters’ overheard conversations and their dogged avoidance of the man, there was something else, something deeper, a dark dread rooted in her very soul, almost like a memory beyond her reach betrayed only by its indistinct but sinister shadow.

When Kahlan stole a glance to the side, she saw that the Sisters appeared frozen in place, as if they had been turned to stone. They had also gone ashen.

Sister Ulicia was wearing her blue dress, chosen especially for the reunion with Tovi. It was now dusty not only from the climb up onto the headland, but from the descent down into the interior of it. Sister Armina wore a dress with white ruffles at the wrists and at the low neckline. Under the circumstances, in a dusty grave and standing before leering brutes, the ruffles looked naively ridiculous. Sister Cecilia, older, tightly controlled, and habitually tidy with curly gray hair, now looked on the ragged rim of a leap into the refuge of madness.

Jagang’s sullen eyes watched the three Sisters. He was savoring the moment, Kahlan knew, savoring their startled horror. If the Sisters had been able to do anything about the situation, Kahlan was sure that they would already have done it.

Sister Armina’s tongue darted out to moistened her lips. “Excellency,” she said in a small, strained voice. Kahlan thought it a pitiful attempt at a respectful greeting, conspicuously born of panic, not respect.

“Excellency,” Sister Cecilia added in a voice no more steady.

Kahlan had on rare occasions seen the Sisters cautious, even wary, but she had never seen them afraid. She had never even been able to imagine them being frightened. They had always seemed in utter and complete control. Now their habitual, haughty dispositions were nowhere in evidence.

All three Sisters bowed in halting movements, like three puppets on strings.

When she straightened, Sister Ulicia swallowed in trembling terror. As frightened as she obviously was, confused curiosity, as well as the unendurable silence, drove her to speak.

“Excellency, what are you doing here?”

Jagang’s treacherous glare again melted into a smirk at the gentle, innocent, feminine tone of her question.

“Ulicia, Ulicia, Ulicia . . .” He sighed heavily. “You really are one monumentally stupid bitch.”

All three women went to a knee as if they had been slammed down by an invisible fist. Small, whining whimpers escaped their throats.

“Please, Excellency, we meant no—”

“I know exactly what you meant. I know every last dirty little detail of everything in your minds.”

Kahlan had never seen Sister Ulicia cowed, much less so badly shaken, “Excellency . . . I don’t understand . . .”

“Of course you don’t,” he said with a sneer as her words dwindled away to silence. “That is why you are on your knees before me, and not the other way around, which is just what you were wishing, isn’t it, Armina?”

When his gaze slid to Sister Armina she let out a small, startled cry. Blood oozed from her ears, running in a little red trail down the snow white flesh of her neck. Other than her slight trembling, she didn’t move.

Jillian’s arms clutched at Kahlan. Kahlan put a hand protectively to the side of the girl’s face, pressing her close, trying to comfort her when there was no real comfort to be had before such a man.

“You also have Tovi, then?” Sister Ulicia asked, still so surprised by the turn of events that she couldn’t come to grips with it.

“Tovi!” Jagang burst into a fit of gruff laughter. “Tovi! Why, Tovi has been dead for ages.”

Sister Ulicia stared in horror. “She’s dead?”

He lifted his arm with a dismissive wave. “Finally sent to the afterlife by a mutual friend, a very unfaithful and traitorous friend. I imagine that the Keeper of the underworld is quite angry with Tovi’s failure in her service to him. You will have all of eternity to find out just how angry.” His smirk returned as he glared at the woman. “But not until I am finished with you in this life.”

Sister Ulicia bowed her head. “Of course, Excellency.”

Kahlan noticed that Sister Armina had wet herself. Sister Cecilia looked like she was ready to collapse into tears—or screams.

“Excellency,” Sister Ulicia ventured, “how could you . . . I mean, with our bond.”

“Your bond!” Jagang roared with laughter again, slapping the table. “Ah yes, your bond to Lord Rahl. Your touching loyalty to Lord Rahl that ‘protects’ you from my talents as a dream walker.”

Kahlan’s heart sank to hear that the Sisters were in some kind of alliance with Lord Rahl. For some reason, she had thought more of the man. It hurt to find she was wrong.

“ ‘We’re not the ones attacking Richard Rahl,’ ” he said in a falsetto voice, clasping his hands in a mocking manner, apparently quoting some statement from Ulicia’s past. “ ‘Jagang is the one going after him, seeking to destroy him, not us. We are the ones who will wield the power of Orden and then we will grant Richard Rahl what only we will have the power to grant. That is enough to preserve our bond and protect us from the dream walker.’ ”

He lost the effeminate pretense. “Your loyalty and devotion to Lord Rahl is touching.”

