Naked Empire

Chapter 21

Kahlan lifted her head. She gently laid a hand on Richard’s chest as she turned her ear toward the sound she’d heard off in the darkness. Beneath her hand, Richard’s chest rose and fell with his labored breathing, but, even at that, she felt relief—he was still alive. As long as he was alive she could fight to find a solution. She wouldn’t give him up. They would get to Nicci. Somehow, they would get to her.

A quick glance to the position of the quarter moon told her that she’d been asleep less than an hour. Clouds, silvery in the moonlight, had silently begun streaming in from the north. In the distant sky she saw, too, the moonlit wings of the black-tipped races that always trailed them.

She hated those birds. The races had been following them ever since Cara had touched the statue of Kahlan that Nicci said was a warning beacon.

Those dark wings were never far, like the shadow of death, always following, always waiting.

Kahlan recalled all too well the sand in that hourglass statue trickling out. Her time was running out. She had no actual indication of what would happen when the time that sand had represented finally ran out—but she could imagine well enough.

The place where they had set up camp, before a sharp rise of rock with a stand of bristlecone pine and thorny brush to one side, wasn’t as protected or tenable a camp as any of them would have liked, but Cara had confided that she was afraid that if they didn’t stop, Richard wouldn’t live the night.

That whispered warning had set Kahlan’s heart to pounding, brought cold sweat to her brow, and swept her to the verge of panic.

She had known that the rough wagon ride, slow as it had been while they made their way across open country in the dark, seemed to have made it more difficult for Richard to breathe. Less than two hours after they had started out, after Cara’s warning, they’d been forced to stop. After they had stopped, they were all relieved that Richard’s breathing became more even, and sounded a little less labored.

They needed to make it to roads so that traveling would be easier on Richard, and so they could make better time. Maybe after he rested the night, they could make swifter progress.

She had to fight constantly to tell herself that they would get him there, that they had a chance, and that the journey’s purpose wasn’t merely empty hope meant to forestall the truth.

The last time Kahlan had felt this helpless, felt this sense of Richard’s life slipping away, she’d at least had one solid chance available to her to save him. She’d had no idea, at the time, that that one chance taken would be the catalyst that would initiate a cascade of events that would begin the disintegration of magic itself.

She was the one who had made the decision to take that chance, and she was the one responsible for all that was now coming to pass. Had she known what she now knew, she would have made the same decision—to save Richard’s life—but that made her no less liable for the consequences.

She was the Mother Confessor, and, as such, was responsible for protecting the lives of those with magic, of creatures of magic. And, instead, she might very well be the cause of their end.

Kahlan sprang to her feet, sword in hand, when she heard Cara’s whistled birdcall to alert them to her return. It was a birdcall Richard had taught her.

Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt, rise from the nearby rock where he’d been sitting as he watched over both the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on the ground at Tom’s feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.

“What is it?” Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan’s side, hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“I’m not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her.”

Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she’d seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had come across a week or so back—Owen.

“I tried to get to you sooner!” Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. “I swear, I tried.”

Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.

“What are you talking about?” Kahlan asked.

When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan’s shoulder, he paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.

“I meant to get to you earlier, I swear,” he said to Kahlan, sounding on the verge of tears. “I went to your camp.” He clutched his light coat closed at his chest as he began to tremble. “I, I saw . . . I saw all the . . . remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?”

Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth and closed his eyes as he shook.

“If you mean all those men,” Kahlan said, “they tried to capture us, to kill us. We didn’t collect them from their rocking chairs beside their hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them. They attacked us; we defended ourselves.”

“But, dear Creator, how could you . . .” Owen stood before her, unable to control his shivering. He closed his eyes. “Nothing is real. Nothing is real. Nothing is real.” He repeated it over and over, as if it were an incantation meant to protect him from evil.

Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled “Nothing is real” to himself continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.

“Tell us what you’re doing here,” Cara commanded in a low growl.

Although she didn’t say it, the “or else” was clear enough.

“And be quick about it,” Kahlan said. “We have enough trouble and we don’t need you added on top of it.”

Owen opened his eyes. “I went to your camp to tell you about it, but . . . all those bodies . . .”

“We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you’re here.”

Kahlan was at the end of her patience. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“Lord Rahl,” Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.

“Lord Rahl what,” Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.

“Lord Rahl has been poisoned,” he blurted out as he wept.

Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan’s legs. “How can you possibly know such a thing is true?”

Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. “I know,” he cried, “because I’m the one who poisoned him.”

Could it be? Could it be that it wasn’t really the runaway power of the gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong?

Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?

Kahlan felt her sword’s hilt slip from her fingers as she started for the man.

He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about to leap.

Kahlan knew there was something strange about this man. Richard, too, had thought there was something unsettling about him, something not quite right.

Somehow, this quaking stranger had poisoned Richard.

Richard barely hung to life. He was suffering and in pain. This man had been the cause of it all. Kahlan would know why, and she would know the truth of it.

Kahlan closed the distance quickly. She would not risk his escape. She would not risk his lies.

She would have his confession.

Her hand started coming up toward him. Her power was recovered—she could feel it there, in the core of her being, at the ready.

This man had tried to kill Richard. She intended to find out if there was a way to save him. This man could tell her.

She committed herself to taking him.

It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings about what this man had done faded away; they no longer mattered in this. Only the truth would serve her now. She was a being of raw commitment.

He had no chance. He was hers.

She saw him standing frozen, watching her come, saw his blue eyes widen, saw the tears running down his cheeks. Kahlan felt the cold coil of power straining for release, demanding to be freed. As her hand rose toward this man who had harmed Richard, she wanted nothing so much as what she would have.

He was hers.

Cara abruptly jumped in between them.

Kahlan’s sight of the man was blocked by the Mord-Sith. Kahlan tried to brush Cara aside, but she was ready and firmly held her ground. Cara seized Kahlan by the shoulders and forced her back three paces.

“No. Mother Confessor, no.”

Kahlan was still focused on Owen, even if she couldn’t see him. “Get out of my way.”

“No. Stop.”

“Move!” Kahlan tried to shove Cara aside, but the woman had her feet spread and couldn’t be budged. “Cara!”

“No. Listen to me.”

“Cara, get out of—”

She shook Kahlan so hard that Kahlan thought her neck would snap.

“Listen to me!”

Kahlan panted in rage. “What.”

“Wait until you hear what he says. He came here for a reason. When he finishes, you can use your power if you want, or you can let me make him scream until the moon covers its ears, but first we need to hear what he says.”

“I’ll find out soon enough what he says, and I’ll know the truth. When I touch him he will confess every detail.”

“And if Lord Rahl dies as a result? Lord Rahl’s life hanging in the balance. We must think of that first.”

“I am. Why do you think I’m going to do this?”

Cara pulled Kahlan close to hear her whisper. “And what if using your power on this man kills him for some reason we don’t yet even know about. Remember when we didn’t know everything in the past? Remember Marlin Pickard announcing he had come to assassinate Richard? It was too easy then, and it’s too easy this time.

“What if your touching this man is someone’s design—a trick, with this man sent as bait of some sort? What if they want you to do it for some reason? What if you do what they intend you to do—then what? It won’t be a simple mistake that we can work to fix. If Lord Rahl dies we can’t bring him back.”

Cara’s fierce blue eyes were wet. Her powerful fingers dug into Kahlan’s shoulders. “What can it hurt to hear him first, before you touch him? You can then touch him, if you still think it’s necessary—but hear him first. Mother Confessor, as a sister of the Agiel, I’m asking you, please, for the sake of Lord Rahl’s life, wait.”

More than anything, it was Cara’s reluctance to use force that gave Kahlan pause. If there was anyone who would be more than willing to use physical force to protect Richard, it was Cara.

In the dim light of the lantern, Kahlan studied the emotion in Cara’s expression. Despite everything Cara said, Kahlan didn’t know if she could afford to take the chance, to hesitate.

“What if it’s a stab in the dark?” Jennsen asked from behind.

Kahlan glanced back over her shoulder at Richard’s sister, at the worry on her face.

Kahlan had made a mistake before in not acting quickly enough, and it resulted in Richard being captured and taken from her. Then it was his freedom; this time it was his life at stake.

She knew that while hesitation had been a mistake in that instance, that didn’t mean that immediate action was always right.

She looked back into Cara’s eyes. “All right. We’ll hear what he has to say.” With a thumb, she brushed a tear from Cara’s cheek, a tear of terror for Richard, a tear of terror at the thought of losing him. “Thanks,” Kahlan whispered.

Cara nodded and released her. She turned and folded her arms, fixing Owen in her glare.

“You had better not make me sorry for stopping her.”

Owen peered about at all the faces watching him—Friedrich, Tom, Jennsen, Cara, Kahlan, and even the man Kahlan had touched, lying on the ground not far away.

“In the first place, how could you possibly have poisoned Richard?” Kahlan asked.

