“Well, Verna, it looks as if you found your way out. I thought you might.” She stepped close, where they could see her. It was Sister Philippa, Verna’s other advisor. She kissed her ring finger. Philippa’s narrow mouth spread in a smile. “Thank the Creator. Welcome back, Prelate.”
“Philippa, we must get the Sisters away tonight, before Jagang gets here, or we will be captured and used.”
“What are we to do, Prelate?” Sister Philippa asked.
“All of you, listen carefully, now. We must hurry, and we must be more than careful. If we are caught, we will all be in collars.”
Richard was winded from his run from the Hagen Woods, so he slowed to a trot to catch his breath. He saw Sisters prowling the grounds of the palace, but they didn’t see him. Though he was shrouded in the mriswith cape, he couldn’t search the entire palace; it would take days. He had to find out where Kahlan, Zedd, and Gratch were being held so he could get back to Aydindril. Zedd would know what to do.
Zedd would probably furiously upbraid him for his stupidity, but Richard deserved it. His stomach was in a knot thinking about the trouble he had caused. He could not even credit his wits for his foolhardy actions not ending in his being killed. How many lives had he put in jeopardy by his reckless actions?
Kahlan was probably going to be more than furious with him. And why not?
Richard shuddered to think why the mriswith went to Aydindril. He felt a pang of dread for his friends there. Maybe the mriswith only wanted to establish a new home, like the Hagen Woods here, and would stay there and keep to themselves. An inner voice laughed at his wishful thinking. He had to get back there.
Stop thinking about the problem, he reprimanded himself. Think about the solution.
He would get his friends out of here first, and then he would worry about the rest.
It was puzzling that Kahlan, Zedd, and Gratch would be held at the palace, but he didn’t doubt what Merissa had told him; she had thought she had him, and so would have had no reason to lie. He couldn’t understand why the Sisters of the Dark would hide their catch in a place that could be a danger to them.
Richard halted. A small group of people was crossing the lawn in the moonlight. He couldn’t see who they were, and was about to go find out, but decided that his first thought was the correct one: go see Ann. The Prelate would be able to help him. Other than Prelate Annalina and Sister Verna he didn’t know which of the Sisters he could trust. He waited until the people moved off down a covered corridor before he started out again.
When he had left the palace months ago, he knew there could still be Sisters of the Dark among the sorceresses here, and they must be the ones who had hidden Kahlan away, but he didn’t know who they were. He could look for Verna, but he didn’t know where she would be. He did know where to find the Prelate, though, so that was where he would start.
If he had to, he would tear the Palace of the Prophets down, stone by stone, to find Kahlan and his friends, but he was wary of violating the Wizard’s Third Rule again, and decided that this time he would start out, at least, with reason instead of passion.
Dear spirits, where did one end and the other begin?
At the outer gate to the Prelate’s compound, Kevin Andellmere was standing guard. Richard knew Kevin, and was reasonably sure that he could be trusted. “Reasonably sure” wasn’t good enough, so Richard kept the mriswith cape closed around himself and slipped past Kevin into the inner compound. In the distance, Richard could hear the raucous laughter of several men coming up a walkway, but they were a goodly distance away.
Richard knew the Prelate’s former administrators. One had been killed when the other, Sister Ulicia, had attacked the Prelate. After the attack, Sister Ulicia and five other Sisters of the Dark had fled aboard the ship, the Lady Sefa. The desks outside the Prelate’s office were empty, now.
No one was around out in the hall, or the outer office, and the door to the Prelate’s office was open, so Richard let the mriswith cape fall open as he relaxed his concentration. He wanted Ann to recognize him.
The moonlight coming through the double doors in the rear of the dark room silhouetted her enough for Richard to tell that she was sitting in her chair at the table. He could see in the faint light that her head was tilted down. She must be napping.
