Nicci shook her head in amazement. “It’s for sure that I didn’t know enough to deal with the likes of Six. What you did may not have been able to reach me, but at least it was enough to keep her from killing me.”
Zedd only smiled.
She looked up at him. “Where did you learn such a trick?”
He shrugged. “Harsh experience. I’ve dealt with witch women before, so I knew that there was only one thing I could do.”
“You mean Shota?”
“In part,” he said. “When I took the Sword of Truth back from her I had a great deal of trouble. That woman is cunning, clever, and trouble behind sparkling eyes and a crafty smile. I found out that doing things the usual way simply didn’t work. She found my struggles amusing. The more force I used, the worse I made things for myself, and the wider she smiled.”
He smiled himself as he leaned in a little. “That was her mistake—smiling.” He lifted a finger to make his point. “Her smile tipped me off that what I was doing was my own undoing. I realized in that instant that my use of force was what was giving her the power she needed.”
“So you didn’t use force.”
He spread his hands as if she had finally grasped the lesson. “Sometimes doing what you would most like to do can be the very worst thing to do. Sometimes to accomplish what you want in the end, you have to hold back in the beginning.”
As the concept he’d expressed sank in, yet more of her disordered memories—perplexing pieces of some grand puzzle that had never before fit anywhere—having been freed from where they languished in the dark corners of her mind, tumbled into place. It was as if she was seeing everything in a new light.
The sudden realizations were jolting.
Nicci’s jaw fell open. Her eyes went wide.
“I understand, now. I know what it meant. Dear spirits, I understand. I know the purpose of the sterile field.”
CHAPTER 13
“Sterile field?” Zedd’s bushy white brow drew down. “What are you talking about?”
Nicci pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she reasoned it all out. She could hardly believe she hadn’t realized it sooner. She looked up at the wizard.
“There is a complex order of events required for the power of Orden to work. Like you said, connections based on primary foundations must be established—just as in any magic. It was, after all, created by wizards and they would have had to have based anything they did on what they knew about the nature of the things they were manipulating.
“For the most part, at its core, Orden is a complex constructed spell. Like any constructed spell, in the right conditions it is triggered by a specific set of events. It then runs according to its predetermined protocols. Yet, no matter how complex it is, once begun it still functions according to basic principles.”
“And the sun rises in the east,” Zedd growled. “What are you getting at?”
“It all correlates,” she said to herself as she stared off at nothing for a moment.
She abruptly turned her attention back to the wizard. “The Book of Life explains how to put the power of Orden in play. It lays out the protocols. It’s basically an operating manual; it doesn’t explain the theory behind Orden—that’s not its purpose. To understand the whole thing you have to look elsewhere.
“While that power, like all forms of power, can be misappropriated and looted for the objective of dominion, it was created and intended for a specific purpose: to counter the Chainfire spell. Central elements of Orden are a constructed spell so, once ignited, it runs through established routines. Those routines in turn require specific conditions—such as properly using the key, The Book of Counted Shadows.”
Her mind was still racing through all the new connections as she fit together pieces from different sources that she had never before connected.
“Yes, yes,” Zedd said as he rolled his hand impatiently. “The boxes of Orden were created specifically to counter the Chainfire spell. We already know that. What’s more, it is self-evident that certain conditions must be met and that then the power will function in a given manner. That’s all stone-cold obvious.”
Nicci threw off the covers and stood in a rush, no longer feeling that she belonged in bed. She looked down and saw that she was in a pink nightdress. She hated pink. Why did they always end up putting her in a pink nightdress? She imagined that it must have been all they had at hand.
She ignited a razor-thin flow of Subtractive Magic almost without a thought and directed it downward through the fabric of the nightdress. With that power she scavenged through the fabric itself, allowing the Subtractive flow to seek only the elements of the dye, and eliminate it. The color in the nightdress, starting at the neckline, faded away in a wave that went through the entire garment. Eliminating the pink color left behind a simple, off-white color to the cloth.
Incredulous, Zedd stared at the nightdress. “Did you just use Subtractive Magic, the power of the underworld, the power of death itself, to take the color out of that thing?”
“Yes. Much better, don’t you think?” She wasn’t really paying much attention to the question as her mind was already on other things.
Zedd lifted a hand in protest. “Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to—”
“What is the purpose of it all?” Nicci asked, cutting off the objection she hadn’t really heard and cared even less about.
Zedd’s hand paused. He was starting to look exasperated. “That is the purpose. To counter Chainfire.”
“No, no. I mean what is the specific function of the counter to the spell?”
His impatience with things that seemed only too obvious was curdling into annoyance. “To make us all remember the object of the spell.” His eyes flashed with that agitation. “In this case, that would be Kahlan.”
“Yes, in a sense, but that is an oversimplification of the process, an expression of the terminal objective.” Nicci lifted a finger, now the teacher instead of the student. “In order to do as you just said it has to restore what was destroyed in us. It has to re-create our memories.
