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confirmed, he placed the figure of himself in the void in the snow collected
on the rim of the base. It was a perfect fit.
The little figure had been here, with this statue.
"How do you think it came to be down in the cave?" Cara asked in a
suspicious voice.
"Maybe it fell," Jennsen offered. "It's pretty windy up here. Maybe the
wind blew it off and it tumbled down the hill."
"And just managed to roll through the woods without being stopped by a
tree, and then, neat as can be," Richard said, "roll right into the small
opening of the cave, and then just happened to come to be stuck in the rock
right near where you, by coincidence, ended up stuck. Stuck, I might add, in
a terrifying place you aren't terrified of."
Jennsen blinked in wonder. "When you put it like that. . ."
Standing at the crown of the pass, in front of the statue right where
the warning beacon would have rested, and now again rested, Richard could
see that the spot held a commanding view of the approach to Bandakar. The
mountains blocking off the view to either side were as formidable as
anything he'd ever seen. The rise where the sentinel sat overlooked the
approach into the pass back between those towering, snowcapped peaks. As
high as they were, they were still only at the foothills of those mountains.
The statue was not looking ahead, as might be expected of a guardian,
but rather, its unflinching gaze was fixed a little to the right. Richard
thought that was a bit odd. He wondered if maybe it was meant to show this
sentinel keeping a vigilant eye on everything, on every potential threat.
Standing as he was, directly in front of the statue's base, in front of
where the warning beacon sat, Richard looked to the right, in the direction
the man in the statue was looking.
He could see the approach of the pass up through the mountains. Farther
out, in the distance, he could see vast forests to the west, and beyond
that, the low, barren mountains they had crossed.
And, he could see a gap in those mountains.
The eyes of the man in the statue were resolutely fixed upon what
Richard now saw.
"Dear spirits," he whispered.
"What is it?" Kahlan asked. "What do you see?"
"The Pillars of Creation."
Kahlan, standing beside Richard, squinted into the distance. From the
base of the statue they had a commanding view of the approaches from the
west. It seemed as if she could see half a world away. But she couldn't see
what he saw.
"I can't see the Pillars of Creation," she said.
Richard leaned close, having her sight down his arm where he pointed.
"There. That darker depression in the expanse of flat ground."
Richard's eyes were better at seeing distant things than were hers. It
was all rather hazy-looking, being so far away.
"You can recognize where it lies by the landmarks, there"--he pointed
off to the right, and then a little to the left--"and there. Those darker
mountains in the distance that are a little higher than the rest have a
unique shape. They serve as good reference points so you can find things."
"Now that you point them out, I can see the land where we traveled
from. I recognize those mountains."
It seemed amazing, looking back on where they'd been, how high they
were. She could see, spread out into the distance, the vast wasteland beyond
the barren mountain range and, even if she couldn't make out the details of
the dreadful place, she could see the darker depression in the valley. That
depression she knew to be the Pillars of Creation.
"Owen," Richard asked, "how far is this pass from your men--the men who
were hiding with you in the hills?"
Owen looked baffled by the question. "But Lord Rahl, I have never been
up this portion of the pass before. I have never seen this statue. I have
never been anywhere close to here before. It would be impossible for me to
tell such a thing."
"Not impossible," Richard said. "If you know what your home is like,
you should be able to recognize landmarks around it--just as I was able to
look out to the west and see the route we traveled to get here. Look around
at those mountains back through the pass and see if you recognize anything."
Owen, looking skeptical, walked the rest of the way up behind the
statue and peered off to the east. He stood in the wind for a time, staring.
He pointed at a mountain in the distance, through the pass.
"I think I know that place." He sounded astonished. "I know the shape
of that mountain. It looks a little different from this spot, but I think
it's the same place I know." He shielded his eyes from the gusts of wind as
he gazed to the east. He pointed again. "And that place! I know that place,
too!"
He rushed back to Richard. "You were right, Lord Rahl. I can see places
I know." He stared off then as he whispered to himself. "I can tell where my
home is, even though I've not been here. Just by seeing places I know."
Kahlan had never seen anyone so astounded by something so simple.
"So," Richard finally prompted, "how far do you think your men are from
here?"
Owen looked back over his shoulder. "Through that low place, then
around that slope coming from the right..." He turned back to Richard. "We
have been hiding in the land near where the seal on our empire used to be,
where no one ever goes because it is near the place where death stalks, near
the pass. I would guess maybe a full day's steady walk from here." He
suddenly turned hesitant. "But I am wrong to be confident of what my eyes
tell me. I may just be seeing what my mind wants me to see. It may not be
real."
Richard folded his arms and leaned back against the granite base of the
statue as he gazed out toward the Pillars of Creation, ignoring
Owen's doubt. Knowing Richard as she did, Kahlan imagined that he must
be considering his options.
Standing beside him, she was about to lean back against the stone of
the statue's base, but instead paused to first brush the snow off from
beside where the warning beacon rested. As she brushed the snow away, she
saw that there were words carved in the top of the decorative molding.
"Richard . .. look at this."
He turned to see what she saw, and then started hurriedly brushing away
more of the snow. The others crowded around, trying to see what was written
in the stone of the statue's base. Cara, on the other side of Richard, ran
her hand all the way to the end to clean off the entire ledge.
Kahlan couldn't read it. It was in another language she didn't know,
but thought she recognized.
"High D'Haran?" Cara asked.
Richard nodded his confirmation as he studied the words. "This must be
a very old dialect," he said, half to himself as he scrutinized it, trying
to figure it out. "It's not just an old dialect, but one with which I'm not
familiar. Maybe because this is so distant a place."
"What does it say?" Jennsen wanted to know as she peered around
Richard, between him and Kahlan. "Can you translate it?"
"It's difficult to work it out," Richard mumbled. He swiped his hair
back with one hand as he ran the fingers of his other lightly over the
words.
He finally straightened and glanced up at Owen, standing to the side of
the base, watching.
Everyone waited while Richard looked down at the words again. "I'm not
sure," he finally said. "The phraseology is odd. . .." He looked up at
Kahlan. "I can't be sure. I've not seen High D'Haran written this way
before. I feel like I should know what it says, but I can't quite get it."
Kahlan didn't know if he really couldn't be sure, or if he didn't want
to speak the translation in front of the others.
"Well, maybe if you think it over for a while, it might come to you,"
she offered, trying to give him a way of putting it off for the time being
if he wanted to.
Richard didn't take her offer. Instead, he tapped a finger to the words
on the left of the warning beacon. "This part is a little more clear to me.
I think it says something like Tear any breach of this seal to the empire
beyond ...' "
He wiped a hand across his mouth as he considered the rest of the
words. "I'm not so sure about the rest of it," he finally said. "It seems to
say, 'for beyond is evil: those who cannot see.' "
"Of course," Jennsen muttered in angry comprehension.
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "I'm not at all sure I
have it right. Something about it still doesn't make sense. I'm not sure I
have it right."
"You have it perfectly right," Jennsen said. "Those who cannot see
magic. This was placed by the gifted who sealed those people away from the
rest of the world because of how they were born." Her fiery eyes filled with
tears. "Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond, for beyond is
evil--those who cannot see magic. That's what it means, those who cannot see
magic."
No one argued with her. The only sound was the rush of the wind across
the open ground.
Richard spoke softly to her. "I'm not sure that's it, Jenn."
She folded her arms and turned away, glaring out toward the Pillars of
Creation.
Kahlan could understand how she felt. Kahlan knew what it was like to
be shunned by almost everyone except those who were like you. Confessors
were thought of as monsters by many people. Given the chance, Kahlan was
sure that much of the rest of humanity would be happy to seal her away for
being a Confessor.
But just because she could understand how Jennsen felt, that didn't
mean Kahlan thought the young woman was right. Jennsen's anger at those who
banished these people was justified, but her anger at Richard and the rest
of them for having the same spark of the gift, which made them in that way
the same, was not.
Richard turned his attention to Owen. "How many men do you have waiting
in the hills for you to return?"
"Not quite a hundred."
Richard sighed in disappointment. "Well, if that's all you have, then
that's all you have. We'll have to see to getting more later.
"For now, I want you to go get those men. Bring them here, to me. We'll
wait here for you to return. This will be our base from where we work a plan
to get the Order out of Bandakar. We'll set up a camp down there, in those
trees, where it's well protected."
Owen looked down the incline to where Richard pointed, and then off
toward his homeland. His confused frown returned to Richard. "But, Lord
Rahl, it is you who must give us freedom. Why not just come with me to the
men, if you want to see them?"
"Because I think this will be a safer place than where they are now,
where the Order probably knows they're hiding."
"But the Order does not know that there are men hiding, or where they
are."
"You're deluding yourselves. The men in the Order are brutal, but they
aren't stupid."
"If they really know where the men are, then why hasn't the Order come
to call them in?"
"They will," Richard said. "When it suits them, they will. Your men
aren't a threat, so the men of the Order are in no hurry to expend any
effort to capture them. Sooner or later they will, though, because they
won't want anyone to think they can escape the Order's rule.
