"The subject must be emotionally blank, or the whole thing is tainted."

"Emotionally blank?" Cara asked when Zedd fell to muttering to himself as he wiped a hand down his face. "What does that mean?"

"It means that knowledge of her previous emotional condition would contaminate the effort to restore what was within her. She has to remain emotionally blank for Orden to be able to do its job. The subject has to be kept blank. Care must be taken not to introduce emotional links."

"Nicci, you are a bright woman," Zedd said, trying to remain calm, "but this time you've driven the wagon off the bridge and into the river."

He started in pacing himself. "What you're saying doesn't make any sense. How can the subject be prevented from finding out anything at all about their past? The wizards who created the boxes of Orden must have realized that the chances were the subject would find out any number of things about their past before Orden could be brought to bear. They couldn't expect the person to be locked in a dark room until Orden could be employed."

"That's not what I mean. You're missing my point. Details don't matter-in fact details learned by anyone with lost memories only help because they are like guide pins on which to fit the template of the restoration process of Orden. But great emotional experiences within the subject of Chainfire do matter. Emotions are the sums created by details, whether those details are true or not."

Cara looked focused on trying to understand what Nicci was saying. "How can emotions be created by false details?"

"Take me, for example," Nicci said. "The things that I was taught by the Fellowship of Order caused me to hate anyone who resisted the teachings of the Order, hate anyone who accomplished anything. I believed as I was taught, that such people were selfish heathens who didn't care about their fellow man.

"I was taught to have an emotional response of hatred to all those who didn't believe as I did. I was taught to hate you and everything you did without actually knowing anything about you. I had a visceral, emotional hatred for the value of life itself. I would have killed Richard based on those emotional drives. My emotions were based on lies and indoctrination, not anything true."

Cara sighed. "I see what you mean. You and I were both taught similar things and made to feel similar emotions, and those emotions were completely mistaken."

"But emotions, when based on valid things, can be a faithful and consistent sum of truths."

"Valid things?" Cara asked.

"Of course," Nicci said. "Such as worthwhile values. Love-proper love, true love-is a response to those things we value in others. It's an emotional response to life-affirming values held by another person. We value the good nature of that other person. In those cases that emotion is a central, powerful part of our humanity."

Zedd, still pacing, came to an impatient halt. "What does this have to do with anything?"

Nicci spread her hands. "Keep in mind that Ordenic theory is just that, theory, so I can't say that I know for certain because even those who created it didn't know it for certain, either, but it all fits. While they were convinced they were correct, they had no actual experience of foreknowledge tainting magic in which to ground their theory, but I think they were right."

Zedd leaned in, peering at her with one eye. "Right about what, exactly?"

"Emotions interjected into the subject without the underlying cause will corrupt the countering of the Chainfire spell."

Cara frowned. "You lost me."

"They were convinced that foreknowledge of a certain emotional nature would taint the magic they were using, taint Orden." Nicci looked from Zedd's troubled hazel eyes to Cara. "What it means is that if Kahlan were to learn the truth of her emotions-her dominant emotions-before the correct box of Orden is opened, then Orden will not be able to restore those emotions. The field where Orden must ignite would be contaminated by that foreknowledge. Kahlan would be lost in the tangle of the spell."

Cara put her hanSs on her hips. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, let's say, for example, that Richard found Kahlan and he told her about the two of them, about their emotional connection, their love for one another. In that case Orden would be prevented from working."

The wizard's face had gone unreadable. "Why?" he asked in a tone that sent a shiver up her spine.

"It's kind of like the way my spells didn't work against Six because the strength of my power first needed to establish anchors, foundations, in order to do its work."

"You mean that if Richard ever gets the chance to actually open one of the boxes of Orden," Zedd asked, "he must do so with the subject completely unaware of her ties to him?"

Nicci nodded. "Her deepest emotional ties, anyway. We have to be sure Richard understands that if we find Kahlan before he gets the chance to open the correct box of Orden, he can't interject any causeless emotion or it will corrupt the field."

"Causeless emotion?" Cara's nose wrinkled. "Are you trying to say that Lord Rahl can't tell Kahlan that she loves him?"

"Exactly," Nicci said.

"But why?"

"Because right now, she doesn't," Nicci said. "Those things that caused her to fall in love with him are no longer in her. The foundation of her love-the memory of the things that happened, the things she did with him, the reasons that she fell in love with him-are no longer there in her. Chainfire destroyed those memories. Right now, it's as if she never met him before. She does not love him. She has no reason to love him. She is a blank slate."

Zedd poked a long thin finger through his thatch of wavy hair and scratched his scalp.

"Nicci, I think the fever may have done more damage than I thought. What you're saying makes no sense. Kahlan's problem is that Chainfire made her forget her past. Orden was created to counter Chainfire. There is nothing as powerful as Orden. It's the power of life it­self. Revealing to Kahlan something as simple as her love for Richard is not going to cause the restoration to become scrambled."

"Oh, but it would." Nicci paced a few steps and returned to stand before him. "Zedd, with all your power as First Wizard, why couldn't you stop a mere witch?"

"Because she turns your power back around on you."

"That's the key," Nicci said. "That's the part I needed to add in, why I was finally able to put together everything I've been reading in those books. I was finally able to understand what the wizards who created Or­den meant about the sterile field. The force of emotions will turn back the power applied to the person.

"It's something like the way that trying to convince those who believe in the teachings of the Order that they are wrong in their feelings only strengthens those feelings, makes them even more resistant to casting off those false beliefs. If you tell them that the Order is evil they will hate you all the more, not the Order. Their belief in the Imperial Order is steeled, rather than broken."

"So what?" Cara said. "It wouldn't be contradictory for Kahlan, like in your example. If Lord Rahl were to tell Kahlan that she loves him, that would be what the magic of Orden would do anyway, so it's not really a problem."

"Oh, but it is a problem," Nicci said, waggling a finger. "A very big problem. The whole thing would be backwards. The effect would be there without the cause. Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned. Putting emotions in first would be like trying to construct a two-story building by starting at the roof and working your way down to the founda­tion. Or, like me trying to push a powerful spell at a witch woman."

"The emotions that Orden would otherwise put back where they belong would be turned away by the emotions that were placed there by fore­knowledge. Foreknowledge would interfere with the protocols."