Chainfire (Sword of Truth – 9)

Zedd pressed his lips tight as he considered her words. He had discovered this secret when he had been a boy. His whole life he'd never told another person about it. No one had instructed him to keep it a secret-nor could they, no one but he knew about it. Still, he knew that there had to be a reason that this was not something that was meant to be widely known. This had been kept secret for a reason.

He just didn't know what that reason was.

«Zedd, for Lord Rahl's sake, for the sake of our cause, let me come with you.»

He appraised her determination for a moment. «You can never reveal this to anyone.»

«Except for Lord Rahl, I will never reveal it to another. Mord-Sith often go to their graves without revealing the things they know.»

Zedd nodded. «All right. It goes to your grave with you, unless some thing happens to me. If so, then you must tell Richard what I show you this night. You must swear to me that you will never tell anyone else about this, though, not even your sister Mord-Sith.»

Without hesitation Rikka held her hand out to him. «I swear.»

Zedd clasped her hand and in so doing struck the agreement, accepting her word.

When he had been First Wizard during the war with D'Hara, before he had put up the boundaries and killed Panis Rahl, Darken Rahl's father, if anyone had told him that he would someday make such an agreement with a Mord-Sith over something so important, he would have thought they were crazy. He was grateful that such things had changed for the better.

CHAPTER 34

«It's a complex route,» Zedd told her.

Rikka arched an eyebrow. «Have you ever had to come find me because I got lost patrolling the Keep?»

Zedd realized that he hadn't. He knew very well how easy it was to become lost in the Keep. In fact, that was one of its defenses.

In several places when trying to travel through the Keep one came upon interconnected rooms numbering in the thousands. In those places there were no hallways except for the stairs going up or down. Passage through those three-dimensional mazes was necessary to get into several well protected areas. It was deceptively easy to become forever lost in the morass of those interconnected rooms. Even people who had grown up in the Keep could easily become lost in there.

An invader, unfamiliar with the place and if they went too deep into the labyrinth, faced a formidable challenge just to find their way back out, much less to make a passage all the way through, and then to escape. Once you had been through a few rooms, through a few doorways, it was amazing how similar everything looked. There were no windows to help and direction soon became meaningless. There was virtually no way to tell if you recalled seeing a room or a doorway before. One looked much like the last dozen you'd seen. There had been spies and such in the past who had become lost in the maze of rooms. In ages past it had not been entirely un usual to find a body in there.

Of course, not all those who intended harm were strangers. In the past some had been traitors.

«No, I guess you never have become lost,» Zedd finally agreed. «Not yet, anyway. You've not been here long enough to begin to explore the majority of the place. There are dangers of every sort. Getting lost in the labyrinth that is the Keep is only one of the perils. Where we're going is like that. It's even easier to get lost down there. You will have to do your best to remember your way. I'll help you where I can.»

Rikka nodded, seemingly unconcerned. «I'm good at remembering things like a series of turns. I memorize them when I patrol.»

«Don't get overly confident. This is more complex than a series of turns. I myself have become lost in the Keep, and I grew up here. There is not only one right way to get where we're going. Sometimes the route you took the last time won't work this time because down in the lower reaches, of the Keep the shields sometimes shift by themselves to different passageways. It's part of their design to make it more difficult to go! through-for instance if a spy were to draw a map for their cohorts.»

Unimpressed, Rikka shrugged. «I understand. The People's Palace is like that in some of the sections where the public isn't allowed-complex, with the open passages one can get through changing from time to time Additionally, there is no direct route to anywhere, even if all the passages happen to be open, which they never are.»

«I remember; I was there before, although I was in the public sections, but that was confusing enough.» It had been after Darken Rahl had captured Richard. «I had the advantage, though, in that the People's Palace is made in the form of a spell drawn on the face of the ground and I know how that particular spell is constructed, so I know where the primary arms and the connecting links are located.»

