Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Zedd nodded as he smiled briefly at the suggestion before turning to his grandson. "Where have you been? I went looking for you this morning and couldn't find you. I've been looking for you all day."

Nicci realized that the windows were hardly his primary concern.

Richard glanced briefly at the statue. "I read a lot last night. When it got light I went for a walk to think about what to do next."

Zedd sighed at the answer. "Well, as I told you after you broke the first spell-form holding Nicci, we need to talk about some of the things you said."

It was clear that it was not a matter of casual curiosity but a pointed demand.

Richard stood to help stuff pillows behind Nicci when he saw her start to sit up. The pain was becoming no more than a fading memory. Zedd had obviously done something more than help her sleep. Her head was starting to clear. She realized that she was hungry.

"So talk," Richard said as he sat back down.

"I need you to explain precisely how you were able to know how to shut down a verification web — especially one as complex as the Chainfire event matrix."

Richard looked more than a little weary. "I told you before, I understand the jargon of emblems."

Zedd clasped his hands behind his back as he started to pace. Concern was clearly etched in the lines of his face. "Yes, about that, you mentioned that you know a lot about 'representational designs involving lethality. I need to know what you meant by that."

Richard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he leaned back in his chair. Having grown up around Zedd, he obviously knew quite well that when Zedd wanted to know something it was easiest to just answer the questions.

Richard turned his wrists over across his knees. Strange symbols girded the leather-padded silver wristbands he wore. On the center of each band, at the insides of his wrists, there was a small Grace. That alone was alarming enough, since Nicci had seen Richard use them to call the sliph so that they could travel. She couldn't begin to imagine what the other symbols meant.

"These things all around the bands — the emblems, designs, and devices — are pictures representing things. Like I said before, they're a jargon, a language of sorts."

Zedd waggled a finger at the designs on the wristbands. "And you can make out meaning in them? Like you did with the spell-form?"

"Yes. Most are ways of fighting with the sword — that's how I was first able to recognize them and how I began to learn to understand them."

Richard's fingers idly sought reassurance in the touch of the weapon's hilt, but it was no longer there at his hip. He caught himself and went on.

"Many of these are the same as the designs outside the First Wizard's enclave. You know — on those brass plaques on the entablature above the variegated, red stone columns, on the round metal disks all along the frieze, and also carved into the stone of the cornice."

He glanced over his shoulder at his grandfather. "Most of these emblems overtly involve combat with a sword."

Nicci blinked in surprise as she listened. Richard had never told her about the symbols on the wristbands. As First Wizard, Zedd had been the keeper of the Sword of Truth, and it was his duty to name a new Seeker when needed, but given his reaction, she didn't think that even he had known about this. She supposed that was understandable. The sword, after all, had been made thousands of years before by wizards with prodigious power.

"That one." Zedd thrust a bony finger at an emblem on one of Richard's wristbands. "That one is on the door to the First Wizard's enclave."

Richard turned his other wrist and tapped a starburst pattern on the top of the silver band. "As is this one here."

Zedd pulled Richard's arms closer, inspecting the wristbands in the lamplight. "Yes… those are both on the door." He squinted a frown at Richard. "And you honestly believe that they mean something, and that you've learned to read them?"

"Yes, of course."

Zedd, his wiry brows drawing low, was still clearly dubious. "What do you think they mean?"

Richard touched a symbol on the wristbands and one like it on his boot pins. He pointed out the same design within the gold band around his black tunic. Until he pointed it out, Nicci hadn't realized that it was hidden there, among the rest of what seemed to be nothing more than an elaborate decorative strip. The pattern looked like two rough triangles with a sinuous, undulating double line running around and through them.

"This one is a kind of rhythm used for fighting when outnumbered. It conveys a sense of the cadence of the dance, movements without iron form."

Zedd cocked an eyebrow. "Movement without iron form?"

"Yes, you know, movement that's not rigid, not prescribed and inflexible, yet is still deliberate, with specific intent as well as precise objectives; This emblem describes an integral part of the dance."

"The dance?"

Richard nodded. "The dance with death."