Naked Empire

"The people in the Old World were the same way-they still are. They claimed they didn't want magic, and yet when faced with that reality, they didn't want to do without it. The Imperial Order is like this. They've come to the New World claiming to be a champion of freeing mankind of magic, proclaiming themselves to be noble for holding such a goal, and yet they use magic in the pursuit of this professed goal. They contend that magic is evil, and yet they embrace it.

"Their leader, Emperor Jagang, uses those with magic to help accomplish his ends, among which, he claims, is the eradication of magic. Jagang is a dream walker descended from those dream walkers of so long ago. His ability as a dream walker is magic, yet he does not disqualify himself from leading his empire. Even though he has magic, which he claims makes people unfit to have any say in the future, he calls himself Jagang the Just.

"Despite what they declare they believe, their goal is to rule people, plain and simple. They seek power but dress it up in noble-sounding robes.

Every tyrant thinks he is different. They are all the same. They all rule by brute force."

Owen was frowning, trying to grasp it all. "So, those in the Old World did not live by their word, by what they claimed they believed. They lived in conflict. They preached that man was better without magic, but they continued to want to use magic."

"That's right."

Owen gestured up at the statue. "What of this man, then? Why is he here, if he is against what they preached?"

Dark clouds roiled above the towering statue. The still air hung cold, heavy, and damp. It felt as if a storm were holding back its onslaught, waiting to hear the rest.

"This man is here because he fought to save the people of the Old World from something they feared more than magic itself," Richard said.

He gazed up at the resolute face with its eyes fixed forever on the place called the Pillars of Creation.

"This man," Richard said in a quiet voice, "this wizard, Kaja-Rang, collected all of those pristinely ungifted people, those pillars of Creation, who had been banished down here from the New World, along with any people who while they lived here had joined with them, and he sent them all there."

Richard pointed off into the distance behind the statue.

"He put all those people in that place, protected by the mountains all around, and then he placed a boundary of death before them, across this pass, so that they could never again come out to be among the rest of the people of the world.

"Kaja-Rang gave these people their name: the Bandakar. The name, bandakar, is from a very old language called High D'Haran. It means 'the banished. This man, Kaja-Rang, is the one who sealed them in and saved his people from the pristinely ungifted, from those without magic."

"You," Richard said to the men before him, "are the descendants of those banished people. You are the descendants of Alric Rahl, of the people sent into exile in the Old World. You are all descendants of the House of Rahl. Your ancestors and mine are the same men. You are the banished people."

The top of the pass before the statue of Kaja-Rang was dead silent. The men stared in shock.

And then pandemonium broke out. Richard made no effort to stop them, to bring them to be quiet. Rather, he stood close beside Kahlan as he let them take it in. He wanted to give them the time they needed to come to grasp the enormity of what he had told them.

Arms in the air, some men cried out with the outrage at what they'd heard, others wailed with the horror of the story, some wept in sorrow, many argued, a few protested various points that others answered, while yet others repeated key elements to one another almost as if to hear the words again so they could test them, agreeing finally that it might very well be so.

But through it all, they all slowly began to grasp the enormity of what they'd heard. They all began to hear the ring of truth in the story.

Chattering like magpies, all talking at once, they expressed disbelief, outrage, wonder, and even fear, as they came to the heady comprehension of who they really were.

At the whispered urging of some among the group, after having gotten over the initial shock, the men all quieted and at last turned back to Richard, hungry to know more.

"You are this gifted man, the favored heir, the Lord Rahl, and we are the ones banished by your kind," one of the men said, expressing what looked to be a common fear, the unspoken question of what this would mean for them.

"That's right," Richard said. "I am the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D'Haran Empire, and you are the descendants of the pillars of Creation who were banished. I am gifted as have been my ancestors, every Lord Rahl before me. You are ungifted as were your ancestors."

Standing before the statue of Kaja-Rang, the man who had banished them, Richard looked out at all the tense faces.