Naked Empire tsot-8 Read online

The gift. That’s what he meant.

  “What do you mean it’s different? And if it’s different, then what makes you think the cause is the same?”

  He thought about it a moment. “Remember when I was explaining to Jennsen about how the gift needs to be balanced, how I have to balance the fighting I do by not eating meat?” When she nodded he went on. “It got worse right then.”

  “Headaches, even those kind, vary.”

  “No . . .” he said, frowning as he tried to find the words. “No, it was almost as if talking about—thinking about—the need not to eat meat in order to balance the gift somehow brought it more to the fore and made the headaches worse.”

  Kahlan didn’t at all like that concept. “You mean like maybe the gift within you that is the cause of the headaches is trying to impress upon you the importance of balance in what you do with the gift.”

  Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. “I don’t know. There’s more to it. I just can’t seem to get it all worked out. Sometimes when I try, when I go down that line of reasoning, about how I need to balance the fighting I do, the pain starts to get so bad I can’t dwell on it.

  “And something else,” he added. “There might be a problem with my connection to the magic of the sword.”

  “What? How can that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kahlan tried to keep the alarm out of her voice. “Are you sure?”

  He shook his head in frustration. “No, I’m not sure. It just seemed different when I felt the need of it and drew the sword this morning. It was as if the sword’s magic was reluctant to rise to the need.”

  Kahlan thought it over a moment. “Maybe that means that the headaches are something different, this time. Maybe they aren’t really caused by the gift.”

  “Even if some of it is different, I still think its cause is the gift,” he said. “One thing they do have in common with the last time is that they’re gradually getting worse.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He lifted his arms out to the sides and let them fall back. “For now, we don’t have much of a choice—we have to do what we planned.”

  “We could go to Zedd. If it is the gift, as you think, then Zedd would know what to do. He could help you.”

  “Kahlan, do you honestly believe that we have any chance in Creation of making it all the way to Aydindril in time? Even if it weren’t for the rest of it, if the headaches are from the gift, I’d be dead weeks before we could travel all the way to Aydindril. And that’s not even taking into account how difficult it’s bound to be getting past Jagang’s army all throughout the Midlands and especially the troops around Aydindril.”

  “Maybe he’s not there now.”

  Richard kicked at another stone in the path. “You think Jagang is just going to leave the Wizard’s Keep and all it contains—leave it all for us to use against him?”

  Zedd was First Wizard. For someone of his ability, defending the Wizard’s Keep wouldn’t be too difficult. He also had Adie there with him to help. The old sorceress, alone, could probably defend a place such as the Keep. Zedd knew what the Keep would mean to Jagang, could he gain it. Zedd would protect the Keep no matter what.

  “There’s no way for Jagang to get past the barriers in that place,” Kahlan said. That much of it was one worry they could set aside. “Jagang knows that and might not waste time holding an army there for nothing.”

  “You may be right, but that still doesn’t do us any good—it’s too far.”

  Too far. Kahlan seized Richard’s arm and dragged him to a halt. “The sliph. If we can find one of her wells, we could travel in the sliph. If nothing else, we know there’s the well down here in the Old World—in Tanimura. Even that’s a lot closer than a journey overland all the way to Aydindril.”

  Richard looked north. “That might work. We wouldn’t have to make it past Jagang’s army. We could come right up inside the Keep.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “First, though, we have to see to this other business.”

  Kahlan grinned. “All right. We take care of me first, then we see to taking care of you.”

  She felt a heady sense of relief that there was a solution at hand. The rest of them couldn’t travel in the sliph—they didn’t have the required magic—but Richard, Kahlan, and Cara certainly could. They could come up right in the Keep itself.

  The Keep was immense, and thousands of years old. Kahlan had spent much of her life there, but she had seen only a fraction of the place. Even Zedd hadn’t seen it all, because of some of the shields that had been placed there ages ago by those with both sides of the gift, and Zedd had only the Additive side. Rare and dangerous items of magic had been stored there for eons, along with records and countless books. By now it was possible that Zedd and Adie had found something in the Keep that would help drive the Imperial Order back to the Old World.

