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Zedd cast the others a sidelong glance and only grunted before turning back to studying the geometric forms surrounding the woman floating before him.
Richard knew his grandfather well enough to know by his drawn features that he was either unhappy or very worried. Richard didn't think that either prospect augured well. He began to worry himself—for Nicci.
As the others stood back to take it all in, frowning in concentration as they pondered the way the glowing verification web continued to trace new lines through space, Richard stepped closer. He slowly walked around the table, finally studying—for the first time, really—the lines crisscrossing through the air all around Nicci.
As he moved in closer and stepped around the table, he realized that the lines actually formed a cylinder in space, like something flat that had been rolled up, with Nicci inside that cylinder. That meant that all the lines were simply a two-dimensional drawing, even if they did wrap around until they met. Richard mentally flattened out that cylindrical form, much like unrolling a scroll, in order to see it in his mind as a more customary line drawing. When he did so, he began to realize that there was something oddly familiar about the network of lines.
The more Richard studied it, the more he couldn't stop staring at it, as if it were pulling him in… drawing him into the pattern of lines, angles, and arcs. There seemed to be something he should recognize about it all, but he couldn't figure out what.
He thought that perhaps he should regard a spell-form that had been cast around Kahlan, as this terrible thing had been, to be evil, but he didn't feel that way. The spell-form existed; it did not possess the quality of being good or evil.
The ones who cast the web around Kahlan were the real evil. Those four Sisters were the ones who had used the spell for their own evil ends. They had used it as part of their plan to have the boxes of Orden and to free the Keeper from the underworld—to loose death on the living. All in return for beguiling promises of immortality.
Gazing at the lines, Richard began to scrutinize the rhythm in those lines, their patterns, their flow. As he did so, he began to get an inkling of their significance.
He was beginning to see purpose in the design.
Richard pointed to a place near Nicci's extended right arm, just below her elbow.
"This place, here, is wrong," he said as he frowned into the fabric woven of light.
Zedd came to a halt. "Wrong?"
Richard hadn't realized that he'd said it out loud, at least not loud enough for others to hear. "Yes, that's right. It's wrong."
* * *
CHAPTER 5
Richard went back to studying the lines, tilting his head to better follow them along as they went through a complex intersection of routes coming around from all directions to end up before Nicci's middle. He was beginning to grasp the meaning of those routes and the larger intent of the design.
"I think there's a supporting structure missing." He aimed a finger off to his left. "It seems like it should have started back there, don't you think? It looks like this place, here, should have a line going up this way and then back to that spot near her elbow."
His attention riveted on the rhythm of lines, Richard was largely lost to the rest of the room.
"It's impossible for you to know such a thing," Ann said flatly.
He wasn't discouraged by her skepticism. "When someone shows you a circle and it has a flat spot in it, you know it's wrong, don't you? You can see the intended design and know that the flat spot doesn't belong there."
"Richard, this is not some simple circle. You don't even know what you're looking at." She caught herself before her voice rose any more, clasped her hands before herself, and took a deep breath before going on. "I'm simply trying to point out that there are a great deal of complexities involved here that you are not aware of. The three of us haven't even begun to be able to unravel the mechanism behind the spell-form, and we have extensive training in such things. Despite our training and knowledge, it's still far from complete enough for us to grasp the manner in which it functions. You don't understand the first thing about such complex motifs."
Without turning to her, Richard flicked a hand to dismiss her concern. "Doesn't matter. The form is emblematic."
Nathan cocked his head. "It's what?"
"Emblematic," Richard murmured as he studied an intersection of lines, trying to identify the primary strand through the architecture of the lineation.
"So?" his grandfather sputtered after Richard again fell to silent preoccupation.
"I understand the jargon of emblems," he said, absently, as he found the primary thread and traced it along a rise and fall and swirl of the pattern, all the time coming more in tune with its intent. "I told you that before."
"When?"
"Back when we were with the Mud People." Richard immersed himself in the flow of the design, trying to perceive the ascendant course among the lesser branches. "Kahlan was there. So was Ann."
