Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2 tsot-10 Read online

  Nicci blinked in surprise as she listened. Richard had never told her about the symbols on the wristbands. As First Wizard, Zedd had been the keeper of the Sword of Truth, and it was his duty to name a new Seeker when needed, but given his reaction, she didn’t think that even he had known about this. She supposed that was understandable. The sword, after all, had been made thousands of years before by wizards with prodigious power.

  “That one.” Zedd thrust a bony finger at an emblem on one of Richard’s wristbands. “That one is on the door to the First Wizard’s enclave.”

  Richard turned his other wrist and tapped a starburst pattern on the top of the silver band. “As is this one here.”

  Zedd pulled Richard’s arms closer, inspecting the wristbands in the lamplight. “Yes . . . those are both on the door.” He squinted a frown at Richard. “And you honestly believe that they mean something, and that you’ve learned to read them?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Zedd, his wiry brows drawing low, was still clearly dubious. “What do you think they mean?”

  Richard touched a symbol on the wristbands and one like it on his boot pins. He pointed out the same design within the gold band around his black tunic. Until he pointed it out, Nicci hadn’t realized that it was hidden there, among the rest of what seemed to be nothing more than an elaborate decorative strip. The pattern looked like two rough triangles with a sinuous, undulating double line running around and through them.

  “This one is a kind of rhythm used for fighting when outnumbered. It conveys a sense of the cadence of the dance, movements without iron form.”

  Zedd cocked an eyebrow. “Movement without iron form?”

  “Yes, you know, movement that’s not rigid, not prescribed and inflexible, yet is still deliberate, with specific intent as well as precise objectives; This emblem describes an integral part of the dance.”

  “The dance?”

  Richard nodded. “The dance with death.”

  Zedd’s jaw worked a moment before his voice returned. “Dance. With death.” He stammered a moment more with the halting beginnings of a flurry of questions before finally pausing and then retreating to something simpler. “And how does this connect with the symbols at the First Wizard’s enclave?”

  Richard burnished a thumb across the forms on the left wristband. “The symbols would have meaning to a war wizard—that, in part, is how I figured it out. Symbols have significance in many professions. Tailors paint shears on their window, a weapons maker might paint the outline of knives over his door, a tavern might have a sign with a mug on it, a blacksmith an anvil, and a farrier might nail up horseshoes. Some signs, a skull with crossed bones beneath it for instance, warn of something deadly. War wizards likewise put signs up on the First Wizard’s enclave.

  “Even more importantly, each profession has its own jargon, a specialized vocabulary specific to that craft. It’s no different with a war wizard. The jargon of his profession has to do with lethality. These symbols here and outside the First Wizard’s enclave are in part the sign of his craft: bringing death.”

  Zedd cleared his throat, then looked down and pointed at another symbol on Richard’s wristband. “This one, here. This one is on the door to my enclave. Do you know its meaning? Can you paraphrase its intent?”

  Richard turned his wrist slightly as he glanced down at the starburst symbol. “It’s an admonition not to allow your vision to lock on any one thing. The starburst is a warning to look everywhere at once, to see nothing to the exclusion of everything else. It’s a reminder that you mustn’t allow the enemy to draw your attention in a way that directs your vision and makes it settle on one thing. If you do, you will see what he wishes you to see. Doing so will allow him to blind you, in a manner of speaking, and he will then come at you without you seeing him and you will most likely lose your life.

  “Instead, like this starburst, your vision must open to all there is, never settling, even when cutting. To dance with death means to understand and become as one with your enemy, meaning with the way he thinks within the range of his knowledge, so that you know his sword as well as your own—its exact location, its speed, and its next move before it comes without having to wait to see it first. By opening your vision in this way, opening all your senses, you come to know your enemy’s mind and moves as if by instinct.”

  Zedd scratched his temple. “You’re trying to tell me that these symbols, signs specific to war wizards, are all instructions for using a sword?”

  Richard shook his head. “The word ‘sword’ is meant to represent all forms of struggle, not just combat or fighting with a weapon. It applies just as much to strategy and leadership, among other things in life.

  “Dancing with death means being committed to the value of life, committed with your mind, heart, and soul, so that you are truly prepared to do what is necessary to preserve life. Dancing with death means that you are the incarnation of death, come to reap the living, in order to preserve life.”

  Zedd looked thunderstruck.

  Richard seemed somewhat surprised by Zedd’s reaction. “All of this is much in keeping with everything you’ve ever taught me, Zedd.”

  The lamplight cast sharp shadows across Zedd’s angular face. “I suppose that in a way it is, Richard. But at the same time it’s so much more.”

  Richard nodded as he rubbed a thumb across the softly glowing silver surface of a wristband. He seemed to search for words. “Zedd, I know that you would have wanted to be the one to teach me about all the things having to do with your enclave—like you wanted to be the one to teach me about the Grace. As First Wizard it was your place to do so. Perhaps I should have waited.”

  He brought up a fist in conviction. “But there were lives at stake and things I had to do. I had to learn it without you.”

