Soul of the Fire

Chapter 45

Ann took a quick glance around as Sister Georgia lifted the tent flap. Satisfied that no one was paying any attention, Ann ducked inside.

A crowd of women huddled inside the dimly lit tent, some lying down, some sitting on the ground hugging their knees, some with arms around one another like frightened children. Not many even bothered to look up. Ann couldn’t recall seeing such a cowed-looking bunch.

She reproved herself; these women had suffered unspeakable abuse.

“Shoo,” Sister Rochelle, sitting near the tent opening, said, without meeting Ann’s eyes. “Out with you, beggar.”

“Good for you, child,” Ann said. “Good for you, Sister Rochelle, for keeping beggars from your humble home.”

Half the women looked up at the sound of Ann’s voice. Wide eyes stared in the dim candlelight. Some of the women pushed at others who weren’t paying attention, or swatted an arm, or pulled on a sleeve.

Some were dressed in outfits Ann could scarcely believe. The clothes covered them from neck to ankle, but were so sheer as to leave the women, for all practical purposes, naked. Others had on their own dresses, but they were in a state of wretched disrepair. A few had on little more than rags.

Ann smiled. “Fionola, you look well, considering your ordeal. Sister Kerena. Sister Aubrey. Sister Cherna, you look to be getting some gray hair. It happens to us all, but you wear it well.”

Women all round blinked with disbelieving eyes.

“It’s really her,” Sister Georgia said. “She’s really alive. She didn’t die, like we thought. Prelate Annalina Aldurren lives.”

“Well,” Ann said, “Verna is the Prelate, now, but . . .”

Women were rushing to their feet. It rather reminded Ann of sheep watching a wolf coming down the hill. They all looked like they might bolt for the countryside.

Sisters of the Light were women of strength, women of fortitude, women of decisive intelligence. Ann feared to consider what it would have taken to reduce all these women to such a sorry looking state.

She ran a gentle hand down a head beside her. “Sister Lucy. You are a sight for my tired eyes.” Ann smiled with genuine joy. “You all are.” She felt a tear roll down her own cheek. “My dear, dear Sisters, you are all a blessed sight to my eyes. I thank the Creator He has led me to you.”

And then they were all falling to knees to bow to her, to whisper their prayers to the Creator for her safety, to weep with disbelief.

“There, there. None of that,” she said, wiping her fingers across the cheek of Sister Lucy, clearing away the tears. “None of that. We have important business, and we’ve no time for a good cry, not that I’m saying you aren’t all entitled. But later would be an excellent time for it, while right now is not.”

Sisters kissed the hem of her dress. More came forward on their knees to do the same. They were the lost, who were now found. It nearly broke Ann’s heart.

She smiled her best Prelate smile and indulged them, touching each head, blessing each of them by name and thanking the Creator aloud for sparing each life and guarding each soul. It was an informal, formal audience with the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light.

She didn’t think it the proper time to insist on reminding them she was no longer the Prelate, that she’d given the office to Verna for safekeeping. At that moment of joy, it just wasn’t important.

Ann allowed the reunion to go on for only a few minutes before forcing it to an end.

“Listen now, all of you. Hush. We will have more than enough time later to share our joy at being together. Now I must tell you why I have come.

“Something terrible has happened. But as you know more than most, there must be balance in all things. The balance is that the terrible event will, in the Creator’s balance, allow you to escape.”

“The Prelate says the chimes are loose,” Sister Georgia put in. Everyone gasped. “She believes it.”

The clear implication was that Sister Georgia didn’t believe it, that it was impossible, and anyone would have to be a fool to think it was so.

“Now, listen to me, all of you.” Ann let her brow draw down in a look every woman in the room knew well enough to bring sweat to their brows. “You all remember Richard?” There were nods all around. “Well, it’s a long story, but Jagang loosed a plague that killed thousands of people. It was a horrifying death for countless people. Untold numbers of children perished. Untold numbers of children were left orphans.

“Sister Amelia—”

“She’s sworn to the Keeper!” several Sisters in the back gasped aloud.

“I know,” Ann said. “She is the one who went to the underworld. She brought back the plague for Jagang. She murdered so many innocent people. . . .

“Richard was able to use his power to stop the plague.”

There were astonished looks all around, accompanied by whispering. Ann imagined she was probably telling them too much all at once, but she had to explain enough so they would understand what was at stake.

