Kahlan pressed her fingers over the burning ache under her sternum.
“The pit.”
Kahlan twisted her fingers together as she came to a halt before the iron door. Marlin, looking like a frightened puppy, stood silently in the center of a knot of D’Haran soldiers a ways back up the torch-lit hall.
“What’s the matter?” Cara asked.
Kahlan flinched. “What?”
“I asked what was the matter. You look like you’re afraid the door is going to bite you.”
Kahlan pulled her hands apart and made herself put them at her sides. “Nothing.” She turned and lifted the ring with the keys from the iron peg in the coarse stone wall beside the door.
Cara lowered her voice. “Don’t lie to a sister of the Agiel.”
Kahlan mimicked a quick smile of apology. “The pit is where the condemned await execution. I have a half sister—Cyrilla. She was the queen of Galea. When she was here, when Aydindril fell to the Order, before Richard liberated the city, they threw her in the pit with a gang of about a dozen murderers.”
“Have a half sister? She still lives, then?”
Kahlan nodded as the mists of memories swirled before her mind’s eye. “But they had her down there for days. Prince Harold, her brother, my half brother, rescued her when they were taking her to the block to be beheaded, but she’s never been the same since. She’s withdrawn into herself. On rare occasions she comes out of her stupor, and insists that the people need a queen able to lead them and that I become the queen of Galea in her place. I agreed.” Kahlan paused. “She screams inconsolably if she comes awake and sees men.”
Cara, hands clasped behind her back, waited without comment.
Kahlan gestured to the door. “They threw me down there, too.” Her mouth was so dry that it took two attempts before she could swallow. “With those men who had raped her.” She surfaced from the memories and sneaked a quick glance at Cara. “But they didn’t do to me as they did to her.” She didn’t say how close they had come.
A sly smile came to Cara’s lips. “How many did you kill?”
“I didn’t stop to take an exact count as I escaped.” Her brief, flitting smile wouldn’t stick. “But it scared the wits out of me—being down there, alone, with all those beasts.” Kahlan’s heart pounded so hard at the memory that it made her sway on her feet.
“Well,” Cara offered, “do you want to find another place to put Marlin?”
“No.” Kahlan took a purging breath. “Look, Cara, I’m sorry I’m acting this way.” She peered briefly at Marlin. “There’s something about his eyes. Something strange . . .”
She looked back to Cara. “I’m sorry. It’s not like me to be so jittery. You’ve only known me a short time. I’m not usually so apprehensive. It’s just that . . . I guess that it’s just because it’s been so peaceful for the last few days. I’ve been separated from Richard for so long, and it’s been bliss being together. We were hoping Jagang was killed and that the war was ended. We were hoping he was in the Palace of the Prophets when Richard destroyed it . . .”
“He still might have been. Marlin said it’s been two weeks since Jagang gave him orders. Lord Rahl said Jagang wanted the palace; he was probably with his troops when they stormed it. He’s no doubt dead.”
“We can hope. But I’m so afraid for Richard . . . I guess it’s affecting my judgment. Now that things have come together, I’m terrified that it’s going to slip away from me.”
Cara shrugged, as if to dispel Kahlan’s need for apology. “I know how you feel. Now that Lord Rahl has given us our freedom, we have something to fear losing. Maybe that’s why I’m so jittery, too.” She flicked her hand toward the door. “We could find another place. There have to be other places that won’t touch painful memories for you.”
“No. Protecting Richard comes above all else. The pit is the safest place in the palace to keep a prisoner. We have no one else down there, now. It’s escape-proof. I’m fine.”
Cara lifted an eyebrow. “Escape-proof? You escaped.”
The memories repressed, Kahlan smiled. With the back of her hand, she gave Cara’s stomach a dismissive slap.
“Marlin is no Mother Confessor.” She glanced back up the hall at Marlin. “But there’s something about him—something I can’t put my finger on. Something strange. He frightens me, and he shouldn’t, not with you controlling his gift.”
