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nearly knocking him sprawling. Zedd staggered through the doorway into the
dimly lit interior, Adie stumbling in after him.
Inside, the raucous noise of the encampment was muted by layers of rich
carpets placed haphazardly. Hundreds of silk and brocade pillows lined the
edge of the floor. Colorfully decorated hangings divided up the murky
interior space and covered the outer walls. Openings overhead, screened with
gauzy material, let in little light but did allow some air to move through
the quiet gloom of the grand tent. It was so dim, in fact, that lamps and
candles were needed.
In the middle of the room, toward the back, sat an ornate chair draped
with rich, red silks. If this was Emperor Jagang's throne, he was not in it.
While guards surrounded Zedd and Adie, keeping them restricted in
place, one of the men went off behind the fabric walls from where a glow of
light came. The guards standing close around Zedd stank of sweat. Their
shoes were caked with manure. For all the sumptuous surroundings doing their
best to simulate a reverent aura, a sacred setting, an abiding barnyard
stench permeated the place. The horse manure and human sweat of the men who
had entered the tent with Zedd and Adie were only making it worse.
The man who had gone behind the walls poked his head back out,
signaling the Sister forward. He whispered to her and then she, too,
disappeared behind the walls.
Zedd stole a look at Adie. Her completely white eyes stared ahead. He
shifted his weight as an excuse to lean toward her and stealthily touched
her shoulder with his, a message of comfort where there could be none. She
returned a slight push; message received, and appreciated. He longed to
embrace her, but knew he probably never would again.
Muffled words could be heard, but the heavy wall hangings muted them so
that Zedd couldn't understand any of it. Had he access to his gift, he would
have been able to hear it all, but the collar cut him off from his ability.
Even so, the nature of the Sister's report, the words, were short and
businesslike.
Those slaves working in the tent at brushing carpets, or polishing fine
vases, or waxing cabinets paid no attention to the people the guards had
brought in, but the sudden, low tone of menace that came from beyond the
wall caused them all to put markedly more attention into their work. While
no doubt prisoners were brought before the emperor often enough, Zedd was
sure that it would not be wise for those working in the grand tent to pay
any notice to the emperor's business.
From beyond the walls composed of woven scenes also came the warm smell
of food. The variety of scents Zedd was able to detect was astonishing. The
stink of the place, though, tended to make the fragrant aromas of meats,
olive oil, garlic, onions, and spices somewhat repugnant.
The Sister stepped out from behind the wall of colorful hangings. The
ring through her lower lip stood out in stark relief against her ashen skin.
She gave a slight nod to the men to either side of the prisoners.
Powerful fingers gripping their arms, Zedd and Adie were ushered toward
the opening and the glow of light beyond.
Dragged to an abrupt halt, Zedd, at last, stood shackled before the
intent glower of the dream walker himself, Emperor Jagang.
Enthroned in an ornately carved high-backed chair behind a grand dining
table, Jagang leaned on both elbows, a goose leg spanning his fingers as he
chewed. Points of candlelight reflecting off the sides of his shaved head
danced as the tendons all the way up through his temples rippled with his
chewing. A thin mustache, growing down from the corners of his mouth and at
the center under his lower lip, moved rhythmically in time with his jaw, as
did the fine chain connected to gold loops in his ear and nose. Greasy goose
fat covering his meaty, ringed fingers glistened in the candlelight and ran
down his bare arms.
From his place behind his table, Jagang casually studied his latest
captives.
Despite the candles set about the table and on stands to either side,
the inside of the tent had the murky feel of a dungeon.
To each side of him on the broad table sat plates of food, goblets,
bottles, candles, bowls, and, here and there, books and scrolls. There being
no room for all of the silver platters among the multitude, some of them had
to be strategically balanced atop small decorated pillars. There looked to
be enough food for a small army.
For all the Order's talk of sacrifice for the betterment of mankind
being their noble cause, Zedd knew that such abundance at the emperor's
table was meant to send a contradictory message, even when there was no one
but the emperor himself to see it.
Slaves stood lined up along the wall behind Jagang, some holding
additional platters, some in stiff poses, all awaiting command. Some of
those in back were young men--young wizards, from what Zedd had
heard--dressed in loose-fitting white trousers and nothing else. This was
where wizards in training at the Palace of the Prophets had ended up, along
with the captured Sisters who had been their teachers. All were now captives
of the dream walker. The most accomplished of men, men with enormous
potential, were used as houseboys to perform menial tasks. This, too, was a
message sent by the emperor of the Imperial Order to show everyone that the
best and the brightest were to be used to clean chamber pots, while brutes
ruled them.
The younger women, Sisters of both the Dark and the Light, Zedd
assumed, wore outfits that ran from neck to wrist to ankle, but were so
transparent that the women might as well have been naked. This, too, was
meant to show that Emperor Jagang thought little of these women's talents,
and valued them only for his pleasure. The older, less attractive women
standing off to the sides wore drab clothes. These were probably Sisters who
served the emperor in other menial ways.
Jagang delighted in having under his control, as slaves, some of the
most gifted people in the world. It suited the nature of the Order to demean
those with ability, rather than to celebrate them.
Jagang watched Zedd taking in the house slaves, but showed no emotion.
The dream walker's bull neck made him look almost other than human. The
muscles of his chest, as well as his massive shoulders, were displayed by an
open, sleeveless lamb's-wool vest. He was as powerful and brawny a man as
Zedd had seen, an intimidating presence even at rest.
As Zedd and Adie stood mute, Jagang's teeth tore off another chunk of
meat from the goose leg. In the tense silence, he watched them as he chewed,
as if deciding what he might do with his newest plunder.
More than anything, it was his inky black eyes, devoid of any pupils,
irises, or whites, that threatened to halt the blood in Zedd's veins. The
last time he had seen those eyes, Zedd had not been shackled, but that
ungifted girl had prevented Zedd from finishing the man. That was going to
turn out to be the missed opportunity that Zedd would most regret. His
chance to kill Jagang had slipped through his ringers that day, not because
of the vast power of all the skilled Sisters and troops arrayed against him,
but all because of a single ungifted girl.
Those black eyes, the eyes of a mature dream walker, glistened in the
candlelight. Across their dark voids, dim shapes shifted, like clouds on a
moonless night.
The directness of the dream walker's gaze was as obvious as was Adie's
when she looked at Zedd with her pure white eyes. Under Ja-gang's direct
glare, Zedd had to remind himself to relax his muscles, and remember to
breathe.
The thing about those eyes that most terrified him, though, was what he
saw in them: a keen, calculating mind. Zedd had fought against Jagang long
enough to have come to understand that one underestimated this man at great
peril.
"Jagang the Just," the Sister said, holding an introductory hand out to
the nightmare before them. "Excellency, this is Zeddicus Zu'l Zo-rander,
First Wizard, and a sorceress by the name of Adie."
"I know who they are," Jagang said in a deep voice as heavy with threat
as with distaste.
He leaned back, hanging one arm over the back of the chair and one leg
over a carved arm. He gestured with the goose leg.
"Richard Rani's grandfather, as I hear told."
Zedd said nothing.
Jagang tossed the partially eaten leg on a platter and picked up a
knife. With one hand he sawed a chunk of red meat off a roast and stabbed
it. Elbow on the table, he waved the knife as he spoke. Red juice ran down
the blade.
"Probably not the way you had hoped to meet me."
He laughed at his own joke, a deep, resonating sound alive with menace.
With his teeth, Jagang drew the chunk of meat off the knife and chewed
as he watched them, as if unable to decide on a wealth of delightfully
terrible options parading through his thoughts.
He washed the meat down with a gulp from a jeweled silver goblet, his
gaze never leaving them. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that you have
come to visit me."
His grin was like death itself. "Alive."
He rolled his wrist, circling the knife. "We have a lot to talk about."
His laugh died out, but the grin remained. "Well, you do, anyway. I'll be a
good host and listen."
Zedd and Adie remained silent as Jagang's black-eyed gaze went from one
to the other.
"Not so talkative, just yet? Well, no matter. You will be babbling soon
enough."
Zedd didn't waste the effort telling Jagang that torture would gain him
nothing. Jagang would not believe any such boast, and even if he did, it
would hardly stay his wish to see it done.
Jagang fingered a few grapes from a bowl. "You are a resourceful man,
Wizard Zorander." He popped several grapes in his mouth and chewed as he
spoke. "All alone there in Aydindril, with an army surrounding you, you
managed to gull me into thinking I had trapped Richard Rahl and the Mother
Confessor. Quite a trick. I must give you credit where credit is due.
"And the light spell you ignited among my men, that was remarkable." He
put another grape in his mouth. "Do you have any idea how many hundreds of
thousands of them were caught up in your wizardry?"
Zedd could see the corded muscles in the man's hairy arm draped over
the back of the chair stand out as he flexed the fist. He relaxed the hand
then and leaned forward, using his thumb to gouge out a long chunk of ham.
He waved the meat as he went on. "It's that kind of magic I need you to
do for me, good wizard. I understand, from the stupid bitches I have who
call themselves the Sisters of the Light, or the Sisters of the Dark,
depending on who they've decided can offer better favors in the afterlife,
that you probably didn't conjure that little bit of magic on your own, but,
rather, you used a constructed spell from the Wizard's Keep and simply
ignited it among my men with some kind of trick, or trigger--probably some
small curiosity that one of them picked up and in the act of having a look,
they set it off."