«Well,» Rikka said, «we had to be able to find different passages through the place so that we could get from area to area if it was ever invaded. Or, if we are chasing someone, we had to be able to think of a way to get ahead of them. We have to be able to do more than simply remember a series of turns. We must comprehend the whole of the place we pass through. In my head the turns I take make up parts of a picture of a place. Every turn adds to that picture. With that ever growing image in my mind I can find my way by taking a different way because I can see where the other parts are and how they lock together.»

Zedd blinked in astonishment. «That seems quite a remarkable talent.»

«I always could understand that kind of thing better than I can understand people.»

Zedd grunted a brief laugh. «I think you understand people more than you admit to.»

She only smiled.

«All right, now listen to me,» he said. «You will not only need to remember a great many turns this night. There is more. The only way to get where we are going is through a number of shields. You are not gifted so the only way for you to pass through those shields is for a gifted person to help get you through. If it ever becomes necessary, Richard can take you through them, like I will take you through tonight. But no matter how well you know the place, or how the shields shift, there is no way to get through without having to pass the shields, so you won't be able to get through alone. That means you won't be able to practice the route by yourself.»

He shook a finger before her face to make his point. «Don't even think lo try to force your way through the shields. To attempt to do so would be fatal.»

Rikka nodded. «I understand. I would have no reason to need to get through without you or Lord Rahl.»

Zedd leaned even closer to her. «On your word and your life.»

«I have already given you my word and sworn it on my life. That is the way it will be.»

Zedd closed the matter with a single nod. «Good. Let's go.»

With Rikka close at his heels, Zedd rushed down the narrow stone hall to the left, their way lit by the globe he carried. Glass spheres in brackets in the distance glowed faintly once coming into sight. As they passed them, each brightened at his approach and dimmed as he moved on with the one he had taken. At the first stairway they came to, Zedd took it up, knowing that to descend to his destination he first needed to traverse several impassable areas of the lower Keep by going higher.

They made their way down broad corridors lined with elegant wood paneling and patterned stone floors and then through several rooms that served as study areas outside nearby libraries. The rooms had dozens of thick carpets scattered about at various angles among the comfortable chairs. There was ample table space, and there were a number of lamps to provide adequate light for reading. Zedd knew because he had spent a great deal of time reading books from the libraries.

After passing through a series of plain stone halls that came from various parts of the Keep, they at last reached the main artery hallway in the section they had to pass through. The hall was nearly a hundred feel tall, with the sloping walls getting closer together at the top; it felt like walking through an immense cleft in the Keep. The sun was already down so the high slits in the stone did little to illuminate the hallway. They did, however, allow the bats out. livery night at dusk, thousands of the bats poured up from hidden, dark, damp places in the Keep and made their way out the high slits in the main hallway.

At a gilded doorway, Zedd turned to Rikka. «This passage is shielded. Take my hand and you will be able to pass.»

She didn't hesitate. Zedd went through the shield first. The shield produced a gentle tingling sensation against his skin along the plane of the opening. When he turned back toward her and pulled her hand through that plane of the shield at the doorway, she flinched.

«It won't hurt you as long as I hold on to you,» he assured her. «Shall I continue?»

She nodded. «It's just so cold. The feel of it surprised me, that's all.»

Holding her hand tightly, he drew her the rest of the way through the doorway. Once through she vigorously rubbed her arms.

«What would have happened had I tried to go through without you?»

«It's hard to say, since different shields do different things, but let's just say that you wouldn't have made it through. This one has no preliminary warning field, so it may not be fatal. There are a number of shields we will have to pass through that would take the flesh right off your bones. Those kind give ample warning, though.»

She didn't look too. pleased to hear it, but she made no protest. Mord-Sith didn't like magic, so he knew she was putting in a great effort to suppress her natural resistance.

The gilded doorway led down a hall of white marble all around-the floors, walls, and ceiling. The white color was designed to prevent certain gambits of magic that used conjuring involving color to trick the shield at either end of the hall. At the far end, Zedd helped Rikka through the shield-this one using heat rather than cold.

