The Third Kingdom

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.

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.