Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

The girl hesitantly stepped closer and dropped to her knees. She bent forward before the steps until her forehead touched the stone at his feet.

"Lord Rahl, I am your humble servant. Thank you for coming and protecting me. I live only to serve. My life is yours. Command me as you will."

Even as the girl was still speaking in a quavering voice, Cara and Nicci were spreading out to the sides, searching for other threats. Richard crossed his lips with a finger to let them know to be quiet about it so as not to alert any other troops that might be near. Both saw his signal and nodded.

Richard waited, listening for any threat. Since the girl was on the ground, he let her stay there, out of harm's way. He heard the whisper of feathers against air as the raven landed on a nearby limb and then the soft rustle as it folded in its wings.

"It's clear," Nicci announced in a quiet voice as she returned from the shadows. "My Han tells me there are no others in the immediate vicinity."

Relieved, Richard let the tension go out of his muscles. When he heard the girl weeping in quiet terror, he sat down on the top step right near her. He suspected her terror was fear that she might be killed just as the three men had been. Richard wanted to assure her that she was not going to die.

"It's all right," he told her as he gently grasped her shoulders and urged her up. "I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe, now."

As she came up he gathered the frightened girl into his arms, embracing her protectively, holding her head to his shoulder when she glanced to the three dead men as if they still might jump up and snatch her away. She was a slender lithesome creature, the kind of girl on the brink of being a woman, yet looking as frail as a bird about to leave the nest. Her slender arms came gratefully around Richard as she wept with relief.

"The bird a friend of yours?" he asked.

"Lokey," she confirmed with a nod. "He watches over me."

"Well, he did a good job tonight."

"I thought you weren't going to come, Master Rahl. I thought it was my fault, that I wasn't a good enough priestess for you."

Richard ran a hand down the back of her head. "How did you know I was coming here?"

"The tellings say it is so. But I already waited so long that I thought they might be wrong. I was near to despairing that you would find us not worthy, and then I feared it was my failing"

He surmised that the «tellings» must mean prophecy of some sort. "You are a priestess, you say?"

She nodded as she pulled back to look up at his smile. Richard saw then that her big copper-colored eyes peered out from a dark mask painted in a band around her face. It was a disturbing visage.

"I am the priestess of the bones. You have returned to help me. I am your servant. I am the one meant to cast the dreams."

"Returned?"

"To life. You have come back from the dead."

Richard could only stare.

Nicci squatted down beside the girl. "What do you mean, he returned from the dead?"

The girl pointed behind them, at the structure from where they had emerged. "From the world of the dead — back to we the living. It says his name there, on his tomb."

Richard turned and indeed did see his name carved in the monument. The thing that came immediately to mind was seeing Kahlan's name carved in stone, too. Both of them were alive, despite their graves.

The girl glanced at Cara and then at Nicci. "The tellings say that you will come back to life, Lord Rahl, but they did not say that you would bring your spirit familiars."

"I haven't come back from the dead," Richard told her. "I came through the sliph-down there, in that well."

She nodded. "The well of the dead. The tellings mention such mysterious things, but I never knew their meaning."

"Do I call you 'priestess, or by your name?"

"You are Master Rahl; you can call me as it pleases you. My name is Jillian, though. I have had that name my whole life. I'm afraid I have not been a priestess a long time, and so I'm not very good at it, I don't think. My grandfather said that when it is time, it matters not how old I am, but that it is time."

"How about if I call you Jillian, then?" he asked with a smile.

She appeared still too frightened to return the smile. "I would like that, Master Rahl."

"My name is Richard. I'd like it if you called me Richard."

She nodded, still with that look of awe filling her round eyes. Richard didn't know if her awe was at the Master Rahl, or a dead man returned to life and walking up out of his grave.

"Now look, Jillian, I don't know anything about your tellings, yet, but you need to understand that I haven't returned from the dead. I traveled here because I have trouble and I'm looking for answers."

"You have found the trouble, then. You killed three of them. The answer is for you to help me cast the dreams so that we might drive these evil men away. They have driven most of my people into hiding. The older ones are down there." She pointed down the dark slope. "They tremble in fear that these men will kill them if they do not find what they seek."