by Angreal
He let out a breath and lowered his voice. "There were too many to execute, so they did the next best thing—they banished them."
Kahlan's eyebrows went up. "Banished them? To where?"
Richard leaned toward her with fire in his eyes. "The Old World."
"What!"
Richard shrugged, as if speaking on behalf of the wizards back then, mocking their reasoning. "What else could they do? They could hardly execute them; they were friends and family. Many of those normal people with the spark of the gift—but who were not gifted as wizards or sorceresses and so didn't think of themselves as gifted—had sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors who had married these pristinely ungifted, these pillars of Creation. They were part of society—a society which was less and less populated by the truly gifted.
"In a society where they were increasingly outnumbered and mistrusted, the ruling gifted couldn't bring themselves to put all these tainted people to death."
"You mean they even considered it?"
Richard's eyes told her that they had and what he thought of the notion. "But in the end, they couldn't. At the same time, after trying everything, they now realized that they couldn't ever restore the link to magic once it was broken by these people, and such people were marrying and having children, and the children were marrying and having children—who in every case passed along this taint. And, those so tainted were increasing in numbers faster than anyone had imagined.
"As far as the gifted were concerned, their very world was threatened, in much the same way it had been threatened by the war. That was, after all, what those in the Old World had been trying to do—destroy magic—and here it was, the very thing they feared, happening.
"They couldn't repair the damage, they couldn't stop it from spreading, and they couldn't put to death all those among them. At the same time, with the taint multiplying, they knew that they were running out of time. So, they settled on what to them was the only way out—banishment."
"And they could cross the barrier?" she asked.
"Those with the gift, for all practical purposes, were prevented from crossing the barrier, but for those who were pillars of Creation, magic did not exist; they were unaffected by it, so, to them, the barrier was not an obstacle."
"How could those in charge be sure they had all the pillars of Creation? If any escaped, the banishment would fail to solve their problem."
"Those with the gift—wizards and sorceresses—can somehow recognize those pristinely ungifted for what they are: holes in the world, as Jennsen said those like her were called. The gifted can see them, but not sense them with their gift. Apparently, it wasn't a problem to know who the pillars of Creation were."
"Can you tell any difference?" Kahlan asked. "Can you sense Jennsen as being different? Being a hole in the world?"
"No. But I've not been taught to use my ability. How about you?"
Kahlan shook her head. "I'm not a sorceress, so I guess that I don't have the ability to detect those like her." She shifted her weight in her saddle. "So, what happened with those people back then?"
"The people of the New World collected all those ungifted offspring of the House of Rahl and their every single last descendant, and sent the whole lot of them across the great barrier, to the Old World, where the people had professed that they wanted mankind to be free of magic."
Richard smiled with the irony, even of such a grim event as this. "The wizards of the New World, in essence, gave their enemy in the Old World exactly what they professed to want, what they had been fighting for: mankind without magic."
His smile withered. "Can you imagine deciding that we had to banish Jennsen and send her into some fearful unknown, simply because of the fact that she can't see magic?"
Kahlan shook her head as she tried to envision such a time. "What a horror, to be uprooted and sent away, especially to the enemy of your own people."
Richard rode in silence for a time. Finally, he went on with the story. "It was a terrifying event for those banished, but it was also traumatic almost beyond endurance to those who were left. Can you even imagine what it must have been like. All those friends and relatives suddenly ripped out of your life, your family? The disruption to trade and livelihood?" Richard's words came with bitter finality. "All because they decided some attribute was more important than human life."
Just listening to the story, Kahlan felt as if she had been through an ordeal. She watched Richard riding beside her, staring off, lost in his own thoughts.
"Then what?" she finally asked. "Did they ever hear from those who were banished?"
He shook his head. "No, nothing. They were now beyond the great barrier. They were gone."
Kahlan stroked her horse's neck, just to feel the comfort of something alive. "What did they do about those who were born after that?"
Still he stared off. "Killed them."
Kahlan swallowed in revulsion. "I can't imagine how they could do that."
"They could tell, once the child was born, if it was ungifted. It was said to be easier then, before it was named."
Kahlan couldn't find her voice for a moment. "Still," she said in a weak voice, "I can't imagine it."
"It's no different from what Confessors did about the birth of male Confessors."
His words cut through her. She hated the memory of those times. Hated the memory of a male child being born to a Confessor. Hated the memory of them being put to death by command of the mother.
There was said to be no choice. Male Confessors in the past had had no self-control over their power. They became monsters, started wars, caused unimaginable suffering.
It was argued that there was no choice but to put a male child of a Confessor to death, before they were named.
Kahlan couldn't force herself to look up into Richard's eyes. The witch woman, Shota, had foretold that she and Richard would conceive a male child. Neither Kahlan nor Richard would ever for an instant consider harming any child of theirs, a child resulting from their love for one another, from their love of life. She couldn't imagine putting a child of theirs to death for being born a male child of her as a Confessor, or an ungifted male or female child of Richard for being a Rahl. How could anyone say that such a life had no right to exist because of who they were, what they were like, or what they might possibly become.
