Terry Goodkind - Soul of the Fire

“Zedd, I’d really like you take a look at Juni’s body.”

“The rain will let up in a while,” Zedd soothed, “and then we will go have a look.”

Richard dragged a finger down the end of a line representing the gift—representing magic. “If it’s a first step, and so important,” Richard pointedly asked Ann, “then why didn’t the Sisters of the Light try to teach me about the Grace when they took me to the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World? When they had the chance?”

Kahlan knew how quickly Richard become wary and distrustful when he thought he felt the tickling of a halter being slipped over his ears, no matter how kindly done, or how innocent its intent. Ann’s Sisters had once put a collar around his throat.

Ann stole a glance at Zedd. “The Sisters of the Light had never before attempted to instruct one such as yourself—one born with the gift for Subtractive Magic in addition to the usual Additive.” She chose her words carefully. “Prudence was required.”

Richard’s voice had made the subtle shift from questioned to questioner.

“Yet now you think I should be taught this Grace business?”

“Ignorance, too, is dangerous,” Ann said in a cryptic murmur.

Zedd scooped up a handful of dry dirt from the ground to the side. “Ann is given to histrionics,” he griped. “I would have taught you about the Grace long ago, Richard, but we’ve been separated, that’s all.”

His apprehension alleviated by his grandfather’s words, if not Ann’s, the sharply defined muscles in Richard’s shoulders and thick neck relaxed as Zedd went on.

“Though a Grace appears simple, it represents the whole of everything. It is drawn thus.”

Zedd leaned forward on his knees. With practiced precision, he let the dirt drizzle from the side of his fist to quickly trace in demonstration the symbol already drawn on the ground.

“This outer circle represents the beginning of the underworld—the infinite world of the dead. Out beyond this circle, in the underworld, there is nothing else; there is only forever. This is why the Grace is begun here: out of nothing, where there was nothing, Creation begins.”

A square sat inside the outer circle, its corners touching the circle. The square contained another circle just large enough to touch the insides of the square. The center circle held an eight-pointed star. Straight lines drawn last radiated out from the points of the star, piercing all the way through both circles, every other line bisecting a corner of the square.

The square represented the veil separating the outer circle of the spirit world—the underworld, the world of the dead—from the inner circle, which depicted the limits of the world of life. In the center of it all, the star expressed the Light—the Creator—with the rays of His gift of magic coming from that Light passing through all the boundaries.

“I’ve seen it before.” Richard turned his wrists over and rested them across his knees.

The silver wristbands he wore were girded with strange symbols, but on the center of each, at the insides of his wrists, there was a small Grace on each band. As they were on the undersides of the wrists, Kahlan had never before noticed them.

“The Grace is a depiction of the continuum of the gift,” Richard said, “represented by the rays: from the Creator, through life, and at death crossing, the veil to eternity with the spirits in the Keeper’s realm of the underworld.” He burnished a thumb across the designs on one wristband. “It is also a symbol of hope to remain in the Creator’s Light from birth, through life, and beyond, in the afterlife of the underworld.”

Zedd blinked in surprise. “Very good, Richard. But how do you know this?”

“I’ve learned to understand the jargon of emblems, and I’ve read a few things about the Grace.”

“The jargon of emblems . . . ?” Kahlan could see that Zedd was making a great effort at restraining himself. “You need to know, my boy, that a Grace can invoke alchemy of consequence. A Grace, if drawn with dangerous substances such as sorcerer’s sand, or used in some other ways, can have profound effects—”

“Such as altering the way the worlds interact so as to accomplish an end,” Richard finished. He looked up. “I’ve read a little about it.”

Zedd sat back on his heels. “More than a little, it would seem. I want you to tell us everything you’ve been doing since I was with you last.” He shook a finger. “Every bit of it.”

“What’s a fatal Grace?” Richard asked, instead.

Zedd leaned in, this time clearly astounded. “A what?”

“Fatal Grace,” Richard murmured as his gaze roamed the drawing on the floor.

Kahlan didn’t have any more idea what Richard was talking about than did Zedd, but she was familiar with his behavior. Now and again she had seen Richard like this, almost as if he were in another place, asking curious questions while he considered some dim, dark dilemma. It was the way of a Seeker.

It was also a red flag that told her he believed there was something seriously amiss. She felt goose bumps tingling up her forearms.

Kahlan caught the grave twitch of Ann’s brow. Zedd was straining near to bursting with a thousand questions, but Kahlan knew that he, too, was familiar with the way Richard sometimes lost himself for inexplicable reasons and asked unexpected questions. Zedd was doing his best to oblige them.

Zedd rubbed his fingertips along the furrows of his forehead, taking a breath to gather his patience. “Bags, Richard, I’ve never heard of such a thing as a fatal Grace. Where did you?”

“Just something I read somewhere,” Richard murmured. “Zedd, can you put up another boundary? Call forth a boundary like you did before I was born?”

Zedd’s face scrunched up in sputtering frustration. “Why would I—”

“To wall off the Old World and stop the war.”

Caught off guard, Zedd paused with his mouth hanging open, but then a grin spread, stretching his wrinkled hide tight across the bones of his face.

“Very good, Richard. You are going to make a fine wizard, always thinking of how to make magic work for you to prevent harm and suffering.” The smile faded. “Very good thinking, indeed, but no, I can’t do it again.”

“Why not?”

“It was a spell of threes. That means it was bound up in three of this and three of that. Powerful spells are usually well protected—a prescript of threes being only one means of keeping dangerous magic from being easily loosed. The boundary spell was one of those. I found it in an ancient text from the great war.

“Seems you take after your grandfather, taking an interest in reading old books full of odd things.” His brow drew down. “The difference is, I had studied my whole life, and I knew what I was doing. Knew the dangers and how to avoid or minimize them. Knew my own abilities and limitations. Big difference, my boy.”

“There were only two boundaries,” Richard pressed.

“Ah well, the Midlands were embroiled in a horrific war with D’Hara.” Zedd folded his legs under himself as he told the story.

“I used the first of the three to learn how to work the spell, how it functioned, and how to unleash it. The second I used to separate the Midlands and D’Hara—to stop the war. The last of the three I used to partition off Westland, for those who wanted a place to live free of magic, thereby preventing an uprising against the gifted.”

Kahlan had a hard time imagining what a world without magic would be like. The whole concept seemed grim and dark to her, but she knew there were those who wanted nothing more than to live their lives free from magic. Westland, though not vast, provided such a place. At least it had for a time, but no longer.