Debt of Bones (Sword of Truth 0.50)

Abby shrank back. ‘I see.’

As the Mother Confessor drew a calming breath, the sorceress took up the story. ‘As we speak, Wizard Zorander uses a spell that none of us understands; it holds Panis Rahl at his palace in D’Hara. It helps blunt the magic Rahl is able to conjure against us, and enables our men to drive his troops back whence they came.

‘But Panis Rahl is consumed with wrath for the man who has thwarted his conquest of the Midlands. Hardly a week passes that an attempt is not made on Wizard Zorander’s life. Rahl sends dangerous and vile people of all sorts. Even the Mord-Sith.’

Abby’s breath caught. That was a word she had heard. ‘What are Mord-Sith?’

The sorceress smoothed back her glossy black hair as she glared with a venomous expression. ‘Mord-Sith are women who, along with their red leather uniform, wear a single long braid as the mark of their profession. They are trained in the torture and killing of those with the gift. If a gifted person tries to use their magic against a Mord-Sith, she is able to capture their magic and use it against them. There is no escaping a Mord-Sith.’

‘But surely, a person as strong in the gift as Wizard Zorander -’

‘Even he would be lost if he tried to use magic against a Mord-Sith,’ the Mother Confessor said. ‘A Mord-Sith can be defeated with common weapons – but not with magic. Only the magic of a Confessor works against them. I have killed two.

‘In part because of the brutal nature of the training of Mord-Sith, they have been outlawed for as long as anyone knows, but in D’Hara the ghastly tradition of taking young women to be indoctrinated as Mord-Sith continues to this day. D’Hara is a distant and secretive land. We don’t know much about it, except what we have learned through unfortunate experience.

‘Mord-Sith have captured several of our wizards and sorceresses. Once captured, they cannot kill themselves, nor can they escape. Before they die, they give over everything they know. Panis Rahl knows of our plans.

‘We, too, have managed to get our hands on several high-ranking D’Harans, and through the touch of Confessors, we know the extent of how we have been compromised. Time works against us.’

Abby wiped the palms of her hands on her thighs. ‘And that man who was killed just before I went in to see the First Wizard, he couldn’t have been an assassin; the two with him were allowed to leave.’

‘No, he was not an assassin.’ The Mother Confessor folded her hands. ‘I believe Panis Rahl knows of the spell Wizard Zorander discovered, that it has the potential to obliterate all of D’Hara. Panis Rahl is desperate to rid himself of Wizard Zorander.’

The Mother Confessor’s violet eyes seemed to glisten with a keen intellect. Abby looked away and picked at a stray thread on her sack.

‘But I don’t see what this has to do with denying me help to save my daughter. He has a daughter. Wouldn’t he do anything to get her back? Wouldn’t he do whatever he must to have his daughter back and safe?’

The Mother Confessor’s head lowered and she stroked her fingers over her brow, as if trying to rub at a grievous ache. ‘The man who came before you was a messenger. His message had been passed through many hands so that it could not be traced back to its source.’

Abby felt cold goose bumps running up her arms. ‘What was the message?’

‘The lock of hair he brought was from Zedd’s daughter. Panis Rahl offered the life of Zedd’s daughter if Zedd would surrender himself to Panis Rahl to be executed.’

Abby clutched at her sack. ‘But wouldn’t a father who loved his daughter do even this to save her life?’

‘At what cost?’ the Mother Confessor whispered. ‘At the cost of the lives of all those who will die without his help?

‘He couldn’t do such a selfish thing, even to save the life of one he loves more than any other. Before he denied your daughter help, he had just refused the offer, thus sentencing his own innocent daughter to death.’

Abby felt her hopes again tumbling into blackness. The thought of Jana’s terror, of her being hurt, made Abby dizzy and sick. Tears began running down her cheeks again.

‘But I’m not asking him to sacrifice everyone else to save her.’

The sorceress gently touched Abby’s shoulder. ‘He believes that sparing those people harm would mean letting the D’Harans escape to kill more people in the end.’

Abby snatched desperately for a solution. ‘But I have a bone.’

The sorceress sighed. ‘Abigail, half the people who come to see a wizard bring a bone. Hucksters convince supplicants that they are true bones. Desperate people, just like you, buy them.’

‘Most of them come seeking a wizard to somehow give them a life free of magic,’ the Mother Confessor said. ‘Most people fear magic, but I’m afraid that with the way it’s been used by D’Hara, they now want nothing so much as to never again see magic. An ironic reason to buy a bone, and doubly ironic that they buy sham bones, thinking they have magic, in order to petition to be free of magic.’

