The Third Kingdom (21 page)

“That leaves peaceful people no choice but to fight for their lives or fall to the blades of madmen. In such a situation, there is no middle ground. There is no such thing as compromise between civilization and savagery. Civilization must always defend itself against savagery or else fall to it.”

“I guess that’s our part in this?”

Richard nodded. “I’ve never wanted to fight, to be in a war, to see good people die, to have to kill. I just wanted to live my life in peace. But others wouldn’t allow me that life of peace. The battles I fight have always been a fight to survive and live in peace, not to conquer. That’s how I came to be here instead of back in Hartland where I grew up.”

He swept his hand past the writing on the wall. “In this case, here, with the people of the New World, it looks as if they had no stomach for fighting and kept out of the conflict as long as possible, but those of the Old World didn’t care that these
people wanted to live in peace. In such a case, the aggressor prevails unless those wanting peace are willing to fight back.

“According to Naja, Emperor Sulachan and his followers were determined to create whatever weapons they needed, no matter how terrifying or deadly, in order to conquer all those who opposed their plans. The reanimated dead and the half people were two such weapons. She says here that Sulachan’s plan was to eventually rule both the living and the dead, from the world of the dead.”

Samantha paced off a few strides in agitation, then retuned. Her mood was as black as her hair. “I can understand a madman starting a fight, I’ve seen such things happen on a very small scale among pigheaded people here in our village, but what you’re describing sounds just plain crazy.” She jabbed a finger at the side of her head. “Crazy, crazy.”

“Naja says the same thing, but she also warns that even if his ideas were as deluded, impractical, or preposterous as many knowledgeable people believed them to be, and even if in the end they did indeed prove to be impossible to carry out, he was willing to slaughter untold numbers of innocent people in the attempt, and that was what mattered to those in his way. The people of the New World were in his way.

“She says that he had no intention of stopping the killing as long as life existed. He believed that in the end, there would be only the reanimated dead and the legions of half people here in the world of life, and he would control their souls forever from the underworld.”

“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.”

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?”

“So it would appear,” Richard told her. “Naja says that at first they rampaged out of control, in the beginning attacking those who had created them and then the troops they had been assigned to serve with before escaping out into the population at large. The half people tore through the ranks of
makers who had created them. The wizard makers who hadn’t been eaten were terrified of their own creation. Many fled.

“For a time, they had no way of stopping them. For a time, the half people owned the night. People quickly learned to lock themselves inside once the sun went down and hope those without souls didn’t come for them in large numbers.

“Fearful whispers called these demonic hunters of souls the unholy half dead.”

“Unholy half dead. That sounds like a pretty good description of them to me,” Samantha said.

Richard agreed. “Naja says that Sulachan’s makers were eventually able to come up with a solution. They modified the magic they had used to create them and directed this need to kill against their enemies—the people here in the New World.”

“Against us?” Samantha asked in alarm.

Richard nodded. “I’m afraid so. She says that the half people, although no stronger than a normal person and nowhere near as strong as the awakened dead, are more dangerous because they are quicker, but more importantly because they still have the ability to think like a predator and hunt those with souls.

“Although stripped of their higher reasoning functions, they learned to amass and attack in overpowering numbers. After the makers gained control and were able to modify the magic used create them, their savage nature and their ability to think was finally turned against Sulachan’s enemies.”

Richard was weary from the effort of translating such complex symbols, but he couldn’t afford to miss anything or to stop. He rubbed his eyes and went on reading.

When he was silent for a time, Samantha shook his sleeve. “What does it say? What are you reading? Speak it out loud.”

Richard let out a deep sigh as he straightened. He gestured vaguely, dismissively, at the wall.

“There’s no new information in this part. It’s just some material describing how the half people kill their victims.”

“I need to know,” Samantha said when he fell silent. “They will come after our people, after me. Don’t try to protect me by keeping me in the dark. It’s no help to be ignorant of the truth. I need to know.”

