Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

She pulled out a volume and thumbed through it before replacing it on the shelf. "That is why we are trained to question people by using the proper methods. We show them how very much more painful it is for them when they lie to us. If they understand the profoundly terrible consequences of lying, people will tell the truth."

Zedd wasn't really listening to her. He was concentrating on trying to figure out what the fragment of prophecy could mean. Every single possibility he came up with only served to further ruin his appetite. The steaming bowl sat waiting. He realized that she was probably hanging around, waiting for him to comment on dinner. Maybe she was waiting for a compliment.

"So, what's to eat?"

"Stew."

Zedd stretched his neck a bit to glance in the wooden bowl. "Where's the biscuits?"

"No biscuits. Stew."

"I know, stew. I can see that it's stew. What I mean is where are the biscuits to go with the stew?"

Rikka shrugged. "I can get you some fresh bread if you'd like."

"It's stew," he exclaimed with a scowl. "Stew calls for real biscuits, not bread."

"If I had known you wanted biscuits for dinner I could have made you biscuits rather than the stew. You should have said something earlier."

"I don't want biscuits instead of stew," Zedd growled.

"You change your mind a lot when you're grumpy, don't you?"

Zedd squinted at her with one eye. "You really are talented at torture."

She smiled, turned on a heel, and strode regally out of the small room. Zedd thought that Mord-Sith must strut even when they were alone.

He went back to the book, trying to come at the problem from a different angle. He had only had time to read the passage again a couple of times when the latch on the door lifted and Rachel shuffled into the room carrying something in both hands. She used her foot to push the door closed

"Zedd, you should put your book away, now, and have some supper."

Zedd smiled at the child. She always made him smile. She was infectious that way.

"What have you got there, Rachel?"

She reached up and set the tin bowl on the desk, then stretched her arm out as she pushed it across the desk toward him.

"Biscuits."

Flabbergasted, Zedd rose up a little from his chair to lean over and look in the tin bowl.

"What are you doing with biscuits?"

Rachel's big eyes blinked at him as if it were the strangest question she had ever heard. "They're for your supper. Rikka asked me to carry them for her. She had her hands full with a bowl of stew for you and one for Chase."

"You shouldn't help that woman," Zedd said with a menacing scowl as he sat back down. "She's evil."

Rachel giggled. "You're silly, Zedd. Rikka tells me stories about the stars. She makes pictures out of them and then tells a story about each picture."

"Is that so. Well, sounds like a nice thing for her to do."

With the light fading, it was getting hard to read. Zedd cast out a hand, sending a spark of his gift into the dozens of candles in the elaborate iron candelabrum. The warm light brightened the cozy little room, lighting the finely fit stone of the walls and the heavy oak beams across the ceiling.

Rachel grinned, her eyes glistening with both reflected points of candlelight and with wonder. She liked seeing him light candles. "You have the bestest magic, Zedd."

Zedd sighed. "I wish you weren't leaving me, little one. Rikka doesn't appreciate my candle-lighting trick."

"You will miss me?"

"No, not really. I just don't want to be left alone with Rikka," he said as he read the last bit again.

They will at first contest him before they plot to heal him. What could that mean?

"Maybe you could get Rikka to tell you some stories about the stars." Rachel began looking sad as she came around the desk. "I'll miss you something awful, Zedd."

Zedd looked up from the book. Rachel held her arms out, wanting a hug. A smile overcame him as he scooped her into his arms. There were few things in life that felt as good as a hug from Rachel. She was a devotee of the hug, never putting less than her full enthusiasm into it.

"You have good hugs, Zedd. Richard has good hugs, too."

"Yes he does."

Zedd remembered being in that very room, so long ago, when his own daughter was about the same age as Rachel. She, too, would come to see him and want a hug. Now, all that he had left was Richard. Zedd missed him terribly.

"I will miss you, little one, but before you know it you will be back here with the rest of your family and then you will have brothers and sisters to play with instead of just an old man." Zedd sat her on his knee. "It will be good to have all of you at the Wizard's Keep with me. The Keep will be a joyful place, what with life in it again."

"Rikka said that she will never have to cook again once my mother comes here."

Zedd took a sip of lukewarm tea from a pewter mug on the chest beside him. "Did she now."

Rachel nodded. "And she said that my mother would probably make you brush your hair." She held out her hands, wanting to share a drink from his mug. He let her gulp tea.