Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"You will have your lives, and if you waste them by continuing to worship other worlds, wishing for invented visions of eternal salvation, wanting an escape from the reality of existence, you will reap only the emptiness of death after enduring lives unlived. You will have a chance at life; it will be up to you to value those precious lives or to cast them away for nothing.

"You wanted a new dawn of mankind. You wanted a world of life in which pining for other realms invented in your minds alone was the righteous cause of mankind. I grant you your wish. Now you must live with it.

"We will be free of you.

"Your world will be yours. You can never return to this world, for there will be no way back. Once this gateway closes, there will be no underworld for you as a conduit back, no other world for you but your own. There will be no means to get to this world and whatever worlds layer it.

"Those of us who remain behind will continue in our world as it has been, with whatever other realms have always existed around this world, the world of life.

"Your world will be surrounded by no other realms. It will be an island of life. Eternity will separate you from everything here. That means that you will be cut off from the underworld, the world of the dead.

"Your existence in your world is finite. You will have your lives, but when you die your souls will cease to exist. You have only one existence- in your world of life. If you continue to waste it, if you fail to use your minds to properly grasp the reality of your world, your singular existence, you will lose out on the priceless value of your only life.

"You have life. You now have your own world. You can never return to this one. You can never again harm us. I give you what you have wanted: a world without dragons . . . and without all that goes with magic. You will forever be left longing for what you no longer can have.

"I am sure that every new day will bring us challenges to overcome, but the beliefs of the Order will not be one of them. As Nicci said, you are irrelevant."

CHAPTER 63

In the pure white void, his sister, Jennsen, stepped into view. Tom was with her, his arm reassuringly resting around her shoulders. Anson, Owen, and Marilee were there as well. Except for Tom, they were all pristinely ungifted-pillars of Creation.

"Richard," Jennsen said, "we want to go to that new world."

A tear rolled down Richard's cheek. He knew that every one of those like her was listening, and they were all in agreement.

"You all have every right to stay and live free here."

"I know," she said for them all.

"But you have taught me the value of life, and of respecting the lives of others. This is a world with magic. We don't want our lives to be at the expense of this world, or of lives here whose existence depends on magic. We are pillars of Creation. We need to grow and build, to create our own world, a world without magic. This is your world. That distant world is ours."

Richard cupped her cheek. "As much as I would want you to stay, I understand."

More than understanding, he had known that they would want to go to that other world.

Richard smiled at how beautiful she truly was, at how good a person she truly was. "I think you will find a safe home for yourself and your friends."

"Do you think we will be safe, Lord Rahl?" Tom asked. "I mean, considering the nature of the people you sent to inhabit that distant world?"

Richard nodded. "Movements like the Order, which only degrades and destroys the lives of its believers, needs an enemy to divert attention from the profound misery it produces. A great demon gives them an excuse for their misery. Such an enemy, as we have been, is the glue that binds their flailing suffering together. Without the excuse of a powerful evil enemy to blame, their ideas, even if they burn out of control for a thousand years, eventually collapse in on themselves. Simple tyranny usually rises up from those ashes to spring back to smoldering flame over and over throughout history in endless cycles of blaming people in the past.

"The pristinely ungifted will be far too small an enemy for the Order to be aware of, or to notice, or to blame. You will simply be too small and insignificant in numbers to be a worthy excuse."

"We will be safe," Jennsen said, answering the concern still in Richard's eyes. "Without an enemy like they had here to blame, to battle, to conquer, the people of the Order will turn their hatred inward. They will prey on their own. We will see to it that we don't bring too much attention to ourselves. We will be fine."

Richard nodded. "If you get in their way, in their sight, they will crush you, but I'm hoping that you and your people can find a place-perhaps in the area there that is known as Bandakar here in this world. You can live your own lives, there. I wish it were otherwise, but I know it must be this way.