Kahlan's
dress. "Here, hold still; let me look at you."
     Kahlan turned back, arms at her sides, as he smoothed the fabric at her
upper arms. Her unafraid green eyes,  beneath eyebrows that had the graceful
arch of  a raptor's wings in flight, met  his  gaze. Her features seemed  to
have only  grown more exquisite since he had  first  met her.  Her look, her
pose, the way  she gazed at him as if she could see  into his soul, struck a
chord in him. Clearly evident in her eyes was the intelligence that had from
the first so captivated him.
     "Why are you looking at me like that?"
     Despite  everything,  he couldn't hold back  his smile. "Standing there
like  that,  in  that dress, your long hair so beautiful,  the  green of the
trees behind you... it just  suddenly reminded me  of the  first time  I saw
you."
     Her special smile, the smile  she gave no one but him, spread radiantly
through  her bewitching eyes. She put her wrists on his shoulders and locked
her fingers behind his neck, pulling him into a kiss.
     As it always did, her  kiss so completely consumed him with his need of
her that he momentarily  lost  track  of the  world.  She  melted  into  his
embrace.  For  that moment  there was no  Imperial  Order, no  Bandakar,  no
D'Haran Empire,  no Sword  of Truth, no chimes,  no  gift turning  its power
against  him,  no  poison,  no warning  beacons,  no  black-tipped races, no
Jagang,  no  Nicholas,  no Sisters of  the Dark. Her  kiss  made  him forget
everything but her.  In  that moment there was nothing but  the two of them.
Kahlan made his life complete; her kiss reaffirmed that bond.
     She pulled back, gazing up  into his eyes again. "Seems like you've had
nothing but trouble ever since that day you found me."
     Richard smiled. "My life  is  what I've had since that day I found you.
When I found you, I found my life."
     Holding her face in both hands, he kissed her again.
     Betty nudged his leg and bleated.
     "You two about ready?" Jennsen called down the hill.  "They'll be here,
soon. Didn't you hear Cara's whistle?"
     "We heard," Kahlan called up to Jennsen. "We'll be right there."
     Turning back,  she  smiled as  she looked him up and  down. "Well, Lord
Rahl, you  certainly don't  look the way you did the first  time I saw you."
She  straightened the tooled  leather  baldric  lying over  the black  tunic
banded in gold. "But you look exactly the same,  too. Your eyes are the same
as I  saw that day." She cocked her head as she smiled  up at him.  "I don't
see the headache of the gift in your eyes."
     "It's  been  gone  for  a  while,  but after  that  kiss,  it would  be
impossible to have a headache."
     "Well, if it comes back," she said with intimate promise, "just tell me
and I'll see what I can do to make it go away."
     Richard ran his fingers through her hair  and  gazed one last time into
her eyes before  slipping his arm around her  waist.  Together  they  walked
through the cathedral of trees that was their cover off to the side near the
crown of the ridge, and out toward the open slope. Between the trunks of the
pines,  he could see Jennsen  running  down the  hill, leaping from rock  to
rock, avoiding the patches of snow. She  rushed in to  meet them just within
the small cluster of trees.
     "I spotted them," she said, breathlessly. "I could see them down in the
gorge on the far side. They'll be up here soon." A grin brightened her face.
"I saw Tom leading them."
     Jennsen took in the sight of  both of them,  then--Kahlan in the  white
dress of the Mother Confessor and Richard in the outfit he had in part found
in the Keep that  had once been  worn by  war  wizards.  By the surprise  on
Jennsen's face, he thought she might curtsy.
     "Wow," she said.  "That sure is some dress."  She looked Richard up and
down again. "You two look like you should rule the world."
     "Well," Richard said, "let's hope Owen's people think so."
     Cara pushed a spruce bough  aside as she ducked  in under the limbs  of
trees.  Dressed again in  her  skintight red leather outfit, she  looked  as
intimidating as  she had the first  time Richard had seen her in  the  grand
halls of the People's Palace in D'Hara.
     "Lord Rahl once confided in  me that  he intended to  rule the  world,"
Cara said, having heard Jennsen's pronouncement.
     "Really?" Jennsen asked.
     Richard  sighed at her awe. "Ruling the world has proven more difficult
than I thought it would be."
     "If you  would  listen  more  to the Mother Confessor  and to me," Cara
advised, "you would have an easier time of it."
     Richard ignored Cara's cockiness. "Would you get everything together? I
want to be up there with Kahlan before Tom arrives with Owen and his men."
