Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 28

Richard reached back, took Berdine by the arm, and pulled her along with him. “I’ll explain it later, when I have more time. What did Kolo write about Baraccus in his journal?”

“Well, what Kolo wrote is only part of the story. Kolo just hinted at some of what was going on so, to fill in the blanks, I started reading the books in your restricted, private libraries.”

It never failed to amaze Richard that, being the Lord Rahl, he now had access to such restricted libraries. He could not begin to imagine the wealth of knowledge contained in all those volumes.

“What kinds of books?”

Berdine pointed. “One of them is on the way, not in the common areas but deeper in the private sections of the palace—places where almost no one is ever allowed. I’ll show you. Part of it has to do with something called central sites.”

Keeping pace on the other side of him, Nicci leaned in. “Nathan told me that he read some things about places called central sites.”

“Like what?” Richard asked.

Nicci pulled her blond hair away from the side of her face and back over her shoulder. “The central sites are top-secret libraries. Back sometime near or after the great war the central sites were established as a safe, secure, and hidden place to keep books there that were considered too dangerous to be known except by a very restricted, select group of a few people. Nathan said that he thinks there were maybe a half-dozen of these sites.”

“That’s right,” Berdine said. She looked around to make sure that none of the soldiers following them were close enough to hear. “Lord Rahl, I found a reference where it implied that at least some of these sites were marked with the names of a Lord Rahl from prophecy.”

Richard halted. “You mean they put his name on a gravestone?”

Berdine’s brow lifted. “That’s right. It mentioned that these places, these libraries, were kept with the bones. They thought, from what they knew of prophecy, that a future Lord Rahl would need to find books that were kept there and so, in at least one instance that I found mentioned, it said they put his name on a grave marker.”

“In Caska.”

Berdine snapped her finger, then shook it at him. “That’s the place I saw named. How did you know?”

“I’ve been there. My name is on a big monument in the graveyard.”

“You were there? Why? What were you looking for? What did you find?”

“I found a book—Chainfire—that helped prove what happened to my wife.”

Berdine glanced to Cara and the Nicci before looking back at Richard. “I’ve been hearing rumors about you having a wife. At first I thought it had to be just crazy gossip. So, it’s really true, then?”

Richard took a deep breath as he marched through the corridor, surrounded by guards and watched by the passing crowds. He didn’t feel up to explaining to Berdine that she knew Kahlan, and had in fact spent a great deal of time with her.

“It’s true,” he said, simply.

“Lord Rahl, what’s this all about?”

Richard waved off the question. “It’s a long story and I don’t have the time to tell it right now. What is it about these central sites that has you so worked up?”

“Well,” Berdine said as she leaned in again while they rushed down the broad hallway, “you remember how Baraccus killed himself after he came back from the Temple of the Winds?”

Richard glanced over at her. “Yes.”

“There was something behind it.”

“Behind it. What do you mean?”

Berdine came to a side passageway guarded by two men with lances. As they took in Richard and his entourage, they clapped fists to their hearts and stepped aside. Berdine pulled open one of the double doors clad in metal. It had a picture of a courtyard garden meticulously embossed in the polished surface. Beyond the door the smaller hallway of rich mahogany paneling was empty of people. It was the entrance into the private areas of the palace.

“I haven’t been able to figure out what, but I believe that Baraccus did something while he was at the Temple of the Winds.” Berdine glanced back at him to make sure he was paying attention. “Something big. Something significant.”

Richard nodded as he followed Berdine down the empty hallway. “When Baraccus was at the Temple of the Winds he somehow insured that I would be born with Subtractive Magic.”

This time it was Nicci who snatched Richard’s arm and yanked him to a halt, spinning him around to face her. “What! Where did you ever get an idea like that?”

Richard blinked at her shocked expression. “Shota told me.”

“And how would Shota know such a thing?”

Richard shrugged. “You know witch women, they see things in the flow of time. Some of it I put together from the pieces of history that I know.”

