Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Sister Ulicia turned and headed back toward the horses. "If we are ever going to open one of the three boxes, then we will first have to get to Tovi and the last box — and to what else is in Caska. Forget about Jagang and his army. This is the last we'll have to see them — until the day conies when we've unleashed the power of Orden and we can have a bit of fun dealing out our own, personal retribution to the dream walker."

CHAPTER 9

Nicci opened her eyes. She saw only vague shapes.

"Zedd is angry with you."

Even though it sounded as if it had come from some hazy, faraway place, she knew that it was Richard's voice. She was surprised to hear it. She was surprised to hear anything. She thought that by all rights she should be dead.

As her vision started coming into focus, Nicci rolled her head to the right and saw him sitting huddled close on a chair that had been pulled right up beside the bed. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his fingers folded neatly together, he was watching her.

"Why?" she asked.

Looking relieved to see her awake, he leaned back in the simple wooden chair and smiled that crooked smile of his that she so loved seeing.

"Because you broke the window back in that room where you were all doing the verification web."

In the light of a lamp glowing softly beneath a milky white shade, she saw that she was covered up to her armpits in a luxuriously embroidered gold bedcover with lustrous sage green fringe. She had on a satiny nightdress that she didn't recognize. The sleeves went all the way down to her wrists. It was pale pink. Not her color.

She wondered where the nightdress had come from and, more to the point, who had undressed her and put it on her. Back at the Palace of the Prophets, so long ago, Richard had been the first person she'd ever met who didn't expect that he had a right to her body or some other aspect of her life. That forthright attitude had helped start the process of reasoning that eventually led to her casting off a lifetime of teachings of the Order. Through Richard, she had come to truly see that her life belonged to her alone. Along with that comprehension, she had since then discovered the dignity and self-worth in propriety.

Right then, though, she had concerns other than finding herself in a pink nightdress. Her throbbing head felt impossibly heavy against the cozy pillow.

"Technically," she said, "the lightning broke the window. Not me."

"Somehow," Cara said from another chair tipped back against the wall beside the door, "I don't think the distinction will much impress him."

"I suppose not," Nicci said with a sigh. "That room is in the hardened section of the Keep."

Richard twitched a frown. "It's where?"

She squinted slightly in an effort to bring his face more into focus. "That section of the Keep is a special place. It's hardened against intentional interference as well as aberrational and errant events."

Cara folded her arms. "Mind giving us the translation?"

The woman was in her red leather. Nicci wondered if that meant there was more trouble about or if she was just surly from the beast paying them a visit.

"It's a containment field," Nicci said. "We know very little about the ancient, bewilderingly intricate makeup of the Chainfire spell. It's hazardous to even study such unstable components all tangled together the way that one is. That's why we were using that particular place to run the verification web. That room is in the original core of the Keep — an important sanctuary used for tasks involving anomalous material. Various kinds of both constructed and free-formed conjuring are apt to contain innate tangential outflows that can convey domain breaches, so when working with them it's best to confine such potentially hazardous components to a containment field."

"Oh, well, thanks for the translation," Cara said in a cutting tone. "It's all so clear, now. It's a field thing."

Nicci nodded as best she could. "Yes — a containment field." When Cara's frown only darkened, Nicci added, "Doing magic in there is like keeping a wasp in a bottle."

"Oh." Cara let out a sigh, finally grasping the simplified concept. "I guess that explains why Zedd was so grumpy about it."

"Maybe he can fix it back to the way it was," Richard offered. "Surprisingly enough, the room isn't too badly torn up. It's mostly the broken windows that he's riled about."

Nicci lifted a hand in a weak gesture. "I don't doubt it. The glass in there is unique. It has embedded properties designed to contain conjured magic from escaping — and to prevent gifted assaults. Its function is much the same as shields, except that it deters power rather than people."

Richard considered a moment. "Well," he finally said, "it didn't prevent an attack from the beast."