Faith of the Fallen (32 page)

“What? I’m not going to do any such thing!”

“Now,” Kahlan said through her clenched teeth. “Or Sister Alessandra will be mine. When I finish with her, Cara will see to it you throw that journey book in the fire, if you have to do so with broken fingers.”

Ann glanced at the Mord-Sith towering over her shoulder.

“Kahlan, I know you’re upset, and I completely understand, but we’re on the same side in this. We love Richard, too. We, too, wish to stop the Imperial Order from taking the whole world. We—”

“We? If it wasn’t for you and your Sisters, none of this would be happening. This is all your fault. Not Jagang’s fault, not the Imperial Order’s fault, but yours.”

“Have you lost your—”

“You alone bear responsibility for what is befalling the world. Just as Jagang has his ring through the lip of his slaves, you’ve had yours through the nose of yours—Richard! You alone bear responsibility for the lives already lost, and those yet to be lost in bloody slaughters that will sweep across the land. You, not Jagang, are the one who has brought it!”

Despite the cold, beads of sweat dotted Ann’s brow. “What in the name of Creation are you talking about? Kahlan, you know me. I was at your wedding. I have always been on your side. I have only followed the prophecies to help people.”

“You create the prophecies! Without your help they would not have come to pass! They only come about because you have fulfilled them! You pull the ring through Richard’s nose!”

Ann presented a face of calm to the storm of Kahlan’s rage.

“Kahlan, I can only imagine how you must feel, but now you are truly losing all sense of reason.”

“Am I? Am I, Prelate? Why does Sister Nicci have my husband? Answer me. Why!”

Ann’s expression drew tight in a darkening glower. “Because she is evil.”

“No.” Kahlan’s grip tightened on Alessandra’s throat. “It’s because of you. Had you not sent Verna into the New World in the first place, ordering her to take Richard back across the barrier into the Old World—”

“But the prophecies say the Order will rise up to take the world and extinguish magic if we fail to stop them! The prophecies say Richard is the only one to lead us! That Richard is the only one with a chance!”

“And you brought that dead prophecy to life. All by yourself. All because of your faith in bloodless words rather than your own reasoned choices. You’re here today not to back the choices of your proclaimed leader, not to reason with him, but to enforce prophecy upon him—to give that ring a tug. Had you not sent Verna to recover Richard, what would have happened, Prelate?”

“Why, why, the Order—”

“The Order? The Order would still be trapped back in the Old World, behind the barrier. Wouldn’t they! For three thousand years that wizard-created barrier has stood invincible against the pressure of the Order—or those like them—and their wish to swarm up here into the New World, bent on conquest.

“Because you had Richard captured, against his will, and ordered him brought back to the Old World, all in slavish homage to dead words in dusty old books, he was forced to destroy the barrier, and thus the Order now can flood into the New World, into the Midlands, my Midlands, slaughtering my people, taking my husband, all because of you and your meddling!

“Without you, none of this would be happening! No war, no mounds of butchered people in cities of the New World, no thousands of dead men, women, and children slaughtered at the hands of Imperial Order thugs—none of it!

“Because of you and your precious prophecies, the veil was breached and a plague was unleashed on the world. It would never have happened without your actions to ‘save’ us all from prophecy. I don’t even dare to recall all the children I saw suffering and dying from the black death because of you. Children who looked up into my eyes and asked if they would be all right, and I had to say yes when I knew they would not survive the night.

“No one will ever know the tally of the dead. No one is left to remember all the small places wiped out of existence by that plague. Without your meddling, those children would be alive, their mothers would be smiling to themselves as they watched them play, their fathers would be teaching them the ways of the world—a world denied them by you for the sake of your faith in prophecy!

“You say this is a battle for the very existence of magic in this world—yet your work to fulfill prophecy may have already doomed magic. Without your intervention, the chimes would never have come to be loosed upon the world. Yes, Richard managed to banish them, but what irreversible harm was done? We may have our power back, but during the time the chimes withdrew magic from this world, creatures of magic, things dependent on magic for their very existence, surely died out. Magic requires balance to exist. The balance of magic in this world was disturbed. The irrevocable destruction of magic may have already begun. All because of your slavish service to prophecy.

“If not for you, Prelate, Jagang, the Imperial Order’s army, and all your Sisters would be back there, behind the barrier, and we would be here, safe and at peace. You cast blame everywhere but where it belongs. If freedom, if magic, if the world itself is destroyed, it will all be by your hand, Prelate.”

The low moan of the wind was the only sound and made the sudden silence all that much more agonizing. Ann stared with tear-filled eyes up at Kahlan. Snow sparkled in the rays of a cold dawn.

