Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

Shota gave him one of those looks that had the power to make him feel hopelessly ignorant. “You were using magic this morning.”

“I wasn’t,” he insisted. “I was asleep at the time. How could I be using…”

Richard’s words trailed off. His gaze wandered to the distant hills of the valley and the mountains beyond. He remembered waking up and having that terrible memory of the morning Kahlan had disappeared and then realizing that he was holding the hilt of his sword, its blade drawn halfway from its scabbard. He remembered feeling the sword’s stealthy magic coursing through him.

“But that was the sword’s magic,” he said. “I was holding the sword. It wasn’t my magic.”

“It was your magic,” Shota insisted. “Using the Sword of Truth calls its power, which joins with your gift—your magic—which is recognized by the blood beast. The sword’s magic is part of you, now. Using it will chance calling the beast.”

Richard felt like everything was pressing in on him, closing off every option, shutting off his ability to do anything to stop what was coming for him. He felt the way he had earlier, when he woke up to find himself in a ever-tightening trap.

“But the sword will help me fight it. I don’t know how to use my gift. The sword is the one thing I can count on.”

“It’s possible that in some instances it may save you. But because the blood beast has no nature, and because it is now a part of the underworld, there will be times when you think your sword will protect you and it will not. Thinking you can predict the ability of your sword to work against the beast will beguile you into having false confidence. As I told you, the beast can’t be predicted, so there will be times when your sword can’t protect you. You must guard not only against false reliance on your sword, but on it unwittingly calling the beast.

“It’s always hunting you, and could attack at any time, but when you use your gift it vastly increases the ability, and therefore the likelihood, of the beast initiating an attack. Magic baits it.”

Richard realized that he was gripping the hilt of the sword so hard in his fist that he could feel the raised letters of the word TRUTH pressing into his palm. He could also feel the sword’s anger urgently trying to steal into him to protect him against the threat. He took his hand off the hilt as if it were burning him. He wondered if that magic had ignited his own, if he had just called the blood beast without even realizing what he was doing.

Shota clasped her hands. “There is something else.”

Richard’s attention returned to the witch woman. “Great, what next?”

“Richard, I’m not the one who created this beast. I’m not responsible for its danger to you.” She looked away. “If you wish to hate me for telling you the truth, and want me to stop, then say so and I will stop.”

Richard waved an apology. “No, I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault. I guess I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed. Go on. What were you going to say?”

“If you use magic—any magic—the blood beast will know it. Because it acts in a random manner, it very well may not use that magic link to come after you right then. It may inexplicably not respond. But the next time, it may pounce. So you dare not gain confidence in that manner.”

“You already told me that.”

“Yes, but as of yet you have not realized the full implications of what I’m telling you. You must understand that any use of magic will give the beast the scent of your blood, so to speak.”

“Like I said, you told me that.”

“That means any use of your gift.” When he stared at her with a blank look, she impatiently tapped a finger to his forehead. “Think.”

When he still didn’t understand, she said “That includes prophecy.”

“Prophecy? What do you mean?”

“Prophecy is given by wizards who have the gift for prophecy. An ordinary person who reads prophecy will see only words. Even the Sisters of the Light, guardians of prophecy though they thought they were, do not see prophecy in its true state. You are a war wizard. Being a war wizard merely means that your gift carries a variety of latent abilities. Part of that is that you are able to use prophecy—to understand it as it was intended.

“Do you see? Do you see how easy it is to inadvertently use your gift?

“It doesn’t matter how you use your gift—if you use your sword, or heal with your gift, or call down lightning—it doesn’t matter; it will call the beast. To the blood beast, any use of your gift is the same—a means of recognition. It will not distinguish between a small use, or a spectacular use. To the beast, the gift is the gift.”

Richard was incredulous. “Do you mean to say that if I simply heal someone, or draw my sword, it will alert the beast to me?”

“Yes. And likely in short order while it knows precisely where you are. Being that it’s elementally Subtractive, it exists only partially in this world, so, while the beast is not hampered by things such as distance or obstacles, it also doesn’t function in this world with ease. It can’t fully conceive of the laws of this world, such as time. Still, it doesn’t get

tired, it doesn’t get lazy, or angry, or eager.

“By all this I do not mean to suggest that because you use your gift the beast will therefore act. As I’ve said, its actions can’t be predicted, so, like everything else, the use of magic cannot be used as a predictive factor. It only means that it increases its ease in being able to find you. Whether or not it will do so is not knowable.”

“Great,” Richard muttered as he went back to pacing.

“How can he kill it?” Cara asked.

“It isn’t alive,” Shota said. “You can no more kill the blood beast than you can kill a boulder that is about to fall on you, or kill the rain before it has a chance to get you wet.”

Cara looked as frustrated as Richard felt. “Well, there has to be something that it’s afraid of.”

“Fear is a function of living things.”

“Maybe, then, something it doesn’t like.”

Shota frowned. “Doesn’t like?”

“You know, fire, or water, or light. Something it doesn’t like and so avoids.”

“Today it might choose to avoid water. Tomorrow it might slither up from a bog, snatch his leg, and drag him under the water to drown him. It moves through this world as it would through an alien landscape that has little effect on it.”

“Where in the world could someone learn how to create such a beast?” Richard asked.

“I believe that the core of the knowledge was discovered by Jagang in ancient books on weapons that originated during the great war. He is a student of ancient subjects having to do with warfare; he collects such knowledge from all over. I have a suspicion, though, that he took what he found and added specifications he wanted in order to defeat you. We do know that he then used the gifted Sisters to spawn the beast.

“Since they used Subtractive Magic along with their stolen wizardry, they were able to make use of other gifted people as constituent parts of the beast, ripping their souls from them, ripping away all but what was needed in order to conjure, combine and create the beast. It is a weapon beyond anything we have ever encountered before. Jagang is the one who caused the beast to be created. He has to be stopped before he creates anything else.”