"Somewhere along the line after this book was written," Richard said in a quiet voice, "things changed. When this book was written, the Lord Rahl of D'Hara always married, and they knew when he produced an offspring. When the child was pristinely ungifted, they ended its life as mercifully as they could.
"At some point, ruling wizards of the House of Rahl became like Darken Rahl. They took any woman they wanted, whenever they wanted. The details, such as if an ungifted child born of those couplings was actually a pillar of Creation, became unimportant to them. They simply killed any offspring, except the gifted heir."
"But they were wizards—they could have told which ones were like that and at least not killed the rest."
"If they wanted, I suppose they could have, but, like Darken Rahl, their only interest was in the single gifted heir. They simply killed the rest."
"So, such offspring hid for fear of their life and one managed to escape the grasp of Darken Rahl until you killed him first. And so you have a sister, Jennsen."
Richard's smile returned. "And so I do."
Kahlan followed his gaze and saw distant specks, black-tipped races, watching, as they soared on the updrafts of the high cliffs of the mountains to the east.
She took a purging breath of the hot, humid air. "Richard, those ungifted offspring that were banished to the Old World, do you think they survived?"
"If the wizards in the Old World didn't slaughter them."
"But everyone down here in the Old World is the same as in the New World. I've fought against the soldiers from here—with Zedd and the Sisters of the Light. We used magic of every sort to try to halt the Order
's advance. I can tell you firsthand that all those from the Old World are affected by magic, so that means they all are born with that spark of the gift. There are no broken links in the chain of magic in the Old World."
"From everything I've seen down here, I'd have to agree."
Kahlan wiped sweat from her brow. It was running into her eyes. "So what happened to those banished people?"
Richard gazed off toward the mountains beneath the races. "I can't imagine. But it must have been horrifying for them."
"So you think that maybe that was the end of them? That maybe they perished, or were put to death?"
He regarded her with a sidelong glance. "I don't know. But what I'd like to know is why that place back there is named the same as they were called in this book: the Pillars of Creation." His eyes took on a menacing gleam. "And far worse yet, I'd like to know why, as Jennsen told us, a copy of this book is among Jagang's most prized possessions."
That troublesome thought had been running through Kahlan's mind as well.
She looked up at him from beneath a frown. "Maybe you shouldn't have skipped ahead in your reading of the book, Lord Rahl."
Richard's fleeting smile wasn't all she'd hoped for. "I'll be relieved if that's the biggest mistake I've made, lately."
"What do you mean?"
He raked his hair back. "Is anything different about your Confessor's power?"
"Different?" Almost involuntarily, his question caused her to draw back, to focus inwardly, to take stock of the force she always felt within herself. "No. It feels the same as always."
The power coiled in the core of her being did not need to be summoned when there was need of it. As always, it was there at the ready; it only required that she release her restraint of it for it to be unleashed.
"There's something wrong with the sword," he said, catching her by surprise. "Wrong with its power."
Kahlan couldn't imagine what to make of such a notion. "How can you tell? What's different?"
Richard idly stroked his thumbs along the reins turned back over his fingers. "It's hard to define exactly what's different. I'm just used to the feeling of it being at my beck and call. It responds when I need it, but for some reason it seems to be hesitant about doing so."
Kahlan felt that now, more than ever, they needed to get back to Aydindril and see Zedd. Zedd was the keeper of the sword. Even though they couldn't take the sword through the sliph, Zedd would be able to give them insight about any nuance of its power. He would know what to do. He would be able to help Richard with the headaches, too.
And Kahlan knew that Richard needed help. She could see that he wasn't himself. His gray eyes held a glaze of pain, but there was something more etched in his expression, in the way he moved, the way he carried himself.
The whole explanation of the book and what he had discovered seemed to have sapped his strength.
She was beginning to think that it wasn't she, after all, who was the one running out of time, but that it was Richard. That thought, despite the warm afternoon sun, sent cold terror racing through her.
Richard checked the others over his shoulder. "Let's go back to the wagon. I need to get something warmer to put on. It's freezing today."
* * *
CHAPTER 12
Zedd peered up the deserted street. He could have sworn that he saw someone. Using his gift to search for any sign of life told him that there was no one anywhere around. Still, he remained motionless as he stared.
The warm breeze pressed his simple robes against his bony frame and gently ruffled his disheveled white hair. A tattered, sun-faded blue dress that someone had pinned to a second-floor balcony railing to dry flapped like a flag in the wind. The dress, along with a city full of personal possessions, had long ago been left behind.
