Page 80 of Phantom (Sword of Truth 10)

"Please, Excellency, we meant no—"

"I know exactly what you meant. I know every last dirty little detail of everything in your minds."

Kahlan had never seen Sister Ulicia cowed, much less so badly shaken, "Excellency… I don't understand…"

"Of course you don't," he said with a sneer as her words dwindled away to silence. "That is why you are on your knees before me, and not the other way around, which is just what you were wishing, isn't it, Armina?"

When his gaze slid to Sister Armina she let out a small, startled cry. Blood oozed from her ears, running in a little red trail down the snow white flesh of her neck. Other than her slight trembling, she didn't move.

Jillian's arms clutched at Kahlan. Kahlan put a hand protectively to the side of the girl's face, pressing her close, trying to comfort her when there was no real comfort to be had before such a man.

"You also have Tovi, then?" Sister Ulicia asked, still so surprised by the turn of events that she couldn't come to grips with it.

"Tovi!" Jagang burst into a fit of gruff laughter. "Tovi! Why, Tovi has been dead for ages."

Sister Ulicia stared in horror. "She's dead?"

He lifted his arm with a dismissive wave. "Finally sent to the afterlife by a mutual friend, a very unfaithful and traitorous friend. I imagine that the Keeper of the underworld is quite angry with Tovi's failure in her service to him. You will have all of eternity to find out just how angry." His smirk returned as he glared at the woman. "But not until I am finished with you in this life."

Sister Ulicia bowed her head. "Of course, Excellency."

Kahlan noticed that Sister Armina had wet herself. Sister Cecilia looked like she was ready to collapse into tears—or screams.

"Excellency," Sister Ulicia ventured, "how could you… I mean, with our bond."

"Your bond!" Jagang roared with laughter again, slapping the table. "Ah yes, your bond to Lord Rahl. Your touching loyalty to Lord Rahl that 'protects' you from my talents as a dream walker."

Kahlan's heart sank to hear that the Sisters were in some kind of alliance with Lord Rahl. For some reason, she had thought more of the man. It hurt to find she was wrong.

" 'We're not the ones attacking Richard Rahl,'" he said in a falsetto voice, clasping his hands in a mocking manner, apparently quoting some statement from Ulicia's past. " 'Jagang is the one going after him, seeking to destroy him, not us. We are the ones who will wield the power of Orden and then we will grant Richard Rahl what only we will have the power to grant. That is enough to preserve our bond and protect us from the dream walker.'"

He lost the effeminate pretense. "Your loyalty and devotion to Lord Rahl is touching."

His fist slammed down on the table. His face went red with rage. "Do you stupid bitches actually believe that such a bond to Lord Rahl as you dreamed up would hold you free of harm?"

Kahlan remembered the Sisters talking about the same thing, and she hadn't been able to understand it back then, either. Why would Richard Rahl have anything to do with these evil women, much less enter into a pact with them? Could such a thing really be true? Could it be that he was really no better than they?

One thing about it all didn't seem to make any sense, though. If they were sworn to him, then why would they steal the boxes from his palace?

"But the bond's magic…" Sister Ulicia's voice trailed off into silence.

Jagang stood—a move that made the three gasp and tremble all the more. Kahlan was sure that, had they been able to, they would have backed up at least a step and likely more.

He shook his head, as if he could not believe that they could be so ignorant as not to understand. "Ulicia, I was there in your mind watching the whole sorry event. I was there the day, years ago, that you proposed the scheme to Richard Rahl. I have to tell you, I didn't really believe that you were serious. I had difficulty believing that you could be so stupid as to believe that you could strike such a bargain to gain your freedom from me."

"But it should have worked."

"No, there was no way such a thing could work. It was nothing more than an irrational idea. You wanted to believe it was true, so you did."

"You were in our minds that day?" Sister Cecilia asked. "Why would you allow us to believe we had succeeded?"

His inky gaze fixed on her. "Don't you remember what I told you all in the very beginning, on the first day you stood before me? Control, I told you, is more important than killing. I told you then that I could have killed you six, but what good would you be to me then? As long as you're under my dominion, you're no threat to me, and of use in oh so many ways.

