Part 5 (1/2)

She looked about momentarily, then took his hand in hers once more. ”Follow me. Don't speak, don't do anything but what I do. Don't run, whatever happens.”

Still holding tightly to his hand, she squared her slender shoulders, and walked out into the maze.

His shock was complete, and perhaps that was why he went with her without protest. Fighting down a surge of fear and horror that crowded into his throat, his eyes cast right and left for creepers and his skin p.r.i.c.kled as he waited for the fire threads to burn him. She penetrated only a few yards into the deadly square before turning aside to skirt its edges, moving carefully across the metal flooring, staying clear of the shadows and well out into the bright sunlight. They moved as one, making no sound, no unnecessary movement, not speaking, barely breathing. Ahren thought he was a dead man already, but in an act of faith that surprised him completely, he gave himself over to the seer.

What surprised him even more was that nothing happened. They worked their way just inside the perimeter of the maze until they were about a quarter of the distance around, almost even with the northern facing of the dark tower that dominated its center. Once there, the seer led him just outside again into a deeply shadowed concealment formed by what remained of the walls and roofing of a collapsed building that ab.u.t.ted the square.

Atop a pile of rubble that looked out through a narrow gap in a wall on the landscape through which they had come, they crouched and waited.

”Why weren't we attacked?” he asked in a whisper, still cautious, pressing close to her slender form, his lips brus.h.i.+ng her hair. ”Because what wards the tower attacks only when there is a perceived threat to its security.” Her violet eyes glistened as she turned to look at him. ”Walker was a threat, so it attacked him first and then the rest of us. Had we bypa.s.sed the square and the tower, we would have been safe.”

He stared at her. ”How do you know this?” Her pale, youthful face turned away. ”I dreamed it,” she answered quietly. ”In a vision, in my search for Walker.”

He didn't say anything for a long time after that, mulling over her words while watching the ruins for signs of movement. Where were the Mwellrets? Why hadn't they appeared?

”Do you think Tamis found any of the others?” he asked finally. ”Did you see what became of them after we were attacked? What about Quentin Leah's group?”

She shook her head wordlessly. Her eyes remained directed away from him, out toward the city. He studied her carefully. ”They're all dead, aren't they? You've dreamed that, as well.” ”Not Walker Boh,” she said softly.

Before he could press her further, he caught sight of the Mwellrets moving through the ruins, dark forms sliding along walls and across empty s.p.a.ces, little more than an extension of the shadows to which they clung. Ryer Ord Star gripped his arm anew, and she pressed against him in warning or, perhaps, in rea.s.surance. He held himself still, his former composure regained at least in part from having survived yesterday's attack and the return. He did not feel in the least invincible, but neither did he feel quite so vulnerable either. What he had lost in the attack that had claimed his friends had been restored in small part by his tightrope walk with the seer back through the maze to this hiding place. Before, he had thought that any kind of survival was momentary at best and undeserved. Now, he believed he might still be alive for a reason, that he might be alive because there was something he could accomplish.

Ryer Ord Star leaned close to him, her face almost touching his. ”Don't worry,” she whispered, as if to keep him calm and in place. ”They won't find us.”

The Mwellrets snaked through the city in increasing numbers, as many as twenty of them, appearing and disappearing like wraiths, cloaked forms blending with the shadows as they advanced. When they reached the maze, unaware of its dangers, they barely slowed. Using the walls for shelter in the same way the members of Walker's company had done, they entered the square in ones and twos, hunched over and faceless within their robes and hoods, reptilian bodies easing ahead cautiously. Deeper and deeper into the maze they penetrated, and nothing happened.

Ahren glanced quickly at Ryer Ord Star, his brow creased in worry. How had they managed to get so far in? The seer's gaze, calm and untroubled, remained fixed on the maze and the Mwellrets. Her fingers tightened on the Elven Prince's arm.