“Richard contracted the plague, and in order to save his life, the Mother Confessor used magic.” Ann held up a finger to silence them. “Nathan escaped.” Again, gasps filled the tent. Ann hushed them lest they fall to wailing. “Nathan told the Mother Confessor the names of the chimes in order to save Richard’s life. It was a terrible choice to make, but I believe he only did it to save Richard. The Mother Confessor spoke the names of those three chimes aloud to complete the spell to save Richard.

“The chimes are here. She called them into this world. I have personal knowledge of this. I have seen them, and I have seen them kill.”

This time, there were no protests. Even Sister Georgia seemed convinced. Ann felt vindicated in her decision to tell them this much of it.

“As you all know, the chimes being loose has the potential to bring about an unprecedented cataclysm. It has begun. Magic is failing. All our magic is diminished to the point where it is useless. However, in the meantime Jagang’s magic is useless, too.

“While this is so, we can get you all out of here.”

“But what difference do the chimes make?” someone asked.

Ann drew a patient breath. “With the chimes here, magic is failing. That means Jagang’s magic as a dream walker has failed just as our gift has failed. Your minds are all free of the dream walker.”

Sister Georgia stared in disbelief for a moment. “But what if the chimes go back to the underworld? That could happen unexpectedly at any time. Jagang would be back in our heads. You can’t tell he’s there, Prelate. You can’t tell.

“The chimes could already have fled back to the world of the dead. They may not have succeeded in gaining a soul. They may have fled to the protection of the Nameless One. The dream walker could be back in my head, watching me, as we speak.”

Ann grasped the woman’s arms. “No, he’s not. Now, listen to me. My magic has failed. Yours is gone, too. All of us are without the gift. I will be able to tell when it returns—any of us can. For now, it’s gone, and so is the dream walker.”

“But we aren’t allowed to use our gift without permission,” a Sister to the right said. “We couldn’t tell when our power returned to know the chimes had fled this world.”

“I will know immediately,” Ann said. “Jagang doesn’t prevent me from touching my Han, if I can.”

Sister Kerena stepped forward. “But if the chimes do go back, then His Excellency will return to—”

“No. Listen. There is a way to prevent the dream walker from ever again entering your mind.”

“That’s not possible.” Sister Cherna’s eyes darted about, as if Jagang might be hiding in the shadows, watching them. “Prelate, you must get out of here. You’re going to be caught. Someone might have seen you. They could be telling Jagang as we speak.”

“Please, get away,” Sister Fionola said. “We are lost. Forget about us and get away. It can come to no good end, you being here.”

Ann growled again. “Listen to me! It is possible to be safe from the dream walker entering your mind. We can all get away from his evil grip.”

Sister Georgia was back to disbelieving. “But I don’t see how—”

“How do you think he doesn’t enter my mind? Don’t you think he would want me? The Prelate herself? Wouldn’t he get me if he could?”

They were all silent as they considered.

“Well, I guess he would.” Sister Aubrey’s brow drew down. “How is it he isn’t able to take you, too?”

“I’m protected. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Richard is a war wizard. You all know what that means: he has both sides of the gift.”

The Sisters blinked in astonishment, and then they all fell to whispering to one another.

“Furthermore,” Ann went on, bringing the cramped tent full of women to silence, “he is a Rahl.”

“What difference does that make?” Sister Fionola asked.

“The dream walkers are from the time of the great war. A wizard of that time, a war wizard named Rahl, an ancestor of Richard’s, conjured a bond to protect his people from them. Gifted descendants of the House of Rahl are born with this bond with his people that protects them from dream walkers.

“The people of Richard’s land are all bonded to him as their Lord Rahl. Because of that, and because of the magic of it passed down to him, they are all protected from the dream walker. That keeps Jagang from their minds. A dream walker can’t enter the mind of anyone bonded to the Lord Rahl.”

“But we are not his people,” women all around were saying.

Ann held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You only have to swear your loyalty to Richard—swear it meaningfully in your heart—and you are safe from the dream walker.”

She passed a finger before their eyes. “I have long been sworn to Richard. He leads us in our fight against this monster, Jagang, who would end magic in this world. My faith in Richard, my bond to him, my being sworn to him in my heart, protects me from Jagang entering my mind.”

“But if what you say about the chimes being here in this world is true,” a Sister in the back said in a whine, “then the magic of the bond will fail, too, so we would have no protection.”

Ann sighed and tried to remain patient with these frightened and intimidated women. She reminded herself to keep in mind these women had been in the savage hands of the enemy for a long time.

“But the two cancel each other, don’t you see.”

