Naked Empire (43 page)

“No moral equivalence exists in that situation, nor can it exist, so there can be no compromise, only suicide.

“To even suggest compromise can exist with such men is to sanction murder.”

Most of the men appeared shocked and startled to hear someone speaking to them in such a straightforward manner. They seemed to be losing interest in their supply of empty adages. Some of the men looked to be moved by Richard’s words. A few even looked inspired by their clarity; he could see it in their eyes, as if they were seeing things for the first time.

Cara came up behind Richard and handed him the warning beacon. Richard wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if the inky black had taken over more of the surface of the small figure than the last time he’d seen it. Inside, the sand continued to trickle down onto the accumulated pile in the bottom.

“Kaja-Rang placed the boundary across this pass to seal your people in. He is the one who named you. He knew your people shunned violence and he feared you might end up being prey to criminals. He is the one who gave you a way to banish them from your land so that you could continue to have the kind of life you wanted. He told your people of the passage through the boundary so that you could rid yourselves of criminals if you rallied the will.”

Owen looked troubled. “If this great wizard, Kaja-Rang, didn’t want our people among the population of the Old World because we would mix with them and spread our pristinely ungifted trait, as you call it, then what about the criminals we banish? Sending those men out into the world would cause the thing they feared. Making this pass through the boundary and telling our ancestors about it would seem to defeat the whole purpose of the boundary.”

Richard smiled. “Very good, Owen. You are beginning to think for yourself.”

Owen smiled. Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang.

“You see where he’s looking? It’s a place called the Pillars of Creation. It’s a deathly hot place where nothing lives—a land stalked by death. The boundary that Kaja-Rang placed had sides to it. When you sent people out of your land, through the boundary, the walls of death to the sides prevented those banished people from escaping into the world at large. They had only one way they could go: the Pillars of Creation.

“Even with water and supplies, and knowing where you must go to get past it, trying to go through the valley known as the Pillars of Creation is almost certain death. Without water and supplies, without knowing the land, without knowing how to travel it and where you must go to escape such a place, those you banished faced certain death.”

The men stared, wide-eyed. “Then, when we banished a criminal, we were actually executing them,” one of the men said.

“That’s right.”

“This Kaja-Rang tricked us, then,” the man added. “Tricked us into what was actually the killing of those men.”

“You think that a terrible trick?” Richard asked. “You people were deliberately setting known criminals loose on the world to prey on unsuspecting people. You were knowingly setting free violent men, and condemning unsuspecting people outside your land to be victims of violence. Rather than put murderers to death, you were, as far as you knew—had you given it any thought—knowingly assisting them in going on to kill others. In the blind attempt to avoid violence at all cost, you actually championed it.

“You told yourselves that those other people didn’t matter, because they weren’t enlightened, like you, that you were better than they because you were above violence, that you unconditionally rejected violence. If you even thought about it, you considered these people beyond the boundary to be savages, their lives unimportant. For all intents and purposes, you were sacrificing their innocent lives for the lives of those men you knew to be evil.

“What Kaja-Rang was doing, besides keeping the pristinely ungifted from being at large in the world, was executing those criminals you banished before they could harm other people. You think yourselves noble in rejecting violence, but your actions would have fostered it. Only Kaja-Rang’s actions prevented it.”

“Dear Creator. It is far worse than that.” Owen sank down, sitting heavily. “Far worse than you even realize.”

Other men, too, looked to be stricken with horror. Some had to lower themselves to the ground as Owen had. Others, their faces in their hands, turned away, or walked off a few paces.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

Owen looked up, his face ashen. “The story I told you about our land…about our town and the other great cities? How in my town we all lived together and were happy with our lives?” Richard nodded. “Not all were.”

Kahlan crossed her arms and leaned toward Owen. “What do you mean, not all were?”

Owen lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Some wanted more than our simple joyful life. Some people…well, they wanted to change things. They said they wanted to make things better. They wanted to improve our life, to build places for themselves, even though this is against our ways.”

