"You are right, you shouldn't be concerned. I have complete control of him. No pet has ever slipped from my control. Ever."

Cara lifted the key ring from Kahlan's hand and unlocked the door. With a tug, it drew open on rusty, squeaking hinges. Dank stench wafted up from the darkness below. The smell clenched Kahlan's stomach muscles with the memories it carried. Cara took a nervous step back.

"There aren't any… rats, down there, are there?"

"Rats?" Kahlan glanced to the dark maw. "No. There's no way for them to get in. No rats. You'll see."

Kahlan turned her attention to the soldiers back up the hall, waiting with Marlin, and gestured toward the long ladder resting on its side against the wall opposite the door. Once they had the ladder through the door and it had thudded down in place, Cara snapped her fingers and motioned Marlin forward. He scurried to her without hesitation, anxious to avoid doing anything to displease her.

"Take that torch and get down there," Cara told him.

Marlin pulled the torch from its rust — encrusted bracket and started down the ladder. With a frown of puzzlement, Cara followed him down into the gloom when Kahlan motioned her to the ladder.

Kahlan turned to the guards. "Sergeant Collins, you and your men wait up here, please."

"Are you sure, Mother Confessor? ':he sergeant asked.

"Are you eager to be down there, in a small space, with an ill-tempered Mord-Sith, sergeant?"

He hooked a thumb behind his weapons belt as he glanced at the opening into the pit. "We'll wait up here, as you command."

Kahlan started backing down the ladder. "We'll be fine."

The smooth stone blocks of the walls were so precisely dry-fit that there wasn't so much as a fingernail hold to be had. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Marlin holding the torch, and Cara, waiting for her nearly twenty feet below. She carefully put a foot in each rung, mindful not to step on the hem of her dress lest she fall.

"Why are we down here with him?" Cara asked, as Kahlan stepped off the last rung.

Kahlan wiped her hands together, brushing off the grit from the ladder rungs. She took the torch from Marlin and went to the wall before them. She stretched up on her toes and pushed the torch into one of the brackets on the wall. "Because on the way down here I thought of some more questions to ask him before we leave him here."

Cara glared at Marlin and pointed to the floor. "Spit." She waited. "Now, stand on it."

Marlin moved onto the spot, careful to get both feet on it. Cara eyed the empty room, checking the shadows in the corners. Kahlan wondered if she was making sure the place really was free of rats.

"Marlin," Kahlan said. He licked his lips, waiting for her question. "When was the last time you received orders from Jagang?"

"Like I told you before, it was about two weeks ago."

"And he's not sought you out since then?"

"No, Mother Confessor."

"If he was dead, would you know?"

He didn't hesitate with his answer. "I don't know. He either comes to me, or he doesn't. I have no way of knowing of him between his calls."

"How does he come to you?"

"In my dreams."

"And you've not dreamed of him since you say he last came to you a fortnight ago?"

"No, Mother Confessor."

Kahlan paced to the wall with the hissing torch and back as she thought. "You didn't recognize me, when you first saw me." He shook his head. "Would you recognize Richard?"

"Yes, Mother Confessor."

Kahlan frowned. "How? How would you know him?"

"From the Palace of the Prophets. I was a student there. Richard was brought there by Sister Verna. I knew him from the palace."

"A student, at the Palace of the Prophets? Then you.. How old are you?"

"Ninety-three, Mother Confessor."

No wonder he seemed so strange to her, sometimes like a boy and sometimes seeming to have the demeanor of an older man. That explained the sage bearing in his young eyes. There was a presence about those eyes that didn't fit his youthful frame. This would certainly explain it.

The Palace of the Prophets trained boys in their gift. Ancient magic had aided the Sisters of the Light in their task by altering time at the palace so that they would have the time needed, in the absence of an experienced wizard, to teach the boys to control their magic.

That was all ended, now. Richard had destroyed the palace and the prophecies, lest Jagang capture them. The prophecies would have aided him in his effort to conquer the world, and the palace would have given him hundreds of years to rule over those he vanquished.

Kahlan felt the weight of worry lift from her mind. "Now I know why I felt there was something strange about him," she said as she sighed her relief.

Cara didn't look so relieved. "Why did you announce yourself to the soldiers inside the Confessors' Palace?"

"Emperor Jagang didn't explain his instructions. Mistress Cara."

"Jagang is from the Old World, and no doubt doesn't know about Mord-Sith," Cara said to Kahlan. "He probably thought a wizard, like Marlin here, would be able to announce himself, cause a panic, and wreak havoc."

Kahlan considered the supposition. "Could be. Jagang has the Sisters of the Dark as his puppets, so he would have been able to get information about Richard. Richard wasn't at the palace long enough to learn much about his gift. The Sisters of the Dark would have told Jagang that Richard doesn't know how to use his magic. Richard is the Seeker, and knows how to use the Sword of Truth, but he doesn't know how to use his gift. Jagang might have thought to send in a wizard, on the chance that he might succeed, and if he didn't… so what? He has others."

"What do you think, my pet?"

Marlin's eyes filled with tears. "I don't know, Mistress Cara. I don't know. He didn't tell me. I swear." A tremor seeped from his jaw into his voice. "But it could be. What the Mother Confessor says is true: he doesn't care if we are killed while performing a task. Our lives mean little to him."

Cara turned to Kahlan. "What else?"

Kahlan shook her head. "I can't think of anything else at the moment. I guess it could all make sense. We'll come back later, after I've thought about it. Maybe I'll think of some other questions that might settle it."

Cara pointed her Agiel at his face. "You stand right there, on that spot of your spit, until we come back. Whether it's in two hours or two days, it doesn't matter. If you sit down, or any part of you, other than the soles of your feet, touches the floor, you will be down here all alone with the pain it brings for going against my wishes. Understand?"

He blinked as a drop of sweat ran into his eye. "Yes, Mistress Cara."

"Cara, do you think it necessary that-"

"Yes. I know my business. Let me do it. You yourself reminded me what was at stake and how we dared not take any chances."

Kahlan relented. "All right."

Kahlan took hold of a rung above her head and started up the ladder. On the second rung, she paused and looked back. Frowning, she stepped back off the ladder.

"Marlin, did you come to Aydindril alone?"

"No, Mother Confessor."

Cara snatched the neck of his tunic. "What! You came with others?"

"Yes, Mistress Cara."

"How many!"

"With one other, Mistress Cara. She was a Sister of the Dark."

Kahlan's fist joined Cara's on his tunic. "What was her name!"

Frightened by both women, he tried to back away a bit, but their grip on his tunic wouldn't allow it. "I don't know her name," he whined. "I swear."

"She was a Sister of the Dark, from the palace, where you lived for close to a century, and you don't know her name?" Kahlan asked.

Marlin licked his lips, his gaze moving between the two women. "There were hundreds of Sisters at the Palace of the Prophets. There were rules. We had teachers assigned to us. There were places we didn't go, and Sisters we never came in contact with, like those who handled administration. I didn't know them all, I swear. I saw her before, at the palace, but I didn't know her name, and she didn't tell me."