The Third Kingdom (44 page)

With a fluttering hand, he indicated the long, falling descent from a high place. “You know, the drop, the fall from the cliff. You really must learn to be more careful. Being clumsy and falling like that could get you killed one day. So, what was it like?”

Kahlan could feel her lip swelling and the pain setting in in earnest. She wanted more than anything at that moment to strangle the life out of the man.

“I didn’t like it much.”

He arched an eyebrow in amusement. “Really. And why not?”

Kahlan glanced to the Mord-Sith and then back at him. “It was frightening.”

He let out a brief chuckle. “I imagine it was.” He folded his arms as he leaned back, watching her. “But that was the whole point.”

“It had a point?”

He shrugged. “Of course.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not very good at guessing. Why don’t you tell me what the point was.”

“Why, to scare the life out of you, of course. You were scared nearly to death, weren’t you? You know, right when you were almost at the bottom, when you were about to hit the ground going full speed from a fall from on high?”

“So the point was to scare me? All right. You succeeded. I was scared. Happy?”

He turned his smile on the Mord-Sith. “She still doesn’t understand.”

“She will,” the Mord-Sith said, rocking back and forth as the coach went over a series of bumps. “Eventually.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said with a sigh.

Kahlan sat silently, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her asking what he meant.

“Aren’t you curious?” he finally asked. “Don’t you wonder how I did it?”

Kahlan knew exactly what he was talking about. He was asking if she was curious as to how he had managed to use his gift to stop her fall right before she hit the ground.

Kahlan had grown up around wizards. She knew a lot about magic and what it could do. Those with the gift could lift things, even heavy things, and catch objects that were falling before they hit the ground.

But they couldn’t do that with living things, especially people.

Life somehow interfered with that sort of manipulation. Something about having a soul prevented people from being lifted, except in rare circumstances and for brief periods of time. Even then, it required monumental effort. Otherwise, they would all be able to fly. They had explained the principle to her once, but at the moment it seemed unimportant.

What was important, what was relevant, was how Ludwig Dreier had managed to do it, especially with such precision that he was able to catch her that close to the ground and halt her fall. When she had stopped, her face had been inches from the dirt. he had then smoothly, gently, lowered her to the ground.

It was an appalling, frightful, horrifying experience that had left her shaking like a leaf.

“Yes,” Kahlan said, “as a matter of fact, I am curious. How did you do it? You obviously have the gift, a fact that you kept from us before, at the palace. I’ve never known a wizard who could do such a thing. From what I learned, the gift isn’t able to do something like that.”

He smiled with satisfaction. “Quite right. The gift can’t do such a thing. But you see, I have a different sort of power.”

“The gift is the gift.”

“Well, yes, that is true enough, but those of us like myself and Lord Arc have acquired the additional ability to use occult powers with our gift. The rest of the world simply doesn’t understand the powers we have, or what we can do with those powers.” He gestured out the window. “One of the advantages of living way out here, away from everyone else, is being able to learn such dark crafts from the cunning folk and then develop it into something altogether different, something more than they could ever imagine. But then, they don’t have the gift and so they could never imagine such things.”

“You should be very careful conjuring such dark arts.”

His smile widened again. She was getting tired of seeing it. His gloating seemed to be an end in itself.

“I am not afraid,” he said in a low, dangerous sort of voice.

Kahlan wanted to say that he should be afraid. She decided better of it.

He brightened, then. “But you were afraid. When you fell, I mean. You were afraid.”

“I already told you I was,” Kahlan said as they bounced over a rocky section of the road.

The jolt hurt her abdomen, taking her breath, and made her jaw throb. At least her lip had stopped bleeding.

“That was what I had intended.”

Kahlan renewed the black look. “I would think that you would have long ago outgrown scaring girls.”

The Mord-Sith laughed out loud. “She’s funny.” She looked over at Abbot Dreier. “She’s funny.”

