Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Berdine snapped her finger, then shook it at him. "That's the place I saw named. How did you know?"

"I've been there. My name is on a big monument in the graveyard."

"You were there? Why? What were you looking for? What did you find?"

"I found a book — Chainfire — that helped prove what happened to my wife."

Berdine glanced to Cara and the Nicci before looking back at Richard. "I've been hearing rumors about you having a wife. At first I thought it had to be just crazy gossip. So, it's really true, then?"

Richard took a deep breath as he marched through the corridor, surrounded by guards and watched by the passing crowds. He didn't feel up to explaining to Berdine that she knew Kahlan, and had in fact spent a great deal of time with her.

"It's true," he said, simply.

"Lord Rahl, what's this all about?"

Richard waved off the question. "It's a long story and I don't have the time to tell it right now. What is it about these central sites that has you so worked up?"

"Well," Berdine said as she leaned in again while they rushed down the broad hallway, "you remember how Baraccus killed himself after he came back from the Temple of the Winds?"

Richard glanced over at her. "Yes."

"There was something behind it."

"Behind it. What do you mean?"

Berdine came to a side passageway guarded by two men with lances. As they took in Richard and his entourage, they clapped fists to their hearts and stepped aside. Berdine pulled open one of the double doors clad in metal. It had a picture of a courtyard garden meticulously embossed in the polished surface. Beyond the door the smaller hallway of rich mahogany paneling was empty of people. It was the entrance into the private areas of the palace.

"I haven't been able to figure out what, but I believe that Baraccus did something while he was at the Temple of the Winds." Berdine glanced back at him to make sure he was paying attention. "Something big. Something significant."

Richard nodded as he followed Berdine down the empty hallway. "When Baraccus was at the Temple of the Winds he somehow insured that I would be born with Subtractive Magic."

This time it was Nicci who snatched Richard's arm and yanked him to a halt, spinning him around to face her. "What! Where did you ever get an idea like that?"

Richard blinked at her shocked expression. "Shota told me."

"And how would Shota know such a thing?"

Richard shrugged. "You know witch women, they see things in the flow of time. Some of it I put together from the pieces of history that I know."

Nicci looked anything but convinced. "Why in the world would Baraccus ever do such a thing? Shota tries to tell you that, out of the blue, this ancient wizard just happened to travel to the underworld and while he was there he thought… what? As long as he was already there he might as well see to it that when some fellow named Richard Rahl is born three thousand years from then he might as well be born with Subtractive Magic?"

Richard gave her a look. "It's a little more complicated than that, Nicci. I'm pretty sure that he did it to counter what another wizard had done when he'd been there before. That wizard was Lothain. Remember him, Berdine?"

"Of course."

"Lothain was a spy."

Berdine gasped. "That's what Kolo thought — that he had been a spy all along — planted there to lie in wait for an opportunity to strike. Kolo didn't believe that Lothain had just gone crazy or something like everyone assumed. That was the common story at the time — that the stress and danger of his job had just gotten to Lothain and he couldn't handle it anymore, that he simply lost his mind. Kolo never made a point of telling other people what he thought because he didn't think that they would believe him, and also because people had started to think that it was Baraccus who was the spy."

Richard frowned as he started out again. "Baraccus! That's crazy."

"That's what Kolo thought, too."

"What did this wizard Lothain supposedly do?" Nicci asked in a forceful voice meant to bring him back to the subject at hand and to underline the seriousness of her question.

Richard gazed into her blue eyes a moment and saw there not just Nicci, but the powerful sorceress she in fact was. Because of her stunning features, her intent blue eyes, and the way she treated him with such regard, to say nothing of her steadfast friendship, it was easy to forget that this was a sorceress who had seen and done things he could hardly begin to imagine. She was probably one of the most powerful sorceresses ever born, and she was a force to be reckoned with.