The mystery had deepened when the book found in the recently discovered catacombs under the People’s Palace had turned out to say Shadows in the title on the spine, as it was supposed to say. The titles alone would suggest that the first two were false copies—as Kahlan had said they were—and the latest one was possibly the true copy. As of yet, though, there was no way for them to prove any of it.
Kahlan worried about what she would do if Jagang demanded that she rule on whether the latest find was a true copy or not.
From what the Sisters had pointed out to Jagang, the books themselves said that a Confessor was needed to verify if the book was a true version or not. Kahlan had overheard that she was this person, a Confessor, but, along with the rest of her forgotten past, she didn’t know what a Confessor was. She had no idea how she was supposed to be able to identify the true copy. Jagang hadn’t cared if she knew the way or not; he simply expected her to do it.
With the first two the title being wrong had given her a plausible reason to proclaim them false. With the latest edition, though, she would have nothing to go on, since the title was correct and the text itself could offer her no help because magic prevented her from being able to see it. With his attention focused on Nicci, Jagang hadn’t asked for Kahlan’s determination on the latest volume’s validity.
If he did, and Kahlan couldn’t give him an answer that satisfied him, Jillian would be the one to pay the price.
So far the Sisters had not been able to find any dissimilarities between the three copies. Of course, as they had hesitantly pointed out to the emperor, dissimilarities would prove nothing. All three could be different and still be false copies. How were they to know? There was nothing to say that the newest book, even if it turned out to be different from the other two, was a true copy. Being different, in and of itself, didn’t prove anything.
As far as Kahlan could see, the only real way to identify the one true copy would be if they had the original and all five copies. Despite his bluster and demands, Jagang had to know that as well. That was undoubtedly why he had people dedicated to locating the other books.
Be that as it may, Jagang still wanted the books checked for any discrepancy, so the Sisters were checking—one word at a time.
Jagang had given them ample time to go over the books. While he was greatly interested in discovering the truth of The Book of Counted Shadows, for the time being he was more interested in Nicci.
Ever since Nicci had been captured he had been obsessed with her. He had not taken another woman to his bed and had even forgone the Ja’La matches. It almost seemed to Kahlan as if he thought that if he could satisfactorily demonstrate to Nicci how profound his lust for her really was, then she would be convinced of his true feelings for her, and her defiance would melt away as she was won over.
For her part, Nicci had only become more detached.
Her dispassionate, distant attitude strangely attracted Jagang, but her defiance provoked him to violence and only made her ordeal worse. Kahlan couldn’t imagine, though, when her turn came, being anything but defiant.
Several times, after a fit of wild rage, Jagang’s anger had died out when he suddenly realized that he might have gone too far. On those occasions Sisters had been rushed in to try to revive Nicci. All the while as they worked desperately to save her life and heal her, Jagang paced with a worried, guilty look. Later, after she had been healed, he would regain his indignation and blame Nicci for driving him to such violence in the first place.
Sometimes, like the night before, he would leave Kahlan and Jillian in the outer room while he took Nicci inside to be alone with her for the night. Kahlan supposed that such privacy was his idea of tender romance. As Nicci had been led to the bedchamber she had shared a brief, covert gaze with Kahlan. It had been a look of shared understanding of the utter madness that gripped the world.
Jagang had been so distracted since having Nicci back that he had ignored just about everything else, from The Book of Counted Shadows to the Ja’La matches. Kahlan didn’t like the Ja’La games, but she desperately wanted to see the man everyone called Ruben. She knew from daily reports shared between the guards that Commander Karg’s team had so far won all their matches, but Kahlan wanted to see the point man with the strange designs painted on him, the man with the gray eyes, the man who knew her.
“Look here,” Sister Ulicia said, tapping the page in one of the books. “This formula is different from those two.”
Kahlan watched their backs as both hunched over the table, comparing the books laid open before them. Jagang’s two big bodyguards standing across the room, near the entrance to the tent, also kept an eye on the Sisters. The two regular soldiers—Kahlan’s special guards—didn’t appear to be interested in the Sisters; they were watching Kahlan. Kahlan, her face going red when she realized what they were looking at, pulled a thick skein of hair over the view provided by the missing top button of her shirt.
“Yes . . .” Sister Armina said in a drawl. “The constellation is different. Isn’t that odd.”
“It certainly makes the differences difficult to spot. Not only that, but look here. The azimuth angles are dissimilar.” Sister Ulicia pulled one of the oil lamps closer. “They’re different in all three copies.”
Sister Armina was nodding as she looked between the books. “We never caught that before in the first two books. I always thought they were the same, but they’re not.”
“Being such a small thing it’s easy to see why we missed it.” Sister Ulicia gestured at the books. “This makes all three different.”
“What do you think it means?”
Sister Ulicia folded her arms. “It can only mean that at least two have to be false copies, but in reality, for all we know, all three could be.”
Sister Armina heaved an unhappy sigh. “So now we know something new, but it doesn’t really tell us anything useful.”