Once clear of the hall, they went down several flights of dusty black marble steps. At the bottom of the steps he led her down the left of three forks. The sphere he carried provided a bubble of light around them as they raced through the roughly hewn stone tunnel that took them into simple rooms that were made of simple stone blocks.

Most of the rooms had one or two doorways, but some had three, or even four openings that led to other rooms. Some were reached by going up a short flight of stairs to yet more rooms. A number of rooms were either up or down only a step or two. Most of the rooms, though, were level with one another. The sizes of the rooms varied little and not a single one had any furniture whatsoever. Some of the rooms were plastered to make I he walls smooth and a number of those were painted, although the chipped, peeling paint was so faded that the colors were barely discernible, leaving them all looking a similar dingy color, since dust had been settling in them for centuries. When Zedd had been a boy he had been lost in the maze of rooms for an entire day. The place was so undisturbed that there were still faint footprints evident in the fine dirt coating on the floors.

After going through a seemingly endless series of rooms, they finally emptied into a broad corridor of coarse, gray granite blocks. While the corridor was wide, the ceiling was so low that they had to bend down slightly so as not to bump their heads. It was a place that, while empty and simple looking, had always felt ominous to Zedd. Around a corner, iron brackets holding more of the glass spheres brightened as they passed, and then faded as they continued on. In several places utilitarian stone stairwells emptied into the low corridor. Several other taller halls branched off the main passageway.

At the end of the broad, low hall they finally entered a major passageway that was plastered and painted a sandy color. Reliefs of pillars were spaced down the passage, giving it a grander appearance. When they reached the middle, Zedd finally paused. He pointed up at the ceiling.

«See there, that iron grate overhead that lets the Keep breathe, lets fresh air down here?»

She peered up at the ornate grate. «Is that a book?»

Within the design, crafted from the iron bars, was the outline of an open book. The design, intended as a quick visual reference, denoted a section of the Keep that contained a number of libraries.

«Yes. The grate will help you remember that this is where you must turn. This corridor with that grate above is a main trunk of passageways. There are a number of ways down to this place, and from here you can go by various routes to nearly anywhere in the Keep, but here, under this grate, you must turn down this hall.» He gestured toward a small hallway. «It's the only way to get to where we are going.»

Zedd watched her as she looked around at her surroundings and once more checked the grate overhead. When she was sure and had nodded, they started down a small side hall.

The hall contained a series of rooms that Zedd believed were once used for maintenance supplies. He knew that one of the rooms still had a number of tools. Beyond, at the end of the hall, were a few roughly constructed rooms made of stone followed by small, square passageways running oil in several directions. At the end of the center passageway, they came to a warren of short runs through low service shafts taking them on a winding route that changed levels by a few feet from time to time. They passed empty rooms and rusted iron doors that stood closed. Cobwebs clogged the shafts in places. In other places, sections of hall that were several feet lower held stagnant water. The rotting carcasses of rats floated in the fetid water. Without a word they waded through to reach higher ground beyond.

When they reached a spiral stone staircase beyond the maze they descended into the inky darkness, the silent sphere bringing harsh light and shadows to places that had not been lit for years. The stairs were tiny, only large enough for a single body at a time to slip downward. It felt rather like being swallowed down the gullet of some stone monster.

At the bottom of the spiral stairs, the light cast harsh shadows down roughly cut passageways that were inspection shafts for part of the Keep's foundation. Flecks of quartz in stone foundation blocks the size of small palaces sparkled when the light fell across them. Zedd led Rikka to the narrow stairs that descended down beside the face of that glittering foundation wall. They both peered over the edge of that slit in the ground before starting down.

At the bottom they followed the narrow slit along the base of the foundation blocks. The stone rose up into the darkness, the sparkling quartz above looking like stars. To the right was a roughly cut wall of crumbling rock. If that softer wall were to collapse, they would be buried alive where no one would ever search for them.

