Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Now, she would walk the streets alone, accompanied only by the spirits of those who had once lived here. She felt safe, though, knowing that Grandfather had painted upon her the mask of the priestess of the bones.

She would be the one who would cast the dreams at the strangers.

If she did her job well, the strangers would be so frightened that they would flee and her people would be safe.

She tried not to think about how the people who once had lived here had done the same thing and yet had failed.

"Do you think there will be too many?" she asked, suddenly frightened by the tellings of the ancient debacle.

"Too many?" he puzzled at her as they walked beside a wall that had long ago been encased by living nets of vines that now held the crumbling stones in place.

"Too many for the dreams. I'm only one person-and I'm not experienced, or older, or anything. It's just me."

His big hand gave her an assuring pat between her shoulder blades. "Numbers do not matter. He will help give you the strength you need." Grandfather lifted a cautionary finger. "And don't forget, Jillian, the tellings say that you must be devoted to this one. He is to be your master."

Jillian nodded as they entered the vast graveyard. In the lower reaches there were simple stone markers. As they climbed higher, past row upon row of graves, they eventually came to larger and more ornate monuments to the dead. Some of them had grand statues of people in proud poses atop them. Some had carvings of the flame of life that represented the Creator's light. Some had ancient inscriptions of lasting love. A few had only an ancient symbol on them that her grandfather told her was called a Grace. Some of the great monuments had only a name.

Deep in the place of the dead, near the highest spot, where the weathered trees grew large and twisted, they came at last to a grand grave marked with a huge, ornately crafted stone monument. Atop it sat a speckled gray granite urn that held olives, pears, and other fruits, with grapes spilling out over one side, all carved from the same piece of stone. Grandfather, who had taken her to see this monument many times as he gave her tellings, said that the urn was meant to represent the bounty of life that man created through his creative efforts and hard work.

He watched her as she paused and then stepped closer to a huge gravestone for someone long dead, carved from one piece of stone back in the time that the ancient city had been alive. She wondered what he had been like. She wondered if he had been kind, or cruel, or young, or old.

Lokey alighted atop the carved stone grapes and ruffled his glossy black feathers before settling himself. She was glad that Lokey would keep her company in such a lonely place.

Jillian reached out and traced a finger through the letters that spelled out the name carved in the gray granite.

"Do you think the tellings are true, Grandfather? I mean, really true?"

"I was taught that they are."

"Then he really will come back to us from the world of the dead? Really, truly come back to life from the dead?"

She looked back over her shoulder. Her grandfather, standing close behind her, reached out and reverently touched the stone monument. He nodded solemnly.

"He will."

"Then I will wait for him," she said. "The priestess of the bones will be here to welcome him and serve him when he returns to life."

Jillian briefly glanced at the dust rising at the horizon and then turned back to the tomb. "Please hurry," she implored of the dead man.

As her grandfather watched, she gently ran her small fingers through the bold letters on the tomb.

"I can't cast the dreams without you," Jillian said softly to the name carved in the stone. "Please hurry, Richard Rahl, and return to the living."

CHAPTER 45

As Nicci's horse, Sa'din, stepped through the empty city, the clop of his hooves on the stone cobbles echoed among the canyons of deserted buildings like a forlorn call that went unanswered. Colorful shutters stood open on some of the windows, closed on others. On the second floor of many of the buildings, tiny balconies overlooking the empty streets had wrought-iron railings standing in front of doors with drapes pulled tightly closed. There was no breeze to move the legs of a pair of pants Nicci saw hanging on a line strung between the second floors on opposite sides of an empty alleyway. The owner of the pants had long ago walked off without them.

The quiet was so imposing that it bordered on ominous. It was an eerie feeling being within a city without its people, the mere shell that had once held life and vitality, now with form but no purpose. It was somewhat reminiscent of viewing a corpse, the way that it seemed so nearly alive and yet so still that there could be no doubt as to the terrible truth. If left this way, if not brought back from the cold brink with life, it would eventually crumble into forgotten ruins.