"I want your men away from there, to a place they've not been: here. I
want the Order to think they're gone, to think they've run away, so they
won't go after them."
"Well," Owen said, thinking it over, "I guess that would be all right."
Tom stood watch near the far corner of the statue's base, giving
Jennsen room to be alone. She looked angry and he looked like he thought it
best just to leave her be. Tom looked as if he felt guilty for having been
born with the spark of the gift that allowed him to see magic, that same
spark possessed by those who had banished people like Jennsen.
"Tom," Richard said, "I want you to go with Owen."
Jennsen's arms came unfolded as she turned toward Richard. "Why do you
want him to go?" She suddenly sounded a lot less angry.
"That's right," Owen said. "Why should he go?"
"Because," Richard said, "I want to make sure that you and your men get
back here. I need the antidote, remember? The more men I have back here with
me who know where it is, the better. I want them safely away from the Order
for now. With blond hair and blue eyes, Tom will fit in with your people. If
you run into any soldiers from the Order they will think he's one of you.
Tom will make sure you all get back here."
"But it could be dangerous," Jennsen objected.
Richard fixed her in his challenging stare. He didn't say anything. He
simply waited to see if she would dare to attempt to justify her objections.
Finally, she broke eye contact and looked away.
"I guess it makes sense, though," she finally admitted.
Richard turned his attention back to Tom. "I want you to see if you can
bring back some supplies. And I'd like to use your hatchet while you're
gone, if that's all right."
Tom nodded and pulled his hatchet from his pack. As Richard stepped
closer to take the axe, he started ticking off a list of things he wanted
the man to look for--specific tools, yew wood, hide glue, packthread,
leather, and a list of other things Kahlan couldn't hear.
Tom hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "All right. I doubt I'll find it
all right off. Do you want me to search out what I can't find before I
return?"
"No. I need it all, but I need those men back here more. Get what's
readily available and then get back here with Owen and his men as soon as
possible."
"I'll get what I can. When do you want us to leave?"
"Now. We don't have a moment to lose."
"Now?" Owen sounded incredulous. "It will be dark in an hour or two."
"Those couple of hours may be hours I need," Richard said. "Don't waste
them."
Kahlan thought that he meant because of the poison, but he could have
had the gift in mind. She could see how much pain he was in because of the
headache caused by the gift. She ached to hold him, to comfort him, to make
him better, but she couldn't make it all just go away; they had to find the
solutions. She glanced at the small figure of Richard standing on the base
of the statue. Half of that figure was as dark as a night stone, as dark and
dead as the deepest part of the underworld itself.
Tom swung his pack up over his shoulder. "Take care of them for me,
will you, Cara?" he asked with a wink. She smiled her agreement. "I'll see
you all in a few days, then." He waved his farewell, his gaze lingering on
Jennsen, before shepherding Owen around the statue and toward the man's
homeland.
Cara folded her arms and leveled a look at Jennsen. "You're a fool if
you don't go kiss him a good journey."
Jennsen hesitated, her eyes turning toward Richard.
"I've learned not to argue with Cara," Richard said.
Jennsen smiled and ran over the ridge to catch Tom before he was gone.
Betty, at the end of a long rope, scampered to follow after.
Richard stuffed the small figure of himself into his pack before
picking up his bow from where it leaned against the statue. "We'd better get
down into the trees and set up a camp."
Richard, Kahlan, and Cara started down the rise toward the concealing
safety of the huge pines. They had been long enough out in the open, as far
as Kahlan was concerned. It was only a matter of time before the races came
in search of them--before Nicholas came looking for them.
As cold as it was up in the pass, Kahlan knew they didn't dare build a
fire; the races could spot the smoke and then find them. They needed instead
to build a snug shelter. Kahlan wished they could find a wayward pine to
protect and hide them for the night, but she had not seen any of those down
in the Old World and wishing wasn't going to grow one.
As she stepped carefully on dry patches of rock, avoiding the snow so
as not to leave tracks, she checked the dark clouds. It was always possible
that it might warm just a little and that the precipitation could turn to
rain. Even if it didn't, it still would be a miserably cold night.
Jennsen, Betty following behind, returned, catching up with them as
they zigzagged down through the steep notches of ledge. The wind was getting
colder, the snow a little heavier.
When they reached a flatter spot, Jennsen caught Richard's arm.
"Richard, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be angry with you. I know you didn't
banish those people. I know it's not your fault." She gathered up the slack
on Betty's rope, looping it into coils. "It just makes me angry that those
people were treated like that. I'm like them, and so it makes me angry."
"The way they were treated should make you angry," Richard said as he
started away, "but not because you share an attribute with them."
Taken aback by his words, even looking a little hurt, Jennsen didn't
move. "What do you mean?"
Richard paused and turned back to her. "That's how the Imperial Order
thinks. That's how Owen's people think. It's a belief in granting
disembodied prestige, or the mantle of guilt, to all those who share some
specific trait or attribute.
"The Imperial Order would like you to believe that your virtue, your
ultimate value, or even your wickedness, arises entirely from being born a
member of a given group, that free will itself is either impotent or
nonexistent. They want you to believe that all people are merely
interchangeable members of groups that share fixed, preordained
characteristics, and they are predestined to live through a collective
identity, the group will, unable to rise on individual merit because there
can be no such thing as independent, individual merit, only group merit.
"They believe that people can only rise above their station in life
when selected to be awarded recognition because their group is due an
indulgence, and so a representative, a stand-in for the group, must be
selected to be awarded the badge of self-worth. Only the reflected light off
this badge, they believe, can bring the radiance of self-worth to others of
their group.
"But those granted this badge live with the uneasy knowledge that it's
only an illusion of competence. It never brings any sincere self-respect
because you can't fool yourself. Ultimately, because it is counterfeit, the
sham of esteem granted because of a connection with a group can only be
propped up by force.
"This belittling of mankind, the Order's condemnation of everyone and
everything human, is their transcendent judgment of man's inadequacy.
"When you direct your anger at me for having a trait borne by someone
else, you pronounce me guilty for their crimes. That's what happens when
people say I'm a monster because our father was a monster. If you admire
someone simply because you believe their group is deserving, then you
embrace the same corrupt ethics.
"The Imperial Order says that no individual should have the right to
achieve something on his own, to accomplish what someone else cannot, and so
magic must be stripped from mankind. They say that accomplishment is corrupt
because it is rooted in the evil of self-interest, therefore the fruits of
that accomplishment are tainted by its evil. This is why they preach that
any gain must be sacrificed to those who have not earned it. They hold that
only through such sacrifice can those fruits be purified and made good.
"We believe, on the other hand, that your own individual life is the
value and its own end, and what you achieve is yours.
"Only you can achieve self-worth for yourself. Any group offering it to
you, or demanding it of you, comes bearing chains of slavery."
Jennsen stared at him for a long moment. A smile finally overcame her.
"That's why, then, I always wanted to be accepted for who I was, for myself,
and always thought it unfair to be persecuted because of how I was born?"
"That's why," Richard said. "If you want to be proud of yourself
because of what you accomplish, then don't allow yourself to be chained to
some group, and don't in turn chain other individuals to one. Let your
judgment of individuals be earned.
"This means I should not be hated because my father was evil, nor
should I be admired because my grandfather is good. I have the right to live
my own life, for my own benefit. You are Jennsen Rahl, and your life is what
you, alone, make of it."
They made the rest of the way down the hill in silence. Jennsen still
had a faraway look as she thought about what Richard had said.
When they reached the trees, Kahlan was relieved to get in under the
sheltering limbs of the ancient pines and even more so when they entered the
secluded protection of the lower, thicker balsam trees. They made their way
through dense thickets into the quiet solitude of the towering trees, and
farther down the slope, to a place where an outcropping of rock offered
protection from the elements. It would be easier to construct a shelter in
such a place by leaning boughs against it in order to make a relatively warm
shelter.
Richard used Tom's hatchet to cut some stout poles from young pines in
the understory which he placed against the rock wall. While he lashed the
poles together with wiry lengths of pine roots he pulled up from the mossy
ground, Kahlan, Jennsen, and Cara started collecting boughs to make dry
bedding and to cover over the shelter.
"Richard," Jennsen asked as she dragged a bundle of balsam close to the
shelter, "how do you think you are going to rid Bandakar of the Imperial
Order?"
Richard laid a heavy bough up high on the poles and tied it in place
with a length of the wiry pine root. "I don't know that I can. My primary
concern is to get to the antidote."
Jennsen looked a bit surprised. "But aren't you going to help those
people?"
He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "They poisoned me. No matter
how you dress it up, they're willing to murder me if I don't do as they
wish--if I don't do their dirty work for them. They think we're savages, and
they're above us. They don't think our lives are worth as much--because we
are not members of their group. My first responsibility is to my own life,
to getting that antidote."
"I see what you mean." Jennsen handed him another balsam bough. "But I
still think that if we eliminate the Order there, and this Nicholas, we'll
be helping ourselves."
Richard smiled. "I can agree with that, and we're going to do what we
can. But to truly help them, I need to convince Owen and his men that they
must help themselves."