“Owen is right,” an older man said in a grim tone. “In my time I have seen a great many of these people who were unable to endure what some called the chafing principles of our empire.”

“And what happened when people wanted to make these changes, or could not endure the principles of your empire?” Richard asked.

Owen looked to each side, to the other dispirited faces. “The great speakers renounced their ideas. The Wise One said they would only bring strife among us. Their hopes for new ways were turned aside and they were denounced.” Owen swallowed. “So these people decided they would leave Bandakar. They went out of our land, taking the path through the opening in the boundary, to find a new life for themselves. Not a single one ever returned to us.”

Richard wiped a hand across his face. “Then they died looking for their new life, a better life than what you had to offer.”

“But you don’t understand.” Owen rose to his feet. “We are like those people.” He swept his arm back at his men. “We have refused to go back and give ourselves over to the men of the Order, even though we know that people are being tortured because we hide. We know it will not stop the Order, so we don’t go back.

“We have gone against the wishes of our great speakers, and the Wise One, to try to save our people. We have been denounced for what we choose to do. We have gone out of the pass to seek information, to find a way to rid ourselves of the Imperial Order. Do you see? We are much the same as those others throughout our history. Like those others, we chose to leave and try to change things rather than to endure the way things were.”

“Then perhaps you are beginning to see,” Richard said, “that everything you were taught showed you only how to embrace death, not life. Perhaps you see that what you called the teaching of enlightenment was no more than blinders pulled over your eyes.”

Richard put his hand on Owen’s shoulder. He gazed down at the statue of himself in his other hand and then looked around at the tense faces.

“You men are the ones left after all the rest have failed the tests. You alone got this far. You alone have started to use your minds to try to find a solution for you and your loved ones. You have much more to learn, but you have at least started to make some of the right choices. You must not stop now; you must meet with courage what I will call upon you to do, if you are to truly have a chance to save your loved ones.”

For the first time they looked at least a little proud. They had been recognized, not for how well they repeated meaningless sayings, but for the decisions they reached on their own.

Jennsen was frowning in thought. “Richard, why couldn’t people get back in through the passage out through the boundary? If they wanted to go off and have a new life but then discovered that they would have to go through the Pillars of Creation, why wouldn’t they go back, at least to get supplies, to get what they needed so they could make it through?”

“That’s right,” Kahlan said. “George Cypher went through the boundary at Kings’ Port and then returned. Adie said that the boundary had to have a passage, a vent, like where these people banished criminals, so why couldn’t people come back in? There was a pass out, so why did they never return?”

The men nodded, curious to hear why no one ever came back.

“From the first, I’ve wondered the same thing.” Richard rubbed a thumb along the glossy black surface of the statue of himself. “I think that the boundaries in the Midlands had to have an opening through them because they were so big—so long. This boundary, here, is nothing compared to those; I doubt that the same kind of vent would be needed.

“Because it was just one bent section of a boundary and not very long, I suspect that Kaja-Rang was able to put in a pass that allowed criminals to be banished through it, but would not allow passage back in. After all, if a criminal was banished and found he couldn’t escape, he would return. Kaja-Rang wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.”

“How could such a thing work?” Jennsen asked.

Richard rested his left hand on the hilt of his sword. “Certain snakes can swallow prey much larger than themselves. Their teeth are angled back so that as the prey is devoured, it’s impossible for it to come back out, to escape. I suppose that the pass through the boundary could have been somehow like that—only able to be traversed in one direction.”

“Do you think such a thing is possible?” Jennsen asked.

“There is precedent for such safeguards,” Kahlan said.

Richard nodded his agreement. “The great barrier between the New and the Old World had defenses to allow certain people, under specific conditions, one passage through and back, but not two.” He pointed the warning beacon up at the statue. “A wizard of Kaja-Rang’s ability would surely have known how to craft a pass through the boundary that did not allow any return. After all, he called it up out of the underworld itself and it remained viable for nearly three thousand years.”

