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"I want to know, without any preconditions, what each individual
chooses to do--to free me of the poison, or to use it as a threat on my life
to gain my cooperation. I want to know each man's choice."
"But we must reach a consensus," one man said.
"For what purpose?" Richard asked.
"In order for our decision to be correct," he explained. "No proper
decision about the right course of action in any important situation can be
made without a consensus."
"You are attempting to give moral authority to mob rule," Richard said.
"But a consensus points to the proper moral judgment," another man
insisted, "because it is the will of the people."
"I see," Richard said. "So what you're saying is that if all of you men
decide to rape my sister, here, then it's a moral act because you have a
consensus to rape her, and if I oppose you, I'm immoral for standing alone
and failing to have a consensus behind me. That about the way you men see
it?"
The men shrank back in confused revulsion. One spoke up.
"Well... no, not exactly--"
"Right and wrong are not the product of consensus," Richard said,
cutting him off. "You are trying to make a virtue of mob rule. Rational
moral choices are based on the value of life, not a consensus. A consensus
can't make the sun rise at midnight, nor can it change a wrong into a right,
or the other way around. If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand
other men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no
amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.
"I'll not hear any more of this empty gibberish about a consensus. You
are not a flock of geese; you are men. I will know the mind of each of you."
He gestured to the ground at their feet. "Everyone, pick up two pebbles."
Richard watched as the bewildered men hesitantly bent and did his
bidding.
"Now," Richard said, "you will put either one or both pebbles in a
closed fist. Each of you will come up to me, to the man you poisoned, and
you will open your fist so that I can see your decision but the others
can't.
"One pebble will mean no, you will not tell me where the antidote is
located unless I first pledge to try to free your people. Two pebbles in
your one fist will mean yes, you agree to tell me, without any precondition,
where to find the antidote to the poison you've given me."
"But what will happen if we agree to tell you?" one of the men asked.
"Will you still give us our freedom?"
Richard shrugged. "After each of you has given me your answer, you will
all find out mine. If you tell me the location of the antidote, I may help
you, or once I'm free of your poison, I may leave you and return to taking
care of my own urgent problems. You will only find out after you've given me
your answer.
"Now, turn away from your friends and put either one pebble in your
fist for no or two pebbles to agree to reveal the location of the poison.
When you've finished, come forward one at a time and open your hand to show
me your own individual decision."
The men milled around, casting sidelong glances at one another, but as
he'd instructed, they refrained from discussing the matter. Each man finally
set about privately slipping pebbles into his fist.
As the men were occupied, Cara and Kahlan moved in close around
Richard. It looked like the two of them had been reaching conclusions of
their own.
Cara seized his arm. "Are you crazy?" she whispered in an angry tone.
"You've both already asked me that today."
"Lord Rahl, need I remind you that you once before called for a vote
and it only got you into trouble? You said you would not do such a foolish
thing again."
"Cara is right," Kahlan argued in a low voice so the men couldn't hear.
"This time is different."
"It's not different," Cara snapped. "It's trouble."
"It's different," he insisted. "I've told them what's right and why;
now they must decide if they will choose to do the right thing or not."
"You're allowing others to decide your future," Kahlan said. "You're
placing your fate in their hands."
Richard let out a deep breath as he gazed into Kahlan's green eyes and
then the icy blue eyes of the Mord-Sith. "I have to do this. Now, let them
come up and show me their decision."
Cara stormed off to stand back by the statue of Kaja-Rang. Kahlan gave
his arm a squeeze, offering her silent support, accepting his decision even
if she didn't understand his reasons. A brief smile of appreciation was all
he could manage before she turned and walked back to stand by Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom.
Richard turned away, not wanting to let Kahlan see how much pain he was
in. The ache from the poison was slowly creeping back up his chest. Every
breath hurt. His arm still trembled with the lingering ache of being touched
by an Agiel. The worst, though, was the headache. He wondered if Cara could
see it in his eyes. After all, the business of Mord-Sith was pain.
He knew he couldn't wait until after helping these men fight off the
Order before getting the antidote to the poison. He had no idea how to rid
their empire of the Imperial Order. He couldn't even rid his own empire of
the invaders.
Worse, though, he could feel that he was running out of time. His gift
was giving him the headaches and, if not attended to, would eventually kill
him, but worse, it was weakening him, allowing the poison to work faster.
With each passing day he was having more and more difficulty working past
the poison.
If he could get these men to agree to do this, to tell him where they'd
hidden the antidote, then he might be able to recover it in time.
If not, then his chance to live was as good as over.
The men milled around the top of the pass, some staring off into their
own thoughts, some gazing up at the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man who had
banished their people. Some of the men snatched glimpses at their
companions. Richard could see that they were aching to ask friends what they
would do, but they kept to Richard's orders and didn't speak.
Finally, when Richard stepped up before them, one of the younger men
came forward. He had been one of the men eager to hear Richard's words. He'd
looked as if he had listened carefully and considered the things Richard had
told them. Richard knew that if this man said no, then there was no chance
that any of the others would agree.
When the young, blond-headed man opened his fist, two pebbles lay in
his palm. Richard let out an inner sigh that at least one of the men had
actually chosen to do the right thing.
Another man came forward and opened his fist, showing two pebbles
sitting in his palm. Richard nodded in acknowledgment, without showing any
reaction, and let him move aside. The rest of the men had lined up. Each
stepped forward in turn and silently opened his hand. Each showed him two
pebbles, showing that he would recant their death threat, and then moved off
so that the next man could show his choice.
Owen was the last in line. He looked up at Richard, pressed his lips
tight, and then thrust out his hand. "You have done us no harm," he said as
he opened his fist. There in his palm lay two pebbles.
"I don't know what will happen to us, now," Owen said, "but I can see
that we must not cause you harm because we are desperate for your help."
Richard nodded. "Thank you." The sincerity in his voice brought smiles
to many of the faces watching. "You have all showed two pebbles. I'm
encouraged that you've all chosen to do the right thing. We now have common
ground upon which to find a future course."
The men looked around one another in surprise. They each cheerfully
gathered in close to their friends, talking excitedly to one another about
how they had all made the same decision. They looked gleeful that they were
united in their decision. Richard moved back to where Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom stood.
"Satisfied?" he asked Kahlan and Cara.
Cara folded her arms. "What would you have done had they all chosen to
keep the antidote's location a secret until after you helped them?"
Richard shrugged. "I'd be no better off than I was, but no worse off,
either. I'd have to help them, but at least I would know that I dare not
trust any of them."
Kahlan still didn't look pleased. "And what if most of them would have
said yes, but some stuck to their ways and said no?"
Richard looked into her resolute green eyes. "Then, after the ones who
agreed had told me where to find the antidote, I would have had to kill
those who said no."
Understanding the seriousness of his explanation, Kahlan nodded. Cara
smiled her satisfaction. Jennsen looked shocked.
"If any would have said no," he explained to Jennsen, "then they would
have been choosing to continue to enslave me, to hold a sentence of death
over my head in order to manipulate my life to get what they wanted from me.
I would never be able to trust them in what I must ask the rest of them to
do. I couldn't trust our lives to such treachery. But, now, that's one less
problem we have to worry about."
Richard turned to the waiting men. "Each of you has decided to return
my life to me."
The faces watching him turned serious as they waited to hear what he
would do now. Richard gazed down at the small figure of himself, at the sand
trickling down, at the eerie black surface that had already descended over
the top of the statue, like the underworld itself slowly claiming his life.
His fingers left smears of blood across the surface of the figure.
The clouds had lowered in around them, thickening so that the afternoon
light seemed more like the gloom of dusk.
Richard lowered the statue and looked back up at the men. "We will do
our best to see if we can help you get rid of the Order."
A cheer rose into the thin, cold air. The men hooted their excitement
as well as their relief. He hadn't yet seen any of them smile quite this
broadly before. Those smiles, more than anything, revealed the depth of
their wish to be free of the men of the Order. Richard wondered how they
would feel about it when he finally told them their part.
He knew that as long as Nicholas the Slide was able to seek them out
through the eyes of the races, he would remain a threat that would haunt
them wherever they went and endangered all of their work to get the Old
World to rise up and overthrow the Imperial Order. More than that, though,
Nicholas would be able to direct killers to find them. The thought of
Nicholas seeing Kahlan and knowing where to find her gave Richard chills. He
had to eliminate Nicholas. It was possible that in doing so, in eliminating
their leader, he would also help these people drive the Order from their
homes.
Richard gestured for the men to gather in closer. "First, before we get
to the matter of freeing your people, you need to show me where you've
hidden the poison."
Owen squatted down and selected a stone from nearby. With it, he
scratched a chalky oval on the face of a flat spot in the rock. "Say that
this line is the mountains surrounding Bandakar." He set the stone at the
end of the oval closest to Richard. "Then this is the pass into our land,
where we are now."
