Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

“Fine,” she said, unable to restrain her grin at the very idea that he had been worried for her and not the least bit interested in telling him about injuries that were now healed. None of that mattered anymore. She was with Richard again.

He looked weary, as if he and Cara had not gotten much sleep on their journey north. By the distance they had covered in such a short time, they could not have rested much.

Nicci then realized what it was that was wrong with him.

He didn’t have his sword.

“Richard, where’s—”

Cara, behind him, flashed Nicci a forbidding look and at the same time quickly drew a finger across her throat, warning Nicci to cut off what she had been about to ask.

“Where are the other horses?” Nicci quickly asked, altering the course of her question to cover over the ominous silence that had oozed up in the brief pause.

Richard sighed, apparently not realizing the truth of what she had been about to ask. “I’m afraid I’ve been pushing them pretty hard. A few of them came up lame and the rest died. We’ve had to get new horses along the way. These we stole from an Imperial Order encampment near Galea. They have troops billeted all over the Midlands. We helped ourselves to their horses and supplies along the way.”

Cara smiled with sly satisfaction, but remained silent.

Nicci wondered how he had managed such things without his sword. She then realized how foolish such a thought was; the sword didn’t make Richard the man he was.

“And the beast?” Nicci asked.

Richard glanced over his shoulder at Cara. “We’ve had a few encounters.”

For some reason, Nicci sensed something disquieting in his voice, if not his words.

“A few encounters?” she asked. “What sort of encounters? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“We managed, that’s all. We’ll talk about it later when we have time.” She could see by the irritable look in his eyes that he was understating it and was in no mood to have to relive it right then. He pulled the reins over, taking his horse’s attention away from the grass. “Right now I need to get up to the Keep.”

“And what of the witch woman?” Nicci asked as she walked her horse alongside his. “What did you find out? What did she say?”

“That what I seek is long buried,” he muttered dejectedly to himself. Richard wiped a weary hand across his face and then came out of his private thoughts to fix her in his penetrating gaze. “Does the word Chainfire mean anything to you?” When Nicci shook her head, he asked, “What about the Deep Nothing?”

“Deep Nothing?” Nicci thought it over briefly. “No, what is it?”

“I have no idea, but I need to find out. I’m hoping Zedd will be able to shed some light on it. Come on, let’s get moving.”

With that, he galloped away. Nicci immediately urged Sa’din into a gallop to keep up.

Chapter 46

The road up to the Keep offered magnificent views of the city of Aydindril spread out below, even though clouds had slipped in over the mountains to mute the late-afternoon light and leave the still air muggy. Were it not for her concerns, Nicci might have found the views from the road up to the Keep to be one of the most beautiful vistas she had ever seen—and an appreciation of such beauty was something relatively new to her, something that Richard had awakened in her.

As it was, though, she brooded over his continuing fixation on finding the woman Kahlan that he was so sure he remembered. He hadn’t said anything about her, yet, probably because from their previous disagreements he had become frustrated by the futility of trying to convince her that he had to find a woman Nicci knew did not exist. Despite not mentioning her, it was clear to Nicci that he was no less determined to find Kahlan now than he had been the last time Nicci had been with him. Her hopes that he would be better by the time she finally caught up with him had faded. Her pleasure over the view dimmed.

There was something, though—a look in his eyes—that seemed to Nicci somehow different. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, or what it could mean. He’d always had a penetrating gaze, a cutting, raptorlike appraisal, but now, the way he met her gaze, it was even more acute, as if he were laying her open and searching her soul. Nicci had nothing to hide, though, especially from Richard. She had nothing but his best interest at heart. She wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. She would do anything to help him to be happy.

She supposed that was why her mood had sunk; even though he was still determined, she knew that he was growing ever more dispirited. The light of life in his eyes was something Nicci treasured. She would not want to see it go out.

Trying to keep up with him left Nicci no opportunity to ask him about what had gone on with the witch woman. From Cara’s silence, Nicci knew that, whatever had happened, it had not gone as well as Richard had expected. That was no surprise to Nicci. How could a witch woman, even if she wanted to help, be of any use in finding a woman who existed only in Richard’s mind?

Whatever Chainfire could be, Nicci had no idea, but she could sense in his voice, as well as his tense expression, how eager Richard was to discover its meaning. After having lived with him for so long, Nicci knew his feelings without him having to say a word. It was obvious he’d placed a lot of significance on the meaning behind Chainfire.

