Naked Empire

"When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep him from killing me and my loved ones. He had tortured and murdered countless people and that alone earned him death, but I had to kill him or he would have killed me. I didn't know at the time that he was my real father or that in killing him, since I was his heir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.

"Had he known who I was, he might not have been trying to kill me, but he didn't know. I had information he wanted; he intended to torture it out of me and then kill me. I killed him first.

"Since that time, I have come to learn a great deal. What I learned connects us"-Richard gestured to the men and then placed the hand on his own chest as he met their gazes-"in ways you must come to understand, as well, if you are to succeed in this new struggle.

"The land where I grew up, Kahlan's land, and the land of D'Hara, all make up the New World. As you have learned, this vast land down here outside where you grew up is called the Old World. After I became Lord Rahl, the barrier protecting us from the Old World failed, much as your own boundary failed. When it did, Emperor Jagang of the Imperial Order, down here in the Old World, used the opportunity to invade the New World, my home, much as he invaded your home. We've been fighting him and his troops for over two years, trying to defeat them or at least to drive them back to the Old World.

"The barrier that failed had protected us from the Order, or men like them, for around three thousand years, longer, even, than you were protected. Before that barrier was placed at the end of a great war, the enemy at the time, from the Old World, had used magic to create people called dream walkers."

The men fell to whispering. They had heard the name, but they didn't really understand it and speculated on what it could mean.

"Dream walkers," Richard explained, when they had quieted, "could enter a person's mind in order to control them. There was no defense. Once a dream walker took over your mind, you became his slave, unable to resist his commands. The people back then were desperate.

"A man named Alric Rahl, my ancestor, came up with a way to protect people's minds from being taken over by the dream walkers. He was not only the Lord Rahl who ruled D'Hara at the time, but he was also a great wizard.

Through his ability he created a bond that when spoken earnestly or given in a more simple form with heartfelt sincerity, protected people from dream walkers entering their minds. Alric Rahl's link of magic to his people, through this bond, protected them.

"The devotion you men all gave is the formal declaration of that bond.

It has been given by the D'Haran people to their Lord Rahl for three thousand years."

Some of the men in front stepped forward, their faces etched with anxiety. "Are we protected, then, from the dream walkers, Lord Rahl, because we gave this oath? Are we protected from the dream walkers entering our minds and taking us?"

Richard shook his head. "You and your people need no protection. You are already protected in another way."

Relief swept through the crowd of men. Some gripped the shoulder of another, or placed a hand in relief on a friend's back. They looked as if they feared that dream walkers were stalking them, and they had just been spared at the last instant.

"But how is it that we can be protected?" Owen asked.

Richard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Well, that's the part that in a way connects us. You see, as I understand it, magic needs balance in order to function."

There were knowing nods all around, as if these pristinely ungifted men all had an intimate understanding of magic.

"When Alric Rahl used magic to create this bond in order to protect his people," Richard went on, "there needed to always be a Lord Rahl to complete the bond, to maintain its power. Not all wizards bear children who also possess this gifted ability, so part of what Alric Rahl did when he created this bond was to make it so that the Lord Rahl would always bear one son who had magic, who had the gift, and could complete this bond with the people of D'Hara. In this way they would always be protected."

Richard held up a finger to make his point as he swept his gaze over the crowd of men. "What they didn't know at the time was that this magic inadvertently created its own balance. While the Lord Rahl always produced a gifted heir-a wizard like him-it was only discovered later that he also occasionally produced offspring who were entirely without any magic."

Richard could see by the blank looks that the men didn't grasp what he was telling them. He imagined that for people living such isolated lives, his story must seem rather confusing, if not far-fetched. He remembered his own confusion about magic before the boundary had come down and he'd met Kahlan. He hadn't been raised around magic and he still didn't understand most of it himself. He'd been born with both sides of the gift, and yet he didn't know how to control it.