“It isn’t like that, Kahlan. It only seems that way to you in your pain.”

“It is that way,” Kahlan said with finality.

Ann’s mouth worked, but this time no words came out.

Kahlan thrust out her hand, palm up.

“The journey book. If you think I would not destroy this woman’s life, then you don’t know the first thing about me. She’s one of your Sisters, helping to destroy the world in the name of good, or else she is still one of the Keeper’s Sisters, helping to destroy the world in the name of death. Either way, if you don’t give me the journey book, and right now, her life is forfeit.”

“What do you think this will accomplish?” Ann whispered in despair.

“It will be a start at halting your meddling in the lives of the people of the Midlands, and the rest of the New World—in my life, in Richard’s life. It’s the only beginning I can think to make, short of killing you both; you would not like to know how close I am to that alternative. Now, give me the journey book.”

Ann stared down at Kahlan’s hand open before her. She blinked at her tears. Finally, she pulled off a woolen mitten and worked the little book out from behind her belt. She paused a moment, reverently gazing at it, but in the end laid it on Kahlan’s palm.

“Dear Creator,” Ann whispered, “forgive this poor hurting child of yours for what she is about to do.”

Kahlan tossed the book in the fire.

With ashen faces, Ann and Sister Alessandra stood staring at the book in the hissing flames.

Kahlan snatched up Richard’s sword. “Cara, let’s get going.”

“The horses are ready. I was saddling them when these two showed up.”

Kahlan dumped the hot water to the side while Cara started quickly collecting their belongings. They both stuffed items in the saddlebags. Other gear they slung over their shoulders and carried to the horses to be strapped back on the saddles.

Without looking back at Ann or Alessandra, Kahlan swung up into her cold saddle. With a grim Cara at her side, she turned her mount and cantered off into the swirling snow.

As soon as she saw Kahlan and Cara vanish like vengeful spirits into the whiteness, Ann fell to her knees and thrust her hands into the fire to snatch the burning journey book from its funeral pyre in the white-hot coals.

“Prelate!” Alessandra cried. “You’ll burn yourself!”

Flinching back from the ferocity of the pain, Ann ignored the gagging stench of burning flesh and thrust her hands again into the wavering heat of the fire. She saw, rather than felt, that she had the priceless journey book in her fingers.

The entire rescue of the burning book took only a second, but, through the prism of pain, it seemed an eternity.

Biting down on her lower lip against the suffering, Ann rolled to the side. Alessandra came running back with her hands full of snow. She threw it on Ann’s bloody blackened fingers and the journey book clenched in them.

She let out a low wail of agony when the wet snow contacted the burns. Alessandra fell to Ann’s side, taking her hands by the wrists, gasping in tears of fright.

“Prelate! Oh, Prelate, you shouldn’t have!”

Ann was in a state of shock from the pain. Alessandra’s shrill voice seemed a distant drone.

“Oh, Ann! Why didn’t you use magic, or even a stick!”

Ann was surprised by the question. In her panic over the priceless journey book burning there in the fire, her mind was filled only with the single thought to get it out before it was too late. Her reckless action, she knew, was precipitated by her bitter anguish over Kahlan’s accusations.

“Hold still,” Alessandra admonished through her own tears. “Hold still and let me see what I can do about healing you. It will be all right. Just hold still.”

Ann sat on the snowy ground, dazed by the hurt, and by the words still hammering her from inside her head, as she let Alessandra work at healing her hands.

The Sister could not heal her heart.

“She was wrong,” Alessandra said, as if reading Ann’s thoughts. “She was wrong, Prelate.”

“Was she?” Ann asked in a numb voice after the searing pain in her fingers finally began to ease, replaced by the achingly uncomfortable tingling of magic coursing into her flesh, doing its work. “Was she, Alessandra?”

“Yes. She doesn’t know so much as she thinks. She’s a child—she couldn’t be a paltry three decades yet. People can’t learn to wipe their own noses in that much time.” Alessandra was prattling, Ann knew, prattling with her worry over the journey book, and with her worry over the anguish caused by Kahlan’s words. “She’s just a foolish child who doesn’t know the first thing about anything. There’s much more to it. Much more. It isn’t so simple as she thinks. Not so simple at all.”

Ann wasn’t so sure anymore. Everything seemed dead to her. Five hundred years of work—had it all been a mad task, driven on by selfish desires and a fool’s faith? Wouldn’t she, in Kahlan’s place, have seen it the same way?

Endless rows of corpses lay before her in the trial going on in her mind. What was there to say in her defense? She had a thousand answers for the Mother Confessor’s charges, but at that moment, they all seemed empty. How could Ann possibly excuse herself to the dead?

