Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

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, tliere 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 found 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.”

“Oh, but it would.” Nicci paced a few steps and returned to stand before him. “Zedd, with all your power as First Wizard, why couldn’t you stop a mere witch?”

“Because she turns your power back around on you.”

“That’s the key,” Nicci said. “That’s the part I needed to add in, why I was finally able to put together everything I’ve been reading in those books. I was finally able to understand what the wizards who created Or­den meant about the sterile field. The force of emotions will turn back the power applied to the person.

“It’s something like the way that trying to convince those who believe in the teachings of the Order that they are wrong in their feelings only strengthens those feelings, makes them even more resistant to casting off those false beliefs. If you tell them that the Order is evil they will hate you all the more, not the Order. Their belief in the Imperial Order is steeled, rather than broken.”

“So what?” Cara said. “It wouldn’t be contradictory for Kahlan, like in your example. If Lord Rahl were to tell Kahlan that she loves him, that would be what the magic of Orden would do anyway, so it’s not really a problem.”

“Oh, but it is a problem,” Nicci said, waggling a finger. “A very big problem. The whole thing would be backwards. The effect would be there without the cause. Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned. Putting emotions in first would be like trying to construct a two-story building by starting at the roof and working your way down to the founda­tion. Or, like me trying to push a powerful spell at a witch woman.

“The emotions that Orden would otherwise put back where they belong would be turned away by the emotions that were placed there by fore­knowledge. Foreknowledge would interfere with the protocols.”

“That’s what I mean,” Cara insisted. “Kahlan would already have been told that she loves Lord Rahl, so it couldn’t possibly matter.”

“But it does. You see, that foreknowledge would be empty. The emotions revealed ahead of time have no meaning, no substance. They aren’t real. If she were to be told of her love for Richard, then Orden wouldn’t be able to restore her true emotions of love.”

Cara looked like she was ready to pull her hair out in exasperation. “But Lord Rahl would already have told her, so it’s the same difference. She would know. She would already know that she loves him.”

“No. One would be true, the other not. Don’t forget, right now she doesn’t love him. The real emotions Orden would be trying to build would already have been replaced by something that isn’t real—emotions with­out cause. Those emotions would be empty and untrue. The reasons she loves him would be missing, so while the foreknowledge of her love might be there it would be empty knowledge. It would be empty love, love based on nothing. Love without everything supporting it would be meaningless.”

Cara lifted her arms and then let them flop back to her sides. “I just don’t get it.”

Nicci halted her pacing and turned back to Cara. “Imagine that I bring a man you’ve never seen before into the room and I tell you that you love him. Would you love him because I told you that you did? No, because you can’t inject such emotions without something to support them.

“That’s what Orden does; it builds support for the real emotions from the knowledge of past events that it restores. It establishes the causes. Putting the emotions there first—the end result of past events—taints that process. According to the wizards who created Orden, her foreknowledge of loving him would contaminate the field, taint her mind, so that the in­carnation of the real events—the reasons behind why she loves him—couldn’t be engendered in her. They would be blocked, the way the witch woman blocked my spells. She would be left with nothing but the hollow information. She couldn’t retrieve her past. It would remain lost to her.”

Zedd scratched his jaw. He looked up. “But, as you say, this is only theory.”

“The wizards who dreamed up Ordenic theory in order to counter Chainfire, and from that theory created the boxes of Orden, came to be­lieve they were right. I also believe that their conclusions are correct.”

“What would happen if, if, I don’t know,” Cara said, “if Lord Rahl told Kahlan first—about her loving him and that she was his wife—and then later he was finally able to get the boxes of Orden, and get his power back, and learn what was necessary, and he finally opened the correct box, invoking the counter to the Chainfire event? Would the counter to Chainfire still work?”

“Yes, the counter would still work.”

Cara looked truly confused. “So, what’s the problem?”

“It’s a constructed spell, so the protocols would run just the same. If the theory is sound, and I think it is, all the other components of Orden would still function. The Chainfire spell would be countered and everyone’s memories would be restored—with one exception. Orden would be unable to rebuild Kahlan’s past. That element of the spell would be blocked. The one at the center of the storm would be lost to it.