"I'm afraid that we don't remember," Zedd admitted after seeing Ann shake her head in frustration. He sighed unhappily. "Yet one more memory surrounding Kahlan lost to us because of what those Sisters did."
Richard didn't really hear him. Growing ever more agitated, he waggled a finger back and forth at a breach in the lines just below Nicci's elbow. "I'm telling you, there's a line missing, here. I'm sure of it."
Richard turned to his grandfather. He saw then that everyone was staring at him. "Right here," he told them as he pointed again, "from the end of this upward rising arc, to this intersection of triangles, there should be a line."
Zedd frowned. "A line?"
"Yes." He didn't know why they hadn't spotted it before. It was stone cold obvious to Richard, like a song sung with a note of the melody left out. "A line is missing. An important line."
"Important," Ann repeated in weary exasperation.
Richard, becoming more unsettled by the moment, wiped a hand across his mouth. "Very important."
Zedd sighed. "Richard, what are you talking about?"
"There is no way you could know such a thing," Ann scoffed, her patience wearing thinner by the moment.
"Look," Richard said turning back to them, "it's an emblem, a design."
Zedd scratched the back of his head, glancing briefly to the window as a particularly violent fit of lightning flared so close that it released a crack of thunder that felt like it might loosen the stone walls of the Keep.
He turned back to Richard. "And the design… tells you something, Richard?"
"Yes. Such a design is like a translation from another language. In a way, it's what you're trying to understand by doing this verification web. This form characterizes a concept in much the same way that a math equation expresses physical attributes, such as an equation expressing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Emblematic forms can be a kind of language, too, the way mathematics is a form of language. They both are able to reveal something about the nature of things."
Zedd patiently smoothed back his hair. "You see emblems as a form of language?"
"In a way. Take the Grace underneath Nicci, for example. That's an emblem. The outer circle represents the beginning of the underworld while the inner circle represents the limits of the world of life. The square separating them represents the veil between those worlds. In the center is an eight-pointed star, representing the Creator's Light. The eight lines radiating out from the points of that star all the way out through the outer circle represent the gift carried from Creation all the way through life, across the veil, and beyond, into death. The whole thing is an emblem; when you see that emblem, you see it as a whole concept. You might say that you understand the language of it.
"If, during the casting of a spell, someone with the gift doesn't draw the grace correctly—hasn't spoken the language correctly—it won't work as intended and might even cause trouble. Say you saw a Grace with a nine-pointed star, or with one of the circles missing, wouldn't you know it was wrong?
If the square representing the veil was drawn incorrectly, then under the right circumstances it could even theoretically breach the veil and allow the worlds to bleed together.
"It's an emblem. You understand the concept it represents. You know what it should look like. If it's drawn wrong, then you recognize it as wrong."
When the flashes of lightning flickered to a stop, the room felt forsaken in the weak light of lamps. Distant thunder rumbled ominously up from the valley below.
Zedd, standing stock-still, studied Richard with more focus than he had been studying the verification web. "I've never looked at it in quite that way before,, Richard, but I grant that you might have a point."
Nathan arched a brow. "He certainly does."
Ann sighed. "Perhaps."
Richard turned from their dour expressions back to the glowing lines. "This, right here," he said, gesturing, "is wrong."
Zedd stretched his neck to peer at the lines. "Let's just say for the sake of argument that you're right. What do you think it means?"
Richard's heart hammered as he made his way around the table, swiftly tracing lines through the spell. He used a finger, keeping it just clear of the lines of light, to track the primary pathways, the sweeps of the pattern, the fabric of the form.
He found what he was expecting. "Here. Look here, at this newly formed structure that has built up around these older, original lines. Look at the disordered nature of this new cluster; they're a variable, but in this emblem of lines it should all be a constant."
"Variable… ?" Zedd sputtered, as if having thought he was following Richard's reasoning, had instead suddenly found that he was completely lost.
"Yes," Richard said. "It's not emblematic. It's a biological form. The two are clearly different."