“You’re the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light,” Alessandra rambled on during a pause in her work. “She should have been more considerate of who she was talking to. More respectful. She doesn’t know everything involved. There’s a great deal more to it. A great deal. After all, the Sisters of the Light don’t casually choose their Prelate.”

Nor did Confessors casually choose their Mother Confessor.

An hour passed, and then another, before Alessandra finally finished the difficult and tedious work of healing Ann’s burns. Burns were difficult injuries to heal. It was a tiring experience, being helpless and cold while magic sizzled through her, while Kahlan’s words sliced her very soul.

Ann flexed the aching fingers when Alessandra had finished. A shadow of the burning pain lingered, as she knew it would for a good long time. But they were healed, and she had her hands back.

When the matter was weighed, though, she feared she had lost a great deal more of herself than she had recovered.

Exhausted and cold, Ann, to Alessandra’s worry, lay down beside the hissing remnants of the fire that had so hurt her. At that moment, she had no desire to ever rise again. Her years, nearly a thousand of them, seemed to have all caught up with her at once.

She missed Nathan terribly right then. The prophet doubtless would have had something wise, or foolish, to say. Either would have comforted her. Nathan always had something to say. She missed his boastful voice, his kind, childlike, knowing eyes. She missed the touch of his hand.

Weeping silently, Ann cried herself to sleep. Her dreams kept the sleep from being either restful, or deep. She awoke in late morning to the feel of Alessandra’s comforting hand on her shoulder. The Sister had added more wood to the fire, so it offered warmth.

“Are you feeling better, Prelate?”

Ann nodded her lie. Her first thought was for the journey book. She gazed at it lying in the protection of Alessandra’s lap. Ann sat up and carefully lifted the blackened book from the sling of Alessandra’s dress.

“Prelate, I’m so worried for you.”

With a sour wave of her hand, Ann dismissed the concern.

“While you slept, I’ve looked at the book.”

Ann grunted. “Looks bad.”

Alessandra nodded. “That’s what I thought. I don’t think it can be salvaged.”

Ann used an easy, gentle flow of her Han to hold the pages—little more than ash—together as she carefully turned them.

“It has endured three thousand years. Were it ordinary paper, it would be beyond help—ended—but this is a thing of magic, Alessandra, forged in the fires of magic, by wizards of power not seen in all those three thousand years…until Richard.”

“What can we do? Do you know a way to restore it?”

Ann shook her head as she inspected the curled, charred journey book. “I don’t know if it can be restored. I’m just saying that it’s a thing of magic. Where there is magic, there is hope.”

Ann pulled a handkerchief from a pocket deep under the layers of her clothes. Laying the blackened book in the center of the handkerchief, she carefully folded the handkerchief up to hold it together. She wove a spell around it all to protect and preserve it for the time being.

“I will have to try to find a way to restore it—if I can. If it can even be restored.”

Alessandra dry-washed her hands. “Until then, our eyes with the army are lost.”

Ann nodded. “We won’t know if the Imperial Order decides to finally leave their place in the south and move up into the Midlands. I can give no guidance to Verna.”

“Prelate, what do you think will happen if the Order finally decides to attack—and Richard isn’t there with them? What will they do? Without the Lord Rahl to lead them…”

Ann did her best to move the terrible weight of Kahlan’s words to the side as she considered the immediate situation.

“Verna is the Prelate now—at least as far as the Sisters with the army are concerned. She will guide them wisely. And Zedd is with them, helping the Sisters prepare for battle, should it come. They could have no better counsel than to have a wizard of Zedd’s experience with them. As First Wizard, he has been through great wars before.

“We will have to place our faith in the Creator that He will watch over them. I can’t advise them unless I can restore the journey book. Unless I can do that, I won’t even know their situation.”

“You could go there, Prelate.”

Ann brushed snow from the side of her shoulder, where she had been lying on the ground, as she considered that possibility.

“The Sisters of the Light think I’m dead. They’ve put their faith in Verna, now, as their Prelate. It would be a terrible thing to do to Verna—and to the rest of the Sisters—to come back to life in the middle of such trying circumstances. Certainly many would be relieved to have me back, but it also sows the seeds of confusion and doubt. Battle is a very bad time for such seeds to sprout.”

“But they would all be encouraged by your—”

Ann shook her head. “Verna is their leader. Such a thing could forever undermine their trust in her authority. They must not lose their faith in her leadership. I must put the welfare of the Sisters of the Light above all else. I must keep their best interests at heart, now.”

“But, Ann, you are the Prelate.”

Ann stared off. “What good has that done anyone?”