He plucked three pebbles from the ground. "This is our town,
With-erton, where we lived," he said as he set the first pebble down not far
from the rock that represented the pass. "There is antidote there."
"And this is where all of you men were hiding?" Richard asked as he
circled a finger over the first pebble. "In the hills surrounding
With-erton?"
"Mostly to the south," Owen said, pointing to the area. He placed the
second pebble near the middle of the oval. "Here there is another vial of
antidote, in this city, here, called Hawton." He placed the third pebble
near the edge of the oval. "Here is the third vial, in this city,
Northwick."
"So then," Richard summed up, "I just need to go to one of those three
places and recover the antidote. Since your town is the smallest, that would
probably be our best chance."
Some of the men shook their heads; others looked away.
Owen, looking troubled, touched each of the three pebbles. "I'm sorry,
Lord Rahl, but one of these is not enough. Too much time has passed. Even
two will be insufficient by now. The man who made the poison said that if
too much time passed, all four would be necessary to insure a remedy.
"He said that if you did not immediately take the first antidote I
brought, then it would only halt the poison for a while. He said that then
the other three vials would all be needed. He said that in this case, the
poison would possibly go through three states. If you are to be free of the
poison, you must drink all of the three remaining antidotes. If you don't,
you will die."
"Three states? What does that mean?"
"The first state will be pain in your chest. The second state will be
dizziness that makes standing difficult." Owen looked away from Richard's
gaze. "In the third state the poison makes you blind." He looked up and
touched a hand to Richard's arm, as if to dispel his worry. "But taking
three vials of the antidote will cure you, make you well."
Richard wiped a weary hand across his brow. The pain in his chest told
him that he was in the poison's first state.
"How much time do I have?"
Owen looked down as he straightened his sleeve. "I'm not sure, Lord
Rahl. We have already taken a lot of time traveling this far since you had
that first vial. I think we have no time to lose."
"How much time?" Richard asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.
Owen swallowed. "To be truthful, Lord Rahl, I'm surprised that you are
able to stand the pain from the first state of the poison. From what I was
told, the pain would grow as time passed."
Richard simply nodded. He didn't look up at Kahlan.
With soldiers of the Imperial Order occupying Bandakar, getting in to
recover the antidote from one place sounded difficult enough, but retrieving
it from all three places sounded beyond difficult.
"Well, since time is short, I have a better idea," Richard said. "Make
me more of the antidote. Then we won't have to worry about getting what
you've hidden and we can simply worry about how best to take on the men of
the Order."
Owen shrugged one shoulder. "We can't."
"Why not?" Richard leaned in. "You made it before--you made the
antidote that you hid. Make it again."
Owen shrank back. "We can't."
Richard took a patient breath. "Why not?"
Owen pointed off at the small bag he'd brought, now lying to the
side--the bag containing the fingers of three girls. "The father of those
girls was the man who made the poison and made the antidote. He is the only
one among us who knew how to make such complex things with herbs. We don't
know how--we don't even know many of the ingredients he used.
"There may be others in the cities who could make an antidote, but we
don't know who they are, or if they are still alive. With men of the Order
in those places we wouldn't even be able to find these people. Even if we
could, we don't know what was used to make up the poison, so they would not
know how to make an antidote. The only chance you have to live is to recover
the three vials of antidote."
Richard's head was hurting so much that he didn't know if he could
stand much longer. With only three vials in existence, and all three needed
if he was to live, he had to get to them before anything happened to any one
of them. Someone could find one and throw it out. They could be moved. They
could be broken, the antidote draining away into the ground. With every
breath, he felt stitches of pain pull inside his chest. Panic gnawed at the
edges of his thoughts.
When Kahlan rested her hand on his shoulder, Richard laid a grateful
hand over hers.
"We will help you get the antidote, Lord Rahl," one of the men said.
Another nodded. "That's right. We will help you get it."
The men all spoke up, then, saying that they would all help to get the
antidote so that Richard could rid himself of the poison.
"Most of us have been to at least two of these places," Owen said.
"Some of us have been to all three. I hid the antidote, but I told the
others the places, so we all know where it is. We know where we have to get
in to recover it. We will tell you, too."
"Then that's what we'll do." Richard squatted down as he studied the
stone map. "Where is Nicholas?"
Owen leaned in and tapped the pebble in the center. "Here, in Haw-ton,
is this man Nicholas."
Richard looked up at Owen. "Don't tell me. You hid the antidote in the
building where you saw Nicholas."
Owen shrugged self-consciously. "At the time, it seemed like a good
idea. Now, I wish I had thought better of it."
Standing behind Richard, Cara rolled her eyes in disgust. "I'm
surprised you didn't hand it to Nicholas and ask him to hold on to it for
you."
Appearing eager to change the subject, Owen pointed at the pebble
representing Northwick. "In this city is where the Wise One is hiding. Maybe
we can get help from the great speakers. Maybe the Wise One will give us his
blessing and then people will help us in our effort to rid our land of the
Imperial Order."
After all he'd learned about the people who lived beyond the boundary
in Bandakar, Richard didn't think he could count on any meaningful help from
them; they wanted to be free of marauding brutes, but condemned their only
real means to be free. These men had at least proven a degree of resolve.
These men would have to work to change other people's attitudes, but Richard
had his doubts that they would garner much immediate help.
In order to accomplish what you men rightfully want--to eradicate the
Order, or at least make them leave your homes--you are going to have to
help. Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and I aren't going to be able to do it
alone. If it's to work, you men must help us."
"What is it you wish us to do?" Owen asked. "We already said we will
take you to these places where the antidote is hidden. What more can we do?"
"You are going to have to help us kill the men of the Order."
Instantly, heated protests erupted. All of the men talked at once,
shaking his head, warding the notion with his hands. Although Richard
couldn't make out all their words, their feelings about what he said were
obvious enough. What words he did hear were all objections that they
couldn't kill.
Richard rose up. "You know what these men have done," he said in a
powerful voice that brought them to silence. "You ran away so you wouldn't
also be killed. You know how your people are being treated. You know what's
being done to your loved ones in captivity."
"But we can't harm another," Owen whined. "We can't."
"It's not our way," another man added.
"You banished criminals through the boundary," Richard said. "How did
you make them go through if they refused?"
"If we had to," one of the older men said, "a number of us would hold
him, so that he could harm no one. We would tie his hands and bear him to
the boundary. We would tell such a banished man that he must go out of our
land. If he still refused, we would carry him to a long steep place in the
rock where we would lay him down and push him feet first so that he would
slide down the rock and go beyond. Once we did this, they weren't able to
return."
Richard wondered at the lengths these people went to not to harm the
worst animals among them. He wondered how many had to suffer or die at the
hands of such criminals before the people of Bandakar were sufficiently
motivated to take what were to them extreme measures.
"We understand much of what you have told us," Owen said, "but we
cannot do what you ask. We would be doing wrong. We have been raised not to
harm another."
Richard snatched up the bag with the girls' fingers and shook it at the
men. "Every one of your loved ones back there is thinking of nothing but
being saved. Can any of you even imagine their terror? I know what it's like
to be tortured, to feel helpless and alone, to feel like you will never
escape. In such a situation you want nothing more than for it to stop. You
would do anything for it to stop."
"That's why we needed you," an older man said. "You must do this. You
must rid us of the Order."
"I told you, I can't do it alone." With an arm wrapped in a bloody
bandage, Richard gestured emphatically. "Surrendering your will to men of
the Order who would do such things as this solves nothing. It simply adds
more victims. The men of the Order are evil; you must fight back."
"But if only you would talk to those men like you talked to us, they
would see their misguided ways. They would change, then."
"No, they won't. Life doesn't matter to them. They've made their choice
to torture, rape, and kill. Our only chance to survive, our only chance to
have a future is to destroy them."
"We can't harm another person," one of the men said.
"It's wrong to harm another," Owen agreed.
"It's always immoral to hurt, much less kill, another person," a
middle-aged man said to the mumbled agreement of his fellows. "Those who do
wrong are obviously in pain and need our understanding, not our hate. Hate
will only invite hate. Violence will only begin a cycle of violence that
never solves anything."
Richard felt as if the ground he had gained with these men was slipping
away from him. He was about to run his fingers back through his hair when he
saw that they were covered in blood. He dropped his arm and shifted his
approach.
"You poisoned me to get me to kill these men. By that act, you've
already proven that you accept the reality that it's sometimes necessary to
kill in order to save innocent lives--that's why you wanted me. You can't
hold a belief that it's wrong to harm another and at the same time coerce me
to do it for you. That's simply killing by proxy."
"We need our freedom," one of them said. "We thought that maybe because
of your command as a ruler you could convince these men, for fear of you, to
leave us be."
"That's why you have to help me. You just said it--for fear of me.You
must help me in this so that the threat, the fear, is credible. If they
don't believe the threat is real then why would they leave your land?"
