Naked Empire

Chapter 31

Standing at the edge of a narrow rim of rock, Richard looked down on the ragged gray wisps of clouds below. Out in the open, the cool damp air that drifted over him carried the aromas of balsam trees, moss, wet leaves, and saturated soil. He inhaled deeply the fragrant reminders of home. The rock, mostly granite, cracked and weather-worn into pillowed blocks, looked much the same as that in his Hartland woods. The mountains, however, were far larger. The slope rising up behind him was dizzying.

To the west before him, far below, lay a vast stretch of fractured ground and ever-rising rugged hills carpeted in forests. To his left and right, because he knew what he was looking for, he could just make out the strip of ground, devoid of trees, where the boundary had been. Farther off to the west rose up the lesser mountains, mostly barren, that bordered the wasteland. That wasteland, and the place called the Pillars of Creation, was no longer visible. Richard was happy to have left it far behind.

The sky was empty of black-tipped races—for the moment, anyway. The huge birds most likely knew that Richard, Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and Owen were heading west.

Richard had shot the last five races as they had begun gathering in their circling behavior, surprising them by being high up the side of the mountain above the others in his group, closer to where the races flew.

After killing the races, Richard had led the rest of his small company into denser woods. He didn’t think that the races they’d been seeing up until then had spotted them since. Now that they were traveling through forests of towering trees Richard thought that, if he was careful, they might be able to lose their watchers.

If this man, Nicholas, had seen them through the eyes of those five races, then he knew they had been headed west. But, now that they were hidden, he couldn’t assume that they would continue west. If Richard could disappear from where the birds would look for him, and failed to appear where they would expect him, then Nicholas might have second thoughts. He might realize they could have changed direction and gone north, or south.

Nicholas might then begin to realize that they had used that period of confusion to run away somewhere else, to flee him.

It was possible that Richard could keep them hidden under the cover of the trees and in so doing keep Nicholas from discovering them. Richard didn’t want the man to know where they’d gone, or to have any idea where they were at any given time. It was hardly a certainty that he could deceive Nicholas in this way, but Richard intended to try.

Shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand, Richard scanned the rise of dense forest before them in order to get the lay of the land fixed in his mind before he headed back in under the thick vegetation where the others waited. The trailers of clouds below were but the tattered castoffs of the churning blanket of gloom above them. The mountainside ascended sharply into that wet overcast.

As Richard evaluated the rock, the slope, and the trees, he finally found what he sought. He studied the ascent of the mountain one last time before scanning the sky again to make sure it was clear. Seeing no races—or any other birds, for that matter—he headed in to where the others waited.

He knew that just because he didn’t see any birds didn’t mean that they weren’t there watching him. There could be a few dozen races sitting in trees where he would likely never spot them. But, for the moment, he was still where they would expect him, so he wasn’t greatly concerned.

He was about to do what they would not expect.

Richard climbed back up the slick bank of moss, leaves, and wet roots.

If he fell, he would have only the one chance to grab the small ledge where he’d been standing before he would tumble out into the clear air and a drop of several thousand feet. The thought of that drop made him hold tighter to the roots to help him climb, and made him test carefully every score in the rock where he placed his boot before committing his weight to it.

At the top of the bank he ducked under overhanging branches of scrawny mountain maple that grew in the understory of hardwoods leaning out beside the towering pines in an effort to capture the light. Leaves of the ash and birch rising above the mountain maple collected the drizzle, until their leaves had as much as they could hold and released it to patter down in fat drops that slapped the lower leaves above Richard’s head. When a light breeze caught those upper leaves, they released their load to rain down in sudden but brief torrents.

Stooping under low-spreading branches of fir trees, Richard followed his track back through thickets of huckleberry into the more open ground of the hushed woods beneath the thick canopy of ancient evergreens. Pine needles had been woven by the wind into sprawling mats that cushioned his steps. Spiraling webs hung by spiders to catch the small bugs that zigzagged all about had instead netted the mist and were now dotted with shimmering drops of water, like jeweled necklaces on display.

Back in the sheltering cover of rock and the thick growth of young spruce, Kahlan stood when she saw Richard coming. When she stood, everyone else then saw him, and came to their feet as well. Richard ducked in under the wispy green branches.

“Did you see any races, Lord Rahl?” Owen asked, clearly nervous about the predators.

“No,” Richard told him as he picked up his pack and slung it over a shoulder. He slipped his other arm beneath the second strap as he pulled the pack up onto his back. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t see me, though.”

Richard hooked his bow over the back of his left shoulder, along with a waterskin.

“Well,” Owen said, wringing his hands, “we can still hope they won’t know where we are.”