His fist slammed down on the table. His face went red with rage. “Do you stupid bitches actually believe that such a bond to Lord Rahl as you dreamed up would hold you free of harm?”

Kahlan remembered the Sisters talking about the same thing, and she hadn’t been able to understand it back then, either. Why would Richard Rahl have anything to do with these evil women, much less enter into a pact with them? Could such a thing really be true? Could it be that he was really no better than they?

One thing about it all didn’t seem to make any sense, though. If they were sworn to him, then why would they steal the boxes from his palace?

“But the bond’s magic . . .” Sister Ulicia’s voice trailed off into silence.

Jagang stood—a move that made the three gasp and tremble all the more. Kahlan was sure that, had they been able to, they would have backed up at least a step and likely more.

He shook his head, as if he could not believe that they could be so ignorant as not to understand. “Ulicia, I was there in your mind watching the whole sorry event. I was there the day, years ago, that you proposed the scheme to Richard Rahl. I have to tell you, I didn’t really believe that you were serious. I had difficulty believing that you could be so stupid as to believe that you could strike such a bargain to gain your freedom from me.”

“But it should have worked.”

“No, there was no way such a thing could work. It was nothing more than an irrational idea. You wanted to believe it was true, so you did.”

“You were in our minds that day?” Sister Cecilia asked. “Why would you allow us to believe we had succeeded?”

His inky gaze fixed on her. “Don’t you remember what I told you all in the very beginning, on the first day you stood before me? Control, I told you, is more important than killing. I told you then that I could have killed you six, but what good would you be to me then? As long as you’re under my dominion, you’re no threat to me, and of use in oh so many ways.

“No, of course you don’t remember because you chose instead to think that you were smart enough to trick me with your convoluted, illogical notion of the bond. You think you are too clever to be outwitted, and so here you stand before me again, never having left my dominion.”

“And yet, you just let us . . . go about our business?” Sister Cecilia asked.

Jagang shrugged as he stepped around the table. “I could have stopped you at any moment, if I chose. I knew I had you under my thumb. But what would I have had to gain, then? Just a few more Sisters of the Dark, and I already had plenty of those—although their numbers are seriously diminished by now.” He leaned down toward them with an aside. “Your kind has a tendency to do a lot of dying on the behalf of the cause of the Fellowship of Order.

“But with you,” Jagang said as he straightened, “I had something highly interesting. I had Sisters of the Dark who were up to things.” He tapped a thick finger to his temple. “Who had devious plans, and the knowledge to pursue them.

“You have a lifetime of experience from the vaults at the Palace of the Prophets, vaults holding thousands of books that are now gone. No matter how irrational your plans sometimes become—witness your present condition—that does not negate your reserve of knowledge gained through decades of study, or mean that every one of your plans was unworkable.”

“So, you knew our plans all along? From that day with Richard Rahl?”

Jagang glared at Sister Ulicia. “Of course I knew. I knew your plan the instant you concocted it.” His voice lowered with menace. “You thought I only came into people’s dreams. I don’t. You thought I wasn’t there, in your mind, when you were awake. I was. Once I enter into your mind, Ulicia, I am there, in your mind, always.

“Whatever you think, whenever you think it, I witness it. Every dirty little thing you conceive, I see. Every thought, every action, every vile wish, I know as if it were spoken aloud the instant you conceive it. Because I wasn’t making you aware of my presence, though, you ignorantly believed I wasn’t there, but I was.” He waggled a thick finger. “Oh, Ulicia, I was there.

“When you told Richard Rahl your plan, that you wanted to swear loyalty to him in exchange for someone he cared deeply about, well, I could hardly believe that you just assumed it would work.”

For some reason, Kahlan felt a pang of sadness to hear that Richard Rahl had someone he cared deeply about. She guessed that ever since that day she had been in his beautiful garden, she had come to feel a connection to him on some deeply personal level, even if it was only a shared appreciation for the beauty of growing things, an appreciation of nature, and thus the world around them, the world of life. But now she was hearing that he was dealing with Sisters of the Dark, and that he had someone he cared deeply about. It made her feel all the more like a forgotten nobody. She wondered what she could have been thinking.

“But . . . but,” Sister Ulicia stammered, “it worked . . .”

Jagang shook his head. “Fidelity on your terms, fidelity even though you would continue to work for his destruction, even though you would continue to work for everything he stands against, fidelity even though you would continue to be sworn to the Keeper of the underworld, fidelity concocted of your selected, selfish wishes is just that—wishes. Wishing doesn’t turn your desires into reality just because you want it to.”

