Confessor

by Terry Goodkind

Richard turned to see her standing there before him. Her green eyes sparkled. She wore her special smile that she wore for no other.

  Richard stood frozen, one hand still gripping the sword so hard that he could feel the word TRUTH pressing into his hand.

  Kahlan stepped close, slipping an arm around his neck. “Richard, I love you.”

  Richard circled an arm around her waist, his feelings overwhelming him.

  “I don’t understand. It wouldn’t work if the sterile field was breached with foreknowledge.”

  “I was protected,” she said with a crooked smile.

  Richard frowned. “Protected? How?”

  “I had already fallen in love with you all over again. I didn’t need a sterile field. I think that from the first moment I saw you in that cage as it rolled into the Order’s camp I started falling in love with you. In everything you did, you revealed just what kind of man you are—the man I fell in love with so long ago, the man I married in the Mud People’s village.

  “When you gave me that carving of Spirit, it confirmed everything I had come to know all over again.

  “Art reveals the artist’s inner self. Art reveals a man’s ideals, what he values. Anyone with that much reverence, that much passion for the nobility of the human spirit, could only be a man who shares my passion for life.”

  Richard smiled as he felt a tear roll down his cheek. “I went to the underworld to get the memories taken by the Subtractive Magic of Chainfire. There, I learned that the core of those memories could only be restored if you accepted them of your own free will. I put them into that carving.

  “When you accepted it, you accepted everyone’s memories. You broke the Chainfire spell that had taken so much from so many. By being so willing to embrace all that is good, to value the beauty of life and hold it to your heart, you gave everyone back their memories.”

  She gazed into his eyes for the longest moment.

  And then he kissed his wife, the woman he loved, the woman who meant everything to him. The woman who loved him.

  The woman he had gone to the underworld and back for.

  As he lost himself in that kiss, as her arms tightened around him, he pulled the Sword of Truth from the box of Orden, closing the gateway for all time.

  When Richard finally opened his eyes, the world had returned. Zedd was standing nearby, watching them, grinning.

  “Zedd,” Richard said, blinking at all the others also there.

  “No need to apologize, my boy.”

  “I wasn’t apologizing.”

  Zedd gestured for them to continue. “Well, you have a right to kiss your wife after all this time. I always knew that you two belonged together for all time.

  “I just wish it hadn’t taken you so long to figure all this out.”

  Richard scowled at his grandfather. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you. Maybe you should have taught me a little better in the beginning and it wouldn’t have taken me so long.”

  Zedd shrugged. “I must have been a good teacher—you got it all right.”

  “Richard,” Nathan said as he stepped forward. “Do you realize what you have just done?”

  Richard glanced around. “Well, I believe so.”

  “You just fulfilled prophecy!”

  Richard skeptically cocked his head at the prophet. “What prophecy?”

  “The prophecy about the great void!”

  Richard made a face. “But I just saved us from the great void you warned us was the threat in prophecy.”

  Nathan threw his arms up in excitement. “No, no, don’t you see? You just created a world where magic doesn’t exist. That’s why prophecy sees that other world as a void—because prophecy can’t see into a world without magic! Prophecy was actually predicting what you would do. When you split the worlds, that was the fork in prophecy. The great void is prophecy’s prediction of that other world.”

  Richard sighed. “If you say so, Nathan.”

  “I don’t understand something,” Zedd said. “How did you know that the Sword of Truth was the key to opening the boxes of Orden? I mean, you knew that The Book of Counted Shadows couldn’t be the real key because Orden predated the existence of the Confessors. But Orden also predated the Sword of Truth. How could it be the key?”

  “The sword protected my mind from the Chainfire spell because the boxes of Orden are the counter to the Chainfire spell, and the Sword of Truth—or, more correctly, the magic invested in it—is the key to the boxes, so it’s part of Orden. That was the spark of insight that made me realize that the sword is the key—because I was holding it when the Sisters ignited the spell, it protected my memories of Kahlan, and the sword interrupted the ongoing effects of the spell for those who touched it.”

  Zedd planted his hands on his hips. “But the sword was created after Orden.”

  “That was a trick.”

  “A trick!”

  “What better way to protect something of such profound power than with a trick, rather than a complex, extravagant construction of magic, like everyone thought of The Book of Counted Shadows.

  “After all, a trick, if properly done, is magic.” Richard smiled. “You taught me that, remember? That’s what the wizards back then did. The whole thing with The Book of Counted Shadows was a trick to disguise the real key: the Sword of Truth. The sword was invested with the magic to unlock Orden; the book was a ruse, a trick, to send everyone off track.

  “The true key—the sword—has elements of magic that complete the constructed magic of Orden. The sword contains those necessary elements—magic invested in it by hundreds of wizards. The sword may have been created later, but the magic invested in it was the magic created by the same wizards who created Orden. It was right under everyone’s nose all the time.

  “That was the reason that the Sword of Truth has always been the responsibility of the First Wizard. It was beyond priceless.

  “You, Zedd, were a proper caretaker for the sword. You found the right person for it, the right person to be the true Seeker of Truth.

