The Glee Richard had brought across the drylands finally heeded Sang’s urgent warnings and started for the path down the mountain. Richard looked up and he could already see the first stars. They soon wouldn’t have much light to help them make it down the mountain. The moons would help, but only until they were in the dense fog of the heavy cloud layer lower down the mountain.
“I don’t know what you have planned,” Vika said, “but you had better hurry up before they decide to come over here and kill us to keep you from harming their sacred device.”
“I know, but I need time.”
“Time for what? How much time?”
“I already activated the verification web.” He gestured toward the sand. “That’s the bluish lines in the air above the sand. It doesn’t tell me enough about what I need to know to reset the gateway. In order to understand the gateway and the process to reset it, I need to do an aspect analysis of the verification web from an interior perspective.”
“Oh, of course.” Vika rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t suggest that in the first place.”
“Vika, this is serious. This is our only chance. I’m going to have to use both Additive Magic and Subtractive Magic. It’s the only way to activate an interior perspective.”
That sobered her. “What do you need me to do?”
“Once I ignite that kind of power, anyone up here is going to die.”
“I hope you don’t really expect me to leave with Sang.”
“No.” He gestured to the bluish lines above the sand. “I want you inside that web with me. It’s the only way to protect you.”
“Inside magic?” She looked at him like she thought he had lost his mind. “You want me inside some kind of powerful magic with you? That’s your crazy idea?”
“You need to trust me. You have already let me take you to the world of the dead. Compared to that, this should be a breeze.”
“Sure, a breeze.” She glanced briefly at the glowing lines above the sand. “I don’t know a lot about magic, but what I do know is that mixing Subtractive Magic and Additive Magic is beyond dangerous. If you need reminding, that’s what brought Shota’s palace in Bindamoon down on top of you.”
“I know, but this time there is not a witch unleashing the same thing at me.”
“Will we be safe in your web thing?”
Richard nodded to reassure her. “Yes. I’ve done it before, and I know how to do it. But there is a problem.”
“Of course there is.” She let out a deep sigh. “What’s the problem?”
“While I know what I’m doing with the constructed-spell portion, I don’t know for sure how the gateway is going to react to a mix of that kind of power.”
She gestured across to the sand. “Well, whatever you’re going to do, you had better hurry. I don’t think Sang is convincing those angry Glee of anything.”
Richard saw that she was right. The last thing he needed was to get into a battle with Glee in the middle of complex protocols. He grabbed hold of Vika’s upper arm and urgently pulled her with him toward the center of the maze of glowing, bluish lines, working his way carefully but quickly through the maze without touching it to get to the center. Fortunately, there weren’t yet a lot of the bluish lines; that was why he needed to do the more extensive interior perspective from inside the verification web.
Once there in the center of the sand, Vika looked all around at the glowing lines, like they might bite. She wasn’t necessarily wrong. But they were far from as dangerous as they were going to get.
“I don’t have magic,” she reminded him.
“You have the bond to me,” he told her in a distracted voice. “I have magic. That gives you all the magic you will need. You will be protected by that bond.”
She looked around at the lines. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Well, do I need to do anything?”
“No. Just try not to move around too much or touch the glowing lines. Stay close to me. Once everything starts, don’t move away or try to run.”
She gestured. “Sang is still here, trying to convince them to leave.”
Richard turned. “Sang!” he called out. “You have three heartbeats before anything living up here is killed. Go now! If they won’t go with you, leave them!”
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.