Naked Empire

by Terry Goodkind

  Betty bleated in dismay from beneath the wagon, hesitantly emerging only after Jennsen called repeated encouragement to her. The puling goat finally rushed to Jennsen and huddled trembling against her skirts. Tom kept a wary watch of the surrounding darkness.

  Cara calmly walked among the bodies, surveying them for any sign of life. With most, there could be no question. Here and there she nudged one with the toe of her boot, or with the tip of her Agiel. By her lack of urgency, there was no question that they were all dead.

  Kahlan put a tender hand to Richard’s back as he crouched beside Sabar’s body.

  “How many people must die,” he asked in a low, bitter voice, “for the crime of wanting to be free, for the sin of wanting to live their own life?”

  She saw that he still held the Sword of Truth in a white-knuckled fist. The sword’s magic, which had come out so reluctantly, still danced dangerously in his eyes.

  “How many!” he repeated.

  “I don’t know, Richard,” Kahlan whispered.

  Richard turned a glare toward the man across the camp, still on his knees, his hands pressed together in a beseeching gesture begging to be commanded, fearing to speak.

  Once touched by a Confessor, the person was no longer who they had once been. That part of their mind was forever gone. Who they were, what they were, no longer existed.

  In its place the magic of a Confessor’s power placed unqualified devotion to the wants and wishes of the Confessor who had touched them. Nothing else mattered. Their only purpose in life, now, was to fulfill her commands, to do her bidding, to answer her every question.

  For one thus touched, there was no crime they wouldn’t confess, if she asked it of them. It was for this alone that Confessors had been created. Their purpose, in a way, was the same as the Seeker’s—the truth. In war, as in all other aspects of life, there was no more important commodity for survival than the truth.

  This man, kneeling not far away, cried in abject misery because Kahlan had asked nothing of him. There could be no agony more ghastly, no void more terrifying, than to be empty of knowing her wish. Existence without her wish was pointless. In the absence of her command, men touched by a Confessor had been known to die.

  Anything she now asked of him, whether it be to tell her his name, confess his true love’s name, or to murder his beloved mother, would bring him boundless joy because he would finally have a task to carry out for her.

  “Let’s find out what this is all about,” Richard said in a low growl.

  In exhaustion, Kahlan stared at the man on his knees. She was so weary she could hardly stand. Sweat trickled down between her breasts. She needed rest, but this problem was more immediate and needed to be attended to first.

  On their way to the man waiting on his knees, his eyes turned expectantly up toward Kahlan, Richard halted. There, in the dirt before his boots, was the remains of the statue Sabar had brought to them. It was broken into a hundred pieces, none of them any longer recognizable except that those pieces were still a translucent amber color.

  Nicci’s letter had said that they didn’t need the statue, now that it had given its warning—a warning that Kahlan had somehow broken a protective shield sealing away something profoundly dangerous.

  Kahlan didn’t know what the seal protected, but she feared that she knew all too well what she had done to break it.

  She feared even more that, because of her, the magic of Richard’s sword had begun to falter.

  As Kahlan stood staring down at the amber fragments ground into the dirt, despair flooded into her.

  Richard’s arm circled her waist. “Don’t let your imagination get carried away. We don’t know what this is about, yet. We can’t even be certain that it’s true—it could even be some kind of mistake.”

  Kahlan wished that she could believe that.

  Richard finally slid his sword back into its scabbard. “Do you want to rest first, sit a bit?”

  His concern for her took precedence over everything. From the first day she met him, it always had. Right then, it was his well-being that concerned her.

  Using her power sapped a Confessor of strength. It had left Kahlan feeling not only weak, but, this time, nauseated. She had been named to the post of Mother Confessor, in part, because her power was so strong that she was able to recover it in hours; for others it had taken a day or sometimes two. At the thought of all those other Confessors, some of whom she’d dearly loved, being long dead, Kahlan felt the weight of hopelessness pulling her even lower.

  To fully recover her strength, she would need a night’s rest. At the moment, though, there were more important considerations, not the least of which was Richard.

  “No,” she said. “I’m all right. I can rest later. Let’s ask him what you will.”

  Richard’s gaze moved over the campsite littered with limbs, entrails, bodies. The ground was soaked with blood. The stench of it all, along with the still smoldering body beside the fire, was making Kahlan sicker by the second. She turned away from the man on his knees, toward Richard, into the protection of his arms. She was exhausted.

  “And then let’s get away from this place,” she said. “We need to get away from here. There might be more men coming.” Kahlan worried that if he had to draw the sword again, he might not have the help of its magic. “We need to find a more secure camp.”

  Richard nodded his agreement. He looked over her head as he held her to his chest. Despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, it felt wonderful simply to be held. She could hear Friedrich just rushing back into camp, panting as he ran. He stumbled to a halt as he let out a moan of astonishment mixed with revulsion at what he saw.

  “Tom, Friedrich,” Richard asked, “do you have any idea if there are any more men coming?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tom said. “I think they were together. I caught them coming up a gully. I was going to try to make it back here to warn you, but four of them came over a rise and jumped me while the rest ran for our camp.”

