Wasteland

13

“Why are we in trouble?” Kahlan asked, alarmed by the way he was acting. He seemed not to hear her. “Richard, why are we in trouble?”

She finally had to put a finger on the side of his jaw and turn his face toward her to get him to pay attention.

“What?”

“You said we’re in trouble. Why are we in trouble?”

Richard straightened and took a step away from the table as he raked his fingers back through his hair.

“Richard,” Kahlan said again, this time with exaggerated patience, drawing his name out to make him look at her, “what do you see? What is it?”

He stared at her for a long moment. “It’s a complication.”

“Well, I can see by the weird and confusing design of the place that it looks incredibly complicated. But what do you see?”

He was shaking his head even as she was talking.

“No. You don’t understand. It’s a complication.” He swept a hand out over the plan. “This kind of design is called a complication.”

Shale looked exasperated. “You mean it’s an exceedingly complicated maze? We all can see that. Is that what you mean to say?”

“No,” Richard said, irritably, as if no one was really paying attention to what he was saying. “No. I mean it’s a complication.”

“Richard,” Kahlan said, pinching the bridge of her nose with a finger and thumb as she let out a composing breath, “I know you think that should explain it, but we don’t understand what that means to you. You need to tell us what you mean by that. What are you trying to say?”

Kahlan knew that Richard’s unorthodox way of thinking often galloped so far out ahead of what they saw, taking into account things only he knew about or understood, that he often seemed to make no sense. It was one of the reasons the Mord-Sith, along with others, sometimes said he acted crazy. It seemed that way to people because they didn’t understand what was in his head.

“It’s a complication. That’s what this kind of design is called. That is the name for it: a complication.” Richard lifted an arm, indicating everything above. “This whole place is laid out atop a spell-form drawn on the ground.”

“The People’s Palace,” Kahlan said, nodding, “yes, we know that. We know the palace is a spell-form.”

Shale leaned in, holding a hand against her arm. “A what? A spell-form? Now what are you talking about? You’re beginning to sound as crazy as him.”

Richard squinted at her in a way that told Kahlan he was having a hard time believing Shale would ask something so basic. “You know … a spell-form.”

Shale folded her arms and straightened without saying anything, clearly not understanding and expecting him to explain.

Richard took a settling breath to back himself up. “Well, you know what a Grace is, right?”

“A Grace?” Shale squinted with uncertainty at what we was getting at. “Well yes, my mother and father taught me to draw a Grace when I was little. I know what a Grace is. What does that have to do with anything?”

Richard leaned toward her a bit. “A Grace is an example of a spell-form. The lines that make up the Grace, the design of it, is called a spell-form.” He moved his finger around in the air before him as if drawing a Grace. “When you drew the Grace you were drawing one example of a spell-form.”

It was Shale’s turn to frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. A Grace is a Grace is a Grace.”

Richard threw up his hands in exasperation. “A Grace is a spell-form! Like any spell-form it can be drawn in different ways for different purposes.”

“Different purposes? Now what are you talking about?”

“Think of the spell-form this way. Imagine a plan drawn for a building. That’s called a building design, right? But the resulting building can be different, depending on how you draw the design. Do you see what I mean? It can have more rooms or more floors drawn on the design and the resulting reality in brick and mortar will be a reflection of how the design was drawn.”

She stared openly at him a moment. “So, a spell-form, such as the Grace, can be drawn in different ways?”

“Of course. Didn’t your parents warn you never to draw it in blood? Or out of order?”

“Well, obviously.”

“That’s because a Grace is a spell-form, and like all spell-forms, since they involve magic, if not drawn correctly they can cause great trouble. There are certain spell-forms that are lethal if drawn incorrectly or in the wrong order. Some, like the Grace, if deliberately drawn by a strongly gifted person in certain ways other than the formal procedure like you were taught, can be used to invoke any number of things.”

“Any number of things?” Shale was still frowning as she watched him. “Like what?”

“Well, drawn by the right person, in a specific order and manner, a Grace can conjure up the world of the dead. The Grace is only one of many examples of spell-forms, some of them very minor and relatively unimportant and some quite consequential.”

Shale shook her head to herself. “I’m afraid that where I grew up the gifted were few and far between. I never learned anything about spell-forms, other than what my parents taught me about how to draw the Grace.”

Richard cooled a bit, turning sympathetic. “I understand. I grew up in a place without magic. I’ve since had to learn about it. One of the things I had to learn is the language of Creation. The language of Creation actually uses some elements of spell-forms because it’s representational language.”

“Representational language?”

“Sure. If you see a simple drawing of a bird, it conveys a whole array of meaning—a concept—without needing words, right? That’s how the language of Creation works. It conveys meaning and concepts through symbols, designs, and emblems rather than words.”

She looked intrigued. “Someday you will have to tell me more about the language of Creation, but for now, what is the important point about this particular spell-form?”

Richard pointed a finger toward the ceiling, rotating his hand around to indicate everything above them. “The People’s Palace is laid out in the shape of a giant spell-form, the purpose of which is to give the Lord Rahl more power when he is here, in his home, also called the House of Rahl. That makes the People’s Palace a place of power for the Lord Rahl.”

“More power? More power like what?”

“Like when I turned all those Glee to ash. I was in part aided by the power of the spell-form of the palace itself. It helped me by adding energy to what I did—because I am the Lord Rahl. That’s the purpose of the way the palace was originally designed. Like a castle has thick walls and defensive parapets and ramparts, the People’s Palace was built on a giant spell-form drawn on the ground. That spell-form gives it its shape and is its means of defense for the House of Rahl by augmenting their magic.”

Shale blinked as she thought about it. “No wonder the halls are so confusing.”

“Not if you know the specific spell and the language of Creation. If you do, the layout of the palace makes perfect sense. It’s elegant in its simplicity … as a spell-form.”

“Sure, perfect sense,” she mocked. She gestured at the plan on the table. “So then what’s this business about a complication?”

Richard turned back to the diagram as he let out an unhappy sigh. “A complication, which is a spell-form, is an ancillary element of the principal spell-form to which it is attached. In this case, it’s a subordinate, supporting spell-form, meant to add power to the rest of the spell-form that is the palace. You might say it’s like extra descriptive words in a sentence.”

“So it is a spell-form that exists on its own and it can also be a supporting element of another spell-form?”

“Yes and no,” Richard told her. “This is a specific type of spell-form called a complication. It’s not meant to ever exactly exist on its own. Its purpose is to add capability to the spell-form to which it is attached.”

“Then it has a purpose for being here, for being built into the palace,” Kahlan said.

“Yes.”

“So then why does it have you so worried and upset?”

Richard took a deep breath. “The simplest way to explain the problem is that in the language of Creation, the primary elemental component of this particular spell-form means ‘chaos.’ That means that this spell-form adds an element of chaos to the power of the palace spell.”