Richard caught sight of Lauretta hurrying toward them from across the library. “Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl!” She was waving a piece of paper. “There you are. I’m so glad I found you here.”
Richard stood as she came to a breathless halt. “What is it?”
She put a hand to her chest as she panted a moment, catching her breath. She thrust out a folded piece of paper.
“I had another prophecy for you. I wrote it down like always. I was going to put it with the others for safekeeping until I saw you again, but here you are.”
Richard unfolded the piece of paper. It had only one word on it.
“What is it?” Zedd asked.
Richard handed him the paper. Zedd’s brow drew down as he read the single word on the paper.
“And do you have any inkling as to what this means?” he asked the woman as he handed the paper to Nathan.
She shook her head.
The tall prophet read the single word silently and then looked up. “Just like Sabella.”
Zedd peered down at Richard. “Any idea what it could mean?”
Richard sighed. “I’m afraid—”
He stopped as icy realization washed over him.
He tossed his pen on the table and raced for the door.
“Come on!” he called back over his shoulder. “I know what it means! I know where the fire is!”
Zedd, Nathan, and Berdine ran to follow after him. Even Lauretta raced to catch up.
CHAPTER 39
As he ran down the service hallway, Richard could smell the smoke. Such a familiar smell when it came from campfires had always offered warmth and protection, but in the palace such an acrid smell carried terrifying implications. When he slid around the last corner he saw it billowing up thick and dark from under a door down the hall.
Berdine clutched his sleeve in one hand to prevent him from getting ahead of her. Whenever there was even a hint of trouble, all of the Mord-Sith did what ever they could to stay as close as possible to him. Berdine had lost her bubbly demeanor, turning as implacable as any of the Mord-Sith when there was a threat. From time to time as she ran, she spun her Agiel up into her fist, as if to reassure herself that it was there at the ready.
Down the hallway beyond the smoke, Richard spotted men of the First File running in from the other direction. Several of them had buckets. Water slopped out as they ran, splashing across the wood floor. Several women, awakened at the early hour by the commotion, had come out of their rooms to stand in their doorways, clutching nightgowns at their throats in fright as they watched soldiers racing past.
“What is it?” Nathan asked as he rounded the corner and caught up. Zedd was right on his heels.
Richard pointed. “It’s Lauretta’s place. It’s on fire.”
Lauretta stumbled to a halt, gasping for breath. Her short, rapid gait had left her face bright red and her hair in disarray.
“My room!” She swallowed, trying to get enough air. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “My prophecies!”
The soldiers with the buckets kicked open the door. Black smoke laced with crackling sparks and burning pieces of paper rolled out into the hall and along the ceiling. Flags of flame unfurled out along the ceiling of the hallway. The soldiers heaved water in through the open doorway. From the amount of smoke and the heat from the flames, Richard didn’t think their buckets of water were going to be anywhere near enough.
Lauretta screamed when she saw the soldiers throwing water into her room. She pushed past Zedd and Nathan. “No! You’ll ruin my prophecies!”
Richard knew that it was too late to worry about that. Besides, water was not the real threat to her prophecies. He caught Lauretta’s arm and dragged her to a halt. He knew that if left to her own devices she would run into the burning room to try to save her precious prophecies. As thick as the smoke was, and as heavily as she was breathing, she would have been overcome in mere seconds.
The heat, even at a distance, was withering. Richard was relieved that the palace was made mostly of stone. Still, parts of it, like the floors under them and beams above, were wood. They needed to put out the fire as quickly as possible.
More soldiers raced up with yet more buckets of water. They ran in toward the door, turned their faces away from the heat, and heaved the water in. Angry, hot flames licked out through the open door in defiance of the water. As Richard had suspected, such an effort was hopelessly in effective.
Zedd knew it, too. He rushed past Richard and down the hall, ducking under the lowering black smoke hugging the ceiling to make his way toward the doorway into the inferno.
Urging soldiers back out of the way with one arm, he cast the other out toward the open door as yet more smoke and flames poured out. Richard could see the air waver before Zedd’s hand, forcing the smoke back into the room, but more flames boiled out of the doorway, as if to chase the wizard away. The heat drove Zedd back.
“Bags! My gift is too weak in this place.”
