Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind Page B

Mother Confessor eased back the door to Abby’s bedroom. There, on the bed where Abby had placed her. was Zedd’s daughter, still sleeping. Abby stared in disbelief.
    “The trickster,” the Mother Confessor said. “I told you that was our name for him.”
    “And not a very flattering one,” Zedd grumbled as he stepped up behind them.
    “But … how?” Abby pressed her fingers to her temples. “I don’t understand.”
    Zedd gestured. Abby saw, for the first time, the body lying just beyond the door out the back. It was Mariska.
    “When you showed me the room when we first came here,” Zedd told her, “I laid a few traps for those intent on harm. That woman was killed by those traps because she came here intent on taking my daughter from where she slept.”
    “You mean it was all an illusion?” Abby was dumbfounded. “Why would you do such a cruel thing? How could you?”
    “I am the object of vengeance,” the wizard explained. “I didn’t want my daughter to pay the price her mother has already paid. Since my spell killed the woman as she tried to harm my daughter, I was able to use a vision of her to accomplish the deception. The enemy knew the woman, and that she acted for Anargo. I used what they expected to see to convince them and to frighten them into running and leaving the prisoners.
    “I cast the death spell so that everyone would think they saw my daughter being killed. This way, the enemy thinks my daughter dead, and will have no reason to hunt her or ever again try to harm her. I did it to protect her from the unforeseen.”
    The sorceress scowled at him. “If it were any but you, Zeddicus, and for any reason but the reason you had, I’d see you brought up on charges for casting such a web as a death spell.” She broke into a grin. “Well done, First Wizard.”
    Outside, the officers all wanted to know what was happening.
    “No battle today,” Zedd told them. “I’ve just ended the war.”
    They cheered with genuine joy. Had Zedd not been the First Wizard, Abby suspected they would have hoisted him on their shoulders. It seemed that there was no one more glad for peace than those whose job it was to fight for it.
    Wizard Thomas, looking more humble than Abby had ever seen him, cleared his throat. “Zorander, I … I … I simply can’t believe what my own eyes have seen.” His face finally took on its familiar scowl. “But we have people already in near revolt over magic. When news of this spreads, it is only going to make it worse. The demands for relief from magic grow every day and you have fed the fury. With this, we’re liable to have revolt on our hands.”
    “I still want to know why it isn’t moving,” Delora growled from behind. “I want to know why it’s just sitting there, all green and still.”
    Zedd ignored her and directed his attention to the old wizard. “Thomas, I have a job for you.”
    He motioned several officers and officials from Aydindril forward, and passed a finger before all their faces, his own turning grim and determined. “I have a job for all of you. The people have reason to fear magic. Today we have seen magic deadly and dangerous. I can understand those fears.
    “In appreciation of these fears, I shall grant their wish.”
    “What!” Thomas scoffed. “You can’t end magic, Zorander! Not even you can accomplish such a paradox.”
    “Not end it,” Zedd said. “But give them a place without it. I want you to organize an official delegation large enough to travel all the Midlands with the offer. All those who would quit a world with magic are to move to the lands to the west. There they shall set up new lives free of any magic. I shall insure that magic cannot intrude on their peace.”
    Thomas threw up his hands. “How can you make such a promise!”
    Zedd’s arm lifted to point off behind him, to the wall of green fire growing toward the sky. “I shall call up a second wall of death, through which none can pass. On the other side of