Phantom

  Zedd cast the others a sidelong glance and only grunted before turning back to studying the geometric forms surrounding the woman floating before him.

  Richard knew his grandfather well enough to know by his drawn features that he was either unhappy or very worried. Richard didn't think that either prospect augured well. He began to worry himself—for Nicci.

  As the others stood back to take it all in, frowning in concentration as they pondered the way the glowing verification web continued to trace new lines through space, Richard stepped closer. He slowly walked around the table, finally studying—for the first time, really—the lines crisscrossing through the air all around Nicci.

  As he moved in closer and stepped around the table, he realized that the lines actually formed a cylinder in space, like something flat that had been rolled up, with Nicci inside that cylinder. That meant that all the lines were simply a two-dimensional drawing, even if they did wrap around until they met. Richard mentally flattened out that cylindrical form, much like unrolling a scroll, in order to see it in his mind as a more customary line drawing. When he did so, he began to realize that there was something oddly familiar about the network of lines.

  The more Richard studied it, the more he couldn't stop staring at it, as if it were pulling him in… drawing him into the pattern of lines, angles, and arcs. There seemed to be something he should recognize about it all, but he couldn't figure out what.

  He thought that perhaps he should regard a spell-form that had been cast around Kahlan, as this terrible thing had been, to be evil, but he didn't feel that way. The spell-form existed; it did not possess the quality of being good or evil.

  The ones who cast the web around Kahlan were the real evil. Those four Sisters were the ones who had used the spell for their own evil ends. They had used it as part of their plan to have the boxes of Orden and to free the Keeper from the underworld—to loose death on the living. All in return for beguiling promises of immortality.

  Gazing at the lines, Richard began to scrutinize the rhythm in those lines, their patterns, their flow. As he did so, he began to get an inkling of their significance.

  He was beginning to see purpose in the design.

  Richard pointed to a place near Nicci's extended right arm, just below her elbow.

  "This place, here, is wrong," he said as he frowned into the fabric woven of light.

  Zedd came to a halt. "Wrong?"

  Richard hadn't realized that he'd said it out loud, at least not loud enough for others to hear. "Yes, that's right. It's wrong."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 5

  Richard went back to studying the lines, tilting his head to better follow them along as they went through a complex intersection of routes coming around from all directions to end up before Nicci's middle. He was beginning to grasp the meaning of those routes and the larger intent of the design.

  "I think there's a supporting structure missing." He aimed a finger off to his left. "It seems like it should have started back there, don't you think? It looks like this place, here, should have a line going up this way and then back to that spot near her elbow."

  His attention riveted on the rhythm of lines, Richard was largely lost to the rest of the room.

  "It's impossible for you to know such a thing," Ann said flatly.

  He wasn't discouraged by her skepticism. "When someone shows you a circle and it has a flat spot in it, you know it's wrong, don't you? You can see the intended design and know that the flat spot doesn't belong there."

  "Richard, this is not some simple circle. You don't even know what you're looking at." She caught herself before her voice rose any more, clasped her hands before herself, and took a deep breath before going on. "I'm simply trying to point out that there are a great deal of complexities involved here that you are not aware of. The three of us haven't even begun to be able to unravel the mechanism behind the spell-form, and we have extensive training in such things. Despite our training and knowledge, it's still far from complete enough for us to grasp the manner in which it functions. You don't understand the first thing about such complex motifs."

  Without turning to her, Richard flicked a hand to dismiss her concern. "Doesn't matter. The form is emblematic."

  Nathan cocked his head. "It's what?"

  "Emblematic," Richard murmured as he studied an intersection of lines, trying to identify the primary strand through the architecture of the lineation.

  "So?" his grandfather sputtered after Richard again fell to silent preoccupation.

  "I understand the jargon of emblems," he said, absently, as he found the primary thread and traced it along a rise and fall and swirl of the pattern, all the time coming more in tune with its intent. "I told you that before."

  "When?"

  "Back when we were with the Mud People." Richard immersed himself in the flow of the design, trying to perceive the ascendant course among the lesser branches. "Kahlan was there. So was Ann."

  "I'm afraid that we don't remember," Zedd admitted after seeing Ann shake her head in frustration. He sighed unhappily. "Yet one more memory surrounding Kahlan lost to us because of what those Sisters did."

  Richard didn't really hear him. Growing ever more agitated, he waggled a finger back and forth at a breach in the lines just below Nicci's elbow. "I'm telling you, there's a line missing, here. I'm sure of it."

  Richard turned to his grandfather. He saw then that everyone was staring at him. "Right here," he told them as he pointed again, "from the end of this upward rising arc, to this intersection of triangles, there should be a line."

  Zedd frowned. "A line?"

  "Yes." He didn't know why they hadn't spotted it before. It was stone cold obvious to Richard, like a song sung with a note of the melody left out. "A line is missing. An important line."

  "Important," Ann repeated in weary exasperation.

  Richard, becoming more unsettled by the moment, wiped a hand across his mouth. "Very important."

