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Cara said, having heard Jennsen's pronouncement.
"Really?" Jennsen asked.
Richard sighed at her awe. "Ruling the world has proven more difficult
than I thought it would be."
"If you would listen more to the Mother Confessor and to me," Cara
advised, "you would have an easier time of it."
Richard ignored Cara's cockiness. "Would you get everything together? I
want to be up there with Kahlan before Tom arrives with Owen and his men."
Cara nodded and started collecting the things they'd been working so
hard to make, stacking some and taking a count of others. Richard laid a
hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"Tie Betty up so that she'll stay here for now. All right? We don't
need her in the way."
"I'll see to it," Jennsen said as she fussed with ringlets of her red
hair. "I'll make sure she won't be able to bother us or wander off."
It was plainly evident how eager she was to see Tom again. "You look
beautiful," Richard assured her. Her grin returned to overpower the anxious
expression.
Betty's tail was a blur as she peered up at them, eager to go wherever
the rest of them were going. "Come on," Jennsen said to her friend, "you're
staying here for a while."
Jennsen snatched Betty's rope, holding her back, as Richard, with
Kahlan close at his side, made his way out past the last of the trees and
onto the open ledge. Somber clouds hung low against the face of surrounding
mountains. With the towering snowcapped peaks hidden by the low, ominous
clouds, Richard thought it felt like they were near the roof of the world.
The wind down at the ground had died, leaving the trees motionless and,
by contrast, making the boiling movement of the cloud masses seem almost
alive. The flurries of the day before had ended and then the sun had made a
brief appearance to shrink the patches of snow on the pass. He didn't think
there was much chance of seeing the sun this day.
The towering stone sentinel waited at the top of the trail, watching
forever over the pass and out toward the Pillars of Creation. As they
approached it, Richard scanned the surrounding sky but saw only some small
birds--flycatchers and white-breasted nuthatches--flitting among the nearby
stand of spruce trees. He was relieved that the races had remained absent
ever since they had taken this ancient trail up through the pass.
The first night up in the pass, farther back down the slope in the
heavier forests, they had worked hard to build a snug shelter, just managing
to get it done as darkness had settled into the vast woods. Early the next
day, Richard had cleared snow off the statue and all around the ledges of
the base.
He had discovered more writing.
He now knew more about this man whose statue had been placed there in
the pass. Another small flurry had since dusted snow over the writing,
burying again the long-dead words.
Kahlan placed a comforting hand on his back. "They will listen,
Richard. They will listen to you."
With every breath, pain pulled at him from deep inside. It was getting
worse. "They'd better, or I'll have no chance to get the antidote to this
poison."
He knew he couldn't do it alone. Even if he knew how to call upon his
gift and command its magic, he still would not be able to wave a hand or
perform some grand feat of conjuring that would cast the Imperial Order out
of the Bandakaran Empire. He knew that such things were beyond the scope of
even the most powerful magic. Magic, properly used, properly conceived, was
a tool, much like his sword, employed to accomplish a goal.
Magic was not what would save him. Magic was not a panacea. If he was
to succeed, he had to use his head to come up with a way to prevail.
He no longer knew if he could even depend on the magic of the Sword of
Truth. Nor did he know how long he had before his own gift might kill him.
At times, it felt as if his gift and the poison were in a race to see which
could do him in first.
Richard led Kahlan the rest of the way up and around to the back of the
statue, to a small prominence of rock at the very top of the pass where he
wanted to wait for the men. From that spot they could see through the gaps
in the mountains and back into Bandakar. Out at the edge of the level area,
Richard spotted Tom down below leading the men through the trees and up the
switchback trail.
Tom peered up as he ascended the trail and spotted Richard and Kahlan.
He saw how they were dressed, where they stood, and gave no familiar wave,
realizing that doing so would be inappropriate. Through breaks in the trees,
Richard could see men following Tom's gaze up above them.
Richard lifted his sword a few inches, checking that it was clear in
its scabbard. Overhead, the dark, towering clouds all around seemed to have
gathered, as if they were all crowding into the confines of the pass to
watch.
Standing tall as he gazed off to the unknown land beyond, to an unknown
empire, Richard took Kahlan's hand.
Hand in hand, they silently awaited what would be the beginning of a
challenge that would change forever the nature of the world, or would be the
end of his chance at life.
As the men following Tom emerged from the trees below and into the
open, Richard was dismayed to see that their numbers were far less than Owen
said had been hiding with him in the hills. Rubbing the furrows on his brow
with his fingertips, Richard stepped back up to the short plateau where
Kahlan waited.
Her own brow drew down with concern. "What's wrong?"
"I doubt they brought fifty men."
Kahlan took up his hand again, her voice coming in gentle assurance.
"That's fifty more than we had."
Cara came up behind them, dropping her load off to the side. She took
up station behind Richard to his left, on the opposite side from Kahlan.
Richard met her grim gaze. He wondered how the woman always managed to look
as if she fully expected everything to happen just as she wished it to
happen, and that was the end of it.
Tom stepped up over the edge of the rock, the men following. He was
sweating from the exertion of the climb, but a tight smile warmed his face
when he saw Jennsen just coming up the other side of the rise. She returned
the brief smile and then stood in the shadows beside the base of the statue,
back out of the way.
When the unkempt band of men caught sight of Richard in his black pants
and boots, black tunic trimmed in a band of gold around the edge, the broad
leather belt, the leather-padded silver wristbands with ancient symbols
circling them, and the gleaming silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard, they
seemed to lose their courage. When they saw Kahlan standing beside him, they
cowered back toward the edge, bowing hesitantly, not knowing what they were
supposed to do.
"Come on, then," Tom told them, prompting them all to come up onto the
expanse of flat rock in front of Richard and Kahlan.
Owen whispered to the men as he moved among them, urging them to come
forward as Tom was gesturing. They complied timidly, shuffling in a little
closer, but still leaving a wide safety margin between themselves and
Richard.
As the men all gazed about, unsure as to what they were supposed to do
next, Cara stepped forward and held an arm out toward Richard.
"I present Lord Rahl," she said in a clear tone that rang out over the
men gathered at the top of the pass, "the Seeker of Truth and wielder of the
Sword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master of the D'Haran Empire, and
husband to the Mother Confessor herself."
If the men had looked timid and unsure before, Cara's introduction made
them all the more so. When they looked from Richard and Kahlan back to
Cara's penetrating blue eyes, seeing her waiting, they all went to a knee in
a bow before Richard.
When Cara stepped deliberately to the fore, in front of the men,
turned, and went to her knees, Tom got the message and did the same. Both
bent forward and touched their foreheads to the ground.
In the silent, late-morning air, the men waited, still unsure what it
was they were to do.
"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara said in a clear voice so the men could
all hear her. She waited.
Tom looked back over his shoulder at all the blond-headed men watching.
When Tom frowned with displeasure, the men understood that they were
expected to follow the lead. They all finally went to both knees and bowed
forward, imitating Tom and Cara, until their foreheads touched the cold
granite.
"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara began again, never lifting her forehead
from the ground.
This time, led by Tom, the men all repeated the words after her.
"Master Rahl, guide us," they said with a decided lack of unity.
"Master Rahl, teach us," Cara said when they all had finished the
beginning of the oath. They followed her lead again, but still hesitantly
and without much coordination.
"Master Rahl, protect us," Cara said.
The men repeated the words, their voices coming a little more in union.
"In your light we thrive."
The men mumbled the words after her.
"In your mercy we are sheltered."
They repeated the line.
"In your wisdom we are humbled."
Again they spoke the words after her.
"We live only to serve."
When they finished repeating the words, she spoke the last line in a
clear voice: "Our lives are yours."
Cara rose up on her knees when they finished and glared back at the men
all still bowed forward but peeking up at her. "Those are the words of the
devotion to the Lord Rahl. You will now speak it together with me three
times, as is proper in the field."
Cara again put her forehead to the ground at Richard's feet.
"Master Rahl, guide us. Master Rahl, teach us. Master Rahl, protect us.
In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we
are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours."
Richard and Kahlan stood above the people as they spoke the second and
third devotion. This was no empty show put on by Cara for the benefit of the
men; this was the devotion as it had been spoken for thousands of years and
Cara meant every word of it.
"You may rise now," she told the men.
The men cautiously returned to their feet, hunched in worry, waiting
silently. Richard met all their eyes before he began.
"I am Richard Rahl. I am the man you men decided to poison so as to
enslave me and thus force me to do your bidding.
"What you have done is a crime. While you may believe that you can
justify your action as proper, or think of it as merely a means of
persuasion, nothing can give you the right to threaten or take the life of
another who has done you no harm nor intended none. That, along with
torture, rape, and murder, is the means by which the Imperial Order rules."
