Confessor (59 page)

Richard was a captive of the Order at best, but more likely, he was dead.

She had only just learned her connection to him, and now he was lost to her.

She felt a tear roll down her cheek, but this time there was no joy behind it, only horror.

She finally collected herself and focused her attention on the man on his knees before her. “Where were you taking me?”

“To Tamarang. To my…my other mistress.”

“Other mistress?”

He nodded hurriedly. “Six.”

She recalled Jagang talking about her. Kahlan frowned. “The witch woman?”

Samuel looked terrified to answer, but he did. “Yes, Mistress. I was told to bring you and to give you over to her.”

She gestured to where she had been sleeping. “Did she tell you to do that?”

Even more reluctantly, Samuel licked his lips. Confessing to murder was one thing, but this was entirely different.

“I asked if I could have you,” he whined. “She said that if I wanted to take you I could, as my reward for my service, but that I was to bring you to her alive.”

“And what did she want with me?”

“I believe she wanted you as a bargaining tool.”

“With who?”

“Emperor Jagang.”

“But I was already with Jagang.”

“Jagang wants you very badly. She knows how valuable you are to him. She wanted to take possession of you and then trade you back to Jagang in return for favors for herself.”

“How far are we from Tamarang, from the witch woman?”

“Not far.” Samuel pointed southwest. “If we don’t delay, we can get there by the end of tomorrow, Mistress.”

Kahlan suddenly felt very vulnerable being this close to a woman as powerful as that. She knew without doubt that she had to get out of the area or she might be located without the benefit of Samuel dragging her right up to Six’s feet.

“And since you were to turn me over tomorrow, you knew that your time with me was running out. You were going to rape me.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.

Samuel wrung his hands, tears streaming down his red face. “Yes, Mistress.” In the terrible silence he became even
more distraught as she stood staring down at him. Kahlan knew that a person touched was no longer who they were, no longer had all the mind they once had. Once taken, they were completely devoted to the Confessor.

It occurred to her that something very much like that had been done to her. She wondered if her memory was as lost to her as Samuel’s past was now forever lost to him. It was a terrifying thought.

“Please, Mistress…forgive me?”

In the dragging silence he could not endure the guilt of his intent. He began to cry hysterically, unable to endure the condemnation in her eyes.

“Please, Mistress, find mercy for me in your heart.”

“Mercy is a contingency plan devised by the guilty in the eventuality that they are caught. Justice is the domain of the just. This is about justice.”

“Then please, Mistress, please…forgive me?”

Kahlan stared into his eyes to be sure that he would not mistake her words or her intent.

“No. That would be a corruption of the concept of justice. I will not forgive you, not now, not ever—not out of hate but because you are guilty of more crimes than those against me.”

“I know, but you could forgive me of my crimes against you. Please, Mistress, just those things. Just forgive me for what I have done to you, and for what I intended to do to you?”

“No.”

The reality of the finality of that proclamation settled into his eyes. He gasped in horror at the realization that his actions, the choices he had made, were irredeemable. He felt nothing for his other crimes, but he felt the full weight of responsibility for his crimes against her.

He saw himself, probably for the first time in his life, for what he really was—the way she saw him.

Samuel gasped again as he clutched his chest, and then crumpled onto his side, dead.

Without delay, Kahlan began gathering up her things. With the witch woman this close she had to get away as fast as possible. She didn’t know where she would go, but she knew where she couldn’t go.

She suddenly realized that she should have thought more about it and asked Samuel a great many more questions. She had let those many answers slip through her fingers.

The news about Richard—about Richard being her husband—had so scrambled her thoughts that she simply hadn’t considered asking Samuel anything else. She suddenly felt like a monumental fool for missing such an invaluable opportunity.

Done was done. She had to concentrate on what to do now. She rushed over in the dim, early light to saddle the horse.

She found the horse on the ground, dead. Its throat had been cut. Samuel, probably fearing that she might use the horse to somehow escape before he could have his way with her, had cut the poor animal’s throat.

