Naked Empire (44 page)

“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, Witherton, 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 Witherton?”

“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 Hawton, 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.”