Cover of Debt of Bones

Debt of Bones

expanded novella 1998 Sword of Truth

Record

First published1998
Original language EN
Work typenovella
Canon statusexpanded
First-edition ISBN9780752889818

Synopsis

During the war against D'Hara, Abby, a young peasant woman, comes to Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, Wizard of the First Order and the most powerful man alive, to demand payment of a debt of bones owed to her under an ancient agreement: she needs it to save her dying child. Trapped between both sides of the war and in a mortal conflict between two powerful men, she finds that for Zedd, granting her request would mean forsaking his sacred duty. With the final battle about to break, both are caught in a desperate fight to save a child's life, and neither can escape the shadow of an ancient betrayal. Their choice sets in motion the end of the war and the division of the Westlands, the Midlands and D'Hara by the magical boundaries. First published in the anthology Legends (1998), later the basis for the television series Legend of the Seeker.

Where it sits

Notes

  • First appeared in the multi-author anthology Legends (ed. Robert Silverberg, 1998); reissued as a standalone chapbook in 2001. Prequel, set roughly one generation before Wizard's First Rule.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

Sources

← Sword of Truth dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.