“You are right, you shouldn’t be concerned. I have complete control of him. No pet has ever slipped from my control. Ever.”
Cara lifted the key ring from Kahlan’s hand and unlocked the door. With a tug, it drew open on rusty, squeaking hinges. Dank stench wafted up from the darkness below. The smell clenched Kahlan’s stomach muscles with the memories it carried. Cara took a nervous step back.
“There aren’t any . . . rats, down there, are there?”
“Rats?” Kahlan glanced to the dark maw. “No. There’s no way for them to get in. No rats. You’ll see.”
Kahlan turned her attention to the soldiers back up the hall, waiting with Marlin, and gestured toward the long ladder resting on its side against the wall opposite the door. Once they had the ladder through the door and it had thudded down in place, Cara snapped her fingers and motioned Marlin forward. He scurried to her without hesitation, anxious to avoid doing anything to displease her.
“Take that torch and get down there,” Cara told him.
Marlin pulled the torch from its rust-encrusted bracket and started down the ladder. With a frown of puzzlement, Cara followed him down into the gloom when Kahlan motioned her to the ladder.
Kahlan turned to the guards. “Sergeant Collins, you and your men wait up here, please.”
“Are you sure, Mother Confessor?” the sergeant asked.
“Are you eager to be down there, in a small space, with an ill-tempered Mord-Sith, sergeant?”
He hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt as he glanced at the opening into the pit. “We’ll wait up here, as you command.”
Kahlan started backing down the ladder. “We’ll be fine.”
The smooth stone blocks of the walls were so precisely dry-fit that there wasn’t so much as a fingernail hold to be had. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Marlin holding the torch, and Cara, waiting for her nearly twenty feet below. She carefully put a foot in each rung, mindful not to step on the hem of her dress lest she fall.
“Why are we down here with him?” Cara asked, as Kahlan stepped off the last rung.
Kahlan wiped her hands together, brushing off the grit from the ladder rungs. She took the torch from Marlin and went to the wall before them. She stretched up on her toes and pushed the torch into one of the brackets on the wall. “Because on the way down here I thought of some more questions to ask him before we leave him here.”
Cara glared at Marlin and pointed to the floor. “Spit.” She waited. “Now, stand on it.”
Marlin moved onto the spot, careful to get both feet on it. Cara eyed the empty room, checking the shadows in the corners. Kahlan wondered if she was making sure the place really was free of rats.
“Marlin,” Kahlan said. He licked his lips, waiting for her question. “When was the last time you received orders from Jagang?”
“Like I told you before, it was about two weeks ago.”
“And he’s not sought you out since then?”
“No, Mother Confessor.”
“If he was dead, would you know?”
He didn’t hesitate with his answer. “I don’t know. He either comes to me, or he doesn’t. I have no way of knowing of him between his calls.”
“How does he come to you?”
“In my dreams.”
“And you’ve not dreamed of him since you say he last came to you a fortnight ago?”
“No, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan paced to the wall with the hissing torch and back as she thought. “You didn’t recognize me, when you first saw me.” He shook his head. “Would you recog
nize Richard?”
“Yes, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan frowned. “How? How would you know him?”
“From the Palace of the Prophets. I was a student there. Richard was brought there by Sister Verna. I knew him from the palace.”
“A student, at the Palace of the Prophets? Then you . . . How old are you?”
“Ninety-three, Mother Confessor.”
No wonder he seemed so strange to her, sometimes like a boy and sometimes seeming to have the demeanor of an older man. That explained the sage bearing in his young eyes. There was a presence about those eyes that didn’t fit his youthful frame. This would certainly explain it.
The Palace of the Prophets trained boys in their gift. Ancient magic had aided the Sisters of the Light in their task by altering time at the palace so that they would have the time needed, in the absence of an experienced wizard, to teach the boys to control their magic.
That was all ended, now. Richard had destroyed the palace and the prophecies, lest Jagang capture them. The prophecies would have aided him in his effort to conquer the world, and the palace would have given him hundreds of years to rule over those he vanquished.
