Terry Goodkind - Chainfire - Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

“I grew up in the woods around Hartland, never having seen a palace.” Richard spread his arms, as if to show her the things he had seen since leaving his homeland. “Until I saw the castle at Tamarang, the Wizard’s Keep and the Confessors’ Palace in Aydindril, or the People’s Palace in D’Hara, I never imagined that such places existed—or even that they could exist. They were beyond the scope of my thinking at the time.

“And yet, even though I never imagined that such places could be built, other men thought them up, and they were built. I think that one of the important functions of grand creations is that they inspire people.”

Nicci appeared not only to be swept up in his explanation, but to be considering his words with serious interest. “Do you mean to say, then, that you think an art form can also shape such important things as the function of magic?”

Richard smiled. “Nicci, you could not grasp the importance of life until I carved the statue back in Altur’Rang. When you saw the concept in tangible form you were able at last to put together all the things you had learned throughout your life and finally grasp its meaning. An artistic creation touched your soul. That’s what I mean about an important function of great works is that they inspire people.

“Because it inspired you with the beauty of life, with the nobility of man, you acted to become free—something you had never thought was possible. Because the people of Altur’Rang as well could see in that statue what could and should be, they were stirred to stand up to the tyranny crushing their lives. It was not accomplished by copying other statues, by doing what was the accepted norm for statues in the Old World of showing man as weak and ineffective, but by an idea of beauty, a vision of nobility, that shaped what I carved.

“I didn’t violate the nature of the marble I used, but rather I used the nature of the stone to accomplish something different than what others routinely did with it. I studied the properties of stone, I learned how to work it, and I sought to understand what more I could do with it in order to bring about my objective. I had Victor make me the finest tools that would enable me to do the work in the way it needed to be done. In that way I brought to reality what I wanted to create, what had never been before.

“I think that magic can work this way as well. I believe that such original ideas played a part in how weapons were once created out of people. After all, when such weapons were made, they were effective in large part because they were original, because they had never been thought of or seen before. In many instances, the other side in the war then had to work to create entirely new things out of magic that were able to counter those weapons. In many cases they were able to render the weapon obsolete by creating a countermagic, and then someone on the other side immediately went to work thinking up some new horror. If using magic creatively was not possible, then how did the wizards of old create weapons with it? You can’t say they simply got the knowledge from a book, or from past experience; where and how would the first such weapons have originated if not with an original idea? Someone had to have used magic creatively in the first place.

“I think that Jagang is again doing this very thing with magic. He has studied some of what was done in the great war, what weapons were created, and learned from that. He sometimes may direct that what was once created to be created again, such as with Nicholas, but in other instances I think he imagines what has never been, what goes beyond what has been done before, and has it brought to reality by those who know how to use magic to build what he wants.

“In these acts of creation it isn’t the work that is the most remarkable aspect, but the idea and vision that makes the labor effective, just as carpenters and bricklayers who built houses and barns can be employed to construct a palace. It wasn’t so much their labor that was remarkable in the creation of palaces, but the act of insight and creation that gave it direction.”

Nicci nodded ever so slightly in concentration as she weighed his words. “I can see that your notion isn’t at all the wild idea I thought it was at first. This is a line of reasoning that I’ve never encountered. I’ll have to think about the possibilities. You may be the first to really understand the mechanism behind Jagang’s scheme—or, for that matter, behind the creations of wizards in ancient times. This would explain a great many things that have nagged at me over the years.”

Nicci’s words were spoken with intellectual respect for a concept new to her, but a concept she fully grasped. No one who had ever spoken to Richard about magic had ever treated his ideas with such an insightful understanding. He felt as if this was the first time anyone had truly understood what he saw.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve had to deal with Jagang’s creations. Like I said, Nicholas was a great deal of trouble.”

In the dim light, Nicci studied his face for a moment.

“Richard, from what I was able to find out,” she said in a soft voice, “Nicholas was not Jagang’s actual goal. Nicholas was merely practice.”

“Practice!” Richard thumped his head back against the wall. “I don’t know, Nicci. I’m not so sure about that. Nicholas the Slide was a formidable creation and one nasty piece of work. You don’t know the trouble he caused us.”

Nicci shrugged. “You defeated him.”

Richard blinked in astonishment. “You make it sound like he was just a bump in the road. He wasn’t. I’m telling you, he was a frightening creation who nearly killed us.”

Nicci slowly shook her head. “And I’m telling you, as formidable as he may have been, Nicholas was not what Jagang was after. You told me not to sell the dream walker short—don’t you now do that same thing. I never thought Nicholas was fully your match.

“What you say about the process of imagination in creating new things actually makes sense, especially in this instance. It may even explain a few things. From the little I was able to learn, I believe that from the beginning Nicholas was only meant to expand the skills of the Sisters that Jagang had assigned to the task of creating weapons. Nicholas was not Jagang’s objective, but simply practice on the way to that objective.

“With his dwindling number of Sisters that practice has gained a new urgency. Even so, he apparently has enough Sisters for the work of creating his weapons.”

Richard felt goose bumps tingling up his arms as he began to realise the full implications of what Nicci was telling him.

“You mean to say that in creating Nicholas, it was like Jagang was just having his carpenters build a house as practice before he sends them on to build something vastly more complicated, like a palace?”

Nicci looked up at him and smiled. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“But he sent Nicholas with troops to govern a land as well as to capture us.”

“A mere matter of convenience. Jagang had instilled in Nicholas a need to hunt you, but only as part of the testing for his greater goals. He didn’t really expect the Slide to be able to accomplish his transcendent ambitions. The emperor may hate you for impeding his progress in conquering the New World, he may consider you unworthy as an opponent, and he may deem you an immoral heathen worthy only of death, but he’s smart enough to give you credit for your ability. It’s like when you said that you sent that captured soldier to assassinate Jagang. You didn’t really expect that lone soldier to succeed at the difficult task of assassinating a well-guarded emperor, but the soldier was of no other value to you and since you thought that there was at least a chance that he might accomplish something, you might as well send him on the mission while you worked on far better ideas that you expected to have a more reasonable chance of success. And if the soldier was killed, then that was fine by you because he only got what was coming to him anyway.