     Cara nodded and started  collecting  the things they'd been working  so
hard to make,  stacking some and taking a count  of  others.  Richard laid a
hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
     "Tie Betty  up  so that she'll stay here  for now.  All right? We don't
need her in the way."
     "I'll see to it,"  Jennsen said as  she fussed with ringlets of her red
hair. "I'll make sure she won't be able to bother us or wander off."
     It was plainly evident how  eager she was to see  Tom again. "You  look
beautiful," Richard assured  her. Her grin returned to overpower the anxious
expression.
     Betty's tail was a blur as she peered up at them, eager to  go wherever
the rest  of them were going. "Come on," Jennsen said to her friend, "you're
staying here for a while."
     Jennsen  snatched Betty's rope,  holding  her  back,  as Richard,  with
Kahlan close at his  side, made his way  out past the last  of the trees and
onto the open ledge. Somber clouds hung low  against the face of surrounding
mountains. With  the  towering snowcapped peaks hidden  by the low,  ominous
clouds, Richard thought it felt like they were near the roof of the world.
     The wind down at the ground had died, leaving the trees motionless and,
by contrast, making the  boiling movement of the  cloud  masses seem  almost
alive. The flurries  of the day before had ended and then the sun had made a
brief appearance to  shrink the patches of snow on the pass. He didn't think
there was much chance of seeing the sun this day.
     The towering stone sentinel waited  at  the top of  the trail, watching
forever over  the  pass and  out  toward  the Pillars of Creation.  As  they
approached it, Richard  scanned the surrounding sky but saw  only some small
birds--flycatchers  and white-breasted nuthatches--flitting among the nearby
stand of spruce  trees. He  was relieved that the races had remained  absent
ever since they had taken this ancient trail up through the pass.
     The first night  up  in  the pass,  farther back down the slope  in the
heavier forests, they had worked hard to build a snug shelter, just managing
to get  it done as darkness had  settled into the vast woods. Early the next
day,  Richard  had cleared snow  off the statue and all around the ledges of
the base.
     He had discovered more writing.
     He  now knew more about this man whose statue had been  placed there in
the  pass. Another  small flurry  had  since dusted  snow over the  writing,
burying again the long-dead words.
     Kahlan  placed  a comforting  hand  on  his  back. "They  will  listen,
Richard. They will listen to you."
     With every breath, pain pulled at him from deep inside. It was  getting
worse. "They'd better, or I'll have no  chance  to get  the antidote to this
poison."
     He  knew he couldn't do it alone. Even if he knew how  to call upon his
gift and  command its magic, he  still would not be  able to wave a hand  or
perform  some grand feat of conjuring that would cast the Imperial Order out
of the Bandakaran Empire. He knew that such  things were beyond the scope of
even the most powerful magic. Magic,  properly used, properly conceived, was
a tool, much like his sword, employed to accomplish a goal.
     Magic was not what  would save him. Magic was not a panacea. If  he was
to succeed, he had to use his head to come up with a way to prevail.
     He no  longer knew if he could even depend on the magic of the Sword of
Truth. Nor did  he know how  long he had before his own gift might kill him.
At times, it felt as if his gift and the poison were in a race  to see which
could do him in first.
     Richard led Kahlan the rest of the way up and around to the back of the
statue, to a small prominence of rock at the very top  of the  pass where he
wanted to wait for the men. From  that spot they could  see through the gaps
in the mountains and back into Bandakar. Out at the edge of the  level area,
Richard spotted Tom down below leading the men through the  trees and up the
switchback trail.
     Tom peered up as he  ascended the trail and spotted Richard and Kahlan.
He saw how they were dressed, where  they stood, and gave  no familiar wave,
realizing that doing so would be inappropriate. Through breaks in the trees,
Richard could see men following Tom's gaze up above them.
     Richard  lifted his sword a  few inches, checking that it  was clear in
its scabbard. Overhead, the dark, towering clouds all around seemed  to have
gathered, as  if  they were all crowding into  the confines  of the  pass to
watch.
     Standing tall as he gazed off to the unknown land beyond, to an unknown
empire, Richard took Kahlan's hand.
     Hand  in hand, they silently awaited what would be  the beginning of  a
challenge that would change forever the nature of the world, or would be the
end of his chance at life.





