More to the point, he knew that he must.
It took him a long time, but he finally managed to uncurl himself and get to his feet. He stood motionless in the shadows of his corner and scanned the warehouse from end to end for signs of life. When he was satisfied it was safe to do so, he started for the nearest opening, a broad gap in the west wall that offered the most direct route back through the city. He felt parched and light-headed, and his hands were shaking. To calm himself, he reached up for the phoenix stone, remembering suddenly that it was there, hanging about his neck. He did not know whether it would work if he was threatened, but it reassured him to know he had something he could fall back on, even if he was uncertain it would be of any use.
He wondered suddenly, dismally, what had become of Bek. His friend Bek, who had done so much to encourage and support him on their voyage out of Arborlon. Was he dead with all the others? Were any of them alive back there? He knew he should go back and find out. He knew, as well, that he couldn’t.
Brave Elven Prince! he chided himself in fury and sadness. Your brother was right about you!
He reached the opening and stepped out into the daylight. The ruins stretched away in all directions in sprawling sameness, stark and empty. He waited a moment to see if anyone would appear, if there was anything to be heard. But the city seemed empty and lifeless, a jumble of stone and metal and encroaching weeds and scrub. Not even a bird flew overhead in the cloudless blue sky.
He began to walk, slowly at first, almost gingerly, trying not to make any noise, still on the verge of panic, fighting to keep himself together. He had no weapons save for a long knife belted at his waist and the phoenix stone. If he was attacked, his only real defense was to run. The knowledge that it was all he could rely on wasn’t very reassuring, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wished he had his sword back, that he hadn’t thrown it down when he fled. But then he wished a lot of other things, as well, that couldn’t be. Instinct kept him moving when his conscience whispered that he didn’t deserve even to be alive.
He’d gone only a few steps when tears filled his eyes once more. How proud he had been of himself that he was chosen to go on the expedition. How certain he had been that it would give him the chance he needed to prove himself. A Prince of the Realm, destined perhaps to be a King—it would all be made so clear on the journey. Even Ard Patrinell had believed it, had taught him to believe it while teaching him how to survive those who did not. Yet what had he done for his friend and mentor when it mattered? He had run like a coward, fled in a rush of panic and despair, abandoned his friends and his principles and all his hopes for what might be.
You are despicable!
He kept walking, wiping the tears from his eyes, swallowing his sobs, thinking that he must be brave now, that he must try to regain some small measure of self-worth. He was alive when others were not, and he must try to make something of that gift. He did not know how he would do that or why it would matter after what had happened, but he knew he must at least try.
The sun beat down on him, and soon he was sweating freely. He blinked against the brightness and moved into the shadows, staying close to sheltering walls to gain a measure of coolness. He thought he was going the right way, but could not be sure. He did not see anything that looked familiar—or perhaps it was just that everything looked the same. At least there were no creepers about. In the wake of his passage, nothing moved.
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, he caught sight of something that did. He caught only a glimpse of it, a flicker of movement, no more, and then it was gone. He pressed himself back into the shadows and went still, waiting to see if he would spot it again. He did so, only seconds later, another glimpse, but enough to tell him more. It was someone human, slender and robed, sliding along the walls as he had been doing, a little off to one side of where he stood. He debated what to do. His impulse was to flee or hide, anything to avoid an encounter. But then he realized that it might be a member of the company, someone as lost as he was and looking for a way out of their shared nightmare. He let the other person come closer, trying to make out who it was, barely breathing in case he was making a mistake.
Then the other stepped into a patch of bright sunlight, and he saw her face clearly.
“Ryer Ord Star!” he called to her, keeping his voice low and guarded, still mindful of the things that might be hunting him.
She turned toward him instantly, hesitated, saw him standing back in the shadows, and moved over to him. He was surprised at how calm she looked, her face composed and her violet eyes untroubled. She had always looked somewhat ethereal, but just then she seemed oddly distant, as well—as if she were seeing beyond him to another place, as if in her mind she were already there.
She reached for his hand and took it in her own, surprising him. “Elven Prince, you are alive,” she whispered. There was genuine relief in her voice, and it made him ashamed to know that she thought better of him than he deserved. “You shouldn’t be out here alone,” she continued urgently, her grip on his hand tight. “It is very dangerous. Where are the others?”
He took a quick breath to steady himself. “Dead, I think. I’m not really sure.”