  “Bags, Richard, how would I teach you about such things?” he said in resignation. “The meaning of those symbols has been lost for thousands of years. No wizard since, since . . . well, no wizard I know of has ever been able to decipher them. I have trouble imagining how you did.”

  Richard shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. “Once I began to catch on, it all became pretty obvious.”

  Zedd cast a troubled look at his grandson. “Richard, I grew up in this place. I’ve spent a great deal of my life here. I was First Wizard when there were actually wizards here to direct.” He shook his head. “All that time those designs were on the First Wizard’s enclave, and I never knew what they meant. It may seem simple and obvious to you, but it is not. For all I know, you’re just imagining that you understand the emblems—just making up meaning you want to be there.”

  “I’m not imagining their meaning. They’ve saved my life countless times. I learned a great deal about how to fight with a sword by understanding the language of these symbols.”

  Zedd didn’t argue but instead gestured at the amulet Richard wore around his neck. In the center, surrounded by a complex of gold and silver lines, was a teardrop-shaped ruby as big as Nicci’s thumbnail. “You found that in my enclave. Do you also have an idea of what it means?”

  “It was part of this outfit, part of the outfit worn by a war wizard, but unlike the rest of it, like you said, this was left in the protection of the First Wizard’s enclave.”

  “And its meaning?”

  Richard’s fingers reverently brushed the amulet. “The ruby is meant to represent a drop of blood. The emblems engraved in this talisman are the symbolic representation of the way of the primary edict.”

  Zedd pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if confounded by yet another confusing conundrum. “The primary edict?”

  Richard’s gaze seemed lost in the amulet. “It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one: cut.”

  Richard’s words came softly, with a kind of knowing, deadly seriousness
that chilled Nicci to the bone.

  He lifted the amulet out away from his chest, his gaze fixed on its ornate engravings.

  “The engraved lines are a portrayal of the dance and as such they have a specific meaning.” He traced a finger along the swirling designs as he spoke, as if following a line of text in an ancient language. “Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don’t allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit.”

  Richard glanced up at his grandfather. “It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death or, more precisely, the mechanism of the dance with death—its essence reduced to form, its form prescribed by concepts.

  “It is the law a war wizard lives by, or he dies.”

  Zedd’s hazel eyes were unreadable. “So these marks, these emblems, ultimately regard a war wizard as a mere swordsman?”

  “The same overriding principle I told you about before applies to this just as it does the other symbols. The primary edict is not meant to merely convey how a war wizard fights with a weapon, but, more importantly, with his mind. It’s a fundamental understanding of the nature of reality that must encompass everything he does. By being true to the primary edict, any weapon is an extension of his mind, an agent of his intent. In a way it’s what you once told me about being the Seeker. It’s not the weapon that matters so much as the man who wields the weapon.

  “The man who last wore this amulet was once First Wizard. His name was Baraccus. He also happened to have been born a war wizard, as am I. He, too, went to the Temple of the Winds, but when he returned, he went into the First Wizard’s enclave, left this there, came out, and committed suicide by leaping off the side of the Keep.”

  Richard’s gaze drifted into distant visions and memories. “For a time, I understood and ached to join him.” Nicci was relieved when the haunted look in his gray eyes was banished by the return of his easy smile. “But I came to my senses.”

  The room rang with the silence, as if death itself had just silently glided through the room, paused for a moment, and then moved on.

  Zedd at last smiled himself as he gripped Richard’s shoulder, giving his grandson an affectionate joggle. “I’m glad to know I made the right choice in naming you Seeker, my boy.”

  Nicci wished that Richard still had the sword that belonged with the Seeker, but he had sacrificed it for information in an attempt to find Kahlan.

  “So,” Zedd said at last, getting back to the matter at hand, “because you know about these symbols, you believe you understood symbols within the Chainfire spell-form.”

  “I was able to shut it down, wasn’t I?”

  Zedd clasped his hands behind his back again. “You have a point there. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you could read forms within the spell as emblems, much less know that the spell-form was corrupted by the chimes.”

  “Not the chimes themselves,” Richard patiently explained, “but the contamination left behind as a result of the chimes having been in this world. That corruption is what infected the Chainfire spell. That’s the issue.”

  Zedd turned away, his face hidden in shadows. “But still, Richard, even if you actually do understand something of the emblems having to do with war wizards, how can you be sure that you accurately understand this, this”—he gestured in the vague direction of the room where it had all happened—“this other business with the Chainfire spell and the chimes?”

  “I know,” Richard insisted in a quiet voice. “I saw the mark of the nature of the corruption. It was caused by the chimes.”

  He sounded tired. Nicci wondered how long he’d been up. Because of the arid timbre to his voice and the slightest unsteadiness in his movements, she suspected that it had probably been days since he’d slept. Despite how weary he might have been, he sounded resolute in his conviction. She knew that it was his worry for Kahlan driving him on.