Without delay she rolled as much as she could carry into her blanket and stuffed it into the saddlebags. She tossed the saddlebags over a shoulder and picked up the Sword of Truth in its scabbard. Sword in hand, Kahlan started away, in the opposite direction of Tamarang.

In crushing loneliness, Kahlan plodded northeast. She began to wonder why she bothered. What was the point of fighting for her life if there could be no future? What could there be to a life without her own mind in a world dominated by the fanatical beliefs of the Imperial Order, by people who defined their existence through a filter of hatred for those who wanted to live and accomplish for themselves? They didn’t want to accomplish anything; they simply wanted to murder anyone else who did, as if by destroying productive accomplishment they could revoke reality and live a life made of wishes.

All those who defined their existence by that burning hatred of others were smothering all joy out of life, and in the process suffocating life itself out of existence. It would be easy to simply give up. No one would care. No one would know.

But she would care. She would know. Reality was what it was. It was the only life she would ever have. In the end, that precious life was all she had, all anyone had.

It had been up to Samuel to decide how he would live his life, and he had made his choices. It was no less true for
her. She had to make the most of what she had in life, even if her choices were limited, and even if that life itself was to be cut short.

She had walked for less than an hour when she began to hear the distant rumble of galloping hooves. She paused as she saw horses break from a line of trees ahead. They were coming right toward her.

She glanced around the bottomland she was crossing. In the gloomy light of a leaden sky she could see that the trees covering the foothills to each side were too far for her to reach their cover in time. The grass, long since brown as winter closed in, had been flattened by wind and weather. It didn’t provide anywhere for her to hide.

Besides, it looked like she might have been spotted. Even if she hadn’t, at the speed the horses were closing they soon would catch up to her, and she had no hope of running across their line of sight and not being seen.

She tossed the saddlebag on the ground. The gentle breeze lifted her hair back off her shoulders as she gripped the scabbard of the sword in her left hand. Her only choice was to stand and fight.

She realized, then, that she was invisible to most everyone. She almost laughed aloud with relief. This was one of those rare times when she was thankful to be invisible. She stood her ground, remaining quiet, hoping the riders wouldn’t see her and would simply ride by and be gone.

But in the back of her mind she remembered Samuel telling her that Jagang would send men after them. Jagang had men who could see her. If that was who was riding toward her, then she was going to have to fight.

She didn’t pull the sword free in case the riders, on the off chance they could see her, weren’t hostile. She didn’t want to start a battle unless she really had no choice. She knew she could draw the blade in an instant if need be. She
had two knives as well, but she knew that she could handle a sword. She didn’t know where she’d learned, but she knew she was good with a sword.

She remembered seeing Richard fight with a blade. She recalled thinking at the time that it reminded her somewhat of the way in which she fought with a blade. She wondered if it had been Richard—her husband—who had taught her to use a sword the way she did.

She noticed then that while there were three horses, only one had a rider. That was good news. It cut the odds to even.

As the galloping horses bore down on her, she was astonished to recognize the rider.

“Richard!”

He leaped off the horse before it had skidded to a halt. It snorted, tossing its head. All three horses were lathered and hot.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he rushed toward her.

“Yes.”

“You used your power.”

She nodded, unable to take her gaze off his gray eyes. “How did you know?”

“I thought I felt it.” He looked giddy with excitement. “You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you.”

As she stared at him she wished that she could remember their past, remember all they meant to each other.

“I was afraid you were dead. I didn’t want to leave you there. I was so afraid that you were dead.”

He stood gazing at her, seeming unable to speak. He looked like she felt, as if he had a thousand things all bottled up, all wanting out first.

Kahlan remembered the way he had fought when he had started the war Nicci had said he would start. She remembered the way he had moved so fluidly among the other Ja’La players, and then among lumbering brutes as they hacked away with swords and axes, desperately trying to kill him.

