Warheart: Sword of Truth: The Conclusion (Sword of Truth 15)

“I know,” Berdine said with a mischievous grin. “He loves us all equally. Except me. He loves me more. Because I’m his favorite.”

“You … love the Mord-Sith?” Vika asked Richard, looking truly puzzled.

Richard shrugged. “What’s not to love?”

He turned when a group of soldiers rushed over to where he and the rest of them were standing. General Zimmer was leading them.

“Lord Rahl, we have a problem.”

Richard instantly went on high alert. They were surrounded and outnumbered many times over by half people. He checked that his sword was free in its scabbard.

“What’s wrong?”

The general glanced around without looking obvious. “Notice how they are all closing in tighter to you over here?”

“I can’t really see much past the closer throngs.”

“Well, we’ve got archers stationed all around you, up high, and they have been watching the way the Shun-tuk are all inching closer to you. They are all saying they want to tell you something. And it’s not just inside. They all seem to be able to, I don’t know, sense you. It’s not just here, either. Men are reporting from all over the palace that they are gathering near this area of the palace on the lower floors. Outside, the multitudes out there have all closed in and are standing there, as if waiting for something.”

“Well, what do they want?” Cassia asked defensively.

“They all seem to want to say something to Lord Rahl.”

Richard scanned the throng and the area. He pointed off to the left a little.

“There is an old devotion square over there. It’s got a short wall around it. I can stand up there so I can see better, and they can see me better. Let’s see what they have to say.”

The general frowned. “Are you sure? An hour ago they were all trying to eat us. We don’t know anything about these people.”

“I do,” Richard said as he started toward the devotion square. “I know the spirits of these people.”

Rikka and Nyda took up a position on the left, with Cassia and Vale on the right. Berdine led the way. Vika guarded their rear so that Nathan, Nicci, General Zimmer, Kahlan, and Richard were pretty securely surrounded by Mord-Sith.

When he reached the old devotion square, Richard stepped up on the short wall around the pool of water. He realized he couldn’t see as well as he had hoped, so he climbed up on top of the dark rock in the center. He stood up straight, looking out over the throng, and rested his left hand on the Sword of Truth. Ordinarily there were a lot of people in the palace, but with the Shun-tuk those numbers had swelled considerably.

He noticed Shun-tuk at all the fountains, washing the whitewash and paint that made them look like skulls off their faces.

“I am Richard Rahl,” he said out over the masses he saw. They all stared in silence. “I am told you would like to say something to me.”

As one the entire mass of people all went down on their knees and bent forward, putting their foreheads to the floor.

And then, in one voice, every person in the vast halls, on every floor, and out on the plains, said,

“Master Rahl guide us.”

Richard was stunned at the thousands of voices all speaking as one. The sound was like rolling thunder.

“Master Rahl teach us.”

Richard looked to Kahlan. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at him.

“Master Rahl protect us.”

Nicci covered her mouth in awe.

“In your light we thrive.”

In unison, the mass of voices all spoke the next lines of the devotion.

“In your mercy we are sheltered.”

“In your wisdom we are humbled.”

“We live only to serve.”

“Our lives are yours.”

Richard was too choked up to say anything.

One man rose from the floor. The rest stayed bowed down. He was old and frail, painted with the whitewash, although the skeletal face had been mostly wiped away.

“Lord Rahl,” he said in a voice that carried through the entire hall, over the heads of all the people, “you are the first since our souls were torn from us, to help us. Thank you, Lord Rahl, for guiding our spirits back to where they belong, back to us, back to who we are as people.”

Richard swallowed. He wiped a tear from his cheek, and could only nod, fearing to test his voice right then.

CHAPTER

59

Richard stood at the massive stone balustrade at the outer edge of the courtyard, staring out at the night. There was no part of the People’s Palace that overlooked the courtyard of their bedroom. As high as it was, and the way it projected out over the walls below, it was as if the courtyard were floating above the Azrith Plain. The portion where Richard stood at the railing in the center, between reverse curved railings to each side, was cantilevered even farther out from the palace. With the carefully trimmed juniper trees in large pots along the sides, and the walls of their quarters rising up behind the potted trees, he felt comfortable out in the courtyard.

