Naked Empire

"Bah," Adie scoffed. "You be a fool with worthless treasures. I hope you pull a muscle carrying them with you everywhere."

"Adie's right," Zedd put in. "You are an incompetent oaf who is only going to-"

"Oh, come, come, you two. Do you think you will throw me into a fit of rage and I'll slaughter the both of you on the spot?" His wicked grin returned. "Spare you the proper justice of what is to come?"

Zedd and Adie fell silent.

"When I was a boy," Jagang said in a quieter tone as he stared off into the distance, "I was nothing. A street tough in Altur'Rang. A bully. A

thief. My life was empty. My future was the next meal.

"One day, I saw a man coming down the street. He looked like he might have some money and I wanted it. It was getting dark. I came up silently behind him, intending to bash in his head, but just then he turned and looked me in the eye.

"His smile stopped me in my tracks. It wasn't a kindly smile, or a weak smile, but the kind of smile a man gives you when he knows he can kill you where you stand if it pleases him.

"He pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it to me, and then, without a word, turned and went on his way.

"A few weeks later, in the middle of the night, I woke up in an alley, where I slept under old blankets and crates, and I saw a shadowy form out by the street. I knew it was him before he flipped me the coin and moved off into the darkness.

"The next time I saw him, he was sitting on a stone bench at the edge of an old square that some of the less fortunate men of Altur'Rang frequented. Like me, no one would give these men a chance in life. People's greed had sucked the life out of these men. I used to go there to look at them, to tell myself I didn't want to grow up to be like them, but I knew I would, a nobody, human refuse waiting to pass into the shadow of oblivion in the afterlife. A soul without worth.

"I sat down on the bench beside the man and asked him why he'd given me money. Instead of giving me some answer that most people would give a boy, he told me about mankind's grand purpose, the meaning of life, and how we are here only as a brief stop on the way to what the Creator has in store for us-if we are strong enough to rise to the challenge.

"I'd never heard such a thing. I told him that I didn't think that such things mattered in my life because I was only a thief. He said that I was only striking back from the injustice of my lot in life. He said that mankind was evil for making me the way I was and only through sacrifice and helping those like me could man hope to be redeemed in the afterlife. He opened my mind to man's sinful ways.

"Before he left, he turned back and asked me if I knew how long eternity was. I said no. He said that our miserable time in this world was but a blink before we entered the next world. That really made me think, for the first time, about our greater purpose.

"Over the next months, Brother Narev took the time to talk to me, to tell me about Creation and eternity. He gave me a vision of a possible better future where before I had none. He taught me about sacrifice and redemption. I thought I was doomed to an eternity of darkness until he showed me the light.

"He took me in, in return for helping him with life's chores.

"For me, Brother Narev was a teacher, a priest, an advisor, a means to salvation"-Jagang's gaze rose to Zedd-"and a grandfather, all rolled into one.

"He gave me the fire of what mankind can and should be. He showed me the true sin of selfish greed and the dark void of where it would lead mankind. Over time, he made me the fist of his vision. He was the soul; I was the bone and muscle.

"Brother Narev allowed me the honor of igniting the revolution. He placed me at the fore of the rise of mankind over the oppression of sinfulness. We are the new hope for the future of man, and Brother Narev himself allowed me to be the one to carry his vision in the cleansing flames of mankind's redemption."

Jagang leaned back in his chair, fixing Zedd with as grim a look as Zedd had ever seen.

"And then this spring, while carrying Brother Narev's noble challenge to mankind, to those who had never had a chance to see the vision of what man can be, of the future without the blight of magic and oppression and greed and groveling to be better than others, I came to Aydindril… and what do I find?

"Brother Narev's head on a pike, with a note, 'Compliments of Richard Rahl.

"The man I admired most in the world, the man who brought to us all the hallowed dream of mankind's true purpose in this life as charged by the Creator himself, was dead, his head stuck on a pike by your grandson.

"If ever there was a greater blasphemy, a greater crime against the whole of mankind, I don't know of it."

Sullen shapes shifted across Jagang's black eyes. "Richard Rahl will be dealt justice. He will suffer such a blow, before I send him to the Keeper.