"I know it is. Look at this divergence, right here. Such a thing is lethal even without this added breach over here. I know a lot about representational designs involving lethality."

Zedd gave Richard a forbidding look. "I need to know what you're talking about, what you mean by 'representational designs involving lethality. "

"Later. We have to get her out of there, first, and we have to get her out now."

Zedd shook his head in resignation. "I wish I knew a way, Richard, I truly do, but as I've said, I don't. If you try to pull her out of there before the verification has run its course, that alone will kill her for sure. That much I do know."

"Why?"

"Because her life is in a way suspended. Don't you see that she isn't breathing? The spell-form surrounding her supports her life while she cannot, while the web runs through the verification. She is, in a way, now a part of the spell itself. Pull her out, and you will be pulling her out of the mechanism that is keeping her alive."

Nicci's heart sank. For a moment, she had begun to believe Richard, to believe that he could do it. It was not to be.

All the while the glowing eyes watched. She could see the shape of it, now, standing there in the dark shadows beside a tall shelf. It looked something like a man twisted into a fearsome beast of sinew and knotted muscle. Its eyes gleamed out from the darkness of death itself.

It was the beast that hunted Richard. The beast sent by Jagang, the dream walker.

She would have done anything to stop it, to keep it from Richard, but she could not move a muscle. With every new line of light, she was being stitched tighter and tighter to her fate, pulled inexorably into the darkness of eternity beyond life.

"Even if it's mutating," Richard said as if thinking aloud, "it still has elements that support it while it grows."

"Richard, a verification web is self-generating. Even if it was mutating like you say, there is no way to halt such an event."

"If it can be shut down," Richard murmured, "it will release her — then we won't be pulling her out of it while her life is still being supported by the spell."

Sighing, Zedd shook his head as if he thought Richard hadn't understood a thing he'd said.

Richard studied the lines one last time, then abruptly reached out and placed his finger at an intersection that had been created back before the area of contamination.

The line extinguished at his finger.

"Dear spirits," Nathan said as he leaned in.

The shadow took a step forward. Nicci could now see its fangs.

The line that had extinguished felt as if it pulled her insides out with it. Nicci fought to cling to life. If he really could do it, if he really could extinguish the spell, she had a chance to warn him.

If she could hold on that long.

Richard withdrew his finger. The line ignited again. It lanced through her like a razor-sharp spear. The world flickered.

"See?"

Zedd reached out to duplicate what Richard had done, but with a yelp of pain pulled his hand back as if he'd been burned.

"It's shielded with Subtractive Magic," Ann said.

Zedd shot her a murderous scowl.

"And remember the shields back at the Palace of the Prophets?" Richard asked her. "Remember how I was able to pass through them?"

Ann nodded. "I still have nightmares about it."

Richard reached out again, quickly this time, and again blocked the line of light. Again it extinguished.

Richard then put a finger from his other hand at an intersection preceding the darkened line. In a blink, more lines went dark. He moved his first linger to insert it at another key point, working his way back through the putcrn, causing the spell to turn in on itself.

The darkened line raced around Nicci, hitting intersections, making turns, sweeping through and darkening arcs. The line Richard had extinguished ceased to exist in the pattern, its absence causing an interruption in the vitality of the rhythm.

Nicci marveled at the reaction of the spell-form within her. She could sense in detail the process of it dismantling, like a flower closing its petals.

The room again seemed to shimmer in Nicci's gifted vision, as if lightning were flaring, but she knew that this was not lightning.

The glowing eyes peered about, as if it, too, sensed the fluctuation in the flux of power Richard had interrupted.

Didn't anyone but Nicci realize that Richard was using his gift to penetrate such shields? Were they blind? The use of his gift drew the beast out of the underworld.

Outside, real lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The room flickered not only with the lightning but with the disruption of power within the spell-form. The wall of windows flashed between blinding brightness and inky obscurity.

It felt to Nicci as if both of those powerful discharges thundered right through her. She could not understand how she was still alive. It could only be that Richard was shutting down the spell without destroying it. He was methodically extinguishing it, like snuffing out the flames on a row of wicks.

Focused in concentration, Richard put his other hand down lower and blocked another line. The line went dark, racing back through the complex matrix.

The shadow of the beast began to step out of the underworld, partially into the world of life, pulling and flexing its arms with the difficulty of the task, testing its newborn muscle. Fangs glistened in the lamplight as the jaws stretched wide.

Their attention riveted on the lines around Nicci, no one noticed.

Holding a block in one network of lines, Richard carefully inserted a finger to occlude a preceding framework.

The entire web, having lost not just its most important supporting structure, but its very integrity, began to come apart. Angles opened. Intersections disjointed, letting connecting lines sag away. Other lines collided, sparking flashes of white light upon contact that made yet more lines go dark.

All of a sudden, the web of remaining lines collapsed downward, like a curtain falling. Nicci could feel the network of power laced all through her slough away. As the falling lines of light hit the Grace they went dark. In an instant, they were gone.

Free from the tangle, Nicci abruptly dropped to the table as she gasped a breath, like a scream drawn inward. Her legs had no strength to hold her and she crumpled, toppling over the edge of the table.

Richard caught her in his arms as she fell. Her dead weight took him to one knee. He maintained his balance, cradling her in his arms, saving her from hitting the stone floor.

Outside, lightning went wild, casting the room in fits of flickering light.

It was then that the beast, a soulless creature created for a single purpose, materialized fully out of the world of the dead and into the world of life.

And sprang straight for Richard.