All at once the maze exploded in a burst of fire threads, deadly red lines crisscrossing everywhere at once, catching the Mwellrets in a web of destruction. An odd mix of hisses and shrieks rose from the trapped creatures as they sought to evade the burning ropes and failed. A handful were sliced to ribbons in the first few seconds, robes catching fire as they twisted and turned in a futile effort to flee, scorching and burning bodies collapsing in lifeless heaps. The men and women from the Jerle Shannara had sought to go to Walker's aid, but the Mwellrets simply abandoned their stricken companions, fleeing back through the maze in short bursts of dark robes and sudden movement. They were gone so quickly that in a matter of seconds they had vanished as if swallowed by the city.

Ahren and Ryer Ord Star remained where they were, motionless, eyes scanning the ruins in all directions. Perhaps six of the Mwellrets lay dead below them, their crumpled dark shapes visible within the maze of walls. Of those who had fled, there was no sign at all. The fire threads had ceased their deadly tracking, leaving behind smoke trails that rose from scarred ruts in the otherwise smooth metal surfaces of the walls and flooring. The creepers had never appeared at all.

Ryer Ord Star released her grip on Ahren's wrist. ”They won't be back anytime soon,” she said softly.

He nodded in agreement. Not after that, they wouldn't. They would wait for the Ilse Witch to return. ”What do we do now?” he asked.

She rose without looking at him, her eyes s.h.i.+fting toward the dark tower at the center of the maze. ”We begin looking for Walker.”

EIGHT.

Ahren Elessedil stared at Ryer Ord Star with no small amount of incredulity. What in the name of everything sane was she talking about? Look for Walker? She'd said it as if it was the most obvious and reasonable suggestion in the world. But Ahren didn't find it to be either. He thought she'd lost her mind.

”What are you saying?” was all he could manage.

The words came out in a sort of threatening hiss, and she turned to look at him at once. ”I have to find him, Elven Prince,” she said, her own voice maddeningly calm and self-a.s.sured. ”It's where I was going when you found me.”

”But you don't know where he is!” Ahren exclaimed in dismay. ”You don't even know where to look!”

She knelt again, facing him, her violet eyes boring into him with a look of unmistakable determination and certainty. She looked so young, so impossibly vulnerable, that the idea of her undertaking so dangerous a task seemed at once preposterous and foolish.

”You may not have seen what happened to him during the attack,” she began quietly, ”but I did. I ran into the ruins after him, knowing he was in danger from more than the creepers and the fire threads. The visions had warned me of this place, and I understood the threat to him better than any of you did. I was struck by one of the threads and prevented from reaching him, but I saw what happened. He went on alone, past fire threads and creepers, through all the smoke and confusion. He reached the tower at the center of the maze, found a doorway, and disappeared inside. He did not come out again. He is still in there somewhere.”

Ahren felt his exasperation building. ”Maybe so. Maybe you saw everything you say. Maybe Walker is inside that tower. But how are we supposed to get to him? Fire threads and creepers attack everyone who tries to get close. There isn't any way past those things! You've seen what happened to us and to the Mwellrets, as well! Besides, even if you somehow managed to get all the way up to that tower, how are you going to get in? You don't have a Druid's powers. Don't tell me the door will just open for you. And if it did, that wouldn't be good news either, would it? Why would you even think of doing something this . . . this ridiculous?”

He was almost shouting, and his breath was ragged as he cut himself off and rocked back on his heels. ”You can't do this!” A surge of fear washed through him as he imagined trying. ”I won't help you,” he finished in a rush.

She gave him such a patient, understanding look that he wanted to shake her. She hadn't heard a word he'd said, or if she had, she hadn't paid him the least attention.

But then she surprised him by saying, ”Everything you say is true, Ahren Elessedil.”

He stared at her, not knowing what to say. ”Then you'll give up on this idea, won't you? Come with me instead, back to the coast. We can wait for the Jerle Shannara there. We can hide until she returns. Maybe we can find Tamis again, maybe one or two others who might have escaped. They can't all be dead, can they? What about Bek? Won't he try to find his way back to that clearing?”

She brushed back her long hair and folded her hands into her lap, tucking them between her legs like a little girl. Her violet eyes were depthless and filled with pain as they fixed on him. He was suddenly certain that although she was no older than he was, her experience with life's vicissitudes was far greater than his own.

