Sword of Truth 09 - Chainfire by Terry Goodkind

Author:Terry Goodkind
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Published: 2010-05-31T21:34:18+00:00

Chapter 34

"It's a complex route," Zedd told her.

Rikka arched an eyebrow. "Have you ever had to come find me because I got lost patrolling the Keep?"

Zedd realized that he hadn't. He knew very well how easy it was to become lost in the Keep. In fact, that was one of its defenses.

In several places when trying to travel through the Keep one came upon interconnected rooms numbering in the thousands. In those places there were no hallways except for the stairs going up or down. Passage through those three-dimensional mazes was necessary to get into several well protected areas. It was deceptively easy to become forever lost in the morass of those interconnected rooms. Even people who had grown up in the Keep could easily become lost in there.

An invader, unfamiliar with the place and if they went too deep into the labyrinth, faced a formidable challenge just to find their way back out, much less to make a passage all the way through, and then to escape. Once you had been through a few rooms, through a few doorways, it was amazing how similar everything looked. There were no windows to help and direction soon became meaningless. There was virtually no way to tell if you recalled seeing a room or a doorway before. One looked much like the last dozen you'd seen. There had been spies and such in the past who had become lost in the maze of rooms. In ages past it had not been entirely un usual to find a body in there.

Of course, not all those who intended harm were strangers. In the past some had been traitors.

"No, I guess you never have become lost," Zedd finally agreed. "Not yet, anyway. You've not been here long enough to begin to explore the majority of the place. There are dangers of every sort. Getting lost in the labyrinth that is the Keep is only one of the perils. Where we're going is like that. It's even easier to get lost down there. You will have to do your best to remember your way. I'll help you where I can."

Rikka nodded, seemingly unconcerned. "I'm good at remembering things like a series of turns. I memorize them when I patrol."

"Don't get overly confident. This is more complex than a series of turns. I myself have become lost in the Keep, and I grew up here. There is not only one right way to get where we're going. Sometimes the route you took the last time won't work this time because down in the lower reaches, of the Keep the shields sometimes shift by themselves to different passageways. It's part of their design to make it more difficult to go! through—for instance if a spy were to draw a map for their cohorts."

Unimpressed, Rikka shrugged. "I understand. The People's Palace is like that in some of the sections where the public isn't allowed—complex, with the open passages one can get through changing from time to time Additionally, there is no direct route to anywhere, even if all the passages happen to be open, which they never are.

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