Chainfire

  It was obvious by the set of Cara’s jaw that she didn’t like the idea of making such a journey at night, but, instead of objecting, she asked something else.

  “And when we get the horses? Then where?”

  “To try to get answers to what I’ve found out so far.”

  All around, the mist had slowly drifted in among the gnarled trees, hanging vines, and expanses of still water, as if it were coming closer to listen in on their conversation. There was no wind to move the trailers of moss, so they hung limp from crooked branches. Shadows moved in the dark places beneath vines and brush. Unseen things distantly splashed in the black stretches of stagnant water.

  Richard didn’t really want to discuss the long and difficult ride ahead of them, so before Cara could say anything, he asked, “Have you ever heard the word Chainfire?”

  Cara let out a sigh. “No.”

  “Any guesses at all about what it could mean?”

  She shook her head.

  “What about the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing? Does that mean anything to you?”

  Cara didn’t answer for a moment. “It seems like ‘the Deep Nothing’ might be vaguely familiar, like I might have heard it once before.”

  Richard thought that that sounded encouraging. “Can you recall where, or anything about it?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.” She reached out and casually plucked a heart-shaped leaf from a vine as she walked beside him. “The only thing I can think is that maybe I heard it as a child. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t recall if that’s really true—that I might have heard it—or it’s just that ‘deep’ and ‘nothing’ are common enough words and so that’s the reason it seems like I must know them.”

  Richard let out a disappointed sigh. That was what he wondered, too—if they were simply common words and that was what was making the Deep Nothing sound like maybe he should know it.

  “What about a viper with four heads?” he asked.

  Cara shook her head again as she dropped back a step to fall in behind him in order to skirt a tree limb hanging over into the trail. A small leaf-green snake was curled on the branch, watching them pass close by, licking the air for the scent of them.

  “It makes no sense to me,” she said as she twirled the leaf by its stem. “I’ve never heard of such a beast—or whatever it is. Maybe the four-headed viper lives in a place called the Deep Nothing.”

  Richard had considered that possibility himself, but because of the way Shota mentioned them separately he doubted it. They had seemed to come to her as individual, distinctly different pieces of information. He supposed that since they were connected to his question about something that could help him discover the truth, they could be associated as Cara had suggested.

  At the place in the trail where the trees opened up to the dark mass of the mountains rising up before them, Cara paused.

  “Maybe Nicci will catch up with us soon. She knows a lot about magic and all sorts of things. She might know what Chainfire means, or even some of the rest of it. Nicci would be happy to do anything to help you.”

  Richard hooked a thumb behind his belt. “Do you want to tell me what you and Nicci have cooked up?”

  It seemed rather obvious to him, but he wanted to hear her admit the extent of it. He watched her eyes as he waited.

  “Nicci had nothing to do with it. It was my idea.”

  “What, exactly, was your idea?”

  Cara turned away from his direct gaze and stared off up the pass. The sky was mostly clear, with stars beginning to appear. Ragged clouds scudded past on the silent wind higher up. It wouldn’t be long before the moon rose.

  “When you healed me, I felt some of the terrible loneliness haunting you. I think that you may have thought up this woman, Kahlan, in order to fill that void. I don’t want you to have to suffer the terrible anguish I sensed in you. Someone who does not exist can’t ever fill such a void.”

  When she didn’t say anything else, he did.

  “And so you want that void to be filled by Nicci?”

  She looked back to his eyes, frustration overtaking her features. “Lord Rahl, I only wanted to help you. I think you need someone to be with you—to share your life—like Shota wanted someone. Like she wanted you. But Shota is the wrong person—for both of you. I think Nicci would be good for you, that’s all.”

  “So you thought that in my place you could give my heart away to someone?”

  “Well…it sounds wrong the way you put it.”

  “It is wrong.”

  “No it’s not,” she insisted as her hands fisted at her sides. “You need someone. I know that right now you feel lost. I think you’re getting worse. Dear spirits, you just gave up your sword.

  “You need someone, I know you do. You seem somehow incomplete. In all the time I’ve known you, you have never seemed that way to me before. My whole life I’ve never before thought of the Lord Rahl as being with just one woman, much less being married, but with you, it just seems that you need a soul mate.

  “Nicci is a better fit than anyone else. She’s smart—Nicci is smart enough that you two can really talk. You share things about magic and such. I’ve seen the way you two talk, the way you both smile. You just look natural together. You’re both smart—and both gifted. And, she’s beautiful. You should have someone beautiful and Nicci is that.”

  “And what part did Nicci play in your little plot?”

  “Nicci had much the same objections you have—which in a way only proves that I’m right about you two being such a good fit.”

  “So she didn’t like you planning her life, either?”

  Cara shrugged one shoulder. “No, that’s not what I mean. She had the same objections for you—she spoke up on your behalf, not hers. She only cared about what you wanted. She seemed to know that you would take a dim view of such an idea.”

  “Well, you’re right about one thing, she is smart.”

  “I was only trying to get her to think about it. I wasn’t telling her to throw herself at you. I thought that maybe you two could complete each other, fill the void you both feel. I thought that maybe if I encouraged her to consider it, that nature could take its course, that’s all.”

