The Third Kingdom

Richard returned to the wall, scanning the progression of symbols and designs, looking for something about souls. As he read in silence, Samantha walked on ahead, her footsteps echoing through the hall as she dragged a hand along the stone, gazing at the symbols she couldn’t understand, but was now starting to see in a new light.

“Lord Rahl,” she called back.

Richard, concentrating on the symbols, glanced back to where she had a finger pressed to the wall. “What is it?”

“I think there’s a name here.”

“A name? Are you sure?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said as she leaned closer to the wall, “but it’s not a symbol. I think it must be a name carved into the stone. It says ‘Naja.’”

“Naja?” Richard was surprised that she could read something on the wall.

“Yes, right here. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. I guess I never noticed it because it’s so small, and it’s almost lost in the crazy swirl of designs.”

Richard scanned the wall off to the right of where Samantha stood holding a finger under the name. The area was slightly different than the rest of the carving on the corridor walls. The lines etched into the smooth stone of the wall stood out in stark relief in the glow of the glass sphere. They were packed tighter, into their own section, creating what was a block of symbols unto themselves. The section created a core among the expanse of symbols flowing out around it.

Richard looked above Samantha’s slender finger resting on the wall. There was indeed what looked to be the name Naja carved into the wall. After the name he saw a crescent with three rays below it cut into the stone—the symbol for the word “moon.”

“What do you suppose it means?”

Richard quickly translated some of the other symbols. “You’re right. It is a name. The first part can’t be written in the language of Creation, only the second part can.”

“So what’s the name, then?”

“Naja Moon.”

“That’s a beautiful name,” Samantha said as she considered the sound of it, “but what do you suppose it’s doing here?”

Richard was only half listening. He was already looking for the answer to that very question. He scanned the symbols to confirm his initial impression.

“This is a personal account,” he said half to himself, half to Samantha.

“A personal account?”

Richard straightened. “That’s right.”

Gazing at all the symbols, Samantha slowly shook her head in wonder. She pointed, then, a little farther into the maze of symbols.

“Look over here—there’s another name. Magda Searus.”

Richard’s knees grew weak under the weight of meaning behind that name. Goose bumps rippled up his arms at seeing it written there in the stone, written in such a far-off, lonely, forgotten land.

Samantha frowned with concern when she saw the look on his face. “Lord Rahl, what’s wrong? Does that name mean something to you?”

“Magda Searus was the first Confessor.”

“The first Confessor. You mean Magda Searus was a Confessor like your wife?”

Richard touched his fingertips to his temples as he stared at the name from legend.

“That’s right,” he said at last. “Magda Searus was the very first of her kind, the first woman to become a Confessor. It all began with her.” Richard pointed after her name at another: Merritt. “Merritt was her wizard, her protector, much like I am Kahlan’s protector.”

Samantha looked back at the names and shook her head in wonder. “The first…” She looked back at him. “What does it say about them?”

Richard’s fingers reverently brushed the names and then the following emblems incised into the stone. “It says that this is Naja Moon’s firsthand account, set down here at the behest of Magda Searus and Wizard Merritt so that all those who come after would never forget.”

Samantha swallowed. “I’m shamed to say that our people have forgotten.” She looked up at him hopefully. “So, can you read it then? Can you read the account so that it might once again be known?”

Richard cleared his throat as he found the beginning and started working out the translation. Right there at the beginning of the account, he found another name—Sulachan—tangled in among the symbols.

“I says that Emperor Sulachan’s makers—”

“Emperor Sulachan? Who is that, and what is a maker?”

Richard shook his head. “It doesn’t say, exactly, but by what comes next it appears that makers were wizards of some sort.” He tapped a finger against the next complex of designs. “It says here that Sulachan, emperor of the Old World, commanded his makers to develop new and powerful weapons for use in their war against the New World. It says that in doing his bidding they created terrible new spells for him.”

Richard felt an icy chill at realizing that the war he had fought against Emperor Jagang and the Old World had first been ignited here, in Naja Moon’s time, in Magda and Merritt’s time. It was a time of the creation of some of most terrifying spells ever conceived. That same, distant age was also the time when the spells creating the first Confessor had been constructed.