“Prelate,” he said gently, so as not to startle her awake. She stirred, her head coming up a bit, and her hand lifting. “I need to talk with you, Prelate. It’s Richard. Richard Rahl.”
A glow lit in her upturned palm.
Sister Ulicia smiled up at him. “Come to talk, have you? How very interesting. Well, a talk would be nice.”
As her wicked grin widened, Richard took a step back, his hand going for the hilt of his sword.
He had no sword.
He heard the door slam shut behind him.
He spun and saw four of his teachers: Sisters Tovi, Cecilia, Armina, and Merissa. He saw as they closed the distance that each wore a ring in her lower lip. Only Nicci was missing. They all grinned like hungry children staring at a candy reward at the end of a three-day fast.
Richard felt his need ignite within.
“Before you do anything foolish, Richard, you had better listen first, or you will die where you stand.”
He paused and looked to Merissa. “How did you beat me back here?”
She arched an eyebrow over a dark, malevolent eye. “I returned on my horse.”
Richard turned back to Ulicia. “This was all planned, wasn’t it? You did this to trap me.”
“Oh, yes, my boy, and you have done your part splendidly.”
He pointed back at Merissa while he spoke to Ulicia. “How did you know I wouldn’t be killed when she threw me off that tower?”
Ulicia’s smile vanished as she glared up at Merissa. Richard realized by seeing that look that Merissa had been acting outside of instructions.
Ulicia brought her gaze back to Richard. “The point is, you are here. Now, I want you to calm down, or someone could get hurt; you may have been born with both sides of the gift, but we have use of both magics, too. Even if you managed to kill one or two of us, there is no way you will get us all, and then Kahlan will die.”
“Kahlan…” Richard glared down at her. “I’m listening.”
Ulicia folded her hands. “You see, Richard, you have a problem. Fortunately for you, we also have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
Her eyes hardened with distant menace. “Jagang.”
The others moved around the table to stand beside Ulicia. None of them were smiling anymore. The loathing in their eyes at the name Jagang, even the kindly seeming Tovi and Cecilia, looked as if it could burn stone.
“You see, Richard, it’s almost time for bed.”
Richard frowned. “What?”
“You don’t have any visits from Emperor Jagang in your dreams. We do. He is becoming a problem to us.”
Richard could feel the control around her voice. This woman wanted something more than life itself.
“Problems with the dream walker, Ulicia? Well, I wouldn’t know. I sleep like a baby.”
Richard usually knew when a person with the gift was touching their Han; he could sense it, or see it in their eyes. The air about these women fairly sizzled. There seemed enough power bottled up behind all those eyes to melt a mountain. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. A dream walker must be a formidable opponent.
“All right, Ulicia, let’s get to the point. I want Kahlan, and you want something. What is it?”
Ulicia fingered the ring through her lip as she looked away from his eyes. “This has to be decided before we sleep. I have only just told my Sisters of the plan I devised. We couldn’t find Nicci to include her. If we go to sleep before this is resolved, and any of us dreams of it…”
“Resolved? I want Kahlan. Just tell me what you want.”
Ulicia cleared her throat. “We want to swear loyalty to you.”
Richard stared, unable
to blink. He wasn’t sure he had just heard what he thought he had heard. “You’re all Sisters of the Dark. You know me, and you all want to kill me. How can you break your oath to the Keeper?”
Ulicia’s iron gaze came up. “I did not say that we wished to do that. I said we would like to swear loyalty to you, in this, the world of life. I don’t think, in view of the overall picture, that the two are incompatible.”
“Not incompatible! Are you crazy, too!”
Her eyes took on an ominous set. “Do you want to die? Do you want Kahlan to die?”
Richard made an effort to calm his racing mind. “No.”
“Then be quiet and listen. We have something you want. You have something we want. Each of us has conditions. For instance, you want Kahlan, but you want her alive and well. Am I correct?”
Richard returned the ominous glare in kind. “You know it is. But what makes you think I would make a pact with you? You tried to kill Prelate Annalina.”