One of the others folded his arms. "We thought you might rid us of the
Order without violence, without killing, but it is up to you to do such
killing if that is your way. We cannot kill. From our very beginning, our
ancestors have taught us that killing is wrong. You must do this."
Another, nodding his agreement, said, "It's your duty to help those who
cannot bring themselves to do what you can do."
Duty. The polite name put to the chains of servitude.
Richard turned away, closing his eyes as he squeezed his temples
between fingers and thumb. He'd thought that he was beginning to get through
to these men. He'd thought he would be able to get them to think for
themselves--in their own best interest--rather than to function
spontaneously according to the rote dictates of their indoctrination.
He could hardly believe that after all he'd told them, these men would
still rather have their loved ones endure torture and brutal murder than
harm the men committing the crimes. By refusing to face the nature of
reality, these men were willingly giving the good over to evil, life over to
death.
He realized then that it was even more basic than that. In the most
fundamental sense, they were willfully choosing to reject the reality of
evil.
Deep inside him, every breath pulled a stitch of pain. He had to get
the antidote. He was running out of time.
But that alone would not solve his problems; his gift was killing him
just as surely as the poison. He felt so sick from the pounding pain of his
headache that he thought he might throw up. Even the magic of his sword was
failing him.
Richard feared the poison, but in a more central way, he feared the
encroaching death from within, from his gift. The poison, as dangerous as it
was, had a clearly defined cause and cure. With his gift, he felt lost.
Richard looked back into Kahlan's troubled eyes. He could see that she
had no solution to offer. She stood in a weary pose, her arm hanging
straight with the weight of the warning beacon that seemed to tell him only
that he was dying, but offered no answers. Its whole reason for being was to
call him to a proclaimed duty to help replace the boundary, as if his life
was not his own, but belonged to anyone who laid claim to it by shackling
him with a declaration of duty.
That concept--duty--was no less a poison than that which these men had
given him ... a call to sacrifice himself.
Richard took the small statue from Kahlan's hand and stared down at it.
The inky black had already enveloped half the length of the figure. His life
was being consumed. The sand continued to trickle away. His time was running
out.
The stone figure of Kaja-Rang, the long-dead wizard who had summoned
him with the warning beacon and charged him with an impossible task, loomed
over him as if in silent rebuke.
Behind him, the men huddled close, affirming to one another their
beliefs, their ways, their responsibility to their ancient ideals, that the
men of the Order were acting as they were because they were misguided and
could still be reformed. They spoke of the Wise One and all the great
speakers who had committed them to the path of peace and nonviolence. They
all reaffirmed the belief that they must follow the path that had been laid
down for them from the very beginning by their land's founders, their
ancestors, who had given them their customs, their beliefs, their values,
their way of living.
Trying to elevate these men to understand what was right and necessary
seemed as difficult as trying to lift them by a slender thread. That thread
had broken.
Richard felt trapped by the deluded convictions of these people, by
their poison, by the headaches, by Nicholas hunting them, and by a long-dead
wizard who had reached out from the underworld to try to enslave him to a
long-dead duty.
Anger welling up inside him, Richard cocked his arm and heaved the
warning beacon at the statue of Kaja-Rang.
The men ducked as the small figure shot by just over their heads to
shatter against the stone base of the statue. Amber fragments and inky black
shards flew in every direction. The sand from inside splattered in a stain
across the front of the granite pedestal.
The cowering men fell silent. Overhead, wisps trailing from the sullen
clouds drifted by, almost close enough to reach up and touch. A few icy
flakes of snow floated along in the still air. All around, a frigid fog had
moved in to envelop the surrounding mountains, leaving the top of the pass
with the stone sentinel seeming isolated and otherworldly, as if this were
all there was to existence. Richard stood in the dead quiet at the center of
everyone's attention.
The words written in High D'Haran on the statue's base echoed through
Richard's mind.
Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for beyond is
evil: those who cannot see.
The High D'Haran words streamed again and again through his mind. The
translation of those words just didn't feel right.
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered in sudden realization. "I had it
wrong. That's not what it says."
Khalan felt as if her heart were being crushed by the ordeal these men
were putting Richard through. Just when she'd thought he had gotten them to
understand the truth of what was needed, it seemed to have slipped away as
the men reverted to their willful blindness.
Richard, though, seemed almost to have forgotten the men. He stood
staring at where the warning beacon had shattered against the statue. Kahlan
stepped closer to him and whispered.
"What do you mean, you had it wrong, and that's not what it says? What
are you talking about?"
"The translation," he said in what sounded like startled comprehension.
He stood motionless, facing the towering statue of Kaja-Rang. "Remember how
I told you that it was an odd way to phrase what it said?"
Kahlan glanced to the statue and then back to Richard. "Yes."
"It wasn't odd at all; I just had it wrong. I was trying to make it say
what I thought it would say--that those beyond couldn't see magic-- instead
of just seeing what was before me. What I told you before isn't what it
says...."
When his voice trailed off, Kahlan reached up and gripped his arm to
draw his attention. "What do you mean, that's not what it says?"
Richard gestured toward the statue. "I see what I did wrong with the
phrasal sequence, why I was having trouble with it. I told you I wasn't sure
of the translation. I was right to have doubts. It doesn't say, 'Fear any
breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for beyond is evil: those who
cannot see.' "
Jennsen leaned in close beside Kahlan. "Are you sure?"
Richard looked back at the statue, his voice distant. "I am now."
Kahlan pulled on his arm, making him look at her. "So what does it
say?"
His gray eyes met her gaze briefly before turning to the eyes of the
statue of Kaja-Rang staring out at the Pillars of Creation, at his final
safeguard protecting the world from these people. Instead of answering her,
he started away.
The men parted as Richard strode toward the statue. Kahlan stayed close
on his heels, Cara following in her wake. Jennsen gathered up Betty's rope
and pulled her along. The men, already backing out of the way for Richard,
kept a wary eye on the goat and her mistress as they passed. Tom stayed
where he was, keeping a careful but unobtrusive watch over all the men.
At the statue, Richard swiped the dusting of snow off the ledge,
revealing again the words carved in High D'Haran. Kahlan watched his eyes
moving along the line of words, reading them to himself. He had a kind of
excitement in his movements that told her he was racing after an important
quarry.
For the moment, she could also see that his headache was gone. She
couldn't understand the way it ebbed from time to time, but she was relieved
to see strength in the way he moved. Hands spread on the stone, leaning on
his arms, he looked up from the words. Without the headache, there was a
vibrant clarity in his gray eyes.
"Part of this story has been puzzling," he said. "I understand now. It
doesn't say, 'Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for
beyond is evil: those who cannot see.' "
Jennsen's nose wrinkled. "It doesn't? You mean it wasn't meant to be
about these pristinely ungifted people?"
"Oh, it was about them, all right, but not in that respect." Richard
tapped a finger to the carved words. "It doesn't say 'for beyond is evil:
those who cannot see,' but something profoundly different. It says, 'Fear
any breach of this seal to the empire beyond . . . for beyond are those who
cannot see evil.' "
Kahlan's brow drew down. "... those who cannot see evil."
Richard lifted his bandaged arm up toward the figure towering over
them. "That's what Kaja-Rang feared most--not those who couldn't see magic,
but those who could not see evil. That's his warning to the world." He aimed
a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the men behind them. "That's what
this is all about."
Kahlan was taken aback, and a little perplexed. "Do you think it might
be that because these people can't see magic they also can't recognize
evil," she asked, "or that because of the way they're different they simply
don't have the ability to conceive of evil, in much the same way they can't
conceive of objective magic as having nothing to do with mysticism?"
"That might in part be what Kaja-Rang thought," Richard said. "But I
don't."
"Are you so sure?" Jennsen asked.
"Yes."
Before Kahlan could make him explain, Richard turned to the men. "Here,
in stone, Kaja-Rang left a warning for the world. Kaja-Rang's warning is
about those who cannot see evil. Your ancestors were banished from the New
World because they were pristinely ungifted. But this man, this powerful
wizard, Kaja-Rang, feared them for something else: their ideas. He feared
them because they refused to see evil. That's what made your ancestors so
dangerous to the people of the Old World."
"How could that be?" a man asked.
"Thrown together and banished to a strange place, the Old World, your
ancestors must have clung desperately to one another. They were so afraid of
rejection, of banishment, that they avoided rejecting one of their own. It
developed into a strong belief that no matter what, they should try not to
condemn anyone. For this reason, they rejected the concept of evil for fear
they would have to judge someone. Judging someone as evil meant they would
have to face the problem of removing them from their midst.
"In their flight from reality, they justified their practices by
settling on the fanciful notion that nothing is real and so no one can know
the nature of reality. That way, they wouldn't have to admit that someone
was evil. Better to deny the existence of evil than have to eliminate the
evildoer in their midst. Better to turn a blind eye to the problem, ignore
it, and hope it went away.
