Naked Empire (41 page)

“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 absolutely indispensable.

“The people came to feel that this new threat—the pristinely ungifted trait spreading through the population—would be the end of everything they knew, everything that they thought was important, that it would be the end of their most vital protection—magic.”

Richard gazed out at all the faces, waiting to make sure that the men had grasped the essence of the story, that they understood how desperate the people must have been, and why.

“So, what did the people do about these new pristinely ungifted people among them?” a man in the back asked.

In a quiet tone, Richard said, “Something terrible.”

He pulled the book from a leather pouch on his belt and held it up for all the men to see as he again paced before them. The clouds, laden with storms of snow, rolled silently through the frigid valley pass, bound for the peaks above them.

“This book is called
The Pillars of Creation.
That’s what the wizards back then called these pristinely ungifted people—pillars of Creation—because they had the power, with this trait that they passed along to their offspring, to alter the very nature of mankind. They were the foundation of an entirely new kind of people—people without any connection to magic.

“I only just a short time ago came across this book. It’s meant for the Lord Rahl, and others, so that they will know about these pristinely ungifted people who are unaffected by magic. The book tells the history of how these people came about—through those born to the Lord Rahl—along with the history of what was discovered about them. It also reveals what the people back then, thousands of years ago, did about these pillars of Creation.”

Men rubbed their arms in the cold air as Richard slowly paced before them. They all looked caught up in the story.

“So,” Owen asked, “what did they do?”

Richard came to a stop and stood watching their eyes before he spoke.

“They banished them.”

Astonished whispering broke out among the men. They were stunned to hear the final solution. These people understood banishment, they understood it all too well, and they could sympathize with these banished people of so long ago.

“That’s terrible,” a man in front said, shaking his head.

Another frowned and held up a hand. “Weren’t these pillars of Creation related to some of the other people? Weren’t they part of the towns? Didn’t the people feel sorrow at banishing these ungifted people?”

Richard nodded. “Yes. They were friends and family. Those banished people were intimately intertwined in the lives of nearly everyone. The book tells how heavy hearted the people felt at the decision that had been reached about these pristinely ungifted people. It must have been an awful time, a dreadful choice that no one liked, but those in charge at the time decided that in order for them to preserve their way of life, to preserve magic and all it meant to them, to preserve that attribute of man, rather than value the lives of individuals for who they were, they had to banish these pristinely ungifted people.

“What’s more, they also decreed that all future offspring of the Lord Rahl, except his gifted heir, should be put to death to insure that no pillar of Creation ever again came among them.”

This time there was no whispering. The men looked saddened by the story of these mysterious people and the terrible solution of how to deal with them. Heads hung as the men thought about what it must have been like back in such a grim time.

Finally, a man’s head came up. His brow twitched. He finally asked the question Richard expected to be asked, the question he had been waiting for.

“But where were these pillars of Creation banished to? Where were they sent?”

Richard watched the men as other eyes turned up, curious about the historic mystery, waiting for him to go on.

“These people were not affected by magic,” Richard reminded them. “And the barrier holding back the Old World was a barrier created of magic.”

“They sent them through the barrier!” a man guessed aloud.

Richard nodded. “Many wizards had died and given their power into that barrier so that their people would be protected from those in the Old World who wanted to rule them and to end magic. That was a large part of what the war had been fought over—those in the Old World had wanted to eradicate magic from mankind.

“So, those people in the New World sent these pristinely ungifted people, these people without any magic, through the barrier to the Old World.

“They never knew what became of them, those friends and family and loved ones they had banished, because they had been sent beyond a barrier that none of them could cross. It was thought that they would establish new lives, would make a new beginning. But, because the barrier was there, and it was enemy territory beyond, the people of the New World never knew what became of those banished people.

“Finally, a few years ago, that barrier came down. If these banished people had made a life for themselves in the Old World, they would have had children and spread their pristinely ungifted attribute”—Richard lifted his arms in a shrug—“but there is no trace of them. The people down here are just the same as the people up in the New World—some born gifted but all born with at least that tiny spark of the gift that enables them to interact with magic.

“Those people from ancient times seemed just to have vanished.”

“So now we know,” Owen reasoned as he stared off in thought, “that all those people sent to the Old World so long ago tragically died out…or maybe were killed.”

“I had thought as much myself,” Richard said. He turned and faced the men, waiting until all eyes were on him before going on.

“But then I found them. I found those long-lost people.”

Excited whispering broke out again. The men appeared inspired by the prospect of such people surviving against all odds.

“Where are they, then, Lord Rahl,” a man asked, “these people with whom you share ancestry? These people who had to endure such cruel banishment and hardship?”

Richard leveled a cutting gaze at the men. “Come with me, and I will tell you what became of these people.”

Richard led them around the statue, to the front, where, for the first time, they could see the full view of the sentinel in stone. The men were awestruck at finally seeing the statue from the front. They talked excitedly among themselves about how real it looked, about how they could clearly see the stalwart features of the man’s face.

By the utter shock in their voices and by what the men were saying, Richard got the distinct impression that they’d never seen a statue before, at least no statue as monumental as this one. It appeared that for these men the statue must be something akin to a manifestation of magic, rather than, as Richard knew it to be, a manifestation of man’s ability.

Richard placed a hand on the cold stone of the base. “This is an ancient statue of an Old World wizard named Kaja-Rang. It was carved, in part, as a tribute to the man because he was a great and powerful wizard.”

