His voice trailed off as his grandfather stared at him. "You know what I mean. I trust Cara with my life, now, and she has proven worthy of my trust. I trust Nicci the same. I trust them both with my life."

Zedd finally gripped Richard's shoulder and gave it an affectionate joggle. "I guess I do know what you mean. Since I gave you the Sword of Truth you've changed a great many things for the better. Why, I would never in my life have imagined that one day I'd happily be eating meals cooked by a Mord-Sith. And delicious meals they are, too." He caught himself and pointed at Cara. "If you tell her I said that I'll skin you alive. The woman is already incorrigible."

Cara only smiled.

Zedd redirected his gaze to Nicci. He didn't have that raptorlike Rahl quality, but in its own way it was just as disarming and looked to have the potential to be just as disturbing.

"Welcome, sorceress. If Richard says you are a friend, then you are. Sorry to get so huffy."

Nicci smiled. "Perfectly understandable. I didn't like myself back then either. I was under the influence of dark delusions. I was called Death's Mistress for good reason." Nicci gazed into Richard's gray eyes. "Your grandson brought me to see the beauty of life."

Zedd smiled proudly. "Yes, that's it exactly. The beauty of life."

Richard pounced on the opening. "And life is what this is about. Zedd, listen, I need.»

"Yes, yes," Zedd said, waving off Richard's impatience. "You always need something. Haven't been back long enough to get in the door and already you want to know something. If I recall correctly, the first word you ever spoke was 'why.

"Come on, then, come inside. I want to know why you don't have the Sword of Truth with you. I know you wouldn't let anything happen to it, but I want to hear the whole story. Don't leave out a thing. Come along, then."

Motioning them all to follow, Richard's grandfather climbed the stairs toward the doorway.

"Zedd! I need.»

"Yes, yes, my boy. You need something. I heard you the first time. I think it looks like rain. No use getting started when we're about to get wet. Come inside and I will hear what you have to say." Zedd's voice began echoing as he disappeared into the darkness. "You look like you could use a meal. Is anyone else hungry? Reunions always give me an appetite."

Richard's arms dropped, his hands flopping against his thighs in frustration. He sighed and then hurried up the steps after his grandfather. Nicci knew that had it been anyone else, Richard would have handled it quite differently. People who loved you, and had raised you since you were little, and had comforted you when you cried at a thunderstorm or the howl of a wolf tended to be disarming to deal with. She could see that it was no different with Richard. His love of his grandfather tied his hands with unbreakable ropes of respect.

It was a view of Richard Nicci had never seen before, and one she found quite endearing. Here was the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D'Haran Empire, the Seeker of Truth, a man who could make just about anyone tremble with a look, brought to flustered silence by a kindly if bewildering lecture. Had the matters involved not been so serious, Nicci would have been unable to keep herself from grinning at Richard's utter helplessness before such a frail-looking old man.

The sound of water reverberated inside the dark anteroom. Zedd cast a hand casually to the side and a lamp on the wall lit. At the ignition of the flame Nicci recognized the reiteration of a spark of power that marked it as a key lamp. With a succession of whooshing sounds, starting on both sides of the entrance, hundreds of lamps around the vast room lit in pairs. Each whoosh as a pair of lamps caught flame was followed almost simultaneously by another as the lamps around the huge room each took to flame from the engendering magic initiated by the key lamp, the effect being a ring of fire seeming to dance its way around the room. Nicci knew that it would have worked the same had someone lit that particular lamp with a flame rather than magic. The light in the room swelled, and in a span of seconds the anteroom was nearly as bright as day.

A clover-leaf-shaped fountain stood centered in the tiled floor. Water spouted high into the air above the top bowl, from where it cascaded down each successive tier of ever wider, scalloped bowls, finally running from points around the bottom bowl in perfectly matched arcs into the surrounding pool contained by an outer wall of variegated white marble made wide enough to act as a bench.

All the way around the oval-shaped room, highly polished, deep red marble columns stood below arches supporting a continuous balcony. A hundred feet overhead a section of glassed roof let in some of the somber, late-day light to balance the glow of the lamps down in the heart of the room. At night, the glassed roof would probably also let in the soft cold light of the moon to give the darkened room a spectral feel, but with it being the new moon, to say nothing of the gathering clouds, there would be no moonlight this night. By the look of the sky through the glassed roof section, Nicci thought that Zedd was right; it did look like it might rain.

Belying first impressions of the Keep, the room was a beautiful, warm entrance to what seemed such a cold and austere exterior. It hinted at the life the place once held. Like the forsaken city down in the valley, Nicci was rather saddened by the emptiness.

"Welcome to the Wizard's Keep. Perhaps we all should.»

"Zedd," Richard growled, cutting his grandfather short, "I need to talk to you. Right now. It's important."

Beloved grandfather or not, Nicci could see that Richard was at the end of his patience. Tight, white knuckles stood out in stark contrast against his tanned skin and the prominent veins on the backs of his fists. Judging by the way he looked, he hadn't gotten much sleep in recent days or had much to eat. She didn't think that she had ever seen him looking this exhausted or this near his wits' end. Cara, as well, looked well past the limits of her endurance, although she did a good job of covering it; Mord-Sith were trained to ignore physical discomfort. Despite being overjoyed at seeing his grandfather, Richard's preoccupation with finding the woman from his imagination had cut the pleasantries of the reunion short.

The mad rush that had become life, since that day he had been shot with the arrow and had nearly died, seemed to have come down to this moment.

Zedd blinked in innocent surprise. "Well of course, Richard, of course." He spread his arms as he spoke in a gentle voice. "You know that you can always talk to me. Whatever is on your mind, you know that.»

"What's Chainfire?"

That was nearly the first thing he had asked of Nicci, too.

Zedd stood unmoving, a blank look on his face. "Chainfire," he repeated in a flat tone.

"Yes, Chainfire."

A serious expression weighing on his face, Zedd considered the question with care, turning toward the fountain as he thought it over. The waiting was almost painful. The fountain burbled and splashed and echoed in the otherwise silent room.

"Chainfire," Zedd drawled to himself as he ran a sticklike finger along his smooth jawbone while staring into the tumbling, dancing water cascading down each successive tier of the fountain. Nicci stole a glance at Cara, but the Mord-Sith was unreadable. Her drawn face looked as tired and ill-fed as Richard's, but, being Cara, she stood tall and straight, not allowing her exhaustion to get the better of her.

"That's right. Chainfire," Richard said impatiently through gritted teeth. "Do you know what it means?"

Zedd turned back to his grandson, lifting open his hands. He looked not only puzzled but apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Richard, but I've never heard the word Chainfire before."