Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

Richard let out a deep breath as he gazed into Kahlan’s green eyes and then the icy blue eyes of the Mord-Sith. “I have to do this. Now, let them come up and show me their decision.”

Cara stormed off to stand back by the statue of Kaja-Rang. Kahlan gave his arm a squeeze, offering her silent support, accepting his decision even if she didn’t understand his reasons. A brief smile of appreciation was all he could manage before she turned and walked back to stand by Cara, Jennsen, and Tom.

Richard turned away, not wanting to let Kahlan see how much pain he was in. The ache from the poison was slowly creeping back up his chest. Every breath hurt. His arm still trembled with the lingering ache of being touched by an Agiel. The worst, though, was the headache. He wondered if Cara could see it in his eyes. After all, the business of Mord-Sith was pain.

He knew he couldn’t wait until after helping these men fight off the Order before getting the antidote to the poison. He had no idea how to rid their empire of the Imperial Order. He couldn’t even rid his own empire of the invaders.

Worse, though, he could feel that he was running out of time. His gift was giving him the headaches and, if not attended to, would eventually kill him, but worse, it was weakening him, allowing the poison to work faster. With each passing day he was having more and more difficulty working past the poison.

If he could get these men to agree to do this, to tell him where they’d hidden the antidote, then he might be able to recover it in time.

If not, then his chance to live was as good as over.

Chapter 44

The men milled around the top of the pass, some staring off into their own thoughts, some gazing up at the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man who had banished their people. Some of the men snatched glimpses at their companions. Richard could see that they were aching to ask friends what they would do, but they kept to Richard’s orders and didn’t speak.

Finally, when Richard stepped up before them, one of the younger men came forward. He had been one of the men eager to hear Richard’s words. He’d looked as if he had listened carefully and considered the things Richard had told them. Richard knew that if this man said no, then there was no chance that any of the others would agree.

When the young, blond-headed man opened his fist, two pebbles lay in his palm. Richard let out an inner sigh that at least one of the men had actually chosen to do the right thing.

Another man came forward and opened his fist, showing two pebbles sitting in his palm. Richard nodded in acknowledgment, without showing any reaction, and let him move aside. The rest of the men had lined up. Each stepped forward in turn and silently opened his hand. Each showed him two pebbles, showing that he would recant their death threat, and then moved off so that the next man could show his choice.

Owen was the last in line. He looked up at Richard, pressed his lips tight, and then thrust out his hand. “You have done us no harm,” he said as he opened his fist. There in his palm lay two pebbles.

“I don’t know what will happen to us, now,” Owen said, “but I can see that we must not cause you harm because we are desperate for your help.”

Richard nodded. “Thank you.” The sincerity in his voice brought smiles to many of the faces watching. “You have all showed two pebbles. I’m encouraged that you’ve all chosen to do the right thing. We now have common ground upon which to find a future course.”

The men looked around one another in surprise. They each cheerfully gathered in close to their friends, talking excitedly to one another about how they had all made the same decision. They looked gleeful that they were united in their decision. Richard moved back to where Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, and Tom stood.

“Satisfied?” he asked Kahlan and Cara.

Cara folded her arms. “What would you have done had they all chosen to keep the antidote’s location a secret until after you helped them?”

Richard shrugged. “I’d be no better off than I was, but no worse off, either. I’d have to help them, but at least I would know that I dare not trust any of them.”

Kahlan still didn’t look pleased. “And what if most of them would have said yes, but some stuck to their ways and said no?”

Richard looked into her resolute green eyes. “Then, after the ones who agreed had told me where to find the antidote, I would have had to kill those who said no.”

Understanding the seriousness of his explanation, Kahlan nodded. Cara smiled her satisfaction. Jennsen looked shocked.

“If any would have said no,” he explained to Jennsen, “then they would have been choosing to continue to enslave me, to hold a sentence of death over my head in order to manipulate my life to get what they wanted from me. I would never be able to trust them in what I must ask the rest of them to do. I couldn’t trust our lives to such treachery. But, now, that’s one less problem we have to worry about.”

