Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Without the benefit of a spirit guide, the Sisters spiraled down into the world of the dead. They went still alive. They went screaming.

A flash lit everything to a blinding white, and then there was silence as everything went black as death.

When the light gradually returned, the Garden of Life was silent. The hole in the ground was gone. The sorcerer's sand was gone. The Sisters were gone.

Jagang's personal guard who had been in the Garden of Life were also gone. Being in the room with the power of Orden had been fatal to them as well as the Sisters.

Jagang, wearing the collar that was under the dominion of Nicci, was still there, looking even more angry, if that was possible.

Men of the First File streamed through the double doors into the Garden of Life to protect Richard.

"Close and bolt the doors," Richard ordered.

The men rushed to do his bidding.

Richard went to the altar and flipped the open box of Orden closed.

"You may have had your little success," Jagang said with a sneer, "but it means little. It changes nothing."

When he fell silent with a choking sound, Richard held up a hand. "Let him speak, Nicci."

She brought the emperor forward.

"The Imperial Order will still get in here and rip this place and all you miserable people apart," Jagang said. "They do not need me to pursue the just cause we fight for. The Order will cleanse mankind of the scourge of you selfish people. Our cause is not only moral but divine. The Creator is on our side. Our faith proves it."

"Truth has advocates who seek understanding," Richard said. "Corrupt ideas have miserable little fanatics who attempt to enforce their beliefs through intimidation and brutality . . . through faith. Savage force is faith's obedient servant. Violence on an apocalyptic scale can only be born of faith because reason, by its very nature, disarms senseless cruelty. Only faith thinks to justify it."

Jagang's face went red. "We do the Creator's work! Devout devotion to the Creator is the only true and moral way of this life. Strict adherence to our pious duties will bring us salvation and everlasting life! It is the blood of nonbelievers like your people that lifts us to the side of the Creator Himself."

Richard made a face. "That doesn't even make sense."

"You are a fool! Our faith alone proves us right! We alone will be rewarded in the afterlife for our reverence to Him. We are his true children, and will live forever in his Light."

Richard sighed as he shook his head. "It's always been difficult for me to believe that a grown man could actually believe such nonsense."

Jagang ground his teeth in fury. "Put me to your tortures! I accept your hatred of me because I have faithfully performed my duties to a greater good for mankind."

"You will not serve some grand place on the stage of life," Nicci said. "You will not be paraded in chains. You will not serve as a martyr or be venerated for a glorious death.

"You are irrelevant. You will simply die and be buried, and in that way no longer be able to threaten decent, innocent people. You are irrelevant to the future of mankind."

"You must extract your revenge on me for all to see!"

Richard leaned close to the man. "There will be other problems, as there always are in life, but you will not be one of them. You will be yesterday's garbage, rotting back to dust, your life having meant nothing worthwhile."

Jagang tried to lunge at Richard, but Nicci's control of him through the collar kept him back like a chained animal. "You arrogantly think you are better than us, but you are not. You too are but a miserable creature that the Creator placed in this vile world. You are no different than us except that you refuse to repent and worship Him. This is about hatred. That's all it is. It's just about you venting your hatred of the Order."

Richard rested the palm of his left hand on the hilt of his sword. "Justice is not the exercise of hatred, it is the celebration of civilization."

"You can't simply-"

With a signal from Richard, Nicci opened a flow of her power into the collar. Jagang's black eyes opened wide as he felt death fill his empty soul. He toppled face-first to the ground.

Nicci gestured to several men of the First File. "I'm sure that there are soon going to be a great many dead. Throw his corpse in the mass grave with the others of his kind."

As simply as that, the emperor of the Imperial Order was gone. As Richard had commanded, there was no grand end. There would be no celebration through violence and mutilation, no torture, no forced confessions of wrongdoing. Reasoned people understood the wrongdoing quite well enough. The threat to reasoned people was removed; that was all that mattered. Jagang's death was no more significant than that.

CHAPTER 62

Without delay, Richard went to the stone altar where the boxes of Orden sat.

He drew his sword.

The distinct metallic ring filled the Garden of Life.

"Richard," Zedd said in a rising tone of warning, "what do you think you're doing?"