        CHAPTER 40




     As  the  men  following Tom emerged from the trees  below and into  the
open, Richard was dismayed to see that their numbers were far less than Owen
said had been hiding with him in the hills. Rubbing the furrows on his  brow
with  his  fingertips, Richard stepped back up to  the short  plateau  where
Kahlan waited.
     Her own brow drew down with concern. "What's wrong?"
     "I doubt they brought fifty men."
     Kahlan took up  his hand  again, her voice coming in  gentle assurance.
"That's fifty more than we had."
     Cara came up behind them, dropping her load  off to the side.  She took
up  station  behind Richard  to his left, on the  opposite side from Kahlan.
Richard met  her grim gaze. He wondered how the woman always managed to look
as  if she fully expected everything to happen  just  as  she  wished  it to
happen, and that was the end of it.
     Tom stepped up over  the  edge of the  rock,  the men following. He was
sweating from the  exertion of the climb,  but a tight smile warmed his face
when he saw Jennsen just coming up  the other side of the rise. She returned
the brief smile and then stood in the shadows beside the base of the statue,
back out of the way.
     When the unkempt band of men caught sight of Richard in his black pants
and boots, black tunic trimmed in a band of gold around the edge, the  broad
leather  belt, the  leather-padded  silver wristbands with  ancient  symbols
circling  them,  and  the  gleaming  silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard,  they
seemed to lose their courage. When they saw Kahlan standing beside him, they
cowered back toward the edge, bowing hesitantly, not knowing what they  were
supposed to do.
     "Come on,  then," Tom told them, prompting them all to come up onto the
expanse of flat rock in front of Richard and Kahlan.
     Owen whispered to the men as he moved among them,  urging  them to come
forward as Tom was gesturing. They  complied  timidly, shuffling in a little
closer, but  still  leaving  a wide  safety  margin  between themselves  and
Richard.
     As the men all gazed about, unsure as to what they were supposed to  do
next, Cara stepped forward and held an arm out toward Richard.
     "I present Lord Rahl," she said in a clear tone  that rang out over the
men gathered at the top of the pass, "the Seeker of Truth and wielder of the
Sword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master  of the D'Haran Empire, and
husband to the Mother Confessor herself."
     If the men had looked timid and unsure before, Cara's introduction made
them all  the more  so. When  they  looked from  Richard and  Kahlan back to
Cara's penetrating blue eyes, seeing her waiting, they all went to a knee in
a bow before Richard.
     When Cara  stepped deliberately to  the  fore,  in  front of  the  men,
turned, and went to  her knees,  Tom got the message and did  the same. Both
bent forward and touched their foreheads to the ground.
     In the  silent, late-morning air, the men waited, still  unsure what it
was they were to do.
     "Master Rahl, guide us," Cara said  in  a clear voice  so the men could
all hear her. She waited.
     Tom looked back over his shoulder at all the blond-headed men watching.
When  Tom  frowned  with  displeasure,  the  men understood  that  they were
expected to follow the  lead. They all finally went to both knees  and bowed
forward, imitating  Tom and Cara, until  their foreheads  touched  the  cold
granite.
     "Master Rahl, guide us," Cara  began again,  never lifting her forehead
from the ground.
     This time, led by Tom, the men all repeated the words after her.
     "Master Rahl, guide us," they said with a decided lack of unity.
     "Master Rahl,  teach us,"  Cara  said  when they  all  had finished the
beginning of  the oath.  They  followed her lead again, but still hesitantly
and without much coordination.
     "Master Rahl, protect us," Cara said.
     The men repeated the words, their voices coming a little more in union.
     "In your light we thrive."
     The men mumbled the words after her.
     "In your mercy we are sheltered."
     They repeated the line.
     "In your wisdom we are humbled."
     Again they spoke the words after her.
     "We live only to serve."
     When they finished repeating the words,  she spoke  the last line  in a
clear voice: "Our lives are yours."
     Cara rose up on her knees when they finished and glared back at the men
all still bowed forward but  peeking up at her.  "Those are the words of the
devotion  to the  Lord Rahl. You  will  now  speak it together with me three
times, as is proper in the field."
     Cara again put her forehead to the ground at Richard's feet.
     "Master Rahl, guide us. Master Rahl, teach us. Master Rahl, protect us.
In your  light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your  wisdom we
are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours."
     Richard and Kahlan stood above  the people as they spoke the second and
third devotion. This was no empty show put on by Cara for the benefit of the
men; this was the devotion as  it had been spoken for thousands of years and
Cara meant every word of it.
