Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"Seems to me that there are chairs enough around here. He's practically tripping over that one, there." Rikka's mouth twisted with exasperation. "Besides, a person doesn't need a chair to make their brain work. At least, if they do, they have bigger problems."

"I suppose." Together with Rikka, Chase watched Zedd pace for a while. Finally, not being one to stand around, he caught the sleeve of Zedd's robes. "I guess I'd better go see to Rachel while you work out your solution. I want to make sure she gets her things together and gets to bed."

Zedd swished a hand, urging the man on his way. "Yes, you're right. Go ahead. Tell her I will come to kiss her good night after a while. I just need lo think on this a bit."

Once he was gone, Rikka leaned a leather-covered hip against the heavy desk and folded her arms under her breasts. "Are you saying that the words of prophecy vanishing was caused by some kind of worm, like a bookworm that eats the paste or the paper?"

"No, it eats the words, not the paper."

"Then it's — what? Some kind of tiny little worm that eats ink?"

Annoyed at the interruption, Zedd halted his pacing to stare at her. "Eats —? No, no, not in that way. This is something of magic. A tricky little twist of something clever. If I recall correctly it was referred to as a prophetic worm because it could eat away at the branches of prophecy, much like wood bore worms eat away at a tree. It starts with related prophecy, either in subject or in chronology, like wood bores might infest a particular branch. Once established this kind of worm begins eating away the tree of prophecy. In this case, the branch is the one having to do with the time since Richard was born."

Rikka looked genuinely fascinated and at the same time distraught. She straightened and tilted her head toward him. "Really? Magic can do such a thing?"

Zedd, holding his elbow in one hand and his chin in the fingertips of the other, made a low sound deep in his throat. "I think so. Maybe. I'm not sure." He heaved an impatient, irritable sigh. "I'm trying to remember. I only saw the reference once. I can't recall if it was a theory I read or if it was the spell itself, or if it was only a suggestion in a book of records, or if it — Wait.»

He stared up at the beamed ceiling as he squinted with the effort of recollection. "It was before Richard was born, I'm sure of that much. I remember that I was a young man. That would mean that it had to be when I was here. That much makes sense. And if I was here.»

Zedd's head came back down. "Dear spirits."

Rikka leaned in. "What? Dear spirits what?"

"I remember," Zedd whispered, his eyes going wide. "I remember where I saw it."

"Where?"

Shoving his sleeves higher up his bony arms, Zedd headed for the door. "Never mind. I will see to it. You just go about your patrolling, or some thing. I'll be back later."

CHAPTER 33

With the sun going down, the air was beginning to cool as Zedd raced down the broad rampart. The huge stones of the crenellated wall radiated heat they had stored from the hot sun beating down on them all day. The city far below the mountainside was melting into a sea of gloom, while pink rays of the departing sun caressed the tops of some of the tallest towers of the Keep high overhead. The dying light of dusk had brought a still quiet touched only by the distant whisper of the cicadas.

At an intersection of ramparts, Zedd ran around the corner to the right. Unlike the rampart at the edge of the Keep, which overlooked a drop-off of thousands of feet down the sheer face of the mountain, the narrower interior bastion wall had precipitous drop-offs to both sides, yet within the massive complex that gave a clear view of nearly windowless walls descending down into the darkness. Courtyards far below provided the refreshment of open air directly off some of the lower floors within the Keep. Zedd imagined that people who in the past had worked in the lower reaches of the Keep must have appreciated being able to step outside from time to time.

As he ran down the narrow bastion path, bridges to various towers crossed overhead. Soaring up before him at the end of the pathway was an immense, imposing wall with vertical rows of projecting keystones for interior floors. There was a grand, double entrance door at the base of that looming wall with designs above reliefs of columns carved in the wall beneath the arched stone lintel, but Zedd instead took to an opening in the side rail to take the steps down. The seemingly eternal flight of stairs descended down a long, sloping lip built into the side of the clifflike bastion wall.

He needed to go down into the lower reaches of the Keep, deep within the mountain, to places where no one ever went.

To places no one but he even knew existed.