Terry Goodkind - The Third Kingdom

The floor of the immense chamber sloped downward toward the center, so that the Shun-tuk all crowded in together created what looked like a vast, white bowl.

Richard could see Hannis Arc, standing out in his dark robes, down in the center of that milky basin.

Even at a distance Richard could see the man’s red eyes watching Vika in her red leather leading Richard into the cavern. The Shun-tuk shuffled back out of the Mord-Sith’s way as she walked without pause, expecting them to move, as she led Richard downward toward where her master waited.

In the center of the room, behind Hannis Arc, rose a platform to the height of his hips. It looked like a stone altar that had melted into soft yellow and tan shapes, almost like drippings of candle wax that had mounded up over time.

As he got close enough, Richard could see that there was a small, withered corpse lying on the rock platform.

Torches all around, popping and hissing, giving off pungent clouds of smoke, lit the desiccated cadaver. As he got closer, Richard saw that the body was mummified and looked ancient. Dark, hardened skin stretched over the nose and face so that the bones of the skull created a clearly discernible skeletal topography beneath the leathery skin.

The carcass looked like it had ossified over millennia. It was hard to tell from the shrunken husk what the once-living person had actually looked like.

Richard could see traces of whitish residue on the leathery skin. It looked like ashes or white pigment of some sort might have been rubbed onto the body at one time, likely as it had been prepared for preservation after death. Thin lips had pulled back from the teeth, giving the skull a grin. The sunken eye sockets showed indications that dark oils had once been rubbed around the eyes, so that now the sunken sockets were even darker than they otherwise might have been.

The Shun-tuk, with their ash-rubbed bodies, dark-circled eyes, and painted-on toothy grins, looked like they were paying ghastly homage by trying to mimic the look of the shriveled corpse.

As Richard got closer, he could see that the body was partially wrapped in what looked to have once been an elaborate ceremonial costume and was now little more than darkly discolored remnants of cloth decorated with gold and silver medallions strung together with precious stones. The robes lay open from the neck to the waist, exposing a skeletal rib cage.

Taking a better look, Richard realized that the dark stains on the robes were from dried blood.

Relatively fresh blood.

When he glanced down, he saw that blood also covered the floor all around the platform in the center of the cavern. It looked like something had been butchered.

“Welcome, to the momentous ceremony,” Hannis Arc said.

When Richard didn’t answer, Hannis Arc lifted a tattooed hand around at the crowd watching. “These people have long awaited the arrival of fuer grissa ost drauka , for prophecy has promised that he will be the one to resurrect their king.”

At the mention of the king, all the Shun-tuk in the enormous chamber went to their knees. The rustling sound of them all kneeling in concert echoed around the room, dying out slowly in a hushed whisper of knees against stone.

“And what are you doing here in their land?” Richard asked.

“With my help, the ancient gates that for so long held them captive in this place have at long last been broken open, finally enabling them to bring in the living, those with souls, to help in returning life to their beloved king, the king of the third kingdom who will become the king of the world of life and death united in one purpose.”

“In other words,” Richard said, “they are trying to use the blood of living people with souls to bring life back to a corpse, and it isn’t working the way they had hoped.”

Hannis Arc smiled in a way that distorted the tattooed symbols on his face. “Not a very generous way to put it, but essentially correct. In their ignorance, they believed that the blood of those with souls—strong soldiers for example—would again give strength to their king, and that the blood of the gifted would give him back his powers in the world of life. In their simplistic grasp of ancient lore, they thought that if they drenched their king in the warm blood of people with souls, then it would bring warmth and life to him.”

“That’s it?” Richard thought there had to be more to it. “You’re saying they believed that by simply pouring blood over a corpse it would come back to life?”

“Well,” Hannis Arc admitted with a gesture, “there was more to the procedure. Although they didn’t fully understand the process, they weren’t quite as ignorant as you make it sound.

“Along with the living blood from those with souls, they were to add in the vital component of occult conjuring their kind had been taught since ancient times before they were banished, conjuring long forgotten by the rest of the world. Such spells and incantations have long fallen into disuse and have been largely forgotten by the outside world, but not here. All they lacked was the blood of those with souls, and now they have it.”

“I don’t know,” Richard said, “he still looks dead to me.”

Only Hannis Arc’s red eyes betrayed his annoyance. The smile, as insincere as it was, remained in place. But even though it was hard to tell because of the way their faces were covered in pale ash and dark circles that made their eyes look like hollow sockets, there was no mistaking the silent displeasure on the faces of all the Shun-tuk watching.

“They were closer to the truth than you might think. Unfortunately,” Hannis Arc said as he gestured to the masses, “they lacked access to prophecy, or they would know better.”

“Prophecy?”

“Yes. You see, they had lost the living link to those who knew the old ways and could bring them the prophetic knowledge necessary to assist in their ancient task. Those who banished them to this forsaken land stripped them of any who might possess knowledge of prophecy. They were left as children, thirsting for knowledge but it was beyond their grasp.”

He lifted an arm and signaled for someone to come forward. One of the bare-chested Shun-tuk women rushed down with a small pot, a bit like a teapot, suspended on a chain decorated with what looked to be gold-covered human teeth. She poured liquid from the pot into a half-dozen flat bowls set around the corpse. Another woman followed behind with a flaming splinter, lighting the fluid. Slowly wavering blue flames sprang up, giving off a pungent, yellowish smoke. Both women bowed to the corpse of the king before rushing away.

“So,” Richard said, “I take it that they have been missing your leadership for all this time.” He met Hannis Arc’s gaze. “And, I would bet, some other important element.”

Hannis Arc smiled again, but it was not what could be described in any way as a pleasant smile. “Oh yes. They have waited all this time for someone who understands how such occult procedures would have once been practiced.”

“Such as all those spells and instructions tattooed all over you,” Richard said, gesturing, “all those ancient symbols in the language of Creation.”

The man smiled as he arched an eyebrow. “So you know something of these sacred writings.”

“I’ve run into them before,” Richard said without saying much. “So, without you, these ‘children’ have been endlessly pouring a whole lot of blood over a corpse for nothing.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But you know what they might have been missing.”

“Precisely what they have been missing,” Hannis Arc said with a small bow of his head. “Prophecy dictates that for this to work properly, it requires something extraordinary.”