Terry Goodkind - The Third Kingdom

“And you’re here to provide that extraordinary final ingredient.”

“Actually,” Hannis Arc said as his small smile returned, “it is you who is here to provide the extraordinary final ingredient.”

“With your guidance, of course.”

Hannis Arc shrugged. “Only I, a man who lives the ancient ways, practices the occult arts, and listens to the obscure whispers of prophecy, would be able to understand the larger picture of what this is all about, what was intended when this was all set into motion, and so could provide what they need. Only I would be able to bring the element of prophecy to such a task and thus be able to complete what no one else could.”

“Prophecy,” Richard repeated with a frown. “I get the occult magic, in a strange, sick, ritualistic way—and even the blood. But what does prophecy have to do with any of it?”

Hannis Arc arched an eyebrow. “Prophecy reveals the extraordinary final ingredient that is needed.”

Richard sighed, tired of the game. “And what would that extraordinary final ingredient be?”

“To bring their dead king back to life requires life and death mixed together. It requires fuer grissa ost drauka , the bringer of death, to bring life again to the emperor.”

This time, Richard didn’t say anything.

“Ah,” Hannis Arc said, pleased by what the silence meant. “I see that you are finally beginning to understand your part in all this. These people simply don’t grasp how it all works. They didn’t understand that this doesn’t merely require the blood of the living with a soul.

“Rather, it requires the right blood, blood from one of them, one who is of the third kingdom, one who carries death within him, and yet, has a soul.

“There is only one such person, one such bringer of death. You, Richard Rahl, are the one.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You dismissed my belief in prophecy, but it is my study of prophecy that has once again shown me the way. You are a fool for so easily shunning prophecy, and now it is going to cost you everything, Richard Rahl.”

Richard cried out as Vika, from behind him, drove her Agiel into the base of his skull.

CHAPTER

67

When Richard began to become aware of the world around him again, there was nothing in that world but paralyzed pain, leaving him frozen in place, unable to move. He remembered that shattering, one-of-a-kind pain from having the Agiel pressed into that spot at the base of his skull, but the memory was nothing like the reality of it being done again.

He realized that he was down on his hands and knees, trembling with the shock of what Vika had done to him. His screams still echoed around the otherwise silent cavern. His tears from that all-consuming pain dripped onto the bloody floor beneath him.

As the echo of his scream died out, the Shun-tuk all let out an otherworldly howling that in some odd way felt in tune with the unbearable ringing in his head. It made the air drone and vibrate.

He felt that old, familiar, icy sense of helplessness and despair, the feeling that he had been traveling a very long road and this was all there was when he reached the end of it.

Despite all those around him, for Richard, at that moment, there was only the overpowering pain that gave him the sense of being entirely alone in the world in his own private realm where there was nothing but the wasteland of suffering. Once again he remembered that old longing for death, for that release that would make the pain finally stop.

He fought those feelings of hopelessness, fought the urge to surrender, to give in to it all, the haunting desire to accept death. It felt like that desire had always been there inside him, out of sight, waiting to come out.

Death would at last bring peace, but only for his private suffering. He held on to the lifeline that it would not do anything to help anyone else or to end their suffering.

But his death would deny these half people what they wanted … blood of a living man with a soul to bring back the one who had been so long dead. Richard realized that he was trying to find an excuse to give in to death. Yet in that way, his death really would protect everyone else, so he wondered if it would be right to give in.

Naja’s warning, though, had told him that only he could end the madness of what Emperor Sulachan had started, but only by ending prophecy. If he gave in to death, he would not have the chance to do that, and then, eventually, there would be no hope for anyone.

He was the one.

He was the only one to end the coming terror of the awakened dead and the half people, of the boundary between life and death ripped aside to let death loose in the world of life.

At the same time, he was also the one to bring back their king and free those monsters upon the world.

He was both, he realized. He was life and death together. He was savior and destroyer together.

That, too, had been the warning that Magda Searus had left for him.

Richard watched tears of pain drip down onto the floor of the cave covered with the blood of so many people. Zedd’s blood. Probably Nicci’s, and Cara’s, and those soldiers who had protected him so many times. Those people had come to help him. They had been willing to lay down their lives for him if they had to. In the past, many like them had.

For all those people and more, he couldn’t allow himself to be weak. For them, if not for himself, he had to be strong and endure whatever they did to him so that once beyond the ordeal, he could find a way to help save everyone from what was descending on the world of life. It was up to him to protect their lives in return.

They had been the steel against steel. He now had to be the magic against magic, even if he couldn’t use his gift.

As the ringing in his head subsided, he began to hear the Shun-tuk all around beginning to chant softly in some language Richard didn’t recognize. The haunting sound echoed around the vast chamber, almost making the whole place hum.

In a perverse way, it reminded him of the ancient devotion to the Lord Rahl. It was probably something like that, he guessed, some chant of dedication to their long-dead king.

As the half people chanted softly, Hannis Arc worked over the body of the dead man. He spoke in the same dead language, conjuring things Richard couldn’t imagine. Some of the Shun-tuk brought bowls of oily potions forward. From time to time Hannis Arc dipped a tattooed finger in them and used it to draw symbols on the dead man.

As Richard watched as he recovered, Hannis Arc next drew emblems on the forehead of the corpse. The greasy lines of the design began to glow a dull, yellowish orange, as if lit from within. Hannis Arc lifted his arms, urgently signaling the watching horde, and the Shun-tuk murmured a new chant. As the sound of it built, he bent back over the body.

Richard then saw the most remarkable sight. A sight both so terrifying and spellbinding at the same time that he could not look away.

Hannis Arc’s tattoos began to glow.

As he spoke the words of the dead language, the lines composing different symbols on his body brightened to the same luminous yellow-orange color as the symbol aglow on the forehead of the dead king. First one, then another tattoo brightened for a brief moment only to fade as another began to illuminate from within in a continually rolling, ever-changing series.

Hannis Arc turned to those watching and lifted a hand as he shouted a series of words Richard didn’t recognize.

The coordinated shouts of sacred words in answer to each prompt from the man in the center rumbled through the chamber like thunder.

As Hannis Arc worked, laying down symbols in glowing lines on the body while symbols on his own flesh glowed in sequence as if in response to the symbols he drew, the Shun-tuk began a new chant, a steady beat repeated over and over. Each beat seemed to ignite a different symbol. As the drone of it went on, the sound gradually built until even Richard felt caught up in its power, its perverse majesty.