Blood of the Fold

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."