Naked Empire

Moral equivalence says that you are no better than they; therefore, their belief-that they should be able to torture, rape, or murder you- is just as morally valid as your view-that you have the right to live free of their violence. Moral compromise rejects the concept of right and wrong. It says that everyone is equal, all desires are equally valid, all action is equally valid, so everyone should compromise to get along.

"Where could you compromise with those who torture, rape, and murder people? In the number of days a week you will be tortured? In the number of men to be allowed to rape your loved ones? In how many of your family are to be murdered?

"No moral equivalence exists in that situation, nor can it exist, so there can be no compromise, only suicide.

"To even suggest compromise can exist with such men is to sanction murder."

Most of the men appeared shocked and startled to hear someone speaking to them in such a straightforward manner. They seemed to be losing interest in their supply of empty adages. Some of the men looked to be moved by Richard's words. A few even looked inspired by their clarity; he could see it in their eyes, as if they were seeing things for the first time.

Cara came up behind Richard and handed him the warning beacon. Richard wasn't sure, but it seemed as if the inky black had taken over more of the surface of the small figure than the last time he'd seen it. Inside, the sand continued to trickle down onto the accumulated pile in the bottom.

"Kaja-Rang placed the boundary across this pass to seal your people in.

He is the one who named you. He knew your people shunned violence and he feared you might end up being prey to criminals. He is the one who gave you a way to banish them from your land so that you could continue to have the kind of life you wanted. He told your people of the passage through the boundary so that you could rid yourselves of criminals if you rallied the will."

Owen looked troubled. "If this great wizard, Kaja-Rang, didn't want our people among the population of the Old World because we would mix with them and spread our pristinely ungifted trait, as you call it, then what about the criminals we banish? Sending those men out into the world would cause the thing they feared. Making this pass through the boundary and telling our ancestors about it would seem to defeat the whole purpose of the boundary."

Richard smiled. "Very good, Owen. You are beginning to think for yourself."

Owen smiled. Richard gestured up at the statue of Kaja-Rang.

"You see where he's looking? It's a place called the Pillars of Creation. It's a deathly hot place where nothing lives-a land stalked by death. The boundary that Kaja-Rang placed had sides to it. When you sent people out of your land, through the boundary, the walls of death to the sides prevented those banished people from escaping into the world at large.

They had only one way they could go: the Pillars of Creation.

"Even with water and supplies, and knowing where you must go to get past it, trying to go through the valley known as the Pillars of Creation is almost certain death. Without water and supplies, without knowing the land, without knowing how to travel it and where you must go to escape such a place, those you banished faced certain death."

The men stared, wide-eyed. "Then, when we banished a criminal, we were actually executing them," one of the men said.

"That's right."

"This Kaja-Rang tricked us, then," the man added. "Tricked us into what was actually the killing of those men."

"You think that a terrible trick?" Richard asked. "You people were deliberately setting known criminals loose on the world to prey on unsuspecting people. You were knowingly setting free violent men, and condemning unsuspecting people outside your land to be victims of violence.

Rather than put murderers to death, you were, as far as you knew- had you given it any thought-knowingly assisting them in going on to kill others.

In the blind attempt to avoid violence at all cost, you actually championed it.

"You told yourselves that those other people didn't matter, because they weren't enlightened, like you, that you were better than they because you were above violence, that you unconditionally rejected violence. If you even thought about it, you considered these people beyond the boundary to be savages, their lives unimportant. For all intents and purposes, you were sacrificing their innocent lives for the lives of those men you knew to be evil.

"What Kaja-Rang was doing, besides keeping the pristinely ungifted from being at large in the world, was executing those criminals you banished before they could harm other people. You think yourselves noble in rejecting violence, but your actions would have fostered it. Only Kaja-Rang's actions prevented it."

"Dear Creator. It is far worse than that." Owen sank down, sitting heavily. "Far worse than you even realize."