"But we meant you no harm," one of the men called out in horror that
Richard would accuse them of such a ghastly crime. Other men spoke up in
agreement that Richard had it all wrong.
"You think I am a savage," Richard said in a tone of voice that
silenced them and put them back a step. "You think yourselves better than me
and so that somehow makes it all right to do this to me--and to try to do it
to the Mother Confessor--because you want something and, like petulant
children, you expect us to give it to you.
"The alternative you give me is death. The task you demand of me is
difficult beyond your imagination, making my death from your poison a very
real possibility, and likely. That is the reality of it.
"I already came close to dying from your poison. At the last possible
instant I was granted a temporary stay of my execution when one of you gave
me a provisional antidote. My friends and loved ones believed I would die
that night. You were the cause of it. You men consciously decided to poison
me, thereby accepting the fact that you might be killing me."
"No," a man insisted, his hands clasped in supplication, "we never
intended to harm you."
"If there was not a credible threat to my life, then why would I do as
you wish? If you truly mean me no harm and are not committed to killing me
if I don't go along with you, then prove it and give me the antidote so that
I can have my life back. It's my life, not yours."
This time no one spoke up.
"No? So you see, then, it is as I say. You men are committed to either
murder or enslavement. The only choice I have in it is which of those two it
will be. I will hear no more of your feelings about what you intended. Your
feelings do not absolve you of your very real deeds. Your actions, not your
feelings, speak the truth of your intent."
Richard clasped his hands behind his back as he paced slowly before the
men. "Now, I could do as you people are fond of doing, and tell myself that
I can't know if any of it is true. I could do as you would do, declare
myself inadequate to the task of knowing what's real and refuse to face
reality.
"But I am the Seeker of Truth because I do not try to hide from
reality. The choice to live demands that the truth be faced. I intend to do
that. I intend to live.
"You men must today decide what you will do, what will be the future of
your lives and the lives of the ones you love. You are going to have to deal
with reality, the same as I must, if you are to have a chance at life. Today
you will have to face a great deal of the truth, if you are to have that
which you seek."
Richard gestured to Owen. "I thought you said there were more men than
this. Where are the rest?"
Owen took a step forward. "Lord Rahl, to prevent violence, they turned
themselves over to the men of the Order."
Richard stared at the man. "Owen, after all you've told me, after all
those men have seen from the Order, how could they possibly believe such a
thing?"
"But how are we to know that this time it will not stop the violence?
We can't know the nature of reality or--"
"I told you before, with me you will confine yourself to what is, and
not repeat meaningless phrases you have memorized. If you have real facts I
want to hear them. I'm not interested in meaningless nonsense."
Owen pulled his small pack off his back. He fished around inside and
came up with a small canvas pouch. Tears welled up in his eyes as he gazed
at it.
"The men of the Order found out that there were men hiding out in the
hills. One of those men hiding with us has three daughters. In order to
prevent a cycle of violence, someone in our town told the men of the Order
which girls were his daughters.
"Every day the men of the Order tied a rope to a finger of each one of
these three girls. One man held the girl while another pulled on the rope
until her finger tore off. The men of the Order told a man from our town to
go to the hills and give the three fingers to our men. Every day he came."
Owen handed the bag to Richard. "These are the fingers from each of his
daughters."
"The man who brought them to our men was in a daze. They said he no
longer seemed human. He talked in a dead voice. He repeated what he had been
bidden to say. He had decided that since nothing was real, he would see
nothing and do as he was told.
"He said that the men of the Order told him that some of the people
from our town had given the names of the men in the hills and that they had
the children of those other men, as well. They said that unless the men
returned and gave themselves up, they would do the same to the other
children.
"A little more than half the men hiding in the hills could not stand to
think of themselves being the cause of such violence, and so they went back
to our town and gave themselves over to the men of the Order."
"Why are you giving me this?" Richard asked.
"Because," Owen said, his voice filled with tears, "I wanted you to
know why our men had no choice but to turn themselves in. They could not
stand to think of their loved ones suffering such terrible agony because of
them."
Richard looked out at the mournful men watching him. He felt his anger
boiling up inside, but he kept it in check as he spoke.
"I can understand what those men were trying to do by giving themselves
up. I can't fault them for it. It won't help, but I couldn't fault them for
desperately wanting to spare their loved ones from harm."
Despite his rage, Richard spoke in a soft voice. "I'm sorry that you
and your people are suffering such brutality at the hands of the Imperial
Order. But understand this: it is real, and the Order is the cause of it.
Those men of yours, if they did as the Order commanded or if they failed to,
were not the cause of violence. The responsibility for causing violence is
entirely the Order's. You did not go out and attack them. They came to you,
they attacked you, they enslave and torture and murder you."
Most of the men stood in slumped poses, staring at the ground.
"Do any of the rest of you have children?"
A number of the men nodded or mumbled that they did.
Richard ran his hand back through his hair. "Why haven't the rest of
you turned yourselves in, then? Why are you here and not trying to stop the
suffering in the same way the others did?"
The men looked at one another, some seeming confused by the question
while others appearing unable to put their reasons into words. Their sorrow,
their distress, even their hesitant resolve, were evident on their faces,
but they could not come up with words to explain why they would not turn
themselves in.
Richard held up the small canvas bag with the gruesome treasure, not
allowing them to avoid the issue. "You all knew about this. Why did you not
return as well?"
Finally one man spoke up. "I sneaked to the fields at sunset and talked
to a man working the crops, and asked what happened to those men who had
returned. He said that many of their children had already been taken away.
Others had died. All the men who had come in from the hills had been taken
away. None were allowed to return to their homes, to their families. What
good would it do for us to go back?"
"What good, indeed," Richard murmured. This was the first sign that
they grasped the true nature of the situation.
"You have to stop the Order," Owen said. "You must give us our freedom.
Why have you made us make this journey?"
Richard's initial spark of confidence dimmed. While they might have in
part grasped the truth of their troubles, they certainly weren't facing the
nature of any real solution. They simply wanted to be saved. They still
expected someone to do it for them: Richard.
The men all looked relieved that Owen had at last asked the question;
they were apparently too timid to ask it themselves. As they waited, some of
the men couldn't help stealing glances at Jennsen, standing to the rear.
Most of the men also appeared troubled by the statue looming behind Richard.
They could only see the back of it and didn't really know what it was meant
to be.
"Because," Richard finally told them, "in order for me to do as you
want, it's important that you all come to understand everything involved.
You expect me to simply do this for you. I can't. You are going to have to
help me in this or you and all of your loved ones are lost. If we are to
succeed, then you men must help the rest of your people come to understand
the things I have to tell you.
"You have gone this far, you have suffered this much, you have made
this much of a commitment. You realize that if you do the same as your
friends have been trying to do, if you apply those same useless solutions,
you, too, will be enslaved or murdered. You are running out of options. You
all have made a decision to at least try to succeed, to try to rid
yourselves of the brutes killing and enslaving your people.
"You men here are their last chance .. . their only chance.
"You must now hear the rest of what I have to tell you and then make up
your minds as to what will be your future."
The haggard, ragtag men, all dressed in worn and dirty clothes, all
looking like they'd had a very difficult time of living in the hills, either
spoke up or nodded that they would hear him out. Some even looked as if they
might be relieved by how directly and honestly he spoke to them. A few even
looked hungry for what he might say.
Three years ago from the coming autumn," Richard began, "I lived in a
place called Hartland. I was a woods guide. I had a peaceful life in a place
I loved among those I loved. I knew very little about the places beyond my
home. In some ways I was like you people before the Order came, so I can
understand some of what you felt about how things changed.
"Like you, I lived beyond a boundary that protected us from those who
would do us harm."
The men broke out in excited whispering, apparently surprised and
pleased that they could relate to him in this way, that they had something
so basic in common with him.
"What happened, then?" one of the men asked.
Richard couldn't help himself; he couldn't hold back the smile that
overwhelmed him.
"One day, in my woods"--he held his hand out to the side--"Kahlan
showed up. Like you, her people were in desperate trouble. She needed help.
Rather than poison me, though, she told me her story and how trouble was
coming our way. Much like you, the boundary protecting her people had failed
and a tyrant had invaded her homeland. She also came bearing a warning that
this man would soon come to my homeland, too, and conquer my people, my
friends, my loved ones."
All the faces turned toward Kahlan. The men stared openly, as if seeing
her for the first time. It looked to be astonishing to them that this
statuesque woman before them could be a savage, as they thought of
outsiders, and have the same kind of trouble they'd had. Richard was leaving
out vast chunks of the story, but he wanted to keep it simple enough to be
clear to these men.
