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Nicci pulled the clawlike hand off her arm. “Catacombs?”
“Yes. The catacombs. We discovered ancient catacombs and in them books. We found a book called Chainfire”
Goose bumps ran up Nicci’s arms. “Chainfire, what does that mean? Is it a spell?”
“Oh, it is much more than anything so simple as a spell. It was from ancient times. The wizards of the time had come up with a new theory of how to alter memory—in other words, real events altered with Subtractive power, with all the disconnected parts spontaneously reconstructed independently of one another. Namely, how to make an individual disappear to everyone else by making people forget this person, even as soon as they’ve just seen them.
“But the wizards who came up with this theory were timid men, fearful of unleashing such things not only because they realized that such a linked event would cause irreparable damage to the subject, but because there was no way for them to control it once it was initiated, it would be self-actuating and self-sustaining.”
“What do you mean? What does it do?”
“It unravels people’s memory of the subject, but that ignition starts a cascade event that can’t be predicted or controlled. It then burns through links they have with others, and then others those people know, and so on. It eventually unravels connections so that it corrupts everything. For our purposes, though, it doesn’t really matter, since our aim is to undo life anyway. For fear that it would be discovered what we were doing, we destroyed the book, and the catacombs.”
“But why did you need to destroy the memory of someone?”
“Not just someone, but the memory of the woman who bought us the bond in the first place, Kahlan Amnell, Richard Rahl’s love. By creating a Chainfire event, we ended up with a woman no one remembers.”
“But what can that possibly gain you?”
“The boxes of Orden. We used her to get the boxes, so that we can free the Keeper. With the boxes, we can grant Richard immortal life at the same time we also free the Keeper.
“The Keeper whispered to us in our dreams that Richard has the secret to opening the boxes, he has a necessary knowledge memorized. It exists nowhere else. Darken Rahl revealed it to the Keeper. Richard knows the way to unlock the secrets of Orden, only this time, we know the trick that defeated Darken Rahl.
“The book he knows says that we need a Confessor to open the boxes. And now we have a Confessor who no one remembers—so no one can bother us about her.”
“What about prophecy disappearing? Was that caused by Chainfire?”
“It’s part of Chainfire. They called it the Chainfire corollary. Part of the initiation phase of Chainfire requires that prophecy also be ignited with a Chainfire event, much the same as people’s memories are cast into the conflagration. The Chainfire event feeds on those memories to sustain the event, therefore prophecy must be involved as well. A blank is found in the proper fork—a place where a prophet left a space, should a future prophet wish to complete the work. We then fill in that void in prophecy with a completing prophecy which has the Chainfire formula invested in it. A Chainfire event thus infects and consumes all the associated prophecy on the branch, starting with related prophecy, either in subject or in chronology—in this case both: Kahlan, the woman we wiped away in life, is thus also wiped away in prophecy by the Chainfire corollary.”
“You seem to have it all worked out,” Nicci said.
Tovi grinned through the pain. “It gets better.”
“Better? How could it possibly get more delicious than this?”
“There is a counter to Chainfire.” Tovi giggled with the glee of it.
“A counter? You mean you risk Richard finding a counter to what you have done, a counter that could bring the entire plan crashing down?”
Tovi tried to stifle the giggle, but it bubbled up again. Despite the obvious pain, she was enjoying herself too much to stop. “This is the best part of all. The ancient wizards who came up with the Chainfire theory realized the potential for the total destruction of life. So they created a counter, should a Chainfire event ever somehow come to pass.”
Nicci gritted her teeth. “What counter?”
“The boxes of Orden.”
Nicci’s eyes widened. “The boxes of Orden were created to be the counter to the Chainfire event you’ve initiated?”
“That’s right. Isn’t that delicious? What’s more, we’ve put the boxes in play.”
Nicci let out a deep breath. “Well, like I said, you seem to have it all figured out.”
Tovi winced. “Well…almost. There is only one minor issue.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you see, the stupid bitch only brought out one box the first time we sent her in. We couldn’t allow the boxes to be seen, because, unlike Richard’s love, people would remember seeing the boxes of Orden.
“Kahlan said she had no room in her pack. Sister Ulicia was furious. She beat the girl to a bloody mess—you would have loved it, Sister Nicci—and told her to leave something out to make room if she had to, then sent her back in to get the other two boxes.”