Kahlan felt at least a small level of relief to hear that the Sisters were continuing to work for Lord Rahl’s destruction. Maybe that meant that he wasn’t really an ally of the Sisters. Maybe, in some way, he was like her, being used against his will.

“I could hardly believe it as I listened to you dictating the terms of your loyalty to him,” Jagang was saying, gesturing in a grand fashion, “claiming that such fidelity was subject to the moral filter you, not he, would apply. I mean, if you were going to contrive beliefs out of thin air, Ulicia, why didn’t you just save yourselves some trouble and decide that by sheer willpower alone your mind had been rendered impenetrable to a dream walker? That would have been just as effective a shield.”

He shook his head. “My, my, Ulicia. How cruel of the nature of existence not to allow you your irrational desires.”

He swept an arm out. “And, just as amazing, the rest of your Sisters believed it too. I know; I was there in their minds as well, watching as they were overcome with glee that they were to be free of my ability just because you claimed you could tap into the bond to the Lord Rahl with your own form of loyalty.”

“But you allowed us to do it,” Sister Ulicia said, still overwhelmed with astonishment. “Why would you not strike us down then?”

Jagang shrugged. “I had plenty of Sisters under my thumb. This was an interesting opportunity. I learn a great deal from the knowledge others possess. Learning things gives one power one would not otherwise have.

“I decided to see just what you could accomplish if left to your own devices, see what you could learn for me. After all, I could have dropped any of you at any time if I grew weary of my little experiment. There were times when I was greatly tempted, such as the time not long ago when Armina said ‘I’d love to string Jagang up and have my way with him.’ ”

He arched an eyebrow. “Remember that, Armina? Not to worry if it has slipped your mind. I will be reminding you of it from time to time, just to refresh your memory.”

Sister Armina lifted a hand, as if in supplication. “I, I was only . . .”

He glared at her until she fell silent, unable to conjure an excuse, and then went on.

“Yes, I was there all along. Yes, I saw everything. Yes, I could have struck you down at any time. But I have something you don’t have, Ulicia. I have patience. With patience you can move mountains—or go around them, or climb over them.”

“But you could have had Richard Rahl right there, when we offered him our terms. Or you could have had him at his camp.”

“You could have had him at camp as well. You spelled him, and had him down. You could have ended it. Then why didn’t you? Because you had a grander plan, so you left him be, thinking that your bond to him was your protection, while you went on to pursue something of greater worth to you.”

“But you didn’t need him,” she pressed. “You could have taken him.”

“Ah, but while killing people as punishment is useful, it’s not nearly as beneficial as what you can do with them when they are alive. Take you three, for example. Death brings no great punishment, only the reward of the afterlife if you have served the Creator in this one. You three, however, will be denied the Creator’s Light. What use is that to me? But if a person is alive I can make them suffer.” He leaned closer. “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, Excellency,” Sister Ulicia managed to say in a strangled voice as blood began to trickle from her ear.

“I liked parts of your plan,” he said as he straightened. “I find them very useful for my own purpose—things such as the boxes of Orden. Why should I kill Richard Rahl; I have the opportunity to do so much more than simply kill him. I want him to be alive to endure inconceivable suffering.

“By letting him live that day at his camp, the same as you did when you ignited your Chainfire spell, I knew that I would be able to use this new opportunity to take everything from him. Since I was in your minds, I, too, was protected from the Chainfire spell, the same as you.

“Now, with everything you have given me, I can strip Richard Rahl of his power, his land, his people, his friends, his loved ones. I can take everything from him in the name of the Fellowship of Order.”

Jagang drew his hand into a tight fist before him as he gritted his teeth. “For opposing our rightful cause, I intend to crush him down to his soul, and then, when I have wrung everything out of him, given him every kind of pain there is in this world, I will extinguish the flame of that soul. And you have made it all possible.”

Sister Ulicia nodded tearfully at all that was lost to her. She seemed resigned to her new duty.

“Excellency, we can accomplish none of it without the book we came here for.”

Jagang lifted a volume off the table and held it up for them to see. “The Book of Counted Shadows. The book you came here to find. I thought to search for it while I waited for you to complete your journey here.”

He tossed the book back on the table. “An exceedingly rare book. This, of course, is one of the few copies that were never supposed to be made and so it was hidden in this place. Of course I was there, in your mind, when you found all of this out.

“You even brought me the means of verification.” His unsettling gaze moved to Kahlan. “And you have a collar around her neck by which I can control her.” He turned a condescending smile on Sister Ulicia. “You see, since I’m in your mind I have but to command it and through you I control her every move—just as easily as you do.”

