AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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.
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.
“I’d have to agree with that.” Richard tapped the tightly packed line of symbols. “It also goes along with what it says next. It says that they are so single-minded that if they lose their legs they will not feel it and will instead use their arms to pull themselves after the ones they were sent to kill. I wish I could say that it sounds too preposterous to believe, but I saw that very thing with my own eyes.
“It says they must be hacked to pieces, but warns that magic hardens them so doing so is difficult. That same magic that animates them also protects them, acting as a kind of shield, and makes using most forms of the gift against them virtually useless. It says you can burn them, though, either with normal fire or wizard’s fire.”
“Wizard’s fire. I’ve never seen wizard’s fire. Have you?”
Richard grunted that he had as he concentrated on working out more of the translation. “This says that shields don’t protect against them because shields key off life.”
He gestured back up the corridor. “I was wondering why the shields protecting this area move those large stones out of the way. It struck me as out of the ordinary for shields.”
“Really? In what way?”
“With all the shields I’ve seen before, touching the metal plate allows those with the right gifted ability to pass through the shield without being harmed. Those shields never used anything but magic to block a passageway. Some of them would repel t
hose who don’t belong by using uncomfortable sound, heat, or even tingling pain to keep people from passing, but there are dangerous shields that are strong enough to kill intruders if they continue to try to get through. There were shields that would strip the flesh from your bones if you continued to try to pass after they gave you a warning.
“All those shields used magic. These shields here must use those big stones instead because the dead they are intended to shield against are protected by the same magic that animates them, so they aren’t affected by a regular shield’s power. They could pass right through a conventional shield, but the simple physical barrier of those round stones is too massive for them to move aside.”
As she thought it over, Richard worked out the next section of symbols. “Well, this is frightening,” he said. “It says that these reanimated dead are often sent against specific targets, such as the gifted.” He glanced down at her. “Looks like you were right about them being after you.”
She looked aggrieved. “I told you so.”
“And do you know why they would have been after you?”
