Naked Empire tsot-8 Read online

  As he passed a long side table in a towering gathering hall, Zedd, as he had done since he was a boy, ran his finger along the smooth groove in the edge of the variegated chocolate-brown marble top. He stopped, frowning down at the table, and realized that it contained something he suddenly felt the want of: a ball of fine black cord left there years ago to tie ribbons and other decorations on the lamp brackets in the gathering hall to mark the harvest festival.

  Sure enough, in the center drawer, he found the ball of fine cord. He snatched it up and slipped it into a pocket long emptied of its load of berries. From the wall bracket beside the table, he lifted a wand with six small bells. The wand, one of hundreds if not thousands throughout the Keep, was once used to summon servants. He sighed inwardly. It had been decades since servants and their families last lived in the Wizard’s Keep. He remembered their children running and playing in the halls. He remembered the joy of laughter echoing throughout the Keep, bringing life to the place.

  Zedd told himself that one day children would again run and laugh in the halls. Richard and Kahlan’s children. Zedd’s broad smile stretched his cheeks.

  There were windows and openings in the stone that let light spill into many halls and rooms, but there were other places less well lit. Zedd found one of those darker places that was dim enough to satisfy him. He stretched a piece of the black cord, strung with one of the bells, across the doorway, winding it around coarse stone molding to each side. Moving deeper through the labyrinth of halls and passage-ways, he stopped and strung more strings with a bell at places where it would be hard to see. He had to collect several more of the servant wands for a supply of bells.

  Although there were shields of magic laced everywhere, there was no telling what powers some of the Sisters of the Dark possessed. They would be looking for magic, not bells. It couldn’t hurt to take the extra precaution.

  Zedd made mental notes of where he strung the fine black cord—he would have to let Adie know. He doubted, though, that with her gifted sight she would need the warning. He was sure that with her blind eyes she could see better than anyone.

  Following the wonderful aroma of ham stew, Zedd made his way to the comfortable room lined with bookshelves they used most of the time. Adie had hung spices to dry from the low beams carved with ancient designs. A leather couch sat before a broad fireplace and comfortable chairs beside a silver-inlaid table placed in front of a diamond-patterned leaded window with a breathtaking view overlooking Aydindril.

  The sun was setting, leaving the city below bathed in a warm light. It almost looked like it always did, except there was no telltale smoke curling up from cooking fires.

  Zedd set his burlap sack loaded with his harvest on piles of books atop a round mahogany table behind the couch. He shuffled closer to the fire, all the while taking deep breaths to inhale the intoxicating aroma of the stew.

  “Adie,” he called, “this smells delightful! Have you looked outside today? I saw the oddest birds.”

  He smiled as he inhaled another whiff.

  “Adie—I think it must be done by now,” he called toward the doorway to the side pantry room. “I think we ought to taste it, at least. Can’t hurt to check, you know.”

  Zedd glanced back over his shoulder. “Adie? Are you listening to me?”

  He went to the doorway and peered into the pantry, but it was empty.

  “Adie?” he called down the stairs at the back of the pantry. “Are you down there?”

  Zedd’s mouth twisted with discontentment when she didn’t answer.

  “Adie?” he called again. “Bags, woman, where are you?”

  He turned back, peering at the stew bubbling in the kettle hung on the crane over the fire. Zedd scooped up a long wooden spoon from a pantry cupboard.

  Spoon in hand, he stopped and leaned back toward the stairs. “Take your time, Adie. I’ll just be up here . . . reading.”

  Zedd grinned and hurried for the stew.

  Chapter 13

  Richard rose up in a rush when he saw Cara marching up a ravine toward camp, pushing ahead of her a man Richard vaguely recognized. In the failing light, he couldn’t make out the man’s face. Richard scanned the surrounding flat washes, rocky hills, and steep tree-covered slopes beyond, but didn’t see anyone else.