  “The reason it was so important to find the right person to be the Seeker is because only that kind of person, with the love of life and empathy for others, would be able to turn the blade white. Only that person, when touching it to the correct box, could have turned the blade white.

  “Only a true Seeker of Truth can use the Sword of Truth and thus the power of Orden.

  “It’s tied in to the admonition at the beginning of The Book of Life that says ‘Those who have come here to hate should leave now, for they only betray themselves.’ The Sword of Truth requires compassion to work. Hate will not turn the blade white—only compassion will. That is the final fail-safe for Orden. At the same time, it works this way in order to be the key to the boxes of Orden.

  “You can’t use hate to make Orden work. Hate is not a part of the solution. The Book of Life warns of that very thing. Once you grasp the concept, it’s all pretty simple.”

  “Yes, I can see how simple it is,” Zedd muttered to himself as he poked a finger through his thatch of unruly white hair to scratch his scalp.

  Nathan snapped his fingers as he turned to Zedd. “Now I also understand that other prophecy.”

  Zedd looked up. “Which one?”

  Nathan leaned close. “You remember: ‘Someday, someone born not of this world will have to save it.’ Now it makes more sense.”

  Zedd frowned. “Not to me.”

  Nathan flicked a hand. “Well, we’ll have to work out the details later.”

  Zedd turned an intent look on Richard. “There are a lot of questions remaining, a lot to understand. As First Wizard I need to know everything so I can tell if you got all the particulars correct. What if you made some sort of miscalculation in some aspect of it? We need to know if—”

  “There was no time,” Richard said, cutting him off. “Sometimes one has only an instant to do something, and in such circumstances every eventuality can’t be considered or addressed. In that cusp of opportuni
ty not every circumstance can be recognized, much less planned for or dealt with.

  “Sometimes it’s more important to seize the chance and do what you can, even knowing that it won’t likely account for everything, every problem, than it is to do nothing.

  “Only later can one go over the what-ifs and should-haves.

  “I had to act. I did the very best I could before it was too late.”

  Zedd smiled and then gripped Richard’s shoulder, giving it a jostle. “You did good, my boy. You did good.”

  “Yes, he certainly did,” Nicci said.

  They all turned to see her making her way down the path, a big smile on her face.

  “I just checked. The army of the Imperial Order is gone from the Azrith Plain. There are a few men left, those like Bruce, who want the chance to live free to try to make something of their lives.”

  A cheer went up from all those in the room at hearing confirmation that the vast army of the Imperial Order was gone.

  As soon as Nicci was close, Kahlan immediately embraced her. She finally pushed back and smiled knowingly at Nicci.

  “Only someone who truly loves him would do all you did to get me back. You are more than a friend to us.”

  “Richard taught me that to love someone means that you sometimes are fulfilled the most by putting their deepest desires above your own. I won’t deny loving him, Kahlan, but I still couldn’t be happier for both of you. To see you both together, and so much in love, brings me profound joy.”

  Nicci turned her attention to Richard. She was looking serious to the point of disquiet. “I want to know how you could create a distant world on the other side of nowhere and send everyone there.”

  “Well,” he began, “I read in the books on Ordenic theory that the gateway that was created could bend magic around in a way to counter Chainfire. That gave me an idea.”

  He pulled the folded white cloth from his pocket. “See here? A drop of ink fell here.”

  Zedd leaned in. “So what?”

  Richard unfolded the white cloth. “Look,” he said, pointing to the two spots on opposite sides of the cloth. “When the cloth is folded, these two spots are touching. When you unfold it, they are on opposite ends of the cloth.

  “The power of Orden is able to bend existence—in effect Orden is the bend in existence that is able to undo Chainfire and restore memory. So in effect, I used Orden’s power to create an impression of this world. Orden sent those people through the gateway to that other world that was actually right here in the same place, and then when I pulled the sword back out of the box and closed off the gateway, that other world is now on the other side of existence—just like this spot that was once touching the original is now on the other side of the cloth.”

  “You mean,” Zedd said, deep in thought as he rubbed his chin, “Orden created a gateway that momentarily joined the two places in order to allow those who wished a world without magic to step across, and then it separated the worlds forever.”

  “You’re a quick study,” Richard said, teasingly.

  Zedd swatted Richard’s shoulder.

  Richard took a few steps to lay a hand on Verna’s shoulder. “It was Warren who gave me the spark of the idea. It was he who first told me that the boxes of Orden were a gateway, a conduit through the underworld. I couldn’t have done it without Warren. He helped us all with his knowledge.”

  Verna, her eyes brimming with tears, rubbed Richard’s back affectionately in appreciation.

  Richard lifted the amulet he wore around his neck, the one once worn by wizard Baraccus.

  “This amulet illustrates the dance with death. It’s about more than just fighting with the sword, or even about living life. This emblem also contains what I needed to go to the underworld, the world of the dead. This is part of what Baraccus intended for me to understand.

  “But this amulet also represents that final movement of the dance with death, the killing thrust, that was needed to use the boxes of Orden.”