Richard paused to look at the man. “Hope is not a strategy.”

As the rest of them all started collecting their things from the brief break, hooking gear on belts and shouldering packs, Richard drew Cara by the arm out of the cover of small trees and pulled her close.

“See that rise through there?” he asked as he held her near him so she could see where he was pointing. “With the strip of open ground that passes in front of the young oak with the broken dead limb hanging down?”

Cara nodded. “Just after where the ground rises and goes over that trickle of water running down the face of the rock, staining it green?”

“That’s the spot. I want you to follow up over that area, then cut to the right, taking that cleft up—that one there beyond the split in the rock, there—and see if you can scout a trail up to the next shelf up above these trees here.”

Cara nodded. “Where will you be?”

“I’m going to take the rest of us up to the first break in the slope. We’ll be there. Come back and tell us if you find a way over the projection.”

Cara hoisted up her pack onto her back and then picked up the stout staff Richard had cut for her.

“I didn’t know that Mord-Sith could cut trails,” Tom said.

“Mord-Sith can’t,” Cara said. “I, Cara, can. Lord Rahl taught me.”

As she vanished into the trees, Richard watched her walk. She moved gracefully, disturbing little as she made her way into the trackless woods.

She moved with an economy of effort that would conserve her energy. It had not always been so; she had learned well the lessons he had given her.

Richard was pleased to see that the lessons had stuck and his efforts had not been wasted.

Owen came forward, looking agitated. “But Lord Rahl, we can’t go that way.” He waggled a hand back over his shoulder. “The trail goes that way. That is the only way up and through the pass. There lies the way down, and with it the way back up, now that the boundary is gone. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way.”

“It’s the only way you know of. By how well that trail looks to be traveled, I think it’s the only way Nicholas knows of as well. It appears to be the way the Order troops move in and out of Bandakar.

“If we go that way the races will be watching. If, on the other hand, we don’t show up, then he won’t know where we went. I want to keep it that way from now on. I’m tired of playing mouse to his owl.”

Richard let Kahlan lead them up through the woods, following the natural route of the land when the way ahead was reasonably evident. When she was in doubt she would glance back at him for direction. Richard would look where she was to go, or nod in the direction he wanted her to take, or, in a few cases, he needed to give her instruction.

By the lay of the land, Richard was pretty sure that there was an ancient trail up through the mountain pass. That pass, that from afar looked like a notch in the wall of mountains, was in reality no mere notch but a broad area twisting as it rose back up between the mountains. Richard didn’t think that the path that the Bandakar people used to banish people through the boundary was the only way through that pass. With the boundary in place it may well have been, but the boundary was no longer there.

From what he’d seen so far, Richard suspected that there once had been a route that in ancient times had been the main way in and out. Here and there he was able to discern depressions that he believed were remnants of that ancient, abandoned route.

While it was always possible that the old passage had been abandoned for good reason, such as a landslide that made it impassable, he wanted to know if that once traveled way was still usable. It would, at the least, since it was in a different part of the mountains than the known path, take them away from where the races were likely to be looking for them.

Jennsen walked up close beside Richard when the way through towering pines was open enough. She tugged Betty along by her rope, keeping her from stopping to sample plants along the way.

“Sooner or later the races will find us, don’t you think?” Jennsen asked. “I mean, if we don’t show up where they expect to find us, then don’t you think they will search until they do find us? You were the one who said that from the sky they could cover great distances and search us out.”

“Maybe,” Richard said. “But it will be hard to spot us in the woods if we use our heads and stay hidden. In forests they can’t search nearly as much area as they could in the same amount of time out in the wasteland. In open ground they could spot us miles away. Here, they will have a hard time of it unless they’re really close and we are careless.

“By the time we don’t show up where the known trail makes it up into Bandakar, they will have a vast area they suddenly will need to search and they won’t have any idea which direction to look. That compounds the problem for them in finding us.

“I don’t think that the viewing Nicholas gets through their eyes can be very good, or he wouldn’t need to gather the races now and again to circle. If we can stay out of sight long enough, then we’ll be among the people up in Bandakar and then Nicholas, through the eyes of the races, will have a hard, if not impossible, time picking us out from others.”

Jennsen thought it over as they entered a stand of birch. Betty went the wrong way around a tree and Jennsen had to stop to untangle her rope.

They all hunched their shoulders against the wet when a breeze brought down a soaking shower.

“Richard,” Jennsen asked in a voice barely above a whisper as she caught back up with him, “what are you going to do when we get there?”

“I’m going to get the antidote so I don’t die.”