     "You may rise now," she told the men.
     The  men  cautiously returned to their feet, hunched  in worry, waiting
silently. Richard met all their eyes before he began.
     "I am Richard  Rahl.  I am  the man you men decided  to poison so as to
enslave me and thus force me to do your bidding.
     "What you  have  done  is a crime. While  you  may believe that you can
justify  your  action  as  proper,  or  think  of it  as merely  a  means of
persuasion, nothing  can give you  the right to threaten or take the life of
another  who  has  done  you  no  harm nor  intended none. That, along  with
torture, rape, and murder, is the means by which the Imperial Order rules."
     "But  we  meant you no harm," one of the men called out  in horror that
Richard would  accuse them of such  a  ghastly  crime. Other men spoke up in
agreement that Richard had it all wrong.
     "You think I  am a  savage,"  Richard  said  in a  tone  of  voice that
silenced them and put them back a step. "You think yourselves better than me
and so that somehow makes it all right to do this to me--and to try to do it
to  the Mother  Confessor--because you want  something  and,  like  petulant
children, you expect us to give it to you.
     "The alternative  you give me is death. The task you demand  of  me  is
difficult  beyond your imagination, making my death from your poison  a very
real possibility, and likely. That is the reality of it.
     "I already came close to dying  from your  poison. At the last possible
instant  I was granted a temporary stay of my execution when one of you gave
me a provisional antidote.  My  friends and loved ones  believed I would die
that night. You were the cause of it. You men  consciously decided to poison
me, thereby accepting the fact that you might be killing me."
     "No,"  a  man insisted, his  hands  clasped in supplication,  "we never
intended to harm you."
     "If there was not a credible threat to my life, then  why would I do as
you  wish? If you truly mean me no harm and  are not committed to killing me
if I don't go along with you, then prove it and give me the antidote so that
I can have my life back. It's my life, not yours."
     This time no one spoke up.
     "No? So you see, then, it is as I say.  You men are committed to either
murder or enslavement. The only choice I have in it is which of those two it
will be. I will  hear no more of your feelings about what you intended. Your
feelings do  not absolve you of your very real deeds. Your actions, not your
feelings, speak the truth of your intent."
     Richard clasped his hands behind his back as he paced slowly before the
men. "Now, I could do as you people are  fond of doing, and tell myself that
I can't  know if  any  of it  is true. I could do as  you would  do, declare
myself inadequate  to the  task of knowing  what's real and refuse  to  face
reality.
     "But  I  am the Seeker  of Truth  because  I do  not try  to  hide from
reality.  The choice to live demands that the truth be faced. I intend to do
that. I intend to live.
     "You men must today decide what you will do, what will be the future of
your lives and the lives of the ones you love. You are going to have to deal
with reality, the same as I must, if you are to have a chance at life. Today
you will have to face a  great deal of the  truth, if you  are  to have that
which you seek."
     Richard gestured to Owen. "I thought  you said there were more men than
this. Where are the rest?"
     Owen took a step forward. "Lord Rahl, to prevent violence, they  turned
themselves over to the men of the Order."
     Richard stared at the man. "Owen, after  all you've  told me, after all
those  men have seen  from the Order, how could they possibly believe such a
thing?"
     "But how are we  to know  that this time it will not stop the violence?
We can't know the nature of reality or--"
     "I told you before, with me  you  will confine yourself to what is, and
not repeat meaningless phrases you  have memorized. If you have real facts I
want to hear them. I'm not interested in meaningless nonsense."
     Owen pulled his small pack off  his  back. He fished around  inside and
came up with a small canvas  pouch. Tears welled  up in his eyes as he gazed
at it.
     "The men of the Order  found out that there were men hiding out  in the
hills. One of those  men  hiding with  us has three daughters.  In order  to
prevent a cycle of  violence, someone in our town told  the men of the Order
which girls were his daughters.
     "Every day the men  of the Order tied a rope to a finger of each one of
these  three girls. One  man  held the girl while another pulled on the rope
until her finger tore off. The men of the Order  told a man from our town to
go to the hills and give the three fingers to our men. Every day he came."
     Owen handed the bag to Richard. "These are the fingers from each of his
daughters."
     "The man  who brought  them to our men  was in a daze. They said  he no
longer seemed human. He talked in a dead voice. He repeated what he had been
bidden  to  say. He  had decided  that  since nothing was real, he would see
nothing and do as he was told.