“We would all be restored, our memories would be what they once were, we would all remember Kahlan, but Kahlan would forever be without her past. You might say she would be like a soldier injured in battle who, because of a head injury, no longer is who he once was. She would only be able to go on from her life after the Chainfire spell had taken her identity from her. She would only be aware of things from that point on. She would be a different person, a person who would have to build a new life for herself.

“All the while she would have the knowledge that she was supposed to love this person, Richard, whom she doesn’t know and for whom she has no real feeling.”

“So, then she would be the only casualty,” Cara said. “The rest of us would be restored.”

Nicci sighed. “Well, that’s my belief from my understanding of the theory.”

Zedd was looking suspicious again. “But there is an alternate possibility?”

Nicci nodded. “Not one I’d like to contemplate. One of the lines of reasoning in the books of Ordenic theory postulates that absent the anchor it needs in a sterile field, the counter would be unable to run its protocols and collapse in on itself. That line of reasoning suggests that in such a circumstance the counter would fail and the Chainfire event would burn on out of control. Life as we know it would be lost. Our ability to reason would crumble as the inferno of Chainfire continued to burn, until our minds would be unable to support our own existence. Savagery would sustain some people for a short time, but the inevitable outcome would be the extinction of mankind.

“I think you can see why the wizards who created Orden were so concerned about preserving the sterile field.”

Zedd frowned in thought. “But the predominant theory is that if something were to go wrong, and she were to gain such foreknowledge before Orden could be brought to play, she would forever remain a casualty of Chainfire but that wouldn’t really interfere with Chainfire in everyone else being countered.”

“That’s right. In a way, as much as Kahlan means to Richard, I’m afraid that in this she has become secondary to the Chainfire event. It may have started with her, but now everyone is infected. If that event is not stopped, everything is lost. Countering Chainfire has become more important than Richard and Kahlan’s love for each other. It would be wonderful if her love for him could be restored, but it isn’t necessary in order to counter the Chainfire event.

“Regardless of what it means for this one person, for Kahlan, or what it means for Richard, personally, the power of Orden must be invoked to counter Chainfire in order to purge the infection from everyone else.

“There’s one other alternate theory, besides the one about the whole thing not working if the field is tainted. A few wizards believed that Ordenic theory might indicate that pouring so much power into the subject of the Chainfire event in anything but a sterile field—one contaminated with foreknowledge—would kill the person.”

“What about everyone else in such a mishap?” Zedd asked.

“By the time she hits the floor dead, the trigger for the constructed portion of Orden would already have been initiated and the rest of the spell would run through its protocols. Orden would ripple outward from the core and do its job.

“If that happens, if Kahlan is lost in the effort, it will be a terrible personal loss for Richard, but it will mean nothing more than that for the rest of us. The introduction of Orden would destroy the Chainfire contamination and restore everyone else.”

Zedd gave her a hard look. “We may not remember Kahlan, but there is no doubt in any of us what she means to Richard. He has already shown us that he would be willing to go to the underworld if he thought doing so could save her life. If he knew that opening one of the boxes and releasing the power of Orden would kill her . . .”

Nicci didn’t shy from his look, or the implication. “Richard must open the correct box of Orden and initiate the constructed spell that will counter Chainfire . . . even if it means that it will kill Kahlan. It’s as simple as that.”

The room was silent for a moment.

Zedd rubbed a finger back and forth on his chin as he gazed off into the shadows. “It would seem wise, in view of such dangers—whether real or not—to see to it that if Kahlan is found she be kept in the dark about her former feelings for Richard. Best to let Orden restore her emotions.”

“That makes the most sense to me, too,” Nicci said. “When we get Richard back we have to convince him that should he find her, he must not reveal the truth to her.”

Zedd clasped his hands behind his back as he shook his head. “Considering everything at stake, I agree that such a thing is wise, and that it should be our plan, but I don’t know that I really believe such a thing as simple foreknowledge could cause such a personal tragedy. I don’t know if I can believe that such a simple thing as foreknowledge can cause such great harm.”

“If it’s any consolation to you, there were wizards involved in the creation of the boxes of Orden who held the same view. But then it seemed impossible to me that using power against a witch woman would bring me to harm.”

Zedd stared off, absently, as he considered. “You have a point. Great harm can sometimes result from the best of intentions.

“When we find the boy we can tell him all this. But we’re an awfully long way from any of this ever happening. We no longer have even one of the boxes of Orden.”