Cara snorted a derisive laugh. "That will be a good trick, teaching the
lambs to become the wolves."
Kahlan agreed. She thought that convincing Owen and his men to defend
themselves would be more difficult than the five of them ridding Bandakar of
the Imperial Order by themselves. She wondered what Richard had in mind.
"Well," Jennsen said, "since we're all in this, all going to face the
Order up in Bandakar, don't you think that I have a right to know
everything? To know what you two are always making eyes at each other about
and whispering about?"
Richard stared at Jennsen a moment before he looked back at Kahlan.
Kahlan laid her bundle of branches down near the shelter. "I think
she's right."
Richard looked unhappy about it, but finally nodded and set down the
balsam bough he was holding. "Almost two years ago, Jagang managed to find a
way to use magic to start a plague. The plague itself was not magic; it was
just the plague. It swept through cities killing people by the tens of
thousands. Since the firestorm had been started with a spark of magic, I
found a way to stop the plague, using magic."
Kahlan did not believe that such a nightmare could be reduced to such a
simple statement and even begin to adequately convey the horror they had
gone through. But by the look on Jennsen's face, she at least grasped a
little bit of the terror that had gripped the land.
"In order for Richard to return from the place where he had to go to
stop the plague," Kahlan said, leaving out terrible portions of the story,
"he had to take the infection of plague. Had he not, he would have lived,
but lived alone for the rest of his life and died alone without ever seeing
me or anyone else again. He took the plague into himself so that he could
come back and tell me he loved me."
Jennsen stared, wide-eyed. "Didn't you know he loved you?"
Kahlan smiled a small bitter smile. "Don't you think your mother would
come back from the world of the dead to tell you she loves you, even though
you know she does?"
"Yes, I suppose she would. But why would you have to become infected
just to return? And return from where?"
"It was a place, called the Temple of the Winds, that was partially in
the underworld." Richard gestured up the pass. "Something like that boundary
was part of the world of the dead but was still here, in this world. You
might say that the Temple of the Winds was something like that. It was
hidden within the underworld. Because I had to cross a boundary of sorts,
through the underworld, the spirits set a price for me to return to the
world of life."
"Spirits? You saw spirits there?" Jennsen asked. When Richard nodded,
she asked, "Why would they set such a price?"
"The spirit who set the price of my return was Darken Rahl."
Jennsen's jaw dropped.
"When we found Lord Rahl," Cara said, "he was almost dead. The Mother
Confessor went on a dangerous journey through the sliph, all alone, to find
what would cure him. She succeeded in bringing it back, but Lord Rahl was
moments away from death."
"I used the magic I recovered," Kahlan said. "It was something that had
the power to reverse the plague that the magic had given him. The magic I
invoked to do this was the three chimes."
"Three chimes?" Jennsen asked. "What are they?"
"The chimes are underworld magic. Summoning their assistance keeps a
person from crossing over into the world of the dead.
"Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at the time I didn't know
anything else about the chimes. It turns out that they were created during
the great war to end magic. The chimes are beings of sorts, but without
souls. They come from the underworld. They annul magic in this world."
Jennsen looked confused. "But how can they accomplish such a thing?"
"I don't know how they work, exactly. But their presence in this world,
since they are part of the world of the dead, begins the destruction of
magic."
"Can't you get rid of the chimes? Can't you find a way to send them
back?"
"I already did that," Richard said. "But while they were here, in this
world, magic began to fail."
"Apparently," Kahlan said, "what I began that day when I called the
chimes into the world of life began a cascade of events that continues to
progress, even though the chimes have been sent back to the underworld."
"We don't know that," Richard said, more to Kahlan than to Jennsen.
"Richard is right," Kahlan told Jennsen, "we don't know it for sure,
but we have good reason to believe it's true. This boundary locking away
Bandakar failed. The timing would suggest that it failed not long after I
freed the chimes. One of those mistakes I told you about, before. Remember?"
Jennsen, staring at Kahlan, finally nodded. "But you didn't do it to
hurt people. You didn't know it would happen. You didn't know how this
boundary would fail, how the Order would go in there and abuse those
people."
"Doesn't really make any difference, does it? I did it. I caused it.
Because of me, magic may be failing. I accomplished what the Order is
working so hard to bring about. As a result of what I did, all those people
in Bandakar died, and others are now out in the world where they will once
again do as they did in ancient times--they will begin breeding the gift out
of mankind.
"We stand at the brink of the end times of magic, all because of me,
because of what I did."
Jennsen stood frozen. "And so you regret what you caused? That you may
have done something that will end magic?"
Kahlan felt Richard's arm around her waist. "I only know a world with
magic," she finally said. "I became the Mother Confessor--in part--to help
protect people with magic who are unable to protect themselves. I, too, am a
creature of magic--it's inextricably bound into me. I know profoundly
beautiful things of magic that I love; they are a part of the world of
life."
"So you fear you may have caused the end of what you love most."
"Not love most." Kahlan smiled. "I became the Mother Confessor because
I believe in laws that protect all people, give all individuals the right to
their own life. I would not want an artist's ability to sculpt to be
stopped, or a singer's voice to be silenced, or a person's mind to be
stilled. Nor do I want people's ability to achieve what they can with magic
to be stripped from them.
"Magic itself is not the central issue, not what this is about. I want
all the flowers, in all their variety, to have a chance to bloom. You are
beautiful, too, Jennsen. I would not choose to lose you, either. Each person
has a right to life. The idea that there must be a choice of one over
another is counter to what we believe."
Jennsen smiled at Kahlan's hand on her cheek. "Well, I guess that in a
world without magic, I could be queen."
On her way by with balsam boughs, Cara said, "Queens, too, must bow to
the Mother Confessor. Don't forget it."
Light flooded in as the lid of the box suddenly lifted. The rusty
hinges groaned in protest of every inch the lid rose. Zedd squinted at the
abrupt, blinding light of day. Beefy arms flipped the hinged lid back. If
there had been any slack in the chain around his neck, Zedd would have
jumped at the booming bang when the heavy cover flopped back, showering him
in dirt and rusty grit.
Between the bright light and the dust swirling through the air, Zedd
could hardly see. It didn't help, either, that the short chain around his
neck was bolted to the center of the floor of the box, leaving only enough
slack for him to be able to lift his head a few inches. With his arms bound
in iron behind his back, he could do little more than lie on the floor.
While Zedd was forced to lie there on his side, his neck near the iron
bolt, he at least could breathe in the sudden rush of cooler air. The heat
in the box had been sweltering. On a couple of occasions, when they had
stopped at night, they had given him a cup of water. It had not been nearly
enough. He and Adie had been fed precious little, but it was water he needed
more than food. Zedd felt like he might die of thirst. He could hardly think
of anything but water.
He had lost track of the number of days he had been chained to the
floor of the box, but he was somewhat surprised to find himself still alive.
The box had been bouncing around in the back of a wagon over the course of a
long, rough, but swift journey. He could only assume that he was being taken
to Emperor Jagang. He was also sure that he would be sorry if he was still
alive at the end of the journey.
There had been times, in the stifling heat of the box, when he had
expected that he would soon fade into unconsciousness and die. There were
times when he longed to die. He was sure that falling into such a fatal
sleep would be far preferable to what was in store for him. He had no
choice, though; the control the Sister exerted through the Rada'Han
prevented him from strangling himself to death with the chain, and it was
pretty hard, he had discovered, to will himself to die.
Zedd, his head still held to the floor of the box by the stub of chain,
tried to peer up, but he could see only sky. He heard another lid bang open.
He coughed as another cloud of dust drifted over him. When he heard Adie's
cough, he didn't know if he was relieved to know that she, too, was still
alive, or sorry that she was, knowing what she, like he, would have to
endure.
Zedd was, in a way, ready for the torture he knew he would be subjected
to. He was a wizard and had passed tests of pain. He feared such torture,
but he would endure it until it finally ended his life. In his weakened
condition, he expected that it wouldn't take all that long. In a way, such a
time under torture was like an old acquaintance come back to haunt him.
But he feared the torture of Adie far more than his own. He hated above
all else the torture of others. He hated to think of her coming under such
treatment.
The wagon shuddered as the front of the other box dropped open. A cry
escaped Adie's throat when a man struck her.
"Move, you stupid old woman, so I can get at the lock!"
Zedd could hear Adie's shoes scraping the wooden crate as, hands bound
behind her back, she tried to comply. By the sounds of fists on flesh, the
man wasn't happy with her efforts. Zedd closed his eyes, wishing he could
close his ears as well.
The front of Zedd's confining box crashed open, letting in more light
and dust. A shadow fell across him as a man approached. Because his face was
pinned to the floor by the chain, Zedd couldn't see the man.
A big hand reached in, fitting a key to the lock. Zedd kept his head
stretched as far away as possible to give the man all the room available to
let him do his work. Such effort earned Zedd a heavy punch in the side of
his head. The blow left his ears ringing.
