Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"Now I know why this place is melting," Nicci said. "It's a sympathetic reaction to the Subtractive Magic that was used to open one of the boxes of Orden up in the Garden of Life."

Richard looked over at her. "So it's a harmonic response after having been in the vicinity of that specific power."

With the edge of a finger Nicci carefully pushed some stray grains back inside the coffin. "That's right. This was the safest place Darken Rahl could find to store sorcerer's sand in case he needed more. He died before ever using this here, so it was left hidden here for the last several years. But it's still hot from the sympathetic reaction. That's why the room started to melt. This place isn't a proper containment field for this."

"Don't tell me-the Garden of Life is constructed as a containment field for such things."

Nicci blinked at him as if he had just suggested that water was wet. "Of course."

"Then we need to get this up to the Garden of Life."

Nicci nodded. "Verna and her Sisters can do it, with Nathan's help. They can get this moved for us." Nicci took hold of his arm with a fierce urgency. "Now that we have the sorcerer's sand in which to draw the spells, we need to get back to our studies. We may not have much time left." "I'm not arguing. Let's go."

CHAPTER 49

I don't feel anything," Richard said.

Sitting cross-legged on a wedge of white stone set in the otherwise complete ring of grass that swept in a circle around the sorcerer's sand, he looked up at Nicci standing behind him with her arms folded, watching him draw the spells.

"You're not supposed to feel anything. You're constructing spells, not making love to a woman."

"Oh. I thought I would ... I don't know ..."

"Swoon?"

"No, I mean feel some connection to my gift, some kind of nervous fervor, or delirium ... or something."

Her blue eyes slowly surveyed the latest components. "Some people like to add in emotional elements when they draw spell-forms because they like to feel the rush of their heart pounding, the pit of their stomach tightening, or their skin crawling-that sort of thing-but it's entirely unnecessary. Mere theatrics. They think they should moan and sway when they're doing such things."

Her eyes turned to him, an eyebrow arching with a taunting expression. "If you want, I can show you how. It might make a long night a little more entertaining."

Richard knew she was just trying to teach him something about the reality of what he was doing by making him feel silly for interjecting the remnants of superstition into what she was trying to teach him was an exacting methodology. It was the kind of lesson that Zedd used to use, the kind of lesson that stuck, that wouldn't be forgotten as so often happened with an equivocal response.

"Some people like to be naked every time they draw the spell-forms," she added.

"No, thanks." Richard cleared his throat. "I can do without moaning, or my heart racing, or my skin crawling, or being naked as I draw."

"I thought you might feel that way. That's why I never suggested such additions to the basics." She gestured to the drawings in the sand. "Whether or not you feel anything, your gift contributes what is essential. The spell-forms do what they need to do as long as you give them the correct elements, in the right order, added at the right time. Don't worry, though, there will be things you must draw naked," she added.

Richard knew about those spell-forms. He didn't like to dwell on them any more than necessary.

Nicci cocked her head a little as she gazed down critically at the angled double lines he was drawing. "Kind of like making bread. If you add the right things, in the right way, the dough does what it's supposed to do. Shivering and shaking doesn't help the dough rise or the bread bake."

"Uh-huh," Richard said as he went back to dragging a finger through the sorcerer's sand, folding an arc around the angled element. "Just like bread. Except that if you do it wrong it can kill you."

"Well, I've had bread that I thought might kill me," she murmured absently as she carefully watched what he was doing, her body leaning almost as if to help him curve the line just so.

Nicci had been able to re-create some of the elements he was drawing from the book Berdine had brought to them when they'd been in Panis Rahl's tomb. Some of the spell-forms had been broken down and diagrammed in the book. For others, Nicci's understanding and experience were invaluable, enabling her to infer some of the remaining parts of the spell-forms from the text alone. In that way she had re-created everything necessary.

Richard had been worried that the book didn't actually illustrate everything that the process needed, and that Nicci might be inferring wrongly. She had told him that they had a great many very real things to worry about, but that particular concern wasn't one of them.