Besides that, Cara was right—Nicci had Subtractive Magic and there was no telling what elements of such sinister power she might have woven into the matrix to prevent the inner seal from being breached. He would not like to force his hand through the keyhole, so to speak, only to discover he had plunged it right into a cauldron of molten lead. Much less risky to untie the knot of magic than try to rip it apart.
Such difficulties only made Zedd all the more determined that he was going to find a way to get through. It was a personal trait of his that had in the distant past made his father surly—especially if it had been a shield that Zedd’s father had constructed specifically to keep out his inquisitive son.
Zedd’s tongue poked out the left corner of his mouth as he worked at threading his way through the fabric of the shield. He was already farther in than he had expected to get so quickly. He extended the invisible probe of power through the inner workings so that he could control it from inside.
And then, even though he was being careful beyond all reason, the weave of the shield tightened, neatly snapping off the foray of magic. It was as if it had maneuvered him into an ambush.
Zedd stood hunched before the brass-clad doors, surprised that a shield would have been able to react in that way. He was, after all, not yet trying to breach it, but merely to probe its inner workings—having a look in the keyhole, as it were.
He had done the very same thing any number of times before. It always worked. It should have worked. It was the most confounding shield he had ever encountered.
He was still bent over the lever, considering his next move, when the door opened inward.
Zedd turned his head a little, peering up. Nicci, one hand on the inner lever, the other at her side, towered over him.
“Did you ever think of knocking?” she asked.
Zedd straightened, hoping his face wasn’t going red but suspecting it had. “Well, actually, I did consider it, but then I discounted the idea. I thought you might have been working late on that book and might be asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Her blond hair was tumbled down over the shoulders of her black dress, a dress that hugged every curve of her perfect shape. Even though she looked as if she hadn’t slept a wink all night, her blue eyes were as penetrating as those of any sorceress he had ever met. The combination of her alluring beauty, aloof dignity, and keen intellect—to say nothing of the fact that she possessed enough power to turn just about anyone to ash—was both disarming and intimidating.
“If I had been asleep,” Nicci said in that calm, silken voice of hers, “then just how was breaking through a containment field that was buffered with a shield conjured from instructions in a three-thousand-year-old book and spiked with Subtractive counterlocks not going to wake me?”
Zedd’s level of alarm rose. Such shields were not constructed lightly, nor for a private nap.
He spread his hands. “I only meant to have a peek to check up on you.”
Her cool gaze was making him start to sweat. “I spent a very long time at the Palace of the Prophets teaching boy wizards how to behave themselves and school their powers. I know how to make shields that can’t be picked. As a Sister of the Dark I’ve had a great deal of practice at it.”
“Really? I’d be quite interested to learn about such arcane shields—from a strictly professional perspective, of course. Such things are rather a…hobby of mine.”
She still had a hand on the door lever. “What is it you want, Zedd?”
Zedd cleared his throat. “Well, quite honestly, Nicci, I was worried about what might be going on in there with that box.”
Nicci finally smiled just the slightest bit. “Ah. Somehow I didn’t think you were hoping to catch me cavorting naked.”
She stepped back into the library, implying permission to enter.
It was an immense room, with two-story-high round-top windows running the entire length of the far wall. Heavy dark green velvet draperies with gold fringe along with two-story polished mahogany columns rose up between each of the windows, each of those made of hundreds of thick squares of glass. Even the dawn light flooding in through those windows wasn’t enough to banish the somber atmosphere from the room.
Some of the panes of refractory glass making up the windows that were part of the containment field in this section of the Keep had been broken in an unexpected battle back when Richard had been there. Nicci had invited lightning in through those windows to obliterate the underworld beast that had attacked Richard. Asked how she had been able to coax lightning to do her bidding, she had shrugged and said simply that she had created a void that the lightning needed to fill, so it had been compelled to do so. Zedd understood the principle, he just couldn’t imagine how it could be accomplished.
While grateful that she had saved Richard’s life, Zedd had not been pleased that such valuable and irreplaceable glass had been destroyed, leaving the containment field breached. Nicci had offered to help with the repairs. Zedd wouldn’t have known how to accomplish such a thing by himself. He wouldn’t have thought that there was anyone alive who would have known how to bend forces in the way she had done, or who would have had the required power to do so. Who would ever have thought that there would be anyone alive who could re-create the glass in those windows? And yet she had.
It had put Zedd in mind of nothing so much as a queen come down to the royal kitchens to deftly demonstrate how to make a rare bread with a long-forgotten recipe.
While Zedd had known some very powerful sorceresses, he had never known any who were the equal of Nicci. Some of the things she could do with seeming ease were so confounding that it left him speechless.
Of course, Nicci was far more than a mere sorceress. As a former Sister of the Dark she knew how to command Subtractive Magic. As a Sister of the Dark, she would have taken the power from a wizard and added it to her own, creating something altogether unique—not something he liked to contemplate.