The lock finally sprang open. The man's big fist seized Zedd by the
hair and dragged him, like a sack of grain, out of the box and toward the
rear of the wagon. Zedd pressed his lips together, to keep from crying out
as his bones bumped over protruding wooden runners in the wagon bed. At the
back edge of the wagon he was summarily dumped off the back to slam down
onto the ground.
Ears ringing, head spinning, Zedd tried to sit up when he was kicked,
knowing it was a command. He spat out dirt. With his hands tied behind his
back he was having difficulty complying. After three kicks, a big man
grabbed him by the hair and lifted him upright.
Zedd's heart sank to see that they sat among an army of astounding
size. The dark mass of humanity blighted the land as far as he could see.
So, it would seem, they had arrived.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adie sitting in the dirt beside
him, her head hanging. She had a livid bruise on her cheek. She didn't look
up when a shadow fell across her.
A woman in a long drab skirt moved in before them, distracting him from
his appraisal of the enemy forces. Zedd recognized the brown wool dress. It
was the Sister of the Dark who had put the collar around their necks. He
didn't know her name; she'd never offered it. In fact, she hadn't spoken to
them since they were chained in their boxes. She stood over them, now, like
the strict governess of incorrigible children.
The ring through her lower lip, marking her as a slave, in Zedd's mind
irrevocably tarnished her air of authority.
The ground was covered with horse manure, most, but not all, old and
dried. Out beyond the Sister, horses stood picketed seemingly without any
order among the soldiers. Horses that looked like they might belong to the
cavalry were well kept. Workhorses were not so healthy. Among the horses and
men, wagons and stacks of supplies dotted the late-day landscape.
The place had the foul stink of shallow latrines, horses, manure, and
the filthy smell of crowded human habitation failing to meet common sanitary
needs. Zedd blinked when acrid woodsmoke from one of the thousands of cook
fires drifted across him, burning his eyes.
The air was also thick with mosquitoes, gnats, and flies. The flies
were the worst. The mosquito bites would itch later, but the flies stung the
instant they bit, and with his arms bound behind his back, there wasn't much
he could do about it other than shake his head to try to keep them out of
his eyes and nose.
The two soldiers who had freed Zedd and Adie from their boxes stood
patiently to the sides. Beyond the woman's skirts a vast encampment spread
out as far as the eye could see. There were men everywhere, men engaged in
work, at rest, and at recreation. They were dressed in every variety of
clothing, from leather armor, chain mail, and studded belts to hides, dirty
tunics, and trousers in the process of rotting into rags. Most of the men
were unshaven, and all were as filthy as feral recluses living in mad
seclusion. The mass encampment generated a constant din of yells, whistles,
men hollering and laughing, the jangle and rattle of metal, the ring of
hammers or rhythm of saws, and, piercing through it all, the occasional cry
of someone in agonizing pain.
Tents by the thousands, tents of all sorts, like leaves after a big
wind, lay littering the gently rolling landscape at the foothills of
towering mountains to the east. Many a tent was decorated with loot; gingham
curtains hung at an entrance, a small chair or table sat before a tent, here
and there an item of women's personal clothing flew as a flag of conquest.
Wagons and horses and gear were all jammed together among the rabble in no
seeming plan. The ground had been churned to a fine dust by the masses in
this mock city devoid of skeletal order.
The place was a nightmare of humanity reduced to the savagery of a mob
on the loose, the scope of their goals no more than the impulse of the
moment. Though their leaders had ends, these men did not.
"His Excellency has requested you both," the Sister said down to them.
Neither Zedd nor Adie said anything. The men hauled them both to their
feet. A sharp shove started them moving behind the Sister after she marched
away. Zedd noticed, then, that there were more soldiers, close to a dozen,
escorting them.
The wagon had delivered them to the end of a road, of sorts, that ran a
winding course through the sprawling encampment. The end of the road, where
wagons sat in a row, appeared to be the entrance to an inner camp, probably
a command area. The regular soldiers outside a ring of heavily armed guards
ate, played dice, gambled, bartered loot, joked, talked, and drank as they
watched the prisoners being escorted.
The thought occurred to Zedd that if he called out, proclaiming that he
was the one who was responsible for the light spell that had killed or
wounded so many of their chums, maybe the men would riot, set upon them, and
kill them before Jagang had a chance to do his worst.
Zedd opened his mouth to try out his plan, but saw the Sister glance
back over her shoulder. He discovered that his voice was muted through her
control of the collar around his neck. There would be no speaking unless she
allowed it.
Following the Sister, they walked past the standing row of wagons in
front of the one that had brought them. There were well over a dozen freight
wagons all lined up before the cordoned-off area with the larger tents. None
of the wagons were empty, but all were loaded with crates.
With sinking realization, Zedd understood. These were wagons with goods
looted from the Wizard's Keep. These were all wagons that had made the
journey with them. They were all full of the things those ungifted men, at
the Sister's orders, had taken out of the Keep. Zedd feared to think what
priceless items of profound danger sat in these crates. There were things in
the Keep that became hazardous to anyone should they be removed from the
shields that guarded them. There were rare items that, if removed from their
protective environment, such as darkness, for even a brief time, would cease
to be viable.
Guards in layered hides, mail, leather, and armed with pikes set with
long steel points flanked by sharpened winged blades, huge crescent axes,
swords, and spiked maces prowled the restricted area. These grim soldiers
were bigger and more menacing-looking than the regular men out in the
camp--and those were fearsome enough. While the special guards patrolled,
ever watchful, the unconcerned regular soldiers just outside the perimeter
carried on with their business.
The guards led the Sister, Zedd, and Adie through an opening in a line
of spiked barricades. Beyond were the smaller of the special tents. Most
were round and the same size. Zedd thought that these were probably the
tents of the staff the emperor would keep close, his attendants and personal
slaves. Zedd wondered if the Sisters were all held within the emperor's
compound.
Up ahead, the palatial vision of the grand tents of an emperor and his
entourage rose up in the late-afternoon light. No doubt some of these
comfortable tents set about the center compound, within the ring of tents
for servants and attendants, were accommodations for high-ranking officers,
officials, and the emperor's most trusted advisors.
Zedd wished he had a light spell and the ability to ignite it. He could
probably decapitate the Imperial Order right then and there.
But he knew that such confusion and turmoil would only be a temporary
setback for the Imperial Order. They would provide another brute to enforce
their message. It would take more than killing Jagang to end the threat of
the Order. He wasn't even sure anymore just what it would take to free the
world of the oppression and tyranny of the Imperial Order.
Despite the seductively simplistic notions held by most people, the
Emperor Jagang was not the driving force of this invasion. The driving force
was a vicious ideology. To exist, it could not permit successful lives to be
lived in sight of the suffering masses produced as a result of the beliefs
and dictates of the Imperial Order. The freedom and resulting success of the
people living in the New World put the lie to all the Order preached. It was
blasphemy to succeed on your own; since the Order taught that it could not
be done, it could only be sinful. Sin had to be eliminated for the greater
good. Therefore, the freedom of the New World had to be crushed.
"These the ones?" a guard with short-cropped hair asked. The rings
hanging from his nose and ears reminded Zedd of a prized pig decorated for
the summer fair. Of course, prized pigs would have been washed and clean and
would have smelled better.
"Yes," the Sister said. "Both of them, as instructed."
With deliberate care the man's dark-eyed gaze took in Adie and then
Zedd. By his scowl, he apparently thought himself a righteous man who was
displeased with what he saw: evil. After noting the collars they both wore,
showing that they would be no danger to the emperor, he stepped aside and
lifted a thumb, directing them through a second barricade beyond the tents
of the attendants, servants, and slaves. The guard's glare followed the
sinners on their way to meet their proper fate.
Other men, from inside the inner compound, swept in to surround them.
Zedd saw that these men wore more orderly outfits. They were layered in
similar leather and mail, wearing heavy leather weapon belts, their chests
crisscrossed with studded straps. There was a uniformity to them, a
sameness, that showed these were special guards. The weapons hung on those
wide belts were better made, and they carried more of them. By the way they
moved, Zedd knew that these were not typical men rounded up to be soldiers,
but trained men with highly developed talents for warfare.
These were the emperor's elite bodyguards.
Zedd looked longingly at the nearly full water bucket set out for the
men standing guard in the heat. It wouldn't do, if you were an emperor, to
have your elite guards falling over from lack of water. Knowing what the
response was likely to be, Zedd didn't ask for a drink. A sidelong glance
showed Adie licking her cracked lips, but she, too, remained silent.
Up a slight rise sat by far the largest and grandest of the tents,
among the impressive but lesser quarters of the emperor's retinue. The
emperor's tent appeared more a traveling palace, actually, than a tent. It
boasted a tri-peaked roof pierced by high poles bearing colorful standards
and flags. Brightly embroidered panels adorned the exterior walls. Red and
yellow banners flapped lazily in the hot, late-day air. Tassels and
streamers all around it made it look like a central gathering tent at a
festival.
A guard flanking a doorway met Zedd's gaze before he lifted aside the
lambskin covered with shields of gold and hammered medallions of silver,
allowing them entrance. One of the other guards stiff-armed Zedd's shoulder,
on the rim of the base. It was a perfect fit.