  Not only would going to the Keep be a way to solve Richard’s problem with the gift, but it might provide them with something they needed to swing the tide of the war back to their side.

  Suddenly, seeing Zedd, Aydindril, and the Keep seemed only a short time away.

  With a renewed sense of optimism, Kahlan squeezed Richard’s hand. She knew that he wanted to keep scouting ahead. “I’m going to go back and see how Jennsen is doing.”

  As Richard moved on and Kahlan slowed, letting the wagon catch up with her, another dozen black-tipped races drifted in on the air currents high above the burning plain. They stayed close to the sun, and well out of range of Richard’s arrows, but they stayed within sight.

  Tom handed a waterskin down to Kahlan when the bouncing wagon rattled up beside her. She was so dry that she gulped the hot water without caring how bad it tasted. As she let the wagon roll past, she put a boot in the iron rung and boosted herself up and over the side.

  Jennsen looked to be happy for the company as Kahlan climbed in. Kahlan returned the smile before sitting beside Richard’s sister and the puling Betty.

  “How is she?” Kahlan asked, gently stroking Betty’s floppy ears.

  Jennsen shook her head. “I’ve never seen her like this. It’s breaking my heart. It reminds me of how hard it was for me when I lost my mother. It’s breaking my heart.”

  As she sat back on her heels, Kahlan squeezed Jennsen’s hand sympathetically. “I know it’s hard, but it’s easier for an animal to get over something like this than for people to do the same. Don’t compare it to you and your mother. Sad as this is, it’s different. Betty can have more kids and she’ll forget all about this. You or I never could.”

  Before the words were out, Kahlan felt a sudden stab of pain for the unborn child she had lost. How could she ever get over losing her and Richard’s child? Even if she ever had others, she would never be able to forget what was lost at the hands of brutes.

  She idly turned the small dark stone on the necklace she wore, wondering if she ever would have a child, wondering if there would ever be a world safe for a child of theirs.

  “Are you all right?”

  Kahlan realized that Jennsen was watching her face.

  Kahlan forced herself to put on a smile. “I’m just sad for Betty.”

  Jennsen ran a tender hand over the top of Betty’s head. “Me too.”

  “But I know that she’ll be all right.”

  Kahlan watched the endless expanse of ground slowly slide by to either side of the wagon. Waves of heat made the horizon liquid, with detached pools of ground floating up into the sky. Still, they saw nothing growing.

  The land was slowly rising, though, as they came ever closer to distant mountains. She knew that it was only a matter of time until they reached life again, but right then it felt like they never would.

  “I don’t understand about something,” Jennsen said. “You told me how I shouldn’t do anything rash, when it came to magic, unless I was sure of what would happen. You said it was dangerous. You said not to act in matters of magic until you can be sure of the co
nsequence.”

  Kahlan knew what Jennsen was driving at. “That’s right.”

  “Well, that back there pretty much seemed like one of those stabs in the dark you warned me about.”

  “I also told you that sometimes you had no choice but to act immediately. That’s what Richard did. I know him. He used his best judgment.”

  Jennsen looked to be satisfied. “I’m not suggesting that he was wrong. I’m just saying that I don’t understand. It seemed pretty reckless to me. How am I supposed to know what you mean when you tell me not to do anything reckless if it involves magic?”

  Kahlan smiled. “Welcome to life with Richard. Half the time I don’t know what’s in his head. I’ve often thought he was acting recklessly and it turned out to be the right thing, the only thing, he could have done. That’s part of the reason he was named Seeker. I’m sure he took into account things he sensed that even I couldn’t.”

  “But how does he know those things? How can he know what to do?”

  “Oftentimes he’s just as confused as you, or even me. But he’s different, too, and he’s sure when we wouldn’t be.”

  “Different?”

