Terry Goodkind’s new book, Chainfire, a Sword of Truth novel, is out and I began reading it. I am totally lost at the first, because i forgot what happened at the end of Naked Empire. Could someone give me a summary of the book (the book’s in storage and I can’t get it out for awhile)? How was Richard wounded? Where is Kahlan and why can’t anyone remember her?
Thanks in advance,
LorieSmurf
Just finished Naked Empire. Please ignore the rambly-ness of this, it’s hard to summarise a 4 inch thickhardback. Just to summarize:
[spoiler]Richard, Kahlan, Jennsen, Cara, and Tom are trying to make their way back to Nicci, because Richard’s Gift is fading, and the SOT has stopped working for him magically. They meet a stranger named Owen along the way.
Large raptor like birds called Black races are stalking the party, and then they are attacked by a large bunch of them, and see a manifestation of a man in the races midst…foreshadowing. They are also accosted by a gang of Imperial Order troops, and of course they kill them to a man. Just after this is when Owen catches back up to them, and he is horrified that they would kill other men so savagely. It comes out that Owen had been searching for Richard, because he believed Richard was the only hope to rid his people of the Imperial Order.
It comes out that the boundaries in the Old World had served another purpose, to seal off the land of Bandakar, from which Owen hails. Bandakar is High d’Haran for the banished, and is made up of the descendants of those pristinely ungifted exiled first from the New World, and then from the Old. The people of Bandakar are stringent pacifists, and live in a communal society where there is no violence, even for criminal punishment. Criminals are merely put out through the boundary and left for dead. When the boundaries fell, it left Bandakar open to the Order’s troops, led by a man called Nicholas the Slide. Nicholas was a creation of the Sisters of the Dark, and could posess the soul of any living creature. Nicholas was using the black races to keep an eye on the party.
Ok, so anyhow, Owen had poisoned Richard when they first met, with a three stage poison that would kill if not counteracted by three doses of the antidote. Owen uses this as a bribe to get Richard to come with him to rid Bandakar of the Order. Blah blah Richard goes, rouses the Bandakarans, shows them they have to fight for their own lives, and they do, fighting the Order off eventually.
Nicholas the Slide had found the last vial of antidote, though, and destroyed it, along with the only man who could make it. He tries to get Kahlan to trade herself for the last of the antidote. Of course this doesn’t work, Richard saves her, but he’s near death from the poison. In the final battle, Nathan and Ann show up and use their magic to kill the remaining Order troops in Bandakar, allowing Richard and party to get to where he could use his gift to make another antidote which saved his life.
Richard realised that the problem with his Gift was that he was wrong about not eating meat as a balance for the killing he has to do. Wizard’s Eighth Rule - Deserve Victory. If the killing was done for the side of right, no balance was necessary. He ate meat, and his Gift was all better.
Side story - Zedd and Adie were captured by Jagang’s army, and then sprung by Chase and Rachel and the Mord Sith Rikka.
I have no idea what’s up with Kahlan in the new book. At the end of Naked Empire all was well. [/spoiler]
Aha! Thanks!
Now I’m up to date. But still confused! 