”Let me tell you something about Walker and me,” she said quietly. ”Something I haven't told anyone. When we left the island of Shatterstone and he was sick from its poison, I sat with him in his cabin. Bek was there, as well. Joad Rish was doing everything he knew to help Walker, but nothing was working. After several days it became clear to all of us that Walker was dying. The poison was in too deep, and it was infused with the magic of that place and the spirit who warded it. Walker's own magic could not give him sufficient protection against what was happening. He couldn't make himself well again without help.”

She smiled. ”So I used my own skills to heal him. I am a seer, but an empath, as well. My empathic powers allow me to absorb the hurt in others so that they can better mend. It is a draining and debilitating effort, but I knew there was no other choice. Know this, Elven Prince. I would have died gladly for him. He is special to me in a way you know nothing about and I don't care to discuss. What matters is that in healing him, I formed a link with his subconscious. I think it was intentional on his part, but I cannot be sure. I became joined to him through the bond created by my willingness to give up something of my life in order to save his. It happens now and then with empaths, though usually it fades after the healing is finished. It did not do so here. It continued. It continues now.”

He studied her carefully in the silence that followed. ”Are you saying Walker is communicating with you? That you can hear him speaking?”

”After a fas.h.i.+on, yes. Not words exactly. More a presence that comes and goes and suggests things. He is there in my mind, whispering to me that he is alive and well. I can feel him. I can sense him reaching out to me. It is the link we share, he and I, forged of a blending of our lives, of our magic, of the experience shared when he was dying and I saved him.”

She paused. ”Do you remember when he was trapped on Shatterstone and Bek warned us he needed help? Walker called to him because Bek shares his magic, and he can reach out to Bek when it is needed. A Druid's tool. But I heard it, too. Walker didn't call to me, but I heard his voice in my mind, as well. Because we're linked, Elven Prince. I hear his voice now, except that this time it is meant for me and no other. He speaks to me through images, fragments of what he is experiencing. He is in trouble, trapped underground, beneath these ruins, beneath that tower. He is deep in a maze of catacombs that lie below this city. Castledown is not up here, Elven Prince. It is down there.”

”So the treasure and whatever wards it-”

”Is there, as well, the one secreted away, the other watching everything, controlling what happens aboveground as well as below. Walker tells me this in his images, in my visions and dreams, but in my subconscious, as well. He doesn't tell me everything, because he does not feel safe doing so. But he tells me what he can, what he must. He is in trouble, and he clings to me as he might a broken spar on a s.h.i.+pwrecked sea. He is adrift and lost, and I am his lifeline back.”

She waited for his response. He did not have one to give. He wasn't sure if he believed it all or not. She might be confused, misled, or delusional from the events of yesterday afternoon. She seemed lucid and a.s.sured, but you couldn't always tell another person's state of mind from the way they looked and sounded.

”Is he asking you to come to him?” he said finally.

Suddenly she seemed confused, as if the question had presented a new dilemma for her. ”No,” she replied after a moment. ”He clings to me without revealing I am here. It is a reaching that asks nothing of me.” Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

”But I will go to him anyway. I will because I must. There is no one else, no one left but me. And you, if you will go with me.”

He would do no such thing, Ahren thought, certain that it was suicide to go back into the maze under any circ.u.mstances. He was filled with dread at the prospect and riddled with fear by his memories of that encounter. He couldn't help himself. He was still fighting to come to terms with his failure to fight, his abandonment of his friends, and the shame he felt as a result of both. But even his growing desire to redeem himself was not enough to make him go back into that maze. The best he could do for Ryer Ord Star was to convince her she was making a mistake.

”How will you get into that tower?” he asked, looking for a way to reach her.

She shook her head. ”I don't know.”

”If you do get in, how will you find Walker? If he isn't summoning you, isn't calling to you, how will you track him?”

”I don't know.”

”This whole city, ruins and all, is made of stone and metal. There are no tracks to follow. Look at the size of it. If it's only half this big underground, it will take weeks, maybe even months, to search it all. How are you going to know where to look?”