Kahlan’s hope for a chance to escape evaporated. If the Sisters were cruel masters, this man was something far worse. Kahlan didn’t yet know what his intentions were, but she held no illusions that they were anything but vile.

An inkling of something else began to well up in her. For some reason she was of value to the Sisters and now just as valuable to Jagang. How could she be the means of verification of some ancient book hidden away for thousands of years? She had always been told that she was a nobody, a slave, and nothing more. She was beginning to understand that the Sisters had been lying to her. They only wanted her to think she was a nobody. It appeared, instead, that she was, somehow, pivotally important to all of them.

Jagang flicked a hand at Jillian. “Besides the collar, I have her to help me convince Kahlan here to do as she is told. Tell me, my dear, have you ever been with a man?”

Jillian pushed up against Kahlan. “You said you would free my grandfather. You said that if I did exactly as you said, and brought the Sisters here, you would set him and the others free. I did what you told me to do.”

“Yes, you did. And you really were quite convincing. I was there, in their minds, the whole time, watching your performance. You followed my instructions flawlessly.” His voice turned as threatening as his glare. “Now answer the question or your grandfather and the others will be vulture food by morning. Have you ever been with a man?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said in a small voice.

“I see. Well, if Kahlan doesn’t do everything I tell her to do, you will be given over to my soldiers for their amusement. They like getting their hands on young things like you who haven’t before experienced . . . desires such as theirs.”

Jillian’s fingers tightened on Kahlan’s shirt. She pressed her face against Kahlan’s arm as she stifled a sob. Kahlan squeezed the girl’s shoulder, trying to comfort her, trying to let her know that she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her if she could help it.

“You have me,” Kahlan said. “Leave her be.”

“Tovi has the third box,” Sister Ulicia said. It was clear to Kahlan that she was trying to stall, to buy time, as well as ingratiate herself with Jagang.

He glared at her. “It was stolen from her.”

“Stolen? Well . . . I can help you find it.”

Jagang leaned his backside on the table as he folded his massive arms. “Ulicia, when are you going to learn that not only do I stand in front of you, but I am in your mind as well. I know everything you’re thinking. But do keep coming up with your schemes. They’re quite inventive.

“And did you ever conceive some grand plans,” he said with a satisfied sigh as he strolled closer. “You got farther with them than I thought you would ever be able to.”

His voice took on an edge that ran shivers up Kahlan’s spine. “And look at what my patience has netted me,” he said as he turned to her, fixing her in the gaze of his terrible, inky eyes. “You wanted to know why I let you wander around free, doing as you wished? Here is the answer. Letting you cast about on your own, Ulicia, has netted me the prize of prizes.”

Kahlan knew now that she had been correct. She was for some reason valuable. She wished she knew why. She wished she knew who she really was.

Kahlan could do nothing but watch as Jagang closed the distance to her. There was nowhere to run. Just in case she might have had that thought, though, she felt a shock of pain blaze down her spine and burn through her legs, locking them in place. She knew it was the collar causing the painful paralysis, because the Sisters had done that very thing before. He, of course, would know that, because he had been in their minds all along to see it done. She could see in his merciless expression that, this time, he was the cause of the pain.

Jagang reached out and ran his thick fingers through Kahlan’s hair. She didn’t want him touching her, but she could do nothing to prevent it. He seemed to forget everyone else in the room as he stared at her.

“Yes, Ulicia, you surely did bring me the prize of prizes. You brought me Kahlan Amnell.”

Amnell.

So now she knew her last name. She had detected the slightest hesitation after her name, almost as if a title should have been added to her name.

Jagang leaned close with an obscene smile that carried meaning she didn’t want to consider. Kahlan stood her ground by her own will, even if she had no real choice. Jagang’s powerful, muscled body pressed up against her. It was like feeling the weight of a bull leaning against her.

With one finger, the man lifted her hair away from her neck. His stubble scraped her cheek as he put his mouth by her ear.

“But Kahlan doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t even know the true nature of the prize that she truly is.”

For the first time, Kahlan wished that she were invisible, that this man could not see her just as everyone but the Sisters and Jillian could not see her. This was not a man she wanted to recognize her. This was a man she didn’t want anywhere near her.

“You cannot begin to imagine,” he whispered intimately in a voice that seared her with hot dread, “just how extraordinarily unpleasant this is going to be for you.

“You were worth my patience, worth everything I’ve had to put up with from Ulicia. We are going to become quite close, you and I. If you think I intend the worst for Lord Rahl, then you cannot even begin to imagine what I have in mind for you, darlin.”

Kahlan had never felt so alone, so helpless, in her life. Against her will, she felt a tear run down her cheek even as she managed to hold back a sob deep in her throat.