"If they admitted the reality of evil, then eliminating the evildoer
was the only proper action, so, by extension, since they had been banished,
they thought that they must have been banished because they were evil. Their
solution was to simply discard the entire concept of evil. An entire belief
structure developed around this core.
"Kaja-Rang may have thought that because they were pristinely un-gifted
and couldn't see magic, they also couldn't see evil, but what he feared was
the infection of their beliefs spreading to others. Thinking requires
effort; these people offered beliefs that needed no thought, but merely
adopting some noble-sounding phrases. It was, in fact, an arrogant dismissal
of the power of man's mind--an illusion of wisdom that spurned the
requirement of any authentic effort to understand the world around them or
the nuisance of validation. Such simplistic solutions, such as
unconditionally rejecting all violence, are especially seductive to the
undeveloped minds of the young, many of whom would have eagerly adopted such
disordered reasoning as a talisman of enlightenment.
"When they began fanatically espousing these empty tenets to others, it
probably set off the alarm for Kaja-Rang.
"With the spread of such ideas, with the kind of rabid hold it has over
some people, such as it has over you men, Kaja-Rang and his people saw how,
if such beliefs ran free, it would eventually bring anarchy and ruin by
sanctioning evil to stalk among their people, just as it leaves you men
defenseless against the evil of the Imperial Order now come among you.
"Kaja-Rang saw such beliefs for what they were: embracing death rather
than life. The regression from true enlightenment into the illusion of
insight spawned disorder, becoming a threat to all of the Old World, raising
the specter of a descent into darkness."
Richard tapped his finger on the top of the ledge. "There is other
writing up here, around the base, that suggests as much, and what became the
eventual solution.
"Kaja-Rang had those who believed these teachings collected, not only
all the pristinely ungifted banished from the New World, but also the rabid
believers who had fallen under their delusional philosophy, and banished the
whole lot of them.
"The first banishment, from the New World down to the Old, was unjust.
The second banishment, from the Old World to the land beyond here, had been
earned."
Jennsen, twiddling the frayed end of Betty's rope, looked dubious. "Do
you really think there were others banished along with those who were
pristinely ungifted? That would mean there were a great many people. How
could Kaja-Rang have made all these people go along? Didn't they resist? How
did Kaja-Rang make them all go? Was it a bloody banishment?"
The men were nodding to her questions, apparently wondering the same
thing.
"I don't believe that High D'Haran was a common language among the
people, not down here, anyway. I suspect that it was a dying language only
used among certain learned people, such as wizards." Richard gestured to the
land beyond. "Kaja-Rang named these people Bandakar--the banished. I don't
think the people knew what it meant. Their empire was not called the Pillars
of Creation, or some name referring only to the ungifted. The writing here
suggests that it was because it was not only the pristinely ungifted who
were banished, but all those who believed as they did. They all were
Bandakar: the banished.
"They thought of themselves, of their beliefs, as enlightened.
Kaja-Rang played on that, flattering them, telling them that this place had
been set aside to protect them from a world not ready to accept them. He
made them feel that, in many ways, they were being put here because they
were better than anyone else. Not given to reasoned thinking, these people
were easily beguiled in this fashion and duped into cooperating with their
own banishment. According to what's hinted at in the writing here around the
statue's base, they went happily into their promised land. Once confined to
this place, marriage and subsequent generations spread the pristinely
ungifted trait throughout the entire population of Bandakar."
"And Kaja-Rang really believed they were such a terrible threat to the
rest of the people of the Old World?" Jennsen asked. Again, men nodded,
apparently in satisfaction that she had asked the question. Kah-lan
suspected that Jennsen might have asked the question on behalf of the men.
Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang. "Look at him. What's he
doing? He's symbolically standing watch over the boundary he placed here.
He's guarding this pass, watching over a seal keeping back what lies beyond.
In his eternal vigilance his hand holds a sword, ever at the ready, to show
the magnitude of the danger.
"The people of the Old World felt such gratitude to this important man
that they built this monument to honor what he had done for them in
protecting them from beliefs they knew would have imperiled their society.
The threat was no trifling matter.
"Kaja-Rang watches over this boundary even in death. From the world of
the dead he sent me a warning that the seal had been breached."
Richard waited in the tense silence until all the men looked back at
him before he quietly concluded.
"Kaja-Rang banished your ancestors not only because they couldn't see
magic, but, more importantly, because they couldn't see evil."
In restless disquiet, the men glanced about at their companions. "But
what you call evil is just a way of expressing an inner pain," one of them
said, more as a plea than as an argument.
"That's right," another told Richard. "Saying someone is evil is
prejudiced thinking. It's a way of belittling someone already in pain for
some reason. Such people must be embraced and taught to shed their fears of
their fellow man and then they will not strike out in violent ways."
Richard swept his glare across all the watching faces. He pointed up at
the statue.
"Kaja-Rang feared you because you are dangerous to everyone--not
because you are ungifted, but because you embrace evil with your teachings.
In so doing, in trying to be kind, to be unselfish, in trying to be
nonjudgmental, you allow evil to become far more powerful than it otherwise
would. You refuse to see evil, and so you welcome it among you. You allow it
to exist. You give it power over you. You are a people who have welcomed
death and refused to denounce it. "You are an empire naked to the shadow of
evil."
After a moment of thick silence, one of the older men finally spoke up.
"This belief in evil, as you call it, is a very intolerant attitude and is
far too simplistic a judgment. It's nothing less than an unfair condemnation
of your fellow man. None of us, not even you, can judge another."
Kahlan knew that Richard had a great deal of patience, but very little
tolerance. He had been very patient with these men; she could see that he
had reached the end of his tolerance. She half expected him to draw his
sword.
He walked among the men, his raptor glare moving individuals back as he
passed. "Your people think of themselves as enlightened, as above violence.
You are not enlightened; you are merely slaves awaiting a master, victims
awaiting killers. They have finally come for you."
Richard snatched up the small bag and stood before the last man who had
spoken. "Open your hand."
The man glanced to those at his sides. Finally, he held his hand out,
palm up.
Richard reached into the bag and then placed a small finger, its flesh
withered and stained with dried blood, in the man's hand.
The man obviously didn't want the little finger sitting in the palm of
his hand, but after he looked up into Richard's withering glower, he said
nothing and made no attempt to rid himself of the gory trophy.
Richard walked among the men, ordering random men to open their hands.
Kahlan recognized the ones he selected as men who had objected to the things
he was trying to do to help them. He placed a finger in each upturned hand
until the bag was empty.
"What you hold in your hand is the result of evil," Richard said. "You
men all know the truth of it. You all knew evil was loose in your land. You
all wanted that to change. You all wanted to be rid of evil.
You all wanted to live. You all wanted your loved ones to live.
"You all had hoped to do it without having to face the truth.
"I have tried to explain things to you so that you could understand the
true nature of the battle we all face."
Richard straightened the baldric over his shoulder.
"I am done explaining.
"You wanted me brought to your land. You have accomplished your goal.
Now, you are going to decide if you will follow through with what you know
to be right."
Richard again stood before them, his back straight, his chin held high,
his scabbard gleaming in the gloomy light, his black tunic trimmed in gold
standing out in sharp contrast against the fog-shrouded mountains behind
him. He looked like nothing so much as the Lord Rahl. He was as commanding a
figure as Kahlan had ever seen.
After Richard and Kahlan's beginning so long ago, when they had struck
out from those secluded woods of his, Richard had turned the world upside
down. From the beginning, he had always been at the heart of their struggle,
and was now the ruler of an empire--even if that endangered empire was
largely a mystery to him, as was his gift.
His cause, though, was crystal clear.
Together, Kahlan and Richard were at the center of the storm of a war
that had engulfed their world. It had now engulfed these men and their land.
Many people saw Richard as their only salvation. Richard seemed forever
trying to prove them wrong. For many others, though, he was the single most
hated man alive. For them, Richard sought to give them cause; he told people
that their life was their own. The Imperial Order wanted him dead for that
more than for any blow he had dealt them.
"This is the way things are going to be," Richard finally said in a
voice of quiet authority.
"You will surrender your land and your loyalty to the D'Haran Empire,
or you will be the subjects of the Imperial Order. Those are your only two
choices. There are no others. Like it or not, you must choose. If you refuse
to make a choice, events will decide for you and you will likely end up in
the hands of the Imperial Order. Make no mistake, they are evil hands.
"With the Order, if you are not murdered, you will be slaves and
treated as such. I think you know very well what that entails. Your lives
will have no value to them except as slaves, called upon to help them spread
their evil.
"As part of the D'Haran Empire, your lives will be your own. I will
expect you to rise up and live them as the individuals you are, not as some
speck of dirt in a pit of filth you have dug yourselves into.
"The seal to your hiding place, to the Bandakaran Empire, has failed. I
don't know how to repair it, nor would I if I could. There is no more Empire
chooses to do--to free me of the poison, or to use it as a threat on my life
to gain my cooperation. I want to know each man's choice."