Zedd was somewhat alarmed that Jagang had been able to learn so much.
The emperor took a big bite off the end of the piece of ham as he watched
them. His indulgent look was beginning to wear thin.
"So, since you can't do such marvelous magic yourself, I've had a few
items brought from the Keep so you can tell me how they work, what they do.
I'm sure there must be a great number of intriguing items among the
inventory. I'd like to have some of those conjured spells so they can blow
open a few of the passes into D'Hara for us. It would save me some time and
trouble. I'm sure you can understand my eagerness to be into D'Hara and have
this petty resistance finally over with."
Zedd heaved a deep breath and finally spoke. "For most of those items,
you could torture me to the end of time and I still wouldn't be able to tell
you anything because I don't have any knowledge of them. Unlike you, I know
my own limits. I simply don't know what such a spell might look like. Even
if I did, that doesn't mean I would know how to work it. I was simply lucky
with that one I used."
"Maybe, maybe, but you do know about some of the items. You are, after
all, as I hear told, First Wizard; it is your Keep. To claim ignorance of
the things in it is hardly credible. Despite your claim of luck, you managed
to know enough about that constructed light web to ignite it among my men,
so you obviously have knowledge about the most powerful of the items."
"You don't know the first thing about magic," Zedd snapped. "You have a
head full of grand ideas and you think all you have to do is command they be
done. Well, they can't. You're a fool who doesn't know the first thing about
real magic or its limits."
An eyebrow lifted over one of Jagang's inky eyes. "Oh, I think I know
more than you might think, wizard. You see, I love to read, and I, well, I
have the advantage of perusing some of the most remarkably gifted minds you
can imagine. I probably know a great deal more about magic than you give me
credit for."
"I give you credit for bold self-delusion."
"Self-delusion?" He spread his arms. "Can you create a Slide, Wizard
Zorander?"
Zedd froze. Jagang had heard the name; that was all. The man liked to
read. He'd read that name somewhere.
"Of course not, and neither can anyone else alive today."
"You can't create such a being, Wizard Zorander. But you have no idea
how much I know about magic. You see, I've learned to bring lost talents
back to life--arts that have long been believed to be dead and vanished."
"I give you the grandiosity of your dreaming, Jagang, but dreaming is
easy. Your dreams can't be made real just because you dream them and decide
that you wish them to come alive."
"Sister Tahirah, here, knows the truth of it." Jagang gestured with his
knife. "Tell him, darlin. Tell him what I can dream and what I can bring to
life."
The woman hesitantly stepped forward several paces. "It is as His
Excellency says." She looked away from Zedd's frown to fuss with her wiry
gray hair. "With His Excellency's brilliant direction, we were able to bring
back some of the old knowledge. With the expert guidance of our emperor, we
were able to invest in a wizard named Nicholas an ability not seen in the
world for three thousand years. It is one of His Excellency's greatest
achievements. I can personally assure you that it is as His Excellency says;
a Slide again walks the world. It is no fancy, Wizard Zorander, but the
truth.
"The spirits help me," she added under her breath, "I was there to see
the Slide born into the world."
"You created a Slide?" Fists still bound behind his back, Zedd took an
angry stride toward the Sister. "Are you out of your mind, woman!" She
retreated to the back wall. Zedd turned his fury on Jagang. "Slides were a
catastrophe! They can't be controlled! You would have to be crazy to create
one!"
Jagang smiled. "Jealous, wizard? Jealous that you are unable to
accomplish such a thing, can't create such a weapon against me, while I can
create one to take Richard Rahl and his wife from you?"
"A Slide has powers you couldn't possibly control."
"A Slide is no danger to a dream walker. My ability is quicker than
his. I am his better."
"It doesn't matter how quick you are--it isn't about being quick! A
Slide can't be controlled and he isn't going to do what you want!"
"I seem to be controlling him just fine." Jagang leaned in on an elbow.
"You think magic is necessary to control those you would master, but I don't
need magic. Not with Nicholas nor with mankind.
"You seem to be obsessed with control, I am not. I managed to find a
people those like you didn't want to walk freely among their fellow man, a
people cast out by the gifted, a people reviled for not having any spark of
your precious gift of magic--a people hated and banished because your kind
wasn't able to control them. That was their crime: being outside the control
of your magic."
Jagang's fist slammed the table. The slaves all jumped with the
platters.
"This is how your kind wants mankind's future to be; your kind wants
only those with a spark of the gift to be allowed to walk free. This, so you
can use your gift to control them! Like that collar around your neck, your
lust is to collar all of mankind with magic.
"I found those outcast ungifted people and have brought them back into
the fold of their fellow man. Much to your disapproval and the loathing of
your kind, they can't be touched by your vile magic."
Zedd couldn't imagine where Jagang had found such people. "And so now
you have a Slide to control them for you."
"Your kind condemned and banished them; we have welcomed them among us.
In fact, we wish to model man himself after them. Our cause is theirs by
their very nature--purity of mankind without any taint of magic. In this way
the world will be one and at last at peace.
"I have the advantage over you, wizard; I have right on my side. I
don't need magic to win; you do. I have mankind's best future in mind and
have set our irreversible course.
"With the help of these people, I took your Keep. With their help, I
have recovered invaluable treasures from within. You couldn't do a thing to
stop them, now could you? Man will now set his own course, without the curse
of magic darkening his struggle.
"I now have a Slide to help us to that noble end. He is working with
those people for the benefit of our cause. In doing so, Nicholas has already
proved invaluable.
"What's more, that Slide, which your kind could never control, has
vowed to deliver to me the two I want most: your grandson and his wife. I
have great things planned for them--well, for her, anyway." His red-faced
rage melted into a grin. "For him, not so great things."
Zedd could hardly contain his own rage. Were it not for the collar
stifling his gift, he would have reduced the entire place to ash by now.
"Once this Nicholas becomes adept at what he can do, you will find that
he will want revenge of his own, and a price you may find far too high."
Jagang spread his arms. "There, you are wrong, wizard. I can afford
whatever Nicholas wants for Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor. There is no
such thing as a price too high.
"You may think me greedy and selfish, but you would be wrong. While I
enjoy the spoils, I most relish the role I play in bringing heathens to
heel. It is the end that truly concerns me, and in the end I will have
mankind bow as they should to our just cause and the Creator's ways."
Jagang seemed to have spent his flash of intensity. He leaned back and
scooped walnuts from a silver bowl.
"Zedd be wrong," Adie finally spoke up. "You have shown us that you
know what you be doing. You will be able to control your Slide just fine.
May I suggest you keep him close, to aid you in your efforts."
Jagang smiled at her. "You, too, my dried-up old sorceress, will be
telling me all you know about what is in those crates."
"Bah," Adie scoffed. "You be a fool with worthless treasures. I hope
you pull a muscle carrying them with you everywhere."
"Adie's right," Zedd put in. "You are an incompetent oaf who is only
going to--"
"Oh, come, come, you two. Do you think you will throw me into a fit of
rage and I'll slaughter the both of you on the spot?" His wicked grin
returned. "Spare you the proper justice of what is to come?"
Zedd and Adie fell silent.
"When I was a boy," Jagang said in a quieter tone as he stared off into
the distance, "I was nothing. A street tough in Altur'Rang. A bully. A
thief. My life was empty. My future was the next meal.
"One day, I saw a man coming down the street. He looked like he might
have some money and I wanted it. It was getting dark. I came up silently
behind him, intending to bash in his head, but just then he turned and
looked me in the eye.
"His smile stopped me in my tracks. It wasn't a kindly smile, or a weak
smile, but the kind of smile a man gives you when he knows he can kill you
where you stand if it pleases him.
"He pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it to me, and then,
without a word, turned and went on his way.
"A few weeks later, in the middle of the night, I woke up in an alley,
where I slept under old blankets and crates, and I saw a shadowy form out by
the street. I knew it was him before he flipped me the coin and moved off
into the darkness.
"The next time I saw him, he was sitting on a stone bench at the edge
of an old square that some of the less fortunate men of Altur'Rang
frequented. Like me, no one would give these men a chance in life. People's
greed had sucked the life out of these men. I used to go there to look at
them, to tell myself I didn't want to grow up to be like them, but I knew I
would, a nobody, human refuse waiting to pass into the shadow of oblivion in
the afterlife. A soul without worth.
"I sat down on the bench beside the man and asked him why he'd given me
money. Instead of giving me some answer that most people would give a boy,
he told me about mankind's grand purpose, the meaning of life, and how we
are here only as a brief stop on the way to what the Creator has in store
for us--if we are strong enough to rise to the challenge.
"I'd never heard such a thing. I told him that I didn't think that such
things mattered in my life because I was only a thief. He said that I was
only striking back from the injustice of my lot in life. He said that
mankind was evil for making me the way I was and only through sacrifice and
helping those like me could man hope to be redeemed in the afterlife. He
opened my mind to man's sinful ways.
