Naked Empire (54 page)

“Answer my questions, ‘Wise One.’ Tell me what staring blindly inwardly has so far revealed to you about making cheese. Come on; let’s hear it.”

“But…it’s not a fair question.”

“Oh? A question regarding the pursuit of a value is not fair? Life requires all living things to successfully pursue values if they are to continue to live. A bird dies if it can’t succeed at catching a worm. It’s basic. People are no different.”

“Stop the hate.”

“You already have on a blindfold. Why don’t you plug your ears and hum a tune to yourself so you won’t be thinking about anything”—Richard leaned in and lowered his voice dangerously—“and in your state of infinite wisdom, Wise One, just try to guess what I’m about to do to you.”

The boy squealed in fright and scooted back.

Kahlan pushed her way between Richard and Anson and sat back on the platform. She put an arm around the terrified boy and pulled him close to comfort him. He pressed himself into her sheltering protection.

“Richard, you’re scaring the poor boy. Look at him. He’s shaking like a leaf.”

Richard pulled the blindfold off the boy’s head. In confused dismay, he peered fearfully up at Richard.

“Why did you go to her?” Richard asked in a gentle tone.

“Because, you were about to hurt me.”

“You mean, then, that you were hoping she would protect you?”

“Of course—you’re bigger than me.”

Richard smiled. “Do you see what you’re saying? You were frightened and you hoped to be protected from danger. That wasn’t wrong of you, was it? To want to be safe? To fear aggression? To seek help from someone you thought might be big enough to stop the threat?”

The boy looked confused. “No, I guess not.”

“And what if I held a knife to you? Wouldn’t you want to have someone prevent me from cutting you? Wouldn’t you want to live?”

The boy nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s the value we’re talking about, here.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Life,” Richard said. “You want to live. That is noble. You don’t want someone else to take your life. That is just.

“All creatures want to live. A rabbit will run if threatened; that’s why he has strong legs. He doesn’t need the strong legs or big ears to find and eat tender shoots. He has the big ears to listen for threats, and the strong legs to escape.

“A buck will snort in warning if threatened. A snake may shake a rattle to ward off threats. A wolf growls a warning. But if the danger keeps coming and they can’t escape, a buck may trample it, the snake may strike, and the wolf may attack. None of them will go looking for a fight, but they will protect themselves.

“Man is the only creature who willingly submits to the fangs of a predator. Only man, through continual indoctrination such as you’ve been given, will reject the values that sustain life. Yet, you instinctively did the right thing in going to my wife.”

“I did?”

“Yes. Your ways couldn’t protect you, so you acted on the chance that she might. If I really were someone intent on harming you, she would have fought to stop me.”

He looked up into Kahlan’s smile. “You would?”

“Yes, I would. I, too, believe in the nobility of life.”

He stared in wonder.

Kahlan slowly shook her head. “But your instinctive act of seeking protection would have done you no good had you instead sought the protection of people who live by the misguided teachings you repeat. Those teachings condemn self-preservation as a form of hate. Your people are being slaughtered with the aid of their own beliefs.”

He looked stricken. “But, I don’t want that.”

Kahlan smiled. “Neither do we. That’s why we came, and why Richard had to show you that you can know the truth of reality and doing so will help you survive.”

“Thank you,” he said to Richard.

Richard smiled and gently smoothed down the boy’s blond hair. “Sorry I had to frighten you to show you that what you were saying didn’t really make any sense. I needed to show you that the words you’ve been taught can’t serve you well—you can’t live by them because they are devoid of reality and reason. You look to me like a boy who cares about living. I was like that when I was your age, and I still am. Life is wonderful; take delight in it, look around with the eyes you have, and see it in all its glory.”

“No one has ever talked to me about life in this way. I don’t get to see much. I have to stay inside all the time.”

“Tell you what, maybe, before I go, I can take you for a walk in the woods and show you some of the wonders of the world around you—the trees and plants, birds, maybe we’ll even see a fox—and we’ll talk some more about the wonders and joy of life. Would you like that?”

The boy’s face lit up with a grin. “Really? You would do that for me?”