The foundation in this part of the Keep was kept clear of the soft surrounding rock so that it could move a little if it had to. The foundation blocks had been set down into the harder bedrock below. The narrow slit also provided an areaway for inspection of the foundations. Zedd had always thought it remarkable that he had never found any block that was failing. There were some that had cracks, but those were said not to be structural problems. When they came to another narrow flight of stairs at the end of the slit, they again went down, deeper into the pitch black cut.

«Is there any end to this?» Rikka asked.

Zedd looked back over his shoulder, the glowing sphere easting her fire in harsh yellow light. «We're deep in the mountain and getting closer lo one of the side slopes. We still have quite a ways to go.»

She simply nodded, resigned to however far it was.

«Do you think you can get this far-providing you have me or Richard lo get you through the shields?»

There had been a number of shields, some that she had not liked going through. For one without the protection of the gift it was in places a very uncomfortable experience, even with Zedd helping her.

«I think so,» she said.

In the lower inspection channels, they came to round, tile-lined tunnels that when need be also served as drains. Zedd entered the complex of tunnels, taking intersections that he remembered since he was a boy. Dripping water echoed through the passages. It was cold enough to see their breath in the humid air. Water dripped between the tiles in places, making the tunnel slick.

At various places, right in the middle of nowhere in the tunnels, they encountered powerful shields that he helped her pass through. Several were so strong that they gave off preliminary warnings long in advance. Zedd had to wrap his arms around her in order to protect her enough to get her safely through.

«There's a lot of rats down here,» Rikka said.

Zedd could hear them squeaking by the hundreds all through the honeycombed passageways. The little beasts seemed to scatter before the light could fully illuminate them, so they were in evidence by sound, not by sight, except the dead ones.

«Yes. Are you afraid of rats?»

She halted and scowled at him. «No one likes rats.»

«Can't argue with you about that.»

At each intersection Zedd pointed out to her the way they had to go. He couldn't imagine how she was ever going to remember the way. He hoped it never became necessary. He hoped to be the one to show Richard. As a boy Zedd had used tracers of magic to learn his way through. Rikka paid close attention and watched each of the dark intersections they came to. He was sure that it was more than she had bargained for and that she would not be able to remember her way. He thought that perhaps he would take her through several more times in order to help her get it all mapped out in her head. After that, he would test her and let her lead the way down.

After what seemed like an endless journey working their way even lower, they finally entered a colossal room, an immense, cavelike chamber, that was hollowed out from the interior of the mountain. The granit quarried out of the mountain down in this place had provided some of the stone for the foundation. The quarry, abandoned after the construction was completed, had left behind the huge room.

In some places around the sides, the builders of the Keep had left some pillars of stone in place to hold up what they apparently had found to be weaker areas of the ceiling. In spots around the room there were broad veins of obsidian, a black, glassy rock that was unsuitable for building material. Zedd had seen it used in a few places in the palace, mostly for decoration. In the glow of the light from the sphere, the surface of the obsidian showed the shiny curved arcs left by being chipped away with chisels, leaving it looking like dazzling fish scales.

The center of the gigantic room, where the rock was the hardest, was vaulted to a height of over two hundred and fifty feet. From the stone evidence, it appeared that the workers had started at the top, taking out huge blocks of stone right under what was the present ceiling. They then began quarrying the next lower level of rock until they eventually had hollowed out the cavelike room. The different levels of galleries around the side were just tall enough, and just wide enough between the large square columns, for the foundation blocks to be hauled though. Beyond the room were ramps where the blocks had been eased down to the lower parts of the foundation.

«See there, across the room?» Zedd asked, pointing at an enormous, dark corridor to which he knew the surrounding ramps led. «That was constructed first. It's the main channel where the foundation blocks were transported from this room to the foundation all along that section of the Keep. Look at how the floor is worn by the work.»