"Before he left, he turned back and asked me if I knew how long
eternity was. I said no. He said that our miserable time in this world was
but a blink before we entered the next world. That really made me think, for
the first time, about our greater purpose.
"Over the next months, Brother Narev took the time to talk to me, to
tell me about Creation and eternity. He gave me a vision of a possible
better future where before I had none. He taught me about sacrifice and
redemption. I thought I was doomed to an eternity of darkness until he
showed me the light.
"He took me in, in return for helping him with life's chores.
"For me, Brother Narev was a teacher, a priest, an advisor, a means to
salvation"--Jagang's gaze rose to Zedd--"and a grandfather, all rolled into
one.
"He gave me the fire of what mankind can and should be. He showed me
the true sin of selfish greed and the dark void of where it would lead
mankind. Over time, he made me the fist of his vision. He was the soul; I
was the bone and muscle.
"Brother Narev allowed me the honor of igniting the revolution. He
placed me at the fore of the rise of mankind over the oppression of
sinfulness. We are the new hope for the future of man, and Brother Narev
himself allowed me to be the one to carry his vision in the cleansing flames
of mankind's redemption."
Jagang leaned back in his chair, fixing Zedd with as grim a look as
Zedd had ever seen.
"And then this spring, while carrying Brother Narev's noble challenge
to mankind, to those who had never had a chance to see the vision of what
man can be, of the future without the blight of magic and oppression and
greed and groveling to be better than others, I came to Aydindril... and
what do I find?
"Brother Narev's head on a pike, with a note, 'Compliments of Richard
Rahl.'
"The man I admired most in the world, the man who brought to us all the
hallowed dream of mankind's true purpose in this life as charged by the
Creator himself, was dead, his head stuck on a pike by your grandson.
"If ever there was a greater blasphemy, a greater crime against the
whole of mankind, I don't know of it."
Sullen shapes shifted across Jagang's black eyes. "Richard Rahl will be
dealt justice. He will suffer such a blow, before I send him to the Keeper.
I just wanted you to know your fate, old man. Your grandson will know
something of that kind of pain, and the additional torment of knowing that I
have his bride and will make her pay dearly for her own crimes." A ghost of
the grin returned. "After he has paid this price, then I will kill him."
Zedd yawned. "Nice story. You left out all the parts where you
slaughter innocent people by the tens of thousands because they don't want
to live under your vile rule or Narev's sick, twisted vision.
"On second thought, don't bother with the sorry excuses. Just cut off
my head, put it on a pike, and be done with it."
Jagang's smile returned in its full glory. "Not as easily as that, old
man. First you have some talking to do."
Ah, yes," Zedd said. "The torture. I almost forgot."
"Torture?"
With two fingers Jagang signaled a woman to the side. The older Sister
standing wringing her hands flinched at seeing his gaze on her and
immediately rushed off behind a curtain of wall hangings. Zedd could hear
her whispering urgent instructions to people beyond, and then the thump of
feet rushing across the carpets and out of the tent.
Jagang went back to his leisurely meal while Zedd and Adie stood before
him, starving, dying of thirst. The dream walker finally set his knife
across a plate. Seeing this, the slaves sprang into action, clearing away
the variety of dishes, most having been tasted, but that hardly made a dent
in them. In a matter of moments the entire table was emptied of the food and
drink, leaving only the books, the scrolls, the candles, and the silver bowl
of walnuts.
Sister Tahirah, the Sister who had captured Zedd and Adie at the Keep,
stood to the side, her hands clasped before her as she watched them. Despite
her obvious fear of Jagang, and her servile fawning over the man, the
knowing smirk at Zedd and Adie betrayed the pleasure she was deriving from
what was to come.
When half a dozen grisly men entered the room and stood off to the
side, Zedd began to understand what it was that pleased Sister Tahirah.
They were unkempt, brawny, and as merciless-looking as any men Zedd had
ever seen. Their hair was wildly tangled and greasy. Their hands and
forearms were spattered with sooty smears, their fingernails ragged and
foul. Their filthy clothes were stained dark with dried blood from the labor
of their profession.
These men worked at torture.
Zedd looked away from the Sister's steady gaze. She hoped to see fear,
panic, or perhaps sobbing.
Then a group of men and women were ushered into the dim room in the
emperor's tent. They looked to be farmers or humble working folk, probably
picked up by patrols. The men embraced their wives as children huddled
around the women's skirts like chicks around hens. The people were herded
over to the side of the room, opposite the line of torturers.
Zedd's eyes suddenly turned to Jagang. The dream walker's black eyes
were watching him as he chewed a walnut.
"Emperor," said the Sister who had brought the families in, "these are
some of the local people, people from the countryside, as you requested."
She held an introductory hand out. "Good people, this is our revered
emperor, Jagang the Just. He brings the light of the Imperial Order to the
world, guided by the Creator's wisdom, that we might all lead better lives
and find salvation with the Creator in the afterlife."
Jagang surveyed the cluster of Midlanders as they awkwardly bowed and
curtsied.
Zedd felt sick at seeing the timid terror on their faces. They would
have had to walk through the encampment of Order soldiers. They would have
seen the size of the force that had overrun their homeland.
Jagang lifted his arm toward Zedd. "Perhaps you know this man? This is
First Wizard Zorander. He is one who has ruled you with his command of
magic. As you can see, he is now shackled before us. We have freed you from
the wicked rule of this man and those like him."
The people's eyes darted between Zedd and Jagang, unsure of their role
in the emperor's tent, or what they were supposed to do. They finally bobbed
their heads, mumbling their thanks for their liberation.
"The gifted, like these two, could have used their ability to help
mankind. Instead, they used it for themselves. Where they should have
sacrificed for those in need, they were selfish. It is criminal to behave as
they have, live as they have, with all they have. It makes me angry to think
of all they could do for those in need, those like you poor people, were it
not for their selfish ways. People suffer and die without the help they
could have had, without the help these people could have given, were they
not so self-centered.
"This wizard and his sorceress are here because they have refused to
help us free the rest of the people of the New World by telling us the
function of the vile things of magic we have captured along with
them--things of magic they scheme to use to slaughter untold numbers of
people. This selfish wizard and sorceress do this out of spite that they
could not have their way."
All the wide eyes turned to Zedd and Adie.
"I could tell you people of the vast numbers of deaths this man is
responsible for, but I fear you would be unable to fathom it. I can tell you
that I simply cannot allow this man to be responsible for tens of thousands
more deaths."
Jagang smiled at the children then and gestured with both hands, urging
them to come to him. The children, a dozen or so, from six or seven to maybe
twelve, clung to their parents. Jagang's gaze rose to those parents as he
again motioned the children to come to him. The parents understood and
reluctantly urged their children to do as the emperor bid of them.
The clump of innocence haltingly approached Jagang's outstretched arms
and wide grin. He embraced them woodenly as they shuffled in close around
him. He tousled the blond hair of a boy, and then the straight sandy hair of
a girl. Several of the younger ones peered pleadingly back at parents before
cringing at Jagang's meaty hand on their backs, his jovial pat on their
cheek.
Silent terror hung thick in the air.
It was as frightening a sight as Zedd had ever witnessed.
"Well, now," the smiling emperor said, "let me get to the reason I have
called upon you people."
His powerful arms gathered the children before him. As a Sister blocked
a boy wanting to return to his parents, Jagang put his huge hands on a young
girl's waist and set her upon his knee. The girl's wide eyes stared up at
the smiling face, the bald head, but mostly at the nightmare void of the
dream walker's inky eyes.
Jagang looked from the girl back to the parents. "You see, the wizard
and sorceress have refused to offer their help. In order to save a great
many lives, I must have their cooperation. They must answer honestly all my
questions. They refuse. I'm hoping you good people can convince them to tell
us what we need to know in order to save the lives of a great many people,
and free a great many more from the oppression of their magic."
Jagang looked toward the row of men standing silently against the
opposite wall. With a single tilt of his head, he commanded them forward.
"What are you doing?" a woman asked, even as her husband tried to
restrain her. "What do you intend?"
"What I intend," Jagang told the crowd of parents, "is for you good
people to convince the wizard and the sorceress to talk. I'm going to put
you in a tent alone with them so that you can persuade them to do their duty
to mankind--persuade them to cooperate with us."
As the men began seizing the children, they finally burst out in
frightened crying. The parents, seeing their red-faced children bawling in
terror, cried out themselves and rushed forward to retrieve them. The big
men, each holding one or two little arms in a fist, shoved the parents back.
The parents fell to hysterical screaming for the children to be freed.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," Jagang said over the wails of the
children. He tilted his head again and the men started carting the twisting,
screaming children out of the tent. The parents were wailing as well, trying
to reach in past big filthy arms to touch what was to them most precious in
the world.
The parents were bewildered and horrified, fearing to cross a line that
would bring wrath down on their children, yet not wanting them to be carted
away. Against their urgent pleading, the children were swiftly whisked away.
As the children were taken out, the Sisters immediately blocked the
doorway behind them, keeping the parents from following. The tent fell to
pandemonium.
With the single word "silence" from Jagang, and his fist on the table,
everyone fell silent.
"Now," Jagang said, "these two prisoners are going to be confined to a
tent. All of you are going to be in there, alone, with them. There will be
no guards, no watchers."