Nicci looked anything but convinced. “Why in the world would Baraccus ever do such a thing? Shota tries to tell you that, out of the blue, this ancient wizard just happened to travel to the underworld and while he was there he thought . . . what? As long as he was already there he might as well see to it that when some fellow named Richard Rahl is born three thousand years from then he might as well be born with Subtractive Magic?”

Richard gave her a look. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Nicci. I’m pretty sure that he did it to counter what another wizard had done when he’d been there before. That wizard was Lothain. Remember him, Berdine?”

“Of course.”

“Lothain was a spy.”

Berdine gasped. “That’s what Kolo thought—that he had been a spy all along—planted there to lie in wait for an opportunity to strike. Kolo didn’t believe that Lothain had just gone crazy or something like everyone assumed. That was the common story at the time—that the stress and danger of his job had just gotten to Lothain and he couldn’t handle it anymore, that he simply lost his mind. Kolo never made a point of telling other people what he thought because he didn’t think that they would believe him, and also because people had started to think that it was Baraccus who was the spy.”

Richard frowned as he started out again. “Baraccus! That’s crazy.”

“That’s what Kolo thought, too.”

“What did this wizard Lothain supposedly do?” Nicci asked in a forceful voice meant to bring him back to the subject at hand and to underline the seriousness of her question.

Richard gazed into her blue eyes a moment and saw there not just Nicci, but the powerful sorceress she in fact was. Because of her stunning features, her intent blue eyes, and the way she treated him with such regard, to say nothing of her steadfast friendship, it was easy to forget that this was a sorceress who had seen and done things he could hardly begin to imagine. She was probably one of the most powerful sorceresses ever born, and she was a force to be reckoned with.

More than that, Nicci, of all people, deserved to know the truth. It wasn’t that he’d been trying to keep it from her—he just hadn’t had the time to discuss it. In fact, he wished that he had already told her about it, that he had had her thoughts on the whole thing, especially the part about the secret library that Baraccus kept, and the book meant for Richard that he’d sent there with his wife for safekeeping . . . until the day a war wizard was again born into the world to take up their cause.

Richard sighed. There just hadn’t been any time, yet. As much as he did want to tell it all to her, he wanted to tell her the entire story when he could discuss it, along with some of the questions he had, so he decided for the moment to leave out most of the details and kept it to the pertinent point.

“Lothain was a spy for the forces of the Old World. Maybe he could see that they were not going to be able to win the war. Maybe he was just taking extra precautions. Anyway, when he went to the Temple of the Winds he sowed the seeds for their cause to rise again at some future time. He did something, at the least, to see to it that a dream walker would again be born into the world.

“Baraccus was unable to reverse the sabotage, so he did the next best thing. He saw to it that there would be a counter born into the world: me.”

Nicci, speechless, could only stare at him.

Richard turned back to Berdine. “So, what does this business with Baraccus have to do with these central sites?”

Berdine glanced around again, checking how close the soldiers were. “Kolo wrote in his journal that there were whispers among a group of influential people that Baraccus may have been a traitor, and if he was, then he could have done something ruinous while he was at the Temple of the Winds.”

Richard shook his head in frustration. “What did they suspect him of doing?”

Berdine shrugged. “I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. It as all very hush-hush. They were all being very careful. No one wanted to come right out and say anything or accuse Baraccus of being a traitor. They didn’t want to anger the wrong people. He was still widely revered by many people, like Kolo.

“It could even be that they didn’t have any specific accusation, but just held a suspicion that he may have done something. Don’t forget, no one was ever able to get back into the Temple after Baraccus, until you did it. Apparently, they were also afraid of that woman, Magda Searus. You know, the one who was made into a Confessor.”

“Yes, I remember,” Richard said. “Seems odd, though, that something that supposedly had the potential to be so disastrous wouldn’t be more out in the open.”

“No,” Berdine said under her breath, almost as if the ghosts of the past would hear her. “That’s the thing. They feared that if people found out about their suspicions, then it might cause a panic or something—cause people to give up. Don’t forget, the war was still going on and it was still in question if they would even survive, much less triumph. Everyone was worried about the morale of the people as they fought on and at the same time worked to find a way to win. In the middle of all that, this small circle of high-ranking people were all worried that Baraccus might have done something terrible at the Temple of the Winds that was never supposed to be done.”