     "He said that the  men of the Order told him  that some  of the  people
from our town had given the names  of the men in the hills and that they had
the  children of those  other  men, as  well.  They said that unless the men
returned  and  gave themselves up,  they  would  do  the same to  the  other
children.
     "A little more than half the men hiding in the hills could not stand to
think of themselves being the cause  of such violence, and so they went back
to our town and gave themselves over to the men of the Order."
     "Why are you giving me this?" Richard asked.
     "Because," Owen said, his voice filled with  tears,  "I  wanted  you to
know why  our men had no choice but to turn  themselves  in. They  could not
stand to think of their  loved ones suffering such terrible agony because of
them."
     Richard looked out at the mournful  men watching him. He felt his anger
boiling up inside, but he kept it in check as he spoke.
     "I can understand what those men were trying to do by giving themselves
up. I can't fault them for it. It  won't help, but I couldn't fault them for
desperately wanting to spare their loved ones from harm."
     Despite his  rage, Richard  spoke in a  soft voice. "I'm sorry that you
and  your  people are suffering such brutality at the hands of the  Imperial
Order. But understand this: it is real, and  the Order is the  cause  of it.
Those men of yours, if they did as the Order commanded or if they failed to,
were not the cause of violence. The  responsibility for  causing violence is
entirely the Order's.  You did not go out and attack them. They came to you,
they attacked you, they enslave and torture and murder you."
     Most of the men stood in slumped poses, staring at the ground.
     "Do any of the rest of you have children?"
     A number of the men nodded or mumbled that they did.
     Richard  ran his  hand back through  his hair. "Why haven't the rest of
you turned yourselves in, then?  Why are you here and not trying to stop the
suffering in the same way the others did?"
     The men looked at  one another, some seeming confused  by  the question
while others appearing unable to put their reasons into words. Their sorrow,
their distress, even  their hesitant resolve, were  evident on  their faces,
but they could not come up  with words to explain why  they  would not  turn
themselves in.
     Richard held up  the small  canvas bag with the gruesome  treasure, not
allowing them to avoid the issue. "You all knew about this. Why did  you not
return as well?"
     Finally one man spoke up. "I sneaked to the fields at sunset and talked
to a man working  the  crops, and asked what happened to  those men  who had
returned. He said that many  of their children had already  been taken away.
Others had died. All the men who had come in from the hills  had been  taken
away.  None were allowed to return to their homes,  to  their families. What
good would it do for us to go back?"
     "What  good, indeed," Richard murmured.  This was  the  first sign that
they grasped the true nature of the situation.
     "You have to stop the Order," Owen said. "You must give us our freedom.
Why have you made us make this journey?"
     Richard's initial spark of confidence dimmed. While they might have  in
part grasped  the truth of their troubles, they certainly weren't facing the
nature of any real  solution.  They simply wanted to  be saved.  They  still
expected someone to do it for them: Richard.
     The  men all looked relieved that Owen had  at last asked the question;
they were apparently too timid to ask it themselves. As they waited, some of
the  men couldn't help stealing  glances at  Jennsen, standing to the  rear.
Most of the men also appeared troubled by the statue looming behind Richard.
They could  only see the back of it and didn't really know what it was meant
to be.
     "Because,"  Richard finally  told them, "in order for  me  to do as you
want,  it's  important that you all come to understand  everything involved.
You expect me  to simply do this for you.  I can't. You are going to have to
help me in this or  you and all of  your loved ones are lost. If  we are  to
succeed, then you men must help the rest  of your people  come to understand
the things I have to tell you.
     "You  have gone this far,  you have suffered this much,  you have  made
this  much  of  a commitment.  You realize  that if you  do the same as your
friends have been trying to do, if you  apply those same useless  solutions,
you, too, will be enslaved or murdered. You are running out  of options. You
all  have  made  a  decision  to  at  least try to  succeed,  to  try to rid
yourselves of the brutes killing and enslaving your people.
     "You men here are their last chance .. . their only chance.
     "You must now hear the rest of what I have to tell you and then make up
your minds as to what will be your future."
     The  haggard,  ragtag  men, all dressed  in worn and dirty clothes, all
looking like they'd had a very difficult time of living in the hills, either
spoke up or nodded that they would hear him out. Some even looked as if they
might be relieved  by how directly and honestly he spoke to them. A few even
looked hungry for what he might say.





