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She felt tears sting at her eyes at the memory of all the times she had tried to force Richard to join her in service to their vile cause and how, instead, he had shown her something noble. She swallowed back a sob at how much she missed him, missed the light in his eyes.
The sight below made the silence up on the platform seem all the more bleak. These men, these millions of men spread out across the plain, were all there for one purpose: to kill everyone in the People’s Palace, anyone who opposed the rule of the Order. This was their last obstacle to imposing their beliefs on all of mankind.
Nicci stared out at the ramp rising up in the distance. It was larger than the last time she’d seen it. Beyond the ramp she could just make out scars in the ground where the material for the ramp was being dug. The top slope of the ramp aimed in a straight line right for the top of the plateau. Even though it was getting dark, there were snaking lines of men carrying dirt and rock to the construction site.
If anyone described such an undertaking to her she doubted that she would believe it was possible, but seeing it was different. Seeing it filled her with dread. It was only a matter of time until that ramp was completed and the dark sea of the Imperial Order flooded up it to assault the palace.
Standing at the edge of the platform, hugging her shoulders tightly, she knew that she was looking out onto more than a dark army. Nicci knew that she was looking out on a thousand years of darkness.
Having been a Sister of the Dark, and having been raised under the teachings of the Fellowship of Order, she knew, perhaps better than anyone, just how real the threat was. She knew how vehemently the followers of the Order believed in their cause. Their faith defined them. They were more than willing to die for it. After all, death was their goal; they had been promised glory in the afterlife. They believed that this life was only a test, a means to gain entry into everlasting life. If the Order required them to die, then they would die. If the Order required that they kill those who did not believe, then they would make the world a sea of blood.
Nicci understood precisely what it would mean for everyone if the Order won this war. It was not the army that would bring those thousand years of darkness, but the ideas that had spawned that army. Those ideas would cast the world into a living nightmare.
“Nicci, there is something you need to know about,” Nathan said, breaking the uneasy silence.
Nicci folded her arms and glanced over at the prophet. “What’s that, Nathan?”
“We’ve been studying books of prophecy here at the People’s Palace. Just like all the books of prophecy everywhere else, the Chainfire spell has caused sections of these books, sections that apparently touch on Kahlan, to vanish. But there is still useful information as of yet untouched by Chainfire. Some of those books are new to me. They’ve helped me to connect things I’ve read about in the past. They’ve helped me to see the larger picture.”
With the Chainfire spell having erased so much of their memories, she didn’t know how he could know if he really was seeing the larger picture—or how she could know if she was. Instead of saying so, Nicci waited silently, the cold wind ruffling her hair, watching Nathan look away to gaze out at the forces spread out across the Azrith Plain below.
“There is a place in the prophecies, a cardinal root, that leads to a determinative fork,” he said at last. “Beyond that fork, down one of its two branches, is a place the prophecies call the Great Void.”
Nicci frowned into her recollections. There had always been a great deal of speculation surrounding that portion of prophecy.
“I’ve heard mention of it,” she said. “Do you finally know what that means?”
“One of the two branches after that crucial fork leads to areas of yet more branches, offshoots, and forks farther on.” Nathan flicked his wrist offhandedly, as if indicating those things unseen to anyone but him. “There are a few books of prophecy that I’ve been able to identify as having to do with issues that lie beyond on that branch. I’m sure that a concerted search would reveal others. So, you might say that down that fork lies the world as we know it.”
He tapped the palm of one hand on the railing as he gathered his thoughts. “On the other branch of that mantic root lies only the Great Void. There are no books of prophecy for what lies beyond. That is the reason it is called the Great Void. You might say that there is nothing on that branch for prophecy to see—no magic, no world as we know it, and thus no prophecy to illuminate it.”
He cast her a brief glance. “That is the world the Imperial Order wants. If they take us down that fork, mankind will go forever into the unknown of the Great Void, a place without magic and thus without prophecy.