“So then anyone who went out of this boundary died,” Owen said.

Richard nodded. “I’m afraid so. Kaja-Rang appeared to have made elaborate plans that functioned as he intended for all this time. He even made contingencies should the boundary fail.”

“That’s something I don’t understand,” a young man said. “If this wizard was so great, and his magic was so powerful that he could make a wall of death to keep us separated from the world for three thousand years, then how could it possibly fail? In the last two years it simply went away. Why?”

“I believe it was because of me,” Kahlan said.

She took a step closer to the men. Richard didn’t try to stop her. At this point, it wouldn’t do to appear as if he were withholding information from them.

“A couple of years ago, in a desperate act to save Richard’s life, I inadvertently called forth underworld power that I believe may be slowly destroying magic in our world. Richard banished this evil magic, but it had been here in the world of life for a time, so the effects may be irreversible.”

Worried looks passed among the men. This woman before them had just admitted that because of something she’d done, their protection had failed. Because of her, horrifying violence and brutality had befallen them. Because of her, their way of life had ended.

“You still have not shown us your magic,” one of the men finally said.

Richard’s hand slipped away from the small of Kahlan’s back as he stepped toward the men.

“Kaja-Rang devised a facet to his magic, linked to the boundary he placed here, to help protect it.” Richard held up the small figure of himself for all the men to see. “This was sent to warn me that the boundary to your land had failed.”

“Why is the top part of it that strange black?” asked a man standing in the front.

“I believe that it’s an indication of how I’m running out of time, how I may be dying.”

Worried whispering swept through the group of men. Richard held up a hand, urging them to listen to him as he went on.

“This sand inside—can you all see this sand?”

Stretching their necks, they all tried to get a look, but not all were close enough, so Richard walked among them, holding up the statue so that they could all see that it looked like him, and see the sand falling inside.

“This is not really sand,” he told them. “It’s magic.”

Owen’s face twisted with skepticism. “But you said we couldn’t see magic.”

“You are all pristinely ungifted and aren’t touched by magic, so you can’t see regular magic. The boundary, however, still prevented you from going out into the world, didn’t it? Why do you suppose that was so?”

“It was a wall of death,” an older man spoke up, seeming to think that it was self-evident.

“But how could it harm people who are not affected by magic? Going into the boundary itself meant death for you the same as anyone else. Why?

“Because the boundary is a place in this world where the underworld also existed. The underworld is the world of the dead. You may be ungifted, but you are mortal; since you are linked to life, so, too, are you linked to death.”

Richard again held the statue up. “This magic, as well, is tied to the underworld. Since you are all mortal, you have a connection to the underworld, to the Keeper’s power, to death. That’s why you can see the sand that shows how my time trickles away.”

“I don’t see anything magical about sand trickling down,” a man grumbled. “Just because you say it’s magic, or that it’s your life trickling away, that doesn’t seem to prove anything.”

Richard turned the statue sideways. The sand continued to flow, but sideways.

Gasps and astonished whispering broke out among the men as they watched the sand flowing laterally.

They crowded in close like curious children to see the statue as Richard held it up, on its side, so they could see magic. Some reached out and tentatively touched the inky black surface as Richard held the figure of himself out for them to inspect. Others leaned close, peering in to see the sand flowing askew in the lower part, where the figure was still transparent.

The men spoke of what a wonder it was, but they weren’t sure about his explanation of underworld magic.

“But we all see this,” one of the men said. “This doesn’t show us that we’re really different from you or anyone else, as you say we are. This shows us only that we are all able to see this magic, the same as you. Maybe we aren’t this pristinely ungifted people you seem to think we are.”

Richard thought about it a moment, thought about what he could do to show them the true aspects of magic. Even though he was gifted, he didn’t know a great deal about controlling his own gift, except that it was in part powered by anger linked to need. He couldn’t simply demonstrate some bit of magic the way Zedd could, and besides, even if he could do something magical, they wouldn’t be able to see it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw Cara standing with her arms folded. An idea came to him.

