Naked Empire

Chapter 42

As the men crowded around their feet, openly offering their gratitude for ending their sentence of banishment, Richard shared a sidelong glance with Kahlan. Cara looked decidedly displeased by the display but didn’t interfere.

Trying to bring a halt to the tearful tribute, Richard gestured for the men to get up. “There is much more to tell you. Listen to me, now.”

The smiling, tearful men drew back, hands clasped while gazing at him as if he were a long-lost brother. There were a few older men among the crowd and some of middle age, but most ranged from young, like Owen, to a little older, like Richard. They were all men who had been through terrible times.

The most difficult part still lay ahead; Richard had to make them face up to what was to come.

Looking over at Jennsen, standing alone off to the side, he gestured for her to come forward.

Jennsen emerged from the shadows of the statue, catching the attention of all eyes as she made her way toward Richard. The men all watched her coming into the light. She looked so beautiful that Richard couldn’t help smiling as she stepped across the rocks. Pulling on a red ringlet, she cast a shy glance at the men.

When Richard held an arm out, she sought protection under the shelter of that arm as she gazed nervously out at men who were like her in one important way.

“This is my sister, Jennsen Rahl,” Richard said. “She was born pristinely ungifted, just like all of you. Our father tried to kill her, as has been done for thousands of years with ungifted offspring.”

“And you?” a man asked, still skeptical. “You will not reject her?”

Richard hugged Jennsen with the one arm. “For what? For what crime should I reject her? Because she was born a woman, instead of a man like me? Because she isn’t as tall as me? Because she has red hair, instead of hair like mine? Because her eyes are blue and not gray? . . . Because she is ungifted?”

The men shifted their weight to the other foot or folded their arms.

Some, after all he had already said, averted their eyes, looking embarrassed to have even asked the question.

“She’s beautiful, smart, and uses her head. She, too, fights for her right to live, and does so through reasoned means. She is as you men, pristinely ungifted. Because she shares an understanding of the value of life, I embrace her.”

Richard heard the bleat and turned. Betty, her rope trailing behind, trotted up the rise. Jennsen rolled her eyes as Betty came close, peering up, her tail wagging in a blur.

Jennsen snatched up the rope, inspecting the end. Richard could see that it had been chewed through.

“Betty,” she scolded, shaking the end of the rope at the unrepentant goat, “what did you do?”

Betty bleated her answer, clearly proud of herself.

Jennsen heaved a sigh as she shrugged an apology at Richard.

The men had all taken several steps back, murmuring their dread to one another.

“I’m not a witch,” Jennsen told them in a heated tone. “Just because I have red hair that doesn’t mean I’m a witch.”

The men looked thoroughly unconvinced.

“I’ve had dealings with a very real witch woman,” Richard told them. “I can assure you, red hair is no mark of a witch. It just isn’t true.”

“It is true,” one of the men insisted. He pointed at Betty. “There is her attendant spirit.”

Richard’s brow wrinkled. “Attendant spirit?”

“That’s right,” another told him. “A witch always has a familiar with her. She called her attendant spirit and it came to her.”

“Called her?” Jennsen brandished the frayed end of the rope at the men. “I tied her to a tree and she chewed through her rope.”

Another man shook his finger at her. “You called her with magic and she came.”

Fists at her sides, Jennsen took a step toward the men. They took a collective step back.

“You men all had family and friends—a community of people. I had no friends and could have none because my mother and I had to run from my father my whole life to keep from being caught. He would have tortured and murdered me had he caught me—the same as he would have done with you. I could have no childhood friends, so my mother gave me Betty. Betty was just newborn; we grew up together. Betty chewed through her rope because I’m the only family she’s ever known and she simply wanted to be close to me.

“I was banished from everyone for my crime of birth, just like your ancestors. You all know the injustice of such banishment and you know its pain. And now you foolish men would banish me from your acceptance because I have red hair and a goat as a pet? You are spineless cowards and hypocrites!

“First you poison the only person in the world brave enough to end our banishment from the rest of mankind and now you fear me and reject me because of silly superstitions. If I did have magic, I’d burn you all to a cinder for your cruel attitudes!”