More than that, though, Nicci was worried as to what could have happened to his sword. She couldn’t imagine why he didn’t have it with him. Her concern had been heightened all the more by the way Cara had immediately cut off the question, to say nothing of the way Richard had not mentioned it. The Sword of Truth was not something Richard would have lightly forgotten all about.

Higher up on the mountain, as they rode up the switchbacks, the road emerged from a thick growth of towering spruce trees before a stone bridge spanning a chasm of immense depth. It looked to Nicci as if the mountain were split open to its core, with the closer side pulled away from the rest of the mountain. As they rode single-file across the bridge spanning the yawning abyss, she glanced over the edge and could see sheer rock walls to each side dropping down through cottony clouds drifting by below them. It was a dizzying sight that made her stomach feel queazy.

Nicci could tell by Sa’din’s gait how tired he was. His ears lazily swiveled toward the drop to each side as they crossed the bridge. Richard and Cara’s horses, though, were lathered and blowing hard. Nicci knew how well Richard treated animals, and yet he was showing these no mercy. He obviously thought there were higher values involved than the lives of animals. She knew what that value was: human life. One in particular.

The walls of the Keep, composed of intricately joined blocks of dark granite, rose up like a cliff before them. Coming off the bridge, riding between Richard in front and Cara at the rear, Nicci stared up at the Keep’s complex maze of ramparts, bastions, towers, connecting passageways, and bridges. The place looked somehow alive, as if it were watching them approach the gaping entrance of arched stone where the road tunneled under the base of the outer wall.

Without hesitation, Richard trotted his horse in under the raised, massive portcullis. Given a choice, Nicci would have been a bit more cautious in her approach to such a place. Her skin crawled with the power emanating from within. She had never before felt such a strong sense of the force of magic from within a place. It was like standing alone on a plain as a vast, massive thunderstorm was about to envelope her.

The sensation gave her some measure of the shields that guarded the Keep. From what she had to conclude by what she could sense, the shields at the Palace of the Prophets had been child’s play by comparison. Too, those were predominantly Additive and the palace had been built for an entirely different purpose. Here, Subtractive shields were employed in equal service. The lethality of their dominion was not concealed, but manifest to those whose business it was to know of such things.

Almost unnoticed, hazy clouds had closed in overhead, leaving the late-afternoon sky a flat, steel gray. The gloom that

replaced the sunlight made the stone of the Keep look all the darker, all the more forbidding, almost as if the Keep itself had drawn a shroud of clouds tightly around itself as it watched the approach of a sorceress and a wizard able to command powers that yet haunted this place.

After coming out from under the arched opening in the thick outer wall, they emerged on a road that continued through the deep interior canyon of the Keep. Beyond, the road tunneled through another dark wall that provided a second barrier, should one ever be necessary. Without pause, Richard rode on into that long, dark passageway. The sounds of the horses’ hooves echoed off the damp stone under the murky, arched passage.

Beyond the tunnel, they emerged beside an expansive paddock growing thick with lush grass. The gravel road ran along the side of a wall to the right with several doors. The first doors they’d encountered just inside the portcullis would have been where visitors entered. Nicci surmised that this, beyond the second wall, was probably the working entrance to the Keep. A fence along the other side of the road enclosed the paddock. Beyond, to the left, the back side of the paddock was walled off by the Keep itself. At the far end stood the stables.

Without a word, Richard dismounted and opened the gate to the paddock, letting his horse go in but leaving it saddled. Perplexed, Cara and Nicci nonetheless followed his example before following him across the grounds toward an entrance with a dozen wide granite steps worn smooth and swaybacked over time. They led up into a recessed entryway where simple but heavy double doors into the Keep proper began to creak open.

An old man, wavy white hair in disarray, peered out like a homeowner surprised by visitors. He gulped air, apparently winded from having run through the Keep when he’d realized that someone was coming. He had no doubt been alerted by webs of magic that announced anyone taking the road up to the Keep. In ancient times there would have been people closer at hand to see to anyone newly arrived. Now there was only the old man. By the way he was breathing he must have been clear across the Keep when the alarms had warned him.

Even through the look of astonishment on his thin, wrinkled face, Nicci recognized elements of the features. She knew that he could be none other than Richard’s grandfather Zedd. He was tall, but as thin as a sapling. His hazel eyes were wide with wonder and a kind of childlike excitement, if not innocence. His plain, unadorned robes marked him as a great wizard. He wore his age well. It was a pleasing preview of how, in part, time might treat Richard.

The old man threw his arms up over his head. “Richard!” A joyous grin swept across his face. “Bags, is that really you, my boy?”