The answer—show me the answer!
An image spread slowly across the mirrored surface, shimmering like a thing of transparency, then tightening. A tower room appeared, cavernous and flooded with musted, graying light, and there was an oppression that was almost palpable. Jair shrank from what he felt as he watched the room broaden and begin to draw him in.
And then the face of his sister appeared…
Brin Ohmsford felt the eyes looking at her, seeing all that she was and would become, then reaching to draw her close. Though wrapped within layers of magic as the power of the Ildatch built within her, she sensed the eyes and her own snapped up.
Stay from me! she howled. I am the dark child!
But that tiny part of her that the magic had not subverted knew the eyes and sought their help. Trapped thoughts broke from their shackles within her mind, fleeing like sheep from wolves that hunted, crying out and striving to reach shelter. She saw them, and the discovery filled her with fury. She reached for the scattered thoughts as they fled and she crushed them, one by one. Childhood, home, parents, friends—the disparate pieces of what she had been before she had found what she could be—she crushed them all.
Her voice found release then in a wail of anguish, and even the aged walls of the dark tower shook with the force of her keening. What had she done? There was pain within her now, brought about by the harm she had caused. A brief moment’s insight flooded through her, and she heard the echo of the Grimpond’s prophecy. It was her own death, indeed, that she had come into the Maelmord to find—that she had found! But it was not the death that she had supposed. It was the death of self through her entrapment by the magic! She was destroying herself!
But even in the horror of that realization, she could not release the Ildatch. She was caught up in the feel of the magic’s power as it built and expanded like flood waters gathering. Before her, she held the book in a death grip, hearing its dispassionate voice whisper in encouragement and promise. Her pain was forgotten. The eyes were swept away. There was only the voice. She listened to its words, unable not to, and the world began to open up before her…
At the basin of Heaven’s Well, Jair staggered back from the vision of his sister. Was it truly Brin whom he had seen? Horror flooded through him as he forced himself to view again the apparition that the waters had shown him. It was his sister, but twisted into a thing barely recognizable—a perversion of the human being she had once been. She was lost to herself—just as the King of the Silver River had said she would be.
And Allanon! Where was Allanon? Where was Rone? Had they failed her as he had failed her by reaching Heaven’s Well too late?
Tears streaked Jair Ohmsford’s face. It had come to pass as the old man had warned that it would—everything as he had foreseen. A terrible desperation filled the Valeman. He was all that was left. Allanon, Brin, Rone, the little company from Culhaven, all were gone.
“Boy, what is it that you do?” he heard Slanter call to him. “Get back from there and use what sense …”
Jair closed his ears and his mind to the rest of what the Gnome would have told him, his eyes fixing once more on the apparition in the basin’s waters. It was Brin that he saw there, however twisted. It was Brin, gone down into the Maelmord, drawn to the book of the Ildatch, subverted somehow by the magic she had come to destroy.
And he must go to her. Even if it were too late, he must try to help her.
He came to his feet again, remembering the final gift of the King of the Silver River. “Once only shall the magic of your wishsong be used to create not illusion, but reality.”
He brushed aside the confusion, horror, fear, and despair, and he sang. The music of the wishsong rose up in the stillness of the cavern, flooding the silence and drowning the sudden cries of protest that broke from Slanter’s throat. Pain and weariness faded into yesterday as he cried out for the wish. The brilliant white light of the basin waters shimmered again in the air above Heaven’s Well, and again the spray geysered skyward.
Slanter staggered away, blinded and deafened. When he finally looked back again, Jair Ohmsford had disappeared into the light.
45
There was a moment when Jair seemed to step outside of himself. He was within the light and yet he was gone from it. He passed through stone and space like an insubstantial ghost, and the whole of the land spun wildly about him. Brief images appeared out of that whirling mass. Slanter was there, his roughened yellow face staring in shock and disbelief at the empty basin from which Jair had passed. Garet Jax was locked in mortal combat with the red monster, his lean face alive with fierce determination and his dark form bloodied and torn. Gnome Hunters scurried in maddened confusion through the halls of Graymark, searching frantically for the intruders that had somehow eluded them. Helt had fallen in the gatehouse, his body pierced through by sword and pike. Foraker and the Elven Prince were ringed all about…
No more!