“Not only tried, but succeeded.”
Richard closed his eyes with an anguished groan. “You admit to murdering her, and then you expect I would trust—”
“I’m running out of patience, young man, and your bride-to-be is running out of time. If you don’t get her away before Jagang gets here, I can assure you, there is no hope you will ever see her again. You have no time to search.”
Richard swallowed. “All right. I’m listening.”
“You put the lock back on the Keeper’s gateway to this world. You thwarted the plans we laid. In so doing, you diminished the Keeper’s power in this world, restoring the balance between him and the Creator. In the balance you created, Jagang makes his move to take the world for himself.
“He has also taken us. He can come to us any time he wishes. We are his prisoners, no matter where we are. He has demonstrated to us just how unpleasant a captor he can be. There is no way for us to escape him, but one.”
“You mean the bond to me.”
“Yes. Now, if we do as Jagang has instructed, then we continue on in his good graces, as it were. While it is… unpleasant, at least we live. We want to live.
“If we swear fidelity to you, we can break the hold Jagang has on us, and escape.”
“You mean you want to kill him,” Richard observed.
Ulicia shook her head. “We want never to see his face again. We don’t care what he does, we just want out of his clutches.
“I will tell you the truth of it. We will return to our work of bringing our Master, the Keeper, to dominance. If we succeed, we will be rewarded. I don’t know if it’s possible for us to succeed, but that is the risk you will have to bear.”
“What do you mean, that’s the risk I’ll have to bear? If you’re bonded to me, then you have to work toward my ends: fighting against the Keeper and the Imperial Order.”
Ulicia’s lips spread with a cunning smile. “No, my boy. I’ve thought this out very carefully. Here is my offer: We swear fidelity to you, you ask us where Kahlan is, and we tell you. In return, you can ask nothing else of us, and must allow us to leave immediately. You won’t see us, we won’t see you.”
“But if you work to free the Keeper, that’s against me, and violates the bond. It won’t work!”
“You are looking at it through your eyes. The protection your bond provides is invoked through the conviction of the person bonded—their doing what they think is called for by their fidelity.
“You want to take the world. You think this is for the good of the people of the world. Have all the people you’ve tried to win to your side believed you, and stayed to stand with you? Or have some seen your benevolent offers as something else, as abuse, and fled in fear of you?”
Richard remembered the people leaving Aydindril. “I guess I can understand, in a way, but…”
“We don’t view loyalty through your moral filter; we view our loyalty by our own standards. To our sensibilities, as Sisters of the Dark, as long as we are doing nothing that is directly harming you, we will not be breaking our loyalty because not harming you is definitely to your benefit.”
Richard put his fists on the table and leaned toward her. “You want to free the Keeper. That will harm me.”
“It’s a matter of perception, Richard. It’s power we want, the same as you, no matter the morals in which you wish to couch your ambition.
“Our efforts are not directed against you. If we should happen to succeed on behalf of the Keeper, everyone would be vanquished, including Jagang, so it won’t matter if we incidentally lose the protection of the bond. It may not fit your mores, but it fits ours, and so the bond will work.
“And who knows, it could even be that by some miracle, you might win your war against the Order, and kill Jagang. Then we won’t need a bond. We can have patience to see what will happen. Just don’t be foolish enough to return to Aydindril. Jagang is taking it back, and there is nothing you can do to stop him.”
Richard straightened and blinked down at her, trying to reason it out. “But… I would be setting you free to go out and work for evil.”
“Evil by your morals. The truth is you would be giving us the chance to try, but that does not mean we will succeed. However, it also gives you Kahlan, and the chance to try to stop the Imperial Order, and to try to frustrate our attempts to win our struggle. You have thwarted us in the past.
“It buys each of us something very important. It buys us our freedom, and it buys Kahlan hers. A fair trade, I think.”
Richard stood silently considering this mad offer; he was that desperate.
