Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"What are they looking for?" Richard asked.

"I'm not sure. I have been hiding among the spirits of our ancestors. The men must have made someone down there tell them of me because they knew my name when they finally chased me down, today. I have been staying out of their grasp for a long time. Today they were hiding where I had cached some food. The men grabbed me and wanted me to show them where the books are."

"These aren't the regular Imperial Order troops," Nicci explained to the frowning look on his face. "They're advance scouts."

Richard glanced at the bodies. "How do you know?"

"Because regular Imperial Order troops would never ask you to put down your weapons and surrender. Only the scouts, searching routes through strange lands and hunting for any information they can uncover would take prisoners. They question people. Those who won't talk are sent back to be tortured. These scouts are the men who first find stashes of books that are then collected for the emperor to see. Scouts like this find not only the best routes for the troops, but they are meant to find something even more important for the emperor: knowledge, especially that in books."

Richard knew the truth of that. Jagang seemed to be an expert on history and what had been done in ancient times. He used that information to great advantage. It seemed like Richard was always trying to catch up with what Jagang already knew.

"Have these men found any of the books, yet?" Richard asked Jillian.

Her copper-colored eyes blinked. "My grandfather has told me about books, but I know of none that are here. The city has been abandoned since ancient times. If there were books, they have long ago been looted along with anything else of value."

That was not what Richard had hoped to hear. He had been hoping that maybe there would be something here that would help answer the questions he had. After all, Shota had told him that he must find the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing. The graveyard all around him certainly was a place of bones.

"This place is called the Deep Nothing?" he asked her.

Jillian nodded. "It is a vast land where little lives. None but my people can scrape a life from this forbidding place. People have always feared to come here. The bleached bones of those who do venture here are out there, in this place and to the south, before the great barrier. The land is called the Deep Nothing."

Richard realized that it must be a place much like the wilds in the Midlands.

"The great barrier?" Cara asked, suspiciously.

Jillian looked up at the Mord-Sith. "The great barrier that protects us from the Old World."

"This has to be southern D'Hara," Cara told him. "That's why I heard stories about Caska when I was a child-because it's in D'Hara."

Jillian pointed. "This is the place of my ancestors. They were destroyed by those from the Old World back in ancient times. They, too, were ones who cast dreams." She looked off into the darkness to the south. "But they failed and were destroyed."

Richard didn't have time to try to figure it all out. He had enough problems.

"Have you ever heard of Chainfire?"

Jillian frowned. "No. What is Chainfire?"

"I don't know." He tapped a finger against his bottom lip as he thought about what to do next.

"Richard," Jillian said, "you must help me cast the dreams that will drive these men away so that my people will be safe again."

Richard glanced up at Nicci. "Any ideas how I can do such a thing?"

"No," she said. "But I can tell you that the rest of the men will sooner or later come looking for these three dead men. These aren't your average Imperial Order soldiers. They may be brutes, but they are the smartest of them. I imagine that casting dreams is something that involves your gift — not an advisable thing to be doing," she added.

Richard stood up and put one hand on a hip as he stared off at the dark city on the headland.

"Seek what is long buried.» he whispered to himself. He turned back to Jillian. "You said that you were a priestess of the bones. I need you to show me everything you know about the bones."

Jillian shook her head. "First you must help me cast the dreams so that I can chase the strangers away and my grandfather and the rest of our people will be safe."

Richard sighed in frustration. "Look, Jillian, I don't know how to help you cast dreams and I don't have time to figure it out. But I would imagine, as Nicci said, that it involves magic, and I can't use magic or it very well could call a beast that could kill all of your people. This beast has already killed a lot of my friends who were with me. I need you to show me what you know about what is long buried."

Jillian wiped at her tears. "Those men have my grandfather and others down there. They will kill him. You must save my grandfather first. Besides, he is a teller. He knows more than me."

Richard put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He could not imagine how he would feel if someone whom he thought was powerful refused to help save his grandfather.