  “I didn’t see anyone, Lord Rahl,” Friedrich said, catching his breath. “I came running when I heard the yelling.”

  Richard acknowledged Friedrich’s words with a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. “Help Tom get the horses hitched. I don’t want to spend the night here.”

  As the two men sprang into action, Richard turned to Jennsen.

  “Please lay out some bedrolls in the back of the wagon, will you? I’d like Kahlan to be able to lie down and rest when we move out.”

  Jennsen patted Betty’s shoulder, urging the goat to follow her. “Of course, Richard.” She hurried off to the wagon, Betty trotting along close at her side.

  As everyone rushed as quickly as possible to get their things together, Richard went by himself to an open patch of ground nearby to dig a shallow grave. There was no time for a funeral pyre. A lonely grave was the best they could do, but Sabar’s spirit was gone, and wouldn’t fault the necessity of their hurried care for his body.

  Kahlan reconsidered her thought. After the letter from Nicci and learning the meaning of the warning beacon, she now had even more reason to doubt that many things, including spirits, were still true. The world of the dead was connected to the world of the living by links of magic. The veil itself was magic and said to be within those like Richard. They had learned that without magic those links themselves could fail, and that, since those other worlds couldn’t exist independent of the world of life, but only existed in a relational sense to the world of life, should the links fail completely, those other worlds might very well cease to exist—much as, without the sun, the concept of daytime would not exist.

  It was now clear to Kahlan that the world’s hold on magic was slipping, and had been slipping for several years.

  She knew the reason.

  Spirits, the good and the bad, and the existence of everything else that depended on magic, might soon be lost. That meant that death would become final, in every sense of the word. It could
even be that there was no longer the possibility of being with a loved one after death, or of being with the good spirits. The good spirits, even the underworld itself, might be passing into nothingness.

  When Richard was finished, Tom helped him gently place Sabar’s body in the ground. After Tom spoke quiet words asking the good spirits to watch over one of their own, he and Richard covered the body over.

  “Lord Rahl,” Tom said in a low voice when they were finished, “while some of the men began the attack on you, here, others slit the horses’ throats before joining their fellows to come after you four.”

  “All the horses?”

  “Except mine. My draft horses are pretty big. The men were probably worried about getting trampled. They left some men to take care of me, so these here thought they had me out of the way. They probably figured they could worry about the draft horses later, after they had the rest of you.” Tom shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe they even planned to capture you, tie you up, and take you in the wagon.”

  Richard acknowledged Tom’s words with a single nod. He wiped his fingers across his forehead. Kahlan thought he looked worse than she felt. She could see that the headache had returned and was crushing him under the weight of its pain.

  Tom looked around their camp, his gaze playing over the fallen men. “What should we do with the rest of the bodies?”

  “The races can have the rest of them,” Richard said without hesitation.

  Tom didn’t look to have any disagreement with that. “I’d better go help Friedrich finish getting the horses hitched to the wagon. They’ll be a handful with the scent of blood in their nostrils and the sight of the others dead.”

  As Tom went to see to his horses, Richard called to Cara. “Count the bodies,” he told her. “We need to know the total.”

  “Richard,” Kahlan asked in a confidential tone after Tom was out of earshot and Cara had started stepping over some of the bodies and between others, going about the task of taking a count, “what happened when you drew the sword?”

  He didn’t ask what she meant or try to spare her from worry. “There’s something wrong with its magic. When I drew the sword, it failed to heed my call. The men were rushing in and I couldn’t delay in what I had to do. Once I met the attack, the magic finally reacted.

  “It’s probably due to the headaches from the gift—they must be interfering with my ability to join with the sword’s magic.”

  “The last time you had the headaches they didn’t interfere with the sword’s power.”

  “I told you, don’t let your imagination get carried away. This has only happened since I’ve started getting the headaches again. That has to be the reason.”

  Kahlan didn’t know if she dared believe him, or if he really even believed it himself. He was right, though. The problem with the sword’s magic had only recently developed—after he started getting the headaches.

  “They’re getting worse, aren’t they?”

  He nodded. “Come on, let’s get what answers we can.”

  Kahlan let out a tired sigh, resigned to that part of it. They had to use this chance to find out what information was now available to them.

  Kahlan turned to the man still on his knees.

  Chapter 16

  The man’s tearful eyes gazed pleadingly up at Kahlan as she stepped in front of him. He had been waiting, alone and without her wishes, for quite a while and as a result was in a state of dire misery.

  “You are to come with us,” Kahlan told him in a cold tone. “You are to walk in front of the wagon for now, where we can keep an eye on you. You will obey the orders of any of the others with me as you would obey my orders. You will answer all questions truthfully.”

  The man fell to his belly on the ground, in tears, kissing her feet, thanking her profusely for at last commanding him. Groveling on the ground, with that V-shaped notch in his ear, he reminded her of nothing so much as a swine.

  Fists at her side, Kahlan screamed “Stop that!” She didn’t want this murdering pig touching her.