Richard threw up his hands. “Like what?”

Berdine’s face screwed up in an expression of exasperation. “Don’t know. Kolo only hinted at it. He believed in Baraccus. And he was angry that these people were doing whatever it was that they were doing, but at the same time he wasn’t in any position to argue with them. He was not among those in command, or a high-enough-ranking wizard.

“But there was one passage, one mention in his journal, that kind of gave me goose bumps when I read it. I don’t know if it was about the Baraccus dispute or not—I mean I can’t point to anything specifically to connect it, not so as—”

“What did this passage say?”

Along with Richard, Nicci and Cara both leaned in a little.

Berdine heaved a sigh. “He was writing in his journal, talking about the foul weather and how sick everyone was getting of rain, and he made this offhanded comment that he was upset because he’d learned through his sources that ‘they’ had made five copies of ‘the book that was never to be copied.’ ”

That gave Richard pause, and goose bumps.

“Not far after that,” Berdine said, “his entry started wandering back to talking about the central sites.”

“So you think . . . what? That maybe they hid these copies they weren’t supposed to make in the secret central sites?”

Berdine smiled as she tapped her temple with a finger. “Now you’re starting to ask the same questions I’ve been asking myself.”

“And he didn’t make any mention at all of what book they copied?” Nicci asked. “Not even an indication?”

Berdine shook her head. “That’s the part that gave me the goose bumps. But there was more there than his words.”

“What do you mean?” Nicci asked, impatiently.

“You know how when you work forever at translating someone’s writing, you come to be able to see their mood, see their meaning, see their train of thought even if they didn’t write it down? Well”—she pulled her brown braid over her shoulder, twiddling with the end of it—“I could tell by the way he said it that he was afraid to even write down the name of a book so secret, so important, that it was never to be copied. It was like he was walking on eggshells even mentioning it in his journal.”

Richard thought that she certainly had a good point.

Berdine came to a halt before a tall iron door that was painted black. “Here’s where I found the books that mention the cental sites being with the bones—whatever that means.”

“The place I found was in catacombs,” Richard said.

Berdine frowned as she considered. “That might explain that much of it.”

“Nathan told me,” Nicci said in a low voice, looking between Richard and Berdine, “that he believes that there were catacombs beneath the Palace of the Prophets, and that the palace itself was built there in part to conceal what was buried.”

The soldiers slowed to a halt, collecting in a knot a short distance back up the hall. Richard noticed Berdine watching them.

“Why don’t you wait out here with your men?” Berdine called back to General Trimack. “I have to go in the library and show Lord Rahl some books. I think maybe you should guard the hall and make sure that no one is sneaking about.”

The general nodded and started ordering his men to take up stations throughout the passages. Berdine pulled a key out of the top of her outfit.

“In here I found a book that gave me nightmares.”

She looked back at Richard and then unlocked the door.

Nicci leaned close to Richard’s ear. “This place is shielded.” Her tone was tight with suspicion.

“But she’s not gifted,” Richard whispered back. “She can’t get through shields. If it’s shielded, then how is she able to get in?”

Berdine, hearing them, waggled the key after she pulled it back out of the lock. “I have the key. I knew where Darken Rahl kept it hidden.”

Nicci lifted an eyebrow as she looked back at Richard. “The key just shut down the shields to the door. I’ve never seen such a thing before.”

“It must have been designed to give access to trusted aides or scholars who weren’t gifted,” Richard guessed. He turned back to Berdine as she worked at opening the lever on the heavy door.

“By the way, did you learn anything else about Baraccus?”

“Not much,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. “Except that Magda Searus, the woman who became the first Confessor, had once been married to him.”

Richard could only stare at her. “How does she know these things?” he muttered to himself.

“What?” Berdine asked.

“Nothing,” he said, dismissing it with a wave before flicking the hand at the door. “So what is it that you found in here?”

“Something that connected with what Kolo said.”

“You mean about this book that wasn’t supposed to be copied.”

Berdine merely gave Richard a sly smile as she tucked the key down into a pocket inside the top of her outfit, then pushed open the black door.