“I know that.” Jennsen pulled a sodden ringlet of red hair back from her face. “What I mean is, what are you going to do about Owen’s people?”

Each breath he drew brought a slight stitch of pain deep in his lungs.

“I’m not sure, yet, just what I can do.”

Jennsen walked in silence for a moment. “But you will try to help them, won’t you?”

Richard glanced over at his sister. “Jennsen, they’re threatening to kill me. They’ve proven that it isn’t an empty threat.”

She shrugged uncomfortably. “I know, but they’re desperate.” She glanced ahead to make sure that Owen wouldn’t hear. “They didn’t know what else to do to save themselves. They aren’t like you. They never fought anyone before.”

Richard took a deep breath, the pain pulling tight across his chest when he did so. “You’d never fought anyone before, either. When you thought I was trying to kill you, as our father had, and you believed that I was responsible for your mother’s death, what did you do? I don’t mean were you correct about me, but what did you do in response to what you believed was happening?”

“I resolved that if I wanted to live I would have to kill you before you killed me.”

“Exactly. You didn’t poison someone and tell them to do it or they would die. You decided that your life was worth living and that no one else had the right to take it from you.

“When you are willing to meekly sacrifice your ultimate value, your life, the only one you will ever have, to any thug who on a whim decides to take it from you, then you can’t be helped. You may be able to be rescued for one day, but the next day another will come and you will again willingly prostrate yourself before him. You have placed the value of the life of your killer above your own.

“When you grant to anyone who demands it the right of life or death over you, you have already become a willing slave in search of any butcher who will have you.”

She walked in silence for a time, thinking about what he’d said.

Richard noticed that she moved through the woods as he had taught Cara to move. She was nearly as at home in the woods as he was.

“Richard.” Jennsen swallowed. “I don’t want those people to be hurt any more. They’ve already suffered enough.”

“Tell that to Kahlan if I die from their poison.”

When they reached the meeting place, Cara wasn’t there yet. They all were ready for a brief rest. The spot, a break in the slope back against granite that rose up steeply to the next projection in the mountain, was protected high overhead by huge pines and closer down by brush. After so long out in the heat of the desert, none of them were yet accustomed to the wet chill. While they spread out to find rocks for seats so they wouldn’t have to sit in the wet leaf litter, Betty happily sampled the tasty weeds.

Owen sat to the far side, away from Betty.

Kahlan sat close to Richard on a small lump of rock. “How are you doing? You look like you have a headache.”

“Nothing to be done about it for now,” he said.

Kahlan leaned closer. The warmth of her felt good against his side.

“Richard,” she whispered, “remember Nicci’s letter?”

“What about it?”

“Well, we assumed that this boundary into Bandakar being down was the reason for the first warning beacon. Maybe we’re wrong.”

“What makes you think so?”

“No second beacon.” She pointed with her chin off to the northwest. “We saw the first way back down there. We’re a lot closer to the place where the boundary was and we haven’t spotted a second beacon.”

“Just as well,” he said. “That was where the races were waiting for us.”

He remembered well when they found the little statue. The races were perched in trees all around. Richard hadn’t known what they were at the time, other than they were large birds he’d never seen before. The instant Cara picked up the statue, the black-tipped races had all suddenly taken to wing. There had been hundreds.

“Yes,” Kahlan said, “but without the second beacon, maybe this isn’t the problem that we thought caused the first.”

“You’re assuming that the second beacon will be for me—that I’m the one it will be meant for and so we would have seen it. Nicci said that the second beacon is for the one who has the power to fix the breach in the seal. Maybe that’s not me.”

Looking at first startled by the idea, Kahlan thought it over. “I’m not sure if I’d be pleased about that or not.” She leaned tighter against him and hooked an arm around his thigh. “But no matter who is meant to be the one who can seal the breach again, the one who’s supposed to restore the boundary, I don’t think they will be able to do so.”

Richard ran his fingers back through his wet hair. “Well, if I’m the one this dead wizard once believed could restore the boundary, he’s wrong. I don’t know how to do such a thing.”

“But don’t you see, Richard? Even if you did know how, I don’t think you could.”

Richard looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Jumping to conclusions and letting your imagination get carried away, again?”

“Richard, face it, the boundary failed because of what I did. That’s why the warning beacon was for me—because I caused the seal to fail. You aren’t going to try to deny that, are you?”

“No, but we have a lot to learn before we know what’s really going on.”

“I freed the chimes,” she said. “It’s not going to do us any good to try to hide from that fact.”

Kahlan had used ancient magic to save his life. She had freed the chimes in order to heal him. She’d had no time to spare; he would have died within moments if she had not acted.