“It’s not a matter of the power of Orden making us remember things we’ve forgotten but, rather, of needing to reconstruct what is no longer there.
“Those lost memories are gone. It isn’t that we’ve forgotten things and we can’t recall the people and events. There is nothing there in our minds for us to recall because those memories are nonexistent, not merely forgotten. They have been eroded and destroyed by the Chainfire event. It’s not that we just aren’t able to remember things. The reality is that those parts of our minds—of our memories—have been destroyed.
“In actual fact, there is nothing there for us to remember.
“Re-creating from scratch what is gone is altogether different from helping us to remember things. It’s the difference between someone who is asleep, and someone who is dead. On the surface both may look much the same, but having their eyes closed is about the only thing they have in common.
“The end objective may be the same in both instances, but both the problem and the means to solve it have nothing in common. In order for Orden to counter Chainfire and restore us to the way we were before, it needs to incarnate in our minds knowledge, awareness, of what has happened in the past. It needs to create new memories to replace those that were destroyed. It needs to bring our memories back to life.”
As he considered her words, tension had settled in Zedd’s brow, replacing the impatience that had been there. His gaze tracked her as she paced. “Well, yes, there somehow has to be a reestablishment to real events from the past.” He scratched his temple as he viewed her askance. “Are you saying that you think that you now understand how such a thing could work?”
Nicci’s bare feet padded across the carpets as she paced. “From what I’ve pieced together from what I’ve read, those who created the boxes of Orden, even though they intended them to be a counter to Chainfire, weren’t themselves convinced that such a thing could actually be
done.”
Nicci halted to look at him. “Can you even imagine how monumentally complex such a thing would have to be? How complicated it would be to rebuild and restore memories in everyone? How convoluted?
“I mean, those wizards back then must have driven themselves crazy trying to sort out how such a thing could rebuild what no longer has a template. How is Orden to know what you are supposed to remember? Or Cara? Or me? What’s worse, people believe all the time that they correctly recall things but their recollections are in error. How will Orden rebuild memories that once were but no longer are, when those memories themselves, when we had them, weren’t always true, or accurate?
“From what I read in the books on Ordenic theory, even the wizards who created Orden weren’t certain that it would work.”
She started pacing again as she went on. “Don’t forget, they couldn’t test it against an actual Chainfire event. Chainfire itself was never tested, either—no one dared to—so, while they had confidence in their syllogism, they still couldn’t be completely certain of how Orden would work in the real world. Because they couldn’t observe an actual Chainfire event play out, they couldn’t be positive that their counter would work as they intended it to, even if all the complicated elements functioned perfectly and according to plan—and there was even cause for doubt in that part of it as well.
“All that said, there is an even more important aspect to the protocols they established and that is the need to counter the Chainfire spell in the subject—in this case, Kahlan. The subject is the vortex of the whole thing, the center of the entire Chainfire event. She is the center of an enormously complex equation.
“Therefore, the counter to the entire event must anchor itself there, in her. The element of constructed magic in the elaborate system of Orden must ignite in her.”
“She is the foundational link…” Zedd said, half to himself, as he stared off, following along with Nicci’s reasoning.
“That’s right.” Nicci said. “And for Orden to do such a thing, for it to repair the damage done starting from the center of that storm, it requires that such a foundational link be a sterile field.”
“A sterile field?” Zedd asked, still frowning as he listened intently. “You mentioned that before.”
Nicci nodded. “It’s a shadowy element that the wizards wrestled with throughout the work on the creation of the Ordenic counter to Chainfire. I didn’t understand the importance of it before, didn’t grasp the significance of the issue they were grappling with, didn’t see why they were so concerned about it, but what you’ve explained about a witch woman’s ability finally allowed me to comprehend the concept at the center of Ordenic theory.”
Zedd planted his fists on his bony hips. “You didn’t understand part of Ordenic theory? And yet you put it in play—in Richard’s name? Even when you didn’t understand it?”
Nicci ignored the heated tone of the question. “Just the part about the sterile field. I realize now that it’s much the same as what you explained about how I needed a link when I cast a spell at Six, but she denied me that place to anchor the spell. Orden must initiate magic in a similar manner. Like all magic, it, too, needs a connection. That connection is Kahlan. But it needs that target of the connection to be a blank slate.”
“A blank slate?” Zedd tilted his head in toward her. “Nicci, need I remind you that the person is a blank slate? The Chainfire spell erases everything from their past. It renders them blank, in a manner of speaking. Orden thus has what it needs.”
Nicci shook her head insistently. “No. You have to consider it all together in the context of the Chainfire book, The Book of Life, and those obscure books you found for me on Ordenic theory. You have to look at it all, at the larger picture, to see it.”
“See what?” Zedd roared in exasperation.
“The subject must be emotionally blank, or the whole thing is tainted.”