  Friedrich was off to the south and Tom to the west, checking the surrounding country, as Cara had been, to be sure there was no one about and that it was a safe place to spend the night; they were exhausted from picking a sinuous route through the increasingly rugged country. Cara had been checking north—the direction they were headed and the direction Richard considered potentially the most dangerous. Jennsen turned from the animals, waiting to see who the Mord-Sith had with her.

  Once on his feet, Richard wished he hadn’t gotten up quite so quickly—doing so made him light-headed. He couldn’t seem to shake the odd, disconnected sensation he felt, as if he were watching someone else react, talk, move. When he concentrated, forcing himself to focus his attention, the feeling would sometimes drift at least partly away and he would begin to wonder if it was only his imagination.

  Kahlan’s hand slipped up on his arm, gripping him as if she thought he might fall.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  He nodded as he watched Cara and the man as he also kept an eye on the surrounding countryside. By the end of their ride earlier that afternoon to discuss the book, Kahlan had become even more worried about him. They were both troubled about what he’d read, but Kahlan was far more concerned, at the moment, anyway, about him.

  Richard suspected that he might be coming down with a slight fever.

  That would explain why he was feeling so cold when everyone else was hot.

  From time to time, Kahlan would feel his forehead or place the back of her hand against his cheek. Her touch warmed his heart; she ignored his smiles as she fretted over him. She thought that he might be slightly feverish.

  Once she had Jennsen feel his forehead to see if she thought he might be warmer than he should be. Jennsen, too, thought that, if he did have a fever, it was minor. Cara, so far, had been satisfied by Kahlan’s report that he didn’t feel feverish, and hadn’t deemed it necessary to see for herself.

  A fever was just about the last thing Richard needed. There were important . . . important, something. He couldn’t seem to recall at the moment.

  He concentrated on trying to remember the young man’s name, or at least where he’d seen him before.

  The last rays of the setting sun cast a pink glow across the mountains to the east. The closer hills were dimming to a soft gray in the gathering dusk. As darkness approached, the low fire was beginning to tint everything close around it a warm yellow-orange. Richard had kept the cook fire small, not wanting it to signal their location any more than necessary.

  “Lord Rahl,” the man said in a reverent tone as he stepped into camp.

  He dipped his head forward in a hesitant bow, apparently not sure if it was proper to bow or not. “It’s an honor to see you again.”

  He was perhaps a couple of years younger than Richard, with curly black hair that brushed the broad shoulders of his buckskin tunic. He wore a long knife at his belt but no sword. His ears stuck out to the sides of his head as if he were straining to listen to every little sound. Richard imagined that as a boy he’d probably endured a lot of taunts about his ears, but now that he was a man his ears made him look rather intent and serious. As muscular as the man was, Richard doubted that he still had to contend with taunts.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, but I can’t quite seem to recall . . .”

  “Oh, no, you wouldn’t remember me, Lord Rahl. I was only—”

  “Sabar,” Richard said as it came to him. “Sabar. You loaded the furnaces in Priska’s foundry, back in Altur’Rang.”

  Sabar beamed. “That’s right. I can’t believe you remember me.”

  Sabar had been one of the men at the foundry able to have work because of the suppl
ies Richard hauled to Priska when no one else could. Sabar had understood how hard Priska worked just to keep his foundry alive under the oppressive, endless, and contradictory mandates of the Order. Sabar had been there the day the statue Richard carved had been unveiled; he had seen it before it was destroyed. He had been there at the beginning of the revolution in Altur’Rang, fighting close alongside Victor, Priska, and all the others who had seized the moment when it was upon them. Sabar had fought to help gain freedom for himself, his friends, and for his city.

  That had been a day everything had changed.

  Even though this man, like many others, had been a subject of the Imperial Order—one of the enemy—he wanted to live his own life under just laws, rather than under the dictates of despots who extinguished any hope of bettering oneself under the crushing burden of the cruel illusion of a greater good.

  Richard noticed, then, that everyone was standing in tense anticipation, as if they had expected this to be trouble.

