Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Richard held the glowing globe out in one hand and Jillian's hand in his other as he bent a little to clear the low ceiling as he led them deeper. It wasn't long before they encountered an intersection.

"Do your tellings say anything about finding our way down here?" She shook her head. "How about all those mazes you learned. Do you think they will do you any good down here?"

"I don't know. I never knew this place existed."

Richard let out a breath as he looked down each of the two passages. "All right, I'll just start going in deeper. If you think you recognize anything, or any of the routes, let me know."

After she agreed, they started down the left fork. To each side of the narrow passageway they began finding niches that had been carved into the walls. Inside each lay the remains of a body. In places the niches were stacked three or five high. Some had two bodies, probably a husband and wife.

Around some of the recesses, ancient painting still remained. The artwork was vines in some places, people with food in others, and in some places simple designs. From the different styles and the varying quality of the art, Richard guessed that it must have been done by loved ones for a member of their family who had died.

The narrow passageway opened up into a chamber with ten openings tunneling off in various directions. Richard picked one and started down it. It, too, opened into broader spaces, with a warren of branches. The elevation changed, from time to time going down deeper, and occasionally going up a bit.

They soon began encountering the bones.

There were rooms with stacks of similar bones in niches. Skulls had been carefully fit into one niche, leg bones all stacked end out in another, arm bones in another yet. Great stone bins carved in the side walls held smaller bones all laid in neatly. As Richard and Jillian moved through vault after vault, they saw walls of skulls that had to number in the tens of thousands. Knowing that he was seeing only one random passageway, Richard could not imagine how many people had to be interred in the catacombs. Even as startling, and even horrifying, as it was to see so many of the dead, each of their bones looked to have been placed reverently. None were simply cast into a hole or a corner. Each had been carefully placed as if each had been a valued life.

For what had to be well over an hour, they made their way through the maze of tunnels. Each section was different. Some were wide, some narrow, some with rooms to each side. After a time, Richard realized that each spot must have been carved out of the soft rock to make space for a family; that was why the niches seemed to fill every available space in such a haphazard fashion.

And then they came to a section of the passage that had partially collapsed. A huge section of stone had toppled and rubble had fallen in around it.

Richard stopped and looked at the tangle of stone. "I guess this is as far as we go."

Jillian squatted down, peering under the stone block lying at an angle across the passageway. "I can see a way under here." She turned to Richard. Her copper-colored eyes looked frightening staring out from the black mask painted across her face. "I'm smaller. Do you want me to go have a quick look?"

Richard held the glowing sphere down in the opening to light it for her. "All right. But I don't want you to keep going if you think it looks dangerous. There are thousands of tunnels down here, so there are plenty others to look in."

"But this is the one the Lord Rahl found. It must be important."

"I'm just a man, Jillian. I'm not some wise spirit returned from the world of the dead."

"If you say so, Richard."

At least she smiled when she said it.

Jillian disappeared into the angular hole like a bird going through a thornbush.

"Lord Rahl!" came her echoing voice. "There are books in here."

"Books?" he called into the hole.

"Yes. A lot of books. It's dark, but it looks like a big room with books."

"I'm coming in," he said.

He had to take his pack off and push it out ahead as he crawled in. It turned out not to be as worrisome as he had feared, and he was soon through. When he stood on the other side, he realized that the huge stone block lying at an angle across the passage had once been a door. It looked like it had been designed to slide out of a slot cut into the side of the wall, but at some point the massive door had broken along a fault in the stone, and it had toppled over. As Richard inspected the mess, he brushed the dust away and saw one of the metal plates that activated a shield.

The idea that these books had been behind a shield made his heart race faster.

He turned back to the room. The warm light from the glowing sphere did indeed show a chamber full of books. The room ran at odd angles, seemingly without reason. Richard and Jillian walked along the passageway, looking at all the books. Most of the shelves were carved into the solid rock, the way the resting places for the dead had been cut out to make room.