The little figure had been here, with this statue.
"How do you think it came to be down in the cave?" Cara asked in a
suspicious voice.
"Maybe it fell," Jennsen offered. "It's pretty windy up here. Maybe the
wind blew it off and it tumbled down the hill."
"And just managed to roll through the woods without being stopped by a
tree, and then, neat as can be," Richard said, "roll right into the small
opening of the cave, and then just happened to come to be stuck in the rock
right near where you, by coincidence, ended up stuck. Stuck, I might add, in
a terrifying place you aren't terrified of."
Jennsen blinked in wonder. "When you put it like that. . ."
Standing at the crown of the pass, in front of the statue right where
the warning beacon would have rested, and now again rested, Richard could
see that the spot held a commanding view of the approach to Bandakar. The
mountains blocking off the view to either side were as formidable as
anything he'd ever seen. The rise where the sentinel sat overlooked the
approach into the pass back between those towering, snowcapped peaks. As
high as they were, they were still only at the foothills of those mountains.
The statue was not looking ahead, as might be expected of a guardian,
but rather, its unflinching gaze was fixed a little to the right. Richard
thought that was a bit odd. He wondered if maybe it was meant to show this
sentinel keeping a vigilant eye on everything, on every potential threat.
Standing as he was, directly in front of the statue's base, in front of
where the warning beacon sat, Richard looked to the right, in the direction
the man in the statue was looking.
He could see the approach of the pass up through the mountains. Farther
out, in the distance, he could see vast forests to the west, and beyond
that, the low, barren mountains they had crossed.
And, he could see a gap in those mountains.
The eyes of the man in the statue were resolutely fixed upon what
Richard now saw.
"Dear spirits," he whispered.
"What is it?" Kahlan asked. "What do you see?"
"The Pillars of Creation."
Kahlan, standing beside Richard, squinted into the distance. From the
base of the statue they had a commanding view of the approaches from the
west. It seemed as if she could see half a world away. But she couldn't see
what he saw.
"I can't see the Pillars of Creation," she said.
Richard leaned close, having her sight down his arm where he pointed.
"There. That darker depression in the expanse of flat ground."
Richard's eyes were better at seeing distant things than were hers. It
was all rather hazy-looking, being so far away.
"You can recognize where it lies by the landmarks, there"--he pointed
off to the right, and then a little to the left--"and there. Those darker
mountains in the distance that are a little higher than the rest have a
unique shape. They serve as good reference points so you can find things."
"Now that you point them out, I can see the land where we traveled
from. I recognize those mountains."
It seemed amazing, looking back on where they'd been, how high they
were. She could see, spread out into the distance, the vast wasteland beyond
the barren mountain range and, even if she couldn't make out the details of
the dreadful place, she could see the darker depression in the valley. That
depression she knew to be the Pillars of Creation.
"Owen," Richard asked, "how far is this pass from your men--the men who
were hiding with you in the hills?"
Owen looked baffled by the question. "But Lord Rahl, I have never been
up this portion of the pass before. I have never seen this statue. I have
never been anywhere close to here before. It would be impossible for me to
tell such a thing."
"Not impossible," Richard said. "If you know what your home is like,
you should be able to recognize landmarks around it--just as I was able to
look out to the west and see the route we traveled to get here. Look around
at those mountains back through the pass and see if you recognize anything."
Owen, looking skeptical, walked the rest of the way up behind the
statue and peered off to the east. He stood in the wind for a time, staring.
He pointed at a mountain in the distance, through the pass.
"I think I know that place." He sounded astonished. "I know the shape
of that mountain. It looks a little different from this spot, but I think
it's the same place I know." He shielded his eyes from the gusts of wind as
he gazed to the east. He pointed again. "And that place! I know that place,
too!"
He rushed back to Richard. "You were right, Lord Rahl. I can see places
I know." He stared off then as he whispered to himself. "I can tell where my
home is, even though I've not been here. Just by seeing places I know."
Kahlan had never seen anyone so astounded by something so simple.
"So," Richard finally prompted, "how far do you think your men are from
here?"
Owen looked back over his shoulder. "Through that low place, then
around that slope coming from the right..." He turned back to Richard. "We
have been hiding in the land near where the seal on our empire used to be,
where no one ever goes because it is near the place where death stalks, near
the pass. I would guess maybe a full day's steady walk from here." He
suddenly turned hesitant. "But I am wrong to be confident of what my eyes
tell me. I may just be seeing what my mind wants me to see. It may not be
real."
Richard folded his arms and leaned back against the granite base of the
statue as he gazed out toward the Pillars of Creation, ignoring
Owen's doubt. Knowing Richard as she did, Kahlan imagined that he must
be considering his options.
Standing beside him, she was about to lean back against the stone of
the statue's base, but instead paused to first brush the snow off from
beside where the warning beacon rested. As she brushed the snow away, she
saw that there were words carved in the top of the decorative molding.
"Richard . .. look at this."
He turned to see what she saw, and then started hurriedly brushing away
more of the snow. The others crowded around, trying to see what was written
in the stone of the statue's base. Cara, on the other side of Richard, ran
her hand all the way to the end to clean off the entire ledge.
Kahlan couldn't read it. It was in another language she didn't know,
but thought she recognized.
"High D'Haran?" Cara asked.
Richard nodded his confirmation as he studied the words. "This must be
a very old dialect," he said, half to himself as he scrutinized it, trying
to figure it out. "It's not just an old dialect, but one with which I'm not
familiar. Maybe because this is so distant a place."
"What does it say?" Jennsen wanted to know as she peered around
Richard, between him and Kahlan. "Can you translate it?"
"It's difficult to work it out," Richard mumbled. He swiped his hair
back with one hand as he ran the fingers of his other lightly over the
words.
He finally straightened and glanced up at Owen, standing to the side of
the base, watching.
Everyone waited while Richard looked down at the words again. "I'm not
sure," he finally said. "The phraseology is odd. . .." He looked up at
Kahlan. "I can't be sure. I've not seen High D'Haran written this way
before. I feel like I should know what it says, but I can't quite get it."
Kahlan didn't know if he really couldn't be sure, or if he didn't want
to speak the translation in front of the others.
"Well, maybe if you think it over for a while, it might come to you,"
she offered, trying to give him a way of putting it off for the time being
if he wanted to.
Richard didn't take her offer. Instead, he tapped a finger to the words
on the left of the warning beacon. "This part is a little more clear to me.
I think it says something like Tear any breach of this seal to the empire
beyond ...' "
He wiped a hand across his mouth as he considered the rest of the
words. "I'm not so sure about the rest of it," he finally said. "It seems to
say, 'for beyond is evil: those who cannot see.' "
"Of course," Jennsen muttered in angry comprehension.
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "I'm not at all sure I
have it right. Something about it still doesn't make sense. I'm not sure I
have it right."
"You have it perfectly right," Jennsen said. "Those who cannot see
magic. This was placed by the gifted who sealed those people away from the
rest of the world because of how they were born." Her fiery eyes filled with
tears. "Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond, for beyond is
evil--those who cannot see magic. That's what it means, those who cannot see
magic."
No one argued with her. The only sound was the rush of the wind across
the open ground.
Richard spoke softly to her. "I'm not sure that's it, Jenn."
She folded her arms and turned away, glaring out toward the Pillars of
Creation.
Kahlan could understand how she felt. Kahlan knew what it was like to
be shunned by almost everyone except those who were like you. Confessors
were thought of as monsters by many people. Given the chance, Kahlan was
sure that much of the rest of humanity would be happy to seal her away for
being a Confessor.
But just because she could understand how Jennsen felt, that didn't
mean Kahlan thought the young woman was right. Jennsen's anger at those who
banished these people was justified, but her anger at Richard and the rest
of them for having the same spark of the gift, which made them in that way
the same, was not.
Richard turned his attention to Owen. "How many men do you have waiting
in the hills for you to return?"
"Not quite a hundred."
Richard sighed in disappointment. "Well, if that's all you have, then
that's all you have. We'll have to see to getting more later.
"For now, I want you to go get those men. Bring them here, to me. We'll
wait here for you to return. This will be our base from where we work a plan
to get the Order out of Bandakar. We'll set up a camp down there, in those
trees, where it's well protected."
Owen looked down the incline to where Richard pointed, and then off
toward his homeland. His confused frown returned to Richard. "But, Lord
Rahl, it is you who must give us freedom. Why not just come with me to the
men, if you want to see them?"
"Because I think this will be a safer place than where they are now,
where the Order probably knows they're hiding."
"But the Order does not know that there are men hiding, or where they
are."
"You're deluding yourselves. The men in the Order are brutal, but they
aren't stupid."
"If they really know where the men are, then why hasn't the Order come
to call them in?"
"They will," Richard said. "When it suits them, they will. Your men
aren't a threat, so the men of the Order are in no hurry to expend any
effort to capture them. Sooner or later they will, though, because they
won't want anyone to think they can escape the Order's rule.