She remembered the way the blade had seemed to be a part of him, almost an extension of his body, an extension of his mind. She had been spellbound that day as she’d watched him fighting his way toward her. It had been like watching a dance with death, and death had not been able to touch him.

She held the sword out. “Every weapon needs a master.”

Richard’s warm smile broke through like sunshine on a cold, cloudy day. It warmed her heart. He gazed at her a moment, still unable to look away, then gently lifted the weapon from her hands.

He ducked his head under the baldric, laying it over his right shoulder so that the sword rested against his left hip. The sword looked completely natural with him, unlike the way it had looked with Samuel.

“Samuel is dead.”

“When I felt you use your power I thought as much.” He rested his left palm on the hilt of the sword. “Thank goodness he didn’t hurt you.”

“He tried. That’s why he’s dead.”

Richard nodded. “Kahlan, I can’t explain it all right now, but there is a great deal happening that—”

“You missed all the excitement.”

“Excitement?”

“Yes. Samuel confessed. He told me that we’re married.”

Richard went stiff as stone. A look akin to terror passed across his face.

She thought that maybe he should take her in his arms and tell her how happy he was to have her back, but he just stood there, looking like he was afraid to breathe.

“We were in love, then?” she asked, trying to prompt him.

His face lost some of its color. “Kahlan, now is not the time to talk about this. We’re in more trouble than you can imagine. I don’t have time to explain it but—”

“So, you’re saying that we weren’t in love?”

She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t even considered it. She suddenly had difficulty making her voice work.

She couldn’t understand why he just stood there, why he wouldn’t say anything. She supposed that there was nothing for him to say.

“It was just some kind of arranged thing, then?” She swallowed back the lump rising in her throat. “The Mother Confessor marrying the Lord Rahl for the good of their respective people? An alliance of convenience. Something like that?”

Richard looked more terrified than Samuel had when she had been questioning him. He drew his lower lip through his teeth as if trying to think how to answer.

“It’s all right,” Kahlan said. “You won’t hurt my feelings. I don’t remember any of it. So, that’s what it was, then? Just a marriage of convenience?”

“Kahlan…”

“We’re not in love, then? Please, answer me, Richard.”

“Look, Kahlan, it’s more complicated than that. I have responsibilities.”

That was what Nicci had said when Kahlan had asked if she loved Richard. It was more complicated than that. She had responsibilities.

Kahlan wondered how she could have been so blind. It was Nicci he loved.

“You have to trust me,” he said when she could only stare at him. “There are important things at stake.”

She nodded, holding back the tears, putting on a blank face, hiding behind the mask of it. She didn’t try to test her voice just then.

She didn’t know why she had let her heart get ahead of her head. She didn’t know if her legs were going to hold.

Richard squeezed his temples between a finger and a thumb, his gaze going to the ground for a moment.
“Kahlan…listen to me. I’ll explain everything to you—everything—I promise, but I can’t right now. Please, just trust me.”

She wanted to ask why she should trust a man who married her without loving her, but right then she was not sure that she would be able to summon her voice.

“Please,” he repeated. “I promise I’ll explain everything when I can, but right now we have to get to Tamarang.”

She cleared her throat, finally gathering the ability to speak. “We can’t go there. Samuel said that Six was there.”

He was nodding as she spoke. “I know. But I have to go there.”

“I don’t.”

He paused, gazing at her.

“I don’t want anything else to happen to you,” he finally said. “Please, you need to come with me. I’ll explain later. I promise.”

“Why is later better than now?”

“Because we’ll be dead if we don’t hurry. Jagang is going to open the boxes of Orden. I have to try to stop him.”

She didn’t buy the excuse. Had he wanted to, he could have already answered her.

“I’ll go with you if you answer one question. Did you love me when you married me?”

His gray eyes studied her face a moment before he finally answered in a quiet voice.

“You were the right person for me to marry.”

Kahlan swallowed back the pain, the cry wanting to escape. She turned away, not wanting him to see her tears, and started toward where Samuel had been taking her.