"But what about our children?" a woman in tears begged, caring nothing
about Zedd and Adie.
Jagang pulled a squat candle toward him on the table. "This will be the
tent with these two, and you good people." He circled a finger around the
candle. "All around this tent with you and the criminals, there will be
other tents close."
Everyone stared at his ringed finger going round and round the candle.
"Your children will be close by, in these tents." Jagang scooped up a
handful of walnuts from the silver bowl. He dribbled some onto the table
around the candle and put the rest into his mouth.
The room was silent as they all stared at him, watching him chew the
walnuts, afraid to ask a question, afraid to hear what he might say next.
Finally a woman could no longer hold her tongue. "Why will they be
there, in those tents?"
Jagang's black eyes took them all in before he spoke, making sure none
would miss what he had to tell them.
"Those men who took your children to those tents will be torturing
them."
The parents' eyes widened. Blood drained from their faces. One woman
fainted. Several others bent to her. Sister Tahirah squatted beside the
woman and touched a hand to the woman's forehead. The woman's eyes popped
open. The Sister told the women to get her to her feet.
When Jagang was satisfied that he had everyone's attention, he circled
a finger around the candle again, over the walnuts around it. "The tents
will be close around so you can all clearly hear your children being
tortured, to be sure that you understand that they will not be spared the
worst those men can do."
The parents stood frozen, staring, seemingly unable to believe the
reality of what they were hearing.
"Every few hours, I will come to see if you good people have convinced
the wizard and the sorceress to tell us what we need to know. If you have
not succeeded, then I will go off to other business and when I have the time
I will return again to check if these two have decided to talk.
"Just be sure that this wizard and sorceress do not die while you
convince them to be reasonable. If they die, then they can't answer our
questions. Only when and if they answer questions will the children be
released."
Jagang turned his nightmare eyes on Zedd. "My men have a great deal of
experience at torturing people. When you hear the screams coming from the
tents all around, you will have no doubt as to their skill, or their
determination. I think you should know that they can keep their guests alive
under torture for days, but they cannot work miracles. People, especially
such young, tender souls, cannot survive indefinitely. But, should these
children die before you agree to cooperate, there are plenty more families
with children who can take their place."
Zedd could not halt the tears that ran down his face to drip off his
chin as Sister Tahirah took his arm and pulled him toward the doorway. The
crowd of parents fell on him, clawing at his clothes, screaming and crying
for him to do as the emperor asked.
Zedd dug in his heels and struggled to a stop before the table.
Desperate hands clutched at his robes. As he looked around at their
tear-stained faces, meeting the eyes of each, they fell silent.
"I hope you people can now understand the nature of what it is we are
fighting. I am so sorry, but I cannot dull the pain of this darkest hour of
your lives. If I were to do as this man wants, countless more children would
be subjected to this tyrant's brutality. I know that you will not be able to
weigh this against the precious lives of your children, but I must. Pray the
good spirits take them quickly, and take them to a place of eternal peace."
Zedd could not say more to them, to their desperate gazes. He turned
his watery eyes to Jagang. "This will not work, Jagang. I know you will do
it anyway, but it will not work."
Behind the heavy table, Jagang slowly rose. "Children in this land of
yours are plentiful. How many are you prepared to sacrifice before you allow
mankind to be free? How long are you willing to persist in your stubborn
refusal to allow them to have a future free from suffering, want, and your
uninspired morals?"
The heavy gold and silver chains around his neck, the looted medallions
and ornaments resting against his muscled chest, and the rings of kings on
his fingers all sparkled in the candlelight.
Zedd felt the numb weight of a hopeless future under the yoke of the
monstrous ideals of this man and his ilk.
"You cannot win in this, wizard. Like all those who fight on your side
to oppress mankind, to allow the common people to be left to cruel fate, you
are not even willing to sacrifice for the sake of the lives of children. You
are brave with words, but you have a cold soul and a weak heart. You don't
have the will to do what must be done to prevail. I do."
Jagang tilted his head and the Sister shoved Zedd toward the door. The
screaming, crying, begging crowd of people closed in around Zedd and Adie,
clawing and pawing at them in wild desperation.
In the distance, Zedd could hear the horrifying screams of their
terrified children
They aren't far," Richard said as he stepped back in among the trees.
He stood silently watching as Kahlan straightened the shoulders of her
dress.
The dress showed no ill effects from its long confinement in their
packs. The almost white, satiny smooth fabric glistened in the eerie light
of the churning overcast. The flowing lines of the dress, cut square at the
neck, bore no lace or frills, nothing to distract from its simple elegance.
The sight of Kahlan in that dress still took his breath away.
She looked out through the trees when they heard Cara's whistle. The
warning signal Richard had taught Cara was the plaintive, high, clear
whistle of a common wood pewee, although Cara didn't know that's what it
was. When he'd first told Cara that he wanted to teach her a pewee birdcall
as a warning signal, she said she wasn't going to learn the call of any bird
named a pewee. Richard gave in and told her that he would instead teach her
the call of the small, fierce, short-tailed pine hawk, but only if she would
be willing to work hard at getting it right, since it was more difficult.
Satisfied to have her way, Cara had agreed and readily learned the simple
whistle. She was good at it and used it often as a signal. Richard never
told her that there was no such thing as a short-tailed pine hawk, or that
hawks didn't make whistles like that.
Out through the screen of branches, the dark form of the statue stood
guard over an area of the pass that for thousands of years had been
deserted. Richard wondered again why the people back then would have put
such a statue in a pass no one was likely to ever again visit. He thought
about the ancient society that had placed it, and at what they must have
thought, sealing people away for the crime of not having a spark of the
gift.
Richard brushed pine needles off the back of the sleeve of Kahlan's
dress. "Here, hold still; let me look at you."
Kahlan turned back, arms at her sides, as he smoothed the fabric at her
upper arms. Her unafraid green eyes, beneath eyebrows that had the graceful
arch of a raptor's wings in flight, met his gaze. Her features seemed to
have only grown more exquisite since he had first met her. Her look, her
pose, the way she gazed at him as if she could see into his soul, struck a
chord in him. Clearly evident in her eyes was the intelligence that had from
the first so captivated him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Despite everything, he couldn't hold back his smile. "Standing there
like that, in that dress, your long hair so beautiful, the green of the
trees behind you... it just suddenly reminded me of the first time I saw
you."
Her special smile, the smile she gave no one but him, spread radiantly
through her bewitching eyes. She put her wrists on his shoulders and locked
her fingers behind his neck, pulling him into a kiss.
As it always did, her kiss so completely consumed him with his need of
her that he momentarily lost track of the world. She melted into his
embrace. For that moment there was no Imperial Order, no Bandakar, no
D'Haran Empire, no Sword of Truth, no chimes, no gift turning its power
against him, no poison, no warning beacons, no black-tipped races, no
Jagang, no Nicholas, no Sisters of the Dark. Her kiss made him forget
everything but her. In that moment there was nothing but the two of them.
Kahlan made his life complete; her kiss reaffirmed that bond.
She pulled back, gazing up into his eyes again. "Seems like you've had
nothing but trouble ever since that day you found me."
Richard smiled. "My life is what I've had since that day I found you.
When I found you, I found my life."
Holding her face in both hands, he kissed her again.
Betty nudged his leg and bleated.
"You two about ready?" Jennsen called down the hill. "They'll be here,
soon. Didn't you hear Cara's whistle?"
"We heard," Kahlan called up to Jennsen. "We'll be right there."
Turning back, she smiled as she looked him up and down. "Well, Lord
Rahl, you certainly don't look the way you did the first time I saw you."
She straightened the tooled leather baldric lying over the black tunic
banded in gold. "But you look exactly the same, too. Your eyes are the same
as I saw that day." She cocked her head as she smiled up at him. "I don't
see the headache of the gift in your eyes."
"It's been gone for a while, but after that kiss, it would be
impossible to have a headache."
"Well, if it comes back," she said with intimate promise, "just tell me
and I'll see what I can do to make it go away."
Richard ran his fingers through her hair and gazed one last time into
her eyes before slipping his arm around her waist. Together they walked
through the cathedral of trees that was their cover off to the side near the
crown of the ridge, and out toward the open slope. Between the trunks of the
pines, he could see Jennsen running down the hill, leaping from rock to
rock, avoiding the patches of snow. She rushed in to meet them just within
the small cluster of trees.
"I spotted them," she said, breathlessly. "I could see them down in the
gorge on the far side. They'll be up here soon." A grin brightened her face.
"I saw Tom leading them."
Jennsen took in the sight of both of them, then--Kahlan in the white
dress of the Mother Confessor and Richard in the outfit he had in part found
in the Keep that had once been worn by war wizards. By the surprise on
Jennsen's face, he thought she might curtsy.
"Wow," she said. "That sure is some dress." She looked Richard up and
down again. "You two look like you should rule the world."
"Well," Richard said, "let's hope Owen's people think so."
Cara pushed a spruce bough aside as she ducked in under the limbs of
trees. Dressed again in her skintight red leather outfit, she looked as
intimidating as she had the first time Richard had seen her in the grand
halls of the People's Palace in D'Hara.