"I want your men away from there, to a place they've not been: here. I
want the Order to think they're gone, to think they've run away, so they
won't go after them."
"Well," Owen said, thinking it over, "I guess that would be all right."
Tom stood watch near the far corner of the statue's base, giving
Jennsen room to be alone. She looked angry and he looked like he thought it
best just to leave her be. Tom looked as if he felt guilty for having been
born with the spark of the gift that allowed him to see magic, that same
spark possessed by those who had banished people like Jennsen.
"Tom," Richard said, "I want you to go with Owen."
Jennsen's arms came unfolded as she turned toward Richard. "Why do you
want him to go?" She suddenly sounded a lot less angry.
"That's right," Owen said. "Why should he go?"
"Because," Richard said, "I want to make sure that you and your men get
back here. I need the antidote, remember? The more men I have back here with
me who know where it is, the better. I want them safely away from the Order
for now. With blond hair and blue eyes, Tom will fit in with your people. If
you run into any soldiers from the Order they will think he's one of you.
Tom will make sure you all get back here."
"But it could be dangerous," Jennsen objected.
Richard fixed her in his challenging stare. He didn't say anything. He
simply waited to see if she would dare to attempt to justify her objections.
Finally, she broke eye contact and looked away.
"I guess it makes sense, though," she finally admitted.
Richard turned his attention back to Tom. "I want you to see if you can
bring back some supplies. And I'd like to use your hatchet while you're
gone, if that's all right."
Tom nodded and pulled his hatchet from his pack. As Richard stepped
closer to take the axe, he started ticking off a list of things he wanted
the man to look for--specific tools, yew wood, hide glue, packthread,
leather, and a list of other things Kahlan couldn't hear.
Tom hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "All right. I doubt I'll find it
all right off. Do you want me to search out what I can't find before I
return?"
"No. I need it all, but I need those men back here more. Get what's
readily available and then get back here with Owen and his men as soon as
possible."
"I'll get what I can. When do you want us to leave?"
"Now. We don't have a moment to lose."
"Now?" Owen sounded incredulous. "It will be dark in an hour or two."
"Those couple of hours may be hours I need," Richard said. "Don't waste
them."
Kahlan thought that he meant because of the poison, but he could have
had the gift in mind. She could see how much pain he was in because of the
headache caused by the gift. She ached to hold him, to comfort him, to make
him better, but she couldn't make it all just go away; they had to find the
solutions. She glanced at the small figure of Richard standing on the base
of the statue. Half of that figure was as dark as a night stone, as dark and
dead as the deepest part of the underworld itself.
Tom swung his pack up over his shoulder. "Take care of them for me,
will you, Cara?" he asked with a wink. She smiled her agreement. "I'll see
you all in a few days, then." He waved his farewell, his gaze lingering on
Jennsen, before shepherding Owen around the statue and toward the man's
homeland.
Cara folded her arms and leveled a look at Jennsen. "You're a fool if
you don't go kiss him a good journey."
Jennsen hesitated, her eyes turning toward Richard.
"I've learned not to argue with Cara," Richard said.
Jennsen smiled and ran over the ridge to catch Tom before he was gone.
Betty, at the end of a long rope, scampered to follow after.
Richard stuffed the small figure of himself into his pack before
picking up his bow from where it leaned against the statue. "We'd better get
down into the trees and set up a camp."
Richard, Kahlan, and Cara started down the rise toward the concealing
safety of the huge pines. They had been long enough out in the open, as far
as Kahlan was concerned. It was only a matter of time before the races came
in search of them--before Nicholas came looking for them.
As cold as it was up in the pass, Kahlan knew they didn't dare build a
fire; the races could spot the smoke and then find them. They needed instead
to build a snug shelter. Kahlan wished they could find a wayward pine to
protect and hide them for the night, but she had not seen any of those down
in the Old World and wishing wasn't going to grow one.
As she stepped carefully on dry patches of rock, avoiding the snow so
as not to leave tracks, she checked the dark clouds. It was always possible
that it might warm just a little and that the precipitation could turn to
rain. Even if it didn't, it still would be a miserably cold night.
Jennsen, Betty following behind, returned, catching up with them as
they zigzagged down through the steep notches of ledge. The wind was getting
colder, the snow a little heavier.
When they reached a flatter spot, Jennsen caught Richard's arm.
"Richard, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be angry with you. I know you didn't
banish those people. I know it's not your fault." She gathered up the slack
on Betty's rope, looping it into coils. "It just makes me angry that those
people were treated like that. I'm like them, and so it makes me angry."
"The way they were treated should make you angry," Richard said as he
started away, "but not because you share an attribute with them."
Taken aback by his words, even looking a little hurt, Jennsen didn't
move. "What do you mean?"
Richard paused and turned back to her. "That's how the Imperial Order
thinks. That's how Owen's people think. It's a belief in granting
disembodied prestige, or the mantle of guilt, to all those who share some
specific trait or attribute.
"The Imperial Order would like you to believe that your virtue, your
ultimate value, or even your wickedness, arises entirely from being born a
member of a given group, that free will itself is either impotent or
nonexistent. They want you to believe that all people are merely
interchangeable members of groups that share fixed, preordained
characteristics, and they are predestined to live through a collective
identity, the group will, unable to rise on individual merit because there
can be no such thing as independent, individual merit, only group merit.
"They believe that people can only rise above their station in life
when selected to be awarded recognition because their group is due an
indulgence, and so a representative, a stand-in for the group, must be
selected to be awarded the badge of self-worth. Only the reflected light off
this badge, they believe, can bring the radiance of self-worth to others of
their group.
"But those granted this badge live with the uneasy knowledge that it's
only an illusion of competence. It never brings any sincere self-respect
because you can't fool yourself. Ultimately, because it is counterfeit, the
sham of esteem granted because of a connection with a group can only be
propped up by force.
"This belittling of mankind, the Order's condemnation of everyone and
everything human, is their transcendent judgment of man's inadequacy.
"When you direct your anger at me for having a trait borne by someone
else, you pronounce me guilty for their crimes. That's what happens when
people say I'm a monster because our father was a monster. If you admire
someone simply because you believe their group is deserving, then you
embrace the same corrupt ethics.
"The Imperial Order says that no individual should have the right to
achieve something on his own, to accomplish what someone else cannot, and so
magic must be stripped from mankind. They say that accomplishment is corrupt
because it is rooted in the evil of self-interest, therefore the fruits of
that accomplishment are tainted by its evil. This is why they preach that
any gain must be sacrificed to those who have not earned it. They hold that
only through such sacrifice can those fruits be purified and made good.
"We believe, on the other hand, that your own individual life is the
value and its own end, and what you achieve is yours.
"Only you can achieve self-worth for yourself. Any group offering it to
you, or demanding it of you, comes bearing chains of slavery."
Jennsen stared at him for a long moment. A smile finally overcame her.
"That's why, then, I always wanted to be accepted for who I was, for myself,
and always thought it unfair to be persecuted because of how I was born?"
"That's why," Richard said. "If you want to be proud of yourself
because of what you accomplish, then don't allow yourself to be chained to
some group, and don't in turn chain other individuals to one. Let your
judgment of individuals be earned.
"This means I should not be hated because my father was evil, nor
should I be admired because my grandfather is good. I have the right to live
my own life, for my own benefit. You are Jennsen Rahl, and your life is what
you, alone, make of it."
They made the rest of the way down the hill in silence. Jennsen still
had a faraway look as she thought about what Richard had said.
When they reached the trees, Kahlan was relieved to get in under the
sheltering limbs of the ancient pines and even more so when they entered the
secluded protection of the lower, thicker balsam trees. They made their way
through dense thickets into the quiet solitude of the towering trees, and
farther down the slope, to a place where an outcropping of rock offered
protection from the elements. It would be easier to construct a shelter in
such a place by leaning boughs against it in order to make a relatively warm
shelter.
Richard used Tom's hatchet to cut some stout poles from young pines in
the understory which he placed against the rock wall. While he lashed the
poles together with wiry lengths of pine roots he pulled up from the mossy
ground, Kahlan, Jennsen, and Cara started collecting boughs to make dry
bedding and to cover over the shelter.
"Richard," Jennsen asked as she dragged a bundle of balsam close to the
shelter, "how do you think you are going to rid Bandakar of the Imperial
Order?"
Richard laid a heavy bough up high on the poles and tied it in place
with a length of the wiry pine root. "I don't know that I can. My primary
concern is to get to the antidote."
Jennsen looked a bit surprised. "But aren't you going to help those
people?"
He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "They poisoned me. No matter
how you dress it up, they're willing to murder me if I don't do as they
wish--if I don't do their dirty work for them. They think we're savages, and
they're above us. They don't think our lives are worth as much--because we
are not members of their group. My first responsibility is to my own life,
to getting that antidote."
"I see what you mean." Jennsen handed him another balsam bough. "But I
still think that if we eliminate the Order there, and this Nicholas, we'll
be helping ourselves."
Richard smiled. "I can agree with that, and we're going to do what we
can. But to truly help them, I need to convince Owen and his men that they
must help themselves."