Richard put a hand on her shoulder and drew her back. “It will be all right,” he whispered to her. “Just let me talk to them.”

“You tell us that you’re a wizard,” an older man in the back called out, “and then you expect us to believe it’s so—on faith—because you say it is, while you claim that we should not hold to our beliefs, such as our fear that she could be a witch with her familiar, because it’s held only on faith.”

“That’s right,” another said. “You claim your belief is in real magic, while you dismiss our belief. A lot of what you say makes sense, but I don’t agree with all of it.”

There could be no partial agreement. To reject part of the truth was to reject it all. Richard considered his options, how he could convince people without magic, who could not see magic, that real magic existed. From their perspective, he seemed guilty of the same error he was telling them they were making. How could he demonstrate a rainbow of color to the blind?

“You have a point,” Richard said. “Give me a moment and I will show you the reality of the magic I talk about.”

He motioned Cara closer. “Get me the warning beacon,” he said in a confidential tone.

Cara immediately took off down the hill. He saw that Jennsen’s angry blue eyes were filled with tears but she didn’t cry. Kahlan pulled her back farther as Richard addressed the men.

“There is more I must tell you—some things you need to understand. I have ended the banishment, but that does not mean that I unconditionally accept you back as one of our people.”

“But you said that we were welcomed home,” Owen said.

“I’m stating the obvious—that you have a right to your own life. Out of goodwill I welcome you all to be part of D’Hara if you wish—part of what D’Hara now stands for. But by welcoming you back, that does not mean that I welcome people unconditionally.

“All men should be free to live their own lives, but make no mistake, there is a vast difference between that freedom and anarchy.

“If we triumph in our struggle, you are welcome to be free people of a D’Haran Empire which holds a belief in specific values. For example, you can think whatever you wish and try to persuade others of the value of your beliefs, but you cannot act on a view that those who fight to gain that freedom are savages or criminals, even though you expect to enjoy the fruits of their struggle. At minimum, they have earned your respect and gratitude. Their lives are no less than yours and are not expendable for your benefit. That is slavery.”

“But you have savage ways and engage in violence for a land we have never even seen,” one of the younger men said. He pointed an arm back toward Bandakar. “The only land we have ever known is here and we unconditionally reject your love of violence.”

“Land?” Richard spread his arms. “We do not fight for land. We are loyal to an ideal—an ideal of liberty wherever man lives. We do not guard territory, bleed for a piece of dirt. We don’t fight because we love violence. We fight for our freedom as individuals to live our own lives, to pursue our own survival, our own happiness.

“Your unconditional rejection of violence makes you smugly think of yourselves as noble, as enlightened, but in reality it is nothing less than abject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditional rejection of self-defense, because you think it’s a supposed surrender to violence, leaves you no resort but begging for mercy or offering appeasement.

“Evil grants no mercy, and to attempt to appease it is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender to it. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death at worst. Thus, your unconditional rejection of violence is really nothing more than embracing death as preferable to life.

“You will achieve what you embrace.

“The right, the absolute necessity, of vengeance against anyone who initiates force against you is fundamental to survival. The morality of a people’s self-defense is in its defense of each individual’s right to life. It’s an intolerance of violence, made real by an unwavering willingness to crush any who would launch violence against you. The unconditional determination to destroy any who would initiate force against you is an exaltation of the value of life. Refusing to surrender your life to any thug or tyrant who lays claim to it is in fact embracing life itself.

“If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.

“The Imperial Order preaches that mankind is corrupt and evil, and therefore life is of little value. Their actions certainly bear this out. They moralize that you can only win salvation and happiness in some other world, and then only by sacrificing your life in this one.

“Generosity is fine, if it’s by your free choice, but a belief in the primacy of self-sacrifice as a moral requisite is nothing less than the sanctioning of slavery. Those who tell you that it is your responsibility and duty to sacrifice are trying to blind you to the chains they are slipping around your neck.