Owen lifted a hand to interrupt. “But I thought the people in the Old World wanted to be without magic? Why would they have a great wizard—and why, especially, would they pay a tribute to such a man of magic?”

Richard smiled at Owen catching the contradiction. “People don’t always act in a consistent manner. What’s more, the more irrational are your beliefs, the more glaring the inconsistencies. You men, for example, try to gloss over incongruities in your behavior by applying your convictions selectively. You claim that nothing is real, or that we cannot know the true nature of reality, and yet you fear what the Order does to you—you believe firmly enough in the reality of what they’re doing that you want it to stop.

“If nothing were real, then you would have no reason to want to stop the Imperial Order. In fact, it’s counter to your professed beliefs to try to stop them, or to even feel that their presence is real, much less detrimental, since you assert that man is inadequate at the task of knowing reality.

“Yet you grasp the reality of what’s happening at the hands of the men of the Order, and know very well that it’s abhorrent, so you selectively suspend the precepts of your beliefs in order to send Owen to poison me in an attempt to get me to rid you of your very real problem.”

Some of the men looked confused by what Richard said while others looked to be embarrassed. A few looked astonished. None looked willing to challenge him, so they let him go on without interrupting.

“The people in the Old World were the same way—they still are. They claimed they didn’t want magic, and yet when faced with that reality, they didn’t want to do without it. The Imperial Order is like this. They’ve come to the New World claiming to be a champion of freeing mankind of magic, proclaiming themselves to be noble for holding such a goal, and yet they use magic in the pursuit of this professed goal. They contend that magic is evil, and yet they embrace it.

“Their leader, Emperor Jagang, uses those with magic to help accomplish his ends, among which, he claims, is the eradication of magic. Jagang is a dream walker descended from those dream walkers of so long ago. His ability as a dream walker is magic, yet he does not disqualify himself from leading his empire. Even though he has magic, which he claims makes people unfit to have any say in the future, he calls himself Jagang the Just.

“Despite what they declare they believe, their goal is to rule people, plain and simple. They seek power but dress it up in noble-sounding robes. Every tyrant thinks he is different. They are all the same. They all rule by brute force.”

Owen was frowning, trying to grasp it all. “So, those in the Old World did not live by their word, by what they claimed they believed. They lived in conflict. They preached that man was better without magic, but they continued to want to use magic.”

“That’s right.”

Owen gestured up at the statue. “What of this man, then? Why is he here, if he is against what they preached?”

Dark clouds roiled above the towering statue. The still air hung cold, heavy, and damp. It felt as if a storm were holding back its onslaught, waiting to hear the rest.

“This man is here because he fought to save the people of the Old World from something they feared more than magic itself,” Richard said.

He gazed up at the resolute face with its eyes fixed forever on the place called the Pillars of Creation.

“This man,” Richard said in a quiet voice, “this wizard, Kaja-Rang, collected all of those pristinely ungifted people, those pillars of Creation, who had been banished down here from the New World, along with any people who while they lived here had joined with them, and he sent them all there.”

Richard pointed off into the distance behind the statue.

“He put all those people in that place, protected by the mountains all around, and then he placed a boundary of death before them, across this pass, so that they could never again come out to be among the rest of the people of the world.

“Kaja-Rang gave these people their name: the Bandakar. The name,
bandakar
, is from a very old language called High D’Haran. It means ‘the banished.’ This man, Kaja-Rang, is the one who sealed them in and saved his people from the pristinely ungifted, from those without magic.”

“You,” Richard said to the men before him, “are the descendants of those banished people. You are the descendants of Alric Rahl, of the people sent into exile in the Old World. You are all descendants of the House of Rahl. Your ancestors and mine are the same men. You are the banished people.”

The top of the pass before the statue of Kaja-Rang was dead silent. The men stared in shock.

And then pandemonium broke out. Richard made no effort to stop them, to bring them to be quiet. Rather, he stood close beside Kahlan as he let them take it in. He wanted to give them the time they needed to come to grasp the enormity of what he had told them.

Arms in the air, some men cried out with the outrage at what they’d heard, others wailed with the horror of the story, some wept in sorrow, many argued, a few protested various points that others answered, while yet others repeated key elements to one another almost as if to hear the words again so they could test them, agreeing finally that it might very well be so.

But through it all, they all slowly began to grasp the enormity of what they’d heard. They all began to hear the ring of truth in the story. Chattering like magpies, all talking at once, they expressed disbelief, outrage, wonder, and even fear, as they came to the heady comprehension of who they really were.

At the whispered urging of some among the group, after having gotten over the initial shock, the men all quieted and at last turned back to Richard, hungry to know more.

“You are this gifted man, the favored heir, the Lord Rahl, and we are the ones banished by your kind,” one of the men said, expressing what looked to be a common fear, the unspoken question of what this would mean for them.

“That’s right,” Richard said. “I am the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Empire, and you are the descendants of the pillars of Creation who were banished. I am gifted as have been my ancestors, every Lord Rahl before me. You are ungifted as were your ancestors.”

Standing before the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man who had banished them, Richard looked out at all the tense faces.

“That banishment was a grievous wrong. It was immoral. As Lord Rahl, I denounce the banishment and declare it forever ended. You are no longer the Empire of Bandakar, the banished ones, you are now once again, as you once were, D’Harans, if you choose to be.”

Every man seemed to hold his breath, waiting to see if he meant it, or would add more, or if he might even recant it.

Richard put his arm around Kahlan’s waist as he calmly gazed out at all the hopeful expressions.