"No, of course you don't remember because you chose instead to think that you were smart enough to trick me with your convoluted, illogical notion of the bond. You think you are too clever to be outwitted, and so here you stand before me again, never having left my dominion."

"And yet, you just let us… go about our business?" Sister Cecilia asked.

Jagang shrugged as he stepped around the table. "I could have stopped you at any moment, if I chose. I knew I had you under my thumb. But what would I have had to gain, then? Just a few more Sisters of the Dark, and I already had plenty of those—although their numbers are seriously diminished by now." He leaned down toward them with an aside. "Your kind has a tendency to do a lot of dying on the behalf of the cause of the Fellowship of Order.

"But with you," Jagang said as he straightened, "I had something highly interesting. I had Sisters of the Dark who were up to things." He tapped a thick finger to his temple. "Who had devious plans, and the knowledge to pursue them.

"You have a lifetime of experience from the vaults at the Palace of the Prophets, vaults holding thousands of books that are now gone. No matter how irrational your plans sometimes become—witness your present condition—that does not negate your reserve of knowledge gained through decades of study, or mean that every one of your plans was unworkable."

"So, you knew our plans all along? From that day with Richard Rahl?"

Jagang glared at Sister Ulicia. "Of course I knew. I knew your plan the instant you concocted it." His voice lowered with menace. "You thought I only came into people's dreams. I don't. You thought I wasn't there, in your mind, when you were awake. I was. Once I enter into your mind, Ulicia, I am there, in your mind, always.

"Whatever you think, whenever you think it, I witness it. Every dirty little thing you conceive, I see. Every thought, every action, every vile wish, I know as if it were spoken aloud the instant you conceive it. Because I wasn't making you aware of my presence, though, you ignorantly believed I wasn't there, but I was." He waggled a thick finger. "Oh, Ulicia, I was there.

"When you told Richard Rahl your plan, that you wanted to swear loyalty to him in exchange for someone he cared deeply about, well, I could hardly believe that you just assumed it would work."

For some reason, Kahlan felt a pang of sadness to hear that Richard Rahl had someone he cared deeply about. She guessed that ever since that day she had been in his beautiful garden, she had come to feel a connection to him on some deeply personal level, even if it was only a shared appreciation for the beauty of growing things, an appreciation of nature, and thus the world around them, the world of life. But now she was hearing that he was dealing with Sisters of the Dark, and that he had someone he cared deeply about. It made her feel all the more like a forgotten nobody. She wondered what she could have been thinking.

"But… but," Sister Ulicia stammered, "it worked…"

Jagang shook his head. "Fidelity on your terms, fidelity even though you would continue to work for his destruction, even though you would continue to work for everything he stands against, fidelity even though you would continue to be sworn to the Keeper of the underworld, fidelity concocted of your selected, selfish wishes is just that—wishes. Wishing doesn't turn your desires into reality just because you want it to."

Kahlan felt at least a small level of relief to hear that the Sisters were continuing to work

for Lord Rahl's destruction. Maybe that meant that he wasn't really an ally of the Sisters. Maybe, in some way, he was like her, being used against his will.

"I could hardly believe it as I listened to you dictating the terms of your loyalty to him," Jagang was saying, gesturing in a grand fashion, "claiming that such fidelity was subject to the moral filter you, not he, would apply. I mean, if you were going to contrive beliefs out of thin air, Ulicia, why didn't you just save yourselves some trouble and decide that by sheer willpower alone your mind had been rendered impenetrable to a dream walker? That would have been just as effective a shield."

He shook his head. "My, my, Ulicia. How cruel of the nature of existence not to allow you your irrational desires."

He swept an arm out. "And, just as amazing, the rest of your Sisters believed it too. I know; I was there in their minds as well, watching as they were overcome with glee that they were to be free of my ability just because you claimed you could tap into the bond to the Lord Rahl with your own form of loyalty."

"But you allowed us to do it," Sister Ulicia said, still overwhelmed with astonishment. "Why would you not strike us down then?"

Jagang shrugged. "I had plenty of Sisters under my thumb. This was an interesting opportunity. I learn a great deal from the knowledge others possess. Learning things gives one power one would not otherwise have.

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