Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Sister Ulicia had told Kahlan that as part of the magic that brought on the pain to prevent her from escaping, she was shrouded by webs of magic that kept people from noticing her. Kahlan tried to think of why the Sister would do such a thing, but her thoughts simply would not connect, would not link together into understanding. It was the most ghastly thing, not being able to make herself think about specific things when she wanted to. She would start out with the question, then the answer would begin to form, but simply run out as if there was nothing more there.

Despite the conjured shroud around her, though, Kahlan knew that if one of the soldiers pointed his crossbow at her and pulled the bolt release before he forgot her, she would be dead.

She wouldn't mind being dead because it would at least mean being freed of the anguish that was her life, but Sister Ulicia had warned her that the Sisters had great influence with the Keeper of the dead. Sister Ulicia said that if Kahlan ever thought to slip away from her duties to them by slipping the bounds of the world of the living and taking the long journey into the world of the dead, she would find that it was no refuge and in fact would prove to be a far worse place. It was then that Sister Ulicia had told Kahlan that they were Sisters of the Dark, as if to drive home the veracity of the warning.

Kahlan hadn't really needed the assurance; she had always been sure that any of the four Sisters could chase her down any hole and get her, even if that hole was a grave like the one they'd opened one dark night for reasons Kahlan couldn't even imagine and didn't want to know.

Looking into the Sister's terrible eyes, Kahlan had known that she was hearing the truth. After that, while death invited her with release, it also terrified her with dark promises.

She didn't know if this had always been her life, the life of chattel belonging to others. No matter how hard she tried, though, she could remember no other.

As she slipped by men patrolling, she made her way through a series of intersections that Sister Ulicia had drawn in the dirt for her at various camps as they traveled. The Sister had used her oak rod to diagram the halls so that Kahlan would know where she had to go.

As she moved through those halls she had memorized, no one ever tried to stop her. In a way, it was depressing that the men paid her no heed.

It was the same everywhere, though, no one ever noticed her, or if they did, they immediately disregarded her and went back to their own business. She was a slave, without her own life. She belonged to others. It made her feel invisible, insignificant, unimportant. A nobody.

Sometimes, like when making the long underground climb up into the palace, Kahlan would see men and women together, smiling, an arm around each other, touching one another. She tried to imagine what that would feel like-to have someone care about her, cherish her — to cherish them.

Kahlan swiped a tear off her cheek. She knew she would never have that. Slaves did not have a life of their own, they were used for their master's purposes; Sister Ulicia had made that very clear. One day, when Sister Ulicia had gotten that vicious look in her eyes that she sometimes got, she said that she was thinking of having Kahlan bred so that she could produce them an offspring.

But how did it come to be this way? Where had she come from? Surely, everyone's past didn't evaporate out of their minds the way Kahlan's had.

In the fog of her thoughts, she couldn't make her mind work the problem through. She asked the questions, but the concepts seemed to be soaked up into a dim haze of nothingness. She hated the way she couldn't think. Why could other people think while she could not? Even that question quickly faded away into irrelevance among the mire of twisting shadows, just the way she faded away when people saw her.

Kahlan stopped when she arrived at a pair of huge doors covered in gold. The doors looked like Sister Ulicia had said they would-a scene of rolling hills and forests all sheathed in gold. Kahlan looked both ways, then put all her weight into the task of pulling one of the massive doors open enough to slip inside. She took a last look, but none of the guards were watching her. She pulled the door closed behind herself.

It was much brighter inside than the hallway had been. Even though it was an overcast day the skylights let in a flood of light that lit a most astonishing garden. Sister Ulicia had told her about the garden, in general terms, but for Kahlan to see it, up here in the palace, was beyond anything she had imagined. The place was wondrous.

Richard Rahl was a lucky man to have such a garden that he could visit any time he wanted. She wondered if he would come and visit while she was in there, and see her — and then forget her.