Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

He had even set aside the books, Gegendrauss and Ordenic Theory, that he'd discovered in the little room. The first was in High D'Haran. It had been a long time since he had worked with the ancient language, so he knew he couldn't afford to spend time on it. A brief examination had told him that the book might hold remarkable information, although he hadn't spotted any that was material. Besides, he was out of practice translating High D'Haran. He didn't have time to work on it until he first resolved other issues.

The second book was difficult to follow, especially with his mind elsewhere, but he had read just enough of the beginning to realize that the book was indeed about the boxes of Orden. Other than The Book of Counted Shadows, which he had memorized as a child, he didn't recall ever seeing another book about the boxes of Orden. That alone, to say nothing of the profound danger of the boxes themselves, told him that the book was of immeasurable valuable. But the boxes were not his problem at the moment. Kahlan was the problem. He'd set that book aside as well.

There were also other books in the small, shielded room, but he had not had the time or inclination to search through them. He had decided that devoting himself to the books before he had a true understanding of what was going on would only waste yet more time. He had to approach the problem in a logical manner, not in random, frantic attempts to somehow pluck an answer out of thin air.

Whatever the cause of Kahlan's disappearance, it had all started that morning just before the fight when he'd been shot with the arrow. When Richard had climbed into his bedroll the night before the battle, Kahlan had been with him. He knew she had. He remembered holding her in his arms. He remembered her kiss, her smile in the dark. He was not imagining it.

No one would believe him, but he was not dreaming up Kahlan.

He put that part of the problem aside as well. He couldn't concern himself anymore with trying to convince others. Doing so was only diverting his attention from the real nature of the problem.

Nor could he afford to give in to fear that others might be right that he was only imagining her; that, too, was a dangerous distraction. He reminded himself of the very real evidence: the issue of her tracks.

Even if he couldn't make others understand the lifetime of learning that went into understanding the meaning of what he saw when he looked at tracks, he knew for certain what the evidence on the ground had revealed to him. There was a language to tracks. Others may not understand that language, but Richard did. Kahlan's tracks had been swept away, undoubtedly with magic, leaving behind a forest floor too artificially perfect and, more importantly, the rock that he'd discovered kicked out of place. That rock told him he was right. Told him that he was not imagining things.

He had to reason out what had happened to Kahlan-and that meant how had she been taken. Whoever had done it had magic, that much he knew. He at least knew that much because of the way their tracks had been altered. Knowing that narrowed the possibilities of who could be responsible. It had to be someone with magic sent by Jagang.

Richard remembered waking from a dead sleep that morning and laying there on his side. He remembered not being able to open his eyes for more than a brief moment at a time and not being able to lift his head. Why? He didn't think it was because he was groggy from still being half asleep; it had been more overwhelming than that. It had felt like sleepiness, yet stronger.

But the part of the memory that had him at the tantalizing, frustrating brink of near understanding was what he remembered seeing in the murky darkness of false dawn as he had laid there trying to fully wake. That part of the memory was where he now put all his attention, all his mental effort, all his concentration.

He remembered shadowy tree limbs that appeared to move about, as if carried to and fro in the wind.

But there had been no wind that morning. Everyone had been sure about that point. Richard himself remembered how dead still it had been. But the dark shapes of the tree limbs had been moving.

It seemed a contradiction.

But, as Zedd had pointed out with the Wizard's Ninth Rule, contradictions can't exist. Reality is what it is. If something contradicted itself then it wouldn't be what it is. It was a fundamental law of existence. Contradictions can't exist in reality.

Tree limbs could not wave around by themselves and there had been no wind to move them.

That meant he was looking at the problem all wrong. He was always stumped by how the tree limbs could move about in the wind when there was no wind. The simple fact was that they couldn't. Maybe someone had been moving them.

Pacing across the little room, Richard halted.

Or maybe it wasn't the tree limbs that had been moving.

He'd seen the shadowy movement and had assumed it was the tree limbs. Maybe it wasn't.