Cara snorted a derisive laugh. "That will be a good trick, teaching the
lambs to become the wolves."
Kahlan agreed. She thought that convincing Owen and his men to defend
themselves would be more difficult than the five of them ridding Bandakar of
the Imperial Order by themselves. She wondered what Richard had in mind.
"Well," Jennsen said, "since we're all in this, all going to face the
Order up in Bandakar, don't you think that I have a right to know
everything? To know what you two are always making eyes at each other about
and whispering about?"
Richard stared at Jennsen a moment before he looked back at Kahlan.
Kahlan laid her bundle of branches down near the shelter. "I think
she's right."
Richard looked unhappy about it, but finally nodded and set down the
balsam bough he was holding. "Almost two years ago, Jagang managed to find a
way to use magic to start a plague. The plague itself was not magic; it was
just the plague. It swept through cities killing people by the tens of
thousands. Since the firestorm had been started with a spark of magic, I
found a way to stop the plague, using magic."
Kahlan did not believe that such a nightmare could be reduced to such a
simple statement and even begin to adequately convey the horror they had
gone through. But by the look on Jennsen's face, she at least grasped a
little bit of the terror that had gripped the land.
"In order for Richard to return from the place where he had to go to
stop the plague," Kahlan said, leaving out terrible portions of the story,
"he had to take the infection of plague. Had he not, he would have lived,
but lived alone for the rest of his life and died alone without ever seeing
me or anyone else again. He took the plague into himself so that he could
come back and tell me he loved me."
Jennsen stared, wide-eyed. "Didn't you know he loved you?"
Kahlan smiled a small bitter smile. "Don't you think your mother would
come back from the world of the dead to tell you she loves you, even though
you know she does?"
"Yes, I suppose she would. But why would you have to become infected
just to return? And return from where?"
"It was a place, called the Temple of the Winds, that was partially in
the underworld." Richard gestured up the pass. "Something like that boundary
was part of the world of the dead but was still here, in this world. You
might say that the Temple of the Winds was something like that. It was
hidden within the underworld. Because I had to cross a boundary of sorts,
through the underworld, the spirits set a price for me to return to the
world of life."
"Spirits? You saw spirits there?" Jennsen asked. When Richard nodded,
she asked, "Why would they set such a price?"
"The spirit who set the price of my return was Darken Rahl."
Jennsen's jaw dropped.
"When we found Lord Rahl," Cara said, "he was almost dead. The Mother
Confessor went on a dangerous journey through the sliph, all alone, to find
what would cure him. She succeeded in bringing it back, but Lord Rahl was
moments away from death."
"I used the magic I recovered," Kahlan said. "It was something that had
the power to reverse the plague that the magic had given him. The magic I
invoked to do this was the three chimes."
"Three chimes?" Jennsen asked. "What are they?"
"The chimes are underworld magic. Summoning their assistance keeps a
person from crossing over into the world of the dead.
"Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at the time I didn't know
anything else about the chimes. It turns out that they were created during
the great war to end magic. The chimes are beings of sorts, but without
souls. They come from the underworld. They annul magic in this world."
Jennsen looked confused. "But how can they accomplish such a thing?"
"I don't know how they work, exactly. But their presence in this world,
since they are part of the world of the dead, begins the destruction of
magic."
"Can't you get rid of the chimes? Can't you find a way to send them
back?"
"I already did that," Richard said. "But while they were here, in this
world, magic began to fail."
"Apparently," Kahlan said, "what I began that day when I called the
chimes into the world of life began a cascade of events that continues to
progress, even though the chimes have been sent back to the underworld."
"We don't know that," Richard said, more to Kahlan than to Jennsen.
"Richard is right," Kahlan told Jennsen, "we don't know it for sure,
but we have good reason to believe it's true. This boundary locking away
Bandakar failed. The timing would suggest that it failed not long after I
freed the chimes. One of those mistakes I told you about, before. Remember?"
Jennsen, staring at Kahlan, finally nodded. "But you didn't do it to
hurt people. You didn't know it would happen. You didn't know how this
boundary would fail, how the Order would go in there and abuse those
people."
"Doesn't really make any difference, does it? I did it. I caused it.
Because of me, magic may be failing. I accomplished what the Order is
working so hard to bring about. As a result of what I did, all those people
in Bandakar died, and others are now out in the world where they will once
again do as they did in ancient times--they will begin breeding the gift out
of mankind.
"We stand at the brink of the end times of magic, all because of me,
because of what I did."
Jennsen stood frozen. "And so you regret what you caused? That you may
have done something that will end magic?"
Kahlan felt Richard's arm around her waist. "I only know a world with
magic," she finally said. "I became the Mother Confessor--in part--to help
protect people with magic who are unable to protect themselves. I, too, am a
creature of magic--it's inextricably bound into me. I know profoundly
beautiful things of magic that I love; they are a part of the world of
life."
"So you fear you may have caused the end of what you love most."
"Not love most." Kahlan smiled. "I became the Mother Confessor because
I believe in laws that protect all people, give all individuals the right to
their own life. I would not want an artist's ability to sculpt to be
stopped, or a singer's voice to be silenced, or a person's mind to be
stilled. Nor do I want people's ability to achieve what they can with magic
to be stripped from them.
"Magic itself is not the central issue, not what this is about. I want
all the flowers, in all their variety, to have a chance to bloom. You are
beautiful, too, Jennsen. I would not choose to lose you, either. Each person
has a right to life. The idea that there must be a choice of one over
another is counter to what we believe."
Jennsen smiled at Kahlan's hand on her cheek. "Well, I guess that in a
world without magic, I could be queen."
On her way by with balsam boughs, Cara said, "Queens, too, must bow to
the Mother Confessor. Don't forget it."
Light flooded in as the lid of the box suddenly lifted. The rusty
hinges groaned in protest of every inch the lid rose. Zedd squinted at the
abrupt, blinding light of day. Beefy arms flipped the hinged lid back. If
there had been any slack in the chain around his neck, Zedd would have
jumped at the booming bang when the heavy cover flopped back, showering him
in dirt and rusty grit.
Between the bright light and the dust swirling through the air, Zedd
could hardly see. It didn't help, either, that the short chain around his
neck was bolted to the center of the floor of the box, leaving only enough
slack for him to be able to lift his head a few inches. With his arms bound
in iron behind his back, he could do little more than lie on the floor.
While Zedd was forced to lie there on his side, his neck near the iron
bolt, he at least could breathe in the sudden rush of cooler air. The heat
in the box had been sweltering. On a couple of occasions, when they had
stopped at night, they had given him a cup of water. It had not been nearly
enough. He and Adie had been fed precious little, but it was water he needed
more than food. Zedd felt like he might die of thirst. He could hardly think
of anything but water.
He had lost track of the number of days he had been chained to the
floor of the box, but he was somewhat surprised to find himself still alive.
The box had been bouncing around in the back of a wagon over the course of a
long, rough, but swift journey. He could only assume that he was being taken
to Emperor Jagang. He was also sure that he would be sorry if he was still
alive at the end of the journey.
There had been times, in the stifling heat of the box, when he had
expected that he would soon fade into unconsciousness and die. There were
times when he longed to die. He was sure that falling into such a fatal
sleep would be far preferable to what was in store for him. He had no
choice, though; the control the Sister exerted through the Rada'Han
prevented him from strangling himself to death with the chain, and it was
pretty hard, he had discovered, to will himself to die.
Zedd, his head still held to the floor of the box by the stub of chain,
tried to peer up, but he could see only sky. He heard another lid bang open.
He coughed as another cloud of dust drifted over him. When he heard Adie's
cough, he didn't know if he was relieved to know that she, too, was still
alive, or sorry that she was, knowing what she, like he, would have to
endure.
Zedd was, in a way, ready for the torture he knew he would be subjected
to. He was a wizard and had passed tests of pain. He feared such torture,
but he would endure it until it finally ended his life. In his weakened
condition, he expected that it wouldn't take all that long. In a way, such a
time under torture was like an old acquaintance come back to haunt him.
But he feared the torture of Adie far more than his own. He hated above
all else the torture of others. He hated to think of her coming under such
treatment.
The wagon shuddered as the front of the other box dropped open. A cry
escaped Adie's throat when a man struck her.
"Move, you stupid old woman, so I can get at the lock!"
Zedd could hear Adie's shoes scraping the wooden crate as, hands bound
behind her back, she tried to comply. By the sounds of fists on flesh, the
man wasn't happy with her efforts. Zedd closed his eyes, wishing he could
close his ears as well.
The front of Zedd's confining box crashed open, letting in more light
and dust. A shadow fell across him as a man approached. Because his face was
pinned to the floor by the chain, Zedd couldn't see the man.
A big hand reached in, fitting a key to the lock. Zedd kept his head
stretched as far away as possible to give the man all the room available to
let him do his work. Such effort earned Zedd a heavy punch in the side of
his head. The blow left his ears ringing.
