Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Cara looked surprised by the question, but she answered it anyway. "Yes." She folded her arms. "Sometimes too smart for his own good."

Adie smiled at the last part. "He be smart, so you always follow his orders?"

Cara snorted a brief laugh. "Of course not."

Adie's eyebrows lifted in mock wonder. "No? Why not? He be your leader. You just said that he be a smart man."

"Smart, yes. But he doesn't always see the danger around him."

"But you do?"

Cara nodded. "I can see danger he cannot."

"Ah. So you can see dangers that his sighted eyes cannot?"

Cara smiled. "Sometimes Lord Rahl is as blind as a bat."

"Bats also see in the dark, do they not?"

Cara sighed unhappily. "I suppose so." She went back to the subject at hand. "But Lord Rahl needs me to see the dangers all around him that he can't see."

With a long, thin finger, Adie tapped Cara's temple. "You see with this, yes? See the dangers to him?" Adie arched an eyebrow. "See dangers that eyes alone cannot see? Sometimes not having eyes lets me see more."

Cara frowned. "That may all be well and good, but still, how do you think you are going to be able to get past the Order's army? Surely you can't be thinking of trying to walk through the camp."

"That be exactly what I must do." Adie waved a finger toward the ceiling. "There be clouds today. Tonight will be a dark night. With the thick overcast, once the sun goes down and before the moon rises, it be black as pitch. On such a night, those with eyes cannot see, but I be sighted in the darkness in ways they are not. I will be able to walk among them and they will not see me. If I keep to myself, and keep away from those who are awake and watchful, I will be no more than a shadow among shadows. No one will pay me any mind."

"They have fires," Berdine pointed out.

"The fire will blind their eyes to what be in the darkness. When there is fire men watch what is in the light, not what is in the darkness."

"And what if by chance some of those soldiers do happen to see you, or hear you, or something?" Cara asked. "Then what?"

Adie smiled just a little as she leaned toward the Mord-Sith. "You would not want to meet a sorceress in the dark, child."

Cara looked worried enough by the answer not to object.

"I don't know, Adie," Verna said. "I really would like you to be here, and safe."

"Let her go," Cara said.

When everyone looked at her in surprise, she went on. "What if she's right? What if Lord Rahl does show up at the Keep? He will need to know everything that has happened. He will need to know that he shouldn't enter the Keep or he could get himself killed by the traps Zedd set in the place.

"What if Lord Rahl needs her help? If she thinks he might need her. then she should be there for him. I wouldn't want anyone to stop me from helping him."

"Besides," Berdine said as she shared a sad look with the old sorceress, "there is nothing safe about this place. She will probably be safer than any of us here. When that army down there finally gets in the palace, it's going to be anything but safe in here. It's going to be one long bloody nightmare."

Adie smiled as she reached out and touched Berdine's cheek. "The good spirits will watch over you, child, and all those here."

Verna wished she believed that.

She wondered what she was doing being the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light if she didn't.

CHAPTER 32

As he finished touching up their red battle paint, Richard tried not to let the men see how painful his injuries really were. He didn't want any-thing to distract them from the job ahead.

His ankle throbbed, his left shoulder was sore, and the hits he'd taken to his head had left his neck muscles aching. After the brief but furious fight he hadn't been able to get much sleep. As far as he could tell, though, nothing was broken.

He mentally set the pain and weariness aside. It didn't matter if he hurt, or if he was tired. He had a job to do. It only mattered if he did it, if he succeeded.

If he failed he would have all eternity to sleep.

"Today we have our chance for glory," Johnrock said.

Richard, holding Johnrock's chin, turned the man's head to the side a little so that he could see better in the failing light. He didn't say anything. He leaned to the side and dunked his finger in the bucket of red paint and then added a symbol for watchfulness above the one for power that was already there. He wished he knew a symbol for common sense so he could paint it all over Johnrock's skull.

"Don't you think, Ruben?" Johnrock pressed. "Today we have our chance for glory?"

The rest of the men all listened quietly for what Richard might say.

"You know better, Johnrock. Get those thoughts out of your head."

Richard paused in his work and swept the finger, coated in fresh red paint, around at all the eyes watching him.

"All of you know better, or at least you should. Forget thoughts of glory. Those men on the emperor's team aren't thinking of glory right now- they're thinking of killing you. Do you understand that? They want to kill you.