The Sword of Truth -8- Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind

Author:Terry Goodkind
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 0765356856
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2008-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

Icy wind tore at Richard’s and Kahlan’s clothes as they huddled close together at the edge of a thick stand of spruce trees. Low, ragged clouds raced by as if to escape the colossal, dark, swirling clouds building above them. Fat flakes of snow danced in the cold gusts. Richard’s ears burned in the numbing cold.

“What do you think?” Kahlan asked.

Richard shook his head. “I don’t know.” He glanced behind them, back into the shelter of the trees. “Owen, are you sure you don’t know what it is? You don’t have any idea at all?”

The roiling clouds made an ominous backdrop for the imposing statue sitting up on the ridge.

“No, Lord Rahl. I’ve never been here before; none of us ever traveled this route. I don’t know what it could be. Unless...” His words trailed off into the moan of the wind.

“Unless what?”

Owen shrank back, twisting the button on his coat as he glanced to the Mord-Sith on one side of him and Tom and Jennsen on the other. “There is a foretelling—from the ones who gave us our name and protected us by sealing the pass. It is taught that when they gave our empire its name, they also told us that one day a savior would come to us.”

Richard wanted to ask the man just what exactly it was he thought they needed saving from—if they had lived in such an enlightened culture where they were safe from the unenlightened “savages” of the rest of the world. Instead, he asked a simpler question he thought Owen might be able to answer.

“So you think that maybe that’s a statue of him, your savior?”

Owen fidgeted, his shoulders finally working into a shrug. “He is not just a savior. The foretelling also says that he will destroy us.”

Richard frowned at the man, hoping this was not going to be another of his convoluted beliefs. “This savior of yours is going to destroy you. That makes no sense.”

Owen was quick to agree. “I know. No one understands it.”

“Maybe it’s meant to say that someone will come to save your people,” Jennsen suggested, “but he will fail and so only end up destroying them in the attempt.”

“Maybe.” Owen’s face twisted with the displeasure of having to contemplate such an outcome.

“Maybe,” Cara suggested in a grim tone, “it means this man will come, and after seeing your people, decide they aren’t worth saving”—she leaned toward Owen—”and decide to destroy them instead.”

Owen, as he stared up at Cara, seemed to be considering her words as a real possibility, rather than the sarcasm Richard knew them to be.

“I don’t think that is the meaning,” Owen finally told her after earnest consideration. He turned back to Richard. “The foretelling, as it has been taught to us, you see, says, first, that a man will come who will destroy us. It then goes on to say that he is the one who will save us. ‘Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you,’ “ Owen quoted.

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