“The bond between the Lord Rahl and his people is a bond of magic,” Richard said. “That same magic powers other things, besides the protection that the bond affords against the dream walker.”

Richard gestured for Cara to come forward. “In addition to being my friend, Cara is also a Mord-Sith. For thousands of years Mord-Sith have been fierce protectors of the Lord Rahl.” Richard lifted Cara’s arm for the men to see the red rod hanging from the fine gold chain at her wrist. “This is an Agiel, the weapon of a Mord-Sith. The Agiel is powered by a Mord-Sith’s connection to the Lord Rahl—to me.”

“But it has no blade on it,” a man said as he looked closely at the Agiel swinging on the end of the gold chain. “It has nothing of any use as a weapon.”

“Take a closer look at it,” Richard suggested as he held Cara’s elbow and guided her forward, among the men. “Look at it closely to satisfy yourself that what this man has observed, that it has no blade, that it is nothing more than this slender rod, is true.”

The men leaned in close as Cara walked among them, holding her arm up, letting the men touch and inspect her Agiel as it dangled from its chain. When they had all had a look, inspecting the length of it, looking at the end, hefting it to see that it wasn’t heavy and couldn’t really be used as a club, Richard told Cara to touch it to the men. The Agiel spun up into her fist. Men flinched back at the grim look on her face as she came at them with the thing that Richard had told them was a weapon.

Cara touched her Agiel to Owen’s shoulder.

“She touched me with this red rod before,” he assured his men. “It does nothing.”

Cara pressed the Agiel to every man close enough for her to reach. A few cringed back, fearful of being harmed, even though it had harmed none of their fellows. Many of the men, though, felt the touch of her Agiel and were satisfied that there was no ill effect.

Richard rolled up his sleeve. “Now, I will show you that this really is a powerful weapon of magic.”

He held his arm out to Cara. “Draw blood,” he said in a calm voice that did not betray what he really thought of being touched by an Agiel.

Cara stared at him. “Lord Rahl, I don’t—”

“Do it,” Richard commanded as he held his arm out.

“Here,” Tom said, thrusting his bared arm in front of her. “Do it to me, instead.”

Cara immediately saw this as a preferable test.

“No!” Jennsen objected, but too late.

Tom cried out as Cara touched the end of her Agiel to his arm. He staggered back a step, a trickle of blood running down his arm. The men stared, unsure what they were seeing.

“It must be a trick of some kind,” one suggested.

As Jennsen comforted Tom, Richard held his arm out again.

“Show them,” he told Cara. “Show them what a Mord-Sith’s Agiel can do with magic alone.”

Cara looked into his eyes. “Lord Rahl…”

“Do it. Show them, so they understand.” He turned to the men. “Gather around closer so you can see that it does its terrible task with no visible means. Watch closely so that you can all see that it’s magic alone doing its grisly work.”

Richard clenched his fist as he held the inside of his arm up for her to touch. “Do it so that they can clearly see what it will do; otherwise it will be for nothing. Don’t make me do this for nothing.”

Cara pressed her lips tight with the displeasure of his command. She looked once more at the resolve in his eyes. When she did, he could see in her blue eyes the pain it gave her to hold the Agiel. He clenched his teeth and nodded that he was ready. With an iron visage, she laid the Agiel against the inside of his forearm.

It felt like lightning hit him.

The touch of the Agiel was out of all proportion to what it would appear it should feel like. The thunderous jolt of pain shot up his arm. The shock of it slammed into his shoulder. It felt like the bones in his entire arm shattered. Teeth gritted, he held his trembling arm out as Cara slowly dragged the Agiel down toward his wrist. Blood-filled blisters rose in its wake. Blood gushed down his arm.

