The Law of Nines
Author	Terry Goodkind
Cover artist	Will Staehle
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Thriller
Publisher	Putnam Adult
Publication date	August 18, 2009
Media type	Book
Pages	502 (Hardcover)
ISBN	978-0-385-66738-8
OCLC Number	343742096

The Law of Nines is a thriller novel by American author Terry Goodkind. The book was released on August 18, 2009.^[1] It debuted at #10 on the Times bestseller list.^[2]

The book involves many fantasy elements and though set in the near-future of the real world, it is linked to the parallel universe found in Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series. The book's main character is Alex Rahl, an artist whose life becomes more complicated when he meets a woman named Jax from the other world.^[3]

Plot Summary

Alexander Rahl is a struggling Artist, living in an unnamed town. His mother is committed to an asylum for violent tendencies; she often claims that people are watching her through mirrors. His only other family is an uncle named Ben that, as gradually revealed, was a survivalist and special forces soldier who taught Alex nearly everything he knew about survival and guerila warfare. Even with this history, both Alex and Ben are peace-loving men who only attack in self defense.

Alex is visiting the local art gallery that carries his work when he meets a young woman named Jax. He is instantly fascinated with her, and saves her from a runaway truck when it nearly runs the two of them down on a street corner. The occupants are arrested, later the police that arrested the occupants are found with their necks broken. Jax accompanies Alex to the gallery where she compliments him on a painting of a mountain clearing with 9 trees. Also at the gallery, the owner urges Alex to paint more dystopian themes, like the best-selling artist at the gallery (named R.C. Dillon). Alex refuses, proclaiming that he only likes to paint life. Alex resolves to give the painting of the mountain clearing to Jax, but before he can do so Jax disappears.

Meanwhile, Alex is trying to dodge a woman named Bethany. Although he finds her aesthetically attractive, he is instinctively repulsed by her and eventually throws away his cell phone to stop receiving texts from her. He picks up a disposable cell phone to replace it.

On his 27th birthday, Ben gives Alex a packet of papers and explains that it is an inheritance that passes to the oldest member of Alex's bloodline. It would have passed to his mother, but she was committed soon after her 27th birthday and so the inheritance passes to Alex. The inheritance is a huge swath of land in the far east part of the country in a heavily wooded and mountainous nature preserve. If he so chooses, he can sell it to the Dagget Trust, which controls the rest of the nature preserve. Ben urges Alex to sell the land and live handsomely for the rest of his life on the profits. Alex agrees to think about it, and leaves.

On a trip back to the gallery, he finds that someone bought all of his paintings at the gallery, paid cash, then defaced all the paintings. The gallery owner, frightened, gives Alex all the cash and asks him not to bring any more of his paintings to the gallery. The description of the buyer fits that of the driver that nearly ran Alex down early in the book. On his way out of the gallery Alex again meets up with Jax. He takes her to a restaurant where Jax tries to convince him that there is a conspiracy to murder Alex, and that Jax is from another world, as are the conspirators. She tries to explain that the two worlds were once one, and that long ago a great man named Richard Rahl was forced to use powerful magic to separate the two worlds to stop a massive war. She explains that all the people that didn't want magic came to Alex's world, and in her world those that wanted magic were able to continue living. There was a long period of peace and harmony, but now in her world there is a bad person that is convincing people to give up magic, claiming that the leaders of the world are using magic to oppress the people and that only by leaving all magic behind can they rise up and claim what is theirs. She also claims that the bad guys (led by a man named Radell Cain) have been watching him through mirrors, and her side is still struggling to catch up to the ability of the other side to come to this world. She claims that she wants to protect him. Alex is naturally upset and skeptical with the whole story, and Jax leaves.

That day Ben's house burns down with Ben inside of it. The police assume it was an electrical fire caused by one of Ben's inventions, although Alex isn't so sure. Alex is lost in a haze of grief, mixed with a longing to see Jax again.

Later that night, at his house, Bethany shows up. There is a tremendous storm going on outside that knocks out the power to his house. When he answers her knock, he finds her with two men, seemingly untouched by the rain. The group attacks him, but he manages to overpower and kill one of the men by breaking his neck. Before he can finish the other man, Bethany incapacitates him with a Tazer. The remaining henchman strips Alex and ties him to the bed. Bethany reveals that she is a queen on the other world and wishes to bear Alex's child so that she can have control of the Rahl bloodline, which has died out on her world. As Bethany attempts to excite Alex's body so that it will perform, he insults her and refuses to cooperate. Finally the remaining henchman leaves the bedroom and Bethany prepares to mount Alex. Alex, counting on her ignorance of conduction of electricity, goads her into triggering the Tazer again while she is in contact with him. The plan works and Bethany is thrown to the floor. Suddenly, Jax appears out of thin air and kills Bethany. After a brief conversation, she frees Alex and begins carving some symbols into Bethany, which she explains is a spell form that will trigger the magic in the body and pull it back to her world. It works, and Bethany is sucked back into the world of magic. They incapacitate but are unable to kill the henchman, and run out to Alex's car. On the way out they kill a couple more henchman (they are sent in a quad structure similar to Darken and Panis Rahl's setup).