        CHAPTER 41



     Three years  ago from the coming autumn," Richard began, "I  lived in a
place called Hartland. I was a woods guide. I had a peaceful life in a place
I loved among those I loved. I knew very little about the  places beyond  my
home. In  some  ways I was like  you people before the Order  came, so I can
understand some of what you felt about how things changed.
     "Like you, I lived beyond a  boundary that protected  us from those who
would do us harm."
     The  men  broke  out in excited  whispering,  apparently  surprised and
pleased that  they could relate to him in this way, that they had  something
so basic in common with him.
     "What happened, then?" one of the men asked.
     Richard couldn't  help  himself; he  couldn't hold  back the smile that
overwhelmed him.
     "One  day,  in  my  woods"--he held his hand out  to the  side--"Kahlan
showed up. Like you, her people were in desperate  trouble. She needed help.
Rather than  poison me, though, she told  me her story  and  how trouble was
coming our way. Much like you, the boundary protecting her people had failed
and a tyrant had invaded her  homeland. She also came bearing a warning that
this man  would  soon come to  my homeland, too, and  conquer  my people, my
friends, my loved ones."
     All the faces turned toward Kahlan. The men stared openly, as if seeing
her  for  the first  time. It  looked to  be  astonishing  to them that this
statuesque  woman  before  them  could  be  a  savage, as  they  thought  of
outsiders, and have the same kind of trouble they'd had. Richard was leaving
out vast chunks of the story, but  he  wanted to keep it simple enough to be
clear to these men.
     "I  was named the Seeker of Truth and given  this sword to  help me  in
this  important  struggle." Richard lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard by
half the  length  of the blade, letting the men  all see the polished steel.
Many grimaced at seeing such a weapon.
     "Together,  side by side, Kahlan and  I  struggled  to stop the man who
sought  to enslave or destroy us all. In  a strange land, she was  my guide,
not only helping me to fight against those who would kill us, but helping me
to come  to understand  the wider world  I had  never before considered. She
opened my eyes to what was out there, beyond the boundary that had protected
me and my people. She helped me to see the approaching shadow of tyranny and
know the true stakes involved--life itself.
     "She made  me live up to the  challenge. Had she not,  I  would not  be
alive today, and a great many more people would be dead or enslaved."
     Richard had  to  turn away, then, at the flood of painful  memories, at
the thought of all those lost in the struggle. At the victories so hard won.
     He put his hand to the statue for support as he remembered the gruesome
murder of George Cypher, the man who had raised him, the man who, until that
struggle, Richard had  always believed was  his father. The pain  of it,  so
distant and far away,  came rushing back again. He remembered the  horror of
that time, of suddenly realizing  that he would never again  see the  man he
dearly loved. He had forgotten until that moment how much he missed him.
     Richard gathered his composure and turned back to the men. "In the end,
and  only with Kahlan's help,  I  won the struggle against that tyrant I had
never known existed until the day she had come into my woods and warned me.
     "That man was Darken Rahl, my father, a man I had never known."
     The  men  stared  in  disbelief.  "You  never knew?"  one asked  in  an
astonished voice.
     Richard shook his head. "It's a  very long story. Maybe another time  I
will tell you men  all of it. For now, I  must tell  you the important parts
that are relevant to you and those you love back there in your homes."
     Richard looked at the ground before him, thinking, as he paced in front
of the disorderly knot of men.
     "When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep him from killing me and my
loved ones.  He  had tortured and  murdered countless people and that  alone
earned him death, but I had to kill him or he would have killed me. I didn't
know at the time  that he was my real father or that in killing him, since I
was his heir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.
     "Had he known who I was, he might not  have been trying to kill me, but
he didn't know. I had  information he wanted; he intended to torture it  out
of me and then kill me. I killed him first.
     "Since  that time, I have come to learn  a great deal.  What  I learned
connects us"--Richard gestured  to the men  and then placed  the hand on his
own chest  as he met  their gazes--"in ways you  must come to understand, as
well, if you are to succeed in this new struggle.
     "The land where  I grew  up, Kahlan's land, and the land of D'Hara, all
make up the New World. As you have learned, this vast land down here outside
where you  grew  up is  called the Old World.  After I became Lord Rahl, the
barrier protecting us from the Old World failed,  much as your own  boundary
failed. When it did,  Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order, down here in the
Old World, used the opportunity to invade the New World, my home, much as he
invaded  your home.  We've been fighting  him  and his  troops for  over two
years,  trying  to  defeat them or  at  least to drive them back to the  Old
World.