Richard held his breath, kept his abdominal muscles tight, as he went to one knee, not because he intended to, but because he couldn’t remain standing under the weight of pain as he held his arm up for Cara as she pressed the Agiel to it. The men gasped as they watched, shocked at the blood, the obvious pain. They whispered their astonishment.

Cara withdrew the weapon. Richard released the rigid tension in his muscles, bending forward as he panted, trying to catch his breath, trying to remain upright. Blood dripped off his fingers.

Kahlan was there beside him with a small scarf Jennsen pulled from a pocket. “Are you out of your mind?” she hissed heatedly as she wrapped his bleeding arm.

“Thanks,” he said in response to her care, not wanting to address her question.

He couldn’t make his fingers stop trembling. Cara had held little back. He was sure that she hadn’t broken any bones, but it felt as if she had. He could feel tears of pain running down his face.

When Kahlan finished, Cara put a hand under his arm and helped him to his feet. “The Mother Confessor is right,” she growled under her breath. “You are out of your mind.”

Richard didn’t argue the need of what he’d had her do, but instead turned to the men. He held his arm out. A wet crimson stain slowly grew along the length of the scarf bandage.

“There is powerful magic for you. You can’t see the magic, but you can see the results. That magic can kill, should Cara wish it.” The men cast worried glances her way, viewing her with newfound respect. “But it could not harm you men because you have no ability to interact with such magic. Only those born with the spark of the gift can feel the touch of an Agiel.”

The mood had changed. The sight of blood had sobered everyone.

Richard paced slowly before the men. “I’ve given you the truth in all that I’ve told you. I’ve kept nothing important or relevant from you, nor will I. I’ve told you who I am, who you are, and how we’ve come to this point. If there is anything you wish to know, I will give you my truthful answer.”

When Richard paused, the men looked around at one another, seeing if anyone would ask a question. No one did.

“The time has come,” Richard said, “for you men to decide your future and the future of your loved ones. Today is the day upon which that future hinges.”

Richard gestured toward Owen. “I know that Owen had a woman he loved, Marilee, who was taken away by the Order. I know that each of you has suffered great loss at the hands of the men of the Imperial Order. I don’t know all your names, yet, or the names of the loved ones taken from you, but please believe me when I tell you that I know such pain.

“While I understand how you came to the point where you thought you had no options but to poison me, it wasn’t right for you to have done so.” Many men looked away from Richard’s gaze, casting their own downward. “I’m going to give you a chance to set the proper course for yourselves and your loved ones.”

He let them consider this a moment before going on. “You men have passed many tests to make it this far, to have survived this long in such a brutal situation as you have all faced, but now you must make a choice.”

Richard rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. “I want to know where you’ve hidden the antidote to the poison you’ve given me.”

Worried looks spread through the crowd. Men glanced to the side, trying to judge the feelings of their fellows, trying to see what they would do.

Owen, too, tried to gauge the reaction of his friends, but being just as uncertain as he, they offered no firm indication of what they wanted to do. Finally he licked his lips and timidly asked a question.

“If we say that we will tell you where the antidote is, will you agree to first give us your word that you will help us?”

Richard resumed his measured pacing. The men nervously waited for his answer as they watched blood drip off his fingers, leaving a trail of crimson drops on the stone.

“No,” Richard said. “I will not allow you to link two separate issues. It was wrong to poison me. This is your chance to reverse that wrong. Linking it to any concession perpetuates the fallacy that it can somehow be justified. Telling me where you’ve hidden the antidote is the only proper thing for you to do, now, and must be without condition. This is the day you must decide how you will live your future. Until you give me your decision, I will tell you nothing more.”

Some of the men looked on the verge of panic, some on the verge of tears. Owen prodded them all back, away from Richard, so that they could discuss it among themselves.

“No,” Richard said, his pacing coming to a halt. The men all fell silent and turned back toward him. “I don’t want any of you coming to a decision because of what another says. I want each of you to give me your own personal decision.”

The men stared. A number spoke up all at once, wanting to know what he meant.

“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.