Stone of Tears

She patted his arm again. “You are an important person, a person in prophecy, but if you go off foolishly, you can cause more harm than good. The Stone of Tears being in this world cannot, in itself, allow the Keeper to escape through the gateway. The Stone is a means to that end.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said as they walked on.

She glanced up. “How is your mother doing?”

Richard looked off into the darkness. “she died when I was young. In a fire.”

“I’m sorry, Richard. And your father?”

“Which one,” he muttered.

“Your stepfather, George.”

Richard cleared his throat. “He was killed by Darken Rahl.” He darted her a sidelong glance. “How do you know my stepfather?”

She gave him one of those timeless looks that he had seen from others before; from Adie, Shota, Sister Verna, Du Chaillu, and Kahlan. “I’m sorry, Richard. I didn’t know he had died. George Cypher was quite a man.”

He came to a stop, his flesh atingle. “You,” he whispered. “You are how my father got that book.” He left the statement vague enough that she would have to fill in the details to confirm it.

A little of her smile came back. “Afraid to say it out loud? The Book of Counted Shadows, that is the book you are speaking of She gestured to a stone bench. “sit down, Richard, before you fall down.”

Richard slumped to the bench. He looked up as she stood before him. “You? You gave that book to my father?”

Actually, I helped him get it. You see, Richard, as I told you, you and I are old acquaintances. Of course, the last time I saw you, you were bawling your head off. Only a few months old, you were.”

She smiled distantly. “If your mother could see you now. She was bursting with pride over you. She said your were the blessing to balance the curse. You see, Richard, balance is what the world of the living is all about. You are a child of balance. I have much invested in you.”

Richard’s tongue seemed stuck to the top of his mouth. “Why?”

“Because you are a pebble in the pond.” Her eyes seemed to go out of focus. “Over three thousand years ago, wizards had Subtractive Magic. None since has been born with it. We have been hoping, but none, until now, has come into this life. A few have had the calling, but not the gift of it. You have the gift for both Additive and Subtractive Magic.”

Richard shot to his feet. “What! Are you mad!”

“Sit down, Richard.”

The quiet power of her voice, her penetrating gaze, her presence, made him sink to the bench. For some reason, she seemed suddenly very big to him. She was the same size as before, but it felt as if she towered over him. Her voice became imposing, too.

“Now, you listen to me. You are causing me a great deal of trouble. You are like a bull that keeps knocking down fences and trampling the crops. Too much is at stake to have you acting without knowing what you are doing. I know you think you are doing right, but so does the bull. Your problem is lack of knowledge. I intend to give you an education.

Though you will not believe some of what I have to tell you, you had better come to accept it, or you will be in that collar a good long time, because it cannot come off until you accept the truth.”

“I was told the Sisters took the collar off.”

The look in her eyes made him wish he had kept his mouth closed, or that he could trade places with the two Sisters who were to take a public strapping.

“Only when you accept yourself, accept your ability, your true power, will it come off. You put the Rada’Han around your own neck. We don’t have the power to take it off until you can help us, with your own power. The only way you can do that is to learn, and to accept who you are.

“Now, first of all, you must understand about the Keeper, and the Creator, and the nature of this world. Your problem, the problem most people have, the problem Warren has, is that you try to understand the worlds beyond in terms of this world.

“Good and evil, the Creator and the Keeper, are chaos divided into two opposing forces. Although each abhors the other, they are interdependent, and cannot exist one without the other. They define each other. The struggle, our struggle in this world, is maintaining the balance.”

Although Richard kept his mouth shut, he couldn’t keep the frown from his face.

“From the Creator springs life, the soul of life. It blooms into this world. Without the Keeper, without death, there can be no life. Without death, life would be open-ended.

“Can you even imagine a world in which no one ever died? Where every child born lives? Forever? Where every plant that sprouts flourishes? Where every tree lives forever, and every seedling sprouts and grows to a tree?

“What would happen? How could we eat, if we could kill no animal, or harvest no crop, if it all lived forever and could not die? A never-ending life of gnawing, ravenous hunger? The world of the living would be consumed by chaos, and destroy itself forever.