Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

ugh 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 to 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 feet 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. Every 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 the 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 off 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 casting her face in harsh yellow light. “We’re deep in the mountain and getting closer to 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 to 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.