"I was named the Seeker of Truth and given this sword to help me in
this important struggle." Richard lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard by
half the length of the blade, letting the men all see the polished steel.
Many grimaced at seeing such a weapon.
"Together, side by side, Kahlan and I struggled to stop the man who
sought to enslave or destroy us all. In a strange land, she was my guide,
not only helping me to fight against those who would kill us, but helping me
to come to understand the wider world I had never before considered. She
opened my eyes to what was out there, beyond the boundary that had protected
me and my people. She helped me to see the approaching shadow of tyranny and
know the true stakes involved--life itself.
"She made me live up to the challenge. Had she not, I would not be
alive today, and a great many more people would be dead or enslaved."
Richard had to turn away, then, at the flood of painful memories, at
the thought of all those lost in the struggle. At the victories so hard won.
He put his hand to the statue for support as he remembered the gruesome
murder of George Cypher, the man who had raised him, the man who, until that
struggle, Richard had always believed was his father. The pain of it, so
distant and far away, came rushing back again. He remembered the horror of
that time, of suddenly realizing that he would never again see the man he
dearly loved. He had forgotten until that moment how much he missed him.
Richard gathered his composure and turned back to the men. "In the end,
and only with Kahlan's help, I won the struggle against that tyrant I had
never known existed until the day she had come into my woods and warned me.
"That man was Darken Rahl, my father, a man I had never known."
The men stared in disbelief. "You never knew?" one asked in an
astonished voice.
Richard shook his head. "It's a very long story. Maybe another time I
will tell you men all of it. For now, I must tell you the important parts
that are relevant to you and those you love back there in your homes."
Richard looked at the ground before him, thinking, as he paced in front
of the disorderly knot of men.
"When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep him from killing me and my
loved ones. He had tortured and murdered countless people and that alone
earned him death, but I had to kill him or he would have killed me. I didn't
know at the time that he was my real father or that in killing him, since I
was his heir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.
"Had he known who I was, he might not have been trying to kill me, but
he didn't know. I had information he wanted; he intended to torture it out
of me and then kill me. I killed him first.
"Since that time, I have come to learn a great deal. What I learned
connects us"--Richard gestured to the men and then placed the hand on his
own chest as he met their gazes--"in ways you must come to understand, as
well, if you are to succeed in this new struggle.
"The land where I grew up, Kahlan's land, and the land of D'Hara, all
make up the New World. As you have learned, this vast land down here outside
where you grew up is called the Old World. After I became Lord Rahl, the
barrier protecting us from the Old World failed, much as your own boundary
failed. When it did, Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order, down here in the
Old World, used the opportunity to invade the New World, my home, much as he
invaded your home. We've been fighting him and his troops for over two
years, trying to defeat them or at least to drive them back to the Old
World.
"The barrier that failed had protected us from the Order, or men like
them, for around three thousand years, longer, even, than you were
protected. Before that barrier was placed at the end of a great war, the
enemy at the time, from the Old World, had used magic to create people
called dream walkers."
The men fell to whispering. They had heard the name, but they didn't
really understand it and speculated on what it could mean.
"Dream walkers," Richard explained, when they had quieted, "could enter
a person's mind in order to control them. There was no defense. Once a dream
walker took over your mind, you became his slave, unable to resist his
commands. The people back then were desperate.
"A man named Alric Rahl, my ancestor, came up with a way to protect
people's minds from being taken over by the dream walkers. He was not only
the Lord Rahl who ruled D'Hara at the time, but he was also a great wizard.
Through his ability he created a bond that when spoken earnestly or given in
a more simple form with heartfelt sincerity, protected people from dream
walkers entering their minds. Alric Rahl's link of magic to his people,
through this bond, protected them.
"The devotion you men all gave is the formal declaration of that bond.
It has been given by the D'Haran people to their Lord Rahl for three
thousand years."
Some of the men in front stepped forward, their faces etched with
anxiety. "Are we protected, then, from the dream walkers, Lord Rahl, because
we gave this oath? Are we protected from the dream walkers entering our
minds and taking us?"
Richard shook his head. "You and your people need no protection. You
are already protected in another way."
Relief swept through the crowd of men. Some gripped the shoulder of
another, or placed a hand in relief on a friend's back. They looked as if
they feared that dream walkers were stalking them, and they had just been
spared at the last instant.
"But how is it that we can be protected?" Owen asked.
Richard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Well, that's the
part that in a way connects us. You see, as I understand it, magic needs
balance in order to function."
There were knowing nods all around, as if these pristinely ungifted men
all had an intimate understanding of magic.
"When Alric Rahl used magic to create this bond in order to protect his
people," Richard went on, "there needed to always be a Lord Rahl to complete
the bond, to maintain its power. Not all wizards bear children who also
possess this gifted ability, so part of what Alric Rahl did when he created
this bond was to make it so that the Lord Rahl would always bear one son who
had magic, who had the gift, and could complete this bond with the people of
D'Hara. In this way they would always be protected."
Richard held up a finger to make his point as he swept his gaze over
the crowd of men. "What they didn't know at the time was that this magic
inadvertently created its own balance. While the Lord Rahl always produced a
gifted heir--a wizard like him--it was only discovered later that he also
occasionally produced offspring who were entirely without any magic."
Richard could see by the blank looks that the men didn't grasp what he
was telling them. He imagined that for people living such isolated lives,
his story must seem rather confusing, if not far-fetched. He remembered his
own confusion about magic before the boundary had come down and he'd met
Kahlan. He hadn't been raised around magic and he still didn't understand
most of it himself. He'd been born with both sides of the gift, and yet he
didn't know how to control it.
"You see," he said, "only some people have magic--are gifted, as it's
called. But all people are born with at least a very tiny spark of the gift,
even though they can't manipulate magic. Until just recently, everyone
thought of these people as ungifted. You see? The gifted, like wizards and
sorceresses, can manipulate magic, and the rest of the people can't, so they
were believed to be ungifted.
"But it turns out that this isn't accurate, since there is an
infinitesimal spark of the gift in everyone born. This tiny spark of the
gift is actually what allows people to interact with the magic in the world
around them, that is, with things and creatures that have magical
properties, and with people who are gifted in a more comprehensive
sense--those who do have the ability to manipulate magic."
"Some people in Bandakar have magic, too," a man said. "True magic.
Only those who have never seen--"
"No," Richard said, cutting him off. He didn't want them losing track
of his account. "Owen told me about what you people believe is magic. That's
not magic, that's mysticism. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking
about real magic that produces real results in the real world. Forget what
you've been taught about magic, about how faith supposedly creates what you
believe in and that is real magic. It's not real. It's just the fanciful
illusion of magic in people's imaginations."
"But it is real," someone said in a respectful but firm voice. "More
real than what you see and feel."
Richard turned a harsh look on the men. "If it's so real, then why did
you have to use a known poison on me that was mixed by a man who had worked
his whole life with herbs? Because you know what's real, that's why; when it
was vital to your self-interest, to your lives, you resorted to dealing in
reality, to what you know really works."
Richard pointed back at Kahlan. "The Mother Confessor has real magic.
It's no fanciful curse put on someone and when they die ten years later
people believe the curse was the cause. She has real magic that is in
elemental ways linked to death, so it affects even you. She can touch
someone, with this real magic, and in an instant they will be dead. Not ten
years from now--right now, on the spot."
Richard stood resolutely in front of the men, gazing from eye to eye.
"If someone doesn't believe that is real magic, then let's have a test. Let
them perform their faith-based magic and put a spell on me--to kill me right
here and now. After they've done that, then they will come forward and be
touched by the Mother Confessor's very real, lethal power. Then everyone
else will be able to see the results and judge for themselves." He looked
from face to face. "Anyone willing to take up the test? Any magicians among
all you ungifted people willing to try it?"
When the men remained silent, no one moving, Richard went on.
"So, it would seem that you men do have some understanding of what's
real and what isn't. Keep that in mind. Learn from it.
"Now, I told you how the Lord Rahl always bore a son with magic so he
could pass on the rule of D'Hara and his gifted ability in order to make the
bond work. But, as I said, the bond that Alric Rahl created may have had an
unintended consequence.
"Only later was it discovered that the Lord Rahl, possibly as a means
of balance, also sometimes produced offspring that were entirely without any
magic--not just ungifted in the way most people are, but unlike any people
ever born before: they were pristinely ungifted. These pristinely ungifted
people had absolutely no spark of the gift whatsoever.
"Because of that, because they were pristinely ungifted, they were
unable to interact with the real magic in the world. They were unable to be
touched by magic at all. For them, magic might as well not exist because
they were not born with the ability to see it or to interact with it. You
might say they were like a bird that could not fly. They looked like a bird,
they had feathers, they ate bugs, but they couldn't fly.