It was well after nightfall when they were finally forced to stop. Richard would have kept going but the terrain, thickly wooded, rocky, and becoming uneven as ridgelines rose up around them, was simply too treacherous to negotiate in the
dark. The nearly new moon would have come up at sunset but the narrow crescent didn’t provide enough illumination to brighten the inky cloud cover in the least. Even the light that would have been provided by meager starlight was hidden by the thick clouds. The darkness was so complete that it was simply impossible to go on.

Kahlan was tired, but as Richard started a fire in the fluff of cattails he’d broken open for tinder, she could see that he was in far worse condition. She wondered if he’d slept in recent days. After he had a fire going, he set fishing lines and then started to collect enough firewood to last them through the cold night. Up against a rocky rise they at least had some protection from the biting wind.

Kahlan did her best to care for the horses, fetching them water in a canvas bucket among the supplies Richard had with him. When he’d finished collecting firewood he found that they had some brook trout on his lines. As she watched him cleaning the fish, throwing the innards on the fire so they wouldn’t attract animals, she decided not to ask any more questions about the two of them. She couldn’t endure the pain of the answers. Besides, he had already told her what she had asked: she was simply the right person for him to marry.

She wondered if he’d even met her before he agreed to marry her. She realized that it must have been heartbreaking for Nicci to see the man she loved marry someone else for unromantic, practical reasons.

Kahlan forced her mind away from that whole line of thought.

“Why are we going to Tamarang?” she asked.

Richard glanced up from his work at cleaning the fish. “Well, a long time ago, back in the great war three thousand years ago, the people back then were fighting this same war we’re fighting now, a war to defend ourselves against those who want to eliminate magic and all other forms of freedom.

“The people defending against such aggression took a number of extremely valuable things of magic—things they had created over many centuries—and put those things in a place called the Temple of the Winds. Then, to protect it all from falling into the hands of the enemy, they sent the temple into the underworld.”

“They sent it into the world of the dead?”

Richard nodded as he laid out some big leaves. “During the war, wizards on both sides had conjured terrible weapons—constructed spells and such. But some of those weapons were made out of people. That’s how the dream walkers came to be. They were created out of people captured in Caska—Jillian’s ancestors.”

“And that was when they created the Chainfire event?” she asked. “During that great war.”

“That’s right,” he said as he spread a layer of mud on the leaves. “Other wizards were constantly working to counter the things that had been created from magic. The boxes of Orden, for example, were created during that great war in order to counter the Chainfire spell.”

“I remember the Sisters talking to Jagang about that.”

“Well, the whole thing is quite complicated but, basically, a traitor named Lothain went to the Temple of the Winds where it was hidden away in the underworld. He secretly did things to one day aid the basic cause of the Order when it eventually rekindled.”

“They thought the war would reignite?”

“There have always been, and always will be, those who are driven by hate and want to blame those who are happy, creative, and productive for their misery.”

“What sort of things did this Lothain do?”

Richard looked up. “Among other things, he made sure that a dream walker would one day again be born into the world of life. Jagang is that dream walker.”

Richard finished wrapping the fish in leaves and mud
and set the little bundles in the glowing coals at the edge of the fire.

“After that, the people on our side sent the First Wizard to the Temple of the Winds. His name was Baraccus. He was a war wizard. He made sure that another war wizard would be born to try to stop the forces trying to take mankind into a dark age.”

Kahlan pulled her knees up and drew her blanket around herself to keep warm as she listened to the story. “You mean that there haven’t been any war wizards since that time?”

Richard shook his head. “I’m the first one in nearly three thousand years. Baraccus, though, did something at the temple to insure that another would one day be born to carry on the struggle. I’m the one born because of what he did back then.

“Realizing that such a person wouldn’t know anything about his ability, Baraccus came back and wrote a book called
Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power
. He had his wife, Magda Searus, who he loved very much, take that book away and hide it for me. He was very careful to make sure that no one but me would get ahold of the book.