  Nicci, having been pulled out of the spell-form by him twice, wasn’t one to want to so easily discount his theory. More than that, though, she had come to understand that Richard had an insight into magic that was very different from the conventional wisdom. At first she had thought that his perception of how magic functioned in part through artistic concepts was a product of his having been raised without having been taught about magic, without having any exposure to it, but she had since come to see that that unique insight, along with his singular intellect, had enabled him to grasp an essential nature of magic that was fundamentally different from the orthodox teachings.

  Nicci had come to believe that Richard might actually understand magic in a way not envisioned by anyone since ancient times.

  Zedd turned back, his face illuminated by the warm glow of lamplight on one side and, on the other, the faint, cold light of dawn. “Richard, let’s say you’re right about the meaning of the symbols on those wristbands and the ones like them on the First Wizard’s enclave. Understanding those things does not mean that you can understand the lines within a verification web. It’s a completely different, and unique, context. I’m not doubting your ability, my boy, I’m really not, but dealing with spell-forms is a vastly complex matter. You can’t leap to the conclusion—”

  “Have you seen a dragon in the last couple of years?”

  Everyone in the room fell to stunned silence at Richard’s sudden change of topic—and not just to any subject, but one that could only be described as strange at best.

  “A dragon?” Zedd ventured, at last, like a man inching out onto a newly frozen lake.

  “Yes, a dragon. Do you recall seeing a dragon since we left our home in Westland and came to the Midlands?”

  Zedd smoothed back some of the wavy tufts of his white hair. He glanced briefly to both Cara and Nicci before answering. “Well, no, I can’t really say that I recall having seen any dragons, but what does that have to do—”

  “Where are they? Why haven’t you seen any? Why are they gone?”

  Zedd looked at his wits’ end. He spread his hands. “Richard, dragons are very rare creatures.”

  Richard leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over his other knee. “Red dragons are. But Kahlan told me that other types are relatively common, with some of the smaller ones kept for hunting and such.”

  Zedd’s expression turned suspicious. “What are you getting at?”

  Richard gestured with a sweep of a hand. “Where are the dragons? Why haven’t we seen any? That’s what I’m getting at.”

  Zedd folded his arms across his chest. “I give up. What are you talking about?”

  “Well, for one thing, you don’t remember—that’s what I’m talking about. The Chainfire spell has affected more than just your memory of Kahlan.”

  “Don’t remember what?” Zedd sputtered. “What do you mean?”

  Instead of answering his grandfather, Richard looked back over his shoulder. “Have you seen a dragon?” he asked Cara.

  “I don’t recall any.” Her gaze remained fixed on him. “Are you suggesting that I should?”

  “Darken Rahl kept a dragon. Since he was the Lord Rahl at the time, you would have been at hand so you would probably have seen it.”

  Zedd and Cara shared a troubled look.

  Richard turned his raptor gaze on Nicci. “You?”

  Nicci cleared her throat. “I always thought they were mythical creatures. There aren’t any in the Old World. If there ever were, they haven’t existed for ages. No records since the great war have any mention of them.”

  “What about since you came to the New World.”

  Nicci hesitated at recounting the memory. She realized, though, by the way he patiently and silently waited for her answer, that he wasn’t going to let the subject go. She knew that whatever obscure equation he was working to solve wouldn’t involve anything trivial. Under his silent scrutiny, Nicci f
elt not only a compulsion to answer, but a rising sense of foreboding.

  She threw the bedcovers back and swung her feet down off the side of the bed. She didn’t want to be lying there any longer—especially when speaking about that time. Gripping the side rail, she met Richard’s gaze.

  “When I was taking you away to the Old World, before we left the New World, we came across colossal bones. I never got down off my horse to look at them, but I remember watching you walk through those rib bones—rib bones that were well beyond twice your height. I had never seen anything like them. You said that you believed that it was the remains of a dragon.

  “I thought that they must have been ancient bones. You said they were not, that they still had scraps of flesh on them. You pointed out all the flies buzzing around it as proof that it was what was left of a rotted carcass, not ancient remains.”

  Richard nodded at the memory.

  Zedd cleared his throat. “And have you ever seen a dragon, Richard? One that was alive, I mean.”

  “Scarlet.”

  “What?”

  “That was her name: Scarlet.”

  Zedd blinked with incredulity. “You have seen a dragon . . . and it has a name?”

  Richard stood and went to the window. He rested his hands on the stone opening, leaning his weight on it as he gazed out.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “Her name was Scarlet. She helped me, before. She was a noble beast.”

  He turned back from the window. “But that’s not the point. The point is that you knew her, too.”

  Zedd’s eyebrows lifted. “I knew this dragon?”

  “Not as well as Kahlan or I, but you knew her. The Chainfire event has obviously corrupted your memory of it. Chainfire was meant to make everyone forget Kahlan, but everyone is forgetting other things as well, things that were connected with her.

  “For all I know, you might once have known the meanings of the emblems outside the First Wizard’s enclave better than I do. If you did, that memory is lost to you. How many other things have been lost? I don’t know much about the various ways to use magic, but when we were fighting the beast the other night it seemed to me that in the past all of you used more inventive spells and powers than the simple things you tried against the threat—except maybe what Nicci did at the end.