  Kahlan looked over at the young woman, at her red hair shining in the afternoon sunlight. “He was born with both sides of the gift. All those born with the gift in the last three thousand years have been born with Additive Magic only. Some, like Darken Rahl and the Sisters of the Dark, have been able to use Subtractive Magic, but only through the Keeper’s help—not on their own. Richard alone has been born with Subtractive Magic.”

  “That’s what you mentioned last night, but I don’t know anything about magic, so I don’t know what that means.”

  “We’re not exactly sure of everything it means ourselves. Additive Magic uses what is there, and adds to it, or changes it somehow. The magic of the Sword of Truth, for example, uses anger, and adds to it, takes power from it, adds to it until it’s something else. With Additive, for example, the gifted can heal.

  “Subtractive Magic is the undoing of things. It can take things and make them nothing. According to Zedd, Subtractive Magic is the counter to Additive, as night is to day. Yet it is all part of the same thing.

  “Commanding Subtractive, as Darken Rahl did, is one thing, but to be born with it is quite another.

  “Long ago, unlike now, being born with the gift—both sides of the gift—was common. The great war then resulted in a barrier sealing the New World off from the Old. That’s kept the peace all this time, but things have changed since then. After that time, not only have those born with the gift gradually become exceedingly rare, but those who have been born with the gift haven’t been born with the Subtractive side of it.

  “Richard was born of two lines of wizards, Darken Rahl and his grandfather Zedd. He’s also the first in thousands of years to be born with both sides of the gift.

  “All of our abilities contribute to how we’re able to react to situations. We don’t know how having both sides contributes to Richard’s ability to read a situation and do what’s necessary. I suspect he may be guided by his gift, perhaps more than he believes.”

  Jennsen let out a troubled sigh. “After all this time, how did this barrier come to be down, anyway?”

  “Richard destroyed it.”

  Jennsen looked up in astonishment. “Then it’s true. Sebastian told me that the Lord Rahl—Richard—had brought the barrier down. Sebastian said it was so that Richard could invade and conquer the Old World.”

  Kahlan smiled at such a grandiose lie. “You don’t believe that part of it, do you?”

  “No, not now.”

  “Now that the barrier is down, the Imperial Order is flooding up into the New World, destroying or enslaving everything before them.”

  “Where can people live that’s safe? Where can we?”

  “Until they’re stopped or driven back, there is no safe place to live.”

  Jennsen thought it over a moment. “If the barrier coming down let the Imperial Order flood in to conquer the New World, why would Richard have destroyed it?”

  With one hand, Kahlan held on to the side of the wagon as it rocked over a rough patch of ground. She stared ahead, watching Richard walking through the glaring light of the wasteland.

  “Because of me,” Kahlan said in a quiet voice. “One of those mistakes I told you about.” She let out a tired sigh. “One of those stabs in the dark.”

  Chapter 8

  Richard squatted down, resting his forearms across his thighs as he studied the curious patch of rock. His head was pounding with pain; he was doing his best to ignore it. The headache had come and gone seemingly without reason. At times he had begun to think that it just might be the heat after all, and not the gift.

  As he considered the signs on the ground, he forgot about his headache.

  Something about the rock seemed familiar. Not simply familiar, but unsettlingly familiar.

  Hooves partially covered by long wisps of wiry brown hair came to an expectant halt beside him. With the top of her head, Betty gently butted his shoulder, hoping for a snack, or at least a scratch.

  Richard looked up at the goat’s intent, floppy-eared expression. As Betty watched him watching her, her tail went into a blur of wagging.

  Richard smiled and scratched behind her ears. Betty bleated her pleasure at the scratch, but it sounded to him like she would have preferred a snack.

  After not eating for two days as she lay in misery in the wagon, the goat seemed to come back to life and begin to recover from the loss of her two kids. Along with her appetite, Betty’s curiosity had returned. She especially enjoyed scouting with Richard, when he would let her come along.

  It made Jennsen laugh to watch the goat trotting after him like a puppy.

