The Third Kingdom

That was the balance that magic needed for the terror conceived and loosed on the world.

Richard was seeing an account of the birth of a war that had caused unimaginable suffering and death. It was the beginning of a struggle for domination that had raged across the millennia. The flames of that war had never entirely died out but instead smoldered for thousands of years only to reignite in Richard’s time.

It had begun in the time of the first Confessor and her wizard, Merritt, and reignited into full fury again in the time of the last living Confessor, Kahlan, and her wizard, Richard.

This account was from that time when Kahlan’s Confessor power was born.

CHAPTER

25

“These makers mentioned here must be wizards who made things with magic,” Samantha was saying, bringing him out of his thoughts. “I’ve heard my aunts talking about how wizards make constructed spells. It must be that Naja is talking about constructed spells.”

Richard cast Samantha a look. “No, not constructed spells, at least not at first, not at this stage. First, they made new forms of magic itself. Later they then used those new forms in constructed spells. They also used new forms of magic to create weapons out of people.”

Her mouth dropped open. “They changed people into weapons?”

Richard nodded. “Terrible weapons, like Emperor Jagang from the Old World. His ancestors were weapons first created back in Naja’s time. They were called dream walkers.”

“Really?” she whispered in wonder. “My mother never taught me of such things.”

“Not a lot of people in our time knew of such things from that ancient war. Some of us learned about them after that war started up again. We were all pretty horrified to learn about such weapons.”

“But how are new forms of magic possible in the first place? I thought that magic was magic, that it was always the same, and that we must learn how it works. I never heard anyone say that it’s possible to make new kinds of magic.”

Despite appreciating her endearing curiosity, Richard was too distracted by the appalling nature of what he was learning to want to get into it right then, so he simply said, “Yes, it’s possible.”

“Does it say what kinds of new magic they created?”

Richard’s brow lowered as he looked down at her. “Samantha, let me decipher more of it and I’ll tell you.”

Her head sank between her shoulders a bit. “Sorry.”

Richard went back to translating the story. “It says the makers developed spells to use the dead—”

“Use the dead! Are you serious? Use them for what?”

“It says they were used as warriors, of sorts. Through these new spells, corpses were awakened from what was called their death sleep and made to serve the emperor’s cause.”

Samantha clutched his forearm. “You mean like those monsters that attacked us the other night? Those creatures that looked like corpses pulled from graves and brought back to life?”

“Apparently.” Richard shook his head at the ghastly account he was seeing written in the stone. “It says that by altering elements within the Grace, the emperor’s makers learned how to manipulate the spirits of the dead in the underworld—”

“Why would they do that?” Samantha interrupted yet again, impatient for him to translate faster.

He waved a hand to silence her so he could finish studying a grouping of symbols before continuing. She sighed and waited quietly.

Richard wiped a hand across his brow. “It says that they invested powerful magic into dead bodies while at the same time using Subtractive Magic on their spirits in the underworld, in that way linking those spirits back to their worldly remains.”

Samantha hugged her arms to herself as if feeling a sudden chill. “I never imagined that such things were even possible.”

Richard hadn’t either. He translated another line before continuing to explain. “This says they were able to do it by manipulating that connection in the Grace—the spark of the gift—that runs from creation, through life, and into death, connecting it all. In this way they were able to create walking dead that had no will of their own. These reanimated corpses were given a purpose by those who had awakened them.

“It says that in this way Sulachan’s makers were able to create an army of bloodless, relentless, remorseless killers. It says that when awakened from their death sleep in this way, they don’t know hunger, pain, fear, or pity. They never get weary. They don’t ever retreat. They have no ambition but the one given them, and they can’t be killed because they are already dead.

“It says here that the dead could be animated as needed. When awakened they are tirelessly committed to their purpose. The magic that drives them also gives them terrible strength. They are so strong they can tear people limb from limb.”

“That certainly sounds like what we saw the other night,” Samantha said.