He screamed the words, wrenching at them like rooted things from the music of his song, and the images fell away. He plummeted downward, racing on the slick surface of the wishsong’s cry. He had to reach Brin!
Below, the tangle of the Maelmord lifted toward him. He could see its dark mass rising and falling like a thing alive and could hear the sound of its breathing, a loathsome hiss. Mountain walls swept past him as he fell, and he watched the jungle stretch out its arms to gather him in. Panic filled him. Then he plunged into the Maelmord; its gaping maw closed about him, the stench and the mist enveloped him, and everything disappeared.
Jair came back to himself slowly. Darkness lay across his vision like a shroud, and his head spun. He blinked, and the light returned. He was no longer falling through the vortex of the wishsong’s music or plummeting downward into the tangled dark of the Maelmord. His journey was finished. The stone walls of the tower he had sought to reach surrounded him, aged and crumbling. He stood within them, a part of the vision that the waters of the basin of Heaven’s Well had shown him.
“Brin!” he whispered harshly.
A figure turned, ringed in shadows and graying half-light, slight hands clasping firmly a massive, metalbound book.
Brin was a distortion of the woman she had once been, her features twisted almost beyond recognition. All of the exquisite beauty and vibrancy of form had hardened into something that might have been carved from stone. She was an apparition, her color drained away and her slight form skeletal and hunched down against the dark. Horror flooded through Jair. What had been done to her?
“Brin?” he called again, his voice faltering.
Wrapped in the frightening power of the Ildatch magic as it rushed to mix with her own, Brin was barely aware of the solitary figure who stood at the far side of the tower room. He called to her—a soft, familiar call. She fought back for an instant, through the layers of magic that wove about her to the reason that had fled deep within her, and memory returned. Jair! Ah, shades—it was Jair!
But the dark magic tightened again, stealing her back. The power surged through her, washing away all recognition of who it was she faced, bringing her back to the creature she had made herself become. Doubt and suspicion twisted through her, and the empty voice of the Ildatch whispered in warning.
—He is evil, dark child. A deception given life by the Wraiths. Keep him from you. Destroy him—
No, it is Jair … somehow he has come … Jair…
—He would steal the power that is ours. He would make us die—
No, Jair … has come…
—Destroy him, dark child. Destroy him—
She could not seem to help herself. Her resistance crumbled, and her voice lifted in a frightening wail. But Jair had seen the sudden look of hatred in his sister’s eyes, and he was already moving. He sang, his own magic shielding him as he slipped from himself and left behind an image. Even so, he barely escaped her. The explosion of sound that broke from Brin’s throat disintegrated the image and the wall behind it instantly and caught him up in
the aftershock, throwing him like an empty sack to the stone floor. Dust and silt swirled through the half-light, and the ancient tower rocked with the force of the attack.
Slowly, Jair crawled back to his knees, crouching down within the screen of debris that hung on the air. For an instant, his certainty that he had used the third magic wisely wavered. It had seemed so clear to him when he had first seen Brin in the waters of Heaven’s Well. He had known that he must go to her. But now that he had reached her, what was he to do? As the King of the Silver River had foretold, she was lost to herself. She had become something unrecognizable, subverted by the dark magic of the Ildatch. But it was more than that, for not only had she changed, but the magic of her wishsong had also changed. It had become a thing of awesome power, a weapon she would use against him, not knowing who he was, not remembering him at all. How was he to help her when she meant to destroy him?
A moment’s time was all that he had to consider the dilemma. He came back to his feet. Allanon might have had the strength to withstand such power. Rone might have had the quickness to elude it. The little company from Culhaven might have had the numbers to overwhelm it. But they were all gone. All those who might have stood by him were no more. Whatever help he was to find, he must find within himself.
He slipped quickly through the screen of smoke and silt. He knew that if he were to be of any use to Brin, he must first find a way to separate her from the Ildatch.
