Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

Jagang, being a dream walker, didn’t need to speak to those whose minds were his domain. His consciousness wandered at will among their most intimate thoughts.

Sister Ulicia thrashed around, one wildly swinging arm knocking over a chair. Guards—the guards who had been specially selected because they were the few who could see and remember Kahlan—had all backed off in a circle around the woman rolling on the floor. They had been tasked with seeing to it that Kahlan didn’t leave the tent without Jagang. Sisters were not their responsibility. Other guards, Jagang’s personal elite guards, huge brutes all covered in tattoos and metal studs piercing their flesh, stood like statues near the doorway of the tent. The job of the elite guard was to see to it that no one entered the tent without invitation. They looked only mildly curious about what might be happening in their midst.

Off in the darker corners of the expansive tent, slaves waited in the shadows, always silently at the ready to carry out the emperor’s wishes. They, too, would show little reaction no matter what might happen right before them. They were there to serve at the whim of the emperor and nothing more. It was unhealthy for any of them, individually, to distinguish themselves in any way that might bring them notice.

The Sisters, sorceresses all, were Jagang’s personal weapons, his personal property and marked as such with rings through their lower lips. They were not the responsibility of any of the guards unless specifically instructed. Jagang could have cut Sister Ulicia’s throat, or raped her, or invited her to tea, and his elite guards would not have batted an eye. If it had been tea the emperor wanted, the slaves would have dutifully fetched it. If a bloody murder had been committed right before their eyes, they would have waited until he was finished and then without a word cleaned up the mess.

When Sister Ulicia cried out again, Kahlan realized that it didn’t look, as she had at first thought, like the woman was in pain. It looked more like she was…possessed.

Jagang’s nightmare gaze passed among the dozen guards. “Has she said anything?”

“No, Excellency,” one of the special guards said. The rest of the soldiers, those who could see Kahlan, shook their heads in agreement. The emperor’s elite guard did not dispute the account of the lesser men.

“What’s wrong with her?” Jagang asked the Sister, who looked ready to fall to the ground and grovel at his feet.

Sister Armina winced at the anger in his voice. “I don’t have any idea, Excellency, I swear.” She gestured toward the far side of the room. “I was asleep, waiting until I could be of service. Sister Ulicia was asleep as well. I woke when I heard her voice. I thought she was speaking to me.”

“What was she saying?” Jagang asked.

“I couldn’t understand her, Excellency.”

Kahlan realized, then, that Jagang didn’t know what Sister Ulicia had said. He always knew what the Sisters had said, what they’d thought, what they were planning. He was a dream walker. He wandered the landscape of their minds. He was always privy to everything.

And yet, he was not privy to this.

Or, Kahlan surmised, perhaps he didn’t want to say aloud what he already knew. He liked to test people that way, asking questions to which he already knew the answers. It displeased him greatly whenever he caught anyone in a lie. Only the day before he had erupted in a rage and strangled the life out of a new captive slave who’d lied to him about having taken a bite to eat off a tray coming in for the emperor’s dinner. Jagang, as heavily muscled as any of his elite guard, had accomplished the deed with one powerful hand around the gaunt man’s throat. The rest of the slaves had waited patiently until the emperor had finished the gruesome murder, and then dragged the body away.

Jagang reached down and with one meaty fist hauled the Sister to her feet by her hair. “What’s this about, Ulicia?”

The woman’s eyes rolled, her lips moved, and her tongue wandered aimlessly in her open mouth.

Jagang seized her by the shoulders and shook her violently. Sister Ulicia’s head whipped back and forth. Kahlan thought he very well might break her neck. She wished he would; then there would be one less Sister for Kahlan to worry about.

“Excellency,” Sister Armina said in a confidential tone of discreet counsel, “we need her.” When the emperor glared at her, she added, “She is the player.”

Jagang considered Sister Armina’s words, looking none too happy about them, but not arguing, either.

“First day…” Sister Ulicia moaned.

Jagang pulled her a little closer. “First day what?”