     "The barrier that  failed had protected  us from the Order, or men like
them,  for  around  three  thousand  years,  longer,  even,  than  you  were
protected. Before that barrier  was  placed at  the end of a great  war, the
enemy  at  the  time, from the  Old World, had used  magic to create  people
called dream walkers."
     The men fell to whispering. They  had heard the  name, but they  didn't
really understand it and speculated on what it could mean.
     "Dream walkers," Richard explained, when they had quieted, "could enter
a person's mind in order to control them. There was no defense. Once a dream
walker took  over  your  mind,  you became  his slave, unable to  resist his
commands. The people back then were desperate.
     "A man named Alric  Rahl, my ancestor, came up  with a  way  to protect
people's minds from  being  taken over by the dream walkers. He was not only
the Lord Rahl who  ruled D'Hara at the time, but he was also a great wizard.
Through his ability he created a bond that when spoken earnestly or given in
a  more  simple form with  heartfelt sincerity, protected  people from dream
walkers entering  their  minds. Alric  Rahl's  link  of magic to his people,
through this bond, protected them.
     "The  devotion you men all gave is the formal declaration of that bond.
It  has  been  given  by the D'Haran people  to  their  Lord Rahl  for three
thousand years."
     Some of the  men  in front  stepped  forward, their  faces etched  with
anxiety. "Are we protected, then, from the dream walkers, Lord Rahl, because
we  gave this oath? Are we protected from  the  dream  walkers entering  our
minds and taking us?"
     Richard shook his  head. "You and  your people need no  protection. You
are already protected in another way."
     Relief  swept through  the crowd of men. Some  gripped the shoulder  of
another, or placed a hand in relief on a friend's back.  They  looked as  if
they feared  that dream walkers were stalking  them, and they had  just been
spared at the last instant.
     "But how is it that we can be protected?" Owen asked.
     Richard  took a  deep breath, letting it out slowly.  "Well, that's the
part  that in a way connects  us. You see,  as I  understand it, magic needs
balance in order to function."
     There were knowing nods all around, as if these pristinely ungifted men
all had an intimate understanding of magic.
     "When Alric Rahl used magic to create this bond in order to protect his
people," Richard went on, "there needed to always be a Lord Rahl to complete
the bond,  to  maintain its power. Not all  wizards bear children  who  also
possess this  gifted ability, so part of what Alric Rahl did when he created
this bond was to make it so that the Lord Rahl would always bear one son who
had magic, who had the gift, and could complete this bond with the people of
D'Hara. In this way they would always be protected."
     Richard  held up a finger to make his point as he swept  his  gaze over
the crowd  of  men.  "What they  didn't know at the time was that this magic
inadvertently created its own balance. While the Lord Rahl always produced a
gifted heir--a wizard like  him--it was  only discovered later that he  also
occasionally produced offspring who were entirely without any magic."
     Richard could see by the  blank looks that the men didn't grasp what he
was  telling them. He imagined that  for people living  such isolated lives,
his story must seem rather confusing, if not  far-fetched. He remembered his
own  confusion about magic  before the boundary had come down  and he'd  met
Kahlan. He  hadn't  been raised around magic  and he still didn't understand
most of it himself. He'd been  born  with both sides of the gift, and yet he
didn't know how to control it.
     "You see," he said,  "only  some people have magic--are gifted, as it's
called. But all people are born with at least a very tiny spark of the gift,
even  though they can't manipulate  magic.  Until  just  recently,  everyone
thought of  these people as ungifted. You see? The gifted, like  wizards and
sorceresses, can manipulate magic, and the rest of the people can't, so they
were believed to be ungifted.
     "But  it  turns  out  that  this  isn't  accurate,  since there  is  an
infinitesimal spark of  the gift  in everyone born. This  tiny spark of  the
gift is actually what  allows people to interact with the magic in the world
around  them,  that  is,  with   things  and  creatures  that  have  magical
properties,  and  with  people  who  are  gifted  in  a  more  comprehensive
sense--those who do have the ability to manipulate magic."
     "Some  people in Bandakar have magic,  too," a  man said.  "True magic.