Alessandra’s eyes turned down. The wind moaned sorrowfully through the trees. Gusts kicked up blue-gray trailers of snow and whipped them along through the campsite. The sunlight had vanished behind somber clouds. Ann wiped her nose on the edge of her icy cloak.

Alessandra laid a compassionate hand on Ann’s arm. “You brought me back from the Keeper, back into the Light of the Creator. I was in Jagang’s hands, and treated you terribly when they captured you, yet you never gave up on me. Who else would have cared? Without you, my soul would be lost for all time. I doubt you could fathom my gratitude for what you did, Prelate.”

Despite Alessandra’s apparent return to the Creator’s Light, Ann had been fooled by the woman before. Years before, Alessandra had turned to the Keeper, becoming a Sister of the Dark, and Ann had never known. How could one have faith in a person after such a betrayal?

Ann looked up into Alessandra’s eyes. “I hope so, Sister. I pray such is really true.”

“It is, Prelate.”

Ann lifted a hand toward the shrouded sun. “And perhaps when I go to the Creator’s Light in the next world, that one good act will erase the thousands of lives lost because of me?”

Alessandra looked away, rubbing her arms through the layers of clothes. She turned and put two sticks of wood on the fire.

“We should have a hot meal. That will make you feel better, Prelate. It will make us both feel better.”

Ann sat on the ground watching Alessandra prepare her hearty camp soup. Ann doubted that even the pleasant aroma of soup would arouse her appetite.

“Why do you think Nicci took Richard?” Alessandra asked as she put dried mushrooms from a pouch into the soup.

Ann looked up at Alessandra’s puzzled face. “I can’t imagine, except to think that she may be lying, and she is taking him to Jagang.”

Alessandra broke up dried meat and dropped it into the boiling pot of soup. “Why? If she had him, and he was forced to do as she asked—why lie? What would be the purpose?”

“She’s a Sister devoted to the Keeper.” Ann lifted her hands and let them flop back into her lap. “That’s excuse enough to lie, isn’t it? Lying is wrong. It’s wicked. That’s reason enough.”

Alessandra shook her head in admonition. “Prelate, I was a Sister of the Dark. Remember? I know better. That isn’t the way it is at all. Do you always tell the truth just because you are devoted to the Creator’s Light? No; one lies for the Keeper just as you would lie for the Creator—to His ends, if lying is necessary. Why would Nicci lie about that? She was in control of the situation and had no need to lie.”

“I can’t imagine.” Ann had difficulty caring enough to consider the question. Her mind was in a morass of hopeless thoughts. It was her fault Richard was in the hands of the enemy, not Nicci’s.

“I think she did it for herself.”

Ann looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I think Nicci is still looking for something.”

“Looking for something? What ever do you mean?”

With a finger, Alessandra brushed a measure of spices into the pot from a waxed paper she’d unfolded. “Ever since the first day I took her from her home and brought her to the Palace of the Prophets, Nicci continually grew more…detached, somehow. She always did whatever she could to help people, but she was always a child who made me feel as if I was inadequate at fulfilling her needs.”

“Such as?”

Alessandra shook her head. “I don’t know. She always seemed to me to be looking for something. I thought she needed to find the Light of the Creator. I pushed her mercilessly, hoping it would open her eyes to His way and fill her inner need. I allowed her no room to think about anything else. I even kept her away from her family. Her father was a selfish lover of money and her mother…well, her mother was well intentioned, but always made me feel uncomfortable. I thought the Creator would fill that private void within Nicci.” Alessandra hesitated. “And then I thought it was the Keeper she needed.”

“So, you think she took Richard to fill some…inner need? How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know.” Alessandra breathed out heavily in frustration. She stirred the soup as she drizzled in a pinch of salt. “Prelate, I think I failed Nicci.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I failed to involve her adequately in the needs of others—gave her too much time to think of herself. She always seemed devoted to the welfare of her fellow man, but maybe I should have rubbed her nose in other people’s troubles more, to teach her the Creator’s way of virtue through caring more for her fellow man rather than her own selfish wants.”

“Sister, I hardly think that could be it. Once she asked me for an extravagant black dress to wear to her mother’s funeral, and of course I refused such a profligacy because it was unfitting for a novice needing to learn to put others first, but other than that one time, I never knew Nicci to once ask for anything for herself. You did an admirable job with her, Alessandra.”

Ann recalled that, after that, Nicci started wearing black dresses.

“I remember that.” Alessandra didn’t look up. “When her father died, I went with her to his funeral. I always felt sorry for taking her away from her family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had great potential for helping others and must not waste it.”

“It’s always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It’s difficult to part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others.”

“She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she always threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.

“At her father’s funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew she was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to remember her father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he was alive.”