“As D’Harans, you will not be required to sacrifice your life to another, and by the same token you cannot demand that others sacrifice themselves to you. You may believe as you wish, you may even feel that you cannot take up arms and fight directly for our survival, but you must help support our cause and you may not contribute materially or spiritually to the destruction of our values and therefore our lives—that is treason and will be treated as such.

“The Imperial Order has violently invaded innocent lands, like yours. They have enslaved, tortured, raped, and murdered in order to seize rule. They have done no less in the New World. They have forfeited their right to be heard. There is no moral dilemma involved, no ethical question open to debate; they must be ground into dust.”

A man stepped forward. “But common decency in dealing with our fellow man requires that we must show them mercy for their misguided ways.”

“There is no greater value than life—and that’s what you partially recognize by your confused notion of granting mercy. Their conscious, deliberate act of murder takes the irreplaceable value of life from another. A murderer, by his own choice to kill, forfeits the right to his own life. Mercy for such evil is nothing short of excusing it and thus allowing evil to prevail—it codifies the taking of innocent life by not making the murderer forfeit their own guilty life.

“Mercy grants value to the life of a killer, while, at the same time, it strips away the value of the life of the innocent victim. It makes the life of a killer more important than the life of an innocent. It is thus a trade of the good to the evil. It is the victory of death over life.”

“So,” Owen wondered aloud, “because the Order has attacked your land and murdered its people, you intend to try to kill every living person in the Old World?”

“No. The Order is evil and from the Old World. That does not mean that the people of the Old World are evil simply because they happen to have been born on a patch of ground ruled by evil men. Some actively support these rulers and therefore embrace evil, but not everyone does. Many of the people in the Old World are also the victims of the rule of the Imperial Order and suffer greatly under its brutality. Many struggle against this evil rule. As we speak, many risk their lives to rid themselves of these evil men. We fight for the same thing: liberty.

“Where those who seek liberty were born is irrelevant. We believe in the value of the individual’s life. That means that where someone lives does not make them evil—it’s their beliefs and actions that matter.

“But make no mistake—many people are an active part of the Imperial Order and its murderous ways. Actions must have consequences. The Order must be eradicated.”

“Surely, you would allow some compromise,” one of the older men said.

“If, hoping to appease it, you willingly compromise with unrepentant evil, you only allow such evil to sink its fangs into you; from that day on its venom will course through your veins until it finally kills you.”

“But that’s too harsh a sentiment,” the man said. “It’s just being stubborn and obstructing a constructive path. There is always room for compromise.”

Richard tapped his thumb against his chest. “You men decided to give me poison. That poison will kill me; that makes it evil. How would you suggest I compromise with poison?”

No one had an answer.

“In trade between willing parties who share moral values and who deal fairly and honestly with one another, compromise over something like price is legitimate. In matters of morality or truth, there can be no compromise.

“Compromising with murderers, which is precisely what you are suggesting, grants them moral equivalence where none can rightfully exist. Moral equivalence says that you are no better than they; therefore, their belief—that they should be able to torture, rape, or murder you—is just as morally valid as your view—that you have the right to live free of their violence. Moral compromise rejects the concept of right and wrong. It says that everyone is equal, all desires are equally valid, all action is equally valid, so everyone should compromise to get along.

“Where could you compromise with those who torture, rape, and murder people? In the number of days a week you will be tortured? In the number of men to be allowed to rape your loved ones? In how many of your family are to be murdered?

“No moral equivalence exists in that situation, nor can it exist, so there can be no compromise, only suicide.

“To even suggest compromise can exist with such men is to sanction murder.”

Most of the men appeared shocked and startled to hear someone speaking to them in such a straightforward manner. They seemed to be losing interest in their supply of empty adages. Some of the men looked to be moved by Richard’s words. A few even looked inspired by their clarity; he could see it in their eyes, as if they were seeing things for the first time.

Cara came up behind Richard and handed him the warning beacon. Richard wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if the inky black had taken over more of the surface of the small figure than the last time he’d seen it. Inside, the sand continued to trickle down onto the accumulated pile in the bottom.

