Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 48

Richard stepped over the melted white stone and into Panis Rahl’s tomb. The crypt staff waited outside in the hallway. They had urged Richard to go in alone, first, wanting him to visit the tomb before they dared to enter. It was the tomb, after all, of his grandfather. These were people who had lived and died by the incomprehensible protocol of the previous Lord Rahl visiting his venerated ancestors.

Richard, though, reserved his reverence for those who deserved it. Panis Rahl had been a tyrant with ambitions of conquest little different from those of his son, Darken Rahl. Panis Rahl might not have managed to accomplish the level of evil his son had, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

In the war Panis Rahl had started against neighboring lands, Zedd, as a young man, had been the one called upon to lead free people against D’Haran aggression. In the end, Zedd, acting as First Wizard, had killed Panis Rahl and put up the boundaries that had for most of Richard’s life walled off D’Hara.

Even though many had eagerly supported Panis Rahl’s lust for conquest, Zedd had not wanted to kill all of the people of D’Hara. Many of them, after all, were also the victims of that tyranny; having been unfortunate enough to be born under a tyrant was not a willful act on their part. So instead of killing all the D’Haran people, Zedd had put up the boundaries.

He said that, in the end, leaving them to suffer the consequences of their own actions was the worst punishment he could inflict upon them. It also gave them the chance to choose to change and make something of their lives. But with the boundaries, they would not be able to continue their aggression against others.

It would have worked, and Richard would still be living in peace back in Westland, had those boundaries not failed. Darken Rahl had helped them along in that deterioration by traveling through the underworld to get past them. Had the boundaries not come down, though, Richard would not have met Kahlan. Kahlan made his life worthwhile. She was his life.

Richard remembered years before, shortly after Darken Rahl had opened the box of Orden and been taken by its power, that one of the palace staff had come to tell Zedd that Panis Rahl’s crypt was melting. Zedd had told the man to use specific white stone to seal the tomb before the condition spread to the rest of the palace.

That stopgap of white stone sealing the entrance of the tomb had since mostly melted and the strange condition was beginning to damage the entire room. The walls were beginning to distort, causing the slabs of pink granite to be pushed out of their former flat plane. In the hallway outside, the joints between the ceiling and walls were coming apart from the deformation within the room. If it wasn’t stopped, it looked like it could continue to twist support walls until the structure of the palace eventually started falling in on itself.

Richard looked all around, taking appraisal of everything as he crossed the room. The light of fifty-seven torches reflected off his grandfather’s gold-enshrouded coffin sitting on a pedestal, making it not only glow in the center of the cavernous room, but almost look as if it were floating above the white marble floor. Words were inscribed not only on the coffin, but into the granite walls all around the room.

“I hate pink,” Nicci murmured to herself as she peered around at the polished pink granite walls and vaulted ceiling.

“Any idea why the walls would be melting?” Richard asked Nicci as she walked slowly around the room, carefully inspecting everything.

“That is what really frightens me,” Nicci said.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked as he started reading the High D’Haran words cut into the granite walls.

“Verna told me that when I came to the palace, just before I was captured, I had been on my way down here with Ann. Verna said that I told her that I knew why the walls down here were melting.”

Richard looked back over his shoulder at her. “And so why are they melting?”

Nicci looked strangely confused and worried. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember . . . what?”

“Why I was coming down here, or why the walls were melting. I asked Verna if she remembered anything I might have said, but she said that she didn’t.”

Richard lightly dragged a finger along his grandfather’s casket. “Chainfire.”

Nicci looked up, even more concerned. “Do you really think that’s the reason?”

“You don’t remember any of it?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t remember ever telling Verna that I knew the cause of the problem, but what’s worse is that I don’t remember ever knowing why the walls were melting. How could I forget something important like that?”

Richard stared into her troubled blue eyes for a moment. “I don’t think you could, if things were normal.”

“That can only mean that the damage from Chainfire is spreading beyond the original target of the spell.”

“It’s the contamination,” Richard said in a quiet voice.

“If that’s true, then that means that whatever is going on in here is connected to what we must do to reverse Chainfire. The contamination in the chimes is erasing memory to protect itself.”

Such a frightening concept gave Richard pause. He knew, though, that it made sense. Now he had to worry not only about how Jagang might be one step ahead of him, but about how the contamination with Chainfire might also be acting to defend itself from extermination.

It didn’t need to be sentient to react to preserve itself and continue its purpose. To the chimes, eliminating magic was a value, and the contamination they left in their wake was their method of accomplishing that value, so such self-defensive measures were probably integral, much as thorns were sometimes a bush or tree’s means of self-defense. Having thorns didn’t mean the tree was able to think of how to hurt anyone who came near; it was merely its integral means of protecting itself so that it could continue to exist.

“We have to reverse Chainfire or it’s only going to continue to grow worse,” Richard finally said to Nicci. “It won’t be long before we even forget why we have to reverse it. I must invoke the power of Orden to counter the spell before it’s too late.”

“We need the boxes of Orden to do that,” she reminded him.

“Well, Jagang has two, and the witch woman took the third. Somehow we need to get them back.”