The floor leading into the yawning dark chasm was worn so smooth that it almost looked as if it had been polished.

«Why didn't we come that way-it would have been a much shorter route.»

He was impressed that she realized that the primary passageway ran in the direction from which they had come. The stone blocks for the foundation would not have taken the circuitous route they had.

«You're right, it would have been shorter, but there are shields there that I can't pass. Since I can't get in there, because of those shields, I don't know what is in there, but I suspect that the builders probably created rooms in there that contain things that must be protected. I can't really think of any other reason for those shields.»

«Why can't you pass them? You are First Wizard.»

«The wizards of that time had both sides of the gift. Richard is the first in thousands of years to be born with the Subtractive side as well as the Additive. Shields with Subtractive Magic are deadly and are typically reserved for the most dangerous places, or the places that have exceptionally important items they were most concerned about protecting»

Zedd led Rikka across the vast room by a route that kept them close to the outer wall. He rarely came down to this room and so he had to watch the stone wall carefully as they made their way around. When they reached the place he was looking for, he snatched Rikka's arm and pulled her to a stop.

«This is it.»

Rikka blinked as she looked around. To the inexperienced eye, it looked the same as the rest of the room. «This is what?»

«The secret place.»

It looked like the rest of the huge room. Everywhere the walls were scarred with the gouges left by tools used by workers thousands of years before.

Zedd held up the glass sphere so she could see where he pointed. «Here. See that gouge up high? The one going at this angle, following the fissure, and a little fatter in the middle? Slip your left hand into it. There's a cleft in the back of the gouge, deeper into the fissure.»

Rikka frowned at him but then stood on her tiptoes and slid her hand into the grove up to her knuckles.

«There's a lip in the rock down here,» he said. «I used it when I was smaller. If you can't reach, step up on the edge.»

«No, I got it,» she said. «Now what?»

«You're only halfway in. Put your hand in deeper.»

She wiggled her fingers and worked her hand in farther until it was in up to her wrist. «That's as far as it will go. It's solid where my fingertips are.»

«Move your longest linger up and down until you find a hole.»

She made a face as she worked her fingers. «Got it.»

Zedd took her right hand and guided it into a similar gouge in an other part of the same fissure down at waist level. «Find a hole in the back of this one as well. When you do, push a finger firmly into both holes.»

She made a little sound deep in her throat with the effort. «Found it! I've got them both. I'm pushing.»

«All right, now, as you push with both fingers, put your right foot up here, on the wall right on the other side of this chink, and give it a good shove.»

She frowned at him, but did as he said. Nothing happened.

«Can't you push any harder than that? Don't tell me that you aren't as strong as a skinny old man.»

She shot him a scowl and then used her grip in the handholds for leverage as she grunted with effort and gave the wall a good shove with her boot. Suddenly, the face of the rock began moving away. Zedd urged Rikka to step back. They both watched as a section of the wall silently slid back as if it were a massive door, which was exactly what it was. Despite its monumental weight, it was so perfectly balanced that once the two finger latches were released, it pivoted with nothing more than a stout shove.

«Dear spirits,» Rikka whispered as she leaned toward the opening and peered into the dark maw. «How did you ever find such a place?»

«I found it as a child. Actually, I found the other end. Once I came through into here, I knew where this spot was and I took careful note so that I was able to find it again. The first few times I couldn't find it, so I had to come through again.»

«Well, what is it?»

«When I was a boy, it was my salvation. It was the way I was able to sneak back into the Keep without having to come across the bridge and in the front, like everyone else.»

She suspiciously arched an eyebrow. «You must have been a troublesome child.»

Zedd smiled. «I have to admit that there were those who would agree with that. This place served me well. I was also able to get in here when the Sisters of the Dark had taken the Keep. They only knew to guard the front entrance. They, like everyone else alive, didn't know this place existed.»

«So this is what you wanted to show me? A secret way into the Keep?»

«No, that's by far the least important or remarkable thing about this place. Come on and I'll show you.»

