Blood of the Fold

He gestured with the pheasant leg to the two women sitting before him on the bearskin, and they scrambled away. Jagang smiled lhat terrifying smirk of his. "Good-bye, Christabel."

Her arms flung into the air as she collapsed to the ground with a shriek. Christabel thrashed madly on the floor, screamed so loudly it hurt Ulicia's ears. The six women standing above her at the edge of the bearskin watched with wide eyes, holding their breath. Jagang gnawed on his pheasant leg. The bloodcurdling screams went on and on as Christabel's head whipped from side to side and her whole body flopped and bounced as she twitched violently.

Jagang occupied himself with his pheasant leg and having his wine mug refilled. No one spoke as he finished the leg and turned to take a few grapes.

Ulicia could stand it no longer. "How long until she dies?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

Jagang lifted an eyebrow. "Until she dies?" He threw his head back as her roared in laughter. His fists, bristling with huge rings, pounded the table. No one else in the room so much as smiled. His burly body shook. The thin chain between his nose and ear danced as his laughter died out in fits.

"She was dead before she hit the floor."

"What? But she., she's still screaming."

Christabel suddenly was silent, her chest as still as stone.

"She's been dead from the first instant," Jagang said. A slow smile spread on his lips as he fixed the black void of his gaze on Ulicia. "That wedge I told you about. Just like the one I have in your minds. What you see is her soul screaming. You are seeing her torment in the world of the dead. The Keeper looks to be displeased with his Sister of the Dark."

Jagang lifted a finger and Christabel resumed her wild thrashing and screaming.

Ulicia swallowed. "How long. . how long until she.. stops?"

He licked his lips. "Until she rots."

Ulicia felt her knees trembling, and through the link she couid feel the other five on the verge of screaming in mad pani.;, just as Christabel was. This was the displeasure the Keeper would visit upon them if they didn't restore his influence in this world.

Jagang snapped his fingers. "Slith! Eeris!"

Light shimmered against the wall. Ulicia gasped as two caped forms seemed to appear out of the dark stone.

The two scaled creatures glided silently around the table and bowed. "Yesss, dreamssss walker?"

Jagang waggled his thick finger, indicating the screaming woman on the floor. "Throw her down the privy pit."

The mriswith fiipped their capes back over their shoulders and bent, lifting the thrashing, shrieking body of a woman Ulicia had know for well over a hundred years, a woman who had helped her, and been an obedient servant to the Keeper's wishes. She was to have had a reward for her service. They all were.

Ulicia looked to Jagang as the two mriswith left the room with their load for the privy pit. "What do you want us to do?"

Jagang lifted a hand and with two grease-slicked fingers motioned a soldier at the side of the room to come forward. "These six belong to me. Ring them."

The husky man, draped in furs and hung with weapons, bowed. He went to the closest, Nicci, and with filthy fingers unceremoniously pulled on her lower lip, distending it grotesquely. Her wide blue eyes filled with panic. Ulicia gasped with Nicci. Through the link, she could feel the young woman's stunned pain and terror as the blunt, rusty iron pick stabbed with a twisting motion through the margin of the lip. The soldier stuck the wooden-handled pick back in his belt and pulled a gold ring from his pocket as he held out her lower lip. With the help of his teeth, he spread the split in the ring and then shoved it through the bleeding wound. He twisted the ring around and used his teeth to close the gap.

The unshaven, filthy, stinking soldier came to Ulicia last. By then she was shuddering uncontrollably, having felt it done to each of the others. As he yanked on her lower lip, she desperately tried to think of an escape. It was like drawing a bucket from an empty well. Tears of pain flooded from her eyes as the ring was poked through.

Jagang wiped grease from his mouth with the back of his hand while he watched with amusement as blood trickled down all their chins. "You six are my slaves, now. If you don't give me cause to kill you, I have use for you at the Palace of the Prophets. When I'm finished with Richard Rahl, I may even let you kill him."

His eyes came up again, the sullen shapes in them shifting in a way that caught her breath. All traces of mirth vanished, leaving unbridled menace in its place. “But first, I'm not finished with your lessons."

"We understand quite well our alternatives," Ulicia said hurriedly. "Please — you have no need to fear our loyalty."

"Oh I know that," Jagang whispered. "But I still haven't finished with your lessons. Your first one was only the beginning. The rest won't be nearly so quick."