Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Yet again Kahlan tried to put her racing mind to rest. She yawned as she watched the flickers of lightning in the little patch of dark sky. Dawn was not far off and she needed sleep.

With that dawn, though, came the first day of winter. She didn't know why, but the very idea of the first day of winter made her uneasy. She couldn't imagine a reason. Something about the first day of winter seemed to knot her insides with anxiety. It seemed that beneath the surface of her ability to remember lurked dangers she could not begin to imagine.

Her head came up at the sound of something falling over. The noise had come from the outer room, the room outside Jagang's bedroom. Kahlan propped herself up on an elbow, but she dared not get up from her spot on the floor beside the emperor's bed. She knew well the consequences of disobeying his orders. If she was to endure the pain he could give her through the collar around her neck, it would have to be for something more than moving from the carpet.

In the darkness Kahlan heard Jagang, just above her on the bed, sit up.

Sudden cries and moans broke out on the other side of the padded walls of the bedroom. It sounded like it might have been Sister Ulicia. Since being captured by Jagang, Kahlan had had occasion enough to hear Sister Ulicia sobbing and crying. Kahlan herself had often enough been brought to tears, all because of those Sisters of the Dark, but especially Sister Ulicia.

Jagang threw the covers off. "What's going on out there?"

Kahlan knew that for the crime of disturbing Emperor Jagang Sister Ulicia was soon going to have even more reason to be moaning.

Jagang stepped down onto the floor, straddling Kahlan on the carpet beside his bed. He looked down deliberately, making sure that in the dim light of the lantern glowing atop the chest, she saw him naked and exposed over her. Satisfied with his silent, implied threat, he retrieved his trousers from a nearby chair. Hopping from one foot to the other he pulled them on as he started for the doorway. He didn't bother putting on anything more.

He paused before the thick hanging that covered the doorway and turned back, crooking a finger at Kahlan. He wanted to keep an eye on her. As Kahlan rose to her feet, Jagang drew back the heavy covering over the doorway. Kahlan glanced to the side and saw the latest captive woman to be brought in as a prize for the emperor cowering on the bed, the blanket held in her fists up under her chin. Like almost everyone, the woman didn't see Kahlan and had only been more confused and frightened the evening before when Jagang had spoken to the phantom in the room with him. That had been the least of the woman's cause for fright that night.

Kahlan felt a jolt of pain sizzle down the nerves of her shoulders and arms, Jagang's reminder through the collar not to linger in doing as she'd been told. Without letting him see how much it hurt, she hurried after him.

The sight that greeted her in the outer room was confusing. Sister Ulicia was rolling around on the floor, arms flailing as she babbled incoherently between moans and cries. Sister Armina, hunched over the woman at her feet, shuffled to and fro, following as Sister Ulicia writhed around on the floor, afraid to touch the woman, afraid not to, afraid of what might be the problem. She looked like she wanted to collect Sister Ulicia in her arms and quiet her lest she create a disturbance that would get the attention of the emperor. She didn't yet realize that it was too late for that. Usually when one of those two was in any kind of agony it was agony inflicted by Jagang through his control of their minds, but now he, too, stood watching the strange sight, apparently unsure of what could be causing such behavior.

Sister Armina, already bent over the woman floundering on the floor, suddenly noticed Emperor Jagang and bowed deeper yet. "Excellency, I don't know what is wrong with her. I'm sorry that she has disturbed your sleep. I will try to quiet her."

Jagang, being a dream walker, didn't need to speak to those whose minds were his domain. His consciousness wandered at will among their most intimate thoughts.

Sister Ulicia thrashed around, one wildly swinging arm knocking over a chair. Guards-the guards who had been specially selected because they were the few who could see and remember Kahlan-had all backed off in a circle around the woman rolling on the floor. They had been tasked with seeing to it that Kahlan didn't leave the tent without Jagang. Sisters were not their responsibility. Other guards, Jagang's personal elite guards, huge brutes all covered in tattoos and metal studs piercing their flesh, stood like statues near the doorway of the tent. The job of the elite guard was to see to it that no one entered the tent without invitation. They looked only mildly curious about what might be happening in their midst.