Only those who have never seen--"
     "No," Richard said, cutting him  off. He didn't want them  losing track
of his account. "Owen told me about what you people believe is magic. That's
not magic, that's mysticism.  That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking
about  real  magic that produces real results in the real world. Forget what
you've been  taught about magic, about how faith supposedly creates what you
believe  in and that  is real magic. It's  not real. It's just  the fanciful
illusion of magic in people's imaginations."
     "But  it is real,"  someone  said in a respectful but firm voice. "More
real than what you see and feel."
     Richard  turned a harsh look on the men. "If it's so real, then why did
you have to use a known  poison on me that was mixed by a man who had worked
his whole life with herbs? Because you know what's real, that's why; when it
was vital to  your self-interest, to your lives, you  resorted to dealing in
reality, to what you know really works."
     Richard pointed back at Kahlan.  "The  Mother Confessor has real magic.
It's no fanciful  curse  put  on someone and when they  die ten years  later
people  believe the  curse was  the cause.  She  has real magic  that is  in
elemental  ways linked  to death,  so  it  affects even  you.  She can touch
someone, with this  real magic, and in an instant they will be dead. Not ten
years from now--right now, on the spot."
     Richard stood resolutely in front of the men, gazing from  eye to  eye.
"If someone doesn't believe that is real magic, then let's  have a test. Let
them perform their faith-based magic and put a spell on me--to kill me right
here and now.  After they've done  that, then they will come forward  and be
touched  by the  Mother  Confessor's very real, lethal  power. Then everyone
else will be able to  see  the  results and judge for themselves." He looked
from face to face. "Anyone willing to take  up the test? Any magicians among
all you ungifted people willing to try it?"
     When the men remained silent, no one moving, Richard went on.
     "So, it would  seem that you men  do have some  understanding of what's
real and what isn't. Keep that in mind. Learn from it.
     "Now, I told you how the  Lord Rahl always  bore a son with magic so he
could pass on the rule of D'Hara and his gifted ability in order to make the
bond work.  But, as I said, the bond that Alric Rahl created may have had an
unintended consequence.
     "Only later was it discovered  that the  Lord Rahl, possibly as a means
of balance, also sometimes produced offspring that were entirely without any
magic--not  just ungifted  in the way most people are, but unlike any people
ever  born before: they were  pristinely ungifted. These pristinely ungifted
people had absolutely no spark of the gift whatsoever.
     "Because of  that,  because  they  were pristinely ungifted,  they were
unable to interact with the real magic in  the world. They were unable to be
touched by magic at  all. For  them,  magic might as well  not exist because
they were not born  with the ability to see it  or to interact with it.  You
might say they were like a bird that could not fly. They looked like a bird,
they had feathers, they ate bugs, but they couldn't fly.
     "Back then in that  time, three  thousand years ago, after the bond had
been created to  protect people from dream walkers  in the war, the  wizards
finally succeeded in placing  a barrier between the Old and  the New  World.
Because those in the Old World could no longer come to the New World to wage
war, the great war ended. Peace finally came.
     "The people  of  the  New  World discovered,  though,  that they  had a
problem. These pristinely ungifted  offspring  of  the Lord Rahl passed this
trait on to their children. Every offspring of a marriage with at least  one
of   these   pristinely   ungifted   partners   bears   pristinely  ungifted
children--always, every time. As  these offspring married  and  had children
and then grandchildren and then great-grandchildren,  as there were more and
more of them, that pristinely ungifted trait began spreading throughout  the
population.
     "People, at the time, were  frightened because they  depended on magic.
Magic was part of their world. Magic was what had  saved them from the dream
walkers. Magic  had created  the  barrier that protected them from the horde
from the Old World. Magic had ended the war. Magic healed people, found lost
children, produced beautiful creations of art that inspired and brought joy.
Magic could help guide people in the course of future events.
     "Some towns  grew up  around  a gifted  person who could serve people's
needs. Many gifted  people earned a living performing such services. In some
things,  magic  gave  people control over nature and  thus made the lives of
everyone better. Things  accomplished  with  the aid  of magic improved  the
living  conditions  of  nearly everyone.  Magic was  a  force of  individual
creation  and  thus individual accomplishment. Nearly everyone derived  some
benefit from it.
     "This is not to say that magic was or is indispensable, but that it was
a useful aid,  a tool. Magic was like their right arm. Yet it's the  mind of
man,  not  his  magic, that  is indispensable--much like you  could  survive
without  your right arm,  but  you couldn't survive without  your  mind. But
magic had become intertwined in the lives of everyone, so many believed that
it was absolut