Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

The place had a strange orderly disorder about it that Ann found somewhat unsettling. Dark niches here and there in the plastered walls were surrounded with faded blue symbols and decorations that had flaked off in places. There were words as well, but they were too old and dull to be legible without careful study. Bookshelves as well as ancient wooden tables, all layered in dirt, sat in several places up against the angled walls.

Dead-still cobwebs, heavy with dust, hung everywhere like drapes meant to decorate the room beneath the graves. Dozens of candles sat on tables and in some of the empty niches, giving the whole place a soft, otherworldly glow, as if all the dead above Ann's head must periodically descend to this place to discuss matters important only to the deceased, and to welcome new members into their eternal order.

Beyond the diaphanous curtains of dust-choked cobwebs, amongst four massive tables that had been dragged together, stood Nathan. Disorderly stacks of books were piled high all around him on the tables.

"Ah, there you are," Nathan called from his book foil.

Ann cast a sidelong glance at Jennsen.

"I had no idea that this place was down here," the young woman said in answer to the question that remained unasked on Ann's tongue. Points of candlelight danced in her blue eyes. "I didn't even know this place existed."

Ann looked around again. "I doubt anyone in the last few thousand years knew this place existed. I wonder how he found it."

Nathan snapped a book shut and placed it on a pile behind him. His straight white hair brushed his broad shoulders as he turned back. His hooded, dark azure eyes fixed on Ann.

Ann caught the unspoken meaning in Nathan's gaze. She turned to Jennsen. "Why don't you go up and wait with Tom, my dear. It can be a lonely job standing watch in a graveyard."

Jennsen looked disappointed, but seemed to understand their need to be left to their business. She flashed a smile. "Sure. I'll be right up top if you need anything."

As the sound of Jennsen's footsteps on the stone stairs dwindled away into a distant, echoing whisper, Ann struck a weaving course through the vails of cobwebs.

"Nathan, what in the world is this place?"

"No need to whisper," he said. "See how the walls turn at all those odd angles? It cuts the echo."

Ann was a little surprised to hear that he was right. Usually, the echo in stone rooms was annoying, but this odd twisting room had the hush of the dead.

"There's something strangely familiar about the shape of this place."

"Concealment spell," the prophet said, offhandedly.

Ann frowned. "What?"

"The configuration of the whole thing is in the form of a concealment spell." He gestured to each side when he saw the puzzled look she gave him. "It's not the layout of the entire place, the placement of rooms and the course of the various halls and passageways-like at the People's Palace —that is the spell-form, but rather it's the precise line of the walls themselves that make up the spell-form, as if someone drew the spell large on the ground and then simply built the walls touching right against that line before hollowing out the middle. Because the walls are a uniform thickness, that means that the outside of the walls are also the shape of the spell-form, so that lends lo reinforce the whole thing. Quite clever, actually."

For such a spell to work, it had probably been drawn in blood and with the aid of human bones. There would have been ample supply of those at hand.

"Someone certainly went to a lot of trouble," Ann said as she appraised the space again. This time she began to recognize some of the shapes and angles in opposition. "What exactly is this place used for?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted with a sigh. "I don't know if these books were meant to be buried with the dead for all time, or they were being hidden, or there was some other purpose." Nathan beckoned with his hand. "This way. Let me show you something."

Ann followed him through several of the zigzags, around turns, and past yet more shelves lined with dusty books, until they reached an area of niches three high to each side.

Nathan leaned an elbow against the wall. "Look there," he said as he pointed a long finger downward, indicating one of the low, arched openings in the stone wall.

Ann stooped and peered inside. It contained a body.

All that was left were bones clothed in dusty tatters of robes. A leather belt circled the waist while a strap crossed over one shoulder. Skeletal arms were folded over the chest. Gold chains hung around the neck. Ann could see by the glint of light off the medallion on one of the chains that Nathan must have lifted it for a look, and in so doing his fingers had cleaned off the dust.

"Any idea who he is?" she asked as she straightened and folded her hands before herself.

Nathan leaned down close to her.

"I believe he was a prophet."

"I thought there was no need to whisper."