He made a face but otherwise ignored the Mord-Sith. “There is a point to the fear,” he said patiently to Kahlan. “I’m trying to explain my purpose, and in that context the larger purpose of my life’s work.”

Kahlan took a deep breath. She didn’t really want to talk. Since Erika had clouted her across the jaw it hurt to try to talk. She supposed there was no avoiding it.

Besides, she realized that she needed to know what the man was up to, what his “life’s work” was all about, and what he was doing at the abbey. She could tell that it wouldn’t take a lot to encourage him to reveal such things about himself.

“I’m sorry, Abbot, but falling from a cliff and being caught at the last possible instant before smacking the ground is all new to me. I’m afraid that if you have some purpose in doing it, that purpose is lost on me.”

He dispensed with the smile as he leaned in toward her. “Right there, at the end, right at that last instant before you knew with absolute certainty that you were about to die, did you have any revelations? Any last thoughts? Any memories of the meaning of your life? In rare near-death encounters, many people say that they experience in a single instant the entirety of their life—see it all.

“So, I was wondering what your last thoughts were in that final instant before you knew that you were about to die.”

Kahlan had to look away from his eyes. She stared out the window instead, watching the endless expanse of trees and limbs flash past the coach.

“Well?” he asked. “What last thought did you have?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said in a quiet voice without looking at him.

They rode in silence for a moment.

“In that case,” he finally said, “why don’t you explain it to me.”

She knew it was not simple curiosity. It was a request she dared not ignore.

“I experienced the total and complete feelings I have for my husband.”

He held up a finger. “Ah, love.”

She was about to say that he wouldn’t know what love really was, but decided not to waste the effort.

“Well, you see, the thing is,” he went on as he picked at one of his fingernails, “we have learned, through our abilities with occult powers, how to alter that experience.”

Kahlan’s eyes turned to him. “Alter the ‘experience’? The ‘experience’ of death? What do you mean?”

“In that last instant before death—real, certain death, actual death—people experience many different things. They may experience regret, paralyzing fear, love, even the instantaneous memory of the sum of their entire life, as I hear it told. That sort of thing.”

“So?”

“Well, you see, we—by we, I mean I, of course—I have learned through long experimentation and effort how to alter that experience so that those about to pass through the veil and into the world of the dead are able to do something useful for those of us remaining behind in the world of life.”

Kahlan frowned, now sincerely curious.

“Useful? What could you possibly get from people right before they die that is useful to you?”

His smile returned, but this time there was no amusement in it, no gloating. It was as malevolent a look as she had ever seen.

“Prophecy.”

Kahlan was stunned. “Prophecy?”

“Yes. We get prophecy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you see,” he said as he leaned back, “when altered through my abilities near the end of life, that life remaining within a person, the life that is draining away, is altered so that in that last, singular instant when they are crossing over through the veil, for that brief flicker of time when they are still holding on to life and at the same time touching death, rather than seeing their life’s experiences, or feeling some sense of loss, or even feelings of love, they instead, because of the changes I’ve made within them, as they touch the timeless world of the dead they are able to tap into that same flow of time that prophets experience.

“In that extraordinary moment, connected to the convergence of life and death, they are able to see the sweep of time, stand in its flow, and thus give forth prophecy, the same as a genuine prophet.”

Kahlan was horrified. “You think that you can somehow use occult powers to get prophecy out of people as they are dying?”

He shot her a condescending look. “It is a process I created
and developed, thoroughly understand, and control. There is no speculation involved.”

“And you’ve done this before? You intend to do it again?”

“That is the purpose of the abbey. There I use this process to collect prophecies and then deliver them to Lord Arc. Lord Arc uses prophecy, you see, to guide him.”

Kahlan stared in disbelief. “Are you saying that you take people to the abbey and murder them so that they will cry out prophecy to you as they’re dying? You murder people in the hope that with their last dying breath they will give you a prophecy?”

