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Authors: Terry Goodkind
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make her your second wife.” Zedd eyed them both suspiciously. “This story gets more complicated every time one of you opens your mouth. I need to hear the whole thing.”
“ Before we leave, we can tell you a bit of it. When you get to Aydindril, then we’ll have the time to tell it all to you. But we need to return through the sliph right away.”
“ What’s the hurry, my boy?”
“ Jagang would like nothing better than to get his hands on the dangerous magic stored in the Wizard’s Keep. If he did, it would be disastrous. Zedd, you would be the best one to protect the Keep, but in the meantime don’t you think Kahlan and I would be better than nothing?
“ At least we were there when Jagang sent Marlin and Sister Amelia to Aydindril.”
“ Amelia!” Ann closed her eyes as she squeezed her temples. “She’s a Sister of the Dark. Do you know where she is, now?”
“ The Mother Confessor killed her, too,” Cara said from back at the door.
Kahlan scowled at the Mord-Sith. Cara grinned back like a proud sister.
Ann opened one eye to peer at Kahlan. “No small task. A wizard being directed by the dream walker, and now a woman wielding the Keeper’s own dark talent.”
“ An act of desperation,” Kahlan said. “Nothing more.”
Zedd grunted a brief agreeable chuckle. “There can be powerful magic in acts of desperation.”
“ Much like the business of speaking the three chimes,” she said. “An act of desperation to save Richard’s life. What are the chimes? Why were you so concerned?”
Zedd squirmed to get more comfortable on his bony bottom.
“ The wrong person speaking their names to summon their assistance in keeping a person from crossing the line”—he tapped the line of the Grace representing the world of the dead—“can by misfortune of design call them into the world of life, where they can accomplish the purpose for which they were created: to end magic.”
“ They soak it up,” Ann said, “like the parched ground soaks up a summer shower. They are beings of sorts, but not alive. They have no soul.”
The lines in Zedd’s face took a grim set as he nodded his agreement. “The chimes are creatures conjured of the other side, of the underworld. They would annul the magic in this world.”
“ You mean they hunt down and kill those with magic?” Kahlan asked. “Like the shadow people used to? Their touch is deadly?”
“ No,” Ann said. “They can and do kill, but just their being in this world, in time, is all it would take to extinguish magic. Eventually, any who derived their survival from magic would die. The weakest first. Eventually, even the strongest.”
“ Understand,” Zedd cautioned, “that we don’t know much about them. They were weapons of the great war, created by wizards with more power than I can fathom. The gift is no longer as it was.”
“ If the chimes were to somehow get to this world, and they ended magic,” Richard asked, “would all those with the gift just not have it anymore? Would the Mud People, for instance, simply not be able to contact their spirit ancestors anymore? Would creatures of magic die out and that would be that? Just regular people and animals and trees and such left? Like where I grew up in Westland, where there was no magic?”
Kahlan could feel the faint rumble of thunder in the ground under her. The rain drummed on. The fire in the hearth hissed its ill will for its liquid antagonist.
“ We can’t answer that, my boy. It’s not like there is precedent to which we can point. The world is complex beyond our comprehension. Only the Creator understands how it all works together.”
The firelight cast Zedd’s face in harsh angular shadows as he spoke with grim conviction. “But I fear it would be much worse than you paint it.”
“ Worse? Worse how?”
Fastidiously smoothing his robes along his thighs, Zedd took his time in responding.
“ West of here, in the highlands above the Nareef Valley, the
“ Before we leave, we can tell you a bit of it. When you get to Aydindril, then we’ll have the time to tell it all to you. But we need to return through the sliph right away.”
“ What’s the hurry, my boy?”
“ Jagang would like nothing better than to get his hands on the dangerous magic stored in the Wizard’s Keep. If he did, it would be disastrous. Zedd, you would be the best one to protect the Keep, but in the meantime don’t you think Kahlan and I would be better than nothing?
“ At least we were there when Jagang sent Marlin and Sister Amelia to Aydindril.”
“ Amelia!” Ann closed her eyes as she squeezed her temples. “She’s a Sister of the Dark. Do you know where she is, now?”
“ The Mother Confessor killed her, too,” Cara said from back at the door.
Kahlan scowled at the Mord-Sith. Cara grinned back like a proud sister.
Ann opened one eye to peer at Kahlan. “No small task. A wizard being directed by the dream walker, and now a woman wielding the Keeper’s own dark talent.”
“ An act of desperation,” Kahlan said. “Nothing more.”
Zedd grunted a brief agreeable chuckle. “There can be powerful magic in acts of desperation.”
“ Much like the business of speaking the three chimes,” she said. “An act of desperation to save Richard’s life. What are the chimes? Why were you so concerned?”
Zedd squirmed to get more comfortable on his bony bottom.
“ The wrong person speaking their names to summon their assistance in keeping a person from crossing the line”—he tapped the line of the Grace representing the world of the dead—“can by misfortune of design call them into the world of life, where they can accomplish the purpose for which they were created: to end magic.”
“ They soak it up,” Ann said, “like the parched ground soaks up a summer shower. They are beings of sorts, but not alive. They have no soul.”
The lines in Zedd’s face took a grim set as he nodded his agreement. “The chimes are creatures conjured of the other side, of the underworld. They would annul the magic in this world.”
“ You mean they hunt down and kill those with magic?” Kahlan asked. “Like the shadow people used to? Their touch is deadly?”
“ No,” Ann said. “They can and do kill, but just their being in this world, in time, is all it would take to extinguish magic. Eventually, any who derived their survival from magic would die. The weakest first. Eventually, even the strongest.”
“ Understand,” Zedd cautioned, “that we don’t know much about them. They were weapons of the great war, created by wizards with more power than I can fathom. The gift is no longer as it was.”
“ If the chimes were to somehow get to this world, and they ended magic,” Richard asked, “would all those with the gift just not have it anymore? Would the Mud People, for instance, simply not be able to contact their spirit ancestors anymore? Would creatures of magic die out and that would be that? Just regular people and animals and trees and such left? Like where I grew up in Westland, where there was no magic?”
Kahlan could feel the faint rumble of thunder in the ground under her. The rain drummed on. The fire in the hearth hissed its ill will for its liquid antagonist.
“ We can’t answer that, my boy. It’s not like there is precedent to which we can point. The world is complex beyond our comprehension. Only the Creator understands how it all works together.”
The firelight cast Zedd’s face in harsh angular shadows as he spoke with grim conviction. “But I fear it would be much worse than you paint it.”
“ Worse? Worse how?”
Fastidiously smoothing his robes along his thighs, Zedd took his time in responding.
“ West of here, in the highlands above the Nareef Valley, the
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