  Richard wanted to strangle her, but he kept his voice calm because Cara’s actions, while wrong, were so touchingly human, so caring, that at the same time he wanted to hug her. Who would ever have thought that a Mord-Sith could ever care about love and companionship. He guessed that he had. But still…

  “Cara, what you’re trying to do is the same thing Shota was trying to do—decide for me what I should feel, how I should live.”

  “No, it’s not the same.”

  Richard’s brow drew down. “And how is it not the same?”

  Cara pressed her lips together. He waited. She finally answered in a whisper.

  “She doesn’t really love you. I do. But not that way,” she was quick to add.

  Richard wasn’t in the mood to argue, or to yell. He knew that Cara’s intent was well-meaning, if misguided. More than anything, he could hardly believe what he had just heard her admit out loud. Were it not for everything else going on, he would have been overjoyed.

  “Cara, I’m married to the woman I love.”

  She sadly shook her head. “Lord Rahl, I’m sorry, but Kahlan just doesn’t exist.”

  “If she doesn’t exist, then why was Shota able to give me clues that will help me prove the truth?”

  Cara looked away again. “Because the truth is that there is no Kahlan. The things she told you will only help you discover that sad truth. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Only in my nightmares,” he said as he started for the mountain pass.

  Chapter 44

  Jillian turned and gazed up into the sky when she heard the raven croak. The great bird’s wide-spread wings rocked as it rode the invisible currents in the perfectly clear blue sky. As she watched, it croaked again, a harsh, grating sound that echoed through the deep
silence of chasms and carried out across the parched, rolling landscape baking in the afternoon sun.

  Jillian snatched up the small, dead lizard lying on the crumbling wall beside her and then scrambled up the dusty lane. The raven wheeled majestically overhead as he watched her running up the rise. She knew that he had probably seen her ages ago, long before she knew he had been there.

  Holding the lizard by its tail as she rose up on the balls of her feet, Jillian lifted her arm as high as she could toward the sky and wiggled the offering. She laughed when she saw the inky black bird look almost as if it stumbled in midair when it spotted the ringed lizard dangling from her fingers. The bird rolled into a steep dive with its wings pulled partly in to enable it to gather speed as it plummeted.

  Jillian hopped up and sat on the dilapidated stone wall beside some of the exposed paving stones that had once been part of a road. Over eons, much of that road had been buried beneath layers of dirt. Atop those layers of wind- and rain-borne soil, wild grasses and scraggly trees now grew. Her grandfather had told her that this was part of a special place and very old.

  Jillian had trouble imagining how old it could be. When she’d been younger and had asked Grandfather if it was older than him, he had laughed and said that while he admitted to being old, he was nowhere near that old and that the ground did not in a single lifetime so swiftly cover over the accomplishments of man. He said that such slow work required not only time, but neglect. There had been plenty of time, and with virtually no people left, neglect had worked its ways.

  Grandfather had told her how this empty, ancient city had once been inhabited by their ancestors. Jillian loved to hear his stories about the mysterious people who had once lived in this place and had built the incredible city up on the headland beyond the stone spires.

  Her grandfather was a teller, and, since she was always so eager to hear his tellings of the old lore, he said that if she was willing to put in the effort he would make her the teller who would one day take his place. Jillian was excited at the prospect of learning to be a teller and mastering all the things there was to learn, someone respected for their knowledge of the ancient times and their heritage, but at the same time she didn’t like the implication that such an eventual advancement among her people would mark her grandfather’s passing.

  Lokey alighted next to her and folded in his glossy black wings, bringing her out of her consideration of weighty subjects, of ancient people and the cities they built, of wars and great deeds. The curious raven waddled closer.

  Jillian set down the freshly dead lizard and, holding the tip of its tail, wiggled it temptingly.

  Lokey cocked his head, watching. Instead of taking the offering, he blinked his black eyes. He waddled closer to her, leading with his right foot in the cautious sideways manner he always used when approaching carrion. Rather than flapping his wings and hopping back several times in the guarded practice he employed when coming upon what he hoped would be a meal but could potentially turn into a threat, he stepped boldly forward and snatched her buckskin sleeve in his heavy bill.

  “Lokey, what are you doing?”

  Lokey tugged insistently. The curious bird usually plucked at the beads down the sleeve or the leather thongs at the end, but now he pulled the sleeve itself.

  “What?” she asked. “What do you want?”

  He let go of her sleeve and cocked his head as he peered at her with one gleaming eye. Ravens were intelligent creatures, but she was never quite sure just how intelligent. Sometimes she thought that Lokey was smarter than some people she knew.

  Lokey’s throat feathers and ears lifted out aggressively.

  He suddenly let out a piercing caw that sounded very much like angry frustration at not being able to talk so that he could tell her something. Kraaah. He fluffed out his feathers again and cawed again. Kraaah.

  Jillian stroked his head and then his back, scratching gently but firmly under his raised black plumage—something he loved to have done—before smoothing down his ruffled feathers. Instead of clicking contentedly and blinking lazily, as he usually did when she gave him a such a scratch, he hopped back a step out of her reach and let out three piercing caws that made her ears hurt. Kraaah. Kraaah. Kraaah.

