The Third Kingdom

“Are you sure that he wasn’t the Keeper himself brought to life?” Samantha asked, sarcastically, as she folded her arms.

“He was just a man,” Richard said. “A man like so many others who in one way or another, whether they have been aware of it or not, have been devoted to death.

“I guess he was simply more shameless about it than most madmen. Naja says, in fact, that he believed the act of bringing death to so many and on such a grand scale was a transcendent experience.”

Samantha threw up her hands. “This sounds so deluded that I can’t even fathom it. But the thing that really confuses me is why people would believe in such a madman and fight for his crazy cause. I mean, I’m not even grown-up yet, and I can see that this is lunacy.”

Richard turned from the account on the wall. “There are plenty of people drawn to such a way of life. Following such a leader gives them license to be savages themselves, to be an anonymous thug and take what they have been told they are entitled to. Some people find it intoxicating to have the power and permission to destroy others.

“But that’s really beside the point. The point is that Sulachan was powerful enough to bring about immense destruction and loss of life. Even if he was deluded and his ideas were crazy, he, his gifted, and his vast, rampaging armies had the might to bring the world under the darkness of a great war.

“Fortunately, Naja and the people back then seem to have been able to at least create this barrier and contain some of the most menacing creations of his makers. It has protected the world for a very long time.

“But those half people in the third kingdom, locked away for so long behind the barrier, have over the centuries likely continued growing in numbers. Now they are loose in the world of life. They are now again a problem.”

Samantha, looking more than a little bitter, folded her arms. “You mean they’re our problem.”

“Our problem,” Richard agreed with a nod. “All that really matters now is that the creations of Sulachan’s wizards in those ancient times have now once again been unleashed against the world. If we don’t figure out how to stop them, then we will be the ones who are wiped out.”

CHAPTER

28

Samantha paced in nervous agitation while Richard read ahead in Naja’s account on the wall. He could sense the anguish in that account by the way the mysterious woman from so long ago went to great pains to ensure that future generations would understand the reasons behind the fears of the people back in her time and their horror at what had descended on them at the hands of so evil a man.

They knew that life for the people of the New World would become one long dark night of terror if the half people were not stopped or somehow contained. It was obvious that she wanted to make sure that all those who came after her would also appreciate the danger that was locked away behind the barrier.

“Dear spirits,” he murmured to himself.

“What?” she asked, having heard the comment he hadn’t realized he’d said aloud.

Richard took a deep breath at the description of the grim specifics. “Well, Naja says here that the half people began hunting for souls to replace the one they no longer had.”

Samantha paused in her pacing and turned back to him. “Hunting for souls? What is she talking about?”

Richard squinted in concentration, making sure of the translation before he went on with the account. “According to this, not having a soul drove the half people into a form of insanity that compelled them to hunt those who did have a soul in the hopes of taking that soul for themselves.”

Richard abruptly paused in surprise.

“And…?” Samantha asked when he fell silent.

“And … they ate any living people they could catch in an attempt to take possession of their soul. Such an effort was futile, according to Naja, but that didn’t stop the half people from continuing to try.”

Samantha rushed closer. “They eat living people? Are you sure that’s what it says?”

Richard nodded. “It was an unintended consequence of the process used in creating the half people. The unanticipated behavior developed suddenly, Naja says, not long after they were stripped of their souls to make them into these living weapons for Sulachan. They unexpectedly became so compelled by a deranged need for a soul to replace the one they had lost that it overrode everything else. Although they had been created as weapons, they became uncontrollable. Despite all the efforts by the wizards who had been in charge, the half people were driven by a frenzied need for a soul.

“Driven by this mad, single-minded lust to consume the living, they can’t comprehend that this thirst for a soul is impossible to quench. She says they would hunt alone but often they would congregate in order to coordinate a more effective attack on the living.”

“You mean they started hunting in numbers? Like packs of wolves?”