Johnrock finally grinned. “That’s true. We are winning a lot of soldiers over to our side. Men are beginning to cheer for us.” He waved his ham at Richard. “You are the point man. You will have a lot of pretty women who will want to be with you.”
“There is only one I want.”
“And you think she will be willing? What if she wants nothing to do with you?”
Richard opened his mouth, but then closed it. Kahlan didn’t know him. If he did get a chance to try to get her away from Jagang, what was he going to do if she thought he was just another stranger trying to capture her? After all, why wouldn’t she? What if she wasn’t willing to go along with him? What if she resisted? There would certainly be no time to try to explain things to her.
Richard sighed. Now he had another thing to keep him awake with worry.
CHAPTER 28
Kahlan sat quietly in the shadows to the side of the outer room in a low, leather chair, her hands nested in her lap. Jillian sat cross-legged on the floor nearby. From time to time Kahlan glanced at Sisters Ulicia and Armina as they worked at their assigned task of comparing the books that were the key to opening the boxes of Orden. They were going through each volume word by word, searching for any variance.
Some of Jagang’s other captive Sisters had found a third book down in the catacombs below the Palace of the Prophets, so Sisters Ulicia and Armina now had an additional copy they could check against the two books they already had—the one from the Palace of the Prophets, which Jagang had long had in his possession, and the one he’d found in the catacombs in Caska, where he had captured Sisters Ulicia, Armina, and Cecilia, as well as Kahlan.
The books were supposed to be The Book of Counted Shadows. The titles on the spines of the latter two, however, didn’t say Shadows, but instead said Shadow. There was disagreement between Sisters Ulicia and Armina if that was meaningful or not.
From what Kahlan had pieced together from bits and pieces she’d overheard, there was the original of The Book of Counted Shadows, one true copy, and four false copies. Jagang now had in his possession three of those five copies. Getting their hands on all the copies was a top priority. From what Kahlan could gather, there were people whose lives were devoted solely to that task.
The mystery had deepened when the book found in the recently discovered catacombs under the People’s Palace had turned out to say Shadows in the title on the spine, as it was supposed to say. The titles alone would suggest that the first two were false copies—as Kahlan had said they were—and the latest one was possibly the true copy. As of yet, though, there was no way for them to prove any of it.
Kahlan worried about what she would do if Jagang demanded that she rule on whether the latest find was a true copy or not.
From what the Sisters had pointed out to Jagang, the books themselves said that a Confessor was needed to verify if the book was a true version or not. Kahlan had overheard that she was this person, a Confessor, but, along with the rest of her forgotten past, she didn’t know what a Confessor was. She had no idea how she was supposed to be able to identify the true copy. Jagang hadn’t cared if she knew the way or not; he simply expected her to do it.
With the first two the title being wrong had given her a plausible reason to proclaim them false. With the latest edition, though, she would have nothing to go on, since the title was correct and the text itself could offer her no help because magic prevented her from being able to see it. With his attention focused on Nicci, Jagang hadn’t asked for Kahlan’s determination on the latest volume’s validity.
If he did, and Kahlan couldn’t give him an answer that satisfied him, Jillian would be the one to pay the price.
So far the Sisters had not been able to find any dissimilarities between the three copies. Of course, as they had hesitantly pointed out to the emperor, dissimilarities would prove nothing. All three could be different and still be false copies. How were they to know? There was nothing to say that the newest book, even if it turned out to be different from the other two, was a true copy. Being different, in and of itself, didn’t prove anything.
As far as Kahlan could see, the only real way to identify the one true copy would be if they had the original and all five copies. Despite his bluster and demands, Jagang had to know that as well. That was undoubtedly why he had people dedicated to locating the other books.
Be that as it may, Jagang still wanted the books checked for any discrepancy, so the Sisters were checking—one word at a time.
Jagang had given them ample time to go over the books. While he was greatly interested in discovering the truth of The Book of Counted Shadows, for the time being he was more interested in Nicci.
