At the opening out of Emperor Jagang’s tent, Kahlan recoiled at seeing the army of the Imperial Order up close for the first time. Distance had taken off a bit of the rougher edges. Even though she had a pretty good sense of them, it was still an unnerving sight.
The dense mass of men spread unbroken to the horizon. With everyone in motion and moving about—bending, standing, turning, lifting gear, joining into ranks, saddling horses, loading wagons, with different groups on horseback moving like waves through the mass of men—it looked like an endless, churning, treacherous black sea.
There was not a single man in sight—and she could see thousands upon endless thousands—who looked kindly or harmless. Every single man looked grim and grisly, as if there was nothing he looked forward to in life as much as the prospect of doing violence. These men looked driven by the singular prospect of an unrestrained rampage. Kahlan feared to think of those who might find themselves in these mens’ path.
As she took it all in, she began to notice that there were differences among the men. The closest group to the emperor were more disciplined, orderly, and measured in everything they did. They were more attentive to their weapons. All the men in closest around the emperor’s tents looked much the same as the two Kahlan had killed.
Out past them were other men dressed in different kinds of uniforms made of chain mail and leather. They all looked to be nearly as big and well trained as the men closest to the emperor, but their primary weapons appeared to be crescent axes. Beyond were more encircling layers of men, including men with loaded crossbows, swordsmen, and ranks of pikemen forming up in close formations, preparing for the long march ahead.
While each of the layers of men around the emperor were outfitted in their own distinctive uniforms that matched the rest of their group, they were all big, muscled, armored, and heavily armed with well-made weapons. This was the core of the emperor’s force of the deadliest, the most fearsome and formidable, of his army.
In among the inner circles were men who looked to be officers. Some gave orders to messengers, some gave orders to lower-ranking men, while others assembled in groups, making plans over maps. Yet others came from time to time to speak briefly with Jagang.
Out beyond the barriers of career soldiers were the rabble who made up by far the largest mass of the army. The weapons carried by those men—swords, axes, pikes, lances, maces, clubs, and knives—were inelegantly made, and looked all the more deadly for it. These were coarse men who looked to be out for a riot. They shared one thing with the men in closer to the emperor: they all looked like wide-eyed idealists intent on enforcing their beliefs under the heel of their boot. Kahlan felt as if she were stranded on a treacherous island, surrounded by monsters in a wild sea.
Kahlan saw something else different in among the inner circle. There were women. At first she hadn’t noticed them, because their dress was so drab that they blended in with all the men. Given the way these women watched everyone, she began to suspect that they were Sisters who served to guard the emperor. There were also men who were largely unarmed, but who had a look to them that in a way reminded Kahlan of the Sisters. They were probably gifted as well. None of the men or the Sisters so much as glanced Kahlan’s way. No one but Sister Ulicia, Sister Armina, and Jagang knew she was there.
There were also young men who, by their simple, loose trousers and total lack of any weapons, appeared to be slaves taking care of the menial tasks. From some of the other tents in the emperor’s compound, Kahlan saw young women emerge to be herded into wagons before the tents were taken down. By the way the men openly stared at these women and by their scanty clothes, their purpose among the men of rank was obvious to Kahlan. The hollow, dead look in the women’s eyes told her that they must have been captives pressed into service as whores.
The mob out beyond made a ceaseless, noisy ruckus, while most of the men in closer were silent as they went about preparations to strike camp. Most of the men close by had studs, rings, chains, and tattooed faces with unique designs that made them look not just savage, but deliberately less than human, as if they were rejecting a higher value in favor of a lower one. Their chosen purpose in life was clearly brutality. As, they went about their work they talked little and payed attention to orders shouted by officers riding through their midst. They worked with practiced precision as they packed gear, readied weapons, and saddled horses.
The great masses of men out beyond, though, were nowhere near as orderly or careful. They threw together their gear in a haphazard fashion. As they departed they left behind mounds of refuse and broken plunder. They couldn’t be bothered with such concerns; their calling in life was bringing to task those who didn’t believe in their superior ways.
