One of the speakers, a man with a narrow, pointed chin, huffed dismissively. "Freedom can never work. It only gives people license to be self-centered. A thoughtful person, dedicated to the welfare of an enlightened mankind, must reject the immoral concept of 'freedom' for what it is-selfish."

"That's right," another agreed. "Such simplistic beliefs can only provoke a cycle of violence. This silly notion of 'freedom' leads to viewing things as black or white. Such uninspired morals are obsolete. Individuals have no right to judge others-especially in such authoritarian terms. What is needed is compromise among all sides if there is to be peace."

"Compromise?" Richard asked. "A cycle of violence can only exist if you grant all people, including those who are evil, moral equivalence-if you say that everyone, including those who decide to harm others, has an equal right to exist. That is what you do when you refuse to crush evil-you give moral standing and power to those who murder.

"Devotion to compromise in such arenas is a sick idea that says you must cut off a finger, and then a leg, and then an arm to feed the monster living among you. Evil feeds on the good. If you kill the monster, the violence ends.

"You have two choices before you. Choose to live in cringing fear, on your knees, apologizing endlessly for wishing to be allowed to live as you struggle to appease an ever-expanding evil, or eliminate those who would harm you and free yourselves to live your own lives- which means you must remain vigilant, ever ready to protect yourself."

One of the speakers, his eyes going wide, lifted an arm to point at Richard. "I know you, now. You are the one who was named in Prophecy. You are the one that Prophecy says will destroy us!"

Whispers carried the accusation back through the crowd.

Richard gazed back at his gathered men, then directed a withering glare at the speakers. "I am Richard Rahl. You're right; I am the one named in the Prophecy given to your people so long ago. 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you.

"You're right; this Prophecy is about me. But if I had not come along, it would eventually have been another who would have fulfilled those words, whether in another year, or another thousand years, because these words are really about man's honorable commitment to life.

"Your people were banished because they refused to see the truth of the world around them. They chose to close their minds to reality. I have ended that blindness."

Richard pointed back at the men with him. "When the truth was put before these men, they chose at last to open their eyes and see it. Now, the rest of your people must meet the same challenge and make a choice as to how they will live their future.

" 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you' are words of the potential for a better future. They mean that your way of life, of impeding people from being their best, of restricting them from being all that they can be, of your blind destructive ways that crush the spirit of each individual and over time have caused so many of the best of your people to abandon you and go into the unknown beyond the boundary… is ended.

"The men of the Order may have invaded your land, but, spiritually, they change nothing for you. Their violence is merely more apparent than your slow suffocation of human potential. They offer the same unseeing lives you already live, simply with a more manifest form of brutality.

"I have brought the light of truth to some of your people, and in so doing I have destroyed their dark existence. The rest of your people must now decide if they will continue to cower in darkness or come into the light I have brought among you.

"In bringing that light to your people, I have redeemed them.

"I have shown them that they can soar on their own wings, aspire to reach for what they want for themselves. I have helped them take back their own lives.

"Yes, I have destroyed the pretext that is the chains of their repression, but in so doing I have freed the nobility of their spirits.

"That is the meaning of the Prophecy. It is up to each of you to rise to the occasion and seek to triumph, or to hide in your self-imposed darkness without trying. There is no guarantee that if you try you will succeed. But without trying, you will assure failure and lives of dread for yourselves and your children. The only difference will be that if you choose to live the same as you do now, if you continue to appease evil, you will now know that it's at the price of your soul."

Richard turned away from the speakers. Before he closed his eyes to rub them with his fingertips, Kahlan saw the terrible agony in those eyes. She wanted nothing more than to get to the last antidote and then to do what they must to rid him of the pain caused by his gift. She knew she was slowly losing him. It seemed to her as if Richard were somewhere all alone, dangling from the edge of a cliff, holding on by his fingertips, and his fingers were slowly slipping.

Owen stepped forward. "Honored speakers, the time has come to hear from the Wise One. If you do not think this crisis for our people warrants it, then nothing does. This is our future, our lives, that are at stake.

"Bring out the Wise One. We will hear his words, if he truly is wise and worthy of our loyalty."

After noting the murmurs of agreement throughout the room, the speakers put their heads together, whispering among themselves to find a consensus that would tell them what to do. Finally, about half of them went off into a back room.

One of the remaining speakers bowed his bald head. "We will see what the Wise One has to say." Kahlan had seen such contemptuous smiles often enough. Lifting his pointed chin, he serenely clasped his hands before himself. "Before all these people, we will put your blasphemous words to the Wise One and hear his wisdom so that this matter may be put to rest."

Men emerged from the back room carrying posts draped with red cloth, notched boards, and planks. Before the door into a back room, they began assembling a simple platform with posts at each corner and the heavy red drapes designed to enclose it. When the structure was finally completed, they placed a large pillow on the platform and then drew the drapes together. Other men carried over two tables, holding a number of candles, and placed one on each side of the draped ceremonial seat of wisdom. In short order, the speakers had created a simple but reverent setting.

Kahlan knew a number of peoples in the Midlands who had magic and functioned in the capacity she imagined that this Wise One did. They also usually had attendants, such as these speakers. She also knew better than to underestimate such simple shamans and their link to the spirit world. There were those who had very real connections and very real power over their people.

What she couldn't imagine was how a people without any magic whatsoever could have such an agent of the spirits. If it was true that they did, and such a person went against them, then all their work would have been for nothing.

The speakers lined up to either side and then drew the curtains in the front just enough to see into the dim interior.

There, sitting cross-legged on the pillow, was what appeared to be a boy in white robes, his hands resting prayerfully in his lap. He didn't look very old, maybe eight or ten at most. A black scarf was tied around his head to cover his eyes.

"He's just a boy," Richard said.

At the interruption, one of the speakers shot Richard a murderous glare. "Only a child is innocent enough of the contamination of life to be free to touch true wisdom. As we grow older we layer our experiences over our once perfect insight, but we remember those once unadulterated connections and so we realize how only in a child can wisdom itself be so pure."