Ann turned up her palms, like scales, moving them up and down in opposition. “As long as the chimes are here, Jagang’s magic doesn’t work, and he can’t enter your minds.” She moved her hands in the opposite direction.

“When the chimes are banished, and if you are sworn to Richard, then his bond keeps Jagang from your mind. Either one or the other protects you.

“Do you all see? You must only swear to Richard, who leads the fight against Jagang, fights for our cause—the cause of the Light—and you never again need fear the dream walker being able to reach you.

“Sisters, we can get away. Tonight. Right now. Do you at last see? You can be free.”

They all stared dumbly. Finally, Sister Rochelle spoke up. “But, we aren’t all here.”

Ann looked around. “Where are the rest? We will collect them and leave. Where are they?”

Again, the women retreated into frightened silence. Ann snapped her fingers at Sister Rochelle for her to answer. Finally the woman spoke again. “The tents.”

Every woman in the room cast her eyes down. The gold rings through their lower lips shone in the candlelight. “What do you mean, the tents?”

Sister Rochelle cleared her throat, trying to keep the tears struggling to break through from doing so.

“Jagang, when one of us displeases him, or he is angry with us, or he wants to punish us, or teach us a lesson, or simply wishes to be cruel, sends us to the tents. The soldiers use us. They pass us around.”

Sister Cherna fell to the ground weeping. “We must be whores for his men.”

Ann gathered her resolve. “Listen to me, all of you. That ends right now. Right now, you are free. You are again Sisters of the Light. Do you hear me? You are no longer his slaves!”

“But what about the others?” Sister Rochelle asked. “Can you get them?”

Sister Georgia drew up tall and stiff. “You wait here, Prelate. Sister Rochelle, Aubrey, and Kerena will go with me to see what we can do.” She gave the three a look. “Won’t we? We know what we must do.”

The three nodded. Sister Kerena put a hand under Ann’s arm.

“You wait here. Will you? Wait here until we return.”

“Yes, all right,” Ann said. “But you must hurry. We need to get out of here before it gets too late in the night, or we will raise suspicions traipsing through the camp when everyone else is sleeping. We can’t wait for—”

“Just wait,” Sister Rochelle said in a calm voice. “We will see to it. Everything will be all right.”

Sister Georgia turned to the tent full of Sisters. “See to it she waits, will you? She must wait here.”

The Sisters nodded. Ann put her fists on her hips.

“If you take too long, we will have to leave without you. Do you understand? We can’t—”

Sister Rochelle put a hand against Ann’s shoulder. “We will be back in plenty of time. Wait.”

Ann sighed. “The Creator be with you.”

Ann sat among Sisters, who seemed to recede back into the prison of their private thoughts. Their joy, so evident when they had first seen her, had faded. They were once again distant and unresponsive.

They stared off without listening as Ann tried telling them some of the lighter stories of her adventures. She chuckled as she recounted incommodious moments, hoping someone would become interested and perhaps smile, at least. No one did.

None of them asked anything, or even seemed to be listening. They would no longer even meet her gaze. Like trapped animals, they wanted only to escape the terror.

Ann was growing more uncomfortable by the moment. By the moment, sitting among these women she knew so well, her hackles were beginning to rise at the thought that maybe she didn’t know them as well as she had believed.

Sometimes, trapped animals didn’t know enough to run for an open gate.

When the tent flap opened, they scooted away from her. Ann rose.

Four huge men, layered in leather plates, belts, straps, hides over their shoulders, and weapons jangling from their belts, ducked into the tent, followed by Sisters Georgia, Rochelle, Aubrey, and Kerena. The men’s stringy, greasy hair whipped from side to side as they checked to each side. By the way they carried themselves they looked to Ann to be men of more authority than mere soldiers.

Sister Rochelle pointed. “That’s her. The Prelate of the Sisters of the Light.”

“Rochelle,” Ann growled, “what’s this about? What do you think—”

The man seeming to be in charge seized her jaw, turning her head left, then right, as he appraised her. “You sure?” His dark glower moved to Sister Rochelle. “She looks like the rest of the beggars to me.”

Sister Georgia pointed at Ann. “I’m telling you, that’s her.” The man’s eyes turned to Sister Georgia as she went on. “She’s just fixed herself up like that to get in here.”

The man gestured the other soldiers forward. They brought manacles and chains. Ann tried to fight them off, to twist away, but the soldier who seized her, unconcerned, gripped her fists and pulled them out for another man to clamp on the manacles.