Nicci sighed. “True enough. What worries me the most, though, is convincing Richard of this.” Nicci cleared her throat. “When we find him, I think it best if such a thing came from you, Zedd. He might take it better coming from you. He might be more open to listening.”

Zedd glanced her way before resuming his pacing. “I understand.” He halted and turned to Nicci. “But I’m still not sure I buy the whole theory about emotional foreknowledge being able to taint . . .”

In midsentence, Zedd’s mouth snapped closed with a startled expression.

“What?” Nicci asked. “Did you think of something?”

Zedd sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Yes, I most certainly did.”

The power, the fire, had gone out of him.

“Dear spirits,” he whispered, sounding as if the weight of his years had just settled on his slumped shoulders.

Nicci leaned down and touched his arm. “Zedd, what’s wrong?”

He looked up at her with haunted eyes. “Foreknowledge can affect how magic works. It’s not a theory. It’s true.”

“Are you sure? How do you know?”

“I don’t remember Kahlan, or anything about her. When Richard was here, though, he told me about her. He filled me in on my missing memories of how he came to love her, and she him.

“Kahlan is a Confessor. A Confessor’s gift destroys the mind of the person she touches with her power. Confessors release their restraint on their power to unleash it. The rest of the time they must keep it under their tight control.”

“I know, I’ve heard about their ability,” Nicci said. “But what does that have to do with their love?”

“A Confessor always chooses her mate from among those they don’t really care about because if she were to be intimate with a man she loved she would unintentionally lose control of that power. So released, her power would take the man. He would stand no chance. He would no longer be who he was. He would be lost, his mind destroyed. He would be a hollow shell, left with a blind, mindless devotion to the Confessor. She would have him, have his love and devotion, but it would be meaningless, empty love.

“For this reason Confessors always choose a man they don’t care about, and then take him with their power. They choose a mate for what kind of father he would be, for the daughter he could produce, but they never choose a man they love. Men fear an unmarried Confessor in search of a mate, fear being chosen, fear losing who they are to her power.”

“But there obviously must be a way for it to work,” Nicci said. “How did Richard accomplish it?”

Zedd looked up. “There is only one way. I can’t tell you what it was. I couldn’t tell Richard, either. I couldn’t even tell him that a way existed.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because the foreknowledge would have tainted him and her magic, when first she unleashed it on him without intending to, would have taken him. He had to be totally unaware of the solution to it, or that a solution even existed, or that solution would not have worked.”

Zedd stared at the floor. “It is no theory. Foreknowledge can taint a sterile field, as you put it. Richard himself proved the central question of Ordenic theory: foreknowledge can affect the function of magic.”

Nicci padded barefoot across the carpet to stand before him. She frowned down at the old wizard. “You knew of this beforehand, before Richard and Kahlan were married? You knew that the foreknowledge of the solution would cause it to fail in Richard?”

“I did. But I dared not tell him that a solution existed that would enable him to be with his love. Even that much foreknowledge, even the knowledge that there might be a solution, would ruin his chance of it working.”

“How did you know about this?”

Zedd lifted a hand and then let it fall back to his lap. “The very same thing happened to the first Confessor, Magda Searus, and the man who loved her, Merritt. They, too, ended up in love and married. Since that time, Richard was the first to ever again solve the problem. Since Magda Searus was the first Confessor, no one knew that there was a solution; therefore, there was not yet any foreknowledge to taint him. Without such foreknowledge he was able to solve the paradox of loving a Confessor without her power destroying him.”

Nicci pulled at a strand of blond hair as she considered. “Then the reality of foreknowledge alone being able to taint magic is true.” She frowned down at Zedd. “But the wizards who created Orden knew of no example of foreknowledge tainting a spell. It was only a theory for them.”

Zedd shrugged. “That probably means that Confessors were created after Orden. First Wizard Merritt proved the concept, so maybe it happened after Orden had already been created.”

Nicci sighed at it all. “I suppose that might be the answer.”

She gestured vaguely as she went on to other business. “Cara said something, before, about there being a problem. A problem with the Keep.”

Zedd finally looked up from his private thoughts and stood. The creases in his face drew into a grave expression.

“Yes, there is trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?” Nicci asked.

He started for the door. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”