Sister Ulicia cast the other woman a sidelong glance. “His Excellency has a way of coming up with things I would never have expected him to find. Perhaps he will uncover the other copies and then we will at last have a means to be able to tell something for certain.”
The cover over the door abruptly lifted to the side. Jagang shoved Nicci through the opening. She stumbled and fell at Kahlan’s feet. The woman’s eyes briefly turned up, but she pretended not to see Kahlan right there in front of her. It was a deception that had not changed since Jagang had captured her.
Kahlan could see the rage in Nicci’s eyes. She could see the pain, too. She could also see the desperate despair.
Kahlan wanted to hold her, comfort her, and tell her that it would be all right. But she couldn’t do such a thing. And, she certainly couldn’t tell her that it would be all right.
“What have you found out?” Jagang asked the two Sisters as he stepped up behind them.
Sister Ulicia tapped one of the books. He leaned over her shoulder, peering down at where she pointed.
“Right here, Excellency. They are all three different in this place right here.”
“Which one is correct?”
Both sisters shrank back a little.
“Excellency,” Sister Ulicia said in a hesitant voice, “it is still too early to tell.”
“We must have the other copies if we are to know for sure,” Sister Armina blurted out.
Jagang turned his gaze on her for a moment and then, uncharacteristically, merely grunted indifferently. He glanced around, checking that Kahlan was still in the chair where he’d told her to stay. He saw, too, that Jillian was on the floor and guards were watching over all of them.
“Keep studying the books,” Jagang told the two Sisters. “I’m going to the Ja’La games. Watch the girl.”
He shoved Nicci out ahead of him and then snapped his fingers at Kahlan, indicating that he expected her to come along as well, and that he expected her to stay close to him. Kahlan snatched up her cloak and followed after him. She was at least glad that Jillian would not have to be an
ywhere near the mobs of soldiers, or Jagang. Of course, Jagang could exert his control through the Sisters and thus harm Jillian in any way he wished, anywhere he wished, any time he wished.
After throwing her cloak around her shoulders, Kahlan gave the worried Jillian a hand gesture to urge her to stay put. The girl’s copper-colored eyes stared up at Kahlan as she returned a nod. She was afraid to be left alone. Kahlan sympathized, but she could offer no real protection even if Jillian was with her.
Outside the tent a few hundred well-armed guards quickly assembled into ranks, ready to escort the emperor. Such big men, with chain-mail armor and gleaming weapons, were an intimidating presence. Half a dozen of Kahlan’s special guards, looking somewhat less intimidating but no less brutish, formed up around her. Jagang’s meaty hand gripped Nicci’s slender white arm, steering her through the spaces that opened in overlapping walls of the men.
Most of those men took a good long look at Nicci. She might have been Jagang’s woman, but they still wanted a look. They were careful, though, to make sure that the emperor didn’t see them leering. Those looks left Kahlan relieved that most of these men couldn’t see her.
Although it was overcast, the clouds didn’t look thick enough to threaten rain. It hadn’t rained in quite a while and the ground had turned to dusty hardpan. In the flat, gray light the army camp looked all the darker, all that much grimier. Smoke from cook fires hung in the air, masking the stench to a degree.
As they marched through endless, noisy clusters of men and equipment, Jagang asked one of his more trusted personal guards about the Ja’La games. The man filled the emperor in on the various matches that had taken place since the last report, giving Jagang a rundown on each of the teams as he asked about them.
“Karg’s team?” Jagang asked. “Have they been doing well?”
The guard nodded. “Undefeated so far. Their margin of victory yesterday wasn’t as great as it has been, though.”
Jagang’s steely smile was as cold and the sky. “I hope they win today. Of all the teams come to challenge me, I hope my team gets to crush that team.”
The guard gestured off to the left. “They’re playing today—over that way. This is the final game for them. With the way the matches have gone so far, if they win today then they alone will advance to the head of all the teams and you will have your wish, Excellency. If not, then there will have to be elimination games. But your team will play them if they are the winner of this match.”
As they walked, with Jagang conversing with his guard, Nicci cast a brief glance back over her shoulder at Kahlan. Kahlan knew that she was thinking about the man Kahlan had told her about. Kahlan felt a flutter of anxiety.
As they took a course through the jumble of the camp in the direction the guard indicated, pushing their way through tightly packed throngs of men as they got ever closer to the Ja’La field, Kahlan could hear soldiers in the distance cheering and shouting encouragement to their favored team. Even this far back, with no chance to see the action, men waited for word on the score to be relayed back to them.
There were far more spectators than Kahlan had seen at the previous games. This was obviously an important match and she could see the excitement of the crowd. When a deafening roar suddenly went up she knew that one of the teams had scored. Men pushed in closer, jostling each other, eager for word on which team had scored.
As the guards growled orders or shoved men, the tight press of soldiers looked over their shoulders and then reluctantly parted to let the emperor’s party through. With a wedge of big guards opening a pathway, they finally made it to an area that had been roped off for the emperor next to the field. Yet more of Jagang’s guards who had gone on ahead had already formed a wall to each side to keep the men back.