It had something that was rare and precious: seclusion.

It was the one place they could be alone. Even Berdine never walked in without knocking.

Berdine had been hard at work, culling books of prophecy. Just like the rest of them, she had been astonished to learn that Regula had been entirely responsible for real prophecy being in the world of life. There always had been, and always would be, those who believed they could see into the future. They were either deluded or easily entranced, or thieves looking for a way to pull money from a person’s pocket by revealing their own version of the future.

The real books of prophecy, the legitimate ones, the ones that had in reality been a result of Regula, were being burned. There were those who argued that even if untrue, or false prophecy, they were examples of fine craftsmanship and should be preserved. Others wished to hold on to the superstitious notion that perhaps the prophecies were true, and if the books were destroyed, then ill fortune would befall them. A kind of prophecy double bind.

Nathan, though, had spent close to a thousand years with many of those books. He knew most of them. His blood ran with the ink of prophecy. He had been a wizard who had received prophecy. He was a wizard who could have the visions brought on by prophecy. Of course, the prophecy had all been leaked out of the world of the dead.

Richard remembered the countless problems he and Kahlan had had with prophecy. At Cara’s wedding to Ben, people who wanted prophecy, as if it were a commodity, a coin of the realm, had started all sorts of trouble. Many people had died.

Still, Richard could understand and sympathize with Nathan’s love of those books. He had been locked up in the Palace of the Prophets nearly his entire life, and those books were more than his friends. They were his escape. They took him places beyond the prison walls of the Palace of the Prophets, places he could imagine, or read about, but had little hope of ever seeing.

Richard suspected that was the source of Nathan’s love for dressing as an adventurer, a man of the world.

Richard knew, though, that prophecy was an underworld element. It was death itself. It represented the death of free will. It brought about the decay of humanity as people sought prophecy to help them make every decision. All decisions made for them from the world of the dead. Now, they were entering an age of free will.

Still, Richard understood Nathan’s sadness at his old friends being burned. So, Richard had told Nathan to pick any library he wanted in the palace, more than one if he wanted, and stock them with whatever books the old prophet wished to preserve.

The rest were going to be burned. Prophecy was ended.

Nathan, of course, was finally getting his chance to be a real adventurer, so books of prophecy very well might end up in his past. There were many places between the People’s Palace and the Dark Lands that had been devastated by Emperor Sulachan, Hannis Arc, and the half people rampaging across the lands. Nathan was to be Lord Rahl

’s official roving ambassador, visiting those places that were hit hard to see what could be done to help them. Many of the Shun-tuk had volunteered to help in that task. Many more had wanted to go back to the only home they had known, in the Dark Lands.

Richard missed Nathan already, and he had only been gone a few weeks.

In a complete surprise to Richard–Kahlan had said she saw it coming from a mile away–Nicci had chosen to travel with Nathan for a time and keep him company, which as far as Richard was concerned meant keep him out of trouble. Richard thought it ironic that the Palace of the Prophets had always sent a Sister with Nathan whenever he had to travel anywhere. With the Sisters, it was always quite clear that they were his minders, and kept the man in an iron collar to control him.

Richard hoped that Nicci could find true happiness in life. He had regretted seeing her leave with Nathan, but he had understood. He missed her as well. She said she didn’t know how long she would be gone. It depended on how obnoxious a traveling companion Nathan turned out to be. Richard was actually a little surprised that she wasn’t already back. But she would be.

Cassia and Vale were delighted to be back at the People’s Palace–under a new Lord Rahl. Cassia liked going on patrols with the men of the First File. The men didn’t complain. Vale spent a lot of her time with Berdine. They whispered a lot to each other. Richard pretended not to notice, and they pretended they were fooling him.

Vika was more than pleased to be back. It was a choice she had made for herself. Richard had given her not merely the chance, but the encouragement to make a hard choice for herself.