"Back then in that time, three thousand years ago, after the bond had
been created to protect people from dream walkers in the war, the wizards
finally succeeded in placing a barrier between the Old and the New World.
Because those in the Old World could no longer come to the New World to wage
war, the great war ended. Peace finally came.
"The people of the New World discovered, though, that they had a
problem. These pristinely ungifted offspring of the Lord Rahl passed this
trait on to their children. Every offspring of a marriage with at least one
of these pristinely ungifted partners bears pristinely ungifted
children--always, every time. As these offspring married and had children
and then grandchildren and then great-grandchildren, as there were more and
more of them, that pristinely ungifted trait began spreading throughout the
population.
"People, at the time, were frightened because they depended on magic.
Magic was part of their world. Magic was what had saved them from the dream
walkers. Magic had created the barrier that protected them from the horde
from the Old World. Magic had ended the war. Magic healed people, found lost
children, produced beautiful creations of art that inspired and brought joy.
Magic could help guide people in the course of future events.
"Some towns grew up around a gifted person who could serve people's
needs. Many gifted people earned a living performing such services. In some
things, magic gave people control over nature and thus made the lives of
everyone better. Things accomplished with the aid of magic improved the
living conditions of nearly everyone. Magic was a force of individual
creation and thus individual accomplishment. Nearly everyone derived some
benefit from it.
"This is not to say that magic was or is indispensable, but that it was
a useful aid, a tool. Magic was like their right arm. Yet it's the mind of
man, not his magic, that is indispensable--much like you could survive
without your right arm, but you couldn't survive without your mind. But
magic had become intertwined in the lives of everyone, so many believed that
it was absolutely indispensable.
"The people came to feel that this new threat--the pristinely ungifted
trait spreading through the population--would be the end of everything they
knew, everything that they thought was important, that it would be the end
of their most vital protection--magic."
Richard gazed out at all the faces, waiting to make sure that the men
had grasped the essence of the story, that they understood how desperate the
people must have been, and why.
"So, what did the people do about these new pristinely ungifted people
among them?" a man in the back asked.
In a quiet tone, Richard said, "Something terrible."
He pulled the book from a leather pouch on his belt and held it up for
all the men to see as he again paced before them. The clouds, laden with
storms of snow, rolled silently through the frigid valley pass, bound for
the peaks above them.
"This book is called The Pillars of Creation. That's what the wizards
back then called these pristinely ungifted people--pillars of Creation--
because they had the power, with this trait that they passed along to their
offspring, to alter the very nature of mankind. They were the foundation of
an entirely new kind of people--people without any connection to magic.
"I only just a short time ago came across this book. It's meant for the
Lord Rahl, and others, so that they will know about these pristinely
ungifted people who are unaffected by magic. The book tells the history of
how these people came about--through those born to the Lord Rahl--along with
the history of what was discovered about them. It also reveals what the
people back then, thousands of years ago, did about these pillars of
Creation."
Men rubbed their arms in the cold air as Richard slowly paced before
them. They all looked caught up in the story.
"So," Owen asked, "what did they do?"
Richard came to a stop and stood watching their eyes before he spoke.
"They banished them."
Astonished whispering broke out among the men. They were stunned to
hear the final solution. These people understood banishment, they understood
it all too well, and they could sympathize with these banished people of so
long ago.
"That's terrible," a man in front said, shaking his head.
Another frowned and held up a hand. "Weren't these pillars of Creation
related to some of the other people? Weren't they part of the towns? Didn't
the people feel sorrow at banishing these ungifted people?"
Richard nodded. "Yes. They were friends and family. Those banished
people were intimately intertwined in the lives of nearly everyone. The book
tells how heavy hearted the people felt at the decision that had been
reached about these pristinely ungifted people. It must have been an awful
time, a dreadful choice that no one liked, but those in charge at the time
decided that in order for them to preserve their way of life, to preserve
magic and all it meant to them, to preserve that attribute of man, rather
than value the lives of individuals for who they were, they had to banish
these pristinely ungifted people.
"What's more, they also decreed that all future offspring of the Lord
Rahl, except his gifted heir, should be put to death to insure that no
pillar of Creation ever again came among them."
This time there was no whispering. The men looked saddened by the story
of these mysterious people and the terrible solution of how to deal with
them. Heads hung as the men thought about what it must have been like back
in such a grim time.
Finally, a man's head came up. His brow twitched. He finally asked the
question Richard expected to be asked, the question he had been waiting for.
"But where were these pillars of Creation banished to? Where were they
sent?"
Richard watched the men as other eyes turned up, curious about the
historic mystery, waiting for him to go on.
"These people were not affected by magic," Richard reminded them. "And
the barrier holding back the Old World was a barrier created of magic."
"They sent them through the barrier!" a man guessed aloud.
Richard nodded. "Many wizards had died and given their power into that
barrier so that their people would be protected from those in the Old World
who wanted to rule them and to end magic. That was a large part of what the
war had been fought over--those in the Old World had wanted to eradicate
magic from mankind.
"So, those people in the New World sent these pristinely ungifted
people, these people without any magic, through the barrier to the Old
World.
"They never knew what became of them, those friends and family and
loved ones they had banished, because they had been sent beyond a barrier
that none of them could cross. It was thought that they would establish new
lives, would make a new beginning. But, because the barrier was there, and
it was enemy territory beyond, the people of the New World never knew what
became of those banished people.
"Finally, a few years ago, that barrier came down. If these banished
people had made a life for themselves in the Old World, they would have had
children and spread their pristinely ungifted attribute"-- Richard lifted
his arms in a shrug--"but there is no trace of them. The people down here
are just the same as the people up in the New World--some born gifted but
all born with at least that tiny spark of the gift that enables them to
interact with magic.
"Those people from ancient times seemed just to have vanished."
"So now we know," Owen reasoned as he stared off in thought, "that all
those people sent to the Old World so long ago tragically died out... or
maybe were killed."
"I had thought as much myself," Richard said. He turned and faced the
men, waiting until all eyes were on him before going on.
"But then I found them. I found those long-lost people."
Excited whispering broke out again. The men appeared inspired by the
prospect of such people surviving against all odds.
"Where are they, then, Lord Rahl," a man asked, "these people with whom
you share ancestry? These people who had to endure such cruel banishment and
hardship?"
Richard leveled a cutting gaze at the men. "Come with me, and I will
tell you what became of these people."
Richard led them around the statue, to the front, where, for the first
time, they could see the full view of the sentinel in stone. The men were
awestruck at finally seeing the statue from the front. They talked excitedly
among themselves about how real it looked, about how they could clearly see
the stalwart features of the man's face.
By the utter shock in their voices and by what the men were saying,
Richard got the distinct impression that they'd never seen a statue before,
at least no statue as monumental as this one. It appeared that for these men
the statue must be something akin to a manifestation of magic, rather than,
as Richard knew it to be, a manifestation of man's ability.
Richard placed a hand on the cold stone of the base. "This is an
ancient statue of an Old World wizard named Kaja-Rang. It was carved, in
part, as a tribute to the man because he was a great and powerful wizard."
Owen lifted a hand to interrupt. "But I thought the people in the Old
World wanted to be without magic? Why would they have a great wizard--and
why, especially, would they pay a tribute to such a man of magic?"
Richard smiled at Owen catching the contradiction. "People don't always
act in a consistent manner. What's more, the more irrational are your
beliefs, the more glaring the inconsistencies. You men, for example, try to
gloss over incongruities in your behavior by applying your convictions
selectively. You claim that nothing is real, or that we cannot know the true
nature of reality, and yet you fear what the Order does to you--you believe
firmly enough in the reality of what they're doing that you want it to stop.
"If nothing were real, then you would have no reason to want to stop
the Imperial Order. In fact, it's counter to your professed beliefs to try
to stop them, or to even feel that their presence is real, much less
detrimental, since you assert that man is inadequate at the task of knowing
reality.
"Yet you grasp the reality of what's happening at the hands of the men
of the Order, and know very well that it's abhorrent, so you selectively
suspend the precepts of your beliefs in order to send Owen to poison me in
an attempt to get me to rid you of your very real problem."
Some of the men looked confused by what Richard said while others
looked to be embarrassed. A few looked astonished. None looked willing to
challenge him, so they let him go on without interrupting.
"The people in the Old World were the same way--they still are. They
claimed they didn't want magic, and yet when faced with that reality, they
didn't want to do without it. The Imperial Order is like this. They've come
to the New World claiming to be a champion of freeing mankind of magic,
proclaiming themselves to be noble for holding such a goal, and yet they use
magic in the pursuit of this professed goal. They contend that magic is
"Really?" Jennsen asked.