The air cleared before him, and Brin’s shadowy figure appeared a dozen yards away. Instantly he sang, the wishsong a sharp humming sound in the stillness, carrying in its music a whispered plea. Brin, it called. The book is too heavy, its weight too great. Release it, Brin. Let it fall!
For a brief second, Brin’s hands came down, her head lowering in doubt. It appeared the illusion would work and that she would release the Ildatch. Then a fury swept across her gaunt face, and the cry of her wishsong shattered the air into fragments of sound, breaking apart Jair’s plea.
The Valeman stumbled back. He tried again, this time with an illusion of fire, a hiss that scattered flames all about the binding of the ancient tome. Brin screamed, an animal-like cry, but then clasped the book to her as if she might smother the fire against her own body. Her head twisted about, her eyes darting. She was looking for him. She meant to find him and use the magic against him, to see him destroyed.
His song changed again, this time creating an illusion of smoke that billowed in clouds through the chamber. But she would be fooled for only a few moments. He dodged back about the walls of the tower, trying to come at her from a different direction. He sang again, this time sending to her a whisper of darkness, deep and impenetrable. He must be quicker than she was. He must keep her off balance.
He sped about the tower’s shadows like a ghost, striking out at Brin with every trick he knew—with heat and cold, with dark and light, with pain, and with anger. Twice she lashed out blindly at him with her own magic, a searing burst of power that threw him from his feet and left him shaken. She seemed confused, somehow uncertain—as if unable to decide whether or not to use the whole of the power that she had summoned. But even so, she kept the Ildatch clasped tight against her, whispering to it soundlessly, grasping it as if it were her life-source. Nothing that Jair tried would make her release the book.
It is no game that he was playing now, he thought darkly, remembering Slanter’s scathing rebuke.
He was beginning to tire rapidly. Weakened by his battle to gain Heaven’s Well, by his wound, and by the strain of his prolonged use of the wishsong, he was becoming exhausted. He did not have the power of the dark magic to sustain him as did Brin; he had only his own determination. It was not enough, he feared. He slipped back and forth through the gloom and the shadows, searching for a way to break through his sister’s defenses. His breathing was labored and uneven; his strength was ebbing away.
In desperation, he used the wishsong as he had used it at Culhaven before the Dwarf Council of Elders to create a vision of Allanon. From the haze that lay over the battered chamber, he brought forth the Druid, dark and commanding, one arm stretched forth. Release the book of Ildatch, Brin Ohmsford! the deep voice admonished. Let it fall!
The Valegirl staggered back against the altar, a look of recognition crossing her face. Her lips moved, whispering frantically to the Ildatch—as if speaking to it in warning. Then the look of recognition was gone. High above her head she lifted the book and her song rang out in a wail of anger. The image of Allanon shattered.
Jair slipped away again, cloaked in a whisper of invisibility. He was beginning to despair. Would nothing help Brin? Would nothing bring her back? What was he to do? Frantically, he tried to recall the words spoken to him by the old man: Throw the vision crystal after, and the answer will be shown you. But what answer had he seen? He had tried everything he could think to try. He had used the wishsong to create every illusion he knew how to create. What was left?
He stopped himself. Illusion!
Not illusion—but reality!
And suddenly he had his answer.
Red fire exploded all about Rone, deflecting from the blade of his sword as he stood against the Mord Wraiths’ frightening assault. The walkers crouched on the stone stairway of the Croagh, a line of dark forms winding down out of the cliffs and fortress above, shrouded in smoke and mist against the gray backdrop of the dying afternoon sky. Half a dozen arms lifted and the flames hammered at the highlander, staggering him with their force. Kimber crouched behind him, shielding her face and eyes from the heat and flying rock. Whisper screamed in hatred from beneath the shadow of the stairs, lunging at the black figures as they sought to break past.
“Cogline!” Rone bellowed in desperation, fire and smoke swirling all about him as he sought the old man.
Slowly the Mord Wraiths worked their way closer. There were too many; the power of the dark magic was too great. He could not stand against them all.
