Terry Goodkind - Phantom - Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Zedd nodded. “A lot of books. That was where I found The Book of Inversion and Duplex .”

He took a few steps away to stare at the windows flickering with light from the storm beyond the containment field. “No one that I’m aware of ever knew the place of the bones was down there. I found it when I was a boy. I knew that no other person had been in there for ages. Not a single footprint had marred the dust on the floors in thousands of years. I was the first to make a mark in that dust of ages. I did not need to be told the significance of that fact.

“As a boy it rather frightened me to find those ancient catacombs. I was already spooked because I was trying to find a way to sneak back into the Keep. When I found the catacombs I knew instinctively that it would not be hidden as it was unless there was a good reason, so, as much as I wanted to at times, I never told anyone about it. I almost felt as if the place had allowed me entry, but in return required my silence. I not only took my attitude of responsibility seriously, I felt genuinely protective of such an undiscovered place. It contained, after all, the remains of a great many people—perhaps even my own ancestors. I knew that there were always those who would exploit such a find and I didn’t want that to happen to a place so clearly held in sacred regard by those who had hidden it.

“Added to that, I felt rather guilty for having disturbed such a burial place for the feeble reason of trying to sneak back in to avoid getting in trouble for having gone out without permission in the first place. I had slipped out of the Keep to go to the market down in Aydindril to look at all the exciting baubles being hawked there. It seemed so much more fascinating than the dry studies to which I was supposed to be devoting my time.

“After my chance discovery, I quietly asked veiled questions and found that not even the old wizards I knew had any knowledge of the place beneath the Keep. Over time, I came to realize that such a place was not even suspected, much less rumored to exist.

“As a boy, I had a lot of studies that took up nearly all my time. Back then, there were many people living in the Keep, and with my assignments I never had a chance to spend—in total—more than a couple of hours down there. I quickly found that there were many of the same books that we had up in the Keep, so, as a boy, I came to believe that it wasn’t as important a find as I had at first believed it to be.”

He smiled distantly. “I fancied myself a great explorer, discovering ancient treasures. This treasure was mostly bones and books. There were endless dry books up here in the Keep that I had to study, so yet more books wasn’t exactly as exciting as thoughts of constructed spells encased in amber, or jewel-encrusted curses. But there was none of that down there. Just crumbling bones and old books.

“There are rooms upon rooms down in the catacombs filled with dusty old books. I never had much time to explore those rooms. I can’t even begin to guess at the numbers of books hidden down there. I never had time to do more than look at a small sampling. As I said, many I’d seen before up in the Keep and of the ones I hadn’t, at such a young age, none of them impressed me enough to remember, except a few, such as The Book of Inversion and Duplex .

“When I grew up I fell in love with the most wonderful woman and soon she was my wife. She gave birth to the other light in my life, a daughter—who grew up to be Richard’s mother. As a young wizard working at the Keep, there was always more to do than there were hours in the day. There was no time to spend down among old bones.

“And then the world was cast into a terrible war with D’Hara. It was a dark time of terrible struggle. I had become First Wizard. The battles were gruesome as battles always are. I had to send men to die. I had to look into the eyes of wizards, young and old, that I knew were not up to the challenges, and tell them to do their best when I knew their best would not be good enough, and they would likely die in the effort. I knew in my heart that if I were to do it myself it would get done and I could make it work, but there were a lot of those kinds of tasks that needed to be done, and only one of me.

“At times, I found responsibility, knowledge, and ability were a curse. To look at all the innocent people counting on me as First Wizard, and know that if I failed they would die, was almost more than I could endure.

“In that respect, I know exactly what Richard is going through. I have been in his place. I have carried the world on my shoulders.”

He gestured to dismiss his melancholy departure from the subject at hand. “Anyway, with all my other responsibilities, the catacombs lay mostly forgotten, as they had for thousands of years before I ever came along. I simply had no time to look into what might be down there. From my limited search as a boy I believed that there was nothing to be found but old and comparatively unimportant books buried along with forgotten bones. There seemed to be so many more pressing matters of life and death.

“To me, the most important thing about the catacombs was that they provided a secret passage for me to enter the Keep. That passage came to be invaluable when the Sisters of the Dark took the Wizard’s Keep.

“Back when I was younger, after the war in which my wife had died, the council and I had a bitter dispute over the boxes of Orden. And then . . . Darken Rahl raped my daughter. So I left the Midlands—quit it for good—taking my daughter with me through the boundary to Westland. She was all I had left and all that mattered to me. I thought I would live out all my days beyond the boundary in Westland.

“Then Richard was born. I watched him grow. My daughter was so proud of him. I secretly worried that he had the gift, and fretted that forces from beyond the boundaries would one day come for him. And then, there was a fire and all of a sudden my daughter, Richard’s mother, was gone from my life, from Richard’s life.

“I turned to Richard for solace. I gave him everything I could that would help him be all he could be. I had some of the best times of my life with him.

“Unbeknownst to me as I did my best to forget the outside world, Ann and Nathan, driven by prophecy, had helped George Cypher recover The Book of Counted Shadows from the Wizard’s Keep. It had been stored in the First Wizard’s private enclave, where I had left it for safekeeping.”

“Wait a minute,” Nicci said, stopping his story. “You mean to tell me that The Book of Counted Shadows , one of the most important books in existence, was just lying around in the Keep?”

“Well,” he said, “not exactly ‘lying’ around. Like I said, it was in the First Wizard’s enclave. That’s more secure than the Keep in general and not exactly an easy place to breach.”

“If it’s so secure,” Nicci reminded him, “then how did Ann and Nathan and George Cypher get in to take the book?”

Zedd sighed as he looked up at her from under his bushy eyebrows. “Therein lies what has come to trouble me—the only copy of a book that important being that vulnerable—”

“That’s what Richard was going to tell you,” Nicci said with a sudden flash of comprehension. “That’s why he was in such a hurry to get back here—he said he had to get to you right away. That was the reason!”

Zedd frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She stepped closer to the wizard and pulled the small book from her pocket. “This is the book that Darken Rahl used to put the boxes of Orden in play—”

“It’s what!”

“This is the book that Darken Rahl used to put the boxes of Orden in play,” she repeated to the astonished wizard. “We found it at the People’s Palace. I promised Richard that I would study it and see if there was a way to undo what Sister Ulicia had done, see if there was a way to perhaps take the boxes of Orden back out of play. I tried to explain to Richard that magic doesn’t work that way, but you know Richard, he doesn’t so easily accept that something can’t be done.”