“Kaja-Rang placed the boundary across this pass to seal your people in. He is the one who named you. He knew your people shunned violence and he feared you might end up being prey to criminals. He is the one who gave you a way to banish them from your land so that you could continue to have the kind of life you wanted. He told your people of the passage through the boundary so that you could rid yourselves of criminals if you rallied the will.”

Owen looked troubled. “If this great wizard, Kaja-Rang, didn’t want our people among the population of the Old World because we would mix with them and spread our pristinely ungifted trait, as you call it, then what about the criminals we banish? Sending those men out into the world would cause the thing they feared. Making this pass through the boundary and telling our ancestors about it would seem to defeat the whole purpose of the boundary.”

Richard smiled. “Very good, Owen. You are beginning to think for yourself.”

Owen smiled. Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang.

“You see where he’s looking? It’s a place called the Pillars of Creation. It’s a deathly hot place where nothing lives—a land stalked by death. The boundary that Kaja-Rang placed had sides to it. When you sent people out of your land, through the boundary, the walls of death to the sides prevented those banished people from escaping into the world at large. They had only one way they could go: the Pillars of Creation.

“Even with water and supplies, and knowing where you must go to get past it, trying to go through the valley known as the Pillars of Creation is almost certain death. Without water and supplies, without knowing the land, without knowing how to travel it and where you must go to escape such a place, those you banished faced certain death.”

The men stared, wide-eyed. “Then, when we banished a criminal, we were actually executing them,” one of the men said.

“That’s right.”

“This Kaja-Rang tricked us, then,” the man added. “Tricked us into what was actually the killing of those men.”

“You think that a terrible trick?” Richard asked. “You people were deliberately setting known criminals loose on the world to prey on unsuspecting people. You were knowingly setting free violent men, and condemning unsuspecting people outside your land to be victims of violence. Rather than put murderers to death, you were, as far as you knew—had you given it any thought—knowingly assisting them in going on to kill others. In the blind attempt to avoid violence at all cost, you actually championed it.

“You told yourselves that those other people didn’t matter, because they weren’t enlightened, like you, that you were better than they because you were above violence, that you unconditionally rejected violence. If you even thought about it, you considered these people beyond the boundary to be savages, their lives unimportant. For all intents and purposes, you were sacrificing their innocent lives for the lives of those men you knew to be evil.

“What Kaja-Rang was doing, besides keeping the pristinely ungifted from being at large in the world, was executing those criminals you banished before they could harm other people. You think yourselves noble in rejecting violence, but your actions would have fostered it. Only Kaja-Rang’s actions prevented it.”

“Dear Creator. It is far worse than that.” Owen sank down, sitting heavily. “Far worse than you even realize.”

Other men, too, looked to be stricken with horror. Some had to lower themselves to the ground as Owen had. Others, their faces in their hands, turned away, or walked off a few paces.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

Owen looked up, his face ashen. “The story I told you about our land . . . about our town and the other great cities? How in my town we all lived together and were happy with our lives?” Richard nodded. “Not all were.”

Kahlan crossed her arms and leaned toward Owen. “What do you mean, not all were?”

Owen lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Some wanted more than our simple joyful life. Some people . . . well, they wanted to change things. They said they wanted to make things better. They wanted to improve our life, to build places for themselves, even though this is against our ways.”

“Owen is right,” an older man said in a grim tone. “In my time I have seen a great many of these people who were unable to endure what some called the chafing principles of our empire.”

“And what happened when people wanted to make these changes, or could not endure the principles of your empire?” Richard asked.

Owen looked to each side, to the other dispirited faces. “The great speakers renounced their ideas. The Wise One said they would only bring strife among us. Their hopes for new ways were turned aside and they were denounced.” Owen swallowed. “So these people decided they would leave Bandakar. They went out of our land, taking the path through the opening in the boundary, to find a new life for themselves. Not a single one ever returned to us.”

Richard wiped a hand across his face. “Then they died looking for their new life, a better life than what you had to offer.”

“But you don’t understand.” Owen rose to his feet. “We are like those people.” He swept his arm back at his men. “We have refused to go back and give ourselves over to the men of the Order, even though we know that people are being tortured because we hide. We know it will not stop the Order, so we don’t go back.

