Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

"When Darken Rahl captured Richard, and was opening the boxes, he made Richard read out the instructions from The Book of Counted Shadows. I don't recall how — probably as a result of the Chainfire spell.

"The point is, I was there. I remember that part quite well because I was so shocked — for two reasons. First, to learn that the book had been stolen from my enclave at the Keep for Richard to memorize and, secondly, because it was a book of magic and that fact meant that Richard could only memorize and speak the words because he was gifted.

"When I found the copy of The Book of Counted Shadows down in the catacombs, I was shaken to my core. I read it and sure enough it was word for word exactly what Richard had memorized."

Nicci cocked her head. "It was the same? Are you sure?"

"Positive," Zedd said, emphatically. "The two were identical."

Nicci was beginning to feel sick herself. "That can mean only one of two things. Either one was the original, and the other the one true copy of that key… or else they were both false keys, false copies."

"No, they couldn't be false," Zedd insisted. "When Richard read the book out, he left out an important element at the very end. It was by leaving out that one piece of the book that he defeated Darken Rahl. He, in essence, turned it into a false copy, thus tricking Darken Rahl to defeat him. As I often told Richard, sometimes a trick is the best magic."

Nicci laid the book on the table. "That doesn't necessarily mean it's the true key and not the false. Look at this." She laid The Book of Life open and tapped a page in the very beginning that had only one thing all by itself on the page to emphasize how important — how central — it was.

"This is the introductory statement to The Book of Life. I already translated it. It's a warning to anyone who would read this book.

"It says, 'Those who have come here to hate should leave now, for in their hatred they only betray themselves. »

Zedd squinted at the words in High D'Haran all by themselves on the page. "So you are saying, what… that because Darken Rahl turned to the boxes of Orden out of hate, he would have been destroyed by the true Book of Counted Shadows just the same as by a false one?"

"That's one possibility," Nicci said.

Zedd shook his head. "I don't believe that. Some magic works by reading intent. The Sword of Truth works that way. People who hate don't usually recognize that vile taint within themselves. They spew their hatred as righteous. That corruption is what makes them so evil — and so dangerous. They are able to do the most despicable things and think themselves heroes for having done them."

"Then you are going to tell me that you believe that it was coincidence, luck, that both those books just happen to be the only true keys? And they just happened to be that close together? You think that the wizards who made the copies, sending them to distant, hidden places, would have put the one true copy right here, right near the only other true key? What would be the purpose of scattering the copies?"

Zedd rubbed his chin with his fingertips as he thought it over. "I see what you mean."

"With books like this, there has to be a way to confirm the copies — to validate them."

"There is," Zedd told her. "In the beginning of The Book of Counted Shadows, it says, 'Verification of the truth of the words of The Book of Counted Shadows, if spoken by another, rather than read by the one who commands the boxes, can only be insured by the use of a Confessor.

"A copy constitutes 'spoken by another, " he said. "The person making the copy is, in essence, speaking it; the reader is not actually reading the original. Unless it's the original key, and that original key is actually being read by the one who put the boxes in play, this forewarning invokes the necessity of verification."

"Kahlan," Nicci said.

The other two looked at her, and by the looks on their faces, they understood her meaning.

"Zedd," Nicci finally asked into the silence, "None of us remembers Kahlan. If we could find her, and if we could somehow fix this Chainfire spell, or something… is there a way to make her remember what she right now would not recall?"

Zedd's gaze wandered to the glowing spell-forms above the table. "No."

Nicci hadn't expected such certainty. "Are you sure?"

"About as sure as I can be. The spell destroys memory. It doesn't cover it over, or block it from access, it destroys it. It doesn't make people forget, it actually erases the memory. To the person upon whom such a terrible thing was unleashed, their memory is gone."

"But there must be some way," Cara insisted, "some magic this-or-that that will restore her mind."