At seeing Kahlan’s reaction to all the fierce men, Sister Ulicia gestured with a nod out to the men and then leaned a little closer to Kahlan. “I know how you feel.”
Kahlan doubted it. She didn’t want to say anything because she was pretty sure that Jagang was in the Sister’s mind, watching for what Kahlan might have to say when he wasn’t around.
“It doesn’t really matter how I feel, now, does it?” She said to the two Sisters watching her. “He will do what he wants to me.” She checked the cut on her cheek from one of Jagang’s rings. It had finally stopped bleeding. “He’s made that clear enough.”
“I suppose he will,” Sister Ulicia said.
“He will do what he wants to all of us,” Sister Armina added. “I can’t believe we were so foolish.”
A group of officers returned with Jagang. Soldiers behind them pulled already saddled horses along with them. Other men were already taking chests, chairs, tables, and smaller items out of the emperor’s tent and loading it all into crates in the waiting wagons. As soon as the tent had been emptied, the lines came down, followed by the poles, and at last the tent itself. In a matter of moments what had looked like a small town of tents, with the emperor’s large tent at the center, was just an empty field.
Jagang gestured for a man to hand Kahlan the reins to a horse. “Today you will ride with me.”
Kahlan wondered what she would be doing the next day, but she didn’t ask. It sounded like he had plans for her. She couldn’t begin to guess at them but she feared what was in store for her.
She stuffed a boot in a stirrup and swung up into the saddle, then scanned the sea of men, estimating her chances if she made a run for freedom. She might be able to make it past the men, because, with the exception of the two Sisters and Jagang, the men couldn’t remember her long enough to recall that they saw her. Out among those men, as daunting as such a thought was, she was as good as invisible. To them it would appear as if a riderless horse was running away, and they probably wouldn’t want to get trampled for no good reason.
The Sisters, watching her carefully, mounted up as well, one to each side of her to make sure that she didn’t get a chance to bolt. Even if she was invisible to the soldiers, Kahlan knew that the Sisters could use the collar to drop her where she was. They didn’t need to be close, either; she had learned that the hard way. Her legs still ached from what they had done a little earlier. It was a good thing that she was to ride, because right then she didn’t think she would make it far on foot.
The sea of men had already begun moving away in a dark, surging tide. The dawn light sparkled off millions of weapons, making the army look liquid. As if floating in the tightly formed raft of the emperor’s personal guards and retinue of Sisters, servants, and slaves, they began to drift out into the vast churning ocean of men moving north toward the horizon.
They rode with the hot, rising sun to their right. Kahlan, between the Sisters, in among the emperor’s personal guards, moved along in the mass of men streaming northward. She had a good view of it all from high in her saddle. At least she didn’t have to carry the Sisters’ things on her back, as she had always had to do before.
The early chatter among the soldiers soon died out with the monotonous effort of the march. Talking became too difficult for them. It wasn’t long before Kahlan was sweating in the heat. Men carrying heavy packs plodded onward, eyes to the ground in front of them. To stop would probably mean being trampled. There had to be a force of millions that she could see behind them, driving north with them.
Throughout the day wagons, or men on horses, worked their way through the men, passing out food. Wagons dispersed throughout the army at intervals carried water. There was soon a line of men, marching along, waiting their turn to get some water from each of the wagons rolling among them.
Near midday a small wagon arrived in the center of the emperor’s people. It had hot food that was passed out to all the officers. The Sisters passed Kahlan the same as what the rest of them were offered—flat bread wrapped around some kind of salty, mushy meat. It didn’t taste very good, but Kahlan was starving and glad to have it.
By nightfall everyone was exhausted from the arduous march. They had eaten on the move and had stopped for nothing. They were covering more ground than she thought an army of this size capable of doing in a day. She felt as if she were coated with much of the ground they had covered. She didn’t know if she would be any happier for rain that would knock down the dust, because then they would have to contend with mud.
Kahlan was surprised when she saw out ahead of them what looked like the emperor’s compound. Flags atop tents flapped in the hot wind as if to welcome the emperor home. She realized that the wagons with all the emperor’s equipment must have ridden on ahead and set up camp. The army was so vast and covered so much area that it took hours, if not days, for them all to pass the same spot, so the wagons would not have had to ride out ahead of the protection of the army. Men would merely have opened a path for them to race ahead through the marching men and before dark start setting up camp so that by the time the emperor arrived everything would be ready.
