Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Nicci shook her head, dismissing the idea. "It's not so feasible as it might seem. The gifted might be able to take out a large number of the enemy and for a time create havoc, but even this expeditionary force has sufficient numbers to withstand any attack by the gifted. Zedd, for example, could use wizard's fire to mow down ranks of soldiers, but as he paused to conjure more the enemy would be sending wave upon wave of men at him. They might lose a lot of men, but they are not deterred by staggering casualties. They would keep coming. They would throw rank after rank of men into the conflagration. Despite how many would die, they would soon enough overwhelm even one as talented as the First Wizard. And then where would we be?

"Even something as simple as a band of archers could take down a gifted person." She glanced at Richard. "All it takes is one arrow finding its mark, and a gifted person will die the same as any other."

Zedd spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. "I'm afraid that Nicci is right. In the end, the Order would be in the same place with the same result, even if with fewer men. We, on the other hand, would be without those with the gift that we sent against them. They can replenish their troops with nearly endless reinforcements, but there will be no legions of gifted coming to our aid. As callous as it may seem, our only chance lies not with throwing our lives away in a futile battle that we know has no chance of success, but with being able to come up with something that has a real chance to work."

Richard wished that he believed that there was some solution, some plan, that had a real chance to work. He didn't think, though, that there was any chance that they could do anything other than prolong the end.

Jebra nodded, her glimmer of hope sparking out. The deep creases that lent a sagging look to her face along with the lasting web of wrinkles at the corners of her blue eyes made her look older than Richard suspected she really was. Her shoulders were slightly rounded, and her hands rough and callused from hard labor. Even though the men of the Order had not killed her, they had sapped the life out of her, leaving her forever scarred by what she had been through and what she'd been forced to witness. How many others were there, like her, alive but forever withered under the brutality of the occupying forces, hollow shells of their former selves, alive on the outside but lifeless inside?

Richard felt dizzy. He could hardly believe that Shota would bring Jebra all this way to convince him of how terrible the Order really was. He already knew the truth of their brutality, of the nature of their threat. He'd lived for nearly a year in the Old World under the repression of the Order. He had been there at the start of the revolt in Altur'Rang.

Jebra's firsthand testimony, if anything, was only helping to convince him of what he already knew — that they didn't stand a chance against Jagang and the Imperial Order forces. The entire D'Haran Empire would probably have been able to stop the unit that had descended upon Galea, but that was nothing compared with the main army of the Imperial Order.

Back when he'd first met Kahlan he'd fought hard to stop the threat to everyone brought by Darken Rahl. As difficult as it had been, Richard had been able to end that threat by eliminating Darken Rahl. He knew, though, that this threat was different. As much as he hated Jagang, Richard knew that he could not think of this in the same terms as the last battle. Even if he could somehow kill Jagang, that would not stop the menace of the Imperial Order. Their cause was monolithic, ideological, not driven by the ambitions of one individual. That was what made it all seem so hopeless.

Shota's vision — what she foresaw in the flow of time as the world's hopeless future if they failed to do something to stop the Imperial Order — certainly didn't seem to Richard to have required any great talent or special sight. He didn't need to be a prophet to see how dire a threat the Order was. If not stopped, they would rule the world. Jebra, in that sense, had told him nothing new, nothing that he didn't already know.

Richard recognized all too well that, the way things stood, when the forces of the D'Haran Empire finally met Jagang's army in the final battle, those brave men, who were all that stood in the Order's way, were all going to die. After that, there would be no opposition to the Imperial Order. They would rampage unchecked and in the end they would rule the world.

Shota was far from stupid, so she obviously knew all that, and had to know that he would know it as well.

So, he wondered, why was she really there?

Despite his dark mood over Jebra's frightening account of what she had seen, Richard had to think that Shota very likely had some other reason for her visit.