To a certain extent she frightened him. Without Richard to show her the value of her own life she would still be devoted to the cause of the Order. With so much of her life a mystery to him, with all that she had done but never spoke of, with all that she had once been a part of, Zedd wasn’t entirely sure of how far he could trust her.
Richard trusted her, though—trusted her with his life. She had proven worthy of that trust on numerous occasions. Other than himself and Cara, Zedd didn’t know anyone as fiercely devoted to Richard as Nicci. Nicci would without question or a second thought go to the underworld itself if she had to in order to save him.
Richard had brought this remarkable woman back from the depths of evil, just as he had done with Cara and the other Mord-Sith. Who but Richard could accomplish such a thing? Who but Richard could even think to do such a thing?
How Zedd missed that boy.
Nicci glided back into the library, and Zedd saw, then, what was on the table. His ability had told him that it was there, but his ability had not told him what more there was to it.
Behind him, Cara let out a low whistle. Zedd sympathized with the sentiment.
The box of Orden, sitting atop one of the massive library tables, absent the decorative covering that once had contained it, was a bewitching black that seemed as if it might suck the light right out of the dawn, a black so black it almost appeared as if the box itself was nothing so much as a void in the world of life. Staring at it felt uncomfortably like looking right into the underworld, the world of the dead.
But it was the containment spell that had been drawn all around the box that had him alarmed. It had been drawn in blood. There were other charms, other spells, drawn on the tabletop, and they, too, were drawn in blood.
Zedd recognized some of the elements of the diagrams. He didn’t know of anyone living who could have drawn such charms. Such things were not entirely stable, making them dangerous beyond belief. Any number of spells could kill in an instant if done improperly. These spells, drawn in blood no less, were among t
he most perilous spells in existence. Employing them successfully was not something Zedd himself, with a lifetime of knowledge, training, and practice, would ever consider attempting.
Zedd had seen such terrible spells drawn only once before. Those had been drawn by Darken Rahl—Richard’s father—when Darken Rahl had been completing the conjuring involved in opening the boxes of Orden. Opening one of the boxes had cost him his life.
Around the box itself, in midair, lines of green and amber light traced yet more spells through space. They were somewhat reminiscent of the glowing green lines of the verification web they had done for the Chainfire spell in that very room, but this structure of three-dimensional formulas was materially different. And these glowing lines pulsed as if alive. He supposed that made sense. The power of Orden was the power of life itself.
Other lines, connected to intersections of the green and, in places, amber light, were as black as the box. Peering at them was like looking through slits into death itself. Subtractive Magic had been mingled with Additive to create a network of power the likes of which Zedd had never imagined he would see in his lifetime.
The whole web of light and darkness hung in space.
The box of Orden itself sat in the center of that web, like a fat black spider.
The Book of Life lay open nearby.
“Nicci,” Zedd managed with only the greatest of difficulty, “what in the name of Creation have you done?”
When she reached the table, Nicci turned back and stared at him for an uncomfortably long moment.
“I have done nothing in the name of Creation. I have done it in the name of Richard Rahl.”
Zedd pulled his gaze away from the terrible thing within the glowing lines to stare at her. He was having difficulty drawing a breath.
“Nicci, what have you done?”
“The only thing I could do. The thing that had to be done. The thing that only I could do.”
The confluence of both sides of the gift holding the box of Orden within its glowing web was beyond imagining. It was the stuff of nightmares.
Zedd chose his words carefully. “Are you suggesting that you believe that you can put that box in play?”
The manner in which she slowly shook her head tightened his chest with dread. Her blue-eyed gaze riveted him in place.
“I have already put it in play.”
Zedd felt as if the floor might come apart under him and he might never stop falling. He wondered for just an instant if any of this was real. The whole room seemed to be swirling around him. His legs felt wobbly.
Cara’s hand came up under his arm to steady him.
“Are you out of your mind?” he asked, the heat rising in his voice as his legs stiffened.
“Zedd…” She took a step closer. “I had to.”
He couldn’t even make himself blink. “You had to? You had to?”
“Yes. I had to. It’s the only way.”
“The only way for what! The only way to end the world? The only way to destroy life itself?”
“No. The only way to give us a chance to survive. You know what the world is coming to. You know what the Imperial Order is going to do—what they are on the verge of doing. The world is at the brink. Mankind is staring into a thousand years of darkness at best. At worst, mankind may never again emerge into the light.
“You know that we are approaching paths in prophecy beyond which everything goes dark. Nathan has told you of those branches leading to a great void beyond which there is nothing. We stand staring into that void.”
“And have you ever thought that what you have just done very well might be the cause of it—the very thing that takes mankind, all life, into that void of extinction?”
“Sister Ulicia has already put the boxes of Orden in play. Do you think she and her Sisters of the Dark care about life? They work to unleash the Keeper of the underworld. If she succeeds, the world of life is doomed. You know what the boxes are, you know their power, you know what will happen if she is the one to rule the power of Orden.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
“We have no choice.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “I had to.”
