Into Darkness

74

At Richard’s urgent warning, Sang and the rest of his followers still up on the mountain raced away and disappeared through the contorted rock spires toward the path that would take them down the mountain. A few of the other Glee looked about and then changed their minds when they saw the others running for their lives. A number of them decided to go with them. Many more watched them go but didn’t follow.

Richard had given them a chance to get to safety. They refused to take it.

He saw the masses of Glee that were left behind, apparently wary because of Sang’s warnings about dangerous magic, cautiously begin to move out from between and behind the smooth, flowing shapes of the rock. Cautious or not, he recognized Glee with murderous intent.

“Lord Rahl—hurry!” Vika yelled.

“Don’t stare at the lightning,” he told her.

“What lightning?”

Instead of taking precious time to answer her, Richard simply reached out and touched two separate primary intersections of converging, glowing, bluish lines and then closed his eyes. To cast the proper interior perspective of a verification web, he needed to use his gift. He could feel the power of the gateway’s constructed spell as it pulled his gift up from the depths of his soul.

He knew by the way it functioned that the gateway had to be powered by a constructed spell. It was clear that it was simply a type of constructed spell he had never encountered before. That being the case, he hoped that everything at least worked in the same way with the same procedures he knew.

As he felt the power from those bluish lines radiating up his arms, he didn’t try to resist. They were seeking within him what they needed. He knew that without Subtractive Magic the verification web would be sterile. He quickly opened his mind to what they were trying to pull from him and released his restraints.

His gift responded with such a rush of power it took his breath.

Time and movement outside the golden circle seemed to stop.

Inside that circle, almost instantly, both Additive and Subtractive Magic ignited from his outstretched arms with a deafening thunderclap. From his right hand, Additive Magic flashed in a twisting arc that would blind a person were they to stare right at it for more than a brief glance. Beyond the gold ring, Glee tried to shield their eyes with an arm. They might not be able to see magic, but this kind of power was something that even they could see. With his eyes closed, Richard could still see the bright, searing lines of the lightning right through his eyelids.

Almost at the same time, from his left hand, Subtractive Magic thundered into existence, shaking the ground. Unlike its opposite, it wasn’t at all bright. His eyes were closed, but he had seen it enough times that he could sense the cold void in the world of life that was blacker than death itself.

Now that his gift had responded and the full verification web had been ignited, Richard held both arms out as he squinted just enough to see the blindingly bright threads of crackling Additive lightning and shrieking threads of totally black Subtractive threads flickering and twisting all around him and Vika. Those threads of power arced upward from his hands and then cascaded down to the golden ring. The way they each turned and tumbled, they reminded him of wild beasts on a chain.

In his peripheral vision Richard could see the dark shapes of the Glee that had started racing toward the gold circle suddenly stop where they were as they saw power they couldn’t comprehend exploding into existence before them. They didn’t run, maybe because they were waiting for an opening to attack to save their precious device, or maybe because they couldn’t understand what it was they were seeing, or maybe because they were simply paralyzed by fear.

The whole perimeter of the golden circle that he and Vika had uncovered in the sand drew a network of thin Subtractive threads of inky black lightning as well as blindingly bright threads of Additive Magic, all of them flickering as they jumped and raced around the entire perimeter of the gold ring as if it were alive and trying to find a way to escape. But the golden circle prevented any escape. At least for the moment.

Richard closed his eyes again and swiftly raised both arms. Using all the power of his gift he abruptly brought the main trunks of those crackling, flickering discharges of Additive and Subtractive Magic up with his hands feeding them everything he had. Both of those arcing streams of thunderous power slammed together, rocking the mountain.

Instantly, all around the perimeter of the gold circle about waist high, a burst of dark energy powered by Subtractive Magic exploded outward in an ever-expanding ring. As it shot off in all directions, it instantly cut cleanly through the Glee where they stood and the rock towers behind them as well as those all around the mountaintop.

Richard saw what had just happened as if watching from outside his own body. With the threat stopped, he immediately used his gift to pull the Subtractive Magic he had allowed to escape back within the boundary of the gold ring.

The Glee had all been sliced cleanly in two and were dead before they tumbled to the ground. Some of the tops of the rock towers, suddenly separated by a void cut cleanly through them by Subtractive Magic, dropped straight down with a thud and stayed there, as if joining into one again. Others that were out of balance slowly began to tip over until they crashed down. Any of the Glee that had been behind the rock had also been cut in two and killed. No Glee that had come up on the mountain, other than those with Sang who had fled, escaped alive.

Everything had happened in a blinding flash of pure elemental power. What only a second before had been a dangerous threat, was no more. With the threat eliminated, Richard turned his attention back to the procedures for the ignition of the interior perspective of the verification web.

He allowed both kinds of lightning to twist and dance together. Countless threads of the combined power crackled all around them, forming a dome shape over Richard and Vika. The ends of all those thrashing threads grounded on the golden ring, like lightning drawn irresistibly to a tree. It didn’t seem to do any harm to the ring.

That part was unlike any verification-web procedure Richard had ever seen before, or heard of, but he realized that just because he hadn’t seen it before didn’t mean it was wrong, and was no reason to stop.

Within that dome of crackling power, all around Richard and Vika, the constructed spell rapidly built a network of yet more lines, confirming that everything about the spell was unfolding properly and as he had expected. As Richard concentrated on giving those lines the power they needed from his gift, they traced their way through the air, building a three-dimensional series of glowing lines.

Unlike the previous lines, these glowed orange, which was a rather discordant contrast in the red world. The bluish lines from before turned green when the orange lines intersected with them, changing them and adding to their structure. Lines of light raced through the air to support and reinforce geometric shapes. Triangles merged and formed complex angles and shapes of pure white light that lit the remaining towers of rock all around them in their soft glow.

The lines swiftly grew in purpose, creating an intricate web around Richard and Vika. Richard understood those lines and the elements of magic they represented. As they multiplied, the glowing lines continued to build, crisscrossing around the two of them at a dizzying rate. As they did, Vika pressed her back to his as yet more lines shot like arrows through space close in around them.

The lines, Richard knew, were routines of the spell-form, protocols that created the web to confirm what elements made up that spell-form. They were, in essence, a three-dimensional diagram of the constructed spell.

The lines continued to trace their routes with purpose and precision as the dome of crackling lightning overhead protected them. The symbols on the stone flashed in sequence. In the fabric of the web around them made of orange, white, and green lines, in the angles and junctions, Richard could read purpose and procedure, revealing how the spell and the strange power used by the gateway functioned.

Even though it was unlike any constructed spell he had seen before, in the complexity of glowing lines all around them, there was profound beauty of purpose.

Richard now understood how it all fit together and the underlying mechanism for how the gateway worked.

And, he now understood exactly what he had to do to alter the gateway.