  Kahlan circled her arm around his waist. “You have done wizard Baraccus proud, Richard.”

  “You have done us all proud,” Zedd said.

  Nicci’s blue eyes sparkled with her smile. “He certainly has.”

  Zedd smiled in a manner Richard had not seen in a very long time. It was the old Zedd, Richard’s grandfather, advisor, and friend. Zedd spoke with quiet pride.

  “What all those ancient wizards tried to do with the great barrier to the south, and what I, as First Wizard, tried to do with the boundaries, you actually did, Richard.

  “You eliminated the threat to prevent them from ever harming us again, but you left life for the future. All those children of those people will have a chance to learn from the mistakes of their parents and, possibly, they will learn and grow and rise above hatred of others as a way of life. You have given them a world to live out their hatred of life, a world to take into a thousand years of darkness, but you have also given future generations the chance for a rebirth of mankind there, who hopefully will embrace life and the nobility of the human spirit.

  “You have given both worlds the gift of life, and you did it through strength without hate.”

  CHAPTER 64

  A balmy breeze lifted Jennsen’s red hair as she stared at the ornate letter “R” engraved on the silver handle of her knife.

  “Thinking about your brother?” Tom asked as he walked up to her, bringing her out of her memories.

  She smiled up at her husband as she hugged him with one arm. “Yes, but only good thoughts.”

  “I miss Lord Rahl, too.”

  He pulled out his own knife to gaze at it. It was the twin of Jennsen’s. His had the same ornate letter “R” for the House of Rahl. Tom had spent the better portion of his young adult life as a member of the special forces that served covertly to protect the Lord Rahl. That was how he had earned the right to carry that knife.

  Jennsen leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “It seems you only just got a Lord Rahl worth serving when you gave it all up to come here with me.”

  “You know,” he said, smiling as he slipped his knife back in its sheath, “I rather like my new life with my new wife.”

  She hugged her arms around the bear of a man. “You do, do you?” she asked in a teasing way.

  “I like my new name, too,” he added. “I’m finally used to it. You know, comfortable with it.”

  When they married, Tom had taken her name, Rahl, so that they could carry it on in the new world. It seemed only fitting that the man who had given them their new life should be remembered in some fashion.

  In every other way he was vanishing from memory.

  It was surprising to Jennsen how so many people no longer even remembered the place they came from, their old world. It was just as Richard said: the Chainfire spell was taking their memory and those blank places were being rebuilt with new memories, new beliefs, about who they were. Since the Chainfire spell and the taint within it were both Subtractive Magic, it had affected even the pristinely ungifted, so even they were continuing to lose track of who and what they had been.

  For the most part, magic had become no more than superstition. Wizards and sorceresses were even less important. They had become no more than tales told around campfires to scare people for a good laugh. Dragons were becoming only folklore. In this world there were no dragons.

  Any who possessed magic were fading away. Their ability was dying out, smothered by the taint from the chimes. Day by day they became more powerless. Eventually they would merely be old hags living by themselves in swampy places and considered crazy by most folk.

  Any trace of the gift that survived, if not withered away by the taint of the chimes they’d brought with them into their world, would eventually be completely eliminated by descendants of the pristinely ungifted. It would be only a matter of generations before there was no trace of the gift left in mankind—just the way the Order had once said they wanted it.

  Everyone was concerned
with more important things now. Their lives now revolved around the hard work of survival when there was no one who accomplished anything worthwhile. People had forgotten how to do things, how to create things. Even what had once seemed the most common of things, such as construction methods, was being lost. The people here never knew how to create—they had depended on others to build and create. It would take future generations to discover them all over again.

  Those from the old life, those who created, who invented, who made life easier for everyone, and who were the object of such hatred, were not in this world to help make life better. The people left, for the most part, were left to eke out an existence as best they could.

  For most, living in such a dark age, sickness and death were their constant companion. As they had in the world they had been banished from, they turned to superstition and a grim, fatalistic acceptance of the misery of life and its accompanying devotion to their faith.

  It seemed that everywhere Tom and Jennsen traveled to trade for supplies, they saw places of worship going up as the hope for mankind’s salvation from misery. Men of God traveled the countryside to spread the word, and demand devotion to Him.

  Jennsen and her people kept mostly to themselves, enjoying the fruits of their own labor and the simple joy of being left alone by tyrants and brutes. Some of them, though, had started keeping the symbols of the religious beliefs pressed on them. It seemed easier for them to go along than to question, to accept prepackaged beliefs than to think for themselves.

  Jennsen knew that their world was going to be one that sank into a very dark age, but she also knew that within that dark world, she and those with her could carve out their own small place of happiness, joy, and laughter. The rest of the world was too busy suffering to bother with the remote area of a few quiet people. Some of the pristinely ungifted, though, as their memories of the old world vanished, had left to go out among the cities and far-off places.

  Unknowingly, they carried the pristinely ungifted trait. It would continue to spread to the far corners of the world.

  “How is the garden coming?” she asked Tom as he knocked mud off his boots.