"But we must reach a consensus," one man said.
"For what purpose?" Richard asked.
"In order for our decision to be correct," he explained. "No proper
decision about the right course of action in any important situation can be
made without a consensus."
"You are attempting to give moral authority to mob rule," Richard said.
"But a consensus points to the proper moral judgment," another man
insisted, "because it is the will of the people."
"I see," Richard said. "So what you're saying is that if all of you men
decide to rape my sister, here, then it's a moral act because you have a
consensus to rape her, and if I oppose you, I'm immoral for standing alone
and failing to have a consensus behind me. That about the way you men see
it?"
The men shrank back in confused revulsion. One spoke up.
"Well... no, not exactly--"
"Right and wrong are not the product of consensus," Richard said,
cutting him off. "You are trying to make a virtue of mob rule. Rational
moral choices are based on the value of life, not a consensus. A consensus
can't make the sun rise at midnight, nor can it change a wrong into a right,
or the other way around. If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand
other men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no
amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.
"I'll not hear any more of this empty gibberish about a consensus. You
are not a flock of geese; you are men. I will know the mind of each of you."
He gestured to the ground at their feet. "Everyone, pick up two pebbles."
Richard watched as the bewildered men hesitantly bent and did his
bidding.
"Now," Richard said, "you will put either one or both pebbles in a
closed fist. Each of you will come up to me, to the man you poisoned, and
you will open your fist so that I can see your decision but the others
can't.
"One pebble will mean no, you will not tell me where the antidote is
located unless I first pledge to try to free your people. Two pebbles in
your one fist will mean yes, you agree to tell me, without any precondition,
where to find the antidote to the poison you've given me."
"But what will happen if we agree to tell you?" one of the men asked.
"Will you still give us our freedom?"
Richard shrugged. "After each of you has given me your answer, you will
all find out mine. If you tell me the location of the antidote, I may help
you, or once I'm free of your poison, I may leave you and return to taking
care of my own urgent problems. You will only find out after you've given me
your answer.
"Now, turn away from your friends and put either one pebble in your
fist for no or two pebbles to agree to reveal the location of the poison.
When you've finished, come forward one at a time and open your hand to show
me your own individual decision."
The men milled around, casting sidelong glances at one another, but as
he'd instructed, they refrained from discussing the matter. Each man finally
set about privately slipping pebbles into his fist.
As the men were occupied, Cara and Kahlan moved in close around
Richard. It looked like the two of them had been reaching conclusions of
their own.
Cara seized his arm. "Are you crazy?" she whispered in an angry tone.
"You've both already asked me that today."
"Lord Rahl, need I remind you that you once before called for a vote
and it only got you into trouble? You said you would not do such a foolish
thing again."
"Cara is right," Kahlan argued in a low voice so the men couldn't hear.
"This time is different."
"It's not different," Cara snapped. "It's trouble."
"It's different," he insisted. "I've told them what's right and why;
now they must decide if they will choose to do the right thing or not."
"You're allowing others to decide your future," Kahlan said. "You're
placing your fate in their hands."
Richard let out a deep breath as he gazed into Kahlan's green eyes and
then the icy blue eyes of the Mord-Sith. "I have to do this. Now, let them
come up and show me their decision."
Cara stormed off to stand back by the statue of Kaja-Rang. Kahlan gave
his arm a squeeze, offering her silent support, accepting his decision even
if she didn't understand his reasons. A brief smile of appreciation was all
he could manage before she turned and walked back to stand by Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom.
Richard turned away, not wanting to let Kahlan see how much pain he was
in. The ache from the poison was slowly creeping back up his chest. Every
breath hurt. His arm still trembled with the lingering ache of being touched
by an Agiel. The worst, though, was the headache. He wondered if Cara could
see it in his eyes. After all, the business of Mord-Sith was pain.
He knew he couldn't wait until after helping these men fight off the
Order before getting the antidote to the poison. He had no idea how to rid
their empire of the Imperial Order. He couldn't even rid his own empire of
the invaders.
Worse, though, he could feel that he was running out of time. His gift
was giving him the headaches and, if not attended to, would eventually kill
him, but worse, it was weakening him, allowing the poison to work faster.
With each passing day he was having more and more difficulty working past
the poison.
If he could get these men to agree to do this, to tell him where they'd
hidden the antidote, then he might be able to recover it in time.
If not, then his chance to live was as good as over.
The men milled around the top of the pass, some staring off into their
own thoughts, some gazing up at the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man who had
banished their people. Some of the men snatched glimpses at their
companions. Richard could see that they were aching to ask friends what they
would do, but they kept to Richard's orders and didn't speak.
Finally, when Richard stepped up before them, one of the younger men
came forward. He had been one of the men eager to hear Richard's words. He'd
looked as if he had listened carefully and considered the things Richard had
told them. Richard knew that if this man said no, then there was no chance
that any of the others would agree.
When the young, blond-headed man opened his fist, two pebbles lay in
his palm. Richard let out an inner sigh that at least one of the men had
actually chosen to do the right thing.
Another man came forward and opened his fist, showing two pebbles
sitting in his palm. Richard nodded in acknowledgment, without showing any
reaction, and let him move aside. The rest of the men had lined up. Each
stepped forward in turn and silently opened his hand. Each showed him two
pebbles, showing that he would recant their death threat, and then moved off
so that the next man could show his choice.
Owen was the last in line. He looked up at Richard, pressed his lips
tight, and then thrust out his hand. "You have done us no harm," he said as
he opened his fist. There in his palm lay two pebbles.
"I don't know what will happen to us, now," Owen said, "but I can see
that we must not cause you harm because we are desperate for your help."
Richard nodded. "Thank you." The sincerity in his voice brought smiles
to many of the faces watching. "You have all showed two pebbles. I'm
encouraged that you've all chosen to do the right thing. We now have common
ground upon which to find a future course."
The men looked around one another in surprise. They each cheerfully
gathered in close to their friends, talking excitedly to one another about
how they had all made the same decision. They looked gleeful that they were
united in their decision. Richard moved back to where Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen,
and Tom stood.
"Satisfied?" he asked Kahlan and Cara.
Cara folded her arms. "What would you have done had they all chosen to
keep the antidote's location a secret until after you helped them?"
Richard shrugged. "I'd be no better off than I was, but no worse off,
either. I'd have to help them, but at least I would know that I dare not
trust any of them."
Kahlan still didn't look pleased. "And what if most of them would have
said yes, but some stuck to their ways and said no?"
Richard looked into her resolute green eyes. "Then, after the ones who
agreed had told me where to find the antidote, I would have had to kill
those who said no."
Understanding the seriousness of his explanation, Kahlan nodded. Cara
smiled her satisfaction. Jennsen looked shocked.
"If any would have said no," he explained to Jennsen, "then they would
have been choosing to continue to enslave me, to hold a sentence of death
over my head in order to manipulate my life to get what they wanted from me.
I would never be able to trust them in what I must ask the rest of them to
do. I couldn't trust our lives to such treachery. But, now, that's one less
problem we have to worry about."
Richard turned to the waiting men. "Each of you has decided to return
my life to me."
The faces watching him turned serious as they waited to hear what he
would do now. Richard gazed down at the small figure of himself, at the sand
trickling down, at the eerie black surface that had already descended over
the top of the statue, like the underworld itself slowly claiming his life.
His fingers left smears of blood across the surface of the figure.
The clouds had lowered in around them, thickening so that the afternoon
light seemed more like the gloom of dusk.
Richard lowered the statue and looked back up at the men. "We will do
our best to see if we can help you get rid of the Order."
A cheer rose into the thin, cold air. The men hooted their excitement
as well as their relief. He hadn't yet seen any of them smile quite this
broadly before. Those smiles, more than anything, revealed the depth of
their wish to be free of the men of the Order. Richard wondered how they
would feel about it when he finally told them their part.
He knew that as long as Nicholas the Slide was able to seek them out
through the eyes of the races, he would remain a threat that would haunt
them wherever they went and endangered all of their work to get the Old
World to rise up and overthrow the Imperial Order. More than that, though,
Nicholas would be able to direct killers to find them. The thought of
Nicholas seeing Kahlan and knowing where to find her gave Richard chills. He
had to eliminate Nicholas. It was possible that in doing so, in eliminating
their leader, he would also help these people drive the Order from their
homes.
Richard gestured for the men to gather in closer. "First, before we get
to the matter of freeing your people, you need to show me where you've
hidden the poison."
Owen squatted down and selected a stone from nearby. With it, he
scratched a chalky oval on the face of a flat spot in the rock. "Say that
this line is the mountains surrounding Bandakar." He set the stone at the
end of the oval closest to Richard. "Then this is the pass into our land,
where we are now."