"Lord Rahl once confided in me that he intended to rule the world,"
dimly lit interior, Adie stumbling in after him.
Inside, the raucous noise of the encampment was muted by layers of rich
carpets placed haphazardly. Hundreds of silk and brocade pillows lined the
edge of the floor. Colorfully decorated hangings divided up the murky
interior space and covered the outer walls. Openings overhead, screened with
gauzy material, let in little light but did allow some air to move through
the quiet gloom of the grand tent. It was so dim, in fact, that lamps and
candles were needed.
In the middle of the room, toward the back, sat an ornate chair draped
with rich, red silks. If this was Emperor Jagang's throne, he was not in it.
While guards surrounded Zedd and Adie, keeping them restricted in
place, one of the men went off behind the fabric walls from where a glow of
light came. The guards standing close around Zedd stank of sweat. Their
shoes were caked with manure. For all the sumptuous surroundings doing their
best to simulate a reverent aura, a sacred setting, an abiding barnyard
stench permeated the place. The horse manure and human sweat of the men who
had entered the tent with Zedd and Adie were only making it worse.
The man who had gone behind the walls poked his head back out,
signaling the Sister forward. He whispered to her and then she, too,
disappeared behind the walls.
Zedd stole a look at Adie. Her completely white eyes stared ahead. He
shifted his weight as an excuse to lean toward her and stealthily touched
her shoulder with his, a message of comfort where there could be none. She
returned a slight push; message received, and appreciated. He longed to
embrace her, but knew he probably never would again.
Muffled words could be heard, but the heavy wall hangings muted them so
that Zedd couldn't understand any of it. Had he access to his gift, he would
have been able to hear it all, but the collar cut him off from his ability.
Even so, the nature of the Sister's report, the words, were short and
businesslike.
Those slaves working in the tent at brushing carpets, or polishing fine
vases, or waxing cabinets paid no attention to the people the guards had
brought in, but the sudden, low tone of menace that came from beyond the
wall caused them all to put markedly more attention into their work. While
no doubt prisoners were brought before the emperor often enough, Zedd was
sure that it would not be wise for those working in the grand tent to pay
any notice to the emperor's business.
From beyond the walls composed of woven scenes also came the warm smell
of food. The variety of scents Zedd was able to detect was astonishing. The
stink of the place, though, tended to make the fragrant aromas of meats,
olive oil, garlic, onions, and spices somewhat repugnant.
The Sister stepped out from behind the wall of colorful hangings. The
ring through her lower lip stood out in stark relief against her ashen skin.
She gave a slight nod to the men to either side of the prisoners.
Powerful fingers gripping their arms, Zedd and Adie were ushered toward
the opening and the glow of light beyond.
Dragged to an abrupt halt, Zedd, at last, stood shackled before the
intent glower of the dream walker himself, Emperor Jagang.
Enthroned in an ornately carved high-backed chair behind a grand dining
table, Jagang leaned on both elbows, a goose leg spanning his fingers as he
chewed. Points of candlelight reflecting off the sides of his shaved head
danced as the tendons all the way up through his temples rippled with his
chewing. A thin mustache, growing down from the corners of his mouth and at
the center under his lower lip, moved rhythmically in time with his jaw, as
did the fine chain connected to gold loops in his ear and nose. Greasy goose
fat covering his meaty, ringed fingers glistened in the candlelight and ran
down his bare arms.
From his place behind his table, Jagang casually studied his latest
captives.
Despite the candles set about the table and on stands to either side,
the inside of the tent had the murky feel of a dungeon.
To each side of him on the broad table sat plates of food, goblets,
bottles, candles, bowls, and, here and there, books and scrolls. There being
no room for all of the silver platters among the multitude, some of them had
to be strategically balanced atop small decorated pillars. There looked to
be enough food for a small army.
For all the Order's talk of sacrifice for the betterment of mankind
being their noble cause, Zedd knew that such abundance at the emperor's
table was meant to send a contradictory message, even when there was no one
but the emperor himself to see it.
Slaves stood lined up along the wall behind Jagang, some holding
additional platters, some in stiff poses, all awaiting command. Some of
those in back were young men--young wizards, from what Zedd had
heard--dressed in loose-fitting white trousers and nothing else. This was
where wizards in training at the Palace of the Prophets had ended up, along
with the captured Sisters who had been their teachers. All were now captives
of the dream walker. The most accomplished of men, men with enormous
potential, were used as houseboys to perform menial tasks. This, too, was a
message sent by the emperor of the Imperial Order to show everyone that the
best and the brightest were to be used to clean chamber pots, while brutes
ruled them.
The younger women, Sisters of both the Dark and the Light, Zedd
assumed, wore outfits that ran from neck to wrist to ankle, but were so
transparent that the women might as well have been naked. This, too, was
meant to show that Emperor Jagang thought little of these women's talents,
and valued them only for his pleasure. The older, less attractive women
standing off to the sides wore drab clothes. These were probably Sisters who
served the emperor in other menial ways.
Jagang delighted in having under his control, as slaves, some of the
most gifted people in the world. It suited the nature of the Order to demean
those with ability, rather than to celebrate them.
Jagang watched Zedd taking in the house slaves, but showed no emotion.
The dream walker's bull neck made him look almost other than human. The
muscles of his chest, as well as his massive shoulders, were displayed by an
open, sleeveless lamb's-wool vest. He was as powerful and brawny a man as
Zedd had seen, an intimidating presence even at rest.
As Zedd and Adie stood mute, Jagang's teeth tore off another chunk of
meat from the goose leg. In the tense silence, he watched them as he chewed,
as if deciding what he might do with his newest plunder.
More than anything, it was his inky black eyes, devoid of any pupils,
irises, or whites, that threatened to halt the blood in Zedd's veins. The
last time he had seen those eyes, Zedd had not been shackled, but that
ungifted girl had prevented Zedd from finishing the man. That was going to
turn out to be the missed opportunity that Zedd would most regret. His
chance to kill Jagang had slipped through his ringers that day, not because
of the vast power of all the skilled Sisters and troops arrayed against him,
but all because of a single ungifted girl.
Those black eyes, the eyes of a mature dream walker, glistened in the
candlelight. Across their dark voids, dim shapes shifted, like clouds on a
moonless night.
The directness of the dream walker's gaze was as obvious as was Adie's
when she looked at Zedd with her pure white eyes. Under Ja-gang's direct
glare, Zedd had to remind himself to relax his muscles, and remember to
breathe.
The thing about those eyes that most terrified him, though, was what he
saw in them: a keen, calculating mind. Zedd had fought against Jagang long
enough to have come to understand that one underestimated this man at great
peril.
"Jagang the Just," the Sister said, holding an introductory hand out to
the nightmare before them. "Excellency, this is Zeddicus Zu'l Zo-rander,
First Wizard, and a sorceress by the name of Adie."
"I know who they are," Jagang said in a deep voice as heavy with threat
as with distaste.
He leaned back, hanging one arm over the back of the chair and one leg
over a carved arm. He gestured with the goose leg.
"Richard Rani's grandfather, as I hear told."
Zedd said nothing.
Jagang tossed the partially eaten leg on a platter and picked up a
knife. With one hand he sawed a chunk of red meat off a roast and stabbed
it. Elbow on the table, he waved the knife as he spoke. Red juice ran down
the blade.
"Probably not the way you had hoped to meet me."
He laughed at his own joke, a deep, resonating sound alive with menace.
With his teeth, Jagang drew the chunk of meat off the knife and chewed
as he watched them, as if unable to decide on a wealth of delightfully
terrible options parading through his thoughts.
He washed the meat down with a gulp from a jeweled silver goblet, his
gaze never leaving them. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that you have
come to visit me."
His grin was like death itself. "Alive."
He rolled his wrist, circling the knife. "We have a lot to talk about."
His laugh died out, but the grin remained. "Well, you do, anyway. I'll be a
good host and listen."
Zedd and Adie remained silent as Jagang's black-eyed gaze went from one
to the other.
"Not so talkative, just yet? Well, no matter. You will be babbling soon
enough."
Zedd didn't waste the effort telling Jagang that torture would gain him
nothing. Jagang would not believe any such boast, and even if he did, it
would hardly stay his wish to see it done.
Jagang fingered a few grapes from a bowl. "You are a resourceful man,
Wizard Zorander." He popped several grapes in his mouth and chewed as he
spoke. "All alone there in Aydindril, with an army surrounding you, you
managed to gull me into thinking I had trapped Richard Rahl and the Mother
Confessor. Quite a trick. I must give you credit where credit is due.
"And the light spell you ignited among my men, that was remarkable." He
put another grape in his mouth. "Do you have any idea how many hundreds of
thousands of them were caught up in your wizardry?"
Zedd could see the corded muscles in the man's hairy arm draped over
the back of the chair stand out as he flexed the fist. He relaxed the hand
then and leaned forward, using his thumb to gouge out a long chunk of ham.
He waved the meat as he went on. "It's that kind of magic I need you to
do for me, good wizard. I understand, from the stupid bitches I have who
call themselves the Sisters of the Light, or the Sisters of the Dark,
depending on who they've decided can offer better favors in the afterlife,
that you probably didn't conjure that little bit of magic on your own, but,
rather, you used a constructed spell from the Wizard's Keep and simply
ignited it among my men with some kind of trick, or trigger--probably some
small curiosity that one of them picked up and in the act of having a look,
they set it off."