  Zedd sighed. "Richard, what are you talking about?"

  "There is no way you could know such a thing," Ann scoffed, her patience wearing thinner by the moment.

  "Look," Richard said turning back to them, "it's an emblem, a design."

  Zedd scratched the back of his head, glancing briefly to the window as a particularly violent fit of lightning flared so close that it released a crack of thunder that felt like it might loosen the stone walls of the Keep.

  He turned back to Richard. "And the design… tells you something, Richard?"

  "Yes. Such a design is like a translation from another language. In a way, it's what you're trying to understand by doing this verification web. This form characterizes a concept in much the same way that a math equation expresses physical attributes, such as an equation expressing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Emblematic forms can be a kind of language, too, the way mathematics is a form of language. They both are able to reveal something about the nature of things."

  Zedd patiently smoothed back his hair. "You see emblems as a form of language?"

  "In a way. Take the Grace underneath Nicci, for example. That's an emblem. The outer circle represents the beginning of the underworld while the inner circle represents the limits of the world of life. The square separating them represents the veil between those worlds. In the center is an eight-pointed star, representing the Creator's Light. The eight lines radiating out from the points of that star all the way out through the outer circle represent the gift carried from Creation all the way through life, across the veil, and beyond, into death. The whole thing is an emblem; when you see that emblem, you see it as a whole concept. You might say that you understand the language of it.

  "If, during the casting of a spell, someone with the gift doesn't draw the grace correctly—hasn't spoken the language correctly—it won't work as intended and might even cause trouble. Say you saw a Grace with a nine-pointed star, or with one of the circles missing, wouldn't you know it was wrong?
If the square representing the veil was drawn incorrectly, then under the right circumstances it could even theoretically breach the veil and allow the worlds to bleed together.

  "It's an emblem. You understand the concept it represents. You know what it should look like. If it's drawn wrong, then you recognize it as wrong."

  When the flashes of lightning flickered to a stop, the room felt forsaken in the weak light of lamps. Distant thunder rumbled ominously up from the valley below.

  Zedd, standing stock-still, studied Richard with more focus than he had been studying the verification web. "I've never looked at it in quite that way before,, Richard, but I grant that you might have a point."

  Nathan arched a brow. "He certainly does."

  Ann sighed. "Perhaps."

  Richard turned from their dour expressions back to the glowing lines. "This, right here," he said, gesturing, "is wrong."

  Zedd stretched his neck to peer at the lines. "Let's just say for the sake of argument that you're right. What do you think it means?"

  Richard's heart hammered as he made his way around the table, swiftly tracing lines through the spell. He used a finger, keeping it just clear of the lines of light, to track the primary pathways, the sweeps of the pattern, the fabric of the form.

  He found what he was expecting. "Here. Look here, at this newly formed structure that has built up around these older, original lines. Look at the disordered nature of this new cluster; they're a variable, but in this emblem of lines it should all be a constant."

  "Variable… ?" Zedd sputtered, as if having thought he was following Richard's reasoning, had instead suddenly found that he was completely lost.

  "Yes," Richard said. "It's not emblematic. It's a biological form. The two are clearly different."

  Nathan wiped both hands back over his white hair as he sighed but remained silent.

  Ann's face had gone crimson. "It's a spell-form! It's inert! It can't be biological!"

  "That's the problem," Richard said, answering her point rather than her anger. "You can't have these kind of variables tainting what's supposed to be a constant. It would be like a math equation in which any of the numbers could spontaneously change their value. Such a thing would render math invalid and unworkable. Algebraic symbols can vary—but even then they are specific relational variables. The numbers, though, are constants. Same with this structure; emblems have to be constructed of inert constants—you might say like simple addition or subtraction. An internal variable corrupts the constant of an emblematic form."

  "I don't follow," Zedd admitted.

  Richard gestured to the table. "You drew the Grace in blood. The Grace is a constant. The blood is biological. Why did you do it that way?"

  "To make it work," Ann snapped. "We had to do it that way in order to initiate an interior perspective of the verification web. That's the way it's done. That's the method."

  Richard held up a finger. "Exactly. You deliberately introduced a controlled biological variable—blood—into what is a constant—a Grace. Keep in mind though, that it remains outside the spell-form itself; it's merely an empowering agent, a catalyst. I think it must be that such a variable in the Grace allows the spell you initiated to run its course without being influenced by a constant—the Grace. Do you see? It gives the verification web not only the power invoked by the Grace, but the freedom gained through the biological variable to allow it to grow as it needs to in order to reveal its true nature and intent."

  When Zedd glanced her way, Cara said, "Don't look at me. Whenever he starts in like this I just nod and smile and wait until the trouble starts."

  Zedd made a sour face. One hand on a hip, he took a few paces away before turning back. "I've never in all my years heard such an explanation of a verification web. It's quite a unique way of looking at it. The most troubling thing is that, in a perverse way, it actually makes sense. I'm not saying that I think you're right, Richard, but it certainly is a disturbing notion."