He plucked three pebbles from the ground. "This is our town,
With-erton, where we lived," he said as he set the first pebble down not far
from the rock that represented the pass. "There is antidote there."
"And this is where all of you men were hiding?" Richard asked as he
circled a finger over the first pebble. "In the hills surrounding
With-erton?"
"Mostly to the south," Owen said, pointing to the area. He placed the
second pebble near the middle of the oval. "Here there is another vial of
antidote, in this city, here, called Hawton." He placed the third pebble
near the edge of the oval. "Here is the third vial, in this city,
Northwick."
"So then," Richard summed up, "I just need to go to one of those three
places and recover the antidote. Since your town is the smallest, that would
probably be our best chance."
Some of the men shook their heads; others looked away.
Owen, looking troubled, touched each of the three pebbles. "I'm sorry,
Lord Rahl, but one of these is not enough. Too much time has passed. Even
two will be insufficient by now. The man who made the poison said that if
too much time passed, all four would be necessary to insure a remedy.
"He said that if you did not immediately take the first antidote I
brought, then it would only halt the poison for a while. He said that then
the other three vials would all be needed. He said that in this case, the
poison would possibly go through three states. If you are to be free of the
poison, you must drink all of the three remaining antidotes. If you don't,
you will die."
"Three states? What does that mean?"
"The first state will be pain in your chest. The second state will be
dizziness that makes standing difficult." Owen looked away from Richard's
gaze. "In the third state the poison makes you blind." He looked up and
touched a hand to Richard's arm, as if to dispel his worry. "But taking
three vials of the antidote will cure you, make you well."
Richard wiped a weary hand across his brow. The pain in his chest told
him that he was in the poison's first state.
"How much time do I have?"
Owen looked down as he straightened his sleeve. "I'm not sure, Lord
Rahl. We have already taken a lot of time traveling this far since you had
that first vial. I think we have no time to lose."
"How much time?" Richard asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.
Owen swallowed. "To be truthful, Lord Rahl, I'm surprised that you are
able to stand the pain from the first state of the poison. From what I was
told, the pain would grow as time passed."
Richard simply nodded. He didn't look up at Kahlan.
With soldiers of the Imperial Order occupying Bandakar, getting in to
recover the antidote from one place sounded difficult enough, but retrieving
it from all three places sounded beyond difficult.
"Well, since time is short, I have a better idea," Richard said. "Make
me more of the antidote. Then we won't have to worry about getting what
you've hidden and we can simply worry about how best to take on the men of
the Order."
Owen shrugged one shoulder. "We can't."
"Why not?" Richard leaned in. "You made it before--you made the
antidote that you hid. Make it again."
Owen shrank back. "We can't."
Richard took a patient breath. "Why not?"
Owen pointed off at the small bag he'd brought, now lying to the
side--the bag containing the fingers of three girls. "The father of those
girls was the man who made the poison and made the antidote. He is the only
one among us who knew how to make such complex things with herbs. We don't
know how--we don't even know many of the ingredients he used.
"There may be others in the cities who could make an antidote, but we
don't know who they are, or if they are still alive. With men of the Order
in those places we wouldn't even be able to find these people. Even if we
could, we don't know what was used to make up the poison, so they would not
know how to make an antidote. The only chance you have to live is to recover
the three vials of antidote."
Richard's head was hurting so much that he didn't know if he could
stand much longer. With only three vials in existence, and all three needed
if he was to live, he had to get to them before anything happened to any one
of them. Someone could find one and throw it out. They could be moved. They
could be broken, the antidote draining away into the ground. With every
breath, he felt stitches of pain pull inside his chest. Panic gnawed at the
edges of his thoughts.
When Kahlan rested her hand on his shoulder, Richard laid a grateful
hand over hers.
"We will help you get the antidote, Lord Rahl," one of the men said.
Another nodded. "That's right. We will help you get it."
The men all spoke up, then, saying that they would all help to get the
antidote so that Richard could rid himself of the poison.
"Most of us have been to at least two of these places," Owen said.
"Some of us have been to all three. I hid the antidote, but I told the
others the places, so we all know where it is. We know where we have to get
in to recover it. We will tell you, too."
"Then that's what we'll do." Richard squatted down as he studied the
stone map. "Where is Nicholas?"
Owen leaned in and tapped the pebble in the center. "Here, in Haw-ton,
is this man Nicholas."
Richard looked up at Owen. "Don't tell me. You hid the antidote in the
building where you saw Nicholas."
Owen shrugged self-consciously. "At the time, it seemed like a good
idea. Now, I wish I had thought better of it."
Standing behind Richard, Cara rolled her eyes in disgust. "I'm
surprised you didn't hand it to Nicholas and ask him to hold on to it for
you."
Appearing eager to change the subject, Owen pointed at the pebble
representing Northwick. "In this city is where the Wise One is hiding. Maybe
we can get help from the great speakers. Maybe the Wise One will give us his
blessing and then people will help us in our effort to rid our land of the
Imperial Order."
After all he'd learned about the people who lived beyond the boundary
in Bandakar, Richard didn't think he could count on any meaningful help from
them; they wanted to be free of marauding brutes, but condemned their only
real means to be free. These men had at least proven a degree of resolve.
These men would have to work to change other people's attitudes, but Richard
had his doubts that they would garner much immediate help.
In order to accomplish what you men rightfully want--to eradicate the
Order, or at least make them leave your homes--you are going to have to
help. Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and I aren't going to be able to do it
alone. If it's to work, you men must help us."
"What is it you wish us to do?" Owen asked. "We already said we will
take you to these places where the antidote is hidden. What more can we do?"
"You are going to have to help us kill the men of the Order."
Instantly, heated protests erupted. All of the men talked at once,
shaking his head, warding the notion with his hands. Although Richard
couldn't make out all their words, their feelings about what he said were
obvious enough. What words he did hear were all objections that they
couldn't kill.
Richard rose up. "You know what these men have done," he said in a
powerful voice that brought them to silence. "You ran away so you wouldn't
also be killed. You know how your people are being treated. You know what's
being done to your loved ones in captivity."
"But we can't harm another," Owen whined. "We can't."
"It's not our way," another man added.
"You banished criminals through the boundary," Richard said. "How did
you make them go through if they refused?"
"If we had to," one of the older men said, "a number of us would hold
him, so that he could harm no one. We would tie his hands and bear him to
the boundary. We would tell such a banished man that he must go out of our
land. If he still refused, we would carry him to a long steep place in the
rock where we would lay him down and push him feet first so that he would
slide down the rock and go beyond. Once we did this, they weren't able to
return."
Richard wondered at the lengths these people went to not to harm the
worst animals among them. He wondered how many had to suffer or die at the
hands of such criminals before the people of Bandakar were sufficiently
motivated to take what were to them extreme measures.
"We understand much of what you have told us," Owen said, "but we
cannot do what you ask. We would be doing wrong. We have been raised not to
harm another."
Richard snatched up the bag with the girls' fingers and shook it at the
men. "Every one of your loved ones back there is thinking of nothing but
being saved. Can any of you even imagine their terror? I know what it's like
to be tortured, to feel helpless and alone, to feel like you will never
escape. In such a situation you want nothing more than for it to stop. You
would do anything for it to stop."
"That's why we needed you," an older man said. "You must do this. You
must rid us of the Order."
"I told you, I can't do it alone." With an arm wrapped in a bloody
bandage, Richard gestured emphatically. "Surrendering your will to men of
the Order who would do such things as this solves nothing. It simply adds
more victims. The men of the Order are evil; you must fight back."
"But if only you would talk to those men like you talked to us, they
would see their misguided ways. They would change, then."
"No, they won't. Life doesn't matter to them. They've made their choice
to torture, rape, and kill. Our only chance to survive, our only chance to
have a future is to destroy them."
"We can't harm another person," one of the men said.
"It's wrong to harm another," Owen agreed.
"It's always immoral to hurt, much less kill, another person," a
middle-aged man said to the mumbled agreement of his fellows. "Those who do
wrong are obviously in pain and need our understanding, not our hate. Hate
will only invite hate. Violence will only begin a cycle of violence that
never solves anything."
Richard felt as if the ground he had gained with these men was slipping
away from him. He was about to run his fingers back through his hair when he
saw that they were covered in blood. He dropped his arm and shifted his
approach.
"You poisoned me to get me to kill these men. By that act, you've
already proven that you accept the reality that it's sometimes necessary to
kill in order to save innocent lives--that's why you wanted me. You can't
hold a belief that it's wrong to harm another and at the same time coerce me
to do it for you. That's simply killing by proxy."
"We need our freedom," one of them said. "We thought that maybe because
of your command as a ruler you could convince these men, for fear of you, to
leave us be."
"That's why you have to help me. You just said it--for fear of me.You
must help me in this so that the threat, the fear, is credible. If they
don't believe the threat is real then why would they leave your land?"