Richard smiled one of those smiles that so melted Kahlan’s heart. He playfully pinched the boy’s nose. “Sure.”

Owen came forward and ran his fingers affectionately through the boy’s hair. “I was once like you—a Wise One—until I got a little older than you.”

The boy frowned up at him. “Really?”

Owen nodded. “I used to think that I had been chosen because I was special and somehow only I was able to commune with some glorious otherworldly dominion. I believed that I was gushing great wisdom. Looking back, I am ashamed to see how foolish it all was. I was made to listen to lessons. I was never allowed to be a boy. The great speakers praised me for repeating back the things I had heard, and when I spoke then with great scorn to people, they told me how wise I was.”

“Me, too,” the boy said.

Richard turned back to the men. “This is what your people have been reduced to as a source of wisdom—listening to children repeating meaningless expressions. You have minds in order to think and understand the world around you. This self-imposed blindness is a dark treason to yourselves.”

The men in front, that Kahlan could see from where she sat holding the boy, all hung their heads in shame.

“Lord Rahl is right,” Anson said, turning back to the men. “Until today, I never actually questioned it or thought about how foolish it really is.”

One of the speakers shook his fist. “It is not foolish!”

Another, the one with the pointed chin, leaned in and snatched Anson’s knife from the sheath at his belt.

Kahlan could hardly believe what she had just seen. It felt as if she were watching a nightmare suddenly unfold, a nightmare she wasn’t able to stop or even slow. It seemed she knew what was going to happen before she saw it.

With an enraged cry, the speaker suddenly struck out, stabbing Anson before he could react. Kahlan heard the blade hit bone. Driven by blind rage, the speaker swiftly drew back the fist holding the now bloody knife to stab Anson again. Anson’s face twisted in shock as he began going down.

Points of candlelight reflecting off the polished length of razor-sharp steel blurred into streaks as Richard’s sword flashed past Kahlan. Even as the sword swept around, the unique ring of steel as it had been drawn accompanied its terrifying arc toward the threat. Driven by Richard’s formidable strength, the tip of the sword whistled through the air. As the speaker’s arm reached the apex of its swing, as it once more began a deadly journey down, Richard’s blade slammed into the side of the speaker’s neck and without seeming to slow in the least ripped through flesh and bone, cleaving off the man’s head and one shoulder along with the arm holding high the knife. The lightning slash threw long strings of blood against the stone wall of the foundation of the palace of the Bandakar Empire.

As the speaker’s head and the one shoulder with the arm attached tumbled through the air in an odd, wobbling spiral, his body collapsed in a heap. The head smacked the floor with a sickening thud and bounced across the carpets, leaving a trail of blood as it tumbled.

Richard swept the crimson blade around, directing it toward the potential threat of the other speakers. Kahlan pressed the boy’s face to her shoulder, covering his eyes.

Some of the men fell in around Anson. Kahlan didn’t know how badly he was hurt—or if he was even still alive.

Not far away, the gory head and arm of the dead speaker lay before a table set with candles. The fist still held the knife in a death grip. The sudden carnage lying there before them all, the blood spreading across the floor, was horrifying. Everyone stared in stunned silence.

“The first blood drawn by you great speakers,” Richard said in a quiet voice to the cluster of cringing speakers, “is not against those who come to murder your people, but against a man who committed no violence against you—one of your own who simply stood up and told you that he wanted to be free of the oppression of terror, free to think for himself.”

Kahlan stood, and saw then that there were far more people in the room than there had been before. Most were not their men. When Cara made her way through the silent throng to Kahlan’s side, Kahlan took her by the arm and leaned close.

“Who are all those people?”

“The people from the city. Runners brought them the news that the town of Witherton had been freed. They heard about our men being here to see the Wise One and wanted to witness what would happen. The stairs and halls upstairs are full of them. The words that have been spoken down here have spread up through the whole crowd.”

Cara was obviously concerned about being close enough to protect Richard and Kahlan. Kahlan knew that many of the people had been swayed by what Richard had been saying, but now she didn’t know what they would do.