Her suspicion flared again. «Just what kind of place is it'?»

Zedd held up the sphere of light as he leaned toward her and whispered.

«Beyond is eternal night: the passage of the dead.»

CHAPTER 35

The distant howl of a wolf woke Richard from a dead sleep. The forlorn cry echoed through the mountains, but went unanswered. Richard lay on his side, in the surreal light of false dawn, idly listening, waiting, for a return cry that never came.

Try as he might, he couldn't seem to open his eyes for longer than the span of a single, slow heartbeat, much less gather the energy to lift his head. Shadowy tree limbs appeared to move about in the murky darkness, Richard gasped as he fully awoke. He awoke angry.

He was lying on his back. His sword lay across his chest, one hand clutching the scabbard, the other gripping the hilt so hard that the letters of the word truth were pressed painfully into his palm on one side and his fingertips on the other. The Sword of Truth was pulled partway out of its scabbard. Its anger, too, had partly slipped its bounds.

The first, faint traces of dawn were just beginning to silently steal through the forested mountainside. The thick woods were quiet and still.

Richard slid the blade back into its scabbard and sat up, laying the sword down beside him on his bedroll.

He drew his legs up and put his elbows on his knees as he ran his fingers back through his hair. His heart still raced from the sword's rage. It had stolen into him without his conscious awareness or direction, but he wasn't surprised or alarmed. It was hardly the first time he had begun to draw the sword as he'd remembered that fateful morning while slipping the bonds of sleep. Sometimes he woke to find that he'd pulled the blade completely free.

Why did he keep having that memory as he awoke?

He knew all too well the reason. That was the morning he had awakened to find Kahlan missing. It was the terrible memory of the morning she'd disappeared. It was a waking nightmare about the nightmare that had become his life, and yet, he knew that there was something about it that kept making it go through his mind. He had been over it a thousand times but he couldn't figure out what was so meaningful about that particular memory. The wolf waking him had been a bit odd, but that didn't seem so strange that it would keep haunting him.

Richard looked around in the deep gloom but he didn't see Cara. Off through the thick stands of trees he could just make out the faint stain of red streaking the rim of the eastern sky. The slash of color almost looked like blood seeping through a gash in the slate black sky beyond the perfectly still trees.

He was bone-weary from the relentless pace of their wild ride up from deep in the Old World. They had been stopped a number of times by patrolling soldiers scattered throughout the Midlands, and by occupying troops. It was by no means the main force of the Imperial Order, but they had been trouble enough. Once they'd let Cara and Richard, posing as a stone carver and his wife, go on their way to a job Richard had invented for the glory of the Order. The rest of the times the two of them had had to fight their way out of the situation. Those encounters had been bloody.

He needed more sleep-they had gotten very little on their journey —but as long as Kahlan was missing they couldn't afford to sleep any more than was absolutely necessary. He didn't know how much time he had to find her, but he didn't intend to waste any of it. He refused to believe that his time had long since run out.

One of the horses had died of exhaustion not long ago; he couldn't remember exactly when. Another had come up lame a while back and they'd had to abandon it. Richard would worry about finding more horses later. There were more important concerns at hand. They were close to Agaden Reach, Shota's home. For the last two days they had been climbing steadily into the formidable mountains that ringed the Reach.

As he stretched his aching, tired muscles, he again tried to think of how he would convince Shota to help him. She had helped him before, but that was no guarantee she would help him this time. Shota could be difficult, to say the least. There were people who were so terrified of the witch woman that they wouldn't even say her name aloud.

Zedd had told him once that Shota never told you anything you wanted to know without also telling you something that you didn't want to know. Richard couldn't really imagine what he didn't want to know, but he understood quite clearly what it was he did want to know and he intended Shota to tell him anything she knew about Kahlan's disappearance of where she might be. If Shota refused, there was going to be trouble.

As his anger heated he realized that he felt the cool, tingling touch of mist on his face.