Zedd was somewhat alarmed that Jagang had been able to learn so much.
The emperor took a big bite off the end of the piece of ham as he watched
them. His indulgent look was beginning to wear thin.
"So, since you can't do such marvelous magic yourself, I've had a few
items brought from the Keep so you can tell me how they work, what they do.
I'm sure there must be a great number of intriguing items among the
inventory. I'd like to have some of those conjured spells so they can blow
open a few of the passes into D'Hara for us. It would save me some time and
trouble. I'm sure you can understand my eagerness to be into D'Hara and have
this petty resistance finally over with."
Zedd heaved a deep breath and finally spoke. "For most of those items,
you could torture me to the end of time and I still wouldn't be able to tell
you anything because I don't have any knowledge of them. Unlike you, I know
my own limits. I simply don't know what such a spell might look like. Even
if I did, that doesn't mean I would know how to work it. I was simply lucky
with that one I used."
"Maybe, maybe, but you do know about some of the items. You are, after
all, as I hear told, First Wizard; it is your Keep. To claim ignorance of
the things in it is hardly credible. Despite your claim of luck, you managed
to know enough about that constructed light web to ignite it among my men,
so you obviously have knowledge about the most powerful of the items."
"You don't know the first thing about magic," Zedd snapped. "You have a
head full of grand ideas and you think all you have to do is command they be
done. Well, they can't. You're a fool who doesn't know the first thing about
real magic or its limits."
An eyebrow lifted over one of Jagang's inky eyes. "Oh, I think I know
more than you might think, wizard. You see, I love to read, and I, well, I
have the advantage of perusing some of the most remarkably gifted minds you
can imagine. I probably know a great deal more about magic than you give me
credit for."
"I give you credit for bold self-delusion."
"Self-delusion?" He spread his arms. "Can you create a Slide, Wizard
Zorander?"
Zedd froze. Jagang had heard the name; that was all. The man liked to
read. He'd read that name somewhere.
"Of course not, and neither can anyone else alive today."
"You can't create such a being, Wizard Zorander. But you have no idea
how much I know about magic. You see, I've learned to bring lost talents
back to life--arts that have long been believed to be dead and vanished."
"I give you the grandiosity of your dreaming, Jagang, but dreaming is
easy. Your dreams can't be made real just because you dream them and decide
that you wish them to come alive."
"Sister Tahirah, here, knows the truth of it." Jagang gestured with his
knife. "Tell him, darlin. Tell him what I can dream and what I can bring to
life."
The woman hesitantly stepped forward several paces. "It is as His
Excellency says." She looked away from Zedd's frown to fuss with her wiry
gray hair. "With His Excellency's brilliant direction, we were able to bring
back some of the old knowledge. With the expert guidance of our emperor, we
were able to invest in a wizard named Nicholas an ability not seen in the
world for three thousand years. It is one of His Excellency's greatest
achievements. I can personally assure you that it is as His Excellency says;
a Slide again walks the world. It is no fancy, Wizard Zorander, but the
truth.
"The spirits help me," she added under her breath, "I was there to see
the Slide born into the world."
"You created a Slide?" Fists still bound behind his back, Zedd took an
angry stride toward the Sister. "Are you out of your mind, woman!" She
retreated to the back wall. Zedd turned his fury on Jagang. "Slides were a
catastrophe! They can't be controlled! You would have to be crazy to create
one!"
Jagang smiled. "Jealous, wizard? Jealous that you are unable to
accomplish such a thing, can't create such a weapon against me, while I can
create one to take Richard Rahl and his wife from you?"
"A Slide has powers you couldn't possibly control."
"A Slide is no danger to a dream walker. My ability is quicker than
his. I am his better."
"It doesn't matter how quick you are--it isn't about being quick! A
Slide can't be controlled and he isn't going to do what you want!"
"I seem to be controlling him just fine." Jagang leaned in on an elbow.
"You think magic is necessary to control those you would master, but I don't
need magic. Not with Nicholas nor with mankind.
"You seem to be obsessed with control, I am not. I managed to find a
people those like you didn't want to walk freely among their fellow man, a
people cast out by the gifted, a people reviled for not having any spark of
your precious gift of magic--a people hated and banished because your kind
wasn't able to control them. That was their crime: being outside the control
of your magic."
Jagang's fist slammed the table. The slaves all jumped with the
platters.
"This is how your kind wants mankind's future to be; your kind wants
only those with a spark of the gift to be allowed to walk free. This, so you
can use your gift to control them! Like that collar around your neck, your
lust is to collar all of mankind with magic.
"I found those outcast ungifted people and have brought them back into
the fold of their fellow man. Much to your disapproval and the loathing of
your kind, they can't be touched by your vile magic."
Zedd couldn't imagine where Jagang had found such people. "And so now
you have a Slide to control them for you."
"Your kind condemned and banished them; we have welcomed them among us.
In fact, we wish to model man himself after them. Our cause is theirs by
their very nature--purity of mankind without any taint of magic. In this way
the world will be one and at last at peace.
"I have the advantage over you, wizard; I have right on my side. I
don't need magic to win; you do. I have mankind's best future in mind and
have set our irreversible course.
"With the help of these people, I took your Keep. With their help, I
have recovered invaluable treasures from within. You couldn't do a thing to
stop them, now could you? Man will now set his own course, without the curse
of magic darkening his struggle.
"I now have a Slide to help us to that noble end. He is working with
those people for the benefit of our cause. In doing so, Nicholas has already
proved invaluable.
"What's more, that Slide, which your kind could never control, has
vowed to deliver to me the two I want most: your grandson and his wife. I
have great things planned for them--well, for her, anyway." His red-faced
rage melted into a grin. "For him, not so great things."
Zedd could hardly contain his own rage. Were it not for the collar
stifling his gift, he would have reduced the entire place to ash by now.
"Once this Nicholas becomes adept at what he can do, you will find that
he will want revenge of his own, and a price you may find far too high."
Jagang spread his arms. "There, you are wrong, wizard. I can afford
whatever Nicholas wants for Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor. There is no
such thing as a price too high.
"You may think me greedy and selfish, but you would be wrong. While I
enjoy the spoils, I most relish the role I play in bringing heathens to
heel. It is the end that truly concerns me, and in the end I will have
mankind bow as they should to our just cause and the Creator's ways."
Jagang seemed to have spent his flash of intensity. He leaned back and
scooped walnuts from a silver bowl.
"Zedd be wrong," Adie finally spoke up. "You have shown us that you
know what you be doing. You will be able to control your Slide just fine.
May I suggest you keep him close, to aid you in your efforts."
Jagang smiled at her. "You, too, my dried-up old sorceress, will be
telling me all you know about what is in those crates."
"Bah," Adie scoffed. "You be a fool with worthless treasures. I hope
you pull a muscle carrying them with you everywhere."
"Adie's right," Zedd put in. "You are an incompetent oaf who is only
going to--"
"Oh, come, come, you two. Do you think you will throw me into a fit of
rage and I'll slaughter the both of you on the spot?" His wicked grin
returned. "Spare you the proper justice of what is to come?"
Zedd and Adie fell silent.
"When I was a boy," Jagang said in a quieter tone as he stared off into
the distance, "I was nothing. A street tough in Altur'Rang. A bully. A
thief. My life was empty. My future was the next meal.
"One day, I saw a man coming down the street. He looked like he might
have some money and I wanted it. It was getting dark. I came up silently
behind him, intending to bash in his head, but just then he turned and
looked me in the eye.
"His smile stopped me in my tracks. It wasn't a kindly smile, or a weak
smile, but the kind of smile a man gives you when he knows he can kill you
where you stand if it pleases him.
"He pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it to me, and then,
without a word, turned and went on his way.
"A few weeks later, in the middle of the night, I woke up in an alley,
where I slept under old blankets and crates, and I saw a shadowy form out by
the street. I knew it was him before he flipped me the coin and moved off
into the darkness.
"The next time I saw him, he was sitting on a stone bench at the edge
of an old square that some of the less fortunate men of Altur'Rang
frequented. Like me, no one would give these men a chance in life. People's
greed had sucked the life out of these men. I used to go there to look at
them, to tell myself I didn't want to grow up to be like them, but I knew I
would, a nobody, human refuse waiting to pass into the shadow of oblivion in
the afterlife. A soul without worth.
"I sat down on the bench beside the man and asked him why he'd given me
money. Instead of giving me some answer that most people would give a boy,
he told me about mankind's grand purpose, the meaning of life, and how we
are here only as a brief stop on the way to what the Creator has in store
for us--if we are strong enough to rise to the challenge.
"I'd never heard such a thing. I told him that I didn't think that such
things mattered in my life because I was only a thief. He said that I was
only striking back from the injustice of my lot in life. He said that
mankind was evil for making me the way I was and only through sacrifice and
helping those like me could man hope to be redeemed in the afterlife. He
opened my mind to man's sinful ways.
"Before he left, he turned back and asked me if I knew how long
eternity was. I said no. He said that our miserable time in this world was
but a blink before we entered the next world. That really made me think, for
the first time, about our greater purpose.