Kahlan felt the weight of worry lift from her mind. “Now I know why I felt there was something strange about him,” she said as she sighed her relief.
Cara didn’t look so relieved. “Why did you announce yourself to the soldiers inside the Confessors’ Palace?”
“Emperor Jagang didn’t explain his instructions, Mistress Cara.”
“Jagang is from the Old World, and no doubt doesn’t know about Mord-Sith,” Cara said to Kahlan. “He probably thought a wizard, like Marlin here, would be able to announce himself, cause a panic, and wreak havoc.”
Kahlan considered the supposition. “Could be. Jagang has the Sisters of the Dark as his puppets, so he would have been able to get information about Richard. Richard wasn’t at the palace long enough to learn much about his gift. The Sisters of the Dark would have told Jagang that Richard doesn’t know how to use his magic. Richard is the Seeker, and knows how to use the Sword of Truth, but he doesn’t know how to use his gift. Jagang might have thought to send in a wizard, on the chance that he might succeed, and if he didn’t . . . so what? He has others.”
“What do you think, my pet?”
Marlin’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know, Mistress Cara. I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. I swear.” A tremor seeped from his jaw into his voice. “But it could be. What the Mother Confessor says is true: he doesn’t care if we are killed while performing a task. Our lives mean little to him.”
Cara turned to Kahlan. “What else?”
Kahlan shook her head. “I can’t think of anything else at the moment. I guess it could all make sense. We’ll come back later, after I’ve thought about it. Maybe I’ll think of some other questions that might settle it.”
Cara pointed her Agiel at his face. “You stand right there, on that spot of your spit, until we come back. Whether it’s in two hours or two days, it doesn’t matter. If you sit down, or any part of you, other than the soles of your feet, touches the floor, you will be down here all alone with the pain it brings for going against my wishes. Understand?”
He blinked as a drop of sweat ran into his eye. “Yes, Mistress Cara.”
“Cara, do you think it necessary that—”
“Yes. I know my business. Let me do it. You yourself reminded me what was at stake and how we dared not take any chances.”
Kahlan relented. “All right.”
Kahlan took hold of a rung above her head and started up the ladder. On the second rung, she paused and looked back. Frowning, she stepped back off the ladder.
“Marlin, did you come to Aydindril alone?”
“No, Mother Confessor.”
Cara snatched the neck of his tunic. “What! You came with others?”
“Yes, Mistress Cara.”
“How many!”
“With one other, Mistress Cara. She was a Sister of the Dark.”
Kahlan’s fist joined Cara’s on his tunic. “What was her name!”
Frightened by both women, he tried to back away a bit, but their grip on his tunic wouldn’t allow it. “I don’t know her name,” he whined. “I swear.”
“She was a Sister of the Dark, from the palace, where you lived for close to a century, and you don’t know her name?” Kahlan asked.
Marlin licked his lips, his gaze moving between the two women. “There were hundreds of Sisters at the Palace of the Prophets. There were rules. We had teachers assigned to us. There were places we didn’t go, and Sisters we never came in contact with, like those who handled administration. I didn’t know them all, I swear. I saw her before, at the palace, but I didn’t know her name, and she didn’t tell me.”
“Where is she now!”
Marlin shook in terror. “I don’t know! I haven’t seen her for days, since I came to the city.”
Kahlan gritted her teeth. “What did she look like, then?”
Marlin licked his lips again as his gaze flicked back and forth between the two women. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe her. A young woman. I don’t think she was long out of being a novice She was young-looking, like you, Mother Confessor. Pretty. I thought she was pretty. She had long hair. Long brown hair.”
Kahlan and Cara shared a look. “Nadine,” they said as one.
Chapter 4
“Mistress Cara?” Marlin called from below.
Cara turned, hanging by one hand on the next rung down from Kahlan. She held the torch out in her other hand. “What!”
“How will I sleep, Mistress Cara? If you don’t come back tonight, and if I have to stand, then how will I sleep?”