Ever since Nicci had been captured he had been obsessed with her. He had not taken another woman to his bed and had even forgone the Ja’La matches. It almost seemed to Kahlan as if he thought that if he could satisfactorily demonstrate to Nicci how profound his lust for her really was, then she would be convinced of his true feelings for her, and her defiance would melt away as she was won over.
For her part, Nicci had only become more detached.
Her dispassionate, distant attitude strangely attracted Jagang, but her defiance provoked him to violence and only made her ordeal worse. Kahlan couldn’t imagine, though, when her turn came, being anything but defiant.
Several times, after a fit of wild rage, Jagang’s anger had died out when he suddenly realized that he might have gone too far. On those occasions Sisters had been rushed in to try to revive Nicci. All the while as they worked desperately to save her life and heal her, Jagang paced with a worried, guilty look. Later, after she had been healed, he would regain his indignation and blame Nicci for driving him to such violence in the first place.
Sometimes, like the night before, he would leave Kahlan and Jillian in the outer room while he took Nicci inside to be alone with her for the night. Kahlan supposed that such privacy was his idea of tender romance. As Nicci had been led to the bedchamber she had shared a brief, covert gaze with Kahlan. It had been a look of shared understanding of the utter madness that gripped the world.
Jagang had been so distracted since having Nicci back that he had ignored just about everything else, from The Book of Counted Shadows to the Ja’La matches. Kahlan didn’t like the Ja’La games, but she desperately wanted to see the man everyone called Ruben. She knew from daily reports shared between the guards that Commander Karg’s team had so far won all their matches, but Kahlan wanted to see the point man with the strange designs painted on him, the man with the gray eyes, the man who knew her.
“Look here,” Sister Ulicia said, tapping the page in one of the books. “This formula is different from those two.”
Kahlan watched their backs as both hunched over the table, comparing the books laid open before them. Jagang’s two big bodyguards standing across the room, near the entrance to the tent, also kept an eye on the Sisters. The two regular soldiers—Kahlan’s special guards—didn’t appear to be interested in the Sisters; they were watching Kahlan. Kahlan, her face going red when she realized what they were looking at, pulled a thick skein of hair over the view provided by the missing top button of her shirt.
“Yes…” Sister Armina said in a drawl. “The constellation is different. Isn’t that odd.”
“It certainly makes the differences difficult to spot. Not only that, but look here. The azimuth angles are dissimilar.” Sister Ulicia pulled one of the oil lamps closer. “They’re different in all three copies.”
Sister Armina was nodding as she looked between the books. “We never caught that before in the first two books. I always thought they were the same, but they’re not.”
“Being such a small thing it’s easy to see why we missed it.” Sister Ulicia gestured at the books. “This makes all three different.”
“What do you think it means?”
Sister Ulicia folded her arms. “It can only mean that at least two have to be false copies, but in reality, for all we know,
all three could be.”
Sister Armina heaved an unhappy sigh. “So now we know something new, but it doesn’t really tell us anything useful.”
Sister Ulicia cast the other woman a sidelong glance. “His Excellency has a way of coming up with things I would never have expected him to find. Perhaps he will uncover the other copies and then we will at last have a means to be able to tell something for certain.”
The cover over the door abruptly lifted to the side. Jagang shoved Nicci through the opening. She stumbled and fell at Kahlan’s feet. The woman’s eyes briefly turned up, but she pretended not to see Kahlan right there in front of her. It was a deception that had not changed since Jagang had captured her.
Kahlan could see the rage in Nicci’s eyes. She could see the pain, too. She could also see the desperate despair.
Kahlan wanted to hold her, comfort her, and tell her that it would be all right. But she couldn’t do such a thing. And, she certainly couldn’t tell her that it would be all right.
“What have you found out?” Jagang asked the two Sisters as he stepped up behind them.
Sister Ulicia tapped one of the books. He leaned over her shoulder, peering down at where she pointed.
“Right here, Excellency. They are all three different in this place right here.”
“Which one is correct?”
Both sisters shrank back a little.