Confessor by Terry Goodkind

battles to fight, no more armies to destroy, no more cities to capture. The city on top of the plateau was all that stood in their way.
    The Imperial Order—the brutes who enforced the faith demanded by the Fellowship of Order—could not allow the people of the New World to live outside the control of the Order, because it put the lie to the teachings of their spiritual leaders. The Brothers of the Order taught that individual choice was immoral because it was ruinous to mankind. The very existence of a prosperous, independent, free people stood in stark contrast to the foundational doctrines of the Order. The Order had condemned the people of the New World as selfish and evil, and required them to convert to the beliefs of the Order, or die.
    Having millions of soldiers with time on their hands as they waited to enforce faith in the Order’s beliefs was no doubt troublesome. Jagang had found a task to keep them all busy, a sacrifice to the cause; they were all now devoted to working in shifts every hour of the day and night at the construction of the ramp.
    While Richard couldn’t see the men down lower, he knew that they had to be digging dirt and rock. As those excavation pits grew ever larger, other men carried the dirt to the site of the ramp. In such massive numbers, working without pause, they were up to such a daunting undertaking. Richard hadn’t been in the camp for long, but he imagined that day by day he would soon be able to see the sloping ramp growing inexorably toward the top of the plateau.
    “How will you die?” Johnrock asked.
    Richard was sick of watching the distant ramp, of contemplating the dark and savage future the Order would enforce on everyone. Johnrock’s question, though, wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine in the gloom. Richard slumped back against the inside of the wheel on the far side of the wagon as he ate eggs.
    “You think I will have a choice?” he finally asked. “A say in the matter?” Richard rested a forearm over his knee, gesturing with half an egg. “We make choices about how we will live, Johnrock. I don’t think we have nearly so much say about how we will die.”
    Johnrock looked surprised by the answer. “You think we have a choice about how we live? Ruben, we have no choice.”
    “We have choices,” Richard said without explanation. He popped the half of an egg in his mouth.
    Johnrock lifted the chain attached to his collar. “How can I make any choice?” He gestured out at the encampment. “They are our masters.”
    “Masters? They have chosen not to think for themselves and instead to live according to the teachings of the Order. In so doing they are not even the masters of their own lives.”
    Johnrock shook his head in astonishment. “Sometimes, Ruben, you say the strangest things. I am a slave. I am the one with no choice, not them.”
    “There are chains stronger than those attached to the collar around your neck, Johnrock. My life means a greatdeal to me. I would give my life to save the life of someone I hold dear, someone I value.
    “Those men out there have chosen to sacrifice their lives to a mindless cause that produces only suffering—they have already given up their lives and gotten nothing of any value in return. Is that choosing to live? I don’t think so. They wear chains that they have put around their own necks, chains of a different kind, but chains nonetheless.”
    “I fought when they came to take me. The Imperial Order won. Now I am chained here. Those men live, but if we try to be free we will die.”
    Richard wiped the remaining bits of shell off an egg. “We all have to die, Johnrock—every one of us. It is how we choose to live that matters. After all, it’s the only life each one of us will ever have, so how we live is of paramount importance.”
    Johnrock chewed for a moment as he thought it over. Finally, with a grin, he seemed to dismiss the whole matter. “Well, if I do end up having to choose how I will die, I wish