She glanced around quickly, her long, silver hair shimmering in bright waves. “There are Mwellrets back that way, a large company of them.” She pointed from where she had come. “I think they might be following me.”
“Mwellrets?” he repeated in confusion.
“From Black Moclips. They’ve come ashore to hunt us down, all of us that remain. The Ilse Witch came with them, but she’s gone now. She found us in a clearing where the Elven Tracker left us—”
“You mean Tamis?” he interrupted excitedly. “Is Tamis with you?”
“She was, but she left to find help. Bek was with me, too, but when the Ilse Witch found us, there was a confrontation between them. I’m not sure what happened, but Bek disappeared and she went after him. In the confusion, I slipped away. But the Mwellrets will have missed me by now and be searching. That was what the witch told them they were to do—to find all of us who weren’t dead and make us prisoners, then take us to Black Moclips and hold us there until she returned.”
Ahren stared at her. Accepting that the Ilse Witch had somehow made it through the Squirm and come down the channel to the cove, what was all this about a confrontation with Bek? Why would she be hunting him?
“Hsst!” she signaled in warning, clasping his hand in hers once more. “We have to go now! Quickly! They’re coming!”
She drew him from his concealment, back the way he had just come, and he pulled up sharply. “No, wait, I’m not going back there!”
“You have to! They’re sweeping all of the ruins! They’ll find you otherwise!”
“But I can’t!” he whispered in desperation. “I can’t!”
She stopped tugging on his hand and released it. “Do what you wish, Elven Prince. But if you stay here, they will find you. Hiding won’t help. Mwellrets can sense you better than most creatures can, and they will search you out.” She stepped close. Her violet eyes were steady and searching. “Come with me.”
He wasn’t sure what made him decide to follow, but he did so, abandoning his shelter and hurrying after her. He glanced back several times without seeing anything, but his instincts told him she was telling the truth.
“What about Bek?” he asked after a few moments, keeping his voice low and his head bent toward hers as they slipped through the ruins. “Is he all right? Did you say the Ilse Witch is tracking him, that she’s gone after him on her own?”
The seer nodded. “Bek is unhurt. His magic and his courage ward him. Perhaps she will find it difficult to overcome both.”
“His magic? What magic?” The Elf hurried to keep up with her. “Wait a minute. Are you saying she’s tracking him because he has some sort of magic?”
Ryer Ord Star grasped his arm and pulled him close to her. “She is his sister, Elven Prince.” She registered the shock in his eyes
and tightened her grip. “Walker told him just before we arrived, but Bek kept it to himself. When she appeared in the clearing, he told her who he was. The Ilse Witch did not believe him. She cannot. That was the cause of the confrontation between them. She hunts him now because she can’t get the truth out of her mind, even if she doesn’t accept it. She thinks that if she can confront him once more, he will admit he lied to her. Or perhaps she realizes there is something to what he says. Now walk more quickly!”
They moved ahead, faster, back through the buildings and rubble, back toward the trap they had been lucky to escape once already and were now braving again. Ahren Elessedil’s mind spun with the revelations about Bek, but his thoughts were made jumbled and confused by his fear. He knew that by going back, he was tempting fate in a way he would regret. He did not really think he could survive another encounter with the creepers, whatever Ryer Ord Star believed. But he could not let this slip of a girl return alone, leaving him behind to remember he had failed her as well as Ard Patrinell and his Elven Hunters. He kept thinking he could find a way to cause her to reconsider, to change her mind, and to turn her aside. But she was strong-minded and determined, and for the moment, at least, he would have to do what she wanted.
It took them much less time than he had expected to reach the square they had fled only hours earlier. It sat still and empty in the bright midday light, its maze of walls back in place, metal sheeting baking in the heat. Ahren cast about for signs of those who had been left behind. There was no one to be seen anywhere. There were no signs that a battle had been fought, no bodies, not a trace of blood, not a scar from the fire threads, not a piece of stray metal from one of the creepers. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
“How can this be?” he whispered to her in shock.
She shook her head slowly, staring out at the clean, empty expanse with him. “I don’t know.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. There was no sign of the Mwellrets. “What do we do now?” he asked.
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 prickled 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 abutted 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 brushing 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 bypassed 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 spaces, 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 reassurance. 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 shifting toward the dark tower at the center of the maze. “We begin looking for Walker.”
Ahren Elessedil stared at Ryer Ord Star with no small a
mount 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-assured. “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?”