Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

Jennsen stared, wide-eyed. “Didn’t you know he loved you?”

Kahlan smiled a small bitter smile. “Don’t you think your mother would come back from the world of the dead to tell you she loves you, even though you know she does?”

“Yes, I suppose she would. But why would you have to become infected just to return? And return from where?”

“It was a place, called the Temple of the Winds, that was partially in the underworld.” Richard gestured up the pass. “Something like that boundary was part of the world of the dead but was still here, in this world. You might say that the Temple of the Winds was something like that. It was hidden within the underworld. Because I had to cross a boundary of sorts, through the underworld, the spirits set a price for me to return to the world of life.”

“Spirits? You saw spirits there?” Jennsen asked. When Richard nodded, she asked, “Why would they set such a price?”

“The spirit who set the price of my return was Darken Rahl.”

Jennsen’s jaw dropped.

“When we found Lord Rahl,” Cara said, “he was almost dead. The Mother Confessor went on a dangerous journey through the sliph, all alone, to find what would cure him. She succeeded in bringing it back, but Lord Rahl was moments away from death.”

“I used the magic I recovered,” Kahlan said. “It was something that had the power to reverse the plague that the magic had given him. The magic I invoked to do this was the three chimes.”

“Three chimes?” Jennsen asked. “What are they?”

“The chimes are underworld magic. Summoning their assistance keeps a person from crossing over into the world of the dead.

“Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at the time I didn’t know anything else about the chimes. It turns out that they were created during the great war to end magic. The chimes are beings of sorts, but without souls. They come from the underworld. They annul magic in this world.”

Jennsen looked confused. “But how can they accomplish such a thing?”

“I don’t know how they work, exactly. But their presence in this world, since they are part of the world of the dead, begins the destruction of magic.”

“Can’t you get rid of the chimes? Can’t you find a way to send them back?”

“I already did that,” Richard said. “But while they were here, in this world, magic began to fail.”

“Apparently,” Kahlan said, “what I began that day when I called the chimes into the world of life began a cascade of events that continues to progress, even though the chimes have been sent back to the underworld.”

“We don’t know that,” Richard said, more to Kahlan than to Jennsen.

“Richard is right,” Kahlan told Jennsen, “we don’t know it for sure, but we have good reason to believe it’s true. This boundary locking away Bandakar failed. The timing would suggest that it failed not long after I freed the chimes. One of those mistakes I told you about, before. Remember?”

Jennsen, staring at Kahlan, finally nodded. “But you didn’t do it to hurt people. You didn’t know it would happen. You didn’t know how this boundary would fail, how the Order would go in there and abuse those people.”

“Doesn’t really make any difference, does it? I did it. I caused it. Because of me, magic may be failing. I accomplished what the Order is working so hard to bring about. As a result of what I did, all those people in Bandakar died, and others are now out in the world where they will once again do as they did in ancient times—they will begin breeding the gift out of mankind.

“We stand at the brink of the end times of magic, all because of me, because of what I did.”

Jennsen stood frozen. “And so you regret what you caused? That you may have done something that will end magic?”

Kahlan felt Richard’s arm around her waist. “I only know a world with magic,” she finally said. “I became the Mother Confessor—in part—to help protect people with magic who are unable to protect themselves. I, too, am a creature of magic—it’s inextricably bound into me. I know profoundly beautiful things of magic that I love; they are a part of the world of life.”

“So you fear you may have caused the end of what you love most.”

“Not love most.” Kahlan smiled. “I became the Mother Confessor because I believe in laws that protect all people, give all individuals the right to their own life. I would not want an artist’s ability to sculpt to be stopped, or a singer’s voice to be silenced, or a person’s mind to be stilled. Nor do I want people’s ability to achieve what they can with magic to be stripped from them.

“Magic itself is not the central issue, not what this is about. I want all the flowers, in all their variety, to have a chance to bloom. You are beautiful, too, Jennsen. I would not choose to lose you, either. Each person has a right to life. The idea that there must be a choice of one over another is counter to what we believe.”

Jennsen smiled at Kahlan’s hand on her cheek. “Well, I guess that in a world without magic, I could be queen.”

On her way by with balsam boughs, Cara said, “Queens, too, must bow to the Mother Confessor. Don’t forget it.”

Chapter 36

Light flooded in as the lid of the box suddenly lifted. The rusty hinges groaned in protest of every inch the lid rose. Zedd squinted at the abrupt, blinding light of day. Beefy arms flipped the hinged lid back. If there had been any slack in the chain around his neck, Zedd would have jumped at the booming bang when the heavy cover flopped back, showering him in dirt and rusty grit.

Between the bright light and the dust swirling through the air, Zedd could hardly see. It didn’t help, either, that the short chain around his neck was bolted to the center of the floor of the box, leaving only enough slack for him to be able to lift his head a few inches. With his arms bound in iron behind his back, he could do little more than lie on the floor.

While Zedd was forced to lie there on his side, his neck near the iron bolt, he at least could breathe in the sudden rush of cooler air. The heat in the box had been sweltering. On a couple of occasions, when they had stopped at night, they had given him a cup of water. It had not been nearly enough. He and Adie had been fed precious little, but it was water he needed more than food. Zedd felt like he might die of thirst. He could hardly think of anything but water.

He had lost track of the number of days he had been chained to the floor of the box, but he was somewhat surprised to find himself still alive. The box had been bouncing around in the back of a wagon over the course of a long, rough, but swift journey. He could only assume that he was being taken to Emperor Jagang. He was also sure that he would be sorry if he was still alive at the end of the journey.

There had been times, in the stifling heat of the box, when he had expected that he would soon fade into unconsciousness and die. There were times when he longed to die. He was sure that falling into such a fatal sleep would be far preferable to what was in store for him. He had no choice, though; the control the Sister exerted through the Rada’Han prevented him from strangling himself to death with the chain, and it was pretty hard, he had discovered, to will himself to die.

Zedd, his head still held to the floor of the box by the stub of chain, tried to peer up, but he could see only sky. He heard another lid bang open. He coughed as another cloud of dust drifted over him. When he heard Adie’s cough, he didn’t know if he was relieved to know that she, too, was still alive, or sorry that she was, knowing what she, like he, would have to endure.

Zedd was, in a way, ready for the torture he knew he would be subjected to. He was a wizard and had passed tests of pain. He feared such torture, but he would endure it until it finally ended his life. In his weakened condition, he expected that it wouldn’t take all that long. In a way, such a time under torture was like an old acquaintance come back to haunt him.

But he feared the torture of Adie far more than his own. He hated above all else the torture of others. He hated to think of her coming under such treatment.

The wagon shuddered as the front of the other box dropped open. A cry escaped Adie’s throat when a man struck her.

“Move, you stupid old woman, so I can get at the lock!”

Zedd could hear Adie’s shoes scraping the wooden crate as, hands bound behind her back, she tried to comply. By the sounds of fists on flesh, the man wasn’t happy with her efforts. Zedd closed his eyes, wishing he could close his ears as well.