Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"I know you don't," he said with sudden, quiet, remarkable sympathy. "It's what I've been telling you. Something terrible is happening. No one remembers her. Anything that could cause such an event is undoubtedly powerful and extremely dangerous conjuring, able to be engendered only by the most powerful people who have command of both sides of the gift. Magic so dangerous that it would be hidden in a book buried in a catacomb behind shields where the wizards who put it there hoped no one would ever find it."

"Chainfire" Nicci breathed. "But from the brief bit I saw of it, this somehow has the power to undo the world of life."

"What do the Sisters care?" Richard asked in a bitter voice. "They've already put the boxes of Orden in play. It is their intent to end life on behalf of the Keeper of the dead. You should understand that better than anyone."

Nicci put a hand to her forehead. "Dear spirits, I think you may be right." She couldn't feel her fingertips. She was tingling all over with dread. "From the little bit I read, Chainfire sounds like it might be something along the lines of what Zedd, Ann, and Nathan wanted me to do to you-use Subtractive Magic to make you forget Kahlan. If what you say is true, then in a way, that might be what the Sisters did-they made everyone else forget her."

Nicci looked up into his gray eyes, eyes she could lose herself in. She felt tears of fright run down her cheeks.

"Richard, I tried that."

"What are you talking about?"

"I tried what they wanted me to do to you. I tried it on one of Jagang's men, back at Caska. Tried to make him forget Jagang. It was fatal. What if that's what Chainfire does to everyone?"

Richard heaved an angry breath. "Come on."

He marched out of the garden to a general and his guards waiting out in the polished granite hallway, huddled around the entrance to the Garden of Life.

"Lord Rahl," the general said, "I don't see the boxes any more."

"They've been stolen."

Jaws of men standing all around dropped in stunned astonishment. General Trimack's eyes went wide. "Stolen — but, who could have stolen them?"

Richard held up the statue and waggled it in front of the man. "My wife."

General Trimack looked like he didn't know whether to scream in fury or commit suicide on the spot. He instead rubbed a hand back and forth on his mouth as he thought through everything he'd heard and apparently tried to put it together with any other information he had. He looked up at Richard with the kind of intent look that few men other than generals could muster.

"I get reports all the time, Lord Rahl. I insist that I see all reports-you never can tell what bit of information you might learn that could turn out to be helpful. General Meiffert sends me reports as well. Since he's now close by, I get them within hours. Soon he and the troops will be moving south and it will take longer, but for now, I get them fresh."

"I'm listening."

"Well, I don't know if it means anything, but the latest report I got early this morning said that they came across a woman, an old woman, who had been stabbed by a sword. She's in bad shape, according to the report. I don't know why he sent me a report on such a thing, but General Meiffert is a pretty smart fellow, and I have to think that there was just something bloody odd about it for him to want me to know."

"How close is he?" Richard asked. "The army, I mean. How close?"

The general shrugged. "By horse? Ride half way hard and they're not more than an hour or two away."

"Then get me some horses. Immediately."

General Trimack clapped a fist over his heart at the same time as he signaled a couple men forward. "Run on ahead and get some horses ready for the Lord Rahl." He looked at Richard, then glanced at Cara and Nicci. "Three horses?"

"Yes, three," Richard confirmed.

"And an escort of the First File to show him the way and provide protection."

The two men nodded and took off at a dead run for the stairs.

"Lord Rahl, I don't know what to say. I will of course resign.»

"Don't be silly. This isn't something you could have done anything about; it was deception by magic. It's my fault for letting this happen. I'm the Lord Rahl. I'm supposed to be the magic against magic."

Nicci could only think that he had been trying to be, but no one would believe him.

Without sparing any time to rest, Richard, Cara, and Nicci, escorted by a company of the palace guards, rushed through the grand, wide corridors of Richard's ancestral home. People along their route scattered out of the way of the wedge of guards coming down the halls. Behind the guards, Cara marched out in front of Richard. Nicci rushed along at his side.

As they made their way down a smaller corridor, with fewer people, Richard slowed and then stopped. The guards stopped far enough away to be handy, but to give him his privacy. As everyone waited, Richard gazed down a side passageway. Cara looked uncomfortable.

"Quarters for Mord-Sith," Cara explained to Nicci in answer to the unspoken question in her eyes.