The buildings, their walls painted various colors from a rusty red to yellow with shutters in bright, contrasting hues, stuck out to slightly varying degrees on either side of the narrow cobbled street, making a canyon of colorful walls. Most of the second stories overhung the bottom floors by a few feet, and, with their eaves hanging out even more, the buildings closed off the better part of the sky except for a snaking slit of afternoon sunlight that followed the sinuous course of the street up and over the gentle hill. The doors were all tightly shut, most of the windows shuttered. A pale green gate to an alleyway hung open, squeaking as it swung to and fro in the breeze.
Zedd decided that it must have been a trick of the light that he'd seen, maybe a windowpane that had moved in the wind sending a flicker of light across a wall.
When he was at last sure that he had been mistaken about seeing anyone, Zedd started back down the street, yet remained close to one side, walking as quietly as possible. The Imperial Order army had not returned to the city since Zedd had unleashed the light web that had killed an enormous number of their force, but that didn't mean that there couldn't be dangers about.
No doubt Emperor Jagang still wanted the city, and especially the Keep, but he was no fool and he knew that a few more light webs ignited among his army, no matter how vast it was, would in that instant reduce his force by such staggering numbers that it could alter the course of the war. Jagang had fought against the Midland and D'Haran forces for a year and in all those battles he had not lost as many men as he'd lost in that one blinding moment. He would not casually risk another such event.
After such a blow Jagang would want to capture the Keep more than he had ever wanted it before. He would want Zedd more than ever before.
Had Zedd more of the light webs like the one his frantic search through the Keep had turned up, he would have already unleashed them all on the Order. He sighed. If only he had more.
Still, Jagang didn't know that he had no more such constructed spells. As long as Jagang feared that there were more, it served Zedd's purpose in keeping the Imperial Order out of Aydindril and away from the Wizard's Keep.
Some harm had been done to the Confessors' Palace when Jagang had been gulled into attacking, but Zedd judged that trying that trick had been worth the regrettable damage; it had almost netted him and Adie the emperor's hide. Damage could always be repaired. He vowed that it would be repaired.
Zedd clenched a fist at how close he had come to finishing Jagang that day. At least he had dealt a mighty blow to his army.
And Zedd might have had Jagang had it not been for that strange young woman. He shook his head at the memory of actually seeing one who could not be touched by magic. He'd known, in theory, of their existence, but had never before known it for certain to be true. Vague references in old books made for interesting abstract speculation, but seeing it with his own eyes was quite something else.
It had been an unsettling sight. Adie had been shaken by the encounter even more than he; she was blind, yet with the aid of the gift could see better than he could. That day, she had not been able to see the young woman who was there, but, in some ways, not there. To Zedd's eyes, if not his gift, she was a beautiful sight, with some of Darken Rahl's looks, but different and altogether captivating. That she was half sister to Richard was clear; she shared some of his features, especially the eyes. If only Zedd could have stopped her, kept her out of the way, convinced her that she was making a terrible mistake by being with the Order, or even if he could have killed her, Jagang would not have escaped justice.
Still, Zedd held no illusions about ending the threat of the Imperial Order simply by killing Jagang. Jagang was merely the brute who led other brutes in enforcing blind faith in the Order, a blind faith that embraced death as salvation from what it preached was the corrupt misery of life, a blind faith in which life itself had no value but as a bloody sacrifice upon the altar of altruism, a blind faith that blamed the failure of its own ideas on mankind for being wicked and for failing to offer sufficient sacrifice in an endless quest for some illusive greater good that grew ever more distant, a blind faith in an Order that clung to power by feeding off the carcasses of the productive lives it ruined.
A faith that by its very beliefs rejected reason and embraced the irrational could not long endure without intimidation and force—without brutes like Jagang to enforce such faith.
While Emperor Jagang was brutally effective, it was a mistake to think that if Jagang were to die that very day it would end the threat of the Order. It was the Order's ideas that were so dangerous; the priests of the Order would find other brutes.
The only real way to end the Order's reign of terror was to expose the naked evil of its teachings to the light of truth, and for those suffering under its doctrines to throw off the Order's yoke. Until then, they would have to fight the Imperial Order back as best they could, hoping at least to eventually contain them.
Zedd poked his head around a corner, watching, listening, sniffing the wind for any trace of anyone who might be lurking about. The city was deserted, but on a number of occasions stray Imperial Order soldiers had wandered in out of the mountains.
After the destruction caused by the light web, panic had swept through the Order's encampment. Many soldiers had scattered to the hills. Once the army had regrouped, a large number of men had decided to desert instead of returning to their units. Tens of thousands of such deserters were rounded up and executed, their bodies left to rot as a warning of what happened to those who abandoned the cause of the greater glory of the Imperial Order, or as the Order liked to put it, the cause of the greater good. Most of the rest of the men who had run to the hills had then had a change of heart and straggled back into camp.
There were still some, though, who had not wanted to go back and had not been caught. For a time, after Jagang's army had moved on, they had wandered into the city, sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups, half starved, to search for food and to loot. Zedd had lost count of how many such men he had killed.