Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

It wasn't especially large. A lantern burned on a small table. There was a single chair. Other than that the room was barren.

"The ceiling is beams and planks," Zedd observed. "I wonder if I could breach them with my power, enough for us to sneak out of here."

With their help he staggered to his feet. Rikka steadied him as he lifted an arm to use his gift to probe the ceiling.

"Bags," he muttered. "When she used that constructed spell she also put some kind of barrier around this room. It keeps me from breaching it with my gift. We're sealed in."

"Something else," Tom said. "The guards are mostly Imperial Order soldiers. It appears that Six is working on the same side as Jagang."

Zedd scratched his scalp. "Great, that's all we need."

"At least she didn't kill us," Tom offered.

"Yet," Rikka added.

Zedd squinted as he looked up at the ceiling. He pointed. "What's that?"

"What?" Tom said, looking up.

"That there. At the edge of the ceiling, up against the wall. There is something wedged between that last beam and the top of the wall."

Tom pulled the chair over and used it to reach the dark bundle hidden in the shadow of the beam. He tugged on it until it suddenly fell to the floor. Some of the things inside tumbled out.

"Dear spirits," Zedd said, "that's Richard's pack."

He recognized some of the things that had fallen out. He bent to right the pack, inspecting the clothes briefly before stuffing them back inside the pack.

When he lifted the black shirt trimmed in gold and returned it to the pack, he spotted a book lying on the floor. He picked it up, squinting in the dim light of the lantern.

"What sort of book is it?" Rikka asked.

Tom leaned closer to see. "What does it say?"

Zedd could hardly believe what he was seeing. "The title says Secrets of a War Wizard's Power."

Rikka let out a low whistle.

"My sentiment as well," Zedd muttered as he inspected the front and back covers. "Where in the world would Richard have gotten such a thing? This could be invaluable."

"What does it say about his powers?" Rikka asked, as if eager for gossip.

Zedd opened the cover and turned over a page, then another. He blinked in surprise.

"Dear spirits . . ." he murmured in astonishment.

Nicci looked up when she saw a shadow fill the doorway. It was Cara.

"How are you doing?" the Mord-Sith asked in a quiet voice that seemed to get lost in the somber room.

Nicci's gaze wandered off to stare into space. She couldn't really see the relevance of the question. She supposed that Cara was just trying to find something to say, something that reflected her genuine concern. It struck Nicci as tragic that a Mord-Sith would come to finally possess such simple, decent qualities when it was too late to matter.

"I don't know anymore, Cara."

"Have you figured out what went wrong?"

Nicci looked up from the padded leather chair she was in. "What went wrong? Isn't it pretty obvious?"

Cara stepped closer and idly stroked a finger along the other side of the mahogany table. In the dimly lit library her red leather stood out like a splash of blood.

"But Lord Rahl will find a way back."

It sounded to Nicci like a plea rather than a statement.

"Cara, if Richard was coming back he would have been back ten days ago," Nicci said in a dejected voice, unable to summon a lie. Cara deserved more than to have the truth obscured with the deceit of false hope.

"Well, maybe it took longer than the two of you thought it would take."

Nicci wished it were that simple. She shook her head. "He should have been back by the next morning. Since he never returned that means he didn't survive what he-"

"But he has to come back!" Cara shouted as she leaned over the table, unwilling to allow Nicci to finish such a thought.

Nicci watched the anxiety on Cara's face for a moment. What was there to say? How could she explain such a thing to a person who didn't really understand the things that were involved?

"Believe me, Cara," Nicci said at last. "I want him to return just as much as you do, but if he was able to survive the spell and the journey to the underworld, he would have been back long ago. He couldn't stay there this long."

"Why not?"

"You might say that it's a little like diving to the bottom of a lake. You can hold your breath for a time, but you need to come back out of the water within a certain amount of time. If you get your foot caught under a log at the bottom of the water, you will drown. He couldn't survive there this long. Since he didn't return when he should have . . ."

"Well, maybe he came out somewhere else. Maybe he came up for air in another place."

Nicci shook her head. "Imagine that the lake is covered with ice. The hole he went through-that's the spells in the sorcerer's sand-is the only way back out. The boxes of Orden are a gateway. This part of it was using elements of Orden, of that gateway. The underworld is just emptiness."