“Some of my predecessors have speculated that since there is no prophecy for what lies beyond, it could only mean that the Great Void augurs the end of everything, the end of all life.”
Nicci could find no words. She didn’t think that there could be anything but darkness if the Order won, so this news wasn’t really all that surprising to her.
“From the books here that I have been studying, from the information they have given me—and from recent events—I have been able to fix us on the chronology of this prophetic root.”
Nicci’s gaze darted to the wizard. “Are you sure?”
Nathan held a hand out toward the army below. “Jagang’s army being here as they are, surrounding us, is one of a number of events that tells me that we are now on the cardinal root that takes us toward that fateful fork.
“I’ve known for centuries about the Great Void being in prophecy, but I didn’t know if it was significant because I was never sure precisely where it fit in the chronology of prophecy. As far as I knew it was always possible that we might end up following an altogether different arm of the tree of prophecy, never setting foot in the area containing that particular cardinal root with the Great Void.
“There was always the possibility that the Great Void would turn out to be somewhere beyond any one of hundreds of false forks, down a dead branch on the tree of prophecy. Ages ago, when I first started studying it, it had seemed to me that it would turn out to be nothing more than false prophecy, eventually to be left in the forgotten dust of history along with so much of the other dead wood of the possible things that never came to pass.
“Slowly, though, events have inexorably carried us to where we find ourselves today. I am now sure that we are on that trunk of prophecy, on that particular branch, on that cardinal root, about to encounter the determinative fork.
“You,” Nathan said to Nicci, “have irrevocably placed us there by putting the power of Orden in play in Richard’s name. The boxes of Orden were the final node on the mantic root.
“There is no longer any possibility for mankind but to face that fork.”
CHAPTER 17
Cara stuck her head out of the doorway far enough that the wind coming up the walls of the palace lifted her blond braid. “You mean, if Richard takes us down one of those two forks we will survive, but if he doesn’t, and we go down the other…”
“There is only the Great Void,” Nathan finished for her. He turned back to Nicci, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Do you understand the significance of what I’m telling you?”
“Nathan, I may not know everything that prophecy has had to say about it, but I certainly know what is at stake. The boxes of Orden were put into play by Sisters of the Dark, after all. I hardly see any outcome should they win except for the end of everything good. As far as I can see, Richard is the only one who has a chance to stop that from happening.”
“Quite so,” Nathan said with a sigh. “This is why Ann and I have been
waiting five hundred years for Richard to come into the world. He was the one meant to navigate the forks that would successfully carry us through a dangerous tangle of shrouded knots within prophecy. If he succeeded, which he has so far done, then he is the one who must lead us in this final battle. We’ve known that for a long time, now.”
Nathan rubbed a finger along the side of his temple. “We’ve always understood that the boxes of Orden were the final node upon which this cardinal root forks.”
Nicci frowned as his words sunk in. She suddenly understood.
“That’s where you made the mistake, before,” she said, half to herself.
Ann leaned through the doorway a little, her eyes narrowing. “What?”
“You were tracing the wrong root in prophecy,” Nicci said, even as parts of the puzzle were still falling into place in her own mind. “You were aware of the importance of the boxes of Orden, but your chronology was jumbled and as a result you ended up tracing a false fork. You mistakenly thought that it was Darken Rahl who, by using the boxes of Orden, created the terminal node. You thought it was Darken Rahl who would lead us into the Great Void.”
Understanding the gravity of the mistake, Nicci turned to stare at the former prelate. “You thought that you had to prepare Richard to deal with that threat, thinking it was this fork of prophecy—the one we find ourselves on right now—so you stole The Book of Counted Shadows and gave it to George Cypher, meaning it for Richard when he got older. You thought Darken Rahl was the final battle, the terminal node in prophecy. You wanted Richard to fight Darken Rahl. You thought you were giving him the tools he needed to fight the final battle.