“We have gone against the wishes of our great speakers, and the Wise One, to try to save our people. We have been denounced for what we choose to do. We have gone out of the pass to seek information, to find a way to rid ourselves of the Imperial Order. Do you see? We are much the same as those others throughout our history. Like those others, we chose to leave and try to change things rather than to endure the way things were.”

“Then perhaps you are beginning to see,” Richard said, “that everything you were taught showed you only how to embrace death, not life. Perhaps you see that what you called the teaching of enlightenment was no more than blinders pulled over your eyes.”

Richard put his hand on Owen’s shoulder. He gazed down at the statue of himself in his other hand and then looked around at the tense faces.

“You men are the ones left after all the rest have failed the tests. You alone got this far. You alone have started to use your minds to try to find a solution for you and your loved ones. You have much more to learn, but you have at least started to make some of the right choices. You must not stop now; you must meet with courage what I will call upon you to do, if you are to truly have a chance to save your loved ones.”

For the first time they looked at least a little proud. They had been recognized, not for how well they repeated meaningless sayings, but for the decisions they reached on their own.

Jennsen was frowning in thought. “Richard, why couldn’t people get back in through the passage out through the boundary? If they wanted to go off and have a new life but then discovered that they would have to go through the Pillars of Creation, why wouldn’t they go back, at least to get supplies, to get what they needed so they could make it through?”

“That’s right,” Kahlan said. “George Cypher went through the boundary at Kings’ Port and then returned. Adie said that the boundary had to have a passage, a vent, like where these people banished criminals, so why couldn’t people come back in? There was a pass out, so why did they never return?”

The men nodded, curious to hear why no one ever came back.

“From the first, I’ve wondered the same thing.” Richard rubbed a thumb along the glossy black surface of the statue of himself. “I think that the boundaries in the Midlands had to have an opening through them because they were so big—so long. This boundary, here, is nothing compared to those; I doubt that the same kind of vent would be needed.

“Because it was just one bent section of a boundary and not very long, I suspect that Kaja-Rang was able to put in a pass that allowed criminals to be banished through it, but would not allow passage back in. After all, if a criminal was banished and found he couldn’t escape, he would return. Kaja-Rang wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.”

“How could such a thing work?” Jennsen asked.

Richard rested his left hand on the hilt of his sword. “Certain snakes can swallow prey much larger than themselves. Their teeth are angled back so that as the prey is devoured, it’s impossible for it to come back out, to escape. I suppose that the pass through the boundary could have been somehow like that—only able to be traversed in one direction.”

“Do you think such a thing is possible?” Jennsen asked.

“There is precedent for such safeguards,” Kahlan said.

Richard nodded his agreement. “The great barrier between the New and the Old World had defenses to allow certain people, under specific conditions, one passage through and back, but not two.” He pointed the warning beacon up at the statue. “A wizard of Kaja-Rang’s ability would surely have known how to craft a pass through the boundary that did not allow any return. After all, he called it up out of the underworld itself and it remained viable for nearly three thousand years.”

“So then anyone who went out of this boundary died,” Owen said.

Richard nodded. “I’m afraid so. Kaja-Rang appeared to have made elaborate plans that functioned as he intended for all this time. He even made contingencies should the boundary fail.”

“That’s something I don’t understand,” a young man said. “If this wizard was so great, and his magic was so powerful that he could make a wall of death to keep us separated from the world for three thousand years, then how could it possibly fail? In the last two years it simply went away. Why?”

“I believe it was because of me,” Kahlan said.

She took a step closer to the men. Richard didn’t try to stop her. At this point, it wouldn’t do to appear as if he were withholding information from them.

“A couple of years ago, in a desperate act to save Richard’s life, I inadvertently called forth underworld power that I believe may be slowly destroying magic in our world. Richard banished this evil magic, but it had been here in the world of life for a time, so the effects may be irreversible.”

Worried looks passed among the men. This woman before them had just admitted that because of something she’d done, their protection had failed.

Because of her, horrifying violence and brutality had befallen them. Because of her, their way of life had ended.