Kahlan saw meat roasting on spits over a series of fires. The aromas made her stomach ache with hunger. Other fires held steaming cauldrons on iron cranes. Slaves scurried here and there carrying a variety of supplies, working at tables, turning spits, stirring what was in the cauldrons and adding ingredients as they prepared the evening meal. Platters with breads, meats, and fruits were already being readied.
Jagang, riding directly in front of Kahlan, dismounted before his large tent. A man rushed in to take the reins. When the Sisters and Kahlan dismounted, more young men ran in to take their horses as well. The Sisters, as if directed by wordless commands, ushered Kahlan along with them as they followed Jagang in under the large, ornate hanging covering the tent’s opening that was being held aside by a muscled soldier without a shirt. He was slick with sweat, probably from the work of erecting the tents, and had a sour stink about him.
Inside, it looked just like it had that morning when they had left. Just by looking at it, it was hard to tell that they had gone anywhere. The lamps were already lit. Kahlan was glad for the smell of the burning oil because it covered some of the stench of urine, manure, and sweat. There were a number of slaves inside, all rushing about the task of preparing the emperor’s meal being set out on the table.
Jagang abruptly turned and seized Sister Ulicia by her hair and yanked her forward. She let out a small cry of pain and surprise at first, but quickly cut off the whimper and offered no resistance as he pulled her close. The slaves only briefly glanced over at Sister Ulicia’s cry, and then immediately went back to their work as if they saw nothing.
“Why does no one else see her?” Jagang asked.
Kahlan knew what he was talking about.
“The spell, Excellency. The Chainfire spell.” Sister Ulicia was being held in an awkward and uncomfortable position, bent halfway over and standing off balance. “That was the whole purpose of the spell—so that no one would see her. It was created specifically to make a person appear to vanish. I think it may have been envisioned as a method of creating a spy who couldn’t be detected. We used the spell for that purpose—so we could get the boxes of Orden out of the People’s Palace without anyone knowing what we had done.”
Kahlan felt as if her heart had come up into her throat at hearing how she had been used, at how her life and her memory had been stripped from her. A lump swelled in her throat at hearing the arrogant disregard the Sisters had for her precious life. What gave these women the right to steal anyone’s life in such a way?
Only a short time ago, she had thought she was a nobody without a memory, a slave to the Sisters. Now, in a short time, she had found out that she was Kahlan Amnell, and that she was the Mother Confessor—whatever that was. Now she knew that she hadn’t known her name was Amnell, or that she was this Mother Confessor person, because the Sisters had spelled her.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Jagang said. “So why did that innkeeper see her? Why did that little rock rat back in Caska see her?”
“I, I, don’t know,” Sister Ulicia stammered.
He jerked her a little closer. She began to reach up to grasp his wrists to try to keep from having her scalp torn off, but she thought better of trying to resist anything he did and let her arms drop to dangle from her stooped shoulders.
“Let me rephrase the question so that even a stupid bitch like you can understand it. What did you do wrong?”
“But Excellency—”
“You must have done something wrong or those two would not have been able to see her!” Sister Ulicia trembled but didn’t answer as he lectured her. “You and Armina can see her because you were controlling the spell. I can see her because I was in your minds and so I was protected by the same process. But no one else should be able to see her.
“Now,” he said after a pause to grit his teeth, “I will ask again. What did you do wrong?”
“Excellency, we did nothing wrong. I swear.”
Jagang crooked a finger at Armina. She meekly came forward in mincing steps.
“Would you like to answer my question and tell me what you did wrong? Or would you also like to be sent to the tents along with Ulicia?”
Sister Armina swallowed back her terror as she spread her hands. “Excellency, if I could spare myself by confessing, I would, but Ulicia is right. We did nothing wrong.”
He turned his glare back on the Sister he had by the hair. “It seems pretty obvious to me that you two are wrong—the spell should make her invisible but others can see her. And yet you continue to stick to a story when that’s obviously a lie? You had to do something wrong or those two people would not have seen her.”