Richard glanced briefly to the determination in her eyes. He supposed that she was right. He gestured at the description.

“They tear people open, believing the soul they crave is inside. The half people often eat the victim’s insides first because they think the soul resides in them. They drink the blood, fearing that the soul might escape by leaking away. When they aren’t satisfied because they still haven’t been able to get what they crave, they strip all the meat from the bones, devouring every bit of it in an attempt to find and consume the soul they think is hiding somewhere in the still-warm flesh.

“Groups of them will compete for scraps, each hoping to get the soul for themselves. They eat everything—muscle, blood, organs, even the face. They suck the brain out of the skull, or crush it with a rock to get at it. They leave only some of the bowels and the bones, but often crack open larger bones and devour the marrow, still trying to find the elusive soul.”

Samantha looked dumbfounded. “How do they possibly think they can get a soul by eating people?”

“It’s a madness that drives them. It doesn’t make sense to us, but it does to them. They think that souls reside within a person or hide in bodily tissues. They’re looking for that moment when the spirit departs the dying body. They think that at that moment they can devour it, pulling it into themselves for their own. So, they eat everything, hoping to get it while it is hiding in the body, before it can escape the warm flesh.”

Samantha’s eyes grew more liquid. “They are unholy demons.”

“Soulless demons,” Richard agreed. He gestured to the symbols as he went on. “Failure to gain the soul they seek only makes them more frantic, more enraged. The more they kill, the more they fail to be sated, the more obsessed they become to possess a soul.

“Naja says that the half people can sense the presence of a soul, the way a predator can smell blood.”

Samantha grabbed his sleeve again and leaned in. “You mean they can use that ability to track and hunt people?”

Richard nodded. “Naja says that the half people are death itself, with teeth, coming for the living.”

He had to pause to take a breath. The account was graphic and making him sick. He had only given her the highlights so that she would understand what they faced. He judged it enough.

Samantha, looking on the verge of tears, shook her head in horror. “Death with teeth, coming for the living,” she said to herself. “That’s what happened to my father, then. And maybe my mother. If they hadn’t already eaten her alive when they caught her, they would have by now.”

“We don’t know that.” Richard put a hand around the girl’s small shoulders and hugged her against his side. “I’m sorry, Samantha, to have to read this to you.”

She wiped her tears on her sleeve. “A kind lie would hardly serve me well. I’m the only gifted person left here. I need to know the truth of what my people face. I may be too young to really defend them, but I’m all they have.”

Richard understood how she felt. He was terrified for Zedd, Nicci, Cara, and the rest of them. He redoubled his focus on translating the account. Any time he might have left was quickly running out. But he needed to understand what they faced and then go find them.

Richard knew that with his gift corrupted and not working because of the touch of death in him, that meant that his
bond to the people of D’Hara would not work. And if that bond didn’t work, then Cara’s Agiel, like Zedd’s and Nicci’s gift, would not work. Like the rest of them, she was virtually defenseless.

“This is disturbing,” Richard told Samantha. “Naja says that when the emperor’s makers created the half people, their spirits, once pulled from the victim, were not allowed to go to the spirit world. Because of how the spells to reanimate the dead worked, the spirits of those dead are pulled from their place in the underworld. Those spirits, both of the dead and of the half people, are thus kept trapped between realms.

“Unable to get to either the person they were pulled from or go through the veil into the underworld, these lost spirits sometimes drift back in this direction and end up haunting this plane of existence.” Richard looked over at Samantha. “Naja says that not all of them who drift back into the world of life are friendly.”

She made a sour face. “Great.”

Richard could only imagine the vengeful anger of such lost spirits.

The account became more complex with some terms involving magic, both Subtractive and Additive, that Richard didn’t understand. While there were elements describing conjuring that he had never seen before, he was able to grasp the general meaning of what Naja was explaining. And what she was explaining was frightening.