Richard sighed at her awe. "Ruling the world has proven more difficult
than I thought it would be."
"If you would listen more to the Mother Confessor and to me," Cara
advised, "you would have an easier time of it."
Richard ignored Cara's cockiness. "Would you get everything together? I
want to be up there with Kahlan before Tom arrives with Owen and his men."
Cara nodded and started collecting the things they'd been working so
hard to make, stacking some and taking a count of others. Richard laid a
hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"Tie Betty up so that she'll stay here for now. All right? We don't
need her in the way."
"I'll see to it," Jennsen said as she fussed with ringlets of her red
hair. "I'll make sure she won't be able to bother us or wander off."
It was plainly evident how eager she was to see Tom again. "You look
beautiful," Richard assured her. Her grin returned to overpower the anxious
expression.
Betty's tail was a blur as she peered up at them, eager to go wherever
the rest of them were going. "Come on," Jennsen said to her friend, "you're
staying here for a while."
Jennsen snatched Betty's rope, holding her back, as Richard, with
Kahlan close at his side, made his way out past the last of the trees and
onto the open ledge. Somber clouds hung low against the face of surrounding
mountains. With the towering snowcapped peaks hidden by the low, ominous
clouds, Richard thought it felt like they were near the roof of the world.
The wind down at the ground had died, leaving the trees motionless and,
by contrast, making the boiling movement of the cloud masses seem almost
alive. The flurries of the day before had ended and then the sun had made a
brief appearance to shrink the patches of snow on the pass. He didn't think
there was much chance of seeing the sun this day.
The towering stone sentinel waited at the top of the trail, watching
forever over the pass and out toward the Pillars of Creation. As they
approached it, Richard scanned the surrounding sky but saw only some small
birds--flycatchers and white-breasted nuthatches--flitting among the nearby
stand of spruce trees. He was relieved that the races had remained absent
ever since they had taken this ancient trail up through the pass.
The first night up in the pass, farther back down the slope in the
heavier forests, they had worked hard to build a snug shelter, just managing
to get it done as darkness had settled into the vast woods. Early the next
day, Richard had cleared snow off the statue and all around the ledges of
the base.
He had discovered more writing.
He now knew more about this man whose statue had been placed there in
the pass. Another small flurry had since dusted snow over the writing,
burying again the long-dead words.
Kahlan placed a comforting hand on his back. "They will listen,
Richard. They will listen to you."
With every breath, pain pulled at him from deep inside. It was getting
worse. "They'd better, or I'll have no chance to get the antidote to this
poison."
He knew he couldn't do it alone. Even if he knew how to call upon his
gift and command its magic, he still would not be able to wave a hand or
perform some grand feat of conjuring that would cast the Imperial Order out
of the Bandakaran Empire. He knew that such things were beyond the scope of
even the most powerful magic. Magic, properly used, properly conceived, was
a tool, much like his sword, employed to accomplish a goal.
Magic was not what would save him. Magic was not a panacea. If he was
to succeed, he had to use his head to come up with a way to prevail.
He no longer knew if he could even depend on the magic of the Sword of
Truth. Nor did he know how long he had before his own gift might kill him.
At times, it felt as if his gift and the poison were in a race to see which
could do him in first.
Richard led Kahlan the rest of the way up and around to the back of the
statue, to a small prominence of rock at the very top of the pass where he
wanted to wait for the men. From that spot they could see through the gaps
in the mountains and back into Bandakar. Out at the edge of the level area,
Richard spotted Tom down below leading the men through the trees and up the
switchback trail.
Tom peered up as he ascended the trail and spotted Richard and Kahlan.
He saw how they were dressed, where they stood, and gave no familiar wave,
realizing that doing so would be inappropriate. Through breaks in the trees,
Richard could see men following Tom's gaze up above them.
Richard lifted his sword a few inches, checking that it was clear in
its scabbard. Overhead, the dark, towering clouds all around seemed to have
gathered, as if they were all crowding into the confines of the pass to
watch.
Standing tall as he gazed off to the unknown land beyond, to an unknown
empire, Richard took Kahlan's hand.
Hand in hand, they silently awaited what would be the beginning of a
challenge that would change forever the nature of the world, or would be the
end of his chance at life.
As the men following Tom emerged from the trees below and into the
open, Richard was dismayed to see that their numbers were far less than Owen
said had been hiding with him in the hills. Rubbing the furrows on his brow
with his fingertips, Richard stepped back up to the short plateau where
Kahlan waited.
Her own brow drew down with concern. "What's wrong?"
"I doubt they brought fifty men."
Kahlan took up his hand again, her voice coming in gentle assurance.
"That's fifty more than we had."
Cara came up behind them, dropping her load off to the side. She took
up station behind Richard to his left, on the opposite side from Kahlan.
Richard met her grim gaze. He wondered how the woman always managed to look
as if she fully expected everything to happen just as she wished it to
happen, and that was the end of it.
Tom stepped up over the edge of the rock, the men following. He was
sweating from the exertion of the climb, but a tight smile warmed his face
when he saw Jennsen just coming up the other side of the rise. She returned
the brief smile and then stood in the shadows beside the base of the statue,
back out of the way.
When the unkempt band of men caught sight of Richard in his black pants
and boots, black tunic trimmed in a band of gold around the edge, the broad
leather belt, the leather-padded silver wristbands with ancient symbols
circling them, and the gleaming silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard, they
seemed to lose their courage. When they saw Kahlan standing beside him, they
cowered back toward the edge, bowing hesitantly, not knowing what they were
supposed to do.
"Come on, then," Tom told them, prompting them all to come up onto the
expanse of flat rock in front of Richard and Kahlan.
Owen whispered to the men as he moved among them, urging them to come
forward as Tom was gesturing. They complied timidly, shuffling in a little
closer, but still leaving a wide safety margin between themselves and
Richard.
As the men all gazed about, unsure as to what they were supposed to do
next, Cara stepped forward and held an arm out toward Richard.
"I present Lord Rahl," she said in a clear tone that rang out over the
men gathered at the top of the pass, "the Seeker of Truth and wielder of the
Sword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master of the D'Haran Empire, and
husband to the Mother Confessor herself."
If the men had looked timid and unsure before, Cara's introduction made
them all the more so. When they looked from Richard and Kahlan back to
Cara's penetrating blue eyes, seeing her waiting, they all went to a knee in
a bow before Richard.
When Cara stepped deliberately to the fore, in front of the men,
turned, and went to her knees, Tom got the message and did the same. Both
bent forward and touched their foreheads to the ground.
In the silent, late-morning air, the men waited, still unsure what it
was they were to do.
"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara said in a clear voice so the men could
all hear her. She waited.
Tom looked back over his shoulder at all the blond-headed men watching.
When Tom frowned with displeasure, the men understood that they were
expected to follow the lead. They all finally went to both knees and bowed
forward, imitating Tom and Cara, until their foreheads touched the cold
granite.
"Master Rahl, guide us," Cara began again, never lifting her forehead
from the ground.
This time, led by Tom, the men all repeated the words after her.
"Master Rahl, guide us," they said with a decided lack of unity.
"Master Rahl, teach us," Cara said when they all had finished the
beginning of the oath. They followed her lead again, but still hesitantly
and without much coordination.
"Master Rahl, protect us," Cara said.
The men repeated the words, their voices coming a little more in union.
"In your light we thrive."
The men mumbled the words after her.
"In your mercy we are sheltered."
They repeated the line.
"In your wisdom we are humbled."
Again they spoke the words after her.
"We live only to serve."
When they finished repeating the words, she spoke the last line in a
clear voice: "Our lives are yours."
Cara rose up on her knees when they finished and glared back at the men
all still bowed forward but peeking up at her. "Those are the words of the
devotion to the Lord Rahl. You will now speak it together with me three
times, as is proper in the field."
Cara again put her forehead to the ground at Richard's feet.
"Master Rahl, guide us. Master Rahl, teach us. Master Rahl, protect us.
In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we
are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours."
Richard and Kahlan stood above the people as they spoke the second and
third devotion. This was no empty show put on by Cara for the benefit of the
men; this was the devotion as it had been spoken for thousands of years and
Cara meant every word of it.
"You may rise now," she told the men.
The men cautiously returned to their feet, hunched in worry, waiting
silently. Richard met all their eyes before he began.
"I am Richard Rahl. I am the man you men decided to poison so as to
enslave me and thus force me to do your bidding.
"What you have done is a crime. While you may believe that you can
justify your action as proper, or think of it as merely a means of
persuasion, nothing can give you the right to threaten or take the life of
another who has done you no harm nor intended none. That, along with
torture, rape, and murder, is the means by which the Imperial Order rules."
