The Third Kingdom (46 page)

Even so, he had seen the kind of emotion the half people could exhibit when attacking those who did have souls. Then, they could be frenzied, mad, maniacal killers obsessed with devouring human flesh.

With an escort of what looked to be hundreds of Shun-tuk following behind like hungry animals hoping for a meal, Vika led Richard through a maze of chambers and passageways honeycombed through the heavily cratered and pitted rock. Behind them, the silent, ever-present awakened dead followed, lumbering stiffly along, ready to fight on command to stop any threat.

In places the tunnels and passageways through the craggy rock led them lower, descending down into a series of natural caverns that grew in complexity and size. Passages and openings seemed to run in every direction. Some of the smoother passages looked to have been sculpted by flowing water. There seemed to be even more of the silent, ghostly white onlookers in every hole or pocket in the rock.

Passing under a low opening where they had to duck under a leaning slab of rock that had apparently fallen and lodged against the walls to either side, they at last entered a vast chamber that appeared to be their destination. The arched sides and domed roof were different colors of tan, browns, and white struck through with rusty stains. Off in the distance to the sides near networks of holes and crevices riddling the outer walls, immense tapered columns hung from the ceiling above forests of their twins pointing up from below them.

The enormous, hushed chamber was packed full with what must have been thousands of silent half people. The vast numbers of chalky white Shun-tuk stood anywhere they could find space—on rocks, shelves, and ledges—covering every inch of available space. Yet more dark eyes peered out from corridors all around the cavern, or from jagged openings and fissures in the walls. They watched from behind tapered columns of what looked like melted stone. Higher up, Richard could see them looking down from yawning holes leading to other chambers. In the light of hundreds of torches Richard could see some of the walls sparkle as if adorned with shimmering jewels.

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.”

“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.

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.