“Murder? No, not exactly. We are harvesting prophecy from the great abyss of eternity. We are reaping what is there for those who know how to obtain it.”

“Through murder.”

He dismissed the charge with a gesture. “The people chosen to help us in this great work are not murder victims. To the contrary. It is an honor for them that they have been chosen to give their lives to such a noble cause. They may not be able to realize that right then, of course, but they are heroic people sacrificing their lives for the benefit of others.”

“That’s madness,” Kahlan whispered.

“Madness? No, not at all,” he said, prickling at the suggestion. “The sacrifice of these few is all done for the greater good of the many. It is brilliant both in its conception and in its execution.”

“ ‘Execution’ is the right word,” Kahlan said. “Execution plain and simple for your twisted cause.”

He gave her a testy look. “You do the same thing.”

“We do no such thing and you know it.”

“You who use prophecy. Those at the People’s Palace use it—those like your husband who collect and hoard the life’s work of prophets who have tapped that great flow of time from beyond, as I am doing, only to keep that precious prophecy in
secret libraries so as to use it to control the lives of others rather than benefit those lives. Those who give prophecy—prophets—are also giving their lives into such prophecy, no less than those at the abbey, and you suck dry that effort for selfish reasons, not for the common good as it is intended by the Creator.”

Kahlan knew better than to say anything.

He leaned forward and pointed a finger at her. “You and Lord Rahl keep prophecy to yourselves in order use it as a weapon to enslave people.

“We, on the other hand, use the prophecy we gather from those who make such a final sacrifice in order to help guide the lives of our people. We use such prophecy to guide the people of Fajin Province, we don’t hide it from them as you and Lord Rahl do for selfish gain. Prophecy rightly belongs to everyone, not just the few.

“And now others in other lands have asked to join with us and benefit from the insights we gain from prophecy.”

Kahlan didn’t bother to try to argue with such madness. She was sick to death of trying to make people understand how prophecy worked, and how it did not work. She was disheartened with the lands that had left the D’Haran Empire to follow Hannis Arc for promises of prophecy freely given to them.

In the end, people believed what they wanted to believe. The truth had very little to do with it.

“You have been chosen to contribute to this great work,” he said at last as he finally leaned back in his seat. “You will in the end be one of those who gives prophecy to those who need it. Because of your renown, prominence, and birthright as a Confessor, we expect remarkable prophecy from you.”

Kahlan glanced at the Mord-Sith and then back at the abbot. “So you’re going to kill me. Big surprise. Evil men have been killing innocent people since the dawn of time.

“You are going to chop off my head, expecting me to babble prophecy first? Fine, just don’t try to convince yourself that I lay my head on the block willingly. It will be a simple act of murder, nothing more, and certainly not noble.”

He dismissed her words with a wave and a sour expression.

“It’s not that simple,” the Mord-Sith said with a knowing smile.

“Not that simple,” Kahlan repeated. “And why not? You said that you kill people so that they will give prophecy right as they’re dying. That may be lunacy, but it is simple lunacy.”

“No, you misunderstand,” she said. “I meant that the process is not that simple.”

“They must be prepared, first,” Abbot Dreier put in with a kind of twisted zeal.

“Prepared? How do you prepare them to be murdered?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Torture.”

Kahlan stared back. “You torture people at the abbey.”

“That is the function of the facility—to process people on their path to giving their gift of prophecy. It is through torture that people are properly brought to that cusp of life and death and held there at the boundary between worlds until they are finally ready to accept into themselves what we offer them.”

Kahlan was incredulous. “What you offer? What could you possibly offer them as you torture them?”

“Release,” the Mord-Sith said.

“Release?” Kahlan asked, still staring at them both in disbelief.

“Release,” Abbot Dreier confirmed. “Only when they willingly embrace the greater good and allow themselves to be the conduit for this gift to mankind, do we release them and allow them the privilege of crossing over into death.”