The Law of Nines

“It wasn’t, once they were here.” Seeing that the answer didn’t satisfy him, she looked up, thinking for a moment before asking a question. “You don’t have have wizards, witches, sorceresses, dragons, or magic here in this world?”

“No, not real ones.”

“Then why are those things part of all cultures, all peoples, throughout your history? Why do different people in different places in different times speak of them? Why do they even have the words for things that can’t possibly exist?”

“It’s just ancient legend, myth.”

Jax arched an eyebrow. “Why has this myth always been basically the same in every culture, in every corner of your world? Why do they all have the same words for the same imaginary things—myths—that can’t exist? Where do you suppose such common myth was born?”

Alex didn’t have an answer.

She leaned closer. “It was born in my world. The reality was left behind in my world. Why is magic such a universal part of your language, your culture, even though it does not exist here, cannot exist here? Why?

“Those who came here could bring with them only the fading memories of those things. As you say, magic is not part of the reality of nature here. It can’t exist here. I’m sure that those who resettled here soon came to deeply regret ever having wished for a life without magic. There could have been nothing worse for them than getting exactly what they had wanted.

“Those things lost lived on in this world but only as a ghost of what once was, of what is now gone.

“That myth, that legend, is all the history that’s left from those who came here from my world.

“They left magic behind, yet it still haunts you.”

24.

ALEX COULDN’T BRING HIMSELF to accept her story as true—it just seemed too far-fetched and there were too many things that didn’t seem to fit with what he knew of the history of the world. Yet at the same time it had a haunting quality to it, some kind of lingering whisper that he couldn’t entirely banish. There had been vast dark stretches in human history about which virtually nothing was known.

“I don’t have an answer for you, Jax, but just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. For all I know, it could be that your history is really the one based on legend and myth.”

“Have it your way, Alex,” she said with a sigh. “If it’s too much for you right now, then let it be. Besides, that isn’t what matters at the moment. What matters now is that the Law of Nines indicates you are the one named in the prophecy from my world, where prophecy is magic and magic is real.”

He knew that she was right about at least some of it. He knew that what was going on now was real. His muscles ached from the shocks Bethany had given him with the Taser. He’d seen bodies vanish. He’d seen a man appear out of thin air.

He didn’t know the truth about the past or if he could ever believe the whole far-fetched notion, but he did know that something was going on now, and it most definitely involved him.

“All right, I’m listening,” he said. “What matters now?”

“We believe that Cain’s people have been coming to this world to find something that will help them tip the balance to their side once and for all. We don’t know what it is they’re after, but they’re expending a lot of resources on it, so we fear that if they find what they’re after, we’re finished.”

Alex lifted his hands in exasperation. “But if your people believe in prophecy and that I’m the one who can save your world, then why would they want me dead? I die, you all die.”

She regarded him with the kind of expression that made him a little uncomfortable. “Prophecy can mean something very different from what you think it does. What if you were to cooperate with Cain’s people? What if you were tortured into helping them? What if you helped them without realizing what you were doing? Any of those would result in the same end. You would be directly responsible for the deaths of millions.

“If any of those things turned out to be true, then the only way you could be our salvation would be if you died before you could help Radell Cain.

“The prophecy, you see, does not say that you must be alive to save our world. It could mean that you must die if our world is to be saved.”

Alex ran his fingers back into his hair and held his head. He wanted the whole nightmare to be over. He hated the deliberately vague nature of prophecy. Prophecy always tried to make any outcome look like a prediction or else it spoke of war, floods, and droughts because there would always be war, floods, and droughts. As far as Alex was concerned, prophecy, like magic, was childish nonsense that depended on the gullible.

“Why then,” he finally asked, “didn’t you kill me?”

“If I believed that version of the prophecy you would already be dead.”

“So you believe this prophecy, but the other way around?”

“We have a saying: ‘The House of Rahl is not ruled by prophecy; the House of Rahl reigns over prophecy.’