"There's no higher payment that can be made."

[Quill]

marniebrown1, I'm with you. I always figured, from the first time I read it, is that the highest price is to see someone else give up their life, and be unable to do anything about it...or worse yet, know that one must let them do so. And I'll bet Carl experienced this...or, sitting there on the sand, is realizing that Nita is about to do it for him. In self-sacrifice, there is (I would guess) a certain satisfaction in knowing that the person or people for whom one is sacrificing will be safe. In some ways, it's probably a lot harder to stand by and watch someone else give up their life, particularly if it is because of one's own actions. And one must then deal with going on afterwards, and missing the person who is gone...

Inside every cynic there's an idealist desperately yearning to be let out, and when they are let out they're usually a real pain and cause all sorts of trouble. --Chris Boucher

[Sandrilyssa]

I always imagined that it was something slightly more personal than general. I also have always gotten the feeling that Carl has seen or experienced this "higher price". I do not think he would be reluctant to speak about it otherwise, considering it is his duty to inform wizards about such things.

Sandrilyssa

[EWizard11]

Hmmmm. Maybe we'll find this out in later books?

*Ella*

[Rysade]

Yes, but remember the reason the price is being paid. The Blank Check spells require you to pay back the amout of energy you used in full. How would losing a place in timeheart repay energy? A lifeprice can pay back energy because all the energy you would be using is now put into paying for the spell, and you die. The only other way I can think to more energy would be to never exist, like Rissa said. Of course, never existing would also be a problem for your admission into Timeheart, being that you're not real, and never were.

"Ed is hungry"

-- Dai Stihó

good job sleuth. i missed that one. it makes perfect sense that if you refuse (that is, go back on) the oath that you wouldn't make it to timeheart/heart of the sea, although, that seems a harsh punishment, but essentially fair i suppose. anyway, i concur.

[EWizard11]

Okay...Okay. I have another guess. I was just rereading DW, and I got to the part where S'reee gives the Celebrant's Oath to the Blue (Aroooon, is it?). And I read it, and I stopped and put down the book and thought about it.
The third time when someone asks you if you will join in the Song, it's something like, 'And may I not receive a place in that Heart (the Heart of the Sea; Timeheart) but wander forever among the broken and the lost, sooner than I shall refuse the Oath' or something like that. The key words are the 'wandering forever among the broken and the lost' part.
Now did that make any sense to anyone? Someone go and look it up and get me the full quote, please. Any thoughts?

*Ella*

the idea behind her lifeprice sacrifice (in my opinion) is to pay back the wizardry she borrowed in the past. therefore, the "higher price" would have to be greater than giving up your life energy to a wizardry in works. the lifeprice includes the wizardry you have done, and the wizardry you would have done. potential energy. thusly, losing and/or giving up your wizardry while still alive would be a subtraction, that is, energy would be lost in the process, then one would go on using energy and contributing to entropy whilst continuing to live and not contributing to slowing entropy. (whew, complexities) sooooo, my idea is that paying a price higher than a past and future lifetime of wizardry couldn't be losing your wizardry while still alive, because that would just make things worse. so with this theory, the cloud of mystery once again surrounds the "higher than lifeprice" notion...sorry [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

dai'

[TheClone]

I thought that the higher price would be never existing so you don't go to timeheart.

[Agent M]

I just found out the higher price (i think) is someone you love dies [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]!!!!!!!

Scary Huh?

Live Life to the fullest

[Agent M]

I can think of is that if you do something really powerful i mean REALLY powerful the Lone Power comes and makes you one of him *shivers* [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

In one of my posts i put in a quote but i said it wrong.
"A wise man knows much and speaks little, A fool knows little and speaks far too much." Shi Anne from Survivor I think I have it right. Dai Stiho! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Live Life to the fullest

[EWizard11]

*giggle*
oh, sorry

*Ella*

[Rissa]

Maybe unmaking yourself, so you never really existed?
I suppose that'd actually be reshaping the universe, so that it will have always existed without you. "Always loving, but never loved," indeed ... especially if you still DO exist, someplace in a reality farther away from Timeheart.

Oh, Ella, in at least some instances the "fate worse than death" was being forced to marry the villain, back in the days when divorce was forbidden and those wedding vows had to be upheld even if one had been forced to make them.

Yow. The above is a nightmare of a sentence. My apologies.

Dai Stihó

gah, reminds me of Luke...in the SW books, yah know, trying so hard not to go bad and dooming himself steadilly, so that he even dooms his students...ack

Dai-stihó,
Rhiow-chan.
http://www.geocities.com/booknightmoon

[Em]

Hmmm...this reminds me of The Wayfarer Redemption series By Sara Douglass. In the books, one of the characters, Timozel, had been haunted in his dreams by the villain in the story, Gorgrael. The dreams had finally gotten to the point where he was in so much pain that he offered himself to the Dark Lord. And throughout it all, when he was fighting on Gorgrael's side, somehow, he knew he was fighting for the wrong side, for the wrong cause. In the beginning, he would think of fighting his friends, and knew he was doing the wrong thing, but then the other part of his mind, haunted by Gorgrael, would somehow show him he had chosen the right path and he would be back at the beginning again. And in the corner of his mind, he always knew there was no way out of it, that he would be taken by Gorgrael...and become just like him...
Maybe the debt worse than lifeprice is something like that - being forced to devote one's self to the Lone Power, but always knowing it was the wrong choice, yet never being able to go back...always knowing that someday you would become something like the Lone Power itself.

*Shivers...* In many ways, that would be worse than paying your life...

I hope that doesn't happen to any of our precious characters [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img], but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will...

~Em~

The only thing I can really come up with worse then lifeprice is life twisted.

To go over to the Dark, to become one of them not because you are corrupt or evil but know that you will be, and to then become your own worst enemy, doomed to win the battle for the4 wrong side, as we know Entropy must in the end, whenever that is.
<shiver>

You would be fighting the light, despairing when they won because you're fighting and are true to the Dark, despairing when they lose because inside you remember what you should be, and beyond saving.

bad

Hope we don't see it happen to anybody

There is no other wisdom, and no other hope for us, but that we grow wise
- Surak of Vulcan