Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

At the bottom they found themselves in a small, square room that was little more than an intersection of stone passageways going off in three directions. Richard held the glowing sphere out, taking a quick glance in each passageway. He could see nothing down two of them. In the one to the right he thought he saw something glimmering. He'd been down in the Keep before and had encountered strange places and one of those places was what he needed now.

Together he and Nicci raced down the passageway. As he'd thought, it wasn't very long, just long enough to take them under the colossal corridor and then a little farther to where it opened into a kind of entry area with walls covered in small fragments of colored glass meticulously arranged into elaborate geometric designs. The light from the two glowing spheres glinted off the small glass pieces to send thousands of colored reflections sparkling and shimmering around the room. There was only one other opening, off against a far wall.

Richard staggered to a halt. The strange glittering room made his skin crawl with a sensation much like spiderwebs brushing against him. Nicci turned her head away, swiping at her face as if to get something off her. He knew that such a sensation was a part of a broader warning to stay away.

Small pillars made of polished, gold-flecked stone stood to each side of the distant opening holding up an entablature. The passageway beyond the pillars, not much taller than Richard, appeared to be roughly square and made of simple stone blocks that disappeared off into darkness. It seemed an elaborate and impressive entry for such a plain hallway down in the bowels of the place.

Richard hoped he was right about the reason.

As they crossed the entry room and approached the opening, the area before the pillars began to give off a faint reddish glow. The air itself began to hum in a very troubling way.

Nicci, her hair lifting out from her head as if she were about to be struck by lightning, seized his arm, pulling him back. "That's a shield."

"I know," Richard said as he dragged her by her grip on his arm.

"Richard, you can't. It's not just an ordinary shield-not just Additive. It's laced with Subtractive Magic. Such shields are deadly, this one especially so."

He looked back the way they'd come and saw the shadowy beast tumbling down the passageway toward them. "I know, I've been through places like this before."

He hoped he was right that this particular shield was like the ones he'd been through. He needed the kind that he'd encountered before, the kind that guarded the most restricted areas. If it was anything less, or one that was actually more powerful or more restrictive than the ones he'd seen before, then they were going to be in a great deal of trouble.

The only way out of the room they were in was back through the passage with the beast that was coming for them, or onward through the shield.

"Let's go. hurry."

Nicci's chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. "Richard, we can't go through there. That shield will take the flesh right off our bones."

"I'm telling you, I've done it before. You can command Subtractive Magic, so you can make it through as well." He started running toward the passage. "Besides, if we don't, we're dead anyway. It's our only chance."

With a growl of surrender, she ran along with him through the shower of glittering reflections from the glass mosaics that covered the walls of the room. "You'd better be right about this."

He grabbed her hand and held it tight, just in case being born with the Subtractive side was necessary. Nicci had not been born with it, but had acquired the use of it. He didn't know a great deal about magic, but from what he'd learned, there was a great gulf between being born with it and simply being able to use it. He had helped others, without the gift, through shields before, so between her abilities, and his hold of her, he figured he could get her through-if, that was, he could make it through himself.

The air all around them turned as red as a crimson fog. Without pause, Richard charged right though the doorway, pulling Nicci along with him.

The sudden avalanche of pressure felt like it would crush them. Nicci gasped.

Richard had to force himself against that pressure in order to advance. At the razor edge of the plane along the opening surrounded by polished stone pillars, heat seared across his flesh. It was so intense that for an instant he thought he'd made a huge mistake, that Nicci had been right, and that the shield would burn the flesh right off his bones.