The Garden of Life is an elaborate, cavernous garden in the center of the People's Palace of D'Hara.
Description[]
Leaded windows high overhead let in light for the lush plants. Around the outside of the room are flowers set in beds, with walkways winding through. Beyond the flowers are small trees, short stone walls with vines covering them, and well-tended plants completing the landscape. Except for the windows overhead, it mimics an outdoor garden. It is a place of beauty and peace. There is small, hot, forge room at one side with a small vine-covered door. Inside there is a small slit that can be used to view the center of the garden through the foliage as well as a back door to the garden.
In the center of the expansive room is an area of lawn that sweeps around almost into a circle, the grass ring broken by a wedge of white stone, upon which sits a slab of granite, smooth but for grooves carved near the edge of the top, leading to a small well in one corner. It is held up by two short fluted pedestals and resembles an altar. Beyond the slab stands a polished stone block set next to a fire pit. The block holds an ancient iron bowl covered with beasts which serve as legs to support the round bottom. The iron lid, in the same half-sphere shape, has but one beast on it, a Shinga, an Underworld creature, reared up on its two hind legs, serving as a handle. In the center of the lawn lays a round area of white sorcerer's sand, ringed with torches that burn with fluid flames. Geometric symbols commonly crisscrossed the white sand.
The Garden of Life is where Darken Rahl performed most of his magical rituals, including traveling the Underworld and opening the Boxes of Orden. It is also where the spirit of Darken Rahl attempted to tear the veil to the underworld and release the Keeper.
The Garden of Life is a focal point for the series; almost every book mentions it, and many important events take place there (i.e. the final showdown for books 1, 2, and 11, plus many more).