Abby blinked. ‘But I bought no bone. This is a debt true. On my mother’s deathbed she told me of it. She said it was Wizard Zorander himself bound in it.’

The sorceress squinted her scepticism. ‘Abigail, true debts of this nature are exceedingly rare. Perhaps it was a bone she had and you only thought…’

Abby held her sack open for the sorceress to see. The sorceress glanced in and fell silent. The Mother Confessor looked in the sack for herself.

I know what my mother told me,’ Abby insisted. ‘She also told me that if there was any doubt, he had but to test it, then he would know it true, for the debt was passed down to him from his father.’

The sorceress stroked the beads at her throat. ‘He could test it. If it is true, he would know. Still, solemn debt though it may be, that doesn’t mean that the debt must be paid now.’

Abby leaned boldly towards the sorceress. ‘My mother said it is a debt true, and that it had to be paid. Please, Delora, you know the nature of such things. I was so confused when I met with him, with all those people shouting. I foolishly failed to press my case by asking that he test it.’ She turned and clutched the Mother Confessor’s arm. ‘Please, help me? Tell him what I have and ask that he test it?’

The Mother Confessor considered behind a blank expression. At last she spoke. ‘This involves a debt bound in magic. Such a thing must be considered seriously. I will speak to Wizard Zorander on your behalf and request that you be given a private audience.’

Abby squeezed her eyes shut as tears sprang anew. Thank you.’ She put her face in both hands and began to weep with relief at the flame of hope rekindled.

The Mother Confessor gripped Abby’s shoulders. ‘I said I will try. He may deny my request.’

The sorceress snorted a humourless laugh. ‘Not likely. I will twist his ear, too. But Abigail, that does not mean that we can convince him to help you – bone or no bone.’

Abby wiped her cheek. I understand. Thank you both. Thank you both for understanding.’

With a thumb, the sorceress wiped a tear from Abby’s chin. It is said that the daughter of a sorceress is a daughter to all sorceresses.’

The Mother Confessor stood and smoothed her white dress. ‘Delora, perhaps you could take Abigail to a rooming house for women travellers. She should get some rest. Do you have money, child?’

‘Yes, Mother Confessor.’

‘Good. Delora will take you to a room for the night. Return to the Keep just before sunrise. We will meet you and let you know if we were able to convince Zedd to test your bone.’

‘I will pray to the good spirits that Wizard Zorander will see me and help my daughter.’ Abby felt sudden shame at her own words. ‘And I will pray,

too, for his daughter.’

The Mother Confessor cupped Abby’s cheek. Pray for all of us, child. Pray that Wizard Zorander unleashes the magic against D’Hara, before it is too late for all the children of the Midlands – old and young alike.’

*

On their walk down to the city, Delora kept the conversation from Abby’s worries and hopes, and what magic might contribute to either. In some ways, talking with the sorceress was reminiscent of talking with her mother. Sorceresses evaded talk of magic with one not gifted, daughter or not. Abby got the feeling that it was as uncomfortable for them as it was for Abby when Jana asked how a mother came to have a child in her tummy.

Even though it was late, the streets were teeming with people. Worried gossip of the war floated to Abby’s ears from every direction. At one corner a knot of women murmured tearfully of menfolk gone for months with no word of their late.

Delora took Abby down a market street and had her buy a small loaf of bread with meats and olives baked right inside. Abby wasn’t really hungry. The sorceress made her promise that she would eat. Not wanting to do anything to cause disfavour, Abby promised.

The rooming house was up a side-street among tightly packed buildings. The racket of the market carried up the narrow street and flittered around buildings and through liny courtyards with the ease of a chickadee through a dense wood. Abby wondered how people could stand to live so close together and with nothing to see but other houses and people. She wondered, too, how she was going to be able to sleep with all the strange sounds and noise, but then, sleep had rarely come since she had left home, despite the dead-quiet nights in the countryside.

The sorceress bid Abby a good night, putting her in the hands of a sullen-looking woman of few words who led her to a room at the end of a long hall and left her to her night’s rest, after collecting a silver coin. Abby sat on the edge of the bed and, by the light of a single lamp sitting on a shelf by the bed, eyed the small room as she nibbled at the loaf of bread. The meat inside was tough and stringy, but had an agreeable flavour, spiced with salt and garlic.