The two women appraised him silently. Cara leaned past him to speak to Raina. "And he says he doesn't know how to use magic."

Raina shifted her gaze to Richard. "So, what you are saying is that you have caused this war. You made it possible."

"No. Look, it's a long story." Richard raked back his hair. "Even before the barrier was down they were gaining allies here and had started their war. Ebinissia was destroyed before the barrier came down. But now there's nothing to hold them back, or slow them down. Don't underestimate them. They use wizards and sorceresses. They wish to destroy all magic."

"They wish to destroy all magic, yet they use magic themselves? Lord Rahl, that makes no sense," Cara scoffed.

"You want me to be the magic against magic. Why?" He pointed to the men on either end of the dais. "Because they can only be the steel against steel. It often takes magic to destroy magic."

Richard gestured, his finger including the two women. "You have magic. And to what purpose? To counter magic. As Mord-Sith, you are able to appropriate the magic of another and turn it against them. It's the same with them. They use magic to help them destroy magic, just as Darken Rahl used you to torture and kill those with magic who opposed him.

"You have magic; the Order will want to destroy you. I have magic; they'll want to destroy me. All D'Haran's have magic, through the bond; eventually the Order will see that and decide to exterminate the taint. Sooner or later, they'll come to crush D'Hara, just as they would crush the Midlands."

"The D'Haran troops will crush them, instead," Ulic said over his shoulder, as if stating with confidence that the sun would set this day as it always did.

Richard shot a glare at the man's back. "Until I came along, D'Harans joined with them, and in their name annihilated Ebinissia. The D'Harans here, in Aydindril, followed the commands of the Imperial Order."

His four guards fell silent. Cara stared at the ground before her feet as Raina let out a disheartened sigh.

"In the confusion of the war," Cara said at last, as if thinking aloud, "some of our troops out in the field would have felt the bond break, just as some of those at the palace did when you killed Darken Rahl. They would be like lost souls without a new Master Rahl to take up their bond. They may have simply joined with someone who would give them direction, take up the place of the bond. Now they have their bond back. We have a Master Rahl."

Richard slumped down in the Mother Confessor's chair. "That's what I'm hoping."

"All the more reason to return to D'Hara," Raina said. "We must protect you so you can continue to be the Master Rahl and our people will not join with the Imperial Order. If you are killed, and the bond is broken, then the army will once again turn to the Order for direction. Better to leave the Midlands to their own battles. It is not your job to save them from themselves."

"Everyone in the Midlands, then, will fall under the sword of the Imperial Order," Richard said in a soft voice. "They will be be treated as you were treated by Darken Rahl. No one will ever again be free. We can't let that happen as long as there's any chance we can stop them. It must be done now, before they gain any more of a foothold here in the Midlands."

Cara rolled her eyes. "The spirits save us from a man with a just cause. It is not up to you to lead them."

"If I don't, then in the end everyone will live under one rule: the Order's," Richard said. "All people will be their chattel, for all time; tyrants don't tire of tyranny."

The room rang with silence. Richard thumped his head against the chair back. He was so tired he didn't think he could keep his eyes open much longer. He didn't know why he was bothering to try to convince them; they didn't seem to understand, or care about, what it was he was trying to do.

Cara leaned against the desk and wiped a hand across her face. "We don't want to lose you, Lord Rahl. We don't want to go back to the way things were." She sounded on the verge of tears. “We like being able to do simple things, like make a joke, and laugh. We could never do such things before. We always lived in fear that if we said the wrong thing we would be beaten, or worse. Now that we have seen another way, we don't want to go back to that. If you throw your life away for the Midlands, then we will."

"Cara… all of you… listen to me. If I don't do this, then in the end that's what will happen. Can't you see that? If I don't unite the lands under a strong rule, under a just law and leadership, then the Order will take everything, one chunk at a time. If the Midlands fall under their shadow, then that shadow will steal across D'Hara, too, and in the end all the world will fall into darkness. I don't do this because I want to, but because I can see that I have a chance to accomplish the task. If I don't try, there will be no place for me to hide; they will find me, and kill me.

"I don't want to conquer and rule people; I just want to live a quiet life. I want to have a family and live in peace.

"That's why I must show the lands of the Midlands that we're strong and will sanction no favoritism or bickering, that we're not going to be lands in an alliance, standing as one only when it's expedient, but that we truly are one. They must be confident we will stand for what's right so that they'll feel secure joining us, so they will know that there's a place for them with us, and so that they'll be heartened by knowing that they will not have to fight alone if they wish to fight for freedom. We must be a powerful force they will trust in. Trust in enough to join."

The room fell into an icy silence. Richard closed his eyes as he laid his head back against the chair. They thought him mad. It was no use. He was simply going to have to order them to do the things he needed, and stop worrying about if they liked it or not, much less cared.

Cara finally spoke. "Lord Rahl." He opened his eyes to see her standing with her arms folded and a grim expression on her face. "I will not change your child's swaddling clothes, nor bathe it, nor burp it, nor make foolish sounds to it."

Richard closed his eyes and laid his head back against the chair again as he chuckled to himself. He remembered the time when he was back home, before all this started, and the midwife had come in a lather for Zedd. Elayne Seaton, a young woman not a whole lot older than Richard, was having her first child, and it was not going well. The midwife had spoken in hushed tones as she turned her broad back to Richard and leaned toward Zedd.

Before Richard knew Zedd was his grandfather, he only knew him as his best friend. At the time Richard hadn't known Zedd was a wizard, nor did anyone else; everyone simply knew him as old Zedd, the cloud reader, a man of considerable knowledge about the most ordinary and the most peculiar of things — about rare herbs and human ailments, about healing and where rain clouds had traveled from, about where to dig a well and when to start digging a grave — and he knew about childbirth.

Richard knew Elayne. She taught him to dance so that he might ask a girl at the midsummer festival for a turn. Richard had wanted to learn, until faced with the prospect of actually holding a woman in his arms; he was afraid he might break her or something, he wasn't sure what, but everyone always told him he was strong and had to take care not to hurt people. When he changed his mind and tried to beg off, Elayne laughed and swept him up in her arms and started twirling him about while humming a merry tune.

Richard didn't know much about the business of birthing babies, but from what he had heard he had no desire to go anywhere near Elayne's house while it was going on. He headed for the door, intending on a walk in the opposite direction from trouble.