Two of them forced her to the ground as another man set down an anvil. They held the manacles’ ears on the anvil as they hammered pins through the holes and then mushroomed the heads of the pins, locking the manacles on permanently. They made them too tight, so they dug into her flesh, but the men were indifferent to her unintended cry of pain.

Ann knew better than to struggle when it could do no good, so she made herself become still. Without her Han, she was as helpless as a child against these big men. The Sisters mostly cowered as far away as they could get. None watched.

The men hammered closed the open links at the end of the chains. Ann let out a grunt as she was slammed face down in the dirt. More manacles were affixed to her ankles. More chains were attached. Big hands lifted her. A chain around her waist webbed all the rest together.

Ann was not even going to be able to feed herself.

One of the men scratched his thick beard. “And she has no one with her?”

Sisters Georgia and Rochelle shook their heads.

He chuckled. “How’d she get to be the Prelate, if she’s that dumb?”

Sister Georgia curtsied without meeting his eyes. “We don’t know, sir. But she is.”

He shrugged and started to leave, but then halted and cast his gaze over the shivering women on the floor. He pointed a thick finger at a Sister in one of the absurd transparent outfits.

“You.”

Sister Theola flinched. She closed her eyes. Ann could see her lips moving in a futile prayer to the Creator.

“Come along,” the man commanded.

Trembling, Sister Theola stood. The other three men grinned their approval of their leader’s choice as they shoved her out ahead of them.

“You said you wouldn’t,” Sister Georgia spoke up, if meekly.

“Did I?” the man asked. He showed her a wicked grin. “Changed my mind.”

“Let me go in her place,” Sister Georgia called out as the man turned to leave.

He turned back. “Well, well. Aren’t you the noble one.” He seized Sister Georgia’s wrist and pulled her after as he went out through the flap. “Since you’re so eager, you can come along with her.”

After the men left with the two women, the tent fell to terrible silence. None of the Sisters would look at Ann as she sat hobbled in the chains.

“Why?” Ann had spoken the word softly, but it rang though the tent like the huge bell atop the Palace of the Prophets. Several Sisters quailed at the single word. Others wept.

“We know better than to try to escape,” Sister Rochelle said at last. “We all tried at first. We truly did, Prelate. Some of us died trying. It was prolonged and horrible.

“His Excellency taught us the futility of trying to escape. Aiding anyone in an attempt to escape is a grave offense. None of us wishes that lesson visited upon us again.”

“But you could have been free!”

“We know better,” Sister Rochelle said. “We can’t be free. We belong to His Excellency.”

“As victims at first,” Ann said, “but now by choice. I willingly risked my life that you might be free. You were given the option, and you chose to remain slaves rather than reach for freedom.

“Worse, though, you all lied to me. You lied in the cause of evil.” The women hid their faces as Ann delivered a withering glare. “And each of you knows what I think of liars—what the Creator thinks of those who lie in the cause of opposing his work.”

“But Prelate—” Sister Cherna whined.

“Silence! I’ve no use for your words. You no longer have any right to have me hear them.

“If I ever get out of these chains, it will be by the aid of those who sincerely serve the Light. You are no better than the Sisters of the Dark. At least they have the honesty to admit their vile master.”

Ann fell silent when a man stepped through the opening into the tent.

He was average in height and powerfully built, with massive arms and chest. His fur vest was open, revealing dozens of jewel-studded gold chains hanging from his bull neck. Each thick finger held a ring worthy of a king.

His smooth shaved head reflected points of light from the candles. A fine gold chain ran from a gold ring in his left nostril to another in his left ear. The long braided ends of his mustache hung past his jaw, matching the braid in the center under his lower lip.

His eyes, though, marked the nightmare of the dream walker.

They had no whites to them at all. The murky orbs were clouded over with sullen dusky shapes shifting in a field of inky obscurity, yet Ann had no doubt whatsoever that he was looking right at her.

She couldn’t imagine the gaze of the Keeper himself being any worse.

“A visitor, I see.” His voice matched his muscle.

“The pig can speak,” Ann said. “How fascinating.”

Jagang laughed. It was not an agreeable sound.

“Oh, darlin, but aren’t you the brash sort. Georgia tells me you’d be the Prelate herself. That true, darlin?”

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that every woman in the tent was on her knees with her face to the dirt in a deep bow. Ann couldn’t say she didn’t understand their not wanting to meet the man’s disturbing gaze.

She gave him a pleasant smile. “Annalina Aldurren, former Prelate of the Sisters of the light, at your service.”