“And do you have any idea how to invoke Orden? How to command the boxes? How to know the correct box?”
“No, not yet,” she admitted.
“You don’t even have the other two!”
“We have a year to get them,” she said with calm determination. “We have a year from the first day of winter. A year from today.”
Zedd lifted his hands in fury and frustration. “Even if we could find them, you think that you would somehow be able to command the power of Orden? You think you can wield the power of Orden?”
“Not me,” she said in a near whisper.
Zedd cocked his head, unsure he had actually heard what he thought he’d heard. His suspicion flared into hot dread.
“What do you mean, not you? You just said that you put the boxes in play.”
Nicci stepped closer. She laid a hand gently on his forearm.
“When I opened the gateway I was asked to name the player. I named Richard. I put the boxes of Orden in play on behalf of Richard.”
Zedd stood thunderstruck.
He wanted to strike her dead.
He wanted to strangle her. He wanted to rip her limb from limb.
“You named Richard?”
She nodded. “It was the only way.”
Zedd ran the fingers of both hands back into his unruly thatch of wavy white hair, holding his head for fear it might come apart.
“The only way? Bags, woman! Are you out of your mind?”
“Zedd, calm down. I know it’s a surprise, but this is hardly a whim. I’ve thought it through. Believe me, I’ve thought it all through. If we are to survive, if those who care about life are to survive, if there is to be a chance for life, if there is to be a chance for a future, then this is the only way.”
Zedd dropped heavily into one of the chairs at the table. Before he did something beyond retrieval, before he reacted out of blind rage, he told himself that he must keep his head. He tried to touch on all he knew about the boxes and what was happening, tried to remind himself of all the desperate things he’d had to do in his life. He tried to see it from her perspective.
He couldn’t.
“Nicci, Richard doesn’t know how to use his gift.”
“He will have to find a way.”
“He doesn’t know anything about the boxes of Orden!”
“We will have to teach him.”
“We don’t know enough about the boxes of Orden. We don’t know for sure which is the correct Book of Counted Shadows. Only the correct book works as the key to the boxes!”
“We will have to sort that out.”
“Dear spirits, Nicci, we don’t even know where Richard is!”
“We know that the witch woman tried to capture him in the sliph and failed. We know from what Rachel told us that Six apparently cut Richard off from his gift by drawing spells in the sacred caves in Tamarang. Rachel says that Six lost him when he was captured by the Imperial Order. For all we know, by now he may have escaped them as well and be on his way here. If not, we will have to find him.”
Zedd couldn’t seem to find a way to make her see and understand all that stood in their way. “What you’re suggesting is impossible!”
She smiled then, a sad smile. “A wizard I know and respect, a wizard who taught Richard to be the man he is, also taught him to think of the solution, not the problem. Such advice has always served him well.”
Zedd was having none of it. He shot to his feet. “You had no right to do such a thing, Nicci. You have no right to decide this for his life. You had no right to name Richard to this!”
Her smile vanished to reveal the iron beneath. “I know Richard. I know how he fights for life. I know what it means to him. I know that there is nothing he would not do to preserve the value of life. I know that if he knew all the things I know, he would have wa
nted me to do as I have done.”
“Nicci, you don’t—”
“Zedd,” she said in a commanding tone of voice that cut him off, “I asked you if you trusted Richard with your life, with all life. You said that you did. Those words have meaning. You did not hem and haw, qualifying the bounds of your trust. Trusting someone with your life is as unequivocal as trust can be.
“Richard is the only one who can lead us in the final battle. While Jagang and the Order might be part of it, the battle over the power of Orden is the final battle. The Sisters of the Dark who command those boxes will make it so. One way or another, they will make sure of it. The only way Richard can lead us is for him to have the boxes in play. In that way, he truly is the fulfillment of prophecy: fuer grissa ost drauka—the bringer of death.
“But this is more than prophecy. Prophecy only expresses what we already know, that Richard is the one who has been leading us in defending the values we hold dear, the values that promote life.
“Richard himself named the terms of the engagement when he spoke to the D’Haran troops. As the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Empire, he told those men how the war would be fought from now on: All or nothing.
“This can be no different. Richard is true to the core and would not expect everyone else to do what he himself would not do. He is the heart of all we believe. He would not betray us.
“We are now in it all the way. It now truly is all or nothing.”
Zedd threw his arms up. “But naming Richard the player is not the only way he can lead this battle, not the only way for him to succeed—but it very well might instead be the cause of him failing. What you have done could lead us all to ruin.”
Nicci’s blue eyes filled with the kind of conviction, resolve, and rage that told him she might reduce him to ash if he stood in the way of what she believed was necessary. For the first time he was seeing Death’s Mistress as those who stood in her way, stood before her full fury, saw her.