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When she noticed Jagang glance her way, she pretended to still be unconscious, breathing evenly, lying perfectly still, and keeping her eyes almost closed. Apparently thinking she wasn't yet awake, he let his gaze drift back to the pacing Sister Ulicia.
"It can't be that simple," Sister Armina insisted from where she stood beside a table. She lifted her nose in a haughty manner.
Kahlan could just make out the edge of a book on that table. Sister Armina's extended fingers rested on the book's leather cover.
"Armina," Jagang asked in a calm, almost pleasant voice, "can you even begin to imagine how entertaining it is for me to be in the mind of a troublesome Sister that I send out to the tents to be passed around among my men?"
The woman paled as she backed up a step until her back met the tent wall. "No, Excellency."
"To be there, witnessing their dread? To be in their mind, seeing how completely helpless they are as powerful hands rip their clothes off and grope their bodies, as they are pushed to the bare ground, their legs forced open, and they are mounted by men who consider them of no value except as a bit of lustful entertainment? Men who have absolutely no sympathy for them at all, who don't care in the least what suffering they inflict in their heedless pursuit of what they want? Can you imagine how satisfying it is for me to be there, in the minds of such vexatious Sisters, to be an eyewitness, so to speak, of their well-deserved punishment?"
Her eyes wide in panic, Sister Armina spoke in a barely audible voice. "No, Excellency."
"Then I suggest that you stop protesting based not on what you think, but on what you think I want to hear. I'm not interested in your bootlicking. In my bed you may flatter me if you think it will gain you favor, which it won't, but in this I'm only interested in the truth. Your obsequious arguments will not make us successful. Only the truth will. If you have something worthwhile to say, then say it, but stop interrupting Ulicia to criticize her opinion with what you think I want to hear, or you will again be sent out to the tents sooner rather than later. Do you understand ?"
Sister Armina's gaze dropped away. "Yes, Excellency."
Sister Ulicia took a settling breath as Jagang turned his attention on her. Her pacing came to a halt. She lifted an arm toward the book on the table.
"The problem is, Excellency, there is no way for us to confirm if the copy inside is true or not. I know that's what you want us to do, and believe me we've tried, but the truth is we can't find anything that could settle the matter."
"Why not?"
"Well, if it says 'position the boxes facing north,' how are we supposed to be able to detect if that is a true or false instruction just from reading it? For all we know, facing them north could be an accurate copy of the original manuscript, in which case not doing as it says would prove fatal—or it could be a corruption of the true direction and doing as it says would be fatal. How are we to know? You may wish us to be able to come to a conclusion as to the book's validity just from reading it, but we have no way of doing that. I know you don't want me to lie to satisfy your request. I'm serving you best by being truthful."
Jagang eyed her suspiciously. "Be careful, Ulicia, not to cross the line into fawning. I'm not in the mood."
Sister Ulicia bowed her head. "Of course, Excellency."
Jagang folded his husky arms across his massive chest and returned to the matter at hand. "So you think that for this reason the ones who made the copies left us this other way to tell the false from true?"
"Yes, Excellency," Sister Ulicia said, despite looking anxious to be taking a stand that she knew would not please him. Since the emperor could read her thoughts, he would know the truth of what she honestly believed. Kahlan imagined that Sister Ulicia reasoned that her best chance of not incurring his wrath was to be true to her belief. Sister Ulicia was nothing if not smart.
"You believe that this is the real explanation, then, that it isn't a mistake, but that it was calculated and deliberate."
"Yes, Excellency. There has to be some way to tell. Otherwise, the successful use of the book would only be the result of chance. The boxes of Orden were made as a counter…"
She paused as she glanced briefly Kahlan's way. Kahlan kept her eyes almost closed into the narrowest of slits so that the woman wouldn't know she was awake. Sister Ulicia turned her attention back to Jagang.
"They would have reasoned that if it ever became necessary to use that counter it could only be because the situation was desperate, so they would need very badly to know that the book was true or else they risked losing everything they believed in. They would, after all, be using the book to save everything they believed in. If the ones using the counter of the boxes were wrong about the copy they were referring to, then they stood to lose more than just their lives—they risked losing the world of life itself."