Moreover, she’d had no idea that the chimes would unleash destruction upon the world. She hadn’t known they had been created three thousand years before from underworld powers as a weapon designed to consume magic. She had been told only that she must use them to save Richard’s life.

Richard knew what it felt like to be convinced of the facts behind events and to have no one believe him. He knew she was now feeling that same frustration.

“You’re right that we can’t hide from it—if it is a fact. But right now we don’t know that it is. For one thing, the chimes have been banished back to the underworld.”

“And what about what Zedd told us, about how once the destructive cascade of magic begins—which it did—then there is no telling if it can be stopped even if the chimes are banished. There is no experience in such an event upon which to base predictions.”

Richard didn’t have an answer for her, and was at a disadvantage because he didn’t have her education in magic. He was saved from having to speculate when Cara came in through a tight patch of young balsam trees. She pulled her pack off her shoulders and let it slip to the ground as she sat on a rock facing Richard.

“You were right. We can get through there. It looks to me like I can see a way to continue on up from the ledge.”

“Good,” Richard said as he stood. “Let’s get going. The clouds are getting darker. I think we need to find a place to stop for the night.”

“I spotted a place under the ledge, Lord Rahl. I think it might be a dry place to stay.”

“Good.” Richard hoisted her pack. “I’ll carry this for you for a while, let you have a break.”

Cara nodded her appreciation, falling into line as they moved through the tight trees and immediately had to start to climb up the steeply rising ground. There was enough exposed rock and roots to provide good steps and handholds. Where some of those steps were tall, Richard stretched down to give Kahlan a hand.

Tom helped Jennsen and passed Betty up a few times, even though the goat was better at scrambling up over rock than they were. Richard thought he was doing it more for Jennsen’s peace of mind than Betty’s. Jennsen finally told Tom that Betty could climb on her own.

Betty proved her right, bleating down at Tom after effortlessly clambering up a particularly trying spot.

“Why don’t you help me up, then,” Tom said to the goat.

Jennsen smiled along with Richard and Kahlan. Owen just watched as he skirted the other way around the rock. He was afraid of Betty. Cara finally asked for her pack back, having entertained long enough the possibility of being considered frail.

Shortly after the rain started, they found the low slit of an opening under a prominent ledge, just as Cara had said they would. It wasn’t a cave, but a spot where a slab from the face of the mountain above had broken off and fallen over. Boulders on the ground held the slab up enough to create a pocket beneath. It wasn’t large, but Richard thought they would all fit under it for the night.

The ground was dirty, scattered with collected leaf litter and forest debris of bark, moss, and a lot of bugs. Tom and Richard used branches they’d cut to quickly sweep the place out. They then laid down a clean bed of evergreen boughs to keep them up off the water that did run in.

The rain was starting to come down harder, so they all squatted down and hurried to move in under the rock. It wasn’t a comfortable-looking spot, being too low for them to stand in, but it was fairly dry.

Richard dared not let them have a fire, now that they had left the regular trail, lest the smoke be spotted by the races. They had a cold supper of meats, leftover bannock, and dried goods. They were all exhausted from climbing all day, and while they ate engaged in only a bit of small talk. Betty was the only one with enough room to stand. She pushed up against Richard until she got his attention and a rub.

As darkness slowly enveloped the woods, they watched the rain fall outside their cozy shelter, listening to the soft sound, all no doubt wondering what lay ahead in a strange empire that had been sealed away for three thousand years. Troops from the Imperial Order would be there, too.

As Richard sat watching out into the dark rain, listening to the sounds of the occasional animal in the distance, Kahlan cuddled up beside him, laying her head on his lap. Betty went deeper into the shelter and lay down with Jennsen.

Kahlan, under the comfort of his hand resting tenderly on her shoulder, was asleep in moments. As weary as he was from the day’s hard journey, Richard wasn’t sleepy.

His head hurt and the poison deep within him made each breath catch. He wondered what would strike him down first, the power of his gift that was giving him the headaches, or Owen’s poison.

He wondered, too, just how he was going to satisfy the demands of Owen and his men to free their empire so that he could have the antidote. The five of them, he, Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, and Tom, hardly seemed the army needed to drive the Order out of Bandakar.

If he didn’t, and if he couldn’t get to the antidote, his life was coming to a close. This very well could be his final journey.

It seemed like he had just gotten back together with Kahlan after being separated from her for half his life. He wanted to be with her. He wanted the two of them to be able to be alone.

If he didn’t think of something, all they had in each other, all they had ahead of them, was just about over. And that was without even considering the headaches of the gift.

Or the Imperial Order capturing the Wizard’s Keep.