"But we meant you no harm," one of the men called out in horror that
Richard would accuse them of such a ghastly crime. Other men spoke up in
agreement that Richard had it all wrong.
"You think I am a savage," Richard said in a tone of voice that
silenced them and put them back a step. "You think yourselves better than me
and so that somehow makes it all right to do this to me--and to try to do it
to the Mother Confessor--because you want something and, like petulant
children, you expect us to give it to you.
"The alternative you give me is death. The task you demand of me is
difficult beyond your imagination, making my death from your poison a very
real possibility, and likely. That is the reality of it.
"I already came close to dying from your poison. At the last possible
instant I was granted a temporary stay of my execution when one of you gave
me a provisional antidote. My friends and loved ones believed I would die
that night. You were the cause of it. You men consciously decided to poison
me, thereby accepting the fact that you might be killing me."
"No," a man insisted, his hands clasped in supplication, "we never
intended to harm you."
"If there was not a credible threat to my life, then why would I do as
you wish? If you truly mean me no harm and are not committed to killing me
if I don't go along with you, then prove it and give me the antidote so that
I can have my life back. It's my life, not yours."
This time no one spoke up.
"No? So you see, then, it is as I say. You men are committed to either
murder or enslavement. The only choice I have in it is which of those two it
will be. I will hear no more of your feelings about what you intended. Your
feelings do not absolve you of your very real deeds. Your actions, not your
feelings, speak the truth of your intent."
Richard clasped his hands behind his back as he paced slowly before the
men. "Now, I could do as you people are fond of doing, and tell myself that
I can't know if any of it is true. I could do as you would do, declare
myself inadequate to the task of knowing what's real and refuse to face
reality.
"But I am the Seeker of Truth because I do not try to hide from
reality. The choice to live demands that the truth be faced. I intend to do
that. I intend to live.
"You men must today decide what you will do, what will be the future of
your lives and the lives of the ones you love. You are going to have to deal
with reality, the same as I must, if you are to have a chance at life. Today
you will have to face a great deal of the truth, if you are to have that
which you seek."
Richard gestured to Owen. "I thought you said there were more men than
this. Where are the rest?"
Owen took a step forward. "Lord Rahl, to prevent violence, they turned
themselves over to the men of the Order."
Richard stared at the man. "Owen, after all you've told me, after all
those men have seen from the Order, how could they possibly believe such a
thing?"
"But how are we to know that this time it will not stop the violence?
We can't know the nature of reality or--"
"I told you before, with me you will confine yourself to what is, and
not repeat meaningless phrases you have memorized. If you have real facts I
want to hear them. I'm not interested in meaningless nonsense."
Owen pulled his small pack off his back. He fished around inside and
came up with a small canvas pouch. Tears welled up in his eyes as he gazed
at it.
"The men of the Order found out that there were men hiding out in the
hills. One of those men hiding with us has three daughters. In order to
prevent a cycle of violence, someone in our town told the men of the Order
which girls were his daughters.
"Every day the men of the Order tied a rope to a finger of each one of
these three girls. One man held the girl while another pulled on the rope
until her finger tore off. The men of the Order told a man from our town to
go to the hills and give the three fingers to our men. Every day he came."
Owen handed the bag to Richard. "These are the fingers from each of his
daughters."
"The man who brought them to our men was in a daze. They said he no
longer seemed human. He talked in a dead voice. He repeated what he had been
bidden to say. He had decided that since nothing was real, he would see
nothing and do as he was told.
"He said that the men of the Order told him that some of the people
from our town had given the names of the men in the hills and that they had
the children of those other men, as well. They said that unless the men
returned and gave themselves up, they would do the same to the other
children.
"A little more than half the men hiding in the hills could not stand to
think of themselves being the cause of such violence, and so they went back
to our town and gave themselves over to the men of the Order."
"Why are you giving me this?" Richard asked.
"Because," Owen said, his voice filled with tears, "I wanted you to
know why our men had no choice but to turn themselves in. They could not
stand to think of their loved ones suffering such terrible agony because of
them."
Richard looked out at the mournful men watching him. He felt his anger
boiling up inside, but he kept it in check as he spoke.
"I can understand what those men were trying to do by giving themselves
up. I can't fault them for it. It won't help, but I couldn't fault them for
desperately wanting to spare their loved ones from harm."
Despite his rage, Richard spoke in a soft voice. "I'm sorry that you
and your people are suffering such brutality at the hands of the Imperial
Order. But understand this: it is real, and the Order is the cause of it.
Those men of yours, if they did as the Order commanded or if they failed to,
were not the cause of violence. The responsibility for causing violence is
entirely the Order's. You did not go out and attack them. They came to you,
they attacked you, they enslave and torture and murder you."
Most of the men stood in slumped poses, staring at the ground.
"Do any of the rest of you have children?"
A number of the men nodded or mumbled that they did.
Richard ran his hand back through his hair. "Why haven't the rest of
you turned yourselves in, then? Why are you here and not trying to stop the
suffering in the same way the others did?"
The men looked at one another, some seeming confused by the question
while others appearing unable to put their reasons into words. Their sorrow,
their distress, even their hesitant resolve, were evident on their faces,
but they could not come up with words to explain why they would not turn
themselves in.
Richard held up the small canvas bag with the gruesome treasure, not
allowing them to avoid the issue. "You all knew about this. Why did you not
return as well?"
Finally one man spoke up. "I sneaked to the fields at sunset and talked
to a man working the crops, and asked what happened to those men who had
returned. He said that many of their children had already been taken away.
Others had died. All the men who had come in from the hills had been taken
away. None were allowed to return to their homes, to their families. What
good would it do for us to go back?"
"What good, indeed," Richard murmured. This was the first sign that
they grasped the true nature of the situation.
"You have to stop the Order," Owen said. "You must give us our freedom.
Why have you made us make this journey?"
Richard's initial spark of confidence dimmed. While they might have in
part grasped the truth of their troubles, they certainly weren't facing the
nature of any real solution. They simply wanted to be saved. They still
expected someone to do it for them: Richard.
The men all looked relieved that Owen had at last asked the question;
they were apparently too timid to ask it themselves. As they waited, some of
the men couldn't help stealing glances at Jennsen, standing to the rear.
Most of the men also appeared troubled by the statue looming behind Richard.
They could only see the back of it and didn't really know what it was meant
to be.
"Because," Richard finally told them, "in order for me to do as you
want, it's important that you all come to understand everything involved.
You expect me to simply do this for you. I can't. You are going to have to
help me in this or you and all of your loved ones are lost. If we are to
succeed, then you men must help the rest of your people come to understand
the things I have to tell you.
"You have gone this far, you have suffered this much, you have made
this much of a commitment. You realize that if you do the same as your
friends have been trying to do, if you apply those same useless solutions,
you, too, will be enslaved or murdered. You are running out of options. You
all have made a decision to at least try to succeed, to try to rid
yourselves of the brutes killing and enslaving your people.
"You men here are their last chance .. . their only chance.
"You must now hear the rest of what I have to tell you and then make up
your minds as to what will be your future."
The haggard, ragtag men, all dressed in worn and dirty clothes, all
looking like they'd had a very difficult time of living in the hills, either
spoke up or nodded that they would hear him out. Some even looked as if they
might be relieved by how directly and honestly he spoke to them. A few even
looked hungry for what he might say.
Three years ago from the coming autumn," Richard began, "I lived in a
place called Hartland. I was a woods guide. I had a peaceful life in a place
I loved among those I loved. I knew very little about the places beyond my
home. In some ways I was like you people before the Order came, so I can
understand some of what you felt about how things changed.
"Like you, I lived beyond a boundary that protected us from those who
would do us harm."
The men broke out in excited whispering, apparently surprised and
pleased that they could relate to him in this way, that they had something
so basic in common with him.
"What happened, then?" one of the men asked.
Richard couldn't help himself; he couldn't hold back the smile that
overwhelmed him.
"One day, in my woods"--he held his hand out to the side--"Kahlan
showed up. Like you, her people were in desperate trouble. She needed help.
Rather than poison me, though, she told me her story and how trouble was
coming our way. Much like you, the boundary protecting her people had failed
and a tyrant had invaded her homeland. She also came bearing a warning that
this man would soon come to my homeland, too, and conquer my people, my
friends, my loved ones."
All the faces turned toward Kahlan. The men stared openly, as if seeing
her for the first time. It looked to be astonishing to them that this
statuesque woman before them could be a savage, as they thought of
outsiders, and have the same kind of trouble they'd had. Richard was leaving
out vast chunks of the story, but he wanted to keep it simple enough to be
clear to these men.