The lock finally sprang open. The man's big fist seized Zedd by the
hair and dragged him, like a sack of grain, out of the box and toward the
rear of the wagon. Zedd pressed his lips together, to keep from crying out
as his bones bumped over protruding wooden runners in the wagon bed. At the
back edge of the wagon he was summarily dumped off the back to slam down
onto the ground.
Ears ringing, head spinning, Zedd tried to sit up when he was kicked,
knowing it was a command. He spat out dirt. With his hands tied behind his
back he was having difficulty complying. After three kicks, a big man
grabbed him by the hair and lifted him upright.
Zedd's heart sank to see that they sat among an army of astounding
size. The dark mass of humanity blighted the land as far as he could see.
So, it would seem, they had arrived.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adie sitting in the dirt beside
him, her head hanging. She had a livid bruise on her cheek. She didn't look
up when a shadow fell across her.
A woman in a long drab skirt moved in before them, distracting him from
his appraisal of the enemy forces. Zedd recognized the brown wool dress. It
was the Sister of the Dark who had put the collar around their necks. He
didn't know her name; she'd never offered it. In fact, she hadn't spoken to
them since they were chained in their boxes. She stood over them, now, like
the strict governess of incorrigible children.
The ring through her lower lip, marking her as a slave, in Zedd's mind
irrevocably tarnished her air of authority.
The ground was covered with horse manure, most, but not all, old and
dried. Out beyond the Sister, horses stood picketed seemingly without any
order among the soldiers. Horses that looked like they might belong to the
cavalry were well kept. Workhorses were not so healthy. Among the horses and
men, wagons and stacks of supplies dotted the late-day landscape.
The place had the foul stink of shallow latrines, horses, manure, and
the filthy smell of crowded human habitation failing to meet common sanitary
needs. Zedd blinked when acrid woodsmoke from one of the thousands of cook
fires drifted across him, burning his eyes.
The air was also thick with mosquitoes, gnats, and flies. The flies
were the worst. The mosquito bites would itch later, but the flies stung the
instant they bit, and with his arms bound behind his back, there wasn't much
he could do about it other than shake his head to try to keep them out of
his eyes and nose.
The two soldiers who had freed Zedd and Adie from their boxes stood
patiently to the sides. Beyond the woman's skirts a vast encampment spread
out as far as the eye could see. There were men everywhere, men engaged in
work, at rest, and at recreation. They were dressed in every variety of
clothing, from leather armor, chain mail, and studded belts to hides, dirty
tunics, and trousers in the process of rotting into rags. Most of the men
were unshaven, and all were as filthy as feral recluses living in mad
seclusion. The mass encampment generated a constant din of yells, whistles,
men hollering and laughing, the jangle and rattle of metal, the ring of
hammers or rhythm of saws, and, piercing through it all, the occasional cry
of someone in agonizing pain.
Tents by the thousands, tents of all sorts, like leaves after a big
wind, lay littering the gently rolling landscape at the foothills of
towering mountains to the east. Many a tent was decorated with loot; gingham
curtains hung at an entrance, a small chair or table sat before a tent, here
and there an item of women's personal clothing flew as a flag of conquest.
Wagons and horses and gear were all jammed together among the rabble in no
seeming plan. The ground had been churned to a fine dust by the masses in
this mock city devoid of skeletal order.
The place was a nightmare of humanity reduced to the savagery of a mob
on the loose, the scope of their goals no more than the impulse of the
moment. Though their leaders had ends, these men did not.
"His Excellency has requested you both," the Sister said down to them.
Neither Zedd nor Adie said anything. The men hauled them both to their
feet. A sharp shove started them moving behind the Sister after she marched
away. Zedd noticed, then, that there were more soldiers, close to a dozen,
escorting them.
The wagon had delivered them to the end of a road, of sorts, that ran a
winding course through the sprawling encampment. The end of the road, where
wagons sat in a row, appeared to be the entrance to an inner camp, probably
a command area. The regular soldiers outside a ring of heavily armed guards
ate, played dice, gambled, bartered loot, joked, talked, and drank as they
watched the prisoners being escorted.
The thought occurred to Zedd that if he called out, proclaiming that he
was the one who was responsible for the light spell that had killed or
wounded so many of their chums, maybe the men would riot, set upon them, and
kill them before Jagang had a chance to do his worst.
Zedd opened his mouth to try out his plan, but saw the Sister glance
back over her shoulder. He discovered that his voice was muted through her
control of the collar around his neck. There would be no speaking unless she
allowed it.
Following the Sister, they walked past the standing row of wagons in
front of the one that had brought them. There were well over a dozen freight
wagons all lined up before the cordoned-off area with the larger tents. None
of the wagons were empty, but all were loaded with crates.
With sinking realization, Zedd understood. These were wagons with goods
looted from the Wizard's Keep. These were all wagons that had made the
journey with them. They were all full of the things those ungifted men, at
the Sister's orders, had taken out of the Keep. Zedd feared to think what
priceless items of profound danger sat in these crates. There were things in
the Keep that became hazardous to anyone should they be removed from the
shields that guarded them. There were rare items that, if removed from their
protective environment, such as darkness, for even a brief time, would cease
to be viable.
Guards in layered hides, mail, leather, and armed with pikes set with
long steel points flanked by sharpened winged blades, huge crescent axes,
swords, and spiked maces prowled the restricted area. These grim soldiers
were bigger and more menacing-looking than the regular men out in the
camp--and those were fearsome enough. While the special guards patrolled,
ever watchful, the unconcerned regular soldiers just outside the perimeter
carried on with their business.
The guards led the Sister, Zedd, and Adie through an opening in a line
of spiked barricades. Beyond were the smaller of the special tents. Most
were round and the same size. Zedd thought that these were probably the
tents of the staff the emperor would keep close, his attendants and personal
slaves. Zedd wondered if the Sisters were all held within the emperor's
compound.
Up ahead, the palatial vision of the grand tents of an emperor and his
entourage rose up in the late-afternoon light. No doubt some of these
comfortable tents set about the center compound, within the ring of tents
for servants and attendants, were accommodations for high-ranking officers,
officials, and the emperor's most trusted advisors.
Zedd wished he had a light spell and the ability to ignite it. He could
probably decapitate the Imperial Order right then and there.
But he knew that such confusion and turmoil would only be a temporary
setback for the Imperial Order. They would provide another brute to enforce
their message. It would take more than killing Jagang to end the threat of
the Order. He wasn't even sure anymore just what it would take to free the
world of the oppression and tyranny of the Imperial Order.
Despite the seductively simplistic notions held by most people, the
Emperor Jagang was not the driving force of this invasion. The driving force
was a vicious ideology. To exist, it could not permit successful lives to be
lived in sight of the suffering masses produced as a result of the beliefs
and dictates of the Imperial Order. The freedom and resulting success of the
people living in the New World put the lie to all the Order preached. It was
blasphemy to succeed on your own; since the Order taught that it could not
be done, it could only be sinful. Sin had to be eliminated for the greater
good. Therefore, the freedom of the New World had to be crushed.
"These the ones?" a guard with short-cropped hair asked. The rings
hanging from his nose and ears reminded Zedd of a prized pig decorated for
the summer fair. Of course, prized pigs would have been washed and clean and
would have smelled better.
"Yes," the Sister said. "Both of them, as instructed."
With deliberate care the man's dark-eyed gaze took in Adie and then
Zedd. By his scowl, he apparently thought himself a righteous man who was
displeased with what he saw: evil. After noting the collars they both wore,
showing that they would be no danger to the emperor, he stepped aside and
lifted a thumb, directing them through a second barricade beyond the tents
of the attendants, servants, and slaves. The guard's glare followed the
sinners on their way to meet their proper fate.
Other men, from inside the inner compound, swept in to surround them.
Zedd saw that these men wore more orderly outfits. They were layered in
similar leather and mail, wearing heavy leather weapon belts, their chests
crisscrossed with studded straps. There was a uniformity to them, a
sameness, that showed these were special guards. The weapons hung on those
wide belts were better made, and they carried more of them. By the way they
moved, Zedd knew that these were not typical men rounded up to be soldiers,
but trained men with highly developed talents for warfare.
These were the emperor's elite bodyguards.
Zedd looked longingly at the nearly full water bucket set out for the
men standing guard in the heat. It wouldn't do, if you were an emperor, to
have your elite guards falling over from lack of water. Knowing what the
response was likely to be, Zedd didn't ask for a drink. A sidelong glance
showed Adie licking her cracked lips, but she, too, remained silent.
Up a slight rise sat by far the largest and grandest of the tents,
among the impressive but lesser quarters of the emperor's retinue. The
emperor's tent appeared more a traveling palace, actually, than a tent. It
boasted a tri-peaked roof pierced by high poles bearing colorful standards
and flags. Brightly embroidered panels adorned the exterior walls. Red and
yellow banners flapped lazily in the hot, late-day air. Tassels and
streamers all around it made it look like a central gathering tent at a
festival.
A guard flanking a doorway met Zedd's gaze before he lifted aside the
lambskin covered with shields of gold and hammered medallions of silver,
allowing them entrance. One of the other guards stiff-armed Zedd's shoulder,