Using the money that he was paid for his paintings, Alex gets a hotel room with Jax. They plan, and Alex decides that they have to visit the hospital where his mom is being held. When they enter, he has to introduce Jax as his fiancee. Jax and Alex are talking to his mom when he sees the orderlies preparing to inject Jax with Thorazine. Alex and Jax fight back, but are overwhelmed and injected with the drugs. Alex realizes that the members of the asylum floor and the guards where he entered are all members of the evil group on Jax's world. The doctors keep Jax and Alex drugged and start torturing Jax, trying to get Alex to tell them where the 'gateway' is. Alex knows nothing about it, but reasons that he will be unable to convince them. Further, he also realizes that he will be trapped in the asylum the rest of his life if he doesn't escape. He manages to palm one dose of the drugs, but the next day the nurse delivering the drugs is too curious and finds him trying not to take the drugs. He kills the nurse and draws the spellform on her from memory, causing her to get sucked back into the world of magic. Late that night, he is taken to the bathroom where Jax is being tortured. Despite being full of drugs, Jax is defiant. Alex manages to start a brawl and free Jax. The two of them kill several guards and start a fire on the asylum level of the hospital. In all the confusion, Alex's mother is also killed.

Jax and Alex escape the hospital and get to his jeep. They are attacked again, and Jax realizes that the rear view and side view mirrors are being used to track them. She breaks them and the two again use the money paid by Radell Cain's henchman to finance their hotel room. After talking, Alex reasons that the gateway that Cain's men want to find is a place that allows physical objects, not just the people, to travel between the worlds, and Cain wants control of this gateway in order to bring in weapons and technology from the technology world to the magic world. He also reasons that the gateway must be in the land that he inherited.

Jax and Alex contact the Dagget Trust, and learn that the Trust is a company of men that have been searching for the gateway for generations, even if they didn't know exactly what the gateway was. Further, they are descended from the Rahl's that were sent to the world of technology when Richard Rahl separated the two worlds. Alex's guesses are proved correct and he and Jax travel to the area where the Dagget Trust is located in order to meet with the with Trust members. At the meeting, Alex is attacked by a member of the Trust. Alex orders the security forces of the Trust to conduct research on all the members in case there are more traitors. The Trust hands over the knife of the house of Rahl to Alex. Jax also has one of these knives, they are ancient and very rare symbols of the House of Rahl.

Alex and Jax journey into the nature preserve. From photographs and eyewitness accounts, Jax tells Alex that the mountain at the center of the land is an exact duplicate of the People's Palace in her world, which was the seat of Richard Rahl's throne. At night, Jax sneaks away intending on ambushing Radell at the mountain. Alex wakes and finds her gone. He realizes what she has done and takes off after her. Alex sneaks onto the mountain and into the center, where he finds a clearing (the Garden of Life) with a pristine center of white sand. Radell and many of his minions are there, with Jax as a captive. Alex is forced to give up his gun, and then to draw the gateway. After thinking back on all that has happened, Alex realises that he has to draw the clearing that he painted and wanted to give to Jax. Only, he draws it as it actually is in her world, with 10 trees instead of nine. Radell, who is no artist despite the high price and popularity of his paintings (he is R.C. Dillon), doesn't see that the 10th tree doesn't belong in the picture that Alex drew in the sand. Radell orders some of his men to try the gateway, and it kills them. In the confusion, Alex is able to wrest his gun back and begin slaughtering the army in the clearing. He and Alex are able to kill Cain, which causes the remainder of his army to run away.

Alex explains to Jax that he realized that there must be a fail-safe mechanism on the gateway, and that he figured it out. Then he corrects the gateway and draws all of Cain's army back to the world of magic. Jax, too, returns, but only long enough to tell everyone what happened, and to put a stop to the war in her world.

Alex returns to the Dagget Trust, and speaks briefly with the Security manager. There was another traitor in the group, but he has been disposed of. Alex tells the security manager that Jax was going to come back, and the two would get married.

References

This article about a thriller novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e