"I was named the Seeker of Truth and given this sword to help me in
this important struggle." Richard lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard by
half the length of the blade, letting the men all see the polished steel.
Many grimaced at seeing such a weapon.
"Together, side by side, Kahlan and I struggled to stop the man who
sought to enslave or destroy us all. In a strange land, she was my guide,
not only helping me to fight against those who would kill us, but helping me
to come to understand the wider world I had never before considered. She
opened my eyes to what was out there, beyond the boundary that had protected
me and my people. She helped me to see the approaching shadow of tyranny and
know the true stakes involved--life itself.
"She made me live up to the challenge. Had she not, I would not be
alive today, and a great many more people would be dead or enslaved."
Richard had to turn away, then, at the flood of painful memories, at
the thought of all those lost in the struggle. At the victories so hard won.
He put his hand to the statue for support as he remembered the gruesome
murder of George Cypher, the man who had raised him, the man who, until that
struggle, Richard had always believed was his father. The pain of it, so
distant and far away, came rushing back again. He remembered the horror of
that time, of suddenly realizing that he would never again see the man he
dearly loved. He had forgotten until that moment how much he missed him.
Richard gathered his composure and turned back to the men. "In the end,
and only with Kahlan's help, I won the struggle against that tyrant I had
never known existed until the day she had come into my woods and warned me.
"That man was Darken Rahl, my father, a man I had never known."
The men stared in disbelief. "You never knew?" one asked in an
astonished voice.
Richard shook his head. "It's a very long story. Maybe another time I
will tell you men all of it. For now, I must tell you the important parts
that are relevant to you and those you love back there in your homes."
Richard looked at the ground before him, thinking, as he paced in front
of the disorderly knot of men.
"When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep him from killing me and my
loved ones. He had tortured and murdered countless people and that alone
earned him death, but I had to kill him or he would have killed me. I didn't
know at the time that he was my real father or that in killing him, since I
was his heir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.
"Had he known who I was, he might not have been trying to kill me, but
he didn't know. I had information he wanted; he intended to torture it out
of me and then kill me. I killed him first.
"Since that time, I have come to learn a great deal. What I learned
connects us"--Richard gestured to the men and then placed the hand on his
own chest as he met their gazes--"in ways you must come to understand, as
well, if you are to succeed in this new struggle.
"The land where I grew up, Kahlan's land, and the land of D'Hara, all
make up the New World. As you have learned, this vast land down here outside
where you grew up is called the Old World. After I became Lord Rahl, the
barrier protecting us from the Old World failed, much as your own boundary
failed. When it did, Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order, down here in the
Old World, used the opportunity to invade the New World, my home, much as he
invaded your home. We've been fighting him and his troops for over two
years, trying to defeat them or at least to drive them back to the Old
World.
"The barrier that failed had protected us from the Order, or men like
them, for around three thousand years, longer, even, than you were
protected. Before that barrier was placed at the end of a great war, the
enemy at the time, from the Old World, had used magic to create people
called dream walkers."
The men fell to whispering. They had heard the name, but they didn't
really understand it and speculated on what it could mean.
"Dream walkers," Richard explained, when they had quieted, "could enter
a person's mind in order to control them. There was no defense. Once a dream
walker took over your mind, you became his slave, unable to resist his
commands. The people back then were desperate.
"A man named Alric Rahl, my ancestor, came up with a way to protect
people's minds from being taken over by the dream walkers. He was not only
the Lord Rahl who ruled D'Hara at the time, but he was also a great wizard.
Through his ability he created a bond that when spoken earnestly or given in
a more simple form with heartfelt sincerity, protected people from dream
walkers entering their minds. Alric Rahl's link of magic to his people,
through this bond, protected them.
"The devotion you men all gave is the formal declaration of that bond.
It has been given by the D'Haran people to their Lord Rahl for three
thousand years."
Some of the men in front stepped forward, their faces etched with
anxiety. "Are we protected, then, from the dream walkers, Lord Rahl, because
we gave this oath? Are we protected from the dream walkers entering our
minds and taking us?"
Richard shook his head. "You and your people need no protection. You
are already protected in another way."
Relief swept through the crowd of men. Some gripped the shoulder of
another, or placed a hand in relief on a friend's back. They looked as if
they feared that dream walkers were stalking them, and they had just been
spared at the last instant.
"But how is it that we can be protected?" Owen asked.
Richard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Well, that's the
part that in a way connects us. You see, as I understand it, magic needs
balance in order to function."
There were knowing nods all around, as if these pristinely ungifted men
all had an intimate understanding of magic.
"When Alric Rahl used magic to create this bond in order to protect his
people," Richard went on, "there needed to always be a Lord Rahl to complete
the bond, to maintain its power. Not all wizards bear children who also
possess this gifted ability, so part of what Alric Rahl did when he created
this bond was to make it so that the Lord Rahl would always bear one son who
had magic, who had the gift, and could complete this bond with the people of
D'Hara. In this way they would always be protected."
Richard held up a finger to make his point as he swept his gaze over
the crowd of men. "What they didn't know at the time was that this magic
inadvertently created its own balance. While the Lord Rahl always produced a
gifted heir--a wizard like him--it was only discovered later that he also
occasionally produced offspring who were entirely without any magic."
Richard could see by the blank looks that the men didn't grasp what he
was telling them. He imagined that for people living such isolated lives,
his story must seem rather confusing, if not far-fetched. He remembered his
own confusion about magic before the boundary had come down and he'd met
Kahlan. He hadn't been raised around magic and he still didn't understand
most of it himself. He'd been born with both sides of the gift, and yet he
didn't know how to control it.
"You see," he said, "only some people have magic--are gifted, as it's
called. But all people are born with at least a very tiny spark of the gift,
even though they can't manipulate magic. Until just recently, everyone
thought of these people as ungifted. You see? The gifted, like wizards and
sorceresses, can manipulate magic, and the rest of the people can't, so they
were believed to be ungifted.
"But it turns out that this isn't accurate, since there is an
infinitesimal spark of the gift in everyone born. This tiny spark of the
gift is actually what allows people to interact with the magic in the world
around them, that is, with things and creatures that have magical
properties, and with people who are gifted in a more comprehensive
sense--those who do have the ability to manipulate magic."
"Some people in Bandakar have magic, too," a man said. "True magic.
Only those who have never seen--"
"No," Richard said, cutting him off. He didn't want them losing track
of his account. "Owen told me about what you people believe is magic. That's
not magic, that's mysticism. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking
about real magic that produces real results in the real world. Forget what
you've been taught about magic, about how faith supposedly creates what you
believe in and that is real magic. It's not real. It's just the fanciful
illusion of magic in people's imaginations."
"But it is real," someone said in a respectful but firm voice. "More
real than what you see and feel."
Richard turned a harsh look on the men. "If it's so real, then why did
you have to use a known poison on me that was mixed by a man who had worked
his whole life with herbs? Because you know what's real, that's why; when it
was vital to your self-interest, to your lives, you resorted to dealing in
reality, to what you know really works."
Richard pointed back at Kahlan. "The Mother Confessor has real magic.
It's no fanciful curse put on someone and when they die ten years later
people believe the curse was the cause. She has real magic that is in
elemental ways linked to death, so it affects even you. She can touch
someone, with this real magic, and in an instant they will be dead. Not ten
years from now--right now, on the spot."
Richard stood resolutely in front of the men, gazing from eye to eye.
"If someone doesn't believe that is real magic, then let's have a test. Let
them perform their faith-based magic and put a spell on me--to kill me right
here and now. After they've done that, then they will come forward and be
touched by the Mother Confessor's very real, lethal power. Then everyone
else will be able to see the results and judge for themselves." He looked
from face to face. "Anyone willing to take up the test? Any magicians among
all you ungifted people willing to try it?"
When the men remained silent, no one moving, Richard went on.
"So, it would seem that you men do have some understanding of what's
real and what isn't. Keep that in mind. Learn from it.
"Now, I told you how the Lord Rahl always bore a son with magic so he
could pass on the rule of D'Hara and his gifted ability in order to make the
bond work. But, as I said, the bond that Alric Rahl created may have had an
unintended consequence.
"Only later was it discovered that the Lord Rahl, possibly as a means
of balance, also sometimes produced offspring that were entirely without any
magic--not just ungifted in the way most people are, but unlike any people
ever born before: they were pristinely ungifted. These pristinely ungifted
people had absolutely no spark of the gift whatsoever.
"Because of that, because they were pristinely ungifted, they were
unable to interact with the real magic in the world. They were unable to be
touched by magic at all. For them, magic might as well not exist because
they were not born with the ability to see it or to interact with it. You
might say they were like a bird that could not fly. They looked like a bird,
they had feathers, they ate bugs, but they couldn't fly.