One of the others folded his arms. "We thought you might rid us of the
Order without violence, without killing, but it is up to you to do such
killing if that is your way. We cannot kill. From our very beginning, our
ancestors have taught us that killing is wrong. You must do this."
Another, nodding his agreement, said, "It's your duty to help those who
cannot bring themselves to do what you can do."
Duty. The polite name put to the chains of servitude.
Richard turned away, closing his eyes as he squeezed his temples
between fingers and thumb. He'd thought that he was beginning to get through
to these men. He'd thought he would be able to get them to think for
themselves--in their own best interest--rather than to function
spontaneously according to the rote dictates of their indoctrination.
He could hardly believe that after all he'd told them, these men would
still rather have their loved ones endure torture and brutal murder than
harm the men committing the crimes. By refusing to face the nature of
reality, these men were willingly giving the good over to evil, life over to
death.
He realized then that it was even more basic than that. In the most
fundamental sense, they were willfully choosing to reject the reality of
evil.
Deep inside him, every breath pulled a stitch of pain. He had to get
the antidote. He was running out of time.
But that alone would not solve his problems; his gift was killing him
just as surely as the poison. He felt so sick from the pounding pain of his
headache that he thought he might throw up. Even the magic of his sword was
failing him.
Richard feared the poison, but in a more central way, he feared the
encroaching death from within, from his gift. The poison, as dangerous as it
was, had a clearly defined cause and cure. With his gift, he felt lost.
Richard looked back into Kahlan's troubled eyes. He could see that she
had no solution to offer. She stood in a weary pose, her arm hanging
straight with the weight of the warning beacon that seemed to tell him only
that he was dying, but offered no answers. Its whole reason for being was to
call him to a proclaimed duty to help replace the boundary, as if his life
was not his own, but belonged to anyone who laid claim to it by shackling
him with a declaration of duty.
That concept--duty--was no less a poison than that which these men had
given him ... a call to sacrifice himself.
Richard took the small statue from Kahlan's hand and stared down at it.
The inky black had already enveloped half the length of the figure. His life
was being consumed. The sand continued to trickle away. His time was running
out.
The stone figure of Kaja-Rang, the long-dead wizard who had summoned
him with the warning beacon and charged him with an impossible task, loomed
over him as if in silent rebuke.
Behind him, the men huddled close, affirming to one another their
beliefs, their ways, their responsibility to their ancient ideals, that the
men of the Order were acting as they were because they were misguided and
could still be reformed. They spoke of the Wise One and all the great
speakers who had committed them to the path of peace and nonviolence. They
all reaffirmed the belief that they must follow the path that had been laid
down for them from the very beginning by their land's founders, their
ancestors, who had given them their customs, their beliefs, their values,
their way of living.
Trying to elevate these men to understand what was right and necessary
seemed as difficult as trying to lift them by a slender thread. That thread
had broken.
Richard felt trapped by the deluded convictions of these people, by
their poison, by the headaches, by Nicholas hunting them, and by a long-dead
wizard who had reached out from the underworld to try to enslave him to a
long-dead duty.
Anger welling up inside him, Richard cocked his arm and heaved the
warning beacon at the statue of Kaja-Rang.
The men ducked as the small figure shot by just over their heads to
shatter against the stone base of the statue. Amber fragments and inky black
shards flew in every direction. The sand from inside splattered in a stain
across the front of the granite pedestal.
The cowering men fell silent. Overhead, wisps trailing from the sullen
clouds drifted by, almost close enough to reach up and touch. A few icy
flakes of snow floated along in the still air. All around, a frigid fog had
moved in to envelop the surrounding mountains, leaving the top of the pass
with the stone sentinel seeming isolated and otherworldly, as if this were
all there was to existence. Richard stood in the dead quiet at the center of
everyone's attention.
The words written in High D'Haran on the statue's base echoed through
Richard's mind.
Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for beyond is
evil: those who cannot see.
The High D'Haran words streamed again and again through his mind. The
translation of those words just didn't feel right.
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered in sudden realization. "I had it
wrong. That's not what it says."
Khalan felt as if her heart were being crushed by the ordeal these men
were putting Richard through. Just when she'd thought he had gotten them to
understand the truth of what was needed, it seemed to have slipped away as
the men reverted to their willful blindness.
Richard, though, seemed almost to have forgotten the men. He stood
staring at where the warning beacon had shattered against the statue. Kahlan
stepped closer to him and whispered.
"What do you mean, you had it wrong, and that's not what it says? What
are you talking about?"
"The translation," he said in what sounded like startled comprehension.
He stood motionless, facing the towering statue of Kaja-Rang. "Remember how
I told you that it was an odd way to phrase what it said?"
Kahlan glanced to the statue and then back to Richard. "Yes."
"It wasn't odd at all; I just had it wrong. I was trying to make it say
what I thought it would say--that those beyond couldn't see magic-- instead
of just seeing what was before me. What I told you before isn't what it
says...."
When his voice trailed off, Kahlan reached up and gripped his arm to
draw his attention. "What do you mean, that's not what it says?"
Richard gestured toward the statue. "I see what I did wrong with the
phrasal sequence, why I was having trouble with it. I told you I wasn't sure
of the translation. I was right to have doubts. It doesn't say, 'Fear any
breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for beyond is evil: those who
cannot see.' "
Jennsen leaned in close beside Kahlan. "Are you sure?"
Richard looked back at the statue, his voice distant. "I am now."
Kahlan pulled on his arm, making him look at her. "So what does it
say?"
His gray eyes met her gaze briefly before turning to the eyes of the
statue of Kaja-Rang staring out at the Pillars of Creation, at his final
safeguard protecting the world from these people. Instead of answering her,
he started away.
The men parted as Richard strode toward the statue. Kahlan stayed close
on his heels, Cara following in her wake. Jennsen gathered up Betty's rope
and pulled her along. The men, already backing out of the way for Richard,
kept a wary eye on the goat and her mistress as they passed. Tom stayed
where he was, keeping a careful but unobtrusive watch over all the men.
At the statue, Richard swiped the dusting of snow off the ledge,
revealing again the words carved in High D'Haran. Kahlan watched his eyes
moving along the line of words, reading them to himself. He had a kind of
excitement in his movements that told her he was racing after an important
quarry.
For the moment, she could also see that his headache was gone. She
couldn't understand the way it ebbed from time to time, but she was relieved
to see strength in the way he moved. Hands spread on the stone, leaning on
his arms, he looked up from the words. Without the headache, there was a
vibrant clarity in his gray eyes.
"Part of this story has been puzzling," he said. "I understand now. It
doesn't say, 'Fear any breach of this seal to the empire beyond... for
beyond is evil: those who cannot see.' "
Jennsen's nose wrinkled. "It doesn't? You mean it wasn't meant to be
about these pristinely ungifted people?"
"Oh, it was about them, all right, but not in that respect." Richard
tapped a finger to the carved words. "It doesn't say 'for beyond is evil:
those who cannot see,' but something profoundly different. It says, 'Fear
any breach of this seal to the empire beyond . . . for beyond are those who
cannot see evil.' "
Kahlan's brow drew down. "... those who cannot see evil."
Richard lifted his bandaged arm up toward the figure towering over
them. "That's what Kaja-Rang feared most--not those who couldn't see magic,
but those who could not see evil. That's his warning to the world." He aimed
a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the men behind them. "That's what
this is all about."
Kahlan was taken aback, and a little perplexed. "Do you think it might
be that because these people can't see magic they also can't recognize
evil," she asked, "or that because of the way they're different they simply
don't have the ability to conceive of evil, in much the same way they can't
conceive of objective magic as having nothing to do with mysticism?"
"That might in part be what Kaja-Rang thought," Richard said. "But I
don't."
"Are you so sure?" Jennsen asked.
"Yes."
Before Kahlan could make him explain, Richard turned to the men. "Here,
in stone, Kaja-Rang left a warning for the world. Kaja-Rang's warning is
about those who cannot see evil. Your ancestors were banished from the New
World because they were pristinely ungifted. But this man, this powerful
wizard, Kaja-Rang, feared them for something else: their ideas. He feared
them because they refused to see evil. That's what made your ancestors so
dangerous to the people of the Old World."
"How could that be?" a man asked.
"Thrown together and banished to a strange place, the Old World, your
ancestors must have clung desperately to one another. They were so afraid of
rejection, of banishment, that they avoided rejecting one of their own. It
developed into a strong belief that no matter what, they should try not to
condemn anyone. For this reason, they rejected the concept of evil for fear
they would have to judge someone. Judging someone as evil meant they would
have to face the problem of removing them from their midst.
"In their flight from reality, they justified their practices by
settling on the fanciful notion that nothing is real and so no one can know
the nature of reality. That way, they wouldn't have to admit that someone
was evil. Better to deny the existence of evil than have to eliminate the
evildoer in their midst. Better to turn a blind eye to the problem, ignore
it, and hope it went away.
