o 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."





        CHAPTER 45




     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
of Bandakar.
     "There is no way to allow you to be  who  you were  and to protect you.
Maybe  the Order  can  be  thrown  out  of  your land,  but  they cannot  be
effortlessly kept out, for it is their ideas that have come to destroy you.
     "So choose.  Slaves or  free  men. Life as  either will not  be easy. I
think you  know what life as slaves will be like. As free men you  will have
to struggle, work, and think, but you will have the rewards that brings, and
those rewards will be yours and no one else's.
     "Freedom must be won, but then it has to be guarded lest those like the
Order come again to  enslave  those  wishing  for  someone else to do  their
thinking.
     "I am the  Lord Rahl. I intend  to go get  the  antidote to  the poison
you've  given  me. If you men  choose to  be  part of this struggle,  to rid
yourselves and your loved ones of evil, then I will help you.
     "If you choose not  to stand with us, then you may  go back and let the
Order  do with you what  they  will, or you can  run. If  you run,  you  may
survive for a time, as you have been doing, but, because that is not the way
you wish to live,  you  will die as frightened animals, never  having  lived
what life has to offer.
     "So choose,  but if you choose to stand with me  against evil, then you
will  have to  relinquish your self-imposed  blindness and open your eyes to
look around at life. You  will have to see the reality  of the  world around
you. There is good and bad in  the world. You will have to use your minds to
judge which is which so that you can seek the good and reject the bad.
     "If you choose to stand with me, I will do my best to answer any honest
question and try to teach you how  to triumph against the  men  of the Order
and those like them. But I will not suffer your mindless teachings that  are
nothing more than a calculated rejection of life.
     "Take a  look at  the bloody fingers you or your friends hold. Look  at
what was done to children by evil men. You should hate such men who would do
this. If you don't, or can't, then you have no  business being with those of
us who embrace life.
     "I want each of  you to think about those children, about their terror,
their pain, their wish not to be hurt. Think of what it was like for them to
be alone and  in the hands  of evil men. You should rightfully  hate the men
who would do such  things. Hold tight to that righteous hatred, for that  is
the hatred of evil.
     "I intend to recover the antidote so that I can live. In the process, I
also intend to kill as many of those evil men as I can. If I go alone, I may
succeed in getting the  antidote, but alone I will not succeed in liberating
your homes from the Imperial Order.
     "If you  choose to go with me, to help me in this struggle, we may have
a chance.
     "I don't  know what I  face there, so I can't honestly tell you that we
have a good chance. I can  only tell you that if  you  don't help  me,  then
there is likely no chance."
     Richard held up a finger. "Make no  mistake. If  you choose to join  us
and we take up this struggle, some of  us  will probably die. If we do  not,
all of us will die, not necessarily  in body, but in spirit. Under such rule
as the Order has shown you, no one lives, even though their bodies might for
a time  endure the misery of life as  slaves. Under  the  Order,  every soul
withers and dies."
     The men were  silent as Richard paused to meet their gazes. Most  could
not look away, while some seemed shamed and so they stared at the ground.
     "If  you choose to side with me  in this  struggle," Richard said  with
deliberate  care, "you  will be called upon to  kill men of  the Order, evil
men. If you once thought that I enjoyed killing, let me assure  you that you
are very wrong. I hate it. I do  it to defend life. I would never expect you
to  relish  killing.  It is a necessity to do it,  not to  enjoy doing it. I
expect you to relish life and do what is necessary to preserve it."
     Richard  picked  up one of the items, lying off to the side,  that they
had made while waiting for Tom  and Owen to bring the men up  into the pass.
It looked  like little more  than a stout stick. It was  in fact made of oak
limbs. It was rounded at the back to fit the hand, narrow at  a point in the
middle, and pointed at the other end.
     "You  men  don't have weapons. While we waited for you to arrive, we've
made some." He waggled his fingers, requesting Tom to come forward. "The men
of  the  Order  won't  recognize  these  as weapons,  at first,  anyway.  If
questioned,  you  should  tell them that they're  used to  make holes in the
ground to plant crops."
     With his left hand, Richard seized Tom's shirt at his shoulder, to hold
him, and demonstrated  the weapon's use by slowly  showing  how it  would be
thrust upward, toward  a man's middle just under his ribs, to stab him. Some
faces among the men twisted with revulsion.
     "This can  most easily be driven up into a man's soft part, up in under
his  ribs," Richard  told them.  "Once  you  thrust it in, give  it a  quick
sideways twist to break  it off at the narrow point. That way, the man won't
be able to pull it  out. With such a thing lodged in  his insides, if he can
even stand, he won't want to be running  after you or trying to wrestle you.