“So, if you bow down and offer me your fidelity, your bond, then you tell me where Kahlan is, and then you run off as you propose, what assurance have I that you have told me the truth of where Kahlan is?”
Ulicia cocked her head with a clever smile. “Simple. We swear, you ask. If we lie to your direct question, the bond would be broken, and we would be back in Jagang’s clutches.”
“What if I break my end, and after you tell me where Kahlan is, I make another demand of you? You would have to uphold it to remain bonded and be protected from Jagang.”
“That’s why our offer carries the condition of only one question: where is Kahlan. If you do more, then we will kill you, the same as if you turn us down. We will be no worse off than we are right now. You die, and Jagang gets Kahlan to do with as he will, and he will, I assure you. He has very perverse tastes.” Her gaze turned to the young woman beside her. “Just ask Merissa.”
Richard looked at Merissa and saw the blood drain from her face. She tugged down her red dress enough to show him the top half of her breast. Richard felt the blood drain from his own face. He turned his eyes away.
“He will only allow my face to be healed. The rest he orders left, for his… amusement. This is the least of what he did to me. The very least of what he did to me,” Merissa said in a bone cold voice. “All because of you, Richard Rahl.”
Richard had a flash of a vision of Kahlan with Jagang’s ring through her lip and those lurid marks on her. His knees went weak.
He pulled his lower lip through his teeth as he looked back to Ulicia. “You aren’t the Prelate. Give me her ring.” Without hesitation, she pulled it off and handed it to him. “You want to swear loyalty, I get to ask where Kahlan is, you must tell me true, and then you leave?”
“That is our offer.”
Richard heaved a sigh. “Bargain struck.”
Ulicia closed her eyes with a sigh of freedom after Richard shut the door on his way out. He was in a hurry. She didn’t care; she had what she wanted. She was going to sleep without the fear of Jagang coming in the dream that was not a dream.
Their five lives for one. Quite a bargain.
And she hadn’t even had to tell him everything. But she had had to tell him more than she wished. Still, quite a bargain.
“Sister Ulicia,” Cecilia said with a tone of surety in her voice that had been missing for months, “you have done the impossible. You have broken Jagang’
s hold on us. The Sisters of the Dark are free, and it has cost us nothing.”
Ulicia took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. We have just struck an uncharted course across untrodden ground in an unknown land. But for now, we are free. We must not waste our chance. We must leave at once.”
She glanced up as the door banged opened.
A grinning Captain Blake swaggered into the office. Two smirking sailors trailed in behind, one slowing to grope Armina on his way past. She made no attempt to ward off his hands.
Captain Blake teetered before her. He placed his hands on the table and leaned over. She could smell liquor on his breath as he leered at her.
“Well, well, lass. We meet again.”
Ulicia betrayed no emotion. “So we do.”
His hungry gaze was too low to meet her eyes. “The Lady Sefa just made port, and we lonely sailors thought we should have some company for the night. The boys enjoyed the last time with you ladies so much that they thought to do it all over again.”
She affected a timorous tone. “I hope you plan to be more gentle than the last time.”
“Matter of fact, lass, the boys was saying how they didn’t think we did all we could to enjoy ourselves.” He leaned over even more, reached out with his right hand, grabbed her nipple, and pulled her forward in her chair. He smiled at her cry. “Now, before I get in an ugly mood, you whores get your behinds down to the Lady Sefa with us, where we can put ‘em to a good use.”
Ulicia brought her fist around and slammed a knife through the back of the captain’s left hand, pinning it to the table. She touched a finger of her other hand to the ring in her lip, and with a flow of Subtractive Magic, it winked out of existence.
“Yes, Captain Blake, let’s all of us go down to the Lady Sefa and have another very intimate visit with you and your crew.”
With a fist of Han, she clouted him back, the knife embedded in the table slicing his hand in two as it was yanked away. A gag of air filled his mouth when he opened it to scream.
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