"Over the next months, Brother Narev took the time to talk to me, to
tell me about Creation and eternity. He gave me a vision of a possible
better future where before I had none. He taught me about sacrifice and
redemption. I thought I was doomed to an eternity of darkness until he
showed me the light.
"He took me in, in return for helping him with life's chores.
"For me, Brother Narev was a teacher, a priest, an advisor, a means to
salvation"--Jagang's gaze rose to Zedd--"and a grandfather, all rolled into
one.
"He gave me the fire of what mankind can and should be. He showed me
the true sin of selfish greed and the dark void of where it would lead
mankind. Over time, he made me the fist of his vision. He was the soul; I
was the bone and muscle.
"Brother Narev allowed me the honor of igniting the revolution. He
placed me at the fore of the rise of mankind over the oppression of
sinfulness. We are the new hope for the future of man, and Brother Narev
himself allowed me to be the one to carry his vision in the cleansing flames
of mankind's redemption."
Jagang leaned back in his chair, fixing Zedd with as grim a look as
Zedd had ever seen.
"And then this spring, while carrying Brother Narev's noble challenge
to mankind, to those who had never had a chance to see the vision of what
man can be, of the future without the blight of magic and oppression and
greed and groveling to be better than others, I came to Aydindril... and
what do I find?
"Brother Narev's head on a pike, with a note, 'Compliments of Richard
Rahl.'
"The man I admired most in the world, the man who brought to us all the
hallowed dream of mankind's true purpose in this life as charged by the
Creator himself, was dead, his head stuck on a pike by your grandson.
"If ever there was a greater blasphemy, a greater crime against the
whole of mankind, I don't know of it."
Sullen shapes shifted across Jagang's black eyes. "Richard Rahl will be
dealt justice. He will suffer such a blow, before I send him to the Keeper.
I just wanted you to know your fate, old man. Your grandson will know
something of that kind of pain, and the additional torment of knowing that I
have his bride and will make her pay dearly for her own crimes." A ghost of
the grin returned. "After he has paid this price, then I will kill him."
Zedd yawned. "Nice story. You left out all the parts where you
slaughter innocent people by the tens of thousands because they don't want
to live under your vile rule or Narev's sick, twisted vision.
"On second thought, don't bother with the sorry excuses. Just cut off
my head, put it on a pike, and be done with it."
Jagang's smile returned in its full glory. "Not as easily as that, old
man. First you have some talking to do."
Ah, yes," Zedd said. "The torture. I almost forgot."
"Torture?"
With two fingers Jagang signaled a woman to the side. The older Sister
standing wringing her hands flinched at seeing his gaze on her and
immediately rushed off behind a curtain of wall hangings. Zedd could hear
her whispering urgent instructions to people beyond, and then the thump of
feet rushing across the carpets and out of the tent.
Jagang went back to his leisurely meal while Zedd and Adie stood before
him, starving, dying of thirst. The dream walker finally set his knife
across a plate. Seeing this, the slaves sprang into action, clearing away
the variety of dishes, most having been tasted, but that hardly made a dent
in them. In a matter of moments the entire table was emptied of the food and
drink, leaving only the books, the scrolls, the candles, and the silver bowl
of walnuts.
Sister Tahirah, the Sister who had captured Zedd and Adie at the Keep,
stood to the side, her hands clasped before her as she watched them. Despite
her obvious fear of Jagang, and her servile fawning over the man, the
knowing smirk at Zedd and Adie betrayed the pleasure she was deriving from
what was to come.
When half a dozen grisly men entered the room and stood off to the
side, Zedd began to understand what it was that pleased Sister Tahirah.
They were unkempt, brawny, and as merciless-looking as any men Zedd had
ever seen. Their hair was wildly tangled and greasy. Their hands and
forearms were spattered with sooty smears, their fingernails ragged and
foul. Their filthy clothes were stained dark with dried blood from the labor
of their profession.
These men worked at torture.
Zedd looked away from the Sister's steady gaze. She hoped to see fear,
panic, or perhaps sobbing.
Then a group of men and women were ushered into the dim room in the
emperor's tent. They looked to be farmers or humble working folk, probably
picked up by patrols. The men embraced their wives as children huddled
around the women's skirts like chicks around hens. The people were herded
over to the side of the room, opposite the line of torturers.
Zedd's eyes suddenly turned to Jagang. The dream walker's black eyes
were watching him as he chewed a walnut.
"Emperor," said the Sister who had brought the families in, "these are
some of the local people, people from the countryside, as you requested."
She held an introductory hand out. "Good people, this is our revered
emperor, Jagang the Just. He brings the light of the Imperial Order to the
world, guided by the Creator's wisdom, that we might all lead better lives
and find salvation with the Creator in the afterlife."
Jagang surveyed the cluster of Midlanders as they awkwardly bowed and
curtsied.
Zedd felt sick at seeing the timid terror on their faces. They would
have had to walk through the encampment of Order soldiers. They would have
seen the size of the force that had overrun their homeland.
Jagang lifted his arm toward Zedd. "Perhaps you know this man? This is
First Wizard Zorander. He is one who has ruled you with his command of
magic. As you can see, he is now shackled before us. We have freed you from
the wicked rule of this man and those like him."
The people's eyes darted between Zedd and Jagang, unsure of their role
in the emperor's tent, or what they were supposed to do. They finally bobbed
their heads, mumbling their thanks for their liberation.
"The gifted, like these two, could have used their ability to help
mankind. Instead, they used it for themselves. Where they should have
sacrificed for those in need, they were selfish. It is criminal to behave as
they have, live as they have, with all they have. It makes me angry to think
of all they could do for those in need, those like you poor people, were it
not for their selfish ways. People suffer and die without the help they
could have had, without the help these people could have given, were they
not so self-centered.
"This wizard and his sorceress are here because they have refused to
help us free the rest of the people of the New World by telling us the
function of the vile things of magic we have captured along with
them--things of magic they scheme to use to slaughter untold numbers of
people. This selfish wizard and sorceress do this out of spite that they
could not have their way."
All the wide eyes turned to Zedd and Adie.
"I could tell you people of the vast numbers of deaths this man is
responsible for, but I fear you would be unable to fathom it. I can tell you
that I simply cannot allow this man to be responsible for tens of thousands
more deaths."
Jagang smiled at the children then and gestured with both hands, urging
them to come to him. The children, a dozen or so, from six or seven to maybe
twelve, clung to their parents. Jagang's gaze rose to those parents as he
again motioned the children to come to him. The parents understood and
reluctantly urged their children to do as the emperor bid of them.
The clump of innocence haltingly approached Jagang's outstretched arms
and wide grin. He embraced them woodenly as they shuffled in close around
him. He tousled the blond hair of a boy, and then the straight sandy hair of
a girl. Several of the younger ones peered pleadingly back at parents before
cringing at Jagang's meaty hand on their backs, his jovial pat on their
cheek.
Silent terror hung thick in the air.
It was as frightening a sight as Zedd had ever witnessed.
"Well, now," the smiling emperor said, "let me get to the reason I have
called upon you people."
His powerful arms gathered the children before him. As a Sister blocked
a boy wanting to return to his parents, Jagang put his huge hands on a young
girl's waist and set her upon his knee. The girl's wide eyes stared up at
the smiling face, the bald head, but mostly at the nightmare void of the
dream walker's inky eyes.
Jagang looked from the girl back to the parents. "You see, the wizard
and sorceress have refused to offer their help. In order to save a great
many lives, I must have their cooperation. They must answer honestly all my
questions. They refuse. I'm hoping you good people can convince them to tell
us what we need to know in order to save the lives of a great many people,
and free a great many more from the oppression of their magic."
Jagang looked toward the row of men standing silently against the
opposite wall. With a single tilt of his head, he commanded them forward.
"What are you doing?" a woman asked, even as her husband tried to
restrain her. "What do you intend?"
"What I intend," Jagang told the crowd of parents, "is for you good
people to convince the wizard and the sorceress to talk. I'm going to put
you in a tent alone with them so that you can persuade them to do their duty
to mankind--persuade them to cooperate with us."
As the men began seizing the children, they finally burst out in
frightened crying. The parents, seeing their red-faced children bawling in
terror, cried out themselves and rushed forward to retrieve them. The big
men, each holding one or two little arms in a fist, shoved the parents back.
The parents fell to hysterical screaming for the children to be freed.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," Jagang said over the wails of the
children. He tilted his head again and the men started carting the twisting,
screaming children out of the tent. The parents were wailing as well, trying
to reach in past big filthy arms to touch what was to them most precious in
the world.
The parents were bewildered and horrified, fearing to cross a line that
would bring wrath down on their children, yet not wanting them to be carted
away. Against their urgent pleading, the children were swiftly whisked away.
As the children were taken out, the Sisters immediately blocked the
doorway behind them, keeping the parents from following. The tent fell to
pandemonium.
With the single word "silence" from Jagang, and his fist on the table,
everyone fell silent.
"Now," Jagang said, "these two prisoners are going to be confined to a
tent. All of you are going to be in there, alone, with them. There will be
no guards, no watchers."