  Maybe what really made her laugh was that Betty was getting back to her old self.

  In recent days the land had changed, too. They had begun to see the return of life. At first, it had simply been the rusty discoloration of lichen growing on the fragmented rock. Soon after, they spotted a small thorny bush growing in a low place. Now the rugged plants grew at widely spaced intervals, dotting the landscape. Betty appreciated the tough bushes, dining on them as if they were the finest salad greens. On occasion the horses sampled the brush, then turned away, never finding it to their liking.

  Lichen that had begun to grow on the rock appeared as crusty splotches streaked with color. In some places it was dark, thick, and leathery, while in other spots it was no more than what almost appeared to be a coat of thin green paint. The greenish discoloration filled cracks and crevasses and coated the underside of stones where the sun didn’t bleach it out. Rocks sticking partway out of the crumbly ground could be pulled up to reveal thin tendrils of dark brown subterranean fungal growth.

  Tiny insects with long feelers skittered from rock to rock or hid in holes in the scattering of rocks lying about on the ground that looked as if they had once been boiling and bubbling, and had suddenly turned to stone, leaving the bubbles forever set in place. An occasional glossy green beetle, bearing wide pincer jaws, waddled through the sand. Small red ants stacked steep ruddy mounds of dirt around their holes. There were cottony webs of spiders in the crotches of the isolated, small, spindly brush growing sporadically across the ever rising plain. Slender light green lizards sat on rocks basking in the sun, watching the people pass. If they came too close, the little creatures, lightning quick, darted for cover.

  The signs of life Richard had so far seen were still a long way from being anything substantial enough to support people, but it was at least a relief to once again feel like he was rejoining the world of the living. He knew, too, that up beyond the first wall of mountains they would at last encounter life in abundance. He also knew that there they would again begin to encounter people.

  Birds, as well, were just beginning to become a common sight. Most were small—strawberry-colored finches, ash-colored gnatcatchers, rock wrens and black-throated sparrows. In the dist
ance Richard saw single birds winging through the blue sky, while sparrows congregated in small skittish flocks.

  Here and there, birds lit on the scraggly brush, flitting about looking for seeds and bugs. The birds disappeared instantly whenever the races glided into sight.

  Staring at the expanse of rock and open ground before him, Richard rose up, startled, as the reason it looked unsettlingly familiar came to him. At the same time as the realization came to him, his headache vanished.

  Off to his right, Richard saw Kahlan, with Cara at her side, making their way out to where Richard stood staring down at the astonishing stretch of rock. The wagon, with Tom, Friedrich, and Jennsen, rumbled on in the distance to the south. The dust raised by the wagon and horses hung in the dead air and could be seen for miles. Richard supposed that with the races periodically paying them a visit, the telltale of the dust didn’t much matter. Still, he would be glad when they reached ground where they could at least have a chance to try to remain a little more inconspicuous.

  “Find anything interesting?” Kahlan asked as she wiped her sleeve across her forehead.

  Richard cast a few small pebbles down at the stretch of rock he’d been studying. “Tell me what you think of that.”

  “I think you look like you feel better,” Kahlan said.

  Her eyes on his, she gave him her special smile, the smile she gave no one but him. He couldn’t help grinning.

  Cara, ignoring the smiles that passed between Richard and Kahlan, leaned in for a gander. “I think Lord Rahl has been looking at too many rocks. This is more rock, just like all the rest.”

  “Is it?” Richard asked. He gestured at the area he’d been scrutinizing and then pointed at another place by where Kahlan and Cara stood. “Is it the same as that?”

  Cara peered at both areas briefly before she folded her arms. “The rock over there that you’ve been looking at is just a paler brown, that’s all.”

  Kahlan shrugged. “I think she’s right, Richard. It looks like the same kind of rock, maybe just a little more of a tan color.” She thought it over a moment as she scanned the ground, then added to her assessment. “I guess it looks more like the rock we’ve been walking across for days until we started encountering a little bit of grass and brush.”