The cleft between his prodigious chest muscles deepened as he pressed his hands together in the pose of prayer and bowed toward her with mock respect of her rank.

“Emperor Jagang, at yours.”

Ann sighed irritably. “Well, what’s it to be, Jagang? Torture? Rape? Hanging, beheading, burning?”

The grisly grin visited him again. “My, my, darlin, but don’t you know how to tempt a man.”

He grabbed a fistful of hair and lifted Sister Cherna.

“See, the thing is, I got plenty of these regular Sisters, and I got plenty of the other kind, too, the ones sworn to the Keeper. I confess to liking them better.” He arched an eyebrow over a forbidding eye. “They can still use some of their magic.”

Sister Cherna’s eyes watered in pain as he gripped her throat. “But I’ve only got one Prelate.”

Sister Cherna’s feet were clear of the ground by several inches. She couldn’t breathe, but made no effort to fight. His terrible massive muscles rippled and glistened in the candlelight.

The cords in his arm strained. Cherna’s eyes widened as his grip tightened. Her mouth gaped in silent fright.

“So,” Jagang said to the others, “she confirmed everything about the chimes? Told you everything about them?”

“Yes!” several offered at once, clearly hoping he would release Sister Cherna.

Not everything, Ann thought. If Zedd was ever going to succeed at anything, she hoped the chimes would be it.

“Good.” Jagang dropped the woman.

Sister Cherna crumpled in a heap, her hands tearing at her throat as she struggled to get air. She couldn’t get her breath. Jagang had crushed her windpipe. Her fingers clawed at the air. As she lay at his feet, she began turning blue.

With desperate effort, she struggled her way into Ann’s lap. Ann stroked the poor ruined woman’s head with an outpouring of helpless compassion.

Ann whispered her love and forgiveness to Sister Cherna, and then silently prayed to the Creator and to the good spirits.

Sister Cherna’s arms, twitching in agony, circled Ann’s waist in gratitude. Ann could do nothing but pray that the Creator would forgive his child as she died a burbling death in Ann’s lap. At last, she stilled with the merciful release of death.

Jagang kicked Sister Cherna aside. He seized the chain around Ann’s throat and with one hand easily hauled her to her feet. Cloudy shapes in his inky eyes shifted in a way that unsettled her stomach.

“I think you may be of some use. Maybe I can pull off your arms and send them to Richard Rahl, just to give him nightmares. Maybe I can trade you for something of value. But fear not, I will think of a use for you, Prelate. You are now my property.”

“You can have my existence in this world,” Ann said with grim commitment, “but you cannot touch my soul. That gift of the Creator is mine, and mine alone.”

He laughed. “A fine speech.” He jerked her face closer. “One I’ve heard before.” His eyebrows arched with delight. “Why, I think every woman in this room has said the same to me. But you know what, Prelate? They put the lie to it today, didn’t they?

“They all gave you over, when they could have escaped. At the least, they could have saved your life at no risk to themselves. But they chose to remain slaves when you offered them freedom.

“I’d say, Prelate, that I have their souls, too.”

“Sister Cherna sought me at death, not you, Jagang. She sought goodness and love, even though she had betrayed me. That, Emperor, is the mark of a soul’s true intent.”

“A difference of opinion, then.” He shrugged. “What say we kill the rest, one at a time, and see each vote of devotion, then tally the votes at the end? To be fair, though, we’ll take turns killing them. I killed mine. Your turn.”

Ann could do no more than glare at the beast.

He let out a belly laugh. “No? See, you aren’t so confident in winning the votes of your Sisters’ souls.”

He turned to the Sisters, still on their knees. “Fortune for you today, darlins. The Prelate seems to have ceded your souls.”

His dark gaze returned to Ann. “By the way, you are probably hoping the chimes will be banished. We share the hope. I have use for magic, but if I have to, I can certainly win this way, too.

“But if the chimes are banished, it will do you no good. You see, those manacles and chains are invested with a spell spun by my other Sisters. You know the ones. The Sisters of the Dark. As you know, they have use of Subtractive Magic, and that, my dear Prelate, still works.

“I just didn’t want you to suffer with false hope.”

“How considerate of you.”

“Don’t fret, though. I will think of some creative use for you.”

He cocked his arm. His bare shoulders bulged from the fur vest. His biceps were bigger than the waist of many women in the room.

“For now, though, I think I’d like you unconscious.”

She tried to pull power forth. Her gift did not respond.

Ann watched the fist coming, but could do nothing to stop it.