As he became more familiar with the symbols he hadn’t seen before, he began to learn by their context that it wasn’t really all that different from the language of Creation he already knew. This simply said things in a slightly different way. It might use the symbol for a bat to express flight, rather than the bird symbol he was familiar with. But it suddenly clicked in his mind that the larger concept was really the same. They were both referring to the concept of the air, or the sky. That realization helped him start to make faster progress in deciphering the overarching meaning of what he was reading.
When he glanced up, he noticed that the Glee across the sand were starting to look restless. Vika was walking back and forth, talking to them, distracting them. He certainly couldn’t afford to have the Glee suddenly decide that they didn’t want Richard messing around with their device, as they called the gateway.
But what was worse, he now realized that he was going to need to ignite a verification web if he was to learn more of how the gateway functioned, and he didn’t know how the Glee might react to that. He finally decided that there was no other way around it. He was simply going to have to do it.
Richard finally located the sequence of symbols that would initiate the verification web. He touched those symbols with a finger in the proper order, letting his gift flow into each of them to begin to unlock the constructed spell. It should work if the symbols were what he believed they were.
He held his breath and briefly tapped the last one to let a bit of Subtractive Magic feed the emblem.
Suddenly, all the symbols on the entire stone lit up as if they were made of glass and there was a light inside the stone. Every one of the symbols glowed a pale bluish color that stood out all the more because of everything else being some shade of red. More alarming, the thing started giving off a low humming sound.
Richard didn’t know if he had merely activated the stone in some way, or it was doing what he intended. He quickly went back to the symbols and tapped the next series in the proper sequence to add Subtractive Magic to them in order to find out if this really was a constructed spell. Subtractive Magic would break the necessary seals if it actually was a constructed spell. If it was, then something should happen to give him some kind of indication.
At first, nothing happened.
He held his breath as he waited.
All of a sudden, one of the emblems on the top of the stone, on the side opposite the sloped top, lit with red light. He touched it with a finger, letting it have a bit of Additive Magic. As soon as he did, it abruptly threw a series of lines through the air similar to the way a fisherman would toss out a net. But instead of sinking to the ground, this net of lines hung in midair over the sand. The lines all glowed the same pale bluish color as the other symbols on the gateway stone. That was a sign, but not yet the right sign.
He heard the Glee across the sand, crowded in among the rocks, start to hiss. It sounded to him like a hiss of impatience.
He glanced up at the intricate pattern of the lines hanging in midair only to see Vika rushing back to him.
The alarm on her face was clear.
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Richard motioned frantically to get Vika to go around the glowing lines rather than run straight toward him and through them. She had no idea how dangerous they were, but fortunately she instinctively avoided anything having to do with magic, so as soon as she spotted the glowing lines she dodged to the side and changed course to avoid going into the gold ring altogether. He breathed out a sigh of relief.
She skidded to a stop beside the stone. She put a hand on it for support as she panted.
“Lord Rahl—”
Richard pushed her hand off the stone. “Don’t touch it. It’s active. I don’t know what it could do if you touch the wrong thing.”
She drew her hand back as if she had touched fire. “Lord Rahl, the Glee are not at all happy about what they’re seeing.”
Before she could elaborate, Sang raced up behind her. “Lord Rahl! You must not do this,” he shouted in Richard’s mind. “You said that you intended to destroy the device. That is what you must do. The others, the others who were followers of the goddess, are growing angry. They consider this device a sacred gift from the gods.”
Richard frowned up at Sang. “Then why didn’t they object when I came up here to destroy the thing?”
Sang looked back at the massive throng of Glee among the rocks on the other side of the white sand. They were all waving their arms, apparently arguing among themselves. He looked back at Richard and bent down as if to speak confidentially, although the Glee had already proven their ability to have others hear them selectively. Or maybe it was only an ability to make Richard and Vika selectively not hear them.
“They did not know that you intended to destroy the device.”
“What?” Richard rose to his feet. “You mean you didn’t tell them what I intended to do?”
Sang shook his head. “No. I dared not. You must understand that we have only just been reunited with them after you struck down the Golden Goddess. I thought you would come up here and do the same thing with the device and it would be over before they realized what you were going to do, and in that way have it ended once and for all before they could object.”
“What did you expect them to do once had I destroyed it with my sword?”
Sang hesitated. “I thought that since it would then be over and too late for them to do anything about it, we could more easily convince them that it was for the best. With the Golden Goddess dead and the device destroyed so we could no longer go to other worlds, I thought they would then realize they had no choice but to go back to our traditional ways and then they would come to be at peace with it. I thought they would even realize that the fighting and violent death of so many was finally ended and be pleased.”
Richard realized that even though they had the ceremonial eating of the water weed from Iben’s body, they hadn’t fully committed to giving up all their beliefs or using the device to go to other worlds. They had enjoyed the sport of hunting, and they had developed a taste for the flesh of people. There were probably Glee among those watching who craved power and were waiting to later use the device to win followers to themselves.
“This is more complicated than I realized,” Richard told Sang. “I can’t simply use my sword to break this stone apart. It’s not just a piece of rock. If it were, I could shatter it. But it’s a powerful device that uses magic to send you to other worlds. If I use my sword to try to destroy it, it could end up killing us all, or even killing everyone in this world. I need to disable it in another way.”
“Do what you must, but hurry,” Sang urged. “If you do not destroy it quickly, you may never get another chance.”
“I will go as fast as I can, but it will take some time. I need you to go back and convince them that they need to stay away because these lines you see above the sand are dangerous.”
Sang looked across the sand toward the Glee for a moment and then back to Richard. His third eyelids blinked across his large, glossy black eyes.
“What lines?”
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Richard was shocked. “You mean to say you can’t see the glowing lines above the sand?”