  She covered her ears. “What’s gotten into you today?”

  Lokey hopped up and down, flapping his wings. Kraaah. He ran across the top of the old cobble road, flapping and croaking. At the other side he fluttered up into the air, alighted, and then lifted off the ground again. Kraaah.

  Jillian stood. “You want me to come with you?”

  Lokey cawed noisily as if to confirm that she had at long last guessed correctly. Jillian laughed. She was sure that the crazy bird could understand every word she said and sometimes read her thoughts besides. She loved having him around. Sometimes when she talked to him he would quietly stand nearby and listen.

  Her grandfather had told her not to let Lokey sleep in her room or he would know her dreams. Jillian mostly had wonderful dreams, so she didn’t mind if Lokey knew them. She suspected that maybe her friend did know her dreams and that was why she often awoke to find him perched on the nearby windowsill, sleeping contentedly.

  But she was always very careful not to send him any nightmares.

  “Did you find yourself a nice dead antelope? Or maybe a rabbit? Is that why you’re not hungry?” She shook her finger at him. “Lokey,” she scolded, “did you steal another raven’s cache?”

  Lokey was always hungry. Her ravenous raven, she often called him. He would share her dinner with her if she would let him and steal it if she wouldn’t. Even if he was too full to eat the lizard, she was surprised that he didn’t at least take it away and hide it for later. Ravens hid whatever they couldn’t manage to eat—and they could eat a lot. She couldn’t understand how it was that the bird didn’t get fat.

  Jillian stood and brushed the dust from the seat of her dress and her knobby knees. Lokey was already airborne, circling, cawing, urging her to hurry.

  “All right, all right,” she complained as she held her arms out for balance while scurrying along the top of the fat wall along an enclosure strewn with rubble.

  At the crest of the small hill she stood with one hand on the sash of cloth wrapped around her hip while with her other hand she shielded her eyes as she peered up into the bright sky to watch her friend pitching and rolling in a bid to keep her attention. Lokey was a shameless show-off. If he couldn’t do aerial stunts to impress other ravens, he would happily do them for her.

  “Yes,” she yelled into the sky, “you’re a clever bird, Lokey.”

  Lokey cawed once and then swiftly beat his wings. Jillian’s gaze followed him, her hand shielding her eyes from the sunlight, as he flew south out over the vast expanse before her. Random ribbons of green summer grasses, up closer to the foot of the headland and mountains behind her, cut through the barren landscape. To the sides, hazy violet fingers of distant mountains, each farther one a shade softer and lighter, extended down into the desolate plain that seemed to go south forever. She knew it didn’t, though. Grandfather said that to the south was a great barrier and beyond a long forbidden place called the Old World.

  In the distance, down among the green patches on the plain that lay close up against the foothills, she could see the place where her people lived in the summers. Wooden fences filled the broken gaps in ancient stone walls that held their goats, pigs, and chickens. Some of their cattle grazed out on the summer grasses. There was water in this place, and some trees, their leaves shimmering in the bright sunlight. Gardens stretched out beside the simple brick houses that had withstood the harsh winter winds and baking summer sun for untold centuries.

  And then, when she glanced up again at Lokey, Jillian saw at the horizon toward the west a faint cloud of dust rising up.

  It was so far away that it seemed tiny. The smudge of dust against the deep blue of the sky where it met the horizon seemed to hang in the air, motionless, but she knew that it was j
ust a trick of the distance that made it look tiny and still. Even from this far, she was able to tell that it was spread across a broad swath. It was still so far away that it was hard to see much of its cause. Had it not been for Lokey, Jillian likely wouldn’t have spotted it for some time.

  Even though she couldn’t yet see what was causing the dust, she knew that she had never before seen such a sight.

  Her first thought was that it had to be a whirlwind or a dust storm. But as she watched it she realized that it was too broad to be a whirlwind and a dust storm didn’t stream up into the sky the way this did. A dust storm, even if it did extend high up, still had at the base what looked like huge, billowing, brown clouds running along the ground that was actually where the gusty winds were churning up the dust.

  This wasn’t at all like that. This was dust rising up from something coming—from people coming on horses.

  Strangers.

  More strangers than she could fathom. Strangers in such numbers that it was like something in her grandfather’s stories.

  Jillian’s knees began to tremble. Fear welled up through her, coming to lodge in her throat where screams were born.

  This was them. The strangers her grandfather always said would come. They were coming now.

  People never doubted her grandfather—to his face, anyway—but she didn’t think they really worried about the things in his tellings. After all, their lives were peaceful; no one ever came to disturb them or their homeland.

  Jillian, though, had always believed her grandfather and so she’d always known that the strangers would eventually come, but, like other people, she’d always thought it would be sometime in the dim future, maybe when she was old, or, maybe even, if they were lucky, generations in the future.

  It was only in her infrequent nightmares that the strangers arrived in the present, rather than the far future.

  Seeing those columns of dust rising, she knew without a doubt that this was them and they were coming now.