Terry Goodkind - Confessor - Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Kahlan had been up in that palace—Lord Rahl’s palace—when the four Sisters had taken her there to have her steal the boxes out of the Garden of Life. The splendor of the place was awe-inspiring. Kahlan had hated to take those boxes from Lord Rahl’s garden. They didn’t belong to the Sisters, and, worse, the Sisters were driven by evil intent.

On that altar where the boxes had sat, Kahlan left in their place her most precious possession. It was a small carving of a woman, her head thrown back, her fists at her sides, her back arched as if opposition to a force trying to subdue her. Kahlan could not imagine where she would have gotten such a beautiful thing.

She was heartbroken to have to leave that carving behind, but she had to in order to fit the last two boxes in her pack. Had she not, Sister Ulicia would have killed her. As much as she loved that small statue, she loved her life more. She hoped that Lord Rahl, when he saw it, would somehow understand that she was sorry for taking what was his.

Now Jagang had captured the Sisters and he had possession of the sinister black boxes. Two of them, anyway. Sister Tovi had started ahead with the first of the three boxes. Now she was dead and the box she’d had was missing. Kahlan had killed Sister Cecilia. That left Sisters Ulicia and Armina, out of her four original captors. Of course, Jagang had other Sisters under his control.

“Who could put a box in play?” Jagang asked as he stared off toward the palace atop the plateau. It wasn’t entirely clear if he was asking the Sisters for an answer, or if he was merely thinking out loud.

Sisters Ulicia and Armina shared a look. The elite guards stood like stone sentinels. The special guards marched slowly back and forth, the closest one taking note of Kahlan, giving her a superior, smug glance each time he turned to march in the opposite direction. Kahlan knew the man, knew his habits. He was one of her less intelligent guards, substituting arrogance for competence.

“Well,” Sister Ulicia finally said into the uneasy silence, “it would take someone with both sides of the gift—both Additive and Subtractive Magic.”

“Other than the Sisters of the Dark you have here, Excellency,” Sister Armina added, “I’m not sure who could accomplish such a task.”

Jagang shot a look back over his shoulder. The soldier was not the only one who foolishly harbored an attitude of arrogant superiority. Jagang was a lot smarter than Sister Armina; she just wasn’t smart enough to know it. She was, however, smart enough to recognize the look in Jagang’s eyes, the look that said he knew she was lying. She quailed, momentarily struck silent by the emperor’s glare.

Sister Ulicia, also a great deal smarter than Sister Armina, quickly recognized the danger of the situation and spoke up.

“There are only a couple of people it could be, Excellency.”

“It had to have been Richard Rahl,” Sister Armina was quick to put in, eager to redeem herself.

“Richard Rahl,” Jagang repeated in a flat tone of cold hatred. He didn’t sound the least bit surprised by the Sister’s suggestion.

Sister Ulicia cleared her throat. “Or Sister Nicci. She is the only Sister you don’t have who is able to wield Subtractive Magic.”

Jagang’s glare fixed on her for a moment before he finally turned back to consider the People’s Palace, now lit by the sun so that it glowed like a beacon above the dark plain.

“Sister Nicci knows everything you stupid bitches did,” he finally announced.

Sister Armina blinked in surprise. She couldn’t resist speaking. “How is that possible, Excellency?”

Jagang clasped his meaty hands behind his back. His heavily muscled back and neck looked more like those of a bull than those of a man. Curly black body hair only added to the impression. His shaved head made him look all the more menacing.

“Nicci was there with Tovi when she was dying,” Jagang said, “after she had been stabbed and the box stolen from her. It had been a very long time since I’d seen Nicci. I was surprised to see her show up out of the blue. I was there, in Tovi’s mind, watching the whole thing. Tovi didn’t know I was in her mind, though, the same as you two didn’t know.

“Nicci didn’t know I was there, either.

“Nicci questioned Tovi, used the woman’s grievous wound to prod her into revealing your plan, Ulicia. Nicci told Tovi quite the story about wishing she could escape my control and with that lie gained Tovi’s confidence. Tovi told her everything—everything about the Chainfire spell you ignited, the boxes you stole with Kahlan’s help, how the boxes were meant to work in conjunction with the Chainfire spell, all of it.”

Sister Ulicia was looking sicker by the moment. “Then it very well could be Nicci who did this. It has to be one or the other.”

“Or Nicci and Richard Rahl together,” Sister Armina suggested.

Jagang said nothing as he stared off at the palace.

Sister Ulicia leaned forward the slightest bit. “If I may ask, Excellency, why is it that you are unable to . . . well, why is Nicci not here, with you?”

Jagang’s completely black eyes turned to the woman. Cloudy shapes shifted in those inky eyes, a storm of his own brewing.

“She was with me. She left. Unlike your clumsy and insincere attempt at trying to shield your minds from me with the bond to the Lord Rahl, the bond worked for Nicci. For reasons I can’t begin to understand she was sincere, and so it worked. She gave up everything she had worked for her whole life—gave up her moral duty!”

He rolled his shoulders, pulling the mantle of calm authority back around himself. “The bond worked for Nicci. I can no longer enter her mind.”

Sister Armina stood frozen in more than simple fear of the man; she was obviously baffled by what she’d just heard.

Sister Ulicia nodded to herself, staring off into memories. “I guess that, in retrospect, it’s not a surprise. I guess I always knew that she loved Richard. She never said a word to us, of course, to the other Sisters of the Dark, but back at the Palace of the Prophets she gave up a great deal—things I would never have imagined her giving up—in exchange for me naming her to be one of his six teachers.

“The price she paid for that chance to be his teacher made me suspicious of her motives. A couple of the others were driven by greed. They simply wanted to suck the gift out of that man—have it for themselves. But not Nicci. That wasn’t what she was after. So I watched her.

“She never gave it away—dear spirits, I don’t think she was even aware of it herself at the time—but there was a look in her eyes. She was in love with him. I never really understood that look back then, probably because she seemed so sure of her hatred for the man and for all that he represented, but she was in love with Richard Rahl. Even back then, she was in love with him.”

Jagang had gone crimson. Absorbed in her recollections, Sister Ulicia hadn’t noticed his mute rage. Sister Armina surreptitiously touched the other woman’s arm in warning. Sister Ulicia looked up and blanched at seeing the look on the emperor’s face, and immediately changed the subject.

“Like I said, she never said any such thing, so perhaps I’m just imagining it. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m sure of it. She hated the man. She wanted him dead. She hated everything he represented. She hated him. Plain as day. She hated him.”

Sister Ulicia closed her mouth, visibly forcing herself to stop babbling.

“I gave her everything.” Jagang’s voice rumbled like bottled thunder. “I made her as good as a queen. As Jagang the Just, I granted her the authority to be the fist of the Fellowship of Order. Those who opposed the righteous ways of the Order came to know her as Death’s Mistress. She was able to fulfill that virtuous call to duty only because of my generosity. I was foolish to have given her so much latitude. She betrayed me. Betrayed me for him.”