  "If you're right," Nathan said, "it would mean that we've been children playing with fire all these years."

  "That's if he's right," Ann added under her breath. "Sounds a tick too clever to me."

  Richard stared up at the woman frozen in space, the woman who could not at the moment speak for herself. "Whose blood did you use to draw the Grace?" he asked the others behind him.

  "Nicci's," Nathan said. "She suggested it herself. She said it was the proper method and the only way to make it work."

  Richard turned to them. "Nicci's. You used Nicci's blood?"

  Zedd nodded. "That's right."

  "You created a variable… with her blood… and you put her inside of it?"

  "Besides being what Nicci told us had to be done," Ann said, "we have a lot of research and reason to have confidence that this is the proper method of initiating an interior perspective."

  "I'm sure you're right—under normal circumstances. Since you all know the proper method for doing such things, then that can only mean that the corruption is far different than any ordinary problem that could be anticipated to arise in the verification process." Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "It would have to be something… I don't know. Something unimaginable."

  Zedd shrugged. "You really believe that having Nicci in there when she was the source of the blood to power the web could mean something troublesome, Richard?"

  Richard pinched his lower lip as he paced. "Maybe not if the originating spell-form you were verifying were pure. But this one isn't. It's contaminated by another biological variable. I think that providing the source of the control variable—Nicci—might allow the contamination all the latitude it needs."

  "Meaning?" Nathan asked.

  Richard gestured as he paced. "Meaning that it's like throwing oil on a fire."

  "I think the storm is letting our imaginations get carried away," Ann said.

  "What biological variable could possibly contaminate a verification web?" Nathan asked.

  Richard turned back and stared at the lines, following them around to that terrible arc that ended when it should be supported. He glanced across the empty space to the waiting intersection.

  "I don't know," he finally admitted.

  Zedd stepped closer. "Richard, your ideas are original, and they are certainly thought-provoking, I'll grant you that. And it could be that they may provide us useful insights to help us understand more than we otherwise might have. But not everything you say is correct. Some of it is simply wrong."

  Richard glanced back over his shoulder. "Really? Like what?"

  Zedd shrugged. "Well, for one thing, biological forms can be emblematic as well. Is not an oak leaf biological? Don't you recognize that emblematic form? Isn't a snake something that can be expressed with an emblem? Isn't a whole entity, say a tree or a man, able to be represented emblematically?"

  Richard blinked. "You're right. I never thought of it that way, but you're right."

  He turned back to the spell-form, viewing the area of biological contamination with new eyes. He scanned the confusing mass, trying to make sense of it, trying to discern a pattern. Try as he might, though, it seemed useless. There was no pattern.

  But why not? If its delineation was biological in origin, as he knew it was, then, according to Zedd, there should be some kind of source pattern expressed within that depiction. But there was none. It was nothing more than a confusing mass all tangled up in a nest of meaningless lines.

  And then he realized that he thought he recognized a small portion within that mass. It looked… somehow liquid. But that made no sense, because he saw another part that looked almost the opposite. That other fragment looked more like an emblematic representation of fire.

  Unless there was more than one element to it. A tree could have an oak leaf emblem, an acorn, or the form that represented the whole tree. And what was to say that it couldn't be three different things all contaminating the spell-form together.

  Three things.

  He saw t
hem, then—each of those three elements.

  Water. Fire. Air.

  They were all there, all tangled together.

  "Dear spirits," Richard whispered, his eyes going wide.

  He straightened. Goose bumps tingled up his arms. "Get her out of there."

  "Richard," Nathan said, "she's perfectly—"

  "Get her out of there! Get her out now!"

  "Richard—" Ann started.

  "I told you—the spell-form has a flaw!"

  "Well that's what we're trying to find out, now, isn't it?" Ann said with exaggerated patience.

  "You don't understand." Richard gestured toward the wall of softly glowing lines. "This isn't the kind of flaw that anyone would be looking for. This one will kill her. The spell is no longer inert—it's mutating. It's becoming viable."

  "Viable?" Zedd's expression twisted with incredulity. "How could you possibly—"

  "You have to get her out of there! Get her out now!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  Although she couldn't move, couldn't speak, Nicci was aware of everything that was being said, even if the voices sounded hollow, distant, temporal, as if coming from some faraway world beyond the greenish shroud.

  She wanted to scream Listen to him! But, held tightly as she was within the bosom of the casting, she could not.

  More than anything, she wanted out of the terrible tangle of crushing power that encased her.

  She hadn't understood the true meaning of an interior perspective before—none of them had. None of them could have guessed at the reality. Only after initiating the process had she discovered that such a perspective was not simply a way to view a verification web in more detail from the inside, as they had thought, but rather a means for the person doing the analysis to experience it within themselves. By then it was too late and she could not tell the others that what it meant was that she would be perceiving the spell-form by having it ignited within her. The part surrounding her was the mere aura of the conjured power that had dawned within her. It had at first been a revelation bordering on the divine.