  Richard smiled at Cara. “It’s all right. I know him.”

  “So he told me,” Cara said. She put a hand on Sabar’s shoulder and pushed him down. “Have a seat.”

  “Yes,” Richard said, glad to see that Cara had been fairly amiable about it. “Sit down and tell us why you’re here.”

  “Nicci sent me.”

  Richard rose again in a rush, Kahlan coming up right beside him.

  “Nicci? We’re on our way to meet her.”

  Sabar nodded, rising into a half crouch, seeming not to be sure if he was supposed to stand, since Richard and Kahlan had, or stay seated. Cara hadn’t sat down; she stood behind Sabar like an executioner. Cara had been there when the revolution in Altur’Rang had started and might remember Sabar, but that would make no difference. Cara trusted no one where the safety of Richard and Kahlan was concerned.

  Richard gestured for Sabar to remain seated. “Where is she,” Richard asked as he and Kahlan sat down again, sharing a seat on a bedroll. “Is she coming soon?”

  “Nicci said to tell you that she waited as long as she could, but there have been some urgent developments and she could wait no longer.”

  Richard let out a disappointed sigh. “Some things came up for us, too.”

  Kahlan had been captured and taken to the Pillars of Creation as bait to lure Richard into a trap. Rather than go into all that, he kept the story short and to the point. “We were trying to get to Nicci, but needed to go elsewhere. It was unavoidable.”

  Sabar nodded. “I was worried when she returned to us and said that you had not shown up at your meeting place, but she told us that she was sure you were busy taking care of something important and that was the reason you had not come.

  “Victor Cascella, the blacksmith, was very worried, too, when Nicci told us this. He was thinking you would be returning with Nicci. He said that other places he knows, places he and Priska have dealings with for supplies and such, are on the verge of revolt. These people have heard about Altur’Rang, how the Order has been overthrown there, and how people are beginning to prosper. He said that he knows free men in these places who struggle to survive under the oppression of the Order as we once did, and they hunger to be free. They want Victor’s help.

  “Some of the Brothers in the Fellowship of Order who escaped from Altur’Rang have gone to these other places to insure that such revolt does not spread there. Their cruelty in punishing any they suspect of insurrection is costing the lives of many people, both the innocent and those valuable to the cause of overthrowing the Imperial Order.

  “In order to insure their control of the gears of governance and to ready the Order’s defense against the spread of the revolt, Brothers of the Order have gone to all the important cities. Surely, some of these priests have also gone to report to Jagang the fall of Altur’Rang, of the loss of so many officials in the fighting there, and of the deaths of Brothers Narev and many of his close circle of disciples.”

  “Jagang already knows of the death of Brother Narev,” Jennsen said, offering him a cup of water.

  Sabar smiled his satisfaction at her news. He thanked her for the water, then leaned forward toward Richard and Kahlan as he went on with his story.

  “Priska thinks the Order will want to sweep away the success of the revolt in Altur’Rang—that they can’t afford to let it stand. He said that instead of worrying about spreading the revolt, we must prepare, make defenses, and have every man stand ready because the Order will return with the intent of slaughtering every last person in Altur’Rang.”

  Sabar hesitated, clearly worried about Priska’s warning. “Victor, though, said we should hammer the iron while it is hot and create a just and secure future for ourselves, rather than wait for the Order to gather their strength to deny us that future. He says that if the revolt is spreading everywhere, the Order will not so easily stamp it out.”

  Richard ran a weary hand across his face. “Victor is right. If those in Altur’Rang try to sit alone as a singular place of freedom in the heart of hostile enemy territory, the Order will sweep in and cut out that heart. The Order can’t survive on its perverted ideals and they know it; that’s why they must use force to sustain their beliefs. Without that bully of force, the Order will crumble.

