Soul of the Fire

But then his heart felt as if it skipped a beat when he saw it was indeed a small black book.

A journey book.

It even had the stylus still in the spine.

Zedd wet his lips as she held it out in both hands before him. Zedd put a finger to his lower lip. She had no intention of letting such a valuable piece out of her possession, even if he was a fancy scholar. Over near the vault door two armed.guards scanned the patrons, but paid Zedd no particular attention.

"May I see inside, Vedetta?" he asked in a strained whisper.

"Well… well, I guess it can't hurt."

The woman carefully opened the cover. The journey book was in pristine condition, but then, the one Ann had carried was just as old, and in just such good condition. Journey books were things possessed of magic, so that probably explained their being nearly as good as new despite their thousands of years of use. That, and the care with which the Sisters handled the valuable books. The people here used no less care. Zedd froze in midbreath.

Mountain.

He understood. Mountain's Twin was the mate to this journey book. It all fell into place in his head. Mountain's Twin had been destroyed, and, along with it, possibly the disposition of the chimes.

But this book, Joseph Ander's journey book, would have the same words-if they hadn't been wiped away with the stylus.

He watched, spellbound, as Vedetta Firkin turned the first blank page over. A three-thousand-year-dead wizard was about to speak to him.

Zedd stared at the words there on the next page. He stared as hard as he could. They made no sense. A spell, he feared, to keep anyone from reading it.

No, that wasn't it. Besides, magic had failed; such a spell wouldn't still work. As he studied the writing, he realized it was a language he didn't know.

Then it came to him. It was in High D'Haran.

Zedd's heart sank. Virtually no one knew High D'Haran anymore. Richard had told him he'd learned it. Zedd didn't doubt him, but Richard was off on his way to Aydindril. Zedd would never be able to find, much less catch, him.

Besides, the people in the library were not going to let him take this book, and Zedd had no magic to do anything about it.

"What a glorious thing to see," Zedd whispered as he watched the woman slowly turn the pages before his eyes.

"Yes, isn't it," she said with deep reverence. "I sometimes go in the vault and just sit and look at the things written by Joseph Ander, and imagine his fingers turning the pages. It gives me shivers," she confided.

"Me, too," Zedd said.

She seemed pleased to hear it. "It's too bad no one has ever been able to translate it. We don't even know what language it might be. Some of our scholars here suspect it to be an ancient code used by wizards.

"Joseph Ander was a wizard," she confided in a hushed tone. "Not everyone knows it, but he was. He was such a great man."

Zedd wondered how they could possibly know he was great if they had no idea what he said. But then he realized that was precisely why they thought he was so great.

"A wizard," Zedd repeated. "One would think a wizard would want his words known."

Vedetta giggled. "Oh, you don't know anything about wizards, Ruben. They're like that. Mysterious and all."

"I suppose," he said absently as he tried to pick out a word he might possibly make sense of as they flipped past his eyes.

None did.

"Except," Vedetta confided in a very low whisper as her eyes shifted to each side for a quick look, "this here." She tapped a page very near the end. "These words here I managed, by an accident of coincidence, to decipher. Just these two."

"You did?" Zedd squinted at the words. " 'Fuer Owbens. " He looked up into her excited eyes. "Vedetta, do you really know what 'Fuer Owbens' means, or do you just think you might?"

She frowned with seriousness. "I really know. I quite by chance came across a place in another book, called Tinder Dominion, where it mentions the same words and uses both versions. It was about some-"

"So, you deciphered the words. What do they mean?"

She put her mouth close to his ear. "The Ovens."

Zedd turned his head and looked into her dark eyes. "The Ovens?"

She nodded. "The Ovens."

He frowned. "Any idea what that means?"

Vedetta snapped closed the little black journey book.

"Sorry, but I don't." She straightened. "It's getting late, Ruben. The guards said that after I showed you this, they want to close the library."

Zedd didn't try to hide his disappointment. "Of course. Everyone will want to go home and get some dinner and sleep."

"But you can come back tomorrow, Ruben. I'd love to help you some more tomorrow."

Zedd was stroking his lip as his mind raced, going over every scrap of information he had learned and trying to think if any of it would be of any use at all. It didn't seem so.

"What?" He looked up at her. "What was that?"