You'll be better able to get away."
     One  of the men lifted a  hand. "But a piece of  wood like that will be
wet and wouldn't break. Many of the wood fibers will just bend over, leaving
the handle end attached."
     Richard tossed the  weapon to the man.  After  he caught  it, he  said,
"Look at the  middle, where it's cut to a narrow neck.  You'll see that it's
been held  over a fire and  dried for  that very reason.  Notice the pointed
end, too. You'll see that  it's been cut and split  into four sections, with
the points bent open,  like  a  flower bud, so  that as it's thrust  into an
enemy it has a good chance to break open, the four sides  going in different
directions to do more damage. With that one thrust, it will be like stabbing
him four times.
     "When  you snap it off  in  him,  he won't be able to fight you because
every  move  he  makes  will  wrench those  long  oak splinters  through his
vulnerable  insides.  If  it  doesn't  hit  something  vital  and  kill  him
immediately, he's certainly likely  to die within the day. While he's dying,
he'll be screaming in agony and fear. I want such evil men to know that  the
pain and death  they inflict on others  will  be coming for them. That  fear
will cause them  to begin to think of running. It will make them lose sleep,
wear them down, so that when we do get to them they'll be easier to kill."
     Richard picked up another item. "This is a small crossbow." He held
     it high for the men to see  as he pointed outi ts features."As you  can
see, the bowstring is locked back on this nut. A stout bolt  is laid in this
groove, here. Pulling this lever rotates the  nut, releasing the  string and
firing  the bolt. It isn't fancy, and  you men aren't experienced  at  using
such weapons, but at close, range you don't have to be all that good a shot.
"I've started  a number of  crossbows and have  a whole pile of  stocks  and
parts made. With the items that you men brought back, we can
     finish making them. They're rather 0rude, and, as I said, they won't be
good at much of a distance, but they are small and you can hide them
     under a cloak.  No matter how big and strong the enemy is, the smallest
of you can kill him. Not even his chain-mail armor will protect against
     such a weapon fired at close range. I cah promise you that they will be
very deadly."
     Richard showed the  men hardwood clubs they would stud with nails. Such
weapons could  also be concealed. He  showed them a simple cord with a small
wooden handle at each end trjat was  used to strangle a man from behind when
stealth was paramount.
     "As  we  take these men, we'll  be able to get  other  weapons--knives,
axes, maces, swords."
     "But, Lord Rahl,"  Owen said, looking beside himself with worry,  "even
if we were to agree to join you in this,  we are not fighters. These men  of
the Order are brutes who are experienced  at such things. We would stand  no
chance against them."
     The others voiced their worried agreement. Richard shook his head as he
held up his hands for them to be quiet.
     "Look  at  those  fingers you  hold. Ask yourselves  what  chance those
little girls had against such  men. Ask yourselves what chance your mothers,
your sisters,  your  wives, your  daughters  have. You are the only hope for
these people. You are the only hope for yourselves.
     "Most  likely, you  men  would not  stand a  chance against  such  men,
either. But I have no intention of  fighting them as you're thinking. That's
a good way to get killed." Richard pointed at  one of the younger men. "What
is it we want? The reason you came to get me?"
     The man looked confused. "To get rid of the men of the Order?"
     "Yes," Richard said.  "That's right. You want  to be rid of  murderers.
The last thing you want is to fight them."
     The man gestured at the weapons  Richard had  shown  them.  "But  these
things ..."
     "These men are murderers. Our task is to execute them. We want to avoid
fights. If we fight them, we risk being hurt or killed. I am not saying that
we won't have to fight them, but that isn't  our  goal.  There will be times
when  there may  be limited  numbers of them and we can  be  sure that  with
surprise  we can take them out before a fight has a chance to erupt. Keep in
mind that these men have been conditioned to none of  your people putting up
any  resistance. We  hope to kill them before it occurs  to  them to draw  a
weapon.
     "But if we don't have to face them, all the better. Our goal is to kill
them. To kill every one of them we can. Kill them when they sleep, when they
are looking the other way, when they are eating, when they are talking, when
they are drinking, when they are out for a stroll.
     "They are evil. We must kill them, not fight them."
     Owen threw up his hands. "But, Lord Rahl, if  we were to start  killing
them, they would take revenge on all the people they have."
     Richard watched the men, waiting until he was sure everyone  was paying
attention.
     "You have just recognized the reality that they are evil. You're right;
they  will  probably  start  killing captives  as a way to  convince you  to
surrender.  But they are killing them now. Over time, if  left to do as they
will, the killing  they do will be on a vast scale. The faster we kill them,
the  sooner it's  over and the sooner the murder will stop. Some people will
lose their lives because of what we do,  but in doing it,  we  will free all
the rest. If we  do nothing, then we  condemn those innocent  people  to the
mercy of  evil and evil grants no  mercy. As  I've  said  before, you  can't
negotiate with evil. You must destroy it."
