Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

He dipped his head respectfully. “Yes, Mother Confessor.”

“You know her, too?” Richard asked.

Owen nodded. “Yes, Lord Rahl.”

“How?”

The man’s gaze shifted from Richard to Kahlan and back again.

“Word of you and the Mother Confessor has spread everywhere. Word of the way you freed the people of Altur’Rang from the oppression of the Imperial Order is known far and wide. Those who want freedom know that you are the one who gives it.”

Richard frowned. “What do you mean, I’m the one who gives it?”

“Well, before, the Imperial Order ruled. They are brutal—forgive me, they are misguided and don’t know any better. That is why their rule is so brutal. Perhaps it isn’t their fault. It is not for me to say.” Owen looked away as he tried to come up with words while apparently seeing his own visions of what the Imperial Order had done to convince him of their brutality. “Then you came and gave people freedom—just as you did in Altur’Rang.”

Richard wiped a hand across his face. He needed to translate the book, he needed to find out what was behind the thing Cara had touched and the black-tipped races following them, he needed to get back to Victor and those who were engaged in the revolt against the Order, he was past due to meet Nicci, and he needed to deal with his headaches. At least, maybe Nicci could help with that much of it.

“Owen, I don’t ‘give’ people freedom.”

“Yes, Lord Rahl.”

Owen evidently took Richard’s words as something he dared not argue with, but his eyes clearly said that he didn’t believe it.

“Owen, what do you mean when you say that you think I give people freedom?”

Owen took a tiny bite of his biscuit as he glanced around at the others. He squirmed his shoulders in a self-conscious shrug. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Well, you, you do what the Imperial Order does—you kill people.” He waved his biscuit awkwardly, as if it were a sword, stabbing the air. “You kill those who enslave people, and then you give the people who were enslaved their freedom so that peace can return.”

Richard took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if Owen meant it the way it came out, or if it was just that he was having difficulty explaining himself in front of people who made him nervous.

“That’s not exactly the way it is,” Richard said.

“But that’s why you came down here. Everyone knows it. You came down here to the Old World to give people freedom.”

Elbows on his knees, Richard leaned forward rubbing his palms together as he thought about how much he wanted to explain. He felt a wave of calmness when Kahlan draped a gentle, comforting hand over the back of his shoulder. He didn’t want to go into the horror of how he had been taken prisoner and taken from Kahlan, thinking he would never see her again.

Richard put the whole weight of emotion over that long ordeal aside and took another approach. “Owen, I’m from up in the New World—”

“Yes, I know,” Owen said as he nodded. “And you came here to free people from—”

“No. That’s not the truth of it. We lived in the New World. We were once at peace, apparently much like your people were. Emperor Jagang—”

“The dream walker.”

“Yes, Emperor Jagang, the dream walker, sent his armies to conquer the New World, to enslave our people—”

“My people, too.”

Richard nodded. “I understand. I know what a horror that is. His soldiers are rampaging up through the New World, murdering, enslaving our people.”

Owen turned his watery gaze off into the darkness as he nodded. “My people, too.”

“We tried to fight back,” Kahlan told him. “But there are too many. Their army is far too vast for us to drive them out of our land.”

Owen nibbled his biscuit again, not meeting her gaze. “My people are terrified of the men of the Order—may the Creator forgive their misguided ways.”

“May they scream in agony for all eternity in the darkest shadow of the Keeper of the underworld,” Cara said in merciless correction.

Owen stared slack-jawed at such a curse spoken aloud.

“We couldn’t fight them like that—simply drive them back to the Old World,” Richard said, bringing Owen’s gaze back to him as he went on with the story. “So I’m down here, in Jagang’s homeland, helping people who hunger to be free to cast off the shackles of the Order. While he’s away conquering our land, he has left his own homeland open to those who hunger for freedom. With Jagang and his armies away, that gives us a chance to strike at Jagang’s soft underbelly, to do him meaningful harm.

“I’m doing this because it’s the only way we can fight back against the Imperial Order—our only means to succeed. If I weaken his foundation, his source of men and support, then he will have to withdraw his army from our land and return south to defend his own.

“Tyranny cannot endure forever. By its very nature it rots everything it rules, including itself. But that can take lifetimes. I’m trying to accelerate that process so that I and those I love can be free in our lifetimes—free to live our own lives. If enough people rise up against the Imperial Order’s rule, it may even loosen Jagang’s grip on power and bring him and the Order down.

“That’s how I’m fighting him, how I’m trying to defeat him, how I’m trying to get him out of my land.”

Owen nodded. “This is what we need, too. We are victims of fate. We need for you to come and get his men out of our land, and then to withdraw your sword, your ways, from our people so we may live in tranquillity again. We need you to give us freedom.”

The driftwood popped, sending a glowing swirl of sparks skyward. Richard, hanging his head, tapped his fingertips together. He didn’t think the man had heard a word he’d said. They needed rest. He needed to translate the book. They needed to get to where they were going. At least he didn’t have a headache.

“Owen, I’m sorry,” he finally said in a quiet voice. “I can’t help you in so direct a manner. But I would like you to understand that my cause is to your advantage, too, and that what I’m doing will also cause Jagang to eventually pull his troops out of your homeland as well, or at least weaken their presence so that you can throw them out yourselves.”

“No,” Owen said. “His men will not leave my land until you come and…” Owen winced. “And destroy them.”

The very word, the implication, looked sickening to the man.

“Tomorrow,” Richard said, no longer bothering to try to sound polite, “we have to be on our way. You will have to be on your way as well. I wish you success in ridding your people of the Imperial Order.”

“We cannot do such a thing,” Owen protested. He sat up straighter. “We are not savages. You and those like you—the unenlightened ones—it is up to you to do it and give us freedom. I am the only one who can bring you. You must come and do as your kind does. You must give our empire freedom.”

Richard rubbed his fingertips across the furrows of his brow. Cara started to rise. A look from Richard sat her back down.

“I gave you water,” Richard said as he stood. “I can’t give you freedom.”

“But you must—”

“Double watch tonight,” Richard said as he turned to Cara, cutting Owen off.

Cara nodded once as her mouth twisted with a satisfied smile of iron determination.

“In the morning,” Richard added, “Owen will be on his way.”

“Yes,” she said, her blue-eyed glare sliding to Owen, “he certainly will be.”

Chapter 11

“What is it?” Kahlan asked as she rode up beside the wagon.

Richard looked to be furious about something. She saw then that he had the book in one hand; his other was a fist. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but when Jennsen, up on the seat beside Tom, turned back to see what was going on, Richard said to her instead, “Kahlan and I are going to check the road up ahead. Keep your eye on Betty so she doesn’t jump ou