Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

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.

Chapter 32

Richard gripped the edge of the rock at the face of the opening to help pull himself up and out from the dark hole in the abrupt rise of granite before them. Once out, he brushed the sharp little granules of rock from his hands as he turned to the others.