Terry Goodkind - Phantom - Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

“But once everything of value is plundered, what will be left of their lives? By their contempt for the magnificent and disdain of all that is good, they embrace the petty and the crude. By their rabid hatred for any man who excels, the beliefs of the Order will doom all men to grubbing in the muck to survive.

“The unwavering view of mankind’s inherent wickedness will be the collective faith. That belief, enforced through ruthless brutality and unspeakable hardship, will be their enduring high-water mark. Their legacy will be mankind’s descent into a dark age of suffering and misery from which it may never again emerge. That is the terror of the Order—not death, but life under their beliefs.” Shota’s words cast a pall over the room. “The dead, after all, can’t feel, can’t suffer. Only the living can.”

Shota turned to the shadows, where Nathan stood. “And what say you, prophet? Does prophecy say it otherwise, or do I speak the truth?”

Nathan, tall and grim, answered quietly. “As far as the Imperial Order goes, I’m afraid that prophecy can offer no testimony to the contrary. You have aptly and succinctly described several thousand years of forewarning.”

“Such ancient works are not easily understood,” Ann cut in. “The written word can be quite ambiguous. Prophecy is not a subject for the inexperienced. To the untrained it can seem—”

“I sincerely hope that is a judgment based on a shallow opinion of my looks, Prelate, and not my talent.”

“I was only . . .” Ann began.

Shota dismissively flicked a hand as she turned away. Her gaze settled on Richard, as if he were the only one in the room. She spoke as if addressing him alone.

“Our lives may be the last lives lived free. This may very well be the end for all time of the best of what can be, of striving for values, of the potential for each of us to rise up and achieve something better. If the course of events does not change, then we are now witnessing the dawn of the worst of what can be, of an age where, lest anyone dare live better through their own effort and for their own ends, mankind will be reduced to living the Order’s idealized lives of ignorant savages.”

“We all know that,” Richard said, hands fisted at his sides. “Don’t you understand how hard we’ve been fighting to prevent that very thing? Don’t you have any idea of the struggle we’ve all endured? Just what do you think I’ve been fighting for?”

“I don’t know, Richard. You claim to be committed, and yet you have failed to change the course of events, failed to stem the tide of the Imperial Order. You say that you understand, yet still the invaders come, subjugating more and more people with every passing day.

“But even that is not what this is about. It is about the future. And in the future, you are failing us.”

Richard could hardly believe what he was hearing. He wasn’t just angry but appalled that Shota would say such a thing. It was as if everything he had done, every sacrifice he had made, every effort, was meaningless to her—not only now, but in the future.

“You have come to tell me your prophecy that I will fail?”

“No. I have come to tell you that the way it now stands, unless you change things, we will all fail in this fight.”

Shota turned from Richard and lifted an arm up toward Nicci. “You have shown him the dull, numb death that is all that can result from the beliefs held by the Order. You have shown him the bleak existence that is all there is under their dogma, that life’s only value is in how much of it you sacrifice, that your life’s only purpose is a means to an otherworldly end: a lifeless eternity in the next world.

“In that, you have done us all a great service and you have our gratitude. You have truly fulfilled your role as Richard’s teacher, even if it was not in the way you had expected. But that, too, is only a part of it.”

Richard didn’t see how his captivity—being made to live a harsh life down in the Old World—could be regarded as a service. He hadn’t needed to live through it to understand the hopeless futility of life under the rule of the Imperial Order. He didn’t dispute one word Shota had said about what would befall them if they didn’t prevail, but he was angered that she seemed to think that he needed to hear it again, as if he did not grasp what they were fighting for and as a result was failing to be fully committed to their cause.

Richard didn’t know how it happened, because he had not seen her move, but Shota was suddenly right before him, her face mere inches from his.

“And yet, you are still not cognizant of the totality of it, still not resolved in a way that is essential.”

Richard glared at her. “Not resolved? What are you talking about?”

“I needed to find a way to make you understand, Seeker, to make you see the reality of it. I needed to find a way to make you see what is in store for the people of not just the New World, but the Old World as well—what is in store for all of mankind.”

“How could you possibly think that I—”

“You are the one, Richard Rahl. You are the one who leads the last of the forces that resist the ideas that fuel the conflagration that is the Imperial Order. For whatever reasons, you are the one who leads us in this struggle. You may believe in what you fight for, but you are not doing what is necessary to change the course of the war or else what I see in the flow of events forward in time would not be as it is.

“As it now stands, we are doomed.

“You need to hear what is going to be the fate of your people, the fate of all people. So I went to Galea to find Jebra so that she could tell you what she has seen. So that a Seer can help you to see.”

Richard thought that maybe he should have been angry at the lecture, but he could no longer summon anger; it was slipping away. “I already know what will happen if we fail, Shota. I already know what the Imperial Order is like. I already know what awaits us if we lose in this struggle.”

Shota shook her head. “You know what it is like after. You know what it is like to see the dead. But the dead can no longer feel. The dead can’t scream. The dead can’t cry in terror. The dead can’t beg for mercy.

“You know what it is like to see the wreckage the morning after the storm. You need to hear from one who was there when the storm broke. You need to hear what it was like when the legions came. You need to hear the reality of what it will be like for everyone. You need to know what will happen to those alive if you fail to do what only you can do.”

Richard glanced up at Jebra. Zedd’s comforting arm encircled her shoulders. Tears ran down her ashen face. She trembled from head to toe.

“Dear spirits,” Richard whispered, “how can you be so cruel as to think for an instant that I don’t already know the truth of our fate should we lose?”

“I see the flow of the future in this,” Shota said in a quiet voice meant for him alone. “And what I see is that you have not done enough to change what will be, or else it would not be as I see it. It is as simple as that. There is no cruelty involved, simply truth.”

“Just what is it you expect me to do, Shota?”

“I don’t know, Richard. But whatever it is, you are not doing it, now, are you? As we all slide into unimaginable horror, you are doing nothing to stop it. You are instead chasing phantoms.”

Richard wanted to tell Shota a thousand things. He wanted to tell her that the Imperial Order was hardly the only threat bearing down on them. He wanted to tell her that with the boxes of Orden in play, if not stopped, the Sisters of the Dark would unleash power that would destroy the world of life and give everyone over to the Keeper of the Dead. He wanted to tell her that if they didn’t find a way to reverse the Chainfire spell it could very well reap the destruction of everyone’s memories and minds, robbing them of their means of survival. He wanted to tell her that if they didn’t find a way to purge the world of the contamination left by the chimes, then all magic would be extinguished, and that contamination could very well have already engendered a cascade effect that, if not halted, had the potential, all by itself, to destroy all life.