Sister Ulicia, tears dripping from her cheeks from the pain she was in, tried to shake her head. “No, Excellency—it doesn’t work that way.”
“What doesn’t work that way?”
“The Chainfire spell. Once ignited, it runs its course. The spell does the work. It’s self-directing; we didn’t guide it or control it in any way. In fact, no intervention is possible during the process. It is ignited and then the spell runs through its predetermined routines. We don’t even know what those routines are. In some aspects they function similarly to a constructed spell. We wouldn’t dare try to tamper with any of it. The power unleashed in Chainfire is far more than we know how to regulate—and we have no way to alter such a spell even if we wanted to.”
“She’s right, Excellency. We knew what it was supposed to do, what the result was supposed to be, but we don’t know how it works. What would we change? Our goal was for it to work, to do what it was designed to do. We had no reason to try to tamper with it, so there is nothing we could have done wrong.”
“All we did was ignite it,” Sister Ulicia insisted, tears starting to weep through her words. “We ran the verification webs to make sure that everything was as it should be, and then we ignited it. The spell did the rest. We have no idea why those two people can see her. We were completely surprised by it.”
He turned his glare on Sister Armina. “Can you fix whatever is wrong?”
“We have no idea what the problem is,” Sister Armina said, “so there is no way we can fix it. We don’t even know for sure that there really is something wrong. For all we know, it could be that this is simply the way the spell works—that there will be a few people who, for some reason unknown to us, can still see her. The spell is far more complex than anything we’ve ever encountered before. We have no idea what is wrong—if there really is something wrong—or how to correct it.”
“I think that maybe it was a random anomaly,” Sister Ulicia suggested when the silence in the tent became ominous. “Those things sometimes happen with magic. Small little issues that aren’t anticipated by the spell’s creator slip through and aren’t affected. It might be nothing more than that.
“After all, the spell is thousands of years old. Those who created it never tested it, so there might have been unresolved issues they weren’t aware of.”
Jagang did not look convinced. “There must have been something you did wrong.”
“No, Excellency. Not even those ancient wizards could do anything with the spell once it had been ignited. After all, the magic of Orden was created to deal with the spell if it was ever unleashed. Nothing less can alter its course.”
Kahlan’s ears perked up. She wondered why the Sisters would have used a spell to steal the boxes of Orden that were designed to counter the spell. Maybe their intent had been to make sure that no one could use that counter.
Jagang finally released Sister Ulicia by tossing her to the ground with a grunt of disgust. Her hands covered her scalp, comforting the hurt.
Emperor Jagang paced as he thought about what he’d been told. Seeing someone peeking into the tent, he stopped and signaled. Several women entered with pitchers and poured red wine in mugs set out on the table. Serving boys began spilling into the room carrying platters and trays filled with a variety of steaming-hot food. Jagang paced, paying the slaves little attention as they went about their work.
When the table was finally filled, Jagang took a seat at the carved chair behind the table. He brooded as he watched the two Sisters. The slaves all silently lined up behind him, ready to do his bidding or bring him anything he requested.
He finally turned his attention to dinner and dug his fingers into the ham. He squeezed off a fistful of the hot meat. With his other hand he tore long strips off the large chunk and ate them as he watched the Sisters and Kahlan, as if judging whether they should live or die.
When he had finished the ham, he pulled the knife from his belt and used it to slice off a piece of roast beef. He stabbed the red slab of meat and held it up, waiting. Blood ran down the blade and down the length of his arm to his elbow resting on the tabletop.
He paused and smiled up at Kahlan. “A better use for my knife than the use you had for it, don’t you think?”
Kahlan considered keeping silent, but she couldn’t resist speaking. “I liked my use better. I only wish my aim had been true. Had it been, we would not be having this conversation.”
He smiled to himself. “Maybe.” He took a gulp of wine from a mug before using his teeth to pull a chunk of the beef off the slab stuck on the knife.
As he watched Kahlan, and while he chewed, he said, “Take off your clothes.”
Kahlan blinked. “What?”