“Emotionally blank?” Cara asked when Zedd fell to muttering to himself as he wiped a hand down his face. “What does that mean?”
“It means that knowledge of her previous emotional condition would contaminate the effort to restore what was within her. She has to remain emotionally blank for Orden to be able to do its job. The subject has to be kept blank. Care must be taken not to introduce emotional links.”
“Nicci, you are a bright woman,” Zedd said, trying to remain calm, “but this time you’ve driven the wagon off the bridge and into the river.”
He started in pacing himself. “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. How can the subject be prevented from finding out anything at all about their past? The wizards who created the boxes of Orden must have realized that the chances were the subject would find out any number of things about their past before Orden could be brought to bear. They couldn’t expect the person to be locked in a dark room until Orden could be employed.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re missing my point. Details don’t matter—in fact details learned by anyone with lost memories only help because they are like guide pins on which to fit the template of the restoration process of Orden. But great emotional experiences within the subject of Chainfire do matter. Emotions are the sums created by details, whether those details are true or not.”
Cara looked focused on trying to understand what Nicci was saying. “How can emotions be created by false details?”
“Take me, for example,” Nicci said. “The things that I was taught by the Fellowship of Order caused me to hate anyone who resisted the teachings of the Order, hate anyone who accomplished anything. I believed as I was taught, that such people were selfish heathens who didn’t care about their fellow man.
“I was taught to have an emotional response of hatred to all those who didn’t believe as I did. I was taught to hate you and everything you did without actually knowing anything about you. I had a visceral, emotional hatred for the value of life itself. I would have killed Richard based on those emotional drives. My emotions were based on lies and indoctrination, not anything true.”
Cara sighed. “I see what you mean. You and I were both taught similar things and made to feel similar emotions, and those emotions were completely mistaken.”
“But emotions, when based on valid things, can be a faithful and consistent sum of truths.”
“Valid things?” Cara asked.
“Of course,” Nicci said. “Such as worthwhile values. Love—proper love, true love—is a response to those things we value in others. It’s an emotional response to life-affirming values held by another person. We value the good nature of that other person. In those cases that emotion is a central, powerful part of our humanity.”
Zedd, still pacing, came to an impatient halt. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Nicci spread her hands. “Keep in mind that Ordenic theory is just that, theory, so I can’t say that I know for certain because even those who created it didn’t know it for certain, either, but it all fits. While they were convinced they were correct, they had no actual experience of foreknowledge tainting magic in which to ground their theory, but I think they were right.”
Zedd leaned in, peering at her with one eye. “Right about what, exactly?”
“Emotions interjected into the subject without the underlying cause will corrupt the countering of the Chainfire spell.”
Cara frowned. “You lost me.”
“They were convinced that foreknowledge of a certain emotional nature would taint the magic they were using, taint Orden.” Nicci looked from Zedd’s troubled hazel eyes to Cara. “What it means is that if Kahlan were to learn the truth of her emotions—her dominant emotions—before the correct box of Orden is opened, then Orden will not be able to restore those emotions. The field where Orden must ignite would be contaminated by that foreknowledge. Kahlan would be lost in the tangle of the spell.”
Cara put her hands on her hips. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, let’s say, for example, that Richard foun
d Kahlan and he told her about the two of them, about their emotional connection, their love for one another. In that case Orden would be prevented from working.”
The wizard’s face had gone unreadable. “Why?” he asked in a tone that sent a shiver up her spine.
“It’s kind of like the way my spells didn’t work against Six because the strength of my power first needed to establish anchors, foundations, in order to do its work.”
“You mean that if Richard ever gets the chance to actually open one of the boxes of Orden,” Zedd asked, “he must do so with the subject completely unaware of her ties to him?”
Nicci nodded. “Her deepest emotional ties, anyway. We have to be sure Richard understands that if we find Kahlan before he gets the chance to open the correct box of Orden, he can’t interject any causeless emotion or it will corrupt the field.”
“Causeless emotion?” Cara’s nose wrinkled. “Are you trying to say that Lord Rahl can’t tell Kahlan that she loves him?”
“Exactly,” Nicci said.
“But why?”
“Because right now, she doesn’t,” Nicci said. “Those things that caused her to fall in love with him are no longer in her. The foundation of her love—the memory of the things that happened, the things she did with him, the reasons that she fell in love with him—are no longer there in her. Chainfire destroyed those memories. Right now, it’s as if she never met him before. She does not love him. She has no reason to love him. She is a blank slate.”
Zedd poked a long thin finger through his thatch of wavy hair and scratched his scalp. “Nicci, I think the fever may have done more damage than I thought. What you’re saying makes no sense. Kahlan’s problem is that Chainfire made her forget her past. Orden was created to counter Chainfire. There is nothing as powerful as Orden. It’s the power of life itself. Revealing to Kahlan something as simple as her love for Richard is not going to cause the restoration to become scrambled.”