     A man cleared his throat. "Lord Rahl,  some  of  our  people have sided
with the  men  of the Order--believed their words. They will not  want us to
harm the men of the Order."
     Richard let out a heavy breath. He turned away for a moment, gazing off
into the gloom, before turning his attention once more to the men. "I've had
to kill  people I knew my whole life because they sided with the Order, much
the same  as you are saying. They came  to believe the  men of the  Imperial
Order, and because I was opposed to the Order, they tried to kill me. It's a
terrible  thing  to  have  to kill someone  like  that, someone  you know. I
believe the alternative is worse."
     "The alternative?" the man asked.
     "Yes, letting them murder me. That's the alternative:  losing your life
and losing the  cause for which  you  fight--the lives of  your loved ones."
Richard's expression had turned grave. "If some of  your people have  joined
with the Order, or work to  protect  them, then it may be that you could end
up facing them.  It  will be  their life, or yours.  It  could even mean the
lives of the rest of us. If they side with evil, then we must not allow them
to stop us from eliminating evil.
     "This is part of  what you must weigh in  your decision to  join  us or
not. If you take up this struggle, you must accept that you may have to kill
people you know. You must weigh this in the choice you will make."
     The  men no longer seemed  shocked by his words.  They looked solemn as
they listened.
     Kahlan  saw small birds flitting past, looking to roost  for the night.
The sky, the icy fog, was getting darker. She scanned the sky, ever watchful
for black-tipped  races. With  the  weather  in  the pass  so  dreadful, she
doubted  they would be  around. The  fog, at least,  was comforting for that
reason.
     Richard  looked exhausted. She knew  how hard it was for her to breathe
in the high, thin air, so it  had to be far worse for him; she  feared  how,
because  of  the poison, the thin  air robbed Richard of  his strength. They
needed to be down out of the high pass.
     "I have told  you the truth and all  I can for now,"  Richard told  the
men. "Your future is now up to each of you."
     He quietly asked Cara, Jennsen, and Tom to collect their things. He put
a gentle hand on Kahlan's back as he turned to the men and gestured down the
hill.
     "We're going back down to our camp in those woods. You  men decide what
you will do. If you are  with us, then come down there in the protection  of
the trees, where the races won't be able to spot us when the  weather lifts.
We will need to finish making the weapons you will carry.
     "If any of you choose not to join  us, then you're  on your own. I plan
not to be here, at this camp, for long. If  the Order captures you they will
likely torture you and I don't want  to  be anywhere nearby when you  scream
your lungs out as you reveal where our camp was."
     The forlorn men stood huddled in a group.
     "Lord Rahl," Owen asked, "you mean we must choose now?"
     "I've  told you  all I can. How  much longer  can those being tortured,
raped, and murdered wait for you? If  you wish  to join us  and  be part  of
life, then come down to our camp. If you choose not to be  on our side, then
I wish you luck. But please don't try to follow us or I'll have to kill you.
I was once a woods guide; I will know if any of you follow us."
     One  of  the  men,  the one who had been the first  to show Richard two
pebbles  to say that he would  reveal the location of the  antidote, stepped
forward, away from the rest of the men.
     "Lord  Rahl, my name is Anson." Tears filled his blue  eyes.  "I wanted
you to know that, to know who I am. I am Anson."
     Richard nodded. "All right, Anson."
     "Thank  you for opening my eyes.  I've always  had some of the thoughts
that you explained. Now I understand why, and I understand the darkness kept
over my  eyes. I don't want to live like that anymore. I don't want  to live
by words that don't mean anything  and  I don't want the men of the Order to
control my life.
     "My parents  were murdered. I saw my father's body hanging from a pole.
He never hurt anyone. He did nothing to deserve such a murder. My sister was
taken.  I know what  those men are  doing to  her.  I can't sleep  at  night
thinking about it, thinking about her terror.
     "I want  to fight back.  I want to kill these  evil men. They've earned
death. I want to grind them into dust, as you have said.
     "I choose to join with you and fight to gain my freedom. I want to live
free. I want those I love to live free."
     Kahlan was stunned  to  hear  one  of them say such  things, especially
without first consulting with the rest of the men. She  had watched the eyes
of  the other  men  as Anson spoke.  They  all listened keenly to everything
Anson said.
     Richard  smiled  as  he  placed  a hand  on the  young man's  shoulder.