"If they admitted the reality of evil, then eliminating the evildoer
was the only proper action, so, by extension, since they had been banished,
they thought that they must have been banished because they were evil. Their
solution was to simply discard the entire concept of evil. An entire belief
structure developed around this core.
"Kaja-Rang may have thought that because they were pristinely un-gifted
and couldn't see magic, they also couldn't see evil, but what he feared was
the infection of their beliefs spreading to others. Thinking requires
effort; these people offered beliefs that needed no thought, but merely
adopting some noble-sounding phrases. It was, in fact, an arrogant dismissal
of the power of man's mind--an illusion of wisdom that spurned the
requirement of any authentic effort to understand the world around them or
the nuisance of validation. Such simplistic solutions, such as
unconditionally rejecting all violence, are especially seductive to the
undeveloped minds of the young, many of whom would have eagerly adopted such
disordered reasoning as a talisman of enlightenment.
"When they began fanatically espousing these empty tenets to others, it
probably set off the alarm for Kaja-Rang.
"With the spread of such ideas, with the kind of rabid hold it has over
some people, such as it has over you men, Kaja-Rang and his people saw how,
if such beliefs ran free, it would eventually bring anarchy and ruin by
sanctioning evil to stalk among their people, just as it leaves you men
defenseless against the evil of the Imperial Order now come among you.
"Kaja-Rang saw such beliefs for what they were: embracing death rather
than life. The regression from true enlightenment into the illusion of
insight spawned disorder, becoming a threat to all of the Old World, raising
the specter of a descent into darkness."
Richard tapped his finger on the top of the ledge. "There is other
writing up here, around the base, that suggests as much, and what became the
eventual solution.
"Kaja-Rang had those who believed these teachings collected, not only
all the pristinely ungifted banished from the New World, but also the rabid
believers who had fallen under their delusional philosophy, and banished the
whole lot of them.
"The first banishment, from the New World down to the Old, was unjust.
The second banishment, from the Old World to the land beyond here, had been
earned."
Jennsen, twiddling the frayed end of Betty's rope, looked dubious. "Do
you really think there were others banished along with those who were
pristinely ungifted? That would mean there were a great many people. How
could Kaja-Rang have made all these people go along? Didn't they resist? How
did Kaja-Rang make them all go? Was it a bloody banishment?"
The men were nodding to her questions, apparently wondering the same
thing.
"I don't believe that High D'Haran was a common language among the
people, not down here, anyway. I suspect that it was a dying language only
used among certain learned people, such as wizards." Richard gestured to the
land beyond. "Kaja-Rang named these people Bandakar--the banished. I don't
think the people knew what it meant. Their empire was not called the Pillars
of Creation, or some name referring only to the ungifted. The writing here
suggests that it was because it was not only the pristinely ungifted who
were banished, but all those who believed as they did. They all were
Bandakar: the banished.
"They thought of themselves, of their beliefs, as enlightened.
Kaja-Rang played on that, flattering them, telling them that this place had
been set aside to protect them from a world not ready to accept them. He
made them feel that, in many ways, they were being put here because they
were better than anyone else. Not given to reasoned thinking, these people
were easily beguiled in this fashion and duped into cooperating with their
own banishment. According to what's hinted at in the writing here around the
statue's base, they went happily into their promised land. Once confined to
this place, marriage and subsequent generations spread the pristinely
ungifted trait throughout the entire population of Bandakar."
"And Kaja-Rang really believed they were such a terrible threat to the
rest of the people of the Old World?" Jennsen asked. Again, men nodded,
apparently in satisfaction that she had asked the question. Kah-lan
suspected that Jennsen might have asked the question on behalf of the men.
Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang. "Look at him. What's he
doing? He's symbolically standing watch over the boundary he placed here.
He's guarding this pass, watching over a seal keeping back what lies beyond.
In his eternal vigilance his hand holds a sword, ever at the ready, to show
the magnitude of the danger.
"The people of the Old World felt such gratitude to this important man
that they built this monument to honor what he had done for them in
protecting them from beliefs they knew would have imperiled their society.
The threat was no trifling matter.
"Kaja-Rang watches over this boundary even in death. From the world of
the dead he sent me a warning that the seal had been breached."
Richard waited in the tense silence until all the men looked back at
him before he quietly concluded.
"Kaja-Rang banished your ancestors not only because they couldn't see
magic, but, more importantly, because they couldn't see evil."
In restless disquiet, the men glanced about at their companions. "But
what you call evil is just a way of expressing an inner pain," one of them
said, more as a plea than as an argument.
"That's right," another told Richard. "Saying someone is evil is
prejudiced thinking. It's a way of belittling someone already in pain for
some reason. Such people must be embraced and taught to shed their fears of
their fellow man and then they will not strike out in violent ways."
Richard swept his glare across all the watching faces. He pointed up at
the statue.
"Kaja-Rang feared you because you are dangerous to everyone--not
because you are ungifted, but because you embrace evil with your teachings.
In so doing, in trying to be kind, to be unselfish, in trying to be
nonjudgmental, you allow evil to become far more powerful than it otherwise
would. You refuse to see evil, and so you welcome it among you. You allow it
to exist. You give it power over you. You are a people who have welcomed
death and refused to denounce it. "You are an empire naked to the shadow of
evil."
After a moment of thick silence, one of the older men finally spoke up.
"This belief in evil, as you call it, is a very intolerant attitude and is
far too simplistic a judgment. It's nothing less than an unfair condemnation
of your fellow man. None of us, not even you, can judge another."
Kahlan knew that Richard had a great deal of patience, but very little
tolerance. He had been very patient with these men; she could see that he
had reached the end of his tolerance. She half expected him to draw his
sword.
He walked among the men, his raptor glare moving individuals back as he
passed. "Your people think of themselves as enlightened, as above violence.
You are not enlightened; you are merely slaves awaiting a master, victims
awaiting killers. They have finally come for you."
Richard snatched up the small bag and stood before the last man who had
spoken. "Open your hand."
The man glanced to those at his sides. Finally, he held his hand out,
palm up.
Richard reached into the bag and then placed a small finger, its flesh
withered and stained with dried blood, in the man's hand.
The man obviously didn't want the little finger sitting in the palm of
his hand, but after he looked up into Richard's withering glower, he said
nothing and made no attempt to rid himself of the gory trophy.
Richard walked among the men, ordering random men to open their hands.
Kahlan recognized the ones he selected as men who had objected to the things
he was trying to do to help them. He placed a finger in each upturned hand
until the bag was empty.
"What you hold in your hand is the result of evil," Richard said. "You
men all know the truth of it. You all knew evil was loose in your land. You
all wanted that to change. You all wanted to be rid of evil.
You all wanted to live. You all wanted your loved ones to live.
"You all had hoped to do it without having to face the truth.
"I have tried to explain things to you so that you could understand the
true nature of the battle we all face."
Richard straightened the baldric over his shoulder.
"I am done explaining.
"You wanted me brought to your land. You have accomplished your goal.
Now, you are going to decide if you will follow through with what you know
to be right."
Richard again stood before them, his back straight, his chin held high,
his scabbard gleaming in the gloomy light, his black tunic trimmed in gold
standing out in sharp contrast against the fog-shrouded mountains behind
him. He looked like nothing so much as the Lord Rahl. He was as commanding a
figure as Kahlan had ever seen.
After Richard and Kahlan's beginning so long ago, when they had struck
out from those secluded woods of his, Richard had turned the world upside
down. From the beginning, he had always been at the heart of their struggle,
and was now the ruler of an empire--even if that endangered empire was
largely a mystery to him, as was his gift.
His cause, though, was crystal clear.
Together, Kahlan and Richard were at the center of the storm of a war
that had engulfed their world. It had now engulfed these men and their land.
Many people saw Richard as their only salvation. Richard seemed forever
trying to prove them wrong. For many others, though, he was the single most
hated man alive. For them, Richard sought to give them cause; he told people
that their life was their own. The Imperial Order wanted him dead for that
more than for any blow he had dealt them.
"This is the way things are going to be," Richard finally said in a
voice of quiet authority.
"You will surrender your land and your loyalty to the D'Haran Empire,
or you will be the subjects of the Imperial Order. Those are your only two
choices. There are no others. Like it or not, you must choose. If you refuse
to make a choice, events will decide for you and you will likely end up in
the hands of the Imperial Order. Make no mistake, they are evil hands.
"With the Order, if you are not murdered, you will be slaves and
treated as such. I think you know very well what that entails. Your lives
will have no value to them except as slaves, called upon to help them spread
their evil.
"As part of the D'Haran Empire, your lives will be your own. I will
expect you to rise up and live them as the individuals you are, not as some
speck of dirt in a pit of filth you have dug yourselves into.
"The seal to your hiding place, to the Bandakaran Empire, has failed. I
don't know how to repair it, nor would I if I could. There is no more Empire