The speakers seemed to have lost their conviction. They didn’t want to be associated with the one among them who had done such a thing. One of them finally left his fellow speakers and made the lone walk over to the boy standing beside the curtain-draped platform, and under Kahlan’s protective arm.

“I am sorry,” he said in a sincere voice to the boy. He turned to the people watching. “I am sorry. I don’t want to be a speaker any longer. Prophecy has been fulfilled; our redemption is at hand. I think we would do best to listen to what these men have to say. I think I would like to live without the fear that the men of the Order are going to murder us all.”

There were no cheers, no wild ovation, but, rather, silent agreement as all the people Kahlan could see nodded with what looked like expectant hope that their secret wish to be free of the brutality of the Imperial Order was not a sinful, secret thought after all, but was really the right thing.

Richard knelt beside Owen as other men worked at tying a strip of cloth around Anson’s upper arm. He was sitting up. His whole arm was soaked in blood, but it looked like the bandage was slowing the bleeding. Kahlan sighed in relief at seeing that Anson was alive and not seriously hurt.

“It looks like it will need to be stitched,” Richard said.

Some of the men agreed. An older man pushed his way through the crowd and stepped forward.

“I do such things. I also have herbs with which to make a poultice.”

“Thank you,” Anson said as his friends helped him stand. He looked light-headed and the men had to steady him. Once sure of his feet, he turned to Richard.

“Thank you, Lord Rahl, for answering the call in the words of the devotion I spoke: ‘Master Rahl, protect us.’

“I never thought I would be the first to bleed for what we have set out to do, or that the blood would be drawn by one of our own people.”

Richard gently clapped Anson on the back of his good shoulder, showing his appreciation for Anson’s words.

Owen looked around at the crowd. “I think we have all decided to be free again.” When the crowd nodded their agreement, Owen turned to Richard. “How will we get rid of the soldiers in Northwick?”

Richard wiped his sword clean on the cloth of the dead speaker’s trouser leg. His gaze turned up to the crowd. “Any idea how many soldiers there are here in Northwick?”

There was no anger in his voice. Kahlan had seen, since the moment he had drawn his sword, that his eyes had been absent of the Sword of Truth’s attendant magic. There was no spark of the sword’s rage in the Seeker’s eyes, no magic dangerously dancing there, no fury in his demeanor. He had simply done what was necessary to stop the threat. While it was a relief that he had swiftly succeeded, it was gravely worrisome that the sword’s magic had not come out along with the sword itself.

What had always been there to help him before had apparently finally failed him. That absence of his sword’s magic left Kahlan feeling icy apprehension.

People in the crowd looked around at others and then spoke of hundreds of men of the Order they had seen. Another man said there were several thousand.

An older woman lifted her hand. “Not that many, but approaching it.”

Owen turned to Richard. “That’s a lot of men for us to take on.”

Having never been in a real battle, he didn’t know the half of it. Richard didn’t seem to hear Owen. He slid his sword back into the scabbard hidden under his black cloak.

“How do you know?” he asked the woman.

“I am one of the people who help prepare their meals.”

“You mean you people cook for the soldiers?”

“Yes,” the old woman said. “They do not wish to do it for themselves.”

“When do you next have to cook?”

“We have large kettles we are just starting to get ready for tomorrow’s meal. It takes us all night to prepare the stew so that we can cook it tomorrow for their evening meal. Besides that, we also have to work all night making biscuits, eggs, and porridge for their morning meal.”

Kahlan imagined that the soldiers were probably pleased to have such a ready supply of pliant slaves. Richard paced in a short track between her and Owen. He pinched his lower lip as he considered the problem. With such a small force of their own, nearly two thousand armed men was a lot to take on, especially considering how inexperienced the men were. Kahlan recognized that Richard was scheming something.

He took the arm of the older man tightening the bandage around Anson’s wound. “You said you had herbs. Do you know about such things?”

The man shrugged. “Not a great deal, just enough to make simple remedies.”

Kahlan’s mood sank. She had thought that maybe this man might know something about making more of the antidote.