Chosen Ones by Alister E. McGrath

explosion in the Great Hal !”
    Julia was very close to tears, and it may have turned into a nasty fight indeed had Julia not at that moment realized that she’d left her cloak in the Great Hal . It had lain loosely about her shoulders and, when she had flung herself to the side during the explosion, it had fal en off. She hated to leave it down there where it might be trampled on and she wanted an excuse to get Peter out of her sight, so she announced shortly that she would return soon and fled the chamber.
    She stalked moodily down the corridors and down the massive flights of stairs, wishing a little desperately that she had never seen a silver glow in the garden. She didn’t know what to do or how to rescue any slaves—and, at the moment, didn’t see any reason why she ought to bother. And Peter, throwing around tough words and explosions when he didn’t understand what was going on…Peter was just impossible.
    It was in such a mood that she once again reached the Great Hal .
    Something stopped her from entering—even from knocking. There were voices within. She pressed her ear to the door and listened intently, struggling to hear what they were saying. One voice was
    dominant—a
    menacing
    hiss
    that
    she
    immediately recognized as the Wolf.
    “But there is stil the risk of revolt from the slaves to deal with,” he was saying. “The scouts are stil hearing rumors of runaway slaves in the great forest of the west. You wil recal that the detachment of guards we sent to find them two months ago never came back, and I fear…” There was a long pause. “I fear those slaves in the forest could be the nucleus of a revolt.”
    Another, more rasping, voice took over the conversation. The Jackal.
    “But with this new weapon we can destroy those slaves in the forest. It wil be the end of any revolt!”
    “The slaves are not stupid,” agreed a third voice. “They’l fal into line as soon as we show our strength. We’re safe.”
    Julia could hear the unmistakable sound of wine being poured from a bottle into glasses, fol owed by sounds of clinking and coarse laughter. She had heard enough. She melted back into the shadows and retraced her steps to the bedchamber.

CHAPTER
8
    P eter watched Julia go with a sense of relief. There had been nothing at al wrong with showing off the gunpowder—nothing wrong with demonstrating that he was a force to be reckoned with.
    He stalked brusquely out of the room and stomped down the corridors. Girls! What use were they—so emotional, so unscientific! He would show her! He would figure out the riddle of this place!
    He stopped a robed figure in the hal s and asked the way to the library. He was pointed silently towards the north tower of the castle, and, after a few minutes of searching through dark and dusty corridors, he happened upon it.
    The library he found could have graced an English country house, but it was far grander and more magnificent. Books were stacked as far up as the eye could see, shelves upon shelves of them—
    books on every topic imaginable. Peter looked up and up and up, breathing in the leather-bound scent of it al .
    There was a short “ahem!” and a clearing of the throat somewhere to his right, and Peter glanced around. Seated at an enormous oak desk was a thin, bespectacled man who could only be the librarian.
    Peter approached him slowly, trying to size him up. He noted his ink-stained fingers, the pencil behind his right ear, and a large leather book ful of annotations on his desk. The man looked irritated at the intrusion. It seemed, Peter thought to himself, that the library did not have a great many users.
    “Wel ? What do you want? I’m very busy at the moment, so make it quick.”
    “I’m Peter,” he said simply. “From…from Albion.” He caught himself stumbling and tried to sound a great deal grander. “I was wondering if I might look around for just a bit.”
    The librarian peered over his spectacles at him, his alert eyes