Tovi winced under a pang of pain. “We feared to wait, though. Sister Ulicia sent me on with the first box and said she would catch up with me later.” Tovi groaned under the agony of another stitch of pain. “I had the first box with me. The Seeker, the one with Sword of Truth, anyway, surprised me and ran me though. He snatched the box. Once Kahlan finally retrieved them, Sister Ulicia then had those two and thought that I had the third, so before she left the palace, she put the magic of Orden in play.”
Nicci staggered to her feet. She felt dizzy. She could hardly believe it. But she knew, now, that it was all true. Richard had been right all along. With almost nothing to go on, he had basically figured it all out. And all along no one in the world would listen to him…no one in a world that was unraveling around them in an uncontrolled Chainfire event.
Chapter 65
A scream that made the fine hairs on the back of Richard’s neck stand on end split the quiet night. Richard, in a bedroll in a simple tent, shot to his feet as the scream ripped the air with its terror. The unending shriek ran a shiver up through his shoulders and instantly brought a sheen of sweat to his brow.
His heart racing, Richard rushed out of his tent even as the haunting cry echoed through the encampment as if trying to reach every corner of darkness to express its horror.
Outside the tent, which was set apart from the others because it was an extra, Richard saw men standing in the darkness, their eyes wide. Up the row a ways, General Meiffert watched out on the night with the rest of them.
Richard saw that it was false dawn, like the morning Kahlan had vanished. The woman he loved, the woman who everyone else had forgotten and didn’t care to remember. If she had screamed, no one had heard her.
And then, as the scream died, the world went blacker than black. It was like being plunged into the inky nothingness of the world of the dead, forlorn and forever lost. Richard shivered as his flesh felt like something alien touched the world of living with intimate promise.
As quickly as the darkness had come, it was gone. Men looked around at one another, none speaking.
The thought occurred to Richard that the viper now had only three heads.
“The Keeper took one of his own,” he explained to the questioning faces that had all turned to him. He saw the general watching, listening. “Be glad that one so evil is no longer among the living. May all such people find the death they champion.”
Men smiled and whispered agreement with the curse as they began crawling back into their tents to try to snatch what was left of their sleep. General Meiffert met Richard’s gaze as he clapped a fist to his heart before vanishing back into his own tent.
In the dim light of the camp that suddenly seemed to be populated only by tents and wagons, Richard spotted Nicci very deliberately heading straight for him. There was something profoundly disturbing about the way she looked. Perhaps it was that she had just vented a rag
e that he doubted anyone but he could truly understand or value.
Flags of blond hair flying, she reminded him of a raptor descending in on him from out of the night, all tight muscle and talons. When he saw the tears streaming down her face, her gritted teeth, her fury and hurt, her powerful menace and frail helplessness, her eyes filled with more than he could grasp, he stepped back into his tent, drawing her in out of the view of the camp.
She swept into the tent, right for him, like a storm breaking on a headland. He backed as far as he could, having no idea what was wrong or what she intended.
With a sob of such naked desolation that it nearly made him cry out in kind, she fell to the ground at his feet, throwing her arms around his legs. She was clutching something in one hand. Richard realized that it was Kahlan’s white Mother Confessor dress.
“Oh, Richard, I’m so sorry,” she wailed between racking gasps. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she kept mumbling over and over.
He reached down and touched her shoulder. “Nicci, what is it?”
“I’m so sorry,” she cried as she clutched at his legs as if she were the condemned begging a king for her life. “Oh, dear spirits, I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you.”
He sank down, lifting her arms off his legs. “Nicci, what is it?”
Her shoulders heaved with her racking sobs. She looked up at him as he lifted her by her arms. She was as limp as the dead.
“Oh, Richard, I’m so sorry. I never believed you. I’m so sorry that I never believed you. I should have helped you and instead I fought you every step. I’m so sorry.”
He had rarely seen anyone in such profound misery. “Nicci—”
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please, Richard, end it now.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to live anymore. It hurts too much. Please, use your knife and end it. Please. I’m so sorry. I’ve done worse than simply not believe you. I’ve been the one who stopped you at every turn.”
She hung like a rag doll from his hands under her arms. She wept in utter misery and defeat.