The result, though, was that she had decided that she was the Mord-Sith who ought to replace Cara as their closest protection.

Richard, of course, had not been consulted in that decision. He had been informed of it.

Truth be told, it suited him just fine.

Vika had never again apologized for using her Agiel on him. He was glad of that, too. It was in the past.

He was also glad that she understood that if she didn’t stay in line, he would punish her in the way he promised. So far she had stayed in line. Well, not in line, exactly. Vika actually only considered the line to be a suggestion.

Richard wouldn’t have it any other way.

Richard and Kahlan had made a quick trip via the sliph to the Keep. Before she’d left, Nicci had used Subtractive Magic on Vika so that she could travel in the sliph and protect them. At the Keep they had brought everyone up to date on everything that had happened. Much of the news had been a terrible blow to the Sisters. It didn’t fit with what they had been taught at the Palace of the Prophets. Verna, to her credit, had been a big help in putting it to the Sisters in ways they could better accept. The biggest issue had been prophecy. Prophecy had been their lives. Richard couldn’t make them believe the truth. He hoped that in time they would come to accept it.

Richard had also given Verna a message from Warren. It had meant the world to her. She said that it made her feel like she could move on, really move on, and live her life.

Richard and Kahlan hoped to soon travel back to Aydindril, the Keep, and the Confessors’ Palace, then visit Hartland again.

Kahlan glided up beside Richard and slipped a hand over his shoulder. When she pressed up against him he realized she was not wearing much at all.

“Are you coming to bed, soon?”

Richard nodded, then pointed in the direction of the northern sky. “Look there. Look at the northern lights. They’re especially bright tonight.”

Kahlan watched them for a time. “Do you think they are lost souls? Lost souls gathered together to look for their place?”

Richard smiled. “I think we have all the lost souls found and accounted for. Those who no longer have a place in this world have been returned to the Grace and they’ve found their place in the next.”

“I suppose,” she murmured as she looked at the still, cloudless, moonless sky.

Richard glanced back through the open double doors. “The bed does look comfortable.”

When he looked into the bedroom, he saw the leather cases for the Cerulean scrolls all lined up in their neat compartments in the cabinet against the wall. One of the scrolls sat on a stand before all the others. It was the Warheart scroll.

The old scribe Mohler had brought them, and at Richard’s invitation had decided to live at the People’s Palace. Before he’d left on his adventure, Nathan had healed Mohler’s gnarled hands and to Mohler’s astonishment they were now pain-free.

“Richard, something is wrong.”

He turned back. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She pointed up at the sky. “I never really noticed until just now. The stars aren’t in the right places.”

Richard made a face. “Of course they are.”

Kahlan shook her head, looking seriously concerned. “No, I mean it, Richard. They aren’t where they belong. The constellations I know aren’t there anymore.” She put a hand over her heart. He could see that her breathing had increased, and by the vein in the side of her neck, so had her heart rate.

Richard smiled as he reached over and took her hand. He rested his hand holding hers on the balustrade.

“It’s all right, Kahlan. They are where they belong.”

“No,” she insisted, giving him a worried look. “No they aren’t. They aren’t where they belong.”

He tilted his head toward her a little bit. “They are where they belong, now. They aren’t the same as before. But this is where they belong, now.”

Her brow twitched. “What are you talking about?”

He flicked a finger toward the stars. “The spectral fold has closed. The Twilight Count has ended with the phase change. The star shift is now complete.”

Kahlan looked back to the stars and then back to Richard. “You mean the stars will never be the way they were before?”

“That’s right. They will never be like they were before. This is the way they will always be from now on. We will have to name new constellations, learn new patterns.”

“And they will always be this way now? These positions will stay the same? We can count on these constellations staying put? This is the way our night sky will look from now on?”

“That’s right.”

She looked out at the night sky that was new to her. “That’s actually pretty astounding.”

Richard leaned down and kissed her as they embraced. When they finally parted, both their breathing was a little faster.

“So if there has been a star shift, what does that mean for us now? What does it mean for us going into the future? Especially now, without prophecy?”