“Cogline! For cats sake!”
A cloaked form broke toward him from the shadows above, fire spewing from both hands. Rone swung the blade about frantically, catching the arc of flame and deflecting it. But the walker was almost on top of him, the sound of its voice a sudden hiss that rose above the explosion. Then Whisper hurtled from his shelter, caught the black thing and bore it away. Moor cat and Wraith tumbled into a fountain of flame and smoke and vanished from view.
“Cogline!” Rone screamed one final time.
Abruptly the old man appeared, crooked and bent, shambling out of the billowing smoke with his white hair flying. “Stand, outlander! I’ll show the black ones fire that will truly burn!”
Howling as if gone mad, he flung a handful of crystals into the midst of the Mord Wraiths. They glittered like pieces of obsidian as they tumbled down among the dark forms and were caught in the streaks of red fire. Instantly they exploded, and white-hot flames flared skyward in a burst of blinding light. Thunder rocked the mountainside, and whole sections of the Croagh flew apart, carrying the dark forms of the Mord Wraiths with them.
“Burn, you black things!” Cogline shrilled with glee.
But the walkers were not so easily dispatched. Dark shadows, they swept back through the haze of debris and smoke, and the red fire erupted from their fingers. Cogline screamed as the fire reached him and disappeared. Flames encircled Rone and the girl he sheltered, and the walkers came for them in a rush. Sounding the battle cry of his ancestors, the highlander swung the ebony blade into their midst. Two shattered instantly, turned to ash, but the others came on. Clawed fingers closed about the sword and bore him back.
Then they were all about him.
Worn by the strain that the magic’s flow caused within her body and confused by the conflicting emotions that wracked her, Brin stood before the altar on the dais that housed the Ildatch, the book clasped tightly to her. The light failed within the tower room, and the air hung thick with dust and silt. The thing was still out there, the thing that taunted her so, the
thing that had taken the form of her brother Jair. Though she sought to find it and destroy it, she could not seem to do so. The magics within her were somehow incomplete—as if for some reason they would not blend. They were one, she knew—the book and she. They were joined. The voice still whispered to her that it was so—whispered of the power that belonged to them both. Why was it so difficult then for her to bring that power to bear?
—You fight it, dark child. You resist it. Give yourself over—
Then the air exploded about her, the magic of the one she hunted bursting through dust and half-light, and dozens of images of her brother filled the chamber. All about her the images appeared, slipping through the haze toward the dais, calling out her name. She staggered away, stunned. Jair! Are you truly here? Jair …?
—They are evil, dark child. Destroy them. Destroy—
Obedient to the voice of the Ildatch, though she recognized still from somewhere deep within that it was wrong, she lashed out with her magic, the sound of the wishsong filling the cavernous room. One by one, the images disintegrated before her eyes, and it was as if she were killing Jair over and over again, destroying him anew with each image shattered. But still the images came, those that remained closing the gap between them, reaching for her, touching…
Then she screamed. There were arms about her, arms of flesh and blood, warm and alive, and Jair was before her, holding her close. He was real, not imagined, but a living being, and he spoke to her through the wishsong. Images filled her mind, images of who they had been and who they were, of childhood and beyond—all that had been in their lives and all that now was. Shady Vale was there, the clustered buildings of the community in which she had grown, the clapboard dwellings mingled with stone cottages and thatched-roof huts, and the people settled back at day’s close for an evening meal and the small pleasures that come with a joining together of family and friends. The inn was filled with laughter and small talk, bright with candle and oil light. Her home showed, its walks and hedges folded in shadow, the aged trees colored by autumn’s touch and ablaze with fading streaks of sunlight. Her father’s strong face was smiling in reassurance, her mother’s dark hand reaching to stroke her cheek. Rone Leah was there, and her friends, and.… One by one the supports that had been stripped from her and so ruthlessly crushed were put back again. The images flooded through her, clear, sweet, and strangely cleansing, filled with love and reassurance. Weeping, Brin collapsed into her brother’s embrace.