Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"That still doesn't answer my question."

She shrugged. "I am a witch woman. I have talents. This is the original book. Use it. Open the correct box and your nightmares will end."

Jagang stared for a moment, looking unhappy at the mention of his nightmares, but then he finally smiled. "Bring me the Confessor."

Six smiled in a deadly sort of way. "You get everything ready, all set up, spells cast, callings done, and I will bring the Confessor to the party."

Jagang nodded. "Sister Ulicia tells me that we need to get up into the Garden of Life."

"While it's not the only way, it would be the best way to insure success. You should take your Sister seriously."

"I do take her seriously. Since she is the one who will open the box, with me within her mind of course, anything but getting it correct would be very unfortunate for her. If the Keeper of the underworld snatched her in that way, it would be the worst possible outcome for her, therefore getting it right is in her own best interest. I think that's why she is so insistent on opening the box in the Garden of Life instead of doing it here."

Six turned an intent look on Jennsen. "Use her. She's Richard Rahl's sister. One by one, everything is turning against him. Adding her life to the mix will only help to tip the balance."

Jagang turned his black eyes on Jennsen. "Why do you think I had her brought here?"

Six shrugged. "I thought it was revenge."

"I want to end this resistance to the will of the Order. If revenge was my goal with her, she would already be in the torture tents, screaming her life away. She is more use to the Order in other ways. My goal is for the Fellowship of Order to at last rule over mankind as they should by right."

"Except for my portion of it," Six said with a deadly glare.

Jagang smiled indulgently. "You are not a greedy partner in this, Six. Your request is quite modest. You can do as you wish with your little part of the world, under the guiding authority of the Order, of course."

"Of course."

"If the life of his sister doesn't sway him, feel free to mention my name. Tell him that I would be happy to let fire rain down on him."

Jagang looked inspired by the idea. "Good idea. As I always suspected of you from the first, you are proving to be quite a valuable ally, Six."

"It is Queen Six, if you don't mind."

Jagang shrugged. "Not at all. I'm happy to give you your due, Queen Six."

CHAPTER 51

Sitting in the darkness, leaning against the stone wall, nodding off from time to time, Rachel heard a sound outside the cell door that brought her head up. She sat up straighter, listening. She thought it sounded like distant footsteps.

She sank back against the cold stone of the wall. It was probably Six, come to take her back to the cave to start making her draw pictures in order to hurt people. In the stone room barren of even furniture there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Rachel didn't know what she was going to do when Six told her to draw awful things to harm people. She didn't want to do it, didn't want to make pictures that she knew would hurt innocent people, but she knew that a witch woman would have ways to make her do those things. Rachel was afraid of Six, afraid of the woman hurting her.

There was no more awful feeling in the whole world than being all alone with someone who wanted to hurt you and knowing that you could do nothing to stop them.

She was starting to get tears just thinking about what might be coming, imagining what Six would do to her. She wiped away the tears, trying to think of something, anything, that could help her.

It had been a while since she'd seen the witch woman. It might not even be Six-it might be some of the guards bringing her a meal. A couple of the guards were men from before, from when Queen Milena had been alive. Rachel didn't know their names, but she remembered seeing them in the past.

There were other men, though, that she didn't recognize. They were soldiers from the Imperial Order. The old guards were never mean to her on purpose, but the new soldiers were different. They were wild-looking men. When they looked at her, Rachel just knew that they were thinking of doing unimaginably vile things to her. They were not the kind of men who didn't seem at all worried about anyone stopping them-except maybe Six. They always stayed out of the witch woman's way. She ignored them, expecting them to get out of her way.

Those men, though, watched Rachel in a way that scared her down to the marrow in her bones. Rachel worried about them catching her alone like this, without Six to keep them away. But the thought of Six coming to hurt her wasn't much better.

Rachel had always hated it when she had lived at the castle before, when Queen Milena had been alive. She had lived in fear most of the time. She was hungry most of the time.

But this was different. This was worse-and she had never thought it could be worse.