"But what about our children?" a woman in tears begged, caring nothing
about Zedd and Adie.
Jagang pulled a squat candle toward him on the table. "This will be the
tent with these two, and you good people." He circled a finger around the
candle. "All around this tent with you and the criminals, there will be
other tents close."
Everyone stared at his ringed finger going round and round the candle.
"Your children will be close by, in these tents." Jagang scooped up a
handful of walnuts from the silver bowl. He dribbled some onto the table
around the candle and put the rest into his mouth.
The room was silent as they all stared at him, watching him chew the
walnuts, afraid to ask a question, afraid to hear what he might say next.
Finally a woman could no longer hold her tongue. "Why will they be
there, in those tents?"
Jagang's black eyes took them all in before he spoke, making sure none
would miss what he had to tell them.
"Those men who took your children to those tents will be torturing
them."
The parents' eyes widened. Blood drained from their faces. One woman
fainted. Several others bent to her. Sister Tahirah squatted beside the
woman and touched a hand to the woman's forehead. The woman's eyes popped
open. The Sister told the women to get her to her feet.
When Jagang was satisfied that he had everyone's attention, he circled
a finger around the candle again, over the walnuts around it. "The tents
will be close around so you can all clearly hear your children being
tortured, to be sure that you understand that they will not be spared the
worst those men can do."
The parents stood frozen, staring, seemingly unable to believe the
reality of what they were hearing.
"Every few hours, I will come to see if you good people have convinced
the wizard and the sorceress to tell us what we need to know. If you have
not succeeded, then I will go off to other business and when I have the time
I will return again to check if these two have decided to talk.
"Just be sure that this wizard and sorceress do not die while you
convince them to be reasonable. If they die, then they can't answer our
questions. Only when and if they answer questions will the children be
released."
Jagang turned his nightmare eyes on Zedd. "My men have a great deal of
experience at torturing people. When you hear the screams coming from the
tents all around, you will have no doubt as to their skill, or their
determination. I think you should know that they can keep their guests alive
under torture for days, but they cannot work miracles. People, especially
such young, tender souls, cannot survive indefinitely. But, should these
children die before you agree to cooperate, there are plenty more families
with children who can take their place."
Zedd could not halt the tears that ran down his face to drip off his
chin as Sister Tahirah took his arm and pulled him toward the doorway. The
crowd of parents fell on him, clawing at his clothes, screaming and crying
for him to do as the emperor asked.
Zedd dug in his heels and struggled to a stop before the table.
Desperate hands clutched at his robes. As he looked around at their
tear-stained faces, meeting the eyes of each, they fell silent.
"I hope you people can now understand the nature of what it is we are
fighting. I am so sorry, but I cannot dull the pain of this darkest hour of
your lives. If I were to do as this man wants, countless more children would
be subjected to this tyrant's brutality. I know that you will not be able to
weigh this against the precious lives of your children, but I must. Pray the
good spirits take them quickly, and take them to a place of eternal peace."
Zedd could not say more to them, to their desperate gazes. He turned
his watery eyes to Jagang. "This will not work, Jagang. I know you will do
it anyway, but it will not work."
Behind the heavy table, Jagang slowly rose. "Children in this land of
yours are plentiful. How many are you prepared to sacrifice before you allow
mankind to be free? How long are you willing to persist in your stubborn
refusal to allow them to have a future free from suffering, want, and your
uninspired morals?"
The heavy gold and silver chains around his neck, the looted medallions
and ornaments resting against his muscled chest, and the rings of kings on
his fingers all sparkled in the candlelight.
Zedd felt the numb weight of a hopeless future under the yoke of the
monstrous ideals of this man and his ilk.
"You cannot win in this, wizard. Like all those who fight on your side
to oppress mankind, to allow the common people to be left to cruel fate, you
are not even willing to sacrifice for the sake of the lives of children. You
are brave with words, but you have a cold soul and a weak heart. You don't
have the will to do what must be done to prevail. I do."
Jagang tilted his head and the Sister shoved Zedd toward the door. The
screaming, crying, begging crowd of people closed in around Zedd and Adie,
clawing and pawing at them in wild desperation.
In the distance, Zedd could hear the horrifying screams of their
terrified children
They aren't far," Richard said as he stepped back in among the trees.
He stood silently watching as Kahlan straightened the shoulders of her
dress.
The dress showed no ill effects from its long confinement in their
packs. The almost white, satiny smooth fabric glistened in the eerie light
of the churning overcast. The flowing lines of the dress, cut square at the
neck, bore no lace or frills, nothing to distract from its simple elegance.
The sight of Kahlan in that dress still took his breath away.
She looked out through the trees when they heard Cara's whistle. The
warning signal Richard had taught Cara was the plaintive, high, clear
whistle of a common wood pewee, although Cara didn't know that's what it
was. When he'd first told Cara that he wanted to teach her a pewee birdcall
as a warning signal, she said she wasn't going to learn the call of any bird
named a pewee. Richard gave in and told her that he would instead teach her
the call of the small, fierce, short-tailed pine hawk, but only if she would
be willing to work hard at getting it right, since it was more difficult.
Satisfied to have her way, Cara had agreed and readily learned the simple
whistle. She was good at it and used it often as a signal. Richard never
told her that there was no such thing as a short-tailed pine hawk, or that
hawks didn't make whistles like that.
Out through the screen of branches, the dark form of the statue stood
guard over an area of the pass that for thousands of years had been
deserted. Richard wondered again why the people back then would have put
such a statue in a pass no one was likely to ever again visit. He thought
about the ancient society that had placed it, and at what they must have
thought, sealing people away for the crime of not having a spark of the
gift.
Richard brushed pine needles off the back of the sleeve of Kahlan's
dress. "Here, hold still; let me look at you."
Kahlan turned back, arms at her sides, as he smoothed the fabric at her
upper arms. Her unafraid green eyes, beneath eyebrows that had the graceful
arch of a raptor's wings in flight, met his gaze. Her features seemed to
have only grown more exquisite since he had first met her. Her look, her
pose, the way she gazed at him as if she could see into his soul, struck a
chord in him. Clearly evident in her eyes was the intelligence that had from
the first so captivated him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Despite everything, he couldn't hold back his smile. "Standing there
like that, in that dress, your long hair so beautiful, the green of the
trees behind you... it just suddenly reminded me of the first time I saw
you."
Her special smile, the smile she gave no one but him, spread radiantly
through her bewitching eyes. She put her wrists on his shoulders and locked
her fingers behind his neck, pulling him into a kiss.
As it always did, her kiss so completely consumed him with his need of
her that he momentarily lost track of the world. She melted into his
embrace. For that moment there was no Imperial Order, no Bandakar, no
D'Haran Empire, no Sword of Truth, no chimes, no gift turning its power
against him, no poison, no warning beacons, no black-tipped races, no
Jagang, no Nicholas, no Sisters of the Dark. Her kiss made him forget
everything but her. In that moment there was nothing but the two of them.
Kahlan made his life complete; her kiss reaffirmed that bond.
She pulled back, gazing up into his eyes again. "Seems like you've had
nothing but trouble ever since that day you found me."
Richard smiled. "My life is what I've had since that day I found you.
When I found you, I found my life."
Holding her face in both hands, he kissed her again.
Betty nudged his leg and bleated.
"You two about ready?" Jennsen called down the hill. "They'll be here,
soon. Didn't you hear Cara's whistle?"
"We heard," Kahlan called up to Jennsen. "We'll be right there."
Turning back, she smiled as she looked him up and down. "Well, Lord
Rahl, you certainly don't look the way you did the first time I saw you."
She straightened the tooled leather baldric lying over the black tunic
banded in gold. "But you look exactly the same, too. Your eyes are the same
as I saw that day." She cocked her head as she smiled up at him. "I don't
see the headache of the gift in your eyes."
"It's been gone for a while, but after that kiss, it would be
impossible to have a headache."
"Well, if it comes back," she said with intimate promise, "just tell me
and I'll see what I can do to make it go away."
Richard ran his fingers through her hair and gazed one last time into
her eyes before slipping his arm around her waist. Together they walked
through the cathedral of trees that was their cover off to the side near the
crown of the ridge, and out toward the open slope. Between the trunks of the
pines, he could see Jennsen running down the hill, leaping from rock to
rock, avoiding the patches of snow. She rushed in to meet them just within
the small cluster of trees.
"I spotted them," she said, breathlessly. "I could see them down in the
gorge on the far side. They'll be up here soon." A grin brightened her face.
"I saw Tom leading them."
Jennsen took in the sight of both of them, then--Kahlan in the white
dress of the Mother Confessor and Richard in the outfit he had in part found
in the Keep that had once been worn by war wizards. By the surprise on
Jennsen's face, he thought she might curtsy.
"Wow," she said. "That sure is some dress." She looked Richard up and
down again. "You two look like you should rule the world."
"Well," Richard said, "let's hope Owen's people think so."
Cara pushed a spruce bough aside as she ducked in under the limbs of
trees. Dressed again in her skintight red leather outfit, she looked as
intimidating as she had the first time Richard had seen her in the grand
halls of the People's Palace in D'Hara.
"Lord Rahl once confided in me that he intended to rule the world,"