Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Jennsen woke suddenly to the strangest sound. As she came out of a dead sleep it seemed like a roaring noise of some sort. At first she thought that it must be Emperor Jagang having another of his nightmares, but the sound was followed by a great commotion outside. Men shouted for others to get out of the way, or in fear. Metal clattered in what sounded like stacked lances being tipped over by scattering men. She heard the roar again, closer, and more shouting.

Jennsen saw the guards at the entrance to the tent peek out from the edge of the hanging covering the opening. She feared to get up from her spot on the floor. Jagang had told her to stay there. As violent as the man could become in an instant, she knew better than to test him.

Anson looked questioningly to her. Jennsen shrugged. Owen took Marilee's hand. The three of them were obviously frightened. Jennsen shared the feeling.

Jagang stormed out of his bedchamber, still buttoning his trousers. He looked tired and groggy. Jennsen knew that with the nightmares tormenting him he was not getting much sleep.

He was about to speak when the flap over the opening pulled to the side. The noise of the pandemonium flooded into the tent.

A thin woman stepped through the opening. In the noise and confusion, she moved with the cool, deliberate demeanor of a snake.

Just from the sight of her alone, Jennsen wished she could crawl under a carpet and hide.

The woman's pale eyes took in the four people on the floor before looking up at the emperor. She ignored the guards. Her pallid skin stood out white against her black dress.

"Six!" Jagang said. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night!"

She regarded him almost contemptuously. "Your bidding."

Jagang glared at her. "Well, what is it, then?"

"A matter of something I agreed to obtain for you."

She lifted out something that she'd had under her arm. Jennsen hadn't seen it because it was so black that it was almost impossible to see in the dimly lit tent, to say nothing of being held against her black dress.

As he stared at the thing she held out, his mood began to brighten.

Jagang's eyes were black. Six's dress was black. Midnight on a moonless night in a cave in a thick forest was black. None of those things, though, could compare to the black of what the woman was holding. It was black beyond anything Jennsen had ever seen before. The thought occurred to her that when a person died, that was the kind of blackness that must enshroud them.

Jagang stared, his eyes wide with delight, a smile settling into his features. "The third box . . ."

Six didn't look to share his abrupt good humor. "I have kept my bargain."

"So you have," Jagang said as he reverently lifted the box from her. "So you have."

He finally set the inky black box on a chest. "What of the other matters?" he asked over a shoulder.

"I burned into their forces, scattering them. I have eliminated patrols when I found them. I scouted the routes for supply trains and insured that they could safely pass."

"Yes, they have been getting through-and none too soon."

"It will be vastly better simply to end this," the woman said. "Have you been able to find the true copy of The Book of Counted Shadows!"

"No." He grinned. "I believe, though, that I have the original."

She gazed at him for a long time, as if weighing the truth of his words, or maybe just wondering if he was drunk.

"You believe you have found the original?" A humorless smile spread on her thin lips. "Why don't you simply use your Confessor?"

"We had some . . . trouble. She managed to escape."

Whatever Six was thinking she didn't reveal it on her gaunt face. "Well, she is of limited use to you anyway."

Jagang's expression darkened. "Limited use or not, I have plans for her. Do you think you could find her and bring her to me? I would make it worth your while."

Six shrugged. "If you wish. Let me see the book."

Jagang went to a chest and pulled open a drawer. He recovered the book and handed it to her. Six held it between the flats of her hands for a long moment.

"Let me see the others."

Jagang went to a different drawer in the chest and pulled out three more books, all looking to be the same size. He laid them side by side on a marble-topped table, then set an oil lamp beside them.

Six glided close, her arms folded, peering down at the three books one at a time. She placed the tips of her long, thin fingers on one of them. Her hand moved to a second book, pausing on it before finally going on to the third.

She gestured to the books on the table. "These three came after." She pulled the original book he'd given her out from where she was holding it under an arm and waggled it before setting it down atop the other three. "This one came first."

"Came first-as in original? Can you be sure?"

"I don't take foolish chances. If it were a false copy, and because of that your Sister opened the wrong box, then I would lose everything I have planned and worked for and, considering my part in this, even my life."