Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind Page A

decides?
    “All life is of value. Dead is dead, no matter the age. Don’t think to produce a suspension of my reason with a callous, calculated twisting of emotion, like some slippery officeholder stirring the passions of a mindless mob.”
    Abby was struck speechless by such an admonition. The wizard turned his attention to the Mother Confessor.
    “Speaking of bureaucrats, what did the council have to say for themselves?”
    The Mother Confessor clasped her hands and sighed. “I told them your words. Simply put, they didn’t care. They want it done.”
    He grunted his discontent. “Do they, now?” His hazel eyes turned to Abby. “Seems the council doesn’t care about the lives of even children, when the children are D’Haran.” He wiped a hand across his tired-looking eyes. “I can’t say I don’t comprehend their reasoning, or that I disagree with them, but dear spirits, they are not the ones to do it. It is not by their hand. It will be by mine.”
    “I understand, Zedd,” the Mother Confessor murmured.
    Once again he seemed to notice Abby standing before him. He considered her as if pondering some profound notion. It made her fidget. He held out his hand and waggled his fingers. “Let me see it, then.”
    Abby stepped closer to the table as she reached in her sack.
    “If you cannot be persuaded to help innocent people, then maybe this will mean something more to you.”
    She drew her mother’s skull from the sack and placed it in the wizard’s upturned palm. “It is a debt of bones. I declare it due.”
    One eyebrow lifted. “It is customary to bring only a tiny fragment of bone, child.”
    Abby felt her face flush. “I didn’t know,” she stammered. “I wanted to be sure there was enough to test … to be sure you would believe me.”
    He smoothed a gentle hand over the top of the skull. “A piece smaller than a grain of sand is enough.” He watched Abby’s eyes. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”
    Abby shook her head. “She said only that it was a debt passed to you from your father. She said the debt must be paid if it was called due.”
    “Indeed it must,” he whispered.
    Even as he spoke, his hand was gliding back and forth over the skull. The bone was dull and stained by the dirt from which Abby had pulled it, not at all the pristine white she had fancied it would be. It had horrified her to have to uncover her mother’s bones, but the alternative horrified her more.
    Beneath the wizard’s fingers, the bone of the skull began to glow with soft amber light. Abby’s breathing nearly stilled when the air hummed, as if the spirits themselves whispered to the wizard. The sorceress fussed with the beads at her neck. The Mother Confessor chewed her lower lip. Abby prayed.
    Wizard Zorander set the skull on the table and turned his back on them. The amber glow faded away.
    When he said nothing, Abby spoke into the thick silence. “Well? Are you satisfied? Did your test prove it a debt true?”
    “Oh yes,” he said quietly without turning toward them. “It is a debt of bones true, bound by the magic invoked until the debt is paid.”
    Abby’s fingers worried at the frayed edge of her sack. “I told you. My mother wouldn’t have lied to me. She told me that if not paid while she was alive, it became a debt of bones upon her death.”
    The wizard slowly rounded to face her. “And did she tell you anything of the engendering of the debt?”
    “No.” Abby cast a furtive, sidelong glance at Delora before going on. “Sorceresses hold secrets close, and reveal only that which serves their purposes.”
    With a slight, fleeting smile, he grunted his concurrence.
    “She said only that it was your father and she who were bound in it, and that until paid it would continue to pass on to the descendants of each.”
    “Your mother spoke the truth. But that does not mean that it must be paid now.”
    “It is a solemn debt of bones.” Abby’s frustration and fear erupted with venom. “I