"Unless those who made the copies wanted the false copies to foil a greedy thief," Jagang said.
"But Excellency," Sister Ulicia said, "to stop any treacherous plans, those in charge of the boxes would need to have a way to know the true copies from the false. If they didn't leave such a method to those who would come after them, then they would have abandoned their descendants to survival by chance. Their whole reason for making the copies in the first place was because they were worried about the risks that might develop in the future with having only the original text. After all, the only book in existence would be subject to any number of threats, from fire, to water, to worms, and that isn't even including the array of deliberate threats. They were trying to make sure that there would be an accurate copy if it ever came to be necessary to use the boxes and the original book was unavailable for reasons they might not even be able to imagine. Risking that future on chance would be counter to their purpose for making the copies in the first place.
"Do you see what I mean? Since they made only one true copy, and the rest false, they were attempting to discourage the wrongful use of the boxes—putting another obstacle in the path of them being used—but at the same time, if the boxes were ever truly needed, they most certainly would not have wanted that call to have been answered by chance. They would have left those coming after them a way to confirm the truth.
"Since the text inside the book is not contradictory in and of itself, it seems to me that those who made the copies would unquestionably have devised another means to determine the true from the false."
Jagang turned to the other Sister. "Ah, Armina has had a thought. Do speak up, darlin."
Sister Armina cleared her throat. "We are being asked to believe that a singular rather than a plural word served as their only indication of validity?" Sister Armina shook her head. "While I grant the general point, I believe that this is just too simple an answer, if not far too opaque a message. This means of telling true from false in and of itself becomes chance, too, unless they gave us a way to confirm it."
"And they have, now, haven't they?" Sister Ulicia arched an eyebrow as she leaned a little toward the woman. "It's right there, right in the beginning, where it tells us precisely how to detect if the book is true or not. It says that she must verify it. She has."
Armina folded her arms. "Like I said, I think that's just too simple to be the answer."
"If it's so simple, Armina, then why didn't you see it?" Sister Ulicia asked.
Kahlan closed her eyes a little more when Sister Ulicia pointed at her. "She found the flaw. Why did none of us see it? Only she saw it. Without her we probably would not have noticed it or, if we had, we probably would have thought that it couldn't be important and we would have ignored it. She has done what the book said she must. She found it. She said that it means the copy is a false copy. That is precisely the purpose for which the book itself said she must be used.
"Some of us may not consider that flaw complex enough to be the determining element, but that's irrelevant. The fact remains that she must verify the veracity of this book and, because of a flaw that only she noticed, she claims it is a false copy. That's what matters
. We have to take that pronouncement as valid."
Considering the words of each woman, Jagang rubbed a meaty hand back over his bull neck as he paced before the table. He stared down at the book for a time, then spoke.
"There is one way to be sure." He glared at each Sister in turn. "We find the other copies and compare them. If they all, or only a few, have this exact same flaw in the title, then it would point to it being meaningless. On the other hand, if all but one has this same flaw, then the one that doesn't would likely be the true copy. We can then compare all the versions of the text and if the one without the flawed title is different from all the others, we will have confirmed that it's the one true copy."
"Excellency," Sister Armina said with a deferential bow of her head, "that is an excellent idea. If we can locate the others, and this is the only one with this flaw, then it would prove my point that it is nothing but a simple, isolated mistake by an ignorant bookbinder."
Jagang stared at her for a moment before finally breaking eye contact and going to a chest to the side. He opened the top and pulled out a book. He tossed it on the table so that it slid across the top toward the two Sisters.
Sister Armina picked it up and read the cover. Even in the dim light of the oil lamps, Kahlan could see the woman's face going a deep shade of red.
"The Book of Counted Shadow," she said in an incredulous whisper.
"Shadow?" Sister Ulicia asked, peering down over Sister Armina's shoulder. "Not Shadows?"
"No," Jagang said. "It is The Book of Counted Shadow, the same as the one from Caska."
"But, but," Sister Armina stammered, "I don't understand. Where is this copy from?"
A condescending smile joined his glare. "The Palace of the Prophets.",
Sister Armina's jaw dropped in speechless shock.