Through the screen of spectators Kahlan caught flashes of men running across the field. The yells and shouts from the crowd made it hard for her to hear her own thoughts. She caught brief flashes of red paint. With the press of soldiers watching the game, and the wall of royal guards to each side, to say nothing of the bull of an emperor in front of her flanked by his huge personal guards, it was difficult to see anything other than short snatches of the action on the field.
Another wild cry rose from the crowd as a team scored. The roar shook the ground beneath Kahlan’s feet.
Through the small gaps between guards, she spotted something different about this game. All the way around the edge of the field, in front of the spectators, men stood at even intervals, feet spread, hands clasped behind their backs. None wore shirts, apparently to display their powerful builds.
Kahlan had rarely seen the likes of such men. Each was a huge specimen. They all looked like statues, as if they had been smelted from the same iron ore and forged from ingots of white-hot steel.
As Jagang moved out in front, going to the edge of the field to see what was happening, Nicci, seeing the grim men Kahlan was looking at, leaned closer. “Jagang’s team,” she said under her breath.
Kahlan understood, then, what they were doing. The winner of this match would play the emperor’s team. These men were not merely there to watch the tactics of the team they would face. They were there to intimidate the men before them, the men who would win the chance to play them. It was an open threat of pain to come.
Commander Karg spotted the newly arrived emperor and squeezed his way through the wall of guards. Kahlan had come to recognize the man by his unique pattern of snake-scale tattoos. He and Jagang exchanged pleasantries as cheers of encouragement went up for another play on the field.
“Your team seems to be faring well,” Jagang said when the cheering died down a little.
Commander Karg glanced back over his shoulder at Nicci like a snake considering its prey. Her glare was already on the man. His knowing gaze swept over the length of her before his attention returned to Jagang.
“Well, Excellency, despite how good my team is, I’m well aware that your team is not merely good, but unbeaten. They are the best, of course.”
The back of Jagang’s shaved head and bull neck creased as he nodded. “Your team is unbeaten as well, but not truly tested against real competition. My men will easily defeat them. There is no doubt in my mind.”
Commander Karg folded his arms, watching the play for a time. The crowd screamed with excitement as a cluster of men raced past, only to moan with disappointment as they apparently failed to make the score. Karg turned once more to the emperor.
“But if they do win against your team—”
“If they do,” Jagang interrupted.
Karg smiled as he bowed his head. “If they do, then it would be a great accomplishment for a humble challenger, such as myself.”
Jagang viewed his commander with good-natured suspicion. “A great accomplishment worthy of a great reward?”
Karg gestured out at the men on the field. “Well, Excellency, if my team were to win each of them would have a reward. Each would have the woman of his choice.” He clasped his hands behind his back as he shrugged. “It seems only right that as the one who handpicked each player and runs such an accomplished team I would have a similar reward.”
Jagang’s deep chuckle was so lewd that it gave Kahlan a shiver.
“I suppose you’re right,” Jagang said. “Name her, then, and if you win, she is yours.”
Karg rocked on his heels a moment, as if considering his choices.
“Excellency, if my team wins”—Commander Karg turned a sly smile back over his shoulder—“I would like to have Nicci in my bed.”
Nicci’s cold glare could have cut steel.
His amusement dying out, Jagang glanced back over his shoulder at the woman who had had his recent undivided attention.
“Nicci is not available.”
The commander nodded as he went back to watching the game for a time. After the cheering for another play out on the field died down, he regarded Jagang with a sidelong glance.
“Since you are sure to win, Excellency, it’s
really only an insignificant promise of a reward, an idle bet. If you really believe that your team will certainly triumph, then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of ever collecting such a reward.”
“Then there would be no point in such a bet.”
Karg gestured out at the Ja’La field. “You are sure of your team’s success, aren’t you, Excellency? Or are you having doubts?”
“All right, Karg,” Jagang said at last, “if you win, she is yours for a time. But only for a time.”
Commander bowed his head again. “Of course, Excellency. But, as we all know, you have no need to actually fear your team losing.”
“No, I don’t.” Jagang’s black eyes turned to Nicci. “You don’t mind my little wager, do you, darlin?” His grin returned. “After all, it’s only hypothetical, since my team does not lose.”
Nicci arched an eyebrow. “As I told you when I first arrived, it doesn’t really matter what I want, now, does it?”
Jagang’s smile remained as he watched her for a moment. It was a smile that looked like it covered thoughts of bloody murder at her public insolence.
As the intensity of the play on the field built, the crowd all around started pushing forward, trying to get a better view. Jagang’s guards reacted by driving men back, giving the emperor even more room. They wanted to be sure that they had the space they needed to protect him. The spectators, seeing the guards’ ill humor, reluctantly moved back.
As Jagang and Commander Karg watched the game, becoming completely absorbed by the action of the field, Kahlan checked on her special guards and saw that they, too, were getting caught up in the game. They kept moving up, a little at a time, craning their necks, trying to get a better view. Kahlan edged closer to Nicci. As the royal guards put muscle in their effort and moved the spectators back, it gave Kahlan and Nicci a wider angle of view so that they could see more of both the field and the players.
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