Stone of Tears

“Fighting the last war, Richard. What did Bonnie Day tell the Warwick troops guarding the moors? That the enemy would not come the same way as they had before. That they were foolishly wasting their energy trying to fight the last war.” Nathan lifted an eyebrow. “You seem to have missed the lesson. Just because something happened to you before, that does not mean it will happen again. Think ahead, Richard, not behind.”

Richard hesitated. “I… had a vision in one of the towers. A vision that Sister Verna used the collar to hurt me.”

“And it brought the anger forth.”

Richard nodded. “I called the magic and killed her.”

Nathan gave a small, disappointed shake of his head. The vision was your own mind trying to tell you something, trying to show you that you could defend yourself if they did that, that you could defeat them. It was your gift and your mind working together, trying to help you. You were too busy fighting the last war to heed the message.”

Chagrined, Richard kept his mouth shut. He had worried about them hurting him, to the exclusion of everything else. He had ignored the true meaning of what Kahlan had done, because he had been so afraid of the past coming to life again. Think of the solution, not the problem; that was what Zedd had taught him. He had been blinded to the future by the past.

“I see what you mean, Nathan,” he admitted. “What did you mean about the Sisters not giving me pain with the collar?”

“Ann knows you are a war wizard, I told her before you were born. I told her near to five hundred years ago. She would have given orders to the Sisters. Giving pain to a war wizard is like kicking a badger on his rump.”

“You mean that pain is somehow the secret to my power?”

“No. The result of pain. Anger.” He gestured to the sword at Richard’s hip. “You use the sword in that way. Anger calls forth the magic. Actually, you call the magic, it brings you anger, and so the magic works. Would you like me to show you how to touch your Han?”

Richard scooted forward. “Yes. I never thought I would say that, but yes. I need to be able to get out of here.”

“Hold up your palm. Good.” He seemed to pull an aura of authority around himself. “Now, lose yourself in my eyes.”

Richard stared into the hooded, deep, dark, azure eyes. The gaze drew him in. Richard felt as if he were falling up into the clear, blue sky. His breath came in ragged pulls, not of his own will. He felt Nathan’s commanding words more than heard them.

“Call forth the anger, Richard. Call forth the rage. Call forth the hate and fury.” Richard felt it, just as when he drew the sword; as he felt his breath being drawn for him, he felt the anger being drawn. “Now, feel the heat of that rage. Feel the flames of it. Good. Now focus those feelings in the palm of your hand.”

Richard funneled the rage of the magic to his hand, directed its flow, feeling its force. His teeth gritted with the power of it.

“Look in your hand, Richard. See it there. See what you are feeling.”

Richard’s eyes moved slowly to his hand. A ball of blue and yellow fire tumbled slowly above his outstretched palm. He could feel the energy flowing from himself, into the fire. He increased the flow of rage, and the angry ball of flame grew.

“Now, cast the rage, the hate, the anger, the fire, at the hearth.”

Richard threw his hand out. The slowly tumbling sphere of flame stayed with his hand. He looked to the hearth, focusing the rage outward, casting it away from himself.

The liquid light howled as it streaked to the hearth, exploding there with a crack, like lightning.

Nathan smiled with pride. That is how it’s done, my boy. I doubt the Sisters could teach you that in a hundred years. You’re a natural. No doubt about it. You are a war wizard.”

“But Nathan, I didn’t feel my Han. I didn’t sense anything different. All I felt was angry, like when I use the sword. For that matter, like when I shut my finger in a door.”

Nathan nodded knowingly. “Of course not. You are a war wizard. Others have only one side of the gift. They use what is around them; the air, heat, cold, fire, water, whatever they need.

“War wizards aren’t like others. They instead tap the core of power within themselves. You don’t direct your Han, you direct your feelings. The Sisters teach the “how” of how everything is done. That is irrelevant to your power. For you, results are all that are important, because you draw power from within. That is why the Sisters cannot teach you.”

“What do you mean that’s why they cannot teach me?”

“Have you ever seen a seamstress miss a pincushion? The Sisters want you to watch your hand, the pin, and the pincushion. That’s the way other wizards use their magic. War wizards don’t watch, they just do. Their Han acts instinctively.”

“Was that… wizard’s fire?”

Nathan chuckled. “That was to wizard’s fire what an annoyed moth is to an enraged bull.”