Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Rachel knew that only when they were finished and the bones had been picked clean would their summoning born of hate be complete. Only then would they finally vanish for good.

CHAPTER 42

Verna glanced up when she heard the commotion. It was Nathan, at last, his arms swinging in time with his long legs, his l ight cape billowing out behind as he marched briskly toward them. General Trimack was close on the prophet's heels.

Cara, pacing impatiently, finally stopped to watch the approaching prophet and cluster of people following in his wake. As vast as the palace complex was, it had taken a considerable length of time to find Nathan and get him and the others down to the tombs.

Nathan came to an abrupt halt. "I'm going to have to bring a horse into this place to get around faster. First I'm wanted here, then I'm wanted there." He flourished an arm, indicating the grand scale of the palace. "I spend most of my day rushing from one end of this sprawling monstrosity to another." He scowled at those watching him. "What's this about, anyway? No one will tell me anything. Have you found something? Is it Ann and Nicci?"

"Keep your voice down," Cara said.

"Why? Afraid I'll wake the dead?" he snapped.

Verna expected Cara to meet his sarcasm with something caustic of her own, but she didn't. "We don't know what we've found," she said, her worry clearly evident in her demeanor.

Nathan's brow only bunched all the more at her cryptic answer. "What do you mean?"

"We need your ability," Verna explained. "My gift doesn't work very well in this place. We need the use of the gift to help us in this."

His suspicion growing, he took in General Trimack standing beside him, and then Berdine and Nyda waiting behind Cara. Finally, he glanced around the rest of the Mord-Sith scattered among soldiers throughout the corridor. The Mord-Sith were all wearing their red leather outfits.

"All right," he said, considerably more circumspect. "What is the problem and what do you have in mind?"

"The crypt staff-" Cara started.

"The crypt staff?" Nathan interrupted. "Who are they?"

Cara gestured to several people in white robes far off back up the corridor, well behind the armed and ready men of the First File. "They take care of this place. As you know, I think something is wrong down here."

"So you've said, but for all the searching I still don't see anything wrong down here."

Cara gestured around. "You don't know this place very well. I've lived here most of my life and even I'm not familiar with the maze of passageways down here. In the past the tombs were usually only visited by the Lord Rahl. The crypt staff, though, spends a great deal of their time down here keeping it always ready for those visits, so they know the place better than anyone."

Nathan rubbed his chin as he again cast a look over his shoulder, back up the corridor at the white-robed figures huddled in the distance. "That makes sense." He turned back to Cara. "So, what do they have to say?"

"They're mute. Darken Rahl selected only illiterate people from the countryside to be members of the crypt staff, so they can't read or write, either."

"Selected. You mean he captured people and pressed them into service."

"Exactly," Berdine said as she moved up a little to stand beside Cara "In much the same way he would acquire young women to be trained as Mord-Sith."

Cara gestured off in the direction of Panis Rahl's tomb. "Darken Rahl wanted a crypt staff who would not speak ill of his dead father, so he cut out their tongues. Since they can't read or write, they also can't secretly write anything offensive about the dead leaders."

Nathan sighed. "He was a harsh man."

"He was an evil man," Cara said.

Nathan nodded. "I've never heard anything to dispute it."

"Then how do you know what the crypt staff thinks about anything that might be wrong down here?" General Trimack asked Cara. "After all. they can't tell you or even write it down."

"You use hand signals to direct your men when silence is critical, or when in the heat of battle they can't hear you. These people do similar things. They use signs they've made up over the years to communicate with each other. I've questioned them and to a certain extent they've been able to make themselves understood. As I'm sure you can well imagine, they are very observant."

"And wait until you hear what they think," Verna said.

The whole thing seemed preposterous to her, but the implications were serious enough that she wanted to know for sure. Verna had learned since becoming prelate that, despite how she might be inclined to view a matter, it was always a good idea to keep an open mind. In matters so serious it would be foolish not to at least make sure there was no real problem. Still, she didn't have to be happy about it.

Nathan's suspicious look returned. "So, what do they think?"

Cara pointed toward an intersection down the corridor. "Back around there they found a place that isn't right."