Into Darkness

by Terry Goodkind

  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.

  71

  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?”

  72

  Richard was shocked. “You mean to say you can’t see the glowing lines above the sand?”

  Sang briefly looked again and then back at Richard. He shook his head.

  “I see only sand and beyond it, the Glee who are growing angry.”

  Richard hadn’t expected that the Glee couldn’t see the lines of light. He knew that everyone in his world had at least a spark of the gift within the Grace they were born with. That spark, even though it usually wasn’t powerful enough in most people to use it to do magic, still allowed them to see and interact with magic.

  The only explanation was that the Glee had no such spark of the gift. They were completely devoid of even that infinitesimal spark. That was why the goddess had been so fearful of the magic of Richard’s world. She had never experienced it before and didn’t understand it. It was a fearsome unknown to her.

  Sang drew back his lips, exposing his needle-sharp white teeth, as if in apology.

  Richard gestured. “Can you see the symbols on the stone light up?”

  Sang leaned past Richard to look at the stone. “Light? I see no light. Only the markings as they were always there.”

  The sun had set, and it was rapidly getting darker. Sang should have had absolutely no difficulty seeing either the glowing lines of light above the sand or the glowing symbols on the stone gateway.

  Richard looked over at Vika. “You see them both, right?”

  She shrugged her confusion that Sang couldn’t see them. “Of course. I don’t know what the lines over the sand are, or what they mean, but I can see them.”

  Richard was at least relieved by that much of it. “It’s the initial stages of a verification web. The lines mean that I was able to get the gateway to ignite its constructed spell. There’s no explanation I can see other than whatever this gateway is, it uses a constructed spell. It’s built right into it.”

  “What is a constructed spell?” Sang asked.

  “Magic,” Richard told him. “Dangerous magic.”

  “Dangerous to you, or to us?”

  “Extremely dangerous to the Glee,” Richard told him. “You already know that this device has the ability to send you into darkness. That should tell you something about how powerful it is. That power is dangerous.”

  “But we have used
it since long before any of us were alive,” Sang said. “It never harmed us.”

  “It was never activated before, but now it is. Because it uses a very powerful form of magic, I need to use that power built into the device to destroy it. It’s the only way.”

  Sang gestured back across the sand. “But the others are angry at not knowing what you are doing with their device, and they may soon decide they must stop you.”

  “You need to go talk to them. Tell them how you have seen the power of magic in my world. This device uses that same magic. If you want to, tell them that the device is malfunctioning, and it is about to kill anyone up here. You need to get all of the Glee away from here or they might be killed. Get them all to go back down the mountain to safety.”

  “I don’t think they will want to leave you alone with the device. It is too important to them.”

  Richard growled his frustration. He gestured up at the darkening sky. “It’s getting dark. You need to go now while it is still light enough to see your way down the mountain or you will all be stuck up here in this dry place all night.” Richard leaned toward him. “All night. Without water.”

  Sang touched a claw to his lip. That concerned him, but he was still hesitating. Because he couldn’t see the glowing bluish lines, Richard didn’t know if he understood and feared the magic of the gateway, but like a boulder falling off a cliff from above, you didn’t need to see it to be killed. He knew, though, that fear of being stuck in this dry place overnight was probably more alarming to him than anything else. He looked across the sand to the others. Some of them were clacking their claws in a threatening manner.

  “Sang,” Richard said, drawing his attention back to him, “something is about to happen that will likely kill all of you up here. You need to convince them they must leave, right now. You need to tell them that darkness will soon trap them here in this dry place and they must leave now, while they can still see the path down. Tell them they can come back tomorrow if you have to.”

  Sang nodded. “I will try. I will tell them what you say about being trapped up here in this dry place where it will soon be dark. That may convince them to go back down from here right away.”

  “I’m serious,” Richard said. “Dangerous magic is about to begin and if anyone is up here when it does, they will die.

  “If they refuse to leave, then you and your friends must leave as quickly as you can or you will be killed, too. You must believe me, Sang. You must leave now. I don’t want you or your friends to be harmed. But if they stay up here, you all will die.”

  Sang again touched the tip of his claw to his black lower lip as he studied Richard’s face. Finally, he nodded. “You have done what we needed to stop the Golden Goddess. You have helped us. I will tell those with me that we must run. I will tell the others, too, that it will soon be too dark to see, and they will be trapped here so they must leave until tomorrow. They will be warned. If they don’t leave …”

  Richard put a hand on Sang’s shoulder. “You have been a friend, Sang. I wish you a good life.”

  Sang’s dark skin bunched above his big black eyes in a kind of grotesque frown. “Are you saying that you will be here when the magic starts, and you will die?”

  Richard continued to gaze into those black eyes. “I’m afraid so. This is what I need to do to protect my world. Thank you for your part in this, and for coming to help me protect my people as well as yours. Now go. Hurry. Get to safety.”

  “You have been a friend to me and to my friends.”

  Sang laid a claw on Richard’s shoulder, as if to thank him, and then he quickly turned and rushed away. He paused once to look back, and then he ran to the others off among the forest of tall rocks to warn them that they must leave at once.

  73

  Vika leaned close to Richard once she saw Sang join the others. “This is it, then? We are really going to die?”

  Richard glanced over at her. “If my crazy idea doesn’t work, most likely.”

  She frowned in a way that only Mord-Sith could frown. “And if your crazy idea does work, then the gateway will be destroyed, and we will have to face who knows how many thousands of angry Glee that will want to rip us apart for destroying their precious device?”

  “Maybe they will cool off once they get back to their ponds.”

  Richard didn’t want to tell her what his crazy idea actually was.

  “So, if your crazy idea doesn’t work, we will likely die in the attempt, and if it does work and doesn’t kill us, the Glee likely will.”

  “I tried to get you to stay back there in our world,” he told her. “You are the one who insisted on coming with me.”

  Vika made a sour face as she folded her arms. “I guess coming with you was my crazy idea.”

  He showed her a small smile that was more forced than real.

  She looked across the sand at the Glee. They were all engaged in an animated discussion. There was even some pushing and shoving. Sang threw both arms up in the air as he jumped around, frantically trying to make his point. They didn’t look to be convinced. He gestured at the sky and then toward the way down the mountain, urging them that they had to leave before it was too dark.

  The former followers of the goddess who had followed them up the mountain didn’t look like they had any intention of leaving before it was too dark, apparently more upset about Richard messing with their precious device than anything else. The way they were pointing across the sand, they looked like they were more set on stopping Richard.

  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.