Debt of Bones Read Online Free PDF

be drawn in proper order and without error.
    The First Wizard squatted down and took a handful of sand from the sack. He drew on the floor by letting the sand dribble from the side of his fist.
    Wizard Zorander’s hand moved with practiced precision. His arm swept around, drawing a circle. He returned for a handful of sand and drew an inner circle. It appeared he was drawing a Grace.
    Abby’s mother had always drawn the square second; everything in order inward and then the rays back out. Wizard Zorander drew the eight-pointed star inside the smaller circle. He drew the lines radiating outward, through both circles, but left one absent.
    He had yet to draw the square, representing the boundary between worlds. He was the First Wizard, so Abby guessed that it wasn’t improper to do it in a different order than a sorceress in a little place like Coney Crossing did. But several of the men Abby took as wizards, and the two sorceress behind him, were turning grave glances to one another.
    Wizard Zorander laid down the lines of sand for two sides of the square. He scooped up more sand from the sack and began the last two sides.
    Instead of a straight line, he drew an arc that dipped well into the edge of the inner circle—the one representing the world of life. The arc, instead of ending at the outer circle, crossed it. He drew the last side, likewise arced, so that it too crossed into the inner circle. He brought the line to meet the other where the ray from the Light was missing. Unlike the other three points of the square, this last point ended outside the larger circle—in the world of the dead.
    People gasped. A hush fell over the room for a moment before worried whispers spread among those gifted.
    Wizard Zorander rose. “Satisfied, Thomas?”
    Thomas’s face had gone as white as his beard. “The Creator preserve us.” His eyes turned to Wizard Zorander. “The council doesn’t truly understand this. It would be madness to unleash it.”
    Wizard Zorander ignored him and turned toward Abby. “How many D’Harans did you see?”
    “Three years past, the locust swarms came. The hills of the Crossing were brown with them. I think I saw more D’Harans than I saw locusts.”
    Wizard Zorander grunted his discontent. He looked down at the Grace he had drawn. “Panis Rahl won’t give up. How long, Thomas? How long until he finds something new to conjure and sends Anargo back on us?” His gaze swept among the people around him. “How many years have we thought we would be annihilated by the invading horde from D’Hara? How many of our people have been killed by Rahl’s magic? How many thousands have died of the fevers he sent? How many thousands have blistered and bled to death from the touch of the shadow people he conjured? How many villages, towns, and cities has he wiped from existence?”
    When no one spoke, Wizard Zorander went on.
    “It has taken us years to come back from the brink. The war has finally turned; the enemy is running. We now have three choices. The first choice is to let him run for home and hope he never comes back to again visit us with his brutality. I think it would only be a matter of time until he tried again. That leaves two realistic options. We can either pursue him into his lair and kill him for good at the cost of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of our men—or I can end it.”
    Those gifted among the crowd cast uneasy glances to the Grace drawn on the floor.
    “We still have other magic,” another wizard said. “We can use it to the same effect without unleashing such a cataclysm.”
    “Wizard Zorander is right,” another said, “and so is the council. The enemy has earned this fate. We must set it upon them.”
    The room fell again to arguing. As it did, Wizard Zorander looked into Abby’s eyes. It was a clear instruction to finish her supplication.
    “My people—the people in Coney Crossing—have been taken by the D’Harans. They have others, too, who they’ve