"Back then in that time, three thousand years ago, after the bond had
been created to protect people from dream walkers in the war, the wizards
finally succeeded in placing a barrier between the Old and the New World.
Because those in the Old World could no longer come to the New World to wage
war, the great war ended. Peace finally came.
"The people of the New World discovered, though, that they had a
problem. These pristinely ungifted offspring of the Lord Rahl passed this
trait on to their children. Every offspring of a marriage with at least one
of these pristinely ungifted partners bears pristinely ungifted
children--always, every time. As these offspring married and had children
and then grandchildren and then great-grandchildren, as there were more and
more of them, that pristinely ungifted trait began spreading throughout the
population.
"People, at the time, were frightened because they depended on magic.
Magic was part of their world. Magic was what had saved them from the dream
walkers. Magic had created the barrier that protected them from the horde
from the Old World. Magic had ended the war. Magic healed people, found lost
children, produced beautiful creations of art that inspired and brought joy.
Magic could help guide people in the course of future events.
"Some towns grew up around a gifted person who could serve people's
needs. Many gifted people earned a living performing such services. In some
things, magic gave people control over nature and thus made the lives of
everyone better. Things accomplished with the aid of magic improved the
living conditions of nearly everyone. Magic was a force of individual
creation and thus individual accomplishment. Nearly everyone derived some
benefit from it.
"This is not to say that magic was or is indispensable, but that it was
a useful aid, a tool. Magic was like their right arm. Yet it's the mind of
man, not his magic, that is indispensable--much like you could survive
without your right arm, but you couldn't survive without your mind. But
magic had become intertwined in the lives of everyone, so many believed that
it was absolutely indispensable.
"The people came to feel that this new threat--the pristinely ungifted
trait spreading through the population--would be the end of everything they
knew, everything that they thought was important, that it would be the end
of their most vital protection--magic."
Richard gazed out at all the faces, waiting to make sure that the men
had grasped the essence of the story, that they understood how desperate the
people must have been, and why.
"So, what did the people do about these new pristinely ungifted people
among them?" a man in the back asked.
In a quiet tone, Richard said, "Something terrible."
He pulled the book from a leather pouch on his belt and held it up for
all the men to see as he again paced before them. The clouds, laden with
storms of snow, rolled silently through the frigid valley pass, bound for
the peaks above them.
"This book is called The Pillars of Creation. That's what the wizards
back then called these pristinely ungifted people--pillars of Creation--
because they had the power, with this trait that they passed along to their
offspring, to alter the very nature of mankind. They were the foundation of
an entirely new kind of people--people without any connection to magic.
"I only just a short time ago came across this book. It's meant for the
Lord Rahl, and others, so that they will know about these pristinely
ungifted people who are unaffected by magic. The book tells the history of
how these people came about--through those born to the Lord Rahl--along with
the history of what was discovered about them. It also reveals what the
people back then, thousands of years ago, did about these pillars of
Creation."
Men rubbed their arms in the cold air as Richard slowly paced before
them. They all looked caught up in the story.
"So," Owen asked, "what did they do?"
Richard came to a stop and stood watching their eyes before he spoke.
"They banished them."
Astonished whispering broke out among the men. They were stunned to
hear the final solution. These people understood banishment, they understood
it all too well, and they could sympathize with these banished people of so
long ago.
"That's terrible," a man in front said, shaking his head.
Another frowned and held up a hand. "Weren't these pillars of Creation
related to some of the other people? Weren't they part of the towns? Didn't
the people feel sorrow at banishing these ungifted people?"
Richard nodded. "Yes. They were friends and family. Those banished
people were intimately intertwined in the lives of nearly everyone. The book
tells how heavy hearted the people felt at the decision that had been
reached about these pristinely ungifted people. It must have been an awful
time, a dreadful choice that no one liked, but those in charge at the time
decided that in order for them to preserve their way of life, to preserve
magic and all it meant to them, to preserve that attribute of man, rather
than value the lives of individuals for who they were, they had to banish
these pristinely ungifted people.
"What's more, they also decreed that all future offspring of the Lord
Rahl, except his gifted heir, should be put to death to insure that no
pillar of Creation ever again came among them."
This time there was no whispering. The men looked saddened by the story
of these mysterious people and the terrible solution of how to deal with
them. Heads hung as the men thought about what it must have been like back
in such a grim time.
Finally, a man's head came up. His brow twitched. He finally asked the
question Richard expected to be asked, the question he had been waiting for.
"But where were these pillars of Creation banished to? Where were they
sent?"
Richard watched the men as other eyes turned up, curious about the
historic mystery, waiting for him to go on.
"These people were not affected by magic," Richard reminded them. "And
the barrier holding back the Old World was a barrier created of magic."
"They sent them through the barrier!" a man guessed aloud.
Richard nodded. "Many wizards had died and given their power into that
barrier so that their people would be protected from those in the Old World
who wanted to rule them and to end magic. That was a large part of what the
war had been fought over--those in the Old World had wanted to eradicate
magic from mankind.
"So, those people in the New World sent these pristinely ungifted
people, these people without any magic, through the barrier to the Old
World.
"They never knew what became of them, those friends and family and
loved ones they had banished, because they had been sent beyond a barrier
that none of them could cross. It was thought that they would establish new
lives, would make a new beginning. But, because the barrier was there, and
it was enemy territory beyond, the people of the New World never knew what
became of those banished people.
"Finally, a few years ago, that barrier came down. If these banished
people had made a life for themselves in the Old World, they would have had
children and spread their pristinely ungifted attribute"-- Richard lifted
his arms in a shrug--"but there is no trace of them. The people down here
are just the same as the people up in the New World--some born gifted but
all born with at least that tiny spark of the gift that enables them to
interact with magic.
"Those people from ancient times seemed just to have vanished."
"So now we know," Owen reasoned as he stared off in thought, "that all
those people sent to the Old World so long ago tragically died out... or
maybe were killed."
"I had thought as much myself," Richard said. He turned and faced the
men, waiting until all eyes were on him before going on.
"But then I found them. I found those long-lost people."
Excited whispering broke out again. The men appeared inspired by the
prospect of such people surviving against all odds.
"Where are they, then, Lord Rahl," a man asked, "these people with whom
you share ancestry? These people who had to endure such cruel banishment and
hardship?"
Richard leveled a cutting gaze at the men. "Come with me, and I will
tell you what became of these people."
Richard led them around the statue, to the front, where, for the first
time, they could see the full view of the sentinel in stone. The men were
awestruck at finally seeing the statue from the front. They talked excitedly
among themselves about how real it looked, about how they could clearly see
the stalwart features of the man's face.
By the utter shock in their voices and by what the men were saying,
Richard got the distinct impression that they'd never seen a statue before,
at least no statue as monumental as this one. It appeared that for these men
the statue must be something akin to a manifestation of magic, rather than,
as Richard knew it to be, a manifestation of man's ability.
Richard placed a hand on the cold stone of the base. "This is an
ancient statue of an Old World wizard named Kaja-Rang. It was carved, in
part, as a tribute to the man because he was a great and powerful wizard."
Owen lifted a hand to interrupt. "But I thought the people in the Old
World wanted to be without magic? Why would they have a great wizard--and
why, especially, would they pay a tribute to such a man of magic?"
Richard smiled at Owen catching the contradiction. "People don't always
act in a consistent manner. What's more, the more irrational are your
beliefs, the more glaring the inconsistencies. You men, for example, try to
gloss over incongruities in your behavior by applying your convictions
selectively. You claim that nothing is real, or that we cannot know the true
nature of reality, and yet you fear what the Order does to you--you believe
firmly enough in the reality of what they're doing that you want it to stop.
"If nothing were real, then you would have no reason to want to stop
the Imperial Order. In fact, it's counter to your professed beliefs to try
to stop them, or to even feel that their presence is real, much less
detrimental, since you assert that man is inadequate at the task of knowing
reality.
"Yet you grasp the reality of what's happening at the hands of the men
of the Order, and know very well that it's abhorrent, so you selectively
suspend the precepts of your beliefs in order to send Owen to poison me in
an attempt to get me to rid you of your very real problem."
Some of the men looked confused by what Richard said while others
looked to be embarrassed. A few looked astonished. None looked willing to
challenge him, so they let him go on without interrupting.
"The people in the Old World were the same way--they still are. They
claimed they didn't want magic, and yet when faced with that reality, they
didn't want to do without it. The Imperial Order is like this. They've come
to the New World claiming to be a champion of freeing mankind of magic,
proclaiming themselves to be noble for holding such a goal, and yet they use
magic in the pursuit of this professed goal. They contend that magic is