“Since Six is doing Jagang’s bidding by attacking our troops down in the Old World, I think we must assume that she intends to give him the third box.”

Richard traced a finger along some of the lettering on Panis Rahl’s casket. “I think you’re right. It’s only a matter of time before Jagang has all three boxes, if he doesn’t already.”

“We have something they need, though,” Nicci said.

“We do? What?”

“The Garden of Life. Since translating The Book of Life I’ve come to see the Garden of Life in a different way. The book confirmed some of the conclusions I had previously come to, after the last time I saw the garden.

“I now understand the Garden of Life through the context of the magic of Orden. I’ve studied the position of the room, the amount of light, the angles in relation to various star charts and how the sun and moon traverse the place. I’ve also analyzed the area within the room where the spells relating to Orden had been invoked—their specific placement in relation to the other elements.”

Richard was intrigued. “You mean to say that you really think that the Garden of Life is necessary to open one of the boxes?”

“Yes. The Garden of Life was constructed specifically to provide the controlled conditions necessary to open one of the boxes of Orden.”

Richard had to run that through his mind a second time before he was sure that he’d heard her right. “You mean to say that Jagang must get into that room in order to open the correct box?”

Nicci shrugged. “Unless he wants to construct his own room just like it. That certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but the elements all brought together in that room are very exacting. Re-creating it would be a complex undertaking.”

“But it would be possible for him to do such a thing?”

“He would need the original references from which the plans for the Garden of Life were derived. He would also need the aid not only of sorceresses, but wizards. Lacking everything necessary to do it on his own, he would have to study the Garden of Life itself in order to know how to construct a new one. The only practical solution would be to duplicate what was already built here, since all that preliminary work has already been successfully carried out.”

“Well, if he could get into here to do that, he might as well use this one.”

Nicci leveled a look at him. “Exactly.”

Richard sighed with grasping just how far behind Jagang’s true motives they truly were. “No wonder he hasn’t been worried about opening the boxes before now. He needed to get here, first. Taking the People’s Palace has been part of his larger goal all along. He’s known all this time what he needed to do.”

“Seems that way,” she admitted.

Berdine stepped through the melted opening into the tomb. “Lord Rahl, there you are.”

Richard turned. “What is it?”

“I found this book,” she said, holding it up as she strode across the room, as if waving the book would explain everything. “It’s in High D’Haran. When I translated some if it and realized what it was, Verna told me to get it to you right away.”

Nicci took the book from Berdine when the Mord-Sith held it out to her. She opened the cover and started scanning the text.

“So, what is the book about?” Richard asked Berdine.

“It’s about Jillian’s people. Her ancestors from Caska, anyway.”

“The dreamcasters . . .” Nicci whispered to herself as she followed along in the book.

Richard frowned. “What?”

“Nicci’s right,” Berdine said. “It’s about how the people in Caska were able to cast dreams. Verna said to tell you that.”

“All right, thanks.”

“Well, I need to get back. There are some other books Verna needs to have translated. And don’t forget,” she said over her shoulder as she started away, “sometime I need to tell you the things I found out for you before—about Baraccus.”

Richard nodded to the Mord-Sith’s quick smile.

Nicci tucked the book under her arm. “Thanks, Berdine. As soon as we’re finished here, we’ll look into it.”

Richard watched Berdine leaving for a moment, then gestured to the inscriptions on the walls. “This all looks rather disturbing. Do you know the exact nature of the spells outlined here? A number of the elements look vaguely familiar.”

“They should,” Nicci answered cryptically. She pointed out one of the inscriptions on the far wall. “See there? It’s instructions from a father to a son on the process of going to the underworld and returning.”

“You mean, Panis Rahl wanted to pass these spells down to Darken Rahl, so they were chiseled in the walls of his tomb?”

“No,” Nicci said, shaking her head. “I believe that these spells have been passed down through the House of Rahl for countless generations—from each father to his gifted offspring who would become the next Lord Rahl. From each father to his son. They are, in a way, your birthright.”

Richard felt rather overwhelmed with the thought of it. “How old do you think they are? And why pass down spells on going to the underworld?”

“From the composition of these spells, my guess is that they have existed from the time Orden itself was created.” Nicci looked over out of the corner of her eye. “I believe that to use the power of Orden, these spells may be necessary.”

Richard rounded on her. “What?”

“Well, from what I read in the books that explained Orden, like The Book of Life, and some of the books on Ordenic theory, I’ve come to believe that the purpose of such a requirement has to do with the problem of how Subtractive Magic was used in the ignition of a Chainfire event.”

“You mean the problem with memories being eliminated?”

Nicci nodded. “Why can’t the rest of us remember Kahlan? Why can’t she remember who she was? Why can’t we use our gift to heal people who have forgotten Kahlan, or heal Kahlan? Why can’t our gift restore those memories?”

Richard recognized Nicci, the instructor, asking her student to provide the answer on his own. Richard was more than familiar with the technique. Zedd had used it on Richard his whole life.

“Because those memories are gone. There is nothing to restore.”

“And how were they taken?” Nicci asked, lifting a questioning eyebrow.

Richard thought it was obvious. “Through Subtractive Magic.”