“Take off your clothes.” He gestured with the knife. “All of them.”
Kahlan clenched her jaw. “No. If you want them off, you will have to rip them off me.”
He shrugged. “I will do that later, just for the satisfaction of it, but for now, take them off.”
“Why?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Because I said so.”
“No,” she repeated.
The gaze of his nightmare eyes glided to Sister Ulicia. “Tell Kahlan about the torture tents.”
“Excellency?”
“Tell her about the extensive experience we have in convincing people to do as we wish. Tell her what tortures we employ.”
Before Sister Ulicia could speak, Kahlan spoke first. “Just get on with it and torture me. No one is interested in hearing you gossip about it like an old hen. I’m sure that you’d rather make me suffer—so get on with it.”
“Oh, the torture isn’t for you, darlin.” He twisted a leg off a roasted goose and used it to gesture to a young woman behind him. “The torture is for her.”
Kahlan glanced at the suddenly panicked woman and then frowned at Jagang. “What?”
He bit off some of the dark goose meat. Grease ran down his fingers. He sucked the grease off the rings.
“Well,” he said as he picked at the meat hanging from the leg, “perhaps I should be the one to explain. You see, we have this torture where the inquisitor makes a small incision in a lower abdomen of the person in question.” He turned and poked the goose leg at the young woman’s belly, just below her navel. The goose leg left a greasy spot on her bare flesh. “Right about there.
“Then,” he said, turning back, “the inquisitor pushes the jaws of a pair of tongs deep into the belly and gropes around until he is able to grab hold of a bit of the small intestine. It’s all quite slippery in there, and the person being subjected to this treatment is not just lying still for it, if you know what I mean, so it usually takes a bit of doing to snag the proper bit of their insides. Once he has it, he slowly begins to pull a few feet of it out. Quite an ordeal.”
He leaned over and pulled off another strip of ham. “Now, if you don’t do as I say, then we are all going to go over to the torture tents”—he gestured with the limp strip of ham off to his left—“and we’re going to let one of our experienced inquisitors do that to this girl behind me.”
He turned an icy look up at Kahlan. “All because you refuse to do as you are told. You will get to watch the whole agonizing thing. You will get to listen to her screams, listen to her begging for her life, watch her bleed, see her vital insides being drawn out of her. After the man has pulled a few feet free, he then begins winding it around a stick, like spare yarn—just to keep the mess all neat and tidy. After that, he will pause and look to me.
“At that time, I will again politely ask you to do as I have instructed. If you again refuse, then we will slowly pull out a few more feet of her tender, delicate, bloody gut, winding it around the stick, while we all listen to her scream and cry and beg to die. This whole process can go on for quite a long time. It’s an excruciatingly slow and painful ordeal.” Jagang gave Kahlan a cheerful smile. “And then, near the end, you will get to see her convulse in her death.”
Kahlan looked up at the girl. She hadn’t moved, but she had gone as white as the sugar mounded in the bowl to the side of the table.
Jagang slowly chewed and then washed the mouthful down with a swig of wine. “After that, you can watch us throw her lifeless carcass on the dead cart, with other ruined bodies of people who have been questioned.
“Then, I will offer Ulicia and Armina the choice of either being sent to the tents to entertain my men, who have quite the lustier desires, or, if they would rather, think of ways to use that collar around your neck to give you more pain than you have so far experienced from it. The stipulation will be that they must not allow you to pass out. I will, of course, want you to feel it all.”
Outside, the din of the army carried on without letup, but inside the tent it was dead quiet. Jagang sawed off another slab of the bloody beef as he went on.
“After the Sisters have exhausted their imaginations, and I believe that the incentive will spark some inventive ideas, then I will personally beat you to within an inch of your death. After all of that, I will rip your clothes off of you and you will be standing there naked before me.”
His nightmare eyes fixed on her. “Your choice, darlin. Either way, in the end, you are going to comply with my order and end up standing there naked before me. What method do you choose? Make it quick. I’ll not offer you the choice again.”
Kahlan had no choice. Resisting in this was pointless. She swallowed and immediately started unbuttoning her shirt.