“Winter…winter…winter,” Sister Ulicia mumbled.

Jagang looked around, frowning at those in the room, as if asking them to explain it. One of the soldiers lifted an arm, pointing toward the doorway out of the grand tent. “It’s just dawn, Excellency.”

Jagang fixed him in a glare. “What?”

“Excellency, it’s just dawn of the first day of winter.”

Jagang let go of Sister Ulicia. She dropped heavily to the carpets that covered the floor.

He stared at the doorway. “So it is.”

Outside, through the slight slit of an opening at the side of the heavy covering hung over the doorway, Kahlan could see the first streaks of color in the sky. She could also see more of the ever-present elite guard who always surrounded Jagang. None of them could see Kahlan; they were totally unaware of her presence. The special guards inside the tent, the ones who were always at hand, could see her just fine, though. Outside, with Jagang’s elite guard, there would be more of those special guards. Their job was to insure that Kahlan never came out of the tent alone.

On the floor, Sister Ulicia, as if in a trance, mumbled, “One year, one year, one year.”

“One year what?” Jagang yelled. Several of the closer guards flinched back.

Sister Ulicia sat up. She began rocking back and forth. “Starts over. Year starts over. Starts over. One year. It must start over.”

Jagang looked up at the other Sister. “What’s she gibbering about?”

Sister Armina spread her hands. “I’m not sure, Excellency.”

His glare darkened. “That’s a lie, Armina.”

Sister Armina, a little of the color draining from her face, licked her lips. “What I meant by that, Excellency, is that the only thing I can imagine is that she must be referring to the boxes. She is the player, after all.”

Jagang’s mouth twisted with impatience. “But we already know that we have a year from back when Ulicia put them in play”—he flicked a hand in the direction of the towering plateau—“right after Kahlan took them from the palace up there.”

“New player!” Sister Ulicia shouted, eyes closed, as if to correct him. “New player! The year starts over!”

Jagang looked genuinely surprised at her words.

Kahlan wondered how it was that the dream walker could be surprised by such a thing. For some reason, though, he seemed to be unable, at the moment anyway, to use his ability on Sister Ulicia. Unless he was simply playing a trick. Jagang didn’t always reveal exactly what he knew and what he didn’t know. Kahlan had never felt that he could read her mind, but she always remained cautious that he might want her to think just that. What if all the time he was reading her every thought?

Still, she just didn’t believe it was so. She couldn’t put her finger on any one thing that made her think that he was unable to use his ability as a dream walker on her, but rather it was an impression based on the cumulative evidence of many small little things.

“How is it possible for there to be a new player?” Jagang asked in a tone that made Sister Armina begin to tremble just the slightest bit.

She had to swallow twice before she was able to speak. “Excellency, we don’t have…all three boxes. We have but two. There is the third box, after all, the one that Tovi had.”

“You mean the box that was stolen because you stupid bitches sent Tovi off by herself rather than having her stay with the rest of you.” It was an angry cha

rge, not a question.

Sister Armina, on the verge of panic, thrust a finger out at Kahlan. “It was her fault! If she had done as we instructed and brought all three boxes out together, we would all have been together and we would have the three boxes. But she failed to bring them all out together. It’s her fault!”

Sister Ulicia had told Kahlan to hide all three boxes in her pack and bring them out. All three wouldn’t fit, so she brought one out first, intending to go back for the others. Sister Ulicia had not been pleased, to say the least. She had beaten Kahlan nearly to a bloody death for failing to somehow do the impossible and fit all three in a pack that was not big enough.

Kahlan didn’t bother to speak up in her own defense. She refused to lower herself to trying to reason with people who didn’t abide by reason.

Jagang looked back over his shoulder at Kahlan. She met his gaze with nothing but her blank countenance. He turned back to Sister Armina.

“So what? Sister Ulicia put the boxes in play. That makes her the player.”

“Another player!” Sister Ulicia shouted up from the floor between them. “Two players now! The year starts over! It’s impossible!” Sister Ulicia lunged. “Impossible!”