“Sleep? That’s not my concern. I told you—you must remain on your feet, on that spot. Move, sit, or lie down, and you will be very sorry. You will be all alone with the pain. Understand?”
“Yes, Mistress Cara,” came the weak voice from the darkness below.
Once Kahlan was up in the hall, she reached down and took the torch from Cara, freeing the Mord-Sith to use both hands to climb out. Kahlan handed the torch to a relieved-looking Sergeant Collins.
“Collins, I’d like all of you to remain here. Keep the door locked and don’t go down there—for anything. Don’t let anyone else so much as take a peek.”
“Yes, Mother Confessor.” Sergeant Collins hesitated. “Is it dangerous, then?”
Kahlan understood his concern. “No. Cara has control of his power. He’s incapable of using his magic.”
She took appraisal of the troops clogging the dingy stone corridor. There had to be close to a hundred.
“I don’t know if we’ll be back tonight,” she told the sergeant. “Get the rest of your men down here. Divide them into squads. Take shifts so that there’s at least this many down here at all times. Lock all the barricade doors. Post archers at the doors and at each end of this hall.”
“I thought you said there was no need for concern, that he couldn’t use his magic.”
Kahlan smiled. “Do you want to have to explain it to Cara, here, if someone sneaks in and rescues her charge out from under your nose in her absence?”
He scratched his stubble as he glanced at Cara. “I understand, Mother Confessor. No one will be allowed within shouting distance of this door.”
“Still don’t trust me?” Cara asked, when they were out of earshot of the soldiers.
Kahlan offered a friendly smile. “My father was King Wyborn. He was Cyrilla’s father, and then mine. He was a great warrior. He taught me that it’s impossible to be too cautious with prisoners.”
Cara shrugged as they passed a sputtering torch. “Fine by me. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. But I have his magic. He’s helpless.”
“I still don’t understand how you can fear magic, and have such control over it.”
“I told you. Only if he specifically attacks me with it.”
“And how do you take cont
rol of it? How do you make it yours to command?”
Cara spun the Agiel on the end of the chain at her wrist as she walked. “I don’t know myself. We just do it. The Master Rahl himself takes part in some of the training of Mord-Sith. It is during that phase that the ability is instilled in us. It’s not magic from within us, but transferred to us, I guess.”
Kahlan shook her head. “Yet you don’t know, really, what you’re doing. And still it works.”
With her fingertips, Cara hooked the iron rail at a corner, swung around it, and followed Kahlan up the stone stairs. “You don’t have to know what you are doing in order for magic to work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Lord Rahl told us that a child is magic: the magic of Creation. You don’t have to know what you are doing to make a child.
“One time, this girl—a very naive girl—of about fourteen summers, a daughter of one of the staff at the People’s Palace in D’Hara, told me that Darken Rahl—Father Rahl, he liked to be called—had given her a rosebud and it had bloomed in her fingers as he smiled down at her. She said that that was how she had come to be with child—through his magic.”
Cara laughed without humor. “She really thought that that was how she became pregnant. It never occurred to her that it was because she had spread her legs for him. So you see? She did magic, created a son, and without knowing how she had really done it.”
Kahlan paused on the landing, in the shadows, and seized the crook of Cara’s elbow, halting her.
“All Richard’s family is dead—Darken Rahl killed his stepfather, his mother died when he was young, and his half brother, Michael, betrayed Richard . . . allowing Denna to capture him. After Richard defeated Darken Rahl, Richard forgave Michael for what he had done to him, but ordered him executed because his treachery had knowingly caused the torture and death of countless people at the hands of Darken Rahl.
“I know how much family means to Richard. He would be thrilled to come to know a half brother. Could we send word to the palace in D’Hara and have him brought here? Richard would be—”
Cara shook her head and glanced away. “Darken Rahl tested the child and discovered that he was born without the gift. Darken Rahl was eager to have a gifted heir. He considered anything less deformed and worthless.”
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