Terry Goodkind - Phantom - Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Shota shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid that I don’t know. I don’t think that anyone but Baraccus and his wife, Magda Searus, knew.”

Richard wore the war wizard outfit last worn by Baraccus, wore the amulet worn by Baraccus, carried the gift for Subtractive Magic very likely because of Baraccus. And Baraccus had left him what sounded like an instruction book on how to use the power he had seen to it that Richard had been born with.

“There are so many libraries. Baraccus’s private library could be among any of them. Do you have idea at all which one it could be?”

“I know only that it is not among any other library, as you suggest. The library Baraccus created was his alone. Every book there is his alone. He hid them well. They remain undiscovered to this day.”

“And for some reason he saw fit not to leave those books in the safety of the First Wizard’s enclave?”

“Safety? Not long ago, Sisters of the Dark, sent by Jagang, violated this place. They took books, among other things, to the emperor. Jagang hunts books because they contain knowledge that helps him in his struggle to rule the world for the Order. Had the book Baraccus wrote for you been left here at the Keep, it very well might now be in Jagang’s hands. Baraccus was wise not to leave such power here, where anyone could find it, where every First Wizard to come after him might have discovered it and tampered with it, or even destroyed it lest it fall into the wrong hands.”

That was what had happened to The Book of Counted Shadows . Ann and Nathan, because of prophecy, had helped George Cypher bring it back to Westland with the intent that when he was old enough, Richard would memorize that book and then destroy it lest it fall into the wrong hands. It turned out that Darken Rahl would eventually need to get his hands on that book in order to open the boxes of Orden—the same boxes that were now in play because of Ann’s former Sisters, who now had Kahlan, the last Confessor, who, because of what was written in that book, had helped him defeat Darken Rahl.

Richard lifted out the amulet he wore, which had once belonged to Baraccus. He stared at the symbols making up the dance with death. There was just too much for it all to be coincidence.

He peered up at Shota. “Are you saying that Baraccus foresaw what would happen and put the book in a place of greater safety?”

Shota shrugged. “I’m sorry, Richard, I don’t know. It may be that he was simply being cautious. Considering his reasons, and what is at stake, such caution certainly seems not only to have been warranted, but wise.

“I’ve told you everything I can. You know all the pieces of the puzzle, of the history, that I’m unaware of. That doesn’t mean that this is all there is to it, but from other sources you also know additional parts of the history, so you now know more of the story than I do. For that matter, you probably now know more of it than any person alive since war wizard Baraccus was the First Wizard.”

Out of all she had told him, nothing would do him any good unless he could find the book Baraccus had meant for him to have. Without that book, Richard’s war wizard powers were a mystery to him and next to useless. Without that book, it seemed that there was no hope of defeating the army that had come up from the Old World. The Order would rule the world and magic would be eradicated from the world of life, just as Lothain had planned. Without the book, Baraccus’s plan was a failure, and Jagang was going to win.

Richard gazed up at the glassed roof a hundred feet overhead, which let in some of the somber, late-day light to balance the glow of the lamps down in the heart of the room. He wondered when the lamps had been lit. He didn’t recall it happening.

“Shota, there could be no greater need for such knowledge. How am I supposed to succeed in stopping the Order if I can’t use my ability as a war wizard? Can’t you give me anything, any idea at all, of how to find this book? If I don’t find some answers, and soon, I’m dead. We all are.”

She cupped his chin as she looked down into his eyes. “I hope you know, Richard, that if I knew how to get that book for you, I would do it. You know how much I want to stop the Imperial Order.”

“Well, why do you get specific information. Where does it come from? Why is it that it comes to you at specific times, like now? Why not the first time I met you? Or when I was trying to get into the Temple of the Winds to stop the plague?”

“I suppose that it comes from the same place you get answers or inspiration when you mull over a problem. Why do you come up with answers to problems when you do? I think about a situation and sometimes the answers come to me. Fundamentally, it’s no different, I suppose, than how anyone comes up with ideas. It’s just that my ideas are unique to a witch woman’s mind and they involve events in the flow of time. I suppose that it’s much the same as how you suddenly came to know the truth about what Lothain had done. How did that come to you? I suppose that it works much the same for me.

“If I knew where the book Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power was, or had any idea of how to find it, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you.”

Richard heaved a sigh and stood. “I know, Shota. Thank you for all you’ve done. I’ll try to find a way for what you’ve told me to be of help.”

Shota squeezed his shoulder. “I must go. I have a witch woman to find. At least, thanks to Nicci, I now know her name.”

A thought struck him. “I wonder why she’s named Six?”

Shota’s countenance darkened. “It’s a derogatory name. A witch woman sees many things in the flow of time, especially those things having to do with any daughters she might bear. For a witch woman, the seventh child is special. To name a child Six is to say that she falls short, that she is less than perfect. It’s an open insult, from birth, for what a witch woman foresees of her daughter’s character. It’s a pronouncement that her daughter is flawed.

“Naming her Six probably earned the mother her own murder at the hands of that daughter.”

“Then why would the mother so openly declare such a thing? Why not name the daughter something else and avoid the probability of her own murder.”

Shota regarded him with a sad smile. “Because there are witch women who are believers in the truth, because truth will help others avoid danger. To such women, a lie would be the bud of much larger trouble that would grow from it. To us, truth is the only hope for the future. To us, the future is life.”

“Well, it sounds like the name fits the trouble this one is causing.”

Shota’s smile, sad though it had been, vanished. Her brow tightened with a dark look. She lifted a finger in warning. “Such a woman could easily conceal her name. This one, instead, reveals it the way a snake bares its fangs. You worry about everything else, and leave her to me. A witch woman is profoundly dangerous.”

Richard smiled a little. “Like you?”

Shota didn’t return the smile. “Like me.”

Richard stood alone by the fountain as he watched Shota ascend the steps. Nicci, Cara, Zedd, Nathan, Ann, and Jebra were huddled off to the side, engaged in whispered conversation among themselves. They didn’t pay any heed to Shota as she passed, like an unseen apparition.

Richard followed her up the steps. In the doorway, silhouetted by the light, Shota turned back, almost as if she had seen an apparition herself. She reached out and for a time rested a hand on the doorframe.

“One other thing, Richard.” Shota studied his eyes for a moment. “When you were young, your mother died in a fire.”

Richard nodded. “That’s right. A man got in a fight with George Cypher, the man who raised me, the man I thought at the time was my father. This man who started the fight with my father knocked a lamp off the table, setting the house on fire. My brother and I were asleep in the back bedroom at the time. While the man dragged my father outside and was beating him, my mother raced in and pulled my brother and me from the burning house.”