  “Jagang spent twenty years creating a system of roads to knit a diverse and fractured Old World together into the Imperial Order. That was but part of the means of how he succeeded. Many resisted the rantings of his priests. With roads to swiftly respond to any dissent, though, Jagang was able to react quickly, to sweep in and kill those who openly opposed his new Order.

  “More importantly, after eliminating those who resisted the Order’s teachings, he filled the minds of children, who didn’t know any better, with blind faith in those teachings, turning them into zealots eager to die for what they were taught was a noble cause—sacrifice to some all-consuming greater good.

  “Those young men, their minds twisted with the teachings of the Order, are now off to the north conquering the New World, butchering any who will not take up their altruistic tenets.

  “But while Jagang and that vast army are to the north, that strength there leaves the Order weak here. That weakness is our opportunity and we must capitalize on it. Now, while Jagang and his men are absent, those same roads he built down here will be our means of rapidly spreading the struggle for freedom far and wide.

  “The torch of freedom has been lit by the will of those like you, those in Altur’Rang who seized liberty for themselves. The flames of that torch must be held high, giving others the chance to see its light. If hidden and insulated, such flames will be extinguished by the Order. There may never be another chance in our lifetimes, or our children’s lifetimes, to seize control of our own lives. That torch must be carried to other places.”

  Sabar smiled, filled with quiet pride that he had been a part of it all coming to be. “I know that Victor would like for others, like Priska, to be reminded of such things, of what the Lord Rahl would say about what we must do. Victor wants to talk to you before he goes to these places to ‘pump the bellows,’ as he put it. Victor said that he awaits your word on how you would move next, on how best to ‘put the white-hot iron to them’—again, his words.”

  “So Nicci sent you to find me.”

  “Yes. I was happy to go to you when she asked me. Victor will be happy, too, not only that you are well but to hear what the Lord Rahl would say to him.”

  While Victor was awaiting word, Richard also knew that absent such word, Victor would act. The revolution did not revolve around Richard—it couldn’t to be successful—but around the hunger of people to have their lives back. Still, Richard needed to help coordinate the spreading revolt in order to be sure it was as effective as possible, not just at bringing freedom to those who sought it, but at crumbling the foundation of the Order in the Old World. Only if they were successful in toppling the rule of the Order in the Old World would Jagang’s attention—and many of his men—be pulled away from conqueri
ng the New World.

  Jagang intended to conquer the New World by first dividing it. Richard had to do the same if he was to succeed. Only dividing the Order’s forces could defeat it.

  Richard knew that with everyone evacuated from Aydindril, the Imperial Order would now turn its swords on D’Hara. Despite the competence of the D’Haran troops, they would be overwhelmed by the numbers that Jagang would throw at them. If the Order was not diverted from its cause, or at least divided into smaller forces, D’Hara would fall under the shadow of the Order. The D’Haran Empire, forged to unite the New World against tyranny, would end before it had really gotten started.

  Richard had to get back to Victor and Nicci so that they could all continue what they had begun—devising the most effective strategy to overthrow the Imperial Order.

  But they were running out of time to resolve another problem, a problem they didn’t yet understand.

  “I’m glad you found us, Sabar. You can tell Victor and Nicci that we need to see to something first, but as soon as we do, we’ll be able to help them with their plans.”

  Sabar looked relieved. “Everyone will be happy to hear this.”

  Sabar hesitated, then tilted his head, gesturing north. “Lord Rahl, when I came to find you, following the directions Nicci gave me, I went past the area where she was to meet with you, and then I continued coming south.” Worry stole into his expression. “Not many days ago, I came to a place, miles wide, that was dead.”

  Richard looked up. He realized that his headache seemed to be suddenly gone. “What do you mean, dead?”

  Sabar waved his hand out toward the evening gloom. “The area where I was traveling was much like this place; there were some trees, clumps of grass, thickets of brush.” His voice lowered. “But then I came to a place where everything that grew ended. All at the same place. There was nothing but rock beyond. Nicci had not told me that I would come to such a place. I admit, I was afraid.”