Richard turned to the waiting men. “Each of you has decided to return my life to me.”

The faces watching him turned serious as they waited to hear what he would do now. Richard gazed down at the small figure of himself, at the sand trickling down, at the eerie black surface that had already descended over the top of the statue, like the underworld itself slowly claiming his life. His fingers left smears of blood across the surface of the figure.

The clouds had lowered in around them, thickening so that the afternoon light seemed more like the gloom of dusk.

Richard lowered the statue and looked back up at the men. “We will do our best to see if we can help you get rid of the Order.”

A cheer rose into the thin, cold air. The men hooted their excitement as well as their relief. He hadn’t yet seen any of them smile quite this broadly before. Those smiles, more than anything, revealed the depth of their wish to be free of the men of the Order. Richard wondered how they would feel about it when he finally told them their part.

He knew that as long as Nicholas the Slide was able to seek them out through the eyes of the races, he would remain a threat that would haunt them wherever they went and endangered all of their work to get the Old World to rise up and overthrow the Imperial Order. More than that, though, Nicholas would be able to direct killers to find them. The thought of Nicholas seeing Kahlan and knowing where to find her gave Richard chills. He had to eliminate Nicholas. It was possible that in doing so, in eliminating their leader, he would also help these people drive the Order from their homes.

Richard gestured for the men to gather in closer. “First, before we get to the matter of freeing your people, you need to show me where you’ve hidden the poison.”

Owen squatted down and selected a stone from nearby. With it, he scratched a chalky oval on the face of a flat spot in the rock. “Say that this line is the mountains surrounding Bandakar.” He set the stone at the end of the oval closest to Richard. “Then this is the pass into our land, where we are now.”

He plucked three pebbles from the ground. “This is our town, Witherton, where we lived,” he said as he set the first pebble down not far from the rock that represented the pass. “There is antidote there.”

“And this is where all of you men were hiding?” Richard asked as he circled a finger over the first pebble. “In the hills surrounding Witherton?”

“Mostly to the south,” Owen said, pointing to the area. He placed the second pebble near the middle of the oval. “Here there is another vial of antidote, in this city, here, called Hawton.” He placed the third pebble near the edge of the oval. “Here is the third vial, in this city, Northwick.”

“So then,” Richard summed up, “I just need to go to one of those three places and recover the antidote. Since your town is the smallest, that would probably be our best chance.”

Some of the men shook their heads; others looked away.

Owen, looking troubled, touched each of the three pebbles. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but one of these is not enough. Too much time has passed. Even two will be insufficient by now. The man who made the poison said that if too muc

h time passed, all four would be necessary to insure a remedy.

“He said that if you did not immediately take the first antidote I brought, then it would only halt the poison for a while. He said that then the other three vials would all be needed. He said that in this case, the poison would possibly go through three states. If you are to be free of the poison, you must drink all of the three remaining antidotes. If you don’t, you will die.”

“Three states? What does that mean?”

“The first state will be pain in your chest. The second state will be dizziness that makes standing difficult.” Owen looked away from Richard’s gaze. “In the third state the poison makes you blind.” He looked up and touched a hand to Richard’s arm, as if to dispel his worry. “But taking three vials of the antidote will cure you, make you well.”

Richard wiped a weary hand across his brow. The pain in his chest told him that he was in the poison’s first state.

“How much time do I have?”

Owen looked down as he straightened his sleeve. “I’m not sure, Lord Rahl. We have already taken a lot of time traveling this far since you had that first vial. I think we have no time to lose.”

“How much time?” Richard asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.

Owen swallowed. “To be truthful, Lord Rahl, I’m surprised that you are able to stand the pain from the first state of the poison. From what I was told, the pain would grow as time passed.”

Richard simply nodded. He didn’t look up at Kahlan.