  He sprang back instantly, aghast at the rage in her voice, horror-struck that she was displeased with him. He cringed motionless at her feet, his eyes wide, fearful that he would do something else to displease her.

  “You aren’t in a uniform,” Richard said to the man. “You and the other men aren’t soldiers?”

  “We’re soldiers, just not regular soldiers,” the man said with eager excitement to be able to answer the question and thus do Kahlan’s bidding. “We’re special men serving with the Imperial Order.”

  “Special? How are you special?”

  With a hint of uncertainty in his wet eyes, the man looked nervously up at Kahlan. She gave him no sign. She had already told him that he was to follow all their orders. The man, at last certain of her intention, rushed to go on.

  “We’re a special unit of men—with the army—our task is to capture enemies of the Order—we have to pass tests to be sure we’re able men—loyal men—and that we can accomplish the missions we’re sent on—”

  “Slow down,” Richard said. “You’re talking too fast.”

  The man glanced quickly at Kahlan, his eyes filling with tears that he might have displeased her, too.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “We don’t wear uniforms or let our purpose be known,” the man said with obvious relief that if he continued it would satisfy her. “Usually we work in cities, searching out insurrectionists. We mingle with people, get them to think of us as one of them. When they plot against the Order, we go along until we find out the names of all those involved and then we capture them and turn them over for questioning.”

  Richard stared down at the man for a long time, his face showing no reaction. Richard had been in the hands of the Order and “questioned.” Kahlan could only imagine what he must have been thinking.

  “And do you hand over only those who you know to be plotting against the Order?” Richard asked. “Or do you simply turn in those you suspect and anyone who they know?”

  “If we suspect they might be plotting—like if they keep to themselves and their own group, and won’t open their lives to other citizens—then we turn them in to be questioned so that it can be determined what they might be hiding.” The man licked his lips, keen to tell them the full extent of his methods. “We talk to those they work with, or neighbors, and get the names of anyone they associate with, any of their friends—sometimes even their closest family members. We usually take at least some of them, too, and turn them over for questioning. When they’re questioned, they all confess their crimes against the Order so that proves our suspicions about them were right.”

  Kahlan thought that Richard might draw his sword and behead the man on the spot. Richard knew all too well what they did to those who were brought in, knew how hopeless was their plight.

  Confessions obtained under torture often provided names of anyone who might be suspicious for any reason, making the job of torturing a very busy profession. The people of the Old World lived in constant fear that they would be taken to one of the many places where people were questioned.

  Those pulled in were rarely guilty of plotting against the Order; most people were too busy just trying to survive, trying to feed their families, to have time to plot to overthrow the rule of the Imperial Order. Many people did, however, talk about a better life, about what they would like to do, to grow, to create, to own, about their hopes that their children would have a better life than theirs. Since mankind’s duty was sacrifice to the betterment of their fellow man, not to their own betterment, that, to the Imperial Order, was not just insurrection, but blasphemy. In the Old World, misery was a widespread virtue, a duty to a higher calling.

  There were others who didn’t dream of a better life, but dreamed of helping the Order by turning in the names of those who spoke ill of the Order, or hid food or even a bit of money, or talked of a better life. Turning in such “disloyal citizens” kept yet other fingers from pointing
at the informer. Informing became an indicator of sanctity.

  Instead of drawing his sword, Richard changed the subject. “How many of you were there, tonight?”

  “Including me, twenty-eight,” the man said without delay.

  “Were you all together in one group when you attacked?”

  The man nodded, keen to admit their whole plan and thus gain Kahlan’s approval. “We wanted to make sure you and, and…” His eyes turned to Kahlan as he realized the incompatibility of his two goals—confessing and pleasing the Mother Confessor.

  He burst into tears, clasping his hands prayerfully. “Forgive me, Mistress! Please, forgive me!”

  If his voice was the quintessence of emotion, hers was the opposite. “Answer the question.”

  He brought his sobbing to a halt in order to speak as he had been commanded. Tears, though, continued to stream down his filthy cheeks. “We stayed together for a focused attack, so we could be sure that we captured Lord Rahl and, and…you, Mother Confessor. When trying to capture a good-size group we split up, with half holding back to look for anyone who might try to slip away, but I told the men that I wanted the both of you, and you were said to be together, so this was our chance. I didn’t want to run the risk that you would have any hope of fighting us off, so I ordered all the men to the attack, having some cut the throats of the saddle horses, first, to prevent any possibility of escape.”

  His face brightened. “I never suspected that we might fail.”

  “Who sent you?” Kahlan asked.

  The man shuffled forward on his knees, his hand tentatively coming up to touch her leg. Kahlan remained motionless, but by her icy glare let him know that touching her would displease her greatly. The hand backed away.

  “Nicholas,” he said.

  Kahlan’s brow twitched. She had been expecting him to say Jagang had sent him.

  She was wary of the possibility that the dream walker might be watching through this man’s eyes. Jagang had in the past sent assassins after he had slipped into their thoughts. With Jagang in a person’s mind, he dominated and directed them, and even Cara could not control them. Nor, for that matter, could Kahlan.