Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

He came to a halt before Kahlan. “Copies of The Book of Counted Shadows have to be verified through the use of a Confessor. If you had the text to The Book of Counted Shadows, if I recited it for you, do you think you would be able to verify the true parts?”

Kahlan, deep in her own thoughts, looked up. “I’ve asked myself that same question countless times. I’m sorry, Richard, but I just don’t know how.

“It’s too bad that the first Confessor, Magda Searus, didn’t leave me a book on how to use my powers, like her first husband left for you.”

A lot of good that book was doing him. Richard let out a despondent sigh and went back to pacing.

He turned his thoughts back to the book that Baraccus had so desperately wanted him to have: Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power. Baraccus had thought that it was vital that Richard have that book with the rule unwritten. The whole thing was so bizarre that Richard was left stunned and not knowing what to think. It had been a monumental effort to recover that book. It had to have also been a great effort on the part of Baraccus to see to it that only Richard would eventually be able to find it.

Why leave him a book that said nothing?

Unless it actually said everything.

Richard glanced to his silent grandfather sitting on the short, vine-covered wall nearby. Zedd met his gaze but his sadness at not being able to help Richard was evident.

“I’m sorry,” Kahlan said.

Richard glanced over. “What?”

“I’m sorry. It had to be a terrible decision. I know that you are only trying to keep Jagang’s brutes from slaughtering all the people here. I wish I could touch Jagang with my Confessor power.”

Confessor power. First brought into existence in Magda Searus. The woman who had been married to Baraccus. But she had been married to Baraccus back during the great war, long before she became a Confessor….

“Dear spirits,” Richard whispered to himself, icy realization flashing through his veins.

Baraccus had left Richard Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power to tell him what he needed to know.

That was exactly what Baraccus had done.

He had given Richard the rule unspoken, the rule unwritten, since the dawn of time.

In that instant, as he grasped the Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power, Richard was able to fit the other pieces together and understand it all.

He grasped the totality of it, how it all worked, why they had done what they had done, why they had done everything.

With trembling fingers, he pulled out the piece of white cloth with the two ink stains. He unfolded it and stared at the two spots on opposite sides.

“I understand,” he said. “Dear spirits, I understand what I have to do.”

Kahlan leaned close, looking down at the cloth. “Understand what?”

Richard understood it all.

He almost laughed maniacally. He understood the whole thing.

Zedd was watching him, frowning at him. Zedd knew Richard well enough to tell that he had figured it out. As Richard stared at him, his grandfather gave him the slightest smile and nod of pride, even if he had no idea of what Richard had figured out.

They all looked up at the sudden clamor of people entering the garden. The few men of the First File present, as instructed, fell back out of the way without offering any resistance. Richard saw Jagang at the head of the wave of people pouring in the doors. Sister Ulicia was right beside him. Other Sisters followed behind carrying the three boxes of Orden. Heavily armed guards, their boots all striking in unison, marched in the double doors, spreading into the garden like a dark flood.

Jagang’s presence, his burning, enduring hate, not only defiled the Garden of Life but defined him.

Richard smiled inwardly.

The gaze of Jagang’s completely black eyes was fixed on Richard as the emperor marched down the path between the trees, past beds of long-dead flowers and past the short vine-covered walls. His royal guards were spread out behind, pouring through the shrubs as they established a defensive perimeter.

Jagang wore a condescending smile as he passed the sorcerer’s sand and crossed the sweep of lawn.

His hate defined him.

The Sisters set the three inky black boxes on the broad granite slab that was supported by two short, fluted pedestals. Sister Ulicia ignored the people in the garden. Focused on the job at hand, she only glanced briefly at Richard before setting the book on the granite altar in front of the boxes. Without delay, she cast a hand out, igniting a fire in the pit, adding to the light given off by the torches.

Night was falling. The new moon was rising. Darkness was coming, darkness beyond what anyone living had ever experienced. Richard knew that darkness. He had been there.

Jagang strode right up to stand close in front of Richard, as if challenging him to a fight. Richard stood his ground.

“Glad you came to your senses.” His gaze slid to Kahlan. He regarded her with a lecherous look. “And I’m glad you brought me your woman. I’ll deal with her later.” He looked back into Richard’s eyes. “I’m sure you aren’t going to like what I have in mind.”

Richard returned a glare but said nothing. There was nothing to say, really.

Jagang, for all his intimidating presence, his completely black eyes, his shaved head, the way he displayed his muscles as well as his plundered jewels, looked more than tired. He looked frazzled. Richard knew that the emperor was having nightmares and even more than that, haunting dreams about Nicci. Richard knew because they were nightmares and dreams that Richard had given him, through Jillian, the priestess of the bones, the dreamcaster who was descended from the same people as Jagang.

The emperor stormed over to where Sister Ulicia stood waiting before the sorcerer’s sand. “What are you waiting for? Get started. The sooner this is finished the sooner we can get on with finishing all resistance to the rule of the Order.”

“Now I understand,” Kahlan, standing close beside him, whispered to herself as if she, too, had had her own revelation. “Now I see who he wants to hurt through me, and why it would be so terrible.”

She looked up into Richard’s eyes with a countenance of sudden comprehension.

Richard couldn’t afford to be distracted right then. He returned his attention to the Sisters. He still had a few things he needed to reason out. He needed to make sure it all made sense, or else they would all die—by his hand.

Several Sisters knelt before the sorcerer’s sand, smoothing it out in preparation. By the way they were working as a team, Richard figured that they had already studied the original of The Book of Counted Shadows in preparation and had all the procedures and enchantments memorized.

He was surprised to see them all starting to draw the required elements. He recognized them from The Book of Counted Shadows that he’d memorized as a young man. He had expected Sister Ulicia, the one who had put the boxes in play, to be the one to draw those elements, but as they worked, Sister Ulicia instead went from one symbol to the next, finishing the final part that completed it. Richard realized that it made sense; it was only necessary that the elements be done, and this saved a great deal of time. Since Sister Ulicia was the one finishing each element, Richard guessed that the book had some requirement that the player be involved, probably requiring that they be the one to complete the spell-forms.

She was the one invoking Orden. She was the player. Jagang, though, possessed her mind and thus ultimately would control Orden.

Richard remembered well how long it had taken Darken Rahl to run through all the procedures. The way they were doing it the Sisters were not going to take anywhere near that long. By working together they were able to divide the work into simpler components.

Jagang paced back to Richard. “Where’s Nicci?” he growled as his black eyes glared.

Richard had been wondering how long it would be before he asked that question. It was even sooner than Richard expected.

“She is being held for you, as promised.?

??

Jagang’s heated expression turned to a grin. “Too bad you don’t really know how to play Ja’La dh Jin.”

“I beat you.”

Jagang’s grin only widened. “Not in the end.”

As the emperor went back to his impatient pacing, Sister Ulicia directed the elements from the book, reading pertinent parts when necessary. Richard understood the things they were drawing. Parts were the dance with death. When Darken Rahl had first drawn them they had seemed so mysterious, but now the language of them all made sense.

Jagang was looking more and more edgy by the moment.

Richard knew why.

“Ulicia,” the emperor finally said, “I’m going to go get Nicci. There is no reason for me to stand here while you work. I can watch this through your eyes just as well.”