Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Zedd stood nearby, silent, unmoving, as he watched. He'd brought two lanterns with him. They sat on a stone bench nearby, giving off a weak but steady glow in the still dampness. The drizzle was giving rise to ground fog. Although the sky was completely covered over with iron gray clouds, by the failing light Nicci thought that it must be just after sunset. With it being the darkest night of the new moon, and with thick clouds to hide even the stars, it was going to be a blackest of nights.

Even without the drizzle and approaching darkness, it was a miserable time to be digging up dead people.

As Richard worked with a kind of controlled but focused anger, Cara finally picked up another shovel. "The sooner we get this over with, the better."

She plunged her shovel into the damp ground and started helping Richard dig. Zedd stood nearby, silent and grim as he watched. Nicci would have helped get it over with, but she doubted that more than two people would have room to dig without getting in the way of each other. She might have used magic to accomplish the deed of opening the ground, but she had a strong sense that Zedd would not have approved, that he wanted this to be Richard's effort, his muscle, his sweat. His doing.

As the light gradually dimmed, Richard and Cara worked themselves ever deeper into the ground. They had to resort to the pick to get through thick roots crisscrossing the gravesite. Such good-sized roots told Nicci that the grave had to be older than Richard believed. If he realized as much, he didn't mention it as he worked. Nicci supposed that he could somehow be right that this was no real grave, which would explain why the roots had grown as thick as they were. If Richard was right, only a small hole would have had to have been dug among them, just big enough for a ceremonial vessel containing ashes to have been buried, but she didn't for a moment believe it. Shovelful by shovelful, the pile of black dirt to the side of the hole grew ever larger.

Although Zedd said nothing as he watched, Nicci could read in the deep lines of his face that, moment by moment, he was becoming ever more incensed at exhuming the Mother Confessor, even if it would settle the matter. He looked like he had a thousand things to say, all bottled up inside him. Nicci thought that he would wait until after Richard found the buried truth, but by the grim set of the wizard's jaw, she didn't think that when he finally had his say that it was going to be at all pleasant or understanding. This was behavior that crossed a line with him.

When Richard's and Cara's heads, dripping sweat and rainwater, were even with the surface of the ground, Richard's shovel abruptly thunked against something that sounded solid.

He and Cara paused. Richard looked stunned and confused; according to his story, there ought not to be anything in the grave, except maybe a small container holding ashes, and it was hard to believe that such a container would be buried this deep.

"It has to be a container for the ashes," he finally said as he looked up at Zedd. "That has to be it. You wouldn't have simply dumped ashes in the hole in ground. At the funeral they would have used a receptacle of some kind for the ashes you tricked them into thinking were Kahlan's."

Zedd said nothing.

Cara watched Richard for a moment and then plunged her shovel in the ground. It also made a resounding thunk. With the back of her wrist she swiped a strand of blond hair off her face as she looked up at Nicci.

"Well it would appear you've found something." Zedd's ominous voice seemed to carry through the low fog that had gathered along the ground in the private graveyard. "I guess we ought to see what it is."

Richard stared up at his grandfather a moment, and then went back to digging. It wasn't long before he and Cara had exposed a flat surface. It was too dark to see it clearly, but Nicci knew what it was.

It was the truth about to be uncovered.

It was the end of Richard's delusion.

"I don't understand," Richard murmured, confused by the size of what they were uncovering.

"Dig the top clear," Zedd ordered with barely restrained displeasure.

Richard and Cara worked to carefully but quickly clean the wet dirt away from what was becoming all too clear was a coffin. When they had it fully exposed, Zedd ordered them out of the hole they'd dug.

The old wizard held his hands over the open grave and turned his palms up. As Richard, Cara, and Nicci watched, the heavy coffin began to rise. Dirt fell away as the long object rose up out of the dark void. Stepping back away from the open breach in the sacred ground, Zedd gently used his gift to set the coffin on the grass beside the open grave.

The exterior was elaborately carved with designs of enfolding fern fronds overlaid with silver. It was reverently, sorrowfully beautiful. Richard could only stare in terror at what the coffin might contain.

"Open it," Zedd commanded.

Richard looked up at him for a moment.

"Open it," Zedd repeated.