"Welcome to D'Hara, Anson.  Welcome  home. We can use your help." He pointed
off at  Cara  and Tom picking up the weapons they'd brought to show the men.
"Why don't you help them take those things back down to our camp."
     Anson  grinned  his  agreement.  The  soft-spoken  young man  had broad
shoulders and a thickly  muscled neck. He was genial, but looked determined.
If  she  were in the  Imperial  Order,  Kahlan would  not want to see such a
powerfully built man coming after her.
     Anson eagerly  tried to take  the load from  Cara's arms.  She wouldn't
relinquish it, so he picked up  the rest of the things and followed Tom down
the hill. Jennsen went along, too, pulling Betty behind by her rope, tugging
for the first few steps because Betty wanted them  to stay with  Richard and
Kahlan.
     The other men watched as Anson started  down the  hill  with Cara, Tom,
and  Jennsen.  They then  moved off to the side, away from the statue, while
they whispered among themselves, deciding what they would do.
     Richard glanced  at the  figure  of  Kaja-Rang before starting down the
hill. Something seemed to catch his eye.
     "What's the matter?" Kahlan asked.
     Richard  pointed. "That writing. On the face of the pedestal, below his
feet."
     Kahlan knew there had been no writing in that spot  before, and she was
still too far away to really tell  if she could see writing in  the  flecked
granite. She glanced back to see  the others making their way down the hill,
but instead followed Richard when he started toward the statue. The men were
still off to the side, busily engaged in their discussion.
     She could see the  spot on  the face of the pedestal where the  warning
beacon had shattered. The sand from inside the statue representing
     Richard was still splattered across the face of the pedestal.
     As they got closer,  she could hardly believe what she was beginning to
see. It looked as if the sand had eroded the  stone to reveal lettering. The
words had not been there before; that much she was sure of.
     Kahlan knew a number  of  languages, but she didn't know  this one. She
recognized it, though. It was High D'Haran.
     She hugged her arms to herself in the chill wind  that had come up. The
somber  clouds  stirred  restlessly.  She  peered  around  at  the  imposing
mountains, many hidden  by a  dark shroud  of fog. Swirling curtains of snow
obscured other slopes in the distance. Through a small, brief opening in the
wretched weather, the valley she could  see off through the pass offered the
promise of green and warmth.
     And the Imperial Order.
     Kahlan, close beside Richard, wished he  would put a  warm  arm  around
her.  She watched as  he stared  at the  faint letters in the  stone. He was
being far too quiet for her peace of mind.
     "Richard," she whispered, leaning close to him, "what does it say?"
     Transfixed, he ran his fingers  slowly,  lightly over the letters,  his
lips soundlessly pronouncing the High D'Haran words.
     "Wizard's  Eighth  Rule,"  Richard  whispered  in  translation.  "Taiga
Vassternich."





        CHAPTER 46




     Following behind the messenger,  Verna stepped aside as a tight pack of
horses  raced  by. Their bellies were caked with mud, their nostrils  flared
with excitement. The eyes of  the  cavalry  soldiers bent over their withers
showed grim  determination. With the constant  level of  activity of  recent
weeks, she  had to maintain  a  careful vigil whenever she  stepped out of a
tent lest  she  be run down by  one  thing  or  another. If it wasn't horses
charging through camp, it was men at a run.
     "Just up ahead," the messenger said over his shoulder.
     Verna nodded to  his  young  face as he glanced  back. He  was a polite
young man. His curly blond hair and his mannerly behavior combined to remind
her of Warren. She was defenseless against the wave of pain that cut through
her with the memory of Warren being gone, at the emptiness of each day.
     She  couldn't remember this messenger's  name. There were so many young
men; it was hard to recall  all their names. Though  she tried her best, she
couldn't keep track of them. At least for a while now they hadn't been dying
at a  terrifying rate. As harsh  as the  winters  were  up  in  D'Hara, such
weather had at least been a respite from the battles of the previous summer,
from  the constant  fighting and dying.  With  summer  again upon them,  she
didn't think  that the relative quiet was going to last much  longer.For now
the  passes held  against  the Imperial  Order. In such narrow  and confined
places, the enemy's weight of numbers  didn't mean  so much. If only one man
would fit through a narrow hole in a stone wall, it meant little  that there
were a hundred waiting behind him  to  go  through, or a thousand. Defending
against one man,  as it were, was not the impossible task that it was trying
to fight the onslaught of Jagang's entire force.
     When she heard the distant thunder, felt it rolling through the ground,
she glanced  up at the sky.  The sun had not made an appearance in two days.
She didn't like the looks  of  the clouds building against the slopes of the
mountains. It looked like they could be in for a nasty storm.
     The  sound might not  have  been  thunder. It