Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Even as he flinched in reaction to the unexpected burning sensation, his momentum carried him through the doorway. He was somewhat surprised not only to find himself alive and well and not at all harmed, but that the passageway was not at all what it appeared from the other side. When he'd looked through the opening before, it looked like a simple stone block passage. Once past the pillars, it was polished stone that seemed to shimmer with a rippling silver surface that made it appear three-dimensional.

A glance back showed the snarl of shadows streaking for the entrance to the opening. Still holding Nicci's hand, Richard backed them farther into the sparkling passageway.

He was too exhausted to run anymore.

"Here we live or die," he told her as he labored to catch his breath.

CHAPTER 54

The shadow hit the opening with such a resounding thud that Richard thought the passageway they were in would certainly be blown apart. What had been a somewhat cohesive, dark shape exploded apart like glass on granite, shattering into thousands of dark shards. Piercing wails of frightful anguish echoed through the passageway in terrible, heartbreaking finality as light ignited in a blinding crimson flash. At the shielded opening, black fragments of shadows tumbled back through the room that was filled with shimmering, sparkling reflections off the glass mosaics. With what looked like a year's worth of meteor showers all compressed into a single instant, the shadowy fragments burst into bright flares that flew in every direction as they glimmered into nothingness.

It was suddenly quiet but for Richard and Nicci's labored breathing.

The beast was gone. At least it was gone for the moment.

Richard let go of Nicci's hand and they both flopped down heavily on the floor and slumped back against the iridescent silver wall as they panted in exhaustion.

"You were looking for one of those shields, weren't you?" Nicci asked as she worked at recovering enough breath to talk.

Richard nodded. "Nothing Zedd or Nathan or Ann conjured did anything to stop the beast. What you did at least seemed to have had an effect, even if a small one. That made me think that there must be something that would be able to counter it, maybe not in totality, but at least in the form it presented this time.

"I knew that the wizards from the time back when this place was built needed to stop anything that didn't belong in here-and the beast, after all, was something from back in those times, something that Jagang had found described in old books. So I figured that those who made the shields here must have had to take such eventualities into account.

"Since they're made to stop such threats, it takes, at the least, an element of Subtractive Magic to get through the shields. But because the enemy would have had Subtractive powers as well, I think the shields must also somehow read the nature of who is trying to pass through them, perhaps thereby interpreting the potential level of threat. It could even be that as we were chased through the Keep and kept going through shields, they somehow gathered information on the nature not only of us, but of the beast as well so that when we reached these higher threshold shields, they had finally judged it a threat and stopped it."

Nicci considered what he'd said as she pulled sweaty strands of blond hair back off her face. "No one really knows a great deal about the gifted back then, but it makes sense that such an ancient threat would be vincible to ancient defenses." She frowned as if an idea had come to her. "Maybe such shields would even be a way to protect you if it reappears."

"Sure," he said, "if I want to live down here like a mole."

She looked around. "Any idea where we are?"

"No," he said, letting out an exhausted sigh, "but I guess we'd better try to find out."

They struggled to their feet and made their way the rest of the distance down the short passageway. At the end they emerged into a simple room constructed of stone blocks once covered in plaster that was now crumbling. The room was no more than fifteen paces long and not nearly as wide, with books on shelves along most of the length of the wall to the left.

While it did have some books, it was not a library like so many others he had seen in the keep. For one thing, it was far too small. For another, it was not at all elegant, or even nice, but rather stark. At best, it could be called utilitarian. Besides the shelves, the room was only wide enough for a table at the far end beside a passageway leading out the other side. There was a fat candle on the table and a wooden stool under it. The far passageway looked very much like the one they had come in through.