Nicci only stared at him, as if waiting for more.

Understanding dawned on him.

“Dear spirits,” he said in a whisper. “Subtractive Magic is the magic of the underworld.” He stepped closer to her. “Are you saying that in order to use the power of Orden, going to the underworld is necessary because those things that were taken with Subtractive Magic are only able to be recovered there?”

“If memories are to be rebuilt, there must be a kernel to grow them from. The memory you have of her is your memory, not Kahlan’s missing memory, not Zedd’s, not Cara’s—not anyone else’s. The substance of their missing memory is what is gone from this world. It no longer exists. Not here, anyway.”

Richard couldn’t even blink. “And that core of the memory taken from the minds of the victims of Chainfire was taken away by Subtractive Magic. So if it still exists at all, it only exists in the underworld.”

Nicci gestured around at the High D’Haran words cut into the granite walls and on the casket. “The Book of Life, which Darken Rahl had to have read to have put the boxes of Orden in play, says that part of the process of invoking Orden is going to the underworld.”

“But what memory would Darken Rahl have recovered when he traveled to the underworld?”

“Invoking Orden requires prescribed steps. Going to the underworld is one of the steps to be performed in the sequence of invoking Orden.” She gestured to the walls. “Those steps.”

“But those references say only that going to the underworld is required. Why don’t they lay out the purpose of the journey?”

“The purpose of that journey is to recover the core of memories, but Orden doesn’t know what is necessary, or who the object of Chainfire was going to be, so it only provided for the step to be undertaken. It doesn’t say what must be done there. It is just a tool for the person trying to reverse Chainfire. It is up to them to do what is necessary when undertaking that journey.

“Berdine is the one who first showed me The Book of Life. She knew where it was because she had seen Darken Rahl using it. He went to the underworld. These inscriptions here are part of the formula for invoking the spells necessary to do that.”

“But Darken Rahl wasn’t trying to restore memories lost to Chainfire.”

Nicci shrugged. “No, he was using Orden to gain power for himself. It was up to him what he would do once he was there. He probably didn’t understand the true purpose of going to the underworld. He probably assumed that it was merely a step to be performed, a part of a complex ritual.”

Richard ran his fingers back through his hair. “Kahlan told me that he had traveled the underworld.”

Nicci again gestured to the inscriptions. “This is part of how he did it.”

“But how in the world am I to do such a thing?”

“According to this, you can’t do it by yourself. It requires a guide. Not just a guide, but a guide whom the person embarking on such a journey had to win over and who is now absolutely loyal—even in death.”

“A good spirit I can trust with my life.”

She nodded and then pointed at a place in the inscriptions. “See here? This is a spell for calling the guide from the underworld to come and take you where you must go.”

Feeling rather sick at the thought, Richard looked around at the writing. He pointed to one of the places in the High D’Haran script, then another place on a different wall. “Look here, at these references. These spells require sorcerer’s sand.”

“They certainly do. Perhaps we had better ask the crypt staff where they found that grain of it you have in your pocket.”

Overwhelmed by the things he was learning, Richard had almost forgotten why they had come down to the tomb in the first place.

“You’re right,” Richard said as he signaled Cara to bring the six people in white robes into the tomb.

The six hurried to follow after her like chicks following a mother quail. Richard waited for the covey to gather. They all peered up at him expectantly.

“You all did a great service by finding that grain of sand. Thank you for being so attentive.”

By the way they beamed, Richard didn’t think that a Lord Rahl had ever thanked them before.

He laid a hand gently on the shoulder of the one woman. “Can you show me where you found the grain of sand you brought me?”

She looked to the others and then knelt down before the gold casket in the center of the room. She pointed at the floor under one corner of the casket resting a few feet up on a pedestal. She crooked the finger at Richard.

He knelt down beside her, ducking his head under the casket when she did so. She pointed up at a corner on the bottom of the casket that was separating.

Richard rapped on the corner with the heel of his hand. Some sand poured out, the tiny grains bouncing across the white marble floor.

Richard stood in a rush. He shared a startled look with Nicci.

“Bring me your axe,” he called to one of the First File watching from the hallway just outside the room.

The man quickly dipped his head through the melted opening and rushed over to hand Richard his axe.

Richard forced the razor-sharp edge into the tight joint where the top was fitted to the rest of the casket. He wiggled the blade, forcing it in deeper. As he rocked the handle, the top began to loosen and lift.

With Nicci’s help, he raised the top off the casket. When he signaled with a tilt of his head, the crypt staff and the soldier took the weight of it from Richard and Nicci and set it aside.

The inside of the casket was filled to the brim with sorcerer’s sand.

Richard stood staring down at it a moment. Light from the torches reflected from the sand in a broad spectrum of tiny sparkles of color.

He gently brushed the sand away from the body beneath. There, embedded in the sorcerer’s sand, appeared the charred skull of Panis Rahl, his grandfather, still bearing the burns of wizard’s fire that Zedd, his other grandfather, used to destroy the tyrant. A few drops of that living fire had splashed onto the young Darken Rahl, engendering in him a burning hatred for Zedd and all who opposed the rule of the House of Rahl.

“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.”