Naked Empire

I'm not interested in what you think of the camp where the men who attacked us lay dead. Confine yourself to the matter at hand. You brought the antidote for the poison you gave me. That can't be the end of it. What's the rest?"

"Well," Owen stammered, "I didn't want you to die, that's why I saved you."

"Stop telling me your feelings about what you did and tell me instead what you did and why. Why poison me, and why then save me? I want the answer to that, and I want the truth."

Owen glanced around at the grim faces watching him. He took a breath as if to gather his composure.

"I needed your help. I had to convince you to help me. I asked, before, for your help and you refused, even though my people have great need. I begged. I told you how important it was for them to have your help, but you still said no."

"I have my own problems I must deal with," Richard said. "I'm sorry the Order invaded your homeland-I know how terrible that is- but I told you, I'm trying to bring them down and our doing so will only help you and your people in your effort to rid yourselves of them. You aren't the only one who has had their home invaded by those brutes. We have men of the Order murdering our loved ones as well."

"You must help us, first," Owen insisted. "You and those like you, the unenlightened ones, must free my people. We can't do it ourselves-we are not savages. I heard what you all had to say about eating meat. Such talk made me ill. Our people are not like that-we can't be, because we are enlightened. I saw how you murdered all those men back there. I need you to do that to the Order."

"I thought that wasn't real?"

Owen ignored the question. "You must give my people freedom."

"I already told you, I can't!"

"Now, you must." He looked at Cara, Jennsen, Tom, and Friedrich. His gaze settled on Kahlan. "You must see to it that Lord Rahl does this-or he will die. I have poisoned him."

Kahlan seized Owen's shirt. "You brought him the antidote to the poison."

Owen nodded. "That first night, when I told you all of my great need, I had just given him the poison." His gaze returned to Richard. "You had just drunk it, within hours. Had you agreed to give my people the freedom they need, I would have given you the antidote then, and you would be free of the poison. It would have cured you.

"But you refused to come with me, to help those who cannot help themselves, as is your duty to those in need. You sent me away. So, I did not offer you the antidote. In the time since, the poison has worked its way through your body. Had you not been selfish, you would have been cured back then.

"Instead, the poison is now established in you, doing its work. Since it was so long since you drank the poison, the antidote I had with me was no longer enough to cure you, only to make you better for a while."

"And what will cure me?" Richard asked.

"You will have to have more of the antidote to rid you of the rest of the poison."

"And I don't suppose you have any more."

Owen shook his head. "You must give my people freedom. Only then, will you be able to get more of the antidote."

Richard wanted to shake the answers out of the man. Instead, he took a breath, trying to stay calm so that he could understand the truth of what Owen had done and then think of the solution.

"Why only then?" he asked.

"Because," Owen said, "the antidote is in the place taken by the Imperial Order. You must rid us of the invaders if you are to be able to get to the antidote. If you want to live, you must give us our freedom. If you don't, you will die."

CHAPTER 23

Kahlan reached in to seize Owen by the throat. She wanted to strangle him, to choke him, to make him feel the desperate, panicked need of breath that Richard had endured, to make him suffer, to show him what it was like.

Cara went for Owen as well, apparently having the same thought as Kahlan.

Richard thrust his arm out, holding them both back.

Holding Owen's shirt in his other fist, Richard shook the man. "And how long do I have until I get sick again? How long do I have to live before your poison kills me?"

Owen's confused gaze flitted from one angry face to another. "But if you do as I ask, as is your duty, you will be fine. I promise. You saw that I brought you the antidote. I don't wish to harm you. That is not my intent-I swear."

Kahlan could only think of Richard in crushing pain, unable to breathe.

It had been terrifying. She couldn't think of anything else but him going through it again, only this time never to wake.

"How long?" Richard repeated.

"But if you only-"

"How long!"

Owen licked his lips. "Not a month. Close to it, but not a month, I believe."

Kahlan tried to push Richard away. "Let me have him. I'll find out-"

"No." Cara pulled Kahlan back. "Mother Confessor," she whispered, "let Lord Rahl do as he must. You don't know what your touch would do to one such as he."

"It might do nothing," Kahlan insisted, "but it might still work, and then we can find out everything."