Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"Well, for all we know, there might have been mitigating text right before this, or something right after that went on to dismiss this. With the copy missing how are we to know? This prophecy could have been superseded by just about anything."

Zedd smiled. "The boy has a point."

"He's not a boy," Ann growled. "He's a man, and the Lord Rahl, the head of the D'Haran Empire that he himself pulled together to fight the Imperial Order, and he's supposed to lead those forces. All of our lives depend on him doing so."

As Richard flipped back through the book, he saw writing that he hadn't seen the first time. He paged back to it.

"Here's something else that didn't vanish," he said.

"What?" Nathan asked with incredulity as he twisted around to look. "There was nothing else. I'm sure of it."

"Right here," Richard said, tapping a finger on the words. "It says, 'Here we come. What could that mean? And why did it not vanish?"

" 'Here we come'?" Nathan's face distorted in a look of confusion. "I never saw that before."

Richard turned back more pages. "Look. Here it is again. Same thing. 'Here we come. "

"I could have missed it once, perhaps," Nathan said, "but there is no way I could have missed a second one. You must be wrong."

"No, look," Richard said, turning the book to show the prophet. He went backward through the book, turning blank pages until he came to writing. "Here it is again. A whole page of the same thing written over and over."

Nathan's jaw hung in speechless astonishment. Nicci peered over Richard's shoulder. Zedd rushed around next to him to see the writing in the book. Even the two Mord-Sith came to have a look.

Richard turned a page forward, to what a moment before had been blank. There, down the page, was the same sentence written over and over and over.

Here we come.

"I watched you turning it back." Nicci's silken voice carried a clear undertone of disquiet. "I know that page was blank an instant ago."

Goose bumps prickled up Richard's arms. The hair at the nape of his neck lifted.

He looked up and saw something dark coalescing out of the deep shadows beneath the beam of sunlight coming from the high window at the end of the room.

Too late, he remembered Shota's warning not to read prophecy, that if he did the blood beast would be able to find him.

He reached for his sword.

His sword wasn't there.

CHAPTER 53

With a wail that sounded like the condemned souls of a thousand sinners, tumbling angles and swirls and streaks of darkness materialized out of the darkness itself, like shadows coming to life.

As the tables at the far end of the room were violently upended, the dark tangle exploded through them. Splinters of wood of every size flew through the air.

Tables shattered in succession as the beast born of a clutch of shadows came raging across the room toward Richard.

The sound of popping and splintering wood boomed through the dusty air of the library.

Cara and Rikka both sprang in front of Richard, each with her Agiel in her fist. He knew all too well what would happen should they encounter the beast. The thought of Cara being hurt like that again ignited his rage. Before they could charge toward the dark mass smashing through the heavy library tables, he snatched them both by their long blond braids and with a roar of anger tossed them back.

"Don't get in its way!" he yelled at both Mord-Sith.

Ann and Nathan both cast their arms toward the thing, unleashing magic that made the room shimmer as if seen through the waves of heat over a roaring fire. Richard knew that they were compressing the very air itself in an attempt to drive back the attack. Their efforts had no effect on the knot of shadows that rolled and twisted through solid wood as it came across the room. They all backed away, trying to keep distance between them and the threat.

Richard ducked as a long board-the entire edge of one of the shattered tables-whipped past his head and smashed against a post. One of the lamps broke open, sending flaming oil splashing across the ancient carpets, setting them ablaze. Gray smoke billowed up behind them as they faced the beast charging for Richard.

Zedd unleashed a fiery bolt of lightning that passed right through the center of the dark mass of disorder as if it were not even there, only to hit the bookshelves against the far wall. Books and flaming paper flew up into the air. Great clouds of dust and smoke boiled up as the room filled with the sound of the cacophonous blast.

Terrible wails and keening, like the howls of the doomed through an open doorway down into the depths of the underworld, came from the beast as it came ever onward, crashing through the thick mahogany posts. Lamps spun through the air as they were flung aside, their silver reflectors casting flickering light around the room and creating shadows that gathered into the beast as it grew more dense, and darker yet.