Owen licked his lips, fearful of telling her, even though that was apparently why he had returned. His gaze finally broke toward the ground.

“When I saw the dust rising from the wagon, and I knew that I was near, I dumped out what water I had left, so it would appear I had none. Then, when Lord Rahl found me, I asked for a drink. When he gave me his waterskin so I could have a drink, I put poison in it, just before I handed it back. I was relieved that you had showed up, too. It was my intention that I poison both Lord Rahl and you, Mother Confessor, but you had your own water and didn’t take a drink when he offered it to you. But I guess it doesn’t matter. This will work just as well.”

Kahlan couldn’t make sense of such a confession. “So you intended to kill us both, but you were only able to poison Richard.”

“Kill . . . ?” Owen looked up in shock at the very idea. He shook his head emphatically. “No, no, nothing like that. Mother Confessor, I tried to get to you earlier, but those men went to your camp before I got there. I needed to get the antidote to Lord Rahl.”

“I see. You wanted to save him—after you’d poisoned him—but when you got to our camp, we’d gone.”

His eyes filled with tears again. “It was so awful. All the bodies—the blood. I’ve never seen such brutal murder.” He covered his mouth.

“It would have been murder—our murder,” Kahlan said, “had we not defended ourselves.”

Owen seemed not to hear her. “And you were gone—you’d left. I didn’t know where you’d gone. It was hard to follow your wagon’s trail in the dark, but I had to. I had to run, to catch up with you. I was afraid the races would get me, but I knew I had to reach you tonight. I couldn’t wait. I was afraid, but I had to come.”

The whole story was nonsense to Kahlan.

“So you’re like one of those people who starts a fire, calls out an alarm, and then helps put it out—all so you can be a hero.”

Startled, Owen shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all—I swear. I hated doing it. I did. I hated it.”

“Then why did you poison him!”

Owen twisted his light coat in his fists as tears trickled down his cheeks. “Mother Confessor, we have to give him the antidote, now, or he will die. It’s already so very late.” He clasped his hands prayerfully and gazed skyward. “Dear Creator, let it not be too late, please.” He reached out for Kahlan, as if to urgently beg her as well, to assure her of his sincerity, but at the look on her face, drew back. “There’s no more time, Mother Confessor. I tried to get to you earlier—I swear. If you don’t let him have the remedy now, it will be the end of him. It will all be for naught—everything, all if it, all for nothing!”

Kahlan didn’t know if she dared trust in such an offer. It made no sense to poison a man and then save him.

“What’s the antidote?” she asked.

“Here.” Owen hurriedly pulled a small vial from a pocket inside his coat. “Here it is. Please, Mother Confessor.” He held the square-sided vial out toward her. “He must have this now. Please, hurry, or he will die.”

“Or this will finish him,” Kahlan said.

“If I wanted to finish him, I could have done so when I slipped the poison into his waterskin. I could have used more of it, or I could simply not have come with the antidote. I’m not a killer, I swear—that’s why I had to come in the first place.”

Owen wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. Kahlan wasn’t confident in such an offer. It was Richard’s life that would be forfeit if she chose wrong.

“I say we give Richard Owen’s antidote,” Jennsen whispered.

“A stab in the dark?” Kahlan asked.

“You said that there were times when there is no choice but to act immediately, but even then it must be with your best judgment, using all your experience and everything you do know. Earlier, in the wagon, I heard Cara tell you that she didn’t know if Richard would live the night. Owen says he has an antidote. I think this is one of those times we must act.”

“If it means anything,” Tom offered in a confidential tone, “I’d have to agree. I don’t see as there really is any choice. But if you have an alternative that might save Lord Rahl, I think now would be the time to add it to the stew.”

Kahlan didn’t have any alternative, except getting to Nicci, and that was looking more and more like no more than empty hope.

“Mother Confessor,” Friedrich offered in a hushed tone, “I agree as well. I think you should know that if you let him have the remedy, we all were in agreement that it was the best choice to be made.”

If the antidote killed Richard, they wouldn’t blame her. That was what he was saying.

Jennsen stepped toward Owen, pulling Betty along with her. “If you’re lying about this being an antidote, you will have to answer to me, and to Cara, and then to the Mother Confessor—if there’s even anything left of you by then. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Owen shrank from her, his head turned away, as he nodded vigorously, apparently fearing to look up at her, or at Betty. Kahlan thought that he looked more afraid of Jennsen than of any of the rest of them.

Cara leaned toward Kahlan and whispered. “He has to have an antidote. What purpose would it be to place himself in danger of all we’ll do to him if he’s lying? Why even come back here, if he only wanted to poison Lord Rahl? He had already poisoned him and gotten away. Mother Confessor, I say that we give Lord Rahl the antidote, and we do it quickly.”

“Then why poison him in the first place?” Kahlan whispered back. “If you intend to give a man the antidote, then why poison him?”

Cara let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know. But right now, if Lord Rahl dies . . .”

Cara’s words trailed off at the unthinkable.

Kahlan looked over at Richard lying unconscious. She went weak at the thought of him never waking. How could she live in a world without Richard?

“How much do we give him?” she asked Owen.

Owen rushed forward, past Jennsen. “All of it. Make him drink it all down.” He pressed the small, square-sided bottle into Kahlan’s hands. “Hurry. Please hurry.”

“You’ve hurt him,” Kahlan said with unrestrained menace. “Your poison hurt him. He’s been coughing up blood, and he passed out from the pain. If you think I’ll ever forget that and be pleased with you for now returning to save his life, you’re wrong.”

Owen nervously licked his lips. “But I tried to get to you. I was bringing you the antidote so that wouldn’t happen. I never intended him such pain. I tried to get to you—but you slaughtered all those men.”

“So, it’s our fault, then?”

Owen smiled just a bit as he nodded, a small smile of satisfaction that she’d finally seen the light and at last understood that it wasn’t his fault at all, but their fault.

While Jennsen watched Owen, keeping him back out of the way, Tom watched the man Kahlan had touched, and Friedrich watched Betty, Kahlan and Cara knelt and lifted Richard so they could try to get him to drink the antidote. Cara propped his back against her thigh while Kahlan cradled his head in her arm.

She pulled the stopper with her teeth and spit out the cork. Careful not to spill and waste any of the antidote, she put the bottle to his lips and tipped it up. She watched it wet his lips. She tilted his head back more, so that his mouth would fall open a bit, and tipped the bottle some more. Carefully, she let some of the clear liquid dribble into his mouth.

Kahlan didn’t know if what was in the bottle really was an antidote. It was colorless and looked to her just like water. As Richard smacked his lips a little, swallowing what she had poured in his mouth, Kahlan smelled the bottle. The liquid had the slight aroma of cinnamon.

She dribbled more of it into Richard’s mouth. He coughed, but then swallowed. Cara used a finger to swipe up a drop that ran down his chin and return it to his mouth.

Kahlan, her heart pounding with worry, poured the rest of the liquid past his lips. Holding the empty bottle between her thumb and first finger, she used the palm of her hand to push Richard’s jaw up, forcing his head back, forcing him to swallow.

She sighed with relief when he swallowed several times, taking all the cure. At least she’d been able to get him to swallow it.

Carefully, Kahlan and Cara laid Richard back down. As Cara stood, Owen rushed forward.

“Did you give him all of it? Did he drink it all?”

Cara’s Agiel spun into her fist. As Owen, in his exuberance to get to Richard, charged forward, Cara rammed her Agiel into Owen’s shoulder.

Owen tottered back a step. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed his shoulder where Cara had jabbed her Agiel into him. “I only wanted to see how he is. I don’t mean any harm. I want him to be well, I swear.”

Kahlan stared in astonishment. Cara glanced down at her Agiel, then at Owen.

Her Agiel hadn’t worked on him. He wasn’t affected by magic.

Even Jennsen was staring at Owen. He was just like her—a pillar of Creation, born pristinely ungifted and unaffected by magic. While Jennsen understood what that meant, it didn’t seem that Owen did. He had no idea that Cara had done anything more than poke him good and hard to get him to stand back.

Her Agiel should have dropped him to his knees.

“Richard drank all the antidote. Now it must do its work. In the meantime, I think we had better get some sleep.” Kahlan gestured with a tilt of her head. “See to the watches, would you, Cara? I’ll stay with Richard.”

Cara nodded. She gave Tom a look, which he understood.

“Owen,” Tom said, “why don’t you come over by me and spend the night over here, with this fellow.”

Owen blanched at the look on the face of the big D’Haran, and understood that he wasn’t being offered a choice. “Yes, all right.” He turned back to Kahlan. “I’ll pray that he got the antidote in time. I’ll pray for him.”

“Pray for yourself,” she said.

When everyone had gone, Kahlan lay down beside Richard. Now that she was alone with him, tears of worry finally began to seep out. Richard was shivering with cold, even though it was a warm night. She drew the blanket back up around him and then put her hand on his shoulder as she cuddled close, not knowing if when the new day came he would still be with her.